##VIDEO ID:RhTit0z6npY## accept amedes second hey John can you hear us you're you're muted muted yes I just heard you now okay great okay I'm not hearing everybody can you hear us I hear you you hear this one is this better John I hear you yes okay um would you like to vote we just voted the minutes um just as you were showing up so would you like to vote or you want to just we'll move on I'll up St okay um so Andrea leapson is going to be joining us and she'll be able to talk about the land on the top of the KCK um so as soon as she shows up we'll do that and then um d L who's the OPM um for the 1888 building will be here at 6:30 um and we'll discuss the 1888 building waren article then um so pending Andrea oh wait okay um so let's just wander through so article one is going to be passed over that's the um unanticipated prior year bills and there aren't any right is that corre the deal okay um so we will skip article one article two is the Mini Splits um do you want to talk about this so basically um we have our final phase of the uh air condition in mini split um installation um I don't have the exact figure in front of me but oh here we go I do have the exact figure in front of me um so uh C the capital Improvement planning committee uh voted to recommend um this project in the amount of $ 29,7 uh to finish it out so um this was given a priority one one out of five out of all of our priorities and that's because um of uh all the different criteria that we look at things like you know pre-funded project one that's um you know multi-year um safety and comfort of the kids stuff like that so yeah uh cap capital Did recommend this one is this rebate funds from previous or is this this is a good portion of it is so um I don't have that that exact figure in in my head but it's around 22,000 that we had received as a rebate that had to go into the general fund because it was from a previous year and so that just rolled into free cash so most of it is is due to that okay yeah um rebate from rebate from whom wa from ever source and that was to um it was for we we initially funded the project at 70,000 and we did I think eight or units and then um rebates we had and we've done other years of this project so the money that we had in free cash about 22,5 something is um is rebates from other years we still have another rebate coming um which we're not sure when that'll arrive but another about 34,000 coming from eversource probably for the for the ones that we just did this Summer that that you voted and approved at at the April meeting correct um yeah so we have we have received several rebates but part of the rebates that we received in fiscal 24 was from an expenditure in fiscal 24 that they had actually spent the money out of their out of the school choice fund for so it it was able to be applied against that but the 22,000 was for a rebate from something we spent in 2023 so the only choice was to put it into the general fund and let it roll into free cash y so we don't have a motion on the table let's get a motion on the table and then we'll discuss further does anybody want to make the motion to approve article two to recommend uh to recommend article two okay I don't think working either is it I think it is oh okay good any further discussion oh go ahead John oh you're muted sorry is this arttic article two we're talking about as far as the Min split goes article two it's the uh yeah the HVAC system for de Field Elementary thank you any further discussion questions John no okay um we will do a roll call vote uh start with Jim James C be is i b round I Dave sharp I Mark brenn and I Julie chal and I John you're muted John peski I all right that's unanimous hello oh it is did you just fix it no no no it's just magic magic magic okay we just shorting out all Article Five is the 1888 we're going to skip that article six is Andrea oh what about three um article [Music] seven Andre again wait a minute am I read this right what three three and four did you do oh six we already voted oh you already did three oh I see I turned the page that's my problem article three let two articles I'm sorry let's do article three but it's being passed over the one you said that's being passed over oh so I did get just a little bit of feedback because we talked about it so much last meeting um they the select board board voted to use a combination of arpa funds and money already in hand to fund this um we have a solid estimate that John peterk presented to the select board um they have been working kind of hand inand with the D D's been out here with them going through and looking at it so it feels very well controlled and the scope of work seems very well known and um it it uh I think in response to all the questions that we had it sounded like they were proceeding along in a um very nice manner Y and um and we don't need to worry about it because they're not spending extra funds so we will skip article three article four um was actually our recommendation and we voted to recommend so it says finance committee recommendation yes down here we haven't actually voted this warrant article yet we've just um we voted to request the select board to put it on there so does anybody have any discussion about article four let's go ahead and and Dot the eyes then um I move that we recommend article four second all right any discussion no um I I don't think we've talked here the the free cash got certified at 1 Point 1. 1859 million y yeah so it's pretty high so the 300,000 seems like a reasonable thing to do with it um anybody have any questions or discussion yeah I do go ahead John uh what's this gonna cost the average single household taxpayer do we know do we have a rough idea well this isn't costing them anything this is just giving just to put the money in yeah because this is just coming from free cash well it's money that could have been used for other things though say it again John it's money that could have could free cash that could be used for other things so maybe it won't be taxed but there is a it it's coming out it's it's coming out of the taxpayers pocket at sometime wouldn't that be next year's budget yeah but it's put into a general stabilization fund so it's pretty much just putting it into savings spending it um in instead of spending it on something um we could figure that out but probably not quickly off the top of my head um all right let's move on I if if this is money that that in the spring we would have needed for a capital project or to support the budget you know I guess in the spring you worry about that then and maybe you take it back out of General