all right so I'd like to call the orchard working group meeting to order this is also a joint meeting with the board of Select today is May 30th 2024 and it's 7 o' call to order so call to order do you have to go no we're good you don't have to announce our names so we have a quorum with the orchard group and we have a quum with the select board and we're here to discuss um what's going to happen next with the Orchard and uh recommendations going forward so we can start by saying you know to meeting uh We've the article failed by a few votes to sell the property so um from my perspective we should come up with what we want to do in a short term plan meaning the next 6 months 3 to 6 months and then we can figure out there what a longer term strategy would be so I'll turn it over to Matthew for more since you more I think I was thinking that we should there are kind of two two questions we have to answer one is what we want to do with the Orchard and then the second one is related to that what the mission of the working group will be as it relates to what we want to do with the orchard um I do think that like shortterm versus longterm I was think I think shortterm is realistically a year I don't think we're going to have anybody in for this this obviously for this growing season but probably not for next growing season um and so I think we need to plan for 12 months of of shortterm like immediate immediate fixes for whatever we need um and I think for long term we you know all the options are still open to us we could theoretically go back to town meeting and sell ask to sell it we could lease it we could manage it as the town um and I think we should decide of those things what the best option is and I think primarily the working group is looking for direction from the select board on you know what the select board thinks is the best way to go forward because we felt like we did what we set out to do like we came up with a plan we thought it was the best plan and now we need to start again yeah I mean I think the the request of the select Board of the working group is that we've met the mission of the working group um we've done all the research and our recommendation to sell the orchard is still a recommendation that hasn't changed um and so I our recommendation is still to go to a town meeting this fall and ask for a sale I'm just going to throw this out there if in the event that let go back to town meeting and and it fails by a laric margin we still have to have some some game plan to move forward with whatever that is decided that's to lease for us to fund it and hire an or to that that's a town employee whatever it is we can fill that whole whiteboard with thoughts about could do this could do that which I think you guys have exhausted that already um but in the event that town meeting votes against it again I think we have to have some of those Alternatives ready in the EV in the event interject that and I agree with that for running parallel to that I think we made a promise to do some open meetings get the town's people's input through m see so I think that should start immediately so that way we would have a better sense going into the fall meeting whether we're on the negative or positive side of that so I think that would give us a lot of guidance and additionally Karen we've reached out at from our last meeting to that anyone that expressed any interest whether it was lease or purchase or whatever and ask them for some feedback so that's starting to come through now as well so yeah in the feedback we we've only had well first of all just take a step back we've had just a very small number of responses that came through on Karen and you know I had predicted that we'd get very few responses because this is go time for Farmers they're not sitting in front of their computers um and there's no no one correct me if I'm wrong C that said they wanted a 99e lease everyone was like 30 years or less and my um belief is because the town will then have to front the cost for all the Investments and then they'll ask to make a purchase and that's like if I was a farmer that's what I would do yeah the responses so far have been pretty tepid I would say um there was one resp to are Gleaners responded um that was just today um but they're you know I think the indication that we've gotten from everybody including Boston area Gleaners is if I'm Leasing you're making the investment not me so they would want if they're leasing the barn they want a fully operable and leasable typ farm and or Barn same for the house so but the Boston area Gleaners their initial their initial proposal was to lease it and for the town to front the money on the repairs oh yeah so they actually are right they Haven change their stance at all and that's fine they said 10 to 29 years would be acceptable yeah because that's they already have that new investment in Acton since they've moved there and they've taken over that 50 Acre Farm so they're fully invested in that they don't have the capacity to take on buying it but they can work on their Acton Farm have the town make all the um spend all the money on fixing it up and then they can come in and purchase it because then they'll probably have um the money to do it which is smart so one thing we can probably agree on right away is the very short term so Sarah put together a list of immediate fixes which I have asked Ryan to to find funds for um when we also have are asking for I asked Ryan to also get a quote on removing trees to find out how much that would cost and I believe that whether we sell or lease or hire someone to run it those two things are going to need to be done in any case because the trees are diseased or not commercially viable the odds are that someone who takes it over is not going to run it as 100% an orchard um the most common uses that we've heard is hay and and grazing and in those cases the trees are going to need to be removed so I think we should all I I hope we all agree that those two things we should at least go forward with those Yeah well yeah we made a vote we voted to remove all the trees right so that was agreed on and then the next step was just waiting for Ryan to come back with some proposals for the work to get done but then we don't have the money allocated so then we'd have to turn to fincom and say can we have a $ million right which was the estimate in the land vest Grant um and does that work have to be at prevailing wage yes yeah y y so so I'm just saying like there the select board support that yeah that's what I'm kind of asking so can we take those independently yeah so from your list from Sarah's list I agree that we should do anything that would keep the structures from deteriorating further we don't need to do anything to improve the structures right but we want to make sure that they don't get anything that would make would be deterioration we should stop and I think the safety issues need to be addressed and the safety issues right so if we're if that's what the I haven't gone through the list no they find to co my glance at it if that's what the list is for then I think I fully agree with that on the removal of the trees I think we do need to do something on the trees but I'm not sure exactly what we should be doing now versus once we're further on signing on process we definitely need to take out the disease trees right I I agree with that one but then we can decide whether we want to clear the whole Orchard or Fields right and you know maybe we get quotes for these independently like if we just take out the disease trees or you know clear field a versus field price or something that yeah in our last meeting we did discuss that we wanted a breakdown of parcels and sections so that we could look at at it and then we could you know pick sections or just like do it all or do it at different times and I did ask Ryan to to do that and also to to price out stumping as well as removing the trees and whether or not the wood would be hauled away or chipped on site yeah so those those will give us an informed an informed sense of the cost of and I don't know if the chips would fill in the divots yeah I don't know no and I'm not sure stumping versus frankly bulld cling and turning over the STS and then you removing the STS right stumping them in place cuz then you get you still have some right of the the organic material that yeah but that turns into that's basically green manure it will break down and feed the soil but if you're talking about some of the disease trees you want to get rid of all of them not part and parcel you want to get rid of the whole tree yeah so fire blight lives on living trees so it's already move it's already moved on so it's it's dead and it's not doesn't pose a hazard of spreading anymore if it's already dead it's already attached but if someone wants to Hay it we'll need to remove the stumps right so there's a lot of so we should get the price for it either way and I think we had asked Ryan to do it the per acre yeah removal and also a day rate so to do break it down into two which we had done before and and I asked Ryan to see if he could get quotes per field you know so like if one of them is rockier or steeper or whatever and that makes a difference I don't know if that'll make a difference but okay can somebody remind me in terms of the disease trees how are they dispersed are they are there like a few in every field is it all concentrated in a couple Fields predominantly in the field lower to the house as you're looking at the front of the house to the right that 105 that's kind of the most but here again no one's gone through all of the orchard to go through row by row to assess if there's outbreak somewhere else now now is really the time to do that you see the BL behind Sullivan's house is also yeah so the reason why we had chosen um don't even remember the number of it the really long field that goes around down neog hill road to be pruned is because at the time John Clemens who's the state orchardist at UMass extension said this is the only section you should really try to preserve everything else forget about it try to do this one which is why we had that section but that was pruned back in 22 yeah2 Yeah like February March 202 years ago and so but nothing's happened so disease has spread in there as well um and there's caners on the trees as well in all the fields so um so at any rate I think getting the so doing the work the the immediate work and getting a price get certainly getting a a price on the tree removal I think should proceed um because the odds are we're going to want to remove we're going to have to remove trees or going to want to remove trees um in the process of the next steps for the orchard um and then beyond that I don't know we should you know I guess the next question is what do we you know what what is the what does the select board think that the orchard working group should should do or what is the select board think the orchard should should should do I agree that the going forward with the mapc um is a good plan in getting um um more public input um I'm kind of torn on whether it's worth putting out an RFP for leasing at this point because I don't know if that's just um we went through this uh two years ago and it's been done three times yeah and um I Cindy and I negotiated for three or four months with the least only have a fall through I mean it seems I think there have been more eyes on it now because of all the Outreach that this committee done so more people are aware not just in the local community of this you know valuable land so I don't I don't know what the downside of doing an RFP as long as it's not the original one yeah that we did for for the lease so so if we Sorry if we did an RFP and it was not about running it as an orchard and the town was willing to take on some of the cost of rehabing the property that also could potentially bring us more applicants right so and I just was going to say I Think It's tricky to put on an RFP for a lease until we know to some extent that we have enough funding to put forward to put the land into a condition that's fair for be to be leased I mean it's it's it's not a nice thing to do to ask folks to respond to a lease and then they say okay okay we'll here are reasonable requests then we say oh we haven't even thought about the money yet we haven't even yeah you know we don't we don't know whether we're going to get the money or not um sit tight so that money fiscally wouldn't come till 26 um uh well I I assume we could possibly do either a borrowing article in November find