##VIDEO ID:dwR-Caz2UOQ## you can help analyze the images after the eclipse eclipse soundscapes people have different reactions to viewing eclipses and animals do too if you're in the path of totality and you'll be surrounded by animals NASA wants you to listen for and record those soundscapes will the bird stop singing will crickets start chirping Eclipse soundscapes will revisit an eclipse study from almost a hundred years ago that showed that animals and insects are affected by solar eclipses NASA is looking for people like you to collaborate with them citizen scientists have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries be sure to visit NASA's eclipses and citizens science website to learn more an impending Eclipse will be across the entire country the eclipse will land in Mexico and cross the entire United States leaving millions in Wonder and awe are you close to to the path of totality how much of the eclipse will you be able to see how long will totality last where you are when does it start cuz you don't want to miss it where will you be [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we wanted to use Shadows to tell the story about the Eclipse which is all about a huge Shadow if you would like to make your own shadow puppet stories here's how you can try this at home Shadows are really interesting on the International Space Station the temperature can change 400° between light and Shadow Shadows are how we experience eclipses and they can be a lot of fun to play with we're going to make a shadow puppet theater you will need a few simple supplies cardboard box thin cardboard like a cereal box or cardb stock tracing paper an xacto knife scissors a hole punch Brads tape a template for your puppets or you can draw your own long skinny sticks and a light source decide what kind of puppet you want to make we've decided to make a dog using the cereal box we're going to draw our design and cut out the puppet pieces next tape sticks to the back of your puppet to put the puppet together punch holes and put Brads where the joints are this will allow the puppets to move to make your Puppet Theater measure the size of your tracing paper and cut a hole in the cardboard box that can be covered by paper ask an adult for help if you need to our tracing paper is 11x 14 in and we've decided to cut an 8X 10 in hole next tape your tracing paper over the hole in your cardboard box place a light source Behind Your Puppet Theater you can use a flashlight desk light or even a bright window put your puppet between the light source and the tracing paper to make your shadow puppet come alive put your puppet close to the tracing paper then pull it away to see how the Shadows change use the sticks to make it move once your theater and puppets are created you can experiment with different designs try telling a story with your puppets and look at how the light and shadows interact some folks write poetry some sing songs and others make art Alma Thomas was often inspired ired by the space program and in 1970 she may have witnessed a total solar eclipse later she produced Eclipse as one of her space paintings the eclipse is from her series space paintings which includes at least 15 Works covering topics from rocket launches to sunsets Thomas found her source of inspiration in daily life and although we cannot conf confirm that Thomas saw it a total solar eclipse was visible in the United States on March 7th 1970 Thomas's bright colors and bold circular patterns give a dynamic tone appropriate for the fleeing drama of a total solar eclipse and the emanating light of the solar Corona whether you paint draw or take pictures here are some ways that you can make your own Eclipse art [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] beyond the awe and wonder of an eclipse do you know what it is a great excuse to wear awesome glasses not only that but it's also a lot of fun here are a few fun ways to view the eclipse [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this is the second total solar eclipse to pass across the United States in the last 7 years in 2017 a total solar eclipse cross the country and I got a chance to be in the path of totality for that Eclipse one of my producers and an astronomy educator from the museum went to Kansas City Missouri the school where I used to teach was smack dab in the middle of totality I got a chance to host the show from there with friends and colleagues I had seen eclipses before but not from totality before totality we battled a storm literally holding down tents just before the eclipse started the clouds went away and we were able to see the beginning of the eclipse as the moon slowly covered the sun it began to get darker and darker we watched with our glasses looked at projections of the eclipse and waited for the big moment when totality started someone shouted that you could take off your glasses and we saw Bailey's beads where the Hills and Valleys of the Moon allow some light to get through just at the moment of totality one of my friends took this picture of me during totality when I saw it the first time time I was surprised at how dark it was when the sun was completely covered I was completely taken off guard by how emotional The Experience would be it was amazing and words just left me I say all of this to encourage you that if you have an opportunity to go to totality you should go if you're at 99% and can drive a few miles to make it into the path of totality do it experiencing totality is something that you will never forget and until you get chance to experience it nothing else Compares Beth back to you thanks Marty if you're a teacher in the United States chances are in the coming weeks you'll be discussing the eclipse and we've got you covered our teacher tips document helps connect the eclipse to National learning standards includes links to a bunch of great classroom activities and more additional resources getting ready for the eclipse is important but what about after the eclipse how do you process with your students what they experienced what is the historical context what did it mean to them and was their experience different from the person standing next to them be sure to check out our full post Eclipse discussion guide the countdown is on the eclipse is heading your way we hope this episode has helped you prepare for the eclipse and we hope that you have a great view of the eclipse and get to experience it safely no matter where you are if you like this episode be sure to follow stem3 on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to the National Air and Space Museum's YouTube channel clear skies [Music] m [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] ticks they're out in Mass so check yourself your kids and your pets anytime you've been Outdoors check everywhere in your hair under your arms and between your toes if you find a tick remove it as soon as you can use fine tip tweezers to grasp The Tick close to the skin use firm even pressure pulling straight up without twisting or turning then clean the bite area and your hands with soap and water some tick bites can make you sick so if you start to feel ill or notice a rash near the bite call your [Music] doctor yep I can hear you guys about a minute well I li 7 o'clock are you guys all set we're good ready all right stand by in five 4 3 2 1 Welcome to the August 12224 meeting of the B meow select board this is Select board chair I'm confirming that all members and persons anticipate 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 line here staff when to call your name please respond in the affirmative ly Simmons here Mike barbier here this open meeting of the long met select board is convened in person and Via Zoom webinar posted on the agenda and Town's website identifying how the public may join there's no chat or Q&A function all the materials for this meeting are available on the agenda posted on Long 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 comments 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 of the screen the meeting moderator will approach you to panelist unmute you and give you permission to speak if you join the webinar by phone dial star9 to raise your hand star 6 to mute unmute residents who wish to speak will identify their names and addresses only each individual is afforded three minutes for comments please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking if anyone in attendance is recording this meeting please announce yourself now all right we will now begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right great so we will begin with select board announcements school committee vacancy the town of long meow is seeking one interested resident fill a vacancy on the school committee for a term to expire at the June 2025 annual Town election interested candidates should send letters of interest and a resume to select board at longmeadow.org and school committee at Long meadow. k12.us by Monday September 9th interviews will be held at a joint meeting of the school committee and select board on Monday September 16th 2024 with appointments to follow on September 24th for additional information on the role of the school committee please visit long meow. K12 na. uschool committee Housing Authority vacancy the Housing Authority has a bacing position for a term to expire at the June 2025 annual Town election interested residents are encouraged to send letters of interest and a resume to select board at Long meow. by Wednesday August 28th interviews will be held at a joint meeting of the housing authority and select board on Tuesday September 3rd with appointments to follow on Monday September 16th for additional information please visit meow ma.gov Civics former DPW demolition improvements project the town of Long Meadow is holding a public information meeting on the former DPW facility Demolition and improvements project which involves the demolition of on-site buildings and structures removal of various onsite materials improvements to the southern portion of the main DPW building and the capping of former burn dump area the meeting will be held on Thursday August 22nd at 6: p.m. the adult center multi-purpose room 211 na Road the long Public Department of Public Works and the town's engineering consultant will address planned improvements and project schedule the public is invited to attend to provide feedback and ask questions for additional information please visit long me.gov blurs fall special town meeting the fall special town meeting is set for Tuesday November 12th at 7 p.m. at the long meow high school gymnasium citizen petition articles are due in the select board's office no later than noon on Friday September 27th in order for a petition to be guaranteed placement on the special town meeting warrant 100 names signatures addresses of registered Town voters are required and must be certified by the town clerk you can find forms instructions and additional information at long ma.gov meeting the treasure collector's office will be closed from Tuesday August 13th through Thursday August 15th for an annual training and the town municipal offices will be closed on Monday September 2nd for Labor Day all right so with announce completed we are now moving over to resident comments do we have any resid comments tonight we have one in the audience [Applause] okay thank you time 81 Green Meadow Drive I speaking concerning my email and the correspondent section of the agenda I ask for your Indulgence for an extra minute as these issues are important I ask the select board to review these two issues this evening for the citizens as Mrs Hinman with a reminder will be going to press improper storage of pool chemicals during the night of July 11th and possibly longer 235 gallon containers of pool chemical were improperly stored with no lighting at the Bliss park pool pictures are attached as number one and two these chemicals were 10 yards from where children were burned by pool chemicals last year I have provided you OSHA and CDC guidelines among other references it is undeniable the chemicals were stored improperly it is undeniable that chemicals were hazardous calcium hypochloride is an oxidizer Pulsar briquettes are calcium hyp chloride cyanuric acid was also there these chemicals can cause Burns eye and lung irritations and damage and commit toxic fumes and are a fire risk young children due to body mass are especially susceptible to injury Town responses from the select board chair and town manager were excuses after my first cordial email the responses were lack of storage and active work Zone which makes the situ situation worse something about sunscreen and a very callous remark that implied the oxidizers were not as harmful as the my muriatic acid that caused the burns last year there are no allowable exceptions or excuses for the improper storage of pool chemicals I find the select board chair and town manager comments to be reprehensible toned deaf and insensitive to the children burn last year I've been encouraged by the select board board chair to file a claim with the D which I am contemplating I ask the select board to get answers to my original questions the citizens parents and children who use Bliss poool and park deserve that and frankly an apology DPW issues the town does not have a properly functioning DPW its vacancy rate is over 40% the citizens want no more excuses we've heard them for years a scope plan deadlines and accountability are needed the problems at the DBW have resulted in public safety issues substantially higher costs work being delayed not done or shoty work as an example the town has run out of steel plates and is in short supply of orange barrels for Road issues and collapsed storm drains overdue repair work will not begin until the town's de facto DPW finishes assembling the three playgrounds you got about 10 seconds left so WRA up yeah Rock up the current maybe I asked the select board to become involved and take charge here whatever has been going on for 4 and A2 years or two and A2 years is not working and now I am told we're going to mediation with the Union people are tired ofc appreciate it thank you ven could use that res I'm going to check on the zoom okay thank you I do not see anyone okay great so let's move on to board and committee appointments um we've got a bunch of appointments from interviews conducted during our July 15th meeting I'll entertain motions for these appointments I I'll do this since we're remote we've got to take a Voice vote I'll do this in one motion I'll make a motion that we make the following Community uh uh committee appointments that we appoint David Mar Marinelli uh to a three-year term expiring June 30th 2027 for the community preservation commission that we appoint Dr Robert bvy and do Dr Richard steinard uh to the Board of Health Dr bki for a three-year term expire expiring in June 30th 2027 and Dr steinard for a one-year Associates term expiring June 30th 202 that we appoint Andrea Schultz and Theo casinos cusis excuse me to threeyear terms expiring June 30th 2027 to the cultural Council that we appoint Mela Salazar and Edward Doug Gazo to a three-year terms on the diversity Equity inclusion advisory committee expiring June 30th 2027 that we appoint Greg link to to a three-year term expiring June 30th 2027 to the energy and sustainability committee now we also appoint Greg link to a three-year term expiring June 30th 2027 to the recycling commission and that we appoint David lavenberg and Jerry Plum to the zoning board of appeals Mr lavenburg for a five-year term expiring June 30th 2029 and Mr Plum for a three-year associate term non- voting term expiring June 30th 202 seven second great any further discussion all right Mike all right Mr Hy yes Mr Sho yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes all right great next we have the board of registers appointment uh we recently appointed two folks to the board of registrars um and now we need to appoint a third we have a memo here the Democratic town committee has offered an individual to be nominated as well as the Republican Town committee and um I will you know open it up now for any discussion or motions about making this appointment this is an appointment uh to fill a term that ends on or or F ter that ends on March 31st 2027 mark yeah Ben I just for people to understand what we've been doing as a matter of policy is alternating two from one party one from the other and then flipping flopping it and so I believe it's uh it's appropriate for me to make a motion to appoint Peter Benton to the vacancy expiring March 30th 2027 I'll second that motion okay wait a second so any further discussion on this so regarding the policy um where is there a policy and is this a select board policy or is because I was looking at the the state's website and I I don't believe that there's a a policy at the state level from what I could see in terms of you know moving back and forth from 2 to one and you know one to too and if if I said policy I apologize it's a been our practice not our policy okay we've been doing it for 30 years as far as I know but certainly 15 that I'm aware of so it's it's not there is no policy correct but in terms of equity in the town given the split we've just been flip-flopping back and forth and and it seems to have worked yeah so I just have a I just have a couple of concerns because with the amount of people voting which is a good thing um and with the amount of changes that have happened as well um on on this committee I think Aaron freed has done a um an excellent job and personally I would I think during this time with with um a lot of the changes going on especially with some of the appointments we've made here that it would make sense to keep Aaron freed on the committee furthermore um you know I did a lot of research on on like I do with every candidate that's in front of us for appointments and um I was really trouble excuse me I was really troubled um to be honest with you to with some of the things that I saw U Mr Benton uh posting online and and we've already removed a member from a committee um due I'm not going to go into into why but for for actions and and words that were um hurtful and really hateful so I'd like to actually read some of these comments from Mr Benton that he's posted um on Facebook kamla Harris father is Jamaican mother from India truly africanamerican that's a question that he's posing this is someone that's supposed to be serving our community on a very important Committee in town interesting how this is February 4th 2023 interesting how two black quarterbacks in Super Bowl is being hyped one is half white I think these comments are reprehensible and anyone who's putting their name forward for an appointment we take this seriously and and I find these words to be insulting to members of our community and I I I think Mr Benton should pull his name from being considered and I do not feel comfortable uh voting for him the last one I want to read is uh a so-call meme it says straight Pride it's natural it's worked for thousands of years and you can make babies this was on June 4th 2023 so I would the last one I would will will read is Democrats are communist memes June 7th 2023 it has an individual throwing up a rainbow cloud and it's very difficult for me to even read this right now and I I hope the the board withdraws the motion and reconsiders um because we have an opportunity to do what's right and oh by the way when I was doing more research Miss Fred happens to have a woman uh who is black and it's very difficult for me to read these messages uh in a community like long when we should be more accepting and thank you for your time all right anyone have anything further to add any other thoughts and I wish Mr Benton was here to I had questions for him um I wish he was here to to answer them I have I don't have a question I