e e hi hi hello hi Betsy how are you how you doing good good good and I see Rita she's cracking the microphone code see still showing muted you're starting the CPC meeting Becky I certainly am I just want to make sure I was in the right place I know you be in any meeting should be this is not the school committee meeting nor the board of heal nor the well I thought I was on the school Community sorry oh no problem good to see you I thought you were just very curious okay um Matteo I'm gonna make you host lovely thanks let's hope it oh there we go oh I'm so relieved I crashed twice trying to open this meeting so the handoff is complete compl Matt right all right you guys have a great meeting thank you Becky bye bye a couple more minutes left how yall doing good how are you well my 9-year-old called me bro today so that that make you feel really old or really cool I'm not your bro I'm your [Laughter] dad they keep you guessing sorry for the weird view I'm on my phone so you can see the ceiling I'll addit the ceiling here Cliff you were traveling huh you and Arlene where did you guys go we left here on March 29 um went to Texas for the Eclipse which oh ited to part for a window for us to VI the three and a half minutes of totality so that was great and uh then um we continued down to the coast and up to Rio Grand Valley birding and got to Big Bend and rupe Mountain National Park and great sanss and Carl's Bad Cavern and Denver and then back here so we got back a week ago today so w that was a that was a good trip yes yes a lot of miles were Road weary but um yeah so you spent some time with Susan yes yes yeah y she was just um doing the last move to her new house and so we were able to be the closers and come in and take care of moving the last items and cleaning and things like that so it was nice to be able to help yeah yeah cool this is the first house she's owned it is yes yes exciting yes scary but yeah yeah Denver is a a crazy market and so but there aren't many places anymore that aren't crazy it's just ridic yeah all right it is 701 I saw um I think I saw Henry said he was gonna be here right oh there you are Henry hi Henry greetings I can't see everybody I can only see whoever's talking um we have a quorum now I know that um Beth can't make it so okay I'm not sure what whether alen will or not but um it is now now 7:02 so I will call this meeting of the shutesbury CPC to order all members are participating remotely Rita Farrell elain bleo Cliff Reed Henry Gettys and Matteo pangallo uh first item on our agenda is the minutes of April 4th 2024 is there a motion to consider the minutes I will move that we approve the minutes second April 4th seconded Rita I'm sorry I have you as both present and absent yeah which one were you I was present okay I I can do that once in a while I just kind like my my mind leaves the meeting but my body stays exactly and I was wondering which one it was I will change that okay good thank you all right are any other amendments to the minutes seeing none we will vote on the minutes as amended uh frell hi Reed hi Gettys hi Leo I and Gallow I okay um next item on the agenda is the exit survey so I did send the uh exit survey um Cliff you I don't think you were on the CPC when we did this it was like last year I think or the year before we decided it would be good to get some information not just from applicants but also from people that you know started the process and maybe didn't finish it so we did a um an exit survey basically trying to get some sense of their experience um so I did send it to both of the uh individuals who submitted determinations of Eligibility uh only Graham is that how you pronounced his name Graham yeah send it back um which I sent to the committee in uh my email um and I wanted to make sure there was any there were any observations or discussion about the responses no I mean he's he was it was positive so that was a thing didn't evoke a lot of text from him right it was brief but it's worth I mean I do I think I know that there there's a limited usability of this kind of information when only one person responds and it's pretty brief but I do think that it's something worth doing in the future because there may be years where we end up with three or four or five people committing determinations it would be good to know that so now that kind of information is is very useful we seeing no other discussion on that we move on to item three on the agenda which is uh potential uh projects next year so obviously this year was a a pretty quiet one for the CPC um I do you know I'm going to continue to do this year what I did last year in terms of trying to create attention um you know we put out flyers before the public hearing um we had a press release that gave us a little like news blurb in The Gazette and the recorder which was great and it went out to the town committees it went out by all Town email announce it was on next door and Facebook um I don't know you know short of mailing something to every house which seems expensive I don't know what else we can do to try to get the word out I know of at least uh one um project for next year um you know Henry knows about this that the historical commission is going to be looking for funding for a protective gazebo for the guide board when it comes back and I you know suspect we may have one or two other projects I don't know well uh um I'm I'm forgetting his uh moer um Nate Nate Nate will he will he be uh bringing the other that other one forward so gazebo that was a gazebo too right yeah that that was a that was a a gazebo I don't know that if he will or not my impression was that he might I know I mean in full disclosure my wife is a teacher in another nearby district and he was and her District recently built something like this using CPA money um so he was in touch with her about the process and one of the