##VIDEO ID:uJgJ9q4kP7g## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon and good evening everyone um welcome to the warrant committee uh Karen could you call the role sure we have Tom Caldwell Lori Connelly Elizabeth Dylan Jay funling Peter M Julia Maxwell on Zoom Brian Maguire and on Zoom we have Aman Nasi Ronald Sia and Judy steel Rec Corner okay so I'll call this meeting to order uh welcome everyone War committee members and members of the public uh Happy New Year belated New Year to everyone um so we are beginning our meeting uh concerning the upcoming February special town meeting um as you've all seen from some of the information I've shared we have a draft warrant for consideration um there are several articles that were brought forth by the select board and uh just to note there are also and can speak to the Town Administrator about this a little bit but there are some other articles that are not on this current draft warrant that are still being considered by the select board so um as we stand now was submitted to you and what we're going to review this evening is everything that's been approved by the select board uh we could see a few more things coming down the pike um and I'll hopefully have more information about those in the upcoming days or week um as they figure out as the slack board figures out uh if there's anything more they want us to consider and then town meeting um so tonight we have our Town Administrator Nick Milano as I indicated he's going to be presenting um some information for us on the draft um warrant um he will also be available to answer some questions about upcoming fiscal year budget and then I'll be addressing uh as it indicates in the agenda some of our future meetings um to address and um uh to address and comment on the Articles uh that are before us for town meeting so all that being said um I invite Town Administrator Miss Milano to the microphone um good evening uh thanks for having me happy to be here yeah thank you Mr Milano so Mr Milano we uh we we you and I had spoken in um preparing for the the meeting um tonight and as you know on the agenda we have some um budget updates um and then also we have the discussion um with the special town meeting article so um I give the floor to you sir um I don't maybe it might be more appropriate right now to just maybe address the Articles and um I would um I would guess maybe we go article by article maybe do questions after each if there are any from the committee and then just move on to the next that me and if there are any budget questions um after the presentation on the the warrant maybe we could talk to those or if maybe there are questions concerning these articles that may affect the budget upcoming kind of intertwine um um the conversation with with both uh topics so um all that being said s um I'll that's okay with you on my screen so I'll go in order um that it's in the draft warrant that we distributed um so we have number of articles that have been approved by the select board for inclusion um a few more were added last night by the select board and then as uh chair noted there are a few um still kind of being worked on by a couple of um boards primarily the planning board as it relates to three art or two articles rather so um the first article that we have um approv for the warrant is an appropriation from the peg access Enterprise fund of ,000 to um equip the meeting room in the old fire quarters um to be um to be able to be used as a place to broadcast live meetings um so uh that building um was the former fire headquarters it was uh renovated as part of the fire headquarters project uh the meeting room is fully built out um but that project did not include um outfitting it for live broadcasts um the ultimate goal of this project would be to have an um repl this room as a primary meeting space with a beautiful new room meeting room that has Windows and A View to the outside um it's uh spacious um and so ultimately it'll be able to to support milon TVs um efforts as well as be much more conducive for regular boards and committees to host hybrid meetings um if they so chose so we have um cameras that we can use that would facilitate you know a border committee that doesn't have a Milton TV um support to have a hybrid meeting um but primarily the work will be about enabling their work to host Warren committee planning board or the other televised um uh boards and committees um so the way the peg AIS Enterprise fund appropriation would work is the money would be appropriated out of the Enterprise fund and transferred to Milton TV as we do every year for their operating and capital budgets it would just be treated as another um expense for them um a capital expense and a capital project for Milton TV to take to outfit that room and just for further background I know some folks are familiar with this and some aren't so um if you get a cable license to operate a cable company in Milton the two that we have now are Comcast and RCN on your own bill there is a um public educational and government fee that fee comes to the town of Milton um we have an agreement with eg access Inc which is Milton TV to transfer most of that fee for on an annual basis for their operating in capital expenses um but it's not the full amount um so there's an additional um amount that stays with the town which is where we're recommending this appropriation come out of so there's about $420,000 in that fund presently and we're recommending appropriation of 60,000 of that over to Milton TV for outfitting that room um I think that's kind of the lay of the land on that um and for this and as with any of the Articles as I'm here to provide kind of the summary and the background if there's additional information that would be helpful um to your conversation and discussion obviously myself or we're lucky Shane's here whether he's available to answer questions but he is here uh he or I would be able to um get back to you with further information if needed could we take some questions sure um I have question so was that money originally intended for something else is something I get no it's so it's it's part of the fee paid to the town but we're not we don't our agreement with Milton TV doesn't say you get 100% of all the revenue it says you get most of the revenue but all of it the town retains some of it to be used for purposes it's been previously appropriated for the Broadband fiber Network that the town is building between its facilities um so it's used it can be used as long as it's supporting um public educational governmental um broadcasting and um networking so there's 420 in now correct take out 60 what's the other 364 to be appropriated it could support say Milton TV said hey we want to do a project to upgrade cameras hey town will you give us additional funding to do that that's a potential resource it has it's restricted to quote unquote Peg um purposes did the buildout um take into account the fact that Milton TV would be using that uh that space uh not necessarily originally but it's it's like drop ceilings it's it's it's before it was built out there was conversations to say hey this is what we kind of need so we can come in after the fact and do what we need to do sure this pays for the I'm just going to say called on me because you did so this pays for both the buildout of the room and then also the equipment or just the infr I would assume it would pay for both but I don't know the equipment that's needed yeah installation and the equipment that's needed okay and then um my second question is and then that room would still be able to be used really for any public meeting so for our committee the select board whatever any group that would normally be able to use like this room correct the limitation that we face is with the boards of committees that are they televise right they need special equipment for that so um if that room is using is being used for the planning board and the warrant committee maybe Thursday nights and Mondays and Wednesdays might be tough but otherwise it'll be available um just as this room is so the idea is just to increase available space meeting space yeah and for them to be able to tell by okay and it functions today as a meeting room it's being used I know the climate action planning committee meets we've had trainings in there um but um and it can be used for hybrid meetings um and it's set up for that we have a screen in there but this will just make it much more user friendly uh we're bringing over equipment when we need to um on a regular basis bis now Lori Nick will this allow you know I think there's an issue with like staff so could we have two boards one here one there and have matb supporting us or can we does it not give us that flexibility we have two meetings going live tonight school committee and War committee but we do try to avoid that because of Manpower strs that's and that would still be the case and unless so it's it's not like we're going to get like oh every night we could have two meetings or we would not want to have two meetings that required NV correct I'm assuming we still try to avoid conflicts where possible three meetings we have Julia on Zoom Lor uh I just LED my hand I think my question was answered um but I'll just confirm so with this 60 Grand Nick they they would be uh this is what is needed to be up and running and operating there's nothing additional that would be needed at this point that is correct thank you thank you Julia Lori and is the room on the first floor or the second floor it's on the first floor so the um the project included um demo and renovation of the first floor and then abatement and demo of the second floor and the third floor um we have not taken any real meaningful steps on what to do with the second and third floor it's only has one means of egress it doesn't have an elevator so there's comp applications with building that space out for Public Access um and there are a couple of other capital projects before us at the time at the moment um if if I could Nick I I know you had described just some of the really the tech so essentially it's simply technical equipment that's being the money's being used for correct okay and it's it's everything that we really have outfitted in in every room that we we have these meetings so it's cameras and speak microphones and the software and technology that goes along with it we um the room is outfitted today it's got you know Furniture it's it has TV it has that stuff to facilitate meetings today but it doesn't have everything it needs to facilitate the live televised meetings so the the 60,000 and I'm kind of I don't mean to beat it but the 60,000 is really just to is the final step in having this thing fully off okay yes sorry so um just one quick question so how over what amount of time did We Gather this $420,000 and what is the lifespan of this equipment like how long do these things last and we'd have to replace them and then how long would it take to generate this amount of money again it's a good question because I'll I'll answer the first part of it first and I'll defer to Shan has a moment to answer the second part of that so the good thing is is this has been a reliable source of revenue for the town the bad thing is is I'm sure folks around this table know and online that not everybody gets cables anymore and Verizon for example came into town built out a fiber Network and is not offering cable is only offering internet so they don't have to sign an agreement or pay fees because they're not offering cable it's a cable license and so over the long term as cord cutting continues unless changes happen at the FCC or locally this is a slowly uh declining Revenue stream or a less reliable Revenue stream so there will need to be big picture conversations about um ensuring that Milton TV has funding in place for the long term um and terms of this funding um as of I'm just looking at a table showing in fiscal 17 there's 4 $20,000 in there it grew over time over the last few years about $388,000 was appropriated out for um the Broadband related projects um so it had grown to I think at its peak was about $740,000 and has kind of come back down and then over the past couple years it's been building back up so it was 367 at the close of fiscal 23 and it's up to 420 now so um so year over-ear it's like 30,000 30,000 yeah okay so the amount that we're seeking to appropriate is about roughly 2ish years yeah with the acknowledgement that might be less it might be less as the fee Revenue declines as fewer people necessarily have cable and then Shane there's question about lifespan of the equipment and replacement thereof hi the right Mee if you could just introduce yourself uh hi I'm Shane brenberg executive director of mil a television um it was a longevity question yes yes um usually 10 to 15 years it depends we did this build out in this room in 2021 so we're approaching about four years here um I would say with the way technolog is going sometimes something comes up and you know maybe it's 5 years maybe it's 15 years um I would say I've been with a company for 13 years now um so we went complete rebuild out of this room in 2021 So within that 10 but the equipment in this room was installed in like 2008 I want to say so the major upgrade was 13 years later um so we project 10 to 15 year lifespan on this um and just one thing the meeting room will be a dual use in other words um there will be two tracking cameras so any board that meets that we don't necessar cover it'll be a completely automated system and they can just turn it on and the cameras will follow them and they'll do the zoom and we don't have to be there and we can get the recording if someone wants it for later meetings that we do record and cover it'll be two staff members just like this evening same setup type thing and we'll have a third camera when it's a live broadcast so we'll actually have an additional camera so we can actually move it around to do other stuff any anyone have any followups to that any okay Shane thank you very much no problem all right so I'll move on to the next article um and my packet I have this is the home rule petition related to additional liquor licenses um so I'll give a little bit of background information as to how we arrived at this proposal um [Applause] all right so I won't go too In The Weeds on this but I'll just state that um M General law strictly controls uh liquor licenses um there are two types of licenses just in in kind of high level terms one for on PR consumption which is restaurants the other is they say off premises consumption which is package stores um generally there are three ways communities are categorized based on whether they can issue liquor licenses um so the legislature says whether cities and towns can issue liquor licenses um there is a quota system in place for most communities that says based on population you have 15 licenses for on premises consumption and six licenses for off- premises consumption that's most communities there are a number of communities that in the 1980s opted out of the quota system when that was a possible option um and then that's a smaller number and then there's a few towns and Milton is one of them that had voted against allowing sale of one or both kinds of licenses back in the 60s and 70s so Milton voted not to allow the sale of license of alcohol for on premises consumption but voted yes to allowing the sale of alcohol for off Prem consumption so that is the parameters that we're living in today um and the licenses are the quota is set maximum on the maximum number of licenses that you can issue so Milton has a quota for off- premises consumption of six for on-premises consumption technically we have zero licenses allowed um but as we all know there are restaurants in Milton that do have liquid licenses so um this is a little background on if we were in the quota system we'd have up to 30 potential licenses um I'm sorry we would have Milton would be allowed up to 19 and um cities and towns are allowed up to 30 so um with the two processes what is what does that look like so for an off- premises or a package store license to get a license you need to apply to the local licensing Authority which is the select board in towns um and then if you get local approval from the local licensing Authority you also need approval of the alcohol beverages Control Commission abcc um and that's it as long as your business meets zoning you confirm you meet zoning requirements for a package store you apply to the licensing board and then you get confirmed by the abcc and you can have a license pretty straightforward for a restaurant because we don't have any on premises license under the law um the select board is not allowed to just issue them so we need a pretty convoluted process so you got to have to get on a town meeting warrant for home rule petition that has to come to this committee select board has to sponsor it comes to this committee then it goes to town meeting so you need town meeting approval of the home rule petition then the home rule petition goes to the legislature then the legislature has to have a Committee hearing on it and both branches um have to approve it and the governor has to sign it um then the license is now the select board now has a license to give out