rid Traditions Amelia's Legacy continues to this day and the museum continues to get lots of inquiries about her in fact in 2000 a letter arrived in my mailbox addressed to Amelia aart National Air and Space Museum Washington DC so it was quite amusing uh that they that it found its way directly to me the curator who usually handles uh these letters and it's just amazing and how many people young old men women really still want to know about ailia this particular one was from a student get lots of student inquiries you know why was she so important how does she influence uh women how does she influence Aviation and it's just non-stop uh you know her Legacy is one of courage and it's one of endurance and it's still one of you know giving people the uh desire to succeed um so it's it's just amazing uh and we're always happy to respond to them aart didn't make it around the world but her scarf did multiple times with the help of someone who has an outof thisor job let's hear from NASA astronaut Randy comrade bresnik about his special connection to Amelia aart hello I'm Master Randy brnik I'm a retired Marine Corps Colonel I was an F-18 pilot in test pilot I got the fortunate opportunity to join NASA in 2004 as an astronaut and I've had the opportunity to fly in space board space Atlantis on SCS 129 2009 Expedition 52 and 53 to the International Space Station in 2017 the president connection to Milly aart uh is through my grandfather when he uh was a very young young man young early 20s he was just getting started in the photography business in Hollywood in California and so he had uh you know some work in the Hollywood Studios and things like that but there was this young pilot that kind of took a a shine to him took you know interest in him because he wasn't like all the big photographers that were how these clients and and D work he was just a good photographer who you know cared about getting pictures and cared about the people he was taking pictures of my grandfather had had been her personal photographer for several years before she did her you know 1939 flight for him having been with her for several years taking all these pictures he took all his negatives and everything and locked away in his photographic Vault and it wasn't until he was approaching the 50th Anniversary uh in 1989 that he decided to go into his vault and found all these negatives that he had put out of his mind and forgotten about and was able to then you know produce the pictures from those negatives that no one had seen in half a century so my first space flight on uh SCS 129 on aboard Atlantis I contacted the 99's museum in Oklahoma and asked if I could take something of Amelia to space with with me on the Spa Atlantis turns out the scarf that's in the photo my grandfather took of one of the photo shoots was what was in the museum and that exact same scarf took up to space and flew with me on SCS 1229 and now anybody uh young men young women whoever goes to visit the 99s Museum can see the scarf that A Milli a wore that uh actually got a few few million space miles on it learning about a person can be a lot of fun biographies are just one way to engage with the life of a person person Amelia aart wasn't just a famous pilot she was a poet a designer and a musician so when you want to learn about a person be sure to explore those untapped inroads it could be art or music or even poetry keep in mind that like us and like you famous people have hobbies too let us know what your favorite part of today's episode was down in the comments section and if you like this video be sure to follow steman 30 on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to the National airon Space Museum's YouTube channel thanks for [Music] watching [Music] [Music] let's start the meeting with a good night's sleep are you willing to give up a good night's sleep who's willing to give up a good night sleep thank you sir for giving up a good night's sleep who will pay with their ability to concentrate thank you sir for parting with your ability to concentrate who's willing to pay with their Peace of Mind who will pay with their Peace of Mind Peace of Mind Peace of Mind Peace of Mind who will offer up their peace of mind thank you young lady for giving up your peace of mind going once going twice so what's the price of a pack of cigarettes your mental health cigarette Cravings can lead to anxiety for all right you guys all said yep okay stand by hey M hey M hey all good evening everyone welcome to the April 1st 2024 meeting of the Long Meadow select board uh this is Select board acting chair Josh LaVine I will be confirming that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me Members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Mark gold here Dan zero here beneath heathy here staff when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Lyn Simmons this open meeting of the long metal select board is convened in person and Via Zoom webinar is posted on the agenda and Town's website identifying how the public may join there is no chat or Q&A function all the materials for this meeting are available on the agenda post on Longet ma.gov the public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise this meeting will feature resident comment for residents attending the meeting in person please raise your hand when we get to the comment section of the meeting and I will call on you to approach the microphone for residents participating in the meeting via Zoom webinar form format please use the rais hand icon at the bottom of the screen the meeting moderator will promote you to panelist unmute you and give you permission to speak you join the webinar by phone dial star9 to raise your hand and star six to mute unmute residents who wish to speak will identify their names and addresses only each individual is afforded three minutes for comments please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking if anyone is in attendance is recording this meeting please announce yourself now and seeing none uh we'll move on to the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh for tonight's announcements uh Long Meadow Earth Day cleanup celebrates celebrate long Meadow's Earth Day cleanup on Saturday April 6 2024 to volunteer for the event or for additional information please visit longm ma.gov Civic alerts 2024 rain barrel program the Department of Public Works is partnering with green with great American rain barrel to host the 2024 rain barrel program barrels are available for purchase by residents at a discounted price the deadline to order order is May 5th 2024 for additional information on the program please visit longm longm ma.gov Civic alerts annual town meeting the 2024 annual town meeting is set for Tuesday May 14th 2024 in the long metal high school gymnasium distribution of the warrant and budget will be delivered to town of longal residents on April 25th including opt outs the voter registration deadline if you are not already a registered voter in town is May 6 2024 the final town meeting warrant will also be available online the week of April 25th for additional informations information and resources please visit Long Meadow ma.gov toown meeting Patriots Day town of Long Meadow municipal offices will be closed on Monday April 15th in observance of Patriots Day the select board meeting for this we week will be held on Tuesday April 16th 20124 all right next on the agenda we have res comments Mr Kean please approach uh introduce yourself and uh St your address so R ke I'm over at 109 Ellington Street um I'm actually going to be reading something for my wife Mary uh who uh unfortunately could not attend this meeting so this is from Mary Kean dear Long Meadow select board I'm writing to ask that you approve the request to include include a town meeting warrant article to use stabilization funds to purchase a high quality literacy program for elementary students in Long Meadow Public Schools I have a personal interest in this matter as a parent of three LPS children I also a veteran educator working as the supervisor of English for Westfield public schools and I serve on the LA Meadow school committee the current literacy program used by LPS no longer meets the needs of students based done a compelling body of research about how students learn to read the Massachusetts Department of ele Elementary and secondary education outlines the need for districts to move away from the approach currently used by LPS in a document called Mass literacy the four shifts this school year Beth Nelson director of curriculum instruction and assessment for LPS has led a team of 30 Elementary Educators to review highquality curriculum materials grounded in the science of reading and two programs are currently being piloted in many classrooms across the district the team will select one of the programs to implement in the fall of 2024 but funding is needed as you know this was an enormously challenging budget season the school committee was asked to submit a budget that did not exceed 3% the committee engaged in very difficult conversations about how to provide the same level of services to LPS students Within These parameters I'm dismayed that we were unable to include the elementary literacy program purchased in the school committee budget I recognize that the stabilization fund is not typically used to fund purchases for LPS in this critical situation though I urge you to allow the town meeting warrant article I've served on the LA Meadow school committee for nearly three years in my opinion my strong support for an elementary literacy program that is grounded in the science of reading is the most important contribution that I have made during my term I committed to providing high quality curriculum materials for LPS Educators and students please approve the town warrant request so that LPS students will have the opportunity to experience research-based literacy instruction that will set them up for future academic success best Mary Keane thank you [Music] thanks ly do we have anyone else no one else okay um moving on to select board comments uh the Middle School building committee oh actually the the architect uh and project manager for the Middle School building committee um held a visioning session last week was pretty well attended uh right down the hall and uh it was basically a chance for people in town to come and say what they wanted from the school how what they visioned um what they thought of the Town what uh and I thought it was pretty useful uh it was uh fairly abstract and I will be curious to see what the Architects uh take out of it uh for the design um but uh it was it was very interesting you can watch the video on the uh Middle School building committee site um there's still some more time for people to make their voices known uh you can also just send an email to the Middle School building committee um and then as we get closer and have more of a a design in place there'll be uh there's still plenty of time to to make your voice known um but uh so thank you to everyone who came to that and um I look forward to hearing people more go ahead Mark thanks I have two things uh I I attended a scanic Valley healthc Care trust program uh board meeting and it was interesting the the two areas of discussion and I know talk to Lynn about this is one is that that uh the Westcom group is not a member but they get their health insurance from there and so scanic Valley is trying to work on how to get them to because they pay for their insurance themselves but but to get them to be a member and in addition another Community lllo is actually requested to join scanic Valley there's a question of equity and how do you come up with equity and we're going to leave it to the scanic valley group to to do that the the other meeting I attended was the Pioneer Valley planning commission's Mo metropolen planning organization meeting it was a pretty extensive discussion and i' I'd like to read the report that I sent to Lynn and Shan van duen because it does impact the town of longm and I apologize if it's a little lengthy but but it will give us the the whole uh kind of vision of what happened I attended the Metropolitan planning organizations meeting past Tuesday at the pvpc offices the meeting was in person because Joyce Singh who's the administrator of the federal highways Mass division was also in attendance uh the lineup of pending Federal Highway projects was reviewed and a great deal of time was spent actually discussing the Springfield X Project which is interesting because although it doesn't affect our Administration it will certainly affect residents because our our proximity to the X it's going to be significantly redone but with that and in addition the the professionals at that's at pioner Valley Planning Commission noted the cost of Highway projects continue to rise uh for the projects previously scheduled to be completed in 2024 through 2028 the increase is now believed to be $30 million which is a full year of funding and uh to address the unprecedented rise in roadway construction cost they've begun a a process they're calling Advanced Construction or AC or Advanced Construction funding ACF what this does is stretches everything out and it stretches it out over multiple years of of of construction and multiple fiscal years of payment which is obviously the the deal and this AC program impacts two of the long Metals pending projects the first project is the so-called L project it's 84 miles and we know what it is it's the one that we're doing the the water and sewer for it was originally uh scheduled to cost $9.5 million that cost has now gone up to $9.75 million uh and some of it will come from the federal government but because there's an increase coming from tips which is the Massachusetts funding that's been stretched out a little bit it's going to stay somewhat on schedule it's still going to be in fiscal 2025 so that project's okay the other projects that we impactor Long Meadow Route 5 projects the phase one project which is the North End of Route 5 uh which is I guess from about Converse Street to about The Community House something like that uh was originally scheduled to be in fiscal year 2027 Federal fiscal year 2027 and the cost was $ 55.77 million uh of which 4.6 was federal funds the now the project is now part of this AC program it's gone from $ 55.77 million to a little over $7 million and and the federal funding went from 4.6 to 5.6 but clearly the state money has to go up as well so as a consequence of the Deferred funding the project has been pushed out to fiscal years 28 and 29 so it's out another year and a half kind of thing it's still listed as planned but as they said said on the meeting anything in there with 2028 is subject to whatever you know because of funding but the specific issue and I asked specifically the question was the long meow Phase 2 project and it I I specifically asked and they said that any project that was previously in the 20124 to 2028 5-year plan has been retained but anything that was beyond 2028 basically isn't there anymore and U so there are no new projects being scheduled in the 5-year plan which is 25 6 7 8 and 9 so that 5year plan has no new projects just stretching out of the projects we have and the implication of that is clearly the second half of the route 5 construction which would Repair Route 5 South End which is about from The Community House to the Connecticut line that project is considered deferred uh and doesn't show in any tip funding at all uh the timelines go out to 2029 so the assumption is that it will go Beyond then it may be toward the top of the list uh and I guess we should plan to have what we have for the south end of rout 5 for while uh anyway I want people to know that because this whole idea of pushing everything out is impacting that project there's you know it's obviously still on people's minds but frankly they've moved Bridges to the top of any future list so bridges are getting the first first crack we don't know when the south end of Route 5 will be there I'll continue to attend the meetings and report on what's going on but there's not a whole lot of opportunity to if you will object or question or second guess this there's just no money is this there was like four or five years in a row where we put 100 Grand towards a study this that was the engineering study for this right yeah I I believe so that and the and uh the water sewer work that would need to accompany it right not this so much the South End Oh I thought because we kept oh we broke it into two phases because the project itself was going to be way too big to tackle at once so that was was that study not contemplating the south end of Long Street anywhere I'll need to verify it but um I I'll double check okay before I say anything I I guess regardless and we may not know the answer to this but are we going to have to do that again or these are the studies we did should that work still be good whenever they get around to doing this my my understanding is if it's shovel ready it's shovel ready but they don't have the the engineering details done anything like they they do on the the the L project is going out for bid next year this time and it's they said it's it's all but ready to go out for bid okay but the you know the others they've got to do a lot of a lot of work on it's just that the funding like I said is now doesn't show on the fiveyear plan anymore which is pretty yeah that's disappointing I I I remember I and maybe I'm misremembering what the warrant articles were for but we every year we put another thousand $100,000 towards it with the idea that eventually we were going to get Paving and uh so I hope that is still good anybody else go ahe thanks I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the Long Meadow police department and specifically K9 uh Ruben uh last week uh there was a a hit and run uh in town and K9 and the K9 unit was able to um successfully uh reach the suspect um so I just wanted to give the police department a shout out I think it's important to uh for us to recognize that not only is it um policemen and women but also canines that are helping our community so wanted to give a shout out and then also on I think it was on Sunday um I had I went to the adult center for a drive-thru um food pantry drop off um it was a great success um so just thank for all the people that helped volunteer uh for a great event thank you okay there's nothing else we'll go on to the town manager report thank you uh so tonight I've got a bunch of different updates for you starting off with the Lifeguard course this is an update on one that I've been keeping you informed on as we've progressed um but the the course was hosted by The Long Meadow Parks and Recreation Department at Long Meadow high school over February vacation week and it was well attended of the participants 18 passed the certification and nine of those participants have applied for employment with the town along Long Meadow the full complement of lifeguards needed to open both pools is 26 to 30 so far we have 15 applications uh we need four pool managers two have applied and we need four Gatekeepers and we have eight applications for that uh the Bliss pool work bid we've gone out to bid now uh twice for uh mechanical and electrical work at Bliss pool the most recent one closed uh March 20th um be right before that second closure um the procurement manager had gone in to see that nobody had bid it was about 5 minutes before the bids were due and with that he was able to renew that bid posting without having to um start over and and um in renewing it we were broadcasting out in a different way to um direct it at electricians and firms that provide mechanical work this was sent out to 41 vendors uh This was done because it's less about specific pool work and more about uh the specialty of pumps and electrical work uh unfortunately we've yielded no bids in that second round as well so we're preparing to go back out to bid again uh and we're going to make every effort to try to get that work completed in order to open for the 2024 season and recently I held a spring Sports maintenance meeting uh along with the DPW director the Parks and Recreation director and the facilities uh division manager the turnout was really good we had about 10 people representing softball baseball track and field and girls lacrosse we had a really good conversation and it was clear that a lot of the information that we were sharing was the first time that many of these groups had ever heard it um or had been engaged with the DPW that way uh the biggest takeaway was how to request maintenance items by using the public works at longmeadow.org email address or calling the DPW directly at 567 4300 this way a work order gets created so then it can get tracked not only to make sure the work gets done but it helps budgeting at the end of the year when Sean and the rest of the DPW are