##VIDEO ID:wwCN19BHyfc## thank you Greg thank you all right good evening this open meeting the select board is being conducted in person and Via Zoom speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely uh and the chair will allow for the public to provide comment at the beginning uh the select 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 confines of open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on matter please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting and any hearings will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you so please take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording all the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on board docs and we recommend that members of the public follow the agenda as posted on board docs unless I note otherwise we will now turn to the first item on the agenda before we do so please 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 I will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide comment questions or motions please hold until your name is called further please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking and please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes for any response pleas wait 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 for items with public comment after the members have spoken chair May afford public comment as follows the chair will first ask any members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only once the chair has a list of public commentators they will call on each by name and afford a number of minutes three for this meeting for any comments public comment for public hearings will only be accepted in person for open meeting law uh and then the first item on our agenda uh is actually the Pledge of Allegiance so please rise I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the stands thank you all right we will now turn to public comments the board would like to hear public comments and if there's further action that is required by the board 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 open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter are there any public comments in the room this evening all right are there any public comments online this evening all right I see no public comments and so we will move on to item four which is our consent agenda we have three items two Cemetery deeds and um an application as we seen before for the park lighting ceremony both the tree and the monora uh for the 10th Holiday Stroll any questions or comments on our three items for the consent agenda no I will move to approve consent agenda items a through c as presented contingent upon adherence to all federal state and local public health and safety guidance authorizing use of digital signatures approved that second second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well thank you as always to the organizers both on the town staff side uh and then public side for the city or the Holiday Stroll sorry uh moving on to item five which is an application for a block party use of town property uh gr do we have any further information on this one no besides the per I'm looking if there's anyone from Lyon is anyone on on the call from l no it's not so appliation pretty straightforward it's uh the applicant is Sally schwier apologize if I got that name on but um I don't know it's Bo they're they're asking for a little bit of support from the town um any softes and the the application does allow for them to be requested but the whatever cost may be asso but the Departments seem to be you know no issues so I think straight forward pretty straightforward to me as well any questions on this application all right I'll entertain a motion move to approve the block party on Lynden Street on Saturday September 7th 2024 rain date September 20 September 8th 2024 from 1 pm to 5 PM as presented contingent upon adherence to all federal state and local public health and safety guidance and authorizing the use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well lynon Street have fun I'm pretty sure Lyon Street has done this before I think so and see we can put it on the consent next time all right we'll move on to item six which are two appointments and we'll start with the planning board um Che my phone on up uh and so um first I just want to note Jim Coleman recently resigned from the planning board he's been active in town for decades and so I think we mentioned this before a few meetings ago but um heartful thank you for Jim and all the servic he dedicated not just to the planning board but many other organizations throughout the town over many many years um Chef do you want to give us a quick overview on your uh interest in the planning board sure yeah so uh I Conservation Commission about a year ago and uh an opportunity to be an alter on the planning board came up so I took that opportunity to be an alternate for the last year and Jim's uh resignation another fulltime spots big shoes to fill but u i you know enjoyed serving as an Alterna year civil engineering background which is helpful I think serving on that very good any questions for Jeff black who has been serving as an alternate and is now um asking for an appointment as a full member of the planning board I do um Jeff thank you for stepping up not only to volunteer last year for uh your appointment but now a year later to be appointed to it full-time Pro um in your year planning board um I'm sure you've had an opportunity to observe some of the things that mayard is working on trying to sort of move forward in a consistent manner Etc if I were to ask you and I don't mean to put you on the spot this but it was gonna appear that way if I were to ask you um what you think is most critical for Maynard's development as we move forward what would you what would be what would you say um I mean I think the stuff been happening downtown downtown overl district has been um exciting to to see and I think the for the last year efforts you know I think those are two critical items and of course um a lot of the development we have here in town as I'm sure you're aware is uh predicated upon our ability to be able to service people with water and sewer property and that's critical for us as well so um although the planning board specifically doesn't get involved in that and indirectly you do in approval of projects Etc relative to some of the issues that we have to deal with and you'll find working with us and I look forward to working with you as a colleague um that we're concerned about making sure that we don't over overstretch but yet we still have to address the issues of development that help to uh you know balance out our our tax base so good luck and uh go to it any other questions from the board no for me no not for me very good we have the application and we have the request from the chair for you to step on as a full member too after being a alternate for a year in that case I will entertain a motion I'll move to approve Jeff plat to the planning board with a term expiring June 30th 2028 authorizing use of digital signatures if seconded all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well thank you very much and good luck very good thank you Jeff next we have Mora Flynn uh applying to be part um applying to be appointed to the board of C welcome uh we have your application in front of you uh do you want to give us a a brief overview of your interest in the planning board I'm sorry your interest in the Board of Health thank you for accepting my application um I'm a nurse first of all and um I've actually worked with the Medical Reserve FL here in Maine and um as a nurse uh I have worked in many public health Arenas with public health nurses and I've sat on regulatory boards uh one of them being the Board of Nursing for 10 years uh and that board is you know the mission is to protect the health of the public protect public citizens and so this is seemed like a natural kind of a natural way for me to get back into um you know giving back to the community very good and we have your application here and we have a recommendation from the chair of the planning board as well no chair of chair of the Board of Health as well my apologies one item behind tonight um any questions for the applicant uh I I have one very what I hope will be a quick question um what what do you see as the the one or two main challenges that that the the this particular board will face over the next year or so well anytime you're dealing with the public you're facing the challenge um yeah you know with a lot of the um um pandemics and emics out there um you know there's bound to be more um illnesses coming around I mean you know germs you know they U change and and evolve and we're going to see probably as the um you know the Regulators will tell us that there was probably going to be another pandemic at some point so I think the idea is to keep the community safe and to monitor it on a regular basis um you know making sure that people are vaccinated appropriately and um just overall you know keeping a keeping a good brain on on things in general yeah okay thank you any other questions more of a comment uh I've had the pleasure of knowing Mora for years and um I am highly excited to see her to become a member of the Board of Health um everything that Mora gets involved in is she puts her all into it and and more um including now sitting at our election tables at the uh at election day as a as a PO worker which is very much appreciated um but I look forward to your expertise being utilized by the board and um you know hopefully we never have a repeat of four years ago in in the coming days you know when a when a board like this that you're going to join um suddenly gets thrown the front of everything in town and becomes the most important group that they didn't you know in many ways didn't sign up for that but there was a remarkable job done by the Board of Health to work their way through uh despite the immense pressure from the town and let's hope that never happens again but they're in good hands with you as being one of the rers thank you Dave very good any other questions or comments from the board okay I'll entertain a motion move to appoint Mora Flynn to the Board of Health with a term expiring June 30 2025 authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes more to thank you and I'm glad I didn't accidentally appoint you to the [Laughter] planning thank you Mo thank you planning Bo would be a healthy group all right that takes care of the appointments for this evening we're moving on to item seven which is signage uh where we get to um well we enjoy seeing the art here from some of our students uh Greg do you want to well I think I don't want to steal any thund so I want to introduce Charles gon um he is uh everything to the mayor Public Schools um special project I can't remember what his official title is but he's everyone's friend and he works hard to do all the fun stuff for the school system so Charles you want to explain what you're trying to do today Absolut absolutely thank thank you very much thank you so much for um having this on the agenda and thank you to both Gregs for all your help in moving this forward for several years uh we have the wellness committee which is a committee of the district that is um was one of the Committees that we must have by regulation a wellness committee meets several times a year and and works on a number of issues uh and also works closely with the Board of Health in some areas um for several years now we have partnered with a group called safe roots to school uh and um it's the it's been a very good partnership and they uh they come in and it's part of the uh Massachusetts Department of Transportation they come in and they do bicycle safety training pedestrian safety training uh they met at follow one year and went over uh and great cooperation with Justin DeMarco went over a number of kinds of safety things um and and tiger Drive we've really done well with them anyway it's a Statewide group and every year they have a contest on signs for middle school students and