all right good evening and welcome to the high-speed internet subcommittee meeting for what is today Tuesday April 23rd time is 6 o'clock excellent timing uh we're here in the select Board conference room at Town Hall at 4:54 College Highway this meeting is being held in hybrid fashion both in person and in Zoom if anything happens to the technology during the meeting we'll make a recording available as soon soon as possible after the completion of the meeting this meeting is being recorded if anyone else is recording the meeting please make it known to the chair that being said welcome why don't we do a quick uh roll call around the room Doug moglin present Jim Johnson Tom K Marlin quinland Chris Boyd Robert Boyd Ian Creswell Jim Crowley and on Zoom Ryan peas okay why don't we get into right into it so don't if I have I have just enough copies I think then I definitely have enough copies yeah I've got a copy of contract here so I definitely absolutely have anyone else I made colored ones courtesy of the town of Southwick anybody like one with color okay so what I did was I met with uh the folks from the g& with all the feedback that we had from our previous meeting and they had we we got together and went over the red line now it's a blue line sorry folks and I believe that this encompasses every single thing everything that we had gone over and talked about there were a couple other minor um minor changes and where I made notes or changes there's comment I left the comments on the right hand side so anybody can see them and review them um no you know what dog if that's the case I'll take a copy of that then don't mind thank you how's that thank you and goal here is if we can all agree that this is indeed what we had all discussed is to send this back to the select board so that they can send it to Town Council um to put to final form um for execution and who was the first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NOA first Lou P Stewart John McCay he was asked after team lost every single game their first season and the reporter asked them so what did you think of your team's execution and he said generally I'm in favor of it so uh sir a lot of this came feedback was from yourself um so hopefully that we can if there's any discussion that we want to have or any questions that I can answer I don't know I didn't see any of the g& guys on the line tonight I really don't know that they they need to be here tonight because I think we kind of went over everything but if there's any questions I'll be glad to to do what I can to answer or take back to them I forgot who it who it was but there is someone from g& here right over there last meeting last yes we had yeah they all came back to the next meeting and then we met on Zoom we met in person then we met on Zoom um and then when we doing when we do we doing our commentary yes yes yes there so they had a lot of notes from our meeting to put back the form and then me and uh me and Brian Brian Sullivan and I met again and um I'm sorry the young lady's name Escapes Me from g& that we met Katrine yes and then um the other assistant general manager of Genie came to the last meeting we had so I I believe we're in decent shape I've gone over this a few times myself but I wanted to get this group back together and then you I also want to talk about the next Topic at hand too um but I think it was and what I've been relaying back to the select board is is that I wanted to you know with we've just had a confence of events to try to get this meeting together and my schedule's been a little bit nutso with budget season guys have been a little busy Tad yeah um so regarding it so I went through and and I had um just a section on the design that I wanted to add in here um before the last meeting um but I brought a copy here because it's what what's the state that it's in right now it's much better than it was um I think it's it's pretty close to being done so I'm I'm happy with the way it's come out it's U got a lot more you know meat on it and specifics but it doesn't really address any design criteria um most of what Westfield is going to do I'm sure will be covered in this but I think we need to have it in the uh contract itself so want to pick a copy this would go either under section four for the scope or else under addendum a uh Tom I'd appreciate your input too just on some of the design pieces there uh some of your thoughts but most of it is standard things just some things that I wanted to add um to make sure that we get as much as we can out of a design for the town um I'll just go over some of the highlights uh biggest thing we wanted to mention that depending exactly where we're permitted to put the Hut we want to have diverse entrances in and out of there so I want to make sure that the design addresses that um initially the the feed will come from the fiber between South in Westfield going down the rail trail um but we want to have access for secondary feed and that's for purposes of if there's ever a cut or a break in that main fiber you want to have a backup fiber um so just having the the connections in place will allow um The Next Step which is actually um know the network design once equipments there and having that fail over so that's the first piece uh I mentioned here xgs Pond we we discussed it briefly earlier on it's a type of uh gpon Network it's it's really the next iteration that's becoming more popular now instead of having U regular gon you've got up to 32 people that are sharing um 2.5 gig download and uh one and a quarter upload uh whereas xgs pond it's the next iteration it's been in in development by all the manufacturers for the last um five with that it's 10 gig shared for Pon Port so um what it's going to do is when the network is built and and activated we not going to hear any concerns and it's not going to be outdated at that point so is it symmetrical 10 gig it is symmetrical whereas regular Pond like most of the um Municipal networks are built on right now it's it's not symmetrical so this addresses that and um you know gets gets us in a better place and I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and talked to some manufacturers but cost-wise has come down a lot so equipment wise maybe a 10% premium on it but what you're going to get is is your future proofing it more than than what would go in so I'd highly recommend it um and but I put it in here