stabilization but this is trying to replenish the savings that we we would like to have for any catastrophic events right fin okay yeah thank you was this also the provision that was going to help with our um bonding and interest rates and all that correct yeah okay any further discussion uh let's do a roll call votee me with Jim James cambias I brown I Dave sharp I Mark Brennan I Julie Chin I Johan pesy I all right that's unanimous 6 all right um s right I apologize I'm having so much trouble article one we're passing over article two is done article three is passing over article four is done Article Five we're going to wait until 6:30 when Dan shows up article six we have already voted article seven and eight are the um the land on top of P tuck so we will do article nine and then come back to those so article nine is a Citizens petition um for basically using clickers at town meeting um actually Christopher since you're here do we have an estimate for what the clickers would cost or anything uh no I I do not have that information at my fingertips unfortunately okay that's fine thank you um so I can tell you unscientifically that I just reached out to a company that does clickers and they gave me a price of I think 13,800 for the clickers I did not ask if there's like Annual fees or anything is anybody there there are annual fees uh I I believe Cassie sent you a request right yeah so maybe you could speak to that better than anybody else speak different on that one Capital actually decided not to recommend this one um mainly because it's a cart and horse situation we don't have bylaws in place to even do this um we Capitol wanted to see if um this citizens petition went through I mean the citizens petition is basically a recommendation it's not actually something that requires us to do this right can't hear you one of the other things that came up was the fact that um this essentially there's a couple problems with this um some of it may be Financial related but it essentially turns um uh it essentially turns all of our voting into a secret ballot if we chose to do that and um if we were to do it article by article we we already have a mechanism for doing this we have paper ballots so there were a lot of reasons for us to simply not recommend it okay I think John had a question and then Jim John uh um what if there's more than 300 people that want to vote yeah what happens question uh I think you'd have to not use them um yeah that was another thing that came up is the quote that we have is for 300 of these what happens if 301 people show up what happens if 40 of them don't work do we even want to be in the business of buying and maintaining these should we be looking at services that might be able to come in and provide them there's just so many things that have to happen before we can even get to the point where we're purchasing them that um we you know didn't want to do that capital I I think I think um just in support of it um I I know Cassie said that she's talked to a lot of communities that are now using them and like them um she also got a $3,000 Grant to help pay for them if if we decide to go that route so just just so you're aware of of that and I uh you know we have the money um if we don't spend it on that I think she can spend it on something else for elections but I was just going to say not not necessarily Pro or con but just just what you said that presumably somebody can reach out to a few other towns and just sort of give us a come maybe and give us a Spiel to address some of these sort of obvious questions that pop up that we don't really have answers for because we haven't experienced it yet yeah and I do believe there is a maintenance cost I mean certainly you're going to have to maintain them every year um and I don't remember what that is and I don't don't know if she put that on the application or not but yes I I was also going to ask about what number of units that cost estimate was based on 300 yeah um when my wife and I were discussing this the other night we were trying to come up with ways to abuse this system and one of them was that people could show up get a clicker hand it to their neighbor and leave that's what happened when I was in college actually uh so this is not a finance thing per se but we would all hand it was freshman bio you know we would all see people handing them to each other they would you know some people would come in tow with five or 10 of these things so presumably someone could go in get checked in get one of the clickers stick around for one article and then leave and then ask hand their transponder or someone else um and again like for for me it's like it if we need to do this we already have a mechanism for doing it it's you know the paper ballot cheaper I'm just curious what are they use them for in a big bio class I mean you're not taking vot for taking attendance so ESS well it's a it's a circumspect way of taking attendance you have a quiz every day that's like you know a super easy quiz but it's it's on like you know not the four stages of mitosis by you you'll have like a very EAS question and you know if if you're there you you know it's C and if you're not there then you just don't have a response IA so they're indiv those clickers are individual to a person somehow identified as an individual I believe UMass gives them out to incoming students to use in a bunch of different classes oh we can buy them at but yeah um maybe they maybe they do give them out probably bundled into your yeah yeah gives them out you know gives them out and charges you for yeah um and and that's another problem that I have is like when we do voting we have a you know a piece of paper that's an artifact of our vote so if we have to take a recount we can do that with these you know it's kind of dubious as to how that would work Conway uses them now and um I don't know what the feelings are on it we should find out well I know that some don't like it because now it's a lot harder to pass things like uh School budgets right exactly you've got a large population uh same problem in field you've got a large population of people that don't have kids in school so this is you know essentially um putting us in a position where we we might be you know uh damning ourselves to not ever pass a school budget afterwards yeah um so yeah again not not related to the finance committee but um a Nuance of doing this I don't have theer in front of me for the one that of capital I'll see if I can dig it up on my email okay I go ahead I don't want to discuss this too much I'm just intrigued by why clickers would impact you mean