[Music] um I will uh open the meeting now at 6:00 or 5:30 rather um this meeting is being taped by area 58 if you would all please join me in uh the Pledge of Allegiance I pled aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you um so I'll make a motion pursuant to general laws chapter 3A section 21 A2 to uh go into executive session uh to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiation with non-union personnel um or or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non union Personnel second okay uh Mr narella yes Mr cely yes I vote Yes also so we'll go in we'll have a recess now we'll be back in probably five or 10 minutes and then we'll go on with the rest of the agenda thank you all right very first thing uh on our agenda tonight for appointments is with the police department and I would like to ask the uh police chief to come forward um and uh let's start the process good evening everyone uh first of all I'd like to thank the bard of selectman T administrator Cody Hadad for taking the time to place this on the agenda for the ceremony I want to thank Deputy Benner and the rest of my staff for helping in getting this event together tonight I'd also like to thank all the families and friends of the officers that will be recognized today thank the residents of Halifax for the continued support of our department we're going to have photos at the end of the ceremony um in the back there where the two flags are posted right now um so the first thing on the agenda is I'd like to recognize Sergeant Patrick Sterling Sergeant Sterling is to be recognized for his dedicated and exemplary service throughout town for 29 years and we also want to congratulate him on his retirement which was effective February 29th Sergeant Sterling was a valued member of our department and I'm glad that he will be around to help us um when issues come up that being said I'd like to have a a request from the board to make a motion to appoint sidon Sterling as a special police officer excuse me I would like to do that since I made the motion to appoint him as a special police officer 29 years ago and then he managed to work his way up to Sergeant and then retire which is a marvelous thing so I'm I'm very happy to make that motion I will gladly second that one all right any discussion from the board no all those in favor say I I opposed J us thank you uh so next I'd like to have Tina oler come up to be sworn as a police matron Tina is a resident of Halifax and we have very happy to have her join our [Music] team do you you as police the to thege and ability thank you very [Applause] much right next could I have uh officer kushman officer Steven Ritz officer Daniel Shaheen and Sergeant Michael schl come up for their official saring in and batch pinning Su so just before Sue uh gives them their worth of office I just want to say a few things about the officers um officer kushman begin his career with the Halifax Police Department in April 2014 throughout his career with the department officer kushman has distinguished himself not only with his Excellence police work but his dedicated service to the presidence of Halifax officer kushman became the elders Affairs lay on officer and he has cultivated a great working relationship with the Elders of this town he has assisted this at risk community group navigate difficult times with a calm and reassuring demeanor he also a certified field training officer and has earned his bachelor's degree in law enforcement officers Steven Ritz and and um and officer Shaheen are both uh come with prior police experience of offer RIT with the Whitman police department he resides in Hansen officer Shaheen with the oans PD and then Simmons College Police Department he resides in Pembrook with these hirings department is now full a full compliment we're very happy to have him uh on board uh Sergeant Michael schli began working with the Department on September 2011 he is a Firearms coordinator taser instructor training officer and a me member of the S motor unit he has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice uh first line supervision can make a break a department and I am very confident the sergeant schli will be up for the task alongside Sergeant McDonald and Sergeant Caprio Su please come up and give them the O of office [Music] please to SAR to SAR I will be a true faith I will be a true faith and alance to and algi to and will uphold and defend will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States constition of the United States and the [Music] cons and that I will and execute and enforce the laws execute and enforce the laws with in the extent of my authority the extent of my authority in jurisdiction jurisdiction so help me God so help me God I state your name I toly swear toly swear I faithfully and impartially faithfully and partially discharge and perform discharge and perform all of the duties in come upon and state [Music] your for the town OFA I will obey and be bound by such rules of government Govern of Thea Police Department police depart so help me I your name hereby accept hereby accept the position of position of State your position sorry for the town of Halifax town of Halifax congratulations [Applause] thank you could I please have uh the family members come up to uh um do the official pending please [Music] [Music] [Music] h [Music] thank you everyone so uh any family members friends that like to take pictures with the uh the new officers and new sergeant can do saw in the back um with the flags have posted um just uh keep the noise down a little bit bit because I know the board has some business to take care of so we'll uh get the pictures done as quickly as possible so the board uh can continue with their business thank you very much everyone for coming this evening um you take a uh a five minute recess so that uh you can take photographs and the board would actually each of us would like to come and congratulate the officers Chief you did another marvelous job uh deputy chief you did another marvelous job you brought to uh brought to the town some marvelous Talent um and uh some of these uh some of these fellas have been with us for a while and they are uh really really excellent uh representatives of the police department so congratulations to not only them but to you also just move along or I and we can have the Parks and Recreation people coming up you don't have to go home but you can't stay here I don't know was there [Music] one hey you got to do this oh we got um where's oh there Tom okay all right so 6 o' is an appointment we have with the uh joint meeting with the Parks Commission and uh you want to tell us why you're here we have a letter but maybe you can just explain what it is you're trying to accomplish use the microphone or use this one one of the two okay it's recorded so everything's recorded by the uh area 58 that's why we have the microphones yeah not the ex yeah that one works too either one either one Whatever whatever floats you boat go ahead uh the board Lord has asked us to come to this meeting to discuss the uh Beach summer uh program you would I guess somebody was looking into parking finds on the on your side on our side we put out a memo um that we voted on for as far as how to address parking stickers in the car on the window from recycling uh as one style the other one was a a certificate that has been used by P and the selman's office for uh parking their resident taxpayer a third one was a resident a taxpayer nonresident for people that live out of town and they have property in town and so there were three stickers so we've added a fourth one for non-resident on Halifax taxpayer um limited to five to 10 c um we came up with a fee about $20 I believe Cody's working on that now to to run it through make sure all the state and federal regulations are met for that uh purpose we've also uh okayed a uh um format for a pocking attendant and I guess that is now our advertise on the town website for a parking attendant for the summer for the weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day uh for Weekends Only uh just to help make sure the people that are parking at the beach are legitimately supposed to be there MH uh resident non-resident cuz I mean recycling stickers nobody really has been going down yet until now that the lake has been clean now people are noticing hey you know this is nice and clean and we don't have bacteria running through it so the beach is now starting to become a little more populated area uh so that's kind of the the monitoring side of it so I don't know how far you guys have gotten with the parking Fe I don't know if the chief uh Chiefs behind you there I don't know if the I don't know who's working on that or increasing the fines for for the parking for nonresidents without a sticker or without a permit so I don't know where that is if you guys can tell me I met with Cody one time um to ask I'd like to ask the board of Selectmen to increase the packing ticket a regular packing ticket I think it's now $15 I'd like to increase it to $50 this right here we're paying they're going to be paying uh $20 to pack it kind of gives them an incentive to pay the $20 instead of the $50 packing ticket and I understand that the board of Selectmen uh that goes through you mhm to raise that packing ticket you know um that would be through the I I think that will be throughout the whole year so like for snow snow no packing on the street for snow removal and stuff so you be increasing the package packing to get for the whole town the whole year to $50 I was like to seek okay so we were able to um work with Council and you guys do have the jurisdiction to um Implement a fee a reasonable fee just for the the beach or the par any of the parks in town that you have jurisdiction over so if you vote that at a meeting that's something that you have within your ability under Mass General law um how about the second part of it um well let me ask you this if you are uh going to have all these other types of stickers um how does somebody get one they have to contact parks department I wrote up list I it over yes I wrote up a list of uh permit 1 two three or four four different styles of permits and there certificates uh the office PM PM had a couple of them samples in there and I I put those in in the Packers I sent to Cody I made up a third one um was for the non-resident non Halifax taxpayer because a lot of people in Mass do pay taxes there is grant money that does come to the towns to our town you know we just received an air Mar grant for 20 fiscal 23 so I I think that is a reasonable un limit the park and depending on when we get more performance down the beach by our own town residents attending it and if if we have a holiday you have an event or the cups Bo Scout so if somebody wants to have an event down there at least we can police it a little better and understand Who's down there at the given time that's what the intent of the parking attendant is for during the weekends during the weekdays you know I mean during the summer it's mostly the neighborhood families down there and they just walk down there anyways um okay no my question was um if you sell I know we get you can get one from the recycling center but