Good evening. Observing the time and the presence of quorum, I'd like to bring this October 20th, 2025 meeting of the act and select board to order. Uh we'll start uh as we usually do with
residents concerns. Uh Scott Sullivan, a Patriots Road. Standing here is uh the chair of the act and finance committee. I just have two quick points. Uh first point, uh the presentation from Arrow Street to the finance committee on October 14th. There were six scenarios for the DPW building
presented. The allocation for staff range from 5,300 ft² to 9600 square f feet. The staffing space uh should be consistent across all scenarios. Uh FINCOM and select board have agreed that staffing has been the highest
uh problem to solve and I believe that we should be able to come to consensus on what that space should be. Second point, also in the October uh 14th finance committee meeting, additional information was requested and provided to provide the taxpayers a better
understanding of uh the DPW project, which would be a work study on staff and a more detailed equipment study. Both the size of the staffing space and the number of vehicles to be garageed both drive the building size and therefore the total
cost. analysis on both will be needed needed and I am uh since I didn't was unable to take a vacation this year I am volunteering my vacation days to do that analysis if the board and town wants me to do that
that's all I have thank you >> thank you anyone else please come forward Good evening. My name is Derek Pinto. I'm at Chadwick Street in Actton. So, I want to begin by thanking the select
board because I understand that work and community service is sometimes hard, requires a lot of hours, and I do appreciate your time and your service. So, thank you for that. The last time I visited with you was October 6th and on that occasion I read an excerpt of an
email that I had sent on September 7th. So there was this was related to a very urgent safety matters, a traffic pattern that's next to my house, Chadwick and River. And at that time I had let you know that it was a month and there had been no
action. So I didn't receive any answers. No appointment had been made to attend to the matter at hand. I was subsequently visited by two engineers. I but this was not in response to my visit to select board. I thought that my visit
on the 6th, my initial visit here and after hearing my serious concerns that somebody from the select board, somebody from town management or a leader of the relevant department would contact me and give me a status on the project and let me know how it was moving forward. In
the end, none of that happened. So, my neighbors expressed disappointment and they noted that they had had similar experiences in trying to move things along and they noted the River Street Park project is another one that is incomplete. Also, right next to
the house. Anyway, on the 7th of October, two engineers visited me. This was pre-arranged. It wasn't a as a result of my visit here. A summary of a couple of those points, a couple of things that we covered had to do with the 25% design which was would be
referenced going forward and support the potential installation of a stop sign and a stop bar for vehicles. Uh and he was going to pursue that with the engineering department. The other item uh was that they were going to let me know where the project stood in terms of
a 75% design. Thank you. So the net I'll skip ahead then. So I trust that people that are on the thread in communication that I'm in communications with or this meeting and now raising profile and having it on the record uh that I'd get answers to my
questions. Are the projects still in the 25% design stage? How will they be advanced without secured funding? When do we get timelines and deliverables? Is it common practice to move ahead with multiple projects when designs are only 25% complete? Where does this fall on
the project priority list? Those questions been hanging out there for several weeks. So, it's my hope by raising visibilities that some additional personnel with institutional memory and resources will assist me in getting me the information that I seek. And in the spirit of collaboration, I'll
tell you that my next moves are going to be to contact Fincom more formally to ascertain the funding status and further contact with my neighbors to discuss the next move. I look forward to updating you at the next meeting. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Do we have anyone else? Anyone online? Nope. Okay, thank you. Um, moving along. Uh, chair update. U, most
of, uh, the points I'd like to make tonight are later on in the, uh, in the agenda. So, I'll address them then. Uh, one observation I would like to make is u a moment of remembrance for Sergeant
Robert Rhodess who was longtime employee of the Actton Police Department passed away last week. Bob was uh a Korean War veteran. He began his service uh with the town of Actton
in uh the late 1950s, early 1960s when the Actton Police Department was in the small office now occupied by the town manager in this building. Um, and he served
for until 1996 in the uh what was the new police station which has now been demolished. And although he was no longer serving in the department, he was able to observe the construction of the new public
safety facility in the early 2000s. Uh Bob was a a great individual, a good mentor for members of the police department, someone that I served with and always enjoyed my time with him. Uh and he served in sort of a transition
period of Actton going from being a very rural farming community right until uh tremendous amounts of development and commercial development. So it will be missed. Uh there are going to be services uh this Saturday at Actton
Funeral Home. So just a thought to uh his family. Uh Mr. Manager. Uh thank you. A few um announcements uh from the economic development office. It's restaurant week. Uh several
businesses are highlighting some of their uh new dishes and other promos this week as part of Actton Restaurant Week. acttonma.gov business to get the full listing of the specials. But I encourage you I encourage you to go to actin restaurant
week act in restaurants all the time. U and hopefully you can mention that this helped you uh encourage you to go there. Uh other things happening this week are there'll be a mural unveiling on Friday morning uh the at the Golds Plaza um by
a local artist Elizabeth Ames and um I encourage you to stop by that. If not, just check it out. It'll be is covered in a tarp right now, but you'll be able to see it after that morning. And um that's from economic development
from um historic preservation uh or future historic preservation, I guess I should say. Um you may have noticed that the bell did not ring at 6:00 when we were waiting for this meeting to start. Uh that is because Tom and some of our other staff worked with
a structural engineer to do some kind of conceptual ideas for how to do a preservation of the bell tower in the future. U but while they were up there um they noticed some needs to make uh some more immediate uh measures uh implemented here to make sure that we
can uh have that thing up there forever. So as a precaution as recommended uh we have turned off the bells until we can get the structural components of the uh tower uh reinforced. So that's it could be a temporary thing but ultimately it
needs to be a permanent uh fix. So more to come on what exactly that'll look like but I just wanted to mention that to the public and to the select board who I know uses that those chimes for uh your internal clocks. Thank you.
Uh, any points that any members would like to make at this point? >> Alissa, >> thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge that we had a great event right out in front of town hall and on the town
common on Saturday afternoon. Um, Actton had a No Kings rally who that was organized by Leslie Johnson who's a member of the Actton Commission on Disabilities. Um, I'm going to say that
about 600 people and dogs were in attendance. Um, Deputy Chief Sternolo estimated 500, but he arrived towards the end of the event um, after several people had already left. Um, it was great to have support from the police
department. I really appreciate Officer Richie um, for being on site the entire event. Um, she parked her patrol car in a location where she had a great view of the area and was ready to assist um, if needed. And I also wanted to give a
shout out to Spencer Cardilo for setting up a great sound system. And we had a team of marshalss, Stella Co, Miriam Leisac, Titus Cow, and Jim Carrey joined this gym and myself to ensure folks were using the crosswalks um and allowing
foot traffic on the sidewalks. And while I appreciate every single attendee who came, I have the most appreciation for the unicorn, the giraffe, the panda, the chicken, and the narwhal. So you can um
look uh on social media for great photos of the event. Both of our representatives SA and Catala were there to speak and there was dancing and there was singing and there were lots of um folks of all ages there. So it was
wonderful event and thank you everyone who made that possible and attended. Anyone else? Okay. Under new and special business, consider the recommendation for Department of Public Works facility
building committee for alternative design for Department of Public Works facility. Um, I'll start off. We will have the architects uh virtually in attendance. Uh
the recommendation of the building committee has been submitted. Uh it was in your packet. I'll just go through a couple of the points. Uh the meeting was October 15th and we evaluated the the numerous
alternatives that had been developed by Arrow Street. There were a total of six options that we looked at. Although one of them was uh the uh original proposal that we brought uh almost brought to town meeting in the spring. Uh we left
that in the mix just for comparison purposes. We look back uh historically at how we got to this point and back in 2021
we had a feasibility study that was done by Weston and Samson and initially they suggested that the new facility needs to be 52,723 square ft
and they broke down all of the the relevant areas that needed to be uh addressed. During the initial process, that size was was reduced to 47,719
square ft. the uh what we brought to the May May 2025 town meeting was 44,872 ft. So we we keep bringing the size of
this down. If we were to bring that same project back again and with the idea of beginning construction sometime in the summer of 27,
projected cost of that building, total project cost would be over $39 million. So we looked at a number of different options with Arrow Street. option one and I would certainly refer
folks to this document. There's some copies available. It's also available on our website along with a a wealth of other information. So option one uh is a slightly reduced version of what we did not bring to town
meeting bring it down to 40,000 square ft. estimated cost uh about 35 34.5 million. Option two is to only renovate the existing building.
So we'd end up with a building of only 19,200 square ft, uh the same footprint as what was built around 1970. Just the cost of that renovation would be over $11 million. Option three
would retain a portion of that existing building and then attach a fleet storage garage. We'd end up with a 33,000 33,500 ft building cost about 28 million.
Option 4 A, renovate the existing building and adding a standalone fleet storage garage. We'd end up with a total of 43,000 square ft. That would be almost $34 million
if that project were to proceed to construction in uh the summer of 27. Option 4 B is to convert the existing building into a fleet storage garage and add a standalone building.
We'd end up with a total of 37,523 square ft estimated cost of about $29 million. So we had a wide-ranging discussion. Uh a lot of these uh obviously there have
been some tremendous compromises made with the size of the building. There are certain areas of the uh original building program which would not be addressed. One of them being the wash bay which we think is very important.
But in the end we focused our attention on three major topics. Affordability, functionality and longevity. And this was at the recommendation of
the finance committee member on our building committee, Greg Jarabo. affordability. 4B is about $634 a square foot and it's one of the cheaper of the
options at 29 million725, $10 million less than what the original project would have cost. functionality. There was we're deliberately stressing the importance of providing
adequate space for staff and for operations. Uh clean, safe environment for our employees, adequate work areas, and uh
superior support staff. So looking back at the feasibility study administration the the need for administration space in the feasibility study they estimated we needed 4,936
square ft. Uh 4B provides 4,800 square ft. The feasibility study called for 3,800 square ft for staff support.
