today maintains a fleet of four airships three in the United States and one in Europe while the new Fleet is made up of semi- rigid airships which have an internal frame Goodyear continues to refer to them as blimps the Goodyear blimp has also made history in 1930 they became the first blimp to carry a lighted sign in 1967 the Goodyear blimp Columbia provided live television coverage for the first Super Bowl and in 1989 during the World Series in San Francisco a massive earthquake hit and footage from the blimp provided crucial aerial views of the damage for Relief efforts and proving that not all celebrities are people in January 2019 the Goodyear blimp became the first nonhuman inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame you all have been doing some great work but there are a few more types of advertising that we need to brush up on before your final project in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum we have a huge assortment of Airline posters your next job is to take these Airline posters and match them up with the type of advertising they depict remember that advertising is trying to get you to do or buy something have at it it's only logical when you see this ad look at all of the important things this airline has on every flight they have two pilots and two-way radios it's an appeal to logic these features make this Airline The Logical Choice scientific appeal wow look at how complicated that cockpit is it must be cutting edge technology which is a scientific appeal showing that use of innovation Science and Technology makes their service better snob appeal we all want to fly first class this is an example of snob appeal showing everyone they can fly in luxury if they use this Airline appeal to emotion doesn't everyone love kids and puppies this can be one of the most persuasive forms of advertising you all did awesome work but did you know that products sometimes get into advertising battles to see which one Reigns Supreme and in the 1980s it was the H Wars two popular brands of soda kept trying to outdo each other with the best ads to get you to drink their product and the Cola Wars even went into space Here's a blast from the past an interview Beth did on the very first episode of stemon 30 take out your devices and check it out I'm here today with uh curator Valerie Neil and we're taking a look at some space food and Valerie I'm curious how did we get these very Strang looking soft drink cans in our collection well cocacola and Pepsi approached NASA about flying soft drinks in space in an early shuttle mission uh in the early 1980s this was a time known as the Cola Wars when Coke and Pepsi were uh very competitive with each other each wanting to be the number one soft drink provider in the world and what could be cooler than to be the first soft drink in space so why soft drinks well they thought that maybe the crews would like to have a greater Variety in their beverage selection um astronauts had always been accustomed to powdered drinks and they thought that maybe they'd like to have a good All-American soft drink while they were in space but there are problems with that yeah I can see they've got these bizarre Tops on them exactly if you were to pop the top of a soft drink can in space it would spew everywhere and make a big mess or even if you twisted the cap it would float out of the bottle so the company's put some time and effort into devising a special soft drink can for use in weightlessness and Koch developed a device on top that you would actually put in your mouth and push the button and it would squirt the soft drink into your mouth and then Pepsi did an adaptation of a standard shaving cream can or a whipped cream can where again you would put the little spigot on top right into your mouth and drink that way and uh just as shaving cream and whipped cream come out pretty foamy so did Pepsi and soed Coke for that matter uh the crews were not really impressed with the taste or the mix of carbonation and syrup and is it in there just the way an ordinary Coke can or Pepsi can is uh no there's actually structure inside the can to keep the carbonation and the syrup separate um so that they would mix at the point of drinking and they tried different combinations and they never got the taste quite right or the consistency quite right well how do you keep an ice cold soft drink in space well that was also part of the problem there's no refrigerator on the space shuttle and so they had to drink at room temperature and who likes to drink a warm soft drink not not me not the astronaut well thank you very much it's very interesting history on Cola Wars in space we have covered a lot of different advertising strategies today and now it is your turn we want you to go out and produce the most amazing ad we've ever seen well get going [Music] [Applause] [Music] we think we've created the greatest out of all time we took all the information and created this we think you'll like it we live in a digital world screens are everywhere anyone can create media including us like this ad there's a world of information good and bad at our fingertips how do we know what to believe how do we know what's true and what's fake news it starts with us us yes us it starts with you we all have to be good media consumers stop and think stop stop and think stop and think stop and think which messages make sense and which ones require more research stop and think the power is with you to be a good media consumer before you share information you should always stop and think before you share social media posts you should always stop and think it's up to you to make sure you don't get fooled Hoodwink tricked Conn Co used exploited flim flammed only you can control how you interact with and understand the messages that you see and hear every day stop and great job everyone if you only take one thing away from today's episode it's to be a good media consumer and knowing how advertisers try to reach you is a great first step what was your favorite part of the episode if you like this episode be sure to follow 7:30 on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to the National Air and Space Museum's YouTube channel thanks for watching okay what do you know nothing I do I do I do Bryce and Ellie why don't you guys go out and connect with a Sky Rider you're supposed to go okay [Laughter] tell us about practice on ground on the ground it says on ground stop it screens are everywhere okay that's the best I've ever jump broke [Music] hello I'm Kayla I'm a student here at Bay paath University I'm here with my PE Molly Elena and Laura to discuss an issue that we feel must be talked about on campus and that issue is bullying even in adulthood many people think that the second we leave high school that issue kind of goes away but it still takes place in our society even at our age an adult bully is someone who tries to make you feel oppressed belittled and humiliated they do this by personally insulting others publicly shaming them invading their personal space or telling ridiculous jokes that's right Laura according to a survey around 31% of adults have felt that they have been bullied and in another study 10 to 15% have experienced cyber bullying bullying can result in anxiety depression and loss of confidence in sleep but in college especially for residential students you don't have as much of that support anymore since you're so far from home it's hard to escape a bully when they are in one of your classes or even your roommate we're all young and we're entering a new chapter of Our Lives we should be networking we should be making friends hey Molly do you have any advice for adults who are experiencing verbal harass hband at their age of course and if you are a victim of bullying do your best to pick and choose your battles if you choose to address the bully directly make eye contact and speak your mind but if you decide to walk away that doesn't make you less than or a coward for removing yourself from a bad situation sometimes it takes more courage to walk away than stay and argue with a person who may not see reason it also takes a lot of courage to step in when you see someone being bullied if you see something question the bully to shift the focus of the conversation or maybe tell a joke to distract those are some good methods to try Kayla but what if someone watching this video just realized that they are an adult bully that's a great question Laura at the end of the day Bullies Are People Too but their behavior is not okay if you have just realized that you have been a perpetrator in a bullying incident you may want to look into some emotional support through friends family and even therapy thankfully we have mental health resources available here at bayth University through our counseling centers you can call or email them anytime their information will be shown at the end of this segment I'm glad that bayth is able to provide us was such a great resource it was great discussing this topic with all of you thanks for watching bth let's keep our campus safe and [Music] sound e e about less than a minute okay thank you no no no uh yeah just give us 10 seconds please yeah thanks Stand By and 5 4 3 2 1 right welcome everybody to the May 20th 2024 meeting of the Long Meadow select board uh this is Select board Vice chair Josh LaVine I will be confirming that all members and persons anticipate on the agenda are present and can hear me Members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Mark gold here Dan worko yes beneath hoby yes staff when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Lyn Simmons here Mike barbier here this open meeting the long meow select board is conven in person and Via Zoom webinar as posted on the agenda and Town's website identifying how the public may join there is no chat or Q&A function all the materials for this meeting are available on the agenda posted on Longet ma.gov the public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I not it otherwise this meeting will feature resident comment for residents attending the meeting in person please raise your hands 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 being Zoo 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 and star six to mute unmute residents who wish to speak will identify their names and addresses only each individual is afforded 3 minutes for comments please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking if anyone in attendance is recording this meeting please anounce yourself now okay uh we'll stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right uh for announcement annual Town election is set for Tuesday June 11th 2024 at the Long Meadow Community House polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. the voter registration deadline