the other four three categories who's selectman's officer already does that the pocket attendant will have also those down there and be able to okay you know here's your plate here's your ID here you go here's your sticker and then a town resident that stick that certificate is good all all year from January 1st to December 31st at this location at the road 36 boat wants you um parking over there as well mhm and the price of one of these t uh stickers is the same as the recycling sticker Town doesn't any no residents pay anything for these no not for the the recycling you you get a recycling sticker for recycling in town so that automatically clicks you right in so you can talk anyway that was one of the exhibits I sent uh Cody right the exhibitor of the pocking ticket the two certificates the three different certificates that I um there's no fees the third the only one that's would be a fee is a non taxpayer how did I put it again nonresident non-resident non Town taxpayer yeah that would be limited to 5 to 10 cars okay in the pocket I think it holds maybe 50 um we're trying to set it up where you can go on the website if you want to go down there for the day you can maybe pay it on the website or we have receipt books down there and we give you a temporary one day it's a one day pass certificate okay and those are we we we figured the fee 20 bucks I mean we walked around we've been dwelling on this for a long time we've been talking a lot of people residents nonresidents other towns other towns so we've been beating this around since two years now mhm so I think this is probably the best thing to at least try to figure out a handle on it to at least get a body down there and and just try to get a handle on it as far as uh people going down there right this moment we have plans we've had an engineer do some engineering I just got the draw the other day to fix up the the beach area within the wetlands there's a Wetlands application in I we have to meet with the wetlands to further it we just got that information all the grades everything to stop the washing so we we're working on spruing it up so we're going to get more people to go down there over the year is I think it's going to get very popular with the town residents and we're going to see a lot of impact okay so do you check with Town Council and the Parks Commission can uh vote on the sticker issue right so we don't have to handle that they can actually handle both um they can vote on the sticker the permits the fees for the different um stickers and also for the parking fee or violation go to the parking violation well you can't that's what Council would advise what he was talking about was parking tickets in general yeah like if you're like if you're parking police officers pull a car over like if there's a car packed on the side of the road I'm talking about like a regular parking ticket so townwide yeah townwide you know increase that fee to so that would go beyond the Parks Commission yes that's what I'm saying that would going be asset there be more with the board of selectman uh I can check with Council on the process of that the only thing I checked with them on is the the park itself yeah what the process of that would be the violation yeah that way that yeah this right here we it's a more incentive to pay the $20 when you're down there for the day instead of you know because right now the packing ticket if you packed on the side of the road or whatever is $15 M so we'd like to have you the board look at it and and consider it to be uh brought up to $50 okay all right so the U so we don't need to do anything here tonight we we just you filling Us in but we will check on uh changing our parking our parking ticket amount system townwide and we'll talk with the police department and I think the town clerk is the one who enforces that or we have a there was used to be a parking person that used to do we don't issue that many of them so no the treas right yeah okay that was close next off is over I like we have a volun so we'll check into those before our next meeting on the townwide parking ticket but I doubt we've issued very many parking tickets act violation tickets right um and I I think one of the the other things is going to be great the chief uh Chief shave shabs if I get that right is he going to all right thank lordy um he's been touch with a neighboring town and they're willing to loan us a boat to go out on the lake and maybe we should try that in a a what we if we can force C aak hot warm weekend nice day traffic area maybe we can get that together and get some get some recruits in a boat down there and kind of you recall we did that years ago uh the issue in fact that's why we hired officer Sterling in the first place was to work on that boat um but um I think our our issue right now is just to get the equipment and then then the chief would have to figure out his Personnel issue cuz uh there's Union issues involved in all of that but that's something yeah no absolutely we've been in discussion with the chief he's extremely on top of this with us and we're having discussions all the time because it's it's coming up again and we know there's concerns down there um that we trying to level out and get it more organized and more contrary but the but the B would be a loner from a surrounding town I was it Cava Cava yes Cava was going to loan us a boat for the weekend all equipped ready to go we just got to put bodies in it and oh tickets and yeah it wouldn't be every weekend but it would we're going to try to get it in there so we can see what effect we can it's mostly the jet skis yeah uh the other Town jet skis uh you know coming too close you know Mike myself have gone down there try to talk to these people and they like yeah yeah yeah and then they just take off and they start the shenanigans again in the J in the Jessies yeah okay so so um we can take that up with the police department uh ask them how to make that work like I said we've been working with them on that okay all right good this the ongoing things we're trying to address down yeah okay all right the board have any questions no I I appreciate your efforts I feel like the the the water's getting cleaner and as a result we're getting more folks that want to use it so I hope it's already the middle of March I we're going to Blink it's going to be Memorial Day so I hope we try and yeah we get an early jump on things so that we can uh you know we want people to use it but use it responsibly so whatever we can do to to make that happen you guys you know from talking with Cody you guys have a considerable amount of power yeah so go go go to town go through you guys to make sure we're not over stepping out bounds y you know have at it okay thank you good okay great so then um you'll handle the uh the sticker issue uh we'll check with the uh Town Council and the police department on the townwide parking and the and the parking commissioner clerk uh on the townwide ticket price and uh you'll work with the police chief on the uh on a boat Patrol if we can pull that off again I I thought when we had it in the past it worked really well they did they pulled me quite a few times yeah I I used to truth comes out I call I call the guy Judge Dread I am the law and it worked very well out there I children was really tough there so I guess what we're going to do now is we're coming up we you know we get the drawing started we're going to recondition the beat I don't know whether we're going to get it in before this this summer yeah um fix the the the rips through the through the uh waterways uh the grass does a run off so we got something in mind we got to meet with the Conservation Commission uh next so we're we're ready for that now so we can get our filings in great um so that's moving forward too we're going to set up uh where we're going to have drawings so we're going to come up with some uh not drawings um signs so working on the signs you got we're going to come up with some gate signs for the entry of when you drop go in the pocket lot you got some down by the fence line um also signs down by the turnaround where the boats are dropped in the lake we've also discussed looking into what it would take to fix it and get a boat ramp in there that's navigable for the residents yeah we have some funds for that we also have some funds that for select pass to voted on copies I guess you might call it and we just haven't we just haven't uh gotten to that phase of of uh working on re redesigning that parking area I mean the launching even on Fourth half it's going to take a lot of study I mean you know so no we talked to the it's it it's going to be money cuz it's like the state boat ramp when they put the ramp and the dock in it takes a little engineering there permits which the town won't have to pay for a lot some of them um but there was a lot of Permitting the engineer that has done done these drawings is going to come up with an idea on what it would take to get that done properly so so it's it's as good as the state boat wants over a 58 but I think getting the front and the beach and that all squared away right up that's the priority for down on the fourth out I think the next one is the push is also funds for uh Route 36 um so I've also given some old draws that we had for our route 36 project which goes right by that ramp and uh some of the soundings and I also gave him a copy of uh the one on on 58 the engine in to to show what you know what the state and the federal government's going to want the soundings and all that so he's working on a number to figure out what would it cost to get drawings up and running for either boat ramps either place but I think the beach is mostly the sand and getting it operational and the run off to stop eroding it to get it back to where it had was 20 30 years ago in the 36 boat laun ramp I think this like 5 grand in there at least to get the thing going and to continue on of the drawings that were already prepared when we did put in Route 36 I think it was 2012 no it's 20 2005 oh the weeds no the when they redid All Route 36 oh constructed 36 yeah oh right yeah yeah yeah so we've we've got those drawings from the highway department so now they got to they got a good start on it so that'll save us money at least they got benchmarks reference points to come up with how we can got a ramp in there you know it's kind of treacherous going around that corner sometimes over on 36 so that's a project um we got Bruce Noble's working on the possible land over here that was donated to the town next to the church and further in looking at Trail grants to put walking trails in um youran Park youran Park well that's an I don't Marcus uran Marcus uran yeah he keeps forgetting every time cranberry King who donated that land to us a long time ago so I've already kind of briefly went over what we're going to be looking I gave M Coffee Cody gave us some Dartmouth um Trail grants that they have done before so I got at least kind of a template to stop moving so um Bruce is going to be walking on that and hopefully we can like squeeze in a dog park or something it's close to town you can access it maybe from this parking lot or the entrance over there and there's a quite a wide area the