##VIDEO ID:BzafaF05hH0## e e all right it is 7 o' I am calling the select port to order just going to go over our meeting tonight public comment uh leison Tom Andrew reports close the warrant for the state election we're um voting on a new license forland barrel company Town account quar of the update from Sharon discuss multi-unit tiered water rates also Sharon and hoping the consultant update on our Opera funds and uh Recreation and uh reading pickleball Players Association discussion on Simon's way update on the parking kiosks roll out and uh a discussion on amongst the board if one of us wants to be a design for Ace uh news ad hoc committee future agendas and approved meeting minutes so can you let me know when Melissa is on [Music] so not now but you know from from 30 votes so we can dooll yes so we can dooll call okay so public comment did a lot of can you can show a hands all right so I'm going to grab the sheet and just go from there and if if I call your name and you know want a breath all right so we have a lot I'm going to use my phone uh I'm not going to cut anybody off but when you hear the ding that's your two minutes and then please wrap up so again you don't have to speak I'm just going by order John Sullivan [Music] John Sullivan 8 San Street you know we here talking about teared water rates for multif family housing uh we just at my unit at the postmark we just got our most recent Bill and it shows some of the problems we have with multi multi family tiered rates in that we have 5 three units one of which is a heavy water user the post 1917 restaurant and as a matter of fact they are 45% of our water usage which throws the other 52 units into basically into the top tier now when I look at our internal meters we have 46 of the 53 units are in tier one we have four units in tier two one creeped into tier three by just a few 100 cubic feet and of course the restaurant restaurant was this month was 18200 cubic feet uh whereas the our total was 430 that's 100 cubic feet so 45% of our unit of our bill so the net effect is if we if we just average the 53 units the average usage is 800 cubic feet which is tier one for everyone and if we take even if we take the restaurant out then we're at 5.25 so everyone on average is in tier one yet everyone is paying well for water tier five is 1250 we are paying 12241 as our pled rate forur it is U $12 we are paying $191 so I know you this was brought up at town meeting and you were asked to look into this and I hope you're going to discuss that tonight we come up with a solution I know we proposed Mr zek propos back then software Solutions as a software developer I see who has worked in New systems it's pretty simple as far as I can see obviously got it into theota be a little bit more complex but I hope you're doing it uh at least a u pilot project seems to be something that that's popular uh to see what can be done and i' like to see something done at this in your response at to meeting thank you very much thank you iish uh can we let Rachel go first she I requested to go first oh sure [Music] hi everyone my name is Rachel O'Neal I currently live at 13 Evans dven Wilmington but I own a business at 10 Brandy Court in ring the flower shop of Erics um I was born and raised in Runing still have a lot of family ties here proud to own a business in um I understood that changes to the parking needed to be made years ago when this planning began and I was aware that there would be a huge adjustment to how we navigated running our day-to-day business I've tried to stay positive the last few years but now just a few weeks into the change I have some serious concerns for my business and our customers I 100% agree that something needed to be done to open up the parking spaces and the moving employee parking out of the lot that we are in has helped tremendously we have managed to stay busy with our delivery orders however our walk-in and pickup orders have decreased drastically we typically average 12 to 16 walk-in or pickup orders a day this time of year we are now averaging 2 to three our overall sales for this type of customer are close to 90% down from this exact time last year our delivery orders are the only thing keeping us going my business cannot survive on this alone especially as we enter what is usually all of our busiest time of the year for the small businesses downtown to have our doors open to customers for that random walk by customer that might stop in and check out your shop for the first time maybe make a purchase maybe that purchase is a big one we won't get that this season and that's terrifying my concern is not just about my bottom line but it's about my customers we recently had an elderly couple that I had wanted that had wanted to order flowers in person for a loved one's funeral and ended up calling us after leaving the lot they didn't know where to park or understand how to use the kiosks we took their order by phone thankfully I did not lose this customer or sale but I wonder how many I have I guess I'll judge it by the cars that drive by seeing the new parking signs and drive directly out of the lot I pride my shop at the care we give to grieving families with personal attention and one-on-one meetings to make sure they feel in good hands when it comes to their funeral flowers the spaces directly in front of our shop remain 2hour spaces I was hopeful that customers and my delivery van would be able to still use the space in front to load up or grab and go with an arrangement as we have for years now the spaces are almost always taken up with cars taking advantage of the free 2 hours and the convenience of not using the kiosks our delivery van has needed to double Park multiple times lately to load up and when we have a large funeral or a large amount of orders this could take up to 20 minutes in the beginning of the planning I spoke to Ben cares about this concern and he was on board looking into a 15 or 30 minute loading zone customer parking only for the front of my space I don't think that's something I'm not being selfish I think all businesses deserve that the kiosks were delayed and then delayed then and we never sule back on the steps to make that happen I believe the town is charged a transaction fee whenever the kiosks are used I could be wrong even if they don't pay for that free hour wouldn't the town benefit from no transaction fee and possible parking tickets while these spots are being enforced the businesses that will be affected the most in all this will be the grab and go they will go somewhere else and I think they already have if sales continue in this direction I'm not sure how much longer we can survive in this space summers are super quiet and we rely on our September through December holiday sales to carry us through the slow months of winter if you could please pause this now revisit it figure out something else but we need a pause it's I don't know how much longer our small businesses can actually survive we are already up against an election year inflation on cost of goods and a slow economy thank you thank you okay thanks iish [Music] hi all my name is is shy I'm a resident of north weding but I have a business with RTI Tavern at 620 Main Street uh I just have some bullet points I know the others are speaking are telling stories like Rachel and stuff but I just wanted to remind myself to get as much out as quickly as possible so here's what I had done I said let me start off by saying that almost 10 years in business now we literally have not had a single complaint from customers about the lack of parking um lunchtime business is down approximately 50% now since the leaders went live we still have to carry our normal staff costs to open our door with no customers we've literally lost some regular customers who have told us that they will absolutely not use the kiosk or the app to park anywhere and read staff members credit card uh Friday was her first double she was working during the day and the evening so she logged on um onto the app using the um link on the key ask she put in all her information her credit card information her license number and everything then to be forwarded to another app that was asking for some kind of sub subscription she called a credit card company and they said it's already being blocked we know now because there's so many of these uh the scams attached to that website that the link is for so they said the the charge is already blocked um so how many other people is that happening to and she just happened to query straight away when it led her there so that's an issue um one of our concerns is if this pay to park is still enforced and we continue have customers who are boycotting basically parking downtown we may be forced to close during lunchtime because of our costs and the losses involved in it um and then if we close during lunchtime it could lead us to lose staff members because there's not enough hours for them to work it's it's it's going to be a a roll on effect um in my opinion reading does not have enough downtown businesses to attract people to reading who are prepared to pay for the parking like Andover or Salem or whatever where they have multiple businesses and people want to go all around so they understand they're going to have to pay to park reading is not one of those towns we have a tiny tiny tiny little business community and um they're not going to park to pay there they're just going to go somewhere else um we've ENT entered our busiest time of the year as Rachel said after every crippling summer so to implement this is now added to an added blow to our economy uh we implore the board to seize operation of the payt park until all glitches Etc are fixed get feedback from residents about their opinion on the issue and please take the losses incurred by our small downtown businesses seriously thank you for listening thank you Julie hi my name is Julie Cella I'm the owner of an's Boutique we're located at 662 Main Street and our entrance is adjacent to the upper CBS paid parking lot I'm a reading resident and have lived here for 22 years while I understand that the CH changes to the parking situation needed to be addressed I firmly believe that the implantation of the paid parking is not the solution that we need um we were aware that the changes were coming and last year several businesses including mine expressed concern to the old economic developer who has left and to members of the town about the timing particularly since they wanted to start this in the fourth quarter the town agreed last year to postpone the changes until June well that didn't happen and here we are a year later and the paid parking has been implemented right at the start of our busiest season coming off one of the worst summer seasons of my business and I know for several of um other businesses September was off to a really promising retail start that all came to a screeching halts on September 23rd with the new parking plan in effect my weekly business has declined Monday through Friday by 70% that is a huge number we we have gone from averaging 10 to 15 customers that walk in a day to now we're lucky if we have five or eight yesterday I had two and today I had five um October November December are the busiest months that we prepare for we have you know we have heavy inventory and we don't have anyone walking in the doors um sorry I anticipated that people would have some push back and customers had talked about it before it happened but I didn't realize people have just been saying I refuse to pay for a parking downtown I'll go somewhere else and I don't know what you expect the small businesses to say to that um I realized that the point was to turn over parking spots but now during Monday through Friday that lot is probably not at 10% capacity I've taken some pictures and sent them to the New Economic developer one day there was two cars in the lot one was mine so there's definitely a um a need to do something I it's my understanding that the data to make these parking lots paid Lots was gathered in 2019 well we all know the world has changed since 2019 the Retail Landscape has changed tremendously people have shifted to online and small shops like mine have to compete with Amazon Sheen and countless others that are the click of the finger and reading after the pandemic we had to deal with two years two and a half years maybe of countless constructions streets being um ripped up and we had a huge project in our parking lot 18 wubin Street that severely impacted our business last holiday season with things like coming to work in the morning and not realizing the parking lot was closed for the day on the Thursday or Friday so it's been a long time um dealing with these things and as a reading resident it pains me to say this and I've heard it for years that reading is not a business friendly town and after my experience over the past few years I wholeheartedly agree with this it has been a constant uphill battle with no support from the town as a small business we contribute significantly to our community I've supported over 47 local initiatives in the past year alone and this was all that I was off the top of my head things that I donate to regularly um School sports teams the schools fundraisers whenever there's a Community member in need where there to donate whatever they need when people seek donations they often turn to the small shops and I find it hard to say no as I know a lot of my colleagues do however I don't see that same level of support from this town for the small businesses that support this community when they rolled out the parking why did why wasn't there a campaign encouraging residents to shop local during the new parking it was not it was not rolled out effectively people didn't understand that this was so that more people could park in the Lots people are saying to us we you know the town doesn't need any more money we pay enough in taxes they not even getting the point because it was not communicated effectively um why isn't the town H you know want to provide an assistance to help us th Thrive and maintain a vibrant downtown about 10 12 years ago when I first started there used to be shop local come down town there hasn't been anything like that in years which is fine we do a great job doing it ourselves but you know in other towns like Welsley you Andover which I know we're not there's no there's no support for us and in order for us to continue to support this community they need to support us back so in closing the town has acknowledged that the key the kiosk sign the kiosk signage is unclear and difficult to read they have acknowledge that is challenging particularly for our elderly community members I have personally gone out and helped so many many people this week because I know if my mother was doing it she wouldn't be able to figure it out and it's it's not it's not right they're only trying to pick up their prescription from CVS and they're flustered um in the past two weeks when I've been communicating with the select board and economic development we have heard that we need to wait and see we need to see how it's being perceived and how it's working well we are all here to tell you that for many businesses we can't wait any longer to see how it's going it's not going people are refusing to come downtown and park in those parking lots so I urge you to pause the paid parking immediately make the necessary adjustments and avoid penalizing the retailers during our business our busiest season of the year together let's try and work towards a plan that supports both the community and the small businesses that's what we would like to do thank you for your time thank you Amy hi my name is Amy Collins and I'm the owner of good heart's children shop for the last 10 years and love St a tween Boutique for the last two I grew up in reading and have many great memories of this community in my childhood and as a business owner some of my favorites over the owner as an owner have been participating in the fall fairs where hundreds of children enjoyed petting farm animals under our Awning or decorating gingerbread cookies in our store at the tree lighting event we gladly spent the the money and contributed to these community building events but the last four years have taken their toll and we are no longer able to do these things costs on all of our products have Rose considerably and have never gone back down shipping and freight has skyrocketed we used to pride ourselves on bringing in any special order a a customer needed but we can no longer afford to and supply cost of Sword it now cost me an average of $6 to give wrap a gift for a customer including box and tissue and WRA and these are the unique touches that only small businesses do now the parking situation of kiosk comes along and it's the last straw on top of everything that the cautious economy is going through right now and we are barely scraping by this feels like we're being kicked while we're already down the last two holiday seasons we have endured the construction of 18 wuben Street in our back parking lot the barriers were put up around the building literally the morning of shop the block our biggest night of the year in December of 2022 no one had given us any communication that that was going to happen that day over the next two years the promise that the construction workers were leasing spaces down the street and would be car pooling to 18 wubben Street was never kept there was consistently a half a dozen or more construction vehicles in the lot on any given weekday so 2024 comes and this project has been completed we believe we have a shot in a normal holiday season to offset the troubling sales that we have endured and now the paid parking Begins the roll out of this program has been a disaster honestly I believe much of our sales dropped this summer can already be attributed to this a big sign and was put into the lot in June saying that the program was about to start but when it didn't start nobody told anybody that I think a lot of the residents believe this has been rolled out for some time now and are already avoiding the downtown area I did and Julie answered the question wanted to know when the traffic study was done because the retail and economic landscape has greatly changed over the last 2 to three years how is the success of this program going to be measured we look at an empty lot every day but we don't even know how many cars are pulling in and just pulling out without even going to deal with it I don't know how to measure that I'd love to know the cost of these kiosks and the commitment the town has given to acquire and maintain them and and also the strategy as to where the collected funds from the kiosks are going I know the residents of reading deserve an explanation of that too I don't believe that a town like reading the residents here the $4 really bothers anybody it's that they don't it's the inconvenience it's the it's that it is a nuisance and an inconvenience to park and so many of our SE our res our customers are seniors or family struggling like especially our customers they're coming down with todlers and strollers we also have the majority of our customers coming from other towns and they pull in and they're completely caught off guard we don't rely solely on reading customers there has been no education or shared reasoning to the residents I believe that they just think this is another money grab by the town an explanation to them would probably clear up a lot of anger anger that they express as well I'm not going down there anymore and who is that hurting just your small businesses I have days and good Hearts the last two weeks that we haven't even made $200 a day and this is October not July despite everything I have mentioned we still have not turned down one request for a donation to a school PTO youth sports team fundraiser for a health issue none of them we have said no to anybody as a reading business owner I feel like this town we are never considered we're constantly taken for granted and that feeling is not one that I plan to tolerate much longer I understand why the town would want to wait and see approach obviously a financial commitment was made but the time to wait and see would have been rolled out over this summer not fourth quarter this doesn't consider us at all that's why we're feeling this way I ask that the program be discontinued at the risk that if not there's no need to turn over parking spaces because there'll be no small businesses left to shop or places to visit for a meal and if this is how and if this and how this parking program does get resolved I hope that being here tonight and bringing these challenges to your attention you realize a large campaign needs to be done just to bring everybody back thank you thank you [Music] Nina something bco what Nora Nora oh sorry no no okay uh John Lions no no okay uh barara uh Mary and Karen no uh Nancy no Marilyn yes please always happy for a chance to be [Music] heard hi um I'm Marilyn shapley 11 John Carver Road Precinct 7 I am a member of the Council on Aging but tonight I'm speaking only in my capacity I'm not representing the council and aging um so I'm here as a resident and a taxpayer the select board agenda includes a potential vote on reallocation of American Rescue plan act funds and the packet for tonight's meeting indicates that $80,000 may be taken from a line item identified as senior programs and feasibility study I'm here tonight to strongly object to any vote on this matter being taken tonight and I'm not sure that's your intention but just in case and to request broader input on this matter here's my reasoning first it's well known that additional funds are required to continue work on the senior center community center also known as recal um this is work that would be beyond the work that is currently contracted with BH plus a we need more money to finish it so before pulling something out of something that sounds like Community Center I would ask that this be considered and I don't see evidence it may have but I don't see evidence as a taxpayer um as a resident I would expect to see input from the council and aging Elder Services the public building committee the Department of Health and the finance committee all stakeholders in this before any part of funding allocated for senior programs and the feasibility study is reallocated all of these groups are key stakeholders in this in addition as a taxpayer I request that the proposed senior center community center AKA recal be included in the other potential uses listed on page 94 of the year-to-date budget report in tonight's packet I think that's a big oversight to not have that there potential reallocation of these funds may seem like a relatively minor budget adjustment to some but in reality that's not the case and in my opinion it would jeopardize work that that is long overdue in building a solid infrastructure for the town's rapidly growing age 60 plus population thank you thank [Music] you are hry hi good evening an Marie Bor live on um Hail Street um and I am a board member of the friends of reading senior 60 plus a new nonprofit who mission is to Advocate and fundraise for services and activities that enhance the Dignity of seniors support their independence and encourage social interaction uh recal actually recommended the formation of a friends organization to assist the town in fundraising as it was concerned the town could not support the enhanced Services provided by temporary Opera funds the 460 Plus board saw the need to add the important function of advocacy to its mission uh because here in our time advocating for seniors um is a lot more important than fundraising at the moment uh reading is a wonderful town in which to raise a family but but despite two costly Studies by UMass gerontology Institute recommendations by the Council on Aging recal and the office of equity and social justice reading is not yet a wonderful town to age in place this age group is growing faster at a faster Pace than expected while the less than 17 age group is declining what is the town's strategic plan to address the change in demographics a few facts the department of Elder and Human Services budget and Staffing are far below that of peer communities by hundreds of thousands of dollars the Pleasant Street Center is embarrassingly inadequate the building is old feels old smells when the heat comes on and is like a repository for those who no longer matter space limitations prevent many from attending they have wonderful functions they do an incredible job with what they have to work with but there are 25 to 30 people um on a list because they cannot fit any more people in the room the nurse Advocate position has been diluted rather than enhanced by combining it with the role of the public health nurse reading is the only Community among its peers in of all of our surrounding communities that has no Outreach coordinator to meet the growing need of frail Elders living at home in their kers who are also Elders caring for their family here in the community reading is yet to join our neighboring communities in becoming an agef friendly Community which is a state initiative the need for a new Senior Center was identified by the Council on Aging and 2015 um in sense supported by re Al the office of equity and social studies social justice the need for a new kilum school was identified in 2022 the kilum school project in price heeg has expanded beyond the original intent and is eclipsing the critical need for a new center for active living the town manager identifies killum as the number one priority no longer recal an equal priority the age 60 residents want to see equity in the use of their tax dollars all we've seen thus far is money spent on studies committee work recommendation and now a discussion about an entirely new plan of combining forces with North Reading it's time to stop kicking the can down the road we need to do something thank you uh Susan yes yes Joan that was me that is just don't speak loud enough never Jo yes like John COs in 75 M Street to please come to come to the podium oh if you're going to speak thank you John costan 75 mil Street uh I would just like to say that I'm speaking in support of an Marie's statement uh I've lived in town for 32 years now raised a family I have volunteered hundreds of hours in town most recently on the board of health and reading and uh I think we deserve a place where we can uh congregate and I think it's just uh would be a good thing for the town and I firmly support their statement thank you all right two left um pass yes Tara oh yeah yeah good evening Tera Gregory lant Street I want to express my dismay at the priorities of this board and issues with the lack of information select board packets dating back to April of this year when Mr bosi became chair deared water rates was enacted by this board last year as a measure to encourage water conservation as expected there are some issues that need to be worked out namely the rates at which multi-unit homes are charged for water it's disappointing that it was brought up during both election Cycles this past spring and neither candidate looked to resolve the issue when the discussion of water rates occurred at the June 4th meeting earlier this year but the rates went up anyways I say this because residents have been asking this body to address the concerns regarding multi-unit homes and tiered water rates for over a year with an instructional motion brought to and passed by members of subsequent town meeting last November why is it that the discussion and vote on a second water meter program happened before addressing the issue that affects more residents in town why was there no information regarding the topic available in the select board packet prior to the discussion how were select board members able to prepare to discuss and vote in the same meeting without having enough information about any program that was to be proposed how are residents supposed to stay informed when the information seems to be hidden how can residents maintain confidence and their elected officials when the information is not forthcoming I know that multi-unit TI tiered water rates are on the agenda tonight but once again there is no information in the packet available to direct the conversation there's also a presentation prepared by Recreation and ring pickle ball player association however that presentation is not available in the packet this is very troubling when there's a conflict of interest as Mr bot is a paid pickle ball instructor that works in breing I appreciate the feature that the town website has that allows residents to sign up for for email notifications when various notices are posted by the town or various Boards of committees however the last three select board packets have not been pushed notifications I hope that town staff can look to correct that error and that the chair of this board will provide more information in future select board packets thank you anyone else in the room that would like to speak that's didn't get a chance to sign in yep Linda snow docket what is my name Linda snow doer baava Road um I first of all wanted to say thank you very much select board for passing 5 the ace committee which is the um committee that will end up with a um an annual event which will um educate and engage the town in Bill Russell's Legacy um his legacy on the court his legacy off the court I wanted to thank you very much for supporting that and I'm thrilled I'd like to thank um Mrs Wellman for putting it on the website and encourage people to look at the charge look at the information and let people know that there are many many ways to get involved whether you are a member that will be appointed by by the the select board or whether you will be a um designate by one of the departments in town whether you will just be and there's no just actually whether you'll be someone that just attends the meetings to make sure that your voice and your ideas are