it's not really going to affect the fiber counts and the fiber design as much but just wanted to have that added in there um 1 by 32 split that's important to have I mean that's what Westfield has I believe in most of their networks and the ones that no actually doing one by I recommend going by 1 by 32 yeah a little bit with the xgs pond you can handle the 1 by 32 what that means is you're sharing that bandwidth between up to 32 subscribers manufacturers are already working on 50 gig pounds so it's it's a good ratio that's not going to get um too overloaded so um and the other thing is that it it does save a little bit of money on fiber so instead of having you know two fibers out to a split Point uh for 1 by6 you're going to one fiber so it it it saves money on the feeder cables a bit um fiber servent areas up to 288 um my experience it's a good number it's it's not too big and uh the cabinets that you can put the Splitters on are much smaller so they can be pole mounted um wanted to make sure we we have enough sparing in there because we want to look 20 to 30 years from now we want to make sure there's enough spare fiber in there in case there's a partial land that gets developed and and you need extra uh fiber is cheap the labor to put it in is expensive so uh you're better off adding a little extra in the cable sizes um most most of the rest is really just things that I would expect from the design anyway but I think it's important that we have it in writing uh so that is something that we expect as part of it so I don't think that Westfield would really push back at any of this but certainly if there's any discussion on it um i' want them to want to hear what they have to say good to double check with make sure that that cost estimate that's already in this draft is okay with this yeah I don't if there's something in here that would lead to I can't think of anything that would lead to extra okay extra costs because most of this is going to come out of the design and it it's you I've seen some of the designs before pretty thorough so um and Tom if there's anything that you can think of that um we might want to include just so that it doesn't get missed because we wouldn't want to have it if it's something important to us now and you can assume things but until until it's written down just want to make sure that it's it's covered actually said quite a bit of electronics on the 1X 32 versus 1 by 16 yeah yeah keep modules are pretty expensive so cuts out cuts down on yeah so the premium might be offset to a degree yeah and when I say premium I mean it's it used to be maybe 50% higher now it's it's it's 10% higher but it's just the the electronics for the network so I'll throw out a number um let's say it's uh and it might be in some of the estimates at 400,000 Electronics um maybe it'll be know 450 um spread over the long term it's it's going to be a much better um investment for the town just to have sure you're not looking you're not looking at squawking for upgrades in five years yeah anyone that's putting in a network now is looking at xgs Pond the price have come down it's not new and shiny anymore so there's enough of it rolling out there that the price have come down like a lot of electronics do you know if g& is doing this yet with anyone else though I don't but the I know that the equipment that they have been using primarily from Nokia uh if we decide to to also go with that and that that's already been you know they're one of the manufacturers that that has U been selling this for quite some time and does that also change the um the thing at the other end the on it's a different it's a different model but I saw prices three years ago and the prices now are just about gotta negligible negligible over the life of the subscriber and by the time we're in a position to start ordering this and having it procured it going to continue to fall that's the one good thing about Electronics I was going to try to share my screen with the it's not working I had gotten from it's a little off topic but I had gotten a drawing from whp city which I will send to everybody that's what they consider the rough cut of the fsas for the town it was it was part of a Grant application that we did which I'll cover in a little bit but I don't know how that factors in with when you were talking about this I don't know if it matters because but these are for those playing along at home this is the map there the fsas that they put together for Southwick but I'll email this to everybody after the meeting I think there was 19 19 Fiber service areas yeah so they're and I'm pretty sure they're going with a 288 count uh split cabinets that's what they've done so far and they do they're nice because they're smaller you can get them on a pole mean Verizon they first started building it they had these refrigerators that were 432s or 864s subscribers that be fed out they're they're huge because we don't own the polls um we're going to be limited by what we can ask to have on there so the smaller cabinet is better I think I guess anyway continue I'm sorry I didn't mean inter yeah well so I mean if I don't want to go line by line some most of you uh know some of the terms um it's most of this is what they would probably put in their design anyway we just want to have it listed um the ones I've seen use uh MST terminals um they use prec connectorized Drops with that so um that's something that i' expect with it um sparing ratio of 20 to 25% for growth in Municipal needs so if it's uh if you need say there's 20 houses on the street there's a one of the smaller cables you can get as a 245 cable so you plan for 20 got four spares let's upsize that to a 36 fiber cable it's only going to cost another nickel a foot but it's going to give you that extra capacity so that down the road 5 10 15 years now there's enough there and and it will be uh utilized over time if like if there's another house built on the or what if uh what if the water department wants to put a well there and they want to monitor tur it uh we're going to have a municipal Network that's available and we'll have spare fiber for that it's what you don't know uh that's really what you want to plan for and then the cost of fiber is is uh for the material itself is pretty inexpensive so you want to have that extra put in there so just putting down a 20 to 25% um sparing that generally I'd expect they'd be doing