e glasses okay uh we're going to get going here welcome to the March 26 select board meeting if you could uh all stand and join me in the pledge record and we are being recorded
I flag of the United States of America the stands indivisible withy andice all okay before we start I just want to
thank uh Nate Bim Paul rones and Amilia Rodriguez and Joe dlet for bringing us the select board meeting tonight to the town of swam Scot and elsewhere and um so the First on our agenda we're going to start with public comment public
comment is open to anyone who would like to make any comments whatsoever the select board does not respond um to your public comment but please just stand up and say your name and your address and whatever it is you'd like to say so do we have people here for a public comment
is Billings she I'm she I live at 15 Laurel Road and I've written to everybody on more than one occasion about more than one thing because I'm interested as a new
person to find out what's going on but tonight and I want to thank you all I know you're all volunteers and that's a huge deal that you're doing this but tonight I'm I'm here as a retired person on a fixed income very concerned about a
proposal I read about online about big tax increase two years in a row I'm very upset about this my husband and I as I said are on fixed incomes we
believe in proposition two and a half it's the law I know that there have been creative bookkeeping explanations for how these big tax increases could happen but I think that that it's incumbent on
all of you to not find Creative Solutions to raise my taxes and everybody's taxes so much that I'm not sure how people are going to swing it right now with what's going on with huge
layoffs tens of thousands of people around here not just Federal but in educ higher education there are layoffs Mass general are major layoffs probably many swamps citizens are dealing with this
and to be faced with a huge tax increase is not something we can do um it feels as if since we've been here for three years there've been a lot of almost a spending spree um I've been alarmed we've all
beautiful things the haon beautiful beautiful the open space nein um we have the the lovely new elementary school right behind my house is a beautiful place and my granddaughter loves it but there reaches a point when
I've heard other citizens say we deserve these things and I feel that like what I deserve is to be able to stay here and afford to pay my taxes I'm sure that I'm not the only one in swampit that feels
this way um so I'm asking you to keep in mind that if you have to sell something you bought maybe you'll have to sell something and have that money to not have the taxes go so high and I thank you for listening and I hope you I hope
you do it thank you Sheila Bings do we have anyone else here for public comment no we're GNA have the gentleman the back first yeah um Eric Schneider um 40 Pon Road um
speaking as I guess as a citizen today I'm also a member of the finance committee and school building committee and I guess it's appropriate that I'm falling up on on Sheila because I wanted to talk about revenue and the long-term plan and I think there needs to be one
because you know as we're seeing there's a lot of expenses increasing I think 80 % of our uh over 80% of our budget is financed from residential taxes and in that same order of 80% of our budget is paid to employees either for salaries or
wages or benefits or retirements and if you lump it all together and obviously everyone's facing inflationary pressures everyone wants to to earn more um but the money has to come from somewhere so either we have to have a plan to grow
our tax base and if we don't do that then we have to increase our taxes and or some sort of mix in between and the if we don't do either of those then we have to cut services and it's a hard choice this year's a hard budget looks
like next year's going to be a hard one and thereafter so uh you know we want to be deliberate and intentional and I think we have to think about what's the level of growth that this town wants and if we want and what does that mean for
increasing taxes as sort of the flip side and or you could ask the question the other way how much tax increase are we willing to take and what level of growth in town do we have to encourage right and how can we speed things up you
know we had plans in 2022 for the Glover site and three years later nothing's happened you know if something had been built then you know we might look better this year because we would have more revenues so um you guys are the leaders of the town you make you know finance
committee reviews the expenses and the budget but you make the policy and you lead the town so please come together and um lead the town for um you know a bright future thank
you thank you Eric Eric does the young lady next to you want to get up for public comment too you sure okay okay okay is there anybody else for a public comment so our last person I know is
getting up for public comment is a very special resident this is Carol schutzer and the reason why Carol is very special to us on the board is Carol is a member of the select board was a member of the select board and Carol was the first
chairwoman of the select board so Carol it's exciting to have you here and to talk about something really exciting too it is a little different in this room than we used to meet at Town Hall but it's nice to be back in government a little bit so I admire all the work that
all of you do and thank you good evening I'm Carol schutzer one Salem Street and thank you all for the opportunity to introduce the town to an important Community event is this Saturday night March 29th at 7 p.m. at the high school
and as many of you know know there is an currently an effort underway to establish an electronic independent nonprofit newspaper called The Swamp Scott Tides focusing on all swamp Scott news for example knowing how our little league teams are doing the play that the
High School drama club is producing the Summer Concert Series dates and so much more to Sheila a new Resident just says to me how she's supposed to figure out what's happening in town and hopefully our newspaper will help her this Saturday we're hosting a fundraiser
called Fish Tales this is what the program hot off the press today storytelling from the big blue bringing together various local voices to share personal stories in a format inspired by the popular weekly
podcast and national public radio show The Moth there will be many local celebs in town including Kim carrian as our evening MC storytellers will share unrehearsed personal narratives without notes clearly way better than what I'm
doing right now Fish Tales is an immersive experience centered on storytelling that will bring the community together to embrace the importance of Independent News and the power of great Stories the lineup for the evening includes an Driscoll she's
the president of the tides she's a former writer for the New York Times the Boston Globe and People magazine John Eng Les a lifelong resident of swamps Scott family Roots dating back four centuries chef and owner of Palmer's
Restaurant Mike Lynch former principle Sports Anchor at WCVB TV in Boston Lynch grew up in Swampscott and played football for Harvard Enzo silon Surin our poet laurate author and social Advocate whose
work has won a prestigious Massachusetts book award Leora Rosen a swamp Scott High School senior who was president of to the French Club co-president of the model un and a senior class vice president and Misha Trin trubnikov a
Jewish Ukrainian immigrant raised in Swampscott who discovered his voice through humor and performance and to add to all these festivities at intermission the swamp Scott jazz band will perform Turtles on a string tickets are
available at Swampscott Tides door.org um or do we have that um QR code on the screen or maybe not right now an amazing event out an amazing evening out right here in swams Godot for just $35 a
ticket the community response to our Independent News outlet has been heartwarming we have raised over $125,000 in 6 months obtaining nonprofit status as well as establishing an all volunteer board of directors and various
committees to ensure success for Swampscott Tides I'm looking around the room and please please join us for this important Community event this Saturday night I hope to see you all there it's really going to be a great evening you can buy tickets at the door if you don't
have them already or you can buy them online and we've sold a lot of tickets and it really is going to be fun and it will benefit the tide so it's sort of like a win-win a fun evening out and benefiting the newspaper so thank you very much thank you
Carol okay do we have any resident any more resident comment nobody on the screen okay so we will move to the town administrator's report I am pleased to offer the following reports programs and initiatives that are Ono in the town of
swamp Scot as well as some updates on a variety of things that have happened since my last report town of minist Maryann and I met with Rich balachi last week it is my Rec it's going to be my recommendation to bring Rick back to the building department as
a Building Commissioner beginning on April 7th as many are aware Rich worked for the town from 2011 to 2015 and then again from 2020 to 2022 for the past three years Rich has been the chief of inspections of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts now having fixed whether he has deemed a broken system rich is free and wishes to continue working in the town that he resides in and the town he loves I continue to work with the athenus family to receive permission to access
the Glover house to install a support being there it's been a little slow with Communications this Mr athus isn't feeling very well but I've been working with the attorney I met with residents from the resident at vinn and square I believe Mazy did as well we spoke with them they
wanted to discuss po potential opportunities for them to get more involved in our community very nice meeting with them I met with the westr group to discuss plans to address the encroachment of the butters on El place that's uh if you drive down there now
you'll see that uh we've taken our land back and making some nice improvements and wasn't easy but if we want to address that after I can help you a little bit yeah uh met with Ann mtin from LLC
consultants and the engineer for the mission on the bay Conservation Commission shair sorry earlier Tony out she stepped out she was part of the meeting as well as state Regulators to get up an update on the chapter 90 permanent to make a permanent repair to
that wall unfortunately bad news doesn't look like that wall was going to be repaired this year and that's totally due to all these permits and permissions we have to get from the state this too bad Public Works I intend I attended a
Kings Beach staring committee meeting to discuss ongoing IDE work by the town of swamps in the city of Lyn M meet the committee reconvened after a couple of months of inactivity staff members from Senator kryon representing arm min's office also attend these
meetings I was a panelist uh a week ago Tuesday at ly City Hall on a forum hosted by Maya Nicholson discussed the UV pilot program the meeting was well received with representatives from Mass EPA and elected officials in attendance
approximately 50 residen attending that meeting as I said it was well received we had a follow-up meeting this Monday past monday here at the senior center and that was a a neighborhood meeting U and Nicholson was there to
support us and as well as Senator kryon rep armini as well as two select board members thank you Katie for your support the majority of the sewer main repairs has been completed as part of the Marshall Street outfall sewer
Rehabilitation project spots repairs may be necessary cous lineing of mains and laterals be completed by the end of April a notice to proceed was issued to National water main cleaning company to begin phase 2A of the kings of Stacy
Brook Su main Rehabilitation project Finance team Amy thank you for showing up today finalize the financial forecast she's working with Patrick to Pro increases to uh water and sewer rates and lastly Amy
and Trang last week went out to Amherst Mass for program if for finance Finance people I will say because I know I was gonna say Finance directors but I know train is not a finance director but she's learning Community Development Azie thank
you community de development developed a mission statement for the hawth arm re use committee with the goal of creating a vibrant sustainable and community-driven destination the the inaugural meeting was March 18th and went very well Brian won was elected as chair Joe marcaron Vice chair and George
bionis is the secretary a request was made to include a representative from concom you will be asked to discuss in vote on this change tonight the next meeting is April 17th the master plan committee had an
Open House assisted by Consultants from mepc to gather resident comments on the town's master Plan update attendees reviewed survey responses and explored how these responses connect to existing plans Mazi continues to meet with Ben
Bri leadership to discuss the design and permanent of the veteran Crossing project housing AI very instrumental assisting the tree committee with acquiring a $100,000 Grant from DC Offa tree planting for the cool car at his Grant
there will be a kickoff meeting with the tree committee and the state within the next two weeks thank you Mazi we will be hosting a neighborhood I say we unfortunately I'm not going to be there of Cry of commitments but Mai office aren others there going to be a
meeting Thursday to address Park concern concerns over the westcot property westcot still will be invited to attend and update the town and Neighbors about their parking plans a lot of concerns about parking Burpy Road es6 Street Hill Crest Circle so we hope to address a lot
of those concerns thank you facilities continued the town hall roof forair you've probably seen the crane in the parking lot pairs are going very well don't seem to have as many leaks on these rainy days so that's a good news max met with HDC about the library entry
project and finally completed the new dishwasher project at the senior center whoow know it's crazy to Max's credit it was a lot more than just installing a regular this was a commercial dishwasher that needed quite a bit of work and cud to
Max Tom clerk is continuing working on the 2024 annual report he also proof reading and finalizing ballots for the upcoming local election Police Department met with Caroline Craig with Make A Wish
Foundation to connect our communities both Mel H and swamp Scot to organize a RunWalk fundraising program for children facing critical and fatal illnesses Chief coordinated initiation of police hiring and finalization of the
P contract we're looking to hire we have three vacancies in the police department so hoping to begin that process to cut down some OT Chief met with staff regarding the opening recrui and hiring gu we have 10 lateral certified offices
which will be abused and 25 to 30 recruit applicants on the list F Department Graham received delivery of a new atmospheric monitoring equipment for all apparatus this equipment is used to detect the presence
of levels of carbon monoxide natural gas or propane and other ha hazarded gases within structures Health Department continues to manage coordinate and work on programs and initiatives related to the OPD opioid settlement funds and Jeff
continues to work on supplying Nao boxes for municipal buildings Human Resources Maran thank you for coming Maran has finalized employee handbook with KP law this will be presented tonight along with the
Standalone policies suggested by both KP law and the town's risk management Insurance heing continues to meet with Ready Set the community jam session will be held on Monday April 7th at the library group meetings are also being scheduled or have been scheduled with
the fire department DPW and Library I know DPW met with them on Tuesday Recreation the anel's working with organizers and planning out annual summer events including bent water on the beach H Marine Festival Strawberry
Festival Pride day in juneth then they'll met with the school metco directors to make plans for the Heritage Festival in our juneth event she has added three new programs Mother's Day jewelry making prek Haw
league and swamp SC nature summer programs Danielle was also able to a lifeguard shair which went missing with the the help of rep Jenny amini the annual golf tournament is May 12th at Tedesco register online on Recreations
landing page on the town's website that's always a fun event right you in going this year no Azie okay I'm g go not to that mat is but we have fun it's a good it's a great event it goes to a good cause with the
fireworks senior senator held the successful retirement conference on this past Saturday March 27th um she's Heidi is working to increase housing assistance for individuals in search of affordable housing and she's collaborating with the health department in the creation of group therapy and
support group through a grant with and still We rise a behavioral healthc care provider Library Jonathan is planning the annual fundraiser with a friends group Jonathan intended and presented at the swampit historic district commission meeting regarding the proposed Library
renovation project he met with Max discuss the next steps I know there's some concern about the big oak tree out front but I I believe we have a plan to preserve that tree the library Jonathan worked with Sheila billins on the new murals for the
library finalizing designs colors and placement I hope it comes out as good as some of our control boxes in town you've done a phenomal job with those thank you T where is he up there Joe started conversations with KP law
regarding the upcoming Comcast contract renewal we're hoping to increase our subscriber fees to help supplement our dwindling budget operating budget Jo's looking to install a permanent connection to the ball fields know I'm working with Joe on that so we can live stream the baseball or softball games at
the farest St complex very cool that will be huge and finally the assessor Paul is continuing to address and correct data issues that have risen over the years and he's continuing on abatement inspections that's it questions
questions any no May yeah I got a few um so Gino um I had reached out a few times we had chatted uh talking about um contract recommendations for uh for staff of
those whose contracts have expired or are soon to expire um you know you had indicated to me me that you'd be making a recommendation in January of 25 we're sitting at the end of March I'm just I'm I'm concerned that we don't have that
recommendation uh in front of us so it would be I would I would strongly recommend that that recommendation be made to the select board and we schedule a we schedule a meeting as soon as next week to potentially discuss this okay may have to be the week after next because I'm going to be on vacation next
week but yep we can do that okay is that okay um yeah and just a few other few other things um just a few things that came to that came to light uh just around information that's been shared with the select board or not shared uh in some instances uh for for
