##VIDEO ID:b1V71QJCI2U## [Music] good afternoon today is Tuesday October 22nd 2024 it is 400 p.m. this is a meeting of the board of Select is there a motion to bring the Le order so moved second all those in favor all right this meeting will be audio and video recorded please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right first thing on the agenda opad Parts peacock review uh review matters presented votes may be taken um we have a whole bunch of people here to give us information we have a presentation in front of us take it away uh good afternoon uh my name is Kate canny um and I am joined today uh by Treasurer Thomas O'Brien of Plymouth County uh Dennis Mel Mullins of pfm asset management um I'm with pars public agency retirement service and my colleague Natalia Missi is also joining us so uh together we are your um actually the front base of your OPB U management team on pars we have about 65 people in addition to us and then um begin to tell you how many people at US Bank in uh pfm but so uh we'll just start this um quick uh overview and a reminder uh we met about a year ago I came and met with all of you um and I was here to talk to you about the Plymouth County opep trust program um that is a section 115 multiple employer TR uh retiree benefits trust that agencies can come together in and address uh their retired Healthcare liabilities uh it's uh candidly in my opinion one of the fastest growing options in the New England area uh we started in 2015 we're now at um technically 34 members and you're going to be saying why technically 34 I don't count you as a member until I have all of your documents signed in in my file and we have two more members that are in the process of signing their documents this week so um ideally 36 members um our program provides you with a gasby compliant option uh uh gasby compliant for anybody on television who doesn't understand maybe what that means that means that the trust we are providing for you the assets are dedicated to retire Healthcare only that they're protected from creditors and that the assets are irrevocable for anything but retire healthcare related costs um we have a private letter ruling that ensures all assets that go into the trust and come out of the trust at the appropriate time remain tax exempt for both the agency the town of kushit and uh the uh the beneficiaries which are your retirees and your future retirees which are your employees so we' brought together uh a four uh member team uh we have Plymouth County and the Plymouth County Commissioners they are our program sponsor and they're really the driver and the Heart behind this program uh the Plymouth County investment committee those are uh the committee is headed by treer O'Brien who serves as the uh the chair of the committee he is joined by four members duly elected members from Member agencies um a member agency may only have one representative on the board uh pars we ser as the trust administrator and consultant uh so we are an extension of Jennifer's office as your treasure we manage all the dayto day that's everything from legal Compliance Document overview uh contribution management reporting and uh when it comes time that you want to take assets out of the trust we manage the dispersement process uh as trustee custodian you have US Bank they serve as a co- fiduciary that is that they are maintaining that these assets are held properly and in the best interest of the beneficiary under state law Jennifer is the custodian uh we serve that role with her and then pfm Asset Management are the investment advisers you um and I'm going to kind of short kind of go through this because it's just our program advantages I really think if you look at this um the key things are that we have a allinclusive program so it takes the burden off the town um um we provide you with uh very high-end thoughtful Council uh Consulting we brought together um very strong investment options and um candidly we have some of the lowest fees uh available okay and then as I said uh 35 local governments um obviously one agency has signed and so we're looking at 36 by this time next week so this is a summary of your agency's plan uh the uh board adopted our program on June 6th 2023 uh the type of plan you adopted was a section 115 irrevocable benefit trust you selected the investment option of the peot growth portfolio um that is uh also the original portfolio that the program was designed and the plan administrator that's our point of contact here at the Town that's Jennifer uh your Treasurer so your initial contribution was $100,000 uh made in September 2023 you've had additional contributions of 1, 17,41 19 I'd just like to make a kind of a point that the reason these assets came in in multiple contributions is you were actually liquidating a trust an existing um asset so those came over in sections and that was based on not only state law but um proper timing um we would never want anybody or any agency to uh transfer to our program and not properly liquidate their trust assets so your all in total contributions are 1,274 dispersements that would be reimbursements for retire Healthcare at this point the uh the town has not requested any dispersements dispersements can be made at any time uh your expenses that is the all-in cost since September actually October 2023 we are strictly assets um fees based on assets under management so no uh fees were assessed until October of 2023 and so those fees uh earn expenses are uh as of September 30th $4,680 as compared to your investment earnings of $322,700 so your account balance on September 30th was 1,535 486 a lot of numbers um okay I'll continue um so a quick overview of pfm asset management um and this is they serve as the registered investment adviser on the account um and US Bank serves as the discretionary trustee and investment fiduciary um and as I mentioned this is all we have this layered in so that these assets and um the F assets are all managed properly for your beneficiaries so we have F uh four investment options and Dennis is going to speak uh more in depth about uh the growth portfolio which is what you're in um so we do have four investment options um and of our current members all but two are in the uh the growth portfolio uh candidly these are new trust they um have been around you know agencies have been participating for about eight or n years so they are in a true growth model so um it's up to the agency which portfolio they'd like to present um put their Assets in um the agencies that are participating in the balance portfolio are doing so because those are closed plans so these are agencies that the plan is closed meaning they will not be adding additional retirees um in the future and they're in um the process of Tak taking out quarterly dispersements so they're sort of kind of like short like to Ste down from the growth to the balance because that best fits their needs um we put together uh just a quick chart of comparisons of returns um of the port uh the growth and the balance portfolios in comparison to the print fund um and this was as August 31st 2024 I do not have access to the September mber 30th um numberers so we based it on August 31st um year to date um the print fund has returned 8.59% uh peacock growth portfolio which is what you are participating in has returned 12.04 uh peacock balanced 10.15 the one-year uh p uh prit 12.38 peacock growth 2 3.59 uh Bal peacock balance 16.36% 7 uh I'm sorry 4.57 uh peacock growth 12.57 there is no uh three-year information for balanced because we did not have anybody in the balance portfolio 3 years ago so we couldn't quantify it the same for the 5year um whereas the prit fund uh returned 9.20 and the peacock portfolio has returned 12.8 Zer so um I'm now going to ask Mr Mullins to stand up he is actually uh is the investment adviser on our portfolio uh Mr uh treasure O'Brien is also here to talk about um the portfolio the program in uh General um as the person who founded it any questions on the information I provided prior gentl can you go back to the screen with the p graphs would would know that I'm sorry go well the one which we're in the growth original you said yes you're in the growth original can you go to the next slide I'm sorry to the next one this one yeah that one that peacock balance portfolio which one's that the balance just says it's balance right here on this one here so that's 61% Equity mhm yes thank you okay I want to take a few minutes to um review the Investments um in the portfolio a real quick overview the growth portfolio that you're in which was the original portfolio um we started we just had one investment style then we added the others over time just to give the members more flexibility um as Kate said pretty much everybody in the program program is in the early stages of funding against their opep liabilities um so it makes sense that pretty much everybody in the program has a similar investment objective very long-term time Horizon um able to overcome losses in the stock market we have plenty of time we're talking about 20 30y year Horizons so it makes sense to have a pretty aggressive portfolio so the growth portfolio is around 75% in stocks it's about a 752 type mix um and again very much by Design um and this follows we're doing a lot of work with pars clients across the country with agencies that are funding against their opab liabilities and almost everybody's in the early stages of that very low funded ratio