##VIDEO ID:https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/994DtmGEsi0VDYK3jJI2BJ72GfgNIpU2/media/922330?autostart=false&showtabssearch=true&fullscreen=false## <v Speaker 1>I am calling the Wednesday, December six 18th</v> meeting at the select board to order at 6:07 PM Just a few. Since there are a lot of people who have not attended public meetings and some of you who have just a quick reminder, there are no side conversations. If you need to speak to someone, you'll leave the room so you can have that conversation. If someone speaks and you agree with that person instead of clapping and disrupting the meeting, I'd like you to use a show of hands that would be the most efficient way for us to get through the agenda. I would like to also announce before we begin with announcements that I will be calling items out of order on the agenda as is my prerogative of as chair and we will be begin with the draft policy on immigration documentation after public speak. I'm sorry, do you have a question? <v Speaker 2>Yes. I was asking what the the badge, I'm sorry to speak.</v> At the same time what the, it looks important what her badge is. <v Speaker 1>Can you ask her after the meeting?</v> <v Speaker 2>Okay,</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you.</v> So for those of you who are in the room and are able, I'd like to ask everyone to stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance and to observe a moment of silence for those people who are serving and in harm's way and their families who are here. <v Speaker 3>I pledge allegiance to the flag</v> of the United States of America and to Republic who should stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice <v Speaker 2>For all.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you. Just a few quick</v> announcements as those of you you know, Christmas is next week. That's also the first day of Hanukkah. So I'd like to wish a very merry Christmas to all who celebrate and their families and a happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate and their families. And then right after that is New Year's. We don't have a meeting between now and New Year. So happy New Year's to everyone wishing from the board health, happiness, and joy for those for you and those you love. Now we'll enter the I agenda, public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on the agenda and it will be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting. The section of the agenda is limited to 15 minutes total and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited to five minutes. Is there anyone in the room who would like to address the board on a subject matter that is not listed on the agenda? Could you please raise your hand? Yes sir. Could you come to the podium and give us your name and address? <v Speaker 4>My name is, excuse me,</v> my name is Anzo Bu I live in three Clearview Drive. And thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts and comments. I wrote 'em down 'cause I wanted to be clear and specific in terms of my comments. I wanna make comments and suggestions regarding talent, finances. My comments contain criticism of select board decisions and provide suggestions for future decisions regarding disposition of talent assets. My key focus is looking forward not to cast blame or to look backwards. I'm a Natick resident for over 40 years and have five children that I've gone through school in Natick and I've been supportive of all town overrides over those 40 years 'cause I always felt that the select board was doing a solid job in managing talent finances. But now I find myself questioning the town and board's management of town finances. I am supportive of Natick meeting low income housing to meet state requirements as outlined under chapter 40 B. But the board's decision to accept the approved bid for the Elliot School building at five Auburn Street concerns and confuses me, especially in the light of the possibility of a town override the cost associated with PFAS in our water systems and a dam demolition which will occur. And the cost is unknown, though Natick is liable for that. It appears the minimum cost of the town for the sale of the Elliot school is $2 million because of the sale for $1 to the metro collaborative development. The collaborative appears to be a fine organization with a laudable mission statement and I hope it is successful in the development of that property. But the decision to accept this bid costs the town at least $2 million. We're talking about possible $8 million override now I suspect the true costs will be much more yet here we are talking about this override. It was unnecessary to de subsidize this development when the town is at or near compliance with affordable housing or will be shortly with the new development going on downtown. I'm raising this issue issue at this time because of the overall condition of town finances and as there are other town properties, for example, Johnson School and E-School where decisions regarding disposition may come up soon. I wanna make sure that all sale of town properties are made with a full understanding of the cost of such disposition, both in a short-term basis and a long-term basis. While I am sure the vote to accept the collaborative bid for the property was made with good intentions from fiscal responsibility perspective, I believe it was an unsound decision that has and will negatively impact the town finances. So moving forward, I have a number of recommendations and hopefully you'll get back to me or someone in town will for the five Auburn Street development, all town costs associated with this project should be tracked so the town officials and its residents understand the full cost to for accepting this bid. This proforma accounting should include an estimate of foregone tax revenues for a period of time and all expenses which the town has committed to or will incur. I want the development project to be successful but the town and residents need to understand and have transparency of the entire cost to the town. The proforma reporting should be periodically made available to residents as the project progresses. This type of review and reporting will be useful for this project and hopefully provide a template for others. So any other future sale either under this direct purview of this select board or any other town board or committee that reports to this board should go through the same process of of doing a pro forma estimate of what the cost is gonna be to the town. So I won't go into everything that it should be included, but it should be including things that we may provide as grants work that we may do as public to our public's works department. All of that should be categorized and in the future before a decision is made, any town property a proforma should be done anticipating at least maybe five to seven years down the road of what that's gonna cost gonna be. So we're not found in a position like we are today, $8 million override and basically $2 million which didn't need to be spent. So in closing, I'm supportive of affordable housing to meet state requirements. I hope the Auburn development successful, it is essential the town makes decisions to sell to pro assets with comprehensive review of cost and financial implications, both short term and long term. How our time disposes of assets is not solely a one off decision as those sales impact our finances and taxpayers, especially the hundreds of taxpayers who are in fixed income or struggling financially. I want to reiterate that my comments and suggestions are designed to be instructive moving forward and to provide full understanding and transparency to town residents. So I hope the town will take my recommendations, I'll send 'em to you in consideration and thank you for letting me speak. <v Speaker 1>Thank you so much. A point of clarification,</v> we will not be taking comments right, right now I just wanna make a point of clarification for those who are unfamiliar with public speak, the reason that we cannot engage or discuss the items that are presented to us is because under mass general law, unless an item is on the agenda and people reasonably can expect that that topic will be covered, we cannot engage with the public on that CO on this particular comment. But I would ask sir, if you could send the list of recommendations, so including the list of proforma items that you suggest, if you could send that to us and Mr. Erickson, if you could put this discussion on an agenda meeting in January. Certainly for the IT with specific to the town expenses. Every quarter this board hears a report about the DAM and how much money it has spent, which is zero so far and how much is reasonably expected and what grants we're looking at. So we do do that quarterly but with spec, with particular regard to five Auburn PFAS and the dam. I'd like to go ahead and revisit this at a January meeting and thank you so much sir. Is there anyone else in the room who, who would like to address during, during public speak, sir, Name and address. <v Speaker 5>Thank you Madam Chair. Good evening board members.</v> My name is Paul Joseph, 10 Carlson Circle and currently serving as the interim executive director of the Nat Center Cultural District. Hopefully for less than a month to go. And I say that with good news in that the board has been engaging with prospective full-time replacements for Athena Pandolph who left the the position earlier this year. We've got some strong candidates, we've had a robust obligation and review process and we hope to have a major announcement for the community soon. I'm actually speaking here in my capacity as a private citizen, as a former chair and servant on the select board and as somebody who's still active in economic development in the community. What I found very interesting and I have found continue to find very interesting about this discussion, about the policy that you'll be discussing tonight, the communication transparency and so forth. Observations online actually came about today while we were doing conversations about Natick Center place, we were talking to a prospect for the executive director position and we said, are there any communities that are doing better than Natick or that you see as having surpassed us in our, in their downtown, in their cultural districts, in their business districts. And several examples were given to us. Three quarters of them were cities, city, forms of government. And I bring that up because many of you know that several years ago we started in an initiative called natick charter.org to consider our form of government. I hear people complain about this board and how lack of response, lack of sensitivity, lack of transparency. And I couldn't disagree with those criticisms more having served in your position during the time of the damn decision, during the time of five Auburn Street and during the time that a, a police officer had committed three felonies and we were routinely trashed for not being quick enough with information that saved this town. Probably millions of dollars in litigation. If people aren't happy with how government responds, it's in the people's control to do something about that. We are a voluntary community and you folks have done an amazing job with this very complicated issue. We have a charter and bylaw review committee that's been appointed by the town meeting to look at ways to make our town meeting form of government more efficient. But that body has decided not to look at how we are governed. And to me we started a process that to get 4,500 signatures to put this to the voters on a ballot to decide whether we should study our form of government and have an independently elected body do that. That's a charter commission. You can find out more information about that@natickcharter.org. We've secured 1500 signatures, to be honest with you, we need probably 5,000 now because a lot of those signatures are probably no longer valid. But I encourage the public that has been so vocal and critical of lack of agility and lack of transparency to think about what you can do to contribute to the success of the administration and these people that volunteer on your behalf and the town staff that we're trying to build and support in a very lean hiring environment to really get blood from a stone from us as taxpayers. I look forward to a, a debate about the need for the override and the specifics. I think there's a lot of granularity yet to be explored, but I will say this, we've been talking about it for years and that includes prior to entering into the discussions of five Auburn Street. So I couldn't be more proud to call some of you my former colleagues having served with most of you on in this capacity. And I invite the public that is critical about this to think about that we can't change quickly, we can't do things that other communities can do for economic development and it's the commercial tax base that's gonna help offset residential tax rates. And if we're not investing and we can't move quickly from an economic development standpoint, it puts every taxpayer at a higher risk. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Joseph. Is there anyone else in the room</v> who would like to speak to a topic that's not on tonight's agenda? Is there anyone on Zoom who would Yes ma'am. Would you come to the podium if you could lower the mic and tell us your name and address? <v Speaker 6>Hi, my name is Martha Bradford.</v> I live at 14th School Street Extension and I'm here to address the SEC sanctuary city debate. <v Speaker 1>You can't do that during pub. Excuse me,</v> <v Speaker 6>I didn't know. No, it's</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> No, no, I'm just during public speak since it's on the agenda. Yeah. And actually it's not a sanctuary city, it's a policy on immigration documentation. I will open the floor to speak to speakers who have not spoken or written a letter. So at this time we can't take your comments. <v Speaker 6>I don't see it on my agenda. I don't,</v> <v Speaker 1>It's, it will be the next,</v> it's called the draft policy on immigration documentation. <v Speaker 6>Okay. I thank you for your time. Of course.</v> <v Speaker 1>And I don't see anyone on zoom, Mr. Jefferson. Okay.</v> I'm not seeing anyone either. Nope. So as is the, as is the chair's prerogative because we have such high interest in the immigration documentation policy, we're going to go ahead and move that to the top of the agenda so all of you can go home early and not have to sit through some of the other more mundane governance that we will be engaging into tonight. So first, we have received many letters, many emails, phone calls, text messages, communication through other means. And I'd like to say that the board has read and considered every single one, even from residents that have written more than 50 letters from one person. Many of them have been responded to, not all of them because I wanted to issue a thoughtful response. And so those will continue to be responded to in the coming days. I'd like to briefly set the context of tonight's agenda. First, in our system of government, the select board sets policies. That's what we do. Among other things, for some who are watching or attending a public hearing for the first time, a public select board hearing, we're also the towns road commissioners. We hire and fire the police chief. We are an appellate board for water and sewer abatements. We work with town council to devise litigation strategy. We do a lot of very boring things, but we always do these, make these decisions in the best interest of the community. So the purpose of the select board is among many things to set policy. We meet at 23 to 24 regularly scheduled meetings during the year and then add meetings as issues rise. So this year we've had 44 meetings. All of the meetings agendas are posted 48 hours in advance so that you can have a reasonable sense of what will be discussed. When. I'll encourage you to please go to the town website and sign up for agenda alerts so that you can scan and continue to be informed. If you have difficulty doing that, please reach out to our communications director. He will walk you through it. There's also a video that he's done to show you how to do that. You can also receive agendas and minutes from all of the boards and committees because they're posted on our website. So if you're interested in the school committee or if you're interested in the health department or the zoning board of appeals, I encourage you to not let this issue be a one and done and to continue to be involved in the running of your community. Now at previous meetings when the proposed policy on immigration documentation was discussed, we heard from anyone who wished to speak who had not spoken or written to us previously. And the reason for that was to allow everyone the opportunity to voice their opinion. The select board itself has not had the opportunity to deliberate and debate. Now the normal course of action is we would have a draft policy on alcohol, for example. The board would deliberate, deliberate and debate and hone it and revise it and have multiple meetings. And then we would take public comment. This process has been reversed, which is perfectly fine because I do think that many of the letters and comments have shaped some of our thinking on this issue. So tonight, with the exception of anyone who has spoken before, and I'm not going to police that, I'm just going to rely on your, your goodness, your kindness, and your being an honest person. If you've written us a letter, understood that we have heard your concerns, I'd like to, to have other people speak who were either on zoom or in the room on this policy. But before we do that, at least one thing has changed since we met last week. The police have issued their policy, their policy is on their website and it's on our homepage. You can link to it and review it and that that policy was effective on Saturday and that policy covers 85 to 90% of the policy goals which this B Board was seeking. Lastly, before we get into further discussion, I would like to thank everybody who participated in this process. Most of the people who contacted us or spoken with us, either for or against the policy or for the policy or against the policy with changes in edits have been thoughtful and have been measured and insightful. Some have portrayed this as more than it is. Some have asked us to provide even more cover. However, I think everybody who wrote, and I can't speak for members of the board, but everyone who wrote agrees, our immigration system is broken. That is not within the jurisdiction of the Natick Select Board. If you don't want Nate, you don't want Massachusetts to be a sanctuary state. Contact your state legislators if you want the federal government to change immigration policy. Those are the meetings to go to. Those are the letters to write. All the only jurisdiction we have is over the 36,000 residents who live in the 16.1 square miles of this town. So while I thank you for participating, I'd like to encourage you to continue participating with both state and federal government. Now at this time, I will open discussion to those in the room who have not spoken or written a letter. Could I see a show of hands? Yes ma'am. In the in the teal, if you could come to the microphone, adjust it so that your voice is heard clearly, and give us your name and address please. And I'm limiting comments to three minutes since we have a packed room. <v Speaker 7>Sally Pacheco 23 Craigie Street.