##VIDEO ID:9_5hz14CkdA## good evening and welcome to the select board Board of Health sewer Commissioners meeting of October 16 2024 uh this meeting will be held in a hybrid fashion with the opportunity for both inperson attendance and remote participation please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting hearing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law members with particular interest and any specific item on this agenda should make plans for inperson versus virtual attendance accordingly the meeting will be held in the main in iners in the main meeting room of the Deerfield municipal offices in accordance with Mass General Law chapter 30A anyone intending to record the meeting must identify themselves to the clerk Blake Gilmore and provide their name and address for the record call the meeting to order at 602 p.m. and um it's been suggested that since we're having a presentation about sewer rates that maybe what we should do is suspend comment and then allow people to ask questions after the presentation since that might be more meaningful so um if you you two agree yeah that makes sense because I want to have more of a conversation tonight so we will have comment after the presentation about um the sewer rate uh discussions so at this point I'd like to ask Dave pricket to come up identify yourself good evening welcome thank you appreciate it day pricket with DPC engineering um I've got copies of a handout with the permission of the select board I can leave these here make them sure that would be great so just by way of background um we were asked to take a look at what where the fy2 sewer rates need to be BAS based on the budget that was approved by the town at a annual town meeting for Wastewater um thank you Chris thank you there's a copy of presentation that I'm I'm going over uh on the overhead as well um where we started was we looked back at what happened last year in FY 24 what your budget was what the usage was for Wastewater customers to try to look at things moving forward um one thing that came to light last year um was uh Billings were down so we drilled in to try to understand why they were down so last year fy2 24 you had your lowest uh sewer use consumption over the past 10 years um that was a bit of an anomaly uh but you can understand when the majority of your Revenue stream is based on consumption revenues were down um so looking forward to FY 25 we assumed that the consumption in 20 would be the same as it was in 24 I don't want to call it a worst case scenario but it was the lowest that you had seen uh the challenge was the year before that you had the highest that you'd seen so we're in like this back and forth where summers are either really hot or really wet and I think it's just a cyclical thing that'll come through but moving forward we'll kind of plan on the the low end for usage that way we won't miss the revenue Mark right so you had a approved budget um back at annual town meeting for fy2 and what we did first was and maybe Chris if you could flip to that second page this may be where uh Blake this is probably where I lost you the other day yeah this is the engineer and me being the engineer um essentially you decided how big of a pie to order when you set your budget for FY 25 right our job is to now give you the options for how to slice that pie so you have a current structure that you've had for several years which includes a base service fee per billing period a minimum consumption charge and a fixed dollar per thousand gallon Mark over the past probably four to five years um you've changed that dollar per thousand gallons and those other two numbers have stayed where they are can I uh add one more bit of information just kind of for setting the Mark um we set sewer rates in the fall we do our budget months earlier um so and we're when we set our when we set our budget um we're kind of looking at um you know I guess each year we set our rates and we look at projects we're going to do get a new truck for the thing you know what kind of capital we're going to do so it's kind of you know sometimes you you set a budget and you're planning for that year here you're setting rates later on to kind of take a snapshot of where you where your consumption was and stuff so it's kind always looking backwards and looking forward a little bit it's odd odd timing yeah sometimes you're chasing your tail sometimes you're yeah but um but that is Municipal Water waste water there it's inevitable it's hard to get get around it there's no ideal scenario where you can set your budget and your rate before consumption starts it's just a cyclical process that works itself through thanks Trevor sure anybody else want to chime in but and I should just say that this is pretty informal so please feel free to chime in as as we're going um so we did a slightly different analysis this year than we've done in years past because we missed the mark on the revenues last year we took your database um your town staff does an amazing job with the data uh very easy to use you know we do this in a lot of communities and yours was one of the easiest sets of data to work with um but we wanted to analyze where every customer is at today in terms of how much they pay per year for sewer and show how each of those customers is impacted both at the low end and the high end of usage we looked at three rate Alternatives this year um the first was let me take a step back you're go ahead Tim yeah I just before you get into that so I don't interrupt your flow I want to just go back to the first page for you don't have to go back to the first page there but under anticipated FY 2024 usage it's 80 85 million mhm gallons 854 or and was that based on the the highest year we ever had is that why you put that number in and then the actual came in you know 10 million or almost 11 million gallons less I don't think we'd ever really put a ton of thought into it prior to this year we just kind of used the previous years's consumption and logical yeah but that's the box right so I mean in the last 10 years it's been between 74 million and 85 so we've now we have a low year and a high year they just had to be back to back which is the worst case you know for okay Ford certainly for Revenue it's a great y great Point okay thank you I think one other thing while we're you know still back on page one or setting the table is that obviously your budget's gone up over the past several years and a large part of that is now your debt from the wastewater treatment plant project in South Deerfield is on the books right so a significant part part of your budget is now fixed The Debt Service the mortgage payment for the treatment plant um and that leads to a higher you know obviously overall budget but in a second I'll get to why that's maybe important to consider looking at the overall rate structure yeah because you know you had pretty low minimum charges per billing period going back and they hadn't been changed over the last six or seven years then that might be something that helps us bring that base out without continually raising the dollar per gallon per gallon charge yep okay so this graph that that Chris so kindly put up on the on the overhead um the blue dotted line represents FY 24 so it's a statistical analysis from the zero through 100 percentile you know back in the day when we were graded on a curve and stuff this shows where everyone was at the median the vertical Red Line shows you know where 50% of the data points are lower and 50% are higher not necessarily the average but right in the middle of the data points yep um in FY 24 the average uh uh monthly cost for sewer was 75 bucks and these are just single family homes shown on this graph right so we pulled out all of the larger commercial properties and generally speaking the folks behind me are you know single family homes that often come to the discussions for these sure yep the three rate structures that we took a look at the first one one was similar to the past year just adjusting the you know the dollar the dollar per uh uh per per thousand gallons and under that scenario we maintained the service fee of $100 per billing period the minimum charge of $80 per billing period and the usage rate goes up from 2094 to 2445 per thousand gallons yeah for alternative two we took a different approach we left the usage rate at 2094 and tried to back into what would the minimum fee need to be raised to and it would have to go from 100 bucks to $225 per billing period as a minimum fee yeah and under that one the uh the minimum usage charge stayed at 80 so go ahead Tim please so just just to be clear um what is the billing period you're talking about and is it a monthly thing is it a quarterly thing is it the six month you do your invo you send out your bills twice a year right so I think they're May and November if I'm not misten so if we have two bills a year that means that they're going to have two $225 charges per year okay y just wanted everybody to be understanding because it's can't be confusing oh it's definitely a lot of moving Parts yeah y okay thank you yep the the Third Kind of alternative that we looked at probably not surprisingly is how do you mesh the two to maybe come up with a one that's a little bit more palatable and for alternative three um we came up with a minimum service fee going from 100 to 150 bucks per billing period yeah and a minimum charge going up from 80 to 100 per billing period and the rate then goes from 20 20.94% [Music] without any additional you know considerations of things that as you've done in the past things come up Midstream and you analyze whether that's something that you want to take on in that fiscal year or not and I'll talk about those in a second but um we believe that alternative three might be might be most appropriate but with that said none of them are wrong right as sewer Commissioners you can you know choose any of them and I think in our discussion um you prepping for some of this data we were thinking because a lot and I think you hit on this earlier because the a lot of our costs right now are fixed um you know we're paying The Debt Service on on the work that maybe the you know the service fee and the minimum usage charge would would increase a little bit and not as much on the usage um per thousand gallons yep so when somebody gets their their every six-month Bill there is let let's just pick all this this what's currently in they get their $100 charge twice a year y they get a minimum charge if they don't exceed usage correct yep so if they have more usage than the minimum charge that doesn't show up on their bill correct right okay and then the rest of the bill is based on how many gallons of water went through their their system yes and okay what's not shown on any of these Alternatives Tim is we didn't touch the I guess you have like a built-in abatement where if you're we do you know if your winter sorry if your summer usage is more than 125% of your winter usage it's capped at it's bait 125 we didn't change that yeah we just left that alone it's outdoor watering use and correct washing a car we did look at what would happen if you changed it and it's it's not worth it it brings in like 10 grand extra Revenue it's not it's not worth it right so what we're trying to do with all these Alternatives is the 9010 rule or the 595 rule trying to make the rates work for the 90% of the customers from the fifth percentile to the 95th percentile there's always going to be customers in that 0 to 5 percentile and 95 to 100 that there's always going to be outliers yeah you know and obviously as you can see from the graph for seniors that might not use a lot of water raising the base fee you know it it raises their rates the most in that lowest fifth percentile it's just the reality but that is the case already there are already people that you know are just paying the minimum charge per billing period yeah good so the our first order business you know leading up to your rate hearing on the 30th is for the Commissioners to consider which alternative or a new one makes the most sense for you we can synthesize something else the model is is cooked so to speak yep um and then beyond that as we've done in years past we we took a look at some of the pending capital projects uh that have been discussed and what those would look like so on the third page of the handout we just assumed alternative 3 was going to be the move forward alternative yeah and for that scenario we took a look at how much more would rates need to be under alternative three to go from approved fy2 budget that would be alternative 3 a yeah up to Alternative 3B which is 3A plus the the presumed Debt Service for the replacement SE in Eastern and cross um you know a project that was that was bid last year and postponed because the bids came in you know higher than expect there was only one bid right uh it was it just happens every once in a while yep kind of end of year project and not a lot of interest with people already with a good backlog and one person just kind of threw a number at it so yeah but that's an option under 3B and 3C is um essentially 3B plus um The Upfront cost associated with um the replacement affluent pipe at South Deerfield so again these are just we've tried to give you like the menu and you can order off the menu and understand what those implications would have on cost right and really just looking at you know what we have to do um I mean we we the town still has an immense amount of sewer work to do you know yes we have a very well-built plant um but all the infrastructure leading to that plant not all a lot of it in some areas of the town are are in a lot worse shape we have gotten a grant for the asset management plan so over the next year or so we'll be putting cameras in every pipe that leads to both plants and seeing what the conditions are we did this back in 2017 I want to say um and that's what gave us the basis of you know planning the upgrades at the plants um and you know eventually we chose to to upgrade fully the South Deerfield plant we have um so we have pipes to do all over town we we have been trying to get the project on East and cross done because we want to get the paving done and we got I know a lot of that can be lined so we paved a lot of that or maybe not yet short shortly we've milled a lot uh but I think that's going to be paved shortly but then there are other areas that where we need to dig up and replace the pipe so there's a cost to doing that work um