great thank you and welcome to Tuesday April 23rd Town um select board meeting agenda is as follows Community input appointment and resignations fiscal 25 budget and town meeting fire station renovation goals discussion two-year road maintenance plan 14 SD Road sewer agreement ta report Cemetery Deeds minutes and warrants leaon reports and Community input um we sometimes Tak uh items out of order um depending on how our time is going and the rules for Community input is that IND individuals have a one minute um limit for their remarks we always ask that people if they need to uh tell us more that then can fit in one minute to please write us an email which would then be um attached to our um agenda uh packet and um oh and oh and uh me see David David is uh here David Modell is here uh I'm here in spirit in spirit great so all of our votes will be taken um by roll call tonight so we'll start with Community input is there anybody online that would like to offer some Community input I think there's someone here oh John yes this for Community input yes this is community input and John Valentine 268 fif Street and the first thing I wanted to offer you since you were going through the process of grading yourself and doing a self- evaluation on the on the warrant and planning I want to compliment you on that and particularly and you know and I looked um not carefully at the long-term warrant book but it's really important what you've done and it's a lot of work and I want to give you a lot of kudos for that and sort of moving towards A Five-Year Plan so that's the and and so what I'm put in front of you was of course my um uh concern has always been kind of looking out longer term and having a facilities plan that kind of moves beyond the transactional and the the warrant book and the budget which is a as you know consumes a tremendous amount of time and so I think that's kind of one of the dilemmas you've had and I know you're trying to move that way and Ryan's trying to help you move that way and Julie's doing that so that's really how do we get to be more strategic and the master plan lay out sort of the the broader term needs um but as as you see on as we look at this and this is what you're kind of operating within the constraints of what the town has and what you perceive and what we've all perceive the town has of a kind of a 3% increase in taxes average taxes over some period of time with couple little bumps here and there and I as an economist look at and this is the longer term issues is sort of tax incidence is what's the level of taxes to income and as we become a more wealthy town there may be times when you willing to absorb more taxes so that's the kind of dilemma we're looking at the more important part and this is and then I talked to Jerry lman about this is how do we get beyond all the different sort of Silo perspectives and I might happen to be involved in four of these these efforts um Jerry I think is in 12 five you know whether it be the you know the the B house and worker housing the fire station I'm also involved in the community center and talking to the school about Highland and sort of longer term issues and Highland we need to sort of integrate that and I suggest and I know the town meetings suggested I'm probably going over by one minute I apologize thinking about how do we either we use the M Municipal facilities maybe break it apart as one part they saying how do we think out five 10 years and what is the sort of staging of putting these things in place and on that committee you need to have an architect yes you can use house doctors to do things but you need to have people do that s of looking out longer term that you guys do that and it's presented and I think so you got to say we've got this tension which is clearly here now but we've got to really think when we're a town of 6,000 plus how do we do this and how do all these feces put together and so that's what I urge you to do and think about um and that's not easy and our world's getting more complex um and it's going to be more complex the housing Choice Act is obviously going to do it we've got all the climate change issues we got everything happening and that's what we need to think about 5 10 years from now not just next year how do we get the fire station built so that's that's my comment and obviously you know glad to help work on that thank you John thank you is there anybody else online Christina was just here but I guess she went home okay onl so seeing none at 7:05 we'll go to appointments and resignations looks like there no just a notification it's res resignation resignation there's a resignation letter and on the there is a oh I see it's just a notification board's hereby notified of the retirement effect of April 12th 2024 laures heartley from her position of cahs driver and we would like to um recognize her with uh gratitude her service with gratitude yes thank you Lois for your service any other comments r that are we looking for somebody new Ryan for that position they say no we will be yes we're always looking to hire Carol says no Carol said no okay Carol said today in the board meeting right that they're not looking to backfill that position that's why would advise the council ning to continue to look for drivers because they go quick that's fine just reporting the facts ma'am okay thank you all right budget uh we have a draft letter that was uh or letter drafted by Travis for our discussion and um adoption for him and authorization for him to send to the mosquito and I I just wanted to say you know that came about because we had talked about it as a board and thought we if we're going to promote this as a board we should make some public statement about it so I took the lead in drafting it but I'd prefer it to come from the board and not from me you know even though I think it says my name at the bottom but I'd like to have everyone Chang to the select board I agree um but the letter I sent after the fact just had some edits on it um from another review different from what's in our packet here was in the packet it's they're shown in red this was on the email that I had sent it's in the packet it's in the packet now oh I'm sorry yeah we got a yep thank you I think it's great thank you I love these yes I agree with Nathan that you love the packets oh well no he said he liked the letter oh okay thank you I think that's what I heard thank you yes I too Travis think it's a good letter and we should submit it um technically do we all have to sign it physical sign sign I went through that this week so the chair can sign on our behalf and what about the vice chair well you can if you want who's well I just should we all sign it is bety said one signature by the chair is sufficient you're all welome to sign it but that's what you tell right in other words it's at the bottom it said it should it will say um select board well you put the names what I did this week is I said chair on behalf of the committee and I listed all the committee so so you're the chair so if you want to submit it and just change the names at the bottom and put our names on it or I think it's just more effective if all the names rather than you had submitted a letter regarding the um speech incident we had and and that came from you and I which is great but I think that this if we voted unanimously probably make sense to have all of our names on right when it's everybody and when it's not everybody in that case it was because uh didn't have time to convene the board to which fine have no issue just yeah I'm just all right so I need a motion um to submit this to the mosquito on the on behalf of the board I move that we uh approve the um letter as drafted in our packet um to be um submitted to the mosquito on behalf of the select board I second that any further discussion all those in favor I any opposed that's unanimous I'll take care of that tomorrow thanks Travis actually should have been done well it'll be in next week's that's early enough okay you can yeah Tuesday I we don't have to rush this through we we're have it's time probably would take it though well yeah it's not worth imposing on her for this um while we're on this topic though um is there I know that we have some information on the town website that's part of the um town meeting or not no I guess it's more is there a town is there a section on the town website about the ballot the town elections that has any information about this um proposal I haven't looked specifically at the Town elections it's a little tricky so the ballot is available on the town website and I was going to walk you through some of the um advertising we're doing for town meeting and information however the um so the question is there but I'm not sure that it's appropriate to have any advocacy on that page especially since it's run by the town clerk so um I'm trying to think of ways that you could promote it we could we could send it out as a blast that these are the election questions that's that's all the town is so yeah my question then would be what is there more that we want to do in terms of um providing information to people through various Avenues um you know there's been a little bit for those of you that follow City in the woods there's been some discussion recently on that site and um the there's been reference to the uh Town governance task force report on that site as well as in Travis's letter but yeah what what more do we think would be appropriate in terms of um providing information in advance of the Town election well we're I mean we are we're endorsing it through this letter right so we're endorsing it Brian I realize the town can't take a position but can the town report facts facts are it passed at a town meeting vote last time facts are the town governance task force recommended it isn't it okay to link those things say would that be considered advocacy or is that just reporting the facts I think we can say it's an a it's a ballot question I know we can say that he's saying I know so the law the law is you can't use Town resources to advocate for a ballot so we uh so we can't advertise we can't buy a paid advertisement for that you can't say the select board endorses using um any taxpayer dollars right right right got it so we well can do with this letter maybe do you want to amend the letter you want you've said it kind of in the letter you've already said it in the letter so that's well you can do I'm stating our position and it's going in well you also buted it with the I don't have that un friend the town governance report mentioned the governance report and the link to it so which is a good thing um what we what about other boards and committees so um unless their support yeah considering this and taking a position on it which you know uh and again they'd have to somehow publicize their position because it doesn't get won't get discussed at town meeting I think it' be better if we did a forum or and or you know an agenda item around this and invite people to attend that for further discuss session we you know as or as part of a hearing around if we are we going to do another hearing around our warrant before we have one more meeting we have one more meeting should we do that around the budget again you know another primer so there is business um the department revolving funds we want to go over that with you for the motion that's going to be made a town meeting everything else is pretty much said except for the uh dollar amount for Trans s of capital stabilization but I don't think that's that controversial because it was discussed in context so you could add the ballot questions to the town meeting SL toown election discussion at the next select board meeting capture maybe and rather than discussion put comment public well it's not for com public Outreach yeah for you know and uh Community Information and information or well then then you may want to revise the letter to say that uh to add uh add that to the letter that on such and such um agenda we invite everybody to come to talk about to hear about the warrant articles and the and the election um I authorize you to do that okay can just unless everyone fine I just have that at the end I uh I approve of the chair taking editorial okay taking your editorial yeah I think that would make some sense yeah sure okay sure all right and then note to us Ryan for tomorrow is that we put that in our next agenda and we'll fix the letter tomorrow when we're at our you have a whole week almost right Monday afternoon yeah well but we'll do it tomorrow get it off your desk yeah I have a very short u memory and very narrow bandwidth these days so great okay great um anything else about um would you like to let us know anything else around the warrant and the um I would so the budget and town meeting all right so the um different ways we're trying to advertise this to to people and if you hear anyone saying I haven't heard anything about town meeting then you can direct him in this way so we've put physical posters at most of the places that car go it has a QR code so they can bring them to this exact page which is found here on the website this link right here the most prominent link takes you to the upcoming town meeting page which we've populated with the main documents and then for every warrant article that has a presentation we will add background information in the presentation and relevant documents so people can go as deep or not as deep as they want to go so the warrant book itself would be the high level and then they can click farther into the documents so this is at ferns the library the police station any place where the the public goes we are trying to uh get people to look at this so this is the town meeting website we also have a Communications plan on our town social media so more than 200 people follow our our social media sites now more on Instagram how many a couple hundred now so every day Aubrey is posting an article of the day to bring people deeper into that conversation it all links back to that same page which is a dynamic page that we're updating and then I'm holding uh Coffee hours every week until town meeting if people want to come specifically to ask questions we've offered to uh go where people are if they want to gather in groups to ask us questions staff are willing to do that uh go to people's homes or ferns or wherever they want to meet and of course you can come and talk to us at Town Hall about any of the Articles so not not all of them are staff based but we can certainly provide background information to anybody who wants it so we are we are doing our best um if anybody wants a warrant booklet they are ready and available we have placed them strategically around the town but we will also deliver them to your house by firetruck maybe that's an option I'll need to Christine Le and I it reminds me not that I think of trash when I think of you Tom but the uh the transfer station we should put um some poster there swap shed some packs some packets there as well to make sure that they have enough so if you have any other ideas or anything to get the information out we're we're doing our best to try and share as much as possible so people are informed um I I heard U from Audrey about um Aubrey about the um video do you want to talk a little bit about that plan uh yes so uh the town meeting study committee I don't want to steal their Thunder but they have a very fun uh video they're putting out to try and show people how underrepresented they are at town meeting if they don't go so a little bit of public shaming and then a second video we're creating is a simple video explaining each article so we're having I'm doing a lot of them as you can imagine staff members and then proponents of certain articles are going to do hopefully less than a minute on each article and how to find more information about it so we're trying a video um we weren't able to do it but we're also trying a podcast type thing for for information as well so we're trying to find different ways to get information to Residents and voters so that so that they can find the things that they're um interested in and hopefully come and vote and talk about it then lastly Chief emol and I have discussed a another open house at the police station probably right before your next select board meeting for an hour so if people want to come and do a tour of the police station and um um we we plan on doing a virtual tour of sorts to post on the police's social media and we'll obviously link it to our social media as well so um there hasn't been a lot of questions about the police police station and we're hoping that if people have any that they ask them because we want them to be informed and make sure they're making a good decision at town meeting and I'm assuming we we're doing the low Tech thing of the sign going up on the rotary for town meeting beforehand and uh yes I remember something at the transfer