example there was a um you know there was a there was a 40b application on which you know that was provided to you as well as the chair uh that information needs to be disseminated to all of us and not just and not just some of us so you know
oh to the to the chair and and and to the Town Administrator you know I would I would certainly appreciate receiving all of the information uh you know when it is uh made available because right now I I feel like quite honestly I I've I felt like
there was um there was a 40b application that was shared with members of a partisan group prior to it being shared with the select board and I just I just find that completely and utterly unex acceptable um for one uh two uh there
was a um you know anytime that the select board uh engages outside Council we typically take a vote uh to do that and we typically take that vote in executive session um so there was a second legal opinion again this was
something that was not voted on or or shared with uh select board members literally until you know the 11th hour so I'm just curious what was the cost cost of that second legal opinion uh that we uh that we had that was that was printed and provided to all uh town
meeting members um you know right before our special town meeting last Wednesday do we have a cost I do not have that number okay well can you can you get that to us please as soon as it comes in okay yep I mean again I don't I don't know how we're engaging outside Council
without a vote of the select board um and certainly in a in a very um strained I will say uh year where we're talking about U budgets and we're talking about potential uh Cuts uh to town services
and to and to departments um I just think we need to be mindful of every dollar that we're spending very not thank you you're welcome my turn your turn Okay um I just want to highlight the uh if you could
just clarify again so um for your comment on on the seaw wall repairs at Mission yes I just want to highlight that the permanent repairs will not take place this year because of regulatory permitting issues and not because of any
um delays on our side correct not on us right so I know that um Conservation Commission and you have been working very hard on trying to get those things moving forward so I just wanted to highlight again that um I also had a question on the library entry project
yes where could a citizen find um the project as proposed and where might they go to comment on it I would I guess answer is I don't
know but I would assume on the library web page I know Jonathan's been to the Forefront of that but I can find out make sure it's on no I can Circle up for I had a um a gentleman reached out to me and asked what the um public input process was in that and I said I don't
think there has been one except I know I've I've gotten some feedback about the oak tree and some other things that I've shared with Jonathan but um I think some folks were sort of feeling like maybe there could be a better public engagement for that process um that
still Feats fits the libraryies needs but maybe just has a little public engagement involvement too that's fair yep um and then I noticed in the human resource section that we have some great um um Community groups meeting being
scheduled um but I didn't see one for the police department is it just not yet scheduled couldn't do um group meetings with the police department um because of their schedules and how they don't overl but he wanted to do some one-on ones with a few of the officers so they're still working on scheduling those right
that's news great news okay thank you Joo I just had one question to um Katie's point about the seaw wall yep so it can't be it's not going to be repaired this year it's going to be next next year but are we in danger of anything happening is there anything any
reinforcement that needs to happen you know this year while we're sure Mary would you mind pass thank you um that was an issue that was a question I had when we met with them because if
you look at the um original emergency order they said the emergency repairs would be good for a year we I asked that question said it was fine I think when we have a second conversation with um LC
and Martin I'm going to ask if they can do some checking to make sure that that is okay the other concern that was raised is because of the hathon property whatever fix happens we have to make
sure that the hathon wall is secure as it stands LEC had proposed two options one is to enlarge the revent in other words put more rocks on the beach and the other one was to create what they call a sister wall which will be like a
cement wall we will talk some more with them we were hoping that when we met with um both LEC and Mission on the bay and the regul the state Regulators that we would get a sense from The Regulators but they wanted more information before
they say anything but I think at some point in the near future perhaps a presentation to the select board on both where what the two two options are and what the timeline is because they have to go through a bunch of steps like a
meepa review an EJ meeting and several other things um as you may recall we have a peer reviewer the commission hired a peer reviewer on hold because and we have to discuss this whether it makes sense for them to review both
potentials or wait until there's a preferred option so there's a lot in the mix here I'm hoping that Gino and I can uh talk to LEC uh as a followup to that meeting and um figure out some of this
and then make some sort of a presentation to the select board very good thank you very much in my opinion it's it's not going anywhere when that wall collapsed that building was built right it was built with grade beams and pylons right so basically the RO rocks are there just to protect that right we
just want to make sure they we just want to make sure we want to have someone look at it considering this is if it's not going to be fixed for the year periodically to make sure that we're you know not in danger of anything happening my big concern is they going to think they can use this as a permanent repair right right and and just to note um
we're hoping it will be next year right right what if it gets pushed and the other thing I don't know if you mentioned Gino that is a a good thing is that um um the DP is going to require that there be a public walkway that goes
around the um uh uh restaurant um and um a good potential then to hook up with the public way that is required on the hawthor property by the Warren article so you could have one big um extension
good thank you um so for my question I I had a lot questions about about that tooo but they were pretty much covered the only other question I have pertaining to that wall is the $20,000 outstanding bill um do you have we received payment
on that yet we have not have we been invoicing or what do we've how what have we been doing with that invoiced it wasn't okay it was invoiced even aware so how long is it so okay so when did that Wall come down
fall down it was two years ago two years ago yeah so we would have invoiced it that means we it's been invoiced probably now for like 20 months 24 months and so that means there's an outstanding bill and we continue to give liquor licenses when there's an outstanding
bill so maybe we can find out what what the story is there um on the on the the neighborhood meeting that you had there was a question about the possibility of getting electricity yeah in there are we going to have any shot
at that zero zero yeah naal you'll never be able to get power there and the way they work I'm just being honest I know well I appreciate that but but it seemed like at that meeting that that perhaps they're going to look into it right so I'm telling you the like look how long
we've been waiting for him to get over to the elementary school but just naal grid is painfully slow okay oh Mike dunan the inspectional services director over Lyn who's worked with them for years and just It's just tough to deal with what
what do we trying to get electricity so we don't have to run a generator program just why we don't have to run the diesel yeah 24 hours so the smell part of the issue at least with the diesel we saw one of the generators say they are quiet but my concern is not that noise the
environmental yeah the fumes exactly right um my next question is on the police so months and months and months ago we had both the police Chiefs here and we discussed the need for hiring and
so here we are on the verge of April and it just seems like it takes so long and I just want to what is the actual timeline of having an a police officer in the academy now it's different for fire because fire can hire and put them
right there and start working but with police what are we looking at here I guess it depends what I just saw here in part of the report is that there is 10 lateral certified candidates if we hire three of those then it's quick so if we
have three candidates When what when are they being interviewed what like do we what is the process here to my knowledge it is they go through a whole vetting at the police station they do all sorts of background checks they do all of that themselves first and the
take weeks um they have not told me they're ready for me to talk to anybody or speak to anybody and I can get a timeline for you and I will though so if can you get a timeline and then find if you have actual laterals that can move over I would think that within that timeline
they could be presented in front of the Town Administrator very quickly um so that we prevent our overtime overtime numbers going through the roof absolutely yeah so s that's not so sure they you interview I know I was
part of the last one when they had the AAL board I if we' still have to follow that process what whatever the process is I I just want to well part of the delay was on WE initiated the spending freeze I kind of overrode that because I
told him he could spend the money to start the hiring process because I thought the money that we were going to spend on that process was going to outweigh what we're paying in overtime right now so we instituted a hiring freeze that stopped them from doing background checks or not NE what was it that it
prevented a hiring process the actual hiring process okay so they stopped because of the freeze yep right so that's probably part of what the delay is right so now they've resumed because you overrode the freeze right right okay and what is the so maybe we should it would be nice if the chief or someone
could provide us with a flowchart and understand what their process is I know there manuals and all kinds of you know paper I I think I've asked for it before and it's a pretty extensive manual just a one sheet quick this is what the process is this is our timeline if they
could present it to us so we at least have a clue and and I I would like to know if it's how they if it's by committee or you know what the next step is what their what their levels are so is that something maybe you could get Mar absolutely yes I I would think when
you're hiring laterals the expense is a lot less so you know hiring non laterals would be pretty different because you got to go through the academy and Etc but I would think laterals it's but you know what let's
just let's find out from them I just I just want to date I want to stop talking about it and then under Recreation is there we have that big beautiful screen yep and I just want to know if we can maximize uh how that screen is being used just get it out there it seems like
it's a it's a great um it's a it's a great asset for the town cost a lot of money Y and if we could really get it out there and using if we could have a plan on that are they renting it out I heard at one point they were going to is that not happening now I wouldn't I
don't know if I'd support that no it was originally it was discussed I remember hearing discussion that maybe that would be an option um to help offset offset the cost but I didn't never happened Danielle I think it was just decided
from a liability perspective that maybe it was better if we didn't do that and we started programming it a little bit before we thought about doing that right okay part of the issue is to the weather if you're going to watching the movie and I know out in the win when's the Kentucky Derby Kentucky Derby is is actually May
3rd yeah so there is a Derby Day event that is in the works great so there will be there will be some good use of the of the screen uh on May 3rd great also Stella's very I'm looking forward to that tell you that okay so
uh we can move on now to uh the presentation and discussion of the hazard mitigation plan thank you very much uh my name is Martin Pillsbury I'm the director of environmental planning at the
metropolitan area planning Council mapc which is the regional planning Council to which swanscott and 100 other towns and cities in the region belong to and we have been working with swanscott and several other towns to help develop um your natural hazards mitigation plan and
I have a a slide presentation which I'm will ask if we can put that up to give an overview of uh where we are sort of Midway in the planning process for this plan very good so we can I guess I guess if I should I ask you to to advance the
slides since you have your hand on the lever so once we get it up thanks to the uh yeah so um yeah you can go on from the title slide um and I want to just begin with a brief introduction of what is Hazard mitigation because most folks in town know what a master plan is a
comprehensive plan an open space and Recreation plan A Hazard mitigation plan is another species of plan it's not as common not exactly a household world where um you don't do it all the time the last one you did was in 2016 and we're updating it uh so let's talk a little bit about what the Genesis of
this kind of a plan is and if you could Advance the slide there so why why is sp is doing this plan this is actually under a national program that's run by FEMA overall and then within Massachusetts it's run by Mima the mass Emergency Management agency the goal of FEMA through and a law that was
passed back in the year 2000 disaster mitigation Act is to actually have every municipality in the entire country or every County or and every state develop a hazards mitigation plan for natural hazards now I will say it's not a mandate you don't have to have one of
these plans there's no fine or p penalty if you don't have one but there is a pretty big incentive FEMA gives out some pretty big grants to build projects and they condition eligibility for those grants on having an approved plan so it's more of a carrot than a stick uh
approach uh and uh the plans need to be periodically updated so we're in the process right now of updating the previous plan the town put in place uh and once this plan is approved finished and approved which will be you know in a matter of the middle of a few more
months this year uh you'll be eligible as a town to apply for a series of grants that Mima has available one of them is called the building resilient infrastructure and communities or BR I brick Grant another is called the hazard mitigation grant program and a third
category is the flood mitigation assistance program so all three of those grants are can have some pretty significant dollars projects that communities apply for or anywhere from $25 to $50,000 to 500,000 to in the millions so so um they are very
competitive there's no guarantee just because you have approved plan you're going to get every Grant you apply for but you can't even apply for them unless you have an approved plan that's your ticket into the into the into the grant world uh and so that's one of the goals uh and I'll step back and say that's an incentive and that's good to pay
attention to but hopefully doing this kind of a plan and assessing what your risks are and what actions you can take is of value in and of itself for the community just the way your other plans are of value for the things they deal with your your open space plan your comprehensive plan uh and on the right
side of that slide is just the cover from the previous plan that we did uh MC worked on your previous plan as well uh and that so that is now nine years old so what we do is we we take all the information that's in this previous plan and we bring it up to date fast forward everything a decade uh and if you go to
the next slide please um how do we do that so what the planning process uh and and look this is a kind of a set of Hazards on the right these on this blue slide here it's a natural hazards mitigation plan FEMA has a lot of plans and not to be confused with anything to
do with Homeland Security not to be confused with anything to do with say chemical spills man man-made hazards nuclear radiation these are all natural hazards but it's every category of natural Hazard that could be experienced in your community um flooding is always at the top of the list and especially in
a Coastal Community high wind events you know from hurricanes and nor easers winter hazards even geological hazards hazards that are less likely to happen but the probability is not zero uh so all categories of natural hazards are addressed in this plan um the goal in
the green box in the slide here of mitigation as a whole is to reduce the impacts of natural hazards on your community Through strategies that may include a range of things different kinds of local projects different programs you have and policies you put in place through your regulations and loss so it's it's it's a multi-prong
approach it's not just one Magic Bullet to give you Hazard mitigation which is why we have a a multidisiplinary team working on it from the various departments in the town um the lower left of this slide kind of gives you the basic questions we ask when we start doing this plan we want to get an idea
of what preventative actions are already being taken because you've been dealing as a town with most of these hazards for a long time it's not as if you're starting from from scratch from zero we want to take assessment of what you have in place already so then we can go from there and ask what additional actions could be take where are the gaps or
where the the measur that are maybe out ofd could be modernized or or could be added to so that's kind of the basic thrust of of doing a plan of this sort if you could move on to the next slide um this is one of the slides that sort of populates itself it's it's trying to
show FEMA's idea of they're trying through this kind of pre preventative planning to slow down or reduce this cycle of rebuild disaster rebuild disaster uh and which they seen probably more severely in other places than swamp Scott but as close my as Hall some of
our communities have hundreds of homes that have gone through multiple flood uh events in just the past few decades so it's really an approach that tries to take a preventative approach uh another term they use for this planning is pre- disaster mitigation uh you already had
in place post- Disaster Recovery that's FEMA has been doing that for decades what was new about this program is thinking about what happens before the disaster strikes that can make the community more resilient and less vulnerable to the impacts of the hazards go ahead and move please so when we say Hazard mitigation
