##VIDEO ID:XnvA7cjw-Ms## good evening I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for Tuesday August 27th in the Clark room at Town Hall it's also online on Zoom um we will just go over the agenda briefly um actually let me first take a a roll call vote I um it looks like we only have four people here is um on his David's probably on his way he's probably on his way but uh when we we'll start the meeting in any event with the roll call uh Arnold here I guess I'm next Reed here s here triola here all right and then David is out in the parking lot oh pop on there he is oh yeah David you present I don't know if you can hear us but somehow signal if you want to be included do we know if they're here I can hear you I'm okay thank you David all right so we have a quorum we have all members in attendance um just to quickly go over tonight's agenda we'll have Community input then appointments um we're going to review the Town Administrator bylaw draft and discuss that and we're going to dis discuss the select board goals along with some sub points there um then we're going to have a discussion of arpa and review at 9:00 p.m. the Town Administrator evaluation initial discussion at 920 and the Town Administrator report at 9:30 um we're going to quickly do a one day liquor license warrants and minutes Cemetery deeds and liaison reports um it's possible depending on our timing we'll finish early but that's those our famous last words yes all right um so why don't we get started is there any Community input is there anyone there's nobody physically present um in the audience here tonight but is there anyone online who would like to make a comment all right sounds like somebody's got a Pary David all right well seeing none um we will move on to the appointment section um do you want me to make the motion sure if you want to start with a motion and we'll ask Ryan to discuss a little bit all right I move to appoint Sandra Fav fille how do you say your last name I think you got the second time fille to the position of dispatcher for the Communications Department pending required hiring Administration with an anticipated start date of September 3 2024 second all right Mr Town Administrator you want to tell us yes the the hiring team team which consists of the Chiefs members of the communication department and and Aubrey interviewed Sandra she's an um an excellent candidate business owner has CPR certification she does not uh interestingly it's been a while since we've hired someone without the without the dispatch certification so she'll be going to the dispatch Academy or the communications Academy in the month of September through the middle of October and then she'll start a pretty intensive internal training program be ready to go by Thanksgiving so this is is probably more likely the way we're hiring dispatch in the next 5 to 10 years which is bringing in promising candidates like Sandra training them and hoping they stay for for quite a while with their experience any questions comments all right let's uh do a roll call vote on the motion Arnold I David you're next in the alphabet okay I'll goad okay break in when you can David read ey great thank you I can't I got to do some things here that are noisy so like I can't toggle that well sounds interesting David let the minutes reflect that please yeah all right okay a snell eye Tri ey okay so it was unanimous all right we have a discussion after this of uh the TA bylaw but I have invited our attorneys Our Town attorney to uh just briefly join and that starts at 7:15 so we have a few minutes um I we can move on to something else in the agenda if there's um warrants in minutes maybe or is there anything else or the one-day liquor license let's do the one day liquor LIC one day liquor license that's number eight yeah um I move to approve the application submitted by Mary Carroll of Clark farm market for the issuance of a one-day special license to sell beer and cider at an event to be held on September 21st 2024 during the hours of 3 p.m. through 6:00 p.m. at 2011 Bedford Road Carlile Mass second second sorry sorry all right um I saw this in the packet I don't know if there are any questions if I always look to see that um the police chief has St put a stamp of approval on it and he did uh and they usually can only get their uh insurance after they get the license so it's anyway okay look good to me Yep this looks fun yep cornhole yeah you done it well I've not done this yeah okay uh roll call vote Arnold I model Reed ey Snell ey triola I great thank you um you want to go to the cemetery deed next those are usually all right I move to transfer land in the public burial ground at the Green Cemetery described as follows deed 832 lot d412 Graves 1 and two to Brian first formerly of 615 Bedford Road second all right any questions comments all right seeing none we'll do a roll call vote Arnold I Modell I Reed ey Snell I triola I okay so little sign take care of that all right we have a few more minutes to go want to do minutes we could do minutes yeah okay it's going to be a lightning around here yeah I um move to approve the um the minutes of August 8th and August 13th of 2024 select board meting meeting minutes as presented or am or amended uh second did everyone have a chance to review those any comments amendments no okay the only thing I should say is I I was absent for the meeting on the 13th so um but the vote is both of them together so yeah so it's all right even if you're absent you can always vote for a minutes anyway doesn't does not require exstension as long as you've read them and all right feel that you want to approve them okay so we'll do a roll call vote Arnold I I Reed ey Snell I triola I okay wow we are cruising through certain things your system's paying off as we hop around yes sir this is why I do it and I have both of the systems on here so I can do a quick um Le report yeah that would be great um so the community preservation committee is meeting this Thursday night and um we have only had two possible um ideas come forward to us or possibilities for Grants but we are going to to decide whether or not to have a funding cycle for this fall town meeting which I think we will just to because we have the time since the meeting is not happening until November um and we're also then going to continue um the conversation about um the CPC strategy in terms of using um CPC resources in a more um uh planned way including um review in the discussion that we had with various boards and committees that came together for that meeting in July so I'm I'm looking forward to the discussion on Thursday night and we'll let everybody know shortly thereafter if we're having a funding cycle and if we've heard more about specific grants that people are considering great thanks Barney is there anything else any other okay um we do need to wait another five minutes or so so um ta report do you want to start on that or is that too disjointed to start on a TA report go anywhere that'd be great why don't you to get started and scoll I'll let you look over my shoulder how's that what's the number okay so the uh the packet does have a draft report and then the um the actual report so if that's confusing oh they're both in here okay I saw I thought it was last week's last I'll get there so it starts on uh PDF 22 thank you got it man under events in town hall news we had our Employee Appreciation event August 21st at Kimble Farm um I do note in here that that Travis did make fun of me and of the entire staff for choosing soft surve ice cream over hard surve ice cream so apparently I have a lot to learn about Carlile still soft yogurt at Kimble which is sorry so I I will get hard ice cream next time I apologize I found out the hard way CU I ordered soft serve one other night and I'm like a It's Yogurt not that there's anything wrong with yogurt so the point of the day besides mocking me was to honor and thank our employee person employees for their um their hard work in Carlile and um it was great to gather the staff thank you so much to the select board who who stopped by and spoke with uh our with our employees they definitely appreciated that and um I will also note that the police had um an attendee at this they had attendees at the senior one and then they had their own events so kimal is getting their their money's worth out of the Town Hall staff the hallway decorations so you'll see in here we're starting to put things back up and inviting organizations like the historical commission and the schools to participate in finding um items of of unique interest to carile and putting them up on the wall so now that we've we've redone the the building and we've decorated a little bit we want to uh put items of significance up so Al gets a lot of credit for doing that work we took a lot of it down we're working on some of the plaques combining them so that they're um not as disjointed and we'll keep all the old ones but display them in a way some of the examples are are Eagle Scouts old road race winners out standing citizens and conservations conservationists of the year so all of those plaques will return to the walls if anyone's been missing them and we're working with the middle school for right over there above our friends with cable we're going to have a competition or um an art event in the Middle School in order to ask students what they think of when they think of carile and hopefully get some entries and display them up on up on the wall here in the Clark room lastly we've asked a couple residents to make sure that we have proper research and documentation for all the rooms that that are named here in town hall make sure we have those histories so we can get them up online and in the rooms themselves so some have pictures some have histories we want to make sure that that every room has everything it needs to properly document the rooms that people that were named after famous carleans um I do have a question to represent in order to represent my grandchildren what about the parade winners trophy parade winners trophy it's supposed to be on display at Town Hall and list the winners and can I ask how you win a parade oh the you Jud the judges boat and the old home Day Parade oh that's it the best float the best float it's it's a annual competition and I have no self-interest just because our family won it the last two years think you should recuse yourself exactly I will find that trophy for your party then just to finish this section here before I believe we'll be moving on the we talked about Sandra being appointed tonight we have we have sent an offer letter for a planning zoning and land use assistant so that will come to you at your next actually that won't come to you that'll go to the planning board at their next meeting and then we We are continuing to take rumes or interview for DPW and facilities and the only other open position we have right now our full-time open position besides the DPW is the council and aging social services coordinator which is being covered by uh internally by staff right now and pending conversations with the cohs and the select board so that's the HR report from auy great thank you Ryan we'll continue later on okay perfect so it's just about 7:15 Ethan's on um yeah and I see Ethan diely is on um he is Town Council with the town of carile we're now going to move on to a discussion um of the Town Administrator bylaw uh we have um had a draft that was put together we discussed it last at the last meeting and we just said we would come back and review it again and determine if it's something that we wanted to move forward um and how we might want to do that and so to to kind of further that discussion I suggested that we have Town Council just give us a quick overview of this um it you know it may be helpful to us and then if there are any questions we can ask of councel um those questions so I'll turn it over to Ethan why don't you kind of help kick us kick us off here thanks very much Travis U for those who haven't met there's anybody Ethan Dy associate Town Council um happy to speak speak to you all this evening about the Town Administrator bylaw um I've only just reviewed the draft that I think you guys will be discussing but to sort of begin at a high level um sort of the rationale for doing this um you have a spectrum of options right so as it exists now you have no bylaw and you hire a Town Administrator who does a great job doing everything that you task him with um moving a little bit further along the Spectrum you can adopt a bylaw which explains what the expected um sort of obligations tasks and responsibilities of that Town Administrator are now in doing so um select board um seeds some of its authority to the Town Administrator um through an active town meeting by formalizing that in a bylaw um basically anything that the select board could assign informally to the Town Administrator can be um put into a bylaw so that it becomes his or her uh formal responsibilities now there's a couple of reasons to do that um one of them I like is that couple years down the road when the people who are making the decisions today aren't around anymore um will know because it's written into bylaw what the Town Administrator is empowered to do and and typically has done um another one is that by putting his or her um rights and obligations in the BYO itself um it requires an act of town meeting to modify that so um set another way as it stands now whoever may be on the select board decides what the TA does um putting it into the bylaw makes it Town meeting's decision and makes it somewhat harder to change um one of the limitations with going with the bylaw is that we can't give the Town Administrator any rights that would affect um other statutory boards so for example Board of Health planning board other boards that have the right to make their own decisions and hire their own staff um we can't sort of assign the TA to do anything that is within their purview um moving a little bit further along the Spectrum um we could adopt a bylaw and pair it with a special legislation request to the state legislature which could allow um some of those statutory board powers to be passed on to the Town Administrator um if you wanted that role to have sort of a broader departmental control U for example again over things like Board of Health planning board that sort of thing um moving one step further if you were going to make some really broad changes that affect basically all aspects of the town's operation um you could adopt a charter and that would give you in even more flexibility in terms of how you define local government and how operates um I think in the case of a conversation limited to the Tad administrator probably the charter would be a tall ask and and sort of beyond the scope of what's needed um but so those those are sort of the four options no BW a bylaw a bylaw with a special act that um adds some nonstatutory powers to the ta's role or a charter um I guess I'll leave it there for the moment that's sort of the big picture sort of the options that you have to break out the ta's um rights responsibilities that sort of thing but it's really up to um the select board at the moment to determine sort of how they view the ta's role um as a town employee as a Town Administrator um and then ultimately if you put a bylaw to town meeting it becomes um the town meeting members decision as to how much um responsibility or otherwise the T could have all right answer any questions or um I'm here to help [Music] so I have I have a general question I know every town does things differently in general or are there any statistics on how many towns have nothing versus a bylaw versus special legislation I'm I'm fairly new to this conversation so I'm just curious what's the norm if any or is it pretty much just all over the map so I guess I would say it's very all over the map um we work communities that have no bylaws some that have bylaws some that have Charters it's it's really widespread um I would say that carlile's General bylaws are sort of well served and that they're very simple um it's it's easy to understand um it is a little unusual that the Town Administrator is doesn't have a sort of section reference in the general BIW that at least explain um a little bit about what the role is certainly that's within the select board's purview and um things have been going well so far but it is nice when we have questions about sort of whose responsibilities um are are being discussed when something comes up you can look to the bylaws and um use them as a reference so I I would say distribution of authority is all over the map but it's a little bit unusual that carile doesn't have um any mention of the Town Administrator in the bylaws I I looked at it this afternoon and I think um the position is referenced twice in the Personnel bylaw section but doesn't otherwise come up so it it might be um might might be good to consider adding something even if it's just to acknowledge the position and um sort of a brief statement of the job description but again it's it's totally up you any other questions for Ethan I I know I was um thinking about what um if if you do this and you have a a town meeting and they do adopt this and we wanted to to change it so say for instance the TA that structure didn't work out what what is necessary to undo that can the town Vote or do you if you have to go to an act of legislature how do we undo that so I guess start starting on the simpler end first um if you folks put a a warrant article for a general bylaw Amendment on um the town meeting warrant and it passes and some time goes by and we decide not we but the the town decides that you'd like a different structure all it takes is an amendment to that General bylaw so can happen at any town meeting um has to go through the the standard approval process by the Attorney General's Municipal law unit but otherwise um it doesn't happen immediately so it can't be as simple as the select board taking a vote but um within one town meeting cycle so six months or so um you could incorporate changes that revert back to um the way it was before or sort of modify any AD any changes that you've adopted that um weren't working or should be further enhanced yes um in the event that you go for a special act um probably the language of the request to the legislature would um ask would provide the form of the bylaw stating the rights that the Town Administrator um would have and we'd be asking that the legislature approve the adoption of this bylaw which therefore allows the um additional rights to be conferred on the TA that that the select couldn't otherwise do SO waiting until the legislature does that um would take a little bit of time and then once it's in place the TA would have um the powers that that they've that we've requested them to have um to undo that I I I don't want to say too much because I haven't had a reason to think about it quite frankly but um I I think taking the powers away is a much simpler thing to do by town meeting so it's it is in the general bylaw you could amend the general bylaw to those author that Authority um I'm not going to say there would never be a reason that we'd have to go back to the legislature but I do think if um the TA was given powers in the town decided to change their mind a general bylaw removing the authority would be within Town meetings per or even just amending I mean OB obviously we periodically amend bylaws if it were the special legislation is amending something not related to the the additional Powers something that's just done at town meeting or does that then every time you change a a word or a specific sub bullet does it have to go back through legislature I I think it would the only questions that would have to go to the legislature would be those that exceed statutory Authority so if you are amending it to reduce the grant of authority to the TA I I don't think that would have to go back to legislation or if you were amending a part not pertinent to that piece of it it wouldn't wouldn't necessarily have to go back okay right what we'd be looking for is anything that exceeds what's Allowed by Statute and so depending on what you're amending it's possible but um again if it's if it's not related to that um that which the legislature had to approve I think it would be okay so I have a question um when you read this draft bylaw did you see uh sections that you felt