some kind of Reserve fund transfer um depending on how much it is I mean a quarter of a million a half million dollars is going to be tough though I think that would be to be budgeted does it behoove us to put out an RFP that might be still just a little Bleak like this is we don't and just be honest we cannot do the trees and we cannot do XYZ and just see while you have the momentum now to try that I think we're going to lose momentum I I agree with Sarah on this that it might be worth getting the quote to remove the trees and get a quote to rehab the house and some you know and put those out that that has to happen right away oh I'm saying a quote not just yeah and then we can put it out for lease and saying to do that way yeah this is how much it's going this is the estimates we have and then when you bid on the lease you can say how much you're expecting the town to pick up versus how much the L would pick up but to Karen's point that then predicates the lease on us going to town meeting and asking for that money which could not pass which put puts us in in an a awkward position of negotiating a lease that were in in bad faith or or ultimately it failing and then the leasee has send all spend all this time and and they're not going to they're just not going to do that they're like well I think if we're going to put anything out immediately in the short term it's got to be do you want to lease some Fields period yeah and if we think based on inut from fincom that we can get enough money together to remove the trees then we can put that in there if we don't there might be people that don't need the trees removed can just say you want to some type of 50 acres of trees rotation or something one of the RFI applicants was going to grow trees and containers that potentially could run in the lanes where the old trees are so there are yeah but with disease dead or present but that they didn't seem to work about that when they thought they were going the trees just not stumping for GR them in place which was one thought that yeah we had hoped to do just to grind them in place much less expensive um I have also noticed that the that gentleman that business you're talking about he has not been attending in person or on Zoom because I think he's just like tired of sitting around wa his own business too so that is true and it's a busy season that's true but so will so one thing I wanted to kind of talk about and and I'm fine with getting estimates that's more information is better but if I was a farmer and I wanted the town to invest in something I would say invest in the barn and get it to be a functional operational barn and get the well up and running I mean the farmer is going to need to be able to generate income quickly and chances are they already have housing and that is not going to be their their priority their priority is like what do I need on this Farm to generate to farm and to make money it's going to be the barn it's going to be irrigation you know what do you think well I mean getting a quote on either a per acre basis to remove the trees then writing the RFP so that they can respond to the number of Acres that they're interested in farming so that you could do it in a stepped process of I'm going to start with three acres the town's going to commit to clearing three acres to get them in on and started on their project that's the probably the biggest stumbling block the barn needs to be weathertight it needs to be structurally sound but what you do what whatever um is whatever they're using the barn for is going to vary to a substan cial degree so putting too much money into that other than structural and what have you yeah like if they want a washing station but if they're not doing vegetable crops they might not need a washing station right um but having an idea for the sake of negotiations on how much it is per acre or per field right so that you can manage that during the lease negotiations I think would be most helpful um that would get us in compliance with the APR the quickest um would be having at least a where you can show mdar that you're making steps towards towards getting the property in compliance and if we did that we could we could also lease off multiple Parcels if we had to you can't break up the No No but for leas for for leasing we could we could make a we could lease to several tenants if we wanted to there's also an interest too in preserving some of the trees I don't personally think that you can preserve the trees and have them make an economic economic return but if there's a preference to preserve trees or or turn or have the Trees Organic and there's a following for you know supporting the orchard that way and gradually turning the trees over or people are doing something with fruit that's imperfect or something like that um that can be an opportunity also yeah I mean I think the challenge with I mean everything will say is true I think the challenge with leasing off multiple Parcels is because everyone's going to want Barn access every Farm business is going to be different they're all going to need the barn for different uses they're all going to need to be using irrigation so then the town has to manage all of those businesses and all their irrigation needs all their uh distribution logistic needs like how many trucks are going to be there like where are people going to park there's separate meters separate lines yeah that's a that's that's a great point it's going to be a nightmare overse yeah and who wants to oversee like what like 20 different leases like yeah the town doesn't I mean s we four of us have been asking for repairs to happen on that property since the very beginning since we started in um the fall of 2021 and we're still trying to get them done and they still haven't happened because the town doesn't have the resources the capacity the money the staff to get it done so I don't believe the town can manage multiple leases fair enough it's fair point you know I don't even think they can manage one because the business because the business of the and like not to be disrespectful but the business of the town has just like escalated right since we took the property on like 25 years ago and there's no there's no staff and no one today is any more confident at doing it than they were 20 years ago or 10 years ago or 5 years ago like that hasn't changed so that's still a problem so you know people voted no but that means you're saying okay and you're yelling at the board of Select at town meeting but yet we want you to manage the lease again I'm like I don't understand that so selling it is we know was the recommendation of this committee and so like that's the that's the direction we're recommending so the opportunity would be there for multiple leases with preference to someone that was going to an individual or entity that's going to manage the largest parcel could be given preference yes yeah the thing I mean when you say three acres it makes me a little nervous that like we're just going to do three out of the 24 that we need and it's going to take 10 years for us to get into compliance with mdar I mean that might still be okay with them as long as we're making progress but I ideally that would get expedited after someone's in there with their three acres and the business would grow then it would pay to remove the trees okay got it yeah and I think realistically anyone whether they're leasing it or purchase it already has a farm business and that they're either moving their entire business there and leaving what their the land that they're currently on or they're expanding their business so this isn't like someone who's just like starting out this is someone who already has like an income debt like positive Farm business I mean so it sounds like we're we're kind of debating do we go do we try to sell it again go back to town meeting or are we going to go forward with some sort of lease whether it's an RFP or we negotiate with a farmer in town or whatever um like those seem to be the two things that we're talking about tonight but there's that hybrid model where we're still looking if somebody if you buy the 48 Acres we're still hoping that you're going to lease everything else so the lower Barn the other land that right unrestricted so we're still looking at that not necessarily you talk about land that's not part of the APR yeah so on the left hand side going down the hill yeah the lower bar house lower bar all the way down toake so there's other land the unrestricted where the footprint of the house right so but there's although I think that's important I don't think that's critical right now I think we we're talking about as far as the barn and and the the trees and the the farmable fields are what we should be really focusing on right now if we're going to be asking fincon to to do some sort of Reserve or you know help us to pay to do whatever maintenance we can do um I think that needs very Focus right now that CH the mission because our mission was to look at everything holistically as as the whole our Direction lately has been on just and to stay the compliance to go ahead and sell the APR but we still have always when we did does we still didn't make any promises but we showed them the lower land the lower barage so that would be a new Direction yeah um but I think I think the sort of like the longterm expenses of doing a lease for 30 years is is pretty substantial I mean you're talking about millions and millions of dollars ultimately over time and we are in a very tight budget and the town's only going to grow with the the affordable housing there's I I don't people so just from like a broader perspective so like prices have gone up inflation has come down but I think a lot of people and my family included my husband makes really good money but like we feel really squeezed because there's just less like less left over you know and I think a lot of people in town are feeling like that and we still have seniors in town who who are always being squeezed like their social security hasn't changed their taxes are going up people who are low income you know it's worse for them their 15 hour a job is still 15 hours an hour like how long do you think it would take to facilitate actually getting a date for MPC I know we have talked about this for a couple months now cuz I think we would learn a lot from one of those meetings I I would suspect we could probably get a public a public like meeting within four to 6 weeks could be sooner than that I don't know but I bet I bet you could I bet we could get one within a month you know I can't help but think I always come back to how close this vote was and how all of us were approached afterwards like I wish I knew I really think to Sarah's point if we have some more public meetings where now that people are turned on to it I I truly think that next time this goes for a vote it will go through for sale people I don't think um everyone took the time to look at the numbers and what truly a yes vote meant and a no vote meant and I I just think we were so close I think if it comes up again it will pass so I hate to see us you know delay another year to do a leas when in fact we still hold true to sell the property and that would so we would go back let's say in November we would have hard numbers on removing the trees rehabbing the house um and we would do that mapc Outreach to to just like they did with the NBTA property to to get some Buy in and some feedback from the town on what what was actually desired and then get permission at that point for the sale and then move forward I just feel like going for lease is is just kicking the can down the road again I I I well I'm on both fences here so um I think we should be fully prepared to go for a sale in November but I think going through the U mechanics of putting something out for a lease quickly and seeing if there if anyone bites because I really don't think anyone's going to that's another data point we have that we said look we had all these people respond to the RFI here's the terms of the lease here's how much you have to invest or the town will have to invest we when we figure out how much the town has to invest or they do right I'm be surprised if we have any candidates yeah but at least would have to include repairing the upper bar right so so someone's got to that either the leie who's going to say no you're going to take that on for the town and we can come back and say look it's going to cost the town millions of dollars to do this lease or hundreds of thousands or whatever the number is and we can't we we