you know each year we put some money aside for engineering and you know small repairs in in the budget but not enough to do large projects so um So the plan is do we tackle one of those this year we have uh and then we have a ton of work on other pipes around town that need to happen there's a ton of work going up Pine Nook Road unfortunately that all got you know unfortunately the sewer pipes stayed poorly okay on the left side of the road where the rest of the road got taken out so um so we didn't get the opportunity to replace all that at the time we didn't have the money anyways but um so we do have I mean that's probably that Hill probably has the worst pipes in the town as far as I remember from the last report um we have been replacing certain pipes going down to the um the old Deerfield plan and da has been gracious to fund a lot of that project um over the last several years we've replaced and and lined uh several pipes leading down to that plant but we we have a lot of work to do other places so it's trying to kind of come up with you know how to keep the rate stable uh but still you know not put off this work because it gets more expensive every every year every time we go bid it um it it just never gets cheaper in the long run so and then the the other one large project is the effluent pipe that leads out of the plant uh some people wonder like why wasn't that done on a on a 22 million upgrade it it it just wasn't part of the project we didn't really have a need to replace the pipe because it wasn't washed out you know it's the it's the pipe that leads out to the plant I'll talk about that a little bit further but those are really the two major things and we're looking at how do we get financing we've got you know bids out to srf uh State revolving fund to see about help in their low loow interest loans but I'll I'll talk about that a little bit later but just those are kind of the projects we have at the moment we purchased the truck last year that uh that just got um delivered with the plow so they'll be doing a lot of the plowing at both plants now um and um and the and the Project's pretty pretty much done we have a few we're going to do aritis around the project but we'll be able to pull that out from the from the budget that we have and uh we're looking at light sensors as well down there um to try and kind of dim the lights certain times of the night um but that again can be I think pulled out of the budget so not not a pro Capital project so just to talk about um the various alternatives on the second page um and clarify so alt 3A is is essentially um is that the same as as yep alt three over here it is okay yep so it's called alt 3A for no particular reason just just so you can difference leave it to an engineer to change page three from page two but all three uh page three is just showing the three right yeah alternates yeah so on this page alt 3A is what the alternate three on the previous page right y 3B how much money is included in that for the anticipated cost of the work on Eastern engraved that's essentially the work that's added into this one that's correct so the the budget for Eastern and cross is about a half a million again you going into that without knowing what the rebid might look like so we just carried the bid from the first phase plus a small contingency um and that's basically a uh you know represents a financing charge so the thought there is that you could complete that project prior to June 30th and uh at which time you could close a loan or a debt you know however you want to finance that uh locally you could do that no we assumed like a 4% interest rate so it's pretty like liberal financing scenario there sorry Blake no that's that's all right um so there was a problem with water in that area as well on cross street so was that something that was mitigated so that the pipes could be laid to be put in there there were replacement water water mains that were placed in that neighborhood first um and on the heels of that I don't want to speak for for Kevin who's now enjoin retirement but I believe the intent early on was before you pave let's replace the bad sewers and save the money of the pavement you know so that started Kevin had some pipe that was available at the yard the town was trying to contribute that um and then the third piece that came in Blake was the um there's an existing Culvert on cross street it's been had a history of problematic drainage and stuff and right as part of the permitting uh the Conservation Commission requested that that covert be upgraded as part of the project so not surprisingly every time you peel the onion and get down a layer you know a couple little new things get added but right okay so this is not directed at you but I just want to ask a question would somebody who's here by Zoom tell us how we are coming over the uh are you able to hear us like maybe Julie chalant you would chime in maybe they can't they can hear you just fine okay good I just wanted to make sure that FCAT was getting our voices um because I got a text saying speak up so I just wanted to make sure that people could hear okay no he everybody just fine can you show on page two also I assume this is Page Three we're looking at this being shared yes yep there you go thanks yep sure thank you so is there any other money in alt 3B that other than the approximately 500,000 for the pipe work no okay no so that would that would sort of address the immediate sewer pipe problems in that that area if if we were to adopt this this scenario and then in alt 3C I just want to clarify that's just 3B Plus design for fixing the affluent pipe it's not for fixing the affluent pipe no just design and permitting okay which presumably if srf funds the project they'll provide financing for construction phase but they won't provide financing for design that's normal and is it too early to tell us approximately what that pipe will cost to put it into the river I honestly don't remember off the top of my head but I thought it was like around two million bucks yeah it was two to two and a half and that include work being done in the river itself MH it does so the reason I kind of hesitated there is some of the costs may be driven by what the permitting entities require of the town right so when we had done the treatment plan upgraded they wanted to make sure we weren't doing any work near the river because they were concerned about like sturgeon you know and uh their cavities are sensitive to pressure um there's I think other species along that bank that that may necessitate a different construction approach than we want to do right you know so I it's it's premature but I as always I've tried to be on the conservative side with early estimates so that we don't you know Co aside get to the point where we missed the mark right and the the other and the other part of that so it's not just replacing the pipe what the problems that kind of came were were all that rain and the flooding up and down up and down on the river this year but um it it's also the drainage out of that plant and the areas around it so the water coming out of the plant you know draining out to the river eroded the embankment which then eroded the pipe and broke the pipe so um our thought process for doing this is not just replacing the pipe Le eting from the plant from the clean sewer water out to the river it's actually tying in most of the drainage from the plant into that same line if I have this right yeah and then that all goes out to the river in one pipe instead of one storm water pipe and one affluent pipe and that way if we get a lot of high water things start backing up we can turn on I have been told called Big Bera some big pump that is er's baby yeah Eric's baby and then that will flush uh that it'll push the water out into the river and we won't have to worry about flooding of the plant or back backing up if we have a serious flood situation which pray we don't have but um but it would just kind of funnel all the water into one pipe leading out instead of multiple pipes at the moment which I think caused a lot of the issue along with the flooding of the river and just older older infrastructure too question I have on that was that erosion something that was happening over time or was that just because of that Heavy Rain that we got that particular one time we didn't notice it at all until we were at our last meeting and then somebody heard water fall on the bank I don't think we've ever noticed it did Kevin never mentioned it it's 100y old pipe yeah um it was all there was never any visible signs of any failure the pipe's in a location you couldn't even like TV it it's it's pretty it's pretty tricky it wasn't until probably after those crazy rains and the river was way up and then came back down that all at once you know a little cavity let go in between the last manhole in the river and then the big sinkhole was visible and now flows are low and someone could hear the the Cascade yeah so when you go to replace this thing is there some way of telling that if this is going to start to happen again that you're going to be able to take care of that well the idea is that we this would all be in one pipe now so you wouldn't have that other pipe kind of eroding as storm water on top of the other pipe I think just the way those pipes were laid way back in the day it's you know it's 12 it's 12in Clay pipe I mean it's like it's like pottery with foot sections right now and and I also believe um you know I think originally there was like a pump house not a house but just the end of the pipe had a structure that in the early I don't know how early 7 that was put in I think and then an ice storm took it out shortly after that and then so it was just the pipe kind of there so there's been issues over the over the years with like the end of the pipe but the middle from from the plant to there it was buried no issues no no concern it was always draining fine no reason to kind of tackle it or throw money at that when we did the upgrades we would have done something else notan passed like over a million gallons a day through the plant the highest flow we we've ever seen yep um and the plant handled it you know Eric and the guys handled it glowingly right it's just all the storm water the river everything's kind of flowing from south to North there off that field coming at the plant you know and it and it's Deerfield groundwater is like four feet below grade everywhere so you know it's just sitting in that hit it hits that bowl and then it's got to go somewhere it is that's that's that that field that farm field right next to the plant and that corner that Northern corner of that field is really gets wet I mean it's it's generally where the crops don't grow the best there for sure cuz it's always wet and then we take all that on our property people might be wondering well if you just have to put a pipe under the river why would it cost so much but can you talk about the requirements like EP EPA probably has requirements like you have to go out and pour a big cement footing to put the pipe in can you talk about that a little bit again I think some of the permitting requirements Tim I don't know yet they'll be driven by species of concern okay but essentially out in the river we'll have to build a coffer Dam around the head wall you either have two options you can either put a head wall or you can put a vertical diffusing structure and you had a vertical diffusing structure I like the head wall cuz to Blakes point you can see it so you said how do you like know what's going on well if I'm opening the manhole at the top of the hill and I can see the end of the pipe visually I kind of know what's going on so that's what we'll try for and then obviously we want to put as much like rip WP on top of it Tim as we can right which sometimes they don't like that cuz the turtles can't you know come up over the Rocks so now we're putting vegetative it's a it's a permitting give and take we want to we're Engineers we want to fortify it and you know make this thing as proof as it can be to storms but but there's that part Tim and then you'll have to do bypass pumping to get around that during construction um and this question you Mayan not be able to answer but when it comes to the different species I know that when projects have been done in the past in different water sources and that sort of thing that species were actually moved they had people come in that were specialized in moving the species out of the area so that you get the work done and sometimes they replaced them sometimes they just moved into a new habitat is that still in Teck or is it something that we just have to work around them and leave them there I had to do it with turtles along long time ago up in Williamstown someone literally came in with scuba gear and I don't know what kind of turtles they were but he was going after them and then other times it was some kind of weird like little mollusk or something freshwater and we had to do the work between November and April when they were dormant or non- breeding if you will so yeah no you're you're right I mean that's kind of the stuff they put the handcuffs on you and right yeah you fix it but you got salmon runs and stuff you got to time around it right yeah it's so that would be in a future in a in a future iteration we would be looking to include that in this calculation whatever cost that is in the fut presumably The Debt Service would hit you in either the end of 26 or the beginning of 27 that would be my guess and that would be advertising whatever that loan is over whatever Peri 20e 2% yep yep you got it they forgive some of it not a lot I think I think you're in the tier two I think it's 6.6% it's like they take the car payments off the back of the loan when it's just principal so it doesn't help up front right with the mortgage payment but in years 18 19 and 20 it's it's real okay I have you two do you have anything more to talk about Trevor I don't answer questions that people have engine people have questions of Dave pricket can you just address them to the chair and then we'll have him respond so anybody who wants to ask a question and that anybody online as well okay welcome Jeff good evening Jeff Upton uh hilr AV and just one question for Dave but I do have a few questions for the selectboard after sir if possible yeah of course so uh very quickly Dave do you happen to know the daily flow capacity of the plant I believe it's 85 MGD if I recall you're right I won't