good evening Littleton and welcome to the April 22nd 2024 select board meeting we will be entering into executive session for approximately the first 15 minutes and we expected to come out of executive session around 6:30 6:35 if I could have a motion please move the SEC board vote to enter into executive session number two preser to master Law chapter 38 sections 21 A2 to conduct strategy and preparation for negoti with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel police fire dispatch and public work evening the select will adjourn to Executive session and will reconvene an open session after the executive session second move by Mark second by Matthew roll call vote Mark yes chuck chuck Matthew Matthew's yes Karen Karen's yes and I'm at yes as well we'll see you in about 15 minutes all right good evening everybody all right welcome back Littleton we are out of executive session we'll begin our our normal scheduled meeting I would like to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance stand to of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right thank you all right this evening I will go through the mail we have um select board recognition tonight uh for our park and wreck John Cassi who's here he guys uh select board discussions we we're going to be awarding a contract uh some sidewalk construction we have some parking uh issues at Long Lake that we're going to discuss this evening um and initial discussion of town administrator's performance review approved veteran agent for Memorial Day Parade on May 27th we want to uh vote to approve a vehicle use policy then we will look for member and public input and then we'll get into uh annual town meeting updates regarding some of the Articles uh neog Hill specifically a lot of work's been going in into that and we will look over some of the other warrants uh vote to post the election warrant for May 11th time election and approved minutes from April 2nd April 8th so kick things off with the mail uh if you would yes [Music] sir or looks like okay we have um if anyone would like to sign up to receive public notifications for for the town of Littleton please go to www. ww do Littleton ma.org subscribe and you can get community impacts Public Safety activity town meeting changes town events public health concerns Transportation issues so stay informed we have um an email from uh uh the uh notifying us of the robotics uh uh Championship that was the team went out to uh Houston Texas Houston Texas uh last week to go and compete in that and give the students the experience that they have been working uh for so very very long and literally they they faced over uh 600 teams from around the globe so very very impressive that Littleton robotics um entered that I have do we do we know the placement or anything I haven't heard from Katie haven't heard I have not heard from from Katie either Katie but it's it's quite exciting it's very very exciting by the way which is congratulations uh to them uh we have um the uh appointment uh from the office of the superintendent from Littleton Public Schools uh from Kelly clenchy superintendent of schools at the March 28th uh school committee voted unanimously to appoint Charlie Ellis 16 in Elizabeth Street in Littleton as the District representative in the Sha Valley Technical High School school committee um and uh which is which is fantastic um here we have uh the um 20 um um a letter to the Littleton Board of Selectmen regarding the 2024 yearly operational plan and vegetation management plan uh for CSX Pan Am Railways Inc uh it's a notification that uh with the pesticide board regulations and the Mass general laws um they'll they will commence with a post emergent herbicide application program on or after May 1st 2024 and conclude on or or about October 30th 2024 um and applications of the herbicides will be formed by the following certified applicator RWC Inc lockhouse Road Turnpike industrial park out in Westfield okay they just got to uh update their heading for us yeah that's right you're right I I didn't catch that thank you I'm so sorry about that I apologize Uh current openings on on boards on the select board appointed by the SE on board SEL appointed by the select board got you all confused now it'll exactly um C we have one uh position the clean lace committee one position uh Economic Development Committee uh one position in the permanent Municipal Building committee one in the sustainability committee and three the citizen Al alternate citizen Lodge for the transportation advisory Council and that is it for mail great all right looks like first up is our recognition of John cassin and PRC for agency of the Year award for program Outreach I know we wanted to do this last meeting and John I think you were out of town is that or you were somewhere yeah but um so we uh tell I guess you want to come to the mic for us I want to hear a little bit about about the what this what this consisted of and the Outreach and what that yeah uh so specifically it was for the program adult recess um trying to get more adults involved um our team sports were starting to to fledge a little bit a little started to fall off the Wayside we couldn't run uh our flag football league um our softball league has less and less people partip ating so um us and the team at Park and wreck we came up with the idea of adult recess sign up individually instead we I got everybody reversible jerseys got some sponsorships uh Dean Chiropractic tabern of the square derable and um the sub shop in town um they help pay for the shirts um so what we did was we just signed up for the whole time kept it relatively affordable 60 bucks for 6 weeks got free child care trying to remove all the hurdles for parents and adults in town to be able to get out and recreate um I think we spend as parents in town we spend most of our time just slapping our kids everywhere and you know you got to take care of yourself so um the idea was to come up with a program that was every week it was different so it's kickball dodgeball softball flag football you name it um seasonal um so we're going to have another one here in the summer coming up but um it was the point was to get uh more adults active in in moving and and a little bit of Community Driven type things and um I actually was shocked because I thought it was going to be like the same people that did all the stuff that we do all our adult sports already and it was a whole different crew of people a lot of people I never met before a lot of people that needed something to connect with the community and get involved with the town and just getting out to meet people and and do something active and fun so it's about 15 to 25 people each week um and we would uh go visit our sponsors after and sort of share our our stories of of you know triumphs and and defeats and uh it was it end up being a such a great program that those group that group has like created their own TCH thread they get together now like so it's been a really amazing thing so the mass Parks and Recreation Association uh you know gave us the award for uh you know for program uh agency of the year for program Outreach for this program and um specifically for the Community Driven uh things that we created and um the just the program itself a couple other departments have adopted this program as well so it's really exciting to see it grow so it's kind of like the nuts and bolts I'm not sure oh great oh that's um you know we'll get another one coming this summer it's going to be a lot of fun so good fantastic um any questions I just I love the energy that John brings to to park and recck to the town as a whole I mean just uh having having sons that are the same age and Friends uh whether it's been supporting them in the sidelines or just uh you know the energy that John brings to whatever he's involved with is uh it's nice to see you getting rewarded for it and uh we appreciate all that you do and all the parking W does for our community thank you yeah it's uh it's nice to uh you know for this you know the that organization to to acknowledge us but as well as you know the town to see that we do great great things and our department is we have a very small Department we offer more than most towns and um do a lot of good things so it's population that doesn't always have something that touches them so I think it's fantastic thank you thanks are signups open now for summer recess there they are you can sign up by the day or you can sign up with the whole thing it does come with like I said free child care so um we have staff over at the club and you can just drop your children off fill out some paperwork medic stuff and um so it's kind of like you have no excuses left you get to so come on down check it out we got uh soccer um Bubble Soccer where you get in the bubble and you play soccer we got slip and slide kickball coming up um we're doing beach volleyball over in West on their beach volleyball court partnered with them to be part of that they let us using it for free for the night so uh can't remember everything else but the six event six different events for the summer which will be it'll be it'll be seasonal it'll be summer there'll be a all one again winter and spring hopefully we can get all four seasons this year we ski spring we little Shand at the time but so yeah on up can the select board do the slip and slide yeah come on down sliping disc thank you is this there's no like a a this is adults yeah uh we had from early 20s to we had a couple that came from gron they were in their 50s and they were like just on like the late 50s they were retired looking for something I'm 52 so also not 52 also yeah I'm not 52 but yeah it's uh yeah all ages and like it's like I said it a really unexpected turnout of who came out to play and um it was a lot of fun we picked teams right there pick two captains and we had the reversal shirts so you know they put on the shirts and we give out like a championship trophy at the end of the night depending on what it is but it's a lot of fun I hope it grows because of the uh this acknowledgement just I mean I didn't know you guys did year round stuff I just adult so that's thank you yeah it's a lot of a lot of good things that we do another place I can injure myself at I'm always like people make fun of me because I say you just create a bunch of stuff for you to play and it's kind of true getting harder and harder to get up the next day and move right but all right yeah citation yeah go to the chair I have it I have it here too okay okay I'll read it that to and uh a certificate of recognition recognition olon select board recognizes John Cassian on behalf of the select board congratulations on your 2024 Massachusetts Recreation and Parks Association agency of the Year award for program Outreach for your adult recess program so thank yeah I don't know Mark if you can zoom in on that just to see here robot here we go all right great want to get a picture yeah around we come around get a picture we'll go to the front all right you want to see the inner work things back the puppets the puppet okay everybody okay on three one two three that might trip during the meeting all right good stuff all right uh next up item 4A vote to award a contract for $423,000 180 for sidewalk construction on tayor Street uh to JW Harding Construction Company Inc of West Bridgewater Massachusetts hi good evening for record Stephen y director Public Works I here just to asked for the board's authorization for either the Town Administrator or myself to enter into contract with IW Harding construction um for some sidewalk work on Taylor Street this is the sidewalk mostly funded by Amazon as part of their approvals from a few years ago took a little bit to get the uh Mass do permit cuz all that stretch of Taylor Street from the route two on ramps up over the 4 495 Bridge Is All State layout so obviously we needed um permits from m so we finally got those got this out to bid um this will run out the I guess I'll call it a donation from Amazon and I'm covering the overage out of um out of roadway account can you give me the the from where to where this uh it's all around where the Amazon entrance is and then heading up towards Foster Street okay so ultimately it will provide a connection into the Foster Street project which is coming out to bid currently and is it on both sides of thead one side of the road the one side of the road the side that Amazon's on or the the Amazon side of the road and at one point there was talk of putting a bike lane there is that still that's separate not as not as part of this project the Foster Street one Y part great okay right any questions no all right um actually yeah is there going to be a um crosswalk there will be a crosswalk up by Foster Street but that's actually part of the Foster Street project okay there's few moving pieces here but ultimately we'll all get connected thanks good question move the SL board vote approve the awarding of a contract for $423,000 180 for sidewalk construction on Taylor Street to IW Harding construction company of West Bridgewater Mass second move by Mark Matthew all those in favor I it's unanimous um Steve Steve beforee step away can I ask you Mr chair please um just a we can do it offline but just a mass do question when you're in conversation with them if you know how to navigate you might know somebody there um if you know how to navigate um us painting the traffic control boxes uh cultural Council has tried to reach out to them and hasn't had any success so I know a lot of communities around us have had them painted but so I feel like I went down this road like a year ago with them okay um all the traffic signals in town own by mot I think a lot of these other communities been municipally owned traffic lights so it's a little much easier project absolutely yeah um we even get bounced around a little bit at do okay even though I know somebody there she happens to work in construction so nothing nothing to do what we're trying what we're trying to get done uh I can certainly dig up the the people we contacted District I don't want to put any more work on you if if you have some contacts you want to throw them my way up I'm happy to make some phone calls and yeah we okay with that it was some email so I just have to go back and find it okay if you guys okay with me doing that of the cultural Council all good stuff thanks Steve yeah problem sorry I Pi on the spot thank you no no worries and Jim do you have the contract in front of no I the vote the vote's just to authorize authorizes Steve or or Jim to sign so we're all set with that vot have you seen the contract I have not okay I've seen make sure Jim sees the contract please where as we just voted for so yeah no thank you um all right I think that's it for that you're staying on for L some stuff here okay um 4B review parking issues at Lake View Drive and vote to add Lake View Drive to the list of enforcable no parking streets um so just a a little background on this the last couple years uh there's been some complaints um now let me just clarify for my previous discussion before the meeting this Lake View Road from mebrook over to Long Lake um Road not Lake Shore Drive or Long Lake Road or Lake Drive you know there's a bunch of Lake drives roads over there I need to look at a map right before this meeting because I was I get the two confused as well so Lake View was sort of outside the kind of Realm of where parking Rec controls parking with permit only there's some other no parking signs through the neighborhood uh what has gone on is people have sort of found their way to park along the road there after hours and the beach is closed kind of overtake the neighborhood if you will it's kind of a thing not just here in littl in other communities on these small local public beaches um people come in just overwhelmed staff or come in after hours uh a lot of trash a lot of you know other things going on so last fall walking it with Park and wreck as well as Chief Bernard and Deputy Chief patteron and then having additional follow-up discussions with the police uh we come forward tonight with a recommendation for no parking on mayew road um again with the hope to kind cuz if it's proximity to the beach you right there across the boat ramp you're on the beach you know it make it not so easy and also gives the police an enforceable tool if there's an issue they can take take a Vehicles could you bring that up so the board this is the board's clear so there we go okay so we're looking at at the beach if you're looking at it from the water it's the road to the right when we're talking uh Lake field yeah parallel along the road there okay all right so is this a general parking ban it's a seasonal parking ban it's a so the thought was a general parking B um can certainly be up a discussion when the beach is open uh from what the beach basically Memorial data Labor Day type of thing you know it could be a May 1 to September 15th or or something um internally we had talked about General band it's a little more consistent with the parking thing but where a lot of this down there is um permit parking with Park and wreck which is more seasonal we could certainly uh make that work as well what are the bands on the other roads current the other roads are