exceeded statutary statutory um authorization that would require this particular particular one to go to uh the state for special legislation and and that's the the question I don't haven't had quite enough time to answer just yet Kate okay well but there's nothing that popped out and said oh my God what are they doing here you know no nothing nothing jumped out as being totally off the wall or or in any way um out of the norm I think we might want to be a little bit careful about how much how we describe the authority over various department heads and Personnel um in a bylaw like this um because again there are statutory boards that have their own hiring Authority I I joined the meeting as we were talking about um an assistant position that might be reviewed by the planning board um those boards do have independent Authority and I think um if we were going to give the TA control over um staff hired by those statutory boards that would probably need to go to the legislature okay I don't so if you look at um 3.3.3 which is about the performance review process I'm just curious whether um the item two under that which says um that uh it the TA would be responsible for making sure that all employees have a performance review and and including elected Town board either to an appointed or elected Town board Commission and so um it doesn't say he's doing them with you it just says it just says but you ensure that it gets done well the more pertinent one is 3.3.2 B 3 yeah right that this is sort of that's in the window condition yes so um Ethan let me ask you a few questions about that so if sure you know if as written it would need to go to the mgl and can you give us an idea of a couple things how many how long does it take like to get on their calendar and then what do they do and secondly if there are boards within Carlile That oppose it which I'm guessing there would be do they petition the mgl too and what does the mgl do when you know select board wants something but somebody else doesn't do they just like say well you guys go sort it out and come back I mean what how does that generally work sure so the way this process would start would be with a town meeting warant article authorizing the select board to petition the legislature um for this change and so I guess the the first hurdle would be um collecting a majority vote of the members of town meeting and so I think generally when you can assemble a majority of town meeting um to approve this kind of change that's strong evidence with the legislature that um even if there are uh groups or boards or factions within the community that don't support it um that that's strong evidence that um the town meeting members at large do um how long it takes it it varies a lot it depends on when the vote at town meeting is taken and how quickly the petition can be submitted and where we are in the legislative session um I I've seen it can take six months to a year and and for some that are more complicated this wouldn't be a complicated one I don't think that can take even longer um this is a good example of a situation where the community's relationship with their local reps at the state house um is really important because um it's got to be on their radar it's the sort of thing that the um it'll move more quickly if if it gets attention and so sort of the the squeaky wheel against the gree kind of situation when the legislature has many different petitions like this to consider um as to how they would respond to um sort of opposition from other Town boards I can't really say um certainly if there are boards that are actively lobbying legislature to avoid this um that that would be a concern and I think um would Merit conversation with your local rep who's going to be trying to advance it so just to build in that a couple things one is um so you're saying we need to build advocacy with our local rep and we're talking about the legisl Simon not um U Mike right at the state legis the state legislature level not the Senate right and then secondly um but can you give us a feel like how often does it happen and do they tend to Clump all these kind of things together in one session and move through them quickly I mean I I imagine for most members legislature members other people's is it a home rule petition I'm not sure what we call it but that's what we're talking other people's home rule petitions are pretty administrative right they're going to vote what their rep recommends and not I mean I I'm thinking it's not controversial to some other District like so how do they treat all those when they have a whole bunch of them do they are there a lot of them every session do they Clump them together do you have any sense of that yeah I mean they they do they they sort of lump them together and I think there's a hearing day typically in January or February of every year where uh legislation that's going to be Advanced does and then it it almost always resolves um by the end of the legislative calendar at the end of July so they more or less they do get together and sort of voted um at the same time so all right so you're saying for example if we have a Springtown meeting well I guess it would matter if it went to the fall but at some point we vote in a town meeting spring or fall it probably takes till the next cycle to get it into some next cycle legislative calendar in which case they would kind of in the middle of that session which is the January February they would have a hearing and then like the Supreme Court they would announce their decision in the you know spring have it year it's basically a year I would say well not if we start now in November no if we start now in November it'll be a year and a half I think and if we start in Spring it'll be a year I bet you dollar I don't want to I don't want to say definitively that it will all resolve at the end of the next um legislative calendar year but because because I have seen them move more quickly um but but cautiously I would say you should expect a year okay right okay and I guess one thing I could add is that you can to some degree you could split the difference you could adopt a bylaw now that confers the powers that you can give by bylaw and then pair it with a home rle petion that would add to that bylaw right in the event of where at the time that it is passed by the legisl so could have paragraphs a through D that get passed by T meeting now and then EFG or so that um would be incorporated when the legislature acts on them so you could break it up like that so that um you're not waiting indefinitely for for the whole thing to take effect right that's a good idea so um in your um Spectrum Ethan of you know do nothing to do lots of things and the lots of things side is like edging into town manager status right I mean essentially at the end of that line as a town manager do Town managers have authority over all like how does it work cuz again like Simon's a conquered guy right so he's going to look at what he knows about conquered the town manager in conquered does he have Authority or she is it a she now it's a she have authority over like the Board of Health like how does that work you know sure so it it it's specialized based on Charter so we're talking about adopting a town Charter in this situation which could provide for a town manager um and when you get to that level you form a charter commission that sort of does a deep dive onto what the town wants to do in terms of its overall governmental operations and you can really do any number of different things um I I am aware of town manager positions out there some are strong some are less so and um in some cases they have hiring and firing authority over very nearly all um support staff so kind of position that would otherwise be hired by statutory boards um so yeah sorry that's a long way of saying that it varies a lot and the nice thing about the charter process is while it's sort of costly and time consuming it gives you a lot of control over um the way you'd like your government to operate um that's a four to five year process yeah no I'm I'm asking I'm not actually I'm not actually asking to Advocate it for Carlile what I'm saying is that our neighbor which we constantly compare ourselves with and in fact where Simon is from has something and I wonder what that something is they well they have a town manager and they've had it for eons what's their Charter what's the authority of that manager I mean we don't have to answer it here but I'm just saying it sounds to me like the process is to build advocacy with Simon make a case we should know what comparables are doing those that have you know Tas and those that have TMS I gathered something a little different just more that it's a not it's maybe not perfunctory but it's it's a routine thing then that they package these together and if a town wants to do whatever we want to do I think that you know our rep would support because this is our home home decision it's what we want and I don't think there's anything controversial I don't think Simon would want to stick his or in around that right okay I think we'd want to just make sure we're on Simon's radar and he's aware that this if this were to go forward and P that this is a priority for the town and we'd appreciate fair and is it just the State Rep or is our state senator also Barrett involved I I think it's largely your largely your State Rep where begins okay so can I can I ask a just a maybe it's an overly simp simplistic question but in this draft there's a bunch of stuff that the Town Administrator does now that we could put into a bylaw and you were mentioning the the additional powers that would require the legislative act is is there a simple list of planning board Board of Health um there's language in here that accepts Police Chief Fire Chief is there a list of what those things are that would not be currently under that would require the legislative action and and potentially could be broken out into a separate question for the town sure so I guess I'll say there isn't a simple list there is a statutory authorization for the town administrator and it basically says that they can be empowered to do anything that the select board can do and so I guess if you folks think about it this way um all of the decisions that you are tasked with making on an annual basis um Can more or less be assigned to the Town Administrator and those are the roles and responsibilities that could be incorporated into a bylaw so the decisions that you see throughout the year that you don't get to make um similarly wouldn't wouldn't be eligible for inclusion um in a bylaw without seeking an act of the legislature certainly um if it would be helpful to work up a list that's something that we can we can provide some assistance with um so that you have a broader sense of um what wouldn't be on the table um at least for a simple town meeting vote to adopt a bylaw okay I guess oh I just said oh go ahead the question about conquer so I I can tell you these there's 351 versions of this but so the select board in conquer appoints a library committee planning board board of appeals the town accountant and a Personnel Board where the town manager appoints a town clerk Treasurer Town collector the board of assessors and then all of those have to be approved by the select board and then all officers boards committees and employees of the town with the exception of elected officials right so staff of elected officials are under the town manager except for the accountant okay interesting um probably because of the accountant at the time they wrote the charter you had a question I wanted but go ahead Kate um yeah mostly it's the 3.3.3 B uh working conditions working hours holidays and vacation days for all department heads and other employees I mean because you know there's a there's a statutory you know they yeah I get it the Board of Health and planning board can hire their their staff but then there's there's that kind of HR area um and part of this was hopefully was trying to clarify those lines of chain of command so to speak that's the question is it in the gray area or is it the question is is it black and white or is it gray or is it you know just there's two there's two anecdotes I'd like to point out there so the more prescriptive you get with the hiring like you can do vacation hours but not compensation will will greatly comp complicate the hiring process so if you really like the qualifications of a person but one person is holding the the key to acrs and other things then it's going to make the hiring process very complicated I don't think I don't think Kate's going that way I think what we're trying to say is if we divide correct me if I'm wrong but if we try to do what Ethan's recommending we place vote the things that are clear that are clearly things we can vote on and then have them vote on going to the mgl for the other stuff is the care and feeding of all employees including those hired by independent boards is that in select board's bucket or is it in the mg's bucket yeah that's exactly the question Ethan back to you but I'm a I'm a practitioner not a no we say we understand you don't want to what I'm saying is it doesn't work so if you have split Powers it will not work no but we're you're not going the right way we're saying we need to have something for a year or two while they chew over this thing is that piece in the thing that we ask the town to pass or is it in the thing we petition the mgl to pass I think and the thing is the not the hiring and firing and all that stuff in 3.3.2 but the dayto day you know Thou shalt show up at 8:00 a.m. and all that kind of stuff well it might be helpful because this is kind of the discussion is to you know have the board talk about what we want in terms of this document and the policy and then we'll have Council review and and kind of back but I think that question by Council because nobody's let him answer yet okay and I have asked the question and I would like to have an answer fair enough Kate thank you all right sure so I think um I mean it's already in in the town's General bylaws um Personnel policies are um under the purview of the Town Administrator I think a lot of the things that we're talking about here um are not prohibited by sort of independent statutory authority of the other boards um but but it might be something we want to think a little bit more closely about to make sure we're not stepping on toes and we have a bylaw that we can we can defend because there are gray areas here and certainly if um there is concern from the other boards who have hiring Authority that they may want to assert more control we want to head that off so I I'm going to say I think what you've drafted at 3.3.3 B um I think is what we're speaking about probably um is okay on its own um but we want to think a little more closely about it and um I do appreciate Travis's suggestion that um we sort of work on this as a two-step process where where the select board coalesces around um the decisions they'd like to make and then um Council can be involved to review it to provide some advice on whether or not what has been worked up is um acceptable as a bylaw or if if any other portions would have to go to um the state house okay all right unless there are any other specific go ahead one last question strong Chief so we have a strong Fire Chief and there's a carve out here but I'm just on not not so much focused on what we've written but just the the the strong Chief as I understand that we still have select Port still has hiring and firing Authority but it's just very difficult right have the chief yeah if you have a strong Chief we have a contract and I think we have no but if even there's something about strong chief that makes it pretty hard to it's everyone else in the fire department no but let's talk about the chief that's what I mean that's what strong Chief is so you could hire and fire the chief but the chief has full authority over oh okay so that's similar then if we were to change that and again I'm not suggesting we do but if we were to change that to give you that Authority then that would be an mgl thing right because we don't have that Authority is that fair to say so the the question is specifically about the fire chief position no I guess I'm being told that it's about the fire department staff and not the chief it's kind of like the you know planning board because it way maybe another way to say it is we would like it to operate the way the police department does if we want to if we wanted to do that that would be an mgl thing because we don't have that Authority with a strong Chief is that a fair summary I I I will say I'd have to look a little more closely at how we arrived at the strong Chief position that the town has already um there may be other Alternatives um to reing a requiring special legislation but um okay generally based on what you said yes thank you all right I I I actually think we should move into more of a policy discussion of this and thought Ethan would be helpful to have thank you Ethan pres but you didn't have to get you didn't have to get dressed up for us but you look very Cris you look very crisp I thought he looked handsome he looks great no he looks great he looks like doing his job look like Central Casting here's my Council and he's it's great just want to make sure you guys are getting your money's worth well all right thank you Ethan appreciate your time all right thank you all and certainly let me know if you have any questions or want further discussion on particular policy questions here sounds and then we'll get back to you once we've ironed out sort of what it is we want and great start the process okay great you thanks e good night all right so you know I think we kind of need to step away from this the the minutia and just step back and say you know we're to kind of remind us all why we're doing this I mean this kind of came out of initially the um what task force the um Kate you want Town govern town government town government and well no actually I would say it came from before that when David and I um had weekly meetings with the land use board board chairs and we felt that there were things that we wanted for the town to operate more efficiently in permitting and and that stuff uh and that nobody had any control over any of the staff in certain respects and the staff could were didn't have to talk to one another and unless the boards directed them to so there were there were issues and about around and that nobody had been um evaluated for a long time so out of out of those discussions and correct me jump in anytime you want David came a um an evaluation Matrix uh and goal setting exercises for the staff and and the governance committee because we uh this group said well this is not just you know in these departments it's sort of townwide and the needs to be a way of uh having per a Personnel function be fulfilled which because we had no Personnel function in in the town and and that it had to be any Personnel function that we established would would should be uniform form across all staff of the town so that nobody would be treated differently because that creates dissension and low morale among staff and that's how we got here because we we it kind of came out of the Personnel by so what what what hap what happened positively in other words things that we talked about three or four years ago that have now come to pass five five years ago whatever was six years ago a more unified system um definitely the performance reviews the goal setting definitely the governance committee itself M an HR person in Aubrey I mean again this is all stuff that came out that we didn't have better HR policies which you guys drafted but what didn't happen and is still not really happening to at least my satisfaction is cross-use of Staff particularly we had focused on the land use boards because that was the kind of the lwh hanging fruit in terms of staffs that have sort of common things going on you could make the same case of other functions I think I think now that we've had Ryan for a couple years a lot of the other functions have just naturally moved to cross trainining and more efficiency and that group which is really where we started and I'm not going to point any specific fingers that those boards just haven't really kind of meshed in the way that we think they should and so I'd say the so that is like still not done