looking at how much clay they used or how much uh paint for line striping um so they need that valuable de data and it only gets in there if a work order is created so it was definitely a worthwhile meeting and we're going to repeat it for the fall Sports uh and then we also Ed the opportunity to make sure that they were all aware of the banner sponsorship program right now we have two that have come in and been approved to be posted and we'd love to see a lot more um because it's also going to help with field maintenance and lastly tonight just an update on the shared Health Services um since the formation of the shared shared health servic Arrangement and receipt of the public health Excellence Grant we've been working on an intermunicipal agreement and bylaws we've now Consolidated the draft intermunicipal agreement and bylaws into one document and it's almost ready to be presented to each select board for adoption I expect that this will happen before the end of the fiscal year and regular meetings are held with each community and all the feedback um so far has been that every Community is really satisfied with the services that they're receiving they're all reporting to receive a higher level of Public Health support than they had before and all four staff are very responsive uh the state's also very happy with our Arrangement and we're committed to receiving Public Health Excellence grant funding to through 2035 they've Loosely committed to the same level of funding for the entire program which is annually um $393,100 reaching back out to the life cards who did not apply or well I guess they newly certified folks uh yes I think we're we're doing anything and everything um including posting with the new rates for from the adopted waging classification study okay and if if we only have one pool I guess we have enough for one pool right now is that right yes okay if we hire every single one of those yes oh sure guess we'll see how it all shakes out other questions for Lynn uh yeah real quick Lynn in regards to so getting the the pool fixed and we're having trouble you know with bids um I'm just wondering if there's other avenues that we can look at possibly uh just some other towns that they've recently had to maybe fix their pools I know it's a really an it's sounds like it's a like a niche type of uh operation for that needs to be fixed uh at the pool I'm just wondering if other cities and towns out there you know if we can talk to them maybe we I'm sure we are already I don't want to make that assumption either though so I'm just wondering what your thoughts are great suggestion and I'll verify that we've done that or at least found out who they use if it's not somebody in staff so we could reach out to them definitely yeah thank thank you and I I don't that's a good point Dan I I don't know how the bidding process works but if we know you have to give everyone equal opportunity if we know that another town used a particular contractor can we approach them and say please bid yes okay yeah there's been a lot of those kinds of phone calls so as long as it was advertised we're okay we're we're all uh I shouldn't say me cuz I'm not making those calls but CPW staff have been making sure that vendors that we've worked with before or vendors that they know do this type of work are aware of this bid opportunity it's rare that we would do two rounds of bidding without quotes so I'm not really sure what's causing people to not bid on it whether it's just workload or um lack of clarity with what we're actually asking for but um this time I know there's been a lot of direct Outreach to vendors and I should say we're we're fairly confident that if we get a bid and we accept it the work that's needed is not so complex that it won't be able to be completed by the end of May so we're not we don't think this is not happening yet we're we're still full steam ahead okay thank Lenn all right uh moving on to Old business a fisc year 2025 budget we have uh Ian here as well as well today great so uh at the last meeting um presented the budget to you started to have some initial conversations about it um and then did have an opportunity to have some one-on-one conversations with some of you um I think as you've maybe sat with it and looked it over um there's not a lot of change um it's it's pretty minor compared to some other budget years again it's a preservation budget we're not cutting anything but we're not making any real advances um the one area that I can say that we are or I feel pretty good about um where we're going is with the field maintenance we were able to keep that in it's a very small amount but it is more than we've ever done before and it's in recognition of the uh the active Recreation conditions assessment that was just completed um so I'm I'm happy to answer specific questions that you might have um or if you want me to highlight some areas any further I'm happy to do that go ahead Mark yeah I I did have just so people at home though I had opportunity sit down with Lynn oneon-one and I think all my questions got answered I just want to point out a couple of things that are concerned to me that I'd like to certainly get a some some prioritization going down down the road and one is we had a we we re this budget reduces our commitment to for and the forestry line item which is part of the the DPW and and it's unfortunately we've done that I you know I understand the rationale was primarily because we need need the money and don't have the the funding to do that but I I really believe that it's it's shortsighted the trees take forever to to grow here you know 25 30 years and to cut cut back on planting and trees especially after the report we got talking about the dir of trees that we have and the the you know huge number that we we probably do need it was disheartening to see that if in fact there's funding uh I would like to see more money going into that that line item which brings me to another quick cop comment about the budget every year we pass the budget and we pass the budget based on our best guess of what state funding is and the state funding is never what we guess it to be sometimes it's a little less sometimes it's a little more uh but we never go back and revise the budget and what we do is if it's increased State funding we essentially take that as free cash later on instead of doing the things that we we might have otherwise wanted to do and so one of the things I'm suggesting is that we make a commitment that says if it's appropriate and the state funding comes back different from what we've guessed it to be or or estimated it to be or if other things change that at the fall town meeting instead of just appropriating free cash from the last year we actually go back and make changes to the budget for the year we will be in in the fall you know and and I I think we ought to be doing that because that helps us identify what the real priorities are and spend the money at the with the knowledge of the people in town of Long Meadow and spend the money in the year comes in so having said that I recognize that there's a shortage in the forestry line item clearly that's one of the things I would like to see considered in the fall and maybe other people would as well but so those are my two items one is the the for stream line item which you know we're not going to get more than we got but the other thing is the to to see if we want to adjust the the budget in the fall um then we talked about the tree planting a little bit today you want to tell me what you yeah so tell every what we yeah just and and thanks for asking cuz I I do want to put a little context to this if somebody's watching and isn't looking at the numbers here on the sheet um the DPW requested $200,000 for tree planting which would have been higher than it's been um since fy21 um we unfortunately could not um keep that in uh there I did cut out 26,000 of that so the line for um tree Ward and other Property Services is 174,000 which is exactly the same as FY 24's budget um so it it is it's not quite a decrease but it's not where DPW wanted to go and it's not in recognition of that report that you received um but it's not all bad news um what DPW is doing um it's a it's a change in how they're treating construction projects so um trees are vital infrastructure and it's a change in how dpws have historically seen them um and just like we would replace curbing or catch basins on a road project trees that are taken out Town trees that are taken out for road projects will be replaced as part of that road project so that number is not reflected in this line here it gets reflected in construction projects so capital projects um the road resurfacing work um water sewer line work that type of thing just like we'd have to fix the roadway we need to fix the curving sidewalk and any any public sh tree because it is infrastructure um so while you don't maybe see it in this line we you will see trees being replaced as a result of construction projects I think that covered it right yeah and all that being said I Mark I agree with you this is something we should focus on we I to me that was one of the most impactful presentations we've gotten in the last year um where we saw a lot of places trust to spend money but one of them was uh on trees and we're way behind and we take a lot of pride in our in our being a green town and being Tree City and um definitely something that we need to focus on and find way to I'm glad the DPW is doing their best and being creative but I that's certainly something we should keep coming back to I agree with you there absolutely gok ly I just have a clarification because I'm looking at line it's mine it's 389 I know the lines are all different but the FY 2024 budget for the total forry budget was 277 600 and for 2025 it's going from 2776 to 2452 mhm so isn't that a decrease in for stre line item yeah there's two well there's two for stre there's other Property Services and tree planting right right but I my comments were that for stre line item that's all oh the the tree planting you're saying or the whole budget the whole budget for forry was what he talking about yep um and so I I yeah it is a cut um that's all I I'm I'm not trying to argue the point I'm just trying to say that you know that I was looking at a different number I guess from you you were looking at line Tre Warden and other Property Services and I was looking at total forestry that's all it's fine um so I'm looking at the uh the published agenda or the published Budget on our agenda and I'm looking at uh like around line 464 uh School operating expenses yep not a question that that's it looks like it's done a lot differently than it was in the past if you could explain that yep um yes so what DPW is doing this year which is different than the other years is um similar to what I talked about with work orders they're trying to to um track supplies that are used at each location so that we can get a better handle on any anomalies that might be happening um they've noticed a couple this year and it's hard to track um because everything has been pulled together so if they can call it out by you know uh Glen Brook needing X number of paper towels or um toilet paper things like that we can better see if there's something occurring that we need to track better um they're also doing the same thing for pools so we can better track how much it actually costs to maintain uh the pools so you'll see it uh under um schools there's a line for the uh High School pool and then under grounds you'll see it for the two Town pools uh Glen uh Greenwood and uh Reynolds pool so those are all just in an effort to provide better data for the department but but ultimately there there's no constraint to these line item numbers the constraint is to the school budget right I mean it's good for us to track it but in this case it's a it's maintenance budget in the DP DPW right for the schools for the schools right so in other words if you know Maintenance building Blueberry Hill goes under but M Maintenance building wol swamp goes I mean we don't have to it's not a line item budget per se it's a line item track right they they won't spend they'll be cautious about not using Wolf Swamp money at Blueberry unless something were to happen right okay um and something else that jumped out of me was uh top top dressing and turf management is that um yeah is that any one particular field uh it is not um the so this is a new line item um that is reflective of the active Rec study uh and so for the first year here they will be tracking it based on a lot of that work orders that come in and uh meetings with staff to figure out where the needs are and following the active Rec study as well in the future you may see it field-based but we're we've got a while before we get there um I got Mark so the other thing on my list here is employee retirement benefits and liabilities and then there's contributory retirement which is my favorite place the H County Regional Retirement Board the increas is 9.31% frankly it's gone up around 9% every year for the last five six seven eight years and it's projected to go up % for each of the next 5 six seven eight years and I think it's time we initiate a study to withdraw from the hton county regional Retirement Board I'm not saying we do withdraw but I think we need to understand what it would mean to try to do that they're they're just they're they're you know the the investment of the funds is with Prim which is the public you know management you know investment Fund in Boston which is the so the investment is fine it's in fact the same place where we put our oped money we do it ourselves the problem is when the Hampton County Retirement Board invests in the money there and they earn eight or 9% Hampton County then says well we have expenses and your net return is a half a percent or 1% or 2% or 3% and it doesn't come close to making the difference up of what we need because there's so much loss in the overhead of Hampton County Regional Retirement Board and based on what we've seen scantic Valley doing for our health care versus the gis Health Care system or the MIAA Health Care system I think it's worth us having a group take the time to find out what it would take to withdraw and what we could do and you know would we have to staff up our HR department to administer I have no clue but all I know is we can't continue to pay 9% a 9% increase every year on on 4.7 Million worth of retirement contributions it's killing our budget and we've got to break this thing and and I I know and if somebody's got a better idea fine otherwise and I'm not suggesting we flat out withdraw because I don't know the answer I the answer is we got to study it well I find that very interesting uh and I just I when I worked at the federal government I got a tsp account was like a government 401K uh and I my financial manager says no I'm not going to touch that you just leave it there it's a good investment it's cheap and there's no reason for anybody to get in the middle and I'm thinking sounds about the same here um I'm I don't know what the logistics that we would have to uh we'd have to match but I I'm very curious about that I think it's a good idea I mean I I know enough to say look somebody's got to administer it that means you've got to worry about who's retired and who's not retired and when retiree passes away you got to make sure they're no longer on the books and you've got to F CH chase them around the country while they retire and all I mean it's not a zero activity in terms of you know managing a a retirement fund on the other hand we got to be able to do it for a lot less than the what what we're being charged it and I would I don't know we've got to we I'd like to find out if we could do it for less than we're being charged by the Hampton County Retirement is there is there an alternate group is there like a Statewide group that does that or there there are other yeah I mean we don't have to do it theoretically we part of this study should be you know I mean the City of Springfield runs their own retirement Bo board which is in worse shape than hon County in terms of it's underfunding but because it's the same people running it for but there are other but there are other organizations that have it there are other counties that have it maybe you can work I don't know what the answer is all I know is you know it's it's $4.7 million in our budget and it goes up by 9% every year and is projected to go up by 9% they're funded at the 28 or 30% level and so they have no prayer in my opinion of of catching up by the 30 2035 or whatever the date it is without and and you know this year they just tacked on another year till we are fully funded so I'm just saying it you know it's going to be effort it's going to take a while but there ought to be a study because it it's a huge I mean $4.7 million out of a $80 million budget that's 5% or more than more than 5% of our budget guys thing might be a good uh topic for a regional select board meeting see what's in the other towns but but are the regional select board that we're on most of them aren't part not all in yeah yeah so but yeah I mean you're right but I mean Lynn is is it something that it'd be a lot of effort by somebody and I assume Ian or or Erica or somebody would have to be a a part part of that that investigation the study you're talking about yeah a study yeah I mean if we were going to look to have a firm do it for us we could begin getting quotes on what that would look like uh I think it's a great idea and I think we should add it to the goals that we should be talking about in the next couple months um and in the meantime we can work on getting quotes on what it would cause someone to do that for us I think it's a little bit above tasking staff with it that's fine um is there a grant for something like this there it's interesting there might be something through Community compact I'd have to look I know Ian has done some research on like how we could actually withdraw I know we're getting slightly off topic here so I don't know if you want to entertain that conversation or you want to put a pin in it and put a put this on a future put a pin in this and we should absolutely bring this up and uh yeah I thank you for bringing that up Mark it's a good idea um and I just have one last question on uh line four 341 I think in 555 um they are those are the electrical accounts and it says net metering and I know we've been building up net metering credits for years is that a one-time offset or is that going to change going forward yeah so let's see three 341 is DPW we've reduced that one um this is one if you remember we had to supplement this budget at the fall town meeting um we we are working on amending the two net metering agreements I'll try to be as simple as possible with this um one of them has been amended and we have been able to amend the accompanying schedule Z that gets filed with the electric company that takes those credits and distributes them out to the different utility accounts so you'll see I think the other line you were talking about stores stores library that was one that benefited from the schedule Z Amendment uh and so we do believe that will'll keep seeing that benefit in the future the other one that the street lights are on is a um net meter agreement where we're the host agam's an off-taker it's through a company called nen that is the one uh we have been in negotiations with for almost a over a year now actually um it is a fairly simple agreement we have a great solution we are waiting for the town of agam to agree to the solution and then the rest of the schedule Z will get uh cleaned up we'll um be able to distribute those credits out and hopefully see a lot of benefit in their budget in fy2 you think agaman would want the credits to uh Power their free EV charging yeah um uh so in between last meeting and and tonight I Al I also had a chance to meet with Ian and and Lynn and talk about the budget so thank you all uh so so much for that I mean I think the conversation we had in the last meeting coupled with that this is a pretty straightforward budget and so um so you know I don't think I have too much more to add than what we previously discussed one thing that I did want to say is just coming out of this conversation just how important these little changes in mindset are the fact that you mentioned that DPW is now starting to think about trees as part of our infrastructure just that small change in mindset I think is going to have such a big impact and help us towards our goals in replanting the trees that we need or planting the trees that we need um to you know have have our town where it needs to be and then also little things like the way that they're looking at school uh maintenance expenses like you all talked about that too will is just going to help us make and you know build a better budget um moving forward