this year two of our middle school students actually won first prize Austin wild and sad Poland and uh Department of Transportation made for us uh 12 signs um and I there is a p I'll try to show you uh just a little bit of it shows on screen the signs that they made uh you see everything it's uh it's actually a two two sided sign they're just wonderful signs I'll show you the other one and we were thrilled and um what the idea was that they u u sort of like like lawn signs except they'll go near bus stops we wanted to get permission to put the um the the signs up around town uh we've worked very coply with Justin as I mentioned and we'll make sure that the signs are in in good places we also were in touch with the um Chief Noble and he has no problem with that um we um we thought that with Justin cooperation we'll put the signs in uh strategic places uh around around the town um they're just simple signs uh the wire things just like a a lawn sign uh to to be up um there um uh the uh we we'll install them as I said with in Direction with the um with Justin I want to give special thanks to to Brenda Sullivan Brenda Sullivan is a chair of our Wellness committee she's a health and fys teacher at father school and she is the she has a meeting she's also a coach she's meeting tonight so she couldn't be there she's the one who's organized and then the real um the real person uh that's done the work for this project I'm just a helper um there um the um we acknowledge the town could remove them at any time uh we uh we will accept any public safety direction we get whether it be from Justin or from the fire the police or whatever and we'd um U we would really like approval to be able to put these signs up and I'll be glad to answer any questions too great um very good any questions from the board question I have a question but go go ahead chis you go first um so the the two signs I see them in the body of our packet now are those the only two signs we will post posted a minute are we going to have signs other children post well um the signs the the the signs were um made for us by the Department of Transportation they just did the signs of the two people who won Statewide it was we didn't we didn't make the the the students design the signs the signs were made um no I understand but so manard in mayard the signs that are going to be posted in mayard are those those are from kids from across the state no no just the two for m just the two for M okay all right I was just wondering if they kind of oh sorry I I guess I didn't understand your question I was just kind of wondering if they you know the the mayor signs ended up in in this town and we had their kid signs if it was kind of a sharing yeah no the winners were not the winners were for the whole state the two two students remain are one for the entire State oh that's that's awesome thanks thank you thank you not gonna believe this and I have served on this board way too long together because your question is exactly as mine so I'm going to resign tomorrow we have yeah that happens I have a quick question if I may um just wondering were the uh the bus drivers uh included any part of this discussion the reason why I ask is having uh supervised um bus in Framingham for eight years um I'm I'm very conscious of the need to include bus drivers in in in a lot of these types of conversations just to engage the more the point the kids with them yeah right that is an excellent excellent question and yes we uh we only have four buses as you know right yeah um but we um we make it a point to have to have very good relationships with the bus drivers and to keep them informed you're so correct that we don't want them all of a sudden driving down Street and seeing the signs and know nothing about them so yes thank you thank you and if you want to do bus Duty in uh you know M sometime you can always use it that's how I'm going to spend my if I go to Purgatory it's going to be uh indoor indoor recess and bus monitor well I'll bear that in mind yes any other questions before the article all right well I appreciate app the the time you've taken to to work through all of the issues before coming to us with um the DPW director and the chief of police uh I think the signs look great and I'll I'll entertain a motion before I read the motion I just want to say Charles you're far more than just a helper thank [Music] you I move to approve the posting of signs around town designed by the students at the faress school for the safe route to school program as presented contingent of upon adherence to all federal state and local public safety guidance second second all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes sir and I'm a yes as well thank you very much thank you so much I really appreciate it thank you Charles thank you all right we will now move forward to item eight which is a public hearing and so I will open the public hearing notice is hereby given in accordance with all Massachusetts general laws chapter 138 as amended that a public hearing will be held on Tuesday August 20th 2024 at 7:15 p.m. at town hall room 201 1995 Main Street mayard Massachusetts 01754 to consider the application for a transfer of a section 12 restaurant all alcoholic beverages licens for brave Family Court doing business as mayard Pizza bar manager at Eduardo Braga at 149 Main Street Mayer Massachusetts hybrid option attendance via zoom using the access instructions on the posted agenda to be found at www.town of manor. sorry www.town of- ma.gov copy of application is on file in the office of the select board you know you need to reread if you make an error that don't do that all right so the hearing is open uh and this um Greg do you want to give us an overview this is a transfer of a liquor license correct yeah because I believe the restaurant's under new ownership but um I do want to give credit to the owners themselves I think Mr bra is joining us can you hear us Edo can you hear us you're muted yes how are you tonight I'm good how are you very good goe you you are the can you explain what your position is within the restaurant and who you're if you want to introduce anyone else yes man you're the manager or the owner I'm sorry yeah both both okay there you go and and who are you joined with because I recognize some of these people but do you want to introduce anyone else yeah we okay so um Greg Wilson from my office has been working very closely with them I think um and U I want to say want to say your name is it natala yeah natala thank you I got her okay so um she's been she been very diligent in coming in and being very responsive and the whole project family so I appreciate that um and so the the restaurant's under now this new ownership and so you're looking for the transfer of the license from the previous owner to your own is that corre yes okay very good all right so this is a public hearing I'll start by seeing if there's any questions or comments from the board uh thank you for coming I have a quick question you're not going to change or are you gon not nothing's going to change about the look or feel of that little restaurant or basically going to be a a transition that will be seamless yes and then my other question is I try to ask this of most businesses when they begin new here in mayard uh was there anything in particular that Drew you to mayard I like CL have another restaurant could you speak up a little bit we're having a little trouble hearing you okay I'm own another restaurant local like in and is a clo good for me like a both rest clo the other one so you have another restaurant do you yes Rin in C oh okay all right maybe I've seen you there before I love that yes any other questions for the applicants okay this is a public hearing so I'll open it up to any public comments at this time okay I am seeing no public comments I will entertain a motion I will move to approve the section 12 restaurant all alcoholic beverages license transfer application for brave Family Court DBA maner Pizza Bar at 149 Main Street authorizing use of digital signatures if appr seconded all in favor David yes uh Mike yes Chris yes and I am a yes as well and then there's a separate motion yes I will uh also moved to authorize the town administrator's office to distribute the section 12 restaurant all alcoholic beverages licensed for brave family courp at 149 Main Street on approval from the alcoholic beverages Control Commission the abcc authorizing use of digital signatures put through that motion essentially removes the need to have this matter come back for us as it used to with regularity second it all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes and I'm a yes as well I all move to close the public hearing at 7:32 seconded all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes and I'm a yes congratulations and and good luck with the continued operation of mayard P bar we got another one yeah they ah sorry and we're moving on to Common B license which is not a public hearing so this is just a simple motion correct does anybody have any questions we've done these before on the common Vic license I will move to Chris are you saying something no question the new common vict and entertainment licenses at mayard Pizza and Bar 149 Main Street mayard under the corporation Brave family Corp authorizing use of digital signatures if approved seconded all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes and I'm a yes as well all right now congratulations you got both and the congratulations good luck thank you and that brings us to 7:34 which is perfect because the next public hearing scheduled start 7:30 so let me begin with the public notice notice is hereby given in accordance with Mass General Law chapter 166 that a public hearing will be held on Tuesday August 20th 2024 at 7:30 pm via hybrid meeting both in person at 195 Main Street mayard Massachusetts 01754 and remotely via Zoom for the posted mayard select board meeting agenda instructions the petition the petition and plan are being presented by the NSTAR Electric Company doing business as eversource energy and Verizon New England in for the purpose of obtaining a grant of location to install one pole number 571 15-2a on mainn Street mayard approximately 418 feet east of Florida road a copy of this petition is filed with the Town Clerk and select Board office GRE do you want to give an overview of what this was well read this pole is for yeah so um everyone's familiar with the work that's being done bydonald development at 115 Main Street the um and we are T this evening by the usual um Chris Crosby who's R by a cell phone it looks like a 5 number that's her and she's she the bo this pretty common practice where the board is asked to authorize um the repl PO the movement particularly when it's relative to to public land so Chris anything else you want to add CHR you want to add anything uh yes this is Christine Cosby from eversource and um we are petitioning the town for Grant a location for new pole 57 over 15-2a um located at Maine in Mason Street and the purpose of the new pole would be to provide electric service to the new building out there that's under construction one 15 Main Street right is good I'm GNA give the new building some juice uh very good any questions from the board just trying to get an idea of where if you know because the I'm not good at looking at reading these plans yeah um and is this a permanent poll or is it a temporary pole because it looks like it's right in front of the building um but looks like it looks like it might be here the CVS side because it's a parking lot U help me out uh it's actually the pole is in the rear of the building um it's it's in yeah it's in the rear of the building it's it's lined up with the other poles that are out there there's a parking lot there right so as I'm sorry and it is a perative pole it's a it's Pole it's solely is solely dedicated for the um electric service it's going to go from overhead to underground the electric service to the building so it is a permanent pole and it's behind the building sort of up against the parking lot that's yeah yes about parking lot okay you're familiar with