##VIDEO ID:IdTuUVet2U4## how old are the mics picked [Music] [Music] up good evening and welcome to this the September 12 2024 meeting of the finance committee I'd like to call this meeting to order tonight will be following the published and posted agenda uh we will be recorded uh via chancel Tel media and recorded for future viewing uh we'll also be available through Zoom this evening uh for announcements uh just like to let everyone know uh that next Wednesday the 18th there is going to be a discussion on chood future strategic planning there'll be a meeting over at the um Elks at 5:00 uh 5:30 or 5:30 um there be opportunity for uh kids activities ice cream and the ability to uh discuss the future uh for jumps for we'd also like to welcome a new member that's joining us uh for this year this fiscal year uh Steve kavalek nice to meet you nice to have you here thanks for stepping up absolutely happy to be here excellent all right all right uh next item on the agenda is our approval of minutes we have minutes from our meeting of April 29th 2024 has everyone had an opportunity to review them yeah yes yes okay do I have a motion I make a motion to approve the minutes of April 29th 2024 second it any discussion all those in favor I hi all right moving right along we have an opportunity for public comment anyone in the on the audience this evening or on Zoom would like to provide public comment seeing none in zoom and none here we'll move along to the appointment of the liaison to Capital planning committee uh since Anita is not here yet uh we can we can take a a nomination of vote and then if we can ask her if she if she has any um whatever way you want to do it um I know you love to do it well I'm more than glad to do it is anyone else interested in serving as capital planning uh committee liaison no no I'm fine with you serving again John are you okay with that absolutely just checking I bet John I bet you [Laughter] thrilled I know I'm thrilled is that Sam that is that is Sam yeah all right um moving right along we have a review and discussion of Warrant articles 1 3-5 7-15 1719 through 21 for the 2024 fall annual town meeting with us this evening we have our town manager Paul Cohen our finance director John Souza and our DPW director Christine Clancy good evening let me pull up your presentation I also have Harrison mayot and a clerk town clerk's office who's going to present on one of the Articles as well digital do thank you Harrison digitization so um so I've got I've got a lot of good support tonight and of course I've got Sam over looking over my shoulder you do quite literally as usual exactly is he on the angel side of the devil side yeah exactly um so good evening members of the finance committee um I hope you all had a good summer it's it's hard to believe that we're like six weeks away from Fall town meeting but here we are September 12th and um uh I've sent you earlier this week the sign warrant uh from the select board um 21 articles I think it's fair to say that it's a pretty straightforward warrant there's no zoning articles there's no general b articles um it's basically a financial meeting and then you know with some significant uh Financial uh considerations most notably the fire station projects for station three and five the West Roberts uh I'm sorry West fire station at Roberts field and the South uh fire station on Acton Road uh and and so we anticipate it'll be a two session town meeting and then the intent is that because of the uh magnitude and and the duration and the presentation and discussion for the fire station project that we'll begin that the first item on the second night similar to what we did in the spring uh or earlier with the um MBTA zoning uh seems to work well and I've been in communication with the moderator and I think that's how it'll play out so um so that's how it'll go um the article as I mentioned is 21 AR Les uh they're pretty straightforward the first one would be reports of town offices and committees obviously there's no presentation to you this evening but the plan at this point in time would be um we'll provide an update to the town meeting on the number of the capital projects uh that have been uh completed and undertaken you know per the funding and approval by town meeting and most of that actually be carried by our Public Works director Christine Clancy because if you've been anywhere out in town this summer uh you've noticed that Public Works is there and they've had the best weather season for construction that I think we've ever encountered even even to the point of the drought year I think this has been better uh it seems like when it did rain this year it was always on a weekend uh when the rear times it has and it really hasn't rained in like six weeks so um so they've been doing a number of work on road paving that's still ongoing as well as you know the high school kitchens and so forth so that'll sort of be a quick synopsis there and then per in accordance with the town bylaws our finance director John soua will present The Five-Year Financial forecast um and and um obviously we wish it was a better forecast particularly in the short run but we'll present that as required uh and then we'll provide a financial overview and and towards that issue of the financial overview and the financial forecast um you know we will be initiating discussions for the select board and and town manager goals U even in advance of the Fall town meeting because you know we do see significant uh issues ahead um you know we're we're okay you know you you saw that free cash was certified by the state today we're a sound position we don't foresee any issues with the current fiscal year budget but but we are seeing major flash warning signs and concerns as I think we presented almost six months ago to you um in the spring about fiscal year 26 uh and again it's not a chood phenomenon it's a you know it's a sort of global phenomenon so so that that being the you know that matter so basically we then proceed to the financial overview and if you see that slide that that's the proposed allocation of free cash and I'll provide that to you this evening I'll also provide it the town meeting at the information sessions and at town meeting because that sort of gives you the framework of of how I as manager proposed to allocate the $4.7 million in free cash um which sounds like a huge number but when you're running a budget of 165 million it's really you know a couple of percent uh and and it really is um you know pretty much around the norm uh of of the situation um and and you can see just sort of the first glance you'll see that you know the big allocation more than half of that we're looking to continue to do our work on our road and sidewalk infrastructure uh and then you see we're also got some other articles which we'll go through this evening uh and and also the finally whatever remains through all these actions we'll put in the stabilization fund um you know given the weather ahead because you know it's it's um it's it's The Prudent thing to do and we'll talk about that a little bit later so that's where that is so um moving on to article three because Article 2 was a petition article and I thought it appropriate for article two that the petitioner um have that opportunity because it's it's almost in the form of a resolution because it you know and and I think and also just out of courtesy and respect you know I think that that would be appropriate time to do it to see you know to allow her to present and then if she wishes to you know um you know not stay for the remainder of the meeting rather than keeping her there uh that would be fine so anyway article three um it you know sort of customary at the beginning of fall town meeting um you know it seems every town meeting we're we're examining request from the cemetery commission regarding the cemetery Improvement Development Fund and um if you've been over by the cemeteries um you know it's really a great uh progress that's been made by David Bole uh at the cemeteries and and and terms of this you know obviously the big one is the the project at uh Pine Ridge Cemetery which is nearing its completion but also sort of the the improvements you've seen the past years at the niche walls and so forth so this year again he's got a request to complete the paving at the cemetery Expansion Project at Pine Ridge um he's working with the public works um Highway superintendent Joe Ericson you know to get the quotes and the prices and everything and get that done uh also at there's some drainage concerns that he wants to address at the West chumpon cemetery and then finally at Hart Pond which is again one of our all the cemeteries he's removing he's planning to add a dozen to grave Lots by the removal of some side roads that really aren't necessary and needed um so again it's sort of another way of of adding some additional Lots at at a cemetery that that is actually quite popular and so I'm sure once that work is done you know those those graves will will move rather quickly um so that's what the commission is seeing under that article um sewer construction stabilization fund is a preny article uh and really I'm going to introduce Finance director John Souza who who sort of shepherds this article and this and this does the overview of the sewer Debt Service and this funding here so I I'll turn the podium over to John souer thank you Mr Town manager good evening Mr chair uh members of the finance committee so this is an article that as a town manager mentioned you may have seen him prior years so I just wanted to explain the reason for it this is the amount of money the amount of Interest earnings on two accounts that we have the sore Capital Improvement fund and the sore betterment fund and we have those funds we use those to pay the debt service on the final phase of the sore project so we're using those special purpose funds and not tax dollars to pay for that that those construction charges under Mass General law the interest when it comes in has to be accounted for or booked into the general fund and that closes to free cashes we know at the end of each fiscal year so this action by town meeting allows us to transfer these monies into the so construction stabilization fund so that we can set these monies aside and be used to pay the debt service beginning in actually in fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 31 uh for the final phase of the s project thank you thank you Article Five is is a placeholder we you know this is sort of we keep this on every town meeting in most Town meetings we pass over it but we do keep it on as a placehold in case something were to rise uh in terms of the an amendment to the current operating budget you know reason we keep doing it you know rather than because if something we to rise we've seen it with weather events and other things in communities or you know whether it's a natural disaster or other kind of a situation is rather than having a call a special town meeting or running into constraint we leave this as a placeholder just in in the sense of basically you know sort of you know break glass in case of emergency kind of situation so but again at this point we don't anticipate any changes to the budget that was approved at Springtown meeting um then moving on to article six that's a citizen petition you'll be receiving information from that outside of tonight's meeting um at a later meeting so article 7 uh as I mentioned in the intro we've made a conscious effort um and continuing and this is the request here to invest in our road and sidewalk infrastructure without exaggeration it is the roads and sidewalks of the of the proba the most concern that we hear from residents who were Outreach to our office um and but I think the and because roads obviously you know have a limited shelf life um you know be basically due to weather conditions the amount of travel and so forth on the roadways um and