it's not one thing I hinted at that before it's kind of like a suite of different approaches and techniques that you want to choose the right tool for the right job uh so if you're dealing with flooding you're dealing with high winds you're dealing with earthquakes there's going to be different tools you're going to use for each of those kinds of Hazards in general these are
some of the sort of overarching categories of types of measures that we look at preventative measures uh which can be things like you know thinking about zoning so the land use that you do the development you do um is you're you're aware of where hazards are and
you you keep out of Harm's Way as much as you can uh property protection acknowledging that we have a lot of properties that have been built up over the decades over the centuries in New England many of which we now know to be in Hazard zones that may not have even been known about in decades past and how
what can we do to coexist with keeping the existing development and existing uh buildings in place and some of sometimes that means elevating buildings or elevating the utilities and storm protection on buildings and that sort of thing uh public education and Outreach it's all it's not all just about
building in physical capacity it's also about making the public more aware of what these hazards are and what they can do on their own properties whether it's residences small businesses Etc to be more resilient themselves protecting natural resources and that's think that's where we look at protecting the
flood planes protecting the wetlands that act as the buffers and letting I like to say letting Mother Nature do as much of the work for for us as we can uh by the way we manage those resources um structural projects and that's where we get into once we already find that we have drainage problems that we have
Coastal resilience issues and old infrastructure a lot of that you know the only way to really address it is so often to replace to upgrade uh some of that infrastructure so there's where some of the big ticket infrastructure type projects might come into play in certain sites within a community and
that's also where some of those fig grants can can help in some cases uh and finally Emergency Services protection what that is about is making sure that the facilities and the structures that your own uh Emergency Management folks
fire police and even like Public Works everything they would rely on to respond is itself hardened and as protected as it can be because you want the last thing you want for that to go out and then then they can't help anyone else in the community uh so those are just sort of a short list of the kinds of things
we think about when we think about MI measures and you'll see later on the mitigation measures that are recommended in the plan fall into different categories of this sort go ahead and move the slide so in more recent years we've been thinking uh more there's more and more
information to available to us about the trends in climate change increasing temperatures increasing sea level rises storm storm surges Etc so we're also looking at how all these hazards that we're thinking about in a hazard mitigation plan or many of them anyway
are also the same hazards that are often looked at in through the lens of climate change resilience uh and so we're looking at where we can find sort of commonality between those features this is not a full-fledged climate resilience plan per se but it it is Tak taking that
information into account we're building climate information that's available from the state's models from the sea level models Etc into this plan so that could be part of of inform your thinking for the mitigation measures you're going to have for the town we go on to the next one so the planning process to build
this plan uh go go ahead that's just the title slide sorry and so first of all I want to start out by saying you have a local Hazard mitigation team we have marzy right here who's been shepherding that team thank you very much to all all the team and you can see uh it's it really is composed of multiple
departments in the town because this is a multifaceted type of problem uh and it requires different aspects of different uh boards and and commissions and departments to have their part in it in terms of the information they can share that go into the plan from their various
perspectives and then in in terms of their perspective for what kind of measures you'd want to recommend be in this plan um the locals team's role is we we we uh have scheduled a series of four meetings uh which we've held three of the four meetings so we're kind of
well Midway into the process here um we have reviewed the mitigation goals from the previous plan and updated them um we're working with a local knowledge of the team who who know what's going on on the ground around like where are the drainage issues where are the concerns along the coast where are the with the fire department where are the issues
where there might be brush fire Wildfire issues ETC every single category has someone whose eyes are on that in a different department who knows that's their area of expertise uh and so we reviewing what the updated mitigation actions need to be and that's going to be our next step in the process that's
the role for the so without this team you really wouldn't have a plan and I really want to say kudos to the team that the three meetings we've had already they've really been very very uh for coming and bringing information together and being very helpful go to the next slide this is just one of those
flowcharts that talks about the overall process in developing the plan from the left to the right it's kind of like a timeline uh and the green star is where we are now holding a first public meeting what's happened before as I mentioned in team number one two and three have met over since starting from
last late last summer uh And We Begin work on assessing risks that will go into the plan um what's left to do after this meeting today is to hold the fourth and final team meeting uh which we'll do in another month or so and review the actual mitigation strategy that will be recommended in the new plan um have that
team put their eyes on it and say that looks good and endorse that's what should go into the plan uh and then we'll from that we'll have all the information we need to complete a draft plan uh and then we'll bring that draft plan to a second public meeting uh probably about June uh that will then
give a chance for the broader public to be aware of exactly what's s the plan and have a comment on it that at that point we'll have the draft plan posted online so anyone who actually wants to look at the actual plan can do so uh and people can give us broad General comments or they can read the plan and give us specific comments whatever
whatever the case may be so that's that's what will be coming today's public meeting is more for information purpose to let folks know that this is we're working on this and the town's working on this and that this is coming and this will be a next step when there'll be an opportunity uh for that kind of input uh once the uh second
public meeting is held and we get any comments that might go into the plan uh then the draft plan will be submitted to MIMA and to FEMA which they have to review these plans before they're considered to be approved uh they review them and they often give us comments or require revisions so we just do what
they ask uh that that could take a little bit longer but then once that's done uh the approvable plan will actually come back to this board for an actual vote of adoption at the point after fem is reviewed it and approved it uh so that'll be like the that's the icing on the cake the final plan
approved by FEMA and then adopted by the town official uh so you can expect to see that probably in the late summer early fall because it takes a few months for the m and review to go on uh next slide please a little bit more about um what are the hazards and vulnerabilities
you can go ahead so I know you can't see this at the scale but this is an example of one of the maps that's in the plan there's a whole series of about a dozen maps in the plan that look at different hazards and the land use patterns and this one shows actually what you see on the left listed here critical facilities
that the local team has identified in fact there's a long list of 76 of them all of them I know you can't see it visually at this scale but they're all on that map there's little green dots and each one of those has a number wide and they that number is correlated back to a database of what all the critical facilities are there's also locally
identified Hazard areas uh that are on the map there are eight locally identified flood areas flood and drainage areas and there are four locally identified brush fire areas you kind of see the red polygons those are the rushar areas the fire chief has identified around the kind of open lands
and vegetated lands that it's not saying that you have Rush fires here all the time but those are the kind of lands that have the conditions potentially especially if there's a drought for instance that might be more prone to that kind of asle and in the drought that we had last year and the fires we had right around here Salem and Lynn
it's an issue that people are actually taking a little more seriously in this year than they have in some of some of the Past Times so this is this is how the data is assembled and put into a GIS mapping system and by the way once that's in a GIS map layer the town will also be able to take that layer and use
it against other plans like their master plan and any other plans DPW plans so hopefully this will find other utility as well to have that kind of information all pulled together Under One Roof go on to the next slide please so flooding is the big issue that is like the large longest list of of
concerns but there are other hazards that we do look at examples that you see here extreme heat um wildfires earthquakes uh droughts and extreme precipitation for instance and there's data about those hazards sort of starting with regional and state Trends
and then to the extent that we could get local or county level information a little more specific we add that in there to talk about all these different uh C these different categories of Hazard of natural hazards and one more slide here on this we can't leave natural hazards uh in this part of the
country without mentioning nor easers you know one of our sort of signature kinds of natural hazards we have around here and uh and actually we can probably up this update this list because we put this together and there's been a few more even since then I mean we get these periodically and some of them are more
obviously serious than others but some of the serious ones as you well know here can cause some very a lot large amount of damage go to the next slide so wrapping up getting into the next steps what are the next steps the next steps the the the team will meet at its fourth
meeting and it will come up with a recommended set of mitigation measures for the new plan it will do that by taking the measures from the last plan delineating which ones have actually been implemented already so take them off the table if they've been done anything that hasn't been done yet and
these are very long-term measures so you will find some measures in the last plan that just haven't you haven't had the funding for it or the permeating or whatever but they'll ask is this still worthwhile measure it's still a valid relevant measure if it is we're going to carry it into the new plan this new plan is supposed to be looking at head for at
least the next 5 years so we'll populate that list and then this is an opportunity to take a pause and say what new and different measures do weren't even thought about in the last plan that we now want to add and I think especially in the area of coastal resilience since a lot more work has been done we'll probably see some new measures that will come into that so the
team will help us build out that list of the recommended measures that really is the heart of the plan that's going that list of recommended measures that was FEA calls a mitigation strategy that is your kind of your Town's road map for major actions and priorities to think
about over the next 5 years and more so that's really going to be our next step to build that and go ahead to the next slide here just a quick timeline so uh we'll we'll hold the fourth team meeting next month uh and then we'll hold we're aiming to hold the second public meeting
uh in May probably toward the end of May because it takes time to get all ready for that uh what B based on the comments that we might get from the public we'll keep a comment sort of an informal comment pered open for a few weeks going into June will'll have the comments back we'll be able to finalize the report and
submit it uh to FEMA and to MIMA and FEMA um then they'll do their review and I don't put a timeline on that because you just can't predict how long they'll take but it's usually in the neighborhood of about three to four months uh so that's why I said we submit it in June it'll probably be around
early fall you'll see it come back and that will be the last step in the process that's when it would come back to this board with a request that it be voted for an adoption and if as I said earlier once that plan is approved and adopted then the town is going to be eligible for these grants uh and the the
timing is good because usually there's an annual Grant round and let's hope that it continues with everything they're talking about DC there's usually an annual Grant round on those brick grants that opens up in the late fall or around December so you should be well positioned by the time this plan is done to be eligible if you did have a project
in mind I mean you may not run out in the first year if you have the plan to have a project ready to queue up but if you did um you starting this year and for the next five years you you could think about these projects and if you move on to the next slide I just want to mention that you know we're glad that
we're have a chance to speak to the public through this meeting and through those who could be watching this at home uh but we want to have an opportunity for even broader public he so we've uh We've launched a community survey online
uh and uh this slide shows um the website that you can go to and also a QR code for that website it's actually a pretty easy fast like five or six questions you can do it in less than 10 minute sort of survey and it gives folks
a chance to say what's important to them or which kind of natural hazards are they concerned about are there any specific concerns right in their own neighborhood or their own properties what do they think the town could be doing about these issues to give some feedback to that uh and so it's it we we try to keep it high level and simple so
it's not like a burdensome survey but but good enough that it may give us some information um about what folks are thinking about in the town so we actually we actually I actually came to that open house last week for that's plan with this is totally separate project even though it's also an mapc
and I was giving out these cards with the QR codes and we were getting people to to start give us goes back so um this will be up if it's not already on the town's website right yeah yeah we'll get this up on the town we'll keep this survey open until around the end of April so there'll be some time for folks
to do that and with that I think the last slide it's just the uh the thank yous and questions that's my contact right there we set up a dedicated email site email inbox for folks who want to give us comments about the bu and with that if you have time I'm I'm open to
question that's a great thank you may I please okay great thank you so much for the presentation um I guess just a couple follow-up questions to um to a couple of things that were said um when we look at the
the slide you had that said updating the mitigation recommendations right so we look at all our prior um suggestions or hopes and we determine what we've done and what we haven't done and then I assume in that process we're looking to some other source material in town including you know any updates we're
making to like we've since adopted a climate action plan we've since you know updated a lot of other plans in town which I would consider Source material for this type of information so I'm sure we're cross referencing those yes MVP plan that sort of thing yeah absolutely
okay great um and then the second question I have you might not be able to answer right now but maybe you could think on it and come back to us if you don't have an answer um curious what other steps Swampscott can take to access some of those put ourselves in a
better position to access some of those Grant funds you were talking about obviously this unlocks the door that a lot of people are going to walk through that door so any strategy you have I'm sure Mar's picking your brain anytime she has available to put our in the best
position to be able to um fund some of these um some of these mitigation strategies that we have but also from your expertise what things have gone through funding that have been successful in other communities that maybe we have on our list that we might
want to prioritize because we know they they might get funded it's a good question a very I give you a broad answer to that we can think about it more with the committee as well first of all for the fem if you're going after one of the immigrants the big way they look at everything is a cost benefit analysis if they're going to spend federal dollars they want to get a
benefit back from it and and it literally you have to run a cost benefit analysis using FEMA's own dedicated software program to do that cost benefit so if you wanted to I'll just say do a seaw wall related project make an example it could be it could be a
drainage project for Inland um you have the cost of the project estimated so you know what it's going to cost what how do you account for the benefits the avoided hazards and that sort of thing and you have to use that that software and they and that's where it's it's not easy uh
not many communities have the capacity to really do that in-house with inhouse staff you might I don't know but a lot of towns when you get to that level if you're serious about a big grant that needs that kind if you're going to get it it needs that analysis that's when they sometimes engage a consult like an
engineering consultant to actually run that process FEMA offers a training in how to do how to use that software just to give you a flavor it's a 3ay training in gaitherburg Maryland all right so you're just not going to want to commit to that probably as a town and not many
do uh that's why you might have to Outsource that piece of it but pay attention to that because the whole competitiveness of the grant rise or falls on how cost competitive it is and how and it's not that hard to estimate the cost of a project you have engineering guides and 25% designs and
