##VIDEO ID:IFxWej4ybZI## e if you would please great good evening and welcome to the hopkington select board meeting for Tuesday August 27th 2024 uh all members will be in the meeting room participating in the meeting and and will be present the public has an option of attending in person here at town hall or via zoom using the link posted in this meeting's agenda right on Q all members are here this meeting is being recorded uh the first uh order of business this evening is to go into an executive session uh for some specific items uh I'll go ahead and read that motion and then if I can get a a second or I'll entertain this motion and then we'll take a second uh so I will entertain a motion to move into executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 30A section 21A purpose 3 collective bargaining to consider a grievance filed by the police Union on behalf of its membership because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the board uh also pursu to masteral Law chapter 30A section 21 a purpose 3 to consider strategy with respect to litigation hopkington CP LC versus the town of hopkington middle sex supremor Court uh number 2381 CV 01066 because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the board also pursuant to M General Law chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to consider strategy with respect to litigation the hopkington lngg corporation doing business as ever Source energy versus the Board of assessors of the town of Hopkinson Appel at Tax Board docket number 3 32213 3 32214 33581 5081 rather uh FY 2017 docket number 3 34817 3 34818 3 35082 FY 2018 docket number 33 3 37604 33765 33766 FY 20109 docket number 33 9833 3398 35 fy2020 docket number 3 42571 34 2567 fy2021 docket number 3451 31 3451 34 3451 37 FY 2022 because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the board also pursuant to Master General Law chapter 30 section 21A purpose two to consider strategy for negotiations with non Union Personnel Town manager to allow Elaine Lazarus Lazarus rather sorry I'm reading so fast here I can't speak to all Elaine Lazarus Greg dor uh Cody Normand Matt sanor Joel Bennett Scott Van ralton Nicholas anestopoulos Byron burchman and John N to participate in executive session and to reconvene an open session at the conclusion of executive session so moved we have a motion by the Vice chair and a second by Mr Clark any discussion all those in favor please signify with a roll call vote Mr Manon man yes Mary joa fer yes Brian her yes Joe Clark yes and okay so we're going to go ahead into executive session and we plan to be out by 700 p.m we have a lot to do this evening so we're really going to have to try to stick to a timeline here uh we do that e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e continue on with our meeting uh we are an executive session there for a little bit so we'll come back and restart the public session uh with the first or the next item being um the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay so item one executive session concluded next up we have before sorry can we begin before seven even yes yeah can okay uh next up uh good question thanks next up public forum residents are invited to share ideas opinions or ask questions regarding town government we'd like to enforce a two-minute rule if at all possible please uh if you run over a little bit that's okay but we can't have a 10-minute speech if anybody would like to join us please do so right now come on up I almost said seeing none probably hi am Hi how are you guys well how are you thank you welcome so I'm Amy Beck the director of senior services and with me is Jessica mcel the assistant director and we are really very excited to share with you that the hopkinson's senior services needs assessment is complete um and we will be presenting that with Susan Berger of UMass Boston um on Wednesday September 18th at 5:00 p.m. at the senior center more than a year ago we started the process to identify y the current and long-term needs of residents aged 55 and older in MA in not Massachusetts in hopkington this process included uh focus group surveys stakeholder interviews and some of you may have even taken part in this um so the full report will hopefully be available online shortly um we will also have reports available to distribute to stakeholders and community members um our hope is that folks will have an opportunity to read the report and are as excited as we are to engage with the community around seniors needs um we've already learned a lot from the report and we are excited to share that with everybody it has provided us with ideas of how to improve and expand a lot of our programs and services and ultimately how to improve the lives of seniors across town so we're very grateful to all of those who took the time and effort to participate in our focus groups um and those who contributed thoughtfully to the surveys and in the uh individual interviews and we look forward to utilizing these findings ultimately to help us lay the foundation for our strategic plan which is the next step in our process so we again want to invite all the members of the community members of the select board to join us Wednesday September 18th at 5:00 P pm. at the senior center to hear the results of this finding um for those unable to attend the meeting will be recorded for hcam for you to enjoy later at a later date so we just wanted to come and educate everybody about that great thank you very much that sounds like some really good information coming our way thank you I think there is um and it's great as we go forward also looking at becoming more age and dementia friendly across the board in the community so we're looking forward to it thank you great thank you very much anyone else for public forum please oh me Mrs M friend I was asked uh and I went downstairs and Amy and I voted on our way in tonight and early voting is available and it is up and running and anyone can come in and it's all this week and I think about of next week uh please if you want to take advantage of it just give the town clerk's office a a call to check on the hours and come in and vote election day is next Tuesday yep the third anything else anyone else public forum seeing no others we'll move on oh sorry sorry Brian I'm not looking you all that easy go right ahead yeah I know Steve snow 78 Pine Island Road all right so January 30th 2024 I filed a police criminal complaint against Miss written Bush and chief Bennett I've asked the select board on numerous occasions to look into I've been told they would other than shahul he told me he wouldn't be involved that it was Mariel's problem um nothing's been done the um so on the 20th of June I sent the foer to the town of hopkington town clerk and I also sent the same fo you to the Northwest District DA's office um I received the DA's office never was asked for money I got a an email from Town Council I got an email from the town clerk's office looking for me to pay for the services after the 10day limit where you owe it to me no matter what so that that's still unanswered the foyer still sitting down there on cor's desk I don't know they're done with it I don't know why the Northwest district has had no trouble getting any info I needed so and then by the way Amy you said that Tim Brenan was decertified while he was is out on leave that's absolutely false it's misleading and it's fraking def flammatory that's wrong he wasn't desertified then and then finally someone whether it be board members group paid employees of the town of hopkington is doing their best to destroy Timothy Brennan and keep him from earning a living and feeding his family and I suggest that immediately stop and I suggest that the town of Hopkin bisl board send lettered a post asking Timothy bernon to be recertified as a police officer in the commw Massachusetts and being subcontractor I would assume it would be Harrington and Heap your attorneys trying to limit their damage I would suggest that you order them to send a letter to post recertifying Timothy Brennan to be able to be a police officer he doesn't want to be here anymore he's he had a new job but there's people in the background destroying him and that's not right he's a citizen of this town Bennett is not a citizen of this town nor is van roton is not a citizen of this town Timothy Brenan is a citizen of this town and that's your job to take care of the citizens thank you thank you anybody else do we have anyone else yeah he doesn't speak English so we never I never have to anything all right um well we have to move ahead we'll come back to it if somebody else wants to speak I understand it might be a a language barrier okay all right with that we'll move to item four for a moment and then if somebody wants to come back up we can do it right after consent agenda the consent agenda we have uh 1 two 3 four items on the consent agenda there's minutes from 7:16 and 86 uh the McIntyre loan sign on Wood Street the select board will consider approving a new sign for McIntyre LOM at 117 Wood Street Street uh the 12T Square sign is requested by John Palmer on behalf of McIntyre LOM Inc it will be located on Town property a portion of the old RightWay at the end of the driveway at McIntyre LOM the new sign replaces an existing sign the same location will have similar color size wording and placement the major differences in the addition of the Tommy tribute which is a sticker that has been put on the company all company vehicles and Equipment since the passing of the company founder Tom McIntyre select board approval is required pered meod was owning bylaw section 210 178f which allows signs within rights of ways of certain streets provid that the sun shall not exceed 20 square fet and should not be illuminated uh we have a new employee the select board will consider confirming Town manager's appointment with Sean Tessier as a heavy equipment operator and the resignation the select board will consider accepting the resignation of Jeff Barnes from the Conservation Commission does anybody want to make a motion or break anything out from the consent agenda yeah um C and D you want to break out C and D okay just anyone else want to break anything out chair I entertain a motion to approve items A and B of the consent agenda as written so moved second any discussion all those in favor please say I I any opposed thank you I'll set item c a friend here actually I'm going to take D first because uh I want to make a motion that we accept the resignation of Jeff bonds from the Conservation Commission but I want to accept it with our gratitude for all that he's given to the town and uh send him something in that elk please that is an excellent motion is there a second second any discussion Jeff did a ton of work on behalf of the town of hackington for many many years and he will be very much missed uh and I'm glad we're recognizing him and getting something out to him all those in favor please say I I any opposed item C okay is uh Sean Tessy you're here okay uh I I was hoping that he was here so we could introduce him to the public and we could um ask him you know a few questions about why he wants to work for offington but if he's not here he's not here so we're generally trying to get away from live interviews like that yeah I know but that's just an introduction um so would anyone like to make a a motion for item C please I move the motion to confirm the town manager's appointment of Shan tesler Sean Sean Tessier heavy equipment operator Department of Public Works I'll second any further discussion all those in favor please say I I any oppose it's unanimous and so carries Sean welome welcome to the DPW uh with that and so we go back and if anyone wanted to do public forum further there was think they're working on something is everybody good with public forum now they took a note they went out I don't see anybody okay if they come back we'll try to work it in but maybe they decided not okay with that um but let me check because we're a little little ahead of schedule here uh the International Marathon Center we're going to get an update from Tim Koff and others I just want to make sure you're ready to go and all the folks that you wanted to be here are here is that accurate Mr kild off okay uh no one said that it gives you earlier time uh if you would be so kind and join us please with your colleagues that would be great and if you want to do introduction not that they are needed but uh please welcome welcome and good evening we appreciate the time of the select board my name is Mike Lawrence 43 North Street here in hopkington and I'm serving tonight as a member of the board of directors for the 26.2 foundation and specifically to provide an update about the International Marathon Center because it's been a long time since we've been here we deeply appreciate the partnership we've had with the town we thought you'd be interested in progress that we have there are several members of the board present and virtual Joe bald is on his way Lenny H Holden's here Nick ctis is here Bruce McDonald is on zoom and Michaela president's on Zoom plus Kim Chisum is here as well who serves as a development officer for the board we've developed and secured several Partners be great if we could Advance the slide to the next slide experts in their field it's all in the packet that we gave you so we'd rather spend time on the actual Marathon on Center uh we do want to highlight Dell technology has been an important partner to us which we deeply appreciate and we're excited about we're here tonight to give you an overview of the project provide an update and to share a timeline in your packets are the slides project case statement and uh a list of the partners of the voice of support and I would encourage you later tonight to go home and scan the QR code that's in the packet it's got a fabulous video of a high-end display a partner of ours that has worked on uh displays with museums in Washington DC so we're working with the best here and now we' like to advance to the next slide and introduce who we affectionally call the Grand poba the 26.2 Foundation Tim Kilda um Brian at your request um we did Supply the information we we're going to blow through I shouldn't use that term we're going to quickly go through these slides uh because you have the material uh uh in your packet but I would ask you as we proceed to um reorient your thinking about the marathon um inevitably when we start to talk about the International Marathon Center we get asked two questions the first is what does the baa think we can answer that and the second is what does the town think so I think what we'd like to do is spend some time reorienting you on on the size and the scope of the International Marathon Center uh with all due respect the Boston Marathon will be featured obviously in the International Marathon Center but it is not the focus uh we're trying to create a global institution that reaches marathoners all over the world so it's a very different it's a very different concept and I will tell you there is nothing like this that focuses on the marathon as the platform there's nothing like this that that exists in the world they're just just simply isn't and the other point I would make as you as you start looking at our mission statement it's not just uh the international marathons are our marathon is more than running 26.2 miles some of you have had that experience you've had multiple experiences with the running but as you well know there's more to running there's more to a marathon than running 26.2 miles and that's sort of the the the concept that we want to grasp and the most important element uh that will feature and focus on is the power of the human spirit and that gets us into a whole host of host whole host of subjects and I will just one more quick point we see this as a Connecting Point for issues that are important to us um we could talk 45 minutes about uh some of the the groups that we've been int introduced to but if you look at um indigenous people uh it's fascinating to know that Tarzan Brown who won the Marathon twice uh the story that that the Brown family can tell is the kind of story that we're going to be interested in so it's not just the elite Runners who broke a world record last year or something like that it's far more expensive so we'd like to have Scott Scott you know Scott Richardson Gorman Richardson Architects uh The Firm has distinguished itself and we've been fortunate to have Scott and his team involved with us from day one and he'll take you and give you a quick overview of the of the of the site and the building itself great thanks Tim um next slide uh gr as Tim has mentioned grla has been working with uh the 26.2 