##VIDEO ID:OLgTfbRSWBg## [Music] good afternoon everybody uh it is Monday October 7th 2024 6 p.m. and I'll call to order the free toown board select meeting um this meeting will be recorded and will be available on the town's uh website and YouTube page uh tonight we will be going into executive session and then coming back into open session we will be going into executive session for the following reason uh number reasons sorry number one master Jal Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares an I do Lawless versus town of Freetown two executive section P pursuant to General Law chapter 30A section 21 A7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal Grant in Aid requirement open media law to review for consideration of release of the executive session uh meeting minutes for the fall um for the following executive session uh minutes the dates are listed in attachment a of the agenda I don't think I need to read those out do I uh agenda item three Master Law chapter 30A section 21 A2 to to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel part-time Human Resources Director and four Master Law chapter 30A section 21 A6 to consider the purchase exchange lease or uh lease or value of real estate if the chair so declares and I do that an open meeting may have AAL detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body so with that I will entertain a motion to go into executive session motion made second all in favor I I selectman Lopes yes selectman zeger yes Selman Matthews yes we now in executive session uh we're now back in Open Session um so I guess I will take care of agenda item five and then we might move some things out of order um but five is discussion vote whether to release partial release or not release executive session minutes listed attachment a as presented uh to the board uh in executive session so I will entertain a motion that we um uh release as redacted based on our conversations in executive session um all of the dates um uh ex session minutes listed in attachment I motion made a second all in favor I I I um and then I'll quickly get rid of this one too uh so agenda item six is for the Open Session minutes from 9:30 2024 so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the Open Session minutes from uh 9:30 2024 motion me second all in favor all I okay now I'm going to jump to agenda item 14 so this is discussion and vote whether to approve the request for license or permit for an event from patches Hill Farm on October 19th 2024 um I think we have some folks here from patries Hill Farm all their paperwork and everything's in any questions or concerns no no no remote control it looks cool I read it today pretty straightforward all right um this this is the fourth annual is that true so this is actually the the the fourth event that we've had not the fourth annual okay I got you so yep the fourth event that we've had awesome all right all the best with it yeah have fun it was a great time in June a good turnout from the local town and we are happy to have everybody at the farm so we appreciate the the chance to have everybody out awesome awesome perfect all right cool so with that all had a motion to approve the request for a license or permit for an event Patrick Hill Farm on 1019 2024 motion m i second all in favor I I all right all set thank you thank you have fun s some pictures we appreciate it absolutely come by absolutely all right okay so now we will move over and uh we'll go to agenda item s this is a presentation from town clerk regarding the November 5th 2024 State and general presidential election Cheryl good evening thank you again for having me once again uh for those Folks at home or those folks who don't know me my name is Cheryl Estrella I am the Town Clerk and the chief elections official I'm here tonight to just uh do a small presentation on the upcoming state general and presidential election kind of some tidbits for the community no before you go oh the lovely microphone thank you Paul oh I love this all right and then Len you were going to have the first slide I'm working on it okay it's giving me a hard time so I can keep going but um the 2024 state general election and presidential election is going to take place on Tuesday November 5th 2024 uh precincts 1 2 and three will be voting at the elementary school utilizing the Memorial Drive Entrance um polls are open from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. there is no school on that day so that's going to be a benefit for us for parking and not having to worry about um child pickup we can go on to the next slide please just wanted to let folks know that all of this information is posted on the dedicated web page for election so Freetown in.gov uh 2024 election you could always email us we have a dedicated email box with any questions regarding voter status um overseas or military voting our normal office hours are Town Hall hours Monday through Thursday 800 to 400 and Fridays 88 to 12 I figured by having this this up on the website and on the YouTube video folks have our direct contact information there we can go to the next slide please so we've got a couple of voter registration deadlines so um prior to the state general presidential election we also have the fall town meeting so the final voter registration for the special town meeting that's being held on Monday October 21st is going to be this Friday so this Friday my office is open until 5:00 p.m. for any folks who have not yet registered to vote in Freetown you don't have to register for the event you have to register as a voter so a lot of folks get confused on that and then the deadline for final voter registration for the November election is going to be 5:00 pm on Saturday October 26th again my office will be open until 5:00 P p.m that's a Saturday that's also the same day and the the same day as the first day of inperson early voting which will be taking place here at the police station there's plenty of ways to register to vote online or in person our office or in online at vote and.com okay so down to the nitty grey so couple things I wanted to point out with this ballot um they're rather long ballots so I have some sample samples here of the ballots unfortunately I'm not able to post those online yet because the specimen ballots um for the annual Town election there was a writing candidate who had adjusted the ballot and it made it look like it was pre-printed with that person's name so we had some issues at the election when folks were looking for that specific name and did not see it on the ballot so there is um a speciment ballots that do come from the state that have the law and the penalties and the fines listed we're still waiting from the state to get those as soon as I get those those will be up online but anyway two-sided ballots pretty long ballot there's two different styles of ballots because this is a um state election we have two different representative districts so Precinct one has their own ballot and then Precinct two and three share rep District so um we have to be certain that we're mailing out the right ballot then we're giving our folks the right ballots um all right so we can go on to the next slide so what I wanted to first thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that on this ballot this is going to be the first time that we're voting for The Bristol Plymouth vocational school committee so just like our annual Town election in April where we vote for the Lakeville representative as well as the Freetown representative you're going to have eight different candidates and races here where we have one person running for free town but we vote in all eight cities and towns okay so that's a change that's going to be coming on the ballot every two years so every November it's part of the agreement in the Statewide law so um every two years we'll have the eight positions plus or minus depending on who's on the district so that's one change uh the next thing I wanted to bring to your attention was our lovely information for voters read books so these are the Bibles most folks will get these at the state mailed them to everybody they should have arrived in people's mailboxes the end of September but this is our Bible so because there are five questions on the ballot this year and we'll go into those in a little bit more detail um I strongly advise folks to read through this if you don't have a copy of it we have the digital copy on my elections page I also did a Facebook post with a link um I sent copies to the library and there's two over at the Council on Aging um for folks to take a look at and if they need extra copies we can certainly print some out and I do have some available in the office um we can go on to the next slide so this is what I wanted to go over so we have five questions on this very long ballot so ballots are two sided the the questions continue on the back so the explanation of the question again um questions are written in legal I like to call it where a yes vote means no and a no vote means yes so it's imperative that folks understand what they're voting for um question one is going to be in regards to the state Auditor's authority to audit the legislature two is the elimination of mcast as high school graduation requirement question three is going to be the unionization of Transportation network drivers so your Uber and your lift drivers question four is limited legalization and regulations of certain natural psychedelic substances and question five the minimum wage for tipped workers um once you read through the book and you read the pros and cons and people for proponents and opponents of the questions um you can go on to the next slide if you don't mind the very last page I want to bring attention to Folks at home this is a very useful page folks can actually pre-completed vote for as a candidate and then they can actually bring this page with them to the election whether it be in person early voting absentee voting at town hall or the day of election the only thing is they cannot leave it in the booth so we'll do constant sweeps if something's left accidentally behind but I encourage Folks at home and voters at home to please utilize this it makes it much easier and much quicker when you're at the polls and that goes with anything just um question comes up a lot nowadays folks can certainly use their cell phones at the polls in regards to keeping notes they can't be speaking or talking or FaceTiming or disrupting any other voters but if they have to have notes they can keep digital digital notes on their phones and that is completely acceptable we can move on to the next slide okay so uh we've got some stats for you at the end but I just want to reiterate reiterate the vote by mail so as of 2:30 this afternoon was over 1,700 vote by mail ballots that we've mailed out to voters in Freetown you're either going to get a yellow or a white mailing envelope there's no difference it's whatever we had left in the office um we've also I like it I like it um we've also included pictures and directions