so I want to thank you know DPW for actually kind of like adopting these different um ways of thinking and it's it's just always good to always to be reassessing these things and to be thinking about how we can do things better and they have a million things that they need to be taken care of but I appreciate that they're still taking the time to take a step back and think about how they can be doing things better so that's just want to mention that well said should we end the meeting take a bow for so so we need to approve the budget oh there's that yeah and so we go ahead no I I was just going to make a motion to to approve the budget for presentation at the annual 20 2025 annual town meeting as distributed as it was distributed to us this afternoon in the most recent version second uh any further discussion all those in favor thank you both for all your hard work and everyone else in the town who contributed to it we appreciate it I'm moving on to uh continuing old business we have the fisc year 2025 Capital Improvement plan uh discussion and vote and I know that uh this is there's a lot of discussion on this last meeting so I don't know or Ian whichever you want to speak on speak on this thanks so uh we were initially not intending to have this come back to you tonight as old business because you did take a vote at the last meeting however um doing some followup after the meeting on the vote that you took to use the bond proceeds or to repurpose those B some of those Bond proceeds from The Long Meadow Street watermain and Sewer project uh Ian did a lot of work with bond counsil to figure out what's POS what is possible and what we thought um was possible and the way you voted at the last meeting is actually not possible and so this is why this is back on here for you tonight and I will uh ask Ian to speak directly to the to What bond Council has relayed to us in terms of those Bond proceeds sure so the biggest thing is understanding debt terms so when you purchase a equipment or an asset there's a certain useful life that this equipment or asset has and in the case of the chiller I know that the select board has looked to have this go over 5 to 7 years or at the most 10 years so what I had Bond council do was I ran some pay Downs of the equipment over that time period now what I really want to convey to you is that we had talked about the L produ project Bond being used as a way to circumvent going out for another borrowing and unfortunately Bond Council explained to me that because of the time period that we borrowed the L project for which is 30 years the only way that I could use those funds for another project is if it were for the same term or longer therefore if we're doing a chiller project from 5 to 10 years it does not follow fall under the same um term so the other option would then be to use a short-term debt Arrangement so we would look at banss so borrowing anticipation notes so the three options presented were the fiveyear with bands with pay Downs the seveny year of bands with pay downs and the 10 year of bands with pay Downs at the longest term for 10 years we had about $168,000 of Interest on top of the $700,000 principal payment for the chiller now based on based on that number I know that there was discussion about the useful life of the chiller now we are looking to do a middle school in a couple years and I think it was conveyed to me by the select board that they are concerned about how long this Chiller will last and if it's really worth the investment at 5 years it would be about $98,000 of interest at 7 years it' be about $17,000 of interest in my opinion I think that the interest due on any type of short-term note would be not worth it for the town to pursue which is why uh the town manager myself are proposing that we use the capital funds that were originally presented to fund the chiller project and save this interest that we would be paying on the project for another project yeah I me that makes a lot of sense to me uh with the amount of the that's a lot of interest over short term and then what uh Lyn and I discussed today is that the if we moved it over the roads we're not it doesn't go that far on roads right now unfortunately uh not that it's ever going to get more but um that's less than a mile of road we'd get out of this so um if we need the we need the chiller I think that lenon Ian I think explained it well that it's just not worth the interest on on the short term if we could if we could have swapped it out over 30 years we already appropriated it that's a that's a different ball game but as is I think this is the right move Mark yeah Josh I disagree I I I I think my intent was not well understood and I'll say that frankly because the intent was having nothing to do with although we discussed It ultimately having nothing to do with the $10 million or $12 million that we borrowed it was to literally go out and get a a separate ban Bond anticipation note that we'd probably roll over over five years for the chiller yes there'd be interest involved in it but the interest and principle of that which Ian laid out in the memo to us it would be paid for out of the capital stabilization fund every year so it has nothing to do with the $10 million $12 million Bond it's its own borrowing that would be paid for separately okay the the the issue is you know that Schiller in my opinion better have a 20 or 25 year life for the for the for the Wolf Swamp school if it's got a five or six or seven year life we've got the wrong system being installed and so to pay for it over five years does allow us and that's why if you recall the vote was to take the $700,000 and put $500,000 toward additional roads and the up to $200,000 this year for in interest and principle with the assumption that in the future years we'd also have the first $200,000 off the capital stabilization or the capital plan would pay this pay this back I think it's it it allows us to do things we can't otherwise do which is the roads and yeah you don't get a lot for the roads but without this $500,000 it's $500,000 Less in roads that we actually do and so my request would be that we stick with the plan we had which was ban this I don't think we set a a time interval for the bans but I think five years maybe seven years looks looks to be appropriate based on what Ian laid out recognizing that it's a capital project it's a significant Capital project it's not a a 40 50 or even 100 or 200 50,000 it's a $700,000 it's probably one of the largest capital projects we've done in a long long time to me the right way to do that is funded over multiple years out of the capitals uh program and I still support doing that if I can add an additional note Mark the interest due that I presented included the first year of 200,000 towards the debt service so that 126,000 for S years and that 98,000 for 5 years is including the 200,000 of debt service right I got that yeah Mark I see what you're saying I just if we then in future years we're just taking away something that we can't do there I mean it it's either way it's something that needs to be done and I know what you're saying but uh I don't know I guess with talking talking it through and talking with lenon Ian about it it seems like I'd rather just do what we have to do now and give ourselves a bit more flexibility down the road when something else is going to come up we can debate this all night I mean I I disagree that's all you know you got your opinion I've got my opinion I agree I think Len I'll defer to you guys to finish your um so what is a lifespan for a chiller I mean if we're talking about the useful life versus you know borrowing for it it should be in the 15 to 20 year lifespan I was I'm more I apologize if my comment sounded negative I was more just stating in terms of the debt life versus the actual life of the asset okay so we're still dealing this Chiller will be have a lifespan of 15 it's just in terms of going out to bond counsel that is the recommendation that they have for a life term so we just replac the LHS chillers right and those were from the old building and this building's 15 years old so they were at least 15 years old no no they were they were from the original the original building they probably 40 years old yeah so they were from there so they lasted a long time yeah I I just wanted to get clarification make that clear just so folks knew that if we were going to spend $700,000 on this this wasn't for something that was going to last five or seven years that it had a much life longer lifespan um I I I agree with Josh that I don't think that we should be borrowing for this like he said if we're spending $126,000 every year that takes away from other projects and in other years it's not every year it's spread out right so yes um in if you want in terms of Debt Service per year it would be 97,000 197,000 in the first year and that's counting the 200,000 of payment this year then 115,000 112 ,000 108,000 103,000 and then so we're paying about 100 100,000 to 120,000 a year to service this okay yeah um so but still taking away from projects right in other years um and then just the I think just the practice we touched on this a little bit at our last meeting of just borrowing for these smaller amounts and how that might hurt us in the future when we're trying to borrow that is also something that is that I'm taking into account um and for me I think if we have if it's if it's in the budget this year and $500,000 is not going to go towards that much and Road repairs maybe a mile I think it's better for us to just do this now and not have this something that's going to be tying us down um years to come go ahead no I was just going to say um I mean I I really do agree with with what Mark's saying really around the roads itself I mean I I and maybe this is not the really the right conversation to have but I mean I haven't been on the board that long but maybe we look at going big with roads and U making an investment like outside of this vote but um maybe we have some sort of bond package for for roads but I just I personally feel uncomfortable not addressing the needs with the with the roads I mean that's like the number one thing that I hear about probably um but I also can understand Josh and and ven um you know year after year I mean this is almost like we're kind of throwing money away um if we were to go um the the route that we've been talking or what Mark was talking about um so I mean I'm more on I mean I I want to I want to fix and address the roads um I'm not sure if that's going to happen based on the limited funds that we have but I I just want to be sure that I mean I would support something shorter longer term for our roads outside of this discussion um so I think that that's something that if you want to talk about it now I I I'm not sure what we can do but we need to we need to deliver on the roads um and I don't know if it's solved with this vote here for saving two you know 200 Grand towards our roads I mean we need to go bigger than that yeah we're letting this budget discussion go all over the place but why don't you talk about that this is like the per this is actually what I was going to say so I'm so glad you brought this up um I don't think we should do it at this tonight with this vote I think we're this this package is put together we're running out of time but I think we should I would be a proponent of wanting to look at this differently and and tackling it just the way you said and kind of flipping this whole thing the other way around where we actually put a huge Paving package together $5 $6 million Paving package we go out to bond for that and we pay for that with out of the capital plan we'd have we'd get much better bids because we'd have two or three years of work planned out already and um I think the residents would see a huge Improvement I mean granted we'd go through a lot of construction Seasons but I think you would notice a huge Improvement and it would directly impact that study that you saw earlier this year the pavement management study and then the other smaller items anything less than you know $800,000 or even a million you could say that we cover Through the capital plan and then we build the bond payment in um it's just a different way of looking at it um but I I agree with you um and you know putting 200 ,000 500,000 even 700,000 into a road um project is is something it's not it's not nothing but it's essentially pothole pothole repairing a much larger Road problem this is just a Lynn and I talked about this because I kind of said an anguish what what are we going to do about the roads because we're so far behind and they're visibly a lot of them are in bad shape and I just it's so the peace meal stuff doesn't work it's just too small and so I I think that this is you know we're not doing it tonight but this I think that's what we have to do um and then every dollar goes a lot farther and that's what I think that's what I'm interested we got to be creative go ahead Mark yeah I I think people need to understand that we don't do all the roads you know we do the roads one at a time and and for the the people who live on the road that's going or the two roads or three roads that are going to get done with an additional $500,000 this year this is a big deal and and for them to say well if you wait two or three years or a year or two and we'll Bond $5 million and we'll do a whole bunch one of the things I believe is we probably can't do a whole bunch of roads in this town at once we end up doing them over multiple Years anyway I mean we bid the roads based on a road from this intersection to that intersection and so I think this $500,000 in roads is Meaningful like Dan said I hear about roads as much as I hear about anything else and it will address the roads IT addresses it won't address them all we've got a $25 million bogey on on roads that we need to pay for but we'll start doing it think of this as you know if you want to look at what we're taking out of the capital plan to pay for the the chiller think of that as $150,000 one year and 110,000 the next and 100,000 the year after that and $90,000 whatever it is that's really was money we put toward roads and so again you know we can say what we you know we can say what we want to do that we don't want to you know screw up the capital plan but when people complain about the roads which is the number one thing we hear about we need to start putting money toward roads and $500,000 it you know it's like the the the story about the guy walking on the short thrown shells you know snails back into the ocean it means a lot to the people whose roads got done and I think that's what we ought to be doing and and again it it's it's fairly painful pain pain Ling actually for us to do it this way rather than spend $700,000 on a chiller which by all other means would have been capitalized and and capitalized over a longer per period of time with the building I'm going to vote for keeping the system we have the plan we have well goad yeah um so I I think that this it's tempting to to put any kind of money towards roads because of course we're the ones that are driving on it we're the ones that are hearing about it from residents but I also think that this is just an example maybe of good politics versus good government where we could say yes we're putting money towards roads and it's not a significant amount but we can say that we're doing it just so that you know we can tell folks or let folks know that we are hearing what they're concerned about but I also think that this is the same reason why we've gotten to where we are with our roads or with our water Ms or with our trees it's because it's been one Band-Aid after another and not a bigger strategy and it's really hard to sit back and create a bigger strategy it's harder to sell that to folks um and it's a lot of work but I think for us to to not be going through the same thing over and over again we need to do that we need to bring everyone uh you know bring a different departments together bring select board together and create bigger strategies for um you know for these different issues facing our town I think that we have a don't we have a capital asset study coming out for water for water right um it's like that's an example of something that we should be waiting for and and and looking forward and we need something similar like that I think um for for our roads and trees as well can I can I ask Ian a question per if if we were take the approach of a $5 million bond for roads how much would that cost the town over 30 years I mean it it it depends on a lot of factors it depends on the interest rate it depends on current interest rates are 4% give or take is what we pay for it but but even if we did that and let's say we could because of the water Bond we have this would be the same length of time 30e Bond okay and you could use that $5 million mh5 million of that $1 million for roads right let's say you could do that okay the the the cost of that over 30 years I don't know several hundred, a year minimum right right I don't know that we have the budget to do that so it's nice to say we're going to do it as a we're going you know instead of you know eating us one one road at a time or a mile at a time we're going to to do you know 30 mil at a time but frankly I'm not sure the town can afford that additional Bond payment you know especially because we you know we've got a bond payment schedule where we know as things drop off we've already got plans for things going on the bond schedule and Roads isn't one of them you know we've got schools we've got a bunch other I mean Ian you've got the bond plans out there you know put another couple $1,000 for roads in that and I'm not convinced it works I'm not convinced it's there that's the problem Ben I think you know you're right you say it's it's it's it's good politics but not good government good politics is good government and especially for when people are saying fix the roads that's what it means fix the roads is good politics because it's good government and and I you know I truly believe you're going to fix a certain number of roads those roads are going to be good for 20 years or 15 years or whatever it is and yes we may only do an extra mile but we're going to make a difference to those people on those roads I I I'm really I really think that this is a a a no-brainer in terms of putting the money into roads so Mark if we were to use the example of 100,000 of Debt Service let's just say you know the capital budget that we have each year is 3% of all revenue new enhancements so right now we're at 2.1 to call it 2.2 million of capital so if we had about 3% every year we would see about 62 to 63,000 increase next year so that would cover 63% of The Debt Service and as we go on say 5 to 10 years that increase would effectively cover The Debt Service that was coming out of the capital fund so if this project took us over 30 years the increase in the capital fund would make up the longer term commitment that we would be doing for this project in in my eyes and just seeing a 3% increase in revenues each year so you're saying bond this out of the capital stabilization fund I'm saying that you have the ability roads out of the capital c you have the ability to do that but but then what you're doing is you're freezing the capital stabilization fund for everything else in town for 30 years let me tell you I was the chair of the capital planning committee when the money was bonded for the public safety thing don't don't tie the hands of the of of the town's Capital if you do that and say for the next 30 Years there's going to be essentially no increase in capital because any increases going toward bonding that's that's a a recipe for disaster I don't think that's what we're saying that's what I thought I heard him say Well what I was trying to say is we're going to have about 2.2 million in capital next year let's just say that increase from this year to next year is what I'm proposing that you could use towards that debt service so we're still going to have about 2 million of capital funds that means and and the following year we'd still have 2 million because the that's the following year we'd have 2 million the following year we'd have 2 million which means we'd have a level amount of capital for the next 20 years no what I'm saying is that we put this is the first year we've put 725,000 in because we've rolled the sidewalk into it we're normally about 500,000 into roads I'm saying we don't put that 500,000 into roads we use that 500,000 to pay the bond premium because we did a $5 million borrowing which would take us five to S years of capital plan to ever do I'm saying we do one big chunk we go out to bid we know what the next three construction years are going to be we have one company bid on it and they are super happy because they know what their next three construction seasons are going to