foundation for a number of years probably over 10 uh on basically helping to bring this uh incredible project to a visualization so what you see on the on the screen is a map uh that basically orients the uh viewer to where we are proposing this Marathon Center uh that's in the bright green kind of in the top center of the screen and that is the land that's uh the 26.2 Foundation has a long-term lease with the town uh down to the lower left we know where the Boston Marathon start line is uh right there at the common but we also wanted to highlight the team hoight statue that's in front of Center school and in the near future we will have a Bobby Gibb sculpture installed at two Hayden row uh so we're very excited about that and then as you head east obviously you'll be passing by the marathon Center and then as you get to Western Nurseries there is the spirit of the uh Marathon statue there um so next slide so we have uh basically developed a concept that incorporates and responds to the exhibit designs that Healey ker have developed uh and basically the building responds to those uh exhibits and we be providing uh about 8,000 square ft of dedicated interactive exhibit space uh a main lobby and entrance hall which will have about 3,000 square ft of a changing exhibit area could go to the next slide um there'll be multi-use space it's available for rental and for activities um there will also be a 250 seat Theater which will provide an orientation experience for first-time visitor visitors uh and multiple visitors we envision again classrooms a library and continuing education that will really focus on health wellness and fitness and how the marathon as Tim said is really more than running 26.2 miles uh basically this will be a world class facility dedicated to telling the history of the marathon around the world but also how it ties into Health wellness and fitness there'll be um again we anticipate multiple class classes will be visiting this on class trips so there'll be a convenient drop off and pick up uh for buses um and again there'll be state-of-the-art conference and meeting facilities for rental uh next slide and there will be a cafe and gift shop as well as we anticipate this would be a great focus and location for a trail Hub uh we anticip ipate that the North and South trails that are exist and will be to be existing in hopkington will again this will be kind of a nice organizing location for a trail head next slide just summarizes pretty much what I've just been chatting about uh so we're again very excited that this project will be instrumental in telling the story of the marathon will be a world class uh building and will bring uh not again Fame to hopkington even more than just the start of the Boston Marathon but it'll also be a center for uh for marathoners around the world and back to Tim next slide please give you and on to the next one please we'll give you just a little quick um artist rendering U examples of the kind of exhibit exhibits we're talking about state of the highly interactive this would be um a room of substantial size would had which would have a wraparound screen that would be the introduction to visitors uh you are familiar with in in in museums and in places like this Missoni that have this and that's the introduction to the marathon I will point out that again we're not talking about one Marathon we're talking about going back to 490 BC uh which was the Battle of the marathon which is essentially the spiritual beginning of the of the marathon Run next one please uh visitors would then enter in this is uh sort of the main exhibit area every Marathon uh has a different feel uh a different Spirit to it so this room is uh an attempt to try to capture that one of the highlights of this room is that uh you'll notice on you on the left side of the screen there's an area with someone that looks like they're they're running that will be an area where people can literally go in and test the the speed even if they're walking against uh the world a world record marathon holder the other thing that's really important for us is para athletes so we'll be able to that we'll be able to do that wheelchair athletes uh as well uh and then the if we can if we can accomplish this you'll see the screens on the right somebody wants to look at the Tokyo Marathon that'll be dra will be brought up uh on the screen in the interactive next slide please uh this is one area that I'm particularly excited about We call we call this uh uh the Hall of Excellence we don't call it a Hall of Fame uh we don't like that term we like Hall of Excellence because in this Hall we will be able to identify people who who have expressed and and made uh contributions to their communities it could be across the board one of you could be the uh after your tenure on the on the select board could in fact be part of that Hall of Excellence but we're we're looking at again broadening the base the the you'll go you'll see the intera of screen you punch on Joan Bono uh film will come up about Joan Bono and and her uh her historic contributions to the marathon run so that'll give you to and then that this leads into other areas there'll be a science and technology uh area exhibit obviously you know what that's all about there will also be o be one around nutrition Health Health and Welfare uh so we want to we want to give people a a a dive a deep dive into all of the aspects of marathoning and you all you don't need me to tell you about how important nutrition and fitnesses U and the other thing I'll add before we we move on to the next slides this is not a one Monon a year institution we hear that a lot well you'll have a lot of visitors in April if we have a lot of visit in April and we don't have a lot of visitors throughout the rest of the year we have not achieved our goal so this is a 12mon a year uh facility that will be open to the public and in our licensing agreement uh with the community it's really clear that uh we're open for Community use that's an important part and I want to touch on the trails look there's a lot of lot of consternation about Trails we are sitting on an opportunity to create Trails through this community community that do that that will Ex will actually benefit not just not just Runners but the community in general just think about if we can ever pull this off going from Milford through this the center of town through the International Marathon Center up through Legacy Farms and connecting with the state park there's not a place in Eastern Massachusetts that can that can speak to that kind of potential uh okay next slide please I'm not going to go through this we are uh in the process we have contracted uh with a consulting firm they are in the process of doing an economic uh uh uh economic study on the on the potential and the benefits to the community we expect that to be done in about a month and as soon as we have that report we'll be happy to share it with you uh but it it it's it's pretty clear you know we don't the last item Leverage sh in his Marathon footprint I will tell you out of Jack Fleming's mouth the president of the baa said there is no other major marathon in the world that starts in a community like this it simply doesn't exist you go to New York and they start on a bridge well good for them so that's a real benefit for us uh that this International Marathon Center coupled with what's happening in Main Street makes this a pretty exciting place place to visit so that's really what we're looking at next slide please this is where we stand at this point we're talking about a $35 million project uh privately funded uh the capital campaign we've got a strategy we've got that laid out you you have a a case statement in your in your packets uh you can see the goals for for 24 uh we're in a quiet phase we're talking to people who are uh are are interested in in the projects we're talking about I have not found you you all know me I have not found one person not one person has well they may they may have said you're crazy but I have found one person that said this is not a good idea and this is not doable so here's the this is the outline in the objective um we we're we're hope to start we not hope we will start doing formal uh sessions with conservation planning board and so forth to start this process moving but this is all great we've got tremendous support in the community but it's the money that counts we have to start bringing we have to start bringing those donations in next slide just take one second amby burfoot is a Boston Marathon Champion he's the former editor of Runners World he's written about eight books in and around marathoning this captures what we're trying to do in hopkington as clearly as concisely as we' found and I just take 30 seconds that really says it all and I'll leave you with one uh one point an important one we've we have in in this community something called the Hy Center for the Arts which draws people from 30 some OD communities we have a facility that's run by the metro west YMCA and we will now and we now have the 26.2 Foundation the collaboration that and the possibilities that exists uh we're already starting to discuss that's a powerful story and a powerful set of of of of really quality organizations that that you have at your fingertips if we're going to succeed this needs to be a community supported event uh and we've had that so far so we'd be happy to respond to any any questions comments that you have and there may be others out here that have questions we'd be happy to do that as well yeah thank you very much for coming in this evening and giving us an update I'm a big believer in this as you know I think it's a great opportunity not only for Hoppington but for Metro West for Massachusetts uh I think it enhances our brand uh significantly in a very positive way and brand development is something we all should strive for as you know leaders in the community trying to drive the business of hopkington and drive the the culture of hopkington to a to a great place so I love it but let's uh let's go to the board Mrs Rush um I thank you for bringing the presentation to us and I I am really excited about it um and I wish you luck with all the fundraising it it looks you know I hope it can all come to fruition in not too long um love seeing the progress thank you for keeping us involved if there's anything we can do to support you guys further love to know but I think this is a great thing there are marathons everywhere I mean there Washington Chicago Berlin London uh you know everywhere Maine New Hampshire and we what I think that you guys need or that we need as a town to is some sort of a a dog and pony show to go to each marathon and give our case let let marathoners everywhere know this is happening and that it's happening for them as much as for the Boston Marathon or for hopkington in general it's it's happening for the world of marathoners and uh I think we have to kind of get out there and and spread the word with them I mean there's a baa in all of these communities don't call themselves that but they're organizers we really have to send people there to talk to them too and and get the word out that this is for the world and not just for hton and Boston Mr manam now along the same lines great vision and we have wonderful leaders dedicated uh Community leaders on it uh thank you for your work and uh pushing it forward certainly super excited and um a believer of it as well and I believe that we are a proud Marathon town and this will add uh the icing on the top and certainly can't wait for it to happen and um I would just ask if there is anything you think from the board or from the town Administration we can do to help or to expedite the Mission please let us know and one thing comes to mind is um I know 35 million you're on it and progressing on that front if there is any opportunity to you know ground break or anything to um take advantage of our CPC fund or anything like that uh I don't know if you have explored that but um anyway we can you know expedite I'm all for it groundbreaking would be a good thing this is we we hear you and uh the sooner the better th this is the start for us we're we're in a a different phase uh we need to be in all honesty much more assertive uh we've been we always want to be polite but now we need to be assertive and we need to move this idea out beyond the community that's where the resources are going to come from so your support is critical I told you that's that's the first question people ask what's the community think the second is what does the baa think and they're they're clearly uh a a supporter of ours we're meeting uh this week with members uh of the Board of Governors of the baa will formalize that relationship going forward but we've the 26.2 Foundation has been receiving charity number since 1996 uh so we're we what when we move forward we communicate with them great well we're very excited I think everybody here you know we're all representing the town of Hopkinson residents and uh this would be a really uh great opportunity for the community as I mentioned earlier and uh I'm I'm thrilled that that we're working on it so I mean we wish you the best and we're here to help so there's one more thing you can do we have just started to work with a registry of motor vehicles and we have are offering a license PL oh cool and I'm sure you'll all be interested in that we're excited about this um we've done a lot of research on it uh we're we've we've also received a lot of interest and so let me just this is a a keychain for your car keys when you get your new license plate thank you coming up pretty soon so how much is a license plate I see there's an extra 100 bucks for the first 100 but where is it say what the plate itself is what what is it $40 top of your regist every two years nice nice very cool really nice in terms of promotion grounded here on this community so there's a lot of exposure for the for hopkington as well is an excellent idea that's great love it thank you thank you guys very much I appreciate it very much thank you okay uh following that great news let's move to finances I believe our CFO is here and other and if they could join us Elaine do you want to introduce the topic I'll introduce who's here CJ pette Treasurer collector and KY left CFO and they're here to provide the fourth quarter um investment and support great thank you hello please go right ahead um so we're going to just do a general overview of the report I won't read it for btim um thank you so so just to go over it really quick uh this is covering the period of April 1st to June 30th so the end of the fiscal year uh we earned close to a million dollars in income for this quarter so we're happy with that um we have noticed that interest rates are stabilizing um we're actually expecting they may decrease in the coming months uh due to some rumors of the FED Reserve lowering the prime rate um so we are expecting that for this current quarter we're in to start seeing a decline in interest rates um but in other news for finance we uh have decided proactively to transfer some of our money from mmdt we had a very large amount of money um in that depository trust uh so we beded different banks looked for the best rates um tried to look for our best options um and we found Country Bank which is fully insured um through FDIC andd uh which do Municipal banking which is hard to find um for both for it to be fully insured and to do Municipal banking it it's hard to find now um so we worked with them really closely for a long time thought of our options Kyla myself and Elaine both agree all agreed that this is a good thing um so we are earning a 5% interest rate on the money market uh which keeps our funds fully liquid so we don't have have to worry about it's in a short-term CD we have to wait until it matures to withdraw from it it's a money market so we can take out of it whenever we need so in our opinion we just thought having 60 plus million dollar in One bank account is a lot of money to have parked in one spot um we did lose a little bit of interest on the rates the difference between mmdt and Country Bank um but we think it's the best interest in the town have it protected over earning a half a percentage more um with with mmdt uh the state law does require um that the highest possible rate of interest reasonably available uh be accounted for taking account of safety liquidity and yield so with that said we all were in agreement that the safety and liquidity is more important than the half percentage rate on the interest so a little bit of back history for Country Bank uh just for the residents I know it's a lot of money to be transferring um Country Bank is a well-known Bank to