##VIDEO ID:leAjwtar-mQ## I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for September 10th 2024 this is a hybrid meeting that is being recorded um and I'll just quickly uh go through the agenda and then we'll have a roll call to start the meeting um there's we'll have Community input then appointments and resignations then at 710 veteran celebrations committee um 7:35 the friends of Center Park Agreement 755 we're going to discuss the Safety Committee um 820 the Town Administrator bylaw uh draft review then at 910 a town clerk hiring process discussion 9:30 one day liquor license 9:35 the TA report and then warrant liaison reports and Community input so with that I'd like to call to order the uh meeting and start with a roll call vote um we are all present there's nobody no member going to be on Zoom tonight so so we can just do that Barney's Barney we can do a voice Voice vote so who wants to call to order the meeting I'll call to order the meeting all right all in favor a new thing no well I'm doing it I I think it's important that we've recognized but let's as far as attendance um Barney Arnold is absent this evening not just absent at James Taylor she is at James Taylor I brought those David help yourself I don't have any dexterity to do that by the end of the meeting I will have opened it would you like not interference time these are these are cookies that I brought for the but he has the easy open the guy who did the CDs in the old days I think he designed this oh yeah all right so Community input do we have any do we have any online anyone who would like to make a comment all right uh seeing none I will move on to uh appointments and resignations um we have a particularly interesting one here to start yeah do you want to hello are you here for the select board meeting yes oh are you here to make a public comment um I'm with Scott oh you're with Scott all right all right well then hold on for just a second okay hang on all right so so unless you have it pulled up I have it oh okay oh yeah shoot I had it then I here it is there you go I move to appoint Nathan Brown 153 Virginia Farm Lane as a member of the finance committee termed to end June 30th 2027 second all right is there any discussion we all know Nathan from Glutton glutton for punishment that's all right to be a trend in this town among some people David all right um he's doing it in reverse order he's going to a school being a gluten for punishment at one point oh there we go oh my gosh look at that the thing in front of me ni an like a kid with the M&M you know so we have you have a motion I have a motion second okay we'll do a roll not roll a Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed to appoint Nancy Pierce as a member of the town meeting study committee term to end at completion of the final report um Nancy is currently an associate member second okay is there any discussion I have a question what is an associate member why do we have them they're typically on the zoning board of appeals we had them in the event that they they have three primary members and then associate members if the primary a is missing an associate can fill in but typically the primary members are the ones voting on the things and that's depending on how they set up their Charter I think what happened though with this one was that Nancy wasn't sure she could come to all the meetings and she asked to just be an associate member and not have so that and she was doing that so that you wouldn't have a quorum problem well but they don't right but it works the other way too because she doesn't count towards the Quorum either way right I mean you don't count towards the quor if you're there be a member then then you would have to count her as corm so well now if she's a full member yes the problem we were getting into is we were running up against not enough of a quorum we couldn't counter she's at every meeting okay that's why but I just I want to register we ought to think about whether we need associate members or not I agree okay seems like a stupid thing but anyway I'm ready for the vote all right Voice vote all in favor hi okay welcome Nancy she's done a great job by the way she's doing a huge would I mean all right um with the veterans and celebrations committee does anyone object to starting 5 minutes early or do we can we do that okay so seeing Mr Evans here would you mind coming forward and speaking from the chair introducing yourself and then tell us about and your colleague oh sorry she's chair of the celebration then need to get my address yeah that'd be good okay so Scott Evans 299 heeled Road I am the chair of the celebrations of veterans committee and Donna vau a Acton Street I am um on the board of the Carlile historical society and she's also a member of the ad hoc 250 committee which is the reason that we're here per you can introduce one more here you want Phil Drew hi there how do you do good thank you are you on the committee as well yes perfect well he's a president of the historical societet okay right Philip Drew Beckford Road great decid all right I'd like to say that this was planned because of the subject matter of night wearing this but I just came from a performance and conquered so wonderful this just happens to be luck I guess well it adds to our all right feelings here that's right all right um so I did send out some material in advance I thought I would use it as an outline so you'd have something to refer to and if we don't mind we'll just follow this in order interrupt anytime ask questions right this is a should be a dialogue here okay so the first one and I'm following before you jump in so we're talking about July 4th 2025 no we so we we are essentially talking about today through at least at present through the week of April 19th 2025 but in reality it's through December of 2026 that we're really talking about I mean that's considered to be our Revolutionary War people of Ceremonies I mean I realize that we're going to focus a lot on Patriots Day coming up but is it also true that the really popular one will be July 4th 2026 um not in this region well no people coming elsewhere to this reg no okay no all right there'll there'll be and I can address that um as we get through but this is really what are we planning between now and the week of April 19th we call it a patriot week essentially and I'm not going beyond that to Bunker Hill and all the rest of the events that are local that will follow those will be subsequent updates that we'll do as we go right I think I think as we go you're going to want more frequent updates especially on what's going on in conquer and I've included a little bit of that in the end because I think that's it's about time to start being cognizant of of the um the ownership that you're going to have whether you like it or not okay good so the the first one um and again I followed uh sort of Ryan's suggestion let's put the Patriot grade markers first so this is something that we just uh uh recently got approval from the board to uh give to the S sons of American Revolution uh so they went and bought the markers there are um 11 in the uh Central burial ground and there are nine over in Green Cemetery I think we'd have two old ones in the central buring ground that can probably be left so we'll have U maybe some extras um so they've gone and purchased them um we do we did submit we had to submit an application apparently to the historical commission for these so I filled out an application and we filed it and their meeting is not until September 27th and that was part of the reason we wanted to get some approval from the the board because we couldn't wait that long to get the markers because it takes about 6 weeks uh lead time on them and we're trying to get this in this fall okay so uh the markers on order they should be here by the end of the month and the cost of those markers are being paid for by this uh Suns of American Revolution the coordination of ceremony that we expect to do in probably late October maybe early November at the L latest will be um organized by the celebrations committee with support from the Historical Society uh all of the cost for that we believe will be borne by um some of this we put into a grant to the Department of uh into tourist and tourism this revolutionary 250 Grant if if it gets approved then we'll certainly be able to cover some of the costs there uh otherwise we'll have to figure out how to uh fund this one but we expect to have a ceremony at the central BL ground and potentially one at Green Cemetery also would maybe a A procession between the two um and of course uh we'll advertise it and uh we'll have Minute Man Etc and we we'll get into the details of that as we start to formulate that now we have the guidelines from the S of what they want to see and then we will be in charge of how we want to use those guidelines so we will um maybe SE input from the board before we do that just to let you know what we're doing uh we can just send you a memo I don't think it necessarily needs a meeting right okay um and just to be clear this is for the 20 Patriots that are recorded as having fought in the Revolutionary War from carile was there a carile then was it conquered it was part of conquered that a lot of people don't know but we know it was car Carlo from the address it was a District at that point yes okay so if there no questions there um I will move on to the 250 events these aren't in any particular order they're just uh as we've been sort of talking about them as a committee so um the first one I have here is Ester book Trail walk uh coins so this is something that was done for quite a few years by the Carlo minut man prior to uh 1974 and they went through 1982 I think or 1983 and they included a uh a coin set a booklet with the Revolutionary War years from 75 to 81 with a little history of them and each coin was different right so this was a a set that you could collect um so the idea here is probably we're going to do the same thing this would be the first uh of a set of essentially seven coins over the six years and the first one being in 2025 um are these real coins um coin no they're you could call them Metals I mean they are uh inch and a half in diameter and they are um they're not cast but they're stamped on both sides so on one side uh in the past we've had the um on all the coins it had a picture of carile in the North Bridge with the path that the minute man took minute man statue and some other stuff was on that so we thought we maybe keep that theme but the uh other side was specific to the historical event for that particular year that they wanted to highlight obviously first year was the North Bridge other ones we had was the um Bunker Hill and we had uh Naval battles and so every year that was one until the uh surrender of the British on the final year um so I can show you at another time before or at the next one uh meeting that we have on this I can show you the the old coins and I have a a whole presentation on that and what we're planning on doing U for this did the Minutemen take the esterbrook trail to get to North Bridge it it's clear that some of them must have taking the esterbrook trail because if you're on the green the shortest path and again you are walking you you are um is to take the esterbrook trail but clearly there were three or four Minutemen that were on conquered Road there's no reason for them to come to the center of town especially if when the alarm was called that they were told what was going on and some one of them belonged to conquered Minuteman anyway so they probably would have gone straight uh to the North Bridge so and maybe even some went down River Road but there's no def whatever history there was we think was lost with some of the early Town records when they were when they disappeared issue for unless you have a an alternate um the idea here would be that we would we follow a model very similar to that was done in 74 because there's going to be potentially a lot of people walking the trail it's too cumbersome to try to do any transaction at the end of the trail so what was followed in 74 is they had people print out can write their name on a coupon and when they got to the end of the trail all they did was get a punch put in the coupon they came back the next day to Union Hall or the following weekend and claim their uh Trail walk coin so we thought that was probably a good process we'd follow something similar maybe some pre-registration because we got to figure out exactly what kind of volume we're talking about in 74 they did more than 700 Trail walk medals so I'm assuming that we should be planning on somewhere around a th uh um and I work through a financial model that says to make sure that the idea here is that this should be self-funding right so there's all of these events are intended to be self-funding there would be no cost to the town for all of the 250 events that's the approach we've taken now we're depending on a little bit in the the grant if it doesn't happen we'll have to work more Revenue generation out of uh out of some of the events that we have here and that will depend on how we price the coins they won't be free as they were in 74 there'll be a small price we don't think that's a problem um we're also thinking I'm sorry go ahead well I just was wondering about the legalicious at the end of the estb trail are you going to be able to walk actually walk down all the way through the end and go out you that's all been away my my role on the conquered 250 committee as the coordinator uh of militia companies so I will be involved with all all access for militia companies and where they're supposed to be and when they're supposed to be Etc so I will be close to those egresses that are there right right and we'll get into that with as we get into the conquered Public Safety plans Etc we'll get into all those details in the upcoming months um my other thought here was a lot of the towns have a 250 coin and I thought well maybe we'd look at having a 250 coin because there's some people that don't want to walk the EST book Trail and then maybe they would like some other momento or they'd like to send it to somebody or have something right we'll have a fair number of tourists probably coming to town or people from out of town um walking so uh would may be a second coin and again it would be Revenue Generation Um type of product and we have some possible logos for that yes so the first thing we said is we need a logo for all of our any press releases we are doing Etc and so uh we have five samples so far that we'll look at in the in the coming week and maybe pick some favorites um I don't know whether we necessarily need to come before the board but if you're interested we'd be glad to share them with you um I think we're going to work quickly on the logo to make sure that we're able to utilize that uh with some of the upcoming events which will be shortly um okay any questions on the coins no okay we can always jump back don't worry uh carile uh so news in advance some press releases U we've talked to the Carlo mosquito they've um said that they would have a staff member on our uh on our committee so we think that would be really important it's time to start to get the marketing out there and get people knowing not only about our events but I think about the preparation we're doing both in this committee and eventually from the select board is place that they hopefully will be able to go look for it all the time in the mosquito it be you know a box in the front box in the back or some place where they could go and see what the updates are to try to communicate you have a website or a spot on the town website um not yet but you'll see further down we have a website and um we have a website in the planning and put it that way link it okay um we talked a little bit about the logo um we have something ready there that we can use that for different and I put down 250 merchandise so um somebody said maybe a T-shirt and I said okay so that might be good but there'll be lots of other things I think that we'll come up with and again it'll be around what seems like the kinds of things people would want as a momento a way to celebrate as well as a way for us to um generate some Revenue but at a minimal risk what we don't want is a whole bunch of product and inventory sitting that we can't move so this is all carile specific merch versus this is carile specific this would be Car 2 whatever conquer right okay U like for instance the 250 we were thinking okay you could have an old outline map of car what it was at the time and you could have the 20 minute men's names in there we could put the logo on the front we could put that on the back uh there's a number of different things we have you know the trail walk metal or the 250 metal and I have um from fellis Hughes I have copyrights to her uh pen and ink drawing um of the minute man through esterbrook wood so I can make as many copies I want so we could make that and put it in a frame and put the coin in it I mean there's lots of ideas like that what we don't want to do is overextend ourselves right and and uh overpromise so we're starting with this list we think this is executable and uh if it's not fundable and we don't think it's feasible then we'll then we'll just Prof it right we'd rather have fewer done well does conquered have copyright to the image of the old North Bridge um yes as well as the minute man statue so I believe those copyrights have expired on those so you know that's obviously been much discussion over the last 50 60 years okay so seal okay um okay uh Colonial fair is the the next one so this was um a way we think to kind of get people really um excited and more informed about it as we get closer we were thinking the this fall at one point but we're too late in getting started there so we think that maybe late March about one month before April 19th might be a good time to do this and this would be uh on the town green weather is not too bad in late March it hasn't been and we'll probably get a snowstorm that day but uh on the green and in Union Hall so I've already talked about I've talked to F FRS about the hall and we can put the reservation in for that it's kind of doing a 10 to3 activity where we'd have planned events going on during that time so people could come in see certain events like I can get the British here the militia here in F and drum music so everybody gets a 15minute slot per hour and that way people can enjoy enjy that the stuff that's going on in F FRS I've got somebody does Colonial woodworking we can have a table for a historical society all the events that are happening around and other stuff that needs to be indoors and now people can come for a couple of hours kids crafts maybe colonial toys they can make we can have a little maybe food maybe not colonial food but maybe colonial style or whatever some people could feel like hey I can come and have fun with my with my family for a couple of hours then move on right that type of thing so Christina root to sustainability day would be Earth Day of 25 right that that'll be right before the actual April 20th stuff I the March is okay I'm just saying it's a bunch of it Christina are you on the I'm I'm here I'm so sorry I missed the first portion of the question root to sustainability day would be I assume Earth Day or a Saturday near adjacent to Earth Day correct we have hav't actually picked the a date for um 2025 but it will be a Saturday before or after birthday which is the 27 I can assure you will not be on the 19th yeah or well but you've got okay so the 20th and the 28th not this is all about carile stuff not conquered stuff so no I know but rat roots of sustainability is car car and then you have but I unless they're going to go different than conquered day then I'm just saying a lot of events you got to just be aware