just getting started looking for funding sources um funded ratio again in the single digits just just getting going so it makes sense to have a pretty aggressive investment strategy um as we look down the road 20 30 years from now a lot of these agencies will be more mature they'll be looking at paying out a lot of liabilities um and and pulling money out of these and we're going to want to drisk these portfolios at that time so right now you're at about 75% equities um you can see the chart we're shown here is as of 930 um you see the total value of the pool uh we're approaching $60 million right now all of the agency's assets combined for the month 2% all fees um that's a good month annualize to you know around 24% for 3 months 6.48 again very good quarter um year to date 9 months 13.91% all fees for 3 years 5.75 much lower number and that's per year anything over one year is annualized so 5.75% per year um you know that's a a cumulative return of about 18% um but you can see there the the toll that that the losses in 2022 made for 5 years 9.31 it's been a really good 5year period And since Inception almost 10 years 767 um it's been a fantastic decade for stocks the S&P 500 is up over 12% for the last 10 years per year um Bonds on the other hand if you look down to Total fixed income um you see much lower numbers even though for the one year 12.64% for bonds bonds are only going to give you what they're yielding plus or minus gains or losses based on interest rate changes um just ignoring you know credit worthiness and and default and any other activity like that because we invest in mutual funds and ETFs and we diversify away any individual company risk so for one year 12.64 that's about the best number you'll ever see for Bonds in a given year that's because over the last year interest rates across the curve have been coming down in anticipation of the FED cutting rates um and when interest rates go down bond prices go up so fantastic year for bonds um for three years 0.47 so you can see uh bonds are just about back to even after the declines of 2022 the last threeyear period has been very volatile big losses in 2022 big recovery since then um for 5 years bonds 2.08% pretty low returns they yielded almost 1 one and a qu% over most of that period and then in 2022 they lost a bunch of money when interest rates jumped uh so the bad news looking backwards for fixed income the bond market doesn't look very good over the last 3 years 5 years and even 10 looking forward the picture is a little different um bonds are now yielding close to 4% interest rates are falling bonds are actually poised to do much better going forward so looking at that you know we're looking backwards with this in all time periods stocks have done really well bonds have done okay recently but over that long period not not too hot looking forward we think think we're going to see a little bit of a reversal there we think stocks will give us a little less than they have been giving us for the last decade we think bonds are poised to do a little better we've got real Assets in the portfolio very small portion um that's either real estate or Global infrastructure funds and then cash is the last line item across here um I always like to point out the onee cash return 5.34% that's about the highest we've seen in in cash returns for decades so really good year good time to be in an aggressive portfolio you've benefited from that any questions on the investment returns before I move on on on your on your Equity side it says large cap us Equity M what is that what is that is that like the S&P 500 yeah so the gray lines there are your returns in this fund so large cap us Equity is is just that it's going to be large cap US Stocks we're indexing a big portion of it um we will put in some um actively managed funds from time to time but pretty much just indexing and over the last year or so it's been indexed almost the entire time we're starting to put some actively managed funds in the large cap space right now interesting point so this growth portfolio is not in a Russell top it says Russell top 200 index and Russell midcap index we not in that you said just the gray areas yeah the gray the gray lines across here are your returns yeah and the benchmarks are just shown there for comparison yeah we do use mutual funds and ETFs to build the portfolio no individual stocks and individual bonds um it's much more cost effective to use funds we get much better diversification and um and in the industry we're just not seeing that many people support individual stock and bond research overall asset mix of the portfolio um 67% equities 2.78 fixed um almost 8% in real assets right now so add that to the equities and and you're looking at about 75% in the market 25 in in fixed income and cash investment grade is 92% I'm sorry the fixed income is 92% investment grade 75% junk um the spread right now with Jung fonds is about 3 percentage points over investment grade long as the economy doesn't go into a recession should be a pretty good asset class then back to your question on the equities so we're 60% in the equity 60% large cap 23% developed foreign almost 10% emerging foreign and then about 6% small cap it's Global Diversified portfolio um large cap stocks have done the best over the last 10 years um diversification hasn't paid off off makes the portfolio a little safer just by not having it all concentrated at one corner of the market but um again hasn't been additive to returns over the last decade or so as large cap US Stocks have just dominated the global Equity markets looking through the mutual funds that we hold um you know top 10 common stock Holdings are the top 10 Stock Holdings in the S&P 500 because we were indexing um some characteristics in the upper right hand corner um sector weights and market cap distribution that's with that those top 10 common stock Holdings these are the top 10 common stock Holdings in the entire fund but they're the top 10 Holdings in the S&P 500 great top 10 yeah good time to be indexing and you know indexing is we're agnostic when it comes to indexing whether it's indexing or actively managed actively managed funds have a much higher expense rate IO they have a much higher hurdle to overcome um it seems to be getting harder and harder to commit to active management when indexing funds just year after year have done very well so it's difficult to find a market where you want to you know give up on indexing and then um here are the actual Holdings themselves complete transparency here this is what we held as of 9:30 the all the large cap equities are in the Schwab us large cap ETF for the last year almost the entire year that was in the Fidelity um S&P 500 Index Fund and we recently switched because the Schwab fund has a little higher exposure to midcap and so we're basically saying we think we're going to broaden out um you might have read over the last year or so the Market's really been driven by the Magnificent 7 the the seven largest stocks out there it's been a very thin Market um we think that Market's going to broaden out and it has been broadening out so we switched that fund and mutual funds trade with no commission which is a really nice feature um it it means that there's very little resistance to saying I think I found a better fund uh you can trade out of fund a and into fund B at no cost um the funds that we use in this portfolio have no relationship to US bank or pfm Asset Management by the way pfm asset management is the institutional Asset Management arm of US Bank it's wholly owned um so we're free to change the funds in here uh we're not beholding to anyone we have no Revenue share or financial incentive to use anybody's funds in here um we manage for you as a fiduciary which is a legal standard that requires that all of the decisions we make must be in your best interest it also prohibits self-dealing so you can actually see the funds that are in the portfolio here there's been a lot of change in the funds recently uh we think we're at a bit of of a market Plateau here and it's an opportunity for us to reposition the portfolio for challenging markets ahead it's been a great market for the last year and a half um and surprising if you remember back to early 2023 I'm sorry early 2024 uh a lot of very bright people in this industry were calling for a recession and a Fed that would be required to cut interest rates because we were going into a recession and that didn't happen first quarter GDP was 1.6 second quarter GDP was just revised at 3.0 Far Cry from a recession employment numbers are strong consumers are strong um inflation is trending in the right direction so um even though we've had an inverted yield curve for quite a while we're just not seeing that recession unfold yet that could happen in 2025 so um we'll have to wait and see Mr Chim Mr G so the top 10 that you previously showed us was that the Fidelity Fund from the past year and you said you switched to the Schwab fund so are those top 10 Holdings in the Schwab fund they are yeah y as of 9:30 y so really no difference between the Fidelity and the shwab not in the top 10 Holdings yeah yeah that that uh that Schwab fund tracks more than Russell 1000 which is the top 200 plus the Russell 800 midcap um the Fidelity 500 Index Fund tracks the the S&P 500 subtle difference but it gives us our midcap exposure in the uh in the large Cap Fund thank you Mr just a question it sounds like the fundamentals are