guess my my concern is clearly the the comments that that Mr Zoro read are are potentially concerning my concern is that long meow has historically been a nonpartisan Community it's nonpartisan when we run for the select board it's nonpartisan when we do try to get things done I think to change this long-standing practice has more issues particularly given given the fact of what the responsibilities or I should say minimal responsibilities of the board of registrars actually is I I I still believe that that this adjusting back and forth is is more appropriate for this town B um yeah go ah J yeah Mark I I agree with you that we should be I we are nonpartisan I I'm fine with switching this back and forth but if I can't vote for for this I I can't vote for Mr Benton I I know Mr Benton um i' I'd stay off politics or I say on Facebook so I I don't like to generally uh dig in too deep on people's politics because uh sometimes uh you learn things you you didn't know um or you didn't want to know uh so while in theory I would support switching back uh back and forth on the party um I I can't vote for Mr Benton if the Republican committee wanted to put up someone else I would consider but we don't have that in front of us we we certainly could defer this and tell the Republican committee if they want somebody on it to put up a different candidate I mean that's within our purview of doing yeah I mean motion can be withdrawn and then we could go back to the Republican Town committee if we feel strongly you know like Mike Marcus talked about and continu its practice of switching uh which party has majority of B regars he my concern is that we turn the town of Long Meadow into the the same issues we're getting nationally and I think it's very productive and ADV advantageous for the town to continue to be nonpartisan and if there's an issue with an individual then we don't appoint that individual but I think to keep this the way we have is is far more important to the long-term structures and benefits to the town uh you know I if if there's agreement to go back to the Republican to now if they say it's him or nobody then I guess we know where we're going to go but I'm more than willing to withdraw the the motion if indeed there's a consensus that will go back to the Republican committee and ask for an alternate individual to be nominated when how long uh would the committee have do we know because we have a prime primaries are coming up I believe there's two active people on there right now so they can still me do our I would be in support of going back to the Republican Town committee and asking them to provide a new name and I would encourage the Republican committee to put forth someone who would make the residence of Long Meadow uh trust that the right decisions are going to be made and not have to worry about anything and Mark's right there are a lot of awful National politics we need to keep that at a Long Meadow I thank Dan for bring that to our attention and that that's unfortunate um so I I would support going back and I I hope we can uh have somebody that would that I we can put our trust in well um so right now there's still a motion on the floor if it's not going to be withdrawn then we can is there is there is there a consensus we'll go back to the Republican committee is it the yeah fine this isn't like I said this is not about fine with that consensus I'll racism versus politics okay thank you Mark through motion uh Mike if you could you know go back to the Republican Town committee and ask them to provide a new name then we'll vote on this appointment at our next meeting yep thank you thank you Mike all right you got six minutes so so next up we've got select board comments um we've got public hearing starting at 7:30 so we'll see can get through s word comments here um I will start off I've just got one quick one um on Saturday the long men Historical Society is hosting history on the go at the stores House Museum a bunch of towns in the area are all doing it um at the same time that they're opening up historic sites in their in their town and offering tours and I went to it last year it was a great event actually volunteered during it last year and was a great event so encourage folks to check it out it's from 12 to 5 on Saturday all right anyone else with a comment J um on Thursday the Middle School building committee is holding in a Butters meeting uh Butters to the uh proposed site at Williams on the short list have been invited uh and there will be a lot of information available uh at that time um I believe only I'm not sure how it works if only a butter are invited but uh we have then have another meeting on August 27th and uh where there will be more further discussion of the proposed site and and potentially another meeting after that depending on how things go at that meeting in order to make the submission for September 6 so people who are interested should keep an eye on the Middle School building Committee website and uh I would encourage folks to tune in to the to to the upcoming meetings um there's a lot of big decisions being made great thank Josh anyone else Mark goad yeah just two two quick comments that one is that the board should just understand that the the process for rebidding and renewing our or issuing our contract for trash hauling has begun uh there a whole group of people from the DPW and others they're helping do that the contract expires at the end of this fiscal year but as we indicated previously we needed to get thought we needed to get started earlier so the it's process is ongoing and there's nothing to report at this time in terms of progress other than the select Board gets to make the final approval of the of of of the uh successful bidder it is and will be the largest contract that the town offers for outside services so it's important that we pay attention how much is it generally how much without okay that's a better one without giving up the bids last time it was it you know it started it was a 5-year contract I started at like 700,000 a year and went up till like 900,000 or something like that over the course of five years and it's you know weekly pickup and Hauling of trash and recycling everybody's house so it's pretty pretty big size mhm okay thanks maybe it'll be less this year that's how things are gone do you have something else no that's it sorry that'll be it that's good okay great thank you um so we'll move on to the town manager report thank you and I will be quick because I know you have a poll petition uh goal setting and strategic planning to assist the select board and town manager in our goal uh setting and strategic planning work I've secured a facilitator I'm going to be sending dates to the select board for a meeting in September or early to getting to get a working meeting scheduled the facilitator will then send a questionnaire to each board member in advance of our session to understand the issues concerns and goals of the board the fall 2024 Road resurfacing work uh has been awarded to Warner Brothers LLC in the amount of 7258 550 the work is expected to begin soon with a substantial completion date of October 31st roads to be resurfaced include Farmington Avenue from long Street to Laurel Street Lawnwood Avenue from Long Meadow Street to Fair viiew Street and Meadow Road from Long Meadow Street to the culdesac the bark Hall Road Bridge is about to um undergo some work this is a Mass DOT project it to resurface the bridge work is expected to begin the middle to the end of August and be completed by November 15th the full extent of the work partial or full lane closures and detours are still under consideration Town officials have have met with Mass DOT officials and express concern over a full closure once a traffic plan has been finalized details will be shared a contract has been signed with mass West Construction Inc for the north Interceptor sanitary sewer pipe manhole service laterals and trench repair work the Project's been in the work for several years and its anticipated completion date is December of 2024 Massachusetts Disaster Relief Fund with the signing of the f y 25 state budget by the governor last week language was enacted creating a state disaster relief and resiliency fund there some important points to note with this new fund and while the fund is now created in perpetuity the funding allocation of million is in only a one-time transfer to keep it fully funded we have to continue our ADV advocacy with legislator legislators to continue replenishing the account every year we're awaiting Clarity on whether the funds are available now or for transfer must wait until the end of 20 fiscal year 25 uh overall it's great news for emergency managers and all of our communities uh Chief Dearborn was an advocate for this type of fund so I thank him for his work along with the efforts um that were spearheaded by representative Natalie bla representative Bill Driscoll and Senator Joe comford they identified this need Following last year's flooding and advocated with State House leaders to ensure this was in the budget and now they need to develop clear eligibility guidelines uh documentation and um um just overall how we would unlock These funds during times of um need or uh State emergency um declarations so we hope that emergency managers will have a seat at the table as all of that is developed office of emergency medical services or oems uh just completed an inspection of the Long Meadow fire department Ambulance Service and for the second year in a row long metal fire department received a perfect score with no citations or Improvement suggestions the inspection entails the checking of hundreds of items and Records the inspector stated that your service is the model everyone should follow special credit is owed to fire prevention officer Ben Sloan and fire Lieutenant Dennis Gardner for their hard work preparing for the inspection and all the work they do through the year to maintain this high level of perfection and also a thank you to all the lfd members who contribute daily to maintaining this high standard a draft request for proposal has been developed to study uh Town Hall community house and Old Town Hall the scope of the project is to assess the needs of general maintenance of the facilities Capital Improvement items code upgrades and a staffing structure and budget for the entirety of the facilities division of the DPW the pro the project will analyze the current use of the three municipal buildings and recommend options for the highest best use of the buildings and Parcels the project will conclude with a final report the scope is still being finalized with the expectation of it being sent out to bid by the the middle of September a change happened on the Westcom board of directors a reorganization vote as required by the district agreement was held in the middle of July I've been the chair of the Westcom Board of Directors for almost 5 years and I was very happy to support the nomination of Tom Christensen the East Long Meadow Town manager who will now serve as the new chair of the board of directors for Westcom installation work of the new equipment uh playground equipment at Center in blueberry has completed and work is starting at Wolf Swamp within the next few weeks the contractor for the rubberized surface will be in town to install a grand opening event will be scheduled for September and details will be shared for all to attend and as uh Josh stated during public Com or during select board comment there is a a Butters meeting for Williams middle school project on Thursday August 15th at 7 p.m. sorry that's the Glenbrook project but regarding the Williams site and again that's Thursday August 15th at 7 p.m. here at the high school and that concludes my report great thank you um and we will um allow SEL board folks to make any comments or ask any questions about the time management board um after we do the poll um application here um can I entertain a motion to move into a public hearing for the a resource poll application or poll petition so move second all right mate Mr yes Mr Z yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes great so do we have FES from ever there how's everyone doing great all right great so thank you uh both for joining us and I'll kind of hand over to you to let you to let folks know you know why you're here and what petition is about sure so ever sources request perion to install seven joint owned poles and primary cable on Anthony Road the polls will be located approximately 13 ft off the center line of the road trying to stay 2 foot off the roadway PS will be 40 foot Class one poles and the purpose for the pole relocation is to accommodate the town Riverfront project and move the primary overhead cable out of the wooded area Okay uh do we have any questions comments from the select board can you actually introduce yourself and give your position Jason for I'm a field engineer for eversource thank you uh I think Mark Yeah question yeah just what's the s the height and the and the of the poles they're replacing I noticed that in one case you're putting you know it looks like from the diagram you're replacing a fewer poles but but I it may not be accurate can you just no we're actually relocating the whole pole line out of the wooded area um part of it is to um accommodate the riverfront conservation project that's going on the other part is to get the primary cable out of the way of the yacht club and and the current poles are also 40 ft high oh somewhere 35 okay and and I I guess what I'm missing um again I'm looking at a diagram here you're moving them from what I guess is the west side of the road to the east side the correct and and that means that the service lines to the houses will now go across the road yep some of them sir you are from the Conservation Commission correct could you introduce yourself and just thank you and give your perspective on this sounds yeah so it's to support uh the riverr project that we have uh uh was watered a CPC Grant to fund it um we've been mapping it out for a couple years now and basically um there's poles in the middle of the Woods um that we want to relocate out to the street uh which would then support uh expansion of the parking lot um for that area do you want to tell just those who aren't aware of what the riverfront project is like to educate viewers ront Conservation Area uh it's it's it's a open about 2 acre 2 acre parcel of land on the riverfront on right next to the Pioneer Valley yach club and basically uh it's there's um grassy areas but there's no picnic tables limited parking um and we want to make it Ada accessible with Pathways picnic tables benches what have you um and um and these poles from are basically in the middle of the woods and so from even from a like I think reliability standpoint to the Pioneer Valley Yacht Club and then the hous is along there I mean it's in the woods with trees overhanging them what have you um and I think Jason to it's going to improve reliability for correct the residents um and the town in general too uh anyone who goes over there can you can see the flood lines around is there any uh safety concerns I mean there already power lines there but is anything being done differently due to flooding concerns no all and this was um it was reviewed by uh um Dig Safe right so there's another there's no other utilities undergr have you um and they're going to be in the gasic farm uh area right along the edge of the road where the other ones already are so presently they come along the road and and it curves and they actually go across the street um and then it's just going to follow the east side of the street to Mark point just just as a comment the the picture that I have in front of me doesn't do justice to what you just you both just said I mean it just shows three existing poles on the west side converted to seven poles on the east side but I understand are you is this the drawing you have that's the drawing I got oh yeah it definitely shows more than three poles on that side of the road um the circles with the X's through the middle those are the ones that are getting removed all together the other two are existing those are going to there's three others existing that are going to stay to carry the primary or their service line back to that side of the road okay so so just some of these red dots are pre are current the red dots are the proposed pools are the new ones corre but I think Mark is saying there's three gray ones right the three gray ones are the ones getting removed and there's three black dots that are hard to see from the contrast of the picture that are the existing poles on the other side of the road so so the service lines to the houses will literally go from pole to pole across the street and then to the house right to keep theight over the road yes sir thank you okay I good thanks and in your I'm sorry was there any um uh comment by the by these by the yach club where by these residen is in favor so the yach club actually um we were originally only proposing move the two in the woods the yach club actually came before corre and everyone else because they have a reliability standpoint too where um where the existing lines are um masts of of boats with sail boats with higher mask what have you it's like it's harder for them to get through through and even the fire department has a boat down there and they talked about improving the service to the fire department being able to access with their larger trucks what have you um to to to get down there so they were very much in favor of it and they they approached yeah they asked us to do the rest of it instead of just the first two correct okay and no opposition from the residents that res I haven't heard anything okay anything else from the board when's the uh when the project supposed to kind of come off the ground uh once we get permission from this that we can finish designing the job and get them to start moving the stuff and like six months it'll take or uh I think it would only take a couple weeks to do the actual work um but seems like a pretty common sense just looking at the drawing and and the project and um I've sat on some of the the Conservation Commission meetings um I and I appreciate all the work that you did as well with this project so um I think it it's a great project and I don't see any issue why we should deny the polls lose Ben benath I'm going to make a motion we close the hearing unless any unless there's any public comment here second I do not see anyone with public comment is still here the screen is just getting gly be no no just keeps on disconnecting I'll send you a picture a second we have any further discussion no all right Mike um M yes Mr zero yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes and Ben if if nobody objects I'm going to make a motion they approve the other source petition for installing polls along Anthony's Road has indicated second all right we have a second any further discussion all right Mike Mr Hy yes mrco yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes all right thank you for joining us gentlemen appreciate it thank you all right so let's um go back to the town manager for L just went through it um do we have any comments or anything to select does anyone have anything to say about it just a quick question L Lynn was the is the schedule for the uh playground installation before school starts or is it going to be kind of you know because we're getting getting down there right now yeah the the the surface particularly yeah the goal is to have it all done before school starts I had a question about the Masters disaster Relief Fund which sounds great but I just was wondering when you say the fund's in created in perpetuity but the alloc the funding allocation is 14 million is only a one-time transfer what clarify that just is it if something were to