let's call it that and then the larger issue besides codifying what the TA should do which I think is a good just housekeeping anyway is if these little towns like us are going to survive independently and every survey we do points to the desire by the people to maintain our carile character and Independence we got to find more efficient ways and labor Remains the biggest single cost and if you can't do it more efficiently if there's friction in that system it's going to hurt us as a town so I think from my view strategically it's pretty important if you take the long view of the survivability of independent towns mhm yeah all right so it's really a policy discussion for us as to what we want to do for how we want to run the government or you know the government and ultimately it'll be the people at town meeting to decide if they are on board with this but I think that Ethan pointed out and I think it's a really good point is we need to bring into the discussion other boards and committees who would be affected by this and make sure you know we get all the input we want and need prior to uh going forward with it but you know it becomes a question there the two things I've been thinking about is one you know are we comfortable as a board with this kind of draft and we can obviously massage it a little bit and have Council review it more but as far as the powers themselves that we're planning to delegate to the Town Administrator and then um you know the second is you know as far as how we want to go about that and do we want to try and do that at the fall town meeting or do we want to wait till the spring town meeting and so if just from a pro process standpoint and I had asked I guess the TA about this I think I I do as a board think that you know it's great that I'm very pleased I'm just going public saying I'm pleased with our TA I think that in this discussion it really is about the board because the TA this is a I wouldn't say it's self-interested but it's just it's a bylaw that would affect the TA directly and so sure we can ask for input but I think it's important that that our board just discussed this but anyway I had asked the TA about the timing of this as far as the fall town meeting and he he had said and you can weigh in if you'd like on you know that if if we don't have this we may not have enough meet for a fall town meeting just cuz there may not be enough um you know content content and so it's just something to consider and that's just an opinion it's not a you know we ultimately will have to make that judgment but yeah I would I mean I you know I'm always about shooting at the king and missing right CU it it it does set you back a cycle when you when you get rejected you're back in a long cycle to bring it back you can't you shouldn't I think at least in my opinion immediately bring it back in the next meeting you got to kind of rebuild your advocacy and I think this is going to take a fair amount of advocacy I I totally support it but I am concerned that fall toown meetings anyway I mean I think there's a good reason why there's usually not a fall town meeting and one of them is like people come back like right now coming back from vacation getting their brains wrapped around you know school and kids and da d d da and then oh yeah there's and then there's holidays I mean it's not great for really building advocacy on issues it's just not and this is a media issue so my personal opinion is we absolutely should do it and we should take our time doing it so I go ahead thing about this practically is there's a lot in here that I don't think is controversial I think it's things it's as we operate now um and it's as will operate while this board's still intact anyway to the end of the year so prac Bally speaking all the non-controversial stuff we do need to get it into a bylaw we do need to codify it um but we don't need to get it approved by town meeting between now and then because we have the authority now we just really want to get it on the book so I think it's really comes down to the the additional things that would require potentially legislative action and if if those will require advocacy and I do think we do need time to do that so um you know we should discuss it should really spend some time with the boards to figure out um really what the right description is here but I I do think it points towards a um Springtown meeting um and in the interim we can codify what we're doing now fine-tune it and collect whatever data or anecdotes we need to to get it past it in in the in the spring um couple thoughts one is um um I thought you were heading in the direction of saying so we take the parts that um not controversial if think about those as going on the fall town meeting and and I would I would support that uh for a couple of reasons one um I think Springtown meeting is usually very full right and and we want this is it'd be it' be an opportune time actually to have this get uh some real attention um and secondly uh I think some of the the parts of this that as you say are noncontroversial and in some Cas in a lot of cases are already in place thanks to the you know some of the new staff that we've brought on board in the last couple years um I'd like to see that get approved sooner rather than later so it's done and it's established for the future and um then we can we can take the pieces that are going to be either more complicated or will require and or will require um legislative action and spend the time working on that maybe we have something for the Springtown meeting or maybe we don't on those depending on you know what response we're getting from people and another thought I have is um you know we might want to uh figure out a way to discuss some of these pieces that involve some of the the elected boards just go ahead and initiate some of those conversations just to see where where people are uh and what what um does it because it may be that there's agreement on on some of these things given our The Experience some boards have been having over the last couple of years so um I don't know what other folks think about that but I could imagine doing a you know just a just a uh testing the waters kind of conversation you know with some of the boards that would be effective so I the reason I I didn't go in that direction and it's a question um is if we went to town meeting in the fall with the elements that we could pass through a bylaw which is the stuff that we already have purview over is there is that really substantive enough to have a town meeting about do you know what I mean because nothing practically changes we're just putting a bylaw in place or or does or does it aside from just making it a bylaw does something change does some Authority get reinforced well two different questions right so your comment did you made the comment that might not be enough do you mean without this might not be enough to even have a town meeting or wouldn't be very attractive to get people interested in town meeting so the the two draws so far have been the accessory apartment bylaw and the Town Administrator B and both are based on this conversation very iffy so the the draw for town meeting I just don't know that You' get the people there but is there still enough stuff to put on to have a town meeting not without those two unless something shows up in the next okay so then the separate question is um do we need a bylaw like SE setting that aside what does a bylaw that just basically States our Authority do and and could we a policy I mean if we want to do something to we could make a policy now and then make that a bylaw later right I mean that's right I don't think I think you're right Scott that I mean there's not urgency since we all have a year or two left at least on our terms and we all seem to be very uh in sync and what we want but so I don't know that there's the urgency to do it in the fall we may want to I think it's a my own feeling from what Ethan said is it's a cleaner it's a cleaner presentation if we don't two-part it we we present we say look this stuff we have and we want you to vote that and Part B is please this stuff we'd like and this is why we'd like it and we need your vote to go to the mgl I think if you separate them in time you get like that town clerk thing it's like weird and it it may not be it may not help us with the part B you know what I'm saying yeah no I agree I think it's weird to present yeah part one coming coming this spring part two the sequel right like I I also think there's may be some work to do on the just some of the not even the wording but the concepts in here um one of which and and I am going to get specific just because we've allocated quite a bit of time to to go through this but one of the things that I read in here on 3.3.3 F was the Town Administrator shall be responsible for leading collective bargaining negotiations for contract covering Town employees I mean I think that that's reasonable but I I would hope I think it's incumbent on the select board to be a part of that because that's a inherently political decision as to how you know how much or how little you know because they're just lots of considerations and we need to take in you know feedback that we get from the community and so I think you know give delegating that author I think we have to be very cautious or careful on how we we prescribe this type of thing that's one example and you know I I thought there's another in there um I about uh uh I thought it was about the the signage or various things no but it was it was a thing that's a public facing you know decisions and and again I think that things that are I don't know public facing often you know there's one thing this I I very much support the idea of this ta bog very much because I do think we need a a better umbrella for the town to have you know consistency with our staffing and really to have a I wouldn't call him a CEO or her but a person who can oversee that consistently and and really make you know decisions relative to uh efficiently and effectively running the town the daytime government but we need to as the select board need to set the policy and have enough retain enough control to make sure we get that but the the goal here is is also to pull us out of some of the day-to-day decision making and things I mean we signed Cemetery deeds and we do this thing and sure you know that's that's nice but you know it takes a few minutes every time and we can be talking about policy or things that you know people want that was 3.3.5 um that you're talking about and it is somewhat like somewhat like what we're doing currently and but adding cuz think we've already delegated the signage at The Rotary for instance and the and the banners to um the TA and we've asked the TA to just notify us you know when he does it I just think it's about tightening this up and making sure it's exactly with I agree but I think you you're right but let's make a list but some of this this this came out of stuff that we've already done is what I'm saying okay yeah yeah oh I think it's a a great start what my concern is is I don't want to say say we come to the decision that should be on Springtown meeting I don't want this to be punted or put on the back burner I want to make sure that we're this is an area of continued focus and if the interim we either continually refine a bylaw Andor we pass a policy that reinforces the things that we're asking Ryan to do is there is there anything we could do in the interm I don't want to lose sight of how important this is to the selector board um and I don't know if if we take action and and put a deadline on ourselves to write a policy that is also the bylaw is that something worth doing because I just want to keep this top of mind and I want to I want to reinforce to the I like I like Barney I I think if we are if we I think what we could accomplish you know today or in the next few sessions is consensus that largely we want this right we're kind of pretty close to that point at now so now we get to the things that you're bringing up details you know and I like Barney's approach I think if we are of a mind I think then we should parcel out advocacy building and start with those elected boards that would be affected because that's going to take a while and and that would be something that you don't just throw on them like we would ask for their input have working sessions I think that's the way we keep the momentum going is to actually really focus on those things that we want to take to the mgl we should also articulate the common ground that we have the say the 80% of it that we agree on isn't controversial we should get that right in place so there's some working session stuff that we could do I think internally and you know with other boards that will take again we're approaching budget season and this and that you know it's going to take a little bit of time and we should make we should sort of plan that out and especially if we believe that we can present this at Springtown meeting now you're on a calendar right because you've got holidays in there and then you've got the budgets and you got all the other stuff so you really have to make up a a a uh proactive plan to you know do that I I I guess I would really like a to-do list and a timeline because I'm afraid that because it you know there's a lot of details and there is a whole list of things like what you'd rather have this done sooner have your homework done ahead of time than realize you're behind I don't want to get to to Spring meeting and we still haven't talked about all those little jobs Dy jobs that may be political may not be political like Signs and things like that you might need a working group you know you may need a working group and I agree with you and I think we're saying the same thing right get it done I don't think we need a a working grou we can we can we should have the final draft by like end of year or and then you realize oh we thought it was final but there's three other things you say we don't need a working group but it's not about drafting it's about these little things that have to be discussed I mean we can have them in we certainly don't want to when you say working group you mean working meetings here um well I'm thinking you got to then you really need to talk to staff as well as other boards to make sure all those little things are you know picked up I don't know the mechanics of it I'm just saying it's not something I think that should be a piece of our regular select board meetings yeah so pretty granular yeah so what we could do is um get ask um Council to review what we've got down here and tell us the pieces that you know for whatever reason you know they would recommend we make some changes or May and also separate out the things that they believe would need to go to the legislature versus those that wouldn't um I I could see and maybe there wouldn't be two people that want to do this but I could see two people from the select board um you know being responsible for some kind of a timeline where for instance we want to make sure there's a conversation with each of the boards that would be affected by this um just you know some general uh conversations um and the and then this the second would be the actual drafting of something and setting a deadline for when we want that fairly welldeveloped draft to be ready for um public disc yep well as your faithful chair I'll take that on um if you if you want I I think that it is important um and I would I think it's permissible under open meeting law but to have can I ask for a a second person I'll do it well no no sorry as soon as you have two people working on something this is you guys would have to have open meetings no it's so if you create it it's under your meeting law so as soon as the chair creates it but I'm not sure we don't want that as soon as the chair creates it you create it it's under open meeting law okay no matter how many people is that a bad thing I mean that may be helpful in our advocacy it could be um I I just think we can continue as a board we could do another we can discuss this I think there's there's time now what this is oml right I mean yeah yeah that's saying is a bad thing I'm just saying I'm not I'm not saying it's bad either I'm just saying from a how you're right process-wise how are we best getting this done so the two factors Travis that would make me want it to not be in this meeting is number one it's going to be very timec consuming and we don't have the time in this meeting we got so much to do secondly and all five of us don't need to weigh in we seem like we're pretty the second thing though is we want to invite I think you want to invite various people at different times and get their input and that's just not it's not as easy to do that in this kind of a meeting it's better to have a separate meeting where you kind of do that in my opinion yeah so why couldn't we why couldn't you as the chair um you know for instance for the input from other boards designate that you and another person or two other people from the board would you we could even divvy it up I don't know but anyway you know you ask to yeah ask to meet with the various boards for a preliminary discussion about this whole thing but particularly zero in on the stuff that that would affect them okay and that would be something we try to do in the next you know maybe we say we want to get that done by end of October beginning of November I I think that's that's good I just didn't know if you wanted to start with the draft we have or if we as a select board should massage a little bit so then we have something to to share and that was really but if you want to just go I would I would get back I would get info back from Council first before you do any massaging anything more yeah to so we understand you know what separate out the pieces first thing is separate pieces and the buckets and then also whatever other language is here that they would change or eliminate and why right so get their feedback on what we've got here and answers to the questions we asked and then start that process but I would also say that this me the members of this group should also think of some functions so for instance the one that's not in this list was dog the dog hearings if functions that we current that we currently do that we would like to offload onto somebody else you know we had Cemetery Deeds things like that so I I think we should be also collecting information from ourselves is there a list I mean I know we asked Ethan but is there a list somewhere of what select boards or this select board has as as a as functions there is I believe there must be a list somewhere in the um BW we have with the select I mean things like dog hearings I mean does that show up in somebody some kind of no not in our time town I mean is in some other towns yeah I I was having an interesting conversation with a guy over the weekend it was comparing the Navy and the Air Force Ander it's a little esoteric but he said basically the Navy says these are the things you cannot do and everything else you can do and the Air Force says these are all the things you can do and if it's not in here you can't do it and and the Air Force manuals are like 60 times bigger than the Navy manuals so do we have that way like these are the things we can't do and everything else we can do or the other way I don't have any idea you have master or law yeah cuz you're a statutory town so yeah it tells you what you all right so there's a list basically the list is if it's silent you do it okay so it's the Navy way okay what's the Army do by the way you don't trust people that much all right so I mean so so back it's not enumerated it's the things that are proh prescribed everything else the power so maybe we don't do what Kate said I guess you have to do it anecdotally then these are the things generally we do when we don't want we want to delegate them yeah right okay and I would like to have to delegate them only once and not have to relitigate them every time another example of it comes up I I think we need a I would advocate for a top down approach where we're versus a bottom up approach where we're interviewing every I mean I think we should the final whatever we present should probably be about of this length and detail versus a very detailed list of all these different things I think at some point detail becomes counterproductive so I