##VIDEO ID:tAd-EPod3R0## meeting of the finance committee to order at 7:02 pm. um so as a preliminary matter this is jilen past I am the chair of the finance committee um please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me members uh when I call your name please respond in the affirmative uh n yes sorry right when you took a mouth full of food Nathan yes Linda yes Katie yes Nathaniel yes um and Peter sent me a message he will not be able to make tonight so um and we also have some invited staff tonight to help us support some of the Articles um so um Greg can you hear us okay today yes I can thank you uh and we also have Justin from the DPW to support us too yes good evening everyone awesome thank you so much all right I will um go through the rest of the introduction here so um good evening this is a 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 comments um the committee would like to hear public comments um this is not a public hearing um but if there is further action that is required by um the board um uh sorry the chair um we will add it as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda um depending on the comment we um May if abl within the confines of the open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter please note that while the option for remote attendance in our participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public this meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast through individual attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you uh and also hear you so please take care not to screen share your computer um and anything that you broadcast by sharing um or turning on the video may be captured by this recording all the meeting materials will be on board docs um and we recommend that you follow along on the agenda um and the materials as posted on board docss unless I note otherwise um and we will now be turning to the first item on the agenda um okay so let's see the first item on the agenda um is the special pound meeting articles so um so we have tonight here we have um Justin um and we also have Greg to help us support for so Greg has come to talk to us about article I guess number one now I can pull up the the draft warrant um and we also have Justin's support to talk about the various Water and Sewer articles um do you all have a preference which order you'd like to go in you want to go first so you can peace out uh I I I would like to go first M chair but also um I'm playing solo uh parenting right now so the movie I just put on is only going to last so long so I'd like to go all right also we didn't discuss so I'm gonna assume he's fine with me going for okay he's giving me a thumbs up okay all right and I'll also share here so you I got you yeah so I did want to note to the committee um as we posted online and also sent an email around ahead of time article number one that we voted on last time has slightly changed although the theme is pretty much the same so I will yield the floor to you Greg for this part okay is this is this the part you would like yeah yeah yeah that's perfect so um as uh as you just said Jillian so the change is that big number that $2.1 million it's less $2.1 million so um my finance team My Town account of treasur collector informed me and I and I apologize for this confusion it was after I'd already come to the uh finance committee that um we needed to adjust our debt service amount so when the town had appropriated the money for the uh for the bonding to pay for the new elementary school um we didn't know how much it was going to cost at the time the bond the bonding breakdown and so to be on the safe side we we appropriated the amount of money would cost for and not the state's portion our portion of the bonds to pay for for the school which was significantly more than this so we we reduced that amount in this amount so this is $2.1 million less so the math works out yes we are increasing some of the expenses because were had more state revenue um and that breakdown is the same what I already went over with the with the finance committee um for those for those fair use purposes Personnel contracts uh the down payment so to speak for the initial payment if you will for the um um leasing the fuel tank and then and then the rest to the school department and then um but so anyway so this is this just means it's a more accurate budget for this fiscal year and and I and I say what I just said in a much better way in about two sentences in the comments Greg I have a question what happened to the 126,000 because I would have expected the change to match the 2.1 million okay good question so it's not exactly 2.1 million I think if you do that math between 2.1 and um I I mean unless I did my math wrong but I had my I had my finance team make sure that was right but that should be the difference so we're still going up if you will in some of the Departments by $126,000 total but we're reducing the overall appropriation like how much we expect to collect in in taxes revenues or otherwise reducing that amount by 1.97 so that that that instead of instead of reducing it by 2.1 we're reducing it by less than 2.1 because I'm I'm getting Revenue I did have a couple of questions for this one as well just sort of in of like the recommendation um that i' written um so is is the reduction in debt service then is that like a direct result of the of the increase in state aid nope not related not related I know this is confusing and I appreciate this so so um so state aid is up like state aid went up uh General state aid went up so we were able to capture that and then and divy it up to the expenses of the various departments but we're not but at the same time separate from that $126,000 it's it's we're reducing the amount we need to pay off our debt Services because we're not paying off the full the full scope of the debt that's going to be taken on let me think of it um this is probably this is probably an imprecise um like uh illusion if you will like anecdote but if you and so when you when you take out a mortgage for your house you don't pay off the High mortgage you pay it off Year bye right so you don't pay off like the the whole cost of the Full House you pay off Year bye premium and interest so instead of the full costs of of the new on M School we're we're more precisely reflecting by this reduction by $2.1 million that this is actual the annual breakdown okay gotcha um I guess my followup question would be sort of directed to to members of the committee as a whole but especially I guess to those who maybe have sort of more experience than me um writing these comments which I guess is pretty much everyone um but would it would would it be worth like sort of rewriting my recommendation to reflect like the reduced St service or not really because it's like completely separate from the whole sort of loc is kind of the focus of this I don't know if anyone would want to speak to that I I think that it is good to mention in our comments okay um and I have sort of a procedural question for Greg if we've already voted on this and it was the old version I think we would usually revisit it right since it's been updated and then revote on it again yeah absolutely that is my expectation and thank you for clarifying you should revote tonight because I because you're voting on something different also procedurally last time I was the one that put this up for a vote and I very clearly stated that if Greg changes his mind we were only voting for the first one so this is now new so we would have to I would assume procedurally because it's barely ofal cised it y I'm not changing my mind after this this is it the select board has already seen these numbers oh well I I never mind I'm not saying that because Anything Could Happen come town meeting uh on the floor but as of tonight this is it um Greg is that 2.1 million is that like for the green me Meadow Elementary School like the amount that the state is matching um for construction or so no thank you for thank you clarifying and I and I recognize now that I'm not doing a good job of saying this alloud so it is a different um the 2.1 is our portion right so we we your taxes don't have to cover the state's portion of the contribution to pay for the of the school so I I the let's say the school cost and it's something like 7478 million total the total cost of the project the town is on for I think it's 52 or $54 Million worth of that of that amount right so the state covers the rest of it which we don't worry about and they have their own bonding scheme right they bond out huge amounts of capital they like we don't worry about that how they come up with their end of the money is up to them how we come up with our 5254 million that's generally through taxes and in this case a de solution to increase your taxes and so we what but what actually what we need to do here is is more precisely show what your taxes are going to capture each year the appropriation that you need to pay for these debt every year so we we' appropriated too much in May so now we need to reduce how much we're we're actually we we're actually required to take so we're reducing it by $2.1 million to show what the actual amount we're gon to we're going to take in Texas so um I guess all else being equal uh should we expect that like next year our debt service is going to be like a the same amount roughly if we don't take on new debt or is that going to ramp up as construction starts good that's a good question generally debt services about stable so unless you take on a new project it doesn't generally go up in fact in fact like you it it it's not only just stable but if you don't take it on a new project it kind of steadily goes down right because you because you're paying off projects and you're paying off the off the bond so when you you as you pay off the bond even your interest goes down because your interest is a reflection of the of the size of the bond so so you pay it's slightly it's like tiny amount that you pay off generally your debt service is stable either and it only really significantly changes because you've paid off a project or you take on a new project and and and generally you you stay every town is comfortable with a certain amount of debt so you you usually stay about where you're comfortable in and I know the finance committee you guys have talked this in the past where there's been like a certain amount of debt either way so like as you guys often I think you you've thought of it as like a ratio of your general fund and and your expenses overall but this is this will kind of keep us in line with where it should be this reduction in how much we're collecting right yeah just because um that I mean that's exactly what I'm trying to key in on um because at the quad board meeting in June I think um it was the capital planning committee mentioned that like the good practice was to keep it under like 10% or so and that we' gone above that amount and that's kind of number that's been in my head this whole time and that's a significant change in the amount of the budget allocated towards Debt Service um in those terms so is that am I understanding this correctly that that's like that's like the new amount of the budget that's going to be appropriated for Debt Service like going going forward that's right Bing any new capital right so so if so on on this later this evening you're going to look at the Deb ex solution right so if you for the uh bleachers right so if you were to add that that's more debt so we you know we would be paying that down but this doesn't this doesn't assume that passage right so so we would we would adjust it accordingly if need be to to take on that debt but this General these are two different articles right so so we w we wouldn't adjust the we wouldn't adjust the budget you know under any assumptions like we we we just the budget according to relative known like how much we're taking on so this is not reflect the Alumni field potential project yeah just that's like 7% as opposed to 10 getting close to 11% so it's a yeah you're right it's huge huge difference actually massive massive difference like the schools obviously are the biggest projects the town takes on by by by multitudes yeah so Greg we've already borrowed the 54 million no so you borrow so you you don't borrow a 54 million in general you you borrow as much as you need according to a bonding scheme which is and we come up with that strategy um in collaboration with a bunch of um perspectives like the project manager the designer the contractor the bond counsel so like our lawyers that help us do this and then and most importantly the bank so who who who we you know who we actually take the bonds out for right so there're there you wouldn't you wouldn't bond for that entirety you would only Bond according to what you need because you don't pay for the full project until it really starts rolling and then you so you take out portions of bonds a lot of it is also timing like you might just get a better rate if you and so you try to figure out how much to take out at a time that you need according to the rate you want and if it's good rates maybe take on a little bit more but you but you you also want to control how much you you have to take in taxes so this reflects all of that consideration which all of that data is given to our bank and and um and they sort of like they they help out how much that cost is going to be and how to pay it down but we we write checks according to um you know the you know the the the orders that we get from the contractor and the designer and they say like okay see we not done this amount of work so we need to be paid for that and then so we write those checks but then we but we've already but we take out the bonds to cover those cost so if we haven't borrowed the whole amount why would we why wouldn't we expect The Debt Service as we keep adding to our principal to keep going up until we finish the project because this interest rate go up I mean the the interest payments go up as we borrow more if we were to borrow right so this this captures this difference between what what we took in May and then what this less $2.1 million captures what what the costs are going forward so like it's and which is a which is a it's a balance between debt and interest and so that our debt Services pays for both the debt the the premium and the interest and so that might fluctuate a little bit but as you pay off your your premium every year like you pay off the size you're paying off your interest is a proportion of the total amount you're buying for so if paying that say now we've only borrowed 10 million and then as the project can goes like next year maybe 20 million up until 50 million oh no it won't go up so so what we did is we we we know the the the cost of the town to the town for the school is I think it's $54 million I I apologize if that's inaccurate but I think it's about that so if let's say we know it's about 54 million doar and the powers that be all those people who I just said they've they've built many schools before and they understand the market very well so they know what the what the breakdown would be annually that you need to pay off $54 Million worth right so you so you can you can break that down into an annual bit and again I think it's a 30-year Bond so how much would that be over 30 years and then you and then that gives you an amount you need to appropriate for each year and so that's what you appropriate in the in the general fund is how much how much you're going to take in taxes each year and has this reduction when we get our November tax bills will this be in it or the number we saw last week do you think no you're going to start paying for the elementary school in January in January not November Okay no Okay November so November will still be estimated is it I don't know but uh no I think it'll still be wait no I'm pretty sure I'm not I can't speak to the November Bill what that's going to reflect but I'm but I'm fairly certain January is when you're your Elementary School it's it's it's it's when this it's when this is going to hit okay thank you so we're we're going to so let me just kind of further explain just the budget cycle so we we go so we traditionally I think with you know with very few exceptions we traditionally do amend the budget in the fall like in October and we specifically do it in the first half of October just like this town meeting because it that how much is to be collected in taxes is the information that the board of assessors needs to know because the board of assessors says okay so here's the value of all the properties in town and there and we need to collect x amount of money for the general fund so here's how much everybody has to pay and here's the tax rate and then that that gets a recommendation because the board of assessors says they recommend a tax rate and they recommend a ratio between commercial and and and um Residential Properties and personal properties so that all gets analyzed by the board of assessors and then they they have what's called a tax classification hearing with the select board that sets the tax rate and therefore your bill go out so that come January 1st it's reflecting this new this new you know general fund appropriation but we would you know we we just the other day started the project really I mean like we we just moved into the construction phase of the new elementary school so we wouldn't start paying off the bonds until work started and it just started um I think like last weekend or even maybe over the weekend we just started I think we just started clearing trees so you won't you won't you wouldn't you wouldn't start paying for anything until work starts and then you have to pay off the bonds I'm not sure if this would be an appropriate time to do this but just in terms of getting like an accurate sort of revised um comment um for this article um I was thinking that I could simply add just words to the effect of um completely separate from like the local Aid increase there was also a large reduction in the town's Debt Service to more accurately reflect the future debt expenses required for Green Meadow School construction if that would be um sort of appropriate I've kind of been spitballing it as we've been talking so oh sorry what' you say CH I I kind of I've been adding to the comments that you sent for this article um gotcha as we've been talking so I fig that's yeah yeah okay um but I didn't I didn't want to get too fix on the comments until we um have all of our questions answered and vote on it to recommend or not recommend if there aren't any questions I'd move to approve a move to recommend this article as amended second all right so we have an approval and a second um do we have any further questions or discussions all right I'm GNA stop sharing so I can see people um so I don't hear any further questions or discussions so this is to recommend article number one on the general fund budget um so I'll take a roll call vote uh n yes Nathan yes uh ktie yes Linda yes Nathaniel yes uh I am also a yes so that is a recommend um thank you and then I'll put back up the comments here so um so I will delete your name here um so basically I say it's I added a couple sentences here saying it's typical um to amend it to reflect more financial forecasting and then I added a sentence in here about it'll decrease the debt service and then this is um I didn't change the part that you wrote talking about the updates um we want to add like a ath before um or an N or a the before updated funding scheme uh sort of at the on the third line that one I always got to double check my my English don't English good we can also come back to the comments um at the end so um but I just I sort of wanted to bring it up just in case you have any lingering questions for Greg so he can go take care of the kids procedurally do we also motion to approve our comments here or is once we've done the I guess I don't know what the next step is for this we just move on to the next article I I don't think we have to necessarily vote on the comments okay good extra time right there so I think it's I think it's more of sort of bringing it up and then we talk about it as a group and if there's any English or other Corrections or people feel strongly about a sentence then we talk about it as a group I think we should come back to all the comments at the end though yeah yeah okay so but there's no sort of lingering questions for our comments for Greg