bet the farm on that but I'm pretty sure okay and could you tell us what the daily flow averages for Deerfield now uh Eric would probably be able to better tell you um I'm going to guess right now it's probably 3 to 400,000 gallons a day I mean right now yeah I mean last year a year ago this time you had flows that were pushing a million gallons for two or three months which is at the Other Extreme okay so even if it's a million gallons that capacity is still if we're like 8.5 million so no 085 085 85 so 850,000 gallons a day but we can do more so we can do more just we're not permited for more on it's right average right the 085 is an average you can that plant can handle more but if it was more more than six months out of the Year we'd have to ask for a different permit I assume I've got that right or correct I think it's 180 days if it's over 80% you have to reevaluate okay yeah no thank you I I do appreciate that sure does that capacity then allow for say a holding tank for separate users to tie into that the uh the South Airfield plan is not designed for septage it's it's still a relatively small plant um we had talked about the option of accomodating septage receiving when when we were doing the design phase um and we all agreed that it wasn't worth the capital or the increased operational costs um okay again I'm kind of going back in a time machine here but um I certainly wouldn't recommend that this facility it's not designed to accommodate seage receiving you could but you you could have to end you then would just have then that would prompt the solid handling upgrade which you've been able to avoid that and you know you've been really efficient with stretching out that infrastructure so you know you could accommodate it but then your onm costs drive up and I think the consensus that came up back a few years was that um the cost of the homeowners of being able to bring septage there you know would have been higher than just having it brought to a larger facility right well I i' I've checked on that a little bit and that and and you know I'm just trying to understand this because uh uh right now with septic people most companies are charging roughly about or most towns I should say are charging roughly about about 20 cents a gallon as far as a disposal fee the town residents of those towns are charging their residents like 9 cents or 11 cents per gallon for disposal fee so what my concern is that around probably four or five years ago maybe a little bit longer what was happening is the haulers in this area were getting limited they were hitting quotas uh these disposable places were putting quotas on them and they were only allowed to take so much and that was putting a little pressure on as far as timing of your septic tanks getting uh pumped and then being able to have some place to dispose of it and it's eased up I've checked and it's eased up the last couple of years but I'd hate to see us get back into that situation and have you know well we have roughly about 60% the people here in Deerfield on septic tanks I would hate to get us into a situation where our uh residents didn't really have any place to dispose of their waste so that's the only reason why I'm talking about a holding tank what's the feasibility and I know that we have a project that's probably going to be coming up in Old Deerfield in seeing how septic tanks majority them probably get pumped from Spring to fall uh and the students are out from late spring to early fall maybe they could handle that capacity maybe in the future and I'm just throwing that out that's okay that's good um before you continue is there anybody online that wants to ask a question because I'm happy to listen to you Jeff all night I just want to make sure that other people aren't yep okay I agree doesn't look like anyone is raising their hand so continue okay the only only other thing that I have is and it's not so much for David it's just for us here in town is uh there seems to be some confusion and I got a few quick questions here that might be able to you know to help eliminate that and it may sound basic to you people because you're dealing with it every day but a lot of resents aren't dealing with every day so absolutely uh just just if a quick explanation of of how users and non-users are assessed in build and I you know I understand that but the other part of it is and maybe Julie can weigh in on this is the covering of the costs of the municipal buildings as far as the flow in the operating budget issue so yep so yeah so again we set a set a rate each year with a hearing um and that is that is coming up with as we all discussed here tonight the the cost for a basic um you your hookup charge and your um if you just use minimal usage charge and then how much per thousand gallons uh we need to charge to cover the bill that that rate and that Bill gets based on how much water usage you've brought into your home in the last 6 months since the last time the water department read it we decide um you know we see how much you you have used most of whatever comes into the house goes out of the house so we have to process it at the plant so that that becomes your bill every six months you have a bill based on your usage and then um that is if you're on on on the system if you're not on the system if you have a septic you don't pay any of that rate um so the only portion of money that the town currently pays as say myself who is not on the system the money that I pay into the sewer system was a um was 25% of the cost of the upgrade at the South Deerfield plant back in the 20s when everything got put in we had a law that said 25% of the bill would be of any Capital project or laying the pipes or anything would be born by the town and then 75% by the users and that was the law uh until I think 2020 or so we changed that law maybe a little bit later than that yeah I think it was a couple years later couple years later uh maybe 2022 we changed the um the language at town meeting they decided that the town would no longer be obligated to pay anything they could on any specific project the town could step up and pay a portion of any Capital project but base line is that the sewer users would pay all of the capital um so any new project that comes up uh it it's really based on the sewer users and then the select board or sewer Commissioners would decide if we would ask the town if they would participate um monetarily in some of that so the way but you don't see that in your bill like when you get your taxes obviously you see it because you're paying a tax bill but it there's no separate uh portion on your tax bill that says here's my $5 or $25 or whatever it might be that's going towards um the loan payment this year so each year we'll decide um as a town in budgeting we're going to pay so much on principal so much on interest and then pretty soon all the loans will be done and we'll have specific payments that we'll make each year for these projects um when when we do the bill when we're doing the budgeting the um 75% of that loan payment comes out of the retained earnings of the sewer Enterprise fund those are all the money that gets paid goes into the sewer Enterprise fund 75% comes out of that 25 comes out of the general fund whatever that number is um that gets assessed and that that just becomes part of the budgeting process we do and then you're you know everybody's taxes they pay their taxes and that that percent goes there so you'll never see that on your budget or on your tax bill if you're a resident but um it's one of those things that we debt excluded which means that it was um it was money that was over and above your normal tax bill we that that money gets gets paid that way so I don't know if that explained everything I'm always happy to read say things again again I I think that has definitely helped and then the one last thing just to clarify and I think you basically did at that point but just in case uh just explain the uh assessment and billing and how it impacts users and non-us for infrastructure maintenance now not new projects yeah so the maintenance of the plant like anything we do at the plant change a light bulb fix a pump all of that does not come out of um your tax bill if you're a regular taxpayer in town it comes out of each year we put a budget together like all other departments the wastewater treatment Department puts a budget together for how much they might think they need in maintenance for you know a lot of the old stuff up at Old Deerfield but anything the new plant um that all of those bills that are paid uh parts that we buy chemicals we use all comes out of the sewer user fee so it's nothing that the general taxpayer pays for onm it's called operations and maintenance so uh taxpayers don't pay any of that um they only pay that 25% of the loan uh that we're doing but everything else is paid by your sewer user fees yep and and just just to hear one thing like it's not two buckets of people you're all the same people so you are a taxpayer and you are a sewer user so you're paying both like you're paying the 75% and you're paying the 25% so the sewer users you know really are are shouldering a lot of this so that's kind of my two senses I always think a town should have some responsibility in this but um anyways yeah no I mean the bylaw change was previously we were required to pay at least 25% now we are right we are not obligated to pay anything right moving forward on new project but we could pay up to 25% correct correct and it it makes a lot of sense in South Deerfield for the South Deerfield wastewater treatment facility for a a a resident uh contribution because we have schools we have fire department we have Police Department we have Town Hall um the library Etc so it makes sense that there's some component right whether 25% was the accurate number that was what was required by law but going forward voters will decide we'll come you know if we have to spend money on the old Airfield plant proposal will come to town meeting it will say this is what we're doing this is what we're suggesting um you know and people will have an opportunity to debate whether we put any money into uh any money into it from the general fund or we put 10% or 5% so that won't be decided by us it will be decided by the voters right y y Julie did you have uh some comments or questions I do um maybe just to add a um add a very small amount to what Trevor already said is that um when we vote the municipal budget at annual town meeting the amount we're going to pay towards that loan is in that budget and you can see it see it there as a line item so it's not a sear charge that gets added later or anything it's part of the budget that we vote thank you in April for the upcoming year um but I have a question um when you because I'm when you have the minimum charge for a sewer user is that like what defines a sewer user is something like is is is treehouse on the sewer and MH are a single user no matter how many bathrooms they may have or I just picked that as an example or Yankee Candle or Y da or whoever yes um go ahead if you want to that sounds more can you can you speak to that better than us yeah the user charge right now is per customer customer would have been a better way of stating this in writing um I think what Julie described is the concept of if it were per edu like equivalent dwelling unit we've talked about that in the past as an option but we didn't propose in this model any change to how a single customer so there are customers that are much bigger than a single family home and they would pay the same base charge as somebody who's on sewer that has a two-bedroom house or three bedro house so there isn't like um each each like yeah under an edu system you might have da or public school a school or might have multiple hookup charges you know multiple edus um I forget what it equalized something around equivalent dwelling unit equivalent dwelling units so so many units but here they would just pay that one minimum usage charge and obviously entity like that would never be a minimum charge they would always they have a lot of usage so they pay a huge bill but um but yeah it's it's something we looked at edus and I think we still are struggling because it's hard to protect the senior citizens and the minimum people with and also capture the funds you need out of the larger entities great barington has 100% fixed fee sewer rate structure so the positive to it is there's no variability with Revenue right you have a dry year a wet year you're getting your Revenue the downside is if you're between the zeroth and 50th percentile like if you're down at the zeroth percentile and you're fix a full fix fee your cost per year is going way up yeah so it's it's tough to switch a rate structure entirely once you have one you almost have to like live within that skin yeah and you can you can shed it and tweak it a little bit but you can't really completely morph into a different system without a lot of pain yeah and I don't know whether it's legal to have like a commercial user fee rate and um a residential rate and we don't we currently have the same tax rate for commercial and residential so um that would add a layer of complication um but is that something that it yeah I don't want to speak to the legality but it's certainly U allowed um there are a lot of communities with different rate structures some of them are ascending rate too you know if you don't use a lot of water you pay this much if you use a lot of water you know it goes up I would say the more complex we make it Tim like then the more variability there is year to year so we we have been looking a bit at um industrial use you know when Oxford pickle was here there was a heavy demand the breweries can be a heavy demand depending on what what goes down the pipe so I think the breweries lately have been you know we we had a tough time for a few years when a lot of hops and stuff was going in and you you go to the plant you just knew like hops everywhere like all they had takes are all foamed up and you're like oh what did we dump you know and but but they you know through education they understand that a lot of that hops goes to the farm and you know that kind of thing so they theyve but we still have heavier workload on the plants from a brewery versus a school or you know it's just a so we're looking at you know do we have a we we used to have a different rate for say a BBC or something like that um Treehouse doesn't Brew here but if they did Brew here