people because they would don't want to vote against a budget if they're identified in town hall what we do at Town Hall you know out of the 351 towns in the Commonwealth there's only a small number that don't have a mayor mayoral city council system right so we become a un like a uni Camal legislature essentially yeah so we're not just simply going in and voting as if we're on a ballot we bicker in a somewhat Vis um civilized manner you know Dan does a pretty good job of Mak it somewhat civilized sure we all get to kind of see you know um people's kind of thought process and con concerns taking place in the floor and much like many legislators we get to see how people vote right so my concern with this is you'll have a lot of people who you know normally would not want to you know vote right next to their neighbor who may have kids um and not want to you know bring more money to the the schools or whatever that year and and and may have a propensity to voting no on the school budget all the time right so I don't know it changes the dynamic of how we do a town here I think it changes Jim go ahead well I think your point is correct and I think that's probably the the intention behind this the desire is that people would not feel pressured that their vote would be entirely their own vote rather than trying to go along with the crowd however I am going to point out that raising hands was good enough for the Roman Senate Rome didn't survive the Deerfield so beyond so there's the cost of I'm wondering about financial implications and whether finance committee should weigh in at this point um there's the cost of the pagers or whatever they are the clicker thingies um which is some where around 13,000 but there's a $3,000 Grant so it's maybe 10,000 correct um plus some unknown maintenance annual maintenance um like and and and the bylaw from what I understand can be bypassed by the moderator it could be suspended by the moderator suspended to be able to use it but until you get the bylaw fixed yeah yeah so I found the figure it's 16,000 was the one that uh the 16,000 16,000 is what we had found um from Cassie from Cassie yeah okay for like 300 or something was there any annual maintenance in there also um this just uh has the number 16,000 expected life of the equipment 10 to 15 years and battery replacement every three years no cost associated with that oh uh 995 actually so maybe that is the same thing so it would cost $995 beginning the second year of operation for maintenance um I feel like this is a funny thing for us to maybe weigh in on right this passes there's still going to be some other vote and other budgetary process about this and this is really kind of just I know it's saying we were we're asking the town to take the necessary steps but it's really just kind of a that's s of taking the temperature of the Town whether the town's going to vote yeah you're right there's no Finance is associated with this in the article correct so if it passed and we decide to do it this year it would be covered from with like within Cassie's current budget or we would find something from I don't know what I think we a item so it has to be recommended by the capital Improvement committee start to start with and it right okay yeah so I think it's kind of dead right now but maybe You' revisit it again spring like if this passed then they would be revisit in the spring right oh go ahead John um sorry I'm trouble with mute button um I just there I guess the financial implication does come to us approving the purchase maybe we don't know how much I just don't think we're ready to do it so therefore I don't think the committee should support purchasing them until we know more about them we know more how it would work at Town meetings it's what happens if there's more than 300 those kind of questions continue I just don't think we should vote to approve prove it because money will be spent that's in 20 words or less my feeling so so do you think we should vote on it or not vote on it that's you're recommending that we just don't vote on it we don't give up we say the finance Comm yeah make up some word Tak no action against at the moment there is no motion right on the floor we're just talking yeah yeah I would say so John do you think that we should um just bypass it and not vote on it not recommend I can't even ask the question just take no take no action take no do you think we should skip it or do you think we should make a recommendation I until we know more about it I think we should recommend against it well isn't that taking no action no I think that's Tak no I know he's well he's saying until we know more about it so then we shouldn't vote Yes or No we should wait till we know more about it in other words we we can not do anything until we know more about it or that the passes and the budget's going to come in front of us how about somebody throw a motion out there I make a motion that we take no action on article second any discussion okay roll call vote Jim James cias I to take no action Brown I Dave sharp ey Mark brenen I Julie Chin I John John PES stay okay so that's 51 you have language from thing that yeah take no action well this one would be different so it's not like yeah I think what we said was something like finance committee makes no recommendation either for or against this article that's good because I thought we said something about it not having financial implications and I'm not sure that one there's there's clear financial implications that was about the new state flag I know but I I don't want to use the same wording as all because I don't think it go ahead John it says the the article says that uh requesting the town to take necessary steps to purchase 300 electric vote tabulators um so I think we need to make a decision whether it's okay to purchase or not that's my feeling but to take the necessary steps don't you have to go through Capital Improvement and bring it to the budget and all those things and yeah just a citizen urge the town to act on this so urging the town to act on it could mean that they get it all figured out over the course of the next few months and at Springtown meeting there's a the wording of the motion is pretty straightforward to who purchase they're not recommending a sum of money but they are saying that we should do it but it has no if this passes it has no Authority but why not it's just a request it's just take the necessary steps yes but I mean the necessary steps would be spending money well I know but they would have to go through all the layers of buying something and the vote if the vote passes here it