what they are but just you can explain to me and those watching at home just sort of the um you know the safeguards that are in place from a fiduciary standpoint to ensure that you know the money's going where it needs to be are there multiple people looking at the account just you know you hear the horror stories of yeah something that goes wrong in people who are managing funds on behalf of municipalities so if you can just explain to us you know in a in a a bridge version sure of all the the simple the simple version is as your asset manager as your portfolio manager I don't actually have access to your portfolio meaning I cannot put money into your portfolio or withdraw money out of your portfolio so if you were to ask for a wire transfer out of this the the the segregation of Duties as accountant you know we have segregation of duties for that protection so these duties include my limited access to your portfolio I can trade in the portfolio and that's it um the custody side of your portfolio is all handled by US Banks institutional trust and custody side so if you were to contact me and say hey we need to we need to reimburse ourselves we need to pull a million dollars out I would tell you well I don't have anything to do with that I would turn you over to the to the right people people who handle that so there's that segregation of Duties besides the fact that we're a Commercial Bank and um and you know we're co- fiduciary so we're responsible for these assets from the asset management side what that really means from my perspective is we have an affirmative duty to step up if we think you're doing the wrong thing um if you called us up and said you know hey we want to put 25% of our assets in Bitcoin it's our responsibility to talk you out of that or um you know let's say you wanted to just go with a lot of high yield Investments or something of that nature we're Bound by an investment policy statement so that's a bit of a stretch of an example but that's where our fiduciary responsibility comes in we're the investment experts it's incumbent upon us to help you navigate the entire process if that makes sense so do you what happens in a market if the market gets flushed right like a market crisis right so we haven't seen a real recession because of government intervention but we used to see those swings right in the markets would do you do anything to get out of it before your losses become too dramatic when you work with a municipality like if it's start the fund starts dropping any particular fund drops more than you know whatever we do is to stop loss 8% 10% do do you have that conversation and say we're looking to just move everything because things are really starting to get out of control we want to stop our losses or you just let those losses ride because you the way you look at it is it's a 20 or 30y year plan well it's the latter of those two um I've been doing this 40 years and we have never employed stop loss orders um that's probably something we see a lot more of on the taxable Private Client side um but um first of all the the the overall asset allocation is long-term strategic so if we're 7525 and just out of the blue something happens in the Market goes down say 20% the best we can do at that point is view that as a buying opportunity right rebalance the portfolio reassess all of your models what's happening you know is there some reason to change that mix there's probably not going to be a reason to change that mix we're going to we're going to want to rebalance the portfolio which enforces you know buying low right um U and and maintain that strategic asset allocation but in practice stop loss orders on institutional portfolios you're going to get stopped out of everything if there's a panic selloff and then we're you know we're literally left with cash what are we going to do go back and and buy the same things so for that long-term strategic asset allocation that's um it's just rebalance stick to that long-term asset allocation just like we did in in 2020 with big Market wash out S&P down8 18% bonds down 11 stay on that we we stayed right on our targets through that entire year as difficult as that was and then two years later the Market's back up above where it was so as long as we can as long as we can help to educate everyone make sure everybody's following that very long-term asset allocation idea then the key is to stay on it you good question now so so far so good um you know it's it's fun to deliver good news there will be times when the news Isn't So Rosy but again it's a very long-term 15 20 30e Horizon so the stock market's at or near all-time highs right now it's just a few days off of them um that means it's made up every loss it's ever had um and it will the only question is do we have long enough to wait it might take 2 three four or 5 years um and if it takes that long you know do we have that kind of patience can we um and and with the with the oped time Horizon 2030 years the assumption is yes we have time to wait you I'm actually just add a little color little flavor add a little bit uh another Viewpoint Tom o'ban from County Treasurer I serve as the chairman of the finance investment committee we'll talk about that a little bit I think that'll add another level of uh overview and oversight that you're asking about first of all thank you for having us Jamie thank you for inviting us in Jen thank you very much and I'm here to congratulate the town because actually you folks uh have done exceedingly well uh in joining peot when you did and and uh coming over and capitalizing on the vision that we started in 2015 as you heard we created uh the p County OPB trust in 2015 largely because of boards of Selectmen like yourself that came to me as the County Treasurer and said listen OPB is the wild west we need an investment opportunity we don't like the options that are available to us can you come up with something perhaps a little different perhaps a little better and I was fortunate enough to uh meet and interview the folks from pars public agency Retirement Services they had started this concept called the multi-employer trust out in the west coast it hadn't yet come to the East Coast post I said why can't we do that here they said you could I presented it to the Plymouth County Commissioners and said this is an opportunity for our municipalities to get a better mous trp to have a better opportunity to invest to have a little control over that investment I'll explain that in a minute and on January 15 2015 I like dates I can remember the Plymouth County Commissioners voted to create the Plymouth County opep trust what was interesting is I got calls from the County treasurers in norol Bristol and barille County said hey we see what you're doing would you allow governmental entities in our counties to join the trust so at Inception we voted to allow governmental entities in only those four counties to participate in the CL con opep trust so as we're sitting there on January 15 2015 we were saying to ourselves maybe 10 years from now 2025 we'll have 10 members maybe we'll have 1520 million in assets under management well as we sit here and as you heard we have 34 members and over 55 million in assets under management because of the success of what we put together so why is it so successful what makes us different well it's a multi-employer trust and your assets are siloed so your assets are your assets but we get the benefit of the Consolidated pool to drive down fees we also get investment professionals that none of us could get individually with all due respect to US bank and pfm asset management they wouldn't come and help put well you might maybe if we begged with our million dollars but when we're putting 50 $5 million collectiv on the table we become a very interesting client to work with pars is just an incredible uh administrator of this type of a program they had been doing it out West for a number of years before we brought it to the east coast and we get administrative services that are exemplary there is no other opap trust that gets the services we have because of pars and what Kate and her team bring to the table so all of that comes with surprisingly low fees because when we created this I said to Kate and to Dennis we want to have the lowest fees out there we want to make sure we're always lower than any other place in the marketplace and interestingly when we started our fees were approximately 51 bips the Commonwealth at the time through their fund was a little over 100 bips as we drove our fees down by creating more assets under management the state did the same they're still behind us significantly the way we continue to drive down fees is pulling more assets and focusing in on ways to do that by etf's mutual fund you heard that from Dennis what I really like about the program that we put together is there no proprietary products US Bank isn't selling us U US Bank products there are folks out there administering opab trust that often times will have their own products in the Investment Portfolio that doesn't happen here the additional level of oversight to your question that we added is we have a finance committee that finance committee is made up of Our member units so we have five members that meet cour they're open meetings everyone is welcome and we sit and we quiz Dennis question Dennis review what he's presenting to us so when we have a financial crisis as we did and we see a downturn in the market