4B provides 3,492 square ft. 4B provides 2,800 square ft for workshops. Feasibility is called for 3,400 square ft. and vehicle maintenance
feasibility study called for 7,383 ft. 4B provides 7,127 square ft. Longevity 4B focuses the investment on a new building for staff that meets all energy
and building codes and will have a life expectancy of 50 years. It also repurposes the 50 plus year old building for fleet storage which will provide more parking areas than now exist but not make a huge financial
commitment. Estimated remaining life of the repurposed building is uncertain but probably the building will last for between 15 and 20 years in revised use and it can be replaced later and it is located on the site in such a way that
it can be removed and a new fleet storage building built at that time. So it was the unanimous vote of the members in attendance. Option 4B is a reasonable compromise
that will achieve the majority of the goals at a realistic cost. So we hope to be able to move forward with that. We do have the architects available here to be able to address any
questions in more detail. One of the things that I would caution folks about is that we're at the very early stages of this. There's a lot of questions that have been raised. There's a lot of
uncertainties, frankly. Um, exactly what sort of structural reinforcement we're going to need for the existing building. Uh, those will have to be developed over time with the help of structural engineers. So,
um I would also point out that the uh all of the options that have been provided all posits source heat pumps. Um that's a question that can be revisited whether we go with airsource
or go with geothermal as a heat source. As you know, we somewhat constrained with needing to go with a fossil-free situation. There's also some questions have been raised in the past about, you know, the
the site. Well, the site's too big. The uh you've got 40 parking spaces, you don't need 40 parking spaces. So I those are a lot of issues that will have to be addressed further. But I will specifically as far as
the parking situation fully staffed, we got about 23 people working out of that building. Every one of them drives their own personal vehicle to get to work. So if they're all there, we've got 17
extra parking spaces. frequently uh town vehicles are used are placed in those parking spaces. We also need to have space for members of the public to come forward uh contractors that might be coming by.
So we think it's an adequate parking space, parking site, um not too generous and frankly uh parking lot is probably the cheapest portion of this entire project.
There's also some been some discussion about well do you really need your winter fleet parked inside? So the town manager uh did some research and came up with a number of we call
winter response events. So we've got two major items. We've got snow plowing and then we have salt and sand and ice situations. And folks seem to think that with climate change, we won't have as many
snows storms. And probably anecdotally, thinking back to when I was shoveling people's driveways, yeah, it seemed like we had a lot more snow back then. But
what might happen, we don't know. A couple of observations I made in my years working for the town. Some of the worst storms we had to deal with as far as snow were actually not in true winter. Uh those of you who've been around here
long enough can certainly remember the Halloween storm that we had in October that was severe enough that we had entire streets closed for three or four days with down trees and energized wires all because of a heavy wet snow hitting
um trees that were still had a full head of foliage. I know my friend Anne Chang in the back there sat in a cold house for I think four days and couldn't get out because her entire street was blocked off. Um,
probably the worst storm I ever worked in was May May 9th and 10th, 1977. Again, not what you would call a winter condition, but it really knocked the town back on its heels. But looking in what what would be
considered true winter operations in 2019 the crew went out and salted and treated streets 37 times. They plowed eight times. 45 winter responses. 2020
23 salt events. Nine plow events for a total of 32. 21 we had 33 salt events, six plow events, total of 39. 22, 43 salt events, nine plow events,
total of 52. 23, we had 42 salt events, 22 times when the crew was out plowing. So it's 64 times. and 24
32 salt and treated events, 12 plow events for a total of 44. So, it's really important when we start evaluating all of these and think about, you know, keeping your fleet inside so it's ready to respond.
That's not a one-off once or twice during the winter. That's pretty much continuous operation. And when you figure in the period from November until the middle of April, that's a pretty constant turnover. So I
think those are important factors to keep in mind as we move forward and start evaluating this. So, uh, to my colleagues here on the board, that's the recommendation, unanimous recommendation from
members of the building committee that we move ahead and further develop option 4B. And certainly, I'm here to answer any questions more appropriately and with more expertise. We have our design team right here who can also respond to any
questions you might have. Thank you. Fran, >> can I ask a stupid question that I think has been answered a thousand times? >> Go right ahead. >> How many fleet trucks do we have that need to be kept indoors?
>> The winter fleet, I believe we're looking at 31 vehicles. >> I thought 32 was my number that I had in my head. And just as another data point, uh especially during the uh plow events,
we bring in extra contractors, which adds almost that size of a fleet again. So in order to keep the town, open the town properly uh for a big storm, we could be looking at 60 vehicles either owned or
>> hired by the town. I am stuck on this. I'm sorry I didn't attend the October 15th meeting. Um I don't see why we would settle for 18 fleet
inside when we have 32 trucks. I um I know that I've spoken about visiting other DPWs. I would like to get that information out somehow. Um, it's sort of frustrating to see or hear that, you
know, some of our surrounding towns have the luxury of just parking the plow that a truck can just park, you know, pull up to the plow, stick it on his vehicle and be on his way. So, I I don't know from
efficiency standpoint how I I don't know. Sir, I I'll listen. >> So, I would and certainly uh be happier to hear the public works director's comments on this. Yes, it is a compromise. There's no question. Um
we're attempting to respond to the uh the questions have been raised. Um, if you page through that document a little bit more, there's another scenario for parking.
Thank you. Um, so this this is the existing building if it's been reused and when we have a situation where we know that there's going to be severe weather. Um, the sacrifice that we'd have to make is
rather than chevroning in the vehicles as shown on the plan and allowing 18, there is a way of stacking the vehicles which is shown in this plan. Um it's not ideal, but it's uh that shows
stacking which will actually allow some better travel lanes uh between the vehicles. Uh but you know, there's no way of that I'm going to be able to tell you that it's as good as a brand new building.
But uh it's the uh the realm of the possible rather than the desirable, I'm afraid. U Mr. Chair, I wonder if um for for board members or maybe members of the audience who hadn't seen the previous presentations if if we could take five
minutes or seven minutes or so for Arrow Street uh who's been uh who's done the study to just do a quick overview of how we got to the the 4B or how the the building committee got to the 4B. >> Please do. So yeah, if you I think Thank
you. Sorry, you got to remember the mics. Um, we have somewhat of an abbreviated uh presentation from our last one which was to the finance committee last week. Um, so we're not going to go deeply into each of the options, but nevertheless, we'll show it briefly and then we can go
deep into the preferred option, the recommended option. Um, and we can circle back because we do have those available if folks want to hone in on something on a specific option. >> Hello, my name is Andrea and I'm with Larry at Aerost Street Architects. Um,
we began the process by looking at the Weston and Samson original design, which we're referring to here as the 40% DD set. That's where it left off. And that's what's shown in the top line that's highlighted in the light yellow.
And we started with option one where we took that design and tried to shrink it. um looking at ways to uh reduce uh extra space um extra circulation. If there was any program space that we felt could be
cut, we reduced the the program area and it was about a um 10 9 10% uh savings. And then we looked at with option two of renovating the current building as is um
not without any additions but bringing it up to uh code for accessibility uh energy and um what's the third code energy and um
struct some structural repairs to the envelope and the structural framing of the CMU walls And option three, then we took uh that same concept of renovating the existing, but what if we tore down half? I'm going to go to the images
and I'll come back to that. So, option one was a a reduced program area of uh the DD set. In the upper right corner is option two where we're renovating. um it doesn't really give you uh it it
makes it a slightly safer place to work, but it doesn't really address any of the program issues. Option three is where I left off where you renovate half the building um and keep the program there. And then
the southern half of the building would be removed and then an addition would be attached for the 31 fleet winter fleet vehicles. And then we looked at option four on the bottom right um where we took that new
uh fleet storage building and moved it up and renovated the existing building uh for the um the DPW offices, support spaces, uh the workshops, and the maintenance
shops. Um and you ended up with a little bit more area than they needed. Um disadvantages of that compared to option 4B were um higher cost
and um you're end you're putting all the money in the fleet storage building versus option 4B which is here which I think you've already gone over. Um, you're getting a new admin support uh maintenance shop
building that would be energy efficient. Um, and then the fleet storage. We're showing the 18 trucks with the possibility to expand that um to the full full fleet within the footprint of
the building or it offers more flexibility because you could also in the future tear that down and then build an appropriately sized fleet storage building. And other advantages of 4B, um that new
building, the one with the multicolors, admin support space, helps to shield, um the noise from moving the trucks in and out, as well as in the maintenance shops. They're um they have the four bays that are entered in away from the
neighborhood. Oops. >> Thank you. Um before we proceed with that, I'd just like to make a note. Um we had had on the agenda for 6:30 p.m. an annual tax classification hearing. Um that has been
continued until November 3rd uh at 6:30. So, um, for those folks that were wishing to watch that tax classification hearing, um, come back in two weeks.
All right. Um, questions from my colleagues, Alyssa. At last week's meeting, the DPW building committee discussed the assessed value of the building, and I'm wondering if we
got any updated information from our assessor on that cuz there was a question about whether or not the property card on the town website was accurate even though it's dated 2025. Just wondering about that.
>> Uh, thank you for the question. We confirmed with a town assessor that the uh building value is $3,890,800. Go ahead. >> So, I guess I'd like to thank you, Tom. Um follow up on that comment. One of the
building committee members pointed out that if we're going to borrow money um a 30-year bond for a renovation, a solution um to for this project that the building itself should
last as long as or longer than the than the bond. So So renovating the entire building, even though it it's the least expensive option, it still is undersized. doesn't meet our program needs and then won't actually extend the
life of the building beyond 15 maybe 20 years. So to me that seems like a very irresponsible way to use taxpayer dollars. you know, $11 million sounds like it's um more than twice the the value of the building, and we would
still be paying off that loan even after there's a need to demolish the building if we went with um option two. >> Thank you. Other questions from my colleagues?