doesn't make this happen they're just respectfully requesting well I'm not sure that the per that the writing that the writers of this uh petition would agree with you there I think they think they're asking for the town to buy clickers no I know they are but I'm just saying citizens petition my understanding was it doesn't really have any authority to tell the town what to do maybe I'm wrong it was my understanding they're non-binding yeah this is basically like a non-binding referendum yeah is essentially what my understanding of this was I could be wrong but the town meeting votes on something that's pretty binding I'm talking about a citizen's division specifically well had we voted that thing last spring with the um the kids voting that would have become a binding thing that we had to that would do right that was like it it required the state to yeah yeah yeah anyway we did vote on this already we've already voted this anybody want to reopen it for any reason okay Andrea has joined us hi Andrea um so let's move to articles seven and eight um Andrea do you want to give a little introduction or do you want us to just start talking about it um sure I can give a little introduction um there are several Parcels of town-owned land on PUK that have never been permanently protected and we have tried VAR the open space committee has explored various ways of doing that um all for not until we uh learned about um article 97 of the amendments to the Constitution and it turns out we can do we can use article 97 to permanently protect the land but only if the land is has a land use code that is consistent with that and so what we are asking at town meeting is for two Parcels of land which are on pamuk one is the peuk is the pine Nook Forest the other is the area around pamuk rock and we are asking that the um that the town vote to change the land use code from 9:30 to 9:32 and by doing that um the land will be designated as as being under um can be under conservation protection and then we can apply article 97 to it does that make sense to people so just the one more part of uh of uh by way of introduction is that the land was acquired by the the town in like 1926 and there was no means to protect land at that time perhaps no one even thought about that um but um this is something that came up when we submitted the open space and Recreation plan to the state to the Commonwealth and we were asked you know why are so many Parcels of town-owned land not permanently protected so this will allow us to do that so once land goes into article 97 it's pretty like it's supposed to be permanent um it can be this is my understanding and somebody will fix this when I'm done it can be taken out of article 97 but it's really really hard and you have to get the state legislature to vote on it and it's pretty much not going to happen so once it's in 97 it is permanently protected if you do something that you need that land for something different you have to swap other land for this land so the reason there used to be four parcels and now there are our two Parcels is that there is land there's work we're going to be doing fixing the stillw bridge basically and there's land on one end or the other that is in article 97 in order to do the work on the bridge we're going to take that land out of article 97 one of these pieces it has to be like similar land one of these pieces was next to the river so we're going to swap the piece next to the river for that piece so if we protect this land on the top ofum and then for some reason somay we want to take it out we have to swap other similar land for that land so it would have to be sort of yeah go ahead I just had one question that came to mind about this is that the tower is up there and I wonder does that is this Encompass that and so the article specifically says except for the portion of land leased to utilities okay so those are those are not so it will surround those um okay there maybe um oh a couple years into my term as select board where Delta sand and gravel wanted to purchase a portion of this land because they wanted to expand and we had declined to sell it at that time um and I just want to make sure that you know that yeah hear you the cell tower work we use up there um you know it is protected and we have that right to still have not to expand but just you know one of that little spot around it unprotected it looks like it is so yeah it's hard it is hard for us um to can't hear you yeah you can't hear what can't hear you speaking you just heard me me well all right so um the the question was whether the land that has the cell tower on it that's on that property was included and if you look in article 8 in the body of it it says excludes the portion of land leas to Singular Wireless and also the land leas to Western masses electric for the Cable Systems so the the land that has the cell tower on it is excluded okay I that's great I couldn't track down one question I had that I wasn't able to get the answer is um we get a a a nice chunk of change every year which is personal property taxes on the cell towers we get about $500,000 a year on all of the cell towers together is what um the assessors told me but I don't know like it's not just this one there's there's more than just one I don't know how many there are I don't know how many per cell tower for this one I think we also get rent for the property that's under it yes um so so I don't know how much it is but I I would guess it you know it's enough to that we should continue to be able to do that um I I think this does this the other thing I don't know is um like how close can you put cell towers to one another right um could we put a said like would we ever want to put a second cell tower up there you know anything idea you yeah could you raise the height of it and maybe have two different on the same footprint I just was worried about need more are for the yeah I was worried about the just the carve out that was there and was it enough for the future or not um and maybe if we have to pull I don't know would you have to subdivide it further I don't know I think it makes sense to protect it because it is pristine land and we don't want it filled up with all kinds of housing or whatever else but it's good to have what we have there this this just as a the sell Tower at the South dfield Fire District we are now putting a second uh utility up there and they're raising it by 12 feet I don't think the footprint is getting any bigger right I think it's just going higher yeah I think you're right about that y you know when that's going to happen by the way what's that