yeah give two seconds and we are ready I'm ready to go you could give us a countdown two one good evening and welcome to the June 3r meeting of the Long Meadow select board uh I'm select board chair Tom Lusa I'll be confirming that all members and persons anti anticipate on the agenda are present and can hear me Members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Josh LaVine here ven hthy here Mark gold here Dan Zoro here and staff when I call your name please respond the affirmative Lyn Simmons here Mike barer here this open meeting in the long motor select board is convened in person and Via Zoom webinar is posted on the agenda and the 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 Meadow ma.gov the public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise this meeting will feature resident comment for residents attending the meeting in person please raise your hand when we get to the comment section of the meeting and I will call on you to approach the microphone for residents participating in the meeting via Zoom webinar format please use the raised hand icon at the bottom of the screen the meeting moderator will promote you to panelist unmute you and give you permission to speak if you join the webinar by phone dial star9 to raise your hand at Star 6 to mute un unmute residents who wish to speak will identify their names and addresses only each individual is afforded 3 minutes for comment please note that this meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking if anyone in attendance is recording this meeting please announce yourself now oh okay nothing onlines right NOP okay so please stand for the pledge [Applause] 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 okay we will start with some announcements and then we have uh guests definitely a guest so the town election uh is set for June 11th 2024 at the long Med Community House polls will be open from 700 a.m. till 8 pm and you can view a ballot uh at the Long Meadow Ma .gv elction uh website and we hope that you will um participate in the vote it's uh it's a big part of your role as a citizen uh the Long Meadow range plan long range plan a full draft of that plan will be open for public comment okay through June 6th and instructions on how to submit comments can be found at www longm ma.gov Civic alert you can also find a recording of the longrange plan final forum presentation linked on this page the select board will have a joint meeting with the planning board on this Wednesday June 5th a presentation and discussion of longrange plan final draft will be presented by the Barrett Planning Group boards and committee vacancies um again the town has a lot of different things to take care of and so we ask for people to apply to be on a board committee or commission the interviews will be held by the select board in regular meetings in June and July for information about roles and responsibilities of the Committees and you can fill out an application online at www longm ma.gov Civic alerts and so we're going to start with a we have a a presentation and I'll turn over to Dan Zoro who thank you Mr chairman um I had reached out to representative of our repres our state representative good state representative Brian Ash uh and Senator Jake olivea to um give a citation to Tom Lusa um for nine years of service dedicated service to the the town of Long Meadow so um representative Ash was going to come up here he said absolutely so H when you called I just assumed it was Mark gold retiring but he told me he's waiting me out Tom I've had the pleasure of knowing you not only on you're nine years on the select board but obviously working for the sheriff's department in town it's it's an honor for me to be here to uh be a to present you with citations I also have one from Senator ala he obviously did not think it was as important as I did but no unfortunately he was traveling he couldn't make it but he sends his well wishes and obviously he you know he he wishes he could be here but unfortunately he's having fun somewhere um this is a difficult job to do and for people at home that don't know being a select board member I know some of them might do it for the money but it's it's a lot of work and it's a lot of weight on your shoulders and to do it for nine years is really something um because a lot of a lot of people can't uh one just running for office is difficult two getting in the office and using your time at night and coming here for the meetings can be difficult as well and then carrying around a lot of the weight of the town on your shoulder so I appreciate everything you've done in the N9 years you've served on this board and everything you've done in your life to try to make the community better so with that let me read off my citation Commonwealth Massachusetts be a hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers sincerest congratulations to Tom Luso I like to say Tom Lai USA in recognition of your nine years of dedication to the residence of Long Meadow as a member of the long uh long medow select board the entire membership extends its very best wishes hope for Future Good Fortune continued success in all your endeavors signed by the Speaker of the House may your friend and your St all right congratulations just let me get a pH my wife but I got to shake your hand oh Jesus Tom no wonder you're leaving all right now I need one on my phone would somebody be so kind there all right oh oh yeah we're shaking hands I forgot all right sincerely though congratulations I appreciate as does everybody in town what you've done for thanks thank you all right great job great job so and next what well Tom uh on behalf of the town of Long Meadow uh I had some things to say but as representative Ash as a guy who talks constantly of course he was going to uh step on my word so I uh basically N9 years was uh going to be my point as well this is a hard job I've been doing it for three and uh I it takes a lot of time takes a lot of dedication not just anyone can do it obviously we don't have uh not everyone's lining up to get on the ballot um because it's hard and uh I've learned a lot from you uh since you've uh these three years we've overlapped you served as chair twice while I was here um and it's uh I know that you worked really hard to make this town a better place and done uh just giving up an Untold amount of your time you know the Council on Aging especially is going to be uh is going to miss your constant presence uh but I we all know you'll be haunting the gym at the adult center um but doing anything for nine years is hard doing this on top of your career where you're helping people uh it's a Herculean task so uh on the behalf of town of Long Meadow and the select board on say thank you and I'll read the citation uh the town of long medal gracefully recognizes Tom Lusa for serving on the select board from 2015 through 20124 thank you for many years of exceptional service to the town and its residents well thank you thankk you everybody all right well I I might um just I'll say something now so then I was going to say something to select board comments but um you know i' we've covered a lot of ground over the nine years and um you know a lot of great things have happened um I came to a board where there was a lot of conflict and between the board and the town manager and you know now I can honestly say everyone on the board loves the town manager and that's a huge accomplishment from where we were nine years ago uh but we had a good town manager then uh and I enjoyed working with um you know Steph Crane and with Lynn it's been a great support um to have you folks who are professionals to help the the board through these difficult uh challenges but I also would like to thank my family because you know there's a lot of times I have to get up and you know prepare for a meeting or come to a meeting um so I appreciate my wife Jean and my four children who have also shared me with the town um I think the biggest I think about all the different things that happened and the biggest thing was we had individual who who died during a snowstorm Warren Kohl's who were for the gpw he was plowing at the time during a major snowstorm and um so a lot of people had to step up you know at that time you know of course Steve cran but the uh Fire Chief and the and the fire department had to rescue the body and and that was not an easy thing and I appreciate when people you know in the town have those difficult jobs um the uh the thing that happened after Warren Cole's death is at the funeral they had every town in the area had brought their truck and as we approached the cemetery it was several miles of DPW trucks from all different places in the state that had come um some from Connecticut too and it was a very impressive thing um and then this crossing the railroad crossing is a place place where several people had died over the years and it was likely that nothing was going to be done and uh on the news uh I think the newspaper covered that uh representa or state state senator Mary uh brought this up in a national meeting for transportation he said you know we had this person who died what are you going to do about these folks uh who die you know at these Crossings and um you know I wrote a letter and I thanked him for bringing that up it was published in the newspaper um and within a few years Senator Mary came here and we dedicated a a railroad crossing that protects people from Long Meadow and when you think about the size of our town it's very unlikely that we would get that kind of a crossing and so you know people say well you know you're you're on the selectboard you know what can one person do and you know what and and you know I I played a part obviously there was a lot of other people but um you know bringing to the attention of Senator Marky you know I think made a difference and and I will um see that as my greatest accomplishment um and uh he went on to to get some funding for railroad crossings across the country and it was in Warren Cole's name the bill so that was a big deal but um you know people say well what was the biggest event and I'd say that was the the biggest thing and um it would surprised me to think that you know that could happen but uh he came to the opening which was even a bigger surprise so um but thank you for your kind words and we will go on to resident comments get back to work that was very smooth okay and uh are do we have any residents who are here to speak today yes why you want you you were the first one here tonight so you can speak first uh so with name and your address yeah I have a seat so my name is Sheila FY Jones and I live at six Farmington a and my husband couldn't be here tonight his name is Gregory Jones and we have lived in town for 22 years but at our current residence for about 10 so I only have three minutes is that right yes three minutes yep three I was not told about the word limit um I don't know if it if this matters but I do work from home I'm an editor who works from home Gregory sometimes works from home we have a son who graduated from college last year he's been living with us and working from home as well a lot of you the select board members unfortunately those of you who are attending didn't get my email or um all of my emails a lot of you though know why I'm here I live at six Farmington F which is the epicenter of quite a lot of um infrastructure work much needed to be sure so last year there was we started I believe with water main work on Farmington EV which was followed by gas main work so all being replaced and you'd think that everyone was doing their part A lot of the vehicles were moving down the streets but the vehicles were parked at our house and the tree line that is adjacent to our house which we do not own however we do maintain and I've sent pict pictures I hope most of you saw the pictures so it was a huge impact last year however I did not attend a meeting last year because as incredulous as it was we knew that we were doing what we needed to do we're going to have to put up with this we're all getting this is so our houses won't explode we need new gas Mains we need water coming to our house we were not thrilled to host this um panoply of vehicles but we did our part then it sort of extended into the fall and though I've lost track and I have a record of photos it really was still going on in the middle of December and I know in that time the town pulled permits there was confusion from my perspective I don't know what happened but I heard from some of the superintendent or supervisors and then I heard from the supervisor in the spring so some confusion there that I guess you don't have time to teach me about today um it started again in April they I can't even keep track of all the things they've been doing but whenever something is being done on Long Meadow Street that they've been doing Paving they tend to Lodge all their vehicles on our corner and I think we were pretty patient last year and now I'm on high alert it is quite disruptive the impact is it's almost PTSD at this point too because of what happened last year and again we abided with it last year and now it starts again and um it really it's a really hard morning every morning when they start coming and I can hear the beeping and I can hear the guys and the the trucks trucks idling outside our house it's really quite uh upsetting so I want to suggest some solutions because I think there's more work to come I've been in touch with Shan van doen am I saying his name correctly um the head of the DPW we've communicated quite a bit this past year he's answered a lot of my emails I haven't met with him in person but he's tried to keep me apprised of what's happening when so I do know that we're getting new sidewalks on Farmington more Paving is coming there's something called the L project that all I know is I'm afraid it's happening it's coming to us soon so it's supposed to be 4 years long I don't really want to just go into it blind I feel that this is what the town does well is planning and establishing good systems for you know what's going to happen can't we identify the residents who are going to be impacted and with residents who have been already impacted and think of ways of easing the situation for them in the coming projects can we identify the needs ahead of time how many vehicles are going to come at 700 a.m. can they park in front of Laurel Park so last year the gas people all parked on the gas me contractors parked on our tree line but the next group who came when did they come earlier this year they parked in front of Laurel Park where there are all these parking spaces that I believe are owned by the town and that was such a relief it was nice you know I could still hear them I saw them going around they worked in front of our house or around our house I chatted with them I'm very friendly with all of these people but I don't have control over where they Park all the time and and how much they affect my life so I think you could wrap it up okay I do think that the select board can help I think that DPW the town manager's office the select board can help us foresee situations and Alternate where people are parking so that we so that everyone as you said Tom in your email this happens from time to time and all of us have to I don't think you said endure but all of us have to do our bit and I would like to share um that responsibility with my fellow residents and not have it all weighted down on me okay thank you very much so yeah so the what we do is resident comments we the board all hears you um and then but there isn't a a discussion so okay but thank you for coming well thank you for listening and I will if it's okay depart yeah all right and we have other res a comment evening you have a seat and give us your name and your address my name is Tim Summers okay at 679 La Meadow Street great and thank you all um I spoke to all of you I think and I I appreciate it and I'm not trying to soften the resistance I really do appreciate it I've served on waren and I know how much work it is and I also want to um mention that I talked to town manager at length and I um talked more than once to the town Warden and I particularly thank the town warden for being very responsive and informed uh my request is related to the tree that is right um in front of my home one of two and there's there's another few that have just planted on the tree belt this is right in front of the home it appears to be on my lawn but it's actually it's actually City Town property um so my request would be that we slow down this process a little bit that we take a little extra time to consider this particular tree um and the reasons for that I will articulate uh quickly um but in forms of back in terms of background um I have made some requests in the past to the town manager uh and the not the town manager the head of DPW related to some trees that a tree that was taken down I tried to contact the warden I was unsuccessful um I didn't get a response and then later I was told the warden doesn't exist so and others have I've talked to others and they're in the same boat that over the last several years there hasn't hasn't been the same attention that there may be going forward so the good news is we may get some more attention on the trees and that's great but there hasn't been a lot of attention and things have been a neglect and given that that is one of the reasons I think that we don't have to rush through this I found out about this issue a couple of weeks ago it was a meeting at one I couldn't attend a lot of people probably couldn't attend at 1 in the 1 in the afternoon um and then I found out about this meeting on Thursday um that that's you know that seems to be fast that seems to be moving too fast the house the the tree that I'm referring to in front of my property is the largest by significant amount of the four that are being contested it's um just off the green it's in the historic district and as you all appreciate the historic district is somewhat of a gym of the Town people uh Walk and Run there all the time it's a beautiful area and adding to the beauty of the area significantly are these large trees the tree in front of my property is has been neglected it is it is a hazard it should be taken down um at some point in the future but right now there's there's there're quite a bit of it healthy but they're clearly parts that have to be addressed it should be addressed right away all I'm asking for is a little time a little more consideration for the option of not taking it down but rather uh to prun the tree thank you for your time I appreciate it and I've gotten great responsiveness on this and I and I thank you all all right Tim thank you for coming in and um all right any Resident comments on online do not see anyone on the zoom let see anybody okay I have just a second uh are you resident uh we'll have significant business assets here in in just not too long so uh I'm Derek lefford I'm the head of government Affairs for Gateway fiber uh I'm going to be visiting visiting with some of your uh Town staff tomorrow but I while I was here I wanted to just kind of make an appearance and and and uh tell you who I was and and what we're all about we do we've identified Massachusetts so I I'm not quite sure if this is appropriate place for you're not a resident of town perfectly perfectly fine just wanted to make sure we introduced ourselves and I'll with your St um did you send us any information on do we get a a do a document a correspondence where did you say you were from again Gateway fiber I've been I've been in communication tomorrow been communication information's gone to the entire select board all right uh so I don't know if I can entertain the request to have him speak that's fine I just thought I'd introduce myself while I'm here I look forward to working with thank you for coming I