of there any if there are any please let us know hear about we're we're picking we're hoping to pick like late March right but aren't isn't there also when is Patriots Day April 19 19th Saturday April 19th okay so I guess don't do it that day Christina do so it won be the 19th of April we'll we'll aim for the 26 you're going to see that that's a bad day um to do anything when we get into the the planning piece of it you're going to see that it's going to be a very busy day in in town okay sorry for that I just no problem clear the the rad um so so the colonial Fair would also be a revenue generation type of event there um we have the town flag which um I now got a new owner for it to finish it um and she's promised to get it done by early January so I think I trust her judgment and that it'll get done so I think we can plan a late January or February maybe ceremony first I'm assuming we'll do one in town again the celebrations committee will take the lead and then we'll do one at the state house um we have uh Eric Heath and his mother who would like she made the first one the only one would like to be part of that ceremony so that'll be uh uh that'll be nice way to tie together we wanted to make sure the fly got done before the 250th as that original flag actually was carried a couple years before the bicentennial but it was done for the bicentennial so this replica will be done in time we're not going to carry it in the 250 we will carry the original to uh to conquer for the 250th but that flag should be hanging in the state house before that should be great um school projects another so the one thing that we especially in this day and age is trying to get communicate with people about events are going on most of the citizens don't read a newspaper they don't really look at magazines they get their news on their phone and what pops up is what they look at right so there's not a lot of let me go see what's going on with the 250 so you know marketing Communications is a real challenge for every town and a good path especially in this this town is through the school so kids that get involved in 250 uh themed projects obviously they come home with them and the family gets involved and they get much more interested in what's going on right so uh we're working with the school to see not maybe every grade or could be you know you can have coloring stuff from colonial era for the for the younger kids but you can have lots of projects is to get that off the ground here so that they can put it into the fall they can put it into the spring carric if they would like to tie it into uh the Revolutionary War which I think the fifth graders usually do in March or April um by the way we've got members of our ad hoc committee everybody owns a piece of this to drive and figure out how does it happen Who's involved what do we have done so we're just starting to uh mature some of these uh ideas um so these next 9 10 11 12 are ones that were part of the grant were submitted by the Historical Society uh they're in a different font just because I cut and pasted them um the first one there is a Visitor Guide right to the revolution so this would be a new printed guide and website so there'd be a website Historical Society already has a website but this would be one that is probably has a page devoted to this uh to Revolutionary War the Revolutionary Patriots and history Etc and I was thinking it makes a lot of sense we should put a um something on the town website that has some information there maybe just a calendar piece and then you can clink the link to go to this website which would be more a lot more content right so we'll work that out as we get um a little bit more um closer to what we think that we want to do um and there would also be a guide that could be used for people that wanted to tour the colonial homes around town which we're actually thinking of doing that as this as a uh an event at the colonial Fair where you could show up and take a map or virtual one you could download and you get in your car and you could go visit and I can have Minute Man a number of houses you know to kind of Mark where they are and to you know whatever fire muskets or whatever just just to be there um but they would use this map as part of that and again this was part of the uh submitted Grant um a healed revolutionary open house which would be at the Historical Society so when we're going to when would that be we'll have to talk about it but it seems to me like the fall would be a good time to do it still the winter and we don't obviously want to do it in March and we're close to so we're thinking November for that okay so it would be a downsized one there uh again Minutemen Etc and get people starting to think about uh our Colonial and Revolutionary War history Red Line Tavern tour um I believe we already got permission we can do this we just don't have a date yet right she said May so it would said beyond this would be one that would be after April 19th um and a private residence now yes it is a private residence correct um and I think is John tro talk to her is that uh fil did actually yes um to Hillary Taylor who is the resident and owns the house and uh she said she that uh well her house was the Red Lion Tavern the thing All That Remains of the Red Lion Tavern is a sign it's a very remarkable sign because it was the Red Lion Tavern and at the beginning of the Revolution the Patriots scrubbed out the Red Lion and uh painted a tree over it but you can still see the outline of the lion and we had the sign in the Historical Society house for a while and made rubbings of it and uh the Lions when you get to see them are quite remarkable because they have human faces and are wearing a crown but anyway they look like lions otherwise so this is this is in May right we'll yes obviously Beyond April 19th we'll get people to start thinking about the other events that happened right and so we'll have other other ideas for the balance of 2025 clearly Bunker Hill and other significant events including uh the the the Cannons when they were done by Knox right during the winter time Etc um and then the final evacuation day in in Boston would be sort of the end of our typical ones and of course Independence Day After That Just for David and finally minute minute man house tour this was something that historical society would hire a company and a bus right that's the plan that would do a professional tour uh again these would be covered by the grant so the no no cost of the town but again another another piece to put in uh between now and April 19th we don't want to throw everything in right up against the 19th of April right so we think all these are doable and we'll uh we'll figure out if any need to be trimmed going forward or if there are any additional ideas unless some of you got have some ideas feel free to chime in months from now if you right okay now I get to the last one um conquered update so uh I've been in contact with Fred Ryan and he's uh head of the public safety and he's part of this overarching control group which will probably be located at hansam will be coordinating all of the all of the emergency uh and Public Safety assets um from hansam field uh as well as probably all the federal uh people that are involved with that but the the planning committee in in conquered um this um assistant Fire Chief and police captain Brian Goldman uh said that they would be ready to set a date to talk to us Acton in Bedford uh um sometime after the 19th of September they said call me after the 19th of September we think we will have our draft of our plan and we'll be ready to talk all right so what Fred said was their idea now is they're going to be some soft closures on Thursday and then Friday they're going to be a systematic closing of the roads um and in 74 they closed uh the roads at I think 8:00 p.m. on Friday night I think they're thinking sooner than that uh um this year the some of those interesting I just put some pictures I took from the mosquito during the winter time I took a bunch of pictures from 1974 75 and you see one of them was like 120,000 expect expected in 1975 turned out that was about 100,000 we think there but they were clearly worried about um the number of individuals to be there and conquered is saying we're talking 150 180 it could be 200 you you really can't tell people Scot go to conquer right yes but many came through carile and and so you're going to and so if you look at just those I only did a smattering of them you're going to see that the whole town turned out because there were let's see 2,000 Scouts coming from chelsford that marched the bridge there were 1500 that came from uh Westford the march to the bridge there were uh they had Reserve so the most interesting picture there is the one that shows the map of the town and where they you might want to show that where there was no parking on all roads leading that one there leading to coner the dark lines are where there was no parking then they had two Satellite spots one in Indian Hill and one up towards esterbrook Road and the other one over off of River Road those were satellite parking primarily for Carlo residents 700 in one 800 in the other on the street just on the side of the street on the in the neighborhoods right on the side of the street because there was no way to get into conquered so what they decided to do was they would put this satellite parking and then the shuttle bus would be allowed to take them into conquer so it was running every 20 minutes one going to Fen off of River Road the other one off down to farmers's Cliff from the Indian Hill area there and so so they ran a shuttle bus but they also had to get people from the center of town up to the satellite parking those that didn't necessarily want to walk through the trail so they were shuttling for the first couple hours shuttling people from the center of town up to these satellite parking but they also had uh parking and camping at F field they had uh Porta uh toilets all over town um and they had 93 National Guard in town helping with traffic the whole town for most of them worked 24 to 36 hours straight Police Department fire department all the select board uh all the town departments because there were all these people coming into town and people would just abandon their car wherever you know they go as far as they go they just abandon it is this on Brian and Andre's radar so for and that's when we'll get into the next year it's not when you get into the planning with conquer and the safety planning then we get a much better idea of what we're talking about and then we'll have to figure out you guys will have to figure out I'll help you if you want have to figure out so what does this mean to carile and what do we need to plan for and hope the heck that we don't get 255,000 people or 30,000 people because clearly if they find out that they can get close through carile world will spread like that and Scott walk us through this like where you're driving from Westford or chelsford or wherever where where are you get stopped and diverted like you would get stopped right at the conquered border that's where the border is closed and then from the South but also from the other directions that are not shown well we're to the north right so you're all you're going south no matter what so I understand that people are coming not from the south they're coming down or left or right conquer's going to close so if they come in from at yeah they can take this street here but when they get here they're going to get stopped and now there's no parking so if you do the same thing here there's no parking here now they have to go someplace why are they going to go shouldn't we really stop them at the border because well then they'll be noodling around this is the next meeting we'll parking we can decide how we want to handle it but last time let's just talk about last time last time they were allowed to drive and Meander around well we had we had signs right so if there parking was full yeah at the satellite parking place we'd say okay you have to go to the transfer station to park there we on a shuttle bus or you have to park over here down F field and then maybe a shuttle down so we have to figure out how to handle these visitors we can't just turn them away right so I mean you can't this is a really great introduction I can see the parking is going to be one of the main issues that we're going to have to deal with as a town we do have other agenda items so I kind of need to wrap it up was just to wet your appe that's great but this is all April 9 this is all focused on Patriots Day it's the day before April April 19th is the big for us and I showed you what was going on a big there a big bis of stuff on Patriots weekend Saturday Sunday Monday this is just one day right the this well we we also have the March event our colon he's talking about this this with the visitors is going to be starting Friday yep Friday during the day people will try to go down some on Thursday night but that'll be when it starts so it's Friday during the day till Saturday night then you're done then you're done Sunday Monday not a problem okay great okay so we will have you back when we get more parking and stuff but thank you for that we get dets helpful and exciting don't fall asleep on this Scott Scott I'm your Le aison I haven't I attended any can you email me when you have meetings sure I can even bring you cookies open them though bringing on a plate for them the next meeting though soon well our next meeting for the ad hoc committee was supposed to be tomorrow night but I think what we'll do is we'll push it out a couple of weeks so we can mature some of these things I will absolutely copy you on all right thanks thank you thanks for coming board we should all get outfits oh absolutely absolutely we're going to be parking cars too or whatever used to have that give me mus I'll take Dr oh were they be the guy tur way at the border eight minutes to get it ready to fire all right David you pass the cookies please oh all right all right so we're going to move on to the uh friends of Center Park next you want to come forward Miss sailor and Y introduce yourself my name is Allison sailor and I am the President of friends of Center Park and we are coming up to the uh 5ifth year anniversary of having an agreement with the town and so I'm here to do and sign the reup um I think it's all set and I'm somebody has a pen I'll sign it I talked last time about how wonderful Center Park is so I don't need to go over that again all right there any questions from the select board we saw the agreement in our package yeah yeah all right if there are none maybe someone could make a motion back to the motion here uh do you want move to accept the terms of agreement between the town of Carl and the friends of Center Park Inc as presented second okay are there any thoughts or comments internally here or not internally but um I think everyone's on board with the agreement that's been yeah okay I think it it was everything we discussed last time it was that's seemed like it was good all right so we'll do a Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed okay you have a new agreement we'll get that signed and do you want me to sign it tonight or is that I'll send it to you electronically oh I can handle that thank you that's not thanks for coming in thank you oh my goodness we're ahead of schedule quick Famous Last Word Well for now well we can do the safety comme she's here is she here yeah she's can we do that or is that a public I mean there's going to be are there any people may want to I would wait on that I would wait on the administrative report or Li ta report maybe or any of the other things the one day liquor license we can roll through that start with that one day liquor license that's where we're going okay so hang on move to approve the application submitted by Martha feny Patton on behalf of the gleon library Endowment for the insurance sorry the issuance of a one-day special license to serve beer and wine at a nonprofit fundraising event to be held on November 16th 2024 during the hours of 6:30 p.m. through 9:30 p.m. at 22 Bedford Road car Mass second okay um I will note that the um chief of police has signed this so I encourage you all come it's called books and beers Bru like bruis and books or Bru or something like that it's fun he going to be a professional um trivia guy a p great and uh the Reed homemade wine is also featured here that's good to know he makes good wine actually I may change my vote on the liquor license though we oh that's really cool all designed to liberate you from your checkbook all right so uh unless there more comments all in favor I I okay none opposed so I'll sign that is there um as we're talking through the um the events and all this other stuff is there a list that's starting to come together of different things we should start to reserve on our calendar dates like dates and things like typically like April week is a week we go away but it sounds like we're probably going to want to be here for that that's a big one this time 250 but in terms of other things where we should be starting to block them off yeah that's a good I would appreciate that so this is the start or the end of the April break Patriots is usually the start who breaks later this year really it's always starts with school I don't know about that I can look uh yeah they're on April break during this period right April M parents of school AG children please note no they actually it's the beginning of April break so yeah beginning they have school on that Friday and and I'll tell you I have a senior in high school and they're planning events around this meaning they're you know this is a big deal yeah oh oh gosh and Good Friday's on the 18th as well um so there Easter's on the 20th so there's there's a lot going on and Earth Day is the 22nd okay I take out the trash on the 23rd that's that's every Wednesday bre uh it's the uh all right yeah 20 the week of the you want to do the uh Cemetery Deeds okay hang on let me get back to the files it's a late April uh late Easter this year ABC ta report morr I don't have Cemetery Deeds we don't have Deeds oh it says we did I have them right here those are old ones okay we get ta all right ta report 10 minutes yeah can we do a little the TA report let's do it all right sorry I was there and I got distracted see you okay okay um so one big thing we're considering right now in town hall is this first floor space so some uh recent vacancies and I'm I don't mean to categorize um the loss of Peggy as a vacancy but the the opportunity to look at space downstairs between the council and aging and Human Services in the town clerk's office uh is something that we're discussing so so we really want to think strategic and long term about what public space uh how that space would be best used for for for public services so I have a conversation with the Council on Aging and Human Services if you believe your liaison will be there as well to talk about how to bridge community space for the council and aging from now until and if there is a senior center or Community Center what would the next cuz that's going to be several years so what would the next few years be and how can we let aage town hall for that so just want to make you aware of that conversation I'll obviously bring more details as that becomes more solid um also if you've been in the council Asing Human Service Office you know that the number of employees compared to the space is is not is not conducive to good work and to uh the availability of the public to come in that office so all things that we're considering David are you the Le on two to uh who's Sor yeah okay okay and uh the assistant Town Administrator is here sure I will do that one excellent so um the planning board's schedule appoint Noel band