unfortunately as you'll you'll see in the presentation you know the state has sort of been stagnant on its funding level for for over a dozen years I think it's now 13 years we've been level funded with what what we call the chapter 90 or the gas tax money uh in funding direct funding from the Commonwealth but obviously we know the the cost of road construction has risen considerably in the in the past few years it obviously you have variables that flow with the price of petroleum um so those are built into the contracts but your labor costs equipment and so forth you know th those costs in fact once again the MMA is conducting and we're right in the middle of it right now their annual chapter 90 survey uh of communities across the Commonwealth because what will happen again as happens every year the the mass Municipal Association will Lobby the legislature for an increase in chapters 90 funds as well as a multi-year appropriation it never we never get the multi-year appropriation which would be helpful for planning purposes but you know the effort continues um you know on the uh the funding level the the challenge with that is that gasoline tax is not very popular uh as the legislature found out about a dozen years ago when they wanted to index it to inflation it was immediately repealed by voter referendum at the next banial state election um and but it but it it really is a challenge and obviously with more electric vehicles going on the roads than I purchasing gasoline or diesel fuel and so it creates even more challenges to the fund um so again we receive about 1.15 million 1.16 million annually that's based on the town's population our road in in our employment base and again that's been that's been constant and then with the passage of the what they call the fair share Amendment or what what opponents called the millionaires taxed um the state has kicked in because those funds are restricted to um educational and transportational uses and so we've received about a half million dollars in funding uh in the last couple years since that tax has been in effect um but we we our sense is it's about a third uh of what is needed uh to maintain the roads and we do keep an active inventory of our roads and and we review the list every year and Christine Clancy Public Works director will come up and explain this a little further um but it really is something that um you know we we really want to stay on top of I think the town sort of was spoiled at a point where the sewer project was the town's Paving Pro Paving as means because if they were installing sewer across the community which the town did then basically you were tearing up every road and they used the appropriation from the sewer project to resurface those roads um unfortunately now that's a decade behind us and so everything is coming up for real cost and that's why you've seen this emphasis uh but we I think we're making Market Improvement um What I Hear now from people is you know we do hear about the potholes and the concerns and so forth but we are we hear more and more often how chood roads are better than many of our neighboring communities um and so that's very favorable um so um so I'm going to turn the over to Christine Clancy our Public Works director who can really speak more to what's ahead good evening members of the finance committee so I want to go over article seven uh so as Paul had said we uh this is you know one of our largest infrastructure components in town um that does receive a lot of attention uh we we you know we use different we doing pothole repairs but also we do um micro Sealing is a recent application we've done we've done pavement Reclamation which is restoration of the subbase um and Mill and overlay um so with this article 7 requesting additional $2.5 million would really uh really gets us to where we need to be to to um to be able to uh maintain really the index that we the pavement index that we have um chapter 90 funding has been level funded over the past 10 years uh just through Capital we do about $775,000 a year between roadway and Paving uh Paving um just this past year we did just under 10 miles of Paving and 2 and 1 half miles of sidewalk um which was just under $5 million so we're running at about $5 million to be able to um to keep up with this pace uh we have 187 miles of existing roadway 462 miles of existing sidewalk uh we have a pavement management database system that we use essentially an algorithm that helps us pick our what really the next streets to pave um looking at the ones that are not necessarily in worse condition but also before they go to that next state so a road that um you know we could potentially extend the life of a roadway with micro sealing before it needs to go to that next layer of Rehabilitation whether it be Mill and overlay or um pavement Reclamation uh we also just recently last year have a sidewalk management dat sidewalk database that we have all of our all of our sidewalk inventoried and um also that prioritize and planned and really devel a road map of how we need to um replace our our sidewalks and build it out to improve the connection connectivity between networks and between points of interest so that's about 14 miles a proposed sidewalk um overall that's a backlog of $75 million um that's a lot so if you're spending $5 million a year you're I mean you're over um 15 I mean that's a significant um amount of years um it's as far as um a roadway is typically between 20 to 30 years um so what we have right now is we're ending this we're near the end of the paving season we have had great weather uh we are continuing to extend it I know we're looking to see if we can add a couple more areas of Mill and overlay um because we are seeing favorable weather at least into October uh but we we we have this Paving candidate list so over here you see just about 10 miles of of uh streets that will be pulling from $4.1 million and then also we have sidewalks um Turnpike Road we have $500,000 to build out a sidewalk on Turnpike Road between B rer Road and waren AV um that we have $500,000 but really we need an additional 300 actually $600,000 to do so Parker Road is also a Federal grant we recently received uh $350,000 but there's additional funds needed just to complete that work and then Main Street I put in here too Main Street does pop up on our pavement candidate list um but we really want to look at that as a more holistic approach potentially traffic calming and adding sidewalk between School Street and groten Road um so we'll with the $25 million we would be uh going through this list to see how we select the two and half million um and making a decision we publish this list typically by January um we put it out to bid January February so that we can uh hit the ground running in the spring um any questions one you knew it' come uh but um if if are you able to spend all this can can you get enough contractors to do the the you know spend all this sure so I mean well so this past year we're nearing $5 million so this kind of continues with that Trend it is a lot of work um it's also weather dependent so I would say going back to the previous year we had a lot more rain we had a spill over where we couldn't get we couldn't complete everything so that went into this year um but with the if weather is favorable we are looking to get to the end of our list this year we potentially might add a couple segments if we have fair weather well do we have people lined up I mean do we have long-term contracts or short-term I mean how do so we bid it annually we bid it annually we try to bid it um January February that's the time where people are or even sometimes December will put out a contract just so that because they're planning the year we typically don't do a multi-year just because we're planning on a year-to-year basis things change over the winter too or as we go into the winter um and also prices change too so we try to do a year so basic we start it start the contract February March really we don't hit we don't really start till April May and then we'll run it to um October but if weit weather is favorable we will extend it maybe into November thanks you're welcome so what other what do other towns do to help the funding Gap have you talked to other towns and I mean I think a lot of people look to use Capital they look at grant opportunities um some I know some in IP alties have started having their own P sorry sidewalk Paving crew uh I know Bill R looked at that we don't have I mean we we do a lot of work in house whereas we'll help demo we'll help with um sometimes with we don't do a curb install but we'll help with some of the demolition but uh but yeah I think I think there is generally a funding Gap and um if that's the case that's why I will say we so we do uh look at our or we manage our pavement uh database and we have a rate in if you look at some neighboring communities they're probably in the lower 7s ours is just this past year was 78 and we'll update it annually because that's what I was saying is a lot of times there's a classic make buy analysis right so do you do the work in house you can break it down into different pieces right and then there's their opportunity to partner with other other towns right so if there's special equipment that you know you could pool and potentially have an agreement with the neighboring Town um that would reduce the capital outlay and sort of the the market um for the most expensive pieces um of maybe the work sure and I don't it's probably more than just a piece of equipment you're probably looking adding Crews so that's just a significant resource so I think what we've we've kind of stretched the dollar a little bit by being able we also do the design inh house um we have a a great engineering team so that we do our own survey uh sometimes we do you know for some more um detail or really in-depth project so Turnpike Road that has a that's a new sidewalk that has a has a really a bridge being added as part of the sidewalk so that's something we sub out but a lot of our work we are designing in-house some towns hire a consultant to do that so that's also a cost savings measure that we Implement I have I have a question um director Clancy so there's uh significant construction going on in the center of town as as we all know is that currently in this year's budget fully paid for or is some part of it coming up out of what you're looking for us to uh vote on sure so the National Grid work that's occurring that's all you know a separate party but the paving that is proposed on Cushing place in the sidewalk that is um already programmed into the fy2 budget that we have okay oh thank you I wasn't asking specifically about Cushing but I appreciate that I appreciate that answer so even in the center of town so that so National Grid is the one that's every night I hear it right they so yeah they're doing all that that's all their work so we're we're not on the hook for any of that they're going to pave it well they just have to pave their trench so we probably will have to come back at some point in time to do it uh we were just so North Road the only other area in this Center that we paveed this year was a small section um North Road right right adjacent to St Mary's um that's been completed that was really just kind of finishing the the stretch of North Road um the center as far as like a curb to curb it's not under moratorium so we don't require a pavement so they're going to pave their trenches um as are required and then we'll probably be looking I don't know if it's exactly a few years or but it is down the line we'll be probably redoing the intersection but but they are on the hook to to pave what they what they're digging up their trenches yes all right great thank you any other questions all right thank you thank you she'll be back um the next article article eight is McCarthy Middle School exterior recreational area uh adjacent to the police station some of you