##VIDEO ID:yLs0wP5UAuQ## e e good evening it being 6 o' I'll call to order this uh November 4th 2024 meeting of the uh chanc select board and and notify everybody that the chanc tele media is broadcasting it live and and taping it for later rebroadcast and if you uh would join me in a pledge of allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the repu for it stands nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay we uh first Public Service Announcement uh this evening uh Regina Jackson is here to receive the Proclamation for Veterans Day so Aaron if you want to read the proclamation town of chelsford proclamation for Veterans Day Monday November 11th 2024 whereas November 11th was the day on which the Armistice ending World War II World War I was signed and whereas this day has been set aside to commemorate the men and women of the United States who have honorably served our nation in the armed forces and whereas on Veterans Day 2024 we offer our support to those veterans who suffer illnesses and diet disabilities resulting from their service and whereas there are approximately 3,000 veterans living in the town of chelsford now therefore we the chelsford select board do hereby recognize Monday November 11th 2024 as Veterans Day and on this day urge the residents of chelsford to remember the personal contributions of all veterans in their community and nation and to demonstrate their respect and gratitude in appropriate ways are you thank you app it thank you so much um just want to tell everybody that Veterans Day is next Monday November 11th and we will have our chel Veterans Day observance at uh cheler Veterans Memorial Park which is the park beside McCarthy Middle School everybody's welcome 11:00 a.m. 1111 at 11 and if you have any questions please just uh give me a call um it'll be a beautiful day great weather um they uh there's no school so no problems parking and please if you have the opportunity to bring your children thank you so much thank you okay next up uh Harrison mayot will tell us about the election good evening everyone my name is Harrison mayot departmental support coordinator for the town clerk's office here to provide a quick update regarding tomorrow's general election in person voting ended and we had 438 voters the polls will be open tomorrow from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and you can verify your voter or your polling location at vote and.com sample ballots are accessible on the town's website and on at all of the polling locations and at the uh town clerk's office and the town office building approximately 9,700 vote by mail ballots have gone out to date and we are waiting for approximately 1,400 B back it is important that you return them as soon as possible completed mail and ballots can be either be dropped off to the dropbox at the front of town offices hand delivered to the town clerk's office by 8:00 p.m. on Election night or mailed if you are returning your ballot by mail domestically it must be postmarked on or before November 5th and arrive in our office by November 8th if you are returning your ballot by mail internationally it must be postmarked honor before November 5th and arrive by November 15th thank you for your attention and if you have any questions please contact our office thank you okay we have some more public service announcements first we have an announcement from the chumford annual holiday Prelude and tree lighting um event uh this will be held on December 1st from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and the holiday decorated communicate is looking for help um on the first from 2: to 7: to set up and take down for the event and to help with activities um if you would like to volunteer to help with the event you can contact Vivian Merill at 978 973 9596 or at SQ EK R s601 yahoo.com we have another Announcement by from the chelsford health department regarding their free and home flu vaccines for homebound residents if you or your loved one finds it difficult to leave the house to get their flu shot you can call the chumford health department to schedule an inhome vaccination and they can be reached at 978 25 5241 also from the chumford health department uh we have an announcement regarding their walk-in flu Clinic which is held every Wednesday October 2nd through December 18th from 2: p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the health department at 50 Billa Road um the the clinic is open to anyone 19 years and older and high doses are available for those 65 years and older for more information you can call the Chumps sword health department at 978 4 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. the cost is $20 and it is open to chelsford residents only and participants who complete the training will obtain an American Heart Association heart saers CPR AED first aid certificate that is valid for 2 years for more information you can contact the chumford health [Applause] department and next up we have an announcement from the chumford Center for the Arts regarding their karaoke sober Edition every second Friday of the month admission is free mocktails are available for purchase and snacks um again it's the every second Friday of the month from 7:00 p.m. to 10: p.m. at the chumford Center for the Arts in the Cabaret room and lastly for me we have a notification from the chumford DPW they are still seeking contractors for snowplowing for the 2024 to 2025 winter season they have extended the deadline uh all completed application packages are now due Friday November 15th and the town of chumford is offering a $1,500 incentive payment for each vehicle or piece of equipment registered with the town uh and for an application you can visit www. chelsford ma.gov and then Virginia has a couple of announcements so one of the question question six on the ballot tomorrow will be regarding the proposed fire station reconstruction projects for uh the West station on Old Westford Road and the South Station on Acton Road uh the uh question would fund construction of the stations that are aging are presenting health and safety issues for our firefighters um and also taking into account considerations with Public Safety there is a website if you have any additional questions and and if you um have other questions that you need answered you're welcome to call either Chief Ryan's office at the fire department or the town manager's office directly uh the next announcement is for the chelsford Strategic plan uh again there is a social pinpoint uh survey uh the website is on the flyer or you can scan the QR code the survey is going to close firmly on November 8th so if you haven't had chance to uh weigh in with your own Community input uh we're encouraging you to please answer the survey questions um and there's also a section where you can provide open-ended input thank you okay thank you okay that brings us to our public input session section of the agenda is there anybody that would like to address the board on any Topic at this time okay apparently not and no on Z okay thank you we'll go then to committee vacancies the following committees have vacancies as of November 4th 2024 the CCA Town Hall advisory committee the center Village master plan implementation committee the clean energy and sustainability committee the commission on disabilities the Community Action Program committee the Council on Aging board the Conservation Commission the cultural Council the diversity equity and inclusion committee the historic district Commission the holiday decorating committee the parade committee the Personnel Board the public records advisory committee and the recycling committee if you are interested in serving on a Town border committee please complete an online application on the town website or you can contact the town manager's office for more information and I just want to remind the the public too that we do have an opening on the the planning board that will be filled at our next meeting on November 18th if you want to apply for that um you can go through the same process as for another committee application or just submit a letter to the uh time manager's office or just show up on November 18th okay we'll go to public hearings and the first public hearing is a continued public hearing from for National Grid for a poll and and Verizon for a poll petition I know we have at least one person here to speak we have one online Ryan langoy one on the zoom and he can turn his camera on when he speaks you'll see him okay okay good evening Ryan hello you want tell us a little bit about this so good evening uh ladies and gentlemen of the select board I'm here to represent National Grid my name is Alec Birdsong um in the matter well I'm here to represent National Grid in the matter of um installing a midspan pole between 52 and 53 uh pole 52 and pole 53 on Princeton Street okay and uh the other gentleman here I don't know your name so if you want to tell us hello everyone I'm Ryan LZ and I am also here representing National Grid as the designer on that uh the midspan pole that's going to be hopefully placed between poll 52 and 53 with your approval okay anybody have any questions why do you need to do this uh we are looking to install a capacitor bank at that location to better Monitor and regulate that area's um voltage on the feeder I have one more question um the town Engineers letter in the packet it's um I guess it's not clear to me there's a statement about the proposed location is within any existing sidewalk the new poll should be installed to conform to all current ADA requirements for passing zones are you planning I think there might be a word missing from that sentence are you planning to install the pole in the sidewalk area or are you clearing the sidewalk you will be in the sidewalk yes so how do you address safe passage on the sidewalk if you're putting a pole in the middle of the sidewalk oh not in the middle I'm sorry it's going to be on the edge of the road at the edge of the sidewalk at the edge of the road it is going to conform to the uh the passing so it's not it's going allow people to pass it's not yes I'm sorry it's not in the sidewalk at all I yes it is on the sidewalk at the edge of the road I'm sorry I don't know if the sketch shows I can't tell from the that's why I'm asking I don't understand where it physically is it is going to be on the edge of the road at the edge of the sidewalk I'm sorry so I think so I just I'm sorry I'm still when you say at the edge of the road at the edge of the sidewalk does that mean at the edge on the outside of the sidewalk or in the sidewalk at the edge can I say something absolutely so it's going to be in line with all the other poles that are on the sidewalk as well okay so will meet the same clearances the Ada clearances that all the other poles meet on the road is there a map visual of this anywhere I don't think so just that sketch PL and it's one it's one additional pole the other two that are in the drawing are already there correct so is this real vinyl square because you have middle sex Street and you have pron Street and it almost looks like you you can't tell if this is on middle SEC Street or Princeton Street it's it's on middle it's on Princeton Street I went to visit it this today okay yeah so I Vis it is on Princeton Street I think that the address maybe he maybe the address is middlex Street on the other side but it is on Princeton Street and it is marked on the road I mean in the sidewalk I'm sorry what what was the purpose again you said you're putting what on the poll something to monitor a it's a box a Capac yes a capacitor Bank do you normally it's going to allow that I'm sorry do you always add new polls to put these on is there can they not go on existing polls for some reason or is there no we were given a no no worries we were given I think we were given poll 52 but as it turned out we couldn't install it at poll 52 due to an issue with um the corn on the pole so how the wires the angle that the wires are going was not going to be um good enough it was I think the angle was over 30 degrees and in turn we couldn't install a guy wire across the street pole with the guy wire across the street to stabilize that um due to the fact that it was someone's property I believe any other questions does that clear it up sure do they normally go on but they do they do you normally put them on existing polls if you can yeah yes we we never opt to put a mid span Po in unless we have to just wondering if we could see the street view on the map system so what will that leave um for the distance between say 52 5250 and 53 is is it going to be a very small dist between those or I mean you you know I usually I know usually the distance is about 100 ft is it what's the distance going to be between these poles now um we can have smaller distances but they weren't extremely close together if that's your question I mean 100 125 ft is usually very long for a span so um there's more than ample space there for a pole so that's poll 53 and the other one is pole 52 heading down towards the bridge M so that's where you are that's why you got the middle sex street because the other side of the property there is middlex Street and what's AC can you look at across what's across the street it back this there's the mill and basically it's going to be a mid right around here that's not 53 Princeton Street yeah it is oh it's across the street from it right right okay and there's no sidewalk on the other side of the street so there's no there's no buffer from personal property is that you can see the sidewalk there on the other on the sidewalk and it goes in Oh and it sidewalks on both sides and is that existing is that existing pole the way it's configured is that ADA Compliant or is that grandfather out of compliance somehow I know you said you're going to put it in exactly the same way the other ones are but I just don't know what the current ADA compliance well we're required to meet the standards when we when we install a new poll period so um that should be adequate space but we can always measure it again if you really would like to do that what's across the street pul what is the wire oh so there's polls over there already no there is no so so the there's wires the property Street the property to the right of the yellow building where Paul was that's 53 Princeton and that's I think that's where you're proposing across the street is the new pole no it's on the it's on that side no that's what I'm saying across the street so it's where the businesses are it's not where the residential building is okay ises that answer everybody's questions or yeah I mean I'm okay with it as long as it maintains the ADA compliance okay sounds like they have to do that yeah that a do Road Paul for instance yes through Route 3A so you have to get DOT compliance for that as well uh if it's a state road then