municipalities uh they're used by a few dozen municipalities uh with around the area they're fully insured like I said through FDIC and d uh their most recent verab Bank rating which is who we use to vet our banks is a green Triple Star which is the highest rating VAR Bank gives um so that's always a good sign additionally to that it's a blue ribbon designation from um ver bank and basically what the Blue Ribbon is is uh it's a recognition for banks for meeting unusually high standards and exceptional attention to safety and soundness so you don't see that with many banks we're really excited to see that uh and we check that monthly um so they send us a report of banks change within the area uh and we review that right now banks are pretty stable especially the banks we bank with we haven't seen many changes um like I said Kyla and I and Elaine had all worked on this together and we think it's a great it's a great thing for our future um so in line with the fiscal year 25 budget we transferred 85337 to opab um 700,000 to stabilization and 1,942 to the school stabilization Fund in July we finalized The Prudent investor legislation that was approved at the T 2022 town meeting under article 50 this was approved unanimously um but it was never put into effect by the town um I think there may have been a change of the treasurers at that point so it had never it kind of got lost um so we were able to find the the vote uh and see it was voted unanimously ly um so we're working on working with our um our investors uh to get that set in place and then last but not least we look forward to presenting in January uh we decided to do it every two quarters instead of every quarter good great thank you very much anything else you want to share no you'll we we may have some questions so just hang on yeah Mr Man um no this is good good news and I think overall return wise um just to recap what what was the key difference coverage and interest rate wise between the two Banks can you rer yep so mmdt is not covered by any insurance um mmbt it stands for Massachusetts Municipal depository trust so it is a state organization but it does not have any insurance so other than FDIC other than the 250 FDIC um so that's a lot of money that we had parked in one place that's not insured granted they've never had a failure since 1980 um but with the recent you know kind of unstable markets we've seen with some banks we just thought it might be a good idea to move some of it around sure and the Country Bank covers it all yes Country Bank is fully insured so 100% of that deposits insured um so it's a half a percentage less interest with Country Bank versus uh mmdt and that's mostly because Country Bank is you know a working bank so they they do have to make a profit somewhere thank you I I understood it I just wanted to make sure everyone gets it clearly and appreciate that uh oversight and action I think it's very important given that what we have seen with svb and other banks corre in near recent times so good uh good move thank you thank you hi hello uh I was looking over numbers and and different things and I am just really pleased with your report and your reportings uh we certainly have Diversified a lot compared to what we had years ago and and that's really I think part of what's keeping us afloat now um from this information I get the feeling that the the town is in really pretty good shape and uh our real problem now is debt how how do we how do we convert some of this money into uh lowering the debt um so as far as lowering debt um I guess free cash could be used to pay off debt at a town meeting vote town meeting vote yeah yeah so interest interest acred interest that we get throughout the year ends up in free cash it's not budgeted for so any interest we earn does go towards free cash which then could be used for whatever the town decides deed and it's really more of a strategy discussion as opposed to yeah it it it's going to come up yeah it's coming along thank you very much but this is wonderful set Mrs R Bush yeah thank you for bringing this to us and putting all the detail in the packet I think the public really appreciates that um You' mentioned that you were only going to do every other quarter you're going to come before us but will you still be posting a quarter report on the website every quarter okay I wanted to make sure that that would be happening okay I don't think I have any other questions but I really do appreciate the detailed information course um first of all thank you this was extremely helpful this was really my first chance to kind of dig into the investment side of things your report was very straightforward I agree with kind of the strategies that you've taken um so that was all very good I just had a couple questions around like how long have we been working with bar Bartholomew so we don't know an exact date of when Bartholomew started um but them can you explain who Bartholomew is please just barthol is a investment company that works with I can't tell you the percentage off the top of my head but it's a pretty high percentage of municipalities in the state um so they're really their main focus is with Municipal Investments um they have a whole dedicated team uh that works specifically with municipalities um like I said I can't go back and say a specific date of when it started off the top of my my head but it's been in existence for a while okay um and tot totally understand that so do you feel like our positions have changed a lot over the last couple years because I look at kind of the diversification between equities fixed income which I I was assuming was when I started digging in split between kind of government back bonds corporate bonds correct do you feel like those positions have changed over the last couple years um we're both fairly to these rules but from what we've seen it hasn't changed significantly but part of the um prudent investor legislation is to allow us to diversify even further so we hope to dive into that with them in the future okay right now a lot of the Investments um are invested in what the state calls the safe list um so that basically gives our financial advisors a list of companies that the state says okay these are these are what you can you know invest in and it's a pretty small list yeah I noticed like a lot of Blue Chip stocks at least for the equities part and again I'm very new to this whole Municipal Finance thing so like just what's your both your personal opinion on when I see like our equities specific investments in Blue Chips like why would we do that over a mutual fund that had those same types of stocks kind of already built in there um we can take that up with barthol we haven't had those in depth conversations yet but we can definitely okay the notion of a safe list that's probably subject to some interpretation right across America there's all kinds of views about what the safe list probably is so I'm glad to hear that you guys are going to get into this a little bit and start to dig and try and figure out what makes the most sense for the community understanding you know safe I'm sorry print off the okay there you go it's not very long it's not very long and I will say it's very outdated so it's a lot of you know cocacola Pepsi McDonald's the pretty common stuff that comes you know pretty much stays the same it might grow a little bit but it might go down a little bit tends to stay the same I think a a full review of where we're investing you know I know you got a long list of things you got to do new in the roles but uh something like that would probably make a lot of sense okay for sure anything else no that's helpful so you've mentioned Country Bank a couple of times this is not Countrywide no okay Countrywide was a failed financial institution that a lot of people suffered through uh years ago so this is nothing to do with Countrywide right I know that but I'm just wanting to that very clear I I should have went on to detail a little bit more about Country Bank they're a local bank to Massachusetts um we try obviously our hardest to keep everything local uh to support our our businesses around us um so they're they're not a huge Bank they're decent size I'd say they're pretty pretty relevant to uni bank in size um they're local they've been in business since 1850 um it's a savings bank but nothing to do with country but nothing to do I just I know that but I just want to make sure because we'll can hear it now a little bit uh okay great and you mentioned early on about state regulations a piece of the the discussion here a little bit ago um so do is all over this in terms of what we're doing with these Banks and we're following all that there's no is is do even involved in this it's Mass General law actually that's that sets the terms so Mass General law uh chapter 44 section 55b uh talks about how the treasurer can invest funds okay um and kind of the importance in their opinion of How It's invested um so highest possible rate first uh and then safety liquidity and yield after that for any transaction do we have to go outside of Hopkinson to get approval from the state like at the do no no it's a it's a recommendation from M Journal law interesting kind of regulate us in a lot of ways but they don't regulate us about where we put 60 million bucks no but we also have to follow the town of hopkington financial policy and make sure that we are um remaining diligent yeah and in your years of experience in your career you feel good about this right because I know You' got some serious experience with things like this okay great all right any other questions comments um one last one so I know you said and you're you're both kind of like newer to this so we're heading into budgeting season I know how busy that's going to be do you expect to kind of dig into the Investments ahead of the next what two quarters away meeting two quarters update yes yeah we can do that just curious yeah yep okay thank you thank you thank you very much appreciate your time of course item number seven the redaction policy Mrs Lazarus if you want to introduce this topic for us please thank you um so in your there's a draft policy um prepared by uh Brian beram Town Council uh in response to the discussion with the board of redacting documents before B okay and Brian is here as well Brian if you wouldn't mind joining us do you want Brian to walk through the policy a little bit alane or how do you want to do it yeah I think um we can walk through the policy uh but it does um as a as a town employee who has had to you know deal with records requests over time and and consider redactions um it is I think something useful for Town employees to to process these requests so I'm happy to see it okay um I think it's a fairly lengthy document is that fair it is definitely lengthy um you know you try to try to approach it from the standpoint of somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience doing this so um I don't when I wrote it I didn't assume anything you know you try to break everything down into each of the discrete steps that you'd want to do and we also you know some of the length of it is we just wanted to make it helpful in the sense of you know giving a a short summary for example of all the exemptions in the public records law one can go to the public records law guide but you know giving people sort of a a on stop shop if you will to sort of say these are the kinds of things I need to be looking at and since there's a number of exemptions that's probably a good almost two pages of this but um yeah there is there is some length to this but I think the you know when you're actually doing the process itself um that's really section two which is the general redaction procedures and sort of the rest of it is to try to impart knowledge on an employee who may not do this a lot to say you should take frequent breaks you know if you're doing a lengthy document you should break it up over several days these are the types of things that are exempt from disclosure um when we redact these are the things to be careful with so um do you want to present further Brian or do you want to just have a dialogue with us or how do you want to do it uh you know I I don't know that I have too much else to add to it I mean I think that if if I'm giving you sort of my elevator speech right like what is the real takeaway to this it is that every redaction process has one responsible employee so you know the buck stops with somebody to just keep a record that each of the steps are are followed there are at least two sets of eyes on every redaction project um with sort of three checks an initial you know review of IT second set of eyes to go through it then you implement the actual redaction you know the physical or I guess in these days it's electronic sort of blacking things out and then sort of a final check once that's done um to be to be careful that's sort of the core of it um you know the way it's written for really sensitive records lengthy records you know there's there's instructions to not notify the town manager's office you can add additional reviewers you can do different things to supplement it but I would say that's the core of it and um you know beyond that I'm I'm happy to engage in a dialogue again I I tried to write this so that somebody could essentially read it and follow it so um you know hopefully it's self-explanatory when one reads it great thank you so um just a one question and then or comment and then we'll kind of go to everyone else just to set this up maybe a little bit obviously this is in response to the situation we had in town uh earlier this year uh this is in response to you coming before the board about a month or so back maybe six weeks ago now to discuss what happened and what should we do different going forward right so my question is in this redaction policy that you're presenting proposing or presenting and proposing um what's different now than what went on earlier this year uh sure so well first off it it's formalized in a written document I would say that um you know I I engaged in a lengthy discussion of kind of what went wrong the last time and I think if if I was to emphasize sort of what this policy really tries to address is is you know I I think I left one of the things that I said was is there was a lot of people with opportunity to catch the mistake but not a lot of people with the responsibility if you will so you know the idea of this policy at its core to address the failure isn't to really tell people you know review the record better that doesn't work with human beings um you know we all make mistakes it's to assign sort of one person to keep track of has this person done it and then when we circulated it to these other people did they look at it too um and it really is to add that you know sort of level of discipline to make sure you're going through all of those checks and and doing some additional things so that there's not um essentially a Miss um you know I I can I can tell you that that would have addressed some of the issues before you know I I can't tell you that there will never be a mistake again but certainly you know in looking with a lot of humility and self-reflection on what happened the last time I wrote this policy you know not only to implement the things that one would typically do in redacting but to look at what went wrong um previously and to try to control for that and address it so you're proposing that the town adopts this redaction policy correct uh that's correct and it would would your firm also adopt this redaction policy yeah if parallel with us yeah if if this is you know the town of hopton's policy in my view it would apply not just to town employees but to anybody who works for the town um and that would include us so anything we do for Hopkinson we would have to follow this policy thank you Mrs rder Bush yeah thank you for doing this so that was one of my questions we've not had a written policy for this before correct correct all right and then in one place um or many places it mentions SE sensitive records and says defined later I didn't see where they were actually defined um so maybe we could that could be added somewhere um sure I may not have and then um so this is a really um but good log and comprehensive process um but we also have the 10day limit usually to provide public records and I know we can ask for an extension when something is taking longer than 10 days which of course we would do but it made me wonder too if we need to budget to hire more staff like another public records officer or um budget more for attorneys for because the second sensitive records would need to be also be reviewed by the attorney if people were unsure and then um yeah I