if you are not already a registered voter in town is June 3rd 2024 to view a sample ballot and find more information please visit longm ma.gov elction coly Brook survey if you missed the 3day coly Brook event series the town will like still like to hear from you regarding the conceptual design for restoring the Brook at Bliss and Laurel Parks please take the 10 question survey linked at Long Meadow ma.gov Civic alerts to view the design renderings and give your feedback longrange plan public forum join the town for the final longrange plan virtual public forum at 700 p.m. on Tuesday May 21st 2024 to learn about the plan's findings and recommendations this is an opportunity to view a short presentation and then join in on a Q&A and discussion regarding the planning process and outcomes additional information and zoom webinar inform information can be found at Longet ma.gov Civic alerts Memorial Day reminder town of longm municipal offices will be closed on Monday May 27th 2024 for Memorial Day please join us for Memorial Day service on the town green at 9:00 a.m. on Monday the 27th all right we'll go right into resident comments no one no one on Zoom okay uh going to select board comments um first off since our I think since our last meeting we the Middle School building committee met and uh further narrow down the possibilities um so that it's down to three which is uh a new school at Williams a renovation and addition at Williams and um a code update at Glenbrook uh there's a lot of good information at the last meeting and uh there was an article in the the reminder is doing pretty good coverage of it so if anybody's interested in that i' encourage them to check it out out um like to recognize or congratulate vath I'm being recognized by uh for aapi month by Mass Live that was a great article on you congratulations on that uh and finally uh last week we had a great smooth and pretty short town meeting uh I want to thank Rebeca Townsen and Larry star for uh helping us out there um I got a few questions they may have been fous but uh on why we don't do large consent agendas on our end right off the bat um and I I want people to hear uh what they're voting on um and at least for some larger items uh like I remember there was a proposed to consent agenda last year maybe I think it was last year about the $9 million L project and uh all of us held it I think because you got to hear those things um but if people are comfortable with it it can make things smooth so I it's all I went so I just wanted to address that and if anybody's curious about it uh that's it for me anybody else Mark just yeah thank you Josh for saying that I appreciate that um I last week attended the Massachusetts leg legislative um Broadband um Summit and so this was the first uh time that this has been held and this was to bring together uh leaders both in the Private Industry and Municipal space and talk about uh you know how Broadband is developing in Massachusetts and fiber internet um and also some of the legislative asks that that industry leaders have of uh you know of our um state house and um this this was a great event I I attended as well as some members of the municipal fiber task force and it was just really great to talk to other folks and see how they're doing things and um to just gather more information as we continue on this process of uh making a recommendation to the select board to the town um about uh fiber internet moving forward go yeah I was just V there was an article in the Republican last week I think the other day about pending legislation that would simplify the is that something that we should be concerned or could impact us or so it so that that was actually the main topic of this uh and I think that's probably why the article's written the summit was held uh just over at AIC and so yeah it's called One Touch make ready and so in Massachusetts right now with poll applications it can take two to three years for poll applications to go through and for uh you know work to actually begin to to put up fiber um lines uh most other states in New England have this one touch make ready process and that only takes a couple months uh for it to go through so there are folks kind of in the Private Industry of course that are kind of pushing that it's kind of unclear exactly who it would who would favor or help but something that yeah we're tracking and yeah go yeah a couple other things the I attended the scanic Valley Regional Health Trust and and just for the select board to understand the the issue came up of Westcom Westcom over here remembers but when Westcom was formed there were just a couple of couple of employees and in order to give them medical benefits they went in under the sponsorship of Long Meadow there've been obviously Westcom has grown and there's been some some concerns and there's been discussion of how do we separate them from Westcom uh it's not a big deal I think think we''ve come to a a an approach that that will do that I think there's some people who are concerned about equity and new organizations coming into into scantic Valley but I think this can all be resolved without that I only bring it up so that people understand it's it was an issue it may continue to be an issue but I think it's it's it's being resolved uh the only other thing I want to comment on and this is just to get something on the record that once again today uh you know uh Waste Management did not complete their their route and at least there's nothing on the town website that says they weren't going to be able to complete their rout so I don't know if they didn't call in or they called in late or something like that but it's kind of been an ongoing issue and uh next week is a pre- meeting on our 2026 and Beyond trash haing contract so what is the process supposed to happen now I you remember they are supposed to when they realize they can't complete the route they're supposed to call the DPW Lisa oxen and I believe and have it get posted on our the town website uh it it's not posted but Lisa leaves at 4:30 or 4:00 or something I don't know I'm seeing it here that 3:39 they said they might not finished and then at 6:04 they said not finishing okay four streets oh so that it was on our website now or no the email just came I just saw now that you're mentioning it's just a you know it's just an annoyance that people leave their trash out on me well and even then because they still have to go check right it doesn't get pushed out we have no way to push it out to those residents that that information not specifically but I would encourage if if we do get the updates uh in a reasonable time during the day we can push it out via the app so I just encourage everyone to download the app and everyone will get that notification no matter what but if it's something that like Lyn mentioned rece at the end of the day it's it's tough to to manage that okay and then the contract does call for them to finish Monday before they start Tuesday see you how that work okay anybody else oh and uh a few of us went to the uh uh Library volunteer brunch today at brunchin I guess uh which was a nice event I just wanted to uh we there's a lot of great volunteers over there I'm glad they were recognized in the library a nice event and still had some decorations from the high te they they served yesterday so uh a lot of good stuff going on over there um there's nothing else we'll go to um Town manager's report thank you uh so at our May 6 meeting I talked about uh the idea of a formal fy2 goal setting Retreat Retreat uh one of the facilitators I've spoken with is John Wartman he has ex extensive experience working with Massachusetts municipalities on this top topic I did uh send you all some information over the weekend just with links to what he's done and um the type of work he provides so at some point I'd like to have a conversation about whether you're interested in pursuing this or some other version of uh goal setting uh regarding state budget amendments so uh representative Ash had put one in for the chiller at um Wolf Swamp and unfortunately it did not make through the house budget amendment however I did submit another budget item to Senator ola's office and this was for Glenn Brook Field for regrading and clay that is still in as of now uh but the debate is scheduled for the 21st through the 24th this week so we'll see if it can live through that process Bliss pool work a contract was just signed with JL raymakers and Suns for a price not to exceed $276,300 this is for the electrical and mechanical work Project's been broken into two phases with the preliminary substantial completion date being June 1st and then the final substantial completion date being November 9th this is due to the long lead time for the electrical panel DPW is working with JL raymakers to develop a temporary plan to be open be able to open the pool aeom is in the process of Designing the Ada accessibility and liner work that's going to be the final phase of this project and as of now we still have enough money to get all of this work done a contract was just signed for installation of a water tank mixer in the amount of 92,3 this is the result of design work related to water enhancements to improve water quality this was funded at the annual town meeting in May of 2022 and coly Brook design work uh some of you also took part in this but approximately 25 people attended the walk and talk event on Sunday May 5th quite a few people came through the open house Monday night the 6th and talked with the designers and Tuesday's presentation saw about a dozen residents along with staff select board members and board and committee members for those um that are interested there's a copy of the presentation available on the coly Brook project website and residents are encouraged to take the survey that's still available linked here in my report but also available on the website as well um an Iron Man race is going to briefly touch in Long Meadow on June 9th just to give people a heads up that a section of the race is going to enter uh Long Meadow on Converse Street they're going to come out Porter Lake Drive up Converse then onto Park Drive and skirt the park and then enter back into the park and there were recently uh tree removal hearings for many trees along Long Meadow Street and then on Pleasant View Avenue there were 46 public tra public shade tree removal hearings of those there were nine objections filed for these trees um some on Long Meadow Street and some on Pleasant View the tree warden's reviewing the locations where objections were received and will make a decision regarding filing an appeal pursuant to mgl chapter 87 section 4 which would then trigger it coming to the select board an RFP is out to hire for assessing Services the due date for