you know we really I think there's there's not that many entities but we do need to you know there's more wear and tear more stuff going in the pipes if you pop a manhole on on Conway Street here there's a lot of gunk in the pipe you know versus just you know off a elm Circle or something just different animal so we looked at Cost there a bit we have some more work to do there so and Julie did you have a followup your hand I have one more question um the do you know like how many users are there or customers or whatever and then how many of those pay the minimum payment ma now and how many would be paying the minimum payment with the new your option three there great question I don't remember the exact number of customers Bren I think I saw Brenda come in she might not off the top of her head yeah I want to say there's like under 3,000 uh total users but I don't know I know we have all that data in a spreadsheet and I can get that for you for sure that's close enough that doesn't I can give you the percentile though so everyone under the fifth percentile is paying the a flat charge everyone under the fifth percenti currently yeah so 5% of your customers are use less water than than your minimum charges yeah which that 595 rule you guys are doing a good job with that yeah if it was 20% I would say we got to be really careful because that's a lot of people that right you know are in that that low low tier yep I know it hurts to go up it's just um you know as as stewards of this valuable um infrastructure we have to be careful and we have to invest where we need to um and and you know we we have to I sign the bills every two weeks Blake as well he's been looking at them too and Tim as well we you know every couple weeks I'm signing the warrant and and it's like $118,000 to bring our sludge to low it's just going up and you know sometimes it's 12 sometimes it's 22 it's but it's a lot of money every month to SP and that's just one part of the Enterprise um it is ungodly expensive to get rid of our sludge and that the sludge is the dead bugs right yeah second biggest line item second biggest line item other than electricity was Labor and labor electricity used to be way top but with this upgrade it's gone way down so that that that's been excellent um but yeah but the sludge is is a fortune to get rid of um so we're just always trying to find that balance and we need to we need to cover the cost to do it but you know not take advantage we just want to you know we we have done a huge investment there and that that was a lot to tackle we do have to figure out we have concepts of a plan should I say that um in Old Deerfield and uh I think we're getting close to kind of getting started there and then um you know and then again we have all the pipes to deal with all the all the collections and we'll have a better idea what that looks like again in the future here with this with this grant I would just like to say say how many um how many users would be paying the minimum fee if you raise the minimum fee because it's got to increase the number right it would it does a little bit Julie maybe like one or two% oh okay yeah thank you I just like to say thank you you for your time your responses I think that may have helped clear up some confusion hopefully yeah hopefully always always happy to talk and it's complicated and and obviously you know from year to year we we have to make the adjustments necessary to finance what's what we've obligated the town for I mean the voters obligated the town for this by approving the plan to build this plant so you know we are the ones that have to set the rates and have to rely on Experts to tell us these are the options you have for setting the rates um so and it's it's a it's a really nice plant I'm always happy to give anybody a tour anytime I mean this is a big who wants to go look at a sewage plant but it truly is a pretty amazing uh piece of equipment and Eric and his team are fantastic operators they really really keep that place really clean and um operating well so very proud of our team should be proud so this doesn't have a direct effect on tonight's discussion and I'm going to try to wrap this part of it by 7 o' which is another five minutes um but we did recently receive a grant to look at um a possible interconnection with weight ley's uh business district uh Industrials so if you want to talk about that a small amount Christopher yeah sure um and Dave I just sent you and Justin an email about it today so I hope you had a chance to to read but yeah we were recently awarded just a $100,000 planning Grant um from the Rural Development Fund that the state has just to explore uh Road and Wastewater connections with weightly and in particular uh you know we have our um industrial park right on the border with their industrial park and so you know there was a question about you know they've got some potentially big users on that side is there an opportunity here to expand our distribution or collection system rather um and take advantage of that and you know you know have a win-win situation for weightly and Deerfield so too early to say how that would shape out or dck is looking into it our DC committee and um you know it would create new users new user fees it might help defer you know defay some of the cost of the town of Deerfield but too early to say whether that will ever occur expanding the bottom the denominators you always said The more users it's a cool opportunity you know it's Chris is going to say the challenge is the pipe cost right getting the infrastructure from from where it is out to the end but from a math standpoint with flow it's a cool opportunity for both communities so there's a Buy in you know they have to buy in for the investment that we've had just like your new connections to right and it's it's it's actually a finite area it's basically your Industrial Park currently doesn't have sewer infrastructure ours is right next door and it does so maybe it makes sense maybe it doesn't and hopefully this this this grant will help us figure that out good job to Chris that's not easy to go get grants so so I've got one thing I I'd like to add to that one thing that I've been I think I discussed with both of you at one point is that we come up with a committee a sewer committee to actually work with all of these different moving parts that as we go through this it seems like there seems to be more and more as we go through that would report to us as the Commissioners and uh be able to uh maybe keep us a breast a little bit more in a more timely fashion than basically hitting this once a year or whatever and then that way we can stay up to speed on it because I know I need all the help I can get yeah it's it's a lot and you know right I I mean I you we had the committee a few years ago and they they did good work and they got to a standstill like there was just kind of stuck in the mud because they're you it's hard decisions they don't want to be the one that say Hey you need to spend 19 million bucks um but or 22 um but they did good groundwork and good research looked at a lot of edu kind of discussions at that time um and then I think you know it might also you know if it's not a committee maybe you know expanding it might take a bylaw thing but expanding you know the representation on this board you know as a sewer Commissioners maybe it's um uh maybe we we have a couple of spots added to this board that are that are actually in favor that was next thing I would bring we expand this board to five members they can be users because I I'm not a user uh I think none of us are right now and that can be the case and sometimes it is it's just a matter of who gets elected and where they live but um but to have some representation on on the board and um you know I just yeah I think it might be good to kind of look at that for sure yeah the um the previous committee sort of fell apart for various reasons um they reached a point where policy decisions had to be made and um people didn't agree with each other and at some point in order to I wasn't on it at this I wasn't on the select board then this was five or six years ago and uh the decision was made we got to move forward otherwise the plant's going to fall apart and uh so you know that's the plus and the minus of of ad hoc committees is um you know when it comes time to make policy decisions it's you know time for the comme to P you know pass along stuff and from my standpoint I stay involved in the sewer throughout the year in terms of like trying to keep my knowledge base up we have the old deer for plant we're going to have to con confront at some point so I think I saw Charlene did you have your hand up I did oh great come on up welcome kind of gigling at that um I I just want to be clear about if you're a user so if we did alternative three the hybrid adjustment we would have to pay $300 for a service fee what what does that $300 because that's that you said was only for six just that was only for six months right so can you introduce yourself and say where you live oh I'm sorry no that's all right I just I thought you announc me um charling glinsky River Road thank you um but we my husband and I own some property in town that is on sewers so that's why I'm asking um the service fee is $300 for the year what does that pay for pays well it's a it's a it's a base charge right that everybody pays and that's towards your operations maintenance loan I mean it's just it's your bottom line it's your starting point and then user fees come on top of that so it makes everybody kind buy into the system no matter how much you use and it's a level kind of charge and then your usage comes on top of that I got that right yeah and I would just Echo that because almost 40% of your budget now is the debt service from the project even if the spigot shut off tomorrow and no one discharged any Wastewater you'd still have to pay your loan so the users essentially the theory behind raising the fee was to kind of match the increase in the percent budget for The Debt Service like so much of the budget now is fixed regardless of how much Wastewater individual homes use so okay budgets maybe 10 years ago where you know operating budget was maybe a million two something like that we're close to two now and every dollar collected goes to the budget it doesn't have like a tag to it for like a specific subc component it just it goes into the piggy bank and Brenda and Sarah you know manage that accordingly pay the bills and then the minimum charge that means if you do not flush your toilet enough you'll get charged that no it means everybody gets a minimum charge so you have the hookup fee your service fee being a part of the system then some people are you know elderly that just live by themselves flush a toilet take a shower a couple times a week and you know they don't really use much so there's a minimum usage charart so they're at the bottom that's that that bottom section here where elderly one person at the home or not you know it doesn't matter your age but just not much usage you're kind of down here so you have a you have a minimum buy in of like was 80 bucks it might be 100 bucks now so that's your each six months so that's your that's your Buy in if you don't use any more than that then you you you don't reach that limit of a thousand you know you don't pay anymore that's just your minimum so you would not have to pay that if you used more uh it it it kind of rolls into it right so yeah right it's yeah that's not part of your bill you're part of your bill you're already paying that minimum usage thing right it goes just for your usage at that point Y it's for only the people who don't use much at all so right now a user knows they have a guaranteed $300 they'll have have to pay if again we go with alternative three and then we have to add on which page though I just want to make sure we're talking oh well I'm on the second page second page yep that's right if we don't do any capital corre and then the uh the $23 is based on per thousand correct so then you add that to it so so truthfully your bill could be $500 or $600 for the year sure easily easily So currently a minimum of person would pay um it looks like $360 right so under this scenario it would go from 360 to $500 so it would be an increase of like $140 yeah is that correct for that's correct right and what we try to balance to is like you know the cost between being on a sewer system and having a septic at your house right so we have this you know we're trying to figure out well we look at sewer usage fees right we're always like you know we have to keep them low enough but still manage your debt and manage the plant same with a house like you put in a $440,000 $30,000 septic system the cost over 2030 years from that you know how much is that monthly so you're kind of looking at both of those figures so trying to decide the cost of one versus the other and they're both expensive no matter how I don't think either of them is cheaper and then the only other ho anymore the only other thing now I just want to make sure I'm not um misunderstanding sure um with the well not potential we have to fix the two to $2.5 million pipe that's a given Y and then the future of the old Deerfield plant is obviously something that has to be looked at and and that all comes within our tax bill no correct no all right explain that to me so uh any project from this upgrade is the only one that's in your tax bill if you're not if the current one 2009 no no I knew that and that also that pipe that pipe project old Deerfield plant Eastern and cross anything we do anywhere else in the system does not come from your tax bill it's only a sewer user Bill unless the town decides it we're going to tackle one of these projects and we ask the town will you will the taxpayers also pay in a little bit to help the users on the system because you know we have municipal buildings Police Department you know all that as on it here if the town says yes will Pony up 10% or whatever then you would and and then it passed as a debt exclusion at a Ballot Box then we would then you would see a little bit more in your taxes so any of us in town who are users users use the sewer yes we can anticipate yep more in our tax bill in your sewer usage bill in a sewer usage bill right with these upcoming problem um problems that are ahead of us correct so so and I just heard you say weightly might want to join us or might be a part I'm I didn't say that I want to correct what I said what I