outside the transfer station on a on a uh Sandwich Board good yep I just have to say wow I know it's great I mean this is this is never have we had this kind of information available in the town see how it does for participants yes right it may not be an information issue it may be other get access to information I would say I would say you know just while we're on the topic so we're we're also we designed a survey Sly aison report but you know it's AO we designed a survey Nancy Pierce very good survey designer and we're putting it on an app that people people who go to the meeting will get hard copies or an app that's the group that goes and other people will be encouraged to fill out that don't go and we're hoping to get some at more of the substantive issues of what are the impediments good to not going that's like that's the main homework for the summertime like we're doing a few things like the video and some other stuff now just to juice participation there is a letter in this week's edition coming out about that you know you're you you are effectively anointing 19 unelect you were by not going you were elect you were anointing an unelected representative for you and of the other 18 people who didn't go of that great yeah and but the main thing I think is to try to get a good survey get enough participation that over the summer we can really think drill down into that and get at that because I agree I don't think it's lack of information it's either there's there's the obvious impediments like child care and blah blah but I think there's just like the town's running fine I don't need to deal and there's no issue hop like if there's a hot button issue people show if there's not like a $ 35 million budget is not a hot button issue yeah yeah yeah they know what they're doing know should be interesting it should be interesting okay good s meeting you should go thank we're going to send the X Marine uh I mean not Marine Army um what were you a uh is it looking yeah you Army I know it's Army but it's like what's that uh MP kind of thing were you like an MP military police the I can say it I can say it um just a couple changes and I think you know this already because it was reported by David but you will be on the stage this people wanted that so and then the finance committee did recommend all of the all of the Warren articles at their last meeting so they um dug in deep and I thought they did a good analysis as well well and have recommended all of the articles that you recommended so um that is that is something you haven't been updated on but that happened great did they hold a budget hearing they did on the 17th and did they have any participation yeah I was there I don't think that what Barney meant well I know that's what you I know what Barney meant I'm just telling uh there was one other person uh from Aberdine way dri Drive yeah um I don't know who she really is I just looked her up because to see you know if she was a resident or whatever just that was it we'll put that presentation up and advertise that hearing as well I'm pretty sure there's a video put up that people can watch it you know good whatever they want it's great all this effort is tremendous thank you and to the rest of the staff okay um so 7:24 I don't know if there're going to be people um coming in at 7:30 for this fire station or we should try to fill in with minutes or the cemetery deed or the cemetery Deeds let's do the cemetery Deeds number eight keep on doing the same page 129 if you're working off the pain I know I'm doing this I know you don't Kate um do you want me to make the motion if you have it up that would be great move uh I mooved to transfer land in the public burial ground at the Green Cemetery described as follows deed 820 lot d335 grave 1 to Edward Connor's former resident is there a second second all those in favor I I will be sending these around to you for your signature okay um I got the minutes let's do the minutes Jerry let's let's be wild thank let me see minutes we only have the April 2nd minutes is there a motion I move to accept the minutes of Tuesday April 2nd as in the packet second were there any amendments anybody wanted to offer no I submitted my comments and they were Incorporated all right all those in favor I any opposed that's done okay back to the agenda all right I think that's close enough to 7:30 we'll go on to the fire station renovation goals discussion take away Ryan all right so uh I wanted to to frame this for you and I do believe that Julie is joining us she's probably a couple minutes is she upstairs not sure oh got you so to we intentionally did not have a framing document in here but we can so we have the um RFQ that was originally sent out where we solicited some Architects to to help us we were vetted by your designer selection committee and then uh we told you that we didn't think it was ready for a decision and that we wanted to rethink it and that was that was a bit ago the reason for rethinking it was we wanted to make sure that the RFQ accurately reflected your goals and after having many discussions individually and um as as a group we realize that that maybe we're not there yet with with the goals which I think is an important shaping shaping mechanism for the selection of the architect or whoever you're going to work with so I sent some some notes out today that I will share with you now so to help the discussion um I think you need to think about yeah costs right so the maximum cost you're willing to support within the the 5year framework of of taxes 5 to 10 year that that John was talking about and the tax impact of this decision which we can show you with any tools that that you request your thoughts on the goals of the project so what what are you trying to accomplish so so far you've stated that you would like the Carl fire department to stay volunteer as long as possible and then heard from the chief on why the uh programming that he's recommended matches that goal additionally other goals such as safety gender parity and others that were that are things we're considering with all buildings but specifically some of the problems at the fire department some thoughts on programming that you've already discussed which include square footage of the building uh your tolerance for the the chief's proposed program um vehicles and other things that you've received input from the community on and then your thoughts on a timeline and process so if this is going to go before um before taxpayers and residents at the next town meeting then that that will certainly dictate a certain amount of speed in this process if that's not the goal then you know a different timeline would be necessary but if you do want to bring it to the next town meeting then there are certain benchmarks that that we could explain then lastly there's been uh some conversations about about the process that I that I would like to highlight to you and hopefully have you discuss so one of them is the RFQ process that we already went through so this would be sending out to uh any architect that wanted to bid on it what you believe would be the qualifications necessary for that architect to accomplish this project for you so the more detailed you can be with that RFQ the better so if you include things like cost and goals and and don't dos then Architects um who want to do your project will likely respond and then you can interview them you could have a designer selection committee for that or you could just have the final Architects come before the board you know with some some members of the community here so that that you can vet out the candidates you can you can do that either way there's also another process um um the chief brought it up to me and and discussed it with many other Town managers and administrators so you could go with an OPM process so this is hiring your owner's project manager now and having that OPM help guide you through the selection of the final architect and firm maybe uh decision or on design or multiple designs that they could bring before you and this would be the person that shephered it from the conceptual design all the way through the construction so that that is another way to go so so that could be a architect that is just there to help you as a project manager and help you get through that so there's there's benefits to each type of process and there's there's downsides to to each type of process but I would like to highlight the main point for your selection of an architect and the process you choose is what what information that you're going to trust so if you do hire an architect you want to hire a person who when they say to you this project is less or more or different than you thought it would be that you'd be willing to trust them based on their qualifications and all the stuff you've done beforehand so that the decision is there if you don't trust them or you have some preconceived notions or biases then when they present you something it'll be easy to poke holes in it and then we'll be back to square one so I think you should consider whatever process is going to build you the most trust in the people that are advising you work as hard as you can on the goals up front so that those are clear to whoever's helping guide you and then um much like we did with the police station you would be able to counter or rebuff any arguments against your goals and Designs because you've already vetted that for example I don't think you should add X Y or Z you could say you know that that is a valid point but we've already discussed that and here's why it fits into our goals Etc so it just makes for a stronger more united project if you do that leg work upfront so we have myself the chief and our town planner here and then all the things that you've seen so far to help you uh talk about the or answer any questions we don't expect you to make a decision tonight that would be great if you've finished it all in the next half hour or so we'll design it too yes um but this is really like okay let's get to the next decision point so that we can move within the timelines you discuss that's a lot of words happy to slow it down show you anything or bring all of us up here to help you uh with this goal's discussion yesterday or do you want no I think that comes later my my judgment would be we talk actually about goals first just to reiterate kind of why we're doing this yes and then talk about pricing because that may fit into the goals and then from there kind of go into the programming I just if I were but you're the chair no you you look like you were ready to roll so I wanted I I thought about it a little bit um relative to well because I I think it's important that people in the community know that we have this is not just coming out of the blue we've been through this process we've had Community input we've had you know meetings we've already heard from the chief on this and we you know looked at at this the facility itself we've looked for alternative facilities depending if we needed one but really getting into why do we need one and I think we talked about this at the last meeting that we had talked about the fire station is kind of narrowing it down to four primary things which was one um the you know right now the protecting the health and safety of the firefighter ERS because they DEC decontamination they don't have proper decontamination areas for their equipment and so that's an essential thing that needs to be added for protection of our of our citizens and our our firefighters um the second would be more on the gender Equity side of things relative to the changes in the you know makeup of the force itself um when it was originally built the fire department was only all male I think um and now now there's I think 30 or 30% of chiefs here approximately uh right now it's more like a quarter 25% female and we have one single set of showers and bathrooms uh for the entire force and you know there's there's probably time to evaluate that and say if that's appropriate the third is um disc talked about truck storage and I think that in my mind that's something that is still kind of an open issue relative to to what is the volume of truck storage and I know the chief has his ideas and I think we should you know evaluate those and weigh in on what what would do we need to store in the facility and obviously what the facility is going to be used for as far as but that goes into the Fourth Kind of Reason rationale behind this and that's the workforce U attraction and retention so attracting firefighters to the force and retaining them and the chief has told us how that is becoming more difficult and he's looking out kind of over the next 5 to 10 years and trying to evaluate how do we keep an on call fire department now we could back up even further and say do we need an on call fire department at all but I think that we have kind of settled that at this point in time and said we want to keep that it's in it's in part of carlile's fabric and we are the only you know group around and we are the only town in the area that does that so I think that those are kind of the the underlying reasons why we're attempting to do this now are there any other thoughts on this yeah I think it's a good summary I I believe that items one two and four are kind of all of a part right some of safety gender par parody and what's for in your mind Workforce attraction yeah I mean Workforce they want to feel like Health they want to make sure there's Equity I mean those are they're all pieces of the same Workforce so there's the kind of to cut it a slightly different way they're the they're sort of the hard requirements of the operation of the fire department and then they're kind of the more holistic maybe some of them including safety might be in that bucket but there's things you have to do like to get to operate a modern fire station right and there's other things that would be good to do for the broader goal like you say my question I guess is maybe for Brian is did you have you surveyed comp towns or around Commonwealth or New England who are of similar size maybe in have on call departments and what are they doing to faciliti now um to an extent um it's more ttic things that I've seen um like I said one of the things that's different about us in terms of not having uh in terms of kind of the equipment we have and the number of people we need um is a little bit different and that we don't have towns around us that can necessarily help us within the short period of time terms of water supply so that's a bit different um other than that um most of the towns that are more like us have three to four full-timers so that's a little bit different um I think you know what one of the things we just don't have is any office space of any kind there is my office and that's it so that kind of space that um another thing I will mention that has changed since the last time I talk to you um you've asked us SE me several times what the requirements are legally and um I've always said there are nfba standards but we can choose not to meet them that will change in the next couple of years so what has happened is OSHA has taken the NDA standards and is making them laws um so some of the things around Fitness and facilities and those kinds of things will now be become requirements um you know there are towns around us with you know go to boxboro it's not it's not pretty um but a lot of those places are just hiring more and more full-time people and for DMS to fit in their their space um there are very few towns that still require people to live as close as we do to respond um you know and that's a piece of what we need is the ability to have people be able to work there and you know do remote work there so they can live 10 minutes 15 minutes away and still provide us coverage so long answer to your question I don't have specifics the towns I you know the sherburn's you know have much newer facilities many of them have more than one station um and they have the kinds of things any of the kinds of things we don't have there are towns like Foxboro that doesn't um they have the office space and things but it's it's not something that would attract anybody I don't think so when you say box is not pretty it's under capacity I mean it's under size they have some office space things like that is not something I think it would be very attractive to anybody to work in and the requirement to live are you also saying Brian that if we had a more comfortable work environment you could say you can live elsewhere as long as you commit to being there on your shift essentially uh they can be anywhere as long as they can respond within four or five minutes and okay we happen to have a place that they can do that um there have been people who come and offer want to do that and I show them you know here's the kitchen and here's the tent and you and and I don't usually hear from them again