as the new uh planning zoning and land use assistant starting uh Tuesday September 17th um so she'll be working under Julie but she'll also be helping the zba and then also General land use um she has a bachelor's in environmental science and a minor climate change and sustainability so she is really excited to be part of the team um we're still colle ing resumes for the DPW heavy equipment operator um also the facilities technician pos position that will be helping all the uh Town buildings um and we're about to post the uh social services manager position for Co HS and I'll be internally for two weeks um and if it's still not filled then we will post externally um and then we'll also be hosting a sexual harassment and discri discrimination in the workplace training um for all non-school employees including part-time employees on separate September 26 we'll offer two different times to do it it's 3 hours um for the full session um and so this will be part of the comprehensive training we'll be requir making sure all um employees are doing right now they do you know read and abide by the um sexual harassment Pro policy but this will be up toate relevant information of you know in EN title n information good and au's been working on acknowledgement of personnel policies updating the Personnel policies which will come before they're updated and then it training for every employee and properly tracking that and making it part of a annual training package for all employees so it's it's um a big lift aub's done a great job with it it's it's overdue of course but it's also harder than it sounds when you're running a town with uh one and two person departments to gather everybody to include Public Safety and DPW in one time to do trainings is hard so we're trying to balance uh operations with training to make sure that we're hitting all of the goals of the select board so more information to come on that all right update for the fall town meeting so the select board intimated at their last meeting that the Town Administrator byla would not be ready for the fall last night the planning board did the same with their Adu bylaw so they have said that they will not be bringing it forward this fall the only other articles that were tracking that you're tracking are the chapter 200a section 9A or the tailings that Sandy brought before you uh change in bylaws to the veteran celebrations committee not to change them but to actually codify that that name in the town bylaws it's a very simple article and then we talked a little bit last time about a conservation restriction transfer that's being proposed I reach I reached out to that group and they said there's no timing necessary for the fall so that can also wait till the spring all of this is to say you will be deciding at your next meeting whether or not to hold the fall town meeting we do not have anything of significance to bring to you for fall town meeting right now of course that's your call but I'm trying to get uh will the uh town meeting committee be talking about this and maybe thinking about um how to format um a Springtown meeting that would might be going over two days we've talked about that I think I think not having fall town meeting is probably helpful because most of the stuff we're thinking about doing we're not really ready yet to implement orig our original plan was that we would pilot certain things at fall toown meeting and then enact them in Springtown meeting but most of those things are not really ready uh to be done and if it's a week town meeting which it will be if we had it it would be very weak it wouldn't be indicative anyway so I think it's better for us just to wait um as far as one day or two days I mean that's really our call you know I think we have to look at the pile of things that's there and decide that's a whole another Dynamic that um you know to to be considered but we're not we haven't really evaluated that okay all right continuing on I was joined by special guest Scott today at my coffee hour um I can sometimes we get a lot of people and sometimes we don't just being transparent but we do want to be available outside of town hall for people to speak to us today and I didn't plan it Scott just cuz the boss was there but a lot of people came very robust conversation at at um FS so thank you can you can you take if we've got a minute or two can you share anything issues there like things that came up that people were concerned about just it's helpful for us to yeah I mean there so there were what four residents there and um I mean the topics strange from a wide range of topics in terms of uh Cemetery Deeds or the the cemetery task force to um some of the challenges that that seniors face in carile regarding um property tax and how that relates to um how appealing it is for seniors in in Carlile and then you know related to that assessment issues in terms of people seeing increases in their individual assessments accessory Apartments um Highland building um police station fire station so it was a wide range of topics I would say that um for me it was it was beneficial to do this just to hear from folks directly and I thought um the the comments I appreciate that people took their time to come and sit with us the comments were substantive um there was good discussion interesting to hear the different perspectives and challenges people face um and I thought it was for me it was very productive to to hear the different perspectives Town structure comes up a lot so for the town study committee one of the I think well-informed residents who came said town meeting feels like a rubber stamp but doesn't know really how to make it less less so they want an efficient town meeting what was the um demographic like town meeting more like town meeting yeah okay um but it'd be great to rotate we should all do that I'd love to to pick one of us next time we'll do it we'll do next one's in the I think there are for certain for certain residents I think it's a it's a good form for for them to get their perspective across versus feeling like standing up at town meeting and saying something or attending a public meeting um yeah is not necessarily always the best form for people to represent their perspectives so I think it's I think it's just good to to make those opportunities available and it's a good way to talk to folks and educate them and give them our perspective back and you know get them more involved y great so the next big Outreach event this fall is what we're calling Town Hall in the park we have events plan to touch a truck with Public Safety in the DPW and then Town departments going out for a couple hours in the morning a couple hours in the afternoon to talk to Residents about big issues and you can you can probably tick them off if you want to MBTA communities Adu on the planning side I want to talk about building projects if anybody wants to talk about that and um a bunch of a bunch of departments have already signed on and they're excited to to get outside of the park hopefully it's a beautiful day and residents can show up we're hoping to draw a younger demographic with the touch truck event for children Etc um day was that planned for October 2nd oh I'm going to be here okay uh the LSC is asking the select board to consider authorizing a donation account for their maintenance work on the town's conservation lands nothing for you to move on there yet but just letting you know um I do anticipate a rash of these so um just something to consider the 26 budget so Capital planning began in Earnest this this month we have a slew of capital meetings where um my working group grabbing people from the finance committee uh and David from the select board in order to talk about capital and how that plan's going to come together for your first draft read on October 8th and that's supposed to inform your goals and budget discussions for FY 26 on October 8th that is going on good meeting so we talked about town hall police fire wreck and then we're going to talk about uh school and facilities and then we're going to talk about roads and Road plans and uh DPW equipment okay do you want me to continue or do you want no I think it's now time to switch over that's okay all right so we're moving on to our next agenda item which is the Safety Committee and I think we're going to get an initial report and talk about North Road and Rutland Street so um does the TA want to kick it off or how do you okay so uh I have Laura here so I'll just introduce her so Laura Harrison is the newly appointed chair of the Safety Committee the Safety Committee has organized itself has uh committed to learning a lot about the town the town structure and created a bunch of goals and is now going to move into recommending things to you however there was um an initial recommendation that Laura will present to you stemming from discussions about North Road and Rutland Street and um some of the dangerous things precipitated by the the event that happened with the uh the young child not too long ago great welcome Laura perfect thanks Ryan can you all hear me okay yeah I can hear you great fantastic um thank you for that and thank you for your time tonight um I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the work we've done so far how we're thinking about the committee's mission and the recommendation that we submitted your review the committee met for the first time on August 14th during that meeting we reviewed the committee Charter and we discussed some Top Line goals from across our members broadly the committee intends to help review and address concerns related to Road Safety line painting signage guard rails Pathways accessibility and employee safety to do so um we are reviewing resident concerns we're Gathering data to assess Town intersections we are reviewing complete streets and other Town initiatives and we then to invite Town Council and a town engineer to help educate the group about the constraints that we're work we're operating under so this work will serve to create a prioritized list and the tools with which we can make further recommendations several members of the committee immediately raised the topic of the intersection of North Road and rless Street where there have been multiple recent accidents the most recent of which was very serious in addition to continued speed enforcement on both streets we discussed a number of possible solutions and Jim Hall actually helped us identify a few measures that could potentially be taken immediately we conducted a site visit to North Road and ret Street just two days after that on August 16th at that visit DPW put together a plan to trim back trees and brush to improve line of sight to repaint and move the stock lines on North Road and to add warning signs in advance of the intersection that portion of the work is actually now complete but we also discussed adding stop signs on Rutland Street to create a four-way stop there similar to what was done successfully just south of there at the three-way intersection on Street and East streets the committee met again on uh September 4th where we further discussed and voted unanimously on this action we believe that this step is appropriate given the speed and the frequency of traffic for the intersection and chief idola has offered additional police detail to help with the initial adjustment um that's really it I really appreciate your time and attention on the matter I of course happy to talk further about the recommendation or other committee work as needed sounds good just for my own benefit in terms of adding stop signs to a road is is there what's the process for that is that just something that we voted the select board votes that it's well it depends on the road if it were a state road you have to do go through do it on 225 uh just one of our roads we can do it where we think it's okay needed that's one of the things that Laura just mentioned in the committee Why Town Council and the town Engineers are coming so that they can answer committee ask can we do this can we do that or what can we recommend to the select board so they're going to educate themselves but this one is Select board perview stop sign okay cuz when we did the the rotary I know there were a lot of regulations around signage and mandates which is why there's so many because it's state road right not only only state road but the funding came from the state so you were required to follow Mass thought that's screen attached gotcha okay um we don't have anything to vote on tonight yeah we do we do the motion of the I just wondered you you had adding dangerous intersection signs what is a what does that look like what is a dangerous so what it would look like is uh approximately 100 200 ft before the intersection it's a yellow diamond that says dangerous intersection ahead so that would actually go under the uh yeah looks like that okay a dangerous intersection I could have looked at I'm sorry now the pole will also have a stop sign ahead for a while until people get used to it and then it'll lead into the stop sign so it's a way to it's a control measure to slow people down yeah I go through that intersection on a fairly regular basis and I I think it's a great idea I don't see a stop sign impeding the flow of traffic on that there now a two-way right there's a two-way coming on North Road North Road but but there's always that moment where you cross where you just like go put their put their little nose out and I and it's not a it's not a heavy it's not like you're going to get traffic backups or anything there North Road has poor sight lines which what causes the problem yes and they've improved the sight lines and they have also put the stop the the the line yeah closer to the intersection so you can actually see but it's still um still tricky no and I yeah it just seems like a good record recomendation and I I certainly support it so staff does serve on this committee an advisory role so both Chiefs are involved Jim's involved I'm I'm there at most meetings the most enlightening comment for me from chief M and DOA was they have done speed studies there and because the speed limit is what it is it and we were standing there it feels like people are flying but they are within within the speed limit so there's not a lot you can do in terms of enforcement to slow it down which is why he was in favor and the fire chief was in favor having to deal with accidents and other responses of creating a situation where you have to stop at least three people are going to stop right so even in the worst case scenario you have one more chance to not have an accident right okay I I wanted to make it clear the committee is not set on signing everywhere and putting stop signs everywhere around town this one is just of particular interest because of the history of it so the only thing for you Mr chair is whether you want the protocol of allowing the public to com in for a month or two weeks or whatever I don't care but I I generally like that I don't know how the rest of the board feels about that and I know that you know we want to move quickly and be responsive to safety concerns but we're also a public board and always seek public input because these are other citizens who want to weigh in is there anyone who has other thoughts I mean Kate you've been on the committee so you're you know well it's a committee of citizens it is a committee and people can um also you know have input there but that's true of almost everything we do we still we still use these similar things for when me I don't care but what would the what would the Forum be for the public input they would just write you they would just email right this is in in my view the first time but I guess they've had a public meeting for the Safety Committee so you could say you know informed citizens would view that and maybe it's written about in the mosquito and which was I believe and they had um you know people can talk about it and if they had comments or opinions they could share it with us or with that committee we just haven't had it we've had this meeting and then we're voting on it and so I I generally like to have I mean I just think is but I'm sympathetic to safety and the you know urgent nature of changing things if they're unsafe conditions what's the lead like what the process to actually install the stop signs is that what's entailed there like is that a pretty quick thing you order them in you pop them in it doesn't take six months like everything else it's about an hour oh really okay I mean I don't I don't see a flood of people coming for this particular issue but it's really about the policy and the precedent of if we're putting up signs in town two week I think I don't want to go on record then there'll be an accident and I'll look like an idiot but generally we I don't if we feel it's an emergency we should do it otherwise we should give it to two weeks as our policy I would tend to agree with with that but i' you know we don't know it might happen in two weeks so to Scott's question um Ryan if we said yes tonight when are the stops signed in as soon as Jim gets them so I would I don't think it would take more than two weeks okay the other thing we could do is we could have that we don't have a policy in place we could set that as our policy going forward and approve this if some people wanted to is were there any perspectives or comments about reasons not to put in stop signs in any of this discussion I my my thing is I just don't know what I would hear that would change my opinion on this one right I mean except for somebody just complaining because you know they like to drive F honly we had somebody complaining Drive the Rutland the third stop sign on Rutland somebody complained because um they had a stick shift and they thought it was going to be hard for them start back up you know uh and that was the one complaint we had about that we put it in good practice you know yeah exactly you know um I think something like this um you know we also have all of our our our safety you know staff who that were in favor of this we had a terrible accident there the first accident and I think I don't think we should wait two weeks to see if somebody's going to I'm in favor but I I I'm in favor of voting on this tonight but I do think we should maybe also tonight just have a put in place that we a a policy or a practice for we have already practice well and and Laura I think I would ask you um as the chair and you know obviously the Le's or Kate you're officially on it so um but maybe in the future that we work out some process where you you bring this you know to the board or at least it gets in the TA report um a week before and we ask for public comment somehow we get the word out just cuz I think it's good government to to have public input and we said this one well we can't think of anything but that's why there's the public they think of things that we don't think of so so answer you SC I mean I don't we used to do this we used to say the motion used to be a two-part the first of which was wave our standard practice of maybe that was a school I moved to wave our standard practice waiting and then we the motion so all right well why don't we why don't we vote on this tonight to to passes but I think going forward um maybe the chair of the Safety Committee can kind of take that under advisement and make sure you get the information to us and so we can disseminate it and I think it's good to have even the mosquito as part of that you know to get the word out just because it's helpful yeah age so um any a motion I'll I'll do it I move to direct the Town Administrator to install a four-way stop at the intersection of North Road and Rutland Street for the recommendation of the Safety Committee second okay any further discussion seeing none uh we'll just do a Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed