##VIDEO ID:4iuifS4AEMs## we we have a quorum uh so I am going to call the August 26th meeting of the finance committee to order at 7M um and I will start reading the script for this meeting so uh as a preliminary Manor this is Julian pgas I am the chair of the finance committee um please forit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me I will start with the members members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Linda yes Peter yes n n yes thanks uh Katie yes Nathan uh Nathaniel yes perfect all right uh um and then we also have Greg joining us tonight so um Greg is tell staff you can hear us okay yep Greg perfect thank you and thank you for coming all right I will uh continue on the agenda here so um good evening this is uh an open meeting of the mayard finance committee it is being conducted via Zoom speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment um the committee would like to hear public comments if there's further action that is required by the board the chair uh will adjust the matter as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda depending on the comment um the board May if with enabled within the open meeting law respond with the information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter in the future please note that while an option for remote attendance and our participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you so please take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording this meeting is being recorded and will be later posted to the wavm YouTube channel this meeting is not being being live streamed um for meeting materials all meeting materials will be on board dos um and we recommend that you follow along on the agenda um as posted on boarddocs unless I know otherwise um and we will now um move to the first item on the agenda uh so I will open up the agenda here so uh the first item on the agenda is the special to meeting articles and drafts uh review of those articles um and Greg has kindly joined us tonight for um the first article for the general fund um amended budget article um Justin is not able to make it tonight um for the water sewer articles but he said that he would be happy to come to our next meeting on September 9th um our written comments and recommendations will be due to GRE and team on the 10th like the morning of the 10th so we can we'll have one more meeting where we can finalize our recommendations and votes um for the printed warrant so uh if they don't make it into the printed warrant we can post them online and I think in the past we've given a handout depend on depending on what we have left um but we'd like to try for The public's information to get as many as possible into that printed warrant so by that September the morning of September 10th deadline so we'd like to try to get uh as much information as possible today at our meeting today and also at their next meeting on the 9th to try to get as many of those articles as possible into the printed warrant and that would be our goal so I can pull that up um if you'd like uh Greg if you want me to pull that up to yeah let's do it and I also got some nice um uh I don't know if this was a spreadsheet I think it was actually a PDF that was talking about the difference um in the budgets I'm trying to find that one that sort of goes into what these different numbers are for oh sure I can explain yeah that would be that would be helpful if you are yeah if you can bring be more helpful than okay so I can bring that up [Music] I think I think it was this article or this file yes that's right okay it looks like there's a couple transfers yeah that'll be great if you yeah want to give us the drop down view much appreciated yeah no I appreciate this time so I'll be hopefully rehearsed because um what I'm going to go over is what this page is what was presented at the budget subcommittee meeting last week and then based on the feedback I got from that meeting it translated into the article that you see uh so I'll get I'll kick right off so um for usual we try to be pretty conservative in our estimates both for revenue and for um expenses one of those revenues is the state budget so um I have to take an educated guess as to what the state budget is going to yield for revenues as well as what it's not going to provide us because of assessments and I make those estimations in like October um the year be like so like I'll make next fiscal Year's estimates in like two months but I won't know the the results of a state budget isn't finalized until you know the next August so in this case um we I estimated our projected wealth and so the the end result yielded $126,000 of UN projected Revenue so um we don't have to do anything with that $126,000 if you don't spend the $126,000 of revenue from the state that just means that's $126,000 you don't take in taxes but that's not that much it's a $53 million budget 126 doesn't hurt generally traditionally we do amend the budget in the and we try to capture the at that point the known revenues from the state so here we are just to kind of kick it right off um I just did a a simple um ratio of what could be a 60/40 split so in the past there's been a sort of handshake agreement understanding between Town departments and School departments that if if there was to be in this case a sort of like unprojected Revenue just for the sake of argument if we were just going to split it what would that look like so it's about $75,000 about $76,000 to schools and and 40% of that would be $50,000 to the town but again that's not a great ratio considering like the health insurance and other benefits and liability insurance that falls not into the school's budget so it's not it's not it's not like all the town's expenses and it's not we don't split all the expenses down the middle 6040 we don't so but for just just to kind of have the thought process that the exercise that's what 6040 is so then I wanted to ask myself what what could we you know what what are the known expenses sort of needed to address in the fall and generally there's not so um fortunately we're we budget well enough that um there are other means to solve our budget issues other than this $126,000 if I was spot on the projection and I didn't have any extra revenue from the state I'd have to figure out how to solve for some of these operational expenses without that Revenue but here we are we do have the opportunity so um right off the bat I know my our um fuel tanks failed at the DPW garage they didn't pass recent exp inspections that was that was like months ago so in the meantime we've had we've been using like the garage across the street from town hall because we're procuring rented um fuels fuel tanks and eventually we want to purchase for the long term we want to purchase like our own fuel tanks like mobile fuel tanks because we're conducting a feasibility study right now right on the DPW garage so we may not stay at that current site so we're we're not going to like we're trying to think for the long term why would we build and install permanent fuel tanks if we're not going to be there anyways um Justin DeMarco the director of Public Works says The Upfront cost for those rentals is about $177,000 so going forward then you pay like the I I think it's annual the annual leasing costs uh which I think is he said it was 15,000 but we do we do set aside leasing because sometimes we have to like lease equipment if it breaks or if we need special equipment so Public Works has a leasing budget um so they can he can he thinks he can cover the 15,000 but he can't cover The Upfront cost so that's $177,000 um so right off the bat that's that's what I had known and um and then Personnel Contracting so um there's we're always in the middle of of a couple of different Union contracts plus plus Personnel cont contracts and so um although we did set aside Personnel contracts of $80,000 in the general fund um I don't I don't have the best confidence is going to be enough to cover I'm doing firefighters contract right now uh dispatchers contract my own contract is not finalized um we finalized the clerical Union uh and that's that's like one of the biggest unions we have in the town departments I'm not talking about school department the school unions is the teachers and the PA professionals and that's massive I'm talking like at most I have about 20 people per firefighter police cleric Union still 20 people and that's a lot so and then I'm also a little worried about um the firefighters retirements I have two retirements coming up for the fire department and they and they been with the town a very long time and at least one of them is a captain um meaning like their their their payout their buyout their cly buyout is significant and so yes the you can see how much we are the fire department budgeted because again I asked for I asked Town departments for the budgets in like September October so we didn't know we don't know when people are going to retire we try to get as much heads up as we can in this case I just I just rattled off a couple different Union contracts plus these sickly buyouts so my current proposal is you can just see the math 33588 and there's a and there's the reason it's 588 is because I just sort of rounded for the difference between that 6040 between schools and town so for the school department um again I got some feedback at the budget subcommittee last week but the way we budget in mayard is um we just do money towards the school department so and after that the I don't control their budget the select board doesn't control their budget so really if we if it's $76,000 in this case they spend they spend it as they would like but there we got some feedback from the members on the budget subcommittee that just sort of rattled off some some pretty justifiable reasons um and I I make note of them here and then I mention that in my sponsor comments which I shot over to the superintendent Brian hos just to kind of make sure I wasn't say anything inaccurate um they uh have an on coing concern with the um end of life uh of the HVAC unit over Fowler School so if if everyone remembers we we did a um stabilization transfer to cover some of the hbac units over the Fowler Auditorium but there's ongoing I mean that it's it's a was it a 20 year school maybe 30e school so it's it's that HVAC units they're just it's coming due and then um some school committee members voiced a desire to demolish the bleachers so they're looking to have some money set aside for that the current bleachers particularly if the debt exclusion does not pass which is a different article I don't know if y'all get to tonight but it's a different article this school committee did submit an article for the de exclusion to build the bleachers and the associated facilities and with and our our our initial expectation was um the cost of that project would include demolition but their the school committee at the budget committee said they might they might want to get rid of those bleachers regardless and then um and then they also said um without any bleachers with the start of The Fall season they are considering if they need to rent a Press Box I don't know what that looks like so I anyways so you can see I just did 26,000 25 25 but I don't know what the actual numbers are so really my proposal would be provide the school department with 75 76,000 and just and then they do with what they will but the the school department um school committee excuse me had indicated their um intention to put that money into a revolving account specifically for facilities so it wouldn't go towards Personnel it wouldn't go towards I don't know anything else it would go towards facilities which these three um these three expenses that's what that's what pertains to okay and then underneath you can see um just some off the top of my head cost that sort of concerned me over time one is I asked myself what was a department or multiable that I did not provide the operating request for last you know coming into this fiscal year and uh and um I looked over my notes the library had asked for a part-time staff member $115,000 so I I have that on there we're I'm always interested in putting more money towards Capital so I just listed that but I didn't have a dollar amount um like I said earlier the ask me clerical Union was not known when we budgeted like we didn't we hadn't settled the contract yet and so that I I knew there was a cost to that and then uh Deputy fire chief never letting that one go until I get it so that's still on there um and then almost every fiscal year at least for the that I've been with the town inevitably there's a couple accounts that kind of go like we always have a hard time projecting it costs labor counsil costs sometimes they're higher sometimes they're lower but but I I I feel always I would always feel sort of comfortable making sure those have uh plenty of money in those budgets okay so that's that's what this spreadsheet is but this again this was sort of like the um discussion at the budget subcommittee meeting and then it and then I took that and I translated it um into the article thanks for that I'll pull the article back up okay uh so I pretty much what I just said translated into the article so in the article the way we budget in mayard is by these major functions of government and so um like for example that $33,000 would go towards Personnel Contracting which falls under the town administrator's office which falls under general fund uh General government and then that public works for that rent initial upfront costs for the rented um least um fuel tank that goes out in public works and then the rest of it $76,000 towards mayard um so not it's not it's not the most complicated me math but um and hopefully I'm right I did ask the town accountant because I did this on Friday afternoon and asked the town account to make sure my spreadsheet was right and all I'm really doing is just translating spreadsheet into this but he'll he'll double check my math and then um and that's it so the the comments reflects what I everything I just said and then um in the back of the uh warrant which I don't have for you tonight but the back of the warrant is the Omnibus we call it which is sort of like oh it's not significantly detailed like we don't go account by account but we go into um the Departments Within These functions So within General government it might say I think it says select board and then separately I think it says Town Administrator so like that $33,000 would fall under Town Administrator just like Public Works we break it down into like Highway Etc or or Public Safety is broken down into fire and police um and so that that's what would be reflected there so not not the not the biggest groundbreaking change um but it's helpful if if I didn't have that money you know typically we we consider Reserve fund transfers if we have retirements and we can't cover I mean that's what Reserve funds for like unforeseen unforeseen expenses uh there's always turnover too so when it comes to Personnel costs um like I have a town clerk retiring and like two weeks and uh and so if I hire a new town clerk at less cost and I'm paying the current town clerk like that that sort of offsets some of my salaries that's that just happens and then and then through the course of any fiscal year um there was always accounts that come up and down and so by about the third quarter I sit down and I look at all the accounts and just see where we are and then I have a and then I sit down with my town account and we look at where all the accounts are and then we consider whether we need to do like a spending freeze or if we need to I don't know we just need to we need to look at and be prepared for what transfers are going to be required at the end of the year so this this helps us because this this makes me slightly less stressed come third quarter but also the $17,000 would be really helpful because that would deplete uh yeah it would it would really take a chunk out of dpw's sort of operating expenses not that to say we couldn't do it but I would then probably have to come back to to the finance committee for Reserve fund for something else which still could happen it's only August so don't there's where we are great thank you so much Greg that was very very well put very thorough uh well thank you but hopefully hopefully the comments are clear because I'm explaining to y'all but I'm not going to explain to 100 so people in the I'm not going to get the town modor doesn't give me 15 minutes to give you the same speech at the town meeting so here we are yeah my I would open it up to the committee I would say before I open it up to the committee there might be so for me before you gave me that explanation I said why is this demolishing existing on there because it's in the article about the bleachers itself Blake itself at least in the spreadsheet we got from the schools um so for me that was a little confusing because I'm like why are we paying for that twice y but I mean if all the Articles pass so um but your explanation makes sense that once the schools get that allocated money they they do what they do with it um so maybe there's a way I could I mean so I sent those comments over to Brian hos so he can edit them however he wants but I might maybe I could change the language to say address Alumni field bleachers facilities something to that effect because that could also maybe speak to rental costs um right anyways I'll think about it yeah I would just yeah that's exactly what I was trying to say is that maybe I appreciate the specificity but I think in case the article about the Alumni field does pass I mean it will still require a ballot question too to also pass so I guess that this could be helpful in the meantime because I don't know they might need a solution before then yeah and that's up to the school committee like they're the ones like we put a fence around them yeah old bleachers but the there's members of the school committee that still don't they still don't feel comfortable with having the old bleachers there they they feel like the bleach the fence is not cutting it yep I hear you all right I don't want to take all the time um I want to open the up to the rest of the the members here um I'm sharing my screen so I can't see anyone so please feel free to jump in I have a procedural question I guess so um what this this is good information I'm a fan of well not necessarily a fan but you know like I would vote for this um