imminent imminent yeah okay that's good yeah is weird because you can't get any selfservice down there right so another argument in favor of this is that that that Andre I don't think you said this is that if it is protected then there is a large run of protected land and um the the open space committee is working with DCR to get a um like a a trail what do you call it system a trail system um a trail system together and advertise it and you know do all of that stuff and they will be able to apply for Grants and are more likely to get the grants if it's protected that is that is accurate the other interesting thing is that there are um places along the pum tuck Ridge which have really interesting um flora and fauna that we know we've known about for well over a decade that's not been protected in any way so this will help us um with some of the land uh you know in those areas I know there's another um another attractive land that DCR is looking at as well at purchasing to and or protecting one way or the other U that Natalie Natalie's office um and Joe's office got letters on and and the select board wrote letters in favor of that and the planning board wrote letters in favor of that that is DCR is applying for federal a Federal Grant or federal grants for two pieces of land which are close to these pieces of uh these Parcels that we're asking um to have protected now um I uh we've been sort of told please don't take say too much about it because I don't know um how close the the sale you know the purchase and sale agreement is it really depends on getting Federal money but it's a um it will be close to these Parcels of land and a nice chunk of of the land up on on the ridge will be uh will be protected because of that Jim go ahead so I I have two questions and these are sort of Devil's Advocate questions um the first is um if this land has been Town property since you said 1920s um what what is it would be nice to if you could summarize what makes it necessary to change its status why would not why would it not be available for trail as just plain vanilla Town property so because um to get Mass Trail uh grants you have to say that the land is protected for at least 10 years because the state doesn't Commonwealth does not want to give money for a grant for land that you that the town could turn around and sell the next year so it will um severely reduce our um our capability of getting a grant um the other is that there are people up there doing things on on these Parcels of land and there's no there's no sort of oversight of this there we know that there are mountain biking groups there are um hikers there's no official um trail system so if you said if someone said to me I'd like to go on a hike tomorrow can you suggest to hike on pamuk we don't have ma a a an official mapped trail system this will help us apply for monies so that we can create such a thing uh we've been told that uh we' met with uh mountain biking groups and they are building trails and they're doing a variety of things and we've said do you have permission to do this and they just kind of said well from whom who are we supposed to so it's really not the land is um is not being carefully monitored by having the land protected um and being able to write a grant uh to to create a trail system we will be able to better monitor what's going on on the land so it won't change anything in terms of um sort of town responsibilities but it will allow the open space committee to write Grant applications to try to create um a SI a trail system and it's our understanding that DCR on those Parcels of land that they hope to buy with the Federal grant they are planning to create a trail system that they will Monitor and so this will allow us to connect with that and um and piggyback on what um on what DCR is doing so so another example is we um the open space committee has tried multiple ways to get this land protected one of the ways was to see if Franklin Land Trust would um accept a conservation restriction on this land they went and visited the land and they came back to us and said no there are too many people up there doing weird things mountain biking building jumps building Trails we we don't want to to do that we'd have to restrict who can use the land we don't want to do that so this is um having the article 97 applied will allow us to actually cont uh to protect the land permanently I'd also just like to see somewhere a dirt gravel kind of parking because the when everybody goes up bik cars are everywhere and they block people's driveways and they block the trails and so just once it's all kind of protected we could all get together and say Here's the trail system and here's the trail head where you can exactly that is a that is a big part of what the open space committee has has looked at one of the biggest problems is yeah um parking and we have some ideas about that we've been talking to the Deerfield Water Commission we've uh talked to people at Eaglebrook we we um we have ideas about about those things exactly thanks Jim you had another question yes um at the moment this is merely an administrative change so the there's not any out of pocket expense for the town correct what potential is there any plausable reason that there might that this might become taxable land that you know we might want to preserve it as you know to keep it on the on the tax roles is there any is it even accessible um there's Frontage on um Pine no turn it into housing lots but it's also forested and Forest land uh serves incredible uh you know um functions for uh water um mitigation carbon sequestration do we want to um to take this incredible land out of um you know out of Forestry well I mean one of the other purposes of State Forest though is Timber yeah state forests are not the same as Parks I think it's still a Town Forest still be managed one of the points of one of the purpos of forest conservation was wood yeah so we don't have a motion yet would anybody like to make a motion on either or both of the Articles can you remind us why they're different they belonging to two they separated out the two parts parel oh I do have one other question Andrea could you spell your last name yes l e i b s o n thank you thank you for asking do any other questions I could help with do we have a motion anybody want to make a motion I I'll make a motion to so we can get it on the table to approve articles seven and eight of the special town meeting all right we have a second second all right any discussion or question all right sounds like we're ready can hear you James CI as I um bth Brown I Dave sharp I Mark