collectively don't think that's a worthwhile use of the Town resources we would be better off selling so we haven't really spoken about really the expectation of of the top bar and structur we know it's you know it's very sound so what will might need it to be operational versus what I need versus with someone else could be totally different do you have to have the compressors do you have to have cold storage no because what if someone doesn't need it so I think we've all talked about that that would be a large burden I don't think the top Barn is going to be a large burden the house will be the house is a totally different yeah but I I think that to your point with the RFI the barn could be very usable yeah I I agree with that I don't think the house could be right so let me um I think we need to I don't disagree with the Gen there was two votes three votes where different people say different numbers but if it was one vote if if if one of us won an election by one vote then the town has to live with us for the next 3 years so the town has spoken whether whether people didn't show up or did show up or or however it fell it fell um so we as a body have to act based upon what town meeting told us to do so we have to look at okay how do we make improvements or how how we need to do things to be responsible to the orchard because right now it's not for sale and it's not going to sell so we have to go under that premise until a vote is taken in the in the town meeting body tells us to do otherwise so that's why I'm saying in in parallel we need to be looking at the path that this working group has recommended to sell um I definitely think there should be additional meetings and education but right now the five members of the select board need to be looking at funding sources for um weather titing the barn the house and if if there's trees that need to be removed we need to look at that and we need to identify which ones are most critical it's something that we get DPW to do with a bulldozer versus you know doing a doing it U um going out to bid with chapter 30b RFP to find out who can you know what's going to cost us per acre and that kind of thing so we have to act more quickly on the short term and then in November if the vote overwhelmingly says yeah let's sell we're in a better position either way God willing yeah um so Karen if you could clarify if we had Direction from town meeting I'm sorry from the town lawyer so I so um I know we have the authority to start to write an RFP release oh yeah right anytime we want and so we could start writing an an RFP because we know what the pragmatic criteria is going to be because we've talked about it prior you can have public input and you can like we can put it out for lease but I don't think you're going to get any responses cuz that will be the fourth time um or you could just like slowly start to work on it and then just have town meeting and just like switch out lease and just put in the word purchase like you like I'm just concerned like we're wasting time and the orchard continues to fall into disrepair and it needs to be farmed it needs to be put back in agriculture like this waiting and it's just kind of ridiculous and exhausting I'm sorry I I agree with you but we're not wasting time because we have six months before we could do effectively before we could sell the property regardless so what should we be doing over those 6 months putting out a lease for an RFP for a lease it's not wasting time if we get no responses back that's another data point we bring back to town meeting saying look we tried this again we're failing at this you know so we put it out for lease now you know four out of the past five years and haven't gotten anyone so the only other option is we're going to sell it or we're going to put it on the town budget at however much it cost to hire an orchardist and run the thing ourselves right you ready for your taxes to go out for that right um so I mean if we put it out for lease again which we could do over the summer theoretically right yeah what if we put it out for lease and we do resp I mean that's that's the part that you know I I think for we all sort of talking about the same thing until you get to the idea that what if somebody wants to lease this property then what do we do with it well the RFP we're going to get the public input and so the public input will also Define how the RFP is written um and I guess that's fine if it meets the pragmatic criteria and the public criteria I think you're just like that's a funny shape for someone to fit into you know and they're going to write it at the height of the season I you know so right it's unlikely but and then the town's going to pay for everything and then in you know 10 20 30 years they're going to say oh and I want to buy it and we've invested all that money in their Farm business which I guess is fine the USDA gives billions of dollars to Farms all the time right I just I really have a problem with putting out an RFP for leasing if we don't have the funds to support leasing the property and so that that's what that's what I keep stumbling over to support leasing are you talking about that if you're saying that I mean because we can Define the terms on what funds we would put out that's true we can I mean the other thing we can not investing in the house I would say the one Improvement we would have to make is just to make the barn structurally yeah the well is there people they can tie into the town water so there's there's water there already whether they choose to use the IRG well or not that's up to them so we're giving them water and you can give them a building that's structurally sound and leave the trees and that's it but but that that feels disingenuous to to be like so was it the last 20 something years that we've screwed it up so yeah no I'm saying like set to put out a lease to put an RFP that we know is going to fail because we're not going to invest in it I mean look the town didn't vote for us to lease it they voted against a specific proposal to sell to give us permission to sell it it doesn't mean that we have to go for with a lease it just means we have to come back to town meeting with a different Proposal with better information to sell it so I'm going to push back against you know you saying like the town has spoken well they have spoken about one thing which is that they didn't agree with that specific but I'll just to uh support Sarah on this they also didn't vote any money for the orchin so if we're going to come up and as income for done $100,000 we didn't ask for any money either so yeah but if we're going to invest money in it we're doing it you know kind of without the town's vote so that's an interesting point when we drafted the RFP prior we have the self-help property in the drafting of the RFP we never included the self-help property we said it may be available could we do something similar with drafting the lease that we draft a lease as such but it may evolve into a lease to purchase they would get write a first refusal per se something like along that line so that you're showing good faith that you've invested your time and effort sweat and tears into the land you should get first crack so I I suspect the Town Council will say you can do that but in order to do that next step you still have to go to town meeting and get approval oh sure yes yeah okay so you're just saying basically good faith wording to like make sure that the person who's coming to the table knows that we're considering selling correct okay so you know when talk about wording uh that was part of the obstacle for the last RFP that we put out the wording was I don't know if people have read it the wording was very difficult to decipher and a lot of intelligent people looked at that the one response we did get spent $35,000 of his own money and walked away because there was no coming to an agreement with the town there's so many specifics into what is the lease amount what are the taxes and there's a lot of town-owned property and they're not all on the same bar at all and I'm going to point out on that one that the orchard group wasn't really included in the negotiations of that and that might be helpful but the way that document read it was very difficult to read so if we are going to put out another RFP we really need to simplify it as much as we can to make it palatable for whoever is reading that to the original the so that was I mean I know this is a conversation we've had several times and I hope it would be my it would be my intention to make it the original draft as close as possible to the original draft so I think the the reason that the lease rfps are so complicated is because we're still it's a much more complicated relationship right it's not just you're purchasing this and then we're you know you give us the money we give you the land and we're done it's the town still has tons of you got to work out a landlord tenant relationship you've got to work out liability you've got to split who's going to pay which bills you've got to you know so fully on board with simplifying to the extent possible just trying to level set expectations that if it's an RFP for lease it's inherently going to be more complicated but could you put the complications in the lease instead of in the RFP I mean like that's what the lease is for right I mean you can if you want to deal with you know 50 bids from people who don't know what they're getting into yeah yeah I think you know and and I agree to um Karen's point you know if we don't have the funds and we don't can't Envision the funds being available in the long term it's a disservice to Le see and that will eventually upset and upturn that relationship and the town will be spending a lot of time you know maybe some very uncomfortable conversations about like I need the town to pay for this and the town's like well we need a new police car and more fire fighters and another teacher in the school like that's the town's priority the town's job is to run the town it's not to get involved in farming so I not sure we're talking about multiple different iterations of the lease RFP I only saw the last one that I'm aware of that we actually were negotiating with Stormalong and I agree it was outrageously complicated and had a lot of um business practice in the RFP that I don't necessarily agree with so if we want to remove all of that and simplify it I'm all for that that RFP was also written as if the only use of the land could have been an orchard too so if if we're thinking something else we should reconsider that piece too sure so the select board has a what I think is a successful lease with the maon with the um which was dated March 25th 2020 which is what we know is the 7 Acres um that's a garden at church Meadows right at church Meadows and so the terms of this lease agreement I think are very well stated it was planned it calls for a maintenance plan it's a 5year plan which you can then go out for another 25 and 5e increments States what you pay it's granted 16 pages but it's double spaced it for you know I think it was well written and I don't and granted there's no structures that are on so it doesn't I mean the it's a little bit more more in depth having a structure but you already have one that this town has agreed to that's a good point yeah that'll be helpful for sure and I want to go on record that I there's no precedent set in this town or in many other towns that a le e has to pay for real estate taxes so I vly oppose that even being part of a discussion for when you're looking at this parcel there's going to have to be so much tender loving care that's going to have to go into even just the soils let alone the buildings and that I I don't I do not feel comfortable with us negotiating anything that has to do with real estate taxes having met with the assessor numerous times and then we're on different paths Amy do you have um the community Farm did have structures as well as yeah so we lease the lower carriage house and we lease space in the upper Barn if belong to nef right and so um this is a very simple way of taking it like if you were to take those Barns and flip them upside down and shake them everything that fell out was ours like our tools and stuff like that but you know the structure itself was all their responsibility so it we had the agreement that um if something went wrong like something was broken or we saw something that need repair we would inform them and they would do the repair um we had some Scout projects on our property and that those were our responsibilities