only problem you know to get it up and going is when we had a big storm back in 15 20 years ago all the debris a lot of it went down there oh yeah it dumped it so there companies that'll come in and they'll chew it right up and take it out so that's but that's an area we're looking at maybe getting some Trails it's close to town the center of town I think everybody would uh like to see something like that as well that's what oh yeah um we're working on also so we're not just stuck in wi are I mean we're concentrate on one but we're trying to do it townwide what can we get this to get this opened up so everybody can go out and enjoy it cuz uh you know we don't have any money so we might as well go enjoy it somehow rock around connect with nature okay that's great thank you for the update and uh great work it's nice to see this committee really going to town cuz sometimes it was a little bit quieter I want to thank this the selectman and the fire chief the police chief actually the fire chief will be next right left next chief um Highway Department everybody all the Departments been helping us out really it's been super cooperative and we appreciate all your help that they giv us sure thank you thanks guys thank you appreciate it thanks for the update okay uh the next thing on our agenda is Scott Clawson and the horse shows uh Mr clawson's here Jeremy Jeremy has Scott you mind just go to the microphone for oh are we allow to speak huh are we allowed to speak about what this presentation um all right yeah come on sorry that was a dress rehearsal Scott chairman BL be nine Rich you have I have just a couple questions cuz kind of came in late so uh if I'm understanding correctly we'll have a parking fee for the boat ramp on routee 36 in East Lake where tax paying residents can uh access that boat ramp well well why we have Mike explain it again yeah no no I mean there's no fees Town resident there's no fees for anything I'm talking about residents of the Commonwealth so non Nona Nona non Halifax taxpayers yeah so will they be able to pay a fee if they want to have a fishing tournament on eastm ponet reasonable fee I believe the chief uh Ted was uh are are you asking about the uh tournament's parking over on 36 yeah oh the parking on 36 yes cuz that's a you know I know that that's a town ramp but yeah under the constitution of the state that's great Pawn so really I don't think it's appropriate to ban people from parking there I think it's appropriate to charge them uh they want to come fish or something I just don't think it's fair that all the pressure is put on West mon ponet okay instead of East Cody if we're talking about the one under the um uh office of fishing and boating access we would need to discuss with them any fees we're going to charge yeah because that because it's while we own it it's technically uh we have an agreement with them in perpetuity and any changes I'm not sure we're able to implement fees for residents only or non-residents because it is under the Office of the the State Office of fishing and boating access so I was unaware that we were talking about that and I thought we were just talking about the beach beach the the boat ramp on East M Pont that we're talking about so that's sorry so I mean in my opinion in my understanding of the law is that uh under the Constitution that's a great pond it's artificially divided by a state highway that ramp comes off a state highway um you can of course have voting laws or whatever you want but I still believe that boat ramp should be accessible by taxpayers of the Commonwealth for the purposes of fishing and foul are you talking about the Route 36 right okay all right so why don't we do this well we we'll look into it try use yeah okay um you can put your boat in there if you want you don't have to be a resident right it's parking across the street you got to be the resident and that's where the fishing tournaments come in and generally they go through the boards everybody signs off that the appr departments you have no problem and generally there is no fees okay so this is something we need to look at not this year this fishing T we just need to be notified as a town for the police and fire just so they can be aware usually that goes through the select's office not not fishing we haven't done the fishing tournaments the the fishing tournaments go through the police chief we don't we don't have any jurisdiction of that so it's my it's just my opinion that anybody who lives in the state of Massachusetts so they have the ability to launch their boat in East Mon ponet and fish and if you look at what other towns have done they can charge a reasonable fee for parking for upkeep of the ramp in the parking area I think uh we need to look into that I think that's important another thing regarding uh the fourth a beach uh I would advise against adding too much sand to that area because if you remember back in like the 50s and 6 I don't remember I wasn't alive but through my research we we dumped a lot of sand over there um kind of where the state ramp is now and I think a lot of that probably washing to the lake and there's a lot of sand in the lake that we could actually just kind of pull out from the beach these are uh issues that the Parks Commission is in charge we we really don't have anything to do with it so I think probably the best thing to do would be for you to make an appointment to speak with the Parks Commission about that cuz we don't they're just advising us on U what they're up to so that we can coordinate whatever we have to do and uh and as far and we're talking about the townwide parking ticket but how the parks how the parks are run is a separate commission public know yeah and we should definitely put something on our town website if somebody like a Bass Club wants to have a tournament on eastm ponet they can you know go online and like maybe get a permit or something that way they're not getting parking tickets and stuff so that'd be good and it's good for the town cuz they're coming in they're filling up their boats with gas they're buying groceries well that's why we come up with a non-resident non- toown taxpayer generally people in everybody pays taxes I don't think Connecticut's or Rhode Island's coming over the so that's why we felt that's a noral fee right now there is no fees for uh the tournaments it's just make sure you get the permission that it's we know you're there watching out the different departments I just don't think a lot of people are aware of that from okay all right good anyone else have anything about the boat ramps no Tom Tom on all right uh thanks again so Mr Clon I apologize come on back up um this has to do with the horse shows on U your property um and go ahead good evening um yeah I got a like uh a notice from uh Pam that uh you questioning on the number of days of shows and uh number of multi-day and in October of 2020 I came before excuse me a minute um um Mike and Jeremy and Tom we can't can't hear if you're going to talk in the back I'm sorry no problem in 2020 I came before the board uh and we increased the days from uh I think it was 38 to 43 for 2021 and then from in 2022 we went to 48 days um but we didn't increase the multi- days I think that was over overlooked at the time okay um because we don't do any one day hor shows we only do multi-day horse shows um so right now we're we're at 48 days with 10 multi-day hor shows um and so I guess that's what I'm requesting to either revise or we just got to add the multi-day in to the um requests that I did in 2020 um what I have I have the minutes for that should be so the consent agreement now allows for eight multi-day shows but the board at their discretion can allow additional days and so U Mr clawson's requesting 10 multi-day shows this year yeah is that that's what I understand that's how you have it okay all right um and you um are uh saying that um the um even under eight that you have as many as 48 days or something like that that you could run right you're only going to do 48 days now over 10 shows instead of eight shows well they're only 5day shows they've always been 5 days we have one two-day show Okay um all right so that'd be well that'd be 48 yeah yeah that would be 10 okay um so it's what we ran last year in the year prior to in 2023 and in 2022 same number of show shows same number of days that you did last year yes yeah oh I'm sorry so for the last two years you've been doing 10 shows 10 multi- days um 48 days oh I see okay right I thought this was something new so basically it's been you've been doing it for the last couple years we just haven't talked correct y okay all right any on the board have any comments questions no I think I remember when you came in last year it was the same thing where you were looking to go to 10 and I I believe we we did okay it to go to 10 um so I think he's just going to continue looking to continue what he did last year if I'm not mistaken yeah no that's what I'm saying 10 multi- days multi shows I mean he did it last year year before okay and we haven't had any complaints uh the I haven't receiv it yeah I contacted the fire Tre police Chet in B Valley and a couple of times I think when you shows first start out at the beginning the year I think the U police usually usually will get some calls and so is that correct Chief yeah so the only complaints who had is actually they to come to the board and some of the some of the neighbors I think beond when when the show start up um we'll complain um of the noise level I know Mr Boston has done um you know his best he could to try to change that and you know changing the uh how the speakers were facing all different things but then once we they kind of like resolves itself uh and there one particular neighbor uh that pretty much every year she all um but other than that we had other issues I don't know F to respond for for emergencies so there's firefighter there at all times during the show so address any issues there okay we're also uh continuing to work on the the sound system we're putting all the wires and readjusting all the speakers in the month of April and that's a one big project that we're working on because I don't like hearing the sound so we are definitely working on that more as we continue to work on it you know okay it's been an ongoing issue for for myself and for my other neighbor um I mean I I I didn't realize that that that this was something that had been happening for the last couple of years anyway uh and since we don't have any real uh issues with it other than like the chief says it's in the beginning there's there's uh it just stirs things up for for a little but that kind of to be expected um sorry so anything from the board one way or the other no I I think I'd be okay with u making a motion to um allow U Mr Clawson to have 10 uh multi-day shows for the 2024 calendar year okay I'll second that all right good any further discussion uh no one else is here about this I assume oh good all right um all those in favor say I I opposed uh it's unanimous thank you thank you thank you have a good night thank you good luck all right um and the last thing we have is a live entertainment application from uh paig MADD Mr mrle hio uh me and my fiance are