yes so the they have they looked at it I I'm only here for this part of the project so I can't really answer the qu that question I know that they can take additional time to go through thank you to answer that question I believe I did not find it to be a state road when using um the uh shaps um excuse me the shaps um website which is the dot website okay but we have a letter from our DPW engineer that says this section of Princeton's stre is owned and maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation I'm sorry maybe I'm mistaken I would I will check right now it references Mass do District 4 oh you would be correct that is on that is that is and I'm currently pursuing a permit or permits for the jum spr area so okay so that that has not been done yet you still have to do that correct yes correct okay okay any other questions anyone has your question been answered okay this is a public hearing is there anybody in the audience here that has any comments or questions about this application okay if not is anybody on anybody else on Zoom no okay we have a motion do do we need to make it contingent on the Ada in coordination with the mass do or is that a given I think think that's a given a given okay thank you got to close the public hearing you can just no just mention the number petition number yeah close the public hearing first oh I'll make a motion to close the public hearing second okay a motion in a second all in favor I and I will make a motion to approve the poll petition for Princeton Street number 3100 9470 as presented second faor a motion and a second all in favor thank you okay thank you very much for coming thank you for the time thank you have a good night thank you your time okay um we have another public hearing for um either an inflammable or flammable storage license depending on what we have here um for 255 uh Princeton Street we have somebody here for this one yeah and Madam chair um we are joined online by Town Council U Brian Riley and also um Christina Bruce is who is who facilitated us applications also online if the board should need either of their services for this item or the next item okay hello everybody okay if you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about why you need this sure my name is Brian Sora the director of operations for Deo gas and I'm also joined here uh by kosha Gandhi with TCR so uh the reason for the permit or the application I should say for 255 Princeton Street as I'm sure you all are probably aware um there is a development being built out there with which the permanent fuel source there will be electricity through heat pumps and everything it will be an electric system however for the interim of the build as we go into the winter um we are requesting for additional propane storage for temporary heating purposes for the for the winter months here for the construction of the buildings themselves um the winter time generally carries of and with open windows and systems not being complete inside the building usually calls for a greater demand BTU heating system uh with which propane is generally the the best way to go it's a large the lowest carbon emitter for any of the the combustible fuel s there on site so um you normally allowed 2,000 Gall capacity excuse me for um going ahead without an application for flamable storage beyond that so we're ideally looking for a capacity greater than the 2,000 gallons which is why we're here um we had the opportunity to walk the site with uh Chief Fire Chief Ryan as well earlier today he's here as well to help answer any questions but long story short we are looking to provide propane storage and Propane fuel for the temporary heating of the construction of these buildings at 255 Princeton for these winter months and so I'm happy to answer any questions that uh the board may have or any members of the public have and I'm not sure if there was anything you wanted to add to that beforehand but um that's a skinny on that okay does anybody on the board have any questions I do um so in in administering temporary heat for your facilities um is that a u a purchase service in as much as are you renting these tanks and heating equipment and there's another company that's going to be um M providing maintenance to the heating equipment Etc or is this within your own group uh yes sir uh this will all be done by Deo gas so we will install propane tanks there as well as running the fuel line as well and then delivering the propane any propane that's needed from there the tank and piping equipment for the temporary heat setups will be uh own ownership will be retained by us uh it's it's propane tanks are asme certified they're built to last you know the life of homes as are installed and they're pretty expensive equipment so this is something that we do each winter um depending on projects that pop up through the state so um we definitely will retain ownership of that take that all back in the spring once the you know the heat is no longer required and that's equipment that we can use for future installs at different towns at different times thank you mhm sounds sounds good to it sounds fine to me but I'd like just to hear the police chief's opinion I mean fire chief you mean Fire Chief Fire Chief I'm sorry yeah I was going to ask him to come up but thanks sorry good evening board members I've been out there um the use of propane is customer re for commercial residential um why it's before you is because they're proceeding very quickly on this project so typically in the past can Lo other projects that we've worked on it's been below the 2,000 gallons so we permit it but because of the rapid pace of the build that's why they need a little more okay so we're fine with you're okay with it yeah we are thank you thank okay question Viria go ahead so from the drawings you're looking at four tanks uh yes Miss for building three which is the most immediate need uh four tanks is what we are looking to do we've added um in theory some tanks if in the case building to were to need it down the road where our assumption right now is building two won't be ready for any sort of heating by that time so it's it's not likely but we always we figured we'd come in front of the board for all potential um require or needs for propane tanks but yes if you look at the drawings uh it would be two sets of two 1,000g tanks which that in itself would would go above the 2,000 okay so I'm just looking the red boxes does that represent four tanks or eight it could be as many as eight depending on how the timeline goes in a perfect world three could wrap up and then we take those tanks and provide them at another location all again all of which would be um within the uh inspector's approval 25 ft from building when I see the parking areas that that's the edge of the parking areas for your development it's not the edge of the neighboring so how how far in are you off the edge of your property because you're at a higher elevation than the neighboring communities yes so so we do have uh legal requirements both state federal uh National Fire Prevention it it's we need to be at least 25 ft from a property line as well as 25 ft from the building so at the very least that um kha may know a little bit better as to the property line but so we might be we are well into the property this is probably 200 ft inside our property I'm sorry probably what probably 200 ft inside our property property yeah and I don't know if this is a question for the chief or or um the applicant but how do they um do they typically require um like if there's a leak in the tank is there is there some kind of a a built-in con containment so that you so that you don't have um if there's a leak it's not like going down into the surrounding neighborhoods so so that's a very good question to ask so generally with propane where it does differ from say oil systems you generally don't have a containment system because propane is naturally non-toxic it's it's best to let it dissipate into the air does it evaporate if it does yes yep so um in these types of situations I mean one thing we do with any and all of our systems is once we complete the installation we need to do proper this is part of the inspection process anyways but we will make sure that everything is sealed up um in terms there's no pressure loss or anything like that before beginning systems and then when we go make deliveries we're always checking uh at that time as well making sure that there's been no leaks that have been created in the meantime so leak mitigation is definitely one of our highest priorities for what it's worth propane tanks are federally certified to withstand nuclear blasts so they've done a good job in terms of the the setups of propane tanks these tanks are certified for life and then these will also have adequate crash protection around them as well to you know again preventatively just make sure that nothing that causes leaks as well thank you m okay any other questions uh this is a public hearing is there anybody in the audience that would like to has a comment okay let Susan go first thank you I'm Susan Tanner I reside at 27 St Andrews Way I Am the um at The Village at metalwood I'm the president and of the Board Association board on October 27th at after receiving the certified mail announcement from the gas company I um forwarded an email I'm sorry it's an email to all the members in our community the 71 households advising them first of all the public hearing its purpose and intent and then to give them the opportunity to um if they had any questions or further concerns they were they could um addressed have them addressed by me I would reach out to Mark baransky or um treml Co um apart from one response that that just said hey it's a common practice why are you even telling us this um there were no other comments there are two other residents from our community here at the um tonight and they might have individual questions that they want to ask or address um but from my perspective um the community um is in support of this they understand the need and um are in support okay thank you thank you thank you okay and gentleman there in the second row my name is Kenneth Kinross I live at 8 St Andrews Way in the same of development and I've worked around uh tanks for refueling Automobiles and trucks with Pro propane tanks and the the thing about propane is it goes down it doesn't go up into the air it goes down and it follows things so if there's a spark like a drain or something and something's leaking slightly and there's a spark in the drain it's going to blow up the drain I've seen that happen I came from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh Press was the newspaper there and they ran propane trucks and delivery trucks and great big trucks and they had a leak and they weren't aware of it and they weren't monitoring it very well and it blew up part of the uh parking lot where the trucks were parked they lost several trucks there at the same time so my question is they're talking about the the propane dissipates yeah the propane dissipates and it dissipates down well guess what's down there metalwood is down that hill so my question is are they going to monitor that area or are they just going to say Well it dissipates what might dissipate into my basement because I'm not very far from there okay we'll ask him that question you have any other questions that's all okay do you want to address that question absolutely through the chair so uh propane the they call it specific gravity to make a long story short propane is heavier than air when it first is distributed so we certainly correct that in theory um that that's a part of the reason and chief could probably attest to it too where when you're looking to install a tank off the side of a house you need to have proper distances from a basement window or openings to a home those in those situations it's 3 to 5 feet depending on the the municipality or the authority having jurisdiction so at home residential propane tanks the distance would be 3 to 5 feet we're certainly well north of that in terms of distances um from the residences um as as galad said um there it's also something worth noting as well in terms of combusting propane itself it's not something that is just as easy as string can match next to it you need to have the specific gas to air ratio in order to allow for a combustion of the gas with propane just for raw numbers it's about 2 to 9% with some decb there so um meaning to say if there's less than 1% of propane in the air if you were to light a match it's not going to explode if it was over 9% it's not going to either so it has one of the more restrictive um gas to air ratios than other fuels like natural gas and in terms of say temporary heating uh uh fuel sources that you could use in spite like despite propane so their next alternative would be diesel for example diesel while it's not an explosive per se it's definitely a lot dirtier of a fuel if there was any sort of leak that's when you need to worry about containment and certain things like that and for what it's worth it's it's a higher um greenhouse gas emitter um much more so I want to say close to closer to 20% north than propane so um certainly understand uh the gentleman's concern on that and yes it's one thing that we also do in terms of making sure that there's you know proper leak mitigation techniques in place we do install tank monitors on our propane tank setups so should there be an uncontrolled release where there is a leak of gas it is something that we would be notified and we would be notified the moment it happened so um myself as well as the as well as the two owners we get email alerts at all times of the night if God forbid something like that happened in our 35 years in existence we haven't had any explosion on any of our propane tank sites um we have over north of 12,000 customers you know serviceing Connecticut New Hampshire Massachusetts but no less we defitely take it serious and and he's absolutely right to be asking questions like these you know the thing we say with propane is it's a very safe fuel as long as you're being with responsible with with your practices and your installation so um it it certainly would be something that we take first and foremost in terms of priority of safety and making sure that we have a closed system and no leaks in place I hope that answer the question I know um I I was going to ask Chief Ryan if he had anything to add to that thank you the only thing I would that is that um I think we're on the site quite a bit I not just us the fire department but also the plumbing inspector so I think if there's an issue um certainly we'll have an opportunity to discuss it with them to address it um but we're on that property quite a bit so I feel confident that this product will work okay the system that we use and you feel like the safeguards