vote Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes okay we are all here I'll go over the agenda real quick um unfortunately you find people will be leaving the room very shortly we are doing executive session first or not depends how the vote goes um and then we have public comment select board leaders on Tom man's reports a hearing to discuss water rates a hearing on a traffic Amendment um another hearing on a traffic uh Transportation task force pttf and uh we have another agenda item discuss uh rctv uh compliance with this contract town of reading vote to Grant the Gazebo uh vote to Grant gazebo Circle and easement vote on annual budget requests from Boards of committees uh discuss sunsetting recal uh reading Center for active living committee discuss formation of Writing Center for active living committee building committee future agenda and minutes so with that I will have Chris uh read the motion for executive session yeah uh discussion anything on my oh well oh sorry I just want overview yes thank you uh move to go into executive session under purpose one to discuss and potentially respond to an open meeting complaint filed by Daniel der dated May 17 2024 to invite IA freed Emily mean from town council's office Town manager Matt cornelis executive assistant Caitlyn Nel Nella uh and Mark Delaney into executive session and return to open session to continue discussion on this topic and to continue on with the rest of the meeting second second all right any discussion did I just hear you invite a private resident into um our executive session yes so um okay so I would just I would just ask how is that working I've never seen that before so is that allowed um under which purpose yeah yeah so it is the open meeting law does not preclude the inclusion of private residents into executive sessions provided that the board feels it's necessary to resolve the matter it is atypical and so I did consult with Carrie beneden who is the um uh the head of the division of open government and she confirmed that the open meeting law does not preclude the board from inviting a resident into executive session if they feel like it's necessary to deal with the matter at hand um I think the one caution potentially is that you know if if the private resident wasn't there the attorney client privilege would apply but with the resident there the privilege won't apply because I don't represent that Resident so as soon as the board responds to the open meeting lock complaint the minutes of the executive session would likely have to be released whereas if the private resident wasn't there uh we would potentially have the ability to withhold certain statements under the attorney client privilege thank you I'm just looking for some background um highly unusual is that what you just said um atypical it is atypical yeah can somebody a member of the board give me an idea as to this is the first I've heard of this it wasn't in the packet I just I just don't understand we don't put most the packet um that number one uh number two this open meeting law is in reference to a letter that Jackie McCarthy wrote and that Mark Delaney was a part of and mentioned in the letter um I asking about the motion I understand that thank you for reiterating that we don't put them in the packet so if we wanted to invite everybody who was involved in a letter to the editor did we invite Jackie as well did invite Jackie yes who's we me the chair okay so the chair you decided that you wanted to invite a private resident into an executive or you're proposing to um put forward a motion that we invite and go into an executive session and invite a private resident to join us correct regard open meeting law violation yes I am I I I'm still not seeing why this is necessary um Carlo I've served on the board with you since 2020 and we did have a number of um complaints against the board um since then and we've never never done anything like this and I heard Town Council say it's atypical I just I just don't understand what the thinking is the thinging is to address the open meeting LW complaint plain and simple that's not an answer um so we can still have this conversation in public though I mean why if we're going to invite a resident and we have to release the minutes um then might why don't we just do it in public then we're gonna take a vote yeah okay well this is um so thank you for providing that little bit of information I'm I'm still have a big question mark on this but yes we can take a vote so I would be leaning to the purpose of an executive session my understanding is to have a private conversation under allowable purposes um and if we're going to invite members of the public then all of the members of the public should be invited so I I will I'll vote to have an open session this is it doesn't make any sense to me I'm sorry Carlo I'm I'm not objecting I'm not saying anything okay all right any more discussion good just a comment I mean it's a little strange um and I've never experienced this ever before doing it this way so um we've never had a select board member resign either that under these circumstances not part of the discussion okay all right not relevant to the discussion you're enti your opinion it's fine there's an open meeting while complaint that's what we're dealing with corre only correct I have a comment yeah I'm not sure have other open meeting law complaints involved a third party person with a select board member I think that's for me that's the difference and that's why I would agree to have Mr delum in the executive session if that's the rout we go or in public but I don't think any that I'm aware of that I've looked at in the past five years um there has not been a third party involved in the open meeting law violation so so I think that for me is the difference Mr chair yeah um see correct me if I'm wrong I seem to remember that we had a resident who lives on Main Street who really wanted to be part of our private deliberations and um we steadfastly said no to this gentleman do do you remember that I I really don't you have to be more specific I I really don't um I don't remember his last name Walt that ringing any bells we went into a number of um executive sessions and um the resident Walt really wanted to come into those sessions with us and determined that no that not I don't know if you wanted to or we wanted I don't know the answer I you referring to Mr tble thank you years ago you're you're saying he wanted to come to Executive session when we were trying to mediate with him I seem to remember that he wanting he very much wanting to be there and have it be recorded in I actually don't remember all the details but but that is definitely an example of an open uh meeting law complaint that we had involving a resident and select board members and you know to uh to Melissa's comment I I can think of that one that example Mr open meeting law complaints were not involving him they were just open meeting law complaints against the board not involving him directly that's the difference he wasn't part of the open meeting law complaint he wasn't a third party to it he was filing complaints against the board but he wasn't a third party to it so I think that's the difference so now all right thank you for clarifying so now you'd like we would like we're discussing whether the board should now as a policy invite any third party third parties we'd like to so we're not going to invite the person who filed the complaint but we can we can randomly invite members of the public if if I had known that we were going to take this approach you know I i' I'd want to think about it maybe there's some other third party members that we might members of the public that we might want to invite but again that gets me back to then you're not an executive session are you so I I don't understand the purpose of this Mr chair may I make a statement sure I I just um as to what is in front of the board tonight to the extent that you are going to invite someone into the executive session this Board needs to find either through its motion or through a separate motion um that the individual is is would be helpful in resolving the complaint and so it's not that this board has the ability to invite whoever third party they want into the executive session that is not what Miss beneden relay is that there needs to be a Nexus between the matter being discussed and the individual being invited to your point Karen you are absolutely permitted to discuss this in Open Session and that might be the policy decision that the board wants to make given that it is a bit atypical to invite private residents into executive sessions that's a policy decision not a legal decision but according to miss beneden the open meeting law would not preclude you from doing so provided the resident is necessary to um resolving the complaint thank you and and maybe sorry Chris maybe I should have been more um specific I apologize um I did consult IA on this matter I didn't just do it on my own I wanted to make sure we could do it she vetted it so I just didn't do this and say we're doing it I I I vetted it I consult the Town Council and it's allowed Chris thanks Carla um in reference to to Karen's Point she was making earlier uh Mr taval has never set foot in this room for the entire time that I've been here ever not once um and the second point that I would make is that um the chair sets the agenda the time the place for the meeting sets all these motions and works with Matt um if that is what Carlo decided that's what Carlo decided I've sat here through other chairs that I've disagreed with things that they have put on the agenda or motions they have written um and not once uh did I ever decide that it was in my purview uh to know better than the chair uh in that instance so uh I'm fine with the way that you handled everything here and uh you consulted IA and you know that's as good enough for me District chair yeah yeah I'm not goingon to argue that the chair sets the agenda that's that's pretty clear um I'm I'm a little concerned that this select word member was named specifically in this open meeting law complaint and you are allowed to talk to another member of the select board why didn't you you talk to me about this about what about this atypical decision to randomly invite a member of the public into our executive session and put it in a motion I mean I know we haven't voted yet I didn't think I needed to if the roles were reversed would you have wanted me to reach out to you I can't hypothesize every Situation's different okay okay okay so well all right so I'm just going to let the rest of the board know that you can clearly tell I'm pretty surprised by this and I am named in this complaint so sorry is there somebody speaking okay all right yeah I I find this highly atypical I I find this um very unusual but but my point is just um my point is just if you're going to start inviting members of the public then just do it in public I I don't I don't understand this we've never ever invited a member of the public to weigh in a complaint and not even the the author of the complaint so I'm not sure atypical is a strong enough word but okay I'm done any other discussion oh good quick comment I I I do think that5 as a board should find ways to work together more than apart and and this feels like an part to me I could yeah go I agree uh 100% with Mark that we do have to find work ways to work together Etc but this is dealing with an open meeting law complaint where people allegedly whatever scenario violate open meeting law complaint so I would be hesitant to speak to anybody about what scenario however we could have done this differently because it's a open meeting law complaints specifically about a scenario that transpired that broke open meeting law allegedly so like you're in the Quasi you know we can work together I understand uh realm but this is I I I wouldn't speak to a single solitary person on this if it was me if it was me and I did in response I would any other discussion all right right for a vote I will do a roll call vote and this is a vote I guess if it to go into executive session or how how we he already read the motion so the vote would be to go into executive session correct correct and the vote encompasses inviting those in those individuals so there's an there's a finding by this body that those individuals listed are necessary for the the resolution of this complaint so if you don't believe that to be the case you can vote no alternatively if this board wants to take two separate votes you could do that you could vote first on whether you want to invite the individual in and then second to go into executive session it's really a policy decision for the board we'll keep it the way it is the way it was written all right so ready for the vote let's go roll call vote uh Karen I'm gonna abstain from this vote okay Chris yes Melissa yes Mark no all right Carlo is yes so sorry guys we have to clear the room to go into executive session so much for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good all right guys we're back in Open Session and um sorry for the delay took a lot longer than we expected so in accordance with the executive session we consulted with the Town Council and we're going to be issuing a response and we're not going to be discussing anything now in open session so going on to the rest of the agenda we're going to be moving a few things around because our water and sewer Ray consultant had another hearing scheduled for tonight so we are going to get to it yeah but we're just going to go a little bit out of order so we're uh I already did the overview of the meeting at the beginning of the meeting so now hopefully anyone who wants to speak is allowed hopefully signed in you don't have to but now we're going to do public comment who anyone want to speak public comment John thank you um John lipet mineral Street precinct 7 um I was hoping not to have to say this I was hoping not to be here this has to do with the open meeting law violation these have been questions have been on my mind since February 6th when we learned about this and I was willing and hoping that this was a honest mistake and that I was willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that everyone had good intentions but Mr haly and Mr bosi you've made this totally politicized you were the one who are playing politics with this you used it to viciously attack Mr doxer and now tonight miss her I don't know if you met it this way but intentionally or not you've deflected attention from the person who actually created the open meeting law violation which was Mr boty when he called Miss herck he needs to be transparent about his role in this and so I have four questions that I say have been on my mind since February 6th that I hope Mr Bachi will answer in the near future first when you called Miss McCarthy to discuss this the town manager what were the first words out of your mouth did you ask her if she communicated with any other select board member about the town manager selection this course is important because that's what he should have done and that's what should always happen when any select board member contacts another one about a matter before the board if you're wanting to avoid an open meeting of law violation if he' done that and she'd said yes presumably then they would have said sorry can't talk about it they would have hung up and this wouldn't have happened and B should have realized that it was like ly the McCarthy and Mr doxer had discussed this because of their roles in the selection process two did you discuss the town manager selection with select board member Haley or did you have any indirect discussion with a third party about Mr how Mr Haley was going to vote or felt about the town manager candidates this question is important because either of these actions before or after Mr B's called and McCarthy would have created an open meeting violation seems likely that they might have communicated because they are politically aligned and coordinated on many other issues um it also seems likely because at the select board meeting on on February 6th they both support stated their support for the same candidate using the same rationale they said it was important for the candidate that are supporting for the town stability that was not a Criterion that was listed in the selection process it was not a Criterion to my knowledge that had come up before so it seems highly unlikely that independ completely independently both Mr Boni and Mr Haley had decided to support the same candidate with the same rationale three given the above why did you call Miss McCarthy and why didn't you take steps to avoid an open meeting violation I assume given your years of service on the board Mr Bashi you know the open meeting law and you want to avoid violating it was it your intent to create an open meeting law violation was it your intent to do so to put Miss McCarthy in an uncomfortable position where she might feel pressured to support the Tom manager candidate you were supporting final question number four at the February 6 select board meeting Miss McCarthy disclosed the open meeting violation and recused herself why didn't you acknowledge that you had created the open meeting violation and recuse yourself answers to these questions are necessary for Mr botch and the select board's transparency and accountable about ha what happened with this open meeting law violation they may also cast some light on Miss McCarthy's resignation from the board and the subsequent events that have royed the select board in the town hall I hope to hear answers Mr bot in the near future thank you very much anyone else like to speak yes not and I should have stated earlier I I don't like cutting anybody off none of us do but please try to keep it to a couple minutes okay I'll go really fast okay good evening my name is Kathy Zeke and I live at eight sandport street I'm here to comment again on the billing system for water and sewer that the select board adopted year ago I'm going to make two points first the current system is inequitable second the select board has failed to to correct that inequity first point the water and sewer billing rate system is inequitable res residents who live in multif family buildings that's about 20% of reading's population do not pay water rates based on their individual usage instead they pay water rates based on their building's total usage you can see the impact Ed that inequity on page 25 of tonight's packet currently residents in multif family buildings pay for almost 90% of their water at the highest rate if they paid as individual users they would pay for almost 90% of their water at the lowest rate and 0% at the highest rate let me repeat that if residents of multif family buildings paid as individual un as individual users they would pay for almost 90% of their water at the low EST rate and 0% at the highest rate that's a clear inequity and it's currently imposed on almost 20% of reading's residents and the inequity will only grow as the rates increase each year the current system is inequitable second point the select board has failed to collect to correct that inequity in June 2023 a year ago the select board approved the current system and generally agreed that it needed to be fixed that didn't happen in November 2023 town meeting passed an instructional motion directing the select board to propose a fix and report in April 2024 three select board members agreed again to fix the system that didn't happen in May 2024 residents reminded the select board about the inequity and called on them to fix it that didn't happen for the past year the select board has taken no action on a problem that we all understand it's a problem we can fix tonight's agenda calls for a vote on Water and Sewer rates before any vote the select Board needs to approve a fix and implemented for the 2025 billing year thank you thank you anyone else Angel Angela Bend Orchard Park Drive the town is still waiting for select board member Christopher Haley to find the moral courage to properly apologize to fellow select board member Mark doxer for attacking him with false allegations of blackmail an apology is long overdue at the last select board meeting a resident called on him to apologize and Mr Haley doubled down stating that he stands by each and everything he said regarding the matter however on February 17th several hours after select board after the select board meeting Mr Haley texted Miss McCarthy to apologize to her for having said what he said hi Jackie I want to apologize Mr Haley wrote I could have chosen better words or not allowed their clapping to cloud my judgment in fact when I spoke to miss McCarthy regarding these comments Miss McCarthy called Mr Haley imprecise and she told me that she never said some of the things that Mr Hy attributed to her I called Miss McCarthy in April to let her know know that I was writing a letter to the editor stating that I was against the select board investigation I wanted to give her a heads up she stated that she welcomed an investigation and would almost certainly participate that long conversation convinced me that Mark doxer had done nothing wrong and I was convinced that an investigation would prove that I'm left wondering why Miss McCarthy's what her motives are for not partip ipating in that investigation Mr Haley acted rashly and inappropriately and his false allegations and and his stated false allegations and he owes Mr doxer a sincere and public apology I saw another hand assass yes thank you uh John Sasso Richard's Road so open discussion of ideas is the Hallmark of our democracy and we are fortunate to have numerous Outlets where this can occur one one media often that I use are letters to the editor as many others people here do as well and as a writer I can report that my letters are normally posted without any material changes although sometimes they might remove embedded links for security or other purposes so recently I was made aware that a letter I posted last month in advance of of the special election was had had its time of posting altered I submitted the letter at 9:50 a.m. and later that morning did received confirmation that the letter was posted to both reading recap and the Reading Post subsequently it appears that the time of posting on the reading post was altered to be earlier than the time I had submitted the letter while it may be that this was done inadvertently I am aware that my letter was not the only one subject to such a change as an organization that appears to have excuse me and further only letters written supporting certain candidates were affected as an organization that appears to have close ties to rctv and May in fact be publicly funded via Peg fees I'd like to ask the select board to determine what happened requests for explanation from the writing post have gone unanswered your attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated thank you anyone else for public comment in the room Caitlyn is anyone on Zoom public comment do you see anybody see anybody are you there or she might have stepped away can you see the screen on your computer or no have to join the is it on the control pad next to you or no all right if someone's there we we will get to you but um so sorry no one no one's online all right thank you sorry thank you thank you all right so we're gonna go a little bit out of order um water insur rates was next up but our consultant uh was doing two meeting tonight and because we ran late skip l oh sorry sorry sorry my bad yep I'm reading the bold print there uh select select Bo leison and Tom Andre report so K start with you please first up I attended the Pride Celebration on Saturday and um to say my business of the spons of this event happy to see our I director Al there also um Senator Jason Lewis joined us and it was good to see so many other business owners and residents um on a beautiful day with a really wonderful parade so Kudos it's always fun um okay the kilum leadership team um met to continue planning sustainability working group sessions we have another one coming