David Um, thank you. Um, maybe that, uh, to follow up on Alyssa's point, maybe that requires a little bit of, um, um, follow-up research. Would we, um, bond the renovation of the old building for
fleet storage at a different term than the the new building for facilities. So, that that's just a question which we should, you know, move move forward with. Um I I um just want to say that
you know what we're discussing today is um what alternative we should move forward with because we can't afford to design all the alternatives right and so um the you know we have to we have to
choose one um I really uh like the um building committee's choice of 4B um it's significantly definitely lower cost than last year's proposal and it's even lower cost than version choice uh option
4 A which is the um kind of the the the second choice of things that meet a reasonable amount of the the needs of of the department. Um
uh I like the fact that 4B concentrates on the facilities for the people rather than the facilities for the fleet storage. Um I think that um is the right place to in invest um most the the
money. Um and and that's that that's that's the case here. Um, I also like the fact that the um operating cost of 4B would be cheaper um than than 4A. Um and and I do
understand uh Alyssa's point of um the the term of the bonds for um the the renovation um portion, but I think that um the 4A would invest more money in the
old structure than than this one. And so I I also appreciate that, you know, with the the asterisk that we need to to look at at the the terms of the um of the bonds. I want to make a couple also um uh general comments. Um the office space
that you know that Mr. Sullivan referred to is 6,000 uh square feet plus or minus for all the alternatives. one of the alternatives for a has a lot more office space because there was just uh a lot
more area in the old building if you take out the fleet storage. And so um that that that's just kind of a ramification of that alternative. If we take that one out, the all the others are are much much closer. I also want to
point out that the office space for our um DPW is not generic as we might find with an employer in the area. you know that I used to work for IBM and um you you went in and you uh any employee can could
take any disc cuz all you needed was your laptop and a and your coffee cup and you walk in in the morning, you see which desk is free, take it, plug your laptop into the monitor and then uh you are ready to go. Um
that's not the case for um uh the DPW uh office employees each of which has a not a generic role but a very specific role and um the
engineering plans and the like are um much more paper oriented than is um the the situation for a a tech office or a financial office. Um I also um want to say that in 4B
um we're taking the it would take the sacrifice if you will out of um the the vehicle storage. Uh right. We'd be designing the the facilities um pretty optimally for um uh for office
space, for the the uh shops, for the um mechanic space. Um, and compared to the proposal we had last year, take a hit in fleet storage where it would store about um roughly about 2/3 of the equipment
that we have, but probably enough for um the winter. Um, in any case, it's twice as much as what we have now. Um, so I'm um um you know coming to an exact number of how many vehicles we have and how many
we could have since we're only storing them 2/3 of them in this in this proposal that that you know whether it's it's 60% 65% or 70% it's still not all of them and so um you know the the the
counting of one or two uh pieces of equipment is it doesn't make any difference in 4B it would make a difference for 4 A, but it doesn't make a difference for 4 B. Anyway, I I think that the choice that the building committee made is very very good. Um, and uh and I think we should move
forward with it. >> Thank you. Other comments? Jim, >> I wanted to thank Aerost Street for coming in in a very difficult situation and finding helping us to find a way
forward. Um and wanted to thank the the DPW building committee for you know um rising to the challenge of you know sorting through uh you know what had been a very difficult and contentious
process and finding uh consensus on you know the general plan the option 4B. Um, and I'm I'm persuaded by by the evidence and by the fact that it was unanimous that 4B is the direction to go in. It's
the direction that would allow us, you know, it's it's the it's the place where where we should put our next set of um design money. Um, and then um start preparing for um you know the
the educational campaign that's going to be required. [Music] Thank you, David. I just want to make one follow-up uh comment on a point that uh Dean made. All of these alternatives um Aerost
Street made them all be use heat pumps just so we're comparing apples to apples. Um if um we get into it and we would like to use um or we think we might want to use geothermal instead of
aerosource heat pumps that can be a separate ROI calculation right separate from um these you know these alternatives and in fact um um I made a a a comment at the building committee
meeting that we could even choose to let town meeting decide that, right? So, we could have um this this uh um building on on as an article and then the article after that could say we could add so
many millions to this um project but save so many hundreds of thousands a year in operating cost and and let and let town meeting decide. >> Thank you, Alicia.
I just want to add a few comments based on things that I've heard from from David and Jim. Um, and also Eugene and also you Fran, from everybody. So, I mentioned that I thought it would be irresponsible to
spend such a large amount of money on renovating the old building that doesn't extend the life um as long. We're already going to be spending more money. Jim, you just mentioned
additional design costs, right? So, we've spent um over a million dollars to design, you know, the original 40% DD. So, we're going to be spending that additional money. Um, we also are going to
sooner than 50 years need to um add a new fleet storage that's right sized and um we're going to need to do that because the renovated building won't last um as long and potentially a future addition of a wash bay which is
possible. It sounds to me like only with option 4B. And I think that that is a really critical um and protective element for the environment, for the groundwater um which I was very disappointed um was
removed from the original project that we brought to the ballot box. Um, and Jim, you also mentioned the educational campaign needed. And I did hear something at the DPW building committee meeting last week that I wasn't aware
of. Um, even though I, you know, followed this project very closely. Um, an mentioned that the DPW building committee had done a lot of work to, um, bring down costs even before Weston and Samson did the value engineering. So, that was something that I wasn't aware
of. So I think we need to um really keep in mind the information because this is going back years, right? So we need to keep in mind the information that folks um who have been paying attention like me and who haven't been paying attention
will need to know. Um and then the last thing that I'll say uh is about um the energy and um and winter program. So David, you mentioned that the energy operations are a lower or the operations
are a lower cost with 4B. And I just want to point out that that's because um in the new building at the the staff building has the highest energy use is my understanding. You know, your heating and cooling for humans instead of vehicles. Um so that's why we will see
significant savings there relative to the other options. Um, and Dean, you mentioned the winter responses and how we're not plowing as much snow. However, our operations are going to only
increase precisely because of climate change because we're not having the snow, which um maybe Cory, you can explain this um for folks better if people are curious, but there are more operations for treating the roads because the temperature is higher in the
winter. And so we're not um getting snow, we're getting, you know, freezing rain, which is um requiring a lot more salting of of the roads. And I think that might be all my additional points I wanted to bring up.
Thanks. >> Thank you, >> Fran. So, um, ripping off of what Jim had said, are we going to town hall, a town meeting to ask for additional design
money? >> Yes. the uh this once we get a decision as to what direction we're going uh we'll certainly town manager will have to work with the design team and figure
out what we'll have to go for. Um I envision that what will happen is we'll go to town meeting in May of 26 to look for design funds
and have a design developed um and hopefully be able to go to a special town meeting maybe in December of 26 for construction funds. By that time we'll have had enough time to, you know,
fully tease out all of the issues with the building, have some good estimates. we'll be able to go to town meeting and I'd like to make the presentation at town meeting and then subsequent to that if we get a
proper vote at town meeting then we'll put it on put it to the ballot. Um and that time is to be determined. It could be at the annual election or it could be at some other time, but I think it's critical that we be able to get this in front of folks at town meeting uh rather
than the way we did it the last time, which did not succeed awfully well. Um so exactly how much money we're going to be looking for, I'll I think that's a question for another day. But um we would certainly not be looking for
construction funds or an override vote for this building in April and May of 26. We'd be looking for a much smaller amount of money for design and see what we can what we can use from
previous plans and and what needs to be brought up new. All right, Melissa, >> I have a question about in involvement of the finance committee. Somebody mentioned at town meeting that it was
really important for the select board and finance committee to be in alignment and it's very difficult for voters to make a decision when they don't have the same position. So, what do you envision? Um, I don't know if we're planning to
vote to authorize the team to move on with further developing this plan tonight or if we will have another discussion um perhaps jointly with with FinCom.
>> Well, there's a couple of ways we could do this. Um, I think that the the kind of lingering questions that I've heard from the finance committee have a lot to do with, you know, size of spaces and that sort of thing. And I think that we can
address those. And I'd highly recommend that we have another face-to-face meeting with the finance committee across the table and hash out a lot of these size decisions. Um, I don't think that there's a great deal
of debate about the function of the building. I think it's a question of size and I think that can be driven by uh that will drive some modifications to the design. So I think we've got
sufficient time to uh to develop that to have that meeting with the finance committee uh hopefully to come to uh final decision on the space we work out you know what we need in the way of cubicles and staff support areas and
that sort of thing and once we have that we can relay that information to the design team um I don't think that the design of the building is going to advance very quickly over the next month or two. Um,
you know, amongst other things, I'll look to the town manager to or the assistant town manager to confirm or deny that. But I think we probably need to take a breath once we once we determine a a path forward
conceptually and then we can do the finetuning. As I said earlier, there's going to be a lot of fine-tuning got to be done. We still have a lot of questions about what kind of structural uh reconstruction is going to have to be done to the existing building for instance. Um all those things can be
developed. So ideally, I'd like to have a vote so that we we know with some certainty which option we're going ahead with. I think we still have time to modify um
the size of option 4B um based on any input we get from the finance committee and any decisions we have. Um, if on the other hand the my colleagues wish to have the meeting with
finance first, we could do that. But I it's probably going to delay um for a few weeks before we can make a decision. I can't I don't envision that we're going to be able to get a meeting of the two boards together between now and our next meeting on
November 3rd. It seems pretty tight timewise. So that's what I would I and I will open it to uh the chair of the finance committee.