um so my guess is that's part of our future is is having people who are willing to work remotely and can can do that okay thank you I think Travis summarized it perfectly um Nathan can you speak up a little I think that Travis summarized it perfectly um I think that those those are the four that I would highlight as um the priorities um and I think you know I do have a you know I I do just want to make sure because it's very very expensive that the space that we're creating what we're putting in that space it's really important that that's what goes into that space and that um you know it just seemed like a lot of space so I just would want to make sure that that was re looked at um but uh know I think it's I think that's exactly what we talked about before and those remain my priorities okay Barney do you have any um I um I think that the um health and safety gender parity and the recruitment retention of a work an on call Workforce are key um I do have some questions about the truck storage not so much I don't think we should address that but just about how much space we need for that what vehicles need to be stored Etc but um I uh I'm comfortable with those as overarching goals and I I think it's part of that too like we talk about you know the the attracting workers and so that's going to be a whole subset discussion of what does that mean is it a is it a large room is it a break room is it then how many if you're going to have people living there or the ability to stay overnight how many beds like those are the types of things that I just think we need to I I as Ryan was saying the more specificity we can come up with the better and rather than just kind of leave it open and say okay go to it I think that's kind of what we should be focused on is is really honing in on what what these are what the requirements are same with the bathrooms too I mean what do you need what is requirement guess one other General comment would be looking at the space that exists now um figuring out how we can um uh modify renovate reuse the existing space uh as as thoughtfully and efficiently as we can um before or at the same time as considering okay do we need extra Square additional square footage uh but to really take a hard look at the existing structure with um drawing on people that have more expertise than I certainly do in terms of looking at an existing building and figuring out how you could move things around to accomplish some of these goals um uh at the same time that you're then also understanding okay what what additional square footage are we going to need to accomplish these goals are you saying that just to ease some of the stress now or is a potential it is the long-term solution you say more I'm not sure I follow your question oh you're saying to kind of relook at the the current building and its layout and everything is your is your I just wanted to make sure I understand what the goal of that was is it to is it to ease the transition period or is it with a hope of not needing additional square footage in the future my hope would be that we don't need as much additional square footage when you say in the future meaning this project this project that we're talking about yeah yeah I I I would hope I would love it if we could figure out a way to um uh re use what the space that we have uh in such a way that we um we minimize how much additional square footage we actually need to add to the building or or in a in a you know Annex I I thought we had done that so maybe I'm just mistaken uh that's that's where we got the current design right we didn't I mean Brian design right we have yeah I mean but there is a design on the table but I don't I think we put together a task force though to take a look at this that was my question didn't we well the design committee that was to to to look at the safety um facilities and to discuss both fire and police and looking at the options whether I mean um the tack right or no what was it anyway Public Safety renovation we need to split it they came back with don't combine it right we need to work on the fire department and we're going to need a separate building that's correct that's that's as far as they went right we have right the the we do have a back of the napkin envelope um plan from the um Chief but we don't have a designed mhm right plan yeah so that was really what I wanted to CLE back on Travis's points and maybe ask Julie Julie you put together kind of a process document where as I recall there would be a design committee or something right it feels like a lifetime ago I don't want to missp but yeah I mean I do think it included something like that and I don't know that you would necessarily want to stick to that same process well I'm not advocating whether we stick to it or not but I mean I think it gets to a process of do we cogitate those larger goals and and then we deputize or do we you know I mean I'd be curious as people we got a certain I think we need to bring Ryan back in again we got we had a design selection committee who invited a lot of Architects to come in and then there was could you tell us morean I it wasn't a problem but the the way the board left it the last time was the chief created a design that was paired down from the public safety facilities task force um original thoughts on on programming so it was the chief's best effort to limit the program and the cost which I think for a napkin was a pretty strong original design and the idea was can we bring in a a designer or an architect to see if that was feasible the annex design uh what we got with the designer selection committee and I'm like oiling down a bunch of work was um more of the same idea that we can build you a fire station that would meet your programming needs but to to me and then in discussions with you it it didn't solve some of your goals and other problems which was we would like you to design this Annex in this building specifically it just wasn't specific enough to that so that made us feel that we should do this goal session again and then really focus on narrowing down the scope so that your whoever you pick for the design or the conceptual design or an OPM could hone into your design and not what the architect wanted to design because we thought that might be more costly and or not meet your goals or your vision I guess I just go go they were not necessarily told they will get bu of this kind of thing so many of them disagree a little bit but well many of them were yes they were not coming back with that as an idea yeah so this is going to be an expensive project right well around 10 million um I guess Poss to 10 I guess I would say that you know not not to you know be too harsh on us but we do a lot of starting and stopping and starting and stopping and the price just keeps going up because time keeps going by I think it would really be behoove us to hire an OPM who is really going to help us drive this through and understands what we want and they own it and well we own it but they they're making it happen and they're holding us accountable um to be making decisions and and to be sticking with our decisions um so I would I would I would vote for that what's the approximate cost of that you're going to need an OPM anyway right so it'll be the cost of gathering a conceptual design plus the management of that and then what your OPM would cost anyway so my guess would be 50 to 100,000 for an OPM I oh what I was just going to say I think one advantage of an OPM is that you know we receive a lot of this information and we don't really quite know what to do with it because none of us are Architects and and and we're not doing it full time and we're not doing it full time and it would I think it would be easier to trust that information yeah I don't disagree I I mean I I think it's all the points are very good so but timing wise you mentioned do that like now kind of thing does don't wouldn't that have to be authorized by don't we have to budget for it I guess and and would that require either retooling of the current proposed budget or a separate article or what do we have in in arpa I would suggest that you use arpa do we have enough cash I think we well well no soon I forgot how much we have but I think we just got some money back from something else that didn't get used and so that's a good I think we could find find the money makes sense to me that would be a good use I think it would be an excellent use of our I think it will save us money I I agree I think it would save us money um have Ryan have you had experience working with a OPM on a project in the way that we're talking about having them help us on the very front end it's different but um when you do an msba project which is School building project which I know Carl's done and some of you were involved in they require you to hire an OPM up front and then they help you hire the design firm MH um so it's kind of all like rigged but um it would be very similar the same the same caution I give you the same caution that I that I would in in either scenario is you have to trust your OPM because they might come to you and say and I'm just being hyperbolic on purpose but this is going to cost you 25 million no matter what and you can't tell them like no it needs to be 12 right like you need to hire the type of person that you're going to say okay they're saying this is what it's going to cost and that's what it's going to cost and you do that by setting your goals in your your budget up front so you're hiring an OPM that wants to do that type of project it doesn't guide you to their contacts that want to build something else if you hire the right OPM they'll have known what you want and they'll bring in the people that would do your project but you know you got to trust someone right now the opms are me Julie and the chief right and we don't have we have our expertise in our areas but it's not enough to con to convince you to go forward with a project so you need to bring in someone that can and I and I'm assuming that there are people in the world in Massachusetts that do this for a living and that we would be able to find some uh good candidates most Architects would want to be your final design firm because there's more money in that but there are plenty who would who would take the smaller uh project management goals from and and run with it and there's some that just do that without um and able to do it without trying to steer you toward hiring their firm for the actual project if you're very clear with your goals up front you won't attract a firm that is trying to do that yeah there's firms that are just opms right yeah you want somebody who doesn't have a dog in the hunt right that's what I'm getting it there's opms that want to do big Public Safety complexes and there's opms that I would call them Scrappy opms who who work with smaller towns that want to okay put together a nice but you know building aren't trying to do the huge big bells and whistles get on the front page of architectural digest that's exactly right we want back you do but um yeah no I don't you know they're not going to have the same you know portfolio yeah right which which the the bigger Architects would attract you because of their qualification in their portfolio um you know you're going to have to have some trust in in a smaller firm but is ry's pointing out we the budget of it is something that we need to figure out up front if we go this direction say we got give OPM or the budget of the project project to give it as part of the scope of the what we're doing so you attract somebody who is ready to work with you to meet that budget right and they may come back and million no matter what and so we would have to evaluate that and if we don't think that's acceptable then either shrink the project or do something else yeah yeah it's not going to be 25 million by the way no that's hypothetic yeah hyperbolic 24 um I I see that Tom bot is here who was on the um designer selection committee and I Tom I wonder if you would feel comfortable commenting on your thoughts about the OPM versus the RFQ process yeah my honest belief is that if we go that way we'll be in the same place we are right now one year from now that you know if you look at the work's been done to date both by TBA and by Roberts kind of two ends of the spectrum one which is a minimalist approach one is is a maximalist approach and then Chief Sor is trying to get a floor plan in between those two um if I had $100,000 I was going to spend I would commission three actual design studies one for hk's structural steel integrated building approach one for an Annex with the contract interest in doing that which we had in in the seven I believe and I'd also commission Triumph modular to do a modular approach get those three real designs done meeting the chief's program requirements as indicated by his napkin if you will and worked on by Roberts and a year and you know before next Tom meeting I think we can have one of those to select from go to Tom meeting and say hey here's three real designs we looked at this is the one that's most economic or best value whatever and can we do that I honestly believe the problem with the OPM is if you get the right guy great but um it's just as probably you're going to get the wrong guy and we're going to be sitting here a year from now and he's going to say it's $20 million and I don't care what we say now I'm not going to believe $20 million because I know it can be done for last I know you where you folks will be out of that but to me that's a recipe for a delay honestly that's my thought Julie do you have a any comment on this not really okay kind of agree with everything I'm hearing um I me can interview some furnace and see what whether you like them I Tom makes a good point but I don't but I think the other the other side is we don't have the internal expertise to what to get three to evaluate to get three proposals well we could get three that we have the we have the expertise to RFP anything well to evaluate what comes back is the hard part right could we not ask the uh OPM to do that research for us on the three different um approaches or approaches yeah I think that's exactly it I mean I think we're asking the OPM to do the work that we're asking the three in this room to do now and but we have so many other things that we also want them to do but but we want this to be moving forward quickly uh so Tom I understand completely what you're saying I I see this as something that is going to propel It Forward faster sure yeah I agree agree Chief May Al uh when I have talked to opms um it is their belief that they figure out kind of where you want to go and they find the right people in other words I don't necessarily know the Architects that that will do do a $10 million building I know I I can tell you Architects that make really good buildings and I can tell you Architects that have been made not but but that's what I believe somewhere the expertise of the opms can give you is they will go to get these designs from the people that will give you or more likely give you the designs that you're looking for and the range you're looking for whe that's true or not that's that's what they believe I'm about talk to I do like Tom's point about though getting even defining it with like a modular option and a you know stick I don't know stick build or however we don't want to describe the and and then what an Annex option or is it also you know to Barney's point about reusing the structure I think one of the things we're talking about is looking at you know could you use the existing structure and build on top of it or something like that but we've I think we've investigated we ruled that out yeah we ruled that out wasn't doesn't meet doesn't meet the I don't think r no no I don't think it was ruled out okay yeah and I don't think that was with an OPM we're not starting over no right we still have these things we still have these ideas we're still going through them with the OPM yeah and saying okay but you are spending 200k then because if that OPM says commission three design studies it's 100K for him and 100K for three studies so it is more money maybe worth it but really having an expert to to guide us and as you said take away take the because otherwise we have Ryan and Julie and the chief basically spending their time doing it and they're trying to do a lot of other things for us so it's trying to get the resources right and then when they come back to us we we're we sniff around it because we're not sure that we you know we of the results and that's not fair to them yeah right I think the way I would frame what you said is it's prudent to I don't know if the number is two or three but it's prudent to have a couple different design approaches based on what we're thinking so that 100,000 or whatever it costs we do whether we have an OPM or not so the issue is really does an OPM which may