so now the applicant has to apply to the select board receive approval apply to the abcc and then assuming they've met permitting and everything else they can have their license and operate their business so it's a lengthy process um the most recent time that this has happened is for a potential um project at one Elliot Street which is um where uh rebuilt is um JD wild is the owner there so he came to the May of 2022 annual town meeting for a liquor license and that was approved at the end of the session in 2024 um so two very distinct paths because in one category we have six licenses for off premises and the other category we have zero so um this is just kind of a summary of what we have so this uh four um Package Store licenses presently available um and then this gives a history of our special act they're called special act licenses because they require a special Act of the legislature the first one was Madre um and it's precursor restaurant which had a different name um that's s 88 Warf at Milton Landing the most recent one as I mentioned excuse me was one Elliot Street and it was at the 2022 March special town meeting that they applied for the license and it wasn't until October 2024 where the license was approved by the legislature um now that's an outlier in terms of how long it took and in that case the project wasn't really moving forward anyway so it didn't that didn't delay the project but as you can see there are other examples of some that moved a little bit more quickly and some that took a long time so if you're interested in opening a restaurant in Milton you have a location in the business district that a restaurant is allowed use the first thing you need to do is come talk to the select board about getting a warrant article to then go through a 2-year process to have approval for a liquor license so um what we were trying to do and and creating this home RO petition is say this process is a little convoluted um it's a little daunting for anybody looking to open a restaurant we've had commercial spaces that people have talked about might potentially be restaurants um that it's just a long time Horizon to have that certainty that you might be able to offer um alcohol um sales so what we've proposed to do is the home rle petition in uh your packet and I'll just um stop screening sharing that screen there um and what we're asking the legis legislature to do is to Grant the town five um licenses so that the select word will have them and that if a business comes forward then we won't have to say Okay go to town meeting we'll see you in two years we can say all right here's how you apply for the license you have your public hearing you you know ass sure you know we make sure you have zoning approval and we'll go from there um so it's just the idea is to facilitate that process more smoothly today there's not necessarily anybody in mind at but it's more about preparing for an opportunity um to make that life of a future small business a little bit easier um here in town so um that's the proposal um and I'm happy to take any questions on that a question I think you said it but I understand why wouldn't Milton be under the quarter system like every other time that's because of the result so the way chapter 138 when they instituted at some point they said we'll put this question on three successive State elections if you vote no three times in a row then you're out so Milton voted no to on premises sales in three successive State elections so it it exercised an option to not allow these sales conversely it voted yes for the off- premise of sales at those three state elections I mean would it be easier to try to get the state to change the law as just to proc so um it's I it's yeah no it's more I think something like that what I would suggest would be nice if they change was to address issues like this to say hey cities and towns if you op it out here's the process to put the question back in front of Voters but even that Avenue doesn't really exist so that would be you know a logical option but it it just doesn't exist so there have been other communities that have done acts like this to get a certain amount of licenses um to put the question back in front of Voters and then often like communities that have reached their cap will go to to the legislature to say can we have two more and the legisl sure you can have two more um the city of Boston runs up against this problem and they just got approval to add 250 over five years um because they have the same issue where licenses cost half a million dollars and you know local places in in the outlying neighborhoods of selling them to downtown restaurant so it's it's not problem only in Milton but this one's a little unique and of how we landed in this position that was my question whether other people have it thank you sure so you said that uh under a quarter system we probably wind up with 19 yes um y five is that what you're asking for we are trying to get the ball rolling we weren't it was kind of like we don't want to ask for 19 nobody would say yes to 19 but I don't think yeah it felt and if if we were sitting here today and said all right you know we're thinking we've been approached by three restaurants that want to open then you know those would consume the first three would that change perhaps but since we don't have anything directly in mind it felt we and this legislature could come back to Milton and say hey we know you filed this home petition for five we actually just only want to give you two right now like that is still a possible outcome and and the language in this would give the select board and um the general court the authority to tweak that if necessary and it's that's possible and they might add other language but primarily it was just kind of a starting point Thank you sure um Miss Milano uh in terms of the what you just indicated in like the legislature might come back and say we're not really interested in giving you five we'll give you two is that something that typically happens with these home rule petitions do they kind of back off um or do they just acas usually to what the the feedback we've gotten is is if the local legislative body approves something and the local legislators support it and advocate for it at the state house it's it's usually pretty differential okay um on something like that um but there may be other things that they they look for um in our special act licenses now just so folks understand they're tied to the address that they're granted for so um madre's example it's a license that is for 88 Warf and so if that restaurant closes they return the license to the select board the select board can reissue it at that location um the same thing with the plate at 10 Basset Street so that's closed the license wasn't reissued to the plate we expect an application from a potential future restaurant but it's for the license for that location so often that's a language they'll add to this um so that may be something that gets added as an example um so yeah so I hard to say but I think generally they're differential the liquor license stuff is a little tricky up there so um we wanted to get the ball rolling because it could be this could take a little while to get through and work out um some of the back and forth around that so um now it's kind of a per project um application would it be kind of if you if if the select board were to have five and maybe you don't know and it would just have to be you know we'd have to see but if the select board were to have five in the bank to be able to award um would it be like kind of a first in time first comfor serve situation would it be a let's look at what areas don't already have restaurants would it be a meet with a neighbor situation do we know um or it's just like you applied first fine that looks good hand that one out and then see how it goes yeah I think our Approach at this point is it would be since again there isn't a business in mind or or that has approached us so I think it's more about let's have them to respond um I think the restaurant use is only allowed in a business strict in Milton business districts in Milton are pretty limited so it's a fairly finite geographical area where these could go under current zoning obviously zoning can change but under current zoning it's a fairly limited area where um that use would be allowed Ron hi um thanks thanks for explanation very helpful I had two questions um first do you know and you may not know this but has the town voted against any uh requests for liquid license recently to I don't know the history to my knowledge the requests that came to town meeting have all been successful but I I I don't know the perfect answer on that one okay thanks um and then the second one um if hypothetically if we get through these five let's say it gets voted in and we get through these five any subsequent requests would it go back to the select board or would it go back to the town vote so so is this supposed to be five and all future request should go through the SEL board or would it be these are five for the select board everything else stays with the status quo just wondering which right so all this would this would Grant the select Board of the authority to issue five additional licenses if it does so and a sixth was requested we would either go back to town meeting for the old process or we would go back to town meeting with a home rule petition to request an additional additional five additional two um but after these five are used up then it would be back to kind of either home rule petition for restaurant by restaurant case or town goes back to the legislature and requests X additional licenses um to keep it going thank you Judy thank you um Nick so my question is you mentioned the license more or less stays at the property if you will using 88 Warf as an example the current restaurant could change hands and become a different restaurant what if what if a restaurant is no longer going to be there what if the current restaurant closes the space is taken over for a different kind of business and now what happens to that lior license that would have stayed at 88 w in that example the special act um does not Al allow transferring to a different address they're at location specific so if that were to be the case um and um a Redevelopment of that site were to happen and the restaurant goes away the town would have a liquor license on its books that it can't issue to a different location oh so in in essence we lose a license correct and that's why that was one of the factors why that that language isn't included in our draft here because of situations like that a restaurant you know it's a tough industry we know they don't always succeed so if it were to fail we would have gone through all this work and have ended up losing the license itself um so it the language that we're proposing doesn't have that requirement for these five additional but that language is in place for the existing licenses that are um in Milton today okay thank you sure is there any cost associated with the town acquiring the licenses like hard cost uh no the applicants have it's a $2,500 annual fee for all alcohol license and that would only apply once there were an applicant that was not the town like an actual restaurant okay anything on no that was it thank you u m i just ask a couple questions so I'm just kind of expanding on some of the other questions that were asked and some of your answers so and just I'll a little bit for the public too so the they're tied to the address correct the existing ones are as proposed today that language is not in our home rule petition for these five additional are not tied to the address as we've drafted it yes but it and if this were to I should have been more articulate If This Were to pass and they were to be granted they're tied to that address not necessarily not necessarily y okay it could be and that has been language that has been put into the other Home R petitions for the other ones that have been passed but in kind of the example that uh Judy provided we wanted to create a little more flexibility um but that's that's language that is in the others not currently in our our Draft today okay now uh I guess if there's going to be a transfer say if a business ends at that location um hypothetically we never want to see this happen but an 88 worth they're like we're we're kind of done with this um a new place comes in what's the approval process how how's that new owner or company vetted so for all of our existing licenses as well as for these potential licenses it's treated as a new license so it's it starts over with a new process so in this case where there's I I don't want to get too caught up in Nuance but if the LLC stays the same but the ownership interest within the LLC that's like a more of a procedural approval that the but they have to come to the select board and go to the abcc for that if the restaurant closes down Returns the license to the select board it has to be reissued as if it's a new license so there's a public hearing involved a butter notifications are required um they have to provide floor plans they have to provide information on who the investors are they have to provide information on who the managers are they have to provide information how they'll manage the place how they'll train their staff um they have to respond to the public hearing and to the comments It's Kind almost think of it like a special permit kind of process um the town has done so few of them that it's kind of an unfamiliar process um but yes it it's treated like a public hearing a butter notifications the select board can put um limitations terms hours in terms of um certain things to to um address potential concerns but they can alter they can you know so 88 warad wide open 247 that's not the case select board can say no and put yeah certain limitations 6 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. correct like something yep so um and and that's how is would apply to these five open licenses correct that that's any any process to get any alcohol license that's permanent so any on premises or off- premises requires that thorough vetting process locally and then it goes to the abcc for their review and their um approval as well their approval so essentially like we're kind of and and I'm not saying negative but we're removing town meeting we're kind of giving the select board the The Authority you know with with the processes right with the time with the abutters and everything but the select board solely really kind of has the authority on the local level then it goes on to the but the select board is going to be the one who's going to be check in the box cor say yes or so the Madre example they decide to close they turn back the license they a new new investor comes in or new owner open it a different they get that license back automatically because no no it's if they have to go through a process but they it's that license for that address that would be reissued so it comes back to the town doesn't go anywhere until we get a new application go through a new process approved locally approved by the apcc and then that license for that address gets issued back out to the new XYZ restaurant but there's a public hearing associated with that and they can change the rules from what the license used to be sure to what it it's treated as a new new entity okay thank you and that's again we'll see what happens with 10 Basset Street but we we will go through that process for um any potential restaurant that to replace the plate it had a liquor license not really used as much as some of the others in town but it did have one right and there would be a similar process um that would be required of the new applicant that's what I where I was going sure because it sounded like oh whatever the plate pad is automatically given to the new it's it's treated as a new it requires the whole process okay thank you sure it should think of it as an address versus a an entity right and the address doesn't have all the specifics of how it operates the entity does so the streamlining here that is being proposed is because one we would have all of the licenses in pocket so that we wouldn't have to go to the legislature multiple times but also that we wouldn't have the town meeting would that that be like but that's it so it would still go as Lori was saying it would still go to the select board so where you're if I'm right where you're seeing the time savings is both with the legislature and then maybe also a little bit with town meeting correct yeah town meeting and the home in the home rule petition that goes to the legislature those are the two pieces that normally communities don't have to go through Milton does and we're just trying to say let's kind of be like everybody else not subject ourselves to the legislature's control if we don't have to any other questions okay thank you sure next one is keeping with a theme around alcohol sorry so um uh so uh this next article is to amend the general bylaws of the Town regarding alcoholic beverages um so presently consumption on Town property is um prohibited um um and uh we have language here that would um allow consumption or sale of alcohol beverages on Town property um we're not looking to have massive