##VIDEO ID:DMgRQqhERMk## all right good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the lunenberg select board today is Tuesday September 10th please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the lunenberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the L ber access YouTube channel after the meeting the agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law we're going to begin tonight with public comment are there any public comments from the board seeing none are there any public comments from the public Mr Burton you might still be muted hold on one second see if you can unmute yourself y I got it thank you all right we can hear you okay I just wanted to address an issue of um you know it's somewhat related to the policy that you guys tried to to pass about information being um you know shared publicly and so forth we've asked for multiple public document requests currently with the current um intern um Town manager and we're not getting them fulfilled we've had to go to the state as well um we don't understand it and and one of these situations is a very disturbing situation in an association that we live in where an individual has a shed on common land that the town is is kind of supporting and it's in incompletely wrong I brought this situation to the town back in April um it it has it it took forever to get resolved the town to um basically you know approve it um and protect the shed I then had to go into the Massachusetts law and point out where the problem was and now there's a hearing for that um we don't understand it we want the information of where the um the documents that went back and forth between the attorneys and and the um the the building um the the zoning board we'd like to get those documents we've requested them and the intern Town manager has refused to give them to us we've now had to appeal them those why is this continuing to occur and is it this related to the policy that you guys tried to pass and I don't know if everybody in town knows but my my family had gotten attacked by an association that we feel is connected to the town due to retaliation and I will tell you why that we feel that occurred me and Mr Jeff had a discussion and one of the calls that he called me about immediately said to me if your taxes gone down and our taxes did go down 33% we raised that concern in town where 110% went up on other homeowners it didn't make sense to us we raised that concern and ever since then we've gotten attacked we we there's multiple reasons we feel we've gotten attacked in this round to and that is one of the biggest ones we are we are discovering at this point we have four or five elderly individuals in our neighborhood that are attacking us okay and think about it elderly individuals are on fixed income that are looking for tax breaks okay a tax break was probably given to this Association when I started raising that those concern concerns our taxes went back up that 33% so we're back to the hole where we are and everybody else's taxes or some of them went down so we were trying to understand really what happened in that scenario and and what happened here but if we all look at this it seems that there's something very odd that occurred right and and now we're asking for information trying to get public records and we're getting refused and denied for it we were a good family we brought up situations from our homeowners association we stay out of people's business until we get poked at okay we got poked at at multiple places and we brought concerns to the board brought them to the town everybody ignored us and now we are where we are okay and we would like some explanations we know you won't answer the any of these questions on the call but I want to raise these concerns the public knows and that we can do something about it maybe as a select board but as you know we have concerns with Mr Jeff some other board members we thought were involved and I we will you know excuse those we we do feel is directly related to Mr Jeff we had a individual come down to to um the town meeting two or three weeks ago um I think Mr Lincoln Mr Lincoln sent me an email saying that basically to stop sending him an email because he was CCD on something then he went to the police station and said we were harassing him because we sent him an email telling him to tell his friend to stop harassing us now we know that the individual has connections to Mr Jeff okay because he was supporting Mr Jeff in in in the two weeks ago when we had the meeting there so and he he mentioned it's one man in this town am I that one man is is it someone else that was speaking the week before who is the individual he says one man it's not one man there's there's problems in this town and there's multiple problems that we need to address as a town and we brought those concerns and raised them and we've gotten attacked and nothing but attacked I think you can ask some individuals in town that lived here a long time that we are a good family we went to church we everything and it's not right what's happened to us and we'd like to get some explanations from the board and the Town manager the intern Town manager who we thought would be able to provide some information and help us out which we had a conversation with and it didn't go very far we feel that maybe he's being pushed by some of the the the select board members to not speak to not provide information to help us get to the bottom of the situation that we are in with an individual that we feel is being supported by the town Mr Burton yep thank you for your public comment uh we can follow up on those requests so I can do that but other than that thank you for your public comment have a good night yes and and would would I just last comment then if you're going to follow up on those requests recording in progress sorry I I started the zoom recording right when you were speaking so I didn't hear that what was that George would would I be expect an email from you then following up on those requests uh I don't know what the status is what requests you've made where they're at but we can at least see where there are and if there are any requests that are outstanding um we'll try to resolve them okay so y the town manager knows of them um so he's very aware of them and he's sitting right next to you um I'm sure you can find that out very quickly but um yep we can go from there all right thank you George have a good night you too are there any public comments from the public all right seeing none moving on to announcements I have a couple so the first one is the nooba associated Board of healths is hosting a flu vaccine clinic uh Thursday October 3rd from 3:00 to 5: p.m. at the lunenberg library it'll be open to all ages pre registration is required and you can register at n.org calendar they ask that if you attend to bring your insurance card and if you don't have insurance you will not be turned away and the other two that I've been plugging for a while now the lunberg agricultural commission will be hosting an Agricultural Fair on October 5th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. at TC pasos and the second and the second Town official meet and greet will be Thursday September 26th at 5:30 p.m. at Low Places Ranch all right are there any other announcements all right Communications from other boards I don't have any does anyone have any Communications from other boards all right moving on to our appointment I don't see anyone here for it though