going to get married at our house on Thompson Street okay so for we just need to put your name in our record so you're Dylan Hurley Dylan Callahan okay thank you Dan Hurley is my stepdad oh okay good thank you all right all right and um you're getting married yes oh good well congratulations thank you we don't want to be in way of that do we no no it's been 9 years in the meeting oh 9 years ail 1 you just got to make sure you're sure n you got to 9 years no uh so this is on August 31st the police chief fire chief Board of Health everyone has okay it um uh Mrs Mrs Tracy Hurley uh and Dan Hurley will be in charge um so I mean everything looks in order yeah any discussion from the board you get a song picked out yet you ready get on it's going to be here soon luck to you thank you does anybody else have here for this no okay good so uh I'll make a motion to approve the uh live entertainment permit application for August 31st um at 218 Thompson Street I'll second any discussion all those in favor say I I oppos it's unanimous congratulations all congratulations luck than you guys app all right have fun all right now now we get back to the regular agenda uh do we want to go with the uh approval of the minutes we'll go to the talk yep uh approval I'll move toir approval of Select minutes regular session December 28 2023 regular session February 24th 2024 executive session February 27 2024 second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous um warrants and commitments uh move to firm approval following warrants commitments vendor warrant number 80 for $821 18071 school warrant number 81 for $247,900 75 ambulance commitment from February 19th 2024 to February 25th 2024 for 50,5 7278 and commitment from February 26 2024 to March 3rd 2024 for $6,185 second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous I move to approve the following warrant commitments payroll warrant number 82 for $477,500 for 1 million $546,500 6 6,144 70 mobile home park Fee number three for 5,16 second any discussion all those in favor say iOS J um are you here are you are you here you just want to watch cuz you nice it's pretty exciting stuff to hold you up so yeah just you we can sign the permit and I hope no we need to keep a copy of it and get it from P I'll call I'll I'll call your fiance I'm picking it up okay thank you you're welcome to stay I'm not trying to throw you out okay um the next thing on our agenda is community preservation act uh proposed warrant language um so uh let's see here so this is you may recall at a previous meeting uh we had the community preservation um the Coalition come in and do a presentation at the request of selectman ceeling um on what it would look like to bring in the community pres adopt the community preservation act at that time the board voted to um further investigate this and potentially put this on the warrant for the um Springtown meeting so what we have here in your packet is the uh some figures because you have to decide on what uh percentage of a search charge you would like to present and also the exemptions so there's up to three exemptions that the board can adopt so um and see see if you want to jump sure no this is before we get to that just to be clear um the um uh the percentage and the exemptions um are those are those things that the board of selectman does after town meeting approves this or these are things that would be at town meeting this is what you would decide on now to put in the warrant language the article for town meeting that town meeting would then vote on okay yep I'm sorry no no that's okay um so yeah this has kind of been a a pet project of mine uh for a while going back to the Hops days um and doing my research for the playground I noticed that we were one of the few communities around that doesn't do the community community preservation act um so I wanted to try and see if there was interest from the community I think it's a fantastic program uh where we it's goes towards projects that we're going to need to essentially do anyway here in the town so my attitude is why not uh recoup some of that money from the State um we have exemptions that we're going to include into this to try to insulate some folks uh there's a low-income exemption um there's a $100,000 uh deductible essentially from your your taxable value exemption um so we're going to include exemptions to help the folks that might I don't want to say struggle but might not be that into this kind of thing um but just in an early analysis uh the the language that we're looking at is a 1% increase which is is the smallest available increase of the CPA program uh and then if you do some quick math uh the state sent us uh we would generate with a a low income exemption about $184,000 um and then you add in what the state would kick in so it's to me it makes sense to me again the four the four um kind of buckets that you can do are historic open space housing and uh Recreation so I feel like we here in Halifax want to preserve Halifax and keep Halifax Halifax I believe this program is designed to help the town do that so I want to at least bring it to the people uh get it to town meeting we can vote on it there and hopefully um pass it come election time so that's kind of where we're at what what my idea is for the CPA all right so uh why don't we open it up I assume some of you folks are here for this so if anyone has any questions comments suggestions U yeah come on up come on up for the don't worry Jonathan I'll take care of it thank you I just have a couple of questions um one the the minimum amount is 1% now um years ago we had a moderator and and I'm concerned about this because we had a moderator who didn't allow any um what he called substantive changes to what had been given to the people as the warrant information and so I'm thinking the maximum that you can you can allot allocate is 3% it seems to me most of the towns around here are at 1 and a half% um if we went and I'm not suggest I'm not saying this is what I think we should do I'm just asking if we put in 3% and lowered it if town meeting said you know that's too much and we they had the figures on what it was going to cost for it is it going to be a problem lowering it uh is it going to be a pro I don't think it would be a problem lowering it but it might be a problem raising it from the 1% that's my one question or concern and that's just because of what it used to be and it may not be like that anymore um the other concern I have or a question I have is um I I think it's a great program when it first started in 2000 the state was matching uh whatever the town put in by 100% um it's we've had some tough times but I believe even this year it was for most towns I think the base was like 25 I think it was yeah I'm sorry 22 okay so it's it's still money that for 24 years we've been turning back to the state and as you you know I I think it's important for us to look because it's such a protected act that if we vote 1% It Takes a town meeting vote I I believe to increase that at any point um if we spend money from it it's a town meeting vote to do that so the town has total control over that money within the parameters of the act so I think I would I think one is the very minimum and and I'm not sure we we'll never catch up but we have a historical Center in this town that people come out Twi well at least twice a year to to enjoy and support and we have buildings in that area that need to be um maintained and cared for and there's no budget for that um we have fields we have so many potential uses um and and I would think before town meeting we'd be able to show what other towns have done with that money um but I think the 1% might be low that's just my personal opinion especially if there's any problem raising it on the town meeting floor and and also I think that I personally would rather see us go in at at least one and a half if not two the the one provision which I don't think we we would we can do but one provision is if after everybody's gotten the state money um there's money left that can be split among the towns but you have to be at the 3% level in order to be eligible for that so I'm not suggesting 3% but I think 1% is personally I think it's really low um but if it can't be if it can be amended then I think there's just homework to do on it and we can see but I command you for bring this up because we're 24 years behind the eightball on this and we should have done it long ago and and of the to to dovetail what candy was saying of the I want to say there's 190 municipalities that take part none have withdrawn from the program 196 presently there you go but but he's cting right but no again it's a I don't want to say it's a shame but it it you think of the projects we could have been doing uh and ones that we were going to need to do anyway if we want to keep the history here and we want to keep our Open Spaces here they're the same comp you know I don't want to say complaints but they're the same battlecries of people here in Halifax well that's what this program is in part designed to do so it just seemed like a logical thing and the 1% candy I my idea is to just get it on you know and and I know a lot of people in this town are hesitant with when you say an increase in the tax bill it doesn't go over very well here which I totally get um but again what what in what investment can you do where you're going to get 20% of your money back to you to me it it seems like an no I I I I would I I I agree with you but I think maybe when we see the figures on our of what it will be for 1% one and a half two um and I my understanding it's pay it's it's TI to your tax bill so you you're doing it twice a year so it might be $30 or something I don't know I I don't know but I think that's important information um sure and then we'll see you're right none of us like to spend money but a lot of this is money we're going to spend anyway sure either out out of no choice because or we're going to have some very controlled money saved when the comes and just to give you uh the state has given us a chart here just to give you an idea ballpark um average home value here um with uh let's see with the exemption for of would be $53 a year so when your tax bill you're talking a little over that's at a at a home averaged uh average value of $458,000 but that's um just to give you that's the 1% number that's the 1% yep so $25 twice a year with 1.8 you're looking at I'm sorry 1.5 you're looking at 80 dollar a year so but that's with the exemption correct 100,000 correct so that's did you say 80 yeah I think that's important information for everybody to have well I know Candy you had shown interest and I know there are folks that are looking to get a committee going so um if anybody's watching this and are interested in you know bringing these numbers to the town make yourself known anybody else have anything uh yes Frank Frank Johnston Elm Street Jonathan you mentioned exemptions what do you mean by exemptions so there are uh the exact verbiage let me see if I can pull it up um there's a lowi income exemption hold on I have it here the three exemptions would be uh section one property owned and occupied as a domicile by any persons who qualifies for lowincome