we're asking that very question what are we doing do we stay the course is there an action we should be taking that's more appropriate and as a result of those conversations bring the stakeholders to the table we're very successful in making sure that we don't do something too quickly or do something that is counterproductive to what our long-term goal is listen this is a 20 to 30y year investment vehicle we've been pretty successful over the first 10 years of this program at creating some significant returns you folks have been the beneficiaries of that over the last year plus and we just feel that if we continue to stay the course we will be fully funded in a shorter period of time and be in a position ultimately to use these resources to pay for our retire health insurance benefits so we actually believe we've created a better mous strap we're pleased that you're a part of that uh portfolio and we look forward to continuing to provide exemplary performance I would also note that when you call Jamie picks up the phone you get Dennis here you get Kate here get Natalia here you get me here I would suggest there AR a lot of folks that will bring the team whenever you want to review the portfolio so we're happy to be here and if there are any other questions can answer love to do so is every if all your members so you said 34 about to be 36 I think Kate said so are are all your members in the growth or are some of your members in the balance as you heard earlier all but two are in the growth and the two that are in the balanced are closed end in other words they have no more retirees do we with a single municipality such as a Kush have the option if we started getting the Jitters about with the market was would we have the option to say we want our portfolio split 50 balance 50 growth yes and diversify ourselves instead of being in total growth we have that option to diversify ourselves and say take 50% of our funds and put it in Balance 50% of our funds would be in growth say that yes hypothetical yes now you would have the professionals that would suggest why that may or may not be a good idea uh particularly given the time Horizon in fact we've seen folks that have contemplated that we did an analysis a back Trail for them and showed them how that actually would have cost them money uh particularly if they had panicked during the pandemic but the answer to the question is yes I think as you get closer to fully funded that's when you really want to have that conversation it's too early to not be in growth in fact I have a running commentary with Dennis the next time that there's a drop in the stock market I might take Plymouth County my smaller portion of this and put it in aggressive growth because I'm trying to compete long term and make up performance over a long period of time there's no better place historically to do that then uh in the equity Marketplace however we're prudent we believe we have a very uh thoughtful progression but the short answer is question you could do that at no cost to you just it's just a question of diversification right M I mean I understand you know I'm I'm a stock Trader right have been doing it for 35 years so I know a little bit about this and you know being in these hyper growth stocks look I've made a ton of money and I've lost a ton of money right and you can have a great company today and the next day it's bankrupt right so just because somebody's technology right now theid is the hottest thing in AI right doesn't mean tomorrow broadcom's not going to be it's one two of the names that you showed up there on the screen right it's going to take its place and knock it right out so diversification is always good to have and it's not a huge swing in your percentage of return right so talking 17% to 23% to have a little bit more security it might make sense at some point down the road depending on how much how well you do right two things going to wipe you off fear and greed you don't want to get involved either and certainly as you get closer to being fully funded that's a good conversation here's what I suggest we have quarterly meetings we want people to come we invite folks down uh Jamie is good enough to come all the way to 44 oy Street and and watch our management team we think you'll be terribly impressed here's he had other Advantage we have how many professionals at our disposal watching this on a regular basis so we feel that we'll be able to monitor that pretty well I'm familiar with his Bank US Bank Great Bank yeah I like to say that the largest bank you've never heard of well some some people have some people have the other thing I'll just point before I leave and answer any other questions on page 12 this is it doesn't get highlighted any better than this if you look at the onee return through September 30th and it's the blue part that's our return the bottom one 26.0 is your oneyear return net of fees look at the number above 26.2 that's gross of fees you're paying 20 bips yeah I know I seen the numbers so it's it is a very low fee for the amount of money that we've earned versus the amount of fees that we paid now it's been a steal right it is remarkably low and I can't I don't know of anything east of the Mississippi that competes and for that you get all this I it just it's an incredible team we put together and the fees are are just as low as we can possibly get them we've been very fortunate we've been in a great Market condition most people that I speak to never been involved in a crash I've seen many of them it's not pretty and it takes a long time to cover right it does yep remember this if you lose 50% of your money you need to go back up 100% to be break even right yep of course yep as Dennis points out we were very glad because the investment committee met during the pandemic there were some of us that were suggesting hey let's tailor back let's come back the professional said we don't see this as a long-term situation we think there'll be a bounce back I don't know that they could have predicted it to bounce back as quickly as they did had we pulled out we would have missed that bounce back so it's getting the professional advice from I think a team that can bring more information to the table than we could on our own how many people are on your team at US Bank when you make decisions for these kind of allocations is it just you that makes the decision portfolio manager or do you have like a whole team of 10 we have three overlapping committees so we have a portfolio construction committee we have a senior investment committee um each of those are 15 people and then we have a a group that selects the funds um and as a i' I've moved into a role now it's called senior client senior institutional client portfolio manager and so that means I'm not on any of those three committees now so I just uh focus on meeting with clients and re doing investment reviews managing the portfolio but that's a really good question I'm I don't have any questions when I sit down to manage your portfolio and make a trade there's no question you know what I'm supposed to be doing and um kind of back to your question earlier about oversight um I manag the portfolios in compliance with the investment committee and the portfolio construction subcommittee um and if I if I Stray off of that um I start to get notifications very quickly you know where you going why are you buying this Fund in there that kind of thing so it's very tightly controlled and the idea there is um I work with clients with pars on on both coasts and they're managed the same everybody gets our best idea um and so um you're not paying for my idea of the day um you're you're paying for our best thinking out of our you know out of our home office pfm is headquartered in Philadelphia and um you know again that's the as the institutional arm investment arm of US bank now we'd really love for you or any member of the board to come to our meetings I mean it's an impressive uh portfolio but it's an impressive amount of research they do and they present to us I think you would find it uh very instructive and helpful and uh robust thanks I appreciate that invitation cuz I never got one before so I might take you up on it good please good stuff Mr chairman Mr Kelly uh just briefly since you know that I've been impressed with your group and I was in a part of the state that couldn't join it at one point and when I came down here we started our discussion uh and if someone of the group wants to go over ancient history of where a kisnet was and prior to being with you folks and how uh the returns were small and the fees were large I think the people in the audience might appreciate that that uh this board has put a chriset in a better place I don't know if you have that history I don't have the numbers per se um good because we really don't want to talk to competitors right we just leave it out we're all we're all pacing them right yeah so in short it was a great move yeah but we were with uh the state if I if I could just maybe make some comments about why I believe you're better positioned with pars um and peacock first of all um yeah the pr is a very good fund and I would be foolish if I stood here and said it was not um there is a critical feature that pars brings to every account and that is local control so you have the ability the question you know should we split and go into balance um that is in your local control and that is a conversation we can have whenever you