things that I think he was maybe surprised to learn about was the matching funding thing as well as the making it available to the whole community and not just a school resource um question my impression from what he left us with was that he might try to address those things next year but I have no idea if he's going to or not the only other thing that I would suggest is I know that we put things in the um the newsletter the town newsletter but if somehow we could make it a little flashier at the front and you know highlight it in know a couple of pictures I mean pictures always grab people's attention and kind of making it so we can show the other uh projects that we've worked on and we've done and so you know it might encourage people to think about it and even maybe we could brainstorm a list of potential projects that that people might be interested in working on yeah I wonder if we could do it as an insert Elaine um or committee and could we could make it even color pictures if we we did that and maybe I don't know this idea of um letting them know it it's not an honorous procedure yes I think you know people get this idea oh my God this must be difficult to do lay it out it's actually pretty simple you y i and I do feel like there I have two thoughts I do wonder if some people look at the fact that it's a two-step process if that dissuades them from trying to do it but then the other part of me thinks like but the determination of Eligibility is like so useful for letting people know before they invest a lot of time in like trying to get matching funding and filling out a budget and all that whether or not it even aligns with what the law allows so may we could go back to um recent um wories and have them write something up about that to say that how yeah little testimonial yeah yeah that's a possibility um I can't remember if there has been an insert in the um in the newsletter in the past not not recently because it's it's all done out of house now oh right right we don't do it anymore inhouse um but it's possible I mean we we could look into it I would be curious to know actually I would I mean we have a significant amount of administrative money we don't use all of it every year right so what does a mailing cost my recollection was it was somewhere in the $800 range but that might have been inreased is that elen do you or Cliff or Henry any of you remember I just that might be it but uh that's also because there's multiple Pages if it was a one page we could actually do it ourselves and stamp it because well no we have it um you have to let's see you have it printed and it just says resident um right on it and then we would have to seal them we would have to fold and seal them and then we bring them down to the post office and they get um sent that way they get stamped and sent that way so um I'm sure that if it's a one-pager we could do it and it might even be um a little bit more noticeable if it was a one page than being stuffed in the newsletter yeah but Grace would have all that information I I can ask Grace about that um I mean I don't want to I guess like like I don't want it to to be that we are overreacting because there there are years when there are no projects that come in and that's fine I mean you don't buy a new car every year right um it's good to to put that money away for for for projects but I do want to make sure that people in town are thinking about it as an Avenue for things is there anything else that the historic commission is kind of on your on your radar there Henry that you guys have been talking about well the only other thing I can think of is the archiving of the um in the old town hall yeah but but uh and that that would be involve AR you know it's a fairly uh labor intensive process inventory right ours devoted to it um we'd imagined it as a voluntary thing but hire maybe hire students to do this as well I I don't know yeah yeah I I know other communities have um have used CPA money for that so and and and hired I believe outside firms so it's certainly something to to think about I thought there was something with one of the school houses no it's a maybe a three to four th000 job and oh okay so it may be applicable we're working on this is West cool house yeah yeah the building committee had also approached the CPC uh early this past year about the um uh spear Library porch or or Portico or whatever it is um and I don't know if they're going to approach us again or not I think they were a little thrown off by the whole needing to comply with the the massal standards and all that um but it seems to me that they might be the most reasonable other entity for us to be like pushing to apply for money if they're going to be looking at Town buildings that need work historic buildings yeah and and typically um what's happened with the historic preservation you know when it involves a building is often um groups get a get a consultant and you know somebody to kind of help them through that process so you know perhaps there's a way to to make this work for them do you want me to talk to Steph delmus he's the chair right Stephen delas the chair of the building committee yeah yeah let me why don't I I'll I'll check in with him and see also if I can find out what the deal is with getting a like a historic consultant if that could be part of the that could be part of the grant at itself do you Rita do you know maybe this is completely still up in the air whether or not the Lake wola dam is still a potential because I know that the dam uh yeah I mean I raised it um there is a bunch of work that has to be done on the dam and it is a historic structure so I just don't know where you know we hired a new engineering firm GCA and they're you know up to their eyeballs and um in dealing with the uh you know the permitting around the lake lowering and so forth so I'm not sure where things