it anyway but it's it's better to to have it so does this come as part of reading through the the this I think this is contract or as we called it agreement number one this is agreement number two no that's that's one there it doesn't break down in appendix a it gets down into the poll applications and make ready uh pretty thoroughly talks a bit about onboarding but this this is the design this is for that piece you're just specifying some parameters of what we expect a lot of it is is what i' call standard for anyone that does uh fiber to the home design with gon we just want to have this in yeah okay so you want you're proposing to insert this into here as part whether it goes you know four section four is where the scope is right now um it could go there or as part of appendix a which is what already has the the details on We Make Ready second for second uh page two I would having Dr contracts for a huge amount of time all the technical stuff all the performance stuff should go on spoke don't in the contract if you want to change something you got to figure out how it is bases with the exhibit else so just put it in the exhibit okay and that's the only thing so that if there's a change you've got to if you you have to do a change order you're only talking about adding or deleting something makes sense on exhibit rather than straddling you know the contract clause and the exhibit yeah and it already references that from from section four so um you know the scope of services pursuant uh within they detailed in exhibit a it just didn't have uh fiber design details in there and the one hesitation in putting this into the contract is that if they come back and say instead of 10% we're talking 100% increase well the 10% I mentioned is just an Electronics cost it doesn't affect the fiber design at all well I know but if we put it in the contract and suddenly it becomes cost repit if it I'd be very shocked if it did um I want to know why because this isn't really adding that was true that would force a conversation yeah because it it's got to be a little bit more back and forth but I think it's pretty close you know if we don't have anything like this in there and it's designed and we think later on a few months from now that we oh we forgot the second entrance then it could be a change order at least right now it's it's in there and if I recall right I think the pricing of the design is based on road miles or Road footage I don't know if you call that time so that's usually um Road footage but that that would um or Fiber footage um main fiber footage so even if you bring in a uh main main cable up to uh customer drop that's 1 th000 ft off the road yeah that they they count be design design people usually count yeah yeah so this isn't changing any of that um it would ensure that the the size of the fiber cable is really the ones that are further out away from the core of the network want have some sparing in there it's standard practice any designer is going to have sparing this just puts it in writing that we expect a certain level of that third one up from the bottom Jim about the um footages fell houses I know their design house they anything that's less than 150 they don't they don't bag it they just less than 150 yeah so that saves that saves a lot of Labor as far as the guy having to measure every single house especially when he's going down you know Road you see it's less than 150 the biggest thing with that is is and I've seen from other projects um it it's going to help us budget we're going to know was we start getting residents that want to sign up we're going to have to form policies as to what the town is willing to pay for a network versus a resident for example if someone has a 2,000t driveway and it's all underground who pays for that um those are things that we're going to have to go through as a committee um just to make recommendations on that um especially if it's all Berry plant which is most expensive so having that information and it should be part of the survey I'd be shocked if it wasn't I don't think it would be an extra um all the data I've seen in the past is is included some of that what what I what I was referring to is it says here all premises I mean if you have and typically house drop you know 150 ft or less they just use a standard cable so the design the design company doesn't normally measure all houses that are less than 150 ft they just considered a standard installation that makes sense instead of instead of including up you know this one's 79 this one's yeah no that that's fine so it's it's really the ones that are longer we want to know which ones are going to be underground which will be part of the design um it'll it'll give us an idea when this is when the estimate comes in based on actual field measurements and the field review uh having that data you know we know it's going to be more expensive to do a buried drop to a house so uh it's important to catch that while it's being surveyed so and there's plenty of those there's plenty of yeah there's different methods um the any conduit that's on property owners property is theirs even if another utility put it in there you know they own it so let's say they don't use their phone anymore the could be taken out and it could use that condo to go in there so that that's a good thing that's you know less costly um but if they use it say for business and they still need a separate feed then you know we're going to and need to see you know an estimate of the pricing for underground uh fiber placement on private property so it's going to give us a better idea as a committee what the true costs are or true estimate of the cost I should say actually that would would would would that be something that it's almost a case by case kind of a thing and it wouldn't necessarily be part of this agreement is that it it' be part of our pricing yes to them to the customer right so it'll help us set that if let's say if we didn't have it we made an assumption that there's only 10 buried uh cable scenarios in all in the whole town and it's really not going to cost anything we'll just cover it versus by getting this data then we'll know okay there's 35% of the time or of the town has buried facilities going to their house so we know that it's going to be substantially more expensive and then we'll have to set a policy uh what I've seen some towns do they they'll pay for so