##VIDEO ID:0kTuXRFLfaQ## [Music] my watch 7 o' get started okay this is um lunberg Park commission Wednesday December 18th in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcasted over the lunenberg public access Channel and uploaded to the lunber access YouTube channel this meeting will be held in person at the location provided on the notice and members are welcome to attend this inperson meeting please note that while an option for remote attendance or participation is being provided as a curreny the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the broadcast unless otherwise provided by law members of the public with interest of any specific item on the agenda should make plans for an in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly the agenda lists all of the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed may be fact discussed but other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law so in calling the meeting to open session I'm going to take attendance so myself Anita Sher chair Chris El Karen Menard calling Shiro right thank you and we have with us tonight Chris Ruth our facilities director and Angela cumins who was our Recreation director thank you okay so the first item on the agenda is the facilities director update which for this meeting includes a report of Park accounts so I have here if you guys need copies of it um just that's the current print out of the paroling one um so far the the majority of the cost of this or cost in and out are Rec programs which I can let Angel speak to um the only one on there that is a um kind of a maintenance one was some work done over at Veterans Park um if there's money left in my regular operating budget we'll move that over at the end of the fiscal year in order to retain our as much as we can in the revolving account um other than that you know lists the beach fees Parkfield fees and program fees that come in um pretty straightforward there's not a whole lot that's hit the account yet so not sure if anyone has any any questions on any the other items that's good to me um the other Parks account the purchase of service the vast majority of of that one which is our day-to-day operating fund is currently spent on the Landscaping there's you know a few dollars left over for repairs but it's it's pretty tight I'm hoping to get some more into that for next year to be able to get more repairs around to the park done but at the moment it's very tight as far as other facilities updates we got all the fall cleanups done and the most part everything's frozen up and not a whole lot happening at the moment know this a lot for us to take in you know the first um chance we have to discuss it with Chris and Angela um if you want to take a few minutes just to look at it or we can um you know just take it home and if anybody has any questions um we can clst those to Chris next time we meet up to you I think that's probably the best actually digested and what you see on there of the um the budget is not the account total they're completely different things in the mun software we use so the account total is never listed on any of these reports no and town has decided to stay with M for upate okay well thank you for that we appreciate it and moving forward we'll just have brief quarterly updates okay all right what else did you that in terms of um other than that I don't have a whole lot of for my update I'm sure Angela has updates on program run so the one thing um on the revolving FRS uh Chris and I were just meeting about it um before the meeting started um the finance director wants Chris to provide a budget for the revolving fund um um you know because the change in revolving fund was approved to town meeting has not yet been blessed by the Attorney General's office but you know under the assumption that it will be um the finance director is looking to try to have ch submit a budget you know that reflects um you know what we're looking for moving forward now the amount that we had put into that article per town meeting was a not to exceed 77,000 but obviously that's not what we have in our current roling fund um what Chris and I were talking about was potentially increasing the salary line items so that it would reflect what we think we were you know what we had talked about potentially doing um and knowing that um what we're going to be hearing from Angela regarding Staffing at the beach house um you know that's all the more reason why we may want to increase that line atem and part part of the tricky thing of that is the beach fees hit the revolving account they go into it the salary line item is not taken out of the Revol it's taken out of the regular operating budget so we'd have to look at how we handle if we want to we can take some out of the revolving and transfer it to the other one but it's not quite as simple as just here are the numbers we'd have to say either increase our budget on the uh salary line item on the other side or just put a line item in the revolving of we've been running about $4 to $5,000 overrun each staff Sal um and again that's that may change due to staffing issues so okay that might be a good discussion bit of a moving tget at the moment yeah yeah exactly okay so if everyone's okay with Chris moving in and working with the fundings director on getting that P together these budgets can be revised throughout for the year we try not to do it all the time but it is possible thank you okay um okay Recreation directorate so since we talked with the beach house I guess we should start there um I think we're GNA run into a similar issue we ran into last year where we were concerned about Staffing kind of right from the jump yeah um this year's a little different where I don't believe that Liz is going to be returning as Beach director um and she's done things a certain way for how many years her mom did certain things for how many years um my basic knowledge of like the way she runs things is basically all paper trail kind of so I'd have to like go back and look at her stuff just to see even how she split things up for swim groups my assumption is that she knew a lot of the families for a long time and they've been coming for so long that she kind of knew their skill levels and things like that so I think that's going to be part of the issue um not having that is I'm not familiar with you know any of the kids right um in terms of lifeguards coming back I got a definite yes from two people and that was it um some people haven't responded to me yet and some are you know kind of up in the air so I think we definitely need to hit the ground running in terms of getting lifeguards and specifically someone um hopefully two people who are WSI certified because that's the issue we ran into um where we weren't able to run the Saturday swim lessons because somebody on site has to be WSI certified to run those so they don't have to get in the water they don't have to be in the water with them yeah um but they have they have to be on site so we didn't run any Saturday lesson last year and I think that definitely we got you know a few comments from people that they wish we did um my what Liz said in the past that the numbers weren't that good for Saturday swim lessons but I think it's more like it was harder to staff somebody there for Saturday swim lessons than it was to get people to come and join for it um it's definitely busiest hours during swim lessons during weekdays too so I know we're talking about like Staffing and how much you know we're going to have to put in the fund to like pay them I don't know necessarily we always needed the four people you know because it seems like there were steadily four people but it also depends on the lessons so I think our probably best bet would be the you know staff a little heavier in the morning when that happens and then we can kind of drop down to you know 1 or two in the afternoon when it's the lessons are going on um you definitely need one person to at least do check-in sign and stuff like that um collect any fees like people are paying um but other than that I don't think you know we need four people there at like 4 p.m. Angela should um be we meaning you be proactive In The Swim L and peace and sort of figure out how other towns do theirs like I noticed that when I went on my R for some other towns like you were signing up for a specific swim lesson level um I think that's a good and a bad thing but I think a lot of parents don't really know what level their kids should be in so we're going to end up doing a lot of like switching yeah which is my only concern with that I agree with you because at least there someone would be like Oh I'm signing up for this lesson it's at this time to this time and they know what level their kids in um my only concern is like I said is if we have to like flip flop people around um I did work for like an aquatic center and they did that they had people sign up for you know a certain level and I think a lot of it was people being switched around yeah but I think we've got we get good feedback where people actually know this is what class my kids in this is what they signed up because I think that if we um I think the other thing and I don't know if there's a paper paper trail of it um but when we have returning kids yeah they either passed or didn't pass their level the year before so they and we issue them a card so I would hope that we'd have some sort of paper trail somewhere in the beach house but um you know that might be a place to start too because I think if we if we're saying to parents save your save your card you're going to need to know this information when you register your kid next year right or them something at the end of the season that says you know you may not have passed this year but next so next year you're repeating this level and put the level down and just keep that list yeah that would be so I think next summer um you know no matter what next summer looks like in terms of the beach if we have different staff I think that's going to be a learning season for us um but it's I think we can probably figure it out yeah I think we can figure it out I'm just going to have to dig through um whatever she has had in the past because I do like my wck in the sense of I can see how many people are registered for which thing but the problem is all I have is this is session one this is like a Saturday session this how many people signed up I don't know which like which time they're even in I don't know what level they're in I don't have access to that um so I just definitely need to get like some more of that stuff just to get a better general idea of the levels and who's in what and how many people we can take I'm going to guess it's in the TP filing that information is probably in the filing cabinet that is in the background yeah so I'll have to dig through that like the way back room not the front front room when not the room when you first walk in on the left the one that's all the way down the hall to the right unless they moved it it was put in that last room on the right at their request I think with a a new director coming in it's going to help us or give us the opportunity to really write some policies and procedures for the beach because I think it's I think it it's been run the way it's always been run and the same people were there so it kind of just continued um I think it's a good opportunity to you know set a range policy RS for one two hours sorry Beach is closed we can't keep staff on and pay them for no reason right you know expectations of what we need our staff doing and I think a real opportunity to put a a manual together of this is how the beach is supposed to be