we insured them um but again like it was a much smaller much simpler operation just from a boiler plane standpoint you we've got this one to refer to and I just something it has Tru and it just you can offset as well you have the capacity to your lease agreement if they put improvements into a structure then that changes the lease agreement that they potentially you know 20 years down the road if they're ever making money they don't have to pay in theory that was done with Charles auger but it was never written all verbal over time so we're all in agreement that we should write things down this time right I think though that we have to be cautious because the pendulum swung you all didn't do your job the first time so then they made it so complicated stor along left so there has to be a happy medium and I think this committee has worked really hard to do that and I'm hoping that at some point people listen to us so I was involved in lease negotiations with Stormalong and we were trying to simplify a lot in the lease and actually that was your Town Council that got in there and really there storm storm Council as well they were pretty they were not easy to negotiate and and and when we were actually on the price it was just we negotiated down to just them paying taxes right they just taxes even putting the and we even negotiated they could put the land in chapter 61 which was not what the original plan was and they still walked away so they were paying almost nothing well you came put B land in 61 can APR APR I'm not sure I believe it can I believe Brad said that it could be but you have to have Farm receipts for either one full I know if it's a 12 month or calendars or two so right now in terms of the assessor everything's at the lowest lowest lowest value so lowest egg lowest house lowest structure and you're still looking at over 30,000 either no farmer is going to come in and do everything else and have to pay that based on the way it is now and that's the house in the condition that it's in right now and did did Stormalong and I don't know how the discussion went but the Stormalong walked away after the house flooded did they not was it and I don't know how the discussion went did the town say storm along you're going to have to fix the house and they were like yeah we don't want that stor along was already planning on getting the house so they weren't that concerned about any of that stong along walked away because they were investing in another property yeah at the same time and they decided they couldn't put the capit out yeah and they don't even have Farmland it's just like a distribution fermenting I don't know right so going forward go backwards so I so do we agree that we should be putting on an lease RFP in the short term and and I mean we have all several tracks we can go down I just don't know if we can go down all of them in parallel or if it's going to be taking on too much for everybody or how we can concentrate our efforts to make progress we need to issue an RFP if we have a local farmer who wants to lease it I don't know yes I think they do so then we should probably we probably should then and I think for transparency we need to do at least a hearing with M PC yeah and here I agree yeah and and that's fine um but you're just writing the RFP exclusively for this one no no no that's not what I'm saying that wasn't what I was saying I was just wondering if we had to go through the process of an RFB in order to lease it like I'm not sure that we do I mean un unless the RFP is still open we do I mean even though watch even though it's under the care custody and control of the select board yes we don't have the authority to do a lease with RFB okay I mean for Med uh Church Meadows did you guys put out an RFP but that wasn't owned by the town or it was oh so let's I'm not certain it didn't go up to an RP any any real estate exchange requires compliance M Law chapter 3 B could it be that the it was low that the value was low enough that it didn't need to go through the bid process or something could be yeah okay at any rate so if if that's the case then yeah it does sound like the two absolute things we need to do besides the quotes that we want to get our to do the mapc session or sessions and to start at the process of another RFP for lease and I just think the town and that's it's fine um the town will just need to be aware you know if the entity were're thinking about decides to know to apply and they're rewarded it we are now going to the town is going to be on the hook for investing you know a lot of money and at some point and I if I was them I'd do it too I'd ask for a purchase later down the road and and that will be the path so there'll be a lot of expenses on our end um but we we can also wait to sign the lease until after town meeting if we need to invest half a million dollars in the property in order to get the lease signed we should go to town meeting and say this is what needs to happen because right we were not going to sign a we're not going to sign a lease with someone without funding to make to make them whole for the lease if we need to remove trees and fix up the house we got to make sure we have the money to do that yeah but I think you need to find out what their long-term expenses would be as well cuz then you're on the hook for that and you need to be fair like what the long-term expenses on the town for the lease are right the the house that's all negotiated though yeah the house and the baron aren't included in the APR so are we focused on writing a lease that include or an R P that includes the house and the barn or can weite the least bar not the house we're still trying to get the barn into APR which we should know in another week or two it's my understanding and I think Brad mentioned this a few times mdar has verbally agreed to pull the barn into the APR it's my understanding from the conversation and that that will only happen at a at a uh dur at a sale transaction that was my understanding I've never heard that part but will to your point I think I'm not assuming that we need to include I'm just I'm assuming we will those will be in play as part of the lease I'm not saying we have to include them but I would assume that if a farmer wants to lease some of that land they're going to probably want access to the barn and so the barn being part of that lease process seems reasonable to me the house maybe not we have 48 Acres a house in a barn what what do you want yeah right that's I guess what I'm saying and we take take the best deal for the town that covers you know whatever they want so you're going to exclude the lower Barn we can throw the lower Barn in too I assum it would be written the same as orig if we go back to the original that that it may be available right okay yeah it may be available right but we still have to put money into it to uphold it well to to weathertight it yeah pretty structurally sound we're we're weather tiing the barn in the house and we're going to remove the disease trees I think we agree we're doing that we're going to ask for money for that depending what the quotes actually come back at yes assuming those are reasonable numbers that's what we're doing immediately we'll put out a lease for the property as is without with what are we allocated money for um and see what see what hits we get on on segments of the property and the house and the barns or whatever comes back and I was thinking if part of that process of negotiating that lease requires you know if that person wants you know 16 Acres of trees to be removed that's part of the negotiation of the lease it may or may not happen yeah but we should we should know what it's going to cost the town to to get them in there correct so you know so you know what you're negotiating exactly yeah that's what I'm saying and then you would go to fincom and ask them for the money well well then I think we if well for the trees I suspect we need to go to the town meeting because it's going to be we're either going to go to fincom or town yeah but it's going to be part probably be part of the budget or a special request and so I know I'm just sort of projecting a few steps forward um you know let's say you know we get the money like how much money like what pushes us outside the levy like what would what amount of money for the town either on a yearly basis or like a long-term basis would push us into an override a lot how much is a lot Mr it depends what we want to cut out of the rest of the budget do you want to you want to opine on this exactly right a lot you know we could we could put money in you know we could for lack of better we're going to freeze the school budget they're going to get no increases next year we're going to invest the money we're not going to fund or something else we're not going toiz yeah there's all kinds of things we could it's negotiable I guess is the answer yeah so it's like choosing between fire police schools roads yep there's expanding staff in the town There's 80 different categories and we're going to cut from one or more of them or all of them to fund things but in order for the town to maintain their ability to have a preference the property needs to get put back into the a into compliance with the APR quickly so that we don't have have a you know scenario where mdar starts deciding what's going to happen so that should be considered too so I'm hearing I'm not quite sure where we are on trees I'm hearing we're going to remove the disease trees and and put it out to up for lease that way and I'm hearing we need to put it up for lease and then we'll talk about trees after during negotiations I think it's important for us to understand what we putting up for lease and in what condition so my preference is we remove the disease trees and we get a quote for removing trees per acre per field whatever so that when we go into negotiations we know how much it is anticipated at cost if if over and above the disease trees we've already removed yes if someone comes back and says we we will lease it but you have to remove all the trees and we should know that it's going to cost us you know $3 billion to remove all the trees right none none of the trees are assets I'm not opposed to removing the diseased trees but given the fact that none of them are usable um I don't I don't know the utility of moving the removing the diseased ones you might as well just get a quote on per acre to to leave it at that I don't cuz removing the disease trees isn't going to make the other trees healthy it's not it's beyond beyond that point and knowing either break it down per acre per tree that's whatever do we have any I mean we do have concerns about a Butters right who are experiencing we know and those are the trees that I think we're talking about that whole section of disease trees that is very apparent those need to go I think regardless I don't think we we can wait for quotes and quotes but those have to go so perhaps we we we commit to clearing that field of trees and then if there's additional clearing that needs to be done as part of the lease we can we can take that on as necessary so with the knowledge that there may be pockets of disease in other places but it's not as prevalent so just to clarify is this an action item that you're going to do or are you going to get a bid and then wait and use it as a negotiation tactic well it sounds like you like if the select board would prefer we can get a quote and go out to bid for that field and have it have the trees removed we have to take that action as a board yes that's what I mean if it's the pleasure of the select board until November there is no money I that's that's the thing okay okay CU cuz we had talked dur this budget process to the the two on the select board that were on the committee at the time and we said can this wait till November and that was the answer was yes so we didn't do anything in May so the only thing we have is our Reserve fund which is only $200,000 okay so what we're really doing we can about $50,000 to do some kind of Maintenance so we're doing an RFP to lease with a weather type barn and house he's giv you the dust and that's all we're doing on it no we've not made any reference on the house I thought we had some some conditions some things you wanted on your it's all Barns and and sheds so the house we believe is weather tight now yeah no that building yeah I just um and I hearers can we just call it Sarah's safety list or something sure okay yeah I just um I just keep coming back to the fact that a sale is the cleanest and easiest