I'm not hearing any all right so I am uh I'm going to move forward and um we're gonna I would motion that we would move on to uh Justin so um thanks Greg for your support for article number one much appreciated um so I'll pull up the article here for you uh Justin let's see which one is starting at number four uh and thanks for sending us all of the background information as well so if that's um if that's something the committee or you you would like to look over um I can also pull that up too J you referring to the Enterprise fund yes yeah I don't know to start with the Enterprise fund since that's new and the committee hasn't seen that at all not entered any numbers please reenter the meeting password followed by pound so I would just leave that up to you madam chair whatever whatever you want to start with is is fine with me I'm ready to speak for everything so okay um I I as one member might say that talking about the that article might be good good um since we haven't seen it at all um but if we think it's easier um yeah so I I would recommend we start there to try to be able to make comments on all of them because it is it's 7:30 so making good time see how the time goes yeah no problem so I'll just get started with this with this control and article um if you're unaware the um the select board engaged a task force made up of um five members of the community including myself um to review and update and modify our Solid Waste and Recycling uh program model which looked at it very holistically top down finances to program adoption operational uh processes Services whether we're going to enhance our services meet our services or reduce our services really a a large holistic overview of our overall program during our um process we've met over 26 times um we've presented to the select board twice now we are zeroing in on our final recommendation but as you can imagine this is a um this is a program service that is if you're unaware this is the second largest service contract for the town of Maynard um it is one that encompasses and affects every almost every single resident within the town of mayard so we looked at this and Doven very deep which is taking time during that process we have um come to the conclusion collectively that we need to um be able to enhance and uh utilize a financial mechanism referred to as Enterprise funding accounts within a municipal government that allows for services such as water sewer Solid Waste storm water to um adapt modify and react financially um in a timely efficient manner to the commodity markets that we deal with um Solid Waste is a commodity Market it is typically referred to as a utility we are working on bar archaic Financial structures to adapt to an everchanging environment within the solid waste industry I don't know how much the entire committee knows about Solid Waste in Massachusetts but it is a very volatile Market that's uh due to many aspects that the town of maner does not control it's a national global volatility um we are subject to cost triggers such as tipping and tonnage fees that um affect our rates so as a committee we have decided um collectively that the best way for the town of mayard to not only deal with the current situation of our program but to have a Forefront forecasting model to handle some of that flexib Excuse excuse me flexibility and fluctuation within the market um it allows adopting the Enterprise fund will allow the town to proactively get in front of extreme rate changes so that we can address those in advance um the purpose for this Enterprise fund is really to meet those goals any questions concerns Justin do you have any idea what this is going to look like is it going to be a cart program or is it going to be a pay as you throw program do you know how what you think G to work yeah so Linda I will say at this point in time collectively we have what I like to say the core foundation of the program which would be a cart style program but it would follow pay as you throw models the financial structure that we're looking at would reduce or eliminate the sticker program would move to a quarterly billing program with the ability to buy excess baggage so what pre-identified bags very similar to your sticker program for overflow so those would be you know Vision in place of stickers at buds or um at Market Basket you would have trash bags but those who choose the service initially will all have carts at a billing price tier of X and then we have built-in flexibility to try to capture all of the needs of our customers so as you can imagine there's some customers that may need less than weekly service While others may need more than an enhanced cart sizing so multiple different cart sizes things like that so we looked at this holistically in essence of efficiency and Effectiveness our cart model is one cart but you have the ability to purchase second or third carts at higher tier markets and you have the ability to take in a cart and have it Buy weekly at a lower commodity so think of the way that I tier our water and sewer price so we look you know our lower users are incentivized to conserve water the same approach would be taken with our our car program so there' be an incentive to have less trash that is correct and that actually helps reduce the volatility so again the service itself will come at a contract cost that is pretty much locked in stone based on the terms it's the commodity marking the Tipping fees that is based on the tonnage that our our current customer base uses we have a lot of inefficiency in our current system and it is uh hemorrhaging Town taxpayer funding out the door because we don't have the ability to audit it enough our program is ripe to for abuse our current program is right for abuse so we looked at this holistically and really came up with a what I think is a very solid approach to reduce a lot of that and then it would transfer as you just mentioned it would transfer it would free up money that's currently in the operating budget give me one second Jillian so that PowerPoint presentation I just noticed sorry Linda but that PowerPoint presentation you brought up was the historic documentation PowerPoint this is the old one okay yes so the new one the new one roughly has our model but it as we've paused the select board we are still in final development of that model we are confident in giving a general overview of what that looks like to Linda's point but if if the finance committee really wants to do some of their due diligence on what we're in the essence of doing our newest PowerPoint kind of gives that General overview sorry Linda continue with no that's okay but it would have an impact on our sort of General operating budget because it would take that money and make it available for either reducing taxes or something else potentially so our also so back to the Enterprise fund one of our policy recommendations as you can see this is actually a great slide to keep up right now Julian oh sorry yep so as you can see there is um there is a distribution of collected Revenue IE stickers and general fund taxation it's roughly 5445 our recommendation to the board in adopting the Enterprise fund with our our first fiscal year which will most likely be FY 26 of adoption as long as everything works out we would look to keep the 5445 split so our price point points Linda for our cart PR racing our Revenue funds would be in that 54 to 55 we would most likely make it a very very easy metric so it would be 55% and then we'd be looking for a general taxation of 45 at that point our task force will try to provide a fiveyear look forward but we will then eventually be dissolved and it will be up to the select board to look at whether it's the select board subf Finance finance committee and a collective approach how you want to change that policy of moving that 5545 metric which can absolutely be done it's just one of those situations where the task force will give a look forward but we have a centralized process here and programmatic approach is our main goal and is is the idea that by switching to um all carts you'd be able to negotiate a better contract with elel Harvey or whoever else um might be providing the services for pickup so Nathan I'm going to make this very clear like we did with the select board and we will with town meeting no matter what we do whether we adopt a new program don't do anything adopt this Enterprise or nothing moving forward the prices will absolutely go up so no matter what we do the next contract if we do nothing the prices will absolutely go up what we're looking to to kind of curve here Nathan is we have two contracts we have a hauling contract which is the the truck driver picking up your curbside collection then it goes to a central facility somewhere else and is disposed of which is referred to as wheel abider that contract is a separate contract and we pay a commodity Market of how many tons we produce our current program is driving that cost up because there's extreme inefficiencies in abuse we are looking to curb that commodity with a controlled mechanism I these are controlled cart sizes so right now we have bag abuse we have non- sticker abuse we don't have auditing Services we have very limited resources to to move that forward we will see a cost increase no matter what we do but we're looking to curb the long-term commodity cost market and that that volatility and flexibility in our com so if there's widespread abuse that's leading us to have you know what was it 45% of the overall budgets paid for by stickers and some people aren't like buying them or uh whatever why why are you pegging that as the goal for how much is going to be funded by the Enterprise fund versus um like a general General budget so Nathan the original program was always always designed to have general fund allocation supported so in the essence of what our Task Force is is really tasked with it's mainly the programmatic efficient approach to our future operation when we come out you know if the program is adopted the work is not done at that point there is a bigger Collective conversation of redistribution of general fund allocation versus Revenue collected allocation I believe that is out of the purview of the task force I believe that is more appropriate in the sub finance committee realm within the stakeholders of major boards that look at the our general fund budget holistically because at that time as I described to many stakeholders that is the time where we can have these modification conversations because we can adopt annual pricing models to capture Revenue if there was a shift from general fund allocation so the stakeholders have a big Debt Service in front of you maybe it's the bleachers and we do the math backwards and we realize okay well if we go up on the sticker prices as opposed to real estate tax we could free up general fund allocation of X and maybe that's the approach but I think again for the task force approach the Enterprise fund the funding mechanism allows for that fluidity to happen on the Fly which then allows the authorities to be to make those decisions and what we're really looking to do is to reduce the current abuse metric that's happening and reduce the overall long-term cost metrics that are applying pressure to our system I have a question about once this is established who decides what it looks like is this going to be run by the select board like the water and sewer is so you mean the Enterprise fund Jillian yes yes so just you know I wasn't sure if it was the program model because the program model actually has to be adopted by the Board of Health and then the select board meaning the actuality but when you're talking about the Enterprise fund yes they are the CEOs um they are um tasked with rate development and rate adoption just be aware that currently right now they also have that to raise stickers anytime they want if there's a recommendation process but very similar to the way that the water and sewer um Enterprise fund is run this would fall in that very similar category so you would have retained earnings potentially depending on if it eventually became self-funded the vision here like anything else the reason that the state allows for utilities like water sewer solid waste and storm water is because they're they're volatile utility and general government processes aren't keeping up with that major and that's been that's been common knowledge for almost a decade the town of mayard with the recent state federal policies we're having trouble keeping up with that it's time to modify and and enhance an official Financial metric which is what we're looking to do but checks and balances will always be there I.E exactly how they are with the Enterprise fund for water and sewer so there's public hearings for rate increases just like there is water and sewer there is fincom approval of Reserve funds if we build that into it again this our the task force model has general fund allocation so you'll never have an overage of money so a lot of the things that you're seeing with our water and sewer won't come into play until the until eventually the program would be shift to full allocation of receipts currently right now what it does is run the program almost exactly how you see it now but instead of stickers being a conversation every five years that end up being 100% increase we'd be looking at small incremental increases that are flowing that allow our stakeholders to plan their own personal finances in the future with a methodical Progressive approach okay so to your point town meeting currently doesn't have the authority to change the stickers anyways so this really is just adopting the allowable Financial metric that allows for more transparency and fluid fluid modifications and this would be an option to establish the fund or once this is voted in it would be an obligation to establish the fund you nailed it Jillian it is an option we do need town meeting adoption vote but like anything to to Greg's conversation earlier we asked for x amount of money for the school but we may actually use less the same metric applies here we're asking for adoption from our legislative body but ultimately at the end of the day when the task force pitches the entirety of the program the select board could choose not to adopt Enterprise fund we're just just like negotiating in contracts that are up to seven-year terms over threee allowable that doesn't mean the select board has to do it but we do need town meeting approval and part of that conversation that we had with the select board was why now well we only have two shots at this before the end of our contract and when I say two shots if we if we vote this in an annual town meeting that really gives us a very small window to adopt a new program change our financial metrics and the time that our current contract ends which is June 30th 2025 this allows for the town to affect acely position ourselves for the right approach you said that was June 2025 that is correct okay okay um so adoption of this article would allow flexibility for this to be an option in the process of establishing that new W contract without it you would have to go with some kind of similar sticker or some other program it it limits what the task force is capable of providing with our 100% program model it does limit process it limits the fiveyear projected model that where that we want to put in place for the select board there it it really reduces what we as a task force will be able to kind of adopt as a program model and we're looking to make sure that we have a full 50,000 foot view holistically looking at this not just from a curbside collection program but from a sustainable Solid Waste and recycling program that is holistic throughout the community whether it's centralized refuge for certain parts you know we're really looking at this from a very high level this allows us to come up with a very concise um and advantageous program okay um I I like this a lot uh but I'm wondering if you have like a presentation planned for the special town meeting to educate the public so Nathan yeah so the the PowerPoint you see in front of you which actually we're always looking for feedback so I don't expect you guys to digest this PowerPoint in like two minutes and then push out a bunch of comments but just know each one of you can either go through Jillian and send me comments or questions um and that's up to Jillian but or you can reach me direct as long as Jillian's okay with it um we're looking for feedback um on how we present this but just know that the current presentation was to select board we're going to actually shrink this uh select board is really our program approach because we're under their Task Force Authority um but we're really looking at just educating the shear fact to the Enterprise fund adoption more than targeting the program model because the program model is not absolute at this point um so this could be a silly question but kind of I guess just to confirm is it is it basically the case that sort of having the Enterprise fund is like a prerequisite for being able to successfully Implement like the the proposed program model am I understanding that correctly I would that's the best way to say it it allows us complete flexibility to adopt a program model that is the best and most advant advantageous the town of mayard with all of our research that we've done um and and ultimately would that decision be something that the uh the select board is able to do on its own or would that be subject to like a vote at like the next annual town meeting or something to adopt like a new program so Nathan this would be the only time town meeting really has a say like an authority but as we discuss with the select board with our recommendation and this was a recommendation in conversation between uh our task force and the select board with our recommendation of a program model adoption we thought it'd be very prudent to have one maybe two open meetings so public meetings that are put out there through newspaper where there is comments concerns and integration from public before final adoption very similar to how we do our water and sewer rates if you're unaware we make a recommendation my department makes a recommendation to the select board it's in a public meeting they never vote on it first time then we take in any comments concerns we have if if there's adjust adjustments that need to be made or just thought process that wasn't necessarily absolute it may be considered and then we can modify it before we go forward that's our approach with this and then again that's a process that once Enterprise fund if it gets adopted that's how an annual rate process would happen um so there is opportunity for um input for from the public it will just come in the form of a select board meeting versus a town meeting and Nathan I'm not sure um if I know that you're somewhat newer new I want to say a year or two now I feel like that with do a year or two now in your time would did you see our survey was the entire committee per to our survey okay so in the town remain since I've been here um over six years now that survey had the most respondents that any survey that we've ever done um we had a significant amount of feedback very early with large scale comments I mean it is very robust it actually took us I would say maybe 10 of our 27 meetings were just the survey alone and digesting that we look to put in some of the survey processes within our presentation to the town meeting voters so that they understand that they were part of this process from the beginning we took that um we took that to heart there was a lot of comments there was some some eye openers for some of the task force um and we really focused on a lot of the needs um but we also are focusing on on some of the wants and how we incorporate those all right sorry I'm like triple triple double muted here um I'm lost in my sharing screen all right so this gives us this would give us an option but not an obligation it would establish the Enterprise fund but it would not dictate what this program would entail that would be up to the select board if this article passes to establish the program via select board public hearing where they would like set rates and other things Jillian that's 100% correct but I want to add a little caveat whether this gets adopted or Not by town meeting the select board will always have the authority to change and modify the program so I don't want it tied to the Enterprise fund article it is very