Please come forward, Scott. I'll be quick just on the point you're discussing. uh of the options presented uh the uh the 4B I think the benefit of
and I don't have consensus from the finance committee but I'm just speaking as the chair and my own personal perspective on this I think for the benefit of 4B from my perspective is that you could build um the
the main staffing zone without disrupting operations. And when we were looking at the original plan design from Weston and Samson, we were looking at a 2-year build and relocating staff and having people use
half a building. And that was exposing to a lot of cost and time. So, I think the benefit of 4B is that you can build it, wait till it's done, and then move the people in. Um so
uh I do believe that that there that Aerost Street has presented five scenarios that kind of encompass all that we would be asking uh someone to build out and
model. Um, as I mentioned with the select board and during my finance committee meeting last week, the select board and the finance committee meeting are going to meet together to discuss all scenarios. There are scenarios that do not require building plans that have
been presented and we're just going to discuss them, show pros and cons, record the meeting, and have it as a reference point. Um just so that when we get to the spring and if this does come to town
town meeting and people have questions, well what about this and what about that? We should have a meeting that should encompass all possible scenarios so people can reference everybody's perspective on it and have it be recorded and then we can move on to bigger and more important things that
the town is facing like health insurance expense. Thanks. >> Thank you. Mr. Jabbo, Greg Jerbo, 5 Cherokee Road. I'm um a twofer. I'm a member of the finance committee, but I'm also a member of the
DPW building committee. And let me tell you um just from my perspective that reaching a compromise is hard. But um one of the fun moments last week
when we reached it was my colleague in Chang and I looked at each other and said we're voting alike. Excuse me. How did that happen? Um so the process um was thorough.
Um everybody ended up making compromises. One of the things that Dean mentioned at the beginning that I think we are going to want to communicate clearly to the public
is that we were trying to balance three very different things. two of which surfaced at town meeting. People who voted yes for the previous proposal said we need a new DPW
building. People who voted no said it costs too much. And those two issues by themselves would have made this a hard decision. How do you reconcile the bare minimum of what we need versus
something that we can actually afford? Um, and then one of the things that I compliment Aerost Street for is they brought a third dimension that I don't think we debated back in the spring,
which is well, it doesn't have to be new versus nothing. What about renovation? And then it became, do we renovate everything or do we renovate the the fleet side or do we renovate the
employee side? They looked at all those options and there are trade-offs, but the one that we ended up voting unanimously for last week puts people first.
It's the employees. We got to take care of that. And that's something that the finance committee has discussed and um no, we haven't voted explicitly on it, but but uh that that certainly is something we've heard before.
And as for the vehicles, well, you know, I think this is where Ann and I were surprised that we agreed is that yeah, maybe we just can't solve every problem in the next year or two, but let's get
the essential ones tackled first. This is a much more affordable proposal than the one that failed. This is a much more um functional solution than what we have
now. And the last option that we wrestled with was longevity. And you know what? This gets us closer to solving that issue, too. So, it
wasn't easy, but yeah. Um, everybody basically found that, yeah, compromise isn't always popular. It's not always what you go in with. But we also decided the town also
expressed their feelings this spring and said, "Why can't you guys get together?" And the answer is cuz it's hard and some of those issues aren't easily solved. Well, we're coming closer. We may not be there yet, and there's going
to be steps to go, but at least we're going to be arguing on the same page. Thank you. Um, before we proceed, uh, we did have another, uh, public hearing that was set
for 7 p.m. I'll just read through the, uh, the legal notice. Um, it has been withdrawn, but I legally I have to read the notice. Uh, Actton Select Board will hold a public hearing on October 20th, 2025 at
7 PM in the Francis Faulner hearing room 204 at the town hall, 472 Main Street, Actton, and virtually on the application of Jose Mauricio for a use special permit for an event venue under zoning bylaw section 10.3
at 77 Powder Mill Road, unit 2B. Application materials and how to participate remotely are available online and an actton town hall. The applicant has requested to withdraw our application without prejudice. Um,
and then since it's almost 7:10, I will read the second public hearing notice. >> Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Do we have to do anything for that last one? Do we have to vote to close the public hearing or
vote to um take no action? >> I would recommend that. And also I would recommend waiting until after 7:10 to read the next one. As as much as it's not um going to impact people in the room, I just think we have to.
>> Would you like a motion? >> I would. Uh Mr. Chair, I move that we close the public hearing for um 77 um Powder Mill Road. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say I.
>> I. I. opposed abstensions. Okay, it's closed. >> And Mr. Chair, I move that we take no action on the application um for 77 Powder Mill Road. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Take no action. All in favor say I. >> I.
>> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Extensions. Thank you. And we'll get back to the next one momentarily. Um, Corey, not that I want to put you on the spot, but I do. Um,
so do you have any thoughts you'd like to add to this? You've been a member of the committee, you've been involved in it, and more importantly, you live down there. So, um, what do you think?
Yeah, like everybody said, um been a lot of compromises, a lot of discussion about various things. I think with option 4B, we we are putting the employees first. We're doing the investment in the safe workspaces for the mechanics, the other employees and
their workshops, the admin space. So, um I think if we looking at that and trying to figure out where we want to prioritize the first um aotment, I think that's a a good spot. Um and then I think when you look at the vehicles and the discussion of um the size and the
need I think repurposing the existing building where it can when you look at the design it can safely accommodate 18 but then in the storm events you could not as tightly but you could stack the vehicles to get um the winter fleet
inside and then if we bring in some additional if there's a a major stoless trees down there's a possibility ility of getting the extra equipment in there. So, I think it's a good compromise of trying to get a vehicle storage that we need and this kind of I think circles
around that where it's not quite the size, but we can make it work and do stacking. Um, I know we talked about doing some further evaluation as far as um garage doors in or keeping the garage bays that are in the fleet side so it would allow easier means of getting in
and out. So, um, I think a lot of that has to be vetted out down the road as we get into the study, but I think this is sort of a a good compromise of looking at the priorities and the needs and trying to find a work around that is is
a good balance for all that. So, >> thank you, >> David. I would just like to ask Aerost Street a question. Um, m Mr. Sullivan commented earlier that um uh this alternative had the advantage that um we
can build the new space without affecting the old space. It makes for the transition easier. C can you talk about um how long do you think the renovation would take of the second? So, if we build a new space, move all the employees into the new space um and then
have to take the vehicles out of the um uh the the uh old building in order to um gut it and renovate it for um uh equipment storage. Um do you have an idea for how long that part of the
project would take? Is that half a year? Is that a year? What is that? Um, essentially what is interesting about it is we're turning it into a barn and to the extent that we're trying to fix and waterproof things and not necessarily
turn it into the type of habitable space that um the rest of the building needs. So um typically I think of a renovation like that of about a year maybe 14 months depending. Um, I think a big issue with that building is going to be to what extent are there hazardous
materials that need to be removed. Um, because those you have to do originally to start with and then, uh, you can start the construction work. But the nice thing is, um, you know, it's pretty clean construction and pretty, um, can move along pretty quickly.
Thank you, >> Jim. I I was thinking about this conundrum of the scheduling and the finance committee. Um so the way um Scott in particular described a joint um finance I mean a
joint finance and select board meeting um seemed like um that could be after both boards have uh found their their recommendation. Um it doesn't it's not a meeting to wrestle
out a recommendation. It's a it's a meeting to review the alternatives um and get that you know get all that information recorded and to discuss anything we want to discuss about the next layer of detail uh without having
to make decisions right away. So, um, what that suggests to me and also the fact that we, you know, don't have a lot of extra design money sitting around right now, it suggests to me that the that a good way to proceed would be to
um leave space for the finance committee at their next meeting to um find out what their recommendation is when they all take a vote together. uh and then um you know affirm that at our at our next
meeting. Um assuming that you know we all end up with 4B. If they end up on some other choice than 4B, then that's a whole other fork in the road that's going to going to excitingly blow everything up and then we'll have to figure out how to how to deal with that. Um
but in terms of um sort of repairing the um you know the bifurcated decision making that happened last year between the finance committee and the select board. Um, I would prefer
I'd prefer to let the finance committee, you know, have their time to come up with a with a a recommendation before um we, you know, have also make our recommendation. >> Thank you,
>> Alyssa. I have a question about the ex equipment storage shed. The offices and maintenance shops, the new construction necessitates the removal of that. And I
think I heard last week that it's in failure anyway. Um, what is the plan for what's in there right now? Is that going into the existing building? Is that possible while it's under construction? I'm
assuming not. Do we do we buy another fleet store? I not fleet storage, another equipment shed to replace that one. And where would it be if we did that? >> Yeah, that's a series of um storage containers with a canvas top on it, which is currently the canvas top is
failing. So, um that equipment we would in the process of this, we would shift that out of the way and we could move those storage containers over. So, it would just be a matter of um coordination. >> And I just want to add that that storage space would was part of the Weston and
Samson design um to incorporate it into the new building. And it's um I'm showing here on this chart um with the mezzanine area of 33 3,300. Um, I'll go back to the plan, but
basically the idea was to capture the some of the loss of that storage space in the new building. So, it's less than what the Weston and Samson building was showing, but there is it is partly accommodated. Well, um, Fran,
>> I just have a a quick comment, and I personally might be the odd man out, and I'm all for compromise. Um, but to me, this wasn't a compromise. It was
something that we had to make smaller because of a few folks on the finance committee decided that they didn't want a new DPW building. We didn't have enough time to bring it to town meeting
and that was my recollection. It makes no sense to me at all to build a building that is not adequate for the town. So that I I had to get that off my chest. Thank you.
