set we're going to call to order the uh May 2nd 2024 meeting all five members are present uh Roger Maran um Maran I blew it I asked you and I still Denise Luciano Alec Rich Steve Hornsby and myself um and um we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all has that been here the whole time no Roger brother um before we get to the first item on the agenda um I'm going to uh um add something that's not on the agenda I'll hopefully we'll not run a foul of open meeting law um but uh we uh we do have a new member of the board um who is joining us tonight who uh won an election uh this past Saturday so we would uh love to welcome Roger marsan to the select board thank you very much so y conrat um and um we'll get right to it so uh the first item on the agenda under new business is the reorganization of the select board um I know there's a procedure here um I'm going to turn to you kind of for for the procedure we should follow and then we'll we'll get into it all right so I'll uh ask for nominations for chair and once um we pick a chair then I'll step aside and then do the chair and do the vice chair okay all right all right and the new chair is effective tonight after we get right after course okay all right some's ready okay all right um okay so all right are there any nominations for chair of the select board I'd like to nominate Steve second okay all right are there any other nominations is there a motion to close nominations all there a motion to close second all those in favor I hi and we have one nomination uh is there a I just take the vote all those in favor of Steve as chair hi hi hi no all right all right thank you're off oh jeez you okay so I guess I'll take nominations for vice chair I'd like to nominate Alec rich as Vice chair a nomination for Al bries Vice chair is there a second a second a second for any nominations okay uh so I guess we're going to close nominations for vice chair make a motion to close nominations for vice chair motion to Second all in favor of closing nominations for vice [Music] chair all right so all in favor of uh Alec as being Vice chair I I I okay all right so now I'll take a nomination for clerk um I would like to nominate Denise for cl you're too quiet over there so I'm thinking maybe we'll get you to read some stuff we have a second any other nominations I'd like to nominate Roger M CL all right any other uh is there a second I I'll will second so motion of a second any other um so how do we do this we do there was no second for so there was no second okay was Roger had a second you C with that okay so all in favor of Roger is cler i i i i all right congratulations all right jumping right into it oh goodness you got to give me this meeting right thank you guys appreciate [Music] it all you want keep going you I'm just Kidd all right so I guess uh right after the bat we have a discussion uh Vote or revote for the town meeting Logistics um first so if I may Mr chair U first thing you want to do is do the uh the warrants oh I apologize okay so so currently is it me and then you is that what it was um I think that's what it was yeah okay so we we need to vote to um to have somebody that that's going to sign for the warrants um currently it's it's I'm the first person and Kevin is a secondary um initially this was because I'm in town all the time and it used to be you have to sign in person but now do it remotely so I'm happy to stay on uh but if somebody else would like to I'm with that too um Mr chair I I don't see a reason to make a change um if you're fine with keeping it then I don't think we need to do anything different yeah do we need to make a motion to nominate you to do that or can you just continue to do it I think we can continue unless has something yeah you're you're still going to do it yes so I think it was me and then Kevin the secondary I just all right as long as you vote on it just V like no change just vote that okay got okay so I'll entertain the motion for um I make a motion that uh you that uh Mr Hornsby say stay on as the primary signer and that Mr Snider stay on the secondary signer for all wars second motion second any further discussion all in favor I I okay excellent so I guess now we're going going to uh to tell meting Logistics and this is something that has been come across as very confusing so the moderator is on do we have Jack on do we have Lucia as well no was going to try come [Music] on Jackie you there I think you're muted if you can hear me hello J sorry that was Peter not Alec they sound so so we we have Lucia as well Lucia you on still too here okay so so with what we have so far it's going to be very difficult from what I understand so would you like to explain some of your concerns or or so some of the issues that you're you're coming across who uh we can start with Jack or or Lucia whoever wants to start first probably Jack maybe Jack uh right thank you uh Mr chair Congratulations by the way uh so my number one priority is being able to provide attendees with a smooth well-run meeting and that includes being able to accommodate everyone with seating options and the ability to seen and be heard or to see the content hear the content and be able to contribute to the meeting with the topic at hand being the override I'm concerned that we're going to have a ton of people in a space that cannot hold them with multiple overflow RS uh and limited time to get the ab in place to do this successfully and we have a legal obligation that anybody who wants to attend and participate at town meeting can so we can't turn anybody away uh it is a definite high stakes event um I know uh Jason Benjamin nor Media Center said that the AV company has uh confirmed that they're available I don't know what the current AV plan is talked with Mike the other day and he's thinking you know maybe 1100 people I personally think that that's low I would say 1,500 plus just based on the size of what we're talking about so I'll lay that first as my biggest concern can I jack can you just just go over again uh cuz I don't remember how many people fit in the gym and how many in the auditorium sure uh so according to Wade lant uh facilities director at MPS the gym can hold about 1,20 people that's about 525 on the bleachers and the rest Seated on the floor and in the auditorium I believe it's it's somewhere close to 400 370 to 400 we have less than well we got about 1,400 best case between those two areas I was chatting with a prior moderator who had done a large override meeting before and they had 2500 people turn out then spilled over into four different venues they used the gym the auditorium the high school library and the yel they had a shell bus going back and forth from St Mary's for people because parking is going to be another challenge we just unfortunately our town does not have a large enough venue for things like this to take place seemlessly okay um my first I mean I think it's too late for this but what about the the field the football field have you guys talked about that Mr chair you're talking about you're thinking about thr it outside potentially yeah I mean if there's going to be that many people is that an option have any discussed that as an option uh not that I'm aware of I don't know what the Field capacity is or if we can with the new turf fields I know there's some use concerns I would have to check a grade on that yeah with the chair yeah with the chairs yeah okay uh I did ask around to see what size St is beat has and they're even smaller than ours somehow crazy it does need to be held within Town limits so we could not even ask publicity Center uh would be really cool right to run the meeting from the stage boys want to be a [Music] start yeah yeah that's that's extremely difficult um yeah if we if we get 2,000 people which I assume we're going to get um that's going to be very difficult um Mr chair um do any of the uh new industrial buildings that have been put up that aren't already filled up with the uses been considered for any of this possibly I can speak from what I know I don't think so um Mike you can speak to that maybe I don't think so I mean there's only one I don't know how it's set up inside when it's how it's broken down in the space yeah there's one that's open yeah can't be on private property it can be on private property yeah but um I would imagine parking would be an issue yeah with private property possibly insurance too on there right has to have people on the property they might not be able to do that I just didn't know if we had a a building that hadn't been already used for something the new Senior Center was open I know I could be bringing up a an old subject but I'll bring it up again just to bring it up that um if you were to schedule an override election for June 8th you could have town meeting on the 15th you could pass um all the Articles you can pass the 1% budget and continue the town meeting until June 17th Pro a contingent upon the override passing and then at the I didn't pass we need to have um some members of the select board the moderator and the town clerk go to the high school on June 17th and open and close the meeting um but at least that way I mean these Logistics that we're talking about we got to rent shares we got to um pay the ab company we're talking about $50,000 and expenses um to have a town meeting for two over questions that may not even pass at a ballot so I'm just throwing it out yeah I know you mentioned that last week and you know I I brought it up a while back too um thank you Jack Lucia do you have any anything to add as far as your concerns um my only concerns are v um bot vote um a motion has to be made on the floor to have a bot vote vote uh which 11 people have to agree to um ballots are 26 cents per ballot I don't know how many you'd want to order um we have five machines uh they the timing on putting the ballot into the machine is 7 Seconds um so think about the time it's going to take as far as if you have three votes now you yet to talk in several hours to run these ballots through to tally them up um I don't know that's that's all really I have um so what would be the cost of that because just like you're saying if we take if you you take 3,000 Val if you anticipate 3,000 people B and you figure if there's there's three different votes so you're going to track 9,000 ballots at 26 cents per ballot um I didn't calculate that one 737 so yeah you have going probably about three grand in ballots and then whatever the people time is right I'm sorry and then the time of the your your PO workers right the time of the the election workers sorry the election workers the election work um for town meeting they donate their time so they won't any um I do want you to know um if you're going to do ballots then You' better decide that I mean it that way but you have to decide it tonight because um just for the generic yes no valid um they're hoping that they we get the order in on Monday tomorrow I place the order and they're hoping it will get they be done um by a week from Monday by time by the time town meeting comes um they are inundated right now there 351 towns in Massachusetts and they're inundated with Town elections and the other town and of ballots so really you have to make some fast decisions I [Music] guess um I would think you would only need one ballot just like uh the question at the polls one ballot if there's a 4 million override and a 6.5 million override and people could vote on those I thought I thought the warrant article was just going to read those two budgets contingent upon the election Pall right but all three budgets I should say right but at town meeting um if you're going to you'd have to vote to approve um the one % budget you'd have to vote to approve uh the budget with a $4 million override and you'd have to vote to approve the budget with a $6.5 million override so the 1% you would need to vote on that's the that's the default budget so understand we have to vote on them separately well the ballots are different at the town meeting as opposed to putting into an election correct I'm saying the T media I thought going be one warrant article with all three budgets it if you pass it it was contended upon with the election results for um well you will have an a budget a b budget and a c budget and the time meeting members could vote down a b budget or they could vote for a b budget but vote down a c budget they have to be voted separately those budgets at to I don't think they have to it's that choice right but I think but I think what you what you could Mr chair I think what you're suggesting is is that the way the the logistics could work is you have a discussion on the regular budget you vote on the regular or Vote or not vote on the regular budget then you have a discussion of the $4 million budget right you don't have to vote on it you can continue to discussion of the $6.5 million budget then you have one ballot that you give to everyone and you pass it out and you have and you have it voted so everybody's just getting one ball instead of three yeah and that's assuming that that there's only going to be a request for a ballot vote for those two but there could be a request for a ballot vote for all of them so correct so that's that's why we would need all those ballot you could have them all on that one page I guess just that's just to yeah my understanding leaving that meeting The Joint meeting was it was going to be one question one question it was going to be all three budgets and it was either pass or fail and if it passes then it goes to election and election determines and that was my understanding when I when I motion for that but it's not the case Lucia go ahead no if I may um you the point I'm sorry I'm trying to make is that you're talking to to hopefully get the ballot on time with just a yes or no if you put three questions on one ballot it's not going to happen in time they they can't the programming involved they can't get it done by to a town meeting so the only way they can possibly get it done and they' let me know is to just have your generic yes no ballot you either you fill in the oval for yes or no and that's it but the programming for three question on the one ballot it's it you're not going to see it by in time for town meeting so so it would have to be um so we'd have to have multiple ballots then at that point thank all right jack you have your hand up go ahead yep thank you Mr chair uh so I ran the numbers based on what Lucia was saying 7 seconds per ballot using five machines and I just use 2,000 ballots as a as a baseline that's about it's over two hours just to run the Ballance and and Jack also you're not counting um they have to the the election workers they have to tally those I mean we pull the tapes but you got talking also if somebody puts a check mark instead of filling in the oval that ballance's got to be hand counted so you've got to allow a little extra time to get the tally and done Mr chair so just uh Mr chair I me uh go ahead J so just to kind of expand on what Lu is saying so we would not only need to debate the article we would have to now vote on it and allow for the tallying and the voting alone is over two hours the hand counting I would defer to Lucia on but I don't think any one of us anticipates discussion about this article is going to be brief that's just a that's going to be a huge chunk of time to even just process the results of this question thank you thank you Jack go ahead Roger um I'm just curious about how the logistic would work uh processing the ballots if we're in remote locations as well and how do you get those that information back and forth and get the Bots to them that's a great question for Lucia go ahead you can you repeat that um rer please uh Lucia I'm just curious about how we get if we have remote location say we have overflow at the yell School how do we get ballots cuz we I'm sure you want to have control of them but how do you get the ballots to there get them voted on and get them back and get them processed I'm just imagining that amount of time split the machine you have to split the machines up at the locations and you have to have separate c um separate Crews there and also just so you know um there has to be at each location but even at one location you have to have a police officer standing at the ballot machines witnessing and overlooking the voting at each machine no just one SE locations Auditor in the gym that you can have one police officer standing behind and he's keeps his eye on everything being deposited into the machines so if there's Lua if there's machines if there's machines in different rooms different locations like one in the yell one in the in the in the gym would there be have to be a police officer in each one of those rooms yes still would be so now we're adding four off and I I had asked L should have look in too um because of that time Lucia had told me that you know it be like 2 and 1 half hours is there a way to have ballot boxes where people fill out the ballot they drop it in the box when everyone's dropped all their ballots in the boxes we can go back and continue town meeting while L's work as I'm running them through the machine he still taking a lot of the time like a 7 7 second um ballot your your um still got your second 7 seconds for each ballot um if if you're going to go into the next um thingy there the the next article whatever um yeah I suppose that would give them time to deposit them um yeah you could you could you don't need to have a Val we could do the paper W then hand count which isn't I know you probably prefer for the ballot but it's faster well if somebody requests a ballot then we have to have a ballot yeah that would be the only that's going to happen it's it's going to happen okay yeah and Mr chair um and to Luca's point if we are voting on the $4.5 million we can't really move on to the $6 million people are going to want to know what the ballot vote was what's the what's the count on how did that turn out before able to move on to the Six Million so you're saying it's going to be easy overall right okay but we only have one warrant article for Budget how do you split that to three different votes you have to have one vote I thought that's why we talked about it being conted on the election that follows it is but town meeting has to approve those budgets right you're approving them by are either approving or or rejecting the warrant article that has all three the the two overrides are contingent upon the election but it's you there there may be people that don't want any override at all so they're going to approve the 1% budget it's not it's not all on nothing it's you approve a 1% budget so so you have a budget that will be put in place if the overrides don't pass so you you'd vote on having a 1% budget a 4 million or 6.5 million so each one has to be approved to tell me because it has to be approved to tell me and has to be approved by the the ballot so if it's a 4 million if 4 million was in the ballot it has to be approved specifically at the town meeting too