sensitive that we do not tie the two together there is advantageous approach for the task force and the program model if it had the Enterprise fund adopted but at the end of the day town meeting does not have have the authority now and will not have the authority to adopt program models but we are using this time for feedback so as you know I mean you Jillian you've gone to many Town meetings there will be comments and we will take in that feedback which will help us wrap in our 100% recommendation of our model change and that's actually what we're hoping to accomplish with this article that it teases out some of those comments um for those who may not have participated in the survey or may feel like their voice isn't heard in some other criteria Matrix or they weren't able to go to a meeting um that's really where we're at right there with that but we have to make sure that they're not mutually tied together it's very uh very important to us okay um just could you clarify that just because it's very important to you I want to make sure I understand like Crystal Clear um like how you put like putting like the best foot forward on like explaining this um my understanding is basically this is giving an additional toolkit to the select board um who is going to be making like the decisions but this is not binding them to act in any one way or another right correct they can choose never to adopt this Enterprise fund it's just there is multiple Points of Authority an Enterprise fund adoption starts with town meeting vote okay but the select board currently has the authority to set rates in parenthesis with a public hearing with the current sticker program or with this potential new program not passing the article would not impact the select board ability to be able to change these rates via a public hearing you nailed a Jillian okay Jo are you doing like draft comments right now yes I am okay um and then all of these documents I don't know if they a chance to make it on board docs I got them to to everyone a little late my life's been a little little bit hectic um Jill I can make sure after this meeting that they get uploaded thank you so much um so but they are also on the the September 4th select board meeting currently online too so they are online um I would just encourage the committee to really look at the dates on every single one of them this is really a timeline historical approach so there's really three phases to that timeline the initial onboarding when I started was uh complete hemorrhaging of Revenue which was the immediate sticker change then there was a secondary approach to modify the program which was never adopted that created the task force which is the final PowerPoint presentation that you see yep and there is also in here when is this Memo from I don't think it's the summary of trash findings I don't think that is so that's tied to the first memo which would have been 2019 so it is a complete audit it was performed by me personally in the field for a month straight um to indicate what the failures of our current system was um and then the recommendation was made after that for the sticker increase based on the financials with an eye set on programmatic approach and change but that was based off contract terms which then was brought to the select board attention with the 2021 PowerPoint presentation which at the time was not adopted that led to the task force yep and I did appreciate I remember talking about this back then where we were talking about what similar towns near us were paying per bag and things like that and or per per month and um so all of this is in that packet so I appreciate the thoron of of the whole committee and just yeah and Jillian as you as the finance committee keeps a priz to this so again if town meeting votes for the Enterprise fund there is a needs analysis that our task force has gone through it is a very very extensive Excel file that we're still working on which will have extreme amount of data for understanding of the focus you know in the past financials P we're going back five years the best we can with some inaccuracies in finance because again we don't have an Enterprise fund so it's very hard for financial analysis but a five foot look fiveyear look ahead with all of the program approaches that will be something that you know when we make our final recommendation I will send you a copy um as the fincom chair if you want to if you want to join a select board meeting as a joint thought process or just as public comment so okay and that's why you were saying that the this would be effective July 1st because that's when the current contract Runs Out 2025 we have to make a choice one way or another by June well obviously a little before June but the our current haul in contract expires June 30th if we did nothing we could make that determination a month before um but if we're going to adopt a new model we really need six months plus um timing is imperative if allows flexibility for a lot of positions we may want to take um moving forward with our program so got it does the committee have any questions this isn't this article is not asking for an appropriation it's just establishing the fund or the option for a fund Enterprise fund all right Natasha are you trying to talk oh no never mind uh yeah so I'm I'm not hearing any um questions from the committee um would we like to vote on this or would we like to go through all of the Articles we can we can vote on this at the end as a block I'm I move to recommend article seven I'll second all right we got a motion on a second do we have any other questions comments or discussion on article number seven no all right I will take a roll call vote to recommend um Nathan yes Nel yes Linda yes Katie yes Nathaniel yes uh I am also a yes all right so uh and we'll um I I would um recommend we come back to the comments at the at the end um so um so thanks for that part I see a couple of the the task force have also came too so um we did want to also thank you all for your hard work we know it's a been a process so thanks very much but we'll yeah thank you um we're gonna we're going to jump on to so we have water retained earnings um sewer retained earnings and we have an easement article I believe that's the other topic so uh oh bring that up draft I think it's this one that all right ktie sent me some here okay I can see it julan um I could speak to this one so to now you get to see how the logistics of Enterprise funds actually work so Water and Sewer if you're unaware we have two Enterprise funds one for our water utility and one for our sewer utility within those financial uh categories each one has um a financial metric that is referred to as retained earnings it is equivalent to free cash um the difference is retained earnings cannot be utilized to offset general fund obligations they are strictly to support the utility so with that being said we have a Financial policy that we put in place um over six years ago now um when we adopted annual rate increases where we really I like to say we cleaned up the the way we ran our Enterprise funds to adapt to a yearly utility process within that we have Financial metrics that we try to reach um one of them is a cost barrier of retained earnings um another one is reserve funds and another one is stabilization funds so about six years ago our water and sewer utility was uh limping along financially I want to say that we've made some significant strides but I would not classify it as moderate or highlevel um Financial strides I would say that we are out of the dumpster um but onto the parking lot so with that being said we have a very precise and methodical way that we move forward with our Capital Improvement plan our cips um under our water and sewer are separate because the Enterprise funds are separate as well the town of mayard does not have a great CIP process when it comes to equipment purchasing if you're unaware we have a fleet of over 50 vehicles within Public Works police fire as you see annually we replace on average one maybe two vehicles a year that's not a highlevel fleet replacement program so the beauty with our Enterprise fund is under our water and sewer we have a capital Improvement plan that includes uh Fleet replacement programs specifically to our water and sewer um Fleet equipment this is the request to adopt and remove and reallocate an additional fund to design a vehicle that we recently secured funding for which is a six-wheel dump truck replacement to adopt this piece of equipment to what is referred ref to is a hooklift system it's a system that allows for one vehicle chassis to utilize multiple different style bodies so it is an effective and efficient means to um focus on Specialized equipment without buying chassis identified for specialized equipment the best way to describe it is one truck can potentially do three five seven 10 different things um so that we're reducing overall cost of our Fleet replacement program part of the reason we did this in two phases so annual town meeting appropriated the funds for the truck chassis was if you're unaware um the market for Fleet um production is six months to 12 months out so we needed to get in the pipeline of getting our truck built with that being said this is a contract that we adhere with a local firm that would we refer to in the industry is upfit our piece of equipment so we had time to allow for the funding to remain in retained earnings that bought us some time in case there was the potential of um a failure that may have caused us to go into retained earnings in FY 24 we are we are very confident with reallocation of this fund for our fy2 24 because the books are finally closed so we know exactly what our returned earnings are from our previous books which was FY 23 so if you follow the path here is whatever we don't spend in FY 23 becomes retained earnings in FY 24 but we don't know what those retained earnings are until we're in fy2 so with that being said we have uh we are very comfortable with our our balance within our FY uh 24 retained earnings that we can move forward with this piece of equipment and this purchase which allows one truck to become two instantly and in the future you may see different body types um that are procured at a much lower cost than a new truck in the future to enhance our specialization replacement program Justin do you know about what the balance is and the water retained earnings I think I believe I put it down in the comments oh it's in the comments okay and I put it in my comment um Linda um when we pull up the comment I made I did put that in our fincom okay thank you it's about 1.7 million yeah yeah after this allocation correct I don't have the Excel sheet in front I want to say I sent you the a town account yeah I don't see I don't see it in what I have but I might be looking at no Jillian did I send you the town account's preliminary budget for retained earnings may have been in an Excel sheet I pull it up um e this is e right this is number four one um 1738 so 1,738 yeah yeah so that'll be great if it's in our comments yeah I don't see it in the here the sponsor comments yeah now the only pause i' give you Linda is that's not the official retainer oh okay that's why I don't that's why comments so do needs to certify but we we I could we could argue that we give the we give the we give the projections and it may come up or down yeah minor but I think it's disingenuous a little bit to lock it in when the hasn't locked in okay yeah okay thank you just sort of for my own that's an estimated balance right not a yeah yeah you could Target that it's an estimate but it's not like we're draining that well dry right oh absolutely not I won't let that happen so we're actually our financial policy goal is to have retained earnings at 20 to 25% of our yearly operating budget our Reserve fund is um targeted at 10% of our operating budget and after that we're hoping to build stabilization accounts again this is our 20-year financial model but we're moving in that direction I mean just take that 1.7 in water and then go versus what our operating budget is we're in a pretty good position if you're unaware a majority of what our town CIP is really focused on is our water capacity which which is why we're targeting those fund balances at a high level at this point just sort of for my I guess my own understanding um just to like reiterate when you say that um whatever we don't spend in fiscal year 23 becomes retained earnings in fiscal year 24 that's like specifically referring to um what the water department um has spent in that mosphere it's like it's just like just the water department so yeah this is an Enterprise fund strictly for water utility there's also one strictly for the sewer utility we have a combined department but in essence the line items under the water Enterprise fund whatever isn't spent becomes retained earnings but as part of our financial policy we've been carrying over balances of retained earnings as well so 1.7 isn't what was unspent in FY 23 I would I would say that most likely I want to say that was somewhere in the the 250 to $300,000 range but we also build in line items um to offset increased rates so we're building for long-term debt in an operating budget which is adding to our availability of retained earnings but it also is reducing the overall Debt Service in the future for large scale projects that we have in play which are uh phase two phase three of our water capacity Improvement programs which are RAR treatment plants new wells I mean very very expensive Endeavors it's a model that I would say I think um Capcom and select board are are thinking about adopting under the general fund currently we don't do that where we set set aside operating budgets such as capital reserves we do it very well in our Enterprise funds all right do we have any uh additional do we want to I would maybe they they're kind of I would say that the articles are probably somewhat different so we could motion them separately uh even though it's water and sewer they they're um the applications will be different between article so that that's fair fair way to describe it so um I would say are there any additional questions or comments about this article so that 1.7 would be if this article passes that's the estimate before do certification I think it was before yes do has no not certified our free cash and or our retained earnings at this point I move to approve Article 4 or move to recommend we yep we move to recommend is there a second second right so we have a a recommend in a second is there any further questions or discussions no all right I will take a roll call vote to recommend article number four Nathan yes M yes Linda yes Katie yes uh Nathaniel yes uh I am also a yes so that is a recommend for article number four um all right article number five try this back again um so this is from the the sewer so Water and Sewer are two separate Enterprise funds as uh was kindly mentioned um earlier in the call yes excellent Jillian so without going into too much detail as you know this is very similar to the water uh andpress fund um I would say that I believe that a majority of the community is well aware that the town mayard is suffering from what we refer to as a water capacity issue meaning development enhancement growth is impacted because we're an isolated system we produce we we pump produce our own water this same happens on the back end so we have our own wastewater treatment facility we do not have a regionalized wastewater treatment facility so if you look at it as simple as this water comes before sewer because without water there's no such thing as sewer so when you when we plan in our industry and we have a joint utility we always plan at the front end but also proactively plan at the back end for what's coming as we are contending with a unfriendly 40b as you're all aware I'm sure you all got the email from Greg Johnson and and and others as we are looking at onfor 40 BS and future development process the water utility is highly advantageously looking to increase our water capacity which is referred to as our four-phase water capacity Improvement program on the back end though we know that we have some Wastewater capacity issues not to the levels of our water but we do not have a model like we do with our water with our Wastewater so accurately anticipating that we have enough capacity or not is more based on our current operations and our operators understanding what the plant is capable of doing but it is not an analytical engineering study such as we have with our water capacity this study in front of you allows for the town of Mayor to proactively look at both our current wastewater treatment facilities capacity while we position Improvement planning for the future um the wastewater treatment plant is starting a lot of its processes are starting to meet its end of life and we need to understand what our current regulations are what our anticipated growth is and proactively start to plan for that financially that comes when we have a full understanding of what our capacity constraints are this model allows us to uh look at that from a precise metric that being said our utility is not as strong financially as our water because we are very sensitive to this sheer fact that the bill comes as one bill so if we went up with sewer at 10% and went up with water at 10% you could not handle that kind of Bill changing uh drastically so we Balan the two with our CIP as one moves forward and falls off we look to grab the other so we have either a consistent Plateau or a very small curved Bell This Is Us positioning ourselves as we finalize our phase one well 4A project while we look to permit for phase two which could be five years the time to have the conversation of proper planning for our waste water is now until the next five years and that positions us to um either um proactively allow for enhancement of the community whether it's um new projects dense projects or it also allows us to look at it um very thoroughly and what we can and cannot support without taxing our current system uh I have a question here for the for this dollar value who's doing the development of the model and this analysis is this going to be contracted out or will the town do it internally yeah so um who who asked that question I guess Nel oh hi Nel so if you're unaware the town maner does not employ any full-time Town engineering staff we are a very very limited Department um we contract out our Engineering Services and water sewer um civil Etc we also contract out architectural processes our re our full-time Staffing Resources are very very limited um across all operational boards I'll even argue for Natasha on this across the school everywhere the entire town of Maynard has very limited resources um this is a engineering contract to perform this work so we already have a bid then or a proposal from is it a I guess a on call contractor that we have or did we specifically ask for this and then that we're evaluating and have a return deadline for this yep so so it's not an ifp or RFB because Engineering Services and Public Works are exempt so we do have an on on uh on call consultant engineering firm stantech that assists that is currently under contract that assists us with our water and sewer utility process this is the exact price which is why it's 168 944 so that is the proposal that's what stood out to me okay y exactly yep and to that point we are we are very confident with this price being the executional version of that we also have built-in um engineering and consultant lines in our operating budget so let's say there was a minor change order we could absorb that under operating where I don't really want to hit retained earnings um actually as a followup so uh I suppose you don't know anything about my background I'm actually uh civil engineer um so this is kind of falling into my realm a little bit here for a study of a town this size that feels a little high unless you're doing an enormous amount of surveying we are so unfortunately like to my point when I also tell you we don't have Town engineering resources we've never had town engineering resources so there's almost no asset management in a lot of our systems town of mayard is playing extreme catchup we unfortunately gambled for about 10 to 15 to 20 years which is why you saw a very stagnant town for growth because there was no understanding of what we could support or not support it was a lot of like cultural well our operators