the project see is anything else you want to add what it was described to me was about there's the the island where there were the park Meers fairly close to their I was just confused because I thought it was in the front of the building along Main Street and that it would just look kind of bad no we'll try to CS [Music] kind of in a til yeah you're trying to right yeah I I I was viewing it as being in front of the building like just making the thing look like not great the municipal laer to is main okay we do have one question from our um about the a request to remove a poll that exists at the same site is there any update on that that's yes that's a separate work order um we uh actually I went out there today to take a look at this job and EV the urce crews were out there um that particular project involved replacing two existing poles installing the stub pole which the board um select board approved back in February and um they needed to do the transfers before they could take that pole that pole that's right by the water there they're looking to get that out of there so um they were out there today they were doing transfers to the new polls uh believe that they were going to be taken the Transformer off of that pole that the poll that that that's being removed and I I'm I could I could follow up with uh the overhead construction folks to find out when they have it scheduled to take the poll out but I think it's it's going to be very soon okay that's progress so I appreciate hearing that and yeah followup would be great thank you very much any other questions I'll follow thank you any other questions from the board okay this is a public hearing I'll open it up for public comments seeing no public comment I will entertain a motion move to approve a grant of location to install one pole number 571 15-2a to provide electric service to 115 Main Street mained the petition and plan is being presented by the NSTAR El electric company doing business as eversource energy and Verizon for the purpose of obtaining a ground of location authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes and I am a yes as well and I'll move to close the public hearing at 7:39 PM second all in favor David yes Mike yes Chris yes and I am a yes as well very good uh the poll is approved thank you very much and the public hearing is closed okay thank you have a good evening thank you thank you have a good night all right we will move on to item 10 and we've invited the town moderator to join us uh I want to say a few months ago received a report from the acting League of Women Voters um looking at uh town meeting attendance and several other items uh in several surrounding towns including mayard and we thought it would be good to invite the town moderator to come in have a discussion about attendance of town meeting um and BR from some some ideas for improvement see what's working what's not working and so thank you for joining us uh Mr moderator um just pull this open let me close all the electric pole [Music] hearings um and I think we we had uh probably two months ago a chance to discuss this as a board um amongst ourselves a little bit and decided to invite you have you had a chance to read over the um League of Women Voters report uh D down yes uh I have and you want to start us off with the conversation any particular feedback or anything that you noted from your end um and then we can kind of open up to the board and I think we just wanted to have a discussion overall well um it's a subject that has been discussed not only in M but I'm an officer of massachus moderator Association and uh it's a discussion that goes on regularly there how we can inove attendance at Town meetings um it situation that's across the board in the state it's not unique to us and by the fact that P's leag of Women Voters has uh done that investigation you can see that it's happening everywhere and also I think town court has gotten a request from West and which I will respond to them as well um so it's it's pretty much much across the board I've thought about it a lot philosophically and um I think you know we all live very busy lives today more so than 50 years ago and um people do turn out when something is important and so I think basically the reduction in attendance over time probably is to the credit of better management of T and that people are content with what they see as their management of T but when something doesn't sit well with them or there is some particular thing that's very important to them then they go up so um I don't know that we're going to dramatically change the situation but we try very hard to do that and as you know especially with Craig that we have a griefing section after every town meeting of all the participants and uh we tried to say you know what did not go well that we can improve upon what did go well that we want to make sure that we maintain and hopefully can improve upon it and so I think over time especially through the pandemic I think we were pretty creative and coming up with uh resolutions and got a pretty good turnout during P using our drivein uh I've done some statistics um over 42 Town meetings going back to 2001 um we have an average attendance of 282 uh attendees uh we have um a median that's 210 so you can see they they correlate fairly well um the low was 81 and the high was 18800 so uh pretty pretty wide but uh like I say the median which repr as opposed to the is so over time I've done a graph there is a slight decline trend line down uh here very very very slight so over 24 years um it has not changed appreciably from the so is that going back to 2001 as you just mentioned 2001 um so uh I don't know exactly what we could do better there were two things that uh was mentioned that we might think about uh in the leg of Women Voters thing and one of those was the babysitting which we do offer uh but maybe we want to think about uh making that a little more robust meetings typically one 10:30 11:00 the uh baby C only lost until nine so maybe we can figure out how to that so that it's there till the end of the meeting so that might be helpful and then one of the other things that Greg and I have shared some emails on is uh can we look at some of the elderly and things who don't like to drive at night uh who have asked for Saturday U meetings which uh we can't do currently under the CH uh is to have transportation um so maybe we could have the elderly van pick up people and drop them off at the meeting and then return them at the end of the day that's one of the things that the legal voter said that might be a potential for increasing but I think the increase is going to be we might go from 210 to 250 but I don't see you ever getting to 800 or I'm just to see that in regards one thing that's come up as a consistent theme I think since I joined the board and especially recently has looked at the quad board is voter education and especially in the context of not having a local newspaper and town meeting is often cited as a uh an opportunity to educate voters on a wide variety of issues just looking back on all those Town meetings go back to 2001 are there any strategies that you think are recommended or particularly successful or strategies that or a lot of effort but maybe not worth the Bang's not worth the buck so one of the things that came out of the deing was whoever puts in the article put in a lur as to why they're putting in that article and that is not public in the war which that's I believe in the last eight years six years something end I years ago but I know that was coming before right now if always been the case with Finance but it's never always been the case with the sponsor and so that goes to your education and I think that while it helps people understand what the articles are all about and has probably lowered the amount of questions in town meeting itself as a result of that um but people may feel comfortable with that explanation and not of 10 so that that's another possibility uh I think we have eliminated a lot of the noise in things we don't do a second unless the mo articles do differently than it's think we have uh people pre-staged both to the podium so when they do it we don't have lost time people walking back and forth to the audience so these are all things that came out of these debing sessions that been had over the time to make it run better and you know we had uh what 36 articles last time and we did it one night and I can tell you from the association that those numbers usually are multiple so and not to do my own own but I think you having those having those de SS has streamlined it significantly the other thing we do is the PowerPoint presentations which uh we allow every sponsor to make a presentation and explain why they're doing things with backup information on the on the things we have standardized on the size and the type so it's readable anywhere in theory so I think a lot of good things have happened just by sitting down afterwards and critiquing ourselves and saying you know what could we do there certainly a tremendous Improvement the last meeting with the sound system I know that's not your control but uh sound No in fact that came out of that degree I know it the um the sound system two meetings ago was very very difficult people had trouble hearing the last meeting was very very from my perspective hard a hearing guy as it is um much easier to uh to hear uh one criticism if you want it from me and I I think I've mentioned it to you before already but just to it out in the public realm um I'm not a fan of what we evolved and it was necessitated by covid was the bundling of Articles um I'm not a fan of it because I don't I think that it becomes confusing for members of the of the voting public who may not want to vote on a particular article but because it's bundled they feel that they have to and they don't want to hold up the meeting by saying can you please hold that one up um and I'm not a fan of it I think each and every case should be standing uh with very few exceptions should stand stand Al I am a fan of the U you know Town report and all that stuff at the beginning that we that we have certainly can be bundled in and approve it on motion for consent but some of the other stuff we had some important articles the last meeting that I thought were been appropriately bundled namely our um zoning articles one was the MBTA and the other one the MBTA article the other one I forget what what the zoning article you they all ended out ending out fine from my perspective but I think that they deserved their own uh and I think we're past the coate issue of wanting to push things along quicker although that's part of trying to keep people in the meeting is the time aspect of it and I get that too um but I think town meeting is supposed to be deliberative and supposed to be the legislative body that has deliberation and and you know debate and by bundling things I think sometimes we're taking that away that's my otherwise I think job and I thank you for your service to the to thank you um you're R the minority there uh I have asked around because of the very things that you bring out and that people can necessarily uh feel comfortable that they they agree with two and then they have to vote with three um but the flip side is they don't want to be there anyway that kind of and that is a strong message they don't like going for 11 oh I get that the the alternative is to cut of up CL and go to the second night which is even worse uh so uh I have gotten very positive feedback about combin probably 5 to one versus things and I do offer in the opening remarks and generally when we talk about the a if anybody wants to break them up they can just ask and I don't have any problem and I only have to get one in that uh whereas a secret ballot I usually ask for five so makes a distinction there but um people seem to feel comfortable with it and when I group them I do group them by su uh so in the case of the mbda I believe that stood long I I remember having a conversation here before we may have as a result of the convers split it up so maybe a bad example but there have been a few where um but