have been long-term members of the finance committee remembered that there was an effort a few years ago to uh redo those courts uh you know I guess we saved paradise and didn't put up a parking lot um but but we have uh and how it worked was the superintendent formed an advisory committee um remember the McCarthy school is the McCarthy school grounds it's under the jurisdiction purview of the school committee um and so um I've been sort of and and chrisye clany Public Work Director we've been sort of cheerleaders and encouragers at the sidelines and and we're able to bring the project back to you at this point in time um the graphics were 6 $975,000 to construct the court area that you see there um basically just to sort orent you if you look at it to to the left is the two tennis courts that would be constructed the middle are two of street hockey you know the uh courts and then to the right is a basketball court this is still not a eted in stone the superintendent and the school committee and the advisory committee are sort of doing final analysis but essentially this is what we're going to get for the project um the uh the uh project sort of coincides actually in timely if if you've been by the high school recently we're there we're in the final stages of the new high school courts uh and so what's happening at the high school is you have new tennis courts at the high school you new outdoor basketball courts and the installation of pickle ball courts um and why I say that's in conjunction because they used to be the street hockey over there but with the popularity of pickle ball um you know and and sort of the partnership and close relationship it has with tennis the idea was to put that complex over there plus the other good reason is youve may have heard about some nois concerns about pickleball whether it's for homes on the cape or communities of Newton and so forth and so the beauty of putting pickle ball at the high school is it's out there meaning that you know there aren't any immediate residences uh and so you know because we do have one existing pickle ball court uh at vanney up at Varney playground and Jason to the tennis court if you if you go out to past left field at Varney and believe it or not PE people thought it was a good idea that somebody to play pickle ball in daylight at 6:00 in the morning and we heard from the residents they saying um you know that that's not appreciated um so we immediately worked at Public Works we posted signage out there to restrict the hours uh you know uh for a pickle ball because it does have a different noise than tennis and and so forth so so so to basically to provide the demand which there is a demand even our superintendent plays pickle ball uh of schools um he play he's a player and it's very popular and we've heard Advocates from it in the community we think this is sort of the best outcome so the end product of the high school courts and and now the courts at McCarthy um will really put us back to where historically the town was with the courts at um you know at both facilities um and the issues of the connectivity of the police station and will be addressed there'll be there'll be a walkway as part of this project there'll also be a seating area and so again we think this is a good project for the community uh and um you know we'll we'll I think address those who Express concerns with our earlier plan which which really didn't have as much Court area as I think people wanted to retain yes I couldn't figure out where the parking is the parking is at McCarthy and and so basically the the at the bottom of that photo is the parking areas at McCarthy and um and so that's how it will it will be serviced uh and then also with the with the pedestrian Corridor people if there's an event at the police station they could then walk along this area you see that sort of paved P Pathway to the right of the photo that would get people there to the police station as well so you're not concerned of people trying to fill up the police station area because oh not for these courts no because the the beauty of the police station is the 247 facility and so you know there generally aren't spaces available for the public at the rear of the station uh at the property line okay because the employees who are in there dispatchers and so forth are generally in that area and office employees um will be lighted or not lighted um there's no plans to install lighting here um you know so basically that's that's not and there's no lights at the high school either okay um so that there there's no plans for that at this point in time okay thank you any other questions okay okay great article nine is going back into public works is a replacement of a sewer Force main on Progress Avenue and I'm going to have uh Public Works director Christine Clancy return this article and I think it it's going to show you uh in her presentation that the question you had about well is the work the Town can do in equipment rather than Contracting and hybrid so I'll turn it over to Christine all right so article nine is um to do a force main repair on progress AV um we have 41 pump stations in town and there's connections to L but also interconnections between the pump stations with Force Mains um all ductal iron uh we obviously we want to uh maintain this infrastructure we are embarking on a program to inspect uh we have started inspecting all the um piping to make sure that it's uh sound uh a lot of this was installed in the 1980s uh so 35 40 years ago um this pipe really should be lasting 60 70 years but we are getting some failures I can't explain exactly why um some of this pipe is corroding it could be some corros corrosion from in inside the pipe it could be corrosion due to the soil so progress a is one example um that pipe is 35 to 40 years old and it's here pictured uh this is actually the last the latest section July 2024 but we also had a break um also right nearby uh this picture as shown there's a pump station so just probably 50 ft from there we had two breaks um one in January 2024 and one in July 2024 uh we did the necessary reporting to DP we were very fortunate to just catch them so it really didn't result in any catastrophe you know we we had some other um issues at other uh stations um and that you know each repair when you do an emergency repair that's very costly because when you get that repair potentially we could have done some of one of at least one of these in house but you're basically calling in emergency services cuz you know what you're going to diging so we had called in greni and they did these repairs both repairs cost about $110,000 um and um as far as you know having two brakes looking at this section of pipe that was pulled out uh we really need to ex we really need to replace this this pipe um we had done some test pits previously and so we're estimating that it's about 800 ft of pipe that um we probably need to replace and uh looking at it um we first when we were preparing for a fall town meeting we were thinking let's you know start working on this bid right now let's get it out to bid um and then our superintendent Dan belus he came in he said I think we might be able to do it this is a relatively shallow pipe we have some deeper sections um you know we have a good team so we are proposing to do this inhouse but we still have to purchase the resources we still need to purchase probably some additional plates um and actually we're proposing not to put in ductal iron just because there's something happening whether it be the soil internal to the pipe um a lot of force Mains now are with the fused hgpe pipe kind of like the the yellow gas pipe that you see being put in it does have to be fused we don't have that fusing equipment but that's something that we were looking to purchase um and have people trained on that um and it's great because we'll be able to retain this equipment for for other repairs as needed um the estimated cost is $125,000 for this project but looking at uh doing this inhouse we're probably saving at least $150,000 potentially more um we could we are already actually starting to get quotes for this Mater for the material for the um the plates the HD the fusing um uh uh equipment we need and so we potentially could start this this November December um as soon as you know after F town or F town meeting any questions how old is the old pipe most of our pipe in town was was from the ' 80s cuz we started this we started in I forget the exact but it was in the ' 80s so that's the thing is all of our piping is in the 80s and so this is actually this is one of the newer ones too so we weren't really planning to do this um we were actually weren't even planning on doing this inspection for a few years but something is happening I can't it could have also been the type of um the pipe is very thin so I don't know if that was worn from uh from soil or from inside the pipe or if it at the time was it just not the right size right pipe I I can't explain it so we're looking at a lot we're each year we're looking at different pipes and seeing if we need to do because this will um when we do the inspections this under a separate program those inspections will be done um it's a machine like a robotic machine that goes in the pipe it it can the the main does stay active while we're doing the inspections and essentially we'll be able to find any type of um defects in the pipe especially um any type of thinning of the pipe pipe as well um so that's something we're we're uh working on right now do we think we have a big problem looking into the future well I do think that we'll find some loc so I would say chump is unique to um unique in that we have 41 pumping stations we have a very intricate um infrastructure system so with those Force means um and they're being metal uh I guess I don't want to speak too soon but I think I mean there'll be repairs there's nothing that's this is not jumping out as being a this could just be an outlier we have had some repairs needed in the past it happens in other communities as well um best thing we can do is do the inspections which we are doing now annually thanks and with this you're you're planning on getting the fusing equipment that and training the people on the equipment so that if there's things in the future during for further inspections they'll be able to use that potentially do stuff in house where they wouldn't normally be able to do that previously potentially um there are some sections that are very deep you know over 12T you get into a much uh more intricate installation so that's something that would probably not trained this is down I think 6 feet so we do feel comfortable this would almost be a really good test case for us to do and we think and also we have the available Corridor so we're proposing to uh keep this pipe uh we don't need to bypass keep this intact and then just do a you know a switch over um to tie in the the new pipe do you see any risk with fusing the old pipe with the new pipe given the fact that they are two different materials so there's a connection at that point so we're only be fusing the plastic to the plastic and then there's a a coupling connection at the end we we'll make sure we connect it to a good piece of pipe so we're estimated 800 ft we also are saying if we have to continue a little further we can but that's our estimate based on the test pits we have had performed and did you say all of the town's pipes are iron like of the same type yeah I can't say they're the same same exact like that is the same uh pipe that was purchased like same product I I I I it was different contracts but yes it's all ductal iron okay this one seems to be thinner than we've seen in some other cases it could be just because it's the soil is corrosive or it could have been that because the pipe was a different I it could have been different yeah I kind of see the same way like do we have a bigger problem right and so you