housing or load to moderate income housing senior housing in the town as defined um so that you would have your um your 100,000 exemption there there would be 100,000 of the value of each taxable parcel so there's your 100,000 there and 100,000 of the value of each taxable parcel of class three commercial property and class 4 industrial property as defined in section 2A chapter 59 so you would you would have your tax bill and we would let's say you're you're assessed at $600,000 on your property you could deduct 100,000 so you ENT entially for this program your parcel wouldn't be worth 600,000 it would come in as worth $500,000 so that's the $100,000 because you can only claim one of the exemptions is that cor correct per address and then you mentioned um funds from the state is that the 22% you mentioned Cody that's what the average was this year of return was 22% yeah I think it was actually I just looked it up 21.92 and how dides how did how did they come about that number they have um so this is funded by the uh the stamp taxes at the registry of deeds stamp tax yeah and then they have a trust fund and then basically the state reviews that trust fund balance annually right and they have a calculation it's drawn from that yeah and then Jonathan you also mentioned um four programs sure there's essentially four buckets that the money has to go into uh and as part of the program you have to keep at least 10% in each of those buckets that you've raised um but as long as each of the four buckets have their 10% you can use the remaining 70% you know let's say you wanted to use one of your buckets um for the project that you would like we would create a CPA committee um with residents with people at Town Hall where we would take solicit um ideas essentially for how the town would like to use that money yeah I was going to ask who make the decision on we would create a committee we would create a committee that vets all the applic ations um and decides how the town would like to use the money so that's the great thing is that the state you know doesn't tell us what to do once this money is raised it's it's ours then you choose one each one has a minimum of 10% in it correct and then you have approximately 70% remaining and then you put that into the one that was chosen for that particular whatever whatever the town decides to do tell me he has to approv the expend I think I don't think you okay well all right so there is another step John remed me the committee will make the recommendation that recommendation has to go to town meeting town meeting so town meeting the residents will decide how you know they will take the suggestion of the committee but the committee will be the one making the presentation at town meeting to how the town wants to spend so you give them four choices uh four category four categ categ but you could take you know 10 suggestions of one of the buckets you know what I'm saying however we want to divide it up is how and it has to go on the warrant for town meeting correct and then it's approved that way correct in the then 70% of it goes to the primary we don't have to use it all every year too we can you know we can if we want to hold off and we want to save for something bigger the following year we can do that as well who makes that decision that would be the recommendation of the of the committee of the the CPA committee that we would create and then the the residents have to vote on that as well I I don't think so it wouldn't be if it's not presented it wasn't presented it would just sit it would just sit there until we made a presentation okay all right thank you so that's right in other words they would show up somebody would come up with a a warrant article that said we want to use so much of the uh Community preservation act money to fil fix a baseball field or repair a historic building or or one of those other categories and then that goes to town meeting and has to be voted on a town meeting or otherwise the money just stays in the bank and then who approves whether we go with 1 2 or 3% we would at our town meeting at town meeting approves that as well and the voters so adopting the CPA would have to go to the ballot the first sorry I'm not really explaining this very well the first step is our town meeting to get it on the ballot for November y so it's a two-step process twostep yeah y right okay thank you [Music] yeah Amy troop 10 Hillside Avenue um I have a question so uh 24 years ago with it that it started did you say that I believe around there you said it was a 100% then sure do you have um the last 24 years of how it went from 100% down to the 2.02 this year can you show us a history of that amount of money um that would be a really big help on that absolutely and then my point would be to say that if we want to preserve the town and keep it the way it is why are we looking at MBT ta housing that's a a different a different topic Al together not at all because you can't sure come on up you you cannot preserve a town when you have MBTA housing because I've stated to you before that they have crossed out a half a mile to the NBTA station so that means they could go anywhere in town so you cannot preserve the town of Halifax if you allow MBTA housing in and I really keep urging you about that so like it sounds great to preserve the town but really how we preserve the town is by keeping our bylaws that are not Antiquated that were put there for a really good reason to protect our water supply to protect us from not having too much traffic on our roads to not overpopulate our schools because that's that's like going to C right so and then a public safety building we're going to have to hire more more police officers more firefighters we're already in danger of that currently with four Wells down and huge money going out to the Wells so I love the fact of preserving the town but changing the entire Town's bylaws without thought of any of these things is what's not preserving our town and I would urge you to read the implementation plan or that grant for the preservation act because those little things that you think you're getting might have ties that have problems later I love the idea of preserving but we cannot do it if we throw out history of why we have the bylaws here again all four well are down okay do we have any other comments or questions uh about the community preservation act anything from the board no I hope I made that understandable we don't really need to do anything unless you want to change what's going to be in the warrant book we still time to do that can I just double check with Cody to Ci's point if we set the language at 1% we could do an amendment on the on the floor of town meeting to make it one and a half if that is I don't see why not we can double check that but it would be any sort of town meeting you know you can you can make an amendment sure we'll check we check with the moderator and ask him what his view was on that okay so to that point I I think we could have it as isn't if we wanted to we could do the 1% breakdown the one and all the you know we have that information have it read available okay unless there's any further comments we'll move on um so we don't need to do anything on this at this point we'll have a whole warrant coming into us pretty soon anyway all right uh we have a request from the school committee to delay town meeting um let's see here just looking at the email um it says we are working on budget on the budget this is from Lauren laws uh and trying to bring it in in line with what will work with the town budget halex Elementary School had a vote to make the request to push off town meeting so we can vote the budget the required 45 days before a town meeting is that something you could bring to the board of selectman this was address to Cod so um open it up for discussion I don't know apparently we can we've already said it but according to our Town Council we do have the ability to do this if we like so yeah this comes as a result of um the proposed or most recent proposed budget of the end of February by the um Silver Lake the elementary school um is resulting in a 10% increase in the school department budget uh a little less than $1.5 million uh we cannot absorb that uh within our Revenue projections uh Kingston and Plimpton are in the same boat I have a meeting scheduled with they um administrators tomorrow afternoon just to you know make sure we're all on the same page they uh have not been formally asked at this point to delay their Town meetings Kingston is before ours and Plimpton is two days after our town meeting um but we are working diligently with the schools to try to come up with a budget that is sustainable for for all three towns and also um provides the best level Services the to the schools so this is both Silver Lake and Halifax Elementary that they're looking the budget the budget issue is big big picture all right um coordinators to 44 Elm Street so the current projection numbers that I got tonight was the total cost of education is increasing by 6.7 million that's what's going to be presented at the meeting on Thursday believe Cody had received a copy of that information that is going from um they changed the columns here so we're going from about 50 million to $ 56.7 million in one year this is which budget this is the total cost of Education across four towns so because of the regional agreement that was uh approved at the uh special town meeting in December the movement from out of District special needs cost and preschool has now changed so what used to be in different buckets that fell under the town's columns now shifts to Silver Lake's column and because of desie there are added requirements to what they have to do for the administration aspect of running the programs that were formally out of District programs for the town of Halifax but were being run by sub Lake staff so there's it was all done on purpose to to bring children and students that were out were being sent out of our three towns back close we reduced the Transportation costs we reduced the tuition cost so bringing those programs in was a a cost benefit for the towns but according to desie our regional agreement didn't account for those types of things so the program that we were running wasn't allowed by the way that we were doing it so right now you've got that change that's showing up in the budgets and then you have an overall incre increase of spending so the way the the process works as Sil lake has to vote their budget 45 days in advance of the first town meeting right now it's scheduled for Kingston May 4th which means silver lake has to pass a budget by March 20th so in order to get to numbers that I think the towns could actually afford you're looking at massive Cuts so they're going to have to even if they agree that the number is correct Thursday there's four budgets there's four School committees they're all going to have to run through a process of deciding what they're going to cut what's the correct programs to cut and then they're going to have to vote on that and then the town's budget is going to have to be based off of what Sil Lake approves and what the town elementary schools approve so I I would suggest that you you