##VIDEO ID:Rk9xnwKFJEg## let's call the finance committee meeting to order for six at 6:04 pm on September 5th 2024 um first item is review of minutes from previous meetings amount um I move that we accept the minutes of the uh August 22nd August 28 28th maybe I will second that 2 any discussion no we need a roll call vote we'll start with Jim hi James Beth Brownstein wasn't here Margaret nardit I Julie chaan iar I don't think was I did come in yeah hi okay Mark Mark Brennan I all right that passes some number five yeah 52 count okay um end of your financial statements Brenda passed out last meeting um does anybody have any comments or questions on those yeah I do I figured you would not surprised none look at the totals yeah it was 92,000 amended on the expend yeah okay amend where the money come from that would have been from um revisions due at Town meetings or transfers from the reserve fund or transfers between Appropriations um additional Capital we had that 250,000 in additional capital for um the HVAC system for the police department you know things like that and the 600,000 that we had um as as money that came in from stabilization for the storm damage no it's not taxes pardon it's not tax no it was from special right any any other questions on the reports okay um we also have copies of the um all right so the other item is the special town meeting warrant which we will just run through there are copies here you um Casey emailed it also Mark so you should have a copy in the email um yes sorry I have it y you do have it good um so I guess we'll just run through them some of them we're going to meet again September 25th um so if there are ones that we can address right now we can look at what's here anyway and the ones that we can vote on we will and the ones that we want more data or whatever we will wait until September 25th um so just I guess we'll just start at the beginning and run through so article one is um unanticipated prior year bills Brenda do you know what that bill is there is there is none there are none at this moment in time but I just told Casey why don't we leave it on there placeholder it's a placeholder just in case something shows up between now and October 7th which is you never know so we'll skip that one yeah um Community preservation committee this is going to be the um is the the only one is the 1888 building is that true I believe so yes okay okay um Tim do you want to since you're here do you want to give us a recap of the 1888 building um sure so this is a a follow-up request from a request that Julie helped Shepard in 2022 when they had phase one of design for um looking at um renovating the brick building over here that used to be the senior center um at that time the town awarded $475,000 to do architectural studies um the first one was UN unsuccessful and Le started the second one that looks to be quite promising and uh cost effective so um the second application which I'm Christopher Dunn and I are sheering is for 3.8 3.86 million from the CPC uh from some of it from undesignated funds the largest portion is from undesignated there's a the the entirety of the historic reservation um pla which is about $127,000 and then a $100,000 request from the fy2 um CPC money total of 3.86 and um we have a matching Grant of $4 million and $650,000 of arpa money that's uh set aside for the 1888 building project for a total of approximately 8.7 the uh project would the renovation project was based on uh a construction cost of $6.5 million um approximately 3.82 is estimated to be for the renovation of the old building and the 2.1 something my my my memory might be slightly off on these numbers but um on the 12th we'll be able to tell you precisely when we have our public hearing uh information session I should say and to build a a new two-story building approximately 2900 Square F feet um elevator to make both buildings ADA Compliant and accessible on all floors and um with uh allowance for solar panels to be placed on the new building um so any further detail that you want basically that's great basically the part that you need is that we're going to ask for 3. 3.86 million from CPA and there'll be no borrowing yes yes this this is the chip critical ingredient great um so I think a after all of that um there's there's in my mind there's two pieces of data that we still need one is that the Architects are going to have a preliminary cost estimate Monday I think the 9th um they want to that first cost estimate will come in they want to our our um OPM the project manager um which is Dan Pila wants to look through that and check it for us before they give it to us so sometime during next week we will have that minary cost estimate and knock on wood it will be under um $8.7 million so they I mean they did a a an initial cost estimate that was very rough that comes in under that value so the hope is that the next value so I would think that we should wait as a committee to vote until that preliminary cost estimate is in and then the other question I have that's still outstanding is um CPC is going to put some conditions on this um and I would like to see what conditions they're recommending before we vote on it right um I think um some of those conditions I think uh might belong in the warrant but most of them don't my personal opinion from what I've seen of them um they are allowing five years to complete the project which is different than um than anything that we've we've done to this point but it makes sense five years for for this kind of a project um they want um approval and oversight by um the state organization that deals with historic structures interior secretaries Secretary of the interior's guidelines for historic preservation yeah yeah yeah so they want that person to be involved sort of throughout the process um I'm not sure if that's a normal thing or not and then there were a couple of other stipulations I think they wanted a CPC Committee Member on the 1888 building advisory committee or something like that I'm not sure that that's appropriate but anyway so there were some some things that they stated go ahead joh um so how come you those is that simply because the community preservation Commission because we haven't had any re the other historic structure why don't you speak into the microphone please yeah thank you uh is this due to the fact that it's the CPC involved because otherwise you know we didn't have requirements like that for any of the other historic structures that we are currently or plan to remodel right right because we're it's they're using we're using CPA y they were talking about something um Poss requiring the grant to be used before the CPC funding was used or something was there anything like that I don't can do that that makes me very hesitant um um as to how that's applied yeah I mean I I believe the Town Council has to work with the chair and the vice chair of the CPC to figure out what they are there is one person who's being very cautious and uh yeah about trying to place stipulations that may already exist um so there's a federal layer of cost controls right because USDA is involved there's an an O OPM that the town hires to manage a project it's a state requirement to manage costs um and so it's unclear what those things will be but I think Lisa needs to be involved in helping um Julie jant I mean sorry Kathy Kathy Sylvester and Julie cwell um to I think cpc's meeting Monday to talk about this okay all right yeah go ahead I have two point I you threw out a lot of numbers yeah it' be nice to see summ I couldn't follow no no we