run yeah and this is how it will be run that one yeah I agree and you know I'm sure there's other communities that have something we can you know take samples reinvent the wheel yeah I'm just I it's it's hard to come up with a plan when I don't know how much we're going to have a staffing issue so my like thing was get the ground you know hit the ground running with the Staffing portion try to get you know fix whatever we need for our titles and our descriptions for Beach director and lifeguards and stuff like that and just try to get all that um the other thing I brought up is I was hoping that we'd have the ability to possibly um pay people more who are WS certified I don't know why that's not already an option um so right now if you're wsa certified you're the most certified person on the beach basically at that point and they're getting PA the exact same rate do we have the ability to P stens for things like that I don't know that's what we need to currently we pay for them to get the certification right we reimburse them right so they they have that incentive but they're also going through the extra work to get a certification and then they could the exact same yeah and the crazy part is two or three years ago our most um certified guard was 17 years old and it I didn't find out till after the fact um that um he was the one that was there like signing off on everything cuz he was the only one that was WSI certified and I actually looked at the mom Sarah Cornella and I said I wish I had known that because we would have we would have had somebody step in before you know the end of the summer when you were said you were completely stressed over this whole thing all summer yeah that's and that's a lot to put on one person well especially at 17 years old of course yeah but I do think that would give us more options for people to actually want to get certified being reimbursed because that process kind of takes a little bit for them to get reimbursed in the first place um but I think that would give more incentive for us if we can actually pay them more money then they're going to actually want to get their certification which we desperately need for people to do swim lessons is there a way to quickly find out what other communities are doing yeah I can like look up stuff probably and try to figure that out um maybe you could bring us a proposal back for the next meeting yeah another good thing that the town has they come up with a credit card policy which seems simple but in the past the certifications Red Cross certifications had to come out of someone at the stable's pocket right and then get reimbursed which is really not fair to ask anyone to do right so at least now with that it will make the process simpler right that's good to know especially I mean even some of the state certifications require them to be paid by credit card so the town didn't even have an option to pay them before so moving in the right direction how old life how do you how old do you have to goes by the red Frost re yeah which I think is 16 um other than the beach stuff um like I said I'll look through the description I'll work with Chris and just see if there's anything I can also send it to you guys um if you want to see the description that we currently have um just for lifeguard certifications um what they need other than that we're really popular program wise right now for pickle ball which is a hit obviously um and then volleyball so we're basically running back toback sessions of like we're going to do Wednesday pickle ball we're at session this is the second session now we have another session starting soon um I also opened a Thursday one to fill in the Gap um from basically when I know if it's boys or girls club uses it till 5 then we have pick running 5: to 6:30 and then 6:30 to 8:30 there's volleyball so um Anna is actually locking up the JY for me for that which is great to have um other than that I'm offering the snapology which is the stem program that's kind of happening pretty frequently um we're just ended one today another one starting in like two weeks um other than that I also opened some school vacation programs so ma sports leagues coming back which they do the multiports program and then we have a stem program coming as well um numbers are kind of still low for that it's still early but other than that we're doing really good programming wise um so much so that people are you know already asking I didn't even open a second session for Thursday pickle ball and they're asking for a third so I mean I think we're doing pretty good on numbers we're almost full every time so that's a good sign and I don't want to fix it it's not broke so I think that's good okay um can we jump back to beach Staffing um for a second so we've been talking about doing an analysis of what we really do need for the you know the Staffing and you had mentioned that you know in terms of do we need all four all day right um how what process are we going to use to try to make that decision and and how can we help with that process I think the best way to do that would be like look at it's it's hard to say because looking at the numbers that we have from track every day of how many people are you know we have them check in I think it's like twice a day like just this is what time it is is how many people are on the beach in past we're not sure if that's even completely accurate um like as if maybe they just forgot to do it and then just kind of wrote something in I think the numbers of people coming and going and like when they checked in is going to be like the best way to decide um I mean I think it's going to have to be a play byye situation also so we're just going to have to it's a learning curve I think we're going to have to try to figure that out yeah but I think looking at the numbers is probably our best way to do that um I can't really think of another look at that and maybe historical data of weather but it's that's kind of a Monumental task to put all that together right the um I think I think there's two pieces of this need to be looked at I think it's the Staffing what we actually need for staff right and I think some of that I I mean I've been going I've started over the summer I I have not completely finished it because I other things got in the way but I I started looking at our staffing numbers to see how many people were on each day Ty thing and that's all fine but at the same time if I don't know how many people were on even checked into the beach that day um so I think that's helpful I think we need to start looking at like what are our really busy days because I I think it will make I think there's probably a trend to be seen but I think that um I think we really need to look at um what I think is probably as equally important is our Beach hours and what we what we opened like the hours that were open because if we can pull up our numbers that say we don't get anybody that checks in after 5:00 why are we staying open till 7 um if we don't get anybody on a Saturday that comes before 2 o'clock and that's pretty that's pretty you know yeah that's what it's trending at then you know do we just open for a few hours in the afternoon I think looking at those two will help with okay um some of the Staffing stuff too just because we may if we you know if we don't have to fill as many hours right um we don't may not need as many for some reason and like in the POS system which is attached to my wreck like you can look in that day like how many people checked in and what times and who checked in but I have had so much trouble trying to find like backtracking and going back and looking at it but if I'm able to find that I think that will be like the best determinator as much as it doesn't really like count for day passes I think most people are at that point like see Al so I think that would be like also a good indicator just that itself um about checkins just so we have like a range of times that are you know the most popular yeah your day people are just they're coming on a whim right anyway so the hours are out that we determine the hours the hours are out there then they can come the beach get that but we definitely have way more people that come like seasonally and get a past and you know just come for a day that's usually somebody visiting or something like that more than anything yeah so how how do we want to gather this data and how much can we help you do you want to gather the data and we'll pull a few people together and sit done with you and pour over it all or how do you want to approach this I'm going to reach out to Myra to see if there's a way for me to get the the past check-ins and logins just so I can see that information um other than that I do have like every sheet from every single day like the last two summers but that's obviously I think I sent to you it's very tedious to go through it's every day you know um but if you guys want to help me by going through that um you know maybe we could just split it up by like someone do a few weeks or something like that and then I may have the bulk of it already yeah I think you have bulk of it and I don't think you have the previous years but I did the same thing the previous year where it was basically just like how many people paid which day passes whatever how many people were checked in at a certain time so that might be like also a good indicator it's just like I said it's a tedious thing I'd be glad to help look at it some you know yeah as much help as we can get andv left because it's only 19 hours a week so exact if we Tire up going through all the pages there's a lot of other stuff not being done I don't like TVs tasks anyway okay so um when you got the stuff y can you send an email and say I need yeah definitely okay and what do you want to have what is our deadline that we want to try to have this figured out by I would say February because I think we would be posting jobs posting jobs and I think that I I you know and also on this whole Beach director thing if we if we are successful at bringing in somebody that exclusive for a beach director I think they're going to need some time before then because it used to be that the staff just showed up you know maybe a we before and so to hit the ground running um this new person will have that luxury so whatever we do we're going to need to build in some hours for that person to get up to speed yeah I complely agree so to be able to provide them you know when they're brought on board but so that's going to affect the um if we are successful at finding somebody in that position it's going to affect the seasonal we have to pay attention to those seasonal dates and make sure that we're putting them in for the longest period that we can okay um not into September but maybe whatever it is through the end of August first week is seber whatever right also talk to folks over at town hall and see if there's any way for an on boarding not to count against a seasonal hours yeah that's true that's the problem I think it's limited at 20 weeks so yeah training might be above and beyond that okay that makes sense amazing Sil things we have to deal with to get through it okay good um anything else for us in terms of of Beach St before we jump onto the vendor fair um for those that saw that Facebook post the coyote is there to try to scare the geese oh my good we had one of those at our house in m and the geese like circle around you know this one is the bizarrest thing I weird very position and I showed up I showed up to open the beach for um the polar plunge and my husband was with me and I just looked at him I'm like I don't know what this is I don't it's not it's not even a whole