uh bicycles battling cancer request to pass through lunenberg on September 22nd 2024 Mr chair we received an email it's in our Google I read through it but I must have said he he couldn't make it because he's in Chicago the guy who usually comes I see okay well I looked through everything else and uh one thing that wasn't in there too that I did clarify with Annie is that the um police and fire chief signed off on it uh so they did sign off on it they did yep and for the record Mr chair as you know this is something that's he's been doing here this organization has doing here I don't know what it is probably five or six years now so it is not new all right is there a mo all right go ahead um uh I think you were about to ask if there was a motion I was going to comment that I think that I'm going to agree with Mr Alonzo and think that uh you know this is an alcohol license uh you know I don't I don't have any questions personally for the applicant I think this is really straightforward and consistent with previous requests uh for this effort and and I'm comfortable uh voting on this this evening as am I is there a motion I move that we approve the bicycles battling cancer request to pass through lunenberg on September 22nd 2024 given the uh data and the map provided by the applicant second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppose no the motion passes unanimously all right what do we have next interim Town manager report uh in response to our letter to all those in the sewer district informing them of the need for members of the Sewer Commission we have so far gotten four responses excellent uh we've reached out to the Sewer Commission and are trying to get that joint meeting between this board and the Sewer Commission scheduled for next Tuesday um and the uh applicants have all indicated they could be available that evening hopefully it's an embarrassment of riches and uh whomever uh is not on the Sewer Commission going forward can be interested in one of our other vacancies uh we will have uh a vacancy coming up on the finance committee and the finance committee nominating committee will be meeting shortly they did this before this meeting this evening would you like to so we we reappointed Tom Gray to another three-year term and that was the only one that was before us for reappointment okay thank you Mr lenzo um as I've said consistently volunteers on our many boards uh are the lifeblood of the organization uh they're a great way to learn about and influence how we operate in the policies we develop uh we remain with vacancies on the agricultural commission architectural preservation District commission Board of Health conservation cultural Council the green communities historical commission and open space committee uh Personnel committee the Sewer Commission which hopefully will be resolved within the next uh week or so uh the storm water task force and the zoning board of appeals uh Cara mcinerney is working on making the form fillable online so people don't have to print it and fill it out and scan it and send it back in uh and they would be able to uh attach any you know letters or anything else they want to attach to that submission and I hope to have that up and running within two weeks on the employment opportunities uh I'm pleased to announce that we've had the ratification of the land use director by the planning board in addition to that of the select board uh that said I'm a tad embarrassed I did not realize that it was a dual ratification uh and I have apologized to the planning board for my oversight I have suggested to the staff that they develop a full grid you know the position title down and who has to ratify and put a nice X in the box and then we shouldn't have that happen again um especially for for a newcomer to your Charter um And to clarify any questions such as there was on the sewer uh where it was only the Sewer Commission that that ratified uh so I thank the uh the planning board for their forbearance uh I'm also pleased to uh report some progress on employment opportunities uh we will have a uh interview this week for the administrative assistant assistant position uh we have extended an offer on seasonal Labor uh the chief has extended an offer uh on Public Safety desk cor that has been accepted and is pending uh the standard background check um we do remain uh we have interviews within the next week or so on the network administrator and we remain in search of an assistant sewer business manager uh and have asked the chief to turn over all applications for the the front desk clerk to see if there's someone that you know might fit one of these other uh uh opportunities the uh roof replacement at the adult Activity Center uh you had a 35,000 budget and the bid 34,000 in change and the bid was 39K uh and that does not include any contingency so I met with Chris uh Ruth your facilities director today uh the overage will have to come out of his operating budget and I will advise the finance committee that you may need to backfill uh his budgets at the annual town meeting or even sooner um the bids on the historic property survey are due this week and um we did receive two bids on the town manager recruitment services and uh it was awarded the Paradigm Associates I think that's the group that the the committee was most interested in working with and Mr John petran uh principal in that firm uh former Town manager over in Harvard will be meeting uh with the screening committee tomorrow night uh and we've talked with um uh Bernie Lynch about you know possibly a few ways to collapse it a little bit he asked when I wanted to be out I said June January 1 and he said well maybe January 15 so um I mean it's it's a drill they have it's the same basic uh drill that they use elsewhere but I am glad to see that that is underway uh the walk around for the library exterior paint project uh was done um and uh the municipal building design uh rfps uh in progress is my understanding and uh the Town Council reviewed the proposed draft of the payia throw recycling contract um I didn't get a chance to go get his comments today but I'll do that tomorrow uh and then assuming that's all a okay but we'll circulate that out to you for per Mr Alonzo's request um on other matters we have about nine potential articles for the fall town meeting at this point plus the possibility of some amendments to the Personnel bylaw as a result of the upcoming uh listening sessions uh we did have some comments from staff so we've made a minor change to those listening sessions we've pulled one a little bit forward to 2:00 p.m. instead of 3 and we've told folks if they really can't make the one that was kind of scheduled for them to feel free to come to the other we you know it's a space issue and an affinity of Interest issues but certainly we want to uh at least get started off by fully listening um which we've been able to accommodate pretty easily uh we meet with the finance committee Thursday night uh we've requested a transfer to cover weights and measures um the need to uh employ the state now that you don't have a local inspector um the small towns uh funding I was going to talk with them about has been resolved I believe uh the chairman informs me that you had a a a private donor step in to uh help that program so not sure who it is but I certainly want to thank them um and we do have the transportation program uh that expires at the end of September uh we have um Sue D and I been looking at trying to continue