much and just allocate that say you know up to 50 ft or something like that that we'd pay anything over that would be up to the home that if I could throw something out rather than trying to think through everything right now to get something off to through legal review is this is kind of things we would encounter in the field that there was no real way he's he's talking about during the survey process when they're doing the formal survey that uh that they they do include that into the survey so that we know up front that you know this percentage of town is is is underground so and or lengthy PS and that sort of thing so that U we're able to budget it better better going so so actually so it's not to slow the process down change the wording here so it's it's it's it's referencing that you report that will be generated through that survey is that the actual cost of which will be determined by results of the upcoming survey or what yeah the the the the survey measurements that's all going to happen as part of a design that's going to feed back into the um calculations that that wg& is already made for the high level estimate that we rece a couple years ago this is just going to you know put either measured numbers or very close estimates so then you can add that and give us a better idea of the budgeting this is plan survey and design yeah the the committee or at some point the Municipal Light plant when it's ever established whether and how the how that is well the Municipal Light plant is established but the regulating Board of this of the mun fiber is going to have to come up with some policies and procedure when we get to that point not only is Jermaine to this part because this is the plan survey and design but it does raise but if you don't have the data correct so when you know I call and go hey want the service sign me up and they go great for you it's $250 to install it because your house is 200 ft off the street underground and by the way we looked and you don't have a conduit now so we're gonna have to do it and therefore it's we know what that is that's what you're asking that's data to develop and that should come out in the survey anyway I agree but want to have it written down so that that's an expectation that we have anyway I'd be pretty surprised if if any of these aren't already considered part of the design service so the only thing that I would add I think for discussion is um I we I will it's okay with with the committee is to send this back I don't think there's any I can't speak for Westfield Gas and Electric obviously but uh I don't think there's anything in here from a design perspective that jumps off the page and go hey that's not what we're going to do right that's not what we do because the design firm is going to do this work the survey firm the only thing that catches my eye is the xgs pond if whip city is not their road map doesn't have xgs Pawn yet that might be a point of contention because we were at their site they had the spares and the this and the that and the other maybe we will need to look at that it won't in terms of the fiber design um later on I mean you know this is going to be our Network so I I agree even in the sparing thing i' I'd be surprised if if they're not looking at it certain areas um it's the manufacturer makes um cards now that can go on the equipment that are calling combo cards you can do both Je p and xgs pond so what some uh broadband service providers are doing if if you have a an area with this 288 houses there if if they're starting to call up and they're really high usage there and they're saturating that limit the easiest way to do it is moveing from a pond port to an xgs Pond port and just releves that bandwidth issue right there sure I have no OB personally any objections discussion no adding to exhibit a is just I I agree too I think excellent I think it's excellent idea to to go forward this way it'll save us money I think in the long run honestly okay any other discussion on the contract I good I think on on this exhibit blet marks either number them or letter them 100% it'll we'll put it into here as part of the same style they us throughout the whole thing because like you said we did do that on all of this when I had six of them the bullets looked good but as now it looks like I had a problem with my pen thank you very much for doing this you're welcome further discussion on the agreement I if I could direct your attention to page 11 of the agreement this was in the original handout that we got we got here okay right are we all looking at the same thing this is one of our problems section number that you're looking on just page 11 okay oh okay yeah I see the page numbers now okay yeah mine's a little different the upper yeah so there's a black space thing between page 11 and in witness where are any huge space like that should always con contain wording this space is left intentionally black so it doesn't look like something is just or we just move everything out but never leave a blank space unspoken for good point is that actually there or is that just bringing it up right now to check to see if it was just if you take all the formatting changes and all the edits that it might just be not there and we're waiting on the town's internet and so then uh so we had three signatures there for the town of Southway yes I would say that we only need two you need three the three member Board of Select select board are the signatories for this knew it yeah okay they only need four signatures then one for West whip City no well we do have one for yeah here what we want to do is it the administrator of the high-speed internet should be signing this as well so that any changes in the program they're aware of L something comes through quick click sign this that is the slackard as well and and we execute and the town executes it it's a legally binding agreement but the person who has to make it happen has no knowledge of requiring their signature on this as well I think from a legal standpoint the only entity that's that can enter into a contract is the for in this type of contract is the select board not a lawyer did not stay at a holiday and express but I'm pretty sure it's standard fair for almost every contract we have I hear what you're saying and there there needs to be a mechanism I will draw your attention Mr Johnson to the portion about notices we were very deliberate with