think we need to figure out what are the general responsibilities and then as we need to add detail we can do that as necessary but I think we should start high level and go down I thought this was well done actually and and kind of captured some areas that were important I and the only thing that I question about it is is there stuff that isn't in here that should be in here y like is there stuff we're missing that we don't want to miss and so you need to scrub it for that and make sure we're not leaving something out that otherwise we would have put in there and then are what are the things in here that we really as a select board need to debate and discuss like you were bringing up and there's probably a list of five or six things that are currently under our pree perview that we want to debate and then the stuff that's not currently our preview that's where we do the advocacy and work with with the other groups well that's what I was just asking for that that things that are in our purview that we would like to delegate but certainly like the Board of Health anything to do with the Board of Health or planning board we that would not be within our that's not our perview yeah okay well we're going to keep going then I this is so you know perhaps um the chair uh could work with the vice chair and just do a timeline sounds right of what we're trying to do when and maybe we chunk it out like tonight we're discussing the things under our prview that I'll come back to you in the next meeting with with some kind of timeline right all right but I think this is really important because if we're going to move this forward you're right we need a and I think the sooner we involve the other chairs of the other statutory committees uh the better uh to let them but I would not not do it before we have had this vetted by the council and yeah we should have a clear idea of what our what we what we want right right yeah I agree what we're trying to accomplish and and I think it's important that um we're not it's not a power grab what we're trying to accomplish is I think um a smoothly working daytime government um that works efficiently and um cooperatively and we would like to have some and and we don't feel that that can happen without some management some some management period full stop and we feel that a good place to put that management um is in the TA position and but we need to have their buy in for that to assure that and you know that things run smoothly because it's also the be because also we we are the ones that are need to ensure that all the tax dollars get used as efficiently and and as possible I think we are collecting enough taxes I don't think we're we are um dispersing and getting our money's worth in certain areas because we are not able to manage the staff okay thank you Kate um can I can I mention one you sure can whole process things I'm sorry so um the government study task force governance task force governance Task Force study committee yes working group bylaw whatever the name is um sorry they interviewed dozens and dozens of staff and board members and if you read The Narrative of that report you can see years and years of of where the conflict points are and I think that's a good place to start I do think this Board needs to have a discussion about so when we put up the town organizational chart it was very clear in your minds this position select board never give to TA this position give to ta so you you have that in your mind right like you have your your Chiefs the town clerk was in that bucket at one point um thoughts of Finance director Etc so clearly articulating that would help this process or working group or whatever you create so we never want the Town Administrator in charge of the the police chief because the police chief is a direct select board hire like that that Clarity is is important um one of the talking points you keep talking about so the staff has become a proxy for for board fights in many instances so this is really about staff Clarity not board functions so staff should be doing the execution and policy work of all the boards not fighting policy fights amongst each other because the boards haven't talked about what they want and um the what you've talked about a little bit is the delegated tasks so what tasks do you want to download would help yeah a clear list if you if you can give those high level like yeah then the the subcommittee or the working group doesn't have to figure out what everybody wants with those things because those are kind of the key topics and and the last thing is the personel thing I think still the Town Hall hours and things like that whether um offices are you know even down to lunch schedules you know to make sure that there's always somebody sitting somewhere so that if somebody so if we have a resident walking wandering in that they can get some service or I mean is that if we're delegating to the TA do we need to get granular like that no I'm I'm saying this in general that okay um they're if there's a statutary statutory board they may not feel that they have to cover their office you know the there a Personnel it goes under personnel management again I'm going back but I agree with management yeah Scott though we should really try to be top down like as broad as we can and not redo the the homework as you were pointing out a lot of work's been done on this and I would say based on what the attorney said it sounds like we may already have the purview of operations we should get clarity on that and move forward with whatever yeah well that's that's okay we don't need the bylaw that's one of things that keeps on stinking rearing its ugly head that's that's why I want to make sure that it's clear and that it's clear that it's the TA that makes those decisions we can confirm that piece with the attorney if it's if we if we currently have that ability then we should clarify that and Implement whatever we need tol I can answer that for you you do not okay so that would require special legislation this this town hall operates in four different ways okay so that needs we don't currently but you by by law we don't have that ability okay cuz well the only so as a as a manager the only Authority I have to make someone sit in their seat is the ability to hire fire and evaluate so if they're not in their seat then I have to go to the person who has that Authority and say do you want to do something about this and sometimes the answer is no fair enough I can't make someone sit in their seat if the person who's actually in charge of them doesn't care so vice versa I can't make them do professional development and so so we can set certain operation parameters but you can't Force those operation parameters we can say Town Hall's open from 9 to 5 but if a a boorder committee wants their employee to work in a different way then that office is closed from fair enough three to five and then we have my favorite complaint from residents which is Town Hall's open why isn't someone here and I go I don't know not great go see the go see the chairman of the export right it it brings why we're pushing I mean this is it's needed but it's just the process that we're going to do I know it feels granular but I just want to REM remind people why we are doing this yeah yeah well in going back and I don't want to belabor it but going back to all my years on the finance committee this was always a very top of Mind issue previous Town Administrator and you know approach the role differently and trying to get answers and Staffing and you know trying it's been an ongoing struggle um as as the work on the budget and the solution is to to do something like this and to have clear Authority otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and it's necessary yeah okay well we will move on and we'll have a timeline next meeting um we going um we're going to move on to the 25 select board goals um I thought it would be helpful to kind of review those but I also know that there are some specific things um that are going on on that are that are you know important and we should just kind of get an update on those um so I can actually ask the TA if you wanted to talk about those various components and go over them that would be great sure so here is the next look at that this are the next two years trying to keep it simple the last year plus the next year thank you for not picking red as the color for 2025 by the way gives me gives me optimism it's green yeah is good pass the so here we are in September there's 4 months left plus the next 12 so I'll start with the police station um renovation so the police station renovation we will likely have an OPM selected by the middle of September at the latest which means that that OPM has to quickly get up to speed with the police station building renovation committee work with the designer and then get the bid set out to bid assuming that we have the final approval from the Board of Health so I more likely than not we're bidding in early October with a late October early November return and then a selected um construction company for November December the ability to do a little bit of work this is all like um I'm thinking positively so a little bit of work in December and January um we will start the bulk of construction in 2025 um as soon as construction season begins and it likely will take a year given the working around operations Etc that's my guess so that's the building that one's already done the library has a very similar time frame assuming they get their funding done so if they don't get their funding done then um the design has to be re rebooted or cut down so both of those have building committees about to hire PMS which should start the construction process and they both have very similar timelines so those are good yeah can I ask when when you say the library get their funding when is the kind of end of that process when do they have to get their funding by there is no deadline so it's once we hire the OPM and Bill's here too he's on the building committee once they hire the OPM they'll work with the designer and get something out to bid but you can either bid without the the funding and hope to get the funding to match when the bid comes in and the construction season starts or you're going to have to redo the plan right you can't bid it without the money I mean you can't accept the bid without the money right you can't sign the contract without the money you can bid it saying we are hoping to get the money do you still want to bid so back to Travis's question what in that timeline what's that drop dead time that they have to have the money so that committee and the library trustees will either have to decide one way or the other so to to be more definitive if they want to bid without the money then well let's say they do without the money but when do they absolutely when they put have the money in you have to have the money in the bank when you've selected a design I know in your timeline when is that oh I don't know you just gave a timeline he said the library is the same so is it like Christmas time I I just you said we in the police case we'll pick a construction company November December I assume that means signing a contract with a construction company so let's say library would be the same with a caveat of there might be another decision in there right but in this timeline what you I think where we're going is they really need to complete their fundraising by the end of the calendar year if they're going to be on this citec can I can I just I see that there's a member of the you're welcome to speak Bill if you want introduce yourself I'm Bill Riso um Ryan's kind of right and it depends because there's ways doing this which the OPM will work on and we'll decide on as the design is progressing there's going to be estimates being done it's going to be what estimates being done okay because there is a right now we have a certain amount of money so right now the design is going to be for that certain amount of money as it progresses so the total funding gets gets raised if you will then they're going to do everything that this the trustees and Library people want done but it doesn't there's going to be Des scoping along the way right and that Des scoping so that at least the pro some of the project will get done yeah right so you're saying there's no no scenario where there's not enough money to really do the project because there's already they've already raised enough money to do something exactly so there so there's going to be compromises because you know no nobody gets everything they want right but um that's the scenario I see that's happening with this and uh so it's you know I think it's going to be something's going to be done at the library it's just how much of what we want done or the trust do you know how much more they need to raised on the private side not sure I don't know I okay I I'm not aware of that real rough 4 to 500,000 to meet the 2023 estimate mhm which could be now behind yes because there's been inflation in all y just happening okay construction there was some construction costs that went down but then there was a then went up so yeah thanks hopefully so that will the reason why I'm throwing this in your select board goals as well because it's mostly the trusties and their funding but there will be a decision on elevators and expansions and other MFC projects that are tied to that renovation um that you'll have to make not this second but um yeah it'll be cheaper to bid it out as alternates and then you'll have to fund in a certain cycle so are you saying that let me say it a different way if there was no Library renovation project and they needed an elevator we they would be looking to the town to do it right yeah the fact that they're doing a Renault the add-on or whatever of an elevator is still ours like they're looking to carve that out of what they raise and back to more precisely it's the HVAC the 42 units little individual units that they have all over them and the El and the El and the okay for that yeah okay well we'll talk about that later well in theory you have y okay all right all right so fire moving on to fire so fire bids for the OPM are due September 30th so the end of what I'm now considering this month but we still have a couple days so you will be selecting your OPM in October let's say by the end of October you'll have your OPM the OPM is supposed to help you walk you through pre-design and then help you select a designer that will convince you of the the the scope of the project that's necessary to renovate the fire station and what those costs will likely be if you remember we've had those discussions before so let's say that's November December to get that done knowing right now that you only have one meeting in December so being optimistic there so if you were to go to Spring Town meeting with a design and build like you did with the police station the design would have to be completed in 60 to 90 days with permitting so I'm being recommender to you and saying it's not likely to be ready for spr that's too fast any with the clarity you like on the cost and potential permitting Etc so I'm telling you that because if you want to meet the next deadline this has to become a priority for your goals the next deadline be being the fall or the next Springtown meeting and then we usually don't do Financial things in the fall so we're really might be looking at Spring of 26 right because it's hard the reason we don't is because how do you raise the money in the fall you already have a budget so so it's a year a year from it's a year and a half away but he's saying that we got to keep our foot on the gas here if we want right but you're you said that if we wanted it for fall town meeting with I mean Springtown meeting you'd have to have a 60-day window I'm assuming if you're a year out you got a 360-day window so that's should be enough should be do yeah unless we decide to do it in the fall because it's a bounding um how do you how do you do that explain me how you do that well it's not a budgetary item it's just it's I mean it has to do with money but it's not in the operating budget that's so Nuance it's N I don't know I defer to Scott he's his finance committee on record about financial items and fall Town meetings um I don't know we'll have to discuss back to police though if we start construction as early as practical in 2025 based on what you know of this project when is occupancy by the end of the year when when is there a new fire uh police station would be until so probably a year from when you start a year from when you start right because they have to work around operations long we have rain okay so it could be like early the spring of 26 because they're not stopping occupancy they're staying they being police right but it's important I mean it's relevant because now we're it sounds like we might be talking about the fire station budgeting in spring meeting of 26 which is around the time we're done with police and take a breath and keep unless we have it in 25 and we just have more of a you know maybe we don't have the specificity we we don't have the specificity ideal specificity we desire but again you can't go over what's approved at town meeting yeah that's yeah okay all right I got it okay all right so now we get into your favorite um type of planning which is nebulous planning so hey it's not our favorite it's just what we're good at are you talking are you saying that we order soft serve ice cream is that what you're say yogurt yogurt this this is the this is the budgetary equiv after the soft serve it's the budgetary equivalent of soft serve ice cream so one two projects you have slightly moving and two projects aren't aren't moving at all so I'm going to start with the cranberry bog house and the DPW r so the cranberry bog house right now is being investigated for the ability to use CPC funds in order to pay for some type of project or to Kickstart some type of project or to do something with affordable housing in the cranberry bog house the reason that's been identified of a goal is because it's possible maybe and because it has a funding source like CPC if you go down that rout so if you hit the gates by the Fall you would then be starting the design investigation in the spring of 25 meaning it's concluded that we can access CPC funds to do that and that you're okay with the goal of the building which is this typ and that vote would happen in fall toown meeting so then you're looking at either fall or 26 spring in order to no but I mean if the gates the gate says it does qualify but don't you still we still have to go to town meeting to say this is approved use of CPC the gate just says it's eligible so if it's eligible then you'll get some type of conceptual design that would likely get a CPC request in the spring spring of 25 and then there would be a design and build at some point with maybe like a habitat funding or some other funding but that's likely spring of 26 yeah right before you came before town meeting considered an actual yes if you keep this on your agenda yeah doesn't fall off yeah but I I guess I'm still want to Clarity so the the now time is is it even possible right then they say yes it's possible then in the Springtown meeting of 2025 there's an one of those normal CPC requests for some design money right then that process starts and then in the following year you have a definitive of if you if you keep your eye on that prize yep all right so the DPW the MFC is right now um working with a designer or an architect in order to give you some idea of what a renovation would cost what a new build would cost and why you would do one or the other so that one is likely 2027 if we're being realistic this is the DPW right that you that you'd even be able to think about doing something like that 27 28 just out of curiosity the longer lead time for that is just do due to the complexity or yeah so the first time you're going to be exposed to it then it's going to be do you want to design it and then do it right so I think it's also in priorities of you know we' started with police fire you know just in need basically it's kind of the third of the three police fire and then fourth of the four well there are others but and there's others behind but as far as Municipal facilities it needs um the MFC has been reviewing it has had architectural plans that we've reviewed or or ideas