what is our role here specifically for like is it if I wanted to say we're good with this would I say I motion to support this piece because I know we're not approving or disapproving it because you've put it Forward Greg so what exactly I suppose is our procedural piece here that I would need to say or do just to make sure that I'm doing that appropriately oh I was gonna let Jill yeah go ahead Jill yeah yeah yeah so basically our role for every single article that's in the special town meeting the annual town meeting fincom either has to recommend or or does not recommend and then we have a written comment section about why we made that decision um so every single article the fincom does that and that's because we're helping the voters get additional information about um these articles and making our recommendations about so um so if you if you're saying you want to move the article to recommend you would say you know I vote to I would like to uh motion to recommend draft control a and then I would call for someone to Second uh then we'd have our discussion period and a voting period what happens if it's not unanimous or some or you know imotion some seconds and then it's like heavily against so then the board us as a board don't agree I there's two there's two questions there one if we don't agree and motioned in second and then it's majority against and ones of it's some level in between okay yeah great questions so my my understanding is that it's a majority I don't think we're like the select board where we have to have two-thirds for articles does that sound right to you Greg that was a super rare that two thirds was like super rare but yeah you just need you just need a majority for whatever actions you're in take for this yeah so so if I askk good majority of seven is four so then a follow question to that let's say that I'm ABS sorry I'm I ask these kind of questions so I can understand process uh if I am wildly against this and all six of the other members are wildly for it am I allowed to even write the comments of the finance committee because I'm clearly the one that's not for it and I would write something scaving at that point but yeah I guess in there for that level of dissidence and does it does it would my voice and let's just say I wanted it to be heard is there a way for me to be heard as that one Lone Wolf quote onot I'm done with questions after that you can ask as many questions as you want this is the purpose of our group so um we question everything so um in the past when there has been contentious articles we would say uh so like in that case it's like a six to one we would say recommends and then in parentheses we would put six to one um and then we would write comments for recommends and we have also in the past written comments for the members who do not recommend I would say in those cases they were closer they were like in times when it was like a four to three vote um I don't know Peter if you've have any experience with different numbers but that's what I remember from my past years serving is that we've written them when they're close like that I think that's generally right um I mean the committee speaks as a committee so whatever the vote is that's to recommend or not recommend um individual members are free to get up a town meeting and speak against an article or you know against the recommendation of fincom if they so choose um but as far as an official position of fincom for the denters I mean Jillian's right we might you know put something in the recommend in the printed thing if we want to but no requirement that we do but yeah I mean we Act a committee not as a bunch of individuals okay thanks that answers all my questions I have some questions please go ahead okay so Greg you said there's a handshake agreement about 60 40 60 to the schools 40 to the town but the budget is 20 million for the schools 50 million total so the schools get 40% of the budget plus they're getting a big amount of the 10% of of um employee benefits so why isn't it the opposite 60 60 for the town 40 for the schools that's a great question so again it's not it's not perfect by any means years before I don't even know when when I was when when someone came up with this ratio but it was it was I think it was before my time so um someone had crunch numbers and that included all the all the operating costs of the town so whether it be um you like I said insurance benefits salaries contracts keeping the lights on everything and then looked at what the split might be so how much of those expenses were going towards School related and then how of those were strictly for um town so for example there's uh don't quote me on this but I think there's like 200 teachers so if there's about 200 teach teachers and only like 100 Town Town Personnel then I'm spending twice as much on teachers for health benefits and I'm on the town departments so you can kind of use that as and then contributes towards like a greater consideration of of the costing and so therefore it came out to about 60% of the costs were attributed to school operations and then 40% towards town but again like you but even that is so the even of the 10 million about half is for schools of the 10 milon employee benefits even then it would be half 5050 seem like you're being very generous to the schools here no it's so it's more than half so so more than half okay right because so um like for example they have liability insurance like we have I the liability insurance is not covered under the schools it's covered under general fund yeah so that they have the three biggest facilities by far so there's there's even costs related to to those expenses like it's not that I I appreciate what you're I couldn't show you the numbers to be able to determine this and I'm not saying we're tied to this in any ways I just when I was first approaching this sort of like a good problem of having $126,000 um my thought was I want to be sort of like politically sensitive and have a starting point just for the discussion and it sort of worked out that this seems to accomplish my concerns in recommending a budget to the select board and it accomplished sort of like meeting some some unknown but immediate concerns of the school committee so um that's and then you had you had two areas of concern one was IT consulting and one was the is a general Council Consulting well labor Council good point but I always have those concerns like I I always like um I just meant that at the end of the fiscal year there's always a couple accounts on that are either near deficit or going into deficit yeah like the Press Box 25 Grand to rent I mean that's half the cost of what the schools are saying the whole bleachers and the porta potties would cost a rent that seems I don't know where that number came from but even when you move that 25 to some of the things that are a concern to you that we know we're going to go into deficit fair point but don't read into those that split of 26 2525 I I literally I probably should have put just $76,000 and then just listed three because that's not going to be in the article anyways right it's only going to say that $76,000 I I again with the purposes of trying to make things maybe if you will politically convenient is to say a 60% split between the school committees interests and and then the and then the 40% for like Town Town interest like I was Sister trying to make things to be yeah like I said like sort of like politically fair andc and that 60/40 has been sort of like a guiding a guidance that we've had in the past so but so again like that you would have to ask the school department about how they would actually spend that in this case $76,000 but I didn't have a strong I didn't feel and I still don't yet have like a strong argument as to why I would need that $126,000 for Town departments and I didn't hear from the school department why they would need $126,000 and so lacking any sort of definitive like strong argument either way I went with sort of like the known traditional ratio you said that the schools were going to put it into the facilities what other I guess is that lawnmowing what other examples would that be if it's not because I mean the to as Lind just pointed out that number for the Press Box is gonna is either clearly inflated or just Incorrect and as you said you made it up so just put it there yeah I made it up idea which is fine I put in the spreadsheet yeah I guess what else would that be put towards assuming that what you know we just said was correct there I mean they have significant facilities costs like they they have three massive buildings that you know and one of which we're replacing but in the meantime is still you know has a wing that was built in the 50s so it's um I couldn't speak to their exact cost I imagine if it's anything like the town buildings there's always lights to be replaced there's always eight track units to get fixed there's always um I mean every everything like there's lawn mowing there's uh because they they are M they maintain like the close facilities you know like we do a lot of major lawn mowing the towns DPW does but the but they you know they're responsible for icing their own sidewalks Etc so they they have they have costs to their facilities but I couldn't I couldn't speak to l line item Greg you mentioned that um you sort of don't have like a definitive argument either way um sort of in relation to that um 6040 um I guess Gentleman's Agreement um so like just to make it like explicit um like would would you say that there there's like no sort of town expenses that you think are like urgent enough that would justify like breaking that sort of Gentleman's Agreement absolutely actually that was the first thing I thought of is like if I if I thank you for asking that so like yes if I needed the money I would have asked so the 17 grand I I knew was a hard number like Justin told me Justin DeMarco Public Works said I need $177,000 easy if um I met with Jean McGuire the library director and I asked her how she felt about that um part-time Library um they wanted another staff member for $115,000 and I just she didn't sell me so like she tried but I didn't feel like I needed to amend her budget you you know into the fiscal year she can and I do suspect she will submit a request you know in the next couple of months for FY 26 same with the fire chief um if I told you know fire chief hey what' you do with $126,000 she'd say fire hire Deputy fire chief but again like I didn't feel so compelled and knowing you know inevitably the school department is going to advocate for an increase in budget I wanted to at least sort of like offer if nothing else a political gesture of like he we do consider I consider the school department uh a town Department like I like superintendent comes to my department meetings like it is it is all we're all on this together so as I'm trying to just and a little bit of like you got you know school committee select board I'm trying to make sure like we're all on the same page um that was the ratio I came up with but absolutely nille if I said o uh I need to figure out how to pay for whatever if Justin said it was $120,000 to fix the fuel tanks I'm then that's where the money's going because that because that those fuel tanks fuel much more than DPW trucks they fuel um some school F school fiz um Vehicles they fund uh they F fuel um police cruisers like they yeah and every so thank you thank you for answering that and then my my second question was just a very um tangential one just um what is Peg access I'm just like not oh that's Peg yeah yeah yeah so I don't know why we've been having it on there for years so Peg is uh um the acronym Peg uh public education government access so uh we have a deal with Verizon and Comcast um we give them public way access along all the streets in Mard so they can run their telephone poles and the wires and then and then so send cable access to all the towns houses and commercials what and so they pay us a license fee to be able to use that like to be able to put their telephone poles and put those wires in the public way and a portion of that license fee goes towards this so and it's a formula based on um you know subscribers so how many just what's their customer base and it's very much like really nationally recognized sort of understanding of what of what the rate formulas are going to be and then at the corporate level and then it kind of trickles down to the town so we just renegotiated our second renewal of this license so that's that's what that money is I frankly I wouldn't have put it in there but that's that like that's how the warrant was made when I got here six years ago so still in there because it is confusing it's um it's just but 90 something perc of that money all goes towards the school department got thank you for answer think of that as like the like it subsidizes wavm Greg I will say I was really curious all week I saw I was at the budget subcommittee um meeting but I had to leave and I I had bronchitis it was not the flu I had a fever of 103 that night and I was like I'm failing guys and it only was at 102 the next day and went to Urgent Care it was the whole thing but anyway there was a lot of discussion around I know the eback money in the bleacher money and I feel you guys really vetted out where the due diligence was with putting those funds and so I appreciate hearing the backstory first of you know the the discussion um and the urgency of those funds so um I do I do appreciate where the funds landed right when that's a good point Katie when I went to that meeting the only number I had on that spreadsheet was 177,000 yep yep so so I was just like guys this is the what I know I need to spend because I just need it and then and we all kind of talked about for like an hour maybe more like what would you do with the rest of the money and I think I went in there knowing what a 60/40 split would be just to kind of like get the get the kind of discussion going um but I was ready to receive so if the school committee had said they needed 10 I probably would have fought for that $177,000 but if they needed if they needed um $9,000 then or whatever the math is I apologize then I would have I would have said like guys I really need you know I don't know how are we going to split that up but um anyways so yeah to your point Katie like this what you see is the reflection of like the point of the budget subcommittee like it's it's like sort of like gathers all the interests and then and then I take that as feedback to try to provide a product that try to that tries to address the community's needs yeah and it was interesting too hearing you know do we put it at pay as you go do we put it for you know where do those funds Land versus where do they need it to end up and ensuring where they end up putting them in the right spot to get to the end goal um so yeah any I I feel like the school committee was very receptive as well so as much as as they were kind of like pitch pitching different ideas they said they recognized like if they hired I don't want to put words in the mouth but like if they said if they recognized if if they were to use money towards hiring it would also come in at benefits costs which they are not budgeting right they sounded very against it they were against it I heard it you heard it so uh but I mean if what they what they do with this money it's up to them yeah yeah do we have any additional questions from members on budget article I also want to point out the select board has not seen this so um I mean they've seen it because I email everybody at all the time but they they um they haven't they haven't like weighed in I mean they they knew what the state budget was and they knew what they knew what the new uh Revenue was um and there was um one two members one member at at uh at the budget subcommittee meeting but that that's not final and I always reserve the right to change my mind but I'm probably not going to like this this I feel pretty good about and and I feel like it was received well enough so I'll probably stick to this for next Wednesday's select board meeting unless unless unless uh God forbid some department head comes out of nowhere tomorrow and tells me they need $50,000 for something that broke well with that I would uh motion to support draft control a uh as presented today asuming Greg does not change his mind yeah uh for fiscal year 2025 okay so you are recommending to approve draft control a do I have a second I will second um approving draft control a okay so we have a a first and a second um I will open the floor to any additional comments or discussion all right I am not hearing any um so so I will take a roll call vote Linda yes Peter yes uh n yes K yes Nathan yes Nathaniel yes all right I am also a yes so this is a recommend so this is um um a pass here so I'll note that down in our uh draft recommendations uh do I have a volunteer that uh would like to write the comments from this um I would be um willing to do that okay so you'll do that for our next meeting is that okay yes that sounds good and the next meeting is um one week for no the next meeting um so Labor Day so we don't actually meet on Labor Day so it'll um it'll be on the ninth okay great n you know how good I'm sorry Jill I spoke over you yeah I was just gonna say n you can meet with me you can ask me questions you can call me okay awesome thank you guys I'll treat you to a bagel if you want whatever oh yeah I mean thank yeah okay yeah there's um good examples of what we've written in the past are um available on bardocks and also in Prior warrants but if you also want the examples you can also reach out I'm happy to share definitely thank you okay I have like way too many windows open and I've completely lost completely lost it all right great all right all right so um so Greg in terms of the other articles here um you do not have um I did have a question about draft control article D is that a is that a I'm trying to pull it up is that a is that ation from you want to bring it up and then we can go over all of them like I I'm I'm I'm I'm not like a Justin level expert in water sewer pipes but I can okay um so I can let you know in terms of this one I probably won't be a so you can ask your question but I'm probably not going to know this no I was gonna say we can we got our questions answered via email from the CPC so I think we're we're all set so um good oh this one yeah go ahead yeah so for Steve we had um the school