push out at least two weeks at least because this there's the four the four School budgets have to be voted on and right now you have Administration running from one budget to the next budget to the next budget barely keeping up with the programs that they're trying to run this year as well as the fact that right now they're projecting a deficit for this year for the special needs transportation and tuition costs for the way the system set up right now so you have you have a special town meeting issue which would be funding that so I and I got a tax meing funding what this the um the special needs tuition and transportation for this current fiscal year is more than what was budgeted Oh you mean the last special town meeting that we no so in order for us to supplement funding for the current fiscal year we would technically have to have a special town meeting you hold it we would hold it within our annual um but it looks like there may be a deficit for the current fiscal year that we're going to need to address but we don't have those figures and and those figures are going to be delayed if the stat if the administration is working on the budget for the upcoming year so you've got to catch 22 where all these shifts have happened the costs have increased the state allowed the out of District tuitions to grow by 14.5% last year this year they're allowing him to grow over uh I think it's 4.68 so you've got this dramatic increase in cost does um this is both budgets both Silver Lake and the elementary school budget and uh I think you just told me that Kingston's town meeting usually in April but this year it's beginning May May 4th first weekend of May have they approached this issue yet I I've I've talked with the chair and I've talked with the Town Administrator I asked them to consider the changes I know that they're coming to the meeting on Thursday night but if we have you you you mentioned the 20th of March would have to be 45 days 45 days before our town meeting so that means Kingston's town meeting oh that's Kingston's town meeting right oh the 20th of March Kingston so it really I mean if Kingston says no uh so John then the process is if Kingston says no they'll say no to the number Halifax and Clinton will probably say no to the number so then you have to have Silver Lake Rebo their budget after they get two NOS I'm not talking about that I'm talking about request before before us to delay town meeting yes so if Kingston doesn't delay town meeting before the 20th the 20thth then uh what we do won't make any difference well it it will because you could you could delay the town meeting so that Kingston so if Kingston votes no right because the the process is going to be the same they're not going to be ready in time so if you delay Halifax at least you might get one correct number e if you don't delay you're probably looking at another town meeting you'll have if we vote no which we would cuz there's no way the town can afford this you're going to have to put a one and a half to you know a one to one and a qu million override on the ballot in order to hit this number so well just vote the number down and then it goes back and has to be redone again like it's happened in the past right but you're going to have to have another town meeting then so they'll have 30 days and then you're going to have another town meeting so you're still going to have that cost but then you're going to have the town budgets totally up in the air cuz once Two Towns vote Sila Lake that's the number mhm so then you have to make the cuts over at the elementary school can I ask so so what's our 45 days before our meeting do we know that date uh off the top of our heads well uh I don't not off the top of my head but I think that it's the 45 days from the first town meeting it's the first it's the first time okay for our first or Kingston Kingston's first right now so it's 20th regardless it's March 20th that's the date right now right but again that's but that's only uh Kingston doesn't even have this on their agenda do they like nobody has asked them to postpone that yeah they have yes they have yes when are they going to vote on it uh they I believe their next meeting is next week I'll have a better idea tomorrow I have a meeting with with both the town administrators um so we our next meeting is the 26 right and we could still delay when are you going to go to print for the town budget the board would vote the final warrant and budget on the 26th of March so we go to print we probably have about a week to play with if if you if we we could push it back hours back hypothetically probably to the 2 if you guys vote the the warrant Budget on this April 2nd which is that following Tuesday but in order to keep town meeting the 13th it is now we couldn't go any more further back that because at that point then we just have to finish formatting everything get it to print that takes a little while then the print company gets it to the post office and then we need to get it out to everyone two weeks before the time so what dates are we talking about then like how late can we go before we have to address this assum assuming Kingston handles it on next week right then and we have our the request to us just let's just assume it this way assume Kingston say yes we're going to push this off uh for whatever time and we our latest date to do that would we still be able to do it on the 26 than be within the time frame yeah I mean you you could I mean all that like the the the real question is are you going to have real numbers to put into the budget that's that's why I'm saying that you need the time well I get that I understand that I just I I know we have a there's a meeting scheduled for Thursday Thursday I I feel like to to vote on something now before at least having that meeting I feel like is premature so I would at least like to have that meeting on Thursday you know with with town all three towns involved to try to get to the bottom of this budget and then maybe make our decision on the heels after that meeting I would feel comfortable doing that as opposed to making this decision tonight before thur understand I I get that I guess the only reason why I'm raising this as an issue is cuz your numbers are going to be totally junk so everyone's working off of junk numbers right now you got finance committee spinning their wheels you have a meeting tomorrow night where you're going to make a recommendation on the cost of living increase all these things are going to have to be looked at mhm you know what though I mean the the budget for Silver Lake may have gone up quite a bit or the schools I should say had gone up quite a bit but this is a situation we're in almost every year like we're always we're always at the last minute rejiggering numbers it just happens this increase seems historic I can't remember I mean you've been doing this a while when's the last time we've had a 10% increase in I've never seen this before well but still I mean we'll see how that and I and here's here's my question is I haven't got a a firm answer on why we've had this giant increase I feel like we were told when we switched our prek and we moved some things around that it wouldn't have a dramatic effect on the budget but it seems to me that it has I I I don't have an answer for you on that because I I'm only reviewing the data that it's being put into the budget so I can't tell you um the only other request that I I saw tonight from it was it was a request to make sure that the Middle School SRO is included as a warrant article yeah and to make sure that Halifax had in a special town meeting request for the special needs cost article oh you want a placeholder for that yeah we can do that I mean yeah we have the placeholder for the um the the resource officer um and you know the the school has an officially given us word you know we know that there's potentially going to be an issue this year with the um special education budget and we can put a placeholder but we haven't RIS they haven't s and I meet with them regularly um and they haven't given us anything official um although we we'll certainly put a placeholder and make sure we have a special town meeting I think it may be helpful just to know what the board's um direction is you know if if let's say Kingston and clemton or Kingston in particular does delay is this something you foresee doing just because you know your next meeting is the 26th obviously between now and the 26th is really crunch time on my end sy's end you know for budget and the Warren and if we if we're going to be looking at a PO potential delay we don't want to put in all this time and effort for something that on the 26 instead of a final product we're going to be delaying so you don't I don't think you need to make the decision right now but just you know what you want to take their temperature yeah yeah exactly and and particular if you know the other towns do or right we we don't we going to see why just where we are going up so fast the other article would be the water issues at the elementary school to make sure that there was a article for the annual town meeting for upgrades to the water system there yeah it's one of those other things the school they would communicate that with us so so all these issues seem to be hitting and they're I would say 3 months behind of the budget cycle so that again that's why I was asking for it cuz I know how much work you guys are going to have to do with a budget my my inclination is uh not to move the town meeting I mean I think that's my inclination and I'm only speaking for myself and it just would be again I I I don't think we should make a decision on this until the 26th if if we had to uh schedule another meeting uh before that and to handle this issue we could always do that also so I think we have at least a little bit of time on that um but I just um I'm not I guess I'm not convinced at this point that even if we move this into June that we're still going to have good numbers I mean it still is negotiation you know a lot of times when you have a deadline things get done right and if you extend a deadline it just extends the time to get it done so my inclination right now would be to not to postpone it but uh I'm again that's just my opinion and I just think and I also think that we certainly need more information we certainly need to have a little bit more input from uh you know is Kingston going to do it if Kingston's not going to do it then doesn't make any sense for us to do it um so that that'd be my in I don't know what the rest I mean I'd like to keep the date but I also want to make sure we're we're seeing a budget that's been properly you know thoroughly vetted and figured out um we had we had a couple big things go on we had we redid our regional agreement uh we had our finance director leave so we had I don't want to say a perfect storm but we had a this was in a in unusual year to say the least so I just want to make sure that um while I I wouldn't enjoy moving the meeting I'm not going to rule it out just to make sure that again we're getting a a budget that's been properly vetted yeah I'm with you guys I mean I don't want to move the meeting but if if if we have to I mean I want to get the