heard we'd really love to encourage you to be there to share your ideas to get involved there will be many tasks and many um needs when the event is being realized and this this Ace committee will be the first the commemoration committee will be the first to um do the first event so um we want to encourage you to get involved um and we also wanted to make sure the select board knows that there are options we know how busy you are we would absolutely love it if one of you were on the committee but there are options for you and the other committees who have the opportunity to designate someone for the committee so if none of you are able to handle the work and the devotion that will be necessary and it will be a devotion of Love um then you can designate and there are many volunteers you saw them rise at the June 18th meeting there are many volunteers who are glad to be on the committee to hear what you need to say to come to select board meetings and report back what the ace committee is learning and planning to do and um then go back and forth to make sure that your voices are heard so I just wanted to thank you I wanted to encourage people to get informed and get involved and I'm so excited for our town in having this annual event and this chance to grow with all of our um populations so thank you very much Kaitlyn anyone on Zoom that wants to speak um there a lot of people on Zoom but no one raising their hand all right if anybody is on Zoom that wants to speak just shout out real quick if you can't use the raise hand function all righty I'm going to call it all right so next we have the aison and to Mander reports and I just want to Second the record straight I know public comment is a one-way street but when any of us get mentioned and it's incorrect uh I would allow them to speak so I am not a pickle ball instructor in Reading never have been never will be as a board member so I want to get that out there and I do apologize there was only one picture in the packet for the presentation and it should have been the whole presentation so that is uh on us these are reports Karen um have three items um so I was happy to participate in the culmination of all the work that went into the m Morgan um project and um an incredible day and the weather cooperated and um I'm encouraged by all the residents that are just getting out there and enjoying it and if you hav't a chance there this is the time to go the walking trails Birds the leaves are turning it's it's a jewel it's amazing so um the new entrance is on Willow Street but you can also access it via hunt on foot I had an opportunity to stop by artsfest on for the weekend Saturday thank you guys can you go outside please and talk thank you a lot of great groups there and I appreciate everyone's participation it was a lovely day and um I just wanted to let people know I've been wondering about this we have a wonderful book called atw end and it is full of the history of this community um going back decades so um there are still copies and keep asking the question I think if you inquire at the clerk's office we can uh get you a copy for sale this one at the clerk's office at the clerk's office thank you um so you can inquire to buy copies of outw in at the clerk's office they're hard bar they're beautiful and they all the proceeds benefit the reading preservation trust um in addition the um we have local authors who wrote images of America and writing and those Pro seeds for that historical book also go to um support the Parker tavin and its maintenance and the antiquarian society so um if you're new to the community and you'd like to learn more about our history and um how we got here those are two great resources um I participated in the Athletics naming facility committee meeting um earlier this week we have two petitioners um coaches vicaro and Hardy um and they're proposing or they're asking the naming committee and the school committee to consider naming Turf 2 and floor 2 off of after those coaches on their behalf um and um both of those candidates have have I was very impressed by the um long service to the town and um to the kids so that's that was a a great opportunity um Melissa and I are in the process of scheduling a second vasque um round of interviews it's looking like early November so that will be posted and that will be um a major catch up for committees um at that point and let's see tomorrow I am planning to stop by the Pleasant Street Center where there will be lunch and learn on the topic of trash talk so our awesome trash barrels will be there and um as usual I'm sure that lunch is going to be awesome and it'll be a full house so um encourage everyone to attend the Pleasant Street Center you probably need to get there by 11:30 thank you that's it thanks the trash BRS won't be speaking though actually right I don't think so okay um so a couple of of updates one is back to um the rting center for active living recal um the next step in the process was to hire an owner's project manager we have successfully negotiated a contract and they are now on board a group called I keep doing this wrong tt8 T towns Turner in towns and H right okay um so they are now on board and some um kickoff meetings will start taking place to starting even later this week and then next week to get that started um the other big activity related to that is that the town has now I believe is under contract to do um some testing down at Simon's way um testing of soil um ideally taking place I'm I'm looking over here as I'm doing this in October so sometime this month with um results hopefully available uh in the early part of November am I reading things about right at my staff in two weeks two weeks yeah October 23rd is when they're coming out to do that okay so October 23rd the testing and then with the results hopefully Town her back a few weeks after that so um that I think we'll start to answer some of the open questions that we have as it relates to what can be done at that location and then as the permanent building committee is evaluating sites now with the help of the owner's project manager that's I think a key and important piece of input that will help with that decision help with that discussion and obviously I think that also relates to any other activities we might want to be doing down there so um I think those are my updates thanks thanks Chris thanks Carlo um yeah I also attended the coffee with the cop uh thing last Friday uh at the last corner so uh I appreciate them once again uh giving out their uh spot for an hour or two and there was a lot of good conversations that uh went on there um Matt was there Chief Clark U Melissa myself um and uh former Town manager bob la show was there he actually car pulled Bill Brown there because Bill's always gone to it before so it was good to see everybody out and about uh after that uh I went to the post 1917 uh event for the friends of reading seniors um once again another small business just recently opened in offering their time in in location for another group in Reading um so to learn more about the Fring friends of reading seniors you can go to the website it's friends of reading seniors 60 plus which is PL us.org uh so once again friends of reading seniors 60 plus.org um and then after that uh I went to the melet SS and Morgan uh ribbon cutting um so it was good to finally see that space compared to what it used to be um only a couple parking spots unfortunately but uh overall the space is pretty incredible compared to what it uh used to be uh and then the Fire Department open house uh this weekend uh I went to saw the car that they used the draws of Life on Etc it's always a good time over there with that and then the most important thing that I went to uh the last two weeks uh was Melissa and myself ended up spending eight hours down at the CVS lot kiosk uh on Friday um just to see that entire situ a because we notice the remarks online and you know we get emails Etc um and we can obviously go more into what we experienced uh when that agenda topic comes up and that's it thanks thanks Melissa thank you sorry S I can't be there um the school committee appointed the interim Director of Finance and operations U Mr Phil littlehill U Mr littlehill comes with extensive experience in the finance sector and has over 10 years as um a CFO in the public school districts in Massachusetts um I listened into the cpdc meeting um the other night that continued their public hearing on MBTA communities um one thing that they added that I think is great is they're going to do some informational sessions for town meeting members prior to town meeting in November just to get them up to speed on the um two articles that they are going to put forward um last week like ch has mentioned I um attended the copy with the cop the friends of reading seniors open house at the postmark and The ribbing Cutting at mlet SS in Morgan um it was great to meet some new residents at all of these events the new walkway at mlet SS in Morgan is absolutely gorgeous and I highly recommend residents get out there and check it out there is a small parking lot that was mentioned that's um right off of Willow Street kind of by the train tracks um again like Chris mentioned um we spent this past Friday at the upper Haven Street parking lot behind CBS just after getting um some emails and Facebook post that I'm sure many Saw regarding the parking kiosk uh it was great to talk with residents business owners consumers and our traffic enforcement officer Bridget but I know we have that on our agenda tonight so I will give the rest of my feedback then thank you okay my turn um I did attend the friends of reading seniors a post 9 1917 it was very well attended and some of our state delegation came by so that was nice and last night I attended cpdc and uh was aware of this till last night but uh Mr jarlie who owns Boardwalk real estate on Main Street is proposing a 15 unit building and keeping his real estate office on the first floor uh he's been in business either most to 40 years over 40 years so he'll be working with cpdc to move that project forward and I didn't stay for until the end but cpdc was also finalizing uh language and and and um revisions to the IMB communities uh Warren articles that we're going to vote on and I'm guessing they voted uh in some capacity last night and um that is it so off the map thank you so we have a informed and active select board because you covered most of the stuff I was going to talk about tonight uh anyway in your reports um two things though I wanted to mention this Saturday the chamber will host a fall Beer Garden on the common from 2: to 8: they'll have live music and face painting there and also we've scheduled the new Resident open house we're now calling it connected reading and it's not just for new residents um it'll be on Tuesday the 22nd from 5:00 to 7:00 at the library so all are welcome come and meet um a lot of town employees a lot of um churches uh nonprofits in the community um and we want people to feel at home and know their Community well and it's always a great event and I think we've been running it about five or six years now so so it's no longer called new Resident open house it's called connected ready so um so those are two updates for you J you anything the chair no I just uh I saw several of you at the um post 1917 uh friends of reading 60 plus event and that was that was great and then also at the um mlet SS Morgan uh ribbon cutting and that was a very special day and it's a culmination of tremendous work on the part of a number of our staff and um and our partners so we were very grateful for the help that we received from um Seth Molton office um from a big Federal earmark from the state who did a lot of funding to help us they've been great Partners um resilient Mystic and um and the leadership of this board to help us um as we went through that whole project it took a few years and the residents who about that um about that area have been great to work with and so we're very encouraged um by the beauty of that area so thank you thanks all right now we are up for Lara to close the warrant the election election sorry so the election W that you have in front of you is for the November 5th election which um needs to be posted 7 days before the election itself um any questions board any questions yeah I just have a brief one what if we didn't close the warrant on this it happens anyway is this just a formality just so I know elections division calls me I will turn him over turn you to parlo say he made me ask the question did not no I just I was just curious it just seems um it could be that it could mean that we go to court oh that sounds funny no thank you Melissa any [Music] questions uh no questions but Laura I do I did notice that we need a sign do you want me to come by Town Hall tomorrow and sign or is that not necessary that would be awesome if you could okay thank you no problem I can do that you're welcome so just a couple pieces of information um as of uh yesterday we sent out over 7,000 ballots for vote by mail um 6,000 of them went out yesterday and and we did were able to do that but because of the volunteers of the election staff coming in we had this room full and the conference room full of people coming in and getting the ballots ready and prepared my truck was full going to the post office um and then I also wanted to mention something on a different note is that uh that I'm respons the town clerk's office is responsible for keeping annual reports and that sort of thing from the beginning of time for of reading and um there's some missing and Bill Brown um donated a bunch of books to help fill in some of that so I just wanted to let you know that we've been able to fill in some of the missing reports that we had because of some of it because of his donation that's very nice just quick two quick questions related so um number of registered voters in town is 15 so we actually checked that out this morning it was 20946 20946 and you're sending out more than 7,000 mailin balance correct and by the time we get done there'll be at least an additional thousand um because I look today we received another 200 applications that'll go out tomorrow these were what they Sorry these were requested from that postard right yeah correct and the other just to make sure I'm understanding things right we had already closed the warrant for the federal election and that's why and now we're just doing the state piece is that correct no so the warrant we you closed last time was for the state primary State primary that was for the September election got it okay this is Tech technically um even though it appears to be a federal election there is no such thing as a federal election it's a state election with federal Offices on it okay okay thank you question I um so it's a little scary to have um our elections dependent on volunteers because people are busy um and I'm I I see the the role of government is to you know deliver collection services so um to be clear were these unpaid volunteers or paid no they were paid they are paid volunteers not a whole lot they were right okay all right well just I'm sorry I should have said that okay just want to make I mean either way yeah we want to make sure we have a mechanism so that you're never high and dry and we can always um meet the demand do have to say that reading is very fortunate when it comes to election staff i i a lot of my co-workers throughout or colleagues throughout the state are struggling getting election staff and we're in good shape we're in pretty good shape we have anytime I put out the word I've got somebody you know a a bunch of people willing to to volunteer so um not saying we don't need more I don't want to discourage anybody if they're interested in you know get in touch with me but uh ring is in pretty good shape as far as volunteers or staff compared to other communities I understand you order a mean sandwich I do I feed you well all right are we good all right yeah Chris y moveed to close the warrant for the state election to be held on November 5th 2024 second second any discussion stand none roll call vote Melissa yes Chris yes Karen yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 Z all right we thank you thank you around to sign ey on our mailbox let see how long it takes to go into Boston and out well the the post the post office so what what's supposed to happen with mail that comes out of ring goes from Reading to wubber to Boston back to wubber to reading for the ballots they've been asked to do it from Ruben directly to bradic wow okay so all right if if they're doing that then the ballots that went out yesterday should be hitting the boxes tomorrow okay thank you for providing that yeah no everything email goes except maybe this all right next we have a public hearing she going to read the notice thank you uh to the inhabitants of the town of writing please take notice that the the select Board of the town of reading will hold a public hearing on October 8th 2024 at 700 p.m. in the select board meeting room at Town Hall 16 L Street Reading MA were also available remotely on Zoom to act on a new annual all alcohol Farmers series pouring permit for the New England barrel company LLC DBA New England barrel company at one General away unit 40 reading uh ma a copy of the proposed documents regarding this topic will be in the select board packet on on the website at www.ri.gov all interested parties are invited to attend the hearing in person or remotely via Zoom or may submit their comments and writing to town manager at ci. reading. ma. us by order of Matthew a cornelis Esquire Town [Music] manager Mr s you want to say few what oh I'm on y I'm on the zoom uh first and foremost is everyone able to hear me yes yes okay perfect uh my name is James sers president found company uh with plans to move our operation to uh one GLE away in 40 uh first and foremost my apologies I had a PRI work commitment in Kentucky and he to say flights from conu to Boston aren't flexible so I am still Inu right now uh joining me tonight uh in person is Jo Hayward from Dil TR the developer for way and as you mentioned this evening we're looking to discuss um the farming permit for plan tasting Tasting Room at one General way Bo here to answer any questions that the board we have and Def operation thank you we have a application in the packet does anyone on the board have any questions mark um nice to nice to meet you wondering if you could tell us s a little bit more about what you're planning okay yeah absolutely so um new barrel company we we'll be four years old at the end of October so um coming up on our 4 year anniversary and effectively what we're looking to do is to move all of our operations um from New Hampshire to Reading Massachusetts uh what those operations entail um we are not a we're licensed as a distiller but we will we will never distill anything in Massachusetts um instead what we do is take F Spirits so pitcher barrels with heat that have already been made already had a each on them so a level of security um in to IBC to of Al as well uh we blend um allow them to marry so individual come together and filter and bottle uh our own product um uh from there um that's the primary to act as a as a uh uh Direct buy as well so bringing our products to Market uh we're currently distributed in about eight different states uh we also have a pretty large presence online as well um with in the tasty gr that is what will allow us to become a large part of the broader sper Community here in massach so um what we're looking to do is to offer uh customers uh the ability to come in uh taste our product we are only allowed to for for the Commonwealth to serve um spirits that are produced by us uh come in uh taste our product uh paper tasting uh potentially do events small events tasty room little some up uh 1,200 nothing absolutely mive by imination but want to become a a key component of the broad Community thanks any other questions in the room Chris thanks Carlo um I I did go to your website in advance just to see um what everything was uh pretty much what you're about and I have to say you did a phenomenal job on that um as well as your social social media presence as well it's good to see you know uh I know you I didn't know that you were moving completely from New Hampshire to down here um but I appreciate you choosing reading um and uh adding an additional drawer over to General way it's pretty popular because Market Basket Etc is over there but it's just another reason to go down there so thank you for all that oh not a problem uh to be completely honest it it's been a process to figure out exactly very wanted a home right I'm born and raised in Boston uh my family and I we need to move to um Southern New Hampshire about 9 years we're about 9 about 15 minutes so um I actually passed by this exit um three to four times a week uh just in the course of our um and I definitely spent more than my Spar share of money at our furniture as well so uh definitely looking forward to to being able to hop off the exit have a home and and be able to you know hopefully add to the the business [Music] within thanks Melissa any [Music] questions no thanks yeah sorry no I don't have any questions all right yeah I wish you I wish you much much success uh I know it's uh challenging out there but uh given what's going on with Spirits these days I I I think you'll do well and uh you know welcome to reading when you open thank you appreciate it should close anyone in the room want to speak see none close the public here move to close the public he second thank you uh any discussion see none Melissa yes Chris yes Karen yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 okay uh move to approve an annual all alcohol farmer series actually well Mark did you want to give your oh I was going to say before or after thank you no no I I was thinking of so welcome to the community I'm kind of um I guess I've kind of taken this on as a as a role um from the select board so we very much welcome you to the community one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is complying with the alcohol rules and requirements particularly well all of them but particularly as it relates to minors and we ask that you work very diligently to assure that that it's not a problem um that you are making sure you've got IDs from from folks and you can even occasionally talk to people who are like myself clearly over age 21 that um just to make sure that we're fully you're fully compliant that people understand that those are the rules and that they will be enforced and this board feels very strongly about that and and occasionally we've had some issues that have come up with different establishments and our responses tended to be fairly strong to that um particularly because we share with you our expectations so um it's very much of a a welcome to the community and also kind of sharing some of our values and and asking that you you work with us to make sure that that happens so I thank you for that no absolutely and it just quickly address that so um obviously it was a long time ago I had here at the time but um in college I I was I was Chapel in My ATT basically I was in charge of management for a bunch of okay not not the best place to be uh for a young man uh at all I need your imagination now you know fast forward 20 for years um effectively what we're looking at is is run so being being being compant and making sure that we not only dotting our eyes key but we are underlining every key Rule and regulation that we need to to ensure that we are meeting the needs of of of of all the regulations both fed level at level also so first thing that we are going to the open prior to allowing FKS to come in is ensuring that all of our staff our all of our staff is not certified by a third party uh in terms of risk management Al that that is that is part and part who I am as a person and I believe offering so I think we we're r that thank you thank you move to approve an annual all alcohol farmer series pouring permit for New England barrel company LLC DBA New England barrel company at one General Way Unit 40 second thanks any discussion seeing none Melissa yes Chris yes Karen yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 Z thank you congratulations congratulations thank you very much do you have a projected opening date oh that's always the question uh we're in the design phase now so um I would say I'm looking at late q1 early Q2 mainly because um the last three months at speciically SP B um roughly 60% of all SP you know December 31st so uh I'm I'm making Tucky now but over the course of the next you know 10 weeks I'm I'm going to be on the road at another 30 40 days so uh yeah it's going to be interesting all right please please let us know when you're a couple weeks out so we can promote it appreciate it thank you thank you all thank you thank you right thanks see you all right Sharon the floor is yours good evening everyone I'm going to start with our financial update then we'll move into um the the multiple unit meter question we were talking about and then we'll um discuss the ARA I'm going to share my screen as I have a presentation for you can you see my screen not yet not yet it's all blue there it is yep it's up now sure okay good so this first slide here let me move this box because I can't see um this is our um general fund revenues um through um oh typo um through September 30th 2024 and also through um last year at the same time um so you can see um where we were last year at the same time of where we are currently my expectation would be um that we would have about 25% in most line items but that's not always the case um so what I wanted to highlight to you is maybe some of the areas where um where oops sorry um where we might actually have seen some things that I was just looking at and wondering about and one of them was penalties and interest in that um I had that expectation of 25% um and it's trailing last year and it's also trailing that 25% so I'll just keep an eye on it not every Revenue source is the same and may sometimes come in at different times during the year um but where it was a little bit lower than when it was last year I'll be keeping an eye on it fines and forfeits um was trailing last year um but is still meeting my expectations at a 25% um collection earnings on investments is trailing quite a bit because because we've been collecting so much on earnings on investments but prior year we had actually recorded all that interest through September right now we're kind of behind on our interest entries and so that just makes this report look a little bit off um but I do know that our earnings are still very high um and would probably bring our whole overall Revenue to um the 25% or above so I'm not concerned these are each slide I'm going to show you is a different department so this is Administrative services and I looked at their salaries expenses capital and showing it to you in summary the revised budget what was expended what was encumbered and then what remains and what percentage used so if you go by that three month time frame you'd be thinking about 25% would be a normal number to see but the only one I can count on that really being the space is salaries because that is usually spent evenly expenses can be a little bit more what up and so in in cases where I see a percentage that's much higher than what that 25% I try and give you some explanation So Below have to move this box so I can read it all right um so you would expect the 25% one of the things you're seeing here in the expenses is Property and Casualty Insurance we pay that in August it's about $900,000 and it's for the whole year so that's why that 59.7% is there there the 22.5 meets my expectations and there's no capital in administrative services in technology salaries are in range but then we do see expenses at 59.7% and down below I speak about um the fact that we have a maintenance agreement with munice at $110,000 that was paid in September and its foral year so that's kind of driving why that expense looks so high so in this department which I can see Public Services um salaries are in range within the 25% but we are seeing expenses at 47.1% um what's included in there is um MBT MBTA Consulting the encumberance of 150,000 is in that number um so that's driving that number UPS and also the capital is fully encumbered and that's playgrounds and Court improvements and they are fully encumbered or expended in finance nothing's really noteworthy um salaries are in range expenses are low overall we're below the 25% nothing no worthy to discuss Public Safety um salaries are within range expenses are at 51% so I give you a little bit of a um summary down below as well as capital is very high so in in the expenses area we have $147,000 encumbered already for police cruisers 34,000 for um fires annual clothing allowance and 177,000 for police membership dues so those that the the clothing allowance and the membership vies are for a whole year and they're being paid at the beginning of the year so they'll drive a percentage off under the capital we have um 1.37 million encumbered for a fire engine and 385,000 encumbered for an ambulance so that's that's why that number is 97.2% how do we pay for the fire truck I'm sorry how do we pay for the fire truck we pay for it with that 5% of our budget that's capital and debt so it's um part of our um capital budget and it could have been it's encumbered still encumbered from the prior um year I think it is too I think it's fit till 20 um 24 so we would usually We'll order something and it will take us something like a fire engine over a year to get it in so that's probably a fiscal 24 or 23 um expense that's sitting up there still incumbered waiting for the truck to come in does that answer your question yeah thanks okay um this slide is public works and their salaries are in range expenses are a little bit high but nothing nothing really