parties or anything however we occasionally get the requests for the use of town land for events that would go inside with a one-day alcohol license um you know the events down at the East Milton deck we've had approach we've been approached for one day alcohol license associated with that I know the library trustees have talked about C having small lower key events that might include um you know be wine or what have you um so what we are proposing is not to just outright allow it is to say sure there may be limited circumstances in which it makes sense to allow this to happen um but two things have to happen you have to have approval of whoever has care cussed and control of the building or the land in the case of the library the library Tres have to be supportive in case of um the Council on Aging the Council on Aging board would have to be supportive and you need the approval of the select board um which would inherently need to approve it for the issuance of a one-day liquor license or one-day alcohol license so um it's to shift away from an outright blanket prohibition to a more sure there may be events that this makes sense um we'll take a case by case um with the approval of you know entity that's care C control on the select board um and then um obviously all the other requirements under general laws as it relates to alcohol would still be in effect um we require indemnification of the town we require Insurance coverages um so um we would continue to do that for um using Town spaces um going forward so that is the gist of The Proposal um it's section 10 chapter 105 excuse me of the general bylaws that we're are proposing to change so to take what's there today remove it and replace with the proposed language in the warrant and I'll so we've only had we've the request have been right now for the events down on the East Milton deck which are Halloween and the tree lighting um the Milton Art Center occupies a leased town-owned building and there was already a carot saying that if you lease property from the town you're allowed to host events with alcohol service um with a one-day license so that that already takes place um but those are you know what we have in mind presently is what we' expect um and then maybe one or two other um Boards of committees might have interest um for you know programs CED and driven by themselves um Sano so just just uh concern and you did speak to this was um Insurance liability um um Can can you speak on who carries that burden like if this is um using the town deck there were an incident accident that could be attributed to perhaps alcohol use sure uh especially with all the roads and like could you speak to that yeah we require that the whoever is having the oned day license carry indemnify the town and have the appropriate Insurance coverages are there any requirements in terms of like caps on like you know money cap and liability I have the policy that I just don't have in front of me I could provide that as followup and where this would be so that's how we approach events in general where we we're talking about something new that we'd be doing on Town property we'd be checking in with the insurance company um prior to that to make sure that we're complying with whatever they would want to see from us um typically that's indemnification and being carried as an additional insured on anybody that's using any of our property and just to follow up to that it's espe and I'm just thinking like town properties and you know the the deck and I think it's lovely to get people uh together um like that is there any requirements for police presence like a detail unit or anybody there I I know what I've seen you know I live in East Milton so you know I know the police are there but is there any requirement uh that been put forward to have a a paid police detail so there's nothing in the bylaw that would require that for the two events that the town participates in and and those two we we work with the chamber and others to make sure um just with the Sher amount of kids coming and going that there's you know uh coverage at each of the crossings um that's how we've approached those events that's how we approach them going in the forward we'd play it you know Case by case as it came forward in terms of um if there's additional asks but right now what we're responding to is is those two events in in our mind um and then you know we'll play by years as to see as things come forward um but where this is again this is emanating from those kinds of events sure um and then you know we have the farmers market down at Warf Park maybe there's something they might want to do and we would have to play that kind of case by case as well would this be viewed like each time you'd have to go the chamber would have to go and get permission each year that's how we are one off hello now you have permission to have it so that to Tom's point so if there were issues they could be addressed made sure that we were meeting them the next year um to your point also I was curious whether the um there's a requirement for a bartender as well because that limits liability in some instances as well if the bartender serves it I don't know it would depend on how much people were drinking so we've in those events again with with our exper it's been um nvar Abby park has been brought in as so it's it insulates that a little bit that that works for us it makes it easier for us and makes um our life easier um so and to answer the question no it's every event requires approval in advance whether there's alcohol or not so any use of whether it's the town green here with the Gazebo or Ming Park um or even warp Park requires approval ahead of time um from the select board as it stands today for the use of town property so it's not going to be bring your own cooler not stated as such correct no it would not be be on record on record so bring your own well cuz we want it to be cool or water and sodas only we get the war committee oh that might not work out well Mr fun uh is there I believe there's a house right next to the cemetery that's owned by the cemetery and is rented out for people to live in correct do I have that correct yes yes what do you think my followup question we haven't considered that that case uh it's least it's least out well the old the old language talked about lease the new language does not appear to right uh interesting okay so pedantry aside um so that was my first question is it owned by the Town M okay that's a good question my second question when they say Town property this encompasses Parks it encompasses schools even I can imagine ifto wanting to have a classy event like the library do all included correct it's it's meant to Encompass any town of Milton land including 211 Center Street next to the ceter hopefully they're asking us for permission every time I feel like a beer I got to call the to excellent point Jay and you know just to like to expand on just the language I assume that alcoholic beverages include Spirits beer liquor I mean spir uh liquor Wine and Spirits correct and we kind of it alternates between what people ask for generally uh the one-day licenses often are usually just be and wine um only nonprofits can ask for an all alcohol that's one restriction on the one day licenses that if you're a nonprofit entity you can only get only nonprofit entities can get all alcohol if you're um some other entity you can only apply for a beer and wine license um Nick you know maybe maybe just um like some future clarification on the lease the lease question of the I know I don't think we're leasing too many properties in town for private residences but yes no we we took that out thinking about the art center because this they're covered under this it's Town property they need to come to us anyway they come to us because they're only doing one day licenses so they need the S boards approval anyway so the 211 Center Street is a good good question anyone else have anything on the thank you sure sorry I'm like I'm thinking about as you were pointing out the you know in the Parks and in the schools the pto's are going to want to have some event um won't that somehow start setting a precedent because I don't know I has anybody chatted about that like how do you say once you say yes you can have an event and have beer and wine or full alcohol in the park than every time somebody comes with a different event how are how what would be the decision-making criteria of how we would approach that I don't think the selectboard has laid out a policy in mind I think they we are planning to take it on a caseby casee basis and expecting a slow excuse me a slow roll out here but I I also would assume some difference to The Entity that care CED in control if the school committee is supportive of a PTO for example of having event things go well um take that into consideration as well um but it's going to be up to those entities as the kind of the first stop to say are you want to go down this road and then come to the selectboard with a request so it's kind of a two-step process um for everybody go ahead yeah you're pecking a thing in my mind here so with Lor's slippery slope argument now I'm concerned um about so well one I mean I thought that that was a good point um but two I'm interested in who's enforcing this so there are some rules about like I know there's a you're only supposed to have two drinks at the bar if you're not eating food and maybe that is or isn't enforced and I'm not naming names but who's in charge of enforcing this and are we concerned about additional enforcement being needed because if you have a situation to Lor's point where now people are being able to drink in the island oasis the East the duck you know as Ian likes to call it Island Oasis so if people are drinking there now you know that's not so abnormal now the who is checking to make sure that those people have a permit who is making sure that this is being enforced you know so that it's not just like people are just drinking in the middle of East Milton Square all of a sudden I I don't want to speak for the like board I we're not contemplating massive events on a regular basis the requests could come in and and maybe it causes them to pause and say okay what how do we want to handle this I think we're responding to what is anticipated to be a limited number requests for a few specific events that are already taking place today um but if there's a greater appetite and a greater interest then um they'll have to you know put some parameters in place and ultimately um The Entity that gets a one-day license if they um they have to answer to the select board they have to answer to the abcc it's not not um you don't want to mess around with alcohol and and and violations associated with it so but who's enforcing the people that don't have a license now people could see somebody drinking in East Milton Square and say oh we're drinking in East Milton Square now and so if somebody is there without a license I mean the police but it's still public consumption and that wouldn't it wouldn't be a per it would be prohibited so it would be you know that would be criminal activity I'm just concerned that we're going to see an uptick in that in our wonderful police force you know I don't want to increase their burden well not to answer for you but maybe I will but like it's still it still has to be a one- day event that's approved by the select M and they should be like any bartenders that serve it have to be tip certified and that's part of the deal yeah so I guess it's like you know there's not going as long as it's a one day event and you know that something's going on the Halloween event or something like that but the day after there shouldn't be anything going on no but two weeks later on a Friday night you know 4 to 6 it's a nice lovely spring night and we just did something else that got approval and there's a group of people that say I think we can drink on the deck now and they go down and they are having cocktails yeah I hear the concern it would be something we'd have to address I think we're small enough town that we would be able to kind of pin Point who might be responsible and and have eyes on it but I yeah it's I think where the board is coming from is expecting a few discreet events a year um let's get approval to do that it's not saying it's limited to just that and maybe over time there's additional um events that aren't contemplated today but um it's it's possible and you would expect most of these to be indoor events as opposed to standing on the deck and yeah again I mean Express traffic the Council on Aging and the library trustees are the only ones that I've heard have talked about maybe having something potentially but nothing even concrete from them was more like oh thanks for talking about this it's something we've had some interest in um so I don't want to um keep beating down the door on this point however as a fellow East Milton resident and a person who is concerned if we were playing Liz Dylan what she says at warrant committee Bingo you could check off your I'm going to mention traffic in the Square because that is a real concern to people in our neighborhood so again I mean I would just say that I'm concerned about enforcement there I know that in the it's IR relevant but I know in the recent planning board meeting a lot of concerns were raised about enforcement of different rules in East moton Square um and so who's enforcing this and then also what is the impact going to be on since East Melton the deck is in the complete Nexus of many roads and then you know as you just mentioned the highway is right there too just to make sure that we're really ensuring Traffic Safety because we have had accidents where people get hit right there or just Ram into the Christmas tree that too but we're getting concrete Planters so that will help that yes thank you I I don't not speaking for the py I don't think they anticipate that this would be such a regular occurrence that people will just see it as a place to have outdoor beverages at their uh poition I think they're anticipating you know the chamber did the first Friday thing at the end of the summer and then H and then Halloween and Christmas so the three events that was September October and December you know over the last several months that were the only events and there's nothing in our mind planned for the spring as of yet and if how is the alcohol Supply do people pay for it or is it supplied by the library has an event the library can just have alcohol and an open bar if you will so you for a one-day license you have to provide you have to buy from a wholesaler and generally it's easier on everybody if you hire a caterer so it's generally just contract Tred out um and again speaking to having certifications and and buying sourcing it properly so it's um that's generally the practice and that's been our experience um so far anybody have any further questions okay Nick thank you let's go from Wine to Water yes MWR nice very nice um not the way like to do yes I know seriously um all right so the next two articles are pretty interrelated um so uh how to address these um lead has become a major Focus for the federal government and local um and state government in terms of ensuring that lead is not leeching into our water supply system um our water supply system currently is tested regularly uh for lead and we continue to pass all those tests on a regular basis however um there are service lines in Milton that are comprised of lead um or galvanized steel so if I have that right um anyway so service line connects the water main in the street to um a house the town owns from the water main to What's called the curb stop which is most of the way there property owners own from the curb stop into the house um we are seeking funding through both the next two articles to further our understanding of what our current lead quantities are um and if you give me a minute I'll pull up some data now but what has taken place over the last year and you may have gotten notifications or you should have gotten notifications in the mail hopefully you responded was survey saying hey go down in your basement find out where your water comes in tell us if you have lead or not tell us if you have copper so we're trying to build our database understand what private service lines look like um so these both of these Appropriations associated with further further investigations to nail down exactly how many service lines are in town that may need to be replaced um the first one is $1.7 million from the MW the MW offers a lead replacement program um as Milton is an mwa Community we can take advantage of that so it's a 10 year zero interest Loan program um that we can participate in and potentially 25% of it would be a grant so maybe some of it would be free but on balance it's at least um a 0% loan over paid back over 10 years the $1.7 million would be used to begin replacing lead service lines that we know about today um it would be to do uh a number of test pits and locations around town where our um data is worse to to get firsthand knowledge of what exists um and to start designing um out a lead um replacement program and doing any Associated engineering so if we are doing a water main project on a street and as