I mean we probably should have Town Council here but we have one warrant article we can't create new warrant articles no it's not cwn Council IDE yeah the Town Council said be override amounts contingent upon right the v in Town Council you have one warrant article to approve a budget and budet a c which budget I want budget a I want budget b i want budget C it's so one more article split up by AB andc Mr chair can't any one of those budgets be changed anytime as well yeah someone could move to remove and then you go on hat separately right someone imagine [Music] Chang U Mr chair uh Jack if I could ask a question um we've done this before where we've had this um you know we've had a number of people sounds like the big difference is the is the number of of uh budgets we would be be voting on is it your opinion that well I guess I'm going to ask for your opinion is it your do you think that we could do you think that we would need to extend the time of the town meeting um in other words right now we're looking at like 7 till let's say 11 is um you know I'm just throwing it out there would it make sense to you know change I don't please don't throw anything at me change the date of the town meeting to something where we could do it we could have a longer town meeting time like do it from 5: to 11:00 or do it on a Saturday or you know whatever we could do to to try to um extend the amount of time we have to make make sure this works and I I'll just add what I'm what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to not disregard the uh the goal of this which was to be able to have the discussion at town meeting on the budgets um with everybody present to have that discussion to give everybody an opportunity to to speak who wants to speak to really to to give it to the town meeting which is our form of government um you know so I you know I want to make sure that that still happens um I don't want I I wouldn't want the logistics to overrule what we all have decided is what we kind of want for this process um we you know we all kind of previously decided that so I I just don't want the logistics um I just don't want the logistics making the decision for us um but Jack I don't know if there was a question in there but any comments on has there any been discussed of I guess changing the date or trying to do something where we could um accommodate this meeting so I think that's a great question for Town Council um I'm meeting with her tomorrow afternoon so that's on my list of questions to ask uh from am I correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that the select board accepts the date and time of town meeting I know that's true initially I don't know if that's also true when they they move it that's the moderator I believe it's select that's true but I don't know if we can move it this close to town meeting um that's the question the other option is um you could have town meeting as schedu on the 13th not take up the budget article and um do all all the other business and continue town meeting to a Saturday pick a a date on a Saturday and uh then you know have it on a Saturday at 10:00 in the morning and then you're not constrained by time as much so if if say we go to town meeting we do that and we continue it do we need a certain time period to to announce when it's going to be well Contin I would I wouldn't do it that Satur I mean no you don't cuz uh once you open town meeting you can always if say we we have town meeting scheduled for Monday and Wednesday um if we weren't able to finish everything on Wednesday we'd have to the moderator with the agreement of the select Court would have to say um we're we're going to close tonight and reconvene on next Monday yeah I was I was more concerned about notification because if if we're not going to do the budget on the 13th and we we push it to you know say let's say 3 weeks later um I want to make sure that those people that were going to come on the 13th are are aware that it's going to be pushed out I don't want notification to to kind of be lost I mean if you made that decision tonight given 12 days right more or less notice to everyone and uh and then at the time meeting you could announce the date when you're going to have the next one wait like a couple weeks or something two Saturdays Mr sorry um oh sorry go ahead Jack I'm sorry just a a process question if I um when does the warrant need to be posted is it next Monday yes okay so just to procedurally point something out if that article remains on the warrant anybody can move that on the town meeting floor so despite anything that we tell people that our intent is not to take it up if it's there anybody can make a motion from the four S and and now it's it's up to at eight oh Jack wait for a wrenches so what you could do is you would have to remove that article from the warrant and then call is special I think I defer a mic on that but if you leave it on the warrant it can get moved from the FL right no it definitely could I think that's a topic will definitely should have tomorrow with Town Council but we would have to vote on that before Monday so if you have a discussion tomorrow um you can't do it possible I'm not good with math but I think I'm running out of D Lua did you want to say something 4 Mr chair um sorry Kevin but just a quick thing back to Logistics um to think about uh if you hold it on Monday night and you started at 7 there's no way it's going to start at s you're going to have a massive line for checkin um the last time we did that um with the override we had the meeting in the gym the line was down to the yell school um so I don't I don't see your meeting starting at 7 o' all right thank you Lua that's my thought I feel like it's getting Messier not cleaner we were supposed to wrap this up what the heck is going on I think it sounds like I think that Kevin's idea of moving for the Saturday other than the day so you have longer bandwidth to kind of run all the Articles might be the cleanest of the options whether or not everyone prefer option I don't know but that's clean of the options you deal with a one time versus dealing with a and rooms yeah I I do like that idea I think because s of the posted noticed I think we have to do it on the 13th um but then to Jack's point if if the budget's on the art if it's on there right anybody can move it so then we're kind of back to square one again that Mr chair um Jack could we could we open the meeting on the 13th with just a small number of um folks like the select board and uh you know whoever whoever it is can we open the meeting and then immediately continue the meeting so we avoid the possibility of of someone moving it Evan it's like you're living in my brain for one of one of the co meetings where we were out on the field and was raining so we we had agreed at the prior sedb meeting that we were going to reschedule it uh I met Walter and Luccia down at the fields and we opened it and continued it and then that was that I remember those days J just need to communicate that to people I remember those days Jack and I remember during Co the meetings will be held in the football field baced out and 6 feet 6 feet under remember those days 6et under and also I remember I hope not and theoretically we can still find a field it couldn't necessarily be the high school field what about the other school field right yeah I was thinking that it doesn't have a turf field you do have concerns with ada8 if you have it on the field because it needs to be accessible yeah okay I don't want to belor go ahead um do we um Jack it it sounds like you have obvious concerns about this being ready to go Lucia as well um this being ready to go on the 13th so so um do you think would do you think it would be it is it your opinion that we should we should push the DAT out oh put me on the spot here Kevin um I at at present I have extremely serious concerns that we would be able to run a town meeting that is compliant with state law on the 13th based on everything that we've heard in amount of time left to print for it Lucia what do you think I I totally agree I think I okay so any further discussion on this uh the logistics of the town meeting because I think I think you know if we're going to make any change I think we should go through the next two items and then kind of make changes as as we go through those no all right thank you guys very much thanks I'll be on if you need me all right thanks check thank you for funny days then you could have the election before well that that is an option and which is why I want to go through the rest of this before we make any decisions I'm getting an answer from Town Council here is Jack yeah Jack yeah yeah and just to reminder if I recall correctly if the election is before the town meeting we would have to hold public meetings on the budget specifically before election because she said that the town meeting acts as that open for so if we remove the town meeting from being before the election now we have to have an open call he's oh he's he's done yeah welcome Roger you're a jinx um I think um Mr chair um yeah I think Denise is correct in that you have to have public um discussions of the budget um like a public hearing you have to have for the budget um then I would be concerned that we move everything around we change the way we were planning to do this and now we have to also plan for a meeting of 800 people to show up for a public hearing on the budget because that will be the only place that people can discuss my question would be and and for when Mone comes back is uh was the fincom meeting essentially the public hearing of that budget because they discussed the budgets last Cil is pretty clear on that I think that it it has to be like a noted Public public hearing posted that yeah yeah but um yeah I think that's you know it has to be like specifically open as a public all right startor I won't ask any more questions you can ask as many as you want that's fine all right um so without Mike I guess we're going to skip over the the articles for now and is here's M want no tricks that jokes Jack a joke Jack Oh's do you guys know that Albert Einstein was a real person this this entire time I thought he was just a theoretical physicist that is a dad joke for sure how long is mik going to be Mr chairman the public hearing couldn't you have it like the fincom did remotely to avoid all those Logistics was that allowed I don't know that's a that's a a question from Mike and Town Council just to be sure I want to make sure we do it the right way so yeah Mr chair I'd be definitely concerned about the number of people coming to an online public hearing if it's 800 people and people yeah that could be that could be difficult you have to give everyone an opportunity to speak for sure right uh and I I understood it as it being a special meeting not like a fincon meeting and it's open to the public it had to be specifically for the budget yeah okay um if I can ask a question of Lucia if you go ahead you sure um Lucia does um having the uh having the town meeting on a weekend um does it have any special concerns for you not at all I think you know if I may um me just thinking as far as what my responsibilities are um I also think we have to take into consideration we have we have committees formed um to vote against the override and then a committee to vote for the override um and then it's been approved and I'm not being sastic that re can sell popcorn um I think I I think we we got a my my concern for me and my responsibility is making checkin as smooth as possible um I just see a lot of chaos going on um and there's got to be control you know what I'm saying that's that's an understatement yeah it's it it it feels like it's gotten just way out of control here and you know Kevin and I are partially to blame for our 4 million and $6.5 million ideas uh ourselves so perfect time to be CH know I think it's on Saturday sorry sorry what was thata I'm all for a weekend I don't I have no issues with that I think I'd like that better with it's more time and maybe if we get a good day we can do it outside that's some more popcorn you may want that pop long yeah your popcorn here nips go ahead rer um while Mike's gone can we go to see if there's any old business or anything we could finish up some of these uh yeah I don't think we have any old business is there any old business I don't know if there's anything I just want to try if we can just move this along expeditiously as possible yeah we need Mike for the next two items that are on our agenda so hopefully he's going to be back here in a second but yeah if anybody has any topics if if um May I Mr CH no abely well what we what we could do without Mike here is we could we could proceed with the uh the idea of opening the town meeting on 513 and continuing it um and then maybe the five of us can talk about how how how that would look and start talking about a plan for how that would look right so like I was just going to start writing down we open the ma town meeting on on the 13th um we continue right continue town meeting to Future um Saturday whatever whatever whatever we pick you know June X um that gives Jack time Jack and Lucia and Mike uh time to um work on the logistics make sure Public Safety is all there you know all on board um you know work Logistics safety meet with whoever they need to meet with um then we' have to um communicate with the town right so whether that's whether that's a um an alert or something like that that we could that we could send out right I mean that seems to be our best communication method yeah to everyone you know maybe we send out a notification that this is what's going to happen we're going to open the meeting we're going to continue the meeting um and then the select board will select another date uh in the future or whatever for um for the for the town meeting um I mean should we have a date selected by when we give that notice so we're giving a notice at the same time as what that date be right Mr chair if you don't mind go ahead yeah yeah I would think I'm looking at dates too so I would think that would that would make sense sense is to commun you communicate everything all at one time I don't I wouldn't think that we would want to be in a spot where we're telling the town okay we're going to have we're going to continue this meeting um and then we're not going to but the dates still up in the air yeah I think the more notice we give everybody the better that would be a disaster so then I guess before we pick a date we should probably understand from from Lu he's still there like how long it would take her realistically cuz she she going to do yes right now you wanted to have let's say three questions worst case scenario right how what is the time that she needs for that kind of back into well she she said if she ordered tomorrow she could have them in about a week or so so said just yes no just yes no so I'm let's let's assume two weeks you just to be safe but I I mean I wouldn't ask for anything but especially if you're going to continue it and make sure everybody has enough time to know to PL to go there I just want to they they can be ready in the two time frame so we're not then having the same problem so Mr chair oh sorry so how far out can we push this what's the deadline there's really no I mean deadline per se except for you know the the budgets are going to be no I understand that people going to start running out of money so um when do we have to have this done we there's no as far as I know there's no particular date July 1 is when the new budgets start um but there was talk before we even made these decisions to to maybe do it in July August and have a vote then so you know once that takes place then those budget will kick in immediately so there's there's no real specific deadline for that as far as I know so we're not under a time crunch say I know we have to have this in two weeks that's what you say no no and you know months and months ago we were under a time crun but now we're not temporarily so it seemed like that to me when I was on the other side of the table watching that it seemed like everything had a deadline in we had to be moving quickly to an end and it was a cliff at the end of that it doesn't seem like the cliff is there yeah so so I mean what I'd like to do as soon as Mike's off the [Music] phone um is to go through the the town meeting articles and then discuss the budgets uh I want to I want to hear um I did get a chance to watch the vcom meeting last night which was what 17 18 hours long 4 hours um and hours and see what they came up with um and then we can make decisions as a group as move forward if that makes sense yeah okay I just but I I don't want to feel like we're in a time crunch like we have to make this happen like all right if it's not the 13th then it has to be the 17th yeah so so in my mind the time crunch right now is the warrants because we they have posted by Monday so those are you need to do those first um and then we deal with everything else okay what' you learn so um Lauren said you canot pull it off the warrant and then have another warrant you can only have one annual War um so the there's a couple options one you could it hasn't been posted yet so you could just continue the whole town meeting um and um or I think what she suggests would be better in that case is to put out on social media on that you're not going to hold town meeting on uh the 13th and that members of the select board the moderator uh the Town Clerk and maybe a finance Committee Member go there that night just to open and continue the town meeting um you know and um if you have the town meeting someone could make a motion and you could post on social media and wherever else that this was going to be done in advance of the town meeting um someone could make a motion to um not take up the budget until a time and date certain in the future so that you could plan better for the [Music] president and and den brought up a good point um if if we were to have a vote before then is ual ballot vote um would we have to have the the was was the open meeting of the um public had election before the if we had the election before the town you'd have to have as I understood from Council we had that yes so so say we continue the meeting so we could we could have that ballot vote so that the only way you could do that was you someone would have to make a motion um say that um we're only going to take up the 1% budget today and um the after the ballot we're going to we're going to continue the town meeting to this date which would be after the ballot vote and if the ballot vote passed you got to come back to town meeting and appropriate that money so so pass so say say say nothing's even scheduled right now say say nothing scheduled and we we put a we put a a vote out a ballot vote out um an election vote out for for these budgets do we have to have um do we have to have an open meeting for that too um beforehand to discuss those budgets Mike I think I think the Town Council said