that um with the email and the address of where notices are sent in the contract because I wanted to make sure they didn't just go to the accounting office and get filed in the file with the bill right and then they say oh we told you so the notice part is was very deliberate number eight yeah yeah finally came up page 11 page five yeah yeah okay and yes so I mean just I don't know if it's a function of the computer or what I'm going to check that for you and I noted Blank Space yeah if you draw that up you BL up the signature from Westfield onto page 11 as well right should drop page 12 all together pull back exhibit a yes there is there does appear to be some extra space that needs to come up it shall be addressed duly okay Mr Johnson for example when we just did the roof on this building okay uh we had the buildings and grounds Department we had a clerk of the works and about six other people Knee Deep or elbow deep in the roof project trust me there was three signatories on the contract for the roof project got okay yeah the other question we had was on um the onboarding with the website that's on the last page right yeah it's unders scope of services number four but also um under b appix b yeah both places so basically does that mean that on the Southwick website there's going to be a link to the W City absolutely okay rather than people needing to look for a website to sign up okay and and the they were very clear about this to me was that the there's a $500 setup fee for whip City fiber to clone off their existing infrastructure for us to have a page for us that'll have our fsas and where you can sign up and have all the addresses and everything loaded um but the the link piece from the town web page that frankly cost nothing we'll we'll do that ourselves and it'll be probably on the homepage you know click here to sign up for you know whatever the name of the Southwick f is going to be and it will go directly to that web website that's in fact yeah they will have it even has the address of what that website is by the same token we could buy sou fiber.com and forward it to wherever correct correct correct whatever we call well we made a lot of municipalities have have named their own network yeah sure one fiber right for example well but it's I think topic for a different day and it is it'll be a very good discussion because I think that that's actually kind of taking on a brand through the Commonwealth at least in this area and so it's a known quantity versus if it's you know the jog fiber ink right or whatever people it's not a known quantity so there's you have to balance that I me we'll carry that on a future agenda that would be a great topic of discussion any other commentary on this Brian I I I'm I'm not forgetting about you how you doing over there bud I'm good I'm here I'm listening making sure no it's I I I really appreciate all the work that everyone's putting in on this I mean it's a lot of good ideas tonight ABS well know and I just sometimes you know we're in the room and you're looking around and you're off to my right corner of my eye so I I don't want to forget you hey you know me I I know how to I know how to speak [Laughter] I had one uh one comment uh page five section 10 the exclusivity I just wondered if is there any uh concern at all with with uh the legal review and having that I mean I understand why it's there it makes sense so basically once this is signed then uh we'll have an exclusive relationship with wg& for you know at least five years so this puts it there so even if the design piece is going to be finished and we'll start building in that time frame so I I think I understand why it's there just for continuity um they're not in the business just to do design Consulting they want to run the network ultimately and and that's what we voted to have do so um I just seeing in here I wasn't expecting it but um I talked about this yeah they talked about this in a couple of meetings that we had earlier on in fact they were encouraging 10 10 years and we kind of backed off and we're like maybe a little closer to five maybe we should add we'll have to see if that survives legal review too from us because I know as a select board though there's there's been some other discussion I don't want to complicate matters we have another long-term license agreement that were working on and the lawyer came back says I don't know if you need a town meeting article for that I said okay please advise because every time we've ever done anything longer than three years we need to go to get town meeting approval for same actually heard that in other instances yeah it might be a unless it's a town bylaw con straint or not but it's awn the reason frankly the reason the elected term your select board is three years three years so they don't want a select board time tying the town up past you know and tying a hand of a future board I don't know if this Rises to that or not I'm sure the lawyer will have his say on it if it's something that's conc I don't know why I didn't think of it before maybe it's the exclusivity thing on I this whole agreement is silent on termination I mean it alludes to it but it doesn't say anything directly about crimination it doesn't spell it out in a section but I saw a reference to it somewhere cability um that's that's the severability of any section of this right you know um under uh payments I saw something agreement you know basically if if the process stops for discontinu seven under Indemnity 15 section 15 um number letter E in the event of a breach of this agreement well that was hope Point yeah that's just Bach right but that's the only place I saw anything that looked like CH nation is uh no noted yeah it's a good point I saw you know it is indeed a five year um what's involved in severing the relationship at that point what kind of notice is necessary if we choose to um you know move on to somebody else to manage we find that dealing withal Gas and Electric is like dealing with a till of the Hunt is it maybe it's a relationship we really don't want to go any further with actually it's right on there is a it probably needs to get flushed out it's right on six term this agreement begin as a date hereof will terminate upon earlier completion of services to exhibit a or five years from the effective date unless earlier terminated extended or renewed in accordance to the provisions of this agreement