all right thank you yeah thank you to you thanks Lauren thanks for all the work for the committee I mean that's really nice that there so much this is really important I'm I'm thrilled sure sure well and we look forward to seeing yeah more good work ahead okay all right moving along um there's no red lights we're early on the TA bylaw draft review but I think that's okay because it's going to be lots of lots of deliberating ahead of us lots of deliberating all right all right so I had wanted to arrange this a little differently than what we had done or we've started this um we started down the road first kind of identifying what what we may want to do which is a possible ta bylaw that we'd want to bring before the town or potentially the legislature we've heard from Town Council at this point about how that may have to move forward I have asked Town Council for some more information on um what would need to go before the legislature and what would not need to just so that we have that information readily available and they'll be produced in that um it'll probably be in the next packet but in this step I thought it was important that we really kind of figure out from as a board what what we as a board would like to delegate to the Town Administrator and I I kind of put that memo in the packet um the purposes of this I think that the board is said to improve the functioning and effectiveness of carlile's daytime staff and administration to free up time for the select board to focus on policy priorities of the town and three to provide the existing Town Administrator and future Town administrators a clear set of roles and responsibilities that will Aid in directing a well-functioning town government so given that um we kind of put together a uh categories to consider and what I'd like to do tonight is to go through each of these bullets and see if we can reach some type of consensus as a select board as to what we would want to what a Authority we might want to delegate to the TA um we can certainly ask the TA who's here if we have questions on these um but as far as you know but if there other things that come up that's you know what we want to talk about as well the point here is to once we can agree on these or we think we we know what we want to do we can then make sure those are in a draft bylaw um many of them may already be captured in the draft that Kate put forward but I think it's important to have this step first and then we'll put them in the draft bylaw we'll have Council review it and then we'll go out to um all of the Committees um that we're the lia on to and um really talk about this and and put this out there and explain why we think this might be a good idea and from there try to you know assuming we want to do it build support and then take it to town meeting in the spring so that's kind of the path that I'm thinking so going through these C ories if you have them and maybe uh the Town Administrator can put these up on the screen just so that everybody can see them Aubrey can you take notes on this please sure absolutely yeah so the first category to consider is U the appointment Authority but before okay I do like your approach but taxometric yeah let's first say above these details cuz you have in your second bullet there is there any check on this power I would say the first thing is what I think we heard from Council that we the select board have the authority to delegate anything that any Authority we have we can delegate that's kind of what I remember from Council right and I just want to get an understanding so we'll delegate a bunch of things but don't we always have the the right to recall it in anything it's not just appointments anything we change our mind about we can just pull back right are you talking about once we have a TA bylaw yes not if it's a bylaw not if it's a bylaw the town can pull it back and once it's a bylaw we can go to town meeting so we are actually moving the authority from ourselves to a guy who works for us correct and and it may be David that out of these discussions we determine that a bylaw is not as what we want and we may go for policies but okay so every board can then change those no I get all that I don't want to rehash we've done all that so all right so we have a set of authorities that come to us from the mgl or whatever right and we can decide either bylaw or policy or whatever we can delegate to the TA but again globally so maybe we can't recall the we can't undo the bylaw but we could always build in Sp oversight on anything right not just appointments or which which can be uh executed or not I mean we could wave it we can wave it anytime we want butan you want put I think we want something so I think some of these questions don't have to be functional specific they can be addressed by that mechanism yes I just think this is helpful because we tried to illuminate what are the things we may want to give up or power we want to give up so let's just use this as a guide David and everyone in go so who can the TA appoint or who can the TA not appoint so this is on the appointment Authority and in there we have all employees U Police Chief Fire Chief others exclusions um the school I don't don't have a question mark near because we are not going to appoint and that's going to be clear that we're not we're not involved in the school but the library I don't know if we have the authority again we will find out those but the question is what types of things um Library fire department Board of Health kcom other and this is in town clerk which yeah I I kind of like to work from a set of principles okay um and I think one of the principles for me is we are talking about the operation of town hall the school is not in the town hall the library is not in the town hall um so I I would say of the appointments the ones that I'm interested in seeing being appointed and managed more centrally it would would be the ones that are kind of you know the the land use boards the accessors the um so can I offer a counter opinion on that okay I I agree with later you know management town hall and buildings time of operation and yes I'd say also well also to some degree performance reviews normative things with HR but not being located physically in this building to me makes no difference functionally to things that are integral to what we have as authority over police fire I know but the library the library maybe we don't have even have the authority I don't a we don't have the authority but uh beyond that um if we did not have a library this town would still we would still have you know sort of the essential um government functions would be taken care of right I'm I'm I'm thinking entral government functions but police and fire are not no no they are I didn't say they weren't okay but uh I I think you're getting a little Tangled Up In in an artificial structure that's my feeling okay well maybe the hours of town hall dress code we not there yet I know but I'm saying I buy I agree with Kate's argument about location for those things but I don't agree if you say as you just did essential government functions to me essential government functions which of those statutorily do we have no authority over schools okay we understand Library maybe we got to figure that out and pretty much everything else we do right now there are some things which I'm not clear on like does a strong Chief has the right to hire his own people is that one of the things of a strong Chief and uh and to operate his own uh equipment and uh uh okay I mean DBW is not in here but they're clearly town hall employees yes and then the other question I have is the the Mandate of Board of Health do they have the authority to hire a health agent yes they do yeah so those are the ones that are in the bucket of the gray bucket yeah that's but they're others that aren't located here like tpw that and police that our Authority line is pretty clear right well the police only because we have a a weak Chief and not a strong Chief if we're a strong chief we would not have that we are a weak Chief so yeah we don't mean that pejoratively Andrew no um well again it's it's it's coming up with and I think it's easier to work on the exclusions than on the inclusions there just because it seems like I my goad we're talking appointments not we're not talk when we say appointments we're not talking about hiring yes so we're talking we're not talking about appointments in terms of committee appointments we're talking not yet but we will hiring and hiring and firing within the town structure of town employees so the daytime government yeah um so the question is and I think Barney had some comments she made just in preparation for this but police fire and town clerk were her right thing that she thought that we should have oversee C can I ask another question K's comment is an appointed board by us uh it's yes it's appointed but they have the authority to Appo there but through us no okay independent independently and planning board is elected but they don't have the authority to hire a planner yes they do they do yes so the re so going back to what I was trying to get at maybe I didn't say it quite properly I would also like to ensure that we have that we are following best practices of HR because if some board is doing it they may or may not be following best practice nor law um in their hiring and so I would like to have some mechanism for us to be ensuring that things are done properly in the hiring process now I think they they should still have the final word but we need I think our HR department needs to be overseeing all hiring and firing to ensure that it's done correctly and we don't have that currently we have no mechanism for doing that well and by nature of our town and our size I mean I again it's silos are are are not our friend here um in in some larger towns there may be more case for that but I think one of the things you hear feedback on and you know we see ourselves is when you have silos it can sometimes work against kind of the needs to have staff that can pinch in in different places at different times and so I think within that one of my higher level goals would be to empower the Town Administrator to um essentially remove those silos and have control over staff so they can be deployed in the most efficient way and shared shared when necessary um and so wherever those silos exist is kind of where I would see the Town Administrator having some authority to hire and and do performance reviews and have a say because I think that's what one of my key goals would be to would be to counter those existing silos so um you know I don't know where police and fire are you know it's it's kind of a different evaluation process of the employees so you know we can discuss that but I think within kind of certainly Town Hall in the areas we've talked about I would want to see the the Town Administrator have the authority right so when we're talking about HR in particular of daytime staff so for example we're not talking about the planning board we we're not saying we want to change the structure of the planning board and have it you know appointed by the Town Administrator just to be clear we're going to keep it as an elected board it's we're talking about the Staffing of that board because currently the Staffing is in theory controlled by that that board in and of itself so the planning board or the the um the the Board of Health another one would be the kcom that those boards in particular the the Board of Health is elected but the Board of Health um you know administrator who is there is actually reports to the chair of the Board of Health for you know administrative duties but there's the only oversight is the chair or is the board itself and so we're talking about changing that structure so that we have a more comprehensive HR structure throughout the daytime government right which is operated and overseen by the daytime government who's actually on site and can is in a position to do that evaluation which we would seem to make a lot of sense so I think are we all in agreement that we would like that across all boards I you know I would like yes of course but I'm I'm trying to work this crazy Quil Ryan to my recollection hired Julie as Town planner no didn't planning board did I did so we had a memorandum of agreement with the planning board yeah that I would assist in the hiring process okay so you assisted so same thing you heard Aubrey give a report tonight of hiring the the planning board assistant yeah so she said the planning board appointed it but we we have been given delegated authority to help with hiring that's true ameno which is what we would like to have from all course right okay so but we can't codify in a bu so in a bylaw we could in a legisl in a legis legisl again I don't want to get into the mechanic tonight of that I would rather have the this is just sowh philosophical it to whatever we would like it to be and then we're going to go through with the attorneys to figure out okay so what I'm hearing is hold on one second no so it's like so I'd like to see Town Administrator org chart like direct solid lines from all the different departments yeah solid line from the TA up to the select board and then dotted line to the different um specific board right yeah right so you have a individual who says I'm going to do as I please because the or chart says I have a dotted line to this other board like does the solid line beat the dotted line well yeah the solid in my in my the solid line is an actual line the dotted line is just a okay yeah you know sorry okay but I I think it's important that we have again I haven't seen an org chart imagine if we looked at the org chart of how things work today it's fairly complicated and there's lots of different I mean I don't think so I think there's a few I think we need to distinguish between hiring and firing and administering like these are your working hours here's the performance review process blah blah y right I'm all for the ladder the that's the hiring firing will be on the next thing well no this is appointment is hiring well you're right you're right so I mean I think that's where we started that's hiring right right hiring is a very special thing and it sounds like hiring Authority we done well hiring and firing to me go together they don't go apart everything in between hiring and firing is Administrative and I'm okay with that I'm not okay with the other one not because I don't want it because I think it's going to be a mindfield of conflicting legal things well I yeah I I think if we articulate our goal and then that's where we lean on Town Council to say this is I like what happened I guess with planning board is there was a memorandum of understanding right that with that board that board you may have to your board board but that was kind of an interim step I think what we're trying to do if if we want is really formalize this we don't need memorandums in the future this has become and it's not just for the current ta this is trying to set the town up for the future to be more efficient and effective with its HR as Scott pointed out you know one of the benefits would be shared services whatever that might be you know the the one one person managing that would be or an authority doing that would be more effective I think yeah and I think you hear from you know residents they they just want their question answered they want good employees good service and I think a lot of you know a lot of the feedback you get is why is it this way why is it that way like at the end of the day we want to provide services to the community in the most cost effective process effective way and I think moving to this model for our town given our size given where we are makes the most sense okay we don't need plus it ensures as I said that you're using the best uh HR um practices and that you're not going to run a foul of some bad things down and that's great when you have a and we're talking future we're not talking people but you know there does need to be um oversight because if you get the wrong person in you have the right person in that role fantastic you have the wrong person in the role you need the ability to you know aside from the ability to just fire that person you need some oversight so that you're not in the in the inter document it yeah so this is what we're going to entrust in the Town Administrator well no I'm what I'm what I'm referring to is what's the what's the select board's oversight on that just to make sure that it's not being that power isn't being abused or misused or well that's the check that that we're ask we were asking it seems to me if you keep a some sort of a check so uh uh you know a 3 fifths or whatever so you don't necessarily need to use it every every time but if there need it then you've got it what are the part but going back to your point for the appointments or hiring what we we said school is its own thing what are the other parts of the town where it doesn't make if there are any it just doesn't make sense for him for the Town Administrator to play that role the library is one right now that's a question and why is it a question trustees have hiring right okay and they're elected I think you need to start Scott with who's independently elected I've got Schools Board of Health planning board trustees is there anybody else assessors assessors the board of assessors is independently elected but there's is weird there's is weird yes Bo of assessors is weird so you appoint the principal assessor but the assessors Remain the ility to appoint all the other staff no but they're not elected yes they are they are elected yeah so we appoint somebody who's already been elected so we appoint the chief assessor but they appoint all other employees I see which is weird yes okay so you've got these so the first to me the first line is if they were independently elected then they have a line of authority to the citizens of Carlile basically no but I'm saying that's something you could change through a legislative to the board what do you mean good luck with that I'm just saying they have a constituency well and they're going to I think with planning board it's instructive that Ryan had a memorandum of understanding you can probably get there in that fashion I don't know that you can get there by you Town that's why we we're talking a broader thing because I think that we've all reviewed this they've had a committee the what was the name of the task force report governance task force which really reviewed this and suggested this is a really smart Direction something to think about so we're having this but but I think we we have the ability to work to codify this and get there so I don't I I don't think I I think Barney had singled out gleon as she thinks that it should be excluded um and I'm I'm kind of she's not here but I'm kind of wondering why because I I think yes it's a trustee board but you know the points but you know if we're trying to get HR as a umbrella for the town so we can have consistent colas so we can have all you know effective Town management I would think we would have all now the school is separate I I'm I'm acknowledging that that's its own thing but but I would think we would want all of them fall I agree I think lison should be under there first of all for instance they um they came to us several years ago looking for a policy for family you know maternity leave so they they do feel Bound by our um HR policies so why we should why shouldn't we then be and as an effective manager of the TA you know we would hope that the TA would go to these organiz the the the libraries you know the the head of the library and say okay what are your staffing needs and everything and and you know be knowledgeable about that so it's not just the TA making the decision it's the department head who is saying we