with the architect and you know we're just we're com we're working towards you know a working toward bringing a recommendation to the select board yes but why the extra year though I guess that's the part that Scott's asking I think that that was just from a budgetary timing standpoint as to the amounts of logically how things are going to fit in our interpretation of your prioritization of this right okay so in other words it's not if we had suddenly woke up and said this is our number one priority it it wouldn't take that extra year it would be probably turn that around very quickly it's a pretty simple right it's not that part it's not the complexity it's the urgency in financial ERS also that you haven't you haven't seen the yeah bill and the the conceptual on so B house you can kind of picture it the DPW haven't seen it right so when when in that process does that rough idea I presume then this working committee at the MFC or the architect is like option A is here's a new design and option b here's a Rena and here's the rough order magnitude of those costs yeah and that's coming in the next couple months okay so that'll be soon that's fall 24 that we would have a to that okay all right thank you all right so then there's two that have no plans or nothing moving right now so that's the Highland building and the community center so the community center there's a lot of skulls and scoping being done but no studies or definitive plans nothing in front of the select board in the Highland building you know that I don't have to rehash the Highland building so why does this matter for your goals the DPW has a significant amount of of capital investment in the next 5 years so you want to you'll want to bring this forward cranberry bog house has been identified in your goals as coming up with some type of plan and then you have to fit in the Highland building and the community center in any of these discussions if you want to talk about financial impact and and other things so the point of this is just to kind of get you to wrap your mind around how to prioritize these things um as you've all said and David said tonight you only have so much time at these meetings and we need to know what to focus on as staff and I'm sure your chair would appreciate it too yeah yeah well we did ask the school committee to focus on the Highland building and I hope that they are focusing on it and that they'll come back to us in a couple of months to you know to let us know what they're thinking so maybe you could Goose um and I'll I'll I'll be talking with the school oh you okay and and Jim moay yep but I mean for us at least in the immediate term police fire right the library I don't know how much we time in our meetings we spend on that it's it's part of the larger I just want you to know about it also the CPC funding that was approved is tied to them meeting the goal goal too I was just thinking about that that could come back to you if they don't yeah I would think the DPW renovation will become an increasing part of our agenda as the year progresses and it'll be way more expensive than You're Expecting in cuz it's even though you think it's you know going to be a simple building or be just a steel building or I mean well and then how do the C how do these six building projects fit with other things that require Capital which are plenty so I've been watching rockport's new DPW and they're now at 17 million so six years ago it was supposed to be 2 million sounds like a Massachusetts project so um how how to flush these ideas out so you have to meet you have you don't have to do anything but you should meet with the MFC about the DPW when they're ready um definitely needs to be a conversation with the council and aging and about their designs on a community center the school committee as you mentioned already M and then um you're really going to have to push the fire up your agenda if you want to cuz if we don't then we Miss markers right so for every month we miss yeah it's not a good thing it's it's not a good thing and really fires should be ahead of uh DP I know but I'm right once you get your OPM sitting here yeah it's going to go pretty pretty quick and um that process is being done by who we're doing the hiring for the fire OPM right so that needs to be on our agenda yeah and this is one of the reasons for having this conversation so that usually that's probably going to be two meetings so you're going to have to vet each proposal and then you're going to have you're probably going to want to identify an interview like most of the Committees have which means you're eaing up two to four hours of your your meetings in that month in order to keep that process moving I I might suggest we might have to have an extra meeting yeah either maybe the morning one or when we're fresh or just one yeah specifically around that op p.m. yes when do we know if there's a fall town meeting see we've open we've opened the warrant already that could free up some time in October um well it might could yes absolutely um I would say that um pretty soon you'll know about the adus um that's what I was at today um was that how the um the new Mass housing law affects the um affordable not affordable accessory dwelling units and um and how it impacts our um um what's it called housing byw no we have we have a bylaw but we don't call it we we call it accessory um we don't call it accessory dwelling units we call it um shoot anyway it won't mean anything to us anyway well the thing is that's yeah we have to we may have there's a bylaw we already have a bylaw that does something similar to this new law and planning board has to decide whether they want to wait until um more regulations come out to change our bylaw or whether we they'll just change because they wanted to refresh it anyway they we'll know more in a couple of weeks well you only have one shot at the king yeah you don't want it well yeah in terms of the state law there's the king but I guess also um if that's the only thing on the agenda is it sufficient or should it roll to because it's a lot of work to prepare for town meeting expense even if there's just one item nobody likes multi-day Spring Town meetings but there's something to be said for packing all that stuff in like the way the MTL does it and everybody's say yeah yeah yeah okay let's get sure you know move on right I wanted to talk about that with your goals too as part of this strategic session here so right now it's lining up assuming that this goes the way it sounded tonight there'll be a TA bylaw an Adu bylaw MBTA communities plus the budget it sounds maybe not a fire station so spring is I mean it's two nights be a big big one but but it better two nights in one meeting than two nights in two meetings right I think I mean even though we may regret that in May but I that is a lot of time just wasted sort of nonproductive time to create if a meeting if there's like one agenda I I agree I agre I do too when when did we close our warrant this 24th of September the 4th 24th of September well I don't think we can close it early in case something comes out at us but we we could by by the 24th we should know whether we're having a fall time meeting or not okay all right and now uh the budget so budget priorities before I'm not sure if you're going to go through the goals or not but the I'm trying to be cognant keep going so for budgeting priorities there will be a discussion with the finance committee and you will get a financial forecast and in capital planning reviews so we're going through those processes now so that'll help shape your priorities but I would like to call attention to the things we just talked about so all the the building projects and and other things in addition to the regular cap capit which um David referenced which is um includes and you should know this now um a million doll elevator project for the three towns so what was a $200,000 item in an arpa of 140 is now the cost of one elevator so there's three elevators in town that need to be fixed Town Hall um an elevator in the school and the library so the MFC is going to use their funds to design it and get it ready to go and bid maybe even bid it and then the project will be ready to go so that should save money but it's very expensive but it's a million dollar the three but total yeah you think okay uh and when we're doing our budgeting when will we discuss you know we sometimes we've put some sort of cap like you know what we thought the tax cap is what or should be do we want do we do that at the beginning or at the end of the process well it's funny you mention that because that is kind of what we need to kind of codify is the process because we've been working at trying to develop a new budgeting process and you know we can come up with that or you know I don't know if there are right in other words the the question of what is that percent or at least what's the rough or close two% that we think we want to try to meet um in terms of well tax increase just I I'll go ahead and Jump Right In I think we have to think about more than what we have done in the past because we have these things and I think it would be better if we ramped up rather than suddenly have you know 12% big jump in one year so regard whether we I don't want to say whether we need it or not because we do need it I I think it would be we we I guess I would like to see the plan and then talk about how to ramp it up rather than make some sort of a cap now and have everybody try to you know and it's futile I mean I've been on the other side enough times it's like here's a percent or and it's like yeah then you start the budgeting process I think what what you're getting at and what I'd like to see is like not here's the goal for this year it's like we it's the plan right like let's look at the 5year plan or the 10-year plan let's understand okay this year and have the finance committee come back with this year we think we need a larger increase but we're going to offset it in two years because you know it's it's part of a larger picture um and so I'm not a big fan of here's a cap for a given year because it always falls by the wayside once you get into the actual budget it's more understanding that host of projects and what does the 5year look like what's coming down the pipeline does that mean we have to give up something this year because next year we know this is coming down um I think that's what's important I I you know and I I guess I'm also wondering if when you know how many if every so let's say every 10 years or so we shouldn't do zerob based budgeting to see where you know because very often people just roll their budgets over they you know they say okay we're going to do you know 2% because and I understand the the salaries you know we kind of go that way but the thing is are there functions that are being done that no longer need to be done um well that ties back into the town administrative it's yes sure but you know I've been through the zero based budgeting things too and they're really just kind of hand waving Honestly by the time we get done so I think the bigger issue and I agree with the way Ryan is tackling it the operating budget we've been pretty good about keeping a lid on operating budgets even in the face of unfunded mandates that come down and you know more complex needs and all this and that so to my mind again kind of simplifying it if if I'm confident that the operating budget can be held at a 2 and a half 3% slope like okay there's a lot to do but you know each year is a different story and there's always new needs I mean there's maybe a few things you can carve back but then gee sustainability raises its hand and you're buying you know a hydrogen bus right or something so no you laugh but that's what's going to happen right so but now you get to these projects these big deal projects and all these other cap acts that's where I think where Ryan is justifiably focusing in a long range plan so just my advice is just he'll manage the budget we'll manage the budget of operating side but putting together the capital pieces and modeling The Debt Service that flows from that is really the trick and in the The Challenge was always in the past where you just get the same budget and we the challenge in previous years was there was no Town Administrator doing the budget vetting process to begin with so you just didn't know right this was legitimate or Not My Hope Is that just by virtue of the way Ryan is approaching the role and what we're talking about with uh with the bylaw change is that he's doing the vetting yeah he maybe he's doing zero based budgeting for for a given department or maybe he he' like to well or but but there's a there's a day-to-day vetting that's not from within the department and it's not just each department advocating for themselves that's what I I think that's partly someone's someone it's rolling up to the Town Administrator so we agree I mean that's so the challenge is modeling the the bigger Capital chunks and knowing ahead of time if on that and knowing ahead of time if for whatever reason there's going to be a hit one way or the other in the operating budget in a given just so it's not like the assessment ratio you overlay things yeah yeah okay we answer your question hopeful from us this so the the biggest the focus of the select board for the next couple years clear from this presentation is deciding the big Capital um and and what and where to invest because there there's a lot of Truth to what's been said tonight there's there's no way to control that cost accept to decide what you are or not going to do it will not fit into the operating budget as it exists now with service is the way it is you'd have to slash which could be an answer um but these are all things that are being discussed and individually they are very well supported I think you need to talk about how they fit into the bigger picture we're going to have to use debt for these big capital projects I mean yeah and it makes sense to use debt I mean right it's just how much do we want to take well that's that's you need a debt schedule and you need all that timing of it and how's it how's that how's that interacting with the school debt coming down and all that stuff I mean I mean we haven't we haven't asked for an override in a long time because our we've been fiscally prudent and the we've had to get but as Ryan points out I think I forget when but you know this modeling will show there'll be a it's one thing to say well we need a 5% tax increase but statutorily we have the the the cap right we can we have a lot of excess Lev I don't think we like over $3 million I think so we still we wouldn't do that in a given year okay yeah okay good that's good to hear I mean we' fun it with if it was a project at one point that we were going to bump up against that we can't take on $100 million project but if we raise the tax rate now and have we take that's that's the whole picture it's whole complicated I I sorry I I I think that part of the picture would be an analysis of um how much is stabilization fund how can then increase the amount of debt that we could tolerate um because it would kind of cut off the we keep our you know station we want to smooth it out right we want to smooth it out so that's why I guess I I this year might be advocating for a slightly higher um tax rate to let it float up a little to to fund the stabilization so that when some of these big things hit it's not as yeah a big deal or it may not it may just be by virtue of the timing the debt doesn't hit for another three years you know it's it's it's hard to say like next year it might not be next year it might be the year after where you're really taking well I like the I like the sequence that Ryan laid I mean I'm not crazy about saying wait wait till 2027 for DBW shed or something but in theory in in purely looking at it as a financial planning exercise the sequencing of police Library sort of hopefully a minimal load on us fire then tackle you know cranberry bog then tackle DP in that sequence again politics aside you sequence a set of those capital projects for the next you know I don't know eight nine years and then you have to lay in the roads and the other things the elevators all you know which we're doing a better job now of for for casting I think the picture starts and there's always extraordinary Ence but the picture gets clearer of what that piece is going to look like and then you get back to that mechanic that you're talking about when is the appropriate time to to raise a little more money and by the way as you all know the best time to take on debt is when you don't need debt that's what exactly that's um but it not putting politics aside I think I would like to bring politics into it because I think we need to start LOB being rather uh aggressively and maybe asking other towns to help us or to Ally with us to the state to have a an organization or a funding mechanism that would be similar to the school building um funding mechanism Municipal fac facilities we are not the only one only town that are in bad shape with facilities we are in much better shape than a lot of towns fin okay but so the thing is I think we need to start working also at the state level to get them to listen to that and to start funding there is that advocacy building at all you're you're in touch with small towns that that is the number one priority for small town administrators or one of the number one priorities because of this reason so almost most towns are able to handle their operating and their basic Capital it's these big projects that keep either crushing that or getting delayed are they trying to build ad advocacy now yes it's fun it's finding a fun source so things have been discussed like the millionaires tax and and others but they keep getting eaten up by things priorities familiar right so but we could we could invite our rep and yeah we should do have a discussion with him so that he understands so another the two things I talk about all the time so surpris when we do their five-year Road plan to meet what you said you want for basic it's going to require more Capital so more chapter 90 would allow you to use your money that you would have used on roads to fund building debt so they got to when I say they don't have to do anything but there there should be a give somewhere to help small towns tackle these problems Big Towns tend to have okay buildings really high pressure operating small towns kind of the opposite yeah so you mentioned something at one point maybe cued by the Westford Road thing we we talk about the pavment plan you know we've seen the studies and that maybe it's somewhere between 500,000 and a million a year could be a absorbed in that but then you mentioned culverts like there's this lurking that problem we just had is is repeated in other are you have a sense of that we know of at least two and they're million how much are they 500 each or 5002 million a piece yeah okay so that's kind of in line with an the yellow change oh yeah I mean it is compared to buildings but yeah it's a lot of money right we just use gold bars to fill in I wish be cheaper so Ryan do you have what you need from us relative to that I mean I think we're kind of maybe collectively asking for some budgeting scenario scenario is that well and I I if I were to articulate it I'd say we want to kind of business like maintain service operating budget and we want to plan to how we're going to fund or the formation of a plan how we're going to fund the priorities we're talking about tonight in terms of the large capital projects to me to fincom is what they should really be focused on the number one thing the select word can do to help in all this is to make some prioritization decisions right about on the capital spending about the the capital spending yeah um which is not which is probably the hardest thing to do so you're being asked to to lead but it's it's how much to spend on roads how much to spend on operating and then how does how do these big projects fit into that picture we can help you with the rest y um and then I definitely wanted you to see and your chair wanted you to see the timelines on these things so that um when you do decide to take a discussion and and push it I just want you to know the impact on that so definitely don't want to rush any decisions but yeah we need to spend enough time to make some which I think has