have a summary so I can it's available Julie has access to it um we're we're going to have a a meeting on the 12th a first public informational meeting where I think there's going to be a handout I can try and forward one to you um I thinke should have we need sure yeah and in the meeting is at 7 pm is that right on the 12 what time is that it's 7 uh well the 12th starts at the the doors open at 6:30 presentation starts at 7 okay but I can certainly um Christopher and I are working on uh FAQs and um we can also provide a link to the actual application um and supporting documentation um I wasn't planning to come and speak about this because yeah sorry there's no numbers in the warrant thing yet so I also I'm concerned that we're spending money on building we have what's what's going to happen to this what's going to happen to what get what's going to happen to what was the ca North Main Street what about the land SoCal Park Lane we spent a million dollars we didn't spend a million dollars on the Park Lane we spent about $250,000 well yeah or a little more than that in addition to buying it for 274,000 so I think I think we didn't spend a million doar on it I can guarantee that we spent less than 300,000 yeah yeah small no I'm not not saying it is I'm just saying it wasn't a million dollars Town spending money on property and a lot of it Ving well so this would be my argument for this project okay we have three empty buildings now with if the 1880 building project moves forward one empty building gone if the senior housing project goes forward two empty buildings gone suddenly we have only one empty building and perhaps we use this as a temporary senior center in conjunction with the the part of the library that the the the old Congregational Church which has been repaired uh until we get a final solution to that and we solve the third empty building or the fourth empty building these two so I think it's net net a gain but that's just me what happens to this it could gets a temporary use and then it potentially could either be torn down and have affordable subsidized senior housing not affordable subsidize i' I've been told not to use affordable um or we find another use for it but um the TAC did a study many years ago is it four now um where they recommended moving the town offices from this building to another location and that's the impetus for looking at the 1888 building is a possible new location so but I don't want to take over your meeting so um happy to talk with you offline about it and also provide you the information you need that's concern you had a question I'm just curious and I should know the answer or I guess we all should but um when we made a final we the town when when we presented the final Library pitch and we broke out how that was going to be paid for did we was there any indication in those kind of categories that there was money for the library coming from the CPC fund they they talked about doing it they never applied I not okay so they never applied but I'm just curious Jim do you know the answer to this question I'm talking about when we we presented the I mean I know that the town you know Town voted for it and we're on the hook for borrowing whatever it is but there were certain pockets of money that I remember were presented as a possible ways for this to be funded this was a topic at last night's Library board meeting as a matter of fact that apparently they had been asked rather specifically not sure by whom me okay all right um to not apply for CBA oh no not that no that I had no involvement in that so basically we're we're we we have two projects that have similar interest in using CPA money um one of them can only happen with with a lot of CPA money um that that does kind of undermine the statement that no borrowing would be required because basically you're sort of taking from Peter to pay Paul here well well but that's that my question is a little different I mean I I'm I'm hearing some other conversation there about not applying for it right I'm more questioning um whether when again just I just have to go back and look and find those nice charts that I'm sure we have that when we made the presentation that's same we collectively again when the presentation was made to the town by everybody um I'm just curious whether the CPC or CP whether that was a pot that was thought about it was or not it was it it was about a million okay okay so that's that's um just a interesting data point then I guess yeah only yeah how much is left after the 3.8 is gone there's approximately well I mean Brenda could tell you more my recollection is that the last figure she gave me was $4.5 Million but it's segregated into different accounts so for instance senior housing has a certain amount of money in it um I guess yeah and I'm not argu I'm not making any kind of um major statement about anything EX accept I suppose um you know these projects likely need to get done um but if that's the case I would somehow I know we need to make that clear about where the where the pots of money are from in other words I wouldn't want um people in town you know some people already s get their ideas in their heads about certain things projects there certain factions and I wouldn't want people coming after of doing revisionist history about Library funding in stuff when we are going you know when we're talk in our budget about the borrowing cost um you know it's all we're all in this together but there is a little bit of of moving pots around whereever said that that that would be my only I mean obviously otherwise you would borrow a million for ag8 billion didn't have that much we yeah it's going to be interesting because there's going to be a lot of people probably wanting to co-mingle every project that's going on in town and say well this one cost this this one cost this why should we do this one that doesn't have a borrowing component to it and we'll just have to answer those questions as they arise yeah and I guess the one thing is we want to borrow money as late as possible and as low an interest rate as possible so this project this project has no borrowing at all associated with it right because but it it could have up to a mill huh saying is that okay so there's a $4 million earmark that's for this building that we can only use for this building there's a $3.8 million available in CPA funds that can be used for historic purposes that that covers it that's sitting there that we can use and then there's a little bit in arpa funding 650,000 that's been allocated to the building so what it may I just ask what is the current CPA are you mentioned undesignated fund balance what is the current so the undesignated fund balance at the end of the fiscal year was 3.6 million okay 3.69 yep uh no 3.6 59 but that was yeah close enough um the amount in historic reserves that was available as 121,122 199,000 available from the fiscal 25 revenues um because none of that was allocated at annual town meeting so you have all of those pots of money available to use for something for historic purposes and we're not so I mean that's pretty clear that we're not going to be borrowing against future CPA revenues right there was a there was a plan that would have so to to Dave's Point um the first time we went through this the only way we could make the building work it was like an 11 million project and it involved B Bonding for a number of years for a large amount of future CPA receipts I think it was in the 2.6 to 2.7 million range that made no sense wasn't going to work and so we changed the plan entirely and