committee came nicely and presented this to us last week so um I feel like we had a lot of our questions answered and I think this will be a good amount of discussion with the committee here so um I did want to pull up the the information that you kindly shared with us talking about um how the rentals are not like a sustainable long-term solution because they don't meet some different code um code requirements so and I shared that out with the committee um so I don't know if the committee has additional questions on that for Greg because you you were the one that shared um I guess I have two things before we jump into this is there any chance that it might make sense to do this last because I definitely I'm I mean I have some questions and I'm not positive that full due diligence was done by the schools on this at least that's how I read you're assuming you're referring to the email you sent on the August 24th right forwarded from Greg yes okay uh I I agree with Nathaniel I think that if we start getting into this it's going to take up a lot of time I think we should uh proceed with the rest of the draft controls and come back to this at the end sure I think that's fair um so the home rule um liquor license at the corner store you want me to give a the download the download what this is that would be great that' be super duper yep so um the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is an old puritanical State and the and the beacon Hill tells all the towns municipalities and cities um how many liquor licenses we can have so if you want to change that we call it the quota and there's quotas for there's different categories so you can have like a restaurant and serve wine and beer um or you can have a farmer's pouring license you know or you can you know like so if you go to like the farmers market and you want to buy something there then that's a different license right so there's different types of license related to alcohol and one of them is all alcohol to be consumed off presence off uh premise so that's a package store and we have uh four I think we have four package stores right now one of which by the way is Russell's Convenience Store next to town hall so a couple years ago Russell's Convenience Store submitted pretty much an identical request to the selectboard to increase their capacity because they they were originally beer and wine and then they want to go to all alcohol and so we went through this process with them this is kind of a weird process because it is it's only the town saying you know hey we we we want Beacon Hill to give us an extra all alcohol license another package door and um and and and so the state legislator doesn't have to do it so uh a couple months ago I got approached by I think he's a lawyer it doesn't matter someone representing the corner store and asking if if they could have this you know for consideration in the fall um so they submitted me you know this massive package um I used the language of of the Russell's Convenience Store I sent all that over to Town Council and asked her to take a look at it um she looked at it she thought it looked fine but um I also sent it over to representative Hogan's office because it has to make go once it gets to Beacon Hill they might have different language they want to see and that's happened in the past with Russell's Convenience Store I remember they wanted an address but we didn't know they need an address in the motion whatever so this this now I've sent it over to them um and uh and their Chief of Staff said he was going to make sure it looked right so I haven't hurt otherwise but um so that's the deal like we the the select board has not taken action on this um so if you want you can wait as well but this is relatively procedural it's it's just to increase the quota to go from I think I I think it's four all all alcohol to five but it would but that fifth would go to this corner store after they apply for the license like you still have to apply for the license and then and then the the select board has to approve that license and then it still that license still has to go to the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission so just because you've increase a quota with the with the sort of intention of giving it to this particular thing because that's another thing the state wants to know where the license is potentially being allocated to like you can't just increase your quota you sometimes you can but that's a that's a different sort of political gesture this is 49 Walnut Street and yall know where like the corner stor is it's like at at the base of like uh bankra Hill like the cooler School M um so that's that's what they want to do um is there any cost to the town to like submit an application to the general court for an extra license that's a good question no so um but this presumably this applicant would submit the um alcohol license application fee but I don't remember what that is off the top of my head but this um no I mean this is pretty procedural like it took me two seconds to send an email to the chief of staff so like it's not it's not it's not burdensome um when Russells got their uh liquor license offsite liquor license was there any impact to like tax revenue for the town that's a good question I don't know they haven't used it yet that's I was gonna say I don't I think they're planning to build out but they're waiting so I think Jimmy's had to open for like the snack and convenience side so they're waiting for them to do that um and then yeah so I think it's a work in progress still but they haven't done it they haven't rolled out with it yet you're she's right it like I every once in a while I I get my coffee too often from uh Jamie's next door I know Jamie and I'm like what's going on and because he was worried uh like Katie said Jimmy's garage across from Town Hall they had these big plans that were going to do this massive like expansion it was I don't know I I imagine like a WWA in my head if yall know what that is but then um that apparently did not happen and then uh but anyway so Jamie was trying to like be smart about him and sort of like set himself up for like to be marketable but I guess maybe he doesn't have the equity I don't know but he hasn't done it yet so great question Nathan I don't have the answer as of right now I mean presumably if their sales goes up but um I don't know it's it's again this now I I don't don't quote me the select board is generally you know business friendly as the cliche goes like they're they're they try not to sort like limit the ability of a business to succeed Etc um but I don't but I don't know like if they if if I on next Wednesday night they may say no I don't want to I don't want to ask the town meeting to increase the quota but again like this is this is an artic article from the select board to town meeting to ask the state to increase the quota to give them a license and a yes vote would authorize the select board to petition the Commonwealth but if the select board opposes it they could still say no and not submit it they wouldn't be bound by this vote no oh no we would so like the um like this this vote says this the intentions of the SL board is to send it to to the home rule petition I don't know about the legal binding of this action I suspect not sure but generally I would the the select board usually like if they're if they're going to put something on the warrant it's because they're going to take action on it um have any of the existing license holders like petitioned the select board uh against granting an additional license that's a great question no but but this hasn't been advertised really so the um that's a good question I not that I know of the the they're relatively um geographically dispersed so we have russels which again hasn't even started selling you know hard liquor and then you got the one downtown you got the one on powdermill uh you got the one next to um Market Basket I think I'm forgetting one so Arts do they sell whiskey do they sell like hard stuff yeah they do then yes that's it yeah so just just to clarify this means that obviously then they weren't selling the corner store wasn't selling hard liquer before now obviously no yeah they can't they have a beer and wine license okay thank you and just to be like 1200% clear this would only go to the this is not increasing our license plus one it's only increasing it if this vendor in specifics passes The Next Step which would be applying for the license correct okay because the article says that that business at that address got it and we're doing that because that's what the state would like to see yeah when we when we first tried Russell we didn't have the address because I was like all right so we're going to increase our quota but they the state doesn't trust the little towns across the Commonwealth they want to know exactly who's getting it Greg did Russell get the expanded license they did get it I think they did but I don't think they've no wait it was years ago so we so we got the home rule petition approved like our quota went up for that address but I don't think I can look it up Linda but I don't think they've actually applied yet because I don't think Jim's ready to make the changes okay so they could apply but okay but he doesn't want to put he doesn't want to pay the fee like unless he's ready to like pull the trigger and and I don't know what he's gonna do maybe redo the aisles I don't know but he would like at the store to allow for you know whiskey whatever I don't know he would sell but like he has and in the place across from town hall is it Wall's or I forget that's Jimm's that we're we're calling it Jimmy that's Jimmy's okay that's just beer and wine no jimmies isn't selling I don't think they have anything but there was okay yeah yeah they there was a discussion that they wanted to start doing um I thought he had a beer sign off from but not the gas station but um oh yeah that's the next one over uh what's that called um Johnny walles I thought but anyway I don't remember it's like a it's a Bobs or but they have Lottery whatever yes they do I forget what that's called I've been in there once or twice it's a nice nice little shop but yeah it's slightly longer to get my coffee to walk there than it is to go to Russell so I get I go to Russell yeah it's called Bud buds okay thank you so again this is kind of procedural I mean I I my guess is the select board would be okay with this I don't know I mean like I don't want to make any promises so if yall want to hold off on voting you can but it's up to you but you can maybe if you want you can just like the other article you can move to recommend this but if it's not on the warrant then it then it doesn't matter so just to like clarify um even even though the select board is is sponsoring this um we're not sure that they would like agree to it that's true but I mean that's true for all these articles like I the select board has not approved final warrant okay and if it if it was a case to let you know in terms of what we've done in the past sorry to interrupt you um usually we would start our voting and recommendations after the select board has approved all the Articles right this year is a little bit unique because the special town meeting has a really short timeline um so I requested that we get the draft articles as soon as they're drafted right so that's what we got here so gotcha yeah but Julian is being kind the timing was well I I would prefer have gotten this to y'all weeks ago and but I was on vacation that's not a good excuse but I mean like that's like there were some windows that were missed and so like we I asked for these articles well before they're due so that I can get them to you and I can get them to you know we can kind of vet him through Town Council Etc Town moderator we like to have Town moderator look at him because uh usually we the town moderator preference for the Articles and like the order and the consent agenda like we so it's kind of expedited now so I apologize for that Rush right and then I guess um my procedural question so if the sponsor of an article in this case is the select board if the if the sponsor in particular like opposes it does that mean it's like removed from the war Artic okay yeah that's a good question so um so the general concept is the executive branch which is the select board submits things to be voted on by the legislative branch which is the town meeting now are so that means the warrant the thing to be voted on as well as ballots like when it comes to like election ballots that's all from the executive branch which is the select board but the um however the town Charter allows for any Town body something like that to submit an article to town meeting as long as it meets certain criteria so okay so like the de solution is that's the example of that so the dead exclusion for the bleachers was was not an article from the select board it came from just and same with the CPC article like those are from non selectboard entities in this case it makes a lot of sense that the SL board sponsor a home rule petition because they're the local licensing Authority anyways and there's no and and there's no real I don't think there's like a a committee that this really fits under like even the economic development committee is advisory to me not to the select board so like anyways this it's pretty standard I like these are good questions y'all are like uh uh kind of doing government 101 Here Local Government 10 I like it so yeah so to your point nille like if if um I think I said this earlier but again if no matter what action youall take on these articles if the select board they can't take off the Deb exclusion article or the CPC article because those were submitted by other boards but they don't have to hold a town meeting so um yeah I don't think they have to hold the town meeting so they have they have advertised and notified uh the voters on the town meeting but I think they could cancel town meeting if they wanted they're not going to do that but they could um I move to recommend control D all right so we we have a move uh and a second for control D any further questions or discussion so sorry who did the second Nathaniel Nathaniel thank you Nathaniel okay any further questions or discussions on article D all right hearing hearing none uh I will take a roll call vote Linda yes Peter yesel yes ay yes Nathan yes Nathaniel yes I am also a yes um so that is recommended uh I would say uh I was going to ask who might like [Music] to potentially draft these uh comments I would be happy to do that um will we get the minutes I guess before that just in case I forget [Music] anything minutes Oh you mean from this meeting today yes yes could be helpful yep Linda is is good with them so I'm sure that that we'll get them yeah um and if it's helpful I did want to let you know that the original Russell's article was passed at the 2019 ATM which I was trying to find our recommendations from that year I found our recommendations from um when it was amended to include the address um but I I don't know that I was on the committee in 2019 I think I was but I just can't find them um okay thank you so if that's helpful all right um actually just um kind of this made me think of that but um as regards to um draft control a I guess um if you I guess really like know of any instances where the the finance committee has written a recommendation for like situations where we got sort of unexpected Revenue like this um I think those could certainly be helpful like if you if you know about those I definitely like some in my way if you if you have them yeah I would say every single ATM and STM will have our recommendations on the budget because it's always an article in every single meeting basically um like this this specific situation yes so we um with one exception because of covid um we we got revenue beyond what was originally projected in the state budget so if you look it last year's special town meeting October you should you should find okay yeah yeah and just to speak to that so it's generally the special town meeting that does this kind of budget amendment it's the annual one that would be the spring down meeting that's the full budget good point yes that is totally true um okay let's see uh and then we were just on C no we are on okay now we're on E and I got to see figure out how to share my screen again so this is starting all of the I think almost all the the rest of the Articles here are water sewer the the last three four I can give you sort of like wave TOS like with like big picture because he has to to pitch me first yeah that's L we on right yeah so yeah so um this is oh yeah yeah so he wants to use water retain earnings so retain earnings I think of it similar to free cash so if you have more Revenue than expenses you're in the black and then that money is retained right so um I also want to I know this is like patronized in potentially to the finance committee but this is not general fund money so this is um one of the two Enterprise accounts no three we have three Enterprise accounts water sewer and ambulance so the the the two the two Water and Sewer utilities they you you you know you get your water bill you get your sewer bill and so that has different sort of funding source and this is relative to the water and so the the the pitch from the director of Public Works who's also you know responsible for the water utilities and Sewer utilities is pitching um the use of retained earnings of $12,000 75 to purchase a I think it's the part to back to the truck so we bought the truck and then um this is like an interchangeable equipment on the back of the truck and you can you can read the description that came from Justin but I don't after that I'm I couldn't tell you how the truck works I mean I know the again this is not the truck we own this is like the thing that is like a modifiable repair maintenance equipment that goes on the back so you'd have to ask him what it what it is exactly but apparently this is like you know interchangeable it's really good it's helpful to like have one truck that does multiple things um Greg um I'm sorry do we have retain water retained earnings I thought the timeline for that was the same as free cash you good Peter you're you're are you're you uh you asked the right question I asked the same question because I have not seen the free cash number and you're right we get it at the same time um Justin checked with the town accountant to