responses is May 24th and attached in my report is the quarterly legal expense update um as you'll see in here um there the the one to note is the jump with the DPW case um for all of the fiscal year we had not received any bills yet and as we're looking to close out FY 24 we reached out and inquired on that and they had changed their billing software and had not invoiced us since uh July so that's why you see a large jump of $0 to $140,000 that covers all of fy2 24 I'm sorry uh and that that concludes my report I'm happy to take any questions you have uh I just had a quick question I I don't know if you know this or maybe Mark knows it on the um the the chart showing the sewer and the water and the rainfall um I I assume that we just started this last year in December since there was no reading no well we've been doing that for there was a gap but we've been getting that that chart okay years oh I don't know remember ever seen the rainfall before okay um and where's that oh never mind okay it just shows that there's a lot of a lot of infusion into our sewer system from right whether it's whether it's gutters that go into the sanitary sewer system or connections or broken pipes or whatever it is it's pretty substantial mhm uh and L how our lifeguard staff looking we are fully staffed and I don't want to say that at loud not what I expected to hear let's so what does fully staffed mean this year is that I don't have the numbers off the top of my head but I know we've filled the positions I I should say is that five days at each pool or is that seven days a week seven days AEK once once we get to the full summer season Once school's out all right that's good there's a lot of pieces that need to still fall on the place over the next month all right I'm glad to hear that and I I don't know if it was the the training or the dropping down to 15 or whatever it was but I'm glad you you all did it so good job go um so I I just want to highlight something from the DPW report just of public interest um in the DPW report it does say the Ada playground equipment has been delivered and is ready to be installed at the end of the school year um and also is great in the DPW report to see all the contracts being awarded for Paving water mains and also so they note in the report that schedules will be announced um soon so folks will be made aware and then in the finance department's report um I was also happy to see that Ian you'd put in there that you were going to be evaluating the select board Financial policies I think that's you know it's it's almost like when it comes up then we're like oh man we should have looked at this before so it's good to kind of get ahead of this and be looking at all of it and revisiting it to make sure that um these policies still make sense for where we're at today so thank you thank you nobody else we'll move on to the approval of the April 16th 2024 meeting minutes yeah I I think we just got them I you know I I haven't had a chance to look at them I don't know if anybody else has it was a short one I'd be I read it but I wasn't I wasn't here no no I wasn't here Iain anyway and I'm going tostain cuz I didn't read it there you we'll wait till next time gentlemen um all right so the lctv operating agreement um I we are I recommend we don't take any action on it tonight uh we it was put on the agenda because we had an agreement in place and then uh Mark asked a good question when the review came out um and then Lyn and I have been working with our Council on making some other changes and I I think we're very close but I just we're not going to take any action tonight um then on to the energy and sustainability committee Municipal aggregation recommendation anybody wants to come up come speak uh please just introduce yourself name and address R miller1 Mew Doug T Doug Taylor Northfield Road so Andrea Chason 236 Crest oops where is it Circle S Brian did you introduce yourself I did okay so delighted to be here thank you and um both Doug and Brian are valuable members of the energy and sustainability committee and they're going to also help with a presentation and I just want to do a little bit of background to talk about how we got to this process of making a recommendation to the select board is to a professional consultant for municipal aggregation the municipal aggregation project program in Massachusetts has been available since 1997 and the good news is that it while it falls under the Department of Public Utilities for the state as well as the department of energy resources they've put together quite a good best practices manual for how to go about putting together a municipal aggregation program for municipality and there are three distinct advantages that Long Meadow is looking to take advantage of and we voted on this in November the first is that um under Municipal aggregation the town becomes the buyer of the utility in a sense and is able to provide a stable amount of um rates for the residents and the businesses for an extended period of time and those times can range anywhere between 1 year to 30 to 3 years depending on uh the current rate system right now of course you may be aware that every 6 months the rates change for that we pay to eversource which is our um utility company for electricity so the first benefit of this is a stable rate and that's particularly important for people who have um low income or more vulnerable and we have quite a number of residents on fixed incomes in this town the second component I mean the other critical component that is really um exciting for the energy and sustainability committee is that under Municipal aggregation we have a better chance of offering renewable energy to our residents and businesses through a tiered system of um rates uh that individuals can opt into and for us here at the energy and sustainability committee one of our components of U our committee is that we really want to help the town reduce uh uh ad and energy consumption in households is about 34% of all emissions so we're really looking to um create incentives for homeowners and residents and businesses to ultimately opt into more renewable sources of energy so those are some of the driving factors that got us to this and so just to go back in terms of how we're here now um I want to remind the board that in November at our um November uh 7th town meeting in 23 the town voted to initiate the process of Municipal aggregation and authorize the select board to choose a consultant for this project and under best practices what happens is that the Town Inn of its own doesn't have the expertise to go out and choose a consultant and so they turn to um a so a number of different companies that hold themselves out as uh professional Consultants to help work with municipalities to um both put the plan together and offer it and educate the community and offer it up and then help us make the selection as to which utility companies we're going to be using to provide the service um so uh the energy and sustainability committee was then asked by the town manager in December for assistance on this and we again turned to the Department of Public Utilities to look at the best practices and um the first one of the critical components is that this does not require an RFP there's an exemption in the state law that allows uh a town or municipality to select a professional consultant and so at the end of 20 23 about 167 municipalities throughout the state have actually adopted or in the process of adopting Municipal aggregation plans um we learn turned to about 20 of them to see what those towns who they used as professional Consultants this was narrowed down to about three who seemed to dominate the field and that was mass power good energy and colonial power um and in terms of looking again at U what to how to consider these companies following again the Massachusetts Department of utilities best practices we turn to um look at the criteria of length of time doing the work demonstrated number of Municipal clients capability of Outreach and education to the residents continuity of relationships with clients client satisfaction knowledge of the industry and we ultimately narrowed it down to the three that I just mentioned good energy mes power and Colonial anything you guys want to add at this point um so in making the final recommendation of good energy to the select board myself um Gary LaVine and Mark gold interviewed uh the well Gary interviewed one Mark and I interviewed all three um to ask them a series of questions that um are also focused heavily on what their experience is um we looked at a number of issues and we came out with um following types of questions their experience with um uh the education Outreach we think that that that's one of the most critical things for community in general because anytime you make a change we really focus heavily on making sure that the residents and the businesses understand why the what the change is what its benefit is and why we think it's appropriate um so we really looked into their ability to provide necessary education Outreach to community residents how to help the community residents understand the opt out process um the Mass Department of Public Utilities recommends that when these are rolled out uh it is done as an opt out for a resident so they actually have to proactively uh contact the company to say I don't want to participate that I want to continue using a source and for the most part every resident will be initially um enrolled from what we understand in the basic service which is of rate that's usually lower than whatever source is charging per kilowatt hour um we wanted to know after the roll out how uh how many residents decide to opt out that was a little harder to determine how does the consultant handle the process of opting out for a resident and they make it pretty easy all of them do they also make it relatively understandable to how to opt in if you choose to do it at a later time um we wanted to know what their experience is with uh regard to procurement of utility companies to provide the electrical service the length of time of contract period that they have chosen for communities and how their rate tiers and how they really work to educate the consumers on what the rate tiers are and um overall satisfaction with the um I should step aside for second because I got a little ahead of myself these are the issues that we raised for references uh for every one of the Consultants that we looked at um so their experience with the consultant the regard to education the roll out going forward their experience with procurement length of time of contracts and their satisfaction with the consultant and so in looking at all of these I should point out that every company received pretty high marks um we had already