##VIDEO ID:FWud6zoq7Go## session you have to say with the intent of returning with the intent of returning to full an open session to open session and give the reason according to board Ducks do you have the give the reason right yeah I was just about to get that okay I just looking that uh for in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel police chief and Deputy police chief and to conduct strategy and prep ation for negotiations with collecting collective bargaining unit neba local 114 Public Safety telecommunicators second thank you all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes n yes as well didn't we just do your contract uh no was year oh e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I mean I would have if I didn't we didn't even know I see Dad walking by my house all the time I don't know the tell someone but I wanted to make a public statement from the chairman who is remot he will call upon okay no problem orian Mr W yes oh good okay perfect how'd you get in I punched how did you how did you you were blaming Greg GRE can you let me know when we're ready to go like in right out there principal didn't get great um David would you mind leading the group in the room in the Pledge of Allegiance please I would not mind would everybody please rise and join us thank you David uh good evening this open meeting of the select board is being conducted both in person and Via Zoom speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment the board would like to hear public comments and if there is further action that is required by the board the chair will add the matter as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda depending on the comment the board May if they are able to within the confines of the open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation is being provided as courtesy to the public the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you so please take care not to screen share your computer anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording all the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on board ducks and we recommend that members of the public follow the agenda as posted on board docs unless I note otherwise we are now turning to the first item on the agenda before we do so permit me to cover some ground rules for Effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment questions or motions please hold until your name is called further please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes for any response please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking if members wish to engage in colloquy with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself brightens the public comment after the members have spoken the chair May afford public comment as follows the chair will first ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only once the chair has a full list of all public commentators I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments public comment for public hearings will only be accepted in person per open meeting law and we will now turn to the first item on our agenda which is public comments the board would like to hear public comments and if there's further action that is required by the board the chair will add the matter as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda depending on the comment the board May if they are able to within the confin of open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter and so I will ask anybody who is in the room to come forward if they wish to make a public comment orian I I see you there uh so please come on up and um speak directly into the owl if you could I'm or Green speaking for green mayor green Mayers wholeheartedly supports the development of additional affordable housing in the town of Maiden as an essential and inclusive and sustainable future but we are concerned about the proposed location of a 200 unit complex at 182 Parker Street given the importance of the surrounding red and the nearby public water supply May recently PL passed an overlay District on qu Powder Mill Road an MBTA Community Zone where exactly this sort of development is encouraged without these concerns this pow Mill carer passed easily at town meeting and town staff and residents have been working to increase the availability of rental there with a particular focus on portable units 182 Parker Street is the wrong location it falls within zone two of the town's crucial well heads and historical land clearance from adjacent Town development has negatively impacted these Wells storm water runoff entering the wells aquer from this site will potentially degrade waterfall and Maynard's lack of redundant Water Resources makes it impossible to take a well offline without threatening the town's watera Supply 182 Parker Street is also in an area with high value Wetland H to protected and vulnerable wildli and hydrologically connected to the aset river national wide Wildlife Refuge the property does not contain toxic substances or polluted sites that require remediation from an environmental standpoint this means the land is optimally performing its ecological function providing wildlife habitat filtering water sequestering carbon and maintaining biodiversity the plan deforestation digging raing and substantial increase in imperious surfaces roughly onethird of the site would cause irreparable damage protecting these Wetlands is a priority at local state and federal level we urge the town to explore alternatives at2 182 Parker Street we implore the developer to consider the Powder Mill overlay District where this project could proceed without causing any environmental harm would be in closer proximity to public transit and would better serve the current and future residents of main thank you orian and I would ask if you haven't done so already if you could provide the written copy to the Town Administrator so we can make sure that we have um the exact text of what you said that would be appreciated uh and I will note that um public comment period for that development is going to be open until Friday um at which point the town will be uh going through all those comments I thank those of you who have submitted already I think we have several hundred comments that that we are reviewing right now and we will consolidate those I'll also note that um the town is not taking action Beyond providing commentary this point right now the developer who wishes to build on that parcel is submitting an application to the Massachusetts uh the state of Massachusetts um a subsidizing Agency for financing um our role as a town right now is to provide commentary on that and um from what we've seen so far and and from what I've heard so far I think what we're looking at is is very much aligned with what you just said orian and so we will close public commentary on Friday and uh continue with the working group that will be delivering comments to the select board later that month for official approval and submitting into that application if it does come back to the town eventually it would go to the zoning board of appeals and and we'll have another opportunity for public commentary at that point so just want to make sure we're clear on on some of those aspects of the process that the town is not considering this development we are commenting on the application but thank you very much for providing that comment are there any other individuals in the room tonight who would like to make a public comment comment none with and rais Jeff thank you are there any individuals online who would like to make a public comment tonight very good all right seeing no further public comment we'll move on to item four which is indeed 182 Parker Street and the development I think I just hit the wave tops um uh just a few moments ago but I'll turn it over to the town administ to discuss progress since the last uh select board meeting and what the next couple of weeks looks like all right thank you Mr chair I am Greg Johnson the Town Administrator um uh I think um the board should be happy to hear that the town hall principally through the office of Municipal Services has been U really putting a lot of effort and uh made a lot of progress in collecting a lot of public input um on the online portal that everyone can go to you go to town website you can go to 182 Park Street link from the main page and then and within the site as well and you can submit your your opinions your comments whatever they may be um and we had well over 300 last time I checked last week don't curious where we're at now but um additionally we've been collecting from Individual boards and committees and departments so we'll continue to compile those um the Massachusetts hous partnership which that subsiding subsidizing agency that you reference Mr chair they did give an extension to the board board um when when their board's comments will be submitted and in preparation for that we can collect the input which we will compile and then Town staff will give a recommend recommendation as to what the board's comments may be um and the expectation is that for the next regular meeting of the select board on a on October 15 that's when we'll have our recommendations prepared um in the course of the last few weeks worth of colle public input um inevitably there's a lot of rumors and there's a lot of hearsay and there's a lot of speculation which I I appreciate you trying to address a little sh and um and I believe a lot of people who are in the no are very well educated um but not everyone knows to check the website as some groups do so um at this time if you don't mind Mr chair I would like to introduce and allow um for municipal Services direct director Steve silver team to kind of give a very brief very brief like we're we're trying to address like an FAQ if you will where we are and and sort of like clear the air a little bit of some of these some of these these rumors that are going around about the property but I did tell the stat even very brief point because again this this is this is not there's this there um not to be confused with the level of formality in the application process with the procedure this is this is literally just an information session if you will and but we are still very much in the nent ages very beginning stages of a public comment period so the town is taking no action even selecting comments is not really an action um it's very much at the state level board I don't we I don't think we have is what you're about to say okay yeah okay just created all right go for quickly all right uh well thank you very much I think uh um Town Administrator and uh Mr chair gave very good overview uh basically what we want to do at this point is because we've been collecting public comments for a while just to give you a sense of what direction the public is you know what their feelings are about it um might go to the next go so this is uh just to recapitulate um this is the timeline of events around the 40b so the leftmost Box 340b March 2024 uh OMS and DP W met with Avalon Bay which just which uh they describe they informed us that they were interested in putting their development at 182 Parker uh we expressed concern over that site May 24th as a follow-up meeting again we reiterated Our concern Avalon stated that having the towns Buy in was critical which we said was dubious given the fact that there were a lot of different you know Dynamics in play there proximity to main Crossing Wetlands environment and probably most importantly water capacity issues uh June of this year DPW uh issued a memo by a very reputable engineering firm which evidence the fact that the town is unable to provide water Municipal Water to this site uh and then in July 24 uh Ms sought to come up with an alternative solution a win-win if you will which was alluded to by Green mayard uh seeing if we could perhaps migrate the development over to powder milk because this is where we had planned for uh Brook um we are here which is Project eligibility Avalon Bay decided uh to surprise us with a the application to the Mass Housing Partnership uh it is a way for them to uh obtain financing from the state up to 50% subsidized loans uh to finance their uh to finance the development um and Mass housing is going to issue a project eligibility letter if they find that the project is feasible if they do not this conversation is dead in the water as soon as they do not issue that project eligibility letter uh we received notification end of August comment period as you know is ending 104 for the public and we have to have a commenton by the 24th uh the MHP decision will come within three months from the end of the comment date so three months from October 21 but it could come a day later or it could come 90 days later or it could potentially come 120 days later it's the state so it's have to saate your offer the next phase is the comprehensive permit if they receive their project eligibility letter then the 40b really starts to you know that's where 4B kind of kicks in um and Avalon Bay would then submit a comprehensive permit application to the zba CBA then has 180 days to render uh a determination as to the application and there three possibilities are CBA approves approves of conditions or denies uh under the 40b the appell at body should the de ER not be happy with the results from the DBA hearing uh it goes to basically the state the HAC is the housing appeals committee and they generally favor the developer um our the conservation permit is something that would uh go on in parallel I'll have uh uh Julia flry our conservation agent will'll discuss that in a second great next slide so interim public comment results very quickly uh favorability towards the development so far 96 % of respondents have been against the development 4% in favor uh and then residency of the commenters uh 70% have been from mayard but there's a very strong interest from Sudbury as we know from last time and Sudbury residents spoke during our public comments uh next slide Public's concerns generally did you say 78% of the respondents yeah 78% of for remainer 71% 71% battery died public the public concerns primarily three out of four have cited infrastructure Water and Sewer primarily water environmental concerns uh close second specifically the concern is this concern that's been mentioned 119 times so far is water supply Wetlands a second and next slide with that I'll pass it over to Julia flry so that was a great uh overview so I'm not really going to go into too much other items um just about 40b now that we're talking in New Year um so the comprehensive permit will go through our local zoning board um and they look at it in a very regulatory way that the state uh align so they don't have to abide by our local bons however they do have to um we can put conditions on the project as long as it does not make the project economically infeasible and so that's a term that you'll see be thrown around a lot um and this also the comprehensive permit does not include um the Wetland protection act so that will be a separate process through the consecration commission um so the big thing that um you know we want to make sure that people understand is municipalities um that have not achieved the minimum affordable uh housing production threshold so 10% of um all available housing stock um needs to be affordable and if you haven't achieved that then you are subject to chapter 40b um which makes it so basically the state can take over and and the town does not have bunch of say um so just from a conservation perspective the big difference between a 40D and a regular project coming in would be um they would still have to file a notice of intent they're just not um again held to local bylaws just the state so in this case it would be the white protection act um so go through what our normal process is which is a math DP Review um and peer review of the application then we move to a public comment or public hearing um and then public comment would be taken the Conservation Commission would decide um they always approve with conditions we have two pages of spoiler plate conditions and then probably another 15 pages of additional conditions um and then if if someone would like to appeal at that time parties of interest um there's a long list in the WPA you can look up um Can appeal to mass D um if the commission denies the applicant can also go through that process and appe M so actually let me just say two things very quickly uh first is that there's a lot of innuendo and rumor around the environmental Stakes we don't know what we don't know yet because the pre the stage that we're in is basically the predevelopment stage uh once the devel Vel opers issu their project eligibility letter only at that point are they then going to submit a much longer much Fuller application to zba which would then we could have a better understanding where exactly they plan to build what they plan to build what exemptions they're looking for uh from the town's local bylaws Etc so that data piece we don't fully have yet so we can't really draw 100% uh conclusions about the environmental Stakes um yeah that's a good point a lot of people have asked me like so so what are you going to do about the project and we just can't say it until we get an AC um just like if you were to come and ask me on you know building a deck in your backyard within the B Zone the same I can't really speak on it until I have a full application um to allow me to to help my commissioning the other one of the themes that I wanted to hit was the fact that people have been saying the town needs to say no to this development the reason that the developer has gone the route of 40b is because it goes around the town's ability to say no definitively at best we can put conditions on we've been trying to combat it as best as we can our destiny in our own control but this is by Design so the town can't just turn it off switch if it could we wouldn't be here we would have done it a while ago and with that bill n our planning director uh as the floor I think I think one of the advantages we have in this we should make clear in this whole process is that mayard has been proactive in trying to uh Foster Economic Development and we have a couple of different uh really Milestones that we we've made achieved and they all stem from 2016 when the town engaged its first housing production plan which you all recall resulted in the creation of affordable housing trust uh inclusionary zoning bylaw um and ultimately Incorporated much of that into the master plan uh we have on our second iteration of the housing production plan and uh we have um our latest um funny talking about 78% of people hi well I think we