seasonal or per so the ones that are controlled by Park and wck the sign is permit parking only typically on the one side you'll see like when you drive down Town Town Road which accesses the beach there's the spaces on one side signed permit parking only and even along like Lake Shore and the corner of I'm going to get them all continued down that beach the next one over um there's stripe spaces with perm parking only then no parking on the opposite side of the street okay no questions the only the only question I have St I have the answer to this is um there are some half dozen residences there and if they have company or something you know something like that I mean it's it's so that so common sense the police would just I don't want to speak for the police yeah but uh typically in my experien these are kind of it's all or nothing so the complaints that it were received Park and wre received a lot of them administrator's office received a couple in late last summer into the fall uh it was from residents on the road mode mhm um but again in my experien this is It's kind of it's tough to police you know car who is it is it is they down you know it's kind of this is a June July August biggest issue pretty much right yeah y but I'm sure there's September October with nice days or you know prior to June there nice days people are still going to go down there oh absolutely um did the Long Lake committee what it's called The Long Association were they involved in this as well not specifically uh in this yeah I was just curious if that would any input was there an input from them on this regard it's probably a year ago or so I went to one of their meetings and discussed variety of issues which a lot of my memo covers all the other issues yeah um but not specifically I'm I'm pretty sure they're aware yeah that this was coming okay or some form of it um I had heard from residents a while back that um it's a problem there's also a problem of cars idling for really extended stretches of time on the roads adjacent to the beach it this you know people I talk to the theory was that they're letting their kids go to the beach and then they're sitting in their air conditioned cars holding their meetings or whatever on phone um is it possible to um put up some signage about you know not idling on the streets in the area where we do have parking allowed I know we've got some up at the middle school for example where the you know where there's pickup mhm uh yeah those signs are typically readily available I'd start probably around in and around the parking lot yeah if people are sitting in their car and watching their kids swim which seems crazy um but yeah we could certainly but again I don't want to get into throwing signs everywhere either cuz you call sign pollution you get so many signs nobody pays attention to any of them y um but yeah we can show it thinking maybe if we can have you know right where it says permit parking only put another one about you know not idling okay yeah we can look into that for sure a rider on on those signs yeah we have idling laws right but we do yeah but the police you know AR don't have time to stand with stopwatch and see how long folks are doing it but the sign might uh might might help okay won't hurt um so we did see both memos and any other questions regarding the memos so I guess with the I know my memo touches on a lot of other stuff I don't know I know the motion is just kind of for the no parking I don't know if you wanted me to just kind of blast through the rest of it real quick just so you guys are on board sure uh or at least know what's kind of going on so uh a lot of this I know when we um did the budget presentations and things one of the goals was kind of running through a lot of the signage in town and then review of some of that just specifically in this neighborhood uh there's a number of stop signs mainly on the roads coming out to goldsmith street that aren't on the approved stop sign list for whatever reason so that was you know I listed them out here kind of um so if they're not on the approved list don't let the cat out of the bag but they're not necessarily enforcable so uh something to consider we need to and again kind of reviewing this all over town there's a lot of signs that are up missing you know not just in this specific neighborhood but all over town um and it's common in every town signs go up you knew somebody 50 years ago that put a sign up that type of thing but an effort to stay consistent with the uh manual on uniform traffic control devices I kind of want to you know and plus gives us a tool when somebody calls and says there was a stop sign here what I always say it's not on the approved list I'm not putting a sign up you know they can come talk to you guys so it looks like it looks like every one of these is a is a a road turning leaving the road turning out onto Goldsmith is that right and it's kind of in like a a short span I don't know if it's from years ago when sidewalk was extended and intersections were reconstructed the signs all went up as part of the project and okay doesn't seem to be any documentation that it made that last step of approval from the board for all the sign okay uh cuz it's kind of like shake the lane down you know halfway back to the sum um so again that's something for discussion also in through the neighborhood we had received uh complaints myself uh I think the administrator's office as well as the police about even deep in the neighborhood stop signs stop signs you know traffic control stuff um the man it was very specific on what you need for stop signs nothing down in the neighborhood would qualify for a stop sign it's also very specific in the manual talking about you can't use stop signs for uh speed control or traffic cing so you can't just throw a stop sign up to try to get people to slow down basically um that's odd yeah but there's there's specifically three different criteria if it doesn't meet like traffic volumes or accident history and it actually accident history is one of them but then there you know some egregious like sight line thing like you pull up and there's a the building or something so you can't see so you realistically have to stop be safe um you know overwhelming accident history you know six accidents in 12 month period you know M big action it's not like just little you know bumps type thing um but nothing through there uh really meets the need in the neighborhood anyway there's some other other things potentially we can do uh again in reviewing with the police and seeing their complaints maybe we bring something forward we can do different things with streets to try to get people to slow down if there's a need remember the the speed limit was lower to 25 you know where it would have been 30 through the neighborhood Town white speed limits 25 you know complaints are Amazon trucks UPS trucks things like that well I don't know go to the mall you know I don't know what to tell you uh you know they're in a high R to go from this one or that one but usually a lot of people think the bigger trucks are going a lot faster than they are uh again in my my history of doing stuff like this right um some of the other concerns uh down around kind of Lakeshore Drive Beach Drive I was just talking about it uh there's that's kind of the the funnel point of pedestrians from the neighborhood coming down getting crossing over to the beach I know Park and Rec's going to be doing a lot lot of uh work on a accessible path across to the beach turtle pond yeah and then there's some work going on down around Frog Pond but there's some concern with the way people drive around that corner uh Beach and Lake Shore so a few different options um considering uh at this point haven't really had a full discussion with uh police chief and deputy chief at this point but I have two or three different ideas um I meet with them as you know season starts ramping up maybe something we can get done uh over there early this season but again I want to walk that meet with him first again a few different options um either restricting access in the road doing some bump outs you know some uh uh better ass sign crosswalk a few different things we can we can think about um to try to make that a little bit of a a safer access into you know Beach which we all know is very popular so can we get this on that particular um Lake Shore can we this on a future agenda I mean what's the obviously meeting with the the chief um I guess fire even to some extent these corners but yeah depending depending on uh the direction we want to go uh certainly fire would have to be involved because access um you know if they come down with um you know depending on what vehicle they're going to respond with we got make sure they can get there so that you know it's as simple as meeting with fire showing some turning templates for the size of their vehicles make sure that they can make it in and out of where they need to go in case of emergency is there something we can uh get done before the season if there's going to be I mean maybe there there's maybe there isn't anything but sounds like there's something we can do yeah so I think the next meeting is well the next after town after town meeting but still it's before the official opening of the beach so yeah we could you know I can I can Circle back with Ryan we can tentatively schedule that and then I can um get the uh Chief involved and we can we can certainly walk and come back with some couple different options have we consider more painting more crosswalks or even painting that corner different color or something to make it more pedestrian friendly or things uh to me um I hate paint things every way every place but that's I think we would probably Define a Crossing down there as well as do some maybe turn restriction type of thing um you know like make the end of the road you can't come out you can only come in type of thing done that in the past in other community so want to go down make some you know take some measurements make some marks see what it'll do some some of the issues some of the issues involve uh uh if you're if you're crossing the street you there's you're not walking on into a sidewalk well there is you're walking into parking parking spaces where there going the car is going to be so those are two issues you could also uh do something temporary with you know traffic horses and things like that just to done that in the past too yeah okay well we'll hit this on no absolutely right good thank you um on the on the stop signs that you're talking about and those are stop signs that are existing that you just went on the approved list there's potential that there's other places that don't have stop signs that we might want to add that's what you're saying probably not in that neighborhood sure there is not in that neighborhood but townwide we haven't done a inventory of where they where they are where they are versus where they should be in that list so we just to touch on that that's kind of a summer project when I get some summer kids in just start basically ride and Road documented all the signage I mean technically by the McD is supposed to have a sign inventory so might as well do one um but yeah I'll get that and then we'll see what's What's um legal not legal misplaced needs to be upgraded that type of thing and in the memo you said there are two signs in the lake neighborhood there seem to be two intersections of what I read from here this is there shouldn't be signs there but there are no correct okay and they were they're on the list approved back in the 80s and I okay couldn't tell you what you're not going to do anything about those now they're on the list there's no no yeah okay thanks stes parking going forward do we need to there was talk of whether the signs are a SLI board under the slick board control or just under like there's a we have a parking policy that has has all these signs in them but um the town clerk also has something that has all the signs in them and I don't think the two are kept in sync with each other I think that's part of what Steve needs to look at to make sure that we're talking about when we look at the bylaw that where the stop signs are you know is important well there's two different one is where the stop signs are and then the other is who has the master list and where who's responsible for maintaining that list you would get this you would go to the clerk to get the certified copy of all the approved signs okay this board approves ass sign in the location so you would do the inventory and basically submit it to the town clerk to hold the document yeah i' compare the two at that time okay so it doesn't actually have to be in our policy because it's something we approve for her list right right but again I think what Steve is trying with the make make sure everything jbes and then we and then we if there are things that are out there that aren't being accounted for that should be accounted for that we I think what you're saying is when you when you look these up it's the list of signs and stuff are in the the board's rules and regulations if you will but then they're also in the town code yes right so they should be in one place not two they should be in the town code they yeah town code is where you want where you would be because that's the legal basis for the existence of St sign yeah all right um kind of going outside of a public input is there anyone here that's here to speak directly to this motion regarding Lake View Road no okay all right let's uh look for a motion for everybody's good move the select board vote to add Lake View Road to the list of enforceable no parking streets second move by Mark by Matthew all those in favor I it's unanimous all right thank you thank you Steve Rob did you have did you relev to this subject that we just talked about I know that was a lot did you have did you need to speak yeah okay please come up now then thank you Rob Brown Rob Browns 25 Juniper Road so first I want to say I'm grateful to be a resident of Littleton whether it's Park and wreck whether it's Steve DPW W met Jim met many of you recently so I appreciate that having said that I'm certainly one who has been chatting with Steve for about 15 months with regard to some of the um stop signs in the neighborhood that aren't authorized where I listened to Steve's presentation in 20323 January to Long Lake neighborhood association then started to engage him on matters after hearing a variety of residents I then worked hundreds of hours along Beach Drive removing Japanese not weed in which I specifically I don't know if you guys are familiar if you want the map up the um I know I've got two minutes um Beach Drive in Lakeshore is as was just described my concern is that and I think Steve is very well intended but I also hear the regulations and the regulations I think bely the real danger that I personally witness that I've spoken with numerous residents I can speak on one firsthand who claims there was an incident involving her daughter and herself with to a vehicle there's obstruction with regard to visibility with regard to the traffic descending from Goldsmith to Beach Drive whipping around the corner similar coming from Emerson to Lake Shore and then moving up on beach TR so a couple things um and didn't really know that this was going to be on the agenda but thought because he's going to be here you're here I'm going to take two minutes um I'd say another group that you might want to consider beyond the police chief is the Conservation Commission who has responsibility and owns the property of frog pond that area years ago when the bio retention basins were constructing you guys are probably better experts so I apologize for preaching to you about this I don't think that level of vegetation had grown as it now does I don't think it's been maintained I think that there are significant visibility impairments that compromise pedestrian Vehicle Safety so I think that while there are remedies with regard to signage I think there could also be remedies considered with regard to removal of obstructions like trees and vegetation that leaf out right now they're not right visibly there a month though but yeah they're coming so that would be another consideration um just one closing aspect that I'll say is that long like neighbor Association this wasn't directly on the agenda or else I probably would be joined by several other people and we would probably have submitted something to you in advance for your consideration in advance of the top I think that well now you know we're going to have it on definitely yeah so this will work before obviously the summer yeah I'm not I'm not throwing any Stones other than say I think there will be more y involvement at at the time of your agenda you know that sort of thing so I I think those are the the primary things other than I appreciate aspects I heard earlier with regard to um painting and that sort of stuff and you guys are the expert Steve's the expert but walking the area I'd be happy to meet with everyone and anyone with regard to observations that I think local residents root rly experience and and really think it's I think the select board outside of Steve was following regulations and mutc if I understand that correctly that