said was that there is a very limited opportunity that's being studied that the industrial park in weightly that sits next to the industrial park in Deerfield might be able to tie together to increase the number of users which would have a redu a reducing effect but we don't know that that's going to happen and anything outside of the the industrial parks is the only thing we're talking about at this point so we're not talking about putting sewer into weightly and you doing any of that stuff and then they would they would have to decide whether they'd want to pay as the money that it would be required for them to tie in like it's not just oh we hook them up and hey here's your fee there's a buy in you hold the chips on that one exactly they want to buy in they need to pay to come in but the taxpayers paid for the facility down there no down I well you mean the upgrade that we did yes yeah the taxpayers paid for that and then it's nice to say somebody could possibly you know become a part of that and give us some money which would help but it's still we the taxpayers and I'm I'm just wondering I mean I'm no engineer uh but if old Deerfield has issues with their septic is there any way that they can become part of that our plant down here in South Deerfield without going through the 16 to17 million new plant it's it's more well we looked at at one time we looked at studying whether we could turn that into a pump station and pump that but we would need a second station somewhere we looked at leer Road and mil Village kind of if we had a somewhere you could put a second plant so pumps from there pumps to there then pumps down to here and we could then run lines over 91 and pick up my area Town other houses out there might want to tie in you know in because it's harder and harder to put a septic system but all of that is way more expensive than just doing an upgrade at that plant however over a hundred years it would be more beneficial to do that but it's a lot of money up front unless there's a big infusion state or federal money to make that happen probably not going to happen okay yeah those were my question good idea but thank yeah so we were talking basically the this there were various options at the high end of a pump station uh plan it was it was it was in the 30 million range 30 million and in the low end and in the high end of the uh fixing the other plant it was 12 to 15 million so we're talking about a huge amount of money in difference in in creating a pump station yep because right now it just doing Simple Math here it looks like almost a $6 increase per thousand if we go with that alternative three um looking at the the pipe and all of that yeah not adding anything else so it doesn't look good for the future for users with expenses coming expensive to run these systems yep and y have a choice because a lot of times a d says as they did with that plant you must fix this and we're kind of left trying to find a way to do it so we want to be a little proactive and do it on our terms instead of their terms right and of course when the uh when the uh federal government was paying 90% of the cost of installing sewer systems it wasn't that expensive to build the old plants M but now we're paying 90% of the cost or more of putting these plants in place and fixing them so that was a federal policy decision when they started giving tax cut to billionaires and and then pushing all of the cost onto local communities that's why our bills are so high and and our businesses our larger businesses in town not your they're they're pretty much paying what I'm paying from what you said well depends on how much usage they have right yeah I mean if they have a lot of bathrooms then they're paying more usage or if they're running a lot of water through theem system but everything else equals out according to the numbers yes yeah we don't have any like our tax rates the same as yeah right Y and we do we do have for our Farmers we do we do have um programs to help the farmers as well like um I think uh glinsky and there's other farmers in town that use a lot of water for the farming and doesn't go into the system obviously crops and all that stuff we have worked on policies to help that as well so I appreciate sure thank you y us all all right well um I think we've uh had a fairly interesting and educational discussion thank you David for coming thanks for having me really appreciate it thank you very much nice to meet you yep all right all right have a good night take care thank you so um next up topic is uh slack board reports and announcements Tim I I just want to interrupt you really quick I I think we did have someone in the audience looking to uh contribute to public comment oh great oh did we okay yeah oh so you mean the public comment original perod sure okay so yeah if there's somebody who has a general comment uh that they want to make is this for of Health too or sure y right so she was going to address this at Board of Health but I okay I wa till the Board of Health stuff that's fine gotcha yep I didn't hear that part sorry so now that's good um I just happened to know Megan was here from health health yeah um so do you want to talk about this uh Mass clean water trust Christopher do you want me to or yeah Trevor yeah go for it just uh just that we um had I signed tonight the uh DocuSign paperwork this is the asset management um grant that we got for studying the sewer collection system and the storm water collection system we got two separate grants so very grateful to de and um all for uh for that work um so we I think we I signed everything tonight cuz I didn't realize I thought it was Sarah that was signing but maybe we both had to sign because she said she wasn't going to process it until I signed it so I did that tonight and I think everybody got email copy of that so I think we're good to go I don't know if we have anything else to go on that right no I I think you're all set yeah okay great so that is that's done that's the sewer pipe that's the sewer collection and the drainage collection yep both of those are done okay or at least started any other announcements well discop I think I know I know I just feel yeah Blake um yeah I just have one comment um it was brought up um a couple of weeks ago that um at at one of the public meetings that I was not in favor of uh senior housing I just want to make sure that I clarify that that I am absolutely in favor of senior housing my question was with the St James property and I wanted to make sure that uh it was something that was feasible at that particular time sure so I just want to make sure that uh it's out there publicly that they know that I am absolutely in favor of senior housing thanks for clarity I did have one comment I attended Friday the um Mass Municipal Association legislative breakfast um took place this they do it in um six places around the state in October and um for our region was was up in Liden on Friday morning so I attended that uh Joe Comer was there for bit of time and then she was hosting um secretary how who's uh um our economic Economic Development um secretary so uh she had spent I think all like eight hours in western Mass so that was awesome she came out to look at all the different things we're doing for economic development out here um and Natalie bla was there to speak a bit but they gave a good legislative uh breakdown obviously they're not in session right now that the session is over but they are trying to compile some bills before January 1st um they're working on a a couple of you know supplemental bills and um you know and then obviously going you know elections will happen then they'll gear up for a new session which is always a two-year session but um they you know it was nice to see the work that that they've done um the western Mass delegation to try and pull in other rural areas and convince the eastern part of the state you know why it's important to fund out here and we've done uh they've just done some great work as far as rural roads uh increasing chapter 90 spending um the fair share Amendment um that money that kind of came in where where they were putting that has to be the education has to be the roads so there's a lot of different um rural um initiatives that they've been working on and funding uh so it was a good it was a really good session so look forward to that and I know the um MMA conference is uh scheduled in a new place because they're remodeling the uh hind Center um so that's going to be in January again so I'm looking to sign up for that so that's all I got and uh I attended two things last week with um one was involving the Canadian Cil General um massachusetts's biggest trading partner outside of the United States is Canada um western Mass itself um I think has almost two billion in trade but um it's an amazing figure that was uh something that was put on by the council and and the um who's Jen work for yeah it's the mass office of uh international travel and tourism yeah and so Massachusetts Canada work together and it was a little um two-hour presentation at treehouse and the next day um Christopher and I and I don't know if anyone else from uh Greg and uh um Jesse Dean from the chamber oh were out here for um they were out touring western Mass so we met at Yankee Candle and had conversations about uh you know um how we can benefit from working with the state and uh increasing tourism to the area so great always trying to encourage you know Business Development out here so so now on to Board of Health I know if Val is here yeah I think yeah there she is hey Val she was Val is she the brpc ah yeah that's she should be hold on I have to unmute myself all right welcome B hi there how are you good hey just real quick before you get into it um I think Friday is our uh court case for right receivership right I was going to attend if you I didn't know if you were going to be there yep I I will be there um okay great yeah it's we have a court case for the receivership case on 9197 still water and basically um the receiver is going to present his plan he has to move move forward yep um and it's requesting that he be allowed to do more and he has cleaned up quite a bit um I think he's gone through like 55 dumpsters can you imagine I sent you that report a couple weeks ago yes um the next step for him is we have a perk test scheduled for 91 and a Title Five for 97 because 97 does have a septic system okay well somewhere y somewhere well actually we know where that is we just has we just have to see if it passes or not okay that's great this is just for those uh was the old romanoski property that we're uh we have in in receivership through the Attorney General's office um oar is the U receiver and they're they've been cleaning up a lot of the property um to try and get it you know remodeled and back on the tax roles yep have any of you um gone by that done a driveby I have yes or no yeah I've been over pretty good yep okay yeah he has cleared out quite a bit yeah so that's what we're doing with that yep um are we here can we talk about the BBA sure I think are they here uh no they're they're not in attendance um okay so I'm handing out uh this is a little last minute didn't get to add to your packets but we have a a draft uh order of suspension um of their permit um so you know I I think Val correct me if you're I'm wrong but I think your first thought was to make any kind of uh permit for that establishment contingent on them um you know reapplying for a food permit and getting an inspection from the building inspector the fire chief and Val and then also potentially hiring you know a third part party to help run the business um after discussions with Town Council it it became clear made sense to basically include that as part of a revocation hearing at a later date um so what this draft order of suspension says is you know we based on the evidence that we heard at the hearing in on October 7th you know your permit remains suspended um lists out the violations and then um gives notice that we are going to be scheduling a hearing of revocation in November and that's that November 13th date is our next Board hearing um so I did want to you know you know leave a space there to basically plug in a time uh depending on what the board wants to do in terms of scheduling um but that'll give you know uh us an opportunity to talk about again the specifics of Val's proposal and then also give the business owner time to potentially clean up the business as well and are we um do we need to read this in or do we basically can we approve this as presented yeah you could approve it as presented um are we at a a point where we could pick a time to um to hold this um revocation order of revocation uh hearing yes so my only comment on that would be obviously our standing meeting is at 6 um I think we were talking about potentially a meeting with the police Union um prior to that um so that's the only other kind of scheduling question um so and is there any any um like do we have to give them if we gave them notice tonight that would cover any like 14-day period or oh yeah yep we're yeah we're more than a month out at this point so we would be or not more than a month but close to a [Music] month does anybody have an opinion about uh when we would want to put this onto the agenda oh what time on the agenda um 6:30 or do you need something oh that's fine yeah 6:30 okay so U let's see just almost done um and you're still at the November 13th yep so um I'd make a motion to approve this order of suspension as presented with the addition of um including 6:30 start time for this um public hearing you made that motion I'll second the motion any further discussion all those in favor chor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hilchie I okay Valerie you'll be able to attend I will I can attend in person thank you okay um you need signatures on this no it's all right I'll I'll draft it up and you can have Tim sign perfect thank you um unless we want to authorize Christopher to sign or you could do that yeah sure well you've got yeah it was and that's just in a draft form so if you want to update fine so I'd like to make an second motion to authorize Christopher G to sign on the select board all those in favor Chev McDaniel I Gilmore I Tim Hil I it just means that we can get it out there quicker quicker Valerie did you have more um I did I had a complaint over over the weekend actually Sunday into Monday about another one of of the restaurants having insects in there I I went and I