represent let's say 1% of the cost of the project is it worth spending 1% for a guy that potentially could save you 10% 20% the right guy absolutely yes so it's not like 100% the first 100 to get Architects to work designs is probably regardless and then we're back to will an expert help save us money in the long run I think we feel yeah yeah and the the you know what I'm hearing that is um definitely makes a lot of sense to me is that we don't have the expertise on our among Our Town staff we're not we're don't wouldn't expect to have it um given the nature of the work that everybody's doing in terms of our town staff so we're looking for somebody that has that expertise that has that experience that has those qualifications that's going to right help help guide us in the right direction so we we're making good smart choices based on keep us moving forward yeah yeah yeah so I I support the idea of of an OPM and I I think it just um to Tom's point just really do our best due diligence to make sure we you know uh end up with a couple of candidates that really do understand what it is we're looking for and that we think can do a good job for us before choosing so we maximize the chances of getting somebody good it'll do what we want if we go this route I think then for Effectiveness it might make sense to have our Town Administrator you know run that process and for us and come up with a couple of candidates that we look at or do we trust that I think we I think just to Shield right I think it should be our decision and we hire this we choose this person and we commit to trusting that person I mean we all trust Ryan there's no question about that I'm saying but multiple candidates and then bring them in bring in bring them in and have the select board make that decision absolutely this is is an RFP so um we certainly have to narrow it down but I do agree that you have to trust this person this is basically going to be a staff member for you for for this project so right y yeah Us in the you know in the chief obviously yeah so do we what do we need to do today so I think um I think it would be nice if we just make a decision that we're going to go with the um do the that is a motion yes RFP for yes can we can bring you a PDQ we can bring you a sample um we we have that direction you still need to talk about cost progr yeah good so but that's one decision we've made right okay let you know what just for peace of mind could we have a motion well do you want to combine it do you want to combine it with what we decide around the cost cost got goals right but okay fine and then we just want it yeah make it a formal formal so that we can go back to the tape and yes we made that decision and that's the way we're going and nobody gets to flip-flop after that yes okay all right um so cost um I would say that we learned I think we learned at Triumph that it's possible to do this in the $10 million range so Triumph is a is a modular company that uh Julie had contacted they had built a it's kind of similar different in some ways a fire department Annex in in Chelmsford where it was an existing building and they attached modular structure to it sort of a unified way it's not quite the exact same project but an example um we went there and they did a presentation on on their capab abilities not our project so in many cases they what we learned is they design something for you and then you go out for an RF RFP they can kind of serve you still need an OPM and they didn't quite understand that but um or they can take your design and and give you give you some options it's it's a option it's not the only way but anyways for people don't know what Triumph is that's what they do yeah so um the uh we might say to this OPM once we hire somebody that we want them to uh include as one of the things they're looking at a modular somebody to propose a modular approach to this project right yes yes it's one of yeah and you're saying that what you learned was that 10 million is not out of well they actually have a limit the the modular has a limit of what eight 7.5 7.5 million so they why is that yeah CU a dcam you need to have a dcam certification and it has values what is dcam decontamination no Department division of capital Asset Management yeah for the state for the state so you have to you have to have done projects like this and received a certification so their cap is $7.5 million projects and I think they're the top in the area so they can't do a$ 10 million building so you can't do larger projects till you've done a larger project and you can't do larger projects till you've done the government yes yes it's yeah nice Catch 22 you can just look at it the other way um I I I have a hard time visualizing okay well I think it could be this much money or I could think it could be this much money do you have a way where you could show us like what is the impact of our budget I know that you do because if if we were to say $10 million what are we committing to our residents to if we were to say $15 million what are we getting our residents to and that way we can understand how big about basket are we really talking about when we're talking about these numbers sorry to put you on the spot yeah just give me one second so just to go back to this Triumph modular for a minute so the project could entail spending a certain amount of money on the current building to renovate it rehab It Whatever Poss and then and a separ modular structure just as a for example right that um would be capped at 7.5 million for its cost and could be less 7.5 million include the site cost and OPM costs and other stuff so they can't 7.5 is the total project cost yeah okay but they suggested they could either just do a two-story modu that somewhat like uh Chief's back of the envelope deal you know or they could look into you know um uh what's the word stabilizing the current building you know putting in more um beams allow build on top popping another thing on top they okay the project that they have done recently and that they touted is the Chelmsford fire station and that was an original building built I don't know in the 50s I think it was and they retrofitted some of the building they encountered some Foundation issues that they had to do as part of their site work but then they made an addition to it that it has brick and they tried to match the brick as best they could this is the chelsford one but the the addition is all modular and it and it provided many of the things that we're looking for why are we getting prescriptive I mean I think I just wanted to understand more what the modular option the modular modular the thing it can offer is that it's built offsite and that it can be delivered at a faster time I understand that I guess the OPM would that would be an option read that's exactly and there are some cost savings that may come with I think home rolling back into if we're trying as I understand this discussion we want to bring in opms give them some kind of bullet list of our main criteria as you've outlined and a a working budget figure just correct not the limit is this right I mean a Target this this came about I think just in saying okay we had said $10 million is that even reasonable well yes it is reasonable for that appro we saw something in chensford that was this technology that would be 7 so we're not out of the ballpark sure it's just and the opms may say you are out of the ballpark they they might they might but but we so really the question for us yeah no the question for us I think tonight is do we feel comfortable budget wise with 10 million well and right now we're Treading Water trying to give Ryan a chance to get his tools up all right so assumptions which you guys love uh 30-year borrow 4% of 5 million so for per5 million it's $183 on the current tax bill so to put that in perspective it's it's it's a little more than 1% increase on the average tax bill it's 10 million 1% per 10 million would be $366 per year in a declining way for 30 years on the average tax bill which is a little more than 2% yeah right so that is 2third of what you've authorized this year for the operating budget yes the Contex just for the project or to put it another way if we're in a 2% budget year it would be a 5% increase so it's 3% would be a 6% increase what was the household number again that he he you've reduced it to the household again what per household yeah per Ann annually in the first year for the five million it would be $183 per 5 million yeah so you need to double it though for right because it's 10 million yeah I can do that math just 183 and the average tax bill is what now 16 16 I'm I'm rounding everyone I can round if you want 364 is what percent well he said it's uh 2% that's right it's two 2% 2% so that's why I say if people are sensitive if we are somewhat sensitive to percent increases right a 3% operating line becomes a 6% increase yes well and we did show that by the way in our right and we do have that in our cap capacity you our right uh two and a half you know well to roll it back to what John you know John shows us I'm not sure exactly all his numbers but he shows a 30 you know you can equ the details but he shows a $30 million need and uh you know again plus or minus but let's just say that's an accurate number so a third of it he overestimates a police he underestimates fire but say a third of his 30 million go to this and you know is that a reasonable thing probably yeah and then this little he doesn't don't forget he does not have anything for the DPW in here no he does he does things in there that's what I say you can you can you can Tribble with the details but he's not I think he's in the ballpark you know we're we're going to have to figure this out I wouldn't necessarily take this but I mean he happened to bring it and I you know I mean I think we're going to hear now about pretty big Capital expense on Road that it sounds like yes Ryan's figured out a way to pay it out of cash so that's a good thing right that's correct okay but but so back to the um back to the number the total number or the budg the working budget maybe we want to call that I'm I'm okay with the 10 are you okay with 10 are you okay with 12 I mean the concern I always have about you know when whenever you get into these situations you say okay well what might we be able to do okay if it's $10 million well that's what it's going to be right um self-fulfilling prophecy it's a self exactly and so you know I feel you know we we want to do it right right um and we I don't know is is $10 million reasonable I don't know but it seems like it's it's something I would support we just did $33 million and Mason said to Dixon we've got to draw the Lin some that's a references tonight yeah right want me to sing my song no okay there you well and there's nothing that stop if we find a good if we hire a good OPM I mean I understand exactly what you're saying Nathan we settle if we have a number out there that is you know sort of drives yeah toward that number but looking for options that would be less than 10 million sure right if we interview three opms and we ask them that costs us zero right here's our list what do you think working budget see what those people come back with do we need to further Define this list and maybe not tonight yeah should be a little Cris and a little crisper as far as you know what we think are some of the criteria or like because again I the number of trucks that are storage and there are reasons for it which the chief has talked about where you know the water truck you can't use in the winter because it's frozen and if we keep it inside will give us more capacity that you know seems like a logical thing but maybe I I don't know what you know what's the the right thing I know that they have to take the bumper off one of the ambulances now and that's not the right thing so you know it's they're really good at it though but I mean if we I think we've given enough guidance that these three the the de facto OPM right now could probably come back to us with a ref with a draft with a draft it has well I I think you still have to have that working budget number yeah oh no we'll do that we do that with it but I'm saying if we do have enough to to kind of do a draft like TR we could bring you a draft it's what I'm trying to avoid and perfectionist I don't know what what you want to call but there will be a second round of of um second guessing with this project right like it's 500 ft too big or you should have cut that or you should have cut this and and I really just think you should think about defending that argument now so if it's you that are going to make that argument you should settle that up front and just let the OPM know like this is the size of the building that we want this is the programming we want and not not cut down the designs that come in after they're created so really just look so if you're going to say like you can't have more than 10 trucks or I won't support it then do that discussion now and I'm not saying that's the number because I can see the chief staring at me the just have it out now so the the OPM knows your unified vision for this building and then whatever comes back to you you're going to trust more so if they say you know you just can't do it for less than 11 Vehicles then then that's you know that's what it's what it is so I'll put it out there on the table my concerns about the trucks um so you know we have a lot of Medicals you know we now have two ambulances we absolutely need to have two ambulances inside we have water issues you know we have the old the old um pumper the the old tanker the new tanker I think those should be inside side um I think the antique Vehicles it's a really really expensive space for that um I could but I could be convinced if it was part of a longer term plan that based upon what we knew for growth in the town or something like that that we would be able to remove those trucks and use that for the growth um rather than in the future we need more space because we still have the antique vehicles and but we also have the the the growth um so that's that's kind of how I feel about it you know I I don't want to I don't want to cut it really really close so that you know that's don't want we do last time which I think was designed so we could build on it but it's still much time has gone by and you know everything's changed and so we can't do that you know we don't we don't want to get into that situation again either um but what jumps out of me is you know very expensive per square footage I don't know do they do cubic foot limits that kind of thing but anyway per square footage um building and we're putting the antique vehicles in it um that seems to me a little bit of Overkill unless unless there's a bigger plan that I could be convinced of but absolutely we we should have our two tanks tankers in it's we shouldn't have one outside empty right if we're going to keep it and maintain it it should be usable um we don't have fires only in the summertime as you know um and I fully support as you know two two ambulances how many antique trucks do we have so one thing about having Bas space part of that is for training we do not have a training building and that is a piece of why you have the space training and the flexibility to do things and repair things and move around in a building and all of that um part of that is driven by what you need upstairs so you need that space upstairs and so you build something with the space upstairs um I think you're right that that is your expansion space because if you build something that's only exactly what you have now your constraint in the future and that is obviously your expansion space but it's also your space that you train in it's your space that you do all the things that we don't have not having that yeah so I think I I would just I would just think it' be great if that expans space was tied to numbers you know like John would be expecting um it just tied to what we think the growth is going to be yeah and we still have $100,000 worth of tents there so for thank you for using it by the way yes so we C we can bring you the staff can bring you a draft for an OPM yes remaining decision points and maybe some funding options for a next discussion okay we should do that soon all right all right we'll also be adding another voice just one comment over yeah no just one comment on the budget um what I'm hearing is that there may be some options out there that are less expensive that would meet our needs and we don't know that really till we ask and get the proposals but so I guess I'd be more comfortable saying in the five to10 million range rather than saying 10 million okay because I think we want to send the message that we are looking for something that meets our goals but we also are very very costc conscious and I like that Pro put that out there I I worry I I I don't disagree with you at all