that and we would need uh to stop Gap in between for October and November until we can get to the fall town meeting uh so certainly we don't want to have an interruption of service and we'll talk with the finance committee uh about that as well as the the countdown uh when various work products are expected from other people uh I did attend your school committee last Wednesday evening um to vote on the collective bargaining agreement with the per professional Union that was a one-year agreement with a 4% uh increase um it was really interesting to listen to them to talk about their summer and the challenges of recruitment um it kind of paralleled a lot of what the town side of the house has been going through um and I don't want anyone to feel that pain but it was nice to know someone else was feeling it as well as as we were uh Not Alone um they did talk a little bit about the financial management manual and I've encourage the superintendent to get any comments or concerns to us and I'm sure we can work out language that could work but not only to meet their concerns the town's concerns uh but also statute uh one of the issues that they had a concern over had to do with the statute um the big thing that I really want to kind of draw your attention to is I had a lengthy meeting with the facilities director and reviewed the various capital accounts uh including the windows at the Ritter building I must tell you that the monies you have on hand would appear woefully short of addressing any of the propos osed projects um we have talked about how we could try to get some of those bundled and out on the street for bids um but I think you've got some real challenges ahead of you of what you should expect to get out of those Capital dollars some of it's the passage of time dollars that were appropriated in fy22 it's we're now several years out of that scope uh he also also shared his grave operational concerns over the TC py house building in the coming year primarily the heating plant and some mechanical issues uh and the finance director has informed me um that there's apparently a deficit of roughly $90,000 in the account that pays to operate the building uh apparently what's been happening is the rents that you get go into account and then you pay the bills but there's no actual budget for for it so they just kept paying the bills what happens is that is a negative against your balance sheet and that comes off the calculation of your free cash um given the desired projects at Ritter the roof here the $300,000 for TC pasos you know the longer range of where are you headed uh what Chris and um and I talked about was trying to pull together someone from the municipal building design committee I oh the lunenberg municipal building design committee uh the schools Chris uh and others to look at how to best use those dollars to preserve the building envelopes um and something I'm very sensitive is make sure we're not doing something that's negated by a short-term future plan one of my the year before I came into public service they paved a road my first year in public service they saw cut it to put a sewer line in so I'm really very sensitive to that kind of thing um but that is is something and that's Mr chairman I started to speak with you about that a little bit earlier um I'll be in the office uh next week again due to a Wednesday morning commitment Tuesday Wednesday afternoon Thursday and then uh much of Friday to make up for that Wednesday morning um and unless there's any questions that is what I have for you this evening any questions for Carter no thank you all right thank you moving on to Old Business Review arpa funding requests and committed funds back to you Carter is there any update on the committed funds to let you know we had some concerns over did wage rates apply we thought not but the question have been raised raised uh so we reviewed it with Town Council and he agreed with my logic and how we got there wage rates do not apply um senior centers are preparing to order their equipment and um we'll get you an actual expenditure report next uh next week all right any questions on arpa or further discussion yeah I just have a comment um speaking with the library I could probably mention this under committee reports but speaking with the library uh trustees one of their concerns as funds have been allocated for the teen center um and and this is really for the benefit of the board um but funds have been allocated for the teen center and and they've really been diligently working um you know they've hired uh one of our former members uh Damon um to be the architect for the project and I think you know those who are familiar with his work you know know that you know he's really outstanding uh in his profession but there have been some delays along the way that are outside of their control uh the first delay was related to HVAC uh that was actually a couple of months in terms of the planning for this and the current delay is uh cost estimation so in order for them to you know one of the um broadly speaking you know I've been reading a book by Neil Gorsuch um one of our Supreme Court Justices and you know it speaks to the administrative State and how sometimes you know it harms people and and I think that you know I'm not going to go into something too philosophical but you know what happened with arpa as we all know is that Congress passed a law um the law hasn't changed but the interpretation of that law by the Department of Treasury has changed um and so you know the library and other entities have been operating under the assumption that committed as defined before meant committed as per the website and everything else that the try set up for us to note all this stuff uh and then a couple of months ago as we all know the definition of committed changed to under contract and so the library is finding themselves you know they're they're concerned by that change of language because they're not at the point of an RFP uh they need to get this cost estimation they need to kind of do a somewhat of a ve exercise uh which is you know a value exercise in which you look at a cost and say okay what are the changes we can make to reduce this cost um and they are they are concerned that uh because of the delays in again they've been working on this all year uh they started this pretty quickly after the funds were appropriated and they've been working with an architect team now for I believe about 9 10 months um and certainly well beyond what they expected to get to the point of an RFP so I'm just bringing this to the board's attention that you know that I believe it's about $150,000 between multiple different projects but 120 specifically I believe for the for the teen room um and there are there are concern that we will recommit those funds um prior to them being able to get it under agreement um they are currently on the path to get it there but I think we'll know more over the they have a meeting next Thursday and I think we'll know more next Thursday as far as what the status is so just want to make that everyone aware of the impact of that change of language um on a project that we all supported that they've been diligently working on um and it's just best case from how it looks right now was contract November December so I'd like to bring the board up to date but first I have to respectfully disagree that this language just changed okay this language has been around for well over two years whether or not that was everyone's