all that but estimating the benefit that's offsetting that cost is really where the game is uh and that software is designed to do it but it requires a lot of input and assumptions a lot of nuan uh so that's one thing the other thing I'll say is it's not just about
FEMA grants for instance the MVP action grants are are the biggest probably state level Grant they could potentially fund some of these kinds of things and looking at the criteria for those grants or although cost benefit is important it's not quite as in such an engineering
sense as FEMA is but what's more important to many of the MVP state grants is a focus on social resilience and environmental justice communities and vulnerable populations so that's like so there's a whole different lens that you look through for that set of
Grants which are state grants but also which can be large grants all right so and those two probably aren't the only kind of Grants but those are the two biggest categories for the kind of things we're talking about here thank you sure I have a quick question um I
remember I think it was about nine years ago we passed uh we put in generators at the police station in the event we had a hazard something something really went wrong and it really never made sense to me because I thought the police station
was in a serious flood zone um so where are we as far as if we do have a a a a real serious problem here we get hit with you know bad storms that we've never seen before where is our Emergency Center right
now see and now it's at the police station right and so the chances of the police being able to get in or out is probably slim to none after looking at that map right there so how quickly do we address that and make a change
because I'm just wondering if we should if we should focus on that immediately versus waiting because if if you just see that map that just came up there well the town hall now has a generator too so conceivably be moved there DPW Yard as a generator but do they have
anything is there anything special set up or like special radios or huh there a whole Command Center the police department right the whole Command Center is at the police department it looks like the police department is in the middle of the most vulnerable place in our town so I'm just wondering if we
should change where our Command Center is going to be in the event of a crisis that's that's a good plan that's something else that we can look at other towns have thought about that same question and a few towns have actually
been moving to consolidate older fire and police stations into a more modern public safety building which is usually a third different location from where they're original and then when they're doing it now and putting a new building in they're careful about not putting that in the flood zone or something right but that's a big expensive project
right so you want to think about you know where are the costs what are the benefits uh and have you already gotten or can you are there measures that can keep the existing location more viable longer you know so one thing is to look at what's the reason why that's showing
up and flooding are there drainage improvements that could happen I'll give you one example I think it was North Reading down to the north their police station had the all the communications in the in the basement level and it was next to a river and it did Flood all
right and so theyit came up with a mitigation project which was like a drainage project that put up kind of a a burm and a retaining and kept the River from just that site they could did a micromanagement for that site there still could be flooding around that River up and down but right around there
they they created a safe Zone uh and they say put but they made it safer there so that's an example of another approach interesting yeah does anybody have any other questions we're up on the second floor I just don't know where the generator is located imagine on the ground floor well
yeah and Elevate like we talk about elevating utilities like that was the case in North Reading all of this communication equipment was all the way down I don't know if they moved it up or they just relied on but that would could be another way like maybe the building might suffer some degree of basement flooding but if the critical equipment
is not in the basement then okay you have a survivable incident um right so at least as a temporary measure right I mean I don't want a second get the specifics of your particular facility but this plan is not necessarily to be that site specific but
in fact it's it is intended to point where the concerns are and it would be a following project that the kind of questions exactly that you're asking that could could be generated okay what do we do about that what's the best approach what's the best strategy so I
like to think that these plans actually set the table and ask their questions it they don't answer all the answers yet but they they let you know what the priority should be I think for the town goino right now I think that you know you know possibly come beginning of the summer or something I think it's a
conversation to have with I think Graham is our Emergency Management direct management director he's on this committee so having that conversation because right now our Emergency Center is in one of our most vulnerable spots in town and I just don't it is think we should
double check it yeah yeah any other questions well thank you very much that was a great presentation thank you so much appreciate you coming oh I enjoy coming I told I always told Marcy I I live in Brookline but I'm at heart I'm a Northshore guy I love the
NorthShore oh great she said are you coming in person I said sure I'm coming in person I it's an excuse for me to come up the North Shore that's great well we appreciate you coming yeah very good thank you so much thank you thanks lot okay so next on our
agenda is the first reading and well there's definitely not going to be a vote but the first reading Standalone policies recommended by HR
Maran um I gave you guys a letter I hope you got it um along with the Standalone policies and the first pass of the handbook um a couple of call
outs from the back and forth um we have an Ada policy located on page 12 but the policy is good to keep in the handbook but it was called out that under title two of the Ada the town also needs a standalone Ada notice and
grievance procedure covering discrimination outside of the employment context um so there are two separate Standalone for the Ada that I included and then I'll jump down before going
into the handbook to the other Standalone during our recent risk management um sort of Deep dive at Town Hall they recommended that we have a a motor vehicle policy for all the people using Town vehicles and we didn't really have one so they provided us with theirs
and legal council looked it over and said it was best to keep their policy and just use theirs so I included that it's from Travelers but um Council reviewed and determined that it met everything they needed they didn't see any deficiencies
so that's why they made their recommendation yes okay another call out and stop me if I go too fast another call out was for the recreation department um that it was needed that they have a sexual abuse and misconduct prevention policy for every
worker including their coaches and their kids that work in the summer so that policy was given to Danielle she did go in and um make a couple modifications to it made sense for the town it I sent it to legal and they said that this policy
is good as is so I included that um it's recommended by our risk management review um for the recreation department and would be used for everybody on the go forward there's a sign off page on the
last page that would go into the employee file while KP law was reviewing the handbook uh they noticed that uh there should be a drug and alcohol-free workplace workplace policy um towns that receive federal funds are required to adopt a
drug-free workplace policy this policy has been expanded to cover alcohol and marijuana which also still classified as controlled substance under federal law are not classified as such under state law they said they also recommended it
be a standalone that has a sign off page on the last page that goes into the employee file so is it that we have had a policy in the past just not a standalone policy or is it in fact that we have not not had a policy at all we have not so the
so these Personnel policies are completely brand new a lot of them yes okay we had a very small policy that was uh made Final in 2022 but it did not cover a lot at
all okay another um policy that wasn't called out that I just had updated was our electronic communications and computer use policy the last one we had was talking about dialup so um it needed
a refresh and this is an updated refreshed policy with a sign off page which we'll I'll have to go back and get everybody that's got equipment to sign it and pop it in their file Maran just a question on page 30
yeah um we're breaking out employees by grade grades one through three for vacation time there is an attached list of what positions are classified in each grade yes that might be something do we
have that do we do that yeah apparently we do because we're piing off vacation time by that so okay that if we're doing that then we should yeah it should be added that's a Miss it's a good call up and are these vacation times are these vacation times normal I
mean going forward is this what we want well without knowing what positions are attached to which grade I can't really speak it's in my experience it's not really typical to break it out with different levels of vacation time by grade in municipalities usually
everybody gets the same right so if everybody gets two weeks says two weeks for the first year or whatever whatever it is you decide you know the the entry level clerk gets the same as say the department head right in most municip
there's one straight schedule of how much time to recr when it's not usually Broken Out by position okay because there's an equity issue there right so your higher paid so on on just first glance your higher paid people are recuring vacate more vacation than your
lower end people right so is that fair is it Equitable that's a question I don't know if you have a you want to weigh in on that or your thoughts if you have any this was I mean what you came into but yeah maybe what if you have a recommendation or a thought if do you
think it's okay this way or what your thought is I mean I could understand that especially if you're saying most M municipalities follow that that's my experience but you know it's worth looking into check look into maybe look at some of your comparable towns your peer districts and see if they acrew the
same way then it's standard you know but if if say marble Hut is giving everybody three weeks when they start you know you're at a Advantage here if you're even to hire someone yeah right exactly that's it's part of your overall compensation package right so it's something that should
be that's my thought should we finish going through the whole thing and then we go back to questions is that all right everybody okay and the other thing I'm sorry I just wanted to point this out maybe not 29 you might want to take out GIC in case there's ever a time where we exit the GIC yeah just put
medical y right in case you sorry ahead Mar no I was just saying did you want to finish before we go through sure um a couple of highle call outs and then I don't I don't know if you want to go Page by page but um that I wanted to
bring to your attention um was actually on page 27 for holidays it was a call out um that um section B which looks like it moved from when I just made an update so section B on page
28 um the last two sentences in this section are not required by law and are up to the town's discretion um it's just about floating holidays and how it can be handled if somebody ends up having to
work on a so it says salary employers required to work on a holiday shall be entitled to take a floating holiday the floating holiday must be scheduled at least one week in advance and approved by the department head or Town Administrator he said it was okay to leave it in um but it's not my place to
make that call what and what circumstance would we have an employee working on a holiday would it just be DPW primarily I mean who would be the big but they have their own CBA right this is for all nonunion we might have juneth wreck well we're
closed okay um but what we do have must work y re and then recently Cheryl and payroll had to come in on a holiday Monday because there was something going on and she ended up having to work on that Monday okay I assume some other Rec employees
work maybe on the fourth of July if there's lifeguards or something like that well don't they have an altered schedule though possibly just yeah Senior Center for for Veterans Day y I mean 13 paid holidays I think is
pretty standard I don't know about floating I mean how many personal days is it is it at the next page so personal personal time is um for non-union employees is 30 a full 34 hours which is a week a whole week no no a year no 34
hours week a whole week's worth for the year you're kidding that's it's standard is three days sorry I didn't mean wait so what did you say it was it's a 34 hours a week of personal time that's a lot it's 34 hours for the people that
work 34 hours a week change that check that too people work I don't want to look like the Grinch but three personal days is standard I've never seen five personal days that's a lot for it can I just make make just a general observation about the handbook just because we haven't had uh a a ro as
robust of a handbook that it might be helpful to pull some comparable municipalities and see what they do unless you've already done that which you're going to tell me you did great and then for you to highlight where they varied they were um
interesting Marblehead was afraid to give it to me they said it's 100 years old I have it they're awful for the one and the ones that got shared with me aren't close to this this I do have to say um came from a lot of hands so I
can't claim the fame to this um I believe Shan actually brought this from New Hampshire um it had a lot of New Hampshire policies in it that needed to get out because they didn't apply I think several of my predecessors worked on it um but it nothing ever really got completely vetted or done with it okay
I've sat with an HR professional and then Amy and I had many sessions sitting down and kind of comparing to why we do what we do and the way we've done it and what the precedent has been so nothing got reinvented we put things in here as is and yeah I I guess my point is more
because we're finally putting pen to paper then it sort of gets to be a nice time to just DP check our policies to make sure they're what we want going forward um and like we're not trying to recreate the wheel or be the Grinch as Danielle said but if some of the policies we've had in the
past don't meet Regional standards or need to be relooked at for that reason like maybe now's the time to do it since we're putting pen to paper um you only can do it once right I mean not that you can do it once but like when you're going through such a comprehensive
process like look at it all thoroughly and make sure it fits you know that's what you wanted to be yeah I think it would be helpful just to if if you have a copy of our old policy to to be able to like kind of overlay and see where those see where those changes were were made that that would that would be
helpful for me yeah that's a good idea David so I have a question on like page 24 EMP are employees are required to take an oath of office prior to assuming their duties Town Administrator Public
Safety officers department heads what kind of an oath of do people take an oath of they go down to the clerk's office yeah yeah just like us that's different that's nice to be part of the
Town his in that way absolutely why not they didn't do that if they view it that way and then well I would be to consider looking at um the floating holiday versus the personal time at first glance I would say no to a floating holiday with five
personal days but that's just me throwing that out there if you want to make a note um well the floating holiday is only if they have to go in on a holiday and work when nobody I tend to like think of it all as cumulative y so I just okay just how my mind marks but there's some other call outs on the
letter that I sent you um he going to open a giant can of worms comp time I think is wait I just have a quick question on 30 right I just want to know if we're within the norm um as of 15 years five weeks I mean are we can you double check those it it
was called out by legal counsel that we don't really match Union contracts giving that fifth week in the 15th year that we should kick it up to 20 or 25 to not get our elv in trouble but it says here
25 says there they they were the ones to propos five weeks legal counsel legal council was surprised to see somebody earn five weeks as of the 15th year basically as opposed to as of the 20th 20th or 25th okay so legal council wants us to go to
20 well yeah they wanted you guys to make a decision it's at The Benchmark right yeah okay they could also put a c the Union contract yeah they were worried about yeah right good point right Ian I think five weeks is lot too
so I'm definitely sounding like the Grinch and I hate it but um another call out they had on page hopefully it's still the right page 31 um the use of sick time is actually it's 32 um use of sick
time section two um while this handbook applies to non-union employees most of the town's CBA limit the amount of paid sick time that can be used to care for family member we should consider implementing a
cap on this the earned sick time law does not apply to municipalities unless accepted by town meeting and to date we have not opted into that law wait can you repeat that yes it's the third bullet point on her letter David oh oh sorry um under use of sick
time okay I was on page 32 yeah page 32 and then under number two care for a child parent spouse or parent of a spouse yeah and what is it you're recommending we do they said we should consider implementing a cap on this right there
usually a cap it's usually three days sometimes five days whatever anything more serious they can apply for FMLA right but this if you get x amount of sick days right you're supposed to be sick
for yourself in theory but this provision allows for it to be a family member so I could call in sick because my son is sick right and not have it then I could call in sick myself the next day and not have it be like a negative right so two separate in my
business when people I don't really care who's sick if I'm giving people x amount of sick day I don't care who's sick you your dog your cat your dog I I don't I don't care so I guess I just think what what does it if if they have X amount of sick days and they need to
use them especially for a child or if they need to use them like why do we care like what why would we care how they're using because sometimes people in certain workplaces have been negatively impacted by calling and sick today for yourself and then you have to
