##VIDEO ID:WqLNAGAqLGI## o have Neptune which is also the bead so what do we notice about Uranus and Neptune on this scale they're about the same size as well I feel like something's missing do you guys notice something missing what do we notice that's missing Pluto is missing why do you think it might be missing why might it be missing Chris because because Pluto is not a not a planet it's a rock so Pluto is is now in that dwarf category but but the reason it's missing is because if we showed Pluto on this scale it would actually be smaller than this [Music] see not only are the sizes of celestial objects big but so are the distances between them don't worry wipe that frown off your face we've got an activity to help you learn about the distances in our solar system by using toilet paper hi I'm Miss lampy and we are going to be looking at the distances between our planets using a scale model today we're going to be using toilet paper to create that scale model on this model every inch represents 7, 710,000 miles so that means like from here to here 7, 710,000 miles 7, 710,000 miles so on and so forth right so now we're starting to think about how far away these planets are from the Sun Talk Amongst your groups really quickly where do you think every other planet is in that distance go hard to show up on hey now you guys are starting to think about that scale right because that scale is 7, 710,000 Miles so initially you guys were probably like oh it's maybe 100,000 miles away but now that scale is getting bigger and bigger so when we go out there you and your groupmates are going to get a piece of tape and I'm going to give you all a marker as well what you are going to do is you're going to think how far away is Pluto with our door being the sun okay from then you all are going to Mark the other eight planets in our solar system starting with Mercury okay so if you put Pluto really really far away you got to think about well where are all those other planets going to line up I want you and your group to kind of figure out where do you think Pluto is going to be I'm going to give each team a roll of toilet paper the first square is going to be the Sun and you're going to start it right here on this black line okay as you keep going down you're going to figure out okay where's Mercury then you're going to stop and you're going to draw mercury and label it I'm going to give you a key to help you out see if your prediction were a little off or pretty close there you go as you draw your planets markers are the easiest to use but be careful that you don't rip one see what I did there note that the planet drawings are not to scale on this scale the planets would be very very small too small for us to draw teachers you can adapt this activity to include math by only giving students the distances to the planets then have them calculate the number of squares of toilet paper based on the distance to Mercury being one square Earth is 2 and2 Mars is three then you get all the way up to Jupiter and it's 12 squares out quietly and carefully come back into the room back to your spot and and we're going to discuss some things how is your prediction different or similar to what you actually got Alice what did your group find H so it was very far off very far off is there anything that you know that is in our solar system that was missing from your model shy on the moon the moons right we know that not just Earth has moons but a whole bunch of other planets have moons right one last thing I want to leave you guys with how would our model change if we maybe did this with another galaxy would we need a lot more toilet paper or the same amount Wes we're going to need a a lot that's a lot of toilet [Applause] paper let's head out beyond our solar system Voyager 1 which took these images was launched in 1977 it is the farthest human-made object away from Earth right now it is almost 15 billion miles away that's a long way but we're going to explore much larger distances to give you an idea of the scale of these things here's an image of NGC 2336 it is the quintessential Galaxy photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope we've added a banana for scale just kidding this galaxy is huge it is 200,000 Lighty years across and is located approximately 100 million light years away from Earth at this distance it's hard to see individual Stars much less a banana beyond our solar system if we want to measure things we don't measure in miles but in light years that's the distance that light travels in one year or 186,000 m per second that translates to 5.88 trillion m per year when we talk about one lightyear we are talking about almost 6 trillion miles and around these parts we're talking about a lot of light years the closest star to us besides our son is proximus centari which is 4.2 light years away remember that's over4 trillion miles when you look into the night sky you see stars of different brightnesses that doesn't mean one is closer than the other some stars are huge others are smaller and different stars are different brightnesses take a pretty familiar constellation Orion here you see the constellation as it's seen from Earth but remember space is three-dimensional the star on the left of Orion's Belt is about 800 light years away the star in the middle of the belt is about 1,300 light years away and the star at the right side of the belt is about 900 light years away yet from Earth they all appear to have the same brightness some of the stars in the universe are amazingly large as well the biggest star in the universe that we know of is 1,700 times larger than the radius of the Sun 5 billion of our Suns could fit inside it we're going to need a bigger bowl bigger fish bowl we've given you a way to compare the sizes of the planets and we've given you a way to create a scale model of the distance between the planets what if we took those two and combined them into one scale model remember we use Scale Models to help us understand really large numbers and the sizes and the distances are so massive that it's pretty hard to put them together but fret not there are scale models of the solar system all around the country there are plenty of creative Scale Models to be found across the United States and around the world doing a simple online search can point you in the right direction want to tour the solar system in a day silus education is building a scale model of the solar system in Washington state it starts with the solar arches a 40t sculpture of the sun designed to cast Shadows which tell the story of the predictable path of the sun over the course of a year and will have markers for each of the planets if you're looking for some unusual models there's the flag solar system where each Flag represents a planet at Green Bank observatory in West Virginia there's the distance to scale model made of fiberglass planets on light poles in Traverse City Michigan there are plenty of walkable models in St Louis there's the Delmar Loop Planet wall you can find the sun station right outside the Moonrise hotel check off each planet signpost until you find Neptune located about a half a mile from the Sun there are several Vo voage solar systems these walkable models feature scaled mockups of the Sun and planets and are about 1 to 10 billionth scale they can be found in Kansas City Missouri Space Center Houston and Corpus Christie Texas and will be returning to the National Mall in Washington DC but if you don't have the time or energy to walk there's the solar system lawn model at the griffth observatory in Los Angeles California in this model the planet's orbits are properly scaled around the Sun each foot in this model is roughly equal to 20 million miles in our solar system do search can you find a model in your hometown we've looked at Scale Models we've looked at the size of our planet the distance between the Earth and the moon the size of the planets in our solar system and the distance between them we've also looked at sizes outside our solar system where can you find or make your own Scale Models map your neighborhood walk around your neighborhood and make a map think about what scale you'll use build a scale model you can make one yourself or you can buy one notice the scale think about how scale models are used in real life the Navy uses a scale model to move planes around on an aircraft carrier called a Ouija board a lot of museums use Scale Models called diaramas which allow them to represent scenes with three-dimensional figures the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History did some with dinosaurs and there is an entire Museum in gettyburg of dioramas of famous Civil War battles the interesting thing about this museum is that all the soldiers are cats the cats are not the scale but boy are they cute do you have a scale model at your house or in your classroom have you found one at a museum we'd love to know about it down in the comment section and if you like this episode of stem and 30 be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to the National Air and Space Museum's YouTube channel and teachers be sure to check out the teacher tips document with resources on how to use this episode in your classroom thanks for watching scale is the ratio between the size of a given original object and a new object which is a representation but of a different size but what if you wanted to calculate I didn't like mine anyway okay would you stop it leave them alone stop his fingers yes it's 8:00 and Beth has crossed over the bridge to stop touching things just stop it keep your hands to yourself now I can't remember what I'm supposed to say size of the Earth to show how big the Earth is in comparison to the sun why do you get to touch them because someone is more responsible than how no we can just use this if I spread my arms out like this this is the size of the sun which means the size of the Earth be one more time one more [Laughter] time I'm built different under our solar system just go get on out leave [Laughter] please you edited without a minute a minute that was like really crucial or totally brand new as we skim this this is the lightest audience we've had in months way make a resident comment you guys all that uh yes okay stand by in 5 4 3 2 1 good evening welcome to the long meow select board meeting on October 7th 2024 this is Select board chair ven haavi 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 Dan Zoro Here Andrew lamb here Mark gold here Josh LaVine here staff want to call your name please please respond in the affirmative Lyn Simmons here Mike Barbary here this open meeting of the long met select board is convened in person and Via Zoom webinar as posted on the agenda and Town's website identifying how the public may join there is no chat or Q&A function all of the materials for this meeting are available on the agenda posted on Longet ma.gov the public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise the 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 format please use the raise hand icon at the bottom bottom of the screen the meeting moderator will promote you to panelists unmute you and give you permission to speak if you join the webinar by phone dial Star 9 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 3 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're not speaking if anyone in attendance is recording this meeting please announce yourself now all right we will now begin with the pledge of allegiance to of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we'll begin with select board announcements the fall special town meeting is set for Tuesday November 12th at 7: p.m. at the long meow high school gymnasium please visit longm ma.gov toown meeting for additional information and resources ahead of the Fall special town meeting long Meadows fall 2024 Leaf program has been announced Long Meadow residents will have three options for leaf disposal one you can use the town pay as you throw curbside leaf collection program two you can hire a private contractor for leaf removal or three you can purchase a recycling center sticker and transport leaves directly to the Meadows Leaf composting site on West Road curbside collection of the town uh pay as you throw Leaf Bags which are available now at Big Y for purchase will be held on three Saturdays between November 2nd and December 14th exact dates to be determined the drop off area in the Meadows off of West Road will open for the season on Saturday October 26th and will remain open to Residents and contractors through Sunday December 8th weather permitting for additional information about the leaf program please visit long meow ma.gov leaf program local cultural Council Grant applications are now available the deadline to submit an application is October 16th to learn more about the process through the Massachusetts cultural Council and to complete an online application please visit longmedow ma.gov Civic alerts the community preservation committee via the town clerk's office will accept project proposals through November 12th for possible consideration and vote at the 2025 annual town meeting for additional information about the CPC process and to fill out an application please visit Long Meadow ma.gov Civic alerts come meet members of Fiers spring and learn more about the chance to bring high-speed reliable town-owned fiber internet to Long Meadow an event will be held on Wednesday October 9th at the Long Meadow Adult Center at 6 p.m. reminder the general election is set for Tuesday November 5th 2024 polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 800 p.m. at the Long Meadow community house early voting will take place from October 19th through November 1st for the full early voting schedule and additional information please visit Longet ma.gov selections all right and do we have anyone on Zoom for Resident Comet no one has their hand raised no okay all right and we will move forward then with interview appointment so uh Lynn I think do you want to start off on this one the first item is confirmation um of our fire chief appointment thank you uh yes so in your packet you received a memo and a resume and tonight I am very pleased to present uh John Ry for appointment to the position of fire chief this will fill the upcoming vacancy that will be created with the retirement of Chief Dearborn in November of 2024 I do have Mr Ry here tonight uh and he'll be available to answer any questions that you have uh Mr rigny has worked for the town of Long Meadow since 1998 first serving as firefighter in his 26 years with the town Mr rigny has held various positions with within the Long Meadow fire department including acting Captain EMS coordinator Department training officer and Captain in 2023 Mr rigny was promoted to deputy chief which includes the duties of operations Chief and Deputy emergency manager prior to joining the town of Long Meadow Mr Ry worked for St m Michael's fire and rescue in Colchester Vermont from 1994 to 1998 deputy chief rigny holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from St Michael's College through his years in the fire service deputy chief rigny has completed numerous trainings and courses on topics including emergency response to terrorism rail safety for First Responders photo voltaics for the fire service and advanced incident command system currently deputy chief rigny is enrolled in a 14we Chief Fire officer officer Management program run by UMass deputy chief rigny enrolled in this course on his own initiative at the completion of the course he will be certified as a Massachusetts Chief Fire officer the highest certification in Massachusetts deputy chief Ry has the experience skills temperament and commitment to lead the Long Meadow fire department I'm pleased and honored to submit his appointment as our next fire chief to the select board for confirmation in accordance with Long Meadow Charter article 5-2 B great thank you um so I guess I'll begin um you know I was very pleased to hear about this appointment and I feel uh very lucky that the town has the opportunity to uh hire you Mr rigny as our next chief I also want to take this opportunity too to thank Mr Dearborn Chief Dearborn for your years of service um you know I think you have the respect of everyone in town uh respect of everyone in town government uh and you've done such a great job in so many different ways in leading our fire department and uh we you know are really grateful for your years of service um Chief or deputy chief Ry um you I think that one of the most important things in this position is that we are selecting someone that is a person of Integrity that has not only the trust of the department but also of the town and I can say that I feel that that is true here and some of the things that you know I think um Lynn brought up the way that you've taken initiative to get certifications um the amount of the different kinds of things that you've done throughout your career shows that you have a commitment to our town and you also have a commitment to doing this job well and so um I am you know thankful that you have put yourself up for this position and and I feel lucky that the town has this opportunity to appoint you anyone else Josh uh well when Chief deborn when we heard he was retiring uh this is what I hop would happen um so I'm glad the the process uh has brought us about with you so I I you have a lot of respect among the the crew and um and the town and so I'm I think we're doing the right thing here that's really appreciate it it's it's truly been an honor for me the last 26 years uh to serve serve this community and um as I talked you know to to Lynn and the the uh the assessment through the assessment I'm humbled I really am humbled um I I truly didn't when I started this career didn't see myself I I saw myself as a captain in leading a small group I never saw myself leading the leading the department um and uh I couldn't be couldn't be happier more excited and um honored that the people that I serve with speak so highly of me and are excited for me to to to run the organization so thank you Dan thanks um yeah first I just want to say thank you to Chief Dearborn uh for all your uh many years of service to the town of Long Meadow um you've done a great job and you know wish you the best in retirement I know you have a party uh a couple months away um which should be fun but um also for Mr rigny as well I've gotten uh the ability to meet you and talk to you over the past uh two and a half years that I've been on the board and um you know just like what Denise said um as well as Josh um they said it very well you know I've talked to several people in town and and um some of the folks on the fire department themselves and everyone has very positive things to say about you and um you know your record speaks for itself but I think you are the type of person that not only are you very uh committed to Long Meadow and the the fire department itself but also I think you have a fun time you know doing what you love as well and it and it speaks volumes to what people say about you and um what you've done for the community so um I I couldn't think of a better person to be you know in your um seat right now tonight uh and moving forward so um you certainly have big shoes to fill um with Chief Dearborn uh departure but I'm confident you'll do a great job and um continue to serve the community well so thank you thank you and they are they are big shoes to fill and luckily I have a couple more months to be able to pull as much information as I can from him and I hope he realizes that his phone his phone will his phone ring a little bit when I need some help but I'm not afraid to say that hey I need help with this and reach out to everybody in the community and and not only my department but other department heads and you know select board and town manager's office and everything that you know this the one thing I can say about this community and working in this community is that the relationships among departments are unmatched compared to many others I have many friends across different communities all throughout New England and I hear well this department doesn't get along with this department and we get along so well that it makes things go so smoothly that I'm I'm excited to be you know kind of more involved with that so thank you anything else Mark yeah deut Chief I going to had my praise and endorsement of of this appointment I think it's the right thing to do my only comment is that I I'm going to give you a little bit of put a little bit of a pressure on you and that is and I've had the luxury of being here through you you'll be the third Fire Chief and eating with Chief Madison or chief Dearborn menu and each time things have gotten more complicated they've gotten a little tougher but they've also gotten a lot better right and so you know the the pressure is on you to make that equivalent step up for the next round is the world changes and the climate changes and right the community changes and so I'm looking forward to uh seeing what you have and how how you're going to put your stamp on the department well thank you I'm a tireless worker as as I'm sure that you've seen throughout my my resume and my time here in town and um I'm excited for that challenge and I hope I hope you hold me to it um that I'm uh I'm up for the I'm up for the challenge I really am so I would only Echo everything as already said um Chief deor appreciate knowing you over these years and thank you for your service of the Town deputy chief enjoyed meeting you and thank you for the very explanatory conversations we've had and educating me about what your fire department's been trying to do and and improve itself so thank you for your service and appreciate you being here thank you yeah go ahe I'll make a motion that we accept the Nom the rec recommendation of the Town manager to appoint deputy chief John rigon to be the next chief of the monal fire department second any further discussion all right all those in favor all right congratulations thank you thank you very much thank you for being congratulations thank you all right next up is our board and committee appointments so we have a memo attached with um the appointments that we have to vote on today um and I will entertain motions on these yeah I I'll make a motion to I guess we're going to do this all we're going to try to do this all in one motion so I'm going to make a motion to appoint uh Alexander Aken and Iris malowitz to three-year terms expiring 6227 to the capital planning committee to appoint Richard McCulla to 630 EXC 6:30 27 I 6 620 oh I'm sorry 6:30 27 thank you to appoint Richard McCulla to three three-year term expiring 63025 of the Conservation Commission and to appoint Margaret con uh Brett luek and Gregory Morrison to three-year terms for the historic commission expiring 630 27 and finally uh to appoint W William Welsh to the onee to excuse me to the three-year term expiring 6:30 27 for the Parks and Recreation Commission okay I'll second all right any further discussion I I just had one I guess so we're going to be voting across just like one vote and well I think we said we wanted to try to do it as one vote didn't we yeah just the only you know after going through and and looking at all the applicants and just looking at folks on on the various committees um so I'm the liaison for parks and wreck and I just I just personally feel that we haven't had representation of a woman serving on this committee for years um so and also the fact that Mr Welch who's certainly uh more than qualified to serve on Parks and Rec commission I think he also has a background from you know reading his resume that would suit him well on the audit committee so I was hoping that we would appoint Alexander strum to the parks and rec commission to create um like I said to have representation of a of a woman on this board especially we have many young uh women and and girls who are participating in um a athletes or Athletics and sports across town I just think it'd be a good representation to have a woman on the on on this committee and and allow Mr Welch to serve on the audit committee but again like I said Mr Welch has done great things especially for the football program as well um in Athletics but I just think in this situation if we have the opportunity to put a woman on a committee where we don't have a woman serving who represents several young women and girls in athletics I think that's a good thing so I would yeah so that that's my thought anyone else Josh yeah I Dan I always appreciate your your thoughts on things like this if all things being equal I would I think that uh representation certainly matters and I think that that is a worthy thing to think of I I'm voting for Mr Welch based on his work on the on the fields that were U because we are we have a possibly a decision coming up on uh many decisions coming up on how to use fields and I know that he was uh the uh driving force behind the um the stud getting the study done on whether we should have turf or grass and so that's that's why I'm voting for him uh nothing against uh M strum uh I just think at this point in time I think he can do a lot of good uh on the committee when we have some possibly some really big decisions to make on how our fields are allocated and how are they're going to be used I also appreciate what you said Dan it's definitely a good consideration I have served with Mr Welch on the finance committee I always did find him to be very well prepared very passionate very involved as a as a Community volunteer so I just wanted to say that from my own experience as well I'm sure they're both very good candidat yeah and I will just add um I I also appreciate your comments Dan and I think that this really has nothing to do what am about to say has nothing to do with Mr Welch because I think he is very qualified for this I think he'd be great on the parks and rec commission I think the other consideration is trying to give opportunities for people that haven't previously served in town government to give them a chance and open a door and let them serve especially when Mr Welch has expressed interest in serving on a different committee as well but uh I also you appreciate what Josh said about the specific expertise he would bring to this commission um so you know if we do you know if we were to vote for Miss stum you know I would hope that Mr Welch applies or applies and interviews for the audit committee um if we do go with Mr Welch and then I hope that Mr dram would find another opportunity to be involved um in our government because I think one one Dei issue that we have kind of identified that I think we're going to start looking at is the over representation of certain voices in our town government and I think the way that we Rectify that is by you know Finding ways to bring more people in uh to the process and giving people more of an opportunity to serve um so I want to just add those thoughts as well Mark would you prefer that I break this that we break this motion into four separate motions then or or we could or could just do the first three committees and then do the last one whatever I mean it's yeah maybe that might be better cuz the other ones are you want to just amend the motion to include the the first three and not include the Parks and Recreation commission vote I can mark that down right here I guess I I guess I can amend the motion to do that I was going to withdraw it and make make a new motion but I'll amend the motion to the just Capital planning conservation and historical commission and then um is that a misprint for a Conservation Commission the vacant three-year term expires 2027 right here it says 6:30 2025 it does expire 2025 oh okay so those position that's expiring in 202 so it's a three-year term but it was starting in 2022 okay gotcha cool thank you um all right um so second motion second any further discussion all right all those in favor all right so now we have the parks and rec commission opening left and so is there is there more discussion I I just want to be just clear that that I again I have nothing against Mr Welch I think he's done a great job with Josh has said as well especially for the fields um and other programs I just this I'm not voting against Mr Welch uh I I guess technically I am but it's it's just simply I like Josh said I mean he's he's done a great job it has nothing to do nothing no ill will towards Mr Welch I just feel that we need to have more representation of women serving on boards especially when we have um you know um young women and um young girls playing sports and I just think this is an opportunity that um we should be selecting a woman but I'm not so sure I have the votes but just just a quick correction go Dan I I I'm not up to date with the current Parks and Recreation Commission and I assume that you because you are you know but just as a point the the chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission for many many years had been female so it's not like never had any no I understand and Josh going say something well Dan uh mark on calendar you convinced me I think you're right because I I think Bill will still participate so I I think that you're making a good point and uh yeah I'm with you all right anything else like can entertain a motion whose name you want to put up um yeah I'll make a motion to appoint Alexander strum to the vacant three-year term expiring 630 27 to the parks and rec commission I'll okay all right any further discussion all right all those in favor great and and I would say you I think we all just spoke very highly of Mr Welch and he's I know he's done a great job on the finance committee and I hope that soon we will be interviewing him for a position on the audit committee um great next uh we have select board comments um I don't have a comment I can think of right now but anyone else have a comment Mark not later on on the agenda there's a discussion about the warrant and the warrant has a couple of bylaws in the that are being proposed