understanding here I I can't say it was not uh but it's it's been in the language all along so in my other community that I spent some interim time in we actually designed it to try to get all the money spent by December of 2023 because I was fearful and I can tell you that in that Community also everybody loved getting the allocation but nobody loved putting the work into actually getting it out on the street now that is not the case with the library board of directors they have been diligently working I'm told that one of the holdups for whatever reason is a cost estimator on these projects I did talk with Chris today about do we just throw it out the bid and see what happens put a number of alternates in there frankly as someone who used to do cost estimating for a living um I don't really want to put the contract that's not fair to do to them so um he's going back to three estimators that he had had previous contact with um I have identified three that I have familiarity with one is a private contractor who would not be able to bid on the project but frankly from where he is he wouldn't want to um and I've called a OPM uh from my last Community to see if they have some context for us uh I will be meeting with Chris weekly to try to get these things pushed along okay um now that said they're still on the capital side of the house are some real issues about how you use this Capital money to try to protect the building in envelopes to the extent you can while not negating something that might happen you know frankly the idea of uh putting some windows on one side of the Ritter building which might have at some point in the future in addition well you know what do I do with those five windows that $20,000 um so uh I will be meeting with Chris weekly we will continue to to make prog well we will do our very best to make progress on it and I'm extremely sensitive to these deadlines I I'm nervous about it frankly um but I think the Board needs to understand this is not new language it's been out there for a long time Mr Jeffers thank you for your diligence on this Carter is there any other discussion on arpa tonight all right moving on to draft Financial policy manual is there any update on this tonight there there is um I had told you we would spool one thing out at a time um I completed my conversation with board members and some other folks that I've come to to know have good insight into the community um Amanda was generous with her time this past Monday as you all were but we wrapped that up so now in your folder for tonight you should find the uh draft Financial policy manual if you could start to look at that um I would hope that you could get me any comments within 3 weeks um hopefully I can get everything from the school committee in the same time period uh and we can try to uh move this thing uh along I think that um one issue will simply be nomenclature it will be the financial management policy you know the manual ideas that just gives you some guidance this would be the policy um so uh if you could Mark that for 3 weeks uh from tonight I would appreciate that and uh then once once that's done we'll we'll move on to the next item all right great thank you and board and committee handbook um once we're through the financial policy okay uh we'll move on to that issue all right cool so can we uh just take this off of the um agenda until we're ready to visit it absolutely all right cool sounds good thank you all right fiscal year 25 select board goals so last week I presented at least my draft for what I was thinking for goals and we discussed it uh so now I want to give the rest of the board an opportunity to share what they think the goals are uh so I will just open it up to the board starting with uh selectman memy uh can you come back I'm catch sure selectman Alonzo I I have not completed this I apologize all right that's fine no worries selectman more do you want me to read mine or do we want to wait until other people have no that's okay you can go through yours and by the way we're not this is just to get it out there um I want to compile it all and then once we have all of our thoughts uh and ideas together and presented we can have them compiled and workshop them and really discuss and refine so okay great so I sat down I did a bunch of research into other towns and and put together what I think my goals were coming into the board understanding that there would be changes and and you know discussions and everyone has different goals but for my first one I have revamp the select board and town manager goal setting process I think we touched on that at our last meeting um I think it would be helpful to set a formal process um so as my sub or my action items um a is establish a fin a formal annual goal setting process create a structured timeline that aligns with fiscal planning cycle to ensure timely and effective setting and review of goals B gather input from department heads and key stakeholders develop a meth methodical approach to collect insights and feedback from various Town departments and Community stakeholders to inform the goal setting process C set measurable and transparent goals Implement clear quantifiable benchmarks for Success ensuring goals are transparent and progress can be regularly reviewed and communicated D engage in public um engage the public in goal setting utilize public forums surveys digital PL platforms to involve community members in the goal setting proc process ensuring their needs and perspective shape Town policies second um staff retention development and communication a create a townwide employee recognition policy recognize and reward staff achievements and Milestones through formal recognition programs and events to boost morale and encourage high performance B conduct regular staff surveys on job satisfaction regularly gather feedback from employees on their job satisfaction workplace environment and communication with management to identify areas for improvement C develop a professional development policy support continuous learning and career growth through training programs workshops and educational opportunities backed by policies that encourage and facilitate staff development and D facilitate communication between the select board employees understanding that this can be difficult with our Charter um but looking at how we could establish regular structured interactions between the board and town employees to Foster open communication and ensure alignment on Town goals and initiatives and my third goal I identified was increase transparency and availability of information to the public a launch a comprehensive public information dashboard create a centralized online platform that provides easy access to upto-date town data Financial reports and project updates allowing residents to track progress and understand Town operations B ensure timely posting of public meeting agendas and minutes adopt policies to post meeting agendas and minutes well in advance enhancing transparency and giving residents ample time to prepare for and participate in public meetings C make select board packets aailable online provide easy online access to all prep Preparatory materials for select board meetings to ensure that residents can fully participate in discussions and decision decision-making processes D enhance Town communication channels expand the use of social media local media and the town website to disseminate important information updates and alerts ensuring that all