look like they get we get a better deal that that's what I'm proposing we do but I don't think it's it's not for an FY 25 Capital plan conversation I think we should definitely have a conversation about debt we talked about that the last meeting and that factors or blows into this Capital discussion too that's that's what I'm proposing the um air condensed Chiller that we're purchasing is a 15 to 20 year lifespan so just about depending on the the band term you're looking at if you go with a 10year you'll have five years and then we're looking at replacing it again it just the math doesn't make sense to me um especially with the interest that we'd we'd be seeing on top of it um I just I don't we're paying an extra $168,000 and this is exactly what I'm talking about I just want to hear some other ideas that are more big picture about how we can actually solve or tackle this issue and we have a lot of smart folks we can come up with ideas and think about this and that you know that's what that's what I'm looking for um and and this is neither here nor there but I will say that history is littered with examples of good politics not being good government Let's uh drop that topic I think um if we were to change this Capital plan that we voted on last week do we need to revoke that Vote or we we just vote on the new one or how do we need to accomplish that um you you probably should vote to resend and then revote oh Madam moderator is in the back and is nodding at us so yeah sorry I said we vote because that is what that is the vote that stands right now okay uh well I I will entertain uh motion if one is forthcoming to uh resend the vote for the uh fiscal year 2025 Capital plan made at the last meeting so moved me second second okay all those in favor all those opposed I'm sorry any discussion um and Ben would you like to move on the the new plan sure um I moved to adopt the capital Improvement plan presented and discussed tonight second any further discussion Mark yeah I think we there was a another issue in the capital Improvement plan that we talked about Lynn and I talked about with the water and sewer and there are two charges in their in the capital plan under water and sewer down at the very bottom uh one is the water infrastructure engineering charge of $100,000 the other is interconnect study in Enfield $50,000 we feel that those need to be reduced in half each of those in order to maintain a water rate projection for fiscal 2025 that's something we can live with uh the interconnection studies uh it's on the warrant how is that yeah so it it's highlighted on there because we need to discuss it it is part of this conversation but it's also part of your warrant conversation so that it was just as to call out we need to discuss it so we don't have enough in retained earnings to fund all of these projects and contemplate either rate reduction with retained earnings or keeping of balance in retained earnings we can't do it all um I feel comfortable after talking to the DPW that we can reduce the engineering to 50,000 and reduce the rate I'm sorry the interconnection study to 25,000 so regardless of what we do with the rest of retained earnings I I think that's the approach we should take at least with those two and then we can have the separate conversation about either keeping a balance in retained earnings or using that to fund a rate reduction okay that's a discussion for the water rate when that comes up but we but we need to regardless we should reduce these if if we don't reduce these we're going to have a water rate that as I said to Lyn and Ian none of us will be around after we pass that water rate I mean it's it'd be a really honorous water rate this will keep the water ratees increase plus the use of retained earnings plus a few other things that were in the system to help reduce the water rate but I'm I'm just saying that I I I I move that I'll make a i I'd move to amend the capital plan to reduce the uh engineering water infrastructure to $50,000 and and the interconnection study for Enfield to $25,000 okay and then uh DW thinks they can get away with that okay uh do have a second second all right uh any further discussion on that this we're voting on the amendment right uh so all those in favor of the amendment to the capital plan okay um and then we still have the motion to amend or to accept the revised Capital plan recommendations uh we had a discussion all those in favor all is opposed okay thank you you um moving on to the draft annual plan and ly could you remind us where we were in our last meeting so there's been a lot of changes to the warrant since the last meeting did we accept any of the warrants or any of the Articles no okay um and we do have the moderator here tonight because uh historically we've we've had the moderator here on the night that you set the warrant just in case there's questions but we could also do an overview of town meeting if you want to do that or maybe it's premature but I will pull the warrant up here close this out all right so there's been a lot of changes um is this not sharing it's not what happened Mike I know you got a you got a screen sharing down on the bottom you have to stop sharing this and then share and then reshare your new screen I lost my connection no it's it was still there your your cursor was working oh the cursor is there can't click on anything it's not oh Leah says she's not getting any audio let's see if I can fix that I hope they heard her prior discussion I don't know which one is Audio Oh man just going to look at myself okay than work what kind of you let me just disconnect and reconnect well Becky if you want to come forward and uh do your overview while we're waiting on getting this set up there we go you have a a Q&A too yeah it's Leah telling me she there's no audio good evening Road moderator thank you for the opportunity to join you this evening I uh appreciate that the warrant is still in getting into shape uh and look forward to the discussion tonight uh I don't anticipate anything uh out of the ordinary uh with this town meeting everything should proceed as as it has for previous years minus their unique uh aspects and I wanted to offer you a chance to ask me any questions and um give a general welcome to anyone who is new to town to come to the high school on May 14th at 7 p.m. if you're a registered voter you are a legislator so I welcome questions about that via email or phone call uh have any has anyone requested more time or to do a presentation at at this meeting there was a requests quite some time ago um off the top of my head I don't say I don't I don't believe that there was I guess there's only one citizen petition or no there's there's three citizen petition articles oh right right two citizen petitioners yep let me just open up my email and double check I know Mr fredman in the past has made and I was just curious there is so I do not have a presentation request from that person no is there a a timeline on when those can be made uh any presentation has to be into me with before 3 days beforehand so if somebody wants to make a presentation they can contact me whenever they know they want to um if there are rules and and procedures that I have for presentations they're posted on the town website so Consulting those policies is a good idea too in the interim contacting me is another step any presentation that gets to me beforehand I'm able to give a quick review assure that it's fine to share and it's in the queue um if it's after 3 days then I don't I don't necessarily have that time to to give it a once over okay any other questions all right well thank you very much sure uh I did want to make one note that the there's of the uh three citizen petitions there's one that it as to to alert voters that there will likely be a motion that is different than the wording of the article and that's because it's a funding a feasibility study and there's no uh source of funding specified and there's no amount specified those can be made in a motion so when somebody reads the warrant and they see well funding a feasibility study how much is this for well that motion can be made U specifically I have a question so if I was a citizen signing a petition M you're telling me that that what I signed isn't what's coming up before the town meeting necessarily no because maybe I didn't want to sign the petition if it said $25 million but I signed it because there was no dollar amount so I I mean I'm I understand you're the moderator you get to do whatever you want to do but it seems to me that that's a pretty substantial revision potentially to say you know I just I just have this idea but when it comes to town meeting I'll figure it out and we'll add it to the motion at the time I offer to speak with anyone about crafting warrant articles but well before the due date I advise folks if they want to have any assistance in terms of understanding the process to please make themselves available to me I conduct open uh sessions open dropin sessions uh in the evening uh and I have my phone number and share that frequently people can still do what they would like to do and I I'll get to your your issue if someone wants to sign a petition that doesn't have a funding source that is their right to do that the the warrant is a warning a general warning about what is going to be discussed the article says that there's a uh feasibility study it doesn't specify the the specific amount I don't advise for for articles to go in to the warrant like that because I don't think it's fair to voters to leave something so open-ended but voters but but a petitioner does have the right to put that on the warrant and a a a a voter has the right to say I'm not going to sign that because it's too vague but isn't isn't your policy to not allow a change of motion on the floor that is I think your words have been a substantial change to the motion is that correct so yes and when the motion could be when the the feasibility C could be so large well anything would be a reduction because the the amount is almost Infinity so it's whatever cap is put on there is put on there and it's a reduction in in terms of what is possible so you don't you don't consider that a substantial change to the motion obviously the motion has to be relevant to the article and as long as there is a motion that specifies a funding source and specifies a dollar amount for that purpose that is specified in the the warrant article it is within the scope of because the scope is potentially huge and that's the danger with articles like that but the motion has to be within that scope if the scope is ginormous well the motion is smaller than ginormous so just to piggyback of Mark's questions a bit at our last meeting there was a citizen petition to fund or to have a put a crosswalk on kolie I think and we there was there was no discussion of funding in it and there was no motion and I now I don't know why it said okay we're going to treat this as a recommendation mhm what's the difference that that one had some other issues going on with it uh in that particular case the there was no even location for it it was it was a general General location okay well we knew where it was I mean there's a picture of it are we talking about the same one yeah an Emerson wrote actually it was to put in and do you remember this we treated it as a recommendation there was no there was no cost and no funding sources cost no cost and funding sources I mean this is the same thing I I'm just wondering why it's being treated differently I don't think it is I think Rebecca is saying that you can the a motion would need to be made from the floor of the meeting to identify the cost in the funding source and I that one didn't have any funding attached to it this one is to fund oh I see okay this is well we should have a sidewalk I I'd have to look spec I mean I I I'm a little uncomfortable comparing articles without seeing that one right and and making the comparison right together but from what I remember there was no in that warrant article there was nothing about funding it it was just that we should have a sidewalk that it be done okay this one is specifically to fund a study talking it's still vague so who we spend a lot of time here Ian spends a lot of time here making sure that dollars balance who's making sure that on this motion when somebody says I move that we fund it from and gives a funding source that there's really money in that funding source it's Town meeting's decision to make whether if they would like to go over what is budgeted but if it if it's fund from available cash if there's no available cash it's it's like saying Rebecca I want you to write me a $5 million check out of your checking account and I'm going to vote on it there's no money there it doesn't do any good that's my point is that just to say there's a you know i' I've decided what the funding source is MH doesn't mean the town has money in the fund isn't that the beauty of our form of government that anybody can do anything well but they can't pay but they I know but that's the problem with our F you're you're making arguments against this and I am not I am I am trying to stay as neutral as possible on this citizens have a right to put something on the warrant they also have the right to hear arguments in favor and hear arguments in opposition there's a finance committee that advises town meeting on the wisdom of certain expenditures and I anticipate that the finance committee will have a recommendation for or against um this particular article as written but but they but not as the motion will be made because you're saying the motion will be different so how can the finance committee make a judgment and and and advise the town when they can't meet on what the actual motion's going to be I can't I can't specify what the finance committee will do or should do I anticipate that if uh in any general uh article there's there's no funding source mentioned the finance committee will use its general practice and history and tradition about what to do with that kind of no no by Charter the finance committee does not have to vote on something that has no money in it and they will not take they may not they should not and are not required to take a position on anything with no money on it like the the appointment of of Trustees to the gold weight fund Finance commit is not going to so the finance committee won't won't take a is not likely to take a position on this I'm still going to ask for their recommendation I'm still going to ask for their recommendation and the point is my point is that if they stand up and say we didn't vote on it because there was no money involved and at this point we haven't met to discuss this MH so now you're going to end up with no advice on from from finance committee on a financial warn article that to me that's not proper because we're not by by not having an advanced information the voters in the town meeting are not given the ability to rely on an evaluation by the finance committee and that's a critical part of our process that any dollar amount they don't have to listen to them they just have to get get the advice from them and they don't have the opportunity to make that advice because because it it'd be the same thing as if we came back and said we want to change one of the warrant articles in the amount of money right and you say well if you go up you can't do it well you know if you go down you can is that the process if you increase the amount of money it's not going to be allowed but these people are increasing the amount of money from something undefined that nobody knew about to something that now is potentially is defined but going to be certainly higher than what I was thinking of I mean to me it's it's inconsistent it's inconsistent with our requirement that any Financial warant article get reviewed by with the advanced information given to the finance committee and and they have to act on the way the articles are written and I'm sorry that somebody wrote an article that was not thorough I guess but it's not the first time it's happened and it probably won't be the last time I've contacted the town clerk regarding the particular form that we use um the form is not a required form the select board uh can direct the town manager who can direct the town clerk to change the form I will work with the town clerk to encourage that they do that on their own because I think there's some clarity to be gained by changing that form as it currently stands we've seen a number of different um poorly worded citizen petition articles and I think that the infrastructure that we use the form can promote Clarity it can also promote vagueness and what we currently have is vague and you're right it's it's vague but but that's what we have that's what's going on the warrant so I don't remember off the top of my head what it says about the finance committee in the charter but the the form I'm looking at the form for submission it says the article will be subject to review by the finance committee for any article requesting an appropriation of funds so this and I know we're jumping ahead 35 articles but it is requesting an appropriation of funds it's just we don't know from where what are the amount what are the [Music] amount I suppose that's more of a comment than a question I mean yeah I I I I don't know what the finance committee is going to do um people can write to the finance committee they can go to the finance committee's meetings and speak during public comment time they can contact their finance committee members and you've said that you will ask them for the recommendation if they have one yeah yeah question um thank you for coming uh sure appreciate it um question in terms of the the actual articles themselves can we as a select board remove the Articles to votee to remove them or for citizen petitions citizen petition we can't touch right but I we can move the order of them oh yes just didn't know okay yeah um yeah I I it removal I would I would check with Town Council on that if you ever anticipated trying to remove I mean we we will vote on them as a board and I'm I'm just trying to think back to Mark's point we don't vote we don't vote on citizens petitions so okay so we're skipping okay we don't get we vote to put articles on the warrant citizens petitions are on there by petition so we don't vote on citizens petitions to be on the gocha cuz I was going to say if that was the that was the case and we were voting on is this good or bad I'm like that but for you at least we basically don't get this get to weigh in on those at all his historically that's correct there is uh to my knowledge nothing that prohibits a select board from giving their recommendation on any article I mean yeah I could say endorsed by I guess Theory but we're not endorsed either way didn't we do that for something last year he talked about it remember I think um maybe the citizen petition for the skate park the select board offered a endorsement or or not of that so I think in the past selectboard has done that forces and petitions because for other articles obviously selectboard has voted it to be on warrant that's exactly what I was thinking of yeah um well theoretically we could vote for something to be on the warrant and still not recommend it we want people to vote on I suppose yeah theoretically yeah done that don't know um and any board you know they if they are choosing to make a recommendation on an issue that comes before town meeting if they have some relevance to it they have some opinion on it they can vote to make a recommendation tell me that they have a recommendation one way or another and they'll get that recommendation heard at town meeting in fact that's helpful to voters because that way they know a group of dedicated volunteers who've spent some time investigating a particular issue and have come to some thoughtful conclusion on it can offer their their advice okay uh any other questions for Miss Townsen all right why we thank you very much sure thank you all right why don't we move on to article one a motion to accept article one I'll move we accept article one second any further all those in favor a mo move we accept article two second anything further all those in favor okay article three so this is new this is a new one yep um so you've heard tonight um but I think you've also heard at the school budget presentation about the prospect of a new literacy Elementary literacy curriculum uh this became um known to Ian and I late January that this was on the horizon at the time the proposals the school group that um is reviewing this was considering in a pro a considering curriculum that ranged anywhere from $200,000 to $800,000 at that time um there were discussions about how we would pay for something like that and given the large span um of cost it it had multiple different options and so I did not feel comfortable putting a warrant AR article