did an inspection today I spoke to the owner I inspected the kitchen the kitchen was actually pretty good and I I um I let her know the owner I let her know that we had a complaint about um a bug in their food and I showed her the picture and she said oh yeah I'm aware of that we have H Terminex coming uh twice twice a month I have the receipts and she showed me the receipts and I was satisfied with that and she apologized profusely that that had happened and it wouldn't happen again but most of the restaurants do have some sort of insect infestation just because of the nature of of the business they have warm moist food and that's an attraction to um to insects and The Summer's worse obviously than the winter right so we also have um a person who is in attendance that has a question related to health issues so you want to come up while Valerie's still here yeah this isn't um related to the resturant but okay just name and yeah thank you um I'm Megan tudin and I am I live in South Deerfield but I'm here more on the on the Valley Health Regional collaborative um and I just wanted to make sure that you guys are aware of the the workforce St standards so we have um any new inspector that you hire is going to have to have a registered sanitarium within 6 years um you have to have a pool inspector you have to become Title 5 certified there's a there's a timeline that you have to get these things sure well one of the big ones is a registered sanitarian because you have to have a science degree to get this now in Massachusetts um you could you could pass the test easily well I shouldn't say easily you can you can pass the test but they're not going to let you get it unless you have like 30 science credits um there's also fit food and fit housing that it's it's brand new um most of the people who are in the health departments now have finished tier tier one tier two um is a in-person class as well as online class and tier three is you go to the furog and you do um training with them um Bri Dupri is our our representative and she goes out and takes people to restaurants and watches them and makes sure that everything is up to standards so um I know that we have an open inspector spot or we did um and I TR I've been trying are you offering no no thank you um but I have been trying to recruit recruit exactly and I did find someone who has um a doctorate degree in chemistry she's been a professor she's um amazing she is just somebody that um I think would fit this position really well but she put in her application almost two months ago and hasn't heard anything and I did bring it up at our last vhrc meeting and Tim was going to reach out but she still hasn't heard anything um does she have a Title Five and she does not but she has all of the things that we could train her very quickly so she could get up to par I mean soon like Ser safe you can all you need to do the restaurants technically on the books right now is Serve Safe And you can get that in two days um so um can I just say something so we we do have somebody that has applied and he is he is um FDA standardized certified uh Title Five inspector um he's a soil evaluator he's done Barn inspections he's had quite he has quite a lengthy resume I don't know if if you've seen it no but that's great yeah I don't know Chris did you have a copy that you can U let her see the only thing he doesn't have is he has his bachelor's degree and something other than science so and he has um expressed a desire to um to get the RS but he has pretty much everything else he's actually a public health trainer as well great that's good news yep and I did follow up with her about but I do think that everyone should who puts in an application should at least get a phone call absolutely if not an interview especially if they have a doctorate degree you know it's that's just I feel like I know pretty a lot of Education I feel like yeah yeah I don't know if that breakdown between transition to staff or something I'm not sure why generally yeah well it looks like it looks like we receiv received that application August 28th I think Casey announced her retirement the following week and probably the you know it just fell through the cracks so apologies about that we'll certainly reach out and give her an update Yeahs thanks for bringing it to attention and another thing that we're trying to work on with the vhrc is um um um equity and diversity and things like that so we really want to to give everyone a chance um I mean I hate to say this but we don't want to just always hire the the white male that's gotten the the job every time just because they have it but with all those certifications that definitely puts a a different spin on everything you know I would hire somebody that has the especially the soil value order because that one's a hard one the the waiting list is like six was this brought before us to it hasn't been yet I think this is something that we need to have brought before us so that we can discuss it and look at the pros and the cons on this type we and the other thing is um I wanted to talk a little bit about our flu Clinic we did um we did one at the fire station and one at Deerfield Elementary School the one at Deerfield Elementary School was not run by us but it was organized by us um they had 74 people registered I haven't gotten the total of how many shots they actually gave I'm sure it was more than that because they allowed walk-ins at that one um and they were giving flu and Co shots so it was 74 people but I'm assuming most people got at least two um that showed up to that showed up um the one at the um South Deerfield fire station we had asked the senior centers to help people register but we only got nine people pre-registered which was that was not what we were expecting um I'm not sure where the where the breakdown breakdown was exactly but um the the good news is is that um Adam sakasi talked with us that morning and said hey are you guys taking walk-ins we said we sure are to get it done and so he put out that blast page and we ended up seeing 65 people and there was no wait for anybody it went super smooth um so I'm hoping that we can do that again but next year maybe really push it so that we can get more people pre-registered yeah your is there a way we can do this at the senior center so that the seniors don't have to go anywhere get we did ask but they we were told no that we couldn't do it at the senior center because was space we just didn't have a space for it but the that's when the fire department stepped up and I think they had a nice spot for it um yeah I know my my dad I think saw it in the paper and then um said you know do I have to register can I just do a Walkin I said well I think they want you to register but I'm sure you could do a walk yeah registration takes about CU otherwi you got to do when you're there you still have to you still have to do it when you're there either before or after so I said just do it before you go but so I think they did well we can certainly they thought it was a great great Clinic yeah I mean we've had great success with these clinics in the past so obviously we need to do a better job of getting the public information out so espe especially to the seniors seniors need it urgently so we used to be so much more involved right and and the whole model changed since covid we we had hundreds of people and all kind of volunteers and carollyn L A lot of that and um you know it the whole flavor of all of that has changed immensely we've lost a lot of volunteers we don't have the people lined up that we used to um it it's it's it's kind of sad we just you know the whole system has really changed immensely since those days and you know we have a flu Clinic you know that or not a flu clinic but a you know a plan and we've done you know we did so much work never was utilized through covid and it just everybody's we did pull up um several we did Treehouse clinics that were essentially um you know deds driven but um you know after that after that it basically like we had the drivethru drive-through Clinic that we used to run through the DPW and um you and I have talked about that that you prefer not to do that it was a huge success so hundreds um we'll work The Kinks out for next year and if you have are you are you still willing to do more this year or is done yeah no we have we we just did a clinic the other day in Sunderland but I have shots so if you can get a if you can get a group of people registered I can hold another clinic it's it's not it's not hard for me to do that to just right you know but it's just about getting reg getting people registered because time is limited so I I won't come and a clinic for you know 10 people I agree ABS although we will do um in home seniors and things like that so if a senior needs one or or somebody's having a hard time getting out um I will go to their house and I will give it to them is that part of the registration can you is there some way of identifying that um identifying that the senior is at home and we do have a list told us about um I know we know we knew of one senior um the other day that needed it so um an Master tataro went out and gave it to her wonderful thank you but if if you know of anybody else or if anybody knows of anybody send them our way call the Greenfield house department or call an master jataro or Cindy and they can reach us and we can get it to them or and is there a is there a period of time after which you traditionally don't do flute clinics I mean how far into usually November December gotten them by November yeah mid November it would be really hard to find people that still need it after mid November y um this is really the prime time to get it now because the flu is not here yet or I shouldn't say not here but we had one person and that was it any idea how the matches yet it's not great yeah fig it's always a hit or miss you just never know sometimes it's like right on in other times you're just not sure yeah I know it is hard and the last thing I wanted to bring up is is it possible to have somebody as an alternate voting member for the vhrc um our last two meetings we haven't had a quorum and it's not just Deerfield it's um I think a lot of the smaller towns are struggling and you know um shy has been great and they have two people so if one can't come the other one can come we're gonna have a meeting I'm hoping November 7th um will be our next one I sent an email did Jack get a did Jack get a quorum for Jack doesn't need a quorum for his meetings that's that's something totally different he's not in the vhrc um so that's just more of an information meeting for Co epidemiology yeah things like that it's totally different Grant are they a zoom meeting or is it and still the okay yeah so definitely we could certainly do that I started going to those but then Tim told me he was doing it so I well actually the both of us went to the first one that that I went to and then you know thereafter I've been going is right you know so it's a I'm not sure okay I mean I'd be willing to work with you Tim if there's time you can't be there I can definitely what we were supposed to have one last Thursday but we didn't have that one because we didn't have a quum okay and I think I found out um but through email I that you weren't having you wouldn't have a quorum yeah oh I think maybe you're thinking of Jack's meeting because ours Poss ours we were just on there waiting for well and I'll jump on but you have to be a voting member so that's the thing so if you could elect a secondary person so that I could call whoever and be like hey help us out we don't have enough or something you need ation now I don't know what you need for and that's all for me hold on I have a question yeah sorry um so with with the flu vaccine clinics and the covid vaccine clinics what are you doing with the vaccine reimbursement That vaccine reimbursement goes back to the vhrc account so that all of the vaccines were purchased with vhrc money so any money that we get back from those vaccines will go back to the vhrc so that we can buy vaccines for next year perfect okay all right that's and the good news is we finally got Medicare reimbursement so that was the biggest thing that we hadn't had and that was the benefit of you guys having the fur Cog was that they could get Medicare reimbursement and we could not but we just got approved everything F and so that we will you know now we are for that's a huge help yeah because senior doses are about $120 yeah yeah thank you for your work I just want to check that you you do have my number right I do not don't then I need to give it to you tonight so yes yeah or I'll send it to you in email okay y great because I would love you know if I forget a meeting you you so many just message us yeah thank you do do you want a um a motion for an alternate sure let's not I'll make a motion for Blake uh Gilmore to be alternate to the vhrc vhrc steering committe y second thank you any further discussion all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I make sure make sure Megan has your your cell number Blake in case she's got my cell okay good in case you need to jump on all right good and I think we've got one more Board of Health uh matter so and you know on the aforementioned Health agent position um so we have uh a candidate who we're looking to make an offer to um you know myself Val dick and Greg uh inter vied uh this individual a couple weeks ago um he's as you know Valerie out outlined earlier he's very well qualified for the position um you know I think he let us know at that interview we' probably need about three weeks to transition into the role yes um so Val's going to be and Val and Dick are both of course going to be sticking around for a little bit um we appreciate it is it still July Val no it's not July thank you I really appreciate you hanging with us um and doing all that you've done wonderful so you want a motion to uh proceed with this that would be great yeah make a motion to proceed with the um to approve the Town Administrator to negotiate U inter Town Administrator to negotiate the position for um Health agent for Ned sininsky second uh any discussion NOP so this is again this is this is something that's already done deal that we're offering him the position already correct yes we staff interviews and um you know I think you got a little bit of a sense that the challenge actually finding a health agent with the the right qualifications so at Val's recommendation I was looking to