and less cumbersome way to move forward um you know it's still the recommendation that hasn't changed to sell it um and it's very clear that we don't have the money and getting the money would come at a real cost of you know other important programs fire police schools like Highway like I I don't think people are going to want I mean it's we already know we need more fire police and another ambulance and all that stuff and the town's going to grow with the um affordable housing so those pressures are only those cost centers are just going to grow I I I think this idea of going out for a lease is really just going to end ultimately in a failure whether it's we don't get a lot of viable options or we go we go down this like game of like PL gaming it out to the end with a least potential you know leaseholder and then we're like oh we don't have the money and it's just like such a waste of everybody's time and energy and effort it just seems ridiculous it well it's not a waste because it's another data point that you can go back to Tom me for and say look it we tried the lease again right and we're going to have to invest all of this money to make a sucessful lease right and it's going to be we'll just say it's an override to your taxes so that we don't cut other services town are you willing to pay for this or do you want us to go the S Sale Route again right it's you can't I I'm kind of with chuck on this one in that town meeting spoke and we can't come back to town meeting with the exact same proposal we had before hoping different people show up right that's not fair the people that showed up and voted the first time we can come back with a different proposal or different facts to back that up but if we don't do something then we haven't then we're just hoping for a different crowd and that's not fair yeah but we could come to a second town meeting with the estimates which I think we're going to do regard like no matter what we're going to do you could still not do this lease RFP you could still say we're going to go to town meeting in the fall for a sale and get all these estimates right but everyone believes that you know there's viable lease candidates so let's figure out if there are or not if there aren't or if there's no one willing to invest the money in it then that's another data point that we can not obligated to we're not obligated to lease it even if somebody responds we have people to come forward I don't think the the RFP process is going to be as cumbersome this time because we have the lease for church meows we have the FP in the lease that we already wrote so it's not starting from Square One um I don't think it will be as time consuming I just think we're going to get hit up with the financial costs and tradeoffs do we have a ballpark um what this will run in Town Council fees doing an RFB m i mean if we can engage we still want to engage Ray and he's available and he does lease rfps then we know that he can do the bulk of the work under 10 grand right or somewhere around 10 grand but um but then Council would have to come after that and take a look yeah but I think we already voted that we would do that right like yeah okay and I don't know if R handles if very is familiar with leasing so that's the question that's a good question yeah different set of requirements so the working group voted to use an outside consultant to write it assuming we were going to do an RF we had somebody po funds were coming through a reserve transfer I believe so yeah right okay this wasn't going forward after the vote yeah we were we were waiting vote I I agree totally with what the the working group is saying have worked in this for months years probably 2021 I tend to agree that a sale is the best thing to happen the town can't we we've proven that we can't manage this property we've proven it why can't we do exactly what we did with Indian Hill you time it so that the bids are in hand when town meeting rolls around we have bids we know who the purchase is going to be we know the purpose that they're going to be using the land for it's totally different going back to town meeting saying we have a buyer this is what they're going to do this is what the sale price is going to be this is the total package town meeting this last town meeting in my opinion didn't vote that we couldn't sell the land they voted that the select board shouldn't be the one who decides to sell the land cuz that was the honor was to give the S The Authority yeah the S Bo doesn't currently have the authority so we needed to do that first we didn't have the authority even to issue an RFP until we went to town meeting we can't even draft an RFP for sale we can draft it we can't issue it we can't issue it because it still has to be deemed Surplus so we still we would be two meetings away then and and the debate that's up to the select well but the debate with Town Council was if it's declared Surplus by by the town then the select board has the authority to sell it there's no two-step process where you know the town gives the select board permission to issue the RFP and then again permission to sell it that was the whole cross preclude you so you declared Surplus you issu the RFP it doesn't preclude you from going back to town meeting and saying we still want to check in with town meeting sure this is what the town wants to do with this s so you're right it doesn't preclude us but Town Council said that it's not really that's not the legal process and they questioned whether or not the original vote would be binding and also whether biders would have any confidence that they should even engage in the process given that it needed to clear another town meeting hurdle right so under all of this all everything you're saying is exactly right and this is what we wrestled with in the runup to town meeting and you know we decided to go for one vote because that was the clearer legal path okay y so how did Robinson Road get declared Sur select board I think so yeah when we when we purchased Robinson Road Steve you can check me on this when we purchased Robinson Road we purchased it with this the distinct intent to put a restriction on it and sell it um that was written into the original article I believe and I think that's for whatever reason that didn't happen right away like in my opinion as soon as the Attorney General's office said okay that that article passes we should have done an RFP and if someone came in and said we'll give you a doll for 12 Robinson Road then we should found whichever body to put his restri on it and done it so so what we originally bought the property the we bought it and declared it Surplus in the same okay so we should do check that to make sure because the orchard should be following should follow the same legal process well we can't because we the property I understand but if but if but if that's not how it actually was worded and we should check how RS that's what I'm saying I understand it just as a side I misspoke when mdar can pull the barn into the APR it's the historical restriction that gets triggered at the sale okay yeah that's my we can't hold our own historical restriction we are going to put a historical restriction on right but we can't hold our own that's what happened correct it's held by the state yeah and it gets triggered at the point of sale so we can't do anything about that until so that kind of leaves the house and the barn a little bit more unprotected I guess I though it only has like a 30-year um term or was that correct Sarah so the house can be put in historic you can't have APR and historic okay so the main goal right now because we put historic and the historical committee Lind has been amazing and dealt with all our variances that we were talking about in terms of the main goal is to get the top bar put into APR and that's our main focus right now which hopefully we'll know soon we've held off doing anything with historic because there's been too much wavering and I didn't want to waste our time anymore I think a deed restriction is limited 30 years but the historical can be perpetuity correct so are we agreed on mapc and RFP for lease and getting quotes for the tree removal the repairs and going forward with well I'm concerned that we have to be really transparent of what weather type and so weather type just means that like animals can't get in so because shingles are falling off you know sidings falling off but you can't get through it so I just want to make sure that there's going to be some smaller holes that probably won't get addressed but you know you still have deciding it's going to be falling off but it just means that you know a lot of the big animals can't get in anymore and the window panes will actually be either boarded or put plexiglass or something up over it okay so cuz if not you'd use your whole 200,000 budget if you could like to stay swallowing Steve wasn't saying that that full $200,000 could be used on the that's that's kind all of our emergencies only 199,000 yeah I mean just out of curiosity see like what other needs and I don't know maybe this is like a question you can't answer like what other needs will the town have or anticipates that will need that $200,000 right like we're not going to be the only ones the sewer the sewer line broke 3 four years ago right out here and it's unanticipated repair or the the roof at the high school needed to be like repaired for examp it's unknown yeah unknown that Ro right there's a whole bunch of them all the roofs so many roofs buy a bunch of blue tops yeah so do you all need to vote on action items you need a motion well I've already asked Ryan for quotes for the your your repair list and the and the and the and the tree removal um I assume the select board can vote to remove that trees from the field um when we have a price for it well but we'll have to wait we may have to wait for Ember for M but what determination I we using I mean two years ago is when um John was identifying which which trees seemed okay which trees didn't seem okay I mean lot can happen in two years oh for sure yeah well we were I I mean we were saying that it was that one that that field which is the predominantly butross the road where the peach and the plums and everything is well yeah the suiv the stone fruit field I so I don't know then well then I don't know what we're doing I don't know what we're doing with the trees and what we're what we're committing to I thought it was one field it's not one field it's one field and it's it's always been the two I heard that earlier behind I think I think Amy yeah behind solivan somebody said yeah when we walked through the property every time we've done walks we've talked about it but those are smaller TRS I think the question is can we just grind them in place that's just the easier thing to do right now okay so at any rate we'll get a quote for that we won't have money till November to do that so if we all agree to go forward with this fourth lease option um do does that change the mission of the working group do you need a working group like you can already put out an RFP for lease you guys can do that you don't need us no really like we are you asking to be off the hook I I really the value in terms of the immediate next steps I can't see us um holding these public sessions without your expertise successfully so that that's one area where I really see a need for the working group whether it's on a Consulting basis or whether it's a body tweaking the mission but I do I do think that you know if we're going to hold public sessions and we're going to try to you know get input and also educate folks um we need people sitting right here I agree with that and I mean yes the select board could put out the lease but the working group has more expertise or knowledge behind it I mean we haven't been involved I ultimately we do put out the lease well I mean we haven't written yeah exactly yeah I mean you have more you have more knowledge on what you would like to see in the RFP more specifics that you can do than we have from sitting on the other side I mean I would suggest that the working group is no longer actively pursuing a solution as much as shepher in the public meetings along so we don't have to meet every other week you know we can just meet once a month or whenever we need to in order to keep things moving forward I don't know what you folks think Sarah I know Sarah's super busy in the summer and so as well I just I get frustrated because there's nothing new no new information we can provide that we have already well the other solution is we