want it and support you in those choices and Dennis can provide you guidance um with the pr pref fund it's 8020 just is um it's going to be 80 and it's hasn't changed that's their investment policy statement so key thing is local control um fees are significantly higher um we have developed a program that fees continue to go down and that is the pars model that's on the administrative side and the investment fees because candidly your assets belong in your account not ours so we are very driven to provide the lowest fees and it's constant constant service and contact I'm working with you um so your returns where what they were I think you were paying um more than you need to in fees and I think you were not getting a team service and so we're really proud of ourselves on that your your fees just last question your fees that you make is it the better we do the better you do or is it just a stagnant One Step fee so if we did really bad then you don't our fees are based strictly on asset under management so if our asset level goes down because the Investments have gone down we make less money so our fees go down so it's in your I was trying to do that for the audience at home the better that you folks perform for us the better that you're actually making out as well right sure yes and but they also um we are a as our assets increase our fee level goes down as well I want you to I want you to make as much money as you can because the more you're making that means the more that this town making life that's the way it works yeah we pride ourselves so we are a fee based uh service but um we pride ourselves in coming out here meeting with your your your board um we're here to support Jennifer um and Mr Kelly and that's a really driv thing and um I think the key thing is that we have an investment committee that is made up of you all the members um so uh next next spring we have you know elected members it's every every year we have and in June the position of treasure um will be open the person who's currently serving in that is going to be retiring so he will he's one of our original members on our investment committee um I think the year after that a member of the governing board Position will be open and um we encourage all of our members um we in May or April I'll be sending Jer notice would anybody from your organization like to be nominated for the committee and we really value that input um and who would nominate like say one of us three were interested who would nominate your governing board would nominate Jennifer would bring you the form saying this position is open um so that you would decide if any of you wanted to serve on the board and you would work through how your nomination processes for goes you would send us that information about a uh two or three weeks after we have it's very measured nominations are sent out requested due ballots are sent out and then you as a group would see the ballot and you would vote you would see would the nomination only have to be a member of the board of Selectmen it could it be an employee uh well it's four different positions so we have one uh position represents treasurers of all the different memberships agencies right now that's a Treasurer from WAM and then we have um the next position is an administrative role so Mr Kelly's role would be represented School business office superintendent that role we have a governing board member So currently it's a member of the Town Council from the town of wayth serves and then very interestingly and um this is something that treasure O'Brien insisted on an employee union representative so we could you know when that position comes up uh perhaps a member of the uh employee Force here in Kush would want to serve so um so different roles are represented on our board we have like four unions so could it be any Union could be any okay very good thank you gentlemen any other questions no sir thank you very much thank you so much for your time thank you good night all right moving on and item number two timekeeping and payroll policy uh gentlemen you see an updated variation here for a new time keeping and payroll policy um assum of you all read through that if there's any changes or notes you'd like to add feel free this is this is pretty straightforward this is a policy uh presented to the board for their input once the board's input is uh complete then we have to give notice to the various unions affected if any Union member is subject to discipline to give them the opportunity to comment not the opportunity to vote or approve this just the opportunity to comment and then it'll come back to the board for a vote no vote needed right now no vote needed right now but it's being on the record presented to the board next next up is the board to unions next up is the board to give comments on it and then once all the comments are collected from the board then we can send that to the union okay good to me so we don't need another meeting if these gentlemen myself have comments we just is given to you you can adapt fix it spread the news between us let us know if there's any changes and then you can just send this off to the union without yeah and you don't need you don't need another vote from the board is what he say I'll need a vote after the union whether they comment or not all right gentlemen if you do have any questions or comments please get those to Jamie as soon as you can yes sir this is the first step and a number of financial policies that will Beed to the need to be done yep absolutely I'm glad to see it's finally come into resolution the last time board reviewed policies for finance for 2018 yep all right next on the agenda we have a senior tax deferral motion to approve second all those in favor I okay and a right of first refusal 1443 Main Street Mr chairman Mr Gasper this is a this is a a sequence of different properties that was sub a large apostle that was subdivided several years back um this is only a very small APLE of land I'd make a motion to F go right a first refusal second all those in favor all right appointment of town accountant Michael Ellis uh Mr Ellis please step through the podium uh introduce yourself and uh give us a little brief history sure uh Michael Ellis um graduated UMass dmouth 2010 started as a municipal auditor for a small firm specialized in cities and towns School Districts The New Bedford landfill and from there I pursued an assistant Town accountant position with the town of Bourne I grew into acting Finance director at times and then finally Town accountant for the last six years decided to uh move a little closer to home seek a new challenge and um saw that efficient was looking met with everybody back in the spring kind of been a long time coming and here I am all right uh gentlemen any questions for Mr Ellis I do not Mr chairman and I appreciate your time and effort along with Mr Kelly's effort toh stay in contact with Mr Ellis when I was chairman I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Ellis and there was a bunch of different moving to everybody's puzzle um so I'm glad that the Town Administrator um kept in touch with Mr Ellis and you were able to uh get them on board with the town of a cushion it finally we're in desperate need for a town accountant so I thank you Mr Ellis for uh staying in contact with us and staying interested in the town of akush thank you for having me um Mr chairman just you know just a comment um you know I think for a period of time we had a really good run of stability in town government and then it's been a revolving door you know I think it's our desire to have as much stability in this department in our finance department as as we humanly possibly can not to say like hey you know you're a professional and you're I'm sure you've got uh great aspirations and you know somebody may be knocking on your door with a better offer some other town but we hope that you'll plant your roots here uh for quite some time and I think it's incumbent upon us as a board and as a municipality to um to be flexible to look for opportunities for personal growth professional growth um because I would if you look at the the flow chart the Town Administrator and the finance department those are two most critical functions those disres to the Town Administrator I would argue that the finances Trump all departments in town because if you don't have your finances squared away then as a board we can have the greatest Vision in the world for Community but if we don't have the credibility of the financial uh component to it it's all just whiteboard you know whatever stuff so AG um glad to have you on board look forward to you uh staying here and helping us grow and Judy for for your role and and helping us and and Jennifer all anybody associated with the finance department thank you for hanging hanging in there uh with us and uh look forward to the next chapter yeah I'm looking forward to it too seems like a great team team and U ready to get to work awesome balance sheet balance sheet Mr Ellis first things first right absolutely all right we'll be talking soon right y I make a motion to appoint Mike Mike Ellis as the town accountant for the memorandum of agreement signed with the US Steel Workers uh second all those in favor right welcome aboard Mr can we uh you know Judy and most folks in finance like to stay in the background but dud if you would mind just standing for a second so we could recognize you and Todd hasset who was