noteworthy Capital looks to be a lot higher um and I showed you up the top um Capital has two dump trots I'm totaling 475 a blower unit at 216 caving at 663 sidewalks 100,000 a ceter car for 33,000 the cemetery truck for 80 and then there's this Forest bucket truck for 269 and the forest pickup trck for 100 and then a four Street chipper for 210 so all of those Capital assets are either expended or encumbered um giving us that 56% so this is snow trash and lighting um so under the snow obviously we haven't had any snow yet only 4.23% used and that's probably um stuff that was ordered at the end of last year um that's you know you know salt or sand or stuff like that um very small year-to date expended and encumbered trash is at 42.7 three and that's largely to do with the um $900,000 that we've encumbered for the trash and recycling bins and street linting is within range um giving us a total of 33.5% for these for these line items facilities same here 21.9 for salaries expenses are in line big area here is capital I give you a detail of what's being expended there or um encumbered there and it's the glycol Reclamation at 33,000 schoolwide Arch study I don't recall what that is but it's there for5 9,000 um driver's ed um vehicle at 29,000 um the design work for the floor and bleaches at 191 and OPM for the senior center at 50,000 the library has 22% for salaries expenses at 36.9 nothing that's set outside of the realm of what my expectations would be overall only 24.9% expensed and the shared cost area um benefits is at 33.8% and some of the reasons for that is that at the beginning we pay our retirement assessment twice a year so in the beginning of the fiscal year and then I think it's in December so half of the year of our retirement assessment has already been paid and our whole workers comp policy has been paid I think it's paid in August or September so that's driving that percent a little higher than the 25% I was expecting um Debt Service is really kind of driven by um when debt is due so that doesn't necessarily um follow the 25% it's not spread evenly throughout the year um vocational is a little bit High um but again that's only I think it's only Built twice a year so again it's going to not really follow the 25% fincom reserves are down to 65,000 we did have a request of fincom Reserve transfer for 135 for two trucks in the forestry area I believe there prior year trucks one of them um had been ordered they believed they were going to get it there was some sort of fire at the manufacturer and all the orders that they had upstanding got cancelled so we had to go with a new vendor and now the trucks cost more um so it was two tracks and it was about 135,000 so we will be requesting those funds back at town meeting in November so that the fincom reserves will return back to 200,000 and then we enter into the Enterprise funds water sewer in storm water um this slide shows you where we are um in collecting our revenues in through September and where we were last year through September so last year we were at 27.3 this year only 22.4 for water but again interest income for water sewer and storm water has not been recorded So these numbers are artificially low I feel for current year um hopefully we have those entries recorded soon sewer is a little bit low but again it's the interest that's going to cause that to look low and storm waterers a little low all three of them are are waiting on some entries that will probably make them in line with the prior year now Enterprise funds water sewer and storm water they're bottom line so I'm just showing you their expenses um in total um and all of them seem to meet my expectations storm water is a little bit high but I don't have a note I have a note here I didn't put the note on the slide but I do know what it is there's 42.7% for stor water and my notation says um under the expenses the ms4 permitting we've encumbered 92,000 and then under capital for storm water we have a $350,000 truck that's been encumbered $18,000 um for downtown infrastructure and 72,000 for Memorial Park landing so a lot of Capital right now um in that number for storm water and that's just that high percentage why was Memorial Park in the storm water I'm sorry why was Memorial Park in the storm water expense it's it's a lining project so it falls under storm water I'd have to ask Chris Cole why that would be it's a Memorial Park lining is what it's called yeah okay unless it's a mistake on me and it could be I could be putting in the wrong spot but when I looked in there there's $440,000 of capital expenditures that have been encumbered 350,000 of which is a truck that's being split between sewer and storm water and then there's the 18,000 for downtown infrastructure and I think this Memorial Memorial Park lining unless I've got the name wrong um that's um what's making up that Capital there phone to jump over yeah please Jim Sullivan Recreation administrator so I think the lining is for the the ice skating rink I know there was issues with the lining that holds the water in so when they say lining I think it's like a PL lining that goes underneath the Memorial Park the T yeah I know they were blowing out some steam and stuff earlier this year so I believe they had to put new lining on that Memorial would be under it be under yeah but DBW kind of controls all that happens with the flooding all that stuff as well too gotcha thank you I appreciate that y you have any questions on the financial piece y Mark um Sharon you talked about that $135,000 transfer from fincom Reserve fund is that the additional expense 135,000 additional how much were those trucks these trucks have a really long lead time so I think they were ordered in fiso 23 um and we've been waiting for the truck and there was some sort of the manufacturer all the orders got canceled and we had to order through another manufacturer and it was that much more this is not uncommon I feel like when it comes to our trucks or equipment the pricing is outrageously different from year to year I don't know when it will stop or stabilize but it seems outrageous to me that it would cost that much more yeah exactly so we got our money back from the the company we're talking about two trucks so one of them was 100,000 the other one was like 25,000 more and then I think they put an extra 10,000 in there just to be sure they had enough because they were so worried because every time we have something ordered either they come back and say well we need more to build this or something like this happen so um I think they're a little gunshot they ask for a little extra and if it doesn't get used um it will get turned back to free cash but we did get paid back from the company with the fire right they're not holding any of our money anymore we got that no we wouldn't pay them until we got the truck so all they had from us is a PO and encumbrance holding money from the prior year yikes thank you Chris if I could just add to Mark's thing so we did get I believe it's going to be one of the two trucks we got an extended warranty a parts voucher Etc was that the fire truck I think that might have been the fire truck oh so which were you talking about this is DPW trucks forry forestry all right yeah that's why the the $100,000 I mean how much could those trucks cost they're not million dollar trucks right a lot of the trucks for gpw are approaching 275,000 so 100 Grand difference still massive I'm usually shocked every time I have to sit down and talk about what they so so I'm with you I I was shocked myself to see what these trucks go for there's only like one or two manufacturers that's what Happ yes so my question was on the $350,000 truck that you just mentioned at the end for DPW is that the oh storm water yes what is that storm water and storm water and SE are sharing um the expense of one truck that was 700,000 is that the V truck Sharon I'm sorry is it the vac truck a very expensive truck it was just approved um at I want say April town meeting so it was encumbered at the end of the year I think we're all in the wrong line of workc actually know what this comes down to thank you Sharon I have two questions um so this um fire truck we ordered it 20121 prior to I think it was 2023 or 2024 so it's still out there we don't pay for anything until we ordered a fire truck prior to Fidel starting and Fidel renegotiated the contract so my question was are we looking at another hit in that price or I hope stat yeah I I mean I I hope not forre I mean this goes back it does feel like the supply line that we're holding on on on a track it seems like it's taking longer and longer to get the trucks 202 in 2021 it was prior to starting that we actually ordered it and to meeting approved it so they asked early are you are you sure that's the one I'd have to go back and look tell me hasn't approved another one it's the same one the same one the chief went out to inspect it out in Wisconsin just I think last week okay and so that sounds promising yeah so there were there a couple changes on it but it is going to be on its way out here soon they bring it up so he's probably very excited he's not going to retire till he gets it that's right okay all right my second question is and this is a point of information and and you might know this so the money that we're expending for the design work for for the new school will we be getting reimbursements for that design work now are okay have we gotten some I'm looking for yes we have what I was told by do was to set up a capital project fund for the $2.2 million because I because we will be receiving funds from the msba and then whatever's left over after we're done with the feasibility study I think we would have to vote at town meeting to apply that money to towards um the actual project so whatever money msba um puts in there that's going to be kind of netting against the money that we had so there'll be a lot more of that 2 you know $2.2 million is not going to cost the $2.2 million whatever is left over because the msba is kicking in towards the feasibility stting and all the work that goes with it um that that money we can redirect over to the actual project when the time comes um to do so so are you clear on whether um they're not going to send us any money back until we approve the entire project as a community or they are they already reimbursing us as we go along oh they are already they are they are already we've received funds already so total on that at a later time or as a followup email yeah I can I can tell you how much they reimbursed this I don't remember off the top of my head but they they do a 45% of eligible cost so an invoice I submit is completely eligible for whatever reason they'll let me know and then they send us a a wire to our account after they've approved everything okay I'd love I'd love to see an update doesn't have to be tonight thank you sorry about that I wish I knew it off the top of my head no that's okay thank you would you like me to discuss um the multi-unit meters can I just ask a couple quick questions sorry just the um ,000 for the MBTA community's um consultant is that finished and paid for or will we owe more than that because I think that was the amount that town meeting approved so that's what I'm seeing as encumbered that I don't know how many bills are still out there so I can't really entirely answer that for you but I know that that was what coming awarded them to hire consultant to assist and coming up with a plan that might be acceptable to the residents um yes Sharon if I'll just jump in on that um chairman um yes that's correct the money's been encumbered uh but we don't anticipate that we'll actually spend up to that limit so we have we are grateful that town meeting gave us extra to do that and we have put our Consultants through the um the ropes and we have consulted um legal counsel and we have gone back and forth and back and forth so we don't anticipate that we will overspend that account okay great um my another question I have is are we getting a second or maybe third ambulance for the town that ambulance probably was ordered in the prior Year we're still waiting for it I would imagine I think it's a fiscal 24 so they replace them I think they do trade in Orum so they I don't think they're getting a third one they it's one's aging out and they need to replace it got it and then when it comes to these trucks once we submit a PO I can't imagine the price can increase that correct it shouldn't but we've had at least one circumstance where it's happened yeah I mean this situation is unusual to have the manufacturer have a fire and cancel all your orders that's not typical but we did have some I think it was a fire track where they came back to us and said you know we can't do it for this and we had agreement so that's what I wanted yeah I I I honestly was bored by that I'm hoping never to see it again six figure differences six figure differences it was it was I was not pleased that's incredible and then all the Public Works Vehicles were they all planned it just seems like there's a lot of them that we have a huge we do 5% of our budget debt and capital so when we're building the budget we we figure out how much we have for debt payments and then the remainder goes to Capital and then we have a 10e plan and based on age and priority we we buy we don't borrow for them we buy them right out of our budget um and in some cases some of those that you saw there were probably from the prior year and they're still waiting for them because look me to get the so it could be the combination of fiscal 24 and fiscal 25 funds that you're seeing maybe even some fiscal 23 because that's not on part of what I'm seeing with some of these trucks um but they try and encumber them right away to get them as soon as possible cuz some sometimes we're pushing them out because the capital plan is so hard to balance sometimes because the increased price of these trucks has been challenging that they by the time they get the money they're just like let me order it get it get it to me as soon as you can so um so that's where the money comes from is from our actual budget not really from a borrowing or anything like that okay all right thank you and and do we Sharon do we back on those trucks M just mentioned do we retire them junk them trade them in probably um I would imagine most of them are sold on like one of the gov websites or traded in I don't think we hold on to many to many trucks that are old and aging out s what the point the maintenance on them is is and that money goes towards the payments or in the general fund so so everything that all revenue is general fund Revenue so any any excess money that we get for selling assets um would show up in the general fund okay before they are sold you have to approve them as Surplus yeah right so you see those things come through time to time yeah that's not we use our trucks till yeah till they're done and then a little Beyond and then sometimes more than a little yeah any other questions on the finance before she moves on to Sharon what do you think is going to be longer multi-unit rates or the arpa money what discussion think both of them are going to be fairly short we have a consultant all right let's go yeah is the cons is the consultant on I see him on there Matt abrahamson yeah Abrahams is on there as well so you want him to leave the discussion you on there Matt yeah I'm here you hear me yep yep okay I don't we don't see oh Sharon what I I I believe it's mostly a mun solution that we were able to come up with so maybe Sharon if you can explain that a little and we can have some questions from M if any questions come right so go ahead yeah I can do that so um so in order to to find a solution to this issue because prior to tiered billing we were one rate so this was not an issue um I had to come through a huge manual from Unice about 216 pages and I found based on something that Matt Abrams had said um an area where I could put in how many units they in a building and it will divide it up they divide the bill up so basically if you had um 10 units in a building and you get every every unit will get the first 10 you know so the first 10 units is $10.75 for water they would give you 100 units at that amount you know because you've got 10 units all getting so what I did was I had the woman that does the billing over in our collector's office um I I walked her through how to make the change in train not in live and we did the bills for like eight or nine different um multi-units to see this this worked and it does um what ends up happening is a lot of the bills end up going to drop down to the lowest rate even postmark row is very surprised postmark was when I asked her to sample so the bill the last quarter they used 430 units and so they went 10 units at the 1075 for water 15 at 1170 15 at 12 and then 390 at 1250 when I put in the number of units the whole bill dropped down to the lowest um the lowest rate so it don't even solved postmart which is the one I was most um worried about so this change was not terribly difficult to make in munice and I'm hoping that we could do it um for the next billing cycle so that this would be corrected but for the next bill um apparently when I spoke to the woman who does the billing the meter read gets done on October 29th and then they they run the bills at the end of November for December that gives us enough time where um we could potentially get this change made right away um my only question is kind of some parameters because when you say multi-units are you thinking condos and apartments are you thinking um just like post Market think is condos are you thinking all multi-units or are you thinking that you want to treat apartments different than condos if I could say something yeah go ahead I could be wrong but in most circumstances apartments are not paying their own water bill correct individual units it's one landlord so I don't believe that we need to include them in that I think it's when it comes to the individual condo units yeah so I mean at I would agree with that too because it's more like a business um a landlord is owning it and it's not the tenants it would probably factor into what that landlord charges for rent so you could probably argue it both ways but it's whatever you guys want to the parameters you want to set for us so that we know what to do in terms of how to set them up in Unis do we want to grab all multi-units condos and apartments for just condos Chris Sharon so walk me through this just for a sec so we're we have like postmark which is mixed use and we'll have the other mixed use when you divided by the number of units did you only look at the residential side and you excluded the commercial no there's only one meter that we bail off of for post mark yeah so I'm told there's 52 units in that building which I was surprised by yeah when we we put that in everything went down to the low so if post 1917 is using 45% of the water they can't possibly be at tier one so so so I caution let's not hurry let's do it right first and then implement it but that's that can't be right they they've got to be so 45% of how many units did did the whole building use 45% of it is certainly the highest you know they're going to go right through all the tiers to the top 430 billable unit so this bill um last I'm sorry the original bill was $1,563 we make this change it goes down to$ 9,114 so it makes a drastic change but you have to understand the building's getting credit for having 52 units so they'd have to go over 520 units to go to the next tier so it's almost like the the restaurant benefits from the fact that maybe most of the users don't even get anywhere near the 10 units so I don't know but so that's not that's not I don't think that's a reasonable approach I don't think that's a fair approach they should be built for what they're using the bonus here is that we can well they can tell us exactly what they use but they've already given us a lot of information that in the last month or whatever 45% got used by that that one tenant that one location so I think that the equity that we're seeking is these folks that before were being penalized by the the overall total they're getting fixed it's doing it really nicely but we we have them and we'll have others that are going to be some commercial and some residential and I think that maybe the solution isn't addressing that well enough I don't see how post 1917 could be a tier one it's not hurting the residents it's it's benefiting the commercial property I get what you're saying but that's not okay that's not okay that's not okay no but but but what I'm worried about is these residents have been seeing the higher rate since we went to CER billing so some solution has I understand but I would not support putting in a system that's not right just to say that we did it and that's kind of what the only other option I can think of is to put in you know in a space like postmark where you do a separate meter I don't know the timeline or the cost of doing such a that would be a bigger a question for Chris Cole and DPW to to answer how long how long would it take to put a second meter for the commercial space and pull it away from you know the residential space of that building that's the only other option I could think of well so can I ask that we actually do a couple of things here one is they have separate metering inside the building so they can tell us exactly what the usage is you already know that for the residentials you know we kind of fig our meters so when we drive by we hang on hang on hang on hang on we know what the total usage is we actually can get the breakdown for them I'm I'm actually very concerned because we're we're promoting um multi-use activities in lots and lots of of construction we have multiple buildings like that already and a lot of what we're talking about is going to continue that going forward it's not okay that that one group kind of you know benefits other one gets harmed what we're trying to do is is fix the structure so one solution is separate water meters I suspect that's probably the hardest and most costly solution that there is but it's an option the second is that like postmark I wonder if those other buildings it can be kind of a um talk to these folks in advance talk to them when they're setting up their water talk to them about how they're going to set it up and it's probably a software kind of thing that's going on here anyway let them set it up the right way or if they don't then you know we we we lose it but it's not okay that we we fix one part of the problem only to create a new one that's substantial one so someone that's using 45% of the water in that building can't be at tier one per all their all their water it just doesn't work it just doesn't make sense so I don't know exactly how to do it but I think this is a great start but I think that needs to be fixed that needs to be explored see what options there may be and again with that internal meter that may be a way to get it started hold on Mela C's name um yep I I I agree I agree with Mark and I it may not be as easy as it looks um I wanted to get back to the the topic of Apartments so the met I don't know how many units are over there it's a big modern apartment building and we're going to see more apartment buildings as well as condos being um built and also the state of Massachusetts allows landlords to offload the responsibility for the water bills onto the tenants as long as they do simple things like um make sure they have lowf flow toilets and and lowf flow um shower heads things like that so there's a there's a prescribed path to be able to do that so I think we need to be ready to allow many of our affordable units are rental units I think we need to be cognizant that we will have building owners coming to us asking asking to not be built at like the massive rate for the whole building so as we think about how we might do this I just don't want to say oh let's not worry about the rentals I don't know what the percentage is in town it's not insignificant [Music] um through all yeah it's not insignificant I'll just leave it at that and and modern buildings you know uh you mentioned a conversation so as they're going through the permitting process I think that is a great idea to have for the building inspection inspectional services to have a conversation about them how are you going to address the water rates what are you thinking about and it's the kind of the same thing you can do about like you know what is your HVAC system going to be we're not we're going to get to the point where you can't just pull a new gas line so have you considered looking at our Electrical Company and and going electric from the start rather than just waiting for Market forces but so yeah I I don't I don't think we can ignore Apartments because of the affordability issue and because of the way I think our housing stock is growing already and will continue to grow M first um so can Sharon can you explain to me why postmark would be tier uh paying at tier one level but I'm not understanding if they truly are 45% of the water in that building how would they overall water for the building is less than so if you there's 52 units in the building and everybody Tak 10 at the lowest price the only way it's going to bring the bill to a higher higher tier is if we use more than 520 units because every unit gets 10 units at the lowest rate you know so okay so they're benefiting I I'm imagining from the idea that not every unit there is using their 10 units and they're benefiting um that I get that that's a problem but I also want to see a solution for the people who are paying the higher rate so I I see what you're % and what is the total units used in the last building on that postmark how much did they use 430 okay and then in other is do we have a commercial water rate in other Boton already when did when did postmark um when did that restaurant open maybe that's part of the issue when that 20124 summer the spring the spring yeah so this bu that she would have used would have been for May June July I think um so that could be somewhat part it could be that the the actual because we're just testing it to see does it does it do it properly and it is doing it properly in terms of it's giving every unit the the 10 you know the 10 units at the lowest at the lowest price and then they get another 15 at the next price and 16 more at another price and then the top tier is where everything else lands so this bill could potentially have um less usage because maybe they I don't know when they opened and I I wasn't really familiar with when they opened so I can't say for sure but there could be that component of it so they didn't hit the 520 units of usage so the whole bill drops to the lowest what bill you have but do we have a commercial water rate in other businesses in town oh okay we don't correct the rates are the same for for to residential that's what I thought so I mean I understand the problem here I understand that you know what Mark's saying but I do not feel comfortable leaving here tonight without voting for those residents we pushed them off long enough we need to make a decision tonight for them and May and also figure out what's going on with the commercial piece of that particular building but we can't push this off anymore we need to vote and move on for that that's my opinion just that's not on the agenda it's not on the agenda we're discussing tonight this is discussion yeah not V all right all right good Chris thanks Carlo uh first I ju I just want to mention that uh it was mentioned previously that uh certain people didn't uh take a stance on the uh water rates uh this year and I just want to remind uh this board as well as the public that I specifically voted no on tiered water rates in protest of exactly what we're sitting here for today so for anybody to say that I did nothing uh you were horribly uh incorrect uh having said that I agree with Mark that we can't allow the bank error in your favor for postmark uh it's not right we have to f fix this for everybody which includes fixing it for apartments as well it has to be done all in one F Swope so I understand we're not voting tonight I think for me I would like to see if Sharon can come up with a solution by the October 15th meeting just in this postmark scenario um if she cannot or if we don't whatever on the 15th I'd like to vote and if postmart gets a $1,000 credit uh for this one random quarter until it's cashed out so be it we going to take care of everybody else so that's kind of my stance on this we we are fixing the water rates uh for everybody uh uh in one Fell Swoop having said that we all knows what happens when we're fixing the water rates for everybody else in one Fell Swoop it comes back around the other direction and the water is going up for everybody else just like we fixed the irrigation rates last time as well they shouldn't have been paying it's getting fixed none of these people should be paying it's getting fixed so just so we're clear on the trajectory of how this goes we're fixing it for everybody on both ends because I I foresee in the future the select board raised the water rates for all residents in town Etc we fixed the inequity in everything in a matter of a month for everything irrigation users residents commercial properties Apartments all of it over and done with and yes the water rates are ridiculously high and we have to see about some way reducing the stuff in the future which I don't think is ever going to happen we bought in at the wrong time it's unfortunate but like that's kind of where I'm at with this that we got to do something and if Sharon can come up with something for the next meeting otherwise we could have vote in the 15th and and just have her push this through for the 29th because if not she's going to miss it and now everybody just got dinged when they should not have so that's how I feel let's go again but U thank you yeah I uh I I just think I I