can't do this and we can't do this without analytical proof and asset management is one of our biggest constraints okay well that makes a that makes a whole lot of sense definitely answered my questions there thank you the number might have been posted elsewhere um but do we know what like the current balance of the sewer retained earnings fund is yeah I want to say it's less than a million somewhere in the 8 to 900,000 range yep it's uh it's uh 981 3 358 so like 98 million um little less than a million so if if this does pass it would be closer to like 812k in in this if that estimate for the do certification is certified later and then I guess I just like my my follow-up question would be since this is certainly like a larger chunk um of of the sewer fund than um in that previous article you you you you would you know be willing to say that it's like you know a very it's like the best possible or a very appropriate like use of that money like it's important obviously is what you're your I'm extremely confident in moving this forward and the our financial plan has really been under my leadership for six years where we've made that progress I'm proud to say that I I feel very confident in our approach with that we are at the precipice and we've I've I've actually um presented to the state on behalf of the town of mayard and other utilities um within the Commonwealth we are on the precipice of developing being forced down our throat this is your first unfriendly 40b if you don't know my background I work in the town uh excuse me the city of Maro for over 20 years it's coming it's not when it's it's not if It's when um if we're not prepared for it we're going to be forced into situations that could our infrastructure this allows us to be at the Forefront of seeing and handling some of that process it also allows the town flexibility in its development meaning that we're not forced by state regulation to adopt something that we can't support it is one where you really need to have a hard analytical understanding and background and a procedure that allows for the justification of denial we currently have that with our water we do not have that with our Wastewater um thank you I may have misunderstood something when Greg was explaining the forced 40b um and this Force development pathway but I thought that at least my takeaway from it was that even if it gets approved it wouldn't be built if we can't support it reasonably within the current infrastructure use cases so you are correct holistic it wouldn't it we wouldn't have to build support and then actually it's more about the fact that it would force our hand no no you cannot so in full detail there is case studies out there that some towns have lost um for unfriendly 4bs because they could not confirm why their infrastructure could not support we have a strong infrastructure support metric that cannot support water capacity without this model we do not have a strong support mechanism that could deny it for Wastewater capacity and there is case studies okay that have been brought to the Commonwealth that have ruled against communities and have forced their utilities into upgrades to handle housing projects if you're unaware the state of Massachusetts is in a major housing crisis part of the housing crisis solution is Extreme regulation 40 BS have been around for a while but MBTA zoning that's spad zoning I mean that's something that we frowned upon 30 years ago um it's being regulated down our throats and we need to be prepared for that there is nothing that says that that development can't tap their own private Wells so if we can't support their water that doesn't mean that development is not being built if they tap their own Wells it could happen I don't know how um you all travel outside of mayard much and you head towards uh the wiester area but there's a town called Berlin right next to right next to malro the old Spooky World and there was a 40b unfriendly 40b that went in Berlin is just like Stow very Farm Town um and Berlin doesn't have water and sewer utilities at all and the unfriendly 40b went in they put their own wastewater treatment PL in and their own their own weld source so just because we can't handle it from water does not mean that that development won't be forced down our throats and that it really is up to the developer at that point very interesting thank you well I definitely I don't know if anyone else has questions but I'm ready to vote for Article Five I did have um just one question sort of for my own understanding so are we basically like doing the study to kind of like prove to this state that we have like empirical evidence of is why we can't allow this develop development to be built since we don't have like the required infrastructure so we're sort of using this study to kind of prove it to the the state essentially is that right I would say that's one small aspect of it okay technically our wastewater treatment plan is coming at its end of life and we have extreme regulatory uh permits such as nipes so treatability has to be studied bioin model is really based on the sheer fact of the bio uh the biodiversity in our effluent that has to be um removed and we have ever advantageous regulations at a extreme rate so we need to make sure that when we're conceptually planning on what our wastewater treatment plan is we're planning for the current we're planning for the predictability of Regulation and we're also planning for the predictability of development meaning increased residential capacity so that's what this model brings to light it will allow us to justify X Y and Z if there's a 40b but it also is the the main purpose of this is to allow us to proactively plan for the next 5 10 15 years so that we have an efficient and effective Financial me uh approach towards our wastewater treatment plant upgrades thank you and would you say that the end of life is on some equipment or would you say the end of life is on the wastewater treatment plant itself no so here's the beauty with wastewaters they are so you heard Greg Johnson say that schools are the most expensive Endeavor you're ever going to in take on that is um unfortunately not correct wastewater treatment plants are by far the most expensive infrastructure that you can do but the beauty with wastewater treatment plants is they can be continually modified so there will be an extreme expense to ours Gillian but we do not need to abandon all of its processes it is something that we need to there is one of our major processes is referred to as an RBC it's a rotating biological um contact process you Jillian you may remember that we had an emergency with the failure of our RBC and it cost us $200,000 to fix one so these things are extremely expensive um it will review a lot of our processes moving forward but we do have upgrades that were done less than 20 years ago and some of our processes and others that are past 35 45 years at this point so we don't anticipate a full wastewater treatment plant change over but we do look at this from a very very high level that we will have significant improvements that need to be made got it thank you I just want to make sure I'm englishing our comments I do assure you I try I try to get it to like that that nons super technical level I think I think it's great I'm uh I'm working with a brain full of potatoes here so um perfect so I think I heard that we're going to make a motion on article number five yep I I would motion to uh approve Article Five the transfer from Super retained earnings 168 944 and I'll second the motion to approve Article Five all right so we got a motion we got a second um do we have any further questions or discussions no all right so I will take a roll call vote uh Nathan yes Mel yes Linda yes C yes Nathaniel yes all right I am also a yes so article number five is recommended um and now I believe we're on the the last water sewer article here so the the easement all right excellent so and I want to be quick on this but I know there's some new some new members so I'm going to give you a quick understanding so we have water we have sewer you get that part I know you do with Enterprise funds our utility is made up of water which is two functions meaning we have water treatment plants we pull water out of the ground raw water out of the swamps we treat them and then it goes to the second function which is distribution piping in the ground so like overhead utility lines grids you hear grids all the time we have an underground grid system so we have a water treatment plants and we have distribution now on the sewer side we have wastewater treatment PL which is everything you flush down the toilet sink eventually goes to that treatment plant it then turns it back into riverwater and goes into the aspit but in order to get there it's called a collection system so instead of transmission because there's not pressure we're collecting gravity sewer is mostly made up of gravity meaning that if I have a high point over here and a low Point here it eventually flows downhill right gravity but topography makes changes to that so in a collection system there is also many mechanisms referred to as lift stations or pump stations so there's times where you can't make a development flow naturally down to a pipe into the wastewater treatment plant it has to be pumped up to flow back down we actually have um over 10 sewer pump stations I want to say we're at 11 now um and those sewer pump stations are mechanical substations um and one of the major issues that we have from capacity isn't just water treatment and it isn't just wastewater treatment we have pinch points in our system and that pinch point is due to our pumping stations we have a pumping station that is on powdermill Road Corridor or powdermill Road um right behind the bank it takes about 80% of our affluent and it pumps it under the asbet river up to our wastewater treatment facility on Pine Hill that treatment plant is um at a point where it is 50 years old and it was never designed to handle um the development processes that we're taking on now such as maned Crossing there was some minor upgrades to Upstream collection systems as part of that but it has actually taxed our system and in order for any development to proceed on powdermill road as you hear the zoning overlays msba even this 40b it will all go to this one sewer station that is right for failure directly into the aset river so we have been very proactive um as you can imagine this sounds like every single one has these extreme amount of infrastructure uh improvements that need to take place and they do we have targeted this specific pinch Point um through a collection of grants that we've been advantageously um being awarded one of them was a housing Choice Grant to put a conceptual design for enhancement of this pump station with a redundant line to help eliminate and reduce um pollution into the aset river within that 400,000 we were able to do a highlevel um conceptual schematic design and within that there was an understanding that we needed to enhance our parcel allowance meaning what we owned in that location that is what you see in front of you which is referred to as sewer easements so these are easements that the town must take in order to improve our system to allow for its future development and Improvement we simultaneously have put in for a secondary Grant under the same Housing Development Choice program for $400,000 to finalize our design development which would allow us to be referred to in the industry as shovel ready which then would allow us to get into another Grant process referred to as mass works so if there was a 40b that we wanted or a development we wanted we would partner with that private developer in the state of Massachusetts to secure the funds to enhance that one particular piece of infrastructure paid for by the state of Massachusetts Grant process but in order to get ourselves in a design development stage and to get ourselves to a massw workk we need to have all permits Acquired and all easements taken this is a proactive approach in front of our design development Grant to allow us to acquire the easements that being said these are very minor easements um in regards to uh all the properties they touch a majority of the easements are on the riverfront um the the metric for how if you go down to my comments Jillian the costing of acquiring these easements for the town is almost minuscule at um a little further down at 14,300 that's how insignificant the use of these easements are on private property they're in River protection zone so um the parcels adjacent that would be taking these easements couldn't build on them they couldn't do anything to them anyways um so this is a very minor request but has a extreme upside for future development processes I think I'm Shing map yep there's the map excellent so if you I don't know how many of you are used to looking at maps you can see the aspet River cuts right through the middle of this there's Parcels on either side the sewer pump station is currently located in the small box that is under proposed sewer eement 7 so under it so if you go up Jillian to the left uh right to the right nope that's an easement we're going to take go to the right a little bit right there that box down a little bit right there that's where our current sewer station is and we own the driveway parcel to the left that jogs out up to Powder Mill already and the box that's on Powder Mill is actually the bank so we're acquiring easements adjacent to our current lift station and we're also acquiring easements on the other side of the river which is currently a giant wood line but there is some weird jogs of private property and public property we own a significant amount of that but there is minor jog Loops so those are areas that are owned by private property but not even close to somebody's house um Andor could be built on so and there's a sewer line currently right there and it goes under the aspit river uh I had one question last time that we kind of tabled for you to be here um I originally came from private development and this kind of dollar value for this kind of land is not usually set at least in private development side I have no idea how the government side works is that 14,300 pretty much a set number or is that estimated number and no let's say that you know the eement number four owner wants to nickel and dime the town can they ask for more or is this this is a taking then so it so easements everything under master and aw are considered takings but this is an e easement meaning we're not actually taking property we're taking easement rights right but there is a masterin a lot policy procedure so we had to conduct a um third party appraisal certified through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which was done which is why you see all those price point values um all of Butters are um allowed access to those appraisers so just so you know we already sent out certified letters to all the abuts in advance we do this because we are good neighbors we don't technically have to do this but we do it in advance with indications for conversations with the attached appraisal process so those those value amounts are set in stone right thanks you're welcome there are two typos just in the title of the article so I don't know can the town correct those acquisition and easeman not sure how far we are it's nothing in the article but whoever typed the title yeah that's just a grammatical error I mean if you have a a word do of that Jillian I don't know who does that I don't even think it's it's you necessarily Justin whoever put the warrant together no I mean the drafts start with me so okay this is this has always been a subject I mean this happens literally every year so My word do goes to so it goes through so many hands that someone could have typoed it um someone could have edited it it does get edited from department heads up um I can send you it but I just don't know if anybody else has already edited it after me so I don't want to necessarily change any of their their comments or or positions but if Jillian if you have the Microsoft Word version of what Greg Johnson has provided I mean clericals can just be cleaned up those are simple yeah I'll I'll note it like this and then just say that there's a spelling error in the title because they have to put our comments in there anyway so I would assume that they can change it then just more for the sake of thoroughness than anything else um do we know what the the current balance in that sewer Enterprise um fund is at the moment which one I'm sorry just yeah just um do we know what the current balance in the SE Enterprise fund that the 14,000 um is coming out of oh yeah that's coming out of my operating budget so that's a $ 3.21 million operating budget yeah that if this was higher so if this let's just say hypothetically this was 150,000 I would contend with requesting retained earnings in place of the bioin model but we're we're lucky to kind of move both of these processes forward um so yeah this is absorbed under our offering thank you you're welcome have you heard back from all seven of those uh Property Owners three of them I have a meeting with two of them tomorrow um I met with um one of the property owners that was really impacted the most um the second that we sent out the certified mail I actually I know a few of these are Butters already so we we gave them some advanced notice in ADV like just as part of our schematic design because we had to do some soil boring on their locations and things like that so and like the um do do you I don't know were they was there any like problem do they have any problems with this plan so Nathan most of the most of the abutters are impacted almost by nothing meaning they're going to get money and they actually don't necessarily lose land this land actually is retained by the property owner it's just a sewer easment meaning that we either have infrastructure under the ground or we're allowed to go over their over their property without permission um one was potentially impacted because they're selling their property for redevelopment but after conversations understanding that we're not putting like a hard above ground infrastructure on any of these easements um it was limited to to what their what their concerns were um and if you're unaware some of these like with without drawing my utility assets the one that Jillian originally circled was the one who thought was the most impacted but there's currently a sewer line that already goes under that so all the way up to the Elks so there's a lot of sewer infrastructure that is already cresting all of this private property and public property so you would think the sewer comes from powdermill road down the driveway into that sewer pump station but actually only the version from Powder Mill back to Acton does all of the rest of it chases the river parallel all the way back to the Elks that's that that gravity versus pump so we have some of the oldest sewers uh sewer collection system in the country because of the mil and uh changing a lot of that infrastructure costs um billions of dollars for a Tiny Town of manard so we have to kind of go with what some of our forefathers put in place and then modify and adjust as is okay excellent do we have any further questions or discussion about article number six do we have a motion I move to recommend and I will second to recommend article six all right so we got a motion we got a second any further questions discussion or comments All right so I'll take a roll call vote Nathan yes uh n yes Linda yes Kati yes Daniel yes uh I am also a yes so that is a recommend for article number six um great thanks um thanks so much Justin for for walking us through those articles much appreciated of course no problem um I appreciate the Insight the comments um I'm always encouraged by the engagement um welcome aboard all you new members I feel like you've completely changed your whole committee um but other than that I'm always here um you are all stakeholders if you have questions or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out um Jillian as I as I stated I'll try to get you the full needs analysis in advance before we even present it to the select board while that simultaneously I don't want you to have the copy before them but just so you're engaged in that conversation um from a fincom perspective um other than that thank you for having me uh Katie I assure you I am working very hard you