narrowed it down to good energy and mass power and we ultimately chose good energy for the primary reason that they um help develop the entire Municipal aggregation program that is available in the state their model of how to go about doing it is used by all consultants and I'd also like to point out that um the town um in using any one of these Consultants would have very little to absolutely nothing to do other than in terms of providing staff time and we don't pay as a town any money it all comes out of the ultimate um bill from the rate payer there's a an administra fee that's built into it and even with that there's still benefits uh Financial benefits to the residents any additional yeah so that they offer three levels of pricing so the first level would be uh a percentage of renewable versus un non renewable energy it's consistent with whatever Source provides today but they provide it at a lower rate um the next level up is a higher mix of renewable and then the top level which you pay more for is completely renewable so it's in my mind kind of an alternative to solar so somebody doesn't want to cut down all their trees using the highest level of Municipal aggregation will help get the same effect and feel one good aspect of this whole thing is that everybody's in this right from the beginning so you don't have to worry about people signing up to become to get on this plan you know everybody's on it and then they get the choice whether they want to op out afterwards and they could start at any level and move around to any level that they want pretty freely Mark yeah I I think what I just if I could just point out a couple of things one is that that the role of the consultant or that we chose choose is to develop the contracts with energy suppliers whether it's you know Constellation Energy or whoever it may be they they do that for a living something that the town wouldn't otherwise be able to do clearly our purchasing department wouldn't know how to you know wouldn't be Adept at that and so they do that for a living and they keep on t top of all the potential suppliers and what their costs are whether it's new renewable non-renewable so they really can at the time that they go into it provide us with the cost that they develop for how many uh kilowatt hours of electricity that are that are purchased based on as these gentlemen said that whether you pick the current rate which the state mandates a certain amount of Renewables but that's the base rate something in between or 100% the other thing is that I think the question a lot of people ask is so how do these people make their money and and the answer is by legislation these Municipal aggregators make their money as I believe entry it's 0.01 Cent per kilowatt hour1 0.001 Cent per kilowatt hour that the town purchases under this contract and so it's to their benefit to have more subscribers and have people not opt out and so it's a really good system they in fact good energy has websites that you can go each individual owner can go in and look at their all kinds of graphs and charts and stuff like that they're very very customer service oriented they put their customer service number on on energy on the electric bills that people get so it doesn't come to the town doesn't go to the DPW but the incentive is with the municipal aggregators to get more people to to sign up for it there's no cost or charge or problem with the town at all we just hope that they do a good job and show the the uh the savings what they have done and you know I think the our anybody in the stock market will tell you you know past performance isn't an indicator of future projections but but they have these great charts that show here's what eversource has done over the last three years and clearly it's up every 6 months and down every 6 months and up and down because by law eversource must rebuild their supply contract every 6 months these guys say we can do it every two years 3 years whatever you want and they show their straight line of cost and you know over overall they've all shown historically that they beat the cost of eversource in fact when there's a world crisis like when Russia invaded Ukraine and everybody's costs went up I know towns like reading were just laughing because they were just sitting there at their pre you know pre-invasion cost for electricity I I'd also like to add um a couple of additional things that I didn't say which is that this is the first this is really like the third step and an eight-step process for municipal aggregation so choosing the professional consultant who will then help put the whole package together and get the um initial filing before the department of the public utility help hold the public hearing for the community but one of the things that um both good energy Mass power all of them do is a significant amount of um education related to what we decide the community needs and what um good energy was able to do and and as is mass power frankly um they would say you know if you think we're not reaching a certain segment you'll tell us how we can reach out and get to that segment of the popular a how we best can do it we can do it through mailings we can do it through uh forums we can do it through small meetings through existing clubs they all seem to be very knowledgeable about the best way of reaching the community and our experience on um energy and sustainability is getting the community to actually listen and hear what's going on is the hardest part and so of course you don't want the community to have their first experience with any Municipal aggregation which is oh now I no longer have eversource as my um utility company what do I do uh so we really want to make sure that that process is well explained and that there's a customer service component that will allow anybody with questions to call and find specific answers to questions that they might have uh the um one of the things that I liked about good energy is that they had quite a number of team members who seem to be able to immediately address any questions that we had and had seems to have dealt with every issue that I could think of um in terms of figuring out how they were going to help us get to every segment of the population in a way that will hopefully reduce the surprise or the shock of somebody saying I didn't know about that how does that happen um so that was one of the from my point um the strengths of the good energy as mass power also but as I said which just kind of tilted it a little bit over and that's the recommendation and again um I should also say and this is down the line because at some point the some group will have to help figure out which of the utility companies that are being presented to us uh should be the ones that we go with the municipal aggregator also provides guidance in terms of length of time based on their knowledge of the market uh for signing a contracts so there is right now a range of length of contracts that towns are signing anywhere from one year to three years depending on the race that they're getting and as we all know there's tremendous volatility in the utility companies right now so they use their expertise to help say well you know this is probably good for 18 months and then we should set it out for bid again we don't send it out for bid they do also built into the possibility should it turn out to be some level of um more onerous uh more of a burden on the town Administration is the ability to build into any contract a 0.001 Cent uh of every um of the kilowatt hour to help fund an energy administrator for the town wouldn't be the total amount but at some towns like um East Hampton is using is creating a model that's using that to help support some of the work that they're doing with the municipal aggregation so so question about the process uh For Better or Worse Andrea and I were part of the group who got solar panels I'm a net seller uh for the year is that was did that come up or you know we're a small portion of the population hope or more um that came up during the conversations what what that means for folks like me essentially has no impact for somebody like like you Josh because you're a a a net seller I mean but like I sell at a certain rate does that is it affect that if we all have your agreements with eversource not with right okay so yeah well yeah you know you well you don't sell I don't think you sell to ever Source either you sell to another Energy company right my a source bill says sales I I don't know where it goes okay I have solar too and I have another company I contact once a year they give me a nice check oh no I'm on the it's smart it won't get into me but uh yeah the answer is this this system addresses people with solar cells people who have already have third party suppliers they can res be be resolved they can either keep who they've got by opting out of this or change because it give the state law gives them an opportunity switch from their their current third party supplier into into whoever good energy has identified okay so they they've been doing this for 10 12 years they know that's that's why we use somebody suggest somebody like this the other thing is I think good energy is Western Massachusetts base so they that was another positive ISO when I saw this recommendation every call yeah no so I want to thank you all for your work on this I mean this is a pretty significant undertaking in what is a pretty short period of time so I want to thank you all for everything that you've done um in regards to this and from reading the recommendation from following your guys' work I know that this was a very thorough process um to end up Where We Are Tonight with this recommendation and so I just want to make sure that you had the opportunity to mention everything that happened in this process because I believe that there was also another part of this process where the assistant to manager also right um spoke to the Consultants or evaluated it herself as well right that's V you're right that the when when the original round of of uh interviews took place we went back to Lyn and to Kin myy muns and said maybe you want talk to CU we we actually saw it as of the three we interviewed we said this one's not quite the same the other two are toss up it's up to you and Karen called them all interviewed them all and she said this one doesn't quite make it these two are toss up let's take it back to this this committee and let that so you're absolutely right and but she's pretty much uh agreed with with the can't go wrong yeah so yeah it's great that I guess oh sorry go ahead I'm just going to say I'm reluctant to talk about but you know um certainly my understanding from Karina is that she spoke to both good energy and mass power um and she had conversations with them and then kind