typically I would I would group uh all of the secret ballots for DPW stuff so the Enterprise for the sewer and the Enterprise for the water and maybe some other things I would group those together and have them one secret dat because they go over um I find not to mix things like the acceptance of streets with sewer and water I yeah I appreciate that group maybe three or four acceptance of streets all into one even though there might be three separate articles and the other thing that I do or I try to do is things that seem to be somewhat related I allow them to both be discussed simultaneously so that they can ask the question well how does this affect that whereas normally you couldn't do that you have to stay within the bounds of a particular AR and by opening it up to having discussions for multiple articles all at the same time that are somewhat related people can say well if I do this when I do that and it makes it for an easier flow and and actually reduces the number of questions so that's my thought process as to why I do it I'm open to but I I I will say that uh the more people seem to appreciate the bunding don't I I agree with the town moderator that the bundling is necessary so that we I think in the recent meetings if we hadn't bundled we would have gone over and it would have forced a second night and that would have caused a severe drop off in intendance 11:30 or or and one meeting did even with bundling um I think the there was a concern with one particular bundling at at the last meeting um but then one brave soul got up and asked for it to be voted separately and after five people agreed it was allowed to be voted separately and when I talked to a few people afterwards they didn't know that was an option and I think that's just a very simple making sure it's clear to everybody that if they want to separate it out there's a very simple procedure to do so and if the whole room agrees to keep a bundle then nobody needs to say anything and we can move forward with that and that can kind of Be the Best of Both Worlds there and the other thing isic hand I never because it's just easy to do a v it's getting the C to go out the ballot uh you know each one of those takes five minutes and so if I can do three i' save 10 minutes right there that gets to a point I I don't know what the cost I know like towns they're wealthier than ours whing acting conquered have electronic voting uh sto I think even now has electronic voting but they just started within the last year so um I watch a lot of town meetings unfortunately for myself I guess but um what would your what would your thoughts be on that I don't know what the cost I don't what the cost is probably prohibitive for us but right it's a financial decision yeah uh I'm comfortable in either way I I don't have any uh desire to go one way or the other I'm pretty that take away the need for walking around and save that portion of time at town meeting but that's really all it saves it's convenient and time um but I see a lot of towns that are going that way but I'm sure it's really expensive depends on the volume so know I I am an active resident um and I went to the last uh um because sing boat there's thousands of people but in which case the clickers were kind of otherwise for hours and hours hour just kind balance but I have to say um V is very fast with those bot like having the electrical take take the uh the Tiding you know the the baskets and um it's fast so I have to say like they given a lot of credit to the volunteers that that work tell meeting um there is a c I think um we've brought this up over many many times over the years go to the clicker and um um I'm about to offer the town rde we a new town clerk so maybe you're a new partner in crime when it comes to running um the show you talk about are there any grants available for that type of thing any grants that might be available from the state for that well I think so did it under the pic oh that's interesting we never thought that we were thinking too much about water I got too much water on the brain yeah um and and sever other that but there is annual cost as well which can also be somewhy got maintain you got to make sure they all work you got well the thing is if you buy them you're now responsible for them and maintenance all of the other and so I don't typically the expertise and so most of the towns renting them so when you rent them you're also renting the people that do it so you're talking several thousand dollars for meeting potentially so like I I'm encourage though I I think as I said when the new ter comes if you want you and this person talk see if you want to go that research and what do we pay do you know what we pay for the if we do it all I don't know if they're volunteers the U the church tiet which would offset some of the Thousand hes we would have to that's all right you're right we would potentially I mean like we probably wouldn't reduce we still need some election workers of first registration on the way right right but yeah probably our overhead a little so I turn it back to you it's a financial decision I don't have strong feelings one way or the other I very not a high priority when we look at some of the other stuff we have down here so but it's a it's perhaps to be put on the capital list but if you did it I would embrace it if you don't do it I'm perfectly happy to continue doing what we're doing um think about the time in meeting versus engagement with the audience what guidelines do you give to the presenters um before each um sponsor article if they want to present something so I haven't set do that you have or have not I have not okay uh I kind of in my mind it at like five minutes um but it's not hard and fast so for example um when we did the M Crossing uh you know I think that half hour was like that presentation was like a half hour um and I think it should have been because there was a lot of meat there that needed to get out there to educate the voters to make the good decision uh so if I had a rued five minutes I would have had to impos it everybody and I think that would have been a disservice so I'm kind of you know what what is the extense necessary to make a good presentation uh in terms of questions that are asked and things I I TR to with that not hard and fast but U again you know what is the me seriously s if somebody makes an issue of it at some point I might have to make that decision but I try to think about how I would want to know things if I were sitting in the audience so okay mik or Chris any questions or coms yeah I I have one I'm just wondering you know I look at uh certainly boxb and then to some extent Stow that aside from the um the spikes which are fairly obvious as to why they occur what is it about boxb in particular that uh gives them consistently twice as many voters um as a percentage as made it are we aware of any um proactive plans that they do to encourage that bigger Gap consistently over 20 years nothing that I'm aware of it just happened is it it's your audience I just you know think they're more rural community which tends to have a lar audience uh the the more urban communities tend to have less of an audience more densely backed and you know they're usually more renters than homeowners and so as a percent of the population you don't you don't do as well I don't I don't think it's anything in the preparation I me we have a finance committee public hearing poorly attended every year uh it's decently attended in STO um so it's not by anything that the bance is doing it's just show up yeah I I mean I guess it must be just be part of the culture within the town but it it's very evident that it's it's consistent over this 20year period that we have available to us yeah Foxboro has has that culture and it's um um I guess they don't have as much uh if you want to say I mean we've seen a big change over just in the the last 15 years of the people who attend Town meetings unfortunately many have passed away that used to be regular attendees and regular questioners and whatever you see in boxboro and I as I said earlier I'm a nerd for this stuff so I watch them and I've seen over the years um the same people continue to ask questions and they're aging but there's a younger crowd that comes in and asks we don't have too many younger people coming in and asking questions and um it's you know I I I fear what will happen in 20 years when when those of us who are aging that like to ask questions at town meeting are suddenly no longer here uh because there's not depending on the topic I guess there's not many younger folks that ask questions yeah general feeling is p is pretty well run and you get uh a lot money even though taxes are high and I think I'm paying like $9,000 a year in taxes if you took my house and my land conquer even though the tax rate in con would be a lot lower I'd be spending $12,000 so I think the fact that they're paying a little more taxes might bring them out a little bit more whereas if you compare what actually we go in and take out of people's pockets not talking about the tax but that's only a piece it's your assessment plus the tax rate that determines how much taxes I I get the feeling that main population feels that they're getting valued with their dollar and so they don't necessarily come to try to C do things they feel we're doing a pretty good job when they're concerned they show up should have take do the budget presentation next spr you know I have nothing to prove that it's just the feeling conversations with people and everything else obviously but you know it's something that you have to do to maintain the servic thank you for saying that um yeah like Chris any other comments or thoughts the question I have was already asked previously but I you know I appreciate all the the time and thought Dick's put into you know going over this information with us though me as well yeah all right thank you he appreciates the the time and effort you put into going over this with us don't make his head don't make his head big he want to hear you compliment time yeah he know any final comments or any closing remarks uh no I appreciate your inviting in getting you know some of the discussion out there and if anybody has any ideas I mean uh be Dow at to.et happy to hear anybody's suggestions for we very much into continuous Improvement which is what the de briefing sessions are all about so um and we did do a survey you remember a couple meetings ago uh and U we done a very positive response actually people were quite happy the only thing they weren't happy with is uh I shouldn't say we weren't happy there was different views was when people didn't like uh it in the evening usually the uh because they don't like driving at night and they find that to be a problem and so they don't necessarily and the younger people don't like Saturdays because that's when the kids are having baseball games and football games and the kids are doing things and so there's a group that strongly wanted the weekend and there's a group that's strongly want be day nights uh and there was other in there but that that really I don't know how to resolve there was no perfect perfect answer on that one if I remember correctly and that's is what got maybe having the van pick up some of the a for we don't like rid at night and that might help improve attendance but no matter what we do it's signicant it's not double it or anything okay Julian was a question oh hi Julian how are you this evening Hi how are you um uh this is Jillian past I am on the finance committee and uh I am also a town resident uh I think that's all the stuff I'm supposed to announce um for myself but I did want to mention um I think that it might help attendance if we were able to get drafts of the article sooner so for example for the special town meeting we don't have the timeline is really tight and we only have a single meeting before our written comments and our votes are due to be included in the printed warrant uh which is a really big ask and I feel like every year the timeline gets tighter uh and there's potentially less time for us to review and sort of at the Articles and understand them