just all show up to the show up and sit at the big kids table at the uh at the public sessions but the working group doesn't need to meet anymore because we've accomplished our mission yeah I think the mission is complete so I think the question is do you write a new mission or you ask us to questions or not yeah are you going to entertain you have to oh yeah yeah yeah just a second hold on do we want to continue this I I want I do want to actually I I am curious what people feel about about the working group especially the working group members if few were meetings would be fine yeah I me I agree what Jen says like we've met the mission we've come up with the solutions we've given you the information so I think our mission is complete it's what you want to do with us now and if we want to get on board with it I think for me personally I've just hit too many roadblocks every time I ask to do something it's we'll get to it or not even just little things like me volunteering to get things done denied access nothing gets done so I think I'm I point where unless I see some movement forward I've given 3 years of this and I know the property better than anyone and I am just fed up with the way that this committee is treated so so all way in that your chair just resigned speaks volumes as well so I think the working group is very important important still right because though you you met your mission you haven't met your goal right so I'm worried to do you know five of us on the S board don't have enough knowledge capacity um pick pick some other words in here to keep it moving forward through November right whether it's for you know going out for a lease or for the potential sell in November um I I think you're almost to the finish line but we're not quite there and if you could stick it out another six months I think we would be there so that's my I think you're looking at at least a year or two years and I think and then select board changes members change whoever's going to be on we've already gone through select board members already and then it's just Reinventing the wheel so unless there's consistency I think the three the three of us have been consistent then with well come in we've all been we've been here you all have come and gone so I don't we've done our goal our mission I don't I don't understand what your mission is or what your goal is I'd like to see the property least out and like to see leased out or farmed whether it's sold whether it's leased um I'd like to see the property through to getting it into you know active agriculture you have fields that are there right now that could be somebody could be on them right now some small tenant something there fields that turn the well back on or just through the town water I mean there's people that could be in there right now have sign on waiver Certificate of Insurance let somebody go and at least do something I mean I guess I'm I'm willing to continue in some capacity whatever um for you know through through November if we're going to do another RFP um for lease Andor at do another one more um town meeting article I'm okay with with sticking it out until then um but if it fails again I think that would be I don't know I have a hard time continuing after that and I haven't been on nearly as long as as the four of them and I also agreed that you know maybe we go back to and say okay fair maybe we take St approach rather than putting RFP out for leas we talk and prepare another one for November for sale with you know getting the more information I mean let's figure out exactly why that fly or if we know more information and can make it Fly well but we should decide what to do yeah I agree we should what to do but I don't know that if we're going to go that route we can't decide that tonight because we need more information not but we definitely need to do another RFP right if we would prefer the one for sale then maybe we you know talk to town councel and see what can we make that happen or not right even if we don't have final permission to sell it pending bees and we can't sign anything until what can jump um when you say this this land that could be farmed right now what definitely where they had crops growing before I don't know if they do for water but yeah that's the the area that has a conservation restriction even up top where the top parking lot is where the shed at the third side fell down there or to left of the barn even someone could just like rotate animals into gra sure something well there's no fencing though yeah they they have fcing [Music] I think that we we've gotten past the point of it was mentioned that the last RFP was written for an orchard only I think we all we as a community have an understanding that the trees are no longer viable and opening the property up by removing the trees is now becoming a more likely or understood fact that that's what needs to happen in order to to get the property into compliance with the RFP because the trees aren't viable um and I think that's you know kind of permeated community that we understand something's going to happen with the trees do your adopt a tree and everyone can cut one down smells great in the fire I'll do two I have a chain I'm not doing any I'm not already like volunteered my f i I went out there after they did the pruning and then I took some of the wood and went to split it you do not want to split no you don't want to split that's why they make bowls they turn on yeah I was using I was using a splitter and it still didn't like it it's like turns into pulled pork basically yeah I mean so I mean just to Will's point if you know the town wants to go for a lease option you could um you know dissolve the working group go out for a lease see what happens and if you need us back start it again or bring us on to just like I mean I don't mind giving like advice I don't know I mean it it that that's to some extent a matter of semantic so I think we're talking symbol Al here are we dissolving the working group and continuing to rely on on the members for information which I assume you're not going to like take your ball and go home and never talk to us [Music] again going to think your home yeah but I mean that's that's sort of what we're talking about right yeah I mean I don't mind like helping out but I'm not I don't want it to consume my summer yeah in my life I just don't know what else we can do yeah that that's what it comes down to for me if if I knew there was something that we could do we've already gone down so many Avenues tried to dig up so much information we have it and there's a lot of it there it's a manner of people absorbing it and understanding it so I don't know what else I can do and I think that what we struggle with is that since it's Inception we've been looking 6 months ahead always mhm and what we've always met with is resistance right down to and I hate to bring this back up again we mentioned three times it's even mentioned in minutes is the water shut off in the house and we were yes yes yes  and it's egg on our face because you all I meaning you meaning the count dropped the ball so and that that still continues being long ass soon number up here I apologize for that I wasn't aware that that was the case but um what case that you didn't know that we had asked to shut the water off but um we were told it was done so it didn't matter so there was numerous meetings all through the fall right down to the barn as well water off electricity off we were told the electricity was off electricity is still on so the town's paying for the house in the barn for 3 years um and that was on just to get Karen and Matt off the hook like that was prior to them I'm always trying to like make nice in the sand but exactly um what if I offer what I mean there's obviously a lot of value in you each bring a lot of talent to the table and a lot of knowledge to the table um what if for the summer we did a leave of absence and then when we started figure out what we're going to do over the summer whether it's just a maintenance plan and mowing or whatever it is maybe we are able to find somebody to get some trees removed um but then as we start gearing up towards fall town meeting um you kind of get the band back together again to I mean if if if the push if the the goal is to bring it back and and to sell the Orchard and that fall time meeting then um I think if that's going to happen that it should be this body that kind of brings that to um yeah but you'll still have to run the metropolitan area planning Council they'll need to do and and I don't know if their the goal for them would be to on two fronts like to educate folks and to gather input I I don't have that clta you know we gathered we gathered points of you know we but we also you know and folks said well you know I want to keep it conservation you know then F it's not conservation land that we're talking about here you know so it's it can be both I think what is your deadline for the warrant article in the fall 15 yeah mid-september you'd already have to know beginning of August what the goal is so and this is June so so if you go on a Hiatus there's I don't think there's enough to come yeah and if you went for a lease you'd have to like get it organized get one public input session put it out for bid get the bids back I think can we between between now and September 15th can we ask the audience cuz a lot of people here have been at a lot of meetings and I'm curious what their thoughts are as to what you think of the working group and if you think it should be a fresh set of eyes or you know what you have to say your name and address and can we keep it brief I I just before we do that I just want to say that I do think that there's benefit to what Sarah was saying that if there's areas of the orchard that can be you know with hay or whatever over the course of the summer actions speak louder than words if you put that into action I don't think you need and there's somebody doing something that that I don't think um you you would need mapc meetings um the community I would assume would like to see action promise that though that was contingent on sale that was if if you if you agree to this this is how we'll proceed good if we're bringing an article in the fall we should have the mapc meetings sometime before that we should as far as Will's idea Sarah's idea whoever wants to take credit of doing something what do we have to do to make that happen I don't that well we'd have to post it some some way you know somehow simar we can commit to investigating how so I just don't know yeah okay can we if we take public input can we limit it to 2 minutes a person yep you can limit it to 30 seconds before you want get up say your name and sit back down I think two minutes is all right okay CHR uh Kristen kazok six cage way um I believe the orchard working group is a valuable asset and I think it also is um they've been the face of this and through the education I think it's also important um the whole trust Factor you know in town with the select board and making sure that those what they want to do or what needs to happen is actually going to be following through so I think the or working group is a valuable asset to building that trust with the community and I definitely think that education and folks having an opportunity to say what they want done in those public meetings would be helpful Vince St recent dubl um as far as the orchard working group goes uh tremendous respect for them um and you know having watch the going on um over the last year plus that that I've been attending these meetings um I I think uh they're an invaluable resource um you guys have done uh Yen's work in terms of um you know bringing this issue to the four and it would be um a mistake to dissolve the um the working group in my opinion uh one of the things that I'm struggling with is the the time frame um and it's my understanding that there's a mechanism that uh that citizens of the town can um can utilize to call a you know a special meeting uh special town meeting um to kind of accelerate the process because to you know several of you mentioned it Jen Jen in particular that we were so close um to uh to winning and I you know I get your point about like the town spoke but you know just when it comes to votes on the uh for when you're running for election on the select board you know the town speaks at one point one year and at another Point another year like you know things change so um I'd be in favor of trying to accelerate the process um by you know pushing forward something but I I I don't want