I've since read since January last year I think goes above and beyond that I would hope that the select board has the authority capacity and interest which I suspect you do with regard to providing Safe Streets for pedestrian and vehicles and I think in this instance even if we come to the conclusion with regard to professionals saying it doesn't warrant from accidents or doesn't warrant with regard to volume of traffic that just your awareness with regard to the activity of season shoulder season off seon I think there's something worthwhile to consider so we'll get something done thank you thank you for your time appreciate it all right all right on moving on to 4C the initial discussion of town administrative performance review so um we're on a very limited um timeline uh this year obviously Jim started quite late in the year uh so we um there was some discussion with Mark and I I think I don't know if that was a public discussion we had regarding the issue with elections yeah when because we just happen to walk into a uh a performance review cycle right yeah so um um when we got elected yeah so when yeah when Gary and I started on the board we immediately went into reviewing uh uh the three positions that report to us with no basis for being able to do that review so one of the things we talked about doing was pushing back the part portions of the review so that it was happening before the election so that the sitting board can review the do the Personnel review um by portion I mean the non-goal portion I mean you have there's two there's the general performance and then there how you completed your goals right and I think we should be doing the performance review generally as the sitting board rather than at before the election for all the employees that report to us because otherwise it get hard to do the reviews and and you know after the election there's just general chaos well it's not really fair and it's not to the three positions that do directly report because so my suggestion was we figur out how to expedite that portion of the reviews for um actually there's we only have two really this year right um but we should figure out how to do them sooner rather than later so if I uh get something together obviously with Jim and and Matt and then share it with the rest of the board over the next uh couple weeks to look at and that's what we would use um we we did speak in our um what was it our Retreat so we we have we have the template of what and where we're at and then we can that will kind of carry us into the performance review cycle for June July July 1st correct yes yeah when they kick off so yeah but I think we can definitely do this um I don't know if it has to be policy I think it can be board driven where we try to stay ahead of this um so that when we have these positions and all of a sudden where it's it's performance review time after an election and we've only got potentially this year is an odd year because it's a one electorate but usually there's two we've got two new members potentially like so you've basically got three people doing the evaluation that's not really fair to you know Jim or so are you're proposing that you're going to come back you're going to what are you going to do before yeah I want before May before the election yeah I don't know if we can do it before the election right so what were you just proposing yeah I I think going going forward because it really matters on a two person year but I think in general we want to do it on a on a one person um year every year we want to do it um but this year it's probably not going to happen but I think we can have at the very least um input from everybody on the evaluation it might not be signed okay um not be but we can at least have it and then years going forward we can start this process in April where we're really looking at you know the employee um and whether they met goals and where they're at and we can score it you know everybody can can score it so we should do we should do goals right after the elections right for the year that's following them yeah I mean you have time there the goals we have time for because but but then in April we're going to evaluate on the goals and evaluate on the performance so like we should set the goals up right after the election so we have most of the year to cuz we have a new board potentially and they're going to have different goals exctly yeah you know so yeah May and June yeah so July 1st we hit the ground running yeah so um so on this particular one I'll I'll definitely sit down once Jim and get something together so I think you know Jim and uh police chief can do their self assessment portion send them send them around to us we can respond to the self assessment either to you or Michelle or however we want to in in a kind of get the aggregate of the self assessment the goal portion I think can can wait longer right because at least this year anyway I mean if we wanted to say that the goals are due April 30th every year right that's that really hasn't been our policy in the past I mean we we could be our policy going forward but the goal section can wait longer because those are much more measurable you can see what was accomplished but the you know how you do on your day day things it really requires more of the existing board in my opinion yeah so so Michelle this is um we we do have the aggregate system set up we've used it in the past and that seems to work pretty well Town Council with Town Council okay they collect the aggregate has everybody seen that work um with with um Town Administrator in saldi I think was the first go with with him we did through Town Council but I don't know we can just do it through Michelle or someone else too right I don't we can have that discussion you're right as long as it's an it's independent and they're basically taking all the scores from the select board creating the Aggregate and those are the scores because now we have some positions contract positions that are coming on paper performance it's going to become critical that we get these these right yeah okay all right good thank you next up we have approval of veterans agent approval to Veterans agent for Memorial Day Parade May 27th Mr Browski good evening good even John just want to make sure that you guys know what we're doing Memorial Day as normal should be almost the same every year um just a normal day the Monday the 27th of May this year uh starts at donin's and ends up at Cemetery about a 3M walk okay not bad you have something drawn up pardon between now and then you'll have something drawn up yeah I mean you you got uh you got something already right yes yeah and then is that been put out T it's there there's a letter going out to a lot of the veterans that I have on the list okay uh and there's I'll get it on the cable and stuff like that too um you you know not much else we can do about that right get as much we can we get some signs out if we can but grandal to be determined yeah okay anybody wants to make a speech yeah can you guarantee kind of all right let's I've already uh did two Representatives so see I haven't heard back from them yet but that doesn't mean anything Jim they're usually a little L getting back legislators great they're busy yeah they're usually out there though so be good all right I'll set look for a motion look like Ford we're going to do a motion to approve the that's all move the S board vote to approve the veterans agent request for approval of the Memorial Day Parade to be held on Monday May 27th 2024 second Mo by Mark second by Matthew all those in favor I perfect you make Monday thank a good one your sneakers thanks Mark appreciate you that a 60 vote six nothing 60 yeah all right uh we are on 4E a vote to approve vehicle use policy that was be our HR [Music] Director good evening Michelle vibert Human Resources Director um before you um Human Resources is requesting a review of one of our many policies that we have on select board member ramacher has has been asking to go through a lot of our policies um so this is the first of many that will be coming in front of you um the three requests for the vehicle use policy really um deal with the naming the first request is the naming we are revising all mentions of the board of Selectmen to select board that's this policy is very old so we're updating that we're also requesting to amend section 10 under special circumstances to include or their designate after it states the governing body the select board we run into a lot of instances where um it delays our hiring process in order to bring folks on board um because we have to wait for a select board meeting two weeks out and it just further delays um getting folks in here and the third request is to amend on attachment C which is under the guidelines for acceptable drivers so we actually have a rating system which the drivers um I pull their driving history and we rate their last 3 years of history in order to uh be an approved driver you have to fall under the rating of a one or a two and you can see in front of you that rating three um does not allow you to become a town driver we do have a lot of situations in which the driving history of the last 3 years um most of the time the issues we run into are really the last uh last little bit of that sentence under number three the marginal rating is that it states right now currently one at fault motor vehicle accident um we we have I mean there's a lot more cars on the road we're just talking about traffic and parking and lot more cars in the road lot more people a lot more things going on and we just feel it's unrealistic to assume that you know folks are not going to have more than one accident on interesting not at fault on there that's kind of you get rear ended yeah you get reared twice twice yeah so I mean it's just this is again a very old policy we want to maintain keeping the policy because it does give us a rating system to be able to certainly safety is number one a pro or deny but going with the safety um I don't feel that it's out of the realm to to ask for two atall accidents in the last 3 years okay I was going to do it the other way and say okay do we look at the last two years or one year of history but I'd like to keep the three years and just move it to two so you just said marginal you have to be one or two but then what is probationary for because probationary only refers to Marginal rating so anything excessive two right so if someone's an excess of two do they or do they not qualify so technically they wouldn't qualify um and that's where we could go in front of the board or exception of policy and ask for an exception to the policy if we felt it was not a safety concern for whatever reason that would be um and that's where that changing of the language is we now have to wait for another meeting can we go to the design as the Town Administrator for that approval but what would probationary be it who would who would be on probationary status is what I'm trying to figure out so if you were bringing somebody on board they're all set to go and but you pulled their driving record and it showed they had three accidents in you you also could have a current employee that if they got in a couple of accidents um and you know our policy right now if they get in an accident during work in a town vehicle you send them for a test immediately a drug and alcohol test um so if that came back and it was negative we could need a performance um eval valuation not an evaluation excuse me but a performance um plan if there was maybe a verbal warning then maybe the next time it's a written warning there's a progression right and so maybe they're under they're falling under the probationary status at that point okay okay I'm curious why we have not at fault accidents in the hair at all why bad luck viewed as is something that should keep people from working for us it's a really good question so I have not had a chance to review the entire policy I've been working with um our insurance company to actually see if we can maybe either tweak the one we have right now even more so into items like that such as you mentioned or if we just you know come up with a a new policy they did just recently send me a template that I'll be looking at um so I'm trying to look at a comparison of what do we have is it best to just start with a clean clean policy or keep the one we have in work off that but we do need some sort of rating policy but I I do agree that it's 5050 are typically not at fault so that that's the gray area that we'd have to decide whether we is a 50/50 I mean but I guess so the the real question is the insurance side if they if they agree with any language changes here we don't want to affect that policy yep so um I brought this um in front of the Personnel advisory committee last Thursday and um they did not have the new revised policy in front of them but we just discussed briefly um the changes we were looking for and it was um a really good question was brought up by one of the members um what happens to our insurance policy do we get charged more if we change our policy our our vehicle use policy the answer is no you don't get charged more they do not delve into how we rate driving records um so they they said move forward with with how you want to revise it anybody have I guess there's two question anybody have an issue with this and does anybody have an issue with um I mean do we want to I I'd like to actually go through this um offline with Michelle before we actually voted because there's some things that aren't consistent in the policy like the attachment a talks about fuel but then attachment a here is different um and this right here like for example what happens if you have one at fault accident right are you good are you marginal yeah so there I noticed that there's some language just that needs to be cleaned up so that wasn't accounted for when I made the adjustment to the two so one should fall somewhere okay um I also in general I have a question on these good and marginal does that mean I can have one accident and one traffic citation or or one you know is it one of the two or one of each or to rate under number two yeah it's or you can only have one or the other okay you can't have both you marginal cuz that's not the way I would read that good but under marginal we're I think so yeah if we remove theault language then it gets a lot clearer yeah so I yeah I'll work with you to clean up the language we definitely don't want to have a lot of interpretation in here especially it's a safety issue so right so yeah so we can bring this in there not do you have somebody right now that we need to um unfortunately I did but we do not any longer okay so you are good to move okay so we can um I have one other um like if we go back up earlier in the policy like DPW Trucks and Things aren't listed in the the the the police vehicles are listed you know School vehicles but DPW vehicle are not listed under the vehicles is that intentional um I don't have the answer to that we also don't give the deputy fire chief a vehicle but we give the deputy police chief a vehicle is that intentional Deputy fire chief vehicle that's not what it says here okay so the policy needs a little bit up it says the vehicle say police deputy chief but not fire Deputy so I'm just yeah I think I think your point mark is you know you probably need to look at it cuz there are some other gaps and and we're too we're not in a rush any to do it so um so maybe not the next meeting which would be at the at down meeting but maybe you know yeah right right sense the 24hour emergency use vehicles are what you're referring to yeah okay um okay qu so as far as if this policy we get this locked in our next meeting allowing Jim to exercise this policy is probably good enough if he's following this policy we should be able to delegate your your issue was timeliness correct on some of these yeah yes so is that that's something we can consider I guess yep okay all right Michelle thank you thank you thank you all right let's um jump into member updates we could real quick um let's put it down here Karen I'm going to go reverse what's up Matthew go first cuz he can give the orchard updates and I can see what he said um I think actually I'll probably just talk about that because it's the it's the next agenda item after all these updates sure is I'll just do the Orchard and apart from that I don't have anything else to to talk about okay so the only other thing go go go go the only other thing that I have would be that um I'm trying to pull it up here the um High School environmental Club is hosting a um zero waste day coming up in May and that'll be an opportunity for um residents to bring all sorts of things um to be disposed of M everything from mattresses to appliances um so uh keep your eye out for notices about that I think I think I want to say May 8th careful what they wish for in my house yeah that's it May 18th excuse me 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Littleton Middle School um but yeah lots of stuff that you can't normally get rid of um on your you know on the curb or okay and uh it's for for a very good cause so good group of kids you know what let's save you to last uh no I'm going to do this I'm not going to do any member