and explain them in a way and the finance committee sponsor comments that can help the town's people understand the implify of their vote um you know either yes or no and I just wanted to sort of mention that as you know understanding the timelines and when things are potentially due especially for the printing to be included in that thing that's mailed out to the residents I think could really help uh engage the town's people that's one thing that comes up regly in the deg section and I know that GRE can sent out a memo earlier this year asking people to uh even send out a form of your intend even if you haven't got your final word with your justification so they can go to the finance committee for evaluation early on so that we can get a deeper meeting into things so I agree with that com 100% And anything that you folks can do Force boards and things to submit early even if they don't have the final word is going to go a long way making us uh more streamlined that's what well put and I appreciate that comment Jill and it is tight um and so it's a balance of how early uh there's no there's no timeline set according to Charter B says when the initial drafts have to be submitted so I come up with the date Greg Wilson and I do based on sort of backd according to what it needs to be published and by for we kind of come up with a couple weeks ahead of time but if it's too far back then that allows potential change and then it's it's almost like and then it's almost like not worth the effort and it's really difficult to get people by Nature it's hard to get people to submit stuff until they actually even then I'm I'm like going to department meetings and otherwise I'm saying no I was serious this is the deadline um it is what it is so now I appreciate that uh J and you'll get them from us as soon as we can um we have a couple in the on Deck right now we going over to I have I got a couple today I mean like we as as we get them I take a quick look at him I might have a quick edit or two but usually and the other change that did take last take place last year is that they weren't submitted to the finance committee until you folks approved them to go on to the whereas now they're going in or they should be going in immediately to the finance committee and then they just get withdrawn if you guys but at least they see them and they're to I had generally generally we do send the draft to the finance committee with the understanding that it may be edited by the board but um maybe there might have been a couple Ian there might have been a couple especially with 36 articles it could have been one or two that I get late but we're not done or or Town Council says oh you got change the wording whatever anything else Julian uh no thank you very much thank you all right any other last questions or comments okay well thank you very much Mr moner for joining us and we're looking forward to the run up to the next town meeting in October Mr chair I did on that note I do um being on vacation I I apologize I'm a little behind but I did want to share with the board and therefore the public the current list that I do have um but again these are not hard set so so I didn't I I'm surprising you with this Mr I do apologize um but would you like me to kind of go down them right now or would you like to move on for the meeting or maybe Circle back to this later whatever you want I just want to I want to give you the option and let you know I think we can add that uh to the next agenda oh you have to look at our next agenda I just I want to know if the board want to go let's do a quick review and uh being we have the chair of the finance committee here she'll get to hear what's going on okay but with the with the caveat that um these are not done like this is just like the running list that we have so that so traditionally we do amend the general f the general fund budget based on what we got from the state budget and I plan on presenting to the budget subcomittee vers my recommendations so we don't I don't have that AR the we did get an article from the CPC the commun preservation fund um for a couple corporations related to the Lorenzo man water drop and ni house um we did get the uh Deion and bonding authorization for new I buil from the school Queen got that the other day and on that note I did have um the treasure collector's office asked PA councel to take a look at it and ccil had some amendments and so I board that back to the school committee to um I did get a uh request for a mob petition from the corner store um do you all know where the corner store is down the hill from the P CR school school they want to they want to expand to an all alcohol license we did that a couple years Russ they want to do the same thing so I send it over to Town Council ask if it's if it's legit like if it's good to go and then um and then a couple from Public Works um the use of water retrained earnings so like water Enterprise retain that's like the free cash for water Enterprise um Justin is looking Jus Marco's looking to um get like a modification back of the truck that we've already acquired um he's looking to use sewer retained earnings do a analysis on the Wastewater and he's looking to do an acquisition of um utilities I'm sorry heard sewer water sewer utilities around the aset river we need to upgrade some of our sewer pumps that go that send the send the sewage under the river then to the wastewater treatment plant and so we might need to expand the size of those PKS and therefore eement into that P PP and then um this is a big one actually the um J Marco is creating but I haven't yet seen it yet finalized um creating a new Enterprise for solid wte so the there's been a solid recycling task force has been meeting for more than a year and the expected result is a recommendation to create an Enterprise well we see that task force at the next meeting so yes so um Justin and I met today and the expectation is it should come sort of hand in hand like the recommendation is the thank you okay so that was I mean there's a couple but I don't have the solid details on this but any so Julian just kind of like that was a preface to what you'll see as soon as it comes out of my office we go to not most articles but some Heavy Hitters yeah I there's no planning board articles are planned for this it seems to me that the uh that last article you mentioned um this board hasn't had any discussion on it I I think it's incredible to say let's have it presented to us next meeting and vote to put it on the warrant that's great without having any discussion at all seems to me to be awfully rushed no no I I appreciate that and I and I don't like the board Rush um so when I see haven't seen the so this seems to be complicated yeah I got understand I agree David let's let's take a look let's see if we can get it done but let's let's make sure we don't do it if there's any downsides or to delaying from one time meeting to another that we understand that so we'll get a solid picture together before the decision needs to be made but I I agree with your your initial that you know something of that significance to pass it on the same night Justin uh briefly Justin please hi yeah so we understand the sensitivity sorry Justin Marco DPW director sorry I'm joining remotely tonight um David to your point we do actually understand the sensitivity for this request and we wish we could have um the recommendation sooner unfortunately timeline delays are are becoming quite the issue in regards to when we present our final recommendation and our shot Enterprise adoption and our contract Sunset so this may be a situation where it is a very thorough discussion in one night but just be aware you'll have a have a large presentation that will determine or help guide your process the recommendation is about 90% complete um within the Enterprise fund adoption recommendation we are not looking to reallocate the current distribution of general fund allocations versus Revenue IE stickers so it's not a adoption of an Enterprise fund and a complete shift of financial burden it will come with a five-year Financial projection process but in order for us to bid out a contract at the end of this current contract we need to have the Enterprise fund adopted well in advance so it's really a timeline issue right thank you Justin we'll cover that in more detail next meeting yeah okay so I appreciate Mr chair allowing me to I just want to be transparent about where we were but but and I didn't know Julian coming but I was I was planning on to asking you to do that reading it just is of course she's doing her job as Comm ADV okay any questions on the list thank you any questions on the list Greg just presented to us thank you Mr moderator thank you all right thank you uh that will conclude item 10 thank you very much Mr moderator we'll move on to item 11 uh which is a change a licensing change to the aset Village Co-op uh and I believe this is a change on the board correct that's right Mr so there's a change of three members on the board with Co-op um think it's Mr Mr and the information in theard packets but this is relatively procedur we've seen similar items before any questions on this change at the board of directors for the As go up what's the necessity for the board to have any interest in M be directors of the co because there's a liquor license of that requ is the local license just because so it's like a change of a management and we do for the yeah okay any other questions I'll entertain a motion move to approve the section 15 Package Store wine and maltt beverages license Amendment application for the assabet village food Cooperative Inc DBA assabet Co-op Market at 86 powdermill road authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I yes all right we'll move on to item 12 which is uh a receipt of funding from the capital fund program or cfp Grant that's right Mr chair so this is a federal financial program and it goes towards uh mayor housing auor um but you know for the board's um just remind the board that is very much separate entity Mard Housing Authority is uh you know as indicated it's Fally funded and state funded program but um for whatever reason this does require the executive um office does require your authority to sign off on the receipt of this funding it's [Music] [Music] Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD office of public and Indian housing 2024 Capital fund program cfp annual contributions contract for Don Grove 1 through 32 Dawn Road in the amount of 10747 as presented second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm yes as well very good I time money's coming in we'll take yeah uh moving on to item 13 the local Initiative Program application for local action units so this this is this is complicated as these things always are um I'm GNA do the best I can to um explain and then that's why still here to correct me so um the board had already approved the local Initiative Program application for again that's relative to the amount of units are going to be going into itet in this case it's 2015 M stre as we discussed ear the it's the downtown um the board approved the original lip application in January 2023 since then um some aspects of the site plan has changed and therefore the portal Housing Trust met last night and reapproved what they had already approved and then therefore that approval now comes back to the select and so the I'm I'm my staff is requesting that the select approve this updated version that theal Housing Trust hopefully this can set us up for Safe Harbor so Safe Harbor if the board's not or the public notw um each Town um is measur according affordable housing um what called a subsidized housing index uh and if you have above 10% or if you meet some other criteria such as a housing production plan or otherwise then you can be that's considered safe Safe Harbor which allows you to block an unfriendly 40b development which is referen to M law that allows for developers to kind of go around a lot of the local permitting and and you don't want that you want you want developers to to abide by local permitting ideally they work hand inand with