think those are the questions that I had that had answered I can look through it if if in one of the revisions the definition of sensitive records got deleted is you know this was lengthy we were trying to sort of winnow it down to its core Essence and not have it be too long we can certainly add that back in um you know in terms of hiring another employee that is frankly the difficulty of the public records law for a lot of towns your size is that you know it's not unfortunately it's not a linear conveyor belt of requests and you can sort of say okay we need this number of people because we get this number of requests a week the reality is is that they fluctuate they go up and down and so um you know there may be potential times where the town may need to hire a temporary employee or or somebody like that um but I I would really sort of leave that to the town manager I think that you know just adding an employee for public records might put you in a situation where you know you've you've increased you have another salary potentially benefits and then the person is idle in a slow period of time for records it's you know you're not it's probably good you're not the city of Boston but you know a city that size gets a lot lot more requests and it's a little easier to have dedicated employees than a town the size of Hopkinson yeah that's more of a question for Budget season if we or we could even budget stiped money for or like you're saying for a temporary worker for as needed yep um thank you like I like the work that went into this so you mentioned that if hopkington adopts this you guys working on behalf of hopkington would adopt the same procedures correct um I I would go beyond adopt I mean with it's a direct to us we follow the town's directives and so this would apply to us yeah so I just want to make sure so in a scenario like that I mean all these procedures talk about like appointing an employee right is that something that if we appoint one from hopkington you would point one from your side under review as well do we appoint your firm specifically I I would suggest that in each case we could you know if there if there's a referral to Legal I could work that out with the town manager I would be you know I I would in Vision the best way to do the policy is not having two people sort of do the same job and trying to pass it off the idea is is that there's one person whose job is to say this you know there's nine steps this is the checklist right we did this one we did this one and then there's one document at the end before the records go out and there's you know I'm old school I'm thinking of like a pencil check or something next to it but there's a check mark next to everything and it's unambiguous we did all of it so that that's sort of the way I view it okay thank thank you what set yel well I'm I'm terribly glad to have some kind of U document to use as a as a guideline uh I I just would like to know this is going to be lengthy it's it's a lengthy process it's not we're not going to be able to give out a document the next day or anything like that and you know people are impatient today so how do we let them know that this is the process and this is what we're doing to get them the documentation they want we we can certainly you know if it if we get a request for records I I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be that lengthy if it's a a three-page document you know there's a lot of steps but there's not a lot of you know there's not a lot of text to review so that could be fairly quickly um you know there are requests that maybe for emails or whatever else where there's a more work than people may appreciate that goes into the background uh particularly by the it folks who have to run the searches and pull stuff together so I I think when we get that kind of request you know so one of the first things you do and in the policy you sort of eval evaluate the records create a duplicate record set we're going to have a pretty early sense of just how long this might take and there's nothing that prohibits the town from reaching out to the requestor and saying hey look you know we've identified X number of potential records we need to riew them for redactions um you know the reality is in email infrastructure you know a lot of times the same email will generate like three or four records CU it's coming from each inbox so it just takes us longer and so I think that that's sort of the stage early on where one can reach out to the requestor and say look you know we have to review these things there's a lot of Records it's going to take us a little bit of time um you know if we need to request an extension from the supervisor of Public Records Office the requester you know gets a copy of that but there's there's nothing that would prohibit us even before that from just shooting a quick email uh picking up a phone making a quick phone call to say this is our expected time frame this is sort of where we are thank you Mr Man yeah thank you thank you Brian for the good work and appreciate your humility I think um spending a lot of time is warranted on this and very important given the context so fully appreciate that and your Coles question I'm sorry let me Mr Manan please finish go ahead um so my uh I have a few observations and suggestions and then a couple of questions one is that it would be helpful to have a kind of flow diagram somewhere so we can follow it a little more clearly and uh communicate to the town residents as well in a u brief uh manner uh second is kind of question and comment do we have a way to uh categorize the documents based on the sensitivity or level of sensitivity and the reason I asked that is I think for you know uh and I know we get sometimes a significant number of um document requests like emails and others but if we can categorize them appropriately the ownership that you mentioned which is great uh can also be assigned based on the level of sensitivity in other words an ongoing investigation document versus an email from you know what Mr Manan wrote last week there there's difference unless you know there's some significant um other case involved so if in that case the latter case when it's highly sensitive how can we ensure there is you know some more additional scrutiny or level of um kind of uh expertise that we can assign more of course we can't assign it to all 500 requests that's one thing to think about and second is uh maybe you have it but I didn't read the whole document as detailed um what is the final approval process so we have an employee and it could be by employee an assigned employee from your firm uh who works for the town on Consulting basis but event eventually when it's done before it goes out what is the approval mechanism I see the reviews first second third which is great can you elaborate a little bit um so I mean the the final step in the process is is that the responsible employee you know shall confirm with all those involved in writing that each step of these procedures is complete so that to me is the you know check box or electronic or whatever it's basically everything set to go out the door but now we're going to confirm that went through each of the steps and then once that happens um the records at that point redeemed ready for production and I I think at that point it's the records access officer um whether it came in through the clerk's office or a specific records access officer um within a department who probably transmits them back unless you know along the way there were discussions that sort of put it somewhere else you know so for example if you had a a high sensitivity record you know again since you're having the discussion early on about what does this review set look like you know that discussion is is likely to entail their police records or their tax records or you know if we get challenge to a a petition or something it might be like um signature cards or whatever you know there's there's um so many different things that may come in and and it really is going to depend on what the record is and who is the responsible Keeper of the records and and that maybe that person at the end who gives the go-ahead or if they're particularly sensitive it may be the you know Town manager's office I I think that it's just going to vary depending on what was asked for and what is the size of the request thank you that makes sense I love the idea of a flowchart some kind of flow diagram to help people kind of visualize you know if this then that if that then that sort of thing and follow follow the path which is great um obviously we would need a training program mhm uh within Town Hall within town government in general um and this applies to everybody except the school department is that correct this would apply to everybody except the school department because they do their own thing there and they have their own redaction process and they obviously have to do a lot of redaction there as well but we're not talking about the schools correct correct okay so who would we identify as needing to be trained I would say at least every re record access officer and then um we would um potentially we'll have to involve more people um train anyone who you know in a department who will be involved in reviewing those departments records yeah so I think we have to build that comprehensive list I don't think it's just department heads right I mean I don't know like you tell us but no it isn't just I would my sense is we'd have to have others trained as well but I think we have to go through a formal training process for redaction uh records and this new redaction policy and we'd have to make sure that there's some kind of I don't want to say exam but some kind of sign off by your firm and maybe your office somewhere that those 28 individuals have gone through this training and they've they've uh you know demonstrated Proficiency in doing the work that we're describing here that needs to be done so I think a training program would be important piece of this puzzle to add um and I guess the one person who owns it that'll change depending on the situation um those are the two real big things I wanted to mention this does slow things down though and you know we had we had a comment earlier this evening at the beginning of the the meeting about a foyer request that was filed and still haven't heard feedback and so forth I mean by way of example is the redaction policy or what was the redaction process at that time is that slowing things down in that particular case that you do you know or what's going on there um I I think a lot of the you know the searches um for emails you know depending on that request there was a very large email set that was returned and then you know we have to review each of those emails for things I mean it can be as benign as a personal email address but under exemption C the Privacy exemption we actually do redact those so if somebody sent you something from their personal email we go through the emails we make a log of it it creates a PDF they redact it um so it just takes us some that particular case is still a project ongoing is that fa I think it's just about done I would expect that it would be responded to within the next day or two all right thank you um and would all this though eventually flow it would flow to to Joe's point it's going to flow to your firm it's going to flow would it all flow through a lane though like is you know I I guess I'm when we say one person owns it one person in each Department owns it or one person owns it like that is a big difference there in my view I mean there are different records access officers for different departments and so they would be managing records U requested from that department um can you can you go a little deeper there please El a records act officer so uh the town clerk is the main records access officer and the town clerk designates additional records access officers in certain departments that receive a volume of requests so for example um a records request to the land use department for example for property records um it's very routine um typically no redactions necessary it gets processed very quickly um but in other departments or across um across many departments say emails that's something that multiple people are going to be working on and for something like this you know would they have to be one person designated to be the the contact and I who would make that decision would you make make that decision as the town manager think could be made uh depending on who is most familiar with the content of the records and who knows what they're looking at yeah I so I guess maybe my question is who who tracks and manages what one person okay how about this what one person tracks and manages who the one person is you know what I'm saying so the overall records access officer is the town clerk so perhaps that's it could be any person I think it's just in in regard to each request it could vary and we need to find some person a lot of times these requests cut across departments and so the point to having one person whomever it is that's designated is to avoid the scenario where you have one hand not you know doing something the other one doesn't know about it and having a Miss um so it could be the clerk it could be the town manager's office it could be you know it could be as simple as saying look you know we have I don't know how we manage our requests but if we have a list of requests if it's a database or whatever you create a field in the database this is the person who's tracking this one just something that you know keeps that and then someone would be the keeper of the records I don't know maybe it's the database maybe that's all it is but there's got to be some way of tracking who's been assigned so there's no ambiguity about who that one person is from wherever they are in town government could I add something because we do this at work too but um there are software systems you could purchase and well looked at one that would be for the police and the Town Clerk and the school department would all use that and that would store that sort of information about who was working on it when it was processed and then if someone else makes the exact same request it's already right there ready the final redacted document that could be given out um then I think there are compe there are other software programs similarly there's probably a variety we have looked at a few of those y yeah I think the town clerk's office I I know they had run that by me at one point that they were looking at I don't know the status of that candidly but I know it was being looked into but they're not free that's it seems like the town clerk's office is The Logical Choice here but we'd obviously have to have the town clerk on board and you know there's there's work there so we'd have to figure it out anything else through the chair I I think this great progress and thank you again uh and if we add some of these clarifications that would be super helpful now with all these discussions uh just to be clear among ourselves and for the town as residents can you take a little bit of pain of walking us through what the new process would be should we had to redact the document that got messed up again uh yeah so the request would come in um you know it would it would come into some records access officer you know in this case it would probably be the the police department and the records access officer there um you know it would be that would be certainly a sensitive record request as is frankly most things that go to the police department given the nature of records that they keep so the town manager's office would be notified you we go through each of the steps so we would you know designate a responsible employee I think those discussions would yield somebody pretty senior for that um and then you would do you know you always create a duplicate a record set I don't want to skip any steps we obviously never work with Originals here um you would do a first line review so that would just be the first pass the person who's doing that is you know sort of noting places where there would be a redaction are there keywords that are associated with those types of redactions keeping a list of those words um which we will use later for um OCR searches through the document um if it's a lengthy record you know that person should be taking frequent breaks they may have to break it up over several days but then they get done and so they hand it off to another person who hasn't looked at the records yet send a fresh set of eyes that person goes through um you know with the record that was previously redacted um that was previously reviewed for redactions so the redactions at