to get involved in that if it's going to um kind of CER the process if you will so D mver 43 Foster Street yeah I also agree you've done a lot of work a lot of hard work is non useful for boards to get ahead of the public and understands things uh differently but I think the things that you can do um unless me and Caren mentioned doing RFI for leasing there's no ex expectation that something is given out but uh be just for leasing I think that's useful information you're Gathering price points for what it take to restore different areas and that's the cost for the town to do it at prevailing wages more than say a private owner or nonprofit could do they could probably get grants which you can't because you've already uh saturated the possibility you have have the APR Grant you have the self-help Grant State and other folks won't give you grants because they think it's already protected where it's nonprofits probably could get money given the situation they're in um so I I think that's useful I think very valuable having mapc come in I think the thing it's missing is actually getting the public and especially the neighbors to talk about what is important for them to protect at the origin and that completely missing I mean it's gathering information uh you look through the file for uh you know what was done for the Morrison Orchard which you've done when you put together your timelines and so on you saw all the characteristics that people thought were important for preserving for protecting there from historic to Scenic to conservation uh one of the things that should happen with MPCs to reaffirm that what what's important for the Neighbors in the area why are they there what do they think should be protected 5 Seconds excuse me 5 Seconds well yeah you either can listen or you can just you know say shove it and push it I mean I think it's a public process I think you need to listen I and you come to every meeting and we call on you every time every time we've given you a lot of opportunity to speak I I do hearing one I'm saying that you should listen to the public the mapc should do it not you the mapc I think we we I definitely support everything I think that' be very valuable and that can be something that can happen now and and just since I'm being closed down I think if you look at what happened to scholand Orchard which isn't necessar what I'm saying what we follow but it's very similar in Lem you look at what their goals are one is restore which you know the mission statement which is what you're trying to do what is preserve what goes into Preserve the third is operational the agricultural stuff you have a good handle on the agricultural part but I think the other things you need to listen to the public on yes sir in the back Rob Browns 25 Juniper Road so I've spoken with Diane C I'm capable of misunderstanding things but I will tell you that I've learned it's a 200 person registered confirmed petition it then has to be processed by the town clerk's office to validate signatures it is then presented by Diane to the select board you have 35 days maximum to take action and call for the special town meeting what I don't know because I respect everything with regard to your group you guys are heroes having said that you know what I think you could consider doing is the discussions I heard in the last meeting Brad resigning Karen resigning you all contemplating resigning we don't have a newspaper we don't have a way of communicating it's it's a real sore spot and a weak spot in this town we need to hear that in light of the May 7th vote that these are the repercussions hit us over the head with it it seems like Brian needed stay that with regard to the vote that he successfully I believe got for the planning board of saying if you don't approve this we're going to be blacklisted with regard to Grants I feel like there's something similar with regard the public needs to be hit over the head with regard to a group that's been meeting through 2021 and doing their best is unable to motivate you so therefore here are the options you're giving us I won't go over them you're familiar with them if I knew that you folks I said this the last meeting not with the level of detail that uh Diane estimates it's 16,500 for the 200% petition that I said but if I knew that that would be supported I begin it tomorrow I begin it and align myself with others people I'm willing to have my name put out there associated with it for others to come to me and say yes give you the exact same form I know it's the exact same wording virtually the exact same wording that was voted down can be put forward by a resident in this petition process so I thank you for your time can I respond actually I want to respond since Vin and Rob both spoke to that I think um I appreciate your your support I think probably the best solution would be to come to a town meeting and whether it's a special town meeting or in November with more information about the pros and cons of of buying and specifically around the cost of leasing I think would be a stronger argument I think um you know Mark stated earlier like it's it's kind of not fair to just bring the same thing back and hope a different set of people show up right like like we we should be you know taking that that vote as um as information and we should be responding to it with a better Proposal with more information and more clarity and we may also get a different set of people or we may the the public Outreach may make a difference as well but I don't I don't want to run forward with um with a town meeting without setting all those things up ahead of time I wasn't time out can I can I comment respect it however if you've got experience in this town with regard to multiple votes before you get the vote that recommended this is another one of those situations that I feel strongly if anything I see you about to lose a group of valued people with valued years more knowledge than you folks say you have that we're on the verge of losing all of them we're and that seems very reasonable very human so therefore that's motivating other people everybody speak with is the same thing I can flip them from standpoint of of signing a petition to do the sale to okay then since you're arguing against that then you're supporting the property tax increases oh no no it's it's simple so with all due respect I think Littleton is established it takes multiple votes to get enough public awareness and in that regard with all due respect to the points made I don't view the town vote and a negative Town vote as being definitive and having to hold up six months where I'm dying to think about how Steve how we're going to get the money for all the other things you cut three and a half million that's terrifying with regard to what the reaper questions thank you er6 fox Lan um I just think the public Outreach is the biggest part I um I don't think people think it's either we sell or release necessarily they seem to think there's this unicorn out there where we keep all the trees and it's this lovely you know Orchard that just is owned by the town and it keeps our rural character and so I think people need to know the reality they need to know that even if we lease it most of the trees are going anyway um if we do lease it the reality of what that looks like for our budget for our schools for our police for our fire um for our roads for everything um I I agree that it was such a close vote and I think a lot of people were uninformed they did really didn't know what they were voting on they thought a vote against this was saving the Orchard and and there isn't a vote to SA Save The Orchard and so I really think we need to over the summer and into the fall double down on informing the public and I think we saw that right with the MTA vote and that we need to bring people in and talk to them and show them the reality of the situation that we are in as a town um and the you know the 10-minute presentations at town meeting just don't do it especially when you have you know people coming up like I said these unicorn ideas that aren't based in reality that sound lovely but but won't work how do you think we could go about getting the word out there better I mean we we kind of exhausted what we thought where people would look for information and we don't have a town newsp we do have a new tool with the town newsletter and the or committee has can submit it for that every you know every time it goes is that a paper newsletter or an electronic new newsletter e newsletter so is that part of the problem I think that is part of the problem but I also think for some reason there's a difference to people about the orchard group is having a meeting and public is welcome to this is a public meeting where we're going to talk about the orchard I I can't tell you exactly what the difference is but this setup right I think for some people is intimidating that you are up there and you are the experts and and we're listening in and maybe we have an opportunity to to respond whereas if it's kind of like what the the P um planning board did for the MBTA where it is you're sitting down you're working through Solutions and you're seeing how things oh that won't work or this is what happens if we do this um I don't know I think a different format would be helpful yeah and so and you know stop me if I'm wrong I don't think any of us disagree that we should have public input sessions that are run through mapc I think we've all said that that should happen and sooner than later later and there should be a few of them but I think that that I think that really because the mission of the working group is fulfilled and there's not a new direction that responsibility sits with the town for them to do that work just to have to you know have M mapc come in and like run those discussions and those meetings you know we can be present I guess um you know I don't know oh I think we have to be present I think you're the experts in the room and we'd be running the meeting and people would be asking questions and like Well we'd have to defer right we don't know as much about I mean we weren't at all the meetings for the past you know I think probably the other thing if nothing else that vote galvanized people and made it made made this a discussion a topic and if we have public information sessions I suspect more people will show up now than they would have before the town meeting boat so that may be you know another way that we got the word out by failing can can I ask a opinion of the working group there's been a couple comments about holding a special Tom meeting before November do you see any reason or advantage of doing that rather than potentially taking this back in November as a sale I'm very concerned that we're pushing out further further further and from an cultural standpoint we're losing ground the buildings structurally are losing ground so the longer we wait so I was nervous if this one didn't pass because I knew it's going to be a whole another cycle whole cycle and so so so my question is does September versus November September 1st versus November 1st change the Dynamics the commit has already spoken about we meetings AG talked about doing a special meeting if we thought I even made a motion to withhold and do public Outreach and not put it forth to the town me cuz we were nervous but as Amy said we've done our mission we gave it to you all to then be the pr for that so we don't have the the vehicles to really get the vote out as much I think we did as much especially uh many people on the committee did as much as they physically could um so I don't I I do see an advantage of doing it but I I really wanted to have an MC meeting I mean since Town vote we've been car and corrected us that you know our promise of doing the mapc was for a sale but I think anytime you can be have an Outreach I'm disappointed to hear it's going to take another four to six weeks to come up with a meeting might be quicker I don't know do regard we've been talking about these meetings and it's just get put on the bur for the last month or two it's already been back bured so what I'm not disagreeing that the meeting should have happened before but I'm not sure I understand unless there's a vote or decision coming up why we what's the push to do the meeting sooner rather than later if there's not a if have the lease done and really have a farmer hitting the ground in February if things have to be pruned or if they have to order their seeds or they need to get time on the ground they can do that unless you would let them get in early