they have in place are going to be sufficient okay um f do you have anything you may have answer part of my question Chief from from the applicants perspective or the or the town's perspective you um sir you mentioned the automatic monitoring system and you get alerted well are there any um manual inspections that go on while you're on site or you know are you physically checking the scene and not waiting for some automatic sensor to go off yeah absolutely so um before any sort of um start of service we do need to make sure that we have a closed system meaning we'll put on a test to make sure that um if we put air in there or we could use propane as a fuel source to check that pressure doesn't drop a pressure drop would signify that gas is escaping somewhere along the line and we would need to seal that up that that's actually part of the generally the gas inspection process so we would need to make sure that that is performed prior to any service taking place um from there it is a situation where anytime you have an interruption in service that is actually going to be a cause for Less safe uh situations because now you need to resume it and you need to stop check everything so generally speaking once a propane system is going it's not something you want to be shutting down and turn back on though it sounds like that would be the safer practice you're allowing for issues to happen maybe an igniter doesn't work which is something you need not my question sir yep I'm I'm just I'm I'm planning to answer I just want to kind of explain the reason why we won't just shut it down every time we're there but what we do is anytime we make a delivery we we do what's called a soap test so soap is sprayed along the lines to make and at the gas valves at the service valve of the tank to make to make sure that there's no leaks happening that would bubble um indicating that there is a leak there so we do that generally speaking though just all I was meaning to say was that um it's you don't want to intentionally cause interruptions in service because that's what can cause unsafe situations so we try to do anything we can that involves not shutting off the system so the soap test would be a part of that as well thank you okay uh this is still an open public hearing if you'd like to come up and to the microphone and make a comment my name's Ed Duffin I live at 270 Princeton Street and I'm here once again I live right across the street from this project unfortunately and I never got a notice that there was even a meeting somebody somebody else had to tell me that there was a meeting here tonight about this my problem with this whole thing is that right right at the end now now we know we have to have propane tanks well this project is so big that they probably knew somewhere along the line when they were building that they would be having to heat these buildings during the winter time because they have so many buildings going I think they have four or five they knew somewhere along the line they were going to need heat to heat these buildings why initially didn't they come up with a plan to propose the possibility of having propane tanks installed later if they need them during the heating system I mean they're putting it up now it's just going to get ped you know I you know I know the way the place this whole place works it's going to get pass you're not going to turn turn them down for propane lot of other projects that build houses and complexes that don't use propane they bring in space heaters or whatever but I don't see why all of a sudden now it's a big issue when they should have came down in the building plans of the possibility of putting in propane tanks a long time ago when they got to this point because they knew they were going to have cold weather and they knew some of those buildings were not going to be done in time I don't know why they did that okay should notifi us we'll we'll see if they can address your your concerns yeah um and I appreciate the question from Mr Duffin uh so uh I can't speak to other projects that have gone on I do know that as Chief had mentioned a lot of times if there is a setup that's requiring less than 2,000 gallons it just won't come in front of the board it would just go straight to inspection so um again without specific projects to look at to give any sort of reference to I'd imagine that is a part of it as well as there being the alternative sources for temporary heating that being diesel again however diesel is a much dirtier Fuel and that does allow for a higher carbon emitter to be used in diesel fuel for that and I believe and I'm not a Authority on this but Chief you may um I'm not sure if there's anything any sort of special fuels for diesel if it goes beyond 2000 or it may just be diesel is one I'm not if it goes beyond yeah like you said if it goes beyond 2,000 gallons you know that so typically in town propane is used propane is used on Residential Properties propane is used of the kinlock we've used it quite a bit it's just this is a little different because it's the rapid pace of construction that's going on but um as he addressed if we don't use propane beyond the two then he's going to come back with something like diesel within a permanent amount so then you'll have mixed fuels and my understanding is this is just temporary for several months is that correct that's correct in the license it says till June okay go ahead um so we're going to cover this winter is construction slated to go beyond uh go into another winter with other buildings um I allow point I would assume you'd come back for a similar permit at this time we not anticipating going uh to the next winter with the propane uh not anticipate no we don't anticipate going there yeah and and in fact through the chair um we're moving at such a fast pace on site that we did have um as part of the application to some smaller 120 gallon tanks for the town hous that were being buildt it's still there in the off chance that there's any sort of small delay or God forbid a cold snap com in two days or so but it would seem as though we're not going to need any propane over in that area because of the rapid Pace with which it's being built so um we're doing everything we can tcrs as well as us in terms of making sure that all that we're using this propane for both in time and gallons spent there um are as minimal as possible and going as as quick as possible through this Pro process okay thank you okay is there anybody else here that would like to uh address this um application hi my name is Linda D I live at 217 Princeton Street and I'm also about this is developments going in my backyard um I've been in construction worked in construction for like over 40 years I've never dealt with something like this I've called a few of my job supervisors and they're like pretty surprised about this I feel like us neighbors are getting almost punished for them going so fast it's not our fault they're going so fast and I've worked through the winter in these buildings and stuff not their buildings but and it's cold and we have heat and um not heat in the buildings but we provide heat we and I I just I'm I'm against this I'm the neighbors have put up with so much on this development and this is just one more thing they should have thought of this before and put in something before and now it I just feel like they're being sneaky about this and you can be you can protect it all you want and look in this and do your little bubble test and everything um things could still happen and I'm sure diesel is more expensive than the propane and that's why they don't want to go that route um I don't know I'm trying to think of everything I wanted to say here but I'm just you know there's a lot of neighbors living really like meadowwoods really close and I'm so glad that this gentleman brought that up because I didn't hear this gentleman I'm sorry I forgot your name that's okay I'm Brian Brian I didn't hear Brian bring it up that you know one of the things that the the propane goes down he kind of said dissipates into the air so I'm I'm so glad that you brought that up you know I just feel like there's little things that are always hidden from us um every time I come to this these boards for different things if you don't get all your eyes and your tees dted and crossed it you you lose out and I'm I'm tired of losing out for one um you know I know with my own gas grill if that that thing is leaking or on and I didn't shut it off and I go to start it there's an explosion I can't even imagine if there's a leak on these huge tanks um I just don't like the idea they should have thought of this before I feel like they're they're sneaking in on us they and you know I know it's cold out there I've worked in the cold myself out in this construction field but there's other ways to do this instead of putting all these tanks in everywhere okay thank you thank you does anybody else have any comments can I ask a question sure can I ask another question on a job that was under the 2,000 gallon level where it's just permitted would you would the propane normally be stored in a, gallon tank like these or would it be stored in smaller tanks it so it's it's advantageous to have two tanks so like say 2,000 Gall worth of capacity it'd be advantageous to have there be two 1,000 gallon tanks versus say 1 2,000 gallon tank just to uh surface ratio of the tanks to the air and these you're going to be using thousand gallon tanks that's correct so the size of the tanks that you're using is the typical size that are used on even smaller projects certainly for this um it's more a level of the K or the BTU load of the heaters himself so um each tank size has a certain B2 load with which it can handle in terms of um combusting quickly enough so if you draw say for example um you know um a generator or something if the burn rate is too fast for say one tank the gas won't leave the tank quick enough to keep up with that BTU load the demand for it so it can actually freeze the gas that's inside the tank so by having the larger capacity tanks that makes sure that it will adequately keep up with the BTU load and the more surface area you have in terms of the tank around the air the more it will keep the temperature um at a better way for it to to for it to uh release quicker I know that sounds wonky so the Thousand gon tanks are preferable it's certainly in this scale size for the um for the heaters that are being used yeah and that's all part of how we do that sizing it's it's part of NFPA um the National Fire Prevention uh it's they have different um you know certifications for lack of a better word in terms of or suggested sizes of propane tanks based on the BTU load just in their practices and experiments through the past okay PA Paul could you scroll to page nine of the application thank you and through the chair for what it's worth too the the larger the tank size the less deliveries we would need to make too so we're not you know backing in and yet another large from a storage perspective it's the same if you have a smaller job where you have a thousand gallon tank here and a thousand gallon tank here this is the same as having they're just more of them spread out so did you get your question yes yeah thank you so the first page of the application for the license the opening section is to list the combustible liquids solids and gases by product name class quantity and amount is it acceptable that this is blank so if you look so when we worked with the state they said um because it's a liquid propane if you go to page two it's a special category for LP gas and that's where it was supposed to be listed so per the state it was supposed to be listed under LP gas I asked the same question I I see it yeah right there can you have another question okay Pat do you have a question I all said okay GE okay do we have any other um questions on Zoom a say it again no I think he's just looking at nobody else on Zoom no some's raising their hand in oh if if you want to come back up to the microphone Duffin 270 Princeton so you're so so concerned about the tanks not leaking how many heaters are actually inside these buildings that are heating the rooms anybody know uh there's going to be two heaters set up for building three so these heaters could leak too if you have a if you have a leak in one of these heat is inside the building the building's gone well by then the gas is combusted so the gas would have already been combusted by that's what's generating the heat so there be to come to the microphone sir sorry I can't hear you I just need to the mic uh it's a good question so um the heater itself won't leak because by that time the propane has combusted that's what's created the Heat and it's the heat itself that's going into the building okay so how come all these homes and neighborhoods blow up because their propane tanks blow up so yeah yeah great question so those are furnaces and boilers that have been installed in the home for permanent fixtures these are temporary heaters that are outside and that's where that primary part is happening and then we're bringing the heat into the buildings but they can fail uh by fail I'm not sure if Nick could cause an explosion well you no I mean the explosion would be from an abundance of gas accumulating in leak scenario exactly exactly so you could have a leak inside the building and a Spock from somebody using handle that could generate explosions inside the building so the gas is all being stored external it's a little bit different than a permanent heat setup because again we have the in those situations you have heat the furnaces and the boilers and hot water heaters installed inside um so in terms of that but again to to that point if there was any leak that would all be fit diagnosed through the pressure checks that we do um prior to getting inspection those would would if something like that were occurring we would identify that through the pressure checks that we do I hope so thank you okay thank you uh so Paul you said there was nobody on Zoom no okay uh any other questions from the board okay any thoughts do we want to take a vote on this this evening or any more questions that we need I I'll I'll give a couple of thoughts on this um so well first if if you're going to give thoughts on it we have to close the hearing if we're not going to take any um testimony and then we can debate it okay so we ready to do that go ahead I I guess if your your qu your one of your questions though was do we decide tonight or is there more information we need and if there's more information we need then we would want to extend the public hearing not close it correct so that's what I'm saying but then we can't we can't debate it tonight if we don't close the public hearing we cannot debate it we cannot discuss it and until a public hearing is closed that's the way it works