</v> I I will say quickly that as a daughter of a local politician growing up, I know the kind of abuse you can take. I've been there and that I don't think any of us mean any disrespect. It's a volunteer position. The most underrated position in the world. I've been there. So saying that last week, one of the biggest words that came up was perception. If the official town policy says no use of town funds, personnel, or other resources will be used to help identify illegal immigrants. Isn't that the same as saying we are safe here? Isn't that the same as saying sanctuary? It won't happen here. You mentioned it's too expensive to live in Natick. So immigrants won't come here. We are not worried about immigrants. Immigration is the basis of this country. We're worried about illegal people coming here. And are we more expensive than Boston, New York, la, San Francisco or Santa Barbara cities experiencing increased crime and homelessness due to surge in undocumented arrivals undocumented since nobody wants to hear the word illegal, it can't happen here. The FBI is up on Woodland Street. We could, we couldn't get up our street the other day, okay. To arrest a suspect involved in the deadly drone attack on our military. Do not forget 9 11, 2 of the nine 11 terrorists out of Logan were regulars here in town. They ate at Tinos. They had one of their last meals there. And stiffed the waitress because they knew they weren't coming back. These are not little things. If this change or so-called policy really doesn't change how we operate, which is kind of what I got from last week, then why do it and why do it now at the end of the year, at the end of a presidential term, it doesn't smell right to a lot of people. There is nothing to lose by waiting to see how things play out with the new administration. Also, if perceived as a sanctuary town, we may be subject to loss of federal funds, adversely affecting our school's infrastructure, safety, et cetera. In the last eight years of turmoil I have had and listened in on more political discussions than I ever thought possible. One of my biggest takeaways is that many people have the perception that people in power town officials, state officials, national officials, they'll let us come here and talk. They'll read our letters and they'll say everything they're supposed to say and then they'll turn around and do what they want because they feel they know what's best. And maybe you do, but please prove us wrong. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you sir. In the red shirt. No clapping please.</v> <v Speaker 2>No one did.</v> <v Speaker 1>I heard clapping.</v> I'm just trying to nip it in the bud. <v Speaker 2>Very intimidating. Have</v> <v Speaker 8>You had the lady who wanted to talk?</v> <v Speaker 1>I'm sorry,</v> <v Speaker 2>I'm,</v> <v Speaker 1>I don't want a discussion on whether</v> there's clapping or not. You would like to speak. Okay sir, in the red shirt. I'll call on you next on after this woman. Okay, again, I see <v Speaker 6>I'm Martha Bradford 14 School Street Extension</v> and I was unaware that things were moving forward. I call it a sanctuary city 'cause I don't know the dialogue. So put up with me if you will. Of course. But I don't know the plan. What's the plan? How many people, where are they gonna live? How are we gonna manage it? I don't know what, what happened in Natick two days ago when they arrested the young man on Woodland Street. There are a lot of risks involved and I know you guys, your hearts are in the right place. And I don't know if you find out later, well maybe we made a mistake and I'm concerned about that. What is the plan? <v Speaker 1>I I can answer that. Good. So have you read the policy?</v> <v Speaker 6>No, I have not. Okay. I was unaware. The</v> <v Speaker 1>Plan, the plan is to instruct employees what the law is</v> and tell them how to, how they need to follow the law. The plan has not been written for any of us. There's no plan for housing. There's no plan to use funds. There's no plan for, the plan is to instruct, as it is proposed, is to instruct employees what the law is and what they can and cannot do. That's all. <v Speaker 6>So that's very vague to me.</v> It's like that means they can, and I, again, I'm a charitable person, but if there is no guidelines and votes are being taken and you guys are voting on them, <v Speaker 9>Read</v> <v Speaker 1>The plan.</v> So we'll read the plan. So no, no outcry please. The, the, the other thing that's important to point out is select board policies can be changed with a 48 hour notice. So you're concerned that what if this turns out to be a bad idea? We rescind policies all the time last month. We rescinded six that are no longer necessary. We write policies all the time. We've sat with counsel, we've worked with the police chief to make sure that everything we're doing is legal and doesn't, doesn't tie their hands in any way. And so I'm sorry that you may have been either fed in misinformation or read misinformation, but the front page of the town's website has the policy, a memo about the policy, the police policy, and some other information that you could look at. <v Speaker 6>Okay, I acknowledge that.</v> I just wonder how when you make a mistake, how you rescind it. How do you rescind it? <v Speaker 1>We have a meeting and we say this policy, I ask</v> for a vote, a second vote. It's no longer enforced. That's how you do it, becausecause. They're policies from the selectmen. That's right. The select board does it. And the reason that we do it is because we write them in the first place. There are policies and we don't just rescind them 'cause they're mistakes. Sometimes they're outdated. So for example, it is the state law that you can't smoke in public buildings. So we no, no longer need a, a smoking policy. This board does write broad overarching policies because our charter says that we cannot get involved in the day-to-day running of the town. So we turn the policies over to the town administrator who in, who in turn instructs his department heads, this is legal, this is not legal. And then they instruct the employees at work for them. If, if there, if now I can point out, and maybe you didn't know this, but six or seven of the communities that passed a similar, very, very similar to the one that's being proposed in 2017. And again in 2019 they have not seen an influx. They're different from Somerville and, and Cambridge and Boston, which is saying we're gonna put all of these resources into that. We're not doing that. We have no resources. And I'd like to point out last, last summer, Framingham passed a welcoming ordinance. There wasn't any outcry, there was no discussion of it there. They haven't seen an influx. Basically it is just another policy or an ordinance. They, they're a city. I'm not saying that you don't have a, a real fear or that your fear's not credible. No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that there are parts of this that you haven't been made aware of. And I, you know, I will as chair of this board take responsibility for that. We need to improve communications and we're working all the time to do that. Keep in mind that we're all volunteers and the chair usually works 40 to 50 hours a week and so does the, the vice chair. So can we be better? Yes. Are we working hard to be better? Absolutely. <v Speaker 6>Well I thank you for your time</v> and also with all due respect, we should have an idea of how this is gonna play out in Natick. And so if you vote on something and you don't really know it's dependent on other politicians or towns or whatever, then <v Speaker 1>Well, Ms. Bradford, we kind of do know</v> 'cause we can look at communities that are about our size that are located in Metro West like Acton Maynard Maynard has a police policy, Brookline Brookline's a little bit bigger and closer to the city. But we can look and see what's happened over the last three or four years there. So we do have a a a runway. We also know that there are immigrants who live in our town who are, who are legally here. They may have family that are not legally here. We wanna make sure that if somebody's a victim of or a witness to a crime, that they will not be intimidated to go to the police because that makes all of us safer. If there's drug running in town, if there's sex trafficking in town, I wanna make sure the police chief knows how to respond to that. <v Speaker 6>I thank you for your time. Thank</v> <v Speaker 1>You Mrs. Bradford.</v> Sir, in the black sweater. <v Speaker 10>Hey, I am not good at this stuff.</v> I'd actually much rather walk across the mass pike blindfolded than to be here tonight. But I have a reason to be here that just compelled me to say a few words. <v Speaker 1>Excuse me one second. Could I get you</v> to say your name and address please? <v Speaker 10>Oh, excuse me. My name is David Earl McGregor 10 Sunset</v> Path in, in Natick. My notes are somewhat outdated because I wrote to the board, got a reply from the board on January 24th in 2024, which indicated to me the welcoming immigration policy was in the process. I guess it's not called that anymore. And they would be supplying the Natick residents in the middle of April with the new cornerstone of the welcoming in immigration policy at the time by April, mid-April of last year. So I get this news tonight that, that I've been looking for it and I've been calling the police department and haven't been able to locate it because I guess it's was just rec created on Saturday. I just wanna say a few things. I'm from Natick, born and raised, my entire family. Nine of us went through the school system in Natick and we were proud. What a great era to be quite frank with you. It was the home of the champions then. And I'd like to continue it to be the, the home of the champions. But back then it was kind of common to have large families, as I say, quite the era growing up. And our parents taught us to make sure we respect everybody we meet along the way. That's the way this community with these families, for the most part were, were raised and back then we didn't need a, any kind of a declaration to welcome the Jewish family to Natick. We didn't need a declaration to welcome. And my parents are immigrants from Canada, somebody of of color at Natick and so on and so forth. And now I find it just hard to believe that we need a policy to welcome people that have broken the law natick, 11 million people over the last four years based on the custom and border patrol numbers have come in to the United States of America, most of which have not been vetted. And that's, those are kind of scary numbers folks. They're kind of scary numbers. I love the immigrants that I have met, the hard working ones, but with these kind of scary numbers, there's no way of determining exactly who these people are and I just can't see rewarding them for breaking the law. And those are the customer and border patrol's numbers. They don't include the the getaways. Wikipedia has some numbers that, that you wanna know <v Speaker 1>About.</v> But sir, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you have just one more minute. Yeah. You might wanna wind it out. <v Speaker 10>I do. Yeah. Just real quick.</v> 1989 was the first sanctuary city that was approved. That's 36 years ago. There's 11,000 cities and towns throughout Natick 600 now are the immigration sanctuary city type cities. That's 1.8% in 36 years. If this is such a great idea, why haven't we embraced it to now after all that time. The other thing, the zero vetting as they say, look at what Christopher Ray has said up in front of congress 2023, 2024 red bells after his eight years FBIA ringing everywhere. And so my notes, I can't go through 'em. I was told you get 10 minutes. I'm sorry that I'm not as organized as I thought. But one other thing I do wanna say, none of the sanctuary cities folks, they don't define what it is. And in your letter to me, you said we're not, we're gonna be general by necessity. General, you've gotta go each department to find out in Natick what in fact is in there about welcoming committee policy. Why don't you put it out and not be transparent, not like the rest of the country, not have us chase all the departments to find out what it is. And I was just disappointed that after nine months you finally got the, the Cornerstone police report out yesterday or whenever it was. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. There's someone online.</v> Liz, do you still have your hand up <v Speaker 8>Still?</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. In the room? Yes sir.</v> In the striped shirt in the back. <v Speaker 8>Yeah. Glasses. Hmm? Glasses.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 11>Hi, I'm Kim Elfin Stone.</v> I'm at 10 East Street. Could <v Speaker 1>You repeat that? I'm sorry.</v> <v Speaker 11>Kim Elfin down at 10 East. Thank you.</v> I'm just a bit confused. I only came into this conversation last week when I watched the meeting. I thought you guys have done a great job and been very clear about this isn't a sanctuary city. I keep hearing this stuff get brought up. I he I've heard you talk about you guys aren't, you are setting policy, you're not dictating what's going on. I'm very confused why the community is confused by this. Why they keep choosing to lose use. Very decisive, divisive language. You know, I understand fear is part of this. I have to tell you, when this happened, when, when all this stuff has gone on this year, I had to go and make sure I had my birth certificate carried with me. Because if I live in a city that is going to ask immigrants or ask people that look like it, I don't even know how they would decide who they're gonna target to say, are you illegal? As they like to say. So to protect myself, I carry it in my wallet now. Hmm. I was born in the United States. My family has spent generations in the United States. My last name isn't even Latino. I look Latino. I am Latino. I, so, and just, I understand fear, but I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand what's going on with people having an issue when you've been clear over and over again. They have issues. They, you addressed it at the very beginning where they could go address this and they don't want to do that. I, I see it as just lashing out here and it doesn't make Natick feel like a welcoming city guys. It just doesn't. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Elephant stone. But</v> <v Speaker 11>You have been one of the worst. Some of the</v> <v Speaker 1>Please, please no side conversations,</v> no side conversations. Talking about if I have to ask a police officer to come in to remove people who are disruptive, I will do that. But I'd rather not. Sorry, KA, <v Speaker 2>I can't hear you. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>I said no side conversations. He's</v> <v Speaker 2>The one who pointed at me.</v> Okay. You, you all, you seem to focus on me and I don't know what that's <v Speaker 1>About.</v> I'm not focused, I'm not Well I'm sorry that you're intimidated. I can't help that. So we will have no side conversations and the gentleman, Liz, I believe has has her hand back up on Zoom. Let's take a zoom comment please. <v Speaker 12>Hi, my name's Liz Tangerine, seven Walcott Street.</v> Do you need my video on as well? <v Speaker 1>No, that's not necessary.</v> <v Speaker 12>Okay. I was just wondering if you could,</v> I'm a little bit new to this too, but I was wondering if you could just kind of give us an ex example of like an interaction where something would be different after this vote if it's in favor of this vote and before, is there a particular law that were going to be bypassing or could you give me like a scenario, a scenario of what, what interactions is this changing <v Speaker 1>Mr. Evans?</v> <v Speaker 13>Thank you. It's a great question.