So I'm I'm looking at my colleagues. We've got a a suggestion from Jim that we uh that we not move ahead with formalizing a vote for 4B tonight. Um but we
give our colleagues on the finance committee a chance to review all the documents. Um they've certainly heard presentation from you folks. Um and presumably provide some time for a joint
meeting at our next select board meeting which is going to be very busy frankly uh or some other process. how I know how Jim feels. Alyssa, >> I'm sitting right here and that is not what I heard from Jim, but he's not
arguing with you. So, I guess my interpretation is wrong. I thought you were saying that >> I'm just being calm. >> Okay. I thought you had said that we could still we could make a decision
tonight independent of the finance committee's decision. Um because what I had heard earlier was that we still have time and we have flexibility to make changes to the design of that new
building. Um so that's not what you were saying. You were saying let's wait. >> Jim, >> um so let me say it more simply and more clearly. Uh but I'm I mean this is just my thought. I'm not um you know tied to
it. Um my thought is we now have um we've all heard we've heard from all five of us about you know preferred preferred options and ways to go forward. It's not unanimous but it's you know it's clear the direction of our board if we were to take a vote. Um, I
think that's enough for the finance committee to then go ahead and have their next meeting, come up with a recommendation, take a vote on it, and then at our next meeting, we can take a vote on it as well, formalize it. We don't need to meet with the finance committee to both agree on the same
option. We do want to meet eventually with the finance committee to go into the details and to you know get this recording recorded uh uh a recording of you know going through all the options and laying them out. But I don't think that needs to hold that that big meeting
between the two committees doesn't have to happen before we vote. >> Is that more clear? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thanks Alicia. So I my preference would be to go ahead and formally
vote this board which option um to move forward with so that in the intervening two weeks there can be more um analysis assignments. Um I hear Arrow
Street has not expended the entire 150,000 that town meeting appropriated. there might be some additional questions that need to be answered. Um even members of the finance committee might have questions. So my understanding is
that the space for the new building includes a lot of different um programming needs, mechanics and workshops and admin. um and that there's a lot of flexibility with how that is
laid out and even the total size of the building um that it could still change size. So I think that clear direction now from the board based on the unanimous building committee recommendation is what I'd want to do
tonight. um knowing that acknowledging that we have a lot of additional discussions and decisions to make moving forward. >> Thank you. Um I'll ask the manager if you have any suggestions of uh direction
that we should go on. Is if we delay for a couple of weeks um is that going to be critical or do you think we should move ahead with this? Um, I think thank you for asking. Um, appreciate that. I'm I'm very impressed with the work that Arrow Street did to
uh capture all the ideas that were floating around in the last 6 months and put them into a really well put together analysis that gave us something to to work from. Uh, it's clear the building committ building committee recommends one particular option. Um, and really
the purpose for, you know, moving forward is what do we continue to study before we start to redesign this building because, uh, this was the initial study that got us this far. There's been a few questions that I think require additional study. Um, but
we wouldn't necessarily want to do those as mentioned earlier on five different scenarios. So, I think a good interim step to saying we're fully behind this project as proposed is to say that the board would like us to do additional
study on option 4B. Uh that way it's focusing our work uh rather than continuing to have those options floating out there. That would be my recommendation. Um because I don't think there will be much in terms of next big steps until more funding is appropriated
um for design. Thank you, >> David. I I it looks like you're about to make a motion there. >> Well, I I was just going to um uh say that I think what we're adopting tonight is really an approach, right, and not
the details where we're not approving the the design and um I think the approach though is, you know, setting that down is is quite important. And, you know, Mr. Jarbo talked about this being a compromise. You know, I think this is um uh close to
the the the middle in terms of cost. Um you know, it's certainly much less cost than the the the previous uh solution and it but it's the lowest cost option to me that is workable, right? There are there have been other suggestions or
even the ones on this sheet like just renovate the existing building. That's really not a workable solution. I mean I I think the worst alternative is to ask town meeting to pay for something and then tell them afterward, oh that's not adequate, right? That is a terrible
thing, right? We we have to, you know, be say that what we're proposing, at least what this board is proposing is we think is adequate, right? It might have disadvantages compared to the the other uh alternatives or more expensive alternatives, but it's but it's adequate. I think this one is adequate.
It also allows us then to move forward as as Alyssa was saying with you know different sizes of things and different um uhruct structures of the buildings in the facilities how much was devoted to each each part whether there are
optimizations or or value engineering that could be done in those parts. So um I I think the approach is is good and I I'm happy to make a motion. Um uh I move that um uh the select board endorse the recommendation of the uh building
committee for option 4B aerost streets option 4B um for the uh to proceed forward with the DPW design. >> Second >> moved and seconded. Any other last minute discussion?
>> Yes, >> Alyssa. Um, so I would like to find out from the town manager and the assistant town manager and maybe even the DPW director, what are the questions that you heard tonight because they're all
flown out of my head that we'll be answering. Um, sort of a just a quick summary. Um, but I also want to acknowledge that, you know, David's, you're saying this is adequate and France just said it's not adequate. Um,
so I want to propose maybe a reframing for you, Fran, that it's adequate over a long period of time. So, this is going to be more expensive in the long run than had we
been successful at the election in April in passing the ballot question, right? Because construction costs are going to just continue to escalate year after year after year. So, I guess it's sort of like the towns
people came to the ballot and said this is just, you know, too much right now. following on the heels of an operating override, we're saying no to it, or a certain percentage said, "We're saying no to it." Um, so I've heard people talk about
houses and cars and, you know, I I need to replace something on my car for $2,000 and it's going to get me another few years, but then eventually I'm going to have to replace the car, the whole car, and that will be even more expensive because I've spent that money on the repair and then I'm going to have
to spend more money. But that's what I can accept. That's what I can handle. That's what I can afford in the moment. So, you know, adding the fleet storage building, the new fleet storage building that's the right size, that's going to
be adequate, whether that's 15 years from now, 20 years from now, that will be more expensive than, you know, if we did a brand new building all encompassing today, adding a wash bay later, that's going to be more expensive than building it, you know, right now.
Um, so it's going to be more expensive, but eventually it will be adequate. So, I'm not happy about spending more money over a long period of time, but it seems like that's the only thing that's going to be successful,
>> Frank. >> And I'm not happy about building something that's not adequate. Um, I I I really feel that so strongly, and I'm sorry, and I wish I I would love to see
a new facility, but I I um I I just feel that in my bones. >> Thank you. David, can I make one attempt to convince you? So the the
um the facility part of this this proposal is very very similar to the the one in in the in the in the fine west in Samson design and we get twice as much vehicle storage as we had
twice as much. Right. I I realize that we can't get every vehicle in that, but there are other things that we can do for pieces of equipment, right? And so it's not perfect, but it's,
you know, uh it's it seems workable to me. I mean, I I can go to town meeting and with a straight face and say, you know, if people ask me and say, you know, is this a good alternative? And I would say, yes, you know, it's a good alternative. um uh whereas that's not
true of some of the other alternatives, right? So um uh and I think that you know that then the this proposal would last a generation, right? And then a generation hence people are going to have to think about
replacing the vehicle storage. >> Jim, um I just wanted to uh defend France's right to vote against this. Um, and not that anyone would be speaking uh in that way, but um I think the last time we
went through this process a year ago, you know, we had this split vote between the finance committee and the select board unonymity on both sides. Um because it, you know, it is such a a a painful pull between the you know the
cost part and the functionality part and the longevity part. you know, this is a very tricky problem. Um, and you know, if what we end up with is that we end up with, you know, a majority on this board supporting a particular way forward and
a majority on the finance committee supporting a particular way forward. That's still a lot better than um where we were at last year. >> Thank you. I'll call for the vote. We have a motion. It's moved and seconded. All in favor of the motion, please say I.
>> I. >> I. >> Opposed? Abstensions. >> I guess >> I'm I'm would love to see the progression of the the project in any
way, shape, or form somewhat. So, I don't know if that's a nay or or not, but I I I am not I I'm sort of I liked the Weston and Samson proposal,
and I really feel like if we veer off from that, I mean, having something without a washbay with with salted vehicles doesn't make sense to me. So,
I I I don't know. I guess it's an A. Okay, got four in one. Thank you. Um, and thank you for the architects. You guys have certainly helped us through a
real rough spot. and to our friends and colleagues on the finance committee. Uh I I hope you your committee will meet and come up with a a recommendation and fully acknowledge that we do need I
would say within the next month to set up a meeting where we can kind of tease out a lot of the questions that you've raised, Scott. Uh Scott Sullivan, eight pages road, chair of finance committee. I have one stupid question. Um and since everybody's here, I can just get the
answer fast. Um why don't we decentralize the equipment when we have weather conditions that are known in advance? It's like if we had hypothetically an empty fire station somewhere in town and we knew it was going to snow or ice, couldn't we move
some equipment to the empty fire station and then have faster access to the roads? Because if you're starting all the equipment from the same location and going to North Act and then South Act and going all over the place, isn't it doesn't it take longer to get the roads clear? If you especially if you have
contractors coming in, couldn't you take let's say number of vehicles, put them in the empty fire station, send the contractors there, have them filled up with salt and give them the keys and have them take off from that point. Just a question. I just curious what the answer is. Thank you.
>> Thank you. I'll uh I'll refer that one to to Corey and perhaps that would be a good offline conversation because I think we could get into a lot of mired down on a lot of details on that. Um you know I I do
think it's an interesting suggestion especially where we might be left with a one surplus fire station at some point. So I think it's it's worth consideration, but I think there might be a lot of operational issues as well.