appreciate it um um all right so and of course this is my last meeting and of course I don't want to get written up is letting a nonresident take over the meeting so I apologize you can do anything you want tonight okay uh the next board is next thing is Select board comments you know folks have been to some committees and events if you guys want to yeah more call thanks I have a couple things first of all I want to thank Lynn and Tom there's a comment already that I know benene was there also spoke speaking at the uh veteran at the Memorial Day ceremony it was it was a great great uh event I was I I think people were surprised I counted close to 100 people there 90 100 people there it was a great event I think it was very worthwhile what I really wanted to report on this past week there was a meeting of the pioner valley planning commission's no the Metropolitan planning organization I go to all those meetings I have good news and uh explanation the good news is that the L project which was referred to earlier which is the renovation of the North End of Long Meadow Street to Converse Street uh was did a receive approval for final endorsement to proceed uh in what called ffy 2025 Federal fiscal year 2025 and every say yeah well we knew that was going to happen it wasn't quite as as it was a little bit close than we thought the there it was a result of some substantial increases in state tip which is transportation Improvement money a program money that was added to the program that allowed the the the entire package to go through and just for an example so people can see the increas in costs the one of the projects on the list is the renovation of the Springfield the xit Springfield that price has gone from 15 million to 25 million there's another Bridge increase in it's actually mons in Road in wear the increase was from 5 million to 15 million so you can see the you know our our project is they still listed a 7.2 million but they know it's going to be way above that uh so uh it it it wasn't necessarily a slam dunk but the good news is we can proceed pretty well with the assumption that the Long Meadow L project which is the you know the northern half of of route five will be renovated in federal fiscal year 2025 what those numbers tell to me though is anything I'd said previously about the southern half of Route 5 is probably and then some it's it's going to be way down the road so uh you know we'll just have to hold hold back and see what's going on but but we are moving forward with the North End okay thank you I actually had a question on that because I'm looking down the line of all the people who would know uh we can't touch route five right if we can sure we could okay well we're not going to do the whole work but we can fill in potholes but we can't could we if we had I don't know we won the lottery could we pave the road sure we sure we could yeah we'll be we'll be approaching that this fall discuss matter I we could we could if we want to but why should we well no I agree with that I just yeah I wasn't sure how that would inter play um um so Sheila is my neighbor I'm I I asked her to come today because I think that she's uh obviously frustrated and um and I told her just get in front of all of us and I get a a name to the face I know that and I'm glad Sean that you talked to her outside because I think part of is just a disconnect but also and this is what prompted my other question we don't really it seems like we don't have we can't get a good timeline on what is happening on some of the projects because we find out we don't get enough notice or they they're shifting schedules so and I just hope we can uh communicate with our residents because it's only going to get worse uh for people and that's I know that Shaun has said that and to Sheila and uh Sheil and Greg and they they don't like to hear that no one's going to like to hear that um but that's uh we just need to consider that and uh there's things we need to do and they're not going to be easy we just have to uh we have to do it buckle down and do it um but if we can communicate that to people and try to give them an idea of when things will happen I think that would that's the best we can do uh and then just yesterday was long M High School graduation a few of us were there it was a great event uh this the first one I've was able to attend actually and it was nice uh sit on stage and see those smiling faces come by and uh gave me a lot of Hope for the future had some great speeches some really talented kids and uh it's amazing my kids will be up there not too long um but it it was a great event and uh we should all be proud of our of our school great thank you any others you have any yeah um as Mark said the Memorial Day ceremony was great even we had such a great turnout even with rain on the forecast and thank did not reain during the ceremony but I want to thank Mr Godfrey and everyone else involved for putting together such a great ceremony um last week there was also the witness Stone ceremony which was also uh a tremendous event a great partnership between first church long met Public Schools the longm Historical Society so you know I want to thank all the students involved all the middle schoolers and the teachers and you know as I kind of talked about when we were discussing Pete Landon's Memorial telling stories about our town is so important and it's a way for us to remember and honor and you know really understand who we are so it was a great ceremony thank you for everyone involved in that and as Josh said yesterday the high school graduation was also another great ceremony um you know it's it's a good reminder of why we do this work and that if we keep doing our jobs well we're going to continue to raise remarkable impressive kids like the ones that we saw yesterday and hopefully those kids will want to come back and live here because they're experiencing Long Meadow was so good and they felt so supported and had all the opportunities that they could have dreamed of so uh best of luck to the class of 2024 um and then finally Tom uh you know you're not g to get off the hook that easily I I did I did you know talk a little bit about you when you first announced that you weren't running so uh you know and that was off the cuff so that's you know you know it's from the heart um but I just want to thank you again just publicly for um all of your service you know 9 years is a long time this is a tough job and you know when I first was thinking about running for the select board and I told you about it you said man being on the select board's fun so uh I I hope you still feel that way and I hope that's how you remember it but no thank you for for your service to thank you thanks yeah um I certainly Echo everyone's comments as well uh first I want to thank uh Tom again for you know nine years um as representative Ash said um you know this is only my second year but you know it's a it's a lot of work um you deal with a lot of issues uh very complex issues um but right when I first got on the board you were someone that you know you approached me you were you were very approachable and um just a really nice person um so I appreciate the way that you've treated me other board members as well uh in the past and um you know in particular issues that dealt with um you know uh drug abuse and um you know relationships and just your work that you bring to the table here I think it certainly benefits uh the board when we're talking about you know other issues um also um I think just you're you bring a unique perspective while we don't always agree on things um I certainly uh can appreciate um what you bring to the table and you know in your retirement and I I wish you uh uh you know all the best all right thank you thank you and then I I did want to give a quick shout out to the uh to the graduates as well ven was there as well as Josh and you know I said to Marty o I said how come all some of the students have yellow tassels you know when I went to Long mid High School I only had a black and white one and he said that's cuz those those are the smart kidss I'm I'm just kidding he didn't say that I made that up but um and then uh finally I did want to also also mention the uh witness Stone as well um that was just a really incredible event um you know so many people from the community came out there um really this has been a process that's been going on for you know over a year and Long Meadow is the only Community um across the entire Commonwealth that that had the event uh take place and and win the grant um so just to see the young children and and some of my former teachers Tracy Bradshaw my first six my sixth grade teacher at Williams Middle School who helped lead the event um it was just such a really a somber event but really a great event to be a part of and and actually these kids were rewriting the history um things that no one knew about um so I think it's just a a great way to um celebrate um folks like like Phyllis and Peter who um gave so much to the town of Long Meadow and and we can now recognize them um especially the kids at Center School who are walking and riding their bikes to school every day so um anyways I just wanted to wanted to add that and and and also best of luck to all of the uh student athletes as well in the state tournament I know things are kicking off so um if we can go support them uh let's try to get out there all right so yeah my final comments I mean when you're on the board you really get a great picture of what the community of long Meadows like and you know we make a lot of good decisions it's nice to be part of those we haven't made that many poor decisions I mean it's and um and it's been good and uh so my role on the board is has been to remind people that our job on the board is to remember people citizens you know and the you know dealing with the Human Condition my counterpart would actually be Mark gold in some ways because Mark gold you know he doesn't get a lot of fanfare but Mark you know what you offer this board is so significant like you know Dan say we don't always get along you know but I always value your input thank you and you know this is my last chance to tell you this in public and you know and you know there's been so many times where we think well what what are the numbers on this and Mark will be well it's this this and then he'll calculate everything out and it's really um you know you help us do a good job thank you um so I I appreciate that and um and that that's pretty much it but thank you and uh we will move on to our next section which is the town manager's report thank you uh so this was a uploaded to the agenda late today because uh I was out at a conference last week so I was able to finally get this done this afternoon uh the Elementary playground equipment has been delivered a bid for installation was put out and Charlie AR me Trucking was the low bidder at $105,000 this is for the installation of all three this was a third of the price of the other bidder who bid on the project the contract's being finalized and a notice to proceed is being issued DPW sorting through all the equipment for each School location and work to remove the existing playgrounds and install the new playgrounds is expected to begin as soon as school is out uh Bliss pool the work has started old pumps were restarted and appear to be operational this is a short-term solution to reopen in time for the summer season the new pump and electrical upgrades will be installed when the season ends silt fencing is up for the drainage work that's about to start the temporary solution is the largest piece of this project um right now to create the temporary solution for discharge of the water into the sanitary sewer system instead of to coly Brook and minor cosmetic improvements will be done to ready the pool to open the pool liner and deck work will take place once the season's over in September uh the road resurfacing contract has been awarded to Palmer Paving in the amount of $2.9 million for work that includes both the base bid and the B bid alternate the work's expected to begin in about 3 weeks with a substantial completion date of November 1st once DPW has developed a construction schedule with the contract Factor precise information will be shared and then I listed out the streets again here it's the same list that had been provided in February before we went out to bid the fire local 1903 contract has been ratified both here by the select board at your last meeting but also fire local at their meeting on May 29th and eversource Paving on Long Meadow Street has been completed the impacts related to this work should now be allev alleviated uh although there are some punch list items that are going to be worked through but nothing like what we saw over the last few weeks and the speed hump work on William Street at Grassy gutter is expected to begin soon uh once school's out for the summer and just as a reminder DPW worked with VHB engineering to design the required modification to bring the speed hump into compliance with Mass DOT standards the work includes reducing this grade of the speed hump the low bidder was Morse engineering and Construction in the amount of $91,000 and the funding for this work is being paid for through a casino mitigation award that wraps up my formal report happy to answer any questions oh thanks I just want to say it one of the few mistakes while I was see on the board was that speed bump but uh approving it wasn't a bad idea but the uh what actually was built um you know some of us I think Mark was on the same page I was with that speed bump right from the get-go and it's nice to see that's finally going to be uh resolved uh and and Mark you had some comments or questions my my question is your your report on road resurfacing ly in the in the written report you include base bid but bid alternate can you explain under what circumstances bid alternate roads will get will get addressed or or not and the other thing is I'm I'm almost reluctant to say this but I note that one of the roads not on this list is Lawnwood Avenue and I'm wondering where that may fit relative to what we're trying to do since we heard so much from that yeah I can attempt to answer the bid alternate question um but since we do have the DPW director here I'm happy to defer to him to answer put him on the spot step right up thank you so the way the bid alternates are set up is that when we don't think or know if we're going to have enough money we include the roads in sequential order that we want to get done in the order we presented normally so the alternate um was able to award in this case because we had enough funding but we are working in order um so it's it fair to say we start at the top and go till we run our money but you think we're going to finish all the bid all those bids those those bids are all watered in the contract we have enough funds to do so the roads we you were talking about are Lawnwood the other roads those are a part of the FY 25 budget so those that bid will be going out in the next month or so for a fall Paving of that area okay thank you great thank you yeah Mark thanks for M and again where would he be without you uh any other questions yes I just wanted to give Lynn a quick shout out on the on the pools I know that's something that all of us have been you know over really over the past couple of years you know that's something we we really wanted to make sure we get the pool uh open it's a you know it's a staple in the community I know Lynn has worked really hard on uh finding creative ways and I think looking through some of the agenda and some of the comments that other select board members made um a lot of folks here on the board have uh mentioned the pool um and just your creativity even when we thought things were maybe going sideways a little bit you know you you figured it out um and and and got it done so I I I do think you know I just want to make sure that you know I said thank you because that's something I hear about very often so thanks ly okay any other questions or comments okay well then thank you very much your report um and now we move into Old business the approval um we have a motion we have minutes from the April 16th meeting yes yeah I like I'd like to make a motion to approve the April 16th minutes subject to a couple of I'd say they're typos or grammatical or whatever changes that I've already sent okay Mike we have a second on that second okay all those in favor uh abstain all right and then we have minutes a motion for the May 6th yes Tom well before we make a motion on May May 6th what I want to point out is if people could pull that up when when reading through it like I've done through all them I read through it and there's some grammatical and some typos and stuff like that but but I came across something in in the May 6 minutes that I just wanted to comment on I'm hoping that they they come up here hold on yeah here here there is so in in the there are two comments but the one that's of importance to me is is down in the in the section about the uh it I think it was the uh intermunicipal intermunicipal agreement thanks Mike there's in the intermunicipal agreement the the uh bottom of page five thank you so uh uh the the notes say that Mr Lavine made a motion to enter into an intermunicipal agreement with the town of agam for collection and and payment of a of net metering payments my understanding was that it was for the re redistribution of a portion of net metering payments and you know Mike went back and looked at it and the the the recording said what he wrote so my Mike captured it correctly I'm concerned that these minutes sound like and somebody going back a year from now that we agreed to pay egam the the payments of the net metering payments when in fact our what I think think we agreed to do was pay them uh through a redistribution a portion of the net metering payments and I think that's at least that's what I intended to do I think that's what we all intended to do and I think we need to clarify that and I don't know if the because the minutes do properly reflect what we said I'd like to make a motion that we change our vote to reflect what we wanted what we what I thought we were doing what we should be doing which is to redistribute to the town of agam a portion of the net metering payments okay yes discussion I'm fine with that I I I believe this just aped what the agenda said but we are the in risal agreement says what it says so I don't know if it matters because you can the agenda has the agreement on it you can look at the agreement and see what it says so you know I I'm fine changing it but that's just I don't know if it's necessary it depends what you want if if the I know this is the record of our meetings right um so but I guess there's no reason not to I'm just pointing that out the agreement says what it says it doesn't matter we could we could have a motion that says any singal agreement and then we kick them 500 bucks a month which but that's not what the agreement does so yeah I I just you're right Josh I just see that so many times that we go back and somebody goes back and says what did the minutes say and and and since I since I believe we are redistributing a portion of the net metering payments that's what I think the I would like to see the minutes say that's all that's my point okay any other question don't the minutes have the agenda link next to it as well or no is that the I mean it's in it's in the documents at the bottom yeah but but you know just there's so many times where we've gone back to and people just read the minutes they don't go back and look at any of the supporting documents or anything like that I I I just think to clarify it would be potentially beneficial that's that was my all right the only point of my comments so people don't have any objection so i' just like to make the motion that we