</v> Here's one example. There's a job site where, where there's a building going up in Natick. So the building inspector goes to that job site, starts an inspection, notices that the people aren't speaking English. And without the policy that's set by the select board and propagated through the town administrator, that person could ask the people on the job site say something untoward towards that group of workers and say, let you know, are you here, are you here legally? Right? That's the sort of stuff that we're trying to head off, right? That's a liability to the town. It also is very important for us to signal to people who live here, work here, pass through here, have lunch here, whatever it is, the interaction with them, the gentleman who spoke about worrying about being stopped on a traffic stop and and worrying about having to hand his birth certificate over. I think that's the fear that the immigrant population that is here in Natick faces, right? And this policy is solely designed to reduce that fear. It's follows the state and federal law to the letter. Right? And if you look at the police policy, it is spelled out very succinctly and very precisely what the police can and cannot do. <v Speaker 1>Mr. Erickson, any One second. Liz,</v> <v Speaker 14>If I just follow up to the, to the question,</v> I believe the question was what's gonna change from the policy today versus pending the board's vote decision, whatever happens tonight? The short answer is nothing. Today we town staff other than what might be legally required, we do not have any really reason to ask for immigration status. It's not town purview to do that. That's a federal purview. And so therefore there's really not much that would change from the day-to-day operations of the town or of town staff. The police policy in my un understanding from the Chief, chief Hicks is that he's, he, the intent of their policy is really to document their current practices in writing so that all their, and all their officers are fully aware of their practices. 'cause they, you know, they do get new officers and some officers leave and they're just trying to ensure that that is documented for their purposes. So short answer is nothing's going to change from the adoption of this policy. <v Speaker 12>So you, you can go ahead the follow up.</v> It sounded like people were more concerned with if there was a crime committed, if it was found that that person, I'm assuming if a crime's committed and they're processed, like anyone that would come up and, you know, be found upon being arrested for something, for example. So if that happens, you know, what is, what is the process of that? When a crime is committed and they're found to be undocumented, is would that typically be normally reported and <v Speaker 1>Yes, Liz?</v> Absolutely. So if somebody is arrested, shoplifting, driving without a license in an accident, drunk driving assault, domestic violence, when a person is taken into custody in this town, in every town in Massachusetts, they're fingerprinted and those fingerprints are sent into law enforcement databases everywhere, including ice. Okay. Then that person is put in the jail and brought over to an arraignment at Framingham court usually the next day. If, if the person is in the country on an overstayed student visa, let's say he didn't cross and enter illegally, but he's still not here with the permission of the United States and I sends a civil detainer to the police to, to retain him. State law says that the police cannot, however, they will still be processed for that crime. They'll go before a clerk and a clerk will decide on bail when the clerk decides on bail. If that person can make bail, they can leave. But that's not a decision that our police department or the select board has any control over. That's something that the clerk has power over. But anybody who's arrested for a crime, it is not the case that they're gonna be turned back out into the population by the Natick police or the select board. <v Speaker 14>I I, if I may add to that, yes, any individual</v> that might have a criminal detainer by ICE will also will be held. <v Speaker 1>Yes. We picked up and held for</v> <v Speaker 14>Federal law.</v> <v Speaker 1>So for example, if someone, if someone is</v> located by ICE to live in Natick and he has a judicial warrant for his arrest for criminal behavior, the police pick him up, pick him up, arrest him, and hold him until either ice or whatever agency issued the judicial warrant comes to pick them up. I think you pretty much covered all the possibilities there. Liz, do you have any, you've got about another 30 seconds. Is this, <v Speaker 12>I I'm wondering if this, if for instance,</v> in the next administration, if they do, considering the amount of, I guess people that might be coming here or if we're kind of being a welcoming community, if there are policies that change on the federal level to try to increase the identification of them, I suppose we will not do that. <v Speaker 1>If federal policies change</v> and require us to do anything differently and state policies change, then, then our policies change because all of our policies have to be in line with federal and state law. They cannot contradict them. We cannot rewrite federal immigration law, just like we can't rewrite the IRS code. We have no authority. So yes, I guess if if the incoming administration Go ahead. <v Speaker 12>Was I on the, I I I see a quote here that said</v> that local police cannot, I repeat, cannot enforce federal laws. So that's, that's why I was bringing that up. That confused me a little bit. <v Speaker 1>Oh, so</v> <v Speaker 12>That was from the police chief,</v> <v Speaker 1>Right.</v> We the, according to Massachusetts state law, Massachusetts police cannot enforce federal civil immigration law, just like it cannot enforce a civil detainer for someone not paying their taxes. We can't use, we can't use our limited town resources to enforce federal immigration law. That's where ICE needs to get a bigger budget. They need to get their people out. They need to be able to do that themselves. Is there another hand in the room who has not spoken or written a letter? Sir, if you could just say your name and address please. <v Speaker 15>Hi, thank you Ms. Chair. One. My name is Eric Heimer.</v> I live at 27 Peterson Road. I'm a 60 year resident of Natick, the home of champions where I've raised a third generation. I suggest some of you on the board might wanna buckle your seat belts right now because this reality slap will not be pleasant for you. But fortunately, as a 40 year objective, logical, professional engineer, I judge people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Some of you may remember me from the last time I tried to save Natick from itself in the mid two thousands with the killing of the Redmond name. Yes, that opposition was me and many others and I maintain the site redmond forever.org to this day so that people will not forget that treachery. So let me start, and with all respect, do this board, what the hell are you thinking here? I obviously am strongly opposed to any kind of public virtue signaling statement that even hints of Natick becoming a sanctuary town. I heard about this lame brain idea on National Talk radio where Natick is again the laughing stock of the country. I love it here. I grew up here, built a home here, raised a third generation in Natick. Moreover, relevantly, I sponsor Mexican children so that they can attend a proper school, but I also value my property value. If you open the floodgates to chameleons, to occupy Natick, then our property values will drop in half. Much like Framingham has, they will be drawn here like bugs to a flame to get all the freebie entitlements that we hardworking Americans pay for with our taxes. They will flock here, consume our public assistance and school space, fill our hospital emergency rooms and then well there's all the crime that they will bring in. Oh, I don't know, sort of like the Iranian terrorists that the FBI just arrested harboring Iran NAIC a couple days ago. <v Speaker 1>You have one minute, sir.</v> <v Speaker 15>Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled in</v> ply versus Doe 1982 that children cannot be denied education based on their immigration status. So we will pay for them. After all, it's not the children's fault that their parents exported them here for personal gain. Also, do we really want to appear as though we are seceding from the United States by blatantly going against federal law and jurisdiction, Massachusetts, thanks to our esteemed governor and thus Natick is about to get all federal funding cut off due to our behavior. I know your minds are already set in concrete and in other tight places to, to do this and I'm sure you'll feel good to satisfy yourselves with the virtue signaling. So all I can say is don't, it's not correct to do and I'm only here to save, try to save Natick again from its itself. Thank <v Speaker 1>You Mr.</v> Heimer. I need to, I need to kind of wrap this up. We've been on this for an hour. We still have a full agenda. I see one hand on Zoom. Mr. Poli, you've already spoken. So all the hands that are up now are people who have not spoken to this. Take you first and let's, <v Speaker 16>We have three on Zoom now.</v> <v Speaker 1>I have three on Zoom.</v> <v Speaker 17>Hello, my name is Lisa Eck and I live at 19 Moore Street</v> and I attended last week's meeting on Zoom and I found it very informative and what I came away with, which is the, is just how practical this policy is. I understand that it's a just a reiteration of Massachusetts state law. I'm glad that's coming out tonight and that it comes from a point and it and the Supreme Court case, Massachusetts Supreme Court case it's based on, correct me if I'm wrong, was all about public safety, right? To what it means to live in a safe community where people don't fear the police and communication breaks down. So I just wanna appreciate that all of us live in Massachusetts. I sense I'm in a room of law abiding citizens. This is our law. What I appreciate about the board is reminding citizens that we have this law or this law that's also going to be a town I hope be a town policy and the reminders both for citizens and what the language I appreciate. And when folks who haven't read the policy, I hope you'll read it, or the draft I should say no town employee will play the role of an immigration officer and I'm I all week I was thinking that not enough attention is, has gone to what happens if that's not true, right? Using our imaginations, what are the possibilities? And tonight I heard exactly what I've been fearing racial profiling at every turn, every grandma who has an accent who comes to pay her excise tax, I just do not want to live in that town. If folks are not familiar with the effects of, of, of Sheriff Oyo in, in New Mexico, et cetera, this is really not the town i I wanna live in. So I I feel like this reminder is super important. And the the last thing I would say if we just widen our lens here is that I have a lot of trouble with the, the language of, of illegal aliens, right? Because actually international law allows for, we are signatories to the international right to asylum, which does which when your life is at risk, which all of the, my ASEE applicants I know were at incredible risk to their lives and their families is that you can cross a border and seek asylum. What's broken in our system is that ass are not getting hearings right. I'm so sorry. So I would just say <v Speaker 1>I do have to ask you to wind it</v> up. You have about 15 seconds. <v Speaker 17>I understand the last, so I would just implore people to</v> to, to criminals will be apprehended. That is not a risk in this policy. But genuine asylum seekers should not be persecuted nor I teach at a public state university here in in Massachusetts, my, the Dreamers, my DACA students who are the most amazing driven students who have no a they, they put themselves through school without access to Pell grants to any kind of loan. So I would just ask you to think about this category of, I just heard the word crimmon. I really think that we need to stick with the <v Speaker 1>Facts. Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 17>Yes. Last fact is that immigrants are less likely</v> to commit crimes than <v Speaker 1>Thank you citizens.</v> Isabella, online, if you could unmute and tell us your name and address. <v Speaker 18>Hi, my name is Isabella DePalo and I live at 22 Sena Lane.</v> I just wanted to say I believe many people are fundamentally misunderstanding this policy and I'm very sad. People have not fully read it. This isn't about funding anything. It's about privacy. Privacy for your status. I've worked across Massachusetts with students who are undocumented and documented or have a complicated situation. I know people believe there's no need because we should wait and see what the new administration will do, but I don't believe we need to wait to say we will uphold privacy. An example I can share is that say that there's an undocumented third grader. If someone were to go to Benham or Lilja or Brown and ask for that student's status and information and gets that shared to the federal government, the concern is that ICE will come and take the child away, bring them to a country they might not speak the language to anymore and might not even remember. I would also like to say the term illegal is misleading. Even the term undocumented can be because many people might have not have a visa or a green card, but ICE may be already aware that they have entered the country and have been processed and they're awaiting a court date. You never know what someone in, where someone is in the legal process. And I believe we should uphold that privacy. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Paolo. Mr. Joseph.</v> <v Speaker 5>Thank you Madam Chair again.</v> Paul Joseph 10 Carlson Circle. <v Speaker 1>I, I</v> <v Speaker 5>Haven't spoken or written to this,</v> but I was on the board when this process had started a few years back and appreciate the fact that at the time registered Republicans, registered Democrats and many registered unenrolled folks spoke up to it and I think brought the brought guidance to the group that came forward to go back and and find a policy that might be workable. That was an example of Nonpartisanship, which is with the predic sort of premise of our local government. One of my observations over the last few years in particular, and this speaks to a lot of people that have been in this community for a long time, I do have a great grandmother immigrant who's buried in Del Park. Shouldn't be relevant to this conversation. I have a 57-year-old brother who has the dominant Mediterranean genes that I did not get as an Albanian who has been arrested twice for taking photographs in New York City and New Jersey because he looked Muslim. That's the privileged white guys getting targeted. So I will say I don't have that fear with Natick police. We have a wonderful police department. We've had issues with certain players within that police department. And part of our inability to deal with things had to do with lack of clarity of policy, lack of clarity of norms. And we are still litigating something that came before us a few years ago. So policy matters, taking positions matter. And I think at that time I spoke about the fear that I had going into the election two years ago of a lack of civility and a lack of understanding of civics. What I've heard a lot about in this discussion about sanctuaries and words that are not in this policy. I gotta tell you, when you first posted this, and I've been watching for it because I knew it was coming, I was like, that's fine, that should be quick. It didn't, there's nothing about sanctuary in here with respect for folks that are afraid that this is telegraphing something that it shouldn't. I'd encourage you to look at line five, which is the only thing that basically sort of gives guidance as to what to do with town resources. It says right now no employee of the town shall perform the functions of an immigration officer, nor the town shall use town funds, resources, facilities, property equipment, or personnel to directly assist in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws. Respectfully, you can take another position on that same thing and say, and further, no town shall no town use of funds, resources, facilities shall obstruct the enforcement of federal laws. You're already saying it by having a very broad policy, which is good policy writing. But for the fearmongering to say this is sanctuary that unequivocally takes out any question of sanctuary status. When did we become sanctuary from our own government? When did this country stop getting angry with the federal legislative body that has failed us for 50 years on this policy? Why are we as volunteers and a municipality of 16,000 debating this? We should all be equally angry with the dysfunction of the Congress to take action on this both parties. I'm a staunch unenrolled person and I'm disgusted with the federal government. I got involved locally because we live in a community that prides itself on being neighbors, being welcoming. Generations of people that lived here that knew each other growing up, including my ethnic cult cousins that built a church here. And yet here we are tearing ourselves apart over some frivolous language used by people that only care about cliques and selling newspapers and having commercial and political gain at the expense of us being whipped into a frenzy to stop being neighborly. All I see in this policy is avoiding a condition in Natick where we say, let me see your papers. And if all that that does is gonna dissatisfy the people that came before us before that wanted more, it's a step. Have 30 seconds. I got you. And it's a step, we might not be there for the visionary people that truly want sec sanctuary protective status. We cannot do that as a town. Get angry. Write letters, run for freaking Congress. And for those of you that think this is creating something that it's not, it's not. I have yet to hear a word of criticism of this that shows me otherwise I cannot express how proud I am and how impressed I was by how you ran that meeting last week, what you were doing right now to lead this community. I saw at least a hundred comments singing your praise is Madam Chair last week. And I know the pressure this board has been under, been there, done that with the dam, which looks frivolous compared to this issue. Let's remember, we're a neighborly municipality. The federal government has its own problems and we own the federal government. So if you don't like it, bring the fight to the arena where it matters and protect our community. Thank <v Speaker 1>You, Mr. Joseph.