and instructions the instructions are always included but no one reads so we have nice Nifty little pictures and I wanted to bring attention that this is what the absentee ballot envelope looks like your ballot once you're completed goes into this it gets sealed you must sign it if it's not signed it will get rejected and if there's enough time between now and the election we will mail you out a secondary ballot but it has to be signed that state law um and from there it goes into the interior white envelope and then it gets um sent to the town clerk's office so they could either do it in person mail it in Pro is prepaid or you can utilize the Dropbox After Hours the one thing we want to definitely take note of is this cannot these vote by mail ballots cannot be brought into the election at the polls or inperson early voting inperson early voting uh with the votes Act of 2022 that changed that's now considered a polling location so all rules regulations and laws apply to both election day and inperson early voting and we'll get on to that in a minute um the second half of that slide we've been voting forever we have directions everywhere I have post is on the actual trifold and at the booths on voting day but I wanted to reiterate if you're voting for a candidate to please please please fill in the oval X's are not acceptable check marks are not acceptable the tabulators won't read those and those get either counted as a blank or they get segregated for a hand count so please please please fill in the oval completely no check check marks and no X's we can go on to the the next slide here we have a schedule for inperson early voting that schedule is posted in all the municipal buildings and transfer station um it is also on the website it runs for two weeks there's going to be no Sundays it's going to uh commence October 19th um here at the police station from 8: a. until 2 p.m. um and then it's going to continue on till Friday November 1st so again here at the police station no application is necessary with those some no before you go information uh voting in person there's the dates um the polls are going to open from 7: to 8 as I said locations one two and three will vote at the gymnasium over at the elementary school there's no school on this day I've also included a map um try to go for a color theme I don't know if you guys have noticed over the past couple years red white and blue right so in that map that's the voting Precinct map area in pink or red is going to be uh Precinct one the area in white is Precinct 2 and the area in blue is Precinct 3 that map is located online you can always call the office you can check online um and that map is at the um elections whether it's in person early voting or at the polls at the elementary school we can go on to the next slide I'm trying to run through this fast so um we expect a huge turnout and a huge it's a very popular election once every four years it's for the presidential candidates uh we expect a huge turnout um I just wanted to reiterate here the uh Mass General Law chapter 54 section 65 and the uh code of Massachusetts regulations in regards to campaing and the 150 fot buffer zone those of you have who have uh been on the ballot before will notice at usually at the elementary school um at the annual Town election you'll see my orange cones and you'll see my 150t signs indicated and that that curve there in yellow on the right hand side that's the elementary school parking lot um but the 150t rule also applies to inperson early voting here at the police station there's the 150t barrier there on the left cones will be posted and signs will be posted but again there is no electioneering um we'll have an advisory posted on my elections web page on what exactly is electioneering or campaigning what that constitutes and what's included with that but basically that's the buffer zone no um no endorsing proping or um uh campaigning for or against a person or question on the ballot and like I made this mistake myself when I was running the first time I had my own name on my shirt and I had a turn my shirt inside out to we make you change your chirt yeah yeah so just so you that Happ so that's going to be coming up on the next slide I I think I did mention that to Deb earlier today um this one just yeah yeah you wouldn't think of some of this yeah so some of this stuff so here's some images this is all information that's going to be and and candidates and or questions that are on the ballot so if anyone is wearing hat a tie a bumper sticker a um a lapel pin a button um a shirt a jacket a hat uh anything um pertaining not necessarily limited to these logos but I just wanted to give Folks at home and yourselves an idea so the first one is uh the logo for the mass fiscal Alliance that's to do with question one in regards to auditing the state legis ler um the second one MTA that's the Massachusetts Teachers Association so they're proponents of the getting rid of mcast and which is question two on the ballot so again uh we may have folks coming in who may be U campaigning outside that 150 foot line none of that can come in um Uber and lift drivers so we got to be careful with folks parking in the parking lot within that 15ot barrier uh that's the third question uh so the fourth picture there you see a mushroom that has to do with question pelic I have a t-shirt with mushroom we are type of a farming town so they kind of grow naturally around there so the state will send me guidance which I'll try to put out and blast either um or both either on the Facebook social media sites and or my elections page so um as slogans Logan uh slogans logos and things of that nature become associated with certain candidates and or questions we try to keep the community updated the fifth one at the top did that last one on the top right um getting tipsy that's in regards to tipped wage workers so I'm hoping by bringing this out and to the public folks will have a better understanding what's allowed and what's not allowed um if you do come in with anything of that nature you would be asked to either remove it turn it around as in Trevor's case go to the bathroom or or zip up a sweatshirt or a jacket um on the bottom row we all know the Maga hats um but they've changed to Blue so not necessarily read anymore those are other things that we have to look out for um the second picture that's a picture of tayor Swift as the childless cat lady so that is associated with a candidate on the ballot oh god um the third pitch on the bottom row that's Thrasher magazine so that is a Skateboard Magazine we do have a candidate by the name of thrasher on the ballot so again something to look up for I was curious though though y so these are all things that we have to keep our eyes peeled for get the information out to the to the residents and then the last picture there not to pick on one of the candidates there but a lot of times we'll have um mobile bulletin boards on the beds of trucks or on vehicles those cannot be parked within the 150 fot barrier so you'll be asked to move your vehicle or cover up or remove the campaign paraphernalia if necessary we going to put samples out and then again as we're waiting um information from the state we'll get those up and put those on some Facebook post just to make voters rare because if you're not in it you don't know right so that's my goal is just to get the information out there okay so vote by mail um so the last day to apply for a vote by mail ballot is going to be Tuesday August 29th that's exactly a week before the election I hope that folks what did I say November August sorry I'm still in the state primary elections all year October 29th um I do apologize so we're asking folks to try to get it in before then just to allow enough time for the US Postal Office they are we're tagging everything you might have seen my Facebook post with those green labels trying to get it to move fast through the postal system but we can't guarantee and the last day to return a vote by mail ballot if you're mailing the ballot it needs to be postmarked by 5:00 pm on November 5th and received by 5:00 P p.m November 8th so even though the election day has ended for most voters it does not end for us as elections officials that still continues for another 20 days before where we can actually certify the vote um if you drop it off in person that has to be either dropped off at the town clerk's office or in the white uh drop box in front of town hall by 8:00 P.M on Election Day so it's only if you're mailing in that it has to be postmarked and then receiv receiv by the eight uh please please please do not bring in your voted ballots to inperson early voting or um the election we have tons of folks come in oh I figured I was coming by I'm just going to bring in my vote by mail ballot that can't happen that has to actually go to the town clerk's office we put it through the state system um and you'll see when you go online track my ballot that's how we inut all that information to the state system um and we need to account for every single ballot that are at those polls so please do not bring them to any polling location we can uh move on to the next slide absentee voting with CA uh Massachusetts Constitution allows for uh still absentee voting with cause whether you're away from town on Election Day a religious belief that um makes you not available on Election Day or a disability that prevents you from going to the polls applications are always required whether you're doing a mailin or an absentee um you can mail it in or you could um request a mail and absentee ballot or you can actually because we do have the ballots you can actually vote absentee at Town Hall um and during our normal business hours the uh last day to apply for a mail and absentee is going to be the same day as a mail and absentee tons of ways to vote folks tons of ways um and then military overseas ballots they must be received by Friday November 15th that's another deadline so those are our all our Euro Cav voters um and that's pretty much it on that we can continue so some stats for today um as of today at two about 2:30 we mailed out 17711 and we've received in 55 That's not including the absentee ballot we expect those to um those numbers to increase that's bizarre precin one has just like relatively the same amount of sent out precent ones so I'll tell you how it works so I like to work in order Precinct one two and three so one was out the door as soon as those that Precinct was done and stuffed it was out the door so it kind of made it almost like a day earlier than Precinct two and three and then um because it is in Precinct one and town hall is in Precinct one we get tons of those dropped right now white drop off right it's always always I've switched it up before but it always ends up Precinct one ends up getting it right to me y so that's way you see that uh discrepancy there makes sense usually two and three will outshine one by the end yeah and then um as I alluded to before so we're in the digital age you can do almost anything online