##VIDEO ID:JDgYXknI3RA## e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this is the October 29 2024 meeting of the chadam select board please note this meeting is being recorded and will be available shortly Hereafter for scheduled and ond demand viewing on any smartphone or tablet device if anyone else is recording the meeting please notify the chair seeing no no such notification I will proceeded pursuant to Governor Healey's March 29 2023 signing of the acts of 2023 extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the co open meeting law General Law chapter 3A section 20 until March 31 2025 this meeting of the chadam select board is being conducted in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the order a reminder that persons who would like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling the phone number 1 15894 54410 conference ID 203 386 491 pound sign or join the meeting online via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda while this is a live broadcast and simoc cast on chadam TV Xfinity channel 1072 despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide realtime access we will post a record of this meeting on the town's website as soon as possible our first order of business is to establish our Quorum Mr matters present Mr Dyan present and Miss Davis present Mr Shell is present Mr necastro present uh we have um a bit of a lengthy agenda this evening we have two sets of minutes public announcements and agenda requests we have three public hearings um we have an update uh on a committee board commission uh for the summer residence advisory committee uh then we'll have public comments on the uh agenda I business agenda but um we will invite uh public comments on item G which is discussing and allocating responsibility for developing a request for proposals for stepping stones at the time uh that that comes up on the agenda otherwise um public comments are invited at the uh at the outset um then the business agenda includes the following uh an approval uh to open the 20242 base goop season uh considering reduction in membership from 9 to 7 of the members of the chadam cultural Council and update on the new parking ticket software and 2024 parking ticket statistics um uh the uh a discussion of uh the 2024 ballot question number six we'll hear from barnable County Commissioner um Ron Bergstrom and chadam assembly delegate Randy podes uh next is a review of the 20 uh fiscal year 26 and calendar year 25 select board and town manager goals and objectives uh next is uh 2024 uh annual review of the interm municipal nset Beach agreement uh next is the um item I mentioned previously regarding uh stepping the Stepping Stones Road property and uh developing a request for proposal on that property and next is we have one committee um for which we have um an appointment I believe one appointment or two I'm not sure but in any event we'll do appointments to the railroad museum committee and finally the town manager Report with that I'll turn to the minutes uh we'll start with the minutes of October 15 2024 motion to approve second uh any comments Corrections or other modifications um Mr necastro yes Mr chair I have a few um on page two um near the bottom the paragraph that begins Steven Buckley chadam made a request for the task group I think he was referring to the public engagement Advisory Group so I would substitute that language for the word task then on page p n um 2third of the way down Mr Shell's motion I don't I I went and checked the video because this wasn't my recollection it wasn't a motion to accept the donation it was a motion uh this is the language I would use to approve the negotiating position that the select board would sign the donation agreement only if amended with appropriate language to protect the town believe that's what was offered if I may I agree with everything you said except I I thought we had pretty specific language that we wanted to see in the agreement we did and I so I i' i' like to make that a little more spe with um appropriate language I don't remember what the well I yeah recited we can with the I'll I'll amend the motion to ask that to include the Lang language as that was recited in U at the meeting but that was the motion yep and then on page um 10 right in the middle of the paragraph that begins with my name uh third line the opinion of Town Council Bond Council and the town's financial advisers I would like to insert after the word opinion the opinion the phrase of no objection the opinion of no objection of these various people and at the end was reported um after the word advisor because there's no verb there um and then on page um 11 this is the last one um fourth line down um I think I would drop the period in the middle and I would insert the the words and that so during the meeting and that the proposed amendment is not Financial policy but more procedural and then in the third paragraph first line Second sentence where it says some members I think it was just me so I would be happy if you wanted to just put my name Mr necastro said took issue took issue you could say a member a member that's fine that's fine that's better those was the it okay that's it I just got a couple go ahead thank you Michael I just Buckley I think is BU c k l y and this y M then the top of Page Three the second paragraph that starts for active and 11 inactive cemeteries that's just it's not a sentence so I just say the committee has tasked with maintain with the maintenance of four active and 11 inactive cemeteries and then in the next paragraph the average fund for cemeteries is 10,690 I I don't if that average of of what in other towns or I don't know what I I just forget what the reference was that's all so if we can get a reference there that'd be great yeah I I think was that the budget um um allocation Jill do you know no I would just make it I would just make whatever the whatever it is that's all because it's up against the 540k In Perpetual care and then Buckley again on page five that's it thanks anybody else I I just have I'm sorry no um a a couple um on page five um the the the last paragraph there where it says town clerk Smith presented my recollection was that she was not present and that Kathy presented um I mean it was her material but um or we could probably either way um and then the only other thing um I I think that's it I'm good so uh oh um forgive me that isn't it um on page 14 um the the comment that um at the end of the top paragraph is the comment was made more or less as stated but it it it I I think it's it deserves some flavor of what I had to say in that in that meeting uh more or less in reply to that and I would like to add the following paragraph As a new paragraph uh between the two paragraphs at the top of the page um as follows the following views were expr also and by the way I I took this from the tape uh following views were also expressed board members are here to do the best job they can to make the best decisions they can and to make the best living conditions they can fashion for the town of Adam whom they represent that is their fiduciary duty as select board members and that is the fiduciary duty of members of the affordable housing trust board as well as the members of every Committee in this town there is no conflict board and committee members are just working in different territory with respect to different problems and different issues all for the benefit of the town the job is always to get the best possible result for the citizens of chadam whatever the particular role or Committee of the individual member and Kathy has that from me so with that um I'll invite uh uh we'll take a roll roll call vote uh Mr Mets I Mr dykin hi Miss Davis Mr Shell says I Mr necastro Hi and then we go to the minutes of um October 22 motion to approve T all those in uh comments Dean yeah um page four um under number three um second paragraph that begins hotel motel taxes in the very last line um it's not the affordable housing trust it's attainable housing that 1% um and then on page five I would just add uh second to last paragraph this sentence the water and sewer advisory committee is expected to review and make a recommendation um page eight um under Debt Service item six um the final paragraph second line there is a 1 and a half% tax it's really a ctax um under number seven the paragraph that begins chair Daniel in the second line at the end the word adjuster should be stricken and the word advisor should be added inserted um and then on page nine under eight uh First full first paragraph a last line other members of the board felt that a joint meeting would not be advisable comma and I would assert this and that other members was me so you could say a member of the board because the select Board review is at a high level while the fincom takes a line item approach period those are my corrections sure um so participating from the finance committee Kristen Andre was not present I didn't think she was therefore page nine she did not make the motion to adjourn H I don't recall well you know when when Steven took the role the only person he said was missing was Tommy do yes he did say that well okay she wasn't at the dis but I think it was Tracy that made the motion to adjourn yeah okay she might have been online all right my mistake no I didn't see her either um anybody else I I just have um a question uh with regard on page three um at the the last paragraph the available funding sources um these items included I I I did I didn't check the tape but I just was curious um should not or was free cash included in that list or should it not be where are you Mike sorry bottom of page three last uh available funding sources the town's revenues were reviewed these items included um the tax levy local receipts etc etc I'll have to look at the Pres the PowerPoint presentation I'm not sure if she got into free cash at that moment or if it was later on okay well I whatever is accurate um is fine with me and then I I um I'm going to leave that alone I'm fine with your change Dean so with that uh we'll take a roll call Mr nastro hi Mr Shell says I uh Miss Davis Hi and Mr dykens Mr Mets hi uh that takes care of the minutes public announcements and agenda requests I've been asked to make a number of um announcements here so let me get through those quickly uh number one uh real estate taxes are due 4 pm Friday November 1st uh 2024 that is this Friday there is a Dropbox located in the entrance to 549 Main Street where they can be dropped off if you cannot make it in during the regular business hours um and I assume that if something were dropped in after 4 o' it it would qualify or no you you clear the you clear the the Decks at 4:00 and anything after that is late okay good clarification thank you um the last day for early inperson voting is Friday November 1st again this Friday early voting can be done at the clerk's town clerk's office at 5:49 Main Street from 8:00 a to 400 p.m. uh next don't forget to set your clocks back one hour before you go to bed on Saturday November 2 that again this Saturday Daylight Savings Time ends at 2: a.m. on Sunday November 3 2024 next election day is Tuesday November I think it's November 5 um polls are located at the chadam community center and are open from 700 am until 4 800 pm. and last uh the Veterans Day ceremony will be held on Monday November 11 2020 24 at 1100 a.m. at the chadam community center and finally maybe a fun fact today is the 95th Anniversary of Black Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange also known as the crash public hearings uh sorry we got to offer the opportunity for other announcements and agenda requests uh sh my understanding we are not having a select board meeting next Tuesday that is correct okay um any other from the board anything from the public I don't see anybody so now I can move to public hearings can I invite the clerk to read the first notice of public hearing sure town of chadam Select board public hearing notice the chadam select board will hold a public hearing at 5:30 on Tuesday October 29 2024 to consider a petition from NSTAR Electric Company doing business as eversource energy to install 250t plus or minus 2 4 in conduits conduit in the right of way of training Field Road chatam to provide new underground service for a new building at 114 training Field Road the public is welcome to attend the meeting in person or participate via Link in the meeting's agenda all interested parties are encouraged to participate sign the select board so uh do we have either M Marissa Jackson or or somebody else presenting forever Source looks like we do welcome thank you very much Marissa Jackson with eversource the rights and permits department so what we're proposing this evening is the install of 200 200 ft approximately of 2 4 in conduit this will be along training Field Road and the purpose of this construction is to accommodate as previously stated um a new building located at 114 training Field Road and that being said I'd be more than happy to address any questions if there are any so I'll invite anything from the public before I go to the board I don't see anybody Dean yeah I just wanted to call your attention to a typo in the form of order the in the first um I guess it's the second full paragraph it refers to um the the petition being dated the 20th day of September but the petition is actually dated October 2nd so you might want to change that before it's signed okay was it September 20th uh it says September 20th but the actual date of the petition that's included in the packet is October 2nd well thank you for bringing to my attention I'll make sure to address that tomorrow and send that over corrected okay thank you anything else uh I think then it's appropriate to take a motion move approval second uh all those in favor Mr Mets I uh Mr dyin I Miss Davis I uh Mr Shell says I and Mr necastro I next case please Town chadam select board public hearing notice the chadam select board will hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday October 9th 2024 to consider a petition from NSTAR Electric Company doing business as eversource energy to install 35 ft plus or minus 1 3in conduit under Capri Lane to provide new underground service to 35 cpri Capri Lane the public is welcome to attend the meeting in person or participate via Link in the meeting's post agenda all interested parties are encouraged to participate sign the select board um again um go ahead Miss Jackson thank you yes this was a customer request we received they'd like to bring their overhead service now underground excuse me which we can most certainly do but in order to accommodate that we would have to utilize the existing pole which is 213 over3 place a hand hole at the bottom of that pole and run approximately 35 ft under the road of Capri Lane and make connections at the customer's handhole at 35 um any questions or comments from the public the board uh Mr matters okay maybe I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping I missed this or I'm looking at the legend on the on the in the the chart here are is everything on here but it says proposed handheld is the red circle with the cross on it I don't see this on the map um existing handhold is there proposed conduit is marked existing pole is marked and then the pole with Riser should be a yellow dot which I don't see on this map either so there's two things on the legend that I'm not seeing and I don't know if anyone if that's if I'm losing my mind or is that correct yes that's correct we don't typically outline the you know Riser Pole we just show the existing and then the handhole that would be at the bottom of that pole running the conduit across the roadway and then you know we're not showing the customers's hand hole but that's that would be the pickup point at 35 Capri Lane all right thank you any other questions sorry go ahead I think that's a change from PR pre priv pre previous practice but that's I'm not going to make a fuss over it okay move approval do I hear a second Mr necastro I uh Mr Shell says I Miss Davis hi uh Mr dykin hi and Mr matters Hi and then we have one last um public hearing notice um Adam yes uh town of chadam Select board public hearing the chadam select board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday October 29th 2024 at 5:30 p.m. in the large meeting room at Town Offices 261 George rer Road to consider the following extension of no parking Zone from the corner of Claflin Landing east past the second driveway of the Hawthorne hotel at 196 Shore Road installation of a W1 sl4r curve sign with an advisory 20 M hour plaque affixed on the eastbound side of Fox Hill Road installation of two new stop signs at the intersection of barcliff a and old Harbor Road on opposite corners of the existing signs the signs are of standard size and style and recommended to the board by the Traffic Safety Committee all interested parties are encouraged to participate in person and remotely via the link in the posted agenda sign the select board and we have Miss Joan Craig uh chair of the traffic and Safety Committee to present thank you as you said Jo Craig chair of the Traffic Safety Committee uh as noted in your memo um from deputy chief Melone we met on August 22nd and again on September 26th to consider several of these requests and we reviewed a request from the owner of the hathon motel at 196 Shore Road requesting the establishment of a No Parking Zone on both sides of the driveway accessing the hotel Vehicles parked in these areas have created s sight lines issues making it difficult for employees and guests to exit the property the parking in front of the hotel has also narrowed the westbound travel Lane significantly the Traffic Safety Committee recommends