that point are flagged they do a second review um fresh set of eyes Under the same protocols um since it's a sensitive record you would actually probably have another person um of a supervisory level do another review as well um in that particular document when all of that is and and frankly there's nothing in this policy that would prohibit you from adding as many layers of review as you want subject to the time constraints of responding to the request so once you have had all the reviewers you deem are necessary to review it um at that point you know you would to look at the policy actually I'm running on memory here but so we we did all that so at that point we sort of confirm that all of those reviews are done um you implement the redactions so that's the electronic actually going through um and and under this policy it's you know it's pretty specific you're probably going to want to use some form of redaction software actually you are going to want to use some form of redaction software um there there's horror stories from years ago where people would black things out a Microsoft Word or something and you copy or paste the information out of it so you do that you basically create sort of this record set that is presumably redacted that point the keyword list that was developed when everything was visible you can run those types of searches through um in this case that almost certainly would have caught the mistake um and then in any event once you have the redacted record set then you have to go back and have somebody review with it actually blacked out to make sure one final time that we're satisfied with the record that's being produced um so yeah I'm confident that this this protocol taken you know in each step would have caught that thank you thank you for the work through it sounds robust enough and at the end so the assigned person he or she would finally be making the comfortable call of releasing it yeah yeah the responsible employee would be making the confident call that okay every single thing was checked off on here um you know I feel comfortable that the protocol was followed that multiple people have put their eyes on this um with a responsibility to catch anything that should be caught and so that they would have the comfort you know not not in just the people but in the process I mean that that at the end of the day is what you're doing is constructing a process that has several layers that takes the human element of mistake out of it you can be confident that a reliable process was followed thank you Brian I know taking so our agenda item had us consider a draft policy for redacting public record records um and I think we've given some feedback on some things that maybe can enhance the draft policy that's before us this evening so it's not that we would need to vote on anything right now I think it would be important to take this feedback Brian and go back and kind of tweak a few things uh I do believe we're on the right path here uh to get a much more stringent and uh robust uh to your word Mr Manan uh process in place which I think is great but I don't I'm not sure we're there just yet is there a timeline that we are do we have anything major that we have to consider that we're holding off on because of this or anything like that are we proceeding now what we would typically no we well we don't want to typically do what we did in the past right so how how are we what's the transition look like I guess is my question I mean the transition for me is is that anything that comes across my desk will follow you know the draft as we update it for us to adopt the policy as a community you know as a as a local government I mean I can turn the the suggested tweaks around this week um if want to expedite that that's not a problem and what are your thoughts on when we want to vote on something of this nature yeah I think as soon as we can um we'll start using it right away as far as procedures go and as soon as we can adopt that and disate it to everyone else I think that would be great and begin the training so could we target the next meeting for this sure is that okay with everybody else yeah good okay I I would just add that if we are given a supposedly redacted document from anywhere we can't assume that it is we have to put our process on top of that we have to complete our process do all the check offs even if we received it from a consultant or something okay let's table it for now Brian thank you for your work I appreciate your followup and um we'll go from here that's good thanks a lot thank you okay moving moving on item number eight on the agenda is the Bay Path Humane Society a lease Amendment at 66 FR Street the select board will review a proposed amendment to the Bay Path lease agreement for a 5 acre partiel of 66 Fruit Street which would Grant a one-year extension of time to being to begin construction and allow an increase in building square footage elain so uh as you know uh the town leases a 5 acre parcel at 66 Fruit Street to Bay Path human society and they are working on their fundraising and development of plans to construct an animal shelter that location uh the town has a lease with bath and uh they have uh there's Provisions in there and they're requesting um an extension of one year to begin construction uh as they go through the permitting process and that will and also to allow an increase in building square footage by an additional 2,000 square ft based on the building design and the modern needs of animal shelters thank you does anybody have any questions comments just one quick question why is it for one year is that sufficient I think or as the protocol they're asking for I think they're they're working on their plans and I think are embarking on the the permitting process through the planning board shortly okay thank you Mary Joe uh no I'm I'm inclined to give them the the year that they want they they have been fundraising they do need uh more money and more space so I'm I'm inclined to give it to them okay Joe no questions I agree with Mary Joe seems like an easy one Mrs Rush yep I appreciate the detail they provided and it does look like they're well on their way to finishing their fundraising so I'd have no problem giving them one year great so the chair entertain a motion to approve the lease Amendment at 66 Fruit Street to Grant a one-year extension of time to begin construction and allow an increase in building square footage who Moved second any further sorry um and that does that authorize the tell me to sign the lease Amendment documents keep forgetting about this motion stuff U am I on here want me to read the whole motion uh if you would please I move to approve the amendment to the Bay paath Humane Society lease and to authorize the town manager to sign the lease Amendment documents okay so we have that motion as there a second sorry okay great any further discussion all those in favor please say I I any opposed it's unanimous so carries all set on number eight item number nine discuss budgetary planning measures including hiring review Capital planning the select board will discuss future budget planning measures including Town employee hiring review and capital planning M Lazarus so this is uh one of the future of agenda items that the board identified um we'll be embarking on the budget process next month um so this is a good time to start talking about um the measures that you may be considering putting into effect and planning processes going forward and just to add on that note as I have proposed it to be one of the items part of it is we're going to go through the budget and capital um process Capital approval process but I also wanted to um have the board us to together discuss about the strategy going forward on our capital budget um our Capital project selection process our budget process and as um I spoke to um our CFO Kyla and also to our uh School uh superintendent board members our um Appropriations uh chair Mike Manning and also CPC chair um then kind of rallying the concept that a we may want to revisit our uh fiscal policy budget policy and see where we can tune them or uh make it more appropriate for the time we are going through now uh especially with the big some of the big capital projects our uh debt um service cost going up uh we want to be little more diligent and procedural in my view how we evaluate and CPC is doing a great job everyone's doing a great job but in a more consistent coherent way we can evaluate based on a set of criteria that we all uh philosophically and Town's vision and strategy wise agree on uh and even you know coming up with some kind of scoring mechanism based on what is our urgency what is our um good to have type of projects and how it would impact our overall um time Horizon in terms of tax impact so more to formalize and Fir that up and I spoke to Kyla and she's doing a great job in farming it up in a framework and structure and so is Susan from and all the other key players um will contribute to it and then the second part of it is that uh also coming up with more of a um revision or review of our uh budgetary policy that we follow in terms of how do we kind of tune it better so for example U the risk management that we have been doing for OPB or risk management we do for our stabilization and others for great reasons we want to continue to do that but is there a room for some of the risk balancing uh based on where we are and is there room for for kind of revisiting some of the core principles that we follow or just refresher as a whole so overall strategy uh principle framework and kind of structure for Capital budgets and our budgeting process so I'm hoping that we can have that session and through the input from all the key players Kyla can take the lead and help us kind of lay out what are the proposed new framework strategy and principles could be we can discuss it and have it kind of farmed up before we dive into our next budget sessions okay thank you Mr well I I like this uh Town residents guide to town finances and I really hope every Everybody reads it and I would love to have uh a like townwide Financial session maybe at the senior center or or something like that where uh you can get more input on on how we are running things and how things should be run how how well the the public is satisfied with the way things are going because we have to really really concentrate on the debt the debt the debt is going to be our our big problem in the future or it's going to be our future uh getting that down is is really going going to be a tough problem so the more people involved the better okay thank you Mr Clark um nothing additional I completely agree with what Mr Manan is looking to do here I think you know I I'd like to start seeing the numbers in front of us so that we could actually kind of talk to things specifically you know we talk about debt knowing like that debt amotization table like what that looks like year-over-year for the town getting into specifics like that knowing how much we owe on the schools each year I think that'll help to Mary Joe's Point like everyone kind of visualize the debt issue a little bit better as as Town residents so the sooner we can do that I think the the quicker we can kind of move through these things and these conversations we have coming up in the residence guide to town finances under the town manager report some information that we can share that is exactly what you're talking about that will'll blow a few Minds when we get to it so hang in there for a couple minutes on that Amy anything yeah I um I think so I think we all know and everyone's been saying to we've had some really huge capital projects that we voted in the last couple years and I think I think and hope everyone understands that we need to like slow down and do fewer projects until we kind of catch up with that debt um but there're also T needs that the town has so it's a tough Balancing Act um I thought that spreadsheet that um Timo lir did a couple years ago with um the forecast in it too was really helpful you could really visualize you know is which projects were coming on and then what it would mean if we did all the projects and what it would mean if maybe we waited a few more years for some of them I thought that was really helpful for both the board and the public and I would love to see that and then I just want to make sure we're not stepping too much on the toes of the Capital Improvements committee too because that's part of their role and we could all go to their meetings too if we want um 10 year plan okay um a piece of this was also the hiring process for Town Hall uh for town government outside the schools um at least in terms of future agenda items right because I was talking about this uh through the election cycle in the first couple of meetings here uh I'm a big believer in all levels of responsibility have to have another level of responsibility above it all levels of hiring have to have another level or two or three of approval above it uh just to maintain and manage costs at the highest level possible uh and I think that we should Institute not a hiring freeze because a few people didn't like that term but a hiring re riew for the select board for any new town employees going forward uh that means not that we get to the meeting and say are we going to interview this person or not because they've already made the decision to hire him but it means way back before that before we even post the job we have a conversation to make sure we need that job we have a conversation with the department head that comes in and says why they need that job so that we have a couple levels of review obviously the town manager's office would be involved in that too so that we're not continuing to to hire at a time when we can't afford to continue to hire again we're going to get into some numbers here in a few minutes that are going to blow some Minds in hopkington and make people very very nervous we should put measures in place Now to control spending like we did in 200920 to write out this quote unquote storm of debt service that's coming at us so I'd like to get that hiring review process uh in place if the board's inclined to do it if we're not inclined to do it let me know and we won't talk about it anymore but I don't think there's anything wrong with it it's not saying we won't hire it's saying we'll hire with some review to make sure that we need to hire and we can look at it from 30,000 ft instead of the person that's worried about putting stuff in you know getting something done on their desk I get that but we have to balance that with what the community is facing as a whole and once you hire somebody your expenses go up for a long time and it's just business 101 to have a couple levels of review and I think we're a little like in that regard in town government through the chair um so to understand that and completely agree we need to have more scrutiny giving you know some of the financial constraints that we see and um what we have experience on the increase of our taxes and um debt burdens I'm trying to kind of visualize and understand one is that when we do the budget process and this is part of the discussions we should have how we can tune our budget process better or Institute some of these things when we do the budget process we do actually approve any new uh hire for the year right uh that is accumulated from various departments school and everyone so to clarify are you suggesting even after that approval month to month we would want to review what is out of that now going to be hired so kind of second layer of scrutiny is that correct yes yep and if if somebody resigns uh and there's an opening same thing we do it that too I I like the idea I think it's our bigger battle would should be the first part when we plan out the whole year and then it's always because things change through the year so it's always good to you know kind of revisit that time to time and um the second piece I want to also add and that's something I spoke to Kyla and um she's done a great job in projecting some of these which she's going to share soon and some of the other um policies and principles one is that we are seeing recently increase in pretty significant increase in our free cash and um um we want to assess where the savings kind of came from uh was it because we projected three hires and we didn't get to hire them then instead of level budgeting at that point on uh we want to start thinking about a mechanism let's go back and say okay if you didn't hire three person last year do you still need them for next year so instead of kind of allocating the same budget again each year by year something of that sort because instead of having that free cash