guess I have a question maybe you can't answer are we take 475 rise when that was built I'm pretty sure Drew Stew's was going in there as a tenant as the first tenant who was cooking and washing things so these buildings don't put separate meters for their commercial units or we don't require it like I don't do you have an answer for that cuz that that's when I can't understand if it's not required by building inspectors because they shouldn't affect the residential users are just taking showers and flushing toilets I don't that they're required to but a lot of like postmark is sub meters they're just not our meters um so we don't we don't read them we when we drive by and we read them we only have the one meter that we're billing from right that the solution I was thinking would would be helpful in this Cas is to fix that in terms of if you have a mixed use space have a meter that's residential and a meter that's commercial so that if there is heavy water usage on the commercial side um they're going to pay what they're do what they're supposed to be paying and not benefit from lack of use on on some of the residentials um but I will say that given that postmarks restaurant only opened six months ago it's possible that the bill I'm looking at is skewed because they weren't maybe open the entire time or or business wasn't really booming yet so I I would like to see kind of what happens in the next bill cycle because when she has the reads and I won't have it by October 15th she would have reads on October 29th and we could potentially test postmart to see what their bill looks like it could be that the usage falls in the lowest range because they weren't there the entire time for that bill good so um well actually I mean we know that that's not the case no matter what even if they are for part of the time 45% of 450 units is is in the 20000s so they certainly aren't in tier one the issue I think is figuring out what what can we do about this so the you got a A solution that works inside munus that kind of divides things up and so that's great for for residential the question is how can we handle the commercial side and I think we're going need a hybrid and maybe maybe Matt has some comments on this also but maybe there's some kind of a hybrid that says you know you use that as as kind of the base structure for the residential we can we can in fact ask whoever manages the property just to tell us what the number is all the residents know what the number is easy enough to get the number that says that unit post the postmark used this many units great and then do the billing appropriately to that it's not that you have 500 that you'd have to do that way but you got a couple hands full that you'd have to do that way it's just not okay that you know folks that are are working hard to conserve using 10 units or less and then they see somebody using hundreds of units paying the same rate that's not okay so I I think that we need to think about you know what are some ways to do it and again Matt if you have some thoughts on on how how other people are doing it um I believe you guys can correct me I believe that in Wakefield where they have a similar structure with tiers um they elected to just kind of leave it there understanding that there are some inequities from it we we're talking about different solutions but I'm not okay kind of Shifting the burden off of a heavy user that just doesn't make sense here so that may be a solution just we know that postmark has this system already in place um that's a simple manual adjust manual change or manual Bill maybe is the right way to do that if there are how many others that that are mixed juice in town at this point it's not 100 that I would just say that that would be technically difficult for the person who FS it to have to manually do like pull them out of the the meter Bill and do a separate bill like I don't even know how she would do it in so I I I I feel like the best thing is that there's a a second meter that we read and that they're separate and distinct I don't see how I know that they have the readings but then she's got to manually call every one of them that has it we've got one person doing the billing for the entire town of read water I don't know that but I mean let's how much is the difference that we're talking about I mean if it's $50 then it wouldn't make any sense I have the sense that it's a lot more than that so homeowner P so pain is at the I get it I get it it's it's $6 I think is what we figured out it is per bill or $6 per month I think something like that it's it's it's not but for someone who's using 45% of the water it's going to be a lot more than that say that was pre the restaurant opening that's pre the restaurant opening yeah so it may actually be a lot higher than that yeah if you use the water you are paying for it that's what I've said last meeting this meeting you use it you pay for it if you use the sewer you are also paying for it if you don't you should not pay for it so using the same logic they got to pay unfortunately they're great love the food they do so much for the town but they do have to pay their share as well it's only fair so I think to Mark's point I know pulling stuff out Etc seems annoying but are we talking like is it five bills or like is there a 100 properties that can fill fit under this number like if you're mix like if you're in a like if you're up to the 100 I can understand like that's crazy to have somebody manually doing it but if we're talking it's like five five people it's not five it's more than five definitely more than five just in downtown alone what that number I'm looking at a list of 54 M unit buildings I don't know how many of them are mixed use I'm looking at just multiuse um one meter buildings so the highest is 54 the highest number4 indiv women are working on billing constant like I feel like they asking them to do 54 oh no I'm I'm not saying so what we have is that there are 54 multi-unit buildings that have one meter each that we can read you can read right and we don't know of those 54 how many are mixed years we can we can find out how many are excuse the the issue is that there all these buildings are plumbed correctly and legally they go through all the process and and and it's there and the developer otherwise no I understand but the developer chooses which path they want to go at the time that they pull their permits and they so the developer decides and the management company manages and so if they're submetering the management company is getting that data from their submeters which we can't see and they send that information out right and so that is where we're experiencing this we don't have visibility of the data I'm making phone calls trying to get this information you know and that's what I'm trying to do can can we kind of send this back to you but I mean the very simple solution would be to say to the management company everybody is going to be at tier three unless you send us the specific breakout for the other units and very quickly the residents would assure that that information is sent instantly right y right one way can we let Matt chime in Matt do you have any feedback input Mt on the screen Mt on the screen uh well just uh some some information um based on what was requested earlier so I I would say that this varies Community by Community each for each Community it's a local decision um somebody mentioned earlier Wakefield uh yes that that was accurate my understanding is that they do not fill with the multiunit level at all so they are at the building level right now so they are at the highest tier for all their multi-units even there has been discussion there of making a change um that discussion hasn't gotten far enough along for there to be serious discussion about implementing a change there now of course something could happen in the near future but as of now that's the way it is um but there are other communities that that do have multi-unit U policies in place um there's one I'm working with that this this was already discussed tonight too but their decision was that they're going to build condos at the unit level and they're going to build everybody else at the building level so just the condos are getting the multi-unit benefit compared to other um accounts now for my personal opinion is that if you as a town as a board decide that you do want to move forward with M High units and you want all properties to benefit from that that have M High units I would agree that there needs to be some segregation that takes place between the commercials and the residentials for the reasons that have already been raised tonight I'm not talking about the billing reasons that has talked about more just taking high level what makes the most sense um it is not fair to Residents that the any commercial property um that has high usage would skew their bills that that is not they're inequitable so there should be something done there if possible but and there needs to be a discussion that takes place of how possible is it how real is it um what are the steps to get there so I guess those are my high level thoughts I think everyone's points are good and and you're on a good path here there just needs to be some details some things ired out in order to make things thanks I mean I'll let everyone speak again but I I think the best path right now is we do have an unscheduled un uh meeting next week is normally not in a schedule uh for a few things uh that we want to get done and then we have our next schedu meeting on the 29th of October and then we only have one meeting in November so I think for me right now what is the greater good to get the condos postmark has been the most outspoken the residence of postmark for a while now so I don't see this as an easy quick fix to get second meters and uh to have landless comply or or we do it or the expense but I think in the next month by the 29th like Melissa said I think we need to move forward on something and to me what is the greater good they will benefit immediately uh postmark and a few other buildings hopefully and then we're going to strive for a permanent fix that's just my opinion but if we let this go on for another six months uh potentially 3 months 6 months into next year I don't think it's a good look for us but we going to do it right but I I don't know what right is how quickly so so in general agreement um but to to um Kick the Can down the road is not the right call here either that's what we're all complaining about is that we've been kicking it down the road so yeah we need to deal with it so I would suggest that we we give Sharon a little bit of time to look into this y I would even suggest that worst case in a hybrid scenario where we know we have one user in particular that's higher and see if there are others like that we know that we can get their actual usage get build according to their actual usage that's the goal we can do it for postmark it's easy the data is already there what see if there are other of the same scenario as a as a near I just I'm not comfortable saying to the rest of the of the rap pairs in town hey you know everybody else pays you know according to the tiers except commercial no no except commercial and multi-use that's not what I'm saying I'm saying that we we've heard from residents and I think we're at the you know five 10 yard line and we have to get into the end zone so how long does it take to get in the end zone you know 2 minutes steps on the clock sometimes Tak a half hour so get 2 minutes done I don't want to see that happen with this and I don't want to do it wrong either but I think in the next month we need to like move the needle a little bit I think it's it's doable in the circumstance I I I don't see this as such a tough putt the long-term solution I think is a discussion with with planning and how that works in terms of separate meters and and we should have that discussion but that doesn't hold anything up that's just a fact we need to do that but short term look we're we're doing all these things now for multi-use we're trying to figure out how to be more Equitable but let's do that let's make it work so that includes saying to folks use a large amount of water you should be subject to the tears so we'll regroup and come back on the 29th is that what you were saying to talk to talk more about it or to vote on it or I don't think next week's realistic real Sharon some more time on this it was good to get this feedback tonight and you know keep talking about it but so we'll regroup and come back on 29th for more information the pro the problem with that though is what is the drop date Sharon for the bills to go out is it the 29th no the 29th is the day I wouldn't be able to give you information on the 29th 29th is the day that they do the meter reads and then they work on the bills and those will go out in December so they do the Bills towards the end of the month so as long as people are not getting charged today isn't changing that tomorrow isn't either as long as the next bill that everyone is getting this has been resolved then we're good but yes we do need to have it at the next at the 29th meeting or whatever it has to happen at least for me I think that's a great goal I don't want to implement bad government because we come back and smack Us in the face and we will be here working on this again if we do this incorrectly so I think it's a great goal and see what our talented staff come up with um if I may um the conversation about apartments because apartments are commercial buildings they're generally thought of commercial bu and your point about affordable units is there I don't know that changing or charging at the lower tiers per apartment unit is going to lower leases but what is the I'm curious what the temperature of the board is for you know water build at for apartment buildings is there an interest in doing it per unit as Miss herck said could we ask I don't know we have heard a lot from the postar we do know that that developer put meters in so I don't know if the Met for example put meters in I don't know if that shoots Street property if that gets going which that is intended to be Apartments if we could nudge them in then that direction so that's what that's kind of like the bigger conversation um but could make a few calls and see if there are other a Flats aat no no no I know that I know that it's just great that's another great example I I don't know about we have a lot of apartment buildings in town quite a few and we don't want this to be a billing nightmare uh on the back end so as much as Washington Street departments okay that's a great example of an older building the General Washington y thank you so I'm going to or even the other ones I'm going to I don't know whether they have individual meters they they continue to suffer or are we going to give them a solution because those are not those are not luxury buildings those are those are people just trying to pay their rent yep I appreciate the feedback that's we thanks k um my take on the the apartment scenario is uh I'm not a landlord uh not that I would ever be but I think that if I was it would be used as leverage like Karen I think or someone mentioned about raising rents that they they can hit on the back end whether it's 50 bucks it is what it is 50 bucks a month 12 months 600 that's pretty significant to me uh because they're not going to raise their rent by like $7 or whatever it ends up being uh so like I said if we're fixing it we're fixing it for everyone then we're done with that's it that's how it is for me Melissa we can't see you on the screen do you have any comments no I don't have anything right now thank you okay okay so we'll put this on the agenda for the 29th for some kind of update potential vote if we're there all right where are we arpa funds next bring up that spreadsheet [Music] one of them but so before I get into the spreadsheet this um proposal that's up on the screen can you see this this is the health department proposal yep too small too small let's see if we can make it bigger it's in the packet but yes on screen is is definitely too small for the audience is that still too small no that's good just got to scroll side to side instead yeah all the Scrolls got side to side so I'll just go over this first because this one's the first one that came up so there was about $21,000 left on the covid mitigation line so if you recall in the beginning I asked the select board to put $250,000 way back when we got this grant towards um Co mitigation so that we could you know do testing we could do um masks and gloves and all the things that would help prevent the spread and so there's still $21,000 left there so I reached out to a day in the health department just to make sure there wasn't any need for test or whatever and he came up with this proposal to spend that that 20 , 35991 that is remaining he has over here on the right about $3,300 um related to programs um geared towards different topics maternal Health female Health postmenopause healing with herbs so these are like programs um that he would run um he also mentions rodent mitigation um using 12,519 80 for that I'm not entirely sure what that entails I don't know if um if that a consultant I don't know what exactly he where he got that number um and then training kits for the nurses um for the inspector course workbook and then he had like a bunch of just kind of random um health related like supplies that he could add to the grants so that we could use it up for the 21, 35991 so I wanted to show that to you in advance and I think also in the packet was kind of more information about these programs that is looking to run and and what they're geared towards and you know the age groups and he's got that here too pretty much so the other piece that I wanted to excuse me Sharon can I ask you a question on that so um in our packet It also says Health has a proposal for these funds requires a vote to reallocate vote of the select board vote of the fs are allocated by the select board the select board has has control over the offer funds so because we're not using it like that 21,000 we don't have a CO mitigation need right now so it's it it really needs to be reallocated so that we don't lose it because I don't want to give this money back to the beds I'd like to spend it on something and so when I mentioned it to him I think he thought I was looking for a proposal but where he did give me a proposal I figured I would show it to you and then it's up to you guys where you want to put those funds good thank you let me see if I can pull up the original spreadsheet give me a second open and then I'll share it [Music] like to share it and then have it open originally so here can you see it y m is it too small yes sure is Tiny can you collapse yeah the sidebar well I can go over the numbers with you so I'll read them off to you so we got I'm sorry we can just make it a a little bit bigger just yeah yeah it's page 92 I think in the pack yeah there you go that's yep that was great good okay so we got $7.59 million approximately in the oper Grant and and what we have remaining is $176,000 176 325 out of that money um this um historic Commission digitizing of photos that is going to be used I checked in with the folks there and this bare Meadow stewardship um the 15,600 they're going to use that for a large outdoor deck so that number of these numbers here the 9,176 and the 15,600 I'm not going to ask you to reallocate the those funds because they do have a use planned These funds do need to be encumbered by December 31st 2024 or we lose them so that's why we're talking about them now so so out of the premium pay the amount that you allocated there's $527 35 that needs to be reallocated um for the senior programs we had budgeted support for salaries for people that went from part-time to full-time to fill the need um so I've recorded those entries for fiscal 25 and we have $2,025 remaining there that will need to be reallocated and then this tree invasive species a small little remainder there not sure if it's needed but I highlighted it and included it in the total I'm thinking that's either not going to be used or um or we need to reallocate it and then this $38.99 same thing um for the um Trails committee supplies then the co mitigation is that 21, 35991 that the health F Department did put a proposal that's entirely up to you if you want to um approve that proposal or if you want to use those funds for something else this 122 84093 my discussions with um Jenna um stated that she felt that there may be $80,000 left after she encumbers all the programs that they have planned um and so she'd be interested to hear what you would like to do with those funds um so when all is said and done down below here I tell you that there's about 108 70825 out of the the amount that's highlighted above if you were to approve the Health's proposal you'd have 87348722 abuse of funds Paving is always a strong need here in Reading Paving our Paving money isn't going as far as it has in the past so any additional funds we can throw at it is always welcome sidewalk work additional capital is always an option we can always move something up on the capital plan I just need something that we can get encumbered by December 31st 2024 so when it came to like the comments about the senior center unless we know it's something that we can sign a contract and have it encumbered I would there chance we could lose the money so that's why I'm looking at things that I know that we could spend right away um we could even put extra funding to support the sewer department to have you know towards lost Revenue um from doing the pilot program for the um you know for the second meters for irrigation knowing that the revenues might be lower than what we might have budgeted so those were just a few things off the top of my head that I was thinking and it's not up to me it's up to you guys what you want to use These funds for but I wanted to give you an idea how much money might need to be reallocated so in in my total here this 108 70825 is the amount that I feel needs to be reallocated if you want to take out the two that I'm unsure of which is the you know the 257 and the 3899 those just look like small remainders but they could be used um we could do that as well but I'd like to I'd like to not have to send any money back to the federal government I'd like to get all this money used amen here here every time second could we find out that's a big number for RO mitigation like what it's for we find out I mean you don't have to vote anything I just wanted us to kind of be thinking about the fact that there may be remainders that have to be reallocated so I can find out more information from um from a day who put it together Sharon I can I can fill in some of the blanks if that's if that's all right um I've spoken to a day about some of his um his efforts here um he comes from another town I think you came from Somerville and so he understands the radent mitigation problem and what we've started doing is moving all of our rodent mitigation over to birth control right from Poison which is safer for other animals and the food chain and you know all the all the wildlife so um this is to continue to do more of that work work and um and and there's you know adding stations and so forth and it's like it's kits so there there's pieces you buy um Al together so we have spoken about some of that that's what that's toward and it's not to like deploy it all over town it's really just to be more responsive particularly in areas where we're seeing you know residents are coming to us with like this is a this is an issue in this particular area whenever there's construction going on it's disturbing yeah you know well my question is if we we don't approve this is it not going to get done this is additional to the work we already do this is additional work so would expand what we're already offering and you know would allow us to see if this is efficacious is it worth going back and adding into the operating Fund in the future so we talked about pilot programs my read on this is it's it's a way of doing that is it working do we like has it the tracking of I haven't heard any complaints recently anyway but you I'm glad I am so glad that you're not getting complaints yeah that is good news you're getting them we we get them from down there's a particular neighborhood and we and you know we're responsive to it but we want to um I I think that I would defer to a day on this particular matter and we do this on public and private property or just Public public property just public property right schools our buildings yeah okay just as an aside when buildings come down like the 12 Tire building do we require them to deal with rodents before they take it down other communities too need put that on I believe that some that is some work that's done is part of the demolition process and all the inspectors and all yeah all that goes on anyone else I was just remembering the park over on it's the park over here where we had incidents where Resa was concerned that their dog was eating the stuff so Washington par is it Washington Park yeah so ongoing I guess ongoing control they want to make sure that's properly funded right well I mean it's it's staff that's going out it's a day it's our health inspector going out and checking these himself so it's not necessarily a service Chris thanks Carlo um yeah I heard at the mail at s's SC car out the same thing with the rats with that even because of that uh obviously it's better now um but that was still an issue over there and I have seen like Carlo mentioned complaints previously we haven't heard a lot it's mainly been kiosk trash water Etc um so it's good to see that where I'm at is the 108 70825 uh sticking the money still with the funds for the roate mitigation because we don't want rats uh and then the rest of the money is either in water rates or or Paving um my future agenda item is related to Paving uh as well anyway so that's where I'm at I'm all set with spending $13 for scissors that you can get at the dollar store across the street like I I I I don't want to be that guy I know uh every year someone puts out a list of all major government spending I want I looked at that list and said I can get half the stuff across the street um I'm all set with that put it back into the water or redoing the roads Etc but the rodent thing it makes sense we don't want to deal with that so yeah um I don't want rodents agreed um one of the things I'd ask um I'm a little surprised at the um kind of the the senior money not being there and I don't know if there are other potential activities or agenda if you want you want to talk to that but one of the things that I know was was not money was not spent toward or let's say things related to the current Center in anticipation that it's not the long-term home and I think that's the right decision obviously things that have to happen have to happen but investing toward the future of it is probably not what we want to be doing so that that made sense I don't know from a programming point of view if you have any any other things in mind I know Sharon mentioned that you you guys had had a discussion I just I you know kind of first time seeing it so I want to hear if there are any any thoughts about it Jenna Wood Community Services director hello everyone um so basically a year ago I was here in Mark your spoton so a year ago we were here and we made these projections I was here with Chris um and some of the other team and the the supplemental program space I had projected 990,000 to be used towards supplemental programming space with the indication that maybe we would have something on Deck with the senior center and we could use some of that supplemental programming space money for a rental um and I thought it would be disingenuous to be like oh well we're going to just tie this money up and um have programming for like the next two years right um which we could do we could certainly we've programmed all the way till the end of 2025 with contracts and we're just waiting to get some of those back so we'll have programming we'll have meals until the end of next year um which is tremendous and going another year beyond that with programming again seemed a little bit of a reach because we don't know where these vendors are going to be in their lives we don't know where we're going to be at in at our Center so there was some unknowns with the programs um and but we did we set out to do exactly what we projected to do we did the audio visual system we um have all the programming lined up the feasibility study the programming staff support we transferred over so it's just that supplemental program space and um and speaking with the staff and I can't speak on behalf of all of the elder population of course but just with staff conversations conversations with Chris um we did see pickle ball as being a a really high up Priority um just based on some conversations that we've had some private donations that have been coming in the fact that on the recal presentation the pickle ball was located right next to the potential Center um and a majority of pickle ball players historically have been seniors um we know plus yes yes 60 plus sorry fastest growing sport in America yes fastest growing sport in America so I don't know if I'm sure things have changed now it's become more of an intergenerational sport of course a lot of a lot of folks are playing it um but from what Jim and I see personally in Recreation programs and I think even some of the folks here if I asked everyone to raise their hand and then asked everyone raise your hand if you're 60 plus um don't want to go there but but you know the data is in the room too of course so we thought that that kind of fit a need for supplemental programming space and would really tie into um a big need in our town so but but again it it is up to you and I'd like to build on what Jen Jen and I have spent