we we correct the minutes we don't correct the minutes we correct our our our vote would be that that we enter into a mun intermunicipal agreement with the town of awam for collection and redistribution of a portion of the net metering credits payments okay we second second okay any further discussion all right all those in favor okay and so then we look for a motion yeah there there was there was one other item and that that I think got garbled and it had to do with Erica Erica's comments about the uh bonding I guess Mike did you were you ever to I wasn't able to go back and rewatch that part but I'm more than happy to just it's just conversational it's not a vote so I can just it's just not a complete sentence in here and I think it just needs to be clarified I may have just had that in my notes and not finish that sentence that's fine but strike it whatever as long as that's clarified I think we're good and there was like I said a couple other typos and couple other my things but with those those changes in that vote I I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as revised second second okay all those in favor great okay so the select board has the the responsibility of setting the the rates for uh water and and sewer and storm water and um so we're going to have a discussion on the proposals for setting the rates for the 2025 um fiscal year so who wants to you want to start with this Ian you want to present it to us yeah okay thank you Tom first off I'd like to thank Sean and Lisa from DPW for their efforts in order to make this presentation as encompassing as possible I'd also like to thank Mark gold for his email that he sent to me uh this weekend in order to clarify some questions that he had it certainly is an important discussion that we need to have and I want to stress the fact that this is something that we don't need to decide today but we can decide it at our next select board meeting so I simply want to have this as a discussion point in order to go over some of the more finer details when it comes to the water rate the sewer rate and the storm water rate if I can first go over the memo that I sent to select board uh this is specifically to go over U the water rates and the impact that it's going to have potentially in the coming year each year the finance director and DPW present the proposed water sewer and storm water rates to the select board after the budget is voted on at annual town meeting the rates are based on the next fiscal Year's budgeted numbers and is calculated in a formula shown below as Enterprise operational budget plus bonded Capital plus reserves minus sources over the 5year average of Enterprise use this equals the projected rate in the case of the water rate this can be shown simply as the amounts to be raised from rates over estimated billable units with this in mind I want to specifically talk about the water rate the amount to be raised from rates this year is 3,796 437 up from $3,447 in fiscal year 2024 and the estimated billable units are 825,000 up from 810,000 at 424 for fiscal year 2025 the projected rate increased from $376 to $4.6 cents which amounts to a 22.34% increase I realize that this number is large and I intend in this discussion here to go over some of the details as to what this means why this happened and what we can do going forward what does this mean for residents information below was provided by the DPW and this relates to the water portion of the bill only now as an additional caveat Lisa osin provided me a total annual utility Bill cost comparison that takes the water sewer and storm water as a total bill in comparison from FY 24 to 25 with that being said we did three different calculations here we did a user that was considered low usage which is 1 to 10 units per quarter in both the summer and winter average user which is 15 to 18 in the winter and 40 to 41 per quarter in the summer and high which is 19 plus in the winter and 80 to 150 per quarter in the summer with one unit being equal to 7485 gallons which is also equal to 100 cubic feet so with the current rate of $376 this would mean that in Winter usage we would see about $376 to about 3760 per quarter for both winter and summer for a low average user for an average unit user we would see about $56 to $68 in the winter and $150 to $154 in the summer for our high user we would see about $71 per quarter in the winter and $3 to $64 per quarter in the summer with a new rate of $4.60 proposed for fy2 this would increase to $4.60 to $46 for a low user in both winter and summer an average user would go up to $69 to $82 per quarter in this in the winter and 184 to 188 in the summer and for a high user this would go up to 87 per quarter in the winter and $368 to $690 per quarter I realized that with using such ranges like that it might be hard to visualize what that means so with act actual resident examples um Lea was able to pull some residents for their annual uses and costs just related to water only so for a low user this was six units N9 units six and six used for four quarters this amounted to $115 for FY 24 and with the proposed rate this would go up to 12420 and 25 for an average user using 16 17 40 and 41 for the four quarters this would be an annual cost of$ 42864 at our old rate and at our proposed new rate this would be at 52440 for a high user with 109 units 118 17 and 19 for the four quarters this would be 98888 as our old rate and at our new rate this would be $1,298 how do we get here there are three main causes for the increase in the water rates Springfield Water Commission charges salaries and Debt Service during April 2024 after the FY 2025 budget was adopted by the select board the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission set the various towns and cities it served an updated cost estimate for what was owed during the upcoming fiscal year the town of long meow had an original estimate of 1 million 645,000 for Springfield Water charges this was included in the FY 2025 budget under water Enterprise budget this would have been an increase of 145,000 from the prior the prior year or 18 cents on the water rate the updated estimate was increased to 1,933 313 or an increase of $433,000 or 53 on the water rate what caused this increase the commission was in the design phase of planning and construction of the new water treatment plant these costs represent 100% design which have been shared with the collective towns and cities please note that This only affects the water rate no additional estimate changes were required of the commission Pur sewer rates next we move to salaries the town has recently completed the waging class study and has begun implementing an FY 24 the town is still in negotiations with the DPW Union but current projections for fy2 show an increase of $61,200 toward salaries and wages within the water Enterprise this equates to a 7c increase in the water rate in an effort to make the town more competitive within its positional offerings this study was required it was spoken to during town meeting that town has vacancies in critical positions many among the Department of Public Works it is our goal that these wage increases will bring us the talent and retention needed to continue offering the level of services residents expect finally Debt Service during January 2024 the town of Long Meadow completed a bond sale of 11.62 million related to The Long Meadow Street or L project this General obligation Municipal loan was issued to Complete Water and Sewer main improvements that need to be completed before the Department of Transportation can begin its Transportation Improvement plan for La metal roads the vast majority of debt issued related to waterm improvements The Debt Service for the water Enterprise fund increased to $952,000 796 an increase of $323,700 set increase salaries a 7 Cent increase and Debt Service 39 Cent increase represents a 99 increase in the water rate without accounting for any offsets what about sources estimable units sources are the revenue generated outside of taxpayer rates these amounts Encompass distribution charges interest Revenue other revenues and any use of retained earnings to reduce the rate sources are shown as a deduction in the amounts to be raised from rates this category is a marginal part of amounts to be raised in rates as the total sources increased from 280,000 to 400,000 in FY 24 to 25 respectively the largest increase was the interest Revenue where 110,000 increased to 145,000 from 35,000 this is in relation to the bond proceeds on the L project and it was discussed at a prior select board meeting that any interest received on the bond was be used to reduce rates 110,000 represents the annual interest earned on those proceeds the denominator of our calculation estimated billable units is a calculation of a 5-year average of billable water units used due to the timing of the rate setting the last quarter of rates are not available for the calculation in the past we have used the average of The Last 5 Years not including the current year that practice is consistent with our current year application question did we use any retained earnings to reduce the rate no within this proposal there was no use of retained earnings to reduce the rate there are two factors that went into that decision the retained earnings balance our current Reserve balance not including current year activity or any turn backs is $323,500 that is after the annual town meeting where 390,000 of capital projects were approved to be expended from the retained earnings the Department of Revenue certifies annually the retained earnings balance of our Enterprise funds there is a risk that if the retained earnings balance becomes negative it needs to be appropriated by the general fund removing some of our funding ability from free cash or other avenues we are currently budgeting for a shortfall of 293,000 for the end of the fiscal year depending on how appropriation turn backs are we would need to use retained earnings to supplement any deficiency so after doing some further calculations it seems that at the moment we should be okay and I'll get to that afterwards during our select board meeting to go over the fy2 budget this was part of the discussion important discussions important decisions were made to remove or reduce the total projects funded through retained earnings it is prudent to not to deplete the entire retained earnings balance for that reason the other point is the water Enterprise select board policy the select board policy for water Enterprise funds States the following upon appropriate vote of the select board and town meeting monies from the reserves may be used for the following purposes one outright purchase of individual capital requirment or infrastructure necessary for the water distribution system up to 500,000 two offset bonding cost of capital projects three offset seasonal variability of rates four unexpected Revenue deficiencies or five unforeseen and Emergency Equipment or repairs what is not allowed to be used for funds outright purchase of Capital Equipment exceeding $500,000 now there's currently two additional pieces within that the minimum Reserve balance the target balance of the water Reserve fund shall be maintained at a level that is not less than $500,000 by voted of The select board and town meeting the fund may fall below this minimum level to fund Capital needs less than 500,000 or to provide for payment for unanticipated repairs within this water system maximum Reserve B balance the maximum balance of the water fund will be $1.5 million and may be used to offset water rates in the ensuing year order fund Capital needs our current retained earnings balance is out of our policy with upcoming projects retained earnings is an effective tool to funding these expenditures with a balance under the select board policies one of the steps that I'm going to do is look to replenish the fund back to its minimum level as part of my review of the select board financi policies I will be proposing adding language of a minimum funding requirement similar to our opep policy this would entail dedicating a certain percentage of revenues towards the retainer earning balance each year this would be effective for planning purposes to expect the fund balance for upcoming projects and the possibility of using it to reduce rates this would also prevent it from dipping too low to TI our hands on emergency projects and I hope this will be part of further discussions I also included a chart uh thank you to Lisa for putting this together how does our rates compare to X Community to compare the town of long meow rates other communities the DBW provided information from the water main replacement study this was a presentation given to the select board October 16th 2023 by tyan Bond the town's contracted engineering firm the information presented below shows the annual cost per household based on fiscal year 23 numbers the most most recent fiscal year available as FY 24 is not yet complete these comparisons were based on a usage of 18 units of water per quarter and this correlates to the average user per quarter so unfortunately it looks like it doesn't show up mve to PDF it must have that's all right so uh this this chart showed 15 different communities and the two points that La meow made within that Community or within that graph were at its laow FY 23 rate which was at $282 and Long Meadow at its FY 25 rate which is at $331 so where does this equate to Long Meadow this puts us in the bottom half of local communities now it is true that at this proposed rate this would be on average about $49 extra per year but compared to some of our neighbors which include hoo Springfield Northampton we are on the lower end of this graph thanks mik to my next Point why was this why wasn't this discussed sooner this was a topic of discussion for many different meetings including select board members we met during the April 1st meeting to adopt opt the fy2 budget this was a topic of discussion as well as separate discussions held outside of the select board meetings where I met with some of the other select board members along with Lynn where we discussed these matters now the next question would be why hasn't the town done a rate study as we see this year we're having such a big spike the immediate question would be what does this look like going forward and where does this put us now so Sean van Duan our DPW director has engaged time bond to do a rate study during FY 24 this is in an effort to better understand where our rates will be in the future and properly plan out for out years with capital projects the tenative plan is to present this study during summer of 24 to the town manager and the select board what does the future of our rates look like as part of the commission's schedule this is the um Water and Sewer Commission of Springfield they included a 10-year forecast of expected cost estimates assuming no other changes the town of long meow can expect increases in Springfield Water charges for salaries we will see a full year of implementation FY 25 for the new wage and class study rates along with cost of living adjustments going forward and potentially into the coming years finally Debt Service will see two years of increased annual payments related to the L project through FY 27 then slowly beginning to decrease afterwards this is assumes no additional projects are hiring and no other changes from the commission regarding the cost of new water treatment plan this means that the town will continue to expect Rising rates for the water Enterprise fund working with a select board we will make efforts to reduce the impact on rate payers as much as we can the town is looking to be as transparent as possible regards to any impact that might be felt by its residents now I did not put a conclusion or any sort of ending language to this because I figured amongst the select board we could have a discussion tonight about what this looks like the reason that I only specifically talked about the water rate is the water rate had the most significant increase out of the three Enterprise funds all right thank you Ian um this is a a lot of information um it's very sobering to hear um how much the prices have gone up and and it doesn't sound like I mean so Springfield's taken out all these loans to to improve the water that's coming into our town but those it's not going to drop off we're not going to ever we can't hope to see lower prices for not for the foreseeable future not in the foreseeable future but they'll maintain at this level pretty much um when you say maintain at this level what do you mean do you me we don't expect another $400,000 for you know close half million doll increase next year right um not not next year but there is potential that it could see another big jump in the next 5 years there are capital outlays related to this project that each Community are going to expect so I don't have the numbers in front of me right now but they are you know in the hundreds of thousands increase per so there's there's several phases to this is that what you're saying okay all right thank you yes I just want to say thank you Ian uh and Sean and Lisa um Sean I apologize I emailed after I read this the other day and said this is great and I put Lynn on it instead of you I should have should have caught you um but this is great it's very helpful uh to lay out the information this way I encourage anyone uh and maybe you'll be looking at this uh next year after you get your water bill and saying why are my water uh why is my water bill so high I'll say go back and read the memo from last year um but so this is is great information U one of the questions I have will this new water plant uh take care of our the ha5 all those notifications we get about the impurities in our [Music] [Applause] water that's the intent so I can't I can't speak on behalf of um sprinkled water or their orders on DP in terms of dealing with that I think that they're going to be helpful but whether or not it will fix the problem I can't attest okay thanks Sean um yeah so that's we can only do so much with the water we get uh so that's uh an important note um this is where the water's coming from um so yeah again thank you very much I thought that this was very useful and uh it really bodess well for speaks well for our reasoning why we need to plan ahead and even though we are still pretty low I think people use a lot of water in this town I see water bills when I'm doing clings and there some people using a lot of water and uh maybe too much uh maybe this will uh help on that a bit but uh we are still pretty low but that it may not be that way forever so that's uh another thing that should people should be aware of and should uh take from this memo when they're reading it okay yes Dan thanks um so I I was looking just at some articles in the past and you know Josh just made a point you know that we need to we need to be looking ahead looking forward well I was looking back to kind of see you know 10 years ago um you know what what we've done or what we haven't done with with this issue and um you know back in 2012 um you can look up the article water and sewer line Replacements will cost Long Meadow over $100 million so this is back in 2012 this is stuff that you know members of this board we knew about this years ago and it's just the the water rates have always been just about a rate and a dollar amount and not about what are we getting with the investment uh to solve many of the issues that we're having and we just had a a water main break um uh a day ago I don't know if it was today over on Emerson um so I mean these are issues that we've been dealing with for years and um we haven't we've neglected them so um appreciate all the all the work Ian that you've put together on this and um I guess my question to Sean would be can you just comment on you know back