updates until we go to the orchard item oh you're not doing them okay yeah yeah sure um since John was up there talking about the Memorial Day Parade just a reminder that the BFW does put on a lunch in immediately following the parade so everybody's invited to that um again immediately following the parade back at the BFW on Taya Street um also wanted to um I'm not sure if everybody's we this but U Francis dagel our new um Health director is working on the opioid settlement survey and um he's he's made some really good progress in that so uh hats off to him kudos to him and I think it's something that's um headed in the right direction so you expand on so is everybody aware of this opioid settlements okay we talked about the last meeting wer the ones you were going for okay thank you yeah um also the Buon rotary is having their 20th appan this summer uh in July and there's plenty of sponsorship opportunities so anybody that's interested can contact UM their favorite rotarian and that's it just um one of the questions I did have for John but it's didn't know if you know who parade Marshall was but in his note it did say to be determined for the more the par I think that's it great uh uh so last Thursday I attended a webinar on inspiring climate action uh from the MMA um I it was very informative and I suggest watching the video of it um um they talked about whether you needed a climate action plan or what it would take to write one and basically they say recommend recommend cribbing them now from other existing communities um on a lot of that stuff um on Friday I attended the Patriots Day uh kickoff um did you speak I did I didn't know okay good because I was sitting there I wasn't in town I was in New Jersey and I I was worried because I didn't see anybody respond but thank you for that except that was a Chuck and I were going back and forth on so oh good you guys I was hoping to make it but uh I got stuck down at madna okay in a clean room so and um I want everyone to know that uh the last Lum program for the season is this Friday at 7:30 at the high school it's um L Sugar Kings I believe it's a it's a um reggae band I believe so it's great family fund at a really affordable price so all right thank you um uh we attended the senior center groundbreaking that was a um over the last since our last meeting so that was a we had a beautiful day so that was nice uh just since then they've got a lot of work done out there it's amazing what um a lot of taxpayer dollars can do in the round so that was good um we also did a uh clickers test I was one of the invite invitees so remember we town meeting this we're going to be using the clickers uh simple yes no is on the clickers um I'm not going to plug it too much we're going before town meeting um we will get a quick demonstration we will get test vote Well everybody's there um on how to use them uh just to I'm going to throw it out there a little bit you can click yes a 100 times um and then no the last time and it'll take the last thing you click before the the vote is called it's closed so before the vote is closed by the moderator and the moderator will let you know when the vote is closing it's each vote will be about 30 seconds you'll have plenty of time can we play the Jeopardy music I know Mark will get creative with that I'm sure um so uh we did test them you know there were a few bugs and great some great ideas came from the group that was uh in 103 um we as we tested it some just some freeor that needs to be done just to make sure that the public is aware and and what we do in circumstances of someone walks out with it you it's a little different that's all when you go to the bathroom you have to drop the clicker off we you can't leave the room with it things like that um but so I'm I think it's going to help make the town meeting a efficient but it is the first time so hopefully it runs smoothly um thank you for the Patriots Day uh Mark Liberty Liberty Square uh next year it will be the big one uh that's the anniversary so we we do have funding set aside for that so more to come on that um it was National Public Safety telecommunicator dispatcher week last week so a shout out to all of our telecommunicators and dispatchers uh town meeting report I'll bring it up I I'm sure you're is those of you that got the town meeting report we uh there was a misprint and we apologize you're going to hear a lot of this uh May 7th um annual town meeting Monday May 7th it's our town meeting is actually Tuesday May 7th so the we're we so used to having uh these Town meetings on Mondays it is Tuesday May 7th um we have put it out in a broadcast we mentioned it earlier I think uh maybe lctv we can just run it over and over again as well so share with your friends the town meeting is on Tuesday May 7th um Le be a problem yeah that's that's right misprint and I had okay that was it um yeah I think that's it so Town definitely it uh Town Administrator do you have I do the update thank you'll to public expand a little bit on the the clickers one thing that uh the public should know is that when you have provided a clicker there were no numbers attached so it's not tracking votes of who's voting what it's completely random and it's just you just recorded as you have a clicker there's nothing there's nothing else identifying anybody uh uh through Department de meeting this uh today a lot of great stuff going on some super super employees here I'll tell you uh we get the year end from the account the year end instruction memo that's going to go to the department heads for year end uh with purchase orders contracts things of that nature uh we had um a follow-up we received notice for a followup for a bond call and let me just read uh some of just a couple of the excerpts from the from the correspondents we get I it's it's multiple pages but um they've confirmed uh our AAA Bond rating again it's outstanding uh it also the town produces consistently balanced operating results and uh well embedded financial management policies and practices with a focus on long-term sustainability and a strong institutional framework and uh Outlook the stable Outlook reflects their expectation that the town will maintain its strong financial performance so amongst a number of other compliments but uh kudos to uh the select board the finance committee uh um Ryan and the finance team and everybody of what an outstanding job uh everyone continues to do um we have another uh we have so many great departments here we want to let everyone know that this Saturday uh the uh police department for the um uh here for the town of Littleton will be traveling to Tech not all of them just the chief and the deputy chief will be traveling to Texas for an award it's an FBI leader program uh for the supervisors which is uh it's it's it's an impressive uh award uh they don't uh it's it's very very difficult to uh to achieve that but they've been able to achieve that so kudos to the Chief and his administration uh DPW uh some of the spring work they're doing is field preps get the sweepers out uh and they're going to be fixing some some of the snow damage that has been caused through uh through the winter um and getting back to uh what chuck had exp uh EXP press about the opioid survey it's going to be it's been distributed to the Board of Health the select board now now has it uh and then um it'll go department heads and finally out to the uh to the public so after any suggestions that you may have with the content of that please Circle back and we'll um uh and take that into the uh Board of Health to take it into consideration uh there'll be hard copies around certain areas for this uh for the survey it'll be a Board of Health Website school department portal uh Library uh it's also on the town page so good stuff there uh Tre City USA I need to find that memo excuse me okay we can come back to it thank you there you can it uh no there's no winging I tried that earlier we do have an award on the wall for Tree City USA I believe um so want to like effective next Monday there will be there'll be a one way into the new to the new Senior Center uh so this is maybe temporary it's still up in the air going to be temporary or or permanent but the one way is you is you're coming in as the senior center is on on your right and town hall is on your left- hand side that's going to be one way in effective uh next Monday and there will be signage put up for everybody and everyone has to exit over towards uh box and wreck and end of the building and uh that will be uh um that'll be done there b some pretty close calls there uh recently so it was It was decided uh we have a blood mobile that is going to um uh that is going to be here on on the 23rd from 9 to to 3 there are 37 individuals uh that are that are registered for it there's still some open slots they like to see at least approximately 40 but they can handle handle more uh senior in the Council of Aging is doing a dinner and magic show at 400 p.m. and a pizza party um hosted by lwd at 11:00 a.m. on the 26th the dinner and magic show will be on the 24th um just a couple other other things Community onetop Grant uh we'll uh so we're going to continue on with the infrastructure uh with 550 King Street project uh also we are going to uh Littleton common revitalization will be will be part of that and we as a result of my attending the economic development uh Chamber of Commerce meeting um I reconnected with a colleague that now is with mass development and he is going to come down and see how we how they can invest uh some grant money here into the community and working going to work with minin and we're going to have a meeting to see see whether we'll be eligible for some of that stuff and finally one of the things that part of that Community uh One-Stop Grant is going to be affordable housing trust um they are going uh to for an aim on rehab grants for to hopefully keep people in their homes it's income eligible low and moderate income individuals to help them and it is I believe the the terms still being worked out in terms of what it's deferred or okay and uh but more news on that as that evolves and last but uh um oh couple more things we have uh Mart um was awarded a community connections grant that includes the towns of Bolton boxboro Litton and stow and this is a ride service grant that can get people ages eight and up to up to 20 miles from pickup locations in or in or into Littleton so someone from Littleton Works in someplace in uh tubry well it's $5 uh and it's got a fee structure like that as early as 5:30 a.m. uh the schedule starts and um it's uh 5:30 a.m. to 10: p.m. daily and uh which in the the cost chart is 1 to 10 mil is $3 11 to 15 mil is 4 16 to 20 miles is five do you have a question I was just going to say I'd like to give some kudos to to Ryan because he worked on that gr this is three years ago I know that you and I worked on it and you you did The Lion Share let's be honest but um thank you very much for that because here it is and it's come to fruition so thanks cool are we going to have uh plenty of advertising about that on our website yeah that's a good one yeah and it a changed a little bit too because right yeah the other the other the fixed route to the local shopping destinations wasn't widely used there was uh that's been eliminated uh there was a two people I believe that was a pretty row low ridership and so they they thought that they would uh Mart would amend it and to try and get more creative and more interest out there this is point to-point service for any Resident period yes yes you have to call ahead of time uh to the day the day before and uh and schedule that but what they're doing is they're Contracting through the grant Mart is Contracting with um it's originally it was expressed to me it was taxi cab company so I I don't know where there's a taxi cab company around so I don't know if it's going to be ubber I don't know but there is a number to call and uh that person understands uh who they have to contract with I assume EHS is aware of this I'm sorry I assume EHS is a winner of this this is all coming from yep everything is coming from the the ride in Boston the M somewhat similar to that great um last thing uh pox and wreck again um that was a very uh that was a wonderful thing uh for Cass and for the for the team and uh the long L neighborhood uh had a cleanup last weekend which produced uh a tremendous effort and it was very impressive uh they are going to continue um and that is with the help and the guidance from Tim and pox and wreck uh and um and it's also going to continue for next weekend uh there is as really that uh select woman um Morrison had had brought to the attention which got the ball rolling rolling for a uh a Hardscape path um at the beach and that is going to quotes have come in for that and they're waiting uh for a uh a DP D number clearance number so they'll potentially looking at second week uh of in May for the construction of that of that path just time R into the wire that would be great and um they have uh a couple events coming we have the touch of truck on May May 4th apparently that was very well received last year and that's going to be at 550 King Street and then uh third Thursday uh the first one is in May but then the one in June U must be moved uh because of the carnival that the rotary is is is hosting 20 the 23rd of June right exactly so it's not that that Thursday and um we want to let everyone know is uh through the suggestion of uh selecting raka that uh to reach out to uh the congresswoman's office uh and had but first reached out to lelwd so we're going to partner uh with uh a request for hopefully you know some relief on our infrastructure but they but the lwd also has some specific help that they're uh that they'll be requesting for some federal funds so we'll keep you all apprised on that but it's uh lwd is great to work with they they're fantastic so in Highway post their schedule of street sweeping so people know when they'll be in their neighborhood there is that was that was one of the things we talked about so we uh there was a in the main thorough phase the the way Steve explained to me this us this morning was main thorough Affairs and then they'll get into the neighborhoods and I is there an order in which the neighborhoods you always do and it's kind of a a rotation thing that the neighborhood that was first last year was not going to be the neighborhood that was first this year and they're able to do people want to clean up their yards in anticipation it's nice to know before that you hear the street sweeper and go out like oh I want to get all the sand out of my driveway now too L could we make sure um that we have signs up on Monday just in case folks show up for the Tuesday town meeting yep that's yeah we're going to talk about that when we get to the SE y okay thank you thank you check yeah I just um Jim because you brought you when you brought up the bond rating I I was at a family event yesterday it was held in a fine establishment on the west rockby dead of blind but I was at the bar and struck up a conversation with guy the name of JD Wolfsburg and he's a he's a financial planner and our portfolio manager and told him I was from Littleton he said oh you guys have an awesome Bond rating so I keep an eye on who are you that's what it does in the SP time he looks at and he said he was really inad yeah right I mean like Pine Guinness and a compliment was it the Irish place right on the main thorough there used to be called The Irish h house it's called Waterfords now yeah right right on the child Riv on Bridge Street yeah just sitting around drinking beer looking through Bond rting known for one thing that's a good thing today day so was you know Kudos kudos to everybody involved it's a huge deal guys have done an amazing job outstanding job we know what our communities around us are dealing with and we're dealing with the same but just to be able to maintain that is quite impressive huge it's huge very impressive quite a hobby all right public Don mckyer 43 Foster Street so my comments are regarding the nagog hill Orchard and and the Warren article would you rather that I uh speak at the end of public in put just as transition and I'll tell you what I'll let you speak after Mr nous gives his so so why don't I a presentation during that period sure okay works great yeah he might answer some of the things you had too so perfect anyone else all right sure okay you're ready to pounce man all right it's a Charged room no pressure I guess that's up next um 6A discussion regarding article 11 declared neog Hill Orchard a surplus property in authorized sale and potential vote to include a subcommittee of the neok Hill Orchard ad hoc working group in the prospective request for proposal uh process to identify a new owner for the neok hill Orchard so we as a board and the select board approved the ward article which uh gives uh uh at the town meeting you know basically gives the select board by approving this as by declaring the orchard as Surplus gives the select board the right to um pick a seller pick a buyer and sell an orchard and the um Orchard working group also recommended the article and and endorsed it um subsequent to that uh we had a a meeting where I think there was a fair amount