extending the no parking Zone from the corner of Claflin Landing east past the second driveway of the Hawthorn Hotel the specific location of the signs is recommended to be at the discretion of the DPW in accordance with applicable regulations and policies you'll notate it on the U slide here be be um happy to answer any questions I would actually also like to make one other comment it's not on this note but our committee is concerned that um employees of an certain Inn in that area continue to park in that area and go to work this has been an ongoing issue with our committee it has been brought to the attention of the administration of that in and it has continued so I think this will certainly alleviate the problem where those individuals go will be another issue that I'm sure will come before our committee so questions from the public uh Mr Mets um no I mean I the concerns that are addressed in this particular area I am a I'm in agreement with and I'll support and I will be supportive of this but to your comments I think we're just pushing some problem around and I think we're going to have another area in in this general area that we're going to have up for review that now cars are parking here so it may or may not happen my gut tells me we're just pushing the problem around a little bit more um but for this particular area I think this is a sensible solution and I will be supportive of it uh Dean Joan are the um those who are parking there they parking there all day during their employment okay that is correct uh when you had your meetings did you have any um input from any of the neighbors or any other neighbors were no just from the hotel itself the motel itself okay so you receive no objections from anybody no no objections okay thank you anybody uh Jeff thank you Michael Joan uh you're busy the Traffic Safety Committee has been extremely busy I will report that the no parking on cew street is being abided by and um I think I see more employees walking from a a lot offsite if you will along cie going to their place of employment so I think you might see that replicated here should we put no parking signs out I'm certainly very much in favor of this sh road is very difficult to Traverse in the summertime with pedestrian traffic and and so um you know I've got great concerns about Shore Road I walked it after the parade this year and really felt that there was plenty of room for a sidewalk on the west side of Shore Road God forbid but there is enough room um God forbid anyway I do support this and I think you'll see um I think you'll see with enforcement that folks will park elsewhere and they may Park where they're supposed to park we did see that happen on cvw thanks thank you Shireen thank you and and J you've got a difficult job um you know with this particular area and we've talked about Cory I agree with you this is just pushing it I think you know hearing a comprehensive parking you know solution is going to be a welcomed um addition to what we can do in this area but I'll I'll approve it as well anybody else um okay are are we do we going to do these separately or individually or or together I think we need to do okay I move approval second um all those in favor favor Mr Mets I Mr dykens uh Miss Davis I Mr Shel says I and Mr necastro I next thank you second slide thank you uh Fox Hill Road the committee reviewed a request from a resident of Fox Hill Road the resident had concerns of vehicle speed entering the S curve prior to the Strong Island Road three-way intersection the resident stated that he had observed numerous Vehicles approaching the curves at speeds believed to be greater than reasonable and was concerned for The Operators of the vehicles as well as pedestrians DPW director Rob phy surveyed the area performed a test which indicated that the advis speed for the curves is 20 mil per hour the committee recommends installation of a w14 r curve sign which I have a picture of if you don't um with an advisory 20 mph plaque if fixed the sign would be placed on East found side of Fox Hill Road by the DPW in accordance with applicable regulation and policy and I can show it to you i' like it back one of the concerns expressed and we've all witnessed it when we've driven down these areas is um pedestrians walking two and three a breast sometimes with carriages Etc I don't think some of them realize the danger that they have I do know in a previous conversation with you and with our committee uh there is a group that is looking into maybe putting together a pamphlet of sorts with regards to sharing the road pedestrians bicyclists and uh cars and landscapers so hopefully that will be coming back to someone soon sometime between now and next summer just as an FYI okay thank you uh take a motion move approval second uh all those in favor uh Mr Mets I Mr dykens Miss Davis I Mr Shell says I and Mr necastro hi thank you uh next lastly is barcliffe Avenue and old Harbor Road the committee reviewed a request for installation of blinking red stop signs on both sides of barcliffe Avenue on Old Harbor Road The barcliffe Avenue in Old Harbor Road intersection has been the location of several motor vehicle crashes with one crash as recent as September of 24 a significant number of the crashes have been caused by Motor Vehicles motor vehicle operators failing to stop at the stop signs the committee recommends the in installation of two additional stop signs with relative I'm sorry with reflective tape on the poles the additional stop signs would be placed on the opposite side opposite corners of the existing signs so in fact what's happening is when you stop on barcliffe you're going to have two stop signs one on either side of the street going from barcliff to barcliffe we have concerns about that area unfortunately we are also looking at um Mass DOT issues because that is a public road on um old Harbor um we continue to have concerns there were individuals there including the woman on the uh I think it's 150 in that I can't tell at the accident and the individual hit a car and the car and actually went into the home and if you go by you'll see the damage even today um that homeowner came to our meeting was very concerned and very emotional and we understand that uh it's a very dangerous area we also have concerns that uh the new um home on the corner of barcliffe has very very high um bushes in the front and the uh the home across the street from it also has older but tall bushes so the other day I went and you really have to get your nose of the car out quite a distance before you can see either way on Old coming into Old Harbor so it is a hazard that we're concerned about I just bring that to your attention too uh questions from the public uh yes sir Brian Phillips 374 Road um are these the same blinking stop signs that we installed over on what is it old Queen Anne no they will not be blinking stop signs they will be stop signs specific stop signs and then the pole will have reflective tape so is there stop signs there now these are new stop signs as you can see and I'll show you right here there is a stop sign here we're putting another one on the other side of the same street on both areas of barcliffe so as you're coming out of barcliffe you will see two stop signs one on the right and one on the left and this and this through traffic is still going to be through traffic is uh a state road we have no no authority over that so why would you put these signs here our hope is that it will add additional information uh visual information to traffic coming to and from barcliffe so are you basing this off of this one accent that just happened this has been an ongoing issue so do you speak to this deputy chief do you want to add something please even Lum alzone deputy chief please um the the initial request was for blinking uh stop signs um excuse me uh it being uh a state roadway State layout um DPW director failey uh referred to this as gated stop signs bringing more visibility um I did I looked at our data over the last five years we've had five significant accidents that were all caused by people failing to stop at the stop signs on both sides of barcliffe so the idea was to do these gated stop signs bring higher visibility and not have to put the flashing uh red lights in and some reflective tape on the poles to bring more awareness to those stops thank you Mr Phillips do you have any other two questions um so failure to stop at the stop signs use the microphone I'm sorry uh the failure to stop at the stop stop signs was there uh you know drinking or drugs or you know using cell phone for a reason that they didn't stop not the stop signs themselves in this particular case the most recent one it was that Saturday of very very heavy rain the gentleman uh who was in the accident said that he hydroplaned I'm not aware of any uh alcohol or substance um related accidents here uh we've had some distracted drivers and we've had some people who uh haven't seen the stop signs and have gone right through thank you just how would putting more stop signs help hydroplaning I just don't I don't understand that I don't think that adding the stop signs are going to are going to solve someone hydroplaning but they're definitely going to bring more awareness to that area it is a tough place to cross old h Road and I think if there's a sign on each side to catch your attention it will certainly help thank you U Mr Mets thank you Mr chair um a lot of times these proposals come before us and they get more philosophical this one is data driven I mean we've had five accidents I I was didn't really realize we had five accidents in that span but I know of some significant accidents about there and um you know these are not blinking lights these are these are the stop signs are going to be a a step to hopefully protect pedestrians and and and vehicles traveling that area I think there's more benefit to having them than not so I think it's it's something we really have to do based on past history in that area it's it's not a choice right now it's something we should do Dean thanks um so Chief um these signs are going to be facing all four Road well there are two roads all four no just people traveling on barcliff okay so so coming up from the fish Pier you'll have a sign on your right and a sign on your left yeah and then coming towards uh old haror um you'll have one your your right and your left so they won't really interfere with the flow of traffic on basically Route 28 because we don't have authority correct um my other question does does the town have any authority to um regulate the the height of the obstructing bushes I mean this isn't the only intersection where we have that type of problem do we have any Authority under law I this may be even more complicated because you got a state road involved but I think there's been some previous discussion and interaction with the homeowners uh in regards to some of the layout of some of their shrubs um that I know uh D DPW director fa has uh more information on but yeah there is um there there is some mechanisms in place to control those yeah I just wonder whether there's anything under state law or do we have anything in our bylaws or should we have something on our bylaws um here he may have a comment Rob do you want to speak to that question sure thank you Mr chair Rob failey director of public works so we did reach out to mass do uh not just on this occasion but previously and those bushes are not within the highway layout for Mass dos right away so um their hands are somewhat tied as well I was just wondering if even assuming they're on private property uh whether there was some provision of um state law or regulation or local law or regulation or by law that gives us the authority to um mandate the the trimming of of bushes when they obstruct the view it would seem to me there must be some something on this maybe there's some case law I don't know maybe it's something that we should look into with with Council we can look into it because as Robert said it's it's not within the RightWay right U but certainly if it's causing a hazard we can talk to Town Council it's a public health issue I think so there may be something and the authority of the Board of Health I don't know thank you uh Jeff thank you Mike yeah I totally agree with select board member necastro uh while you were talking Joan I I mean I we Traverse that intersection on occasion every weekend and it is a very difficult intersection you have to nose out you have to creep out because of the obstruction of the bushes to be honest with you it's Hedges a couple of those intersections they're very difficult to see around they actually block your visibility so I would like to see it brought up with Town Council to see if there's some way it's moral suasion if it's not under the control of Mass DOT then it's you know a public safety issue and we should try to make it one because they're blocking they're blocking views that provide you know unsafe conditions people barrel down uh old Harbor and I should say stage Harbor old Harbor sorry and um you know that they you can't see them coming so I I think I think the two stop signs on both sides of barli are very appropriate I certainly support it and I think we ought to remand it back to the Town Council ask if there's something we can do thanks I just would add maybe something within the police power of the of the town to to regulate private bushes on private property that are obstructing views and presting I don't know the name of the street um I want to say Partridge but I could be wrong when you're going towards hartch on um Queen an and the following Street on the right is homes in the past the street that I'm talking about on the left which is chadam whereas Holmes is hartch a number of years ago there was VE there is very high um Shrubbery at the edge of that street and the complaint came to us a number of years ago and at that time um the individual homeowner was spoken to and if you go by now you'll see it does look a little odd but it's Shrubbery that has been cut and then goes up because of the sight line being at issue it is also my understanding and I don't have it in writing that when this corner house that is used as a rental quite often a very beautiful home was being built um the comment was made that the bushes that are on Old Harbor would be 4 feet and if you go by you notice that they're a lot higher than 4 feet so I I'm supportive I I just want to ask the the unas question which is in the context of of discussing with Mass DOT uh what they might be able to do about the bushes did the subject of putting stop signs on uh old Harbor Road itself come up uh I appreciate that maybe a a bridge too far but really does seem to be the issue I'm sorry Rob would have to answer to that question I I don't know Rob are you still with us I see yeah yeah I'm here uh yeah that that subject was not brought up because the the bush issue was brought to mot prior to the uh the stop sign issue bring brought to the traffic and safety board well I'll I'll leave the question asked and and leave it at that um but in the meantime I think this is what we can do that is the the max in ter terms of attempting to um reduce the the the risk uh if not eliminate it altogether so I am supportive any other comments move approval second all those in favor uh Mr nicastro I Mr Shell says I Miss Davis Hi Mr dykens and Mr Mets hi thank you both thank you very much appreciate it okay our next item is a report from the chair of the summer residence advisory committee Mr Jeff spalter I have seen him online welcome Jeff you have the floor great thank you thank you very much good evening everyone uh we really appreciate the opportunity to to talk with the select board and provide an update on our 2024 activities especially in light of the agenda that you've got this evening um as as Mike mentioned I'm Jeff spal currently the chair of the SRC uh and excited to talk to you all uh this evening on behalf of our team if we go to page two which is the agenda thank you uh we have a good agenda this evening we think and hopefully we can flow through this at a at a modest Pace there are not a lot of new issues and no decisions to be made we look forward to your thoughts and your comments and your guidance uh we'll start with a review of our objectives and how we approached identifying and addressing issues relevant to chadam Summer residents next we'll share the results of the 2024 survey which fed into our work list I'll then give you an overview of our current year activities and the areas of Interest where we invested our time and we'll share some key takeaways and items for the select board in town to consider and then take a look ahead it later this year year in 2025 so if we can move to page three our first task was to align on where we'd like to spend our time and energy as it's so limited during the summer we look for issues that are most impactful to the town and important to Summer residents our primary constituency we identify common issues by conducting a summer resident survey and steuart grein did an analysis of the issues most frequently raised in our local papers we then met with a wide range of town staff and committee leads to gather input and discuss potential issues key areas that we monitor have been relatively consistent over time no surprise starting with Town finances we also look at the sewer project affordable and attainable housing the center for active living and water related issues this year we decided to focus on the sewer project and you may recall that that was a key portion of our summer town meeting earlier this year we're actually on your agenda for November 12th for a more detailed discussion about the sewer project and grinder pumps so we won't address that