happen we needed the funds is it I'm not I'm not sure I understand is it like if we needed the funds it would be 14 million or we owe that's our contribution no this is a Statewide emergency disaster fund so when they flooding happened last year and all those communities and arms and roads were washed out um that funding source could have been applied for to help repair the damage but we need to advocate for it to keep getting funded because right now it's only going to be 14 million and that's s i that that's a fun for the entire State it's not just for Long Meadow I did not understand that I see that's modest understood we don't have any um request pending we didn't you know luckily we did not suffer the damage like some of the communities north of us did okay okay great anything else on that and just real quick the um the playground so Lyn is that going to be some of the Ada accessibility yes work that we awesome Yep if that's all then we will move over to uh old business so so I will entertain a motion to approve the meetings for the our June 3rd 20124 meeting so move second all right any further discussion okay Mike Mr yes Mr yes Mr abstain Mr Gold yes Mr line yes all right okay and now we've got uh our continu discussion about water and uh sewer rates and Lynn um you prepared a memo do we you want to start off with that if you'd like me to Sure uh so I went back and watched the July 15th meeting um to just view that conversation again to see if there were takeaways that you were expecting staff to prepare for you um and so with that we I created a uh new table that's attached the agenda that um uses the same format that we've been using but applies the new scenario to change the fixed meter meter Revenue rate I'm sorry the fixed meter Revenue in increasing it to 200,000 up from the original 130 130,000 that um both the finance director and I had prepared and all the other proposals uh and so with with that there's three new scenarios for you to consider uh one is simply just uh increasing that fixed meter Revenue charge uh and not using retained earnings and then a use of 50,000 retain $50,000 in retained earnings and a use of $100,000 in retained earnings and then the difference is it shows you in the per unit cost uh and then the percent increase um and in this case this was done um with a 78% increase regardless of meter size so a 78% increase consistent across the board for the meter charges in the scenarios that had been presented at the last meeting um when I had DPW verify those the increases were um north of 150% and it was changing depending on the meter size so in talking with staff we wanted a consistent increase not a that was our proposal here tonight um and so so that covers the whole meter rate change discussion ni can I just ask a quick question on that can you give an example of who would have or what business would have a a 4 in or 3 in meter most of the larger size meters are municipal or school oh makes sense all right thanks okay and then on the same memo um I added some information in there about exemptions because I know that did come up at the last meeting um and we I put a rough number to that just in case you did want to consider that um and this would be going off of the exemptions issued through the assessor's office there's approximately 108 now uh and it's it would equate to roughly um $3,100 in Lost re Vue if you were to do that um and then lastly on the memo is if you make no change to the fixed meter charges I just uh reiterated those scenarios from July 15th okay great thank you Glen um anyone um have a comment they' like to make I can try to sum up kind of where I think the consensus has been I know we've all spent a lot of uh time looking at this individually studying It And discussing it um and I appreciate Lynn doing the memo which is very helpful and summarizing it as well I felt like the consensus after our last meeting was that we did not feel like we had enough returned earnings to consider using those funds to mitigate the rate um we below their target of 500,000 by quite a bit so the discussion had gone to Mark's proposal of slightly decreasing the rate by increasing fixed cost which seems commensurate with the reason why the costs are going up after our questioning of the Springfield swim Water Commission so I appreciated Lynn creating that you know sample of raising uh the possibility of uh funds from the fixed cost from 130 to 200 to showing us what that would do I personally think that that is a perfectly fine idea that steming off what Mark's original proposal was so I feel like that I hope will bring us to where we are today as far as the discussion okay thank you Andrew uh Dan did I see you with your hand up uh now I do uh thank you yeah so um I I agree with much of what Andrew has said in terms of um the the rates here that are in front of me I spent Lynn I can't tell you how many hours I spent with you just going over this over the past few months we've we've deliberated we've debated this issue you know for months um I I wish that the timing of the study would allow us to get the presentation from TI and bond look at what our longer term plan is when it comes to uh water sewer the projects that we have we can then come up with a plan that ties the town to projects that the town needs we all know when this study comes out that there's going to be a lot of dollar signs a lot of projects that we're trying to fit into the the the the dollars um as well um but I no disrespect to to our myself or colleagues here but I really think we need to set just set the rate follow the the policy that we have in place for water sewer rates um we're not using the retained earnings funds for that we set a rate based on what Springfield has um provided us with that increase and then when we have the TI and bond um presentation in front of us we're all well equipped to then roll out some of the items that we've talked about whether it's um something that I know benath has talked about as well as myself um I think Josh as well in terms of providing some um some help assistance to our aging population to our veterans um to folks that fit into the population um under underneath the assessor's office so I guess long story short I believe we need to just set set the rate and then we need to as a as a board come together after the presentation and then Implement uh a water rate that makes sense based on the needs of the Town um we've been trying to figure this out for 20 years we've had I don't know three different studies that have been done and we're still debating this just this year alone you know three or four times so that's what my recommendation is let's let's let's set a rate and then let's all agree that we're going to tackle this whether it's a start of uh 2025 calendar year um but I think that's when we actually have the data in front of us that's what's going to help us and that's we're going to be able to make the best decisions for next year and the year after so that's my take on this I don't think we're going to solve uh the water rates and a lot of the questions that we have uh tonight or tomorrow we should listen to The Experts and actually follow through on what they are suggesting to us it's taxpayer dollars and they're the professionals it's not Mark it's not myself it's not Andrew benath or Josh Ty and Bond as professionals that we've given money to look at this and that's going to give us the best um approach moving forward so I just want to be really clear that's that's how I feel about about this great thanks Dan uh Josh well Dan I disagree we are experts now at this point it's I think we' SP long enough on it um I I think what we're I I want to increase the fixed meter rate um it's a pretty modest increase $70,000 it's a not much to each person but I think it much better reflects what the realities of I said it a month ago I could probably repeat it verbatim but it's uh everyone has to be hooked up to the system doesn't matter how much water you use so I think it makes sense to up that a little bit I see what you're saying Dan but what I and we got an email on this actually this uh that's on the agenda today why are you trying to artificially keep rates down I I don't think that's what we're doing to me in my mind we are I would like us to be a little gradual on what we're going up because there is going to be sticker shock if we got up right away to where other people other towns are it's going to be big money and the time Bond study it's not going to tell us the lower rates it's going to tell us the it's going to tell us we got a ton of projects to do um but I I think that setting a reasonable uh increase on the fixed meter rate I think now is a good idea and with the idea that I think we should go back to that in the future and look at that and try to have that be a bit more fair to to show what the just the the carrying costs that we have for this for our water um our rates are one thing but what we saw from Springfield it costs a lot to keep this system going um so given that it's a a pretty mild increase at this point I I think yeah we we should absolutely we need that information but I I think that to me it it still makes sense to give this modest increase now so um what Andrew said I think reflects what I was I'm thinking as well and that's what I I would like to do tonight great thanks Josh Mark yeah I I think we we have all the information that we need not all the information we could get you can get a lot more to to certainly set the rates I my I do have a a question or a concern about the recommendation to just increase all the fixed rates by whatever was 20 something perc and I say that because that you know my analytical mind says we need some justification now having said that there's absolutely no process by which the fixed sewer rate was set that I can know of that anybody knows of it was just set and so we're using that number and I don't believe it's ever gone up since it was implemented the question is how do we you know how do we identify the basis for the fixed rate cost it's well at one point we did it through a Distributive process and now we're doing it through just increasing everything I will say that that puts an increased burden on the lowest users based on this across the board 28% increase in in uh the fixed rate or 78% increase I think it was ly said in the fixed rate costs and and you know one of the things we had early on from Ian cottington was a an evaluation of I think he had four or five different users of four four or five different volumes and what the changes would make uh you know fixed rates do burden the you know the the smallest users and if we overly increase the fixed rates it overly burdens the smallest users uh but other than that I think Josh is right that we've got the decisions we're going to make and oh by the way as I've learned we're making decisions for a year we're not making decisions forever and and this will no doubt be changed multiple times over the next several years based on input that we get from other people like tyan Bond so you know I'll support it but I do think that the 78% across theboard meter charge is a little high but I think Mark that that's kind of my point though I I think yeah we could have a year but we also could have this for three months and we get the presentation and we can take this back up as a as a board and that that's what I'm that's what I'm suggesting is if if we want to focus on some of the folks in town right now under the current situation or proposal I suppose would be an increase for these low water users so that's why I'm suggest suggesting to the board that we make a commitment to set a rate now and we come back to the table in 3 months when we actually have the the data and the professionals have have done their due diligence and they can um help us with these recommendations and we can try to implement some of the items that that's just that's my point um I I don't want to wait another year for this if we don't have to I want to try to do this right and act on it because like I said before we we've waited so many years to actually put these in place and Implement items from the professionals and this is an opportunity for us but Dean I I appreciate your comments I my my experience is that that what we will get from Consultants is a Consulting theoretical decision and we'll still have to make the decision when it came to adjusting the sewer rate system several years ago it took us two or three years and multiple Consultants giving us competing you know recommendations till we came up with what seems to be working because we've gotten a a very few if any complaints about the new sewer system so I wouldn't put I don't put as much you know Faith In tha and Bond's going to give us all the answers we want and as soon as they come along I think even when we get that report it's going to take us a while to push our way through that get public comments hear what's going on and it's still going to be this this fiscal year before we're done and so that that's the reason I'm willing to stick with it um I would I would be asking for this fixed change regardless of what infl we had I think it just because it makes sense to me I'd also just point out that we're talking about $ 122 to $22 per year for 98% of our users um and I bet a big chunk of the other ones are the town uh for the for the big users so that's why I think it's it's a modest increase and I I think it makes sense I'll just Echo that I mean I think Dan you have that's a excellent sentiment I don't think any of us would disagree with the idea of of um finding ways to mitigate expenses for populations like those in need or the elderly or the blind but the reality here is that the only thing we could do um to uh the only part of the pie here that we can actually have any discretion over is this fixed income which is only $4 uh for most homes per quarter and so we're talking about increasing it 78% but 78% of like $4 is like $6.90 so the point is that that it's just such a small amount of expense and Mark made the point it's a 78% sounds like a lot like a large increase but when you're talking about such a small initial figure it's really modest so um I just think that um the Consultants will tell certain things but in reality we can use this eventually I think to um help people who need exemptions as well as to keep that in mind for all different expenses we have in the town um but for this it's probably not going to make a significant difference uh in people's like you know Len if those exemptions if we gave the uh the assessor exemptions the 108 people do you have a scenario or in the scenario would that be uh spread among the other fixed charges or on the rate you can only do it on fix charges oh okay so if we exempt that then it would just be like another Penny to everyone on the fixed rate spread $3,100 over all the households very it's less yeah $3,100 over 5,000 households is 60 cents it's not it's almost not worth doing it maybe it is to the people who get benefits from it but literally if you're SP splitting $3,100 over 5,400 water water users at that point I was just wonder is it how much of a logistical isue would it be you're right it's probably more yeah operational issues for the building than it is value it's pretty straight forward uh you there's already a um discount for storm water it's built into the policy so those that apply for it get that so there's already a mechanism within the billing system to do it uh and the reason I put this on this memo here is um as I'm sure you hear as I hear especially when I attend my monthly conversation with the town manager um um those living on fixed incomes mostly our seniors ask for any sort of relief that makes it possible for them to stay in town and as water sewer Commissioners this is the only area that you're able to do that in for water and sewer rates so that's why this was included in this memo here so based on discussion I think I'd like to make a motion that we set a rate that increases of fixed charges to to generate an additional $70,000 in Revenue which according to Lynn's calculations would set the water rate at $452 per unit would you clarify to just say that it the rates fixed charges should be established based on the chart that was provided the 78% increase so we know how you want us to divide that out because there six different meter sizes yeah so moved so um basically according to your chart in which the difference meters would have the same percentage increase thank you thanks great uh thank you Andrew is there a second I'll second okay great um any further discussion on this Mark yeah i' just like to find out clarification what we're setting what that works out to in the water rate and what that is as an increase 20% according to Lynn's memo it's $452 a unit is that correctly y so the motion 20% increase it it would I think it would be clarifying to to say and set the water rate at and therefore set the water rate at $452 per unit that um any other discussion all right Mike Mr yes Mr zorka no Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes all right great thank you uh Josh I'd like to move that we um from the fixed rate sorry uh fixed charge that we Grant exemptions to those who qualify under the accessor office exemptions uh for the sorry uh I think I'm being cyclical but for the fixed rate charge second any further discussion on that I guess the clarification is that exemption from all fixed charges or from the increase in fixed charges I think we can we do do that or does it have to be from the what what is your scenario of the $3,000 that's the whole charge yeah I I think for the whole I'm just asking for clar no that's why I asked Lyn for clarification yes from the from the whole fixed charge second uh anything else all right Mike Mr hemopathy yes Mr zgo yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr leine yes all right and so we've also got set the sewer storms yes y as well entertain any discussion or motions on either of those I I'll I I don't believe that there's a a whole lot of options with the storm water rate the storm water rate is based on the budget and our our prior decision to gradually move storm water from a cat space system to a febas system we're not quite there and so I think that you know I'm I'm going to move that we set the uh storm water rated at an annualized cost of $16.32 per eru which is the equivalent residential unit second any further discussion on that yeah Len I just pulled it up could you just remind us what our sewer retained earnings are at what our policy or sorry storm water okay uh we do not have any storm water retained earnings not that I I'm aware of I don't believe we do oh I'm mix yeah all right I did have stew on the mind never mind your head's in this all right there's nothing further than Mike mrti yes Mr zerko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes so now we got uh sewer rates left [Music] to determine I'll I'll make the motion here too and I think that the sewer rate is uh also [Music] not I can't hear it CL is not to uh I don't believe too controversial that our sewer rate I'm going to make a motion that we that we set our our sewer rate at $351 per year with a 55 unit per quarter cap on the the water usage that that derives the sewer rate second okay any further discussion on that just to clarify you said $351 per unit $351 I'm sorry per unit per year correct thank you thank you L $351 per unit per year with a cap on units of 55 units in any quarter okay any further discussion and just for anyone watching who isn't aware Mark do you want to explain the 55 the cap it was pretty easy I remember no much time do we have no no if sewer use sewer fees excuse me sewer fees are based on water use so for every 100 gallons of water you use you will get charged by today's decision $452 for water and you'll get charge $351 for sewer but