So I'll I'll let Corey reach out to you on that through I will ask the town manager to ask Corey to reach out to you. Hey, Alissa. >> Um, does anybody down there have any
summary for me? Just so I can leave here tonight knowing what questions you heard from us that you'll be pursuing. >> U, one question was the longevity of the renovated um, vehicle vehicle storage
facility. Uh, 15 to 20 was mentioned, but I I don't I don't think it's been a lot of time put into that estimate. So, I think that'd be one question that we'd want to learn more about. Um, other questions were what a washbay, what what potential
opportunity for future addition of a wash bay would there be? Uh, and where would that maybe go? Um, under option 4 B. Well, that's all I had. Um, Nick, what else you got? >> Uh, yep. Some of the pieces of
conversation that led to questions were um how the phase construction will go on site, how we're going to maneuver um staff out of the current building into um the new building in 4B and then how long that phase construction would take. Um that was a question that David had
brought up. Uh on on-site parking needs versus this proposal. Um, some conversations were based on the current parking that's available at the site and then if it's sufficient for the parking in 4B that's shown. Um, and I think
that's all I had on the notes. But I plan on watching the video back tomorrow. Anyways, >> Alicia, >> one more thing. Um, and I've already asked this at the meeting last week. There are some structural changes that would need to be made in
order in to the existing building that's renovated in order to get the additional vehicles stacking up to add a couple more doors. So, I'm just wondering um how much is that going to add to the cost because it sounds like the structural parts of the renovations are
are pretty pricey. Jim, um, here's another question, but maybe it can just be answered here rather than requiring research. Um, the alternate fleet storage idea that you sketched out
here, um, is this a change in the design and construction or is this just an alternative way of using the space? It's an alternative way of using the space but is dependent on a
reconfiguration of the doors. >> Okay. >> Okay. Have Ann and then David and Chang. I'm on the building committee. I think that I didn't think we had any more money left to answer all of these questions and I thought that they would
be coming from Arrow Street after we got the vote at town meeting to uh do the next stage of design. So, my suggestion is to collate or gather up all the finance committee's suggestions, some of which um I think are off the wall, but
that's just a personal opinion. Um and then give them all to Arrow Street for the design section, which we will vote the funds for at town meeting. >> Thank you, David. So, uh, the thing that
I was wondering about the wash bay is whether one of the mechanic bays could be both a washbay and a mechanics bay for certain things, right? Um, I I thought we might be able to, you know, it wouldn't some of the lifts and stuff might not be
workable in both areas, but some kind of mechanics operations would probably be okay to do in the washbay. And so, I was just wondering if that might work. And so, if we were cleverly able to reuse that. I also want to say that putting um garage doors on the ends of the building
is less less structurally a problem than putting them on the sides of the building. Um and finally, I just wanted to to to thank Aerost Street because we we may not have had too many questions for you tonight, but I most of us watched your presentation to the finance
committee. So, um we we were well informed going in. Thank you. Yes. Once again, uh, thank you to Arrow Street. Folks had done a great job for us, we'll be in touch.
All right. Um, since it's now at least 7:10 p.m., me read the next public hearing notice. Acting Select Board will hold a public hearing October 20th, 2025 at 7:10 p.m.
Continued from October 6th, 2025 in the Francis Faulner hearing room 204 at the town hall 472 Main Street, Actton and virtually at acttonma ma.gov/meb on the application of Hawthorne Realy
Company for a site plan special permit under zoning bylaw section 10.4. The applicant proposes to combine the properties at 471 Great Road and 465 to 469 Great Road and construct two buildings to be used as building trade
shops. No hazardous materials or waste are to be generated on site. Application materials and how to participate remotely are available online at Actton Town Hall doc.acttonma.gov/view/colction-19. gov/deb/view/collection-19387.
The applicant has continue has requested to continue to o to November 3rd, 2025 at 7:10 p.m. >> I move that we continue to November 3rd at 7:10 p.m. uh in this room. >> Second. moved and seconded to continue
until November 3rd, 2025, 7:10 p.m. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed extensions. Thank you. >> All right. Next up, item five, discuss streamlining volunteer recruitment and onboarding process.
Mr. Chair, could I just say that um the town moderator is with us. I didn't know whether you might want to take item seven ahead of the others. That sounds good to me. Um, we'll move to item seven. Discuss select
board goal advanced town meeting participation, access, education, improvements, including early communication of warrant items to the public. Um, the town moderator would care to come up. We
benefit from your knowledge. I'll let David lead off. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, uh, uh, Joan Barry and I met um a number of weeks ago now and discussed u most of the points
that are in um, uh, our goal and those um, um, points are in the memo that we the two of us wrote to you and is in is in the packet. Um maybe um uh Joanne can
proceed with you know uh her her her comments and I can fill in with with uh with other things. >> Sure. Thank thank you for um moving this forward as I'm glad I learned more about the garage. Um but anyway, um yeah,
David and I met and uh thought of some different opportunities to help improve in approve attendance and make it more inclusive for town meeting and came up with um a variety of ideas just
so that people know who are not on the memo. uh things like advertising, um using social media, more advertising through social media, all the all the ways that people access information
that we might not have been using. Um so far, um including things like short videos, Tik Tok, Instagram, all those things. Um more outreach to the apartments and condo residents who traditionally have lower attendance at
town meeting. And I would add, Boxboro recently had a special town meeting and they held an open house, I don't know what else to call it, kind of an openhouse event at the library where the proponents or the sponsors of the different articles were there with maps,
charts, just to answer questions, I think, and they were very pleased with the turnout. It was, I believe it was three hours. I'm not sure what time, but it was a couple weeks before their special town meeting, which they just had. Um, and people were able to get
their questions answered and maybe some ones they hadn't thought of, but anyway, they could just go right in and ask about a different art, whatever article um, they had questions on. So, I think that should be added to the list that David and I came up with. Was that's
kind of one of those things like, oh, why didn't we think of that sooner? But there you go. Um I would and especially with the um DPW facility coming up again, I know folks will have a lot of questions and there probably will be other items that come up as the year
goes by. Um before the pandemic, there had been a committee to discuss or to make recommendations on improving town meeting. And one of the things that group came up with was to have uh a room available for parents and kids or
anybody who wanted like if you were coming in a little late and didn't get a chance to eat, you could eat in there. Um if you want to bring your kids um they could come and the parents would be responsible for um attending to them,
but they could also participate in the meeting from that room. We would have assistant moderator in there. and that never quite happened. The p pandemic got in the way. So, um that could be an opportunity. Um have uh remote attendance at the senior center, which
would be the same as virtual, you know, having the cafeteria or the other gym as overflow except it would be at the senior center. Um and trying to get folks questions
answered. um so that there's less time on understanding what actually is happening than on discussing the the merits of particular articles. Um those were the main ideas. I'm sure there could be some other ones that could come
up, but trying to make town meeting available and accessible to people who wish to participate or who who hadn't thought of participating and realized that they could. and it would be easier for them to do it. I don't know what else you
want to add, David. So, um, a little bit redundant with with what Joan just said. I think that the, um, uh, the things that we covered kind of fell into three areas. One, I would call advertising or outreach. Um, and it, um,
you know, things that we discussed, it doesn't have to be stodgy. It could be everybody being different, right? each of us could record a 30-cond thing or any member of staff or any member of the public could record a 30 secondond thing say why they think town meeting is cool or why it's easy to come and why it's
not intimidating to come. Um so that that kind of outreach or advertisement um to lessen the time for town meeting and the biggest idea we had there at like the Boxboro forum is a Q&A beforehand that maybe it's more worthwhile than having each of us record
our presentations to have something in this room where people can come in and ask questions and we record that and maybe provide um the you know let people view that as many times as they want um to to get their questions answers. There
are towns that um discourage asking questions at town meeting. They they encourage uh constructive comments like I don't like this because or I do like this because um but they they try to get the
questions out of the way beforehand to lessen the time um during town meeting. And the final category I would say is is is accommodations. and the accommodations, you know, an overflow room at the senior center. Um, lessen the walking as much as possible for
people going to the uh site or at least optionally uh cutting down on the on the walking required. um um uh the room where the informal room or whatever we call the um that uh you know you don't have to be perfectly
quiet and your kid can do homework while you're you know also you know tuning into to town meeting or eat your sandwich or whatever. Um so um those those three things we also briefly discussed some of the you know having a virtual town meeting and u there's some
of the things are outlined in the memo that's a a difficult thing right it's it's the the mechanisms for verifying that someone's a voter is those are definitely not in place um um and
they're not agreed upon as to what they should be there are proposals but they're but they're not not a agreed agreed upon. And there are also things that um you know that uh someone with less internet bandwidth or something like that is disenfranchised in that in
that situation and and also what do you do if the um internet goes out or how do you even know? Right? So if someone if the fire alarm goes off in the high school, the moderator is going to stop the meeting and say, you know, we're will
pick up tomorrow, right? And, you know, listen for um things. But if half the people get disconnected because of a an internet problem, how do we even know? And so there are questions like that. And so that you know that a really
virtual town meeting is we think is not ready for prime time. So, thank you. Um, another issue to add into the mix, and I'd like to hear, uh, especially the town manager weigh in on this because it would be
another thing dumped in his lap. Um, years ago, uh, on a number of occasions, we had a pre-Town meeting. This goes back to the Dory Hunter era. um probably the late 90s or early 2000s. My
recollection was on couple of years we ran it um and they'd select three or four items that seemed like there had to be a lot of questions involving, you know, people wanted time to really tease out and get
questions answered. And we had this pre-Town meeting, as I recall, probably a month or so before the regular town meeting and was held in the uh junior high school auditorium. Um all I see is puzzled look. So
apparently I'm a lot older than I thought I was. I have to remember this so well. Um but it's it's another possibility sort of u building on the suggestion from Joanne about, you know, an open house sort of thing. Um,
and when they knew when we knew that there were going to be two or three items that were going to be particularly controversial and would need a lot of time to tease out, uh, we did have those on a couple of occasions. Another possibility to think about,
especially, you know, maybe the DPW project might be one. I don't know what else might be coming up. Um, any thoughts from the town manager on the logistics of having a pre-own meeting a month before regular town