been happening it's not not happening you're going to start having some I noticed scheduled some already some Capital hearings and stuff right or meetings I don't know if they're hearings but y so we want to get this the capital plan done first yeah because it it really impacts the rest of the budget and th those meetings will involve multi-year Lookouts right so in order to do that Capital plan do you need the select board to say this is our list this is our priority list you know police fire bgh house DPW I mean is that what you're looking for it's I mean at some point you'll have to or some version of this board will have to but um it needs to yeah yeah okay so the first thing you asked me when I started here was what can we afford right and that this is the this is the pushback on that is you can definitely afford something what do you want what do you want to afford yeah let me say that you know typically This Is Not Unusual right we we get in the rush of preparing the 2026 budget so we're very you know when you're focused including often the capital items that are on that list we you know better over the last I don't know 5 years or so getting much better at putting a 10-year plan again buildings aside dump trucks and you know other things we getting a lot better at sort of populating a multi-year spreadsheet of those things and I think part of it in my opinion and I think the meetings that we're going to have with each department on that that granular stuff I think presenting that and saying okay it not just this year but how does it look for these five years like do you agree like that this is where those things should be and then you can lay in these bigger things and it'll be I think better it'll it'll get a better and then of course we'll do like then we should do some Debt Service modeling types assumptions to really say all right here's some data on what the impact of those priorities and we should be able to do a little you know switching around I mean Ryan is is in extremely fasil with spreadsheet you know scenario building which is you know really helpful I think great um did we finish ta report well no I just wanted to quickly while we're arpa yeah we're going to go to arpa next but uh is there anything else goals in our yeah well no the goals I I just had wanted to make sure kind of keep our eye on what we had originally targeted and and we can do that literally I think minute or stands well we've studied the the fire station I think is on you know at Le we have a Target the Highland building is we're waiting on the in on the school committee the bog house we've talked about you know the process there and then um and then prioritizing CPA funds um we're going to we're working on um fiscal sustainability um we promote Implement resource sharing that continues um ensure the establishment performance review system used by all departments some of that is going to have to come through the TA bylaw if that is going to really be moved forward review the revolving funds and establish appropriate policies um then connectivity and access um touring town-owned buildings we've done our first one but we are going to I think do I think that's really helpful frankly um support town meeting study committee I don't know DAV if there's anything new to report on um no I mean we've been sort of quiet this summer we're meeting on Thursday and um we're continuing to refine the survey Nancy and Danielle are really working statistically to get some more feedback we're now in a mode of reaching out to comparable towns to see but you know everybody's got like the same problems basically is what we're learning right and um so I don't know I was hoping we were considering that we would be able to try some things at fall toown meeting as a test bed for really making some changes for Springtown meeting um but maybe it's just that we do that in spring so yeah you might have to yeah all right um and then the other part of the connectivity access is review and take to toown meeting the Town Administrator bylaw to established clear Authority and responsibilities of the Town Administrator and we've certainly we're moving in that process and where that far environmental stewardship um environmental sustainability committee to develop a metric to evaluate the cost and benefits of Economic and climate impact costs I mean they've worked on that relative to the the um climate leader which by the way was one of support and finalized time climate leader application implementation so that's been voted on um study car's underground water supply and obtain recommendations for balancing protection of car's water supply that's that's happening that's happening we had a we had a working well we had a working session who was was me and anybody else no it's just you the so we had a pre I could report on that so we had a a pre workking session should have brought those maybe I have them we had a pre-working session um I can actually tell you about that with uh ad Addie Grady Julie and Tony and myself kind of outlining what we could and couldn't expect from a study and and then um and then and there was Universal support including Tony and bard of Health for getting the rest of the records digitized so that we can have a full set of those things and you know maybe use some funding to accept they believe that Town Council told them that the revolving account could be used for that so they have the money to do it we just have to get them to do it so then we had a very good session with I just excuse me I do want to point out there was money at they had money for well Board of Health um sorry planning board did uh planning board did okay plan yeah it's it's really the board of health records that we're trying to get okay the other ones I think are being digitized I could be wrong about that is that right Brian it's the Board of Health that hasn't digitized their records yet change a couple Department planning board is Bo kcom yeah kcom is another they're the other one dragging their heels but I mean we're trying to remove impediments right so there's money there to do it there seems to be Collective will to do it okay we um we met with uh uh horley Whitten group uh and they I was pretty impressed with them they have a consultant the guy named Adam Kowski who they've been working with and um also uh Christine Johnson is on the Housing Trust yes and she's a civil engineer so so I think there was a general con I mean the the I don't want to spend too much time on this tonight but the problem that Tony always articulates and he's not wrong is we have this really Hodge not hodge podge but crazy quilt of different geological conditions and and and it would be like this massive study that probably wouldn't even have statistical power anyway to try to map that you know that's like mapping you know when you when the butterfly flaps its wings in Africa does a hurricane come right so that's not a good place to spend the money what what they did do is they create what they were calling polygons of similar geographies through those land records because every time you dig a well you know you do boring samples and perk studies so again if you digitize all that there's a tremendous amount of Legacy information that already exists right and if we spend some of that money with this consultant I think is the guy correct me if I'm wrong but I think this is the guy who has been helping Julie with the whole GPS project yeah so you take that stuff and you overlay it into the GPS and now you can say for example I don't want you know as an example only but let's look at the 1acre Zone in the historical Zone like let's just take a look at that let's look at what those wells look like what those perks look like you know that's indicative of a certain geology and by the way could you have density that's 2x right I mean that's an important thing so there's a bunch of um there's a bunch of uh things that we can do that are not really a little bit timec consuming the Consultants can do them but they're not that challenging and they would greatly improve the information that we have available so and I was pretty actually pretty impressed that I think we could do that and then we could I guess to just button this up um as it relates to MBTA if we were to narrow down to I think this is where we're going to go with this so you narrow down to again I'm using the term polygons and then Julie says don't use that word anymore but it's it's it's cluster like yes it's you know zoning clusters that one might say have a MBTA complex now we've got this we can say right let's look at that polygon let's look at what that looks like and is that practical you know is that a place we even could have a cluster so yeah okay um I think you know I think we and we have to spend the money by June 30th so the goal is to get it done yeah you know basically this year okay well just in we're a little over time on this but uh just to finalize a municipal vulnerability preparedness study um we're moving forward that's yeah that's actively moving actively moving yeah and then uh caring Community we had study and initiate plans for the Benfield property they haven't really started on that all great but that was one of our goals so got to keep that on the keep it on the list collaborate with the planning board to established goals and path for MBTA communities that's working that's what you were talking about we met today and we're making those the rental assistance program um was so that's kind of where we are just to kind of all keep on track with what we're doing all right so with that thank you for all that input um the arpa discussion and review y so I will um I'll be brief and there's certainly more detail that goes behind this but um I reached out to all the project owners that had active projects or unexpended funds to get an update on the status of their project the nature of the unexpended funds um in basically with the goal of ensuring that we we claw back any funds that are going to be unexpended in time that allows us to reallocate it to um a positive use prior to the end of this calendar year and ideally in my mind my my deadline is like mid October to be able to do that so right now uh if you look at the total official arpa that's available to be allocated by the select board we're at 98,2 3369 so that's currently free and unencumbered to be allocated um that went up from last time uh simply because we officially closed out the um the kitchen project at carile public school where we had allocated $40,000 that was ultimately funded through the uh lunch program so we didn't need the arpa funds for that so that's come back um so we have that right now and then there are a handful of projects that still require some additional information slash refinement of what they think they're unexp unexpended funds will be but among those I estimate about $40,000 um will be clawed back um in say the next 45 days by end of September that would give us around $140,000 of arpa funds to allocate by the end of the year and talking with Ryan we also met and went through these um one need we know um is there is uh Kelly had requested $5,000 to do to fund the audit that will be required because we're receiving arpa fund so there's a motion in there for that tonight um and then at least in our discussion and something we can discuss tonight is if we have this balance of say 140 135,000 $140,000 one potential use for that almost the entirety of that funds would be the uh fire station OPM um we don't know the exact amount yet but that's certainly a large funding use um we could apply that to Andor find some other um uses but the goal would be to get clarity on this number in parallel with when we're getting the the cost estimates back for the OPM so that we can make a decision at the same time on both of those don't we have to have it an encumbered by December 31 or by by the end of calendar year you have to allocate it um you don't necessarily have to spend it so there are a number of projects that are going to continue to spend money that are either contractually yeah that's fine you just can't you just you just January 1st of next year we can no longer fund a project with arpa Andor if a project isn't going to use all its funds it goes away so we just want to make sure there's there's no question these these other motions are things that you already counted the money's already counted right yeah so so so given all that so there's really no major action to take other than one is there how does this committee feel about using the funds for the OPM and or do we want is there another potential use that's on our radar now or should be we we should make these decisions again I want to leave time in case something goes sideways I want to be in a position by like say mid October to right to fund these things and if it's you know the next meeting after that that's fine but I don't want to suddenly rush to have to allocate funds so um I don't know how people feel if we want to discuss that tonight or discuss it once we get the information in well just on the Motions you've got and what you just said let me and let me just walk you through the motions so they don't pertain to that necessarily right so the there's three motions one is we had previously approved $140,000 for the grant elevator there was a request to change the definition of that money to include all three elevators because of what Brian had talked about so the first motion is simply to redefine and broaden the scope of a previously approved project that was limited to Grant to include three town elevators and that's something that has been discussed with Ryan and the school and everyone right but as it relates to that not the change in the motion but y we're allocating 140k on something that's going to cost a million so is is the 100 the like and then we have another 100 just coincidentally 's this 140k left over that might go to the OPM but should it go to the elevator cuz the the elevator is way under water so the I don't remember it off the top of my head but the elevator stud is about 300,000 for all to get to get just the study stud so this would go to the study designs everything so look it just everything everything to include bidding and and construction management so it's all um it's all architectural coverage so the 140 would be spent first of the arpa and then you would use the MFC funds that were going to go to fix the elevator to finish that process and then bring a final product to to town meeting that's what the MFC decided so this arpa is vital to that to that mission but not additional arpa Beyond this 140 no and then the actual million to fix it would be a springtime meeting article yes in Capital plan and the elevators will last that long yes okay yeah well well don't I I I met with Jim OA about the school one just given what happened there and um they he's comfortable with that plan um right and so this so this and that there's a reason why this also includes the language of creation project bid documents and construction oversight because that's specifically what this money would be going for also is it if the one of the elevators is the school elevator that has to dovetail into I'm sorry the library elevator that has to dovetail with that project is the STM vote in time for that how that makes up we hope so but either way it's going to get fixed okay all right so that's the um that's that's kind of the the first motion is it's the largest in in money but it's it's basically reallocating money that's already or redefining a project that's already been funded the second motion is just um just a we may as well do it it's a Julie doesn't need the uh 2,000 of the 10,000 we allocated to the Grant and then the final is just the um external audit and then and then the next step of this will be at a future meeting in October there'll probably be a list of six or seven motions where we're clawing back funds yeah because I think uh we're not going to need the 10,000 for the matching grant for the that's one of them yeah that when you look at the 40,000 um there's a number of little things like that um not little but that's there's some open questions on those types of items but those will all be resolved in the next month okay great so should we go ahead and do these motions yeah okay yeah I'm happy to move uh one probably should do them individually yeah I would do them individually I moved to amend CPS Grant elevator modernization arpa project number 30001 to approve $140,400 in arpa funds to be used to modernize the CPS Grant elevator Town Hall elevator and or gleon Library elevator this includes assessment of existing elevators creation of project bid documents and construction oversight second I think you're on the committee right so should I second it doesn't matter aren't you on the arpa have an arpa committee well we do have a committee but we haven't was not discussed by the committee or nor voted on it right that's sure okay we have you did the second no okay did it is there any further discussion okay we're all here so just a Voice vote all in favor I all right none opposed I move to amend the MVP Grant match arpa project total project total budget project number 17503 from $10,000 to $8,000 second okay any discussion all in favor I all right I move to approve $5,000 in arpa funds to be used for the FY 203 external single audit second any further discussion all in favor i y okay guys unanimously super quick if you don't reserve the arpa funds for the OPM there is no funds for the OPM so you would have to go to town meeting to fund the OPM slow that project down so that's a good reason to to yes and um okay is is it your sense that this amount of money or something in close to that range will will cover the cost of the OPM for the Fire Department fire station it's a good start okay all right but it it it'll get you to some type of decision for Springtown meeting Mee keep it on track otherwise you have to wait for funding yeah okay good all right so it's 9:20 I'd like to move on to the Town Administrator evaluation initial discussion this is just a bill good night Bill thanks Bill um basically a a brief discussion um but of how of the Town administrator's goals and then our kind of how we want to proceed with the um evaluation so the goals were published in here I don't know if the ta has anything you want to say about your goals or about this process uh yeah I'll put together something once we decide the process for all the select board about the goals um the part of the evaluation that was approved last year and that's been used for staff is is goals so you can pick or I can pick or someone picks the three goals that I'm evaluated on um I remember when we created these goals it was supposed to be ambitious some of the projects um have been Sil LED others we've done very well with um and then one I'm reminded that I said I would do and I didn't which is the Ada assessment and adding that to the capital plan it's a thousand excuses for everything but um it's good to keep on track with these things so the also the form so the the TA report that's in there that I said was wrong was supposed to be the form for the evaluation which is why it was in that section oh that's why that T I was wondering what the heck last week uh that was um thing was my mistake so the evaluation that we used for employees looks like this we tried to keep it to um this is very similar to last year but it's a little bit different so last year you had about eight rating categories and then goals so we streamlined this for employees and we grouped up categories to allow the evaluator to have some choice so the first section is management leadership and teamwork uh the next one is attitude judgment dependability creativity so you can rate on any or all of those communication skills resident or customer service and then job knowledge and ability to learn so we grouped it so it was just five and it gave you more flexibility for evaluation because the staff is being evaluated this way I'm also comfortable being evaluated this way but I wanted um you to make that call and talk to me about it so also included is three goals I'm pointing at it should be pointing up here the three goals and you evaluate on each goals each goal so it's eight it's essentially eight ratings and um we would so we would pick from these goals that you had three of them you could or or I could pick or we could pick right okay um