when your water use meets 55 units in any sales quarter or any quarter of our year you will no longer be generating sewer fees for any additional water use and that compensates primarily for agricultural use for lawn wering did I get that right yeah we get Lisa in here just for Old Time sake no I think that's helpful for people who may not understand oh she is here no don't for your Lisa runs the show so she's got okay anything else no okay Mike Mr Hy yes Mr zero yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes okay great thank you guys um next up we got the agre with the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission Lyn do you want to um set this one up have to clarify that okay do you want yeah just uh Mr if I may uh Lisa just pointed out that the sewer cap is currently only in summer quarters not all the quarters right because we this whole con that's right you're right nobody's watering the lawn engine Thank you Lisa right should it's only in summer quarters for so for the the two houses that use over 55 units of water in the in the fall and the winter they pay the SE raise for that that's correct so if you want to just amend it to so I I'll yes thank you Lisa i' like to amend the motion to say with a 55 unit cap for the second and it's actually the fourth and first quart four first and fourth quarters of the fiscal year second any further discussion now all right so let's do this again Mike Mr yes Mr ZKA yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes okay great so now moving over to the agreement with the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission Lyn do you want to set this one on sure so uh in part of our review of the agreements with Springfield Water and Sewer Commission uh this was on your agenda a couple months ago as well um we have a current contract with Springfield Water and Sewer it's been operating on one-year extensions for quite some time um when I just received this latest one uh it caused me to pause and and question really who should be signing this the town manager has authority to sign contracts but this one is a little different because you are the water sewer Commissioners and this is a contract between the water sewer Commissioners and Springfield Water and Sewer I did run this through Town Council they concurred it should come in front of the select board annually or hopefully at some point we'll have a new 5-year contract from Springfield um that you would then need to discuss and and hopefully approve so what you have here tonight is just a one-year extension we did include the original um 2010 contract that is just been the one that we've been operating those one-year extensions off of uh and Springfield also provided us the um uh registration for running the water system can so here we would just be voting right to um ask you Lynn to sign this contract no you would all be signing it as Springfield as I'm sorry as water sewer Commissioners oh okay sorry maybe I P the wrong no it it probably has the town manager listed on there um but I did question that through Springfield water sewer and through Town Council and it should be signed by the water sewer Commissioners okay great thank you that clation um Lind uh with these annual extensions were there changes in the terms or is it just continued status quo uh all the um contractual language is the same with the exception of the expiration date okay thanks Mark yeah there there are some administrative I won't say enforcement but administrative requirements or obligations even in the original contract that frankly neither side is is holding to you know we talked about the water and sewer commissions need need to send us information in November and and we don't get that and then us to do how we as water and sewer Commissioners we're signing it but how do can we delegate the the enforcement or the the M maintenance of this to somebody so because you know I mean that just bothers me why have a contract if neither sides fulfilling the obligations of the contract or or meeting the the the detail terms of the contract and I I just like to be able to say Lynn you know put this on your list of things to do or delegated to the DPW or whoever whoever it is because I think for us to go through this is is is not reasonable to ask us to do that maybe we have a select board liaison to Springfield and I think you were raising your hand Mark much what you ask for D just might except you know the problem is we we saw how they'll treat any of us they they'll say yeah too bad read the contract and then that's it because what are you going to do you need your water so you're saying should one of the attorneys on damn it no um no I but there's I don't know it it's it's a good question but it it could take an inornate amount of time to spin your wheels is there something specifically that you um you're concerned with Mark well clearly the number one thing thing is the obligation to get their their capital and budgetary information much sooner right well yeah like it has dates in it which they didn't they they do give it to us but then they change it after so they're yeah so they're kind of in in compliance but then they can amend it which it probably says in here somewhere that they can make reasonable changes I mean you know I think there are obligations on our part too but you know yeah I'm not I'm definitely not saying uh you're that's not that's a bad idea I'm just trying to think of I mean clearly I'm I'm in favor of the extending the the supply agreement need water I just want to enforce it and make sure that both sides are are doing what they need to do and I don't know how to better do that or do it at all and we can leave it the way it is but we're just going to end up with the same issues the next time these things arise yeah I just uh part of the problem is we have a and be frankly we have a a shortage of people in the water department and down in the DPW who normally you would say GE can you take this on but they're trying to run a department and not necessarily administer contracts maybe we can give this to the business manager that's actually what I was thinking because I I imagine Lynn thinks has enough on her plate well no but yeah yeah maybe if Lisa could take a look at if there's things that she could could make sure that are happening or even at least let us know if dates aren't being met I think that could be pretty useful was she commenting on that like um I I can say absolutely um we're um I don't think the expectation is that you guys would monitor every single Clause of that contract I will say though that this is we're just looking to extend this one-year agreement the contract in and of itself has a lot of areas that need to be improved upon um I don't think that a lot of these deliverables have been met in the last decade that's the contract's been in place um and so there is a lot of work to do and I know Springfield's working on their end of it Mass D is involved and DPW Lisa and sha have been going through it and they have met with the EP related to our um wholesale agreement so um I I do think all of us around the table including DPW need to to have a better handle on what we want to see moving forward uh as a result of the last meeting we've already Mike and I have already put a look ahead uh for your January meeting or December I think it was that Springfield Water and Sewer committed to coming back to you so we're going to hold them to that that's a big first step great thank you Lyn um anyone else all right um I will entertain a motion to you know approve and sign this contract I'll move that we approve the six Amendment to the town of Long Meadow water supply agreement with the uh Springfield Water and Sewer Commission second all right any further discussion okay Mike Mr hopy yes Mr zko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes all right great thank you um Mike do you want to just talk briefly about the next agenda item the update on Royal spices uh liquor license uh yes definitely so um as you're aware during the hearing at the last meeting there was um some conversation about whether or not the address was correct it was 837 b or 827b um it was in fact 827b and not 837 b um without going too deep into the memo I ran it by Town Council as well as the abcc who said um that uh the board is satisfied with the abutters notifications because the abuts would not have changed regardless of um the address because it's all in one parcel in the Williams shopping mall and they would accept and process the application uh Town Council advised them to submit an amendment for the change uh which they have submitted um it updated to the application I did submit it to to the portal to the abcc and it was since actually kicked back for for other reasons which is typical sometimes it gets kicked back and they have to amend certain certain pages so they're in the process of getting me that application back to to to resubmit so that that happens occasionally with applications as Josh could probably attest to so my recommendation would be to submit it as it is and you could have them um you know resubmit for a change of license or whatever you decide sorry mik what our option oh sorry um so they submitted an amendment to those pages which I included which I uploaded to the abcc portal so um because you have a certain amount of time after the public hearing to upload those documents so my suggestion would be just to accept the abutters notifications as as were if that makes sense rather than put in these amended Pages well the amended Pages um were already included in the application okay um so like they submitted it and by the time they admitted it they got it to me within 24 hours days yeah okay I think the question is do we go have to go through another hearing just accept the changes I do we even need to yeah we should have accept the changes right but no we don't have to do another hearing if if they I abcc has died me for much worse than that or much less than this so but I'm I'm happy for Royal spice that we don't have to start the clock over um so I yeah I think we should accept the amended or vote to accept the amended pages and uh wish them luck yeah I agree with that you want to make a motion yeah sure I was just waiting for somebody else um yeah I I move that we accept the amended application for Royal spice Inc uh doing business as Royal spice at 827b William Street second all any further discussion mik Mr Hy yes Mr worko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes all right great thank you um okay so now we're moving on to new business and we're moving on to the municipal fiber task force recommendation memo so the recommendation memo is attached to the agenda hopefully everyone had a chance to read it um especially the last section I think titled the Fiers spring recommendation was is the part that kind of sums everything up so you know I'm not going to go through the whole memo but I'm just going to kind of walk through some some key points on it um some some parts that I think are important um and then we actually have members of the new fber task force and attendance tonight so um you know after I'm done kind of walk you through the memo they're also free to come to the microphone and maybe you know add some thoughts um about you know our our work and then we can um we can answer questions um so um you know the Miss fiber task force was formed about a year ago to explore bringing fiber internet to wetto uh the task force was comprised of nine Town residents and myself and these nine residents brought a variety of experiences from running uh networks of entire universities to building their own network companies to cyber security to you know working on the business side of it and to um being longtime leaders in our community and and over the last year these residents have put in countless hours and have put in so much of their own time and energy uh into the work of this task force that it's really been remarkable and I'm so proud to have worked alongside them and the town is so lucky that had their passion and their energy and their expertise um you know towards this work um and the fact that folks in the industry uh who know it so well have devoted so much time to this effort uh I think that should tell you how important it is uh to bring fiber internet to W so when I campaigned last year for the select board I talked to folks all over town and the issue of Internet kept coming up over and over again and it came up across every demographic folks are unsatisfied with their current Internet offering they're not satisfied with the price the speed the reliability and just the overall performance and what we've seen over the last few years is that almost every other town around us has observe these same problems and they've all taken steps towards bringing fiber internet to their municipalities so we had the advantage of looking at what communities around us have already done and learn from them um we started this process by researching all the different ways that fivr is brought into account so research approaches used all over the country from towns in Idaho Ohio Utah Arizona and of course towns uh in western Mass and ultimately we Nar it down to the three different methods or approaches offered in western Mass communities so the three approaches that towns and western Mass have used are to welcome a private company to come into town and provide fiber internet uh another approach is to offer fiber internet through a Open Access model and then the most common U approach has been to off for town-owned fiber internet and we also identified four criteria that we felt that fiber internet should hit um availability meaning that every household should have the opportunity to connect a fibr internet if they so choose affordability make sure that's affordable for folks um that it should be an offering that allows the town to control its own future in regards to fiber so that it can adapt uh to the changing fiber landscape and adapt to technology and that this offering allows the town to generate revenue and additionally our group's discussions focused then how internet is used in the 21st century how it's being used today and how it's going to be used in the future and that the internet today and in the future is more like a utility everyone relies on the internet and it's becoming increasingly important in almost every phase of Life work School tella Health entertainment Public Safety you name it and uh fiber internet is also more environmentally friendly than what we currently have with coax cables so we after doing research we held interviews with vendors offering these three different approaches the interview and question answer sessions were substantive and robust and you know went well going to the night we even um afterwards participated in facilities towards with some of these vendors and we also reached out to other communities in western Mass to them from their experience of bringing fiber to their communities and after all these interviews and tours and Outreach it became clear that town-owned fiber internet was the only approach that met all of our criteria motions were made to stop considering the other approaches and the Motions passed unanimously and towns that offer fiber internet in western Mass um offering it through a town Network like I said before for is the most common approach and in the last section I talked about the Fiers spring recommendation um it kind of goes into more detail about how about why we ruled out the other approaches um and then emotional subsequently made in our meetings um to recommend that the town of low partner with Fiers spring uh to bring fiber internet to lto Fiers spring is a branch of South Hadley gas electric and Fiers spring has a partnership was Holio gas electric um so the Holio gas electric and and South havy gas electric basically together have this energy called Fiers spring and they the way the partnership works is that H Electric is kind of the wholesaler they they provide the fiber Network and Fiers spring offers all the ads so they do the billing the technical support uh you know the Outreach all of that and Fiers spring uh provides internet not only in South but also sh and Le and so if long were to partner with Fiers spring fibers spring would be the project manager of the fiber Network buildout they would then provide admin Services um after know after they built out to our customers so in a customer's Bill a portion would go to Fiers spring for all the admin but the rest of the bill would be Revenue to the town of w and we you know the the vot to choose Fiers spring is unanimous which was surprising because you know we have so many different perspectives so many different views on this task force but I think the strength of fers Spring's presentation and their ability to just show us how everything worked they really opened up the hood for us and they were very honest with us about you know every price every potential you know hardship everything um they were so impressive that the vote to recommend them as human and their buildout in South havle is projected to come in under budget and had a schedule um there's a leadership team is comprised of folks that were part of fighter build outs in Westfield and chickp um and then you know obviously having that partnership with fo gas electric who's also a veteran in the industry that diversity of the experience was really important because they understand the fiber Landscaping western Mass so well and they have learned lessons from doing these build outs in kinds of different ways of different communities and you know based on that they have new ideas and new approaches uh from that experience also they offered us a pretty favorable contract term so they offered us a fiveyear contract term and so at the end of that fiveyear contract long meta will be completely built out and fers spring believes that our experience with them will be so positive that we will sign a new contract with them after 5 years and I believe that that was the town in a good place because where we had a partner who was willing to put some skin in the game and bet on themselves um that that can be really advantageous for us um and another Advantage is that fiber spring is completing their buildout of South cley this summer so if we partner with them we will be their next project and so we will receive their full attention and effort um fers spring is going to come and present at our next meeting so will get to meet um you know their senior staff um and they're also going to bring along their CFO so we can dive more into the financials then but in Broad Strokes the town will be divided into what's called fiber hoods a website will be created where folks can express interest in bringing fiber to their home the fiber hoods that have the most interest will be built out first and the revenue generated will be used to pay know Debt Service and to build out subsequent fiber hoods this allows for towns to read and react so that the buildout is done in a manner that makes you know Financial sense and this is how all the communities around us that have done this um have proceeded by doing it in stages and using the um Revenue that's generated pay for you know the next expects um so you know in Outreach done to other towns we asked you know what the pitfalls are concerns with Town fiber were and what we kept hearing over and over again from every Community was that there are that there are de that this is a home run that there are upfront costs but once customers begin connecting to Fiverr there's potential to generate significant revenue and for a town like long me without many Revenue sources this will completely change our financial picture and instead of sending you know having residents pay for internet sending their money to Big corporations uh by switching to furn instead