numbers correct or as close to correct as we can because that's going to be an issue if we don't so the way it works with Silver Lake anyway is uh if two of the three towns turn down their number uh then like Gordon was saying uh then it goes back to Silver Lake they have 30 days to I think it's 30 days rev revise the number bring it back to town meeting and again go through the whole process again and that can keep on going until until but then that ruins our numbers throughout the whole hopefully we don't do that but that's that's how it's supposed to work on on the regional end of things Elementary School is different that you know we turn the number down we turn the number down that you know could be rev could if we set up a second meeting after that it could be addressed again I guess so the one point on that is you've now shifted a majority of cost to Silver Lake mhm so you have less places to cut at the elementary school budget well the thing is though if if special education was always a big part of the element school budget anyway and if the money is just being shifted to Silver Lake it it seems to me it should be a net zero well now you now you're picking up the cost of Plimpton and Kingston Silver Lake uh Plimpton and Kingston special needs students as well because it's all pulled together now but why would it be any different than regular assessment because our percentage weren't they paying theirs at this also yeah but the percentage of Cil lake is now 32.5% well I mean that goes up and down every year because of because of the reallocation is what you're saying no that's the that's the enrollment but but now you're picking up 32.5% of $10 million versus before you only you only picking up 3 six but you had your circuit breaker number so if you look in last year's town meeting warrant and the warrant before I made sure that they published the amount of money that we had for circuit breaker so basically that's a revenue that the town has that wasn't posted before so out of that 3.6 that we were spending we actually we subsidizing out of circuit breaker about $800,000 so our costs were were only 2.8 but Silver Lake has no circuit breaker this upcoming year so now it's on the town's assessment to pay for that it there's shifts of buckets of money but circuit breaker is a reimbursement so it's always a year behind so you're you're hitting increased Cost Plus you don't have that money at Silver Lake it is very complicated it just seems I don't know I guess I don't get it because we're moving we're like to John's point we're shifting over I would think that desie would understand that it's I don't want to say a numbers game but we're moving one here to there I don't understand why we have such a dramatic increase if we've essentially the state should understand that we're our numbers are our numbers right and if Silver Lake has it or we have it we should still be on the hook for the for the same amount I don't understand why we're we're getting get where we getting this from desie that they don't understand what we've done it's not really desie I mean desie has imposed some of the the reworkings of of how we operate but the numbers um are you know Silver Lake is the one presenting the numbers sure okay so where's Sil getting these numbers from their business manager and their staff and that's who's working on it and I and I want to say I appreciate them working on it you know I know it's not an easy thing to do so I want to appreciate their efforts but I just want to make sure that we have a um properly vetted budget so yeah I I would just ask if if you are interested in having a special meeting to change cuz the numbers you're basing the budget off of right now are these inflated numbers so you're going to have to make decisions in the town I I would give a heads up to Sandy and Cody and the finance committee how are you leaning because right now they're going to be working like you got to hit the numbers coming out of the budget from Sil awake thank you all right so um I'll make a suggestion um I you you and Cody are going to this budget meeting on Thursday um and I mean if depending on what you find out uh we could schedule a meeting next week if we had to or wait till the 26th or move it up to the 25th what whatever is necessary I know personally I won't be available Tuesday and Wednesday next week not Thursday morning so um I'm pretty flexible I mean I could do Monday the 18th if I had you know if we had to or so Monday wouldn't give us enough time to post the meeting all right which date was um or or will we just take this up on the 26th but I think that might make more sense for uh for for you guys to have that uh meeting and find out um cour you can fill some of information uh if you think if you think we need another meeting in between you know we'll post another meeting not a big deal I think that's a good plan but that way at least at least we're keeping a little bit of heat on this so it doesn't like I mean that to me that's the thing was but budgeting particular if you don't keep heat on on it if you don't you know it always comes to the end right it's always the crunch time it's like as soon as the deadlines here that's usually when things get done I I do I just think this year with our you know our um with Christine leaving and somebody new coming in I feel like it's a little bit of an albatross this year yeah I can see that that's why I think you know I would consider it yeah all right so um I don't know if we need a motion on that I we'll just take it up um if not on the if not on the 26 and before depending on uh what you guys find out on THS okay all right good um so let's move on Beth isal deaconness ambulance affiliation agreement we do this every year or every other year or so yeah this um is with Beth Israel deess and Plymouth you approved this last year um I in your packet you'll see we ask them to highlight any changes uh there are no changes other than the dates being updated uh for Effective April 30th of this year um and that's the only change okay and uh it's uh recommended by the um police chief I mean the fire rather y okay um okay so I'll make a motion that we uh approve the uh Beth Israel deaconness uh ambulance affiliation AG I'll second that you have any discussion want to tell us about all those in favor say I I opposed all right next thing up uh administrator contract we've U negotiated that to essentially extend it for the next 3 years years y okay um so we have a motion from the board to um enter approve the contract for the Town Administrator I'll make a motion to approve the contract of Town Administrator Cody had all right and um second do we have a second I will second all those in favor any any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed um next I'm going to skip over uh Summit Street for a minute um because um Mr narella will uh defer on that so we'll do that at the end um but uh let's see the next thing up would be the um annual Ms cap card getaway cycling event and I think again this is something we do pretty much every year annual they're looking to come through town on Saturday Saturday June 29th um and it looks like both the Chiefs have reviewed this and approved the routs through town so we just need to approve it y okay um I'll move that we approve the uh um annual Ms Cape Cod getaway cycling event do we have a second second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous um contined plan for selecting Fus hours so this came up um as a result of the individual discussions that I've had with each ofie you um back in November of 2022 when the board was full again you guys had implemented office hours um on the off Tuesdays of your meetings uh at first there was a lot of traction and you guys were pretty busy it seems like in the past few months um people really haven't been coming in as much which I think is a a good sign a testament kind of all the work that's gone in so I just wanted to bring it up and see if this is something um you know if the board wants to continue do you want to uh reduce it do you want to make it you know people can reach out and we can schedule appointments if they want to meet with you individually whatever your thoughts are just um it seems like at least recently you guys are kind of coming in and and our no I enjoy it but um yeah so that's that's the reason for it on the agenda what's the board's pleasure well I I I agree with with Cody I want to make sure that the town knows that we're available when they need us but to his point it's been a lot of wasted time coming into town hall and not having anybody come in so if we can come up with a strategy to make it more efficient um to not limit the availability just make it more efficient availability I'd be down with that um so I guess um I guess we could change it to uh you know requested appointments and we'll we'll we'll make uh those uh off to Tuesday's available if no other time you know I mean anybody who wants me can find me and give me a call anyway I mean numers in the book we have a phone still I'm not sure if I can answer my phone I I'll and so I'm always glad to you know answer a call or an email or or arrange for meetings so um so maybe we'll uh we'll just change it to that sure by appointment by appointment so so we um yeah I mean your all of your emails are posted but we will post something on the website that just says uh um you know effective today's date that the office hours are going to be suspended um but the Su are available for appointments and we can put you know they can contact camurai and we can be in touch to find a mutual date if they don't want to reach out directly yeah and I want to stress that again this isn't limiting availability it's just making giving us a more efficient way to handle stuff I agree yep okay good um organizational chart uh yes so as part of your goals that we adopted um earlier in the fiscal year uh part of that was to really look at the operations within the town uh and organizational structure so what I've presented is uh I think a an updated organizational chart with as far as Town Town operations and employees um you I don't think you need to adopt this tonight but I wanted to just present it as a discussion point and get your initial feedback and thoughts and then we can make um adjustments as needed and then look to adopt something like this in some sort of policy with it at a future meeting so I I would just like to say that this has been a a goal of mine from when I started this time around because I thought that our organization had gotten too um too spread out and in in too many ways and needed to be into more of a pyramid structure at least for what the board of selectman is responsible for um that being said I don't I don't want to uh be in a position of uh anyone thinking that we're suggesting that the board abdicate any of its responsibilities we're responsible for appoint the people we appoint whether it's local commit whether it's the committees or whether it's full-time employees or or whatever uh and I think and I I intend to keep that responsibility but that being said um business of the town has grown quite a bit and it is uh in order to be done efficiently and professionally uh we need a somebody