a lot of time talking about this um and and Jim Sullivan and I have spent a lot of time talking about this I have sat with the pickle ball community and talked with them about this and I've talked with engineering and DPW about this and I think and to and with finance and and all of staff is on board with a recommendation that the 80,000 portion would go go to pickle ball um it's a group that was supposed to have this addressed um during the Birch meow Phase 2 project and they were fantastic working with the town understanding the noise issues that other communities have experienced and so they said yes we will we will come off that project and we will wait and we will wait and um and we appreciate that their posture during that but um if we have small resources in town um at Memorial Park it's um it is a a very popular uh sport you're going to hear more about that in the next segment of our your evening ahead of you um Jim has a great presentation to bring forward um but uh we have started looking into what this might look like what what do we even to anticipate what how would you how much would it cost is this something that can be done um and there's already been substantial fundraising toward this privately um there's an effort to to continue that work and part of the the the they're seeking um this board to do the next your next agenda item is to allocate that land for this purpose um should it be passed as a capital project in the future we would recommend um going forward with engineering design with these funds I believe that it fits best the spirit and the intention that um this board previously did in allocating additional space um it's under the Public Services section of the budget it um meets it it it meets a a slightly different population and also partly the same of our of our reading of of our um Pleasant Street Center um it it's Recreation it's outdoor space it's all the extra things so I think it meets the spirit of what these arpa funds were originally intended for um and uh it's something that can proceed we could potentially once we do the design with these funds um we could potentially embark on that work in the summertime it's an exciting thing I think it's exciting work that is a harbinger of other projects that may be happening in town potentially in that location but it's something that could happen uh starting next summer if we pass it but I know there are a lot of people really excited about raising money toward this effort there's some Smiles in the front row um and this is this is this is money we have that we can put to Great use that's not going to come around again right this is these are onetime special funds and being able to put these toward the design of these courts um what you what you have in front of you is sort of eight courts next to each other we might our designer may have a different plan that might make it less expensive for lighting to actually have lighting there um we may do a phas road we don't know but we think the design is the next best thing we think this is a responsible uh and ethical use of these funds um it's not to say that that Paving is not Mr Haley um we we know we can always use more funds for Paving we can always use more funds for Paving but we're not going to have these kinds of funds for this special purpose and so staff is really United um on on that particular recommendation but of course it is the pleasure of the so a couple thoughts on that one um if there is going to be a request to to get some town meeting money nominally this would lower that request if we how whatever we use sure well yeah so you know if it's something that that is you know being brought forward maybe using the Arun could be an interesting way of doing it um another question was just making sure that um there's it does need to be encumbered by December that's correct and we need to get every penny period shouldn't be anything left like no matter what you know not send get to December 30th right to figure out how to spend the rest of so kind of figuring that through making sure that it's you know we're doing the that we we need to that we can reasonably encumber for this time period and and get it done so you know we can talk about where it goes but hearing you know possibilities seeing where it goes um I think the other thing from my perspective is that because we're going to do this environmental study in a couple of weeks that gives us a lot more information also you can solidify some pieces and you know we're talking about assuring land thinking about where construction would go and I think that a great piece of what this AC of Living Center could do is cater to indora and Outdoor Sports 100% and those are all pieces that could make sense here so definitely something that should be in the consideration set and I just want kind of wanted to make sure that where where this is coming from what people are thinking and and different things that could happen so all I heard was pickall yeah but I was talking about you know dinner tomorrow and and all you were thinking about was pickleball that's why Hur come out of your mouth yeah um so we need to design something over there and that's fine um I'm a little concerned about the timing and I also um in complete agreement we're not giving any money back um to the federal government because they were so generous the best we can do is spend it so um you know if if the majority of the board I'm I'm worried about the timing we getting ahead of things if we're designing courts where the building isn't that flushed out so I'm wondering whether what the implications are putting money towards a design and then having it not be relevant because we go on a different but that being said if we got to the end of the year you know in general I would support that and we need to do a good job designing it and um I I I don't argue that it it is in the spirit of the money that was allocated to the into the senior center just worried about losing it and I think the selector could pivot pretty quickly and put it into sewer sewer fun everybody wants a lower sewer bill so it's kind of where I am with that I'm just worried about the timing it's October so um Mr chairman if I may yeah um I think you you bring up a good point because the pickleball Community has already committed substantial funds to this project my understanding from the recreation administrator is it's about $140,000 um and we anticipate that they are intending to do fundraising to raise more than that um the town uh the recreation department um has a line item for courts every year as part of their um operating uh Capital Improvement that's $100,000 and we would designate that also for pickle ball courts um we would not we would separate the project we would separate the pickle ball courts from the recount projects they're going to you know the the work has been done by the designer bhna has brought this forward and and raised this possibility which is a beautiful thing through the feasibility study and we've seen opportunity before us so because if we separate this project we're not doing a potential debt exclusion that's including a project that's already got private funds coming toward it and some so we think that that makes Financial sense to separate those pieces and be able to move forward with pickle ball in the spring bring it forward to town meeting to see what the appetite of of town meeting wants to do um but we'll have in hand the design and the design can that can be encumbered encumbered with you know our vendor activity Tas who does engineering Consulting so we can we can do that we can hit that timing and we would separate those projects so separate them but they would proceed along and the the separate designers or be like the same designer just activity toas is a is a different they're they're a different designer yeah but the there there's Harmony among all of these pieces with our with our OPM on board with our designer and I could see where that could work and I have to tell you I was pretty stunned when the recal presentation showed pickleball course but it was explicit that they're not part of the project so I appreciate some of the explanation as to why that may have been so cuz I really understand I think they've been they were always considered part of the project with bhna is that correct yeah so pickle ball was always a consideration in the overall project um specifically outdoor recreation so Trails a walking path was always in it in ball um it was flushed out at Oakland Road and obviously not at Pleasant Street and we couldn't have it at Pleasant Street either so the designer ended up separating it out because of that reason because it wasn't equal across all the different sites that you could have pickle ball at each site so they just kind of parsed it out um and they did to Jan's point they gave us an original quote for Four Four Courts at 400,000 so if we are looking at8 courts it'd be 800,000 roughly so um kind of looks like that 80,000 would pan out quite beautifully and that was unplanned um it really was 10% really was um so Melissa do you have any comments questions uh nope not at this time I do like everyone said and I think we're definitely all agreement we don't want to give any money back so um I'm okay with the pickle ball thought um I think that would benefit many people in our community um like Karen mentioned timing is a little bit of a concern and I we don't want to lose any of that money but as long as we can you know pivot at some point if we know we're going to have extra money and put it someplace else on time with that yeah we could do that in December we're just going to encumber it with a contract so yeah all we need to do but you have to go out to bid right or no no Engineering Services procurement so that's how you're able to not have to worry about 30 days all the other okay that is correct all right that's a great question it's any couple audience comments no I don't want no cuz I open up to that no um so it says the relocation vote do we have a a motion are we ready to vote I'm not um I think let's let's see what's going on you got the bonus of we're going to have this study done Pronto which can answer a lot of questions pretty quickly what what questions could it answer if it turns out that we're finding some issues on a different part of that area that's being tested then sealing it could be a great solution could be the right thing to do in calculation so and that's not something that's that's out there that's something that's here it's going to be done in a couple of weeks so I am I I love you know thinking about these ideas I think we we are going to react quickly I we know I think we know that Simon's way is the place where pickleball is going to need to go I don't want to preclude something for the sake of a week or two that answers questions that we need answer what's the difference I guess you might want to put it in a different place if it turns out that the the area being tested has all sorts of of things that need to be sealed then sealing it with courts might be a great solution or hard toop for parking you're talking about location I'm talking about location location yes yeah I think for me we discussed it for the first time now we can vote the next one I mean we have to see just double check with the day and make sure that money is going to get used that's still included and then the 880,000 is the remainder correct that is correct yeah if you want to do just the rodent litigation or we can get some more clarification and you would pared out parts of so you're saying it's 880,000 but the rad in is 12 so that's 92 and we had 108 so there's more right well that's what we got to figure out we probably won't have the results till our November meeting realistically does that seem right I think that's about right we're we it'll take a couple of weeks um I know they were already they've already been out there to like look at the side and walk the side and figure out where they're going to put their test Wells and so forth so that that's so we're doing a phase two we're going right to phase two we're drilling we drilling the wells to do the testing okay yeah so I don't think it'll take a couple I don't know I think yeah November will be yeah I think it answers a lot of questions for the community in terms of how we can use that space and figure out what the right things are and if it does come up with some kind of contaminant issue um as I've been told so far that basically sealing it with hard top um is a pretty good way of of it's it's not mitigation it's sealing or dealing or whatever the right encapsulation encapsulation thank you so all I hear is potentially a 100 pickle ball courts I don't that's what iar so this design it's going to do an analysis about a reasonable number of Courts for Community verze right we got to seal the whole thing you might want to think about parking and a few other things while you're at I know it starts with a P get that close F perious this was a good discussion I don't I think we have a discussion we know what monies we have I think we should wait for the I think the board would agree maybe not that we should wait for the test results I mean we're going to encumber this money uh definitely and it's just a matter of we still have some time we'll keep you post On's come back from soil testing and we'll um get a little bit more detail on the health proposal and bring that back to you with a final number does that make sense that sounds all right great conversation thank you very much I will buy a day a pair of scissors from across the street and you guys scissors are expensive but that's not for the rodents right oh we oh my gosh Mark do we want we want a 5 minute recess or after dark you take five great all right five minute recess five's good I just e e e e e e e e e e e what you've all been waiting [Music] fora Kaitlyn I think uh perfect you're way ahead of me um um so my name is Jim svin I'm the recreation administrator I've been in this role for 18 months and when I started here for the first eight months I would have thought I was the reading pick of all administrator for the town every week every day pretty much for my first eight months had something to do with pickle ball um Jane did a great job I think just talking as well and kind of talking about our vision moving forward um we know it's an active group here and I think for the past 18 months I think felt like we've kind of been stuck in the mud a little bit and we didn't know to get out of it what to do how to proceed to find courts we looked at things we looked at the back parking lot over at Simon's way doing something temporary and at the time I was opposed to it and I mean I know I didn't come off probably in the best light um I've always said I I know pick a ball is up and coming I support it I support Recreation I think the situation we're finding oursel in now is the ideal situation I got some slides I know you guys got a lot to get to I think we're all in agreement that we need courts in town um so Caitlyn if you can uh go to the first slide I'll try to make this quick I think I'll be 10 minutes at the most um so at our last Recreation committee meeting we did um have a vote I want to be clear we had a vote to bring this to the select board to have a discussion and vote to recommend pickleball courts to be allocated at the parcel land that I'm going to show you um in a few moments um in the vote 60 there was three full members that were not in attendance I talked to Eric Gap and tonight he said to make sure that you guys know those three were in support of this as well too if they were in attendance that that meeting they would have voted for this so it would have been 9 to Z as well um I'm sure a lot of you guys know I know the folks in the crowd know um the process right now we're at Memorial Park um we're making it work um it's not ideal it's certainly not sustainable with the growth I'm going to show you in the next slides that we're going to bring up um we have two tennis courts that have been changed over to four pickle go back one more Caitlyn I don't want people jump ahead there's a lot of numbers I know we talked a lot about numbers tonight so thank you um where you can reserve two weeks in advance so the way it works is two weeks prior to a schedule date um you have to wake up right and early 6:00 a.m. and you can reserve courts the courts go very quick the issue we had when I first started working here folks weren't able to reserve courts there was some anomalies in the system where there was some out of town folks that were coming as well some folks were booking more than one or two courts so the first couple months we worked on getting that system right and I think we've done a better job um this year there are a few more courts available um off peak hours which there really aren't many off peak hours when I'm going to show you the next slide um but we also developed open Play open Play happens on Friday this is available to anyone to show up to go down to the cours from 2: to 8:00 at night they can learn the system they can learn what level player they are learn who to play with meet some people it's a big social event and I know it's been very well received um this year as well so that has helped um 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. courts are available Monday through Friday Saturday and Sunday um we do not charge residents any fees for reservations non-res residents $25 per reservations um we don't get a lot of non-residents booking here which is good but there are some non-residents that will mix them with some of these other groups um as far as usage if you go to the next side Caitlyn this is by the numbers so the past week I looked at every reservation we've had over the past 5 months in one month say for the month of May there are one , 488 potential hours of available bookings out of those potential hours 1233 hours are booked that's 83% if you're looking at courts around town like during 8:00 to 2:00 whether it's tennis basketball you don't see many folks out there right they're working kids are in school you drive by these courts They are packed 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 typically 3 to Four Courts um and from 2 to 7:00 at night it is very hard to find any openings whatsoever all four cords are booked um June it drops a little bit it does get warmer you'll see some openings at 12:00 1:00 just because it is so hot out same with July and then they will play all the way up until snow up until December as well too so these quarts are getting used probably way too much um it's not sustainable um because there are folks that are getting left out because we don't have enough quarts and I know we talked about eight quarts I think eight quarts is is The Sweet Spot six is great it's better than four but I think eight we could benefit from a lot more on the right side if you would to look at the courts hourly every hour and counted how many people were on them each hour in May I'm not saying these are all different folks that are coming into town but you can book up to an hour or two hours but if you were to do that and average three people per Court typically it's four I would say it's typically four but some people do play singles six a usually there's many so I took the average of three on a court and this is what you would see so if you were there and you counted how many people are on the court typically it's probably 16 per hour month of May there 3,699 they're not all different people but that is a huge number so in 5 months there's 18,35 people kind of on those courts about the time which is huge this is a huge community that we have here um so I think those numbers are pretty impressive next slide these ones will be quick this was information from the swc I just want to reiterate I know you guys have seen these slides these slides were pulled from them directly um top priorities based on the survey results they had um for the filling responses one was an additional hockey rank and number two that came on that was the pickall courts at 73 these folks wrote these things in that they wanted to see that and then below there was um field space question two rank the priorities number one outdoor athletic fields and courts certainly need pickle ball courts and we certainly need more fields in this town as well so those are the two questions and pickall found themselves on both those next slide this is what was recommended um by SW before they Sunset it and again pickle ball quartz was up there as well go to the next slide and this is what they had presented to you as well there was a demand that was identified um the biggest thing is the sound un likely to negatively impact neighbors and we're talking about sound when we you look at where these quarts which you're going to see a map of um the quarts are approximately 800 ft away from the closest Home on Simon's way put that in perspective where we are right now to Memorial Park that's 800 ft away so that's how far the courts are away and over in that Simon white area there are a number of trees that will also help prohibit that sound um next slide going to move you along the recal committee as well this is what was brought up as well um at the select board meeting so where you see the courts um I think you guys can kind of see it it is on Range Road it sits uh kind of parallel to where they are right now that is with six courts and this is what they propos with the the reading Center for active living um this is where they said it would be best fit and if you look at that Land There is a little red dotted line that's over there as well that's kind of like the the border of where we kind of want to keep everything in with wetlands and things out there so it's a small sliver of land that honestly I don't know what else you can utilize it for other than parking or a small open Green Space it almost fits in there perfectly with those six quarts it's not impeaching on the parking that they would need for the center for active living or the building as well too so that's what was presented the next one we're going to show you is the eight quarts it's basically just bumping it up a little further down really again not impeding on any of the design that was brought forth um by recel as far as what's great about the site we are able to put lights in there there was some um questions about conservation and the runoff with the light as well too I did speak with um Chuck terone the conservation administrator he said he didn't see any issues with this as well and he did talk about the land contamination and the encapsulation which you guys already had mentioned too and he said that is the best remedy as well if there was to be some contaminates in there as well um parking Memorial Park has issues with parking there's not a lot of space accessibility right now is a problem as well there is a small hill that folks have to walk up to when that parking lot is full they got to park over on Harrison or right out in front of the new um stone wall that they just did as well so it's a little bit of a trek um for folks to get up to as well um and as far as Memorial Park too as far as the closest home that house is about 200 ft away um and we have spoken with those neighbors before they have come to Recreation committee meetings and like Jane had said pickle ball understands that noise is an issue and they have been great at trying to accommodate the needs of the neighbors down there as well too um next one not sure if that could be it the goals and the next steps with Jane I think you did a great job honestly when you done talking I felt like I didn't need to get up here and even say one thing we always need you Jim yeah it's my first time here so I'm glad I got to get this out of the way as well too um the next steps um obviously we're asking you if you can kind of allocate this land for us to begin the process of moving forward in trying to get um the momentum that we already have um moving forward um we're already in the process of testing the land for contamin that's coming I think it's uh it's close to about $14,000 that Recreation is coming from our revolving fund for all the programs that we run we obviously bring in some money so we're using some of our money to put it towards that as well um to get that process moving develop some initial plans estimates site prep figure out what it's going to look like and we'd obviously rely on the pickleball Community to kind of give us input on you know specific fencing where should the fencing be how much space do we need from left to right back and front as well accessibility um for folks that want to play down there as well too um we know it's it's aggressive um would love to get on the the warrant for Springtime meeting but there is a lot that needs to be done um and we'd love to get something moving forward next year if possible um as well like I said I know they've been trying to get courts here for longer than I've been here um I think the timing is right I think we have an ideal location over at Simon's way and um the last thing I'll leave you with too when I walk into basically the first month on this job walked into all of these postcards that found themselves on the desk and I'll read exactly what it says on the top dear reading Recreation Recreation committee please support dedicated pick ofall Courts at Simon's way now basically I'll reiterate the same thing basic say dear select board please uh support these dedicated courts over at uh Simon's way as well so thank you guys very much for having me hopefully we can continue to move forward I know uh rppa is here the next I don't think I have another slideshow right Kaitlyn I'm good there we go all right thank you guys again for listening all right I think there's one more slide I do I have a question so if um the center for active living is not in existence parking would for these courts would be where I would assume there is a space CLE there yeah right now I don't know if you've been down there lately there is a space on the right side where it's almost like graveled that I think they had some sewer work or something done over there right now so it would probably be a little bit below it right now so there would be a parking lot that would need to be there right now need to be built um yes and I did speak with Chuck and he said I mean it could be something like right now it is like gravel as well too so there would need to be a parking lot that would be put in there with I think the understanding is if that does land there it's obviously going to be a nicer parking lot moving forward that's some we'd have to look at as a cost as well too the reason I'm asking cuz obviously our tenants are right there so we're going to have to Loop them in and let them know assure them that we're not taking over their parking and I think in the winter as well too another benefit would be as well there's going to be some extra spots over there as well when you have the big skating events if there's not pickle ball going on there be some open spots as well the hockey events in the winter will be snow on there there going to be an open mon through as well too so folks won't have to walk across to the church yeah a winwin okay thank you hi I'm Eileen Manning I'm a member of the reading pickleball Players Association board um thank you for having us speak here today we'd like to express our gratitude to Jim and to Jenna and to Jane for all the work they've done to help us figure out how to make these pickle ball courts happen in Reading um since founding in January 2023 to advocate for courts and fundraise for them we have raised $120,000 and we have an additional at this point $55,000 pledge to fund these dedicated public lighted pickle ball courts in our town um we have received feedback from potential donors that they are willing to continue to help us raise funds here and get us to a goal of $200,000 put to towards these courts but what will help us reach that goal goal is to have secured land you know right now we're raising on the hope that there will be cords um and you know we've done you know a pretty good job of getting some money to show you that we're serious about it and we'd like to be able to continue to do that and support this project and we ask for your support to dedicate that land so that we can get to our goal any questions from this thanks Carlo um more just a comment I hope that I know the pickle ball players have been bumped around about 95 different boards committees Etc over the past few years uh it's not that exhausting to me seeing it again and again and again but for them I can only imagine how much of a a deal it's been this entire time I understand there's processes and steps you have to follow but I honestly hope I never see them again until the April town meeting boat essentially like we just have to get something done um it looks as if that is on the table uh I just hope that finally this can be their you know last stop before this uh gets squared away and then one other question for Jim I guess do we know what the snow scenario is going to be like for this year because whatever you do for this has to work for that so if we're going to be shoveling not shoveling whatever scenario we will come up with some plans there's other towns that I've spoken with I know last year there was some issues about locking unlocking and years past they were locked and then they were unlocked when the snow would melt as well so I mean I think if we have dedicated pick ofall courts are you talking this year you talking if we get stage both so whatever you have down there it's going to be snowed on just like Memorial Park is going to be snowed on too so hopefully there's a fix for whatever is going to happen that we're going to spend all the money on can correlate to what currently exists over here for this season yeah I I would absolutely love to keep them open full-time I know in other towns I believe in Lexington um it falls on