up um summer Comm additional summer Community meetings as well as the full building um full School building committee meetings we will be expecting answers back from the msba on our recent submission and we will be expecting to um get into much greater detail on um hbac options um in the next four months um V metet on Monday yesterday for about two hours um some have been waiting since August so it's good to catch up and I'm happy to say that you know our recruiting efforts are paying off and feel and we're in pretty good shape to make sure that we have forums and qualified people all the boards that need them um I will say that we could still there's still time if somebody has any interest in the Conservation Commission even as an associate member and there's plenty of room on the cultural Council um and so that would I would encourage people to go ahead and still submit their um applications if they have any interest I did attend um the Board of Health Meeting those presentations I did attend the financial Forum which I thought was very productive and I appreciated that we hearded from um so many active and engaged volunteers and I I wasn't there I don't believe the entire Forum because I also attended the RL meeting that so that's it thank you Chris thank thanks Carlo uh this would be the last time that I'm uh doing this ever again uh February 27th The Daily Times Chronicle article came out Bob wrote it he doesn't write the headlines they accus Mark doxer of blackmail in that meeting I never accused Mark doxer of blackmail nor am I ever accusing him of blackmailing anyone now either yeah it it's because I I it just keeps getting brought up not on rep point it's not I understand I I I just I just wanted to be crystal clear because everyone seems to be thinking that I did that to Mark and I did not so hopefully this is the end of chair we're moving on moving on moving on um I also attended the Pride Celebration uh as as Karen did um and then um Melissa and I attended the post 197 ribbon cutting earlier today um it's good to see a a business uh being that successful so early downtown um my wife tried getting me in there for my um birthday and they only had one opening towards the end of the month so I'm very happy that they're seeing success I think we have to handle some um parking scenarios that they want over there uh with ballet or something but we can get that to Future agendas that's it mosa um I'm still trying to figure out all these Lees on um boards I need to meet with but um I was at the Board of Health hearing um last week um we they had a lot of uh residents non residents that spoke for and against um the new initiative law that's up um I am the liaison for the affordable housing trust and like Karen mentioned we've done our vasque interviews this week and I'm happy to say it looks like that that committee is going to be full so we'll be able to get that started um talk to Mar Matt with about it today too so hopefully late summer early fall we'll get that our first meeting or schedule yep um I think that's it again I did attend the post uh ribbon counting today I agree with uh Chris and I'm really happy that that business is done is gonna do well in running I think it's a great spot thanks Carlo so uh main activity has been recal has been meeting quite regularly to put together um hopefully kind of the the summary of all the work that it's done folks got a preview of that at the financial Forum however it will be different when we come to the select board um the big item I'm going to lean on Matt for this is that um we wanted the permanent building committee to accept the project for the sener for of living and as of last night they have accepted it they did yes so that's a a positive step forward and then I'm going to ask you in your your town manager report to say if there's anything else because I was unable to attend last night but um that was pretty much it but we could talk about it on the agenda item yeah yeah so I think I'll save everything else for the agenda item that that relates to that and that's it thank you yes um I was UN unable to attend uh the pride parade but June is pride month it's not just one day obviously it's the whole month and um I did also attend the Board of Health hearing I think they're having a meeting and voting on that age I forget the exact name of the law where you can't buy cigarettes after you're born a certain date um a lot of comments on both ends of that uh Financial Forum was very good very robust we covered three major topics uh kilum Center for active living and CPA and we had a lot of questions from the audience a lot of questions from the boards that were there and we're going to have another one probably in the fall and that's really it Matt yeah so I was able to attend all of the Memorial Day Celebrations um at all the cemetaries and I want to thank everybody that was a great job by all the volunteers all the staff that worked on that in the parade very successful event a little bit of rain but not too bad so um I also attended the post um 1917 ribbon cutting today um great to see a business thriving in the downtown and the owner actually mentioned how helpful Town staff was to to having him open and he said he really had a great experience dealing with the town so that's always great to hear for for us um the ribbon cutting for the Town Forest lot is set for 1: p.m. on the 13th next week um so all invited for that that the lot has been redone it looks beautiful if you haven't seen it yet so please try to come out for that friends and family day is this Saturday June 8th from 10:30 to 300 p.m. at Birch Meadow always a great event we're hoping for good weather for that as well um Olivia um nightly our new town planner started this week so that's uh some much needed help in the planning department she's very excited and we're very excited and also we have our new assistant Town manager Jane Wellman in the audience tonight I just wanted to formally introduce her we're excited to have her in her new role she's been with writing 8 years I don't think she's a stranger any anybody she just um graduated with her MPA degree from UNH she's also a graduate of toughs and she's very active in tibery as well where she's on the select board former uh moderator and former school committee member um and she's been of great assistance to the town for eight years and we're very excited to have her so [Applause] we and with that that'll conclude my report for all right I I I have one update um if anyone didn't hear this uh Bill Brown broke his leg um he's in he's in a facility of rehabbing he fell at Memorial Day not at the ceremony because he wasn't there in the beginning at least he went to the new flag pole um unveiling at Memorial Park he fell there I hope he's okay with me sharing this because you know he deserves some attention uh and then he fell again at home and broke his leg so that the leg got addressed he's in Wilmington if you want more information reach out to me um and uh you know some of us already sent him flowers it's going to be laid up for a while so we're not going to see him around for a while he usually attends the meetings been battling vertigo for a while and I was sorry to hear that that happened last week so just wanted to mention that not really Le's on report but as we all know Bill Brown has been coming to these meetings for many many years and we haven't seen them recently or at some town meeting nights so I just wanted to mention that and the memor C was great as well all right so now I apologize for making that mistake earlier so we're going to move we're going to come back to the hearing on water sewer rates if we could yes if we could um are we all okay with that okay so now we're going to go to a a hearing on discuss and vote on traffic Amendment Amendment 202 24-3 amend article 12 traffic rules and regulations and um Chris has a notice to read to the inhabitants of town of Reading Please take notice that the select Board of the town of reading will hold a series of public hearings on June 4th 2024 at 7 p.m. in the select board meeting room 16 L Street writing Mass Metts and remotely via Zoom to First approve Amendment 20243 to the traffic and parking regulations amend article 12 traffic rules and regulations public ways article 5.9.1 no overnight parking of heavy vehicles or commercial vehicles uh and number two no I think that's it right we don't have to get to the water yet all right so it's we did it all yep that's it good evening um so this um came in through pttf um it was uh a few complaints that came in regarding uh heavy Vehicles parked on the roads overnight um both uh noise and safety reasons um we discussed it and looked into several other towns um the other towns we looked at they have no commercial vehicle uh at all overnight so what we looked at so um we added is class three and above so if you think of uh probably not fam what class 3 but vehicle is but think of like uh maybe like an Amazon delivery truck or a UPS truck in greater than that for for sizewise or maybe like a uh like a small like pickup dump truck um so anything greater than that it's a commercial vehicle um cannot be parked between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. on public ways um lots of residents have commercial vehicles themselves if they have like a uh they could have a normal vehicle that could still be a commercial plate so those we didn't want to um affect residents that have smaller Vehicles parked in front of their own house this is Mo mostly for large trucks being parked um on the roadways overnight so the town does have the alln night parking but um the chief only has us enforce that during the winter months because the idea behind that is for um snow removal so while that's in place it can be enforced year round it's only enforced um during the winter uh so this would give us uh teeth to address the large trucks that are being left on public WS at night so we're going with the gross vehicle weight of over 10,000 lbs yes or or higher yes okay so that's that's the the definition of class three right class three okay y so if it's a plumbers van one second sorry if it's a plumber's van that's letter yep that that's not that's not effective okay y or a any contract pick plumber because I see a lot of those okay thanks car so just a question it notes at the very end um improvements infrastructure or residential work improve so this is um if there's um Municipal work being done um like road work being done overnight in like an emergency situation um rld fixing po have to leave trucks in in the area while they're while they're working that stuff will be excluded or if um this emergency work in the uh the residents they just have to get uh permission through the police department National Grid rld urce whatever yeah okay so just for emergency for example if there's um a contractor in a bigger truck in a class three vehicle doing work at a residence non-emergency project is that something that can get guess Case by case basis again but um for most part dur during the winter months when when there's no snow people call up and they they get the the green light to to to park their vehicle um I I see this be something similar not to be a repeated pattern of just always call I'm GNA leave my dump truck parked on on the street for the the entire week so thank you Chris thanks Carlo so is there anything above class three I assume there is class I believe it's through eight so that's that's 18 wheeler uh yeah because I know that my vehicle is 751 lb which is close in my opinion to to the 10,000 Mark but still under so I'm just worried that some other equivalents are getting caught in this what is the rationale to not just do in class four and above what's what's the weight on that uh I'm not sure I just we but 10,000 pounds with the class three would be the most reasonable so it's mainly there seems to be an issue with specific vehicles and this is somewhat targeting to correct the issue to Carlos Point you're not going to be doing a a plumbers vehicle even if it was class three like I I could see I don't I could see class 3 being a an issue at 10,000 pounds like just based off my own vehicle you know what I mean like my F-150 is 7501 so it's not that much of a stretch going up to the 10,000 Mark so I'm not sure about these other commercial vehicles but I can understand a dump truck we don't want that right so looking at other towns they have no commercial vehicles at all so we were trying to find a happy medium with what most people would have that would be reasonable um well for nighttime sitewise on the roads you're having a a large truck truck parked at night um never mind towns there some states that don't allow any commercial vehicles on on public so I assume there's going to be like a warning or something for us right just let them know hey this stuff got changed like you can't do this anymore uh I'm sure that would I'm sure something will be okay put in place as long as it's someone to it's not like if it gets approved tonight we're going to go outside takeing everybody yes yep okay count any questions okay all right motion yes uh well first we have to move to close the hearing on regarding traffic Amendment 20243 check there any comments com no no okay any anyone have any comment on this traffic Amendment please Kaylin anyone on Zoom no all right can I yeah Chris's thing so I just Googled it just because I was curious so like an a Ford F350 is 10,000 pounds so I just like if a individual has a Ford of 350 which I don't think is really out of the realm of reasonable like that would be a you would probably let that be because that technically is a class right unless it's in like a a problem area or we probably try to address it with the with the owner first the owner yeah because it's kind of because then it goes to like a van that's also like where I see like an Amazon man but those pickup trucks technically are in that class three and so I understand the bigger vehicles are probably and I understand why you also said class three because you can see here it can be small but that's where that's where the most significant jump is in that class yeah okay okay that was my question yeah move to close the hearing regarding traffic Amendment 20243 second second any discussion no um let's take a vote roll call vote Karen yes sorry you actually need a motion to approve it right that was the motion to close the hearing yes we're moving to close the hearing all right all right yep all right got yes from Cameron Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes okay and now move to approve Amendment 20243 to the traffic and parking regulations as presented second second all right thanks um any discussion seeing none uh Karen Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 Z sign yeah oh there more than one no no just CLK on the back you going to be doing the up y all right thank you next I'm the agenda we're going out of order right now we're sticking to the order that's without the water and sewer rates is a pttf update yep um so I think every time I'm up here I say that where just to give a little background of what of what pttf is uh parking traffic Transportation task force uh we are a uh staff Advisory Group um to the town manager um the group is made up of staff from the police fire tpw engineering uh operations and planning uh we have monthly uh meetings to uh so we have scheduled communication between all the different departments uh for upcoming and current road projects in the town um complaints that come in um and any other a agenda items that we choose to discuss uh this can be plans regarding construction and the effects on traffic uh Road and parking concerns and Resident complaints which uh all low of them come in through C click fix uh or through the uh traffic and safety officer uh or just regular calls of service to uh the police station or to uh staff at the Town Hall um most of the issues uh can be addressed just with uh either traffic enforcement parking enforcement uh using the traffic and speed trailers that we have at the police department uh or maybe just added signage uh in an area um when we discover an issue or a safety concern that cannot be corrected with those um and they need to be changed in the traffic rules and regulations that's when we proposed an amendment um to the town manager who will present it to the select board for approval or disapproval um the the uh pttf uh also discuss and plan logistics for long-term projects uh that require work from multiple departments uh such as the Downtown parking kiosk install Road and utility work and the annual Road resurfacing projects uh so for the road resurfacing every year uh engineering and DPW um have a list based on um the needs of of the roads um that need to be repaired uh usually they try and get a few of the uh more busier major roads uh and then other ones in smaller um neighborhoods uh based on how uh how poor the road conditions are uh as you can probably tell by some of the markings in town the major roads this year are going to be wubin Street and um Charles Street um and we're also monitoring several other areas in town right now uh one of the areas is Arcadia um that came in through uh I think some members of Select board school committee parents at Barrow and Austin prep uh a lot of students from Austin prep are using that area as overflow parking because that's actually the closest neighborhood where they can uh legally park on Street um so we're just trying to find a resolution um so that the not parking on both sides which affects the drop off and pickup parking we met with Austin prep today just to see what their plans are um so we could try and come up with a a resolution where we're not putting up um parking regulations in front of people's houses where they don't want it but they also don't want students there so we we're trying to find uh what what works best for everybody um grow Street we're looking at um with the new parking lot there is um a new guard rail set up for the the trail going from the to the entrance so there's temporary no parking signs right now with the um with the land protected by the guard rail now there's less space for parking so we're trying to see um how the parking situation is now that there the lot is open um last year we had put no parking on one side of um that Family Circle um so that the um there was enough room for for land traffic because people parked on both sides uh during busy days at the Town Forest um parking kiosks um they have been installed but there was an issue with the software so their go live has been pushed back for now I think the target date is now the 17th um the issue was with the first hour being free was not programmed in so if we went live with them now people would be paying for the first hour um so they went back to the uh Engineers they had to to reprogram those which I guess takes longer than than you would expect um Chap and have we we're just monitoring that because that was a one way during the construction of the chronicle um once that finished and the barriers were removed from Main Street the um Road went back to two ways but we're just checking um keeping an eye on that area to see if there's any issues that we would put it back to one way but that seems to be working and um Treasures pardon Little Treasures Little Treasures um that that went back to to pttf and the the recommendation that that went to the board last time is still the same to keep that as um as a uh to propose the five minute um five 10 I think it was five minute drop off parking um um just based off safety of Hail Street um Hail Street was just addressed with the study for the kilum school and that showed that hav street was a problem area um so we've been targeting hav Street for Speed enforcements and it's every every enforcement down there police were able to stop two or three cars every half an hour that's just just just how H Street is um so there's lots of there's lots that go into to pttf because we have to follow the mutcd uh that's the manual on uniform traffic control devices uh it's a 1100 page document in case you're your boys one night um so when things are beyond our uh area engineering might put it up for a um a traffic traffic um traffic study um they just did that with LOL at Cap Cod because we had had some crashes there in the past um we weren't sure how we could address it so we were thinking of making some of the streets around there off of Wall Street one way but the traffic stud just came back and said don't do that because then you're just creating um traffic just just pushing it to somewhere else um so that's basically what I have for an update in because if you have any questions yeah you're answer you you guys meet monthly every two weeks how often uh every month mon no I don't have any questions that was a good update Qui question um so maybe a couple of months ago we had a number of residents start sharing with our board uh concerns on safety issues on certain roads I don't know if they came to us they made their way to you but what what's the the best path when someone has a an intersection of particular concern or crossing I think Crossing was one um we get a lot of them they they'll call the safety officer um also scouton other people um it come through C click fix um I think if if you have reported uh either comes to me directly or or through Matt um so any anything that comes up we make sure it get on the agenda okay so any of those you can use C click fix you can contact the police department safety officer yep um they sending us letters call call the call the business line for the police department be forward to to one of us any questions Chris thanks Carlo um so you mentioned Arcadia a we ironically each got one of these before the meeting that um there's like 50 60 residents signed that they're having issues over there so it's definitely being looked at though yeah yes yeah we just met today with um with with Austin prep um so they're reporting no changes to their um uh their enrollment they have have an increased enrollment the past six or seven years I don't know if it's just the times where more kids have their own vehicles um but they've um added parking in the last few years their plan wasn't to add more for another couple years so it looks like we're g to have to try and find someplace to put these addition cars um one of the options is putting no parking along of the sides of Arcadia but that might be Last Resort because that doesn't just mean that the the students can't park there that means everybody can't park there so it's not it's it's all or none it because it is a public way they they found that that's the closest place in the school to park so that's where they've gone and looking at the map arcade is not even close like they are making a hike down to where this right because we had issues before where they would park on Willow right at summer and those were those were even worse so they quickly learned where the next one was they used to park in the um neighborhoods behind and cut through people's yards but I think as soon as they did that once or twice that that was shut down quickly um and then the other one I have is so Memorial Park I think to meeting or something approved the crosswalk or some scenario maybe Matt knows this the crosswalk getting changed in front of Memorial Park where the rock just got moved are you aware of anything with that or I I know they're doing a traffic study now um it's actually Ryan who has the best information on that the town engineer and he's um hired an outside firm to do a traffic study for that area to see the best to to keep it the safest as it could be on that street so so after that it will go to them and then potentially to us yes okay so that's that area is is pretty complex because there's already parking spaces there so we don't want to have just put up crosswalk there where people could be hidden behind a park vehicle then walk out um so that's probably looking at changing the curving um maybe one of the RFB the flashing pedestrian beacons um but the other main thing is that you don't want to put