they're digging up the road and they identify a lead service line that gets replaced then and there so Milton has been in the business of replacing lead service lines it encounters um beginning in 2027 the federal government under the new lead and copper rule is requiring that towns begin REM remove lead service lines at a rate of 10% a year um so this is something we have to do at some point no matter what luckily for Milton we're in MW we can get um no interest money to do so um so that's the parameters the next article is how much is it $200,000 and the goal here is to do the like data entry work the studying work to uh further um qualify how much so the first one is to actually do get in the ground and do some work this one is to develop our lead service replacement plan do studies engage with um homeowners further so the second application would be an application to the um now I'm blanking on it so the state government has a um um a program as well a grant Pro that has been a grant program so up to $200,000 in grant funding um to um to fund these activities so the goal here is to take advantage of either uh loan interest free money or grant money to further understanding of lead service lines here in Milton um and we have a bunch of information on the DPW website um about lead service lines uh if folks are looking for more information DPW director Marina Fernandez can answer many more questions than I can about this so if if there's interest in a more in-depth conversation um we can certainly coordinate her to come down to the warrant committee um before the town meeting um and I'll just if I can find my here um I think it's less than 50 lead service lines that we know about today um but I didn't have it up so right now we know about 42 service lines that are LED out of 8,600 in town um that we know are definitely not we have of the 8600 we know that 5,400 of them are copper so about 63% we know are copper which doesn't need any upgrades um the unknown number um is about right now 1,500 um 1,600 service lines that are unknown so those are the ones we're chasen after to to qualify these numbers we think based on the data we have that shouldn't be a huge amount of lead lines but we need to go out in the field and verify um that information um so again I'll I can answer some questions I may not be able to answer all and Marina who has been doing Yan's work on this and taking numerous calls from residents above it um because everybody got a notification in the last at the end of the year everybody in Massachusetts Got a notification everybody in Milton Got a notification from US saying your lead service line may contain lead um if you had an unknown lead service if you had a service line that we didn't know what it was or if we knew it was led you would have gotten notified um and yeah sorry questions yeah um of the small number that you know our lead uh service lines are they clustered in a particular neighborhood is there uh I would imagine they would be in older houses that are still using the original lines that are there was we haven't used lead in a long time no it hasn't and I think it's pre 1967 or some there is a year where we know there was a firm cut off um and so anything before then um to my knowledge there is isn't today a very clear pattern um I worked previously in Malboro and and there was 1,200 lead service lines that we paid to remove every single one of them um those were more clustered in in the older part of town um here it's a little bit um not as obvious and and on top of that we don't have as many so we are in a better starting position than most communities which is a good place to be great and again as water mains were replaced we were taking out the lead anyway um and our knowledge is better on our side of the pipe so it's it's about getting into homes and having residence check that's the hard part and you know there's one or two houses in Milt in that um so it's hard to get out to everyone um thank you sure any other questions Jay yeah I I'm a little confused when you say our side their side does the town own everything before the water meter like water meter is in basement uh no there's what's called a curb stop in okay so it's basically to the curb is the towns okay thank um and then you own the balance um from there into the house okay so I'm confused so what is this program for it's for we need to replace all lead service lines whether privately owned or publicly owned so where we're going out to validate I don't know what maybe I don't know what a service line is so that sorry the service line is is considered the whole thing so you start from the main in the street your service line goes from the main of the street into your house okay but it's not entirely Town owner so only portion is yours and a portion is mine thank you yep so if we but it's probably all made of the same metal generally yes but not every time so again this gets to the the difficulties with verifying some of that information so if my house has a lead one the town owns a small portion of it I own a longer portion of it the town would pay for the whole thing thing to be replaced or this program would pay for the whole thing to be replaced so right now that is how we've been treating them um as if we're going to take on replacing all private lead lines that's when we'll have to have a longer conversation about what that might mean cuz you know if it's um I don't know over here between the Parkway and blue halav the houses are close together the streets are their houses are close to the street mhm and there is not a fancy you know stone wall maybe that's cheaper but in another place of town where there's a longer distance between um house and Street maybe that's a much more expensive Endeavor um so uh communities will reimburse the city of Boston does you know they'll pay for the first $5,000 homeowners will pay for the rest so there's different ways to develop that program and that's one of the pieces that we'll have to do going forward in terms of when it comes to wholesale replacement of all private lead lines is what is the plan and the first step that we're trying to accomplish here is how many of the these problems do we need to deal with okay so the second article the 200,000 is to find out how many and the 1.7 million is to do the work um I'm just pulling up the budgets for both give me a second um I I thought they in the packet and then I realized looking at it that the budget docks uh were not included okay I can tell you the question I'm going to ask is why don't we ask for more 1.7 million that's asked for 17 million that is that may need to however we don't know okay in we may come back with a subsequent appropriation saying hey there's 150 lead service lines that would cost 5,000 each to replace them so we'll come in and ask for that money so right now um they're planning to do um replace the ones that we are aware of um at $4,500 each um 450 test pits um and then expecting to find lead there replace some of those that we find um and then there's cost included for um designing that doing any the permitting that's required and she the department has plugged some funding for police details and such so the $1.7 million is funding replacement test pits um design work and um any potential police details the $200,000 is funding um our outside engineers and their work in terms of taking that data and making sense of it and doing the reporting that's required um both Lo in Massachusetts and to the federal government okay thanks you answer my next question who that was going to and at the end of this will we be able to say we have zero lead service lines and the goal I got one of those letters that said you might or might not have lead in your water and I thought well this isn't helpful and then I forgot about it until tonight yes well you can go home and try to figure out if it is maybe I didn't read it closely enough okay um so the goal is not to say after we spend this .7 million we will have zero the goal is to say hopefully after we spend the 1.75 we will know how many there are and we'll have a plan to replace them over the next 5 10 years whatever that is yeah that's what I was asking will we know for a I I phrased it wrong well we know for a fact how many like he talked about digging 500 holes that's a lot that's not 2,000 or how many you talking about I would defer to Marina on knowing for sure I think the goal is to have as much of that unknown nailed down okay thank you yep and um I'll send you the link to our website but you can um it tells you how to look at your the pipe in your house and determine what material it is made of thank you and just again the water is does not is tested regularly lead and we're not fail ing lead tests this is part of a broader project to just remove this as a potential issue um in in Milton and across Massachusetts really and in three years the fed's going to be leaning yeah everybody's everybody's on a 10% R plan to start uh replacing them and there's been a lot of federal money being pushed to this too which is why we're in this position to be able to take advantage of either Grant programs or no interest loan programs and to build on that and you may not be able to answer this but would if you know once you open the hole and you see the problems like is there any anticipation or was there any discussion about Federal monies coming to states to address this issue given what happened in Michigan or was that not is that not part of no the um the infrastructure bill or the one of the larger Federal infrastructure bills in the recent years is providing money for this that flows to the states and the states are Distributing it and that's through the Clean Water trust that we would plan to apply for for the second article um and then other entities are receiving funding grant funding that's going out so that money is Flowing but it wouldn't come directly to Milton it would be distributed through the state which is how we're planning to access it and the FEDS would be setting the guidelines for distribution of the money not the state if I don't I can't answer that question so just know the schedule set the guidelines say State here's the money these are the guidelines you are to follow don't change them that's a marina question sorry I appreciate that sure um Lori do you have a question I if you can just go back to the 17 that we're appropriating Y and it's 4,500 a line so how many are we anticipating under this situation um her budget has 52 being replaced out of the 1.7 so it's 52 replacement of lead lines today 450 test pit yeah and then expecting to find additional lead you know another 15 that we budgeted for replacement and then there's additional um um kind of soft cost involved right okay and I'll I'll distribute that through Karen uh so you have it and then um obviously more specific questions I will defer to her thank you um the um draft mentions Town lead service line investigations but the comments mentioned private property should be like expanded to include on which article uh good question one oh sorry they're not numbered are they uh 1.7 million or 200,000 1.7 um it mentions recommendation doesn't I don't think it mention so financing the towns meaning the efforts that we're going to undergo to do lead service line investigation so will we're going to go out and investigate Leed service lines in Milton that's that's what that references to not necessarily just what we technically own all right and we can discuss uh after this one if we want to bring the engineer in okay on to the next I guess Mr mil okay uh I have this is the senior citizen tax exemption program I believe right is that where we are okay yes uh so I had um previously given an outline of this program at a prior meeting with the warrant committee so I won't go into um great detail only just to kind of reiterate that the um the point of this uh program is to provide a local tax exemption for seniors um who have lived in Milton for at least 10 consecutive years um their eligibility would not be determined by Milton the eligibility would be determined if that's senior um receives the senior citizen circuit breaker income tax credit which is applied to the state on an annual basis with state income taxes um this is a program that uh has a a wide variet a long list of qualifications that folks have to meet um so if you meet that those income requirements the value of your home age um the portion of your income that's property taxes and you are eligible for the senior citizen circuit breaker income tax credit what we are proposing to do is say okay you got X from the state will'll match that money locally towards your property taxes um it is not proposed to be a quote unquote tax cut in the sense that it means that the town will bring in less tax revenue it just means that will carve out the amount of money for this program and shift that burden to the rest of the taxpayers in town um right now um there are have to pull up the document in terms of what this might look like for costs the tax credit was recently increased through the big um one of the new tax laws that was approved by the legislature so in for tax year 202 for um which is the current tax here the total um maximum credit is $2,730 they can get from the state um and the select board has talked in the language and the home repetition authorizes the select board to set a match percentage the board has talked about perhaps a 50% match um which would be if if somebody got the maximum it' be what about $1,300 is on an annual basis um so that is uh kind of the broad outlines we've we've been in touch with a few other communities that offer it a lot of the communities offer 100% match however with the increase in the credit um that the state is offering some of them having conversations about what that should be um for this year um so how this would work is you would file your taxes in the spring for the prior tax year um and then you would apply to the assessors in the summer and then the tax exemption that you would receive would be for the property taxes that followed so it would it would constantly be on a lag um in terms of your eligibility would be for the tax year prior but you'd receive the benefit in the fiscal year that follows um and if we were looking at um and sorry so we have in the tax here so the tax year that's most recently available for us uh for data from the state is there were 452 filers and tax year 2020 in Milton the average credit received for those Milton filers was $1,000 and at the time the maximum credit was about $1,100 so close to the maximum credit um in tax year 20 um so you know bring that forward to this year there's about 450 potential filers the credit has gone up the select boards talked about matching about half of that one thing that we found is just because folks file on their taxes um for the tax credit doesn't mean they're applying locally um the trend has been around about for other communities to have about 30% of total filers um applying for it locally so not necessarily will we see 400 applications come in the door the trend is more been close to about 30% um because their renters wouldn't be eligible um because it's a tax credit and a property tax exemption um one of the requirements is that you live in town for a certain amount of years that might bounce out certain people um your home has to be of a certain value so people with a higher value home above kind of what is our average home wouldn't be eligible so there's different eligibility criteria that might disqualify people who do receive the um the credit um from the state and then um where was I going with that I think those are those are the kind of the reasons that we hear um oh and then the other requirement is that anybody was significant assets uh would also be be deemed ineligible and that's generally treated um in other communities that have adopted this as having owning a second home uh would be a disqualifier so there might be folks who have a vacation home and that's treated considered as a significant asset and rules um that they're not um eligible for the program so the article is a home rule petition because we cannot do this without the legislator's approval so town meeting would need to approve it if town meeting does approve it it would need to be submitted to the legislature for again kind of similar process of liquor license adopted by the legislature and then the town would be able to begin the program in the tax year sub subsequent to that approval this language that we have used has been used in a number of other communities it's um you know we're stealing from what other communities have done so it it tracks closely pretty much word for word for what other communities have done to approach this um and we we've envisioned it as you know we have an an override on the horizon we knew a big um School was coming so as we were sitting around thinking about whether there's other Revenue sources we should be chasing or um ways to mitigate that impact on seniors um that's where it emanated from so uh that is the proposal in front of you again happy to take questions and um I can follow up with some additional information um if there's a a interest in discussing at a deeper level um Judy on zoom and then this after Judy Judy hi thank you um