that having a town meeting before the election was the open form to have the budget discussion if you now have the budget after the election you still have to have a forum for the town to discuss the budget be able to voice the so you have to have a meeting we'll ask for that tomorrow but not so easy tonight check I jack go ahead Jack uh just again hate to be the W blanket U but mik saying that you could make a motion to not take up the budget that still requires a vote on the floor tom meeting yeah so that is far and away from a certain thing if that's your plan which could also turn into a that in itself could turn into a ballot vote too there correct correct okay that's I you're not helping guys thought this is going to be easy tonight Mr can I ask a stupid question um yes go Ahad very short I'm sorry do I have to go up yes 50 minutes go I now um I know during the election like a week ago two weeks ago whenever it was a week ago there were like three different Giant Sports things that were happening all day are we worried about a Saturday or like in June and I might not know this in June maybe there are less but are we worried about a bunch of town being at soccer games all day and stuff I I can speak to that I know for the past at least three four years that I've been involved um we've requested that they don't have those and they just ignore it and they just hav okay just curious yeah I mean we can request it I don't think because those schedules are are put forth way in advance got it um so I think I think if it this is just my opinion if we do change it to another area we'd try to make that work where there's nothing going on there I mean I think most of them end by the end of May because it's usually States after that yeah it all depends jne in June [Music] right okay uh anything further on the town meeting Logistics that is the easiest topic of tonight no really that's the easiest one all come on up [Music] sou Stephan Elli 12 James Street when we had the debt exclusion for the repair of the high school I was asked to be a moderator in one of the three buildings it was world's spare goat race no one's ever been to a goat race neither were we in three different buildings people wanted to take a shot at me fist fistic cuffs people were pee off because of the logistics of the building that I was in we controlled it but the meeting didn't start till 9:00 because it was lined up outside the driveway and almost to the street no they weren't headed that way they were headed toward the high school and they couldn't Park their car and I remember being there early because Jason happened to be a friend of mine and I wanted to see if I could help and in one building the logistics of the microphones and the ability to communicate with one building and a third building and a second building it was horrible it was like pulling a pin on a an grenade and throwing it right into the suit and it was a mess you had to get up you had a control in my case 650 people with a microphone and I wasn't the real moderator in terms of I was asked to be an alternate moderator in that building I really didn't have the control that I would like to have and people were when I would say okay we'll start right here and you go up and sign in for your ballot well people got up everywhere where and just got in line and it could became a pushing situation it became unwielding we didn't even have a policeman at that meeting so had we had a policeman and you have to look into the the cost of that police besid the 50 Grand that you're talking about you got to look at buses that you're going to have to rent either Gat you're going to have to park you're going to have to have babysitters so it's the logistics of this so-called World sphere that you want to pull off in how long 3 weeks two two and A2 2 and A2 weeks week and I don't know the answer but no one's talked about those Logistics I was involved with it I understood what was going on but I had no control it wasn't like the auction business where I have control of my audience and they're my guests as an Auctioneer I had no control and I understand that the mics went down they weren't mics they were almost like walkie-talkies because they needed that special ability to contact and talk with the then town clerk so I think yeah I think um this is not it's not an easy one so I I I think and I'll speak for myself I think I think when we you know when I motioned for this a few weeks back I assume the legistics would be fairly easier than they actually are uh and that was a wrong assumption on my part so yeah I think presume I presume and I I don't like I don't like the word assumption I just don't like it because people kind of like joking and say yeah you and me assumption yeah assume no this you're you're in a hot spot and you had very little to do with the outcome you didn't say one and four and six and 67 it came out of nowhere so let's let's so why not put the blame and I'll do this why not put the blame on the people who created the situation so hold on hold on hold on one second let's we're sticking to I want to stick to the topics here and we're on the legis I appreciate your comments on the meeting yeah thank you knowing that somebody was there in one of those rooms um is helpful to know too so thank you R uh anybody else something to say go ahead Peter you know Wiggins you're honoring mayor not and I remember the meeting back in June 6th of 2011 and there was a lot of people there and it was for the dep exclusion for the high school and I was there too and it was on the night of the Boston Bruns Stanley Cup Finals game number three against the Vancouver connects in and that night and there was reports on the game and there was a lot of people there and your stly was there and I voted yes on the dep exclusion back in June 2011 so SL board you have a tough job to do and hopefully you'll find a solution and make it right thank you Peter you thank you you reminded me of the Bruins WR tonight not sure that so so speaking of the brooms being on right now let's let's move on um okay so are we all done with Logistics the town meeting is there any other questions from the board do we need to set any date I I we probably do I think I I honestly I think we should go through the Articles and the budget first and then sure kind of figure out everything all together as far as dates if that's okay with everybody y thank all right so I guess we're on to the the town meeting articles there have a couple we didn't vote on last time right so um if we could move to article 10 because there have a few people here um to present on that article um article 10 is an article um submitted by the water and sore commission um and this is to borrow uh $8.6 million um for a water and sore Pro on Elm Street and Steve Peterson from West Samson uh who was here previously to present um and I will I'll share a power presentation on the screen this is this is one p hang got itang welcome go ahead when thanks Mike so while Mike's bringing up the presentation I'll just give you um some background so um we gave the initial presentation on this before this board U Back in March um we've been trying to get the word out as best we can um through public Outreach uh we've met with the the finance committee um we've met with uh we've had one public meeting um a couple of weeks ago um and we have another public meeting uh scheduled for May 8th um the previous one a lot of the residents from from Elm Street showed up um I'm hopeful that we can get even some more attendance at the at the May meeting um to make sure the information is getting uh getting out there properly um so this presentation I want to walk through it again we can move kind of quickly through some of the early stuff but um we've definitely gotten a lot of feedback back a lot of the issues um with the way the article is being presented and the concerns that people have um so I think we can touch on some of that stuff uh tonight and try and address some of those issues um basically just so that just want to make sure everybody has um all the information as as we we think about this you know what we consider an important project um so yeah that's just overview so I'll give you a quick overview of the project but we really need to uh into the issues um that have been discussed so you know the scope has evolved a little over time as we've gone through the these meetings um but basically as it's constituted it consists of 4,800 L of feet of 8 in gravity sewer pipe on Elm Street in Miller Terrace uh it's fronting the sewer P piece is fronting approximately 50 properties um there's one Municipal U Pump Station um at this point the proposed site is down at library Park um off of Fel Street um and in addition um there's the entire length of Elm Street is proposed to be uh the waterm is proposed for replacement basically improvements to improve the the fire pressure the water pressure on that road um so that's the scope of the project um the reason we're even this far on it we're even talking about it and I said this in all the presentation is the grant monies that have been received um so the entire design um that we're putting uh together and needs to be completed by the end of this fiscal year which it will be we're very close um that's been entirely Grant funded um and that was actually Paul when he was here so Paul was here in the audience uh this evening when he was here previously as Town planner he put that Grant application together um with help from others um and then we also got an economic development bill so Grant monies have paid for the design to get us where are and then during the design process um the town also applied um for a construction Grant um through the mass Works program and receive $3.5 million which is one of the larger grants um that that program has ever given up that's a significant amount of money and the mass Works grants are focused on creating housing and jobs so the grants are really the catalst behind the grants is the property at 47 El Street um which I mentioned before I won't go into the background tonight we can talk more about the situation in 47 Elm Street the history behind it Paul can obviously provide some insight on that um if you go to the next slide like you know the biggest thing uh to remember and the reason the town has pursued these grants is that the master plan identified that property as a priority economic Target are area um it also identified that infrastructure Investments um to promote Economic Development were critical so that's kind of at the heart of this project we're talking about right now um Deco North America is pursuing ownership of the property um and you know Mike and Paul can talk more to where they're at in that process um at this point they're talking about a development of 140 to 150 Apartments as well as some commercial space um there's still significant uh remediation work to be done at the property uh and the infrastructure improvements we're talking about um are critical or necessary for the level of development that's being discussed at that property so that's kind of you know if you want to discuss why we're here why are we talking about it hopefully everybody understands that that's that's that's why we're even talking about we can debate how we're approaching it from here so let's talk about what everybody wants to talk about right how much is it going to cost and how are we going to pay for it so there's two portions to it there's the water M and the sewer just focus on the number at the bottom the total budgeted costs uh is between 7.3 million and 8.4 million right now based on the project as it's constituted and the information that we have gathered um if you look at the blocks below how are we going to pay for it so right away you take the 3 and2 million off the top right you have a grant for $3.5 million that's a big chunk the water portion of the work is proposed to be paid with water rates so the majority of the town is on water there's already water on Elm Street this is an improvement um based on the number of users in the system the water rates can support the improvements that's how they do the the water mate upgrades um within Town um is through the water BS so that's how that piece will be handled um so that leaves 1.8 million to 2.5 million that needs to be paid for to build this project that's the remaining amount of money that needs to be covered so the way most communities um pay for sewers um is through some form of using vment assessments to the properties that are fronted by the project and just in the word itself betterments it is a perceived Improvement of the property the ability to have the sewer in front of your property and to be able to get rid of your septic system um is considered an improvement so that's the concept of betterments um that's what Norton has done on their recent sewer projects they've used betterment assessments um to cover a significant portion of the cost of the project so for this specific project um the way the betterments work is you take the the dollars that you're trying to recover and you divide it by the total equivalent dwelling units edus um along the way and an edu is equivalent to one single family home so we equate everything along the way to a single family home so all the single family homes are one edu duplex homes or two so on and so forth this is a commercial property based on their water use they get equated a number of edus based on how many single family HS um So based on the number of the range of edus that I have up there we can talk a little bit more about that below the proposed betterment assessment for this project is 8600 to 12,000 um and if you look below that so with when someone's assessed a betterment they can they have the option to pay it in full when they get it I think within 30 days and then if they don't pay it it gets assessed to their taxes so it goes on their tax bill so someone that um that chooses to have an a portion to their taxes which is the more common method depending on the how much the betterment is um so in this case that range at 5% over 20 years and we can talk about the interest rate that's $690 to $960 a year depending on where the betterments come in um under the betterment laws you can either they're kind of quirky but you can either assess 5% straight out or up 2% more than the rate you borrow at so if when we borrow it's less than 5% which I don't think it is right now but if if so then that could come down a little bit it won't go any higher than the 5% but that's the rate we're using because regardless of what interest rate you pay you can assess 5% hope that makes sense so the there's been a lot of discussion about um the betterment you know assessing these properties along the way um as far as where that number comes from you know so for West Main Street the vs were $166,000 Um this can be lower um basically because of the grant you take the grant monies out and the dens the number of edus that we're applying to that um to go back to this sub bullet up here without the grant those numbers would be between 22 .4 and 28.7 we probably wouldn't be talking about it with bents at that rate but um you know betters are all over the place people ask the question you know what other communities pay it's very hard to compare every situation is different and how towns approach it um I would say these are very much in the in the range of what we're seeing so again 16,000 for West Maine uh one of the most recent projects we could find locally cuz it's also when it was done you can look at projects that were say better than 20 years ago and they're going to be lower understand that um so Easton just did a project the sewer extension project in 2021 they estimated the betterments were going to be like 30,000 and they got a mass Works Grant project came in a little lower than the budgeted costs their betterments were 20,000 um there are examples of betterments that are lower I'm not trying to people can do the research all the research you want the only mechanisms the sewer division has that control that number is um the another way to lower it is you could charge the users which is very uncommon so we could use the user rat like we talked about the water we're using the water rates it's not sustainable there's not enough people on sewer this is new infrastructure we're expanding the system um we would not recommend in the Seward division would not be able to support just increasing the user rates and having the existing The Limited number of existing users pay to bring more users in that's not typically how it works so that's why we don't use the user rates so really the other mechanism you have to lower that number is the tax rate you can put you know towns you can put a portion of it on the tax rate that is not how Norton has done the past projects that's why we've modeled it this way so that's how the that's where the better comes from that's why it's where it is so I think the hope of the numbers make sense so let's talk about the edus so the residents themselves between Elm Street and militaris add up to about 64 edus I said there were 50 properties again there's some multif family housing and whatnot so that's 64 edus so at that range of better that's about5 to7 million of that cost or about 30% of that remaining share that we talked about being paid by the residents that are getting this infrastructure and then 47 Elm Street we talked about the apartments 140 to 150 units plus some commercial space um if that is what gets built out there um that's a high number of edus so at 145 to 155 edus their shares between 1.3 million and 1.8 million about 70% of the remaining share one of the things that does keep coming up is how do we know somebody's going to develop that property we don't have we don't know for sure yet so there's concern about that there's Ang about you know why do this now and we can we can tell you because if you don't it's less likely this property will ever get built on but that's one of questions that's come up so and this property being in receivership if we assess a$ 1.3 to $1.8 million assessment to that property and nobody owns it then the town has to pick it up until somebody does and Mike can explain this better but I know we you ran some numbers mik you had account and it was like $136,000 a year on the taxes if the town has to pay that and then that would get recover so that explain like what would if they didn't so um by the way on the property itself um I gave you a letter that um Deco North America they they're now teaming up with mro krali from krali properties they've done a lot of development in Mansfield to uh work on the project um so that caution that's going to be assessed to that location um hopefully they by the time the Project's done they're on board and we don't have to worry about this but if if they weren't on board would be the town still has to pay the loan um so at that amount um looking at you know anywhere what was it again up to 1.8 million was it yeah 1.3 to 1.8 1.3 to 1.8 SL that would uh the pay a