had 98% adopted NBTA Community zoning at town meeting last um spring and I think that bodes well for our um indication that we're we're we're trying to approach Us in good fail um so we have been proactive with that um so is it working we've done a lot of um we've done a lot with small scale or inscale development to get our affordable unit down and by that I mean you know um 20 units below and projects like that we haven't done anything that large in general but we haven't needed to because at this point um we're we're not going as quick as we would all like but uh we have uh brought our uh in the since 2017 um we were at in somewhere about 8% so we we were up now at 99.18% so in five years project we've added quite a few units um a couple people asked about units that are what I would call in process and by that I mean they're approved in one form or another but have not been added to our Shi our subsidized housing reports and um we're working to get those on as quickly as we can it's uh there's a lot of little loose ends to tie it up um we don't know exactly how that's going to work out uh in terms of this project but it's uh very likely that um you at this point uh we will at least have these all in a um approved by the state so it'll give us more ammunition to go forward with I don't know how it will ultimately play out if all our units that we have approved um were approved by the state which is final step will be exactly one unit short and we'll find un thank you so I'm sorry did you have any concluding statement no just any questions if process it no first I just wanted to thank the the office of Municipal Services I know that you've all been quite busy looking at this um from from every angle and that slide deck is a a succinct summary of a lot of work underneath that so I appreciate all the effort you put in not just since the 40b but um leading into affordable housing planning um as you said that timeline goes back to 2016 so thank thank you especially you three who are presenting here tonight and any questions from the select board uh comment thank you for the presentation um and Steve commented on um you know things that people have commented to him about why didn't the town say no and I think what's important for people to understand is that to your point you can't just say no but more importantly we are uh frustratingly pushing back and strong ly saying here's why this is not a good fit at that location for the town of mayard and um so people need to understand because I hear from a lot of people saying you know um we're not doing our job to protect the town or whatever and furthest couldn't be further from the truth we're doing everything we possibly can do to point out the issues that were expressed by orian earlier that I've heard so many times that probably are included in the 117 or whatever it is the commentary about the water infrastructure aspect um so we're doing what we can I think I'm hopeful that we will be able to convince these folks that um for so many reasons this is not the place for their proposed U development and hope that and the other point I want to make too to Bill's point is all that we have done and I'm proud of having been part of it with the housing production plan with the uh you know the affordable housing trust with all that we've done to push ourselves to assure that we add in affordable units and you know there was a lot of push back when we first started and it was it was not easy because people didn't understand what affordable housing is and I still think that that's part of the issue anyway but people don't understand that affordable housing is not the projects in Cambridge or the projects some other location it's it's affordable nice affordable units people can afford to live in and even that's questionable when you look at the at the dollar amounts that they put on the value here in in Maynard um but the the point is we've done our part and it's unfair in my eyes for a an organization to come in to SP with a town like our size and to try to force something like this upon us to me is just a bit unfair and and untour and uh you know I hope that they they hear us and they see the reasons they're not Nim ISM but rather we have issues uh and I guess people could say yeah that's only in mayor issues but we have issues that that cannot be ignored that's my so box thank you D I have a comment thank you for that thorough presentation um so I think as David has pointed out a lot of speculation is basically like what the role of the town is in this what the role of the selectboard is what the role Ro of various committees are um and the reality is the is in regard to the decision- making the the rules minimal or Limited at this point I'm curious um you know I think there's probably some full of 30ish people currently present and listening unless there's thousands of people watching us on Facebook which I'm guessing no um is there some mechanism for further Distributing this information either that presentation that you just you know I know you sent us a a website um that outlines 40b because it's very complicated and very nuanced but I think some of the high points just helping people understand everything that you just said that this is not this has not been solicited by the town this is not something that the town is heavily advocating for either at you know at the Town employee level or at any of the board levels is do we have some way to further distribute this information or do the 30 people online and in this room want to go tell 10 of their friends face Facebook is pretty effective and the way the way the town officially with Facebook it's really to get people we we sort of post something on Facebook that tells people to go to the website because that's where we have control over and and we as Town staff don't get into deliberations on Facebook so we we try to say the facts are available like go to the website that 40b that you mentioned I emailed it to you but it was already on so um but it takes a little bit of work like people you have to asking a lot of people to not go to Facebook and to go to our website I'm being I'm being sarcastic but but like it takes takes a little bit of effort and not to believe everything read you have read they're there you just go to go to the website so we could take this PowerPoint I was really impressed um I thought they were just going to talk so I was glad they did in PowerPoint and I think we could maybe maybe um expand a little bit like some of those great questions just did and just of like give as you were kind of alluding to the town's stance the town's perspective and role um and then we can put that on there but again like it's difficult without a newspaper without a town prior like we we to get we are unfortunately um um under the influence of whatever the great Vice book says so if but but the way we get at the top of it is and I I know you're you're you're saying 30 people is not a lot but I actually think it is because we're not that big of a town and and we have a lot of very involved so those 30 people could actually be really influential I agree and they tell people that's not true go to go to the website that's where you're going to see the that's my hope but I mean 30 of 11,000 I'm just saying like how do we quickly and efficiently distribute this information further then I would implore the 30ish people listening to go to the town Facebook page and if you're on Facebook share that information broadly on Facebook and to people you know the office of Municipal services and Julia who is a resident of the town has been pushing very strongly for this is willing to have a public information session if that you know so behooves time for that no we have something that the chair and I have discussed too my relevance of having a separate meeting to that is I don't want to be misleading in that it's a town action right now it's not it's not that would not be a town it would be pretty much what you'd already heard like this is where we are so and you know I don't think we have to have a mean for that what's the old saying like this could have been an email I think I think I think like we we try to get the word out as we can to get people to go onto the website if when the time comes we get a comprehensive permit that's a different action and then so there'll be multiple meetings Eva Conservation Commission but now you've had two meetings this s Bo you this has been on the agena twice and about to be for third one in in two weeks um so that's saying a lot too like that's that's a lot of there's been a lot of public meetings about this so nothing's being hidden I think the most important thing that I when put up Steve the first screen it had like four different bullet points or whatever outlining the first point that we met with these I didn't but you know the staff met with the um the developer in March and told them and Justin told them that this is not good here's why and we uh told them it was not a good situation for water purposes specifically and despite that they they they flipped it and you said said during your presentation they surprised us or they you know whatever the term you use this is not the town failing to do something it's it's the develop do we have the capacity to produce uh flyers or information for either the Manifest and or town meeting next week I know we can't raise it have to have the information what about a QR code that takes you to that website do that that's you know there's two events coming up with the possibility of slightly wider circulation I mean Ms does already have a f right it's on the desk right now you know are you interested or you like to submit this is where you go so we can we can try to get that yeah I think Q code CL my phone's been off the hook this week um bill and I are always welcome people to come in and stop by or email us call us um we'll be happy to explain the nuances of 40b as best as we can um but you know mind you it's it's taken many years and uh of experience and of school um and it's still confusing for us and we're you know so um we will do our best to uh lead the town through this process um you know and we're happy to answer any questions when you guys think of them thank you any other questions or comments from the select board just thank you very much appreciate your work all right all right very good uh then let's see so as Greg noted we'll have this on the agenda again next week I'm sorry next meeting and we'll keep moving forward all right we're moving on to item five which is the use of town property and we have two items here the first is a block party on Lincoln Street Mr Town Administrator I can see we're joined by Aaron Garcia but the applicant is Max Garcia um but that's okay so the Garcia are applying to host block part could you introduce yourself and um what you want to do hi there thanks everyone my name is Aaron Garcia I live on Lincoln Street here in Maynard um uh we are really just wanting to have a block party uh this weekend on Sunday October 6 we have just our one stretch of the block between I'm terrible with the conquered and Randall I believe is probably 20 kids along with the adjacent streets and so we're just kind of looking to all get together in a safe way and let the kids be in the street and kind of let our street and some of the adjacent neighbors of the street surroundings gather very good and I see there's no um issues from the police chief fire chief or DPW director any questions or comments from the select board anybody like to make a motion move to approve the block party and Lincoln feet on Sunday October 6 2024 from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. has presented conclusion upon adherance to all federal state and local public health and safety guidance as well as the seat of relevant liability coverage in authorizing the use digital signatures of approved second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well have fun thank you very much and happy to spread the QR code there absolutely thank you all right we'll move on to item 5B which is a gift of trees at coolage Park from the tree Corp do we have somebody representing the tree Corps tonight hi uh I'm Neil Peterson I live at two Country Lane in mayard this Kate wheeler leader of our tree Corp and we're here to uh request uh the planting of two uh gift trees at coolage Community Park um this is very friendly board and I know this a simple thing but I wna I W to offer up a thought on planting of trees um because I had an interesting interaction at the the mayor Farmers Market this week uh this past weekend we we table every year we give away trees and a young woman said I'll take a tree home but I won't see it I know I won't grow or something like that and it gave me pause because I think you know there's ideas that if we plant a tree it takes a long time for them to beat and everything and I wanted you to think about you know thorough said wood warms us twice when you split it and when you burn and I want to say these gifts of trees the act of planting of trees are a way of warming hearts in man in three ways the first is the hope that if it's approved go ahead we we're giving hope to the town and hope the people that were enhancing our environment for for future Generations the second one is the actual Act of planting these trees and changing the landscape in such a way that we build community bonds within the tree core and any volunteer so anyone wants to help us uh that would be wonderful and then lastly though science has now shown us that trees grow faster in parks and towns than they do in the forest so this idea that trees have the future is not for future Generations is not fully supported by the science the science is these will grow within three or five years they'll start blooming and being wonderful for us now for everyone in this room I think and everyone on the screen so with that we request that you uh accept our gift to a spice bush and American horn be very good any questions from the tree Corp Representatives here I will uh from memory I just believe both of those are are approved local native speedies from our our tree plan as well I will move to accept and approve planting trees and other Landscaping donated by the mayard tree Corp as presented contingent upon adherence to conditions directed by the director of Public Works second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well thank you both very much for your work thank you contribution and contribution moving on to item six which is a one-day special license uh this is uh license for the sale of alcoholic beverages in association with the Bachi tournament which we approved at a previous meeting is there anything else to add to that Greg no that that's it we were we were expecting okay any questions on this application I assume they'll just have a tent like they did for the other events that they were Greg what's your recollection as way set I believe I believe this was go I believe this was mapped out in with the former application on the location yeah I think they were still as of about early earlier in the week still um they didn't have a drawing necessarily but I know that they were communicating with the police department the whole plan and call what the for the last week looks like that's probably safe assumption David that it's going to be similar yeah and all I would ask is that we make sure as we have discussed that it's that any and I'm sure they would adhere um but that any uh Beer Garden or beer tent is not within the square of Memorial Park I mean The Monuments yeah yeah there if it's helpful I'm I'm on this meeting I'm I'm uh the applicant for the permit for the day maybe give a little info go ahead John hi so yes um we do owe you a drawing but we um verbally went over it uh during the original meeting that we came to and uh um since then I have been communicating with Chief Noble and verbally explained everything and he seemed very comfortable with it um there will be a police detail and yes uh we're going to follow the model from previous successful events in the park where there is a confined space where beer and you know malt you know wine whatever is available that's the limit of the permit it's only within the hours of the event within the confines of the park and it is nowhere near any of The Monuments in the park itself it's just you know from the the uh concert stage moving toward the grass uh toward N Street um is the area where people would would have you know Refreshments than thank you any other questions I will move to approve the one-day special license for the sale of alcoholic beverages by Amy's Tomb at Naylor Court in conjunction with the Bachi tournament on October 19 2024 from 2: to 6: PM authorizing use of digital signatures if approved now this says um nailer court is that still comprising um the memorial I mean yeah Memorial Park that's a good question so John can you clarify so when we think of naay Court we think of the parking area in the central Basin and then Memorial Park is like the grass area elevated where between those two we can we can maybe amend the motion I can amend a motion to Memorial Park but is unless the tent is actually going to be in park no the app the application says Veterans Memorial Park I think just the language on board dos is incorrect so I will amend my motion to read uh that it will be approved for sale of alcoholic beverages by Amry Tom at Memorial Park yeah this is the first I've ever heard of Naylor court so we won't be there we'll be in the park do I have a second on the motion second thank you uh all in favor Chris yes Lindsay I will obstain David yes Mike yes and I am yes as well looking forward to it thank you thank you all right we'll move to item seven which is a uh proposed marker near the fire station for the amyy Grove and do we have representation from the historical commission yes hello my name is Priscilla fanberg and I am the chair of Manor historical commission as you all know one of our goals is to preserve and recognize some of the um attributor that mean a lot to our history so today we are here um we have developed a sign that commemorates the history of am Grove if you don't know what that is it's essentially the parking lot behind the fire station that used to be a grassy area where people all across Bard would gather for Fourth of July they would go swimming it was a very easy access to the mill from the upper neighborhood on Thompson Street and we have worked with Angela Wallace at the fire um station and identify the area for which we would like to place the plaque in front of um this small little pocket park that we developed in conjunction with the um Constructor of the fire department so today we are here to