municipalities but the town right now is not in state private so this is I I mean of course I would recommend the board approve this but it helps us if it this get to umlc which is used to be bhcd and sort of like help us that would prevent any developer L I would U I would put one com on your statement Greg yeah I object to the comment that the town is not in Safe Harbor because I think that at the time of 129 Parker Street um project when it was being proposed we um established that we indeed were at the time under Safe Harbor based on one of the categories that that provides for Safe Harbor includes um the percentage of land that's available for use for affordable housing um that was um that was all worked up at the time by um I think Andrew scrier mlan it was presented um a lot of people in town have a copy of the report and since that time we've only added affordable units so there's no way we could have dropped off so um I think we are although that's not typically considered one of the traditional approaches towards Safe Harbor we don't have 10% although this will get us very close if not we get a one-year uh moratorium on Safe Harbor because of the fact that we approved we are also making progress on the other things that you mentioned including um the um the housing production plan and we can establish that we are making progress and so I'm comfortable in in believing that under any number of Standards we have met the requirements as the spirit of the of the uh the safe haror not because we're trying to avoid um affordable housing no we're rather because we have reason we can't we can't we can't afford affordable housing based on the lack of infrastructure and water availability and whatever I think we would welcome some development yeah but it's um it's the fact we just can't afford it so we have to protect ourselves and we're doing so so you know the comment I wanted to make is from a public perspective I don't think it's fair to say we are not we do not have Safe Harbor right now we do it's just that it it's it's not well known because that particular research is not it was produced at the time and it was produced to developer who was um proposing a 40b at the time and they backed away they recognized that we were appropriate they covered wa so that that was maybe more than what this board needed but it just to so anys I highly recommend live any other questions or comments on item 13 no in that case I'll entertain a motion I'll move to approve the local Initiative Program application for local action units or mayard Square 115 Main Street mayard as presented authorizing the chair to sign if approved and further to authorize the chair to execute any other documents which may be required to effectuate the approval of the a lau and reporting of any required documents authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes all right very good uh moving on to one contract 14a for lead service line inventories and replacement Mr chair So Justin's a little un but I'm sure he will step in if I say something incorrect here um but I'll try to do a favor so um the town um has been granted $33,600 uh towards the town's plans to do a lead service line assessment and um basically analysis of our of our water lines then it also contributes towards planning to address blood in our our pip um so this is going to go a long was this $332,000 um but obviously this does require a number of contracts uh between us and the state entity so therefore my recommendation is to have the board authorized myself and Justin the sign notes most of it's digital but the state does need to see the motion that says he and I can sign standard Bureau it's great it's really helpful our our longer term needs and address the public health of very good questions or comments from the board as I said just a few minutes ago we'll accept money anytime we can get it you uh Mike Chris anything on this one no no I'll entertain a motion go ahead Chris move to authorize the Town Administrator and director of Public Works to approve and sign the agreement with the Massachusetts clean water trust in the amount of $33,600 for planning to assist completing lead service line projects as presented in authorizing the use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well very good moving on to item 15 we have two uh different items the first is um a cannabis social Equity policy and you want to set this up so this is um still who I refer to without G his title uh the executive director for the offic services so um all things fun outside of town hall that's what Steve do so um Steve has been working very closely with Town Council represented this evening by attorney Liz lien Liz and um the two of them have been tackling uh changes to the uh State's laws relative to cannabis industry um so which we do have here name we have two active shops and then we have two um applicants you know we have one that you secure in a minute and then we have uh the existing um applicant which I forget the name about the time but either way um so in consideration of these Chang and laws Steve this have been working together for a proposal to the board this evening um relative to social e policies and executive director of services so the Canabis social Equity policy was put in was signed by Governor Baker uh in May 2022 and the gist of it is to promote uh social equity in the Cannabis industry specifically to address historical iniquities um that fell on certain segments of the population um in you know in the war against Dr so now with legalization of marijuana the idea is to get uh populations that had been you know disproportionately affected by the war on drugs and especially against u in you know in the trade of uh marijuana cannabis to now uh the to to kind of proceive preference um in in the in legalization and legal industry because of the injuries that they had suffered so as part of that uh the common wealth has asked municipalities to adapt social Equity po social Equity policies um which you see before you here uh and I think from a procedural standpoint when we get to the the voting on it the final paragraph of the Town social Equity policy is something that will adopt first and then the overall social Equity policy um would be second we'll ask Liz to correct me if I'm wrong there but uh essentially what the the policy represents here is uh in a nutshell 50% of cannabis businesses operating in Mard at any given time must be owned by social Equity applicants these are official applicants with the uh the state's cannabis Control Commission who are recognized and so liity applicants um and for and so we have to give we have to give agreements Community agreements and Licensing at a basically a one to one uh ratio um should be for every social Equity applicant you could then have one nons social Equity applicant who has a license to um run their their shop in the town of commer uh besides that the policy just says in in brief um that you know it gives it gives the procedures of how people will be uh evaluated in terms of um social Equity po their social Equity uh application that sorry um no I think you yes just there that that's a consideration and then also uh there's other things there's other steps the town has to take such as publicizing the policy on its website Etc and I'll hand over to Liz I'm sorry no you did good I just want to emphasize uh had the wave tops but from a practical standpoint which is in your notes um um both rise and mass Wellspring the ones that are already existing our grandfather did so when he was referring to 50% he was referring to going forward so um in theory if um Rivers this evening and sugar was the name of the other one if both of those are social equ so if those are to be a grouped we've already exceeded our 50% all because we don't have any other non social Equity going for so we would be able to take to non social Equity if there was any to that good evening attorney Len how are you good how are you good anything to add yes so um I just want to clarify the can B Abus Control Commission uh recently promulgated regulations and a model bylaw to clarify what their policy is and this uh policy that you have in front of you is based on a Model that they previously uh posted on their website and was adapted for the town um as part of the regulations the town is required to uh streamline permitting for social Equity applicants post um all of the requirements for permiting on the town's website create a website or a page on the website that is dedicated to um marijuana applications and post the um zoning requirements uh contact information for someone within town that they can reach out to if they have questions put the applications or links to the applications on the website um and list how many applicants the town has received for hcas and of those applicants how many have been social Equity applicants and who was approved and the reasoning for denial if someone was denied and so um that this policy is the first step it basically said that you will do all of those things and then the Next Step would be to implement that policy meaning to create the website and post all of that information and the additional requirement of the regulations is that there are three options to comply with um an additional component and the most straightforward easiest way to comply with the regulations is that piece that I put at the bottom of the social Equity policy which is for the town to adopt a local approval process for Equity applicants that is administered on a onetoone basis so there is other options but those options include um adopting the state's model bylaw which would require town meeting vote and essentially says what you have here um and then the second piece would be adopting regulations but as an alternative to those two processes you can simply um adopt a local approval process for Equity applicants that's administered on a onetoone basis so um that's what you have included in this policy it's a little presumptuous because you haven't done that yet but if you do that tonight then that would be incorporated here and stated in the policy and then that would go up on the website as well thank you and so the um policy we're looking at here the language isn't necessarily Manor specific per se but rather is using what we know to be approved by the Cannabis Control Commission yes so this was um based on the model and then um there's a provision in here that's left blank for you to decide which would be specific to mayard if you want to offer a percentage redun reduction of special permit fee or you can put uh a reduction in any HCA that is um charged to the um establishment or you don't have to do that at all so so that's one of the options that I left as discretionary for um the board to consider thank you any questions from the board um my first observation is uh this again is policy it's being presented to us asking for us to vote on this evening and that's the violation of our own uh policy but I understand I I don't know if there's a um is there a critical nature of voting on this this evening given that we have a social Equity uh applicant here in front of us or is this something that can be uh reviewed because this first time I've bar sat down and heard about it and listen to it whatever and uh as I say the board has a its own internal policy that we don't like to approve policies if it's the first night we've heard it uh without having a chance to talk talk I understand that I think um so this was supposed to be approved uh last July I believe um so a year ago but the regulations at the Cannabis Control Commission has been slow to implement everything that it was required to do and so as a result of that they didn't post a model you know until it was already due and then they didn't post um model regulations until I think two months ago and so the enforcement for this is not going to occur until next May and so it's not required that you approve it tonight um but it it was already due and so that's the only urgency but there's no enforcement taking place yet and so if you want to sit with it and continue it to another meeting that's okay as well and it's not