of concern in the public um a lot of people show show up and I think that they are um feeling disenfranchised and feeling like they are not comfortable with um giving doing having a single vote at town meeting and allowing the process to move forward there without any more input from the from the public um and so we discussed it at our last Orchard working group meeting and we went back and forth on several you know proposals and we we came up with what three primary things that we wanted to do um the first was to add two members two public at large members to The Orchard working group I believe the select board has the ultimate authority to um to appoint them but we would um respectfully request that you this board um uses the recommendation of the orchard working group as far as the membership of the two additional members sure the second item was that we wanted when when um Brad Mitchell and I spoke to mapc about the RFP process we were we we talked to them about the possibility of them helping us draft it and they weren't a good fit for that but they did say that they they offered help with public um forums so we would like to talk to the mapc and try to organize I would say two public input sessions on discussing the criteria for the RFP the criteria for the purchaser because after we discussed it at the working group I think we all we all felt that the really the important thing for public input is to put up the guard rails when we write the RFP and be very succinct and concise about the criteria that we're looking for in a purchaser because that's going to inform everything about how we proceed with evaluating and choosing the final purchaser so we wanted to make sure that the public was involved and and we wanted to help RP mapc facilitate those so I was coming to this board to ask for permission to basically go to them um and and start that process okay so this is similar to have kind of the feel that um the MBT that was exactly what we were thinking yeah that's that's a good way to have the public and then the third thing was that I think there was a sense a sense that this decision was going to be made in a dark Smoky room and no one was going to know about it so gosh we we want this board and the working group is going to commit to a open public meeting with a joint vote on the final decision on the purchaser and um we are the working group I think is very concerned that this warrant article will fail because there will be objections to the process in terms of um the lack of control from town I I don't think that this is actually um a process problem I think it's an Optics problem I think that this board and the working group is very open to having making sure that the public has plenty of input but there are a bunch of reasons why we don't want to go to a second vote and one of the main well apart from it not necessarily being legal which is one problem that's a I would say relatively low risk but a greater risk is it if we make the purchase contingent upon a town meeting vote a good quality applicant may not may choose not to go after it because they're going to have to do a lot of work to put the proposal together and they're not necessarily going to want to go to that effort if they think that it's going it's a it's up in the air yeah I so so those are so those are my three asks I'm sure that like I know that there are several other people here I think everybody in the audience is here to talk about the orchard um so I will let um uh Miss Morrison speak and then anyone from the audience who wants to speak I think we should all have input on this before we discuss it as a board well we'll discuss it as a board and then the public okay that's fine too or either way I want everybody to speak as well yeah okay okay so just for some context I was um not available for the most recent meeting I was available remotely for the meeting prior to that where um there was a lot of expression of concern about the wording of the warrant article um I would characterize the concern a little differently there were a lot of people there um ultimately there was a vote about whether this idea of a final vote or I would call it a veto right um in a town meeting types uh situation was was what people wanted and that that came out 50/50 um so given the amount of vocalization there was against it the final vote didn't necessarily you know look the Optics were you know that came out a lot differently than the amount of feedback that we heard against it so are these individuals that don't want a sale of the property period were you getting a feel for that or is it people just it's a trust it's a trust issue it's a trust issue um and yeah I think it's a um I think it's also a just a concern and understandable concern by um a lot of folks who live right nearby sure um but you know this is something that's happening completely out of their control and it's a big decision and it's you know concern but um so okay um open public meeting to make our choice about who would ultimately be granted is I have concerns about whether procedurally that's that's something we can do I think it has to be in an open meeting that who who you're actually picking right yes but the evaluation of I mean my well they have I mean we we're going to I mean this is subject to to Public Law right and we're going to have criteria by which the elected bound to judge these proposals and so that's why we're elected so you have but you would have the public input at all these sessions and as many as we need to do to get this right but the forms but at the end of the day so at the end of the day we're not doing a sealed bid I guess is what I'm asking I don't know what you I mean I guess it's the question for for you guys too because it's there's u i mean so part of what Matthew was asking was so there's seven members right now on the adog working group you'd like to add two more members to that so the question is I think for um vote boards is how do you want to structure the process for the request of proposals which is to say typically you have a subcommittee and you could do a subcommittee of both groups if you wanted to do that that has taken the input from the mapc facilitated meetings and then you know and then you've heard that input and then you go you develop your criteria and then assign the the PE the parties from this board and and and from um presumably the ad hoc working group uh to participate in that and make a recommendation to the from that well I mean it could be it could be to both so we can we can have the working the subcommittee that's where I'm getting a little confused okay so here here's what I here's what here's here's the way I had I thought it was going to go so we we're not really going to have sealed bid because because because the price isn't the the determining Factor so we're going to two yeah you'd have so it's a two bit so it's like a two envelope process right so the first thing would be that you would you would take the um you know if there's three bid biders they they're giving you two envelopes one that has that um is giving you their response to the criteria so and then you're making an evaluation there and then after that you'd be opening up the price but the primary basis for which You' be making a decision would be on the criteria okay so the technical proposal so to the technical proposal right so the judgment is based on the technical proposal my my assumption was subject then that's something that we can meet and discuss in in a meeting so my assumption was that the uh working group would evaluate all of the submissions on their Tech on their technical merits let's say and pick a subset of them a handful of them to bring to the larger group to to discuss and then and then that you know in this case it would be the working group in the select board that would vote on a final a final deter a final person a final candidate right so then then we get the Karen's question about you know technically how could you do this so um I mean it would be you know my recommendation as the mcpo person on this group would be to say you know to to identify Representatives uh of both groups who then are you know by that point you have you'll have the criteria you would have deved that already and you assign you know subgroup you know from both presumably both the select board and the ad hoc working group to represent you because the thing is it's just you also have to think about it from a practical side of things too which is to say like if you have what would then be a nine member board plus a five member board it starts to get unwieldly so I mean generally speaking the reason why you put um representatives there is that uh that way that discussion can take place because you know when you're you're having you're talk about the merits of um you've done you've tried to hire people uh you know in public and that gets a little awkward it's saying I like this one better because this and and then they're also going to Pro probably presumably be presenting some elements that are also proprietary as well which has some downside too so um you know I I think um you know there is not one way to do it but my thought to you would be that both the select board and the ne Hill atog working group would be identifying you know a subcommittee to re you know to be reviewing um the proposals based upon again the criteria you developed with the Public's input and mpc's facilitation and and go from there that's that's and then get two two envelope process that we talked about you're evaluating the criteria first and foremost and then you're opening up the envelope on price and so that you're basically then at that point you're making a recommendation from that based upon the again the criteria that you've established within the RF and we would just bring one recommendation to the larger group to vote up or down yeah that's that's right okay right right so having attended the last two working group meetings I don't think the general public would be happy with that proposal I think I like the two bid two envelope process but I think first I I don't think you're going to be overwhelmed with our responses that you really need to have um a Sub sub meeting Sub sub committee to do this if we are that's a problem we can tackle once we have 20 rfps and say that the so this is more you're trying to get the more involvement of the public as opposed to just another committee yeah I I think if you took you know the rfps and evaluated them in the back room and said this is our favorite The public's going to go bananas on this they're not going to like that at all right right so I think you'd be much better off evaluating those rfps in public right I don't expect that there's going to be that many of them um I also think the process needs to be slightly different than what Matthew suggested and I think the working group should vote on their recommendation and protect present it to the select board who then votes it as well and we as a select board commit to following the recommendation of the group pending you know you know unless we something glaringly that we disagree with right that we um yeah cuz the people on the working group weren't elected to do this we were elected to do this we should be the ones that have correct um the final say on it but we should strongly follow their recommendation so I I think where I'm getting hung up is where the line between the the private evaluation of this of the first envelopes and the public evaluation of those sub of those submissions comes because I think my intention on talking to you about this process was to make the the process of of evaluating the submissions more public so I understand that there are issues with that and it's unwieldy but I do think that that's the primary concern that everybody has expressed which is that again the we're going to bring one one submission forward after back room smoking meeting and that people aren't going to know why we chose that that person or organization so I agree with that so I think the working group should be doing in public all these rfps with the first envelope we can debate whether the working group should ever even open the second envelope right or when the second envelope gets opened but that's a that's a much later process okay in my opinion you already picked the person based on the first envelope and if it's you know if the criteria is close enough maybe then you go to the second envelope but I'd question whether the working group even needs to see the second envelope so but so the mark see the problem with that is that then what you you're proposing so you're saying two different things first you're saying it should be the bo the select board's decision but then you're saying that it should be the the adoc working group no no what I'm saying is the okay so the working group makes a recommendation the select board votes that recommendation right right but that but but understand though that the the the the real skin in the game when the board will have this is to when they're going to be prospectively looking at the criteria and and make if that's what you choose to do because what you're proposing to do then is just basically take that recommendation that has been vetted by another committee and then having that choice if that's what the board chooses to do that's your right but if the if if if you now have nine members who are going through on a two envelope process that's a public meeting just as just as again we we could set up if again in our earlier discussion about having two two designes you could have that as a public meeting too I'm just saying that you know don't just keep in mind that you're looking at this you know this is a technical process where you're looking at to say okay we've got 10 criteria we're going to give 10 points for each criteria so it does really sort of get into the weeds to some extent but it's also you know um you know it's also you have to be sensitive to the fact that you that someone else is out there and and you're judging say you know let's say one of the criteria is fiscal capacity you know I mean it's a public meeting it's going to be on you know it could hurt some feelings on that too so you know don't you always have to keep in mind with something like this that there is some other there's a party on the other side of this who is going to be looking at this it's filmed and it's public and it's I think that's the same point about why town meeting is a difficult party to do this because like oh you know but but this is a little different cuz the rfps are all public documents they file so if there's something in that RFP that's financially sensitive anyone can find it anyway and and then it also gets to what questions are asked for the criteria too I mean that that may not you know it may be valued less or so I think we can walk the line of like making sure that public that that sensitive information isn't disclosed and still get the information that we need but but I would say the the working group has two select board members on it I think the working group is the perfect set of people to evaluate and bring a bring a candidate to the select board for final decision honestly it has all the expertise it has all the context and it's the whole point why we put it together I'm not I agree with that I just my concern is the public input and of making sure that after the vote and assuring the public that sometime between May 7th and the when select board signs you know to a purchaser that there's been enough public engagement you're not going to please everybody that's why we have an elected board because we have to take U we have access to a lot more expertise with our finance team and everyone that we and our attorneys and everything else so we have we have that part of it but what we are going to depend on is that your working group um for the recommendation but at the same time I don't know how many public meetings you can have outside of getting exact criteria coming to consensus on criteria that you're looking at at the rfps because if you involve everybody in the RFP process and now it sounds easy if you have two two of them two people you know two groups that want to purchase but if if I'll play it out if you have seven you now you've got a 100 potentially 100 people with input that are going to be all over the place that wasn't the that wasn't the the idea the idea is to give the public proactive input by helping the committee the orchard committee craft the criteria themselves not evaluate the criteria okay so the idea is that you you you have much more sway over who eventually you know wins this um award by um by determining you know by by figuring out what the criteria are by by selecting the criteria than you are by selecting the person the end of the criteria right process and it's an object that's an objective process it's much more clear-cut about whether or not someone meets a criteria so I think it's actually a better place to have input yeah so the ideas that the public input comes from comes in terms of set letting the orchard group know what their priorities are what is important to them in a candidate and then we can in turn in the orchard working group translate that into you know and put that into the RFP itself so that