ask for permission to dig two holes um to post our sign in front of the any questions how big's the sign is it like what we see down for the digital signs down at um whatever that Park is the the bigger ones that they're like this and it has sort of of history and pictures yeah more similar to the ones down by the M that's what I'm talking about really nice my only question is I um and we emailed the back and forth about this so I know it says pre-european settlement to the early 1900s but the first sentence is goes directly into European settlers and if the sign could be amended to include um acknowledgement of indigenous presence before European settlement uh and I know that the signs already been printed so I'm I'm curious as to what the cost would be of such a reprint as well um to see if we can find a funding mechanism to that if if the historical commission um Can facilitate that um we can certainly evaluate what the cost would be of having it amended and Rewritten um Our Hope was that we would place it in October over for fire prevention safety month and use it as a way to attract people over to the fire station so if you're willing to um we' have and then after October then we would have to delay till the spring because the ground starts to get hard so if it's a enormous problem for the select board I can go back to our sign manufacturer and have a conversation it we take additional funds that we haven't budgeted for in the mayor historical commission budget so I would just defer to um you all as to how you want to approach that you have an approximate cost no okay I I would like to know I think that that is certainly important to me to get that on there um even if we can approve the the drilling of the holes initially um and maybe even the the base layer and then get that sign reprinted I I think that would be uh hopefully we can find a solution where we can still get this thing in the ground relatively quickly but we we get language that's um reflective of what I believe the community would want to see there have permission to dig the holes and we can put the posts in that would be fine we can get back to you regarding the cost of reprint I don't know if it be a portion of the sign or the entire sign so my only question would be that you know once we get back to you with the cost of a potential reprint what would be the process for getting funds allocated for the reprint like I mentioned we don't have it in our within our budget for this year to reprint the entire sign the cost that they signed initially was around $800 offers the full sign with the posts uh the full sign printed was 800 the posts are additional that we purchased okay the board does have um I mean the town appropriated um an account I think we refer to it's like community support whatever I can't remember the proper title but it's it's out of the discretion of the board um couple thousand I don't remember I I do agree with Jeff it's worth looking into I mean it it always bothers me when see American history staring and with Europeans um questions no but I'll I'll take an action I'm with the Town Administrator to figure out um how we can fund this without further digging into historical commission budget and we'll we'll go from there and be in touch so I um perhaps we could approve the installation subject to the language change and then we'll work on the rest any other comments from the board we do have spots on the historical commission if anybody wants to join give their opinion in person that's good to know and I believe we we um normally have um uh items at town meeting letting people know what spots are open so hopefully we've captured the historical commission there as well what would somebody like to read the motion in that case move to approve the installation of the Amry Grove historical marker at the mained fire station 30 subb Street subject to evaluation of the uh Amendment to the content of the Tex that work by seconded all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yeah and I'm yes as well thank you very much uh we'll move on to item number eight now we have a presentation from the senior center committee uh and an update on some of the work that they have been doing good evening good evening pretend like we don't know who you guys are pretend like we don't know who you are I'm have Rell on the senior center committee I'm Jack mcken also a member of the senior center committee and we have other members here I have been elected to be the sp's person she's quite a surprise he had a lot of practice um while Greg's putting the slides up we'd like to thank the select Bo for scheduling this discussion tonight and it was deliberately because we wanted to share the progress in the year since the voters over overwhelmingly supported funding an expanded Senior Center almost exactly a year ago so it's very appropriate this be down here and the second item as we begin to deal with the slides I bring up every time because the senior center of work and Compass of both the interim Center larger and the permanent those are two separate things and we have not been in any discussion even within our committee in which confusion between those two does not occur so I just I'll bring that out um the first why the P May has been seeking a permanent Senior Center for more than four decades there's actually in the report report which is now approaching 40 to 50 pages which is in the process of being prepared this there's actually a timeline which is a very useful kind of thing uh number two up there has a lot of code words I'm going to go through them two small is really the primary reason that this entire effort has gotten started we do need for a growing senior population a larger Senior Center remote refers to its current location it's in the northeast corner of town at the back end of another building with very limited signage there are people in town we've discovered who don't know we have a senior center inaccessible is code for the ramp going up to that building and if you are a citizen of any age who has coronary or pulmonary issues hard or long trying to get up that ramp is a difficulty and as an anecdote the C aging van literally drives up that ramp to the first to the door just so people can get past it and then when you get to the winter and you try to do that uh on icy conditions you get that as well and frankly something we've discovered as the town has discovered the building itself is deteriorating i' already mentioned that the large support at the yearo town meeting um about I saw about 12 hands in opposition out of 750 odds so enormous support that support LED you folks the select board to create the senior CER committee last year and one of the first things we discovered when we began function as a committee that for a permanent Municipal facility not the interim one for a permanent one we can produce and will produce in the report documented evidence that in almost every town There's a minimum to 12 7 to 12year period to produce fund designed get space for find a site for a permanent facility so focusing on the interim Center we have had conversations with with the finance committee and it's their suggestion the best way to address that is through a lease a lot of our activity is to focus on Leasing and item seven the funding issues are really the focus of why we're here tonight s for sharing progress and it is in fact the municipal procurement process and the ethical things that go along with it in terms of you don't go out and ask for requests for proposal other words firm commit without having that funding source identified and you'll see when we get to our recommendations we're going to ask the black board as early as possible along the Town Administrator and so forth find a way to fund our activities as soon as possible and the other fact that gets introduced here that it's obvious probably to you folks on the select board and other Town committees but it's not really thought of very visibly across the community as soon as funding is impr whenever that is we're looking at 18 to possibly 24 months before you would have a facility an interum facility negotiate a contract find a designer get the engineering work done get the permitting done get the construction done that's not going to happen in less than 12 to possibly 24 months so I'm trying to demonstrate there the urgency that we really feel around making the fundamental decision to find the funding here next slide please may will have about 3,200 and some OD seniors by the end of 2024 and then those are 60 plus which is the definition of the Aging assessment study which is coming along does use that data comes from the town's voter registration system so it's not sens it's not you know somebody's demographic forecast that's for this year out of our own system the Council on Aging has in fact been tracking the activity 237 unduplicated annual users of Center Senior Center programs in SL amendment to that number addition is a better word there's an additional approximately 80 users who just use the van so that you're looking actually three CH 237 is really more of a program and event kinds of things and Lindsay you asked about you know age of those kind of things about 21 22% of those are 60 to 70 37% are 70 to 80 38% are 80 and above so it is heavily tilted toward the older in is the bulk of the 237 let's the we really found it was important to have some kind of a plan some kind of a goal because in fact you're going to ask the questions about Staffing and operating costs and so forth so the goal and this has been part of our conversations with the ca director firststep double the users and then eventually triple triple the original number not triple the double but you know tripling the original number does get you up to about 700 users um that's in the larger interim facility and the key thing here is adding staff as usage curs COA director has a plan basically says we will stay with the staff we have two people add some volunteers and then when usage gets to 300 400 500 then we begin need additional staff whether it's part-time or full-time and it's why I brought up earlier conversation about we're 12 to 24 months away even having facility after whatever date we make the decision to fund it so in terms of additional operating cost you're looking at two to three years out anyway but the key part of it is Staff gets added when the usage occurs so the COA director has a plan to some of the other pieces P of data this comes from Jos Morris who was a member of our committee public buildings commissioner in Newton who's literally going through this building of a center the research he did that 40 odd senior centers that he visited as part of that who open new permanent senior centers they do see four to five times multiple in terms of the number of users and just a a detail here the Massachusetts state officer was now executive El rather recommends four to five square fet per senior we have about a half a square foot next slide Jack is that first senior population or first senior usage per senior population so if we had 3,000 seniors four to five s so um the next three slides again you folks authorize a request for information our gri issued it and I'm going to share with you the responses from that using this slide 13 digital way and those of you looking at the slide the brght path thing that they referenced on the far left of the building the portion of this building which they have made available as an offer is the back corner on the far right hand side of the picture it's at the back of the building that actually works out fairly well there's plenty of parking in the front is level but there's a roadway that runs behind that building so literally the COA van could come up that roadway drop the people literally Steps From the door and at some point if this was the way the town chose to go forward there probably could be a door directly off the back there is one on the on the end of that building so it's a rational uh Place coma is new construction raw space while back to that a little bit later noout costs I'll come back to that in the summary next Slide the second response to the RFI was from m m under new owners and a piece of what you got here is the new owners are still trying to figure out what it is they want to do with building so they basically looked at it said we will offer you the entire what they call building done picture is a little bit dark but what is the main Medical Center building they operate the entire building 7,400 sare ft and you can see the rates there'll be a summary slide on that as well this one is both has some good things and some difficult things the handicapped floor is not handic the second floor rather is not handicapped accessible ADA compliance would be a significant uh investment even though the building has a ramp it is not ADA Compliant so there's a whole bunch of issues that would have to be addressed if that was the way to go third next slide um this one is the interesting one after the RFI responses were received uh we made a request to the 141 Parker Street people and side note that building was looked at the last time we had a senior commity Life Center committee 10 12 years ago which is why is there any space there and frankly we were surprised with the response he came back that no that building is now fully leased but we would like to talk to you about the opportunity to tear down the derel White House there and build you a building we like that so we would and talk to them when we got there they handed us the picture that diagram you see here they not only offered that as a conversation which is the foreground with the orange around the blue the blue is the footprint of the Der White House they also said there's another option which is the lower half of the first floor of the building in the back the existing building uh I think everybody can picture that it still currently has the drive-thru Lanes on the ground level for the former Digital Credit Union Bank owning their proposal to us here they wanted to get rid of that they would then convert that space so forth and so on take a small portion of the existing building and that would be what is now called option one so they basically offered us two potential options there but again configured to be a senior center in terms of office layout what we would need rooms and so forth and so on um they did bring up it would require a longer lease than we had asked for um and you'll see in a couple of minutes because of some new information that you haven't seen uh that's that's going to be one of the uh points of conversation next slide this slide has changed from the one in your package because at 6 o' tonight the 141 Parker Street people will uh follow through but what they said they were going to do um or what they have done once we went and talk to them and you saw the the diagram with the two little orange blocks they said they would do a layup so we actually do have a layout sketch for each of those then they said they would provide us with guidelines in terms of well okay what does that mean in terms of what a lease cost would be and again they fully understand that it's not a commitment and the thing the first thing I want to emphasize on this slide I'm going to spend some time on it because it's one of the two key slides in the presentation um again you folks know but some of the viewers might not know this is request for information it is not binding in any way on any of the offers that have been made and it is not a negotiated price so these are placeholders estimates planning guidelines that can and will change as we go forward mained Crossing um we'll kind of deal with it you can see the numbers there 5 to 6,000 square fet but what we wanted to get across in the table on the top impact in the operating budget depending on the square footage that the town chose and there's flexibility there the town can choose if we go forward is it five is it six is it whatever there's there's some flexibility there but you're looking at 185 to 217,000 and it is raw space but if you drop down below that to the second table the one time fit out cost uh and I want to spend a couple of minutes here the key number cost per square foot at $150 to do the buildup and we will confuse buildout out and fit out and so forth and so on there is actually some confidence in $150 a square foot we talked to the architect or an architect that has actually worked on a project in there he shared with us what his costs were for the project um it's a detail his cost $147 for separately we went online and looked are there standards along here most of them in at about $150 a square foot so there is some confidence on the part of the committee that for a raw space buildout you're somewhere in 150 maybe $160 a square foot and you can do the math and you see the projected need which would be a very large amount of money against a very short-term potentially lease and I will tell you now the committee didn't feel very comfortable about that same exercise with Mill and Main $160,000 for the operating budget and I skipped over something I shouldn't have the operating cost additional at $25,000 is an estimate U cmaa director is comfortable with it it is not static it is just additional electricity and other kinds of things like that and again it's a planning number but the COA director is comfortable with that number so again you see the impact on the operating budget dropping down now into the lower table um you still see the $150 per square foot there I will tell you we have much less confidence in that number we again talked an architect and there are members of the committee who had some experience with this um 150 is probably low uh the architect said depending on what the renovation is and this is renovation versus brand new raw space could be 300 it could be 400 depending on what you're trying to do what you run into so in the end what we chose to do as a committee we just chose to use the same $150 per square foot what I'm telling you here is it's likely to be higher but even at 150 again against the larger square footage you looking at close to a million dollars um now the piece of this slide which is new we did not have at the time we posted these slides the least cost estimat for 141 partner and this is for option one which is renovation of the existing building which is basically we thought was going to be less expensive than the whole new building and we guided them toward that so this is renovation of the existing building and a moment I will read you just it's quick but I'll read it but you're looking at $26 plus utilities plus escalation which is not shown there again the 5,250 Ft that can be flexible about of the 25,000 moves over so