of pushed it over to us again to make the final recommendation but I would much prefer to have her respond on that one oh sure sure I mean but I mean I just mean that there were other people also involved in this process and I think that that should give folks even more um you know confidence in how thorough this process was again everybody here is welcome I can't imagine either of these um aggregators not being willing to sit down and have a conversation with the entire select board if you can find the time to do it in a timely way right now dpu has about they've shortened the time it used to be about 18 months to two years by the time from the time a town got its application in to the time an approval happened um we're this is a significant benefit to the residents in so many ways and we're all struggling with this so do what you want to do and certainly this is you make the decision my con question to you is how much further out this would go by adding ultimate additional layers of interviews with them they're willing they'll meet with you right you know pretty quickly I'm sure but then uh takes time yeah and and and that was not what I was proposing or saying it all I was just saying that the process so far has been very thorough and I just wanted to make sure that everyone had a complete picture of everything that had happened um and to give folks in town confidence that this was a good process and we came to a good recommendation and that was only point that I was trying to make we good I will tell you that from talking to a number of different towns in this it's not unusual for one or two people in a town to do the interviewing um whether it be the if there's an existing energy sustainability committee or a town manager or somebody else uh or a sustainability director who does the initial cut and then makes a recommendation um so this is pretty much a it's not an atypical model for this is what I'm saying yeah but again you know it's just a recommendation you guys get to do what you want to do with it and I think um if I'm not mistaken I think West Springfield and Springfield are also kind of further along in this process I know that there are some articles have come out recently about um their Municipal aggregation plans and to just give folks an idea I think some of the numbers that I was seeing was that this is going to save folks 8 to 10% um on their energy bills um and that's you know very significant and obviously neighbors of ours so that's something that people can kind of look at to get an idea of the impact that this will have on their bills Josh I'd like to make a motion that the select board direct the town manager to enter into a municipal aggregation agreement with good energy for the purposes of completing a municipal aggregation contract second all right any further discussion I just had one quick question that um so for the Consultants how long are they actually Consulting and you know on board with the town is it for years or just at the start or forever okay through this contract and remember I said if if a if a resident gets a a question about their bill the the 800 number is to the consultant to talk to it and then you know let's say we have a three-year contract and I think they did say they used to go five years but I don't know if they do that anymore but but at the end of two years or two they'll come back and they'll say you know it's time to renew because remember when the contract ends they're gone and somebody else is so it's to their benefit to renew so it's like they're your partner until the town decides they're not your partner anymore and and again this isn't a one-time cost right this is part of the out of out of the bill what we're generating is that right yeah it's it it's I guess it comes out of each president but it's it it's the same amount no matter who you pick and it's that .01 Cent per kilowatt hour that just gets so in other words if they negotiate a price of you know you know 17.3 or 17.35% but the contract you said it's forever but three years one three year and then at the end of that could we switch consultants if we want absolutely okay yeah I just wanted to be clear that we're not we're not paying a consultant out of the gate $100,000 then moving forward we're still not paying it's part of got you yeah and by the way I think most of the contract language is pretty standard in terms of I st the state establishes Municipal agregation but again there are models from the Department of Public Utilities and Department of energy resources for this type of thing what I can tell um keep going shut up just Dan to finish your or answer you the next question is so if we vote to accept this The Next Step was is Lyn would enter into that contract sign the contract that Municipal aggregator would then schedule public hearings in Long Meadow to get a sense of you know they they indicated there's this base level and there's probably 100% renewable but what's the middle level what do people want do they want you know 40% renewable or 60 whatever and and how many people are going to take it and how do we have to talk to the people and how do we communicate so they would arrange these public hearings to talk about this and while they're developing and looking at price and things like that of these things and following that then they would then say okay every resident in town here's your three choices if we choose three most of them recommend three and here's the pricing on those three choices you know we will opt in we'll have a requirement at here because it's but and you could but you can opt into the higher choices or you could opt out altoe so the the next steps really fall to the municipal aggregator not to the town manager to Karin or anybody else or even the energy and sustainability committee everyone good all right all those in favor thank you very much appreciate it thank you guys thank you nice work thanks I wish I could get those smaller bills but you already have a negative bill that's true I'll take some credits no I I've learned from uh this town not to trade in credits all right moving on to new business we have reviewing our fisc year 2025 with the fire department hello again hello nice to see you uh just everybody knows deputy chief Ry the John in the fire department so uh two documents in front of you tonight uh first one will be the uh EMS rate change I think everybody's been through this process before MH so um John has done most of the work on this uh my name's on it so I'll be right here um but if you have any questions on it or if you want me to do uh have John do a brief review on it I think it's always helpful people are watching and want want to hear so if you could do A Brief Review that'd be great yep absolutely so um every year we do kind of an analysis of our EMS rates not only uh Statewide but part of the region um and that's on page four or five um we take a look at our basic life support rate Advanced life support rate um I should say say Advanced life support one rate and our Advanced life support two rate and then our loaded mileage rate um we compare them to our western Mass averages the state averages and we also look at the Medicare rates as well um and then we look at how it we're able to sustain our services and in that um we looked at um how we were doing and what we expected for an increase in the amount of call volume um right now we're looking we're we're seeing probably a 10% increase in EMS call volume coming up in fiscal year 25 um that's based on um what we're seeing in in 24 we did see a dip in call volume over covid and the year year after that we expected before Co we expected to go back to the um volume before Co and we're seeing a we're seeing an increase now um so in order to sustain uh Emergency Medical Services we're um we're recommending a 3% raise in all of our rates BLS ALS one 2 and the mileage rate um this will allow us to um sustain the services we have now U moving forward so any questions go ahead Mark I it's kind of the sarcastic question but you know nobody ever calls up and says I I need an ambulance but before I call you you know what are your rates right I mean well yeah um you think that'd be funny but it's um we do get quite a few questions on it um so uh Andrea are U Administrative Assistant Department takes all those calls uh people do question our rates um normally it's a good conversation because they uh on occasion they'll utilize a private service and they want to know why we were so if we missed something because private services are roughly 35% more expensive than what we charge so um and they also go uh they're very um I don't want to term this correctly aggressive at collecting uh the Medicare Co co-pays um we are honestly not um if people have supplemental insurance we obviously collect that um but if somebody owes us 50 bucks on a co-pay I don't send we don't send them the collections on that so um so that's the questions we get mainly on the rates but and typically when they call 911 they're not looking for an estimate it's happened though I will tell you Mar so thanks we will get a question every once in a while from from a patient if we're in the field they'll say well how much is this going to cost um I can tell you that that's not ever something that we tell our people to to to to have them have the residents worry about we will'll tell them you know let's let's worry about the emergency now um we can we can talk about that later if if you know it becomes an issue and you know I've been I've been involved with the service quite a long time as the chief has and I've we've had people come in and and ask questions about the bills and um Express their concerns and I think 99.9% of the time we we send them home happy and say that you know if you can't if you can't pay your bill or whatever let's talk about it and let's figure out a way that um you know we can either help you out with it or put you on a payment plan or um often times they don't realize they have secondary insurance it wasn't applied to secondary insurance so yeah Andrea will actually walk them through a lot of the insurance processes we get a lot of people are very confused by their insurance and what's mixed in with their emergency room Bill and things like that Andre knows this stuff way better than nether one of us do um with our billing company so she'll I can I can tell you case we just finished last week person that had used am twice they owed us about $4,000 and they were they had actually set in the paperwork to set up a payment plan and we looked at like you're insured and we Andrew actually called their insurance company people like yeah they never submitted it so uh I have a very odd question so I was looking at the capital list and I was reading the Washington Post a couple days ago and