Town residents will be sending their money back into the community into you know our schools into our roads into our sidewalks into our parks and on top of that they'll be getting a service that is faster and more reliable so in terms of next steps tonight we're not asking the select board you know to do anything uh to take any action fber spring is going to present at our next meeting and they're going to be doing Outreach events you know in the community like tabling at Pride or you know other events in October going to be scheduling an event to give residents an opportunity to meet Fiers spring and ask questions then what we are going to be asking the select board is that they approve two articles being placed on the fall special tal meeting warrant uh the first article is to it is the second vote required to create a municipal l plant um if you guys recall the first vote in May passed lonly and the second article that we're requesting to select for place on the warrant is an article to approve $400,000 for Fiers spring to submit poll applications to get fiber on the polls and to do uh design and Engineering for um we wanted to proceed in this way because this is a big undertaking and we wanted to put this you know up for a vote uh you know for the town and we want to spend the time between now and November 12th time meeting to educate the town about this uh to do Outreach so that folks felt you know they had their question answer they help good about this um and then you know ultimately give to them for a vote if the municipal life plan is created on November 12 and the funding is approved to Begin work on PO applications and design and Engineering then we will bring a an a uh intergovernmental agreement to a subsequence meeting so the SEL word assign so that we can enter into a partnership with Fiers so um that's you know kind of going through the memo U you know there's a lot more detail in the memo like I said this you know has been a year in the making with a lot of folks uh putting a lot of time um but I don't know if there's anyone you know at the task force there that you know wants to come up to the mic and add anything that I I may have missed only give folks an opportunity if uh if they'd like to do that but if not then you know we can move over to questions from the select board I think is that you Henry step right up hell yeah just uh you know name address and you know feel free to to speak a little Henry Lanette uh 16 massav uh one of the one of the questions I've been getting from folks as I talk about it in my close community of friends is well what happens when the cable TV goes away that's one of the questions you'll get because once this goes there's no no more cable TV so there are uh the the folks at uh Fiers spring have told us it becomes a process where you have to educate people I'm streaming I cut the cable a long time ago and called xinity and told them to come and take all their copper away but people stream with Netflix and Hulu and Disney if they want to get YouTube TV it's got all your local channels in it and you can still put an antenna on your roof so these are some of the questions that I I predict will will be answering for people in some of these public sessions great thank you um I don't know Josh had a question first so I know if that that actually does that was one of my questions if if we to me this is a no-brainer and as soon as I I I felt great until you said said well there's no downsides and I said oh wait that can't be true um will we've gotten letters from Comcast saying oh you're making a huge mistake what are you doing is there any scenario where we build up enough of a base or has this other towns where Comcast pulls out or will they change services in town when when they do when we do have enough of a base I don't think I can so yeah some of these sorry so yeah some of these communities I mean it remarkable the uh the take rate for fiber internet I mean you're seeing communities where 90% uh plus are moving over to fiber internet um I have not you know I think with these companies like Comcast and Spectrum which are the two big ones in the area they don't them have pulled out they don't need to their cables are already up on the poles um and so we haven't really seen anything in terms of that I'm pulling out uh we are seeing is a concerted concerted effort to stop towns from adopting fiber internet so there is a dark money uh political action committee called Mass priorities um that has been spending significant money in western Mass uh you know folks believe that they are backed by Comcast and spectrum and they are you know doing canvasing uh they're sending out mailers they're basically trying to stop communities from uh moving over to town fiber because they know that it's a you know that's a death KN for them uh that they can't compete with it they can't compete with the speed reliability with the civic pride that comes with putting uh you know money back into your own Community uh with the pricing um and so that's the approach they've taken I mean they have been unsuccessful in most communities uh they've been successful in one community and and getting a vote to go down uh to create a municipal life plant uh but that is something that you know we are aware of uh that fers spring is aware of and I think with a with good Outreach with good education um and with push back that I trust the people of Long Meadow to be able to understand the difference here I don't understand what's going on so um so David Hart 31W road so Josh kind of to answer your question there's really two services that are provided to Consumers today it's bundled using Comcast own term that you can get internet and TV on one bill essentially what we'd be doing is taking over one aspect of that that is the providing the infrastructure for internet to be able to run from home through the Fiers spring Network then you're left with a choice which is great this is what consumers want now you have the ability to say I'll take Comcast TV package or I'll take Hulu or or or or YouTube or any of the other ones and that competitiveness is what helps to be able to drive down the cost of the TV the internet package that this is one of the things that we discovered I was actually in line at Comcast cutting the cable myself with a neighbor right next to me who lived in Long Meadow getting a better service with their equipment for $20 less than they were trying to charge me so the transparency of what they're billing the services offered to the people in town it's not on it's not like we offer this to Long Meadow it's based on a dress these people these people are not playing above board so for that perspective we just talked about water and sewer rates this is a chance for long met to control its own destiny with regards to something that will be as intrical as water sewer electricity and gas the internet is that important having the ability to control our own destiny going forward today through a partnership with Fiers spring 5 years down the road maybe something that we do in town for ourselves we have options that's the great thing but it is nonetheless um it puts us in control of our own destiny we did also publish a document um of FAQs there are 50 towns in the state of Massachusetts right now who are offering an MLP um service the ability to also not only do internet but also be the the delivery provider for electricity there are more options for us once we get this started to bring control back to the town and to the town's people than just the internet just to one just one follow Ben Brown ad Lane uh Comcast has existed with other providers inside of the eastern Mass 128 belt for 30 years most towns have two operators some towns have three um a lot of towns have Verizon um RCN and Comcast all in the same town operating and hasn't affected anyone's bottom line really great thank you and um you know I think um Dave you brought a good point too with um and fber spring will discuss this when they come to our next meeting but uh the way that they you know set up their appointments when folks are connected to fivr is they block off at least four hours and what they do is they connect the home the fiber and they also leave time to you know spend with folks so that they if they're you know going to switch over to Hulu or sling TV or YouTube TV they'll actually sit down with folks and get them set up on all their devices they'll help them with passwords they'll help them with everything so that by the time they leave you know folks will be up and running with with everything that they need go ahead Mar okay you okay you should yeah and then I'll go after okay V is up so thank thank you for your work on this it's I think Municipal fiber internet is the most important thing we can do both from the service to customers and our residents and also as a potential Revenue source for the town my concern is and has always been the economics of the of of of the program and I read through this very carefully and what you know I saw some proposed charges but not the cost of the buildout nor did I see although Venit just said something about subscription or take rate you know when we talked about this 8 years ago six years ago we got from people oh but I bundle phone you know cable and internet from Comcast and I wouldn't switch because my internet is essentially 15 bucks a month extra because of the bundle and then we get from people you know and and and frankly I don't think Comcast will sit back and let us do this you know without responding financially you know they're likely come back and say well if Town's going to offer it for X dollar I'll undercut their price by whatever and so I think having a a financial model that's based on what we've seen at other communities would be very very helpful for the town especially when it comes down to saying we need to borrow X number of dollars you know and and the other thing is what I heard was this is a a initial proposal for pole permits right a good percentage of our town and I don't know what it is but I bet you it's 25 to 40 doesn't have polls you know they're underground and and so is somebody going to dig up the streets like Comcast did and put you know it was actually Media One 40 years ago you know and and and put the because potentially that's the difference between when I'll say a a a you know a critical mass of subscribers and a not critical mass of subscribers getting those that other 25 to whatever percent of the town that doesn't have pole connections and so I think that's important clearly there's a also a concern that I think the committee or whoever needs to be addressed we did it somewhat with the street lights when we bought the street lights but people need to understand what happens when a snowstorm comes and the wires go down who's going to reinstall my fiber and all this kind of stuff and people just want to know that you know frankly it's not the town that's going to do it there's going to be a service contract or whatever the heck we're going to do but those are all the concerns that I think between now and I I think the fall town meeting that that need to be address certainly understanding the economics so that we know what the take rate is and we can you know we'll never know how many people in long midle will take the internet service from this but certainly we South Hadley is a very probably comparable community and if you know they're at a high percentage we can or whatever percentage they are we can use that but also looking at the you know how we come up with the capital costs whether this initial $400,000 will get us enough subscribers so that the town doesn't need to initiate another for you know because building out fiber in this town is going to be big bucks overall so the the 400,000 was just for poll applications buildout would be its own series of bonds which would be done through the MLP directly right right it's kind of like an Enterprise fund the MLP will do it and pay for it out of the revenue but it it's important I think that we understand that the revenue can support those bonds so the the both Fiers spring and whip City showed us projections they both seemed to show us that beneath 40% was the take rate needed to generate Revenue um and they both showed uh South Hadley had was over 40% take rate and uh I think Westfield has never been below 40% their build outs I think that's important but it's important to share those as we ask the town to fund and and and Mark and I appreciate that question obviously so the the reason why we didn't get into it tonight is because we're going to have the Chief Financial Officer of fers spring come at our next meeting and that is like you know obviously going to the financials part of this is a longer discussion than the discussion we've been having tonight so I wanted to just split it up and really dive into those numbers they're going to have a spreadsheet they're going to come with everything um and we're going to really dig into all of that um at our September 3rd meeting because that is important for you know folks to understand exactly what the financials um will look like here and our borrowing options and all of that um and then um your question in regards to the poll application so the poll applications they're just time sensitive because they take about two years um to go through so getting them in as quickly as possible um is you know is just of the utmost importance and the you know the idea with fiber with this fiber offering is that every home will be connected to will have the option to be connected to fiber area so even if folks um you know are getting underground utilities you know they're going to be running fiber with those utilities to get to those places so no new poles are going to be put up or anything it's just going to be running with uh existing utilities um and then in in you know in terms of repairs I think this is also another place where um partnering with a neighbor um is so advantageous because when something happens you know fers spring is be coming down from South havle uh to make those repairs they're going to be offering uh technical support and repairs um and then the lead technician at fibers spring was is actually somebody who worked for Comcast in Long met for about 10 or 15 years so when you talk to him he's somebody that knows every Street in Long Meadow like the back of his hand um and this is just another advantage to working with someone uh you know with a community partner um that knows us well and be able to you know provide the service um that we need and I think you know folks in Long Meadow are going to be you know very pleased with this um and we'll see the difference between that versus you know working uh receiving service from a a private company a couple of things that number one there's two documents that are prepared for you one is the the document that's attached the other one is the FAQ intentionally we split the recommendation to the board and the meeting with fibers spring to be a month out to give you folks time to consider rather than just saying hey here it is and do it all in one night so you've got a month to kind of start reading getting up to speed Mark asked a question about is is Comcast just going to die and roll over no they will come out with lower priced options but the the fact of the matter is they're pricing a lower priced option over coaxial cable versus fiber um I'll leave that to Ben to explain Ben and Ben to explain explain the differences there with we're talking apples and oranges it really is and then we do have I think there's a way to get some historic rates from the comp the towns who have done this already and what their take rates were as well as the ones that are going forward including you know wilam which has been very I guess you know help uh willing to share information and data back and forth thank you great uh thanks um just a couple things but first I I wanted to Echo you know what Mark said too I mean that what what you did for this the community and just the service I mean you guys put in like countless hours um a lot of SE several meetings um several opinions um really looked at this um you know very um thorough and you know venath as well just want to commend you on really taking this you know head on right when right when you got on the board and this was something that came up when I was running as well and and right when you got on um you know I know you were eager to hit the ground running and and make a a positive impact and especially in a town like Long Meadow when we have conversations all the time about how can we how can we generate additional Revenue but also this is a way not only are we gaining additional Revenue in the future but we're also helping a lot of the folks that are um working remotely from home as well um with this transition over the past you know 5 years or so with with the thing called Co so I think this is a great project venath I commend you for um leading this um the committee for all the work that you've done and just looking at everyone's resume too it's really impressive to to have everyone you know come together and and serve so I really I appreciate everyone's um effort and and input on this um secondly I love the word fiber hoods I thought that was kind of made me laugh when I was reading that um so one of the questions I excuse me one of the questions I had there so is this is it like a a community within Long Meadow you have different neighborhoods where everyone raises their hand yes I want to I want to get involved and I want I want fiber um versus I guess I'm bringing it up because I'm just concerned about some maybe some parts of town that maybe there's um elderly folks in this area and and um they might not know to you know they're not maybe as in tune in terms of having the same access that that we might have being the younger generation and I just want to make sure that they're not left out you know with the fiber hoods the goal of the fiber hoods is to choose which neighborhoods get done first rather than being arbitrary and just choosing a section of town but the the overall goal of the project would be to hit every single residents in the town um it just may take you know instead of year one s six months in it's it's year three two months in and this has been like a positive based on some of the rollouts yeah so both whip City and Fiers spring do it this way they think it's the easiest way uh West Springfield's fiberhood or whatever they're calling it was overwhelmed in its first day um and they were able to pick three three sets right away um I think uh when we talked to whip City you know their um their MLP board member said uh that he tried as hardest for his neighborhood to be the first fiberhood and even he lost um and it just made it they think it makes it fair where the Private Industry would choose the north section of town and work their way across even though it may not make sense so what you're saying is Venice neighborhood is going to be first well it depends on his neighbors exactly that's the thing it's and it does two things besides getting public opinion it also helps to fund the rest of the build the more you've got a hundred Neighbors in a fiberhood that are willing sign up versus only 50 and another one you're actually going to generate more Revenue with the the fiberhood that has 100 people want that just raises a point long is a pretty small Geographic Town 9 square miles compared to even South Hadley or someplace else do they do these Fiber Hoods by area I mean or or area or do they say we're going to split every town into five sections or 10 you know so if you're twice the size you still get 10 sections as a as a I think whb City showed us a appap I think but how they would do it but I think they choose groupings of of residences so you know uh so it might a thousand residents is a fiber hood or