a crosswalk mid block like when there's where there's no Street I know it's leading to a to a park so it seems like it's the most convenient place but it's not the safest place at all so that's why um it has gone up to a uh engineering study and they may or may not suggest moving it correct they they may say that that's not a safe place they may say put it further down at at Harrison um or even leave it up at at man Salem I know that's not convenient but there's already one Pearl Street um again that's at a bend in the road on Salem do you think it ends up in an option where they suggest not moving it at all um I I can't speak to that do you think that it should be moved though in your in my opinion um I don't think we should have one right there at the park it's mid block on a state road I mean Salem Street it goes from I think 40 to 35 to 30 to 20 all pretty quick so cars do do move fast on that on that road um so it would take some pretty significant changes to put a safe crosswalk in there um I I forget the ter but where you You' probably have to eliminate a lot of those parking spaces to bump it out to make the sideline safer for the pedestrians who were on the sidewalk at the crosswalk wherever they could F could find one thanks Karen any questions comments yeah quick one um thank you for the update that's quite a thinking all um I wanted to highlight um the kilum traffic study also um focused on Charles Street um so will that be an upcoming um agenda item for pttf uh yes we've looked at that we've also looked at that Charles specifically Charles and Wakefield um so yeah so that I think one of the recommendations that they made uh from their traffic study was was a four-way stop uh at Charleston Wakefield so that's something that we would look at as well okay because I understand that the timing is really good because Charles Street is going to be paid this year at least that's what we heard at the community meeting so that' be great so thank you I would seen you guys have been looking at you know all of the suggestions and taking advantage of repaving to uh go ahead and bring some relief to the kids that there yeah yep okaya just really quick question um a resident had mentioned the aadia street issue to me and um one thing that they had said with the people or kids parking on both sides of the street Not only was it a issue for drop off but there is there any issue with emergency vehicles getting down there if they needed to I don't narrow that is no okay the the simple answer is no they they've tried that they brought the trucks down they can get through and um uh assistant chief Nelson said in emergency we have sirens and if we need to get through people move out the way when they have to bail into a driveway or something like so residents down there if don't have to don't have to worry about anything yeah we we'll get through just wanted to double check all right thank you all right thank you very much thanks right not yeah he's not he needs a few more minutes um he's heading home from that meeting that meeting is included I'm kind of glad so yeah that's good do one more agenda item and then yeah because we can there's some fine folks that have been here for a while sure so next on the agenda is uh discuss reading Community television rctv compliance with this contract the to of reading and it's use of public educational governmental access funds discussion of the relationship between rctv and the Reading Post discussion of potential rctv annual review and budget audit so the reason uh this is on the agenda is that over the past couple elections the regular election and the special election um I guess I I was made aware that and this is beyond my pay grade that some LTE letter other were submitted to the reading post and as Mr Sasso mentioned earlier here's when it's going up and then behind the scenes they change the Tim stamp so the order it goes up and that's several that's happened several times so again why we can't control RCT TV's content or the Renning post's content me personally me alone is just looking for his accountability so I reached out to Phil I said hey Phil this is what I've heard I wouldn't even know way to begin to to figure this out and he denied it and said it didn't happen I'm like okay Chris Haley owns an IT business he's well versed in backend and front end is it okay if he reaches out to you Phil said yes so I I shared phone numbers uh I'll let Chris speak on it but basically Chris reached out to Phil to get an answer uh one way of the other uh Phil did not respond Chris sent an email and Phil responded I'm paraphrasing the matter is closed we're not addressing this issue so again while rctv is an independent body and they have their own board I know a few members are here we just want to know well I just want to know me personally um was this done was it done on purpose was it done by accident who did it no one has to respond to this right but I think for transparency purposes and accountability purposes Phil wasn't willing to respond to this or his response was no response we're not going to address this issue so that's why it was on the agenda and I I I have never looked into um the rctv contract myself uh I think everything's going fine there uh the post we know is part of rctv right as a as a website and subm uh receiving and posting letters to the editor especially during election season so I I guess so that's why it's on the agenda um and I I'll let any of the board members comment anybody wants to comment all right thanks Carl so a couple of questions first um it says compliance with contract is there a specific Topic in the contract there a specific area in the contract where this comes up I'm trying to understand how that's related here at all yeah not a specific top spefic specific item in the contract but as you can see in the in the full uh agenda item it references the relationship between rctv and the post so we kind of made it an overarching to right there's not me personally speaking for myself I don't have an issue with any language in the contract we're just trying to I'm just trying to understand the post in conjunction with rctv and how that's staffed and and kind of who's in charge of posting the letters to the editor was their manipulation of timestamps to put other letters to the editor above other letters I hear that I don't understand why it's was related to the contract it feels like it it's a sep is it's this so we can discuss if we want to I guess if we want to okay so just to be bright it's not alleging isue the contract it's not part of contct so in case we reference the contract it covers Us it's broad thank you got and just um kind of in terms of where it came from how it came forward you brought to your attention some people have alleged this yeah okay people smarter than me with computers figured out and I guess it's not that hard to figure out that submission times versus post times were manipulated in some shape or form and I heard someone say only for certain letters yes okay not not others I don't have full knowledge but what was brought to me was certain letters to the editor were were the timestamps were changed and that that Chang the posting I I look forward to hearing from the folks on the board in terms of what's going on but I think it's very problematic to kind of create an agenda item that says compliance with the contract and then have these other questions I think they really probably could have been better as questions to address um ability to discuss other aspects I I consulted with IA and she felt that this would be okay to put in there to give it a broad look I didn't I know I know what you're saying yeah I because I didn't know where to to look because I read the contract right and then these other things didn't fit so correct okay so I understand a little better so I I hope we have a chance to hear fromard members here and things it be great to hear from them yeah thank you any Melissa I I just I would like to understand better what the um relationship between rctv and the running post is so we have a town contract with rctv and does rctv oversee the right post am I understanding that correctly I I don't know okay good I think so but I don't I'm not gonna answer that good CH any comments uh thank you Carlo um yes Carlo ended up reaching to me like you mentioned and uh gave me Phil's number I texted Phil um just saying hey what time uh looks good for you in the future for us to meet and just uh go over this um I could read a Verbatim but it was kind of paraphrasing um I reached out to him I didn't hear anything I sent a second text reminder hey just trying to get this on the books Etc nothing third reminder same scenario uh no response so that is when I sent an email like Carla mentioned I included Matt on it and just said hey when are we able to discuss this um you know for me uh Matt and him to discuss it because um that's what was referenced to Carlo to me and then you know I was bringing it Forward because yes it's uh above Carlo's pay grd and and possibly everyone else's for that matter um so I reached out to him um and essentially it comes back with the um we looked into the matter and uh we consider the matter closed so I asked does the board considered the matter closed um what uh what process was actually used to consider the matter closed because uh for me personally um like John Sasso had mentioned my LTE was sent at 11:25 a.m. it was acknowledged at 2:15 217 uh that day um that it was posted and the way that it resides on the Reading Post right now is uh at 7 a. that morning which is obviously a couple hours before I even sent it but no sorry I want to be correct it's published at 11: a.m. um which is 25 minutes before I even sent it thus moving it down on the page for that day um it it's it's not a violation of the contract they're an independent contractor uh they can do whatever they want that that's crystal clear and and I I don't see it being a a contractual issue um my daughter has gone to rctv Camp the last two years over there Angela is incredible Rob in the back room over here has been outstand every here more than we've been at meetings uh he's been here so there's there's no issue there just to kylo's point we need a ability to see what's happening because it's it's me it's John Sasso uh Melissa had stuff as well Karen Janowski who's here uh she sent an email to the select board that her letter was sent to 1220 and it was backd to 6:00 a.m. that morning I mean there has to be a reason for this and hopefully uh Chris and and Bob maybe have some answers if not if they can take it back to to Phil to find out what the deal is but um but yeah there there just has to be some accountability of what happened and you know we have to to accept whatever answer that's provided to us but we looked into it and uh we consider the matter closed as a non-answer in my opinion point of order chair H Chris Haley Mr Haley has multiple investments in this issue he's was both a candidate and he has a competing reading news media outlet that he has touted and his name is now on it like in the reading Neighborhood Network he doesn't have a contract with the town though no he doesn't but he has a competitive news media outlet and so I'm struggling with this accusation against a town blessing reing community rctv that has gone above and beyond for our town covering not just what this contract in here says but much more and I'm struggling that Mr Haley is the one bringing these charges and I heard from other people who also had a stake in the election there are no charges being uh there is again excuse me sir but there is again the besmirching of a reputation which we've seen before so I needed to say point of order because these insinuations are problematic rctv as Mr Haley just said has served our town very well correct so I just struggle with this conflict point taken Karen thank you Mr chair I am I'm struggling um I don't I don't know if there is a formal relationship between the post and TV I am not an expert on the use of pig um funds so I would i' like to withhold questions until we can really just ask them of the folks who can really answer them I'm fre We're not gonna get anywhere until we get to that point okay does anyone rctv want to comment you're not obligated to but does anyone have a statement or want to comment on what we've mentioned uh not at this time if come to the points real quick sorry sorry uh Christopher kler president of the board of directors for rctv as this is actually not a hearing we would prefer not to comment at this particular point in time the select board is welcome we can try to schedule a meeting obviously between the select board and rctv as per the contract uh however we would like that scheduled through the board of directors rather than through uh the executive director as the contact with the board of directors is by the select board is supposed to be through the board of directors please okay can I ask you one question if that's okay I is this the first time you're hearing this tonight or you made aware of it already was that I am I was made aware of this particular circumstance as the cause for the meeting this evening okay thank you thank you Mr Beckman anything you don't have to okay all right anyone else I know it's not a hearing but um Mr J sure thank you Karen Janowski 30 is Alia Circle as someone whose letter was manipulated I'm just hoping that we can find out why it seems inexplicable I don't know what the relationship is between rctv and the reading post and I don't know if rctv can even offer any expan ation at all but I do wonder how we can understand why this manipulation occurred because it did happen to my letter and it was manipulated by um by six by six hours I don't understand why I don't understand the purpose for it but I do hope that we can find some understanding of or some explanation of what that why it happened thank you thank you any other comments from the board just real quick yeah thanks Carlo uh I want to make it clear that Carlo reached out to Phil in the scenario um and handle things that way I also reached out to Phil I understand Chris just mentioned now that we have to go through the board of directors that's fine I I understand that I didn't think it was at that level so I mean thank you for bringing that up but I I attempted to uh meet with him uh three times through text in one time through email so this was no public scenario that I was doing no competition no nothing I just wanted to talk and just get an understanding of what happened and that was it um it didn't have to be a public uh an agenda item like this um so that's essentially it I I I reached out like I said included Matt just like I have with other border committee kind of scenarios um and if it was nothing transpired when Matt was there Etc then it wouldn't up but we didn't even get to that point so I appreciate Chris mentioning that we can have it done through the board of directors if that's the way that it has to go and Matt can arrange that in um September or what did you mentioned I think someone mentioned September or am I making that date up is there I believe the only the annual review is to be scheduled between September and I believe November and in terms of a regular meeting between the board of directors and the select board that can be at the request of the select board so long as we find a mutually agreeable dat yep so that's fine with me okay thanks good moving on okay Matt any update uh yes Matt so Matt uh should be on zo right now if we're ready to move on to the next yeah yes oh yeah okay you're more than welcome to stay but the the topic is CL I'm sorry yes so the so Matt abrs abrahamson should be on the call right now I see him so the Consultants here we also have DPW director Chris Cole is here and I believe Sharon is on the zoom as well so canward um Matt Matt has his presentation from last time that he can review we have we have a hearing notice that we have to read yep yep yeah good yeah to the inhabitants of the town of Reading Please take notice that the select Board of the town of reading will hold a series of public hearings on June 4th 2024 at 7 p.m. in the select board meeting room 16 Lowel Street Reading Massachusetts and remotely via Zoom to approve water sewer and storm water rates for f25 copy of the proposed documents regarding these topics will be in the select board packet on the website at w www.m.gov all interested parties are invited to attend the hearing or may submit their comments in writing to town manager at ci. ring. ma. us or your Matthew kralis xire Town manager okay all right so we need a motion to open the hearing right no we did that and we vote to open the hearing begin no no no no okay good all right um we're gonna start with with Matt or start with us um what have you before Matt I think is is ready and willing to do his presentation from last time to is sort of a refresher and we can take it from there are you ready for that Matt yeah um are you able to share your screen or Y good evening hi this is Matt Abrahams part of the Abrahams group um we were before this board a few weeks back um to begin the conversation about water and sewer rates for fy2 um and I am back before you this evening to um provide another update on where we are with this but also with some recommended rate options for the board's consideration this evening uh I know the town manager just mentioned momentarily um a few few moments ago that this is um president presentation that we have shown you previously and it basically is but I just wanted the board to be aware uh that it has been updated um on a minor basis from the last time you saw it um we we did so in response to um this board and some of the requests that came out of last meeting that I attended and also because the town Town staff recently updated um some information around capital and debt projections for both Water and Sewer so we had the opportunity to do so we went ahead and we integrated those updates into our now so just wanted you to be aware that um the slides that we're going to show you momentarily um do have some slight tweaks them but it is very much the same presentation as last time so I just plan to run through the slides and um I'll take questions this can be informal I don't mind if someone interrupts with the question what we'll do is we'll cover the water slides first and then we'll cover the sewer slides subsequent to that um the slides for both Water and Sewer are pretty familiar um sorry are pretty consistent with one another um you'll see that as we go through them first slide is about water and recent history as this board is aware the town implemented a four- tier rate structure for the current fiscal year of FY 24 prior to that a flat rate was used um for many years and multi-unit accounts are currently charged as one unit the water fund itself has retained earnings balance of $4.7 million which is 58.5% of fund expenses we'd like to focus on that percentage because it is a a way to gauge how healthy or unhealthy a an Enterprise fund is and we tend to look for a percentage in the the 10 to 25% range obviously the higher the better the town focuses on perc is more in the 30 to 33% range so you can tell based on either of those metrics that the water fund is quite healthy at this time the town typically balances the budget using retained earnings to ensure rate stabilization that's something that is done every year and the town typically funds some Capital Improvements as part of the operating budget to avoid additional costs incurred from borrowings in other words um the town likes to avoid borrowings whenever possible because there are additional costs associated with borrowing um in the form of Interest so this slide is new from the last time we presented um this is a direct response to uh a request from this board to provide a little bit more information so this slide shows what the rate changes were for each of the fiscal years that we're showing that's on the top row of these tables you going left to right that top row is the rate change so for example fy18 the water rate increased 3. 7% there is no rate change in fy19 and then you can see the increases going out to the right I then put the FY 24 numbers below that because that's when the the tiers were implemented so you can see the rate the rate changes so that's the rate in each of those tiers compared to the FY 23 rate so the rate in tier one was actually lower than the rate for FY 23 the rate in tier two is a little bit higher 2.5% higher and then 5.2% higher for tier three 99.6% higher for tier four and then we also wanted to show what uh the town budgeted for certified Surplus to um balance the budget that's that second row in each of the table so for example fy18 $600,000 was budgeted fy19 just under 700,000 and you can see going out to the right and then in the F what those amounts were and then we also included what actually happened so once the end of the fiscal year H um took place and the books were closed what was the actual certified Surplus that was used and in this case um any we showing the difference right below that and any negative amount on that bottom row means that there was regeneration of surplus so in other words less Surplus certified Surplus was used than what was budgeted so for example fy18 that 385,000 that means that 385,000 less was used and that money was added back into the certified certified Surplus amount so as you if you would just look at the focus on the bottom row here you can see that every year in this analysis there was regeneration from fy18 through FY 23 except for the current fiscal year FY 24 we're projecting that there might be an additional $51,000 needed for certified Surplus however that is assuming that the town fully spends their water budget so that could easily flip based on what actually happens the rest of the grou a lot of numbers on the slide um but you were trying to respond to a board's request the last meeting by putting the slide yeah yeah go we have a question hold on Matt yeah sure if I'm reading this correctly and I just want to clarify that I am reading this correctly we were actually in much better shape before we went to the teared water system is that an accurate statement just based on it seems like we what we used what was budgeted and what was actually used was a lot less from fy18 to FY 23 if I'm reading this correctly versus what we you what happened in FY 24 it looks like we're going to need more money where the all the other years we used less money than budgeted correct I guess that is one way to look at it but that that's not how I look at it um there are other factors in play that are contributing to the fact that additional money is being used for FY 24 like for example if we think about weather patterns um that but we just came off of a very wet summer last year so revenues are generally down um in across many communities that that use out their water in dry seasons um there was not a whole a lot of outdoor water usage last summer which contributed to the building strap by 24 so if you had a you had a dry summer last year for example I would expect those numbers to read okay all right that's good thank you see chair I'll just pause to see chair wants to recognize heres I see did you say Sharon shanon do you want to say something yeah I just wanted to say that it's way too soon say what regeneration is for water but I know that there is water regeneration already I know that we've collected more than our projected revenues for fiscal 24 it's hard to compare full year of you know there's more than just the revenue regeneration but also expenses coming in lower than budgeted so it's hard to compare fiscal 24 currently with the years that you're showing here so I wouldn't feel like it'd be fair to kind of assess that at this point Thank you and presentation on the screen if anybody wants to speak just give us a shout because we can't I can't see hands or or like right now I see Shar on the screen I don't see a Mt Karen so if any of you on Zoom want to speak please just say hey okay all right okay um so this is a slide you saw last time