okay ask Tom Council he's on okay I I I guess the the one question I would have remaining then Is We I forgot Town Council was on if they have anything to add we ask Chief we can ask him Paul since he's here Brian um do you have anything to to add to the board um this evening for what you've heard uh well if if you can hear me all right yes um I would I would agree with the chair I mean the that's the point of the hearing is to uh receive information testimony documents Etc once you close the hearing and you're talking about um whether to Grant the application or not uh no new information is supposed to come in supposed to be based on what you got through the hearing my question wasn't procedural my question was is there anything that you want to add that we should be aware of in our approval or or disapproval for this license oh I see um uh no I think uh you know I think you've heard what you needed to hear um and I think the uh you know the chief filled in any gaps that there might have been okay thank you so um I'll take a motion to close and if we don't have enough votes to close public hearing then we won't close public hearing I'll make a motion to close the public hearing second okay we have a motion in a second to close the public hearing all in favor hi okay I zero okay now you can give your opinions so we'll start with you Pat Uh I'm happy to approve this um you know I'm in the business I understand the safety mechanisms that goes into it um I believe the heating equipment is probably going to sit outside and you're going to be ducting the heat into the building so it will protect the people inside the building um propane is much safer um than diesel fumes uh for work ERS and such um uh this is a common practice but for um the amount of of um tanks that'll be there um so I don't see this as an unsafe initiative um uh once schedules get developed um you know um this brings you to the point where you realize that you need so much gas to take care of um so much building space as you're um moving through the process so uh I have no problem with this and um I have no doubt that um um the powers that be will make sure that uh this is a safe uh initiative so okay anybody else Virginia no Aon George no I I think you know everybody always says some concern but uh rightly so but uh I think that the gentleman did a great presentation and I think the fire chief is comfortable with it so right and I I put a lot of stock in in the fire chief's yeah opinion too you know they're going to be out there and they're going to be monitoring it so and I think if we have the checks and balances between both the applicant and our own fire department in addition to fire your building department Plumbing inspectors electrical inspectors are constantly there and I'm sure if anybody gets any sniff of anything it's going to be bought up quickly so we'll take a motion I will make a motion to approve the application of chmf bth the thir Boston chelsford LLC for a license for storage of flammables combustibles or explosives on the premises at 255 Princeton Street as presented Madam Sher if you could amend that extend that motion just looking to include a June 30th 2025 expiration date I was going to ask that okay I just want to make sure because I'm just catching notes here from that basically it's that way you don't have to hold a revocation he if you if you Paul let's just I mean if you scroll to where it says the date I thought I saw June 30th 2025 at the end of page two temporary storage expires on June 30th 2025 okay wait on Chief Ryan signature okay see under go to yep keep going up right there under Chief fryan it's typed in temp storage of LP gas license expires on June just want to make sure your motion had that as well so we don't have to add it sure I'll make a motion to approve the application of chmf bth the third Boston chumford LLC for a license of storage of flammables combustibles or explosives on the premises at 255 Princeton Street to expire June 30th 2025 as presented second okay we have a motion in a second all in favor I 5 Z okay thank you for coming in thank you for the time all and and for allowing me to answer the questions to the public as well thank thank you okay so next up we have um several licenses that um have been in effect for the same type of um type of flammables or inflammables um so I don't know if I don't know who wants to lead the discussion on this PA it's going to be Brian Riley or Christina or somebody can tell ni do a better presentation than I can about why we're here right Christina's there on the line with Council I mean basically and Christina's sort of been leading this effort of basically cleaning up the town's licenses working with the fire chief and so forth I think the way it's envisioned you would go through each one individually um in order to revoke the the the uh storage permit because this is the type of permit that runs with the land uh and as they were reviewing the materials they saw some of these were quite dated and not in use and what we're looking at here is basically a revocation for the for the non non-use of the license um that wouldn't prevent in the future if somebody wanted to come at this or any other location much as we saw this evening that somebody could come in with a request for the license but the problem is that we've got license that are out there being renewed that just aren't in existence and it creates confusion both for the town uh for record keeping and so forth it also creates some questions whether there's underground tank removal and so forth so the goal here is to basically you know revoke these licenses so that we can basically have our slate clean in the office and and for the town records um because they do as I said they do come up in searches uh and some of these um Christine Christina went back into into the you know the record storage area to gather information on these materials on Christina is anything you want to add to that this uh no I think you've um sorry I don't have my camera on here can you hear me okay yes okay yes I think you've covered it uh it just came to our attention that some of these licenses um have had you know that have had not been in use for sometimes decades um where tanks were maybe removed in the 80s um and where this type of license is unique in that it runs with the land as opposed to with the license e um some of these are quite old some of these may have been issued in the ' 50s and 60s um if the license is not revoked um and Council can can speak to this as well um if they wanted to put a new tank in as long as it didn't exceed the parameters that were on their original license um they would need a permit from the fire department to install a tank but they wouldn't need to come back before the board so uh I I believe it's in the Ward's best interest to revoke any of these licenses that are not active and then these um Property Owners if they wanted to install tanks at any time in the future could come back and apply for a new license as you just had in the previous item um I'm happy to add a little bit bit more if you would like uh Madam chair sure um and that is as as Christina said these are this is an unusual kind of license and most of licenses this board deals with are ones where people have to come back and renew it every year like a like a liquor license this one doesn't uh you you issue it and as long as it's being exercised your license continues it runs with the land all you have to do is file this annual certification with the town clerk's office to say you know I still have this license um it's not entirely clear in the statute itself chapter 148 section 13 uh it doesn't literally say you have to keep exercising this license or you might lose it but uh but the you know the inference by having to report to the town every year saying I still have this license I still have these tanks um that you're supposed to be exercising it and you may have seen the U uh the guide from the Department of fire services that was uh part of the materials which says very clearly a couple of times uh the St says that's the point of this annual certification is to say I still have this tank I'm still using it and you now here's you know you still have my name uh if if you need it for any reason these all appear to have been taken out decades ago these these uh tanks um and so there's really no reason uh for these licenses to keep carrying on for the reasons Christina just said uh but the statute says that uh it continues unless it's revoked for cause and if you if you don't have the tanks anymore you're not exercising the license that's plenty of cause in my opinion uh so just to kind of close the loop on all these and not have licenses hanging out there wondering whether they're valid or not um we recommended that uh you hold this hearing particularly if nobody's here on behalf of the property owner you could be pretty short and sweet on it um because the uh you know the ground is that the license is not being exercised and as a result uh the board has authority to revoke it uh and as uh Paul said if if they have reason in the future to want to put a tank in they can come back and and get a new license okay thank you um is Chief back still back there yes could you give your thoughts on this good evening again so what kind of brought this uh I know Christina touched on this um many months ago um Maria Vasquez when she was reaching out to do the annual renewal um she reached out to me to get um a contact one of the properties and then I notified her that that property no longer has tanks um and I think it was time to get um a legal opinion um and then we I think the board was in the process of reviewing legal councel when KP law came on that's when we approached them to look at this issue and we're certainly in favor of I think um as Christina and as the attorney said if they're not exercising it um I feel that they shouldn't be using a license shouldn't be renewing it certainly shouldn't be paying for it um because if they don't use it and in a in one case where we had somebody just buy the property they could just come in get a permit from us but they will already have the license I think they should have to come before the board go through the process like we just did for 255 um if they want to get a license but if they're not using it they're not exercising it then I think it should be revoked so the 31 we have right now I think you got a six or seven before you and there is still one more that is hanging out there just want to be up front U there's a property they just sold but we need to get in that building we have not had the chance yet so there's still one more out there should should the ones that continue to stay in effect should they be checked you know like every year by inspected like every lot so if it's a permit most of your gas stations yes we we're there because we issue the permits right so we issue them we're on site we do the inspection these aren't all gas stations though right the they're not so the ones that on in gas station should they be inspected as well yeah so a good example would be thermal Fisher who has a license came before you we do inspections there because if they have a license like 255 princial Street they also need a permit so a lot of these you you need both so we're involved with that Chief Ryan yes so we know that 100% of these properties no longer have the tanks that is correct if there is a tank so if we revoke the licenses it's there's no follow-up enforcement that needs to happen it's not that there's an unused tank it's that there is no tank correct if we knew there was and this has happened in the past if there was a tank in the ground it's called abandon and I think that the attorney touched on is a certain period of time that you give them before it's not exercised we have actually acted on that use Town Council to have those tanks removed okay we do not want tanks in the ground above ground not being used okay thank you good all right so we will take these one at a time um and see if there's anybody that that is present either here on Zoom that wants to um uh speak to them any of the owners so the first one is one Wood Way um Joseph rad um you know his it's the situation that the chief has just mentioned that the uh that we wish to revoke this license for for nonuse for abandonment I guess you could say so any questions this is not a public hearing so we don't have to open it to the public but if the if the owner property owner is here and wants to speak they can I don't see anybody here from Joseph rad no one on Zoom okay so uh we can just go right to a motion to revoke this license I will make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for one W way second okay we have a motion and a second all in favor I thank you all right next Madam chair if I may I just wanted to add that uh you know we will want to send each of these parties uh a letter short letter uh saying that the board has taken this vote today uh to revoke their license um but uh I think what you just did with one word way uh uh you know fills all all that you need to do okay because I notice that they did send a certified letter to the each property telling them about this meeting tonight so correct so they should know about it oh yeah okay so the next one is uh uh 23 Progress Avenue in chelsford uh anybody here for that property and I take it there's nobody on Zoom for that one Alissa Weiss or something okay so we'll take a motion I'll make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 23 Progress Avenue second okay a motion in a second well in favor hi thank you all right uh next we have 30 Central Square any questions or comments about this one no we'll take a motion I will make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 30 Central Square second there motion and a second all in favor thank you okay 57 ledge Road any questions comments apparently not we'll take a motion I'll make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 57 ledge Road second have a motion in the second all in favor I I okay 99 Middleton Road in chamford any questions comments okay I'll take a motion I'll make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 99 Littleton Road second a motion in a second all in favor okay and 100 100 Waton Street in North chsw any comments anybody have any comments concerns okay like a motion I'll make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 100 Watton Street second fa a motion in a second all in favor I and lastly 374 North Road anybody have any questions comments we'll take a motion I will make a motion to revoke the flammable storage license for 374 North Road second a motion and a second all in [Music] favor thank you Brian thank you for thank you uh thank you and I'll I'll Circle back with Christina about getting the written decisions out in the mail great okay thank you