know what are some of the small pieces of insurance that you can do so inspection makes sense but you know maybe there's some of incremental testing you could do and you look at sort of the the chemical makeup of of the pipe versus the area in the soil is it pervasive throughout time just it's another way because you know worst case scenario imagine you have to do this across town for all the pipes you know sure so yeah so anything that goes to duck duck Island and L they if it's a commercial they have to be permitted if they're putting anything that's um costic in the system so they have to get permitted so we're not seeing anything that we know is like what's causing this inside the pipe we did grab a sample of the soil and we're just going to test it for acidity but we figured that as we replace if we do have to do any pipe Replacements it makes sense to use plastic any other questions all right thank you thank you oh oh sure let's see sewer in so infiltration so another um I don't want to say issue but I mean is a I think it's actually the largest concern at DPW and maybe in one in the town is our sewer capacity constraint um that has a significant impact on the ability for people to add whether it be residential commercial or change in business um and so going back a few years years now several years ago uh We've we've hit capacity or exceeded capacity uh we had a sewer moratorium in place so to prevent any future expansion just so we could understand the the situation and try to see what we could do and and we have done inspections including you know uh the forcemain inspections but also inspecting the um the sewer system to see if this infiltration and inflow as you can see in this chart there really is there's a direct correlation between higher rainfall amounts and higher groundwater and higher sewer flows so when we have like right now our sewer flows are down we are not seeing rain the groundwater is down last year we had a very wet season in high very high groundwater conditions so even when it wasn't raining with the high groundwater people had some pumps these are these are some pumps um these are roof leaders sometimes maybe private catch basins and so that's the inflow that goes goes into the system then there's the infiltration infiltration is where you know leaks whether it be at a manhole or in a uh section of pipe especially at a coupling or um between two pipe joints so we had uh going back to 2022 23 we did an inspection a video inspection to identify sources of infiltration or INF particularly infiltration in our sewer system our sewer system isn't that old it's 19 you know in as as it relates to other New England communities um so with it being a newer system we really shouldn't see as much infiltration as we are seeing um we did not find it as of as many places in the pipe um it was mostly at the manholes and so it's really where um it's coming in somewhere in the manhole joint itself or that connection between the manhole and the the pipe um and we actually we do sometimes find these outside of this project too so if we find a handful of them will go out and we'll be line the manhole and that will um and these can be pretty significant sometimes it can be five gallons a minute and when you do the math that's significant amount of flow uh we do have a sewer so our our short-term plan is to try to find this short-term midterm is try to find info infiltration um that we can remove from the system because that basically will provide some capacity for um that and we actually have a sewer credit policy for people to be able to purchase um so this project is 200 manholes that were identified as part of that CCTV program that in uh that testing and and die testing was done as well so 200 manholes estimated 22,000 gallons per day will be removed from the system um which then we would right now we're looking to see that's how we can sell through a sewer credit uh credit transfer policy to uh commercial businesses that want to add or grow um this work is already designed CU we did allocate some money for design going back to I think it was fall town meeting so it's ready to go we're actually right now putting together the bid dates um and then once this and this is something that can happen in the winter we can do lining in the winter not in extreme freezing conditions or raining conditions but we can do this so we would potentially start we would start this likely this fall and it might continue into the spring could um potentially be completed this winter and we are continuing this is something we continue to look for manholes this is just 200's a lot we can't do all that at once we need to have a a project to implement that any questions what is the sewer credit so we created this so in lie of the sewer moratorium we had the SE moratorium in place for 2 years and we wanted to lift that but when we wanted to lift it we had to have some way people could uh buy capacity so if someone has a change in use and wants to put in a restaurant and there wasn't previously a rest this is just an example restaurant in that space they don't have that capacity at that business or that space didn't have the capacity looking back at our our sewer use so we require them to and we have a whole process but of how outlined of how they have to uh submit their calculations but they have to purchase that capacity um and so we and so in order to purchase the capacity we have to be able to take infiltration inflow out of the system so we basically have a bank that we kind of keep of infiltration inflow that we're taking out of the system and then we're selling it as part of the sew credit so that people can connect um through for commercial growth or or or new businesses coming in town and does the does the island say yo you're using this much so we do a check after six months to make sure they haven't gone over it okay so every six months you check to see if what you think you're putting in is what you're putting in so and they do have to purchase based on title five so I think they have to purchase so yeah so if they go over it then we would we have a measure where we can say you're using more than you were allocated that hasn't happened yet what percentage if we were at capacity and we do this what percentage are we at then after this other words how much capacity did we add so it's that's a big unknown um because you can see the fluctuations but I think that I mean if you look at some of these fluctuations where you're going from I would think it's I mean 10 15% is our is what we're trying to find at least right now we're doing a lot of other so this program I 22,000 gallons of of 3 million gallons that's that's a very small amount so that's a that's L tiny amount but we're doing other programs we also have a private inflow U removal program where we've asked people to come forward if they have some pumps to participate in the program because some pumps can be reallocated to uh or redirected to a storm drain or to you know to another um point of discharge in the backyard or um so we're also doing that as well so there's other programs so right now uh we also are just beginning a smoke um testing program we just had that awarded at Monday's night select board meeting where we will be this is required by D we'll be testing a certain area this actually the same area that we CCTV and finding elicit connections and we'll follow have to follow up on those so because we're so early in the investigation I can't give an exact percentage but I would I hope it's like 10 15 20% is what I I hope I guess um it's hard to tell because of groundwater it's there's so many variables um we also are upgrading our flow monitoring uh flow metering systems to have more realtime um updates on on uh the flows that so we can correlate flows better with rain events and we also are adding rain gauges to that so I think with with that information too we'll be able to hopefully pinpoint uh how much infiltration inflow is associated with the actual but I if you look at just the percentages on a from a dry month to a wet month I would say at least 20 15% but you have to be able to find it and so that's it's we're just starting that any other questions thank you thank you our next article article 11 is is um another return to the town's efforts on document digitizing records in the community um we've in the past and and uh We've we spent considerable time uh preserving and M uh maintaining the use of our historic records um and and that has been successful and now we've really got to you know basically expand that effort to basically all Departments of the community so I'm going to turn the podium over to Harrison mayot who's sort of uh shepherding this project in the town clerk's office to sort of give you a description of where we've been and what we're proposing to do good evening Mr chair members of the finance committee my name is Harrison mayot I am the departmental support coordinator of the town clerk's office here to speak on article 11 uh for the past uh several years we have worked to improve the preservation of the town's historical records in the town clerk's office um these uh efforts have included environmental and physical preservation efforts um modernized Vault and archive room configurations are some of the things that we have worked on including more space efficient shelving implementation of climate controls dry fire suppression and restoration of high-risk historical records during the restoration efforts um the Northeast document Conservation Center scanned these records and they are available on internet archive or the town's website but they aren't easily searchable in their current format also looking throughout the building at other departments the building department is facing some space constraints um looking at the image that's on the screen the large rolling shelves in their office take up a significant amount of space the goal with their uh Department area is to free up uh where the shelves are currently and relocating those records to a more spacious and controlled environment the L3 storage area U is currently used for Planning and Zoning permanent records and we would look to um use that opportunity for better organization and consolidation of the land use related files even with organized physical records locating specific files particularly older ones can be a slow and time-consuming process staff spend valuable time searching through the paper records which can delay internal workflows and responses to public records requests with a strong document management system all digitized records will be indexed and searchable allowing the staff and public to locate the documents instantly online and with no risk to handling the physical record the long-term goals with this project include the digitization of the permanent departmental records that uh we have throughout the town ensuring that digitized records are fully searchable uh fully indexed for easy search uh creation of a public access portal for easy retrieval for staff and the public uh consolidation of building Planning and Zoning files and clear space in the building Department's office for phase one uh our request is $300,000 this would fund the annual fee for the document management system uh the one-time training and setup costs associated with implementing that system the building Planning and Zoning scanning which is approximately 1.87 million Pages including large format Maps accounting Phase 1 which is approximately 1 million pages and Fire Prevention approximately 177,000 500 pages looking forward to Future years uh we will seek to digitize permanent and long-term records across the town departments and create efficiencies across all of these functions thank you for your time this evening and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer U what happens to this stuff after you digitize it um so for the building Planning and Zoning files that will be all Consolidated