DPW in parks and wck and they actually use snow blowers to blow off the snow when they can when it's not overly heavy um as far as shovels they will allow shovels but they need to have the plastic bottoms as well too um there's squeegees that can be used I'd be willing to have them be open in the winter if we can come up with they plan come up with some rules as well too on who's taking care of them how they're taking care of them my biggest issue is obviously them getting damaged ice melt being put on carts just to melt them just to get in there a few days um prior to possibly melting um something that'll be on my agenda probably for the next Rec committee meeting to come up with what's going to happen this winter um as well and I know the neighbors over there as well too they wanted a little bit of rest in the winter as well they had come to me before about keeping those courts closed too so that that was weighing in on me as well too so I mean yeah there needs to be some kind of concrete plan I agree with you as well too I mean you guys would love to play year round um and the location over there at Simon's way I think would allow that without you know impeding on any neighborhoods as well as long as we come up with a solution whether it's a volunteer group it's our PPA kind of working together to come up with a crew that is out there with leaf blowers kind of bling off the snow if there is a light dusting so I'm open to suggestions and working with the RPA Community to get them out there they want to around they want to play outside as well I think it's good for the health yeah I know the priority for the DPW should be Street sidewalk schools Etc I understand that uh and if pickle ball at the end can be done fantastic if not it is what it is but I just like to see whatever hashed out here so it can work at the nice brand new location we can get creative we have a volunteer coordinator as well that's always looking for certain jobs as well too so I mean I'm open to to reach out and I can reach out to some Scouts as well too I think it's just a lot of preactive planning that we can certainly start looking at moving forward awesome thank you thank you anyone else Melissa pickled up I only had one quick question and I just want to um I love the idea I mean clearly there's a need for these courts so I fully support that but I did have one question is there any concerns with the gun range over there in these courts and how loud that is I mean I live on B and I can hear it so it's kind of like we came full circle with the the noise now it's going to maybe be a little bit out the way it's obviously no I just I mean it's not like that gun range is going anywhere so I just want to bring that up so you know I mean I I honestly think it helps the case getting these courts down here I've talked to a number of colleagues who work in other towns and they are having trouble finding spots and I tell them the situation we in it's kind of back side of a hockey rink there's no homes close by and there's actually a rifle r over there as well and I honestly think it's probably the most ideal spot probably in New England to to put pickle ball courts to be honest with you perfect great um and I don't think unless any folks here are opposed to having nice permanent courts and hearing a few rounds go off but what I hear from the pickle ball Community is when they hit that ball perfectly on their paddle it does make a certain sound and they they actually enjoy that hearing that pop they know they hit the ball right so I mean they got it right next to the ear so they are used to it as well too and looking at the faces here I don't think it's going to be an issue we have kids that are out there playing soccer as well the opposing teams they'll come out there and not realize there's a gun range there too and they'll get a little startled but after a little bit or baseball as well too um they do get used to it um so I think it's a good alternative to not having cords and I think everyone agree as well but good point AB thank you good thank you would you just looking at who's still in the room would you entertain taking the ace committee next for those folks is the other one does thek have a bunch no we can we can take out um can we not tonight or do we have to I'm sorry we got people in the room waiting that okay that's the reason all right all we're doing is talking about does does one of us want to do it or sorry do what the designate so I'm just well maybe trying to figure out who's in the room is here we need a motion to take [Music] something the chair yeah um we don't need a motion to take things out order well how about just a clarification for those watching at home that we are going to take something out of order all right we only two agenda items left before future agenda and meeting update on Downtown parking kiosk roll out M Shane has some numbers on it um the past two weeks and then ad hoc commemorative establishment committee discuss select board design appointment that means there one of us going to do it or we're not picking tonight this is discussion does does anyone have interest and if we don't sure um I know we're all busy and there are a passionate group of folks lots of folks that are very passionate about this um committee and I'm very supportive of this committee but I don't have a lot of bandwidth and I would not be opposed to the select Court choosing a designate for this committee I spoke with Albert and while I want to show that cect board supports this and I believe we have don't want to be a benchwarmer and I you know and if other select members also feel like we're kind of tapped out with bandwidth um I would I would be in full support of um the way I thought about it is that we shall have a number of applicants for the other two resident positions and we could pick our design out of that applicant pool unless someone's dying to join but I don't think it needs my point is I don't think it needs to be a select board member so it might be in a little bit of opposition to your thoughts initial thoughts I'm same kind of scenario I I think this is a very important activity I don't have the bandwidth that I'd want to dedicate to it um and I in fact would be open to having another Community member kind of fulfill the role of of RC as a possibility at least to discuss yeah Chris I'm twofold a I don't have the B with either uh at the moment unfortunately uh and B uh the specific point of this entire committee hinged upon us and we are not even going to have somebody on it that doesn't make sense to me at all so like I I I understand that we can selected designate I don't recall the last time that's ever actually happened since I've been here that one of us hasn't taken the spot on a committee um and I think it would send a bad message that one of us isn't there I mean I I understand I'm saying I can't do it myself but um I don't see how we could not have someone do it I really don't not when we're like it was created because of us and now we're just going to be like you know what just have somebody else go instead just where is our role just to sit back and and wait till the end like I don't know that's kind of where I'm at Melissa where do you stand I would love to take this on but I just cannot at the moment um I do agree with Chris that I feel like it should be one of us but I can't I can't really push that considering I'm in the same boat as the rest of us and saying that I can't take it on right at this moment um so I'm not really sure what we got from here well we we just here disc discuss it and I'll I'll on the last one and I think it makes sense this is a big board uh we have to appoint two residents and three Associates as well so we have five plus this that's six to appoint so there's going to be a lot of applications I'm assuming staff members there's only two residents three three Associates three Associates as well can we pull up the charge cuz the charge I looked at showed two residents and select for Des I think it's um and an associate members too yes I I'll pull it up right now I maybe I was mistaken charge I had so sure couple of appointments pull it right up you might be appointing staff procedur like so yeah so there's one select board member or designate appointed by the select board you want me to go through all of them a design of the office of equity and social justice appointed by Albert uh an employee of the Reading Police Department two reading residents appointed by the select board so it's three appointments so far a resident student um one member of the Coalition of us or their designate a school committee member or their Design One Council of Aging member or a design and a design from the reading public library and board of Library trustees appointed by the board of Library trustees and then the associate membership there are three associate members also appointed by the select board oh okay apologize my but it's not in the bullet list Karen so there's a bullet list everybody and the associate members are just in the paragraph below so so that's that's why um yeah so that's why but so you would have um I I have met with some of the um the folks that are interested in applying for this this this this board um there's just so much energy and enthusiasm um from just a fantastic group of people that I was privileged to meet um last month so I think that you'll have um that vasque will have a number of people to choose from and you will not have a shortage of people information this isn't a vas job because vasque okay deals with standing committees and ad hoc committees have been since I've been on the board in 2020 um we we deal with ad hoc committees okay Town manager committee summ way committee every other committee sure okay any rate the board will have no shortage of excellent candidates uh would would be my anticipation um if the board were to choose to to uh have a design member what what was your comment vas is not going to interview these people no that's not what we said yes it is it's not the task of the ask it comes to us like you expect us to interview 20 30 people I don't think it's going to be 20 30 people but we the seel the vasque does standing committees and the select board does ad hoc committees this is an adhoc committee I think vas does all the Committees nope it's not true we appointed you to the Sim way committee I know that could we as a designate for the Sim way committee so I think the question is who's going to do the the the interviewing and one of the questions would be either do do it or do we ask the Mas to do it basically even though it's not a regular go we could possibly ask them to do it we interviewed 40 candidates for the town the initial Town manager um meeting we we do ad hoc committees we we need a s board created we interviewed how many people for what like how many remember all the volunteers for um the initial Town manager um selection committee like 40 remember there were like 40 I mean I think it's doable and I don't think it's going to be 40 people I don't think it's going to be 40 I didn't say 40 yeah but it but do it it that way the other suggestion I had because I know we don't want to be here all night is that I would certainly be open to um a separate little small meeting to just go through the applicat and get it done you have a slightly different topic but very much on topic in in kind of listening to what all of us are saying maybe if if we can't be kind of that full member we ask if one of us would serve as a liaison a more direct liaison to the group so other words we designate someone per the charter but we'd also have a bit more of a direct Channel back so the the responsibility would not be to attend all the meetings but it would be to be engaged somehow and kind of be a liaison to it more directly as opposed to all five of us serving as that liais yeah that that makes sense but I I kind of expected uh I I don't have bask uh policies memorized but I I just expected that you and Melissa would do these interviews it's not how we do it the vas was just to help of the annual anual standing committee agreements I think it's more of a policy decision we can do and break and do whatever we feel like at any point because that's the way that this stuff goes I don't see the harm in doing it I just we all just said we don't have time to do anything and now we're just going to create more time for this stuff to get done I I still think this sends a bad message the only time in my four years on the board that we picked a designate is for the ace committee that's what we want to go down in history with I mean well if any of us if no one's stepping up it's not anyone's fault I just say that CHR my impression we didn't create this committee members of our community came to us and asked us to create this committee and we said yes I I actually I don't I don't agree with you on this we did not push for the committee our community members some of whom are in the room tonight push for this committee we're facilitating it we signed a a a a pledge back in the day to go ahead and do this that's what we no that was like a one day celebr we agreed to have a celebration and we fell down and didn't do it we didn't agree to I don't think that's accurate but whatever we're getting you the semantics I I just to mandic we I did sign a proclamation said we're going to have a celebration day and I didn't do it the proclamation wasn't to form a committee that was not correct I remember that yes but here we are we agreed to do it right I hear you loud and clear this is a really hard one it's important and that's the point and the other thing is I don't want to get in the way of the momentum you got momentum that's moving you get we drive it forward we need to help it continue and go now and not I'm to be a liaison I I cannot come to any more meetings I am happy to be a liaison I just can't all right I I would like to move this forward that none of us have the time not because of desire to do this and then we will get the applicant pool and pick a Destiny or not or pick someone that's come to us and advocate for themselves that we all agree upon because I think we have to I think like our design I guess we should all agree and and like by by vas interviewing however many applicant and just like we do boards and committees which is different is going to save us a lot of time but I I just think that the the the uh applications for this committee went out I mean is is is live correct yes it is y and we got the okay so and we're keeping it open for the rest of the month through November one through through the rest of the month all right so we have three more weeks for people to apply if anyone's listening uh to this committee uh either on download online come to town hall it's a onepage document and um so once applications are closed on November 1st we're we're going to take however many they are and interview man at November meeting or have a separate meeting why don't we just see how many come in and I personally I'm open to either that's M have mask to it but that's just me because I'm not on mask I know I'm getting that thinkk you for being honest well yeah I mean I think it's part of your job iagree well you know we sign up for a lot of things unfortunately um all right I think Al so Karen said she she' Le potentially so there's a piece of an option for us to be consider yeah yeah we'll we'll get there I'm not worried about that I'm not worried about that um okay so information sir um just a question can I fill you in on what our vision was with the designate that might help you in terms of your engagement and I hear you loud and clear Chris and really appreciate what you're saying do you want me to no I'm good I think we're good I honestly I think we're good we get it thank you um all right are we ready no motion oh yeah there's no motion yeah just discuss it'll it'll come up when it's time to start the pointing yeah once we get the applications have one once it hits 50 let us know it hits 20 but you know okay thank you I think I don't think it'll be that I think it's I still think you'll have excellent an excellent turn after thank you um so so parking as you know and you may have heard earlier this evening um has rolled out um in the uh in the two lots in the upper Haven lot and the Brandy corot I believe we have deputy chief amandola who has uh stayed up with us and thank you yeah Deputy amandola for for sticking on um so she can answer questions um parking is the purview of the police department but we work together um on all things so what you have before you is some early data that we have received um and I'll just take you left to right so you have Monday through Sunday for the first week and then the second week we have two weeks out um the number of daily transactions how many of those are in the upper Haven lot how many of those are in the Brandy Court lot the number of users that paid for for it versus you know they had didn't have to pay anything because they had the free hour the number of users that use the app the percent of users using the app on a given day um we'll post this data to the website um as well so um 1 hour for for free is listed the percent of users that are one hour um then the amount of money we collected through the app the amount of money through the kiosk how many coin transactions we have and the percent de coin transactions um and so we have that so the the bottom line number of daily transactions for the two weeks the two weeks total is 867 transactions and day over day they um they increased so you saw quick what transactions like that's just the number people who went to the kiosk that's or the app or the app or the app or the app the kiosk or the app okay people that that entered their their plate one way or another um of that of that total 65% % we're 1 hour users we're there for an hour or less um and so that's 564 uh individuals so over the two weeks um you'll also note that on Saturday and Sunday we found this when we pulled the data yesterday that there are people that were paying for parking and you'll note that those are also all in the app so for some reason the app is charging on the weekends you you don't you know they're l in and choosing to pay on the app so we have put in a call to pay by phone to have those all refunded um and you know we can we can see the I didn't show you the transactions we have the granularity down to the second for each transaction and what kind of a card it was and the plate number and so forth but that's not going to put people's plates on so I'm not doing that so great in terms of kind of getting back but can the system be um both shut down and labeled so people don't have Temptation on Saturdays and Sundays well it should be if you particularly people coming from out of town right like when I go to Hampton or Andover wherever you know I'm just I know I have to pay I'm I don't know what the rules are so it should tell them don't have to pay tell we're not going to take your money literally it says it's free parking free parking on the weekend that's right it's free you go to Boston you know Sunday's free in Boston Christine and can I also mention it does shut off because that was one of the problems you can't pay before 8 a.m. that's right and after 5:00 p.m. so I don't understand why it wouldn't it would not be shutting off for the weekend well that's the kiosk does shut off for the weekend it's just the app it's the pay by phone app okay we pay them to maintain it we do yeah no this is a this is a ticket will get fixed yeah so this is not what we signed up for they know it's 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. so generally payer phone is very responsive and I think we'll have this all everybody will be refunded it's if you look I think the people that pay on Saturday and Sunday it's like you know not many it's 16 the first week and uh and just 12 the second so that's for for Di Minimus dollars $11 and $26 so those will get refunded anyway because that's not right so so that's just that's just one thing so that's one we pull the data and we see okay this is an issue we'll fix that um and there's a number of issues that have been raised um and raised from our business owners who came today that brought up a lot of really good points and and concerns and and we share those concerns um there's other data on the bottom of your sheet that talks about employee placards and this is just this is data over the last 5 years how many placards we sold um and what's interesting is so in 2022 we we increased the number of um employee parking spots around the downtown to 250 we added 80 spots after the park committee was formed um so in 2022 we sold 236 in 23 223 employee placards were sold and in 2024 so far 218 of placards have been sold out of 250 um they've had TW just 12 requests for 12 more since we turned on the paid parking um so that's just information I I think that you know there's a lot of concern about how parking PID parking is impacting our businesses and and I share that concern and and you know I I don't want to mind anything that our businesses are telling us um this data is is the first two weeks it's hard to draw conclusions from two weeks of data if there's more that the board would like to see if you have other questions more data there's a lot we can get so this is just a taste of of what I thought was you know interesting um and applicable so we we can go through this see what more you would like to look at what what interests you um and and see how it changes um over the next two weeks we can we can take a look at it in that way as well what we are seeing a number of people using the app um and getting more comfortable with the app from week to week um and Melissa you just you just mentioned that the uh the Brandy Court lot for example the the the kiosks don't come on before 8: a.m. so if somebody wants to Upper Haven upper Haven okay you're I think that's true in all of the in all the kiosks they don't come on early um and and they're not going to the police department is not going to start enforcement there until 9: or after so if somebody's going to like a I understand that but there's a yes true you're right they won't start enforcement but the tricky part is is that you have residents that are going to classes that start at that Pilates place at 8: a.m. that starts at 8 so they're worried that they're going to get tickets because their class starts today but the app doesn't turn on till so we and I talked to several of those um people on Friday right and so they have probably an hourong class or something like that so they wouldn't get back out to the lot until like 9:15 maybe something so I think that's something that we can communicate with our parking you know officer enforcement officer we're not they have a free hour and we're not out there to you know go get them I don't know Christine are you on the line yes and yeah no when I was thinking of that you know overall we have to do this for the majority of businesses and what's best for everyone so it's hard to look at each business and what schedule works for them we can't turn them on before 8 because that's just our regulation um and I don't know that you can preset it on the app ahead of time and that's something maybe we can ask but yeah we know you get the first hour free so I always tell Bridget like go slow give them the time um in the morning to you know we're really trying to look for the people that are staying a lot longer than an hour you know I just got a quick question do we do we know how many spots are in each because the usage is so dramatic we we do know off the top of my head how many but we do know Chris do you remember how many spots are in each lot DPW knows speaking on upper Haven uh only uh I do not know the answer to that okay um are they somewhat equal I don't think so okay no no um Brandy Court has a lot more maybe 20 more I would say I don't have the number top of my head but they have more so they have more okay that's helpful so they have more okay so we see we can see from this where the usage is yeah and no there's more usage at the upper Haven lot um and you know another comment we've heard about is the signage is difficult we agree the signage is difficult the visual when you're driving into the upper Haven lot there's it's just visually cluttered right there's there's businesses on one side there's signs there's the fence there's there's a lot there's a lot going on in that lot so um I've talked to DPW about moving the signs down a little bit so they're more at at a level that works and then changing some of the signs but we're open to um to other changes as well so and suggestions y so this dumb cough like do we have to default it for two hours cuz I paid a dollar and I didn't need to pay a dollar so does it have to default to two hours could it just default hour no so that's just the that's the home screen it default to the 2 hours because that's when the payment would begin right so you could press so I'm following instructions and I lost my dollar so like a lot of my you know a lot of people need the hour rather then go down the one so could you just defaulted the free hour hey we're giving you the free hour and then let me say oh no I need more than that but because that's what I'm used to I think at other kiosks that would be so go ahead I will say I put a ticket in with so we don't have control of those screens it's like a big Engineering Process through the IPS I did put a requested to them to make that first hour a lot more obvious explain that well um and I and I will say this first hour has been problematic it's not something that they do often so that has caused us you know enforcement uh concerns and um so but most people that have asked and emailed me once they understand oh I do have to put my plate in for the hour they understand and they're okay with it but it is hard we're trying to get the word out that you have to put your plate in and I was going to say so so I'm a resident I'm here all the time but our businesses have people coming in hopefully new people coming in so I you know it's really like the first time and anyway if we could change that great I did want to give you some feedback that I was patronizing a business uh a little further south over by the chocolate truffle and they um I asked them to call the police business line because they said there are people parking there now that are coming down and moving every 2 hours so maybe they don't know where the other employee Park is I'm going to assume they don't know where the employee parking is so but I think we going to need a little more enforcement while we're getting people used to this okay and I told her please take pictures and call RPD Bridget we can respond to that before um couple of questions if I could so first one can you in terms of data that would be great um it'd be great to find out how long people are staying so I know the percentage that are there for an hour but how long our our folks thing what's that like is it two hours is the bulk of folks is it 6 hours it's the bulk of folks well I think the bulk of folks are an hour obviously an hour so so yeah so we see the 60 and 70% right how long do they stay when they don't stay an hour my guess is it's two but let's just see that the correct answer to that and I'm sure Melissa is going to agree with me the correct answer is they are staying for zero hours they're leaving they're no longer coming downtown that is the sign ific number compared to the insignificant numbers that are on this piece of paper in front of me and you can continue Mark with whatever you were going to say sry to cut you off but like uh I can gladly get into the scenario that's unfolding here uh that we were out there for eight hours in the first hour that was it I texted Jane and Matt had no clue that this was even on the agenda because I read it over the weekend uh and I said we got to get the kios thing uh on the agenda this can't wait I don't care what we're going to do and it was already on the agenda so it is what it is but the answer is zero hours they're leaving and they ain't coming back let me continue if I could first thing is to understand how long people are are hoping to stay trying to stay second of all is um the programming thing so I I had no idea that this was like a major engineering feat whenever we want to make a change is that really the case it's not a major engineering it's just we we can't go in and control ourselves so something we want yeah it's it's IPS has to make that change for us y got it okay and that can sometimes take time as we're finding out are we allowed so many changes in the first year per our contract or it's just no we CH we're paying for the change no oh that's no we There's No Limit There's No Limit okay cuz we're paying a yearly fee what we're paying we pay yeah we pay and we we pay a monthly fee per mon $25 per Kos y um so the other question that came up um the woman who was talking about sorry the flower store I remember her name right now down at Brandy Court noting that the spots on the street are two hours free and the spots on the back are essentially 1 hour free is that something we can think a little bit about in terms of what we might do I I also appreciate her comment about delivery van spot or spot but maybe that's something to at least think about um from police it's an Enforcement issue and also I think she was talking about having designated as a voting space it's the first I heard about that but I think yeah interesting comment and maybe you know whether that's front or back I don't know maybe that's worth asking folks what they prefer but might be very easy to do in the back actually usually the loading zone excuse me is for multiple uh it's not just for one person so it might not right understood so would be a loading zone and maybe one spot is wrong maybe it's more than one spot maybe it's one on each side but that's something again that I think we could we could explore and figure out well