said let's build new stuff that's actually usable office space because it's less expensive to build and only work on the first gut renovation of the first two floors of the old building and then fixing the basement using the attic for Mechanicals and duct work um so that reduced the cost considerably as Julie says we're going to get more realistic cost estimates shortly um but you know if you take a million from one project and you add it to another project then you end up with borrowing the same amount of money um so it doesn't necessarily cost anymore it's just you know you ban want and so about things say to people but the other way I to think about it is things a while go yeah um and again this is more your expertise of course but things there timetables things take a while so if the 1888 building if we all go through with this approve it um I is it quote unquote shovel ready next year sometime does a bit have to go out does it not go until spring of 26 and the reason I'm asking just finish my thought Y is just when we're talking about pots of money it would be wouldn't it be not fiscally prudent to borrow money next year for the library if we had money sitting in CPA funding that we could use and then borrow the money in 26 when you needed for the 1888 bilding so that's just what I mean like why would we leave money first answer is that the plan is to go out to bid in the spring of 2025 so the project would start in 2025 and I don't think there's any way that a million dollars from CPA money could stop us from borrowing against the library but that's Brenda well we have to borrow next month so we're going to be borrowing 9.9 million um and we do that all at once well yeah we're going to have to because the project will be done in August of 25 so you're you're borrowing next month yeah we're we're doing uh a ban for a year and uh it'll be um actually it's going to be 9.4 million because the library has agreed to give us 500,000 of the fundraising money that they've collected so far so um and and let me point out that the library has got a lot of pledges but that 500,000 more or less accounts for most of the money we've actually got right yes yeah uh from from what Nancy had said or maybe it was margar or margorie um uh we have about 1.14 million so far in pledges yeah so um they're able to get us 500,000 before the end of September so that we can put that against the the um project and not have to borrow that 500,000 so that's nice and we also secured an extra $471,000 from nblc that we didn't have when the when we talked about um financing this uh and that was a CO relief money that uh that uh Candice and myself and 12 other libraries worked with the mlc to try and secure how much was that Tim 471000 and it's a first the first time the m mblc has ever granted relief to any projects and it was directly related to six months of work so so what's going to happen is we Joe Comer and Natalie bla as well very helpful we we've we received three of the five Grant payments to equal the 3.9 million that they're going to give us so so we've received three so far the fourth one is going to come when we complete the project the fifth one is going to come A year later and that 471000 is going to come a year after that all right so we'll be doing short-term borrowing until we get that last 471000 and then we'll do the permanent U bonding go ahead um when the community preservation talks about community housing that would senior housing fall apart that yes so then would we as somebody looked at let's take the3 million and use it for senior housing [Music] so and maybe money on the congregation church for off and then we can get going our senior housing which I think is that more important the plan that senior housing committee has put forward is to use the five they they they purchased the land uh the 2.1 Acres at the St James Church they they are have an RFP ready to go out to bid for private contractors who then are you familiar with Sanderson place in in Sunderland this is what they what they envisioned doing is um don't uh having the select board give the land to a contractor who will go out and get private funds and state funds and federal funds to build senior housing that the town doesn't own and which we don't pay for and which then generates tax money so got yeah so that's the B there can can I ask one question go for it um so what you said you discussed this um the not having the CPA funding at your library meeting what what came up that well I I perhaps discussed it's too hard a term there was some griping about up do you know is it possible like after a project has already started can you apply for CPA funding so that that boat has sailed there's no way way for us to get CPA funding for the library in the future you could get I don't think you can do it for routine maintenance for instance no but if you wanted to replace the slate roof on the old building uh excuse me I think I just lost audio it looks like the town hall is muted left hand corner of oh you got it okay well it's probably right underneath what you touch that oh that's what happened okay that's funny Tim's right I I that's my understanding too that CPA funds cannot be used for maintenance but could be used for upgrades restoration that wasn't my question okay my question is we are doing work on the library right now that is not maintenance it is absolutely a capital project the problem is it has already started can we go to CPA now and say hey we're doing this work will you pay 900,000 the funding sources are already in place and I believe that it would be viewed as trying to substitute CPA money for a funding source that already exists but that could be checked with steuart sagor of the State uh committee to preservation Coalition because we could um in theory it's yet another job but um the same thought process we were having for the 1888 building we could borrow against future proceeds for CPA funds and use CPA funds for a million dollars worth of that $9 million I think it was shy of a million but it was my memory is it was close to a million 900 something yeah that's a good question all right I don't know who do we ask that question of I guess Stuart sagor Stuart I can okay I can send you his contact you probably have his contact have a contact I have a contact for do that right now okay given that we're actually not going to vote on this today any other questions on this uh CPA fund thingy I have a question I don't know that it can be answered tonight and I'll try to come on the 12th um those of us who have been around for a little while know the conditions that were in the 1888 building and it's going to require extensive remediation so asbest mold lead maybe even bat Guana bird you know remediation that's all been factored into the because those are okay good good okay gut renovation will handle most often times plaster has asbestos in it particularly from that era um paint has lead in it so all the Wood furnishings on the interior um those tin ceilings probably have lead in the paint and but that's got renovation we remove all that and including the basement there's asbestos in the basement um there's going to be um moisture remediation they're going to basically put a moisture barrier in the basement and then bury it in a two bit two inch bit of new cement um and do some everything has to meet current code so like uh air transfer will will'll meet standard codes now postco codes for replacing the air in a room every three times every hour or whatever it is um so and and there is a b bird skeleton in the Attic yeah and that