topic tonight we did include a page of issues and challenges related to the Sewer project in the backup on slide 13 um and we hope to engage you on some of these issues in the months ahead we also look at new and emerging issues such as short-term rentals and of course a key objective and one that still requires some work in our part is better communication with the summer residents we move to slide four we wanted to share with you how we approach our work and it all starts with teamwork we have a great team with a nice cross-section of work experiences uh and we really appreciate the work that the select board does to identify and approve summer residents for the team uh it's a great group to work with there's lots of sharing everyone's fully engaged and quite frankly it's a it's enjoyable time together we began with a virtual meet virtual planning meeting back in May before most of us were here in chadam to start the discussion on key issues we leveraged steuart's analysis of the local papers with our personal input to set the stage we then agreed on which town staff and committee members we' like to visit with to learn more about the issues facing the town and start to get on their calendars uh and we very much appreciate Jill and her team helping us to make this happen and then we blend in the survey results on top of all that during the June through August period we have a standing Friday meeting from 9 to 12 sometimes it feels a lot longer but we also had to meet midweek on a few occasions this year to progress a number of issues since we no longer have subcommittees to address specific issues and do some of the detailed research and data Gathering that is then typically brought forward to the full team the open meeting law requirements were just too burdensome for the subcommittees so while we weren't able to address as many issues without subcommittees the benefit is that the whole team was able to focus on the key issues in front of us and we got the benefit of input and perspective from the entire team some of the work we did especially on the sewer project and grinder pump issues was augmented with data and information gathered by some other residents which we found very helpful some folks have a more technical background and we found this to be quite valuable and we and we will continue to meet monthly throughout the winter to keep a breast of issues the select board actions and just to keep in touch if we move to page five as part of our effort to identify issues relevant to the summer residents we conducted a survey earlier earlier in the year this year the survey was more modest than prior than the prior year it had three to four questions and was conducted over a four-week period we had just over 100 responses we wanted to capture a little bit of background data along along with Summer resident input unissued the survey was distributed through social media the chronicle and shared directly with residents we asked how long summer residents had owned a home in chadam on average just over 25 years with the shortest responded at one and a half years and one family has owned a home has owned a home here in their family tree for over 100 years uh and not a big surprise we learn that some residents are clustered in the New England area and the southe largely Florida when not here and actually I'm calling from Florida today and it's uh it's about 85 Degrees uh moving to the issues brought forward via the survey uh no real surprises and largely consistent with prior years water related issues were the most common one raised concerns about drinking water availability with some Pump Station limitations the impact of fertilizer on groundwater and contributors to bacteria and other contamin in local ponds parking and traffic issues were also frequently mentioned specifically Downtown parking during the summer and the need for long and the need for longterm a long-term congestion strategy the housing crisis was another area that was raised it was identified by one resident as the most critical issue that we Face locally with a recommendation that we address this collaboratively with other towns it was also nice recognition of the progress that the town has made uh over the past year uh in affordable and attainable housing other issues that were raised a little bit less frequently were town taxes and finances Beach maintenance and environmental concerns most of these issues are being worked or managed by the town staff or other groups but they do offer areas for us to keep an eye on to see where perhaps we can help out or maybe make a difference if we move to page six um I had mentioned earlier that we met with Town staff and committee and here's a list of the visitors some of them actually have the correct name um sorry Sten oh we do have Steven Daniel at one point it said Jeff Daniel uh and these these folks were kind enough to spend time with us uh we had a pretty broad array of staff and committee topics our approach was to collect questions from the SRC members and then share them with the presenter a few days in advance of our meeting to help ensure that our time together was productive we move to page seven um I'd like to cover just some of the key takeaways from all of our meetings and discussions starting with Town finances they continue to be well managed as exhibited by the continued AAA rating and the modest tax rate with that said the management of capital projects and prioritization should be reviewed to ensure that our dollars are spent on the most critical needs as identified in the survey great progress on affordable attainable housing and now we hope that the pace of execution and construction will progress quickly as well the sewer project has a wide range of challenges both short and long term and again we'll talk about those at another time uh we were disappointed by the cfal vote earlier this year and the current plan to spend material dollars on the existing building uh the SRC has supported various plans in the past modifications to the community community center and also six the 1610 Main Street site we hope that an alternative plan for this CF cfal can be identified before material dollars are spent to retrofit the current facility water availability is clearly on everyone's radar screen and the town monitors usage and capacity routinely the growing demand and changing standards such as pfas could drive the need for capital projects and finally we think the impact from the recently approved and implemented short-term rental regulation should be monitored and assessed as time passes the common comment that we hear is that the increase in rentals is changing the character of chadam and this impacts both full-time and summer residents if we move to page eight uh I referenced earlier a critical area for the town is the management and prioritization of capital projects there's a wide range of projects on the table and they do add up to material dollars these projects such as the sewer system transfer station the Waterfront cfal will dominate future service payments providing clean water is an ongoing challenge uh and there's the potential need for additional capacity or impact or the impact of new standards such as Bast which could drive the need for critical capital projects it's not apparent that all these projects have been fully costed and prioritized and on page nine the budgeting process has not always provided sufficient detail to ensure projects are fully funded for example the need for additional dollar to recently complete Bridge Street we recommend that as that that as appropriate the town ensure each individual project has a cost projection developed or validated by Town staff and the capital requests in the town warrants the Project Specific versus a more of a bucket approach to Capital funds routine review of costs during these project executions with material changes communicated to the residents would be beneficial while some of these steps may may well be happening today we suggest a review just to ensure they're working as intended and is appro and that appropriate controls over the budgeting and expenditure of capital funds are in place page 10 looking ahead well that that was 2024 and just a quick look ahead for the SRC will'll continue to Monitor and engage on a sewer project hoping to help find efficiencies and address some of the longer term issues we look to assess the impact of short-term rentals on our communities and finally we look to improve our communication with several residents on the last page um look I know that was a lot to cover it was an active summer for us and we were able to cover a lot of ground because of the amazing support from town management Jill personally attends as many of our as many of our meetings as she can which really does make a difference there's not a better resource and the support of the select board and the access that you give us is very much appreciated we'd be glad to come back and talk about any of these issues with you or should you have any questions on any individual topic please just let us know we're glad to reach out and connect on that uh so on behalf of the SRC let me thank you very much uh and see if you have any questions or follow-ups Dean do you want to start thank you Mr chairman uh hi hi Jeff thank you very much uh for your presentation it was very sustain think and um obviously um a very organized process was undertaken this past year under your I I guess new chair chairmanship of this board of this committee I I wanted to focus um a question on the CF and I know you had a um presentation uh long interaction with u the chair of the Council on Aging at one of your meetings which I attended um on November 19th we're going to have a this board is going to have a report uh from the um architect um that's developed a a plan for um remodeling reworking the existing building and is working on final cost estimates um there was a meeting um at staff level that I attended along with the chair and the town manager um recently uh was an interim brief update um on the progress of of that work um I was encouraged um there's nothing um that I can relate in terms of final numbers but uh it looked rather promising and I'm hopeful that when they come back on the 19th we may have something U worth looking at so I just I wanted to encourage I know you said you were disappointed in this concern about investing money in that property and I I share that concern for for me there's there's a ceiling as to how much money I'd be willing to put into that before I would say let's knock the building down and put a new one up um and historically sck had a report that Jill McDonald and Phil Richardson put together recommending just that knock the knock the um existing building down and put a new one up and I know that in a more recent iteration s came forward with um a community center oriented presentation so I would just encourage um I know you're following this I would just encourage Sak to you know keep an open mind about it and take a look at what's being presented and maybe it's something that we can all support and finally get this um this project underway but those that that's just a comment from mine but I I very much appreciate I've always appreciated srack I think it makes it I think s has made a a great contribution continues to make a great contribution to the down to our work here to the finance committee's work and um I look forward to what you have to what you're going to have to say on the grinder pump issue in a couple of weeks thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you thank you Jeff go ahead yeah Jeff uh thank you very much for a very succinct um presentation just a couple of questions and comments the the uh the comment on breaking up uh capital projects is well made I think I think we learned that lesson and so likely you'll at least with this board you'll like likely not see a whole bunch of uh kind of Warrant articles come come with proposing a whole bunch of capital being spent in one lump sum I think it's I think it's uh appropriate that the town um examine each project on its merits so I think that's a point well made well taken um I you may have already sck may have already presented this to us but did you do you have a summary of the of the survey results I think they did but I would love to see them again just to see kind of how uh your respondents prioritize uh their their needs or what they their view of the town and its needs I would just love to see that again oh sure we can certainly we'll shoot that over to you that'd be great and then the look I'm looking forward uh to the grinder pump uh discussion I think it's an important one I'm looking forward to it thank you very much for your report very good Shireen thank you hi there oops hi there thank you very much for the presentation just a question because I I think it's important that we you know the survey that you conducted was um important and was really happy to see that there was some outreach are there any other plans to outreach to or any specific plans that you have to outreach to Summer residents um outside of the survey I'm not sure you mentioned it or not we other than the survey we haven't had much of much Outreach we also have struggled to actually communicate effectively with the larger summer resident population uh and doing a better job of that is on our way work list um we haven't seen over the past couple of years uh issues that have been raised where we thought wow there's something that hasn't been on the radar screen that um that hasn't been brought forward by someone somehow uh so we haven't really invested in in doing more data gathering in all honesty uh but getting the word out and more and just more dialogue as we go through the year is something that we really would like to do um how how does a summer resident know that you exist we we've asked that same question so I guess that within that question there's a solution yeah obviously we're we're we're we're on the we're on the website on the town on the town's website um and we have our summer we have the Summertown meeting which gets quite a bit of publicity so folks become aware that we exist uh through some of the publication we do that we do through that venue uh but other than that we have not uh it's hard to get the we haven't found a good way to get the word out that we are there and we do talk about that quite a bit I'm wondering if there's any Communications through um assistance through our town staff and looking at maybe tax roles and getting collecting somehow collecting that kind of data and then doing some sort of Outreach that you know such as a letter but you have to have a vehicle behind that that's going to facilitate it like either signing up for a newsletter or you're getting the meeting minutes or something more you know um that's more communitybased to sort of get a a bigger um Outlook from from the community at large as to what the needs are for summer residents just my suggestion yeah no thank you for that that's a nice idea and I know uh that the town's made the the main sheet that goes out available to us when we've tried to communicate a few things and maybe we can uh use that a little more robustly but thank you for that yeah it does start with direct Outreach first that's your first step thank you thank you no no Jeff many thanks for the presentation tonight and thank you for all the the committee members uh all their effort and time and input they put into these um meetings throughout the summer um so I don't have any pressing questions but so thank you yeah thank thanks very much Jeff good excellent Pres presentation and a good summary of what you've been up to and Direction and so forth um I have one question and one comment my question is um it it relates to the comments that you've made on a couple of the slides regarding um views uh from the summer residents um however representative they may be uh regarding short-term rentals and what I hear is a concern but I'm not sure I got the sense of exactly is the concern to reduce uh short-term rentals or to have a better control of it or what what a as well as how that relates to the um to the to the the larger housing problem and the need for yearr round housing so that's a kind of a general question yeah I I would say that the that the discussion has been very very limited quite frankly so far uh has kind of had two veins and I really can't articulate one very well other than uh the comment that I made that the character of the Town seems to be changing with all the rentals a comment that's been made by a number of folks who have been here for you know 20 or 30 plus years uh and I'll be honest I haven't really delt in delved into what do they actually mean by what do they actually mean by that how is it changing is it the fact that um rental homes aren't maintained as well is it that you just have more churn in your neighborhood and you have a loss of community um we haven't really broached that yet um so but that was one of the venues was the changing character of of the Town um well I forget what the other the other the other item was but it's been it's been pretty high level yeah in all honesty and so we have it on we have it on the radar screen to talk talk to talk through it as we move to next year yeah and and the other uh more a general comment that I have um is which goes a little bit to the um the comments you've heard from my colleagues regarding communication and and and connection with the a larger slug of the or or slice of the constituency I I think you as I observed the work this year um it it was very focused in terms of specific project specific initiatives and input of a substantive nature from your group um that was uh you know I I think carried significant