into L3 so will the physical records will be maintained um just in a different location um as for the accounting records I I'm different location what what's that what do you mean by different location like a So currently buildings files are in uh the building department office so those would all be merged into L3 uh where the Planning and Zoning files currently are so by digitizing it making them accessible all the hard copies are going to go in one location that's correct okay they required by Statute to keep the original copies but this way the able to search Digital copies yeah I was just wondering if it's because of job I had a while back we had a location that the it you know you scanned it it went and then it went to that that place that had fire supression somewhere else essentially that's what's happening but but it's physically staying in the building it's staying in the building yeah yeah and part of the idea building department um they they access those files very frequently which is why they're in very close proximity to their desks by having them online with just a click of the the keyboard um they can locate the without having to physically have them in their office and uh the are you getting sound sounded weird but a a s super huge flatbed scanner for these really odd-sized big pieces um so our approach would be to engage an outside vendor um which has the specialized scanning equipment particularly for those larger files um and the the scanning equipment that they have um will be able to take very high quality photos and also do a full text index so you can search not only just just the title of those files but the do the details within those documents who's who's coming up with the titles um that that will be um an effort as a part of their indexing um you know it may be based off of the street and the date of the the record um and it would vary based on the document type so do you think that there are any documents that are in such bad shape that we won't be able to capture the company that you hire won't be able to capture the contents there even I'm looking back back at our past historical preservation efforts some of those um were in um highrisk condition and those were able to be captured successfully um and they just need to be put into a system that's much more searchable and where they're able to be fully indexed excellent that's good news thank you any other questions thank you harison yeah thank you Harrison moving back now to our next request uh is sort of a an area of growing concern in the community you know is invasive species and and tree inventory and our Public Works director is also the tree warden in the community and she's been working with the tree committee and we're trying to do a pilot program so I'm going to ask Christine to come up and sort of explain what we're trying to do here and and how it will go from this initial foray so article 12 is um request $75,000 to develop a tree and invasive species inventory and management plan um we are losing we're estimating that we're losing our tree canopy at about 1% a year which is a pretty significant so if we just look at the past 10 years as 10% um a lot of this is uh very very we have had more micro birst and more storm damage so climate change is part of that um also part of that is in invasive species so over here this is a picture from Warren Pole where this tree has died and there's invasive species that really have choked out um this tree and this there is efforts right now through conservation um where they you know people go through and try to cut the invasives to to try to save some of these trees um we don't really so I get a lot of questions of what what's our policy we don't have a plan we don't have a program in place and this is something that other communities are just beginning to um you might hear the term urban forestry management plan I know a lot of um Cambridge and Newton they all have you know have had these plans developed um Westford recently completed a similar plan to what we would be looking and really will help develop a road map of how of you know looking doing an assessment of a a portion of our streets um I'm estimating about 20 mi of Roads potentially a little more um and then also some of our town properties uh and taking inventory inventory assessment too so it be certified our barous and seeing how we can protect and maintain uh these the existing can be or these existing trees but also how to also identify areas where maybe we could grow trees because we also we have funds annually where we try to um plant new trees and so trying to find new new canopies um but the invasive species part is a new I think a newer part that communities are struggling with both in the right of way and also um on Town own parcels and how do we manage them um you you know Bittersweet everyone probably has it unfortunately in their backyard and it's you rip it out and when you rip it out it gets it just basically grows back stronger and so there's you know certain um techniques you can use where very um potentially some chemical use but we want to have a policy in place where we say okay for these I mean there's over I think 400 invasive species but just for maybe some of the top ones in the neighborhood not weed is becoming um you know more prevalent in our community and that's that's pretty significant that can go through foundations and um so also looking at um how how we can develop a a plan um for maintaining a tree canopy um and with this we would look to procure it through part an RFP process um we would work with the tree committee um I have been looking at some other communities to see what they've developed and I said Westford is probably the one where um it's similar to what we were looking at uh there's also Lexington coner everyone's trying to develop these Master plans and put them in place any questions I know this is getting ahead of us but um would you be eventually giving like regular P because goodness knows I bite with the Bittersweet every year so I I yeah so so we do have a tree Committee website and we're trying to update it right now because we do get a lot of questions um and people people have called I've probably just in the past few months I between the spring and summer I think I got probably maybe a dozen questions I have Bittersweet how do I handle it and without like Google Googling and looking up some literature it'd be great to have a more of a documented policy or or something we could help provide a guidance so that is one of our goals is to provide some more public Outreach too um because protecting also protecting you know public RightWay is obviously our Focus but it's important you know if you have Bittersweet on private property that can you know go into the right of way so it would be great to um provide that information for other people as well um what we what we end up doing is pulling it throwing it on the driveway looks very attractive and let it die because and then burn it which again you do it C certain times a year um because you can't throw away uh you can't throw away uh plant matter into the garbage but you if you thrill the Bittersweet in your uh compost you end up with just yeah right and exact so Bittersweet tree of Heaven um not weed there's I mean there's there's at least 400 that I've locally and regionally um but we just probably the top 20 we could um have some literature provided so that is one of our goals is it's a public definitely a public Outreach component um for the community to be able to have that as a resource and this will help identify where we have potentially not weed coming into the community because I know that's a huge concern for insurability yeah I mean so we we know where we have sections of it and so how do we handle that in the right of way or on property is a significant right because there's um there are not weed is it's it's difficult to get rid of is there a plan after this is OB the first step in in getting this plan together management plan for um addressing the canopy concerns and and and obviously focus on the town own properties on town right away but would this potentially lead into a a further policy or plan to provide for some sort of management of uh tree removal on private property I mean that's that's a potential right now our Focus this Focus will inventory town properties and the right of way so that's our Focus really it's um and we also have in we have um other you know disease trees ash trees if there's an ash tree in town it's probably going to be gone in so in in not that many years um we probably get 200 requests a year so our focus is I guess the right of way um that is something that has been discussed at the tree committee but um I think the focus for this is really how how do we handle our town properties and provide the public Outreach so people can can use that information yeah CU even private properties with like got a couple houses that are abandoned that have developers family whatever they just it sits it over overruns but also you a lot of properties around town where there's multiple trees removed that are healthy uh and that's been a lot of clear cutting I've noticed in this last decade or even The Last 5 Years and there's no policy in place to address that um so I think this is the a good first step but I think uh that might be where this leads do you have rfps out uh or is this is just an estimate so it just the reason why I ask it doesn't seem like a lot of money for such a comprehensive um uh study sure so we had um I think originally we were looking at just taking a cross-section of our town to looking at maybe our Scenic roads U which I think 13 miles the town like around the town common um I have a couple other streets in mind um and really taking that as the first step and then and then here's Warren pole it's a great property maybe we can approach maybe some also some smaller ones or a playground so it's really to kind of start the process and then see look looking I believe Westford might have spent about 100,000 and they had a little more mileage so it's I mean we could have asked for more but we when we previously had we had applied for Grants um to try to have this going back since I've been here so over two years and we just haven't been successful in those grant opportunities so we were always Target like obviously more would be better but I think we can do something with a $75,000 thank you any other questions thank you thank [Music] you don't go too far away Golf Course netting and pole extensions uh we're seeking $50,000 again this is sort of it's back uh if you see the next Slide the photo you can see uh I was before town meeting maybe over you know maybe a dozen 15 years ago when we installed The netting at the first um whole of the CH Country Club uh and and as you can see um you know where it's related uh and Christine um Clancy our Public Works director helps me manage the golf course um because basically the golf course is Town own but we contract out for the management of the facility much like the Forum um and so what's happening is you know we're a nine-hole public course um and you know it's a competitive market out there here um for golf and you know we we've really been wrestling with this problem and one of the reasons why we want to do the netting and keep the you know the hole as it is is because it is your intro to the course and and people want to get out there and you know and and play a course and and this really is one of our premium holes and it's our first hole um it's because we've looked at a variety of Solutions in terms of well could we you know require people not to use theug driver or and other aspects but the problem is is if you do those efforts they're going to go elsewhere uh and then and so the challenges is you've got people now uh with these fantastic new clubs and new balls that you know can can really put a charge into a a golf ball uh that you know and