you're looking at 161,00 a year for lease but the important thing is there is no buildout or pit out cost what they're basically offering is we will build it and then we absorb we being they absorb the buildout costs in the lease but they want a 15-year lease so it's a longer relase again if the financing was there this could be subject to negotiation we could go for a shorterm lease perhaps at a higher rate so forth and so on but we feel good about it because it gets past very large amount of money that will required for the buildout either for new space or for renovated space u I think it's important so let me just quickly read this was an email we got at 6 o'clock tonight the 5,250 reenable square feet uh 26 plus utilities operating costs aside from an nor detail aside from tenant utilities which will be submeter all operating costs taxes insurance repairs maintenance are included in the r or the lease escalation greater 3% or CPI annually 15 years size of the space flexible can be sized to your budget so that was the summary again I want to um beat this point a little bit none of these are negotiated none these are binding on either side so these are planning sorts of numbers but we do have three options inter space will forward and the last sorry hope back up um down at the bottom I hope folks can read it we are looking at you know where are there other sources of money undesignated ear marks there is 17,500 that's currently in the COA account there is another e mar that has been granted but if it doesn't get cut I mean that there are kind of conditions around it doesn't show up and S late this year and the pr man at seniors have absolutely committed to fundraising in terms of things plus I will say here a come up a little bit later the feasibility study which we'll get into in just a second represents probably the biggest single opportunity to pursue grants or imarks or something like that that's why we've seen out we see that on the recommendation side now I mentioned earlier interim permanent so now I'm moving back to permanent one of the things that um needs to happen in terms of defining a permanent thing which would be as I said 7 plus 12 years whatever it is out this is what a permanent Center feasibility study basically what a feasibility study does and this estimate um was presented to Greg Greg validated it with the house doctor firm that the town employees so there is again a high degree of confidence around $150,000 plus it can be tailored to what we want the 150,000 that Greg validated basically said we'll look at three options renovating the existing building renovating a Town building or designing a new building on a town on site again nothing's negotiated but that gives us a high degree of confidence that 150,000 for feasibility study is a good number bring forward in terms of the kind of conversations we want to have here next SL this is the E slide and our request in Senior Center committee I I'm going to read this one I think it's important the select board in collaboration with Town Administration commit to funding the following expenses for a senior center at the earliest possible time and I've already laid out time issues um we're a year past support at the last year's town meeting we're looking at another 12 to 18 months if we made the decision tonight and clearly there is no Motion in front of you to make that decision tonight it's going to take a lot of work possibly time meeting votes so we're really looking in a very long time to meet a need which the voters have supported strongly the year ago a multi-year lease we put $250,000 in there it's a placeholder it could be lower don't it would be higher but it gives you the range of a Target if you will around the range of a number that we should think about if we did in fact come to some arrangement with 141 Parker that number could probably go down but I think it's important that you keep something like that as the number around us and this would be an ongoing lease number annually for whatever number of years that we work out um I mentioned that the 141 Park Street work for a 15year lease that was in the the email which you haven't seen and we just got uh is there opportunity to negotiate say okay we don't want a 15E lease what would it be at 10 years and the number of 160 or whatever it was might very well go up so my point is it's a valid number to use as a placeholder but it's it's a Target that uh is going to change plus onetime construction conversion costs and that's a number to be determined again we need the funding commitment so that Greg ATT administrator and chief officer can actually go negotiate have a conversation and find the numbers that we will actually need to put into the town um it's why we were pleased with the now you know twoh our Old respons 141 Parker it looks like I have seen the sketches they have given back to us which I like but Amy any has seen them and seems pleased by them um we could perhaps get past not have build down or fit out cost we paying for it we're paying for it on an annual basis as part of lease and the feasibility study I've already made the comments that 150,000 uh is both a number which seems rational and me represents the best opportunity for outside funding in terms of their marks or you know other kinds of support from whereever and we close by basically saying we are committed as a senior Cate committee to work of all parties make this happen with that [Music] questions thank you Jack any questions from the board thank you very much um I'm curious if you did find um a space and we worked out the funding issues um and you did find a space that was suitable as a long-term lease what is the benefit of also pursuing a permanent space given if you have a long-term lease in a space that is totally appropriate given the the the needs as I've heard them for a longterm space that it needs to be flat it needs to either have parking or be close to the center of town seems like there are a lot of physical requirements um currently I don't think the town don't think we own any land we could build a building on so why pursue that comp I know I understand the timeline that it's very long but if we had a 15-year lease why would we also concurrently pursue um a permanent building when that's so much harder to obtain just based on the logistics of building building and Manor um Mr answers to that uh up in the committee a number of times and said the interim solution might in fact be the permanent solution um second point is all the senior centors that Josh looked at and we looked at s the SL the rest of your package there's one town of one town only that leases there's a strong preference to owning that doesn't have to be the preference but yeah but why that's what I'm wondering have any giving you any reasoning on that I I I can't answer that it becomes more what what does a town want to finance and home and control generally a town wants to own its own Municipal properties we don't have any space for them no no no I I get it and the third third third answer is it's maybe personal maybe more than the senior side committee um but it's been voiced in the senior center committee it is likely that when you get to the permanent Center you're much more apt to have a community center kind of thing so that it's available for others you can still do that and Lease Center and so forth that would require some scheduling and so forth the design of it would incorporate more things like that and I'll give you the specific one of the conversations we had Senior Center committee um it was actually a draft layout of what a permanent thing would look like included a gym now into youth activities you other kind of things like that so the answer is it becomes part of a decision process at some point say do we have things in a permanent Cent that we would really like to have that would serve a wider spectrum of the community versus one that is optimized around um senior you know kind like that but it's a valid point and it also goes back to do you accept the 15year lease or do youde well we really want to minimize the lease so we negotiate a higher price for 5 years s years years and so forth I think we wonderful set of topics do this comes back to the is there a way for the town to commit the funding so that we can actually engage in the kind of conversations which we're doing um I had first of all a comment um and looking at at your your numbers here um I noticed that um with a little under 200 50 users at the moment that the cost works out at about $1,000 per user as compared with over $22,000 per student in schools who are obviously also citizens so I think that that's something of note um I I should know this number but what is the approximate cost at the moment um to the town of the the CL Senior Center $161,000 a year that's what we're already spending Okay so the additional cost would be you know another 90,000 can I just can we to that comment just in regard to the I know that we do a lot of comparing of how much money we spend on schools versus how much money we spend on seniors I think um on the face of it that feels like a reasonable comparison I do think that it's actually a little more nuanced than that while we do spend a parir amount of money on pupils we we children must be educated by law um and so there there is a little bit of a Nuance there in comparing with numbers I I I have to make that point you're also comparing current versus projected future I took your math and said we get to 700 into 160,000 exactly no it was just a a number that came out and with that and make that comparison it's valuable part of our conversation as we go through this process we have the UND ated people but also in addition to that there a it's 110 people are getting rides through the van the senior van do appointments um Shop grocery shopping as well um chck yeah just because it's not up there and it's not on our on our screen because the numbers changed I'm really intrigued by the uh what 141 archry is both of those proposals but since it's a appears that it's more focused on the uh renovation at their expense essentially at over 15year lease um I guess that makes more sense but what's the annual cost of that proposal that you had up there the annual budgetary number impact it's 1615 1615 now what's $3.4 million divided 165 the reason I use that number I think is pretty evident um my H but you hear my point um the number for sit somebody sitting at a football field versus being able to utilize what's the priority for the community if you go for the numbers of the number of years that you'll be looking at granted one is permanent it' be there for a longer period of time but the value and the uh the actual priority of the community is pretty clear to me the the other piece of the 141 Parker that um probably don't need to point this out level building willing to rearrange the parking walk to get the B they need to go that's detailed when you get negation ja we considered um needs for increase Staffing if we're going to be in a significantly bigger space compared to the current space that was address Jack sorry that I must not have heard it I apologize it's sometimes hard to hear when basically to manage that that's the $25,000 and then when we get to the 300400 700 there will be a requirement for additional Staffing but it's years out and couple to but not included in that 25,000 no the 25,000 is electricity and other utilities yeah well utilities are in the Poli the general operating costs of the space is essentially what you're talking about versus operating costs of of personnel which wouldn't be impacted based on your presentation for several years because you'd need to have the increase in use that would generate the increase and presumably as I think this through the increase uh you know most the senior programs many of them not all but many of them are they charge so there could be a subsidy from the users to the additional costs that are going on for the operational costs that are necessary for hiring individuals to come in to do programming and to run run those programs Amy am talk Amy a couple of am's on if you want to talk but she's basically put a fairly discipline thought process in place in terms of go with what they got and volunteers and if it part-time it's part-time but yes eventually there will be a requirement for increase sta we do have volunteers that do run some of the classes and some of the programs as well um at this point so there're not people that have been hired to do certain um like I'm doing a walking Club starting tomorrow I'm taking everybody out to get them out of the building and that's just something I want to do is get everybody up and out of there we have other people that are doing some art classes and just volunteers within the three community so that helped you know and I think Amy does that a plan in place for the future if there needs to be more staff people because if you get more people in the building you're going to need more staff to help with some of the other things not just the classes and that there's a lot of things to do with um health and services in in the state that people come in there for some information and having the people available to be there to talk privately um with a cant is what we're aiming for yeah and again I'm going to repeat recommendation we are tied to the municipal funding process and the appropriation and all the other kind of things and yet if I look at the 141 Parker it shouldn't harp on it but at under 200,000 covering pretty much everything including toal operating cost is there any way whatever process we can do so that the town can in fact commit the funding such that GRE free to actually engage in some kind of negotiation I think the answer is no it's got to go through a regular town meeting and appropriation process but then flexability that can be found in there would encourage the support of Select Town Administration is there a way I think we need this is me speaking um we need consistency on setting our priorities and everybody needs to be part of helping to set the priorities and everybody needs to see the whole picture of what is on the table versus just one item on the table at a given time so then everybody can make the decision based on priorities not just based on a silo because something happens to be before them at that given time so I think as a community we need to take a step back take a pause get all of our items on the table and talk about priorities that's what we need to do that's my that's my again Soap Box the third time tonight that's fair and we're going to Advocate the senior Absolut school department is going to Advocate we'll get them all and I do believe um related to this topic we'll be seeing the uh senior needs assessment from the UMass Boston assessment uh at an upcoming meeting quite soon so we'll we'll look uh for that presentation as well um I believe later in October are there other questions or comments from the select boards for the senior sener committee currently uh just one additional comment I think might be helpful and and I know you you've done this in the past in in uh previous presentations but to encourage you to really make clear what the the detailed functions of of uh of these kinds of resources would be for the seniors I me in my earlier example comparing with students I think most of us know that students need to learn math science uh you know Sports all of those things and So that obviously we know that they they cut um so to to clarify that you know this isn't just um a place for people to sit around and have cofy coffee once a week um there's actually a lot more to it than that um and I think that would greatly help um people um to understand what this is about not just the the cost of leasing but also okay so what are all these different Services right um that are being provided and I think it's important to to bounce off of that not only is it a law for communities to educate their children but it's all there are also legal requirements for towns to care their seniors through a senior program of some type we have it we meet the OB ation but it's not to the level that is expected of a community of our sizes that with the population that we have sen years um and this is where we set priorities yeah and if I might Mike responding you point I skipped over something I shouldn't know one of the things that Amy has educated us about in ter need for the larger SC it's in the slide the need for space was simultaneous activities to to your point yes a lot of people don't understand what you do in a senior center and as I speak it simultaneous activities it could be a exercise class at the same time as a craft class and counseling for those seniors whether it's tax or nutrition or whatever all need to go on simultaneously which can't happen to the the same that but that's an excellent reminded to us that the variety of things that go on there and Lindsay one of the other things that just came up in terms of can we use an interim Center on a permanent basis the Aging assessment study I think will will help shape a piece of that and I did see in your Report Greg that's now scheduled for the 15th of October so any questions from the select board thank you thank you very much for for taking the time to come in today I appreciate uh getting an update and getting some of the in-depth understanding of the work that you've been doing and please pass that on to the rest of the committee as well y great work they say thank you for all right uh we are moving on uh item nine we're going to have to move to a later agenda um so we're going to go directly on to item 10 which is the Cultural District enhancement fund Grant and we have two topics item 10 uh the first is from the mayor tree committee on Urban canopy enhancements hi everybody thank you for having me I'm Steve Smith Maple Court I'm the vice chair of the mayor tree committee and if you would bear with me while I read my request um manry committee is preparing to apply for a DCR urban forestry challenge Grant um and we're using that money to create what we would um like to call a teaching La in Grove in downtown in the uh Municipal parking lot behind the manard Outdoor Store and along the aset um rail trail in the spring of 2025 our proposed education La will feature 11 trees selected for their cultural and historical significance we'll install these trees in M Den busy downtown to extend our current Urban arum on Mason in Maine and across from the movie theater um to provide shade to a popular Regional Rail Trail and contribute to men's walkability in an area directly adjacent to an environmental justice neighborhood this will be accomplished in partnership with the DPW who have committed