expertise with it and I think to the extent that you can position um summer residents advisory committee as just that as an advisory committee um yes with respect to um issues and concerns of the constituency but also um maybe bringing some exper expertise and wisdom to our deliberations on the the the big issues that we're facing that that would uh hopefully help us and and maybe um enlist a little higher level of uh uh and wider scope of of interest from your group no very good very good I think that I think that lines up well with where we'd like to go so thank you for that right right any anything else um I think that's it thank you very much great thanks so much for the time okay we appreciate it very helpful um okay now we turn to public comments on the business agenda with the exception of item G relating to the Stepping Stones Road property um any public comments uh here in the room any comments from those online no no comments thank you so we will turn to the business agenda itself uh item number one is approval to open the uh 20242 base Gallop season I hope we have shellfish Constable Renee gagy There She is welcome nice to see you yes good evening thank you Renee gagy shelfish constable and I'm here um requesting that uh you open base golop season on Friday November 1st questions comments do you want to move so moved approved second uh all those in favor Mr nicastro I Mr Shell says I uh Miss Davis I Mr dyin and Mr Mets hi thank you that was easy thank thank you very easy yeah okay thanks very much uh next is considering reduction in membership um from 9 to seven members on the chadam cultural Council welcome chair co-chair Barry deset thank you Barry deset north chadam um co-chair of the chadam cultural Council um we would like the um amount of members reduced to seven from nine because we only have five active members so if we keep it at nine um if one person misses we don't have a quorum and therefore we can't even give our money away on on the days we have that meeting um so so we we would like to have it at 7 thank you any comments or questions uh Corey sure U I know we've had this discussion before we've and I've served as a leaz on in the past I mean we've had increase in membership decrease in membership this is the necessity um for for the meeting I know that you guys may be having uh another conversation down the road maybe about residency of members and recruiting efforts that that we're going to have at a at a later stage but um to keep the committee uh functioning um with the five existing members um I think reducing it from 9 to 7 is is a necessity yes okay and I and I I moved that actually okay second uh any other comments uh all those in favor Mr Mets I uh Mr dykens hi M Davis Hi Mr Shell says I and Mr necastro hi thank you sir thank you sir next chief Anderson will update us on the new parking ticket software and the 2024 parking ticket statistics along I see with Craig thank you Mr chair member of the board uh Mike Anderson chief of police with me is Craig row director of town it uh I'll be brief uh just about a year ago uh the board voted to implement the new parking software the increase in the parking violations uh I just want to bring us back to the year before last uh the 2022 totals of tickets issued you will see at just under 600 and 29950 for the fines that's a relatively low number because the year following in 2023 that was the first year we introduced our four community service officers and that was one of their primary duties and responsibilities is issuing parking violations so you'll see the substantial increase it's almost doubled um go back and um what's interesting to note on the fine totals this was the last year before this new system um it was a very difficult mechanism for us to really determine the percentage or the dollar amount of the fines that were paid it was a spreadsheet there was no real registry uh attachment to it as far as if someone was a scoff law or a delinquent there was no real penalty and there was no real urgency to pay these tickets so you'll see in the next slide once we implemented this new technology with that Craig will explain a little bit further in detail uh the numbers uh increased even more um in 2024 I will add that we also added a fifth Community Service Officer and that fifth community service officer's primary Duty was not to be on Main Street but was to float to the parking hotspots which you'll see in a slide following um the schoolhouse ponds the beaches the bridge streets um and areas like that what's significant with this slide you'll see that the the fine totals uh are pretty substantial but the fine totals that are paid uh that's about a 68% return on the on the payment so um so far we've received 68% of those fines returned uh which is which is pretty substantial um and just to explain um what the software looks like this is pretty much what the ticket book looks like it's a regular Apple device and I'm actually wearing um what the ticket machine printer would look like you it fits right on your belt uh they wear them on their belt or they wear them in a carrier so they're very small very easy very light uh and this new software it also decreases the amount of Officer time on the violation it increases the accuracy uh it back fills all the GPS it populates everything automatically it takes photographs it digitally chalks your tires it increases the accuracy of the violation which makes appeal a little bit more difficult if you want to go to the next one just a breakdown of who issues the tickets from last year you can see that the community service officers did their part um the six from it that was just training citations mostly Craig Rose license plate uh Haba Ms did a great job with 53 uh but you'll see that the majority of the uh violations are uh ticketed by our community service officers one more Yep people are curious on what the most common violation is um it is the outside of mocked area which is usually on Main Street um we had a couple of uh violators appeal by using what's called a CMR reference uh and in Massachusetts the uh according to the CMR a parking space has to be minimum 9 ft wide but that's in a parking lot obviously the roadway in Main Street if you extended those 9 ft parking spaces out from the curb you would now not have a safe roadway for traffic to Traverse each other so in layman's terms that 9 ft really doesn't exist on Main Street it's really up to the vehicle operator and the size of the vehicle that he or she is operating to make the determination obviously if they can fit in that Main Street parking area but those are the number one the the top four violations that we received and most ticketed States Massachusetts Connecticut and New York and those Massachusetts tickets uh if they are delinquent if they are late they get attached to the Mass registry of motor vehicles and it would not be uncommon for their license or registration uh to be U not renewed until these tickets are paid next one that was this one so um I'm just going to go over some of the backend stuff um you know one of the biggest problems that I've always found trying to implement new softwares is getting engagement by the staff and the people that need to utilize the software this was really embraced by the police by every officer and particularly by the csos you see they wrote 1900 um violations they're pretty active around town they're always coming in telling a story and and they're actually proactive in a lot of cases where if they saw a violation they would actually come in particularly Town Hall they would come in and they would ask around if somebody's parked out there are they doing Town business if they weren't they went out and rote a violation if they were uh doing Town business they said hey you know you're in a you know you shouldn't be parking here so their engagement was really good um I feel around town and I saw him a multiple times and uh one of the summer resident uh advisory office uh on the committee was parked there and they asked who it was and I said I know the car he was picking he was doing some work um so they were really good and just you know said hey you're not supposed to park here and he was loading up so I thought that was really good uh this screen here shows the um the total violations $144,200 the amount paid is 94,6 outstanding balance 36,000 and the total fees of fee they had like $5 fees on top of tickets so a lot of people were paying these fees on top of uh what they were being charged so you know or $20 fee so we are getting a lot of um you know people are paying these violations they're really trying to get them done uh they have 21 days days to pay the violation and then they get a $5 fee um and they also have 21 days at the 21 days they can't appeal the ticket so after 21 days if you haven't appealed it you're you're out of luck you just have to pay the violation um when we came to you previously we talked about what the cost of this was we asked to increase the ticket fees to $75 of the $75 uh it costs us about $16 per ticket that includes the processing fees which we're absorbing for the uh for the Violator rather than having them you know pay a $75 ticket and then a 3% or however it works out and the software cost is built into that so you know we're kind of we're not losing money on the process um you know it's not costing the town any more money uh with this software um the we're beginning the process now of tracking down this 36 $37,000 or whatever the number was I I think it's a little bit different than what Mike had uh because of some updated information we're starting to track those down now so they're going to get sent a notification saying that they have an outstanding ticket and to pay it within 30 days if they don't pay it within 30 days a $20 fee is going to be assessed and then at 31 days after that they'll get another letter saying they've been assessed a $20 fee if it goes to the Massachusetts Registry there's another $20 fee that'll be assessed on top of that so worst case if you don't pay your ticket and it goes to the registry it's $120 if you pay it within the 30 days it's the $80 if you pay it after the 30 days between 30 and 60 days it'll be uh $100 so that's kind of the process that we go through and the last slide this is a little bit hard to see but these are the violations these are the Hotpot areas where we're issuing tickets around town you see uh downtown is the hot spot Lighthouse uh down around the harbor Masters office down there the fish Pier Around chatman's Bar um I'm not sure what yeah you'll see out west the schoolhouse pond that's a hot spot also yep so this is all the locations where the um where it's been pretty uh active and the the vi uh the csos have been going around and the officers have been going around and riding tickets there uh Judy did 237 citations contested and all the csos were encouraged to take pictures so a lot of these were just you had to pay there's no evidence to say that you shouldn't have to pay because there's a picture of the violation if you're parked in a handic AP spot there's a blatant picture of your car parked in a handicap spot uh if you're outside the lines if you parked the wrong direction if you parked in front of a hydrant the csos and the police officers did a really good job of taking pictures and almost every ticket has at least multiple pictures related to it so it's really hard to to say hey I didn't I didn't do this when there's a picture which is timestamped it shows on the ticket when they get their ticket it says photos taken so soon as they log on to the website they see a ticket violation so with the pictures so I think it was a really good encouraging year this year um you know as I say we're we've moved a long way from handwritten tickets everything will be now chased down the outstanding and hopefully we get a good uh return uh the 68% I talk with the company this morning 68% is really good return current without us sending out delinquency letters so if I could just add I think that we had a lot of options as far as technology to choose from um I think we made the right decision I think Craig did a great job I think the board did a great job in in taking this on uh I appreciate it um I think the the software and the process has been a success and we'll be happy to take any questions uh Jeff I just have a couple just some of the dots the one North chadam is that the coward Landing yes okay and then the one um down at the corner of oyer river that's the town landing down there yes then the one in West chadam not Schoolhouse but by the is that is that the airport yes thank you very much yes thanks cor um now I think this this program has worked out really really well but when we talk about hot spots figure how I want to phrase this so one observation I made during downtown Summers is there's are certain stretches as an example Christian Science reading room wrapping around the front of the church on a daily basis car after car after car after car outside the line next day car after car after car I mean that probably 200 feet of section I'd be curious how much generated of those tickets but it's a constant area that people are parking and is there when you talk about the 9 foot delineation of a spot is there any thought about maybe we can tidy that up a little bit better or is it just that that's just going to be what it's going to be with these with cars of today's sizes to answer your first question because this is GPS populated if if you ask me for that specific address or those specific addresses I can get that data and get that number back to you because we can we can break it down it's not just Main Street in the area of it's pretty specific and as far as tidying it up you've got a couple of Choke choke points on Main Street um tail of the Cod is one in front of the cookwar is another uh pretty much right where you just mentioned where the driveway opposite to the chadam hardware um un unless unless we lessen the width of the sidewalk we don't have a lot of options no it's fair it's an observation I made I I drive into town every day and I'm like ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket I mean it's a go I use the term gold mine but it's it is it is a it is a spot that if you're parking I don't understand if you if you parked there more than once you're you're you're foolish because it's you're going to get a ticket right right if I might Jeff go ahead yeah and we see our own success because our parking areas are so narrow downtown right um you you made the statement yourself that if you really had the the regular 9 foot wide parking spot you wouldn't be able to have two-way traffic you could not so you know I'm I'm speaking blasphemy but I've often thought that maybe it should be parking on one side of downtown rather than both sides because it is such a narrow narrow you know Crossway going either North or South East it's very difficult to to sometimes you you click mirrors you know just traveling it's very very narrow and mirrors are expensive now they are very expensive so I mean ironically we're because we have such a narrow Street downtown where it's sort of seating our own success with the tickets and again it's really the onus is really on the vehicle operated to recognize the fact that they're driving a gigantic SUV as opposed to a Honda Accord and if they can't fit there they can't fit there de Dean thank you so two things so so if they Park more than um one foot from the curb that's a violation it could be okay um which would aggravate the situation Jeff's talking about I had one question when in Massachusetts cuz that's what we know um does uh the license or the registration I guess would be the registration get impacted is it so in Massachusetts they it's you have to have two violations within Massachusetts registered with the registry so if I got a parking ticket in chadam and I didn't pay it we send all the tickets to the registry they don't get a lock on their uh driver's license until the second by VI ation so if somebody in another town let's say they're in um I don't know Manchester mass and they send their tickets to the registry as soon as that second ticket is identified as unpaid then they get a lock on their license and then they have to pay chadam $20 to unlock the registry lock and Manchester to unlock the registry lock so it you have to have two violations and they have to pay the fine they have to pay the so yes if I don't pay a ticket it's and I and it goes to the registry it'll get escalated to $120 now we're on the low side other towns they're right off the bat $15 violation after 21 days so the ticket goes from 75 to 90 in some other towns we're only doing five but they could have two violations in chatam and that would put that will trigger it yep unpaid violations all thank you um just the the $36,000 in light of what you're just explaining um particularly at least with respect to Massachusetts is is that sort of in limbo so we may get some of that someday we but we're hoping to get um when I talk with the company I had a conversation with them today they say that about 10% of people don't end up paying and and by the time they trace them down you know they might have had a lease car and they sld the lease car or it's a rental car and you you just lose there's a little bit of loss there uh they presume anywhere from 80 to 90% return is very common so um What's happen outside of the Massachusetts ones now anyone that have outstanding tickets over 30 days now out of state we're paying the company and they're going to they're going to find out what the registration is and they're going to get sent a delinquency letter which is going to say that after 60 days at 60 days you get a $20 and then you'll get an additional the