forward at that time to ask the voters to fund something that was either 200 or 800 not knowing um some of the uncertainty in this is that the group that's reviewing this is not expected to make a final recommendation until the end of May which does not align with our town meeting schedule um further conversations have happened over the last few months and um more more recently the last few weeks the group has narrowed it down to um a smaller pool of options and they expected to cost anywhere from um 200,000 to 500,000 so knowing that um knowing that the recommendation from them is coming the end of May if we wanted to fund this if we wanted to wait and do something once we know what they're recommending we would likely need a special town meeting to do that um because their goal is to buy this new curriculum do professional development over the summer and then have it roll out for the 2024 25 school year um so in considering those options uh I actually went ahead and put this on here tonight for discussion to see how you feel about it um this is calling for $500,000 which is the upper limits of any of the plans they're looking at and funding it out of the operating stabilization fund it does meet the criteria of the operating stabilization fund policy um it we don't have a lot of history using the operating stabilization fund for purchases um the last time I believe we did that was for storm cleanup which really is why you have that type of fund is for unexpected large expenses uh so this is not necessarily on here um I I should say it's on here for discussion um yeah we'll turn it over to you guys yeah I I got a lot to say about this um one just on a personal level my kids are in third and fourth grade right now at Center and they they did a pilot program for this as far as I know they picked the program but I I could be wrong and I I want to say it's 4 to 450 so I think it's the higher one I think they've picked it I was just had conferences with um especially one of my uh one of my boys in third grade teachers said that it was it was incredible they don't want to go back off the pilot program they I think they spent a month on it and it's really just Leaps and Bounds better and makes it better for kids in our schools and um I I know people heard me say this before the C elementary school kids got so screwed by covid and are so far behind I know my uh kids came in with out of preschool and kindergarten just not where they needed to be because they weren't in the classroom um and this I think goes a long way towards fixing that do I and should this be where it is in our budget no but uh if we if the school committee had to put this and the school department had this in their uh their budget couldn't come in at 3% uh increase um and so they are presenting it to us and to the town to make an investment in our children which is what I think we're here to do um so I you know I I hope we I don't even know if it it would pass a town meeting but it to me I think it's it's really important to get it in there and I think people will understand how important it is we it's just it's an investment the old program just does not work the way it needs to do and um I would encourage everyone to vote for it to get it in front of the town and um you know we heard from uh Mary's one of my best friends she knows her stuff and has been pushing this for years and uh you know this is I think this is important um and I understand a little strange how it's coming about but um I to me we got we got to put it Forward Mark yeah I'm not qualified to comment on the need for this or the quality of it frankly and I and I I'm going to take the school committee at their at at at face value that they need this and they want it but funding it out of the operating stabilization fund is just a no-o for me I'd much rather go back to the vote we just took and take it out of Capital because the only reason it's coming out of the operation stabilization fund is because of the timing in my opinion it's it's got nothing to do you know probably would have been if they' been four months earlier or three months earlier would have been out of the capital approval because it's onetime money is my understanding it's not an ongoing budgetary item or out of their budget but the operating stabilization fund affects all kinds of things like our bond rating and we going out to borrow money and other things $500,000 is not an insignificant amount of our operating stabilization fund I mean frankly it like I said I'm not qualified to decide whether we need this or whether this is the right one or even this is the right cost but I'd far rather go back and rethink this and say we got we had $500,000 in our Capital plan put that toward the schools and not toward roads but not Tak taking the out of the operating stabilization fund is a lot of issues a lot of issues having to do with bonding and our financing and Way Beyond the school budget I I just you know and I appreciate Lynn that there was no other source of money so that's why it was put there but it's just it's the rainy day fund I thought this this isn't a rainy day I thought this couldn't be a capital expense of course it could have been I'm not sure about that I don't know what the lifespan of this is and um it does have some ongoing operational costs I don't know what how much that is though and they didn't submit it as a capital plan right well they didn't submit it as anything because they didn't weren't in a position to decide at the time if we could do it out a capital I that would be fine by me we can do it out of anything we want we can take we can reduce the capital budget by $500,000 and put the $500,000 to the school department for the purchase of this we can do whatever we want to do we get to run budget and recommendations to the town okay I didn't I didn't realize we could uh capital capital is a capital is a proposal and policy of the select board so it can be changed by the select board I just think the operating stabilization fund is this is a real real slippery soap folks to start taking money out of the stabilization fund for for for programs real slippery slope I think this was actually one of Ian's recommendations last time we met that we do we fund this through the certainly it certainly is a viable option I mean if we look at the stabilization fund right now Mark is correct that it is a large piece of it as of 1 one the stabilization balance was 8.2 million with midyear Closeouts through March 2024 we're at 289,000 additional which puts us at 8.5 million so 500,000 would put us at $8 million in the stabilization fund now that is to say that we would still be well within our general reserves policy per our Debt Service as well as within the select board's recommendations for General reserves so yes it is a it is an expens ensive purchase but it does not put us into a dangerous position when it comes to General Reserves at least not at this point and any other significantly you know is it harmful I did bro the question with Bond Council about bonding this particular item and they expressed to me that they were not willing to go forward with bonding for it so that kind of removed one of our options no I wouldn't this but so kind of removed the options that we had available and Lynn you said that this met the criteria for funding out of the um operating stabilization fund yeah your policy uh let me just pull it up so I don't misspeak give me just a second for we have a lot of policies okay and and while you all are looking one other question I had was we do have assurances from the superintendent or school committee that if this purchase is made in May that they will be able to roll it out for the next school year that's their plan okay uh so you have allowed uses of the operating stabilization fund policy first use emergency urgent or unforeseen expenses for which there are no feasible or or alternative funding sources or two to stabilize the municipal budget when variances are due to adverse economic conditions that are expected to be of short-term duration does this qualify as an emergency what was the the first one was when there's no other funds emergency urgent or unforeseen expenses for which there are no feasible or alternative funding sources I wouldn't wouldn't say that that was that was storm cleanup emergency urgent or unforeseen expenses and this is a foreseen expense I'm not saying not on my end well not on your end clearly but at the school department had planned for I mean like I said I'm I'm not I'm not commenting against the the the need for this I you know I'm that's the school Department's school school committee's thing but but out of this operating stabilization fund I just think that that's inappropriate I'd much rather see us take money out of something else so then next year this would go this this Falls I mean not the whole 500 one time to one time but there's maintenance costs or there's other do we know what those I'm trying to get that it's got to go into their budget that's their problem but it is going into their budget it's got to yeah it's a one they're seeing they're seeking a one time uh 500k it's in their budget and then moving forward there's other costs that come with it that they would have to pay for obviously School Comm they compl plan for that yeah I mean I yeah Mark I I mean this is why it's good to have someone like you on the board I mean I knew that this was uh I just don't know the history of it and I'm glad to hear um and I'm happy to to do it uh from elsewhere um you know I would to me this is something worth uh bonding the chiller for and then um because to this is to me this is a different kind of investment it's not less than a mile road it's changing curriculum for our schools so if we want to if there's an appetite to go back on that if we can uh reversing the warrant or the agenda a little bit but I'm not going to dictate that i' like to hear from you guys from what I know um and this is you know I'm glad that Josh you had firsthand experience here with your kids in this new curriculum I and from what I've read about this is that it's not just a matter of finding a better curriculum it's that the curriculum we have right now is inadequate and it is deeply flawed and that this is being you know discovered and talked about more and more um you know as as we start to understand this curriculum so this change isn't really so much a want or a luxury it seems more as if it is a need and I do wish that school committee or you know superintendent or someone was here that with better expertise to talk about this um and explain that portion of it but that is my understanding is that that this is you know a critical change um that needs to be made um but I mean yeah we are here because of talking about funding it through the operating stabilization fund because of a timing issue and nothing else um but I also don't know what I would go back and change in our Capital plan at this point and from you know if Ian is telling us that it is not going to do that much harm to us to pull out of the operating stabilization fund yeah I'm I'm fine with I'm fine with doing that so just to tell you a little more on your policy here the minimum balance shall not be reduced below two 2 million unless a concurrent plan has been developed for replenishing the minimum balance the maximum balance shall be 10% of general fund operating revenues which for fy2 are general fund operating revenues are 7, 98,3 187 um that's 10% ofart Jo no yeah I'm sorry that's um yes and so what's in your operating stabilization right now is 8.5 million so there's whatever you want to do um I I I think that the real question is how do you pay for it not so much I don't think anyone's arguing the validity of a a new literacy program it's how do we pay for it and um I I don't know if this had been a capital item you I mean you you all just voted on it you know what the capital plan looks like $500,000 is um a big percentage of the $2 million Capital plan so it would have been at the expense of other things so we just we don't have enough money to go around and we have a operating stabilization fund that can cover an unforeseen expenditure but it's not an emergency expense limit it doesn't say it has to it say it says read it it says an emergency read what it says emergency urgent or unforeseen expense okay but you you can do exactly what you were saying too and you could cut the capital plan and then just use the the remaining funds to purchase this or we could wait and see which plan they come up with and call a special town meeting in the beginning of June but we still have to figure out how to pay for it then so it's you know but there could be you know we don't know necessarily what year end close out's going to look like um I don't think it'll be enough to to cover it but and we we would have to wait till the fall for free cash I mean I I think the finance committee is going to have uh a lot of input about taking money out of the E out of the you know out of the operating stabilization fund MH I I I just think it's so much I I know nobody wants to cut the capital but and we're not really cutting it we're just paying for things a different way but you know we can reduce the cap you know the the right process would be reduce the capital appropriation by $500,000 and to account for that we change the amount of money we spend in capital okay and therefore we then take that $500,000 that we reduced from capital and and asked the town to appropriate that to this use so it's it's it's not spending Capital per se it's taking the capital allocation and reducing it and then moving it I just you know I mean the issue is you know the Rea you know we're going to go out for bonding what's the reaction of of the bond bonding community and rating agencies to find out we're using you know operating stabilization funds for for school programs I mean it just like I said it's got all kinds of issues and again I'm I'm not having anything to say about the program it's the source of the revenue it's just bad I'm going to I think this is important enough to do it either way but I think that's reducing capital is the right approach um Dan you haven't said anything yet any thoughts I'm just listening to the uh the heated conversation but um no I mean I I just think that we I'm I'm a product of the long mow schools I mean I I've been in Center School all the way to the high school I this is important Josh you have kids there'd be people that might argue this is this is an emergency I I don't know there might Mark doesn't seem to think so maybe he's right I don't know but um personally I mean i' I'd be I I understand where Mark's coming from I I I think I want wanted to also know how did we get to this point where this was thrown on the agenda in in an article that we're talking about but I also see the the power behind having a program like this and and our children and kids need to have the best tools possible to be successful it's just coming to the point of how do we fund it right so I'd be open to hearing the capital plan if we could do that but ultimately I mean the people the residents are going to vote on this yeah so I mean they deserve to have a vote on it I mean we don't have to agree with it Mark no Josh though I'm I'm afraid though Dan that if it cames up as the operation stabilization fund it's far more likely to be defeated than if it came up with other funding that's my concern and I want to see it passed but one of the things we can do and Lyn talked about waiting till the fall we can also look at the fall and some of the things on our Capital plan which we probably weren't going to do anyway and say put those as a prior you know I talked about forestry but put some of those as a priority for any free cash that we get going in the fall as well but not make this the the the program that's hanging based on free cash in the fall but make some of the whatever we cut out of the capital plan which could be the chiller for all I know you know because you know whatever it is you know that becomes out of the Fall approval for Capital anyway I like I said Dan that I didn't know I didn't know you were saying suggesting that you were supporting this but the the dollars seem too much so I hear you say I have nothing to say about the dollars and I I I'm not qualified to St I'm just talking about from the operating stabilization fund that's all you know and I I'm I really concerned that that's not that that's a for for a lot of people that's a a kind of a dog whistle kind of thing that says we don't want to take money out of our operating stabilization fund and saying we're taking money out of our checking account so we can go to the con we're taking money of our Ira so we can go to the concert this weekend you know it's it's not something the town should want to do in my op and that was kind of what when I first heard this that's what kind of popped into my head that oh operating that fund and and I think if I wasn't so close to it in personal I would maybe have had a different feeling and I just let my self uh be convinced but I I think that we you know we're all in agreement it's important it's a matter of how and I I I think that uh marks right on two things it's more likely if we don't do it out of this fund and it's better for us I I think it's um fiscally fiscal wise because I and I'm keeping in mind what you said before about we we don't want to have a lot of lending smaller smaller loans I would guess that taking showing that we're spending op uh sorry the operation stabilization fund money on a one-time educational purpose looks worse for us than taking a bond in an actual Capital product uh project so if if we can do that I I think that that's a better way to to to get around to do this to get it forward the the other thing is I just comment on it this to Lyn's comments my understand my recollection is because our operating stabilization fund is over our Target maximum we haven't put any money into it the last couple of years we've been using that and so as our budget grows next year this time if our budget goes up by 2 and a half% we're going to find our operation stabilization fund is isn't above our Target so it's not like gee we got all this extra money let's just use it we haven't put any it's good that we haven't any put any money into our operty stabilization fund I think the money is well invested and it grows a little bit but that doesn't mean it's a reason to take money out of it for something that's that's not that something of this nature and again I have no comment about the either the value the cost or the worthwhileness of this I'm I'm going to go with it because the school school committee thinks it's important I just need to I just think we need to find a better way to fund it or a different way to fund it and for the record I wasn't suggesting this was a good way to uh to fund it I just you know I do think it's important but I think we could probably all work together to find out a way to actually fund this better we'll cut our road pavement budget oh for for the purposes of tonight's meeting if we change this article to say to see if town will transfer the sum from from available funds the sum of $500,000 from available funds to the purchase of purchasing that gives us the ability to then go back and do some because available funds is no no no why available funds is free cash we don't have well where this is placed in the warrant that wipes out actually we don't have that much free cash so that doesn't work no we have to say where it's coming from so we if you want to do it out of capital we you go back and you amend your I don't want to do it out of capit I want to do it out of a an operating budget it's a supplemental operating budget appropriation to the school department and we're going to reduce the capital by 5 this isn't Capital it doesn't sure so R you need to revote your budget by adding to $500,000 and then you need to cut somewhere else right cut the budget somewhere else 500,000 right that's what we need to do and then the unfortunate thing is if it comes in and they pick the $300,000 program then then in the fall we can put especially if we cut that money out of our capital budget no you because you've just put it in the school budget so they now have but what I'm saying Lynn is right now our our capital budget is $2.2 million we put money $2.2 million into capital Y if we put $1.7 million into Capital we can put $500,000 into our operating budget into the school yep supplemental into the schools right not supplemental because you'd demend your budget tonight right $500,000 into the schools yep in the fall we can amend the budget I already talked about potentially amending the budget in the fall and we amend the budget we can move anything they don't spend to that 500,000 you have their I mean doesn't mean they'll agree with it and tell meting could vote it down yes but yes that's a option