resources to help us deep paave u meaning remove some of the concrete sidewalk areas that are unnecessary and to help us dig tree pits in preparation for this project um to provide the necess matching funds for this grant we're respectfully requesting a reallocation of $3,000 of the total remaining balance of $3,178 37 that we currently have from two previous Cultural District enhancement fund grants that were awarded to us in 23 and 24 for Community planting projects which were successfully completed and continue to thrive additionally we're coming before you to ask for an additional CDF Grant of $3,000 to support the project through these matching funds the project has the potential to raise another $14,000 of additional Federal funding to disperse through the DCR to expand mage's Urban canopy if our DCR Grant application is not successful we would like to me move forward with a scaled back version of planting and other words we would like to do less trees but still um move forward with the project um using those funds and uh and increasing volunteer efforts if our requests tonight are approved we would also ask for a letter of commitment totaling $6,000 for from the select board required as a match of the DCR application I'm always Patrice and I apologize I'm not as El with as nail tree heavy meeting for R Tree Community any comments or questions from the select board I have a question um uh the location along the rail trail um I'm I mean I'm sure you thought of this but I'm curious there's a lot of runoff that I think come from the auto body shot maybe behind that building y um I've heard people speculate that it's heavy metals it's lag so is that going to affect the trees at all and I know that there was a tree that was built it built planted near there for the 150th that did not survive I don't know if that was related but what is what's the plan for that and is their concern so we're actually planting on the upper end of that um slope so we'll actually be above that and we're also um have uh taken soil samples from that area that we're sending off to the um UMass extension service to have tested um and asking them uh explaining to them what we're planting and making sure that the soils are suitable for planting moving forward that's already in process okay this the image that I'm looking at it's not that far up the slope I don't know if this is just an approximation but relatively but it isely I live just above this and I all the time so the runoff definitely hits that area but if the soil sample comes back then it would presumably be fine and the 150 tree primarily died because of the water table there was very high so when we removed that tree that it was literally we build with water so I don't necessarily think it was the runoff or a high water table in that area that um caused the demise of that tree how about the uh expected increased traffic along that stretch of road when Jimmy McDonald's building opens and his residents are using that driveway as the driveway entrance into the the new apartment building would increase traffic effect and I'm not not an environmentalist to the effect that I understand how this the uh the exhaust from the Cars will impact impact young trees will that have an impact on these trees ability to survive pretty much all the trees we select and choose um are ones that we believe do well in urban environments so if you take a look at what we've done on Mason and Maine we've had incredible success we've actually only lost two trees in the four or five years that we've been coming before you to do this Pro these projects um and so I think that we'll do the same over there will there be some loss possibly but I don't think it will be a Jimmy's project will be a Major Impact then my followup is you mentioned an additional request for $6,000 where would that come from so that would well we're hoping that that town would put that forward so that um that would be matching funds that would come back to us we have to have matching funds up front in order to do the project and then we get reimbursed um back from the DCR I guess then it's a question for Greg uh where would that come from I just want to clarify um because it could be meus is a $6,000 combination of what's already been allocated and then this additional request of $3,000 for a total of $6,000 or you asking for that and another six grand and another six grand I believe to match that will come back to the town as funds from DCR uh you clarify what that means so I pay 6,000 and then they cut me a check for six I can help so this brand in particular needs full allocation in advance of the Grant application and then once awarded then you in return six grand but they need full allocation into so that's still that's that's fine I you're receipt no it's all good no I I think it's I would still recommend that um that's not in this evening's motion I apologize for the confusion but um the current this this application is to um use the Cultural District enhancement fund which currently has a balance of $103,000 so and if I'm going to get this six grand back um I would I would out Endor that so you might have to amend your motion um or no actually you don't have to the you could just authorize me to to um commit the $6,000 of CDF I could just I could do that on my own but I just to kind of make it transparent just authorize me to make that commitment of CD and where would that come from this the cdef so the cdef is the off District fund it's it's we the the money's there yeah yeah yeah you have $13,000 so he's I thought we were just asking for we're asking for a total of nine I mean the six will come back but we're asking for an additional that's the math I'm doing too so I thought it but as it turns out they're actually ask come back yeah so it's fine yeah any other questions from the board would anybody like to make a motion with the additional language authorizing the Town Administrator to um commit up to 6,000 extra for um leveraging the matchback from DCR I will move to approve the application for the use of $3,000 from the C District enhancement fund by The Manor committee for the urban canop enhancements and authorize the Town Administrator to uh to use an additional up to $6,000 um for uh commitment to the Ming Grant commitment to the maing grant uh and the reallocation of previously granted funds as presented authorizing use of digital signatures approved all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well Steve thank you very much thank you everybody thanks for supporting very good all right uh next up we have a um discussion on the town's parking meters and the potential for parking meter removal and I believe we have Arman from the economic development committee is going to come and present good evening my name is Aran I'm the chair of the economic development live at 143 I remain Steve Silverstein executive director of Municipal Services go for it uh okay so I didn't just bring Armand here today I also brought some additional Heavies Dustin DeMarco Chief Noble uh we're talking about the parking meters uh you know everybody has an opinion about the parking meters after some analysis and uh basically going door Todo speaking with downtown business businesses uh we are of the mind that parking meters should be removed uh you have the attached memo which uh explains the reasons why our what we're advising the select board is complete removal but there's also an alternative if you don't want to jump in to the deep end uh and that would be in removing them just from the other port uh and then a subsequent phase could be the western part of Main Street so around here and then also Summer Street where if anything the meters are are counterproductive and dissuade people from parking uh because it's far anything they have to um really what it boils down to it's the meters belong to a different time and place uh when the mill had 4,000 uh employee cars yet it made sense because downtown was congested things haven't been like that for you know the better part of two decades so the traffic Dynamics are markedly different uh I do refer to the mapc study which is the most recent study which was 2018 uh which was a parking analysis that was done it basically said that even at at peak times only one out of every two spots of the 475 uh on and off Street public spots uh are occupied so there's more than adequate parking what the concern is to a lot of the downtown businesses is having convenient parking in front of their store but what I would argue is that the parking meters is not the way to solve that there are other you know uh less disincentivizing ways to manage turnover in front of the stores where people want where business owners want clients in and out and they want to give them that convenience um the 15 minute signs has been something that works well uh and could be expanded but otherwise getting rid of the parking meters would do I think it would be in the best interest of the town especially of downtown because right now then they're being broken or filled with coins being old and you know anachronistic is all all goes to kind of say ruing but it it it works against the downtown and it's you know the Allure to Shoppers so imagine put yourself in the shoes of somebody who's coming to M for the first time they want to park on Main Street or Mason uh they go to put a coin in the machine and it doesn't work so now they're a little bit panicked am I going to get a ticket am I not going to get a ticket they don't know the secret that everybody mayor knows which is that you don't have to pay the parking meters uh because the enforcement's not there um and the reason for that is because a lot of this has already been deliberated under the parking authority which was specifically created by the select board uh three or four years ago to you know review downtown what what could make downtown uh and in receiving uh a lot of complaints from residents and businesses and a lot of suggestions was basically decided that the parking meters are counterproductive and all that the only step needed now is to just go ahead and chop them down honestly uh you all know the parking meters if you have any questions we're open I just want to add something to because first of all Steve has done a wonderful job of pulling all together because he had to go back into 532 and we've done a nice job of putting it together and the survey that you ran was I think very uh um important and the result was there to to to be noticed um just to piggyback on the fact of people visitors coming from outside of town and trying to park and trying to feed the meter uh I spent some time downtown and I witnessed a situation where this mother with the toddler gets out of the car and she tries to put her money in the meter and the meter is not working so then realizing that she takes the toddler back by hand opens the door puts the toddler in in the car and I'm thinking she's got to go find another spot she can't put you know can't park the car there because she might get a ticket so I went over I said are you looking for look for another spot because goes you're afraid you going to get a ticket she goes yeah she goes I can't get the quarters at this week I said don't worry about it just leave the car here for now I said you're okay for now okay so that to me is just a a perception on people coming from outside visiting our town and and trying to you know put money in the meting and the oldfashioned way and they can't get the money needer that's that's not a good it's not a good look from people coming from out of town and trying to spend money in our town and enjoy what we have to offer so um just take that in consideration because it's not something that you it's appealing um is there any particular need to do this tonight as opposed to being if can the select board consider for two weeks will that have any particular impact just to frame the rest of the conversation uh the decision's not now no I don't two weeks is not going to make a difference I would sayel board's going to you know approve it then it should be done before the weather changes over yeah he that's another that's a great point because DPW um is looking at having an easier way to plow especially na core um that becomes a you know if you take the meters out before the winter arrives it'll be easier for them to cloud is that right J yes me a removal anywhere be EAS uh where's this funding come from 100 Grand it seems like a large number CD yeah CD we won't yeah is there better use of that money that's a great question do do we have a reasonable estimate as to how much money is in the meters right now we don't that's another I guess that's a good point money my my bigger concern is just the cost associated with is there a better use of $100,000 than um taking down parking meters just take the heads off of them and presumably sell those because they have value rather than have value with America rather than putting them in a in a garage somewhere um we could open up a museum can I also ask in regard to the cost Sor interrupt you I'm looking at the invoice from VHB I believe and the bulk of the cost seems to be related to traffic signs not meters so what is the actual cost of removing the meters this so every I'm not philosophically opposed at all to removing the meters I agree with everything that you said about them um but that's not really what I see in this proposal what this proposal seems to be about is science yeah um so help me understand what the cost is of removing the meters not the cost of signs I think Jus he seems to be eager to well some of this you have to understand at this point there's actually two board members that started the initiation of the parking authority and that is actually David Chris and there's actually only two remaining original members of the parking authority which is me and chief Noble and actually before CH Noble marked to was so this goes back more than for years and a lot of this was a conversation of business owners coming to the select board complaining about multiple things such as traffic safety issues parking meters parking issues it was a much Brer holistic approach so when we convened under the parking authority our Focus was all of the issues that were brought to light to the select board which was not just the meters in regards to parking regulation turnover how is this going to have an economic development effect etc etc etc so through that uh process we had over a dozen public meetings where we discussed these conversations with one uh a large stakeholder community in the business aspect that originally came to the board and also kind of a door-to-door knocking situation with some volunteer committee members who were also technical experts in the parking fields and managed multiple City parking uh businesses through that process we learned that regulation was still a high level of priority the parking meters are archaic their revenue Source was minimal in a providing funding source for the town of M less than $10,000 a year they did not even pay for the officer that was actually collecting the revenue so with that being said we looked at it holistically as making sure that we understand to David point if we just remove the heads be reminded that the heads actually are the requirement for the 2hour parking without that enforcement can't be um implemented so signage is part of an mutcd initiative so if we still want to have regulated parking in two hours and we remove the meters we have no enforcement agen because there's no sign indicating that you are violating X Y and Z there's no sign list here though that says 2our parking yes there is so it's usually a baseline so you have to understand we had minimum funding to even do this plan so technically you have what I like to refer is a 20% design set um so that plan set was done with minimum funding to try to give a holistic understanding so if you if you have I have them go to the last or not last page but one of the last pages where the traffic sign summary it does dot the no right y this indicates all of yep but we no this is the this is the no meter parking because we were also you have to understand this is plan is over four years old and at that point the idea and premise behind a lot of this was still are we going to introduce new versions of meter then we went a financial they're on here Y correct yeah so that plan is four years old so if we were to adopt a strategy that is removal of meters that plan would have to be modified so shouldn't we be seeing the modified Plan before we even talk about what we want to do so that would be the conversation you have with the applicants in front of you which can absolutely be it's a go ahead Chris yeah it's the like I mean you see my point Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay has brought up the BHB report it's $80,000 well that was in 2021 so the cost are going to be more so that cuts a little bit further into bre 103,000 of which we already given away but the 80 also includes the 20% isolation yeah but so over the time frame of four years the construction Market has gone up over 45% okay it I mean can I so I'll give you my perspective um funding is obviously my my Paramount concern as soften this for these things so um with the $103,000 that's currently the Balan for this Cultural District enhancement fund again that's that's money that's provided um as uh a negotia condition of the host Community agreement with the marijuana establishments they give us the community impact payment so like not tax money but we set that aside next time meeting we put this we put all that money into the cddf and it's been going towards trees and park benches and other sort of like downtown enhancements is perfect it's great and I do very much um see that this is an appropriate use of that like that you know moving the parking years for the economic ADV advantages that could arrive it it meets the uh the demands if you will the businesses like I think that's a fair appropriate use but I'm doing the same that we were since now I got to give extra $6,000 uh for trees that I'll get back it doesn't matter I think I think what I would be interested in the board's um consent is is the concept of removing the meters and then we you don't have to do that tonight but I would be interested in having that direction which would then give me direction to go back to these guys and say now go back to VHB and figure it out because this plan need to be updated it's similar to what Jack was just earlier saying I need a sort of like good faith that we're going to be moving in this direction otherwise like I I don't want to waste any time and I know you don't either so but if you're not if you don't want the M removed then then