residents have access to timely and relevant information e create a public office hours program for select board members schedule regular times this could just be once a quarter um could be more frequently when the select board members are available to meet with residents discuss issues and gather feedback enhancing direct communication and responsiveness and finally F incorporate lunberg 101 information sessions offer sessions designed to educate residents about Municipal operations services and how they can get involved in local government improving Civic engagement and understanding and I've also provided um various examples from other towns that have utilized some of these or implemented some of these goals thank you so so much I'm very impressed at clearly the amount of research that you did to put these together uh there are a lot of citations here so you clearly are looking at what many other communities are doing and as a new member of the board to come in and to propose all of these ideas I really think it's incredible so thank you very much here here I agree I think that um I did not put together any goals for today but I think that the ones that am man selectman more is proposing um are quite amazing um I I I like goal number one a lot um you know I think that goal number um two is also a really good good one I think that you know some of the documents that we look at they just don't translate well when they get uh displayed over the TV um you know excuse I speaking of three two is about retention I think two two is exactly on point with with what I believe needs to occur and I think three you know addresses some of the issues uh about you know some of our things don't transfer well to the public and for the public to be able to see the same information that we see it's all public uh and I think that this is good I think that some of number three is a probably a hybrid for Town manager goal um I think you know some of the duties given our Charter are probably a little outside but uh of what our um roles and responsibilities are but I think that it's collaborative and in the spirit of collaboration I think that you know perhaps as we come up with number one maybe maybe the select board should be establishing a goal for the town manager um maybe you know in the past I think it's been the town manager kind of coming up with professional goals but maybe we do identify that there's a need for an organizational goal um and I think that some of the things that you've identified here in three um really really are great you know one of the challenges with with office hours you know is when residents reach out and speak to us and complain about many different things I mean our role is not necessarily to most of the public think look at us as their elected officials we're here to resolve their concerns um but the charter really limits what our abilities to actually resolve those concerns actually are um and so everything gets kind of funnel to the town manager you know I've been in alignment with everyone who's calling for us reopening the charter Charter process because I think that we should look at pulling back um some of the some of the duties we've delegated um but nonetheless amazing and I just want to comment and give credit where it's due and I I really like that you're looking at other communities as as the chair just noted because I think that you know many we don't have to reinvent the wheel here you know many communities are doing things well and and to borrow those best practices is is excellent thank you all right awesome is there anything else anyone wants to add for goals selectman memy are you able to present any tonight no no all right s Alonzo no I think you asked me already oh I was just asking again but I maybe forgot what you originally said I would reiterate what was said about Amanda I think it it's a very it's a really good foundational piece a lot to discuss so y totally all right thank you very much all right any other discussion on this tonight uh just a question uh are we scheduling a workshop soon yes um so depending on what the agenda is going to look like for next week we might be able to just sort of have an inform Workshop during our meeting which is what I have been doing with arpa and whatnot I know that you guys in the past have scheduled workshops separately where you're you know like down on the table and like working through things if that's something that we prefer obviously I'm not against it at all I just didn't know if it's something that you know people feel strongly about I think it's easier to talk when you're looking at each other yeah person you can see how I'm sort of awkwardly position to all of you right now and and I mean you can always schedule a workshop within a meeting you know we can have a regular meeting than designate time for that Workshop all right do we want to try it out yeah I think workshops are very helpful I mean putting putting sandwiching something in the middle of a meeting has causes people to want to rush through to get to the end of it and then people complain about the hour Etc I mean yeah workshops are good if they're focused on one at most two things so would you prefer to have it as a separate meeting so that we're coming here and just focusing on that or I didn't I didn't catch that part it's it's okay to do a meeting and a workshop if there's a divide usually you do the meeting first and then you have a workshop so you don't have to worry about getting to the end like that is the end the last agenda item is the workshop just so we're not sandwiching within other things cuz then that's yeah I mean that's sort of what happened with ARA yeah and I sort of walked away from that thinking you know I know a lot of people at home watch these meetings right so I think people get used to it as not necessarily a TV show but that our meetings are primarily to be viewed right but it's really not right we're here to conduct the business of the town and sometimes that looks like you know us actually working and crunching numbers and working on spreadsheets so I can understand too how like when we have that sort of work on the agenda how it's sort of beneficial to actually go down there and sort of you know get away from this stage up here just kind of a light agenda though I think you know if we're if we're in the main agenda and we're already at 8:45 trying to hit a workshop you know you're kind of exhausted by that point yeah that's what I was just going to say I mean if we're putting in depending on what if we have a quicker agenda I mean like tonight we're we're moving pretty quickly right um but if we're you know here till 10:00 at night and then we're you know we're getting to the workshop at 9:00 p.m. I don't yeah I guarantee you I'm going to give you my best work at that yeah definitely um diminishing returns with the hour of the night all right yep Carter um I've found that Standalone workshops with a fixed or a few fixed items items truly are seem to be the most productive mhm uh the second piece um as you think about how you want to do this uh we're about to enter budget season and so I always ask the select board two things what are the things you would like to see the town accomplish in the coming fiscal year because that I send out to the department heads and say make sure this is in your budget I'm not sure it'll make the final cut but let these are the select board's goals and you know what do you need for resources to do these because the