it's it's a process right doesn't mean it's going to happen correct none of this means it's going to happen but the problem is it what you're implying is that this is a transfer to the school department fund and what I'm saying is I don't want to do that I want to transfer it to a fund that pays for this program because if it goes to the school Department fund will'll never see anything that's less than $500,000 bad once money goes in the school department that changes their budget too for next year changes their budget and they can do anything they want to with the money and they can literally spend it on salaries if they want to could this be amended that this is a onetime once it's once it goes no Dan once by state law the school committee has full jurisdiction and and rights over the budget bottom line they you know we if we vote whatever the number was $38 million to the to the school department budget okay they can spend it all on Mario's salary sorry marioa and spend nothing on anything else and there's nothing anybody else can do about it okay and in fact what happens and has happened sometimes in the past is the the month after the town meeting that votes amount to the school department the school committee had has gone back historically and revoted their budget to all different line items keeping the bottom line the same and nobody has any say about that which is state law and I'm not arguing with it that's the state law the point is if we put $500,000 into that budget that's their their money what we want to do is say this $500,000 up to $500,000 get spent on this literacy program and we can do that outside of the school department budget okay and therefore anything that's not spent on this literacy bu program is then available for us in the fall to reappropriate to to wherever we want to put it yeah because it's not like we were the article as is was not transferring 500,000 to the school department but that's what yeah that's what I'm saying to Josh's point I'm I'm looking at the article and I I just didn't see that so I'm saying can't couldn't the funds be allocated right maybe maybe it's not to the school department but we make the town makes the purchase moving forward there could be language I don't know can there be language in this article that states it's on it's on the schools Budget moving forward are these expenses that might help clarify things for the we don't we don't have to put that on for the residents I'm saying someone who's someone who's voting it's like well this is not $500,000 every single year for the school budget this is a one time and then there's operational costs or other costs that might maybe it's 10 20 I don't know I don't have that information but the other idea I have is um treating it similar to how we do the colas because we don't know necessarily how much the coal is going to be and which department it's going to yet so we have um after our operating expenses we have a line item for a bulk amount of money for Cola I'm pretty sure we could do school literacy curriculum plug that number there so it doesn't add to the school department budget um it gets set aside we still need a separate warrant article for it but we could just amend this one actually we'd have to put it after the budget um but we could amend this one move it down after the budget and um treat it like we do for the colas for non-rs there's the winner yeah that's go we still need to reduce the capital plan or where cutting we got to find 500 I I say we cut the scanic valley the Pioneer Valley uh Regional Health Regional uh retirement system that's yeah not tonight see what the study says are are you convinced for well I I guess based just um something that you brought up I wanted to ask Ian um what is more harmful to us would it be more harmful for us to take no no I was right $500,000 out of our uh operating stabilization fund or would it be more harmful for us to you know borrow a smaller amount like $500,000 the the short answer would be to borrow from the or to use the operation stabilization fund because we don't know where things will be in the next couple years you know we could we you know we really don't know where market conditions will be we don't know where employment will be we don't know how um the town will be in term terms of real estate taxes or assessed values that is something that is completely unknown to us as individuals so if I'm looking at it from the facts alone any way to reduce the reserve presents a risk however as we've alluded to earlier um one what I was told by Bond council is we we would not be able to borrow for this specifically so the question goes back to borrowing for the chiller which we've already presented we've been presented with a plan of how to borrow for it so in that in that idea if you are willing to pay more interest for that project the tradeoff would be the interest that you'd receive in the operational stabilization fund that increases your Reserve balance versus paying the interest on a 5 to 10 year bond or ban for the Chiller that would be the tradeoff the the concern I have is that if the state is as hurting as they say they are and the state contribution to Long meow goes down then we've got to balance a budget and none of you have been on a on a board when all of a sudden in the August when the state budget comes in we're short $100,000 and the only way to balance that in our town because you can't raise taxes is through the operating stabilization fund and and that's the unforeseen emergency shortfall that's why I want to keep the operating stabilization fund because we don't know what the state you know if if we had a state budget and we had a fixed budget you might be able to say things but you know we haven't been putting money into the stabilization fund you know we don't know what state a is going to be we I just can't you know I I wish we had access to the the finance committee here because I think they back I I suspect they strongly back up this don't take money out of the stabilization fund especially if we have Alternatives yeah yeah I mean there there bunch of different things couple more Alternatives okay all right the um one before I throw out the one that may be the best potentially um we have 300,000 in O um OPB still in the budget so if you want you the board had taken a stance years ago that you didn't want OPB funding to impact operations You could argue that this is impacting operations you could cut that opv out completely and see what happens at free cash in the fall and and fund it then alternatively you could continue with this article the way it is and um add to the explanation that at the fall town meeting you are going to replenish the op operating stabilization fund with the free cash you could do the same amount or you could even do in excess if you wanted to really you know say 600,000 into the operating stabilization um as a it's like a temporary loan out of it for until we have free cash certified in the fall so those are two other scenarios the problem L is free cash in the fall isn't isn't a guarantee no but we have a fairly good number based on we we run um uh monthly budget year-to dates to see where we are and we have a fairly good idea that we're going to be as healthy free Cashwise as we have been the last three years so rather than play with the operating stabilization fund why don't we just say that we're going to do that to to make up for a capital fund or something you know Capital expenditures I we never seem to get around to spending all the capital right away anyway you know you can do that but I'm as I'm looking through here I mean you're either going to have to cut all these $100,000 dollar projects which is almost all of them or cut roads or cut the chiller I mean there's not a lot to work with here so if you I can pull up the capital plan and we can start saying this isn't going forward or or we can take part from the OPB and part from I mean the OPB is a is a viable source to to defer I mean it's it's clearly defer you know I wouldn't want to defer at all but you know I I again I just believe that that putting operating stabilization Fund in this article decreases the probability of it passing but if we had a reduction right if we had a reduction say it's 200 uh from operation stabilization and then you had the 300 from the OPB I mean we're we're getting that number right I but I'm telling you Dan if you use the operating stabilization fund it's far less likely to pass that's all I'm saying and and unless the article says to be repaid from free cash you can't say and we think we're going to or we might be able to or if there's sufficient re free cash this is a significant yeah I I don't think anyone yeah what was your last best idea that was the replenishing operating stabilization so the other not this isn't a funding option but I don't want to you know we we've got another 33 articles to get through um you could pull this off and we could do we could continue discussion about it up until end of April and you could call a special town meeting within the annual town meeting it gives you more time to discuss it weigh options we've done it before to call a special town meeting it doesn't have the same um notice requirements as the annual town meeting does so you could you could do that because you know I recognize this is a hefty conversation to have it's coming to you tonight you have to close your warrant tonight it doesn't give you a lot of options to discuss it or we could move on and come back to this at the end so we get like two more meetings to discuss this basically before we have yeah your standard meetings and then you could um wait what's today April 1 so corre you'd really only have like one more meeting um or unless you called some special meeting but at that point we could if you want until we could get somebody here from the school committee although I don't think that's of value frankly because we're not debating whether or not to do it right what we probably want is somebody from the finance committee who can give us a sense of what they believe to be the finance implications of this if we did a special town meeting within the we done that before by the way would it have to be at the end of the meeting no so like we could we could do four articles and then say okay now it's time for a special time meeting how would that show up in the warant would be would be a separate warrant separate warrants we've done that before yeah recently in fact I think yeah Finance meets Wednesday night to go through the warrant so I mean I I think the two options that I'm between that sound the best are either Lynn's idea of replenishing you know having language in there that we replenish with free cash and the fall special town meeting or that we bond out Chiller and we you know and and we put the $500,000 from that towards us so I'm the same way I just I'd rather I how we've had free cash in the couple over a million but I hate that yeah I hate the bank on it I don't know it just doesn't doesn't seem right to me um I why don't we keep going forward a little bit and then we'll come back and talk can I just ask Lynn a question Lynn if I look at our Capital plan okay are let's say we took half the money from opep deferred opep payment and now we got to cut three $250,000 or defer $250,000 out of our Capital plan could we defer like project development and Engineering you need to do 350 if you're opv in half no so that's 250 that's 150 oh I'm sorry so let's take 250 from opv okay okay and and so 250 from the capital yep plan you know you know we could theoretically defer engineering development and the project Reserve certainly that's $130,000 I'd rather defer the fire Tru because we not buying that right now it's an easy one to pass a town meeting okay so we defer the fire truck and we just that's $125,000 I mean that that's not money we were going to spend this year anyway maybe the security cameras for the school um that would make sense since it's a school for school thing and um that there it is the scho fire truck and the school security cameras are $245,000 I'm going to say 255,000 from OPB gets deferred and there you go or I'm guessing the school can probably come up with the $5,000 difference but yeah yeah um yeah I mean that's an option and why are we comfortable with deferring the security cameras we got to cut something and um or defer something I should say and this money wouldn't be available to July 1st they go out to bid I mean they're not going to get installed before school starts okay and they have to install them I'm suspecting when school's not in session they generally don't do that type of work when schools in session um I I'm saying all of this though having not talked to the IT department about how that impacts them but I this is also only partially funding if you follow well you don't have the capital plan in front of you but um this is they asked for 200,000 I only put in 120 because there's $45,000 in arpa and they received a $442,000 grant so they do have some money to work with to get the program started right away or get purchasing started right right away they just can't do it all until fall if if that's the route we go so if there's going be delay there anyways and that makes sense I'm again I haven't talked to it so I I'm not sure but that's what makes sense to me Josh I I know this is a lot lot but we've done worse in select board before is defer $250,000 in opep payment to the fall defer the firet truck transfer capital by 125 and defer the security cameras $120,000 that's a total of $495,000 and and appropriate that as Lynn suggested to a special line item for the school literacy program yes um I you'll you need to go back and amend your budget and your Capital but yes we've done I've gone through Capital five times in time at times and I think it's the right thing to do we're going to do them all we're just not going to do them to know if if if the if the school wants to buy this now to get it going in the spring are these new cameras or these camera upgrades new where are they going all the schools it's districtwide for the schools timing does so so Josh do we call up the school committee and say cameras deferred or literacy program deferred no I I know the answer to that yeah the answer is the cameras deferred I don't I don't know if it's a binary choice though but I don't know I don't know where else to take it from either we we don't have an unlimited checkbook in this town I I'm well aware of that that's you're fing yeah what does the right side of the table think I mean I well to the need point on the cameras I mean that it concerns me a little bit because I don't know anything about the the project and it would if there's a real safety concern and and we are banking on the fact that we're going to do these cameras like I and I don't have any of the information I just feel a little bit uncomfortable I guess without knowing much about this project other than it sounds like it's a a good thing to do and keep our kids safe um so like personally I would like to I like Mark's idea of moving things around I think it's a good way to get there um and I and I do agree Mark with what you're were saying about town meeting as well and I I get that um I just think I personally feel more comfortable if we had a little bit more time just to to get some feedback whether it's finance committee school committee um I just think they're they're key stakeholders in this that we should we should hear from um so I I would feel more comfortable waiting but I also understand that it it might be difficult for us to to wait a couple weeks based on the the placement of town meeting I just have one other pitch if if we do all of oped 300 the fire truck then we're 75 short if we take 75 out of we could do it out of road paving because that's really not much and then that gets us to [Music] 500 the problem is Josh that road paving is seasonal you know you you can't B you can't pave the roads in no after the November town meeting and what I'm I'm not looking to cut I'm looking to defer and so that's why I'd like to say look let's defer our opep contri ution to nove to November let's defer the fire Tru transfer which is all it is to November let's defer the full Capital amount we're only deferring a portion of the the security cameras if we do if we do full opep we can defer less of the security cameras fine you know I mean the you can you're going to defer 70 instead of 120 of the of of the security C you're still going to defer for a little bit right do we is there any room on the uh the townwide DPW line items L I was looking at that I don't think so those are all DPW engineering or the project Reserve I mean it delays them starting yeah projects for the next Capital plan or Community preservation funding and I like the idea of getting ahead of that we can we can pass on this war waren article the problem is if we want to fund it out of reducing oped or we want to fund it out of the fire Tru then we can't go forward with the same pound warrant we have and and I think we ought to do that the uh Creative Accounting system so that's why I'm saying let's sort through this let's just you know we got a compromise yeah and and we compromise by saying you know we're going to revote the capital we're going to revote revote the budget to remove OPB and then we're going to vote in the vote in a line item of up to $495,000 for this literacy program and I think that's the right approach I think we and in fact go ahead if nobody's agre I'm going to make that motion yeah go ahead because I want to hear okay I'm going to make a motion that now Lynn do we have to resend our we have to resend our Capital vote again yes okay all right I'm going to make a motion we resend the capital plan I'll second anything further all those in favor okay poor Mike he's back tomorrow okay I'm going to make a motion that we adopt the capital plan as proposed with the following modifications okay those modifications are removal of the fire truck trans transer of $125,000 removal of the security cameras of $120,000 a reduction in the water department engineering funding NOP you can't take it out of there that's paid for out of Enterprise this is just changing this is to fund this oh I'm sorry you're doing the other one this is to amend the capital project right I I'm following you now okay to to reduce the engineering water infrastructure from 100,000 to 50,000 and to reduce the interconnectivity study of Enfield from 50,000 to 25,000 so that that takes a total of uh let's see $390,000 out of the capital fund but 75,000 of that is for the water stabilization fund but that's my mission second uh any discussion I I would rather defer all of OPB and partially fund the security cameras we're already partially funding it Josh we're not funding it but it's already partially funded to 95 to to $87,000 right I'd rather defer all of opep and put 50 towards the security cameras um any other discussion I don't know that we're qualifi we're we're in a position to judge the impact of a a $70,000 cut versus $120,000 cut excuse me a $70,000 deferment versus $120,000 deferment for the security camera project because that's the that's the key what's the what's the difference if we're deferring 70,000 versus deferring 120,000 and none of us know because we don't know that project right but well I I think some money is better than no money towards it but the projects of 200 ,000 project they already have 87 but I guess to your point so what's the in deferring the opab can they not will they not be able to bid it out without being fully funded then not the whole thing right they they could only bid out what they have funding for Ian what do you think um well I think the best approach at least do you want an opinion or do you like what are you looking for here I mean are you looking for my personal opinion I mean we're kicking around like a difference of like $50,000 from opep and I'm just curious what do you yeah how do you feel about so in terms of opab funding we're not required to fund it so that's let me say that first the tradeoff with that is that you know we kick that can down the road and we could potentially have a larger requirement later so that's that's that part in terms of $50,000 going into security cameras versus going into other projects without knowing what entails the contract I can't fairly say how much of a difference that would make so I would defer to not putting money into the security cameras because I don't know what that would entail it's it to me it's such a small amount I'm not sure how much of an impact that it would make what do you think l i so you nod um I mean I I I think at this point we're splitting hairs I don't think my guess is DP or it will probably want to bid it as a package um as opposed to doing two separate bids but I haven't talked to them but that's generally how we would approach it uh so I don't know that it will be