I'm totally you know that's basically you're stating what I started off with but my concern on the other side is our ability to attract opms to to want to bid on it and so if you think of what we're trying to do and we're spending probably $3 million on a police station or $2 million on a police station $3 million on a police station and you're I I don't think we're going to come anywhere near $5 million on the fire fire station yeah it's a lot more how about not to exceed 10 million but I I the anyway you mean you could do 7.5 to 10 to five is well I think she said 5 to 10 oh 7.5 to 10 yeah I know but I think you're overthinking that the opms are going to gain this like if that's why I say if you at the competitive level when the op Ms are vying for the project they're selling us on them I totally agree with Nathan if it's too low they're like I'm being set up for failure I'm not taking that one if we say you know budgetary estimate for us is 10 million but we want your input we have a discussion again the discussion with the three people we down select costs us zero it's right we're not paying them they're pitching us we can see they'll say oh you know that's that's way too little or I can work with that I mean we'll get a sense then when you finally pick the OPM then you have a serious discussion about what you're saying but I think in the beginning I think you're I believe you're over waiting that they're going to you know suddenly design the I just think we got to give them our thinking and see test to see are we crazy or is that like in the ballpark right well and that's why I actually like the five to 10 I I do okay that's and I I think you know Tom was on the committee um and and there were a myriad of Architects who and one of them actually threw out some numbers and we of a $6 Million number all right but but that wasn't but but I say that and it wasn't vetted and there was a lot of question whether that could even be feasible yeah but you know there's an a professional architect who put it put a stake in the ground around and said no I think that this is what now you know that's why I think I think having a band is kind of might be helpful does it have to be that big a band what about 7.5 to 10 million I'm just yeah sure I think you should all think about it for our next discussion great okay great all right thank you Brian but you want us take a motion just that we gr with I still would like to have an yes okay a draft uh and we and a start go ahead and start your draft Yeah so go ahead and make your move all right so um I uh move that we um approve um hiring an OPM to um work on the fire station renovation project okay and and instu and um have our um Town Administrator um run the process run the process and bring several candidates back to the board for consideration I actually thought we were going to review the do the document first we will before he even brings them back you're just you're making a motion for like the process just the op yeah just for the the hiring of an OP start the process start the process yeah is that okay yeah yeah just I want to make sure he he's not running you said he runs with it like he's gonna bring three candidates in next week no station will be built by September really second okay so I have a motion in a second we're definitely going with the OPM uh any further discussion all those in favor great Madam chair before we move to the next yes late breaking news oh yeah because I said that Betsy said I could sign on behalf of the committee and list them and then tonight she said to me well actually if only you sign it's only you that's signing so if we want the whole committee to be listed as sign in we all have to sign read on beh of the S she can say that but they can't know that's what I did that's what I did and I thought it was okay and now suddenly it's not okay H I prefer to list everyone and I think there's time before you could circulate all you have to do I think is take a picture a doc sign can you yeah you could do a docu sign so you guys figure it out okay great I just want to make sure I don't forget that late breaking news well you check that well I didn't check it I mean I was under an impression and then tonight she's like oh wait great Ryan um two-year road maintenance plan another small budget item thank you Tom thanks Tom byebye Tom you should fly through this huh yeah that's so easy so the no there's a few bumps in the road man you guys are I tell you uh road maintenance page all right so this is born of a couple things so we do annual road maintenance this this is not new um what is new is trying to make this uh more more policy and process driven decision-making included in the capital plan and kind of vet out our public our recommendation for a public process so we did hire and it's in your packet a consultant to um go over the roads you remember that report they talked about in order to keep our roads the way they are in carile you would need to invest about $500,000 a year y this is a reaction to that doing a two-year road maintenance plan this would allow us to bid this for the next two years and then we would work on extending this plan to a to A Five-Year Plan um and then hopefully a 10-year plan and mesh it with the capital plan okay also included in this recommendation is the idea that you would hold a public hearing um as part of an annual process in order for people to come and and to grieve their Road and discuss with you g the problems with their road so we don't mind taking this to staff and we'd certainly do that but um people are pretty passionate about their roads and it can change your mind and you and you should hear it I I think yeah and it's not you know every time we go and visit someone's road we think to ourselves okay I wouldn't want to drive down this this road either right um but there's also limited resources and you have to prioritize just like capital Y so I think that's if you publish a list and you allow people to speak about it they're still going to be unhappy that the road's not tomorrow but it it does make the public feel better about the plan right okay so that's just a little context so here is um Jim and I's uh draft plan for your comment if this was approved now at our future meeting then it would go out to bid um and we would execute the 2024 plan it doesn't mean that 25's locked in but it does allow us to secure a better price if we do it over two years so the agenda for this is to discuss a maintenance strategy go over currently available funds so you understand the budget in context um provide a 2-year expense recommendation so that's the actual plan financing strategy and then the next steps so as you know the town Engineers recommended a $500,000 per year investment they included um full Paving projects is what people would recognize is my road is now looks new uh there's many different applications there and I won't get into the science but uh that's what I mean by full Paving projects and then maintenance which is uh smaller it can be up to Paving and as low as crack ceiling or everybody knows those strips that go on the road so the reason for that is water gets in cracks deteriorates bases and then the more the base deteriorates the larger the cost of the project so if you can prevent that for longer you can make your roads less a you also directed us to include what we're calling parody roads to address long neglected neighborhoods and bring to recommendations of people that are I won't say complaining but are bringing up that their roads are bad and we tried to connect these red roads if you remember the map to uh projects in order to make it cost efficient but also address problems so available funds Carlile primarily does this road maintenance through the chapter 90 program okay and you will need to supplement this in order to to maintain a 500,000 plus inflation strategy so the current reserves are 775,000 so this is money that was not spent in previous years that we have available now that's not dedicated to a current project the 25 allotment per the $200 million State Bond bill is$ 254,000 and we know for sure that we just got an additional 116,000 through the state's rural roadways program so that is known money for a total available fy2 pot of 1.45 million potential resources so there's still is a pending State um Bond bill for fair share money which last year Ned us 170,000 and then this plan is also FY 26 so that allotment should come in at around 254,000 unless they change the formula which means there's another 420,000 pending for what we're estimating to be somewhere in the vicinity of 1.56 5 million so that would be for actually per that's two for that year so the 2-year total is two 2.6 no no that's the 2-year total 1.5 65 oh okay but half of it Kate is a backlog we have in Sp it's like a free cash it's the free cash of chapter 90 that's right right and I didn't understand the potential what are those where are those so we the 26 money hasn't been approved yet okay and neither has the fair share act so we always get some chapter 90 so of that 420 I would say at least 250 is guaranteed and we're hoping for the 170 okay but fair share act looks like it's a possibility we've long been advocating that the uh state does the $300 million Bond bill which would equal about $400,000 a year for carile um and we think that under the current governor that that will be a that will be likely they have an increase chapter 90 alotment in 10 years so it's way behind inflation so with this this number the 1.5 um that covers more than the two years assuming we had all this that covers the 500,000 per year for FY 25 and 26 yes and no stay tuned okay so that the 2024 maintenance plan includes U Church Street Proctor Street Prospect Street and River Road so these prioritizations came from the niche Road study and Analysis from the Department of Public Works so the DPW records resident complaints and notes problem areas during their annual maintenance projects and they also identify through their plows so they hit things a lot in some areas and they know the bad roads better than most people they drive them all the time very few people know the roads like Jim he's driven them mall and P the mall so he can tell you every bad Road in town uh through experience I have a question I think it's Proctor Street and not Prospect Street is the one that's at the Carlile and conquered line yeah okay so it's the Proctor Street which is really very short in in Carlile it's and it's got the two entrances to it I'm wondering if we wouldn't so that makes like double the road because it's double wide on both sides what if we just weed designed it and made it a single you know real left hand turn there instead of the Old Wagon path I mean we could half I mean it's half half the length then you know I mean it's short to start with I know but I mean but I think that would cost more than this it would okay redesign you know whole process is it Road accept it Scenic Road is it I don't know I don't think so it would make your Sidelines and safety better too because you wouldn't be coming at an angle so I would recommend that we put all the roads up one night and then discuss any changes we want to do with roads for for the longer term 10year plan so that we can cost that out for you okay so um also included in the for maintenance plan is an emergency fix of the Westford Road Culvert any of you have driven on that road know that um both sides are backed up yeah uh the cover so bad that when we tried to spray it out it just disintegrated and I have a piece in my office if you want me to bring it down so the it looks like a motor shell so it fits with my Motif the uh problem with the Westford Road cul is we we do not think it's going to last this season so we're discussing as a staff a recommendation to the kcom and you to emergency where is the cover right down there yeah it's not this one right here we knew it was a problem we tried to clean it out and and realize it's even more of a problem than we thought so you're going to have sticker shock on this but U the full fix which will probably take two to three years to design and do based on current stream Crossing standards and and other things we have to do will be somewhere between 3/4 of a million and a million just the CT yes just the CT the temporary right it's basically going to come a bridge the temporary fix which would last a couple years would be in the vicinity of2 to $500,000 which would give us time to design it properly um overall we waited too long on this Julie has been very proactive in looking at Future Westford road coverts to try and get ahead uh this also doesn't preclude us getting a grant to fix this or or some other saving mechanism but we have to we're not going to going to have a choice soon uh the argument for it being emergency is the public safety aspect and the usage that it has uh really impacting the town if it was to say just go and then we needed to fix it I mean if a heavy truck goes over it it could just collapse I I don't think it's there but it's we also don't think it works so if we have another rainy season that's it it's going so looking ahead to to 2025 uh so Paving Pro also in 24 would some crack ceiling as recommended by the plan $10,000 worth of crack seiling and the on Paving pro project oh so these are the roads that you do the crack and Paving projects on yeah the ones out to the right there the ones in the pictures you're going to do Mill and fill right yes yep and this is the length of road so it's a total length of Road of nearly 16,000 ft for 25 the recommendation is Paving projects again Mill and Phil with a much more robust crack ceiling and the roads recommended are Baldwin pattern Roger Sterns West and Woodridge pattern where's pattern patn Pat It's Pat I add an R okay yeah oh okay rame Lane okay right we'll rename it uh 15,000 again in total so the financing and take questions on this I just want to get through so you understand the full picture the financing strategy for this this we took our uh maintenance projections from all identified projects and added a 10% contingency so what we did was we took 2024 costs and added it per square foot to the identified project plus added the crack sealing recommendations and vetted this with Niche to make sure that we were being reasonable and then we will bid all projects with alternates meaning um Ro in priority roads will be added to make sure if the bid goes over that we can still accomplish the project and and have to to cut out so the we're projecting the westward road culbert to be around $500,000 which might be conservative if we do the temporary and it might be under if we do the permanent fix the 2024 plan would cost a little over 500,000 and same with the 2025 for a total expenditure of 1.51 15 million which leaves us about 50,000 from the numbers that you that you showed me what's the 370 thing expense versus current what does that mean um that does I don't remember now I apologize okay but basically you're going to spend down to5 made a lot of sense to me but you're saying you're you're essentially saying burn down our Surplus Surplus now yes burn down our Surplus to take care of these you know immediate needs which will leave us in the future with the 250 of chapter 90 plus any add-ons that so I remember expense so what we actually have on hand is expense versus current um the potential is everything we think we're going to get oh I see okay so we're in a deficit if we don't get any chapter 9 zero but that's not right real and we don't get the fair share but we think we're at a $50,000 Surplus that's what that was sorry so the to to David's point I do believe that we will start getting around 400,000 per year which means we're going to past this two-year plan have to add to the capital plan in order to maintain a $500,000 strategy plus inflation right so okay add that to the list that's not a big whack if you want to do more roads and we consider more covers and we identify more horizontal construction we'll find them yeah the cost is going to increase bless you bless you well I think I mean go ahead go ahead Dave well you know in their and the study was really great I think they did a great job the the charts that they have in the study itself like those lines do indicate that yeah the five well not the maps also but even just the simple line charts um Ryan knows how much I like those line charts the 500,000 a year keeps you right at par in the today dollars right so just you know it's going to be more than 500 to stay at par when that's going like it's yeah right and not that crossover chart but the I don't know I can't tell you what page it is in the packet but um it just suggests that F 500 page 27 26 in that area right 500 keeps you at par and without inflation so that's why I'm saying it's it's more and the backlog if you go to the next chart there's two charts in a row at the par value the dollar backlog