and I I my comment has to do with bylaws and and I guess what I'm asking for is that the select board take another look at the current bylaws how we and if we choose to enforce them and I know we've had a lot of discussions recently with Josh with the with the overnight parking of commercial vehicles but I'm more concerned about the political signs and this nature on on on tree belts on Town property overnight parking housing setbacks in bushes and stuff like that and and and I I just think that before we enact or ask the town to enact more bylaws that we ought to take a look at whether we're enacting bylaws that we have the wherewithal the ability and the intent to enforce because I'm not sure we have the wherewithal the intent and the ability to enforce the laws we have and so I'm making this a formal request to put on the agenda of an upcoming meeting hopefully before the town meeting but I know we have full agendas for us to talk about bylaw enforcement and and how we deal with that and again the the the areas that concern me are signs overnight parking on street parking and and and setbacks because you any of us could drive around town right now and pick up dozens of those violations forget about the commercial vehicles which is a whole other ball game but at least I think we're looking at that so that's my comment for select board thank you Mark anyone else Andrew uh I just want to congratulate the friends of store's library for their incredible book sale last weekend they raised an astonishing uh over $6,000 which is amazing when you realize each book was only two to three or four dollars so um even better they you know found a new home a cherished home for thousands of books that are basically going to be read by new people so that's a great success for them great thank you anyone else Jos go I was just going to say on uh on Friday I attended the mass Municipal Association Regional event um it was held in lllo at lllo Mills um actually our former uh select board member Mark strange hosted the event he's now the Town Administrator in llo so just want to say thank you to mark for hosting um and it was it was pretty interesting just to kind of hear some of the you know upcoming legislation you know in the pipeline but right now it's of course too early uh the legislators were talking about it's way too early to you know talk about or get an understanding of what the numbers are going to look like um later in the year in terms of if they're tracking or not but um there was the municipal I I printed some the municipal empowerment act I'm sure um Lynn's familiar with this but um a couple of the things I thought were pretty interesting just giving some additional uh potential flexibility to the towns where we can potentially raise money whether it's with excise taxes um or some other avenues as well as um the future Tech ACT of 2024 um so this I thought would be a good opportunity any you probably have already you know heard of this um with with your task force with Municipal fiber but I think over the next 5 years this the Commonwealth is going to be putting $30 million towards um a grant opportunities so I know we're going to talk a little bit later about a great grant that the town of Long Meadow um was able to receive because of uh our town manager as well as Karen for their work but um just something for us to keep in mind as we're having these uh conversations and then finally I I also wanted to um give a shout out to Lynn because every time I'm at these events everyone's like you have the best town manager and I I uh I think we all here can agree that that that's the case and we're just fortunate to to have Lynn and and her staff um you know working to secure these grants that we talked about so uh thank you Lynn and I think that was that was all that I could think of right now but thank you great here good job um I she's probably not watching but it's my daughter's 11th birthday so happy birthday we GNA sing me look B it's my wife's birthday I um all right next up is the town manager report thank you yeah uh so I have a scholarship announcement uh the Nancy galowski scholarship award was uh presented to uh Ian cottington our finance director he was uh one of four who received this in the state this is a um Mass Municipal Association scholarship and he's going to participate in a five week long MMA suffk University Municipal Finance Management course uh it's held on Fridays and it provides a thorough examination of Municipal Finance in Massachusetts Nancy galowski had a 35-year career in Municipal management and had a passion passion for mentoring young managers and being of service to her peers she passed away in 2013 and the management association colleagues established a fund to honor her memory and continue her Legacy so I'm happy that Ian applied and was selected for that Grant or that scholarship uh we have a donation that I am formally acknowledging that we're accepting um the select board policies require this but I also do think um it's important that we call this out I know it was in correspondence several meetings ago um but I do want to make sure that the the public is fully aware of this and the select board um and we give thanks to the family who made the donation um so in August I was contacted by Lynn Scott regarding donating a painting of The Community House which was owned by Dr Stanley teal as the letter explained in that September 3rd select board correspondents Dr teal and his wife Shirley and their three sons lived in Long Meadow from 1957 to 1984 Dr teal was a renowned and well-respected cardiologist in Springfield the painting oh there's supposed to be an image here in my report but there's not uh depicts a view down Long Meadow Street showing theity Community House in first church and it's a view that we all recognize a space in the community house was identified to display the artwork and again according to the policy um we need to formally accept this gift which has been done by me notifying the select board here uh and I thank Lynn Scott and the teal family for this donation the picture is already hung up in the community house so definitely stop by and see it especially if you're here to vote on Election Day happy to show you where it is but it's prominently displayed in the main hallway and another gift announcement um great for Greenwood playground the town has been offered a gift of a new swing to complement the previously donated playground equipment named Molly's gift which was dedicated many years ago by Elizabeth McAvoy upon the death of her daughter in 1996 The Long Meadow Rotary Club organized the cost of the playground equipment in memory of Molly who had died that same year recently the DPW spent time addressing areas of the playground that need a more substantial maintenance the new playground equipment is a swing from compan a world-renowned playground equipment company the gift includes the Rope nest and freight and a custom swing frame in um and the total amount in is uh $ 5,462 3 and again according to select board Town manager policy the select boards to be notified prior to accepting the gift which is what I'm doing here tonight thank you than you to Elizabeth picosa makoy for your continued efforts to support the playground and Molly's gift and as many of you know a grand opening um celebration they've started at the elementary school playgrounds we've held one at Blueberry Hill and the one that was scheduled for Center School had to be postponed due to weather it is now scheduled for tomorrow October 8th at 3:00 installation of the Wolf Swamp Elementary playground has finished and a grand opening celebration still in the works uh attached to this memo uh is a update from the town engineer regarding the Long Meadow Street water and sewer line replacement uh and then there's additional information from fuss and O'Neal our design Engineers on this project uh last week fuss and O'Neal DPW long lllo construction Long Meadow police and fire met regarding the upcoming work that's going to be in the roadways this includes the intersections of Long Meadow Street at Converse Converse Street at Laurel and Forest Glenn at Long Meadow Street llo construction has completed a majority of the off roadway water line and sewer line replacement and is now at the point where the work will start taking place in the roadway as had previously been mentioned the work in these hight trffic intersections needs to be completed at night and I do believe they are scheduled to start that work if not later this week I think um it looks like October 14th which is next week um so that will definitely have an impact and it's definitely different than what's been done in the past but given the nature of the amount of traffic in these areas this is necessary um The Long Meadow Street at Converse is the first one they'll be starting with and then the other two intersections will likely be done in the springtime and then lastly on my update um uh as many know we've been working on renovating the Greenwood Center and to turn it into into a Consolidated municipal office space for Town Hall and Community House offices we are moving quite along in that process and we will be closing to the public on October 17th and 18th so that's town hall and community house will be closed to the public next Thursday and Friday to allow staff to move to the new office space we will then reopen on Monday October 21st at Greenwood Center this does not include the town clerk's office they will stay at Town Hall until after the election ction so they will not move until uh sometime middle of December once everything has settled down from the presidential election and I'm happy to answer any questions you have Mark and I have a couple of questions the the the acceptance of the painting is that is there a plaque that's going with that or has will it be something so people will recognize that it was a gift of his family and who who did it generally we try to yeah we we can do do that we have not planned for that yet but we can do something I think I think it would be a nice thing to do so people can see where it came from and and and how it came up from the the other question I have is about the Molly's playground at Greenwood you know with the with the new Grant we now have for Bliss and the upgrade of the elementary schools it's pretty clear that this playground and I believe it's a very active playground from what I've seen because it's near the pool you know is now the the the outlier in town for for the what's on the ground things like that is there any plan possibility vision for potentially upgrading the certainly the the the surface at Greenwood Park at's Park um there's no design yet but certainly we all you know have the same understanding you do that we four of our five playgrounds will have been updated um but again we don't have a design in place yet we don't have an identified funding source for that either so it's likely you know several years out I think it all just be on somebody's list for something even though it's several years out I think like I said because I think of the proximity of the of the pool it's pretty well used particularly in this when the pool's open certainly thank you anyone else Josh I just had a question the the nightwork and maybe uh Sean will have a better answer for us so this is if I'm reading this correctly it's just one week five five nights and should each Crossing should be done at about that time uh five nights for each area not five nights total right yeah yes might be a little longer cross okay be a major maor service we'll be back before you guys next screen before that happens okay and so my that that's good that's not that long but uh I have not been around for the work I don't drive that way normally and I don't live there is it how loud are we expecting it to be overnight is this going to can people still stay there or is it going to ruin people's days or or nights I guess it's going to be loud yeah there's going to be jackhammers there's going to be saws there's going to be heavy equipment there's going to be backup alarms there's going to be lights so um this is a major impact the people living there and they should be made aware um yeah are we making them aware after tonight yes along with the surrounding towns there's going to be an impact for traffic portions of Converse Street will be closed um so we we're letting everyone know um and we're to get in the paper and social media are we the people who are right on the route are we you knock on their doors we're going to be posting on their doors and letting him know Yep this we didn't know the exact timing of the of the nightwork until about a week ago and and didn't have a traffic plan until a couple days ago so this is kind of a rush to to let everyone know but we did talk about it a year ago that it would be likely night work I yeah I remember when we first talked about it it's going to be it's going to be loud for that neighbor those neighbors for at least a week unfortunately could be worse just to followup Sean what one of the biggest problems I see is when something happens on Route 91 and everybody's I mean I've we've all seen that a a few times so we we notify the neighbors but what are we doing about notifying people who might be diverting traffic off of 91 to try to come up Route 5 with that in those intersections so the police chief is reaching out to all the emergency responders all the surrounding communities everyone we can think of of notifying we are including the tractor trailer trucks coming out of East Long Meadow so we're doing we're going to do what we can to make sure everyone knows but to your point the very reason we're doing the night work is to make sure there's not more of an isue 91 which we would definitely have if we did it during the day it would be gridlock and I don't I don't see it going well we'd likely get the project shut down if we tried during the day so this is an unfortunate um kind of a nuisance um but it's it's it's important so anyone else thank you Sean and thank you Glen um all right moving on to Old business we've got a couple of draft meeting minutes to approve go ahead Mark yeah I'll I'll move that we approve the minutes of the August 12th 2024 select board meeting with some typos or errors and you know spelling or whatever that I potentially that I've already sent to to Mike if anybody wants to know them it's they're minimal though second second uh any further discussion all right all those in favor great thank you and and I and I'd like to make a motion that we approve the September 3rd 2024 meeting minutes and again there's a couple of typos but I also wanted to make this uh note of I I believe that it would be important for us to add a sentence to the dangerous dog hearing uh the hearing does not State anywhere that Mr cartis Cello's dog attacked the other dog resulting in its death and I'd like to have that sentence included and I sent that to Mike also I I think that frames the the purpose of the dangerous dog hearing and our and