</v> Ms. Opie, no, please let not have any clapping. <v Speaker 15>Hello, my name is Tina Opie.</v> I'm at two Lincoln Street Extension. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information, which is deliberately intended to mislead, intentionally misstating the facts. And I started off with that because I thought it is clear that many people have not read the policy. And so I thought I would read some of it if that is okay. This draft policy is not, does not offer to provide shelter, housing, legal assistance, or other services to immigrants documented or undocumented. This draft policy does not apply to school employees, which are subject to the jurisdiction of the school committee and Massachusetts general law. This draft policy does not interfere with the rights of free speech of employees or individuals. This draft policy does not apply to volunteers on committees and boards or elected officials. This draft policy does not interfere with Natick Police Department responding to judicial warrants for the arrest or detention of any person suspected of committing a crime. This draft policy does not conflict with Natick department policy. This draft policy does not ignore immigration and customs enforcement warrants or other judicial warrants for arrests of individuals for criminal behavior. This draft policy does not risk any federal funding that the town receives. This draft policy does not require that any town funds be spent or allocated for any particular purpose. And finally, this draft policy does not create a sanctuary town. I was not prepared to speak. I don't like to give my address out. I think that should be added in terms of how we can show maybe a utility bill or something to demonstrate that we're citizens of, of Natick or residents. But I am really concerned about the members of our community who are potentially going to be harassed. So if it bothers you to think of this as a welcoming initiative, think of it as an anti-harassment initiative, if that would be helpful. Think about the fact that there are some people, because of the way that they appear who are going to be suspected as not being legal citizens, those people are going to be subject to harassment. And you might think that it's not harassment because it comes from the police, but as someone who is from the mil, a military family who has lived all over the, I have seen this in many different countries, we do not want that in Natick. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you, Ms. Oi, online.</v> Andrea Prima, three minutes please. <v Speaker 19>I'm, I'm really nervous,</v> so I apologize if it's a little bit broken. What I'm gonna say right now, my name is Andrea Prema. I live at a Draper Street. I'm scared of giving my address, but I'm doing anyways because I think it's important. And I just wanna ask the select board to pass this policy and tell my neighbors that this policy does not change the law. That a policy is not a law, but it's important for many people. It's important for me personally, and many others in this town. Only a person that looks like an immigrant and sounds like an immigrant, know how many times we are asked where are we from and how we end up in the US from what my neighbors have been seeing, this is an easy answer. You came legally or illegally, the reality that this process is much more complex. Many people are waiting for the documents, have an application painting, and now our green card, Holters and naturalized citizens. And in the contrary, what people are saying, a naturalized citizen have been through several FBI background checks have been through medical exams, mandatory vaccinations, tested on civics knowledge and English ability. And many natural Americans don't go through half of this. I'm a hard worker person. I pay taxes and I do not commit crimes. I'm a homeowner, a business homeowner, and I have the same rights as all of my neighbors. Instead of thinking if you're attracting immigrants, think about the neighbors that you lose and the people you're giving assigned that they are not important because you will if you delay or vote no for this policy. That's the message. Think about your nanny, your landscape worker, your caretaker, the construction workers and business owners, and the residents like me, and what you believe is a real safe and thriving community. Thank you so much. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. Back in the room, you sir.</v> <v Speaker 20>Two meeting house lane. Just two quick questions.</v> <v Speaker 1>Can you lower the mic? Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 20>Further, two quick questions I won't tie up is,</v> where do you expect to get the money to educate the children that will be coming in here? You know, the state's not gonna do it, and that means taxpayers are gonna do it, I'm pretty sure. And the other question is, suppose somebody doesn't like your policy that's on the town, that works for the town and they do question somebody, are you gonna fire them? That's it. <v Speaker 1>They would be subject to discipline.</v> It, it, it, it, it based on their department, based on their work history. Just like if they had violated any other policy. So that's the answer to the second one. The answer to the first one is right now Massachusetts and actually the federal government does not require documentation to show that you're here legally. So we may have students who are here that are not, that do not have documentation already, and that we have no jurisdiction over the school budget. And I don't really have an answer for you there. So another hand in the back please. <v Speaker 21>Good evening. Good evening. My name is Anne Fagan.</v> I'm a resident of 57 North Avenue. I have been for 10 years. I'm gra very grateful to each of you, the board members for your dedication in crafting an appropriate and comprehensive draft policy on immigration documentation that aligns with current practices with Natick Police Department, formalizes current practices across town departments, and most importantly, honors one of our community's values cited by the board itself for do for 2024, the inherent dignity of everyone. It's evident that you've engaged in authentic inclusive process, which has addressed residents concerns and considered distinct perspectives, including town employees, residents, state and federal government. This policy protects, protects town of Natick employees while also ensuring the freedom and safety of all residents and visitors to engage with local government regardless of their immigration status. We must be vigilant that the decisions of our local government reflect our values and are not driven by fear, xenophobia, hate and intolerance. Your leadership is essential during these divisive times. I urge you to vote for in favor of this policy which will benefit our community. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you very much. At this point I'd like to ask those</v> who have not yet spoken, if they have anything to say that has not already been said. We've gone through about five hours of public comment in the back. Please if you could come forward, give us your name actually very <v Speaker 7>Quick too.</v> <v Speaker 1>And address.</v> <v Speaker 7>My name is Catherine Denning.</v> I live at six Stevens Circle. I had not planned to talk tonight and I can be very brief. I decided to come today and so I went online, I went to the agenda, I clicked on the agenda, I clicked on the link for this. I printed out and read the policy on immigration documentation. That took me about five minutes. I printed out and read the memo that you all put out on December 5th about your process. Also took me about five minutes and I printed out and read the fact sheet that was also linked to that agenda that has eight bullet points explaining what this draft policy is and eight bullet points explaining what this draft policy is not. I also took a little bit of extra time and read this refresher on the Supreme Kate course, Supreme ca case, court case, loon versus Commonwealth. All of this took me maybe half an hour. I think you've done an excellent job. Every person that I have heard speak in opposition to this policy has almost exclusively spoken about the eight bullet points of what this policy is not. I don't get my information from talk radio or from inflammatory social media sites. I got it from you. I think you've done your due diligence and I do urge you to approve the policy that you have drafted. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. The last</v> comment I'm gonna take is from, you have something that you want to say that has not been said in the five hours of discussion that we've had from the public. <v Speaker 22>I don't, I don't have all the five hours in</v> my brain, so I can't, <v Speaker 1>I'm gonna take Nira first on Zoom and then I'll take you</v> and then we are going to move into discussion and deliberation. Nira, are you still on? <v Speaker 23>I am. Thank you. Okay. And good evening.</v> I just wanted to read something briefly. Dear Select board members, I wanna thank you for your leadership overall and your thoughtful process regarding the draft policy on immigration and documentation. I've read the draft policy, the fact sheet, and the additional materials put forward. And I appreciate you Chief Hicks and others for addressing concerns raised by members of our community and also welcoming feedback. It's clear to me that the policy has a dual purpose of protecting both town employees and clarifying the procedures that they should be following, while also ensuring that residents and visitors Natick aren't afraid to engage with the town based on their immigration status. In addition, this policy appears to me to align with existing policy whereby town resources are not involved in enforcing federal immigration matters. I support the draft policy and urges adoption and I wanna thank you all again for the significant amount of time, composure and patience that you have all shown. And I am really proud to be a citizen and resident of Natick. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you very much, sir. You'll be the last speaker.</v> <v Speaker 24>My name is Adam Van Dale.</v> I live in three Woodcock Path and I've been a president for more than 10 years. My two oldest kids have gone through the native schools, my third one's going through now. And I found all the documentation that you provide incredibly clarifying and clear, and I thank you for it and I completely support this policy and hope that the board adopts it. I'll say that in all of our interactions in this town, I'm very proud to live in a town where we do treat each other as neighbors and community members. Where 20% of the town, according to the most recent census, is foreign born, including my wife. And I think that's a positive. And as my kids have gone through the schools and interacted in that context, that the fact that they treat each other as neighbors, as classmates, as friends, not as people who are mediated by the documentation that they're able to provide. So I urge you to support this policy. <v Speaker 1>Thank you very much. So,</v> contrary to some perception, this board has not deliberated or discussed the policy. The policy was put forward for discussion for editing. I've changed the title a couple of times trying to land on a title that was more accurate about what it is we are trying to do. Welcoming community. The reason that I changed it from welcoming community wasn't because I was dismissing that as a value that this town should signal and embrace, but because it only addressed one section of our community, in other words, it's a welcoming policy, but it was only talking about one group of people. It wasn't talking about, wasn't talking about the L-G-B-T-Q community, it wasn't talking about any other marginalized group. It was just focused on one. And that seemed to be all encompassing just by virtue of its name. So what I've done, and I will open it to the board for discussion, debate after reading the hundreds of emails that we've gotten, several phone calls, I have taken the policy, looked through it, and I'm going to make some suggested edits for us to discuss tonight. I'll have to share my screen so that everyone can follow. I should be able to, but I'm, I'm Zoom ignorant. Zoom, zoom. What kind of busy? Well, no, I'm just, I don't really know quite how, I guess I'm here. And then right here. Share? Yep. <v Speaker 25>And then go to whichever document you want.</v> <v Speaker 1>I think it's this one.</v> <v Speaker 25>And then just hit share.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay, there we go. Pop up there. Okay.</v> So after talking with counsel today and some other people about the policy, when the policy was first finalized, it's been in numerous different iterations over the last two and a half years when it was first written, some of these paragraphs were added to kind of explain the evolution of the policy. So sometimes you do that with policies, sometimes you don't. With ones that have extensive public involvement such as this with an accompanying memo, which we came out with, with some background, with other materials, it's not necessary for us to set forth the first paragraph. And so what I would suggest is that merely just restates state law in, in order to shoot for brevity, what I would do is take this out, lemme move this into lots of things on my screen. <v Speaker 26>Changes is in the middle,</v> right in the middle of your name. <v Speaker 1>I'm looking for it over. Right here.</v> Right here, right. Your left. <v Speaker 26>Left.</v> <v Speaker 1>There we go. Right there. Thank you, Richard.</v> Okay, so, but it doesn't red line. Oh, <v Speaker 27>So let's change this setting from simple</v> markup and show all markup. All <v Speaker 1>Markup.</v> Got it. Okay. So you can still see that it was there. I'm agnostic about paragraph two because no town policy, procedure or regulation will violate federal laws or the laws the commonwealth of Massachusetts, period. But I could live with it. Three, no employee of the town shall inquire about or collect any information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any individual unless federal laws or the laws of the commonwealth require them to do so. So for example, we're required to collect citizenship status if you wanna run for office, if you are applying for a job, we need to look at authorizations to work. So three, I think we need to keep in, no employee of the town shall detain a person. Well, no employee of the town can detain a person without violating the law. If somebody were to detain a person, that's a criminal act. So we don't really need to, we don't need to really necessarily spell that out for paragraph five. I personally think it's important to say that we're not going to be using resources to directly assist in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws because we're not authorized to do that. That, but I recognize that that is a, a, a section where people are getting hung up. And I'm happy with just the first sentence, no employee of the town shall perform the functions of an immigration officer because they don't have the jurisdiction to do that. And then paragraph six, which I think speaks to much of the concerns about whether or not the police are going to be able to arrest people who are criminals. Nothing in this policy shall prevent an officer, an employee, or a department of the town from lawfully discharging duties in compliance with and in response to a lawfully issued judicial warrant, judicial subpoena, or judicial detainer. I think that making those changes, this is something that I would, I, I could get behind and support and I'd like to hear from my colleagues on the board, their comments and thoughts. Mr. Evans? <v Speaker 13>Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I'd like</v> to add something just to the preamble and this, this I think makes it clearer to the public what this policy is. And I actually appropriated this from the Framingham ordinance. Where, <v Speaker 1>Where would you put it?</v> I'll just type it in. So <v Speaker 13>It says, in order to ensure the safety</v> of all community members, including residents and other stakeholders, and then it picks up and to ensure, so insert that sentence to ensure the safety of all community members, including residents and other stakeholders, and to ensure blah, blah, blah. I think what that does is it, it, it makes it clear that in say again, the <v Speaker 16>Time ensure, ensure the autonomy.</v> <v Speaker 13>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 1>Other comments? Ms. Pope?</v> <v Speaker 28>Thank you Madam Chair.</v> I am, I have questions about the first bullet and to me it provides some level of context from where this is stemming from in the state and how we are abiding by state and or federal, let me just say state law and it, it states, and I know we could change this, the limits on maintaining, exchanging, sending, or receiving information regarding citizenship and immigration status with any federal, state, or local government entity. And I just question and I'm, you know, wanna discuss this about the reason for keeping it or the reason for taking it out, but to me it provides some level of context. <v Speaker 1>Any other comments from the board? Yeah, Mr. Evans.</v> <v Speaker 13>Thank you Madam Chair. Just following up on Ms.</v> Pope's point, I think it's good to lay this out because it, it lays out the foundation of the police policy, which cites all, all of those references in including Commonwealth VL and it, it kind of, it dovetails with it and it, and one of the things that we've discussed in meetings is that the, the big biggest impact of this is on the police policy, 85 to 90%. So I think, you know, I could go either direction on that, but I think it's helpful to provide some context for the police policy. <v Speaker 26>Mr. Sidney,</v> <v Speaker 27>Thank you.