um the left hand side shows actual actual results for the water fund um for the last few fiscal years including the projection of FY 24 and as we just covered um for possibly due to weather patterns um we're projecting a a a deficit for FY 24 this time but as Sharon just mentioned um it also depends on how the expenses come in for 24 or whether that truly happens so most of the years you can see we're we're either a small deficit or a decent Surplus um that fy22 year I believe there was significant capital investment that year which is a a big reason why the the bar dips so downward on fy22 um so I just wanted to make a comment about that the right hand side is a graph uh showing retain earnings the last several years of certification plus a projected amount for FY 24 the blue the blue line is what the retain earnings is and the orange or red line below that is what we consider the target to be and the Target in this case is 30% of fund expenses so you can see that the retain earnings balance has typically stay uh stayed well above it for many years in the recent past but has now started to trend is it just a little bit towards the end of the of the look that we have here capital investment um we wanted to show this slide and we did show us this slide last year although it has been updated a little bit just because we had new information coming from town staff on projections related to Capital and we didn't include that um but we feel like this slide is important because um it's I feel like it's important for the board to understand that um there are large Capital needs for both water and sewer and the town does a good job projecting what it thinks those Capital needs will cost and this graph shows what those projections are the orange line is projected debt over the next 11year period starting with FY uh well includes FY 24 the current fiscal year um and then the blue line is what we're calling capital or Capital outlay which means that that's capital investment that wouldn't be borrowed so that would be a purchase just year that's shown um for those Capital items and you can see for water there's significantly more investment um in the form of debt than there is just Capital outlay but you'll see a little bit of a different scenario when we get to the Sewer slide Baseline scenario um what this is showing is we've included all your expenses we've included all your projected revenues over what we have now is a 10-year period going out 10 years um but we're not including any Revenue changes related to rates now any responsible board wouldn't let this scenario happen happen but we want to show you just what it looks like if the town were not to increase rates over a certain time period and that's what this graph shows so it shows that the blue which is your projected retainer does stay above the target for a few years and then dips below It ultimately depleting retain earnings somewhere between FY 26 and FY 27 with again with no rate action so here's option one for you and I feel like these op options may be slightly different than the last time we showed them to you and it's because of those changes that I refer to related to Capital and debt that we have included at this point um we wanted to show a 10e look we thought doing so made sense especially on the sewer side and we figured if we were going to show it on the sewer side that we should show 10 years on the water side as well um so this is essentially the same analysis that you saw in the prior slide which was the basine scenario but this does include rate action and you can see the rate action and the that top table there these are per year changes starting with 4% increase in FY 25 and 4% 26 and then 3% 27 on and on now this the board if if rates were to be approved this evening um it will not be approving anything other than just the FY 25 rate but we do want the board to understand what the future looks like based on all the numbers that we've crunched in our analysis so that the board can see those future years when making the decision for the upcoming fiscal year of FY 25 so you can see even with this scenario based on all the projections we have in here and granted these projections are going out many years and our subjects are change but based on what we have in there right now um the blue does dip below the orange and then does work its way back towards the target um by the end of the 10-year look that we had here so that's option one for water option oh and then we have a slide here I forgot about this slide that shows the dollar impact so if we step away and we don't maybe we won't focus on the percentage as much focus on the dollars we've put together um what we have for uh build projections for different users and you can see the users going down the left hand side of that table um we've just compiled I'd say random um usage amounts for different sampling of users except we did calculate what we consider to be the average residential user based on 45 gallons per day for of usage and 65 gallon gallons per day for uh for usage as well and we have that as a six about a $664 to a $992 increase per bill for the average residential user those are per bill amount so if you annualize them you're about $27 to $40 annually for the average residential user under the 4% option scenario and for the large residential user we have it as $2100 per Bill $84 per year option two is just slightly different um this presents a level rate scenario what I mean by level is the same rate change annually of 3.5% similar graph is what you saw earlier with this rate plan and from a dollar standpoint 580 to 868 per bill for the average residential user $23 to $35 annually and large residential user $18 per Bill $74 is annually okay and the next slide is when we transition to sewer so I'll just pause briefly in case there are any questions or comments but I can also roll right into the sewer slides if that's the preference a question yeah Karen has a question thank you can we just go back to the two slides between water rate one and option one and option two um so I'm just I was a little surprised so this is a higher increase and it takes us longer to get back to the orange line and I wanted to make sure I was reading it that way I'm a little confused by that and then the I thought on the next slide we actually come back up to where we want to be with retained earnings quicker did I misread it that's why I wanted you to just go back I wasn't sure I read it correctly yeah it's a there's a slightly different trajectory on the second slide you're right about that you do get there a little bit I mean I get so it's either slightly better or the same why would it be better what am I what am I missing because this is a this is not bringing as much money into the system it's only a 3.5% increase I think it's because you've got 3% for the later years and he's got three and a half all the way across cross oh okay I'm sorry I missed that thank you that's it thank you thanks Sharon I was just going to start comparing numbers I wasn't able to do that quickly okay thanks Sharon okay I think we're ready for sewer thank you okay similar slides for sewer U four tier rate structure that was also implemented for FY 24 there was a flat rate prior healthy retain earnings 7.3 million which we have is 99% so remember those ranges that I gave you earlier including the town's Target of 30 to 33% um just like with with water retainer rings are used to balance the budget to ensure rate stabilization and the town tries to avoid borrowings for Capital items wherever possible and here's the similar slide for rate changes um as well as the re the comparison of what was budgeted for certified Surplus what was actual what the difference was and you can see that even for the projected FY 24 column as well as all the other columns all the other years were showing regeneration those negative numbers on the bottom row mean regeneration um such that the amount that wasn't the amount that was budgeted um was not was not needed and was added back to Cle um same slides here for recent results as well as the projection for FY 24 following a similar pattern in terms of where you see the surpluses in those years as water those fway 22 and 24 years are still showing downward but they're not as drastic as we saw on the water side and we're also seeing um that the surpluses are greater than they were on the water slide for the bars going up and and not surprisingly based on that the retain Rings picture is um you see the retainer Rings certified at a higher clip than you did for water and that makes sense based on the fact that actual results for sewer are um have been more positive for water than they have been for water in the recent past now not that water's been bad just that sewers has been um better so you see that the blue for retain earnings uh projections I'm sorry certified amounts plus pro 24 has stayed pretty far well above the target for the last few years in this analysis and here's the capital investment slide this slide definitely looks different so for the water s side we saw that the orange line which represents debt was at the top of the graph and the blue line was at the bottom um the Blue Line representing Capital outlay this graph we see them closer together and we actually see one year where there's a heavy heavy number for Capital La of over $1.8 million before it reverts back downward from there so what that means is If This Were to hold the town would be planning on spending $1 million in outlay which means that's a capital investment that is not borrowed it would be spent in that fiscal year of FY 31 under this plan and we've included these projections in our analysis here's the base scenario as you would expect it follows a similar Trend um on the W as it did for water again this is without rate action but includes everything else and this shows you that um retain earnings would deplete somewhere between 27 and 28 without rate action option one also showing a 4% um this is our level plan you can see that the the rate change is the same annually all the way um for every year in the look The 10year look um and um this is a plan that would work it would keep the blue somewhat near the orange but it in our opinion based on current projections it would take 4% per year to do that and again um if we think about that that Capital outl thing you focus just real quick on the table that's above the graph and look at that FY 31 number in red you see that huge impact of um the expense that's a large deficit number for FY 31 so that's where that number would hit and essentially by doing 4% per year you're kind of planning for that uh so here's the here's the user table um I'll just quickly go through the numbers at the bottom average residential user 6631 to $943 per bill which works out to be about 25 $25 to $38 annually and the large residential user $20 per bill $80 annually through this scenario which is 4% and FY 25 for sewer option two has a 3% so as you might think um the other plan had 4% annually if you're doing 3% in year one presumably you would need more in the subsequent years and that's what we see here e4.2 25 in the subsequent years but a plan like this um based on our projections would still get um retainer rings around the Target by the end of the 10year look and um here's the dollar impact $4.70 to $7 per bill for the average residential user which works out be $192 annually large residential user $150 per Bill $60 annually and those are the sewer slides we do have some slides around the multi-unit analysis that we've done but the board did see those last time time so we can show them we cannot show them um either way it's fine with me guess I'll take direction from the board on that we can also again you like to see them okay um I'll just pause real quick just because that that's the wrap on the sewer slides we can always go back of course but there are questions or comments based on what you thought hearing N I do have a question sorry I was waiting to um so so the Outlook of this so we either you know even with 4% or three and a half% we are quickly going to the red going out more than a couple of years so I guess this is a question for Sharon or Matt does that mean we talked you talked about ear Matthew you talked earlier about you know trying not to borrow for this stuff so I don't know what Bor borrowing rates are but so what what are you thinking our options are going to be you know more than a couple years out you know does it are we just going to self fund this and just keep raising the rates as high as we have to or do we have other options so I can answer some of that so I feel like with the sewer um the 2031 the sewer project that's out there it's a sewer um station and we don't have any mwa borrowing that will be eligible for that so I would imagine as that gets closer we'll probably opt to borrow for it um we kind of have to time things out when we do borrowings we try not to just borrow for a small amount we try and make sure that we're timing our borrowings appropriately so it's very likely that that 2031 could turn into a borrowing so that's that's one thing the other thing is um looking at these slides that Matt puts together for us it's a very conservative look assuming that we have no regeneration um there are there there is usually some regeneration so so we do have a little more wiggle room that maybe is suggested there um at the same time you know increasing the rate every year is going to kind of help us have more free cash to not have to borrow and that's that that's what they're trying to get you to see here is that if we plan appropriately we could potentially avoid a borrowing because we might have enough Surplus that we could just use that for that project um and so that those are the kind of things that you want to kind of look out 10 years and see what do we have coming up and if we wanted to try and borrow not borrow for that what would we need to do to have enough Surplus sitting there and is the are is the debt that we still owe um MW Incorporated in these numbers I was looking for a drop off and I don't know if I could see it in these I think it drops off um in 2026 202 2026 it's it's it's not I think it's pretty close do you recall Matt is that on the water side or the sewer side this the the water has um a Buy in um and I think does the sewer side have something too I want to say it's the water side the buyin is on the water side I want to say it falls off in the next couple years okay I knew it was coming up and I thought we'd see a bump that would help us out I didn't really see it in these numbers which is concerning well because you've always got other things like being borrowed for like we're we're we uze all the MW the mwa borrowings that were available to us we we utilize them as soon as they become available um to kind of get a lot of our Capital done most of our capital for water and sewer is done with MW debt if we can because they give us grants as well as 0% funding um you know and if that's available we utilize that first but with the one that we're looking at that 203 won that $1.8 million that's not going to be eligible for a 0% borrowing so we'd have to kind of time that with other General obligation bonds and and make sure that it's worth our time to issue it because there's debt cost there's issuance cost related to issuing debt and so we'd have to time it out but if we if we plan for it we might not have to borrow for it at all if we consider it as part of our rate okay that's helpful thank you okay um for the multi-unit I think we have two slides for you this evening and these slides were shown during my last presentation a few weeks back they have not changed um so we did look at multi-unit accounts with the focus being um what is being charged of these accounts today using FY 24 rates now the rate may change the SE even or whenever the board sets a rate for fy2 however this analysis was done using the current rates of FY in fy20 54 accounts were analyzed um in the middle part of this graph where you see current breakdown of usage by tier you can see the usage for for the the total of the total up usage for these accounts 54 of them by tier and you can see clearly that tier four has the most amount um 80 about 85% of total usage Falls in a tier four the highest tier for these 54 accounts um we then updated the analysis by doing similar calculations but instead of showing how these accounts are built today we went down to the individual level calculated what each unit's uh usage and bills would be if they were built as individual units and then total that up um at at the account level at that point and you can see a change in the usage by tier under that scenario where most of the usage pushes to tier one 88% pushes to tier one and also interesting is that none is shown in tier four under that analysis yeah go ahead hold on question on that first slide so I'm not sure that Matt you can answer this but if we're able to figure this out knowing that certain units are tier one but they're being charged at tier four why can't we just charge them at tier one how did we get this information but we can't build them appropriately this was done um well I'll I'll answer that and hopefully I'll answer your question if not please let please let us know but um this analysis was done using a very large detailed Excel file that I put together um that's not I don't think something that the Town typically does when they do when they do their billing got it and then um the 54 units are those across multiple um different buildings or was 54 units from one particular building I don't know that we have one that's that no 54 represents the number of accounts there are these are all these are accounts that have multiple units got it okay for each of the account so basically we compile an analysis for all of the accounts as I understand that that have multiple units Chris has a question hold on so the 54 multi-units accounts is the total of multi-units accounts that we have it's not just 54 we only have 54 multi-unit accounts is that so like postmark is one account for the entire building that would count as one so now we have 53 left or we have a significantly higher number than that I think it's 54 but now I'm worried that I misspoke when I said that this this analysis started um about a year ago um back when the prior Town manager was in his position and the accounts that were used were identified by him or someone that he was working with on this um and they were given to me to use in the analysis so whether that includes all multi-unit accounts I I don't know I'm sorry but those were the 50 four that were identified to be used for this analysis yeah because it would make a significant difference I'm not squabbling over three multi-units getting added on and you're not using it as 57 right now I'm concerned that we have 300 multi-unit accounts and you're just using it based off 54 that's where my concern would be that would seriously surprise me I I think we tried to tried to include the ones that made really good sense for this analysis but I also I also don't know the answer Chris do you have have a you kind of shook your head do you have an answer or non answer okay all right I have a question yeah camer has a question question um what if if we were able to so my understanding is that the town currently does not have aside from an Excel spreadsheet and someone dedicated to maintaining it and doing it all manually we don't have an automated way to even do um to send out bills like this um and and give people access to that tier one or individual bills so um but my question is how if if we were able to magically give all of those multi-unit accounts the tier one that they are reasonably entitled to like the 87.6% what does that do to our water and sewer rates with the retained earnings is there an impact on that yes there would be a there would be a revenue impact for both funds If This Were to change um and we're and that's what the next slide shows you now it doesn't it doesn't show you what the rates would have to be but also at the same time the financial impact is not large I would say so based on the current retain earning situation and the health of both Water and Sewer funds I would antip ipate a major impact on rates if one at all if the town were to make a change surrounding so that's probably good segue to the next slide okay so this is the second of the two multi-unit analysis slides that I have for you this evening and again this was shown last time so the top shows your rates per tier and you can see that there actually is not a huge variance as you go from tier to tier we're not talking like a $5 difference between the rates in here or a $10 difference um there's only a $1.75 Cent difference between tiers one and four so not not a huge difference and the reason why I bring that up is because when I first compiled the numbers from a a dollars standpoint if if these units were to be buil as individual units based on the tier breakdown I showed you earlier rather than how they're built today it only worked out to be a savings total for all 54 counts annually of about $882,000 for water and 84,000 for sewer and when I first put that together I just stepped back and thought about well does that make sense and then went and looked at the tiers and that's why I bring up the rates themselves because there's not a huge variance there between tier one and tier four if there was a bigger variance between tier one and tier four you would see a bigger dollar impact with the analysis that we put together um and then also we we did provide one example just so you could see the postmark and what the savings for that particular account were compiled so we have that as being a $2,000 annual savings for water and about a 2100 annual savings Pur sewer so if you add those two together that's $4,100 annually for that one account if the change were to take place yeah go ahead please so Matt um just make sure I'm understanding so you're taking the postmark and the water 2038 annual that's for the building yes the entire building y so if there were 50 units good question per bill for the year you said sorry annual sorry sorry so so I don't know how many units there are in there 50 50 so it's 40 bucks 40 bucks difference 40 bucks in water and and it's $82 okay so 41 41 so it's $82 total difference per year per unit is right per unit except that common areas irrigation now the restaurant all would we don't have those restaurant restaurant wasn't there but irrigation anything else going on there would already wouldn't be a unit anyway point is I think it's not it's not a massive amount of money it's not zero it's not a massive amount of money I I I I I I agree but I think the problem is for us with that particular building is the restaurant is how it's yes the disparity is not big but it only matters what tier you're in right but the they will they must be allocating Now using because they know right the inside they know they get a bill for ax and water and they say Okay divide up with the units right and they'll know the restaurant will have I assume its own meter as inside meter not Town meter but inside the building because they have inside the building they know what the usage is right so they'll know what it is for the restaurant so that's not going to confound this but I think last time we met correct me if I'm wrong Matt two Matts or anybody in the room I think last time when we talked about the restaurant coming online that it's still all one bill that's my memory all right I'm all it is one bill but we shouldn't so inside so they get Bill and then they divide it up yeah and it I as I understood it individually inside the software that tells them what the usage per unit it's just not on the it's inside the building not outside doesn't have access to it but so the restaurant will be in the same scenario so they'll know what the restaurant uses so that's not going to increase anybody else's bill it shouldn't it it shouldn't right absolutely shouldn't isn't the restaurant considered a commercial not a residential shouldn't they be built the whole building