our responses I think it's important I agree with that yeah I agree with that so with those two changes I'll move we approve the minutes second any further discussion all those in favor okay great all right so next we have our Municipal aggregation discussion we received a presentation at our last meeting and we were asked to vote on a product suite and Mike I don't know if you want to pull it up but I believe slides nine and 10 have the two product Suites that we were discussing and having to choose from if I don't I don't know if anybody has thoughts that they want to start with Josh we got Marco first great thank you so you know when when Municipal aggregation first came to my attention I brought it to the town's attention the intent of this was to offer something to save the town residents money and it wasn't to to be a social social policy or change social policy and I'd like to keep to that that theory and or that approach and you know as I started down this road and and moved into it I if if it was up to me i' I'd offer three options one is the state state requirement of 62.4% whatever and call that our basic and that that the intent of that is to you know to to give the town residents a cost savings and give them what they wanted and a second option would be to let the people who want to to go 100% solar I would have included a third one halfway in between what was interesting was hearing in between hearing the the folks from uh talking about the The Proposal they said not many people choose that in between but I was you know my thought was always if we took something in between that was financially neutral to Residents people might say look you know if as long as I don't have to pay anymore I'll I'll I'll take this additional you know social step of adding in additional uh additional renewable energy and so you know it was up to me I'd go to as a basic the state requirement something in in between and and the optional but lacking the optional two being 100% but lacking that if people want to go to two I think what we've got there is a basic of meet State minimum and the optional of 100% is the way to do it so Mark I think what you're saying is doing product suite number two but is flipping long meow standard and long me basic correct so that long me basic would be the default and there's still three options and there's still three options great that's what I would say thank you Josh yeah I I thought a lot about this because I I think of my when we first talked about this I didn't want to necessarily force people into anything um but the more I thought about I think suite number two as is is is the way to go um some people may choose to go up some people can choose to go down but I think if we're going to do this I think we should try to we have we have goals we have a long-term plan we have climate goals and the state has goals and we I think we should do our part to to move towards them while also allowing people to step back a little bit and only get savings if they're not as interested in um in working towards those goals although this does uh meets the minimum for renewals at least but I think that the fact that Suite 2 and we're people are getting a lot of Education that if they want to right off the bat they can step down and go down to that min minum to the basic I think this makes a lot of sense to me um and you I I do wish it would be nice if there were more options but uh given what we have to work with I think this is the way to go yeah and I think slide 17 was what they offered in showing us the differences between these price-wise that the standard option would be in Bel town at least was 13.37 basic 12.9 so a significant difference pricewise but then a much more significant increase going over to the 100% yeah I mean I I don't know what the it's hard to look at that and say yeah I know what that'll do for my bill but it's all lower than what National Grid was doing for them um yeah that's important to yeah that's important to say and the fact that you can pop up and down whenever you want uh I think if we give people a nudge but right it off the bat give them the the choice to to go to go down or go up to me that that's uh I think that's the way to go anything else I I felt similarly I mean I think I did the math on this and it looked like the the increase from basic to standard was about like 3% so which is very modest and keeping in mind that everyone will basically be paying less than what they're doing now um so and finally people can just choose basic if they so choose so I think it's a good I think sweet 2 is probably uh a good way to go yeah I will say that if I had not heard this presentation what Mark said is what I would think would be the way to go but what they offered in their experience that most people stick with the standard and that the price differential isn't that significant where folks really feel like they move down to basic for that reason I think that sweet too is our best option and sweet the 12th slide is the one that really got me that uh if you use the basic service 230 megawatt hours if you do if you go bump up one it's 5,379 at 230 megawatt hours my house in I've had panels for five years I think I've done 60 megawatt hours I mean this is not nothing for a whole town so it's a laudable goal to to do our part I think while still giving people the uh the option yeah and right underneath it the amount of carbon pollution you're avoiding 180,000 versus 4 million okay anyone else have anything to add on this one I I'll just I mean I'll just say that Josh said it very well I just think overall sweep 2 or is really just gives us the most options or gives the homeowner and residents the the the most options to choose from and I think flexibility is is also important um so that's what I would support um but I I also appreciate Mark bringing bringing that up um early on all right well I'm just I'm just going to reiterate my comment about you know is it whether the the select board should be putting into a place the social position for for people in town rather than save money that's all I I mean that's I that's the way I feel I'm going to vote against the motion if that's the way it comes up go J right we have goals we have people elected us and people know that we just voted on a long range term plan they still have the option to go down and everyone's saving money I I totally I see what you're saying saying Mark and I did that was kind of my my first thought but uh I think we have an opportunity here and if if people don't like it they have the option to go down which I think is and save a lot of money which I think is to me uh the key so we're but we're doing our part we have a plan we have goals and we have state laws that eventually this you know it could go up so we might as well take a step now um we need a motion and yeah and I think what Dan said to was a good point that this Suite offers more options get three options versus two and it's just giving folks more options but yeah Josh I am looking for a motion um I will move that we adopt Long Meadow Community electricity product Suite to in our uh aggregation plan second any further discussion all those in favor all those opposed all right next we have our November 12th draft fall uh special town meeting warrant review so just a little bit before our meeting a new draft warrant was attached I think that in the actual link might be broken on the agenda uh I got it to work just now you got it I just did it off the agenda okay okay all right I something wrong with my computer um so this is kind of the first time we're looking at the actual warrant even though we've discussed these articles throughout our work over the past you know Year we're taking a look at what this looks like all together we are going to do a review tonight and then at our next meeting on October 21st we're going to actually vote to um to to to actually adopt the warrant um so what I want to do tonight was kind of open this up for a general discussion I think folks have had a chance to review it to talk about maybe articles that they want to talk about or you know any other kind of thoughts that they have on this um and also give you know Lynn a chance to direct our attention to articles if need be but I thought that would be a good place for us to start today and then at our next meeting we can kind of go through all of this article by article and really iron things out before we build for them okay all right um anybody have any articles or anything they yeah there a question on the first one is 695,000 what the appropriation would be for the study yes and is so this is a different program this is also the msba but it's the accelerated repair repair so can you explain how that works yes to the best of my knowledge um we are in the the running for an accelerated repair award for Center School roof we will know pretty soon but your warrant closes before potentially we'll know whether or not we get this and we can't miss the opportunity to have this on the warrant uh we feel pretty confident will receive the award and similar to the middle school we have to pay for the feasibility study and then it opens us up to um funding for repair of the roof and it's a much more condensed process and it's for projects that are not uh full renovation so I know that this the roof would be many millions of dollars is there a similar reimbursement formula okay and including for potentially some of that I believe so yes I still need to grab all the specifics but yes I think the last are $8 million is that right it sounds close yeah so just to be clear the application is already in yes so this doesn't increase our odds of getting it because they know we committed to F but we know we have to do this regardless if we get it or if we don't it's necessary right the reason this is on here now is because if we do get it we have to prove funding for the feasibility study within 90 days and we don't have a town meeting gotcha other than November 12th unless we called a special one but if we failed to get the grant we'd also still eventually need this to fix the roof um we would go about it a different way and we would like lik resend this vote if we don't make the grant gotcha Mark yeah that that was going to be my question is this vote going to have something in there that the expenditure of this money is contingent upon receiving the grant yes absolutely as I it's a draft so draft language I still need find that needs an explanation yes but but somewhere when people are voting on it they'll understand that they're voting on something that won't be spent if there's no Grant yes okay we'd already know by then though right IDE will know by November 12th okay perfect okay um and Lynn did you have any articles that you wanted us to I mean I number two here I'm not going to go each single article but number two we had previously had conversations about an amendment to the budget and and how that's not something that maybe had been done in the past and so this article is doing that it's um accounting for the increase in state aid and accounting for if you recall when you approved the budget it we had that meeting where we made all those changes so we could fund the feasibility study and at I not feasibility I'm sorry literacy curriculum at that point we did not know the total cost but we knew it would be about $490,000 and then the motion on the floor of town meeting was actually for 270 which was the funding of the literacy so there's $225,000 in the budget that doesn't really have a home right now and so this article addresses that as well so one one of the um areas that we pulled money from was the OPB liability and so I have put a placeholder in here for that but at some point between now and when you close the warrant I'd like your feedback as to whether or not that's where you want it to go there are other places it could go but this is where we did take it from initially but as you'll see we also took it from capital and article three handles that um I don't have a brand new update for you but the um year-to-date revenue for um specifically excise tax is coming in higher than projected and I believe uh we will be able to support um the increase in the capital plan to fund the work that have been deferred to make room for the literacy curriculum so instead of um needing to we what I guess I'm saying is you can do the OPB in the budget but you can also do I think I believe we can fit capital in with the increase in receipts but I'll know for certain by the time we meet next time but this is how I have it structured right now yeah go ahead Mark so this is the fy2 budget correct modifying and so when you talk about motor vehicle excise tax coming in above projected that's the current year already is coming in yes okay that that's fine the the only other question question I have is the article two you're we're increasing the the operating budget for the school yes where did that how did that come about so the increase in state aid most of that was Chapter 70 so that that reflects the increase in state aid not fully uh I did Ian myself in the school but basically that's that's what that is then yes okay increase in state aid was $250,000 uh and in conversation with the school department um agreement was reached to split that increase in state aid between the school department and then a town department and this is where you guys can weigh in but my feeling is that it's mostly needed in DPW and specifically facilities no I I was the one who asked for recalculating or restating a town Town budget in the fall and I think it's going to be very valuable to do so especially when it comes now to now we can set our tax rate based on actual state revenue instead of yep projected state revenue anything else slen um sorry let me just scan through real quick uh I do have a so I do want to call out um I do have a placeholder in here for a couple things um more than placeholders actually you had there had been some um discussion about the storm cleanup event and using the operating St stabilization fund to fund that so that's in here that's Article 5 now is that the whole amount yes what was the number 37,000 $79 take out that it just I don't know seemed like it would have been so much more I mean it was a really small area of town but yes that's big to me just your house Josh that that'll make a big difference in our in our forestry absolutely that's line item of that right yeah that's yeah Mark I agree with that approach from the beginning yeah that's very very way go I just I'm surprised at the amount I thought it' be a lot more yeah um and so the other one here this is where I want some feedback one of the bigger unexpected emergencies we had was mold remediation in two elementary schools and center and community house that was $164,000 and I have at this point made a recommendation in this warrant article to fund that through the operating stabilization fund as well obviously it's a draft and I'm open to any sort of con consideration you want to give to this