at the end we want to optimize the allocation up front so those some of the tuning I think along those lines we can revisit yeah in years past we talked about zero based budgeting it wasn't you're at 100 Grand this year so you need 10 12,500 next year because you got 2 and a half% or whatever it was that's no why do you need the 100 Grand go back to that 100 Grand start at zero you have three people okay that's 20 grand each okay and then you have cars and you have gas okay that's up to 80 grand so wait you add it up to 85 why do you need 100 right so zero based budgeting starts from zero and goes up instead of just you know we get two and a half therefore we get two and a half totally um so would it be okay with the board if the town manager's office worked on this hiring review process I have a lot to say on this topic I was just waiting for it to my turn so sorry um I really worry about um the delays this could cause in the current current hiring climate like um unemployment is low it's hard to get people and if we have to make the town manager come to another meeting and then it delays them on hiring like municipalities do not pay as much as the private sector and I don't want to lose good people because we're being too slow like we're not in a recession right now like we were in 2008 um and I don't want to stress out our staff like the town clerk has lost the assistant Town Clerk and and it's election time so they're really busy and stressed and to make them delay another month before they can even post a job opening for a position that is already funded in the budget that just doesn't make sense to me and I'm not really comfortable setting that policy right now okay anyone else well I I I agree that um I mean Los losing the assistant town clerk right now when we did it's been really difficult I know I've been volunteering and working in an office all last week and I'm going to be Wednesday Thursday Friday this week uh the paperwork from all of this balloting and uh and getting ready for this election is enormous and um and we he get senior help and and we're doing what we can but if this is a really difficult time yeah through the chair I fully appreciate Amy what you mentioned and there will be situations like this and we want to be fully supportive of our Administration and staff but I'm thinking that might make I mean that kind of Demands that we should make this process smooth and easy so for example in this case um and I'm not picking on any just throwing out an idea that maybe once a month or once every two months months um from the budget perspective we get to talk about what are the next higher that we're looking at for the next two months and what are the rational that we already approved and it should be a quick and easy process unless there is you know some significant change of some kind but uh not to slow down how can we balance it out is the question and I don't know the full answer something to explore but we definitely don't want to be a bottleneck for supporting the staff and the administration needs but at the same time it can serve that tuning purpose in some ways because depending on who and where we hire I mean it's going to have to go out be advertised and people have to be interviewed and it's a process and uh if we're going to make a decision right off the bat before we even do any of that process that that could be difficult well as soon as um we know someone is leaving we begin working on on that process and with the the goal to post that as soon as possible to that end what kind of um if if that has to then come before the board before that occurs how can a department prepare what standards is the board going to apply to filling vacancies something we should figure out but I think we should start to try and figure that out yeah and and maybe it's maybe it's less formal of a thing because I would think if if you're referring to a scenario in which you know someone leaves right and you got to find the the back fill you can kick the tires on you know the paper process I think that's what you're alluding to right like it takes time to kind of organize and put out a request set things up I mean in the worst case scenario we should be meeting less than two weeks from when you find out about that correct so you know why can't we have that as part of an immediate agenda item where you give your recommendation and we shouldn't be going back and forth for half an hour about these things it's you and and maybe the department head that's applicable just come up and say hey this is why we think we need to address this right now we understand the the freeze or you know the hold but like let's try and move through these things quickly you know what I mean like I'm talking like this should not be done over multiple weeks it should be minutes of conversation why you guys think it's important and then we put it to a vote and move forward good I I don't know if that's the perfect solution but I I agree that we should not be wasting time doing these things but finding a middle ground where we review them quickly and move on For Better or Worse moving on to the the more detailed review if it's a brand new position that we is newly created when somebody leaves and they need to be filled I I don't want to cause any delay so lean manufacturing lean Enterprise thinking lean warehousing lean driving lean whatever it's you know it's business principle 101 somebody leaves you review it do we need this again if somebody leaves every 6 weeks well you better review it because something's going wrong with that position so a review I believe we should should run it like a business and I'm a big lean Enterprise thinking person uh in my business world and uh it's it's should not stall us I hear what you're saying about slowing us down but it should not stall us I don't believe it stalled Us in the past when we did this 10 15 years ago um because we had folks that just said okay we need it why do we need it okay done go like we can do it I think we could do it we have every meeting every two weeks every two weeks do we have to deal with any HR issues right now do we have any openings let's have a discussion and I think we should delegate this to our professional staff that I think it's that's not that review so that's I I hear you I agree I'm all for the that manager but this is a high level review it's it's Board of director stuff it happens every day in business happens in my business all time it's sometimes we only meet once a month so that do yeah the chair one thing I want to be clear at Le from my end I'm not proposing any hiring free at the moment or any hiring you know stoppage but another layer of kind of check and review time to time so we you know kind of go as need based and it's it's pretty common actually in in corporate world um that even if I get a budget of 50 million in the beginning every project I go through or every people I hire I still have to go through the approval process shorter more assured one but at least for some visibility to reconcile and say um so something like that and fully appreciate Amy your your comment I would be also very much supportive of making it visible transparent fluid and keeping the authority where it belongs more of a you know uh review pulse check and if needed then only intervene type of uh review here it should be very quick once every you know period determined period something of that sort so I think we we talked quite a bit on this we can process this and come up with some structure or form if we all agree great Joe yeah my last point you know I understand everyone's concerns I think we should remember that you know as part of this like review it's just a quick conversation and we should be heavily waiting the opinion of our town manager you know we have a ton of confidence in her so that should be the biggest piece of that if she's coming up and saying hey we need to back fill this role immediately we all need to weigh that heavily it's not slowing things down it's just a level of oversight that's quickly discussed and you know that opinion is is the bulk of it I completely agree and it does another thing in business that we call accountability it creates accountability Elaine Advocates I really need this position we got to fill this position okay you got our support if it doesn't work guess who's got the problem Now Elaine has that problem that's called accountability that's how we do it right and that's just how it works in the real world so um I agree let's let's take Elane if we could maybe try and put something together that you'd be comfortable with and bring it back to the board for our next meeting and we can take a look at that process uh or that concept it doesn't have to be some big long thing but just how this how the think would play it it would play out uh and then we go from there um so with that I think we should move on everybody good good okay uh item number 10 water and sewer Advisory Board charge Elaine this is another uh item um board generated uh to talk about forming a uh water and sewer Advisory Board uh to deal with the number of issues um whether it be uh joining the MW or Ps uh any of the things that we've been dealing with lately um discolored water also in in the last few years um so um we've provide water rates sewer rates um and the Enterprise funds um and so uh there is a a framework for a committee charge that was in the packet something to start the discussion and list the things there that the board you know wants to see from an Advisory Board because it's going to be advising you on these policy matters and making recommendations thank you Mr did you have a chance to look at that framework what you thinking yeah I did uh thank you El and for bringing that up I think this is very timely and uh covers you know much broader Spectrum so I like that um I was and I spoke to elain this morning couple of things I think uh we could consider uh adding or kind of tuning a little bit but overall the structure great the overall you know um formulation is great couple of things I wanted to emphasize because as you know I've been following the pasas issue and have our town has been pretty concerned about it so kind of um we have that as part of the charge that it'll be also to remediate all contaminants or uh related issue and ensure clean water I just wanted to specify a little bit more about the pasas issue and I provided some content So based on that some incorporation would be helpful so to kind of show our emphasis on that second um comment I had was that uh I also wanted to uh have this Advisory Board to collect and formulate kind of a I'm thinking like a dashboard or a monitoring tool sort of that would demonstrate the commitment for clean water that we have what it will do is help us understand if there is any lapses and some actions needed which I'm sure DPW and everything combined will be doing but more importantly what I've noticed is communication to the town residents um and it's it's kind of funny because um and not so funny because for the last couple of years there's been tremendous work going on on P remediation from the town perspective we have done the MW design we have done the agreement with um South Borough for the um pipeline connection we have uh had Town actually through US approved 1.5 million and remediate the will number eight all this good work has been done but if you remember even then in the town meeting there were like lot of frustrations and it appeared to be that most of the people didn't know about that uh so I think this type of communication could be a part of the church that they will be kind of our voice uh advise us and then be the voice to the town to educate and uh appraise what's going on great thank you Mr R Bush yeah I'm sorry I'm GNA have to be Devils Advocate again here I I really don't want anything that's going to slow down the get removal of the pasas and improving our water system and the connection to the MW and I just am not sure that doing this would not just slow things down like we need to rely on professional staff every every MMA meeting I go to or M MPA mapc meeting I go to they talk about professionalizing your town government and then you know we're not going to get Professionals in to be on this committee and so if it's if they're going to be the interface with the public I sort of understand that they can reach out to the public collect information provide it to our professional staff but I don't want to slow down um our clean water initiatives um so those are my concerns okay go um kind of in line with that I wanted the only thing I wanted to see differently was kind of a little bit better description of and I know it's a really challenging thing to do but I believe that we do have Professionals in this town that could help with this and like maybe laying out how we can identify that and get them on board cuz not to not to just disagree with you but I know we have people that can help us with this that do have a background in this type of stuff and making sure those people are involved could actually move this stuff more quickly in my opinion through the chair I just got a letter today from sustainable green chair uh recommending one of the members there who is a water filtration expert in his professional life and he's very interested to interested in this in this possible position so I'm sure there will be more but okay anybody else well that that was sort of my my thought uh getting people to volunteer for these commissions uh you know we're going to be starting at three new ones and um and we have to get the people out there who are qualified people to volunteer and from my experience it's been really difficult to get anybody to volunteer for anything if it's a difficult thing to do and and we've got we've got them so I mean this is you know one guy who's who's water and stuff but we can't just have these commissions and put every everybody or anybody who comes forward on them we we want to have professional commissions because they're they're difficult they the gas plant uh you know we need we need some kind of experience and some kind of a and I mean I think maybe the best thing we could do is put together some kind of um group to go to the chamber and to talk to them about what we need we this is what we need for water sewer this is what we need for the gas plant this is what anybody here willing to volunteer and not just the chamber but I mean uh various businesses and uh and things like that and maybe even the uh the lake rout might know some people who are really water conscious Etc um but we just can't have these all these committees and and uh advisory boards without the right people so that that's exactly why I think we need to do this to your point because the five of us with all due respect to the four of you I'll tell I'll tell you about myself I know nothing about Water and Sewer Commission issues I just don't right me right so we can't do it all and right now we are the water and sewer Commissioners when the town had 5,000 residents we had a DPW board or whatever they call it at the time most towns in massach I shouldn't say most a lot of towns of Massachusetts have elected DPW boards or Water and Sewer Commission boards all over the cape is water there's signs up right now for all the water people running for water and sewer commissions so it's a thing elsewhere and I don't think we're doing the town of service by not having that expertise on that Commission because it's a really important thing I I guess one point I would challenge though is this MW connection with all due respect I want to slow that down because that's 40 million give or take 10 million bucks depending on who you talk to that's a lot of money for us to absorb over the next several years when we have everything else that's coming at us and that's the residents are going to have to absorb that kind of money the users right so that's a huge impact on our residents so I want to make sure we get it right and I'm sitting here today if I'm the water Sewer Commission having to make a decision about whether we go with MW or not I have no idea what to do I just don't know these folks I hope will be those experts that will know what to do and they can come in explain to us and the residents why we should do it or not do it as the case may be more of an expert than our professional staff that's and so often we have committees that we can't fill seats on we might just get three people that appli and for three people on a board and we'll just appoint them because they're the only ones that applied they I we'll see but yeah we'll find that out that's a fair point we will find that out one way or the other but this is a huge industry there's a lot of people