any benefit to them to to get a partial amount okay but I also recognize that this is putting a lot of burden on you guys and if you want to wait and let me gather that information we could meet again this week and you could close the we do have a little bit of time to close the warrant this week but you'd have to call another meeting what what additional information would we have I would talk to it about the operational impacts this would have on them bidding this in the fall as opposed to the spring or summer um or find out from them if this partial helps in any way or if it makes no difference but if we're going to do that we need to ask the talk to the finance committee we need to talk to the school committee about uh about some of these other things as well I mean well we have this we have the finance committee on Wednesday so we could have a meeting what Thursday I mean that gives us a day to talk about it with finance committee get their recommendations and then come back to you I mean the easiest way to do this without making crazy impacts is cut the OPB and do 200,000 from operating stabilization and then pay that back in the fall to I understand your concerns it's not going to pass Lyn it's not going to pass I think it's up to us to educate and speak to it and school committee as well who have said that they're they're willing to do that I mean I get it but that's the only way I see it happening without impacts to operations on departments you know this job is a compromise this job is a a sense of you know treat to some degree and that's what I think we're doing and it's Our obligation we were voted to we put here to make these tough decisions and this is as tough as they get to some degree and I I'm of the opinion that if we figure out a way to do this with deferring some of these capital projects then we ought to do that and we ought to get it all on in the in the warrant I just think that if we figured it out we go with go with it is it elegant no does it work yes it does work you know does it is it the the ideal solution there is no ideal solution but this works particularly given the fact that here we are two days before the warrants due and we got asked to fund something for $500,000 that wasn't on the list so I think our response to a $500,000 request is pretty d AR good given the fact that we had two days notice to adjust the entire budget system all right anything further on the motion on the table all right all those in favor thank you Mark we're not done that was it no we're not do you mind we have to go back to the budget now right right yep right now if if that's okay I just wanted to hear it again what was what was approved this was well they rescinded the capital plan vote then there was a motion to adopt the capital plan as modified which was removal of the fire truck 125 removal of the security cameras 120 reduce the water um engineering to 50 and reduce the interconnection study to 25 thank you I just want to make sure I have that that's it now I'm going to have a motion to adjust our budget to modify the budget to add a new line item for 400 $450,000 line item for an educational literacy program to be part of the Town General government budget sorry why is it 450 because that's all we took out of the other 495 495 I apologize correct 495 I apologize correct it's $495,000 okay second that any further discuss yeah you don't have $495 yet you have well we from oh I'm sorry and to reduce our open contribution by $250,000 so my motion is to adjust the town budget by reducing the OPB by 20 $250,000 and transferring money from the capital do I have to do that from the capital stabilization fund um it's not in the stabilization fund it is where is that money it's just a capital line item um on sources and uses so so reducing the capital line item Yeah by $245,000 right yep and reducing the opep contribution by $250,000 and then adding a line item for the town literacy program so Lynn if you reduce the capital it would be at 1,940 685 okay by 240,000 245 245 so so 9:35 versus 94 is that clear as be do you want me to repeat it sure so the motion was to modify the budget to add a new line item of $450,000 for 495,000 $495 for educational literacy in the town General government budget and reduce town opv by 250 reduce the capital line item by 245 second any further discussion all those in fav favor was hoping for a little more discussion can I just ask a question how do we capture the intent to re look at this with free cash in the fall other than Lynn we got to look look at this with free cash in the fall yeah can we put it in the uh description well now we've got to modify what this says because it's not coming from it's it's not coming from free we have to move it down and yeah which I will do I just it's going to take me a minute so I don't know if you want to recess for a minute or you want to no but but Article 4 would then have a line item that would say literacy program or is it part of the general government yeah it's it's multiple changes um so four now will become three yeah the um the total budget stays the same um but is it but it doesn't go into schools so it must be a separate line item it it it comes under um n ofing no I know um Can can we make it a separate line item I put it under operating expens other expenses so it wouldn't fall under the operating budget but but it is part oh no I understand that I'm just I'm playing with it on my end I think for future comparisons line it may be beneficial to keep it as a separate line item so the your total budget is not changing your total your total uses number is not changing right so the general government amount would go down by 400 well it's not the general govern no none of that is changing because what you've done is you've taken your capital and you've taken um you're taking it from OPB so that would come out of your your debt um Service employee yeah I just need a minute with this might be time to raise our salaries so Debt Service and Town School employee retire benefits would go from yeah yeah yeah the 19 flood well no it's going to happen and you can't see that because of what L's got there but the but the general government is isn't going to change the the water Enterprise fund is going to go [Music] down $775,000 because we took that out the debt service and Town School employee benefits will go down $250,000 and the general government and there should be a new line item in there that's for this that goes up $495 would it be a new line on this or on the budget no we've got to appropriate the money I know but Oh you mean is it just a line item that's under so so then the general government goes up but it's not really General government that's yeah I I that's it's not General government it's not Public Safety it's not planning and Community Development we don't want to put it in the schools it's not Department of Public Works it's not community and cultural services and it's not Debt Service in town Employee Retirement take a bathroom break real quick okay I think I'm good sorry you need I need something okay so we're going to we're not going to so we're going to delete article three article three is yes it's going to be deleted um this is not the word version this is the PDF so I'm not I can't do it on here which is probably for everyone's benefit anyway um so article 3 is going to be deleted it's now going to become article nothing something no it is okay because um if as you follow me along this screen here um I'm jumping ahead but I'm going to show you what it's going to look like oh does an operational the stabilization fund appropriation is that 2/3 yes oh so know why it was that's what I said a lot of things we do are 2/3 it wasn't going to pass okay it's going to look like article 12 article 12 is not in those budget numbers you saw up top but it's part of the other expenses so it's a raisin appropriate that's what this will be but it won't be trying to think here because we cut opep so that we'll change the budget yes right it capital is not corre capital is it would reduce Article 4 because we do the capital stabilization fund as a separate article so that would be reduced yeah so this is what it will look like um you're going to need to to some extent give me some Authority with vetting that whole thing through and I I know the spirit of what you guys are trying to accomplish but but it will be to raise and appropriate the sum of $495,000 or greater and lesser some to fund a a a educational literacy program MH okay MH okay yep that's all it's going to say yeah and then the expl expanation will it'll be the same as the one in three it's the same thing it doesn't I'll just take out the section about the only question I have is Lynn should it say up to $500,000 495 495 yeah um it's do say or it does no no but oh or but but we the the the greater lesser sum never makes it to the motion that's just for the warrant but I'm saying the motion to be to raise an appropriate up to $495,000 or a greater or lesser sum will be the motion so that way if the yeah comes in lower if it comes in lower we're okay with it coming in lower and it kind of puts notice that we're coming in lower the motion should not contain that or greater or lesser sum right correct the notion never says they greater or lesser sum but the motion can say up to $495,000 yes so the article itself would contain or a greater or lesser sum but the motion would correct the Motions never say a greater or lesser sum that's just so if between now and the town meeting floor we decide on this one is $337,000 change we don't have to republish the warrant yeah okay and so can we put in the explanation that the intention is to re I don't know we're not replenishing never no but I think we can put in for the for the capital budget which is Article Five Five that that the intention is to appropriate additional capital in the fall I don't even know if we need to say it it'll confuse people you're right yeah you're right I was yeah I was thinking if we were replenishing but we're not we're not we do a lot of free free cash stuff at the fall any fine don't worry about it verion of the Mike usually does it onog I know I just I don't want to you don't want us to see you typing well I don't want to mess with it right now because I have to change all the numbers all the numbers are going to change it's going to be but on on article four the general government so just I'm getting some more information um do is not going to allow the up to l language it has to be precise in the motion fine so book 495 where you that Paul streaming us on he's watching yeah he knows okay sitting on a beach thank you Paul but Lyn if you go back up though to article four okay which will be the new article three I'm sorry four yeah okay my understanding the the question is will this show up then as Government no government so the the only change on article I guess three now this one would be to Debt Service and Town School employee retiree benefits that would Reduce by 300,000 which no 250 two okay 250 and then the subtotal general fund would decrease and then the total would decrease that would be the only change that we'd see on the on the general fund be be because we're because you have separate warrant articles to raise and appropriate they're not within the general fund budget [Applause] okay all right make sense but in addition you just the water Enterprise that's going to go down by 75,000 oh I understand okay so so there are two changes there right yeah if if if we're talking about not here in capital it does not the budget the budget stays the same no no but that water Enterprise budget doesn't include the doesn't include the spending from the water Enterprise fund if you say no then it's no I I think so okay so I think what you're saying Mark is if we reduce the interconnectivity study in the engineering by those amounts okay it doesn't affect this budget okay so that shows up in article four then no this is what's in Article Five I'm sorry yes this is what's being raised with race fine okay so oh okay I'm going to make a motion we approve Article 4 with the as shown with the correction of reducing the general government reducing Debt Service and Town School employee retirement benefits by $250,000 and adjusting the total appropriately second anything further all those in favor and we're we're also going to adjust in this one it says an the fund the general fund so much be raised and appropriated as follows we've got to adjust those numbers scroll up a little bit yeah all of it will change with right there where the two asterisks are we got to change those numbers right yep all of that will change okay and the bottom line number do you want the exact numbers now or no absolutely we don't okay no we are going to comb through this tomorrow okay okay okay so Article Five or or do we need to do former article three now is article four yes that'll just happen you we won't have to get bogged down with that tonight we'll just renumber it I think um you didn't take a vote your number three turned into your number four so um oh so we should vote on number three as amended no you're going to vote to remove number three cuz that was using operational stabilization don't have to vote to remove it we never put it in this is just a draft you're closing it tonight right so we voted we approved article one we approved article two we approved Article 4 as new article 3 oh normally we would just delete it if we were working live so that would update the numbers we it won't update them because the we do it but yeah yeah okay so we approved we just approved this sure the article 4 which is the new article three okay okay and for article five which is the new article four okay MH I'll move we approve article four which is Article Five on this with the following changes but wait did we but we never approved article three yes we did no you just you just you didn't approve it so it's not going on right but don't we still need to have that article after the after like the new article three to just say that we're going to no because it just went into the budget appropriate Oh I thought I thought you said that we had it's going in it's article 26 or 16 or we're going to put we put it in after the budget okay I'm going to have to do that after [Music] you do the rest of this here um okay if you feel better about it once we finished the capital you could move to add an article that reflects the changes you made to fund the literacy curriculum and it's clear then we'll get everything back on the count too the right Artic yeah okay yeah it should be early so okay but it has to be after the budget and after the capital plan yeah yeah okay fine so I'm I'm going to move we approve old Article 5 new article 4 with the deletion of the fire truck at $125,000 deletion of the security cameras at $120,000 and from multiple funds you don't have to actually do any of that because what goes in here is the capital plan you voted cuz I can't put something in here that's different than the capital plan you already voted so all they have to do is approve article yes that's it you just have to approve Article Five Capital plan fine I'll move we approve Article Five is the capital plan which is the new article four second a little rusty so uh we have a motion to insert as article six no right no insert is Article Five Oh God we didn't vote on this one just now though oh we're back to five we got to vote on the capital plan I thought we just did it you just did didn't you did we we didn't vote on it didn't we there was a motion in a second a motion in second oh jeez all right I got ahead of myself uh all right all those in favor okay so now we want to insert as the new article 5 right y new article five uh the let's see what it says uh $495,000 from uh for the purchase of for the purpose of purchasing Elementary literacy curriculum or take any other action there too and then I'll allow you to insert the uh the funding source yep second all anything further all those in favor great so now we're back on article six all right I move to approve article six second anything further all those in favor seven you don't um need to do anything with the dollar amount we will amend it automatically because the capital plan was amended perfect okay I move to approve article 7 second all those in favor okay move to amend article 8 approve approve same what I say you said amend amend 10 o' definitely not no uh I move to approve article 8 and and that that will be in the amount of $25,000 it'll Auto will automatically do it when we adjust the capital plan article 8 will be 50,000 article 9 will be no no article 7 is going to be 50,000 article 8 is 25,000 Y and uh just for discussion Lynn this is when there's the boil order in parts of town we this is part of what we discussed right that we'll have a connection the other side of town this is just to study the feasibility of creating no that's what I mean that con yeah we we start talking about it's not for a boil water or it's in case the water system goes down flying Springfield well yeah we talked about boiling it it's just Supply no no that's not what I'm saying never mind yes I know the answer is yes okay is there a second on that one second yes there was a second all those in favor all right move to approve article 9 second all right anything further all those in favor move to approve article 10 second anything further hold on hold on let me just read it it's fine all right all those in favor all right uh I move to approve article 11 second anything further all those in favor move to approve article 12 second okay anything further on this one all those in favor move to approve Article 13 second anything further all those in favor move to approve article 14 second anything further all those in favor move to approve Article 15 second anything further all those in favor do we are we comfortable with the explanation for for for 15 I I'm okay with it I just want to make sure everybody's all right with it yeah I'm okay with it yeah I see I anticipate we'd get a question on this but I I think that vedit it yeah I think the explanation makes a lot of sense did we vote on this yet 15 you did yeah y 16 so 16 is highlighted because um this is a request by the finance committee when we asked them for the money to fix the uh ambulance that we replenish it um I have it in here we're using free cash to do it uh I I'm leaving this up to the select board whether you want to leave this in here or not this money goes away at the end of fy4 um we could use this money to help cover the cost of the colus for the town employees that we don't currently have enough funding for for fy2 um otherwise this goes to free cash because the chances hopefully are slim to none that the finance committee will need this Reserve fund for the next I don't know what is it six weeks once it's available and I think you said that last time we talked about the last time we talked about this I think you said that we told the finance Comm would do this right kind of made a did I did but you guys don't have to honor that making promises you can't keep I don't set the warrant so this this this article is absolutely bogus but we promised we'd do it we do it and this is like taking money out of free cash putting into to them to put it back into free cash with a six week delay I just just vote for it and be done with it I don't want to make l look bad yeah uh move to approve article 16 second all those in favor don't get us in trouble again I move to approve article 17 second Lynn do we know if this number is going to be adjusted based on this weekend I well with Thursday's apparent weather um right now it looks like we're not going to get it um it's going to be further north but that will be an issue if we get more snow it always is way to jinx us well no but it always is Dan I mean that's but this is one where we do well we won't have a this is about as lowest number as we've ever had also as a as a springtime adjustment but I believe the motion can Changed by 10% from what the warrant article is generally okay our issue will be that we won't have we don't have any more excess free cash maybe it's a finance Reserve fund request I mean if it's if there's another storm more than seven seven Grand depends on the storm all right well the um all right I'm looking for a second all right um all right all those in favor okay I move to approve article 18 second can I just what why this is so this is um the borrowing we did for the water project on Converse um Long Meadow Street L project this is to use those proceeds towards the Western Drive no I'm sorry Magnolia Circle and Primrose Drive um the repair that happened it's a same type of project same length of time it meets all the requirements of um Bond Council and if we did not do this and I think it should be put in the in the explanation we'd have to borrow to do it separately yes so and this article is also written by Bond