</v> Actually agree with Mr. Evans here. I think, you know, aside from the police policy dovetailing in there, it also provides context to employees about why they are to follow this policy. What's, what's behind our telling our employees, this is our policy. I realize it doesn't specifically add anything substantive to the policy itself, but it is context and I think it's reasonable context. If I'm an employee and I'm saying what does this really mean to me and why am I doing it? There's the reason <v Speaker 26>Ms.</v> Slager, <v Speaker 29>I agree with Mr. Evans and Mr.</v> Sidney, and one of the things that's frustrated me in, in trying to look at some of the select board policies is that there's no background information about what the rationale is about why they were adopted. And I feel like that paragraph at least provides some additional context about what was behind our, our decision to consider this. <v Speaker 1>Okay,</v> <v Speaker 26>Thank you so</v> <v Speaker 1>Much.</v> Other comments on the other paragraphs that are stricken? <v Speaker 28>I would say outside of that I ag I can agree</v> to the changes you've made outside of that first bullet. <v Speaker 13>I like, pardon me, I like the elimination</v> of paragraph four because you rightfully pointed out that an employee of the town cannot detain a person based on immigration status. So that's, that's, that's not correct. Excuse me. Not a correct statement. So makes sense to take it up. <v Speaker 30>Madam</v> <v Speaker 1>Chair? Yes, Mr. Sidney,</v> <v Speaker 30>One of the speakers, the</v> <v Speaker 27>Floor Mr. Joseph suggested in paragraph, oh,</v> sorry, my mic, I'll start over. Mr. Joseph from the floor suggested adding to paragraph five essentially that no employee of the town shall obstruct the functions of federal government. I think that might be a good addition there to really clarify. We're not immigration officers, but we're not gonna get in the way of immigration officers <v Speaker 1>That's covered in paragraph six.</v> Nothing shall prevent an officer, an employee, or a department from lawfully discharging duties in compliance with or in response to a lawfully issued warrant, subpoena or detainer. <v Speaker 13>Yeah, I agree.</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Evans,</v> <v Speaker 13>One of the bits of feedback</v> that we've gotten from people who've looked closely at this is combining paragraphs five and six so that after you end with the functions of an immigration officer, just continue with nothing in this policy shall prevent, et cetera. <v Speaker 1>So the reason I would not agree to that is</v> because there's a change in tone between five and six. Okay. So five instruct employees not to perform functions of an immigration officer, period. But I'd like to emphasize and have it stand on its own that nothing shall prevent us from working with lawfully issued. I think that needs to be separate and distinct in its stand on its own. <v Speaker 13>Yeah, that's fair. Okay, thanks</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Erickson.</v> <v Speaker 14>If I may, just going back to the point of number one,</v> if there's a consideration given that number one is really as with any policy at a moment in time, and we don't know if tomorrow there's gonna be another court case or a federal law change or a state law change, perhaps that could become less a po bullet point and more, I don't wanna say a footnote, but something whereby it acknowledges that as of the date of this policy or as of the date of the adoption of this policy, these are the, the current laws by which we're, we're obligated to follow. At least then it provides this policy some ability to have staying power, for lack of a better term. Should there be federal or state law that changes? Yeah, next month, next year, 10 years from now. And this policy is still in the books. <v Speaker 27>Yeah. And, and I think that Mr.</v> Erickson's point about not making it a numbered item is reasonable. It's part of the preamble in, in some sense. <v Speaker 28>I have a question to that. Would, would we be expected,</v> however, to come back and change this if that law were to change? I would presume that if this law changes, we would be expected to come back and revise this policy to be current <v Speaker 14>In practice.</v> I I think at any time a law changes the a board, any board should be reviewing their policies. And in actuality that doesn't always happen. And it really depends on what the change is. If, if, for example, there could be a Commonwealth court case that just adjust an interpretation under the law, perhaps that doesn't impact the policy per se, but it's additive to the policy. And the policy does state that we're obligated to follow federal and state law. It's just as of the time of the policy, these are the federal and state laws that are on the books that we're obligated to follow. So yes, perhaps there's some changes that would need to happen to a policy, but I would say that it really depends on what the changes are at the federal or state level or the court case level. <v Speaker 29>Okay, thank you</v> <v Speaker 13>Linda.</v> <v Speaker 1>Ms. Wilger?</v> <v Speaker 29>I agree with what the chair has just done</v> by putting it as a footnote, I think it shouldn't be one of the bullet points. I think it's really background information. And if we had, as part of our policies, if we had a way to really clearly identify what, like I said, what the processes and, and what the background was that was behind the policies, I would be fine with that. But since we don't normally do that, I think this is a proper way to do it and not put it as part of the highlight of bullet points. <v Speaker 1>Comments from the board.</v> <v Speaker 13>I'm good with this policy.</v> Yeah. Ms. Evans, I'm gonna agree with Mr. Erickson's suggestion and Ms. Paul sch slugger's agreement with that. So I think it's, you know, we don't know right now what's gonna happen with immigration law. We think we know it's all speculation, right? We don't know whether there are going to be court cases challenging some of this. This is all up in the air, right? And we need to retain the flexibility that we need as a board. One of the things we've said in, in prior meetings is the reason the board, one of the reasons having the board set the policy is the ability to change that policy as in when needed, right? So if the immigration law changes state or federal, we can make adjustments, right? The police policy can be adjusted. That's why you have policies written down. People know what they say. If, if something changes, you then can make the changes as required. And that's the most nimble way. One of the things that we've heard was why don't we have the town do a a vote on this? And we've said, that's the problem with that, right? If you have a vote on this, it would take several ballot cycles to get something changed. And if we, they can make a reasonable assumption that it may change, right? Having it having to put it off for a year plus is not a good plan. I think we're better served having this policy and being able to review it as and when necessary. Mr. Sydney? <v Speaker 27>Thank you Madam Chair. I'm pretty good with this policy</v> as it, as it's been amended. I think, you know, from, from my perspective, I think we need some kind of policy. Just, you know, a very broad one. One of the points that was made through email is that we're, our job is to make broad policies. This is a broad policy. It's designed to give direction to town departments, department heads, et cetera, as to how they broadly do their job. It's up to the town administrator, police chief, fire chief, et cetera, to make the policies for their own various departments within this, this protects. And finally, I think one of the most important things about having a policy like this is that it protects both the employees of the town and the town from a variety of potential liability. Nothing here directs resources, but if a, if the town violates the law and asks somebody about their immigration status, which they're not allowed to do under state law, the town can get sued. We don't want that with a policy like this. If a town employee does the same thing, it's the fault of the employee, not the town. They didn't pay attention to the policy. This protects the town. It also gives employees who do follow the policy cover in case somebody thinks they've done the wrong thing. I, I really think that that's the reason we need some kind of policy. It needs to be broad. I think this is a broad policy, a good broad policy, and it gives the appropriate cover and reasoning for what it does. Nothing here is sanctuary. Nothing here says immigrants come to us. It does say you can talk to us, you don't have to, you, you don't have to tell us your immigration status and you can talk to us, you can pay your taxes, you can borrow a book from the library, you can pay a library, fine. Whatever it is you're gonna do, whether you're doc documented or not. And I think that that's an important thing to say. There are criminals everywhere. I want to be clear, the person on Woodland Street that was arrested was a citizen legally in this country committing a crime. They got arrested, so, and they should have been arrested. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Sidney. I'll honor attend a</v> motion. Mr. Evans. <v Speaker 13>Madam Chair, before I make a motion, I'd just like</v> to say something very short and sweet <v Speaker 1>Short.</v> <v Speaker 13>I'd like, do I have three minutes? No, I'm just kidding.</v> I'd, I'd like to thank the chair for her grace under pressure she's endured withering personal attacks, not to mention vandalism on her car. Doubt that anyone in this room could have endured such an onslaught without lashing out yet she did not. She continued to respond to all emails respectfully. Even the people who disagreed with the policy would agree that they were heard and not dismissed. I'm proud to serve on this board with her. And with that I make a motion to approve the policy as amended on screen. <v Speaker 1>Does I have a motion and a second?</v> Does anyone wanna read through of the amended policy? Yeah, I think it's good for the room. Okay. Mr. Clerk, could you read through the amended policy? Can you see it? Okay? Certainly. Okay. <v Speaker 27>Policy and immigration documentation in order</v> to ensure the safety of all community, don't scroll please. In order to ensure the safety of all community members, including residents and stakeholders of the town of Natick, we wanna say stakeholders of the, that the town of Natick, stakeholders of the town of Natick, and that the town of Natick complies. <v Speaker 1>Okay. In order to ensure the safety</v> of all community members, including including residents, residents and <v Speaker 27>Stakeholders of the town of Natick.</v> <v Speaker 1>I'll just,</v> <v Speaker 27>Vincent,</v> <v Speaker 1>Stakeholders</v> <v Speaker 27>The town of the town of Natick complies</v> with federal and state. <v Speaker 1>Start again please.</v> <v Speaker 27>Okay.</v> In order to ensure the safety of all community members, including Natick, residents and stakeholders, town of the, the town of Natick complies with the Fed, with federal and state laws regarding immigration to select board, the board of the town of Natick town pursuant to its authority as the executive body of the town hereby adopts the following policy footnote number one, I'll read that later. No town policy, procedure or regulation shall violate federal laws or the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. No employee of the town shall inquire about or collect any information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any individual. Unless federal laws or the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts require municipal employees to do so, no employee of the town shall perform the functions of an immigration officer. Nothing in this policy shall prevent an officer, employee or department of the town from lawfully discharging duties in compliance with and in response to a lawfully issued judicial warrant, judicial subpoena, or judicial detain detainer. And the footnote reads as of the date of this policy's adoption, eight USC section 1373 and section 1644 and Commonwealth v LN 4 77, mass five 17 in 2017. And state and federal law prohibits town officials from imposing limits on maintaining, exchanging, sending, or receiving information regarding citizenship and immigration status with any federal, state, or local government entity. <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Evans, seconded by Mr. Sidney.</v> <v Speaker 27>And if I may just make one comment brief, I want to ditto</v> the comments of Mr. Evans. Thank you. There's been a lot of pressure on all of us. One of the things I've noticed is that it's actually got gotten in some ways in between us as individuals and I regret that and <v Speaker 1>I dito that Mr. Sidney</v> <v Speaker 27>And I hope that we all can</v> continue to operate with grace with each other. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Sidney.</v> That was important and I appreciate those words. Bruce, do you wanna say something again? Yeah, <v Speaker 13>Sorry.</v> That that that, that was just a, <v Speaker 1>Again,</v> <v Speaker 13>A kudos too.</v> She, she's suffered us too. Just wanted to say that the dialogue for the most part has been healthy and productive and led to a well constructed policy that covers all the residents and spells out the policy for Natick Police Department. It's also made town employees understand the intent of the policy and that will be propagated through the administration. We all acknowledge we have a broken immigration that needs to be fixed by the federal government. And that's not a problem the select board can or should try to solve. Our congress needs has been kicking that can down the road for years and decades even. So no matter what your political views are, this situation is unsustainable. We all love this town, but we have different opinions on this. The policy is just a guide. It's on each of us to do the work to ensure that Natick continues to be the community that we love. We all live here, we're all here in this room because we love Natick, right? It's not that we have hatred for each other, we all love our neighbors, we all work with our neighbors in the community. So I think that's the challenge for us moving forward is recognizing that we're all neighbors looking out for each other. And let's move on. <v Speaker 1>Ms. Wolfer,</v> <v Speaker 29>Just briefly ditto to the comments</v> of my colleague here, but I wanna say I am really thrilled to have so many of you involved with this town on both sides of this issue. I'm new but I haven't seen this kind of engagement before. And I hope you will all continue to be involved because all of you have a voice in what happens in this community. And the more participation we get, the more that we can hear from you. It makes us be a better board and, and criticism is welcome because we're five individuals, we can't possibly have a sense of the pulse of the whole community and that's where you come in. So please don't let this be the last opportunity for you to engage with us. I hope you'll continue. <v Speaker 1>So before we take our vote,</v> I do also wanna thank everyone. I wanna thank the board that has worked assiduously through all of the letters, some of which were less than measured, some of which had personal attacks, some of which in one case wished our death. But I do wanna thank you all for showing up and for writing letters and for and for participating. There are many openings on boards and committees, although after seeing all of this, you may not be eager to en to engage in in public life. But I am very thankful for the board, for all of the work we've gotten done this year. We've had 44 meetings, we've promulgated a number of policies, we've done some really important work that's terribly mundane. And if we're doing our job right, you don't even notice it if we're doing our job right, you get up every day and everything in Natick is smooth and done well. So thank you to the board, thank you for all for coming out and now I'll take a vote. All in favor of the policy as read into the record please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Let's take a 5 0 0. Let's take a five minute recess so the room can empty and we will go on to the charter and bylaw review committee. Special act. Thank you. Bring this meeting back to order. It's 8 0 3, the select board will now move on to item C, charter and bylaw review committee special act. I believe we have town council on Zoom. <v Speaker 16>You aware?</v> Still aware. <v Speaker 31>I'm unmuted Madam Chair</v> but I'm not allowed to put my video on for some reason it's giving me a message that says I Oh wait, there we go. There now it is. Thank you. Good evening. <v Speaker 1>Good evening Ms. North.