you want to register to vote you want to track your ballot the Secretary of State site secretary. state.ma.us you can check your voter registration status you can change your party affiliation um you can check what Precinct you're in you can actually check and track where your ballot is in the system so has the town clerk received your application has it been processed has your has your ballot been mailed out to you yet has the town clerk received your ballot so that's all done through our office my office um so we we encourage folks to please use the tools that are available to them 24/7 in the palm of their hand on their cell phones they can um although we'd like speaking to all of our residents and all of our voters if you want the information quickly not have to wait for our next business day you can utilize the websites and then oh you went blank I think it's just closing now yeah that's pretty much it it's just um just our number and extension if you need to contact us directly does anyone have any questions I have one for you Cheryl my my only question for you was is you were you were talking about when people mail their ballots back in and say it wasn't signed it would be rejected we would then send them another ballot will we is there a way to explain to them what they did wrong the first time around yep so it's a two it's a two-step process so we have to um send them a notification a letter or I have little Buck slips that we pre-fill out for them um and send them saying we received your ballot your ballot has been rejected for the following reason and then normally we'll take a photo copy if it's most of the time it's because they omitted the signature um we'll let them know hey make sure that you sign it we'll highlight it okay in most cases though they're going to receive the second ballot before they receive that letter because again those ballots get tagged with that green with that green tag on those trays to expedite it through through the postal system so in most times they'll receive their ballot before they receive the letter and not understand why they're receiving a second ballot so it's not because oh look they sending me two ballots no it's because the letters have to go standard mail through the postal system and those ballots get expedited so that's a great question thank you now is it a safe to assume if I receive a second ballot my first ballot has been voided for some reason yes you should receive notice and then no no before the notice comes out is it a safe to assume that since I receed the second one to trigger my mind like oh something went wrong right so there's there's steps and processes that we have to complete um in the state system so it wouldn't even allow me to send you a second ballot without a designation of what happened on the first so it's not like there could be a duplication of any and then we also do daily audits um because some folks again some of these applications that the those postcards were received or sent out by the Secretary of State's office back in January and they don't remember if they filled out a postcard but they're at their they're talking to a you know they're out on the weekend talking to their friends hey I sent in a a vote my bail by mail application to my local elections office so they'll go they'll download an actual paper application and then resubmit that so not remembering that N9 10 months ago they've already sent me the postcard um again you can always do the vote in ma.com if we do receive that secondary application um we compare it to the first so make sure there's no change make sure there's not a a mail to address we have a lot of folks who moved down to Florida um and our snowbirds or have updated the address or going to a different address temporarily we'll compare those if it's an update will update the system if it's a duplicate it gets saved and marked as duplicate but you will not get a second ballot in airor okay now in your opinion looking at National temperature how's how's everything been I I know we get our shareff of colorful emails and voicemails and high fives or high hos while you're driving by how has it been with elections I know again elections have been a little contentious over the years how's it been in your office everything everybody holding up all right everyone everyone is holding up okay I will I will be quite honest um the temperature nationally um it's something that's on the Forefront of your mind um we've all seen the national news where um vote by mail ballots um have been laced with fentanyl or some type of powder that's always a huge concern in my office it's a scary thing it's a scary thing also um the temperature of of Voters coming in who just want to talk about the ballot or talk about the candidates we're a nonpartisan office I have signs posted outside my window um and again election day I I'm I'm concerned and I'm I'm Leery and weary just for the sheer volume just for the share volume of attendance on Election Day um people's feelings and um how they interact maybe with a larger crowd um those are all things that we we are thinking about we're planning for we're um we've done tons of trainings with the state I'm actually going um the city of Totton has received a grant um from Homeland Security and they're doing an election day um uh Frontline worker training with the FBI I so I'll be tending that with my election workers just to um you know get prepared get prepared but you no it's a good question thank you you're welcome well I think that kind of leads into our next agenda item you guys are ready to move on because uh next agenda item 8 is discussion possible vote taking the board selectman to approve a significant number of police officers but not less than one in every policing um uh every polling location I think that's be and designate the police uh Chief the authority to assign specific police officers according to schedule and availability in consultation with town clerk uh for the for the November 5th 2024 state general and presidential election so I think we obviously need some police presence there we usually do right obviously um I don't know Chief you want to speak to this at all where in past elections normally we have an office assigned um within the polling area and uh that off is assigned to basically not only keep the peace and keep things orderly but uh the Integrity of the U voting process so that officer is handling the keys nothing gets opened without you know authorization from the the clerk work is there everything is documented and um yeah so it's it's it's it's an assignment that's needed so going forward with this upcoming election um I definitely agree with the town clerk that having extra presence outside of the uh polling area just to be able to Monitor and see what's going on uh throughout the uh the election process is definitely going to be wise um our day shift is uh staffed a little heavier uh with personnel and I would be able to readjust things if need be by pulling uh officers off the day shift the even shift depending on what is observed during the uh evening hours I might have to call in a second body to deal with the uh the parking area um I think going forward just be wise to have an officer within the polling area and one officer outside and uh be able to readjust or pivot depending on what's going on with the activity during during the election y i I agree with that statement as well as having the cruiser out there in the past right we've had the officers out there the crews are out there it just kind of gives people that idea like oh yeah they're here there's a presence more than the body is also the vehicle there right and that's I don't think would be a big deal right I'm assuming to have the the crew the the officer out front with the cruiser I mean I mean you tell me I'm crazy I you know I believe you but I just think that having that Cruiser out there was a nice feeling in past elections that people could see it the officer standing on the side of the Cruiser so I think past years we've been very fortunate uh the town's people and everybody's been civil and the people that are holding pick and signs that are outside you know past the 150 have been very uh Cooperative okay so that really helps but we're dealing with an unknown coming up here right we just talking about the temperature of this election process um I'd be it'd be unwise for me not to consider otherwise that something unsafe could happen but uh we're in a position we're prepared with talking about this amongst the other officers in the department um we're not taking this thing lightly we're going to be available when the need arises thank you Chief welcome and the chief has been wonderful to work with we've had some conversations and and uh ideas thrown back and forth for Preparation on this and I just want to make note um so the officer that is indoors at the polling location that is required by Mass General law that is the as Chief stated he holds the keys mhm um so that would if there was to be an issue it's not like we could call that officer out of the polling location that officer has to be stationed within the Bing location so I just want to make that clear to everyone that makes sense thank you so what do we think the vote actually needs to be here I think we're all agree you know more than you know more than one officer just for that reason you just stated Cheryl um but I mean obviously we're I think we kind of leave that as a discretion I was going to say you want to vote for I think you want to vote have two and then um more if at the discretion of the chief yeah so I guess Junction yep not less than two is what I'm yeah okay fire up that helicopter if you have to Chief might come to to be someday I guess right um all right so I guess we'll enter a motion uh to approve uh no less than two uh police officers to be located at the at the polling stations um with you know and with the discrection to the discretion to the police chief for any additional officers uh for the um for the November 5th 20124 state general and presidential election in combination with the town clerk I would give so that way has the authority to work with him incomod yeah yep with Direction and consultation of the Town CLK motion M second all in favor I I I all right thank you thank you very much thank you Cheryl you're welome and CH if you do of course you know if you do get any anything that we that Chief needs to know about please communicate directly with him as far as anything in sary area absolutely she will and she does yeah yeah okay so j9 discussion of vote whether adopt the warrant for the uh November 5th 2024 state election and direct the town clerk to have said warrant duly advertised and posted in accordance with the bylaws of the town of Freetown and the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Massachusetts well can't say Massachusetts a long day all right uh yeah so any issues concerns no this is pretty standard when we do every time standard yep all right great so with that I will entertain a motion to adopt the