stand but you know about doing any kind of repairs but I will also I'll check with Becky about that there was one other thing that that came up but it it too is pretty small um so there's a group in town which uh folks might have read about um some people who are uh focusing on um not weed and um and we have a lot of not weed in shsb oh noted theas yeah and and I was I was talking to them just you know about about not weed because they're hoping to you know have a have a meeting and in the process of doing that I Came Upon um a couple of CPA applications from Long Meadow was one of the communities for the removal of not weed on publicly owned land and as I drive down pum Hill Road towards 202 um on the right I believe on the land that we just purchased for open space there is um a pretty serious infestation of not weed so now on land that's conservation land um and so it might be something that we want to think about that they might be coming to us but that's that's all I know at this point we we have worked on that property a couple of years ago when I was on the select board I remember we yes but it apparently you know with not weed is so comes back y so invasive yeah that you have to you have to deal with it like five years in a row and you you really need a a somebody who knows what they're doing a specialist it just can't be willy-nilly you can't mow the stuff and it's be it's it's becoming a problem I mean I found it on my little road and I realized probably what's happening now is the highway trucks are picking up pieces and dropping them other places in town so we all should be vigilant because the stuff is nasty for a very brief time we had we had some soil delivered to our house that was full of knotweed and Michael and I handpicked it out over you know the course of a few months um because you know I mean he especially in building projects has seen what happens if it um gets out of control so anyway that's a long story uh but you know it it might be that that we have more discussion about it and something that hasn't happened you know the um the Conservation Commission still has has money to do that off off street parking area so we should follow up with them at the West Quin conservation yeah yeah and the West cabin Conservation Area is the area I'm talking about where I believe there there's a pretty serious not we infestation are you familiar with that Henry have you have you seen that no haven't yeah it's right along the road right along that guard rail I don't know where that property um you know how much Frontage there is on um on pelum Hill Road but I believe it goes all the way to the pelum line and that's where the right the naweed is it's on pelum Hill Road then on pelum Hill yeah just as you you know sou of Baker close to the border with pelum yeah yeah and it's you'll see it it's this it gets very tall and some point it starts to flower and it's uh yeah it's pretty invasive stuff it's on the west yeah yeah so I mean that again that wouldn't be I don't think that would be a lot of money but it might be something that we would contemplate yeah and I wonder if it would be worth also doing that as a sort of way to open the door towards other uh invasive remediation projects I mean I know Castrol has used CPA money from us for um for that kind of work and I wonder if there are other properties I don't know like yeah does the the does the new library property have invasives that need like yes it does yes it does you know yeah yeah but that that's part of our our uh project already agreement with the Conservation Commission that we will um be working on invasives on that property right remove gu there's if there's funding available for for things like that well that might be nice for help with with that yeah we investigate that in mind okay um or any other you know any other properties in town that are conservation or open space properties yeah all right anybody else here any your rumors all right seeing uh nothing else we'll move on to item four on the agenda which is the fy2 calendar um this is so I sent that out by email uh it is largely replicating um the one that we followed in previous years um uh I've added in that idea of a Grant application Workshop which we can talk about uh in a moment but otherwise um I don't know any any any thoughts or feedback on the draft calendar pretty straightforward yeah no it looks good looks good yep all right I think we should probably vote on it so I can put it up in public I'll make a motion to approve the calendar a second all right any discussion seeing none uh frell hi Reed hi Getty hi I and Gallow I okay uh so that brings us to item five which is so at our previous meeting the idea of a grant writing Workshop came up um I sent you by email um the email exchange that I had with the community preservation Coalition about this it seems like there are other communities that do this um they're larger communities for the most part where they have many different people that are considering applying um I think that you know if we were to decide to do it it seems like there are resources from the Coalition that we could turn to um in other towns that we could turn to my gut instinct is it might be something where we invite people and nobody shows up or maybe one person shows up which is great and and maybe just offering it is a good form of publicity but I'm worried about putting a lot of uh time and planning into something that is not going to have a huge return on investment would it be on Zoom do you think which might minimize the damage if nobody shows I guess could we do something that we invite people to come and we find out if they're going to be committed to coming um and then open it to anybody else I have a reservation yes reservation in advance like please register by X right and if we don't have enough registrants We're Gonna Cancel yeah so like