they tend to be expensive clubs but people have these and and and believe it not when Christine and I were out the other day we saw somebody go over that netting uh and and why that's important it's not just because it's going over the netting is there are Residential Properties adjacent to the golf course um and and we have mass this you know case law that basically the town is responsible that's a trespass and since the town owns the golf course if if we allow this to continue and our neighbors so far have been a little patient but that's why we're here we are going to have a problem uh as as other country clubs have had um with the issue of golf ball so I'm going to turn the podium over to Christine who can sort of explain what's being proposed and and how we're going to address this issue good evening so the the this option extension of the the fencing as you see The netting here on the right there already is netting here um and we were out there we witnessed a ball go right over the net um into private property and the reports are that it um you know has been hitting their house we we looked at many other options um including trimming back the tree canopy on the left side um you'd have to probably significantly do it that could potentially harm these there a great canopy um so really you know as manager Cohen said really our only option is to look at extension of The netting um so the proposal is $50,000 for this extension of netting you see so we would retain use the existing poles and you'd be putting poles on top of the existing poles it has been done in other communities um and extending basically just extending that netting that's there up 25 ft um 25 and that is the The Proposal is there any concern about uh endangering Wildlife b birds for example I know that's a little bit of an outlandish question but there's a lot of trees there I'm supposing there's there's birds so I don't know if there's any issue there I mean I have heard of that in other in terms of more like in um you know with buildings and cities um and but this is I guess a pretty short stretch so I if it was maybe going further potentially um I mean it's just it's a it's given the whole landscaped area it's a relatively small length Okay does 25 ft do it believe so honestly oh I'll meet you out there you can no um I mean honestly when we were out there and we saw it went over it went over more than 5T probably not 25 ft I mean I guess theoretically how high do you build it but 25 ft is pretty significant and so hopefully that would curb many or if not all the balls is there any chance that the neighbors are going to be able to see that extension and have an issue with the view of the extension they will see the fencing as they did originally because those grown right so so they don't want golf balls to hit the house but there might be a issue with the I think it depends on which neighbor you're asking I see right okay that makes sense I asked the source SP question but our our manager company manages other golf course and they've done this at other courses so that's why we're confident that this additional uh you know six poles uh 30 feet high will address you know that's address the problem so that if it does occur it's very infrequent as opposed to now being fairly regular I can see that just looking at it uh and and they have done so we have signage out there just asking people to you know just might be mindful of neighbors um but like said when we were out there first person up there hit it right over and um they didn't intend to I don't think they intended that's my point the house that's there is is is pretty close to the to the line you can't see it in this picture but the house that's there is probably 20 25t from the from the netting itself yes and I believe ster so Sterling management is the one that receives complaints so they have been documenting this isn't just like so they there have been instances that they been documented and so with that documentation we do need to do something because it is trespassing and even looking at we talked about repositioning the hole but you can't really do that that's going through my head with all move the tea what can you and I think it's so actually if you it's off the picture but this um like retaining W area that was when we originally did the original netting going back to almost 15 years ago so we there's been significant effort to to adjust it it's just not enough and with the techn I think partially is the technology too with these newer golf clubs and um well good luck it it yeah there's there a lot of residential buildings around it's in the middle of a residential neighborhood so there a lot of this just happens to be on the first te with the house that's close to it all right thank you thank you so article article 14 uh Ventures into facilities and believe it or not in addition to sewer uh golf courses you know a highway and trees our Public Works director also oversees the facilities Division and and in this case we are looking to do a a roof project at the South Row school um several months ago with Dr Lang's assistance and the support of the school committee and the select board uh the town submitted a request to the m the school building authority under what they call their accelerated repair program um to uh seek financial assistance for the cost of of of doing roofs i b traditionally the msba uh which stands for the massach school building authority has programs for new schools which as you know we're embarking with uh uh for the Parker school for replacement but we also provide funding and support for for generally roofs Windows boilers um historically for um for um existing schools and in this case you have to meet the criteria of being a 25-year-old roof in this case uh and have a demonstrated need so the good news is is we submitted the application um basically about six weeks ago we received a contact Dr Lang did from the mes School building authority asking to come out and do a site visit uh at the South Row School uh to see the facility they were actually uh familiar with the site because we had previously done work with the msba at the South Row School U but they but they needed the you know the plans and a site visit and so forth and Facilities did that um at this point in time we don't have the formal award um but we're anticipating it will arrive by town meeting uh we anticipate we'll get over 50% reimbursement uh so why are we doing this now it's because the way the state does their program is we've got to fund the schematic design which is what this is for um and then upon that notification you've beg schematic design you've got to you've got to F fund that schematic design within four months um so the problem is is we meet town meeting regular fall and spring six-month intervals um and yes we could always call a special town meeting but the problem is is we're not the only one in this pool who's doing uh roof projects uh and so we want to be ahead of it so that when the award comes in we can timely hit the bid Market to get Architects and Engineers on board with the state assistance and approval so with that as intro I'm going to turn the podium over again to Christine Clancy who can describe the details of this project poor Christine um so thank you so for this roof so it is a great opportunity for an msba uh replacement program uh as we'll look at the we get into Capital planning we did last year there's a lot of roof needs a lot of our buildings especially as schools are similar ages so we are coming Upon a Time we're almost and we have so 30 buildings roof if roofs last 20 30 years you have to really be doing a roof a year um and roof you know we have we have much smaller buildings but the schools are pretty significant so there substantial um costs so this build this building is about 40 or the roof is about 40,000 square ft it is a currently a builtup roof um roofing system it's about 26 years old there's also a roof um section that is 32 years old that is a m brain Roofing uh as manager Cohen said we do have solar panels that were installed in 2014 so about 10 years old um those panels will have to be removed and reset we will look to see if there's any possibility of replacing them but thing is they still have 10 years life so we will do a cost analysis as part of this process uh we do annually do an annual we do an annual inspection of all of our roofs to help really develop a plan of what what we see as the need to be replaced or repaired um and that is so updated annually so I mean this came in uh last year as recommended for replacement can start beginning this year uh so really like a one to three year years remaining um just the fact that it hits the msba eligibility is is is good timing um we will get a more detailed cost estimate as part of this process as part of the schematic design including I mean we believe that there the resetting of the panels would be eligible um for that 50% reimbursement they um that's something that they would have to confirm but that's the belief replacement would probably not be eligible um and so we are looking I I think when I had prepared this last year as just because I had done a 5year lookout um it was about $1.2 million so if it is 50% reimbursable that's that's significant of that I mean it's still really like I said this is still before even a schematic design but we have about 250 panels on the roof and so you're talk just is a really rough estimate maybe $200,000 $300,000 in terms of the solar panel coordination because that's an effort to take it off and put it back on um I think the next slide just has a picture so this is a a snapshot of the re roof ret track report that we receive annually and they do a detailed inspection they do use drones they do also go on the roof um and they look for leaks repairs and so there's things that we can do on the short term uh and more immediate but this is at a point where we have to look at replacement um so it's really the section where the solar panels are and then also the smaller roof on the on the right the the membrane Roofing roof four yes any questions all right thank you thank [Music] you I wish I could tell you I'm going to give the rest of the night night off but I'm not we've got we've kind of coming back um so anyway Article 15 is the last Financial article uh pertaining to the general fund and so forth and and this is the article that we leave as the placeholder and also utilize to transfer any balance of free cash into the stabilization fund um so basically at this point um we're asking uh if if everything we requested this evening were funded as proposed we would have a balance of 56,58 $82 uh in free cash from the 4.7 that was approved by the Department of Revenue and we're proposing to put this into the stabilization fund um our finance director John Souza oversees the stabilization fund as Town Treasurer uh and the good news is is our fund right now is at $15.3 million what's helped this Fund in recent years uh and has helped John and help the town's budget is interest rates short-term rates have been have been high I I think we've hit the peak of that and and it's going to go down because if the FED as expected will will do a rate cut you know the five plus percent on you know treasury bills and so forth will go away and so that will moderate our our earnings in the future including the stabilization fund um but again 15.3 million is you know it's not an insignificant amount of money but again we're running a $62.65 per of our current budget um our Town policy is to keep between 5 and 10% of General operating re revenues um if we were to do this we we would be basically moving up to about 99.78% uh of of our fund which is close to the 10% uh identified ceiling um but there's a reason for that and it's the reason why you see other states doing it and other towns doing it is we are in this uh period of continued High inflation although it does appear to be moderating