there was a volunteer fire department I think in Virginia that got scammed you saw this article I I didn't they they got they thought they were putting in a down payment for a fire depart or fire no I'm sorry an ambulance because they're hard to get they thought they found one across the country they wired 220 grand out and uh it's gone they they got I think they maybe got 50 or 100 back but a lot of it was just uh was gone so we got this guy named Chad that was that was my question not that I don't trust the department but there's you got money coming in collecting but you're not this Capital money is not going out through you that's not oh no okay no they have not given me a check checkbook yet yeah no aren't likely too cheap no I I read that article my eyes bumed we can see what's in the account but I can tell you that either Chad nor Ian would would was give us the yeah to that point a lot of these smaller they're associations and they're volunteer groups and they either operate off donations or maybe they collect insurance and you know it's probably a volunteer I was volunteer you know um treasure you know like for BFW or something like that and you know it's it's unfortunate there are a lot of scams out there I will tell you yeah I I see them every day yeah so absolutely Mark just the question I don't know if it's Chief or deputy chief when you set the rates and you know one of the columns you have here is Western Massachusetts what's our or your philosophy on we should we be in the top 20% or the bottom 20% or we compare ourselves to a certain town or not I mean do you look at that since you've got those numbers here so we we we look at the averages um and actually and so Ian the deputy and I um with and I've done this for the years with Paul one of the part the big part of this process is we do the costing what's it really cost to operate each year so we break down every aspect of the fire department we we uncom mingle I don't know if that's the right term the the fire department say okay if we were to get rid of the ambulance we we take it backwards get rid of the ambulance service but you still want a iso3 fire department what's going to cost and then that's what we so we look at that pricing you know what and then what do we need to make and then we compare our rates and say okay we need to have rates that are going to cover our costs and be defendable so somebody says you know East Long Meadow is charging you know 10 bucks a ride and you're you're charging 20 what's up um so we just make sure we don't get online we haven't yet to the point where we've costed you know we're going to be way above the average so we're in the top though we're we're the normally the high highest every single year so and this the other question I have is I go back however many years before we had a an in town Ambulance Service and you recall it was I think Philip Loro or something one of the a child in town who's Fagan oh Fagan right right who wanted to start I mean do do you folks I'm not going to say look at that but how does that impact what the fire fire department and our EMT services do in terms of the initial objective or goal or the you know the the reason that the you know that we have an our own ambulance service so and if somebody get a chance if you get a chance to read my monthly report this month I actually outlined a call that we did um and it I think that that call I wrote up about that pacing call we we received the call on the other day um our folks are really part of the fabric of the community and they they've always maintained that all the way from the you know the the Neil Fagan story was the motivation to start but the in you know I was I'm probably the only one that was even remotely close to that one but the the relationships they have with people in the community continues and I think that's a it's a big motivator um for our folks it's they're part of the fabric of the community uh I love the fact that we have more people moving to town now or or um you know where they're coaching with you but they they could be going going to your your H your house with um with the ambulance you know they they know the parents of families they know where keys are located in in somebody's house um you know we we we take some people through through some very difficult times in their in their lives so um and they do it with care Charisma um and they're highly technically skilled uh in the in the in my report I wrote about a very technical call where they use some very Advanced Techniques external pacing which is where we can do it where it's a skill that we've chosen to adopt absolutely save the person's life but one thing that the people could remember about the call they didn't care that we give gave medications and did all this high-tech stuff two hours later our ambulance was back at the hospital and one of our paramedics went into their room just to see how they were doing and got them some water you know a glass of water and that's that's what they remember and that's that's we build our service so I hope I answer your questions yeah one of the things that I can and I've been only off the line per se for about a year now um taking over as deputy chief is we have constantly constantly pushed our folks that we need to treat everybody like their family and that was one of the things that was instilled in me when I started here you know when I when I worked for Chief deborn and we instill it today that regardless of that person's emergency it's something that they wanted to or felt they needed to call us so we're going to take care of their emergency and you know we talk about it all the time in the initial training with with with our our newer folks that forget everything you may have learned at another Community or whatever else but here in Long Meadow the way we treat our our folks that were at their house for their emergency is like their family and and there's no ANS or butts about it and and it shows it shows in the people that are out there in the community every single day that um we constantly get letters and we get people call and thank you and um we just get people that stop us in the grocery store and say thank you for you know I know you weren't at the call but your people did this and um they drop off a lot of cookies which I'm a big fan which that shows too unfortunately not you still work for me thank you we have a motion to adopt the so I'll move we adopt the uh fiscal 2025 cost recovery uh proposal second anything further all those in favor thank you that was that you meant ambulance rat ambulance R right sorry I got that yeah moving on to Emergency Services cost recovery rates yep so this is something that um we don't use a lot um this is the case that we have a third party that's responsible for an incident um most of the time when this is employed it's uh down Route 91 in relation to like an oil spill from a tractor Trail or accident um but we have used it in town for various things um so under certain um uh sections of General law um we can uh build for our services mainly hazardous materials we can't do it every day but when we can we do um and we've collected some big money over the years on this um if you Rec recall when there was the tanker accident down Exit 49 uh we were part of a mutual Aid assignment there for three days um and we build out um I think it was $117,000 covered all of our expenses um so money does go back into the fund I mean the general fund um but um this is actually and it'll be used for used for actually any Town department but PR primarily uh police fire and DPW has this changed from last year uh we it it is modified a little bit um there's a few things that we um increase price on so not not a lot though how how do you establish these these cost so some of it's based so the fire and the police are based on the FEMA rates and then we and then we put in our contractual all the things to cover our Collective baring baring agreements and DPW gets them from the DPW Association for Massachusetts thanks any other questions I'll make a motion we we approve the Emergency Services cost recovery rates for fiscal year 2025 second anything further all those in favor all right thank you both for coming in we appreciate it thank you state for B oh sure sorry to kick you out all no it's fine yes sir I will leave uh all right next up we have the local 1903 collective bargaining agreement for 2024 to 2027 this is discuss an executive session do we have a a motion to accept the or enter into the agreement I'll make a motion we enter into agreement with local 1903 for the uh fiscal years 2024 through 202 or actually calendar years 2024 through 2027 for uh labor contract second Jos anything further yeah I I I just think that that because this is an open session people at home deserve ly to kind of go through and any of the highlights of the of the contract proposal that we all went through in in executive session okay yeah thanks Mark yeah just so it's it's um apparent that we've spent a lot of time on this this isn't just the first time it's come to you I think this is actually the third time this this um collective bargaining agreement that we've brought this to you with for feedback and as we've been in negotiations so um the biggest change to this uh contract is is the adjustment to the pay scales uh it we've actually completely thrown out the old pay scales and revamped them for new pay scales we spent a lot of time looking at our comparable communities to make sure that we were competitive uh especially over the last contract we saw quite a few people leave us that had been very highly trained so a lot of money walks out the door when they leave so we took a lot of time um to make sure that we got that right uh there were also quite a few updates just to have the contract reflect current practice in the department and um one of the big things that we were uh really happy to see happen here is the adoption of the Personnel policy manual when the contract is silent and then there was also a change to remove the sick leave buyback and so that's also something that we've been working on trying to get out of contracts uh it can be a nightmare to try to administer payroll wise and um am I missing anything that you wanted to touch on Chief uh just some improvements to the educational benefits um we included paramedic training as an incentive to hopefully draw people and then just a lot of language uh cleanup so that was expired so I just um I think since Lynn has been here as Town manager and uh since I've been on the board there's been a lot a market effort to pay people in town what they're worth and I I think that that is a really laudable goal people want to cons Services they want they want to hear they want fired fired fighters in EMS uh who are part of the