then we won't do that I am not physical pH philosophically opposed to removing the meters at all I think that's that should do it I think we should have a plan to make sure that we know what we're doing before we vote to do it but but to David point we you know we we KCK the C kick the guy that's leaving around a little bit the police chief who doesn't who doesn't you know I don't know it's anounced but we we haven't been we haven't been doing you know parking for quite some time in me right so now we you know there's a certain group of people that know they don't have to pay the meter so they have park there all day anyone going sit here and say you there's a 2our limit I go by Nation Street three or four times a day because I got nothing else to do during my day and the same CS are there at 9 o' in the morning 3 o'clock in the afternoon yeah what are we going to do about that like that's that's that's a bigger problem than meters I don't have a problem with meters because up and down the entire east coast and I travel with probably more than anyone in this room and I'm using tredit carts that Pap parking in Maine in Florida I'm using foras in Main and Florida none of them work you know none none of the credit card machines work half the time in any of the states I'm in none of the none of none of the um the quarters and the in the rest they don't work and it's not just us right so we don't need we don't need we don't really need parking Meers in multiple place we are but what do you do about people that just sit there all day that's a bigger problem to me than not collecting the you know the the four quarters every couple hours is that guy can't that's been an issue for years even when we had the the the parking enforcement officer which is civilian if you all remember like she used to walk down there was sign where she was ticketing the business owners and the employees who were parking there all day which is obviously it sounds counterintuitive to the to the request that we get from other businesses to remove the meters so and they're hurting themselves because they're not providing for the customer turnover and so like it's kind of a bounce like we could send an officer I'm sure that could that I just don't think it' be use of our times if we're just if we're using an officer to just like Mark the tires to see how long they've been there you would think that the businesses themselves to sort of provoke that turnover and there's I don't know if there's like the perfect solution for any parking because we've been talking about this for a long time I I assigned for Mak uh zudo to this a long time ago to crack that nut and there's there's no right answer there's no perfect this is what's going to work for us you can look in West coner I bet she's pulling her hair out to figureing out what's going to be the best case for there because I know if it's still but button get first 15 minutes free cheing that if you're gonna make this decision and you're gonna do this based on the under the under the you know the guys of we're helping the EDC we're helping businesses and these people come and they the first people there in the morning and they the first car to park on n and they the last car to move at the end of the day what what is that doing for the people you're trying to help I will say he get don't you get C Chief yeah and and we uh when we were doing a pocket Authority there was a bunch of complaints about that and we put it out to the pocket Authority because I said to really own in on 2hour pcking you need technology you need to spend a lot of money to get cameras or new meters that actually outline like when something's paid there when somebody has these Meers don't keep a Time on when when the went in so you know and that was really what the way they anybody wanted to go spent a few hundred, to upgrade uh the meetings so we put it out to sarahy and the business Community to put it into the downtown businesses if there something keeps parking at spots tell us we'll go have a conversation with him because there's plenty of spots to park all day I know AR n n Street is different there not as many businesses there so people poting there all day we're not getting compl we used to get place on Main Street they don't they don't park there anymore because we told them we had a park I know Arman knows this because he's old he's as old as me and I know he's been in that business before but when you when you used to work for any retail establishment where did you py pared away the kids at brington mall used to have to park a cron barel you know when you work at Stop and Shop you used to park out you know the stuff to your point Chris I think the businesses need to start communicating with their employees and everybody else to park in Municipal areas so then they don't have to parking that's their job I'm particular business in mayor right and I come every morning and I P my F250 on Main Street right and I don't my F250 doesn't move till 11:30 12 o'clock at night what am I gonna tell my employe spend a lot of time in air now so he doesn't or what am I gonna tell my employee you know like so so we all know who drives what vehicles we all know who the owner we all know what the owner of they have the name of business I so that's that's my point my point is we we're looking to help a specific group of people in town right and those are those are the business owners with therefore help the rest of town like there's got to be some buying from that side of the from that side of town to help us help help me help you right but you can't help me help you when you know the owners of the businesses are the only C Park on na summer and Main Street during the day you know I don't know where it they come to park in na court and then they say well some of my customers parked on there because they like to get out and walk around but it's I will say with this plan because the two hour parking is on the me it's very small very people don't know about especially if you're not me you're not seeing two hour limit right this will put up those signage that two hour limit to be you know we will give people a little more knowledge of what but can we get the the 2024 map to engaged I just wanted to there is some soft cost to no the math the math that will tell the five of us what it's going to cost to take out the meters what going to cost for the new Sage because you know and I and I appreciate all the hard working I know Megan and you guys did a ton of work and every time we've adjusted something time we we talked about how many spaces might have cost us like you know when even when when wanted to cut a hole in the curb put the underneath parking we talked about we're going to lose one here but gain two there so I know everybody's cent of the parking issues I'm just looking to get a number for 2025 2024 so that we know what's in the CDF and where we have to get the money from I I was I was thinking but I'm kind of leaning away from it is um I was thinking about asking that where to authorize up to $100,000 because at the time I I thought that's how much we would have left over but um I think this is all great feedback and we can go update since I'm not really hearing no about removing the park meters I think I think that's the direction we need got another question about parking meters Jeff hasn't chimed in yeah um in regards to parking meters and enforcement if we get rid of all the parking meters and we have signs that say two hour parking is that something that gets enforced or no there's you know are there violation haven't been in for because we actually started a pilot to see if it would still be parking and everything and then it was always parking and then we would move toward way Mak left and we get everything kind of sof but yes I mean everything handicap parking and everything all the money that is from parking tickets is everything but me yeah you know okay it's not met but um yes we still we have a lot of times it's educational because we don't want to keep going down and having somebody keep parking there and tick in them it's not a big ticket either you know we'd rather have Mark where they want it was a dentist that came every Wednesday somebody was complaining everybody talk to him sit down talk to him he's never had never had isue with back in there same with so few other places I'll just add one comment to that so we did go through the pilot exercise which is what Chief Noble is referring to and Greg is referring to we received more quickback going through the pilot process of enforcement than we did prior to enforcement but that being said if we remove the meters and don't put up signs this is that like double edge sword is if we get a Call of somebody violating technically legally we can't enforce no I'm not opposed to the sign it's just that like none of this proposal represents what this conversation is reflecting which is we should remove the meters everyone seems to be pretty much in agreement with that Jee unless you have a different opinion um but this looks like a signage plan and so we're talking about two obviously related but slightly different things particularly when it comes to the economics of it so I think we need more more information or better information yeah absolutely and then the signage plan just go back in time when I said this our original yeah Inception of a parking authority was Far More Than Just but you're asking us to approve all these signs like there's signs here whoever but there's a lot of like that that don't make sense so I think we have to either divorce the two things or update this so that it makes more sense no I think it should because go ahead Jack no no go I think GRE I don't I want to make sure we have a full plan mapped out so I think we want to go down with the parking meters and then up with the 2hour signs and if we can do that in one Fell Swoop that's ideal so I I'm philosophically aligned with the removal but also want to understand the costing proposal just to make sure that I know what's going to happen and where it's going to come from which I think is the consensus that we have on the board right now yeah just one last comment I wouldn't the only thing I care about as far as removing if you remove the uh the damn meters uh I don't I I'm not one with sign pollution I would say put up the the five signs we've got that say 15 minute parking and the four spots that we've got and that's it nothing else and then don't have because we're not going to enforce anything it's never going to be enforced because it just isn't and so you know you look at some of our neighboring communities I'm thinking Hudson is the one that people always talk about they don't have meters they don't signs are fine but do we need to spend like a $100,000 on sign at the End of the Street maybe no no there is requirements so you need at the beginning and the end in every 25 feet so there is there is standards that have to be met in regards to regulation procedure we have a different phase so we can definitely review the phase so perfect example we looked at this very Holly again plan is four years old and Dynamics change within that but if you wanted to remove the idea of a parking regulations remember you are the regulatory Authority here so these are the conversations we need to have is if you wanted to remove the meters and then do not put a regulation up over here on Main Street prior to the post office prior to the bridge that's a conversation piece that we would need feedback on if you only want to regulate Main Street proper from 115 down to McDonald's and nathon street from Summer Street to main we would need to know that regulation technically right now they are already regulated by your board before you so if anything you would remove those regulations by adopted decree and then you would gear us towards what you want so I'm fine with any direction you want to go but just again to the point of if someone were to call because someone's parking in a spot say three days in a row and there's no regulations the cops can't enforce it even if they wanted to so those are the conversation pieces like we've gone through those exercises what I'm what I'm kind of hearing is is to kind of put it all together is I think I'm going to task just for both of them to come up with a new plan probably within $100,000 that that's going to accomplish what we have to accomplish potentially even reduce the scope to just the downtown area even if that means not having signs to forc outside the downtown area and I mean like the triangle like just was very clever like triang because I think it's right it makes sense not to include Summer Street but what I that's what I'm saying what I don't want to do is change the policies in the future if we do want to if we do see there's an issue with with sort of like turnover Vehicles outside of the heart of downtown I don't think we should I don't think we should change the policies well then then put up the S so so if that seems to be an issue later but but I think like $100,000 is probably a good good see what you can do with $100,000 of removal and sign or L I'm just saying this is like $100,000 of unrestricted money that we can use for downtown is this the best use of it I mean do we all agree that like does it have to be the full $100,000 when this is unrestricted money that we can use for downtown beautification infrastructure and cultural different things we might want to do at at Memorial Park yeah I would just say like be judicious well that's that's true the the concept would be the more we invest in downtown the more return we get so abely agree I would say this is money that we did not we bark for we didn't know it was coming is one time that host Community Agreements are not a lot for that Community to P payment for which is a separate conversation we want to we've discussed ways that we need to sort of like replenish this in other forms but it's not going to be how it is now and don't like the perfect be the enemy the good if we if we don't want to spend that money because we don't know how much more money the trees committee is going to need I'm I'm not to Pat but I'm just saying like right now that's the bulk of the request that you get I'm not to diminish like the importance of tre I think that's appication that's needed but we might be able to find other ways to fund that in the future this might be the best job we have of taking care of that the meter down toown which could go I think Johnson's opinion that that is a well worth investment that we've been talking about for four years now so I think it's a PR tradeoff that's my CH I would just like to point out I've now lived in man for 30 years and quite literally when I talk to other people friends in the UK or whatever and I talk about one of the reasons why why I like main it several reasons and in the top five is that I can always find a place to park I talk about Rockstar parking it pretty much anywhere I want to go in m true obviously aside from the occasional when sitting in one of the par so I don't know how that would change and obviously one of the other things we want to do is to attract more people into main it more business so would that significant in fact availability of parking I'm not sure sure but um that would be a good problem to have like parking problem is an indication of of strong economics so I would love to for people to complain about not being able to find parking that's not the case and also if you take away the parking meters now who's to say that you you can't do it put them back in the future and the funds are there you know have drones or robots doing the you know the it's or you can put in aiser and just drive around it's not perfect and it does require that get you can also get a um you know parking with advertisement on it Pap you know advertisers or whatnot you know just like those the gas station ones oh yeah get electronic though wouldn't they and that would be bit ugly yeah all right I think I think we have some broad conceptual elment if there's no other comments from selectboard I think we'll let the team regroup and come back to us yeah all right fantastic are there any other comments all right great well thank you and I know this as we said a multi-year conversation so appreciate everybody's work on this thank you gent thank you all right move on to item 11 we have two contracts for review um the first is for the local 114 Public Safety telecommunicators and this is an Mo Moa I'm sorry Mr chair so the memor agreement um was the suful conclusion to months of I think very Cooperative very patient negotiating with the New England believe benev benevent Association Nea local 14 Public Safety telecommunicators that's the town disp and uh so Town Administrator s dou myself sat with the the dispatchers and uh it went very well very applicable very Cooperative um collaborative I was very appreciative about it and here's the results so um I strongly recommend um the board consider ratification of the Moa which is the sort of highlights of the change conditions between the collective bargain agreement that had been in existence and then which and then the proposed new colle baring agreement which is has terms of July 1st 20124 until June 30th 2027 it's standard for year deal um I think it's budgeted for I think it really um supports the recruitement and retention efforts that we're trying to make with the dispatchers the dispatchers has a just through the nature of their position has a certain turnover expectation but I think this really reinforces the recognition of what they contribute and and doing what we can to sort of as I said sort of retain them so have my thank you any questions or comments from the board all right my thanks to everybody involved uh in those negotiations do I have a motion move to approve the memorandum of agreement with the New England police benevolence Association local 114 Public Safety telecommunicators for July 1st 2024 to June 30th 2027 has presented and authorizing the newal treatement approv seconded all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well all right fantastic and we have a second contract here which is a proposal for a sidewalk and Cur Rand management plan uh which I believe Justin is going to discuss good evening everyone um make this quick um this contract um is in reference in collaboration with our pavement management plan if you're unaware we do not have a analytical sidewalk management plan outside of kind of an old fashion assessment approach this would bring into lighter modernized sidewalk replacement plan very similar to our payment management plan with um High Lev index categories identifying um appropriate use of future funds for sidewalk improvements and