make sure that there is more than this amount of expected retain earnings but you're right they have not been certified yet by the Department of Revenue so if not we can appro create it without the certification that is my understanding um but I'm going to I'm going to like double double check all that but that is my understanding is you can you can appropriate according to retained earnings just even if it's not certified yet like some towns do that when it comes to freecash they they appropriate the free cash in the fall the Department of Revenue even our izes those towns that want to spend their free cash sooner than later so they'll prioritize towns that have fall free cash Appropriations when it comes to certification so I'm going to double check on that Peter I think you you asked the same question I did because I don't expect like usually we do these articles in the spring okay do we know I guess I'm also writing these questions down for sending them ahead of our meeting our next meeting to Jus directly so or to me I mean that's a good yeah that's fine that's not really a j question that's a u question okay that makes sense kind of both of us I mean like just it's a legal question that's fair H Municipal Finance it's like everybody but it's um it's a good yeah you're right Peter okay I guess my question was just um um even though it hasn't been certified yet like do we know how much is in the water retaining earnings Enterprise Fund in total or like how much it's expected to be in there like for I guess just the basic question of like yeah of What proportion is that money of that money is this $12,000 no I I know exactly that's the right question too nille and uh I don't have that information in front of me and again even if I did it would come with like an asterisk that it's it's like an estimate however like I asked my town accountant how much free cash I'm going to have even though I know he can't tell me certain until it's certified by Department Revenue but um in the next couple of weeks I'm going to ask them because I I feed that information to the capital planning committee and then the but I tell the capital planning committee you know the expectation is it it won't be less than x it won't be less than $500,000 that way they can plan for that amount and then if it's more than that it's gravy but the um great question of the retained earnings for water how much is $102,000 it's good question should we hold off on voting on this until we have that answer as one member that would be my recommendation um and I ask why well one thing I I'm looking at the annual Town warrant that we had in the spring and that at that time the balance was 1.1 million and we moved 500,000 out of it um at annual town meeting so I would think we have roughly 500,000 I don't know if it gets anything more in it so we should just make sure that we have enough to cover cover the 102 it looks like we would but I don't know what else came out that that's very clever Linda I could have done that thank you for doing that um but nothing more would have come out of it without us appropriating it okay yeah so it should be roughly 500,000 but that depletes it quite a bit to 400,000 although but then but correct me if I'm wrong Greg we've designed both of the Enterprise budgets to generate excess retain earnings each year that's right so we would expect it to be 500 plus some amount from this year bingo so that so that's that's like proper budgeting is if you sort of you sort of like not to say you inflate but you you sort of like Round Up um to make sure you have a couple percentage points over what your expected needs are in in as Revenue goes like even free cash the Department of Revenue recommends a certain percentage of your general fund come back as free cash every year so you uh but I don't want to tell you the wrong numbers Linda you're asking you're that's very clever of you but I I will I I mean these are the same questions I have I generally I don't I you know Justin can speak to the need for this transfer um usually I don't like to count my chickens before they're hatched when it comes to free cash so he can he can address the need can you refresh my memory what happens with this fund does it roll into another fund if it's unspent like free cash into general fund or does it go into the re revolving account this stays here until it's appropriated uh yeah I think it's retained I think it's I it like stays there until it's appropriated right so yeah like we don't we don't we don't give the money back so um we we it rolls into the following Year's retained earnings so it stays within the water Enterprise fund we don't have a Mech or we're not using right now a mechanism to put it in some kind of separate Reserve fund we essentially just leave it in the budget for the Enterprise fund and you know Justin has said by design that they're trying to build that up over time so that it you know it can handle some Capital stuff well we do we do we do devote towards um a stabilization account so but some just like free cash we just we we do put some into uh stabilization but that's a separate that's not really the reserve fund we used to have that's the the reserve fund would be done by town meeting the stabilization fund is done by the Water and Sewer commissioners that's what I mean that's yeah yeah or the slack board in other words yeah yeah Jillian I might suggest if we're GNA ask Justin questions is we already transferred 500,000 for um blah blah blah blah blah uh but it was for infrastructure design Beyond life cycle blah blah blah and why do we need an extra 100,000 cuz it wouldn't the 500,000 that we already transferred Out of Water retained earnings be enough so we're needing another 100,000 great question but this is for a different purpose well it's this is for Capital Equipment but it's the what we' spent for 500,000 was for aging infrastructure and unforeseen circumstances so this seems like aging infrastructure but um I thought you said it was for didn't you say it was for addressing the pipes that's how I it didn't say addressing the pipes it just said um they're just you know they they put money from the from that fund for um unanticipated expenses I'm not sure how specific to do aging infrastructure into the special resolving account wasn't it let me take a look at what we did last year I want to I don't want to like sort of yeah I don't want to speak to it because I'm not looking at it I'm un sure how much it matters in this instance I do think these are very important questions but uh depending on how specific and how held these line items are infrastructure and Equipment would be entirely different categories so if they said infrastructure this I believe would fall under equipment so they should be completely separate meaning that if that 500 was spent on infrastructure then it couldn't have been spent on equipment but I'm not sure how hard and fast that is or if it's just simply an appropriation from one to that I mean that's what I was I was uh I was simplifying it to pipes but that's I you just said it in a much more sophisticated way than I did the sorry I'm I'm a engineer by trade so I love it I love it I this is my bread and butter right here so I'm I'm I'm all in on this information uh yeah so but that was that was the point I was making are we putting something underground or you putting something on Wheels so um this is the this is the lad well we also did 180,000 from water retained earnings for Capital equip Capital Equipment in the spring so I think we should just ask that was for a truck yeah we got y so that's like 500 plus 180 so that's 680 now another hundred we're really depleting that account potentially but we did buy the truck so yeah we did buy the truck yeah good we'll buy this hook thing yeah okay taking some notes here so I got I got these questions written down so I can forward those um are there any additional questions discussions or otherwise about control e so um I just like procedurally I guess like would we want then to wait until we sort of heard back um about what's actually sort of in that water tendering account or are we sort of okay with kind of going off estimate that we sort of have from looking at like the past documents and stuff um before like I guess thinking about whether we want to sort of make our recommendation or or not to so so if people feel very strongly that they have the information needed they can always make a recommendation to or to recommend or not to recommend a motion that's the word um I would say the we still have one meeting the meeting next week uh not next week sorry on the 9th where um Justin will be coming the thing that is quick is taking a vote the thing that is takes a little more time is formulating our comments and reviewing those um so we don't need how do I English we don't need to formally recommend or not recommend in this meeting tonight to have the comments written does that make sense yes so be like ative recommendation or yes so if someone is drafting it we can do um in the past we've done things like straw polles if someone feels very strongly one way or the other um personally for me I I think that I've written them both ways too like recommend or not recommend I didn't um I think that's a lot of extra work personally um I didn't reading over these quickly myself before the meeting as one person um I didn't see anything that made me as one person as one member be like I have to definitely vote to not recommend these water steart articles right um I don't know if that's helpful I don't know if that answered the question no no no I think you did and that we can make a kind of a tenative recommendation or non- recommendation and then sort of s write our comment before we sort of formally kind of go all in either okay um and then I would say maybe we can look at the other articles before we take volunteers on who wants to write the comments for this unless we have someone who's super passionate that's going to shut me down and say no I absolutely need to volunteer for this right now but um I would recommend we look at all the Articles here about the water and sewer and then figure out how we'd like to comment them or we could vote on them as a block which is also possible all right I'm not hearing any dissent so we'll move on to control number F which is the eus um so I wanted to ask GRE is this this doesn't have anything to do with the roads and other things that we voted on last time this is like something separate in the ATM I think this is something different so the okay I'm trying I can't remember what easements we did for yeah this is different this is a new one okay okay so so um so we have a number of pumps that send the sewage when you flush your toilet all that goes you know down towards pill Road and then it goes across the river towards the treatment plant and Justin and I identified that all those pumps need to get upgraded and they're bigger and better and so therefore we need to get access to where all those pumps are but also specifically we need to be able to have access to the land around it to be able to make those make those upgrades and so easements are advised so that we can have access to the private those private properties and and is this going to the Acton wastewater treatment no it goes to ours so coincidentally ours and actin are actually like really close to each other so um on the other side of the river right so if you're like uh um I want to say one of these pumps is behind you know where like don't quote me on this but I think it's behind middle sex Savings Bank on powdermill and so it all gets pumped across the RO I had a question sorry I'm highlighting stuff I'm talking to myself I'm muted um are you gonna it says as shown on plan and title blah blah blah oh IDE uh actually um we do usually do that and I think Justin even gave me the plan and I just didn't include it in the document that I gave gave it to you and and you know usually the town moderator he likes big maps at at town meeting so we'll probably do that anyways I had a question um just um it says that the appropriation for this is none um but then it also says that one way in which we might acquire the easements um is by purchasing them and then later in the doc in the article um it says that um we would be spending up I guess up to $14,300 um to purchase them if we needed to so I guess my question is just like are we saying that this is not an appropriation because we don't know whether we'll need to spend money in order to acquire these eents um or is this not an appropriation because um we don't need to like make an appropriation in order for that $14,000 to be spent the the latter so um I haven't looked at the uh sewer budget in in a while but the my reading of his comment which I trust him is that the budget includes money towards this particular purpose or a purpose you know similar to their to of of easements or whatever the case may be and so he can speak to how much is actually in there um but you know what that's a good point uh Town Council had a similar question so we're going to um we might need to amend how much is set aside in you know sort of identify in that appropriation but my my understanding is it has been appropriated so now we want to be able to get access we need but we can't just like even though it's been we've have money set aside to pay you know to pay for the owners for the rights that's what we're looking for we're looking for rights to get on private property so we have money to pay the owners but um this says town meeting thinks you know sort of blesses you to take those rights is that 14,300 upper limit um and where did they come from I guess because I don't know if this is emminent domain levels but if any of those seven Parcels decide they don't want to give up their easement rights for whatever reason have we heard back on that in any way shape or form I know from my professional experience that a Butters and neighbors and concerned citizens can cause quite a problem yeah for projects like this especially if it's an easement or taking of yeah that's a good question so um you can ask Justin for the specifics because I'm not I'm not even like an expert on how big these particular like easements are I mean I again I looked at the easan map and I don't I just don't I didn't bring it for you guys but um good question my guess is he did a uh he did like because we have the property card so we know what the assessed value of the land is so and then he probably calculated or I'm sorry in all likelihood our our engineer our Contra contracted Engineers did all this work but they they found out probably what a ratio is of that land area and the and the assess value of that land area and what it might cost to be able to get whatever that square footage is so that's probably what we do like generally we offer you know well you probably know this n we generally we offer fair market value but a lot of times owners just give it at no charge because it because it's kind of a public need so usually you know easements come especially of this certain very we're talking small like these pumps are not very big um so um like think of like a manhole and then think a little bit bigger than that like this is not like it's just not that big but anyways um usually owners will say like yeah you can have access particularly to we've already had if we've already had access to it and we're just looking to like a marginal increase to the size of that increase in order to be able to better pump their own sewage across the river usually usually people say it's fine yeah I guess the reason I asked is because the first part of it says that the select board and other applicable boards can take all related actions or appropriate to accomplish the purposes of the article that's fair but then the comments give a dollar value of 14,300 I feel like if that 14,300 is I mean it probably is fair market value it should be up in the top part which is actually relatively binding versus the bottom part which is just Commons but that might just be that might just be a question to find out like I mean if these are just you know 20 square feet of each parcel I'd be shocked if it's a big deal but like from what I'm when I hear easement from what I've done it's you know 10 foot wide by 200 feet long like that's a that's a big thing to keep up so that's and that's usual easements you're right that's usually what we do so you're right but I I I very much appreciate that question um so I'm I'm I I have that note and I'm going to find out I think you're right I mean inevitably we don't want to go to town meeting Town Council did look at all these articles um and I forwarded all the notes to Justin there wasn't many but uh I do recall appropriation being one of those questions so we'll we'll find out all right any additional questions or comments on control F yeah uh just basic definitional thing um so like an easement that's not uh like reducing the lot size of like the owner that's not like taking possession of the lot that's like saying the town has a right to like walk down this section of your property to access Municipal property that's it yep you're right okay yep so they can't kick us off their property to to clarify it can be more it's not just access so that easement and it'll be legal jargon that defines exactly what it is but like the easement means that they can build a structure on that land so typically an easement would be if you happen to just because it you know required in some subdivision of Ste line or a storm J line went through the back of your property then that means that the town or whoever was in charge of that at any point in time come in rip up that entire space fix what needs to be fixed and but then they are also required to put it back to how they found it but that kind of access can be a big deal to some homeowners so it's it's not simply walking along the land which is why I was giving some words of warning there like maybe some of that seven might be particular to their their rights of easement yeah they couldn't put up an iron gate so that along the easement that the town couldn't access it anymore for instance could not do that no not one easement in place I think like right to water access almost when you have you know a piece of land that you own that has you know access to Lakeside you might know more about that maybe not that's a common okay maybe my world only all right uh I will unless there's further discussion flip it over to G so this