second piece um I'll be asking you fairly shortly is what is your budget guidance to me are we talking um you know flat budget dollar-wise level service increased expansion reduction that's the kind of Direction I need also yes it's the town manager responsible at the end of the day to put a budget together uh but the sense of direction from this body uh guides that as I see it so I just wanted to share that yeah no thank you very much for that Carter it's actually um a couple different reactions to that um but I think the real one that I'll share you know and I I don't know if you like watched or meeting last week but we did talk quite a bit about goals and okay um number one goal for me was related to budget and I sort of aligned my goals which with what I thought were the top three priorities facing the town which of course is debatable but the first one was budget the second one was Staffing and the third one was municipal buildings um and we had a lot of conversation as we have been having a lot of uh just recently about the charter and the select board's role and you know what our lane is and the town manager's role and what his Lane is and you know how we need to stay in ours and that's his I think it's really important for us to work collaboratively and to be aligned on our goals um and just to hear you say the term you know budget guidance what is your budget guidance for me uh it's really refreshing cuz I don't know if that's I don't know just seems like a good approach I agree and I think the approach that came out of last week where we there was discussion about organizational goals that you know one of the requirements in the charter and we've mentioned this before is for there to be performance evaluations um throughout the town and I know that you know you leaning into you know my past experience in the military that typically what you do when you create your own goals is you look up the chain and you see kind of what are the goals of my next leader and that person is looking at what are the goals of that next leader so that way you know when when you're going on an annual basis that everyone's kind of working toward the same thing not not that at the end you know not that every enduser has the same exact variation of goals but you know you when you have awareness of organizational goals uh when the town manager when the select board and that's you know done earlier you know early enough in the fiscal year that it kind of trickles down and and it promotes collaboration um you know and then it's the feedback loop you know when people you know as we're starting this collaborative um effort here it you know you kind of get that feedback of hey you know like the listening session will probably be really informative so I think it's a great thing that that um the interm town manager just said I I just want to concur with you uh Mr chairman that and it's not too different than you know our our past practices maybe not so much up here as a board and town manager working um but like last year the budget process you know when we were realizing that it was not going to be good members of the select board were attending finance committee meetings school committee meetings actively working on the budget and no one said hey stop that that's the town manager's job you know we all worked collaboratively and while that situation was really difficult I actually thought it was really nice that people were coming together and really working together to solve that problem so I those are just my thoughts all right any other discussion on goals tonight moving on to flath Hill Road speed limit I don't know if we have um any update on this tonight uh just at the staff meeting um I told the chief uh and the Public Works director that I wanted to try to meet with them within 10 days of last week's staff meeting uh to see what we could come up with that would uh address their concerns with respect to the 85th percentile and the various warrant rules uh and yet could um um address some of the concerns of the neighborhood um I I think well I'll I'll leave it that I had that discussion with you a little bit earlier about too many things are left on the list for far too long in my view yes yes thank you very much all right moving on to current business we don't really have any so minutes have we reviewed the minutes for November 7th 2023 no they just appeared they what they just appeared in the drive tonight right we were emailed two other sets so Annie was still working on the feedback that she got for the other ones and this is the one that uh was cleared through that process since she sent out a few but these from last week's meeting then sorry what did we review these at last week and give feedback I can't keep track I send her I can look at the agenda and see what the date was hold on one second I've been pushing her to try to get two out a week allow a week for comments and then one week later have on the agenda okay I know that that hasn't hit sink fully yet but is there a different process you would like us to follow well I'll just say it it is sort of uh she's been sending them but this week uh it sounds like there was just um changes that were requested on one of them but um yeah I think we actually did vote to approve these last week because of the same date these were the ones that were sent out let let me sort it before the last two yeah is there a different cycle that would work better I I don't know exactly where she is on it I know it's what I've been pushing to try to slowly get caught up I don't know there's a getting caught up is problematic number one Mr chair I will make a comment that so far I not a fan of the AI generated and I reviewed them because one of those sets was just a mess like it was unintelligible and you know it's got to be way to do this okay I'll I'll talk with her in the morning again well in the afternoon again right is is that a comment uh about these minutes or just a previous no no well the ones that two of the one like one set that came in I think that was like one of the first ones no no I'm talking about ones that came in this week well end of last week DEC and she even said in the thing well they were all AI generated but I reviewed them and I read them and I'm like uh you know again I know somebody has a lot of work and I hesitate to be critical but I also know that minutes should capture the meeting uh you know at least in in Broad strokes and if it's not readable because you can't understand what the sentence is that's not good yeah we'll keep working on it my apologies all right no worries that's fine all right we we do need to get them caught I understand I understand all right Warren we have one we have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of 300 and wait no hold on there's no comma $33,860 Mr chair if I may take this moment I we're going over warrants one thing I would like to note and I would like to get back on Cadence with is that the warrants are available at these meetings we we we did the doc you sign mhm because of covid and because people weren't able to come in and things but we should not be doing that I mean we got to a meeting last Tuesday and on Wednesday morning I got a docu scientist file warrants and I can't look at the warrants if I want to because there's no none of the associated documentation so I want to really strenuously say can we have them at the meetings I mean there are times when you have to get things done right away I get it but they should