problem is is outside of Massachusetts they won't do a registry lock so that we can't do anything with it um you know we will see if we have someone from out of state that comes into town next year and has an unpaid parking ticket and CSO or the police officer pulls up same registration plate it's going to say oh you have an unpaid fine in another town now as a board you could determine that oh well any unpaid outer state is you could determine that that person also gets a an additional fee so um the capturing capturing the last little bit of it we're going to get a lot of them in Massachusetts particularly New York Connecticut as a chief said are the two other hotpots um you know if we get 50 60% return on that I think that's a really good number good okay and also if I could add with the fees paid that also comes with the ease of which that ticket can be paid upon receiving it it can be done right from your phone so people just just pay it yeah Judy had about uh 70 80% were paid online 20% people put the ticket in an envelope and sent in a check which is very cumbersome for us but I think with us absorbing the transaction fee on the credit credit card yes it does cost us about $6 just for that process but you know I I think it's a better way for us to Judy's time can be used in better ways than trying to save six bucks on every on every ticket um so the credit card was was pretty good we had once or twice we had a couple of issues but generally they just swipe to do the QR code they type in the number if pops up it shows pictures of their violation and they just hit pay and that's it it's done in you know it takes 30 seconds to write a ticket and it takes 45 seconds to pay it so quick return good thank you anything else thank you very much okay thank you appreciate it good night okay um 2024 ballot question six uh I'll invite uh Barn County Commissioner Ron Bergstrom and chadam assembly delegate Randy potach to the podium all right so we're going to do this I'd like to get I'd rather have the last word but if you want me to go first welcome that's fine so so thank you for having me it's always a pleasure to see you as you may recall um 16 months ago I was here and I told you that this was in its embrionic stages I wanted you to hear it from me first we provided you with the red line we discussed it a bit and um we you know very candid I brought our clerk with us who is very um uh knowledgeable about technical aspects of chars and uh and just incidentally luckily our new administrator is also an expert on Chatters which which um is is great to know um anyway so we reviewed it together and since then all the delegates 15 Zer all have been behind this some are Republicans some are Democrats some are independent doesn't matter because we all believe that this is important um we chose to do it through one of three ways to do Charter um amendments or changes this way is n 9- one which allows for um modifications that don't um impinge on the elections are the structure of the assembly and so um we chose that and it was approved by the Secretary of State um also since I saw you that time six 16 months ago um this was made into an ordinance that was again passed 15 and ordinances um the process at the assembly is that an ordinance goes to the Board of Commissioners and they have three choices on an ordinance they can approve it they can disapprove it and give reasoning or they can ignore it if they ignore it it becomes into effect well they ignored it and since that that that actually happened at the end of this summer I think was September of 2023 so this is how long this is has gone on for remember too that the the Assembly of delegates have had numerous public hearings and I'm not the only delegate that's gone to their select board we all did we've all written to papers about it and radio Silence from the Board of Commissioners complete crickets not a word about this ignore it then ignore it as the calendar goes around and all of a sudden it's on the ballot and it's been loud and so why why not wait till chatter review of 2025 sure that's the question that's on your mind it's the only reasonable question that could come up why not wait well 2025 chatter review is squarely in the purview of the Assembly of delegates we control chatter review and two-thirds of the assembly is going to control whatever comes out of chatter review and I already told you we're 15 Z on this so there's no reason to wait um wait waiting costs money why because as you know and as everybody's so tired of there's been problems with the board and the assembly pretty much way before I came around um and during the time between now in the end of chatter review there's going to be two more budget cycles and that's the reason why we took this route is to just try to get this done so no reason to wait um it's been crickets until now and uh I don't think that the board should be able to um benefit from doing nothing and then act like something should have been done they had numerous times they could have talked to us about it nothing's been done now the last thing I want to say is that CH this board and I hope the town of chatam is known knows that I have your back at the assembly I've shown you that a few times um I showed you that when Opa funding was was an issue the the board didn't want the town to get any money at all I tried to get half the money to the towns we only got 10 million um so you got your share of the of the 10 million and then we Al I also had a go to bat for the town of chadam to be able to let you use it for what projects you wanted to use it for uh some Revenue replacement so that all happened um the the Assembly of delegates has been responsible for resurrecting the dredge program that was in really dire uh need of of rate increase and um losing millions of dollars and also last thing I will mention you may recall that um I think it was two budgets ago the Assembly of delegates restored um funding for the the shine program the um children's Cove and shellfish seeds so that was all our work and I've been very active I enjoy it I like to represent the town and um that's basically my if you have any questions thank you Jeff thank you Randy I just have a very basic question I think it's important for the public to to understand what is the problem that this ballot initiative is trying to solve well what's happened is a two I think it was actually three budget Cycles ago we the assembly um modified the budget cut the budget by $800,000 in 10 FTE that was proposed and that caused a lot of turmoil the the commission did not like us doing that I think they felt like they were bitten by the family dog essentially because through the years the assembly was a rubber stamp type of situation and all of a sudden there's new delegates now taking more of an initiative using using the Committees That was supposed to be used all along and they started to um talk about ignoring our our our um ordinances and as a matter of fact they actually kept and they continue to ask Council for Our advice as to how not to allow us to do our jobs and it's I don't want to really get too much into the Weeds on this because it can turn into a food fight and it's but I will tell you that there's been turmoil ever since that $800,000 cut um and then the next year the budget again was the assembly's budget because they wanted to cut Services which I just talked about and last year um it wasn't as bad but but every year it's you know it's painful um they didn't want the assembly to have any any um any power when it came to the Opera money and then we also had 28,000 no $28 million in reserves and that took oh my God I think that took 18 months for them to figure out what to do with that and every time the assembly tried to opine it was it was an uphill battle and so people are tired of it and it's 15 delegates from every town that have just they we just want to restore the charter to what the founders of the county um CH intended uh Dean thank you Mr chairman thank you Randy I I've got a few questions I'm going to start with trying to understand what's saying I've already voted I'm not going to say which way I voted I've got the county commissioner and the our representative here and you both do a great job for the town by the way um so as I understand there were a couple of things happening um one is to codify that that the assembly would have a standing committee on finance right the other is to Grant the um the assembly the authority to increase the annual budget that's being proposed and submitted to you as well as to reduce it yes and thirdly you can um the assembly would have theth authority to initiate post budget appropriation requests that's correct that would have to be approved by the County Commissioners by well they would have to go to the County Commissioners and then two-thirds of the assembly always has last say on ordinances yeah and so you want to know where that came from that whole idea with supplemental budgets um so the chatter and the second section of it list the rules about ordinances and I'm not going to stop to read it you now your time is valuable but I will tell you and I don't think commissioner Bergstrom is going to deny it that ordinances can be put forward by any elected official on any you know reasonable topic and it goes through the ordinance process the chat the um the budget is an ordinance and there's nothing in the chatter that says that the you know any exceptions on ordinances and this particular Charter is a special act Charter unlike any other chatter that we've ever come up with because we have an assembly of delegates which is a unicorn we haven't found one like it in the United States and we we don't we're not bound by the state law on Charters and that's been clear all along but County Council finds it um curious and always thinks of it as a gray area and we want to you know sort of disavow anybody of that we talked to original delegates and we've had them at our meeting we had one at our meeting and we have one of the almost original delegates as part of our our group now and we were never intended to be an advisory committee and so that's really what the rub is well it's it's probably accurate to say that the charter has some gaps in it may may need to be filled along lines of whether or ordinance is meant to include the the budget budgeting process because I say that because in my understanding and I as you know I was city solicitor the city council in quinsey and I think in all cities in the Commonwealth and I think the legislative body in in the towns including our town can only reduce the budget is submitted by the executive they can't increase it so you're proposing a model that's a little different we got that from the um the State um Constitution okay my last question is because you said at the beginning that you actually did adopt an ordinance and it was ignored so it went into effect so if it went into I assume the orance ordinance you're referring to is all of this it's to have a budget I mean I'm sorry to have a ballot question that was the to have a bot question I was going to ask you why yeah I I thought maybe everything has to be done by ordinance at the assembly that's how we Ru so we even had to have an ordinance to have a budget question I mean a ballot question okay so that was ignored and like you know and I I just would imagine you'd find that curious that that's been ignored for over a year and now all this noise you know it's troubling all right thanks very much thank you sh I just have a statement um more than a question Randy um I've already voted so and I'm again in Dean's Camp here but um I appreciate the idea that there's this clarification that that process that you're engaging in and that it is involving all the 15 towns Representatives um and your advocacy to the community has been well documented obviously and we appreciate your work um as an advocate for our community so in just saying that um I'm just really happy that this is bring being brought as a vote to the community and um and we'll see what happens and we are too I mean it's not a hot lung machine if we have to wait two more Cycles it's going to be unfortunate but you know thank you we get it yeah thank you very much thanks Randy uh Ron you know is it usually when a ballot question goes on on the ballot it's because there's some ground swell of support for it you know there's some controversy out in the community you know about wind turbines or about the uh hospitality industry how they pay their employees and eventually people get together and they sign petitions and they so on and they get it on the ballot it's not the case with this one and a lot of people who I would say the best majority of them who go to the ballot if they haven't already some of you have already and look at it and they come down to question six now remember we're kind of insiders so we have a little bit of knowledge of what's going on but I doubt very few people have been been given that kind of knowledge they would need to make a decision and I'm going to go to a um so why is it there you know why is it there so I'm going to go to a uh oped piece by uh Eric turkington who was a former um a member of the House of Representatives outside aside from the 15 members of the county assembly of delegates who placed this question on the ballot question six has no active proponents its sole supporters are those 15 assembly members and its sole purpose is to give them greater power over the county budget than they currently have under the charter this pet this ballot question was authored by the assembly talking to itself with little or no public input or public awareness so that's the first point is why is this on the ballot people aren't going to know what they're voting on when they go into the ballot so what does it do well this is a statement put out by the Commissioners this measure is an attempt to exempt the assembly from P provisions of Massachusetts General Law chapter 35 section 28 the state law that establishes the budgetary and appropriating authority of all County executive and legislative branches in Massachusetts in our state the authority to prepare and initiate budgets and supplemental Appropriations is delegated to the executive branch this ballot question proposes to Grant this authority to the assembly and then exempt it from any of the current statutory limitation that exist in exercising that Authority and you mentioned that was mentioned earlier by the so that's how it works now can you imagine going go on a town meeting and you put the budget on the floor and somebody stands up in the middle gets the attention of the moderator and says you know I think we need another policeman you guys haven't provided enough police so I'm in a move that we add another $100,000 to the budget and we hire another policeman okay now if the moderator knows what he's doing he'll rule him out of order right away because even if they were to even if he would allow that measure to go on the floor and it was accepted town meeting can't compel you to do something you don't want to do that's how it works they can give you money well actually in that case they can't give you money but they could say here's here's $100,000 do what you want but they can't compel the executive branch to do something that the executive branch hasn't asked for and there's a reason for that suppose they were to do that then they say well we don't like the person you hired we want to be part of the process in hiring so they start to encroach now on the executive authority of the Commissioners or on the executive authority of the of the selectman so that's the that's the issue that we're faced right here now I was a member of the I represented chadam on the Assembly of delegates for 12 years I was speaker for eight of those years it was one occasion when we passed a budget and we thought that the Commissioners weren't adequately addressing an issue and so we added a line item to the budget I don't remember how much it was I remember even what it was for and the commissioner and I said you can't do that okay and I said yes we can and so we went to County Council um actually County Council was shared by the assembly and and the uh Commissioners at the time so we went to outside Council Jim lampy he's still he's still serves he's an expert in these matters in Municipal law and he gave us a very polite response he said you can't do that okay and so I wasn't happy about it but I'm a Clam Digger and he spent his life in Municipal law so I had to accept that and during the course of some of the controversies between the assembly and the Commissioners we have relied on County Council KP law Michelle Randazzo and also John Georgio who's a chadam resident and they've given us clear Direction and a lot of times the assembly didn't like that direction you know but the idea they saying there's this controversy out there in this conflict the only controversy is out there is because they won't accept they won't accept what they're being told by County Council whose job it is to to make those decisions so you know where where is this going um you know I the the the timing by the assembly is very very oh by the way the assembly had a perfect right to cut $800,000 from our budget yes we didn't like it and of course we complained wouldn't you wouldn't you I mean but that's that it's their job to cut it's our job to complain that they cut so I mean it was was we accept the fact they could do that um you know and and so where it's just going now since then standing and pors has R has raised our our um uh standing our um borrowing cost whatever it is uh rating Bond rating our bond rating sorry uh from AAA to AAA Plus and they've given us great accolades at how we've handled our budget process now