Tom um before I start asking my questions and you notice that's a multiple there that's plural um I need to Tom help me with the word I'm looking for I need to make a disclosure yes so I did check this out at the Town Hall that um I would not be in violation of Ethics it would appear due to my age that I might be eligible for this um however the math doesn't work for me to apply to either of the tax relief programs for seniors in our town so um and I used up a lot of napkins doing this project math past math and current math um so my question goes to something that you just said that um apparently I wasn't paying attention to um on this asset um requirement to apply are you just going to use um secondary homes um or do you anticipate using other criteria of my assets the way in other words I could have $5 million in the bank um but my income per year matches um the requirement so how are you going to address that so uh the home Ru petition doesn't um as currently written doesn't Define significant assets it it provides that um responsibility to the board of assessors um to be a decision made um at as they um before they roll out the program so um the language in the home rule petition says that the board of assesses may deny an application if they find the applicant has excessive assets that place them outside the intended recipients of the senior exemption created by this act the board of assesses shall adopt a policy for approvals and denials of application so um it kicks the responsibility or you know the obligation to develop that and then um monitor to that to the board of assessors as they um develop the program and my reference to Second homes was in conversations with other communities who have this in place that is the main that is the main item they pointed to I'm not saying it's an exhaustive list that was just an example yeah I mean that that would be you know the first take there um I do Wonder though how you would monitor assets how are other if they point to a secondary home um I don't know do you think that's a slipper so I mean I think it's a necessary step um in a way but how are you going to do it you had a meeting last night I think um with um the Assessors for Wakefield and did they um give you any hint that they look for other than property I would have to follow up uh with our our assessor on that I I don't know I didn't H I didn't ask that question at the time um I will get back to you on that one or I'll ask Nick to follow I don't know why I missed that um I I thought I sorry but anyway um I just wanted to point out um and verify it is my understanding talking to Nick Conners that um you will be keeping the tax workof program um as a viable option for seniors to choose and not eliminating it just because a new program is coming in no this is meant to be an additional opportunity uh to the tax workof program and just to um sort of clue everyone in um it's my understanding in my conversations with the town about this that an applicant can choose either or program or both if they if all the criteria is met that is correct in the application process okay um Tom would we want to discuss the two the differences between the two programs now or at another time uh Judy you could you can raise them or we can make that part of our discussion if do do you have any other questions for Mr Milano regarding the two the work off not right at this second I'm going to let some other people cycle through and then something else might pop in my head okay please do Liz is next then I had two questions about section 2D MH the first one being so it says that you have been domiciled and owned a residential unit of real property so the a the the letter a is upsetting to me so is it any residential property meaning you move from over here to over here and you don't have to restart your time so if I move from this side of town to another side of town I'm still within that 10 consecutive years or is it a single residential property you have to live in the same home for it's meant to acknowledge residency in Milton not necessarily me residency at a specific address vely written but whatever um and then so I'm interested in sort of s just to build on that so the Wakefield application says you know certifying that you you've been a resident of the town of Wakefield for the past 10 years and that is taking that language into how it would be uh treated in effect okay and then so if you were to move within that 10 year period you don't have to start the clock again it's my point okay and then the second thing so this 10 consecutive years I'm a little bit curious about that because the way that I read it you could have lived in Milton your entire life for circumstances out of your control something happens your health whatever you have to move for a year you move back to Milton to the home that you've owned the entire time but you didn't live there so you weren't D asil there maybe you had to go live with your kids in Florida for a year because you know health reasons boom you're done you have to restart the clock the way that this is written because it says domiciled and own property they both have to be true I don't know how many people that would affect because as you said it's very very few people but I'm just bringing up the way that it's written is there's a circumstance whereby somebody who has lived in Milton their whole entire life is a senior citizen owned their same home the whole entire time would otherwise be able to take advantage of this wouldn't because for whatever reason they had to be domiciled for a period of time someplace else like a tax year sure and yeah I I I don't know what a alternative language suggestion might look like I I wouldn't say the select board I think the select board's intention is to you know take something that has been in practice in other communities um and I think the goal with this sentence is to you know ident you know treat finding folks who have called Milton home forther a long duration of period um not you know so if there's language that might address those kinds of situations I I could certainly bring that to them or the Warren committee could include it as part of their recommendation uh that goes to town meeting yeah I mean for example it could say like 10 out of the last 20 I mean I don't know but 10 out of the last 20 years or something like that just to kind of say okay you have lived here but if there is some circumstance in which you have to go live someplace else for a very brief period of time mhm fine you're still a melt in person welcome back come on have this tax benefit no it's I yeah I don't think there would be any strenuous objection to looking at and reviewing potential alternatively I just want to make sure that all the people that are intended to be covered would be covered okay yeah I think we can we can just certainly discuss this and I think we can make some recommendations um on some of the land which I think they're excuse me my understanding is this is based on state tax credit right yes if you meet that criteria then you should be able to get ited right for within with these rules correct yes so so they would have it's there wouldn't be any criteria in the state tax credit for where you live you just have to be massach so that this is a more restrictive locally but but the base income house value other criteria are are based on if you qualify for the state one right we have to qualify stay for so they have your other income and other asset information correct that's part of that y f okay and um so we think it's 452 people that received it in 20 in tax year 2020 total that um received this Credit in Milton that tax year so then it would be an additional roughly correct so it's $587,000 if full participation and if the town matched it at 100% so in um in the experience at the I'm sorry you're right you did the math right you did it at 50% match um what we have found is that other communities have seen about a 30% of those filers so 30% of the 452 really have been the ones who have applied locally you know maybe Milton's exam experience will be slightly higher slightly lower I think um when we spoke to um somebody in the nor Shore they said they were close to 40% but it had been in place for nine years in each of those communities so it's been something that they've been able to advertise kind of socialize and becomes more of more awareness around um and they're closer to 40% of participation um but I think hangam is the other one that has um rolled it out and they were close to 30% when they um kicked it off Che uh yeah I want to follow up largely on what member steel mentioned which is so it seems to me that the state has rules that among other things look at the financial situation of the senior and if you meet those State rules then you get the state benefit and then we're saying okay we'll look at those State rules and we'll also look at other things like are you Milton resident but then I I'm quite concerned about this and then also see if you have excessive assets that that that does concern me and I'm sort of just repeating what my colleague said earlier but if one person has a cape house and very little money in the bank and another person has a lot of money in the bank and no cape house will one person quote unquote get caught and the other one won't get caught um if they're all going to get caught obviously somebody could give the cape house you know sell it to their kid for $10 and then I it it seems to cause more problems than it solves by putting that that that part about the excessive Assets in there sure and I think we saw it was something that was being used was something that was being administered in other communities and didn't feel a strong objection to it um and I think in one of the communities the application just asks do you own another piece of property if yes we are and that's the extent of the digging they do so I I think it's I've got a couple objections to that one thing I don't want to punish people for being honest right and another thing you know a piece do you own a piece of property no but I have $10 million in Vanguard yeah if you if you had 10 million I'm sorry go on just a Counterpoint if you had 10 million dollars in Vanguard you would not qualify for the State uh is that true credit I would believe that to be true you're not on my by the way okay well I just don't think it's close enough to your face okay no I mean some of the yeah do the state rules you would assume I I I don't know the state rules specifically but that kind of um those assets would probably disqualify you from being getting credit at the state level just from 30 seconds of Googling it looks like it looks at income area income and the value of your rout the income from the 10 million that you had an assets would probably be enough to people who are smarter than me can that would be my my gu have more than 72,000 it's a whole series of rules okay that's a concern of mine I don't know if it's going to get solved tonight but that that's a concern um can I bring up a couple other things uh one other for example people living in home ink and Fuller Village I'll admit my in-laws lived in Fuller Village for multiple years and I still don't understand the ownership structure of that are they at all eligible for this if if you don't would be a good thing to find out at home inc they own the parcels don't they I will double check I can help everyone with that it's real it's really easy what you do if you live a full of village and homeing it's called a buyin which equates to a lifetime lease so you are you let's just say the price of a unit at either one of those is 400,000 you Pony up to 400 and in return for that you get a lifetime lease so basically you're a renter with that money because you don't own that at all it's held in reserve so when you vacate that property um that unit actually uh cuz it's that's what it is that's all it is is a unit um then whatever you either get the money back if you're just moving to you know Montana or your estate gets the money back it's not a sell you don't personally sell it so it's sounds like that would imply that the residents of Home in Fuller Village I don't know about some other ones in town would not benefit from this correct it's a property tax exemption they don't pay yeah they don't pay individual taxes exactly J thank you um Mr Milano sure okay and that's true of Fuller too yes um yes thanks J okay and I guess my third thought is just about the timing I I think this is great I think this is a great idea that I want to support I definitely want to support it if it goes hand inand with an override I listened to the meeting last night likely to have an override but not nothing's certain and not certain how big the override is going to be and if there is one you know we'll be voting on it in either April or June uh would it be I would love this to go hand in hand with an over would it be more prudent to have this at the May town meeting if it didn't require legislative approval yes because I think legislative approval may not arrive in time for for fiscal year 26 tax bills because um we would need the legisl we need to get it approved locally at home at town meeting it needs to go through the legislative process signed by the governor um then we would need to roll the program out advertise it get applications in by end of August at the latest of this of this current year before the select board sets and the assessors set the tax rate so um the timelines are tricky um for that um so my suggestion would be is if since the unknown time is the legislator's the sooner to get it up there is um more effective is there any way to overtly link them can we write in this this is what's going to happen if an override passes this year I might be decapitated for suggesting something like that but just asking um there yes I'm sure there could be language written into it that said you know only shall be effective on a year in which the town of Milton approves an override or something just kind of I'm sure am I inhuman for suggesting that I think the point is trying to provide some tax relief whether um regardless of what we do but more so because of the conversations around the override great thank you thank you Mr chair well I had a separate thing to ask but Jay sort of Sam I mean thoughts spurred by other people so that's good so Jay's thought spurred something in me so if people who to whom this credit credit does not apply are now going to be sharing the I don't want to call it a burden cuz I don't feel like it's a burden but the additional cost in their own tax bill and there is going to be an override and there is maybe going to be a debt exclusion this is a lot of money that people in the town are going to have to put forth so to that extent I think Jay's point you know makes a lot of sense because it could be additional money additional money additional money and many people in this town you know are really pay P check to paycheck so I want to be respectful of that but also um you know is it possible to go to the legislature have this be contingent upon an override being approved have it go to the legislature now would they be willing to do that because they don't know if we're having an override would that slow down the process that's I have two questions so that was the first yeah can a legislation be crafted with language that says that I I'm sure somebody could work on language to that effect um you know the debt stabilization fund that funds how we're paying for the fire stations had language in there that says that if voters approve a capital project such as this so there's kind of similar language that established that funding mechanism so the language could exist none of the versions we've looked at um have anything explicit like that they've all not all I said generally we see that these are considered when significant capital projects are being undertaken or operating overrides are being sought um and then just one kind of corollary to it I'll note is that one of the requirements for qualifying for the senior circuit senior citizen circuit breaker tax credit is it looks at a percentage of your income that is um related to your property taxes so if folks property taxes increase then maybe more people would be eligible for it as well so that's almost um so that's something else to keep in mind as essential benefit if if the taxes go up maybe somebody who wasn't eligible last year now will become eligible wait provided you meet all the other criteria if you meet Che Etc ET exactly um my second question was so if you were to apply and were denied because of your secret millions of dollars that the town thought you had in Vanguard but you don't really is there an appeals process or is it just whoever decides this decides and then you're done um so it would right now the home Ru petition doesn't specify what that could be or would be um the abortive assessors could include one um in in their policy that they I'm just interested because it seems like we have some questions about what is um an ex what was the word like an excess asset yeah it says excessive or that me an excessive asset and also we have questions about you know what constitutes your income so sure if there were that vager I would want to say okay if I'm unhappy