um and and much as we've seen in our neighboring towns of Westford and drait and as we talked about in this room several months ago we are going to be facing the challenges in the uh upcoming fiscal Year's budget preparation for FY 26 uh and and because you know you you you've you have a governing local tax restriction by proposition two and a half that limits the town's taxing ability at two and a half% uh of of Revenue plus New Growth well that's 77% of our budget comes from that source and if inflation has been running above 2 and a half% and you want to be a competitive employer in terms in paying employees Fair wages addressing the realities and and I've shared some of those as they've been trickling in about what's happening with our pension assessment which is going to go up 88.4% what's going to happen with health insurance uh if you saw this news that came out today from the mass connector um last year their rate increase was 3.65% now they're looking at an 8% increase and what's driving that is again health care cost Trends uh in terms of you know you see the struggles of the the care hospitals the the the cost for treatment their their labor shortages and labor demands and then you also see the the effect of prescription drugs most notably some of these weight loss drugs uh that are driving prescription costs and so we foresee and and our our information that we're receiving from our insurer is yeah you're not going to see the days of 3.6% increases in health insurance premiums you ought to be looking again you know towards 8 n% um and you know this is a challenge and I I know our governor and and legislature and president and others are going to have to be addressing this in the years ahead so it's this difficult inflationary environment and and even in the discussion you heard this evening and even in some of your questions you heard the questions of well G these are pilot programs what's going to come in the future whether it's tree canopy and invasive management whether it's digitalization whether it's road paving and so forth and as our budget gets tighter those those demands don't go away um and as I said we'll be fine this year and we'll have free cash next summer but after that it it's going to be a challenge because you know we'll be we'll be sort of increasing taxes and expanding uh and reducing Services uh but still having this this need and that's where the stabilization fund comes in much like the state's rainy day fund comes in and so what I expect is it's a longwind way of saying I think the town is going to be drawing from that fund not to maintain daily operations but to address particularly some of these you know Capital needs in the future um because what will happen is is we'll be constrained in terms of the ability to fund it but that but we still need to fix the roads take on these roof projects we know we we meet monthly with the superintendent of schools our Public Works director facilities manager for the town in the schools and we've done remarkable work and and Christina is going to provide a summary of that at town meeting and many of you have supported us on that and Dave's going to keep doing this on Capital planning you know in terms of you know the high school roof is will be completed in a matter of days and we before that we've done the McCarthy kitchen the high school kitchen we did the McCarthy kitchen we did the Parker School um you know we funded elevators and those projects are still coming uh but we know the list and and just remember we were in this room talking about the flooring at the senior center uh and so forth those things are still coming and that's why you know we're we're proposing what we're doing and um and and that's why as you can see I'm I'm utilizing all the free cash under the Articles I'm proposing uh and and therefore some of the other requests that are going to come before you on petitioned article namely I am not recommended to be funding because I just I just don't think I think it's I understand what's being requested but I just don't think that's the best course of action for the town right now because you know we we really have got to stay on top of this uh in this environment um we've also been fortunate with our free Cas we've had two mild Winters in the past two years I hope we're going to get another mile winter but but reality is you know we know that that fluctuates just like yeah I wish we had this last seven weeks uh in January and February would have helped us tremendously um so anyway that's what we're seeking here is to transfer the balance at this point again the the minimum of the 560,000 but if other Arles are defeated we would just roll those savings into into the stabilization fund you say well why not just leave it as free cash the reason is under Mass law free cash and stabilization fund can both be used for any lawful purpose the difference is stabilization fund requires a two-thirds vote free cash is a majority vote so that's why we we and that's why we do that in chelate I can't take credit for it it was done prior to my arrival and and I've continued that tradition uh but that's why you'll see other these will have different balances in free cash versus stabilization we've always swept everything into stabilization and that's what we plan to do with this article so thank you I don't know if you have any questions if if we then move on to article 17 article 17 this this one will be real quick this this will be one of those consent agenda items um this is a resending of a previous Community preservation fund article that is being placed on here by the community preservation committee the town back in 2019 basically 5 years ago funded a facade program uh for buildings in the Town Center in vinyl square and uh it's just never taken off it wasn't helped that shortly after the you know we were in covid um but even since then we we're just not seeing the investment uh effort and request um from businesses and so basically they're going to resend the the article uh and then transfer those funds back to the um community preservation fund U so again that'll be a quick placeholder then once you the community does article 18 which Again David Hedison will be be in to present to you at your upcoming meeting um the then Article 19 I'll speak to this one this is a request from the chood water district um and basically what they're seeking it's a lot of word you can see a lot of maps but basically what they're seeking is they're seeking an easement to basically transfer water made water through remain that would go from Smith Street Wells to the kirked spring treatment plant uh and basically why they're looking to go across the town property is because if they stay within the rways the cost for them for this project would be exponential exponential um so that's what's being requested here obviously it needs the blessing and support we of the school committee because the school committee has management care custody and control of the school properties we've obviously had our engineering Crews do with it uh examine it are we're comfortable with with it um but as you know they're incurring significant expense treatment of posos and and other and basically the most effective way to do that is to move water from Smith Street you know uh to Crooked spring so that's what's being requested here and what the next pages are are just Pages upon pages of graphic design and terrible small print you follow the easement that that that follow the easement um again starting at the Parker School across the high school and then then over to McCarthy and then coming out on on North Road um so that's what's being requested with this article um again you know it's reasonable and obviously if if the town were the water had was running the water district you know it'd sort of be an internal function here it's an external function and uh you know we've always worked in Partnership and and I imagine if any water district or any you know our partnership would work both ways and if if we can ever be of assistance because at the end of the day it's the same pirs you know these These are you know these These are in this case a subset of of the town as a whole um to address their water you know their water treatment needs so that's what's happening there article 20 is a transfer of parcels uh to the Conservation Commission um and in this case we've got um a half dozen parcels and where this originates from is twofold one is the Warren pole land but the other five really originate with John suer our finance director um as Finance director he he has the blessing of of taking uh Collections and tax titles and then tax possessions of basically low value Parcels that are usually pretty darn wet uh and of low value otherwise people wouldn't wouldn't readily give them up U because we all know the value of land in the community um so what this is is uh several months ago John circulated a list to the Conservation Commission and said hey do you have interest in these Parcels uh that that you know only have wetlands and conservation values they reviewed the list approved it but the but the key one is the first one is the Warren pole land um the the Conservation Commission has been managing the property since the town's acquisition of the property uh under you know general purposes uh at this point the commission is brief the select board on the conservation restriction effort which will be going out to the state shortly I think by the end of this month uh once it's reviewed by new our new Town Council uh and then probably within six months or so we'll get the formal blessing of the State uh and and again with the harmony of the neighbors and the community you know there's really no question this is a will be and continue to be a conservation property so if you go to the map you'll see the first one is to is to convey the you know roughly 54 Acres as outlined in the green you know to formally to the Conservation Commission uh but as they said they've they've been managing it uh since the town's acquisition you then go to the next page and now we get into the tax positioned ones this one here and and I've I've used the elepant to sort of Orient you that's off of Park um there is a chancelor country club and parcel you you see you've got parcel um 117 4491 the yellow outline that's a23 acre parcel that was foreclosed upon in back in 2013 um we carry it in the books as a standard assessor value of roughly $23,000 uh it's all wet it's of no value to anything uh the adjoining one which is the larger one which is 1174 49-2 is actually 3.95 Acres but you can see that's that's soaking wet as well and that was actually acquired in 1995 when the town purchased the uh Golf Course um but obviously it's not part of the golf course will never be part of the golf course so the request is to just transfer it over to the Conservation Commission that be a water trap what's that that be a water trap no no um so it's close to F but not it's yeah it's not it's not so couldn't we move the first hole there just a thought yeah uh moving on to the next map is um a couple Parcels off of Beaver Brook uh again um 1405 D2 the larger parcel you see outlined in the green that's actually 3.48 Acres again acquired by tax possession back in 2010 um and it has a value again assess value of $28,500 what often happens with these is these are originally part of larger subdivisions you can see what goes on behind there and then the entity that does the subdivision sort of holds on to it because it's they're not going to sell it to anybody uh and then basically eventually they just walk away from it stop paying the taxes and so forth the homeowners around there aren't impacted at all and it becomes a tax possession of the Town similarly the one next to it um 108 45-3 um same same again acquired the same taking in 2010 by the town that one's 1.15 Acres it's smaller although it has the same rough value of $25,600 you can see the