should have a new road hopefully in the fall I ran into some people on Allen today and we had a full discussion about it so we're working through the bid process it's because honestly I don't want to it the intersection project is taking a lot of our resources so they show you what's coming we have faith we have faith all right thank you everyone thank you so much all right so I believe that that brings us to article number three about the bleachers um so we did get some sponsor comments which I have somewhere here we go um that are very thorough and much appreciated um so um I don't know Natasha if you want to speak to any of this but um sure sure thank you um so um there's a lot of a lot of requests to what we should capture in our comments and try to convey and educate the community so with all of that in mind um you know part of it was you know people have some questions about the long-term the ability to have long-term that that seemed to have been the the most outstanding question over the past uh two or three weeks is is a long-term rental option really even available viable what does that cost look like and I think at our when I the last meeting that I attended with you all that was a question that your your board had like even with the the code requirements could we even put forward um we ended up doing a separate and I had shared this I think separately which was like an Excel sheet kind of projecting out like even if we had rental um what that would look like over 25 years just for the the known that we would so that would be bleachers um and we we were able to come up with that 25 years it was like 4.4 million but that still was missing um the other areas of Code Compliance that um we were told about so um for instance the there's that would not include any drinking station you know changes or whatever upgraded would need to be for that that would not include the Ada walkway or curb improvements that would not include um demoing of the current bleachers or additional hand sncs and so kind of as we were looking this and this includes um a 5% um escalation so just thinking for for rental um so that's where these unknowns kind of came in but just with the known pieces if this were even a a solution that the school committee would entertain you would still um at 25 years run into the same you're spending the same amount for rental that and then after 25 years you're not left with really any any problem product um to to show for it so we took those numbers um and we kind of incorporated or embedded that into the comments as well um and this is kind of where at that see at 2040 this is where the uh a debt exclusion would be paid off for 4.55 million that is with interest and then you can see um continuing on to another 25 years what a rental would look like um and again this is probably a lowball estimate because it's not including any of those other areas that we would we we wouldn't know how to solve for it really or that haven't been explored for the the code pieces so um so we've Incorporated you know what that looked like after 25 years we would still you know not have a product it would still be inferior we just expanded on what the um project entails as far as the restrooms how it came about um that information just a little bit of the history that was um people were asking you know about the inspection um when when that happened how did we get on this path how the the task force um was formed and then just kind of chunked it out into different topics for the community to kind of process a lot because it's a lot of information for people who might not have the complete back ground so they might want to hone in onto a particular um area so the other part too which um let's see if we could keep scrolling so yeah so Financial impact on residents this is where we kind of outline that a little bit more that piece where the bond interest over 15 years comes out to that um and you're you know you have that and then why and then the next section kind of goes into um you know kind of like that build why build versus rent um scenario and kind of breaks out what that what that is for over 25 years um under transparency we did add a um an aspect I think this this has come up a couple of times in the um quad board meeting about educate that that the school would be um is you know projecting a short fall for FY 26 for our operating budget so however community members may want to you know consider that it's not a hidden piece of information it's not something we're really ready to speak a lot in depth on at this point but just to put it um on residents radar that this there might be a separate conversation about operational um shortfalls when it comes to FY 26's budget and kind of tying it to um oh I I did actually correct I see there's a little typo there at the end so the one I had sent Greg one and I caught that after so that that part is is fixed it's yeah thanks um the other part too is we went to the the master plan just to kind of make sure that the project itself how does it align with the master plan and and there was a lot of information in there just to kind of fall back on and one of the one of the particular um points was just highlighting that the that area is considered the greatest the recreation facilities of the greatest importance are that the town has determined are the Alumni field and complex area so this project does align with you know what has already been discussed with the master plan and in keeping the town moving forward with um that aspect of recreation where did you come up with um a 5% annual increase in perpetuity um so the cost of the project itself is about 5% um that's what they actually it's kind of going around between five or six U for construction so the increase of cost overall so that's where we we built into the increase of rental so rental costs are going up um each year so they're not they're not static and you know so whatever the bleacher is for this year it's not going to be that same amount you know going forward the cost to install them and and take it down um Can shift a little bit because they are you know doing a setup and breakdown um twice a year as well so that's where that was built in and I know when we talked about that last time I know Peter was here but he kind of did like a a quick back of the napkin calculation I think his he got something a lot higher but um I think he was looking out Beyond 25 years when he was looking um done that so that's where that 5% but that's not from talking to anybody who would be like renting bleachers or uh like yes yes the Mike uh Mike Ari our direct our our director of facility so we so the costs are what he's provided of what we spent in Prior years and what and what he's provided and so he had um he had a four he indicated a four to 5% um inflationary cost that was um he said should be planned for each year going forward for rentals yes for rentals even if we got like a long-term like lease on renting well they're not year round so it would be you don't have like um in the fall has three there's three bleachers and then they take them down and then you get um two in the spring I can't remember the take down but it's like different periods they're not all three the same so it it's more of a I guess cost-saving in some ways but you do have more touch points in the setup and breakdown of them because they're not they are year round you also have um a lift so that was the other part too that wasn't quite um you know the information around that he priced out one aspect we haven't had a lift but that would be necessary if we you know once we demo and we don't have a Press Box we would need some type of capacity and we um one area that Mike Arya was concerned with which is really kind of an unknown is the electrical right now um to operate the scoreboard and all of that is out of the Press Box and all the electricity kind of runs through there so we would would not know like how do we move move the electrical setup from there I think that is understood or believed to be one of the more complex parts of the demoing of Alum alumni versus just tearing it down like the visitor bleachers so this is just what the town provided to us I just put it on the same document um for the $70 um and then and this was just kind of consolidate um I had some questions on how much have we spent so far our funds committed for the project and this is about what has been spent so far or committed and we did also get clarification that um from the CPA that this project would not qualify for CPA funds I'm not sure if you saw that it was it's late break news I guess yeah um so there's two pieces one I yeah I did see their email uh Mary and I didn't couldn't attend their meeting last week so Town Council has not come out and said anything that the project is not eligible Town Council said that the bathrooms would be considered but the state the CPA they made an assumption that just because the bathrooms would be supporting the bleacher that they assume that that would be assumption that the bathrooms would not be considered but the the bathrooms don't only support the bleacher like they have you have softball fields all around there so it's not I don't know if they just are not familiar with the setup of that space but um so I don't think the question was posed to Town Council about the other parts or that the project was I haven't seen anything from town Council that said the project as itself was not um none of it was eligible for CPA but just only the bleacher part um however I'm just not going to fight that you at this point you know I don't I don't really feel as a big appetite for them wanting to approve it anyway so yeah I'm I'm saying it more um to let the committee know that this Avenue was explored there's been a couple of back and forth periods there was an application to the CPC or CPA I I always mix up the acronyms here but um exactly yeah so they have we had an application for the construction piece um and had gotten delayed I guess for deciding on whether to fund or not and and yes they voted I guess their last meeting last week that they would um reject the application um yes as it currently stands is my understanding yep um in the sponsor comments um in the in the section titled um next steps um you had mentioned that a no vote at the special town meeting would um even make it impossible to sort of demolish the current bleachers or or sort of do anything pretty much um so my question was just um from the um general fund uh Amendment um the mayard uh school committee does get some some funds um which they can use at their discretion I think like 75,000 I don't remember the exact number 76 yeah could that amount of money be used for any of the demolition or any of the sort of kind of much smaller costs that are like associated with this project sort of even in the event of a no Vote or is that not something that can happen um so as of like last week or a week and a half ago we thought maybe that would be we hadn't been quite fun the other major project that's happening is we have an HVAC issue at the school so the year before we had approved about uh I don't know maybe 200,000 we had a capital last uh fall town meeting which was going to cover the replace of one HVAC and the repairs of a secondary but it was this is kind of what we mentioned before uh and there was mold that also resulted that from over the summer with the heat and one of the hvacs not um operating very well uh that second unit actually now needs to be replaced as opposed to repair so Brian just shared some numbers with the school committee late at the end of last week and with with the 76,000 we're still 60,000 short to replace that second unit so we would definitely will be using that 76 for HVAC purposes which doesn't leave um at this point a funding source for we still have to figure out how do we fund the rest of the HVAC thing but also and we might be coming back to fincom for part of that um for a reserve F emergency if we don't you know we're going to look at our funds and we're going to have a budget meeting to talk about that a little bit more later on this week but to your point it doesn't leave anything for demoing which I think was one of the options that we could use the money for but now it looks like it's the cost of the second hbac is exceeding what we um have so that will be the priority sure thank you Natasha what would happen I mean I'm kind of leaning towards I I think deferring this till the spring town meeting because the select board sort of pushed off an election so we would save the cost of the special election if if it passed a town meeting and would there be anything else happening I think the voters would have more information about you know we've learn tonight that we won't see the impact of Green Meadow until now our January tax bills um and then you've mentioned again that the school committee is going to be looking at an override um a pretty it sounds like a pretty substantial override and would it be better I mean I'm just kind of leaning towards that um and I don't know I'm also concerned about um you know the sponsor comments were really well written they were very helpful I have to say but you mentioned here again a big concern of mine is that the track is near its its end of its life and the field is undersized um and I just feel like that the bleachers are aren't for the athletes it's for the I guess the spectators um not necessarily the the the bleachers the bleachers get used for the spectators but students use the bleachers we have band who sits in the bleachers um student sections um I mean it's used for if we if we have bleachers we rent out the field sometimes so we can do for um for um for various things um I think that the track itself we say more end of life it's not like next year I don't think anyone was even looking at necessarily five years P per se what I do know what happens with the track right now is because there's no bleachers people are using the track and putting chairs a lot more on the track so it's actually getting more wear because we don't have adequate seating for spect ators um in in a more appropriate place so you do have people who are standing on the track a lot more and and you know gravitating to that place which will probably accelerate you know in some places potentially the where the the field itself is usable um I think it was more of um looking forward they wanted so it's for football that's fine I use it for soccer but there are certain soccer tournaments that the the school would like to Post in the future and I don't know if it's if the this team advances to certain certain levels with you know Regional or League that it has to have a certain measurement so that's where we built in that um potential it's part of the designs um I and I hear what you're saying about the potential to delay I would you know to that point um you know the the project just gets more expensive um with that it got more expensive from delaying from last spring to the fall and and so you know right now I was happy that we got at 3.4 that it was kind of going into the opposite direction I don't know um you know what that would look like yeah as we wait and I don't know um by waiting what we're what we're gaining for just for another six months right because it's $70 a person or a family or or a household sorry um so I don't think you're buying the town or residence a lot of time just waiting for you know six more months necessarily from a financial impact you'd have to really I think for to save a hardship I like we're talking like years you'd want to be delaying right you know because $70 in one year for some people is probably very hard but I think in the context for one household is not delaying one you know six months isn't going to make a huge difference in the savings versus what the cost of the project could um yeah go I don't know that's just my thoughts on that yeah I hear I hear what you're saying right it's and I've never been to a high school football game but it's on my calendar I looked up the schedule and I'm gonna go we want to have you go yes right to see what the story what the story is in terms of attendance and I'll I'll send you some um some good dates when we have some home home home games I put the home games on my calendar so go this well so I'm very sorry I haven't been in the past but I will I will go to one Natasha had a question just about interest rates and I I don't know if it plays into it at all but when going for bonds um for a 15year duration will the um you know the it hasn't happened yet but the feds are likely lowering rates you know quite a bit um come you know this fall winter and and maybe even earlier spring would that would that potentially make borrowing the money less expensive by delaying or has that been discussed at all um I do know that I mean 3.5% is not a high rate it's a good rate yeah yeah it is a good rate but I do know in the past we've also as a town um refinanced whatever that term is like Town bonds yeah like we've we've done that and I don't know if Jillian maybe can speak to that because it was happened maybe about like right before covid I want to say we had a couple of um so there I think um Bond Council does look at or you know the town or there opportunities where we might be able to benefit um so this wouldn't you know if if 3.5 the numbers go down you know significantly or some point remember that this wouldn't hit right away either so um so it wouldn't be like you know this is an estimate based on what we know right now but if the the rate goes lower by the time that they do need a bond and great which could be yeah okay yeah exactly I know I think I know a lot of people are are hoping for that good news on all right that makes sense thank you and I know Greg has said this before and I think he you know he said it earlier um although this is a more relatively smaller Bond but sometimes they don't take out the whole Bond at once either you know they're just looking at the project so um you know whatever they need at that point to to do that so that probably is also a factor in their strategy all right I have too many windows open right now does anybody else have any other questions on that I will tell you the the projecting out was a really good exercise to do because we we've heard you know we've had some information from from grg the the athletic director different places and it was um kind of looked at for like some of the people pieces of rental equipment was you know but not really thinking about an whole and also the long-term um you know over 25 years or even like you know whatever that might look like so it was a I think it was just a good exercise to kind of show in numbers the Articles usually don't include the interest in them it's just for the capital cost right this is um so this part this is the amended right this is actually yeah so this is the amended piece that after Bond Council had um taken out some language towards the end because there was a couple of a sentence or two and the original one was like about like rates or something and then they said that's out they said it was outdated he told Greg and Greg forwarded that so we we struck that before um and the assessment um just again just for clarity um what we have the estimate is based on 3.5 million this is 3.4 not a huge difference but um you know just for a that's a discrepancy because we had um the town run the estimates for the household I think it was based on what the they thought it would be more with 3.5 so so okay and this was my understanding is this was accepted by the select board to be on the warrant yes it's on it'll be on the warrant yeah at the time for the yeah Greg um yes Greg accepted they accepted it on the warrant and they're going to be adding your comments and this our our sponsor comments to uh to the article before it goes to print okay yes because this I guess this so the select board doesn't have authority over our sponsor comments that's that's why they couldn't really do anything about it yes yep more more for clarifying the situation because I know the for the recording yes okay all right do do we have a motion to make as a committee tonight I would motion to support article three okay so you would motion to recommend article three do we have a second to recommend I will second to um recommend article three okay so we have a motion and a second to recommend um I will open the floor for any discussion or comments I'm I'm really on the fence about this one um it's I