need help inherently you know it's there's also the budget Pro so those those positions have to be funded through the budget which the TA is involved in right and my I'm not envisioning a world where the TA is now running the library and in a in a properly functioning structure you'd have a TA who we have a good Library director and they make decisions and they intervene if if and when there's a Personnel issue that can't be resolved right or part of it yeah um in an Ideal World you know it would be well managed on both ends and business would proceed as a pace but this is this is really for when something's not working or you need to share resources or do something um that's when having the the TA having that additional authority to to make it happen I think comes into play it's not it's not like we expect a TA to hire all the part-time you know interview and hire all the people working at the library it's to manage when there is this conflict um between a resource or performance yeah but we also also as well want to ensure that all the positions are advertised correctly and all that stuff and I don't know did the library uh go to you when they're yeah they so they already kind of do use our HR System so there's you know they may not have you know I think we're all in agreement on the day-to-day administrative HR functions I think we all agree we should take as much of that we may but I don't think some boards other no no we got a job to do but to Travis's point I believe we're all in agreement on that great okay I don't think we're in alignment on appointing okay well let's move to that then except the other one to well on the boards oh okay go ahead we'll move to a point well I mean that's where you started I'm I started on okay you're appointing committees you mean or well no we don't appoint we clearly appoint committees schools let's again go to Independence schools we have taken off the list yes cessor is weird I don't know what to do with that but I would say Board of Health planning board Library as it relates to hiring the librarian I guess those three where the function will to some degree the function will reside in town hall to your point at least not library but the other two I don't know how to I believe and of course we can go petition for home rule and all this ja but is it productive I mean should we acknowledge that those independent boards have that Authority but the TA and ATA will assist you know we can assist in the way that Julie was hire nobody's not trying to acknowledge that they they have that Authority what we want is for them to accept um some guidelines uh about how they we should write that we should write all that in we should write that we should write in the process of hiring they should hire according to the carel process but but what about when you have a resource in one department has one FTE and another department has one FTE and it's determined you just need 05 to share between the two and both sides say no we not going to do it is that where I think it's a good point and I think if we could beef up I guess the way of edit is to beef up the so if if at hiring and firing we acknowledge that the independent boards have that perview but in the middle from day two when they start to day T minus one they come under ta rules and I think ta rules I would I see I'm not with you on just deferring to the I thought what we're talking about is bringing the hiring Authority Under they'll never go I mean honestly they'll never we can Tilt at windmills all we want I know our Board of Health very well they will never In Our Lifetime in this town government seed that Authority this is about this is first of all for our board to decide initially and to go out and petition them and you're saying well they'll never do it but it's really for us to send the message to the town and it's the town voters at town meeting who are going to decide this and when if there is compelling reason why this structure makes more sense for our town going forward I think we could have a a shift and I that that's why I as chair had really wanted to take this up now because I think there's momentum and I think there's cause to do it because we're looking forward at our budgeting which has been really done nicely for the next you know five years and we're seeing these costs go up and this is a way to manage costs byebye and and and I really don't like us or anybody imputing what another board is going to do or say because they haven't been asked and I think we need to give them the opportunity to actually do or say whatever it is that they're going to do or say without us you know saying oh well we can't do right but I'm trying to play chess and so then after they do the predictable thing they're going to do should we be are we better serve strategically nuancing that thing Feathering it in to acknowledge some things that they do if you say the th should take over uh title five or the cessor should take over Title 5 Authority they'll die on that Hill they will totally die in that all and they'll point to tons of case law that will defend them so that would be a silly thing to do it' be a waste of time so it's better like we're doing right now right we're saying GE guys you mean take over title the Staffing of no doing that's not we're talking but you're you're picking and choosing I'm saying they have a mandate they have a mandate from the state about what they and they you know and maybe and planning board I mean they all the boards have their things and so but we're talking about taking on attempting to change that I understand that I'm not sure I am trying I'm not doing a good job if you said schools why is schools not under us like we want the schools that will be a silly fight it'll be a silly fight because the schools will never the mass and what is it desie will not allow it I mean there's so much against us no matter what we say so we're better off saying as we do gee we acknowledge that schools is independent now how can we work together but I thought there was General there had been some discussions and that there was support in different areas for some form of this maybe not in all areas but that right people aren't recoiling and Terror from all areas about this no they're not but I think there are a couple instance in fact when we had those Friday morning things the Board of Health was on board with a central and a a um evaluation not I'm with you I just said that all the all the care and feeding of the employees should go into town hall standards that is administered by the TA hiring and firing that are red flags Staffing so if you keep Staffing in the different things then you you give below the level of the top I would say that would be a TA function well that's what is that below the level in other words Health agent assistant Health agent assistant Town planner every assistant everything every staff position under that I I think what we're trying to get at though is that we need management throughout because you know the the staff those high level staff are only reporting to maybe the chairs of those organizations who are not in a you know you know I'm going to I'm going to give up I got it I let's go forward so the question here is not whether the question that you posed is what select board check should we have like so let's go back to less controversial areas Police Chief Fire Chief town clerk this is this is check on the TA so if we were to authorize the TA to go to to say okay ta you're now in charge of all these departments and they the TA does something that we think is really out of line yep you can always fire the TA I mean that's a pretty D dramatic but you didn't I don't think it right it's more like it's more like if and I hope he doesn't but if Chief amandola took another position you know like what happened to um uh Chief fer right he took a different job he moved are we going to say Ryan go hire and then let us know who you hire or are we going to say that's what we're discussing right now the high well we're discussing at what level we want to have involv but Kate was bringing up the other the opposite of that is if we did delegate it to the Town Administrator and is there a check that's an easier check to say hey you've appointed you you've hired this person but we want to you know vote them down but again I that's a question I haven't asked the TA and maybe you could chime in but I think part of the you don't vote him down you have to vote him up you can't he would have no Authority that's why that's why I so I think you have to pick those assignments where we say you know what you can hire everybody else but these ones you have to bring to okay so what would you recommend of those ones police fire and TC police fire and town clerk only because we're just emerging from we're in a transition I don't think we can say you know I think it should still be Barney Barney had said that as well Scott what do you think of that yeah it makes sense I'm you know I see police and fire more than town clerk I wasn't I'm not opposed to that but I wasn't clear on why the town clerk was being added to that list just because we've emerged from an elected it was semi conr versial even to even right take it out of election if we go the next step and say because we said by the way the select board is kind of the firewall here if we say oh no we were only kidding right I don't think that would go over that personally but Scott rais is a good point though I mean the town clerk I don't know read the go to part two of this discussion and read the uh position description there's a lot of stuff in there I was going to use a different word okay any any staff that worked beneath the town sure sure these we're only talking three employees in the town the the police fire and the town clerk we would would be hires of the select board meaning that the town admin ministrator couldn't just say okay I'm hiring this person and do it and I think that I think that's reasonable but you have a good point about wtown clerk I I could see police and fire being very high-profile positions that are interacting with the public and that there's huge responsibility that we want to but in this era I would say in this era of contested election the responsibility the town clerk is pretty significant and the reasons why those who did not want wanted to not be who were against removing the elected position were citing the independence and I think we want to do everything we can to allow the TA to not get embroiled in a possible conflict of interest even of his or her own M you know inadvertently right okay I I think that I'm in agreement with that so you want to as a board do we think that that's kind of what we're shaking out that we we' want to delegate hiring and firing of all the employees except those three would be specific hires and I guess firing fires right or I my my only question in this is when you get into something like the police department where the employees are it's a specialized profession is it feels a little weird that the TA has the hiring and firing they're doing it now what what how does it work out and they come to us with the thing all we're doing is going most of the time unless there was something so he's doing yeah right well again the I think what what I would want to hold the TA accountable to is you know your direct reports are these department heads or these these different things you need to be delegating to them you know and and if if if you're if you're getting too into the weeds there you're not doing your job that's our you know that's our overall oversight I mean it's like any other thing that we do right but again the the my intent is not to create someone that's now taking control over everything and and it's someone who can now when when we identify efficiencies or staffing issues you can actually imp that's our hiring decision it's more it's every organization in the world when the board of directors hires a CEO yeah they give that CEO a certain line of authority and they hire that CEO one hopes because they have confidence that that person will do good job yeah if they don't do a good job they have the authority to broom that's what I'm saying that's what he's say which we still have yeah that's what he's saying and that's kind of what I want to get to and personally that's my view of it is and and we need to we need to create a position that we qualified applicants and strong applicants will actually want in this town part of it too is making sure you know when the next Town Administrator is needed we have a job that is actually appealing to people that want to is defined and has the span are you're advocating for actually having no remove select board oversight from even the Chiefs what do youan no from even the chiefs no I'm not understanding your line of reason I think he's on board with the three are you not what no police fire police fire yeah you're fin so if we move on um we decided on checks on power it doesn't make sense to have you know a an kind of a a way that you know we can easily unwind that or not three fifths Vote or something because the problem again is that the hiring process in particular if the TA doesn't have the authority and then has to come to us and say well I got it you know they could vote it down and then we're back to where we started we don't want that okay so once once we're giving okay so then the last part of that is temporary appointments do we want to give definitely give the TA Authority for all temporar okay all right so I I think then Barney had that as um but she said but require the select board to approval before hiring temp police fire or town clerk so maybe she didn't think that but I I think if it's a temporary one temporary I think okay so we're going to say yes on that okay so moving on HR Authority absolutely management of personel policy okay hold on the TA wants for View and Barney to know um the Town Council is going to come back and say so right now you've delegated authority to hire police to me right we do a process that I think you're comfortable with uh you would have to overturn your strong chief law on the fire Side Fire we in order for me to have authority to hire anyone fire so right strong Chief means you hire the chief the chief hires everybody oh we're say I don't think you want to overturn that it's just council's going to ask well aren't we ruling by exception on those Chiefs anyway we've carved them out right correct but the fire chief has Authority Under well he has the authority he has or she whoever but that's what we're talking about changing so that the TA brings up a a good point here so on fire on fire because it's a whole but I guess how is that different how is that different superintendent you because you've passed in the past a strong fire chief law but not strong police chief just there is such thing as a strong police chief as well so if you wanted to give the police chief the same level of authority as a TA you would make him strong Chief not in in action in law right but we don't need You' did that in the past because volunteer volunteer department are different so you wanted to retain that expertise and knowledge yeah but we don't I mean if we carve out police chief you can still recruit a I mean sorry fire chief you can still recruit a fire chief and just bring him to us which is what we're saying we talking about the people under the fire chief he has his own authority we can't mess with that the fire chief we can be silent that's another well no that's another one because we're council's just going to bring it up I just wanted to let you know okay well it doesn't mean that they can't come under the HR umbrella right it just means that well that's what we're talking about David no no no I want to be clear if Brian wants to hire un call firefighter he hires one right no Bri Brian Chief Soros if he yes Chief Soros if but can we not put that person under our regular Personnel policies when that person is wearing the Carl fire hat we can that's as long as the Chief agrees okay okay is that a place we want to go yeah I would say no you would say no I don't think you're ready to change the strong chief law we're not changing the strong chief law no we we we would be we would have to yeah because we if we have a sexual harassment suit claim let's say not suit in the firehouse what do we do sorry Ry Brian what do we what do we do you tell the fire chief who's your direct appointment to deal with it and that's it if he he or she says no you don't have okay so we say Brian is there a policy in your Firehouse about you know and he says no I don't have a policy we have no authority to that that's one of the reasons that you'd want a strong T that's not a better example is we want all volunteer firefighters to be on this pay scale the chief doesn't have to listen to that if he's a strong Chief most of them would but you're saying you want all the HR functions well the the appointing authority is what gives you the authority to pay to to do benefits ET so the there are exceptions I I think you can manage it by just managing the chief but right well I think it's sounds like that's word smithing with Council I think we wait until we go do our next chief and I wonder if we could change it then okay so fire department the chief in that will leave as retains The Authority for hiring fire function okay so um anything else on that I was wondering excuse me um and I'm not suggesting that we do but you know we also have a finance department and are there any positions there that we want to maintain um some hiring over like the treasurer collector or the accountant I'm just throwing it out there because we talked about all the other departments and we haven't talked about that and and you for that matter COA well you're no I mean if we're talking we have to talk about all we do and I'm glad you brought it up so let's talk about it quickly and then move on I'm not suggesting we do but I just want to make sure we talk I say no and I I mean I think a lot of it just comes down to if all this were to come to fruition we would just need to manage the TA and make sure we're up to date with and he has Authority but we know what's going on and you know so what is the What is the check and balance for financial fraud if the treasure collector reports to the TA and we don't have a whole lot of oversight do we now I don't know I mean technically we do because it's our budget but in point of won't change it's still our budget I mean that's the question that's like why we had that argument about audit committee like at what point do we exercise our fiduciary responsibility independently of the people who are collecting the money paying the bills and all that jazz right right that one I would say is a real is something to talk about that well that's kind of an investigative Authority and who investigates the TA the only investigate if you get a Smoking Gun but you a more robust process is an oversight Authority that constantly monitors in such a way that we can stand tall and say yes we're confident that everything's on the up and up now there is an independent auditor that comes in so that's one check I mean I'm not looking for problems but the things that I worry about organizationally my own organization and I would worry about here are financial and HR matters that could result in legal action those are the things that you want to make sure you're keeping an eye on you have some you know check and balance on that that that does come later and we kind of had a under under investigation Powers but it's one of the points and Barney brought this up but maybe Town Council has has a thought on that they they look at these they help you know they could they might so they might say this this looks good but you really should appoint the whatever Town account well let's ask I mean Ryan you're a finance guy how can right