be and they always were for the past 15 16 years here at the meeting that we would do it agree okay any action items seems Seems like we have a few already all right thank you thank you um Mr Lonzo for bringing that up because I I echoed that also a lot of Doc you signed for you too I just I open it I signed it I don't really think about it too much supposed to be like like Amanda was just looking at them I mean occasionally depending on how much I'll look through the do ation to see what's being paid and I would be the first to say I certainly don't go over with a magnifying glass but I want to be able to see if I think something's weird I'm like what is this and be able to ask and if it comes in a docu sign I'm just getting the signature sheet and that's not what we should be doing yeah yep no fair point Fair Point any other action items just wanted to continue to bring up the IT issues that you we've been working on with the SharePoint and and that conversion just to keep that on our radar I know you've had a lot of other things going on but just to keep that on our I will take that opportunity too thank you you just jogged my memory I mean I don't want to lose sight of the fact that we need a munus plan we need have we gotten anywhere on what we are going to be doing with munus either repairing it or replacing it so uh I have been uh told that munus support for your 2021 update will cease next spring knowing that uh puts added urgency to this matter uh and their Finance director this morning uh held a users meeting um I think there was about 15 or 20 people here in the room um I did address them all to tell them that for my time with you consultation with users and stakeholders would be a way of doing business and that we would take their comments seriously but then I did also do my we not a democracy and at the end of the day I have to put my uh name on the the memo um I did not have an opportunity to talk with uh Izzy um at any length about what the results of that meeting were uh but we'll uh let get you some information on that um we also have uh spoken with some alternate vendors about what the probable costs of theirs and what they would need for deployment and such um some of them are on the state bid list and are actually deployed in a number of municipalities across the state which would save um the writing of an RFP and the issuance and all of that good stuff uh costs uh would be more than you're currently paying from munice however uh we are of the belief that at some point munus will do away with their little individual software packages that they deploy for your servers and will move everyone to the cloud um and slowly that's that's just the way things are going nowadays uh and their Cloud uh cost is approximately equivalent to the costs of the other vendors that we're looking at um I'll have uh more for you in a week or two I'll try to get it out in a couple of days but I do need to talk with Izzy about how that conversation went with the users today sorry that's the best I can no no and that's fine and I just want to be clear on my position which is you know when Paula was was working through this when this all came about last August about a year ago now and then came to my attention in like no November and I got involved a little bit here and there where I I said I'd be available for any call they wanted me on and then you know we saw one of the last meetings that she came before us that the frustration with her and the Sewer Commission Etc I don't want to be in that position again and I don't want to be in a position to dictate to the finance director or the finance department what needs to be done but I want to be a supportive for what they want to do but that requires them to come up with a plan but what would they want to do and I don't want that again I don't want to be looked at as we were that we didn't fix a problem now it's not anybody on this board that within our capability to fix the problem of munus itself we can fix the situation as a whole but we need a plan I'm not sure if the Direction came from you sorry to just jump in um but it did I did see from my other job that Annie sent out a survey to our we have a a communication from multiple different pounds an email thread looking for some feedback I'm not sure if that came out of that meeting with Evy or if that was direction from you I I honestly don't know i' love to take credit for it if it was a great idea it was a great email sure I can yeah for some information from local communities on you know what services they're using what issues they've identified so hopefully that information will get brought back you know to the finance team and to us so just sharing that because that was a positive update on I just I think it's unfor I don't know what happened but I think it's unfortunate that you went through what you went through last fall and now in this coming March the front half of next year you're going to have to be going through something again with someone well I mean I've made my feelings about the company behind the product known on multiple occasions televised so I have no love loss between them I think they did a horrible job and the fact that they did an upgrade that messed us up a year ago only to tell us that in six months we got to do this again and they haven't even fixed this one I I don't know about anybody else but I wouldn't want to go through that if I was a user yeah and I have no confidence they could do it successfully anyway as a former user in this town that it was a very challenging process and I have no faith in yeah but I think we also identified that you know we we didn't like a 10 version jump you know there was more than that yeah and that needs to be you know I think in the management of the town I think that you know you utilizing software that's 10 years old is just not acceptable um you know I that was their upgrade plan too that's what I agree I agree with Mr Jeff that we shouldn't have been running on it but I would concur that it was their plan and they had control over it yeah I think that also so I'm glad to hear that you're looking at the cloud-based programs I don't think it makes sense for us especially with our lack of staff at this point to try to continue to host these things on our own internal servers because that just compiles issues and knowing that they're going that way I think that that's likely the Avenue that we're going to have to pursue it is an uptick and pricing um for the first three years it would not be problematic because of the allocation of the ARA monies for the payroll service uh but after that you will feel that I come from small town so anything above 10,000 to me is a shock you know um but you will feel that impact all right any other action items moving on to committee reports uh school committee met last week they updated capital projects so the primary school AC mini split project which was um funded FY 23 is now completed um there was there so there's six units feeding 12 classrooms all on the second floor um there was one classroom on the second floor that due to cost increases is rolled into phase two um the Turkey Hill window security film is in progress um there's one window that has to be it's on order has to be um replaced before it can get the film but that should be completed um within a month there are three other projects that are delayed um the Turkey Hill exterior door upgrade Turkey Hill Primary and the primary security upgrades and the Turkey