including using free cash but that will mean we need to pull something else off because what I have here for free cash um will come close to exceeding what is potentially available although I'll know by our next meeting I it should hopefully be certified by the next meeting so that's for something to consider and or discuss okay and this would fit the uses permitted under our policy for operating stabilization fund that we should discuss I mean I believe so but I it's certainly up to you guys how you feel about it I me yeah I'm kind of hardpressed but because I know we need to do this and spend the money but I I see the stabilization operating stabilization fund is unusual expenditures that I I characterize it as Act of God and I'm not sure where the mold Falls with with that and I'd like to see what personally I'd like to see what we can do with free cash to get this money coming out of free cash I I'm just concerned as we go start borrowing money that you know everybody always says when you start attacking the stabilization fund our bond Raiders always talk about how we use that that that money and I think if we can find a way to take this from free cash rather than from the stabilization fund and I again I haven't gone through the numbers but it might be worthwhile to see what we can do and maybe there's something else that we're spending free cash on that we can move to some other source could Ian or you remind us what the amount of free cash and operational stabilization fund are right now at ballpark yeah so the estimate for free cash is $2 million I think it's going to be a little higher than that but I'll know for certain in a couple weeks in terms of what our total balances and operating stabilization I don't have that number off the top of my head I see Ian's on the um Zoom but I'm not sure if he has that number number readily available either but it's upwards of uh 7 million okay okay um I guess the question Lynn is what other things are we using proposing to use free cash for in the in the fall town meeting so here's the Quick List without going through each article um we have a backo for the DPW uh it's the backo is $230,000 that may be able to be split amongst the Enterprise funds because that work does in cover those Enterprise funds so that might be somewhere where we have some wiggle room um The Long Meadow Street Phase 2 tip design that's $400,000 uh Wolf Swamp vestibule this is to do the actual work from a capital project from two years ago this is $300,000 pole attachments this is for the municipal fiber this is the um application and design work for the system $491,000 uh MVP Grant match $65,000 $483 57 I can share with you the spreadsheet after Mark uh legal expenses for the DPW lawsuit we need another 175,000 curbside recycling carts 630,000 ad Adu bylaw Grant match $18,100 and uh additional funds are needed for the Long Meadow Street stre L project easements of $263,000 so what is not on that list is fully funding OPB um I don't have any bills of Prior year yet we've put out a couple calls to department heads I don't think there will be any but that's rare that there wouldn't be but we don't have any as of now uh and so the bulk of the rest of the warrant is that quick list I just gave you here uh and then the other thing that I do not have funding for in free cash is the balance that's needed to um demo the old DPW the difference of funding is $773,000 so I don't have that earmarked in here Lyn why is the backo free cash and not Capital because of the timing right now that we don't have one that's operable DPW submitted it on the capital plan I couldn't fit it in at the time and so they we had we did some moving around of equipment thinking we could limp through the next year and unfortunately it didn't work out my thought process here is that it ought to be capital and somehow that we can can borrow from this to put into Capital but it ought to be the first thing that comes out of capital next year excuse me and and when we've done these in the past equipment like this it's generally been either 50 25 25 or what you know from Enterprise funds but it would seemed to me that that that this ought to be a capital project and the fact that the timing's off I understand we need to buy something now but I don't think we should be paying for it out of free cash when we ought to be personally we ought to be paying for it out of capital and so I think that maybe this is an opportunity to you know fund it if you will but ultimately pay for it to be paid back from from free cash because we put 2% into that free cash bucket it's a new fiscal year right so it seemed to me that 2% of our of our tax revenue is going into that free cash bucket pretty quickly into excuse me to the capital bucket I apologize free cash doesn't count as local receipts so that's not fact free cash amount is not factoring into our capital budget I understand that but I'm saying I I think that the backo ought to be a capital budget expense yeah I don't disagree with you it's purely a matter of timing and the fact that capital budget is $2 million and our needs greatly exceed that so it it's really Mone but don't we have Capital Money in fiscal 2025 already it's already fully spent it's already fully accounted for so that's the money we already distributed in the spring yeah and you deferred two projects which is article three the the security cameras and the ambulance the fire truck fund and you said that there is an option for possibly funding this using Enterprise funds partially what would that yeah what would that look like I need to figure that out still because of the timing um but that's possible but I have the full amount in here so that's when when Mark was talking about instead of using the operating stabilization for the mold remediation this is where I was thinking we might be able to make that up from but I'll have more information at the next meeting okay well just as a comment in general historically we've given we spent 50% out of the capital fund for the town 25% from water stabilization fund and 25% from the store stabilization fund so if we did that that 230,000 becomes all of a sudden 115,000 from free cash with aund with half of that which is whatever it is 65,000 from each of the other Enterprise funds yeah I mean if you so that frees up 115 you have a third Enterprise fund I don't know what the balance is in that stabilization for storm water but the back ho will absolutely be used for storm water as well and is it 25 25 in which case it's 3/4 of 230 which already covers to 164 y yeah here's a question so you mentioned the Chapter 70 money being split between the schools and the DPW which is nice but I was wondering the the 125,000 for the schools that's not earmarked for anything on their budget at this point right is there any precedent for them finding funds to help like defay the cost of the mold for example because that pretty much would be very close to covering it or contributing to it so that we can have more less of a pressure on you know burden on free cash or going into operational stabilization we certainly have that conversation with them there is a um issue right now at the high school pool uh that I have had some initial conversations with them about them paying for uh we just right we will likely not have the funding in the DPW budget to to repair that um but we're still that's still exploratory right now but yes we do have those types of conversations ly the the only other concern we have is that taking money out of the operating stabilization fund has a higher burden of voting requirement y than than using free cash and so that would be my other argument for trying to make this work with out using the oper it could turn into a it could may not be but it could turn into a debate I'd rather not have it you know over over that $164,000 if we can get it out of free cash yeah go ahead J well we're talking free cash um couple of the numbers jumped out at me that 400,000 for the um the phase two stuning for route five uh can where would that be I I remember I was spending 100 grand every year on these studies a few years ago so where's this $400,000 this is the second phase uh as you'll see in the explanation I left the exact streets blank but um this just moving on to the next section theoretically okay it's Converse to I want to say the end of the green oh that's a pretty good chunk okay maybe not the chunk that needs the most um and what work is this what do you mean I mean what what's this 400,000 P for engineering and design it's the second phase the second tip project right but that project is now 2026 or Beyond right and I and I understand us wanting to be shovel ready but are we spending this money and squeezing ourselves and going to sit on this this engineering study for a year and a half based on what I keep hearing about about tip money and and and that it's another year of design so I would I would urge you to to fund it to continue that process moving forward the worst case is that we get pushed back a little a bit but the design is done um we're in the queue we're going to get the grant we we we do need to finish the design I'm not I'm not arguing that we need to do the design I'm wondering if if we need to spend the money that can potentially be used for something else and still get the design done in time for the when the tip project comes through we risking not having it done with it with us being to tip it's it's always a risk you're right but you know I'm I've just got to say that from what I'm hearing and I go to all the mo meetings we're gonna we're going to have this study done and put aside and when we wish we'd spent the money on something else the current L project which is going to start within a year we're still taking easement for we're still working on so even knowing we're going to start it's still a rush to get done so I just i' urge you to to find it I have one question Just For Education sake did you mention in this free cash list recycling bins for 630,000 next question we've bought those or we need to buy them not yet um so this is a little bit of cart before the horse here uh as you know we've been out to bid for curbside trash hauling um we have been in negotiations and um a bid award was given to waste management we're I don't have a contract signed yet which is why I haven't included it in my town manager report um but uh we evaluated all proposals and the least costly proposal that we felt was most advantageous to the town was automated curbside which includes both trash and recycling so our current toter are automated available for automated they have the bar on the front we do not have recycling toter that are automated and so this is funding the purchase of those recycling toter for automation it will say um we exhaustedly looked at this and the 5-year proposal including the purchase of these carts is still much less than what we're what all the other proposals were and at least the first two maybe three years are less than what we're currently paying so the just to sum up the bid the advantageous bid even when you add in that we have to buy 600 plus thousand of extra toor we come out ahead yes I think we should put that in here I mean my those are none of our carts are that old right this isn't replacing your Cent In addition for the recycling these will be blue instead of or green or something these are for just recycling I'm sorry yeah sorry and and I think that these recycling bins are going to be three times larger than the trash bin so it's much it'll mixed so you put paper and no they'll be every other week screen I see so my followup is when you look at the very important list of very important priorities that you gave us if for for example just for the argument sake we said let's we don't want to touch operational stabilization um is there anything on this list that you would consider of a lesser priority if we wanted to fund the mold out of free cash the mold repair remediation of free cash or is everything time sensitive and um yeah I mean it's hard to say what spring town meeting will look like but yeah I was really disappointed with the legal expense one that was an unexpected one um I expressed my disappointment to the attorneys uh those bills are staggering so that was not one I was expecting let's say that that was the last thing we spent on legal how much will that all cost us about a million dollars I'm the wrong practice that's that's a lot and that's and the the cat and mouse game we've been playing is really frustrating I guess Lyn it begs the question what would we what would have happened if we didn't have the level of free cash we do have because we're we're fortunate to some degree to have free cash to be able to do these projects but if we didn't have the free cash yeah we'd be doing some serious triage here yeah yeah things would deteriorate for sure you know and and one thing as as I asked that question my answer would be having been intimately involved in the trash process in the trash contract is you know it is and and we won't get into the specific numbers because we can't yet but it is so advantageous for us to go to automated recycling along with automated trash that I would find a way to to bond that and pay for it out of the operating budget over time if we needed to because that's how that's how much money the town is actually saving by going to fully automated trash collection both Recycling and trash and I'm not suggesting we do that but if the if the free cash hadn't been there for those carts or isn't there for the carts it's it's essential that we do that because in the long haul as you know Lynn and i' like to impress on the select board members it saves the town a lot a lot of money and we can get into the details of how much that a lot of money is when we got the contract signed but it's a lot of money obviously if you can justify $635,000 of bins to go to fully automated you can imagine how much we're saving the to so I don't I don't know if that's an option but are you saying you you think we should do that at no I'm not because we have the money but but but if it's if it's Bond part of that perhaps and pay for that bond out of our trash contract or ban it or whatever it is to get some favorable rates maybe we we need I mean there's a lot of options here for funding these these things and like I said if we didn't have this $2 million free cash value you know for the most part we try to figure out a way to bond all these to to pay for all these these items that Lyn identified and I think we need to find a way to do that yeah just following up on the on the mold remediation money where is it going to come from so one followup is let's say we said let's put this warn on here for the operational stabilization fund it requires 2third vote let's say it fails then where will we get the money to pay for it free cash um no we wouldn't have it available for us because we've spent it on everything else um we would but it's already been done so we owe the bill right yeah uh what's happening is the