and I don't know if this is indexed or not not goes from 9 million of projects to 15 million right that's still spending yeah that second chart that one says in today's dollars you spend 500 and you stay at a score of 76 which is okay but it means that there's still some pretty crappy roads out there yes and then if you go to the next chart one page down that says okay I assume this is indexed for some kind of inflation the backlog at that spend curve which is the red dots goes from 9 million to 15 million so it's like an opep that grows right yeah just so we bear that in mind I I think the plan is great I'm just saying there's more to it we're not going to just getting 400 what you're saying we're going to spend down the rainy day fund that we have which is a good use of it yeah but there's going to be the need for but we're always going to have rainy day what we're always going to have Rainy Day events this is probably going to be shocking no exactly no no no totally that's what I'm saying and I think this is I talked about this the last time we saw this you know I worry it's too little you know I don't I don't think we should go out out of the gate and you know say we're going to repave more roads but we're burning our rainy day fund right and so if something were to come up we can't we can't do it right um well we would have to tap unless you have to step something or or go to town meeting or something like that um it seems to me like we should be building this up because um you know I think that I'm fine with us staying at the 7.6 PCI which I can't remember what PCI um stands for um but you know I think that that they been crappiness index that that that's probably okay but the fact that the fact that our kind of our big ticket debt is going up and up and up right it's like an oped that you under fund it's like an oped that you under fund uh but it's much more likely to hit you than the opep opep is at least in our yeah yeah yeah so I mean so it's a Well when the I agreed when the study came out I was like ah cuz exactly what you said was in my mind like all right we're scrapping around for you know firet truck for a few hundred, this is going to be like an extra 500 every year that you're just or more well let's say you get 400 from the if you get 400 from the state we're not the only town of this example this year alone the Culvert on 225 yeah right you know that that's in addition to the the culs I'm not an engineer that out loud yeah we need to do that 500,000 and we need to do the 500,000 right but there'll be well let's just say let's say the ticket's a million with all the contingency genes 400 or 900,000 let's say 400 I agree with Ryan it's likely that the state recognizing this Across The Colony will up the funds to say 400,000 still leaves us500 even $400,000 inrease a year is nothing compared to what we might have yeah right so it's a you know $15 million obviously it's not going to all hit us at once no no no right no that's totally right we're getting further and further and further behind well means again it means that well you know and if John were here he'd shoot me a glare but you might say well gee the community centers are nice to but we got to have our roads you know I mean those are the kind of decisions that some future elect board sure maintaining the status quo at the 500,000 is maintaining the roads where they are now yeah but but acknowledging that they're continuing to deteriorate other than just the pavement which is really what they're talking about right it's a they're continuing to deteriorate and that that cost is going from let's clarify that I think the mill and Phil redo the road right and not the culs right no not the culverts right but the roads if they're fixed they don't they get a fresh life so there is enough money in the DPW operating budget to handle small culverts and adjustments to the road that that make the road last longer and fix some problems it's these bigger CS that we really need to inventory it's one of the variables I discussed when we talked about long-term capital planning is we really need to identify the bridges and the covers yeah yeah that are going to be a problem any idea how many of the big ones we have we know of at least two more that are more expensive than West Road but that there also need to be repaired you have to assume everything needs we need we need to rebuild that rainy day fund which is what I'm worried about we're depleting no you're right you're 100% right but on that topic then um um do we know whether there are culverts within the list of um streets that we're talking about doing in in this calendar year that um we want to make sure we understand what what those needs are before we pave them only to find out we have to rip them up because we have to repair something underneath it yes so when when we do a Paving project we lift up the basins assess them do any covert work make sure that everything's add addess and then they then they pave it uhhuh um I do believe that westr road was intentionally missed the last time it was paved which because it was too expensive intentionally missed by that's why it's going to cost so much to fix you you're going to do a hydrological study and make sure it's the right size and otherwise you know that's part be another board's problem but it'll that's part of the Band-Aid or the later fix that's the later fix we don't have time to do that before it fails right so there's nothing you can do to sh it up for cheap and then commit to the bigger project well the the reason for denying the emergency waiver is that once we do the temporary fix this generation will say that's good enough so that'll be the kcoms decision um they have to give the waiver oh because it's Wetlands or what yeah yeah but I mean you're saying they'd wave it to do the Band-Aid and then they won't wave it again to do the bigger fix well you're supposed to fix it right away it's a Band-Aid but town you know don't so for the same cost conversations you're having now yeah okay my my you know I I think this is awesome I you know this is not going to before town meeting so we already have the money is that right we're taking the money from elsewhere we have the chapter 90 money we have the chapter which can only be used for things like this yeah I think my my preference would be and I don't know how this would H how this would do we take this but we really need to figure out how to make it 750 a year to get that $500,000 back and that's just nothing compared to what we need but at least we get that $500,000 back as quickly as we can and not wait you mean rebuild the tank rebuild the tank yeah no I agree with that I'm still stuck on this spending 500 and then having and for a Band-Aid seems like a pretty expensive band if you were to commit to a rebuild does that mean you have to close that road for month or something or can you route around coming to town I'm also not an engineer but um I think it would take two years to get it done but but right do the Full Repair but but do you have to close the road or it'll eventually close itself I know that but if you're just committing to rebuilding basically building a little Bridge there's no like routing around right there's a detour yeah there's a detour but you'd have to go over you have to go all the way through curve through um um Street cross street to Bingham and back so the arguments for fixing it temporarily are Public Safety and convenience and you know not overloading your point then nobody they'll be the good good enough is good enough is it is it is there an argument for looking at whether we should be doing the full-blown repair now cost cost cost yeah but it's going to you're saying we'd spend the half a million and then on top of that we'd have to spend how much more on how how much of that half a million gets wasted when we have to do the final repair all it you take it that's why right so that's my question expensive mandate yeah so well be look looking at and I know it would probably then throw this whole thing out of whack you'd have to take some of this uh Surplus that we have and you have all these other culverts that have the same issue but they're not as this the worst one right now they're not as bad as this but I'm saying that we're going to have those costs too and you know well that goes back to Nathan's point that you know we would need a cover plan which I think we all agree I'm I'm just that do you if I were to present you with a $500 fix on your car that's really needs ,000 you'd say I want the $1,000 one why spend 500 and then spend another thousand in two years yeah I'd rather spend the Thousand now and not you know right so I mean lopping a few zeros off this equation but I think so that's why I say if the right thing to do is to fix it right but David your analogy takes so confined and you got to think about it I've got a whole budget and I got to pay my mortgage too and all these things and that's not for nothing it's like all these things and they're all competing for our dollars so you know you know and that's why historically everybody underfunds everything so how long does temp fix is that an unfair question ask you how long what how long will the $500,000 that was what the question I was going to ask I we would need the engineers to weigh and it's not a it's not a guarantee that this is the recommendation we're going to make I'm just bringing it to you either way we're spending significant dollars on this Culvert we don't want it to fail and if you don't fix it going to have a couple residents in here who whose properties are being damaged currently by this problem right right but if we if we say this is the way it goes and we add to whoever made the point we don't need town meeting because we have the money you start that project I presume this summer or something I don't know when you would do it if what am I trying to say if you if it was the million dooll project you couldn't just spend it out of rainy day money you'd have to actually put a an issue in front of the town right so is there a possibility that as you we can't obviously do it for May it's too quick but if you learn some things yeah over the summer that you just stop and you put it in front of the voters in the fall yeah Chief it sounds like you just lost a bay yeah well no that's my point is all these things cost money yeah okay I mean I would I think that's prudent so we're not saying we're fixing it we're going to bring it to you with a much stronger recommend I just want I want you to start thinking about it the wheels have been turning cly I can see the smoke and this all gets integrated in our Capital plan so the next so the next steps would be uh approved 2425 which is 2/3 of the the current chapter 90 um hold public hearing to gather more input to feed your 5 to 10 year outlook and then develop been overarching maintenance goal which you already started tonight which is great and then develop the long-term the long-term plan integrated into the capital plan so we're talking about roads right now and it's very easy but then You' got to put it into the buildings deferred maintenance and then operating long-term costs in order to really prioritize and scope the goal yeah Y and included in this next steps would be this um assessment of the other CS in town those will eventually show up somewhere in here yeah so you're going to block but each CT is just the design and investigation is 150 grin and then we'll know what it costs and it's probably going to be I mean just to determine which culverts are need to repair it's a you're saying it's 150,000 per covert to design to fix to design a fix but the analysis of what their current conditions what what's involved in getting that analysis done would be included in that now but maybe let the whole broad thing about about the town like how many culverts and where are we how do we do that that we we could have another study done for that by Niche yeah we'd have to Cruiser roads do it at least how much did this one cost uh 55,000 so wouldn't so that's like around what it would cost I mean I mean I think I think it would be if you're just surveying them then it would be a little less I think okay but they could come back and say okay here are all the covers here are the ones that look like they're going to be a problem here are the big ones blah blah blah and then we can and is there any overlap with the MVP work yes that's great I was actually going to say and I hate to like say this out loud um but the MVP program actually could fund like a study of the culs and also potentially like future repairs to culverts right if we make the case and we tie it to all sorts of different resilience things right so that's just I love that the next this is supposed to be the Doom and Gloom presentation no but so the Doom and Gloom part of this is that this year's funding round aren't eligible to apply for because we have a grant that's ongoing um but the next one is like like it's like this time next year so ready to that trigger maybe we do it sooner right and then cue something up like an actual repair project up for MVP Grant application next year um or we could or we could wait and apply for a study right okay okay we got to remember and there's no certainty right that we would get the award but we can't apply for the west road that takes too long it's too it's too soon yeah the power of the long-term plan as you know is identifying targets for Grants and other funds so we lay out all the costs and then we go attack it with priority grants but we're not it's all tied together and I hate to use buzzwords but the the more sustainable our Focus the more affordable housing are focused the more we deal with MBTA and all those other things the more likely we are to get grants for these types of things but it's also not a given and there huge implications and all of that so yeah um we can afford everything we need it will need to be prioritized and we should be targeting opportunities to leverage some of these programs in order to solve our other problems which is why they do it that way yeah okay okay great thank you okay so you political types um should be advocating our Senators and legislative officials to address um Carla's biggest need which is addressing flood related and other dangerous climate change infrastructure well is that something where it makes sense for us to send a letter from the select board to our reps and Senators this is a this is state level yes Simon could tell you what I was going to talk to him about every time we talk which is infrastructure coverts roads well I just think it's good to have that done publicly though right and go on the record um yeah um because if someone else helps handle this problem then the stuff you were talking about before you can address which is buildings Etc but if something doesn't get taken off the plate you can't do it all so we need some help somewhere yeah although I've also been talking to Simon about you know the equivalent of the M uh MBA T no the um school oh yes um building um mtsb mtsb thank you um for municipal buildings also a way to help pay for coverts it's all whatever way we go as yes yes no I mean multipronged approach I think so should we go on okay yes okay so do you need any aside from maybe a letter from us to Simon or so is there anything we need to do tonight around this if you're if you agree with this plan and don't need the two-year plan and don't need further digestion then then you could vote on it or we can bring it back we would like to get it out to bid you know around your next meeting or the meeting after oh well do you like to wait I'll make I I move that we approve the two-year plan as presented tonight second any further discussion all those in favor I okay got it um Ryan does that include then holding the um community meeting or whatever you want to call it for people in town to see the list of priority the list of roads and have an opportunity to give input um not for the two-year plan but for the okay for longer term input for five years okay and hopefully we can start holding the input in February is so that it informs decision annual yeah so this will get reported obviously and so people in town will see at least the current set of roads that are planned to be worked on this year and next y yeah the twoe plan so but you'll RFP or RFQ it to the two full two years to one Paving yes company or to eligible paving companies yeah right what I mean is of course eligible but you your goal is to select one who will do the full all the roads in the two-year plan whoever wants to do our two-year plan the cheapest right and with the most it want the cover is its own thing right yes right okay thank you all right we ready to go on to our next agenda item yeah the 14 SD Road sewer agreement we're right on time guys so keep it up didn't we look at this last week and last we did we did but um we actual agreement