call a sick two days later for your son that could be viewed you know in sometimes you know a punishment do out in a case like that so this protects that right get this gives people a little bit more protection to say I can if I you know I I have the flu today but
on Friday my son's throwing up I you know so I'm not in a in a case where I can be you know right I guess what I'm saying if you get x amount of sick days you can use them for whatever use them for whatever you know you don't have to say who they're for yeah you know just it's your sick day I think it sounds
like KP was making a lot of parallels to cbas and just just pointing Us in directions where we might have bumps in the road if we allow non-union Personnel certain benefits that are not allowed in the cvas because it seems like the
commentary on the sheet is much related to pointing out where we've deviated from things that we have agreed to in collective bargaining agreements which is fine they just want to highlight those things for us but it doesn't mean as Amy said that we're comparing Apples to Apples the collective bargaining
agreement is not the same as a town policy handbook for a non-union Personnel member so I think they're just pointing out here you may run a fowl of something like this with the CBA is if you don't follow it's standard language now in most places where you are
allotted for family members not just the individual employee that's just kind of yeah the norm now and especially in Massachusetts I think with paid family medical leave and all of that so right it just spells it out a little bit more it you know doesn't I don't and it also
can curb abuse also right so if you have somebody calling and chck and you say you can use it for whatever you know it makes it a little bit more you know you have to have a little bit more communication with your supervisor to say this isn't me this is my or whatever but the fact is they're just calling on
the phone so if unless you're asking for a doctor's not you know and you can't ask somebody you can't ask somebody well what's wrong with you or like that somebody calls I'm sick they say I'm sick I'm not coming in and that's that's it I mean you you you cannot even you can't ask them what's what's wrong with
you you can't ask them what's wrong with you but you can ask them for who if you have a policy like this yeah right I guess my take on is I just if you have X amount of sick days and you want to take them you take them I don't care who you're taking them for that's where I'm coming from yeah yeah I see that I also
see if you're in a small small Workforce yeah Workforce but you might that another person will pick have to pick up the slack if you're abusing your sick times so I get what you're saying and I don't disagree with you I just think that it would be good to un
well I guess if the benefits offered to all then the person who is taking the slack would also have the benefit so but you would just hate to see a situation where you know an employee would abuse that sick time and then another employee would have to pick up the slack because the job still has to to get done and it
happens because you know someone will call in sick once a week and say my son is sick once a week for 10 weeks right so you putting a cap on it gives it a little bit of a you know okay yeah but okay this has happened 10 weeks in a row maybe it's a pattern maybe it's something else yeah and I think those those one-off situations too where
you're going to go to the Town Administrator and be like and you're human and you're going to have compassion is there right um is it somewhere I'm missing it where it says you know out five consecutive days and a doctor's is that somewhere seven it's right above it's seven days seven I'd
like I'd like to see that reduced five is the standard there five I think five within our previous call I would think it meant five five work days which is a week so maybe that's I don't think this is it though Amy so this says sick Lea benefits will not be paid the
day before or after a scheduled day off vacation or holiday unless the employee provides a doctor's note within seven days right and then it says sick leave taken the day immed before after paid holiday will result in the loss of that paid holiday unless you provide the note
so I'm not sure that's where it is but we that's why yeah it's usually five consecutive and you need required to have a just for medical clearance that you can work or whatever you're illness was yeah you know the the the part that I am
concerned with that I think always has to be looked at is any earn any earned but unused SI leave as of January 1 of every calendar year may be carried over to the next year and maintained in the employees acred sick leave balance without the approval of the Town
Administrator how does that keep going over like where's that one marel yeah on page 32 right after the seven working days right after the seven working days yeah so are I mean we have there should be a cap on that as also there
should be a cap there to so so so we're also rolling over sick leave as of January 1 but the fiscal year ends June 30 June 30th all of the acral in town our calendar calendar I feel like we had this conversation once before can we change
it can we change it you're making a policy you can let's change it to reflect the you want it fiscal well if you're I mean because you're we get all our vacation and personal time at the calendar year no so your vacation time comes the first of each month rated all your personal time but
you have to exhaust your vacation time at the end of the calendar year so start you can carry over right you can carry five days up to one week up to one week but it has to be approved by the Town Administrator right okay so that's vacation yeah and you have to have like a business reason for it it can't just
be because I didn't manage my vacation time like there should be a reason why you couldn't but wa hold on let's just stick to right now we're just talking about sick let's just stick with sick right now so sick I'm curious for all non-union and all collective bargaining and everyone in town carry in
perpetuity so it just go goes and goes we don't have any money yeah well you can only buy it back $500 really curl your hair you you can buy back when you retire but hardly anybody ended up really retiring here over the years people have recruited it and then they
end up leaving so they just leave it behind it could impact someone like me I only have 2500 sick hours in the bank because I've used two sick days in 22 years right so yeah my issue with that would be is if you cap it people are
going to use it right so why would you we want cap on something reasonable like 200% of your annual acral like in so like you could still carry over a few days each year but it wouldn't be the
same level of imp perpetuum everything like th thousand I think this one's pretty standard AC all municipalities because it's I've seen in every collective bargaining that I've looked at from collective bargaining though
that's different than individual contract policy yeah because you have to think that people that are in these positions tend to make more than those under a collective bargaining agreement so there's a it's value ad there right it's been standard in most other communities for the non-union as well
for this for the time the the cap at the payout at the end varies some don't have a cap right um and Amy you and I were talking about like you were even in favor of reducing that amount down yeah what's
that5 it must have jumped up because it used to be 65 way back yeah it's not a standard amount that 8500 is no it's arbitrary very arbitrary to me we'll put that in there right well part of our Ro Personnel policy that we've been talking about it was 6500 I just know that
because but I think this is like a bigger conversation because it's part of your overall compensation right so you're so this is a you know not something you can just kind of like extract and like say okay let's chop it to 5,000 without looking at the compensation packages that you're
offering but they're also different well they are they are for this purpose for non non CBA people you know just talking about like you know contract people right you want to look at like all of it's cumulative so it's vacation time matters sick leave buyback it's all a
piece of the puzzle so I don't know that one can be looked at without looking at all the others at the same time a lot of them too when you do when you change them it's everyone hired that date and after right so you if you're going to grandfather a bunch of people so someone
like Gino would at the 85 and the same vacation schedule and the same all of that and then anyone hired the day after you adopt the policy goes so you have to think about like retaining trying to attract new people right I mean if you decide to change all of these and go with the their minimums like that's
going to affect your pool right of when they compare it to other towns and say why do I want to work at swamp Scot they have X number of this it's less you so it's it's a bigger you have to look I I would think we would evaluate vacation time personal time this piece and our
compensation scills altogether to get a real good picture of what your package is you know but I do definitely think that 8500 is a is a strange amount and um the whole the whole policy there seems like it could be refined but not
necessarily removed right I've seen some that cap at number of days yes me too as well um and it's still the 20% rate that's yeah 20% is pretty standard y I wonder um I know Doug's not here but
I know he would love this um if we could do some sort of chart um that reflects if you have the data points from other um Regional towns and maybe we can just go you know down the side all the towns
and then just see how we stack in some of these things because I just have no like coming from the private sector I just don't really have a good handle on it and so where I am like oh that's total that feels really off base to me I guess I just want to see compared to the
municipalities that we are hiring against right um and and also maybe we list like our work week is 34 hours so obviously that other places might not have but then like how the days off stack up how compensation Stacks up how ACW time
Stacks up and then we can sort of just make a better call going forward right because you're going to look at towns like you know Denver's you know closes at noon on Friday or some towns are closed entirely on Friday like we used to be y so all of that is going to matter right right you want me to keep it to basically what we're using for the
market survey so our our super pure and yeah yeah I think that's also double check on 34 hours you know you know I that 34-hour thing just drives me crazy I have it in your Market survey I actually all those towns I put their hours right to the right of it and
there's towns that do less than that so yeah there's 32 y there towns I think Melrose is 32 okay like part time work so maybe if we could just get that for the before the next review of this then we can all have some feedback sure absolutely G know 32 hours it's like a
day for you and then can I make another suggestion please that um because I think that will really color a lot of my commentary going forward so maybe if we could then just I don't know if you want to do this in
public session or you want us to sort of Mark up a public no I know but I I didn't mean executive I meant like if you wanted just to mark up comments and send them back to Maryann and then she could incorporate them all be great and then we could get all comments back because I'm sure there's going to be quite a few comments we're all making similar and then there might be one or
two things that you know this is Danielle's wheelhouse and I looking at this a different set of eyes that she's going to have that I'm not so then when we come back next time to discuss it we can make sure we're prepared to talk about everything rather than um just the pieces that I see that would probably be
helpful for me so we'll so we'll get the charts we'll get the charts and graphs and then we'll be able to make we'll be able to make edits and additions subtractions to the space yes but I think if I understood you correctly you're saying go ahead and make comments send them to me because in case I need
to add it to a chart or a graph I can right oh I'd love to see the charts and graphs first four yeah before because then I can I mean I can give better feedback I think with with those data points um and then if you have I don't know did this come over to us with in a
Word document I don't PDF if you send it in word we can Redline it and then you can compare all of the red lines or overlay the red lines so we can see who's making what Chang es um I'll send it with the what you
asked for which was the original policy too thank you okay and then I had one other call out on here on page 33 seeing as were right there see what page 33 compensatory time oh this is a biggie biggie so another thing that came with
your Standalone was this page this one pager yeah um again this is something that's going on and on and on basically in a nutshell we are not required to give compensatory time to salaried employees um it's really more for like
say the DBW and it's an avoidance of overtime they may want to have some calm time instead it's been a nice to have that's been going on um basically how we were using this and we are using it right now is uh it's up to the department heads to kind of take a look
at their week and there's like a 2hour buffer sort of built into their 34-hour schedule where they're expected to do at least two hours in meetings so once you go to 36 anything over and above 36 hours that week if someone's like like marsy who gets pummeled with she still
doesn't take it but meeting after meeting after meeting she could say hey um I'm going to take two hours back um I'm going to flex it this week I'm going to come in two hours late or leave two hours early and that would be called Flex time and it just happens in the
week but if she has too many meetings that week and there's no way she can Flex her schedule she could ask for comp time up to 34 hours worth you can't ever have more than that um and it has to get approved and you have to use it within 30 days
you can't Bank it you can't right cash it out you can't attach it onto vacations either it's just so you don't burn yourself out is there somewhere that speaks to that 34 to 36 suggested or implied is that somewhere in here yeah it's on this form
it's on that form but it's is that it's not in this document it's Standalone it's a separate this is just sort of like your form to fill out to get approved every employee has to sign off on that I assume or uh they don't sign off on it this is what they submit to HR
when they say I need Flex time I need comp time it gives us our paper trail in case okay and then if it's comp time that's getting approved I go into the system and add it into their comp bucket okay but my point is if there is that unspoken policy of 34 to 36 it should be
reflected here somewhere okay just for um so that you can refer back to it when you want to say to an employee okay but you know you worked a 35th hour but here is this policy that says you really have to work a 36.5 hour to to go ahead and dip into compal time right if you're if
you're enforcing that it should be I think that was just for department heads the two extra hours so it's just for department heads yeah because I think an all our contracts it says that you're expected to work a certain amount any expectation that we have for any employee I think should be reflected
here somehow in a bullet or a sub you know however you want to and I I do want to point out although I'm not going to it's not a favorable point out to many is we don't even have to do this true it's very true yeah right how well how broadly is this utilized like weekly
monthly like it's well I get a few of these a week it sort of depends on the person I think some people use it more than others there's plenty of people out there that just don't pay attention and work whatever they need to work work and it is what it is um but there are some people who have other things going on in
their lives so if it's cutting into that they're going to use this for okay honestly we have nothing else going on in our lives you know no I no I I mean I look I I think I think our town hall employees work hard and I think I think that if we're you know I I just I take
exception to the language of exempt employees are not eligible for comp time you know if we're requiring somebody like marsy or Gino to to come in and be at every every every meeting for two or three hours a night uh Monday through Friday and show up on a Saturday and and
and do and do these things I want to make sure that they're that that they that they are taking their um that they are taking their comp time uh seeing something where they're not eligible for comp time but you know this is this is our process and procedure and it says it
a few times you know that you know that it's not an entitlement so it it just seems contradictory to me um and we'll have to work I think that wording is in there because flsa right Fair Labor Law is requires that wording
um so that you can you can like um not bend the rules I'll say but you can be more flexible with people that are in that situation but this protects you from anybody abusing it right so that's why I think that's why it's worded that way I'm not sure it's probably not your wording it's probably no no no no no no
understood I I just want to make sure that but there should be some work around so that you can you know reward and not penalize your people that are going out of their way that's the intent yeah um is that not like a a
bonus like a per not every salary employee has a bonus I but I bet if you're a contract employee I think it depends on the leadership right so it depends on the supervisor whether or not it could be considered a bonus because you might have a discretionary bonus not a not a you might get a TA that is very
resistant towards it and discourages it as opposed to one that is more free using of it so is it a bonus no no I mean to say like is the alternative to like uh like a person who has to show up and come in all the time and they're
doing it without filling in you know those compensation spreadsheets or whatever um or an exempt employee like they can request pay right they can request an exempt can right they can request the overtime pay as opposed to
comp time yes yeah they can yep so they're the ones who are excluded from over but the nonex salary right not yeah salary it's just salary people so sorry the point I was trying to make was is it not likely that those exempt employees who are not filling out this
form maybe have discretionary bonuses in their structure where their extra times served doing whatever they're doing is reflected then in a bonus structure instead of in comp time in my world in my experience in municipalities bonuses do not exist right so that is just me
personally right and I've worked for Wellsley Melrose pey right in different capacities I don't often see I haven't often seen any bonus for a Municipal Employee kind of because it's a you you have benefits
like half day Friday some closed day Fridays you have a pension you have other things that corporate world people typically don't see so that's why they see a bonus structure but I am not I I just haven't seen it in most towns okay