a week ahead because most people know that's a good idea yeah any other thoughts about this well I think that that putting it out just as a general invitation that um probably the response will not be overwhelming it the application lines and everything are so far out that people aren't thinking about it but targeting people that we know um have expressed interests um uh in the past and and also that we think might be interested in uh uh putting in applications that I I think um targeted uh group um and and pursuing them makes sense yeah I'd agree with that when um I don't have the schedule in front of me when do we meet I know we're off for the summer so if we were going to do this in October we'll meet be meeting in late August or September what's the initial meeting of the committee is August 22nd oh okay my thinking was we would do this over the summer but we could do it in the fall instead um I I definitely think the fall will get you much resp then over the summer nobody's thinking about their projects over the summer yeah so we could plan it at the August meeting and maybe have it in September and that gives people a couple of months three months to before the um determination of Eligibility is Du yeah we do have so we have the public Hearing in September as well we could do it at the right at the end of September I mean the the these aren't very honorous applications truthfully so you know we could we could send out our newsletter whatever that we want to call that in maybe late August so that people are aware of it we could put in in that that uh we would be having this grant writing Workshop that we're basically going to hold their hand to uh work through the process um and then target the people that we see on the list of the potential projects that we have and make it for the the end of September I I wouldn't put it in the beginning of September because you know kids are going back to school everybody's getting into a new routine so we do it for the end of September um there's plenty of time there for them to get things in that makes sense to me when's our public hearing scheduled Mato uh September 19th okay and it's a good time to talk about the workshop then too yep September 19th at the public hearing I mean we only had one person attend the public hearing this year so it's going to be over here okay so I'll move that in the schedule to the fall the workshop um is there I mean so Henry had mentioned the idea of doing it by Zoom do you is there a sense of attendance would be better by Zoom or by in person I would say Zoom probably yeah say Zoom too any other discussion on that item all right seeing none we'll move on to item six update on the Community Housing Partnership idea with Leverett uh Rita how's it going okay um so Matteo and I met with um Ken Khan and Barbara Ry and Sh Shelley Garing um Barbara and Ken are both on the leverite um Housing Trust and Shelley Garing works for the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and does technical assistance and that's where I worked uh for most of my professional life um and we had been approached by Leverett because they have um their their trust which is set up as a municipal it's a municipal entity it's kind of a spin-off it uses CPA money they've been sitting on uh I think about $300,000 that they that the trust has that um for specifically for community housing affordable housing and they haven't been able to do anything they started out a number of years ago providing down payment assistance or principal write down I guess more than down payment assistance um I think up to $50,000 and they did a handful of um I'm not sure how they structured it probably as deferred payment loans for firsttime home buyers but then when prices got so high and um there was so little on the so little on the market nobody has taken advantage of that money that they had to offer so they've been kind of just racking their brains and they approached us and said Gee shsb we know you've only done one housing project um would you be interested in possibly um working with us to you know think through some possibilities and they had this idea that if we hired a consultant that maybe they would have some you know be able to bring some creative suggestions about how we in small towns could could further our goals of getting some more affordability and um so I had had an initial discussion with Ken and Barbara and then um uh you know suggested that we have this talk with Shelly and invited um Matteo to to join us and I think what it boiled down to is that the the the most the best potential we have for doing something with regard to um housing is probably on either publicly owned sites and to focus on um probably on new new construction and and home ownership as opposed to as opposed to rental so we determined that the first step for both communities would be to look at municipally owned parcels and potentially other buildable Parcels if we were going to try to say encourage and you know more habit Habitat for Humanity houses or you know some other affordable home ownership um MHP actually has some technical assistance money that they will provide to a community um looking at a municipally own site so um you know I happen to mention the library site now whether or not that ever would have potential in the back in the back of the parcel to do some sort of housing I think it was originally when when a master plan was done way back when by the Conway school um the thought was could you do some you know elderly housing there as well as the library to have kind of a little village type Center um given all the constraints of that site it's unclear whether or not there's any potential but you know it could be it could be further investigated um MHP would provide no cost to the community Monies to um to do some site site investigation if if we determined that um we