like when you go into Boston right and you have a commercial plate and you're doing deliveries to a business right this or or or um Tradesmen they have places to park with commercial plates and not all day by the way right right so we're not Boston and I I feel everyone's pain tonight CU I was there as a retailer for many many years in in many different downtowns so the loading loading zone loading space thing is a bigger discussion than we think it is because where do you put it yeah who who is it going to help because you want to be near the the you know so anyway I I'm glad she brought it up but uh we don't want to take away from parking as well certainly not in front well yeah so again I don't think great capacity in back but but but your Point's well taken clear but it's worthy of discussion the other thing is and and it was brought up already but just thinking about it so Brandy Court um is dramatically less usage was that the case before the kiosks yes it always was excuse me thank you so that's just kind of it is what it is yeah that's correct it's it's always had lower utilization tucked away it's also less yeah it's less visually cluttered so the signs stand out better there you know got drive over you'll see what I mean and um I need to drive back over the signage to guide people in I know that we went through the big signing activity but those still quite clear and and and if you are driving down Haven Street is it really clear that hey there's a municipal l in back here with mega signs um the parking uh way finding signs or thank right I had to dig for that did you delos was speaking to me I already had did you hear I already had you're right there thank you thank you very much for that um that is great yes so the the way finding signs are still are still downtown they haven't been moved um and and those are the only two paid Lots in town but the Brandy Court one's tucked away so it's definitely so maybe it needs bigger Boulder right but somehow to to I did go to like sorry I did go to and over I looked at their signage the way they did it but I do think we could use some more I definitely do think Stand Out sign as you enter each lot yeah so I think me and Jane want to work with the DPW to get some bigger very clear signings awesome and then the the one other thing was um is there a way to because we're checking because we know the plate numbers is there a way to track multiple users why do I ask this question I want to know if there are people that are are bouncing around every couple of hours every day and and you know for a dollar they move their car or for a zero dollar or for zero dollars they move it eight times that's a little much I don't think people do that U that's a lot of work it's doing it for four hours though yes we know they were doing it for hours hours so just just one you can sort these come out as big CSV sheets so you can can sort them by plates and and look for things to the point that I think Melissa brought up too or sorry if it was getting late but the whole notion of um still people using those 2hour spots and hopping out moving the car and coming back as employees a big part of the point of this whole thing was number one to see if we can move employees to other locations and and we've created spots and you know what if we get close to the 250 on placards I would hope that the board would consider raising the number you know to 300 275 whatever because those are those are all bonuses if we have enough spots um so I think we do in terms of employee I think that's not a a tight constraint I think right yeah so the question starts to become okay you know how are we how are we impacting what we were trying to do is it is it happening or not so the employee piece we thought was the biggest right so we did some things to change that there's some loopholes let's see what we can do about the loopholes in terms of folks that are that are still kind of not taking advantage of the opportunity that we're giving them right that would be great um and then the other part of that was that we know that the retailers even felt that they wanted more turnover to figure out a way to to assure that more turnover and and look you know this is early we don't know what's going on we're hearing some constraints concerns complaints folks not using it I was intrigued to see that you've got you know 18 and then 34 people with coins yeah and what's that about if you put in coins do you still have to put in your plate I've not tried you do have to put your plate in okay same process but you're put put yeah and our economic development director has been talking to a lot he talks into businesses regularly including the businesses that were here tonight he's spoken to them regularly uh and visited them um and and business who aren't and businesses that were on the park committee that were very vocal about supporting this this plan um and he heard from an older gentleman who was like who called in with some concern about how does this work and what and he explained you know well if you've got quarters you know dimes and nickels I tested it myself you can like oh it's just like a meter yes oh fine I just put my plate in and it's just like a meter oh okay so some of that we we found that when and and I can't can't speak to Mr Haley or Miss Murphy's um experience when we were down there talking to folks generally okay explaining how it works and showing them okay it's pretty easy now there are other things that were found um and we pulled the data and also we heard this from um from both of the select board members on Friday um the contactless payments don't seem to be working yeah um and that's not right so um uh and American Express and the American Express and that's supposed to be working so um that was that's not the way it's supposed to operate so um Andrew McNichol and um deputy chief amandola reached out and put in tickets for this and they're sending us new parts so like these parts obviously are not working the way they're supposed to and so new card readers will go in and they'll be replaced um on the I don't know why they don't work the kiosk new and should have no issue um some people do not want have privacy concerns about the apps and I was I done downloading silly apps so I was thrilled just it that that's fine to each their own um I thought that iish when she was talking about an employee having being shunted to another another app I don't know what that experience was that was very bizarre um but certainly that was a bad taste in my mouth as well so tyo somebody grabbed it what is the app that that they're using pay by phone it is pay by phone it's pay phone is the same app that is used by the NBTA for the NBTA lot so that was the reason we chose it so it's the same in town for all of the paid parking is all in the same app well that's not company something that the NBTA does I'm just saying for for Simplicity sake that was the theory though that was not compan that is not compan one stop shopping could I ask Christine any other um thoughts that that you had from kind I know it's the first two weeks it's way too early but any other things that really stood out to you good and bad I mean this is what we've been looking Flor and the waiting for to have parking spaces so in my office this is what we've been working for for 5 years um I think people are going to come I'd like to give it a little more time I know that we have definitely different opinions on the business side but this is what we've been working for our employees have finally moved out of the two parking lots um they were trying to stay that 4 hours and move for two hours and you know when we only have one enforcement officer it is really hard to keep track of every car downtown um so for me I'd love to give it more time and you know help whatever we need to make it clearer to people but this is what we've been working for so well Christine if I may can you just explain sort of what the briefly what the history was that got us to this point from the police department perspective sure like I have been on overseeing parking for eight years and um BBE back in like 2017 18 when everything started building up uh downtown we started getting residents on top of commercial um I people were coming in with tickets every day where am I supposed to park where am I supposed to park so finally me and Julie um and Community Services got together how can we make parking because I literally would deal with five or six people a day very angry that there was no Downtown parking in those two parking lots and you know what we found was that it was mostly employees parking there all day so um that's really what has you know jumped this all we still do have a lot of employ we've given out most of our spaces and we are selling 20% above what we even have but if you'll notice they still are wide open on High Street so there's still plenty of room everyone still clearly wants to Park right next to where they work but again this is um exactly what we've been looking for as the biggest complaint for 5 years was there was no parking in those two parking lots I I have a quick question before because I want Melissa and Chris who were nice enough to spend 8 hours and raise money and educate a lot of people over there and and hear a lot of negative feedback as well but I'm just noticing something here in 22 and 23 we had way more employee placards and then in 2024 I don't know if it's just businesses downsizing because they're struggling but we had less and then if you take if you take out the 12 I'm guessing that's part of the 218 it's add the 12 add the 12 yes oh wait 12 of them being sold so that's a little concerning on many fronts you know could be the cost could be people are having less employees and and working more themselves the owners so I don't I don't need an answer I'm just noticing that and that's a little troubling do have one good like the dowed medical has downsized two so that's a huge one that they used to buy the most tickets okay blackard sorry but we also allow them to like switch placards around where back in the day this was your cars so we really are trying to make it most user friendly as possible yeah because they're expensive yeah I'd hope so um all right that's all I have I'd like to yield the floor to these two because they spent a whole day down there y I'd love to speak if I could sorry Chris do you want to go first you want me to I'd be happy to go first I can set the table with some oh you go first go ahead whatever all right so I just want to say that I completely understand what the intentions of these parking kiosks were um you know I it you know from when I growing up and working you never park near the door of your business so it does baffle me that there were so many employees parking in these Lots because you would think they want their customers parking there but that's a whole different thing so Chris and I went out there on Friday and right from the GetGo these kiosks are terrible um they are not user friendly there are no directions on the kiosk which I don't understand why they are very confusing especially to the senior population um I know we've talked about signage the sign if you come if you pull into the lot and walk into CVS there is really no sign that you will see so and the kiosk is hidden almost behind a tree so they don't see it when they're walking in maybe people are ignoring it but I really truly think a lot of people don't see it um the placement of the kiosk that's by the back CVS door it's a solar paneled kiosk and it's under a tree so we've already had to replace that battery once so I'm not sure what the cost of that was or if that's included in our contract um if I could just oh yeah sure go ahead thank you so that was put there for so engineering and the DPW chose that location because they do have a plan in the future to redo that lot and have it um uh sorry redesigned so they wanted it in a place that wouldn't get touched but that was their choice we do have four extra batteries that came with our whole program so that didn't cost us anything um I agree it seems crazy but that's why they chose it and I can ask Engineers if there's anything to be done for that just trim because it's also facing the opposite way which was that it's not facing like um most of the people that Chris and I encountered were the people running into CVS to get their prescription which took them 15 minutes what we heard from a CVS employee is that they've already lost many prescriptions and coincidentally what we heard from a reading resident that moved her prescription to North Reading is that the F assist in North Reading was saying he can't take the influx of all the new prescriptions so I definitely think businesses are losing out down there um we heard from one of the restaurants down there that she was busy one day and they were coming in to fix her ovens and her um the person fixing the um oven ended up with a ticket that she ended up paying for because she felt bad um I also heard which was a little concerning to me is that the businesses had asked the town to hold off and not roll this out in their fourth quarter and that we still did um so my time back there and my recommendation at this point is we have a lot of things to work out with these kiosks we need to do better signage I think we need QR codes I would even suggest senior parking like stickers to make them exempt especially for those seniors that are running in and out to get their prescriptions this is another step that is daunting to them um it may be easy for us that use our phones all day but it is not for them um so my recommendation is that we need to pause this and we need to really think about how to improve the signage how to improve the roll out a lot of people were very angry thinking this was a money grab which we all know was not the case but I don't think that people understood the reason that it was implemented in the first place um a lot of people were surprised by it so I really think that we need to pause this we need to allow our businesses to hopefully have a good fourth quarter come back to the table fix all of these little um issues and then try to roll it out again at my opinion Chris thanks Carlo um first I'll just mention that I'm only speaking on the upper Haven CVS slot because that's where I was for that day um and just for the history because I've seen it online about people getting blamed uh Mark Karen Carlo exempt scenarios um uh the entire park committee Etc uh so I'll just start off by saying it is nobody's fault that we are in the situation that we are we did what we did with the data that we had at that time so back in before the pandemic we had the parking enforcement officer he went out on medical leave around covid time with his back or some scenario whatever it was so we didn't have enforcement for like 2 years the park committee got formed we started working on things we hashed it out we decided we're going to go with kiosk Etc at the same time Bridget was getting hired so park made the recommendations to the kiosk uh to the select board and then for town meeting Bridget then gets hired uh to do parking enforcement um subsequent to that town meeting goes votes and approves the kiosk while Bridget has been on the job for six months or so whatever it's been um and uh she's been doing the enforcement on the Lots obviously uh ever since so perhaps if Bridget was doing the enforcement uh on the CVS stuff in the beginning uh maybe we wouldn't have ended up where we were but given the data that we had at the time that is how we ended up it is nobody's fault not one individual person that decided to go ahead and do this it's not a money grabbed by the town the park committee came up at the price that was going to be used um and we hashed out whether it was going to be an hour or two parking permits Etc all that kind of stuff um it had nothing to do with the town the town if uh if you look at the data is not making money of any of this stuff it it's it's more of moving people out of the CVS lot and onto the street it was employees that were causing the issues I'm an employee I was gaining the system just like everyone else cuz that's the rule that you people put into place before I got here um subsequent to that I now know how to game this existing system from just being there for one day I know exactly what I can do to bypass anything I'm not going to repeat how you do it but I already figured out how to do it uh in this and bridg and I have been best friends for the last eight months she knows that that I know her schedule she knows mine we're on the same page um I don't think that it's it's been expressed enough that dire need for us to pause this in re-evaluate point blank of end of discussion I have never been more confident on anything I've been saying uh my entire time here on the committee uh on the select board I spent eight hours out there with Melissa listening to uh dozens if not hundreds of people that uh were expressing their concerns 99% of them are U mostly negative a couple few here and there like the app it's super easy I agree but it's it's not about that we we're we're we solved a problem by making all these spots available but now nobody is coming and for us to sit here and think that it's going to change in a week or two weeks or get better I don't see it happening the the signage like Melissa mentioned is atrocious the first transaction of the day that we paid for somebody to park there Melissa's tap to pay got declined my credit card got declined and I'm sitting there with a roll of quarters that I pre-planned because I didn't want to pay transaction fees for the town or myself that's how much I care about money I pre-plan ahead on buying getting rules of quarters in the bank uh and it just so happens that I had to use them on this transaction uh and that is me I own an IT company and I had to sit here and spend 5 10 minutes looking a complete to this guy that I'm paying for parking for and that's me we shouldn't be allowing a single resident to have to go through this BS any longer it's very simple for us to pause this take it up again re-evaluate whatever the scenario is I I mean I could go on and on and on Melissa had a list of 20 items a majority of which that we encountered within the first hour there it's Crystal Clear I almost think that we should have a a selectboard retreat at the back door of CBS the amount of people coming out with trash concerns and uh rctv we playing football games instead of Select board meetings like all these complaints and I actually liked hearing them all the other complaints that we see online and all these other uh comments that people make they are nothing compared to actually sitting there and in hearing and listening to what residents have to say and just sticking it out I know we do these meetings everyone says you know thanks for selfless service Etc spend 8 hours at the back door of CVS on any Topic in Reading Massachusetts and you will get the answer that you need the answer is to pause the kiosk and reevaluate we lose Nothing by doing that you heard the businesses I I understand that you might think that oh they're going to get used to it they're going to absolutely not I I like we're not going to improve signage over a day we're not going to improve the app over a day we're not going to close loopholes in over a day like I think I've said enough yeah it's it's beyond clear pause the kiosk starting tomorrow and re-evaluate it it's for me it is the easiest decision within one hour that I've ever made yeah I I totally agree I I was there twice uh to to say hi and and show my support and and it wasn't good it it was there right after lunch and then again a couple hours later um and and they were there all day so I I from my feedback and I spoke with Bridget um you know everyone was be line CVS be line CVS be line CVS and for the little time I was there most of them didn't know we had kiosks oh or what to do or you have an hour free okay bye no no no you got to come here and and and enter your stuff why and so again nothing's ever perfect when you launch something right no one expected Perfection but just for the signage the tree uh the visuals um the AMX thing which I know was going to get resolved and and and other stuff I think we got to do a solid buy our businesses and and and do this right and and just can I just mention one other thing yeah sorry I didn't mention I was Che talking with Bridget and um she was showing me the back end of the app that she sees it it is actually shocking um how terrible it is and what she sees on her end it and how she's supposed to monitor the cars because we don't have numbered spaces and she doesn't get a description of a car on her end he gets like a license plate and a time so she we were chatting about it and I and I just blatantly asked her like was this is this easier she never complained I want to make that very clear she was very happy to do anything but I asked her like is this process easier than when you were trying to manage like the 4-Hour window and this process is way more difficult because of the app and how she sees things on the back end it it's just it it doesn't even make sense actually with the technology in today's day that that's how it works for her um so that was just something else I wanted to mention CU I chatted with her person okay yeah I I'd like to just tell the town to stop can I just throw in my last two cents yeah I just want you guys to be aware like we charge over we write over 7 800 citations in brandy cor and CVS lot alone for overtime parking every year so that's just something to think about it's easy to say let's just end it but the employees are just going to come right back so we're just going to be back where we started um I don't know what the handheld thing with the enforcement Bridget's thing it's nothing's changed with the 4our now so I can work with her on that but um no one's saying end it like it's it's not going to be an easy f to just stop it we just go back to the same people parking there all the time I didn't have a problem using the kiosk but that's me um I went right up at Works Fridays are very quiet and reading so it is different are trying to judge a lot on Fridays but I think it would be a shame to end it so quickly um when we do have a parking problem and I I know you guys are hearing it now but I'm the one who hears it all the time so that's just my last two s thank thank you thanks for see and I don't disagree with you I think that I'm not saying that we end it I think we need to pause it at least and have better discussions on improving it um and Andor if we do end it then come up with different ways to manage those blocks because I there is no doubt in my mind there are employees parking down there and that was a major issue so I have no doubt about that but right now there are so many issues that need to be addressed that I think it needs to be paused to address those issues to give the businesses their fourth quarter and reassess and put it in play in early 2025 Mark thanks Carlo so um I think we we need to run it for a bit longer however there are some issues that we can address and we should address right away one of them seems to be you have most people are going to be new users we need to help them more than just say read The Damp sign we need to help them and maybe that means having people out there more longer I'm not suggesting necessarily select board members but that there's help to get people up to speed more on this there are hiccups I'm shocked by some of them this has to happen in every single community so what is the problem right so number one on the company unacceptable period unacceptable fix it now right as far as I'm concerned and second is on us to figure out how do we how do we help this going on so it's terrible that people are feeling like they they'd rather drive away that said you've got 400 plus people already using it even in the first couple of weeks right so you know how they used it but they did use it in some way shape or form or they at least put information into the system we this you know this is the push pull kind of thing we agreed that that we'd get it going I also agreed things probably have changed quite a bit so we need to figure out kind of what's going on how we're going to deal with that I don't think that you you you pause it right now however maybe what we do is we we run it for a period of time and then you take a holiday break and the holiday break might be in two different forms one is longer parking time in other words set it for two hours for free instead of 1 hour for free something like that um Andor I'm not completely closed to to to yikes but again kick it down the road it's going to be impossible to bring it back we're going to have the same problem that comes back we're going to be back at square one except we'll spend a pile of money that'll be the only thing that changed but it's not in the fourth quarter that's the problem so that and and I'm hearing you on that that it maybe we need to make an adapt something the adaptation I wouldn't suggest is off but that's what I was trying to understand how long are people staying be great to understand I'm sure that they try to get out in an hour I'm sure that's the thing because you don't want to pay but I wonder those who stay is it they just stay bit over an hour they paid for it what's you know what's going on be helpful to kind of have that information because we could adjust it and say hey guess what for the holidays two hours something like that just as an example I I hate to see pain um but again we're we know that we're getting some of the behavior changed and I want to give it just a little bit more time to kind of make sure we understand what that is and how it is and fix the things that we can fix help the people get onto the system um if it means having rolls and quarters for a while have rolls and quarters for a while whatever whatever it's going to take but I I I would like to make it better as opposed to to abandoning ship I think abandoning ship is again we're Square One except we have spent a whole pile of money I think we need to make it better first not ongoing this was real pain tonight you guys haven't owned a retail store okay that was real pain and I am not going to condone it I'm just not I can't I'm not in retail now but I was my whole adult life so if Alish is even fibbing a little bit for her sales to go down at lunch that's not good right flower shops I mean you know I'm I'm not saying I believe everything but I believe a lot of it right cuz I was there uh in that situation I me parking not with this kiosk thing but it's so hard to run a business right now you have no idea no idea I mean and and it's trimming the tree why wasn't the tree trimmed first simple it wasn't why wasn't the why is the sign 20t in the air on a telephone poll I don't know cuz a poll was there it's just there's so many things and those are just minor things those are minor compared to MX compared to people saying Fu I'm leaving stough stuff online prescriptions already going and that's what we've heard about we don't know what went to Walgreens we don't know what went to Stone uh CVS and stonum so yeah I get it we paid for these we need to give it more time but this is not the time January February March April May that's much better time and if the behavior goes back it goes back I'm not saying get rid of it this was a lot of effort was put into this Julian staff started this years ago all right with the with the inner Zone the outer zone Auto Zone all that stuff right and it was a lot of work and I don't want to diminish that work at all but it was atrocious atrocious and I wasn't there all day you know and and and we can't expect staff to be there all day to educate these people at least I don't think so they got to be run in the town who's out there truthly hire some Outsiders yeah um the economic development director Mr McCarthy was down in the upper Haven lot and I think we had um Eric Christine was it was it Eric M who was it wasn't Eric for the first couple of me I I stay up the Opera lot for a bit bridg stayed down in um the Brandy Court lot most of the first couple days yeah um so we made people up in in both of the lots for the first couple of days but not and I gu I think the biggest problem is the one hour too how to get that word out that that one hour cuz again it's not something that most towns do and it's nice that you've given them that hour but it's very complicated and that's another part i i i people don't like change inherently I totally get it right I I you know when I go into Boston I know I have to pay when I go into Newport I know I have to pay when I go to certain towns I know I have to pay we field I know I have to pay when I go to Andover I know I have to pay I you have to pay yeah Wakefield has kiosks too well they have free Wakefield does not have kiosks okay they have I've never paid in i' parked in W is he just parking by hours there's one lot there's one lot there's one lot in Wakefield stol them you don't have to pay so anyway let's let's drop that this is real all right if they didn't spend the whole day there I don't think we'd be having this kind of conversation other than the tree the other thing I want to mention that I think is odd and I I don't really understand why we did this is back to what Mark said is you know we don't want people sitting there all day this is the intention of why we put the kiosk in but you can stay there all day and just pay for it which is baffling to me why we even allow that let's see who's doing it let's see if anybody's doing it right no if somebody wants to par we saw two people doing it when we were there Chris and I if if somebody wants to park there all day they can they just have to pay the price and the you know most people but I mean I think we're not completely fixing the behavior because we saw have two employees doing it so I don't those lots are the intention of those lots are