Brennan I Julie Chalin I John John pesy I all right that passes unanimous 6 thank you very much Andrea for joining us you I'm sorry it was a little late uh Julia don't know if you saw I did send at you an email today that includes a huge map and it shows exactly the the two parcel of land that are being talked about um it's parcel one and two on the on this map and so if that would be helpful for people to See's can't can't hear here we go which are the two Parcels three number one and number two oh the one and two on here one yes we've already voted we already voted so I just wanted you to know that it was there all right we're done thank you very much Andre bye bye and then the last article is article which one five yes so that's the um recommendation of the community preservation committee for Community preservation fund um for the 1888 building um are you here for that one I was not here oh yeah okay I see got okay so the the only thing from the CPA fund is the 1888 building um this is a high very high level um description of the estimated costs and the source of funding for 1888 building um so the um there is an owner project manager for P3 there is an architect Architecture Firm um they the Architecture Firm um has put a design together and has a professional cost estimator who went through and did a cost estimate the OPM reviewed the cost estimate they went back and forth a couple of times the final estimate out of them was $7 million for the um for the contractor the full project that includes within it it's it's actually two separate um bids to clearly not bids um estimates to clearly delineate what's the old building and what's the new building um which will help for um T detailing cost to the CPA funds and the non-cpa funds um the the design contingency within that is 15% on the new building 18% on the old building because it's more likely that they'll have problems with the old building um in addition to that there are owner expenses stuff that we would pay for like furniture ffe furniture fixtures and equipment um utility hookup testing moving that kind of thing um and then a contingency on the contractor cost of 7 and a half% so the total of all that is 8.7 million is the estimate the and I think I emailed everybody but only maybe an hour or two ago the detailed estimates if if we want to dig into that at all um the sources of funding there is a federal earm for $4 million that we have been granted for this building um there is a proposal to use 650,000 of arpa funding and then out of CPA um it would be about 3.8 million out of CPA funds um in addition to 273,000 that's left over from the last CPA Grant so that's a little over 8.7 million is the um funds available what this would mean we've kind of already said this is that there would be no increase to um taxpayers bills based on this we're basically using funds that we have in hand to and the CPA funds are funds that are very restricted I'm saying it not for you guys because you guys know this but anybody listens to us they're they're very restricted in what they're allowed to be used for so they can only be used for historic preservation affordable community housing and open space and Recreation right so we couldn't take this money and repair our roads for example or build a new bridge or do culverts or anything like that that it's restricting what we can use it for or build a new building or build a new yeah we can we can refurbish the old building and we can make the old building accessible so some of the costs of the elevator um can actually be um out of the CPA funds but um how much will this will this basically empty the piggy bank of the community preservation act funds pretty much um do you I don't have that in front of me I was going to go grab it but um but I didn't if memory serves I don't think we'll be doing any borrowing out of it though right that's that's exactly right so you will have funds in the coming years of probably 450,000 plus every year year that's that's just the revenues from each year so at the end of 2024 it was 4.5 million 4522 319 we had 4.5 million of that we're using what 3 something yeah but I think that 4.5 million included the reserves right it does yeah yeah that is not some of that is reserved for open space that we can't use some of it is probably we might have spent all of the the the housing one on the senior housing thing oh right I'm just partly thinking about you know if we absolutely have to there's at least something left then conceivably for the other historic building that we're renovating right yeah so um I've been hearing a lot of pointed remarks about yeah so I've actually started sounding and this is kind of off topic you guys want to spend time talking about that right now you want to vote this first can I ask a question yeah how do we replenish our CPA funds so it's a searge on our taxes okay um that we voted many years ago and it's 2% 3% I thought it was two but maybe maybe it might be is it what's CPA is it 3% it's 3% of everything over $100,000 but it's it's 3% of your taxes yeah not of the tax amount that you pay it's not 3% of the value of your house right and then and then the state kind of gives if it's a good year the state might give you up to like 70% or something like that yeah because we're a 3% Community we get the maximum amount that the state would would be able to to give us related to house sales too is that what's that is there any relation to the turnover of real estate in our like the state taxes that are paid when you you know buy a house nothing to do with the real estate it's just your just your the fund the fund that the state uses to does that come from that I don't know what's I don't know what fund is it that they use to to support us but because we're 3% we can get matched up to 100% it I don't know that they ever every we have have a couple times yep pretty close um so so the undesignated fund balance at the end of the fiscal year was 3 .6 million but that included an unrealized loss and that's why um they were only asking for 3585 out of out of the undesignated and in using the 100,000 out of the fiscal 25 revenues um that leaves 100,000 that we expect in revenues in fiscal 25 that aren't being used that will go into the undesignated fund at the end of the next fiscal year in addition to whatever the state gives us no that's that's that includes includes what we expect to get from the state um the estimates from the state for this fiscal year were a little lower because uh the Boston is included and things are a little tighter so we did kind of lower the estimate of what they were going to give