bulk of it's coming already out of the DPW operating budget but because it was the start of the fiscal year there was funds available but yeah it's not a great right it's not been budgeted for it's coming out of money that's been earmarked for other things okay um so I know you want to keep moving along on this and I what you do not see here in this warrant and it's why Sean is here tonight is you have a pavement conversation which is a potential bonding of a large um pavement program and if you decide to move that forward that would then turn into a warrant article okay but that is not on this tonight okay and then the rest of the warrant makes up the bylaws that we've discussed in previous meetings yeah Josh uh except for the citizen petition which I I think I've heard from a lot of people that are very interested in this and would like it to be moved to be heard early uh to avoid Child Care problems or at least limit them so I would propose we put the citizen petition at article two last year when we had this discussion with the town moderator about moving articles of public interest up didn't we talk about kind of like that sweet spot being like articles seven eight at annual at annual yes because at annual we have it's after the budget I don't I mean I'm I'm not married to two but I there's no like there's no logical place otherwise uh in here at the annual yes I think you have the housekeeping things then you do the budget and then you do the capital expenditures and then you put it in there but um yeah if we want to put it five is fine to me also um definitely before we start getting into uh all the the free cash uh allocations yeah oh yeah I guess you're right because like you want people to have time to get in but I think there's going to be some discussion about Center school so I forgot about you know yeah I think maybe five I think five I think that sounds good I think I think it is important to have articles of public interest higher to give folks a chance to vote on it um so i' I'd be in favor of moving the S petition up as well and then I think the other one is if we can move the two fiber articles up yeah that's what I was going to interject yeah um and the and the with that it's important I think to have the Municipal Light plan article before the pole application design engineering I did do I fixed it yeah cuz we can't spend money before we even right Point that's fixed yeah so okay and the same with the ambulance we're resending the vote on the borrowing for the ambulance and then we're moving to transfer the money that's later on you'll see it in here okay perfect yeah so maybe if we do like this s petition five and then may the fire16 7 something like that I'll I'll work it that way you guys can see at the next meeting and decide if you like where it's placed that sounds great just put a not in I guess the question though bath is have we decided to if we want to do mold remediation out of out of the you know the stabilization fund or out of free cash well I think I was looking to see what Lynn would you know she said she was going to look at the backo and how we could possibly fund that and come back with that information at the next meeting and then we could decide because it's open question for me too but I want mean if three4 of the backo comes out of stabiliz you know Enterprise funds that's $175,000 $170,000 that more than covers it if we do that and that would be great I personally but the question is do we have the the sewer stabilization fund has big dollars in it the water was the one that was tight right and I think I think the the storm water Enterprise fund has significant amount of money in it because we keep putting money in every year and never take any money out so um it's it's the water stabilization that has an issue I think does it does it have to be evenly split among the Enterprise funds I me yeah maybe that's a way to J me a little bit I know to me it does if if taking inside putting inside the bond discussion and how that affects uh our rating I think it is an emergency because people get sick we had to get the school started it had to be done right away we had to bring in a contractor um so I I think if we if the bond if there's no bond consideration i' say yeah that's an emergency we had to do it right away it was something that uh happened maybe because we had faulty equipment but it was still uh nobody expected it um but I would like to hear more on how it affect our bond rating and if and if we don't have to do it at all I think that's that's probably the best cuz yeah that money is uh you know there's always another disaster around the corner sadly so if we could avoid it yeah but if we have to I I think that there's certainly an argument to be made that it is an emergency yeah I will double check all that I um do not believe taking $200,000 out of a $7 million stabilization fund is going to have any impact on our bond rating I would be shocked if it did right I I I would agree with you but again if we didn't have this money available to us the first thing place I'd go is because it meets the precise definition Andrew of the fund that the finance committee has the reserve fund the reserve fund actually now they only have $50,000 they have 20 okay they only have 20 now no they've always only had 20 oh okay I thought no so it's it's not a lot but it's money that it I mean this the precise definition after the after the budget's been completed there's an emergency that needs to be spent okay so we might want to consider all or part of that as well well yeah look forward to talk to those options at our next meeting anything else on the warrant I'm just thinking of the recycling piece again and I'm just wondering what but uh what what can we do can we can we is there a market out there for the for the old maybe there's another town oh no we're keeping the old bins we're keeping the old bins yeah add you're going to need those bins because if you have split stream yeah you you you're filling up with um paper one week you're gonna have to put your cans in something else which you do now but uh yeah talk about it getting a new think business idea my my bins are destroyed like this is uh it's it's interesting but they they came destroyed with the house but we can just put East in front of the long sell East long no that's when I when I said we our bins aren't that old I was thinking of East Long meow cuz I take out my mom's trash she's got the bin but they got the small ones just saying maret all right I I think more to come on trash recycling um all right anything else if not we can move forward with our pavement Bond discussion and then Lynn are do you want to start this one off or sorry I did have one more thing actually I'm sorry on uh article 24 I I don't remember we somebody asked if our the Middle School building committee was going to meet was this you Lyn somebody asked if it if the Middle School oh the specialized stretch code it would meet the specialized stretch code the answer was yes Andrew I think oh Andrew yes and I also heard that same thing from uh armont Ray who said it was literally in the Architects I said can I quote you on that he goes yeah it's literally in the report they gave me so that's good to know for sure because that's that's how you get all the the federal refunds to by meeting I also read um Andrea chasing I asked for more information she gave me a whole bunch of material and one of the things I read was that historical structures are exempt and I was wondering if that might have you heard of that and would that also apply to renovation of the community house or the town hall sometime I don't know I'll ask I'll get some more information on that and see because that would change the outlook for those buildings to be honest because there certainly probably would fall under that that would get us to the point where this would really only AFF new M of buildings that we do not have many of well one thing I did you know how Mark was saying accurately that the stretch code has changed you know as years go on it becomes more um more requirements more stringent I didn't you know as I've talked about this issue with people in town I think and I think you'd all agree one of the concerns is that you know we don't want people who are just doing a typical remodel which is very common in our community to have like cost they become too onerous and I just didn't know if right now there's it's essentially only if you make a remodel or renovation of 4,000 square ft would you would you fall under this which is not which is difficult bar to to overcome wouldn't affect many people but I don't know over the years uh if like for example our experience with the uh stretch code was that that's they would like for example drop it down to like you know something of 3,000 ft or 2,000 feet over time and I I believe that the community could if it ever became too honorous could say you know what we changed our mind we're not going to apply comply with that anymore it would be very far obviously from most people who just do normal kitchen renovations and stuff but there are definitely a lot of old homes in Long meow we don't want you know renov remodeling is happening all the time um so I was just thinking maybe of asking or learning more about the history of these things as they basically change as the years go on with how more how they become more stringent essentially yeah any any I would be pretty surprised because that also feels against the spirit of what they're trying to do with you know the the specialized stretch code and and the stretch code where I think they're very thoughtful it's very thoughtful and not making it financially burdensome for things like minor you know for renovations or additions I think it is about putting the onus on and ities that can't afford okay to do it um but worth looking into but I think I'd be pretty surprised great um gr anything else oh and just a follow along for Josh's uh recognition that the middle school is included as already planned for the specialized code it was also the point was made to me that it doesn't cost us any more because of Grants essentially which was a very important thing yeah it was it's not we're not going to pay more for the middle school because of this improved more energy saving code all right pavement bonding ly yeah so if you um recall several meetings ago um you had received a pavement management update and there was conversation about um potentially doing a large bonding so that we could see what it would look like to really try to tackle some of the Deferred maintenance on roadways but also um potentially put something out that would make it a more favorable bid so that it could line up a company for several construction years and putting it out at a time of year when uh we could potentially get better prices so um Shan worked with uh the engineering firm that we've been using for this work and they've provided some possibilities here for you to think about uh and so Sean can go through in more detail about what some of this might mean and some of the considerations that have been discussed internally uh and then you know we're looking for some guidance from you guys not necessarily tonight but you know if it's something you want to pursue for the fall town meeting you would need to give us that direction by October 21st so that we could build the warrant article to include um you also don't have to do anything this fall you can take it under advisement and consider something for the spring um but there is quite a bit of design work that would need to go into this this is not like we're ready to go out to bid in the next two months right close close yeah I think it'd be interesting to get the cost of the design work certainly you know and I don't know whether we do that in house or we have to fund that fund that separately the other my personal opinion is that on a macro scale interest rates are coming down and if we wait a little bit we may be better off as a as a town on the other hand our roads are pretty tough shape and we need we need to get it done and so there's got to be a balance there somewhere but I guess the question is you know if you if we could go forward with this immediately what's the earliest we could do it and so the question is wouldn't we wait to bond it if we think interest rates are going down and they seem to be wouldn't we wait to bond it later you know accept it in principle but not do the bonding until we think we've got better interest rates but be shovel ready they yeah why don't we have Sean walk you through how they got to this list and what design they already have it's it's a little NE and complicated which will cause a lot of questions so we actually pretty close to being able to go to bid it would just be a matter of getting some of the data putting the bid documents with some nuance and some feedback from you guys that I would need about some of the roads um a lot of this has to to do with what's under the roads too trying to figure out what we're going to do for projects long term for the water and for sewer as well as storm water um that's important because we don't want to go and fully rebuild the road if we're going to come back in five or six years and do a water main project that's just bad use of funds unfortunately some of these roads like Shaker can't wait five or six years for us to come back in and do the water M so if we do decide to move forward with these projects we we do need some direction in terms of what the long-term plans are for the water and sewer side as well um so this more questions um that are going to come up as we go through this but what we did was take a look at some of the larger roads in town that affect the rideability for most the town obviously Shaker's one of them um which is why it's up there some of the people in this room have had some issues with their cars um driving in Shaker um so we we get we get calls about that road constantly um as well as Lomo street so you'll see that portion of Lao street is not associated with the two tip projects we have and there's no plan in the out years we think we're going to a grand funding for it so that number five Long Middle Street is the other um large Connector Road that hopefully melts into our other two projects Emerson and  um those two roads are pretty beat up mostly driven by our water main projects that have happened so there should be consideration if you move forward those projects to utilize some of the water Enterprise funds to cover the cost of the the paving um grassy gutter needs work um but underneath it has substantial storm water issues so we need to kind of get some feed back about our long-term plans for that too in larger projects that are affecting the storm water system um pwns side's in really bad shape obviously doesn't have a lot of traffic on it um from from town like the other roads but it's it's rough and I want everyone to keep in mind when these roads fall apart in the conditions they are we have to put a tremendous amount of