from 2012 to today in terms of you know we knew about this what have we been doing to address some of the the issues so I I think that I think we find oursel in a similar situation as a lot of municipalities and I think everyone just want to keep rat low as long as they could but now we're all we're all feeling it and I think thing I'd caution with the Springfield um rat going forward is that that's a plant upgrade but their distribution system is in worse shape than ours so they're going to have to bond and do something about that as well so I think a lot of the the municipalities is in a similar situation I think the important thing now is to look forward at how we're going to deal with this cleverly and in a way that the residents can afford because obviously we can't stack all these projects up at once and just do them so we we really need to to take a hard look can make some difficult decisions about what we can afford and what we can't um but we we need to know what the issues are and then really figure out um sort of next steps methodically um but obviously Mark was talking about the the L project we saw the increase in inflation I don't think anyone predicted um doubling and tripling in cost of construction but but we have it now and and we have high interest rates so we're in a we're in a tough find but I think a lot of municipalities are as well all right um yeah you may not have you know be able to answer this question but when we look at residents who may have difficulty paying these water bills do you know how how often people get in trouble and get behind on their water bill and um you know could someone lose their house I guess is the question you know so Lyn shaking your head no which is good no we I mean we can lean for it but we I think it would be very very rare that that you would lose your house over that we would that would not be an approach I would recommend we take yeah generally speaking you would do a shut off when there's non-payment I don't believe we've ever done a shut off here so okay just so there's that's been a general policy but so it hasn't been a a problem in the past but I guess is there any um so you know as as people who people who did get in trouble with their water bill we could just set up some sort of a payment plan or find some way to resolve that but we haven't had a large number of people with struggling with water bills I guess so but this is going to be a big well for the for the big water users it's going to be a big change yeah did you want oh yeah you can go ahead no go ahead I've got a lot so go ahead um so to kind of just piggyback off what Sean said I remember in the tigan bond presentation that they did talk a lot of the other communities and a lot of communities needing to make these water infrastructure upgrades so when we look at these comparison charts you're probably going to see the water rates in these other communities also increase so we're in the bottom half right now I'd assume with everyone kind of in the same boat that you know it might it might kind of track uh with other towns um and I want to thank Ian um you know for reaching out to DPW and giving us the table with the dollar amount differences that's one of the things that I asked about was seeing the 22% rate hike seems jarring but what does that actually look like on a water bill and you know you're paying this quarterly as well um and so you know it's still a a significant jump but it kind of you know puts everything kind of more into perspective and shows us what we're getting out of this I mean I think Dan mentioned this the Emerson water break we saw happen I think today and water was shut off for a you know a portion of the town and these things are going to keep happening unless we are addressing this and this is going to pull DPW and Shan's people away and it's going to cost even more money to be making these repairs on the spot and and then also to kind of tie in with the resident comment earlier about all the construction on Long Meadow Street this is even more of a reason for us to be doing this water main project replacement before the L project because we don't want to do the L project and then have water mains be breaking and then going in and you know be doing this for who knows how long uh this is going to be painful for folks that live over there for the for the few you know for a few years but after that hopefully we can get this to a good place um Ian I did have a question um about so I had a couple questions um the first question was you know you mentioned the impact of the salary increases on our water rates did we do we have vac or I guess Sean this might be a question for you um do we have vacancies within the water Enterprise staff oh yes um we have one staffer right now and That's Mike okay so we have no foran no Tech and yeah we're we have almost no Department we have one guy so we're short two three at least two I think there's three maybe three positions there there's a yeah okay so hopefully you know the implementation of you know the wage in class study and increase salaries will help us attract folks and make our water Enterprise work better um and then also Ian you mentioned wanting to implement this policy of you know $500,000 um can you tell us a little bit about you know what if you if you think that's the correct number why that's the correct number um I know that when we talked about this back in April we were thinking you know we were talking a little bit about you know having this discussion about what the right number would be um and so maybe a little bit about how you arrived at that um so the first thing I'd like to say is it's really important to maintain retained earnings at a specific balance whatever that number may be that you know that's up for discussion but keeping it at a specific level allows us to in effect do quantitative easing where we can predict on a year-to-year basis we have say $400,000 that we put towards capital projects that don't need to be bonded for so my reasoning for wanting to explore this is we know stuff is getting more expensive so maybe $500,000 isn't the right number maybe it still is but I think it's important to one look at making sure we have the funding available in order to do projects in the future because right now you know I I wanted to speak to this earlier but um based on based on our current projections we should have about a $45,000 loss in the water Enterprise fund for fiscal year 24 that equates to um water revenues of um 2.7 million through May 31st 159,000 of revenues in June and then 125,000 of revenues for Bond proceeds I asked Lisa this week and and she's expecting about 246,000 of turn backs so what turn backs are is from our Appropriations what we had of actual versus estimated so that comes back to either the general fund or in this case the Enterprise fund so we would only see about a $45,000 loss based on our current retained earnings which is at 323,000 we should still maintain a positive retained earnings balance which is good but in the future if we continue to see um water revenues not being where we expect them to be for example if we have a dry year this can negatively impact one the ability to do projects but two planning purposes so what I would like to do is have some sort of buffer put in place where we say 1% 2% of water Enterprise revenues is dedicated on a yearly basis to the retained earnings so that we slowly over time build that fund so that eventually we we get to a point where we have if not the minimum the maximum which puts us in a much better position for planning capital projects and or using it to reduce rates in the future so I guess I can't really give you a number right now but I can speak to the ability that we should look at one what the number could be and two what percentage of revenues we should use in order to fund the balance on a year-to-year basis do you have any idea what surrounding communities keep in their water retained um no but I asked I asked about nine communities and I got responses from three of them and one of the questions I asked each of them is do you use retained earnings to reduce water rates and the three that I got back all said they don't use um retained earnings to reduce water rates so I found that to be very interesting because it seems that they use it for Capital expenditures only and within our own policies we allow us to reduce rate variability which I think in this instance would be beneficial to Residents okay yeah Josh I just had a question going back on uh one of anise questions so uh with the wage study if we are hiring people uh for the water Enterprise for instance are we will that reduce our costs overall are we Outsourcing work that they could be doing that is costing us more some um so we'd be able to maybe more easily do our own water repairs um we'd be able to more maintenance I I do think we shouldn't expect a massive decrease though in terms of of value we're we're right now just deferring maintenance we're not responding as we should right now today for instance Mike Spear's on vacation the other person we have filling in is off so other staffs resp buying to a water main break and it's just really wearing staff thin because we don't have capacity to be to be dealing with all this at once we just don't have any enough staff so it's taking people away from the highway department to go try to help out so um I think what we we'd be able to do is just maybe function on a more less dysfunctional level so it may cost us a little bit more but overall Services improve yeah and and also with the number of these big capital projects I'll need Mike in the field and those staff in the field that Aid with the contractors in terms of turning valves in terms of monitoring their work to make sure we're getting good value and also um dealing with resident complaints at the same time so it's it's we really are just we're burning staff out given the limited number of people we have MH if I could just just add to that very briefly um the person isn't necessarily off because they were given a vacation day when the superintendent was off as well it's because their schedule is Tuesday through Saturday so they operate a different schedule because they work at the recycling center as well so it's it's that I just wanted to point that out because I would have questioned that and then the other thing um I wanted to point out too is with the staff that we do have to carry and we don't get into a lot of this to this granular level here um but with this opportunity I wanted to take it to tell you that mass DP has very very strict licensing requirements for water treatment and because we fluoridate our water we are required to have somebody that carries that license and that license any level you maintain is very difficult to get and we pay for that we pay for people to get licensed we pay for them to maintain it and then a lot of times they leave us this is happening everywhere across the Commonwealth um and the only reason we need that treatment license is for the fluoridation because we don't run a water treatment plant if we didn't fluoridate our water we wouldn't need the treatment license it' be a lot easier to run our system just putting that out there because that's a piece of this that doesn't show up in our rate setting is the licenses required to maintain the system well you may be porking a bear I'm not suggesting we should or shouldn't flate I just need you to understand the full picture related to it we had a a show for years Topic in aot yeah take the fluoride out of the water um but the uh I you know prevention is always the best way to approach problems and so you know like opad you know if we had set this policy I mean every year we can't fully fund opub but you know but I think if we had some way to to build this retained earnings it sounds like a practical approach um that we would pay off and be beneficial to the town in the future yeah yeah good so thank you so just so people understand back in March 21st a group of us Sean Ian Lynn paulers and I sat down to talk about water rates and we did that because I was concerned about the impact of this $1 million Bond and how we could impact it and at the time we came up with a projected water rate which was an increase of 62% or 6.6% over the current year for next year uh it it did not include a few things and and clearly there's been some changes but I want to just ask Ian if I could a couple of questions at the time we we didn't anticipate you said there's a shortfall of $293,000 this year is does that mean since March we found that we're not we did not sell all those unit I mean how does that where did that shortfall come from selling less than than the budgeted amount I assume that's what it is that's correct yeah I mean in this you know fiscal year fiscal year falls into a different period so it's July to June you know I talked about this with Shan and Lisa and especially in this the last summer we had it was wet at first and it was very dry and water revenues are really dictated by you know people using their sprinklers people using their baths their toilets but a lot of it is outdoor Landscaping so when people are not using their sprinklers or their sprinkler systems um that really impacts the amount of Revenue that the town generates now in particular in this case um we had at that time when you and I met Mark we had assumptions where we were projected to at the time in my in my understanding we were still projected to have a shortfall but Appropriations looked better and we had a better estimate as to where a bond proceeds would be now looking at it now in June now that I have more updated numbers the resulting operation is not a huge loss I mean 46,000 on a $3.3 million budget that's that's not a huge I mean in my eyes that's not a huge deal so what I what I was worried about when we had our discussion and I think Paul alluded to this is if we don't use the retained earnings now and we do have a shortfall in the future we might not have access to those retained earnings in the future so I think that was really what his sticking point for me as to why I recommended to not use the retained earnings and there and at the time we estimated $300,000 in 2024 turn budget turn backs you're saying it's now 246,000 that was what Lisa gave me this week yes okay the the other the other question I have is the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission just met a week or so ago and finalized their budget for 2025 fiscal 2025 did the did the projection or estimate or whatever they sent us that said their costs were going up 18% or 16% did that follow their their budget's up 4.7% every year in the past 15 years I know of our increase has followed the increase of their budget almost to the third desmal place and so you know if you know and and oh by the way and every year they've been projecting we're going to be going up 25% or something like that but they only going up been going up 4.85% I'm just concerned that I you know I don't know what they're going to bill us for we've got to pay what they're doing but they've now approved a budget of 4.7% increase and how they're they're telling us or how we're now estimating they're going to charge us you know 18% more that's clearly the biggest part of it I mean that's a that that that's a 49% 49 cents per unit in increase year over-year and if we're doing it based on a projected letter they sent us this year we've gotten those letters every year in the past and they don't mean anything and their budgets are what what really matters and so I'm questioning whether we we set our water rates based on a projection they sent out as opposed to their actual budget increase so I'm I'm absolutely concerned about that the other thing I and and and I don't know how to do it because I don't know the date of the letter they sent you and whether was was just one of those letters we've gotten every year that says our rates are going to be going up going way up but they've actually approved a budget a 4.7% increase okay and that does include a capital portion so you know and I can see maybe in the future when the what do you call West Parish filters project comes online but they're not paying for that next year they've put you know everybody's reading about in the paper all the nonsense that's going on there so you know I I'm I'm just very surprised about that the other comment I wanted to make was your comment that you know we can use retained earnings for capital projects up until our retained earnings got over a million dollars it was never our practice to use retained earnings for capital projects we always bonded water capital projects in in in this town and we we use retained earnings basically for repairs and just let it accumulate accumulate accumulate and use it for you know when it when it got too high because we didn't want to hit our our maximum I think to have a policy or a set of an expectation that we're going to grow our retained earnings to use it for capital projects is overcharging our residents for water with the expectation we may need even if we think we will need to do something later water projects ought to pay for water projects and water Capital has always paid for water projects and and it shouldn't be we shouldn't be paying for water projects out of water usage you know in fact you know I've argued for over the past many years and would argue again that we have a what we we call you know fixed usage charge and in the past year it's it it was 1560 this year was 1640 or something for res residential house that was intended because people ought to be paying a portion whether they use the water or not they need to be paying a portion of their Capital needs and you know in in a perfect world and it's not going to be one you know all capital should be covered through that fixed charges because whether you use water or not you're pay paying for the capital and so I I think it would be a mistake for us to say we need to grow the water retained earnings fund to have it available for Capital you know capital projects generally are as we' now seeing quite expensive and they generally get bonded and lumped together into multiple bonds it's high highly unlikely other than you know when we buy a snow plow and 25% is paid for out of the water department do we have I'll call less than $150,000 kind of charges to gun the water bill and so I I would argue two things here one is that we find out for certain with the Springfield Water and Sewer commission is going to be charging us because it makes absolutely no sense to me and I have no belief that they're actually going to go up to $2.34 per unit you know we were $185 last year you know maybe they're going to go up to two bucks I don't know but I think we need to verify that because this is a big deal the other thing is I think we ought to consider using retained earnings because our retained earnings and and I think we ought to get a new calculation of retained earnings that that shows what we started with what we spent on and we tried to go through that we had some different assumptions that have now been adjusted like the amount of turn backs no gains and losses but even then the retained earnings we had we thought were going to be over $650,000 you know and with retained earnings over $650,000 if we truly say retained earrings ought to be used for emergency repairs which was the the intent of retained earnings not for Capital to use some of that money to offset rates I think is beneficial to our our residents I I think the issue of well we're you know we're just kicking the can down the road or we're just not paying for improvements down the way you know water main improvements ought to be separate from water usage in my opinion if we have a deficiency in our water distribution system we need to bond for it and pay for it that payment will be reflected in water bills as capital