warrant for the November 5th 2024 state election and direct the town clerk to have said warrant duly advertis and post in accordance with the bylaws of the town of Freetown and the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts motion made a second All In I I all right agenda item 10 um this is discussion and vote whether to approve the request to charge Cruiser fees for non- toown police details and chief thank you for providing that detail in the packet for this this would just be uh kind of an additional fee that will be charged to those who need the detail um where we charging an hourly fee to to compensate for you know the fuel price and just to wear and tear in the vehicles and chief you mentioned in the in um information provided that you know most almost all their towns do this that's correct um we've kind of pulled the area departments and uh it's a flip of a coin and the uh the range of these uh fees have ranged from $10 an hour to $25 an hour so we pick the middle being $15 an hour uh normally our cruises during daylight hours are not assigned to traffic duties however there are times where for safety reasons and lighting if it's you know dark outside we you know a a cruiser is requesting a sign for so and some way of getting recompensated for the town's expenses of all the cruiser maintenance this is a great way to get some more money back to the town so we can deal with that because a lot of the money just goes directly to the officer right now right is that kind of is it like a pass through from well yeah so there's a detail rate how are there's a 10% administrative fee for the processing Y and that goes uh you know taken care of that way yeah but recently we had you know we talked about Cruisers and it's like it's not just the amount of miles that been put on the Cruisers it's obviously the way but the idling hours right so that was something else that's always brought to us so this is a way to help recoup because it even though it's sitting there idling it's still putting wear and tear on the vehicle right so it's yeah I I don't see this and $15 an hour is not a lot a lot of money to charge someone you know so I I think this is more than fair and a great idea and just to verify the money would be going directly back to the town and the general fund um if anything is obviously more work for Administration in uh you know verifying the hours that the cruiser was there and stuff there's a lot of documentation that goes along with it but uh I can see how it can definitely benefit the town and even the department and dealing with these expenses with the with the Cruis and maintenance Fleet makes sense to me mhm absolutely I'm surprised we haven't thought of this earlier so good job Chief just 12 13 they should be fairly quick okay yeah that's fine that's the cheap to yeah yeah we we'll keep the cheap things going and we we're going to circle back to uh 11 in a moment so but 10 um so I'll a motion to approve the request for the um charge Cruiser fees $15 for now and Town Police details a motion made second all in favor I I I thank you thank you and then this is agenda item 12 we're going to come back to 11 12 is discussion vote whether to approve the uh Mo MOA between the town of Freetown and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority regarding the purchase of a drone for the um for emergency railroad incident response this thing looks pretty cool does look pretty cool drones are expensive yeah it's but they MBTA is paying for so yeah a lot of work went into this um you know the of course the needs have been asked to the department heads especially dealing with the railway and the MBTA of what resources we could use and benefit from and uh one of the items that uh I thought would definitely be uh beneficial is something that we don't have and this piece of technology is uh it's new it's up upgoing a lot of police departments have them uh we just we're catching up with things mhm so uh being able to uh get this resource is definitely going to help us out in the long term um if we recall last year we had a major save um from an incident uh looking for a child um it was a drone that was uh used Mutual aid from the town of Dartmouth and uh literally saved the day um by getting a drone for our agency the quicker response time is only going to enhance the uh you know life- saving measures that need to be uh put out there so um yeah so I've done a lot of homework on this I've even taken a course I got my FAA Pilot's license and I'm uh working on getting uh two to four other officers here on the department up and running to be able to operate this is that available to a s and selectman as well is that something we can squeeze in there we're going to be proud to show it off to the town so you definitely be there no it's actually very unique looking at this drone I see you have a payload system so can drop off supplies in case of emergency the thing I didn't see on there was does this come with like infrared is that already a built-in feature that yeah so this specific drone not only has the uh the zoom camera system and uh it does have the infrared perfect the the other uh special device that mounts to the top of it is a spotlight SL speaker system so actually the operator of the Drone can fly to a location actually communicate with someone uh on the ground so uh yeah there's a lot of potential there in regarding the payload uh the the Drone is big enough where it can carry an object up to 5 lbs now whenever you carry an object it affects the battery and all that other stuff but it might be that life-saving device it could be uh you know an EpiPen or Naran or something small enough that you need to get to that location so uh time will tell when that need Rises we'll have that option to be able to do that so Chief a couple questions looking at the agreement as far as uh public release when you I'm assuming this drone camera right has a recording capability for use for law enforcement like court systems down the road now do we as a town or Police Department own that footage or is that looking at the agreement from the MBTA it talks about release of information now how's that how's that work out so all the recordings are part of the you know by the department just like any type of evidence that we deal with u uh going forward so there will be a strict policy on the use of the camera system and the recording devices and even um uh public records requests all that stuff it's all designated through the uh the policy and Rules of Evidence here at the department now is this strictly only use for BTA use or can we use it towards like the woods or something like here in the State Forest uh sky the limit sky the limit so um you know especially dealing with the railway there's quite a bit of Railway that's hard to get to because just long lengths of track that's in in the uh in the wooded area so the MBTA uh Mass ra Conrail um definitely see the potential of how that can definitely benefit them in case of that emergency disaster or anything that goes on so um but going forward um just to be able to operate this drone um officers are going to have to take it out like once or twice a month so they can get their flight time and training doesn't have to be long half hour to 45 minutes but they have to uh document their training maintain their skill level um it's it's a lot that goes into it so in order to do that we're going to have to be a the more calls that we get the more activity we push out there the better The Operators are going to be just not specifically for the railway no is that something you can I guess coordinate with some of the local schools uh school districts or they have an event outside maybe have the officer go out there fly it over obtain their hours at the same time you're providing additional security for schools um although it seems like you're getting your flight time you're doing kind you're do them both right so things along the even baseball football games how about that that just thinking the same thing that farmfest there's a festival coming along there's a squirly go that comes out we TR track that puppy down so I I will say this the the FAA R rules and regulations are pretty strict okay so flying over people what could go wrong with that right so there's a lot of safety and uh evaluation that goes into these things not the saying that we can't have the drone on the outside of the event but obviously you won to be flying over the over people and potentially getting hurt so but the Drone has so many different capabilities um we not you know an investment for a tether has not been but I can see in the future where you can attach a device to the to the Drone it's called a tether and basically it's a cord that attaches to the tether and it uh to the Drone and it brings data and power to the Drone so you can keep the Drone up there for like half a day if you wanted to so if you have a large event that's going on for a long period of time you could potentially keep the Drone up there just to keep the surveillance going to monitor whether it's traffic or crowd control or whatever ever needs to be looked at that's down the road but there's just more technology that's available to us with the Drone one quick question so like is there any kind of insurance or like during training unfortunately someone crashes the Drone so just like uh any type of U vehicle that we own here I'm going to have to approach the town and the town's insurance and uh get a bond okay to deal with I don't know what the cost of that will be but the thing it's going to be reasonable you read my mind because my question was going to be in regards to insurance and maintenance maintenance on the equipment is there you know going to be some I'm assuming it's not going to be a ton of money right but like is there a maintenance fee and upkeep fee that we need to you know so the first year the Drone is uh taken care of by the um by the plan with the with the drone company um the following year there is a maintenance plan but it's pretty reasonable for I recall it's something like maybe $600 for for another year when you think picture honestly if gets that bad it's probably because it's crashed and which I hope that doesn't happen believe me so avoid that one for now so but uh yeah routine maintenance between the blades sometimes you you know you hit things or if you know whatever um but yeah and then the drone company will do annually a uh Main it's run over they'll take the Drone go through it soup the nuts and then get it back to you to have the peak uh performance that you need with the Drone and I guess that's where my head is at right we don't want to pull the thing out and find out it's not working right so we whatever the maintenance agreement is I want to make sure that we follow through so that way we know that when your offices need that thing it's there and it's working you know so yeah seems pretty straightforward and silly but I felt like I had to ask it you know there's a lot of um maintenance internally to be able to do inspections of the Drone