also we just got an award I know if I sent this to you but um from Barnsville county has received the prestigious certificate certificate of achievement for execu for excellence in financial reporting from the government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada for its annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2023 this award is the highest form of recognition in the field of government accounting and financial reporting reflecting a significant achievement for barnville County and its management every year we're under budget last year on a 20 million we have a $30 million budget but some of that is has managing grants and so on so an actual $2 million operating budget we returned a million dollar to to the general fund that is money that was appropriated and not spent we have cons considerable reserves we put aside um because we've had good years and we know that that doesn't last forever so the financial management of Barnsville county has never been better why are we doing this now you know can you imagine going through the course of a fiscal year and the the assembly comes along and said you know we want to do something else or we don't like what you're doing we're going to we're going to cut the we're going to cut funds for some program that we don't think you're administering properly you know that it it may as far as their unanimous idea of what they should be doing well if you ask 15 people do you want more power or less power chances are all 15 would want more but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do there are reasons why these these laws are in place you know they may be lost in in 35 years of of the charter why it's done the way it's done but there's a real good reason why we don't allow the legislative branch to encroach on the executive authority of the commission it would result in more leg more legal problems rather than less so you know I don't want to beat this horse too much obviously I'm a commissioner so I'm against it but you know if it works don't fix it and as far as respect for the assembly I have great respect for the assembly as I said I served as Speaker for eight years um I they have a job to do and they and they do it well they did indeed get the town's $10 million more of the arpa funds but they Town's already got 40 million you know we there was a reason why the treasury gave a regional entity the money it did because it thought we'd be more effective in in in promoting programs than if was given to individual towns so you know I'm not I'm not regretting we gave the town an extra 10 million over the 40 million you've already got they already got but there was a reason why the County originally did that and there's a reason why each one of the delegates will say no give us the money I mean that that's that's human nature so I you know I don't want to go too far down this road but I believe that barble county is a strong institution we have programs that benefit people we we have you know brought in millions of dollars from state and federal agencies in the form of Grants to deal with homelessness to deal with substance abuse to deal with Coastal resilience and it's only within the last two or three years that the assembly feels that they're not that they don't they don't have the authority they want they want more Authority than is given to them by the current Charter and I you know I I don't blame them for that but there like I said there's a reason why we operate under the rules that we operate in and you know I you know they're not an advisory boy if they were an advisory board they wouldn't have cut $800,000 from our budget and there also been mentioned and I don't want to ramble here but that the County Council approved the language of the ballot question which she did she approved language that would make it get would make it eligible for the ballot but she in no way approved the actual substance of the ballot question so that's where we are it's my opinion and I think it's the opinion of the Commissioners that this is going to make things more complicated going to involve more legal aspects because if the if the if the assembly were to propose something if they were to say well here's another whatever for this program that we didn't ask for we wouldn't do it you know I we would just say no and then they're going to come you know they would go to court which would be kind of awkward because County Council works for both of us so I'm just trying to avoid the Mine Fields here and I think this this ballot question brings up a lot of Mind fields and it's also bad timing as I mentioned before because next year as Randy said we're having a comprehensive Charter regularly scheduled Charter review that will would involved you know um Civic organizations we involve Boards of Selectmen we invol nonprofit organizations housing Advocates and so on and it it's done by an independent committee that's appointed not not necessarily us Commissioners or the assembly but independent committee to review the procedures of the of the county and to come up with any recommendations if they're needed so that's my little that's my little talk and I have one suggestion that has nothing to do with what we just discussed but if I had my way I would and I was I said I was an assembly Delegate for 12 years nobody paid attention to me okay I mean they did when I spoke but as far as the ballot goes you imagine what the ballot you're looking at I would have the assembly members elected at the Town ballot so they just there a lot more a lot more attention and there would be a lot more opportunity for people to understand what they did and how valuable they are if they if they fulfill their proper role so anyway that's my retort questions any questions I stunned everybody into silence Dean go ahead I Ron thank you uh for your presentation and your service I I I you I had a procedural question about the charter review process because that was an argument that was put forward against this proposal and you've answered it already um I I thought that the um assembly uh members are are elected at the county at the Town ballot no they're like they're on ry's on the ballot State ballot all right okay that's right that's right I just a a substantive question um and maybe this is the answer to this is dictated but by what's so already in the charter Randy showed us the charter language when she was here previously one of their proposals is to have a standing committee on finance I guess I have a two-part question can't they do that now on their own can't they establish their own committee yeah they have a standing committee on finance as far as I know does the do the Commissioners have um an opinion as to whether they they they are favor or opposed to this or are they neutral on it I I'll give you a little history they always have we always had committees and and like the Congress when something was proposed to go to a committee whether it was committee on finance or Committee on Public you know facilities something like that and then they would make recommendations to the assembly but then the assembly said well we don't have enough Authority we would rather all of that pretty much go through us the Comm Committee of the whole or whatever and so the assembl could fell by but as far as I know there's always been a finance committee and when when we submit the budget the budget is submitted to the finance committee they make recommendations to the full assembly so yeah we do have and you don't have a problem the Commissioners don't have a problem with that I was surprised you've you probably have in front of you the ordinance that created the I don't tonight but that's what we had before yeah and and they that ordinance you know covers a lot of which is another thing is it it makes it look like it's housekeeping but when you get down to the meat of it it's not housekeeping is significant change in in in theth in the authority of the two branches so okay thank you very much so I'm going to I I I think this horse is um you know on life support um so I don't want to belabor it but uh I do I understand that the nub of the issue here is that you don't have an issue with the Assembly of delegates cutting your budget but you do have an issue with their saying to you here is an authorization that you are required to basically use and spend is is that the Nu of the issue they they have the they are the financial oversight of the county they came out of the financial review board which is previous to the current Charter you know it's only three of us who knows what we could do if nobody paid attention you know so we we submit it to them and they look at it and they like I say two years ago they cut $800,000 out of it you know and that's within their authority to do that just like town meeting could conceivably cut your budget and but they we they can't initiate supplemental Appropriations so the the only other question I want to ask and then I pass um your description of the charter review process that you just articulated sounded a little bit different from the way Randy described the fact that the um the Assembly of delegates has final Authority by a two-thirds vote to dictate any Charter amendment that they want it it it is there is there a disagreement on that or is that a legal ISS it's a little confusing because they have the right normally there are two you look into state law there are two ways to have a charter review what one is to go through the assembly but the the the catch on that if it well if you if you don't deal with the terms of office and powers and so on of the assembly and the and the uh Commissioners you don't have to go through U the ballot okay well anyway but there is another separate law which says that you have you can elect delegates in other words you could run as a delegate for a charter Review Committee and then at election you get elected and then you go with your fellow electors and you you propose changes in the charter that's a that's a whole another process now from what Randy says I guess the the um assembly is going to take it under their wing and do it in in the normal process within the county but there did make noises a few months ago a month or two ago that they were going to go to the alternate process of having separate outside committees so I don't know at this point you know okay thank you anybody else when they start yawning I know it's time for me to thank you thanks Ron thank you uh Randy much much appreciated both of you uh next case Jill do you want to introduce this yeah absolutely thank you Mr chair so uh as the board knows well last year November through January we did a comprehensive review of the way that the board votes its goals and objectives and we spent a lot of time and with that we discovered and determined that we had six priority goals and I'll just read them really quickly for you um it's one was for year year round housing uh educational Excellence Foster a vibrant and sustainable local economy Environmental Conservation Coastal resiliency and natural resources water management and respond effectively to the needs of a diverse welcoming and livable chatam so with that review there was also objectives that we had discussed and what we had put before you tonight is your annual review and understanding that we did a lot of work at this most recent session um we could go through the review of the goals and certainly look at refinements or any tweaks or if the board wanted to vote to maintain those goals and objectives um certainly we can do that and in the past we've had a fiscal year and calendar year designation on all of the goals and objectives we actually could take that off and have these as your goals and objectives in addition to your vision statement that we created for 2030 so uh in the attached there are your goal buckets and then there's your various objectives and each objective has an update by Town staff of where we are and we've made some great progress and certainly you can see that and what we'll do moving forward as well is we do need to provide quarterly updates to the board so that you're not only receiving this at the year end you'll be receiving it throughout the year so we can keep track and do any midyear tweaks if we need to we also asked the school superintendent Scott Carpenter to review the educational Excellence item and he had asked just for some refinement not necessarily A change but one of the uh goals educational Excellence um he had suggested as it relates to the objective to discuss Poss school choice for families at chadam elementary school particularly East harch there's an action item under that that notes to collaborate with the Monomoy Regional School District to ensure that the town is supporting enrollment growth he felt that was an action item to the objective so we had the goal we had the objective and then the action item and it's more clearer when you look through um the various spreadsheets so um that would require potentially a change to our region agreement and he brought that to our attention but it's it's nice to have that collaboration with the regional school committee um and to help us achieve the select board's goals so that is really all I have to say on it it's tonight it it could be a kickoff it could be the end uh but I want to give you an opportunity to review the uh actions and status report and I'm happy to answer any questions um yeah go ahead Dean thank you Mr chairman um well I'm going to offer a motion because I don't really think this board which spent so much time last year uh in a work session to develop these goals exhaustively uh really needs to spend much more time than to consider this evening um renewing them for the next year um I really just had one question before I offer the motion um relative to the super attendant um suggestion is he talk is he asking us to modify the language in it um it seems to suggest that the action item is is subsumed in un uh under um one of the um objectives and we don't really list action items we you're right we don't we don't anymore he he in in reviewing it felt that the the action item was to meet with the regional school committee and that it certainly there's nothing wrong with it but he wanted um he suggested that we call it a revisit with the regional school committee for having more hardwich fam school choice to the chadam elementary school does he want that a substitute for discuss possible school choice for families at shaum elementary is that what he want yes and I know that the the school committee votes their goals and objectives and action items a little differently than us so I think that might have been his perspective his perspective but yes um because he said that this would increase the enrollment at CES but it it could potentially affect some of harwich's assessment costs which their costs would go down and ours would go up so I'm probably spending more time on this U but in essence it wasn't actually a change to the objectives he just felt that the last bullet was an action item for the second yeah it just really calls for discussion yes so I don't know what that that in of itself would implicate the regional agreement I move that uh we approve the um goals and objectives as um currently an effect for um did you say we should not have a time period I actually don't think you do need a time period it was more of a transitional year for us last year but we can certainly discuss it okay so I I'll I'll move that um we continue with the current my motion is to we uh continue with the goals and objectives as currently in place I'm going to second that but not to preempt uh discussion here and I'll offer the floor to Shireen I just have a clarifying question Dean when when you take the fiscal year and calendar year date off or maybe this is Jill what is the mechanism to revisit the goals and objectives that can be done at any time correct yes and and we typically do that right after the budget Summit but before the budget directive is given so again it's it's a change we we certainly can keep it it's just that we tend and it's my doing primarily to have a fiscal year and a calendar year reference and so the fiscal years for the budget preparation calendar years for your annual report basically so we can note the progress you want to amend your motion go Ahad amended to add uh subject to annual review um promptly after the the next budget Summit well as part of the budget process is that part part of the budget process yeah yep thank you and I I'll renew my second uh Mr Mets no I have no problem with that we spent a lot of time on these last year uh I don't think we need to go over them because I mean they're they're very you know relevant topics I mean those are our goals I mean and it doesn't take one year to do them it's going to take a while to move some of this stuff forward and I think um collectively we keep going with what's on the paper here so I'm fine with this Jeff yeah as am I um I think a fiscal 25 is very different from a calendar year 26 so fiscal year 25 is 63025 and calendar year is 12 3126 so to the degree that the attainment of some of these goals will NE necessitate an action item that will affect budget Andor budgets I think it's very appropriate that we have dates in here and you know and revisit these fairly timely because we we're in the midst of budget season now some of these are going to carry over and they're going to impact budget season next year as well so I I'm good with the fiscal year 25 calendar year 26 calendar year 26 gets a little long um but it may go that long these are these are these are large goals um large goals 200 units uh you know the the some of these are very aspirational um that by their very definition if we get to actions will impact a