that those are the criteria to the extent feasible um that the candidates are judged by so do you feel you have enough expertise on the board oh yeah right now we can expand the board as much as we want on the working group yes oh yeah we have a great we have a really good we have mix we have a really nice mix um my concern with the public evaluation of technical proposals is this is a legal process it is um and I before we committed to this I would want to make sure that Town Council doesn't have any concerns about exposure to liability based on what that public weighing you know what that technical proposal evaluation looks like in public so there's a difference I guess between having the RFP as a public document as opposed to having it aired on a public meeting and disparaging perhaps remarks said in and not even that you know it it doesn't even have to be disparaging it can just it can be as simple as I don't know in in the world that I come from right protests can be can get really granular and it can be like well you said that this was your top criteria and you didn't give enough weight to this top criteria when you were doing the trade-off between the top you know the first the top two criteria I would like to make sure that we are not bogging down the process to potential with potential liability um by by having that technical evaluation in in public I think I understand that risk but I think that if we don't do that the greater risk is that the warrant article doesn't pass I think I don't think that's a greater risk I think getting sued over this process is just as is just as risky and we have to start all over again too and you're opening up to the public that's that sounds like it's a greated on opening up to the public for the confines of what we want the town wants in a buyer yeah yes exactly so and then at that after that point after that's been reached and we put it out the RFP comes back the board's going to look over it with that criteria yep use that criteria to make a recommendation to this body cor and I all right if Town Council you know looks over this idea and says go for it I'm I'm fine I just I'm just raising it as a concern and I want to make sure that that concern is investigated before we you know say this is how we're going to do it so this isn't all that different make promises this isn't all that different than the process that we used for picking Commodore at the senior center right I mean if that was you know you have all of the CM at risk that submit their bid they came in and do a proposal and then everyone that was on the committee sits there and fills out their Matrix and scores them and was that in public that process I don't remember if those are public I I I mean we did what we did that for Commodore we did that we did that for the library we did it for the senior center I don't remember if those are public or not but you're typically not okay so what we just discussed I think there would be I'm thinking town meeting now coming into town meeting we are probably going to have to have a memorandum of agreement from this board to the orchard group defining that process because then then it's codified because if we just go into town meeting saying yeah we might hold a couple public forums we said we were going to do it that's not a good look either so there would actually have to be a document of stating this is we are going to do it this way because it doesn't say it in here right right and I think that the yeah I mean that would be ideally I would if we had a document like that by town meeting that would be fantastic and and whether not we do the technical evaluation in public I think see sounds like the last the last thing that we need to decide I think nobody is objecting to any any of the other process that we've proposed here we just yeah yeah something and run up by Town Council yeah yeah and we can ask the other question that you asked Karen which is to say you know what um you know to to of run through with Town Council what their perspective is I mean this all this all can be made public we just have to be you know you know somewhat careful because you know there is the legal risks that are associated with it and we should we should ask that question beforehand and the one key thing that's being asked that the select board has to determin is is that what what you seem to be going toward is that the um evaluation of of the proposals would be entirely within the neog um ad hoc working group with all those members so Ian which is which is fine that that's that's yours that's your decision to make um I mean I'm not I'm not going to say I'm uncomfortable with because I know there's experts on that board my comfort level I get a lot of and I think every member here there's plenty of input from the public individually that come to me so I with you know that necessarily might not come to those meetings I I'm I just don't know what that balance would be to have that discussion where we at least get to see these is there any reason why the rest of the select can't look at the the first envelopes for everything NOP it would not be I that now so so personally I think when the working group presents this to the select board it would be nice to know that we had 20 proposals these were our top three right we pick you know a because a beat b because this and beat C because of this this is why we picked a yeah absolutely recognizing there's no per perfect candidate but we but we chose you know and it was unanimous it was 7 to2 whatever it was right you know that type of thing that I'd rather much rather that and say you come and say we picked a okay yeah right for sure all right let's open you want to open it up yeah I was just yeah I was just going to say in terms of the committee making the you know making doing the evaluations I don't to Matthew's point I don't see a whole lot of difference between this and the select board designating Matthew and me to be on the evaluation committee yeah just as long as long as you have that criteria that in these public sessions that are L are the guiding principles behind what you're doing yeah yeah all right let's have uh we're all subject to openting once again Don mver 43 thank you for being patient um and you covered a lot of ground um I guess I certain prepared things going to say but I I think what briyan describes to you is as a two bid process is typically what this is this is disposition of public property is the most advantageous and isn't just a bid process the tradeoffs the must havs and nice to haves and it's well described in the uniform procurement document and it's very readable and it's all chapter 8 a little bit of chapter 5 I mentioned this at theog Hill Orchard working group everyone grown but it's readable it answers a lot of the questions you're having right now you don't have to reinvent it um so also um yeah just coming on what Matt had commented on I think is important having more people in the committee you need more capacity and I think you also need some more expertise CU a lot of things get suggested sometimes don't jve with laws and so on I I think you do actually need some more expertise um and I I guess uh you know what you're describing you've worked out sort of make sense that the committee looks at and evaluates things and what has to be available is how you evaluated it you know it has to be a public record they don't necessarily have to see you do it but they do have understand it and if they want to contest it they can contest it uh also it's a little more complicated than just selling off something this is public land it's public land paid for in part by the state and I think also there a law that comes into effect here which is the public lands preservation act which uh recently got pass mostly so people in water department don't do what they did when they did the water treatment plant and Jamie Eldridge was uh proposed it for last 20 years some of us have worked on it for 40 years so the state's G to have some say I want to have some say what happens they help subsidize it they don't want people to get money to do stuff and then liquidate it and so I think that that's a real concern and how that money gets spent they're not going to probably allow you to do it for uh maintenance because hasn't allowed through the CPC Act that they're very specific on that you can only use that if you buy something with the CPC money so um those are those quick comments and so the comments I'm going to give here are no surprise are the same comments I'm going to give uh Thursday night and uh at the working group listening session that's the first listening s sure probably had some starting in the beginning and there is some State money for that which I've mentioned before but no one has taken up on it I'll I'll send information on this and that as well so you know I've attended the meanss consistently uh and participated well allowed don't question anyone's intent or motive I think you're all trying to do good stuff I think you've made some good progress but I the thing I really come here to say is article 11 is premature you know you you know typically have your procurement officer or designate someone such as the select board to make that decision that happens towards the end to vote on that I think lacks a lot of credibility is completely open it's putting the you know cart before the horse uh it's a bad process I do program management project management ferally State and munity and that just doesn't make sense and if Town Council has an issue with it then you need a second opinion um so it's also a bad precedent for the future are you going to do other projects like that they sell something blind say oh yeah so is authorized to do it but I'm not going to tell you what it is um and what advantage does that really give you I mean it detracts from credibility I don't think it's possible getting 2third votes by hand certainly not by clickers people want to know what they're getting uh you know so the real question is why don't you trust the town to approve it or the neighborhood to approve it now you put sign together maybe it's by characteristics maybe it's by criteria but most towns have a set solution you go through the process of doing a recommendation selectman look at probably okay unless there's some compelling reason on to then the people all have a say the town's people are the legislative body they approve the financial aspect and they have to say when we bought that property that the beginning I was involved with most of those properties that acquired from 35 years ago the town had to say about it and I given examples of some people what other towns do even for a 10-year lease for someone that's done agricultural stuff there previously a well uh documented impressed group some town still has it go before the town to do a vote on it you get complete credibility that way if you do a good job you come up with someone that meets the criteria it seems reasonable then why went the town back simply means have been at people saying well someone won't want hay here and there or they'll want some other type of agricultural property you can't dictate that no more of when I was on a planing board we did the point we couldn't say you could have a grocery store you can't do this and that you're not allowed to do that people have rights in the development I mean there's certain things that won't happen marijuana is one Pig bries are excluded as a nuisance I think there maybe one or two other things but you can't really dictate what happens what crop gets grown there so you know there are concerns about people in town won't like this and that that isn't the valid criteria to decide something on Mr M I think this is probably best suited you know for your four town meeting because it's going to town meeting right so you're kind of talking about even we're not we're not pulling the article we've it's been it's been um recommended already I know it's been recomend I I you know this is definitely your your opinion that would it's my opin at Town me at town meeting would hold well and you here again I mean someone could challenge that vote and that would be easy to do but I don't think that's the right way to go I impeding something I don't think makes sense what I'm trying to do is convince you it's to your advantage to pull it and actually do all the work and have it ready and you know as you recall at the uh working group mean people talking about maybe they need a special Town me there isn't enough time I think you're trying to do too much right now you should have a solution that people can look at and say okay does this make sense or does it not so I think that that's really my uh my conclusion I I know you you feel that it's been approved but I think you get more credibility I mean do you want to go and have it fail and then come up again and try to get beyond that barrier yeah that's that's what we're up against it's very late date to having this discussion but I I think we're there's a plan there's a plan ahead that I think this this body feels comfortable with a lot of work has got this isn't just the last uh six months this is obviously a few years so I think I know you but I I think I I think this the process that was just set forth um and will'll be even codified a little bit more I'm more comfortable with um with the public input that's going to be provided well it if you do aou put down a process because right now there's no process yep we will thank you okay and there's a recommended process in the document thank you thanks please forward that to us please did you guys discuss it all potentially postponing this article for some of the reasons that Don outlined we've gone back and I mean we've discussed it a few times but we ultimately feel as though the orchard is um derel and it's getting worse and we are we have been trying to find uh someone to lease it for 3 years and we feel like we're we're really up against it at this point well this board's up against 15 years of well that too but also if we don't get it into this meeting there's a greater we don't have anyone in next year for next year's growing season so yeah the agricultural calendar has a lot to do with it um the fact that it is a Contin it's not just it's not just that we're not selling it and well for other reasons this is not what the prevailing wisdom should be but you know the idea that we're going to make money off of this when we sell it you know whatever it's costing us money this is a drain on our budget and so every town meeting every six months that we decide that we're going to put this off um we agreeing to continue to foot that bill while it deteriorates and while it while the value for it you know decreases um so it's you know it's growing season has a lot to do with it the fact that we have interested people waiting for this RFP to come out right now has a lot to do with it too the longer we delay the more likely we are to lose folks um who aren't who you know in terms of their interest thanks may may miss an opportunity y Amy um Amy TLA Lewis at 3 omega way and I'm a member of the uh Orchard committee um so I wanted to kind of concur with what um Karen and Matt has have been saying um we absolutely see the need to have um public input into the RFP process and I think people need to understand it's like the RFP that's going to drive the applicants right like in the scoring criteria you know will be you know how many years of Agriculture experience we'll have it'll be like 0 to five 6 to 10 right and we're going to be looking for people who have the most agricultural experience like there's will be a lot of criteria that's won't be um object like objective or opinion subjective sub it will like just kind of be driving the answers and driving how we get there I think a misconception that people have in the public about the RFP is most of the criteria the primary criteria is going to be about your agricultural experience your farming experience you know what diversity of your crop mixture right so it's going to be like you know animals trees berries bushes Diversified vegetables like you can't have a farm anymore that's just a monocrop you need to have income coming out throughout the entire year so we're going to be looking at what their farm plan is and how they're going to be utilizing the acreage as well you know that's going to be driving a lot of the answers as well and I recognize that you know the community is looking for Community input but we have expertise on this committee you have three people who are in farming you have will perard who's the last dairy farm in town you have Brad Mitchell who ran Farm Bureau is a farm lobbyist um it travels all over the country in the world working with farms and Farmers I have limited nonprofit farming experience uh we have um Sarah seaward who wrote the grants to help us get this land in conservation you have Jen Clancy who's amazing taking notes and networking you have Sarah and Jen clany who are already both abutters to the committee right like you already have the expertise that you need what we're looking for is community input which we can have through additional meetings um in terms of adding a different adding additional people I'm sort of you know this on the same place that Karen is you know it's