move forward with submitting an offer letter to this gentleman okay I'm good with that all right um if there's no further discussion all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hilchie I thank you all right that's good great news thank you well good luck in your negotiating don't come back if you can't I don't want to know if he doesn't accept I don't want to know all right thanks anything else Val before we let you go no I think I think that's it things are like moving along um I do have um on Friday of course we have we have housing court I'm gonna also touch base with Deerfield Academy about their new dining hall um I'm waiting to get the plans Bob was not in today because it's his uh once a month um Workshop that he does for credit so y um I I need to take take a look at those and it would be good if we get that on board so he he can start to transition over on these roles yeah yeah that' be great okay thank you thank you valer good night good night bye byebye all right can we um plow through these minutes yes can I make a motion please so I'm going to make a motion to approve the select board minutes for July 25th 2024 second all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hch I make a motion to approve the select board minutes for August 7th 2024 second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor Trev McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim Hill GI make a motion to approve the minutes for August 8th 2024 second Blake and I will trade off on the seconds is any further discussion hearing none all those in favor chor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim Hill GI make a motion to approve the minutes for select board for August 21st 2024 second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor chor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Timmy H I make a motion to approve the select board minutes for August 23rd 2024 second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor chair McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hilchie I make a motion to approve the minutes for select board for um September 4th 2024 second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor chor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hilchie I i' make a motion to approve the Board of Health minutes for um October 7th 2024 second any further discussion nope hearing none all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore i h i thank you thank you so much for your work on the minutes that's a that's a big pile and very happy to have them done and uploaded to the web also want to thank uh Greg snaker for the Board of Health minutes because that was an interesting and challenging meeting in many ways so thank you thank you all right um want a motion for the yes next up is some motions for one day Wine and Liquor licenses so take it away Trevor so I'll make a motion to approve the one day um uh liquor license for uh Trustees of Deerfield Academy this would be for the um date of event of October 29th 2024 second yeah all the uh insurances and stuff are in order so if there's no discussion um all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim LG I and then I'd like to make a motion to approve the one day uh liquor license for um United Way I believe it is uh yeah for United Way the Franklin Hampshire uh for event on November 6 2024 second um any further discussion hearing none all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hilchie I and that'll be at Greenfield savings at Greenfield Savings Bank there's a Sho event held um catered by uh chz Market uh cider wine Mead served sold by four Phantoms Brewing so great okay um can you take us through the DCR acquisition yeah happy to and I'm just sharing my screen I'll blow this up a little bit but uh if you recall a few weeks ago um DCR approached us about uh submitting a letter of support for a grant application uh for funds to acquire a few different properties on theck Ridge uh that they're looking to preserve um and I'm happy to pull up that map again if if folks want to take a look um they've got just sort of a housekeeping item for us tonight they uh According to some Mass regulations they need the select board to announce that DCR is um planning to acquire an interest in certain property for um for recreation purposes um I've pulled up uh here actually Greg do you mind just yeah I've I've just pulled up the sort of announcement language that they need read out at the meeting and then um you know we can have that included in the minutes and transmit it to DCR and that'll fulfill their obligation under those Mass Rags all right so um just the stuff that's in the box right yeah just uh after at this the part that starts with the Department of Conservation so that's all Blake needs to read or right can read it doesn't matter doesn't matter all right I'll do it while he's signing the department of conservation and Recreation May acquire an interest in a parcel of land located in Deerfield as shown in the attached Locust map marked as exhibit a for conservation Andor Recreation purposes and just as a reminder here's the the actual map of the properties I know it's probably a little bit difficult for folks to see um but they're uh have the Connecticut River over here on the right um and and then a couple properties right up there on pumu Ridge that DCR is acquiring for recreation purposes and this is what you need to sign and date okay all right um the next item that we're going to discuss is to to review a request to authorize $115,000 of repairs to Depot Road um I'm not sure that this is the correct Source well well it's going to be either one it's going to be either from unutilized 2023 storm damage funds or American Rescue plan act funds um so briefly uh there's a Deerfield water district water main that's under Depot Road um the 2023 storm as most people know who use Depot ro road for any reason uh it the road's been closed since then and a good portion of the paved portion of the road is washed out um and so um Stanley YZ winsky who's the director of the Deerfield water district is concerned that the infrastructure is going to get washed away so the proposal is to to um have $155,000 work uh worth of work done involving Trucking in rip wrap uh and re reinforcing the bank where the erosion is taking place um while that's going on they would also uh replace two storm drains that Transit that road that are collapsed um so that hopefully and then to dig out um dig out the uh edge of the road so that water can flow into the culverts again um and my understanding is that the police chief and the DPW worked out this proposal you have any further things to add to that Christopher no I I think you covered it any questions from did you already talk to Chief about this Blake no okay I'm I'm good with it I I have talked to Chief about it um I understand you know we came in well under budget on the other projects and this would be and really it's mainly the reason I'm okay with it is it's securing the water infrastructure if it wasn't for that might just let that road disappear but it's important to support the pipe so one of the reasons why um the police chief and also the EMS and the fire departments are concerned about getting this repaired as well is that in some occasions it may be the only access path to get emergency vehicles up towards Eagle Brook if other exess points are not uh not open so Y and that's another reason why it makes sense to take this opportunity to do this work so just a question on that is this going to be a temporary fix or is this do you think this is going to actually handle this situation because that's the what I'm thinking of is that's that big gully that's in there now correct it is a big gully that's the road alongside I know we met with the state and I went up with the chief and we did talk about this the state getting involved is there still any chance that we can get them to come in and fill that that Gully in enough so that it um because the the pipe actually sits like 15t above where the the bottom of that Ravine is and I think it's still going to keep wearing out as we go I'm just concerned about that we might be thinking about two different pipes the pipe that we're concerned about is not the one that's draining okay it's there is there's an actual water pipe yeah oh I know what you're talking about yeah that was the road we walked down where the water pipe was but on the other side of the road is where that drainage pipe is and I'm just wondering if it's going to keep eroding that away and we're going to end up keep having to keep deal with that right is there some venue we could go after to maybe try to fill that hole in so I I understand that part of this is um to use um erosion cloth in between layers of stone so that the the the rip wrap repair um and I I believe that they plan to vegetate it so I I think it's viewed as at least this side of it the the cul that we're speaking about is on the other side of the rine um and you know I don't have an answer for that my understanding when when we were looking at it was that the idea was to put a fill-in rip wrap under where the drainage is coming out large enough so that it doesn't get washed away and I am in agreement with all of that I was just wondering about the future is there something we should be looking at we should probably keep keep on it see if we can find a way to mitigate it well do you feel able to vote this tonight or yeah okay so I'll take a motion to motion to approve um the funding of up to $155,000 to um do repairs to secure the water infrastructure on Depot Rogue second all right it's been removed in second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim hch I and I would favor using the arpa funds because if we don't we're going to lose them I agree with that yeah I don't think there's any remaining unutilized storm but Brenda has beening diving out the money so I don't know where which pocket she's been taking it from so um all right and next up is the police Union thing can you speak a little bit about that Chris sure yeah we we brought this up a couple weeks ago uh tror didn't happen to be at the meeting so we wanted to just kind of finalize it but uh you know the police Union has just approached us about um re you know renegotiating their collective bargaining agreement um you know Adam salaski reached out to just say that you know traditionally we brought three issues to the table or each side has and we're looking at kind of an early November date um you know I threw out November 13th given that's our next meeting anyway maybe we could meet with them a little bit before the meeting uh just to kick things off um Trevor and I had an opportunity to talk a little bit about it it sounded like in the past you know uh couple items of discussion obviously just pay in general um cameras also um and anything else we want to kind of throw out there could be brought forward to to those discussions and did we have some thought about I mean this is right in Blake's wheelhouse did we have a thought about having him be the person to that was my recommendation and my thoughts I would say so I I would make a motion to approve Blake Gilmore the select board representative along with our Town Council and Town Administrator I'll second that um any further discussion Danel I sorry no that's all right go WR it sorry uh hearing none all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim El I thanks Blake and just uh you know while we're on that really quick I know uh We've also got two other collective bargaining agreements that need to be renegotiated this year uh School Employees and then also of course uh Highway um so on the school employees I think Trevor you had some thoughts that you want to bring up I do I I really would love to be I was a part of it last time as a school committee member um and we had another person from Deerfield on representing uh the district um I I was really hoping to do that again this year but I um we just got an email that there may be interest in in either Sundin or or Conway or waitley maybe to be a a partner so um I was just I offer my hat to the ring would love to bring the experience to do it again but if if there's a a great desire from the other towns I I want to respect that as well so so I would make a motion to you know available appoint Trevor to the position the negotiating position for if there is a you know a spot a spot available to represent the select board and it's an important discussion so it is I second it thank you and I think that um basically should be a part of it anyways I mean even if they've got somebody in there you should still be a part of it it's a huge uh a huge part of our budget yep you know with the biggest town so um I'd be more than happy to see you sit in if you're not the actual voting representative yeah I'd still try to attend um and then we I would make a motion we have the the highway um um contract also um DPW workers contract to um to ratify and I would make a motion for Tim hilchie to be our representative on that negotiation with the um our attorneys and town second administrator we get two motions going now though right did we we already voted on vote on the teachers one I I thought we did but maybe oh maybe not I maybe just yeah so all right you know you're talking over so um all those in favor all those in favor of making Trevor if there's a place available Blake Gilmore I TR I what would we do without you keeping this Blake Gilmore come on Trevor McDaniel Tim LG thank you feel like the keyst we'll clean it up in the minutes yeah thank you make us look professional all right so now over to you for the motion or whoever's going to make the motion for the DPW I uh make a motion that we have Tim Hill to represent the select board as leison for negotiations for the highway department second that motion any further discussion hearing none all those in favor Jeff McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I Tim Hil I thank you and then the uh do you want a motion on the election workers as well there was the next thing in the packet yeah I believe so um letter from Kate Cassie um in accordance with Mass General Law chapter 54 section 12 election workers in towns I'm resp respectfully submitting the following list of people who are willing to serve as election workers the term of office is from September 1st 2024 through August 31st 2025 under the Democrat column it is Andrea lebson and Jack C um wieden if I have that right wieden so