I would really like all of you to pick three that you thought were important I think that would be more meaningful to me in terms of getting feedback on the evaluation but are the three from this list of 10 yeah list of 10 I have five I have six each one has each has two each one has two five times two that's 12 kindergart well but wait some one has three St oh I see the bottom one has three but the others have two there's 11 there's 11 and so when you say pick three pick three of the do the lined items not the no threea goals yeah or categories 13 goals them all in my uh so the process the process last year was and the go of this conversation some structure the process was that um I would provide you with a self-review and a review of my goals and then each select board member did their own evaluation and I met with the each select board member and then there was some consolidation of that into a public review by the chair yes the chair was the only one that saw our individual that's right valuations correct and then put that into something for a public form right yeah yep how does the board think of that I mean that part I think is almost statutory I don't know if it's statutory but it's good practice I thought it worked pretty well that part should not be that changed the chair should it really is important though that you follow the format you got follow the template right template because and it's a fillable template so you can just do it on your computer um but then for doing the scores later you know if you didn't all score it the same way got thought there was one issue though relative to any comment that got in there I had as the chair I still I couldn't just put my own com I couldn't pull out your comments I have to put it all in there I thought there was a a question of that so my suggestion to you by oml for the for the written evaluation that you sent to Travis that it be one bullet for each each section that you find to be important positive or negative so that because the chair can only consolidate the comments they cannot parasee they can't I don't understand consolidate you can't use judgment to pick and choose your comments and just you can't pick and choose you'd have to put everybody's comments but he doesn't have to say who said what right but but and that's what's made public and then you can make that public without discussing it publicly or an executive session which there's really no executive session for it so the what was good last year was that a lot of the comments were meant for a one-on-one discussion and to go over and and to change but not you might not necessarily want that whole paragraph to be public or right you do I don't know right so it's just to be more thoughtful on what is sent to the chair I see so you might words you could have maybe two versions of this format form one for the share and one to take with you to your meeting with Ryan as notes that you might want to and the one one thing I one comment I'd have about that part what in terms of meeting with the TA is um I would urge us all to do our um review that we want to discuss with the TA do it ahead of time to give it to the TA a day ahead or something rather than does I just think it gives it's it's a better discussion right if the TA is gets a chance to think about it and be able to and you all did last year yeah um I wanted to go back though on that uh form so the part that you're saying um I mean there'd be the scored part at the beginning and then we'd pick three of these goals for the lower part where we're looking at those goals but at the first first part of the this form the very first item is um staff management leadership teamwork so um I've been thinking a little bit about that and how um we s we have our own experience of of how you have been operated just from you know our observation of of seeing you in action but we don't have any kind of mechanism to have any input from the people that you're managing so I'm wondering if we should think about doing 3 some way of um asking staff for input um and I don't know whether that means we have to um you know def I don't know create a set of categories that we would like staff to comment on or rate in some way but or is that or is it you know kind of oneon-one conversations with maybe just a department has I don't know but I think it would be worthwhile uh to get some input from staff and maybe we can think about the best way I mean you're you're advocating kind of a 360 which is yeah yeah sometimes done not not often done by a senior executive to a another senior executive it's generally it's not always comfortable for the staff to be put in that position I guess well and then a question is you know do you want to allow stuff to be anonymous or anyway I I I do I just feel absolutely not then I so I would just say I think I want us to think about a do you think that that is is that something that's important for us to know more about which is for those that are being managed by the TA what is their experience and do they have but will you get you know what kind of will you get honest in input well or maybe it's not in a form maybe it's some kind of way you get you know you do one-on ones I I don't know what the answer is David but I so I I recently done this for an organization that I'm the president of the board and the CEO asked me to do a 360 and we had a committee that was doing the evaluation and one of the members of the committee is the one who did this the 360 she she went and she's really good at yeah you know HR type of stuff anyway she went and interviewed three or four the staff and then she wrote a summary of what she learned and she sent it to the committee so we could say for instance either the chair or the the vice chair might want to do that if they if you really think it's important right uh and then send that report to the rest of us but uh this way it's not Anonymous right what size or you know really large or larger organizations like the 360 because they can to your point take lower level people and have them talk more openly and they generally do sanitize that information yes and then they bring it up to a group and it's a piece of data right smaller organizations like this one and the one I run you're not a good manager if you don't have a good understanding of how that person's I mean that's that's all year round taking the feel observing people and I would I my feeling here is we're pretty good right now about attending these events and talking to staff and I I feel at least for me I have a pretty good sense of how Ryan is viewed by the staff I'm a little worried that when a board member which we are goes down into a staff and puts them on the spot that that first of all that they would want that and be if they really have a beef that they would share it with us so I I I question that the I think it's incumbent and we've made this comment before it's incumbent for us over 12 months to get our own sense of how Ryan's doing how effective we are as an organization how the people respond you know I mean that's my view okay well so I'm not I'm not afraid of that um and I think it it would help me in some way but maybe to move it I would suggest doing a pilot and seeing if it's valuable I have the well there's two of us in town that are publicly reviewed so I don't know I'd want to just open that up to a public process but maybe you pil it sometime I would love that feedback actually but if it's not useful then we don't consider it again and if it is useful then we do I like that idea I'd be willing to you know work on something like that if if the rest of the select board thinks it's worthwhile to try it I I think that I just want to understand the process for that because as you know this is a little different in that it's not this is a public forum and I I respect that and I you know want there to be public discussion but I also understand that you know there Personnel matters and things like that and I just don't know where kind of the how you best navigate that in this in this scene just as he said you know you have two public reviews that are I guess public in this thing and I you know it's important that we you know ask the right questions and have the right process well there's also I think we also have I would say maybe there's three objectives so the one on one where we prepare a review ahead of time and have a substantive and private discussion with Ryan I think is important for us for Ryan to get our direct non-open meeting law feedback on what we feel right constructively let's assume and also for us to hear from him on certain things that maybe again not may not want to share an open meeting so I I think that's absolutely good practice just from our working relationship with Ryan has understanding of us and or understanding him the open review the formal open review which is sanitized codified whatever I think is important as a benchmark you know it's a public point and and we're we're presumably happy with his performance and it butresses you know other decisions like what we do next time he has a contract right I mean speaking of that sorry to interrupt but that is something we need to talk is that coming up too is negotiating no but it comes up in February I believe this of5 we have to notify in 2025 right so we just don't want so you want that data point you want right so you need that data and we need consensus data the third one is just the public you know to the extent they're interested has very little insight into all the day-to-day stuff and so seeing something about how he's doing and how we evaluate I mean that at least my you know my experience in the superintendent world where there's a really formulaic way of doing it that's pretty important right that's that's how the board looks at the chief executive and people want to know that so I think maybe lumping two and three together and just saying the public the public product has sort of a different Mission than the private product they're linked because obviously data is data but they really really serving two different purposes and we should be clear in our own minds you know I think the first one benefits us and Ryan directly the second one is really more for the public it's it's a product for the public it's not going to it's not going to enhance our understanding of how the TA is doing if I'm is that clear you're except it's how we understand it's how we get there how we understand what how the other select board members feel about maybe maybe now you're skirting at the ml world so maybe not I mean that's not that's not really the purpose because now you're having a a non-public meeting about I would I would keep that out of it I would say you want to develop your working relationship no but what I mean is the only I haven't been through this process so um the only time I see any feedback from other select board members I have my conversation right but I don't know what your conversations are and I don't know if my view aligns with your views right and so I guess that the rollup is the only place where I get any sense of if well that gets to Okay then if you have it specific for attribution which I don't think we want it to do right you can do that that's a way to do it but we have it we didn't do that last time right we didn't put comments for attribution so maybe I just don't know I would say if yeah I if we do a 360 if one individual does the 360 for the rest of us I think one thing we would I would like to see is a set of questions that would be asked of the of the staff and that we agree on the questions and what they are and they should be very specific and they should have to do with that one point that as as Barney was bringing up about this management and make it clear to them that that's the only thing we're asking of them as well when is this process we it is starting now but it's like when do you when do you anticipate having like the sit Downs thing we did it in what December okay oh it should be done by Thanksgiving Thanksgiving okay why is that because then it rolls into myone else oh I see contractually supposed to evaluate me at the end of my year and that was this week and um the new your new contract are we trying to get you on the same uh June one July one um date to for the next for your next contract ideally we're trying to align all contracts yeah which year now it's August August August 21st so it so the renewal is a year from now year from now right okay Noti but assuming we say going forward then you have I just think we need to have this as a plan I would move it back August is not that far from June 30th so it would no but the new contract will just be a little shorter that's right yeah no that's not a big deal but so all right so be longer we could okay if you get a new contract before the end of his this contract you do it by he could have a new contract do it that way too okay back to the Ryan's initial thing that he put up on the screen of of the review I I just that was the first time I've seen it but I thought it was I think that's reasonable and it looked to me like you know in keeping with what we're doing the question is do we want to you know limit ourselves to a few goals here um I think the goals goals yeah the goals to why is that just to make it easier for you to flow down to the other so my philosophy on goals for staff is to have three goals they can have more than three goals but three goals that I evaluate so one of them is related to the master plan priod Direction one of them is Department Improvement and one of them is self-improvement so that just allows them to the focus they can submit more but I only evaluate them on three I um but the 13 goals that you've got in here they don't necessarily fit in those categories we don't so I mean I have the three goals on the bottom that are my staff goals that I okay that I submitted to my staff yeah but I mean since since there's lots of Staff in one of you I understand why that should be simplified but in this case it's the opposite way there's lots of reviewers and only one reviewee I don't know why we can't look at all the things you put on your slide I mean you know why not it doesn't really matter that those are what you or we mutually agreed on were the goals let's evaluate them on the goals I me I don't think we need to down some right personally I don't think we need to understanding that that just like when we just looked at our own select board goals things change a bit over time and so I would be comfortable putting all of those on uh and then I like the form the upper half of the form which is more broad-based like yeah I think it's fine how do you feel about that someone be rated on each one of those items or just goals in general I'd rate them all each of them this was what was shown to us before right just math so we were just looking at this and evaluating you on the goals that you know were put forward so would be six rating categories is it is a can a goal is a goal the individual item or can a goal just be like car character do you know what I mean like could be that because there might be individual as he like I don't know yeah I don't having not been through the process I don't know if if those are not specific enough or it's nice to just evaluate them on the kind of the pillars of the capital or the the master plan well and the last one too how he manages stuff yeah that be good I'm okay with that too that's fine I just yeah I think that's a compromise that's reasonable this the five master plan things and car character how you manage your staff Financial sustainability so we're not evaluating on the sub goals we're just evaluating you on that bucket and we'll we'll we can use the you can speak to that yeah so six reading categories plus the five up top yeah what are the five would be five uh it would be six cuz we add the staff goal yeah the staff goal is the six there's one up here oh so there's five rating categories plus goals so then you would be at ah 11 so the five things that come out of the master plan plus the basically how he manages the St but let's let me ask a question then so um just refresh my memory if you would coms what we would we would um get your review of these goals first we'd get from you your assessment of of your how you've done on these goals and then we would do our own rating rating including the top of the form and then that's what we would get to you like the day before we were meeting with you and then discuss it is that the idea okay so another so the way we did it with staff is the five rating categories and then they had their three goals and there was a number for each and that made a cumulative number oh you rated the goal the work on the goals from one to five so you could do the top half of the form which is the five rating category and goals and weight something but you're you know you're kind of Ang this was a this has been an age-old thing like this is not an SAT right so we an aggregate score is to me meaningless anyway it's really the substance of how did you do in your goals and how are you managing your staff and are you a learner or you know are you a constant learner I mean it's it's those things that matter to me the aggregate score is irrelevant so I'm much less interested in the math that Aggregates I mean that Aggregates all categories I'm interested in the the ratings the ratings across to Scott's Point how we all land on each individual thing and is there consistent in the report did you just last year Kate did we just average or did you show a [Music] range average I I think it was an average an average okay all right I mean again you can do it either way but but it's a question of goals you said oh these three so you've narrowed it down to C no let me let me rephrase Ryan's moving to like a single like my SAT was 750 aren't I smart like yeah okay but how did you actually do on comprehension versus literacy versus this versus that that's much more important this isn't a this isn't a quantitative assessment it's a qualitative theal thank you so I get it that we have to have a rating category because there has to be some consistency but aggregation of that of all the different categories together sing for his for his role is useless it's useless it's within and you'd have to put up the thing again but within Carlile character what was our how do we feel he did one to five or whatever it is and if I thought he was a three and Barney thought he was a five but when Travis presents it it's a four okay you know within a point in what I feel I mean we'll get a sense and he'll get a sense of what where that landed right at that more useful and the comments are useful okay but it just becomes very subjective as to you know I may you evaluate the fin but I guess all this is sub it's all subjective it's all subjective and that's why I say again the use I think for us and Ryan is in the one-on ones right to me I think the public that will see GE the board really likes it like what we did with our own goals yep you did this one nope you didn't do this one but there were mitigating reasons and this change I don't I don't really and there's too many um I mean some of these are are yes no did he do it did he not do it some of them they're still working how do you rate something that is still working that's why I don't want to get into like a laundry L it's like if can we can we just rate categories how' you do the final sustainability goals that you use did you know we did we talk through them but we're not how'd you do on the published five year how'd you do on it's like why can't we just do this publicly like we just did our own goals and just have that as a discussion to the okay goals like you score the goals too yeah all right I mean what what's your what's your concern Kate on scoring each of these six things I don't mind scoring those guys I think that's just an easy you know what's those guys the this in this form these the you know goals not the goals not the goals stuff above it all right so don't score the goals but I'm not interested in scoring the goals I'm interested in discussing them and asking him okay so no score on that that's fine just discussing it you know we could say well you know what were the difficulties what were the blocks what what were the Imp I'm fine with I'm fine with that yeah yeah sure okay so again we're saying the use is in the discussion with Ryan yes and the public only needs to know we're