will be remediated as well yeah so very very good question though uh and then for um John actually brought this up um acquisition of buildings and my question is about future maintenance plans you know we're now going to have an elevator there are going to be some significant costs associated with the building once it's done so um does any is there a plan uh are estimated costs for ongoing maintenance the building once it's done I believe that uh CP cipc is developing okay a plan and Tac maybe also maybe it's Tac I'm confusing but that's one of the goals of TAC is to develop realistic maintenance plans for buildings um one of the arguments about replacing this building with a new building that's code compliant and meets the 2030 standards the state's seeking to achieve is that if you tried to do that here you'd have to borrow against Real real estate money because there's there's no CPC money that can be spent here and there's no $4 million Grant from the federal government to do the work here um and there's a substantial amount of work that would need to be done to this building and it's not really a good building for New England um there's no no insulation in the ceiling Etc so that was one of the one of the recommend recommendations of tack that that we find another place for for um Town Hall of course they could have made a determination and said find another find another use for the building but that was the that was the one that we went out to to explore this one 1960 1960 plus or minus a year or two it's like so I was all over like this is a very usable space to me and we should but then somebody said it's a 70y old building that was not built that well when it was built and it's yeah we have an old combination of oil and gas heating system um not a very good air conditioning system one side of the building is hot when the other side of the building is cold and vice versa depending on whether you're in the heating season or the cooling season um or the sun is shining or it is yeah so but it is this nice big open space for a senior center and it could be used temporar I mean I think our feasibility study is going to say that in an Ideal World we'd build an 8 to 10,000 foot Senior Center you know for $12 million but we don't have $12 million and we don't have a place to build that building but this would be much better than what they're currently using um you know and in conjunction with the temporary Library space which is lovely um you could have a lot of good senior programs walkable until we can afford to have a bigger solution I just have one more quick question I know that the police department is technically in a different building it's an adjoining different building is the police department going to stay here once this building is vacated okay it really thinking along the same lines yeah yeah any other questions on this thing we're not voting on yet that's still good good questions and good they are it's good and it's good to ask the questions now so that when we meet again we can be actually have the information all right article three is capital Improvement plan um Mark do you have any report on that no uh not yet um can we review this one at our next meeting you bet do you do you even know what the items are that are potentially coming to us anybody know yeah um I I do we've got the 1888 building we've got um the uh clickers and then I think we've got a third one coming as well U that airing unit thank you Y at at Dees it's a multi it's a multi-year project so this would this would be the next trunch of um air conditioner um so what yeah so what travor said do you remember when we talked about this last time and there was the discussion about how you do the work and then you get a rebate from eversource then they can use that rebate the rebate from eversource came in in the wrong fiscal year so it went to our free cash free cash instead of back to the school so what they're asking is that we take the amount that was rebated this my understanding is is true the amount that was rebated from eversource and just give it back to them so that they can finish up the project but so it's but I think they want more than that to fin I I I believe so because the rebate that we put into free cash was 22,000 um they had gotten another larger rebate but that went back against uh school choice funds because it was within the fiscal year that they spent the money I'm I'm I'll be writing a check next week for the 72,000 that we uh authorized at town meeting this spring so they should be getting another rebate for that now whether that comes in in this fiscal year or not I don't know so it could be that they're wanting to spend that 22,000 plus what they expect for the next rebate I don't I don't know they hadn't answered the the question um by the time we put this together this afternoon so go ahead John at the special town meeting and the only thing that in article discuss substance right article two would be about 1888 right right an article and air conditioning for the schools already been um be on Capital plan though new thing will be the clickers but we'll have to talk about the AC plan also because that will be new funding right oh we're gonna get to that that's a citizen POS petition in article eight John can we just C your thing to see if it's working no it isn't oh did I there's some mics that are not working okay so maybe that's that's the problem I I didn't think your mic was was working is that one working we put them in the budget oh that's no we'll build the 1888 building and then we'll have a whole new set up that works okay um article four is the thing that we brought up at our last meeting asking that we put funds into General stabilization um Brenda you submitted for do you want to give us a free cash update and um yeah yeah okay so I did submit for free cash uh certification um providing I didn't make any big mistakes we should be getting 1.85 million in free cash whoa yeah it's it's a nice nice sum well we've gotten back you know all of our grant money except for a couple of small ones um so so we didn't have to hit preash for much in that regard so um and the da uh the da project that started uh was a nice little chunk of permit money that we had received that we weren't expecting you know so on and so forth so um So based on that it seems reasonable to think that we could put 300,000 into General stabilization except that um the next article we don't know the do amounts for that article um we we can only surmise what it might cost Casey and I were just throwing around some numbers today it could be 300,000 um there might be some arpa funds available to spend towards that and we still have 40,000 left of the storm damage money so that could offset it so we might be needing um a capital appropriation for10 000 200,000 we don't really know for sure so Casey didn't want to put the 300,000 directly into the article in case we change that number between now and the time that we have to post this so yeah the cost estimate for the this is Wetlands restoration work that has to occur um the cost estimate for that is being developed by um John poror the Emergency Management director and Chris Miller um uh Casey may not have more current information I never heard the number 300,000 mentioned but it could I heard 150 um but it we don't we just don't know yet what are we talking about in terms of so um Hawks Road was devastated while they were out there they opened up some old um Farm swes they dug out the person who did the work just set the soil next to where they dug it out D um was not