year would be $135,900 the to would have to pay we would put a lean on that property for any payments we make towards their vits um and uh just if that property as we envision being developed into Apartments 140 to 150 whatever they do uh just as an example 274 East Main Street there this year their taxes were 6 $2,844 to the town um so that's what we could anticipate you know in $500 $600,000 range depending on what they how many apartments they build at that location um so not only are we getting a site cleaned up we're going to start generating tax to the town potentially it's not guaranteed and I don't know know um if all of you were on the board where meeting after meeting people were coming in from down that area wanting us to do something with this property they wanted that building gone um the town doesn't have the money to tear down that building and clean up the site it's not going to become a park cuz we can't afford to do that um so the best option we had and you know Paul was fortunate we fortunate that Paul was able to get some grant money was to um move forward to try and attract the developer which we've done and get the infrastructure in so that can be developed um so and just if I if I can keep going on uh on the Elm Street um I had the health agent check um because I know one of the concerns always is that after seven years um people would have to tie into the sore um there have only been um four or five systems installed on Elm Street in the last 10 years in that neighborhood so there are a lot of Aging aging uh systems there and I just think if you look at it that the betterments are uh cost to these people and you if if they didn't have the betterment you're helping them out well you may be helping them out shortterm but maybe creating a long-term disaster when their systems fail um because the the average cost uh for our system in installation in Massachusetts right now is $20,000 and um any complicated system could cost you a lot more than that so um I I think we have a great opportunity here this $3.5 million Grant as Steve was saying the cost without that would it would be and uh I bring back 274 East Main where the S was going to be developed as a public soore and people didn't want that cuz they didn't want to have to tie in so it was not put out in the road and about 2 years after the apartment complex went in one of the condo association across the street came to the town hall cuz their septic systems were failing and they wanted to tie in can't tie in now you didn't want industry so um yeah so so we we went through this a couple weeks back this entire proposal [Music] um I just want to make it clear that the the the betterment assessment to each unit is not a tie-in fee it's not any fee to to to connect their SE it's just a it's a fee on top of whatever they're going to have to pay so I want to make sure that that's clear um and that was this next yeah sorry so I'll continue so along what Mike was saying so and that's one of the other issues that has raised concerns the requirement to tie in um so town again this is not a water Sewer Commission thing this is a town B Town requires Town us require you tied in with 2 years this has been hardly debated if you've been a town meeting in recent years so it got raised to 5 years and then I got raised to seven years so it's at the the mercy of the town meeting what people want to do with that but right now it's at 7 years um the reason it's so critical is is what I talked about before with the user rates you know it's not a it's an expensive infrastructure to put in the ground it's not oh let's go put sewers in all these neighborhoods and then if people's systems fail they can tie into it we need people we need support to pay for the system after it's in it's paying for it to build it and then there's to operate and maintain it um so if you buil this whole thing and then of the 50 residen is only three of them tie in you know there's only three more people on the user base you know it affects the rate the rate has to go up the few of people that tie in the rate you know is is dependent upon that so that's that's why the town has a bulaw it requires people to tie in if it's why we're building it is so that people will TI um the current all right so based on um the water use records of the properties out there the single family homes and across town just to put it in perspective the current estimated us a charge is about $100 in order for single family residential home that uses the typical amount of water everybody uses different amounts but that's that's the average so the actual cost to hire someone and come and connected to the Sewer um is definitely there's definitely a wide range cuz and the biggest things that drive the cost are the length of the connection the soil conditions and the surface restoration you know are you going through Landscaping beds or are you just coming down the side of your house and doing loing and sea um we've talked to the local installers that do this you know they basically quoted you know one of the um contractors that does most of the septic systems and the sewer connections um set the average system costs about 7500 is what they said so I think the real average range is in that $7 to $10,000 range that's assuming um within 100 ft of the road moderate digging conditions not anything extreme um and loing and seaing you know just digging up your grass and getting out to the street so the stubs along the way so the main line goes down the street we leave a stub off of the pavement off of the right way to each property to connect into when they're ready to connect so they don't dig up into the road again um so there's no cost with Paving if they choose to come down their driveway that's that's what they choose to um and I think Mike already talked about you know to install or replace a system um again the local contractor and our data tells us typical cost is about 20 grand they this ranges a lot again the same same factors other than you know the length of condition um doesn't commit the length of connection doesn't Comm in um but I don't think you know there's history of systems recently in town at 40,000 um those costs are are are higher than [Music] connectors there is a Title 5 Loan program you know so people ask about this um so in addition to be able to take out a loan for repairing a septic system it's also eligible for sewer connections so similar to the betterments you know whether your cost of hiring a contractor you can take out a 5% loan that one's over 15 years and it gets paid on your taxes like the feder does so there is a mechanism for homeowners when they need to tie in to apply for a loan through the town through the Board of Health to connect to the Sewer so that's the sewer connection process U I think those are the those are the big things that that have been discussed are we going to are we just building it in case somebody wants to come to 47 Elm you know why are we assessing people along the way why are we crying them to tie in those are the questions that have come up and that's why I can only give you the why um so Mike I I don't the next slides are see I think that's it Ian I think really the other side are just about where we're at I mean iFly have an article meeting yeah I think that's what you need know yeah we went through all this before too so um I I had a couple quot questions um so the the water rates are going to be part of the the for the water piece yeah is there an intention to raise the water rates for that or is that just going to come out as what's if the intent is to come out of what's there but they you know each year they have to evaluate the rates for verus what the costs are that Year John am I accurate saying that I don't mean to put you on this SP there's talk water rate study but it's not not tied to this project okay yeah my question would be specifically so there is a specific rate specifically to make it to go with this okay uh anybody have any questions uh no I do I do want to clarify so defco is in conversations with cnail but they specifically say that they have not formally partnered yet so just I do want to clarify that um so there's still a lot of question marks and I watched the fincom meeting on Monday was a great discussion that they had um and for me it's kind of like a risk versus rewards balance um so something I'm I'm same with you yeah I'm on the same with you yeah it's it's the $3.5 million Grant is is huge and that's something that again I really go without saying but I don't think these prices aren't going to go down you know we lose the grant so no so as part of the grant we would have to have everything in the infrastructure in place by the end of June 2026 that's the time frame we againsts to to take advantage of the if it if it was in an area that wasn't solely riant upon a specific property being developed in a certain way and there were multiple businesses that were driving the need for it I would probably be more compelled but we're relying on a lot of if if IFS and Remediation hasn't even started yet another big hip right and if remediation turns up something not too good they could walk away and and actually they're going through steps to try to insulate themselves from liability um in those circumstances those are my concerns yeah see everybody says you and I disagree on a lot but we really don't I mean I I'm with you in this 100% that really uh you know and my my other concern is I mean the elephant in the room the the sewer project on West Main Street cost a uh a heck ton more than originally presented um so that that's my concern is that it's going to come back to town meeting for another 600,000 700 800,000 which is what happened with the other project so um that being said I mean go ahead and I'm just looking just make sure I understand this that with the betterment and the tie-in if I just live in my house and because we're going to try to develop this piece of property it's going to cost me $22,000 wow yeah that's that is I mean that's not including That's not including you having a contractor to come out and actually tie you in but that's that's that's a tie in and better if I'm just sitting in my house that's AOW that's a $22,000 yeah I mean the tradeoff is um when you go to S so you know accept systems definitely have a limited life they're not permanent they will fail I don't know when but you know nobody knows for sure when but and it is typical at the sale of the house that they do um and as we said the costs are going to be more to replace the seing system that's that's the the benefit I mean it does um you know it it does provide value to the property to have the ability to tie into the sewer and then if then when you do tie in it's significantly cheaper than having to replace your setings so for me personally I I mean I I'm I'm I'm on the fence on this one um I I mean I I think it's I think it would be good to put it to the town to vote on it just see if I think but the last thing I want to see is anybody assess out of their home and that's kind of what I see exactly what Denise was saying um even if it's one person um that's that's one too many in my opinion but um just the chair good um so Steve um hold me up if I'm saying something that won't work um I just want to make sure that the grant money would still be there if we pulled this off if the select boy voted to take this off the warrant the warrant hasn't been posted yet so if they voted to take this off the warrant um that would give more time for devco and Kali absolutely to uh come so forward and wait until the fall and then maybe they come to an agreement if we go back if we wait till October is the grant money still there so yes the it you're starting to jeopardize the end the end game so we talked with the granting agency yesterday Paul was on the call with me um because we did want to understand that so the way we have it now is if we get the vote if we were to get the vote now we would be ready to start in the fall we anticipate it taking about a year to complete maybe a little more so by the end of 2005 we anticipate completion if we move it if we vote it in the fall we're not starting till the spring most likely um a year from the spring is the spring of 2026 so it's it's tight to the end but it's still within the numbers and and I get that I mean it you know we we're getting all the the feedback you know we felt like we got a good jump on it and we gave the information out but now everything's happening fast and it's it's um a lot of people seem to have concerns I get that we're just presenting the information you know I guess the question would be what's going to make it more powerful so that that the first thing that Mike said is the biggest thing is we get an answer that yeah the developers on board you we're ready to pay 1.5 million in an assessment we're we're signing on and taking the property does that do it or we still have all the other concerns for me personally if if devco that signed contract right now saying they're going to take it over I I would be more leaning towards it yeah but yeah they and I want to see a timeline to the project to right I just you know I'm I've never been a fan in my entire you know what five years in public service I've never been a fan of of making these decisions based on a potential you know property property being developed I I'm not I don't think it's I don't think it's smart business I think if devco pulls out we're on the hook for what 130,000 a year on top of everything else and these people are going to be assess for it anyways um and we're in the middle of a of an override crunch here and we have no money it's just to me it's fiscally irresponsible to do that without a um without a commitment from devco but that's that's my personal opinion I will say from my for my time on the economic development me there's a huge need for this kind of development where the businesses are right but but this is like one apartment Place versus the corridors of 123 and 140 which we have business focus which is probably need know much more than def Coast presentation was was one of my last planning board meetings I was on the planning board and and I thought it was fantastic and I was all for it 100% in for it yeah um you know Flash Forward 2 and a half years later and there's still no nothing signed you know nothing no commitment no commitment exactly so that that's a concern for me Mr chair go ahead so what we're really talking about here is sort of like a game of chicken right so we can wait until octo we can wait till October and see what happens with devco okay but if nothing happens with devco um between now and October we'll be right back having this same conversation right and we'll be having this same conversation now under a time crunch of having to get it done before 26 basically or sometime into 26 so my concern is that I don't want to lose sight of what a problem that property is in other words you know yes I understand I understand the betterment cost I understand the tying cost I understand people don't want to pay more for something that they're not choosing to do necessarily um but that property is a huge liability for this town and we if we miss the opportunity to do something about that property um you know I think that that's weighing heavily on on how I'm thinking about it um so you know so you know um that's that's kind of where I am is that I I I don't want to be here five years from now and you know 10 homeowners have replaced their septic tanks for $40,000 or $30,000 dollar each and we still have a dilapidated contaminated property on our hands um so that and we don't have $3.5 million of grant money to help um remediate that property so um I'm not saying the answer is easy part of part of this job that we do on the select board here is we have to make difficult difficult decisions and sometimes they're not always um sometimes it's a lesser of I want to say lesser of two evils but sometimes it's a lesser of two evils and trying to figure out you know what we're trying to do for the T for the people who live over there but also for the rest of the town as well I understand point I don't think it's a liability for us yet because we don't have possession Town doesn't own that right if we took possession of it you'd have liability but as it stands today I don't think you have any liability and what is it I story yes is chicken and exing yes I think Dev Co will also say I won't do I won't sign anything until I know it's going to be there right so I think you're right yeah I just feel like the very presence of that property in our town is is a is a li is a liability for the town it does not do anything for us it can only hurt us having that property there um my only point would be that we could say your point Mr Steiner that yes it would definitely improve that whole area but we could still be sitting here with that property looking just like that and those people having to pay all that money anyway and and sorry thank you thank you Mr Mar because that's that's what I was saying that's where I was going with the uh the game of chicken thing I don't I I'm not comfortable playing chicken with other people's property and livelihood and possibly not even being able to live in this town I I think that sound sorry Mr CH I think I think our best option here is putting it off to the fall and seeing if we can get this um see if we can get dco and and and the developer um is are they the only developer that were there was devco in that other one there was another one I believe um I don't know if it was made public yet but I know there was another one but but even then I mean like I said it's going back 2 and a half years now uh it's you know and and and you know again as much as as as I believe these members I want to believe that they're going to stay that way I don't believe they're going to I believe they're going to go up anyways um so that that's another concern of M so that's something that it's it's unfortunate that we live with that no that question comes up every yeah I walked off the football field with my tail between my legs I'll never forget Ian I was probably I don't want to be there again I mean you can I I I will tell you that if nothing else you know there were a lot of things learned from that everything that could go wrong did go wrong um the biggest part of it you know we've talked a lot about the ledge the biggest part of it was being out on the state highway and you know we ran into the ledge and had to deal with it and we had a contractor that struggled to deal with it and then a state that wouldn't allow us to blast so we're hammering I'm making excuses listen to me but but I take this at every be and I get it I I get it I hate I hate to think that future sewer projects are going to continue to get shot down because of because of what happened so I I feel bad about that but I am telling you that we've done more to gather the information we need this time we spent more during the design on the last job we did we followed state standards