happy he's made good progress on his goal so just let's start at the top though we're we're fine with that whole evaluation the top end staff attitude sure then communication and that's what we're that will score that that is what we're scoring yes sure and then we're going to put this in there and he the goals the goals and let's discuss them and let's discuss them but there'll be no scoring or anything there'll be no scoring right you can put a comment I think to the point made I don't know maybe it was Ryan made it uh a once there's a discussion and then we after we've had that discussion should distill that discussion into a single line for don't want to be too prescriptive but right some single P summary statement you know Ryan worked hard at these goals and these other ones really he wasn't his fault I don't know whatever it is that you can aggregate to give but I have to aggregate what you give me that's what that's why you need to be py right right so don't want a book but it's again it's not for maybe maybe to Scott's point maybe there's a little bit of that that's helpful for you know people just hear what we had to say but it's more to me that's more the public document that people could read on the mosquito and say yeah it looks like Ryan's doing a pretty good job at you know being a TA the board the select board likes him I mean that's kind of it there's a different school which we've also done where where you actually put comments for distribution and that you know and each board member gets a chance in public to say what he thought but or she thought sorry but we did some of that last year we did verbally were able to say what they want even if it didn't and then you you can say what you want I guess then you don't have to then you can leave it to the board to say what pieces of so so do we have a methodology we're going to we're going to move forward with that form and then we're going to attach the goals to the bottom and and we're not going to rank them but we can discuss them and and the goals are the six goals not the the six goals not the 12 goals or search Eng goals yeah right the the C the to the Top Line the descriptor finan Finance Finance again if we're not if we're not codifying it I would just append this slide just discuss the slide that's what I would do how do you do on just have a how did you do on your goals how' you do on your goals right exactly but we are going to write something ask for you one two sentence summary to to Travis right so the one goal is the goals right meet the goals but just so I understand this then sorry but the section about goals what we're going to get first is Ryan's uh self evaluation self evaluation on those goals then they come to us and we individually right write up some response or what we think um and and something written that is appropriate to then go to the chair for for public and then then you have a one-on-one convers right before you submitted you have the one-onone conversation let's you gave the sequences confusing sorry let me say it again I got it I got it so R Ryan does his self- evaluation it comes to us all of us we review each one of us gets it individually we review it we we write our own comments those comments go to Ryan then we have a meeting with Ryan to discuss it and then those comments we might change them based on that discussion right and then those comments go to the chair sum who's going to go summary goes but let me back you're going to take each of the five of I have to take your comment it into a I but I can't I can't I I can't edit or remove them I just it's not going to be much that I have to do I'm just going to go but but if you know but if the way I did it I said uh on on the whole everybody agreed that uh he did an excellent job in this you know such and such and then if you put also a comment and then here were the some of the comments and then on this anything he sends the gets published in the final roll up he can't he can't make a decision differ in what we did last year describing last year he can't say all include this but not this he can't everything gets included or nothing gets included so whatever you send him is going you're basic he's just a middleman basically but it doesn't say Kate said this and right nothing's but we then you then can turn to each board member for commentary in the public meeting in the public verbal commentary verbal commentary if they want to embellish right sure let me go back to the step one of um of Barney's uh sequence yeah I think Ryan's selfie V of how he did should be a public document it should be given to the board in public meeting because that's a piece of you don't have no problem with that do you it would be much different it would be much different what what he wrote so just one thing I'm not trying to sway any valuation or anything but the difference between the evaluations that you're used to in mine is that mine are public forever so any employer I'll ever have or anybody that wants to see my evaluations we'll get to read it so I'm not I'm not going to be as forthright in well then never mind then never mind I take it back right and I don't like that it's just reality so when someone reads a mosquito they're going to be like the Town Administrator is a 39 and they're going to stop reading they're not going to look at the Nuance of the well that's all the more reason we don't like to give a numerical score okay so I think then I agree with your process okay so one last time to recap we're going to use that form for the beginning the three kind of evaluative goals and then we're going to have these goals underneath and then we're going to have you all submit to me those things and knowing that when you submit it to me I'm publishing them but in the for just to clarify in the for where it's like goal one goal two goal three we're just going to have a goals we're not going to have it's just a discussion discuss goals it's not Notting six goals no but that'll be appendix that's what think when you sit with him you'll say well gee Ryan it's just a goal section right yes does this fit what the TA had looked for in an evaluation in this process I think so it's putting a lot more weight on the individual categories but individual categories of the top section yeah see so again I'm not like trying to be py but the um I hope you are trying to be I don't know what that means so short short concise people aren't going to read your goal review they're just going to look at the score right that's what's going to be published that's the first sentence in the mosquito so I hate caring about that but I do that's partially why I would like to have the goals discussed in us just discussing the goals and how we and with almost even he's looking what he's trying to say is he's looking for a number and I just I sympathize with you but I don't think it's useful for us to or what he's saying is there will be numbers and what people will focus on now is the numbers that are maybe even not the most important part of the review it's the goal it no but I is that true I don't know if it's true the overarching things at the top why did you even put those in the form for your own employees because those are important you you keep pulling the form off but that form want to see you the top of that form because theirs aren't public I'm just going to say it's obviously important right Comm I mean communication staff management leadership attitude you know dependability I mean those are things that are overarchingly important whether he did or didn't procure police and fire station conceptual plan is useful but it's less it's less important about him I would say I don't want to belabor this discussion but if if that's important the score can we just put a goal score and make it 50% of the grade sure fine great is that that's a lot is that that's like a huge change in our what we just no no no it's no I mean this he's saying you want you don't want to just have the goals reduced to a non-numerical score because no one's going to pay attention to that part of it he's saying it's the top three a lot M categories is to you don't want to get hammered on one particular category right but you if goals are going to be 50% % then I'm not going to do this cuz I believe in myself but it incentivizes your next ta to make less goals that are achievable make low so what what is the appropriate waiting of the goals that's why I want to discuss them just what were the I liked the broad range and then you can pick which goal categories you thought were important so maybe we way more complicated needs to be so can we just maybe we just go back to the a goal for each bucket and there's six goals and we can discuss each one is that would that be better to address the concerns you have I was really just talking out loud I'm really not concerned about my review he's going to get a great review it's irrelevant it's going to be a great review no but we're setting in motion a process that's going to be followed you know so we want to make sure the problem is the disconnect between this and the three goals on on that so could we maybe just decide uh somehow on just three goals out of these that go onto that and let actually let Ryan decide what those three goals are that we would then that he would like to have evaluation on that's okay let him do that or just add goals as a six category generally six six where you get what are the three what have you got up here you've got four or five five oh how did you get the five one two three the okay five goals you want to add goals isn't that f one is that's what Scott just said right yeah goals category goals and you can score it and then if you you can wait the score if you want I thought you were saying you're concerned that these less important parts get anyway yeah we can add goals and then okay right now you do you you do Straight math you just add each one as a each each one of these has a 16% waiting over yeah I think we need to but I don't want to score score these individually you're scoring them as a this becomes six of the things ta goals and you give a numeric rating one to five on that and that counts in the total average so you okay I think that's a great I like that I'm good with that is the TA we did it okay so it's not goal one two and three it's just goals with a rating with a rating okay okay and then our commentary okay brief brief commentary would share with me the final document here I'll just take a look at it right you have the chair has a final authority to add it all right yes thank you sorry I don't mean to uh prolong the discussion but do do you want to have any kind of a pilot of getting staff input I do not the 360 type of thing I know I do not I think I encourage members to talk to staff the if if you if you wanted to share input I think on a one-on-one you could always you can always do that right or if you there's you mean share it one-onone with the TA yeah yeah you know is there any does um through HR or Personnel I mean I haven't I haven't worked in a big organization other than nonprofits where this is really halfhazard a lot of the time do we is there anything in our internal process that allows us that where a staff member is invited by I guess the Personnel director in some sort of a process to provide input to to be a a way for them to um give feedback to the we're testing things but there's three feedbacks that we've tried to implement so one is coffee with the select board member was initiative we did we also did um we do small group meetings at different levels of the organization with the assistant Town Administrator rather than me to try and get some feedback and uh surveying we do some surveying as well of the staff of the whole staff with with just open-ended questions about how they're feeling about working here or yeah do we need to look at our HR policy about um you know chain of command griev you know if you have any kind of complaint or something grievance procedure grievance procedure we do have one but the hierarchy here is very flat so yeah is it it would typically be like Aubrey right would be the on but well I guess the question is when you can't be you because it might be about you right right or her so or they could come to us and I guess the question is is it clear that they could come to us and what it would take to get to us in a public meeting no no no no they would have to we don't have that in our HR po I'm just trying I you know I wrot so let's take a look I mean we're wrapping it's 10 o00 and we're wrapping all kinds of stuff think let get this done this soft track so let's get this done and well luckily we've done we've done all the others ex s budg ta report my neck is getting stiff from Ben in my town administrative report you have the fall time meeting calendar and the FY 26 budget calendar so that's a working document that's not a solid document the the main thing you want to consider is when you want to have the annual town meeting MH does set a lot of the dates the key dates for the fall that you should be concerned with is in early October you'll get your financial forecast and your Capital planning reports then you'll be doing goals with the finance committee then departments will get their budget and you'll get a draft budget from me in December and then is sorry is that in here somewhere this yeah I'm just trying to find it what you're reviewing okay 27 26 27 okay okay that looks good thank you it's exactly the same as last year with different dates oh I see fall 10 calendar okay right to um and um this May 6 has it already been checked with school or anything no just you just kind of picked it out of that okay a semi hisorical date and yeah some well we've had our town meters all over the map and we've have them M we've had them in May April's always tough because of the holidays and the vacations and the and I strongly Advocate a budget process bylaw at some point to codify those types of things so you don't have to make it up each year yes all Outreach efforts governance committee tried to write one and I got shot down September 10th I'll be doing my first fall coffee hour after a break this summer and then we are doing a initiative called Town Hall in Center Park where we're bringing Town Hall officials Center Park to meet with residents um one of the biggest draws is going to be the touch a truck for the DPW and the police department so each department that's participating has something that they want to talk to town about NBTA communities for me it'll be the fall town meeting if there is one or the annual town meeting and the DPW and police are going to do kind of a mini open house at Center Park and then we want to talk about Center Park it's beautiful Road repair quick picture for you and the public this is Church Street and School Street you so that Paving is complete and they did meet their timeline to be ahead of school opening so that was positive the rest of the roads which include curve Proctor Prospect and river will be completed the first week in September uh right after after Labor Day Greeno Barn is nearly complete I went there today with my daughter she was impressed kind of here is the uh Koopa that was on the top so most people estimated the Koopa to be about 8 feet and it is apparently about 20 so it is huge 750 LBS or so somebody's taking that and we're making that information going of the society historical soci is going to restore it and turn it into a kiosk the only thing left is a foundation of the middle SE the middle section has been completely dismantled labeled and moved so the only thing left is the foundation for that um they're going to come take out the rest of it recycle that material and then bring it to conservation grade and L and Seed awesome almost done West Street cber is done that's a big win the Cory Auditorium electrical construction is on schedule thanks to Jeremy he will not let it come off schedule so we feel pretty good about that especially since we don't pay Jeremy he's just a really strong heart and smart volunteer dog park mobilization has begun you'll start to see tree clearing and then eventually construction of the dog park the goal is to complete that by November and to meet some planting timelines in October so that should move pretty quick and then we had a lot of people at the central burying grounds for tree work grave restoration the entrance pillars tree work and the Lichfield seat Lichfield seat Lichfield seat repair one thing we're talking about with the historical commission is using some of the Greeno Barn slate to redo the Lichfield seat rather than idea maybe maybe not uh at least 60 gravestones will be restored we having really good um a lot of solicitation of bids so this project should be good special thanks to chrisy OA for working very hard on this as a volunteer uh we talked about all the building construction projects already rotary signs we did approve rotary signs for the middle six County 4 Fair the annual Democratic town committee picnic and the sixth grade spaghetti supper um one thing we did have a sign that was put on the actual rotary itself and we had a complaint about it I walked by it and totally spaced on it so in the future we will not allow signs in the rotary only in the outskirts which is part of your policy um we talked a lot of people about that so it's a war memorial it has a lot of things so we just want to keep signs off that um thank you to the person who brought that to our attention so that we can fix it is that mean you keep people off of it too I mean there are people who sit there right I don't think so CU if a free speech and B I think War memorials are supposed to be visited but that's not in our I don't know what the policy is there so something to consider I think it's for us to consider at some point here not tonight not tonight uh staff recognition so there's a letter in your packet praising bill linan for he's the vso that's part of our district in Bedford but he helped the Carlile resident and that went to the town manager in Bedford so I wanted to share it with you as well um our team does a great job Karen and Bill Karen is the one you see here she's here every week providing services to Veterans and she's an excellent vso I used to work with her when I'm a vso so I know that personally and watching it in practice some upcoming dates I did get that scholarship to go to the icma conference in Pittsburgh so I'll be missing a couple days in September and other than that it's just select board meetings and potentially the fall town meeting in November to quickly review the upcoming calendar upcoming agenda agenda words are escaping me wait I got a soft wait um I before we do that um Ryan I see here there's a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget calendar did you want that voted on I don't think we should do that tonight yeah I don't think we should okay I have General consensus from you that the calendar is okay so we can move forward okay with the finance committee the um veteran celebrations committee is going to come to talk about some markers they're putting in into the central bearing ground and give a 250th update review potential fall town meeting War articles potentially uh friends of Center Park Agreement hopefully we can we can get that to an end point um talk about your goals again maybe and there's an open spot in here um for a big item yet to be identified great well maybe something or will we be ready on the fire OPM no no not not that fast okay chair I'll look at it and fill this um the other thing I I I think it would be helpful if the chair and the TA look at is the um schedule of meetings and decide now um you know what if we're going to do extra meetings or it ends in it ends with the November town meeting right uh that list at the end of your ta report I would stretch it out through the end of December because if we only have one December anyway right to really look at what we need to get done and because it'll be helpful to the rest of us to know if we're doing extra meetings yep yeah that's my report report complete right great okay um I will I think we've gotten through everything except uh Community input at this point if there's anyone from the community who wants to ask questions or offer input all right seeing none in the audience or on Zoom I would take a motion to adjourn the meeting moved second second all in favor I I all right meeting is adjourned thank you thank you