in these in these areas that live in this community and I think we I think we could fill it with some good folks but why don't we do this for now because we're we're we're marching down a path here you provided some input to Lane this morning it sounds like and I'd given her some input on a couple of things I thought after I saw the charge and you've heard some other stuff alane so maybe we codify it a little bit further or codify those thoughts and we can take it to the next step and we'll present it again we'll see how we're doing as we go yeah I think that sounds good and let's continue to evolve but um TimeWise we probably want to act sooner rather than later I agree I want to set the commission up and then I'd love the commission to figure it out the m and tell us but I just don't think we can walk out and spend $40 million based on what we know today for me yeah we want to do the proper Ving and that's the capital project principles I was talking about and there are you know grants and other opportunities that may evolve which again the commission can help us and one thing just to add I fully appreciate that it won't be easy to get the experts but I also fully expect that there would be you know some um that can come from our community from our uh residents uh I already have uh known and got the opportunity to hear from some but regardless another aspect of it is that um we also want I ALS I also was thinking that this board would help us to amplify the voice of the residents on a you know very focused area cuz as we have been saying five of us we have you know many issues that we um try to lead and solve and handle but some of these needs more Focus than others and needs more interaction with residents than others this is one of those issues so the role is not only for the expertise but also to be interactive communication and uh feedback or uh kind of voice collection from the town um residents in my view so it would be a balanced kind of board in that way could could we get the stats from the State website maybe it's on there about um how many towns really do have an elected or appointed water sewer board or DPW board I thought most times were getting away from that but there's bit bran to think that most of them do have it I see a lot I said I I said I pulled I pulled most off the table I said a lot I think but whatever I I agree with you that's fair to check that out but they're out there okay let's table it for now good conversation I think we're walking down the path and Elaine if we could take that feedback and we'll put something else together uh item number 11 the Milford Hopkinson intermunicipal agreement extension um we're a few minutes early early here I think it's okay to proceed with this I don't think we have anybody coming in uh Elaine so in uh 2000 the uh Town signed an agreement with the town of Milford uh for the town to send uh sewer uh to the Milford treatment plant um and that agreement was then renewed again in 2010 um and it has expired um and so we have thanks to uh Kyla laier uh CFO who uh reached out to the T town of Milford um was able to uh work with them in having that renewed under the same terms and conditions currently in effect so it would uh be a renewal of that agreement um it's important in case uh we need the additional Services the town has never sent anything to Milford during the time that it's had the agreement uh most of the Wastewater or all of the Wastewater goes to um Westboro um but there may be a time uh perhaps additional Economic Development or something that happen happens where we may need an additional place for this water to go for treatment and so uh recommending that we extend this agreement under the same terms and conditions that were effect in 2010 okay thank you Kyle do you want to add anything to that based on your conversations with them no all good okay Mrs ritterbush yeah I just want to confirm the town of Milford has agreed to extend it the same terms yes all right and I understand it's more expensive than the other or other sewer options so we avoid using it must really correct okay what that Jo um no questions no I I had some questions when I read the agreement I mean it was assigned by like Hank fet and Morin Dell and it was a long time ago uh and how we were doing but it doesn't cost us anything and it's just a safety Gap to have it in case we need it and so far we haven't needed to go to Milford but you never know and um and I think the MW is going to ask us to continue the agreement okay I think it's a good thing thanks to Kyla thanks to Elaine for doing this let's do this I was involved in 2010 it was a painful process at that time because there had been some friction between hopkington and Milford between 2000 and 2010 and some things that have gone on in South Street over the years um so I'm glad to hear that we've got a smoother process now which is great and I fully support doing it so uh for this one I believe we have a motion I'll go I move to approve the extension of the 2000 intermunicipal agreement as amended in 2010 with the town of Milford relative to Wastewater collection treatment and Disposal Services second second have a motion in a second any further discussion all those in favor please say I I I any oppos it's unanimous and so carries thank item number 12 on the agenda the town manager report and then we've got several items underneath the town manager report so we'll have our town manager move through it as quickly as she possibly can she will she will so the the first thing on the town manager report is the uh the resident guide to town finances that um you mentioned earlier uh it's in the packet and it'll be posted on the website shortly if it's not there already um and so uh thanks to uh Kyla and the finan team uh they've prepared a basic overview of town finance and laid out where the town's revenues go where the expenditures are and the debt uh there's a discussion of the debt and the pay down schedule uh is in there for the Curr debt that's currently been voted so this is great information for the town for the for the residents uh as we enter the budget process as we get to a town meeting um and of course it can be updated as things change seasonally um as needed um and I think it's a great place to kick off our our fall season and it's a it's a great tool to have so I urge everyone to to get that and we'll put copies in the lobby uh anywhere else we can we can reach people would you do me a favor please and would you read out the numbers that are the tax implications based on the current debt that we have so that we bring some real Focus to what this report can help people understand Kyle if you would please sure so there's a lot of information here but um if you go to the debt road map it really breaks it down what's going to occur over the next 5 years or so based on what's approved and I want to make it clear it's what's approved because any of the capital planning or proposed Capital plan over the next 5 years is not included in here so this is just what has been approved so if you look at page nine it's the pay down schedule and you're going to notice that in fiscal year 25 we have a debt payment of 7.6 million 26 it almost doubles and it continues to go up and what is that due to taxes if you go to page 11 our average tax bill right now on the average home is about 12,500 it's going to increase year over year over year so by fy3 it's going to be $18.5 th000 and that's without any more debt no Capital so let me just walk us through that one more time for those at home that aren't studying this stuff like some of us do if you own a house in hopkington and it's valued at $850,000 roughly 850k you're paying approximately $122,500 in tax is for FY 24 25 no 25 FY 25 so that's the current fiscal year and we're in right now that ends next June okay starting in July of next year going through July or really June 30th of uh 2030 so that's 5 years your average tax bill is going from $12,500 to $118,500 in 5 years time okay that's for the average home a $600,000 home which there are not that many anymore it's probably going to go from 8 or 9,000 to about I don't know $14,000 something like that so maybe a smaller home still going up into the well into the teens if you have a home that's worth a million5 which a lot of people in hopkington have a home worth a million5 you're probably paying somewhere around 20K right now maybe a little less you're going up close to $330,000 if you have a home in hackington valued at $2 million and there's a lot of those and you know they're expensive too and taxes are crazy expensive there you're going from maybe $30,000 to $45,000 these increases are real and they are massive and we have to get people to understand that so when Capital Improvements comes and says we need X Y and Z and the schools come and say we need PD and Q and the DPW everybody comes it's only adding to those numbers so when residents recognize that their pills are going from 12,500 on average to 18,500 6 grand in 5 years and then it stays there for a while that's going to be really hard for people to swallow and it was important for us to put this together and to put this front and center because when I joined here in March I don't think the residents understand I didn't until I started running the numbers and then in um May in the town meeting when I heard the continued debt that was approved I'm nervous I'm nervous for the town especially for people on limited incomes you have to plan for this so this was important to me well I think you did a great job putting the report together I went through it the other day in great detail I asked about 50 questions she was exhausted by the end of it I think uh we had a really good conversation and uh this is a real challenge for us and so when I jump on the soap boox about reviewing every hire and I jump on the Soap Box about rusty cars for the for our team to drive around in a couple of years that's why no totally and thank you for all the work and we we spoke at length this is exactly you know the kind of radar we need for everyone to see what's going on what's going to happen what it's going to look like and uh on the same note uh we did have tremendous growth and we did have the need for some of the very critical infrastructure development work and um Investments and that's why we are here unfortunately uh now it's water under the bridge could we have done you know better 10 years ago 15 years ago that's water under the bridge but what we want to do is going forward a um we want to of course at least for the next decade be super sensitive about how we uh and what type of capital projects or should we go in complete freeze except you know within certain criteria for urgency or you know emergency or uh service level complete degradation that type of criteria and that's exactly what I was talking about earlier that um it's kind of you know could be done 5 years ago 10 years ago but we should do it now even more with better scrutiny that often it's not about our passion it's not about our pet projects it's not about what um I mean we all want to do the right thing for the town great things for the town we have great visions and passion for the town but how can we put in a more number driven and need driven criteria set and scrutiny for going forward two reasons one is for our and all the you know board members for the right decision making and for the town to understand and make the right vote uh as well and then the third is to have that Collective awareness that where we are how cautious we should be so that the tough decisions we may have to make sometimes can be understood in terms of numbers as well so fully appreciate that and we'll continue to work on that and I also think we owe it to the town to come up with a strategy of how we're going to help solve this Bo so may Jo a point about you know should we start paying down debt it's in our best interest to help them understand how we're going to make an impact here any comments Mary Joe no it's going to be we're we're in for a rough ride let me just say that okay sorry then we'll come back to you Joe in on this particular topic no thank you so much for laying this out like this it's extremely helpful I hope the residents all get a look at it start to understand it better because this is what they need to look at thank you Kyla am yeah no I really appreciate the information and trying to get it out to the public CU that is you know the greatest challenge getting people to pay attention to things so this will get their attention thing the thing is it probably won't but anyway but it's a good effort okay Elaine sorry about the distraction there from your agenda but we wanted to cover that one briefly okay thank you thanks Kyla thank you KY so next is the um McFarland Sanger house at 148 Lumber Street this is a town-owned uh building from the 1700s on a small parcel of land on Lumber Street uh and in 2015 town meeting approved uh CPC funding for um improvements to the building envelope painting and so forth so the CPC recently sent a letter to the board um inquiring about this because in 2021 uh T meting voted to uh convey or to transfer the property to the select board so that the uh the building and the land possibly can be disposed of can be sold so so after that occurred I started working on that project and um over a couple of years worked with mass historical Who provided a template for historic preservation restriction uh drafted that and sent it to the historical commission who has been discussing it and trying to potentially find interested parties who are interested in doing something with this building whether it's moving it or using it in place and they explored whether um it could have um uh water and sewer because it doesn't have have that and the lot is small and the upshot is it does not have access to can't have a well or a septic system there not enough land there so um we can proceed with the disposal process um in the meantime the abutters are concerned with the appearance of the building and would like to have it painted uh CPC is wondering if um they should cancel out this project or keep it in place uh this funding opportunity um while we uh look toward the disposal and and so we will be at some point finalizing the preservation restriction and issuing an RFP to see if there's a buyer for the building which probably would be removed okay do you need anything from us tonight no uh just be thinking about um um you know a response to CPC as to whether um this funding should be retained for now or could be closed out okay and we won't on the agenda to vote about that just think about it for now think about it for now yeah so I think that is a good idea to retain the funds for now in case we might need them to improve it a little bit so that somebody might buy it and relocate it to somewhere with water and sewer um but I agree that we should probably go ahead with the um try try to sell it to somebody who would like to preserve it because it's it's from the 1700s it's really a nice architectural example beautiful building I love it yeah okay item C uh so as you may know the um the extreme heat we had um there were problems with Cooling in the library uh which caused a couple of building closures as the heat and humidity became very high in there uh that building doesn't have operable Windows the only opportunity they have for air is is what's coming in the system there's a GM with thermal system there uh and Dave deloro provided a memo to the board uh that outlines um what's been done to fix the problems that they experienced or they discovered with one of the geothermal Wells you can still see the evidence of of the activity there in the parking lot um as they finish that up U but it is working much better now since they've made that fixed okay uh the next item is one that was on your list of uh future agenda items uh understanding the options for uh appointment of Labor Council and Town Council um so the appointment of uh the obtaining Legal Services isn't subject to the procurement law um but if the board does want to seek um Legal Services you'd want to identify what services you want to receive and go through a process of soliciting proposals for review and interviews of of attorneys by the board uh it would be a a process that would take some time do you have a recommendation on that well I don't really know what the board wants I mean in this regard if you wanted to solicit proposals from attorneys we could we could do that um hasn't really been discussed other than looking at options do you think we need to do that you know I am um I'm pleased with the services we've received from our current labor Council and Town Council over the years um but it's always