now if I get the tax credit I'm going to be happy so fine but if I don't get the tax credit because somebody thinks oh you have an excessive asset I don't agree with that what is the process that we can resolve that within the town in the appeals process so now I'm not calling up my lawyer or whatever God forbid yeah there isn't anything in the home repetition that contemplates that the board of assessors policy could generally staff would review applications it could be somebody could say well I want to bring this to the board of assessors that might be an Avenue for that to bring it directly to the board in that case so Nick I guess to build off what member Dylan had to say I mean this is like the card before the horse right in a way like we approve the article and then we kind of approve the the details later yes with the assess I don't I'm not speaking in a negative tone no no no I know what you mean is that it the home RO petition contemplates a separate body will have these discussions later but you know the language could specify more parameters as to what that might be if that's true so when and and c I should know this uh when the assessors bring forth a policy when they draft a policy a appeals maybe to the domicile issue if if you're you know if you have a health issue and it's six months I mean six months is a domicile rule like you know work that out but those that policy and those procedures appeals process would those be approved by the select board would they be approved by town meeing do you no there it would just independ would be up to the yeah it's a separate board that would be acting on its own okay under its own purview and generally I wouldn't say they have a lot of policies because they're what they operate under is pretty much governed very strictly by state law in terms of tax abatement process charitable exemption processes so it's it's more about adhering to the rules of Department of Revenue this is a case where they would be empowered to put a few other things into place sure so they would alone set any any parameters corre uh Judy uh next oh than um just to touch base on a few things I heard um in regards I thought this would be important in regards to Fuller and homing bear in mind both of those properties do pay taxes to the town of Milton they're both nonprofits so I'm not quite sure how what their tax rate is but if you live in either full or home in after you plunk down all this money that you can't touch as long as you live there um it's like in a vault um you also pay a monthly fee which increases each month and that monthly fee goes to maintenance and all kinds of other things but also included in that is um paying taxes on the entire property as a whole not as individual people um the second thing that I wanted to touch Bas on is my understanding that the legislature has up and Nick correct me um if I didn't get this right has up to 24 months to approve what we're sending for approval um it could take two months or you know they could have a lot on their plate and it could take 10 months there's no set time CU I I heard someone um I think Jay was you correct me um that that it or maybe it was was I'm sorry um no that is correct it it once it's filed it has to go through the Committee hearing process go through both houses of the uh legislature so sometimes home rule petitions can move incredibly fast sometimes they just get tied up in you know the legislative processes so yes I would I would agree that range two months 24 months sounds uh pretty fair okay and then um just one last thing I do have a cheat sheet uh here about let's say you are going to use the circuit breaker credit it's a credit on what you owe the MD similar to a child tax credit it's the same kind of um premise it's a credit on what you owe um just to if you are a married couple filing join the income limit is $119,000 I think that's very generous however if you are a single person it is $72,000 is the thresold to applicable for fing and how that's calculated is your property tax plus how it it will then once you meet that requirement um to understand how you actually get the credit your property tax payment and one half of your water and sewer not sure about that stor um so you take that number divide it in half now those two things must exceed 10% of mass income so let's just take single person at $72,000 your tax bill in water and sewer has to be more than $7,200 so um and there is an assessed value of your own house and I'm sure um Nick will this be in play for the assessor's office do the circuit breaker the assessed value of your house can be no more than 1,172 th000 now here in this town I do find it cons seful that um you could be in a house you bought 40 years ago for $100,000 is now well over that figure on the um open market and assessed value would that be fair to mention yes but to qualify for the tax credit and then for the local exemption you would have to be under that valuation since that is part of the state requirements out of the tax credit okay so um anyway I just thought i' read those things up thank you so conceivably Jay back to you if I could um if you had you know couple of mill in Vanguard and you don't have any other income all the um money make on that could be under 109,000 who's to know anyway so I I look forward to having our um discussion after we talk after we get through all these articles all right thank you yeah just to clarify I looked at the state's laws and I couldn't find if they have any comments about other assets I couldn't find them as it right and that so saying that that's the only concern I have is that that seems kind of squishy like G sure so okay com okay Jay um I want to go back to the the comment that my colleague Miss Dylan raised earlier about domiciled and owned within for the past 10 years my colleague was talking about domiciled I'm a little concerned about owned honestly uh I might want to see the word or in between those because for for three three reasons come to mind one is I mean this seems directly aimed at renters um and we I've I've heard in recent years that sometimes renters in Milton feel like second class citizens uh I don't want them to feel like second class citizens if someone rents in Milton for 20 years raises their kids here and around the time they're retiring they get enough money to buy a house I don't know how often that happens maybe never but if it does I I'd want them to be able to participate in this program there's a second group aside from renters clergy uh the minister at my church and the minister in multiple churches in town do not own their own house they live in houses owned by owned by the church if one of them wants to retire in Milton buys a house clergy are not famous for how wealthy they are they'd be another case they could participate in this and there's a third group that may not make me any friends by bringing it up but Milton Academy teachers do not some of them do not live on property they own if they want to buy a house in Milton retire here teachers like clergy not famous for how rich they are no matter what you think of their employer so I don't know I might want to say I I might want to explore domiciled or owned a pieace residential peace piece of property uh maybe that would open a can of worms to uh slum Lords that own terrible places in town and then come here and are bad people I don't know what kind of worms that would open but okay no I think that's it's that's a good question I think the intention was to um keep it to folks who have been here for a long time I don't think it was meant to you know identify folks in those examples but um um because if you're living in a rental property you are ultimately still contributing to tax bills that arrive to the town so um I can it's a question I can bring to the board our next meeting isn't until the 28th so if it's something the warrant committee wants to address directly in its recommendation too that's that's also an option so I'm hearing is the excessive asset question and then um this question here in uh section D the main um yeah so go ahead and I'm kind of hung up on section three where it's the select board will set the exemption amount provided that the exemption shall be within a range of 50 to 100% are we ever going to decide that or when will that get decided or will the assessors decide that or so I think the intention was to give flexibility because of what we just saw with how the state doubled the essentially doubled the credit um and I I think what we've talked about is 50% for now um you know if the credit doesn't really move much maybe they increase that over the next couple years is to give them flexibility they're they would establish it presumably um once this is passed and approved by the legislature but if so I guess for me it would be and know this I don't know how the heck you're going to do do it if there's 452 what's going to be the cost the 587 potentially or a million to right um and then what's how does that affect the remaining taxpayers sure what's that amount that's going to be uh so we have I'll I can share with the Warren committee a chart that we did to kind of forecast that out again it's just forast we don't know exactly so we did it basing on assuming we showed you know 100% match 50% participation gave a couple different scenarios and what that shift to the rest of the taxpayers would look like so we can distribute that to the board that's the war committee thank you sure I just wanted to kind of go off Jas Point again so maybe sort of why kind of why this 10year requirement at all I understand the purpose is so that senor who have lived in our town contributed to our town can stay in their houses in the town and I think everybody understands that but just the examples that Jay just gave I mean I don't think that huge amounts of people are able to flock to our town because of our low housing prices so if somebody can live here and is getting a small very small rate decrease that's a very Marin marginal case if there are all of these people that Jay just identified renters you know things like that I wonder why we have to say right like couldn't it be or I don't and I also don't really understand um if this 10e time so I I would just be curious about having all of that language kind of talked about a little bit more okay um yeah like I said again the select board will meet again on the 28th I can bring the comments and questions to them um if this board is intending to kind of finalize its recommendation sooner than that you know I can seek if I can see if they would also support those changes but it is ultimately the warrant committee's recommendation that will be printed in the warrant and Nick these this is language that you've taken from another correct Community yeah they pretty much track the same over and over again generally the same with all of them yeah I think what's most important for us to keep in mind is this is something the concept of the program and using the circuit breaker tax credit is like the main blueprints of it this stuff is more it can be worked around because the Department of Revenue is familiar with it they know how to deal with it when we're setting a tax rate so like that sticking to this blueprint in terms of relying on the senior circuit breaker tax credit is the key component of it any other questions comments Mr Mal all right okay msba right yes it is um all right so the one I have next is the one related to the school building committee uh so as everyone knows the school building committee um we have a school building committee here in town um and I not sure if everybody knows but the town was invited into the Massachusetts school building authority program the msba program um in December so we will start in that program in May uh to go through the msba process for a school project um ultimately at the end of that would be reimbursement from the msba for a school project for eligible costs of somewhere around 45% of eligible costs on a project um one of the requirements that the msba puts out is that you have a school building committee that meets their regulations and and their expectations um so our school building committee is a nine-member committee was established in 2019 by town meeting um five members are appointed by the moderator two members are appointed by the school committee and two members are appointed by the select board the msba requirements for a school building committee um have additional requirements that the superintendent of schools serve on it the Town Administrator serve on it the chief executive officer serve on it in this community that's a representative of the select board that's already covered um they require that school committee representative be on it our version already covers that um the facilities director is required to serve on it one of the uh members has to have what's called mcppo certification which is the state certification requirement The school principle for the project application in this case we applied to the msba for the Cunningham school as our statement of Interest so that principal is expected to Ser is required to be on it and then there's a local budget official or Finance Committee Member who's expected to serve on it um so what we have is a uh Warren article from the school committee um school committee submitted the original or an article to establish the school building committee so they've submitted an article to expand that membership to hit those staff positions and make them non- voting members but add them to the school building committee so that Milton School building committee will then comply with the mba's requirements so um each of those positions as listed are added as non- voting members to serve on the committee participate in the discussions but not actually cast votes on the direction that the building building committee takes at the select board meeting last night we got a question as to whether it would be if the article could identify the entire roster so it's all in one place for everybody and everybody knew who the voting and non- voting positions were so I have slightly tweaked this since I distributed it to accommodate that request I've sent this back to the school committee chair um it is their article that they submitted to the select board just to get their take on it but it wouldn't make any changes to that nine members it would just say reiterate who they were and who their appointing authority was um and that they're nine voting members um I think that's the gist of this article no sure how many members were on the committee now nine there's nine now this add this would add six right yeah six non voting so nine voting would remain six non voting would go on easy meeting as of members of 15 member committee go from two hour interesting the Quorum is only of voting members so sense I think any other any questions on this or comments for Mr Milano seems very straightforward to Crime it by Statute we like to help get help from the state that's right I I do have um you ready to go on to the next one I am y if everybody is okay all right um so the next article is a funding article to fund the feasibility study to be conducted with the msba um I have a few slides of folks want background or more in-depth background on the msba process I I'll pull them up if needed but um you'll find as we go through this this is a bureaucratic process there's many steps there's many requirements there's many reports um the first component of working with the msba program is what they call eligibility period where they call it confirming that the community is ready to engage in a study with msba so it's things like forming the school building Committee in our case we have a little bit of a head start we just need to clean up our school building membership as we just discussed um you have to file you have to sign some paperwork with msba as part of this process and eligibility period you also have to work with msba to to nail down exactly what will be studied what is the grade configurations configurations that will be studied and how many students will be in each of those and the letter from the msba inviting Milton into the program uh we've been invited to study a k to 5 project um and a grade 78 project so now part of the eligibility period would be say okay if we're building a k to5 school or doing a k to5 project how many students would be in that building and if we're doing a grade 78 project how many students would be in that building um and then the final major component of Eligibility period is securing an appropriation to fund the feasibility study which is the next phase the feasibility study portion of the msba process um starts with an owners procuring an owners project manager who will be with the project from um that point until close out once the owners project manager is on board and that's a local procurement so we'll put out a request for qualifications we'll the school building committee will review and interview the applicants select somebody msba will review The Selection process and then enter we enter into a contract with at owner's project manager or OPM then we'll procure designer Services uh under the msba program you select an architect with the through the designer selection panel the mba's designer