us so all we can do is guess I just like to say that the uh cipc committee voted to recommend this at a priority one because it's got um a uh whole set of funding sources and then I think one of the things we haven't talked about here is the federal earmark as well um Not only would that potentially go away if we don't go forward with this I don't know that we would ever get a federal e Mark or something like this again um given how much work it took just to get here so I'm not a huge fan of depleting funds for projects but this one would be a really good one to do um and like I said the cipc recommends it okay John you have your hand up yeah I have a few questions um the current oh what's the 1888 building going to be used for in the future town hall right right any else no um the current Town Hall what's going to happen to that unnown if yeah so there are a couple of options oh hi Dan Dan Pat is here just thank you for joining us um we're going to go ahead and talk about this and then we'll go to it so I there's no absolute purpose set for this building yet um I have an opinion which is that it would make a really nice Senior Center I mean it's set up very nicely that it could be used easily as a senior center the building has problems it's it's an old building it was cheaply built when it was built it's what 1960 so it's 70 something years old um 60 something years old um and it you know heat's not great the air conditioning is not great it's not a wonderful building all the reason we're leaving but the way the way it's set up um so that's one option is that it could be a temporary temporary being many years Senior Center another opt option is that if we put Senior Center somewhere else um this could be taken down police station would stay it would it's newer this could be taken down and it's being eyed as a site for senior housing um as part of that project but that would be longer term um um I guess as far as the senior housing goes I thought that was going to be where the Catholic church is and it was going to be handled by exactly yep so is the plan so what what in what you're saying then we'd have two sites for senior housing yes um might do a second building y so but in any instance there's a cost to the old building either refurbishing it so it can be used or to take it down and I think that should be part of this disc in my opinion one thing I'll also mention is not everybody would be moving over like R department there's other entities that would still probably be here but the majority of town hall will be over there would free up space to kind of you know the Vets there's you know there's other ways that we could use the building in the meantime but yeah there there has to be a plan going forward in a study and wait a second though I mean one of the whole rational one of the whole justification moving the town off to the 1888 building is that this building is too expensive to maintain and is unsuitable and now we're talking about renovating it anyway no all sudden it's not too expensive it's not it's not you know it's not suitable for Town Hall I don't believe but I I mean maybe there's a question that would be good for a senior center but there's other feasibility studies going on right now too nothing's set in not why wouldn't everybody be bless you sorry about that um I can I further on a couple of more questions the congregate we have another question on the floor right now so we're GNA talk about that and then we'll come back to you um okay so everything changes but when the idea originally came I think it was Dave Wolf's idea originally the thought was we were looking for a place for a senior center and none of the buildings were great for a senior center if we renovated that using CPA funds and now this grant um and most of town hall moved in there then this could become the senior center essentially without renovation um just use it as is um the wreck department wasn't um wasn't designated to move because the thought was that the senior center would be in here in this space is better like this is a better space for the rec department than than that space is so that's why and the rec department is the the only one that didn't move other than essentially the senior center and the nurse which would be collocated with the senior center wherever that ends up this seems like we're basically doubling the amount of town office space and not saving any money save money a new building I mean you're investing in for the future because this place is clearly not tenable okay longm not tenable then why are we talking about using it well the you can't have it both ways either it's not tenable or it's perfectly fine I don't think anyone's talking about it as a permanent yeah place like a permanent Senior Center like forever but you're still going to spend money KCK to make it tenable for the term well there's a feasibility Town employe these offices are pretty unusable if you want it to be cool in the summer it's hot if you want it to be warm in the winter it's cold the seniors can do their activities here without sitting in these offices for eight hours yeah but the senior center Administration has already you know turned up you know complained about the office space in the 1821 building right I don't I don't disagree there stud right now personally I like I I I hope that this building isn't reused I hope we tear it down personally but I I think that what what the point is is this the the state of this building is still tentative one of the things that we're kind of overlooking a little bit though is we still have to do something with the 1888 building whether we refurbish it or not it's still there it's still rotting in place so you know if we say hey if we move into the 1888 building we still have to maintain another building that's true right now actually with the 1888 building like either way we have to maintain a building so this way we we get $4 million from the state one time you know I I don't know that we'll get that kind of money again right and we can't use that on this one John you have a question yeah the Congregational Church is that um considered historic so to be eligible for CPA funds that's one question and and Rel it to the church and another question question is what have we planning to do with it there's a feasibility study going on right now that encompasses the church and two other buildings in one in weightly one in Sunderland for the senior center but that's all that's happening at the moment we've refurbished the kitchen it's being used as the library at the moment that's about as and we're fixing one of the roof I