enhancement it also um can be combined with the future a transition plan upgrade so curve ramps things of the nature which will help identify non-compliance issues across our op pedest and infrastructure this um request is going to be funded with our balance under our chapter 90 funds um it will not interfere with our planned preapproved pavement management plan which includes Fletcher Heights Allen and then the emergency Paving and billing of Country Lane and Jack with Country Lane and Windmill Drive um so we anticipate um being able to affort all those with our current um chapter 90 balance we were very lucky with our um conquer Road act an intersection with that we did not have to break into our chapter 90 funding with localized allocations which is allowing us to move forward with this plan set if there's any questions there questions so the result here Justin would look like a map not unlike the pavement condition index maps that we've looked at before correct yes it will also help us start to forecast financially um the next five years out investments in future sidewalks Beyond just our local requests it will help the board and Capcom um plan financially to um meet standards that are industry across sidewalk assessment process very good any other comments or questions I did try to highlight on the memo so everybody is well aware of like our pavement process be aware that we have bid out our pavement plan we're waiting to receive Awards within the next three weeks so in about a meeting or two you may see contracts for the paving award which will also thanks for the heads up yes would maybody like to read the motion move to approve the contract number 1474 with B beta Group Inc for Engineering Services for a sidewalk and curb ramp management plan in the amount of $62,000 as presented authorizing the use of digital signatures bless second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well thank you Justin excellent thank you we'll move on to item 12 which is planning for special town meeting next Monday so Mr chair um It is Well underway so we had a very successful but a pretty standard um pre-own meeting meeting on Monday um yesterday with uh hosted by big dowy the town moderator we went over the logistics and and sort of the expectations on and the kind of stand format everyone seems to be on board uh the only real change between prior years and this one is I have a new town clerk but I have a lot of confidence in her and um she's communicated already with dick Downey think be fine um I put together um a draft of a presentation and the motions I refer to as a script for the board to look at and I I plugged in um how the board had already split up which which board member would give which articles and I just plug that in and I go a little little blur which corresponds with the PowerPoint and I'm collecting the PowerPoint presentations from some of the other groups like I got the one from CPC I got the I got the blur from the um Solid Waste and Recycling passports and then I think I Pi my emails and I think I got the school presentation so for the bleachers I'll put in um um I think what I'm interested in is you don't have to give it tonight but as you guys look at the at those um whatever I wrote for you you you can either tell me if you want something changed or not you can say whatever you want when you get to pting um but I I try to sort of make it so that you can you know follow along you can it'll have in front of you um but again you can say what you would like and then um Mr chair I believe you were interested in getting the board's endorsement for the message that was drafted and that's that's the that's boardon yes and so that message is very similar to the one I authored for the board last spring with um updates per project as as appropriate and so I hope you all had time to review the language behind that um especially with conversations like leachers I I added a line relative to the 40b down there um so just want to make sure that we're all comfortable and want to make sure I'm speak speaking for the board when I write this document not for myself which I'm tried to do yeah I I appreciate the fact that you've done what we several of us at least have talked about which is trying to educate the public about the the broader picture of capital expenditures that um we're looking at over the next likely few years and so I think that does a a fair job of of doing that I would just hope that um we can get that message out firmly for the people that we we do indeed have a a broadly educated set of people who are going to be voting on this next week thank you Mike and it fits in our goals too so any any comments either on the presentation on the language or on that me Jeff can you still hear us uh Jeff you muted yourself and your video went out he's still there because his name wouldn't be there if his connection wasn't there right yeah he is still there uh well it's up to you if you want to move on well let's take the leadership role and move on without him because it's 9:30 yeah right um who wants to Mr clerk would you like to do it as the as the next official sure yeah so um let me just pull up the right one special time meeting um so my apologies I had to step away for just a moment thank you for stepping in Mike oh you can hear okay all right yeah uh so yeah move to approve the message from the select board to town meeting voters as presented for the special town meeting scheduled for October 7th 2024 second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I yes thank you all so we'll have those printed um which I think that's the expectations like we'll have those printed u a couple hundred we'll we'll talk about it how we think we should have though but I'll put it on the website as very good any other commentary questions or concerns as we head into meeting um regarding the 40b can we if we make a QR code for like Manor T could we do the same thing just have it on the desk as people walk in like do you want to know more about 40b or what's happening so that people can scan on their way that's that was what I that's kind of what I might take away was okay I wasn't sure if you knew it was both clarify I appreciate that so yeah my expectation is in the next couple days I'm going to tell this guy to come up with that little slips of paper maybe or something like that we can say like you know 182 and but again like the that 40b gu is is already on the yeah that's what I mean I think just so we just want to get people to that one page and yeah that QR code and I I would just question if it's just a QR code that's going to cut a lot of people out because I believe there are still a lot of people in our community who are either not who are code literate or who just say I'm not I think we could do both I the code people out of the way and then there's also direction to go to the town hall that's like it's a little like Pap just like you know like 182 I don't know what to say but something like go to the town's website or follow this Q is that is there any way is there any feasibility and even sense in having some kind of a onepage sum because I I I'm just a firm believer that there are a lot of people who say okay yeah I'm G to look at it now yeah when I'm while I'm I'm here with people and even if it's just a you know a summary it gives them some indication and then with the QR code and the website information for more um I know it's it's a big ask because somebody has to do that in terms of good communication for something that is this important I I would advocate for that you said you have something y well bill so it's like and also backage to to my's point if you're going to adequately kind of lay out the 40b it's not a one page so much there's so much to it and and if you're going to condense it what do you leave out or what do you you know it's it's really hard send them to the website the idea that there's a lot of people in Ria that don't have access to a website it's not that they don't have access I'm not saying that I'm saying that in the initial impulse that people have to actually go and read something if you're worried about the people that show up at Town media you don't have to worry about them because they're there and that means that they're paying attention and they could do it yeah it's people that don't show up that you that have that worry like the people that are at town meeting are seeing the information online somewhere because there there's really nowhere else to get it so they know how to get get there and how to find it the people that aren't at s meeting I don't care anyway for you know for the most part I mean that's there might be a compromise so that if um sometimes you'll see boards and committees or the master plan otherwise we'll do like um a post report and so it gets your attention we're not necessarily ping anything out but we're trying to say like if you didn't know there's this proposed the housing complex go to the website like that something to get their attention but but you I mean like you're right I'm reluctant to print off 300 pieces of paper that people going and then so there might be a work I like Thea post can you do that in seven days I'm looking at that guy but I I don't want to make any promises but I think that's sold out so might be true but I we can we we'll talk about it but thank you for that input when is time next Monday after May test we should just have it right after mayor Fest Next Year everyone go right down to all right any other questions on special town meeting planning all right very good I did get one question which may um confuse some other voters on the article one on somebody thought we had $2 million back that we could just spend somewhere as opposed to the much smaller amount there related to the the Green Meadow um school debt reduction so that question may come up but I think we'll be able to handle it now board no I guess we we'll talk about that when it coms within month yall will be hearing from the chief assessor about tax classification that that that's relative very good all right moving on to item 13 which is Select board goals I believe we have had two members Greg now have comments somewhere here is that correct if I'm documents I'm looking so one one is at the end of the S words draft and one is in a draft B yeah Greg I got that correct yes no that's right I I was I didn't want to interrupt so yes um so I can help however the board will like it to I I can sort of um try to combine these comments into another document or we or it's up to you Mr chair if you would like to give more time for the board to give some consideration about what the comments they see and and further contributions but what whatever you would like to do I I'd like to try to bring this to a close and get something in a relatively short order if we can but I'm open to the rest of the board in that and where is the rest of the board well I'll just own that the edited document of mine so I made comments I tried to just you know I really just like Wordsmith it a little to clarify a little bit of the language and then add it in one or two things but I'm not wetted to any of that so people have different opinions we could remove any of that I don't know what the best process is for group editing though it's a tough one and the one we run into every year when we try to do this document I think um I I'll on to the other set of commentary about suggested additions that we can go in there I'll I'll not on Lindsay's that at the office hours was my suggestion and if it's not a we can strike that I think that's the best course of action where we are right now um so just wanted to propose it as a brainstorming idea but let's um let's remove that and we'll simplify that conversation strien in your comments like in your dra I that I just said I don't know if office hours is the is most effective people are actually going to show up for that I'm wondering like would it be better if we did like a quarter leave Zoom info session and we made sure we never had a select board Forum on there people answered questions I was just trying to think of like other things that might actually grab a horrible face in response to that so sure no one else signs in but we don't have to strike that at all that I I actually didn't CR it out because I wasn't sure people felt strongly I have no problem doing office hours I just don't know if people will come to that if there are other things we could I don't think office hours regenerate get more people or like I don't know we do would have we ever tried doing a Q&A like just before town meeting starts for an hour for anybody who wants to show up and just ask any question moderator meeting so technically before town meeting starts no that technically happened last night so um per the town Charter the finance committee posts of public hearing before every town meeting and um how many I go yeah yeah so like there's only so much you can do like people you you can lead them to water Etc yeah no I I agree that's what I mean I think off hours like I don't know that so is there something else so I I don't know that that Finance meeting is broadly advertised you know as an information session of the public I think I think we could if we wanted to create an A version that's more targeted less less on the finance committee you know deliberates amongst himself and more that we hold a session that is meant for the public to come where we have a couple minutes on each article um presented and then open it up for questions and just see where people are at and I I think that format is something that we could do U maybe limited to select board supported articles uh if we're doing it as the select board um but I think I think there's some I think there's there's space to explore a creative way to do messaging and and improve messaging to the town along those lines well what I have seen in Littleton and Acton both on their Public Access which you turn ours on and it's a blank screen essentially yet they out the wavm um they have um essentially a member of the select Board of the finance committee either or and sometimes both go up and basically they say this year's town meeting is as follows article one is they have they have it up on the screen and they talk about what it's all about they talk about the implications Etc a yes vote will mean this and no vote will mean that and then they repeat it over and over and over again Littleton does it it's not back to back but you turn it on at 10:00 in the morning it's on you turn it on at 5:00 in the afternoon It's On Again um because they have programming um and they that's the way that they get people to understand what's on their town meeting War we could do something like that if wabm is working I don't know I I think that's fair and that's clever and WM does now have a new director so it might be something we can engage with them to see see what they can do um my advice to the board is you're getting into a certain level of details that's beyond the scope of what you're you're trying to get the goals which now you're talking about how to execute the goals lovely I just I want to kind of remind you guys if if if you if we want if youall want I can synthesize the goals that that wheny like and and Jeff put something together and then at the next meeting I'm just trying to that's fair so like at the at the next meeting I can give you a clean version yeah I mean I ask certain B when I was I was wrestling with this over the weekend and trying to strike a balance between writing out what our general responsibilities are anyway of course we want you know clean water and of course we want improved roads I mean that's part of our responsibility versus um you know notes of emphasis uh that that maybe in the course of the next year that will be you know it's not that we're not doing the other stuff but uh you know does it truly reflect um efforts that we hope to make in the next year over and above what we have done previously and I think so it it's trying to make sure that this becomes a useful document that truly reflects you know emphasis that we want to place on on our efforts in the next year and I think this this is a what I see so far is is good progress to that but it is I guess what I'm trying to say is that that's the challenge that I found is is is balancing just what we're supposed to do anyway versus what's useful for the T I have some dire I can help Mr chair if you will so I don't think the you don't have to take any action this evening no and I no I think this is a good discussion so I think we're you're getting feedback that you would need to to you know craft something that we can bring to a conclusion here on these um I did put a bullet point here on I've titled it holding a dedicated session on understanding the school district's operating needs over the next three to five years that's that's um kind of in you know direct response to the school committee informing us that they'll be pursuing an operational override of some magnitude at the annual town meeting and I added the three to five year just to be in alignment with our our desire for some more you know medium range planning um but was interested in feedback on that particular bullet point from everyone else or or format open open to changes I think you know um yeah and it could be at a quad board or something like that as well I think that's I think that's a good great idea idea yeah um and actually I might put that under one of the goals that I modified was basically I have so many documents open now Implement best practices for long-term planning so maybe that is a tactic under that goal but I I think it's a great idea and we should work that in somehow yeah as long as it doesn't turn into the traditional um the meetings that we've had you know whenever we've asked the schools for that type of insight it turns into nothing but propaganda and then it becomes somewhat controversial because it's just just that and not um and not really helpful at the end of the day because it's it's just we have if we can provide the Forum it's a wish list as opposed to a here's what our plan is and it's just not productive a wish list we have a wish list too we could present and um to them and it would would be viewed the same way with open eyes and looking at us know just um we could tell them we want a senior center and we want it you know within the next year and a half and no I I think to to help improve a facilitated conversation we we should have a conversation amongst ourselves about what we would want to see and very kind of targeted questions relative to uh what we see at the the February meeting where it's the same kind of update every year um you know given given the differences between