selection panel so that is not a local procurement that we do in in conjunction with the msba and the panel is comprised of three Milton representatives and then a number of msba Staff board members and um outside uh participants and that group selects who the architect on the project will be once your professional team is aboard then you commence the feasibility study which is evaluating all the options in the msba program and we're going to be referring to this as the Cunningham school project because the msba requires us to refer to it as the school project for which we filed the statement of Interest so if you see Cunningham school it doesn't mean there's going to be a project at the Cunningham school it just means it's the Cunningham school project that we applied for um however the feasibility study will study a repair to the Cunningham School of any Capital assets that need to be repaired it'll be studying an addition renovation at Cunningham it'll study a new K5 and a new 78 um per the parameters of the msba um Board of action letter that approved us coming in so the feasibility study will cover looking at all those options in the first phase um reviewing you know F tun those options to a preferred option with like very preliminary um sketches and cost estimates to finally get into what they call schematic design which is you have a building designed studied cost estimates and you go out um to the voters for town meeting approval and the ballot question approval and this process could take us anywhere from two to three years to get from where we are today to going to the voters um so we need funding for that we are recommending and school building committee recommending an appropriation of $1.5 million um we looked at some feasibility studies recently conducted for middle school projects and they range between 1.2 $1.3 million um any expenses that are eligible in feasibility study will be reimbursed by the msba so while we have to appropriate the full amount um we would expect to get 45% back and reimbursement of what we spend so if then feasibility study ends up costing us $1.3 million we'll be reimbursed for 45% of that only have to have to taxpayers will step up for um the portion that's ours um last night the select board talked about um since we're seeking this appropriation now where we really there's no um there's no deadline for us to do that until 270 days after May 1st so our eligibility period starts May 1st you have to secure an appropriation within 270 days of that um I think the consensus is let's just you know secure this now um a couple of members talked about ensuring that no funding that's appropriated now would be spent until we're actually at that feasibility study phase um so that's it's the warrant committee's recommendation but I put in track changes just to reflect the conversation of Select board last night which is this red here that provided that no funds be expended until the MS town and msba execute the feasibility study agreement which would occur after eligibility period And before we engage in that feasibility study phase so um hopefully I didn't confuse anybody on the process um but that is what we're embarking on and this is the appropriation request that's going to the uh February town meeting so two questions to start Al you said that if we appropriate the full amount we would get 45% back in reimbursement for the feasibility study but is that only if we were to get the grant or is that just everybody gets it back so we're not the only ones they've invited us in so everybody that does the feasibility study gets the money back or only if you ultimately get an award no so um I think so every Community that's invited it's uh msba program that enters into a feasibility study agreement and completes their feasibility study you're get you'll get reimbursed for your feasibility study expenses so you go voters and the vote fails y the msba say sorry your vote failed let's close out the project here's your final reimbursement okay you later we're we would be guaranteed if we do the feasibility study to get that money back yes and I'll just the 45% on eligible expenses right okay um and then my second question was can you please explain the overlap between this what you're talking about and what we've done already for this school project mhm um this is the same thing this might be the same thing this might be a different thing the studies that we've already done sort of what is the interaction between those two things so more information is always good so there you know people have better information about what a middle school grade 78 with a prek could look like we have you know rough schematic designs of that um you know there's been some Wetlands work there's been some surveying work um so all that work will feed into this um but will'll likely be in a position of redoing some work because we could have a new owners project manager we could have a new architect um and the msba is going to require us to go back to square one you know we're looking at a k to5 building you know I think as folks know is the the direction that the school building committee and the school committee has gone has been a gr 78 building but we applied for an elementary school that must be saying you're studying in elementary school so there's work that's done that'll be helpful that'll add to our level of knowledge now but we're going back to the starting point in terms of all of that design work and then if we were ultimately selected to get the grant to be able to build this school or make those changes to Cunningham or build the other school or all of it or some portion of it how much percentage of that would we see the grant or what amount of money are we expecting sure our current reimbursement rate is about 45% it changes each year so just kind of use that as a round number for now if you do certain things in your design you can get additional incentive points like if it's a green building you can get two more points so the ultimate reimbursement rate could be slightly higher and then depending on how the reimbursement rate formula Works year to year could adjust on its on as well um again it the it's msba will reimburse us for eligible costs so when it comes to construction um it won't if it's a for round numbers if it's just for round numbers if it's a $100 million School we're not going to get $45 million we're going to get 45% of the eligible cost of the 100 million so it's generally a much lower percentage of the total project budget their requirements they limit their um reimbursement to I think it's like $575 per square foot of construction so if your construction cost per square foot is higher than that which every public construction project is you're not going to get all of it reimbursed at that percentage there's caps on site work there's caps on um design fees that they'll cover then there's spaces within the building that they might say yeah you want that space But we don't view that space as critical to your educational program so you can build it but you're paying for the design you're paying for the construction of it on your own so we're going to exclude ude 5,000 ft from our calculations when we're reimbursing you so there there's different things that go into it um but ultimately it starts at that 45% is and then Works down once the eligible um costs are are worked out so just for clarity for the people watching at home so the current plan that we had been seeing I I forget how much money that they said that it might cost for the seven to eight but use your figure of well it was I used 100 million the project that's been out there is 173 is 170 I'm going to round up to 200 say it's 200 okay even though it's not or say 100 I don't care just for round numbers so that money would be unreimbursed by anybody we would have to pay that as the town but here we'd be getting 45% of some the reimbursed costs of whatever we wound up doing so if it's just improvements to Cunningham I don't know putting another floor on if it's improvements to Cunningham if it's building a new K through 5 if it's building a new seven and8 whatever it would be that would be money that we're getting from the state that we don't have to pay back that's right okay thank you that's um feasibility study is figuring out where be build how architectural stuff right that previously what they asking for like was it $4 million like um two months ago yes and that's that's gone that never happened correct so this is a whole new yeah and the attention behind that was before we go to voters with the non msba project let's do a lot more design work so we can really kneel down that cost and really nail you know and get things moving um like with the fire station projects the town appropriated 2.7 million for design for those before the town appropriated the Full Construction um cost for the fire stations um um so in this case we'll do the 1.5 million for the feasibility study get to a schematic design stage with cost estimates that will have escalation out for another year or two before construction would commence that is the number that the Grant from the msba is based on and it's the number that voters would be voting on at the ballot and the town meeting members will be voting on a town meeting okay and we get the 1.5 back no matter what we do we don't do it correct we do do it as long as we complete the feasibility study if we're unsuccessful at the ballot you're unsuccessful you get your reimbursed share of whatever your want your feasibility study costs were and the project is closed out and that happened to me when I was in bedfield it's not last at town meeting and last at the ballot and then ironically Medfield was invited in alongside Milton uh in December so they that was in 2021 so it took them a failed vote three more years to get back in to start the process all over again so um a lot hinges on that vote um at town meeting and at the ballot Li right now I have another question I'm just thinking about timing again so you said that if we were to if the town meeting were to vote on this in town meeting coming up then we would do a feasibility study that would take how long um that portion of the process so we're trying to get this in place now eligibility period is the first very preliminary phase that starts May 1st with the msba we have 270 days to complete that all of it and then our feasibility study will commence at some point once we're through eligibility period and that that feasibility study will take um two years two and a half years um okay I have a couple I don't if it would be helpful I have a couple of examples um so we have to get everything all lined up to be able to do the feasibility study by the 270 days after May 1st yes then the study itself would take two to three years then how long does it take the msba to decide what school what projects they're going to find I'm just trying to get an overall sense of the timeline um those that moves pretty so like you have they map out their schedule with us so they'll say in order to get to an msba board of directors to get our approval for or schematic design here are the dates that you need to meet by the architect team the design team will know that and they'll work um to get there so sorry I'll just pull this up so um canton's example so they started feasibility sted in October 2022 they got to msba approval of their design August of 2024 so almost two years and then um it took them another you know four months to get their special town meeting and spe and their special election vote and then to build it would take an additional yeah now they're going to dive into building out the final design so they do they have to get to 100% construction documents so that might take another nine months before a shovel goes on the ground my point is that before when we were talking about it we had mentioned um the fact that there could be the override and the Deb exclusion Bam Bam same time corre this would be individual Milton people are not paying for anything until well I mean I guess the 55% of the feasibility study right but the not the big money the big money until when when they build it or somewhere down the road I yeah um I would say the earli the vote will happen two to three time years and then we'll start to borrow and bring in the money um thereafter to to fund the design which is expensive and then construction will start um in Earnest um like a year after that point okay but still there would be some there's going to be a significant lag before it shows up in taxpayers um tax bills J I'm I'm also trying to process the order of things so before this happened we had an architect we had a floor plan we had Dr they move the process pretty I'll say pretty far before going to taxpayers to ask for the whole shebang under this proposed process the future is unpredictable but is the idea that this 1.5 million is all we're going to be asking for until we get to the point that we ask the voters for everything that is correct so is it also that whereas previously we had full architectural drawings as far as me a nonexpert can tell full architectural drawings Etc before going to the voters and this proposal we'll just have a feasibility study before we go to the voter no the schematic design report which is like the final part of the feasibility study will be similar to what has been produced to date by AR Street for the former project it'll be you'll see renderings you'll see um renderings interior exterior you'll see you'll know exactly the square footage as currently designed so it'll be very specific very similar to what we have today from marrow Street I would just add there'll be even more information like they didn't do huge geot technical they didn't do a ton of they didn't do traffic studies yet as part of that project that was all the things that um I think the school building committee through shaa work were intending to ask for money to do that will be wrapped up as part of this feasibility study great um great thank you because as always with any of these projects the more reports and studies you can do now the better you'll be able to understand your site and and nail down that cost estimate better anybody have any additional questions or comments from Mr Milano just in regards to um this article the last the only other one on my list that I can show and just just as a heads up so I think I printed it for you this is the the zoning map one that had the images of the did I have that okay yeah it did all right um sorry maybe um so this is more of a housekeeping article that the planning board has submitted um there's been some Court decisions that say if you have an overlay District that was approved in your zoning bylaws but you didn't amend your zoning map to include the overlay District the overlay District doesn't exist until you amend your zoning map so we have two overlay districts that would meet that def definition this is a zoning article just to say those overlays remember we passed them a few years ago while now they're part of our zoning map um it's the one in Milton Village the Milton Village planned unit development um overlay district and then there's a very small um overlay District down at Brook and Thatcher uh covers two Parcels um that's from several years ago now so it's a zoning map update to say those overlays are in our bylaws and they're on our map um just to kind of close the loop on both of those the planning board's other articles site plan review Amendment and accessory dwelling units they continue to work on site plan review is more complete than the other one um as soon as we have or the planning board has something worth sharing I'm sure they'll distribute that I don't have anything uh this evening only to I had sent out to the chair um a lot of information about adus so um the state's put out good information about it um accessory dwelling units will be legal Milton and in in Massachusetts and single family districts in February um so the zoning bylaw would put par greater parameters on Accessory dwelling units um I'll just note that the state is um uh really trying to uh narrow what cities and towns can regulate around accessory dwelling units and and the bottom line really is is however you treat a single family home is how they want you to treat an Adu don't treat an accessory dwelling unit that would be located on a single family parcel any different than you would the single family home is like the general um guidance they've been giving uh there's draft regulations it's only six pages um worth reading through and then their webinars um go into deeper detail about it um and the planning board's been talking a bit about it um and I know they're meeting uh not next week but the week after to discuss it a little bit more so um Miss Milano so beyond this warrant that we that you went over with us tonight can you can you just tell us what potentially we may be looking at uh if you know for a town meeting in terms of a war yeah so um it's everything listed to here uh with the Adu bylaw and the site plan review bylaw to come and then last night um one of the suck board members has been working on a potential bylaw related to outdoor lighting um so that's something that's still kind of in the works um there's been drafts circulated Town Council