going to become unwieldy we have a lot of expertise the only people I'd really want to see are people who add additional expertise like I can think of like two people in town who could really add some value and I'd really just rather see them as advising through the RFP process um you know this is also very unusual I mean when do we ever have an RFP process where the people in town are like well I need to have a seat on the committee it's like you know there's a project near my house and none of the people who live around it are happy about it but we don't get to join planning board because we're unhappy about it we just have to like show up so the you know I think we also want to maintain the in interg Integrity of our processes in town um I think that's really important as well um and I also just want to make note of Don's comment I mean the the process so the the piece of land that we're selling is has an APR restriction agricultural preservation restriction which is through um the Department of Agriculture and their expectation is that we do an RFP process we are in very close communication with them and we are also following along with the process they want to see and they want to see a productive Farmer they don't want to see that farm um continue to fall into disrepair the the clock is ticking they are watching us and they are expecting to do do something and quite frankly like if at the end of the year we don't have a farmer chances are they're going to take it back and they're going to plug in their own farmer and then they'll have no say and we've been doing this for 3 years like we've worked really hard on it we don't need to be putting things off um one of the um attendees at our last meeting who lives around the Archard mentioned that there are kids playing in some of those sheds one of them collapsed in a storm like we like like it's becoming a hazard you know and as it falls into Mor justair farmers are going to be less and less interested because it's already going to cost them way over a million dollars of investment to get it up and running right yeah like and we have a couple of really great candidates like there's other pieces of land they can purchase like this property has a lot of issues like there are simpler places to go to get land right so you know like there we go I'm G to stop thank you show up at town meeting please hly P Road um I was at the meeting a couple of weeks ago when there for the 50/50 vote I was under the impression that this article was to see if we were going to vote to sell but also about the lease and I thought there was some kind of notion in here about a lease am I wrong I believe that this article um gives the select board permission to sell MH I believe that we don't need permission to lease it we would we we would be able to take that step on our own I think yeah that was voted in a previous time meeting so the select board has the authority to issue up to a 30-year lease okay so there's nobody interested in leasing sure so if if they if this gets voted no then what happens we have to go back to the drawing board and find a way to do another round I suppose see if I mean and so then if you're going to go do another round maybe you do it like this gentleman said where you're doing your proposals first whatever but also you're what what you mentioned was that this the safe agriculture can just come in and place a farmer yeah after two years of it being um fallow or unused and then who is that farmer paying no that they would I don't know no they it's basically a repo yeah by the state y even though we bought it yep with their funds with some of well some it has to do with their agricultural restriction the agricultural restriction says there will be actively farmed three out of five years or something like that the affirmative Covenant to farm just technically speaking and we're we're out of whack on that so the clock is ticking I think the concern is that if if mdar sees us not making progress as long as we're making progress I think there's sort of the hope and belief that we're going to be okay in terms of that you know repo action for lack of a better term but if we get you know if we have to start all over again I think you the risk goes the risk goes up yeah so if they repossess it they get to install their own farmer it would still be owned by the town it would still be in agriculture but we would have no control over who got it and what they did with the land as long as it was in agriculture okay and then the house would be separate the house is currently not part of the APR so that would that is separate okay all right thank you thank you all right I me this is obviously um sorry Amy oh some yeah I just want to um second fight of the Apple say um Amy tle Lewis the M I'm a member of the committee um so just to help you understand a little bit the agricultural preservation restriction theti the chair just make sure it's through oh sorry the point of the APR is that um that because land is so expensive particularly in New England the purpose of the program is to provide access to land for farmers and the expectation is that it'll be actively farmed because we are losing Farms every day everywhere and we're losing Farmers because it's so hard to make any money um and it's so expensive to live in the state so the estate is you know very anxious to see a farmer who is already farming in the state stay in the state and have access to land that they can afford because the price of the land is at the AP at the agricultural value not a development value not a um residential value so um the the point of the program is to buide benefits to Farmers so we can grow food so we can eat thank you there you go thank all right oh we this is we knew this is going to be one of those very sensitive so the more information we can have at town meeting the board and and members of the community that are very familiar with this process please speak up so we can make the right decision um far as the lease and sale I don't know if all of this being said if on that on the RFP could say lease or lease or by does that change we've done the least thing before if I may kind of getting back to Matthew's you know I've been taking notes on this so um so it would seem we're talking about um our goal would be to have some sort ofou or letter of agreement between the select board and the adhoc working committee so for uh prior to the May 7th annual town meeting and then the things we talked about uh in that um the first thing that that Matthew mentioned was adding two members to the ad hoc working group so it would increase from seven to nine two public at large members we I mean we haven't really discussed that I mean I'm being coed down from that it seems like well anyway but but you're right that was one of the things that's one so one thing um and then uh the next component would be having a public Forum you discussed potentially bringing an mapc uh to moderate that session similar to what we did with the NBTA communities where we bring the community or the community together to discuss the the the circumstances at the orchard and to discuss specifically what criteria will be reviewed and how that would be grct that's exactly maybe no less than two I don't know if you can do it in one session I know that was said two I me you know and we can keep that open but I think that we discussed that and then um as far as um the development the r for the RFP that it would be the responsibility of the nine now nine members of the neog Hill ad hoc working uh group to review the U the proposals in a two envelope process that would be essentially um going through and and determining who the recommended party would be as to whom you would sell that to so that you you'd have that youd go through that exercise come up with that party and then ultimately that would be a recommendation to the select board to proceed forward as to final and and that that recommendation would be in public and also we would present you know the additional applicants who we thought were you know honorable mentions or why we chose the one we did and what their strengths are and that gets to Mark's point which is a little bit more in the presentation to make sure that all that process yeah yeah right so this is a memorandum of agreement it's really a memorandum of understanding but it's also we're charging the committee to do this right right so it's not something that we're just which which makes sense because they would be the best qualified parties to be able to provide a review of that and that's that makes sense but this is in direct response to obvious concerns of the public um we're trying to do as much engagement as we can well keeping the Integrity of the process right and I think it's important to note that as it relates to this that that the select board you know you know has has this right and so when you're you know in doing this and and trying to address the concerns of the public that that we're hearing which are which are very reasonable and understandable considering the circumstance it's it's it's important to note that you know the board does not need need to do this you could leave this within you know your own you know belly work if you were so inclined but I think that what you're proposing makes probably more sense under the circumstances and and certainly reflects the two parties for whom you have representing the select board on the ad hoc working group so this this you know makes a good deal of sense so so I think it's fair to debate the two extra members if if it if if if you if you all are on the fence about that um you know I felt like there are probably some some some residents who would bring a little bit more broad expertise to the group um from the conservation St standpoint um for example but um I'm you know I'm willing to debate that if it sounds like what are you lacking and what what are you asking for you're asking for citizen at large with X experience what is um I think Prim I think I had not articulated the specific experience as much as I believe that um more public at large input from residents would be would be welcome from the people that's coming from the public for that is definitely coming from I just that's why I asked you do you have enough expertise on the on the board to to do this and if you think you need one or two well two members keeping it on number then we go that we we go out and ask for that so so there's two things one is formulating the RFP that you still have to do and then there's the formulating formulating the evaluation criteria for the responders to the RFP those are the two things that you're really looking to do now and the question is do you have the expertise on the committee for both of those CU you're not really um the formul the criteria is much harder one I think to come up with personally well the Public's helping with that though in the sessions the public is helping with that in the but but like just to Amy's point you know she picked you know a farmer with 1 to five or 6 to 10 someone's coming up with all of these criteria and who says 1 to five versus 1 to three versus you know there's a bunch of criter IIA you have to come up with and say how those criteria rate right and and and how they weight against each other right yeah and I don't and the question is to the committee is do you have that expertise on the committee so we do have a um consultant who is you know on Deck to help us craft That Into You Know craft those priorities and help us figure out the right language to discuss weighing and tradeoffs and that kind of thing and I I think to your to your question I think we do have the expertise to come up with the criteria but I was I would I was trying to be more democratic about it and and and sort of uh inject more of the Community Values or resident values into the process and have it weighted more towards you know what people are concerned about than necessarily the group that's there now right the group of the at the survey or it's going to be in the room the public isn't going to necessarily say what Amy just mentioned 1 to 5 years that's something you can already have pre-program templated that's going to be a question that's asked this is more of the other stuff that you're mentioning of what must have you know whatever Community engagement is it is is it going to be an operational thing to the public where the public right things like that is how important is that so those things can be there but it it is the weighted the weighted part at the end all of this that can get people into trouble and that's why this committee I I think it's important that you guys are able to have the expertise to do that it sounds like you do I think we do but I and and then if if part of how we're proposing it is having other supplemental support VI mapc or through the purchasing process I whatever you this makes you know the approach so makes makes sense so so maybe an advisory to advisory members in terms of the two extra people um my thought is that if we the select board as a body are saying that the orchard working group should take you know full responsibility or the lead for developing the RFP and evaluating the technical proposals um then it makes sense for us to defer to the orchard working group as to whether they want two additional people well that was going to I think the orchard working group voted to ask us to expand to nine didn't they meeting I think 6 to1 voting for that expansion okay then then it's been so that's that's the because you were absent was AB it was 5 to one yeah mhm so do we want a motion to expand that oh or or do we want to hold off until after town meeting I think we've heard pretty good testimony from Amy um that so you you kind of have a good body in place and it's it's a working body and adding to new people to you more Dynamics you may not be as productive with nine people as you are with seven people do we have but that group voted to sayand to recommend we we do have the meeting right typically we do our meeting right before town meeting we we can of course have another another meeting I the working group has a meeting before we do yeah but I was just saying you want to authorize us to work with the orchard working group to draft that memo yeah on select boards behalf if there are you know if anybody has firm you know deal breakers like I you know there's no way I'm going to support two more people or there's you know no way I'm going to support X or Y you know let us know but if you know maybe we can just go ahead and work on drafting that memorandum together with the orchard working group and making sure that they're behind it so that we can bring that to you we can also do a zoom working group to discuss that one item like whether we want to expand or not but that could be a 10-minute it's not the idea definitely and you guys have already discussed it it's not to bring in someone just another we have voice from the public we've got those set up yeah it's someone that expertise piece that if you just another person that might have a thought that you didn't think of but they also can be in the public forum so as I recall from watching the from watching the meeting the only specific expertise that I thought was mentioned was Horticultural that's that is one yeah and I think um and you mentioned pres conservation that's out but Sarah is you know qualified all right I think um the question is do you need to expand by two members so um it sound like you voted yes we voted yes but now I'm like kind of thinking well if you meet it it sounds like you guys take a lot of input and in your decisions are based upon yeah we we and we voted yeah and we we you know I proposed it I think and we voted yes so um we voted yes 5 to one um so so I'm I'm suggesting that we do expand so let me ask you this was that proposed you proposed you propose that as um like an ol of franch um I mean just I guess you know in you could say that I mean it definitely all of this I think came out of that meeting where people were like no we don't want you making this decision without us and so this was there was a series of of decisions to try to include more input from the public in order to to to keep that from being problem I'm going to I'm going to recommend that we hold off on it and that we let's see what happens at town meeting first of all something might come to light where you said you might we we can make this decision after town meeting on expanding your this committee by members if there's some expertise that we find out yeah if there is someone that it's not going to hurt it's only going to help the Cause right I guess the question would be whether or not you'd want whether it' be theou MOA whatever you know do you want that in the you know that that we would be able to expand that the committee would be authorized to expand it to nine select board would be support with our support if if there was a need mhm oh you know what we need well they can't expand it to nine we expand it it's right right right right we expand it to n and we vote them in so at the request of the or something like SB would commit to expanding up to two more members at the request of the orchard working group yeah mhm something let's do that that's that's I think that that