</v> <v Speaker 31>So you all received</v> yesterday evening the packet of proposed final special act to be submitted to the legislature with a draft cover letter and also the vote certifications for the Warren articles from the three town meetings. Just to walk you briefly through the process at the conclusion of the the fall town meeting, and we've been working on this actually since before the SPRINGTOWN meeting minutes, were prepared for the the charter elements of the the Special Act and were all, and because they were done in, in an order that made sense for the votes, but not necessarily in order of following the charter section by section article by article. Once all the minutes were done and prepared and proofed the town clerk with also Mr. Greer and Attorney Duress put all of those minutes and the actual votes that were taken to amend the charter provisions into order in the same order as our charter currently exists so that the special act when and hopefully is passed by the legislature will be able to just move the sections that are changed into the charter in a very simple, simple process. And so that the, the Special Act reads and flows as arc charter does. So what you have in your packet is the proposed petition for a special act charter special act for charter changes to the Natick home rule charter as well as by each town meeting. So the fall 2023 annual town meeting, all a vote search for all of the votes that were taken regarding the charter at that town meeting vote certifications for the articles that were taken regarding the charter in 2024, special town meeting number one and then vote search that were taken for the charter articles in the 2024 fall annual town meeting. That all went into the petition, which is the, the preamble and then the sections of the special act, which again mimic the sections of our charter. And then I've put together the cover letter which lays out the process. In terms of next steps, this would, after your vote to approve the vote certifications will need to be signed by the town clerk and the special assistant to the town clerk. So Mr. Gobrial and Ms. Packer who worked on these together. And then once the those are signed, the petition can be submitted to Representative Lisky to submit to the legislature. The deadline for filing for the 2025 section session is January 13th, 2025. We'll work with rep's office to get them a word version of the files so that converting it into their font and process and paper is, is simpler and then it will be in the legislature's hands. They will likely assign it to a committee. And I'm hopeful that this will get taken care of before the end of next this coming or the end of the fiscal year. So June 30th, 2025, when the special act is passed and approved by the legislature, assuming that it is, it still needs to go to a ballot in the town of Natick. That can be any election, it can be a special election, a local election or a state election. So there just needs to be a certain amount of lead in time. So once we know that the, the Special Act has been approved, we can take the next steps to figure out when it's going to get voted on after the vote. If it is approved in the vote, it becomes effective immediately and I'm happy to answer any questions. <v Speaker 1>Members of the board. Mr. Sidney?</v> <v Speaker 27>Yeah, I'm not sure who can answer this</v> but, and I, my memory is vague so I am almost aer almost certainly incorrect here, but I thought if I, we look at the part that's charter section three two B, the last sentence I had thought that part of the motion that we voted at town meeting and I am a town meeting member as well as a member of the board, was to eliminate that sentence from that area. And I'm, like I said, I'm probably confused but I wanted to see if anybody else has a memory about that. <v Speaker 31>This was all reviewed by Ms.</v> Packer, Mr. Greer, attorney Duris and then I reviewed everything that they did line by line vote by vote. So I'm fairly confident that what is in the petition is the accurate representation of what was voted at town meeting and it is consistent with the meeting minutes, we have meeting minutes, we have vote certifications and then we have the final product and it's consistent with all of them. <v Speaker 27>Okay, well as I said I was probably incorrect</v> but I had a different memory but thank you. <v Speaker 1>Are there any other questions from members of the board?</v> So Ms. North am am I correct in understanding at this point we just need a vote from the board to authorize me to sign the letter <v Speaker 31>And file the package with representative Lindsay Correct.</v> <v Speaker 1>And file the package with both, both parties.</v> <v Speaker 27>Is that just one motion?</v> <v Speaker 31>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 27>So moved. Second.</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Evans, seconded by Mr. Sidney.</v> All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Mr. Sidney? <v Speaker 27>Aye I'm making notes. So</v> <v Speaker 1>Any opposed?</v> So it passes 5 0 0. So the next steps will be that the letter will be finalized with the date. I'll fix my signature to it and Ms. North you will work with Mr. With representative Lansky's office in putting these in the form that he needs in order to submit to the legislature. <v Speaker 31>Correct. And we'll also need to just coordinate</v> with Ms. Packer and Mr. Gobrial to have the vote certifications signed. They have copies, we'll just need to get a package of original signatures together, but I'll work with them on that as well. <v Speaker 1>And I assume that my</v> signature needs to be original as well. <v Speaker 31>I would like it to be an original.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay, no problem. Are there any questions</v> or comments from the public? Okay, let's move on to the next item. <v Speaker 31>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you Ms. Norris. Thanks public here.</v> Water and sewer abatement appeal Is Mr. Z here? Ms, that's Ms. Ju, I apologize. Did I say that right? <v Speaker 2>By the way, it should be spelled</v> <v Speaker 1>H-O-N-G-H-O-N-G.</v> I apologize for that. And did I say your name correctly? Yes. Okay. If you could come to the podium and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about why the abatement is needed. Okay, <v Speaker 32>Good evening.</v> My name is Hong Chu from eight Virginia Road. So basically I got this water bill dated November 1st and then the amount was $7,000 something over $7,000 and that was the amount that I never seen before and I just Called the town of water department on Monday, the next Monday on November 4th. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, when this bill was generated from what period to what time, what period? Unfortunately the water department said that they have this monitoring system called 365, but they haven't reached it Virginia Road to be able to monitor on a daily basis yet. So they don't know like from what day to what day. So by the time the bill was generated it was already too late. So $7,000 out there. So then I was trying to figure out what could have happened was that, so there was a gap from July 22nd, 28 to August 22nd and the house was vacant during that 25 days. And when we got into, my tenant got in on 22nd of August, so they heard this little like leak, a leakage sound from the toilet, one of the toilets downstairs. And so he lifted and push it, you know, dropped and then that was it, the sound was gone. So I was like that could be the cause of this bill but still, you know, I was just wondering, you know, I had this leaking toilet leaking problem before and, and it's just this $7,000 bill still just, you know, didn't make sense to me. So I guess the reason why I applied for the abatement is because when I talked to Judy at the water department, she's apologized that the system hasn't reached eight Virginia Road, you know, couldn't monitor on the daily basis. So she suggested apply for this abatement. So during the, on the application I was very upfront with what my assumption was, you know, could be the leaking of this toilet, but I was hoping they could do a little bit more digging, you know, I was just wondering. So the usage from the bill is 200 241, so if you convert to the gallon it is like 108,000 something gallon of water. So I was just wondering if it's possible for any human error, like if either they enter by adding another decimal point or any human error or the meter may be malfunctional malfunctioning at the time. And my tenant actually works for Eversource, so he used to work in also in the water department of Framingham and so he should, he knows right away how to check if there's any leaking or you know, he was also anxious to find out because, you know, and I said, well, you know, I'll try my best to find out, but when he checked the, the, the water meter and he turned it on and then that thing is turning and then he turn the water off, the thing stopped right away. So he said there was no leaking. So then we just wondering what could have happened. You know, I know that I could be, I'm paying the bill but it's like 7,000, it just doesn't cut it to me. I just don't, I just want, I, I need help, you know, from, you know, your people the, from the tongue just to help me figure out, you know, I, I am not trying to avoid the responsibility but still the 7,000, it was like, you know, 108,000 gallon of water, it was even more than what a restaurant consume for that period of time, like a sit restaurant. So I just, you know, that's why, you know, I feel like I want to appeal. I think that if you were in my shoes in position you probably would also appeal because this $7,000 doesn't make sense and then also the tongue doesn't have the proper tool for me to monitor. So going forward, I actually still don't know whether all of a sudden one day I'm going to get the $7,000 bill again. So I have owned this property for almost 20 years and this is the first time I had this thousand, $7,000 bill. I, I pay a property tax every year I pay water and always on time. Never happened before. So that's why I'm here today and I really want to thank you for your time because today I didn't expect this kind of, you know, heated discussion and you know, all these people thank God that you know they left. <v Speaker 1>Yes. So, but</v> <v Speaker 32>I really, I really appreciate</v> because I, you know, I always appreciate the work from the public service and I actually also appreciate I have a tenant from Eversource and I actually ask him to come today and see if he, he's working. So I guess, I think that's all I want to say. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Ms. Yu. Yeah, the first,</v> my first question is since I live across Hartford from Virginia Avenue, Virginia Road and I have access to Water 360, why would it not work and how many residents are not covered by it at this time? <v Speaker 14>I have to confirm that with the water department, I know</v> that they have been rolling out the updated meter technology and the reed technology. I don't believe it's across the entirety of the town. So I can't speak for if this road, but we can certainly get that for the the resident and for the board's knowledge as well. I just would have to confirm that rollout program with the water and sewer department. I know, I know it was a multi-year rollout just because of the volume. Right. There's a lot of rate payers John Marshall is on as well. If you have questions. I'm not sure if John you have anything to add for that particular question? <v Speaker 33>You're correct Mr. Erickson it is a rollout.</v> I think one of the challenge depends on the meter that residents might have. So an older meter can't necessarily handle the daily communication so as the meters are replaced that technology will be updated as well. So, <v Speaker 1>And I'm sure Mr.</v> Sidney first, <v Speaker 27>Ms.</v> Hong, I was wondering, you had said you'd had your friend from Eversource look, have you actually, based on the description you provided somebody played with the flapper in the toilet. Have you had had actually had a plumber out to double check that there's any more, whether there's any more repairs that are necessary and and I would say a licensed plumber rather than <v Speaker 32>A handyman.</v> Yeah, so yeah, so basically I check with the water department so the water is back to the normal level and then I check with the tenant and I said, well you know, after you heard the leaking, did you actually, you know, make an effort to fix it? So he said, you know, one of the things were kind of rustic, so he bought a new one from Walmart and he sent me the receipt. So he got this new part on August the 26th. So they moved in on August the 22nd and then this part cost $3 and 84 cents. So after that the, you know, and, and also the other question also ling me is bec I read this 360 consumption report, I signed up for it even though it's for the monthly, but I still want to know, I also set up the alert, you know, on the daily basis if it's a over a certain amount, I will get an alert and then on this consumption report it has this. Yeah, so this is, this is like, as you can see all this big curve and then in August it has this big jump, but in September also has a huge consumption. But then in September they already move in and then he bought this part to fix the problem on August 26th, you know, how was it possible that in September the consumption is also very high? <v Speaker 27>You said you said on August 26th.</v> Yeah, I imagine, and Mr. Marshall I'm sure will be able to clarify, I imagine that these readings are in arrears, which means that if it was repaired on August 26th, the never bill is mostly for August. Okay. That, that would be my imagination. Okay. And you say they've confirmed that it's back to normal? <v Speaker 32>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 27>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 32>Yes. And, and I, I also, I see now every day I'm kind</v> of paranoid, but unfortunately I don't have this daily monitoring tool yet. So, but I still, you know, I'm, I'm, I have done so much work on this water bill. I never did it before, like, you know, trying to understand this. <v Speaker 27>Well I, I just wanted to make sure it was actually,</v> I wanted to make sure there was actually a repair made that, that would've covered the reason for the leak as opposed to just like playing with the flapper and, and then it would come back again and be a problem again. So <v Speaker 32>Yeah.</v> So just the flapper, my understand that was for now, <v Speaker 27>But it was replaced not just twiddled with</v> <v Speaker 32>Right.</v> Okay. It was not, you know, so because now actually the tenant is checking, so he's checking now great every day to make sure that thing stop when the water is off. So we are all on it. Great. So I just hope that the select board can consider this, you know, seriously, like just as a one time request for adjustment, you know, that's all. Well <v Speaker 27>That was, that was really the reason for my asking</v> because if there was no repair done Yeah. And this was likely to happen again, then I'd be much more concerned. But you know, I'm, I'm now convinced that you've actually done something to take care of the prob the underlying problem. Yeah. <v Speaker 32>So</v> <v Speaker 27>That, that that's what, that was my concern. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 32>Yeah, the part that he bought, it looks like, you know,</v> so I talked to Judy and I also read this 360, so October reading is fine, back to normal again. November reading is good. December reading is good, so, <v Speaker 27>Okay.</v> Thank you. And Mr. Marshall, can you confirm what I said about the reading being in Arre arrears? Was I correct there? <v Speaker 33>Yeah, without having what's in front of the resident.</v> You're billed quarterly and it's usually a month behind. So when you get your quarterly bill it is in the rears. <v Speaker 14>1 1, 1 thing to note</v> after having dealt with abatements like, like this through for many years is, I mean depending on the toilet leakage, these numbers aren't abnormal. I mean it is high, but I would say it's not totally out of line with a potential for something like this. But it's so much to, it can leak a lot of water. They can, some can be small drips, some can be huge bigger. <v Speaker 32>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Evans, did you have a comment?</v> <v Speaker 13>Yeah, just was wanting to talk about</v> the change in our policy, which is whenever we're in situations like this, Mr. Marshall is good enough to calculate a proposed abatement amount. And what, what typically happens is he goes back three years on your average bill over that period. And then any overage that is, that is done there is we have a tiered water rate structure. So the more you go over, the more exponential it grows. And that's why you end up with a 7,000, excuse me, $7,000 bill. Now, as Mr. Sidney said, you obviously have taken steps to do it. So what we typically do is any overage, we bill at the lowest possible tier rate, which is probably what you are paying normally in your normal usage. So if people are ready to go with a proposed abatement per Mr. Or Mr. Marshall, I'd be willing to offer, <v Speaker 1>I'm ready.</v> <v Speaker 13>Okay. I would move</v> and rich, you, you may have to correct me again 'cause my math gets dyslexic at this time of night, I believe the abatement amount is $4,464 and 57 cents. That's <v Speaker 27>What I see.</v> <v Speaker 13>And that is the amount</v> of the abatement that we'll be able to provide against the charge for the billing period, which was 6 8 8 5 95. <v Speaker 27>I'll second that.</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Evans, seconded by Mr.</v> Sidney. Questions? Ms. <v Speaker 29>Bolger, just to clarify for MS shoes benefit,</v> this is an excess of 226 units over your typical usage over the prior three quarters. And we're billing that at the very lowest tier. So, and that's where the abatement amount comes in? Is it we're saying like, okay, what what would it have been at the very lowest tier and what was the excess? <v Speaker 27>Yeah, we, we, you still have to pay for the water</v> that leaked but you don't have to pay at the highest tier. You pay it, we're proposing you pay at the lowest tier. <v Speaker 32>So it was like two still 241 usage.</v> <v Speaker 27>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 32>Okay. So then there would be,</v> <v Speaker 13>So</v> <v Speaker 27>We would give you back four,</v> <v Speaker 32>That would be two 50.</v> <v Speaker 27>We would give you back $4,464 and 57 cents.</v> <v Speaker 1>That's how much they're proposing to reduce your bill.</v> Buy 4,000. <v Speaker 32>Can you say that again? Four</v> <v Speaker 27>$4,464 and 57 cents.</v> That's what we would reduce your bill by. Okay. <v Speaker 32>Okay. Okay. That I would really appreciate it.</v> I mean I think that, yeah, so reduced by, so now 7,000 minus this, right? <v Speaker 14>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 32>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>Nevermind.