but that's not to say there aren't some I'm sure there are you know but I find it here to be out of the UN okay is there pfml is there a policy have we is there somewhere is it contained PID we don't have it you don't
we don't P municipalities are required to and we did not often but some do optional yeah yeah but we don't right it's not common no is that where you take like a dollar from your so like check would have like pfml A- ma your deductions yep yes municipalities
were to participate in that trust fund great some towns do some Town yeah we did not opt into it Maran did you double check with Mike Sweeney under the military stuff um no what Darren asked me to do
with the military was to take out all the wording because it gets you into trouble it was like too much information and he had me narrow it down to one paragraph and then we are to follow um what here I'm going to go to that page hang on a second that's a good
point military military leave is often very complicated and we often advise people to keep it and this is their words we often advise our clients to keep these policies short and sweet while this section is f to its legal form um they recommended something
follow what it actually says which is the town shall not discriminate against any employees because of past present or future application or membership any uniformed or ironed services and we follow like the military policies that are out there for the
state um and the one question I have is so as a town we don't have we don't have anything where um as as an overall town do we have a policy as far as we have consideration for milit we have
consideration for veterans first what do you mean what do you mean well so if you have a if if you have 10 people apply employer so I don't oh I see well I think as an equal opportunity employer you can't say that you do have a preferred that veterans have a
preference yeah no no okay it probably didn't civil Serv did under civil service so only under Civil Service had that you're right and we don't have that now like with the fire even under Civ civil service it's you know rising to higher on the list right it's not saying you're automatically hired just because
you're a veteran right you're get you have X you move X number criteria a grouping of criteria it is not the only criteria right so I just the reason I bring that up is because we when we were in civil service
if they there were points if you did move up a ladder or you received more points when we were in Civil Service then leaving Civil Service um veterans didn't have that benefit now I
know we have two different hiring polic we have a hiring policy with the police and a hiring policy with the fire department that sits outside of these this policy yes does it though how how different is it it should come under the
same umbrella right but it should I there are different requirements for police and fire but it should still have the same overall policies right think it's the hiring procedure procedure is different are they act obviously they're going to have different benefits based on the cbas
right for one yep but everything else policy-wise should be pretty similar right two agree but I mean it would probably it follows the CBA yeah but I mean he called out where he thought it was different you know for example like you know smoking on
property or something or you know the sexual harassment law that's going to apply that's going to be an umbrella that's over anybody that works with it's time right well I guess that's a question for Town Council I would think would have caught that because my question was going to be you know once once we figure
all this out right and you have all these Standalone that employees are going to sign you know I'm sure there'll be some sort of gr presentation on Town Hall where people get to read through the policy they'll sign off on it and then they'll sign these Standalone um but then
like it's only at Town Hall and right that's the thing should be cohesive in terms of police fire even scholp you all are paid by the same person I mean to the C to the extent you can be everybody's going to have a different CBA but the same you know it
overall Encompass and I mean just to have that Synergy right in in process any policy we've wanted to do has to be part of the collective bargaining for them to accept it correct so we can't adopt it until it's negotiated that's a whole another yeah we can adopt it but
we cannot force it upon them to be aded so Town Hall can adopt a sexual harassment policy and everybody signs it and then we can bring it to the collective bargaining table to say it's desired that the town would like you to sign off on this policy right but before we do that we should compare between the
policy that they have or if they even have one because it might not even be necessary to bring it to the collective bargaining table if it's reflective of something that already exists exactly I I do want to ask I know I'm going to get you a lot of information that is owed but some of these Standalone policies like specifically
the wreck one for sexual abuse and misconduct this is for just Recreation and we're going into her hiring season so we want to be able to use this paperwork um I didn't know if any of those so you want to do that sexual and misconduct for children I assume yeah
right yeah just it's for anybody who works with children um and it was recommended by risk management so is that that something you want us to address like at the next meeting outside of this outside of everything else yes you want that to be
a standalone Standalone yeah a standalone vote I guess is that the only one you want us to review by next so that'll be a priority for us most important one the most important one that's coming down the pipeline because I got all of her paperwork ready for all these interviews that are coming up and I just want to make sure this is part of
it okay and what is the plan for support for recreation um because they're going to be taken care of hiring interviews the paperwork and then so you'll go through how many employees do do they hire for parttime I have 22 returning
employees that we that uh we're going to send out paperwork for them to fill out and then um they just put up a a really nice sign up sheet we can go online and sign up for the interviews okay um they're starting um in April Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday the first week which I'm part of those interviews and then the following week is Tuesday Thursday again and then if we need to we'll do it over April vacation um and we'll go from there I just want to make sure that there's a a a a separate checking on
that so that nobody falls through the cracks on who signs this on making sure everybody has signed it oh yeah just to get that I would do that absolutely and this is for hiring of like Park League people like but it's it's also the
coaches the instructors and as we move forward if we do basketball clinics and things like that like all of it maryan can can a minor sign this or would would their would their uh would their parent have to have to sign this like if you're if we're hiring a 16 or a 17 year old
yeah yeah well that's a good question that's a great question and I'll ask they I don't know if they can't I mean he knew what this was for when I told him what it was for so I'm surprised they didn't say I don't know this a different one right if they have working papers and they're I'm just curious yeah
that's a good question they do they have to get a work permit and all of that so double check that yep my understanding miners couldn't sign things but maybe if they have work work they so they have they can work they have to have to be able to fill out
applications and the like right find out all right so we need to have that on next week's agenda Zan just the sexual abuse just this one that's 4 two 4 two yeah believe it or not
yeah okay any other questions or comments I have a couple but I can just send it Maran this seems like a lot of work and it's nice that we finally have something um that we could put our arms around or start to put our arms thank you well done been a long time
comprehensive I mean so thank you definely didn't miss anything you know nice work okay thank you now let's we have one more the agenda now the last on our agenda is a discussion on the
budget so Amy you and Gino and Danielle have some recommendations or you want to I think g go over things yeah so we had a list I don't know how in depth we want to get into this because I haven't talked to all the department
heads but Amy and I have been meeting on a more than regular basis to scrub the budget a little bit more and it's painful and be honest with you a lot of tough Cuts I thought we had a pretty lean budget to begin with but going over
it came up with a few other proposed cuts as I said I'm not sure what type of depth you want me to get into I'm not going to get into the depth with cutting a made potential positions without notifying anybody but
I can address a couple of them and uh this was actually a great idea we're looking we're going to have a town eaten Warren article we're hoping this select board will endorse right the vote would uh need the select boot approval in an affirmative town meeting vote the
recommendation is to include community events in the rec evolvement fund to me community events yeah such as we had a few of them right here um I know those are just the budget
lines for it right Rec Fourth of July Town Hall community events recreation community events so so these are all the low cost no cost yep that are in the general fund um so this was something that um um charl H Stella
at the school had said in a previous Community she worked in they had their town meeting vote for the B for the recck revolving to include their Community program so instead of it the low cost no cost being paid by tax fairs
it's essentially paid using the programming fees um and that's how it was paid for so it didn't touch their general fund so the only problem you have with that is if if you're paying for your kids programs you're paying to put your kids
programs in there I'm not paying for any kids program and yet I'm going to these different events you're subsidizing you're subsidizing everyone else so if if you're if you're able to say we put on x amount of events and
those events bring in just say $30,000 those events bring in $30,000 and it's not the 30 coming from programs where you're signing kids up or yeah but not all Danielle hosts many programs that do not involve children I mean jewelry making and what I'm saying is if the
people that are taking programs are paying for the programs they shouldn't also be subsidizing events what I'm saying is we should identify that we are raising we have a revenue on events and that revenue is counter acting what we're paying out on events so instead of
you're saying instead of them instead of the money coming from my fee say it's $100 to go to park league and I'm paying $12 because two of those dollars are going to subsidize no cost low cost events right rather charge at events some
events and then that draws the revenue to the no cost low cost events yes there's yeah that's what I would think I would just I think what I'm concerned is that if if that we are not having events on the backs of people who are paying for their program and I think it's I don't think it's hard to do I really
don't because for example I think we should also be going out and getting some sponsorship money for say our music events I think they already do that this the summer concert series is sponsored by Don I think we could get even you know like for example we could raise
some money for say the 4th of July um parade you know the parade could be sponsored by a bank I think what we're talking about here though is a total of what 131 13,000 yeah to take it out of the operating the line items and it it seems
like the discussion is more on how we raised M it doesn't it wouldn't change it would hit doing that same thing that it's not how we're raising it it's just that we're taking it out of I I don't have a problem with that it's just I just want to make sure that when we're when we're spending the money that we we are showing that we have Revenue we have
Revenue that's not from programs to cover that expense that's all and I think you know how wreck operates and in the you know getting money from vendors or whatever you're you're talking to is kind of like in addition to this piece
of it but this was just just I think the purpose of this exercise was solely going through what's in operating that could potentially get moved over or or get eliminated in some cases yeah is Rec supportive of us I don't think it I don't even think
we've gone that far yeah right this is just well I mean I think we should if she's GNA yeah have $20,000 that she's got to compensate into no cost low cost events or else then if W can't pay for it doesn't happen right but there's but there's also you know I mean I I
attended the last uh Rec Commission meeting you know they were talk Recreation was talking about you know the fact that they're having to put on more events that are Revenue generating just to pay for um just to pay for our fireworks this year and even with a
sponsorship for the Wednesday concert series or the strawberry festival or whatever covering those just covering those costs um because they do want to have lowc cost no cost events there's still going to be a 10 or a $15,000 Gap that exists for our fireworks show so
you know we are looking to try to figure out all right C can we can we do a Derby Day event that raises several thousand dollars can you know this year is a is a golf tournament year I believe that I believe this year is where we have to pay so that year so that that causes
that shortfall we pay every other year every other every other year Tesco we had a yeah we had a deal for 10 years where where Tesco would um you know would offer the course for free on a on a Monday in May and those funds went to uh went to the fireworks that agreement
has since expired I believe a year or two ago Gino yep um and that's just going to cause a shortfall so I just want to make sure that we're not raiding the wreck the W revolving account um because what that will do in turn not maybe not this year or next year but in
subsequent years is raise the price of these lowcost no cost events and raise the raise the cost of these programmingsoftware sure people would pay more um but I think uh keeping it uh keeping it affordable for for families is uh is certainly Paramount I think
we're going to run into this in every single area that we're going to that g is going to propose to potentially you know reduce or eliminate is that we're going to have a department that probably doesn't want to be reduced or eliminated right or in any way shape
or form to get to this figure that we're all you know talking about that we're all looking at so to your point yeah I I mean definitely each department is going to have to be consulted with each one of his recommendations and you know discussions are going to have to be had but it's going to come down to
priorities and where we're you know what we're looking to do right and what I I think too to make sure that it's spread out and it's not you know one Department taking more of a hit than it can handle or um you know focusing too much in one area yeah I you see more often than not
when you like sign your kids up for things it's like would you like to make a separate donation like signing them up for lacrosse camps and all sorts of stuff it's like you can make a $5 donation to The like the entity that runs scholarship fund yeah yeah whatever so
maybe there's something along those lines that we can do like if folks can afford to do a $10 donation at the time they sign up for w maybe they'll be willing to do it because they're already spending the money and those who can't won't um that might be a way for them to
fill their coffers at that time but just think out loud and as I started the conversation off I said I wasn't going to address some of them that I had talked to department heads and probably spoke on that one a little bit because I had time yeah sorry I asked the question
to no I apologize to her you know in G's regard I think I have the copy that has the the circles and the SBS Y and I don't think you have that copy yeah but I should have picked up on that sorry yeah so one of them that we know we can
save two five and six are the safe ones yeah right and I know that number 13 just got thrown out there but with that proposal it's actually $222,700 okay okay y as Amy just referred to two is to reduce the election related expenses to
align with the election cycle we didn't meet with the town clerk we just used his budget numbers from the previous year there's a lot less elections this year and we realized a savings of 21,243 great and that department has is in agreement with that okay great than
you um one of them was we could talk about I haven't talked to the apartment head but maybe promoting somebody from in within in one of the apartments and then having a vacancy in a lower position okay have a net Savings of I guess the net savings would be $50,000 because we have to appropriate a little
extra money to go for it for the Building Commissioner what's the bottom is that something extra than outside of the budget that we talked about yes this one would be outside it would using an internal candidate for a position so as you went through and found all these
like we'll call them balances because I know some of them are cuts and additions to sort of make up for whatever the cuts you have what's the bottom line what did we get to the bottom line if we did it all if we did the ones that I was proposing today would get to 144 675 and then there's potential for
others yep there was another potential for roughly what's say 75 80 another $160,000 with other departments that I would like to talk to the department head about because I'm not so sure about them but they could convince me those
could be additional savings okay it's a little tough talking about it without talking about yeah know that's the problem yep but colle and G to your defense these are literally suggestions that I made going line by line and looking at fiveyear averages just
literally and I think I said this at the last meeting I was prepared to I had a whole list that I was happy to go through and tell you exactly line for line what I you know was looking at and what stood out to me as areas we could cut right um so I sent that to Gino and
last Friday Gino met Gino Amy Pam angelakis and charl Stella all sat down I went to that meeting and they had met the Friday before and had conversations that produced a little bit of saving somewhere I wasn't really sure what and
then it was kind of at a standstill so I went to that meeting last Friday and I really feel like you guys did a great job really you you were both very open-minded and very approachable and really you know tried to see and just have a conversation right are any of my suggestions logical some of them might