good to review uh options um so I'm just looking for guidance from the board too in that regard but I am satisfied with the services where we've been receiving do you need that guidance tonight or is this something we can noodle on a little bit and then maybe something can think about you have not made the annual appointment of Labor Council and Town Council and I'm wondering if this is something we do in advance of the next uh annual appointment so something we start working on and say January February so appoint for this year and then maybe do a process to see if there's correct because it will take time to solicit proposals um Define what we're looking for and solicit proposals so sorry when when we appoint is that like a one-year contract one year appointment so is there something we can go like 6 months so you can start the process just like something to kind of get going without being locked in for a year well I think the charter says it's an annual appointment okay and and I missed what you said did you say it is subject to procurement law or it's not it's not anything else Amy on this one well I do think um if we were going to do this we definitely need to Define what we want from the firm we have some of our needs are different than other towns no other town has a big LNG facility so close to the residents things things like that just make sure all our legal needs are covered and whatever we might put out okay anybody else on this particular topic right now why don't we noodle on this one a little bit um I really like some of the things I saw this evening in terms of preparation and learnings and going forward strategies to improve services for us uh so we'll just let's just leave at that for now and see where but I do think we should have this on your next meeting discussion and maybe then we can offer some more guidance okay uh next item please uh next is the special town meeting dates um so there are two potential dates for a special town meeting in the fall uh we'll need that special town meeting for MBTA communities uh act uh and so November 18th and December 2nd are dates that the town clerk is comfortable with uh or more comfortable than others as far as um when they can uh between elections and so forth and holidays that they can manage uh given their short staff um and I put in here the process of how that occurs it's about a six week six or seven week lead time uh so if the board was going to for example have the November 18th date then you would start um that process in October on October 1st you would call that special meeting that's the earliest that you would do that when is Thanksgiving I don't it's the week after November 24 something like that one of the advantages of well it depends on your perspective the advantages of a November dead date is that you can have Financial articles on the on the warrant but if it's in December uh it would be um not possible to set the tax rate then by the end of the year if there's a fun Financial vote in December well there's your answer just going to say which which part about that was favorable all right so let's uh we're going to table that for now is that okay you want us to about November 18th or December 2 I don't have a preference between the two whatever works better for the town clerk but um the other question the a zoning map change which this would involve has to have a hearing before by the planning board right how many weeks ahead does that have to be they have to have in within 6 months oh with okay so it could even be as short as a week or something so they'll they'll need to have a hearing you know the next month or two okay okay we good on that topic teachers union negotiations uh just an update that the uh when the teachers union negotiations begin uh later this fall that town manager is included uh will be accompanied by the CFO to provide the financial picture of the community um revenues expenditure and forecasting have you confirmed that with the school system or the school superintendent yes I think that's an excellent opportunity for us to participate throughout the whole process not just at the end when it's a r stamp but throughout right you mean throughout that's that's big we we've done that before I think right I think Norman used to go yes um and then um is it already time for another three-year contract for teachers maybe it's just the pair of professionals I thought they just settled this year but they're already starting a threeyear for teachers oh yeah be in a couple of months that will start but but but they've just voted the parent professionals this year but are they on a different cycle I don't know the cycle of okay teachers contract is starting negotiation starting yeah the HTA so okay but like where I work there's a the WEA and there are five different units and we'll try to go at the same time for our all our negotiations but sounds like the school our schools are doing them teachers for sure yeah but they're all all usually all under the same umbrella all good on this one yep uh item G please on the Main Street project uh all of the 12 Transformers have been installed so that's wonderful um and we've seen a lot of eversource Crews and trucks around doing a lot of work uh it's very encouraging um so they're starting the the cut over from the overhead to the underground infrastructure this fall September October um and there was a walk through in August uh looking at um outstanding items and the brick work um is approved and should be uh beginning this fall and Landscaping is also planned for the fall we're still however also waiting for amarello to arrive with their Crews to do additional work that's such a huge relief about the Transformers excellent news it's good news everybody good MH uh next item please uh no update on the past treatment project um the treatment systems operational after uh successful sampling um the board would be approached to remove the bottled water rebate uh sometime in September does that mean we can drink uh regular water now out of a faucet yes yes for the last everybody good everybody I don't have to buy H bottles anymore all good on this topic yeah next item please and then on the MW project uh nothing is uh progressing at this point it's on on hold for the moment uh while you consider the water and sewer Advisory Board okay everybody good on that to Mak sense y all right uh anything else Miss lesus no that's it great item number 13 I'm sorry somebody have a question I was just going to notice so we're already seeing a delay because we have of the board idea setting up the board does the thing yeah so they so maybe elaborate a little bit more on that Elaine because the the folks in Southboro uh sent us a letter right did the board all get that letter so yes and so Southboro understands why there's a temporary pause but they're very eager to move forward but they also said they're going to sit tight until we figure out what we're doing yeah right so to your point I yes it's it's delaying it right okay um so we good all set item number 13 leason reports I'll start I don't have any at this moment I'll have some at the next meeting I got one tomorrow night okay I don't have any one thing I wanted to request and that's for the next um future agenda items perhaps as well is to invite the affordable housing um committee and kind of get an and our town engineer to get an update on affordable housing um there's been a lot of U thoughtful work and um calculations going on but the last we checked uh we are actually at the 10% threshold in terms of affordable housing so which means we're going to fall off pretty soon if we don't catch up uh even though the next census is for another eight nine years but we need to start planning for that and see if we are tracking so that would be helpful if we can okay put that in as a future too yeah anything else uh no this is red yep um I did meet with the principal planner and the planning board chair about the NBTA communities act which is why we'll be holding this special town meeting and we did we discussed a lot of things but the bottom line is that we should we're going to have them come up before our board if that's okay and then I come or so to kind of discuss where they're at with it and I just it only failed by about five votes I think last time and it we really need to get this communicated to the public what our options are um and you know our people watch our meetings perhaps more than the planning board so we'll be helpful to get it all out there and we can ask our questions we can help um spread the message and you know make it a better article for town meeting this year uh and then let's see and then Commission on disability had a suggestion um as you guys might remember that when somebody comes before us for a parade permit or a um event permit of some kind we have a checklist for um how to make your event more Greener that the green committee have put together for us and the commission not disability would like to do a similar sort of checklist about how you can make your events more accessible uh to so they'll be coming um they'll be asking to come up before the board on that later set yep Joe um the only thing was for our Police Department and extends to our fire department as well um just a little bit of credit for all the crews that handled that tragic situation last week at whiteall um it was really tough so my condolences go out to that upt in family um after after that incident so but the police and fire handled the situation really well and never an easy thing for them to do so yes thank you thank you for that recognition um I was I misspoke a minute ago because of of the role with the the corridor project and playing uh Elaine said it all um but I have been obviously engaged in that quite a bit here recently okay uh we good with leaz on reports and any invites I guess that's one of the part of that agenda item I haven't seen anything but you seen any invites okay uh item number 14 future board agenda items uh let me just kind of check these off here a little bit as we go down and see what's what's we haven't addressed and what we need to address soon so the upper Charles Trails committee uh we still have that open man 23 annual town meeting vote that I think we should at some point try and figure out for Trails even the marathon folks are mentioning that a little bit this evening so that's coming up and CPC mentioned that too because they have an outstanding um they had approved something that the money hasn't been spent got it okay thank you uh consider forming an Economic Development Council um I think that we've kicked that around a little bit but we haven't gone too far down that path at the moment is that a fair statement yeah we need to we got to keep that here and let's try and keep pulling that in uh LG another thing that I think is important that we did we we introduced the idea but like unlike uh the Water and Sewer Commission we're trying to put that framework together hard right now I think we got to get to that soon too because and on that Ela and I was talking about uh having kind of a pre preparation meeting sort of with eversource and then some of the town uh experts or stakeholders if everyone's comfortable with that have you have you sorry go ahead no I just say we uh in the past we've always included the fire department when it come to LNG yeah in the original document I submitted there were eight stakeholders fire department was was one of them yeah was um Peter Bowman or is Peter Bowman aware of that potential committee do you know do you know Peter have you met him yet he's from he's the eversource E on here in town and he's the one that worked those Transformers with some people right I spoke to him and we talked about a follow-up meeting but we didn't get he's great and I'm sure he'd be very interested in that yeah he was that been part of his domain you think yes okay to be clear he didn't commit anything but he was interested yeah yeah okay great uh and then the tax Rel committee Mary Joe you want to talk about that well the Tax Relief Committee it's it's an ongoing problem in that they they can't fund raise or solicit or anything like that so they have to uh absolutely depend on taxpayers when they pay their bill to make a contribution or we did have a large company that made a big contribution every single year who has now gone and with drawn so uh they're they need a a source of funding so that they know what they have I mean some years they've given out $5,000 to people and other years they've had to give out $100 because they didn't get the funds in so as often as we can I I so we should have them come in would that help do you think so curious sure and have her have her give us a presentation and give us an overview okay MTA community zoning compliance you mentioned it earlier yeah I think we're on track now because we're counting down to a town meeting so okay so we'll leave that kind of here but leave it yeah leave it off for right now is that okay yep in terms of another update uh update on the the police issue uh issues we've had in the past we've covered that a couple of times now and I think um we're trying to learn from it and get some things documented and changed so we'll leave that for there uh the Sewer Commission we covered considering Institute limits on Town Department Authority and spending and hiring we just talked about that earlier this evening provide information update on matter concerning release of unredacted documents again talked about that this evening and going to get some more feedback from Town Council understand the options regarding Town Council and labor we just covered that a minute ago and capital projects review and priorization yeah on that note um I've been discussing with the stakeholders and um I'll work with Kaa M and the school U CFO and others and Mike Manning and um Matt from CPC to work on a couple of things so we can have a more elaborate targeted discussion about you of our policy tuning Our principles framework and capital projects U evaluation criteria and process which somewhat is there but we want to be more consistent given the financial uh foreseeable Financial challenges that we uh see if we can schedule something maybe in a couple of months that would be good I think we'll be prepared to and K and we all can prepare to present something it certainly makes sense as we get into the budget process to have that discussion at that time maybe so October meeting perhaps that one yeah okay talking about the debt too Capital Improvements has got to be I added another one from from earlier the comment earlier about the affordable housing committee to come in and have a discussion with us about their situation and challenges and what they see coming at us um we kicked around Trails I I know one thing that uh I saw previously with the previous board that you know obviously drew some attention uh for various reasons was the police chief of police review at the time I think there was a it was left with there would be a six-month uh discussion going forward so that was back in April I think I think it was so that's an October discussion does everybody think that that would be a reasonable thing to do at some point had the chief come in and just give us an update on the things that's going going on sure is that okay all right so we'll add that one Elan to the upcoming future agenda items sorry Brian I forgot I did have some invites if if I could go back to that yeah so the porchfest is coming up on September 7th in hopkington they haven't released the map yet but like last year the fire department hosted um was Police Department hosted a band and they'll other neighborhoods downtown and like Mass par family days September be one in front of town hall oh there'll be one in front of town hall this year that's great did you say the seventh the seventh yep so like the same day as poly arts and I think it might be time to recording that cuz you could walk around and see the things yeah they have a rain date but I've forgotten which it is then Family Day September 14th and Sasha South Asian circle of P has announced the deali gala for November 16th and I've gotten lots of emails about the board of appeal board of appeals public hearing for tomorrow night so I'll just mention that that's it's in our agenda the hearing notice oh there were emails about that I'm joking but anyway it people can watch it on Zoom right and'll be reported okay and participate and make comments what's it it they're able to comment too so it's public hearing okay um anything else with that the chair I'll entertain a motion to adjourn I mooved a motion to adjourn any any further discussion all those in favor please say I I good night everyone thank you