this year and a normal year in terms of the school budget so I think we we should do that and I think that would help frame the conversation um and improve the communication and um open to other suggestions on on how to make that maximumly beneficial for all parties I I and I do think we should get more tactical and dat more data driven uh when we can I think the school committee has begun to do that okay but again we don't want to over index on the tactics I think we're we're aligned on the broad strategy goal there any other comments or thoughts GRE do you think you have what you need to take another stab at the draft as we have it now yeah he did a lot of work in particular so I just I'm going to make sure I have the word document format and and clean up not yeah all right all right very good forward progress yep all right uh moving on to item 14 which is related to geother geothermal well installation uh for the new Green Meadow Elementary School that's right Mr chair so um our project manager from cers Phil Palumbo has been and and myself been um have been in communication with the Town Council trying to make sure that we're actually very kind kind of similar to um how the board considered um making sure the parcels were identified properly for the um solar array um at the I believe that was at the high school wasn't it so so kind of similar this is kind of the details about where the geothermal Wells are going to go and which Parcels are going to cover so was identified that um we want to make sure that there was clear authority to put the proposed geothermal Wells which again is sort of like the heating and cooling system proposed to be Net Zero carbon for the elementary school but that well field kind of tips into certain parcels and we wanted to make sure that it was clear that the ownership of those Parcels which includes a stck board and and the use of those Parcels all is authorized for the geothermal Wells so Town Council recommended this motion that you see in front of you which again sort of covers it and we're not talking about a lot if you look at the if you look at the maps it like dips a little bit into this like slip that's how always always out there's always like a little cut out here and cut out there and that's what we're talking about it just dips into it parti so I I think it's fine this really just I presume no one would even known that you know like a few feet in is now select for to land but but for the purposes make sure everything's on the open and up you know if the SEL board you know so wishes you can grant the authorization for the school department to again do the installation the you for the school it just sort of fits with all the plans it's not very controversial questions or comments what is zero road again that's just like the the madeup address number for that random parcel I'd have to bring up the so yeah okay but is it is it a legitimate address uh I don't think so I think it's just the the what's the number of the of the address yeah so I mean I'm so is so if someone's looking this someone you know and get people in town that want to nitpick every little thing what are they going to say where is that okay yeah so that's do we have a accurate should should we should should our motion have an accurate address how about that yeah that's it says zero gra Road um the property card list it can we can we approve it you know contingent upon the actual address being included or or can we ommit the address and say as shown you know on the attached plan I'm okay with that and we'll include the plan in the minutes yeah I just can imagine some one of our in in-house Town lawyers just coming at at the schools or somebody because the address is zero Great Road and they own Z great Road and it's down at the end of the street by the subury count something yeah yeah no I think I think that's fair that's fair so yeah that's a I think that's a clever workaround uh Mr chair so just remove the address and instead just so would be move to Grant a license to the school department for the installation of geothermal Wells panels and related equipment with the green metal Elementary School on the pro blend as shown on the as shown on the attached plan and further authorizing chair to execute any and all documents necessary to effectuate the purpose of this vote stuck it Greg you're good with that reading of the language I'm really thinking I appreciate you're asking I just want to make sure it's clear so I'm not the lawyer and it was Council that wrote this you're not gonna like this but now I'm gonna try to convince you change your mind Chris so um I now I just want to make if Council wrote zero Great Road and they had the same documents that I'm looking at I would recommend you includ that that address but but to to to address your point of of of confusion it we will in the minutes and otherwise we will say yes it's zero great road but it's that plan and it's that partial oh so zero Great Road as identified on the plan submitted sure I will withraw my motion and then zero Great Road does come up on Google as what something near Eric and vice yes so we're giving some guy we're not we're not I mean it's not I mean I don't know it's across from Hasting Street I think the plans are the on address and then showing it on the just leave zero out located at Great Road as identified in the attached plan I'm okay with that without the zero yeah sure sure let's try again move to Grant I I withdrew the previous gotcha Grant a license to the school department for the installation of geothermal Wells panels and related equipment for the green metal Elementary School on the paring of land located at on Great Road as shown on the attached plan and further authorized chair to execute any and all documents necessary to effectuate the purpose of this vote second thank you all in favor Chris I am Lindsay yeah David yes mik yes and I'm a yes as well all right very good so the other update is they're moving on have they blast did they delay blast no they delayed it I heard tomorrow no theyve said well maybe tomorrow every day they say maybe tomorrow and then it doesn't happen and all the kids are like so excited about it um so no we don't know when presumably is earliest Tom do we talk about the blast party in here or do we talk about it some else did you the party last no no well I know why metal meting down in uh we having a conversation down in the bean there was no oh but they talked about it but they might mention last it came up it came up in not last night's um school meeting the prior one so just soone know they had um prior to the the starting of the um blasting they had a blast party for all the kids they gaed them all in and all the teach they told everybody you know they Public Safety people they had everyone in there they they told all the kids what was coming what was happening what to expect you know like one kid said where where are the trees GNA are the trees going to go into the sky when they blow up like a lot of different questions and all the kids get um bracelets little rubber break said blast party whatever it said it said yeah so it's pretty cool well very well received by like you know my daughter's a teacher there was very well received by the staff and everybody else it was a it was a big hit definitely excited I think they're also trying to get ahead the kids are waiting get ahead of the fact that twice a day for like two months that whole building's gonna shake and gonna like kick up dust but I mean like into November no no no I me but the shaking part that got that got brought up last so the they it is a blasting there will be VI vibrations but um yeah I right I know you don't think it's an earthquake and I I just in case Facebook is like the build is g to shake no no no it's gonna be there will be some vibrations um but it's it's meant to be um evaluated so that it shouldn't disrupt the like what what was it the hter insulation which is like the the thinnest type of building material so like it's the weakest Building Material like the like the little piggy that built his house out of pay that should not fall over that's how weak this blasting should be felt so maybe they won't feel it which they might not yeah we heard from teachers when we were there for curriculum night that that that they're feeling the effects of the construction equipment going by oh that's true and so I don't know how it Compares but um that's probably just as heavy because that those are heavy yeah really close speaking of which the other thing that came up at the meeting that last night yeah was um approval of the additional construction road yeah and going in behind that's the baseball field there so that will whoever made that happen thank you that's fastic J thank you the gate opening into Crow just a real mess and so this sure maybe I yes that was even worse and I think planing was like no definitely not but it's that is just a lot better than think yeah we will get our bus yeah we know I'm sure but it's better than like a an excavator running over a toddler you know I I'll take all the complaints from the buts are you you are is that I don't know met this but probably not but I I Concur and I and I I commend Justin for coming with that I mean like collaboration but like that was that was initiative and and it's we'll see there's no perfect friction list way to do this but I forgotten that it was a um an emergency access route anyway yeah yeah they also Mike kindly brought up last night I had concerns about the air quality inside the schools once they start blasting um and what the particulate and CO2 levels will be and if there would be um any air quality testing um also I think Massachusetts has a bill that is about to mandate that schools do air quality testing regularly Massachusetts and New York both do um and there are federal standards but I don't think the town is required to com to comply with them yeah so there are federal standards um as far as public health is concerned um and so Mike did ask and I think that Phil said that they do plan to do that even though they're not required to so I'm appreciative of that also because I imagine a lot of particulate is going to get kicked also highlighting the fact that they have filter in place anyway and it was commented that um the say the C department they they have sufficient stock of additional filters um to replace them more frequently than they do did I get that right filter purification system that recy so you're talking about a building that has operation Windows which goes back to the there so unfortunately green meows mechanical technology doesn't have a turnover which is why each classroom has a singular UV style of filtration during Co so there is extra enhancement but not what you would think in the traditional mechanical setting now there is no freshing or exchange Focus point for green metal which actually in this particular helps as long as teachers don't open their window but even if the windows are particular can still get in only so we don't have fresh air intakes through that process outside of leaks in the windows that and things of that nature so are you saying there are air purifiers in the classrooms that are recycling the air they were provided during Co and prior to that during the esess issue that you know what the rate is at which they are recycling unfortunately I haven't been involved in the facilities management of that building for over four years so was alled yeah we yeah and I remember walking through it when we were going through that process of addressing the spe Etc um all more to the point why we need a new school like this totally but we do have two years where there are 500 kids who are in there and the my point is just that the air purifiers are there that's great the filters are there but the impact of blasting and construction vehicles driving by all day every day and kicking up the dust yeah you have to you have to measure to know what the impact is um and you need a good sensor to do that and it sounds like Phil uh has said that he'd be willing to do that which would be great point taken and I and I I have confidence that if even reveal through this monitoring or otherwise if there needs to be more done to ensure the quality I think we'll do that control is also required so every time this construction issue so any other questions on the Green Meadow School building project okay then we will move on to item 15 which is the FY 26 uh policy statement as mandated by the charter so Mr chair the you um had allowed for this um to be continued to the next meeting which is tonight um again it's the kind of the standard procedure um as dictated by the town Charter for the select board to issue this poliy statement which is sort of set a tone or an expectation of the SL board going into the next fiscal year and planning for the next fiscal year um and uh per the guidance I got from the select board I did forward the initial draft to the finance committee I saw that Julian Pendergrass The Chair the finance committee had replied today but I didn't get a chance to see what her reply was and I was on last night's meeting but I signed off when they started to get into like new business at the end and um so um so anyway so it still stands the what you see in front of you tonight is the same that you saw uh couple weeks finance committee found the message sage and the statement agreeable so looks like they're aligned um with no with no further recommendations they said so I think that we've got their endorsement of the message as drafted any comments or questions from the select board um are we ready do we need to motion on this or are you able to administer without a motion from the so I apologize I didn't have that in the motion but if you would like you can you can take a motion um to approve the F school year 2026 budget policy statement as presented motion to approve fiscal year 2026 policy statement as presented second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David good yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well okay thank you thank you moving on to item 16 we have two correspondences one from the golf course and one from Comcast any questions on either of the correspondences they want to approve or accept rather move to accept correspondence corresponden says a and B as shown second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes I'm a yes as well moving on to item 17 we have two sets of minutes from the 17th and 24th of September any comments or questions on the two sets of minutes we have in front of us move to accept and approve the meeting minutes of September 17th and 24th 2024 as shown and authorizing the use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor Chris yes Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well and we will now move to the ten administrator report all right I'll give you quick um today we had a f fantastic all staff uh meeting and lunching outside out back along the river was the conditions could have been better and uh all all the success of bit goes towards Stephanie dougen for U wrangling the troops setting up the the place e that um uh the town of May was identified by the massach Municipal Association to host one of the legislative breakfast which is pretty pretty cool that we don't have to go very far for that so I highly recommend it if you can um it'll be at the fire so that's that's Friday uh October 18th I'm in trouble logging on for that one oh really that later and see that was a glitch so if I if I struggle again I'll come back and see it was it was difficult to get it was difficult to get um confirmed for it yeah so I ended up in one in like Leland Mass so I just it's a really confusing reg yeah it very difficult so I I sent an email to the girl from um I can't remember her Nam the woman from um MMA and I just sent that you know please add me and she did she got right back to me the next day her name is on that her name is on the on the but it was very diff difficult you add your specific thing to a part and you have to open a drop down menu in order to get to the thing that you want if you want that meeting date otherwise it's all defaults I think do whatever at the top it's a very confusing I've been registering myself for MMA beds for a long time so I don't think I'm surprised it's not easy okay well on that note also today opened for the mma's annual meeting so if you want to register to go to the annual meeting January something at the end of January okay usually the weekend before uh the Friday it starts the Friday before um MLK weekend that's usually when they the 20 21st 22nd 23d this year into Wednesday 23rd Thursday 23rd's Thursday yeah so I register today I usually go to the I I get there usually Thursday night and then I go to Friday full thing yeah so I I I and it's in the new venue this year it's at the it's in the seport district it's the convention center and Omni Hotel yeah oh really which Omni there's an omni in the seport so I assume that's used to be at the U at the Hines right yeah that's cool that was a nice change of face hey um and then going on so presidential elections coming up my brand new town clerk is very confident she's on it she got ballots today she's she's working early early vote she be and then um we're doing a lot of road work um so everyone to kind of keep your WS about you route 27 on both ends because we have mot doing the work at the intersection of um Parker and great Road for Route 27 and then on the other end um I'm I'm GNA keep calling it The Cat Cottage intersection so um but that's that's made a lot of work although you're probably not going to see a lot of change for a while because the steel and the and all the um traffic lights themselves have yet to be coming in and so whenever that comes in that comes in you no yeah no that has just changed because of the do workers stri so might it's could be longer than the win we'll see but so far I think it looks good I saw the grass um the hydro seed was there it's good it's coming along it looks good yeah so far still looks nice but light be have lights um and mest is Saturday so um oh I hope to see you that's all I have Mr questions any questions for the town all right um I have no updates for the chair report I think Greg mentioned we had a very pretty brief pretty efficient meeting to prepare for special town meeting uh and so I'm looking forward to that and mayard Fest also this weekend before that uh we'll go to board member reports Chris good thank Lindsay I'm good thank you David all set thank you Mike I'm going to follow the president 10 minutes wor all right second all in favor Chris yes sir Lindsay yes David yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well we're adjourned