mean this is one where I feel like personally like on my vote at a special town meeting I'm going to be voting in favor of it like I think it's it's a good project I know I can you know I know a $70 increase in taxes doesn't seem that bad to me it's good for property values probably I'm like a short walk from the field um it's it's nice to have in town I don't know but I feel like split on like whether as a member of fincom I would like recommend it as like the best like financial decision for the town I see like a lot of upsides um I'm really concerned about the amount of debt that we've taken on in the last couple of years um especially knowing that we're having major like uh like like DPW garage and like uh water and sewer sewage that's going to take Capital funding in the near future um I feel I I really I I wish there was some more information about what like long-term rentals of uh equipment would look like um like I know you you did the the projection I I I feel like the 5% like inflation annually is probably pretty high for something and and I it it feels like uh I don't know I wish there was more something more to compare it to I mean I'm just thinking like there's there's a reason why sometimes you have to you know buying is better than like renting in like a long long term but you know if we already have a law of debt right now there's a reason people rent instead of like buying reason you might have like lease a car instead of um taking out a big loan to to buy one outright um I I think one thing that's swinging me as fincom in favor of this is uh seeing that revision um that Greg showed us at the beginning of this meeting I mean like going into this meeting I was probably going to vote no as like fincom on this um but knowing that like the amount of of like our debt service is actually a lot lower than I thought going in maybe that gives us more room to um to take this project on I don't know um I'm I'd be very curious what other people think about this I I agree with a lot of what you said I maybe a point of clarification that for me at the very least is the um this is a 15-year term because I'm assuming it's a smaller project the bigger ones like the garage and the um the water infrastructure improvements those are probably going to be 25s I don't know do do bomb terms go bigger than 25 for projects of that scale might not 30 yeah 30 that that could also be a different piece of it that this one will drop out sooner and it's important to note that water sewer infrastructure updates will go through the Enterprise funds and not the general fund and that was another piece bring up too is it like 100% through the Enterprise fund is that what Justin was saying yeah 100% they they will not come from the general fund at all that's why we have Enterprise funds but we pay it through our water and sewer bills which go up every year yes so um that's the fun in in in respect to the I was it was very encouraging what Greg presented at the beginning because last week it was five million Debt Service this year this week it's three million I still can't understand how we how we know the debt service if we haven't borrowed the whole 54 million why The Debt Service isn't going to go up I mean I can understand with a construction loan you don't need to borrow the whole 54 million now but if you B why do we think we've maxed out the interest I I want to look at that um and I know it's a risk to defer to the spring but I think we'll have more information on what the school needs for overrides um and that's that's teachers and students um and I know you know football games are are great um it's it's and I think we have to just set priorities that's just my sense is I don't think we can do everything but I don't know if this number was mentioned elsewhere um and it might be on the the big spreadsheet but do we know what the like if we voted yes on this do we know what the like resulting Debt Service percentage would be um uh we have gotten breakdowns like this yeah this is what the town gave us on we might have an idea but judging from what we just got for the debt service for the biggest project the town's had for a while Green Meadows dropping by 40% I feel like it's kind of a a little bit of magic numbers on the back end with these this Bond service versus I mean we all think of loans with cars and mortgages and everything and as Linda was saying like I I agree with her I don't necessarily understand how they can say we haven't borrowed it all but we're going to stick at this three million number for the entire term I think that that means that they've just estimated what like they they've done their magic numbers and they're like this is what it will be out on average and this is what we're going to plan for the entire time so in the beginning we're probably High the middle will be on task and the end will be low um but that's just what like a guess on my part of how to interpret that but my understanding is that first years can be a little wonky so the first year when they actually start the building you don't necessarily get build a consistent number and then after the first year you get con build a consistent number for the rest of the year I don't know if that makes sense with words yeah no it does Jillian because they they're sending different invoicing like it's it's lot of bit fluctuating depending on what they're doing in that moment like for the reimbursements that we're getting back for right now so they're kind of going up and down and the project was slightly delayed I think um because of a permitting thing from my understanding so can I just add something else this weekend um on this particular for the the bleacher so after this year there probably will be no bleachers and there'll be no other the Alternatives there so at this point we're out of compliance with code requirements and I I don't think rightfully we can continue on in that way like the bleachers that we have now are not compliant with Ada they're not compliant and so we have to stop we would have to stop that um model and in order to be compliant means we have to tear down what we have and we would just not have bleachers we have no funding source for an alternative anyway and like so those rentals that we're talking about 60,000 there's been no discussion from the town on how we can't we can't as a school fund that and there's been no alternative that's been proposed to us to consider so I assume that there is no funding source that's going to be dedicated to this um because to your point there's a lot of other projects you know normally everything that's been funded so far has been free cash um and free cash is probably going to go you know lower and there's other areas so I there is no funding source at this point that would be rental Beyond this year and certainly none that's going to explore what kind of construction um designs like what to do for the Ada you know just to bring that piece up or or to add water fountains or hand sinks so the reality is there's no other like there's we have to just stop that's where we're kind of getting to in the end like it would just kind of stall um we'd have to maybe just fence around what we have now until we can you know demo we might have money to demo potentially and I think the numbers that we last received were about 50,000 uh Justin and Greg had advised right before the summer because we were exploring that at that point because it was a safety issue without before the fence went up so that's just kind of where I don't the school committee has really no appetite for long-term rental and they're considering that it's we've already been told it's not compliant with code is it true to say that there are like no rentals whatsoever you know no rentals in existence sort of long-term or otherwise that would be Ada or code compliant you can you can the bleachers we have now which is what the cost includes in that proposal is what we have now and those are not Ada bleachers so we would have to um you know price out so the cost would actually be higher for Ada bleachers because you have to have um certain easements in that so this number is just what it is now um and that's what we kind of built out so that would be higher going forward if we were to do Ada bleachers um and then all the other stuff so Greg had put in here one standard portapotty one Ada when he priced it out but I don't think that meets the code requirements for toilets actually but that's what I put in here because that's what he priced out but that actually is um insufficient I think for the number of toilets you need for the temporary structure from what the plumbing inspector had provided so this is actually a really low number for what you would actually need for a rental to meet Code Compliance for Ada and pl and they would need drinking stations too right Natasha we' have drinking stations you need hand sinks um if in order to have hand sinks you need to make sure the water can be temperatured up to a certain you know for there's just a lot of those are not those are things that are just not reality I'm just going to be honest um and then the Ada walkway that's really the whole entry uh that's entering from Great Road but also the parking lot there need they're going to be do they were supposed to be part of the project is including curb um so that the wheelchair because right now it just kind of um when it goes from the the curb into the parking lot it there's no like um ada8 uh ramp it just is kind of like drops off so they were going to be making enhancements over that um as well so I I guess I wanted to say something about how why I decided to start the recommendation for this is that I actually came in probably thinking no but then looking at this spreadsheet here and knowing that there is no other choice so like from a personal standpoint I would vote this yes up and down the board but from fincom I was a no at first and I switched to a yes because despite my I would say frustrations being painted into a corner here not having good information this is adequate but you know as you said it's not the right number of porta-potties it's not the right cost for bleachers we haven't actually investigated in any way shap perform what level of project site improvements would be needed feels lackluster at best however this is still a minimum it's not going to go down when we get this extra information it's only going to go up so that would mean that cost to town should in theory be less by building and that's what switched me over as a fincom Viewpoint and that's why I went with guess on this is that despite my mind a severe lack of due diligence it's enough and it does paint a pretty clear picture that there is no other real Choice here so not sure if that helps the other members at all but that was that was why I proposed it after probably starting up with a no in my mind I feel like I don't know where I don't know if this would be helpful to anyone either but like I don't know I feel like where where I'm at is between sort of a a yes now and a yes in the spring and just sort of you know I think as Linda maybe briefly touched on just sort of getting the impact of like the um the Green Meadow on you know people's taxes you know come January um I don't know if anyone else would want to weigh in or or you Natasha but is how much of a difference would that make you know in terms of a yes now versus a yes in the spring and terms of you know the the sort of whole cost of the thing well we know the Green Meadow taxes right impact on or what the impact is going to be on our taxes we haven't seen it but we've been told what it is right yeah I think that um so I look at fin comm's recommendation if you think it's the best project for the town you know as a that's what I would as a resident like I take my school committee hat off I'm like okay does fincom feel like this is a project that is you know meets a long-term vision of the town right um I don't know if much is going to change now to be to the point we are relying on select board they would still have to call an election so they may still not call an election within 90 days and it may still end up going to Springtown meeting anyway you know just by the they um not taking so we are relying on the slug board we don't make it happen happen anyway at this point it's really not us so we're just um at the mercy of what the select board decides to do they may not call the election Even If This Were to go and pass at town they may still not call an election until the spring and that would be we would have to revisit at that time I would want to if it's a timing I don't I don't know what six months I'm having a hard time myself trying to understand what six months buys you for savings for a resident um um you know because I think it just kicks the C like that's where that's where we are where we are with this project because nobody wants to make a decision with it I think cost would go up in six months like it would just make it went up from the spring to the fall I that's what I'm trying to look for what is it we're looking to gain between now and the fall and I can tell you right now to Nathaniel's Point yeah we might be able to get more solid numbers but they're not going to be prettier numbers we're only going to be you know saying that it's going to cost more and I tell you right now I don't know anyone's budget who has the time and the resources to be you know pricing out projects that we don't have funding for um at this point you know hand sinks or Plumbing at this there's not any funding for any of that to do um so we would need money for that we don't have like the the RFP that we put for the designs is for the project so we'd have to have a separate RFP or something if there's like a smaller scale that would just be for curb and and that's a long time and I don't know again the value of what that's going to it's going to add to the project it's not going to actually make it more cost efficient um in any way that I can see is the RFP where that 3.4 million came from roughly speaking the 3.4 million came from um the designers they they proposed 750 seats they had 750 and 950 um broken down to what that would cost at as of August and and that's where that that 750 that 3.4 million is for 750 seats as of now so it would go up if um right so there's no bid there's no expiration date we're fighting against this is simply an estimate at this point um well it would go up um so it would be more so it would be more that we' have to ask for it won't be 3.4 million in in the spring because we um we had I think it was 3.2 from the last spring and when we delayed it went up like 150 or 200,000 just waiting a few months and plus then you have to add in you have to do more rental as well so right now we have paid off or we have budgeted I guess from free cash rental for this year we don't have rental for next year we can't rent is what we've already kind of determined if we if we have a project that's underway I think that you know the building inspector because that's part of what he recommended you know is that you could do like retrofitting and all this stuff if you have like he he wants a town to pursue new bleachers and that's what he put in his inspection report um so that's I think if we are not pursuing new bleachers in the interum I think that the yeah the building I wouldn't feel comfortable pursuing rentals Beyond this year I don't even feel comfortable right now to be honest with you but I don't think in the middle of football season is the time to really push that argument yeah and I'm I'm putting it up here just to um highlight for the committee as well that there was some CPA funds that did pay for the the design study we also had some um money over from free cash um to to support that the funding and then obviously the the rental of the uh the bleachers and the fences so we've spent almost half a million dollars just on on this process so far right so if we were to delay like our contract for our OPM um I think expires I think we're about halfway through it um the other part too is that I asked Greg and Greg did not have a response back from me but um if we decide not to pursue this and we haven't I think we I don't know if we're still contractually obligated to pay the OPM for the full contract um because that's what they were hired under to do so that's almost like money down the drain in some way and these from my understanding of what I've seen of the designs we're focusing on like one side of the field would get the bleachers at this time with the Press Box somewhere else would be the bathrooms and the snack stand and it's sort of designed in mind for potential changes to the field or track in the future like you're planning for the future for some of these like you're talking about how the soccer field might be a slightly different size blah blah blah right so they had they did the um part of the designs was factoring in a setback so if the track at whatever point you know five years that needs to be replaced um it would still allow to expand up to 51 I think it was 51 feet I have to go back and look but um Tom hzbc who was on the rec commission you know he was part of you know really advocating for that and um and that was the guidelines they did and they came back with the design so that um the bleachers would not interfere with the expansion of the alumni track I mean the Alumni field once the track were to um be replaced in the future I don't know if anyone's gone to Alumni field and just the entry way from Great Road it's terrible it's like rocks and you know it's it's really not accessible at all um at a minimum it's just it's a hazard for for little kids um and for you know people with mobility issues it's not a clean so that alone is just long overdue a lot of it's just long overdue I know you guys have a motion and discussion I don't want to I don't want to keep adding but I just wanted to make sure that I pled my case as much as possible and wanted to make sure you had information I know you guys it's tough so I appreciate the deliberation that thought you guys are given to and know feelings either way yep so we have a motion to recommend which currently stands is there any further comments or discussion at this time all right so I'm not hearing any so I will take a roll call vote to recommend article number three let me double check the number article three the bleachers um so we'll start at the top of the zoom list uh Nathan yes Miss um n yes Linda no Katie yes Nathaniel yes all right so I am also a yes um so the article does pass um so or is recommended at this time thank you and uh Linda just because I I'm just to add to everyone but the school committee is also going to see uh although it didn't print as 11:30 a.m. in the senior's um newsletter but this yeah the school committee is going to be on Friday yeah um I we're Mary and we don't want to be in competition no I hate when projects get framed that way um so I would really you know love any opportunity just to either share information or understand um I I don't like when projects you get pitted against each other because the town should have a better strategy that can move forward in multiple projects and this is a tough project and I'm almost glad we voted for it do you know what I mean yeah yeah no Wi on in October so but anything any other information that comes up or any other questions and followup please please reach out let me know um I'm certainly will share anything but I appreciate everyone's thoughtful deliberation I really do and I'll see you at a game yes yes please let me know when you go so I'll meet you there all right so um so as this currently stands we have uh triple check in here don't save open this recommendation and okay um Word file all right so as this currently stands um just double triple checking we have voted on all the articles I am so pleased with us okay so the last hurdle that we have um is to sort of come together and talk about the words uh of our comments for each of the Articles so I would propose that we sort of go from the top down and just go through them and see how we feel about them um we don't necessarily have to vote on them as a committee like it's not super formal um it's more sort of coming to a consensus to make sure that what is in the comments is clear and concise for the town's Town voter so they can sort of understand why we came to the decision to recommend or not to recommend um the article and um the potential like Financial impacts um to help them come to their