consensus of how the assessors value wet properties in the town backlands and even those with Frontage um so basically the the effort here is to transfer it to conservation and then the last one is this little triangle um as you can see 91 378-4024 drainage from the highway that's also valued at $22,500 under rss's database um and again was acquired in 2001 this was the uh acquired from Spiro vua so you remember the old again if it had any value it would have been incorporated into something else um particularly the adjoining parcel um it it doesn't the town's property Acquisitions are on the other side of the highway again as part of the coolest farm and also the coolest one if you went further to the right uh that's coolest as well uh if if you were going up there because again by 495 so again what it does is it basically just gets it off of the the finance director treasure as a foreclosure and then formally transfer to the commission uh along with the other wet properties that are out there so that's what's um taking place under this article again um it it it it the nice part about doing all these things is all these little slivers and acres and so forth then the commission can broadly boast that they've increased the uh our our our conservation land acreage is now over well over a thousand acres of conservation land in the town so again there's no harm in doing it they're of no value to a Butters you know it it doesn't you can't basically say well why not sell it to somebody next door you know we occasionally do that and and John has that and we've come to the select board when there are actually properties that are value to you know particularly dry ones that are value to a property uh and we'll do that in fact I had a request come in the other day that that John and I will be working on and and maybe going to the select board and ultimately town meeting um you know it's but this one was a dry one and then again the request comes from the immediate neighbors so when John does foreclose on buyers of property we generally put them out um and um and and notify the immediate neighbors because that's usually the one who has value although as you may have read this this past legislative session because of the concerns the uh Nationwide concerns result of the Supreme Court rulings that you know that the towns in in our states or towns in this case our counties um don't have the right to take all the equity out of someone for a tax foreclosure uh we are under new constraints by that where if a town does take a property in the future um we basically can only recover the value of taxes that are Ed to the town plus the cost of doing that and then the town basically has to provide the funding back to the rightful Heirs of that property and if they and ultimately if those can't be identified or don't exist or don't come forward and then actually goes to the state as part of their Surplus thing so uh and then you John could probably come up here and give you a long discussion and we'll spear that for for his sake and for yours of of of the the um I guess Bureau bureaucratic process that that's going to go through to do that because we have to go through Brokers there like a 9mon wait it's just it's it's uh it's it's going to be an effort ongoing but in this case we don't have that to deal with these are T long-standing tax possessions and and um it's been a few years since we've come forward with these uh but but we're back now with a few more so thank you for your consideration under that article thank you and then the final article is the street acceptance and that's why that's why I told you that our Public Works director wasn't done yet um because a highway is working on Parker Road and believe it or not in their work they discovered that a portion of Parker Road hasn't been accepted by the town um so um and I will will in all seriousness we have a very effective and and and I'm very proud and very professional engineering division at Public Works and and Christine you deserves to credit for the people that she's brought on board that and I'm going to ask her to come up here explain what what's what's being requested and and how this came about because as you've notice they've been out there working on Parkers putting sidewalks in and resurfacing thank you so yes we are working on parkk road um and we're looking at the funding we realized we couldn't utilize chapter 90 funds because chapter 90 funds can only be used in town accepted roads um it is defined as Town layout so it's still owned by the town but we do not have a um actual Street acceptance plan on file which that's usually you know passed at town meeting um and then held in the clerk's office so I would kind of call it I would call us more administrative um because it is Town layout is unaccepted and so we went through the process of um hiring a surveyor to put together a street acceptance plan which is before um we before you and before will become uh before town meeting um so we have these plans we also have a whole description drafted up um in terms of the accept it really is it's we say A Part portion of but it is a large portion if you go back to the first one it's um between between North Road and Drum Hill Road so the section that we're not accepting is State layout over rout three um the first section is between North Road uh or the first section is about 1,800 linear feet in the second second section um to connecting to um Drum Hill is uh 1500 ft so just overall 664 miles we would not be accepting the this section that passes over route three um this the the width does vary between between 4 and 55 ft we're not proposing to change anything it's just really just more administratively accepting having accepting plan acceptance plans for the street layout um the benefit of this is this will then go into our chapter 90 formula when they do look to allocate money um so hopefully you know more funds so what section are we accepting like it's really I mean it says a portion but it's the ENT it's two sections so it's the section between Drum Hill and Route three and North Road and Route three so it's really the entire section between Drum Hill and and North sorry is that whole Road the whole the whole Road except the section that goes underneath route three okay no I just that's why I was I want to make sure I heard that that that is correct all of Parkers was never accepted it was laid out but never accepted but we don't accept those portions underneath route three yeah yeah okay I just there I mean travel Road there are streets like so we're going through all of our records to make sure that we have acceptance plans and files and in this we never had I we had a town layout plan but there was never a street acceptance so this would I would um call us more administrative as part of the process we do have to do a street layout um public hearing at select board so we doing that soon uh but it's it's really an unaccepted way that we're proposing to be public it's not a private road going for you know that's different it's legally laid out so it it met all the statutory requirements to be laid out as a road but the town has to make that final step of accepting it so that it can count towards chapter 90 yes thank you are there any questions about this when was when was it laid out just curious so there's two layouts on here and I believe oh god um I have it right here I think there's some well there's actually that's there was a bit of a research project to this because there were two layout plans I think there was a plan um I want to say it was 1940 State Highway had did so the state highway when they did that they was a 1940 layout and 1938 County alteration North Road plan I want to say there was another year I believe it was 1938 there was a later plan is in 1932 westr Rog County Baseline so there's various plans I mean this we this is so everybody in this room was like not like grown up at the time to make a decision so we're good this was so this was really a research project for a license surveyor to basically put this together to to be able to put together Street acceptance plan of the previous Town layout plans or County layout plans that were prepared or state layout plans prepared so did we find did we find this out or did you apply to the Grant and they found that out we we so we have a list um through our pavement management database program we have a long list of all of our inventory all of our streets and it's listed as uh unaccepted accepted or private and this came up as unaccepted so we do have this noted and we knew we had to do it we but we we knew we had to do a street acceptance but we also we planned Capital funds for it so we can it was still Town property just wasn't something chapter 90 that eligible will we lose the grant is there enough time to so this so we we've we the the work that's being done right now is paid under the capital see so um so it doesn't really the grant is no no it's okay yeah and we don't when we we get the money each year it's a reimbursement so we don't pre-plan how we're going to we have a a list but we actually propose reimbursement based on the actual money spent so we look through each year each month in the paving season to see what what streets were done making sure that lines up with the uh what the state has accepted um there's a reimbursement process okay all right any other questions thank you thank you okay next our agenda is discussion of future meetings invitations to article proponents and interested parties and timeline for the finance committee warrant book production so um we have two planned meetings next Thursday and the following Thursday uh next Thursday we will have the fire station study committee um Virginia we be we'll be presenting that uh their their pres presentation on their warrant article um I'll reach out to David hon and see if he he wants to present uh next week as well and I'll also reach out to Paul razio to see if he wants to present then or the following week um I've reached out to Mary Donovan she's going to be coming in uh on the our final week uh the following Thursday uh to give her presentation regarding the pet cemetery Warren article uh she requested that evening I said there's no problem with that uh we'll also plan for that evening to do our voting on all on all the Articles so we'll have that presentation any other presentation whether it be David hen or pazio on theirs and then we'll go straight into our our voting on recommendations for the for the warrant articles that way that'll give us some time uh I know Pam circulated the uh schedule to give us some time to get the U votes in the warrant put together and to get that off to the printers so that it's published in time for uh the the uh the pre-own meeting event uh at and I think that'll again be at the we're holding those now all at the senior center no no okay sorry normally we'll be at the senior center uh but because they're doing an HVAC project at the senior center um we'll that we we will be doing the information session at the Northtown Hall once again okay but I'm assured by facilities DPW that we will be able to have town meeting at the senior center on the 21st that be ER that would be helpful because we had that one covid year in the chelsford gym and that that was that was tough that was awesome that the high school gym was not was not fantastic um okay perfect so that gives us our timeline and what we're looking forward uh to in the next couple weeks uh another opportunity for public comment seeing none and seeing no one in the in the zoom room um no press I I you know one of these days I'm going to take that off we had we we had a period of time where we had a we had a reporter in the in the in the uh audience always that had questions and that hasn't happened in quite a few years so uh I will entertain a motion to adjourn make make a motion to adjourn I all in favor I all right see everybody next week is there a