thank you okay um next up we have another public hearing this is the our annual tax classification public hearing and I just want to go through the process that we will uh follow for for this as the practice that we usually follow every year we'll have a presentation by the assessors followed by questions from the board um about the uh information that's presented then since this is a public hearing we'll allow questions and input from the public um After we receive all the comments today we will continue this public hearing until our November 18th meeting at which time the public hearing will be continued uh we we will possibly receive more information based on any questions that may come up we also may receive more public comment uh we will then close the public hearing and at that time we will um take a vote on setting take the necessary votes on setting the tax rate so to kick it off uh the chair of the board of assessors Sam Chase it's all yours thank you madam chair uh good evening Madam chair members of the board and town manager Cohen for the record I'm Sam Chase Board of assessors chair representing the board at this hearing now um before we get into the meat of our presentation I'd like to take a few moments to give you and the community some information about assessors in general and also to let you know about the Personnel changes that the board and office had during this past year the town manager appoints Assessors for a three-year term current board members are Sam Chase Mike Donahue and Harrison mayot the town manager also appoints the chief assessor who manages day-to-day assessing operations all board members and the chief assessor have to meet the minimum qualification standards established by the Department of Revenue at as specified in Mass General Law chapter 59 section 21b to qualify as assessors board members must complete basic courses of training and then pass a Department of Revenue administered exam within one year following their appointment this requirement assures both the Department of Revenue and the public that board members are proficient in the application of Massachusetts assessment law and that they are qualified to assess all real and personal problem property within the town after serving a combined total of 33 years assessors Kevin Sullivan and Jack duffett chose to retire this past year their service and willingness to share their Professional Knowledge benefited the town immeasurably we're thankful for their many years of dedicated service our new members are Mike Donahue and Harrison mayot Mike retired as deputy chief after serving more than 30 years in the chelsford fire department Harrison is well known for his service in the town clerk's office and we do look forward to their contributions we had a 75% turnover in office staff this year assistant assessor Reena gagy left us to become lemster's Chief assessor reena's calm and consistent approach to her job contributed greatly to office operations and she'll be missed Chief assessor Frank green Frank retired in July after 23 years of faithful and conscientious service drawing on his working background in construction and Appraisal science Frank brought the town's assessing operations to their current levels of Technical and administrative professionalism it was my distinct privilege to serve with Frank for over 15 years and I'm grateful for his leadership which included a willingness to Mentor board members in the ways of mass appraisal and assessment technique the town will miss his professionalism and technical skills Sue Taylor assistant to the chief assessor retired in September after many years of dedicated Town Service First with the school department and then with our office Sue work ethic and ability to manage daily administrative and customer service demands effectively contributed to the smooth running of our department we'll miss her upbeat style and sense of humor earlier this year Miss Reagan flood joined us as assistant assessor when Frank retired she became our chief assessor Reagan worked many years in the loal assessor office and that experience will serve her well in her new chumford role when Sue retired Michelle o'hagen was promoted to the assistant to the Assessor's position and along with replacement hires assistant assessor Brian Cochran and principal clerk Monica Walsh our office staff and board are now at their fully functional budgeted operational levels now let's uh let's take a moment to review how we assess chumford property our process follows American approach raal Institute standards and is regulated by Massachusetts law Residential Properties are valued using the cost and sales review methods Together commercial properties are valued using cost sales and income capitalization methods together the results are then checked using standardized statistical testing methods to arrive at a market value for a specific property type the Massachusetts Department of Revenue reviews the Assessor's work and must certify that all real estate values meet the legal standard of being at full and fair cash value before a uniform tax rate can be finalized now um if residents would like a more detailed description of the assessment process they can read the Assessor's report in the fiscal 2024 annual Town report on pages 31 through 34 assessors do not set the property tax rate we calculate a uniform tax rate by dividing the total tax levy by the certified value of all real and personal property subject to taxation then the select board decides whether that uniform rate will apply or whether commercial and residential properties will be taxed at different rates which is the uh so-called classified or split tax rate approach tonight's public hearing is the beginning of that process depending on economic conditions residential and commercial property values may increase or decrease at different rates annually resulting in a natural tax shift over time from one property class to the other to allow communities to compensate for Rising residential versus flat commercial property values the state authorized the split rate system by way of a 1978 Constitution Amendment state constitution but they gave no guidance as to how it should be implemented instead they left that decision up to local select boards and City councils currently about onethird of Massachusetts cities and towns split the rate there seems to be no consistent reason why some cities and towns choose to split While others do not a few towns try to stabilize residential and commercial industrial Levy shares to a predetermined fixed percentage Littleton Maynard and tuxbury have consistently used that approach some Resort or summer towns assume that the commercial property class uses Municipal Services more than the residential class does so they use that logic to provide tax relief to their residential taxpayers Nantucket and Rock Port have provided that explanation in the past after conducting a comprehensive study in 2004 on the effects of split rate taxation the Massachusetts Department of Revenue concluded that most communities that split the tax rate do so primarily to provide tax relief to residential taxpayers and they provide no other explanation a few cities and towns do however speak frankly about the political nature of classification when asked by the news media about why they adopt a split rate they answer that they do it only to give residential taxpayers the lowest possible tax bill both LEL and Bill rer have provided this explanation in the recent past now on to our presentation uh it is designed hopefully to make it easy for you to see how various rate and exemption options can impact proper property taxpayers you can also see how chesford property tax Compares with other towns in our area and how we rank tax burden wise with all Massachusetts cities and towns hopefully this information will help you to reach an informed decision now on behalf of our board I do want to express our gratitude to our new Chief assessor and her very capable staff for the outstanding work that they do to ensure that residents are treated fairly and courteously residents who have questions concerning property valuations should feel comfortable contacting the assessor's office at 978 25052 to0 the staff is always available to assist you okay so we can thank you move to the second slide so here we are as the chair said every year we have to do this and why why do we do this because state law requires that the select board have a tax classification hearing every year reason is twofold number one you need information to help you make the decision and secondly you have to provide a public forum for discussion where members of the public can come speak to you about their feelings on whether or not you should split the tax rate next slide please so within this presentation we will describe for you the the tax policy options that are available to you as I said before hopefully you'll have all the information necessary to make the decision and lastly and perhaps most importantly the last uh uh three slides of this presentation will give you the shift tables from uh 1 to 150 so that you can see the impact of various shift levels on the average property tax bills so we're going to talk about all five classes of property and we're also going to just touch briefly upon some of our methodology and um give you uh some historical data and information and as I said before you will get uh to see the various effects of U different split levels for the uh on the average taxpayer so what you must do under state law you have to take uh affirmative votes in the areas that are shown on this slide so you have to make a decision on what you're going to do in all of these areas and then you have to vote accordingly so uh let's uh let's talk a little bit about the split rate itself and and how we get there the uh state law allows a municipality to shift up to 50% if at least 65 of the tax levy on a unified rate basis comes from the residential class so if you're a community and your residential class contributes less than 65% you cannot shift at the 150 maximum you are able to shift at lower percentages and and there may be although I've looked very hard and haven't found one there may be a community out there that can't shift at all but I don't think there is I've looked but there are some that cannot shift to the 150 because of where their uh residential Levy is so that's the minimum CR criteria for for doing the shift uh then what happens is the select board uh looks at all the data that's available and they have to adopt a residential factor that determines the level of shift the residential Factor cannot be less than the minimum residential factor that is calculated by the Department of Revenue so the Department of Revenue takes in all of our data we we Supply sales data we Supply valuation data we Supply budget data via a tax recapitulation sheet what our projections are what we think our receipts are going to be what we think our assessments are going to be so on and so forth and a lot of other data they calculate the minimum residential factor which represents the percentage of the tax levy that must be paid by the residential class that's what the minimum residential factor is and you can't go below it and for us that would upate to a 150 shift okay so the residential Factor again determines how much of a percentage of the tax levy each class pays you can go to the next slide okay if you adopt a residential factor of one then that results in taxation of all property at the same rate the so-called single or unified rate adopting a residential Factor less than one results in increasingly greater tax burden shift from residential to the CIP classes next slide let's uh now talk about the exemptions and discounts that are available uh to you now we'll start with a small commercial exemption because uh this board has consistently adopted that since the implementation of the first shift which I believe was in 200 fiscal year 2019 so in order to qualify for the small commercial exemption the parcel under consideration must be valued at less than a million dollar then all of the tenant businesses that are on that lease parcel can have no more than 10 employees per company not not per office on the on the paral but per company so if I have a if I own a piece of commercial property it's worth 950 $50,000 and I have three tenant offices on my property and one of the offices has two employees we have to look at the company that those employees work for and figure out how many employees in the whole company if it's more than 10 the parcel doesn't qualify okay so that's the gating Factor there we get that information uh from the Department of Unemployment assistance they send us a list every year and uh the uh if you do Grant the small commercial exemption it shifts the uh tax burden to all of the non-exempt commercial and Industrial properties next slide this is just a very quick example of how it works and the small commercial exemption is very very simple to calculate unlike the residential exemption which we'll talk about in a minute is a little bit more complicated but the small commercial exemption if the select select board as you have in the p you adopt a 10% small commercial exemption very simple the qualifying uh property gets to subtract 10% from their tax bill so if I own a commercial uh property that qualifies for the exemption and my tax bill is $20,000 I get to take $2,000 off that my bill is now $18,000 that $2,000 gets shifted over to the balance of commercial industrial properties that do not qualify for the exemption so it's a shift within the class okay it's important to know that the owner of the parcel would receive the exemption not the eligible businesses it's whoever pays the tax on the property which is the owner now businesses may get the benefit of that depending on their lease arrangement with the landlord um they may get the benefit they may not it all depends and and we really don't have a way of knowing let's talk a little bit about the residential exemption which as far as I can determine uh this town has never granted a residential exemption this is a little bit more complicated to calculate and to apply so in order to be uh eligible for the residential exemption it has to be a principal residence property so the taxpayer that has to be their principal legal resident to qualify and the amount of the exemption is up to 35% of the average assessed value of all residential class properties not the average single family value the average of all residences so that would be somewhat lower than the average single family because you have condos and and so forth mixed into that uh next slide please so the residential exemption shifts the tax burden from lower to higher valued homes and to those owned by non-residents the residential exemption can't exceed 35% of the average assessed