coyote it's like a coyote mask head thing that's on like a some cinder blocks and we moved it for that thing and then we put it back but I picture some supposed made look like a rabbit looked like a rabbit actually for probably 20 years it was on the front edge of the beach house and when we finally cleaned all those weeds and stuff that we found it sitting there that's been there for quite some time enough for you know one to two inch caliber trees to grow around the thing I haven't seen I haven't seen any geese down there so clearly the pooping coyote that's what on the cond there we should start moving around town randomly Place find it yeah okay all right um want to jump to the vend yeah so we're definitely still in the very beginning stages of it um but we kind of figured out which spaces we're planning on using there's a lot of things I need to do in terms of like figuring out what our um like certificate of liability insurance covers because I was planning on doing a bouncy house a dunk tank things like that um so I need to definitely ask Nancy kind of what's covered and see if I need certain waivers done for any participating in any of these things um my other thing was volunteers we're going to definitely need volunteers um but I don't know in terms of the town like what screening we need to do for any volunteers good point um so that's another thing I don't really who to ask about that um maybe we could ask Annie and she would know who to ask but um just want to make sure everything you know we're going to need help but I just want to make sure they go through the proper channels and they're approved to help basically the town manager coryy authorized person so it would be through the town manager's office jul it is Julie jul Cory I feel like when we did the um when the town did The Artisan bear thing not this past I don't know what Adcom did they may be able to tell you what they did but um we had a big vendor fair years ago what six years ago seven years ago Laura bosi was one of the one that ran in a note remember having to jump through any special Hoops for that okay the mural with the library might be good resource I think they either just did or they're both do a vendor fair inside the Library oh cool yeah they did one a couple weeks ago unfortunately the issue with the CES is you had to be CED for every single right right right like probably unced like four times I think [Music] but um and then I kind of was just thinking like to find like an outlet that we can just have people sign up online or something like that um that are interested and then whatever process we have to go through we can just send them kind of the information that they need um so I said we definitely any volunteers um school would be good for for that to society type yeah I think that's a good point um they don't have to be Cory yeah the kids yeah most 18 so they're easy easy it's actually a civics class too that they need to volunteer had a group of kids reach out to me and it's not a park property but they were looking to clean up Kids Kingdom a little bit oh wow so oh that's cool um other than that the other thing I have to do is ask just ask Annie and we have to put it in front of a selectboard meeting see if we could shut down um Memorial Drive um for cars and stuff like that our ultimate goal is to basically shut down that whole Road um we would keep the you know the circle the roundabout type of thing open for just like any food truck stuff like that other vendors so that would all be closed and then we'd have people Park kind of like with school's permission um like middle school high school parking lots um I forget where Josie found them but somebody was volunteering um that they'd help us with like do like a little hay ride from basically the parking lots into the circle which Boys and Girls Club S plac Ranch yeah Boys and Girls Club did something super similar did that at the Agricultural Fair too like running I think something like that um it would be easier obviously to go around cuz there's not going to be cars parked I know that was an issue with some of the other times they did that um the only thing was like the food truck would be an issue so we have to kind of figure that out um other than that we also have good pick and farm that's going to come in do like a little petting zoo they kind of told me how much space they needed and they kind of needed a shady area but other than that there's not much else I need to provide for them um some of the stuff would be like people have to bring cash to kind of cover it and some of the stuff I am hoping like the parks we can cover through our budget so um I don't have an exact number of anything right now I know how much I know roughly I think with delivery and everything and set up of like the bouncy house and the Dum King I think it was like $700 or something like that um so I know like that's roughly what they were charging for that um I think other than that I'm just still trying to get my ducks in a row to get like any of the certificate of liability TR stuff covered as well first before I do anything else and can you remind us what that date was we were looking at May 10 yes it was the mother I think it was the day before Mother's Day um and then I know we're doing some signage and stuff like that um Jie's doing a lot of that stuff she'll cover anything really like related to like the vendors themselves so um for me it's more just like possibly getting like a 10 chair set up for people um making sure parking's okay we have those two things will add um I know the adult Activity Center they're having somebody new come in they hired them yet or not they have okay yeah um I haven't really talked to the new person obviously because I didn't know know they were hired yet um so I don't know what they're willing to participate but I think the least at least like their back patio you know maybe some live music there but basically everybody on that street agreed to volunteer and like also be a part of it so we'll have extra like restrooms stuff like that um but party so far the new director over there met I have a request from the 300th anniversary committee if there would be a we're not sell there's nothing to sell there's nothing to yeah do anything but we're hoping that we can get a donated table just to start to spread the word that it's to three years away two and a half years away can it do I'm sure we'll have all of our tables set up so we can certainly give them one of those yeah seems like our last couple meetings have then we started too early so I think our first real kickoff meeting is to be April or whatever thank you like anything else so like Josie's doing with a lot of the vendors I'll just like tell her obviously what because I know through like lenberg Business Association I know they have like fees for like members and non-members but I assume like we're kind of separate from that so we want to set something up problem that as long as yeah um and then I just probably would have to look into getting P pities just as an addition and then run that all through the board p and i' throw that out there too to like conservation things like that if they want to publicize PS or things like that like it'd be like the municipal side of it if you if you're not selling something you're just you're to yeah talk about the town kind of deal if they can add a couple tables you're a town entity you're not getting charged to be on town property right right right you usually see those at um I know I've gone to like grotten Fest like their their Trail network has a thing out you know the tent out and they maps and things like that the trail Network I want to be really in you know as inclusive as we can um within reason I mean we have a good amount of space to use so my only issue is like just making sure I get permission and use the parking lots at the high school so I don't Saturday I don't they determine it's just public property I think so yeah sure I mean the courtesy is good yeah I did ask them and they didn't get back to me so I'm just hoping it's okay but I'll shoot them another email still down a facilities record too so yeah they don't really have hands full it's I really do think it's more like an FYI like hey just we're gonna have be having approach it that way yeah that's great let us know if you have any concerns they have any sports going on that day try that there are some there's just I think just to go timing wise kind of what we discussed is maybe like an 11 11 to 5 maybe something like that 11 to 6 um so something like that cuz um anything that basically we're using is going to have to be a set that day so I I obviously have to get here early and make sure that goes good but it gives us enough time to set stuff up and not be there wouldn't be a schedule ever use soccer until like first first of May first sorry first of April anyway okay so you wouldn't make there wouldn't be a set schedule yet no problem it'd be a mix of like it's it's never that all the games are home all day right it's usually like there's a nine and then there's not a 10:30 and there's a this will be the year when they have everyone's home all right great okay cool do you have anything else for us nothing I can think of okay all right any other questions for Angela while we have her here um do we want to jump to the the earth a one just because if the commission does want I'm sure be involved sure yeah we can do that up take too long so um colen you want to speak to this one yeah last year we worked um with the Conservation Commission organizing some of their um the Earth day cleanups and it was I think it was we must have voted on it or I don't know that it was an official thing like I don't know if we voted or Mary wi emailed and said you want normally do it again you know in Partnership this year I think we all just kind of individually we'd get involved I think so too so I don't know if it was official last year or not I don't know if we should make it official I don't know what difference it makes if it is or not but I am happy to work with Mary and we just basically I'll grab something I mean I'll do something yeah I mean you guys both did something anyway but I do there right I just you know delivered trash bags and signed people up and whatever you know he that's a job so but when she sent that email I was like I don't know should we discuss it and formally do it so we can I don't know we don't have to vote on anything wef I think she mentioned something but I can't remember but we should certainly touch base with her yeah um so Sophie and conservation I think also probably said something um about maybe making it bigger than we have done so I don't really know what she had in mind she hasn't talked to me directly yet well we can Mary said that too that they were hoping to get more Community involvement but I I don't know she said she was looking to get people involved and maybe have a work group but she didn't say anything beyond what exactly that would look like or what they meant well maybe if you could you know plan something and you know send out emails then we could better respond just to you know how we feel it might be appropriate for us to formally or as individuals informally help out right okay great to support it though for sure always fun to even if it rings well I me it was a couple it was at least two full weekends maybe it might have actually been three I think it was three yeah because I think somebody had something planned already so this year too so it's not like it'll be any big event on a Tuesday for us it'll be the week before and the weekend after did you want to bring up your concept of yeah so if we are getting