to make sure it's going to be up once a month it's going to have to go through by an officer and it has to be logged every time you have like a flight operation there's a pre-check log that you have to do you is the weather right the temperature you know uh is the pilot in a good condition to be able to operate all these checklists have to be complied with to prevent damages and injuries to to to people so um it's very involved however the reward and um providing that extra level of safety is going to benefit the town oh absolutely yeah AB Chief one question less question well maybe if they have more questions one question for me is will this be part of your Mutual Aid package let's say a neighboring Town request backup or uh you can deploy this this tool to help them out is that going to be part of the uh Mo MOA as well um I believe that um there's always a potential for Mutual Aid okay um I'm not inclined to have the Drone part of the semlac unit um the semlac team has their own drone unit uh number of departments to have drones and it's a bigger entity but I think going forward um if we have an incident in the neighboring town and we have available officers pilots and observers because it's a Twan team to be able operate the thing we could be able to assist the neighboring town if they need that drone um packing up two officers grabbing the Drone and going next door to the town of Berkeley in 15 minutes could be very beneficial absolutely but on the same note I'm probably not so inclined to like calling people in overtime because it can get very expensive and and going forward that there has to be a balance was going forward I agree all right yeah no all positive stuff thank you Chief I really do appreciate that thanks Chief so with that I'll will entertain motion to approve the mo MOA between the town of Freetown and Massachusetts Bay author uh Transportation Authority regarding the purchase of a drone for emergency railroad incident response motion made second all in favor I I all right and then agenda item 13 Chief you're still in the hot seat uh this is discussion and vote on setting theate Bay Shore speed limit so so Trevor real quick and I don't want to cut in on you but we last time held off a vote on this um cuz the chief was searching out some additional information on everything we had some information that said um we voted a town meeting to allow the board of Selectmen to set the speed limit and the chief was worried about that so we said rather than doing something that would have to be rescinded or you know whatever that we would hold off and wait and allow the chief to do some research into it before we made a decision okay so just to give you a little background background yeah uh forgive me I am not prepared with any additional information at this time uh I've been kind of busy with other things but uh I did I did I did the research on this so I do have it so I did go back and look at the Mass General Law chapter 90 section 17 C and it it allows uh for the town to set a speed limit of 25 in a thick thickly settled area it defines a thickly settled area as houses every um less than 200 ft and as we know in the base Shores most lots are 100 by 100 so this would apply to the sonate base Shores um it doesn't once and and it was voted at town meeting so we can use that um and the selectman can vote the speed limit at 25 and the 25 is the lowest we could go yep yep that's statutory section 17c reduces the statutory speed limit of 30 which it currently is per hour to 25 miles per hour so it does allow that the only notification is once it's voted at town meeting you have to notify massot that you have adopted this section I do not believe that was done but I asked Mike mchu to follow up and send that the certified vote so he'll be and I CC Char on it to get the certified vote um to the massot so uh because massot provided a list and we weren't on it as of yet even though this was voted I don't know 2016 so that will be taken care of and you can you can absolutely votee to to make the speed limit 25 there's no there's no variation in that it has to be 25 it's funny this morning I had a sleeping baby in my car so I was driving around the Bay shores while he was sleeping and I was like kept checking like what's a what do I think a reasonable I thought it was 20 20 seems like a reasonable speed limit on the Bay shores for me there's not a lot of space to go you know but 25 that's as low we can go that makes sense to me I have done that drive myself uh multiple times and I used the Bay shores and it was you're right 2025 is a very good rate for that area and just like I mean Jer and I both live on the Bay shores and so do Debbie and people do fly around there and I was surprised when I found out there wasn't a speed limit right but um you know maybe never seemed to be required right but I think it makes sense and then we can actually enforce people speeding right now it's hard to enforce there's no actual speed limit yep um okay so I'll do that and then I I have one other question related to this I want to talk to you about but so first I'll I'll understand a motion to um vot and setting the B son Bas Shore speed limit to 25 miles hour motion made second all in favor I all so Chief I recently uh I forget where I was but it was another kind of similar residential neighborhood and they had like the uh speed speed bumps like the like the rubber ones is that something like like and I'm not saying that's what we need to do here if that's a solution just may me think like like do we know the process of of if we have a problem area putting speed bumps like it seems like I'm sure it's not as easy as I was just making the decision to arbitrarily put a speed bump somewhere I personally don't know the process what comes to mind is um if you traveled up in the Avon area when you go to Jordan's Furniture they have like those speed tables oh yeah exactly y right yep and those definitely affect the traffic you can't go over those too fast without uh hitting your head on the roof yeah of your car so but um I'm just thinking of sensibility and like the liability you put those things out there is it going to increase the potential chance of an accident or someone getting injured um I don't know those answers but um maybe we should start like trying to enforce this I guess yeah that's that's a a great place to start but I mean cuz just and this is obviously super uh familiar to me just cuz I walk my dog and my baby every day on the Bay shores and I people like fly by like happens to me every day right so it's like it's a that one I'm sure the problem's not specific to a sun shorts right up short it's a lot of places so like this just one its home for me so so yes and I think that I know one of the things Chief was when we talked about the the speed limit signs that we have the digital ones we have the ability to put up them just about anywhere we just need the bracket so there's one on Central that's your road you live on right yeah there's one essential I saw yesterday yeah I think I the last time I was in there I remember seeing the sign board in there I just checked that was there too but this is like on on a like aity poll yeah it's not like it's on yet but I just noticed it for the first time yesterday all right yeah I'm sure I guess I haven't driven further onto the island lately so so um you know but um I would think that us getting the word out there because I don't think that I think there's an issue but I don't think it's the masses right I think there's probably some people who are doing it and yeah there a lot it's just like everything in one Crystal Springs has a lot of like they have they own a property and people might there's no speed they don't know like it you know they don't know there's nothing you know so now we can enforce it and I think we take on from that yeah know so I think it's just bringing awareness yeah where after the C after the causeway after the which is it's 30 I think all the way Narrows Road or right I think it's it's actually 25 all I had I had a map here last time it's 25 all the way and then right at like Causeway goes up to 30 and then Dr back down to 25 I mean I think you could consistently put it at 25 but my concern is I don't where it's defined thickly settled as houses um have to be closer together than 200 ft there is that area there where they may or may not be where Crystal Springs is yeah would say that even right up on Causeway Road right before you actually come through the causeway those houses are more than 200 ft apart so you couldn't we couldn't even deem that not sure who challenge you but I was just following the rule yeah no I Mak sense Debby thank you you know getting back to those signs we've had tremendous amount of success with those uh sign boards uh it's collecting a lot of data um it's really helped out the public in educating where uh we've had complaints and we print the data and we can see exactly what's going on and it's all cloud-based so uh I can sit at my desk and pull up the data you know and see what's going on there at any given time so it's and honestly it might be something that we might want to venture and buying a couple more of them because the requests keep coming in when they see these signs up there and uh usually it you know it can be positioned in a location for a couple weeks before we can take it down because we have to recharge the battery but those residents that see it for a couple weeks and it disappears they want it back because it really does affect traffic flow so completely different side note and I agree with that is one thing that was said to me recently was well you put them up but then you don't put what the speed limit is I was just going to add that actually there's a way to put we I would think that maybe if we could get something that says the speed limit because in some places we're putting it and we're putting it next to a speed limit sign but other ones it's not so they pass by and they're doing 40 and they think they're okay because they think it's a 45 but they're really doing 40 and a 30 so some of them you do see the sign boards like that and then right with them they'll put up the sign below that says what the speed limit is so that way they understand yeah yeah whether they're speeding or not there's a lot of um abilities that we uh use with the sign sign board and uh usually what happens is um when you're doing the speed limit it's not flashing it's a steady signage of what you're doing for a speed if you go over a certain amount of speed usually it's like 5 to 10 miles hour it usually starts blinking at you then if you're doing like 15 or 20 miles hour scam limit it's uh it's got like red and blue strobes on it and it's taking your picture okay yeah saying hey uh so we do get those images too and and um yeah it's interesting to see those cars on our uh we were able to purchase those with a grant that I got um a few years ago so I can look that same Grant and see if it's available to get some more of those okay I will say there is like a a now