something so we're we're 5400 residents give or take so you're saying maybe there's 2,000 or maybe 500 hous in res okay but but it's it's not going to be the size of the Town doesn't make the difference it's their capability to say we can connect in this number of houses at once and so we're going to do it in groups of say 80 or groups of a 100 or whatever they decide and I I think they've even said to us that we probably will have to do multiple fiber hoods at a time we won't be able to just do one and then do the next and the next we'll have we'll have to do multiple and obviously right there's only one outlying area and that's the down by the river that has the least density but everything else is rather dense rather flat easy to construct we're also looking proposing to look at what the whole thing underground would look like what the cost is maybe it's worth it maybe it's not but that's what we still have to find out okay and the last question I have is the town owns a fiber backbone will this build off of the town's fiber backbone or just put in a whole new system just it would go on top of it I think they said they could look at interconnecting it wherever it exists but they need more more fiber than what is already there basically I thought fivr had like unlimited capacity you know so they so each each fiberhood or each neighborhood will get its own dedicated line back to a building somewhere in town that is the sort of driver and then when they get to the neighborhood they take a a big passive splitter and they they split it into 16 homes um so there may be you know there may be 32 strands of fiber that go to that box that get split out 16 times each 16 * 32 we're getting very close to series of twos we're also very fortunate we don't have a lot of multi delling units I mean there is the JCC facility there's a few others but for the most part we're single family homes that's that's been the downfall of all of of all of these companies is getting into the multi-dwelling units yeah you got to go into an apartment building just want to talked about Josh's question about the cutting the cord and the cable boxes and stuff Benjamin tansky uh 130 cresty Circle if you look at your Comcast or your Xfinity remote now you go on your TV everything is IP based your cable box is actually Us in the internet so you want to see replays of the football game you're going online it's all IP based so it's a lot about education and that's what the task force is going to really help as well educating the community I think my my question was more I think it's been answered but if if com if we got a 60% up uh take rate and then would Comcast say h you know what we're only going to offer basic internet or we're not going to do Cable in Long Meadow anymore for people who did choose to use it but I I that question's been answered but uh yeah I I I was kind of I I was an old school too guy and I was kind of shocked when uh like my internet went down I couldn't watch it anymore hey that doesn't seem fair so yeah so I I could used that information like five years ago noted and I I just back oh sorry oh I just wanted to say before I shut up for the night on this uh thank you all and we really appreciate it you guys worked hard on this I thought that this was a a fantastic recommendation I was really excited to read it and uh this could really change the fate of Long Meadow it could really do a lot for this town um so thank you for your work I appreciate it thank you it's the beginning is what we call it right there's a lot more to go after this thank you yeah and just one point I was to Circle back to Dan asked about making sure that folks that U might otherwise take this opportunity maybe senior citizens other folks uh that they are you know brought into the loop Fiers spring has obviously already you know tackled this issue in South Hadley and they do different types of they different strategies like they you know will set up at the senior center or they will set up at the library or do different events um just to answer questions and reach out to folks that might not hear about this otherwise um because you know obviously for this to work as well as it should uh it's in everyone's best interest for the take rate to be as high as it can so um you know that are considerations you know those are considerations that you know they've already thought about and you know I think are excited to do here in all right any other questions all right well as you guys can see uh I've been pretty lucky to work with folks as smart and as talented as as these folks on the task force so uh all of you thank you for joining tonight uh thank you for helping with this presentation and um and you know we'll see you hopefully back on September 3rd with fers springs presen as well thank you thanks thank you all right um okay so we can move on now to the quarterly investment report um do we have Erica to talk about this uh yes I'm moving her in as panelist now okay great thank you hi Erica thank you for joining us good evening thank you for having me awesome so uh we'll start off with the quarterly investment report if you want to go through that sure so I'm here tonight submitting my quarterly report on the status of the town's cash and investment for the period ending June 30th 2024 as for the investment policy the town held no longterm Investments That exceeded the 5-year limit the individual Bank balances were under the $20 million Bank provision all banks received the highest safety rating of Green from verabank and all accounts are fully insured and secured the final quarter of fiscal year 2024 has seen very stable interest rates with the only notable increase at mson Savings Bank I reached out to mson Savings Bank and specifically asked them to see if we could get an increase on our trust funds that hold their scholarships at trust funds for the town um and they were able to increase the from 1% to 2% um the assistant Treasurer and I are constantly closely monitoring interest rates and moving funds to the appropriate accounts to optimize Investments with best returns um we were also notified recently from People's Bank that they are being required to exit DF as a result of their growth beyond the D aggregate deposit limit D has ensured us that they will continue to cover all balances as of January 31st for an additional year so as of Janu sorry July 31st I made sure that our balance was just below 20,000 which is our limit um sorry 20 million which is just um below our maximum limit to ensure that no matter what we have in there for funds that follow the policy we will be ured for the year um and I already have reached out to our representative at People's Bank and we are working to set up a meeting to figure out what our options will be and what the best will be for the town um the opad pension Reserve investment fund experienced a gain in quarterly interest the quarter ended with a net increase of approximately $112,000 and the balance as of June 34th Jun 30th sorry is approximately $8 million the Treasurers Office continues to seek the best possible interest rate and diversifi funds appropriately to maximize investment potential while being compliance with Massachusetts state laws and regulations we'll also continue to closely monitor all accounts and ensure the safety and security of all of our great thank you so much um any questions from the board for Erica no questions just that if if a phone call got us initial 1% at Monson you should call them a lot [Laughter] more thank you ER all right any anything else all right and then uh Erica are you also here to talk about the ban approval I am yes okay great thank you okay so for the ban approval on August 7th um I think it ends here too so empl theater jump in here but on August 7th um we went out to bid for an $840,000 ban the ban is for 360 days and covers two authorizations the first authorization is 800,000 new borrowing on the Middle School feasibility study and 40,000 is a renewal um on the water main drawings the town received six bids on the total $840,000 ban and the bids range from 4% to 5.10% we want to go with the lowest bid which is Oppenheimer and company with a rate of 4% if you take the nck or the net interest uh cost of 3.92 after Prem after the premium of 655 is applied brings us down a little bit so it's it's a way for different companies to take advantage by offering a premium um and I have attached the bid sheets you can can see all the different bids but it is my recommendation as well as that of Ian the town finance director to award the bid as outlined in the vote below I won't read the big because I know you have to anyway but if you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer them great thank you and Ian anything to add uh just for additional context with this uh if we go back to fall of 22 so this this originally came from first meeting article one of uh 25th 2022 which the town voted to appropriate 1.6 million to use towards the Glen M School building committee now the 800,000 that we are redoing towards this feasibility study is half the other half is funded through free cash and half of it will be funded through a borrowing authorization this is that such authorization great thank you um anything from the board yeah Mark yeah I have a I have a question one is the the $800,000 for the middle school do we anticipate continuing to roll this over as bands until such time as we Bond the school and then pay for it as bonds or are we going to just pay for the bands out of operating revenue and that's the I guess we'll start with that question I have another one after that so the current situation is we have $400,000 appropriated within the budget for short-term debt for 2025 and then we have another 400,000 in anticipated in FY 26 to pay for the full ban so the rationale right now is to keep the 400,000 rolling to use towards this project and then potential future projects I I apologize but I'm not sure so we're when this ban expires or is up we're going to take out another ban for 800,000 or only for 400,000 so no the we the ban was F in 2026 or 2025 fiscal year 2026 so we will have a sort of timing difference where there will be 400,000 encumbered from fy2 to pay for this $800,000 ban so with that being said I'm sorry so we would we would renew half of it we would renew the 400,000 to get us the fiscal year 26 so yes Mark you would we would pay off 400,000 next year and then only renew 400,000 400,000 the following year and then it would be completely paid off the full um 800,000 in two years okay and so so we're going to pay for $400,000 out of this out of the operating budget in 2025 have 400,000 left and somehow we'll roll that over figure it out at that time yeah it'll be another band likely because of they're so much cheaper than actually going out to um Bond you wouldn't want to bond 400,000 if it's not the full project yet correct I I get that the other thing is the the $40,000 not is for water projects I was under the impression that we already had supplemental money that we had bonded for water projects and so I was wondering why we were Banning take borrowing another $40,000 through this ban rather than using some available money that we had actually bonded for this water project so originally the ban that was due August 20224 included $60,000 for the long water M drawings so this is just renewing that bond that to pay it off over the onee period that Still Remains there's only 40,000 that remains after the principal payment is made at this year 25 right I get that I but we're paying 4% on that 40 $40,000 so give or take that's you know that's I don't know 1,600 bucks or something like that we can save the town $1,600 just by using the money we already have that we borrowed for water projects and not ban this at not roll this ban over just pay it off I would think so if you don't mind me jumping in I don't have the chart in front of me I'm sorry I thought I printed out but um I believe the goal was to gradually pay off the ban so that when some of the debt fell off I believe it's F the year 26 it would be more of an even kale with the borrowing so we were gradually having some fall off um I believe that was the goal was to just kind of spread it out over um the years until school year 26 is that would be when the Middle School potentially would be bonded for yeah I yeah I moved from the 800,000 for the middle school I'm I'm now looking at the $40,000 portion of this Bond author Bond anticipation note that's going to be used for water department drawings that b the ban that has $40,000 left for water department drawings we could pay that off out of funds I assume water is water the water Department's the water department pay it off out of money we already have and and that we've already borrowed and stop paying four you know unless there's a you know gee this is only 4% interest and we're you know we're paying far far more than that on the other money or less or whatever you know unless there's an Arbitrage reason to do that it seemed to me borrow less than if we've already got that $40,000 borrowed so mark my question to you then is are you not looking to move forward with this band and you're looking to have us go back to our financial advisors and reissue well I mean when you put it that way I mean the answer may be yes because why are we borrowing $40,000 if we already have the $40,000 that we can pay for that we borrowed previously as part of water department projects should we not have gone out for a ban you know I I totally understand and accept and agree with what the town authorized us to do borrow $800,000 for the Middle School feasibility study pay the8 other $800,000 out of uh retained earnings or free cash I'm sorry how of free cash that's fine my only question was what were we going to do at the termination of this band and you answered that the other portion of this this Bond anticipation note is $40,000 for water drawings you know I thought that we had money and last we looked we still had some supplemental money that we had borrowed for water projects that we could pay to do this that's all I'm I'm asking why do you did we not do that it's it's you know it just seems like we you know if you got $40,000 in cash on hand why go out and borrow another $40,000 to roll over a ban um Ian and Erica do we have time on this to wait until September 3rd or is this time sensitive I'm sure the band expires it's got to be rolled over so the band expires on the 20th um I don't honestly know without talking talking to our financial adviser if it could wait I the the best I can answer that is that I believe the the plan behind it was once that 60,000 for the water mains was part of the band you either have to pay it off or you can renew it you can't um take a year off so to say and then renew it later so I think it was plan to renew it so that the water rates would be consistent and you weren't seeing a huge hike I'm not sure it's hard I wasn't part of this conversation so I don't know where the the methods were for using this money rather than something from a different fund I I can't speak to that so I apologize Mark in my discussions with Paul my understanding with the short-term debt Arrangement is that giv the town the ability to keep a certain amount appropriated for short-term debt gives us the flexibility in order to do smaller projects with bands in the future if we were to decrease the short-term debt capacity that would remove the ability for us to take on such bands in the future and you wouldn't be able to borrow for this piece again yes I believe that's correct if you don't continue to borrow for this you can't come back after borrow again for it I I frankly I don't understand follow that but I guess I don't need to you know NE necessarily you know a a bond anticipation note and I may be wrong about this but my understanding is it's a way for us to borrow money at a lower rate rather than all the costs involved with issuing a a true Bond a 10year bond a 20-year Bond whatever a bonding anticipation note has a lot less paperwork and a whole lot less cost to the town so we go out for banss and and for a long time and it may even be now the interest rates you pay on bands had been much lower than the interest rates you pay on bonds So Not only was it you know operationally easier but it was also financially more desirable for the longest time and we used to take Bond anticipation notes and take them out for six months and then just roll them and roll them and roll them until we we finally paid them off so I I don't I'm not opposed to the use of bonding anticipation notes I think they're appropriate when they're appropriate but we're borrowing money for a use when we have money already in the bank that we previously borrowed and we we're if we're borrowing this money what we are doing with the $40,000 at least is paying off the old Bond anticipation note right because it's still there essentially rolling it over the $800,000 is new it's new Middle School you know feasibility study but we're borrowing money to roll over a bond anticipation note you know I'm not going to run this into the ground I just think it's not my my decision of how I would financially run the town the 4% on $40,000 is $1,600 a year it's not going to make her break this budget but it's $1,600 I do have a little clarification I I think this might answer it but I'm not sure because I'm trying to catch up as well um the drawings do not have the same term that all of the other borrowing we did for the L project does so that's why we need a ban as opposed to using the L project proceeds or I shouldn't say proceeds but if that's what you were getting at using the L project borrowing that we did we can't that borrowing was for 25 year lifespan or whatever it is and the drawings don't have that same lifespan so it's not eligible it's not an eligible use all right thank you I just what's what's hanging me up here is we're talking about a renewal of the 40,000 to keep our short-term borrowing capacity but this is this 40,000 a new this is a new uh loan correct our new it's being added to the note or is it renewed so it's from last year it's a renewal it's AAL it's AAL okay I think between that and lens's answer I I I feel comfortable with and given the time limit we have on the rest because the ban is for 840,000 it's not for 800 and then 40 right right it's one band yeah so I think we given given our timing and the fact that it is small I I think we should go forward I agree with Mark that I it would have been at least nice to have the information coming in because it does it jumped out at me as well as why are we why are we borrowing that but I mean wouldn't the financial adviser be privy to this and provide some direction or or or not at all uni uni bank's job is to loan money the more they loan the better the more their take is gu so I'm not I'm not convinced I would rely on unib Bank the although one would like to think they would advise us on it but who knows yeah I guess that was more of a question for Erica and Yin when you go to our financial advisers I mean aren't they giving trying to give us advice around what we what we might be missing out on or making the best decisions so I'm just curious how those conversations go when you reach out to them we meet with them to this discuss what our upcoming capital projects are and they rank recommendations based on what they feel either is advantageous for the town or what's available CU depending on the type of capital project it would it would not be recommended to do a bond if it's small or depending on the time frame of when we need to do the projects we might do a bond or a ban thanks great thank you I agree um good questions I think um you know responses provided by ER he really help clarify um do we have a motion or any further discussion on this I'll move that we I'll move that we approve I'm sorry there is