there before you we've really been fortunate to have some professionals keep the lights on for us uh you know uh clubhouse committee discussion uh Mr W you asked last meeting that this was on here for discussion yeah um I don't know if Clubhouse is the right terminology but for lack of a better uh lack of a better term we've all discussed it multiple points since the golf course is open you know some type of facility that um you know is uh attractive to the day-to-day golfers attractive to those who want to do events uh the facility that's there now is on its last leg you know I know Mr Gasper has talked about it you know Bob you have talked about it um I just you know looking back to 1998 when the course first open I think it was 99 when we actually uh kicked it off it's always been the approach of the golf Committee in the town to go about it slow that waiting until the golf course was actually paid off before taking on some type of other debt and you know that plan is actually the building's falling apart and we're paying out the golf course is going to be paid off so I think it's time to do that we've got a golf committee that has a lot on their plate I what I'm proposing is a separate committee to look at the facilities um and make a recommendation back to the golf management committee U you know a schematic you know a sketch of that would be a five-person committee but one member of the golf course management committee to serve as sort of an advisor ex officio to you know provide institutional knowledge and to guide the group um in looking for people who are interested generally interested in a facility there um it could range again on options um and and so that's what I would propose a very short time frame to make a recommendation back to the golf management committee along to the board of Selectmen and then that committee would Sunset but also it would serve as developing a bench we you know we had regrettably one member of the golf committee pass away and you know not everybody's going to do this every year for the rest of their lives so I think getting some you know new people to look at the course and be part of it I think would be a good a good thing I know we've already had two applicants for the open committee I know there's some other folks in town I think would serve would be a great help to us so that's my proposal um and up to you guys to tweak or say no or you status quo whatever but want at least propose that to the Mr gu yeah I mean I'm okay with the idea I don't know whether that the composition of that committee um select one is five or seven and I've talked about this to other people in the past and you said one member of the existing golf management committee so when I was thinking things through I was like maybe a seven member committee two from the current golf committee a board of selectman member a finance committee member and then three out Lodge would kind of put it all together I you know however that composition looks of that committee if the golf committee if the golf committee is okay with one member serving the whole Clubhouse committee I'm fine with whatever that is but my and I and I like that my only my only push back on it is the less of the final decision makers that are involved is to putting together the options I think just provides us with objectivity throughout the process right is that we've got a member of the board of selectman two members of the course committee I want to say a fincom the fin like we already got a fincom member there I think you know I just I'd like to see what group whether it's five or seven folks from the community who have the background working with the golf management committee could come up with I think so no member in your eyes of any member from the board of Select and only one member from the golf committee and then four at large uh well I would say five at large one member of the golf committee to serve ex officio like as an adviser to help keep things organized and you know provide information back and forth um you know I think that we've done that in the past I think that would be good and it just kind of keeps the politics out of it lets these people cook come back with a recommendation um we'll we could give them the charge like once we you know we could solicit rumes the board of Select would be the ones making the appointments and then once we get it all organized say this is what we want to see from you all right and this is I think that's where we can provide our input and provide direction to the committee and say you've got 120 days or however long you think it takes to report back I think instead of wasting a committee's time we have to give that direction right say you know this is the maximum we want to be spending this is what the board's looking for for a square footage of a building you got to keep it within this dollar amount because there is some creative ways of financing and getting this thing off the books in two or three years in my opinion it could easily be done if kept under a million dollars so yeah and we could get it banged just like that off the books and then we can move on to the next big thing for the golf course right yeah but we don't want to do any long-term boring because we've been telling too many people when the debts gone when the debts gone when the debts gone we can do this I believe we could financially do this and a drop of a dime for under a million bucks there's no reason to be doing it for anything bigger number than that right so as long as we tell them you know square footage whatever that number may be just AR officially speaking 2,000 square foot and this is what we have in our mind what we like to see it look like go have at it and bring something back to the board um but I think we need to put some guidelines in place so you're not chasing that tail right we're not building a $5 million $3 million building right I could talk you know I've talked to some people say oh wouldn't it be amazing if we did something that looked like the new pedford country club like you know like you there's a lot of creative people out there with a lot of creative ideas but I think at the end of the day it's going to be our job to report back to the taxpayer on on a final product and you know it's one thing I always like I think we're going to chush it we know who we are right we don't like to uh live beyond our means and um we're we're you know we're a small town with uh you know we don't need to be rich and famous we just want to something that's going to get the job done and and provide a good product for for our residents and those people who visit so we could we could easily do it and and have a pay back in less than three years and we would have no debt we Bann for two years right so it's it's real simple how to do this and how to finance this package but that'll be left for the board of Selectmen to make that decision but I I can easily see how we could do it based on the numbers that I know about is five an appropriate number I think sometimes you go beyond five it's a little unwieldy you know sometimes when you have more people in a room the less the less you get done right right so if if five is a number and it's going to be one member of golf management committee and then four at lodge let's let's find out who's interested send do five at large one from the golf management committee that serves as an adviser because again you don't want the golf manage the golf member voting on something that they're going to have to vote on so it's just to provide the institutional knowledge Mr Mr uh Flynn do you think that that composition would work and make sense yeah I think so I think said you don't want it too large and you want people who are have are interested in seeing this project succeed so I think five probably would be a good number and you think there's somebody with from the committee that would want to serve in that capacity I would think so okay okay great well I would then offer a motion to establish the five person I don't want to call it a clubhouse facility you know like maybe a golf building golf facilities gol facilities um exploratory committee or study committee or something like that right um five person one ex officio from the golf management committee and then we can establish a sunset you know we'll come up with an appropriate time as to when you know what their what their charge will be y um and we can solicit resumés Now's the Time to do it it's with the month yeah like now like solicit res thing going bring back a conversation to the board of selectman in somewhere early right so have resumés in by the uh say November 6th which is when we're going to meet next on November 8th and I think we're trying to get together with the consultant by the 19th by the 19th yep yes he's he's he's scheduled to come up on the 19th so maybe we could make appointments on the 19th and then we'd have a full team in play or we can make appointments ahead of time this way we'd have the whole whoever's going to be involved with the golf course would be here for that that 19th meeting yeah I I just I don't know if the the time frame only a couple of weeks away to get letters of Interest right cuz we got to go through those letters of interest and make sure that we all agree yeah but I think spoton we need people that have some expertise in building right I mean that's really what you're looking for you want somebody that knows Golf and you really want