as far as the spacing of borings getting the information we did three times that on this project to get our data we're not on the state highway so and I'll probably regret saying it but we're very comfortable with the cost range we've given you so I I want to make I want to make clear I I didn't want to uh say that that you didn't do more diligence and and that this isn't you know your best effort for the rate pricing I'm just saying that it's a it just last time construction it's unpredictable and I'm I'm in proper minut so I understand things can Domino and that happens all the time um but when we're talking about you know and and I have heard from some homeowners in the area that that really will lose our homes over this and it's it's rolling the dice and I got I do have to and I know that so that was the the res the public meeting we had with the Elm Street residents that I think we had a really good meeting and it was productive and we heard their concerns and we get it you know I kind of laid out to you that this is how everybody does it this is how it happens and I do struggle with trying to explain why it's okay that they get assess that um but the people that are there are there are two systems that are in failure and have been put on hold that are looking at a significant sum of money to replace their systems out there there so they're they're praying it goes through um so for the people you know you've got these people that don't want it to happen and it's all based on your circumstances um and I get that the other thing I want to ask is um I'm I totally get putting it off let's get some more information about 47 I would ask that there be some collaboration if people are unhappy with the and I think with the the finance committee the select board the water and sewer board let's have a work session about the betterments and what our options are to do with those if you don't like the number we need some help we're working with what we have you know and the requirement to tie in is the requirement to tie in if Town meting wants to wave it it's going to make it harder the sewer rates are going to go through the so those are the things that we working against this is any sewer project not just this sewer project so I would just I don't want to come back in the fall and have Devo on board and then have everybody still say yeah but it's too you know if we still can't come to an accord on that then why all right thank you very much oh you come steing on Podium hi I'm Steven Bernstein I'm your wet commissioner if you don't know and I live at 18 Newland Street in noron Massachusetts on behalf of the Water Commission as we would like to with draw article 10 for this town meeting and we would like to put it on the fall special town meeting or fall meeting oh that was easy yeah why didn't you come up before man opportunity to sit for a while my wife's like why you still at the meeting the other thing is uh just to emphasize what Steve said our consultant is um we spoke to the the uh uh m m work gr people yesterday they told us this the $3.5 million Grant it's the largest grant that given in this program and based on the state budget not our budget uh probably not going to happen again for a very very long time i' be a real disappointment if we lose the Grant and I and probably if we lose the grant we'll never see sewer on Elm Street thank you very much so to his point yeah I think that that was fantastic ining that Grant um and and it's it's insane to be able to have to lose that but I think having having de Co committed would be again from I'm just King from myself and from a few people I've spoken to that it would bring them from a no to a yes all right so I guess if they're going to pull that to we uh I'll make a motion to um REM remove Artic 10 remove article 10 from the um annual motion a second any any further discussion okay all in favor of removing article 10 from the one I I thank you thanks Steve thank you Mr chair um if we could move now to Article 13 establishment of townwide speed limits I think we have someone here from the Safety Committee I don't know if they want hey you show up you know [Music] [Music] what we talking about Safety Committee have been having some discussions a lot of discussions of what do this all the town and that this article was presented last year and failed and we believe based on the fact that they didn't understand it voters didn't quite understand what that all about what this article does allows the bo to Monitor and control sh Fe on town home roads only not include any of the state highways be here number 140 only can only allows us to control our own streets we have a lot of customer complaints we have a lot of complaints from uh local citizens about the scuds on their streets uh my my street mine street is 30 mph nobody does 30 m hour other than mayy Steve I do you're the only one anyone else uh doing 30 40 50 60 M hour down the street and I think mainly because it's a straightaway you can almost see half a mile [Music] front we're hoping that the um consider we supported the last time we hope you to do it again this time because it will give the selection with some control over some of the streets as an example to grow right now reservo Street 30 mph we can't go any lower than that if the select board decide they want to go 25 milph they can do that and under the Pres was you can't do that if we wanted to drop the speed limit from 30 to 25 without the splyw we would have to do a traffic safety study we have to spend the money on engineers and everyone else that goes along with it and it cost a lot of money to do something like that and we've got a couple of other projects in town we're working on with trying to reduce those speed to East Main Street is a major problem concern of ours you can go from 30 30 mph going one way 40 to the other it doesn't make sense but that's the state world so calls on different uh under different jurisdiction so uh anyway reason for the request again is to try to get some control of some of the people on Town streets so General general con right so I think one of the questions before was people's concerns with it it's going to make every street 25 mil an hour and that's not the case no not you take a street by Street yeah yeah there are towns cities and town and now have City town on this yeah it just gives us the the authority to to bring it down to 25 yeah Mr chair is there any evidence that just put in a different sign so those people don't I think need talk I don't really know I don't think so U enfor enforcement is is most mostly about enforcement but the same time if I'm driving along and I see this 30 mph sign I know I'm doing 35 anyway I'm I'm I'm paying somewhat of attention to it and if it's 25 I know I can get away at 30 m hour anyway people don't do the Speen it's just you know it's the way we are help keep the honest people honest Mr chair spe um and I think this this originally came up because of the truck traffic on Worcester Street um over by Home Market Foods um you know and I think the ability to be able to enforce a lower speed limit over there for the truck truckers would be would be really helpful for that for that neighborhood so we having more conversations with do and anyone else we can about some of the issues on like w and it's interesting to find out what we can and cannot do a lot of people think we can do a lot we really can't do much man unless I think some vill pick and settled I don't think that road pick and settled right um it might be thing is I came up it also says for uh on any way in Norton that is not a state highway is that only if it's thickly settled at corre business district and so the thing that come up was that Eaton raised it as well and I know um like you you keep saying that the East Main Street is not a state highway look at the do map and it looks like it clearly is the state highway so I'm curious where you where you got the information it's not St um from do when we did the um then map shows it map shows it the same color straight through from to East yeah we talked to do too it's it's not it's it's own by the town control it was it's it's a state road but it's not but that portion of number yeah it's state numbered but it's not that portion is actually owned in and maintained by the time it's it's ridiculous I understand right Kevin change I want to go back to your thickly settled thing um who determines whether or not an area is thickly settled you to find anywhere it is I I don't have I have't FR me but it the state has a definition thickly settled it's so many per yeah so many pres yeah you can't have uh it's always a definition come on I know we have we recently had a traffic stud so is there a motion on this I will make a motion to um thanks thank you um I will make a motion to um recommend Article 13 on the annual town meeting War all right second all in favor hi all those not favor oh I'm sorry I'm sorry all post I I really thought I heard you say I I'm sorry it's okay four to one um I guess we continue going down um byw Amendment uh the home owner privacy bylaw Amendment this was the petition article and I I know uh Stella uh was in to uh meet with you on this and um the finance committee voted no action on the article and they um they had a good good point on this this is a bylaw not a zoning Amendment so planning board doesn't make a recommendation on bylaw articles um what the uh finance committee suggestion was move no action and that we reach out to Stella and if she would come to the select board maybe if she'd come to the select board in Octo by the October time meeting and ask meet with the select board and talk about what she's trying to do and try and have the select board do it as a byar Amendment then you could have Town Council review it where they can't do it now is a petition article they can't have a lot of involvement with it uh that way the Town Council could be more involved and say well this would work this might work good question if the petition article let's say for instance passed Town Council would have to review at that point or the state would have to review it and need approve it to pass it so if it's not worth property it's not going to right okay and I mean some of the concern now I know talking with the uh Building Commissioner who's the zoning enforcement officer and talking with the uh police chief is how is this enforceable they're not sure um the concern is that this is more of a civil matter that should be handled by the court and they really would want Town Council to get involved and figure out where there is some enforcement capability for the town or is this just bringing us into a civil man Mr J um I think this is just a very slippery slope for us to step on right now so um I'm open for a make a motion I'll will make a motion to recommend no action um on article 18 on the annual town meeting second Motion in a second all in favor opposed M Che not um in zoning um article uh the number Article 19 soning byar Amendment this did go to um the planning board no Paul still here he left this uh and they came back with their recommendation opposed to this article Mr chairman the fcom voted 11 nothing not to recommend oh I know you're going to say can I make a motion absolutely um to um uh to make a motion to recommend will we recommend no action on this not to recommend not to recommend okay we'll make a uh I would like to make a motion not to recommend um Article 19 on the annual town meeting warrant I'm seeing as the planning board um second second um just before we vote on it I just want to let you know that I went out to this property and spoke with her and looked at the situation and they have the situation there but I don't think that anything that we're going to do is going to help them it with that situation I think they need to take care of it simply yeah I agree all right motion of the seconds to recommend no action on Article 19 all in favor I oh that it was not to recommend not to oh correct oh oh I'm sorry not to recommend okay Article 19 all in favor I oos all right we have one more right the capital plan so Capital you have the capital plan in your packet and also uh sheet on Capital funding so uh the beginning balance was 512 $527 and um that's what capital is recommending um for highway just three payments um this is on existing equipment that they're already making payments on so their peteru um it would be year two or five for 50,000 C Granda utility tractor uh payment 55 34,300 we like to see those 505s and the uh Peter uh 2022 Peterbilt thump truck year 405 to 2,150 um and then um data processing replacement for end of life equipment um and 25,000 Police Department uh they're purchasing new Duty pistols for the Department 43,000 Department structural firefighting hose this been a program they've been going through for a few years to replace all their hose 22000 uh the Norton Public Schools need to uh replace uh the cylinder in the elevator at um the JCS $ 68,70 uh the recreation department um this is for some cool safety upgrades and equipment replac M um at the ELP $1,030 and then um for the water and seore Department um a Chevy Silverado dump truck um body to be installed uh 50,000 uh a six wheeel Mac uh truck 150,000 and a tow behind electronic sign 20, 620 [Music] and the sword Department um a Ford F 250 4X4 with utility body plow and accessor 77,000 till behind electronic traffic watering sign 20,625 and a six wheale Mac Granite dump uh 51,500 and all water in sore uh purchases will come out of uh water revenues for the water purchases and sore revenue or retained earnings for those purchases so in the end um the total Capital request was one almost uh 2 mil 1, 999,000 um and capital Improvement committee uh has recommended um that the fund uh from Capital um a total uh let me get back across the page um so the total expended um out of Capital Improvements would be um $282,200 uh $344,500 borrowed water Surplus 149 125 and um sour C excuse me 14915 and total water Ser plus 22,6 25 and the finance committee has recommend the plan yeah uh just to clarification so the recreation department also did you mention that one yes that's the pool is there pool I heard yeah um so it's uh the pool is ining so problem a problem problem she wants to cut down on that water bill so um I just can you clarify for me that the roof on the Yep this is uh what portion is that this is the roof replacement on the brick portion of town hall that remains when the town hall was torn down so um that's where the fire department is and they're just going to expand over to that other brick section that so it's not the part that's set for demo no and so uh like if you're in the town hall where the veterans offices and the lunchroom and the bathrooms that would all be part of the fire department and that wall is where the that building ends what right the block wall on that hallway is the end of that I'm assuming you're going to wait till demo is done we hopefully before the project Begins the rooms are actually at two different elevations so won't be an issue um what we are working on is um like through the green communities to get some funding to convert the entire building over to Mini Splits so we can get the big AC unit off the roof before we do the roof and get rid of it so and uh the congressman actually stepped forward um and uh we're on likee other a list right now a final list to get [Music] all right any other questions on that one Mr chairman Mr SM I would like to make a motion to recommend the capital plan as written in article 8 on the annual town meeting Mar second motion of a second any further discussion on that one all in favor I I all oppos all right and that's the last one we had to vote on the budget right yep and you do have on special I don't think it's voted on PRI year bills yeah and um prior year bills and c replacement are the only two that are actually uh moving forward um Article 2 3 4 5 6 7 are um well there's three articles moving forward 2 3 4 5 five six and seven um are all no action if you just want to make a motion I'd be happy to do that um all right Mr chair I'd like to make a motion to recommend no action on articles 2 3 4 5 6 and 7 on the special town meeting warrant second all right motion of second all in favor I post in article one is a prior year legal bill um $1,649 185 I believe it was a bill from like March I got lost in the shuffle somewhere um and all of a sudden they uh alerted Us and how can we have spell for March Mr chairman make a motion to um recommend uh sorry uh like to make a motion to uh recommend article one um on the special town meeting War second second all in favor I I oppos excent um article e um is an article for special legislation to amend the charter um to provide for the appointment of the Town manager blah blah blah you know the language um yes and the finance committee voted to recommend and Mr chair um I'd like to make a motion to approve to recommend article 8 second motion second any discussion on this one all right all in favor I oppos okay thank you and the last article is article 9 and you might not believe this but due to all the rain and the St who had this year Jared has run into issues with Calbert really you're kidding and uh so um he see he the finance committee approved um 25,000 from free cash uh for his uh culet replacement projects including incidental and related costs Mr chair I'd like to make a motion to recommend article 9 for the special Town War second all in favor I I I opposed so nothing else to oh wait all right so now we're going to talk about the 2025 budget [Music] so we had a little meeting last night at the finance committee z z he was here his legs back a meeting to um 1145 115m less than I was on the call way to go Peter um and so the finance committee last night they went through they had already approved the 1% budget and last night they went through and reviewed um and recommended a $4 million budget and recommended a 20 6.5 a budget with 6.5 override the um so the uh budget recommended that with a 4 million over $4 million override um with 76,1 193,194 and 11 cents and with the 6.5 million override was 78,500 3699 um and I do have 4 million that I can go over with you if you want um but I I will say remind you that with an override of 4 million and an override 6.5 million um it was agreed that there' be no use of free cash so the 1.2 million that we were using for free cash would not be used in the budget that would be held and so that could be used for um in the fall that could be used for um Capital stabilization opep um and also with the um $6.5 million budget um the ambulance receipt use was reduced from the 1 million to 850,000 so maybe to get it started um we can discuss the the 1% budget um I think it's been kind of discussed for death at this point but you want to have a discussion or approve the 1% budget and we can move on to the next ones I'm I'm fine to to to vote on the 1% budget so yeah I think I listen to yeah y so um so would I make a [Music] motion we to the to approve the whole