should either party in default in the performance of any material obligation this agreement and such default may not be cured within 30 days the non-defaulting party May terminate in in event of any termination Southwick will pay for any services rendered the applicable Provisions agreement shall continue in effective teration clearance if that's necessary does that address your yeah I guess so dying back there's no blowout Clause it doesn't mean that anyone can just raise your hand and go we're done in 30 30 days NE one can walk away but also keep in mind that this is the first of several contracts that we are going to execute this is only the design and the poll permitting and all that's a lot of money here right once we you know we we go and get the numbers back from them and start actually executing under this agreement but the actual construction is another contract and then operation becomes the third contract correct nodding of head yes yes okay making sure just making sure I copying the oh I rent on all of them then yeah I wrote on this one too okay further discussion on the contract hearing none I'd like to have a motion to send this to the select board to have them send the Town Council and then have the select board execute that agreement uh that is substantial substantially what's here obviously the legal beagles are going to have their way so second motion by we have three motion by Mr Johnson second by Mrs quinland it would be a roll call vote so we'll just go around the room Doug Mogan I Jim Johnson I Tom K ey Marlin quinland I Chris boy ey Bob boy ey Ian Creswell I Jim Crowley I and on zooman I fantastic okay next on the agenda uh review disc okay uh Financial stuff and a financial model I think we need to uh a couple things on that one is I wanted to mention that I did we we ran quite up against it but we did manage to submit the community compact Grant application it was due April 12th and it was submitted on um April 12 it was we also we were able to submit that Grant application for the amount of half a million dollars um kind of a late thought in the game um I did have fantastic help from the whip city folks about the numbers and the dollars and uh number of polls and then we went and to your point you alluded to a little bit tonight we added to the map a a we made a map and we added every sewer pump station well pump station well head Wally Park the library the school um every other Town facility including the cemetery um one that really spiders out the map for you for the municipal fiber network but it does aail you of that service cameras to those but everyone wants boat ramps to your point exactly and by partnering with with their permission the Southwick tallin Granville Regional School District now it becomes an inter multiple entity application because the South bck tallin Granville Regional School District is its own governmental entity they're an elected board they have their own budget um and they're basically a government just like um just like whip City uh Westfield Gas and Electric is a kind of Quasi governmental entity and it has its own elected board that is a separate governmental enti therefore it allowed us to double the amount of dollars we could well we believe we'll find out when they evaluate our Grant application but that we're able to apply for double the the standard Fair um in related to that I did reach out to uh Senator Marx and representative Bigga who gave us a joint letter of recommendation to be put with the bid application that was submitted with the Grant application at that time so we'll see where that goes I also was at this western Mass Fire Chiefs Association breakfast a couple Fridays ago the whole select board was there and I had the pleasure of running into oh boy I didn't check my email today but uh Mark Lanigan and he works for Senator Mary and he is going to reach out to us and I'm going to send this to you Mrs wiland because right up your alley um he had a couple other potential Grant application slf funding opportunities um and also wanted to talk more but that wasn't the right time or place but he happened to be sitting at our table so I chewed on his ear for half an hour um so that's where we are on that um the next is I think we need to put together a little bit of another working group if you will um to start flushing out the math if you will on this overall service and to kind of see where what income looks like as we build out the network what the construction's going to cost going to look like what the borrowing costs are going to look like and and what this thing looks like as far as you know ins and outs of money for to make sure that we can you know kind of along what we we've been talking about all along is can we deliver this service to every home and Business in the town of Southwick Within a a financial reasonably financially reasonable period of time and retire the debt and provide the service at a reasonable rate and not saddle the taxpayer of the town of Southwick with some ginormous amount of debt from what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing is it looks to me like some of the the general costs of of the especially around the poll application process and whatnot is going crazy um eversource is is gone a little nuts in in other towns nearby West Springfield is a good example um and I will send you a note on that as well because I he um whip City gave me some numbers on what they're seeing almost looks like eversource is going to get into this business themselves because they quadrupled the price of what they were charging for you know a poll um a Make Ready work on a poll yeah um much more than I expected though um just it's it's a lot higher usually they been a little bit more than the Verizon but it it's quite a bit more it don't to me when I first when he first told me some of the numbers I well obviously they're they're they're boxing out of ahead of them offering some kind of service and so why they're going to make it prohibitive for others to enter in the space and they but we're fortunate in our town 80 I think it's 80% of our polls are Verizon so Verizon hasn't moved on that yet either um but we'll see but I think we got to start putting these numbers into a model spreadsheet and to say okay at you know this is going to be the subscriber rate this is the debt this is the you know this is going to be the interest and and