is probably going to be uh provoke a lot of the same questions from Linda about the accounting for all this um so the sewer retained earnings again Justin is proposing using in this case more 168,000 17 169,000 towards um modeling for the wastewater treatment plant the s plant which is across across the river so I off the top of my head I don't remember how old that plant is um but he I'm sure he knows and he's looking to um make sure that it's you know we know the conditions of it and plann for you know into the future I can't yeah I'm sorry I don't even I'm not even familiar with I I caught him last week about all these things and our meeting was obviously brief so I um I'm not I didn't I didn't catch how he came up with 168 944 that must have been the quote that we got from our uh water and sewer engineering firm to do that to do that study to do this model re you definitely already anticipated this question um but I guess I don't know just to make it explicit so we're not sure then how much is in the sewer retained earnings Enterprise Fund in total right now not the to head right no no I don't at at annual town meeting it was 728 th000 and we took 200,000 out um for unanticipated expenses so it must looks like it's roughly a half a million there we should check with Justin but he must feel he has and it more goes into it every year so yep so yeah I'm I'm confident because he I had asked him if he'd already checked with our town account he said yes so I'm I'm confident that we're not depleting it but I don't I don't mean to tell you how much is yeah and in our comments we usually talk about what the balance is so you know we should get that for our comments too so people have a sense are we spending the last you know nickel which it looks like we're not okay um so I had do know how much is [Music] remaining um if this this fund is transferred did I miss any of the questions I had to step out for a moment to use the restroom nope I'm not hearing any no I don't think so okay um all right so that would be all of the sewer and water articles so I have all the questions written down and I'll forward them to you Greg and I guess I'll CC Justin for our meeting on the nth um do I have any volunteers for this um to write the comments so I don't know if we want to bundle the water and sewer earnings together and maybe make the easen a separate one or we can do them all separately they would have to be separate recommendations um but I would say that the recommendations for e and G might be somewhat similar um I can do those Jillian all right so you would like to do e and G sure okay do I have a volunteer for the easements um I can do that if nobody else is dying to yeah I'll do that one all right thanks thanks to you all to you um great great all right um awesome so I'll send those questions out and I'll get back to the the committee once uh we get some answers we'll have some more answers at our next meeting on the 9th um I would personally recommend we wait until we get some of these questions answered but if someone feels strongly and wants to make a motion that's also acceptable if not I would say we use the rest of our time to talk about the school article uh Jill one one last comment on the water retained earnings and the uh the truck attachment um I would you mind asking Justin um to clarify how this Equipment Works towards like the the long-term like Capital goals of increasing like water in town um how this Equipment Works towards the capital goals uh because that's that's part of what the water retained earnings can be used for right that's part part of the planning process yeah this is that's true I mean all of this is means towards an end this is probably just more like current operations rather than future operations but I think I mean I wouldn't want to invest in something that we can't use in the future so um I don't know if this is going to I don't think this is what you're asking Nathan I don't think you're asking could this increase our water supply no this is a truck but it it is it is going to be my understanding is it's upgrades it modernizes us in a way that's going to be you know industrious in the future so your improving and increasing like the water supply seems like like one of like the most important issues um for the town and since this is like the account that's like related to that I'm just curious if the uh if the truck could be used for like construction of those capital projects or anything like that that's a I guess that's a good question I never didn't yeah maybe they could I don't I didn't think about it like that I mean we we have enough aging infrastructure uh that we you know that's the other thing water is tough and those watermain breaks happen when you least want them to so um that's why we set aside so much money anyways because we got old pipes so to sort of paraphrase your question are you asking for him to clarify how this Equipment Works towards the capital water goals of the town did I is that the spirit of your question yes okay thank you for the clarify fire all right um yeah so I would propose that we move on to uh draft control C which is the proposed uh alumni School bleacher project so I think in terms of this bleacher project Greg the questions we got a nice presentation from the school committee last week um the questions I would have for you sort of revolve around that question of the rent the rental bleachers and their appropriateness of the code because we've been getting a lot of different messages from different yeah experts in the field so like the plumber expert the electrician expert the the new bleacher Builder expert um yeah which which I noticed you didn't list Town Administrator as a expert in building code but um because I am not but I but I am also probably the one that's feeding you all these different uh um sound bites if you will well they're they're they're they're all written but either way um do you are you asking like my opinion is that what you want to know I my main concern as one member is if you ask an expert opinion of someone you're getting a quote to build something something from they're going to say you need to build it so um I'm doing a little bit of making sure you know if you're a hammer everything is a nail no no that's fair sometimes they're screws and I want to make sure we're not going to get screwed so um my understanding is that the track might be reaching its end of life in the next five years or so so I'm sort of wondering if the bleachers and the track the field should all be bundled as one thing later in like five years instead of doing just the bleachers right now oh sorry you know what I'm not familiar with the track actually um I would probably defer to whatever the school committee said or even even maybe uh that might have been a question that the capital planning committee already addressed I'm sorry I understand your point like you're trying to be efficient and sort of timely with your yeah I'm trying to be efficient and timely and I'm getting mixed messages saying that we definitely can't do longterm rentals because of XYZ code things um but if we had another end date in mind like that supposed five years or something maybe that would be permissible because you have an end date in mind you know what I mean like uh no that's fair so I I definitely understand your standpoint in that and I'm I'm a big fan of being um patient but I in this case um one the school committee already submitted it and then two like that I don't think so like in in the interactions I've had with um the experts and I'm not referring to as you pointed out like the our the the paid contractors for this bleachers project right so that's the owner's project manager that's call your International and then our um designer firm like I'm not I'm not referring to them I'm referring to the building inspector and the plumby inspector based and and they're they work for us right they're they their job is just to enforce the code so according to my reading of their interpretation of the code I mean there's a reason why Rick asman the building inspector said he was no longer going to certify the bleachers so when I first got here you know six years ago and there was an incident at the bleachers that you know and we identified that hey there's you know even yes those bleachers are so old they've been grandfathered past the current building code still doesn't mean it's safe having these giant gaps in people you know in the back of the bleachers because a a kid literally fell out the back now the kid was fine but still like the it was like oh well we need to do something and then I started this conversation of well if we do something in that case we want to put like another piece of wood in the backing to sort of like make sure kids didn't fall through the back then we found out there's this thing about like threshold and compliance so if you if you increase if you make improvements to a structure that's been grandfathered past building code but if you make so much improvements to it that it that it surpasses what I can't I can't remember whatever the ratio is the threshold is you know to the total cost of the project then um then you are then required to you know either replace or bring up the entire structure up to current code you you can't like the state is smarter than knowing all these little towns are going to do these like little tiny incremental repairs but then not just build the way it's supposed to be built so they they say like you can only make you know improvements up to a certain threshold and then after that you have to do you have to do it the right way like in its entirety like they don't want to see duct tape duct tape duct tape they want to see it done right so um knowing that um The Building Commissioner said all right so you you need to make you need to make plans you need to make do you need to do something about these bleachers inevitably there's always a thousand other demands we have in our Capital needs so bleachers were functional and so it does we it didn't triage to the top of the must replace right now list until the Building Commissioner said I can't certify these anymore like now it's been years and and you know like his good conscious for the interpretation of the building code said he can't certify those leiters anymore so we shut him down because I don't want anyone sitting on bleachers that aren't certified by The Building Commissioner so um that was what two years ago and then um since since then we've been renting bleachers and well then we tore down the visitor side so we could put the rentals in that in that location and then um so if I'm using that as like a a a a metaphor if you will like an anecdote into what what your question is just like can we wait can we be patient to then wait until the timing is right and just do and do Alumni field if you will so you you mentioned track so maybe it would be the track the bleachers bathrooms I don't know but the the question would be could we wait I suspect the the experts would say you can't wait your your bleachers are shut down like you've you can't you can't just put to be determined as to when you're going to get work done because that just won't fly like you you won't be compliant and then um my my interpretation of what the of what those experts have said when it came to ADA compliance um which is you know accessibility compliance those those are not compliant like the the original bleachers were not the they had no bathroom facilities that were within the the correct proximity like the vicinity to the bleachers so they were not compliant but we were providing Porta poodies but that's I think it was only a matter of time until we needed to replace all these even in the best case scenario like we were not compliant with building code adaas ADA compliance Etc so um additionally when it came to the track question that got brought up I think it was two years ago um there was a joint meeting of the school committee and the select board and they were thinking about the scope of the project when it came to the bleachers and the question was what are we doing here are we doing a big bleacher thing are we making it like a Gillette Stadium like what what are we doing when we're think about Alum I field and the um the understanding between those two bodies the school committee and select select board was that they were going to limit project creep was the the sort of like the the the terminology they used so they said we're only doing the bleachers and whatever required facilities otherwise right so in this case it's the bathrooms but they decided they were not going to invest in a track because that was considered project creep right because the because the idea was is it going to be just the track or you going to want to do a turf field are you going to want to replace the basketball court are you going to want to replace the tennis courts like there was a there was a concern at the time and again like even the composition of those bodies have changed somewhat but at the time it was nope this is the understanding we're doing the bleachers and the bathrooms because we're required to so that's that it kind of I don't know that's my sort of like reaction to your question Jill about about sort of like project scale and patience and and sort of like timing that's my interpretation um regardless the school committee feels so compelled that now is the time so they um and I mean there's also an argument to be said for if it is years down the road before you replace the bleachers we don't know what the cost is going to be even this cost has escalated in the last year and it could go up more so that's unfortunate according to like it's out of our control you know Market factors and otherwise we don't know how much a project is going to cost you only have an estimate according to your subject matter experts you know as as like a as like a point in time I just like a pretty basic procedural question I guess but like on this article um it it says that we were supposed to have the school committee's comments by um August I think 22nd um and certainly they're not included on this article so like do we do we have the school committee's comments or I do not I asked again today for him um I do not so I I even um sent this article came from the school committee um so I sent it to my treasur collector's office who does the bonding for the town like they they're kind of the bank of the town if you will so the treasur collector's office contacted our bond Council so we have Town Council and they they help us with like all our legal questions and then when it comes to makeing sure we Bond legally we have a different firm for that okay call we call them Bond Council so it's not the bank it's like the people who make sure we're bonding right anyways so we asked Bond Council who us usually we get the question like we get motions from to make sure like the legal like the legal e is correct and they had some minor edits like that last sentence is like an outdated line so I sent that but it it was really just that and so I sent that over to the school committee and I said like do you know here's Bond council's reaction do you want to like alter and I haven't heard back from that either they re they confirmed receipt but like they didn't they have not I thought they had a school committee meeting last week too um not sure but I actually no I think they did right the one on the 22nd they did because then it rolled into the budget subcommittee so like there was members that were like we waited for them to start the budget subcommittee because they had a school committee so I don't know the results like they I don't know if they're I but I reminded the superintendent today that I need the comments I need any changes to their article again it was just it's just an they're not changing the the they're not changing the meat of the article they're just changing the legal like some of the legal part to it um so it has it has been written basically I don't know I've not seen them I really have not I do not know the school comments I do not know I have not written them if but I mean I guess my question was um like it's been written like by them but they just have to make edits is what you're you're saying that's that's my that's my expectation that's my expectation they're probably just like you where like they they had to kind of amongst the five of them they had to deliberate and then designate one of them to write it or tell the superintendent to write it I don't know like I write the comments for the select board and then they they give me some feedback sometimes but like I don't know how they do it over there yeah I have a question Greg um so we've been given like kind of estimates on what it would be to rent compliant leachers you know over the long term but the bathroom was really what threw it is no we can't have just bleachers we have to have a working bathroom as well but it's not really a full bathroom it's we need like a was wash station and a drinking fountain I think were the main components is that like a do we know the cost difference between like doing the sewage and and you know a full-blown bathroom versus just having a was wash station and Fountain and renting you know over long term because it's not a full bathroom that's I think that didn't come back on the emails at least I I think I understand your question so um let me sort of break it down so if you're G to do new bleachers then which are going to be current code compliant then Code Compliance requires bathrooms not porta potties bathroom right but if we do rentals no so if you're renting bleachers you may but I'm not confident in that you if you're renting bleachers you may be able to rent portapotty because that's what we're doing right now yeah yeah but if you're building bleachers you have to you can't just do Porta bodies you because building code compliant bleachers you have to do Code Compliance plumbing and then so so now we go over to I think the other part of your question like like um what is Code Compliance when it comes with the bathrooms I'm not the expert in that my understanding is our experts minimize the scale of their because we even had multiple discussions about like how many toilets do you have to do like what size of the building is you know like we we literally at a selectboard meeting we got into like the detail of like how how many toilets and so I my understanding is we dis the the design of the bathroom facilities aligns