Labor into them to put asphalt down to patch as well as increased amounts of salt so there's a cost associated with not maintaining the roads it also beats up our plow equipment and cost money and repairs to equipment um so that's some of the thought process for why some of these roads appeared here Belair and Twin Hills these are obviously roads in really rough shape they appeared on the payment management plan um so there's there's more thought that went into it than I can break down in a couple minutes tonight but this is a just a ballpark idea of what we came up with in house and going through the payment management plan as well as trying not to have projects conflict with other projects we know are coming in the out years and that are going to waste Town resources um so um go ahead this is all be to do work next year so to what Mark was talking about before it's really advantageous and Incredibly important in terms of the cost of these projects to get them out to bid with a low interest rate if you can along with early early on the year before the work is actually to start so a contractor can come in give a super low bid and help fill out portion of their construction season and you're not going against every other town trying to get those contractors so the bid timing and interest rates and that that sort of bidding environment play a major role in the prices as well as the price of oil um which people don't really realize when they see a road being paid but those those factors play a huge um um they're hugely important in terms of the overall cost it could drive this project from 8 million to 6 million within just couple A month's time of bidding and a little bit of change in the price of oil it's it's crazy works but it happens so all right we can be out to bid in a month and a half two months if we were to have money right now but what is the intention for all this to be done next year in one year okay and this is obviously much more than we would normally spend in one year yes um and what kind of uh I Ian wants to talk about this or when what kind of bond are we looking at for this I'm going to defer to Ian on this because I believe he was working on this today there's an email you have with I was doing the warrant so that's hopefully Ian can answer this and just while Ian's queuing up just some context here as a reminder your chapter 90 allotment every year is about or ours is about 480,000 and the capital plan generally is around 700,000 for roads so combine those two we we can maybe do Emerson and before you get started I want to emphasize this is just playing catchup through inflationary pressures the last five to s years we've lost the ability to do about or about half the capacity of our work in terms of where that money's gone so just so everyone understands so those other funds though are separate from what we're what we're talking about that annually we're doing like 1.3 when I know the numbers of Paving the 1.3 and we're and we're falling yeah so we could use it on top of that or would it be or you could say this is next year's P something else that's it's to you guys or it could pay the bond premium and sorry um so the number five Bliss to wheel Meadow didn't we just talk about the second tip project covering that the two tip projects get us to Bliss okay so doesn't go to the P the green or anything maybe it hits a little bit some of that area might need um there's Nuance in this design some areas that are wicked bad might need a little bit of a thin course to hold this through until that that construction season starts so I have to go through the details with engineering but there's some places there might be a little overlap oh when you said to the end of the green I guess we were all thinking of the other you mean the end of the proximal end of the green okay so this would take us Converse to Bliss and then this okay got it that portion of long medal street is another tip project but we're probably 15 years away from it so we need something to carry us forward got it okay before we go to Ian oh why don't we go go ahead Ian and then I'll ask questions he's muted there we go sorry about that um my I did send you an email of the summary that I shared with Sean it might be helpful just to show the S board what I'm talking about so I'm not just randomly setting numbers at everyone yep I'll pull it up right now I just have to enable my screen casual he's somewhere sunnier than you or maybe that's just the background I've never seen him out of a scit I know I'm sorry sorry just for marking I'm happy for you so basically what uh I helped Sean with today just to give you a sense of what we're looking at is I tried to do a range so this schedule here will show and um the pavement borrowing summary Mike it should be you scroll down it's that one yep I'm just reconnecting my screen yep that's fine perfect so with the two draft amounts I try to give an idea as to if we were to borrow say 50% 75% or 100% of the two different estimates and what that would look like in terms of monthly payment annual Debt Service and estimated tax impact so thank you thank you Mike good so looking at the first draft and the numbers the assumptions here are 15-year borrowing as recommended by the DLS um DLS borrowing terms and a 5 and a half% interest rate which is conservative because I didn't want to use a lower interest rate just to see what the worst case scenario would be in terms of highest interest cost so using the 100% um if you scroll down like I'm not sure if you can see it on your end but this would be what the assessment is for um different residents at different real estate levels so at 100% And if you scroll back up because this is the second draft just sticking with the first draft for now so we're looking at about $80,000 of debt service on a monthly basis or about a million do of annual Debt Service and that would uh increase the tax rate by about 32 which would increase the tax rate to about $21 from the $268 it's currently at um this would increase the average single family tax bill about $161 and I kind of show below the change that would be for different real estate values so a house at $250,000 all the way up to $550,000 and this is at 100% so what you can see here is if we only borrowed half per se it would be half the increase for a single family bill but this is a helpful way to see what the total impact would be if we were to borrow the full amount Andrew um so Ian you don't necessarily have to you know maybe for the next meeting you can prepare something but I think it would be very helpful for us to see how like a schedule of our current depth obligations with anticipation of two big ones like if we had the Middle School in the fiber it's 20 plus million right there and what all of these together are going to do to our annual Debt Service amount and what what does that look like because I mean on on one hand you know 8.1 million isn't a big number when you put it next to like all these other things but if you come to us with a report and saying okay you know the middle school is so much obviously it's a project we all believe is very important and worth doing but that's going to put us out of policy for the select board's goal of you know keeping annual death Service as a percentage of the budget under control we should know because to to what extent that might put us out of our ideal policy because that might influence if or when we would do it do the bonding for this or it would influence what do we do 50% 70% or 100% of the bonding you know um so maybe you could prepare something showing the debt obligations and their time they come on come off I know there will be some projections in there obviously but I think that would be helpful for a conversation next meeting Mark thanks I guess my my concern is the 15 years borrowing for roads uh you know and I I hear heard what you said that it's somebody's standard but frankly I'm not sure we've ever had roads that have gone 15 years without needing some additional work on them and I'd hate to see us still paying the bond off on on roads that long after we've uh you know they they've done their useful life and I I don't have a obviously an alternative is something less than 15 years that raise the cost on the other hand I think 5 half% interest rates are very very conservative thankfully because of what we've been and where we where we've been and so you know that that that's my only concern I I just don't know I think we need better numbers the the difference between 9.7 or 9.8 million first draft and 8.1 million the second draft and Sean saying if we bid it right we can get it down a lot more it is more important to me than uh you know than the $80,000 a month or 960,000 a year if I can add that whatever we get the allotment to bond obviously we're not going to pull it all down unless we had a project that cost that um it's very difficult to get better numbers in this they probably got 10% contingency factored in but I want to add if we're staying in the out years I need you know some input from you guys that we've had several water main brakes on Shaker if we're going to do the water main break the water line and Shaker we would do a much smaller this these are full depth repairs there is complete um rebuilds if we decid we're doing the water main on Shaker in 5 years we would do a Band-Aid on top of that road to let it ride without wasting too much funds so that number would come down um additionally obviously Emerson could be utilized the the the funds from the water department if there is any water Enterprise if there is any left um the typical life expectancy of a road is 20 years after you do a little bit of U maintenance like cracking and stuff you get 25 out of it most of our roads were repaving now like 40 years old so 15 years I think is is reasonable in terms of the construction methodology we're using to have them last that long to your point but um this is these numbers are they're they're not going to get a lot lot better we have to have contingency built into them so I I don't know that we'll get much better until we open bids yeah um well I guess first I just want to say I mean I think everyone on the board here's for I mean I've been on for two and a half years and and even just living in town I mean I hear from everybody when I was door knocking all over town every everyone I talk to not everyone but a lot of people said the roads are terrible and I know firsthand because I've had an incident with with my vehicle um but I just feel like we need to listen to the residents and I feel like we need to deliver on going big for a road repavement I feel like we we've waited way too long we keep using the same um I think Lynn mentioned like 1.3 or you know whatever the state's giving us plus the 400k plus annually from the town I think we need to go big um obviously we need to be smart about it but everywhere you go if you're on the selectboard you hear about roads and I think that's something that we need to listen to the residents and actually deliver on um so I fully support doing this but obviously we want to be cost sensitive the only other question question that I really had was for the um if we're looking at the numbers so to Lynn's Point earlier when you said 1.3 um are we talking about we could use that number towards these monthly payments as well and then further make a reduction which would help homeowners as yeah so when we originally talked about this um we one of the scenarios had been using capital the the capital um annual Capital contribution to pay the debt service on this so that was one of the scenarios um that's not what you're seeing on the screen here okay CU I'm I'm looking at as if we took like 50% of that 1.3 help pay down we have a reduction on the the taxes that individuals or homeowners are paying it might help offset some of the costs but is that how I'm understanding it so what you're seeing here is if there was an override a Deb excluded override which is different than what our prior conversations had been so this is if we went to the voters and said do you agree to raise your taxes over and above 2 and a half% to cover roadway improvements that that's that scenario I don't think it would reduce anyone's taxes so it would just be using cap funds for Debt Service instead of for actual projects right right that like yeah we would be borrowing a big amount of money to get projects done and using that small amount of money and capital that we had prior pre previously been using for road projects we'd be using it to pay interest y on the big project although it's a way for us to get a lot of work done quicker I think that so I Dan 100% agree with you and but I had a lot of the same questions along with what Andrew is saying because in theory this is something we'd want to do every year let's every year let's take a big swing no oh yeah 8 million yeah oh yeah please let's do it but because this is a way for us to spend a little bit every year and get a lot of work done but we can't do it every year and we're gonna um so we still have to be one of the biggest things I I in my time on the board a lot of what the Our Town departments have to do is reactive because we there's been so many years of kicking the down the road and we're stuck with fixing things that should have been addressed much earlier and this is a great attempt at being proactive which I what I've really been an advocate for and I'm glad we're we're doing it I just want us to I would like to see a projection on how along with what Andrew was saying how is this going to fit in and what based on other roads how many times are we gonna have to do something like this and how quickly can we get these bonds off of our plate in order to bring on new ones um because you if we this would take us under our normal spending eight years to do this work and in eight years um 20 other roads have become unusable so I agree with this approach I just want to I want to see how it's going to uh all mesh together and with our with our long-term plans the most visible things in our town our schools and our roads and they the money for those often clashes and uh and so I'm I'm really glad we're taking uh we've been talking about this for a while now I'm glad we're we're thinking about it and I I want to see how it plays out but I I think that taking a big swing like this is really smart and uh you know this drives people crazy so I'm glad we can I hope we can do something about that one one go ahead I'm sorry go ahead Andrew I think another point that I was going to make which I think we all would agree to do this smart in a smart way when you as you Revis this I do think that and I think you're seeking this guidance I think that if you have a situation where you think the sewers the water mains underneath that road need to be done in five years then it would behoove us to make a plan that allows us to invest what is necessary to get us to that point but not like put millions of dollars into the road and then tear it up again so I mean I think that