involved so there's actually a program as Unitil Cuts trees throughout town they actually supposed to supply the trees back to the town and the DPW doesn't always have locations for those to go to and that's kind of what we' run through I previously mentioned it to the director and he's kind of looking at the dates that they actually give them trees if it's consistent but there may be the potential that Unitil is giving the town trees anyway and we can kind of find spots to go and plant them Parks other public properties and you know it's the tree doesn't have to go back when they cut it they cut it because there was a reason power lines whatever was don't come back the I mean usually we taking a full grown one it takes a few years problem Bill warten and then you still has a dedicated guy for town that that's a fun runs around and does that bill reach out to him and and see if they had set dates because you know I don't know what time the nurseries are getting the trees and where they're getting them from right but if if we could have them in time for Earth I think it would be Co use for everyone to go and say hey we're going to put a tree over here and a tree over there and wants to come plant a tree you know you can be our tree Warden right I have no interest in just making sure you know because marks has their we are by Charter allowed to be our own tree Warden we can have a tree Warden we can be the tree warden for the parks I am I mean the unit reached out because they had to cut a tree at theale that was dead and overhand the power lines but I live on one of those fun roads in town you're not even allowed to cut so I don't want nothing to do with it no no we don't say anything the cut trees right yeah no they're not they don't do too much like that just down y okay all right so that's it for birday did you have any thoughts on that Angela or you w to no I'll help however I can um and I can definitely like touch face directly with Sophie and just like talk to her and see if she had like a big picture in mind herself um so I'll help however I can for that all right P 124 pounds of trash and one lower Alpha yeah that's incredible just a section of Highland and half ofand Street last year a lawn more huh yeah it's been sitting in the weeds by the there's like a drain halfway down hman before you get to norfield yeah it had been sitting there for so wasn't working Years Years the weeds Vines all grown through it and so I was oh excuse to pull this out it's going to go in the back end of a truck and it's going to be gone yeah we're actually we actually have to set truck at Marshall that's why the back gate is closed right now because people are dumping mattresses out there so great I won't be in Costa Rica this year so I can Hur okay all right well I think we're angel I think we're done perfect good you too thank you thank you there all the doors locked I mean all the door lock situations all good by the way or do you need out loocking doors at night still oh I think I'm good for now yeah we'll just yell again if you I'll send an email thank you okay thanks okay Marshall Park updates um so first one is um you beacha oh Marshall Park user pleas thank you I appreciate that um and night so um when we met last we were talking about you know what do we want to to do with the fees for Marshall Park and you know we have no data at this point really um to compare what other communities are doing although your group had said that you might be able to help us try to gather more current data from other communities um that which would be helpful sure um but my question is what kind of process do we want to put into this and you know is this something that we can do in time for it to be informative for what the user groups need or is this something that we think needs to be a longer term look and have something be put in place for next year you know I mean we're limited people and you know um well they probably start signing people up say shortly after the holidays right so yeah so it's not really fair to try to make any changes at you know at this point for them they you've got your B we your expectations all set um doesn't mean we can't start looking at it and you know putting careful thought into it and be ready to propose something that can go into effect for next year um but I need some feedback from you all that would be my recommendation I mean I know um obviously they're starting up pretty soon with registrations and things like that so I think it's prudent to R for what we've had in place place for the for the moment and come fall you know the fall season next year or work with you guys to see what you know information changes and so what what makes sense in terms of rolling out a registration process and so forth It's a completely different process it's the fall fall ball kind of deal or or the following spring or you know whatever it needs to be but I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend making any changes rationally now um with you know with with them getting started here first of the year and other groups probably didn't started first of you think this is something that we can you know kind of aim to start working on in February it'd be great to start to gather dat you know true realistic real-time data where are we going to get that from them so here's my concern and this is I am not a proponent to wait on this I think that our fees have been set at these fees for a few years that we're not looking to double the fees that even raising them $5 is better than nothing um it's not going to cover enough of our maintenance fees anyway but I think it starts moving in a Direction so because what could potentially happen is if we don't do anything now and we wait we could be looking at a massive increase next year and I don't think that's what we want to do either um you know I but where do we get that data from where are we going to get it from because I made a request already once to TJ and I didn't get a response we've asked for information before and not gotten it you know it it's where are we going to get this data from I don't know if we're going to get anything more than we already have which is what they register like you know they paid for 168 users for the baseball program and for just the spring season and the Phillies were 20 they they had 20 20 kids so that's the like that's the data that's that's all I have to to even say this is what we have so you know if you want more than that we need to know what you want so that we can tease that out of wherever we need to tease it I I with the that I guess I was just talking about you know realistic real time you know current year registration numbers I guess it was I guess it was going that I I think we we'd look forward and and just figuring out what other towns are what other towns doing be the best starting point see what everyone else is is kind of doing that's my only hesitation in making a quick I you're saying like I mean and I do think there has to be an increase of some kind I don't know what that looks like we do need to start looking at making sure we're having an impact on the budget that goes in you know is put out to take care of the the grounds we also need to make sure the grounds you know that we're you know mindful working with the with Le that we started to talk about like working with with baseball and softball to to you know have a a seamless sort of understanding of what needs to be maintained and and timelines and all that kind of deal the best channel to to go about that but I I just don't want to make a my my only incl would be not to make a a quick decision given the timeline that you know be respectful the time and they on I guess but to your point May guess if they're if we're anticipating an increase of some kind and we bump it a few bucks we bump it a few bucks because we're going to probably increase it anyway what was the last increase do you know my talking I don't think it's been an increase since I've been on the commission and I've been it has been an increase since no I don't think I'm pretty pretty sure I'm pretty sure Haven open it now tell there hasn't been in the last two years I not no that's for sure I mean I agree it's better to have I I think you know for families it's better to have a small increase you know increase a little bit now you see it's coming do a little bit now rather than a big jump up you know next year but I hate to just arbitrarily right that's why just throw a number out random number at it I also do want to be you know conscientious of that registration is going to start soon you know in a few weeks so people need to know and you you don't want to have people registering and that you can't increase it once they started because that's a headache um what is the what are the registration fees that people are paying nowadays it's by division um so we try to keep the young kids cheap so that because they the families don't actually know what's cheap um I was just tell you that is's all relative right you um yeah so we try to keep t-ball at $50 per kid um and we do incentives and kind of penalties for late and early bird sign up um but that's that's what you guys are taking in not what's being paid out so that that is the yeah that's basically the income we get from them um and then you you have to pay part of that to the town for half of what they register for is going to the town so we actually lose money on every division that we take in right now so half of the registration Fe goes to is that what you heard for T-Bone for t-one yeah 20 you charge $50 for tall okay so not it's not quite half but because we only is it 25 it's $20 oh 20 so that if you want that's the that's and that actually not so here's here's the other piece in all this that and I think I've already mentioned this to TJ they're not using our fields for t-ball so they do not they're not paying us next season for t-ball they're only paying us for the teams that they're putting out on Fitzgerald MCN and Marshall not school street but it's okay budget School Street's not a Parks property a town property yeah but I mean we our money I don't know if you're are you splitting it based on the field the commission here has no say I know I'm just saying we so you you paid last year it just it helped cover the Landscaping anyway fine doesn't matter I'm just saying if one question I guess is should we not put the T in you should not in my opinion you should not not into the park side not for the parkite so when you fill out that when you fill out that user form you should not include your t-ball program in um in that because they're not playing on any Park field if the select board who oversees School Street wants to charge something or they don't we already have the agreement yeah so then no no interesting so do you know T do you know how many players last year just even just a ballpark number out of the 168 that you registered for how many of them would be um t 36 okay we did 16 to 6 132 yeah so that's 2700 for the upper divisions that's what is it 20 it's 20 yeah like if if they had they paid us obviously but it so it would have been if they have the same registration numbers next year and I would assume they'd be a little bit different um it would be 2700 2720 yeah it's 20 bucks ahead regardless of division or whatever the fees for the Phillies if they still exist are based off of residency so if you're an in town well it's the same thing for youth but it's all our um yeah so they registered Billy's registered 20 non residents last year and I think that was $35 um that was $35 and I don't I would not expect that this year I don't know that the team is going to hold together