is kind of commercial because it's a you know it's even those residential units it's a massive building but then we have like tier four for residential and then we have commercial tiers we have large yeah I think I believe all are buil the same way is that correct there's there was a slide that had it just gives you an example yeah but it's not like another tier though commercial they pay more in electrical rates not in water rates it was it's just given us an example of usage how much gallons if have if you had a massive laundry mat say or a cowash or whatever the the rates you see on the screen right now are rates for all users okay man another question if I could um so you you do your work for multiple communities many of whom have tiered water rates to they have some special scheme that they use to deal with these multi-units because I would imagine they're in a similar circumstance in some cases at least yes this this topic comes up fairly regularly at this point um and very validly that it comes up um I have seen solutions that communities have used um here are some examples and I'm not an expert on this by any means okay so let me just cave out that right away but I do know that there are ways to do this so one thing that I understand um and I believe maybe Sharon can comment on this but I believe the town has communist as a v system is that correct y yes yes okay um so I believe there is a setting in munus that allows you to set what I believe it's called a condo factor or maybe it's a multi-unit factor I believe it's called a condo Factor where you can set the number of units there and the Billings should get segregated as you would like them to if that is set now that obviously there's a administrative setup thing associated with that and you have to whoever the the billing clerks would have to make sure that they do it PR or it first so there's there's an Adent piece related to that as well as this other solution so another solution I saw was um for each number of units in a building so for example buildings that have six units there would be a separate I believe it's a rate code set up for them and what I mean by that is you have your tiers today right you have tier one is I wish I had it from one to, maybe yeah I think 1 to 1,00 tier two is, 12500 maybe right so the tiers for the six unit building wouldn't be those tiers it would be a separate separate tier setup for them so in order to have it equate to be the exact same as a one unit building they would set up a r code with ti times six so you would have the same tier braids but they would have six whatever the number of units is the time St night Cas now again that's an administrative setup thing that would have to take place leg work up front but once it's in place um you know it's in place and then the town can presumably use it for as long as it wants um but that's a way to do it just for six but if you take that approach you'd have to then do do one for eight then you have to do one for 10 you have to do one for 12 however many different number of unit buildings you have um so there are ways and and you know a town like yours if it's true that there are only 54 accounts you have to worry about that's not a huge headache administrativ but his work to get done um it's definely easier than a large city that has to deal with this across hundreds of so um hopefully those two examples can help you think about ways that this could be implemented in your time it's not it's not POS and one more followup um I remember last year's discussion there were some I don't know who the Mandate is I'm guessing D but somebody's mandate in terms of how we manage block blocks of rates that there's some that there's regulation related to that that was another reason why I think we decided this this was going to make sense because it complied talk are you are you asking are you asking about a mandate related to setting up [Music] tears to begin with meaning basically yes are but you would Implement years basically yes okay yeah so that that is um and that was presented to the sport last year this time by the town manager at the time um it that language comes directly out the Mass general laws and it applies to communities that are connected to the MW and if you were to look back at last year's presentation that the town manager gave you right around this time that language is actually in that presentation put one of this yeah just the little bracket from the mgl saying that we had to have tears didn't say what they were didn't say what we had to do it was very open-ended she had to do something yeah well I think we did but that's a matter of we madees we did yeah no no we did but yeah and and we kept them quite close as we can see the problem is we got to fix this multi-unit these big unit buildings which we haven't addressed and that's an us problem and a towns to have problem to address not not a problem but an issue yeah right maybe it's an opportunity to let those those buildings say there's an opportunity for you to save money here's the formula you send it to us well I I think we have to be able to do it number one my opinion is Staffing wise and billing wise and if it is only only 54 or 60 buildings to me that's not a heavy lift but I'm not doing it I'm not the one doing it so I would be curious to see what it would cost the town to just go into our Billing System and fix it I mean that seemed like the easiest solution yeah yeah um I don't know yeah I know I know Sharon we had talked about this before and Sharon I think is still on I mean it is sort of labor intensive at least at first and you know we had questions on we had issues last year with munus handling the tiered billing and that's why some of the bills went out late right and we had you know questions this year if we did that how munus would handle it but um I don't know Sharon did you have any comments on on that part of it I think I think the if you were to make a change it could be set up IM munis to um it would take time but we'd have to go through and determine how many mult unit um buildings that we have and how many units are in each building so there'll be some administrative Chris thanks Carlo um while I think that that is a nice Band-Aid for the 54 accounts uh the problem ends up being that the tiered water rates still penalize large families which are are well beyond the 54 number that's in here so in my opinion it is still widely uh inequitable for all of that but he can continue I think questions are next or whatever but that's the biggest thing if we Band-Aid the 54 it still doesn't it doesn't help the larger families that are still paying the higher tier all we're doing is correcting multifamilies which is part of that but still you know there's another segment of the population yeah oh sorry so sorry just to to respond to that a little bit more just for the discussion so um I don't think that so the tiers were in fact meant to I to say this the right way the more you use the more you pay is essentially what this is I don't have a problem with that fundamentally it seems to make sense you're a heavier user you should be paying more more um as we're trying to do a variety of things one of which but not the only one is conservation but as we're trying to encourage people to be as efficient as possible with water usage having a little bit of an incentive I think can fit there so you know do larger families use more utilities do they use more Town resources yeah they do um in a lot of areas we equalize that we we say you know it's flat but I'm not sure water needs to be one of them certainly you know electricity use more electricity you pay for more electricity um you know I I I don't think it's right to say well you're you're penalizing larger families because the flip side of that and I know we had this exact discussion is if you don't do that you're penalizing smaller families so the smaller family having to pay the same rate but using a lot less why should they be paying the same rate so I think that's the discussion I don't it's not a a definition but I think that the structure of tiered rates is saying yeah that is exactly how it's working that's why you put it in place you're trying to encourage conservation you're trying to recognize heavier users and with those big particularly big heavier users they should be paying a much larger share than which we definitely accomplish with this we just have some some some folks in the middle also just last one but for Matt too I know a bunch of communities I thought Wakefield was one that doesn't make adjustments is it the case that many of these communities they they use their tears but they don't they kind of say multifamilies I'm sorry you maybe someday we'll work on a new water meter system yes it is my understanding that Wakefield um has the same building set up as you as your time today M yeah so just to Circle this back to what Mark just mentioned and I will ask Matt the one online um we are ascribed a set fee figure from MW that we have to pay let's call it 5 million I think we did this last time it wasn't it was 2.84 Million whatever we'll make it a nice round five no matter what we have to bill people 5 million or we end up in the negative can we all agree on that if if Jo Barry ascribes us 5 million we have to bill $5 million can we all agree on that but it's a function of what we should be should be using based on our community structure right the way they come up with the number correct so the whole conservation angle and saving and doing what all this sounds fantastic but in fy2 we're getting ding 5 million we're not getting dinged 3 million now we're still getting dinged the $5 million that we have to pay we didn't conserve anything it's only eventually by the time they get their ratios and all that stuff which could be 5 10 years from now perhaps who we will but at the same time we're adding new units on accumulating people you're snowballing it you are never catching up with it we got to pay 5 million you're got to spend 5 million it's not fair to differentiate within that 5 million how much people should be paying because we got to pay regardless that's the difference if that number changed from year to year on the fly like that absolutely because 5 million we cons serve people use less water other than multi-unit families because their exempts amount then uh it would be 4 million and then that's a significant difference believe me but starting at five and never going under and always going above continuously you will never get me to agree that that's the right way to do it it wasn't last time it's not this time we going to pay the money we have to build people accordingly so we are penalizing larger families and not penalizing smaller families for the same amount of water that we're being buil that is not changing other than going up year over year over year like it's it's fundamentally that for me so if we fix it for the 54 units we should be fixing it for the multifamilies we should be fixing it for the outdoor watering people all of that we have the opportunity do I think we're going to do it on the Fly tonight no I think we need uh at least another meeting or two or a committee or something to look at what's fair and Equitable for everybody because all of this stuff isn't fair or Equitable to anyone at all good I think we'd also need to look at as part of that analysis I believe our per capita consumption is going down totally but I believe the per capita is showing conservation is taking place effectively so that should get factored into the discussion also the total number goes up as we add units as we have new growth is all sorts of other things so it's not just like boom no matter what it's five million it's things are actually changing on the inside um Wakefield I only look very quickly but they actually do have an advisory panel that reports to the Town Council and it's not just on water rates it's kind of it's a DPW panel is what it looks like I looked at it for five minutes I'm not going to pronounce judgment but it was I I had the same thought of aren't there groups that might get together and talk about this more than just you know once a year or or two meetings a year maybe that's a cool way of of addressing this and figuring out what's going on because we we cannot sustain 3 to 4% increases for everybody year over year over year like we saw that chart like I understand that as I just said things just keep going up up and up they're not going backwards we're not like you know creating money out of this scenario but we have to do something and I don't know if a water committee is going to solve it somehow magically get more money into here so we can offset the rates but something has to be done because you see it's falling on us currently and select board members in 2030 are enjoying the 3% rates instead I I know we can change them however we like but uh we're on the hook for the money it's he he doesn't have projections up there at 1% or any decreases it's only up the whole way from here we cannot sustain the way that we're doing it and Matt sorry can I speak sorry about that there was um I read Winchester is up 9% this year is that right I think I asked this question last time we met that what are some of your other communities seeing for increases I thought the answer was that threes and four is are the low side yeah I I agree with that I mean that's just my General got feeling to respond to that question Winchester I think was out more than nine though and they increased they have a service charge which is a a fixed charge on on each of their bills that that went up as well um Winchester in their their case it seems like it's probably a little bit similar to your community there in dry seasons they use a lot of outdoor water uses which that didn't happen over the last year so their revenues are way down so um there was a need to increase rates a little bit more substantially than they wanted too um for that Reas um but yes we're we're seeing a pretty across the board pretty substantial need to increase rates to make up for for loss repes due to weather patterns um I'm also deal another community that has a whole different issue going on um they need clean water they need they need more water so they're exploring an MW connection that they don't currently have and there are additional costs associated with that so their rates are presumably they Haven voted yet but presumbly going to go up a lot higher than Winchester so it's every Community is a little bit a little bit different but I'd say across the board yes um and even weight Fields who I'm also working with and that was a really good point that one of the board memb just made a moment ago about The Advisory Board some public works I that I I do really think that's a good idea and I do work with them and they they are very very good and a little bit more in just because that's that's their constant focus of what's going on with water SE right it does make sense to have another board or another committee possible be involved and make a recommendation related to this um so I would be supported to that but even in W field um they are I think we're looking at five or six% on the water side this year and U maybe 3% no 2% this year so um yeah but just to to fin to finalize my answer to your question would be across the board we are see pretty substantial increases and it has a lot to do with the fact that the weather has been what it has been because past year very wet year before that very dry year before that very wet so we've seen extremes a lot last few years and then if we look out the window what's been happening the last few months these the weather pattern that's happened over the last few weeks will impact your FY 25 buildings as well so so that's another Factor we've seen what conditions where people until you know maybe this week haven't really had a strong need the water outside because the WEA has keep that in a question yeah know just a comment more than a question I guess my concern is is that you know last year families or residents that are in the tier four that was an increase of what 10% last year from their bill in FY 23 I believe not so the way to look at it is this um it is a little bit confusing unless you were to look at it in a table format um that's just the tier four rate so what that means is only the tier four usage for that account is build understand that I mean it was from the previous year I understand that they only get build in that level when they reached that amount of water but some families took a large hit of you know 10% and then now we're going to add another what water 4% that's 14% in two years that's a lot for some families so I think that we need to be considerate of that when we're thinking about this because that's a big hit two years yeah yeah I can't disagree Melissa um I'm concerned about having to continually raise rates um um we have to understand not if we're going to have a sprinkler system and we're going to water a lawn then we're going to need to pay more for our water and it's not we in the analysis that was done last year that came out as a a significant factor so it's not just a factor um toilets and people living in a house it's also a factor of people using um lawn sprinklers and that's an individual Choice um I would certainly be I would love um Matt K and Sharon if we could invest some resources now that I know that it will not significantly and negatively you know based on what we know today about 54 accounts impact our retained earnings projections I would love to get a ball pack idea what kind of time and effort and cost it would take and when we could do it do we have to wait another year could we do it mid year to help um the individual units in these larger buildings and um I I would not be opposed to a some sort of dpww advis thanks for that so I got cut off because my battery died so I figur I maybe I should answer the question we were talking about before that happened um when it comes to the multi-unit I it would it would be some administrative time to go through every multi-unit and figure out how many units we're billing um maybe we'd have to do it for maybe for multiple units more than two or three you know because I feel like we're going to find that that number is more if you're talking about you know two family homes or three family homes I'm not sure um I think that that work would be a little bit of extra on um our staff which I think could be done um my my only concern was and we spoke of this was the like postmark is a very interesting property in that it's got a restaurant as well as residential and we talked about how could we deal with that and we could potentially add a second meter for the commercial property and then spread the other meter across the residential so like we'd have to really have a a well thought out plan on how to deal with properties like postmark because that's not typical that you see um something like that where you have clearly a restaurant is going to use a lot more water than a residential property and you don't want to like take that usage and just divide it over the number of units it wouldn't make sense so that particular situation kind of came to light and we were thinking about maybe that would be a situation where we invest in putting a second meter in for the commercial property and then the residentials could be divided up evenly because they would probably have similar usage so you would have one meter that be residential and let's say there's 40 residential units they would divide up by 40 and they'd say okay what tier are we in um and that would be an easier way for us to do it the the commercial property does add an element of difficulty to the situation and I don't know how quickly we could put meters in so I can't really talk of timing but I do know that anything that you do with these rates does not go in effect right away it's actually I think um the billing after September I think is the billing that would be in effect so whatever happens through the summer is going to be at the old rate and then that first quarter billing um after September would be where your rate increase would be seen so I don't know if we could get it done in time I think it definitely would involve a lot of conversation between DPW and myself and others to to determine the appropriate timing how long would we need to get this up and running if you chose to do it are we allowed it's a general question because I know Matt mentioned as far as like testing the system like you know we when we went to the te rates the bills got really screwed up I'm sure that there was some tests done behind the scenes that the software could handle the tiered rates so I I know on our on our taxes we can't charge Home Depot more because they're a bigger property and you know this and that but can we do postmark the Met Ace Flats as a test can we start with three four big buildings we certainly could do something in train um to test what the effect is we certainly could but I guess what I'm not sure of is how many how many multiunit properties we really do have are these 54 that Matt mentions just the larger ones right are we are we looking to include multifamilies where maybe there's two um you know so that's that's the other thing I'm not sure of so I can't speak to how long it would take if I don't know how many properties but I know the multi-unit like the condos where there's multiple units that that was the bigger concern but I I guess how far do you want to take it because that would that would change the timeline of how long it would take us to get it on no I guarantee you just in my neighborhood alone in downtown reading there are many many multi families I think it would sorry yeah I think it would depend though because multifamilies traditionally if you have renters you're as the owner you're paying the bill not the renters so you would it depends on the lease but typically yes typically as just a residential no commercial not commercial um that the owner of the building is paying the bill not the renter so I'm not sure that unless they're condos then it would be a different scenario I I so Matt on the screen Matt do all those big increases not big all those increases that you mentioned winchest a wake field other communities was that in spite of their reserves or are they just just they needed to do it because the reserves were weak um if if you know I don't know if you know that or not well the analysis I I work with each those communities you just mentioned and the analysis that we do for those communities is similar to the analysis that we've done for your community and the way that it works is we're for trying to Target a certain amount of retains so really what it means is they rettin earnings have been showing a little bit lower than we would have wanted and based on what's coming over the next year or so rates need to go up as a certain amount in order to start building those rets back up um so I I I I'd say it's that they have retain earnings although maybe it's a little bit lower than they would like and the increases will help them build them back up to the the level that they they're hoping yeah and and like for me like the problem with the weather that we can't control is that every year and you know it's just part of Mother Nature every year we have to adapt to a wet season or a dry season and then that affects the rates so every year we're just you know these rates are never are never going to go down you know we we did have some years that we didn't do an increase maybe that was not the right choice at the time maybe it was I think it was but whatever so going forward it's just a matter of do you want to keep it even are we going to have a 9% increase one year and then go back to three are we going to do 12% another year because we have to so I I can't predict that what you have in these charts I is kind of level uh setting of a rate right so is is Wakefield Winchester whatever Town you're going to pick going to go up 9% every year hopefully not but really a lot of it's dependent on the weather so for us without using the weather as a guy because we