you know much like we have this year that 11.1 million in there you know but the rate people pay ought to be you know consist of as Sean's gotten his memo you know what we pay the City of Springfield what our water department costs us to run in in the the capital portion of the charges that's it but but we shouldn't be trying to say we're going to have a policy of growing our retained earnings that that you know retained water retained earnings aren't intended to be a piggy bank for us you know when we need first of all capital projects don't just show up at at the spur of the moment they're planned they're well known and they can be bonded and borrowed for it's the repairs that that hit us that we don't have money for and that's how we set that half a million to a million dollars to make sure that we could handle multiple repairs over the course of the year so as we look through this my request Ian is that we a verify what our costs are actually going to be with the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission because the numbers that I see from their budget don't drive with a 20 18% increase the second thing is can we please get a true F end of fiscal year 2024 you know water Enterprise retained earnings calculation that has you know gain or loss for the year what our you know what our uh you know turn backs are and all that kind of stuff so we can say what we're really really working on and again my request is that we not even consider using water retain earnings as a as a capital capital bank because it's not intend first of all it's not enough and secondly that's not my understanding of historically of what that intent was so Ian I had a question so if we like Mark says if we have a a tradition of of bonding this money to pay for these projects right you know we pay interest on that Bond right and it comes out of the water retain it comes out of the money that we charge people for their water right that's correct and so are you seeing an advantage then that if we build up a fund that we wouldn't incur interest rates because interest rates have gone up is that it was simply a suggestion for using the retained earnings rather than in in Mark's suggestion for emergencies rather than or instead of using it for Planned capital projects to Mark's point he is making the argument that because the water fund should be paying for its own capital projects through bonding we wouldn't need to use the retained earnings to do that right I am simply arguing or at least making the recommendation that on the off years when we have for example we had 390,000 of um capital projects that were funded through the water retained earnings this year that's less than 500,000 that we don't have to bond for that was something that we had available I am simply stating the fact that having a allocation of funds that could be put towards the water retainer earings on a yearly basis gives us more of a planned position for these are the projects coming up this is how much we expect in retain earnings therefore we can do these projects without using bonds okay so for a $290,000 project let's say if we were to bond it and you look at the interest over time any idea how much would cost us in addition to I would argue that with a project that small it wouldn't even be worth bonding I could explore the option of using a band or a shortterm debt in order to do the project but that has interest costs as well so I mean it depends on how long you want to do a term if you want to do a year term if you want to do a two-year term Tom I would argue there's no such thing as a $290,000 water project everything's for but but if but you're thinking that we could I guess part of it is you know you're thinking we could save money on interest is that because I'm trying to figure out how this would be beneficial if we had the cash on hand you know versus you know Mark saying we should Bond all these things and you're saying well we had the money we can pay them is there a financial benefit to the town I think you could you could certainly argue that there is a benefit for doing the projects out versus bonding but at the same time you know we had this discussion Sean Lis and I where there's you know there's a pipeline of let's see what it was I think it was 110 million of upcoming projects oh it's much bigger than that I mean you know if we if we're talking about bonding for everything we're going to reach a point where we have no more room and that's that's what I'm really concerned with is you know one the priori ation of projects because at the end of the day it's your decision to what we do for projects but two when when do we say enough is enough and we have to put a pause on projects when there might be things that are emergencies so I I want to stress that as much as it's beneficial to bond for projects we're going to reach a point where we can no longer do that safely and that's my concern okay of course we we would discuss this further before we would vote on it but Mark yeah I my my response to to Ian's comments are you know you can pay me an extra three cents 4 cents 5 cents per unit now because I don't want I don't don't want to charge you that 5 cents in interest later for bonding but you're you're going to pay for it either way but why don't we call it what it is charge people for the capital repairs instead of trying to hide it and saying well we're really trying trying to cover Capital repairs but we're going to work it into the in into the base rate of the water that's just not fair it's not transparent the transparency is the cost is for Capital we're going to charge it for Capital it's going to show up in the capital line item and eventually in my opinion that's going to help us justify increasing that fixed Capital cost but if we say people well we're kind of bearing it in the what I mean the only reason we've had increases or growth I shouldn't say increase growth in our retained earnings fund you know that we have siphoned off to some capital projects was because we've had a particularly dry year and our lawn watering usage went way way up and you know instead of budgeting for 825 you know we budget for 825,000 units and we get usage of like 900,000 units or so and that extra Revenue clearly goes into retained earnings every year and so we we have years where retained earnings go up and and frankly the retained earnings are intended to cover the some years are wet years and usage is you know down and some years are dry years and usage is up and over the course of time that's that's what the retained earnings take care of but not capital needs yes l so if I could suggest that you actually put a pin in this part of the conversation because I think it's premature to talk about a sort of capital program for water when you don't have the full scope of what all the capital needs are of water which you will get late summer early fall and at that point you're going to be given many options on how we're going to fund this what does the road map look like to do this type of work is it's not going to be done in one year and the memo that you have in front of you talking about a 99 cent rate increase that does not include this capital work that we're talking about so my suggestion is we this was a great first start of the conversation but you wait and see what this full report says in the fall okay and that really on your plate today is setting a water rate for fy2 to start July 1st you're going to spend a lot of time in fy2 talking about water rates okay so um good comment any reaction to the lind's point I think think that's uh really important you know that we we don't uh you know we don't have to solve it all tonight but we do need to uh to look at our setting our rate is that what we need a motion for the rate tonight or no I believe that this was just the initial conversation you can digest the information and then you come back at the next meeting to to actually vote on a rate Tom's on his way out it's an easy vote for him yeah I I want to do what's going to no again if if this plan that come up with we'll save uh taxpayers some money you know then it it's worth it's it's worth looking at and I think that but there's something about seeing when we do get bonding um and we vote on it in town meeting it reminds residents that you know we have to replace these water mains and and and Sewer lines and everybody has to chip in and so um so if if that completely disappeared we you know they they'd be suspicious like well how do they keep everything going and at least this way there is very clear that we we need to bond these things because they're big projects so um all right well thanks I guess we'll move on to the if I could the water St on Emerson for anyone that's watching back at home okay all right good luck with the with the flood um all right so now we would look at the Town manager evaluation um and you know we um you know every member of the select board evaluated the the town manager on 10 items um and you know we I I say overall it was a very strong evaluation uh in terms of her performance is doing well we had three three of the 10 items uh number seven eight and 10 um she got perfect scores from every member on the board you know uh and then there was a number of them another four or so four or five where there was perfect scores on every member of the board except one and and it wasn't always the same person which is uh so it uh you know we had a great evaluation and um that is public and um so folks can look at that and then I don't know if other comments if people want to say anything about uh the evaluation process but we also o are going to talk about um you know your contract and and and and incentive so keep you with us so um I don't know if folks had other comments on the evaluation if you just said it all in the evaluation I think the only thing um I know it's kind of we're running a little late here but um I think I mean great you had a great assessment I think from from everyone um I think one of the things that I think the board can also own um is when we talk I was I was just browsing through I noticed on some of the um some of the answers that we had um a lot of folks talked about our goals and really making that more of a like a centerpiece going in in the next year I think that's something that we should you know focus a little bit more on as well and I don't mean to put it on you and I think it's also on the board as well so um but you know overall like I said um we're very fortunate to have you as a uh Town manager and um you know I think you've done a great job and um as well as your staff uh Mike as well um Karen um so I just want to say thank you and you know you did a great job and I'm sure everyone else Echoes the same feelings yes Josh Mike when you open it up it still says town of town of Westford Town manager PDF I just can't it's not even the same document as my only big thing no but uh ly I I know you hear this from us a lot but uh you're doing a great job you're a real asset to the town um when when you sent us an email saying it's your fifth year I'm kind of shocked because you are uh been around longer than me but you are you're very confident and you seem like you've been around longer and uh I got a lot of respect for you and um so just know from uh for me and from people I talk to everyone is very happy with our town manager not not every town can say that not every town even knows what their Town manager is doing but you're also out in the public and I think that that is a a big thing your um your weekly emails or uh or monthly emails are very helpful and I think that is it really uh behooves you to do that so uh thank you yes for yeah I'll Echo everybody else's thoughts Ln I think you're doing a a great job I I see the town manager evaluation form is an opportunity to Not Just Praise the town manager but also give you opportunities to find out where where areas that you you know you we can work on jointly you know you stress that this is a a team of at least six people that that we we work together and so my My Hope Is that you'll take a chance to get a chance to look through that and see the the comments that weren't meant to as CR critiques but more so than as areas that you know if if we just worked a little areas couple of new areas uh we could really lock down those those things but in general I I would agree we you know and and I unlike Tom I've actually you're the third Town manager that I've been a select board member under and uh so I've I've seen the the range as they say I'm I'm thrilled to have have you be here and hope you stay for a long time I'm just hoping you you use the document to make things even better next year yes V yeah um so I I I just want to say that you know being in the town manager position the most important thing is that you are a person of integrity and that you are transparent because obviously we're making decisions that affect people's day-to-day lives and are you know using their taxpayer dollars and you know I will say that I feel like you are you know of the highest when it comes to that and that you are your integrity is unable uh and that you are transparent about everything and that is so important and I think often times when we see people in these positions they can be defensive or um you know not do everything completely above board but I know that you take that seriously and that you make it very known and and and follow the process so that everybody else has um the understanding and you know respect that things are being done the correct way um and that's that's incredibly important and you know you you meet that completely um and I also appreciate that with the range of issues that you face that you take on all these issues with a very levelheaded temperament and you know one of the things that you say to us that I really appreciate is that you say you know I'm going to give you the Good the Bad and the Ugly and that's that is so important that we get the facts and then we're able to you know take a look at it and make a decision and that things that you're not necessarily shading the facts one way or the other but just giving it to us and and and and talking through different options so the town is you know very lucky to have you and you know I hope uh you know I hope that it's very clear that how appreciative we are of you and your work great thank you and the uh so yeah ly i' I've seen a lot of positive growth over the years you've been here and um um you know it's you know you're going to continue to get better I mean I I don't see any problem with that you know like and and you know we've had some some new territory just this last year you know where different kind of complaints or concerns came up and people question is this a violation or how should we address this and you've done a great job of always responding appropriately and getting the right information and when a person's sitting in the chair seat you know you kind of really depend on on the the new manager of the town to say okay this this direction is good this direction not so good you know um and and you've been really good at that and um and helping resolv conflicts as they've developed so uh appreciate it and the um so we did have a motion we had an elect an executive session and we talked about compensation and yeah I'm prepared to make motion Tom yes please I'm I'd like to make a motion that uh we in recognition of Lyn's per the last year that we uh offer a a reward a contract increase of 3% on base salary effective July 1st 2024 that's for fiscal year 2025 and in addition we have a retroactive U $7,500 bonus in fiscal year 2024 as well as a a $5,000 deferred compensation payment for to be made in fiscal year 2024 as well um and there's also a comment and and I guess that's the end of my motion I'll se make a separate we got a second okay and further discussion on the motion no okay then why don't we take a vote and then you can comment uh all right all those in favor right pass okay and then did you want something to one of the things that and Lynn's note was the about the international city managers uh Association conference and I think that you know it's not part of the compensation package but I I would like I think a sense of the the board that that we authorize her attendance at there's one national meeting there's also one local meeting and and that that that was requested I think we I I don't know that that necessarily needs a vote as well as much as it is a sense of the board that we authorized that and also to uh go for I icma credential manager manager stat uh we were we spent half an hour talking about how great you are so we forgot to cover this executive session right um but if this if especially if the going every other year as part of the contract I I think we should vote on it just to make sure that that's clear that you can go every year um so I'll move that we um amend the contract to uh the contract Lyn Simmons to allow attendance at the icma Managers Association sorry International City Managers Association conference every year uh rather than every other year to allow her to pursue the icma credential manager status second okay sounds good any other discussion okay and thanks for sending us the information on the conference of the icma all right all those in favor great do you want to cover the [Applause] car I love making you make motions where did we um yeah let hold on second I don't I guess that's maybe that I don't know if that's in the contract but yeah um so we did have a discussion about the car and what I I guess we had a couple of questions related to it and kind of wanted to maybe talk about it a little bit so the first the first thing that we want to do is clarify and we don't know you know how this needs to be done properly but that the car can be taken home if you are leaving in the morning for a conference the town vehicle can be taken home so that you do not have to drive here to get the vehicle and then go you know out to the conference um so I don't know if that's some kind of policy or something that needs to be adjusted but if it's just something that you know we need to relate to you that's that's that's what we want to do and then you know the other question um the other concern that you brought up was DPW needing additional administrative vehicles and you know I personally did felt like I didn't have enough information about that and um so we did not take a vote on that but from what some of the conversation was we felt that DPW possibly did have enough Vehicles where folks that have been newly hired like the tree Warden can utilize those vehicles and that also that the vehicles are kind or that the town manager vehicle is kind of at you know um that you're in control of that and so if you're allowing other folks to use it that's fine but you know you can still use it for tal you know the purposes that you need sure we wanted to give you a real raise rather than a shadow raise but want to make sure you have the car so you're not putting under burden on your your vehicle thank you all right can I yes please thanks um thank you thank you this is overwhelming um thank you I did get a chance to skim through the compiled evaluation today um and I I really appreciate it I also can't emphasize enough that I this is a team approach it's not just me you know doing all of these things it's you guys it's you you know meeting people in in the stores and in the restaurant and hearing things and bringing them back to me it's um hopefully me giving you information in advance of that so you can have these conversations with them um and and the work you all do here only furthers the work that I'm able to do when I go back to my office so I'm hugely uh grateful for that and I did mention I was at a conference last week it was the spring Mass managers conference and I find going to these is helpful for a lot of reasons but one of the