principle on the debt and then you know how do we get there and if this thing costs you know and we don't know yet but we're going to see from Once We execute this we're going to get back some real dollars by the way and they're very very clear on that those dollars are not in this agreement because they're proprietary some of some of the information is proprietary and confidential whip City they don't want that to be part of a contract it's part of a supplemental piece that's filed but this becomes this is an open open record as soon as it's signed and executed but it's an open record right now maybody wants it they're more than welcome to have it so but they do have some and it's it alludes to it in the contract that's what they consider proprietary and there is state law and and and under the open meeting law value um and and record keeping of how you keep certain proprietary things confidential when you're dealing with the government but once we have those numbers we can start to plug that in and then start to understand you know if this project costs 10 million okay this is if the project costs 17 million this is what it's going to be and at some point you go this Project's 50 million we go we're well done we go home and and and you know we say we try right but I don't know what that breakover point is yet I don't think any of us can without really working on that that model um I've got a rough spreadsheet with numbers that I did year ago but the numbers are obviously outdated wasn't a pro for not Ved for you know accuracy but I have a spreadsheet so obviously Mr Boy's on that subcommittee anyone else I just you know to come back and and you know I say you know a couple three weeks or so after we get through maybe even we even have a little bit more Runway after we get past town meeting um but you guys can you know like I said keep it a smaller group so that you can meet um informally to come back to this board with uh you know as kind of a working group and come back to the B you know the Fuller committee and and lay it out would that be assuming that we get the grants again I think it would be something that you could plug in you know if we can do different models right I mean you've got you know you know the money that we have right and we can get you the exact dollars but you know you got 900,000 and I think there was 30 ,000 20,000 um of arpa money the 900 is real the other one was somewhere between 15 and 30 I don't remember the exact number and we've exhausted most of it of that first trunch but we have not touched dollar one of the 900 grand um and and for next fiscal year starting July 1 of 24 for fiscal year 25 a county is going to set up a chart of accounts for the Municipal Light plan that's our plan you know and somebody I think someone had actually asked directly like you know hey how come we haven't seen an accounting of your expenditures and incomes for the M Municipal fiber project well there hasn't been any of consequence money um one could argue you know10 12,000 was consequential but at the end of the day um you know before we start biting into the 900 Grand that was set aside out of the arpa money I think we owe it to the to everyone else to have you know a regular accounting of of the monies for the high-speed internet oh makes sense ABS oh absolutely and but I think we also need to start modeling it out before we you know we we've done a lot of work to get here we know now or we'll know shortly what the build out's going to cost and we're going to have to look at it you know with those fsas where we're going to build how are you're going to do it and it some of it becomes time money right we're going to we're going to do this year one two three yeah some yeah I mean whip City's whip City Westfield's not done in their own town yet right um but they're getting there but they're not done yet size four at least four years and probably yeah they skipped over aot they skipped over Apartments multif family houses stuff like that everything yeah but I think we have to look at that I mean if you're talking that this project and we don't know the dollars but you know just talking with the with those folks you know we had talked about you know 9 to 11 million it looks to be it's going to be the high side of that number given what the the Make Ready work is going to be okay we need to plug that in and figure out what that's going to do we and and frankly we're going to have to come back to the town once we go we are going to have to come back to the town to borrow more money right we have authorization fully authorized to borrow 3 million bucks but there's no point in borrowing $3 million if we can't finish the project right it's no spense no sense spending 100,000 to the 900,000 if we can't finish the project or have line of sight to finish in the project so we can play around with you know the the idea is to play around with the time play around with the interest rate play around with and I'm using the word play around but you can manipulate those and to understand what the real Market would be over time and then start looking at income from you know where would you look at as you know then the committee can get together and say okay look at the fsas look at the density we need to go and get some denser neighborhoods denser overhead neighborhoods first right and get them you know basically paying to start to satisfy some of the debt and then you move out from there so all who wants to be on that committee jump in B hand with some of those before you if you need more than two I can I think three's I think we could do three right we did that with the other one three was I did the math before I think it was three yeah there you go you three and one thing that uh is concerned to me right now is uh we originally anticipated about 50% take rate um Comcast is basically doubling their speeds arguably decreasing prices as well I now have 250 250 Meg down for like 60 bucks which is a far cry from what I could have gotten two years ago so that's a consideration um the up speed is also increasing I think it's up to to 30 Meg now I was hoping it would pop up did anyone else get the targeted advertising directed at them from I haven't gotten it I saw on Facebook the other day though I was hoping it would come up right now on my on my phone $30 a month there was a was uh a firm it doesn't say exactly whom it is but it did say whom it was