now if I challenge you say how can you make me how how can you give me confidence that syand and uh Kelly are not cooking the books so you passed a set of uh comprehensive Financial policies and I provide you a quarterly report on whether or not you're meeting those standards that are then audited by who checks that I mean where the numbers can the state and the third party auditor St and I think one of the an of bias right but one of the arguments for centralizing power a little bit I'm not saying change the entire town is there are certain employees that I don't have the authority over the boards and committees do and I would I would argue that the boards and committees have zero idea what's going on you're you're you're you're trying to prove a positive with a negative I I I understand all that I'm saying but you're asking me like how can you be confident in financial oversight but the answer is not because I'm more confident than the other guy it's he just answered mechanism MTI so we have mechanisms so I'm okay with that okay so we're going to move on we're going to keep on target here if we can um so to HR Authority management of personnel policies we've all said yes yes okay um cannot change Personnel can or cannot change Personnel policies mechanisms like three- fifths vote of the select board is the default let the TA make the decision and then the select board can change if we don't like it I mean that's how do we how do we know if it's made I mean would have to they have to propose policies should be I believe policies is a perview of these of our boards policy should come to us for review they can be suggested yeah okay you don't just really nearly change the policy policies come before the before the board so all policies like he does now yeah he does all the work we just review it I mean right exactly and it's our job to okay so that's how the Personnel policies so he can't just change policies so we're we're in agreement on that okay well this is why we're talking about it he yeah okay who does not come under the HR umbrella that's kind we've already kind of discussed that okay well even some of the school Personnel are coming under aren't they for certain functions of HR do they have their own personel no manual um Aubrey they do oh yeah is it lined up with ours we can review that we should I mean that's something I don't know you want to bylaw it I think that's departments working closely together to one yeah well the thing is they don't have an HR department at the school no but they do use they using our function right so um right it that which is another argument for the rest since the even the school which statutorily doesn't have to is it's it argues that the rest of the Town should also be using rhr function and everybody should be same umbrella and that's what we try to get which would be a good I mean I think okay but we said the fire department is one other that does not okay so we're no I'm just trying to be clear so we're fire department and school um but we have said that at this point we think that the library is another one that should right yeah sure it's fun it's if it's staff funded by the town budget y yeah okay yeah all right I'm just want to okay I think we should also just keep this as simple and consistent I mean there's a reason to not do it for fire that we can explain but if we get into this thing where it's like this but not this people start looking at you like but that's government too everyone's exceptions for everything lob simpler is better you looked at the tax code right exactly exactly all right but I like it Scott we're going to be consistent we're going be all right so collective bargaining um do we want the TA to be responsible for that do we want some level of oversight what are you what are we talking about here like in terms of contract negotiation which collective bargaining are extent here are you saying you wouldn't have it's police and dispatch right is that the only two Ryan dispatch police yes under your Authority yes which ones police and fire police and dispatch OH police so right now you're you're kind of negotiations like on dispatch but you bring us the status and all that ja right we voted so you've delegated running it to me right with people but also we've de haven't we not delegated negotiation to you with dispatch we have no we meet more the process you'd be delegating so am I in charge of the process or not is the TA in charge of the process or not you always have to sign yeah we have to sign the agreement but it's kind of like the police chief if if we need a new police chief as I understand what we do now and what we would continue to do we'd say Ryan go run a search and bring us a name or two right we have a collective bargaining agreement Ryan run the process bring us the contract and tell us what's going on so if the bylaw is silent on it I would come to you and say here is my process for negotiating and you would say yes or no right if it was directive and say you run the process then I would run the process well it Direct Ive would still in my mind say run the process but we still have to sign the contract yeah it would be like the chief we we let you run it but at the end we have to approve it so I don't care if you want to be silent or write it down I think we want to clarify and write it and say that the TA is responsible but as you say a check on that is that the only way it gets signed is it comes got and right now we we meet you know in executive session and go over that right prior to it so I assume okay I guess evaluations of all employees um Yes except the ones we've excluded which are the the school and the the fire department personnel are we we're allowed he's allowed to evaluate the fire isn't he Fire Chief Fire Chief yeah but the chief's in charge of all of the volunteer firefighters right but we can you can evaluate the chief are they really volunteer if they get paid they're on call they're not oh they're on call all right all right all right um firing go ahead one but okay so the employees who are under collective bargaining at police and dispatch do you eval them as well no or they do comport with the evaluation process yes both their contracts have it in it but okay all right so the contract doesn't matter okay okay so here's the you tell fire CH evaluate all your employees yeah if he doesn't we have no recourse except to get rid of him right but if you tell the police chief he's got to do it right yeah right okay fine we're carving this out as an exception for now the fire department well I mean again it depends I don't want to get into drafting you can also require the police chief to use our process versus the separate or you hiring a new Chief especially or even you know as part of this is good management and working with people so I I guess rather than say evaluations I would say evalu process for all employees okay my strong recommendation the actual evaluation is to focus on the Personnel policies that that the the chief executive executes the Personnel policies and then write all the details in the Personnel policies yeah that's a good idea okay um so the last one in this is firing Authority and I know we talked you said hiring and firing the question is on firing um do we want any kind of oversight of that you know some three fifths or anything at the end no I mean because because I know we want we the whole thing is to give the TA more Authority and cl not give him more necessarily but clarify the authority too but do we need a check on that or not my concern is practical so say there's an employee he terminates the employee then what the employee comes to us and says I'm challenging the overturn my being fired and then we have to have a public meeting to take a vote and then what if you reinstate that employee now bad that the TA just fired and it could be a month later right like I just don't see how that works unless unless there's a mechanism with the open meeting law I don't you know if there was a mechanism where you could say here's what I'm about to do and then we just but it's at what level I think if we carve out Police Chief Fire Chief and town clerk everybody under that can he can do right I'm trying to say out of this but the the best way to handle this from what I've seen in my my survey of towns not Carlile is that the Town Administrator is required to notify you if they hire or fire within a certain amount of time right so really what you want to do avoid is not knowing right right so it's notification but but if the TA fir someone and they tell you you fired someone it was a bad decision then you can take action on the TA right I agree with that but what I'm saying is on those three positions more than informing us on those three positions the Two Chiefs and the town clerk you would have to I guess call Executive session and tell us what you want to do correct and can you you can call Executive session and have those I think it's airing those are actually not his you have and fire so but you have to tell the individuals Barney had a had a comment saying all other firings ta must review with the select board chair and vice chair before they are implemented if no objections all other well she said that but I'm saying that's a suggestion the suggestion being do you want to just have some check that is but you've said all the the board you notify the policy is that you notify the board ahead of time but I don't know if that's like we had this guy at worked for DPW and he comes to work and he says I'm not hauling brush or whatever he said right yeah he walks off Lu he quit like does Ryan well okay he quit but does Ryan have to turn over to you I mean I don't think I I'm in agreement I don't think that that's reasonable but I'm I'm suggesting do you have a mechanism where the only has to go to the the chair just so that someone's informed but then I guess it's hard to mean let him run his let him run his Department I think with with open meeting law on the timing of it's just yeah if you have a Town Administrator that's gone Rogue then you have to you got bigger issues all right all right let's keep going management of town hall and town buildings hours of day operations yes layout physical yes create org departments yes okay yes yes yes permanently delegated authorities real quick on that all three of those are very reliant on appointing authority so if you don't that's right you don't control the employee then you can't control their hours where they sit or how they organize their Department well you can control where they said you can control no you can't yes you can control where they said it's correct well yes and no they may decide to not come in to work that's different but when they come you sit in that seat that's the seat for you okay the hours of oper a is the only one that I kind of had because let's put it in again you're going to where you want to get to right put it in let somebody fight it that battle I'm happy to have meaning what what what's your concern with hours people show up they need to talk to the assessor no I see assuming you just hold on I I think that hours of operation could also be the the public facing town clerk how when is the office going to be open okay so the question is is you know if is it 4 days a week is it 3 days a week and you're saying oh we're going to just let the town Town Administrator decide that and and I just think I don't know my initial reaction was that yeah is that that's a a public facing you think that should be select political type decision well my initial reaction it's not to say I'm I'm like totally opposed to it but I think I give it consideration because you know it's kind of like I brought up the last time we'll get there like the signs on the the thing I mean that's a political statement and just delegating that is is I think I'm fine you make a good argument to the argument I you make a good argument and another argument to support what you're saying is it gives Ryan Air cover if he has to go to us and we have to weigh in on that but the reason that we I would support letting the TA do this is because we never do it we just kind of we we duck every time that is but he'll bring it up and he'll say you know we have people ling up here at 9:00 a.m. and nobody's around like can I make the hours 9:00 a.m. and we'll say sure and then we put our stamp and then and then when we get enough feedback that people don't want it we say we go to the TA hey we got a problem here and that's okay we and I think that that's reasonable but but the check but the check on the power I just I hate to get so far where you say well your only check is really to fire him or not going to fire we're not going to fire him over his days we all right but if he do we on the first bullet do agreement I brought that only no we're going to say yes to all those I think okay dog hearings yes wait a minute Cemetery Deeds you haven't had to sit Cemetery Deeds yes yes okay signing warrants ah now we get to a thing isn't there mgl law in this no yeah so you you have that Authority unless you delegate it but we we can delegate it we delegate it to a select board member I don't think we should take that away I I mean it it doesn't take much time either so as a as a point of but why do we why why do we keep it what do you feel like you're getting from that well when I did it I would sit with um Chris MH and I'd look at the warrants and I did it at schools too like what's this like you do like your own business I did it I signed it once I asked questions too I was like what is this so you do it and you learn and and at least there's a sign I mean School Board I think everybody has or sign someplace everybody has to sign I don't know stupid but at least one designate from the board that's in charge of the money should be looking at the bills we're not so big we can't do that does it slow the process down does it create a problem Ryan yeah that one of us has to come um I don't have strong feelings on this the towns are 50/50 on it yeah okay okay depending on the selectboard member I would tend to keep it in cuz I do think at least it's some type of check check all right and then the last one is signs where that was the only one where I continue to think that's such it's a political hot button now but we've delegated it to the TA already to in some respect that ship sailed but what that ship has sailed I thought well it has until it erupts into you know national news now that was for for signs being stolen but or flags being stolen but but those are there are a lot of people not a lot there are people who are are not necessarily satisfied because they may be on an a one side of a political idea and the other and saying why should you know why should the TA and not the elected official get decide the airtime why why is that so I think you're confusing policy and execution though okay because the all I am delegated to do is is to execute the policy you passed yeah this guy has a sign that comports with the size requirements the date requirements and the message is a political he gets to bless the sign right you have or it's it is a sign that is sponsored um town a town entity which in fact the flags were by three town entities well so here's here's a question then so you can have the we can delegate the authority but we can but you still have to conform to the policy right right so of all these things so we can change the policy we can change the polic okay I then I'm fine with that as long as we by the way it's the same on Cemetery deeds and do here there's a policy yeah we we can ex but we don't need to necessarily discuss and debate every right sign as long as it and we don't I we don't I don't want to be in the business of making decisions around which signs are appropriate or not like we should have a clear policy and we we we've worked hard at that so as long as there's a policy guiding the execution then right okay right yep and we have and if if it's not working we change the policy right and we can still continue to do that yeah I the wheels are turning it's only because I've still hooked on the and that's I'll I have to work talk to you all about changing policy I'm I'm I I still don't like or I'm cautious about the the town employees deciding the signs or messaging that they want to put on there without a check by the select board or somebody that's elected about what they want to do and I'll just tell you the the um Pride Flags you know I knew about I authorized I supported but there are people who don't and I'm not defending that view but I think that there's a a valid reason why you know that those decisions shouldn't just be made by unelected Town officials or unelected town employees but should be made by elected officials you're saying that we have aired too much on the delegation side on that now because right now he we Ryan just informs us when there's been an approved sign right correct correct that back that's separate that's a policy and I'm getting a soft topic and I'm sorry but that was just something that that I have just I've thought about from a policy standpoint that I have I just like to have we're talking about bylaw so it sounds like that that needs to be a change in our policy in our policy to say we we're going back to the old days you need to no only for if the town if if the school wants to put something on there I I think or or any town if the firefighters want to do it and we've all said oh well of course they can put whatever they want but there may be some things that I'm agreeing with you I'm saying but the way around that is we have to then approve each sign if the school decides it's just for Town employees you said Town departments you Kate said the town departments decided they wanted to do this no no no no we're let's get let's go up a level this school committee in a that wasn't stopped this is a policy we have a rotary and can we go in the rotary or not yes in the rotary okay so so I'm just let me just give the example so we do have guidelines size gu lines it has to be a town Department like a school or a cohos or I don't know what is it the poppy seed you know I mean all these things but if the school decides it wants to have we support kamla Harris and they want to put that in the rotary we should have oversight and say maybe we shouldn't go that far Poli or Donald Trump or or Donald Trump he's saying the policy prohibits that it does now prohibit political signs political signs yes so the policy can carve out well let's go back to Travis's example is a what's a flag PR flag is a pride flag a political statement No in whose opinion the town the well as long as a board now what the Town Administrator just told me which I was I'd forgotten was the school committee voted to do that so in my mind that solves that because I think that that's a publicly elected board that decided that that was they have no authority to tell us what to put in our rotary okay they can vote whatever they want so I think you're building an argument and I'm not disagreeing that signs should be approved by this s a minute I'm not I'm not I'm not doing that I'm talking about I'm talking about I think we need to revisit the policy okay well we'll revisit that policy and then we can decide based on how that goes where to put this one okay all right we're not going to solve this one tonight all right but signs but I just I'm not beated to death Ry made a decision or the school did that a pride flag was not a political statement but in fact it is a political statement Ryan I will say and I'm a lot of gray area certainly he has he has been upfront on everything and so there's not no complaints I'm just saying we have a job to do as an elected body that's what I'm saying I'm saying that I think that a some board that's elected needs to have the on a public facing thing have have a thing let's move on something all right fin cial