people to know construction right right or you know Hospitality whatever right like all the there's a lot of talented people this town can come up with the dates as we go to I think um like you said the most important part is just determining we got to come up with the name immediately ask for these letters of Interest put it on any channel we have I think he's doing it right now yeah asking right now three weeks you know give three people three weeks I know there's a lot of people already chopping at the bit I think three weeks is final you know y um to get resume get it out there right people are hearing it now and if you have an interest in being on a study committee for November 8th to get letters in by November 8th close the business to the board of selectman's office Friday to the board of selectman's office not the golf course to the board of selectman's office okay I made that motion that was a motion second all those in favor all okay for clarification what's the name of the committee exactly golf facility golf facilities exp exploratory committee okay thank you it works I think it just shows that like you know yeah I don't know words matter yep uh next on the agenda golf committee appointment gentlemen you have two resumés that we pushed off until this meeting from last meeting sure chairman I'll make a motion to appoint Andrew Corgan to the golf committee okay second Andrew's Andrew's had abundance experience out there at the golf course not only as a worker but also as a golfer um he's been dedicated to the town of Acushnet and multiple um positions in the town of Acushnet he's a young man it's that demographic that we're exploring that right so I would I mean Mr Downing has got a great background as well and I would suggested he'd be first candidate for that for this exploratory committee sure all right so we got a motion a second all those in favor in that motion to appoint Andrew Corgan Andrew Corgan to the um remainder of the term of Mr Robert Ferrera correct uh next order of business CPC historical commission representative appointment uh so as you guys know the CPC is set up where they have Sitting housing sitting planning board sitting historical commission member um that's allowed to be on the board we have some interest from a historical commission member Richard Mercier to be on the community preservation committee per the recommendations of the historical commission is there a motion to appoint Richard Mercier from the historical commission as a representative to the community preservation committee so second all those in favor I all right we have to approve the November 5th state presidential election warant for Miss lanti we have two the gopls of the city town of aush in the name of the Commonwealth you here be required to notify and warn the inhabitants of said city or town who are qualified to vote in elections to vote at from precincts 1 and 2A aush Elementary School 800 Middle Road Precinct 2 aush Elementary School 800 Middle Road Precinct 3 aush Elementary School 800 Middle Road on Tuesday the 5th day of November 2024 from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to cast their votes in the state election for the candidates along with the presidential office there a motion to approve the November 5th state and presidential election warrant and so execute and so execute so move second all those in favor all all right we got some DPW maintenance uh we do this every year first order of business is snowplow contractors um we send out a letter every year to our normal list of contractors along with inviting others there are some uh certain things that they need to adhere to involving insurance and registration and equipment and just to authorize this we have uh we base the hourly rates off the state rates the town agrees to add an additional $5 to each rate and we're also offering a $1,000 bonus awarded to each snowplow contractor for each vehicle as long as they make it to every storm that's called for plowing all right is there a motion to approve this letter and send it out so moved as long as it's setting the rate at $5 above base rate correct right not the other rates cuz they do all that stuff so five bucks above the base rate the base rate and it's per vehicle the $1,000 bonus sign on bonuses for perfect attendance per vehicle you got a little town account issue last year on how the motion was done missed out so we're trying to be uh a little bit more proactive this year and not have to fangle and have everybody wait for money right it's it's our way in a cushion of how we attract snowplow drivers right cuz it's getting hotter and hotter to get them here so we offer $1,000 for perfect attendance right so you will'll get a list in from DPW once they get signed up usually around 1820 um Vehicles is what we need sometimes more um and then we'll do that at the end of the season and we had a season where there was no snow and we still paid out the thousand bucks right abely I think last year we had like one or two very minor storms and the same thing occurred but it's our way of securing snowplow drivers so that we're not losing them mid year to go somewhere else right AB so it's an investment of basically 20 grand and you've guaranteed you're going to lose lose but we can deficit spend no removal right so no big deal it's well worth the 20 grand yeah this is a shortage cuz when your roads aren't plowed trust me yeah we're all going to hear it you got that so we got a motion in a second all those in favor all all right next is eversource reimbursement Mr chairman I'll make a motion I move to accept the following payments of funds from Ur $746 and 98,50 as reimbursements for the town's expenses relating to the openings and resurfaces of various Town streets and Roads subject to final determination by the board of Selectmen second second all those in favor all okay all right uh next item on the list I actually meant to take this off the agenda and didn't catch it when I was posting this because I was in my car trying to uh approve this agenda um I had a couple more questions I want for clarification before we discuss this but anybody can enlighten me here Now's the Time um I was told it involved something about being closed is that correct Mr Kelly uh what's happening is the we wanted to ensure communication when it happened between the treasur collector's office where they're accepting payments and the recycling center and we've had discussion with the DPW office to make sure the recycling center gets to the DP off DPW office and sufficient enough time that we if something's full we can start having the treasurer collect his office collect the fee to have it dropped off that week so this was in regards to the mattresses yeah okay so the treasurer's office was notified 5 minutes after Mr foron who runs the recycling center with Miss thomasi they were notified 5 minutes after that happened so there was no breakdown in communication on this one other than telling you that somebody told you I found that out after the fact by 8:15 he knew that it was full by 820 the treasurer's office knew about it so I think that the lack of communication was just from that office to this office here and I don't want to build a mountain into a mole hill if it's not really needed um the discussion I had with with the DPW after the fact they were kind of taking back at why it was on the agenda and explained to me that NOP we followed proper procedure we let the treasurer's office know right away and it's tough to see that that container is full until it's full so it's not like they can plan for it they shut it down they emptied it and that's back open so I don't really see much of an issue on this Mr wman so this is actually kind of uh fortuitous I was at the recycling center Saturday and I had some stuff that I thought would be could go just general drop off junk turns out it wasn't and then oh do you have a check for 15 bucks well I don't have a checkbook on I can't remember the last time I even wrote a check so I was talking I think it was Mr Abreu and M Thomas SEC about like okay what if if we had an onsite way to pay the bill right like a handheld where somebody could swipe a card or a debit card or something that is more user friendly so when the you know when the resident goes to the and finds out they need to have a check yeah and I said do it happen off he goes yeah you got to be to be honest with you happens a lot we got to tell people they got to go get a check we don't take cash blah blah blah blah so you know if there's a way that we can look into some type of automated payment you know whether it's with a a town issued cell phone where you put a square you know put some type of there's got to be a way to do this right and and I had a conversation earlier with with the treasurer about unipe because that's been one of my you know paying online paying online I finally set my account up where I can pay online now right but I think that would be a broader discussion Mr chairman to talk to the treasurer about getting every department online because we and I met with unipe uh representative we're leaving a lot of functionality on the table that could make life a lot easier for our employees um we're just not taking advantage of it but I realize you know with unions and things like that you just we just can't snap our fingers and say we're going to start doing this so I would ask that we have a broad a discussion with the finance team to talk about