for customers we want them constantly moving I don't think that we should ever allow anyone to stay more than 2 to four hours because we're we're not fixing the behavior they're still allowed to do it they're just paying and I think they're employees that may not be in the office every day so they don't care that they're paying whatever because the tickets probably add up so I don't think that we really are truly correcting everyone's Behavior I think I mean we can see look at the data and see if that's if it's enough of it that it's um that it's problematic or becomes that you know over time whether we pause it or not and and see that that behavior changes to be onerous um it's certainly that's not the intention of the marking lot to your point so I I don't disagree I'm not sure that um there's enough to impinge a on the rotating ability of spaces there right you can't you can't can't fix everything I think that another point that was brought up tonight that was really to me very um you know important um is that the the nature of shopping has changed a little bit since Co and you know understanding that is important and um seeing how seeing how it's changed a bit is is important um yeah so a lot of these things can change you trimming the tree is no big deal in a week there won't be any leaves on it anyway um you know so the fall I'm a little disappointed it wasn't done ahead of time that I just I'm just dumbfounded yeah no I don't I don't was you know so much it was working all along and then all of a sudden it died so we had to replace it yeah um is it possible to address some of them like I don't mean oh immediately I don't mean like now I will take the loers out right now and cut the tree back um no that's that's easy enough to do signs where the signs are signs yeah get more signs that takes but getting more signs we have to order the pay by phone signs in or the the app the the signs in so yeah we can get them and we can put them up that's that's not a problem but that more signage won't happen tomorrow we can move signs tomorrow um we can um we had I already spoken with our economic development director to develop a campaign for downtown shopping this year anyway so yes that that's already been and we do advertise shop with the BL and we do support all social media like yeah no we'll do a branded campaign about the parking kios I mean we have done that we we'll do more of that yeah just running I I I we're talking about like this isn't like I don't know what to say for each individual user whether you're new user repeat User it's a tiny inconvenience and but I but I think some of the stories that people and saw the titter chatter online it got really large in some people's minds and that's what you're seeing here okay so it's like we need to calm the situation down and and um and one of the ways that we could do that is if people are spending too much time on social media again we could send out some of those calming oh you're getting the 1 hour free and we welcome you and there's plenty of parking and and one of our Park Community members did this wonderful little video and I told her to send it to you like look how easy it is and people are I've talked to a couple of residents they're like oh okay and guess what the thing where you wave your credit card at it now is working or and I agree with Melissa and I told you this already there were no instructions and I'm used to standing at the checkout being told what to do and if you don't pay attention you have to do it again so when I was standing front of this machine and it wasn't telling me what to do I didn't know what to do yeah no and you put all of you that's sh that's how shopping has changed oh my there was no shortage of Staff going down there changing it over and over again like we we also did that and they're like okay this this works come down here and like drag you know somebody from town hall try this thing right now try this like we we did all of that and you know clearly we're getting still continued good feedback so you know we can we can make those changes for but what's the pleasure I just think I just think we're minim like minimizing what we just heard from many of the business owners we heard from a couple business owners we're going to hear from them again and I appreciate their feedback wasn't many it was one four off the top of my head I believe yes I mean do we do we need to get them all to come in I mean no because I think some of them are not going to be in the same PL positions not everyone agrees with the four that came tonight and gave us that helpful feedback I think I know but I think we're minimizing their concerns I'm not minimizing are you minimizing they are struggling financially I hear the same story from the last they need in the fourth quarter of their business is to be hit with these parking kiosks that are making them lose more business yeah I just sorry Melissa I just had a a quick couple followup points uh uh first I think that um the business owners that showed up here today are just like the same people that show up to public comment all the time or the same people that write LTE all the time they're the ones that are going to do it the other people are going to sit back and perhaps not say anything about it but they don't want to be in the public eye I wouldn't want to start alienating my customers by coming before the select board and and going for a pity party I haven't seen the flower shop of Eric person come in here ever for 4 years I've never seen her come in and she did those are the people that we have to start uh caring about not I understand other people give their time effort make comments I agree it's the individuals that you never see that show up are the ones that you have to pay attention to not just in this business in uh in other public comments or we get an email and we're like I have no clue who this person is and those are the people like I understand everyone's comments are warranted but the ones that never say anything are the ones that I kind of peek my head up and just be like what's the deal with this I I pay a little bit more attention um to those so if I had to poll all the downtown businesses over there uh I already got one that was never mentioned trophy store Tom the vote for the kiosk he was the only one opposed to putting the kiosk in there uh so trophy store Tom I am sure he is dead set against everything that just happened um and I would also Venture that a majority of every single one of the people over there would say the same thing at this time even if you made the parking free for the first hour the first two hours the first 4 hours the first eight hours people are still not going to do it that's the problem it doesn't matter that we made it free the only ones that we were going to are the employees nobody else is going to end up doing this and that's from the feedback that we got on Friday uh you might think that I'm wrong that's fine spend eight hours out there yourself then you can come back and be like you know what you're kind of crazy but you were correct um uh Bridget was wonderful she came up on her day off specifically because we were going down there and and you know showing how people how to use the kiosk Etc I think she does a a fantastic job she drives a 2013 Transit Connect from the town that has to get replaced I think town meeting is voting on it I think they should do it I started my company with the 2013 for Trans to connect uh so like that's like seven Vehicles removed from now um and I the other point that I'd like to make is that uh we ended up raising $250 for the food pantry and a majority of that was from uh direct donations from residents that came down uh and you know $20 here $10 here um and it all added up so I just want to thank all of them for coming down learning something expressing their uh frustration with the way that things are going and seeing that somebody is willing there to listen if I could do this entire process over again and run it like a business that I would uh typically do uh QR code on the meter scan here to watch this video on how to use the kiosk did we do that of course we did it is it my job to record two videos that I did and Liz Whitland did her own video as well of course not that falls on the town unfortunately to have done and it was noted back in the day that a video was going to be done and it never was it's unfortunate you could shoot the thing tomorrow I guess but that doesn't get us out of the position that we're in currently better signage that do not enter sign back thing coming down on the CVS thing you're not moving it I don't know where it's going but the people I spoke with one lady comes down parks in the first spot as soon as you go there takes her dog to the groomer right over there you see nothing it it's impossible and I understand it's it's an isolated incident one person but the signage is terrible and I don't know how you're going to move that um there's just so many reasons to just be like listen let's re-evaluate we'll get the video we'll get a campaign thing going we'll do this we'll get QR codes for all the businesses spend 30 bucks on stickers they can put them on their door um lots of ideas that you can come up with Mark's idea of of doing the holiday thing having it be free it doesn't matter they don't want to use the kiosk in the first place like it's just it's a perfect storm that happened we we solved one problem and we created a complete uh like if you would have told me that this was going to happen I never would have believed you I disagree this is these are parking kiosk Chris we live in a community of very intelligent people I agree with you I just need to agree with Mark we need to give it some more time I I'm open to other Solutions if we want to say oh we we we turn them off for Christmas yay but we are going to see the employees go awesome you turn them off and they're going to go park in in there again so we all know and you know before you even got on the committee like parking is just like it's really really hard so I think enforcement is the answer I think increasing the the the penalty on parking tickets going forward is also a way to dissuade people because I think it's 25 bucks and to pay there all day is like 25 bucks um there's lots of ideas but we shouldn't be hasing that out as these kiosk remain in place it already should have been hashed out in advance the senior thing like Melissa mentioned Medford I think has a senior pass you can get like when are we going to do that guys we're on a committee though so like you were on a committee so we can't like undo or redo minimize what the committee did I I started off this conversation saying that the committee did uh fantastic work and it's no one's fault how we ended up here on one isolated topic out of the dozen or so that we handled increasing the the employee parking Etc there's so many other great things that the park committee did if this is the one miss it's the one miss and I ain't throwing uh good money over bad or bad over good whatever that analogy is spending money on signs like Mark's talking about uh additional signs which have to happen in the first place but like it's not happening tomorrow my my car you know how embarrassed it is my my credit card gets declined at Kos on the first transaction of it who wants this where's the where's the message on the meter right now that you can can't use American Express who what if that's all the person has like like it's just wild it's approaching 11:30 we got future agendas we got minutes I think we had a robust conversation I I know there's no you know vote on this topic but there doesn't need to be because you know we we voted on the kiosks but the town can do whatever they want and I think they've heard from all five of us and I'm encouraging a pause to get the you know the the the things that need to get done right away signage trimming the tree AMX uh signage on the kiosk video that could take two weeks three weeks I don't know could take be done by the end of the week it's Tuesday but you know and until you're a retail small business owner you have no idea and no comprehension of what these people are going through never mind never mind it's not even good times it's horrible times wa you hear my my my Spiel on next year is going to be worse than this year that I've been saying for the past five years I've been on this board on the split tax for business owners because guess what it's getting worse until you live it it's getting worse it's getting worse trust me well that's why they call it work so just without trying to rehash I think there are a couple of things that that were clear I think it's a sense of the board that we want the town to dig in now to some of the things that can be done right away right board comfortable with that yes right do some of those things um it's a roll out it's bumpy we need to find ways to make it less bumpy for people you know we're getting data I mean there are hundreds of people people using it so it's not stating that no one's using it no one's going to use it obviously that's stretching it beyond the reality of things we're getting some information people are using it it needs help it is a tough time to be implementing it I completely agree that you know June or or January or last year was when we wanted to do it and it didn't happen Okay so now here we are let's let's figure out what we can do what makes sense I think having another robust discussion does make sense I think that you do need to give it time I will I have a laminator I am happy to lend that to the town don't worry about making these final signs they're not going to be final signs you just got to try some things that are going to work that are going to make it easier and you know what you're going to find that they don't work and you change them you didn't spend a mint on them I'm going to let you borrow the laminator don't worry about that part these are some easy things to get going you know it's moving you hear the the backend problems we also hear that there are concerns in the community from some of the business going forward we hear it loud and clear we're not trying to be be harmful um and things are changing a little bit and there's stuff that we got to do let's it's going to end up going on for a little bit longer anyway let's see what happens let's see how we can help it let's reassess where we are and then we can we can talk about what options we've got I do think that thinking about holidays having some different adjustment you know again I want you know is it there are some people who don't want to do it because it's change there are people that are doing it most people deal with it in communities as long as they know you got to do it we're not Pioneers here folks it's not true it can happen it can work but we need to help and if that means hiring some people to stand and help I would encourage us to do exactly that to get it going to to get past this really rough stage that that's going to be here at the beginning and and again careful not to throw the baby out with the bath qu right you just said everything that needs to be said except you didn't say let's pause it you gave all the reasons I know no I know I'm just saying you gave all the reasons it should be paused succinctly but you didn't say let's pause it but I didn't I know those are the words that you're you're you're saying those aren't the words I used purposefully if I made an if I imped a change in my business and I'm getting push back from customers My First Response isn't I'm going to stop it right now my first response is what's going on let's figure out how to fix it that's what the way I'm going to do it and take it Forward corre right and it may be that at some point there's some stuff that we just can't break and and we do come back and make a different decision but my first response is not ug tough for all El stop wouldn't do that not a good approach well yeah but Mark can I just point something out this wasn't the business's decision and my understanding is they ask the town to wait until after the fourth quarter so we're putting something on them that they have no control of over and now we're just saying make it work that's not fair yeah the saying I just want it noted I think the town needs to pause this I think there are too many issues that need to be dealt with and we're not going to get it done in time to help these businesses through their fourth quarter I I don't think that this is what's spoiling the fourth quarter and if it were to get to the point that it was then I would feel very differently about it we and it may not be the only thing it is but I don't want to sit back and you know cause them more pain we want to support our businesses we don't want to destroy them I understand and remember that this came forth because they were having trouble with getting people able to par this is where it came from they asked us for this is exactly where it came from we're trying to help do we have the perfect solution in place obviously not not yet anyway if I could just point out on this downtown par PID parking roll load update if you go to front Friday October 4th on the upper Haven lot you can notice that there's double the amount of transactions compared to any other date and that is because of what Melissa and I did that's what should be happening and people came down specifically for it all these other dates they're they're NE 134 compared to 69 uh on the previous Friday or whatever like it's stuff has to be done and it shouldn't be upon us to attempt to take care of the situation I understand that I I'd love to spend my Fridays doing other things but like I saw a concern that I was originally part of obviously um and I knew something some sort of injection had to happen to shift the way that things were happening because you uh you're not on Facebook Mark but uh uh the the it was Mutiny and reading essentially for everybody that wanted to Facebook users like that's a whole that's so that gets to Mark's point we can't run government by what's going on in the reading parents Network and we need to be really careful about or the rant we need to be really careful about that AG we also need to be really care of not escalating a bumpy roll out and making people afraid to come downtown the only that's what I kind of saw happening and that was concerning to me I somewhat go back to my point about the IND individuals I never see uh carrying more weight than the ones we always say scenario the uh employee from CVS that came out uh specifically that doesn't live in Reading has no she just works at CVS she doesn't care what happens like CVS this big cler is going to lose money boohoo she even said that you guys are losing people that are coming down here everyone who comes up to the pharmacy I'm taking my business business elsewhere I'm taking my business elsewhere that's not Facebook an actual gpe they may do they may not some people are going to move I don't I haven't been in that parking lot in years because it's a pain in the neck but guess what I was down there twice this week and I'm going to keep on going till it fills up with patrons again but the fact of the matter is the same the North Reading CVS can't take more prescriptions because of the influx that they already got it's like there's plenty of parking down there now so I'm just saying I got my red I raved the parking of we got to end this but we have three three in favor of pausing it and two not I don't know don't knowed we you're right there's no vote we gave him feedback let's see what our very talented staff comes up with well we got a meeting next week I mean you want to revisit we talk to you next week uh I don't but we're going to have to because it's it's um it's going to be November soon and then I if if any one of those people anyone closes in downtown for whatever reason want any of that no kidding no for whatever reason I'm going to pin it on this I shouldn't well yeah um so okay it's parking parking regulation and you are our road Commissioners correct and and parking Commissioners so if there are any changes that want to be made maybe next week would be the time to change them um can you get PTF together cuz they were also instrumental and you know I know we have one we can once a month I can we can get people I once again don't think anybody realizes how dire this scenario is whether or not you think that it's Facebook or that people are lying or whatever scenario I think if we are required to actually tell uh Matt and Jane Christine Etc what to do right now as opposed to just saying you know perhaps you guys should listen that we're doing it if we have to vote on future agendas when it comes up I'm going to want to have a meeting on Friday for a five minute vote to actually put this into place because this ain't lasting any longer I don't want to wake up tomorrow uh to the parking kiosk whatever the trees that get wrapped with that burlap sack thing should be uh wrapped around that parking kiosk in the morning that's that's where I'm coming at no clue on on how bad this is know no clue no last words sit out there for 8 hours then tell me I'm wrong I didn't we rehashed yeah it was an update I I I there something needs to be done and and again we we'll do we'll go future agendas message let's do um let's uh let's do future agendas so I have already uh for the 29th I got Oh wrong wrong screen I have um we're going to go on teered rates we're going to add that to the agenda um I wrote down vote to allocate the land but I don't think we'll be ready because we won't have the results so we'll move that to the November meeting please um vote to allocate the land for pickle ball and we should have the results uh on the on the soil testing um I think I had oh my God I can't find them I'm crazy yeah thank you did I have um no we didn't put it yet I was going to put I'm going to delay I was going to put um well we can put still our design I think well application's not closed yet so we'll do that in November as well um I was going to put you know appoint our design we can do that anytime we don't have to wait for the applications um if anyone wants to suggest someone you know I don't know but um that's all I have for right now is this already have we already done this or is it no this is the feedback from the town on the second yeah that's Chris yes okay great so then we're adding yep tiered rates some solutions for tiered rates water night in future Pleasant Street Center I think is um we're talking about doing that just discuss how we want to talk about that yeah yeah good five minutes yeah take more than five we're going to bring back arpa yes yes yes please yep yes um so that's all I have so is there anything we're doing different sorry I just want to make sure we're clear for the next we're gonna Christine you and I will talk tomorrow but they have not they're not taking any um action tonight it'll be next week at the 15th is that correct yeah I'm I'm going to put a vote on the agenda 15 yeah or Friday I don't know for what vot put a pause the police they're looking for she looking for if there's any tonight no action no well I I would have a slightly different check I think there is action going to talk about tomorrow yeah yeah yeah of course we're not changing to talk about right there's no take that back there's I should do some buzzing tomorrow the legal rules oh yeah see some trucks moving things around okay all right any the other I think that that's a lot for the 29th and the you got an exact session on the back yeah that's still that's still the right time the ex yeah I think so I'll double check with John on it but that's when we wanted to come so anyone else have a I got two things yeah uh first uh is the meters on this magical 11th Friday the 11th uh parking thing if we are required to vote I'd like to see it then I don't want to see it happen on the 15th and then get instituted whatever I don't want to wait another day it is what it is if it has to you don't want to set the meeting it's fine you know I'm just on record that okay I I think that the situation uh warrants it I got TR and second is an update on I alluded to earlier on Paving um I I've got only a couple of complaints regarding like um uh like uh contractors digging up the road Etc putting it back in not the same situation that it was or a couple months after the fact it deteriorates I just want to know what our policy is um on this whole Paving scenario to make sure when something is done and reading we get back the way that it looked beforehand or better not worse and is there a time frame on that they get six months it has to get upkeep four or they do it once and Sanara just something I can speak to that right now not on the agenda we don't want to delate we'll get can clarify is the question when outside contractors do something yeah yes yeah utilities come in just what if we do we have a policy if not how do we create one Etc y all right and I forgot to mention there was a bunch of miscommunication and timing issues so I requested that Tom you know Karen was away on Zoom but we did discuss it but the Tom mileski and Joe Huggins come on the 15th to give us um the why they're advocating for the maple flooring I think we we haven't heard it I think we're owed it and so that won't take long but that's going to be on the 15th that's correct second that so sorry this say 6 o'cl that means 7 o'cl right yeah well I was going I was going to ask is I don't know if there was there was a question on the date but there was also a question on the time I don't respond people got back I'm not available it yeah Victor will be on first and then Tom milfy and Joe Huggins are both confirmed I know and I'm available all Friday for any magical meeting that may under advis thank you um so add so 158 as it stands right now is Victor Tom and Joe uh this parking thing and I think that's it y I'm not going to you know go for the cast I'm either it could be the 29th or it could be the November meeting um I'm seeing more questions on traffic related kinds of things can we get a PTF update on issues that they're dealing with and and where they are we got an email just today in fact talking about Salem Street but there have been a few residents that have come to us and it maybe they've been dealt with but I don't know that the board knows that they have and what is the what's happening so maybe pttf could update us yeah November November came a month or so ago but they could come also a future agenda um I we uh we need to review Matt this is not an agenda item but which will make you guys aware by very early January so uh just keep that in mind uh that's a you know a deadline that we gave ourselves um so we don't need to really have a discussion but I think Sean is going to be involved and help us helping us with that so just December that's going to need to be done you know December early very early January so just so you guys know um about that so not necessarily agenda item just the FYI because I forgot when it was and they asked so um I knew it was coming up but there's some dates there so I I think that's good if anyone doesn't have anything else we'll go to meeting minutes real quick I don't know if anyone has submitted uh edits I did a sentence yes I got some from Karen Chris first two hours still awake barely all right you just going to pull them up yep one second anyone else have add us or just Cameron um just Karen and then Chris made a statement that he'd like me to add in that I should have and I apologize that you and him left left the room for the MBTA and Haven Street um discussions okay I'll add that in at the beginning of each when we get to those topics I'll put in a statement at the beginning saying that you left the room okay so these are my edits and red like please remove and green is please add and um say that again what red is please remove green is pleas please add oh and um so Chris you let me know what you think about I don't think that that part in red is appropriate for our meeting minutes I just do not think so um and I think for the good of the board and the um the fact that we are trying to be courteous to Residents and and other board members we should remove that um and then the green stuff down below I I put in M yeah it's kind of hard sorry so I so here's the thing if you're okay re removing that then I some of that green stuff I don't need in there because it's kind of in the same genre my once again Caitlyn doesn't me it's not me I didn't give her any edits Etc my public comment is my public comment I said it yeah so again we do summary minutes okay but this is Caitlyn all right so do you have a problem with my proposed edit and how about the red I haven't read the green yet CU I can't read it but the red I I set it and I would like it to remain okay well then I would like my green to remain then I'll read it after first part is just um details I don't know if I highlighted does this help or no it not at all that go into like a deep blue you just color I apologize it's in a PDF um so I don't know how to maybe you can use the little highlight marker thingy on the left oh yeah okay let me try the highlighter why don't we just read it Char for us to read your it says I can read it I'm happy to that's better if you unselect it now oh Prim CDC me no that's correct uh while I was out in the hallway I got an update from my wife to say that uh I was indeed correct the latest cpdc meeting uh would have been the night before not two weeks ago one I was reporting you said it and I was correct you were Incorrect and I was hey folks this is so the point is that you need to stop attacking other members and when you do and when you're incorrect you should apologize but you're incorrect I will apologize oliz I was not all right we'll just leave it in there then so folks to journ please second so we're not approving then it's perfect that's fine fine all right roll call vote Melissa yes Karen yes Mark yes Chris no Carlo yes meeting is adjourned