those I mean I would personally encourage you to do that and present that to us it would take 10 minutes to to alter the the it's not a big lift it's more a matter of whether or not you guys are saying yeah we we plan on addressing the water infrastructure and we need to do this road in 5 years because if we're not then we need to do it correctly and then we'll fix the Band-Aids on it and that's fine that's just a decision that I shouldn't be making in a house that should be coming from the voters and from you guys and uh so I I want to I I want to thank Lynn and Sean and Ian for looking into the this and bringing this to us because when we were talking about our annual town meeting warrant back in April and we were having the discussion about road paving I you know I said there has to be better way to do this than the way we're doing it right now and that I would I asked you all to come up with some ideas and and present some different ways to do this and I thank you for for bringing us options um because hearing things like these roads that we have are 40 years old right I mean that really puts into persp perspective how our roads have been neglected and how we have not gone about maintaining them or caring for them in a smart proactive manner um and this is the same story that we had with water Ms and so you know um Andrew when you when you say that we you know we should look at this list and see if there are any water mans that need repair in the next 5 years that's going to be true basically anywhere around town right all of our water Ms are basically 80 to 100 years old um and so what I will say is that I think what Sean you're asking for is if we if we are going to possibly use water rates or to pave these roads that you want a a signal from the select board that we are going to be aggressive in replacing water mains and that would be my preferred approach my preferred approach would be to use water rates to replace these water s and then to use that uh use the uh funds to then pave the roads afterwards that brings down right the amount that we have to bond I also think that the I like the approach of instead of putting that money Capital money towards roads every year to put that towards Debt Service um I think that also makes sense uh because I do think that we have some big big borrowing coming up and I think at least uh in these next few years we can kind of be careful but also get started on this in a meaningful way Mark did you have your hand yeah I did I you know what I see here is a is great Sean but I think what I'm looking for and I I thought I heard this in Josh but maybe not was really A Five-Year Plan in other words if we do this next year what are we going to do the second year third year and fourth year and fifth year and how are we going to pay for it you know and and is is that second through fifth years going to be at that $1.1 million which is chapter 90 plus additional capital or is it going to be reduced because we want to use some of that money for bonding for for paying off this Bond and I think that's the best way for me at least to look at at at what this looks like because there's not a road here that that I disagree with but I will comment and and you should hear hear this and I think others should hear it that a couple of years ago uh Glen Brook Road was a was a disaster and I think a bunch of people brought it up to you and I don't know what was done but it was clear that they skimmed it it's best job they ever did it's lasted and it it's in terrible location shade and sun and all this kind of stuff and it's been two years and it's great and so you know I don't think anybody was asking to dig up and replace the water Ms but I at least got a good sense that there are skim coats and then there are skim coats and some of them are you know a tenth the cost or you know a fifth of the cost and will last almost as long and there are other times we want to do a full depth and I think it behooves people to to understand that I I wouldn't have thought that would work until I saw what went on at at Glenbrook and I'm sure you've noticed that as well it last it's it's been phenomenal each one of those situations is dependent upon the base and what it's being skimmed on and the subbase and the traffic and so every Road's a little bit different in terms of it so we have that payment management software that was presented must been two years ago now almost a year and a half ago now if you want to know what the oute costs are it's really easy based upon what was presented in terms of what a good road um maintenance program would be and the numbers were associated were presented that night if you do this this large um sort of fix we would then input that data in our payment management software and it would adjust the numbers in the oute to say what we would be able to spend which would be greatly reduced but it's far more than the 1.3 or million we're getting and if we continue operating in that in that amount of money we're going to keep falling further and further behind um that is not going to we're going to be in a worse situation because the cost of doing this these projects continue to rise so we're losing ground every year so if we continue that 1.3 you're going to have a much bigger mess so so this isn't just one year you're going to come back to us next year or the year after with another what I'm going to come back to you is a capital program similar to was presented last last year saying we need 2 million or we need this or we have a combination of tip projects and multiple grants that are making up that number of let's just say it's a $ 1.8 million dollar annual to keep up our roads but if you don't keep up with that set amount of money there are ramifications that that's just the way it is if you don't fix a roof in your house it'll leak I mean decisions are it's hard decisions but that's the truth one really piece of this equation that we we sort of touched on a little bit is that very soon you're going to get the water um Capital plan presented to you and as we've talked about before fixing the water M you have to dig up the road you then repair the road as part of that project so I think that's a really important piece of this conversation because otherwise yeah I I don't see how it's sustainable to do $8 million um bonds every single year for roadways it which is we that won't last for long we won't be able to do that but is it sustainable to put $5 million into water repairs every year when you know that's also includes the water system and the roads I mean cuz water rates will just keep going up yeah I mean at some point there's a limit on that as well yeah I guess we all have to ask ourselves that hard question is what are we okay with living with you know what what do we want to have happen do we are we okay with 80 and 100 year old pipes in the ground maybe we are maybe we are okay with that or maybe we're okay with that in certain scenarios with a plan in place for the next 3 to 5 years and others these are not easy decisions I guess my last question Sean is how do we get this $8.1 million down to your $6 million LEL so I can go back and I'll adjust some of the numbers on Shaker and stuff assuming we are going to be doing the water mains and um and see see what we can do with tonage and stuff there's got to be contingency in these bids and these numbers though at least but is isn't there somebody out there who says the time to bid it is the second week in February absolutely so I absolutely believe that might happen and we'll save a million if we give it a year but I have to assume the number is going to be what we have I'm just thinking about somebody who who really knows pavement management who says bids that go out in February 8th always get the lowest price because of as opposed to don't bid it on July 8th because that's everybody's well I like to hope that's me Mark but um but the um us but but there's not an exact date it's very volatile and it's always changing I mean it's contingent upon overseas oil markets it's not that simple but I can promise you as someone that was a contractor for many years you want to give those contractors a long time a long leeway to get the bid in and there is risk involved because there's volatility but the longer they have the project and the larger the number the better the price great anything else so the question is is this going to be are we going to put it something like this on the 12 Town Meeting warrant that that's that isn't that the intent here well I think I I think it' be to get like a report from Ian about a little bit more about our debt service for the next meeting that's still be time right we can put on the warrant now me we haven't said it yet yeah I mean but also I mean we we've just received all this information I think we can also think about it and we meeting Sean you're going to make some updates as well I have update numbers on S in a couple days so for our purposes work wide I'll work with Sean and Ian to get a warrant article together based on a lot of the feedback here tonight it's easier for you guys to say no or make an amendment to it than it is for us to create something that night so at least you'll have something to look at yeah and um and and so the three roads that you said upcoming water main projects potentially were the first three right sh we did Emerson already oh right right so the question is whether or not you can you have the funds in the water Enterprise to cover the road that we need to pave now right okay so really we're looking at Shaker and okay so shaker has not been done yet that would be 5 to six years out at the minimum can I ask one more question actually um if we use the 1.8 annual budget or whatever it is for debt 1.3 for Debt Service okay and I understand that that's your Paving budget do you ever would that preclude us from like taking care of emergencies that came up or issues does that money ever mon for like something that had to be done the road would it hamstring you basically for years because all the money is going into debt service so yeah if you don't keep up this this gets us caught up and then that hopefully that 1.3 or more would maintain an a road management plan that's well we're kind of talking about maybe using all that for Debt Service Mone will be gone you might be able to do that for a year but because you have a big year we're not Paving that year with that normal and the reason I ask about this because it's kind of like Ian's three proposes like do we borrow half of it 75% 100% of it it might if we're going to use some of that money some of this money for a death service it might behoove us to to borrow 50% you're not 100% right so that you'll still have something that's it's really up to you guys um where did we get the 50% Ean G right you get the other 50% right there was only one scenario to me there borrow it all we we'll bring you back that menu of options because the other thing is if we go out to bid right now we don't have Capital to use to pay that Bond right now whenever the bond is called I'm not sure when what the first payments do that capital is already committed somewhere else so we let us do some work on the timing of this and give you some ideas yeah and and so the 1.3 that we keep talking about that's the combination of our of capital funds that we typically put towards Paving plus chapter 90 correct but I thought in a previous discussion someone had said that we cannot use chapter 90 funds towards service um I will need to verify that correct yeah I think that sounds right my understanding to okay because because that's why that's why I was saying if we're having this this discussion it should be about committing Capital funds towards Debt Service because I don't think we can do chapter 90 and chapter 90 would kind of be that extra do you know what percentage of the 1.3 is generally chapter 90 $480,000 so maybe that helps us with this discussion about you know I mean helps us guide us what we can what we can and and how much money we'd have for roads even if we did this project for annual changes so I think we're really looking at 700ish th000 yeah and outside of the capital we also have Debt Service built into the budget completely separate from Capital so what Ian and I will do is run some scenarios to see what we can absorb within that if anything yeah great yeah D just maybe a crazy thought here but I I would keep looking at pondside Road and you know I go down to the Meadows pretty often but I just feel like if if that and that road is terrible by the way but I'm just I'm just wondering like that you know folks will say if the road is so bad maybe people will slow down there's a lot of pedestrians and bikers um bird watchers um so I'm just wondering to Mark's Point earlier Glen Brook Lane you know which cuts through um over to inest um from Merryweather I'm just wondering and I'm not a pavement expert but if we could look at pide and maybe focus on patching and skim coating or whatever you want to call it and maybe then focus on a road that is used more heavily you know for cars just I'm just thinking of ponside and what it is in the the pide used to get a lot of truck stand remember when the dpw's down there they still do my guys are hiding down there all the time sorry but I think Daniel is saying is like the greatest good for the greatest number of people or or Road in this way yeah I I twisted my ankle once running down there though definitely it needs to be fixed but I'm just saying sure that's a great example so you're going to do a halfway job anywhere that's the place to do it yeah yeah yeah oh that's that's a great idea yep great um well I I think um in terms of next steps we've kind of talked about what uh we want to discuss at our next meeting right okay great so thank you Sean for joining us yeah thank you yeah thank you thank you Ian all right now we are moving on to street closure applications uh move that we approve the uh street closure application for I lost it uh ducksbury lanee for October 13 2024 second any further discussion all those in favor great I'll move that we approve the street closure application for uh longm Street East of the green for October 26 2024 second any further discussion all those in favor great and now one- day liquor license application uh on move we approved the LA CCF one day liquor license applications for events at the adult center November 7th 2024 and November 21st 2024 second any further discussion all those in favor all those opposed and moving on to correspondence anybody have any comments about any correspondence all right oh yeah I just had one um as pleased to see the approval of the pollinator garden and uh yeah Mike that was well done I'm looking forward to seeing what what they put up there yeah I agree thank you Mike that was Karen who drafted that too and you're very humble thank you thank you K all right anything else motion to adjourn I'll second s okay any further discussion all right all those in favor all right great thank you everyone thank you