community and want to be here and want to stay and uh and we did it with we have a DPW wage study we raised rates for all of our town staff and I I think that that is incredibly important and I'm glad that we do it because we have to show our appreciation and it's just it makes fiscal sense too because every time you start over with an employee you lose a lot of as Lynn said we and we have to stop that and I'm I'm really glad we're doing this I'm glad that uh it's going to make a difference in our firefighters uh lives that they can stay here and um and be part of the community and uh just want to thank everyone for their hard work and getting to this point mark yeah I I want to just take note of one of the things Lynn said and that was that as part of the total review of salaries and wages we've done a total revamp of the wage scale I think people at home are looking for us to say oh it's a 2% 2% 2% over three but this just doesn't fall into those categories at all and it's not to say it's a 30% increase across the annual either but the the adjustments really can't compare one year to the next and I think that's important for people at home to to hear that that that it's a it's consistent with the directive that that Town manager got from the select board it's consistent with the budget that we passed and I think people as Josh said it's consistent with paying our employees feir feir wages for for what they do one 10 um certainly agree with what Josh well said um Mark as well you know one this was I think the first uh you know contract certainly for fire that that I came across being on a couple years on the board now and you know I hate to keep saying this but this is like one of the you look at the the contracts that we've had for in place for 20 years and you know Mark just mentioned something like you know the rate looks like it's much higher but this is something that we've kicked the can down the road for 15 plus years just like if it's trees if it's water sewer uh deferred maintenance and now everything's piling up um so I think moving forward we need to be cognizant of the fact that that things cost more money things are expensive um but we need to take care of our our workers in town and they take care of us and the gaps that I saw from 15 plus years is was pretty incredible so um I think this shows that uh the board has a commitment to um doing the right thing just like the men and women who uh put on a uniform every day to serve the town so um I just want to thank everyone's efforts for uh the contract and all the firefighters men and women who help protect us oh yeah sorry just to underscore uh a couple points um I think I think Dan is right when he says that the if you look at just rates and say that they're increasing 10 or 30% it might look like a lot but in fact it's bringing a lot of these positions kind of at the same level as surrounding areas now and so I think that's important uh for folks to know and then to underscore what Josh said too about this making Financial sense by paying folks less than what folks and communities around us have been getting you know we have been losing folks and it really costs money to hire new people to train them um and there's a lot of cost to that turnover uh which we are also hoping to avoid Now by raising wages so um um well said by everyone but I just want to underscore those couple points all right there nothing further we go to a vote Jos just oh sure I I just want to sincerely thank the board um this has been Monumental for the Department um it I we we feel this will stabilize our Workforce um which has been a giant challenge for us um I want to thank Lynn for her work um in the local um our our bargaining sessions were super productive um it it it was an absolute pleasure you know it you know there was there's no yelling and there's no like you see you know the oldtime TV shows it was very productive constructive the local has the same goals as the as the town does is the retaining employees have a good workable document that um we can continue to move the fire department forward with and I believe I absolutely believe this is going to go a long ways I I think some of you probably heard feedback from some our members it's great really appreciate it so thank you so much all right um all those in favor all right I was going to wait till they voted to thank them I just want to close the deal but seriously thank you um you're a huge part in this as well and uh we all put a lot of effort in but It ultimately comes down to you guys to vote for it so thank you for that nice work everyone have a great evening thank you thank you all right uh next on the agenda we have Hampton County Regional Retirement Board uh discussion on town of long met retirement plan uh Mark you wanted to to add this to the agenda so if you want to sure I'll just kick it off I you know this has come up over and over again and and I think that that it's worth having our our our CFO certainly but our town take a look at what it would take how long it would take if you can even do it uh you know what the benefits or what the detriments might be to the town to look at separating the town from the the hamon county regional Retirement Board whether You' go we pulling everybody out or you know it's the anybody any new hires starting now or however it goes I think you know it it's going to take a while to figure it out it'd be great if we worked on it and had a decision sometime so that we would know where we want to do with the next fiscal year clearly nothing we're going to do but I think it's it's worth having the discussion because the it's a it's a it's a line item cost that's going up 8% every year which is the maximum allowed by law and it's projected to go up 8% every year for a long long time and and that's one of our highest costs so love to see what Ian may have looked at because I know he he made some phone calls Mark you're our our front line guy on this and I appreciate your reports back and everything we here uh I I'm very curious about this and uh if you look at the budget it's a massive amount of money we spend on this and 8% outpaces inflation outpaces everything there's no way we can we can do that in perpetuity um so but if if the other ones are also even if it's 7 and a half% another uh goes up that's significant so I'm I I know you got a lot on your plate already you have uh you're still pretty new on the job but to the extent you can take this on I I think I'm I'm very curious uh and I think it's a good idea sure well I can at least comment as to what I've done so far if that's helpful so you know the discussion was first made to me around December when we were doing the initial budget discussions I think Mark brought it up to me to start researching or seeing if this is even possible so I had some preliminary conversations with in about kind of the direction that we wanted to go with this so one of the first things that I did is reached out to um surrounding communities of like size to see what they did in terms of communities that self- administered and the First Community I spoke to was West Springfield they're about the same size population wise they're a little bigger but in terms of um comparable population I thought it would be accurate so I wrote I reached out to James lvti who is the retirement administrator of the town uh this was back in January I had about almost a two and a half hour phone call with him going over a lot of different things involved with how they self- administer their plan and I don't yet have a write up because there's a lot of notes that were taken but to give a highlight or give a high level briefing of what we discussed we went over the costs involved of how the town administers are planned so there are two employees Plus benefits that manage the retirement plan for the town side uh the CFO has to be on a board the board represents the retirement system so there's the mayor the CFO and then two elected officials that represent the community's retirement system uh there is one non- retiring member of the system so five in total they have to have an attorney to represent to make sure that the system itself is being properly maintained this is something that is build for hours um they have a $50 million FID chair insurance policy this covers both employees and the investment managers that administer the plan so when I say that the town administers their own plan they also have a um third party that they work with so they buy into a group that works on the administrative side of it while the town does the payroll the benefits the administering for the locality so that that is something that they introduced me to the company that they use so I have a contact there if we want to pursue this further um we talked we about the software that the organization uses because that is its own cost and there's the time it takes to both learn the software and the annual maintenance cost involved uh there is a 2-year Actuarial study that's required that ranges from 10 to 15,000 a year I don't want to start going into cost now because it's very arbitrary at this point so I just want to give a a summary of what we discussed um every 3 to four years uh they're required to have an audit of the plan because they self Minister and that's covered through parak which is the organization that oversees the state of Massachusetts as well as the federal level so in terms of what I thought were the best takeaways from the discussion is it is a large undertaking for the town to self-administer not that it's impossible but what they have found is the the people in their positions have been there for 10 to 12 years so there's a lot of institutional knowledge that is kept so that is something that if we wanted to self Minister we would have to look for someone who has the experience necessary in order to run the plan so that might take some time and or be an expense in order to bring them in now what I what I thought would be best in this case would would be to reach out to one our audit partner to see if Markham does any type of study to determine what the cost would be in order to exit the plan I reached out to Tanya Campbell and unfortunately no one at Markham provided those services but she gave me a contact uh Jamie warl from strategic retirement partners that has experience with this so I reached out to him and I'm waiting to hear back from him I also had a discussion with Erica Dixon our HR Director to see if she had any contacts and without going any further I think Lynn and I had a discussion I think last week where I guess what would help me is if the board wanted to give a directive as to how far we wanted to take this progress so what I'm looking for is are we looking at this point to get a quote for a study to be done or how far along