gives us the option and the wants it we'll you know we'll do it yeah okay okay so I don't think we need a motion tonight because it sounds like we're going to do a memorandum we are going to do a memorandum it's a lot it's going to be this will be a a long discussion on on Town floor too to give Matthew and Karen you know the credit a lot of credit on this because what they're trying to do is to address some of the concerns that they hearing and trying to develop a process that reflects that and I think the things that you know the the basic tenants that Matthew presented at the beginning of this really really get us to that so you know because at the end I think that the biggest thing that that you know having been involved in this process as well is is this biggest issue of of just trying to move things forward because six more months of deterioration you know and that I think that's Amy's kind of Point as well it's it doesn't benefit anybody at that point so and it's a drain on our frankly it's going to be more and more of a drain on our finances like we are deferring maintenance like crazy on that right now it's expensive we'll see what town meeting has yeah I mean is finan it but it's also in terms of just the land itself too and bring and reinvigorating that you know it's that's really what I think everybody wants to see in the end we have to AC drive by the orchard right now and there's beautiful Lots on that property that are going to end up with conservation so that's it's a great great both both of you for that that's good we work on so and but so is it that we're also saying that that Matthew and and Karen would we we can work know you're signing them maybe we have that vote to work on an M MOA orou that yes yeah thank you okay great all right you need a motion for that um no it's consensus okay yeah I think that's a consensus right yeah that's okay great soort you're not all right good all right um let's move on thank you we're getting through this year 6B review the annual town meeting warrant discuss the annual town meeting schedule and vote to assign articles so that's DIY this one we can zip right thank you you guys thank you um okay so um as we discussed our next um you know our next meeting Mr chairman is um going to be uh uh probably typically we do a six o00 meeting typically it's a joint meeting with the thcom um and we sort of go through everything where we stand right now and uh really the primary quest of this is to um um determine which select board member will be speaking to each of our 33 articles and typically you know we we go through this and you know assign folks from there um we did talk a little bit earlier about um the um uh the the error on the cover of uh the time warrant so just to let everybody know what we're planning on doing we we we sent out um the uh email blast on on our website we um we did post it to the website um post it all of our social media accounts we're going to also um be um be posting it to lctv get highlighting look it's not it's not Monday it's Tuesday uh we're going to be posting uh the town's electronic sign boards um treasur office is and town Clark are going to be putting up sandwich boards like we do for when we have taxes to um we have at least two events this week larger senior events that are taking place we're going to post it there and Karen made a great suggestion about also putting something physically on um at at the middle school as well uh for Monday night should anybody come uh and and attend one one day ahead of time we also have the option uh for people who have opted in for our notification system I already got it someone sent I Got a notification saying it was changed oh with uh for for well you have the email notification but so they also have a separate like there's also a separate telephone notification that we can so no no we we haven't done that you know so so there's typically um you know we would do that as as a reminder um say the Friday before the Tuesday town meeting and doing that red alert what's that what's the system so it wouldn't go to everybody in town it would be just for the people who have have subscribed so I think that list is around like 400 or so I think it might be worth I mean I'd like to touch every single harder yeah and that's up to the board and that's I guess that's really a question that's it takes I hate doing reverse 911s but it's it's a mistake that we don't want someone to say well I wanted to go to Tom me and discuss article whatever um and I yep yeah WR day fortunately fortunately it's Tuesday not Monday so if they show up on Monday they know it's Tuesday but they they may have moved stuff around their schedule and couldn't make it on Tuesday true that's another I think whatever whatever opportunity we can take um and you with it's probably too late to do something inside the uh light and water bills mhm but that goes to so is it think everywh it's not outside the scope of what that system is designed to do we decide what the scope is okay yeah is is it it's it's probably that I think it's kind of yeah I I don't have any I have no problem with that we we rarely use it and I think that this is okay it's not it's not just noise we don't do it for every little thing you know so okay and the schools do it for when they they treat just make sure it's 12 it's not 12:01 a.m. on a no think 300 a.m. we got to do it at 3 a.m. the wi is yeah the wind is important so I think uh you know you know that um one of the times um talked about was maybe doing it Friday you know Friday afternoon like like or or early evening like 5:30 on a Friday before I don't know if anybody has any thoughts about what that might be Mak sense yeah Friday afternoon before mhm but I haven't received M yet is else got yeah okay that's what that's came my desk um any other thoughts on timing for that though I me it's we you're saying even earlier because Friday like you said people might already figured out their daycare or other maybe I I honestly I think next Monday would be a good next Monday yeah Monday week a week prior a week a week prior yeah yeah that get people plenty all right so five like say 5:30 at night so okay all right well can you schedule Gary's to go off at like 1 get into the system and little do you know my schedule special alert just for you Bab you go I will be up so okay so thank you that's helpful um and uh and again we'll be um we'll be meeting beforehand um at 6 room to be determined we've done it in the library before probably doing it again so um so uh let's see so annual so if we can just go through this quick we can we can do a drop down menu and kind of go through so um article one's the annual report no select board really needs members really needs to speak to this bills of Prior years so um these are all we whenever this these do come up we instantly go to the finance director for these things sure so I don't know it's interest I mean I guess it's really it's really a question for you as members if you feel strongly about it we don't have to put anything down it is just that in past practice has been that certain members have said I really want to speak speak to a bill of Prior yeah no one no one really wants to speak to bills of Prior years it's I'll do I'll do 2 through S okay if I mean anybody else ding to do 237 no that's uh okay all right I'm out okay there you go you did there uh so then we get to article 8 which is the Webster property I'll take it okay Mark okay all right sorry for the uh all right uh next one is transfer funds to the CPC budget this is the Fairly vanilla one where we're doing the pass through N9 and 10 okay Mark okay I going to be out now too okay I think one of you all right uh neog uh so Karen or Matthew I'll take it I was going to do okay the presentation this is a no it thing right put your hand finger in your nose Okay um uh let's see fund the rehabilitation of 3236 King Street put me on that Rehabilitation no I'm up I think I think yeah that's okay I'm like what what we um NBTA uh Community zoning bylaw planning that's a planning board it is but but we did make both the comment select board did make recommendations to it so you want I'll take a Gary if you don't but you can have it all right okay all right so then we get into a few more financial ones down here which is Gary Gary Gary Gary okay Gary yeah these are usually all the way down much of this might be this these are going to get consens consens he's the fincom guy plus all these are this is all going to be on the consent calendar yeah a lot of these are a lot of these so then you know we get through Capital item so um have to study the night before maybe down to 18 Gary then right he's yeah he's through he's through 18 the question is if he wants to go any further well he gets 22 as well CV yeah Gary what about the I I put you down through the compensation grid yeah okay what about that yep okay now you can say your capital okay and capital items you sure you want that one that one that one often has debates on it yeah that's why I didn't jump at it that's still open right 19 20 21 are open I okay 24 uh I think it's just the contribution to the capital stabilization fund fairly vanilla any any want that you did take 1920 and 21 he did he just get happy with this with his clicker over there yeah a little bit I don't know somebody else want I mean anyone else I mean yeah you know as the chair if nobody wants it I kind of end up with it so so yeah but if somebody else is I think somebody else should yeah yeah please so we were looking at uh so Gary's got MBTA zoning and then we go to revolving funds which should be a that should be a consent agenda item prudent investor we presume that would be um consent as well I'm happy to take 13 if you don't want that one Gary if you want to stick with 13 I'll take I'll take 19 and 20 too 19 and 20 all right I mean you you you've attended a lot of those meetings marks that makes sense for I I watch them the next morning because um it's good good TV so 13 we're going to change that I'll take 13 okay Mark I'll take 19 and 20 okay and then I'm definitely out okay all right you two let's go actually Senior Center project I'm not taking that one no that one's actually just a and so mark mark on that and Mark on this one right so the senior center project tet that that was the one we're just doing the yeah we're just changing the language that so expands so that we I think we have money set aside for design and then so then construction and flows if we need it right it's very yeah very vanilla compensation gri we stopped there did I hear Karen say 21 I'll do the senior center project over okay and then I'm out they exhausted at this point um okay we C stab 24 these are just your contributions um yeah so cap civilization that's just our transfer in transfer in yeah it should be a consent agenda item put it up on there on those put my name on it though okay we'll put Karen's there there you go Karen we have a winner there okay um I'll jump in 26 but don't they yet it's always funny there's always um Gary took Gary took Indian who has Indian Hill uh Chuck does so he put back 25 if you don't mind Chuck i' love it yeah okay yeah uh 26 let's stick with Che a Chuck on that one okay now I'm out now okay so um I know a lot of K km are uh mn's down here we're we're getting close guys uh let's see use of debt exclusion stabilization fund for excluded debt this is it should be proor should be um concept put my name on it I guess like to get this point okay I don't only have one other one so I feel like I should take take the longest um this should be 28 should be consent agenda item because it's just it's like $4,000 so anyone you'd be surprised Karen I'll take the big ticket $4,000 all right there you go collective bargaining agreement so we think that U we'll have something here hopefully on this one and then the recommend and then the recommendation is going to be um because we don't know specifically we're going to wait up until the meeting I'm comfortable with that [Applause] okay and um let's see I'll take the Board of Health one Board of Health the show uh don't put my name there and then and then the rest of these are citizen petitions which you did not make recommendations on so you wouldn't speak to these anyway so the only articles then that lead that we're left with that we would be making recommendations at would be um the FY 24 operating budget transfers if we give you any recommendations at that time uh not necessarily seeing that at this point but we may uh purchase of the Webster property um we'll probably be discussing that um at the meeting um uh so we'll have more information at that time the um article 10 which is the CPC budget sort of ties directly to article 8 so um the two are sort of somewhat intertwined and we'll have more information again on the 7th and the last last item I believe is the funding of the collective bargaining agreements which we should be able to provide you um basically they would be it would be a table with whatever um uh fund whatever the the funding would be to fund it for the uh FY 25 for the respective um uh unions that we have reached agreement on so that is pretty much it so that answers so we can post um uh well yeah that's that's it's already everything's posted 6 um can that get sent to us too sure y absolutely one those things I forget oh yeah yeah no we actually if you remember part of what we do is we'll also give you all your binders with all the backup information as well so uh but the tables we can get out to you do you need to get an answer from us whether we want it electronically or a binder right now cuz I know leis got on we you know um so if if you if you know if you have a preference I electronic for me all right yeah take it so do we know if there's going to be a great deal of extra information in the binder versus what was in the at at town meeting last time there was information that was in the binders that the residents didn't have access to and it caused a great deal of confusion so what do we can we get access to the binder material on the website for the residents to look at MH we could do that and figure out a way right and and understand too part of that is also there's a practical matter in that when you're managing a meeting like that do you think you're going to be going through and looking at it and saying okay we're in Foster Street are we going to be putting the side you know so so understand that like I thought that might be a consent agenda item I understand but you know but altimit that's where it came up but I think putting the binder up we certainly could do that it's it's you know that's fine you know Mr chair if I could the last three items that we're going to get that we're going to vote on that night can we get some sort of executive summary of those before before we go in the citizens petitions no no the collective bargaining agreements oh oh oh the three we're going to recommend yeah what do you what do you right before the meeting yeah I'd just like to have some sort of summary of of of the so besides just the raw material you know here's the Collective Agreement right right so so probably would be something similar to what we do with our control sheets you know we could you know something like that we'll have a mini packet for the meeting sort of some clips notes for us to start on and we can delve into what we need to right right no so maybe but taking that approach then it's also then it's also part of the public document so that the public would be able to see that and know what we're going to be talking about as well so that makes sense okay all right mini packet got it okay anything [Music] else let's get on to uh vote to post the election warrant on May 11th 2024 okay let's get out of this and save it excuse me we say that and this is a request from the town clerk to post the election uh warrant we have it here for your signature um and this is the motion move the s for vote to post the election warrant for the May 11th 2024 Town election second by Mark say I Matthew all in favor thank you going blue or black okay we have finally minutes from April 2nd and April 8th I have NOS all good any discussions for April if not we look for a motion to approve the minute move the select board to approve the minutes of April 2nd 2024 and April 8th 2024 second by Mark second and Matthew all those in favor Karen sorry I um all right that's unanimous and then we'll do a look for motion to adjourn so moved next meeting is not until next meeting be just before town meeting yeah so before we uh do a motional Journey yes so our next meeting we hold is about a half hour before actual town meeting probably be an hour we want to make sure we have I mean unless if that's an hour makes sense that's what we did last time too um and it's usually joint with fincom yes typic that that would be the plan and um don't forget that it's Tuesday Tuesday we're going to say it over and over again um right and that there's an or meeting coming up there's a planning board meeting coming up to talk about the NBTA communities and candidates night on Wednesday and candidates night is Wednesday all right motion to ajour second second move by you going to give it to who you Matthew I'm going second it by Karen yes in favor thank you good night folks