don't know I it looks to me like we're spending a lot of money and I know it's money CPA money that we already have set aside but it's still money that we're spending and we have buildings out there we don't know what we're going to do with that's my opinion about it but at least we'll have a nice building to put town offices in that should last for another 30 40 years you're investing in your been what 15 in your resources maybe you could do do that with the church maybe but we don't have 4 million for it yeah I mean prior to this project we've been basically rearranging the deck chairs and the Titanic with three buildings and this is an opportunity to finally like fix one the right way and then from there we can chip away at the next one but I think if if we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results you know it's kind of silly so I I don't know I know we've been discussing a lot I don't do we have a um a motion on the floor I don't think so we don't no I I'd like to make a motion to recommend Article Five is written second second okay um was the second um so I think right now it it's a a nobody cares what my opin I do so thinking thinking about the different buildings um just my opinion 1888 building I think it's a pretty building and if we have the CPA funds and we can rehabilitate that to a building and especially with the addition I think it has the potential to be a a really nice place for Town Hall to be it saves that pretty building it puts the people who are working for the town in a building that has like new HVAC and new air conditioning and you know should be functional and and useful so I I feel like that's a worthwhile project going to stay another five years if we do then I heard that that case I'm gonna vote yeah right it's tempting but so so I think that's worth saving the old church building I think is a pretty building also I think that the sanctuary side of it is lovely um I don't think it has any insulation in the The Sanctuary side I I'm I'm waiting to hear what the heating bills are like over the winter with the library in the in that side of the building um so I think it's it was donated to the town I think that's kind of iconic you know New England type of building um it's in I think halfway decent shape especially with the repairs that we've done recently the inside looks great with the floors refinished and all that so I think we should continue to use that I'm not sure it's a good building for a permanent like a permanent senior maybe it is for a permanent Senior Center I'm not sure it's enough space um but I think regardless of whether the senior center is in there or not the town will will use it as community meeting space and it will be a useful building that that's for the town um this building you know whatever ambivalent I think it it makes a good short-term spot for the senior center I great indor pickle indoor pickle ball there you go you could fit two in here I I'm just envisioning they're doing a senior Center feasibil this is me being grumpy and I apologize but they're doing this Senior Center feasibility study and they're going to figure out that there are a whole bunch of seniors in this in the area and that our population is aging and by gosh we need all this stuff and they're going to recommend something that's going to be 30,000 square feet half that and it's going to cost $20 million to build a new building huh it'll be 12 or 15 million and it'll be about 15,000 square feet is what will be recommended so we have yet another and then what are we going to do build another 15 million dollar building on top of the library and the garage and the you know and take on another all the seniors will have to get rid of their annuity yeah exactly and so if we can find a solution that is functional that's not 15 milon is is is that is 15 million a a concrete number or is that is it even close to concrete no neither neither is 50 neither is 12,000 or 15,000 square feet we have okay so we'll know at the end of the year your housing is going to play a role in how this all plays out it is y see where that ends up yeah I wouldve that we this question okay let's go ahead and um all right you guys uh Jim James can be is I that's I Dave sharp I Mark Brennan I Julie Chalin I John pesy no okay so that passes 5 one zero um so Dan thank you very much for coming appreciate all your input um so that's it that's the warrant um is there any reason for us to meet before town meeting I certainly can't think of a reason we post one just in case we might we'll post what happens if a bill from a previous year comes up between now and the meeting right that's always always thought on my mind post a meeting right before meting to start 15 minutes or half hour or something before um before town meeting in case we have anything to discuss so anything else for this evening a question I won't I I'm 99% sure I won't be able to make the town meeting 99% sure he's not going to make it to the town meeting okay sorry but I commitment um just just a question sort of process procedure ACC um when we hear about the free cash being certified from last year as pretty healthy amount are we ever gonna have a sort of conversation discussion just sort of to or should I already know what it is from looking at myself like how that came about and from what pies that came about in terms of terms of how our budget process worked for last year and how we think about it going through the next year it's obviously very health thing but it also means something I think about how you predicted the future potentially or it doesn't because certain surprises may have happen but can we just dedicate a future meeting to just have a discuss about what that what it means and Brenda can address that for a little bit right now I think I can I you know I've I've I've considered what what had happened that that we had a high free cash certification and really most of it it really boils down to the big project that da had so we so we had an extra 350 to 400,000 in the coppers that that we wouldn't normally have um in inspection in permits yeah um so that's that's really most of it that's so now we're 1.3 1.4 so and and so that's that's normal 1.2 to 1.4 is more normal okay yeah I think that's all I need to and I have a whole history of that I'll bring that to the next meeting so that you can see the history of our free cash certifications yeah anything else to talk about oh wa motion to have a second second Jim James C be as I Shar ey Mark Brenan I Julie Chan I John pisy I all right that's unanimous finally enough thank you everybody for thank you hi byebye bye