yeah you see the agreement yeah I didn't bother to read it it looked like well do you want me to put the motion on the floor yes please all right I move to approve the intermunicipal agreement between the town of B RKA and the town of carile for the pro provision of Municipal sewer second is there any dis discussion we had an explanation last time okay so this will be the eventual user ah right okay oh hi would you mind just explaining [Applause] it I live at 10 and I hadle next to me over 30 years and my son got married I gave it to him so I went to the pl board get it all approved and got everything all set we got the sub system design we got the price on the sub system was like6 000 to install so for a young couple to afford and move into a house it's a little bit of a hit so I have a sore easement on my property so we went to the town of Bara asked them if we could tie into the SE and they've given us permission but they want your permission also so that's basically everything everything that we're asking for so as we uh discussed with you the last time we talked about this we did vet this through Council one of our sticking points was they were going to um we were going to be the Lee we said no to that uh so Bill R will build the resident directly and we won't be involved so we're just approving the intermunicipal agreement to connect that's what this is right and they answer Travis's question so it's answered publicly um this does not um this does not allow the next project to have a right of way because we're approving this one um each one has to be considered into individually and there's no precedence according to council okay all right um all those in favor I I any opposed okay uh we just need to sign sign this thank you very much you're welcome good luck with it SS lucky that you have that easement yeah yeah it this way nice to have him living on the property with you too right next door okay was it 9:00 let me get back to my oops um administrator report okay ta report all right second please pass that down if you would all right my report uh phase two of the second second floor cubicle project is scheduled for May 22nd this will uh close that section of town hall to the public from the 21st to the 23rd so will be moving the equipment out uh establishing the new cubicles and then moving moving our team back in as part of this we are uh boxing up Andor digitizing records which is which is going pretty pretty smooth we're all helping out the Departments there that have a tremendous amount of records and uh Sarah our sustainability coordinator found us a moving company that will take and reuse the uh the cubicles so um we would have paid for their disposal but we're going to pay instead to have someone sustainably move them for less money so that was a that was a win we're also digitizing uh Records in the executive office we sent more than 70 boxes of Records total to include uh my office uh Records that that Jen and other executive assistants had um Gretchen's record records historical commission and others for scanning so they'll be removing extraneous materials and duplicates and then digitizing and and we'll be able to get rid of the space from these records but also search them easier which will make us more responsive to records requests and provide a better history and allow them to be backed up for human resources this is now from Aubrey who's back thank God the um benefits Fair scheduled for May 15th so this will give res uh residents employees an opportunity to come in and review their benefits from 2 to 4 um we're also going to have a little little morale session at that time the um Representatives coming from insurance and other benefits to make sure the staff has answers to their questions and get to talk to someone in person these are um all those uh carriers are ones we have in the plan and is this an enrollment period they can switch around if they like different November is believe so yes okay so the um and it also includes School Employees so they'll be able to come as well which is why it's extended to four very good we've been interviewing candidates and we have an accepted offer for DPW position but we're not bringing any um any candidates for it until they've completed their um physical process from now on so we don't have any more stops and starts with you so we do have a candidate we're hoping that it that process finishes and we'll have someone ready for appointment so this is a heavy equipment operator that we that we desperately need we're down we're down a few Folks at the DPW and they've been working short-handed you know that Lois um retired as a driver so we will miss Lois and then we are still collecting résumés we' we've gotten some pretty good candidates for the um conservation land use assistant position that's open Mary's old position in the conservation office I talked a lot about the communications plan and information we're sharing for town meeting uh we provided the link in this report and it's on the front page of the website so that people can easily find it we talked about the video we're putting together talking about the Warren articles in detail thanks to mmn for working with this on this project we're hoping to make it an annual thing social media as well and the budget book which provides as much detail as you want on the budget including a line item budget so you can see where every dollar is being spent we want the budget to be as transparent as possible so that people will support it or ask questions uh we talked about the 11600 in additional chapter 990 funds that we received which is part of the presentation you saw earlier and um I am optimistic that the fair share act will allocate up to about 175 additional we'll see if you can Advocate with our legislative delegation that'd be great we really could use the fair share act it is the most impactful legislation financially that Carlile can receive um W the ways and means budget which did increase Chapter 70 from $30 a student to $104 a student would net the Carlile public schools around 40,000 and the Regional School something additional that's great there nothing compared to 175,000 in road maintenance money so even a 200% increase in Chapter 70 for carile is much less meaningful than a simple um$ hundred million investment from the state in roadways for Rural communities um Ryan when you talk to your fellow Tas you you're part of that rural ta group or whatever I mean they must all be having the same challenges then right yes you lobby as a group we do okay be happy know I'm on that legislative Lobby talking about chapter 90 and building support because all small towns are facing deferred Maintenance building project costs and Roads because everything goes into the operating budget and almost nothing is done in capital it's it's a plague for small towns because of the way the state tiies out money and pilot pilot not as important for us but for other communities we have the we have that Big Woods the know the Great Brook yeah and we could use and and that costs us you know C us resources police and and fire in there how much pilot do we get a year no no no I'd have to look that up it's part of our state aid package in the budget I think it's some didn't go up that much this year yeah so I approved because you've delegated this to me the use of the Town common for the annual poppy display this display will be on the town common from May 18th to June 4th the setup is sensitive to the current Global situation and will be a p stes organizers let us know that it will be installed in a manner that will not interfere with the Memorial Day ceremony and they've coordinated with the Garden Club to make sure that um the common use is shared there'll be two L lawn signs at either end of the common they will State lest we forget Memorial Day poppy display one thing I'm asking for you from the Carlile conservation foundation and the trails committee is to designate June as Trails month so uh June 1st is National Trails day the goal is to encourage residents to learn more about and enjoy walking trails in Carlile The organization's plan to publicize the event encourage access to information on the trails highlight trail walking opportunities reinduce the trail marker bingo game which I'm thrilled about in time and some trail walking incentives by offering prizes at Old home day so if you're willing uh they would like you to designate June as Trails month there is a motion in the packet somebody would make that I move that the select board recognizes and proclaims the month of June 20124 as carile Trails month in Carlile is there a second second any discussion do would do you want me to read the proclamation or the packet okay great um all those in favor I I any opposed there we go all right we've talked about these just highlighting to you again some upcoming discussion points so online donations and we do have a request from the cultural Council to allow for online donations and we gave you an opinion from our Treasurer not against online donations but the implications of allowing it for uh one committee and then what we expect many committees if you do approve it uh we are neutral on this we just want you to make the decision and know the implications and then friends of Center Park Agreement you signed an agreement 5 years ago it is up and we are going to bring you a draft of a new agreement um so that we're ready for September when that agreement ends wait we have to sign a second we're listening reminding the board that um May 7th you've changed your meeting in May to May 7th yes which is before town meeting uh from May 14th and then the town meeting is on May 13th we wanted to ensure that Nathan would have another meeting one more meeting for one more meeting we also have already posted a 30 minute meeting before annual town meeting that will be in the cafeteria so that's another one y two more but you do uh you did Miss uh time the election isn't it the week prior May 21st or something the town election the town election is not 29 29th in the calendar it's the 21st I believe it's the 21st it's a week and a day after oh you're right you're right you're right you're right it's not the 29th then it is the 21st says here on the town website 21st yep um I want to just go back really quickly to the um uh friends of Center Park Agreement so um I know you circulated that before and I sent a couple of suggestions are do you have those or do you want feedback on it before you do your draft so I did send the agreement to council so they could look at any okay changes or updates and your notes okay great Barney's was public meeting so Barney's notes discussed um historical commission approvals for for equipment and stuff that came up um adding that to the agreement so you'll see that language but it'll be called out the differences we wanted legal to vet it since it was already a a comment great thank you if you'd like me to circulate it again if anybody has comments on it that would be great that should be coming up post Nathan so you won't get to wait on it but the rest of you will and then I'm reminding everybody that June 88th to the 22nd I will be gone for military leave assuming I get no more diseases that is the sorry to laugh the last date I can go for for that training so I will be now in El Paso in June which I'm thrilled about lucky you okay for recognition Holly uh from the the recreation department and I wanted to recognize our police officers with a special recognition for Sergeant Mack and his wife for their efforts during the town's recent bike safety program so this was identified as a need from the community the police officer stepped up and executed uh a program for more than 15 residents even in the rain where officers learned how officers taught um residents mostly young residents how to safely navigate their bikes Holly also said that officers Andrew Corwin and Dean Barbara worked hard hard to give their participants a great experience and they're hoping to make this an annual event and I have a picture of the kids riding around the cruiser um really appreciate the efforts of Chief amandola and the police department for engaging with the community U especially in this way which helps our youngest residents okay copy and then I have a draft agenda we should look at that and we have time for once yeah can I ask a quick question about the agenda could would you explain the um item four initial vacancies and committee policy discussion what your what that U will entail yep that comes from um Gretchen and Aubry and myself so we wanted to give you uh more time this year to discuss vacancies and appointments and to advertise them for your policy so if someone's coming up that position needs to be advertised and then you'll get a list of all the people that want to P your P your policy to fill those vacancies so you'll get that initial vacancy list and we also have highlighted a couple um boards and committees that we need you to to make decisions on um keeping them not keeping them in appointment time frames Etc so just some minor things nothing nothing big okay and then we should probably adjust the policy to match reality yeah okay did you want you wanted to hand I I I was going to ask you about that yeah um just before we do that and then the shared services goals what's item five what's the um thought there so I'm going to recirculate the shared services presentation you got from mapc and going to apply for a second round of that Grant where we identify four or five shared service opportunities that you would like mapc to investigate okay so we want to have your input on what those four or five um things should be so we'll recirculate the report and you can and think about it again but this would be a deeper dive into regionalizations that have been identified as opportunities and would be vetted with other communities and what they've done so the third version of this study would be if you select a regionalization what that implementation would look like so let's say you wanted to share the TA with another town and that was identified as something you wanted to study the F second study would say here's other towns that have done that and what that looks like the third study would be here's how you implement that sharing agreement but we're only on study one so far so far okay so this is for study two identifying some things we want Study phase two okay one of the things that was discussed prior to me getting here and during the regionalization discussion was maintenance and we've started to implement that process with some of those suggestions so um it is another thing that comes up a lot um and other sharing opportunities good okay good yeah on the um the hansum expansion uh question so the ESC as you all saw they wrote asking us to um consider that again and um I had understood when I wrote to all of us saying I thought this would that would be a good thing for us to discuss at the May 7th meeting was um I had understood that because there's a public comment period that ends May 12th that there was some sense of timing that we should try to have this conversation in order to be able to submit those comments well it turns out I guess that's not the case in terms of um uh a a board you know discussion and vote on um whether or not to support that expansion and so according to um a member of the sustainability committee who's very much involved in this we have time if we wanted to wait and have that conversation at a at say the meeting later in May or early June even what is the timetable for the approval of state will actually make a decision yeah yeah I think it's going to come up sometime in the fall they close the public comment period and then okay so they haven't made a decision no it's been proposed it's being evaluated has the governor weighed in on it yet has who the governor she supports it and then people are saying well how can you be a green Governor how can cuz she's also supporting business I think yeah but she does support it so yeah on economic you know for economic reasons she's visiting us this week and I'm debating with her to ask her your company yeah I don't think I'm going to ask her yeah she's coming because we're doing a lot of like Green Tech stuff so yeah you know one thought I had about this um having this conversation is that um we could and I know when we talked about it very briefly you know months ago we wanted to hear sort of um from folks that were proposing the expansion so I think if once we do schedule it we ought to reach out to the the people that are proposing the expansion and ask if somebody wants to come speak to us that's critical I think we' want to be able to ask the yeah absolutely question I know there was a leak of Women Voters thing but they didn't have that it was one side I mean it wasn't bad but it was one side want both sides we should both sides I agree yeah and I think I mean I which may