do you want this process to go Mark yeah you I appreciate that I think the the issue of how to administer your own plan I think is like you found out got all its own issues for me the bigger the bigger and potential more concerning is how do you withdraw from a plan you're already in and you know I would personally like to see that to understand what that would entail before we even go to say what would it take to create your own plan because you can't create a plan unless you're prepared to do what it takes to withdraw from the the plan you're on but again when I when I initially brought this up my goal would be to come to some a sufficient understanding to set a direction that that would Target a fiscal year 2026 decision so it's really I don't know what the timing is but you know fiscal 2026 is July 1st 2025 so we've got you know 13 14 months to to see what it takes but again focus on can you disengage from Hampton County and if you can what is it you know if you got to pay them $200 million to disengage it's going to kind of sway where we're headed here so and I did at an effort to understand better the agreement that we had with Hampton County I asked Paul if we had a copy of an agreement and he said that there was no written agreement made this was something that we accepted the statute for a contributory retirement system sometime back in the 60s and he didn't even know the date so this is something that we've had longstanding and it would be something that we would need to do a study for to understand sometime between 1937 and 1955 it looks like I did some research today we didn't get to talk if it's prea it's already old it's really old wow uh h i I agree with Mark that we should figure out first what withdrawing looks like because if that's a deal breaker right yeah so so what I take from that is we need to do some sort of study to determine what the exit looks like what terms of cost in terms of timeline that's that's how I interpret that that's my yeah I agree it may be um maybe less um than a study it could be a first step with um Town Council or someone at parak potentially to find out what are the logistics of this anyway and then start drilling down but I do think at some point we would need a study yeah to choose what the next step but yeah we have to get to that step first or not get there but decide if we even want to go there yeah is this something like regionalization that we could possibly do with other towns I mean obviously they're under the hamon I mean I get that but but there has to be in some of these meetings Mark that they I can tell you the town of Hampton would would do but that's what I'm saying I mean maybe maybe we could do some sort of regionalization of this I mean I don't I don't know what the study's going to find or say but it would be pretty funny to have not that hamton County Regional Retirement Board um but yeah I think that that that's not a study that's a a question I guess to that also that other consultant you are waiting to hear an answer from so I actually have an additional I actually forgot about this but since we were talking about perak um back in December I reached out to perak for this specific question so if I can I'm going to read you what I asked in their response so my question was has any town or city removed themselves from a multi-employer Define Benefit Plan before if so what is the process involved for this once remove from the plan what are the next steps so this is what they sent me this is an opinion letter that they sent to another municipality they redacted the name so I don't know who it was for but so dear blank this is in response to email to perak on April 29th 2021 regarding whether it is permissible for a town to opt out of a regional retirement system specifically you state I was wondering Gally if it is permissible for a town to opt out of a regional retirement company system and create its own retirement system where the retirement administrating benefits as outlined in Mass uh Mass General Law chapter 32 would be managed internally by the town do you know if this is possible and where the statut statutory Authority for such actions would be derived acceptance of chapter 32 occurs pursuant to section 28 of said chapter which dictates whether a town establishes their own system or joins a regional or County system there is no mechanism in chapter 32 which permits a member unit to leave a regional or County Retirement System once they've accepted the provisions of chapter 32 in join said system the only way in way the only way in which such an action could take place would be with special legislation we are unaware of any instance in which a member unit has ever received legislative approval to dissolve their association with a regional or County Retirement System and then establish their own independent Retirement System in 2014 town of Athol received legislative approval to dissolve their retirement system and join the Worcester Regional retirement system but we have never seen the reverse chapter 360 of the acts of 2014 provided for the dissolution of the Athol retirement system well if we need one legislative bit of help uh this probably would be the one I would choose but uh that's that's interesting so hopefully that gives some additional context it's a lot of context seems like a pretty uphill battle Yeah well at least we have the first answer right so is it possible maybe yeah but yeah okay well I I'd still talk to can't hurt to ask around yeah but that's not a great that's a tough answer it's it's also I mean something to think about we could put forward special legislation if we really want to continue to explore this that's I'd rather if we we have one uh gun or bolard chamber I'd rather prop two and a half uh I like I don't know if we can't get any Headway on that I can't imagine or have to vote on it but I know that would be tough from what I hear this will probably get even harder to get attention on yeah I this is a long shot but there may be other communities who would yeah that's true join long Meow in doing this too so I you know that that's thank you and that helps I knew I knew I reached out to them I just couldn't remember when I just I happened to find it that's a pretty pinpoint answer that's good it's never been done yeah and probably can't be I think but that's a good point if you have if there's 10 Towns then maybe it's that's a lot more uh reps and Senators on board at least anything else in there right now okay thank you all right thank you yeah that was great thank you thank you um moving on we have the town manager annual evaluation process I think we've all done this now B you did it with like a month of experience yeah a pretty lengthy evaluation of Lynn for the one month yeah last um so uh this is from Mike says that we should submit our fiscal year 24 Town manager evaluation forms by Thursday May 30th uh evaluations are compiled post on the agenda and PDF fillable version will be shared with the board along with updated goals an updated goals spreadsheet have we gotten that l l yeah Mike S it um I have I may have to share an updated copy with the I don't think I saw gos I might I know we've been working on it but I don't think we've yeah we haven't updated the back Google um yeah so uh we've all done this process before and uh for anyone watching who is not aware we uh we all do our own evaluation and give scores to Lynn and then um Mike comp it we got one document and then um she faces the Firing Squad at the at our next meeting or not um anything else any questions on that you have more experience on this one V find find more nice things to say um we're setting the June 11th 2024 annual Town election warrant move we said June we approve the June 11th 2024 Town election warrant is concluded in our packet second any further discussion all those in favor um all right then we have street closure applications uh first move on for first sh of Christ Long Meadow Event May 29th from 9: to noon long metal Street East of the green Mike these are all approved by uh LPD correct all right um I move to approve the First Church of Christ Long Meadows street closure application for Wednesday May 29th 2024 from 9:00 a.m. to noon second anything further all those in favor uh Center School Field Day Friday May 31st with a rain date of Monday June 3rd uh Long Meadow Street East of the green between longf and Colton from 8:45 to 2: p.m. so moved yeah oh I yeah all right yes I move that we or I will entertain a motion so moov we have a second second all those in favor and uh I entertain a motion for a captain road block party request for Friday June 14th from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. to close Captain Road between Williams and caraval so second all those in favor uh finally we have uh two one day liquor licenses from lacf for June 6th and June 27th 2024 uh Mike are these all in uh we have everything we need for these insurance insurance is on file check is received and then uh tip certification is uh renewed actually as of recent okay uh I I will entertain a motion to accept the uh June 6 and June 27th 20124 lacf one day lior license applications for the at the uh long Adult Center what did you say June 6th and what uh June 27th okay you said okay thank you so moved second all right uh anything further all those in favor all those opposed all right uh do we have anything on correspondence um Mike was uh the somebody spoke with uh Mr Summers about the tree hearing process yes uh I believe our tree Warden did and actually the town manager as well yeah so if anybody is curious the the times that are posted for the tree hearings that is when they're going to happen but the hearing I'm sorry the the tree hearings by the warden but if there are appealed then they come to us and uh that would be uh not during the day so a little more flexible at least and I just want to also clarify that you can make a uh opposition uh to a tree via writing as well of the hearing as we found out any one person can can do that um do we know if the residents are getting letters sent to their their home as well cuz I mean obviously the tree is wrapped with a letter but are they also receiving a letter do we know it comes down to what's required in in master law for the hearings yeah have to posted in in the paper circulated uh s days uh 14 days consecutively on uh two additional like if it's a Thursday you know 14 days prior I is it also on the website it's on the website it's posted as on on our calendar for meeting agendas um so yeah I it was in I uh it's one of my great shames but I read the legal section of the reminder and it was in there twice yeah um all right anything further in corespond all right who wants the honors I move to a Jour second all those in favor all right good night thank you