notified by a a resident from a a neighboring town that he saw some work that he didn't think was kosher and so they issued a consent decree saying town of Deerfield is in violation of the wetlands protection act you need to remove the materials in various locations in town so there's Hawks Road there's um a portion of land I don't know if it's Savages or Williams North Meadows too North Meadows um North Meadows is I think the largest area um so I I went out with d and and John porar and um toured all these sites there's about six or seven days of work that is needed there's also specialized equipment that needs to be rented um I guess dump trucks that have tracks that can go out into wet areas they tend to be small so they're probably going to have to rent two of those um then they're going to have to hire somebody to dig up all of these piles Reed them cover them with with hay and um and meet the uh D Rec uh they're going to review it with DP D on a daily basis there's somebody assigned to the project is there a professional engineer that's actually working with the town to assure that the work um that's that's being cost you know cost it out by by Chief peterk is actually the work that needs to be done who's coordinating that with the chief D just D yeah I I I know Casey was involved to a certain extent working on it um so this is work this is work as a result of the E A lot of the emergency repairs that were done in town right so so they had dug those trenches and I thought some of that dirt then was spread over the farmer lands and now that has to be has to be right oh well no actually um it was it was basically deposited along the the the banks of the Deerfield River it was deposited in Inland um and was in in the North Meadows it was just deposited into Wetland area so in other words if we had done the work and not deposited the soil we wouldn't be in non-compliance it was the fact that nobody during the emergency [Music] thought oh my gosh we could be doing something wrong here um so now they have to go in and remove remove the soil um with the guidance of D so it's it's not really something maybe there are Engineers that do this but it's it's really it was flat now there's a pile and you have to take the pile off and make it flat again so the cost estimates are coming from contractors moving dirt yeah and for they're looking to rent equipment that cont contractors need to do the job properly um there may be some necess they might need to put out uh um you know oh the Booms The yeah they may have to do that in some places but they're they're hoping it's been relatively dry recently DA has also volunteered to do some of this because they're renting Farmland where some of this activity took place and um so they Brett genter is offered to you know use da crew and D just told um John that this soil can be used on Farm Fields you know it's it's perfectly okay to do that this is you know the latest from the is that you should be able to reuse the soil in and um da is talking about also stockpiling it for future sports field projects that may be coming along I don't know the details on that but you have to turn nonant piles of dirt compant piles of dirt yeah and I mean not that we want to sort of have a blame game here but I mean people who were hired to do this people who should have known better in the sense that they're do this kind of excavation work in their regular line of business and should have known about certain permitting or mean I know haste makes waste but now are we going to pay the same people to fix something that or we all sort of saying oh it was such an emergency it was unwitting they were being generous in zooming out here short notice I mean how much money are we talking about we don't know but I I I think Brenda said that Casey mentioned $300,000 I never heard that number I heard possibly 150 we are developing the cost estimate great it it's it's it's raw we were just trying to come up with she was talking about three of those crack crack machines for three weeks so right what you're talking about is a lot less so that's that's good news if if it is a lot less um plus then you have to have the the Labor uh it could be you know guys that we have currently working for us or it could be somebody else then somebody needs to oversee it I know Kevin scarber's name was tossed around at point in time as maybe being somebody to oversee it anyway so all of it in flux so really I there are no numbers really to talk about now but but there will be a town meeting num we have Clarity in the next couple of weeks is what I understand the chief's goal is because the consent the consent decree has a timeline that says by such and such date you need to be in compliance yeah although we uh we were I guess very Cooperative with the EP during this process and they're being very Cooperative with us saying that we can adjust these numbers the dates don't have to be exact um so the idea is to do as much as de requires at the minimum cost and as to the question of should people have known better well we will know we know better going forward that even in an emergency you have to be aware that also uh you need to consult the Army Corps of Engineers you need to consult you know uh uh even though they'll they'll typically sign off um in emergencies but uh yeah learn after the fact I don't think I've ever been in a crisis like that one and I certainly wasn't one that was directing it I was just a yeah bystander will there be for town meeting uh will there be a detail about the areas of town that were affected by this I you you've mentioned most joh there are actually pictures that show yeah the the show where the work needs to be done and um their GIS maps and then they're superimposed on them are lines where the soil is and um yeah so they I don't know that they're going to allow us to do a presentation we typically don't do presentations at these meetings so um I'll talk to Chief about what what makes sense to educate people I if I could um I just want to reiterate my uh vote my my vote on recommending $300,000 to be replenished to the general stabilization fund from our last meeting um I think it's critically important we Brenda is going to be meeting um on the issuance of the ban next month you said right you're meeting with Moody's I'll be meeting with Moody um somewhere between October 2nd and October 8th I was looking at the Timeline today oh wow okay that's right after town meeting push to the yes yeah seventh yeah yeah so you know we're spending money we didn't anticipate having to spend any savings we could see in our interest rates would be helpful moving forward yes and if I did meet with them before the eth I I can let them know that this will be on the table and most likely will be voted I you know they're very good conversations very good back and forth so it's good okay thank you any other questions on Article Five which again I feel like we should wait until next go ahead John do you have a question John no oh I thought your handled up okay um you could answer it all right so article six is the one about the St James right so this is you had asked about senior housing this is the article that would allow the select board to essentially transfer that piece of property with St James on it to whatever company wins the the bid for the the RFP The Proposal um to build senior housing um is it does that make sense everybody any questions on that is the town working with RDI rural development yeah they're working with um anybody who can yeah RDI would be one of the potential biders they were