that's the guy that ran it for all those years he you know everything was baseball kid that took it over it's just I think he realized it was a full-time job more than he thought yeah yeah sure is okay so um do you have what would be your so we collect $20 ahe because at the end of the day I don't think any of us are looking to um I don't think any of us would be saying to any youth program in town you need to pay 100% of the bill we're not taking our maintenance fees and dividing them out so we're never going to be able to cover but I think that to I think there needs to be something and maybe this is what we look at going forward you know is there a do we Implement some sort of schedule of a of a regular increase like you know whether it be a percentage or a flat rate every you know two years or whatever so that people know that it's coming or something I I don't know I just think that it um I just I just feel like we are um we have a lot of stuff that needs to get done and we're always you know nickel and diming our our budget and it and this isn't going to solve anything or it will solve some stuff but it's not going to solve everything um I don't I don't know that's just sort of my my take on it I don't I personally feel like I I want some information from what the communities I mean I understand the concept of doing a quick small increase now but I don't know what the right number is so how does that look though how does it look in terms of we look to other communities to see what they're charging but those other communities could have fees that are you know what type of fields do they have are they um you know do they have thick Lush Turf and you know it's hard to compare it's hard to compare without knowing some of those other pieces you look at say Townson for example they don't they have some type field situation where their youth programs are 100% responsible for the maintenance and everything else that goes out and that's a huge expense you know from what I've been able to tell so like how do we compare I think we need to identify communities are in the same boat that we are I mean like when you're when you're doing salary you know checks against other communities you find what you call your comparable communities that have the same demographic same physical char istics so we need to identify what towns in the area would be similar to us right five they have two areas two areas yeah depends field yeah is they have the one up pittburg Road and then the one right butall the one that they just totally redid and then they have a practice field which oh they red the one at scaling right school yeah they got they fully reamped everything rebuilt the fields snack Shacks everything they still have the one over Tim too that field still exist [Music] I $ what are the what are the fees for the older divisions like what do you charge um I I just came through a year the rookies it's 0 minors it's 150 Majors 170 and softball it's Farm is 90 minor 150 Majors 170 seniors 170 which is all at a loss to us for what it's wor just yeah I'm just wondering how that factors in with I mean my kids are old so it's been a while since I was paying for that that doesn't seem that bad where if we were to increase even like you said by $5 if you're already losing and you pass that on to the families I would it would just seem to me that you're not getting outside of what youth sports are costing I don't know so I guess that would be my question I don't want you guys to push your user fees to something where people are like this is twice what I pay for anything else like you know I don't know what Li is right now I'm trying to early early bird is one early bird been 125 go 50 that's if it's in the weeks u4 U6 so u4 and stalker is not grade four it's grade AG four to six is $90 in town which is grade one and two is $100 and then travel which is grade three and up is $155 there's a 25 early bur yeah how much are they paying to the schools um a lot last I knew they were they were paying a lot and they were paying a lot for the turf and never seeing the turf one big difference between Liza and us is we pay for the jerseys and the families pay for the jerseys in Liza which is a huge cost no they don't yeah do they know oh say the younger kids you you wear them for 100 years three three years and then pass them on to other other around players I was thinking the little kids they provide they Prov them um Lysa according to their treasure pays $ 13 to 14,000 per year for field rentals yeah so they between six and $7,000 a season a season I think it's an hourly I think it's an hourly rate they do pay an hourly rate and that does not include um like their lights so that's just for field rental so if they're using an hour random number I I try to use the school field rental form a lot of different else conditions on there yeah you couldn't you couldn't pay me to charge anybody by the hour I think that's be crazy who wants to keep you want to do the accounting on that not a chance there we go maybe maybe maybe by the game you know the scheduled game would be possible but by the hour absolutely not because the overtime to pay one of my guys to monitor would beated by so much if we don't increase the fees which in the grand scheme I it's not going to make or break anything but my request is this and this is looking at you TJ is that when you fill out the forms you have to provide us with everything that's asked for including even if it's not right when the forms are handed in we want to be able to know when you guys what you guys are using our for hours because although I'm not going to charge by the hour at least I would hope while I'm on a commission we're never charging by the hour it would be nice to know how many hours are fields are being used by your group um whether that's you know broken out as practicing game or it's all meshed in one we don't we never got a copy of a schedule this year so I couldn't do that on my I couldn't do that on my own I still I think we're requ it's supposed to be but when I asked Andre for she said she never got one um Chris didn't we S I thought I sent you one you need one for landscaping we had we had something at some I don't remember off top head I don't think I anything and we don't even have you down as using the fields in the fall so we have no we from what this fall is from our and these have to be looked at too don't I know that our field use forms need a lot of work on it but they're they're SE they're basically a season so you guys were out there in the spring season that's all that you that that's all you guys were supposed to use it for was for the spring season and then we find out that there were people out there or there were teams or something in the fall um I had no idea that you guys were there they weren't we you know they weren't paid for um you know that the per player fee wasn't paid um so you know it's we need to do be better at keeping up with that kind of stuff and realizing that our rec director only has 19 hours um and that sometimes there's other people that are trying to collect information for her so we can make informed decisions okay so I haven't heard a motion to make an immediate small increase does anyone want to make that motion I'm fine leaving it the way it is I we just I think we need to make sure sounds to me like we need to make sure that we're not back in the same position next fall you know next winter beginning of without enough time um at I hate to propose extra meeting time or anything but what I wonder about this also about the beach house stuff if we should entertain having a workshop which I know has still has to be where it's still public and all public and everything but where you know that's what we're talking out for that call it a focus group it doesn't and then you would just the focus group would report back to the meeting you can't have a you can't have a so however we decide to do it I feel like both of these issues are things that are going to requireed gathering information before we can make any informed decisions and some pouring over the information and maybe discussing whether it's a focused group and we can have Quorum I'd be happy to not participate so that we didn't have no but I I feel like maybe that would be a more effective way take for the team to I'll take one for the that would be maybe effective in this I think that's a great idea why don't we plan to do a workshop in February this group for whoever can attend and it'll be posted and all that but it will be singularly focused on this and I think the the beach stuff I think we can do just here and there volunteers helping um Angela need and then see what we get for information and go forward but but I think this is a bigger issue which is going to require a lot more work and so you know when we start talking about dat let's throw some dates out for a workshop as well as a regular meeting in February okay okay that it works okay can I ask a question no it's very address add 207 Lang so I guess I guess in all this if at the High I mean the discussion makes sense but I haven't necessarily heard a goal other than like we should just raise prices like usually I know you're out of business you are municipality with other requirements but like what's the goal like how do you know if you've succeeded is Success just raising prices because what costs are we trying to cover what percentage of the cost are we trying to cover like you said if the Phillies drop you have the high school that you're supplying for so even if even if we're run out of town and you lose all of our income I beg the question is are you not going to maintain the fields like is that is the goal to cover the cost so you can keep maintaining the fields like what's the governing goal of raising prices question tell you the plan is to maintain the fields because it'll cost me too much to bring them back if we don't so either way I have to maintain them until the select board tells me I don't have any money left to do or or until I mean this committee at any point could say we don't want and I'm just using this as an example we're not planning on doing it but we could certainly say we don't want a baseball field down at mcnali anymore stop maintaining it as a baseball field we could as a commission we could certainly do that so some it may not be running out of money it may just be the commission also saying we don't want to maintain it as a softball field if they if their program was to leave town I can't imagine why we would continue maintaining fields that nobody was using As baseball field high school the high school the the softball field and the the 90 foot yes but Powell field Fitzgerald and MCN we may choose not to if there if we don't have a program using it right why would we maintain it I mean it would be repurposed for something else right I wouldn't maintain it necessarily as a baseball field but at the moment still it still has to be that you know is it getting cut twice a week in the spring no not anymore you know we already back it off in the in the fall when or you know Midsummer when no one's on it because right we don't we don't have enough money to correctly maintain it as it is yeah so we already you know kind of triage how we how we do it all so we would certainly cut back on HS if nobody else was using it but the reality is the more you cut back on it to get it back especially Mar get it back from the high school it would cost it would cost more than we save to F yeah I mean we are required to look at these as charging for the cost and provide the service that's what the state requires of us so you know it's a case of what does it cost for us to make sure