can't we're trying to these charts you know out to 2031 or whatever it is are kind of even uh the way I look at it so and obviously we can adjust it every year accordingly but and and based on regeneration and everything else but I I I just think conservation in the long run is going to hurt us because we have to buy so much water the financial side environment side great financial side not great so how do we balance that I don't have the answer for that I know we can do it with the rates right so as we discuss the different tiers shortly and the different rates per tier I'm probably going to advocate for for tightening them up a bit this year and then revisit it I'm not saying that's what I'm going to do but that's the way I'm thinking about it just because they make it a little bit more fair is it fair I don't know I think it is but that's just me so I I I hate comparatively to a couple communities close by to us we're in good shape right so I guess we shouldn't complain quote unquote but everybody watching and getting their bills gets to complain uh I'm not in a high tier but I know a lot of people are in a higher tier and there's a lot of L families and what not so we have to look for the greater good for everybody as best we can and I don't see you know Bill Brown gave some great examples last year on I can take a 20-minute shower and nothing's going to change right a large family you don't want them taking 20 minut showers so and right more water usage higher bill I totally get it but I don't think people should be penalized for watering their lungs and upkeeping their homes and their bushes and and plants right because we we want that as a community we don't want to walk by drive by Brown Lawns right when you go look for a new house or drive through a community so people do the right thing and they water their lawns so I know Chris is going to mention without a doubt second meters like he does every year and maybe maybe it's time to do a pilot maybe it's not but it's a shame that we have to people have to pay the same rate for water not going into the sewer but again so get off my soap box and that's kind of a preview of what I'm going to think about thanks car um I just wanted to just go back to something that you had just mentioned as well as what Karen had mentioned earlier that if you water your lawn you have to pay more which you know because you're using more water that makes sense except we're in the position we're in right now because people aren't watering their lawns because it was so wet last year I know Sharon went over this last time but it it's Crystal Clear that if we're not using the amount of water that we need to that's why we're in the position that we're running the deficit that we're in so what we want is to people to water their lawn we want postmark to break their water meter and just have it going onto the street right now it's probably going 24/7 anyway that is that is uh the way that we get out of paying uh the money for this it's just it it's backwards I it it doesn't make sense to me it it just doesn't like I understand we want to conserve fantastic but um if we all conserved we're screwed that's what it comes down to we're on the hook for the money so if it decides to be uh uh you know underwater for the next five years I I'd rather be talking to Victor and doing assessments than whatever is going to happen to us up here because uh that's the way that it it would go now if it's a drought for the next three four years we're going to be in fantastic shape but that's backwards the the watering lawn people you want them watering their lawn right now I don't it it just seems bizarre to me that these things are are backwards I don't know you'll never convince me otherwise and yes pilot program second water meter let's see about 50 people but that's me so um when that drought happens and we've all been drowning our Lawns and things then we run into a different problem the quaven reservoir is low and MW says just kidding you get 25% less and we're screwed water is not a limitless commodity it's not if we can just let it blast into the street whatever happens we need to conserve it we need to be very careful with it it is a limited resource that's part of what's going on here not the driver of everything but that's part of the story that's why I believe that the Mass general laws has the rate structure it as we as the leaders of the community I think need to model what we're looking for which I don't think is drowning the lawn there are people who want to do it and I think that's fine fine and I think that there's this kind of the next tier that goes into that that's all good um we're trying to figure out how do you how do you share the load across the community that's a really good way in my opinion to to share the load there not everybody wants to do that is willing to do that can do that they don't they don't have to that's fine others say I'm going to do it others do private Wells it's not Limitless to do private Wells either at some point that's that's problematic the aquafer is going to support that unless global warming changes at all which I can't predict either but I think we need to be the the leadership I think we need to show is kind of saying look we understand what we've got to do I hear you I don't completely understand why we got to pay this way I it's boggling it just doesn't fit but that doesn't change the fact that we gotta use as little as we need to in in discourage 20 minute showers if that's what it's talking about if you wanted it it's fine so it doesn't change his rate but yeah he pays more for pays 20 minutes worth of water instead of of five like everybody else yeah Where Do We Go From Here we made the tiers pretty tight last time on purpose as you can see it's a175 between them I think we started much wider and we pulled it down pretty tightly um purposefully to make sure we understood what was going on and did it work did it do what we're looking for I don't think we completely know the answer to that we found some issues I think we can address the issues I think that we ought to figure out um how do we I agree with this approach and I agree with the fact and Matt on the screen to the extent we can level it and manage things really well we keep these changes to be fairly consistent and fairly small not zero and that sucks I'm with you but to keep them consistent and small I think is better as opposed to letting it whipsaw because we don't know what's going to happen I think counting on everything jelly side up with the Donuts doesn't always happen we're doing the best we can I think we actually doing a pretty good job and I can't wait for the MD assessment to fall off Karen do you have any comments I can't see you on the screen no Sharon might have one I do somebody um in the chat Robert um Corin um pointed out that there's 356 multifamilies in Reading according to MLS so we need to know where you'd want to draw the line if you decided to do something with the multiunit in terms of would you want all of those addressed or would you want them to be more than two units or that sort of thing that would be something to think about right thank thank you thank you all right are we ready to start doing the rates at 10:30 whatever you can't even see my number we don't have I I know in years past uh we used to have a chart up there where we can plug in numbers and it would do it do we we don't have that this time do we well we have in terms of what you want to put in the Motions you know we could we have we have what we have last year and then we have the we don't have a way to see it in real time because before we put a number was an Excel Fel put in a number and poof it made up could do that probably for yous do you have you entain a certain percentage Yeah he could tell you what it was look what what is it that you want to see and I can probably put on the screen for well well I guess maybe we should yeah I remember that when we did that before did we did we get a sense of the board to start and then see if there were different scenarios that that people wanted mean last year on last year yeah I I again last year was the first time we did it so we didn't know oh I was thinking more the the general percent yeah General percent right % yeah I it's a good place to start it is is what are people thinking for a percentage I guess most how with you you're not committed to this just what do you um not 4% um I I don't know the answer to this question yeah right Mark i' go water four and Sewer three I'm I'm Mark's Camp right now I'm not I didn't move in but I'm I'm on the I'm on the grounds I'm on the grounds it's a good analogy Chris I'm going to be staying at a resort down the street from both of you people uh and enjoying my quality time over here on I'm not voting for this tonight on no planet Earth am I I would like to know from Matt and Sharon when the absolute latest time that we can do this because we have not hashed this out we are just once again punting it down the road um in there has to be an end at some point so if we can if this can go till July and we can have another meeting or two with like an hour or two dedicated to this where we can hash some stuff out that'd be fantastic but I I cannot commit to any scenario that that's up here the way that that it stands now before I go to Matt in the room Cameron do you uh have a camp or a resort you want to blurt out you know I I so we do have health their sewer reserves so I guess I can see where um you and Mark are coming from that maybe we um can go up a bit less on sewer than we do on water and I'd like to point out Chris that if you don't want to go tonight you're effectively kicking this hand down the road so I would love to get this done tonight I appreciate the voice Karen thank you so now from met in the room when I I thought it was this meeting from from my well I mean traditionally that that's what we do I mean it all comes onto the billing so I think Sharon said the the billing would be the after September billing where the rates would be in effect um and it's how quickly we can plug that in but I think you have some time if you wanted to do it that way it doesn't have to be done by the end of the fiscal year as far as I I know I so because the fiscal year ends at the end of the month yeah that's three three plus weeks if you don't do if you don't do it then I think the the warmer rates still stand because we still have to build for for water um so those would remain in effect but Sharon could correct me on any of that but I think we we talked about that when does it have to be done by Sharon you get a comment on that I'm not sure if there's any um deadline that we have to make but I like I said the first bill that these would be an effect would be after September so that that second quarter bill of fiscal 25 um that we sent um so would have to be done before then but this is kind of one of the later meetings I've seen the rates take to get um set usually I think they're set by now so it's all up to you guys I don't know the reason why we couldn't go further if you needed more yeah time to about it thank you so having that said hold on a second up what is the consensus to either add a meeting in an off week or because June 18th is pretty packed and then we have summer so what is the consensus right now not GNA hold anyone to it on let's you know Chris stands by is there's still four of us do do we wanna absorb more information talk more or are we ready to vote I I'm ready to go on the on the um on the general stuff at least and maybe we talk a little bit more about how to how to kind of find two of the insides but to give you know if we ended up punting let's say we just kept punting that's a zero and zero that's not aordable that's that's a bad idea that just sucks the reserves out so that's can't go there adding more meetings I'm just not sure what what additional stuff we want to go through um if there's stuff to talk about okay but you know we've seen this you know this makes sense um you know you want to argue at half a point sure um but Su is in a much better spot which is great always is and so let's not increase it as much right um and water you know for to me looks like it makes a lot of sense given where where things are heading and we'll see what again we're it's one year we see what the future could look like if it dropped down to three afterward but this is just the one year and I think four makes sense yeah so I I I'm willing to go I'd be ready if if other members are ready as well yeah unlessa what do you think um well when it comes to the rates I guess talk more about it but I think that we need to my bigger bigger concerns are the multi-unit buildings I'm not sure we're going to figure out that out tonight um no but I also don't want to see that get put to the back burner like it did for this past year correct so correct um I'm not yeah I mean I we I could go either way I feel like I'm ready to vote tonight if you set the rates tonight we can work on everything else yeah kind but I think it's important that you know history is that we set them people expect them to be set right yeah yeah now we've definit been pushing a corner I mean you know I I I don't mind seeing the zekes but we we uh we we we have doubled a lot of stuff the past three or four months not an excuse we we have to address this um you know with us in the town so I am I know we can talk about so when your reference talk about more second meters multi-units that's what you're ref referring to which we need to have those conversations anyway we have to have them tonight but we could just put on a future agenda so I would just hate to see those not get put on a future agenda listen I I I I agree I agree um so um you know as much as I don't like it I I'm ready um so camon um I sound like you were ready to vote tonight as well yes I'm ready okay what were the Motions Matt I'm we're gonna input numbers yeah so and and I don't know Kate well if if Matt maybe stopped sharing the screen maybe Caitlyn if you could put up the the Motions it might be easier for everybody to see if you're so you would just essentially plug in the rate per tier that you want um and then you know you would go from there so starts with water then sewer and then there's a quick form you to do the minimum bill which is basically just two times I have it here um multiply the approved tier one rate by two for water multiply the approved tier one sewer rate by two and that's the minimum so that's how you arrive at the number at the bottom what I have no clue what he just said on so the minimum so the minimum uh quarterly bill at the B at the bottom of it bottom of what what are we look oh if you look at the Motions there oh there it is I'm sorry I'm sorry there it is there it is sorry right so that because we had checked this out with the people that handle the bills and so you basically multiply FY 25 tier one water rate by two and that's the minimum and the same with the uh sewer rate that's the so that's how you fill out the Motions so you'd have to decide on the rate per tier all that is you know set zero to a th000 and then you go from there and then we also set the storm water rate which is always been the same at $60 a year so it'd be 15 per quarter and there's no qu neis there's no change on the the stor water so and what are we what are we using from reserves for for these two water and seore what are we using for reserves yeah um offsetting anything for the water and S um are we using any retained earnings to upset anything on the I'm asking like Sharon or Matt on that I believe water is 600,000 in I want to say sewer is 1,350 because we've got a lot of capital going on in sewer um 25 and that's just off the top of my head I could be wrong about the sewer number that's what we're going to use for setting these new rates that's the amount of certified Surplus that we approved at town meeting okay um the higher the rate you use the more will get turned back into free cash it get it will go back to free cash if we don't need it but it wouldn't alternate what's already been budgeted right CH no no because we've already approved that budget at time so so you'd end up having the money just kind of turn into regeneration see the at the end [Music] of exactly you came to a consensus like here then we came here was it oh sorry was that for for rates or for Capital sure was for rates almost positive I can't I'm I'm I did a quick search all right the pre cash use is that what you're asking yeah it's just part of the overall operating budget so a lot of times when it's a high number like it is for sewer it's because we have a lot of capital going on within sewer um in the operating budget for fiscal 25 you know what I'm thinking of maybe you're thinking of too we took some arpa funds wasn't that okay we did even the year before Opa we we did something you're right we did something with that correct um okay I so what so and next to the dollar sign we're plugging in the rate correct right the the dollar rate the dollar rate yeah and so who's calculating that yeah you were to choose one of the options presented I have that information oh the options for the for the water the sewer option one option the number like I just did 4% so it goes from 1075 to 1118 12 CH 4 is 1250 to $13 can we can can we afford I know it's not big but can we afford for the sewer to be not three like 275 or two and a half do we have that kind of Runway or that would really hurt us for this year if you were if you were to do that you would still have retained earnings well above the target it just would presumably mean that if all the other expenses in this plan remain the same you would have to go High yeah right this one I'm trying it because this one's so healthy super you know what I'm trying to do right we've done it yeah that's way too high not way too high but 2032 that's great I know I know still doesn't really I'm should I shouldn't be whispering sorry me and Mark are looking at his computer um on sewer rate option two 3% it's 3% if we're going by this chart if we were going to follow this chart it's 3% this year and it's 4.25 every year after for sure for sewer for sewer option two why does it jump up that much considering we have so much in reserves because of of of of of debt and just you [Music] know yeah yeah1 so it's not going to impact the bill a lot but then I don't want to see a bigger increase after 2.5 and then we go 4 point yeah it's already 4.25 on if we stick to this we don't have to but what was option one flatform flat for right across the board I just quickly ran that just just I full disclosure you have information available to you to help make a decision I just put together the same exact rate chart that you've seen on the slides for a 2.5% scenario to by 25 and I have subsequent years at 4 and a half% in that scenario yeah okay H yeah okay um no cuz we have to think about the future right we're doing this one year at a time but we have to look out and if if these things are right because I don't know they are exactly obviously um I'm okay with the four and the three I'd rather go low in the water but I know it's going to bite us I'm going four and three m um I'm I like option two better which is 35 and three I think yeah 35 water three sewer I believe yes option two 3.5 SE where are water okay there it is so 3.5 across the board right that's no option two is 3.5 water 3% S no no right but I'm saying the water on the on the chart it's 3.5 every year right that that that that's what I mean I don't know any see anything we're just talking we're not posting anything okay thanks just has to clarify yeah if we have September to set the rates or that's when the bill gets affected Etc like how long is it to take to change the rates because to me that seems like 30 seconds of putting in these new numbers on a system and then it sets the bill if it's some long convoluted three-month process of somehow that not being the case I can understand but if Sharon's going to mention Chris it takes 30 seconds I don't know why we're doing any of this that's my opinion just because we've done it in Prior years that we set the rates and everyone wants to know for whatever reason like it's the NBA draft um doesn't mean that we have to continue doing that going forward so I guess I just want to know from Sharon how long since we're in this new tiered structure now now it's not the big change from before how long is this going to take you to change is the plus or minus 30 seconds is my question to Sharon I'm personally not the one who makes the change it would be people over in the collector's office um but I would guess it's not a change that takes a long time to do um but I do think that they do they do some test runs and billing um and train just to make sure that the rate went through properly so I can't speak to how long they need to do that kind of work to make sure that the rate is calculating properly um like I said when we went to teer billing we did have some problems because we have that minimum quarterly bill because we build two units to households that let's say they go away for the winter and they they leave for three months and there's no water usage we still charge them for a minimum of two units of water usage and so that that piece of it was kind of the problem when we went to teer drilling because it wanted to charge that minimum too to everybody and so we had to find ways around that so um that's being the the more complicated piece of of the tiered building that we've experienced I don't think the tear themselves themselves are hard to enter but we do a lot of testing to make sure things are are working properly so that there may be some time involved there so not 30 seconds but uh perhaps uh a little bit longer than that because we're already in this new tier so hypothetically we're just changing dollar figures not the minimum usage everything else that you just mentioned I just I it's it's essentially uh while I agree with the premise of the four and the 3% increases and whatnot uh I'm making a a point that I understand things happened uh last year uh we predict everything that's going to happen meeting to meeting Etc uh but I'm making it a point that this is dealt with because uh sooner or later it's going to get put off from meeting to meeting to meeting and we're going to be right back up here again doing the same thing and I am ensuring by my vote that that does not happen because I'm I'm voting against all of this and that's fine uh but I agree with the the numbers in premise that you're doing but just I I am not going to allow this to just continue forward we punted last time circumstances beyond our control I understand but here we are and perhaps we're going to have to punt again because more circumstances beyond our control who knows I'm ensuring that that doesn't happen Matt on the screen if is there any theory for us to adjust the cubic feet numbers on the different [Music] tiers what I mean that's something that you you could do we have not run an analysis related to that for this year's St so I wouldn't be able to comment on that without doing um putting together large billing file and start to look at that we have not done like like to me that would be helpful I I I I I I don't W to because we're trying to address some of us are trying to address the difference between a large res large family and a one or two person household still a family but it's one or two people versus five to seven to nine whatever right so not only can we adjust the rates we can adjust the cubic feets cubic feet in each tier and and I think without doing real time scenarios it's really hard harder to say okay tier one Nothing's Gonna Change use as much water as you want tier two maybe some tier three most of us in town your bills going up but not by much and then tier four all right you know again it when I hear some of these water bills for some of these people like what are you doing in your house to I just it's hard for me to imagine there's only two or three people on the house I haven't had five in my house for a while now because of college but in the summer we're