directly with the amount of seats like even this 3.4 million is the is like the lower estimate of like I I don't remember the numbers let's just say it's let's just say one one project designed could have been 900 seats and then schol committee was like well maybe we don't need 900 let's do 750 so that number was 3 point something something higher than 3.4 now it's 3.4 because that was 750 seats worth but again I think youall know this the majority of that 3.4 is not so much to the steel structure that is bleachers like not it's not cheap but I'm just saying that's not the bulk of the cost it's it's this you're building a new building and you're putting like you said sewer line water line electricity like you're building a building and so and plus the access and like the paths and pedestrian access and everything so um that's my understanding is but if we decide not to build and we say the town says no we don't want to pay that we just want rentals can we get away with and and not that I'm for this but like if we have a portapotty that has just a water line and has just the working hand station because that's what it sounded like from the email and I've I've been in those Port potties you know just where you wash your hands and it running water and you have like a water fountain outside so say we do the rentals and you have a portapotty just has water access not sewage access but water access that's probably no actually I don't want say second again Greg Johnson Town minist not not Ada expert not an engineer I have a I have a loal arts degree okay so this is this is I might be able to speak to this better then I I've done a lot of code review in my past I didn't really want to jump on it too hard in the previous I was brand new but the idea that you couldn't rent a a uh a porta potty that would be to code for a long period of time sounded absolutely Bonkers to me so yes Katie I can speak pretty emphatically that if we wanted to put a porta potty down and we installed the handwashing and drinking water stations there would be a way to make that to code what that would cost and the process to get there I I can't speak to I haven't seen any the engineer drawing plans you know I I have no idea what's to code or compliant and what's not but as for allowable 100% it is possible okay we haven't seen any of those numbers for like we've done projections on the rentals versus building but not and then now oh we can't rent because we have to build a bathroom but really if if let's say just getting a water line in there and having the portapotty and renting bleachers was still over the next 10 20 years cheaper than the 3.4 million and it probably wouldn't be but you know that comparison we haven't seen I feel if that makes any sense it does and that's actually my big issue here too is that I actually I like this project I think it's a good project I mean I I can walk there in about 60 seconds and see the space and I'd like to see get improved but as a fiscally responsible person or at least trying to be um like I would want to know what the other side of the equation is before I would vote for something like this personally um 34 million I know that when it comes down and we crunch the numbers Nathan's spreadsheet says it's it will hit us by you know x% on our debt service blah blah blah but where that falls compared to a rental I'd like to see the rental numbers I don't I don't think the school committee really put that effort in on the other side and probably because of all the history that uh Greg was talking about there this has been going on for a long time and that there's a lot of essentially handshake agreements between a lot of different individuals that it should be done but that should does not necessarily take into account the fiscal responsibility of the town of either combining projects or of checking if you know can we get a nice rental otties for the long term and you know good bleachers that have a backing to them so kids don't fall through uh and with that cost be less than The Debt Service cost and if so then you know running that until we do an entire Alumni field renovation for $10 million or whatever that would cost at the time and yes it would probably go up might make more sense fiscal but I'm that that's just my own opinion on that one so there's there's bigger budgetary calculations as well so they're asking for a Deb exclusion which is above 2 and a half% pro so above the that's I mean that's what this article says too but it's above the two and a half plus New Growth so they're looking not to burden our our regular operating budget when it comes to paying off the the debt through the bonds of for this project but what you're referring to is renting so if you want to rent the bleachers and therefore you need to rent the porta-potties you can't build the new bleachers and rent ptii you okay so if you're going to rent all of it for the foreseeable you don't know five years who knows but um that's all operating costs and so now you're talking like I think the original estimate don't call me on this but it was like 57 $58,000 a year for all to altogether for the rentals both the bleachers and the bathrooms yeah again like I don't even I can't even like say whether those are all a fully ADA Compliant like I'm not I think you we were told that they weren't that those costs were not accurate and that they should be higher to hit the appropriate rental requirements to hit Ada and whatever other maybe B poies Etc so those numbers would be so right so so either way we're whatever a cost is it's at least 57 it's probably higher as you said then now that's operating costs so that is less regular operating costs you know funding that I have towards whatever other Community needs we have and the school committee has been saying very much more and more recently that they are advocating for an increase over their sort of regular increase every year for the budget they have they have used the term override so they would probably do the calculus of you know if they ask for an operation expense which is the rentals that hurts how much they may need for their current School operations if they were to ask for an override like it's it's kind of a balance I don't know if I'm saying that clearly at all but I'm trying to like kind of I'm trying to anticipate the future politics here so if I I think I think if they're again whatever they told you last week or the week before like go buy whatever they said I'm just thinking long term they probably think it's better to do this investment for this project and not hurt their other other operations I mean tell me sorry no go ahead I was just gonna say they also talked about potential Revenue that the new bleachers could bring in because we could right I mean I don't think that was a big source of yeah it's not it wouldn't offset this but I mean like it would be something you're right it would be something um why tell me if I'm like really far off the Mark here but like why wouldn't it be better to have it have an operational override as opposed to like taking on new debt at this point I mean when I like and the number that I keep thinking about is like our debt service like percentage of our budget and it's you know between 10 11% right now which puts us in like the top five per of towns in Massachusetts um I don't want to add any more to that debt burden like unless there's a really good reason and I mean there's good reasons why we got here in the first place um but having operation override actually pushes that down a little bit and that's ongoing money that we can count on for the future going forward that's fair I I you make a strong point like I um I guess the argument I'm just playing devil's advocate for yall so like the the other side of it is um there's no hard rule so yes it would put us in the I I I trust you that probably would put us High um when it came and maybe in the top 5% of the Commonwealth when it came to like debt you're probably right but I like there's there you don't get penalized for that it just like yes like uh the like yes it would become reflective in like our credit rating they would probably say like Wella your your your debts a little high and then we say yeah but we're paying for it and like it you know like I don't think it would impact our credit rating that much like we're we've been the same credit rating for years and every time I try to improve it I can't figure out how to crack that nut to get it higher So like um and then the other argument is just need like we're it's it's 10,500 people in uh you know very small square mileage of of space and we're not regionalized and we just have needs and we're and and we're trying to modernize modernize our facilities so it like the if if this is what the people want I'm not saying that you're it's kind of subjective is what I guess what I'm trying to say it's like it's it's sub it's like a there's no there's no like hard rule that were it's just like this is what people want but not everybody I mean like as as was noted the select board had a 3-2 vote in favor but they needed a fourth vote to pass it to be on to the presidential ballot so if this passes at town meeting on October 7th then we have to schedule an election and and I've asked the town clerk when that would be and we're figuring that out just um kind of going off that um exact point actually um I guess like could there be an instance where if the town like votes to pass this warrant article in October um but then they like don't vote to extend uh sorry they don't vote to exempt from the limitation on total taxes so I guess would that mean that it has to that this has to be paid for through borrowing no it so it requires both legislative actions to be able to do any override and there's three types of override a Deb exclusion is a type of override okay and the two the two legislative actions are as you as you said town meeting and an election so you need you have to pass both and and the order doesn't matter too much some towns do one and then the other I have learned generally it's helpful to do the town meeting and then the election because usually people understand what they're voting for but the the but you don't you have to you have to pass both okay gotcha okay um so yeah so so as you to Greg I did not yet get the sponsor comments for this article [Music] um so I think I as one person like to see the sponsor comments before voting on an article and I do also want to make sure that the Le leag lease the legal language um or otherwise the the body of the of the warrant it's uh the article itself is finalized because I also haven't gotten Clarity on that either I don't it sounded like you hadn't either grade that's right okay so so I'm not entirely sure that the wording in this this paragraph is is 100% finalized yet um um so I'm not I'm not sure I think we got a lot of information about this but I I would like to see those two things before I personally am comfortable voting on this um but other members might have different so we'll still have the meeting on the 9th um to do this and we can draft we can draft recommendations although I think this one might be a little trickier um because I think a couple different boards in the in the town have been split on it um but I will I will reach out to make sure that the article itself is finalized and that I'll ask them to provide the sponsor comments um I don't know the other thing that I heard from our discussion is that we would really like to have a quote or some kind of a comparison between renting ADA Compliant bathroom and bleachers I'm not I'm not sure that's something that can be done I think that's out of scope of the current what do they call them the OPM the building manager for the new project um I don't think they would quote that for us I think we would have to figure that out ourselves right I mean they probably wouldn't want to because we're not paying them to to tell us how much it cost to rent believe but they they uh they they may but I I wasn't asking them when I was getting that information I was asking Mike Arya he's the athletic director so Mike works for the superintendent and his job is to you know you know run a successful Athletics program which the bleachers support so he he looked he's the one who provided that information about what it would cost um you know the expected cost for next year's rentals so if you want you can ask you can ask me anything and I'll just forward it to whoever but if if you have that particular question about sort of like projected rental costs uh if you ask me but you can always ask Brian hos and he could forward it to Mike Arya or whoever and we can we get that answer for you okay are there any other questions or comments that I missed from the committee tonight oh the other question if we do hold that 90day uh post STM U meeting I think you gave me a couple quotes about it it sounded it would be something like5 to $10,000 roughly yeah for that special um it's not a that's what it's called right a special election or special ball yeah yeah okay special election yep great because we did not budget for it okay y do you have any other questions for Gregs on this topic um so just just to clarify like one point that I thought I heard from you earlier Greg um we're currently renting and the rentals we have we we didn't have to like pull a building permit it's not forcing the town to bring things up to um like the current Ada code the old the old bleachers that are blocked off cannot be used they fail they're not in compliance um but it sounds like we're not currently doing anything illegal or whatever the appropriate term is by renting um bleachers and bathrooms is that so Nathan you asked the100 million question I I I mean it sounds like Julian was was forwarding to y'all all the same information I was getting that's still not 100% clear to me even today my but that tells me to be skeptical that we are in compliance like unless I'm told that we are in compliance then I would I would be prepared for the worst case scenario that we yeah I would I would agree I mean honestly reading Phil Palumbo's email is just that the setup that we currently have is not code compliant is incredibly direct and uh kers as a consultant wouldn't state that unless they're completely sure and they talked with the people mayor public inspector who would do that you know this is okay so I would assume that something has to change within the next year would probably be a good good assumption yeah I that is question yeah that's my I concur as well but if but maybe as y'all were talking and KD was like describing like maybe it's a different type of porta potty I'm just saying but like maybe it's a different type of facility like you can get really like when we used to host town meeting outside we used to rent these really nice ones that were and you all have seen them like you go to like really nice concerts or like wherever and and there's like like almost like trailer size ones where you walk in and there like a bathroom really but I mean that's a that's even more expensive right so I and I don't know if the I don't know if that's what the school committee would yeah because they're the school committee has their own interests right so if they're they have their own constituents and so I don't know if they would be interested in checking a box I think they my indic my sort of interpretation of them submitting that article is that they're looking to do things they want the project the way they want it right and I'm not basically I'm not sure if it's worth asking for getting a quote for rental ADA compliance situation when I personally don't have Clarity that that thing is possible you know like I know that there's not necessarily interest from the school but is getting a quote for this rental we can always ask um but the impression I'm getting is that it's not possible to be compliant with code and rent so I think the question the committee has is that true is that is that what I'm hearing tonight like you want me to reach out one more time and ask to get a updated quote for this potentially ADA compliance situation for rentals feel like I've been the driver of this one and while I would love to have that information I we're not going to get it in time and they're you're right they're not interested in that they definitely have a a pathway that they have chosen so I mean if someone else would like that then sure I guess they could speak up and you could do it but I I was more like leaning towards voicing my opinions and asking for an actual answer that I don't actually expect anything I think that we have every right to ask and that is part of our responsibility is to explore all the Avenues um I guess I'm just also trying to be realistic that I don't I'm not sure that we have a good source like you're saying that we could understand this in the two weeks or whatever that our comments are doing but I I'll ask I want to make sure I'm asking the correct correct isn't the right word I'm a I'm conveying the spirit of the ask appropriately I mean y all represent Town meetings so it might get asked at town meeting anyway so can ask a question up front yeah I mean I like questions up front so what it's worth yeah I guess I want to know what a no vote would mean like we would have to do something like what would that look like what would the cost of that be yeah I mean I think I don't know I think the the questions that I I certainly just as as one person would want to have answered um before voting on this is um and this is maybe already been touched on but just like is spending you know this very large sum of money um and doing what the school committee suggests is this the only way that we can be in compliance um with the code um and the Ada and whatever else we need to be in compliance with and then I guess the only the second question that I would want to know is um and Nathaniel mentioned this actually as well but just like how much does it cost to do the renting and everything else just sort of the the numbers and I think that's very much a distinct question from just like we because obviously we have to be in compliance like we can't like not be in compliance right so I think maybe that first question is maybe the sort of the the leading question but also just like being able to know both of those I think I would certainly want to know that before I I make my you know educate and whatnot okay so I will ask if this article I.E debt exclusion the only way we can be in