ones I think that did send in place yeah okay I think that's rural development Inc yes it is yeah they could help facilitate with other developers as well any questions on this one later I I do have one and this is mostly because people are going to ask this a lot at the town meeting um we are B we have bought this land and we are giving it to a private developer who will then presumably make a reasonable profit off of it they'll pay taxes but are we going to get repaid so typically in these typically in these sorts of situations Sunderland is the one that's closest to us um this is uh this is a way for a town to avoid actually having a Housing Authority developing its own senior housing paying people to administer it um and it's like the the 5% match that you give when you so on the one hand yes it's $400 and something thousand dollar that we purchase the land for on the other hand um the the plans that have been developed to call for and this is all very conceptual I don't want to say that this is developing housing in the St James Church and removing the the sanctuary and building a new building with and an elevator and 20 some odd units so yeah people can say that but uh well related issue then um will we retain any rights to the property about redevelop so that if you know 10 years down the line The Operators that the senior housing decide you know we want to run uh nightclub here instead do we have any rights over the property once we transfer that would be um I believe that it's since CPA money was spent on it it's permanently required to be senior or community housing yeah again this is mostly questions that people and and obviously we we we would want to work with Council to before we transferred any money to anybody clear you know clearly delineate what are the restrictions on this property um if we are going to transfer it for the purpose of developing subsidize Senor housing is it definitely being given away the way Jim seems to be assuming it's being given away is that true did I miss did I not hear that says it says negotiate or sell or whatever doesn't it right right right right so I'm just saying is typically typically the land is donated so that the senior housing can be built um another alternative would be a long-term lease apparently that's not really something that people like but then it's assessed as a normal residential value right presumably right I I was actually GNA ask the senior housing people to do research about tax receipts Sunderland has receiv received from Sanderson place since it's it's been occupied how do you permanently ensure that it's going to be senior housing like for like the long term so yeah that's you you know you write a covenant that's in the deag of transfer um that's a legal question that I I'm not qualified to answer but I I would assume that that's how you handle it um it's like the church puts uh covenants on what uses you can use in a church building even though they no longer use it own it um there were covenants on the St James Church when the previous owner bought it and yeah there are legal ways to remove those covenants and I think imminent domain is one of those which is what we did in the case of purchasing the land but that's a legal question so we all go to bed at 9ine anyway Jim nobody's having a nightclub make any or a weed any other so so is there any other information that we would like to know before on is that land what is that land zoned as is that Central Village CDR I believe yeah uh I don't know that there was any other there's no religious land designation so and it's no longer in church building but I that is CBR area you you know you might want to ask senior housing to come they've got extensive plans about you know they've got uh con Concepts that show you know what housing could be built where uh they've got Wetlands delineations they've gotten uh you know an anrad from the Conservation Commission saying this is uh this is the restrictions on development so it's a fairly substantial wellth thought out idea um but obviously there'll be questions that will arise um if it moves forward would you guys like for senior housing to come us okay I would like to talk about any sort of deed restrictions or anything that we might be able to put on this you want to ask senior housing that yep yeah okay thank you so it does this article does say I'm just reading it subject to such restrictions and limitations as the select board deems appropriate right so by if we were to vote this as written we would be um I'm sorry I didn't I didn't see that um I retract my last uh request I'm I'm ready to vote on this if the committee wants to okay you guys ready to vote this tonight you want to vote on okay I move that the committee recommend article six of the draft one we have a second any discussion we kind of discussed it already who second all right uh roll call vote Jim James can be aide John John pesy I Beth Beth Brown I Julie CH and I Dave sharp I Mark BR all right that passes 600 Z Margaret stepped out for a minute okay so article seven we can't then we're asking you to explain everything do do you feel up to explaining this one or I've heard this one I I have limited knowledge about a lot of these things the only one that I'm really burst in is 1888 yeah um my understanding is that um the open space committee wants to um get permanent protection on these Parcels by um so there a little bit of background open space has been working for a while to get a large contiguous this is my understanding large contiguous piece of land that for bike trails and hiking trails and stuff and they want to get it you know maps and signs and you know advertising and all of that stuff so this is land that's already owned by the town and it is right now current land use at 9:30 apparently and they want to change it to 933 although I I looked up 933 and it says education not conservation I think 932 is conservation so we should check that number I 933 out what conversation go ahead I I thought that conservation was actually 933 oh is it okay yeah um I could be wrong though yeah I was Googling today I don't know regardless I was trying to figure out what conservation meant like what the restrictions were and I couldn't find that anywhere do you know Mark well I know that if you are changing this um from its current designation to 9:33 if we ever wanted to dispose of these properties later it would require a two-thirds vote to flip it back before we try to sell it off or do anything with it um so that's that's what I know about it okay planning board is discussing this on it it's on their agenda for Monday evening the 9th um so they have not met to discuss it yet micone use the microphone just looking this up here according to the mass.gov um 932 is vacant comma conservation 933 is vacant comma education oh so we might want to propose that they change that yeah I don't think that the open space committee wrote this language so it could be an error um so good catch if it is an error so I do have a question 930 is vacant comma selectman or city council so is that basically so that you guys can just go there and stand around I think it's just under the general control of the select board is that right I think that's the what my understanding and um there's something else going on at DCR is looking to sort of swap DCR is looking to actually preserve another I think it's North Pine Nook forest and South Pine Nook Forest they're like there some there may be some I don't know there may be some connectivity between these parcels and those um but they are like two or I