that the fields are ready for safe use by the different user groups and that can be part of the focus group too understanding that a little bit I I think part of the goal part of the success or whatever you want to say is to hopefully have some sort of impact in Chris te ability to better maintain in all serious but we talked about this last month like I'm dead Ser like no one's looking to run anybody out of town no one's looking to not have you guys as a priority per per se I mean every just about every property that this commission is you know has in the care in custody is a vol exactly so it's you know I I but I think there needs to be that better streamline of good communication what you guys are see in the and how is that channel back to us so we know things are getting fixed what need to be fixed what needs to be done I don't want it to be something my my personal thing like I I don't want it to be something that you guys are feeling that you're responsible for the upkeep of those F I get breaking you know breaking the you know breaking the the sand and clay or whatever kind of you know that kind of stuff but you know you I'd love for us to be at a a program you know you guys show the field that they're ready to ready to go yeah I think that's that's the other aspect that I'm thinking of too is right is like cost is always one side of the equation usage right like if you guys if the majority of the property you guys own is baseball softball fields don't you have an incentive to also want to allow as many people to use as as possible so you should have the countering AR of can we reduce prices as much as possible to get the most usage out of them right like there's a tradeoff instead of but here's the trade-off there we have a another youth program in town that seems to be lacking in field space um to the point that they have even talked about moving out of 10 if you if we're g to do if we if we want to use that comparison we could easily move another sport in and take over or you know Fitzgerald field for black just because it's the only rectangular shape big area we have right now that could become a soccer field and we would actually get more people out there by bringing in Lysa to use those fields than I think that it actually gets utilized right now so would it get you should we reduce our fees to get it used more that's one way to look at it but at the same time there are people that will not go out on those fields because they think they're reserved for baseball and when they go by and they see baseball games and whatever they don't stop and use it they're residents of the town too so they can't go out and use it during those times so we're taking something from them to allow a user group dedicated space during that time and so there there's just that you know there's the weighing of of that too so it's um you know it's it's one of those situations where I think you just I I think fees are have been the the nature of things for the past 10 years um I think we've kept them fairly low for our for our families um and our residents and and our groups um and I would hope we would continue that way but I think at the same time we also need to be you know figuring out like you said TJ what's the success of how do you bank on or gauge that success and I think every single one of us is going to have a different idea of what that success is um so I don't I frankly don't understand and I feel like there's a sentiment that is like we shouldn't be charging the youth baseball and softball no or that there should be some special like you know like you said the other youth sports are paying you know the high school sports they high school soccer used the high school Fields over the summer for summer league and we pay for it the boosters pay for it and collect the money from the place to pay for it and you know and it's the same kids that are playing for the high school team but because it's in the summer and it's outside of the purview of the school year you know what I mean like when you if you go if if we were to run you out of town as you say and you have to go somewhere else nobody's going to give you the fields for free so I don't I just feel like there's a lot of like we're going to raise fees just to raise fees and we should be lowering fees and should be you have to cover expenses in everything you're doing and everybody has to everybody's paying to use what they're using in one way or the other so I feel like I feel like it's coming across like you feel like we're attacking you know or expecting something from you guys that isn't expected of everybody else and I feel like this is just sort of the world we live in where you have to pay for what you're using and we're just trying to be good stewards of what we have and make sure we can maintain it and take care of it while not charging more than we need to charge but charging an adequate amount you know and the same way you try to figure out what your fees are and you recognize you're charging you're losing on you're charging your families somewhere down the line you're probably going to raise that price a little bit so you're not losing you know so I think this is just to try and sort of level it out and figure out what actually makes sense as opposed to trying to run anybody out of town or raise fees just because we like to sit here and say $20 isn't any good let's make it 30 I mean that's not worth happening you know that's why there's so much discussion and looking for information and whatever to make an informed decision one way or the other yeah my my argument was not that you're attacking us it's it's stay veterans partk un you charge for that usage who uses it who uses it exactly that's my point right so the incentive is but so look at that TJ let's use that Park as an example Veterans Park is open to anybody and everybody 24 hours a day seven days a week when we have a US group come in to Marshall Park MCN Fitzgerald any of those it's now not open to the entire population 24 hours a day seven days a week it cuts out some of the Prime user time some of the Prime user um space in there reserving it for youth groups so the difference between Veterans Park and and Marshall or any of our other fields is that that is open 247 to anybody and everybody if somebody wanted to come in and request it for an event then we probably I was to say would there be if you had if you had a dedicated group that wanted to come in and use Veterans Park for like then we then we have like a Veterans Memorial ceremony we do something on Memorial yeah but that's the I'm gonna just say out here publicly I have real issue with talking about our Veterans Memorial Park and ball fields in the same like yes they may be under our purview or whatever I'm not particularly interested in renting Veterans Memorial Park to somebody to have a veterans memorial service the park was establ respect foret a lot of that is put on by established as right okay I think I think we put a lot of thoughts that jumps the shark a little bit um it wasn't actually an argument but it's okay um but I think I'd like to if if we're not going to take action on this tonight I'd like to push this forward we're going to find a date in February um yeah I'll be glad to send you a text let you know what the date is if you're not here for that part of the discussion tonight and um and you know I will I I will take ownership of trying to do what I can do to reach out communities that I think have comparable facilities and people are welcome to challenge my definition of a comparable Community um I'll probably you know need to confer with you a bit on that and maybe teaching you guys as well we also have a list of the town we play yeah you what I have I've already attempted this I no response so but I'll see what we can pull together so we have it ready for that meeting in February okay are we good on this okay all right thank you TJ for your part of thank okay um Marshal Park updates um quickly Chris Ruth has been named by the Intown manager excuse me as the um project leader project manager for the Marshall Park project um congratulations thanks exactly what I wanted another project that so what that means is he's the he's the the the lead person on this he is the key contact for dealing with the design team and with the OPM and while we'll still be making the policy decisions design decisions um with feedback um he will be the one that will be responsible for coordinating all that stuff and making sure things get done in a timely manner so we appreciate that you're willing to do that obviously we're still here to help and in whatever way we can it doesn't mean it's totally it wasn't wasn't an option anyway so that already happening I mean to an extent it's I don't think a whole lot has really changed because I'm not going to be I'm not going to monitor emails and say you know Anita how dare you email them you copied me fine it's it doesn't started work next week I didn't send you that email though they're starting the work next week on the playground and all that and I just forgot to include you in the email which which I know what we're talking about first forget it she was trying to joke I'm joking with you that I've given them permission to start the Marshal Park project I don't have a way to pay him but okay but we can get started so anyways I wanted to let you I wanted to make sure you all knew that um ARA funds um we were successful in having the bard of Selectmen approve letting us keep [Music] $2,250 of the arpa funds which is the amount we need um to finish the basically um 60% design of the park um for phases one two and three not for phase four which is that Wetland area so that's kind of you know that'll be a future part of it but um so we I appreciate and I'm sure we all do appreciate the B of slman having faith that we're continuing to work on this design to get us to a point where we can have a an fully updated cost estimate and more information to provide at Springtime meeting does is that ARA money enough to and whatever we had left from the other things enough to cover the F O'Neal bills as well that I think were yes we we've got the two F Bill F O'Neal bill that's it from them okay yeah and those have been proc okay thank you so um so the uh design team will continue working um as I said Chris be lead on that um Karen and I um kind of jump in on that on the design team um interaction as we're able to and I will not be able to be part of that meeting tomorrow yeah so um but anyway so that's where we stand on that so that was good news um and then we come to Heather is here tonight I I'm not going to pronounce your last name correctly my Casey okay thank you so Heather is here tonight with a request for us to consider allowing a a little Free Library be installed at Marshall Park at um Wallace Park oh Sky Wallace Park um Anita doesn't know this because she wasn't on the commission at the time we actually have already granted permission for a little library to go in at Wallace Park it was just never installed really okay so I don't and we can revote it we can you know she can present what she has to present and we can revote it um but we that is something that the commission had um supported and it just never it never went anywhere because okay I did not know that you want to come up you had some information to share with us yeah um so I would build this and installed it so it would be no cost to the town um I think you guys all know what a little free library is probably but it's these little cabinets where you can like take a book or leave a book and it's um good for the community because you're sharing books and it makes like going on walks or going to