not be worth a hill of beans quite honestly because you know um I do have a degree in business but it's been some time and I just said okay maybe we could maybe this is an option maybe it's not so when I put my list together I think I came you know throwing everything under the sun in there it came close to
600,000 right um after sitting together last Friday I think it was closer to 400,000 right right um but again these are just recommendations for me they're not set I'm not telling you to do XYZ but from that you know you know whatever
number you just came to is 140 something yeah 144 675 and then maybe another 160 yeah that I'm not so confident about it's hard we can talk about it you know this stuff is the the hard conversations I was talking about right and it's it's looking at every little thing and saying
do we need this right do we just want this or do we need this right and I I'll take one example that really sticks out in my head and I'm I'm going to be quite honest with you it really annoys me is the cost of cell phones oh right yep and I think it was something like 35,000,000 or something right and when I found out
how many people and and this is no offense to anybody in this town that work for this town that have cell phones right when it's $36,000 and I'm thinking about how that correlates you know to a salary of a person right you mean there are Paras in
this town that make less than $36,000 there are clerks DPW guys that might make $36,000 that that to me St stood out right so I think that was like something that I was really focused on there's got to be a way to reduce how much we're spending on what was the re
because this was brought up um this was brought up like two years ago on the cell phone thing and the reason we were told that so many people had to have cell phones had was there was a legal reason is that not the case I don't know if there's a legal reason but that is
what we were told we were told that if we took a cell phone away potentially from a department head there would be no expectation that we could reach that person after work yeah and there really shouldn't be for the for the fair enough for the work life balance of the people
that we employ I mean for the most part I would hope that we anything that we have could wait till the next morning with the exception of police chief fire chief stuff like that I told like you know DPW like I get it you know I get there were a few for sure but the sheer number I think every single department
head has a cell phone if I'm not mistaken that was part of the list that every single department head has a cell phone that we're paying for multiple yeah do you know when I went through the list at least for the town phones today cuz is well the police I mean I want to
say there are 20 that you know various levels of no offense to anybody the police I I think so right so yeah so it's police fire and town so Gino and I specifically went through the town list today and really went through it kind of
with that you know do we need to reach this person yeah outside of town hall hours critical like what emergency would we need to reach this person for and if there wasn't one we're like okay we can potentially cut this and I broke down
the list down to everyone's monthly plan and the annual cost so that's um and then we're going to have the conversations with u why would the why would the police need a cell phone if they have a radio that's what I G talk to them I said I don't I mean even if
that from 30 if it goes from 36 to 15 that's $220,000 that like At first passed we would have just approved this budget or looked at this budget and said okay this is you know stuff we're all used to let's just go ahead and you know it just
was just stood out it was one of the things I mean or rather than get rid of it wholesale is there a possibility of renegotiating a negotiating a better a better deal no I mean yeah I mean how often do we do that right I mean who knows if that's every I do that every
year you do oh good we we are on the lowest cost possible as a public safety um and the town gets to piggyback on the public safety Departments of that so we have the lowest cost plans available we
don't pay for the hardware phones themselves um and in the event an emergency anyone with the town phone will still be contactable yep got it so the question is so so did you look at the contract like what can we get out of it how long is this contract these
contract so we would not be canceling the phones in its entirety so we would just be canceling lines of lines and we are able to do that as of July 1 so do you want to speak to some of the other areas
that I mean I I I personally will happily address what I you know one big area that is probably not won't make most people happy but it's performance bonuses performance and retention bonuses we already took those was a big you already took those okay the bonuses
you been the retention bonuses well going forward but I think what do you mean a retention you mean that the bonuses that are in people's contracts yeah right now no so I I do have an opinion on that if if we have given someone a contract if they have agreed to a sign to they have agreed to a
contract there's a bonus within that contract but you realize the the wording of what that contract says right that that bonus is not guaranteed that's right it's not guaranteed performance it has to be appropriate no performance or retention both of them right so they're not guaranteed bonuses that's right
however if someone was given a bonus within their contract and and they actually earn that bonus I feel that we're under contract we've we've made an agreement that this is my opinion we've made an agreement if if I've hired David
and I said David I'm going to pay you 100,000 which might be a little bit less than what he wanted I'll pay you 100,000 and there's a chance for a $5,000 bonus I feel that he has signed it he's made the agreement to that to to go back and take that away I think that's negotiating in bad Faith but what are
you basing that performance bonus on that would be Municipal Employees that would be the to the town Town Administrator whatever you know his or her but when we haven't even had that we've never even seen what any of these bonuses are based on I've never I've asked for that many times for the prior
Town Administrator and never saw anything to justify what we're giving people5 and $110,000 10 I've seen $10,000 in retention bonus right for contracts that are expiring this coming June why would we not consider taking
all of those out for FY 26 because well if you've already signed the contract so if David has a three-year if I signed a three-year contract with David and now I'm going to go back and say Hey you know that bonus I put in your system I'm taking it out I think that's what's not
fair I think what is fair is to say David that by the way that contract that's in there I'm going to be grading you on this this and this I think Clarity on how he's going to earn it is what we should do I don't think going and saying I'm taking it out I think that would be negotiating in bad faith but let's be honest we've never graded
in giving people bonuses based on that we it hasn't happened because I've asked for it that's right but so so we've given bonuses to people for absolutely no good reason that we can justify other than because it was in their contract no I think no no no I don't
think there were I think we gave bonuses out that were outside of the contract we gave a good amount of bonuses out just under that bonus line item right so so both existed there were perform discretionary performance bonuses in
individual employment contracts and for two years there was the $30,000 Performance Management line for any non-union non-contracted employee who is eligible for
it which I don't think was was was dispersed properly at whatsoever well that's not Union non- contract you could remove that exactly we have REM we have removed that but I think what Danielle is talking about is to remove the line item in contracts we've already
negotiated is that what you're saying I I'm talking about potentially all right absolutely all and what I'm saying is if we already have a signed contract with a town employee I am totally against taking that out in a signed contract I feel
that that we we negotiated in faith there's a there's a there's a bonus with within there and if the problem is that that bonus isn't described properly then then correct correct that symptom don't go back and take it from an employee I think that the way it's worded we have
per we have a perfect out for that if appropriated right that is the exact wording in the contract so in other words if we're funding it fine but if we don't have the money to fund it which we don't have the money to fund much right now it is up for grabs that's how I see it right I I think a a retention bonus
for 10,000 ,000 that I saw for one employee who's expiring in you know that would be funded for FY 26 is ludicrous I I just think that in in Municipal life the way we've structured these bonuses is unheard of I have to
read that one I don't know could we could could it be broken out in such a way and maybe it already is so it seems to me in the past that we've taken that line item and we've filled it with contractual OB obligations plus
additional so is there any additional in that line item right now or is it only what is contractually obligated right now so the ones that are in individual employment contracts you'll see in the department themselves so you know the police chief contract that was voted by the select board last year you will see
a line in that Personnel that says Performance Management parentheses contract y or performance bonus parenes contract okay the Performance Management line that was $30,000 you will see it zero okay so the only bonus the only thing that exists today is something
that is currently in a contract right to Danielle's point which has a carve out but we have to decide whether or not that's something we want to touch and maybe you just go with ones that are uh up for renewable coming up now maybe you're going to the ones that have been settled and voted you know the ones we
just voted fire police Chiefs okay we just signed those fine maybe we just look at the ones that are expiring coming up yeah right or expiring FY 26 those aren those CU those haven't been agreed those hav aged to let not going forward aged right yeah I wouldn't want
to go back on on on what on on the Covenant that we made I mean just you're talking 30 $40,000 that's potentially out there just so you know yeah right for those contracts that we just signed no well it's it's both it's it's some that have that we just signed right
police fire Treasurer I mean I don't want to get into specific titles but there're you know the ones I'm talking about retention $10,000 hasn't come up yet right um they're out there there it's a it's a considerable pool well let's consider it on the table but then let's have a
conversation after we get through some of these other but it's just one of other there's a lot of other matters on the table that we could be looking at so before we say yay or nay to this particular one let's see how far we can get down the road before we even have to contemplate that and right leave it on
the table so that that's not a today decision yeah cuz I don't think that's part of your number right youo those that isn't in there for that hund whatever thousand you just came up with so I just wanted to touch on um we're not just looking at Cuts in the budget right we're going to take a look at if
we can figure out any Revenue drivers or increase Revenue in the um I have our Treasurer double- checking which ones to make sure the ones that I have flagged is statutory that these are fees um yeah so we are looking at fees fines and permits um and
I I am updating the list that it looks like FY 23 was the last time a full comprehensive list came uh to the board and before that it was FY 2020 um I know last year we just brought a couple Standalone y fees to be updated
so we are going to have that full list um I'm hoping for your next meeting okay great um and and that includes the building the the it includes all fees fines and permits okay for the town um
obviously we won't have time to pull the comparable data but we can at least look at it and see you know what it is I'm trying to run reports to get or when the last time it was changed well we know last time was changed but and then we're trying to look at also the metrics for it so that you know if we look at
something and you're like oh this is great we should increase this fee by $10 how much can you really expect to but I also want to make sure you have the contact to be like well that fee has only been done three times a year so like yeah so what is the saving what is the incre the potential increase inue
and and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't increase that fee if you should I just want to make sure that I'm giving you all the information at that time so that you know the impact as you're deciding it excellent perfect qu J go ahead I'm sorry I keep interrupting you no worries one of the other things we saw
is could result that minimal savings but it's still a savings $1,210 we paying a stien for somebody to take minutes eating minutes for one of the boards which I believe chair somebody could do it's not one of the big ones like finance that I I want to clarify it's
not stien so it's overtime they have someone in the Administrative Professionals Union taking doing overtime to take minutes for a meeting so instead we're going to have the salari staff person take the
minutes for health there I was like do we want to say yeah too late now too late now so then so just the the staff person will take the minut we have one of the clerical staff that's taking meet minutes
because okay so we're shipping away literally I mean in every possible we we were looking at every possible opportunity savings and of course so it might sound trivial but at least yeah it it adds up RB this yep it really did add up so Gina was there was there any
consideration for uh for some of the fuel lines because I know you know just looking back you know two years ago um there was an incredible Spike in$ four yeah yeah we had we had four plus dollars a gallon right gas diesel um so
when you look at those averages it's it it could be skewed a bit there may be some savings on on in some of those lines I I I grabbed the wrong packet before I left the house uh otherwise I could I could point to the to the specific line so I'll shoot you an am an email shoot me an email cuz we to be
honest with you we haven't looked at that so that one could you just want to look at the last two years average yeah cuz we do have some Vehicles now that are electric I have that are electric well no we don't have I don't think well on the police station
they're they're what hybrids hybrids they're hybrids well we do have two electric ones in town hall right the little Chevy bolts right but where we' really see where we really see the savings and that savings started four years ago probably
DPW DPW you we burn you know it depends on we have a busy snow season winter season we burn a lot of fuel of course that can also go to the snow and ice budget too so the savings okay uh one of the other
ones talk to the DPW director and he's willing to the you threw me off there I myself I looked in the mirror and I said can I do this hot time staff lemona and going down from five to two would be a sa potential Savings of
$23,000 so and so what is the loss so it's summer help yeah right and but even though summer help what is the loss to what what is the loss to so some of the services empty in the trash barrels but they can I think the two guys can absorb it and my guys can probably absorb
it no it's it's definitely a certain value but are we getting 40 hours a week from it somehow probably not just make sure the seagulls don't take all that trash well just so everyone knows right we ramp it up to empty the barrels now we're up to seven days a
week after Memorial Day and twice on Saturday and Sunday during the summer on that's real beach days and we're skipping over the next two because I haven't talked to them in um well one would be number nine is tied
into number three three you know if we were to promote somebody from one of the Departments to make a savings would also save 25,000 but not having to pay health insurance for that individual and then the final one is potentially one of
the Departments was looking for a increase on a salary or a stien they get and they've had the same stien for the last six or seven years they we looking for a $1,200 stip in is $1,200 increase 1,200 increase
increase right yeah to a statement that's what 134,000 if you total all those up as I said ear 144 with the potential for another 160 potentially so that's potentially
$300,000 in savings right Y and what's hard about this process is you don't want to speak to it publicly each department Department right but at the same time you have to because when we don't then we're accused of not being transparent right right and we're
accused of not having deliberations in public so it's like we can't have it both ways right you you know we're trying to do everything we can and and actually make ourselves as lean and efficient as possible and at the same
time not sacrifice right but to avoid that that that appearance of I don't know secrecy collusion whatever ridiculous thoughts are out there we have to have these conversations and it's painful it's not easy and you guys
again to your credit both of you have been great about considering all possible options right because that's that's the goal that's the objective here we're looking to find however much we can to make this to spread it out and make this town run with what everybody needs and it's not going to be easy
because no one wants to give up anything right I think Eric spoke to that he spoke a public comment which is like listen we've got to make a decision we either want to have good and goods and services at a level that you know taxes remain a certain rate and we don't pay a
certain amount of money or you want to pay more money and have better Services um so like that's a community ideology that has to be worked out it shouldn't just be the five of us we should be listening to community members to figure out where you know the barometer lies
this year and I think for me like we need to be doing exactly what we ask the school to be doing which is going down this path of not comfortable
conversation and making sure that when we present a budget and we're saying this is the best we can be that it is all the things that we think are the best we can be and so you know I think that's the only way we're going to have Apples to Apples and be able to say you
know we can't go any further we've literally turned every stone um and you know we've contemplated every cut meticulously which I think you guys have been doing we've we've considered increases to revenue we've considered
all the tricks and you know and and this is where we're at and then at that point then we can have a a better conversation knowing we've come to the table in the same capacity that we've asked continually asked the school to come to the table and to this and again because it's not an easy convers it's