is taking a look at the selectboard hasn't discussed really an Earnest yet our next meeting excuse me is not um is until January 28th I think no that date's not right is that right yeah January 28th no that's a Tuesday night so January 28th is our next meeting um the warrant needs to go to Prince pretty much that week so some of the logistics of um whether the warrant committee will be able to have a recommendation printed in the warrant ready um will be a little tricky um I'll just note um accessory dwelling units is time sensitive um accessory dwelling units will be legal Statewide February 6th I think is the date maybe February 2nd second um February 2nd so um having if there's an interest in having a little bit more kind of Regulation and guidance in place place then um to me we need to act on the 24th of February and I think that's really it for the that that's it but that's the special time meeting part that's what you have for us and I I appreciate M also on the agenda um just to to swiftly move to another topic I have a fiscal year 26 budget um I know we kind of want to do one thing at a time and we have this special town meeting um I kind of just included that in case those who are doing work um on your what we like to call warrant committee subcommittee stuff um if you had any questions from Mr Milano regards to anything that perhaps is in this special time anymore that may affect the 26 budget in the spring or just any general questions that you may have for him that he could answer now or maybe just give you the information on so it's more of a little bit of an open-ended agenda topic Mr any more on the contract negotiations uh nope nothing new no uh we haven't really commenced with anybody no I don't really want to talk about it but um but we will going to because you brought up the budget do you appropriate in advance a certain amount of money for legal fees or does that come up as it comes up and from where is that appropriated uh there is a legal budget I think it's under General government perhaps and the waren I think it's usually right after the select board budget um so we have our base services are covered under the retainer with Murphy Hy Tumi and leane that covers kind talk okay kind of day-to-day stuff and then so there's I think only really two line items in that there's the retainer line item and then there's a Professional Services I think is the line is the terminology we use and that's $280,000 maybe and that's for our month-to-month expenses covered by um our you know labor Council which is murphy2 million and another firm um mhtl provides the Town Council services so we get build hourly by Peter Melo for things that require much more work for example uh we're at the appal tax board um arguing with winter Valley and Uno is the weather they should be nonprofit or charitable exemptions or not so he'll bill us hourly for that amount of work labor Council again um we have a firm assisting us with our 40b projects that are going through so that's that's that line item for General legal services that isn't um specific I'm just mindful of the amount of money that we recently spent on Legal Services as we go forward I'm just trying to get a sense of like if we anticipate what that amount will be and where that would be included so the everything related to the NBAA communities um work to date right through the oral arguments was covered under a fixed fee agreement with um special Council which was Goodwin Proctor through Attorney Kevin Martin um that's over those costs were yep encumbered in from prior year funds it was a contract so it didn't affect fiscal 25's legal budget um what that means for future legal expenses related to MBT communities and the decision came out today I don't have any answer yet I'm just interested in that amount of money as we kind of go forward in that process what the amount of money that we think we're going to incur in legal fees might be yes I don't okay yep we the board hasn't discussed it in terms of any steps or not steps that will be taken or not um and fiscal 26 are will expect to be in negotiations which can be expensive from a labor Council perspective depending on um how those go um but otherwise we expect a fairly normal year in terms of legal expenses okay perfect anything else I don't think so so can Mr chair can you remind us where we stand we do we do we have budgets for all the all the Departments I believe everything's in the folder send okay I'll we'll double check but I believe everything's been dropped in there um and if anything's missing let me know drop in the warrant box right yes okay the shared folder that we sent out uh Miss moo I really appreciate uh the time I'm sure we'll be in touch yep but uh thank you again for um for the everything yep no of course and I like I said on the lead service line inventory ones if you have more deeper questions or or want to uh talk about those that in better detail uh that would be Marina Fernandez um I'll be able to handle pretty much all the other ones except for the planning board ones so um if there's follow-up conversations or information feel free to reach out to me um yourself or anybody on the committee thank you thank you very much have a nice good so I will take off all right thank you than um now we have number four on our agenda I'm mindful of the time and I'm mindful of agenda uh number five which is future scheduling and we will be I think spending a lot more time together in the upcoming weeks not to delay or belor but um I just wanted to have a very brief discussion um with everybody just just about some of these um matters that Mr Milano spoke to us about um and then obviously like what the future weeks hold um I think the first question I have as a chair is just surrounding the lead pipe matters would we like to hear from the town engineer Miss Fernandez I do as to that yeah sure I do anybody else well would any yeah that would be true I'd be interested in them trying to coordinate it with like they replacing the gas lines sure great thing to do at the same time down that's a model idea um yeah I don't you know I as it was mentioned I I think it might be a good idea uh just to hear from her I think also obviously for the public who surprisingly really watch these meetings um can just get some more information and help to meeting members um so I can arrange to have Miss fernandz come in I'll work with Nick and uh the department to see if she can come down pick a good date we kind of crunch for time but um I don't expect that to be too long probably answer some good questions for us so we can do that uh that's not a problem and um does anybody else have anything in terms of the other articles that we've reviewed uh would we like to hear from anyone else what would I just want to set like our set this forward so we can have good discussions on every article hear from you know hear from everybody we think have all the information Marshal to have a good discussion and then be able to draft a comment I I do have a you know what on a school building thing I would like to see because we brought that up when they were here I went back to my notes they were going to get back to us with population of us and stuff I think number of classrooms but I'd like to get some proof a justification of the need the need of this like number of classrooms because I know they got four more classrooms from Cunningham what's going on with that how many how many do do they need it is the question um so this this is gonna I I'll just have I'll just Mel this into two so in terms of the future I'm expecting the school and we be posting tomorrow schools and school building will begin on Monday what I'm sorry I didn't really understand what you're just oh no uh I schools and school building will be in here Monday I'm going to be posting tomorrow meeting on Monday yeah okay so I just didn't really hear you I'm sorry oh I'm sorry so I would suggest um if there are specifics that were asked at the last meeting when we were upstairs that haven't been fulfilled let's follow up on them not and um I know that sha o would be probably the the main person to at least for some of those numbers um probably reach out to can started can we get any requests like that in writing just so that how was that uh get any requests like that in writing we're going to be asking Sean or War you know maybe we asked him two months ago but he's forgotten and we've forgotten so oh yeah no I'm not saying that's a good idea I'd like to see it thank you to email it to him yeah that's that's I'm not announcing okay um I know Sean is a very busy person sure um you know so but yeah that's what I meant follow up and just as a reminder um the question will come up again and then you know we'll be back the same situation without it so I just asked you know just follow up with Sean if there's problems you know we can I'm sure region I'm confused about the planning board so if they're having their next meeting on the 28th that's I'm so sorry the plan when is the planning board next meeting what's a quiz uh the the 23rd yeah oh the 26th yeah it was the it was so if Nick said that the warrant needs to go to print pretty much that week that's when they're going to have the warrant articles for the Adu bylaw the site plan and then maybe for the outdoor lighting are we going to have one are we going to have time to talk about it but two are we going to have time to have them come in and answer any questions about that yeah so uh welcome to the warrant committee and that's okay no no I meant I'm being I'm trying to be uh that's not they're working very hard over there I don't blame them I'm not trying to like cast and I think um you know you know it's kind of like in terms of our committee you know the way this is landing from holidays and the New Year it's a it's a huge thing as when the chair of the planning board came in um I don't like this um um you know in terms of practice but as you know Mr Milano said it may be the situation where we are actively hearing from them prior you know maybe at the time the warrant must be submitted for print and we continue to meet and then we do a our comment that is not contained in the warrant that goes to the town meeting and we Green Sheet it uhuh at the meeting okay where we would essentially deliver the comment to town meeting then um that does not happen um hasn't happened in my experience I I can't remember it happening um in the last few years but it would just simply say um you know the time of the you know the the drafting of the of the warrant the warrant committee is not able to submit and we'll just have the um that school the the the library but there was a recommend but then there was a GRE sheet for that so it's not totally this might be like a yellow sheet or something without precedent to happen but this would say you know it was not available at the time of printing so then we would just to meeting member town meeting would walk in and just peel the sheet off with our comment uh um and then obviously either read it to them or answer any questions in regards to to what we have to say but um um there's a hard usually a hard deadline on the print to send these out to print and obviously it's the best practice to have all the comments in so everything goes at once and the town has all the information at the same time even if they haven't written it is it possible to have them say this is what we anticipate it looking more specifically then I really appreciated when Meredith came in and kind of previewed some of this but now that it's been a few months maybe there's more specifics is there a possibility of having someone from the planning board coming in even before they have that written so that you know we have time to digest a little bit I just really would like when we go into town meeting the town meeting knows the warrant committee looked at this great here's my piece of paper now I know what to do whether you agree with me or not that's fine but oh yeah I I mean we will have a comment for them um I think it was the anticipation no that's not my question I just meant is it possible to have Meredith or someone else from the planning board come in again even if it's before they make their final writing of the Warren article oh most certainly I think it was my anticipation this was I was going to address this uh speaking to the planning board and seeing what they have together um I'd like to have something like a draft or something that we can actually speak to as opposed to them turning around and saying oh well we change some things or we we remove some things so okay I'll have a conversation with with the chair and see kind of where they're at and then I'll kind of um speak to Mr Milano and we'll adjust as necessary but I agree with you I mean we we got really an executive executive summary yeah and I'm not again not casting as versions because I know that they have a lot going on over there but just you know if we could work with them I would appreciate that on that so thank you sure and I'll have more information for us on Monday okay in regards to uh the stand boy Jay yeah I I want to second that and especially I'm I'm especially concerned about the um site review article because I've been listening to their discussions of it and the more I listen the more I realize I don't know what a site review is I don't know is it is it is it required is it bing is it I'm the the more I learn the more I realize I don't know what a site review is and what I'm sort of picking up on is I'm a little nervous if they come up in front of us and say don't worry about a side review is our old regulations are bad and these are better like you know if if that's what they say then I think we you know we want to have a skeptical eye I guess so I'm going to need a lot of Education about what a site review is what you're doing different why you're doing it different okay I appreciate that not the nitty-gritty that they get into but big picture why you don't okay very fair Julia Julia hi um I just wanted to raise again and maybe it's something for the agenda on Monday but um what the process is going to be of um writing the comments as a committee and uh you know reviewing them and agreeing upon them as a committee um which will hopefully be departure from how it was done last year yeah we can we can put that on uh the agenda I have lots of ideas great thanks thank you Julia yeah while we're talking housekeeping uh how are we doing on minutes doing pretty well on minutes we got some new minutes today and we have some others um between now and Monday know circulate the new ones and I think we have some others that have not been approved that we've reviewed you dra of all minutes through October 30th have been submitted to to and um so I owe you now tonight and November 13th but I'm not sure what have been deemed ready to circulate okay we'll get on that um I I can't anticipate um having that on the Monday agenda J but um I'm mindful of it and um we'll work through it I like to get them completed um before the special town meeting a lot of writing and reviewing to do um does anybody else have any questions concerns comments okay so uh understanding that we'll be um unless there's a major issue we'll be meeting back here on Monday to discuss schools and then what are you thinking thereafter then maybe um the thing is Monday I'd like to keep just schools because I think it's going to take a while to get through um but I'll have information regarding the planning board for you and uh maybe when we can get that in I would I would very uh very likely to see a Wednesday meeting also in addition maybe a Thursday I don't know um based upon what I'm told by the planning board and others um but I would say that after this week we'll probably be meeting more than twice three and then the last week maybe four um the comment drafting can be done at home um I'd like to I'm not going to speak to this now but like I said we can address it at the next meeting um just how we do that how that's done some of the more experienced people um I think can help out with the uh the newer people um it's kind of an honorous task you know when you look at it being a first year member you know how do you do this uh what's the expect but we can we can talk about that in terms of future scheduling and then it's debated like how yeah what we did we will um like I said this is under this Claus under our future um you know uh we will you know debate have a robust discussion all the members involved and then we we put it to a vote you know so we would I would like um I think um I think for some of these we' we've looked at tonight um you know we could probably vote on in the near future um but there are others like the Adu schools and stuff that I think are going to take a little longer discussion a little more thought um and obviously the comments especially as to the planning articles are probably going to be a little bit longer than some of these here that we talked about tonight but it's really thing about scheduling keep in mind there's a Federal holiday a couple Mondays from now okay well if there's nothing else anything from anyone on Zoom okay do I have a do I do I hear a motion I make a motion to adour second second thank you uh the me thank you thank you me adjourned e