investigative Powers financial and HR like ethics violations should they have I would like to understand and this is a question maybe for Aubrey Aubrey do you fill an budsman role where people can come to you outside the chain of command is there a process for that yeah I mean then we're building that but yeah I am that that so if I'm you know three levels down and if I'm a DPW worker Y and I have a complaint I can go straight to you I don't need to go through right well it depends so you should be going to your department head if that makes say I'm not comfortable maybe it's about him yeah exactly then that's it is where I come in okay now we get to the thorny issue which is number two on this thing but it's all wrapped up what if it's about Ryan right and like I would agree with the note of you know if you wanted me to investigate then that would be do we have a line of authority direct to you that's independent of ran so we don't she should tell you and then you would go to col she okay yeah there we go okay all right I mean I put in a little verbiage in what I sent around this afternoon how she tell us that suggested that in those cases they go she just goes direct to the council and Council tell I think in those cases they should go to the chair okay yeah that's about so would that be in in a ATA bu uh hiring or contract or something like that that that's exp laid out that that's a role of the of the assistant town administrator yeah and that's how it would get done well it would also be in a Personnel policy correct okay and because there's grievance uh uh portion in there well it could be grievance that's one thing like this person's you know giving me crappy duties to do or whatever but it also could be I've observed an ethical or financial violation and I to report it and I don't want to report it through my department right this is one of the I think think this is a material weakness in the town's policy so the the inability to investigate HR uh ethics really ethics and financial violations that has to rest somewhere and I and I get the person who has that ultimate Authority can also be part of that process and that needs to be checked but with employees that are not under your under your appointment Authority I do not have the ability to investigate nor do you if somebody comes with a complaint in that realm to or through auy to us or whatever you don't have that Authority and this is not just the car thing in the three towns I've worked and I've run into that problem as well so I can say hey this is a serious thing and they can tell me to go away stay in your lane and I have done that and town council's told you don't have the authority so that's a discussion with Town Council but a good way to can the the Town Administrator bylaw nod to the ATA function as well I guess it could right we could have a clause in here that well if you had the the other powers that we've discussed then you would have that ability if people are ultimately if you have the hiring you would have it to facto the problem now is the way we're set up if someone's in a different Silo you don't have that Authority right so if you said the treasurer collector is appointed by the select board I started to investigate the treasurer collector I'd have to go you with that violation instead of acting right that's okay I mean I'm okay with that but there needs to be some ability at a certain level to investigate yeah right but we could give that no that's what I mean if we get the other parts right then that'll take care of this yeah I guess I mean so you can put that Authority in Town Council as well yeah but it's a little B well but I'm still back to am budsman I mean the the function that I'm used to is yes Aubrey works for you and you work for us so that's the chain of command that exists but generally if you carve out that function for very specific things the employee who is reporting or complaining can go to that aubery in this case with the confidence that that's being isolated out of the hierarchical and it'll be dealt with right up to selectboard if we decide to have you investigate rather than Council that could be kind of our decision and we can have that policy Personnel policy if but for people under his Direction well we again if we if we're being aspirational about the way we do it we could for everybody why why call so if we did all this other stuff we would just need to update the Personnel policy to reflect that yeah so I mean my view is that we should clarify the on budsman role somewhere under the ATA and then as I wrote in my markup and uh um seems to agree if it is actually about the TA it should go right to the chair of the select board then we'll figure out what to do again I'm not talking about grievances here though or I'm talking about harassment serious violations right Financial violations right exactly those need you have to be able to investigate someone does right yeah right so how do what's the consensus then on this is there one we would we would make a point to update the relevant Personnel policy to Define that is that right yes if it's not defined well I think that doesn't help you in now but that's the other part of the equation Barney put in uh ta should have the power to investigate unless there's a conflict of interest and then to the ATA but for example you wouldn't this wouldn't apply for if we if we got all this done it wouldn't apply to the uh firefighters for example you wouldn't have the ability to investigate a firefighters you should you should go in I mean depending on how how it's done serious you you should these should be even if we carve out the of everything like there should be an investigative power that can over and that can span across where we don't have I that is my opinion but I think you're I agree we should that's a point if I go to a board chair and they're like I don't care yeah then what do I do I can go I guess I can go to the select board council could we have a you have to force that board that we'd force them yeah we' force them I mean when you have serious violations I don't care who we piss off and I don't care if they want to sue us we're going in that's it yeah but it would be much better to have this done legislatively and then it's not we will try to do that but in the meantime yeah you know that's a specific point we should get coun like how do we do this is the right way to and I'd like to know the specific reasons conditions under which we can terminate the WR fire chief I mean if there was a pattern again Brian's a great guy and I don't mean to be about our current fire chief but if there was a pattern of sexual harassment for example and the chief was reluctant or ineffectual at changing it is that a reason that we can broom him yes okay good so we got a reason absolutely we should know those reason we are running over but I'm I think it's important we're almost done budget powers can be limited to quote CA role in budget budget process by law I know Kate had asked about that um that was just well that would be getting if if the select board wants to move forward some type of process bylaw and I think the rationale for something like that and it could be just a policy but a policy obviously can be changed but something so that we understand as a town how the budget is supposed to move forward whereas I think it's nebulous now is that we have a finance committee bylaw where they present a budget to the town right but don't we want the TA doing that I don't we well the way ta doing what it's this comes mostly for me so um there should be I think I said this to the finance committee last night too that whatever process you decide should be cified it doesn't have to be the ta's in it or not or whatever it just should be this is how the budget is done in carile yeah and we should we should that's a policy but the overarching authority the way I think K drafted or whoever did 334 the Town Administrator shall prepare and submit the annual operating we haven't done that yet no no no I know but it relates to the question in other words we can deal with I think what I'm trying to say is the bylaw should be clear that we're giving the TA that Authority and then the process is the policy I'm not I'm not so what's the role of finance committee well that's what they well that that the role of the the finance committee if we got a budget process bylaw that role would be um defined in that so the the process would be that the TA you know initiates uh you know this or that and then you buy such and such a date you know before the or so many days before right uh thing goes to the finance committee and presents this and that and the finance committee then does their hearings and yeah yeah whatever but that's a isn't that that's a policy not a I think yeah we're not looking to say of the budget you present the budget to town and yeah okay no no so this isn't really so if we had a policy that said you you would bring a budget to the finance committee that would suffice this doesn't need just lays out the steps in the this doesn't need to be a TA bylaw policy I'm asking his role in the process might be well no we'd have a polic we would have a policy that would define your role in the timeline in the steps the anecdote I keep saying is it took me six or so months to understand how car budgets because there's a lot of people who have different views on how car car budgets it would be more transparent and easier for employees to assist in the budget process if it was clearly laid out this is how the budget's done right how that whatever the details are in that right doesn't matter to me and staff it's just that we know what our role is right and then it doesn't matter if your boards change or your committees change or your staff changes it's done that could that be done it's just a policy that's the question so so I would think that we don't need to go into a TA bylaw okay so you're saying it would not be we should we should put it on the list of things for fincom to right to start working on is but then okay so then you would be silent process policy well right now it's sort of directed because I don't yeah I don't know we're we're just he's got the well he would have a policy the TA coming the town has the ultimate Authority on the budget right that's not going but a new but he I think what what Ryan was mentioning was just the process so if he's got to submit a budget to fincom Let's codify that somewhere but the bylaw we're not delegating then it sounds like we're not wanting to delegate as it's written here and I realize we're not drafting at the moment this is more prescriptive right and so that's why I'm taking it back steps are we are we interested in doing that it sounds like we're not just do a policy policy all right just change the word on this budget Powers budget process policy all right is word for word from the government task force finding is that the ta's role in the budget should be clear yes absolutely it doesn't say that the TA should have the budget I think that'd be Sil no and the your role in the process should be clear and the main milestones in the process should be defined and we should review the governance um report again because they did have some language about the fincom fin didn't much like so we should we should just review that sure that everything lines up okay all right the last one I think is the other requirements um ta to conduct regular meetings with department heads and report to the select board um you know it could be very prescriptive if we want it it could be silent seems a policy thing again like if we want to have a like do we want to put a bylaw that says You must meet with us you're right it's it seems in stone if it's a bylaw I think it's just it's really if there are key things we want to operate in a certain way you can say submit a quarterly report or something like that well on the other hand um if it's not in the bylaw there could be department heads who refuse to to go to the meeting and so we want to require the the department heads to attend those meetings wait no because the department heads if you're talking about daytime department heads are all under you know the rview of the TA so you're not going to the meeting you're not doing show up to work today right right so I I I would tend to think that if we can if we're committed on the not sure that's right need to meet with you if you had authority over them well right now I assemble a monthly department head meeting there are there are many that I can compel to come and there are many that I cannot but if the other things the be the if if if these other things come to pass do you also need if you had the authority to say like well you wouldn't you don't come to the meeting and we have a problem so this sentence would not give me that Authority well saying to hold department head meetings would not give me the authority to tell an employee that I don't over to come if but we're saying if all that comes all if all that's reporing to you you don't even need it you don't need it all right so it's supera so we that's I think we're it's okay I'm very glad we're not trying to get this in for fall down this is that's why we're that's why we're stepping back and we're doing this in logical steps ta maintain an organizational chart again that's a policy right um of how we job description right how we would like or things that the select board would like to see from the TA prepare init annual operating budget and capital budget that's a policy back to the budget yep okay so I think unless there's anything else Barney had said formalize the current practice that the TA report should include be included on every select board agenda I think that's another policy it's a policy policy okay ta report okay okay good all right so the next step is to clean this up and ask Council to well yeah what what the next step is I'm going to take this and all of our kind of consensus and put it into a draft type bylaw or at least write it up and then get it to the attorneys to maybe put it in a draft form and also to have them get back to us on those types of things what would need to happen legislatively or not based on what we want to see and then from there once we are in agreement that this is the type of bylaw we want to put forward we need to go out and really do our advocacy and try and you know so remind me because I remember we talked about writing a bylaw that Hues to our own authority in getting that P at whatever time meeting we do it and separately then petitioning the mgl for the home rule changes we want and then again change by after legisl but again let's let's talk about that we're we're at the end of this let's talk about that question at the next one once we figure out what we're matters to how you inform Council bring I think I I mean my my view is we don't want to it especially we were talking about for the fall and spring if we're we looking at Spring you just go with one right no but can we vote a bylaw that can we vote a bylaw that um sorry um can we vote a bylaw that exceeds our Authority exceeds our Authority exed no we can't I no so you I think you got again we probably need another session with councel we will before you get send them off drafting cuz I'm not clear I can see that we can write this bylaw within our own swim Lane and but that's the whole conversation we had is if you want to expand into the other areas then you need mgl you need to go mgl and they need to tell us what parts of this need the mgl and if there are parts that they're just like you can't do that right there's no world now we have an idea of where what we want yeah okay yeah and and well the they'll tell us what's currently out of our Authority okay all right all right let's move on yep all right all right so uh we done the town clerk hiring process Aubrey all right oh you've waited to the end thank you you are maybe I'll move his uh laptop to show it on the that' be great Zoom we uh we drove Ryan out of here [Laughter] yeah your new found powers of Le do you find a power cord no do you want me to now um so all right take it away sure USBC so as you know um we're going to start the hiring process for the permanent town clerk position um being mindful that this is the first appointed town clerk uh for the town you know we want to make sure that this is an involved process right it's really important position um and so we want to make sure that there's input from um various stakeholders so uh I'd like to make this uh you know fairly formal process um so after tonight if we can get a job description approved yeah um we can get that posted as soon as tomorrow um and then we could give a few weeks um to gather um applications and then um in the meantime I'll put together an interview panel okay um and that will consist of a couple select board members two staff members two community members and myself um so I'll also be um reaching out for any interested community members for this already um volunteered yes so that's which is great um and so then after that uh we'll uh I'll give some time for the panel to select candidates and schedule interviews and then we'll uh plan to have those interviews the end of October and then have somebody to present to the select board for appointment November 12th um and so that uh by the time that um the elections wrapping up and everything's been submitted to the state um we'll be ready to start that person and maybe even have a little o overlap with the interim Town Clerk and how are we between now and then in terms of there's a lot going on sure so elections do we have the resources we need yeah so the interim will just stay until um probably the beginning of December okay um so that was the plan is to just get us through the election season okay um and so uh that that's where this timeline is coming from and that and also um just from speaking with other Town clerks in the area of um you know being mindful of of those who would be interested would would be likely to stay right um in their town and until this next and and if they were willing to leave before that it's not so good right yeah right so definitely was uh part of you know timing it in this manner okay great sounds great do we need a motion or anything or you I like I like your edits I don't know so I tweaked I don't know if you saw that yes yeah I just thought organizationally should just read a little cleaner to uh because there's a lot of duties there you no mhm so that's kind and I'm not an expert on town clerk responsibilities but I'm assuming this is fairly standard description there's there's nothing in here that's there's nothing missing there's nothing here that shouldn't be it's fairly comprehensive it was reviewed um stand set do what's that all those physical requirements well you got to put that in right stuff right yeah I like some of your little when we had reviewed Our Town Administrator um their former Town Administrator description they had to operate a fax machine you know so things do they still do haveu yeah it's government we still have the fact and the town clerk's office I I I can probably guarantee you go you do I know we do for HR it's like if you work in a medical office right yeah they still love their fact things re so weird it's very bizarre okay so I don't know um do I do we need to have any sort of motion did you see the edits David are you were there any edits that no do you like his edits or do you prefer your version no I there wasn't really anything okay you know it it cleans it up okay so do we want to move um okay so do we need a motion or need a motion just you don't need a motion no no go i' defer to the yeah so this the main thing we're looking for is confidence in this process so the only time besides the two people are on this board that you will see the candidate is when the final candidate selected is in front of you so they