meeting? I think that would um I think that would be something that we certainly could do. Um, as mentioned, some of the outreach efforts that we started 5 years ago, uh, particularly the videos, uh, if you can
look back at the videos online and see how many views they received, and it's typically not a it's not a lot, but I mean, it's still if a few hundred people watch it, then that's a few hundred people that are more informed that they were than than they were the day before. So,
that's a good thing. Uh if if it were to be a meeting, let's just say we publish the warrant uh when we publish it in um early April probably and the town meeting is usually the f is the first week of Mon first Monday of May. If we did it like the week after we published the warrant so that nothing on it would
you know would is changeable and just say this is what you're talking about in 3 weeks have at us. Uh I think it would be fun. I I don't know um if who would facilitate such a meeting or moderate such a meeting. Uh but uh
it's certainly I think it's been done in other communities on one or two issues. Uh if you just had the whole 40 articles and said we're going to go through them all, it would almost be like a town meeting preview or a town meeting rehearsal. So I guess all those things are good outreach. You just hate to have
people go to that and not go to town meeting. um or I would anyways >> then then that would um if I mean I I agree that's definitely worth um trying I think it's worth trying pretty much
anything to see what is successful in our community um with folks who live here. If you start having a meeting of substance with no voting and you're not going to have the same
substance when you can vote, that will affect people's willingness to participate cuz that's a version of the Australian ballot which they use in New Hampshire. And people don't go for the information,
they just go for the vote because that's what people want to do. Jim, >> I just wanted to respond to some of these ideas and uh first of all, the overall impression really positive, really liked the thoughtfulness of the
ideas and the content of the ideas as well. Um, I'll I'll pass on that um the the separate room uh where people can be, you know, a a little bit more a little bit more space to move around uh to eat and do things. Um it works really
well in our church. We happen to call it the wiggle room in case, you know, you need a jargon phrase that might draw people there. Um so I'm in favor of that. Um, in terms of the pre-meating events, um, I think we're talking about two kinds of different things. And I
want to speak in favor of one of them, I think, which is, um, the kind of open houses that the the planning department put together, puts together, where there's typically multiple stations and people come in when they want to come in
and go to whatever stations they want to and ask questions of the people that are there staffing that station. Um, so it's not, so on the one hand, it's not really something you can usefully tape, but it it might draw more people in if they know that, oh, I can go there. I have my
one burning question. I can go to my one area, ask it, and go home and, you know, get home for dinner. So, it might bring more people in. Um, you know, I can imagine having particular stations that are just on one, you know, particularly
exciting uh um article and then there might be some that are like, you know, here's here's all the items on consent. If you have any questions about any of them, uh, one person could potentially staff that. Um, so I think that was well, oh, there was
you you sort of have this addendum at the end about um alternate structures, you know, representative town meeting, virtual town meeting, uh, becoming a city. Um, I love talking about that stuff, but I think it's fine to leave that out of the scope of what we're
doing for this particular goal. Um, yeah, I mean, it's great stuff, but it's it's far any of those are far away. Um, I agree that we're not ready for um um a virtual town meeting, open town meeting,
but I am uh excited by some of the options that are being developed, but I know it's going to be a while. I mean, there's this there's this whole technical conversation, then there has to be a legislative conversation. So, we can we can put off deciding that for a
while. Um, so if we do have the more openhouse style random thing, I think we may still need to do um videos. Um, even if they're done um after the question and answer period, then they could at least
have the benefit of being done knowing what typical questions are. So you can make sure to if you heard a question from a couple different people, you can make sure to answer it your in your presentation. Thank you. >> Wanted to add uh with regard to the the
night of town meeting having a room available for more space and and sort of a less c more casual. We did do that a few times and we had the cafeteria set aside for that purpose or maybe it was the gym set aside for that purpose. We had people go there with I think a few
families were there. The problem we had in 2023 was we needed every square inch of the entire high school to conduct the meeting. So such such a space we wouldn't be able to provide and that I
mean we had the big until two weeks ago I thought that was the biggest town meeting in in history. I found out that uh Tukberry had a bigger one unfortunately when they were talking about a casino in Tukberry. But it that's the my point is it's also issues
um that that bring people to town meeting, but that's not news. >> David, so I I appreciate uh Jim's suggestions. I I just not an argument against but one
of the things to consider is how to get the as much of the people get to hear the answers that they want before to shorten town meeting. Right? If we have the workshop style,
anybody can go right to the station they want and get their question answered, but that's their question, right? um and if a dozen people have the same question or 50 or even two um we haven't gotten that out. So I think we need some kind of blend of this and we can try
different things and you know I don't know how we the board wants to proceed from here. We could have um a working group try to develop a specific thing to do for our springtown meeting um uh based on input from the board. we can come back and discuss it again another
time or uh what what um what what people want but it doesn't if we try something next year and it doesn't work perfectly we can change it again. Um so um just trying to kind of get the the it from many sides.
>> Thank you Fran. I just wanted to say how I I love the idea of Jim's description of an open house kind of thing where you can walk in and hear about different art articles. Not all of them, but just a
few that may be hot topics. Um, and a family room or that kind of wiggle room is a nice idea as well. Melissa, >> thank you both for starting this conversation. Um, one thing that we
should keep in mind is that in tandem with our efforts, the League of Women Voters will also be pursuing make town meeting more accessible. Um, so if we do create a working group, we should definitely
find out what they're doing so that we're not both doing the exact same thing. Um, and more more folks to bounce ideas off of, I think, would be better. Um, I do love the idea of
Tik Tok style videos. Um, because I think people have time for 30 to 60sec videos. Um, I love the idea of making town meeting cool and I think that a lot of folks, especially younger folks,
that's how they get information. So, I think it would be really appealing and maybe even, you know, get a new um, demographic in or at least more representation from the younger demographic. Um, definitely a wiggle
room and I think that it would only not work if we were expecting 2500 people um at the high school, but every other town meeting it would be fine to have that space for people to
eat their dinner or um have their kids spread out on the floor with games or whatever. Um I think also uh town meeting 101 outreach would be good so that people
who are brand new to town meeting and don't know how to participate and I know that we have existing information. and we have like written guides and and videos and there's a lot of information on the moderators page. But doing that
either in uh person at a workshop or openhouse or creating updated content would be good. So, you know, I think it'll be more accessible than the information that's printed at the back
of the warrant, which tells you what words do you need to use in order to end debate and and take a vote. Um, how do you make a motion? That sort of that sort of thing. So, not only content about the articles that we'll be voting
on, but content about just town meeting in general, like parliamentary procedure to make it more accessible to people. Um, and I also want to make sure that in this whole process, we're not shutting
down ideas because 5 years ago or 10 years ago or 15 years ago, we had a committee that looked at this and got feedback from the public and they said, "No, that won't work." So, one of the examples is change the day of town meeting. And I understand that that
involves a vote of town meeting to make that change. um to the charter I think when town meeting happens. Um but we you know we don't have to rely on
the outcome of a previously um constructed committee and and what their recommendation was. Oh, you know, it's going to disenfranchise people who have soccer games or go to synagogue if we
hold it on a Saturday. like we might get a different answer this time. So, I just want to be make sure that we're being expansive and open-minded because what the public wants, what voters want, and what um would work best for them um
might have changed and certainly a lot of things have changed um since the pandemic for people just like how they live their lives and and what works for them. And I love the uh special attention to apartments and condos. Um people who are
typically underrepresented. I love the idea of of flyers to them notice notice about um getting them out to town meeting. >> So David, how how would you like to
proceed? Would you like to uh think about assembling a working group uh to pursue these or do you have enough information to come up with a recommendation between you and the moderator about things that we should explore more deeply?
>> So, can I just ask the board what the emphasis of the board was? It it sounds like if the space is available, a wiggle room everybody's in favor of and I'm going to call it a wiggle room from now on. and um some
you know and also everybody seemed in favor of some kind of innovative advertising um or outreach which I think by the way could include instructions. I mean just going people don't offer motions and stuff the first time they go. I think as a general rule I'm not saying they can't but people just need
to know that you check in people sit down you listen you vote you know it's it's really I want to tell people it's not intimidating to go to town meeting. Um so there's that kind of outreach we can do for all all all manner of things. Um and then finally some approach to um
getting information out ahead. Um so the the the first two are kind of pretty straightforward. There might be a little tweaks we need to to figure out to you know exactly how to kick it off. The last one maybe is a little bit more difficult. Um did I first of all
reiterate what the board's feelings are uh correctly? Um and um how do you all you think that should happen? Should we um you know I I think a working group we should ask the town manager to to kick
off um and we can add some members from you know um um the League of Women Voters um the moderator obviously um me if you want me to continue in this process um and then
um I mean it's one it's one of the goals we have right so I think was number one goal right so um uh I I think a working group is to try to figure out what we can do next year as a as kind of a pilot for that
pre-information I'll call it. You know, >> Alissa, >> I think a working group makes sense. I would want to make sure that the right folks are on it. That it's not really what I mean, the right folks. I I just
mean that we should have representation not only from the league and the town moderator, but we should have um maybe students, somebody from the diversity, equity inclusion commission, someone from Council on Aging, someone
from Commission on Disabilities, so that there are different demographics represented. um or alternatively making sure that a smaller working group without representatives from all of those different um places goes to those
meetings to to solicit feedback because I I don't know that we can I don't know that it's for the five of us to decide which one or two or three things we should pilot at the May 2026 meeting. It
might be decided what do you focus on after you get that feedback from those different stakeholders if that makes sense. >> Sure. I I I think that it's another uh if it's majority not staff, it's
another committee, which it could be a committee, right? It's or short-term commission, right? Um which um that's what it's been done in the in the past, right? We had um uh town meeting improvement committees which were short
term. Maybe I can um uh brainstorm a little bit with the town manager and the town moderator offline and come back with a proposal for the board to consider um whether it be a working group or a a short-term committee or whatever.