budget or two or three so anyway and then and there a comment on superintendent um the superintendent suggestion I I I do think it's a good idea to reach out to the school committee and and broach the subject of you know um more more school choice uh uh for chadam for the elementary school it would solve a couple potential things population growth maybe in the elementary school we get more kids in the school and then perhaps a produced assessment for high which is which is something they're they're seeking as well I'm not advocating for that but it could be could be a win-win thanks so um I I I I first of all I I I think I am completely in support of Dean's motion I think we did a lot of work uh I think we ended up with something good I think it speaks across um you know pretty much all of the big issues Big Ticket items that we need to be addressing uh with respect to the temporal the time limitations I I'm going to gently suggest that my own view is as as long as we have uh a commitment via the motion to do this to an to review these annually which doesn't mean I mean we can review them anytime we want to I I would I I don't like having you know to to fit what we're doing does it work in the context of fiscal 25 or calendar 26 I would really prefer um uh to to leave that part off which is what I think Dean's motion did um and and um you know welcome your thoughts on that Jeff but I I as I say I'm more comfortable having a kind of an open field subject to our looking at it every year or at some specific time when we think we need to do something uh I also want to say I did go through I didn't expect that I was going to do this but I actually got caught up and went through all of the items of your spreadsheet which uh is enormously informative on two fronts one three number one I think we were pretty foresightful in what we needed to do and and in directing activities which are reflected here that I I I'm pleased to see as much as there is number two I think it provides us with guidance um for going forward continuing work that's already there but also um pushing out uh uh with respect to the specific uh objectives and then the last thing and I'm not going to get into the details but I there are two or three places where I think maybe something is um you know could be added I the one I'll mention is the uh the weather station out at the airport I I haven't heard anything about that that is a federal government engagement here uh that seems to be progressing very nicely and I think that's a you know that's a pretty important item there may be one or two others but with that I I I hardly endorse this yeah if I might M I wasn't advocating for a regular uh Cadence to its review I think an annual review is very appropriate I was just suggesting that you know during budget season and Seasons that we pay we paay close attention that was what I was advocating and I also Echo your your uh comment on the way this is laid out the clarity um it's very well done I read every word and it's the staff has been working very hard and I I think you're right I think there were some Impressions here on the part of the select board in focusing on these on these issues because they really does hit the hit the nail and the head on all of our saling issues that we're facing right now so anyway I'm I'm very much in favor any review is fine and this is well done Dean I was going to suggest to get away from the timing issue amending the motion to say subject to periodic review at least which shall be at least annually perfect I'll renew my second perfect uh any further discussion all those in favor Mr I'm sorry Mr chair just one more thing so um so with the budget Summit we had our superintendent Carpenter talk about the the changing demographics with the students and so one of the suggestions that that Kathy just had given to me is he getting back to the educational Excellence if we then have that third column to say support the needs of all children in our town because of the changing demographics so the column right now says discuss possible school choice for families at Channel Elementary School particularly East Harwich he thought if we move that under the action item for collaborate with the monway Regional School District he this is what he had suggested that that third column then um support the needs of all children in our town I I I guess I I'm I don't have any particular resistance to it when I I I must have read it three or four times trying to understand exactly what is he saying um and you know it wasn't clear to me whether we weren't just rearranging um details as opposed to changing something that is a you know a modestly big picture item and and as such I'm I'm a little reluctant to change one line in this thing without having a clearer understanding of exactly what's what's going on here but I I don't know I'll I'll defer to anybody else here I don't think it's that big a deal I I I you know I think we could follow up anyway no matter what column it's in if it's a good idea it's a good idea and we should pursue it so I don't care what I honestly don't care whether it's an action item or objective or alignance with this or that but I think it's a good idea I think we ought to pursue it those are my thoughts I agree I would just point out that the overall goal says provide adequate budgetary support to ensure the educational resources facilities programs and activ and activities meet the needs of the town's student population that's everybody yeah and I I guess I I'm in light of the meeting that we had um I don't know a couple of weeks ago in in Hart I'm I'm also a little reluctant to fuss with something that may have um I'll call it unintended consequences or unexpected consequences so I agree with Jeff I all for it um the question is what is the implication of of making a you know sort of a tiny language change that has some you know potential significance that we may not have considered yeah and and that's no problem at all what we'll do is we'll um Continue to update this and and next year if there's any changes um just as our vice chair said it's it's the educational Excellence for all children all students and so I I think with Scott and and me just discussing it we were pretty focused on with the changing demographics at chattam elementary school that will then get to the middle school and then to the high school so again we just got that information last week so I'm I'm fine to um pay attention to this and if there's any anything that we need to um either update or have that discussion we can bring it back as a separate agenda item for the board yeah okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor Mr necastro hi Mr Shell says I Miss Davis hi uh Mr dykin and Mr Mets hi thank you um is Greg Burman either online or I think I may see him online Mr bman he's online you want to do the uh annual review of the internet Municipal NS Beach agreement yes thank you Greg Burman director of Natural Resources so it's that time of year again we have an annual requirement under the intermunicipal agreement to review the uh what do we have terms fees and financial Arrangements of the current agreement by October 30th um the orene select board has done their review and they have not recommended any changes I think it's a little bit um more unusual of a situation just because we will be coming up for a full uh new agreement in only last three years it will be expiring as of January 1 so we will be doing a full review of the term fees Financial Arrangements pretty much everything uh probably start that in the next few months but this is a chance um to go over what is in that agreement uh if you do have any concerns please reach out or let me know now or later um and so uh sorry let me just pull this up here um I have reviewed it with the director of Natural Resources for alans uh we do have very good communication this year and uh they've provided their 25% of the non-resident fees to the town already this season it was 133,00 , 410 the resident fees of chadam uh so far are $ 62,5 180 uh this is covering the needs of our program right now primarily because we did not uh have to enact an hcp the habitat conservation plan um but right now I'm looking to see if you would uh like to discuss or review the current arrangement or if you would like to postpone that for the more formal uh renewal of a three-year agreement thank you um Jeff go ahead yeah um shine and I met and with Greg and and there's really no need to do anything to this agreement right now it's going to be reviewed in full um uh at the end of next the June 30 2025 and the money's the money's fine nothing should change it's it's good to go Shireen yeah same thing and you you know just having conversations with Orleans select board members and uh their park and rec commissions out oversee this uh process um they have no problem with it I mean we we're in a good place with them I think that this is perfect to just go for for what it is for this period of time and we'll look at it when uh when we have to open up the entire agreement okay um Corey you're good no I'm I'm good with that yeah I'm I'm certainly good I and thanks for your taking on uh that preliminary uh look and Advising us on that and uh simplifying our consideration so I'm I'm fine Mr Burman I think you can go back and uh bring bring us something next spring sounds good we'll do okay thank you very much okay next um this is the um topic that and and by the way public is invited alongside of the board here uh we've been at this for some time in various forms in various contexts um most recently the um affordable housing trust board had a meeting um I think it was the 16th of um October at which we had a a lengthy report uh from uh the DPW director concerning uh the issue of sewer access for development of uh stepping the Stepping Stones Road property uh for um housing affordable attainable Workforce whatever kind um and not to oversimplify but essentially what uh was in some cases learned in some cases confirmed but the conclusion was unalterably that sewer as a Time timing issue is not a barrier to um essentially developing um that property uh as soon as we reasonably and and sensibly can um sewer is something that that will fit into uh whatever the timetable is for development of that property um the the the second thing that I think is um a uh and that that as I say my sense at the um affordable housing trust board was that the issue of that sewer timing uh was uh potentially an obstacle for um pushing uh to get something done there um I think it secondly and that there is um a both a community and a select board consensus that that project that's uh prop property should be developed as home ownership uh opportunities um and I think the the last piece of it and again we've been through this a number of different times in a number of different contexts but the affordable housing trust board um has the time and bandwidth of relevant experience and expertise to undertake that process as the primary Focus the this board um has a number of things on its agenda uh this board only has five more meetings between now and the end of the year um this board has um two people who are full-time retirees as opposed to five on the select Bo on the affordable housing trust board the affordable housing trust board has expertise in in areas of Finance um architecture design business Building Development valuation Municipal projects 40b projects um legal Finance uh projects um and is plugged into not in the same way this board is because some most of it is is also on this board but into community and local business needs um I I I I think that it we can I'm hopeful that we can collaboratively assign um the responsibility to the affordable housing trust board to develop an RFP um for submission to this board subject to this board's approval subject to this board's comment subject to this board's um disposition however it sees fit but I think that if if we don't take advantage of the resources and the capabilities that are sitting over there at the affordable housing trust board just to get something that is can be put in front of this board for Action uh I I think we're we're we're spinning our wheels so it is my uh desire and and just for sake of discussion I I'm going to make a motion that the affordable housing trust is is requested to develop and present to this select board for its approval a comprehensive RFP for ownership Housing Development on town on the town-owned property at Stepping Stones road I'll second uh with that I'll open it up to discussion on the board yes sir Mr Mets thank you Mr chair I'm going to make my comments very brief because I don't think this is going to be a prolonged conversation I simply feel um this is right now part of the responsibility of the five members of the sitting on the board we we hold a responsibility of sitting select board members um we have um some duty to the voters who put us in office um it's you know in in respectfully I I spent eight years on the planning board I'm not a rookie I have some you know background that can add to the pro process so um you know I'm not going to relinquish my responsibility um it would make my life a whole lot easier trust me if we didn't have to work on this but um I mean I've spent many years serving this town planning board select board if you know we feel that the select Board needs an extra meeting to focus on this as the five of us or color our joint meeting with the with the trust you know I'm willing to do another meeting down the road but um I can't in good conscious relinquish my responsibility that I feel that is on my shoulders at the time so that's my position thank you thank you Dean thank you Mr chairman um I also am not in favor of granting this request I I've given my reasons in detail at previous meetings so I'm not going to um repeat them um in detail tonight I'll just go over a couple of highlights town meeting has placed control over steppingstones Road in the select board um the affordable housing trust is not an attainable Housing Trust their jurisdiction is limited to affordable housing if we were to 40b this property then the affordable housing trust and its funds could be brought in at that point um obviously with any development density and design uh are issues of concern to the public and I think we saw from the um the Buckley property and The Meeting House Road property that how the RFP is crafted predetermines the result that you're going to get in terms of uh response uh to the request for proposal so I prefer that the select board direct the housing director who is going to draft the RFP anyway to draft it at our initiative and then we can submit it uh to the affordable housing trust as well as I think we should submit it to the planning board for comment and suggestions back to the the select board for final issuance so that's that's my position I I'll be voting no on the motion thank you Mr chairman thank you Jeff yes thank you Mike um I don't think we're abdicating our responsibility as elected um select board members by asking the affordable housing trust to craft the RFP in fact I think we're we're we're actually fulfilling our um our charge as select board members by um handing off to a group that is uh perhaps has more specific talents than is represented on this board where I truly land is if the select board actually gets to approve the RFP maybe perhaps has a voice in it's crafting along the way because we know everybody on the affordable housing trust so we can actually have a conversation if it it's if the RFP is brought back here and we are asked to approve it or not then we have final say so I I'm I'm very comfortable um in asking what I believe to be a very talented board to weigh in and help us craft an RFP that will provide for attainable housing um on stepping ston heartened to hear that we can solve the sewer problem there or the sewer issue there and this is doable and I would look forward to their RFP and and I totally agree with uh with select board member necastro that the way the RFP is crafted perhaps will prompt certain responses and I think we need to be careful and then be Artful in terms of how that RFP is crafted so that we do ultimately end up with a project that is attractive and it's full of home ownership so I'm I'm I'm not uncomfortable I'm Frank Frankly comfortable um in Hing it off to a board that I think is extremely talented Architects land developers real estate folks lawyers smart people that we appointed so um I frankly think I'm doing my my job by so doing and I I get your points but I I do disagree and I'll be voting in favor of it thanks Shireen uh thanks Mike uh Jeff you you were very spoton in what you you said and I um and I I do agree that the select board still has has control even with charging um the affordable housing committee with looking at the project um it'll have final approval it can ask the planning board to take a look at it we have many ways and the community housing uh partnership should be having a hand at this too um you know to look at this and and um consider everything and there'll still be a lengthy and robust discussion when it comes back to the the select board um there's no doubt the last process we had a lot of public engagement and leading up to that and I'm I'm pretty confident that that will happen with this this um this property as well um this is we're all on sort of the I believe we're on the same page of of wanting home ownership as a as a driving factor to this um to this property we're all in a good place where where we see it to be so um handing it off to the affordable housing trust who again has the expertise and has been voted by this committee by this select board um as representatives to do this kind of work um I