article um you make a motion on the 1% okay so we'll make a motion to recommend the 1% budget for the uh article six for the annual count second all right motion to Second for the 1% budget recommend your 1% budget to your town meeting is there any further discussion all in favor I I opposed okay okay so I know we have the the four and the 6.5 um do we have somewhere in here the numbers uh I'm remember for um to the break even or the um level Services numbers for uh school fire PD so um with with the $4 million um budget uh override budget that brought all the town departments to level Services um the only addition was um one other person in the uh Council on Aging $49,000 position other than that it was Voting the budgets back to um what the requests were for level Services Mr chair that's just for the town right schols the schools for 1.9 short still so on the 4 million the yellow I'm I'm still trying to WRA my head around why we don't have this exact number I it's been months now I don't understand I saw I just don't remember what it was no for the we have the number for the schools but I just I mean I think we're doing a disservice to everybody by not having the exact number that's my personal thought so um the exact number for the town other than the uh 49,000 the $49,000 position to increase uh at the Council on agent is um6 million $452 $2,201 [Music] C and um for the schools uh The Bu The number is 36 m943 732 and they request is that their original request yeah their request was 38 million 873,000 192 Mr check 55 325 go ahead so that difference in the uh school from the uh recommended to the uh request on the 4 million is uh 1.92 difference do we have a number for what their level service is that's that that is that so so this 30 this 38 is so a 4 million override is what the schools need for just level service is that what I'm understanding it's the 1.9 short of level Services right so they they were asking for 38873 431 but that's the number in the 4 million that's not the number in the 4 million that's their request so that the 4 million Awards them up more than the 1% but still less than the than the full level Services 1.9 short of level service is what they're saying correct I guess how do we so do we have a number for what level Services across the board from schools and that's the 6 and a half million budget um well for the for the town I can tell you um level services is I thought that was that 16,00 16,452 $120.1 right level Services would be minus 49,000 off of that you would cuz that's another position being added to the COA for $9 and what's the level service number for schools the schools say say that the number they submitted was level services so there's 30 is what their level service number is Mike on the um 1% budget yeah page last page grand total FY 2025 Department request Grand to 78575 769 25 that's level Services of departments schools in town departments right 2024 uh the next the column to the left of that FY 24 budget appropriated 71451 48.73 that leaves a Delta of 7,124 72052 that's the number correct and the difference from 24 fiscal year 24 correct to what the uh level services to 2025 correct yeah so so it's a 7,124 720 52 C dollar amount that would provide level services from fiscal year 24 to 20 uh fiscal year 25 for all departments correct so why are we asking for A4 million or $6.5 million override that's the question I have that's the number why are we asking for something short of that we're going to be back here next year two years from now so I think the scope of today's conversation I'm not discussing the amounts right we're just discussing was the budgets I think like well at the drint that drint meeting we had we had 3 million we had 3.5 we had four 4.5 but we but we still didn't have the base number I mean that's that that to me is baffling that we still don't we had to literally sit here calculate this number up to what was needed so I know we're talking about the four and the 6 and2 but um it could be I mean anybody out here who wants to vote for for for an override I understand the reasons why I 100% I understand the reasons why but but just throwing a number that could potentially pass is ridiculous and throwing out a number that's not accurate is also ridiculous we we need to know exactly what what is needed by the town so we can say hey look this is exactly what the police needs is exactly what fire department needs and everybody knows what the school needs um that number has not been out there yet and it's been 3 months now we've been talking about this I'm concern I'm very concerned I think the number is out there I just he just the school has had their the school has you're right has had their budget book out for quite some time um Mike got the numbers these numbers just earlier this week right I mean he the fincom so we we've not seen the four and six and a half six and a half until today um but yeah Mr chair um I think it's unfortunate and unnecessary and almost misleading to be just throwing numbers out to the citizens saying hoping that there's a number out there that we're going to be able to pass um if we're if we're going to be honest let's be honest this say this is the amount of money to have level services and you either go with that number or you don't go with that number you're either in or you're out is how I look at it I don't understand why we're just trying to find a number that's palatable enough to the community that they might pass it I don't understand that Mr chair I guess I don't understand then why everyone is so concerned about their taxes going up so in an attempt to not tax people out of their homes now all of a sudden we don't want to give people the option for a lower up for a lower override the idea that it doesn't make sense to propose something lower than all than everything all in and that's the only number first of all was exactly what we discussed at the at the uh The Joint meeting so I'm not sure why why why now it's this huge offense that no one's asking for $7.1 million but on the other hand the idea behind the lower override amount was to stem I don't think it's that difficult to understand it's to stem some of the cuts not all of them correct um and then to also try to address the fact that we don't want to tax people for the full $6.5 billion dollar or whatever or the 7.1 or whatever it is so I I don't understand why now we suddenly don't care about how much people's taxes go up and we're just saying you know what there's only one option live or die with it so I I guess I'm confused as to you know why this having a $4 million budget is $4 million override is such an affront to everybody all of a sudden when it wasn't before and the whole point of it is is to try to find find something that balances Cuts with taxes that's the whole idea you're balancing the cuts with taxes so so I mean I can I can speak on my own on this one um I don't think anybody here said that they don't care about people's taxes going up I think quite the opposite um I think from my own perspective and and you can I said this at the Joint meeting too probably both joint meetings we need to know the actual number and and just because you can pass something doesn't mean it's going to fix anything we're going you know people is going to go up with a $4 million overhead and then next year guess what we're going to cut 100 teachers again and we're going to you know and we're going to tell you you're a horrible person if you don't want to pay more taxes it's going to happen again and again and again so if we get that number the actual correct number uh and this is again my opinion we get the correct number and we put it out there and say hey this is what we need you want this community this is what we need that I I mean I think this is the correct number and then an alternative is a balance the balance stream the full amount number and then nothing with tons of cuts right so I think I think we have the information in front of us and of course the budgets as the years go on and we keep having these Personnel raises more than more than whatever percentage we have right of course it's going to come up again it it's just is no matter what number we pick at any point in time go so the 6 and2 million was based on what we thought was level services at that time it appears it was more than that now but 6 and2 million was what we were being told with the numbers from the school and town side it seems like it's gone gone a little bit up from that irrelevant I don't think we need to change the numbers I think that we settled at that joint meeting on the 6 and half million and the 4 million as a balance between the two what else you know how do we um how do we keep uh from happening the continued to you made this point I think last meeting or a couple meetings ago you know the contract renewals and whatnot at negotiations they cannot they cannot be uh you know well everyone everyone's guil to give that I want to say that across the board it's the full contract rate not just the annual increases if you take everything into consideration what is the full contract amount you know that that is part of the elephant in the room we're over promising and we we don't have we're we're we're negotiating where money we don't have yeah I don't disagree with you and so the balance is and rightfully so right is if we try to keep everyone to what we have we're going to lose good people it's a balance town has to decide what we want to be where we want to go but I agree we're playing with money that we don't have every time we negotiate in contracts the way we do across all of the Town not any particular area but all of it so so the reason I wanted to put off the vote on the um on the town meeting is is because I think with the two budgets it's it's super confusing for everybody um so I wanted to put it out there if the board wanted to do anything about that maybe just put one and that's why I wanted the specific numbers because we could even narrow it down to you know to the penny is what I was looking for um but I'll leave it up to the board I don't I don't find it confusing myself but I think the way you present it going to make difference in how people find it right how the article is discussed on the warrant and how we vote on it and this now the meeting comp comp complexities right all of that is going to be what makes it either smooth and easygoing or not Mr chair yeah yeah and I I it's kind of goes back to the the logistics discussion in a way because we have to we we've had these discussions with the with the with the free boards we've um we've been down this road all the way we're going we've G all the way down this road for two or three months to have these two these two budgets or however long it was since the final meeting month um we've had all these discussions about the budget I don't think we should be making decisions based on whether or not it might be confusing for some people at town meeting to understand it I think we have to make a decision on what we think are the right what's the right thing to do for our budget and for our situation that we're in um and then it's incumbent upon us or the moderator or whoever it is to explain in a clear way what's going to happen um at town meeting and on on the valley I I I don't think saying well you know what that that $4 million budget that that you know that $4 million override you know that might be the that might be the one that that you know that works that works for this year for whatever reasons but then to say but we won't present that to the people at town meeting because it might be confusing like to me that's not a good enough reason you don't you you wouldn't run a company in a way that you would cater to you know the the folks that you know don't understand something um you you run a business to you know to to to you know let let the people who you know understand it and take the time to understand it make a decision on it so I to me it just seems it just seems awkward or odd to say well you know what you know some people might not understand well you know what we have town meeting you know if if we didn't have town meeting we'd have Town Council where everybody would have time to understand it but we have town meeting and if some people aren't you know we can guarantee that not all 2,000 people that show up at town meeting are going to understand it but that doesn't mean that might not be the right option for the town at any one second so so I'm glad you brought that up you know if you're running a business you're not going to just throw it out there and say you know whatever's going to whatever's going to work and I don't want to I don't want to pull anything because it's going to be confusing that's just one aspect of it the major point is in running my business I want to know exactly to the penny how much we need to stay level services and just throwing out a number willy-nilly which both of us are are guilty of at the last meeting because I think I threw out 6.5 and you throw out four um I think we I think honestly we both did a disservice to the town by doing that I mean I think we we should have had to the penny exactly what was going to was going to be needed the 6.5 you based it on and I was it was close it was close what did the school need and what the town need and that's the 6.5 came from and the 4 million was a compromise between the to where it wasn't all of nothing it was a compromise between using some jobs but being able to do some leval Services we we have known since December or January what level Services was I mean those were the department budgets that we submitt but we were given the direction to now work on a 4 million and a 6.5 million that's why corre we spent all our time doing it and went to finance committee and have them reviewed that yeah and I know the sorry y go ahead Mr um I know the finance committee went through every line item last night on both the $4 million override and the $65 million override and I know they were able to actually make some reductions um in those um you know so you know I'm I'm I'm I'm confident that fincom has done its job and and these dise with that these any doubt that they no doubt work try to get those two budgets yeah so you know I think I think that's their their their job is to make the recommendations town and so that's where we are um so when uh Mr unit said that we've had these numbers since December I have never heard that number before that 7.1 million was the amount that we would need to have level Services I haven't heard that before tonight that has been presented like I mean what we it was under six I I think it was it wasn't it wasn't a 7 million gap it was the 78 million asked and it was it was under seven because we were using 1.2 million of free cash and the new growth right and stabilization yeah but uh I'm saying if you took the 7.1 million and had one 1.2 million of free cash that's yeah but did that include the new growth in the increment as well yeah yeah we we already we knew what that was I don't remember seeing that at all not at all I do so I mean I think the in the earlier days Mike was presenting I don't know if it was that you even asked for that number M I asked for the detail budget right but the beginning Mike was just presenting the full dollar amount at at the bottom that what I was asking for was this detail here that we now have which we didn't have right but in the beginning it was just buckets of um School Town Personnel whatever the different categories were right yeah so it was just big big buckets but I wanted to see the detail which is which is what we now have but the the dollars I think say I didn't bring all the old yeah exactly like that so so Fon made um I I I tried to watch most of the meeting before I came here because it just came on um online earlier um think come made adjustments to the 6.5 and the four or are they keeping it at 6.5 and four um they've made adjustments to those so um so just the specific numers [Music] so Mr chair if I if I can go ahead um so the way I understood last night was yes they were able to make some reductions in their budget the way this would work is they make their recommendations at town meeting right for the three budgets um and then after that occurs whatever happens at town meeting it would be a up to the select board to decide the amounts that go on the ballot for the override is that correct correct so um the FY 25 um using the 4 million the bottom line was 76,1 193,50 Million the bottom line was 78 million 52,6 n.2 and that's using the full 4 million and full 6.5 [Music] million change any questions anyone Mr chair um I would just like to say that the amount of work that the uh incom has had to do in a short amount of time is unbelievable and I appreciate the work that they have had to put in I don't them having I I can't even imagine what that like so um I watch as much of it as I could last night um I want to thank them for the Mr chair just to piggy back on that you know we put a lot of pressure on everybody to get these numbers out there and get these numbers done and it's whether it's the staff at the town hall or you know Mike's team or whatever everybody has really hustled to put a lot of this together so we're appreciate it to them and the vcom obviously as well absolutely Mr Mar mention yeah it's easy for us to sit here and say hey take care of this um just get it done and then behind the scenes it's it's ridiculous so yeah uh very much appreciate it I'm not here for this discussion tonight I was here for something else I will tell you as a member who has experienced a lot of M rights exclusions over the years some lot of people involved in it uh it gets to be very confusing when you're when you're looking at one number when you're going up been talking about one number that that you're looking all the right in this case we're looking at two plus the balance and you to me it just makes it a bit more difficult to um to sell because we're talking about to meetings eara I will tell you that it takes 2 to three hours to sign people in you can do it on a Saturday and you're going to be back another day or two Beyond it because just the way the manner of you know 2,000 people or more showing up which be very difficult and I would assume the pro procedure would be $6.5 million budget other words budget plus 6.5 million this is how much we need that would have to be number one on the discussion to meting FL because if that fails then you go down to the $4 million if that fails then you get down to the 1% increase so that's that's three stages of it when you're doing a Ballance uh question let's say you do the B question first before you do the actually go to town meeting it does decrease the amount of people that will show up there's no doubt about it but again what happens is um on the ballot question you've got two questions really do you want or right for 4 million or 6.5 million the balance 1% is a whole different story we have to go back to town meeting after the vote and we have to talk and discuss