value of all class one so um the way that works is that calculation is made by the by the assessors and those homes that fall somewhat below the median of the average assess values would be eligible and let's say you let's say you granted a 30 5% exemption 35% of that median value would be deducted from the valuation of all the homes that were eligible and that is a shift within the residential class and that would change the tax rate the tax rate would then go up within the residential class and that number would be applied to those uh to all of the uh residential class but the ones that receed the exemption would pay the tax on a lower value because that value had been Exempted so it's a little bit more complicated than just taking 10% off your tax bill I mean you have to go through a fairly extensive calculation to do it so that's how that works uh next slide would be open space discount you have to take a look at this what is open space it's unimproved land unimproved land means not built on Raw land no man-made fixtures have been placed on their houses pavement anything raw land so you can if you want to you can exempt up to 25% of the value of that land that is classified as open space and again that would be if you did that that would be a shift within the residential class okay so my guess is that one reason probably boards and and uh neither of these exemptions residential and open space are typically granted very very seldom um I know Westford did open space a few years ago but they eliminated it okay and the problem with is uh with granting these exemptions within our demographic is it results in a higher tax bill for your residential taxpayer if you're above that median value and you grant either or both of these exemptions your residential taxpayers tax bill is going to go up by quite a bit so I would guess that's probably why the board doesn't adopt those two next slide uh as per your annual tax review policy uh we're required to present to you a summary of uh a batement requests and also uh U the percentage return on commercial property owner income and expense statements so you have the numbers there and what's notable here if you just look at the 2024 entry uh we have about 10,500 um Residential Properties of single family in condos and we got 43 requests for abatement interesting not not a lot to talk about you you think the number would be higher but it's it's low same thing with commercial um we have roughly 402 parcels and we get 27 requests that's low now the income and expense forms um are required under state law the owners of commercial properties have to submit to the board of assessors every year an income expense statement which is exactly what it says it's a list of their sources of income and their expenses and what the assessors do is they use these forms they pull them together and they use them in aggregate to determine a baseline uh of what the market is for commercial rents and expenses what we don't do and this is a very common misconception and I understand why people would think this but what we don't do is we don't take an individual income and expense statement and Peg that to an individual property and calculate its value that's not what we do that information is pulled and it establishes the market okay so you can see that uh this past year we had a return compliance rate of about 46% like to get 100% but it never happens 46% Statewide average return rate is 28.2 so we're doing a fairly good job of getting those back uh next slide this is simply historical information that the board has asked for in years past and what it does is it shows you uh what the comparison is between the average single family tax bill in chelsford to 10 surrounding communities either these are contiguous or near contiguous communities and if you go to the last line the entry 2024 in the First Column chord you'll see that last year the average single family tax bill was $856 you read that line all the way across and you will see what the average single family tax bills were in fiscal 2024 for all of the comparative towns so tuxbury draut Bill R Kingsboro and LEL all have lower average single family tax bills than chord does the towns of Westford Carlile Littleton Acton and Bedford all have higher single family tax bills so that means we're right in the middle there's 10 Towns that we compare ourselves to we're right in the middle in terms of our average single family tax bill excuse me Sam yes go ahead just so I understand the percentage column is the percentage increase from the previous year is that what that is no no uh average uh uh good question average annual percentage increase that that is taking all of the percentages going back to 2011 and averaging them so if you look at Chumps what that says is the average year-over-year increase is 3.6% okay that's what I mean that so if I go from 2011 to 2012 and it so 2011 says 3% so that means it was a 3% increase over 2010 correct correct okay uh next slide this is simply the state rank and this shows you where we R rank Statewide with the s Le family tax bill um not so good as we do with our neighboring towns but we're SE number 78th in the state which means obviously that 77 cities and towns have a higher Bill and 243 have a lower Bill next slide uh this is a new slide that I included this year because I think it's good information to have because people ask the question well where do you get the market data from well sales is one component of the market we do as I said in our my opening remarks we do a lot more than look at just sales but that is a major component so uh what we do is we aggregate uh property sales and uh we do send them into the uh Department of Revenue they take a look at it and they make sure that you know the the statistics are correct and so forth and what is required in order to uh have a basic Market basis is we have to have a minimum of 2% of adjusted sales to justify a market in a uh subcategory of a property class so if you look at this slide and you look at the extreme left and then you look at the First Column under 101 which is single family you can see that we had 9,064 Parcels of single family and we had sales of 240 in the sales period that you see at the top of the slide it says basis so we're looking back almost 2 years so the market sales basis for the fiscal 25 year is in fact uh the time frame you see there okay so we had 240 sales but we only had 190 sales that were arms length or or properly uh adjusted uh to the market parameters so 50 of those sales fell out so so they weren't arms length sales they might have been short sales they might have been foreclosure sales they might have been property speculative sales there's all kinds of reasons why those would fall out and not qualify under the basic Market parameter so you come down to 190 adjusted sales and then the number below it is the percentage of the adjusted sales that that we have to use as a basis for the market and we just made it on single family 2.1% which is why they went back normally the evaluation period perod is 16 months we had to go back almost 23 and 1/2 months to grab enough qualified sales and the the do likes you to stick to 16 months if you can but it's very very common that you have to expand that period so we had to do it although in the other property classes you can see we didn't have that problem we had sufficient uh adjusted arms length sales to qualify and meet those percentages the line under the adjusted sales line is the median assessment to sales ratio and what that means is that's where you are uh with respect to uh 100% Market pegged valuation so the ideal is all your properties want to be at 100% of the market value that that really isn't possible for a whole host of reasons the Department of Revenue gives you a plus or a minus 10% variance so you can be as low as 90% in your pro in your subproperty class you can be as high as 110% I've been doing this for 16 years and I don't think I've ever seen numbers much higher than mid90s occasionally depending on on your economic circumstances on your commercial properties you may get some higher numbers there but typically where you want to be for residential is between 91 and 95 that's where you want to be and that's where we are okay for commercial you want to be between 92 and 96 and uh we're we're we're just at the bottom of that but we we meet the criteria the cood which is just a measurement is a coefficient of dispersion what that is is a measure of assessment projection uniformity around the median so it's just a a statistical way of checking the accuracy of your calculations next slide please this is very simply just a listing of assessed value uh by prop growth by property class so we go back five years and you can see what that is if you look over on the extreme right you see the percentage chain to selectman Tim's point that is succeeding year over succeeding year Okay so we've been used to rather High property value appreciation over the last three or four years what we saw this year for 2025 is we saw a relative flatness so we went from uh increase 2023 to 20 24 all property classes of 88.9% value this year it's 1.9 so I'm a suspicious guy all right so when I saw those numbers I thought well we better investigate this a little further so we checked uh we checked back with the do we made sure we had our numbers right they said that was fine we also checked with uh Vision appraisal who is our valuation consultant he gave us some very good information and he essentially confirmed this I also called assessors in four of our surrounding towns and they were seeing the same thing so we felt very very comfortable after doing uh those inquiries that these numbers are accurate and of course the do has certified them so they of course they've looked at them too so we feel comfortable that that's accurate information and is reflective of of the market now the next slide is a new slide that I included this year um I think this is important and it's good information for you folks because you may get inquiries from your constituents essentially we're breaking down the subcategories within the residential class so you can see what those numbers are and the way to read this slide is taking the first line single family you move over to the right and percent res is the percentage of residential value that that particular subass uh occupies so this says that 78% of the residential Real Estate Value in town is in fact single family if you go over to the next column that's the percentage of total assessed value so 66% of the total assessed value in town is made up of single family residents and then so on down so that's how you read that slide next share don't worry folks we're almost there okay your uh your policy also requires that we provide a history of Levy share um relationship ship so what you see starting in 2020 going up to 2025 you see that in that time period we've had roughly a 2.4% value shift from the commercial industrial and personal to the residential now this is pre-split tax rate okay this is just the raw data and this is a result of the natural economic condition that we talked about when I first stood up here and and explained that you know you get natural occurring shifts it it can go the other way and 15 or 20 years ago it did go the other way where you lost residential value share and it moved over to commercial but we haven't seen that now for about for about 12 years next slide okay so we're getting to the point now where we want to talk about uh the possibilities of the shift so the starting point has to be the single tax rate so we have to calculate that so what we do was we take the prior Year's Levy limit not the prior Year's total Levy the prior Year's Levy limit and state law allows us to add 2 and a half% to that number which we do then we also add our certified New Growth okay now that's a number that takes a little while to put together because essentially it's building permits and it's square footage it's not value appreciation it's essentially new construction and square footage the value that number is is sent to the Department of Revenue along with all of our other information they come and they perform some additional calculations they come back and they tell us whether that's a good number or not and they have and it is and it's certified so we know that that number is valid incidentally I'm going to anticipate a question uh for this period about 43% of the new growth comes from the residential Club CL okay just so that you know that uh then to that uh then that you add those numbers together and you get the fiscal 25 Levy limit and then to that you also can add your excluded debt so you add those numbers together and then you get the total allowed Levy okay if you compare that number to last year's total allowed Levy it represents a 3.3% % increase and I think that's what causes some confusion with taxpayers because what they hear is you can only go up 25% well that's not right you can go up 2 and a half% plus New Growth plus excluded debt so that's the reason behind that to get the single tax rate it's just a very simple mathematical calculation you take the total allowed Levy for 25 you divide it by the total assessed value in the town and you multiply that number by a th000 and you get your single tax rate so the takeaway leading into the next slide that uh uh and what I'm going to ask you to do Paul is Skip to slide 23 so skip the fir okay yeah get the last one there you go all right um Department of Revenue calculated minimum residential factor is 91.1 169 we talked about that before that number represents the amount of Levy that the do tells us has to come from the residential class okay 91 91.1 169% that's a calculated number so excuse me Paul I think you're go ahead you wanted slide 23 up there right yeah that one I want uh actually 23 that's correct thank you so the reason we and and then I'll have you go back in a minute the reason we start there is because I want to tie this into the minimum residential Factor if you go to the bottom of this slide you look over on the extreme left and you see your Levy shift at 150 you follow that all the way over to the red to the column with the red numbers well lo and behold 91169 that is the minimum residential factor that is calculated by the Department of Revenue so when we develop the shift tables a lot of work I can tell you we develop the shift tables you start with that number and you work back okay that that's how you do it now Paul you can go back to the first slide all right so this year I'm sorry I had to add a couple slides here but last year for some reason we squeezed all this on one page I couldn't read it so I broke it into two pieces of paper I think it's a little easier to read it is for me anyway so this uh very quickly how do we read this start in the upper left where it says Levy shift one you follow