reasons that I've always found unexpected is that I go there um you know sometimes it's at a bad time of year or there's been a lot of bad things going on maybe and you go there and it's an opportunity to talk to your peers and hear what's going on other places and every time I leave I'm always incredibly grateful for being in the community that I'm in and working with all of you um there are much much more difficult situations out there and I think the relationship that we all have is why we can work through a lot of this stuff that's not easy um and then the other m massive piece of this is the team that is behind me or next to me in a lot of these situations I cannot do any of this without them and I think you're seeing specifically over the last two years how much more we can get done when we have a fully functioning uh Team especially with all of the massive amounts of uh work that we need to do in terms of the utilities and the the public roadways uh and so I can't um emphasize that enough that that that work is only possible because of all those people that show up every day and see the goals and see the mission and are here for the right reasons so um thank you to specifically Sean and Mike who are here in the room tonight but there's a whole huge amount of people back um hopefully at home right now uh that I have to thank for that as well so it's not just my um my Kudos it's certainly all theirs as well so but thank you all I really appreciate it great thank you um I I I hope you weren't getting your hopes up when venque said about the car that he was going to buy you a car out of his own money but you know that would have been too much Public Service attorney's love throwing she couldn't accept the gift you know all right so um we've gone through quite a bit and then we are looking at the uh lctv operation agre we've looked at this for about a year and a half is that you would know you want to talk about this let you want to take it if you would like to feel free so uh this was on our agenda what a month ago now and Mark raised a good point that I think Lynn and I had gotten two in the Weeds on on how many times this went back and forth about limiting the amount of the lctv budget to or at least limiting what we would pay out to what we get from Comcast and so that is now has been put into the contract uh it has been approved by the lctv board and uh as part of our oversight we have asked uh ined language that we will review at least the bottom line of the budget so we know what the amount is and it's not going to affect what we pay and there's a line that we will never have to go into our Appropriations anything any cash to fund lctv they get what comes from Comcast and that's they can do what they wish beyond that if they need to um the but the reason it's not on the agenda I presume is because we're not signing it today because lctv as far as we heard this afternoon is uh laid on some filings to be at appar a nonprofit with Massachusetts uh we thought that this had been fixed this also came up a month ago because I think we were trying to pay an invoice Y and uh we couldn't um because they were not in good standing and actually this came out because of the car uh with the accessors so there's a lot of backstory to it I we're very close I think the agreement's in place we are now waiting for the filings to get done with the state for the nonprofit and then it will come back to us I presume for a final final signing but it the pieces are all in place there just a few cross and te's dotting eyes and also I I know Tom said he didn't want to he didn't want to vote on this so he we had to push it a little bit Yeah they take away my television show but uh Lyn if I miss anything uh but I I think that covers it hopefully yep and we've clean yeah we have the cleaned up language that based on what you pointed out that was helpful so I think we're hopefully at the point where we can bring you back something very soon good good it's outlasted me my entire tenure the first thing the first thing I got sworn in early so I could sign the cable agreement and this came up right away after so my my entire term has been this so well hopefully it'll end U and you'll be continuing you know good luck uh with the election so uh we have new business um we have the tree Warden request to appeal tree removal objections uh there she's looking for appeals on four objectives submitted to the town Warden that were before May 16th on public shade tree here tree hearing and the following locations uh 679 long B Street um which is a 29 in sugar maple um five Pleasant View Avenue which is a 19in um and she kept flipping around so oh good I I thought those were pajamas at one point but I'm glad I'll say so uh the Pleasant View Avenue Norway maple the 238 Long Meadow Street 15inch Norway Maple and the 238 Long Meadow Street 19 inch Norway Maple and we did get an opinion from the free Warden about these trees that we've hopefully all had a opportunity to look at but I will turn this over to Leah who um is right side up and uh so we have sorry about that sorry yes so thank you for reading that onto the record uh and Le gorov I had submitted so I guess we'll kind of circle back on May 16th I had a hearing for technically 46 trees 44 of which were on along Route five um between community house and Forest Glenn um all of those trees minus one were all viewed by me on a walk through from The Community House to for blon back um as higher risk trees trees that are on their way out the door trees that um either likely aren't going to respond well to pruning or would not be worth the town's investment into pruning wrong tree wrong place Etc um the one tree in question is not one of the four before you that wasn't marked for any of those reasons um so I think maybe I'll go just in order as I have them listed in the letter that I sent so um 679 Long Meadow Street that's a uh the 29 in suger Maple um so this tree was identified on the walk as one that likely should byass the tree hearing process due to its exemption of being high risk risk of people traveling on the sidewalk um this tree was identified on my initial walk um which I want to say was back in early April as you can see the trees haven't entirely leaked out to what they are now so it was um when the bus were first starting to Pop um so the process that I took was as I walked along noticed that this tree is severely defoliated um there's a lot of exposed Heartwood underneath so in a lot of areas the bark is ex uh has been kind of removed stripped um that's the state of the death of this tree um most of the growth that you see is growth that's really tight up on the branches that's a response growth so basically the trees is wck recognizing that it's incredibly stressed out so what it's trying to do is really um proliferate as big and as many leaves that it can regardless if those are uh healthy leaves or leaves that are attached to healthy branches it's just doing um everything it can to really kind of get on that you know really try to save itself um this is one of those trees that I do not think that pruning will help um you know for mature tree you really you're removing more than 10% of life wood let alone free store carbohydrates things like that in the SA or the in the Heartwood which is the internal um you know the high the lighter colored bark um underneath the when you make the cut so by removing all of these dead branches which is a very high amount of them you'd be essentially removing such an enormous amount of stored nutrients that this tree is holding that it really you know if you were to take those I I can't imagine the tree would respond to it well at all because now it's any of its energy resources have been stripped um the tree also has yellow belly sap sucker which is a bird that you know you probably in the picture I've included on the right there is damages caused by that bird you know those are pretty common for Maples to have especially Maples on their way out you know the tree bark is a bit darker as you can see there um you know likel a response of increased honey du uh which probably was caused by apids um from last year from it being so wet causing the sap leak out causing the yellies have suffer to be interested in boring into the street um in addition to it uh mapel really reflect their health of their root system through their Crown so basically you can see the outer parts of the tree are dying back first they tip dback and um that really reflects that there's root tip dback as well in in the ground sugar Maples specifically are very salt intolerant tree species you know the one next to it to the right uh to the left of the house I'm sure they were planted at the same time they were meant to be buddies certainly they were meant to be um maintained but you know we're not that point anymore that point has unfortunately passed and now um you know thinking moving forward the thought would be to um you know provide a tree that's the right tree for the right place a tree that you know that gets a couple of years left on its own to the elements it's it's going to be able to handle itself um you know and I do think that the other shter Maple to the left certainly is on its way out as well but it's not quite to the extent that this one is here um I did have a third party view on all four of these trees before you so the day of the tree hearing so I had already deemed this tree as a high risk should be removed I walked that morning with the Northampton free Warden who's a ma a certified Master AR 25 years of doing this kind of thing he was happy to come out and just walk with me and get another set of eyes on it um his opinion was you know this tree should this tree's got to go um so it certainly was helpful to kind of have that behind me as well to know that I you know I do I would certainly love to prune and save trees that pruning and saving freeze is appropriate there was a jug Maple across the street at 702 on Meadow um I do want to try to get that one through pruning so I do understand that that is an option I just don't think that this one realistic will respond I think the amount of traffic this the sidewalk sees between the library and kids going to the center school and their bicycles um there's not a time where I go out there and there are people walking there and I think for all of the reasons above uh this tree has certainly done its job and while appreciated it's time to get something else in there that can do a better job um moving on to five Pleasant View Avenue I did receive a two objections to this tree prior to the tree hearing and then um I had I'm not sure if anyone was able to send in any kind of letter before your meeting tonight I did have a resident asking for your contact info to talk it say say that they would like to see this tree Creed and not removed so this tree is a 19in Norway maple Norway Maples are rather invasive you know this tree is near utility wires there's a guy wire right next door uh to it there's it's been planted too deep which can cause root rot and can cause other issues like um bark Decay leading to structural deficiencies the tree is again clearly defoliating in my opinion if you were to PR this tree you'd basically be left with a telephone pull uh because the same scenario you're going to end up with a lot you you've got a lot of response growth really kind of internal to the tree internal to the trunk um so it it certainly is very stressed out um Norway Maples are a little bit better with with salt but still aren't great don't have a very great salt tolerance the trees Norway specifically don't really provide much for the environment They Don't Really provide much for Habitat because they're not native our species of wildlife really aren't meant to utilize this tree um So the plan here would be to remove the tree and replace it with something not only native and would provide you know some sort of benefit berries fruits something that you know our natural species are meant to utilize um it would also be something that is appropriate to be near wires uh specifically I know that it's only really near the guy wire but if this tree did decide to turn to the the right there it would um you can start to see the very beginning of the telephone pole and then at 238 Long Meadow Street there were two Norway mples that were objected to at the tree hearing um the resident for 238 Long Meadow Street was the one objecting they have four Norway Maples in a row so this is behind the sidewalk um on the household side there are a couple of oak trees in between the road and the sidewalk at the time none of those were slight for removal um so these are more on the household side the resident really liked kind of having that wall or barrier of trees there and so they like to see as many retained as possible one of the four trees got approved for removal at the hearing the other three were objected to and I brought two before you of the three that were objected to one of them you know it can it's got a little bit of life it can continue to live out but uh we'll start with the 15in Norway this one is the closest to the driveway on the left so directly to the right of this tree is the driveway that leads up to that household um you know this tree's got quite a bit of a trunk defect going on I'm not quite sure what would have caused that but it's got a lot of burls up on the trunk causing it to be to have to have something that I'm not quite sure of what um the tree then it's it has a couple of lower branches but then it really splits into a prominent co- dominance where that U shape is forming um you know that's basically the way I describe it is is the way a tree should form is we it has basically a shoulder like how we do um in this co-dominant situation it's got two arms coming out of one shoulder providing a weaker attachment than if it just had the one shoulder um so it's got what's called included bark at that Union um you know it's a weaker attachment for the tree it so it's it's considered po structure the crown is thinning there's a lot of dead and dying branches and the left of the two leaders has been topped as well um I know that there's a lot of talk of tree damage from an ice storm a few years back before I had started and I can't confirm that that's when that happened but I know a lot of tree damage happen then so that's it's a likely Association for the same reason before including this tree I really don't think is worth the town's funds and energy uh you're really not going to have much left to this tree after it's pruned there's not you know again it'd be a similar situation you kind of be left with a telephone pole with some branches hanging off of it um and then rather put something in there that's a bit more appropriate you know there's not overhead wires here so there's a great opportunity to get something that's a higher growing species something maybe you know there's a lot of beautiful Oaks on Long Meadow Street on that side another Oak could be a good Contender something else that's a bit harder um and a bit more native and then the final Norway maple at 238 long M streets this is the tree directly to the left of the one we just discussed it is same scenario as the above one for the most part it has that co- dominance um it does look tough on one side there's a lot of response growth it's very stressed out um yeah it's just wrong tree wrong place the left the Right leader looks to be Ted as well it just is not doing well um another thing that I'd like to mention about the norways and this is true for all norways so the three we've discussed certainly are seeing this norways get white rot once the norways really start declining they don't stop they really don't they it spreads you know they they get very stressed and they fail quickly so you know when I start to see signs of doorways like this I just I start to think that uh you know we're looking at leaders that are going to break off we're looking at branches that are going to catch and be hangers um these are all things that had the right tree been planted in this at this time you know we might not be dealing with this scenario or if they were a bit harder trees as well Fring could be an option it's you know I think for all three of of those Maples pruning would be buying a year couple years and then at that point you're really not having any Shade that's being provided by a public stage tree um so for all of these reasons I think that these four trees should be appealed for removal I think that they are all unfortunately have done their jobs and I think that we can get something better that's more reflective of how we want to be as a town with biodiversity um you know increase the desire for pollinators and being pollinator friendly and kind of reducing our reducing our population of entirely too many Naples to a nice wide variety of a bunch of different things on on meow Street okay well thank you um do we have a question mark yeah I thank you Leah couple of questions the first one is what was the purpose by which these trees were reviewed by you was it just because the nature of our periodic walk through town or was there a something particular going on so I know the L project is coming up that's going to take place on Long Meadow Street so what I wanted to do to get ahead of that project is I walked from The Community House to Forest Glen and only considered aside from the one tree at the very beginning of Long Meadow Street on the southbound side um I only considered trees that were dead dying diseased or would not take to pruning um so I do think that these are things that have that have needed to be addressed um and I I think that having a triggering event you know it can certainly provide a level of scker shock but I also think it was necessary because I do think there are a lot of trees here that have needed to be addressed and I really didn't realize it myself until I walked on walked to the past six or seven times I mean was our intent maybe I should ask Sean because he's here but was the intent of the El project that these trees were going to you know the root system of the trees were likely in in the path or going to be disturbed or or this it was just you were walking that whole area from the community houses North and so you decided to look at them all yeah actually Sean me yeah why did you so I was actually the reason these popped up to me just when Leah had been hired when we were looking at the second tip project we have coming and as I was walking with the engineers I noticed how many of our trees were hanging over people's houses that were dead and how many in the green that had no leaves on them were in bad shape so it became apparent there was problems and I mentioned Leah so the L project was a portion of it but the other tip project we have the second tip project and it's a couple years out walking that for the first time I realized how bad it was and and likely how many how nervous people were had probably been historically about tou touching anything on the green so unfortunately with a new tree Warden um Leah got the unfortunate job of having to take a hard look at those that whole area realizing that we had deferred maintenance on those trees and ignored um some trees that probably should have been taken down that that are a high Hazard again because there's kids and some of those trees we own way back beyond the sidewalk right up to people's front doors and they're hanging over people's houses and I don't think they realized how bad they were so I after Leah got started I said we really need to take a a hard look at it and I'm sorry for that for you but the intent I mean we're not digging up the street in front of them this just happens to be really bad timing no no it's part the second I guess the second question is if if if they come down is therefore is the intent to replace them at all be you know and and since it's not part of