a vote that is in the um memo that I submitted it just has to be pretty precise for the borrowing if you wouldn't mind just reading that yeah thank you um I move to award to Oppenheimer and Company a 360-day 840,000 bond $840,000 Bond anticipation note at a rate of 4% with a premium of $655 for an Nic of 3.92 120% second uh any further discussion okay uh Mike Mr Hy yes Mr zerko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes all right great thank you Erica appreciate you guys staying down and chatting with us about this thank you all right thanks have a good night all right uh now we're going to move over to the uh fall special town meeting look ahead and a couple of zoning bylaw ch um you know proposals um so there's a memo and there's also another zoning bylaw change draft uh the first zoning BW change draft on the agenda is in reference to uh 3.15 to 3.17 uh which relates to commercial vehicles Josh do you want to uh take the lead on talking about this one uh sure so this is uh something that I know is uh a a a topic of conversation that a lot of people in town have had had for years um and it's a Hot Topic I've seen a planning board meetings in a lot of towns um so my my goal here and uh is to uh get the town to consider whether we want to change our commercial parking rules right now uh that we have in place right now uh and and generally to be more much more Pres permissive of commercial vehicles parked on in residential zones and park in driveways uh and I give you three I've been thinking about this for a long time I'll give you three reasons uh why I it's at the Forefront of my mind now why I wanted to bring It Forward um I think that Long Meadow there's has a changing makeup of who lives here uh and maybe at one point it was all doctors and lawyers um but now there's a lot of folks who who uh are Tradesmen or have businesses that they may run out of their house uh and we're not we're not a bedroom community anymore um or maybe we're a different kind of bedroom community but uh I I think that it it would be it's more indicative of who we are if we do allow people to bring their work Vehicles home if they need to um the long range report that we just voted in on last year or this year uh recommended this change or changes like this uh specifically um for Equity purposes um and there are uh if you read the report it gives some reasons why uh this would be a good change uh generally it is good for the town to have uh to make these uh changes to allow more people to come into town and uh to change the the base of who is able to move here uh because you can you can make a lot of money as a Tradesman you can it might be improving your house uh there's a lot of reasons why it makes sense to allow this uh and then a third one and a a big one that I talked to Lynn about our Code Enforcement Officers spend an in orniment amount of time on commercial parking Fielding complaints or arguing with people about whether they can park their vehicles um I recently heard from a resident who I think is now a former resident who left town because of they could Park their vehicles and they had tried different a few different solutions and short of building a garage on their property they couldn't afford to live in town anymore uh or to have or it would be very inconvenient to have their uh work vehicle parked somewhere else uh in outside of town so this is mostly my thoughts with some input from uh Lynn Karin and ven um so and I say that uh not to uh damnn them but to damn myself I this is I want this to be uh to start the conversation I there's I already think of since I put these changes on I already thought of a change um but I would like input from the other members I would like input from uh the planning board uh and so hope we can vote to suggest this to the planning board uh tonight based on and I can explain why um and from residents who are watching who are are uh who have want to give input on this I I know that this is a a Hot Topic and I've heard I've talk to people about it and I've heard uh for and against and I'm curious to hear what other people uh think and I hope we can uh consider it and the the nice thing about our town is uh ultimately the town's people deci side at town meeting um so the five of us could be totally for this totally against it but if we can put it to the town we can hear voices and uh see what happens um so Mike if you want to go up to the top yep so this is the zoning bylaw uh there was one change that needed to be made regardless I think and Kar pointed it out to me um but so this is like all zoning bylaws it works a lot in uh double negatives so this it states that in Residence zones uh no building shall be used or erected which in intended to be used for any purpose except one or more of the following so basically you can have a detached permanent single family dwelling together with an attached garage housing not more than three Automobiles and this is the part that should be changed anyway all of what shall be of a non-commercial passenger type so this was not enforced I I think so this said you could have a non-commercial vehicle in your garage that's not what it said it said you couldn't even have it in your garage that was not enforced obviously so I think no matter what we do that should be taken off um if we go down to then uh a b or a1b um so this you could have a parking space in a garage as long or you could rent out a parking space in your garage as long as you are not required to uh that space is not required to allow no more than or to have all the vehicles parked in the premises and not on the street uh so that is a very confusing worded one um I think I I tried to fix it but uh this basically says you can't park in your driveway and like in my house I technically have a two-car garage but you could never fit two cars in there so I've my cars in my driveway technically I would have been in violation of this uh if well if I was renting um and then here's the big one that I think we should add and this is one of the ones I would like to discuss and I already would like to change on so I am saying that you can have you can park no more than two registered Comm commercial vehicles related to a business owned by or employing a resident of the premises as limited by uh A5 which is down below commercial vehicles that weigh more than 10,000 pounds must be partk to the rear of the street setback line and you can see from my edits and I think that might be me and editing uh going back and forth on that a little bit uh my first question to my fellow board members are would we is too too many for how many commercial vehicles you could have on your lot and I also think that and Mike if you want to pull up that website I sent you I I initially put 10,000s as which is a class of truck I thought what it says now is if you have a truck over 10,000 lb which is really a class of truck that you would have to park it behind the street setback line which is 40 fet Bey behind the street and uh that setback line is where in a lot of town that's where the front of your house would be because you cannot build your house in front of the street setback line so basically I was saying for most of the town you cannot have a 10,000 lb or higher truck truck parked in front of your house um I actually think it should be 6,000 lb and that is basically because of you can see on this the cargo van and the Step Van I think are pretty big and the reason I did that is because I would not want people backing out of their driveway and I'm I have to admit I'm mostly thinking of my driveway if my neighbor had a step van or a cargo van in their driveway closer to the street I would not be able to see cars coming the other way so that is really for me that is a safety issue um but I I so I I think that that would be a good change to make just on what I edited uh the one or two trucks would be something I would be interested on vehicles would be something I'd be interested on input on um and then Mike if you want to go back to the other page uh go to the next page on that uh down to 7A oh and by the way that uh where I said the limited to by A5 that means that it must be parked on a paved portion or graveled portion which is an existing bylaw uh and then if you go to the 7A uh this is part of where it was inconsistent so so I I propose that we strike uh that a private garage must be used for overnight vehicular storage of commercial vehicles which includes Vans and pickup trucks used in connection with the business and then my final suggestion is uh actually in the general bylaws it's a parking bylaw mik if you would go all the way down to the bottom of this document oh it's not register oh um hold on one sec yeah it's been disconnecting uh I propose deleting the general bylaw that a person shall not Park a vehicle that is used for commercial purposes on a public way for more than one hour this section does not apply to a vehicle during the time that the person is using the vehicle is rending or service to a household or business establishment or during the time that the vehicle is being used for a pickup from or delivery to a household or business establishment um and this kin informed me this is not enforced uh so this is uh just on a similar vein if somebody has a a commercial vehicle that they Park on their property during the day they could park it on the street um much like I do if with my car if I need to uh let my wife out so we can get back in in uh in and out of our small driveway um so that is uh that's generally the changes I propose um I would like input from the planning board and I would like them to have a public hearing on this and in order to do that uh according to Karin we would want to vote on to send this to the planing board tonight so they could start their discussion September and have and continue to October if necessary and hold the public Hearing in November before the town meeting um so I've talked long enough uh well thank you Josh for you all your work on this for your thoughtfulness on this I mean I agree that this is also something that I've heard about over and over again and um you you know having have the same experience of hearing about it and then also disappearing in a long range uh plan this was just a good time I think for us to have this discussion so uh thanks for bringing this forward um do we have um and and and I am you know in support voting for this to be sent over to the planning board for them to begin their process does anyone have anything they'd like to add or um Mar Mark's got his hand yeah I've got questions first first of all Josh thanks for going through this I I just want to make sure everybody's aware that something that tried to do the same thing it's not this was brought before for a town meeting twice in the last probably four or five years and failed so I don't know if anybody was aware of it but there was a change to our commercial parking regulations so your comment we can do what we want to do but town meeting is going to do what they want to do may may be very very appropriate but people need to understand that was changed the the couple of things that you you asked about change to one versus two vehicles I would favor one 6,000 versus 10,000 000 for the same reasons you suggested 6,000 I would favor 6,000 pound Vehicles the the two other things I want to say is first of all it the people who have come before the select board over the years complaining don't complain over the station wagon that says you know something on the side of it they complain about the pickup truck with the garbage in the back that's parked there constantly so it's not just the vehicles I won't say it's not at all the vehicles it is to some degree the but it's frequently the the the sense that my my neighbors running a you know keeping trash in their back in in their pickup truck and that's what's opposing they oppose and this doesn't address and I don't know that it can address you know what's piled over the out and I you know if if you want to come to me and I'll name names and locations but that to me is more important than you know the the clean pickup truck or the clean van or whatever you know I got some in my neighborhood and frankly it doesn't bother me and it doesn't bother the neighbors but I know there are a couple of neighbors where the condition of the V vehicle is is terrible and this helps them enforce it the second thing I was and and I don't know how to address it but I think we need to if we want to try to get this past the second thing that I would say is you know your comment Josh that this parking it's it's not enforced I'm really concerned about well we don't enforce bylaws so let's change them for example you know we don't enforce keeping your sidewalks clear we don't you know if we have bylaws people put them on the books for a reason we voted for them for a reason we employ people to support the bylaws and if they can't support the bylaws for whatever reason let's look at it you're right we're right if they make no sense get rid of them but don't get rid of them simply because we don't want to enforce them it's annoying it pits neighbor against neighbor if it's a bylaw it's a bylaw we ought to enforce it just to clarify that one Mark I sent this sheet out and said I think this should be taken out and then Karin said yeah and it's not enforced so it went the other way right right okay but but yet I don't want to perceive that we're changing these bylaws because we have trouble enforcing them I if we're going to change the bylaws we should change them because it's accommodating for people who drive commercial vehicles who drive Vans who take you know who work for a company and they take the truck whatever it is but I think we need to be very sensitive to the vehicles that are left in the driveway and I'll you know you know Mr Fox will be in here tomorrow to tell us about his neighbor who's he he claimed was overflowing his trucks with stuff in the driveway constantly and it was an ior in the neighborhood and and so I think we need to address that if we have a hope of getting this to pass and I don't know how to and therefore from my perspective that's probably why Town residents voted not to change it because they knew that once this was in place they couldn't control the quality of those vehicles and and and and there were enough examples of that issue that they didn't want that to happen that's my opinion but I don't know that yeah um Josh thank you for bringing this up appreciate it um so Josh mentioned this was so this was an item that was on the long range planning that I sat on for you know I don't know a year and a half or so uh so we we looked at we looked at the long range plan a couple things you know one being we felt that this was a document in the in the past that just kind of collected dust you know we never really you know did much with it um in in the future years I think when we had the presentation one of the things that we tried to commit to as a board was to make sure that we actually implemented some of the the items that came out of the long range plan um and I can tell you I was in several of these meetings um where this was a topic that came up all all bylaws really um that have been controversial but we also looked at the long range plan with the lens of a couple items one being uh climate resiliency as well as uh Dei and I think that this would be as Josh said the town has changed a lot from you know certainly when I grew up in town in 1990 um I think this is an opportunity for for the board to to take a look at um by bylaws like this that Josh has done um and it gives us the opportunity to to try to make a positive of change and make sure that Long Meadow is seen and viewed as a town that has that is more inclusive um for all different people and all different backgrounds of of work that they might have like Josh mentioned before um viewing Long Meadow as just lawyers and doctors that's that's not the case I mean it's it's changed over time and that's a good thing so I think this is um something that um I can appreciate Josh um putting this forward and you know allowing us to have the conversation I think ultimately um the resident should know that this is just a you know a recommendation initially from the select board that will then go to the planning board that will then come in front of the Town um but I think we do all of these different committees and and task force in town to come up with ways to um get the Public's input and actually Implement positive change and I think this is just another a result of of trying to do that um going back to Josh's point in terms of looking at some of the language one of the items that I that I noticed um and Josh you're a lawyer you probably know much better than I do but with the recent news that came out with the governor and the ad adus would that have any sort of impact to some of the language when we talk about single family dwelling for example is that something we we would want to address now or we wait until no so that's I I have done limited research on that um but because I've gotten questions about it I I think that the short answer is not yet and the long answer is I I think that no because we still what my understanding of that um the legislation is you can put in adus subject to our bylaws so I think we want to look at holistically how is that going to fit in uh to all of our bylaws it wouldn't you can still do that we might if anything we would add on that you could put a dwelling unit uh behind because you want to be able to control how that's used but I don't think it would affect this now that's a good question gotcha okay um yeah I mean that that's just my my comments but I do appreciate it they bringing it for hi also yeah thanks um I mean I certainly personally welcome uh townwide conversation about this important issue thank you Josh for bringing it up I think I'd love to see and learn more about how people feel about it in town I think that when we try to change bylaws what what happens is there are sometimes unintended consequences like you don't really know what might you can't plan for every possible scenario and it might be on a very very micro level in a neighborhood between two neighbors for example it makes it easier or harder to settle disputes we want to minimize disputes but I think that and anything we can do to do that would be would be good but um I certainly would be supportive of having a planning board consideration and a public hearing about this so we can all learn more about where people stand in the pros and the cons thank you just I want to say too U um I do also think Josh you're right here on moving that limit out of 6,000 so I I also agree with that just want to mention that as well and Josh you to say something uh yeah and I I just wanted to address what Andrew said um like like I said at the beginning I I really I don't know how this will go I just thought it and thank you for I think you put it very well this is a townwide conversation I'm not uh standing from the rooftop saying this needs to change I want to know if people want to change I I think and that's I've told many people this came about because of that one conversation I had that somebody was moving Town moving out of town which uh I didn't like to hear but also I people complain about this a lot and I say well you know you can change the bulaw and they say yeah but I said well so I said you know what I'll show I'll show people this is how you change the bylaw even if it doesn't get changed maybe it'll come back and get tweaked later or it can get tweaked on the floor or however it comes about but I think that this is uh something that people complain about a lot they may not like and this is how you do it this is how it can be changed even if it's not at this point this is a this is an example of uh I guess the the beauty of our our weird form of