compliance with code is it possible to rent code compliant items bleachers potties we feel that um a comparison to a rental compliance situation would be a good thing to see um we would Al uh we would this would also help us understand what the cost of a no vote would look like um for example the cost of renting for shorter term Solutions I can English that a little better but if I missed anything let me know I would add that is as Greg keeps pointing out that if we rent there is site work that needs to be done so I would say that rental plus maybe minor site work just because to be clear that we we understand that you cannot rent without any other work Associated you have to do something we just want to know what that as Nathan said what the no cost could be even just ballpark is it 50 100 400 okay okay do we have any other comments discussions or questions on draft control article C okay um great so I think that's very helpful I did have uh an additional question for you Greg so you sent me an email earlier today about a potential COA article oh yeah about changing how the Council of Aging uh situation yeah work um I did want to bring that up yeah want to get that the the 411 okay so um months ago I got asked by um Council on Aging chair Maryann Shields if um just what the process is if they wanted to look at what the bylaws how they describe the Council on Aging the composition and the authority so I said great question go talk to the BW Review Committee so she did and talked to Bill Coleman with the BW Review Committee and they they developed like what this concept of what they wanted for um it's not just membership which I right now is five and I believe uh Maryann was interested in increasing it to seven but that but there was one that was one part of it and then the other part was whatever the authority is defined for the Council on Aging so um then so they they worked she collaborated with f Review Committee they sent that draft to Town Council and then they got it back but then in the meanwhile over the summer maranne went out of the country and she just came back and when she came back she called me and apologized profusely for not getting me the draft article in time for my deadline and I said well um like you might have missed the boat um so I can't I can't guarantee anything she also noted that the Council on Aging themselves had not yet endorsed the final version of whatever this draft article is so that that meeting is this Thursday the Council on Aging meets on Thursday August 29th so I told maryan as nicely as I could I can't guarantee anything one I can't guarantee that I'll recommend to the select board to put it on the warrant now they could anyways they can submit anything to the they don't have to go through my through me to talk to the select board but I I get paid to advise the select board and I would say probably whether I think something is a good idea or not I'm not saying what what Marian is trying to do is not valuable or virtuous I think it is she's probably has a correctly identified some shortcomings or some vulnerabilities of the Council on Aging she's probably trying to address I think that's probably true um but does it need to be on the fall town meeting I don't know so when I when I brought that up to uh the selectboard so at the selectboard no actually actually at the selectboard I didn't even have that much confidence that I was going to be able to say see even a draft so that was at last week selectboard me um so yeah so I don't I don't know what you're going to see I TR I I I didn't try to sugarcoat it with Maryann I just said you can get this Council on Asing to vote something in um but I don't know if the select board's going to want to add anything at this point because I had already briefed the select board on all those articles you just you just discussed so the selectboard hadn't seen the final but they they they know it all it's coming and they they've seen the same draft you just saw we just went over today that's what the selectboard has seen as well and and to your point they have nothing on the Council on Aging so I don't I don't have a lot of confidence that the SLP board is going to sort of recognize an urgency maybe they will I I I mean I'll give the I'll I'll leave that window open to marann and the rest of the Council on Aging maybe there's an urgency to making changes to the bylaw um but I don't know okay and is there before I jump to a different topic does anyone have questions on that topic um just a question Greg is the isn't the Council on Aging a town whatever the charter says an entity that could submit it submit a warrant article the select board maybe I'd have to check the legality of it I think you're I think you're right like I think that oh what you're saying is even if they submitted a select board and select board says no um I'd have to check I'd have to check what the I don't remember what the three or whatever there is criteria I think one of them is if it's if it's an expense it has to identify the funding source and the and the and the approximate like expense amount it has to be legally no I'm trying to remember what the what the criteria is but I think you're right Peter if it meets those criteria it could still be included in the warrant but I don't remember the criteria but then there is a deadline that it has to be a certain amount of time yes before the town meeting right either way I was trying to tell Maryann that like there's sort of like political capital I don't think she wanted to spend to try to rush a a bylaw Amendment um okay I was trying to be nice about but I don't I hope hope she I don't know I don't know what's going on with the Council on Aging that she felt so compelled I can't speak to it okay I I I'm the liaison to the COA so I've been attending their meet Unfortunately they don't meet in the summer which is an issue um because there's so much stuff going on and they now have five members and with all the things going on with this the viass study and the senior center they have a a real trouble getting um subcommittees because the minute they have they can only have two on any kind of a working group other than that they have a they get a quorum issue so they wanted to have seven so that they could get because they have so much work to do they needed to parse it out so seven was a much better number and then we've been looking at of course going around to all the other towns most other towns have much bigger coas that that gets them to do a lot more things to support all the activities that they want to do so they're finding the the so they had a lot of good reasons unfortunately and they had worked on the draft so unfortunately I think over the summer the deadlines come faster than you think so it is I think it is a reasonable they have a lot of good reasons to increase the number by two um but too bad they might have missed the ball till the spring because they could use an extra the extra help I mean it'd be one thing if it was just the membership I don't think I don't think my board would be like or town meeting in general as Peter's Point like if it goes town meeting my suspicion is town meeting probably be okay with just adding two members of the Council on Aging but Maran was that was only one side of it Marian was also trying to balance it with some some Authority sort of definition and I I'm not sure all right um okay thanks for that update much appreciated um great and there's no there's no storm water Enterprise fund that I that I saw on these potential ones so maybe that'll be later later meeting yeah maybe but that's even a long that's even a greater reach stretch um yeah that's the impression I got from the select board last one that's a that's a that's a that's a lot to swallow so I don't know no storm water hunt intended but uh and then not to say it's not very important like storm water is like it's it's an issue but um oh it's not storm water by the way I apologize did I was there is a potential for storm water Enterprise which we are conducting um work on right now it's trash and recycling is the Enterprise so oh sorry I'm mixing stuff up no I'm also confused because there's a potential for two new Enterprises in the future but the one we're talking which you're referring to is Justin DeMarco had mentioned the the development working with the trash and recycling task force on a trash and recycling Enterprise so yeah that's that's what the that's what it's about but again I haven't seen it so the um and I don't know if the task force has appr like I don't know if they've sort of endorsed it yet so if the and the select board I mean that's a that's a big ask to start a whole new Enterprise yeah okay um okay I think that was that's all the STM articles I am aware of me too um okay yeah the only the only other thing I want to touch B with you briefly on was the 40b application um that you forwarded I don't know if there's anything we need to be aware of there but uh it's for a lot of units and I'm sure we don't necessarily have water capacity for it but how would how would that work yeah yeah so let me let me give you guys like the breakdown so months ago we got approached by two different developers and one of them was this developer Avalon they're popular like I don't know if they're Statewide or Regional but Avalon they they build houses so they um they proposed they kind of met with Town staff like as of a courtesy they met with Town staff and they I had identified what what town staff refers to as the um the cutting property so it's down Parker Street and then um past the Market Basket like past Manor Crossing I think it's past Bose Hill even but I it's on the left so so it's on the border with Sudbury um and so there's there's property out there and I think they had acquired this land and so this developer Avalon wanted to build hundreds of units I think it's like 200 units so um a portion of those units they do want it to be affordable so then Massachusetts chapter law 40b um is pertains and um that sort of gets into whether the town subid subsidized housing index Shi whether that's above two 10% or below 10% according to the overall housing stock so if you're if you're overall housing stock in the municipality if 10% of that housing stock is above I'm sorry if if 10% if you're above 10% then you're considered safe harbor meaning a developer can't come in and sort of force a Housing Development on you that they're not there it's not to say they they can't it's not like they're going to have to build according to code and compliance and and whatnot but they go around a lot of the local permitting if you're not in Safe Harbor and so right now we are not at 10 % so but there's other ways you can be in Safe Harbor so you're generally safe if you have over 10% of your housing stock as affordable but there's other ways like if you complete a housing production plan then that means you're making an effort towards increasing your your towards your goal of increasing your subsidized housing index or if you add more housing in so the select board just approved a um a 40b you know like project for um 115 Main Street across from Boston bean and so because that how that that is including some residential which is going to include some affordable so if that if that hits if that's approved by the state then then even though that still may not get above us I don't think it's still going to get us above 10% but it shows that the town is making like a a dedicated effort and so this the state I think will give you a year maybe two years if you to extend your Safe Harbor sort of your your your um your criteria so then anyways there's so when when Avalon came and they said you know we want to build this and we said well like y'all just mentioned we don't think we have the water for you so like generally Town staff doesn't say yes or no to growth our job is to just to provide here's the criteria here's the regulations here's the facts and so the facts were were and that Justin DeMarco said he doesn't have the water for 200 new units of housing um and so but I guess um they didn't believe us I don't know but they submitted their application for a 40b housing to the state towards the it's called the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and they fall under the uh executive office for housing livable communities and then they will determine whether that application is complete or not and that's that's where it sits right now so the application is sitting with the Massachusetts Housing Partnership we got a courtesy copy which maybe that's what I sent you Jill but we got a courtesy copy they didn't have to do that because they're they're going around the town because they've because they don't recognize our Safe Harbor now now there are also you know there's also uh an argument in town that we meet this other criteria for Safe Harbor in that the ratio of our I want to say it's like our square footage of housing stock is above a certain percentage according to our density in our Geographic scale but that argument was made like 10 years ago when when we were considering mayor Crossing and town staff looked back into it and the regulations have changed and I don't have confidence as of today that we would meet that criteria but I but the problem is if you if the town were to deny an application based on that criteria we have to then prove it and that costs money so when we were considering that argument against patter Mill Apartments so six years ago when I started there was an application on my desk for pill Apartments which is across the street from Wendy's and and the argument was then that we don't have to entertain this application because of this Geographic sort of ratio that we that we that we don't need that we're in Safe Harbor according to this this thing Town Council said you could deny it based on that but then the state is going to require you to hire a third party to prove it and at that time my recollection was that was going to cost between 10 and $220,000 to pay a consultant to do the geographical survey to find out whether we really are and if it and if that didn't work then we're out that money and the state's going to force it now in that particular project you all know it is being built across from Wendy's but it's being built entirely on the action side so but to go back to this thing about cutting if and when we get notice from the state the Massachusetts Housing Partnership that they have accepted this application from Avalon then we have to reply and we will probably reply with potentially an extension to our like formal response and or a denial a rejection and my understanding is based on if nothing else water so we even if we wanted this 200 units what I'm not saying we are I don't see how we could physically provide that water because based on all the analysis I've seen we don't we can't but my guess is the the lawyers that work for Avalon are doing their job if they can get the state to force us to permit that so if the state says yeah you don't have the water today but you may have it in the future so you have to give them all the permits because you don't because you haven't hit your Shi your subsidized housing index you're not in Safe Harbor then those lawyers have served their clients well they get a they get permits and that that's sits there until we build the water which we're talking about doing like we want to build the water like we want to increase our water capacity so they just it just sits there same thing happened with that pill Place apartments across from Wendy's the the town of Acton approved their permits but they couldn't build because their wastewater treatment plant was not uh capable and six years later they increased their capacity to the wastewater treatment plant and now they're building are this do that mean that they would be quote unquote first in line or whatever point for development to like you know let's say we have water capacity for 300 yeah and the town has someone that you know we would like to give to someone some developer that has a better project 300 if these guys get it approved then they take 200 of that 300 and then there's only 100 left I mean I'm making up numbers here but I don't know that's a great question Nathan nathani a second thing is if there wasn't a water concern right now would the town have said yes I can't say that because I don't I'm I'm not the policy maker so um I guess in your opinion oh in Greg Johnson's opinion I in Greg Johnson's opinion not to put you on the spot but in Greg johnon Greg Johnson's opinion I would say no I don't think that's a good location down a cutting property it's like be it's like behind a neighborhood so you'd have to I don't even know I like my staff who's been there actually drove into Sudbury to get there so I think you would I think the location is the location that the town already approved up on Powder Mill Place the Powder Mill like uh overdo overlay District like we we got the NBTA adjacent zoning compliance because we drew an overlay like we drew the 40b compliance around um 111 powdermill road so that same Wendy's I'm talking about if you go up along the driveway you know between the Wendy's and the and the storage units there's that old Stratus industrial at at the annual town meeting Chris Arseno the chair of the planning board was gave a very good convincing argument for making that to be our designated area to be NBA MBTA compliant so that's where I would want people to go because that's where the town said they were comfortable with people going like that that's where I would want to go but even then I like we don't have the water but still like if that's like we've been trying to focus to rebalance sort of like the economics of the Town we've been trying to focus on patterm Mill not not down Park I'm not like I don't think from a again I'm a policy adviser I think to balance the economy it should be where we've been focusing all these years which is powdermill my question is um just looking at um Steve Silverstein's email which I guess we got um forwarded y if the like the Mass Housing Partnership um issues the project eligibility letter then I guess they still Avalon still has to have it like approved by our our zoning board of appeals um but then it also said in that email I guess that like any adverse like uh decision that the zoning board of appeals made um for that Avalon permit or whatever like there's this like housing appeals committee that can like overturn that apparently so I