the specific project is that just part of the forestry budget so I tend to look at um any Capital project whether it's a water or Road Project is being a streetcape so usually especially with this water project we have 680,000 coming in right now to plant trees the next Paving project we have will have money set aside within that Paving budget to plant trees because we are damaging the trees with every Capital project we do and historically we haven't been replacing what we've been cutting so when I look at any infrastructure it's like its own ecosystem and it should be looked at in totality both in terms of the green area the tree trees the roads and what's under them all at once but the El project isn't getting near some of them some of them it is MHM I thought the and what I've been doing when I Mark the trees for removal so the trees that were approved at the hearing I've already gone and Mark those for removal um everybody who has who abots a tree that's coming down they get a door hanger which explains the process it lets them know the tree is coming down that the thumb will be ground and then it also includes a stapled form to the back if they'd like to request another tree or to um you know it gives them all of that information all they have to do is fill the form out scan it and send it back to me and I have gotten quite a few of those back from people along lto street so far Sean can you just reiterate the El project the water main project the water main project is going through the green we only with that project we are only supposed to kill one tree but we have funding set aside within that to replace much more than the one so so the the the tip L project separate yeah that's only going to kill one tree as well it's on the other side of the road um so the tip out project will not be on the green not that not going cuz I was going to say these trees aren't anywhere near the my understanding so we're getting confused because we have so many projects the water main project we're also refering referring to is L water M project which is on the green off the road so we're we're replacing the water mains well beyond the area of the all the way to Farmington all the way up that that far I believe if I look at them I can't remember off the top of my head all right Josh far side of the green yeah it's no no idea this so there's I'd have to get the map in front of me I believe so our our water main coming up is going on the east side of the green east side of Route five yes so which is coming south on the east side Farmington is a mile from the green so maybe I'm maybe I'm mistaken I love on Farmington yeah but I do believe the impact that water man goes up quite a long ways I'm just trying to establish that these trees have nothing to do with the the tip project the Y project even I don't believe the waterm project no but we set aside funding for any tree might hurt damage dur that project so so the point is that we would we would have funds even if it's in the forestry budget and not the capital project to replace these trees we have some enough we have some funds in the forestry budget but not enough to cover 60 or 80 plantings no we have some funds and then whatever funds we have obviously we'll expend we have Capital funds set aside for tree planting and we have operational budget set aside for tree planting but the four trees under in question here do we sure we can plant that our Our intention yes is to replace them okay that's Trish yes okay and Josh um so I got a couple other questions I one on funding how much does it cost to remove these trees and how does that factor to our depends on the tree okay and well sure uh Fair Fair Point how does that affect our budget where is that coming out of so if there is if there is an impact within our construction zone we'll be taking out a capital budget if it's something that isn't in the construction zone we taking out operating okay um and then so I'm thinking specifically that Mr Summers and I uh had some correspondents on the tree in front of his house um he it's next door to my great friends I see the tree all the time uh and I looked at it today to my naked eye it has issues um is but it we have heard from a resident who would like to uh engage with us on trying to at least prolong is there a method where we can work with a resident on pruning can the can a resident pay for pruning get can a resident get permission from us to care for trees so yeah Le walk through the the process if people want to Comm to perun I would just say at this stage in the game though if you have our tree Warden and another outside person looking at the trees and saying they're a hazard you should consider cutting them um because they're likely a hazard Beyond trimming a lot of these trees Leah could have declared um an emergency and just cut them without the hearing but I think that we wanted to make sure when we come before you we're very transparent about what's happening and what's going on to make sure that we're not just cutting all trees the green without really a proper sort of notification mhm yeah so and this so this one particular tree at 679 um you know the environmental hazard seems to be this yellow bellied Sam sucker who keeps uh getting the sugar out of it um you know when we look at it it's right next to the library and it's in the historic area of town I know we've had to um make accommodations like there's a big Elm Tree on the corn of uh Williams and Long Meadow Street by the first church and they've tried to keep the elm tree alive because you know it's a traditional tree uh a sugar maple you know has has been around a long time I mean this tree could be around for a while um if was trimmed um so I guess I mean I look at the other ones and everyone I talk to about trees they say well Norway Norway Maples you know they you know we should get rid of them and so I wouldn't have any objection to the other trees but this one that's next to the library that seemed like it could be trimmed I don't know if there's anything we can do about the sap sucker can we can we hear from Le on the the procedure for pruning yeah yep I have a form where residents can request a per a pruning permit from me it's just it's a single sheet form uh it's them requesting to have the tree pruned at their expense uh they require them to tell me who their street contractor is whether they know at the time um I require them to tell me what the pruning objective is so are they trying to prune out Deadwood are they trying to um you know prune for clearance things of those nature uh and then with the approval there are conditions included that typically um you know General conditions include things like the the person doing or over seeing the work needs to be a certified Arborist um it needs to their insurance needs to be submitted to me prior to the work um occasionally I've met out there for some trees that I feel might prining might not be necessary just to go out and meet with the arbor to see kind of what their opinions are and what branches they were hoping to have removed things of that sort um I for this particular tree um with all of the other trees in town that are high priority as well I wouldn't think it's appropriate for us to be expending Town funds on pruning for this I genuinely think that this tree is will not respond to pring I think that we've severely overplanted sugar Maples um I like the example of the elm the American elm is Massachusetts state Tre there's one not terribly far off the road from there that's beautiful um I I just personally I don't you know if this tree were in in a forested habitat I'd say let's let's leave it let's let it fall but we're right next to the library um it's showing a lot of different conditions at once and I really I I can't I personally can't see it bouncing back and I would think that again pruning would probably give it a year or so I've got people who I've said or who when I had started uh the trees had been visited the sugar Maples specifically were visited that summer uh the interim tree W or the deputy tree Warden at that time it said they they look okay you know this low priority um 6 months later the resident calls and says this thing is hanging and I've gone out there and that's a you know call not even a put in a work order it's a call Northern directly and say you have to come out here tomorrow um and I I foresee that with the sugar mle and and it could be wrong you know trees they can certainly make Liars out of us um I did not end up sound mading this one out um with I have a mallet that I hit to listen for an internal Decay uh it was pointed out to me that there is a point in the trunk where the trun is is twisting uh basically what's happening is that's showing internal Decay the tree was able to kind of scal itself over so there's no exposed wood or signs of that externally however it um you know there's kind of a dip in where the seam uh formed by the the wound wood and the response wood has sh has shown up so um I I personally this one specifically um you know the Northampton and Tre wward and E because these I I'd like to point out that all of these were identified by me prior to walking with him um I had no influence from him on any of these trees um he actually disagreed with me on some of them or we kind of talked out you know how in theory could one be saved things like that um this one he looked at me and said why did you even bother with a hearing for this one and I said we're doing one it's contentious it's a large tree right up by the green and and I think it's necessary to put front facing to let people know that there is a process and we do the process the right way um you know I understand that maybe with that process the way it's outlined in the state law it might not see to like a proper timeline however I do want to uh reiterate that everything all the procedures were followed per law accordingly timelines have been met as well okay so um what's our next step with well I just had a procedural question because this is the first time that we're doing that so this is an appeal what we did and Shaker Road is a was a hearing that was also an appeal oh that was also an appeal okay so so this is basically the process we're engaging in tonight is the same as what we did there okay okay great um um I had a question for Leah um Leah you you categorized the 69 679 Long Meadow Street tree as high-risk and I was wondering um you know what that definition was yeah so I consider and in what Isa considers when you're looking at risk um you consider the likelihood of the tree failing and then combine that with the consequence of failure so um you know low medium high How likely is this tree going to fall um it's pretty stable in the ground it's likely to see a lot of branches fall but completely uproot probably not so likely um and then likelihood of fail like consequence of failure I would say for this area is severe um because of the high volume of people walking people on bikes usage of the um of the library that's directly next door um and then you combine the two the medium likelihood of failure with the severe consequence and that puts you more in the higher risk um I do not believe DAV had it the DAV resources inventory I think they had it as a moderate or low risk um however I would like to Circle back to the earlier statement about how the figer mapel in six months or night and day I've even even since I've started I've gone out and looked at something in the fall that I said was okay and then relooked now and it's like wow you wouldn't recognize the Tre so um I would think I think Davey went out in 2022 so you know we've had two years of severe drought and then severe Monsoon and not really too terribly many rough Winters but I'm sure that area sees quite a bit of salt due to the high pedestrian traffic okay great thank you and for the two trees at 238 Long Meadow Street I don't think you provided the risk rating on that one the Pleasant View one I know that you said was moderate risk but the two on the 238 trees do you recall what you categorize it as I would say that they are likely similar they don't have the overhead wires that the one at five Pleasant View has however uh you know they'll see similar amounts of traffic um they're a bit closer to Bay Path as well I'm not sure how many um people who use a path really walk along longto street but uh I've certainly seen plenty of dog walkers out there um they're lesser likely to have a consequence of failure they're not super tall um you know they're a bit set back from the sidewalk it's it's likely they could fall in yard but um you know in the same hand I know the resident there has dogs they mentioned that at the meeting um you know I I'm not sure if they're children who actively play in the yard um those are all other things to consider but um due to their condition at their current state and there you know the Lesser likelihood of it falling on the sidewalk that was the reason for these ones going on a hearing was because um you know they're they're failing I don't think investing in pruning is appropriate however um I don't think that they necessarily meet the exemption from a tree hearing okay and same for five pres and I think this is close to the Long Meadow Converse intersection which is a busier area as well I just want to add all right does anyone have any concerns about the Norway Maples them about that that they should stay up I mean I don't have concerns I guess I i' be curious as to whether there was any grounds for their appeal other than somebody said I'm appealing it you know is it because it's on my front yard and I kind of like them you know and without understanding what we just heard from Leah you know and and because you know from everything we heard certainly those those Norway Maples are you know are on their last legs at best and danger at worst and and yeah you know but but somebody had had to appeal them for for a reason and if it's well we like them because they're on our yard that's I I like a lot of stuff but if it's a danger I mean one of the things and I kind of whispered this to Josh one of my concerns is now that we've been told they're potentially a danger and we say oh leave them up and you know 3 months from now a branch falls and something happens as a result of that where does that leave us I mean it's a it's it's tough that we've been we've been told they're a danger and yet we're you know we're saying we don't we don't believe the experts who have told us they're they're dangerous trees I think that's part of the issue and I know that because they're on Town property it's not like we can ask the residents to sign a waiver that relieves the town have any any responsibility because that may be good if the tree falls on their house but it's not so so worthwhile if it falls on somebody walking by I'd like to add too that I tend to use I do tend to use the word risk strategically because every tree has a risk associated with it whether that's a high risk or low risk um especially when I I chat with neighbors just out on a dayto day when I'm doing inspections um because I do I do get plenty of people were you know oh my goodness my tree is so big I'm scared and I'm like well I I understand that however you know if you don't want Associated risks of trees you can't you know you can't expect to live near them um that being said uh yes the neighbor the resident at five Pleasant View said they wanted to object at my to my hearing because they like the tree and then the neighbor uh next door I think that's nine Pleasant View uh felt that the tree could be pruned um you know I my opinion is if we prune this tree I think we're going to leave it with next to nothing I don't really think there's going to be much left and then it's going to just continue to sprout out and send out this response grad um and exess itself to death basically all right so yes Josh uh another question on um on the the pruning by a resident um and which I'm on Long Meadow or 679 Long Meadow Street I am leaning towards allowing the resident to try to trim it um based because you did said there you said there's a chance and uh and I know I defer to you I if you anybody looks at my house they know I don't know what I'm doing with trees um but uh I guess the the question on that is if you get a pruning play that you think isn't going to help can you deny that and what's the process there yeah I've had a resident request um you know for what for example I've gone out and I've met with an arborist and he kind of pointed out the branches he was looking to remove um you know I I explained we got to keep some we've got to you know maybe um rather than do a removal cut maybe do a reduction cut in certain locations and um I don't know that I've denied a pruning request however um the form that I have the top half of the sheet the resident fills out sub bits request the bottom half is either it's two check boxes that says the tree Warden approves this permit under these conditions or the tree Ward denies this um they still under mgl 87 if they want to touch the tree at all they need either my approval or your guys's approval so you know ultimately there is that option um in this scenario at 679 Long Meadow I'll reiterate I think it would be a waste of money however if the I always let the resident know if they're passionate about it and you know when I go for removal and they don't want to see the tree if they're really passionate about it I I'm happy to entertain it but I from our own budget I just have too many others to focus on um than to invest in pruning that I personally don't think will work okay so and we have a resident in town he's shaking his head like he wouldn't want to invest the money in the proing no that's not it it's just a you're flushing out the general liability yeah and um you know the is issue of worth whether they want to spend the money to keep it a little longer that's a decision for you guys and you know we rely on the exps however um with such a sustained discussion about the risk you have to weigh whether a year from now quite possibly and respectfully the thing could be okay if you pruned it it could be okay five years from now right but the point Lee is making about the consequence of the this the thing seems sturdy to me it's the branches but the consequences of a negative event are probably just too much the kids going through there all the time and it's just probably too much part of the issue for me was the rushing of this thing I've stayed here for a long time to get to this discussion yeah but I'm a reasonable person and at the end of the day you know provided there isn't funds to actually replace it in a timely manner then I would then remove my you know objections uh to the whole thing okay that should make things a little bit earlier easier I mean um and is there a chance that we could get a motion than to have these four trees removed and move on we have one more tree to discuss uh I'll move that we um allow the tree Warden and DPW to remove and replace the trees at 679 Long Meadow Street five Pleasant View Avenue 238 Long Meadow Street and a uh second tree at 238 long meow Street and we got a second second okay okay can we take a vote on this all those in favor okay so that's pretty straightforward now we have a DBW request on a an oak tree at 17 Woolworth Street it's a 36 inch oak uh we received a picture of it and um so it's DBW request so you want to speak to that sure so I think this is another one that's a there's an ex ion for cutting trees for riding roads but we don't want to make it a habit of just cutting trees down willy-nilly um so I think did you get the pull up the memo from Tim by any chance oh yeah so the issue is that there's it's by the way it's a really nice tree um the issue is that we have some water issues there and we like to put curb in in order to do so the road has to be cut back a couple feet in order