think is is a good place for it to be thank you thank you I I'm just going to add one thing and then I'll open it up for a public comment um I I I want to be clear the the the motion is to ask another uh Board of this town to do some homework for this board and then to come back to us with the results of that homework it is not to ask them to do anything in terms of of fulfilling a responsibility that belongs or resides here on this board that's number one but more importantly implicit in that at least speaking for myself uh when you come back with a recommendation you have a responsibility to present the recommendation present uh the results but also to talk about and identif ify um the the considerations and the issues that have been um let's say have come out in the discussion of the the the the development of that RFP and and so I think what we're doing here what I'd like to think we are doing here if we if we agree um is is um getting the benefit of an expert presentation uh that will that will inform you Cora a former member of the planning board and and Dean and his experiences uh you know with finance and legal Etc um as well as input from the community but I I I think just to get the work done it is important to have somebody who has the time the expertise um and the focus um to to to just do it um and so with that I will um open it up for public comment um I I I is Miss Gibbs have her hand Miss Miss Gibbs oh yes thank you Elaine Gibbs uh during uh the presentation by the chair I I found it interesting that not once during the reasons given was the public even mentioned in terms of the ability of the public to participate and I think tonight is a good example when we were talking about public participation you know I'm pleased that you said that we could comment now but what I recommended was that a presentation be made and then do what the zoning board of appeals does and you go to the public and hear their input before you make the decision my comments tonight mean nothing you've all weighed in and we know how the vote's going to go you have no respect for public opinion in this situation the fact of the matter is Stepping Stones belongs to the town and that means it belongs to the taxpayers and that would be us and we should have a right to participate during the process this is premature by the time rfps are completed and we saw with Penrose it was too late to make changes I I think you have an over riding sense of how much expertise you have on there there are a lot of smart people in this town that actually have something to contribute I don't think you are all uh Mr dykens Adam I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't talk while I'm speaking I think it's premature and unnecessary for uh you to go forward without input from the town and from the public the affordable housing trust is notorious for not listening to public comment the only place the public can participate is during the select board meetings and that should come to us during various periods of time so we can come in we have a right to see what the Design's going to be what the density is going to be whether it's going to be ownership Workforce by the time we saw with penos by the time the RFP is done it is too late to make changes and you're talking six months to a year potentially when that occurs uh so we can do it right or we can do it like we did with Penrose I think you're going to find there were people that didn't think that was the right choice I have a feeling based on the timing of me house you're going to find we're talking 3 four five years that's what could happen here if it gets delayed um I think this is unnecessarily divisive if you want to be collaborative and give the impression that there is transparency and you want public participation I think you should not take this vote and you should move along and engage the select board and engage the public along the way um this has been been going on and it I I mean I'm sorry but one affordable housing trustees said that they were going to go around us uh the public and or through us if necessary and that's the attitude of the affordable housing trust no regard for public participation it's our town too we own the property the select board is in control of it your mission is affordable housing the select board's mission is for all the stakeholders within chadam they deal with budget issues and a lot of other things that will in quality of life for all kinds of things that you don't have to consider so I think it would have been appropriate if you had gotten public comment before you already went on record perhaps I've changed someone's mind thank you very much thank you Mr oppenheim David and I'm I am a member of the affordable housing trust I'm speaking for myself uh I have to take issue with what was just said I don't see where the there's uh any cutting out of the public we're going to have open meetings The public's Welcome to our meetings um Mr Mets just said that he would like to participate because he does have expertise from the planning board he's welcome at our meetings to contribute um it's my understanding that we've all there sort of I don't want to speak for everybody I feel this a consensus that we want Stepping Stones road to be home ownership that would be the lead place it's it's a great place to do it at one point we wanted to include 127 um but that has specific issues and specific things that have popped up and I think the board made a a good decision to get those resolved so it doesn't complicate things we have a shovel ready piece of property on Stepping Stones Road and to get a um RFP done with uh done through the affordable housing trust who is again voted at three times a town meeting to to take on the housing issues in this town and the to housing issues are not going away we've got two things that are rental properties that have gone for we have a land develop agreement somebody may not like some of the things that were done there and I I would submit that probably there's nothing that we're ever going to do that everybody's going to like but we are assigned to deal with the housing crisis we're not we don't have approval of this thing all we're doing is working with the same person Gloria Gloria uh our housing person to help us uh craft something that would be subject to the approval of this board if it's not approved it doesn't go out so I don't understand where anybody's giving any anything up we're going to seek the the meetings will be open for people to discuss and to say we've been going behind people's backs is absolutely false and as one of the members of the board I I resent the comments that were made by the previous speaker and I'm not going to stand here and not defend ourselves we've done a good job the people have put a lot of time and effort into we almost have uh full attendance at almost every meeting we have we meet on a regular basis Gloria has been enormously helpful we got clarification from Rob Farley on something that was uh KN now knowing that we don't have to wait for The Five-Year Plan to go all the way down to croll Road it's resolvable in fact the resolution of that would most likely be the technical resolution of the couple of issues that remain might be part of the RFP so we might get more information I'm looking forward to seeing what some of the creative people that at maybe hack or somebody that comes in with really good ideas that we can all discuss and figure out and move forward this thing as quickly as possible um I'd love to see an RFP and in a very short period of time we do have the holidays coming up so I think it's reasonable to assume we might be able if this is voted appropriately we might be able to see an RFP maybe in the next three months and be able to have conversations about this thing and I would love to see us be able to go to town meeting to fund something so we can get something built um as far as this this misinformation that's constantly all that we're hiding we're doing this we're doing that it's just not true it's open meetings and you know something hardly anybody ever comes to the meetings so uh if you want to come to the meeting Mr Mets if this is voted appropriately come to the meeting Mr necastro if you want to come to the meetings and give your expertise come to the meetings that's what they're for they're open and then the RFP gets done hopefully and then we bring it back to this board who has abdicated no responsibility whatsoever it is subject to your approval thank you thank you uh yeah go ahead Cory just point of point of clarification if this moves forward I cannot attend to participate in the conversation because that would constitute a majority of the select board participating and if I did so it would con it potentially result an open meeting violation so by moving forward on this it is restricted to the two members of the select board who also serve on the trust myself Mr dians Mr necastro would not be able to participate in these conversations by process well I the point is well taken I would have made it if you didn't that said I I I I will say that your observations your your attendance online or whatever uh coupled with comments anything you want to submit is welcome and I that that I that there are Avenues to get your input along the way if you desire or if you want to wait but I I will tell you that your your your input Wherever Whenever However is is welcome yes sir I just want to say that I don't report to the affordable housing trust I I report to the people who elected me I'll I'm going to prefer to have your comments back to us rather than the other way around I sit at this panel I don't sit on any other Committee in this town except the opep trust thank you Mr thank you um anybody else is there anybody else online no I'm not sure if elain has her hand up are you seeking a second opportunity Miss Gibbs uh no I stand by my comments no I'm not asking you to withdraw your comments you have a a hand still appearing on the screen uh yes I I just wanted to say that I have no additional comments except to say I stand by my comments and disagree with the previous speaker's interpretation thank you thank you thank you anybody else we have a motion on the table and a second um all those in favor Mr Mets no Mr dykin I Ms Davis I Mr Shel say I Mr M Castro no thank you um next we have um a uh nomination uh for appointment to the uh Railroad Museum committee um I'll take a motion Mr chairman yes I move to appoint Richard crer as a member of the Railroad Museum committee until June 30th 2026 unless sooner revoked or a successor is appointed second thank you any further discussion all those in favor Mr necastro I Mr Shell says I Miss Davis hi uh Mr dykens hi and Mr Mets hi thank you um Jill thank you Mr chair so tonight I have some current items as well as the monthly report for September so the first page is is everything TOS the season about budget so um I wanted to thank the select board the the finance committee department heads and the monoy Regional School administration participating in our budget Summit last week it was really helpful for carrying and I and we look forward to presenting um the budget as we move forward very soon uh in case someone missed the budget Summit uh what I had also put in here are the goals of the summit as as well as the outcomes and all the information has been uploaded to budget Summit incl I'm sorry budget Central including the budget summit video all the slides and um all the documentation behind it so that is here um and then um uh early voting as we had already said is underway and it is due to end on Friday November 1st by 4M and it's over at 549 Main Street and then another item here too is um I think um it was a request for an agenda item and what we thought we would do is put um follow-up items from the select board on staff's progress and so the first one that we're we're we're trying it out and certainly could have a separate agenda item is the Kate foled Park electrical update and so that was done uh during the week of October 7th so everything should be powered up stroll band and any combination any combination of the above but if if you prefer to have an agenda report for these type of things I'm certainly welcome to schedule no as long as we haven't forgotten I appreciate that Jill because I raised it a couple times and I'm appreciative that the work got done it was it was needed and so hopefully it'll be great NE next year both for the band concerts and any other events like Shakespeare in the park Etc thanks great thank you good thank you and then as usual we have our team chadam years of service anniversary uh this is for November and we have our our longest uh duration of an employee is Sue ranello that most people know from um the harbor Masters division she's the department coordinator for natural resources and then we have a few uh moving down to first year anniversaries which is amazing how quickly it's gone we have Carrie maero um Greg Burman who our director of Natural Resources Quinn Foreman who's our Superstar with the cemetery Division and Dana Grim who's our police dispatcher and also in the report we have a couple of pictures of of people um who have just started one is Dave Caruso As A chadam Firefighter of paramedic um he's a transfer from the town of yarmis so it's really excited to have someone lateral over to us who already has all the training and then um Joe uh pagaro has graduated from the academy as our newest police officer and so you'll see him with uh the training officer doing their the regular patol patrols and shifts and then um I know not everybody's on social media but some people do download the agenda packet here's just a sampling of one of our recruitments for our adult Day program assistance and this is for the riters Cove resit Center that um we're hoping to open within the next month uh once we get the available Staffing for that and then the human resources department head wanted me to share that we're in active interviews for all of the other open positions so great candidate pool and hopefully make an appointment within the next couple of weeks and those are all posted online as well and then uh Kathy's idea to kind of Spotlight various updates and as uh mostly as a table of content so for the project updates you'll see those listed with the accompanying page number um with this report couple last things um chadam TV Productions they're just doing really cool stuff um so I included the link of with an interview uh with Diane Nash she's she's our adult Behavioral Health Community Services clinician and we also just finished um some backstages with um Ted on the drad and then Anna milon she does a reading of the flash newsletter for the Council on Aging but also has incorporated community service items such as what's going on in Recreation and she's also uh interviewed uh uh Outreach coordinators and and just really making it as a a complete overview of community services and that was a new department created a couple years ago go so we're really excited about that uh you'll see our social media accounts are are doing really well a lot of um increase um people hitting it as well as opening up the main sheet newsletter which continues to be a really great um source of communications especially for people again who are not always on social media so we get a lot of acols for the newsletter that main sheet for which shaa does the primary work on that and then the rest is all of the department updates for September and I'm happy to answer any questions so um I don't have a question I I I just want to say that two of the things and I may have missed them if I did apologies um I thought the support of Adult Day program um was not um I didn't see that mentioned in your spreadsheet of things that have happened pursuant to our our goals and objectives and and and so forth if I'm wrong about that um sh no that's a really good point because we did receive the grant so yeah and I I think that the other thing is the U hiring of the um the community health uh clinicians I thought that was something that that might um profitably be included as a you know a step forward as well so Jeff Phill you know I've had some continued interest in what the open positions are how long have they've been posted and and how we're doing with them and you do you you do give mention to it and that's great but I wouldn't mind seeing hey these are the open positions these is how long have they've been posted and this is what we're working on sure then I have a comment I just want to let you know that my personal experience and uh my family's personal experience at the dump has been phenomenal that the staff there is great great attitude they they get it done they're so pleasant it's just we they really do deserve better digs down there they really do it's time we got to do something down there because you really have bu a great staff down there yes there are ambassadors they they get asked every question there is and and they really do great work they pay attention to the monthly report so they're able to answer people's questions as well I mean they're personable they they do answer questions they're great they're just they're wonderful they've been well trained or what someone's really taking good care anybody else I I'll just endorse that you know it's it's great the the the people you run into at the dump but you always have a nice nice conversation with one or two of the people that that are there uh passing the time of day or on some particular topic it's uh the it's a very enjoyable visit um it really is it is anybody else motion to adjourn second all those in favor Mr Mets hi Mr Dyk hi uh Miss Davis Mr Shell says I and Mr Castro I we are adjourned at 822 thank you good [Music] night for