required that you implement um the onetoone before you do this but I would still recommend it so I think part of David's question was does the timing of the passage of this policy relative to the um if we were to pass the item 15b which is a host Community agreement um is that the triggering point for being in compliance with cannabis social Equity policy or is it later down the line no so as so um what I in eloquently St stated was you can still approve the hcas tonight and you don't have to have that policy in place however um it is good practice given the regulations that are in effect now to to approve social Equity applicants on a one toone basis would would approval of the HCA for the applicant be in any way contradictory to the let's presume that the board votes at a future date for the social e policy would it would it in any way SCT no all right great so in other words um would so would sugar Lo count as part of the it's a yes so it would but the other two that are currently in operations would not count towards the one to one that's right so I think one thing that that might happen if you don't approve that policy of um implementing a one to1 to ratio now and you approve so two social Equity applicants now if you approve it after these two are approved going forward you would also have to approve um a social Equity applicant before likely another applicant that's that's contradictory to what I just asked feel that's I I hear you had we already approved um sug so sh I believe um may have been an amendment sorry well I guess we can look that up but I thought the board had already heard sh and they were G to go next to our Specialties so but yeah well that gets to my my question here attorney Leyden um relative to the policy because I don't expect you to come back next week or next meeting to uh discuss it um but what it and I'm not a big huge fan of especially in our small community of having hundreds of of uh marijuana places but if they want to come to mayard we you know we listen to them U so my question is uh to Greg's point that he just made sugar L was proved probably two and a half years ago uh maybe a little less than that but if if we approved this policy and sugar LS been approved but they haven't activated and according to this um the way I read it anyway that they must begin operations before we can then approve somebody else are we not blocking nonsocial Equity businesses that might want to come in because another business is slowly taking their time to get up and running no so follow me I I do follow you um the their HCA was already signed um and Sugarloaf is an amendment to their prior HCA and so they um they wouldn't be affected by this okay but but let's move on from sugar low and say the next business that comes in is a social Equity business and they get an approval and then they spend three years like two and a half years like um like Sugarloaf has and does that prevent another business that may be interested in coming to mayard from opening up because we have to follow our policy and we can't Accord I read something here that I thought said that they had to have opened their operations before the nonsocial equity the one: one can can come in I isn't it a statutory obligation to have for every municipality to have at least 50% social Equity businesses licensed or I in operation so it's regardless of the policy policy is just the town reiterating its you know or echoing approval of what's already law yeah so that is the law um it doesn't say and it it hasn't been clarified yet and and that is a really good question because as I'm looking at it it does say um lenses operating in the host community and I don't know what they Define that as if they have to have their final license if operating is considered having an HCA and um I mean normally be considered actually making sales right that's my that's the way I am interpreting it so you know my concern would be that we give an HCA to a business and they sit on it and another business comes to us that's really great and they're not social equity and they can't open up theoretically that's my question because the other one sitting on it for God knows what reason and it doesn't appear there's any way around that because the law is the way the law is written right but that's the type of thing I'd like to know the answer to when we're talking about a policy to make sure we understand what we're approving before we do so I have gotten a contact inform the contact information for someone at the Cannabis Control Commission I can reach out to them and see if they've offered any guidance on that uh I also um in the HC days that I've been drafting I I typically add language that says uh they must commence operations within a year to prevent this from happening yeah that type of thing would help us then to make sure that that sort of captured but can you do that in an in a um social Equity HCA haven't done it in a social Equity HCA yet because I mean part of that is if they are not operating yet yeah I haven't done it yet because they've been typically given the model um this is such a nuanced and evolving still us to expedite if the board was so wish to expedite the rivers application this evening because at least we're not delaying it any further like oh I'm not I'm not suggesting put that on yeah I'm trying to make of the earlier question of like if the board doesn't take any action of the policy seing which I agree the board should be deliberate does it in any way conflict with the the next item on the agenda it sounds like sounds like the board can still take action if the board wishes on the rivers HC application because it's advantageous and have it count towards the policy my interpretation of policy here and I'd like to get clarification on this before we discuss at the next meeting is that it's going through the entire local process and the HC is only one step along the process the applicant comes back uh after approval from the CCC to the board of Select for a license so to me that's probably the triggering point when you're finalizing and you're going to count your one to one so I if I was not a social applicant and there wasn't you know clearly I wasn't going to get that license I would hold off on putting an HCA and we should make that clear um but to me just read language I have there's no yeah there's no re we can't delay on the social Equity policy and then still consider River's natural as the next item yeah yeah I would say about 15b it's okay just a Confluence of circumstances that uh 15b that uh Mrs Rivers happens to be a social Equity applicant just consider her application on the merits policy is no I all agre and the with 15a it's either if we if the policy was passed we would kind of quote unquote get credit for it according to the policy or if you decide to you know delay and deliberate more then we don't get the quotequote credit but the fact that there has to be this even balance social equity and non social Equity licenses operating in the town and any given time that's statute so I mean effectively yeah we could find ourselves in a position where somebody puts an appion and because of the the ratio we would have to say you must wait and as just to Liz said it is constantly evolving CCC is a bit snake without a head at this point um and hopefully that will be rectified soon it is very Dynamic again from my own perspective I'm not I'm not anxious to jump about you know getting 15 marijuana places in but I also don't want to uh jeopardize a business that might be good for us because of a policy that all right so it looks like we won't be taking a motion on 15a but we'll bring it up from the next meeting but that being said we'll look to have an efficient conversation in the next meeting are there any other questions on the Cannabis social Equity policy David touched on the question I was going to ask so it's I'm good all right very good so we'll um put that back on the agenda for next time jelling tonight everybody will have us yes everybody will have a couple more weeks to review uh and so we will move on to 15b which is uh an HCA um applicant Rivers natural healing 42 Main Street so I think we're joined this evening by the again who I think you all have yes it's been a while several months ago good evening M Rivers how are you good evening I'm doing well thank you how about yourself very good thank you um you want to start Steve or should we go right to the applicant uh I mean just in in brief Mr rers uh you approved this board has approved the h under to begin negotiation of it several weeks ago uh just to recall M Rivers CE to set up marijana retailer at 42 Main Street uh and uh we had promised previously that we would have this on the agenda but because of that kind of flux that was going on with CCC we had to wait for the template to be because CCC was actually um denying hcas on the basis of U their configuration the previous ones that had been issued such as to uh rise and Wellspring that that form no longer is in existence they took out certain language Li knows that better than I do uh they now have the template that's what uh M Rivers has signed and we're asking for the select board to counter sign okay and what we authorized was the town staff to begin negotiating HCA which is now here in front of us and we're here to see if we want to approve it tonight that's correct very good um uh M Rivers do you want to give us a we heard from you several I think it was months ago now but you just want to give us an overview of your plans for the business um and I think David is gonna ask why you chose mayor if he didn't a few months ago few months ago I think you have ties to man if I'm not I do I do so I'm I'm hoping to open the dispensary at 42 Main Street um really excited about it um I'm also um we had discussed as part of the hga agreement with the planning board that there's going to be um a vibrant painting in in the front of the store that's going to serve as as adding a um a cultural component as it's Native American artwork um and it's also going to block The View into the store uh for from the public to any of the products associated with the dispensary um as far as why mayard I I actually uh live in sedbury so it's the next town over and we had previously um my children and I lived in mayard and so um I'm very familiar with the town I've lived very close by my son's been in Boy Scouts and Mard for uh quite a few years now and so I I I really enjoy the town and the more time I spend there the more I'm enjoying it any questions on the HCA or for the applicant so Steve I understood your point um these hcas now are just standard boiler plate boiler plate commentary from the state yeah can you describe what U the significance I can read the memo but what is what is for the second of the audience what is this what is the significant difference between our prior hcas and this new verion okay uh Liz probably has a more nuanced opinion but I'll I will say that it probably has to do with the impact fees which they've made a lot more stringent now uh the town seeks to collect um fees from any negative externalities from running a marijuana business I guess it was viewed as being the targeting of these businesses as compared to you know say a bar or any other uh establishment so the impact fees as you know previously were negotiated um with the individual retailer now it's more if the town seeks to collect the impact fee have to demonstrate fairly conclusively that the specific retailer has caused the damage for which we're looking to recruit breaking costs um so it's an evidentiary standard I guess uh whereas before it was more like okay can we operate here will give you some money in doing so we'll call that the mitigation of impact thank you thank you any question any other questions from the board would anybody like to make a motion PA move to approve the host Community agreement with rivers natural healing Inc for a proposed registered marijuana dispensary to be located at 42 Main Street mayard authorized use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm the yet congratulations Mr Rivers good luck on the next steps in the process that's