Hill fire alarm system upgrade they are delayed because I needed to do asbest testing and get the report before they could send them out um for bid um so the the testing is completed they're waiting on the report to come back um so there is potential for the cost of those projects to increase increase depending on what that report says except for the primary school which has no asbestos um and then looking forward to capital projects they re they have a draft of the FY 26 capital projects that they prioritized there were eight that were discussed I'll just give you the top three um based on the rankings uh of the committee uh the first one was the primary school driveway coupled with uh the number two priority which was the Primary School playground and then the third um was the hot water tank um at Turkey Hill so those will be coming to the um Capital planning committee and yeah that's it um as I said earlier in the meeting the finance committee appointment committee met at 6:30 before this meeting this evening and we reappointed Tom Gray that was our only business for that committee the town manager screen committee will meet tomorrow to uh as the interim Town manager said will reward or award the Consulting contract for the search to community Paradigm and we'll meet with their their member uh or one of their principles tomorrow and get that kicked off in Earnest and the capital planning committee uh does not have anything scheduled yet now it's getting we wanted to get an early start and and now I realize we're not going to get an early start um Economic Development Committee has not met since our last meeting and the master plan steing committee is commencing meeting again in October we're working on getting a date scheduled now all right um Municipal Building design committee met last night uh we went over I want to thank Julie for uh her work um reviewing the RFP um that I drafted and making some changes to it so the municipal buing design committee met last night we reviewed that RFP uh we're looking to meet again next week to finish that review uh we got through uh I think most of it we were trying to do it in about an hour uh because of other commitments so we have a probably another 20 minutes left to look at it with the goal of getting out the door uh as soon as possible and then the library meets uh next Thursday as already noted um all right and uh we did receive the email from Josie who was part of the regional collaborative meeting um I'm also uh liazon or a member of that group so that group is meeting on Friday but unfortunately I will not be able to attend uh due to needing to go to a funeral I also cannot attend unfortunately I was hoping I could but I can't for a very silly reason all right and I don't have a committee report tonight so upcoming meeting meetings we will be meeting next Tuesday September 17th it will primarily be a workshop on select word goals uh so we'll work to refine those and finalize those but if any members have new ideas or just contributions that's okay as well so bring your index cards and we will be meeting the following Tuesday as well on October 1st public comment are there any public comments from the interim Town manager I have none Mr chairman all right any public comments from the public Mr pasos 24 passio 56 Whiting Street um this is a unauthorized update from the green communities I am Vice chair of that committee I just wanted the select board to be aware that we have been aggressively working with the uh school department on trying to work on uh trying to get phase two of the Min splits uh into the October uh Grant round so we're diligently pushing towards that we had a joint meeting with Kelly Brown the superintendent the business director and uh Dave blaton ey and a representative from Unitil so bringing all those parties together that know especially the two knowing the process made a big difference so the information that's we were lacking coming into the last couple of weeks is now flowing uh to the people that need to review it and we're hopeful that we can get phase two uh funded with at least 100 $125,000 from uh green communities and we need to do it in the October round because it just doesn't fit into the time frame uh that the school needs to do their projects in the summertime so I just wanted to give you that uh you know we are working really hard to get this to happen because we don't want to miss another Grant R um in regards to your review of the uh fiscal policy manual the uh members of the finance committee have had that policy or proposed policy for a while now we haven't had a lot of time to work with it I have two concerns one number one it was not written by people here in the town it was fashioned off of our uh existing policies but there's no Redline version that tells us what's changed or what's been added or anything U you know of that giving us that ability to see what the changes are I've looked at some portions of it I've tried to concentrate on the financial stuff and the monies and um a lot of that is just a carbon copy of what we already have with the spending uh borrowing limits so on and so forth but over the past 5 years there's been a lot of conversation about we need to review those borrowing limits we haven't adjusted them in a long time the finance committee was actually the last ones to do a deep dive into the financial policy and then proposed it to the select board um so as you do your review I just please please keep that in mind that we don't really know what's in there compared to what we have now unless you put them side by side and that's quite a project to uh do that um let's see if I covered everything Red Line yeah that's it basically thank you very much thank you Mr any other public comments from the public all right seeing none any public comments from the board I do want to acknowledge that uh this weekend at the adult Activity Center there was a group of about 12 of us who installed a uh bot Court there on a beautiful day it was a great sense of community of coming together and everybody working together in about three and a half hours we were done and I want to thank uh Chris Ruth who who helped uh I think with preparing the grounds and getting the materials and all the people who volunteered there it really made a a difference and I hope that the uh the I keep wanting to say seniors but if I say adults it this doesn't sound right I hope that people get to use the court get to use it well and for a long time thank you thank you great update any other public comments from the board I would um this mostly isn't a public comment it's much it's um it's an action item but I know that we have uh an upcoming retirement uh from the chief uh of police and I think it would be uh appropriate for for us to uh recognized um his work on behalf of the Town prior to his retirement his you know increased a professionalism of the force um you know the training um superb training that they've done and you know it would so I would just ask that if there's something that we can do prior to his uh departure to recognize uh all that great work I think that would be good well that was not going to be a surprise can't do that a public meeting all right just kidding all right is there a motion to adjourn so moved second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppos no it is 8:06 p.m. and the select board is adjourned thank you everyone at home for tuning in and we'll see you next Tuesday have a good night recording stopped