a family of five and my bill doesn't change there two or three extra showers more laundry and and more flushing nothing changes so I I I I you know I I don't want to kick the can down the road but I I liked in years past when we were doing stuff on the screen in real time where we could plug in numbers and and that was a single tier system so it a little bit different I get it but that would help me I I don't want to go back on what I said but I think if we can tweak the cubic feet parameters maybe that will help maybe it won't I don't know I'm just talking out loud I really don't know I would love to see that I know we can't see tonight can I make can I make some comments related to this yeah okay thank you um so I just want to make sure the board's aware that there was an analysis that was done last year at this time or or you know maybe the beginning part of last year study but there was an analysis that was done that produced the tiers that have that are that is now that are now in use in your town right so the tear that we're currently look at that was the results of an analysis that was done similar to the analysis dispension so that that has been done um we did not do one for this year at least not yet I mean we could but we did not do one for this year right but if you were to adjust the tier breaks like for example if you were to change the T I'm not suggesting this by means I'm just showing you the impact exactly yeah if you if you were to change tier two for example from 2500 break to 2000 what that means is you someb usage that's now in tier two moves to tier three and would be a higher rate so that means also that you end up with more revenues more Revenue just by making that change one simple change to TI revenue or less Revenue the opposite direction you just make tier two bigger for example to 2500 to 3,000 then more usage goes from tier three to tier two and you want up put less so there are ways to um depending what you're trying to accomplish yes you can you can change the tears around and get to that point um and then also just a quick notot um I did look at my bill recently I don't live in your town but I I have um I know what my usage is I'm a family part of family five they three teenagers um we use usually between 22 and 2500 quarterly U so we would end up in tier two in your in your rate structure I mean I think maybe during watery season we might end up in tier three but I don't think we've ever been in we've had enough usage to get into tier four anym want to kind put that yeah I'm just trying to figure out a way if if if a big if if we can even it out a little bit more across the ti I know we we did this last year and you know we the analysis was done and all that fun stuff but I think we should do it every year just because if we need to tweak 250 or 500 then if we can do it and it evens it out a little bit more between the small families and the larger families great you're still using water maybe that helps maybe it doesn't I don't know I'm just trying to address the big picture not just Target large families or small families there's also the majority of families are in the middle can yeah so just looking at other communities like something i' would be very interested in seeing is that other communities like their tier three is 251 to 6,000 cubic feet if we're looking to raise the rate 4% you know if we could maybe drop some of these larger families into a tier three then do 4% I would feel better about that because then we're not hitting them with 10% last year 4% this year because we may be able to drop them down if we went up to 6,000 square feet in the tier three and then tier four 6,000 plus just a suggestion that's what I want to see I mean honestly I think that would help me a lot I mean I think then that you know we're raising rates to where we need to but we maybe you know helping these larger families a little bit so we're not hitting them with 14% two years us the 14% so I think well so 14% from me is when we went from FY 23 to FY 24 anyone that was in that tier for was almost a 10% jump and then if we look again to do a 4% on each tier there's 14 it might be 13.5 just be clear you know they get lowerer y i do high but it I mean yes and no I have seven people that live in my house just as my own example like I don't believe that we use water excessively but we are tier four just the amount of people and that has nothing to do with my lawn that's completely H for my lawn so I mean I think that and it's not just my family many many families have been talking about this like so I think that if we're gonna raise it 4% of our payers fting into two Andor we can't hear you that well I didn't hear what you said I apologize I don't still have access to the analysis we did last year last year I thought the number was 85% of households fit into tier one two and three I'm trying to bring that up right now I'm trying to find it thank you can we get Matt on our staff full-time seems like this is gonna be a full-time job great job we have 85% of multi-unit people in tier four currently and they should all be t one well so if we address the multiun situation then that number would go up and more more people would be in just because they're a large families I don't think they should be fully penalized because of that do not penalize them if you use more resources you have to have a higher Bill kind that works I agree with some respect but when it's if we can even it out a little bit I think that that we should look at that for our residents I only have one child in my house but she Tak really like we it's 1110 I suggest my suggestion is we have a special meeting just for this topic and nothing else that's my suggestion another three hours of analyzing water rates I I this is crazy we've done the work we have a consultant here and we're going to have to bring them back and bring back Sharon and this isn't productive this is exactly what Chris said he didn't want to do was just kicking the Pam down the road I I'm I'm totally if you want to talk about rates and and moving these around it just needs to be another meeting in my opinion we need to get the rates going so that staff can make sure the bills get out this time because there were a lot of upset families who didn't get their bills and confusion about the bills and we don't want that to happen again and and and out of consideration for sta we need to vote I'm totally open to any of the things we've talked about tonight but we got to get these RS done any comment I just make one more really quick I'm not trying to make the discussion move on forever I just wanted to understand something related to car those just a few minutes ago so I'm looking at the analysis last year and I don't see the large residential user Bill going up that much so I'm curious if if I'm maybe I'm missing something because what was the what was the rate from FY 23 to FY 24 so I I'm looking at the table I think this is right that's saying that and this is a a large residential user that did it used 4500 and that's just it's not tied to any account I just showed 4500 can you share that can you share what you're looking at if um K could take down the first screen and maybe Matt could share his screen this is the problem it's all problem see stuff yeah not seeing it hurts y and maybe a little bit bigger yeah all right so I'm I'm focus on this row right here the table um so this was last year if you look up the top of the body cfy 24 so 4500 use it to get you into tier four right because this is what I have your your structure I it was one through five but that was because we started out with five tiers and you can see that in this case tiers one and two have the same rate so this is really your four tiers in this case tier five is really tier four um so tier four is 4,000 plus right is that right just validate that for me believe that's right so I can't remember let's say you're right yes that's correct yeah that's right right okay so so this user gets you into tier four I granted barely into tier four but gets gets into tier four um so I had the current bill based on the flat usage of 1141 which I believe was the rate prior to last year of being $513 and then the FY 24 rate based on the race and I don't have to go to that other file just to validate this I could find it real quick of being $525 so that would only be a $12 per Bill impact if it's right now let me I'll just do a quick which is about like n and a half% oh okay I didn't look at it from a percentage standpoint that might be 41 to 1250 which it currently is which that should be the FY that $525 should be built at 12250 per square cubic whatever so you so the the first 500 get buil at the lowest rate no matter what tier you get into yep right and then then 500 to 1,000 at the next rate so you add the pieces so it's only for the pieces over 4,000 that you pay the1 R so your effective rate was like 11 1141 originally but then well then you add them all up right right but but 500 at 1075 this is what Matt's calculating right now right right 500 1075 then 500 more at 1075 so 1,00 at 1075 1,500 1170 $1,500 at $12 yeah so so yeah all right I see up there now right so the first the first 1,000 cubic feet of usage would be at the 1075 is build at the 1075 the next 1500 is build at the 1170 the next $1500 is build at to $12 and then the final amount whatever that is in this case it's 500 but not all of it is built at that high rate how a bill is so isn't that over increase like two 2.3 or 2.4% overall like for the 513 to 525 you're saying the increase is $12 so the increase isn't 10% it's more like yeah right there 2. this is also one example that barely made it into that tier 4 yeah that's correct that's the large look at a large user what we can do we could type it whatever you well I have to Cal but I could do it right here so what what usage do you want to 6,000 gallons what's up is that even realistic though like I I don't want to throw unrealistic things out there I'm not trying to like make numbers up but like what's a what's a realistic we're family five that uses around 2200 so you have to be a pretty significant user you get up level yeah right I'm in tier four and people you get to tier four you're not in tier four you get to tier four right right you get to tier four I don't know like so this is all great but do we really want to continue with this at 11:15 at night I I just I'm not sure what additional material we're going to have or want yeah at the next meeting that changes the game that's the problem right no no you're good thank you this helps because it's a lot of of us focus on that higher tier and rightfully so but you know I we have to go up right we have to go up so it's a matter of uh do we go consensus not consensus compromise 3.75 and three right Mark and I car are at four and three Chris is not voting you mentioned 35 and three do we go to 375 and three and call it a day you know I'm okay with it Ken are you okay with that um 375 for water three for s Sure must you okay with that um yes as long as we have agenda items for unit and we're all going to talk about future agendas in about two hours so okay all right you're not smiling won't be talking about it today good point good point all right I agree with your numbers I am still not voting listen I'm voting against them but I agree with them uh uh wholeheartedly just I I'm not being part of uh this charade again for notation 3% so 3.75 water 3% silver is that what we all right so how do we fill out that fancy formula there yeah mat can you so read the numbers give them to or Matt on the screen can you create the numbers give figure out the numbers for the rate for the tiers then Matt based on the 3.75 and the three I think we're still in the public hearing yeah and we'll have to yeah yeah we got good point we'll have to close the public hearing maybe we could do that and you could close the public hearing and then open the vote on the water servs yeah go ahead secretary thank you uh move to closeing hearing regarding the fy2 water and sewer R second any discussion hopefully not no no Karen no discussion thank you no we're voting now yep yep and seconded yep it's 375 no no no we're closing the public hearing right now oh then yes let's close the public hearing yes Chris yes I'm surprised Melissa yes Mark yes yes okay public hearing is closed anyone in the audience uh Canada no public he Expos all right so we have to get the fun math so Matt on the screen are you sending numbers to Caitlyn um can read them can read them cool Caitlyn can you put your your uh your screen share you can share the Motions again Caitlyn and that way we can maybe see yeah yeah so for the first okay so I want to make sure I understand so we are looking at 3.75% increase for water in 3% for is that right yep okay all right so for water I have tier one as $11 15 TI two as um TI two as12 and 14 no he didn't it's like [Music] 1237 all right 1245 $245 two three that was 12 two three y you have a differing number no no I'm just no I'm just the same to you and then the final tier being $12.97 97 y that's what you said 129 okay and the minimum bill would be $22.30 two units and sewer and Sewer based on 3% increase tier one is $10.51 tier two is $148 tier 3 is $185 and TI four is $236 and the minimum is $212 water just a question here um it says is it just the last point that relates to December 2024 billing I thought we said September I think Sharon's point was that usage would be in September uh September's usage but the billing is in December as last year okay so I have these as three separate do you want them as three separate uh I think we need to right that's sure okay yeah okay okie dokie uh move to set the FY 25 water rates at the following rates $11.15 per 100 cubic feet with a usage between 0 and 1,000 cubic feet $124 per 100 cubic feet with a usage between 1,1 to 2,51 cubic feet $12.45 per 100 cubic feet with usage between 251 to 4,000 cubic feet in $12.97 per 100 cubic feet with usage between 4,01 and above cubic feet the minimum quarterly water bill of $22.30 effective with the December 2024 pilling second second all right any discussion seeing none Karen you're muted Karen Karen you there oh no I'm not muted sorry okay yes Chris no Melissa Mark yes Carlo yes move to set the FY 2025 Sero rates at the following rates $10.51 per 100 cubic feet with usage between 0 and 1,000 cubic feet $148 cents per 100 cubic feet with usage between 101 and to 2,51 Cub feet $11.85 per 100 cubic feet with usage between 251 to 4,000 cubic feet and $12.3 per 100 cubic feet with usage between 4,01 and above cubic feet minimum quarterly water bill of $212 affected with the December 2024 billing just friendly minimum quarterly sewer bill I have minimum quarter bill of 212 okay I sorry I thought I heard you say water bill no bill just bill okay second all right any discussion saying none Karen yes Chris no Melissa yes I can't hear you yes sorry Mark yes Carlo yes one more move to set the FY 2025 storm Mar rate at $60 per unit 3,210 Square ft per year to be built quarterly effective with the December 2024 billing second any discussion seeing none Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 Z all right kids we did it can I since nobody else is watching except the one thing see it's 375 with the 3.5 and the four in the presentation it had the average residential user in increase per Bill and then increase annually yep 375 you don't have it so what am I supposed to say for your average annual bill for 375 because we haven't said Mt on the screen you have an answer yeah I have I have it unforunately just Clos that file you can one second I'll open it I did run the 375 because I needed to get those rates for you um but but whoever just made the comments correct you haven't seen that that option yet on the screen at least one moment okay so for the average residential sell what we've done is we've done a range on the slide so I'll give that that same range to you here um is an in increase per bill of $622 to $930 per bill for the average residential user if you annualize the F you get a range of $25 to $37 the average that's water that's water cor and I believe the one of the options that we shown earlier had okay that should be available but I can provide that as well no we're good all right can I make a request um Matt on the screen can you send that updated file to Matt in the room that has the 375 specifically yeah thank you all right thanks all right Matt on the screen good night Sharon TR appreciate it thank you all right these lightweights leaving the room vote Yes vote to Grant yeah vote to Grant gazebo Circle easement do I have a motion just kidding just kidding Chuck's awake still awake yeah is he doing a presentation on this or we don't need one of no so so gazebo Circle that was the one that talked pass the to meeting yeah so rld rmld yeah for the Gazebo Pump Station yeah so you just have to vote on it and sign the easement then we'll take your recording it okay motion move to Grant the Gazebo Circle easement as presented second any discussion seeing none Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carl I'm good at judging things not really pass this around for Signature then yeah all right next on the agenda and I will take any suggestions of kicking these down the road but I don't think we need to uh discuss sunsetting no it's annual budget request all right okay vote on annual what vote on annual budgets request for boyss and committees all right that is next trying to get ahead of myself sorry right so you have the request they're in your packet yeah I'm just go to that screen okay 43 the number this one for some reason how much do we have available again 20,000 is what budgeted here we go I got it all right I got it and so we do have Chuck in the room can I make a suggestion Chuck in the comments go ahead Chuck to work suppos to Chuck on the screen um I was going to suggest that um we match the climate advisory committee at a th000 as requested historical at 1500 as requested trails at 5,000 as requested um community garden at zero as requested and then the other two we can't we can't fully fund no matter what um and they both have lots of Merit in terms of what they're asking for I think that we talked about last time Town Forest committee specifically that they probably should really go to town meeting um because their requests are very substantial very important and very substantial in the town meeting probably out to vote on it um I was going to suggest maybe just you know take their all from last year we have an extra, literally that's left over unless we take from somebody else split it between them but unless you have a stronger case to make from one over the other well uh sure so um sh tone uh conservation administrator I'm connected to the trails committee and I appreciate that uh you funded their budget with the Conservation Commission um you know I think this is more about the the Town Forest committee and I know that they're always asking for a lot of money they have a big project they have a huge problem I think it's beyond the scope of this budget I think this budget shouldn't reflect um taking care of the Red Pine issues out there not only do they need a Forester to evaluate that to do their uh their Forest cutting plan but they should really look for a landscape architect that has some sustainability ility uh background to help them reforest that I don't know clear cutting that they're doing out there I know that the Conservation Commission is concerned about the past couple of phases and I you know and and how it's growing in and how people have taken over some of these areas and their like bike ramps and jumping areas for mountain bikers and things haven't grown in but I do think that they have an issue and I think that they need to be funded and I think what we're seeing here is that $2,000 between the trails committee which has something like 1500 or 15 miles of roadway or Trailway to uh to take care of and they're upgrading that not only are they uh fixing everything that's broken and they're taking care of the wet areas but they're increasing the width of those boardwalks so people can be more comfortable out there and someday this town just like every other town is going to ask for Ada accessibility out in the woods also and so that's why we're upgrading those boardwalks we're we're we're doing that work now so we don't have to do it in the future it's happened in other towns should happen here um conservation just got the bare Meadow Study last year from Mass aabon and there's recommendations we wanted to take care of some Hazard trees we wanted to push back the field so it's at a historic uh boundaries and increase the population of the Woodcock that's out there and also increase the habitat value of that old bear Meadow area I have my volunteers coming again this year for six weeks this has been a budgeting nightmare for conservation and uh but but we've been able to make it through the skin of our teeth with the help from DBW Trails committee conservation so we all have a lot of asks we've all added a lot to this recreational outdoor open space infrastructure and I really think the $220,000 doesn't even start to you know make a difference with maintenance we're we're just conservation just deferring maintenance all the time I have more Trails now I have a pavilion I have requests into to the DPW who tell me I need to pay for it and they're going to have to do it on overtime and so that just can't happen so we just wait um it it's tough personally I want the Town Forest to um take care of this problem to look at it in a way that uh will have a sustainable a sustainable Town Forest that that reproduces that Forest each year and it actually increases instead of just kind of staying at a certain level and I do think that they need more money I think they need more expertise out there and so it really it's a it's a tough it's a tough thing I know it's late at night I'm probably rambling a little bit but to me the answer is you really have to look at at maybe separating the Conservation Commission and the Town Forest committee and just understanding really what our needs are and funding us both at the level that we're asking for or maybe even just a little bit less I was thinking of what accommodations that I could make if I had if I had to so on my list I have several trees at the cost of 45 $4,700 I can't ask the DPW department they don't do that kind of work for conservation but if that could happen I I could take that off my list and that would allocate that kind of money to something else but right now we have the meadow would have to happen in the wintertime Mike hanford's very busy it hasn't happened in the past so it's it's almost a wish so I didn't want to make it more tough on you but I I really think that we need more money to uh to uh kind of distrib tribute I mean conservation and other towns have much bigger budgets we do have almost 900 acres of land to take care of in conservation the Town Forest is almost 300 acres uh Trails committee says something like 550 acres is what they take care of and so yes they're they're all kind of connected in that same Circle but still we're doing different jobs inside that that land and that that acreage so uh yeah just to kind of push it back on you guys I I I think that it's an unrealistic amount that we're trying to make and you're only deferring these problems what ended up happening by the way you guys might not know this at the Town Forest we looked at like area one two and three and we picked out all the trees that were dying all the red Pines that died when we got to area six seven five six and seven we went back to areas 1 two and three the trees that we left there because they were vibrant and Alive had died off so the town Force committee has to go back in and take those trees down so yes they were red P yes they're they're very susceptible to temperature change and and disease and that's what's happening but even these trees that look fine are now dead so the new the new uh method that they're going to use uses they're just going to if they're out there they want to do it