</v> <v Speaker 32>So</v> <v Speaker 1>Go ahead.</v> <v Speaker 32>Do I</v> <v Speaker 28>Am I am, I understand she still needs to pay</v> the bill and that's what she's gonna get back or she needs to pay, she can pay the bill less that amount. <v Speaker 14>So we always recommend people</v> to pay the bill no matter what. Got it. To avoid late fees. Yes. What would happen pending the board vote is typically this goes as a credit onto the person's account. I think in a few circumstances, John, correct me if I'm wrong, we've done checks but we've tried it's a lot. Who to avoid it for us to do a credit onto somebody's account. Okay. Because it's an abatement. It's not bill forgiveness per se. So, and I believe that the person indicated that you did pay the bill? No, no I didn't. You have not paid it yet. Okay. <v Speaker 32>It's actually due, actually I</v> give you guys like almost a month because I appeal, I mean I applied for the abatement on November 4th. Okay. And the whole November, you can't imagine how I live with this bill every day. So then I was like, okay, well Thanksgiving you guys should enjoy. So right after Thanksgiving, I follow up with the town, is there any decision yet? And then two days later this, they rejected it. They said, well, but you can appeal. So that's why I'm here. Yeah. <v Speaker 14>Our policy for things like this,</v> the discretion really lies with the board, not with town administration. And the first round comes through town administration. I mean in this case and we can certainly work, we being the town staff and town administrator's office and and collector treasurer's office will work with you tomorrow, later this week to appropriately, appropriately apply this abatement pending the board's vote you haven't voted yet on, and then work with you on payment. Okay? <v Speaker 32>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 14>It, it may just go as a credit onto your bill,</v> which means you might only be paying this the lesser amount, about $2,100 or $2,400. Sorry. <v Speaker 32>Yeah. So I will wait for the new bill then.</v> <v Speaker 14>No, no. I would come in and talk</v> to the office tomorrow or later this week. Okay. Okay. Mr. Marshall and I work right here. Okay. You can go in the, the door on the side and come in tomorrow or the next day or just call. You can even call in and we can work with you through the phone. Okay. John, anything to add to that? <v Speaker 33>Donna typically follows up the,</v> in the morning following the board's vote. So we will likely reach out to you tomorrow, but you can feel free to call into the office. <v Speaker 32>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>And the office closes at 1230 on Fridays. Okay.</v> Just so that you know, so we have a motion on the table and a second I'd like to call for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0 0. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Thank you. For what? Doing what you're doing. You're welcome. Thank you. We have a public hearing now. If Eversource hung on till eight 30, somebody could check. <v Speaker 33>Yes, they're on the line.</v> Madam Chair, there're the phone number on there. Ending in <v Speaker 14>5 6 4 5 0 8.</v> Yeah. Thank you. They're already unmuted. <v Speaker 1>Mr. Clerk, if you could read the</v> notice of the public hearing. <v Speaker 27>Thank you very much. Madam Chair.</v> Select board public hearing notice in conformity with the requirements of section 22, chapter 1 66 of the general laws. You're hereby notified that a public hearing will be held at Natick Town Hall 13 East Central Street, Natick, mass, as well as remotely on December 18th, 2024 at 6:30 PM Upon the petition of Eversource Energy to install approximately 80 plus or minus feet of conduit and one manhole, cover number 32 544. This work is necessary to provide electric service to a new residential development. Anyone wishing to be heard in this matter may participate in person or through Zoom. Login instructions for Zoom will be published on the December 18th, 2024 select board Agenda plans are on file in town clerk's office for your review. <v Speaker 1>Okay, so we have a motion</v> to open the public hearing. Do I have a second? Second. <v Speaker 27>Oh yes. So moved. Sorry.</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Mr. Evans.</v> It's time in there. And I'll turn it over to Eversource. We vote. Oh yes, we have to vote. Opening the public hearing all <v Speaker 27>It doesn't need to be a roll</v> <v Speaker 1>Call.</v> All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No public hearing is open. <v Speaker 34>Aye. This is Christine Cosby from Eversource</v> and we are requesting a grant of location for approximately 80 feet of conduit and a manhole cover at Bayberry Road and Magnolia Road. And the purpose of this would be to provide new underground Sur electric service to a three lot I knew three lot residential subdivision. <v Speaker 1>Are there any questions or</v> comments for members of the board? Ms. Slager, just <v Speaker 29>A quick question.</v> Are these accepted roads <v Speaker 14>Given</v> <v Speaker 29>Their location?</v> Yes. Oh, I wasn't sure. <v Speaker 34>I'm sorry.</v> <v Speaker 14>I believe Bayberry is Magnolia.</v> I'm not totally sure is yet because the con the project is still under construction. <v Speaker 1>Are there any other questions from members of the board?</v> <v Speaker 29>I mean, does that make any difference if they aren't</v> town own roads? I mean, do we have to do anything with the neighbors if they're not, that's why I asked. <v Speaker 14>Well, I believe for Bayberry, I believe the answer is yes.</v> The board would still need to grant the location for that Magnolia is under construction by the developer. They would, in a future time come back to town meeting basically for the acceptance of that road in all the easements, including something like this. In that, in that case, for that road, just like we would do for any other subdivision project that would've to come back in front of ultimately this board and then town meeting. <v Speaker 27>Madam Chair, I have a motion.</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Sydney?</v> <v Speaker 27>Yeah.</v> I move approval of the grant of location with the conditions as specified in the letter from Mr. Omo, our assistant town engineer, which include no excavation until the no dig moratorium has been lifted and that the engineering division is on site to review where the digging has happened because of other utilities in the in town. Utilities in the roadway. <v Speaker 1>Motion. Mr. Sidney to approve the grant of location</v> with the conditions specified in the letter. Second. Second by Ms. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0 0. And then we're on to the discussion. Move <v Speaker 27>To close the public hearing.</v> <v Speaker 1>Move to close the public hearing. Second.</v> Second by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Public hearing is closed. Let's move on to the discussion of the alcohol policy. What I would like, what I would like to do is to point out the changes that were made. Those are in your red line version between the last time we met and input from town council and input from our deputy chief with regard to in section 1.6, the manager of record has a, like a, a sentence added, also see section 2.5, which goes into the duties and responsibilities more, more thoroughly. And then if you skip over to section 2.5, the town council was fine with <v Speaker 27>The, you mean two point 11?</v> <v Speaker 1>Nope. 2.5.</v> <v Speaker 27>Still in 2.5. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yep. That, that's all new and has been rewritten.</v> So it focuses all of the responsibility on the manager of record and appointed manager, or his or her designees expected to be on site at all times and remains responsible. It says no absentee managers are allowed and then it references 7.2, which goes into more about management and control. So essentially a manager of record has three spots where he or she is, is to be held responsible and the duties are, are spelled out pretty thoroughly. <v Speaker 29>So just to be clear, on the red line, the only thing</v> that has changed is the stuff that's underlined, correct? <v Speaker 1>No, I was having trouble with the red line.</v> So that whole paragraph has highlighted, <v Speaker 29>That whole paragraph has changed.</v> 'cause that was Okay. <v Speaker 1>So if it's redlined or if it's highlighted, it's new.</v> <v Speaker 29>Alright.</v> <v Speaker 1>And, and,</v> and for most of that it, it was rewording what was there because we had manager of record repeated a couple of times and it was awkward. The underlying sentence is, was added by counsel and it looks like there is a typo where there's an extra space between a comma and the end of the word rules. I just made that note. <v Speaker 14>If I may also ask in that same paragraph,</v> remove the gender specific, his, her designee and just put their <v Speaker 1>Designee.</v> Yep. I thought I caught all those, but Yep. <v Speaker 14>Also in the first, whether he</v> or she may be present, where whether they second line, <v Speaker 1>Whether they may be present,</v> <v Speaker 14>We can do a, maybe a pending the vote,</v> we can always do a final scrub of those as well. <v Speaker 1>The,</v> I'm sorry, question <v Speaker 28>And Jamie, excuse me, Mr. Erickson,</v> you said this may, may be able to do a scrub. Did you all see the, his or her designee? Would that come out as well or would that stay? <v Speaker 1>No, that would stay, anything that's gender specific will</v> be moved to non-gendered language. It would just <v Speaker 14>Be there</v> <v Speaker 28>There.</v> Right. Okay. <v Speaker 1>Section 2.8.</v> Our deputy chief made a very good point that there may be violations on the premises that are not during the hours of operation, such as employees drinking after the, the place has been closed. So added the underlying section shall be afforded access to the licensed premises whenever staff or personnel are on the premises instead of during all hours of operation. Yeah. Including times when alcoholic beverages are being served. So this would mean, for example, if you've got an event that's setting up early for one day or temporary license, or if people are there late cleaning or watching a game or something like that, the, the police, their designee, the local licensing agent and the select board members shall be afforded access to the license premises. Two point 11. This is a, this, the underlying section is changed on advice of counsel. So what we had talked about is the select board shall hold a hearing when a violation is reported. This achieves the same thing, but it, it puts the burden, so the, upon notification of an investigatory authorities report of a violation, the select board shall investigate facts and determine whether to hold a public hearing. So we do have to investigate the facts open in an open meeting. There isn't an issue where the chair could say, eh, we're not gonna do this. He said, within a reasonable amount of time is fine. And <v Speaker 29>It is a public</v> <v Speaker 1>Hearing and it is a public hearing</v> with notice to the license holder for the, for the violation. The determination and investigation is not a public hearing. <v Speaker 29>Before you go on Yep. A little footnote on three three.</v> Did you get an answer to that? Which is <v Speaker 1>Yes, that class of license includes cordials.</v> <v Speaker 29>So we can delete that</v> <v Speaker 1>Footnote.</v> We can delete the footnote. Yep. I think I deleted it on the cleaned one. <v Speaker 29>You did?</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> In 5.8 is the next section where there's a change that was from counsel. The board may also consider any relevant, aggravating or mitigating circumstances to any alleged offenses. We can delete the footnote three at the bottom of that page. He said to rely on the language in our bylaws for a place to post other towns can do it, give notice in electronic et et cetera. But he said that he thought that it would be fine just to allow for, just use the same language, which is what we've taken and put in that 5.7, 5.8. Moving on to page six, 6.4, Katie Sugarman from the health department suggested changing who have ordered a meal to food since we talk about food as the definition. So for alcoholic beverages may be sold and served to patrons who have ordered food. And that's what's changed on the cleaned up one for up to one hour after the kitchen closes. Counsel was very happy with 7.2. He said that making sure that they know that they're responsible for all management and control so that we don't have a manager saying, you know, I, I heard there was a fight, but you know, I didn't see it. It wasn't personally there. Whether he's personally there or she or they, they are responsible at all times to maintain order and decorum in the licensed premises. Duty to keep order. The deputy chief suggested that we add in 7.4, not just the employees who shall not consume any alcoholic beverages or illegal drugs while on duty or after the official closing hour of the establishment, but that the establishment hold the vendors, contractors, and distributors. So if they've got a DJ there and the DJ is drinking, that's a violation. And I understand we'll be hearing that violation sometime in January, a violation along those lines. 10.1. Very interesting. So special requirements for special temporary license mass general law does not allow for an all alcohol one day license to be granted to any organization but a nonprofit. So that has been stuck in there. We had stripped it out and then put it back, stripped it out and put it back. 10.3 basically reiterates that the manager of record for one day license must provide the select board and the police department with a 24 hour contact information. One 11.1, the deputy chief suggested that we say all licensees shall participate in a program to make it clear that the manager of record and the licensees need to take tip tips training. So spoke with the deputy chief today. The policy that we are amending currently holds that if someone has never taken tips, training or alcohol service training before, that person must take it in person and subsequent renewal may be online. He said that he did not know that that was in their, the current policy. So it is his druthers, his opinion is that all training should be in person and not online. We're proposing in here just to keep it the way it was Amended two years ago when, when Mr. Joseph led us through a revamping of our, of our policy. 11.2 C though says any insurance industry approved and qualified program offered by a certified trainer and previously approved by the select board, we don't list Serve safe. And I'm sure you've seen the email that came in about Serve Safe. Serve Safe only does, there are two reasons why the Deputy chief does not wanna recognize it. One is they only do them virtually, and two, they could be confused with Serve Safe certification for the health department. So I'm just presenting that information to you for discussion and how you'd wanna proceed <v Speaker 27>If you want to have a discussion about this</v> in person online thing right now. <v Speaker 1>In person online thing. Yes.</v> I'd like to talk about it now. <v Speaker 27>Okay. I just wanted to make sure.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yes. And CSafe is industry approved insurance approved?</v> <v Speaker 27>Yes. Yeah, I'm, if I may go ahead.</v> I understand why the chief wants it in person. I attended one of those trainings and they're extraordinarily good. I, what concerns me about having all online is that, and I've worked remotely for years. I mean 15 years I've worked remotely. It's very easy in an online meeting to not out without anybody noticing. I don't consider an initial training of this nature to be adequate. An initial training to be adequate online. I think, you know, refreshers, which is what the renewals would be because people have have, you know, they've, they've been trained, they've had a lot of these questions answered. They've been in practice. I think that's probably okay online. So I'm okay with subsequent renewals being online. I'm not okay with the initial training being online. <v Speaker 1>And that's what we hold in section 11.</v> <v Speaker 27>And I just, I wanted to support that with reasoning. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>I appreciate that. Yes, Mr. Evans.</v> <v Speaker 13>Yeah, I just ditto what Mr.</v> Sidney just said, but add something. I've, I've been tips trained several times now and all three times have been in person and I found them, you know, you grumble about it as you're going through the meeting, but I found that it was extremely helpful. I I volunteer bartend at TCA occasionally. Right. And what is evident is a lot of the, I won't call them tricks of the trade. You, you, you get put into role playing circumstances where you really have to think and underscoring Mr. Sidney's point is you have to think about how you'd be responsible when you're serving alcohol, how you should behave, how you should interact with customers. So for example, if you're dealing with a overly intoxicated customer, how do you handle that gracefully? Obviously calling them, no, I can't serve you because you're drunk is probably not a good idea. But it's, it, it really gives you tools to steer the, the customer in the direction that's, that's not hostile and what you should do, frankly, if it escalates to almost hostile and what the recourse is. So in person training is definitely for the, for a first timer should be mandatory. <v Speaker 1>Yes. Ms. Slager.</v> <v Speaker 29>So I'm going maybe take a little bit different approach</v> there, and I have no idea if this is accurate or not, but we did receive an email saying that Natick is one of five Massachusetts communities that does not allow online alcohol intervention. Do we know if that's accurate? I <v Speaker 1>Don't know if it's accurate, but we do allow it.