own decision um and you know it's also kind of a goal not to be redundant with the sponsor comments but it's always um you know a good a good thing to understand what is what is in the sponsor comments too um the deadline for all of these is uh tomorrow morning right that is correct so we have just tonight and if we don't come to a consensus on the Articles then I can delete the comments and say like to be provided at town meeting and then I think Katie you've done this in the past where you've you've had to read our comments um at the me so um yeah so I've I've I have everyone's comments that have been sent to me on email so thanks so much for those and um diving right in um I would almost remove the word unanticipated increase right there uh right below where your curse was a second ago it's right in the middle just because by definition I feel like this is an unanticipated piece so I would just use increase make it more succinct no one has any objections to that yeah that makes sense [Music] yep I'm going to I'm going to delete the word most because I feel like that is an opinion um but um distributed um I would propose just to be more sustin because as you as you reference in there it is it says in the sponsor comments exactly what those funding numbers will be four um do we feel like that last line is necessary about how the funding will be allocated based at the school committee's discretion I don't know that we need that yeah I was say probably not I I would think it's assumed if the money's going to the schools that they get to use it for what they feel needed at the very least if we did include that then we would also just to be fair have to say it's also you know the town can do it at their own discretion too right so I felt like maybe I I like I'm I'm trying to put on my Peter hat and make our comments as concise as possible no I think I think removal is better than addition so yeah okay we feel good about this do I would you like me to do do speak in spell and read it out loud no maybe no I think for good reading okay jumping into the next one um I would I've been harping on this for a while uh funds raised by an existing 1.5% real estate tax we don't have to do it but for me it makes a big difference there we go so I don't know how to show both things at the same time but um I'm I'm looking at on my second screen the the sponsor comments at the same time too um if that's helpful I can toggle between them um okay and I see that you updated the language to say if the article passes it will have a balance of blah so thanks for that update just making sure I put in the new one in here keep it keep me honest Nathan I I'm not sure I've made that update you might have done that oh I might have done that okay let's make sure that I did it for everything then we'll have a if it passes it will have a balance of um is a little confusing to me because it isn't current balance that 214 or no uh let me let me open the email from the CPC all right so um the amounts will have if the warrant article passes so that is not what is in there currently that is if the article passes probably opening a can of worms here by mentioning a comma but does the comma after the word passes should it be there everyone has their own comma opinions for sure I use commas way too much I would say I would pause my word there but I'm a sem no I'm semic call and dashes kind of guy but I'm saying not to the com too but like I'm not saying I'm the I'm the Prime Choice For What to go on one um I would cut if the article passes I would say the historic preservation Reserve fund has a balance of 234,000 say what it currently is of which up to 20,000 would be used Etc 34 34 26 yep um okay I always make S TR and it's not through okay um and then on the last sentence I would say these funds would be used in part to create an accessible seating area other like planting and stuff doing but like um mitigating erosion and like past flooding is part of the purpose of this sorry I missed that sentence Oh U the last sentence These funds would be used could you insert in part all right so these numbers Al also need to be updated Ma so this would be if the article passes 776 49 um and 8466 so that is 86 86 five if I match correctly so that that is the open reserves space fond 7,7 649 + 84 6 six yep 86 don't have the following okay so I don't know if you s I'm going to toggle between our comments and the sponsor comments um so the water trough they talk about that the $20,000 for the open space they're talking about native plants right now for erosion um it doesn't say an A sign signage and seating so it doesn't necessarily say anything there about ADA and I feel like if it's not explicitly stated I don't think we should say it's ADA Compliant because then what if it isn't yeah that's what they said at the CPC meeting but um yeah I could I uh if you want to cut that that makes sense to me [Music] um so I'm to stop sharing I'm going to stare the word file all right so I'm going to say these funds would be used in part to create seating um and um find Ed see if I English and um and [Music] improve planings that's words I would say install plantings you don't necessarily there we go install or PL plantings or something I don't know should it say like what the plantings are of or is that would that be a sort of extraneous information um in the sponsors thing it says native plants I can put native planting if we if we would like to add a verb you write seaing and signage instead of seaing SL signage and then be and to install native plantings that's good with the comma you don't have too many ends oh well remove the previous and changes the tense so uh because create seaing signage and then install is like a new verb so it would be a new list um and install you could you could say to add seeding signage and native plants like that um remove to install or you could put install at the at the front if you wanted it if you still wanted to keep that in reference to the planting I think add's a better word okay feel like sister Mary's going come out here and beat me for conjugating stuff wrong okay so grammar school flashbacks all right are we satisfied with this um the comments for our article two recommendations I feel like this captures um I think it's good okay Jillian did you go to a Catholic School I'm just curious because that's what I oh yeah definitely I did yeah I when you said that I had flashback to I apologize I know I'm just like oh man starting this with the comma thing R out it is oh yes okay anyway let's continue but I'm just laughing behind the scenes um all right so the so this was a um comment written without knowing how we would vote that's kind of first paragraph is sort of stating the case um second paragraph is saying what the proposal would do third paragraph is um additional information on what what what's nice about it fourth paragraph is these are Financial concerns and fifth paragraph is um like we don't know what the cost of not doing this is no would compel us to would compel the town to explore other options um because the situation as it stands is not code compliant something has to be done but so it might be cheaper but by delaying action and no vote may result in a costly a project um so it's I feel like this is like a pretty good framework for what we want to talk but we might want to change what we're emphasizing and I would definitely say um I would definitely remove the comment in the penal ultimate paragraph about Debt Service is now over 10% of our annual budget because that's not true um I would say two things for this is that we don't necessarily state that there is and this is kind of somewhat maybe not new information but kind of explicitly stated that at this point the no vote does lead to no bleachers because we don't have a rental plan going forward and then also to give Linda some she was the no vote here I feel like if there's anything specifically on the the no side of the equation that isn't added there I would ask that Linda puts her voice in there in some way unless it's already um focused on yeah I was going to say in the paragraph about the debt service is is if we could allude to anything about I mean the school committee did talk I think even in their sponsor comments they talked about uh an operating deficit I believe and they certainly I think it's in there um we've taken on significant new debt the school department thinks they might need an operational override and if we had deferred to and we will have the cost of a special election if it passes town meeting um that might have wanted to defer to the spring so that the town could see everything all together it's um I think further down Julian is the transparency piece maybe where it had about the the operating yeah somewhere think maybe not nope maybe further up sorry yeah there it is transparency Y is it okay yeah um oh and just something to quickly add with special town meeting in in in the spring the election is before the meeting so that was one of the reasons why we pivoted from last time so putting it there would still be like the ballot vote potentially before the article which is a little backwards I think but but [Music] all right um you know the other concern I had was that the track I mean Natasha said the track probably has five years to go the field I'm not sure how much longer it's certainly not the right size that you know we could expect more we need more Capital Improvements and I probably that's not the only thing in the fields too um it's just you know it's just a priority issue yep all right um so oh I'm not sharing the right screen anymore all right so um I think we should mention a comment in here about how um we have currently spent uh the town has spent um is the 2025 date that's what's spent in this general fund budget so that has been also spent I I actually disagree with personally um about putting how much the town has spent to date on the pl are you talking about the plan or on the uh the uh the rental bleachers I was going to put in here that about how we' spent a certain amount of money on the designs um so from both free cash and CPA funds um to come up with the these these proposed this proposed article so I was gonna look I I I personally feel that that I I don't like the idea of looking at like how much we've already spent on the plan as an argument in favor of implementing a plan like a bad plan is still a bad plan not that this is one right regardless of how much we we spent on it um and I I I feel like it even though we're recommending it I feel like it's kind of biasing in favor of the planes does that make sense am I does anybody else agree with that no that that makes a lot of sense I get that I I agree the higher that number the more you might get a guilty yes vote versus an honest vote and it it is due diligence that should be done we might want to amend the sentence before a long-term plan was developed by the town to fix a site and fully bring it up to the code the sentence before because we did develop the plan I mean we've done so much work longterm plan has this is a long-term plan I I think what I meant with that sentence is that something has to be there has to be a long-term plan okay going into the next paragraph This proposed plan would do this um okay never mind but yeah yeah the point in that sentence is that something has to be done if not necessarily this particular one a no vote still means we have to do something okay um I would I mean I would say like we we are com some some language that says we are compelled to do something because it's a legal issue right but we so I think this comes back to our meeting last last last time when we talked about it you don't necessarily want to be like hey we're not in compliance coming to us like um yeah you also I mean that's not something you want to put in writing we're also not required to do it we could just demo and leave it as a field technically speaking correct there is no reason to bring the site to code we could just remove the bleachers entirely maybe a long-term plan is is advis to like match the town's master plan or I don't some other I don't know maybe like bring this site to code while still having bleachers or something along those lines [Music] vag we could cut that sentence entirely I just delete [Music] it we got a lot of content there actually yeah yeah that works even the rest of it like the majority of the cost that an on is probably redundant of the sponsor comments I think I think because it's it's called bleacher project like in the title of the article the fact that the bleachers is a smaller portion of the total cost it's something it's a point of confusion when I've talked to people in town about this um I think it's useful to state that somehow yeah yeah I would agree I don't know if part of it as well would be since the sponsors comments are are really long if we wanted to have like a six synct version um sort of in our own comments then we could probably we should I don't know probably include all of the even things that might be redundant just because people might get lost in sort of the length of the sponsor com good point yeah so um something about how this isn't compliant longterm proposed plan would um update bleachers um uh once you've done that add a bathroom and oh I see well maybe write my sest once you're done sorry yeah and what is the press pass um at below maybe instead of deleting anything I I reworked the majority sentence because it was bugging me a little bit but there's no chat here so I can't paste it so I wrote out that the majority of the costs would go towards a new building comma including bathrooms in a concession stand comma alongside Associated Plumbing electrical and site work alongside Associated I don't think have the necessary you can just use site work too to be honest you don't need to say PL electric is a little redundant okay can you split out um split that first paragraph back into two paragraphs um starting with the proposed plan thanks all right I I feel that this is a opinion and I would like to delete this paragraph great yeah um I do think we need to have a paragraph about how there's a lot of um upcoming potential debt exclusions or otherwise coming up maybe starting this with just the town has recently um voters there are many how do we phrase it in the or we would like to recognize the finance committee would like to recognize that the um any other important capital projects yet to be funded or yeah when was that uh August tri board meeting July July at the it was a July 30th July 16th no July 30th yeah meaning I think we should also mention um you know the the school committee may be looking for an operational override in the spring for FY 26 um and which which capital the capital projects are um DPW garage yeah the storm water uh project number three I was looking at the priorities oh no one was storm water two was the DPW garage and tied for two was the bleachers I think three was the golf course building yeah the golf course building and I believe the senior center came after that and then fixing downtown streets was the last one or of the top ones um um [Music] um okay so I'm going to delete this paragraph here that's highlighted okay um and then I think um I think that sentence is still true you think this is still true I think that sentence is true yeah yeah it's true but we the next piece that there might be other solutions that are less expensive I don't believe it's true anymore I think the less expensive choice is no bleachers which I mean you can keep as an option on the table I suppose but I don't believe there is a less cheap Choice currently for the town that involves keeping bleachers and we've seen a partial comparison yeah and a Natasha presented a pretty good one tonight I mean we might not agree with the assumptions but even Natasha said that it's it's the 5% might be high but then she was just using the current bleachers not ADA Compliant bleachers which would be more so we did see a comparison and she gave it like the 25 year break even I believe it was 25 years and there's no site site work involved but like that's I mean I did I did like the same calculation after our meeting using like different you know what I mean like they like talk to a company that did I know you didn't Natasha but um those are from actual quotes those are estimates that reuse that company we've been using that Mar scaling for the current bleachers so those are numbers that are not like for the for the year that was in it just escalated that on the things that were not in there were the works that's not done it hasn't been explored for the the code aspects but the projections like the if you take out on the projection sheet sorry I don't mean to interrupt but on the other tab um if you take out the 50,000 that fy2 column comes out to the number that Greg provided you all already that's the same number um so that's that's that same number he he provided you all which is he got from the estimates that we were I just put it on a sheet for everyone to kind of see that because it was kind of like just a long-term those are using the numbers that Greg provided you guys already as well just added in the 50 and then escalated it but they grounded that's my that's kind of my point is that it's it's the numbers for like a different set of rentals that wouldn't be the ones we'd be using and then it has like assumptions about what it would be going on from there but I I realize I'm in the minority um here so yeah I just didn't want I just wasn't sure like it was actually through an estimate that was received from vendors so I didn't want it to like that part I just wanted to clarify um yeah the with the longterm of course over 25 years we we wouldn't know that's where that assumption is built in for for 5% you know it would be lower but um the Ada numbers we didn't have those bleachers so that would be the difference so anyway sorry no I think it's I think it's good to have the discussion um so I think it is possible that we try to get additional quotes So Right now the over the override the debt override would be something um it would be many freaking Windows um it'd be around 300K a year so that would be the principle and the interest um I almost think we should remove the entire last paragraph and put something more along the lines of saying that the comparison we've seen is not well flushed out but it is a minimum number that something long like you know it is a poor estimate but displays what fincom believes to be a lowend of where we would end up and would end up costing the town equivalent or more like the comparison we have seen leaves out a lot of unknowns however we have um decided that these unknowns will only escalate the cost yeah something should be compliant J no I'm going to spell the same word again um this is why I don't like spelling I think you had to write the second time you just yeah there you go [Music] um okay um comparison between rental of complient features bathrooms um um okay did not account for all factors I don't know um I don't really want to go and say additional research could be done but I want to say something like we could delay the project to research rental options more but we don't feel that necessarily will have a large difference between a potential override is is the impression I have from the majority of the committee is that we could do more diligence but we don't necessarily think that that due diligence will make a difference in the end yeah that that that Delta is going to be huge like delaying will time is more important than Perfection is what I'm trying to say and I need I need English because it's getting late um is it the consensus of the committee that long-term rent of bleachers and bathroom facilities was not financially um financially what not effective but was not cost effective for the town yeah financially prudent financially prudent something like that yeah um timing was deemed most critical by the committee as delaying would only increase costs of construction or is delaying would only increase cost of the project on yeah yeah that's good would only increase costs of construction only yes so before results switch your results and increase or would only result in increase you can just get rid of results yeah only increase yeah or only increase cost of construction it wouldn't be plural I want to put this up here um costs would not be plural increase cost of construction maybe you need to love before it I don't know if it is getting late okay um