everything has an expense but um to keep the cloud storage and being able to have that access I think I'll recall but I believe it's like $3,000 a year it's there's a fee per unit so you get say three more $3 more, you know what I means added I for public awareness and everything that would be a wise $9,000 I don't want to sit here and throw money on I'm asking you about a $600 maintenance agreement on a drone you know but I mean it's all about public awareness and I think stuff like that so all right Paul hold on Paul's got a question oh yeah sorry sorry yeah question is there a a form where a resident can make a request sign up so on our website we do have a location there of like radar requests and um between myself and um there's another sergeant that's in charge of the the devices with Fielding these calls whether it's emails or phone calls and um we we push it out to those areas but you'd be surprised between my emails blowing up uh telephone calls I leave messages and usually I'm shooting an email to the sergeant I'm like hey can you take care of this please yeah and uh he does he does a great job s drink white does an awesome job with it but um yeah the communication's flowing and like I said if the sign disappears The Residents want it back as soon as possible because it really does a great impact how much people are saying like bring it back please yeah yeah that's cool it's good to hear all right great okay so now we're going to move back to agenda itm 11 so this is discussion Pro uh on the procedure for excluding Town Administration buildings from definition of prohibited area as defined in Bill H1 uh 4139 I think also uh bill for BH 4885 so this is a gun a new gun safety law um the ACT modernizing firearm laws so we actually reached out to our attorney about this and um per our Council this has to go procedurally in order to deem any building to be a uh you know excluded from the list of a um a protected build like a building that you can or cannot have guns in pretty much uh it has to be voted at by the town at town meeting so just procedurally I think that's really all this is to discuss I know we had some some inquiries on whether the town the board can select Which towns can and cannot um you know we can exclude firearms from I don't think we can or our assment I don't think we can our attorneys said we we can I don't know Deb you have any thing you want to add of that yeah I mean basically you know this is the the law you the new law and that was an acted which I think is H 4885 says that if you you bring a gun into a prohibited area you could be punished uh by a fine up to $1,000 or or Andor imprisonment um for up to two and a half years so and then it goes on to Define prohibited areas as um any any pretty much any building um County and municipal government used for government Administration Judicial Court you know correctional services so any of our public buildings that the public attends would fall under this prohibitive area and it goes on to say that a municipalities can exempt their buildings from this statute so when this came up I did send the um the question to because the way I read it is that it needed to go before the town meeting to to exempt it from from the statute that was enacted by the governor and um and Town Council agreed with me that in order to you know to exempt yourself from a state statute that the governor hasn't enacted it needs to go before the vote of the legislative body sub to the CH uh of the municip IP ality and he said that this local process is specifically referenced in this act and then therefore a vote of town meeting will be required to exclude the town's administrative buildings from the definition of prohibitive area and a vote of the board of Selectmen would not be sufficient so that procedurally I believe so given the fact that town meeting has the warrant has been closed I think that the best way to move forward would be to petition fall time um I'm sorry spring time meeting yes when when did um the Town Council give you that render that decision what date um opinion in the beginning of July 29th July 29th M when was the when was a request made by a towns person to put this on uh selectman's agenda it was a made on or approximately around that date yeah probably I would say if I sent a letter when did when did the warrants when were the warrants closed for the special town meeting I don't remember last meeting probably and I brought this to light to the Town Administrator I'm a little disappointed that this has been put off for months okay and I understand there's a busy agenda there Town business to take care of but I have happen to be I happen to have business that I do in the town for the town in town buildings um and while I may be considered a town employee as a water commissioner I'm not getting an hourly salary I get a yearly what I would call a stien and to have to give up my Second Amendment right to do charity work and sit in and sit in the first office of that building knowing that there's no there's no police protection in that building that I understand first building in the in the town hall and and so I'm sitting in that office knowing that nobody in that building lawfully has a firearm if something if some person with ill will would have walked into that building it's a little disheartening that this was the town was aware and this has been put off so now it's put off 6 months approximately and I'm going to have to make some personal decisions based on you know this this being put off is a little off-putting to me okay that's my person that's me speaking as a as an individual and I think anybody who comes the problem with this so it's you know it's it's on the record the problem with this type of a statute is um schools are prohibited Federal buildings prohibited already prohibited cour houses are prohibited there's a there's already a long list of prohibited locations Administrative Building could be the highway department the office in the highway department where decision any decisions are made that's Town Administration it's a very it's very gray and the chief has the awkward position of how to enforce this and if to enforce this um I don't think he's I don't think knowing the chief for 20 something years I don't think he's going to be actively pursuing people and adding it down but you know if an incident were to occur this then is out of the chief's hands and is in the the the District Attorney's hands or the Attorney General's hand it may end up in the Attorney General's desk because to set a precedent set an example so again I'm disappointed that this didn't come up sooner um I just want to say something I did relay to you the information right I did tell you that that that definely re and she told me the decision that was rendered by Town Council but you know to to to put this off on the agenda and put it off and I had expressed to to the town you know let's is is quite honestly it's offputting and you know I can only I can only voice you know how I feel and well no we appreciate that I have to wait and and make a decision you know make my personal decisions based on what goes forward and also for the for the you know notification of people may may watch this video this bill may go to a referendum on a on a Statewide ballot because there is a petition that requires 55,000 validated signatures that's very active because this you know without speak without speaking to all of the individual you know aspects of this bill which is 116 pages long 129 2,732 sentences that I try to gouge my eyes out after I read it it a bunch of nonsense in that thing and reading through it is is basically this I don't personally I don't see how this is going to make you know this is all this is going to do is criminalize law lawful Behavior I don't know if it's going to make make anybody safer but that's that's a personal opinion that I draw from the legislation everybody's entitled to gather what they gather from right well at the end of the day it's my question is this it's a chief Rose if you may yesterday before this law was enacted I had every right in the world under my ele to carry class A what has changed today after this law has passed what do I have to do as a citizen of this of this great town of ours what's what's changed well since the laws enacted I mean if I physically observe somebody in here I would be required to act on it now I have some discretion on how I dealt with that but uh even the law gave provisions of the individual to secure their firearm in their vehicle in a lock container before you come into a governmental building which which is ridiculous look I have my own opinion but I don't want to express that here but this law did not do a lot of help for law enforcement just made our job a little bit more difficult and affect a lot of good citizens with their right to carry yes one of the questions we also got since Massachusetts is a like for instance we have a psychedelic question on the ballot this year regarding you know two ingredients or more psychedelics and years before was marijuana one of the questions I got from residents were hey I have I have a medical meton a card can I not have a license to carry which was a fine line right you can't be on the influence while you're possessing a firearm this law kind of scared them saying that they're going to be looking at potentially looking at Registries or when you get your license scanned in a dispensary does this law change that well I don't want to get into the Weeds about that because that was a question I got and I was like I will ask it regardless it's one of those things second m is there for a reason right we all support in the Constitution this one's a little it's gets stretched out there as far as what they're looking for and and to his point it's pretty pretty broad right it's what is an administrative building and and like is this an administrative building they're in the the community room or is it past the doors but I think uh we know the right direction here right and put to the town's people to make a decision absolutely and um again I want to refrain my opinion about the matter but we haven't had a governmental building issue up to this point what why do we have to you know yeah regulate that now so yeah I'll leave it at that okay all right two two points I just wan to um clarify or let it be known that even though it might have missed this fall town meeting citizens petition with a minimum of 200 certifiable signatures would call for a special town meeting on any subject within 45 days so y that's that's if that's another option another Avenue that might be of help I can offer that Paul I have two questions one is for cherl how many for the annual time 10 10 um you know as I look around the room here I certainly feel that there's people in this room that have a license to carry in Massachusetts you don't have to carry it concealed but most people carry it concealed all right and many people for years have carried a weapon for their own protection and protection of others but when you look at this