guess my question is like do we actually have the ability to issue a denial and either way like what would that actually look like no that's great question we're going to cross that bridge in the near future but my I would I would my guess is Greg Johnson's guess is we don't have a star argument because again the the the Commonwealth is trying to build affordable housing like they've been doing it for decades and and particularly really increased it under the baker Administration with the MBTA zoning like law and then and then the he administ doubled down and they created a whole new agency like devoted towards housing so I my guess is if our zba the zoning board of appeals said no to your point it would probably go back to the state and they'd be like no you're not really you haven't come up with a good reason you just don't want them to like that's not going to fly but again like the state deals with like 351 municipalities so if like they the state says like unless you have a really damn good reason why you can't allow this like water then the state's objective is to increase affordability for the commonweal we want people to stay in Massachusetts and not move out of the state so the only way you can do that is if you kind of force people to do like all these towns are like that great to build that in the other town but if everybody says build in the other town then then no one's town is increasing affordability so that the state says like they did with the MBTA zoning um law they're like no we're we were serious here's the stick you're doing it now I meant stick and carrot like they had a stick and carrot the carrot was you get grants towards helping you towards your goals so that's another thing if we um the state would say no you're not denying this 200 units even though it's going in a place you may not want it to but we'll help you out like now you're eligible for all these other grants but even if we don't want it yeah as far as like my concern is like I'm a big I'm the business of the of the town so I like my bottom line going up because of because of like increased property taxes but I but I don't or or even sales tax all these people are going to be shopping but if you ask Brian hos the superintendent of schools like if his I don't I couldn't answer for him what whether he thinks the schools can take on the capacity of whatever 200 units worth of potential new children is like the state does you can work out those formula you can say like okay it's 200 units that means this many bedrooms which means approximately this many like projected children but um we you can do all those scenario planning but I I couldn't answer those I probably should stop asking questions I feel like I've added a lot of time this meeting but um this is's an bug me what's the last project that may has approved of like a large unit increase do you have an idea of what that number was is it you know 50 100 is 200 the last big one was probably down on Main or crossing right so that if you if you look if you look that's a lot I don't know it was like uh 150 200 units that's a lot okay so similar similar size just curious but but in that particular case um I like it that was like a you know those of you who have been working with and for the town for a lot longer than I have know that that was a long like that took a long time those was many many meetings many many long deliberations um and the state helped us out with that because they the state gave us a mass Works Grant to increase our sewer capacity like we in order to like handle the the load onto our sewers and our pipes we had to increase the capacity of our pipes from one end of town all the way down to powdermill so um the state helps us out with that okay great um I still there's so many mute buttons I'm just going to keep talking while I'm muted um okay so I think for me I want to be also sensitive about how late it is um um so I think that was all of the topics that were at the Forefront of my mind for tonight um for Greg are there any additional questions or comments for for Greg tonight all right so I will send out the questions that I gathered to you and I guess I'll CC just in too um and um and I'll get those out after the meeting so um thanks so much for answering all our questions much appreciated no it's good thank you so much you you put me on spot a couple times appreciate it and um and good it was a good team yall have a good balance so I'll let you go with that thank you so much for your time and let me know if you have any questions about anything thanks Greg thank you thanks ni Greg by guys um all right so I think I will also um I would like to also move on to some of our next topics um so Nathan did provide us a draft of comments for the CPC article so thanks for that um I don't know if we want to go over those tonight or we'll go over all the comments next week I can send out this this document to the committee um I would say let me see so they're they're quite nice comments um we did get information about the balances of the different funds from the CPC directly I would say my understanding though of these funds is that this would be what would be left if the article passed so I what you are correct I think this might so um so the way that it's currently written is saying that it would come out of but this would be if it was passed so I think it needs to be tweaked just a tiny bit um so but this is like I could send this out um I I would motion since some of 10 that or recommend that uh I sort of send this out with all my notes and comments in here and sort of who's writing each part um and we can use this to directly write our comments and talk about them next time so the thing is if you have your comments you have to send them directly back just to me because if you send them to the whole committee and then people start sending their comments back to the whole committee then that violates open meeting law does that make sense with words it makes sense but why so I'll compile okay thanks so I'll compile everything and I'll send them out to everyone um ahead of our meeting on September 9th um so I'll send these out to everyone after the meeting so I'll just stop sharing um so I think the only other thing in our agenda tonight is approving minutes um of the 19th um let pull that up so these are our minutes from our last meeting um so this is when the public the schools came so these are all of the comments um about the school article my name is spelled wrong I'm just just saying very important feature here keep going oh there you go I think I probably hit a button while I um okay so so this is very nice um summary of of this article um since nobody volunteered to write these comments if that's helpful I can write those comments um unless someone else feels strongly and wants to write comments or recommendation for the bleacher for the bleachers yeah um I mean I was going to volunteer but I didn't I don't feel super strongly um I I I was thinking of just writing you know some like the pros and cons because I I don't I don't get the sense that anybody on the committee is like like 1,00% super enthusiastic yes um but and I don't know it seems like we all have like some reservations to greater or lesser degree is that kind of where people are at I'm not I'm not saying like no I'm not saying that we'd be voting no just um it doesn't make sense to kind of present some of the issues even if we are like voting to uh pass it I think that could be helpful um so if you if you'd like to write that up I think that would be super helpful um what we've done in the past for articles that are challenging is we've sort of written them live together but but it helps when we have something like a straw man recommendations to sort of pull apart and add to live does that make sense yeah that's kind of what I was thinking we'd do okay so I would I would greatly appreciate if you're passionate about that uh go ahead Peter um but I also agree with Nathan that I don't know anyway my I'm personally fairly conflicted about this article and yeah you know just because we vote to recommend one way or another doesn't mean we shouldn't present a kind of full airing of what we see as issues so you know just because you know I think you could write it the way you're talking about it um and it still would be very useful which should probably include most of that even if we vote you know yes and we want to include negative or if we vote know we want to include reasons we should have voted yes uh procedural question also want to add something to that as well when it says fincom recommendation is that just simply a yes or no on the actual ballot yes on the actual ballot it will say yeah it'll say fincom how they've done it historically is recommends and then if they say no it says does not recommend this essentially as a majority that's as you were saying Peter earlier that as a group our our vote will go in that direction but I would also I definitely would third that that concept that I am also very conflicted and I think that in this instance talking about both as if we actually had unless someone is very strongly one way or another had a tie on that making it shown in that way would be probably beneficial to the voters to understand both sides of the issue and equal capacity because I see both sides at this point pretty heavily yep and I would say that for articles that we've been conflicted about in the past this that's how we've done it we've um that have been close like that that we've written like the fours the Y's and the Nays and sort of have two different paragraphs and sometimes uh we'll even put in parentheses like what the vote was like if there was like four to three or whatever ever it was but at the end of the day it's either recommends or does not recommend so and it's a majority so unless like people abstain and it's like three to three or someone's absent um it's majority heavy malicious compliance right there if someone abstains on purpose to try to get a tie out I don't know if you I don't feel like you were allowed to collude that way but it's an interesting concept someone that you know everyone would actually be like yeah you know what I could go either way I know I I suppose if it were tied the vote would fail because you wouldn't have a majority I guess we would be cannot I don't know I've never seen that in however long I've been on this committee but would depend actually on which way the motion was made so it could fail I mean the motion could be to not recommend and that would fail on a tie or it could be to recommend and that would also fail on a tie so I but we should have me first not last on that one okay um yeah so if you're able to get the comments to me by like at least by like I don't know the Friday before our meeting that would be super great and then I can circulate them and send them and post them on board dos and everything else um I'm not aware that there's like a requirement for me to post things on board dos like 48 hours or something before the meeting if there is no one's ever told me because I usually post everything on board dos on Sunday so if that's not right then somebody let me know um but yeah okay um I got to scroll down so you can read the rest of this sorry I'm looking at the wrong window all right uh I'd make a motion to approve the minutes of August 19th I will second the approval of the minutes for august 19 um I see something needs to be amended no um under the second paragraph under 2A ends in a comma but I okay so uh do need to remake a motion to uh make it as amended and so and I think that was a list so there should be like a and or or um before that last clause and or or sorry I'm lost where are we uh School Comm representes answer many questions including this this this and the value of the project to the community yeah thanks all right well just for fun then I'll um make a motion to approve the minutes as amended and I will second um to approve the minutes as amended of August 19th all right great any further questions comments discussions um updates typos no okay um so I will take a vote to approve um Linda yes Peter yes Mel yes kti yes uh Nathan yes Nathaniel yes uh I am also a yes uh so these are approved as amended and I will forward that to you Linda thank you um okay so I will update our so I think the only things left are future planning so our next meeting is on uh the nth uh so I will get that posted uh sometime this week and I will send you the zoom link for that our special guest will be Justin uh Andor possibly Greg so and we'll be able to finalize the articles I will send out requests for updates from the school um and I think those are all the topics for the future planning um I would propose that we yes sorry um just it wasn't in the list in those minutes are we meeting on 23rd or did I'm sorry did I miss that we talked about that or so we would normally the 9th the 23 but we are meeting the 30th because it's the public hearing right so thank you for reminding me this was on my list and I potato brained so um you are correct our normal meeting would be on the 9th and the 23rd um currently the public heting me hearing is scheduled or planned to be scheduled on the 30th which is not one of our normal meetings but it's one week before the special town meeting so historically that's what we've done we've met one week before so sometimes we would cancel for example the 23rd meeting so then we would still only have two meetings in the month uh and that's something I wanted to bring up as a topic to the rest of the group um to see how how you would feel about the different meeting options in September I think correct me if I'm wrong Peter that's usually what we've done is like we would meet whatever one week is before and then cancel the meeting before yep okay I mean we could potentially switch the public hearing to the 23d but you'll have to act quickly to get great I mean the big issue is they print it on the cover of the warrant and I think by almost by default they do a week ahead and there's no reason it can't be two weeks ahead um if we want it to be on the 23rd um so I would assume that we would just have to tell him by the time we give him our sponsor comments or not SP um the finance committee recommendations on the 10th yes although I think there is some value to being as close to town meeting as possible I agree you know unless coming out of the 9th if we have articles we haven't made a recommendation on then we may want to do the 23rd in addition but right I mean for myself I would be fine just moving the 23rd to the 30th because we also my only concern is if they add these extra articles that we haven't even seen yet right I feel like but that but we could decide that on the KN correct yeah I think we have that ability um I would say the question for me would be is can people meet on the 30th is that would we have a quorum is that acceptable since it's not a normal Monday that we meet on I will not be 30th I can't do the 30d I can't do the 20 I'm going to be out of the country the 23rd and the 30th okay but that I'm the only one everyone else is is acceptable for the 30th if we did move a meeting that day okay but the 30th would work for me yeah that would work for me too okay so we'll at least have a quorum so um we'll just we'll have another Vol a brave volunteer to to take excellent notes that time thank you thank you for letting us know all right um yeah thanks for bringing that up Peter that was on my notes and it's getting late so it fell out of my brain okay so that that's the plan um I'll send this out uh do any other members have any other updates or pressing topics that you would like to address at this meeting tonight um okay I guess I I am not hearing any are you are you motioning perhaps to adjourn are there other topics that we have tonight that I forgot about it no I just had a quick update from the uh CPC meeting I attended last week um voted to table all conversation about the bleachers until after town meeting and they seemed um seem like they were leaning towards not funding any not providing any funds for it um on Lisa me Town Council said that most of the project was not eligible and the parts that might potentially be were not separated out um in a way that they could make any determination okay yeah I think that's always been a challenge since they can't fund I think it was the bathrooms and the the Press Box and the concession stand it could only be the bleachers from my understanding I think the part that they might be able to fund is the bathrooms but it's it's combined with the concessions was the issue and they're not oh there's there's a possibility that certain types of bathroom are eligible and not necessarily the types of bathrooms we would be building with the bleachers yep okay that's good to know okay all right any other topics for tonight sounds like the budget subcommittee meeting went well I feel like Greg gave us our update there so I don't know if there's much else to say on that topic yeah I had quite a few notes but he covered everything I wrote down plus more so I went to the greenow like sorry I went to the Green Meadows committee nothing of note really seems construction starting up or at least the creek instruction aspects and nothing of note to to us I'm not really sure if there's going to ever be anything outstanding is for this committee's attention from that project or from that committee we um if we're doing liaison updates um I could just share mine which is just that the um Economic Development Committee doesn't seem to actually meet during the summmer so it doesn't sorry it's not meeting right now uh yeah they I don't believe they meet in the summer or at the very least they're not meeting in August but I'm pretty sure they have not met since may actually so I'm guessing it's the summer ah okay thank you for that update awesome um yeah so I think that was all the topics I was hoping to covered tonight so I would entertain a motion to adjourn mayhaps at 10:05 p.m uh I motion to adjourn all right there the motion I'll second second oh sorry go ahead Linda nope you got it Linda all right we got a motion we got a second any further discussion right I'm not hearing any Linda yes Peter yes Mel yes Katie yes Nathan yes Nathaniel yes I'm also a yes thank you everyone for your hard work and efforts to be able to make our recommendations before the printing deadline much appreciated and we will see you on the night good night everyone Night by have a good night good one