on site running the operation and that's really why we hired Cody uh or at least one of the reasons why we hired Cody so I think um I would just like to make that point that I think that I I'm I'm 100% in favor this is something I've wanted for a while 100% in favor of a of a of a of a hierarchy structure uh but again I'm not at all deferring any of our responsibilities uh I am saying we can delegate to the Town Administrator to run day-to-day operations and the chart will tell us how that's going to work that's my goal so and the only thing on the chart that Cody and I talked about and we do just need to flush this out a little bit uh is um uh the uh build what's it Building Maintenance Municipal School building Municipal School building maintenance director because previously that position had always been hired basically through the committee the building committee uh but it was a whole different type of position right now it's a very responsible position uh and and um so I think I think we just need to talk to the building committee and say we're going to we want to move it if Bo agrees we move it directly to uh into the hierarchy chain where they report up to the Town Administrator as opposed to in years past they always used to report to the um chairman of the building committee a long time ago but sure that position has changed so much now he oversees a staff he you know he does the maintenance he doesn't just do like uh empty the trash cans and so on like they did in the beginning so yeah that my my own two comments no I think you said it perfectly I don't think we're looking to you know have our our responsibilities usurped but to your point you know our Town Administrator is here fulltime you know and we're here as much as we can but um you know you never know what new board's coming in you never know what's going to happen so you want to make sure that you have somebody minding the store um with the minding the store with the the ideals and the goals of the elment in mind so I think I think that's what this this hierarchy does here this I shouldn't call it hierarchy but this structure here does so it makes it makes sense to me okay I'm with both of you guys uh again like both they've said we're not here um every day day-to-day operations to administrator is and you know he he speaks to us about everything and it's not that we don't have you know contacts to get in hold of us and everything but he sees day-to-day operations where we're here a few times and we try to get here as much as we can but um we're not here as 24/7 is as as he is um where you can reach us all the time um so in that aspect I I I like the chart um and I think it will work uh in the way it should um it's my two sounds good so um we'll take it up as a formal vote uh yeah future meter yeah all right U Morse brothers that one I think na usually doesn't take part in so we can get that one with Su street I'm sorry na hasn't taken part in the mor brother stuff that's my mistake okay that we'll put that yeah I got to move I apologize I wasn't thinking okay uh updates on the MBTA and training yeah so we're um making steady progress with the MBTA action plan uh the zoning bylaw Review Committee voted formally um last night to for us to submit a preliminary application to the state to see if what we're thinking at least would would meet the state's compliance um so I'm working on that hope to have that submitted this week and then we should hear back with hear back from them within a month or so um and then at that point we can start kind of the the pr aspect of it um and just getting the information out there so everybody understands it and then again look to probably do some sort of special town meeting in the fall for um to put it up for the town to decide if this is something we want to move forward but um our our goal from that committee is to get the the entire zoning bylaw uh in that special town meeting soon as we can finish the work we started we that a lot of work but so that would be a yeah so it'll be good can I ask the dovetail u in the last meeting we voted to send a letter to our state reps are we still planning on doing that as well I have that uh pretty much drafted and we'll get that off sometime this week thank you all right uh any more updates from the town ad Ministry um so we have our new assistant Town accountant starting next week which would be great to help out our accounting office good um we have scheduled a date at the end of this month for the um interview team for the town accountants to start reviewing those resumés and um figure out who we want to bring in for initial interviews so that'll be good um our new energy manager consultant who you guys awarded the contract to Kathy Stanley has really hit the ground running um she's already contracted a lower electricity rate for the town municipal buildings so um she's saving us about 5 or 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour which if you look at our electric usage over the past year will save the town about $40,000 a year fantastic she's been working with that um she's also brought in an engineering firm to look at what projects we want to do for our green communi Grant she started preparing that green communities Grant uh in the amount of $200,000 that will get off um sometime in early April and we should usually do pretty well with those so hopefully we'll get that award um and just continuing to recruit for open positions our conservation agent and um admin we did post the agent uh we posted it in a a flexible format where um you know we may look to employ somebody up to 32 hours a week if we are not able to fill the admin it may be a little bit more attract um attractive for a candidate if there's you know additional hours so we've posted that um and we're still recruiting for the town accountant and um yeah that's pretty much it just preparing for town meeting okay um so I guess the only left is the uh sum Street and the mor Brothers anduse um so the letter uh upon Summit Street yeah we have it here so at your last meeting um Mr nezel had come in uh asking for a letter in response to um his Department of energy resources opinion the board had requested that we draft a um or that I draft a letter basically just with the factual information so I've sent that off to you um I think it's it's it's factual um that's pretty much all it is but just you know wanted your thoughts if there's anything you'd like to see different if you want us to send this again just for a discussion point I wanted to present this to you at at your as you requested uh I I think it captures everything that we talked about he he asked he said that it's been agricultural it is uh and that uh it's still under 61a it's not um they 61a ended in let's see 2016 oh okay so through 2016 the property had been classified as an agricultural property under 61a they did not apply for the renewal in 2016 so they didn't technically withdraw they just never applied for Renewal um and then so it hasn't been technically under 61a um receiving that exemption since 2016 believe correct me if I'm wrong but the idea was he he did didn't do the 61a because he was starting the ball on a on the solar field at that point yeah why it wasn't exactly so in December of 2015 the Halifax planning board voted uh to approve the the petition for the solar array so then that next year um the the owner didn't apply for the exemption because forward exactly yeah okay that's what it is that's what it is yeah no I I think you did a good job of stating the facts you know it's no gray area it's cut and dry as to the history of that property so um I'd be okay with sending that letter okay you need a motion for that thing I think so yeah yeah so um think that is a motion sure I'll make a motion to send the letter uh from Cody Hadad on speaking on behalf of board of selectman regarding the property at 69 Summit Street second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous okay um Morse Brothers compliance with the Earth removal permit I know there was some complaints about that and you took some actions yeah so we did receive a complaint um that there was a truck uh Down Lincoln Street at 8:04 uh in the morning the trucks aren't supposed to be there between 8 and 8:15 per the permit as that's when the school buses are going um as soon as we were uh notified of it of in inofficial capacity uh I reached out to representation from Morse Brothers their attorney uh no what a fut just as a reminder um you know this is typical process we do you know with people in town any business or a resident if there's potential violation usually send them a little reminder um so I reminded him of the um permit compliance requirements and you can see I attached that email and I uh the response that you know they take it seriously um and they're going to invest they investigated it their inv tigating it um so I just wanted to bring it forward to the board to see what you wanted to do and also just a reminder to the public that if there is any issues with Morse or anything else to notify Us in an official capacity um if it's posted to Facebook that you know we're not monitoring Facebook so if there's a concern you know contact the office email one of us call us um so we can address it I don't think we've had any other complaints other than that one right yeah again make it make it official you know bring it to the bring it to the the select board officially and we can we can look at things okay this is the only complaint that I've um gotten in regards to compliance with the permit and I just want to bring it forward to you know see if everybody's got a question jemy come on up there you [Music] go Jeremy be n for you uh anybody with two eyes and a semi functioning neural Network and go out there and look at the new Lake that's formed where a hill used to be and I'd advise the board of selectman to uh schedule this on their calendar to go out there and take a look at the new Lake because you don't get a lake sitting on top of sand unless you're in the water table there's a new Lake out there where a hill used to be they're digging below the water table that's a fact that's all I have to say thank you okay uh well we do have an ability to send our engineer out so yeah if you'd like we can we can absolutely have our engineer go and take a look we have take a look I think I'd be down with that I think we should have a given the complaint I think we should have our engineer take a look at the property I I mean I also point out that it's rained an awful lot in the last it has few months so I think there's water more more places than we used to see in I can think of but well I don't know maybe maybe he's right okay I will contact p r and ask if he can um schedule I visit all right uh anything else to us come before board no not that I know all the don't think so all right um I'll make a motion to aour I will second that motion okay any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed what we okay John yeah he wants to know if NAA wants to come up to vote to a jury no na reused himself he's he's in the back that's it he's time out he's in timeout anyway we have a majority vote here so we all vote Yes yes and so we're Jed thank you thank you