well first of all I think the the law itself is going to be overturned when it gets to the state supreme court or definitely the federal Supreme Court but it even in in this section here it says including in or upon any part of the building the grounds or parking areas thereof so it this is insanity you you go into you pull into the parking lot at the Town Hall and you go inside yeah technically you're breaking the law I I get what you're saying you're subject to arrest this is insane yeah which I don't disagree with you we're not going to solve that problem no we we agree I think there's a there's an agreeance up up at this table Paul I mean it's I'm with you so all right appreciate it okay so then we'll move on from this issue um we already took care of agenda item 14 and agenda item 15 is discussion regarding have a joint meeting with the lak full select board and Freetown Lakeville Regional School District committee this is just to authorize me to reach out to the Lakeville select board to discuss having a joint meeting with them and with the Regional School District to start facilitating communication on possible changes to the district agreement yep that make sense to me yeah okay so with that I'll entertain a motion to um authorize uh Town Administrator to set up a meeting with the Lakeville select board and Freetown Lakeville Regional School uh District committee to discuss um updates the agreement motion made second all in favor I I all right agenda item 16 this is discussion vote we might want to skip this one right now okay skipping 16 all right all right this is uh genim 17 full weather declare the broken wooden cabinet in the town administra Administration office as Surplus and sent to the transportation I was trying to figure out what what one is this underneath the window that's broken that window yeah it has like all the stuff on it yes you can't move it cuz it can't move it's falling apart okay is anyone anyone married with that uh check it out the window if you have to you're not going to all right great so with that I'll a motion to um declare the broken wood cabinet in the town Administration office as Surplus is sent to the transfer station motion made a second all in favor I I all right um J item 18 this is vote whether to approve demolition of for South Main Street and Sonet so we've had a lot of discussions and we've weighed all the leg work to do this but I don't think we've officially voted to actually do it but it's not been a secret I mean we've been working on this for some time it's got to go it's condemned it it you know we we need to take it down okay oh yeah yeah it's unfortunate it took 30 years you know five $10,000 fix 30 years ago compared to now but it's it's leaning it's it's moving folks we we love our his our history the same time it's It's Time to Say Goodbye it's it's it's a safety hazard and and there's restrictions in place on the property right so they no one can just come in and put a new condo there or something so it's you know I was going to ask that question is there is there any type of um you know historical uh preservation type thing for anything that would go there then that would help aesthetically to the town to preserve some of the history and stuff yeah yeah right but we're I mean we're we're looking at that lot for ultimately this is down the line is if there's a if there is ever the sewer line that we need that lot for the pump station mhm so you would see a building there for the pump station that we are trying to simulate it will look like a historic building that being said I have seen replicas they do it in New York City where they make it look like something inside might just be some mechan disy the line and we're going to need some substantial grant money and given the um MBTA that we're going to be possibly in violation of that we might not get any grant money to do the so line so that's why I say it doesn't mean it's going to happen that's sort of what we have been discussing but regardless the building needs to come down because it's in ill repair and it's just not safe right now like it's standing water like it's only a matter of time till it like it comes down we're we're worried on like heavy snow days like a lot of snow comes down we we're we've been lucky for the last few years that we've had had much snow um once those trees were removed the real the real look of the building kind of came to light right um it you know three 3 to 5 ft standing water in in the basement right it it's 80 what 80 plus perc rotted away from termites and other animals and rodents it's it's a listen we love our history at the same time when it's knocked down rebuilt it's going to look like it's it's been there all its life so that's the intent and we're working with the historic Historic Society and making sure that where everyone working with a historic commission commission sorry Commission making sure that everything's in line and we're not you know overstepping working with them as a team so um it's just unfortunately it's part it's part of a history but it it's a safety issue at this point so all right great so um with that all a motion to approve demolition of force self mainst stre on it motion me second all in favor all right all right definitely a viewing party if it comes down I definitely want to see that thing come down yeah yeah just because I'm a little kid at heart so uh J night 19 this is discussion of vote ratify uh the chair's signature on the sales contract with specialty vehicles for the new emergency medical Vehicles this the ambulance right yes all right any questions or concerns there no no all right so with that motion to ratify the chair signature on the sales contract with specialy vehicles for the new emergency uh medical vehicle motion made second all in favor I I all right jm20 so this is discussion of what to do with the copper negatives and stamps as listed in attachment B and this is an example of one of those schol stamps and uh I think um you hear it's gentleman sir to T with this gentlem I'm here my name is Robert pilling I'm with the historical society and I've been doing the research on these these plates these are copper printing plates that we used in production of the 1902 history of Freetown yeah uh I've done a little research as far as where they were generated from and I went back and I found a book that we have at the library at at our Museum and the village Improvement Society of assonant was established in 1888 and they were in existence through about 1907 and in their meeting meet meeting minutes I found uh a reference to questions about creating the the old Home Festival for the town and there were talks in there and they wanted to go before a town meeting and have the town residents done and working with Cheryl we found that in March of 1902 I've got a certified copy thanks to Cheryl of both the warrant and the outcome of the meeting and there was an article made passed and the town agreed to create a committee an executive committee for the old Home Festival and monies were assign to them for their discretion and if you open up that little green book that she's got to around page 250 at the back of the book there's a whole section on the old Home Festival and in that there there's an excerpt where the subcommittee the history committee for that Festival um I can read it to you if you want yeah well anyhow in essence what it was they decided that it would be too intense to try to do it in a single day so they created the writings for print for the book so I my assumption is then that this committee that was assigned and created under the town created the book and the festival was held in June of 200 uh 1902 so what we're looking for is when they were found in the library we were approached to see if we would take them into our collection and at this point it was discussion back and forth as to how it would come and if some of it was on loan and what we would prefer is a out out andout donation because we're going to take them we're going to look at them there's also four books that go along with it two of them are 198 uh 1895 atlases of Bristol County and then there's two books that identify the perimeters of the towns in this area and those are going to have to be preserved we're going to have to do some work on those to make sure that they're cleaned up because the environment that they were being stored in is not conducive IE the upstairs of the halfway Library squirrels I'm sure good friends of they would be as Nicole show me she's a little leery about going up there oh yeah so she and I had gone up and looked at them and like I said I've I've looked at them I thought they were a different type of block at the first but they are the printing prints yeah that were used in the book to create it yeah so we would like to absorb them into our collection that makes a lot of sense preservation I don't think we even knew that there were uh the property of the town until uh well this this is this is one of the points that was brought up they didn't know who they belong to yeah so as the the committee was created at a town meeting it's it's a subcommittee thereof so it's basically the town authorizes the creation so I'm I'm going on the aspect that the town paid for these yeah that makes sense even though it was a private organization that actually created the book Paul yeah the board of Library trustees at our last meeting voted to ask the select to the historical spot de I was like I was going to ask you because I'm like here from ask Paul that this get voted on I've already I've already spoken with the Fantastic so the thing that makes me happy to hear is when you talk about something in 1902 that they're already talking about the history of the town to show you how you know much how much history is embedded into this town so and to your point is it you know it's not this stuff's not going to get in better condition no if it continues to sit at where the idea is then take it and make a display out of it yeah and it's available to the public absolutely yeah really cool it is really cool they're really cool it's a great condition as well and here's my next question theyve been put away do we need to do anything with a vote as far as like deeming them like we just had to deem that thing surplus of an old cabinet do we have to do anything with that to show any value there's probably no real here um says it's up to the selectman to give the items on behalf of the town to the Freetown Historical Society we just give them we just give them to them okay yeah no I just didn't want to get caught up in some craz legality given away yeah yeah exactly to yeah so and I'll be specific too so because it's also inclus inclusive of the two books right mhm correct four books four books book I know that so is that in the email because I don't know about the books oh yeah yeah theom two separate books two copies of each book yeah okay which is the Atlas uh Bristol County and then boundary lines correct which makes a lot sense yeah two of each all right so with that I will