government I suspect what will happen which is probably a good thing you know the conversation will yield this is a good starting point but when we hear more and more about what people we'll think of frankly in their own personal experiences what they've seen and what they are fearful of they'll start making suggestions and then this becomes a much longer document which can be okay you know with more stipulation more uh stringent guidelines Etc and and then you get to a bill or Amendment rather that might or might not pass based on that and an exercise that's absolutely worth doing and that's why we send it to the planning board they are are stores of the zoning bylaws uh and they have they theyve wait they have a lot of experience in looking at these things and have probably heard about this uh before especially you know Bruce and Walter have been on the board for quite a long time so I'm sure they'd have some valuable input um yeah so if we wanna I Josh can I just ask you know is is the timing of this for the special fall town meeting critical versus giving us the time it takes to bring it up at a annual town meeting which generally has better attendance and more input and you know I I I still go back to and I know we've changed this a lot over the last couple of years but you know it's called a special fall town meeting for a reason it's got a lot different requirements than an annual town meeting you know in the past we never put in bylaw changes at the special fall town meeting it was kind of a a cleanup of of the finances and things like that I I don't know what it's going to take to put this through and get the kind of comments and commitments and consensus yeah whatever you you get from people not to mention their what they're going to tell you and here but are we going to are we starting to push that limit now for for the fall yeah and that's that's that's a good question I guess in my time in town there has been no difference in town meetings and I I know it's called the special but and there's different requirements to get it on the uh warrant Etc but it has not seemed different to me and that was I wasn't aware of the history I mean that that does make sense but I haven't noticed a difference in attendance I haven't noticed uh anything different really is it a two3 vote as well on offer bylaw change yeah I would add that the biggest difference is what it takes to get something on a petition 10 versus 50 right 100 yeah it's a you know I don't think this should be a topic that were it would be beneficial to rush for example yeah I I think that it's not if we it wasn't it was in the spring I think it would be fine you know I think that would to be honest what might very well happen is people literally on the floor of town meeting will suggest amendments which they think will be beneficial to their personal circumstances I mean think you have to be prepared for all that things all of those things and the long the more um kind of the pro if the process is is good and people are aware of it you'll minimize those I think if the hearings are done and then more then news is out about it and people be aware of it and won't they won't be surprised and you'll have a better chance of having creating something that people would be in favor of yeah and you know and so that's a good point um I I thought a lot about the process here and how I wanted to bring it about because I I want as much input as possible I want if this is something people feel passionate about I want them to feel like they can give input so if if we I still we should send it to the planning board because this is their purview uh I don't think we're going to get the five of us are going to get any farther on this um so if we'd send it to them if they and then I guess we can give it let them be in the driver's seat a little bit and if they think it's better for annual uh you know that that's fine by me what what if they want to not move forward with it I mean that well then at that point I thought about that a lot too uh and then I would uh either ask us to put it on the warrant or I would do it as a citizen petition or consider what they say and the reasons why right like why wouldn't they well maybe because from our experience Josh will remember this from you know the guys that were mentioned have had Decades of experience yeah they may we may learn something from them so uh yeah no and but absolutely that's absolutely true well I think their now on sending this to the planning board right well I I think that I'd like to hear I I think we we should definitely change the 10,000 pound to 600,000 pound um I also feel like as Mark said one versus two the one would be prob think that's probably a better start if every if there's consensus on yeah we can start with one and then see what like discussion we've been talking about town half over this can indicate whether that should be two one but yeah starting at one sounds good to me can you make those changes man y Josh the the other thing we hear or I hear at least is you know the to find a commercial vehicle you know and that's part of the issue does it mean it has commercial plat we have a lot of people with pickup trucks that don't have commercial plates we have have a lot of commercial plates on vehicles that are marginally commercial vehicles you know and and so you know how do you define and and should we Define that or should we does this eliminate that the need for any of that definition and just say it's just any vehicle less than 6,000 pounds it is so it is it's already defined and so when I say commercial vehicles Capital that's referring to the uh to the definition which I that was what was amended on the floor of the meeting that was the last time anything related to commercial vehicles was brought up so I was on the planing board for this when and uh because I love being a broken record back then I said why do we have this byw at all and I I thought that we ended up with a very tortured uh definition which is a van or truck using connection with a business or trade or any vehicle which has commercial lettering there on so basically that does is a commercial plate and which I know they people have gotten warnings about commercial plates at least right so but this proposal defines commercial vehicle that's well this so this says no it doesn't this uses commercial vehicles so it says you can have a commercial vehicle the parking of no more than a one commercial registered commercial vehicle related to a business owner employed by a resident of the premises on Paving or on gravel and then it further specifies commercial vehicles that weigh more than 6,000 pounds must be parked to the rear of the street setback line so that is saying that commercial vehicles can be parked in the driveway larger commercial vehicles must be at least 40t back of the street well that's the same thing with a camper or something people have to do that now so I mean that's not much of a change it adds commercial vehicles but people with boats and campers are supposed to be behind that set I mean we we all know that people are getting warnings or tickets for the zoning enforcement officer being able to see a commercial vehicle in the back and that's one of the things I I think that doesn't make sense to me is not a good use of town resources and uh is not fair to Residents just one thing procedurally about the um deferring to the planning board there was mentioned before about whether or not can go they could recommend to go go forward to the warrant but um actually if if it's deferred to the planning board they can make a recommendation to approve or recommend the article but ultimately the select word sets the warrant so you have the ability to change which meaning that it goes to okay so they can vote to recommend the article and you have the ability to set the article whichever way when we make a referral do we have to give them a timeline or do we just refer to them and then they they take as long you can refer to them and make a recommendation that you would like it to come to the fall special town or that you would like it to go to the or they may make a recommendation back saying we would recommend that this goes to Dan instead but ultimately my point was that you set the warrant so you have the ability to right okay well given that um I would move that we refer zoning CH bylaw change to 315- 17 uses and residence zones and uh General bylaw 25913 to the planning board for consideration and public hearing did I miss a word there do that make sense no but the only thing we have to clarify is I don't know if the general bylaw is under there oh no that's us yeah you're right so uh yeah strike the general bylaw 25913 just just the point of information Josh given my concern about this issue of what's in the vehicle versus what's on the you know just the does the planning board have the authority to change or we're saying here it is it's either an up or down vote by the planning board and it goes to the to the to the town meeting either as it is or in other words yeah this is the weird thing that procedurally right well it's been a while no I the question is you know are we referring the concept to them with this suggestion or we referring this this specific precise wording to them no that that's that's a really good question and my intention was to for them to give input and make suggestions and how we want to do that so I think that's a different motion than referring this to the planning board I think the motion is to to recommend that the planning board take up the issue of commercial vehicles using this as [Music] a template or as a suggestion with the intent of putting you know moving something forward in such and such a time frame so moved no no yeah no I think that that you're right um because ideally in my head this comes forth as here's what the select board and the planning board think is the best thing however that reads on the warrant but some but somebody stands up at their one of their public meetings that has a great comment you'd like to be able to incorporate that's absolutely yeah yeah what if what if the motion were something like uh refer to the planning board to consider this document and offer input and recommendations something like that just keep it open-ended so they can does that that it's not a yes or no on your document basically that you d um all right so I I will withdraw my motion and I'll I'll second Andrew's motion so I move that we um refer this refer this issue to the planning board with this document for their consideration and an invitation to offer input and or recommendations I will second that okay any further discussion all right Mike Mr Hy yes Mr zko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes great and do we have kin on to talk about her Memo no she she's not here she's actually on vacation y oh okay I'm happy to speak to if you want yeah that'd be great thank you uh so the the memo pretty much um details out what's being asked uh or what's at least being pointed out uh the reason that this is coming before you tonight is so that we can give you ample time to consider it we didn't want to just present you with a draft warrant and have you see this for the very first time so similar to the commercial vehicle conversation um you know as would be expected with the Code Enforcement Officers being out um and trying to decipher General and zoning bylaws they're also uh bringing back to the office some inconsistencies or confusion uh and so that's what you see here tonight is um to try to rectify some of that uh we also have noted some areas in the bylaws that don't specifically call out who's responsible for enforcement so that's the very first revision you see suggested here under uh 25-6 for Unnecessary noise uh it's just cleaning up uh who is the enforcing Authority um and then 215 uh oh I'm sorry two yeah 2157 um this is regarding light pollution this has come up um actually this was one of the first uh bylaw changes that had been talked about in a working bylaw group when I first got here um it came up in a conversation between zoning board planning board and the building inspector at the time um we did not develop any language and bring something forward so uh the issue has not gone away and and this is a attempt to try to respond to some of the complaints that have come in to the building department uh and so you'll see that language here and then um revision to section 242 this had we had given you a heads up about this a while ago and we um uh elected to try to wait until after the election season uh and so by the time this passes or I'm being aspirational If This Were to go to town meeting and pass it would be after the presidential election season we were sensitive to not wanting to make changes to something that could be seen as controversial or um with a ulterior motive but that is not the case um and regarding the temporary signage uh Town Council has weighed in and has questioned whether or not it's it's uh even enforcable um and then uh 25920 related to the tree belt uh again just adding enforcement Authority uh and then um 25931 speaks to trees and Shrubbery and just cleans up some language there this was something that the tree Warden had talked to you about previously and then now the language is here to show it to you uh so there is nothing you need to do with this tonight just to take it under advisement or if you have follow-up questions either tonight or leading up to our preparation of the draft warrant reach out and and let us know but we just didn't want to surprise you with these in a draft warrant um for the first time and it also gives the public a chance to to see this as well just thank you Ben I could ask the one thing that I concerns me here is the glare you know my neighbor's postl light shines in my bedroom when you know how it there's no definition of glare there's no definition of what's too bright for one person and not bright I just think that that opens all kinds of potential Pro now doesn't mean it's it's worse than where we are now but without some kind of definition of pardon me for saying this lumens which means we got to walk around with a meter or you know light intensity or how in the world can we hope to enforce something about glare yeah between in neighborhoods I I just I just think trying to Define it is worse than leaving it the nebulous way that it is now that's my personal opinion because I can imagine all the people are you know this post light or this street light shines in my my kids bedroom window you know what are we going to do start taking down street lights and telling people they got to take down post lights and their bedroom window shines in my bedroom window when their shades are up I I don't disagree with you at all um I'm not necessarily here to speak for or against it just we're bringing you something that's come up before um but I I agree with everything you said and I think but why would we propose a quotequote like trespass ordinance then if it doesn't clarify what's and I I'm my my I'm basing my comments on we have a IL defined issue that creates problems okay but if we don't clarify it by by adding more to it why add more to it leave it as it's just going to go from one IL defined system to another IL defined system in my opinion so it doesn't actually exist right now at all so if you have a spotlight in your backyard that's in to your neighbor's backyard there is no we don't get involved it's not a town problem um and so that's that's what the big change is here is now there would be um trespass so so restriction so no light from my property can can spill over to my neighbor's property because they could complain and then you're going to tell me to put out that light can I make a suggestion so obviously I think you have a good point we don't want to do things that have these unintended consequences of creating bylaws based on subjective uh and and not quantitative measurements I know we've never had a bylaw about this in the past Lynn is it possible for you to just check with some other successful light pollution bylaws in other towns in in Massachusetts and see what stipulations they may have is there a metric that is quantifiable rather than subjective and then let us know so some of these I think we just need to look at some of these some of these amendments are good but others you made a great point and that's why they're showing to us now I guess so we can weigh in y well said thanks great anything else on this no okay great thank you Lyn um let's move on I think we've got the we need to set the state primary election warrant um and so hopefully folks have had a chance to look at this it's pretty standard and we can I guess entertain a motion to uh to to sign this approve it and then ahead and get General signatures I'll move we approve the state the warrant for the state primary election to be held uh September 3rd 2024 7: a.m. to 8 P.M second any further discussion okay Mike Mr hamoy yes Mr zero yes Mr lamb yes Mr yes Mr line yes okay great um now I will entertain a motion to approve a one-day Lor license submitted by the Knights of Columbus Council 5406 uh St Mary's uh for a an event to be held on September 20th from 700 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. so move second any further discussion mik Mr aathy yes Mr zero yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr line yes okay great and I will also entertain a motion to approve an alington Street part street block party application uh request to close El street from farod to Laurel for a block party to be held on September 8th from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. with a rain date of September 15th so moved second okay any further discussion all right Mike Mr hoby yes Mr zero yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes right and any comments about our correspondence uh benath I just had a question about the U the awful dog report that we got on uh Mr cerello uh do we need to take any action on that or where is that currently right so because of that uh change that we made to the BW to allow me to it's being investigated being investigated and it's actually a recommendation of the animal control officer to bring it forward to a hearing which would likely be uh September 3rd at our next meeting so if I could also entertain a suggestion for that meeting and we I could talk with benath also at our agenda setting meeting we're gonna have quite a bit of business uh that night I would suggest maybe starting the meeting a little bit earlier because we're gonna have school committee interviews um oh excuse me Housing Authority interviews um potentially another public hearing so once we kind of nail down what the agenda looks like um it may be a suggestion that I run by benath to start the meeting a little bit earlier yeah I would prefer that rather than getting out at 11: come on it's only 10: yeah right it's an early night early summer meeting I thought I'd just make the suggestion because we're going to have quite a bit I'm with you Mike yeah and uh we may also have that joint meeting with energy and sustainability correct as well and Fiers spring presentation also start tomorrow that's good but good stuff uh do we do we need to have fibers I know we want to keep the momentum going do we do we need Fiers spring at that one is I don't know how long that's going to be hey you're the chair yeah yeah we'll take a at you're you're the chair you're the boss never mind there's no some likely going to need an executive session that meeting oh good so we're already starting our the more we talk the longer the meeting is getting motion to adjourn a second all right any further discussion mikee Mr heathy yes Mr zerko yes Mr lamb yes Mr Gold yes Mr LaVine yes just going to vote no just all right thank thank you everyone have a good night thank you see you thanks thank you for