the park more fun fun because you can pick out a book um promotes reading and um so there are lots of basically I would buy one of the kits from Little free library.org that would look kind of like this um you can do wood or you can do like a composite material that would be um you know stand up to the elements um and I was thinking the best way to install it would be a post like this that has like a long metal screw in it so you can just kind of you don't have to dig you can just sort of twist it and it goes into the ground I guess hopefully um and what do you think Chris just based off of what we have over there between pavement and wood chips I think almost better off attaching to The Snack Shack really okay perfect because one of my ideas easy is that where it's concrete yeah that was my question Force R I have my gu do it's really because I was thinking my first choice for the location would would be like behind The Snack Shack there's a I don't know if it would work there um but like right here there's a bench there so I thought it would be nice because people could read um it's kind of close to this Mar around thing um but I have another picture that shows exactly how close it is so I don't know that was my only worry that it would be too close to I mean based off what you just showed us it wouldn't stick up past the bench so okay not really concerned by that and the the mounting it is really very easy it's that would be awesome yeah I probably have the drill in my truck to do it right now it's it's an easy thing so great so I would buy a little free library and then I guess we figure out how to how to install yeah you and I could coordinate installation assuming the commission is okay with it yeah so Heather just just so we're so you fully understand what you're get into in this um that's playground in basketball court very popular especially in the summer we have had vandalism down there right um we actually I don't know if it's still down there we actually had a a diaper box down there a diaper donation box where people who needed diapers could go and take I don't know if you guys knew that but it was down it was under the it was under the bench for quite a long time and I know every now and again somebody would you know go through and toss diapers all around the playground so um is it something that you would be you know checking in on on a exactly um I actually walk by there every day um we walk our dogs like on the loop through will so um I could check on it like every morning doesn't be every morning just you know I guess it's more be prepared for you know some of that and um and you know it's something that I we can certainly once it's done advertis through my Rec and we can make posts on Facebook as well and you know to get you know your library stocked up and yeah go and I have a lot of books like I'm in clubs and my kids are in college now and we have a lot of their kids books so I have books to stock it to start it yeah I think it's a great idea um so it was actually um in April of 2019 that we had the parks mission was that before you too I don't know how long you've been with us it was April 25th of 2019 um I do have when Co starts during 2020 okay so it was the year before I think it's a great idea I think it's I have no issue with it at all so I will make a motion to allow um Heather Mony to install a um a little Free Library um at wallow Park working with Chris Ruth on the installation second all in favor okay you're good to go thank you thank you so much thanks for your patience waiting for time wise do you think um I was I originally when I thought we were going to have to like put a post in the ground I thought we have to wait till spring but um now I'll say January I have to order it um okay Chris can keep us updated okay thank you so much yeah thank you do that oh he just needs to give out his cards because he doesn't pleas REM me of how to spell your last name yeah it's m u n k a CS y the office line oh thank you appreciate it okay um Grant updates um one of the things that we had been talking before was um that if we're going to keep moving ahead with grants for this project that we should um look to find somebody to take on that heavy load I know Karen put in hours and hours on it be honest I'm not touching them again yeah I don't blame you um so the selectman did have those funds the $50,000 it's not selectman funds though I don't know if you if somebody's telling you something different that was a general appropriation at town meeting so but the board of Selectmen have the according to Carter it's the board of Selectmen who would say yes to approving use of the funds so that's not the way it was supposed to work okay um it was it was my understanding that it was unless he's created a policy to how to expend them that would be something different but at town meeting we just appropriated the sum of money for grant writing services to be contracted out there was no there was no stipulation in there that it had to go through the select board it wasn't under the select boards that's how I remember it when I discussed it with Carter he said that um we would need to bring a proposal forward for the select okay um that's not my and and actually Dave pasos hasn't stand up um because he would do mind if I let no Dave can you unmute there we go um to my knowledge that wine item was put into General government which is under the control of the Town manager not the select board uh as Karen said if Carter has done something different with policy since since he's come on board um then you would I can't even imagine how he can change that because that's the way our financial uh side of the Town Works General government is under the care and custody of the Town manager just like our buildings are and so on and so forth um from the finance committee's uh point of view when I was on it and we created that wine item we had those discussions and that's pretty much what was determined and the previous Town manager and one of our members on the uh finance committee were supposed to put together the procedures for applying for those dollars that's what I know at this point okay thanks thanks for that clar ification date you're very welcome so the the grants that we did apply for and did receive we're being strongly encouraged by the grant administrator at the state level to reapply for those grants I told her that um the OPM that we're working with is looking at the grant cycle and looking at the likely timing of when it would be appropriate for us to reapply for those grants and that may be on the discussion for tomorrow I didn't look at the agenda um so you know we um when we're ready to go for those we can give you know we can request the grant assistance for those um and give whoever that person is that does that work the grant applications from the past Grant so that they have something to work with that we know was a successful you know Grant application in the past so um you know so I think that we'd be crazy not to try to request that then of the Town manager um the other thing um that Dave had um put forward in an email I'm not sure if you were all copied on it about the um green communities Dave do you want to speak to that while we've got you Anita honestly I don't remember what was included uh or I I I know what you're talking about prompted me to send you that email but I've been traveling the last 3 weeks or so and uh I did not pull that stuff out in front of me um but I was basically trying to pass on to the people involved that uh whatever that entity was uh clearly seemed to be an opportunity for you guys to get help applying for Grants and I was also you know outlining what I just said about the finance committee um forming or or pushing for that line item in this Year's budget which ultimately got put in by the town manager uh because of information that three of us had received at the M MMA conference uh last January and um and it comes up in all of the uh annual and spring meetings with the uh different entities that uh bring finance committee people together so it it was it was more a poy for you guys to have some more more ammunition to go after some of that $50,000 that's in that wine item to help you get a person that is a professional at identifying appropriate grants and applying for them uh Evan waters before he resigned from the finance committee had done a little bit of research and there are a number of companies out there that specialize in this stuff and and they're not super expensive okay yeah so I think what I'd like to do tonight is to get us to take a vote to formerly request of the Town manager that um you know that we have resources through that through those funds um to definitely reapply for the park Grant Land and Water Conservation fund Grant Ada Grant um which we were we did not receive um um but you know to reapply for those three at M and then as Dave pointed out to also have that professional person look to many other appropriate grants um that might be you know the right thing for us to do TimeWise so I'd like to take a vote on that tonight so I have that to take back to you need me to restate that all in a motion why don't I do this um could someone make a motion for um for the commission to formally request of the Town manager that we um get the necessary assist professional assistance to reapply for the park Grant Land and Water Conservation fund Grant Ada Grant and any other appropriate grants that would assist us in reducing the cost of the maral project soov a second okay all in favor okay all right thank you on that thanks Dave yeah I need to could I add one more comment um Dave this might have been in that email also but uh Dave blat chair of the green communities committee attended a workshop um at devans that brought all of the people in the individual towns or many of them together uh that are involved in green communities and doer which is the state entity that administers that uh ran that meeting and and again networking at these meetings is what you really get a lot of good information from Dave was telling our our committee that he had a conversation with a gentleman who was on staff in Rockport I believe it's Rockport or glester it's one of the other um anyway he is a full-time OnStaff grant writer for that town and most of their other uh staff members including Board of Health um and other departments are only part-time in that town so they put a real push on a grant writer because they believe they get back way more than they then they pay out I just needed to add that thank you okay question it's actually like a gr writer position in my son's school district that that's all they do grants and yeah this school districts typically do have grant writers we don't here yeah okay um are we we at the point in our agenda can we let Chris go home do we have any other things that we need chis I may or may not be able to lock the door but we'll find out spin it till doesn't open anymore I can play with it as thank you this do what I did okay all right you've already talked about um grates okay invoices to be approved we don't have any um new invoices that Karen and I have not already authorized under the um authorization that you guys had granted us earlier so we're up to date on getting all the um Marshall Park related invoices process for payment um birthday cleanup we already spoke about um Master planning committee assignment so Karen do you want to just give brief on that yeah so I resigned um I don't have any words for the um train wreck that is occurring at that side of things right now um it's been uh it's been a lot of reserving times for meetings to have them canceled the night of or