once so they're going to take down those trees too in in certain areas so that's that's what they're facing so I I think there's a grant out there for them I think there's other money out there for them but but you know of course this town certainly has a big problem if going to leave town Forest open and have these trees standing Dead all right so how do we address tonight then so we have 20 ,000 bucks right right so we have to allocate that there are some groups that we've given money to in the past and assuming that we still think they're meritorious we continue with that I think Town Forest I think has to go to town meeting yeah um and to your point with the plan the Forester saying here's here's the approach it's big it's great it's expensive and it doesn't fit in the 20 grand we have no it doesn't Town Forest and conservation right so so now we go to conservation and I think same story you know five $6,000 we can do but 112 we can't that one's closer but still unless you cut some other things out you can't do it right we could do 6,000 to conservation for example leave town Forest at 6,500 everybody else has requested as an example I I think that's what we have to do I think that would work and and I'm the L on to Town Forest um and I'm happy to to but we talked about a bigger request to town meeting because it's a it it's phases and I think having the Forester makes sense it really is too bad that the vibrant ones are now dying or dead well yeah it is but it just it just highlights the problem out there is that uh I don't know many how many other phases is this is going to happen but you got to catch up we've already shut down a trail out there because it's too dangerous and we can't get to the work so all right thank you um so I I think we you know we have on the in our packet we can't do so I I I'm okay with Mark's suggestion of the appropriateness of you know making it allocating the whole 20 but adjusting it so conservation get as much as they can in town farers can get as much as they can and then we'll have to address this at town meeting and just make budget line item so what were the numbers again Mark I'm sorry so climate advisory at a th000 conservation at 6,000 hisorical 1500 uh Town Forest 6,500 Trails 5,000 that should told can I ask a question please yeah um so um mat question to you you happen to know if historical used all of their funds last year they they be very careful with their funds um I don't know if they've used them all they didn't they didn't get a lot um so I'm not sure I mean it's not a lot but if they don't have any projects planned could we could they make do with less this year I guess the question is um what um if we start slicing and dicing at the project that town for us has come up with are they still going to make progress or are we at some threshold where they're not going to get anything done I guess that's a a question for Chuck really based on what he knows so far um again Chu teron conservation administrator um so the only thing I can say about historicals I know that they're doing a project downstairs I've been seeing people come in and out and they're and they're updating an inventory and they're also putting everything into a computer for a database so I would think that is not finished based on what I've seen but I'm not the expert there so I do think the $1,500 is pretty cheap money from what they're what they're asking for uh I know they've inquired about it I think if if Jonathan Barnes is the chair on that committee he's called on this you know to make sure they get their allocation so yeah I've been here with Jonathan too and and he said he didn't want to do have anything to do with you know kind of the competition for the money he said he just needed his 1500 and yeah he want a street allocation the way we used to do it right and Karen I forgot your other question which maybe I answer it I I'll just make a comment too that can we this is a static budget line item from last year and I think going forward into the next budget we need to increase it um maybe even just inflation or with the general increase in the budget if we could go ahead chck sorry well yeah that would that would make me happy but uh and I think it would make uh Town Forest happy also they have a need that uh at some point will go away you know some at some point all the Pines are going to be cut they'll be down to a more manageable situation uh usually when you cut down all the trees the invasives come in so there's going to that phase also so and they're already dealing with that so now it's it's just not all cutting they're cutting they're pulling invasives and they're planting so they really have a three-pronged approach which is the correct approach but they just don't have that expert on the uh you know uh landscape architect side to kind of direct them and make and I think if they went to town meeting and that was included it would be a very valuable asset to that situation um I was thinking about the as well because I see what's going on in my own yard and it's a constant battle against nature right now with all the rain and the warm weather Happ so I imagine that yeah they're gonna they're going to take over the to for us if we don't do something about it yeah I think uh and and then for conservation I kind of worked it out with Jane canella when she was here we were talking about it one day it's because I was asking for so much help from the DPW and we just sat down and and uh she she came to the conclusion that conservation could use a budget based on what I've asked her for as about $220,000 a year and we would have no issue um spending that uh you know it fluctuates but I'm the lays on to the trails committee I'm thinking somehow the trails committee and the that could be combined with the conservation budget also so 20,000 25,000 something like that would work out because that fluctuation would allow like the 20,000 to be spent 5,000 for the trails committee they're uh you know um I going to tell you I'm so glad that you you funded that they are really working hard replacing every boardwalk in town and trying to make it accessible for everyone so let me hpe up about one more thing and Mark might remember this um so Mark if you remember being on a finance committee they have theary funding and I remember Bob frequently um you know things would break things would break so they have that discretion I don't know if it's in our CH or our bylaws that between and yep to go to the reserves to make special allocations and not have to wait for town meeting and I sort of remember them being like Oh the compressor broke or something broke there was always $50,000 $25,000 we haven't done that in a while but is this a situation where maybe we could do that do we have any Finance commun Chris I assume I have an answer for this because the investigation didn't go forward and we were going to use potentially fincom reserves couldn't the investigation money be used for this money or no well how is that we going to build it through the legal budget and if there was excess we would have gone to fincom for reserves but fincom does have reserves we put them in their it's up to them to actually vote on it but you know we could go to them and ask them sure and my other point is the fy2 24 numbers that are in here uh for me which I made the statement when we swap this from the line item to now just doing whatever we feel like um I would just remind everyone other than Melissa who wasn't here at the time that they were given these numbers before uh as line items and then we changed it where now it's just $20,000 and so we could hypothetically give Town fors 20 grand and call it a day but these other boards and committees would be getting screwed out of the money that we changed two or three years ago um that were in their budgets so that's why for me all the fy2 24 numbers that are in here with the the minuses that Mark made because they're not requesting it uh I'm fine with keeping uh in perpetuity for me we don't have to do that but because it was stripped out before that's the way that I'm going to be going forward so that doesn't change anything that's just the history of how this is in year like this but yes Chuck has to go and get the money from fincom or somewhere else because we can't just give Town Forest 20 so let's get this done so we can move forward on getting them money through finance committee or town meeting in the fall we don't have to vote on this at least vote it's just okay it's not a vote marks changes with the 500 off the two items and then bumping conservation correct it says vote on annual budget yeah I don't know maybe we didn't do motion on it but we can just if you can do a quick motion basically taking with Mark said in the form of a motion so mark in the room you want me to go through so it was a th000 and then and then 6,000 for conservation 1500 historical zero under community garden uh 6500 Town Forest in 5,000 Trails so moved second any discussion seeing none Karen yes Chris yes Melissa Mark yes Carlo yes thank you Chuck thank you Chuck thanks have a good night discuss sun setting K yes so if I could um couple things the question where we are is that the permanent building committee has now accepted the project and so for this and the next line item um there can be additional members to the recal recal recal building committee I was going to suggest that we probably two to three is probably the the Max total I was going to suggest a select board member a Council on Aging member maybe a Community member um that's the second item on the first item the permanent building committee is not ready to say do location a versus location B for the site location for recal they're not ready to say you guys think Simon's way is good we agree they're not ready to do that yet they want to do more investigation U one of the things they want to talk about is whatever is going to happen on Simon's way we need to do some soil testing if there going to be people there so I think at this point maybe Matt you going to have to help me here maybe they should start kind of leading that effort a little bit in terms of exactly what to do when and then we we should have an agenda item for the future maybe on the 18th and I'll tell you why in a second um about implications and funding for doing something like that for the testing the testing is $9,000 plus or minus yeah they had three different propos they talked about it a little with the permanent building committee last night phe one they had uh it is real basic one but we should make so you want to put it on as a separate agenda item I think we should make an agenda item to talk it through as a group so what what's really going on here is then the sunset question was if if recal was able to make a recommendation ideally with the support of the permanent building committee do that before they sunset on June 30th which is the current expected Sunset date I don't think that there can be a recommendation from PPC necessarily by then I don't think that's in the cards so I think this board has a choice to say to recal hey present what you got without a final recommendation or say this is what you're thinking or we um uh extend the Sunset date on recal a little bit a month did you get a flavor last night from PBC what kind of timeline they're thinking it it seems like a I mean what they want to do is they want to constitute the the building committee they want all the documents on all of the three sites they want to have time to digest that we're moving towards an OPM for the project and that we have a solution there through Gap um but I mean it sounds like it's going to take some time of maybe a couple of their meetings for them to get their arms around it and then have a suggestion on the site you know so so are we in the order that you described are we um gonna wait for PBC to to for their recommendation and then we can overturn them as a board I thought the recommendation was going to come from you guys to us exactly that that was exactly the plan was the plan the only change was thinking that it would make sense for the permanent building committee to engage in the site evaluation we we all say you know do do this and they come back and say oh don't do that okay so I think we can decide let's let recal make their presentation they can even say here's our recommendation pending feedback from PBC That's A or B is to say let's wait for PBC and probably some testing is that 30 days I don't know I see say part of the decision is going to be on the on the soil testing so I think that's where PBC may head and I don't know that they'll say any other testing need on any of the sites but well they want they want to see everything you know in terms of paperwork but the Simon Way site would need some additional testing they brought that up last night right so if phase one requires a phase two because phase one will determine that yeah then would doing another 203 grand for phase two and that will take XYZ right all right so I don't think recal needs to wait for that I think no no right but I have I have nothing against prent Bill committee but it seems like right now they don't I gotta phrase this right they're not concerned about what us five think is a good site I guess so I I I think the expectation was that they would would say you should do this stuff first okay and then they probably wouldn't come back and say here's our preferred site they'd probably say boy if you go there be be worried about X if you go there be worried about why if you go here it's all good okay so so I think if I'm following your train of thought here maybe we should have recal proceed with a recommendation pending on just here here's what we've recommended so frankly recalc Council on Aging have voted and have a preference um PBC needs to kind of give feedback I think before the select board should vote okay on okay the effect of the select board vote would be to tell the architect to do scematic drwings okay which is already paid for with ARA funds but they can't move until they're told what location totally clear now so I I'm okay with extending it do you want to extend it 30 days and kind of see what's happening I'm not sure what else Rec let's do 60 let's do 60 my opinion my opinion right and you want recal to not present on the 18 kind of wait I think we I think we can kick that a little bit Yeah I think that's fine any other objections or recommendations from anybody Karen are you okay with 60 days yes I'm okay with 60 days okay so let's make that an agenda item for next meeting to actually vote the sunset extension okay fine remind me of that one all right next agenda item which we Mark touched upon uh SC formation of whatever whatever building committee uh recal or we not Cal or Cal so I guess we know it needs to be done why should we know we assume it's going to be you know we're going to need this right because actually it's it's um approved by PBC right right so I think discussing the formation of it and the composition of it is so you want to you your way of thinking is one of us one COA one resident and then theyve part of a PBC PBC picks several people to no so the the the committee has set up that the entire PBC okay and I think it's two to three it's two it says two in the bylaw say two it says up to two Okay and they would be I think appointed by the permanent building committee appointment committee right which is you and the chair of the per building committee and the town moderator right you guys actually would decide got this would only be a recommendation Mark mentioned three people you're saying it's two it says two in the bylaw yeah I'm looking at the bylaw for the permanent building committee so it's 3.3.6 um and it says up to two temporary members for each project temporary voting members they're temporary because it's for that project they join the PBC correct correct they ad project that scenario is not correct it's the school committee chair select board and moderator for the PBC yes it's right yeah I'm doing it next week yes yes school committee CH I apologies it's okay it says it right there yep in the B you can check the B chair of the select board school committee chair and town moderator yeah okay and can't there be more members that just are not voting yeah like the way they did it for the kilum is there other members that are not voting I'm a non-voting member of the kilum so um so they could add non voting members but this would take care of the voting members that's the way I understand so we're adding two voting members one from here and one from COA so that's a recommendation to you folks but you folks decide who you want to yeah right point right okay appointment committee yeah okay all we could do is is suggest some ideas right yeah okay um you know it's good otherwise select board isn't represented in the counil and ading is not represented correct the Burman building committee doesn't have that correct right okay the Le is after the PBC um again it's just a discussion but I don't does you think that needs to be on the 18th too or that can wait that can wait I don't think it needs to be at all I think that now that the permanent building committee has concepted the project then you can have a meeting we usually would advertise the vacancies I mean if you want to do that and then a select board member could apply and a Council on Aging member could apply if that's what you're thinking that generally if there was going to be vacancies we would sort of put it out as vacancies and then by and then you convene and they were just appointing we're not not this is also a sponsoring agency thing yeah so like the school project okay yeah so so then sounds like we need a little more clarification so okay all right yeah because it's it's Carl Tom wise and Alan folds that are making the decision to add the two we're just giving our opinion to Carlo that it should be select board and Council and aging they might say something completely different y does that regulation Matt say that um one to two members does it say something about the sponsoring agency or something like that [Music] um two Temporaries for each project that the permanent building committee undertakes so this would be a project um see the problem is the next line item is permanent and Associate members shall be volunteers having practical experience and skills in the professions right well those are the the permanent and Associate members so these are the temporary members oh all right a little a little bit confusing but um so I mean you could you could vote to recommend to recommend a member to the appointment committee if you want and the appointment committee obviously it's up to them to take yeah I I I we that's a future discussion but yeah we have to we have to discuss that yeah how we're gonna approach that all right uh future agenda items so Caitlin you still awake sorry barely sorry sorry first meeting after midnight ja have it um we can scratch uh recal update for now at least I think definitely um everything else is okay and we're adding vote vote to extend uh recal committee am I saying that right yep two August 30th yeah to August 30th please got it um I I didn't have any of the future agendas uh as of now what are my notes to earlier about um scheduling a meeting with our board operations yeah and that reminded me um we should have on our Tickler to schedule an update with the ice arena Authority because it's the same provision in all right not on the 18th but yes so I I I I say uh July 16th we can do uh rctv you get to check oh we have to invite well have check with them according to curis we're gonna put on the agenda and then we're gonna Matt and I will we'll reach out so July 16th please add uh invite rctv board to just I don't know for now right now just update yeah yeah um I mean those two separate meetings I had the I had the sense as the chair of the one was walking out that he wanted to you know have a specific meeting for us to sit around a table and talk about like we've done with rml and we've done with the ice arena but I'll just throw that outside for now we'll find out we'll find out y um and then we can do ice arena on the second one no no that that's not July 22nd no sorry that's different um ice arena August 20th okay all right I'd like to see the um topic of the multi-units on there yep okay let's put that on for August also if we could just talk about not maybe vote on but just discuss second water yeah that's fine MTI discuss second meter water options and yep uh discuss multi-unit uh water meter solution solution yeah an Advisory Board this is a complicated topic and uh and it's I I I think we're on to something that we need people to focus on these topics and give us recommendations I'm not won't be eating after midnight every week every I I don't disagree the only the only concern I have and we'll see what Wakefield does is adding more more of a burden to staff if they have to be part of the meeting that that's my only concern so we're looking to see how Wakefield does it okay I we used to have a um we used to have a solid waste committee I was on and I don't know when it thise and that was um the DPW director um okay uh any anyone else Retreat huh talk about a retreat all right well we'll discuss that on the 16th 18th July 16th is the oh you want to discuss it on the 18th in June quickly I was kind of Beyond going be we were setting a date sorry no no no no I'm not saying a date I'm saying discuss it on the 16th when we want to have have it the 18th is pretty full that's fine vas might take a while um so just discuss Retreat dates on July 16th you hand that yes uh two things the the Karen's uh trash scenario whatever she just said uh can we get an update on where the trash barrel barrels this is this is a town manager update yeah something like with yeah and then that's on um was it for the 16th discuss that's a contract and a barrel update on the 16th 16th yeah sorry I thought you it's the 16th yeah and then the other thing is the email that the board got from the Paris regarding the retirement funds the whole board got an email like last meeting I did not other than Melissa is that yes the only one that can do something with Paris retirement contract is us and then the Retirement Board there's some scenario that that has to happen they're the only ones that don't have a retirement it's convoluted but it's got to come through the select board first is there a time certain thing or just we have no just that it it got brought up prior to our last meeting we didn't put up future agendas there but you know we G to have something plan for the future so they can if it's August it's August yeah at least we're letting them know but do this ring a bell ma because I yeah Sean knows more about it we talk can we put that on for the 20th August 20th Caitlyn okay yeah there's a note um May 7th is the note that we received yeah sense I didn't get it any anyone else Bob you got anything you good it's already Wednesday right meeting minutes okay to me Kaylin any uh amendments I did not receive any now I didn't send one in but I have a couple small ones any else you're gonna do them on the fly or you she has them yeah yeah there small enough it's in the liaison report um we abbreviated um PD for police carbon and FD for fire department could we spell that out or or refer to them as officers or something um maybe just spell it out and then it says who was provided and we probably should make that who were provided promoted who were were promoted to just expand PD and FD and change was to were are are you okay with RPD and fpd or no um I think you just spell it out at this point spell I just want to be clear and respectful I can spell out that's fine okay and you got to who who were promoted yep got it okay anything else Karen okay anyone else here anyone no all right uh Chris please move to approve the meeting minutes for May 21st 2024 as amended second second any discussion seeing none Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes motion to adour Second roll call vote all those in favor Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes thank you e