entertain a motion um that the town U gives the free toown historical society the 70 uh copper negatives and stamps as well as the uh two books four copies of those books um as I say yeah gives those to the historical Society sorry M motion made second all in favor I I'm losing it today no we appreciate it thank you yeah awesome doing what you guys are doing over there it looks this is the fun stuff about yeah those are cool yeah that I never knew these existed so they've been floating around on first floor for about two years yeah they have been yeah nice to see it finally have a home yeah and I think you can do a really cool display with those like you know somewhere that makes a lot of sense we've already discussed yeah yeah make sure make sure this one goes with it I don't want to you know take that one back I have to return it CU you know I took that from the library today and if you haven't read that book I understand that both both the libraries in town have copies yeah and if they don't the town clerk has a copy too the town clerk has a cop we have copies and I'll let it out you can find it online I'm going to actually read it I had to check it out in order to bring it here tonight for them to see it with a little label I'm like oh she went to the library I wanted to show them what it was that sure not L returning that uh they do send letters [Laughter] home same okay well thank you very much and uh move on now I guess to Agenda 21 um we have ambulance abatements so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the ambulance abatements at write offs for September 2024 in the amount of $65,625 cense motion mid second all in favor I I I uh agenda item 22 discussion and vote whether approve the contract between the town of Freetown and waste zero for Town trash bags so I'm just going to give you a heads up this is a horrific contract yeah um but I believe there's prior experience with this company and trying to get changes to the contract contract um and they basically say take it or leave it um they're not going to negotiate the contract uh so I don't know what else to say about it but it basically I mean it says in here that they're not even going to warranty that you can be can use an as trash bags so when I tell you it's horrifically uh horrific it is um but I guess if you want trash bags this is the only company that really makes these Flex trash bags to any companies out there there is a market to create a much better Town Lael trash bag please somebody do it it's amazing they have a monopoly and that's what I want people to understand right because everyone complains about the trash bags and and you know what some of it is user error I'm not going to say it isn't because I've done it right with you how you pick it up because they say you know you can't use it you can't carry it by the strings but there is definitely some issues with those bags and it good luck because there's no one else to that makes them I have tried at different levels to try to change these bags from bags to stickers and everything else so what the what what we're doing is this is an extension of the current contract for about what a year right and in that year we're going to be looking at different types of bags from draw strings to clear bags to different things every bag does not need to have a town seal on it for instance right does that cost more money so we're looking at all the options to make sure that the quality of the bags is that of that you don't have to go buy a separate bag like I do I have a separate bag and i stuff it in that bag so that that when I'm going down my long driveway I don't have to pick up trash right so that's the the thinking behind it because we because our limited we have limited space in that landfill we're looking at 3 to five years folks right three to five years of before we start have to looking elsewhere for where we store our trash by reducing the amount of bags right going into that Landfield buys us more time so thinking about it now for the long term is what we're doing this for so for context and everything else so but I think for right now unfortunately we don't have much of a choice yeah for right now at least for a year where's those green bags all right even though we don't love the contract I will enter a motion to approve the contract between the town free town and waste zero for trash bags motion M second all in favor I I I all right and then agenda item 23 this is discussion vote whether to approve the lease between the town of Freetown and the James White Memorial Library so this is what we've been working on for I don't know how long now but um because the library was in a trust and it's to be used only as a library building we've had the benefit of using that building and we the town of Freetown we've had the benefit of using that building um we have not paid $1 the new lease agreement is $1 but um we have not paid for the building um we've paid for some nominal repairs but the major repairs are done by the trust trustees that manag the building um but but their funds are getting limited and be as a town as a municipality we're not allowed to spend money on something that we don't have control over or own so this Le lease agreement is again no dollar really they're going to they we're leasing it for a dollar but it if if there's major repairs the town will then take those on and this will give us the ability to fix things uh because if the repair is too expensive and in the lease it does say like we have to go to town meeting obviously we have to go for town meeting to have funding appropriated if there was something major that needed to be done to the building so the town could say no they didn't want to spend the money and the building would revert back to the trustees that own it um yeah it's our only library with running water so I think it's important that yes yeah so this is sort of um winwin and that we get to keep it and use it as a continued library and if there are repairs that are needed right now I mean I think it's in Fairly good working condition it does not have hot water we we're we're going to put something in to get a little bit of hot water running water I didn't say hot water it has I it didn't have that's the other one that's the other one that's across septic so now there is a toilet and that is working and um so this gives the town the ability to use Town funds where there the trust funds are very limited at this point all right sounds great any questions or concerns no the only concern I have is when we take on the lease now we do own we essentially taking over the cost and maintenance of the building any major projects that are on the to-do list and I know the roof was done within recent time the septic has been done hot water simple enough um anything else major that we know going into it you know a dollar a dollar a year is great but now if we we're Hing $100,000 problem right off the rip so anything that we know of today that needs to be replaced or fixed updated the near future so we can or there is nothing that I know of I I don't remember um I don't know if I don't know who can speak to it but I thought the building was built it maybe around 1944 um I don't know what upgrades have been been done since then but um as far as we know just the hot water is the issue that I I you know and I this went to town meeting for a town meeting vote to because of course we need to when leasing real property the town uh agreed to um lease this building and so in in anticipation of being able to put this lease together we did put some money aside to do the hot water in the budget under our facilities uh budget so that should be taken care of that's all I was aware of because I did ask them when I was doing the budget how much they thought they might need for maintenance or things and that's really the only thing is hot water hot water is important yep so no that's great I we're big support I'm I'll speak for myself but I'm pretty sure you all agree we're big supporters of the library they do a lot for the community and it's um let we're going to do let's do it right and just so you know it's a fiveyear lease um because you know we we want to build a new building hopefully eventually we can put that together so it's a 5-year lease that can be extended for three more 5-year terms so B basically you can lease it for 20 years um or you could get out after 5 years if we did in fact have a new building and we didn't have use for this building okay so it's not a you know a 20-year lease or anything like that that makes sense all right great so with that I'll intend a motion to approve the lease between to Freetown in the James White Memorial Library Inc motion me a second all in favor by all okay so now kick it over to Personnel all right light day for me today Personnel Board I Agenda 24 acknowledge the resignation of the following two individuals a Brian Miller from the open space Recreation advisory committee effective 924 2024 on page 76 of our agenda and B Briana Ferrera as signal operator part-time effective 101 2024 page 77 of our agenda thank you Brian and Briana uh for your service to our town um item agenda 26 resend the appointment made on 923 2024 for Kelly CRA as planning in land use admin thank you Kelly for replying and interviewing and selected and uh I wish you the best of luck thank you do we have to vote on the resent yeah we have to vote on 26 all right I intain the gosh lost my TR up I entertain the motion to resend the appointment made on 923 2024 for Kelly KRA as planning and land use admin I make that motion I will second it all in favor I I great thank you so now I think we just need a sign do we know what guy that is what you know do we know who that is we he's on page 113 bu that little copper thing yeah I'll tell you in a minute it's pretty cool condition I looked at where Lieutenant George WS put away for George wins and I was talking with Nicole said the best thing about it was the newspaper that they were wrapped in she was reading the Articles that's awesome George WIS it says it on the each one so somebody yeah this one's just me down here oh sorry yeah official I've seen like stories where they have the big plan Bank of what I think is on PTO days people come job I've learned a lot I know it's crazy to hear like Town meetings and they had to do it because it was like awesome Vehicles you see that like the green the green dragon there was a bar that was like at Four Corners so we're having aing ofast for a swap me I don't know exactly where it is but it's called the green dragon and it's it's actually street where the goat F yes the Crazy Goat people information I heard you know wants us to halfway that's fine so no I have that's my work so I don't want to talk about yeah don't get me going on that no no no that's once that's my that's my con return service yeah no worries the waste zero contract just Trevor or we don't want to talk about the train shakes your teeth not so yes so that's we we did one in June we had an event in June all right so a motion to adjourn [Music]