what the f you know what the opportunities are for us to make life's e life easier not only for our employees but for our residents and this recycling issue could be just one of them right like um I think we we can get there it's just a matter of now that we've got the the Personnel in place to dig into it and then come back with a recommendation yep I would just like to specify I don't feel comfortable with them accepting cash that's just my personal exactly we don't want that yeah if it's electronic yeah it's not that's not to insult anybody I just wouldn't want to give them have them feel like they have the liability of taking care of that much cash over the weekend 100% no we don't want cash but if there everybody's got a debit card everybody's got a credit card if we if we could if we could look at the uni pay whatever we're using in here to to accept credit cards online payments right um I think that's the only real route to go right so at least then somebody can go online Y and and go to our website and go to unipay and say five bucks to get rid of this product right and then go and then it shows a receipt and then they can just go like that say this is my receipt I just made payment whatever it is good to go because we the the they don't have we don't have staff to have people running around swiping credit cards oh there's a problem and it just turns into Mayhem you got 20 30 people going in and out of that y I spend a lot of time down here it's kind of sometimes it's just Mayhem right but I do believe if there's an extension to unipay where people can go on their phone and just simply just make a simple swipe and they can sit off to the side and go okay I need to pay for online beep beep beep beep beep here's my payment payment received they can confirm payments been received for such item now I can take your item sir off me have a nice day right so if that's all we need to do is an extension off of something that we're already implementing but we just haven't got the tentacles far enough yes then that's what we need to do and I think it's a it's a simple way for those techsavvy folks um to just go here you go is my receipt now I just paid for it right I think it it's too bad we we're not already there right so no it's it's a good thing because I've tal I've spoken to a lot of people that work and sometimes they can't get to the collector's office to make that payment ahead of time to bring the ticket down there so they only have the Saturday to do it and like select said not everybody has checkbooks anymore it's a different time so it's definitely worth looking into so I I think I think he he's already solved the problem without even knowing it right un pay if it's a town website they can go on it activate something and make a payment online piece of cake it's done Mr chairman could we ask the treasurer to come in with the finance team yep the upcoming meeting talk about that because you know we're just I think third of our on the whenever whenever the time is right you know uh the second meeting in November the the good news is Winter's coming and activity slows down right so we ain't going to worry about filling up tractor trails with mattresses and things of the like it's the spring through the summer into the fall it's a disaster right this the place is hopping it really is and we take a lot of stuff for free Metals Cod Ward branches grass rock all that stuff debris dirt and all that stuff we take for frases there certain things you need to pay for and then we have a whole list I think it's online right you need to pay for so it's not a it's not a huge problem but I think as Mr W alluded to I think there if there's a better way um to accommodate residents that are stuck in that position I think he's already solved the problem be honest with you uni pay yep done cool all right so we'll get with uh Mr Kell you can get with Jen and see if there's an easy toggle on in there and we'll go from there hopefully there's an there I'm sure there is cool selement Mr chairman I I I have an overall concern after reading so many articles about cyber attacks um and and with what everything we're doing in it um I think we need to stop having a much broader discussion discussion with it about how do we protect the town servers and computers and things of such without being so worried about cyber attacks right and that might mean access to certain kind of websites that we just ain't going to allow anymore from Town computers and things of the like social media things and things of the like right there was a big hack in Providence a school department right um the last thing I want us to be is in trouble with a Cyber attack and people's personal information getting out um to these kind of folks right Ransom you've heard all heard of ransomware and things of the like with big corporations um shutting down power grids in the South and everything else it's just the more and more we keep doing the online stuff the more and more we're opening ourselves up to that kind of um problem so I think we should try to have the it um Tech Guy come in and talk to the board about you know how do we protect ourselves how do we protect Town servers especially with this new F link that we have going on around the town and we now we're integrating Police Department into town hall service and things of the like we need to we need to do everything we can to secure the town's digital assets I'll say right so I I don't think it's that difficult and I know that we're um the it Nick's been moving a lot into the AI stuff component of different things he's been doing a really great job so you know just bring him in have that conversation and see what his opinion is on it and see if we can really get a lock down on everything we're doing yeah as far as you know web searches and and we're moving a lot of our uh Records to the cloud I just don't think is even more reason to I don't think that we need to have such open access to the internet right and he'll be able to tell us a little bit more about that but I just I just read and see too many things with cyber problems right um I think it happened at Delta Airlines not so long ago right and they were blaming the Cyber company um it was their fault but it's costing corporations tens and hundreds of millions of dollars I don't want to be half the town of aush or any community in the Commonwealth on that load but right now the only one I'm responsible for is the town of ausnet so that's why I'm talking about getting the IT guy in here and putting all the safeguards we can in place to try to limit the risk of a Cyber attack in internal I agree all right Mr W anything that is it right and I am out of announcements the only the only thing I want to say too is I know I know Brad's out at some conference right now Brad Fish a veterans agent but I do know that he said our Veterans Day celebration I believe correct me if I'm wrong Mr chairman November 9th it's a Saturday morning it I believe it'll be the first year um that we've ever done a veterans parade correct so for those Folks at home I believe it's November 9th Saturday morning I don't know what exactly what time 10 to 9 or something yeah I think meet up is at 9:30 kickoffs at 10: somewhere around at 10:00 a.m. November 9th we'll be going down from town hall I know I've hooked him up with a couple of individual in the Army a staff sergeant that he said he would bring some some military stuff down here to make the parade a little bit more I know Brad's done a phenomenal job he's got some military trucks coming down for us to have a nice parade in the town of Acushnet um so that's just that for that and I was met with the director of DPW today and Mike from Pucket asphalt to go over the roads n Lane Randall Kendrick Helen Joseph Earl and it appears that we are on schedule for all those Folks at home we should be on schedule for next Thursday for Helen Joseph and Earl to put down base and then NIS Lane will be done hopefully Friday for NIS Lane Randall and Kendrick excellent and Keen Road will get done at some point too I forgot what Mike had to say but that's my update on paven as well so hopefully it's all going to be done it the individual that we met with today Mike from Pucket asphalt he seems to be a really nice gentleman um did a great job explaining things to Dan and I and he said don't worry about that I'll take care of that don't worry about that I'll take care of that so I'll be interesting to see what kind of work Pucket asphalt does um and if we continue to use puet asphalt if they continue winning bids in the town of auset um at least we know what they geared up to do and we don't have to have these little subcontractors coming in resetting structures because based on what he told me he could do all that stuff excellent so that's that's that all right Sydney wants I was going to say speaking of parades there's the firefighters Association is doing the Halloween parade again this year 6 o' 6 o00 Halloween day yeah perfect oh yeah speaking of that everybody uh we won't see you until after Halloween so have a safe Halloween enjoy yourselves that's it um our next meeting is going to be on a Wednesday November 6 4 p.m. uh just to give the public heads up instead of the normal Tuesday uh the Tuesday that week is election day so we're not going to have a meeting on Election tap so the following Wednesday we will have our meeting here is there a motion to adjourn so move all those in favor all [Music]