no quum um so I'm saying all this to you because we need somebody if somebody's willing to do it to step into my my place they currently don't have another meeting scheduled um I don't know what their plan is um but they have a spot for a Parks person and I said yeah I'm out so somebody else is interested feel free if not we just tell them that we don't have a have a have somebody and they will have to figure out what to do is anyone interested in taking on that so I honestly how I don't know how else I could have it's a great group of people let me be clear on that it's a great group of people but because the that that group is such a large group they have a hard time making Quorum and like any other group when you are a group that size you get people sometimes multiple people who decide 5 minutes before a meeting to notify the chair that they're not going to be able to come or they don't notify them at all and then we don't have so that's where like I'm like well I could sugarcoat this and tell you that it's a fantastic committee it's just they're they're going through some you know going through some figure I didn't even get an official key how long you for um read your text message um you know I it's just I don't I sort of lost my train of thought but um you know it's just one of those things where they have to iron out their details and honestly I don't have the time right now to stick around for them to iron up their details um it sounds like it's not a time sensitive thing for us to worry about finding a member or representative from our group to be part of that say can they iron our details and then we can and I dip our toe back in I can y get a little more consistency it doesn't sound like adding someone else to the mix to let them iron out their details is a valuable time unless somebody's just dying to jump in and you know off their right then I would say why don't we why don't we just say at this point we do not have anyone who's able to be representative of our group um but we will continue you know once once we find somebody we will let them know it is value it's a value I mean the it was when you think about master planning as a whole they were really interesting and then there was a meeting two weeks ago that was never advertised nobody did anything for they had like three people show up and those three people were all from the master Planning Group it was it it's just it's there's no nobody's driving the boat so it's just it's totally off course right now and planning board's doing their own thing with the consultant and you know it's just I don't know I think they just need to reach have a consultant we do we have somebody a company called over under um that working they were doing the initial presentation Y and they ran all they ran this last meeting too but again are they showing up to meetings to get canceled because there's no quarum the consultant is showing up to meetings yeah or having meetings even though the group was like do you really want to have a meeting it hasn't been advertised seems like a waste of time and money [Music] to that one to so yeah I'll let them know all right no and so we don't have an open space person either correct I thought didn't Tim take the open space I don't know if he's been to a meeting okay um chair updates um I I included in the packets um the list of the um capital projects that had been submitted for you know we had put through through our request for the um mcnell survey and design and Chris also put in the um Marshall Pond weed treatment is that the ranked list I don't know good question um it shut thr sent this to me saying um looks rank that's the rank that's that's the rank list he said can you please call me to discuss this um so I'm not sure what I don't know whether he's saying look you've got so much on your plate with Marshall Park why do you have these other things here they didn't make the cut so they're there the our two things are they ranked I believe that they're they're below funding I thought so but I could be wrong wait well I just want to let you know um I had this communication with him that's why I'm just doing it as a a chair update I had this communication with him I will let you guys know what the discussion is once I've spoken with them um I we did our job by voting what we asked to be put on the plan and how it gets funded or doesn't get funded shouldn't matter to us we did our job those items are there they will continue to be considered until someday they get funded or we may determine they're no longer necessary and we'll ask that they just be pulled off that's my that's going to be my message to Carter so um if anyone has any other concerns let me know okay um commission member updates on anything uh 300 committee will kind of get a little more up and running um spring April time frame I think it's going to be our first sort of real re kick up yeah four years was really too early I just thought you guys right so much enthusiasm that that's the last two meetings has been like so I'll say this one more time you done this too early that's coming from Mr Lincoln um so the discussions there really from a I guess from like a Parks standpoint impact would are really going to be surrounding open space areas yeah you know um that sort of the like they're asking questions about uh you know is Marshall going to be done you know Cesar and I were sitting across from each other the last video hopefully yeah yeah let's you know keep driving forward um you know I inform them that there's not a chance that nor anything will be happening at Northfield um by 2028 um that's not even I said don't even have that on your radar um that's the only other real large open space that ARS has in terms of you know functional functional space right um you know but that's yeah that's that's kind of where we're at at this point a lot a lot of it will be event wise and things like that like and this maybe plays into things that Angela drives will be not adding new things but what are the things already done that can be branded 300th anniversary is sort of deals um so as we think programming down the line you know we can kind of lend that you know logo Banner whatever if it's if if it has an impact on things that Parks is them right good anybody else have any other updat to um so we did do the Polar Plunge we did receive a nice thank you from um the boys and girls Thanking us for the beach and opening it and all that stuff seemed to go off um with no issue um they were pretty funny they had scheduled it from 12: to 2 they sent me a message earlier in the week they wanted to get in at 10:45 um and I could come back at you know they Clos up around three yep that's fine not a problem um went down to open it up I it was 12:40 and they called like y we're closing up now so I think they overestimated how long it was going to take they thought they were like go and take a swim but um the kids were in and out um so I did say that next year they're planning it for next year and um that they um could probably get away with a 15 minute time block so you know 15 minutes or three or four hours the other and I think that was good because at one point they had um sent me a message somebody on their board had wanted to um get them a porta potty and they were trying to do the logistics of that like this was on like a Monday or Tuesday their Thanksgiving and then their event and I'm like you need to go through Chris Ruth but you need Board of Health approval like it's not as simple as just dropping a porta poty so they didn't have one there um and they um so I think if it was like 15 minutes they would definitely not need one I can say I was so worried about them using our bathrooms for even just changing rooms and somebody accidentally using our toilets that I went through with painters tape and I like put it over the toilet and the sink and I'm like do not um so it went off without a head they seem to have a good time so and they left everything clean good that's how many kids or how many I know I think she said it is 4,000 now I think more than that was like 6,000 commission thank you for all of your help with our first annual cold punch it was really cool that you let us use the to beach thank you for helping us raise over $5,000 stay chill stay chill and all the kids find it so yeah a good and that may be something that you know if we may be able to pigy back off if Angela wanted to um you know coming up for our like if we wanted to tack on in 15 minutes on the other side of it to do an adult polar plunge if somebody wanted to do that I do know that the um fire department was on scene so once they're there if we can you know use them for half hour instead of 15 minutes right right exactly okay CL anything else okay we have minutes got the October did anyone read them I did I could open thank you it was weird that they wouldn't open so like your the logo was for PDF and when I was trying to open them it kept trying to open them as a Word document oh I'm like but it's clearly a PDF and it wouldn't like don't know but what when you reattach it just as an attachment it opened up on open fine on my iPhone I couldn't open it on my just saying Chris iPhone see like somebody on this text is green Chris hello we're discriminated class yeah so does anyone have any edits to the meeting I didn't notice any edits I would make a motion to approve the October 20 24 minutes I would check it back favor oh yes okay all right we have the next meeting so and soon we'll have a regular meeting in January the 3 Wednesday in January is technically the 15th because the first is a Wednesday so does that work for everybody 15th to the 22nd either way but if we're g I would say if we're going to do another Focus Group in February plus a meeting earlier is better meeting and then yeah all right so we'll do January 15th and then then for the extra so the normal February meeting would be the 19th of February so do we want to perhaps look at February 5th for that work group Anita just you know on that Capital planning stuff according to my husband our priorties were ranked low may make the cut but not likely okay thank you it's impressive they we get that far down the list so that's good Mone I was on Capital planning when we can get past seven of 30 every the years that I was on it I think we got well into the yeah I wasn't I wasn't kidding I we I was literally on years we didn't make it to 10 okay so does February 5th work for people for that Workshop n y um the 19th is um break I am not available so which is fine still meet I'm just going to need to make sure somebody has the keys and all this is you just open this laptop got a key now but you got could you put them right in again the process for doing that yeah I can try okay pictur or take pictures or meet with me again one day quickly just go over it again yeah literally push turn power on on the TV and open the laptop and click on Zoom there's like the guy gave me this like big pole long Direction thing that was not needed so it's like super self-explanatory but yes I will I will write it thank you okay um do we want to change from the 19th to the 26th I don't I'm free I it doesn't matter to me this is for the regular February meeting I either is I don't I don't have February vacation plans at this moment so I might be away at some point in February but I don't know when so either one is doesn't make a difference to me okay well why don't we say the 19th and give Karen a night of okay okay um do we have any other comments public [Music] comments okay correspondents we've already heard all right I think we're good I'll take a motion to adour motion to adourn 848 second all in favor I great thanks