it doesn't say who backs them you know tell your government to you know focus on your schools not your not Municipal Broadband or something like that see that too I just the cable box and the TV because was broad local broadcasting was getting too expensive yeah decrease my price overall sure one less I was look the place oh okay is it the exib see the budget there there should also be wording in about that dtic list that WG is going to be sending us about wording for which is not going to be included in this agreement but there's going to be a cost associated with it yeah so referencing even though we don't identify a number you know is that that Exhibit C should have wording in it that's going to address the fact that outside of what is written on these Pages there always going to be proprietary and confidential information reference that yeah because I'm still surprised that it can't be in this agreement as part of it I understand what's public but it so on the very lastest page yep the very lastest page C page 19 C non-disclosure town of South to execute intergovernmental agreement confidentiality Southwick highspeed internet agreement number two and uh wg& WCF to provide breakdown of project cost upon execution of the G how this doesn't obligate anybody to anything other than that we agreed to move forward to and that they're going to bill us hopefully it's less than correct so that's why yeah so this is part of put putting ourselves on the design and maybe it should reference the you know by by signing this agreement then it's understood that this sister agreement is agreed to with pricing or something like that I mean that's for the lawyers BL last I'm trying to find it keep turning right there oh yeah thank yeah that's in that's since what they're saying with the non-disclosure agreement is that once that's executed so essentially we're agreeing to sign that that at that point they will separately provide us for the breakdown the project costs um upon execution of that agreement so I mean we're basically agreeing to sign it yeah it almost sounds like we've got to sign that amend I imagine I hear you like you say that's SPS up to the lawyers we're just on a new add wording to this then under the non-disclosure agreement under number two is is um that and this will be will contain proprietary and confidential information this here I just sounds like you know well we'll just go and buy a new car you know the function of that number two is it contains proprietary and confidential information which is not well is that applied through the confidentiality agreement you see list you shouldn't have to cross reference a thousand times everything should be just in business I agree with you completely in business I agree with you I just we just went through negoti ations at my company with bringing on a contract programmer in England who has a LLC out of or something similar to it out of Hong Kong so we had to be really careful because we're giving up source code here to get some work back on um so yeah in business I agree it's a singular contract but I also understand that because of you know the publicos stuff that you can't necessarily do it that way um the way we would if we were you know sitting down running Wally Computer you know but but I guess what I'm trying to say is is I agree with you also is that this agreement is going to be part of the public record and just a statement about this portion of the agreement is going to be proprietary and con or will contain proprietary and confidential information to wg& and is therefore not subject to this agreement yeah I think I think that's a town lawyer thing Let Let them fight about that and I yeah what I don't understand is I mean if someone wanted to see it they could just do a public information request and has to be furn so no no if if you declare something proprietary to you you know no one can look at it except the parties to The Agreement N I'm not an expert on this I've been party to stuff where I've been and I I'll be honest I've been in meetings as a as a select board member when someone asked me to sign a nondisclosure and I said interesting but as soon as I execute this non-disclosure I go turn it into the Town Clerk and it's a public record so maybe some of the documentation that you want to discuss can be confidential but the non-disclosure itself is not confidential correct so it is kind of counterintuitive but I understand what what whip city is saying is and we are other there I believe there must be other items within the purview of the government that you deal with as part of you know buying something from someone that you are provided confidential and proprietary information and just because it's a transaction with a governmental entity doesn't give the world the right to proprietary information and that's the assertion that whip City fiber is making here agree the money is all a public record right so you know for those watching at home or playing this tape later no one is trying to hide anything that's not that they consider competitive and proprietary to the the way that they provide their service but the dollars and cents that we're going to pay for it are going to be completely open and transparent to anyone who wants to see that makes sense correct I mean that's how I understood it and read it or entertain a discussion about it any other way you know when we go by you know if you go byy a uh can't even think of an analogy but if we go buy a dump truck right the invoice that we pay is public record anybody can come see what we paid for or bonded for or did anything to acquire said dump truck or the contract under which it was purchased if it's a state contract but it doesn't entitle you to the source code for the antilock brake system in in the truck right that's proprietary to Ford or International whoever's truck it is or whoever or Bendix or whoever is a supplier to to them so I think that's probably a bad but appropriate analogy gotcha okay further business tonight we didn't approve the minutes but do we have any minutes it says approval of the minutes did we have any minutes to the board to has those okay for our next meeting for approval okay I'll have perfect all right hearing no other business I'd entertain a motion to adjourn set so moved Motion in a second any opposition to adjourning hearing none we adjourn thank you very much have a great night thank you