specifically not easy for you y and I'm going to say that because you're in an interim role right and I have suggested to you a number of unpopular Cuts okay and it's easy for me to sit here and suggest those cuts because I am not potentially interviewing for this job
let's be clear right you are interviewing every single day all day right and I I think that's a level of scrutiny that I'm not sure most candidates go through in this type of process if you want this job and I not even speaking to that but I understand I just want you to I want you to know and
I want everybody whoever is listening to know that I appreciate that you're willing to have the hard the hard conversations and that's what this stuff is it is not popular and it's not going to win the fan of every Department in this town but it that doesn't mean that
it's not necessary and in my experience as a resident in this town I've never seen it done on this side I have seen it done on the school side every single year right they're having these convers ations I think Pam angelaki said it best she got rid of cell phones five or six
years ago for this very reason right so they've had they go through this exercise every year I don't feel like the town has which is why I suggested what I did maybe they have in some way shape or form but you know from my experience I've never seen a a dive like
this right I don't know if you Amy have in your tenure in you know as Finance I go through it every year with finance committee but we we talked about that it kind of ended with you and then the recommendations you made didn't really go past you right so is which is has
been a challenge for you in that role right so that I just want to put that out there I think the finance chair said the same thing that he's never seen a budget like this that they're going to have to go through line by line right because this goes from us to them and ultimately oh Tom me has the final say
and they said they spoke to it pretty well on Monday which they were pretty clear that they're not the ones holding the bag so to speak right I mean they set policy and they do a fabulous job and they they made a real concerted effort on Monday night to understand the school department and
what they were looking for which is again something that's never been done right so all of this stuff is new stuff that has never typically happened they don't SC yeah they don't scrub the detail they they want right they want to scub that's not their role right the scrubbing is supposed to be done by the
have happened Town staff yeah and this is so this is encouraging that this is that we're going through this exercise but it's not easy and I want to acknowledge that because that kind of falls on you and you know I can suggest all I want you know and I don't necessarily care who likes it or doesn't
but you know I do feel for you in this role and I applaud you for taking it on well I think ultimately too when you read the charter like we're the policy setting right body in this town not the
town administrator's role right so if if if our policy is that we're going to try to get this budget to a certain place yeah then that's what the policy is right we have to own that you know and even if it's a really hard decision if it comes back and we're at that place
then we have it falls on our shoulders not on gos or anybody in your role and not on finance committee either right um so I will say the town Min and I are going to continue to have the conversations with the um the depart department heads to see you know the
impact and feasibility of the random numbers that you didn't hear y um to be able to come forward with those because you know right much like Danielle said it's not easy but it's easy for me
looking at a spreadsheet and being like Oh mathematically we can do this and it would save this much money but I don't run those other departments so I don't know what that would actually look like that triggers what are you hearing as far as as far as the cherry sheet and
any and revenue coming from the state oh especially as it's been affected by the federal government what are their I haven't heard much I have started to hear um from other communities that they budgeted their cherry sheet flat from last year um to anticipate the cuts we
did not we budgeted ours at the governor's budget um because obviously we're in this predicament and we were stretching to that extent what was the percentage increase on the governor's budget I can go back to that um but I will I will say that is
something I'm watching I know there was a meeting of the house Ways and Means the other day um I didn't get much information on how that went so I've been anxiously watching um how that's impacting but I will keep you updated as
we go through that um it is not letting me access my state aid file so I will send you that analysis you think it was just off the top of your head can you think of anything I mean we're looking at 3% 5% I I don't know why but I thought
it was a little little higher it was higher I want to say it was 2 point something on unrestricted government um but it was much higher on Chapter 70 right and
where do they where do they classify the millionaires tax does that just roll into Chapter 70 or is that is that identified differently so that comes through in a different way so that comes through in state money for the school
lunch and breakfast program so that comes in through a special Revenue fund Revenue not through the chry sheet okay and what so when are we when will we know those numbers to do you remember from house way and means yeah we should
have that in the next couple weeks okay all right so let's keep this on our agenda Dian going forward for every uh every meeting and with that can we move to the consent agenda we want to take anything out of the
consent agenda if we don't want to take anything out of the consent agenda can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda can I have a second second all in favor I I consent agenda now it is Select board
time can I just jump in quick that I forgot to mention something in my ta report sure all right congratulations to marck and Kate Nan on the birth of Ted car Nan he was born Monday 9B 4 o nice
from everyone knows Marx Mark's our new DPW man yep congratul we had a baby Monday and I meant to include it sorry Mark well congratulations sure he's asleep I'm sure he's probably awake I'm sure he know sure eatings right Mark if
you're watching we will run dinner over to you tomorrow but that's only good until we adjourn all right so select board time Danielle um there's a glow dance Friday night at the elementary school if any of
you want to come along I know it's going to be very exciting and um kids will be glowing in the dark but isn't that limited to isn't that limited to the people that are isn't there a occupany there is there is marelen there is a waiting list I might say for upper and
lower so listen You'll have to get yourself on the list if you really want see there um yeah no I don't just again thank you to Amy and Gino because um I really think you guys did a heck of a job and you're doing a heck of a job so
I appreciate it um yeah no so she's gonna get you tickets to the glow dance I'll get you ticket that's you could take mine if that's your bonus that's your bonus ticket to the glow dance d uh I don't have anything to add Katie yes okay I wrote some things down so that
would be concise um the beach sticker art has been chosen um Danielle uh thank you to Danielle Strauss for all the hard work related to that process hoping we can present something in an upcoming meeting to let you all know what it is and how we got there but it's a nod to
Hadley which is really nice oh nice um as Gino said we maryn and I attended the UV pilot neighborhood meeting um and I did receive a couple of emails post meeting just on some things that uh neighbors want us to continue to work on one doesn't sound very promising but I'm
going to say it anyways um the removal of the diesel generator um in order to mitigate the pollution it causes and the noise it causes um so really pushing for our state um delegation thank you delegation to
contact National Grid and do the best we can and sort of again leave no stone unturn that we are trying to attempt to do that and you know whether or not National Grid can come to the table we can't control that but we can say we've done everything we could to get them them to try to um also they brought up
Green Space disturbance they said they were glad to hear that the equipment was going to be on the asphalt but that it make sure we live by that rule and not put it on the Green Space actually can't because we don't own that property perfect so that one's
check Che um and then the removable wall for flooding back flow um this came up the Colvert that they're going to build inside is removable and if there are large rain events or anything in order to prevent the water from coming back in and I am not the expert on this so please tell me to be quiet if I'm not
making sense um it's removable so that it does not create any issue with backflow or flooding in that area so um you know the neighbors really said well who's going to be watching that and when when are we going to make the determination if that wall needs to be
removed and so I think you know while it's likely not in a 90-day period going to need to be removed as long as we have a plan in place to understand when that is going to happen and um that it gets removed um okay I think this one we
already talked about um I would I would like to ask the chair that we either the Town Administrator or maybe on the agenda maybe in the town administrator's report it might be best that we add a Pine Street um veterans Crossing update every time we do a Town Administrator
report and in had a Hadley LDA update you can get those from marsy um that way we are preventing some of the issues that have been occurring about the lack of information or the misinformation that's coming in and we can inform you know both the board
and the community members what the status updates for those projects are and then it came up um at the special town meeting um that there was a call for Pine Street veterans Crossing meeting with neighbors um both the Pine Street
neighbors and the Burl Street neighbors so I'd like to Prior ize both of those things to occur um and anything I could do to be helpful in that process I would be glad to um but um also I believe Wayne Spritz brought up um the veterans
commission the veterans Council yeah and um reinitiating a veterans Council in town yes um I think it's a great idea I think we have a veterans agent it's not the same thing as what the veterans council did I could be probably schooled
by married to chillo or people been here much longer who have seen what veterans Council has done in the past um but I am intrigued and interested to find out if that is something that can I think we need to rewrite that description of that Council I I think I I think back from
our conversation from March or April of um of last year I want to say there were there were two recommendations one was to seat a housing committee for the for the Pine Street project and the other was was to to seat a veterans um
commission similar to support these larger larger scale events so it's more like events not it was more it it was more it was more events uh and fundraising for services it's more it's more in the the the you know the VFW the DAV through your vso um
so my understanding is the events the veterans commission was more events based for bringing people together maybe why don't we put that on the we'll put that on the agenda for next agenda and let's because I think we should talk about the description of that because I don't think it should just be events or
maybe it should be events but let's have the conversation and maybe get information as to what the last one was but on the other section of that commission or I would say committee we were specifically looking for a committee to put together people to really uh be a working committee to find
the 40 480 veterans that we have living in town and make sure they are prepared you know with their assets and things like that to be able to qualify right that was for the housing and we could start that immediately and Dian you ran you ran a
um a want ad right run lots and lots of want ads right and I do have a list of names okay we could start on that and then also we need to start filling our boards yeah our boards and uh committees working on that too yeah okay so we'll
start to put we'll start putting that up Diane's got a whole spreadsheet system that I'm actually going to test out with her to try to get that on track so um because it's it's involved there are a number of boards and some people
expire here they you know and it's staggered right yeah it's a lotun it's a lot wow right and we had we have a timeline because I remember I that timeline let's get that a spreadsheet get somebody in there so are you all finished I am thank
you that was the whole list so I just have a couple things well one is I just want to update on the Hadley um we have the last update that we should have had we had on the Hadley there was no update other than their their need for extended
du diligence how long does this go on this due diligence it's it will be it's going to be over in about a week yeah April 1st so will we hear something at that point like what what happens after the week so they're they they they will come back and they will say we've done our diligence and we're ready to go
we've done our due diligence we're not ready to go um you know we're going to need this and this when that happens and and they tell they'll tell Mary Allen or I don't know which one you both of you probably right well they'll send it community community development ad
development he cced me on the extend well actually I reached out to Adam and I said how's it going with the due diligence and he said I spoke to Mary I need an extension on the due diligence and okay and then she'll give us an update she'll tell us that's why I said even if the update is there is no update let's just keeping it so that you know
there's no no change right or you know like both of these have very detailed schedules attached to the ldas that they're meant to follow and then as things get pushed like example the LDA attached to Hadley is already defunct because it was based on the due diligence period that originally existed
and now they took whatever it was a couple extra weeks so we just have to push everything down but we should be doing it as yeah we should be doing it as it's happening so that if somebody were to access and maybe we are so I apologize Mary if you've already done this but if somebody were to go on the
website and look at this you know this LDA and see the schedule attached right they should know that that schedule is no longer right they should know where we are in the process and that this is the current this is the current schedule and we should be as transparent as possible as things are happening so so
with every major thing we have going on I think that same Cadence follow that same Cadence yeah and if we're updating through the town administrator's report that's that's keeping that's keeping us a breast of what's happening and we can post those but then also making sure that that translates to the documents on
the town website so somebody could didn't hear this meeting right then they go on to the town website and they see the schedule we should be updated schedule as of such and such a date and then we could pull the dates and I think that town website piece of it is really key because someone had a constituent
had reached out to me saying that not everybody follows the town of swamp Scout webs uh Facebook page social media right so we really have to be cognizant of that multiple of the website being as updated as it can be and and just to that effect um I know other communities
have also um have also included the town administrator's report posted to the website so in addition to our agendas and our minutes I think it would be move it separate well yeah I think it would be very helpful if if we were just capturing that um I know we have played
around with the order of the Town Administrator report some sometimes it's first sometimes it's last sometimes it's excluded um but I do think that that that really captures the essence of what's going on yeah um so if that's there in a in a format and that can be
uploaded I think it would be helpful um to convey right so we just keep keep it in our minutes but also we pull it in put Town administrator's report so somebody can pull it up I think almost this whole packet like anything that we're getting a presentation of or we're presented to right well that's in our
that's in the minutes it in the I think the school committee does a good job with it where on their agenda it actually has the Blue Link yeah they have the it's our CLI their agenda and all this stuff comes up maybe you can show that to Diana yeah I just think it's yeah it's a good idea so on the Hadley I am
anticipating I'm just thinking that we're probably going to have to be doing some negotiating when they're when they come back why do you think that well they let's not I mean they haven't come back yet I'm just preparing I just cuz you're because the extension of the due diligence you think extension of due
diligence it's pretty normal pretty normal so just anticipate it okay all right yeah just always anticipate well I don't I don't want any surprises um so as far as my stuff I just want to bring up on the retirement
from out of my committees the Retirement Board will be putting in an article into the warrant um the Retirement Board will be looking for an additional Cola increase so we'll have that in there
tell them to get in line no kidding addition the other night it's the cola base not the cola percentage itself yeah so if you remember a couple years ago the cola base increased to 14,000 yeah right that's so they want to increase the base again right it's just
I want to make sure I bring it up um the select board the finance committee they do not have to support it however it's going to be in you know there will be an artic we have to get an article in there for them so they will be sending us an article and then I have it already
you already have it ready it's the same article as last yeah same article same article we exactly right and that's that's it for me so if we can have a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor oh wait wait wait I do have one thing can you also put on
the town website the UV that for the UV pilot we promised to make sure on the website that there would be a banner that the neighbors could go go to to find out what's happening with the maybe we can link to the um is there a data there on the water sewer infrastructure
is there a website we link to I just want to make sure I want to make sure that it's it has its own separate things so neighbors could go to and they're not we promise they're not searching and going through anything for but whatever Diane whatever we need to link to we will figure that
part out right that's that's what we want to do yes what we want to link to they were having some trouble finding it so we want to make sure we're both on the same page both communities literally can we have a motion to adjourn did that second all in favor I
good night night night thank you