the 1% increas we know there's no way around it and Mike I mentioned I heard a couple things earli you went in the room now are we still required to know if High School teachers uh any school Personnel by January June 15th she they are but she already notified them yeah they're notified uh last Friday I think so yeah and the beginning of fiscal year is July 1st yes we have to have a budget in place by July 1st yes yeah we don't have a lot of time I'm just letting you to know there's not a lot of time to discuss and if you go to a town meeting form that first we are going to be there for a long time you a lot of people going to be asking a lot of questions the zoom issue probably goes out the window because if you're on Zoom you can't come and V you know and I remember on a Deb exclusion in 11 to 2011 we were there we were there for an hour and 1 half 2 hours just just B and we didn't start till 2 hours after started so an effort to clean this up a bit at the 11 and a half and 3/4 hour uh you almost have to consider going to a ballot first and then going to a town you to decide maybe what you're going to spend 6.5 million for or 4 million or 1% I don't know how you can do it any other way if you try to go through a town meeting now this Wai in the game with three different scenarios I don't want to be I don't want to be in ass assistant moderator I can tell you that because the RS are going to be angry a lot of people going to be getting charged up over it and if we started on 10:00 and Saturday morning it would take till noon time to get people signed in and ready to go so you can kiss the first two hours goodbye in any any scenario that's going to happen um I remember remember one town meeting way back um in the late '90s early early 2 2000s that we had about 2300 people show up and it was the craziest thing I ever saw oh my God people were coming we hearing voices over the intercom people having asking questions I couldn't couldn't see or understand who they were you know it was and it was and we heard a lot about people getting riled up and nasty just downright nasty because it was taking the process was taking very a very long time and I think you can understand the frustration when that happens so but I just wanted to come up and clear a couple things up that we do have to have a budget in place first no matter what I heard that earlier and I just wanted to make sure you much so either way we'd have to have have a special election before then anyway so we'd have to set that and by the way the attorney general has to approv before it's oh thanks for that thank you and I just wanted to mention uh Jen will be my witness uh I think we're driving Michelle crazy every time we change the number there's so many things that change because there's all you know everything in the budget you fixed in shared you've got the water and sore and dire every time you change numbers every so for for her to be working on three different budgets at the same time it's been amazing all right I think we have a couple more people that want to see something so just if you want to limit it to the budget stuff I'll limit it to just a couple minutes it goes like this you're going to lose because people like me are going to come out and say no this is not a World's fair you're not acting like you're running not you the entire town is not running a 70 million company like it should you're going to go bankrupt like Reen Barton I'm standing here knowing full well that the green signs will be on the lawn saying vote no because that's what it should be when you make a wrong turn and you put it into your GPS and you missed the turn that boy says recalculate that's what you should be doing this is the year to pay the piper this is the year to recalculate yes people could lose their jobs but if you don't recalculate this is not going to be a friendly town to move to cuz nobody's got any money and everybody's overlooking that point my 3 minutes are up nobody's got not any money thank you R I think exact Cody Cody end up too so want to First Cody Thompson 30 ke Drive um I'm on the finance committee I appreciate the uh kind words and encouraging words that that have been spoken here tonight and in recognition of the very tough work that we have undertaken uh over the past few months um a couple of things I think the 1% budget is the bare minimum that has to be passed I don't view this as a deductive thing like Mr kemell suggested starting at 6 and2 and working backwards we have to fund the 1% the only it's the only option where we where we Face a shut so we have to fund that then it becomes additive the 4 million was used as as a base number Mr units put together a $4 million plus 1% budget we went through that we paired it down uh I think even in that 4 4 million there was a a surplus built into it and we shaved another 170,000 off of it last night so it's not 4 million whatever that number is you don't have to put a 4 million override in it it's just a nice round number within the 4 milli milon you have you have saved all of the police jobs that 1% Cuts would mean you've saved all the fire jobs and you've saved a lot of the school jobs there's still massive Cuts being made at the schools so that's where the 6 and 1/2 comes in 6 and 1/2 gets us to level services for the school level services for Council on Aging level services that that's your level Services budget is the 6 and2 is it's not 6.5 million it's like 6.3 something in there so when you're looking at it look at it as the 6.5 quote unquote option is your level Services budget the 4 million is we can't afford it but we don't want to lose chartle we don't want to shut down the police station so can we afford 4 million yes or no so you're you're literally starting at the worst case scenario is 1% and here here are all the cuts can you afford 4 million yes or no that gets you XYZ back can you afford and a little bit more on top of that that gets you level services for the entire town that's that's that's the way that I view it and that's the way when we went through it last night we made sure to maintain fiscal responsibility on that that gets you to the point where when you're talking about it we're not using free cash which is non-recurring revenues you eliminate that from the structure now you have a buffer built in but you have to stay fiscally conservative you have to stay responsible with the money that you were collecting from taxes no more 5% raises across the board cut it we shouldn't be talking about that whenever like you you're only allowed to raise 2 and half% by prop 2 and A2 so the numbers have to add up you either have to grow and you have to you know have larger tax base because you've got more commercial or you've got more uh real estate taxes coming in or you have to maintain a very very conservative budget where you are not raising it more than 2 and half% per year so that's like if when you're saying that like the numbers the numbers that the pencom have went through you very quickly approved the 1% CU you trusted us that we did the job the 4% we did the job it's additive it's not deductive it's added we're not starting and saying give us 6 and2 and we'll figure out where where to put it we actually we actually took we took money out of the the 6 and2 because Mike even admitted I couldn't find a place to put it padded the budgets cut it it's done how many times n did I say cut the fluff like 50 yeah we shouldn't be spending just because we collect the money we should be looking at what do we need and only spend what we need and then maintain that budget very conservatively across year to year thank you I think Zach you like to say something it would ruin your evening if I didn't say anything right Zach Tillis three Richmond Drive I'm just going to make it kind of short and sweet have my opinion of the whole thing um as a private citizen not as not speaking for fincom not speaking for anybody Fin's giving you a bunch of numbers we worked 100 hours I think Cody says it's 35 but whatever it is it feels like my body feels like it's been 100 hours I just think in my personal opinion that the wheel has come off the cart with all this I me I talk to my neighbors I talk to the residents you know I I said it last night in the meeting somebody St me a couple in F and trying to get gas a half an hour later I'm still talking to him how many meetings Cody again 15 lat whatever it was I still don't understand personally how a three a three option ballot vote calculates I don't think the town manager does either okay it doesn't make any sense but that's neither here nor there to win an election you have to have a clear message a clear Direction not maybe this maybe this my neighbors telling me well if you can get buy 4 million why would I give you 6 and A2 right and I'm not going to argue the number I'm going to leave the number for you guys the elected officials to come up with because my number would never agree with any of your numbers so I'll leave it at that but I would I would suggest to have an orderly system a clear message come up with one number put that on the ballot first as the town manager recommended so we don't have the circus of this going to be Town me I don't know why I still don't understand why we want to go to town meeting you got have 2,000 people a town meeting and 15,000 people voted put it to the vote first if the people decide to whatever you know you guys agree to then we can have that debate at town meeting and say okay you know you want to allgate to what whatever you want to do but we're creating a monster that doesn't need to be created and and we're making things complicated that don't need to be complicated you guys decide what the number is put it to a vote the People Want it find it then we can go to time meeting and sort sort that out uh that's just my personal view thank you for your time thank you Z all right uh we got one more tiny tiny I promise I'm not trying to start tonight I'm saying this because there's a lot of conversation about the override and everything and some of you have seen hopefully there are people watching ing online and hopefully a lot of people are going to watch this because of this whole conversation the sign I've been holding all week is because I'm hoping that we don't just get 2,000 people for that vote we don't get a 100 person tell meeting if all of this goes in a weird way and overrides aren't on the table or anything like that this has just me making an appeal to a lot of people to please start paying attention to this stuff not just when it's about a huge override like this because that's kind of how we got here um and I grew up going to very large Town meetings in my hometown down the street and I just really want people to Pur more so sorry thank you yes thank you chair can I just give some information thank you come on as I believe the only person in a history of the town of dorton has ever presided over a town meeting of more than 1500 people um I can tell you that yes it's very difficult and very time consuming and uh my personal opinion is there has not been nearly enough planning thus far to to do it uh but this is the form of government that we have chosen this is what we're we're supposed to do I you guys actually dragged me away from the hockey game are sitting there I won't the SC we have no idea how honestly it wasn't any score until I get out the park lot um but the way the article would work is of course largely up to how it's moved and how the override goes the idea that it would be too confusing or too difficult I've seen single budget articles in town meetings in the past go three nights I've seen last year the biggest budget in the history of the town of Norton go with absolutely no questions so you know the idea that it's that it's difficult is not that the way I would picture it going and I'm not the moderator and I don't have any final say the way I would picture it going is the thcom would move here is the 1% budget that's the fallback budget and but here are the contingency budgets that you named and whatever amounts you named and they would only take place if an override you know passes and be and and it would be contingent upon that so that would it be confusing yes would it be difficult to un to explain yes nobody ever said town meeting was supposed to be easy nobody ever guaranteed anybody that that it's supposed to be easy basically now you have two choices give the people a choice or don't give the people a choice I don't I I don't know you guys would know better than you people sorry not guys me um you people would would know better than I would what time frame is and whether you can do it but I think it was mentioned by somebody here that you have to have a budget by by July 1st and that budget can be a default budget an override can happen after and be added to the budget but I get very sensitive i' I've run those meetings I can tell you that the main goal of a town meeting attendee is to go home okay that is the major objective of almost every person who comes to town 95% yeah and they they want to go home and and when you have a meeting I think I think I heard Mr Kimble before talking about how it might take a long time to check in yeah I had to delay town meeting for people to check in because I would not start the time meeting if somebody had been there on time and was denied access I don't think it's legal to run a town meeting unless you unless you give them access so and when when that happens believe me people don't get mad at you guys right then that night you people they get mad at the moderator so I wouldn't want to be jacked if he's if he's sitting there but a lack of planning my opinion is not reason to deny people the choice this is the government they signed up that within the last few years they voted to keep that this is what the legislative body does if we don't give the budget process to the legislative body that's in charge of it then what is effectively happening is you are substituting your judgment for their judgment that is not right that is not the way the system should work and we should not be protecting Tom meeting Tom meeting is a big boy or girl I'm not sure which I never looked it it it needs to stand on its own and when we all start thinking that we're smarter than the town meeting then we are in trouble we are defeating the government that we put forth that has governed Orton for over 300 years if we're going to keep it give the people the choice are we unprepared for it yeah and you don't know you don't know whether you're going to get 500 people or 5,000 people I mean I 5,000 a reach if I had to guess I would guess that you're going to get 1,500 to two to 2,000 people and you need to you need to prepare for that whether you postpone or no matter what you do you definitely need to prepare from when we did it with the town clerk we worked on parking shuttle buses to and from places we had to work with the the cable uh Norton cable was fantastic and paid for people to wire the rooms uh for sound because you have to guarantee that everybody who's at the meeting has access to sound to hear it and to see it and that they can be recognized to speak If you deny one person the right to speak at town meeting and the moderator really has no choice and has to stop you know it has to stop meeting uh but I I the reason I jumped in my car and left the Bruins game what was the scor one nothing one nothing M beliefs you I will tell you but the reason I left it is because I started hearing that we can't we can't give this to Tom meeting it'll be it'll be a mess government's not supposed to be need it you know give the people what they ask for give them the choice give them the ability uh the the idea that we have to have an exact number what people are trying to do is is as somebody said they're trying to balance what they believe the town needs and what they believe the town can afford which is what you folks are trying to do you're trying to come up with something between the real need which every nobody agrees on exactly what the real need is but everybody agrees there is one and then what we can afford the only way the town's people get to make that choice is if you give it to them if you deny them the choice again you substitute your judgment for their I came tonight as a as a Simpson as a former moderator as you know a former selectman uh that's what we were when you know back in when dinosaurs R the Earth it it's it's at the very basis of what we are as a community it's at the very basis of what we are as a town so please whatever the town votes whatever the town meeting votes and then subsequently on the ballot if there's if there's an override everyone's going to live with it everyone's going to do it because we did it as a town let us do it as as a town don't stop town meeting because it's messy because frankly if you wait for town meeting to be neat and clean and orderly you're going to be waiting one heck of a long time all right thank you thank you so I just want to just just jump on one thing that you said I'm sorry you left the Bruins game for that you I don't think anybody here was considering pulling the vote away from town meeting or from the citizens at all me personally I would never take that away from the citizens so um I think you were a little misinformed I think he saying by changing the the budget right no he said give the the vote to the people and that's what we did that's that's what I intend to do all right we're going to have one last speaker and we're going to Nick 4th Street I just want to run through some quick numbers here final number which my house would be assessed at is 550,000 give or take we still owe 20% on the senior center and in town hall that will be coming up in January 1st they come in where they're projected at 22 million and 17 million 20% of that is going to be 20% of that is is 30% sorry 39 million we need 20% of that but somewhere hypothetically between 7 and 8 million dollar were still owed that this town and the taxpayers is still going to have to hit on January 1st of their of their taxes for lack of a better argument that's 7.5 million that's going to be coming on January 1 that means on January 1st my house is going to be $1,115 more next year that's without an overhead in taxes if we go with the 7.1 number of an override looking at that very quickly $1,045 our January tax bill is going to increase $2,150 that's $537 per quarter and $796 cents a month that seems like a massive massive number I agree with Bill and I know we don't always see eye ey that you do have to have this at the town meeting my thing is it is going to pass at a town meeting there's going to be enough people to stand up and this is going to go through guaranteed neighbors are not going to sit there with their neighbors and go I'm going to say yes you're going to say no you're going to have some of that most people are going to sit there and go put it on a ballot and let the people go into the booth by themselves and vote Yes or No that's what you're looking at I think what we're doing is we're