although some long-term rental options wor um I I mean my whole point is that long-term rental options were not considered so I either either don't don't mention mention it don't don't mention um like potential other costs at all but uh although a variation of long-term rental options was considered or because they looked at them they just weren't the correct ones I mean I I think the point is that the pro the plan that's in front of us is the plan that we have and we can like scrap it and like go back to the drawing board that that's probably just going to be like way more expensive if if we do that right but they did look at the cost of Bleacher rentals the ones they currently have whether or not it's viable or allowed or blah blah blah they didn't look at it yeah uh it was not the long-term although limited long-term rental option scenarios were considered it was not deemed um a solution yeah timing was um considered timing felt critical timing was consider yeah yeah that's good timing was considered all right this is going to be the hardest one which is why I wanted to do it first because my brain is going to be potato sauce um I think you can get rid of option after rental although limited longterm rental scenarios maybe bleacher rental I mean is kind of assumed but well and porta potty yeah exactly so I mean not small but that wouldn't add bleacher then I also I don't know about that comma after however a comma after considered yeah that's I don't know do we want to I feel like there needs to be a verb before Sol viable that's very good yeah I like that ATT financially fiscal financially fiscal no well I think viable covers both the financial and also the it's not compliant right yeah also need a viable okay it's not a bathroom it will be multiple bathrooms um then I would add the S on bathrooms PR plan would update the bleachers and add bathrooms concession stand and Press Box and another facilities I think you do a comma after concession stand it's a list done right concession stand Press Box and other facility it wouldn't update the bleachers it'd be new bleachers install include include bleachers bathrooms a concession stand and we say bathrooms because that's the point right correct I missed I missed what the point was sorry Ada in front of bleachers ah Ada 8 compliant bleachers and bathrooms as well as a concession stand and press concession stand Press Box and other facilities that's good well the the Press Box is ADA Compliant that's what makes it so expensive the lift is it the whole thing yeah yep it's the lift on the Press Box you did compl God dang it and you also want Ada back in front of fees I you just put I think if you just put the Ada in front of the beginning it'll just apply to whatever it applies to I mean technically the concession sign is Ada press boxes and all the other facilities are as well there's nothing that's not ADA Compliant in this project technically speaking so it's not uh and then I get rid of the other yeah well and other facilities sorry control Z deleted too much I deleted too much really yeah are there other facilities I mean I guess it's site the other facilities are the pathways yeah I say this a site work but okay actually you would say site work then the facilities site work wasn't fall under facilities so other facilities would be replaced with site work um there shouldn't be an and before a Press Box Press Box comma and other site work I was about to go weed doing the Oxford comma discussion here or okay and then then the second sentence in that paragraph is kind of restates a lot of it yeah I think you can delete it the majority of the costs this I thought we wanted to make clear that the costs well yeah but now it's uh it has a different role in this new paragraph than it had originally um I they just cut it you could also just say the majority of the costs would go towards the bleachers and bathrooms and then just leave the rest if you wanted to still emphasize where the you know what's driving it because you you weren't wrong at all about where I mean this is titled a bleacher project yeah there's a lot more to it and if people kind of like when I was looking at the cost for the um the study for the uh sewer down below I was like that's just a big number for this town unless you're doing X Y and Z and they are doing X Y and Z for that very reason so getting that kind of background makes a big difference do we need to mention that we can't just replace the bleachers that because due to building code it we had to do the bathroom building I mean that's what really got the cost up loan cannot yeah that's good if it's covered well enough in the sponsor comments is it like we already say as outline in sponsor comments above I don't I feel like the sponsor comments for this one are actually very well put together especially with giving very of why I had no complaints with that uh descriptions that they provided so I don't know if we repeat stuff here typically or not but especially with this one it would feel like you could end up just we' go back to where we were in the beginning a lot of extra words um okay so I I'm okay with the first two paragraphs um I would like to focus on this third paragraph for a little bit and then it's really late so I would like to just Breeze through the other one um the third one this is one of the more important stops the third one just kind of stops there like there are lots of projects we list them setting priorities is been done or wants to be done but we don't necessarily say I mean it it's kind of like a duh why it's not good but we don't actually get to a conclusion in that third paragraph in any way I would say something about right the fincom kind concerned about hitting that 10% or or you know fincom is concerned about the total impact these would have on our Debt Service as a town yes I think you get rid of everything after town to be honest yeah I think it it paints a pretty pretty clear picture that this is a serious concern um and I I take that sent you just wrote and put at the top of the paragraph yeah yeah because I don't think it's very clear why we're mentioning other like capital projects and like why we're recognizing those without that starting sentence we're concerned about Deb that's why we're talking about other capital projects um yet to be funded and I would say that and something about that we expect will need to be funded in coming years [Music] that's good that feels a lot better now um in the last last sentence um the the need for bleachers for the um alumni Field improvements should be weighed with these future projects in mind sorry one more time um that I I I would cut Ed the bit about setting priorities was discussed at such and such a meeting and just say um the fincom advises uh the town to we a vote in favor of Alumni field with these um future expected expenses in mind something like that yeah I like that that because these other ones are effectively kind of like this where your Alternatives aren't oh you can have a worse garage or bad storm water it's kind of a yes or no option as well so so you so I think there needs to be something about so we set we set the obligation here that there's burdens and then there's a lot of things coming up there needs this there needs to be something in there about how as a town we started to talk about priorities but I think we need a sentence also saying like the finance committee wants all the town's people to become involved and voice their opinions as well so please come to meetings or something like become involved in the town like um this is this is the sentence that you're trying to make right yeah so for the last um uh the the a vote for the vote for the proposed plan for Alumni field should be considered with these future expenses in mind um the town is holding regular meetings to discuss these projects and voters are invited to attend and are encouraged to attend and make their voices heard like that uh cut during this process i''s say regular open meetings are are holding regular open meetings and um Town's people are encouraged or fincom encourages the town's people do we want to add anywhere in here what our vote number was I know it was we were kind of expecting almost a 43 I feel before today and we ended up at a 51 feel like Peter might have actually been a a no so it would have been I guess 52 in the end of the day I think Peter was undecided I think still right and I we can't I can't speak for him in any way but if he had would have 52 or six1 right but um do we want to add that here I feel I don't I don't think it's that NE I don't think you have to because I think my my concerns were like especially that paragraph We just wrote that um I mean I would I would think deferring to the spring when we have more we have we haven't mentioned the override the operational overrides but we've mentioned other projects that are going to hit in the spring and and that's you know if you vote on this um you know we're gonna at some point we're gonna have to pick and choose or or time things out I don't think you have to put the V I don't think you have to put the vote I'm trying to think what we did and we had some split votes we no we voted the committee so put them when they're like super close like like four to three yeah and as long as both views are here because this is a very balanced recommendation right it is we've got some concerns here that are I think very adequately expressed from my from my viewpoint we're concerned about debt we're concerned about all these other projects and the burden on the tax payers yeah a lowercase taxpayer probably in the second line of the last paragraph sorry there you go all right um the second sentence what if in the second sentence of the last paragraph instead of the finance committee would like to recognize that there are many important potential projects yet to be funded um say uh this this proposed plan should be considered um in respect to many other important potential projects or something like that um kind of like it how it is I understand where you're going with it but I don't know how much it adds and it's 10:30 yeah for me um yeah for me I think it was important extras in there um okay so we are we are satisfied with this um words I I think the other ones will be very straightforward all right not hearing any further comments sounds good um so the water from retained earnings we recommend it um so this is about the equipment the Capital Equipment um so this includes talking about how this is important and then it says that this has a balance of this number estimated before the yearly certification uh and it'll leave us with a balance of this number after this proposed transfer if the article thank you for that update Jo no problem you have one too many spaces in currently or two too many spaces I don't know fix the spaces all right are we satisfied with this uh word yes yeah yay transfer from the retained earning so we also recommended this one so this is allowing for the town to explore the options for planning expanding and improving the treatment capacity um so I I changed a couple words from what you sent me Katie so um the life expectancy is close to end for some plant equipment passage of this would allow for a study to make such plans and then this is the balance estimated before the certification and it would leave this much if it passes all right not hearing any not sure if I development this is probably too nitpicky um the next steps for right almost like infrastructure maintenance or something infrastructure just for my perspective of being back in the days the bad guy developer that I made up the development so that's find that that's changed that works per yeah that's great great even better that first clause in that sentence could just be some plant equipment is reaching end of life okay and then would we put an and yeah having yeah all right on number oh sorry number six are we ready to do number six we done the fun he was said we're going to come out of the operating budget not the sewer Enterprise budget the 14,000 yeah he said it was coming out of his operating the DPW operating budget yeah yeah that's not what the sponsor comments say so I think he might have misspoke um he said because he said then you have to wait for a town meeting to spend out of the Enterprise budget because it says no in sorry that's what he said this is what it says here is that it will come out of the sewer Enterprise fund so well it says has available budget allowance it doesn't say it's going to come out of that necessarily yeah that's true it does look like it was going to come out of there that's not what he said tonight huh okay um we just cut that sentence if we're not sure I was going to say I don't know how much it matters overall because it's small dollars there's no yeah we could cut this just cut the sentence you could just say current budget yeah good idea yep all right uh okay so and then oh I forgot about this one um I would say instead of four to create an Enterprise fund stablish the option keep going right right this article would establish the option but not an obligation to create an Enterprise one and yeah you got the rest timing is imperative yeah that's not a word there we go would be would allow flexibil like that adoption sentence has kind of already contained within the first sentence right y this is me like writing it while he was talking because nobody wrote this because this was a brand new article I am impressed you did good yeah period at the end of that and I think it's good um the last paragraph the selectboard has the authority to currently set rates with stickers or with this potential new program um you should say like currently the select board can raise rates by jeez I'm brain is whatever too um no I think he means below were I think the selectboard currently has the authority to set you already have currently download um so basically I wanted to have a paragraph saying like if you vote no to this article they still have authority to set have a rate hearing and change the rates on the trash program like voting no doesn't mean that they can't set rate yeah that first sentence I'd move somewhere else in that paragraph you do want to start with what you're saying there that the last sentence has all those negatives it's very hard to read not passing this article not impact um a a yes vote would allow would provide um an the the select board with additional options for um yeah for for f getting the best possible Waste Management contract um a no vote the the select board a no vote would um a no vote means that the select board would be limited to funding a pay as you go program by raising sticker prices about if this article passes uh would have additional flexibility to um uh not to like not necessarily to negotiate but yes to negotiate uh to implement like the the best possible um waste disposal contract all right so I'm gonna vote I'm going to I'm going to delete this sentence because it's basically say the opposite of what I'm saying here um if this article passes the select board May establish an Enterprise program um we should say what an Enterprise fund is um this would allow the the select board um the option of uh switching from a sticker program for trash management to a like quarterly Bill like the same way that waste and Sewer is treated um if this does not pass then the select board will only be able will um will likely uh increase sticker prices to account for the pay as you go program is it is it pay as you sorry is it maybe yeah yeah he's right yeah um I just don't think that like the average I mean I I wouldn't know what like when I when I first going started going to like Town me I had no idea what an Enterprise fund was does it say in the sponsor comments y let me pull it up s stop sharing share the screen yeah pay as you through so I think they give a nice summary of what an Enterprise fund is um um I mean a big thing I thought was that it provided the town with tools for oversight and accountability because he really mentioned that um he talked a lot about bag abuse whether people aren't putting stickers on their bags or not quite sure what they were doing but that there wasn't a lot of accountability in the current program overside but that's more about the what his task force recommend in the end yeah not necessarily what this is about inherently they just want the ability to say we'd like to do this under or through a new Enterprise fund and without having this piece of framework first they can't do the second piece so ke did mention that a lot but that was more of I think I would say background info but it's not background it's future ground info why there yeah I I don't know so [Laughter] 1048 okay I'm made left words and hopefully you like them um I was going to say why don't we go simpler because this is really just a procedural almost option for having just more more pathways on the board versus less Pathways yep that's my opinion looks good we acceptable on this one all right my last one is about the liquor license on Walnut Street for the cornage store just has a double word allow authorize would authorize maybe and it got changed from Board of Selectmen to select board recently right so right select board yeah to be consumed maybe or to be drunk I copied and pasted the old one with with not the right edits because I missed the select board piece but I believe drunk off is also the legal how it was okay it was put in that way I also thought it was weird as well but I was confused everywhere I looked when I was not be drunk on premises it's like too many play on words there yeah yeah exactly but apparently that's just how it's phrased I don't know I agree with you felt weird to be consumed right can be consumed yeah the sponsor comments say not to be drunk on premise so this is the same 49 WM Street yep okay we're happy with that one all right I'm not hearing anyone else we're all falling as sleep um great so um yeah so I I would motion that we table the minutes on do those next time second sounds good and our updates and the like so um and I motion to adjourn please yeah okay one second um so our next meeting so I'm going to propose we cancel the 23rd meeting and instead just have the meeting on the 30th which would be our public hearing and also the um our normal meeting so I'll post it for both of them and and we not have a meeting on the 23rd okay I'm really sorry everyone um I are we required to submit comments to the Mass Housing Partnership by the for the 40b thing or do we not have to do that we um do not have to do that that is that is a great thing to bring up so I did send you a lot of emails about that I looked at all the other towns in the area that were linked and none of them the finance committee voted like made any official comments it was the select board the planning boards and the water and sewer like the DPW so um I I personally as one member of the committee do not think need to do those comments especially since it's 11 o'clock at night yeah um you know um that that is my personal opinion but I did send you that link so if you feel as a citizen you would like to put in a note you can do that because that's what the link is for but if you have opinions otherwise uh let me know you know I didn't have I don't have a burning desire I just I don't know if we were required to do it so we not required to do it so um so I can let Bill know that we just we ran out of time because we had to do these STM comments um but we will if we feel so impassion to do so we'll make comments as individuals great I won't be here on September 30th so we need someone else to take notes on the 30th okay I can take notes Linda thank you I will be in Spain have fun biking in Spain and Portugal yeah I can't wait good reason to miss yeah um I don't know if you need a second for your proposal for the um yes the adment I would need a second I second who who first the who first who did the first Jillian okay thank you all right um yep so at 10:54 PM all time any I know but we did it we made all the comments thank you so much for your hard work thank you so much everyone will make it into the printed warrant so I will send that off as soon as it's meeting in um all right so we have a motion we have a second to adjourn I will um take a roll call vote our next meeting will be on September 30th um Nathan yes Mel yes Linda yes Katie yes Daniel yes I'm also a yes so we are adjourned thank you so much for staying extra long night bye everyone bye have a good night everyone hi