think they're 250 acre Parcels they're large but I I don't want to mislead anybody about the size of these things they're just big and um I don't think it has anything necessarily to do with this Eagle Brook has landed up here too where these barcels are so um but the DCR component of this would allow open space to work with them to get Trail maintenance get uh um connectivity throughout the property where um whereas we can't once the trails are made you can't go to CPC to get money to repair the trails so that's a great Point um so this this is one of those things where by working with DCR they are hoping to unlock resources that will allow them to maintain and put signage and but again I'm I've been in these open space committee meetings but I'm not an expert on this will the conservation okay I guess we might not be able to answer this tonight I'm just wondering a Conservation Commission has legal jurisdiction in some cases I'm just wondering if it's the Conservation Commission or the open space committee that would have legal jurisdiction of these parcels and also what is the plan for maintenance once trails are made and you know kiosks are built and things like that oh not a question I don't think I not a question I think we can answer tonight but it's a general question I think a lot of towns when they set this kind of stuff up they have volunteers that maintain the trails and they're they're they love doing that um I don't know if that was the intent here or not but I don't know enough about the I have a couple problems with the way that article 7's written the first is it shows the assessor Maps um they're not as well described as article 6's parcel is I was able to find most of these actually all four of them on the GIS maps but they're not all contiguous it's not clear to me what this land was was originally purchased for like you know is this supposed to be some sort of dedicated open space that we're maintaining going forward or you know can we can we parcel some of this off maybe I I just to to go back to I think someone had mentioned this before we're we're in in the business of acquiring a lot of property and I'm not sure exactly how financially prudent that is um if we've got trails and stuff do we do we need all 63 acres for instance in that that uh top location can we parcel some of it off and maybe sell to some of Butters or something I know Eagle Brook is in a butter for one of them so I'm I'm all for for making this conservation designation a little stickier but before we do that I I'm I'm reluctant to flip the the current code under article 97 um W without without knowing all this first I mean maybe this is all legit but like you know th this will be significantly harder to parcel off in the future if we make this change I think I should invite the open space committee to come to our next meeting and discuss this item and I will relay I'll ask um Andrea and um I'll relay some of the questions tour that are being asked and maybe some of it will be will come out of the planning board meeting on Monday um yeah I'm not able to come to the next meeting but I'm curious to know since all of these are designated on roads and I assume that they're town roads are any of those roads that aren't currently maintained so for example are they fire roads that aren't currently maintained and upgraded and would they have to be if this changed use yeah I the first one the first at the end of Old Pine Nook road so um I'm not sure if that part of the road is actually maintained we have enough roads that need maintaining that are traveled ways the second and third I'm just looking at the map here uh the second and third appear to be on maintained roads the fourth one Wells cross yeah there's a there's a a little bit of Frontage on that one as well so there's Frontage on all four of them I'm just not sure if um on the first one it fits on uh you know how how old Pine Road is maintained didn't the town just recently de like privatize that's what I mean I I yeah no it's in litigation it's yeah it's kind of kind of dubious as far as like how that's going to end up right so or tentative I mean um yeah so who knows and that's that's the big one too that yeah it's a typo in uh the last the small print number four off millage Road oh see it right here yeah footnotes Mill Road yeah oh yeah last page there yeah last page okay any other questions that I should relay to open space When's when I didn't know we had a next meeting scheduled September 25th 9:25 um at 6 p.m. which I I'm actually not going to be able to make um okay and to come to the five six six 6 PM September 25th all right the last one is the citizens petition um which is requesting that town meeting go to a like a clicker um which would allow Essen um private voting for all of the Articles um and they're recommending that the town purchase 300 electronic vote tabulators um so I Googled vote tabulation machines and called the first company that came up and said how much does it cost for 300 and they said you're from Deerfield I just sent a quote to Deerfield I said well how much was it so it was uh a little over it was 13,850 or something like that just under $14,000 for 300 clickers worth I don't know if there's ongoing maintenance or a subscription associated with that do you guys know I'm sure there would be but I I don't know what that is um I do know that Cassie uh secured a private grant for $33,000 towards this how did they come up with 300 is that how many people come to meeting what happens when 500 people show up like when you vote privately maybe what happens when you raise your hand doesn't matter how many people are in the crowd you know you just have to count them so it's a I think that the legal council is saying that this is an advisory uh warrant item and it's question what's the difference between this and the capital uh item of voting in article three I thought that was the same thing they are the same thing pretty much huh um they are the same thing Cassie had been uh pursuing this with with Casey's Direction um well partly because she'd been hearing a lot of good things there's a lot of communities that are now doing this very happy with it um um so um the sticking point is legal council said this is something we can't pursue right now because we need a bylaw change to do it so the bylaw change couldn't get prepared in time to put on this warrant so it it would have to be at annual town meeting anyway so this is going to kind of put it off a little bit but um it doesn't hurt to to at least have the discussion and start working on it right but if we vote Yes in article three to spend the C the capital money doesn't article 8 become moo yeah well right it's just a Citizens position petition it's just a it's just a uh it's a non-binding um item anyway but at this point we would have already voted to buy him that's all I'm saying sure because article three has the clickers in yeah I don't know what else or might possibly have the clickers in it depending on what cipc decides but great to have a presentation or video to go to to see how they work my I worked U during covid um many towns invested arpa funds into these systems and um the town that I was working at the time found that it it worked really well it expedited town meeting it avoided the the hand counting um and also I would suggest talking with Council to see if the moderator could get town meeting consent to wave the bylaw for the purposes of using these so in order to yeah so temporarily at least until the bylaw is changed see if the moderator could could get Town