going to have Norton Neighbors play out at town at town meeting and it's going to be very messy I don't think just messy in terms of confusion because I think you're going to have a plenty of time of that I don't think people are going to know what's going on I think there's going to be too many spots and spaces and everything else I'm totally on board this needs to go to a ballot put it on a ballot it's got to come back to town meeting anyway no one's taking away anybody's Choice your choice is go to the polls vote Yes or no you guys give us the number what is the number that we need everyone gets to vote how they feel they don't have to feel the peer pressure within a within a um town meeting passes over the passes or or fails on the ballot election it then goes to town meeting and everyone walks away why are we going to sit here and play Norton neighbors and all this social media crap that's going to play out right in front of us and make this town look really really bad put it on a ballot put it into the polls and get it done Mr chair okay can I address a couple of things that that that have been said I I I guess I guess I'm missing the you know the I guess I'm missing the the the point or maybe we're missing the point of what town meeting is supposed to do right like town meeting is supposed to be there for us to for the town which is the legislative branch to discuss issues before voting on them okay so when so no one is saying that that a ballot Vote or town meeting is I don't think Superior it's town meeting is where the legislative branch debates and decides what's going to happen so when you just say well we won't discuss it at town meeting you're essentially saying I I don't even know why that's even a discussion that we're having like of course we have to discuss it at Town Meeting of course it has to be at town meeting because if we don't discuss it at town meeting then the the legislative branch hasn't had a chance to discuss it I just I don't I don't understand I don't recall anybody saying not to discuss it at town meeting yeah I'm saying well that's the theme that I'm heing the last 10 minutes is people are thinking that we're not going to put it on the Bell not going to discuss it that's that's never been said here so so people are making assumptions for no reason and I don't understand why okay I'll explain so I think what what's happening is is that because there's been it's been floated a few times that we will have a ballot vote first right if the if the ballot vote happens first and there is no where there has been no discussion about it and the overrides do not pass on those ballot votes then there will never be a discussion at town meeting about the B about those overrides because they did they already did not pass correct so there will never have been an opportunity for the town for town meeting to discuss it because the ballot will have already decided prior to it being on the on prior to it ever even coming to a town which is why I was saying as Town Council advised if the ballot vote came before the town meeting because there was not that open form and discussion you would have to have a special meeting to have that open forming discussion before the ballot and a fincom meeting doesn't count as that open form in discussion it would have to be like a post posted open public hearing public hearing so that's why that's that's why that's why so you have to have a discussion before the ballot vote so whether you do at town meeting or you do confirmation on that because I don't think that's the case but but either way I was clear yeah get council's opinion I'm happy to but wouldn't that be better like let the people talk about let them come to a meeting and get all the educational stuff they need prior to just people yelling at each other so so I'm looking I mean I'm looking at the Timeline we have to have something in place by June 1st and that will be the we have to have at least I think I I forget who said it at least the 1% budget in place first by July 1 yeah if if we're concerned about things getting confusing the more steps we're adding to it the more confusing we're making it right and I I have a concern with voter apathy right when we when we have these discussions and we we set a course and now we start shifting everything around this is where people get disenfranchised with politics elections voting in all fairness this has been shifted multiple times since we started talking about it a few months back it's it's up and down and up and I mean at one point I wanted to put it on the April ballot and that was shot down so well we it was so I mean it's it's been yeah and I still don't think we have enough information to to provide the proper information to everybody but I don't know what does everybody think what you want to do I'm open for motions I think we we probably Mr chair um I think we we need to vote on the budget right we need to vote on on the two uh sorry I'm fading fast here four and the 6.5 yeah the two override options sorry um and so we will have to um either you know vote on whether or not to I it recommend those budgets or vote on recommending those budgets so we can vote on recommending the four and the 6.5 million to town meeting we can do multiple different I mean however um people feel Mr chair thank um just before we start voting on things I just I just want want to make sure that I understand where we're headed um cuz I've been sitting in these meetings for the last two months two months at least um listening to um several members of the board say hey let's put it on a ballot first before it goes to town meeting and then that was shot down and then I heard another person after that get shot down say hey we should put this on the ballot first and then we said well no we don't have enough time to put it on the ballot so I think the the idea of putting it on on a ballot before we go to town meeting is not a new idea and not an idea that's uh taking anybody's right away from doing anything um I think that both of those things are going to happen regardless of how this meeting ends tonight um and if we do one before the other and the way my life has always worked is I always built my budget for my business when I knew how much money I had before I put my budget together I never put my budget together and then said well let me go see if I can find more money you have I think we have to know what our number is before we can put our budget together I don't think that it it all we're doing is confusing people by sending them telling them you're going to have two or three different options for how your Town's going to run I don't think that's a great idea and I don't think I think the town needs leadership I don't think we need to have uh people saying hey we don't know what to do you figure it out I don't think that's what we we're saying at all I think we're saying what we need is X what we're looking for a compromise to not get everything we need but but some of what we need is why don't I don't think we we're being irresponsible or half Hazard I think that was fought out and that's what we all agree upon but I think we need to do that and have that number whatever that number is before you put your budget together you have to know how much money you have again I think you know that we certainly know a lot more than we first wanted to put it I don't think any of us know how much money we're going to have because nobody knows whether we're going to have an override or not so you're saying you'd like to do a ballot first my opinion would be to do a ballot first ballot first so that would require a special election we're going to have to have a special election anyway because you know one of those is going to pass at town meeting or something's going to pass town meeting you're going to have to have a special election anyway so I don't know why we're hesitant to do it call what it is people's minds are made up you're you're pretty much a yes or no so so is that a motion first special election or is that just your opinion um I don't know what number we should put on that or did we put all three numbers on it I'll I'll make a motion then to um to approve the to recommend the $4 million override budget as presented by the town manager and f a second to okay to tell me yeah and special election correct the I'm just focusing on the article that's on gotcha in in our in our packet yeah okay okay we have a motion a second to to recommend the $4 million over budget to town meeting all in favor I I all opposed I I okay I'll make a motion to uh recommend the $6.5 million override budget um uh as presented by Town manager and fincom to um the town a second motion a second for the recommend the $6.5 million override budget to town of meeting War all in favor I I I'll vote I I'm not just I'll oppos I did you say yes or no I I oppose or I am this is just to put to put it on the time you get that all right so Mr chair y so all will all three of those budgets be available at town meeting they will all be available we you make them all available okay all right and anyone can move an article at town meeting and or make a recommendation on the budget okay so do we have any other motions Mr chair I recommend we have a uh special election prior to town meeting for the uh 6 half million over okay logistically Mike we need what 35 days 35 days so what would that me you need to have a if you're going to have it on a Saturday June in a public form before that so you need sorry sat it would be a Saturday that' be 11 11 and you need a motion to make that motion uh have that on June 11th that would mean no it's AES June junee thr May 11th is a Saturday I'm looking for June 8th June yeah so so I amend my motion to make it on June 8th all right 0 second second okay Motion in a second all in favor I I opposed I no Mr chair I think there's something that's being left out which is you there's still town meeting scheduled for May 13th so at that point um we would have to postpone town meeting correct like say that again we would then have to post one time Mee well or open it and then continue it is that how it you wouldn't have to that depends on what you want to do you could always go to town meeting and see if town meeting approves the $6.5 million budget and then it passes that on June 8th then you don't have to come back or you can postpone to me until after june8 that's up to what you guys think it's your show now Mr chair yeah um I'd rather wait to know how much money we're going to have before we put a budget together for the town for next year okay so is that a motion to postpone toe um I don't know if it's to postpone or to yeah how that work well now now you have the options um you could uh postpone town meeting um we'll clarify I'll clarify it with Lauren how you do that or you could have meeting on uh the regular scheduled date and have someone make a motion not to take up the budget on that night and hopefully any anybody can make a motion FL though you're going to take away their right to do so that seems like a good idea so what do you think is there a motion there I don't I think you should know what you have for money before you make a budget I mean think comes in pouring over for most you know I have a question um so second in the sorry sorry I thought somebody um and I'm not saying not taking away anything from what fincom has done or any of that I'm just saying that if it's going to pass as the ballot then it's going to pass at the ballot if it's not then it's not and if it's not then we don't need to discuss it at Tom meeting Mr chair okay so is that a motion I don't know how I don't know how you legally postpone you time meeting I don't know how you do that so what would the motion or continue who who you looking for Mike by the way just for the record this sounds a lot less confusing right we're looking put some health is yeah you waiting on more I mean I think didn't we discuss before I text didn't we discuss this before when I went out and I came back in where she said we could send out messages social media town website um tell tell people that we're not going to be um taking up anything on the scheduled date of town meeting and then you have the moderator someone from the select board could be someone from finance committee and the town partk go that night and just continue open it and continue yeah so now just looking at the calendar right the special election is June 8th and there's been no budget a 1% budget with dat are passed you now got three weeks before July 1 right yeah we I mean we can for the following Saturday after the election the election yeah I was going to say if you were going to do it on a Monday you to come back by um June June 17th I think is that a Monday you'd have you that would give you time give us a little time at to go through the finance committee and go over everything again well it's still I mean it would still be the 6.5 million it's not like we or anything so that that that information should already be have gone through so yeah hold on you just said you didn't know the number you know the number what's that you just said you didn't know the number what number you you got we were just told 10 times we don't know what the number is we don't know what the real number what the real number is so but now we're going to just go ahead with the 6 and A2 and say that's the real number I'm confused that's what we all just talked about we just talked we just we just approved that budget okay did we not am I missing but that was your argument before you said you don't even I don't feel like we're ready to I don't and we didn't have the right number that's right don't so Mr chair so you're going to put the wrong number on the special election ballot does the number that the board voted on right no we voted agree with Mr chair we voted on what to put the town meeting we didn't vote what to put on the ballot and now we're not having town meeting so we're going to have an election we're going to have a ballot first half million doesn't pass on the ballot then there is no budget on 6 and half there is no budget to be discussed it's the 1% that's pretty clear okay I need to find a confusion to so we talking about postponing town meeting until the following Monday why would you put it on a Monday when talk about not having enough time to have a discussion well I said Saturday and then I said Monday so whatever wait wait I don't think it's a joke do you no no I'm just saying funny we're actually trying to do something I understand but we just had a discussion about the logistics of the town meeting being too difficult on the Monday night and moving it to a possibly moving it to a Saturday so I'm not sure to a Saturday okay I didn't make a motion I just threw it up there okay so you want to make a motion you're welcome to you guys got it which goes what's the date we going to do it on the 8th the 8th would be the ballot the ballot and the following Saturday will be 15th yeah 15th so make a motion to do tell meeting on the to to continue it mik or to continue continue June so does MO the motion have to say continuing May 13th meeting to June 15th yes so I make a motion to continue May 13th town meeting to June 15 is there a second second motion second all in favor I I oppose I no Mr chair all right do we have anything else point of order I think there's two there's two meetings there's theual and the special I think you got thank you so can we have the the special town meeting on 13th July that's that has been posted so so yes we have to good okay so let's so let's so now we're going to have two Town meetings we're going to have two separate nights of town meeting well we were looking at earlier we were talking about three four or five next so I think I think this is this is fine so let's one second let's let's revote if you want to remake your motion to go ahead I was just going to say um asking town councel if we can continue this speci I think it would be the same okay so your motion was to continue town meeting so now we we would continue the special town meeting too so that'll be another so make a motion to continue the special town meeting May 13th to June 15th second motion of a second all in favor i oppos i s excuse me all right else my favorite motion Mr chair uh who that Jack goad Jack Jack um I think you guys need to set a time that is get mve to if I'm not mistaken to continue to oh yeah cuz it was changed for a different day satday it's on Saturday um what is it usually at 10:00 ear ear yeah there'll be a lot of people check 9 for the meeting yeah for the we have to set [Music] that do we have to set that right now okay why don't we just have the same as we have so do we have to [Music] move should we schedule any uh public hearing I think we have to but yeah I think we have a meeting next we we can set those I think we should absolutely have public yeah no I agree get more people y information so so we we would have to do a motion to to do the time for the election and then I I think either do another motion for the time on the U for the town meeting or to do amending motion and rote does that make sense Mikey that's okay so we so we need two motions we need one for the time for the election right the day the day and time we have oh so we need the time for that and then we need a motion for the the time of the town meeting or could we amend the previous motion or should we just do a new one that um I would just amend the previous motion reconsider the previous motion and set the time okay so you would reconsider your motion okay town meeting and special town meeting need motion to reconsider okay I reconsider my motion to change uh T meeting from May 13th to June 15th and at the time what's the time for I think 10 10: a.m. right 10 10 to and the other one is the ballot okay motion for the ballot so let's do we'll do one one at a time so the regular town meeting move that yep yep move the regular tell me May 13th to June 15th um starting at 10: a.m. okay a second second motion a second all in favor I oppos name and now the special town meeting same make a motion move the special town meeting um make an amendment same Amendment so if if you're scheduling the meeting at 10: you could have the special at 10:13 yes uh amend the motion to move special time meeting for May 13th to June 15 starting at 10:15 a.m. second motion on a second all in favor I opposed okay and the last one is to um for the for the the special election time time frame so so what was it 8 to 5 last I just want to let you know Lauren's response I was I said so the special been posted if continued same process someone needs to show up and continue she said yes okay so what happened 500 people excuse me excuse me June set for the hours yeah make a motion to set the hours for June 8th election from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. yep second is there a second second motion second all in favor I opposed okay and any other motions motion to adjourn motion a second second motion a second all in favor I all right don't you