talked about you retaining this appointing authority so we just want to make sure this appointment process meets this board standard and then Aubrey will run it you don't have to have an oml subcommittee y if you do want to do that then we have to talk about a different structure I'm so you appoint the people on it totally Au I do okay great all right I think then we're as a board we're satisfied yeah okay good um back to the TA report if there's anything further just getting back to it thank you auy for putting that together um okay we talked about the budget you heard from the Safety Committee tonight all right so this came up we we are eligible for a complete streets Grant $500,000 in complete streets money so they are filed in October and in May um in just being transparent in my zest to try and get stuff done we did have a group that wanted to uh finish the sidewalk I can't remember the street but toward towards the center of town on conquered Road um Spencer no it's um Palmer way Palmer yes which which I do think would be a worthy candidate etc etc that was the only time that a sidewalk had come in front of me and I was with the engineers and and they were like we we can put something together and I was like hey this would be a consideration anyways in a moment of lucidness I called Travis and said hey I think the select board might want to have some more more input on this rather than than me just deciding the sidewalk should get done based off some Community input so I've attached the prioritization plan the level three prioritization plan to this report and it would be good if the select board could at some point soon review it and come up with or you could have the Safety Committee review it or some somebody review it to come up with is this still in priority or order what would we like to get done if we had $500,000 um so that we can take advantage of this this grant while sorry I maybe I missed it where did this priority list come from this was a town planning process was done in 2018 okay by the planning board I believe it was run by the planning board and um Niche your engineers okay so there was cuz I'm like Paving it was you looked at needs and well and some of them are done already are they not a lot of this has been done it's mostly sidewalks sidewalks yeah ADA compliance I thought that so this was required to be a complete streets Community complete streets is number three was done I think right and maybe number two well I thought number one number two number three I mean so there there two different I mean there's there's a safety issue which I definitely think the newly energized Safety Committee should weigh in on but then there's also this I guess philosophical thing about sidewalks and how far we go with sidewalks it's it's a budget thing too and a political thing yeah well who gets first and if you want them at all and if you want the what if you want them at all yeah yeah right if you want them at all I've been told a couple times that Carla does not have sidewalks they have Pathways that's true indication that you don't want no no that was for Ada I think wasn't it oh no I mean it's more like can bikers do bikers can bikers bike around not having to share the road with cars can they have their own little that's mostly it right some Walkers I thought it was the the Ada because of the compliance with the dips and that we had to have them as not paved because that way we would have to that's that right oh I see okay that's part of it yeah so how do you get at that I guess all part of you can't write back on those Pathways was there a committee that did complete streets how did we come up with all or planning board just did it all themselves we used to have a Safety Committee pedestrian and Safety Committee saf Comm it's kind of like now the new I think they did it and that was we could give it we could dump it in their lap I guess they're gone that's so newly Conant safety the new Safety Committee yeah this isn't really safety some of it is and some isn't you're right so does that mean everything will be safety first how much sidewalk does $500,000 get you not a lot like 10 ft well you could you could spend it all on sidewalks or you could do some of these things that are th feet that's right it's not even it's not even paved saying you could easily suck up well whatever I mean this is a huge list I know why don't Brian threw it in front of us why don't we I don't know I think this is a good thing for our board to I know we we have to pick and choose maybe it's not you guys can chime in well could the people who did it maybe present to us they're thinking they're long gone gone they're all gone 500,00 this was years ago they have to the project most people in town there certain get us the money and others wouldn't right so they're gone I I just think when it comes to prioritization you're right we could delegate it but right then we'll then we'll have so we should take it and study it and come back with our questions or what so Niche is presenting this to the Safety Committee just the program in general and this report on the October 4th invite us to that meeting so you could either invite or n could give that same presentation to you at a future select board meeting I mean probably productive to just sit in in their meeting right because then we hear their views too do we have to um have an open meeting for that or can we just listen in if you're not deliberating you can just listen all right so why don't we just listen see questions well then we should have them come to us okay or we can have a have them come well or we could have a meeting we could make that a well you're yeah you're in Barcelona I'm in Barcelona yeah 6-h hour time difference makes it hard that's a Friday they're really going to present this on a Friday October 2N Wednesday October 2nd [Music] okay you know I I deferred it I won't be there I won't I'm out all right so why don't we why don't we just schedule them for a meeting all right um Sarah and the ESC officially submitted the climate leader application to the Commonwealth all right so that's complet was it accepted well it takes a while uh not yet well wen't we one of the first yes still takes time all right I just wanted to show you this quick video oh carlous beautiful place are you showing new new pavement oh well I can what I'm not driving Jim Hall is driving while I'm doing this I live down curve Street and it's it's a beauty now so that is the uh this year's Paving program reason I'm bringing that up is Newport construction has finalized this year's uh Road repair program uh the only change order on it was Church Street needed a a significant amount of additional pavement change order of 177,000 on a $380,000 project is pretty good uh we feel that Newport construction is a good partner Jim monitored this so we feel like like the project was successful and the treatments were completed on curve Street Proctor Street Prospect Street River Road Church Street and School Street Great Greeno Barn is now completely gone and the ground is level all filled materials were approved by the conservation agent and Salvage items were properly stored for future use um Julie in particular but the staff in general deserves a tremendous amount of u credit for the creativity and oversight of this project as to all the Town volunteers and Advocates have been working on this project for 10 years so of course there are many that wish um it could have been done differently or not but I do believe that this is a good compromise outcome uh Jeremy continues for no money to to run the Corey Auditorium lighting project and I would love to say that I have skills like that but he's got it all right and um confident in the oversight so is Stephen so that that project continues to move on tree clearing is begun uh for the dog park at Banta Davis and I attached a timeline for you to see yeah y okay um we're F we finalized bids for the tree work and the grave restoration at Central Baran ground we still are soliciting one or two more quotes for the entrance stones in the Lichfield seat however the total budget project to do all of it is going to be slightly over and historical commission is going to move the SE Cemetery entrance stones to a to a future ask of the CPC in order to make sure all the stones are corrected so this a very cool project I'll have a presentation for you on it once once it gets going but essentially it is lifting all of the stones making sure that they're they're clean taking away any trees that threaten the history of the history of the cemetery and then redoing the roof of the Lichfield seat Chrissy OA has been instrumental in that as a town volunteer building construction projects the library building committee received five bids and they will be Dowing it next week or I'm sorry Thursday the library building committee will be trying to select their OPM Thursday uh police renovation so we are still we're still in the notification and contract phase but the your renovation committee has selected an OPM for the project so I will be negotiating and bringing this back to the building committee for a final contract by the end of this month and they should begin a document review finalizing permits in October and November and then bidding should happen in December and how long do we think the terms of getting a bet bids back uh about a month about a month so that would be like end of January okay at the latest okay the fire station renovation so now having gone through one and a half building committee I'm Rec building committee OPM selections I'm remmen recommending that the um and the chair can take this but that the fire fire station renovation OPM review bid review happen at a standalone meeting it takes about two hours to do it right if everybody does their due diligence to get a short list together and the select board has retained this approving Authority so you are the selection committee for the fire station renovation OPM part of this is to get Buy in from all of us so that we're on board and we don't um so the question is do we have a an extra meeting is that that's right so because we're here do you want a schedule you want to look at your everyone take a look at their calendar October 2nd yeah sounds good from the 27th that's perfect so week of the your trip normal meeting is the 15th we have one the e8th and the 22nd okay so the 15th you go the 15th October we're talking October 15th 15th I I mean I I can do that if everyone want to do it in the evening that is the TA available always well well you know we have a policy on that don't we the TA will always always be available well even when he's not it's um it's aour how long did you say uh probably two hours okay the other thought would be do you want to have a daytime meeting or if does that not work not for two hours I don't okay I'm asking who knows okay okay I'm available that's also the day after Columbus Day okay it would help me if it could be at 6:30 or later yeah so want just do so 7:00 7 to nine sure okay let's schedule that and at what point do we have a better sense of the cost you won't you so this is just CR this is um qualifications only and and I'm I'm asking this question so if we I'm just putting the AR hat back on in terms of when we want to finalize that want to be synced up with this timeline so is that mid- October still an okay timeline to do whatever cab acts we need to do so assuming it went very fast the 15th you would short list y the next meeting you would have your interviews Y in public so probably be at your regular meeting on the meeting following the 50 22nd Okay then if you selected someone that night it would probably take me a week or two till the next meeting to get you some type of proposal right I just want to make sure we're early November we're not caught with the so while you have your calendars out actually the um planning board I think is planning to have an MBTA open house on the 16th of of October at 6: p.m. on my calendar it's already on your calendar okay so just good and what's the open housing tail it's to you know let you know let people know what MBTA communities law is how we think we might be able to uh comply with it in this town and what the you know kind of impact would be on this town it's going to be here at Town Hall yes and what time 6 6 I give you more I'm already pretty familiar with all right I've approved we have approved per your policy three rotary signs one for the carile Community chorus September 9th to the 23rd this sign will also be at the transfer station the community um one Community one goal sign will be in the rotary from September 15th to 28th and the run for Live sign will be in the rotary from September 2nd to September 16th we've also tightened up what it means to be in the rotary so there will be no more signs in the um and any that have happened have have been by accident so we're being very clear in the circle itself there is no signs it is in the islands around it what is one Community one goal it is the packet sounds two communities is that directed to me thanks uh it is logos kicks and mighty moose it's a fundraiser is this for the kicks oh logos for kicks oh kick kick and mighty moose yeah both those are yeah those are big Community I read this I actually have to say I'll just editor I I've heard for live live for live or live for live whatever you know for years I've heard of it but to actually get the note from jod marshan was pretty moving I don't know if you guys read that but um anyway she said money RAC is helping victims of domestic VI to prevent the tragedy that caused a bullet to enter my head as well as killing my child Olivia Maran where where did you was in the in the application oh was in the application from the actual lady kind for the oh oh the our leftt yes okay we're almost done here couple discussion points coming up Capital planning as we talked about in the financial forecast as well which is updating the operating budget model based off some assumptions and projections all right staff recognition so Martha uh sent this to me that summer reading participation went up 20% this year some numbers are here in the yeah in the report itself y uh five Library staff members also managed to complete Bingo blackouts which requires reading 16 books and Gretchen also joined in on this because that's what she does uh also for Martha all the library staff deserve recognition for the work in the summer reading program but Jen especially is responsible for Success including working together with Holly and Miriam on joint programming so good good uh good story for multiple departments yes some dates I will remind you I'm in Pittsburgh scholarship September 21st to 25th and the agenda which we'll be reviewing tomorrow the the agenda is one thing I did want to ask about because I know I'll review it tomorrow too but um the cahs we're we're having a big discussion about you know kind of the their what their um services are and the the um they want to talk about a community center with us but I think we really want to focus on understanding what they do and what they want to offer as part of that um I was wondering if we combin not that meeting but something with an offsite in the Ben Field property um sure but I don't know if that's going to fit but I I'm going to think about it and talk about tomorrow with the TA fi trip like we did with a field trip because the the Benfield property is something and it's it it kind of May dovetail in with the Council on agent as well more the more the AF affordable housing could be that part of it too or no what's the one you're on or you used to be on what affordable housing the one we that nobody wants to be the one that nobody wants to be Housing Trust Housing Trust Housing Trust yes yes I and I really still need another member so we didn't even get a quorum yesterday but um yeah the uh Benfield um has a lot of community areas and built in they were that's a good idea to visit it doesn't I don't know if it has to be time with this but well I was thinking about because then that's in our goals for the year is to really focus on that building as well CU we need to figure out what I actually have on my list to ask Ryan where we are with the key fobs in there if you knows but oh start started today at Benfield oh key fobs no that's the next after we do here is this poll petition P or p o e uh an actual poll p e po you know telephone poll p oh it's telephone poll I'm like put potion I not everything's elections try went up better for with the pole capping okay yeah I was wondering what that was I should ask what the pole capping yeah oh they Bedford someone climbs up the pole and well first they grease it they oh they grease you have to get up there and take the cap off oh it's a contest it's a contest yeah well no one person does it it's not greased it's not that we should ask I don't know no someone just climbs up the pole and puts the it's on Bedford Day on May Day put a flag in there or something like a hat or something I can't remember I used to live in Bedford so used to go to it every year with kids I do have one more um so there has been a group that would like to to dedicate a couple bushes in the new Native Garden to um our last two U Town clerks who have now passed okay and at a memorial plaque so so I have a I have approved that but I I do I do want to make sure the select board is okay with that the only reason you wouldn't be is you know you don't want a proliferation of plaques everywhere you want to make sure they're special but this one has a lot of Community Support so um if there are no objections then I'm sure you'll be invited to some type of dedication how large is the plaque a very I mean I could bring one next meeting is it 5et by six feet I mean tell Nathan I want our plaque back because uh that was a fairw plaque for his leaving service the town service and back I want the plaque kind of re well we're going to scratch it out and add one more thing he's done I will not do that okay um I will take a motion to adjourn oh we have the warrants but they're they're I have have an item though so um I'm attending the the school committee meeting tomorrow and so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to briefly run down our kind of annual goals just to give them some context for what we're looking at we're also going to start the discussion about Highland um and they just want want to confirm that um and my understanding is that we're asking them to evaluate and you know not do a study or anything but think about different potential uses uh for Highland or that area that that they would be amendable to with the goal of the deliverable being something like that to us that we could then push further if if there's interest but we're not looking for them to execute the actual study or design or anything like that is that is that correct that's kind of in my keeping yeah what I thought and then um the other piece is they want to begin uh contract negotiations and want to start a meeting on that and so um they were asking if I wanted to be on that negotiating committee I'm willing to do it but I wanted to check with the select board and see if you're amendable to that or if someone else wanted to I think you'd be good yep that's fine be happy to talk to you about it before hand since it was on the last one i' would like to give you some back that was on the ones before that no that's that's great so I'll I'll meet with them tomorrow we'll start the discussion um and then if anything comes up I'll I'll keep the select board in the loop good all right Community input there two people online one's a reporter any any any Community input Last Chance romance all right well then I given that I will take a motion to adjourn so moveed all right Voice vote on favor hi hi all right we're done you guys done for the night done for the night [Music]