Council so they've approved this language right but I I just think that we ought to put in there that you know our commitment to do these projects would require separate bonding luckily we have there something luckily we have enough excess money from the El project we don't have to borrow anymore we just have to yeah I think it kind of covers that in the last few sentences does it yeah it says you know the capital plan I could not pay for it with available funds and we would need to look to do a barring authorization oh yeah okay okay is there a motion I made a motion second second thanks anything further all those in favor um in this next one Article 19 I think last time I asked if in the explanation we could just kind of put something in there about why we're needing to replace the playground oh okay sure I missed that I'm and I also I I don't remember what the answer was this the grant would fund half of this is that right the uh yes um 8 something thousand covers 50% um do we want to put that in the explanation it says that no amounts will be borrowed or expended until the select boards determined towns received the grant commitment um yeah we can we can add something into the explanation about how much it covers for some reason I thought is it just either you get the $800,000 or nothing yeah cuz that's what we applied for so yeah I mean yeah I think putting in that would cover half would be helpful yeah CU get it it's a lot difference we're covering we're paying for half y y the whole thing um and I think someone asked me last time when we would find out we don't anticipate knowing until late fall okay so this would be next spring maybe yeah okay okay um kids are going to miss that ocean with Marines yeah um so I moved to approve Article 19 with um amended language in the explanation portion to explain why the playground um replacement needs to be done and also the amount of the grant award second uh anything further all those in favor I'd like to move that we approve approve articles 20 through 24 as a group the community preservation project second any further discussion all those in favor I move to approve article 25 second any further all those in favor and move to approve article 26 second further yeah I just have a just want to quick look through this establish a funding limit what does that mean ly these are required because these are um revolving funds set up by chapter 44 section 53e and a half annually we have to set the um limits of the fund what if it went over 250 that then it comes to you remember it's not it's not that we can't accept the right the money okay that's what I was concerned COA if we did not set a funding limit at all we would not be able to use this fund that's fine I I just didn't know if it I'm fine we're not going to turn money away I mean that's well that that was my point is why how' you come up with the amount um that's a lot of signs I don't know how that was created we this is exactly what was done last year so I don't know I can't remember um I know the COA is actually because it's approaching that number um but the science one I think is aspirational inside be law it's 500 signs oh it's going up there but I'm not putting 500 signs up so there's a motion and second yeah okay anything further all those in favor um article 27 in the explanation portion can we add something that says that this you know vote does not create any obligation for the town or something like we had for the municipal aggregation article yep um so I moveed to approve Article 2 7 um with the amendment I just mentioned about um this vote not being binding or uh creating any obligation for the town second all those in favor um move to approve Article 28 second and then and then was there some um changes that need to be made to Article 28 um I thought I did it already Okay there was an air U the language said refer to the article above for the explanation but I fixed that today so this version's been updated okay I just want to have a question about Article 28 is this a continuation of the issues we had no so well yes and no um so this is going to be an annual article now um regardless of whether it's whoever is run in our Public Access it should have been an annual article for 100 years ago yeah whatever yeah um this is not the full amount for the year I don't know what the full amount for the year is yet so it's likely that we will have a another article at the annual town at the fall town meeting you uh should be getting a full agreement uh at your next meeting hopefully and and it and is within that agre agement ly is it our intent to pay on some [Music] frequency is that's in the agreement yeah I can't remember if it's monthly or quarterly okay but whatever it is it's in the agreement okay I so this is kind of if you will a an appropriation toward that agreement toward pay those payments right we we need this this is not necessarily an lctv article this is if we're going to pay someone to run Public Access correct this is the mechanism to do it right oh I get that but okay y okay do your thing Jos there's a motion in a second sorry I'm out of practice uh all those in favor all right I move to approve article 29 second this is now this the new States new thing right yes if we had just waited a little longer we would have been okay but we did what the right thing to do was and create the stabilization fund all those in favor I move to approve article 30 second anything further all those in favor move to approve article 31 second further on this one yeah did is this that we we had to you you've already I mean it says it in the explanation we had to increase it from 1500 to 2,000 through vote but you did it with the plan that you rolled out for fy2 or calendar year 24 we now need to do the town meeting vote to allow the increased amount okay oh is it technically still 1500 yeah okay well because that's what town meeting originally voted the state law changed but we need to increase the limit okay all right all those in favor move to approve article 32 second okay all those in favor all all those who've read it this is I move to approve article 33 oops second oh it's right in the middle of all this right yeah um okay uh anything further on this one all those in favor move to approve article 34 second it all those in favor okay all right almost there move to approve article 35 second all those in favor we don't need to do this petitions right right yeah okay so that do I to make a motion to close the warrant or yes let's go I want to go back to number three uh I moved to resend the um okay so I move to close the annual town meeting warrant um for or the annual or the I move to close the warrant for the annual town meeting to be held on Tuesday May 14th 2024 second anything further on that all those in favor congratulations okay yeah that was a good one um thank you Lynn and Ian and Mike and Ken and everyone for all their hard work on that and everyone else and uh so now new business there yeah new business and for our moderator sitting through all this kind, salary all right uh am I so am I reading this Proclamation yeah that'd be great Leah was here um but I think we put her to sleep but Leah's smart so yes it's the proclamation now okay Arbor Day 2024 whereas in 1872 Jay Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first first observed with the planting of more than 1 million trees in Nebraska and whereas Arbor Day is now observed observed in Massachusetts under Massachusetts General Law chapter 6 section 15 that declares the governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart the last Friday in April as Arbor and bird day and whereas recommending its observance by the public in the planting of trees shrubs and Vines particularly those attractive to birds in the promotion of forest growth and culture the adornment of public and private grounds places and ways and in such other efforts and undertakings as shall harmonize with the general character of the day he she shall further recommend that such day be observed in Rural and Suburban schools by exercises appropriate to Arbor and bird day and whereas trees reduce the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water cut Heating and Cooling cost moderate the temperature clean the air produce life-giving oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes and Beauty to our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal now therefore we the select Board of the town of Long Meadow Massachusetts do hereby Proclaim Friday April 26 2024 as Arbor Day in the town of Long Meadow Massachusetts and we urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and further we urge all citizens to plant trees to encourage and and promote the well-being of this and future gener Generations dated this first day of April 2024 so move second all those in favor we have signing that ly I don't have it with me so we can put your electronic signatures on it okay we have a block party application for April 28th 2024 by top tier lacrosse yeah I just I just want to mention something here so it seems that we we're getting ourselves into a situation where we're closing the center of town for for sports jambes which was never the intent and the only reason we did it the first time was because W swamp Fields were out of commission and now it's this is the second one for the spring and I'm really concerned that clearly if we're going to have jamborees there it's not safe to keep Bliss Road open for people walking between them but I think it's a real burden on the folks in town to have that this this road closed and and my it's my opinion that we ought to be doing everything we can to get jamborees back to where our Sports fields are and not our not our high school Fields not to mention the fact that historically the High School athletic department went ballistic when other people were using their fields and potentially causing a tremendous amount of wear on the fields uh you know I I don't know how this came to be there is it because well the girls lacrosse are doing it there so the boys lacrosse wants to do it there but I think it's a mistake uh I'm actually going to vote against this not because I don't think we should have a boys lacrosse jamere I just don't think we should be closing blister Road for sports events because it it is the center of town and I think it provides a hardship to a lot of people uh when it's closed that's my comments is we asked about this one uh the girls lacrosse tournament was before us and is there less parking at Wolf Swamp is that was that the explanation which doesn't make any sense yeah parking's terrible at wol swamp there's just not a lot of parking there well down at the end there is it's not right right on wol Swamp Road there's not yeah I mean right on Wolf Swamp Wolf Swamp Road is pretty tight it's terrible you're right but parking supposed to be at the East Long Meadow area I mean the you you know I mean look historically we know the jamborees were there we know we took it out of service we've now invested invested a significant amount of money in a concession stand and sprinkler systems a million dollars in redoing the fields I I agree with you um I'm not I'm going to vote for it because we haven't made that known to people but I think that we should uh I'm not sure how to accomplish it but we should have a policy that because that is a reason for it and that's the reason we have a uh a concession stand because I know that we talked for it's good for businesses maybe to have stuff there but people can drive across down we want people sticking by we want them seeing that LaVine law sign on the fence but that's we have this great area that is tailor made for this kind of stuff um so I think we I'd like us to get out there and say Here's what in the future we're not going to approve these um because I I do think that they should be a Wolf Swamp makes more a lot more sense to me I mean I I I would just say that I think um I I think last year when we had the folks that wanted to have us approve the girls jamere there was some other reason they provided besides parking for why they couldn't do it at Wolf Swamp cuz I remember us asking I just can't remember what the answer was um but you know it would just be helpful to you know have someone come and just explain why U and just make the case for why it should be here instead of at Wolf Swamp um and then you know we could have the discussion there you know it's kind of and you know the way I look at it's on them to kind of go through that and go through the pros and cons and then present that to us um but I mean here I'm going to you know vote in favor of this now but that's like like Josh said in the future I would like a little bit more information about that are they I was going to say are the the people who uh is Mr Sinclair here do we know is he no um we we've had one attendee the whole time okay they're gone D didn't know but something to oh yeah what was that um oh oh no I see him he's here yeah come on we're just talking about nice to meet you thanks for having us weird you haven't been sitting out there the whole time we have oh my God uh so why why do you want to do this uh the School in in that part of town we do fall across um two-way the club that Adam and I work at um we we've held practices there on Sundays and that's eight six to eight teams and the parking gets tight with just that many um so really it was a it's a big safety concern um because I mean anybody who's been to any big Sports tournament there's a tons of cars tons of traffic kids walking up and down we didn't want kids walking up and down Wolf Swamp Road with equipment um just logistically from a safety perspective just kind of a nightmare so um I mean we could in the future an idea that I had would be to try to coordinate with Mr cter ropley at Twin Hills but that wouldn't offer us a ton of parking but it would be some but really it was it's just a safety consideration how many how many parking spaces do you think you need and where are you going to get them here uh long High School Blueberry Hill will be overflow and and how many you think are at at Wolf Swamp field I mean with six teams practicing for a half day on a Sunday in the fall the parking lot was Chuck full we had to go out there and we had to move people off the grass the parking lot to the east of the the whole parking lot or surrounding W swap it's not that big well that is true it's three layers over there and then it goes around back but it's not a ton of spots so so I mean it really is strictly a I mean the facility Wolf Swamp is awesome and there's more field space in one condensed area but it's it just comes down to parking and traffic and safety considerations what what Provisions are being made for for Public Safety now with this well there's going to be a police detail per and would you have one at Wolf Swamp um Chief stocks said he didn't think we would need one yeah um I wouldn't be comfortable I mean we have people that work for us but are they trained in in traffic management and you know safety for pedestrians no so I mean the the police detail is I think very necessary and important you know to keep everybody safe and I would not feel comfortable being in charge of the tournament in a resident of the town to have you know my son's friends walking down Wolf Swamp Road with no closure with bags full of cross ging it's just a safety nightmare but how do you justify closing Bliss road which is a major thoroughfare in the town of long midow on a on on one of the few spring week spring weekends well I would justify that it's it's a it's safety consideration one and two having the tournament in that area I mean does nothing the great things for the revenue of the businesses that surround Russell field but how about the residents of the town I mean I I can't speak to that I'm a resident of the town and I've I've what percentage of the residents of the town will be participating in this this uh about 200 200 to 225 uh players from Long meow out of 15,000 residents out of 5,000 families just I mean it's it's a small percentage of the people who are participating relative to the disruption in the town mark it was okay when your son played no problem whatsoever it's not true we didn't close that we sure did we had tournaments right here right here in the center of town yeah we did I played with your son we did call up Dan we did appreciate you sticking around and talking to us um and we played baseball together uh 20 25 years ago oh really probably yeah jeez M across days um yeah so um any other questions yeah well I would just say that it's not just the folks that are participating in it having center of town would also I think encourage folks to come and check it out and um you know I know I I think I said this when the um folks came for the girls jamur my family we always go walk down there every year this happens and it's a great event um and it's something that I think people in town are just they're looking for these kinds of things to do and so uh having it on a beautiful spring day hopefully you know would be would be a great event so um yeah all right uh if there's no further questions I entertain a motion to approve the street closer so moved second all right uh anything further all those in favor all was opposed all right thank you great thank you great thank you thank you for your time um and you know this just made me think maybe for these street closures or the liquor license application oh you don't have to listen thank you maybe we should put these at the beginning of the agenda because it is helpful to have people here and it's not I appreciate them waiting because we got more information from them if we can encourage that and have it right off the bat after comments and then we can encourage more people to be here and rather and not make them wait out three and a half hours when you become chair again yeah I mean the chair sets the agenda right yeah there's a rules of procedures document that have been developed and adopted and that's what calls out the order of items on the agenda we can definitely amend that and move these to the front because I've been to I go to town meetings all the time and people do them all sorts of ways um including like putting a time for everyone which is can be helpful it's never correct um and I can't imagine how wrong ours would be um but yeah I I would definitely be interested in doing that because there's there's better ways to do it and I I think that that's a big one um if we can encourage more participation that's better um all right entertain a motion to uh accept two one-day liquor license applications by the lccf for uh April 4th and April 18th sub moved a second any further discussion all those in favor all those opposed and then finally moving on to correspondence um Lynn I think uh maybe we should what's the procedure for taking a look at our uh our bylaws the general bylaws like this the canvasing one um we can add it as well we can make the request that the chair add it as a item for the next meeting if you want or well it doesn't have next meeting but we should put it on our uh our look ahead yep um and then there's another email about uh the Bottle Shop yep what what's the status of that we we sent a letter have we ever heard anything um I'm not sure might Mike may have talked to him in person he might have come in in response um I will have to find out tomorrow okay yeah I'm just um we shouldn't let it sit forever but Josh wasn't there the I think at the time we said we were going to put it kind of a in not aate it but but put it in on hold until they rebuilt and I think it would take a a significant change for us to say GE we want to put them them out of business by reassigning their liquor license no no that um I think what it CU it came out that maybe they weren't coming back was my understanding um and so I would like to hear one way or another I I'm certainly I'm not taking anybody's license because they're store burn down for sure and I yeah that's not my intention but if they are not planning to come back uh they don't even need to tell us but I would like to know because what would we do well you don't don't renew it but they can sell it we should know uh I think I'm not I'm not planning to take it trust me it's not my intention I think I just think we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and whatever time it takes to build the place and see what the rent's going to be when they move in and all that kind of stuff and if that's the answer great and I I hope that is the answer I don't want to put anybody out of business but um we it's a conversation yeah I think when we talked about it last we approved it for another year but just ask you know just set this letter to just ask what their plant were um anything else on corresponds I will uh I'll move wej second all right anything further all those in favor thank you all right good night everyone thank you e