wanted to look at that site or any other Town own sites and so um that's sort of where we left it I you know I look back at my notes Matteo I didn't have anything else um about our collaboration with with Leverett so maybe you recall whether or not there was anything else that came from from that discussion I think they were going to go and take a look at some of some of their sites too um just to see what's you know what might be available yeah I think those are the main takeaways was like starting off by identifying the municipally owned sites yeah and beginning with that since they were the low hanging fruit at least that's the way it was you know presented yeah so you know we do we do set aside 10% of our funding um our CPA funding every year for for you know community housing is is one of the categories and we've just spent I believe it was $27,000 on that uh habitat house so it would be great if we could come up with um some some other possibilities and you know that could that could include acquiring um acquiring land for um you know for community housing for affordable housing so I guess I have the I have the the assignment now to to um to get the inventory of town Old Land together and then we should talk some more about that greaters will be able to pull really easily right I'm sorry go ahead Cliff um just a question with with leverett's funds $300,000 um did that all come from CPA or was it from other sources as well it was I believe it was all CPA and I believe leverage at 3% we're only at one and a half percent so um so they've raised a whole lot more money than we have I don't think they've gotten any other you know you as a trust like a trust can accept um donations um so yeah and and property values you know are higher so their their taxation which the surcharge is is based on you know has been has been higher in lever so that's why they have that much money also early um is it lever or pelum one of the two was an early member of the CPA right yeah that they um I don't use the phrase grandfather in but like what is the you know they get the original agreement of the CPA trust match which is a lot more money right yeah um and the other thing that and we talked a little bit about this with um with Shelley Garing is that communities um you know lever could choose to give us their CPA money um and that has happened in other um places uh on the cape they have done a lot of cooperation because they kind of see you know their housing problem as a regional problem that it's not just a you know it's not just a problem in well Fleet or in Truro but it's a whole it's a whole Cape problem um so there is that in the back of everybody's Minds you know we could do a collaboration and the way that you address it um is that uh you can provide some sort ofal preference um so you could include in your program design let's say you were building four houses um that that based on you know a contribution that one of those houses could be set aside for somebody from um Leever so to be to be sold to an eligible household you know likewise if we were to if if lever it came like for example if the kitridge property got developed and there was an affordability component to it and we decided gez there's no options for any kind of um affordable housing development in shutesbury but with a kitridge property they're going to be doing um I think I think it's all ownership now um it's going to be a much smaller development according to the lever folks um than was originally anticipated but you know we could we could make a contribution towards the affordability of some of the units that would then be set aside for um shsb people um it's a little odd you know to say oh okay we'll move out of sh but you know a shuts veryy resident could be there could be kind of a broad definition of what um a resident is and that often happens in in affordable housing it's people who who might work in the community or who grew up in the community and you know have have strong ties um so it's just something to think about you know there there might be some new development in leopard and I I don't I don't know anything about the timing but it did sound like things were moving ahead with the krid property so just something to think about did I miss anything um for purposes of comparison we have 38,000 in our affordable heal but we have a bunch of unrestricted funds we do yeah so yeah and you can you can Bond I mean that's the other thing is um you know let's let's say there was a parcel of land that uh that the town decided they wanted to buy for a combination of open space and and housing and it was a half a million dollars you can borrow and then use the CPA funds to pay off the the borrowing you know on over a period of year so that's what a lot of communities have done when they had a really significant CPA expenditure um so that's something to to to keep in mind and you know there might be some some open space acquisition coming up um there was at least one parcel in in town that um there's been some talk about you know kestel coming in and gee the next time around it would be great if we if we do have an open space acquisition if we could carve out a lot or two and say and set that aside um for uh for a couple of home ownership units Alan were you gonna you had something to say yeah guess uh stay tuned yeah are there any other questions for Rita or comments on that oh this is great yeah interesting Prospect yeah all right that case we'll move on to item seven is there any other business for the committee to consider yeah got here just in a nick of time good work Alan impecable all right well seeing no no other business I will entertain a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn for the evening I will second all right Perell hi Reed hi yeys hi Leo I Hansen hi pangallo I that's it have a a great night everybody see you you good night