be an argument for not doing it on the 7th as well so we have time to make sure we can get somebody here why don't we work towards that okay we have to have a goal for a time that we want to do it to kind of incentivise us to get that well maybe that last select board meeting in May well you should reach out we should identify what group we have to contact massport is it massport okay do you want to maybe Barney wants to take a contact assignment should that be from the town or from the yeah I would contact him okay all right good see what that meeting in May is um when is that the last uh our last meeting in May would be the um 28th yeah or we could obviously go into June if for some reason or other we couldn't get the somebody and then obviously ask somebody from EFC or if they want to suggest somebody else yeah to to offer their side of it yeah okay that's great okay we held some time for town meeting we will be filling that now with a discussion from tonight and the um any last comments on the on the police station I think so you have the town clerk the police station and then the uh revolving funds so a couple will be recommended to go down to zero um and those are non-controversial there's no money and they haven't been used used and then we would try to remove them in the fall from the bylaw so they wouldn't show up again so just more of cleanup okay good okay and we're saying on the 7th we're going to add a piece about the town clerk right yes that's part of the it will be part of the town meeting part of the town meeting it won't be a separate thing it's going to be part of the Town gotcha gotcha okay even though it's not a town meeting item it's a election no town meeting and election you know change that to town meeting and election town meeting election public hearing yeah okay yeah all right we retitle it yeah makes sense so do you want if we do back to the letter and the messaging do you want to move that up to an earlier time like typically if we're going to have kind of a hearing or a thing where we want people to attend you don't want to park it you'd like to put it up put it earlier in the meeting yeah when you guys are doing the agenda and it should be earlier because if it goes over it's more important than anything that's not timed right so you should probably do it like first basically before poll petition whatever that is after the poll poll petition is bit I first saw that I was thinking horse racing what is a poll come on don't you want you always want the poll position yeah I know but what is the poll petition I don't I have no idea to get the street they want a telephone poll put in the poll you oh yeah need to have a hearing within our RightWay so we have to give them permission all right I see okay so after that is what you're saying or after vacancies no that's an appointment okay I take it made an appointment yeah okay anyway got it okay can we move along yeah let's move excellent I think we're at um liaison reports yeah cuz we did our minutes all right anybody besides me have a leis on report well I I kind of already talked about the TSM TS tmsc I already kind of gave the highlights of it yes you know we've had some meetings we got one more meeting before the town meeting so we got to button up these last few things like that a little video and stuff um the other liaison report is from today I went to the uh uh Council on Aging Human Services board meeting they are preparing their slate for new officers in accordance with our guidelines so they'll bring it back to us what they've decided but they've set it for a vote I presume that they do it now the right way I don't know they they vote and then they present to us or they present to us we approve it I think they vote on it and then they come back for they're send appr they're recommending it to yeah they're recommending it to us so I think that's Set uh they're having a separate meeting they've now gone to two meetings that meeting is about uh Community Center and there's some discussion with Village Court to use some part of their fac facility oh uh the um seea village yeah they use sleeper room the community room sleep room to become kind of a community so so they're thinking about that and they're thinking about other stuff so yeah anyway so you know that's what's going on good MFC anything no so um last night I went to the um planning board and uh you know they the usual stuff the scenic Road hearings and things like that um there was a report um on MVP and the MBTA communities um an update on that i' be happy to go over those if you you know want to have that here but I think the most important discussion they had last night was around um a response to the Board of Health septic breaks um that have been sent around and Julie did a tremendous amount of work there she did a tremendous amount of work and John did too John metivier um and there seems to be some issues that um I think uh warrant I don't so I guess what I'm going to put out here is do they warrant our participation and involvement uh tomorrow there will be a tomorrow evening a public hearing are you're the the Boh um yeah I wasn't aware of the hearing tell me about that interesting it's a public hearing heptic uh RS and it would be nice if one of us could possibly it sounds like there I was going to ask Julie that anyway is there a jurisdictional issue yes I would say so because so who's holding the hearing Board of Health but do there there's a jur jurisdictional issue in so far that it looks like the new Board of Health RS run over um a lot of our zoning bylaws and make them impossible to follow I shared sh the last minute we hav't so it's first for or a memo for me kind of going through all the issues and an analysis and comments and questions and then there's a an attachment from John where he went through the rigs line by line and inserted his own comments um so yeah so I mean um I'm I'm not clear on what we are supposed to do they're holding a hearing about like the thing is that all they need to do is hold a hearing and then they can adopt those um um those regulations they don't need to go to town meeting or anything even if there requires bylaw changes even if regulations because they're regulations yeah they are able to by simple majority vote change their regulations in such a way that it will impact zoning and current personal property rights of gred to the town by a 2/3 majority vote of town meeting and it's in the zoning P so it's a that's my big like thing I'm struggling with with this is that I so I think the one thing we could do is ask them to post you know what I worry about is they'll have their meeting right they'll vote it and then they'll vote it and it's done and nobody's had a chance to did they request your memo or you just put took on yourself to not only did they not was there been any discussion with the board last let me answer just let me answer David's question they did not request that memo in fact when the memo was submitted to them they said we don't care what you write right stay in your swim Ling we would like to hear what this the planning board has to say about this your memo first so that was the staff member though not the board I'm sorry oh a staff member said that about the memo that Julie wrote okay and what the planning board decide last night did they take the planning board uh wrote a letter uh I can read it well it's a very short thing but it said it as also requested that the uh Board of Health not finalize anything um until they were they want they were requesting a joint um planning board Board of Health meeting that's a good idea and that was written to the board because you wrote the health agent but without I didn't see the Board of Health copy no that was asked to no but you asked the agent to send it to the board separ I had written a separate letter from to the Board of Health that they have a joint meeting board to board they're they're doing that it's from the planning board to the chair and then um the the memo that I sent like later on earlier this evening but later on after that letter um was the planning board empowered staff to compile comments and submit um so the planning board didn't actually review everything that's in the document that I submitted but they reviewed a lot of the content of it last night as well as John's feedback and they agreed that staff could submit comments in advance of tomorrow night's hearing for the board's consideration so so the hearing tomorrow is not a vot it's just a hearing of I don't I don't know that it's the second of the two hearings they have scheduled so what time is it is there a link is it 7 I think been sent out unfortun I cannot make it sort of the opposite of our time being approach yeah yes under the cover of night it's like don't invite anybody to talk about it just do it I I submitted some comments or remember how they and and I I actually reached out to one of the engineers who seems to do a lot of business in town stamy McNary to ask if they had any comments and they weren't even aware that it was you know having open for public comment so um one of the engineers submitted some comments to the to the board but I haven't heard anything since then and do we have any sense of what the Board of Health they they got the request for joint meeting today sometime and no response yet response yeah um yeah I mean we got those rigs you asked for more information like we you know we said you know we're not Engineers give us you know like the top level and we got a set of definitions but we never really got a document that said this is what we're planning on changing and this is where the differences we didn't get the document that Julie prepared for us which was a distillation of what the changes were and what they were um so but they did invite us to at one right to reply and so I'm wondering if we want to then now also make other input or or maybe minimally we as a select board should um if we're all in agreement encourage the Board of Health to have that joint meeting with the planning board before they make any final decisions and and this building inspector yeah however whoever should be involved in that I think that fits with our master plan it fits with the governance task force plan that we're trying to reduce the amount of silos that we have in town and and this is kind of one of those examples where you know there are a lot of well-intentioned people in carile who are doing great things but we just need to make sure everybody's talking with each other about those things yeah I agree they do yeah I guess are you starting your dialogues you've been dialoguing I'll talk to you about that later okay well I mean there's nothing else we can do right if they we'll learn a lot from their reaction right okay so is someone going tomorrow not I can I cannot I I'm just emailing Linda right now to get the link I mean I wasn't even giving the link which I F sheally it's hybrid even is it on the website it should be posted right it must be yeah I could potentially that's go REM I cannot go physically yeah um but are we in agreement as a select board that we should um U doing maybe I don't know Kate if you do this on behalf of the board but whatever we should be sending something to the board chairs of the planning board and the Board of Health to just say we encourage them all to have that joint meeting before making any further decisions can do that yep I would do that I that okay Board of Health H it is in the calendar here hybrid in person and remote okay so there's seven at okay um here it is do we know regulations was able was Court able to reach um Patrick Patrick you don't you don't know okay cuz he offered to do that last night I gave him his phone number so hopefully that happened all right I will I will write a memo to the two chairs encouraging them to do a joint meeting anything else we want to do would you like you know say take a vote on that and you have unanimously authorize it I don't know if that helps you I don't know if it does or not maybe I shouldn't even prejudge that well can you see the thing where's the little thear authoriz where do it say agendas I don't know uh hang on uh how did you get to where you're at well I'm on an iPad so website okay well I need you going to do you want do would it be stronger if it comes from the board yeah yeah okay so then I need a motion okay a motion and a vote um well I moved that the um select board [Music] um um encourage the um planning board and the Board of Health to meet uh to discuss the proposed septic um regulations before the Board of Health makes any final decisions second all right all those in favor I any opposed okay I will do that tomorrow great anything else okay any other business are we ready uh Community input Community input I don't see a link I have one quick comment if I have if I have time I don't want to keep you guys hey John hi guys came back I don't know if you can make it any louder yeah you're very faint uh I can't make it any louder from my end how's that put the mic right next to my mouth does that work yes that's better okay so I just uh I'm focused on the fire department uh the OPM I think is a good idea uh just in um in rap music OPM means other people's money uh so I think um that tasking the tasking the OPM uh by the select board is going to be challenging but potentially the most rewarding part of the project if you get the tasking right uh as well as a person as some other people that pointed out that could really work out well and I said this in a couple of emails I sent you guys that think you need to consider setting a goal for the fire department a mission statement for the fire department as opposed to different features like you were working on T night it's just uh it's what I learned in project management so you have a feature set and you have a project that they're two different things um also I've written you a little bit about this know some system of measurement Chief Soros has gone back to the NFPA which is the National Fire Partners Association or something like that but what insurance companies use is the iso which I've written you before um the insurance services organization um standards and classification that's 150 years old and it's kind of a where the money meets the road system because they have all the data from the past hundreds of years 150 years for buyers and properties they've covered across the United States so they know uh within um a dollar range how much a fire department's uh classification level is going to match up with how much um money they end up paying out for fire damage so it's what's used by all the insurance companies that every Fire Department in America has an ISO rating and we do too and it determines the level of equipment they need Etc and I beat on I don't want to beat on this too much but um somebody needs to make an argument of why we need to improve on that that was in Brian's um kind of position paper he set out uh early in this process that he wanted to improve on our current class 8B rating why and how much is that going to cost and as I said if it ends up with fire hydrants or fire hydrant fa simil for car you if you think the fire station is expensive wait till you find out how much that's going to cost um and the final thing is uh data collection data brought this up early when he uh asked Brian you know have you compared um carile to other small town fire stations around uh Massachusetts and I couldn't really hear Brian's answer but I think it was no so there are 35 towns our size 57500 people in Massachusetts they all have websites like we have listing their apparatus they all have descriptions of their fire department it's not that hard to get B basic information you could also get their ISO rating they all have ISO ratings uh the fire department sheets all know them inside out because it's how they're judged uh and it wouldn't be that hard time consuming maybe but not that hard to uh look all those up online and put them in a in a matrix a database of a spreadsheet so that you can cross reference all these things like how many towns our size with our footprint have a ladder truck is's a ladder truck needed for a class 8B rating uh how many Downs our size have an extra tanker that's only used six months a year Etc um what what exactly is the equipment you need you need for a class A rating that would be really useful so you also could uh do all those things the measurement the goal the data collection through the OPM and the tasking of him so just something to consider but I think the OPM as long it's the meaning you use and not the one that immedately sprang to my mind uh is a really good idea that's it thank you okay anybody else great I looking for a last motion move that we jour minutes ahead of time nice job all those in favor all right excellent good job K woohoo yes commended you're just getting good at this and you're going to not be the chair