through your negotiation which probably is not going to happen what I'm saying is if there's if the select board's deciding this for a lease before going forward or lease then there's less push to have these meetings because we don't actually need permission but we need the permission and education if we're doing something outside of what we can do as a board or committee and if there's no vote coming up to for this if you did a in an Outreach meeting for MPC in June for a vote that's happening in November no one's going to remember right so there's no big push to do something an education campaign for something that's not happening quickly with due regard I think that's a bold statement I think that anytime that you can take input from the town's people from Future Farmers of what they might like to see as potentially used for a lease yeah I think that is a win that's a different that's a different either way whether we're talking a lease or purchase I think that especially coming up to having more input points as well like what's important that we need to and the RFI was probably the most meaningful input that we got in the last 6 months I I I agree if we're going out for running these meetings to get input for what we want to do going forward but if we've already decided what we're W to doing it's an educational campaign those are different meetings that's what I'm saying I think it's the Optics like Brad said for the longest time the town wants to be able to be involved in the process and to have these public meetings makes them feel like they're part of the process so it is Optics and that's where we failed before was Optics Sarah's more transparency absolutely we we should have two meetings as soon as possible but we but I we but we always said when we went the plan always was when we went to an RFP for sale if we were given that permission that we were going to do those public input sessions regardless so that that was always a thing that was never not a thing we just didn't pull the trigger on scheduling them because we were waiting for town meeting no we talked about doing them in either case because we hadn't crafted the final RFP for sale so ma mapc meeting could yield a special town meeting if there's enough education interest Etc somebody chooses to go with a petition or something and move that along they're independent right but yeah I could be it could Aid in like getting something passed I suppose I think it's the timing September versus November that's a couple of months and again to the point of that's getting somebody in their boots on the ground as soon as possible we'll lose if if we wait till November we're going to lose 2025 Farm already people let me throw something out there from card reach it back to We R still are on a working group but um one of the things that we felt was important from a PR standpoint was to get the message out there as simply as possible and so we determined we're going to do an infographic and so it was you know basically cartoons that told the story and um if we did something that said if we do nothing this is what's going to happen State takes it over if if we sell this is what could happen if we lease if it's a little more difficult picture to paint but if we can do something that's going to simplify it as much as possible and it's something we can get out there maybe maybe were're able to put it in with the light and water bills um to get a message out that it's going to be clear and knowing that we're getting the message to everybody I mean that's that is a tool that could be used to try to educate um but it's a matter of creating that document I mean Light and Water had um the engineering firm that they had hired they had um staff that do you still have that do you have a copy of that sure I do well we had talked about putting a almost like a flowchart yes is this no is this and going down from there so it's just it's doing it that way but I would love to see the one you're speaking yeah I'll uh try and put my hands on it one way or another so um for you Karen what we talked about before the RFP for sale we couldn't do that without Tom meeting approv but if we're having to spend money on a lease it's probably going to be the same book we can't sign a lease if we don't have the funds if we have to spend any money in the lease we have the legal authority to sign a lease we don't have a legal authority to spend any money on a lease so we're probably in the same same boat on a sale or a lease if we have to invest any money in the property yeah we can declare the orchard Surplus right now if we wanted select board can do that I think we there was a consensus that that was not the right thing to do um from an optic standpoint yeah I mean not not from an optic standpoint from a from a you know that that I think the thought was that you know it was really important that folks UND you know this was too much folks had too much invested in this for us to make that decision unilat early but we could do it right now if we wanted there's a quum it's not on the agenda it's not on the agenda but um I think we want all your members here and I think that we want to have some public input to that as well also all sides of it increase our sarcasm sensors a little bit um but yeah so we don't have the money to spend but we have the authority to lease and we don't have the authority to sell and we can work on an RFP to sell but we cannot issue it but we could work in an RFP for a lease but we couldn't sign a lease because if it required us to spend any money if it required us to spend money sign a lease we just can't commit to like doing the repairs or the if if the lease cost if we if yeah if we have no Financial commitment to the lease other than what they're paying us sell funding can we take another public question yeah just a question if you declared it Surplus do you have to then sell it no so could you declare it Surplus in order to put out the rfps to sell so that you can then come to town meeting like Steve said with our keys in hand and this is what this farmer would do with it and this is so we technically we don't need to go to town meeting to sell it right however I think the select board agreed that that was not the right thing to do we wouldn't do it so we could declare a surplus and we could go and and negotiate a sale with someone but I think that would not be in good faith because if we're intending to go to town meeting we're right back where we started which is like you know how are we legally um negotiating with this person if we don't have the right to sell it um because we're waiting for someone else to approve it we're waiting for the town to approve it and how many people from a just from a market perspective folks aren't especially in light of the last sale aren't going to be willing to invest a whole lot of time and effort into going after buying the property if it's contingent on a town meeting vote yeah um sorry in name and street address again Rob Brown 25 Juniper Road um is Meaningful to many of you for different reasons I would argue that reluctance to declare Surplus reluctance to take action should be met with a challenge which I'm making with regard to so is it better to forall time to you know I respect Sarah's perspective one to twoe time frame to spend monies that we don't have as a town that are going to come from something else I would argue that bold action this is one that requires bold action had you lost the MBTA it wouldn't you be seeking for what can we do next because that's a death flow I kind of feel like this vote has been a death flow with regard to the town's budgets and other aspects that are Emer the town that have to be dealt with there are critical needs I think the time for bold action if you've got the authority you're there because we gave you that Authority some may not like it so be it that's you're putting these positions for a reason who would had a good statistic of the mowing versus taking out the trees and or if we spend 20 years $20,000 for 20 years it's $200,000 that what was that analogy that you had $220,000 for 10 years for 10 years mowing right and converting it mowing for 10 years is that $20,000 a year it's $200,000 and spend $200,000 remov their trees so that somebody somebody in their Department you said yeah I mean I think just yeah I mean I'm always about bold action um but I do think that should be a full Board of Select meeting on an agenda with public notice it has to be yeah what next the 10th I think I think you should put it on your agenda for discussion for action Mr chair okay and with that post the date for the next MC yeah we need to get that posted yeah you need someone needs to call them talk to MC and find out their availability I think yeah someone needs to call them and find out and if you can have that information by the 10 is Ryan the representative I don't know who the representative is but Ryan is the person I would go to so doesn't okay okay we'll work on setting up the MC meeting we'll start with Council on on the RFP business whether you know since we don't have if it's going to cost us money to lease the property if we to invest anything we don't have that Authority we should start pursuing I'd like to ask the question of Town Council if we can get somebody out there right away what can we do get somebody out there yep what we have to do yeah I'll take that can't be Highway cuz they already said they don't have the time I'm talking about if we if there there's a field that can be used this summer let's figure out what we can do to get someone on that field now your lavender lady and she can irrigate us bring bring her own generator yeah laender my lavender the lavender lady getting the one we gave the tour to um and I I also say that even after the if we go through a lease process maybe not if we go through a sale process the work the orchard working group or the adoms have should have more of a say going forward in this in how if it's lease definitely that the agcom or this group or some should be overseeing that lease rather than the select board more on a more regular basis I think the Adcom working there was an Adcom working group which never met um which was supposed to be managing the Orchard and you know I I'm not sure that a board a town board I think sub trustees you have to pay them for it I think that would be a that's more money Steve yeah every year wouldn't be very no surprises though they're very they're very good but it would be for someone who's not a volunteer and right right um so I think the board selectman also just needs to redefine our purpose well I was unclear that any of you wanted to continue well that should be part of our discussion on to is um maybe it's something like Watcher working group for the disposition of the orcher or something to that effect yeah I I think we need like new clear different direction or the direction is we don't need you anymore but like I think we fulfilled the original request and anything further it needs to be like a new a new Mission new charge yeah okay yeah and I'm still willing to help out but you know um I think it's fair though I think you want to know what what the Direction with goals are in order to be able to confirm what they want to say and decide on what kind of level of obligation to take on that's very fair yeah so you guys have a lot to talk about in the yes sir name and address uh Bruce Jurgens 153 New State Road does the select board agree to have a new mission on the 10th and discuss it and have it in place because there's a lot of talk but I know it's come back is that reasonable I think it's reasonable to I mean to assume that the selectboard has no interest in dissolving Orchard working group that is willing to continue to be an orchard working group I mean I think the only reason we would dissolve it is if nobody was interested in continuing to serve on it and we we can't really can't discuss it tonight so would have to be on the agenda to discuss and make that determination on the 10th but I meeting when the next meeting is the the four of us our next meeting is on the 10th the agenda so we can discuss it I think the four select board members are all yes we would absolutely like to come up with a new mission on the 10th in order to retain these Ted folks and great um so I know it's 9:00 it's definitely getting close to my bedtime CU I'm getting old um do we have anything else to talk about think so so can we bring this meeing to a close motion everyone's both of them thank you gonna have a motion second on that one I'm sorry Sue I'm sorry