meting consent wave the byla so would that would that have to be a separate article for the moderator to wave the moderator I I believe the moderator could do it right at the start of the meeting to wave the bylaw for the purposes of of using the clickers or the counting so it would happen right at start so this would be at annual town meeting so if we approve the clickers now buy the clickers now at annual town meeting the first thing the moderator would do would be to wait would be to ask town meeting to wave the bylaw have the bylaw change then you have the bylaw change I would suggest that we consult with Leisa about all these that's what I said I said consult with Council to see um that's because she described this as putting the cart before the horse that was a direct quote from her email to us so I've got yeah so three things first of all um there's already people who complain about the the eyeball count being inaccurate or biased or whatever I can only imagine what they will think about an electronic Black Box um second yeah this does seem to be putting the cart before the horse why is why the rush you know is there some pressing need for this in the the next six months or can we just like bring it up at the annual town meeting to change the bylaws and then having changed the bylaws we can buy the equipment to do and and so and Third Kind of related why not if if you want to do it all at the special town meeting why not move this article to a earlier place in the list so that we don't have that sequence issue where we're paying for something before we approve it awes so only one of those I can answer I think is that the reason this article is here is because citizens put a petition together they got the appropriate number of signatures on the petition so it is in so therefore it has to be put on the warrant so it's here because the citizens so that's like well yeah well it's a select board decision but it's the only time I've ever been on the select board where there's a citizen petition it was placed at the end because it's not something the select board brought forward of its own accord so it's that's the only reason although if it does end up being article like if article three has the clickers on the div we could we we could move we could move article three to article seven and move everything up so this this is not the final order of the Articles will necessarily be in select board hasn't decided how they want to present this either so Capital also hasn't weighed in on it I mean Capital might just say uh we're not going to recommend it until after uh special town meeting so yeah okay right that 7:30 I think there 7:30 7:30 okay I think they're meeting in there Julie I think they're meeting in there yeah okay Mar yeah we're pretty much done so um do you want to talk about we only have 10 minutes you know what let's wrap it up EV Chargers you don't have that ready anyway right right I I think last time you and I talked um I kind of was hesitant to discuss it any further right now until we get another year under our belt and see where we're really at um I think yeah let's just leave it at that okay but if you but if you want if you want I can put something together for another meeting probably not the next one because I'll just be getting back from vacation but um one other just sort of announcement is that Casey has submitted her request to retire effective tomorrow um so just Casey's not here but thank you to Casey for what was it 28 years of 24 of which were here in Deerfield um but that will be a um a big change coming up pretty very quickly so um tomorrow is her last day and I think select board's meeting next week to um get a uh advertisement out to start figuring out what to do you know hire a new Town Administrator but then we'll have to do some sort of figure out what to do in the interim do you have any thoughts we we're we're also I I talked with Margaret earlier because she's doing something that we might consider for a short-term fix is to find a former Town Administrator who can come in and work 20 hours a week to help get us through until we can hire the next Town Administrator um so what are you doing those other 20 hours I'm working so we have several names that we might might explore but um these are just the first we're putting out feelers to find out is this person interested is this person interested and um and finding what their level of interest is and what their availability is yeah and I don't want to say who these people are because we haven't really figured out whether they're interested or not um but we will we have a pretty recently developed uh job classification that's been approved by the Personnel Board it was in 2022 to that was developed so feel pretty comfortable about going out with that um and then you know updating it as needed um so we had a good successful assistant Town Administrator U interview process and we hired a great person and we're optimised that we can do the same thing in in a similar period of time um meanwhile Christopher Dunn is volun to to be the only man standing and uh sort of helped bring Greg snaker on board and um Casey is also said that she would be a phone call away for Greg um so we'll uh be scrambling for the next month or so have you thought at all about changing that position to like a town manager position I haven't uh had time to think about doing that I'm happy to you know if you have any questions I'm happy to talk with you U regarding Town Administrator acts and things like that yeah that would be great um perhaps a when we well like we said we're meeting Wednesday with that's at four o'clock in the afternoon it might not be convenient for you but it's mostly for the purpose of putting the job out uh but we we certainly could benefit from having you come talk to us about you know the options and oh no I am not I I will not be um in the mix and I I should probably indicate to that under article six I recused myself because Sunderland the town of Sunderland came up in the discussion so for the minutes I had recused myself I think town of sunderland's also seeking um as well so yes in terms of getting an ad out there I mean it's great to do all those feelers and stuff but no no the ad is important The Feelers are people applying probably The Feelers are just for temporary people who would not be candidates right for the full-time position yeah I wanted to do this last night but there wasn't a consensus to do it last night yeah yeah all right anything else anybody wants to talk about tonight go ahead John we never discussed the revenue report I don't believe I just have one question on it okay building permits was budgeted 140,000 it came in at 486,000 that's because of the large project that da took on the dining hall project a lot of a building permit money oh yeah right you can never never plan on that on a regular basis I can't make September 25th you're still GNA have a forum I don't know if I I don't know I don't have a keeper either either anybody else not making it on the 25th what was the time of it 6 PM I can come it's three I'll be there you'll be there all right that's a quum and we hope that Jim can come Jim's in too all right excellent um anything else the with a back yeah all right any who's gonna who's gonna run it if uh you and John are out no I'm I'll be there oh you'll be there oh okay just all right maret's out yeah oh oh all right all right do we have a motion to adjourn second all right um I guess I did David quickly seconded all right Jim John John piski Brown ey Margaret Nardo ey Julie sh I Shar ey