to put new burm in and in doing so we're going to we're going to damage the roots some but also we're going to end up we're already at the point now where if we're plowing along through that road in the winter time and it's it all snowy the probability clipping it with a plow is pretty high and we've been lucky so far but with the new road and the curb I'm I'm a little concerned and if that tree remains we cannot install the curbing that's the thing I should back up on with that with that tree word is the curb can't go there so in order to put the curb in we've got to cut a cut back and we going to rush into the bottom of the tree so what's before you really is decision of whether whether or not to leave the tree and leave the road the way it is without the curb which we'd have to remove from the current bid or to allow us to cut it because we kind of need to to make it passable um Leah can weigh in in her opinion about it and whether it would survive construction or not um but can I just ask a question before that um this is next door to my other neighbors I just all your neighbors are what are the odds um every neighbor was here tonight apparently that's true these are not my neighbor they're next door to my uh my good friends uh and I know across the street they have a lot of flooding is that we're going to put curb on both sides okay and I don't know if they do they have flooding on this side too I think so that's why Craig wanted to put it in okay yeah that so that's pretty because they have terrible flooding on the uh South Side no west side of the street there um that I I know Sean heard about a lot last summer um so just but I will like to listen to Le but leak can weigh in it it is a gorgeous tree and um it's worth having an open discussion about I think Mark yeah I I think it's a great tree my preference would be literally put the curbing around you know outside and extend it in or or not curb that that area it it's part of the fabric if you will the the country vision of of the town of Long Meadow and and if we you know when we start putting in curbs and you know it's The Buffy St Marie song of pave in Paradise here and and and I I I just think this is eventually it's going to come down the next cycle where we'll probably be able to do it but for the next 15 years let's leave the tree the plow already hits it right yeah yeah I mean that's that's the concern is if it's a windy day and it's snowing that someone Clips it and we have an accident but it's a nice tree so that's one of the reasons why you guys should I've I've driven through towns in the eastern part the state where the curb comes out to go around the tree yeah I'm not suggesting we do that but but there There Are Places try to protect their so if we do that if we do do that then digging down between the milling and the digging down we're going to do some damage to the front of the roots um whether or not it's able to survive is is Up For Debate all right well was Joanie Mitchell oh was Jo Mitchell okay that was Buffy Sor sorry thank you for I thought May that was the original I don't want to say so the uh yeah so yeah this I mean again I'm partial to oak trees uh 36 in round you know I would say that we could just go without a curb it's been there a long time and obviously the plow hasn't had it too many times and so I think when you're plowing and you have all that white in front of you and you see these big tree sticking up it's pretty easy to know avoid that you know I so I would say we would I would want to keep it can we hear from Leah on how the construction would affect it yeah I uh so I was the objector for this one due to its condition and its size um and I do appreciate that there were no hard feelings on the DPW side for doing that um it's just one of those uncomfortable situations where both of us are trying to do our jobs and that sometimes causes rup so um I appreciate the cooperation that and and understanding that I was not certainly not picking on anybody for this um I you know with the Milling there certainly will be some structural root impacts which are the roots the you know the primary surficial roots are more the structural ones rather than the absorbing ones um I think you know considerations if you remove some of the structural routes on the roadway side that kind of creates a hinge um so in the event that we had a severe stor and this tree were to go that hinge would exist on the household side of the tree not the roadway side of the tree so I would think if there were a catastrophic event in that tree went it could have the potential to go towards the house um I I personally had wanted to see it also be worked around if that had been an option um if that is an option Oaks are pretty tough um you know they they do wound over very well um um again though another scenario where trees can make a liar out of us and and you know this work could start and this tree could immediately go um which is why I said before every tree has a has a rift to it um there I'm not sure of any specific bmps that could be followed to try to mitigate um damages I don't know if air spading could be an option or not in this scenario since the roadway is there um I just I wanted to give it a fighting chance so um that was my reasoning behind the objection okay and and Sean is there when they do road construction you know I know sometimes they just put they could put like a 4-in pad or something would there anybody be any way to not dig up around this Oak and just you know pave the rest of tree as rest of the street as normal and then just put a a light pad so we didn't have to obstruct The Roots so we can you could you could feather up the m a little bit um the issue this is really breaks down to whether or not we're able to put curb or not in so if because that that's really what do the damage you look at that stake you're talking about the curb going kind of through it so we we so what we're saying is we're going to leave this tree but the neighbors are going to have to deal with flooding maybe and that's to totally fine but it's not a decision I should be making on my own I think this is why this is a good conversation to have I mean we don't have uniform curbs all through town so it isn't you all people are going to say hey they missed that corner you you I don't think that's going to be a big issue it's a nice tree though so yes Mark can I ask you a couple of questions Tom the first one is is the El project the water main project Water and Sewer projects and then beyond that do we know the total number of trees that will be coming down is it 28 you said at least they 26 and will they and they'll all be replaced yes this we so we'll start in that order with our um yes so working with Leah of course so we have two things we have the these that are being damaged we have a list of working list of trees that we are going to be planting but I Our intention is to replace everything especially because it's the main center of town so we don't want to have so trees that um we might have trees there as many as possible obviously yeah I mean I I understand we're not going to plant 40 foot trees but yes there'll be 40 foot trees in 25 years so yes the Next Generation the the only other question I have and this this isn't doesn't go so much to but is a concern about the the timing of the hearings you know there was some comments that these hearings were held at 1:00 in the afternoon and residents aren't AR aren't available how you know what what's the process by which people who may be working may be out can participate or you know voice objections to these to these tree hearings maybe that's for you Leah like those uh I think I have zoom access oh go ahead no go ahead I just yeah I was gonna say I can accept objections to any tree at or before the hearing so um that's how Tim was Tim Summers was able to submit his objection even though he wasn't able to participate uh in the hearing itself in person um you know I I certainly received a lot of phone calls from people um I I did update my notice that I tie to the tree that specifically says at or before because that might and I made it a little bit more visible um because I do I did get a few calls saying you know I I can't come in at one I can't you know I can't be there for that so I I certainly I put my I put the DPW phone number I put my email on everything everything that go posting in the paper the posting um the two agendas that get posted one goes on the DPW window the other goes at the clerk's office um I post on the website and I do the um the physical posting on the tree um so there's I offer as much ability to reach me as possible I know when these hearings come up that I need to be more responsive than normal from my email um not to say I'm unresponsive I like to think I am however uh I understand that this is a time sensitive issue um and I just I understand that it might feel uh rushed or I know these two hearings were kind of back to back one week apart um and that was kind of a bit more on my end than really in my opinion anyone else's um in terms of just stress related management however um like I mentioned before every timeline followed is what all of the other municipalities in Massachusetts follow as well along with the list I actually think I listed more locations than most towns do so so if somebody showed up at the hearing and I you can object before but if somebody showed up at the hearing and said here's why I want to object to this tree would you I presume you wouldn't change your mind because you have different reasons so it would I have to if I get one objection uh and no reason needs to be provided I have to deny it the the he right the cutting down the tree but if somebody said let me ask a different way and it's not to minimize the what the hearings are for but if somebody came and said I think this tree is beautiful and um you know my kids love playing under it you're not going to withdraw the the notice to cut it down so it doesn't really matter what happened no I could change my mind so the there was a sugar maple at 702 Long Meadow Street kind of across from the town green uh you know the resident understood that my I did analysis on the tree and said I I I hope you can try to prune this if so um so that one I did say you know I denied it because there was an objection and said you know I didn't bring that one before you for an appeal because I think you know there is a potential to have that one say it's a 41 in so sugar maple so it's a bit bigger than the one we saw tonight um I'd like to save it if possible the Northampton Wen that was one he disagreed With Me on he said um I want to look in the cavity and then make a decision so that's the route I would go because and in check with Northern you know get someone up there um I am not I don't know if I'm even insured to go up there in a harness however I I I'm not volunteering so um that option exists yes okay okay so V so uh going back to 17 Woolworth if we decide to not put a curb in front of that tree like how like what how big is that portion where we're not putting in a cur so generally there's also um other storm water systems attached to it so we would be not putting curb that entire length of that the whole road yeah I can't promise that but you have to have a place to dump the water so we might be able to put in a section and dump in the storm water but it wouldn't be it would we wouldn't be able you can't just skip a section because then the water will dive through so that's likely we'll be removing a significant section of curb but I can't say without going out there I'm trying to reach the homeowner to ask if that side of the street floods but I guess pass doesn't precedent anyway and so the stick that was placed by Palmer Paving looking at that steak it looks like the curb runs into the tree correct it would be okay okay so there's not even so that you have to dig out a foot and a half past where the burm goes for a new base in order to have it flush with the road width that is as it exists so you're essentially W widening the road by a foot or two in order to put curb in okay yeah make get the same exact width cuz my other question was going to be you know could we put in the curb see how the tree reacts but that doesn't even seem like that's an option movement in the curb requires a the change of storm water infrastructure so it's never you chase everything once you start doing it gotcha okay so we're looking at a decision between like where the water's going to go or the tree is going to go yeah I I'll make a motion that we and I I think it's we we uh sustain sustain the objection to the tree cutting down which means we retain the tree on on 17 ww worth I second it any further discussion on I kind of want to talk to people on the street to find out what they think if if it would change their mind if they're going to be open to flooding on that whole side of the street and I might change that I mean the the condition of that street street is not good and I assume a part of that part of the reason why that condition the condition is so bad is because of the flooding right and so we're Paving the street we're not putting a curb in it's going to be flooding potentially well there and Street going to deter back years to to put in curbs is there another back I didn't receive any objections from any of these residents I had a couple uh reach out who said that they'd be interested in the idea of maybe doing a community planting event um something I've been trying to push the tree committee to do is coordinate uh you know maybe a group of the Neighbors on W worth wanted to get together and pull up some money and really get a good amount of trees going in there and plant as a neighborhood um you know the tree committee could oversee that make sure proper planting methods were being used um the residents there seems to like that option um they did also me you know they they expressed that they would be sad to see the tree go but understand um it's necessary um you know this what I'll certainly take all the ownership for denying on on that end that that Resident is the person I'm trying to reach to ask about the flooding because I I just think that that this this tree is gorgeous if you're driving down WTH it overhangs the whole street it's really really changes the scape of the look of the street but if you are just leaving a side of the street open to flooding that changes my mind a little bit and I'd like more time to talk to people about that yeah so another question would be is could ground cover be planted on that side of the street that would absorb the water I don't know if that's anything that's ever talked about yeah I don't think that would be that would work in this case um it could slow it down if it was in the private property but it would be something we would be putting in someone's front yard um yeah so I don't think that there another um we do have some time before the other option is thrown out there we do have time before they're going to have to get in there remove it so if you guys wanted to wait and get more information you could but I'm fine either way don't I I just did a Google maps of and of for this tree it is right on the road but on the other side of the tree that you can't see it looks like 5et away there's another tree that's set back a substantial amount of distance and it's weird that and in fact there's another tree beyond that another 5 ft it's very strange that this tree is planted right cuz the stick is here the stick is like the middle of the tree so that that will be right on the well I understand that but the fact is that these trees are I mean within the same curb cut they're two different the the trees are are right next to you so it's not like if you cut that tree down there's not another tree for 200 ft looks like there's another tree 6 ft Beyond this is the only one being called to cut by our plant well I I understand that but I'm just saying that that there's looks to be another tree in our picture just to the right of that which kind of changes things a little bit because these two big trees I can't believe how they that they can survive right on top of one another well they they both in there a long time and and so if we agree to to give this tree a little bit longer if it created a real problem after the plating residents would definitely come to us and say gee we need to solve this problem and then the tree may have to go but and then we got to add a curb and engineer it again and well it's it's just one small section of the road so well it's the whole side of the street yes so it's a matter it might be a matter of more storm water system like more catch basins as well so you you couldn't just leave on that one section you'd have to do the whole no because and I have to get there with the elevations the water might dive if you leave out curb and you collect water along a curve line it's got to go somewhere so you got to have a structure there in order to catch it to continue I mean Sean why are we putting curbs on Woolworth it's this is tell this is going to be like painting painting a line down down Ellington that's was probably for flooding so that's why we're here but people are going to go nuts you're putting curbs on my street you're turning a Rural Street into a city street right we have a lot of streets with no curbs has no curbs down I mean you know I can I could see you saying we're going to repave it but we're not going to put on curbs and we're going to leave the you know the storm seource system whatever it is I don't even know if there's anything in there of course the bathing company would love to see curbs but we on but I don't know if it's going to do us much good I think I think I would rather wait uh you know two weeks gather some more information and talk about this again at our next meeting okay so that's two folks who want more time so why don't we table the motion um and then we can revive it in a couple more weeks at our next meeting okay good thank you thank you Leah thank you Sean um Sean one more thing just I'm you are done okay put so we can move through the next couple sections we have uh our legal and labor Council appointments uh we do this annually and for fiscal year 2025 we're looking for a motion to reappoint the the council we have now which is me tman Costa LCC is a legal council for the town so moved and second second okay all those in favor okay and a motion to appoint suvin Hazen Quinn LLC as labor counsel Council for 2025 for the town along M so move second okay all those in favor okay and we get to to name our uh tax title appointment um and so for the tax title custodian for 2025 we need a motion to appoint Erica Brunell the town Treasurer collector as a tax title custodian through June 30th 2025 pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 60 section 77b so move second okay all those in favor all right and a street closer application for Green Acre block party application for uh June 22nd from noon to 6 is there a motion to approve Mo we approve the greenacre lane uh closer application or Avenue sorry all right we have a second second all those in favor all right and we have some correspondents for tonight's meetings any comments or on the correspondence uh kudos to the kids on our Civics project and and I have uh drafts I need to respond back but good for them I actually had attended uh Glenbrook there was a big Turf I I had reached out to you when the the students that came into your office y pretty cool event um yeah they actually had like real Turf on the want to on the automatic Demers all right the Town Security I guess we're to about that time for adjournment we have a motion you should I'll make a motion we adjourn this meeting not second that all right all those in favor all right good night and thank you and hopefully the meetings will continue to go as well should give you the G I should the G