</v> We just don't allow it. For the first one, our current policy and this policy is that the first time it must be in person subsequent to that renewals can be done online. Right. <v Speaker 29>But do we know if other communities</v> we don't, we do not know. I don't want something that would put us at a disadvantage to all the other communities. But on the other hand, I don't believe we have heard any complaints from our restaurants that we do require in-person training for the <v Speaker 1>First time.</v> <v Speaker 29>For the first one. For the first one. Right.</v> Have we received any of those? Has have, are you aware <v Speaker 1>Which one?</v> The one that came the, oh, just the recent one about, but <v Speaker 5>I'm not aware of any others. No, you're</v> <v Speaker 29>Not</v> <v Speaker 1>Aware of any others.</v> But if this person is certified by CSafe online, his objection was, it wasn't one of the ones listed. No, I but it but it falls under C So I, <v Speaker 29>I understand, I understand that it was more the question</v> of if we're an outlier in terms of not allowing online certification that then, then I, I don't think anyone here really knows that answer, but I think we have heard that we haven't had complaints about for the first time certification being required in person being a burden to our restaurants. So, <v Speaker 1>But so we don't know if there are five</v> communities that do not allow online certification, we're not one of them because we do allow it. So I don't even know how to respond to that. I just, Mr. Joseph, you had your hand up and I know that as the former chair, if you could approach the, the podium, we know your name is Paul Joseph. <v Speaker 13>We've established that.</v> <v Speaker 1>I know where you live</v> <v Speaker 5>In Carlson Circle, but my wife might move</v> to the, of the course of the meeting. Exactly. Please. Yeah, let's not invite that. Just add to Ms. Logger's question. I, in doing some of the research, when we did do the policy a few years ago, I remember vividly and I was the one that advocated to keep it online frankly, and I'm a former tips trainer. I know there was a lot of discussion back and forth, should we do it? Should we allow it at all? In fact, I remember it landing that it alternated that we didn't permanently say we'll do it once in person and then in perpetuity online. But I also vaguely remember if somebody had it online that we gave them the time to come in and get re-certified in person. The fact is on, you can look at it from a scarcity of labor perspective and say it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. That said, I also think this community has gone through such a, a transformation in terms of its flexibility with the alcohol policy. And what we did hear from the restaurant owners is they actually appreciated the in-person training. So counterintuitive to me, I thought they would've been more concerned about the, the difficulty or the burden on their staff. But most of the people that I spoke to that actually own the policy, own the facility that has the policy were supportive of in-person. They appreciated the flexibility, but it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker for them. So I, I really do think it's a judgment call, but I I I do think in this era of a lot of online that I think having that blended approach is, is reasonable personal opinion. <v Speaker 13>Thank you. Sorry,</v> <v Speaker 1>I don't think we're gonna answer the serve</v> safe one tonight. I'm not personally familiar with the, but I do know that is the rent for the restaurants, that is the industry standard is serve safe. Right. <v Speaker 28>I would be in favor of keeping this hybrid mixed approach</v> where they start their tips training in person and then pursue subsequent Yeah. Trainings online. <v Speaker 27>If I, if I may Madam chair, yes.</v> I, item C in 11 two allows us to adopt ServSafe without changing the policy. <v Speaker 1>Yes,</v> <v Speaker 27>It does. So we can revisit ServSafe specifically</v> as it may be, you know, a recertification process outside of whether we have to change this policy or not. <v Speaker 1>Agreed. That's a good point.</v> So we will not put that issue to bed tonight. Let's go on with the other changes in section 12, 12.1. <v Speaker 27>Did we talk about 11 three?</v> <v Speaker 1>Oh, we did. I did.</v> <v Speaker 27>Okay. I just,</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah,</v> <v Speaker 27>A lot of information.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yes, there is a lot. So in 12, one counsel rewrote that</v> because we had mentioned the original writing was, should any employee witness a crime? Well, you know, then we're putting employees in a, in a position where they have to recognize something that's a criminal act. So any incident or behavior reasonably believed to be illegal in nature. That employee is required to report the same at the time of the transgression. So that's, that those were the only changes there. And my artful use of bold, <v Speaker 28>But not all caps. Hmm, but</v> <v Speaker 1>Not all caps.</v> Not all caps, not me. Nope. The, I think that's the last of the comments that were incorporated by counsel and deputy chief and Catherine Katie Sugarman from Natick 180, and I believe in the clean policy, the footnotes have been removed and those changes, I accepted the changes with the, with the exception of his or her the gendered language. I'm un you know, I'll, I'll yield to the, the sentiment of the board, but if we could adopt this in principle tonight and then ask Donna to go through it and make changes with regard to that space gendered language, do it once over, what I'd like to see is that the board send it out after the first make it effective January one and, and send it by mail, not by email to all of the licensees. And my thinking for that is between now and the end of the year, they're not looking at any mail that comes in. Mr. Joseph, would you like to please come to the podium motion? <v Speaker 5>Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. A Paul Joseph,</v> <v Speaker 1>I wanna make the motion.</v> <v Speaker 5>Okay. And, and with due respect to the board process, I,</v> I really, I, I've looked at this over as of tonight because of it being posted there. I I just have a question about the rationale for not allowing contractors to consume alcohol on the job. And I would say it's fairly common practice that a musician coming in might actually purchase a beer during an intermission or have a beverage while they're performing. I've seen this done at our local venues and it's commonly done. So I think there's, I would hate for a policy to set us up for hostility or, or a, a difficult scenario within one of our entertainment venues. And personally, if the venue is per, you know, following responsible service principles, I don't understand what the risk to the community is. If a guitar player has a beer during a break, other than maybe bad musicianship in the second act, <v Speaker 1>I, I don't, I don't disagree.</v> The reason, and this, the reason provided to me is that there was a violation by a dj, which this, this will be coming before us in January. Having said that, I don't think that we write policy based on incidents because we policies would be books and books long and would not, would be more and more difficult to, so I, I hear what you're saying. I I maybe if we were to say, <v Speaker 5>I think the risk is complimentary alcohol being given</v> to a performer, and that to me is, again, if the, that's illegal. <v Speaker 1>That's</v> <v Speaker 5>Illegal, right.</v> So my attitude with all of this stuff is have a flexible policy and, you know, basically be aggressive with the enforcement. And to me that's, that's how I'd just be afraid of, you've got, you've got some national acts that come in and if you know you're gonna tell Peter Wolf don't have a drink, well, he actually is probably drinking tea now these days anyway. But, you know, but my my point is, you're gonna have some acts that are gonna come in and that's gonna cause some ill will, I assume and it just, it just seems overly burdensome. <v Speaker 1>So section 7.4,</v> I don't have any problems striking that. Yeah, striking the addition or their vendors, contractors or distributors. I mean, if there's, if there's bad, if there's somebody who's overserved and, and, and if an assault ensues, then there's plenty of violations of our alcohol policy without that being there. <v Speaker 27>May I suggest we just strike contractors?</v> No, no, it has to be, it's gotta be all three. Well let me, let me explain my thinking. Alright. DJs and musicians are generally just contractors. They're contracted for a thing. We don't want distributors coming in and drinking while they're there. And vendors are sort of similar, like it's contractors seem different than vendors and distributors. To me, if somebody's trying to sell, I'll tell, let me tell a quick story. I, when I was about 26, I was over at, I don't remember the name of it, the Italian, the, the Irish bar. That is where IHOP used to be. Where IHOP is now in Framingham. Oh, O'Leary's, Yes. Owen and O'Leary's with a friend of mine. And I asked him if he wanted to try a black and tan. He had never heard of it. So I said, well, let's order a picture of Guinness and a picture of black of of bass, and if you don't like the black and tan, I'll drink the Be Guinness. And at the end of that, both of us were wiped having each drunk a picture of something and a picture of Guinness arrives at our table. The Guinness salesman heard us ordering the pictures and was so happy he bought us one. I'm concerned about that kind. And I know we don't allow pitchers, but I'm concerned about that sort of thing from vendors and distributors. I'm not concerned about a DJ or a musician buying drinks while they're performing. <v Speaker 1>So I have another take on that.</v> When I owned my store, vendors and distributors would come in and frequently bring me wine and spirits to taste and we would taste them together. This would effectively preclude that. Hadn't thought of that before Mr. Erickson. Well, <v Speaker 14>The question about the story that was a vendor</v> purchasing for somebody else. This just talked about consumption and nothing about purchasing. <v Speaker 27>Well, we don't know that he actually purchased it</v> <v Speaker 14>Regardless.</v> This is about consumption. The vendor wasn't there with you consuming. Right. <v Speaker 5>It's a violation to</v> <v Speaker 1>So does it make it null</v> and void anyway, I, <v Speaker 27>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 28>I think to your point that there's a greater issue</v> that it agreed. Like if a vendor came and somebody's doing a wine tasting and they're like testing it out with you, they can't by this, they they can't test it out. <v Speaker 1>That's right. They cannot consume employee</v> <v Speaker 27>Cannot. Which is</v> <v Speaker 1>No, not the</v> <v Speaker 28>Employee distributor or the vendor.</v> <v Speaker 1>Describe it. It's oftentimes distributors</v> who are doing the tastings. Absolutely. So, I mean, Dion's has their own dedicated personnel. I I did my own. But there are stores that don't have that kind of staffing and they're done by Natick Wine and Spirits has the distributors do them. And if they are sipping it and telling 'em to look for and that I, let's reason, I would, let's move away from overregulation and just strike that. Yeah, <v Speaker 29>Totally agree.</v> <v Speaker 1>Strike that. Get of that.</v> If somebody, if, if a DJ or band member drinks and does something that's inappropriate, that'll be a violation of one or more of many of the provisions in this 13 page policy. Yes. Sounds good. Can we, can we agree in principle then for the white, not white version, what do you call it? The clean version with the exception of that, that phrase. Yes. Strike that. We can, can, yes, Mr. Sidney. <v Speaker 27>I would move. We adopt the</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr.</v> Sydney. Can we have, Ms. Pope wanted to make the oh motion please. <v Speaker 28>I move that we adopt the rules</v> and regulations governing alcohol beverages. The version that we revised this evening on December 18th, 2024 with the amendments that will be made with the caveat that there will be errors revised. <v Speaker 27>I call those scriveners changes. Yep, that's fine.</v> <v Speaker 29>Can we, can we just enumerate those for the record</v> so that we all know what <v Speaker 1>They are?</v> Yeah. So the Scrivener changes friendly amendment to the motion. Scriveners changes to include gendered language to non-gendered language <v Speaker 28>Striking the, the line at 7.2 about the contractors,</v> vendors, and distributors <v Speaker 27>At 7.4.</v> <v Speaker 1>7.4,</v> <v Speaker 28>7.4, excuse me.</v> <v Speaker 1>And, and striking everything froma</v> or their vendors, contractors, right. Comma distributors from that section. So, <v Speaker 27>And whatever formatting</v> or punctuation changes, formatting are deemed necessary. <v Speaker 1>Punctuation. And this would be</v> for the draft alcohol policy dated 12 18 20 24. <v Speaker 27>Second,</v> <v Speaker 28>Thank you</v> for the group motion collaboration. <v Speaker 27>It takes a village.</v> <v Speaker 1>It takes a village.</v> So we have got a motion. We have a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I would like to ask the clerk to read the consent agenda. <v Speaker 27>Okay. Gimme one second.</v> <v Speaker 28>Can we also say kudos to our chair</v> for all the hard work getting that alcohol policy done before they there number of hours <v Speaker 1>Is done. Yes.</v> <v Speaker 28>Before 2025.</v> <v Speaker 1>It is done till the next time.</v> <v Speaker 27>Okay. Consent agenda.</v> There are two items on the consent agenda. Item A approved meeting minutes for December 6th, 2024. Item B approved renewal of 2025. Annual license renewals for automatic amusement class II and three auto dealers. Common victors, victors, non-live entertainment, live entertainment, fortune teller and adult use marijuana establishment. Does anybody wanna pull anything? <v Speaker 1>No,</v> <v Speaker 27>Sir. I move items A and B. Second.</v> <v Speaker 1>We have a motion and a second.</v> All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Mr. Erickson? You're up. <v Speaker 14>Thank you Madam Chair. And I do wanna recognize that WBZ</v> and WCVB are still on. Thank you to our Boston Press outlets for staying with us through the end. Just a reminder, new Year's is the celebration on the rail trail. It's awesome. And this is the last meeting prior to New Year's. So it's a, it's a fun time. It's actually modeled off of the one that started years ago in Holliston and you replicated it here in Natick and it's, it's a lot of fun to be able to get out there on New Year's Eve night. It's the, the fire pits that they have up along the rail trail, I believe this year there's actually in partnership with Framingham, there'll be some on the far side of Framingham as well. Going into, sorry, question. Thank <v Speaker 28>Erickson.</v> You said it's New Year's Eve night, correct? Yes. What time and where can people find that information? <v Speaker 14>Had to put me on the spot with that. Friends</v> <v Speaker 27>Of Na Trails website.</v> <v Speaker 14>Yes. Friends of Na Trails website. We did approve it.</v> I believe they typically start around think <v Speaker 27>It's dark</v> <v Speaker 14>Duck.</v> This dark gets dark, huh? Yeah, it's like 4, 4 30, 4 35 o'clock. It's when it gets dark until seven or eight it <v Speaker 1>Four 30 to seven 30. There you go.</v> <v Speaker 28>4 30, 7 30. Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 14>Entering into</v> the holiday season, you know, wanna wish everybody a happy holidays. Town Hall will have our hours with Christmas Day being closed and New Year's Day being closed, there will be modified hours for some buildings based on union contracts. So I would just encourage anybody who, like, for example, the library I believe closes at one o'clock on both of those Eves. But then some buildings are open 24 7, such as the police environment, public safety. I want to give a big thank you to all of our public safety officials for working through the holidays. They deserve a, a, a big thank you because it's, it's, you know, we we're, many of us are, are able to be home during that time. And, and it's amazing that they, for town employees anyway, are out there doing the work. Obviously there's a lot of industries that do that during the holidays, but for town employees, there are two primary ones along with, with anybody who might be called back for something such as A-A-D-B-W worker. If there was a water main break or an issue with a water department or if there's a storm, knock on wood, there is no storm right now on Christmas holiday. Doesn't mean there's not going to be one that comes up or one for the New Year's, but I just wanna give a big shout out to, to the folks who are working those days and all town employees during this holiday season. No additional updates for the board this evening. Thank you so much, <v Speaker 1>Mr. Sydney.</v> <v Speaker 27>Yeah, I want to just particularly acknowledge the</v> DBW the next two weeks. Anybody whose trash pickup is Wednesday through Friday will occur Thursday through Saturday, which means our DPW staff is working overtime on Saturday to do pickup. And we really appreciate that they're doing that. And also to remind the public, don't put your trash out too early. This the next two weeks. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Sydney. Does anyone else have a</v> I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So second, moved and seconded. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Heck no. Goodnight everyone. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and happy Hanukah. I.