wonderful thank you very thank you everybody good have a good thank you thank you very much all right we will move on to item 16 which is the senior center planning uh Chris do you have any updates for us oh I have lots of updates they are working on a um they they kind of previewed it just to that board itself um at our last meeting which was last Thursday and it's kind of a a comprehensive document that is going to um be you know used to inform this board of you know where they're at what they're thinking long long range short range what are some of the asks they're anticipating and they're going to want to share that with us at a at a you know a fairly um fairly recent you know upcoming meeting fairly soon they're not you know we not stretch it out too long but they have a um you know very comprehensive document that they um went item by item through several pages long and then there was some edits and some changes so they hope to get that finalized and then um use that to inform us um and answer any questions that we have through that document and I'm sure that document will um you know uh ask some some more questions by itself just on you know some of the information in it so then um they also intend to use that document or the subsequent document based on our conversations with them to inform the public as we move forward in the process and other than that it was you know just business looking at places trying to um they I don't know Greg did they ever hear back from um do you know if they ever heard back from Mill and Main on building nine no I and I didn't get any um updated responses to the request for so what we got is what we got yeah so we so we had we had extended the town being we extended the date to the 16th of August for that RFI um as of Thursday night which was the 15th they had they hadn't heard or seen a response they didn't know if it was going to go straight to Greg but they were some conversations that took place that they were not going to offer them uh pricing or the opportunity to get into building nine so um after the 16th Jerry and a couple of the other folks that have been in in closer contact than most of us with the people at Mill and M were going to get into a conversation with those that they thought they needed to to discuss um the possibility of you know putting something together for building nine because that's the most um user ready building I guess you would say right so they we did get the responsible building I want to say eight but it was not is what you're saying right right yeah okay so that's where they're at they're gonna they're GNA come to us in the next few meetings or so with a um a document that they've been working on to um you know inform US based on some of the questions that Jeff and some others had at um quad board meeting and at other times you know as we've been going down the road of having discussions with those guys so they'll they're going to come to us with that as as soon as they can finish it okay very good um all right any questions uh for Chris to bring back to that group okay Chris they don't go into use of the current space do they yeah they they do okay they they have included um in in the piece of paper in the document that I saw there was a lot of stuff about the um current building um from my perspective some of the things on there and in there were um wrong in that they were showing a picture of a hallway in the building and saying oh we can't get you know we don't this is a hallway look at it well it's not a hallway that it's a it's a it's a hallway that's used for you know Dead Space storage because no one uses the doorway it's you know the access to the men room is through the clubhouse not through the back stairwell the back stairwell is is not used for anything but an emergency exit and the hallways off of it are not used for classes or any other anything else but they have pictures of that in there you know there there some things in there that need to be taken out and changed okay I think a realignment with that group would be healthy so I'm looking forward to having them at a upcoming meeting yeah so yeah they will will they have they have the old building in in the potential new building conversations too it's all in there it's a great it's a great document they just they just you know some questions were raised and it just did just tighten it up okay all right thank you any other questions for Chris and the Senior Center focus group okay uh we'll move on to the Green Meadow School building project do we have any update on that either from the like from the TA representative uh nois I don't think that committee has met since we last met I don't think there'd be nothing to add over the um the last the last comments about it there's a I know you know there's a lot of um there's some you know a couple of um committee things going on behind the scenes and work you know working on um three or four of the members had a a set of um questions and comments and concerns um in relation to some of the design aspects and they went back to the um cers with all that and at the second to last meeting before we got here um cers went through them one at a time and kind of pointed out what they were doing and there were some changes made there was some changes that weren't made and now that group has gone back and kind of um they're now in like in their committee meetings just reassessing um some of those design points based on the conversations of that last meeting the next meeting is next week so yeah very good all right any other comments or questions about the Green Meadow School building project all right we'll move on to item 18 which is correspondences we have four correspondences here any questions or comments on the correspondences happy to see money coming in it's it's sort of a theme for this evening I guess from representative Hogan on the E mark for senior programming but I will um move to uh accept the correspondence um as shown a through D A through D second all in favor David yes Chris yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well we'll move on to the acceptance of minutes we have one set of minutes do we I don't think we do Mr we do not we have no um um my man Greg Wilson was stricking last why he's joining us from home okay J too something's going around y so um s Greg didn't get a chance to um no worries so we'll move right on to the town administrative report in that case hey I was on vacation I came back um Stephanie did a great job Stephanie Dugen did a great job because little did she know that her own partner in Grime was also gonna uh be out at the end of the week last week when also was out so um you did fantastic uh so I appreciate all the hard work on all the staff particularly stely in my absence um yeah okay is there anything you want to add from the chair and working with st through of things that we need to get through so I learned a lot and I appreciate the collaboration we had a good week you you yeah you did fine no um I appreciate that things are getting busy though I can't believe we're we're all more than halfway through August and I thought summertime was supposed to be the slow time and it was not so here we are meeting Bud season yeah we're all hold on very good yeah all right uh in that case we'll move on to the chair report um the only thing I'll note is actually two things so I did have the pleasure of attending the eagle scout ceremony two very interesting young men one of whom is attending uh school to become a high performance race car driver which I thought was very interesting and another is going to go study abroad in London immediately a freshman year so both of them are far more interesting already than I was at their age so quite quite impressive um the other thing I just wanted to we'll be going into the budget subcommittee meeting on Thursday one question I had for this group is any thoughts or input into timing or content for a next quad board or or other steps um that'll certainly be a topic of discussions I mentioned at the last quad board and I wanted to check in especially with uh Chris and David see if you had any input into that conversation uh my thought would be I think the general consensus was that we should do it quarterly um and when was our last one in July yeah so that would be sometime in early or mid November um be would be wouldn't cly wouldn't cly bring it to October sorry yeah October guys's a numbers guy don't try and trick him and that's at uh two o'clock in the morning my time yeah Chris any additional thoughts no it's I'm you know I'm okay with that timing October for another one or you know whenever um you know whenever the the chairs of the four boards feel as though it's it's the right time where there's something you know something to put on the table to discuss seemingly have to be after special town meeting which is October so sometime in that it's good to get everybody a week or two to breathe after meeting as well um all right I'll I've got the input we'll take it to the board uh we'll take it to the budget subcommittee meeting um all right very good uh and that's it for me on the chair report so board member reports David uh I have nothing other than uh the uh the affordable housing trust met last night nice conversation got our business done and heard some thoughts from the members on other issues she's always that's it very good thank you Chris yeah I just I just want to want just I don't know if every everybody had seen Greg's note about the um the school coolage school sledding hill a problem with the thought of um minimizing the area or whatever but I mean it I would assume that there under um guidelines as to where that fence has to be and how how much room it has to take up if if that's the case I mean I understand they don't want to lose the hill forever but if that's the case if they have to have that up and it's a safety and an environmental issue why are we going to ask them to do something to to allow some sledding when it's a legitimate issue I I agree and on that note um I was just told this evening that um Town engineer way M went out to take a look to just see like how the legitimacy of the facing and according to the report I just got Wayne did find it was appropriate so to your point Chris it's they do it with a certain according to regulations or whatever like the size of the environmental impact construction Etc it is unfortunate according to the picture that I saw I haven't got a chance to drive out there it it does take up a lot of the Hill however yeah they may have to you know construction season only lasts so long so when the snow starts to come down it might the Pence might go anyways so it might not matter but it's still there for the purpose it serves right maybe may lose a season of the Hill that's unfortunate I think that's yeah the project is expected to finish up next spring so fence does stay is for one season only but I was appreciative yep that's all thank you yep thank you good Mike uh not much other than just to highlight that the uh uh MVP the um Municipal vulnerabilities program uh I've been unable to attend myself the last week or two but they've been working on their plans for uh public engagement in in what the group is trying to do uh and so just wanted to highlight that that's a group that's really trying to put a lot of effort in into engaging the public um with with their ideas and how to move forward so I just wanted to commend them for that I did uh I actually was confronted if you want to use that word at the farmers market with a pamphlet with a little thing made very easy you just put your phone up to it and the quiz came up and filled it sent it back it was very well done yeah no they're doing they're doing a nice job yeah yeah very good all right well that concludes the meeting I'll note that um our next the first Tuesday in September is the state primary so our next meeting will be on the Wednesday September 4th so see you all Wednesday September 4th um I'll make a motion to adjourn second David yes Chris I'm in favor Mike definitely yes and I'm a yes as well we are adjourned thank you everybody and Greg I hope you feel