that all the way across where it says rate res rate Comm and so forth you see 1434 that is your single tax rate you follow that across to the tax res tax if we were at a single tax rate for fiscal 25 the average residential tax would be $9,975 se3 and you just read down at various shift levels to see what the impact let's skip down to the row of 12 because that's where you are now and you've been for the last several years let's read across to the uh residential rate if you stay with the 120 your uh tax rate for residential will be 1383 versus the 1434 your tax rate for commercial and Industrial will be 1720 versus the 1434 and you can read that across and you can see uh what the tax bills would be and the Savings in the case of the residential and the increase in the case of the commercial okay so that's how you read these these tables it's very simple and when you make your motion wherever you want to go you make your Motion in the form of adopting a residential Factor because that's what the Department of Revenue requires now Paul you can skip forward to the last slide again this is an additional this a brand new slide never had this before but we thought it might be interesting for you and and I know you can go back you're all very intelligent people you could do this calculation yourself but I thought it would be just interesting to to take a snapshot and what we're doing here with this slide is we're showing you at the current Shift level of 120 which is where we are what would the average tax bill increase be versus what was paid last year so that's all this slide is doing okay so we start at the bottom with the 120 and you can see those numbers so based on an average residential single family tax bill last year of 8564 if you stayed with the 120 shift um your uh tax bill would be 8776 and that would represent a 20 $212 increase over last year or 2.5% okay now the reason we went back up to the one is because when we're doing these kinds of calculations our points are the a single family tax bill and uh and where we are now so I wanted to give you that that shift if you were wanted to go in the other direction you could easily go back to your other two slides and you could make those determination uh quite easily so but I thought this might be kind of an interesting way to display that data you can quickly see where we were last year and where we are this year if you if you take on the 120 Shi so uh that is the basis of the present uh presentation I'll be very happy to answer any questions the board has uh if we can't answer the question we'll take the question and we'll get you an answer and come back in two weeks okay any questions for Sam sure thank you for the presentation oh you're very welcome um I don't know if my question is answered on slide 20 or if I'm asking something different but do we do we know by what percentage on average residential property values have increased since last year and by what percentage commercial properties have increased yes we do and uh we get that information from the Department of Revenue so again as I said before um it's a good question because again we had a modest increase from the prior year so in the case of uh single family I think this is your question in the case of single family the value increase was 9/10 of a percent in the case this is interesting in the case of condos it's n and a half% in the case of Apartments it's 8.3% in the case of multi-residential it's 2.3% and then the balance a small percentages so that's the bulk of it so you see uh the biggest value leader is is condos and it makes sense because it validates the flatness of the single family uh rise uh year over-year covid inflation High building uh materials costs uh and so forth It's a limiting factor to buying a single family residence so people shift to condos and apartments and the and these value increments in those subcategories I think tend to prove that out does that answer your question and so what is the that answers my question for residential what is the percent the average percentage um Real Estate Value increase for commercial properties from last year it's actually a slight decrease okay okay it's about one tenen of a percent okay and for industrial it would be 410 of a percent personal about a half a percent [Music] um and then I think the last couple years uh we were given information on how many commercial properties or commercial businesses there are and how many from that our small business qu would qualify under the small business y exemption do you have that yes I do so we have uh approximately 402 now these are Parcels okay because that that that's that's the criteria not the number of businesses so we have approximately 42 Parcels of that 259 qualify that's 65% thank you that's a very high number and then I really liked um Slide the last slide Sam slide 24 that shows the comparison between last year and this fiscal year is it possible for our packet next time to give us the second half of that from 1.21 to the 1 .5 because I recall when we were looking at um setting the rate last year and possibly the year before there were um some of the board members were kind of looking at what is it what is that we Ed the data for greater than 1.2 to look at how it would compare and I know we could do the calculation our ourselves but I've trouble doing the mental gymnastics in real time on slide 23 and 22 so I was just wondering is it difficult to to provide the rest of that table so could we just should we just get you want to do that next year no next meeting oh next meeting yeah oh okay yeah I could do that that thank you um that's all I have thank you okay any questions George okay this is a public hearing um is there anybody any audience here that would like to address the board about this uh tax classification okay Mr Harrington you have to come up to the microphone thank you chairman uh I have to state in all the years I've been before boards like this uh select boards I have never seen a presentation as well done as tonight it gave everybody here in the residents the meat of what really happens and assessments and so forth and I got to thank Sam and this group people here that did that by far it gave a lot of information so you make a proper decision and I go back to about 1990 been I been before these boards judge you were not there then uh how however 189 know however as the executive uh secret as executive of the Champs Business Association we have from since 1990 have opposed splitting the tax rate we feel businesses in this town and the population of this town we do not need something like that it gives a division between us and them and furthermore what a lot of people do not understand is the business Community does pay a lot of fees and and so forth there's stuff out there for example uh recently we have storm drainage uh charge it depends on the amount of space you have on your driveways you you charge for that the business community and Industrial we pay more if my property in champon Center has a driveway that's smaller it's smaller than my house it's a driveway champon Center pays more because it's commercial my property has a larger driveway I pay less and that and stuff like that goes right along whether it's dumpster fees or other fees you name the fee or the charge in there the commercial and and our businesses pay more it's built in our property if for example my house if the address was 10 Summer Street that's where the liquor store is I would be paying a lot less than what is being paid right now for that property it's about $20,000 plus a year and my tax rate on my property at 149 Boston Road is not that high the point I'm trying to say is commercial property pays more the the the rate always hits higher on the Business Industrial and and businesses why it's just the system it works what we do not like or we don't feel it's fair is you're singling us out to pay more above everything else and what it boils down to we've had so many hearings not this type of a hearing but committees put together to talk about classification what's the benefit what's this what's that why should they pay more why should they pay less etc etc what it Brews down to is the board right here you make the decision Sam provided a tremendous amount of stuff here right here to us to look at he could have provided nothing and you still would make that decision how do you make that decision I've been here 30 plus years and I've seen how different boards made the decision they made it because of politics bottom line you have the power to switch it over who are you you're punishing you many of us are residents of this town we pay our home taxes as well as our business taxes and we hire people and we hire full-time people when we hire kids in in this town to work part-time at our stores we generate money within the community and a lot of us feel this tax classification is highly unfair with that being said I'm asking this board to take a look and say listen let's let's get back to parody like it used to be just a little bit knowledge back when classification come in the reason it was voted in was Dennis ridy and his board at the time felt 5% would help jump start sewage how long ago was that that's why they put it in for part of the town which was North champon at the time had to be sewed because of all the Mills and as time went on and the town voted to have the whole town put under sewage you had the chairman Dennis ready k for the select board and say we don't want we don't need it anymore we don't the reason we put in of that issue not now and if you look at it another thing that CM mentioned can can this board class ify residents am I right CM did I miss that well technically they can well how would the residents feel if the board says okay we're going to classify you know the residents uh businesses do not have the vote but this time we have a lot of votes because we are residents what I'm trying to say is let's let's start rolling it back again if you could you know give it a thought but give the businesses a little shot and bring the Whittle it down again like it used to be it used to be we finally work got it down to parody uh maybe in George's life we might be able to do that again so that's that's all I have to say thank you is there anybody else that would like to address the board about this is there anybody no one on Zoom no one on Zoom so Madam chair if I may if do you have a question I do Sam um just for my own you know trying to figure this out um so the commercial Levy 25 roughly well the commercial valuation 544 650 right so if I I'm just trying to figure out how the funding gets dispersed and spread to the next class of commercial owners so if I take the 544 times 65% 65% of that 544 is getting an an exemption now I don't not no I um I think what you're talking about is the percentage of the percentage that each property class contributes to the total tax living well what I'm trying to figure out is what gets passed on from the the commercial um entities that get the exemption what the figure is that gets passed on to the 35% that don't get the again on the on the small commercial exemption the to the total number number of parcels that qualify which looks like 259 would qualify whatever that tax bill is for those 259 properties you take 10% of that number would that be the 544 650 no no no no it would be it would be uh um because that's that uh the the 544 commercial is all commercial properties okay including the non-exempt okay so we're only talking those Parcels that qualify for the exemption um so and I'm I'm sorry I haven't I mean I could go back and calculate that number for you if you'd like because I have to do the slide for the next meeting anyway but um that amount of Exempted uh tax revenue 10% of the of the uh folks that of the tax bill for the folk that qualify that amount of money is now superimposed on the tax bills of all the other commercial and industrial property owners not just commercial okay all right yeah actually I would like that figure okay I I'll get that for you yeah that's e that's easy to calculate okay so on kind of on that same topic the 259 that qualify do they have to ask for that or is it automatic well if we have them on file it'll be automatic but they can apply and we usually get those that do apply every year and I'm trying to remember if we ever refused any I don't think so I think those that apply generally qualify because they know what the requirement is okay thank you yeah any other questions okay so just just Madam chair just so I'm clear so you're you're holding the public hearing open for another two weeks we'll be back in two weeks selectman timens would like an extension of the last slide selectman Maloney would like to know the uh amount of um exempt U property tax for the small commercial we we'll have those numbers for you yeah and if I mean if you're documenting the answers to your questions um I tried to jot it all down but um the question regarding the in the relative increase in property values and then the number of parcels in the categories if that's easy to just put in writing that would be helpful yep I have it thank you okay was trying to trying to keep the slides as clean as I could no they were very good slides excellent job sir and if and if anybody else has any questions you think of after this meeting probably have until what the end of this week to ask you so to give you time to get another get that done call yeah just call okay uh call the office and and you know we'll we'll take those okay thank you very much thank you so we'll take a motion to continue um I'll make a motion to continue the public hearing until 14 until November 14th 18th November 18th I'll make a motion to continue the public hearing until November 18th second okay we Motion in a second all in favor thank you okay all right next up is uh Christine Clancy she's already ready to to speak hello um I was here last week providing the monthly arer presentation as you know we are quickly um racing to the deadline of this end of December um allocating all or procuring all the fund remaining funds um I did update the spreadsheet from last week we are updating it almost daily um but really tonight I wanted to come before you and just make a request for some additional um allotments to to all allocation so that we can head towards procurement um as these projects come in as bids come in the some prices might fluctuate um so we want to come up with a contingency of projects um also in the update from last week I did go through uh each one of the projects and there were some um freeing up of of funds to allocate largely that was because of the um Senior Center um HVAC project that's wrapping up I was still holding a contingency and we've verified that amount so we were able to take some out of that and put it back into a you know an account or put it back to uh