that's all I have at the moment I think she had others before but these are two um and most recent most recent um second yeah Blake can second um any further discussion hearing none all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I and I want to thank them very much for stepping up to serve Tim Hil I and I also want to say that I'm uh Cassie takes her responsibilities really seriously and great job doing a great job and uh in fact she hosted uh the uh politics we used to call Civics I don't know what the current High School title is but um group of seniors here last week and we went through a whole process of how to vote how to register voters coming in to vote um it was a good hour and a half and uh so she's she's really doing a great job that's great let me Echo that because I've watched her work and she's absolutely takes her job very seriously and is very diligent in what she does all right and so there are other board and committee applications is that correct Christopher yeah we've got an application for Keeper of the Town clock uh from Tom spoter can you tell us some something about him or what is yeah do we have do we have stuff in the uh meeting packet we can we can return to that one uh the other one is is uh gretchin law uh who is um being recommended for appointment to the Deerfield Wells trust um I'm just going to pull up an email we got from uh our moderator Dan okay um as he made the recommendation I think we also had a so he he was recommending uh Margaret Doyle to be appointed to the Wells Trust um just as a reminder the trust is a charitable trust that serves several charitable purposes but its largest beneficiaries are students of many Franklin County towns um the trustees are made up of one resident from various towns pursuant to the terms of the trust and for many years Margaret Doyle has served as deerfield's trustee but she's recently uh moved creating a vacancy oh okay so maybe he's not appointing law maybe y exactly yeah I think she'd be great yeah I agree um so his recommendation is that we appoint Gretchen yes okay make a motion I'll make a motion to approve gret and law on the uh Deerfield representative for the wells trust second any further discussion all those in favor Tim Hil I I'm jumping the gunel I I all right so we got 3 all right and it was um and then Paul chesy was also looking for the keeper for the clock correct or is that not right yeah do we have any other applicants for any of these positions uh I had heard about Paul but I hadn't seen an application I had only seen Tom's oh let's see well I'm yeah I mean I'm I'm happy to wait on this and then if we have a formal application for both of them maybe we could ask some to come in yeah um so that's fine sure you can come up and speak um that way you know I do we have anything from Tom no there was just uh just general uh volunteering to okay put their names forward because I don't um happy to fill it tonight if from PA so that he had maintained contact with the keeper of the clock PA North Main Street um welcome thank you when I applied Casey was still here and I heard that they're you know having trouble getting something so I walked in the office and said Casey I'll do it yep my bio there my yes got that here I go back to 1955 I was on the board trustees we took care of care of the clock but we so I pretty much know the church like the back of my hand so I'd be willing to help out so I didn't apply per se at the time it was sort I come in and said hey I'm here okay so um not sure Tom did either so so but anyways so just for my own curiosity what's needed up there is it like setting the time every once in a while or making the adjustments or yeah I mean is it's it's really basic stuff one thing I'd like to see one thing I'd like to see is return to the uh florescent lights for it lit to be lit again oh yeah okay there's Florent lights all around Lake and yeah yeah we've been up there yeah and a chair there and whatever but basically it's just maintenance sure and you know insuring with with the bell and whatever so yeah it's if you're claustrophobic I don't recommend it or Heights Heights too getting up there I went up partway but I don't think I've been over I've been up in there it's pretty cool it's yeah but you got to be able to fit a little bit so anyways I'd like the the the ladders to be a little better cuz you I like going backwards when they when they built that back back in the day ocean wasn't around as long as you could climb straight up that was all that mattered so anyways yeah and do we do if there's significant need for repair that's something we Farm out I mean you you'd have to get obviously a clock you know someone skilled that I mean we were just as as a board member we just made sure and we always maintained you know back then it was whoever was was the keeper and we just you know as the trustees we would make sure that you know was there anything they needed um we would make sure that it was always weatherproofed you know you know the dials even though it was the town clock we would just obviously make sure that you know the steeple wasn't leaking or anything on the equipment so interesting when I know I'm going to give you an impossible question you don't remember anybody that did used to work on that clock do you are they still alive oh the old-timers yeah no I think they're all either in Brookside or St Stanislas or some holy name not available at the not available no time ran out and anyone else knows I don't know yeah they're all they're all gone but like I said the last one was was Bob Bob wette and uh who I knew who was you know active with the church but um like I say I would I would make a motion to appoint Paul sheski as The Keeper of the clock second thank you any further discussion all those in favor Trevor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I I thank you for um who get in contact with in terms of a key or what I used to have the key when I was doing the whole church the or organ thing then I gave it to Peter Thomas with all the you know the 350 so that's the last you know Kevin give me a key got the Oregan I do have one too if if we if we need one I could swap it so we can check with the and I'll probably touch base with Bob wette just to see that be great because he's been the key he's been for a while and we when church was still active he was appointed so you know I see him on on a regular basis that'd be great but that' be great yeah let us know what's needed yeah whatever yeah but like it would be nice to return um because that was you know obviously responsibility the church to have the power and now with all the upgrades right to the P I mean you know you saw the power panel back in the day sure um scary um you know if you know in terms of it would be nice to get it lit yeah you know I agree that' be great I want you to take the speakers from St James and put them over there so we get to listen to music you think you think think father would have any issue with that I don't think so all right thank you all right than you thank you Paul all right correspondence yeah uh I just wanted to note um you know one piece of mail that the the select board received was from a resident just uh giving some praise to Chris Miller our interim DPW superintendent um from John Stacy sings he wrote uh I just want to take a moment to commend Chris Miller to you although we have been experiencing much less than normal rainfall recently we had strong night Early Morning Rain I went out in the pre-dawn dark to see if I might observe possible rain runoff from our neighbor's yard uh he alludes to some previous emails he had been sending Casey and then he said I walked up my driveway onto North Hillside Road I observed a pickup truck in the dark sealed beam light on scan uh on scanning the roadside my hunch was confirmed it was Chris Miller on duty well before Don looking out for us I thanked him then I'm thanking him now for his conscientiousness most sincerely John W Stacy 9 North Hillside Road that's wonderful very nice nice get and uh and be great to make it I mean he maybe he got a copy of that we'll make sure Chris gets a copy okay got news um anything else that it I think that's yes the other item uh from Franklin County Tech um I don't want this one oh was a good one so yeah that they just said for the hammer to drop you know please be advised of the results of the meeting held on Tuesday October 8th 2024 for the purpose of the sele in Municipal collective bargaining representatives for the Franklin County Technical School District the result of the meeting was the selection of uh and I'm actually not certain how to pronounce her name her name is Meen DT and she was one she was one of my past students so I'm very proud of her that's great yeah that was an interesting meeting there was also a candidate from Liden but um matlin's uh young and energetic and very happy to have her she's got a law degree too I think so I thought that might have been the letter stating that I don't know but that they're getting ready to build the building that's the one I don't want to read yeah yeah and they feed their people at those meetings you know what yeah have a talk with our superintendent anyway excellent um all right so reports from you guys uh yeah I just wanted to follow up on a couple items from the last meeting so we had um a petition uh from folks on Eastern na uh just wanted to mention I worked with uh the police chief and Chris Miller to just send a response letting them know you know we're not going to be uh asking to implement speed humps at this time however we are talking about relocating um the speed feedback sign and and potentially some other signage which I know Chris Miller is looking into um to try and you know get folks to speed a well to not speed uh once that road is actually um brought up to Snuff and then the other item was just about the uh the lights at the South deer field ways our treatment plant uh Eric and I collaborated and and we sent a letter to that gentleman as well um I know Eric's taking action as we discussed last time just to you know reposition the lights look at planting some screening vegetation Etc I went to look at it the other night too uh just because I was driving by and I thought oh you know see what see what it looks like and um it seemed like there was a building maybe on the sludge sludge not any of the new ones but the sludge thing that was kind of like pointing that way so maybe be more of a Down light you know might have been an old fixture or something but it seemed like the brightest one I'm not sure where that person lives but facing that way it was I think on the sludge building but take a look at try and get it better uh and then obviously we already touched on the Stillwater property and then just a couple quick updates on Community Development projects um so one uh the mil Village Road North uh North Main Street 5 and 10 intersection uh mot has scheduled what they're calling a road safety audit meeting great um so they're going to be here on October 30th um to to discuss that um so they did encourage folks to you know take a drive through the intersection you know get a sense of what the concerns might be and then show up on the 30th just to talk about it where on the 30th the bridge right here right here at the town hall right here at the Town H I just know we're going to be on site or whether we're going to be no no it's going to be I they you know they initially sent out a an invite that just said road safety audit and I thought it's going to be like on the side of the road right there's not much uh um what time is it it's going to be from uh and I'm sorry I'm just pulling up my calendar here believe it's going to be from 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. but let me just confirm that um yep yeah 10:00 a.m. to 1: p.m. again it's pretty safe intersection at the moment at least for one half of it but eventually that I know Chief's working uh working hard to get that bridge open but I don't think we have news on that yet it's still interesting when you go even without North Main Street traffic coming in there yeah it's still interesting when you and I drive through there quite a lot and uh the things you see you shake your head yeah why are you doing that y I'm always very careful when I go through there yeah it's is definitely a danger oh and I I do want to make a quick correction actually because they rescheduled it it's now going to be at the fire district so 84 Greenfield Road not in the town hall all right they we were we were going back and forth trying to figure out if this would work but yeah is now at 84 Greenfield Road that'll work easy building all right and we already talked about the 100,000 right little development thing um anything else that we need to address that we didn't know about in time for this agenda I think we got it all all yeah I mean I I will just say I've I've been here a little over a month and I'm really enjoying the job and I just want to you know say thanks for the support and it's been uh a lot of fun working with Christopher and everyone else in town and uh getting the lay of the land and I feel like now I'm starting to make some some contributions and taking some things over and very grateful to going well so well I'm glad you're feeling that way because Christopher is gonna start assigning you things tomorrow oh he already has don't worry about that and that's fine and I also want to acknowledge that uh um Greg is a multi-talented guy and he performed with his band at BBC the Friday last week my other life yes my other side very great some Steely Dan some Grateful Dead some wonderful stuff well thank you you were uh with Gil at the MMA conference or MMA chair of this SB in Gil now sced out early but yeah good so I will just say that I'm going to be away for two weeks but I'm going to make a good effort to try and be here October 30th at 4 P.M since I'm going to be in a foreign country and it's like six hours ahead so it'll be 10:00 for me if I dial in um but I think we got enough good information tonight that we might be able to do a yeah make some quick decisions about this um and so I apologize to anybody who thinks four o'clock's too early for a meeting but uh just I'll be at 10 o anyway all right so if there's nothing else I'll entertain a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn second all those in favor chair McDaniel I Blake Gilmore I thank for attending appreciate it thank you everyone thank you everyone online