where it can be allocated also um in the in the spreadsheet it was numbers um 21 22 uh the social worker human health services and the public health associate and the Frontline initiative Police Department these were all funds that we were allocated um and spent based as needed um to hire staff uh following the end of this year we won't be able to have a contract in place and so that that that was also money that's um ined to be replenished back into the account um also going through updating all the other items really refining these numbers and with that it allows potentially $200,000 that could still go towards projects like I said all depends on how the final numbers will come in in the next month and a half um but we're we've created a short list of of other projects and we do have a project uh switch gear um on here we had recently added and we are um headed towards um that's actually going out to bid next week in finalizing those documents we did get an updated cost estimate and it is um more much more costly than we originally anticipated um and it's also recommended as really a two separate um two phase or two potentially two different types of contractors would upgrade the switch gear what line is that uh this is line item 67 60 yes sorry for some reason oh I see it thank you so 67 I had updated the original budget was 175 and actually for the that phase of just the main panel that is actually closer to about 150 but then also the panel boards are recommended to be um refurbished as part of that that could be done separately so going back to my notes from a couple years ago our plan was to do that as the initial phase and then do the panel boards a few years later now that we're 2 years and we haven't done anything now it's recommended we probably do both um at the same time still probably two separate bids because potentially two different contractors would do the work um so that is one proposed project that we are recommending um both projects would we are finalizing the bid documents those would go out to bid the bid start date I believe is next week um and we would open bids just after uh Thanksgiving um we are estimating that second switch gear project to be $225,000 if for some reason it comes in a little over that I we also have ways of allocating those additional funds whether it be um through our facilities operations budget and also in talking with the school department um so I think that is a great candidate because it is very much needed the switch gear that is what when the electricity comes into the building that's what steps down the electricity um McCarthy one being the older school that switch gear is original to the build building um and right now we're putting together a capital request for the next we we put together a 5-year plan switch gear refurbishments are uh are looking we're looking at those over the next 5 10 years all the switch gears are original to the building these are just refurbishments not Replacements Replacements would be potentially millions of dollars um and I guess that is an attractive project because we're essentially have all the technical documents and we're just putting the bid uh bid requests out um the next next two items are uh much smaller items but one is we are working we we have one fuel uh tank system at the police station um it is getting older so we're just getting a quote to see if there's any repairs needed for the the system um this would probably be just more of a quote-based procurement so relatively straightforward also the vendor we're working with is on the state contract and then the last item um and we see this as a need looking at the next year or two um last week I was here talking about a drainage easement we have Al a lot we also at town meeting um put forth Park CSE to be accepted with all of those acceptances whether it be a drainage easement utility easement or roadway acceptances that has a survey request we can do some surveying in house but when we do these acceptance easements we do uh seek outside services so we were working I was working with the engineering department to put together um essentially some type of uh service on call contract where we could have um suring Serv pures instead of procuring a quote each time it's needed having someone on call um that is estimated $50,000 we could also adjust that slightly up or down as needed um so I guess the request and also available to answer any questions but the request tonight is just to move forward towards putting these out to bid a lot of the bids will be coming in around the same time now we're looking at first week in December to second week in December December 23rd your last meeting um so we're close but we're a lot of things are going to come in at that day date can any questions for Christine all right everybody okay with letting her move forward with these indeed okay thank you we have a motion um I will make a motion to is it am I authorizing the town manager or just to allocate um appropriate the oper funds yeah I think it's I'll make a motion to appropriate uh the $200,000 in remaining ARA funds for allocation to the three projects the McCarthy switch gear phase 2 panel board referment the police state fuel State assessment and repairs to extend life expectancy of the system and the request for miscellaneous surveying Services presented second okay Motion in a second all in favor thank you thank you okay come manager reports yeah thank you madam chair just a brief report this evening um and to inform you as well as the community formally uh since our last meeting uh we the town of through the select board has received the um another proposed chapter 40b application to notification to Mass housing and this would this pertains to um the project known as Riven Estates at 243 Riven Road this this is actually two applications although it's one site and one project and this was before the board recently for local initiative request this would be one project is seven home ownership units and then the other is 16 rental units on the approximately 9.41 acres of land located at 243 riverneck Road um as is the process and we've been through this just a few times the last several months the Mass housing is soliciting comments from the local community um by and concerns raised by Town boards officials and other interested parties the deadline for submitting the comments from the community is December 2nd uh and they've also scheduled a site visit for next Wednesday November 13th at 11:00 a. at the site um so how how this will work is although the board did receive comments for the prior um local initiative affordable housing proct at the site we we intend to go out and ask Reas the department so that we have contemporary comments that way if they get forwarded to you know to Mass housing at least they they they show they're current not dated from several weeks prior uh with the initial application and Al also if there's any concerns that they may have uh on the proposed plan which is quite lengthy um in terms of the size of the application uh material and we're still awaiting the actual receipt of a thumb drive you and written print out of those materials because it is a significant project will we also be taking public input at our next meeting application comments and it it will be on December 2nd I have gotten approval to to sub submit that letter a couple days later okay okay so our we will do that on December 2nd okay and you'll notify the public yes yes we'll notify the reers is there a way that um they can have access to a location where the drawings are I know it's a large packet but yeah we're trying like said we we we want to put them on we want to put them in in our public file so that they can access them right right now it's so extensive that we've asked for the thumb drive so we can just plug it in and put it on our website but that hasn't happened because otherwise it's a big manual thing of downloading it from the link that was provided but yes we'll get it out there and we'll put a notice out that the plan is available for viewing the board welcomes comments and then the the the board will discuss it at its December 2nd meeting and then I can I ask another question about inputs um so given the location of this proposal will we be asking formal inputs from the water district and from um the Conservation Commission yeah oh yes yes definitely the like more formal than we got like last time we came peace meal and um and any comments that we did receive before will be included too so you know the Departments don't need to go to a lot of work and and reinvent the wheel basically so we will do that great and then the the second matter of my report and again this arose since our last meeting we did receive formal notification from the mass the school building authority uh when they met on October 30th that they voted to invite the town of chelsford into the accelerated repair program uh for the schematic design study at the South Row Elementary School for potential partial roof replacement project this is the one we obtained funding for at at the fall annual town meeting anticipating correctly in this case that we would be invited in um the um the town as we explained at that time the town has to submit the required certified documentation to the msba within 120 days um including the appropriation of funding which we explained at fall town meeting that's why we were asking for it to avoid the calling of a special town meeting so later this week once the election passes and also the 7-Day expiration expired today for for the town meeting certification as you know there's a provision under the the town Charter that any town meeting vote um has seven days not including Sundays and holidays at which you could have a um petition that period has lapsed so once the election clears later this week I'll ask for the clerk's office for the certification of the vot at town meeting uh we also will provide the document of the compliance certification which is you know standard you know the superintendent of schools has reviewed it the school committee chair I reviewed it I provided it to you so we will even though we have 120 days to do this we'll have this done basically within 30 days um and again it's not going to move us much faster because they've already explained to us that this project would not because of their funding schedule would not occur till the summer of 26 um so we just want to let people know that um that this is moving forward the other thing to note which of Interest as we're doing Capital planning as was mentioned earlier for this year the msba and their accelerated repair program only would accept roofs that were 25 years or older which meant obviously you know installed on a before 1999 and for window andoor systems they had to be 30 years or older um and they didn't even accept for boilers this year so we we consider that when we're you know doing the capital planning process which proposals uh have are being compiled now by the Finance director and they're going to begin their process uh a week from this Thursday Capital planning committee those meetings will be posted uh and uh and and there'll be two meetings in November obviously they're not going to meet Thanksgiving week and then they'll wrap up in December the first Thursday assuming you know no weather conflicts um so that's how that's how that's unfolding uh and obviously we look there are as was noted in addition to the switch gear there are a number of roof projects particularly in school buildings and and we're looking to see you know can we bridge to that 20 plus year period 25e period in order to get the state reimbursement um as you can see the reason the state pushes that criteria out is because they only have so much funding uh and so we're we're we're going to try to see what we can do because it is significant uh to get a 50% reimbursement as opposed to no re State reimbursement so that's what's that's uh what's happening with msba on those projects um since I last meeting a week ago um and then under I do have um well that's all I have under my report this evening thank you so we do have a couple of appointments one is a select board appointment uh for Megan uh Riley to the Dei committee um anybody have any um comments about this appointment okay take a motion I'll make a motion to appoint Megan riyle to the diversity um equity and in equity and inclusion committee second okay have a motion in a second all in favor okay and now Paul has an appointment yeah and then I have an application since since our last meeting for the uh Senate Village master plan committee is a resident in the Senate Village uh who lives on Sinai Circle Doran deser is requesting to be appointed to the committee if I'll seek your approval to appoint here for an unexpired term ending June 30th 2026 okay any questions about this appointment I have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the town manager appointment of Dorian dler to the center Village master plan committee for an unexpired three-year term ending June 30th 2026 second I have a motion in a second all in favor thank Youk okay and we have no minutes this evening so we'll go right to Theon reports George anything I just have one um the North chumford Water District is going to have to um insert new isolation valves as part of the dpw's middle sex Bridge Street repair or middle sex Street Bridge repair and the actual replacement date is unknown but in preparation for that they're going to conduct a mock shutdown of the water system around Brickhouse Pizza on November 14th and they're going to notify um their affected customers on the website and via Facebook and they're going through the mock shutdown it'll be about an hour to affect the water system so that um they can mitigate any longer shutdowns during the actual repairs so if you have any questions you can contact the North chumford Water District directly at 97 8251 3931 um and just keep an eye on their website and their Facebook page okay yeah since we just had a meeting last week um I don't even I don't have much either uh we did have a ribbon cutting uh late last week at nine round um it's a fitness um facility on Summer Street where you in a half an hour you can get all of your all your muscle stretch that you need to so J you should head over there right after we leave here they're going to be open 24 hours a day pretty soon I got that wasn't and lastly just another reminder as we had from the very beginning of this meeting um tomorrow is the is your deadline to vote you have until 8:00 on Tuesday night so everybody get out and vote so with that we'll take a motion for executive session I'll make a motion to adjourn to Executive session uh for the purpose of considering the acquisition of real property not to return second okay a roll call vote George hi hi Ain hi Virginia hi adour to Executive session e e e