>> That sounds good. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And thanks for setting this goal um and actually working on it. Not I'm not accusing you of anything. Just
saying thank thank you for working on it. >> Good night. >> Thank you. So um we'll move to discuss streamlining volunteer recruitment and onboarding process.
That's Jim or Alyssa or both of you. Jim, you raised your hand first. >> Thanks. Um yeah, Alyssa and I did meet um so this is a lot of a lot of input is from her. Um I think tonight um so there's two documents in the packet.
There's um there's a semistructured brainstorming output that um all I really want to take out of there is a couple of questions that I want to get feedback from the board about. Um the other ideas are still you know not fully
baked. Um the the other the other document is um a note a potential note to uh all boards and committees uh recruiting some people for to fill out the volunteer coordinating committee.
And I think um I I I would like to hear if there's any, you know, concerns or edits about that um so that I can get get that out there uh on the early side. Um the next uh VCC meeting is uh
November 13 as I recall and um you know people that are interested in joining the VCC will want to attend a VCC meeting. So getting the word out before that would be good. Um, so the questions that I'd like to
hear from the board about are the first two questions in this um, brainstorming document, uh, which is what are the problems we're trying to solve? Um, well, let me read the goal out loud. Got it fresh in our head. work with
volunteer coordinating committee to create a plan for the future of volunteer recruitment and onboarding that includes improved orientation and streamlined reappoint process. Um so again out of that that could be a lot of different things. So I I would
love to hear from board members about what specifically are the problems we're trying to solve. Um and um after that then to hear about how we would know we had succeeded. Were there other things we wanted to
make sure to cover uh tonight, Alyssa, or was that the basics? >> I think also something that you had titled maybe options to consider. Let me just pull up that. >> Oh, the other topics thing at the
bottom. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. Yeah, that would be great too. So that would be both um one of the one of the paragraphs there is a sense is a is a thought that it seems like one of the things at the core of this is the good
effective functioning of town boards and committees if they work well um that both encourages new people to apply because they watch the meeting and they go hey this is the place I want to be and encourages current members to stay and grow and it helps create better outcomes for the committees which is
ultimately what we you know part of the reason we have committees is to get stuff done. Um, and there are consultants who specialize in effective functioning of committees. And I wondered if anybody had any thoughts about how we could get the benefit of
that expertise in some kind of cost and time effective way because I can easily imagine how to do this in a really expensive way and I don't want to do that. Um and uh the second topic there was about what oversight and review is needed to
surface and resolve problems and the two examples we came up with not that these are happening anywhere in any particular place but just in case what if a committee chair's way of doing things discourages others from joining you know how do we as a board or as leaons
intervene um and what's the process when communication breaks down between committee chair and liaison or among committee members. Um so th that those were things I'd also we'd also love to hear from people
about. So Mr. Chair, if you just wanted to call on people and I'd take lots of notes that would be great. Okay. Thoughts? Um I I'll
provide one idea. um the issues that I see um and we touched on a little bit who should take the lead on recruiting members of um the committees and whether
it's VCC uh or frankly I think it a lot more work could be done by the chair of the affected committee. Um I think you know just as an example
conservation commissioner that's a highly technical um field um people need a lot of background uh you bring in a new member that doesn't have a a great deal of background it takes there's a learning curve involved in that so I
think that if uh a chair truly understands all of the intricacies of that committee's work and they would be in a probably a better position to
reach out and try to recruit new members rather than VCC that you know is trying to staff 40 different boards and committees and they wouldn't have the depth of knowledge that the chair. So I think I think we should certainly
encourage the chairs of the various committees to look very proactively for new members and I would kind of put a lot of the onus on them. um they're more like, you know, going
back to my example of, you know, the conservation commission, you you sit there and you have a hearing and you get half a dozen concerned neighbors that come forward with questions, those folks might be potential members
to join the committee. They've shown an interest in it and, you know, they're they're doing a little bit of research. So, I I would encourage that as sort of a focal point. um to try to get the committee chairs more involved in it.
The downside of that is that you don't want to have a situation where you develop a an old boy network that you always reach out to your friends. So that's something that we need to be
aware of that we want to get a wide range of folks that come forward with that want to participate. Um but I think the place to start I think is is the chair and I think you know
I think everybody that chairs committees now understands the need for developing a diverse demographic in your committee. Um, but I would I would stress that as a starting point. I think David was about to raise his hand and I stepped all over
him. David. >> Um, no, I I not complaining or anything. Um, I the only thing that occurred to me is possibly sending um different requirements for different
levels. So, for example, maybe if most committees had associates or if we they didn't have associates now and we add associates to the ones that didn't have them. Um, and associates
required a less level a lower level of scrutiny to get in, right? You know, it's a non- voting thing, but you can be officially a member. You know, you get to comment, you know, you get to be part of the discussion. You know, I've definitely, you know, one
of the the first thing you that you listed in your brainstorming is, you know, the long time it takes to get on to committees. I've certainly run into that with potential nominees that you by the time you discuss with them and the time they can get on the committee, it's two and a half months later or
something. That that is a big impediment. Maybe there could be a lower bar for associates. Maybe we have a different bar for the statutory committees and other advisory committees. It seems to
me that there are three levels. There's the full members of statutory committees, you know, they where they actually have to adjudicate zoning or wetlands or health, you know,
uh that that's kind of the highest bar I think of being a full member. something in between is a full member of an advisory committee and the lowest level is an associate member of an advisory committee maybe needs the least
scrutiny. Um I don't know where the associate members of the um statutory committees fall. You know, we'd have to figure out some thing. But it hopefully it could be made easier for the lower lower tiers and then once someone is, you know, if someone's an associate for a year, well, first of
all, if they if they're associate right away and they participate in the discussion and they say, "Well, this is not really what I thought it was going to be," and they they need to bow out or this is definitely I want to move forward. if they've been an associate for some months, perhaps we can make that easy for them to transition to be a
full member. Um um and finally, you know, to uh add on to what Dean was saying about recruiting, I think we should encourage any member, not just the chair, to
recruit for their committee. Um because so that gets a away a little bit from a smaller group of old boys in in the committee, right? So if you know if you have five members of a committee and all five of them, they have different friends and acquaintances and stuff in
town, they can you know uh pursue different people if if they if they need staffing. So, um, and by the way, kudos to, uh, both Alyssa and Fran who have done outreach to try to generically, uh, recruit for our boards and committees,
and I I really appreciate that. You know, whether it's at October Fest or other, uh, situations you guys have put in, um, um, time to try to get that that done, and thank you. So, that's it for me. I just wanted to um quickly add that not
only you know we can all recruit for different I certainly recommend folks for different committees. So it doesn't really only have to be the liaison. So um if you find a good candidate um and the lag time between
um filling out an application and and and the vetting process has been frustrating. So yeah, if you have incredible staff support for any of your committees who just take it
upon themselves to, you know, send applications, recruit, say at a farmers market, it's just some of our staff are pretty incredible in that regard. Jim, follow up. >> Um, no, I was just noting that David
raised his hand. >> Yeah, David, >> I just have a question. Somewhere in these documents that I read before the meeting, you guys were talking about possib possibly having electronic application or something. Did I Did I read that somewhere? Um, so my my
question is how feasible is that? And I I think that would make a bit a difference, right? You know, someone at October Fest, if you tell them the recreation commission could use more members. This is the QR code. Um, cool. They
might apply for it right there on their phone. >> Me, Jim. >> The good news is there already is an electronic application. Um, the bad news is it's if you go to different parts of the website, sometimes you're pointed towards it and sometimes you're pointed
towards the old PDF. So, um, the the VCC chair has made some suggestions about cleaning that up, but yeah, it is there. I haven't seen a QR code for it yet, but that's that's a natural next step. Jim,
>> are there any concerns about um my working with the town manager to send out this uh recruitment note to boards and committees? No one mentioned it, so I thought I should check. No. Okay, great. We'll do.
>> Thank you for doing this. Mhm. >> Alicia, >> I just want to add that I think some of the ideas for finding out best practices in other communities are going to be really
helpful for us um to help us think uh different ways of doing things. we might want to adopt certain practices from other communities that serve them well. I'm also wondering if perhaps the
liaison might have a discussion either with a chair of the committees that they have a liaison assignments to or an actual agenda item might not work so well for you know conservation commission or ZBA because those are
generally hearings. Um, I guess I would just suggest that if you hear from or if you can actually proactively reach out to chairs or if you want to have a discussion with an
advisory committee actually with the whole committee on their agenda. I think it would be interesting to get feedback from those folks. And and Jim, you you wrote down that an an initial step might be a survey to everybody. Um, but maybe
those conversations can happen sooner than we can get a survey put together and distributed cuz I'm sure that I mean I've had casual conversations at different events with people about things that were are working really well or things that are
not working really well. I'm going to move to this committee because I you know this experience. So I think that that feedback from our volunteers who are currently serving is going to be useful for this process. Just a little anecdotal story in that
the HDC is always looking for members and they had um sent out a letter to all architects in town and got two two hopefully members or something to develop into a new member. So that was kind of a a cool
thing to do. Okay, next steps. >> Yeah, we will certainly we'll we'll send out this note and um um uh I'll continue working on these um possible next steps.
And uh if uh if there's other board if there's a board member who's willing to continue to be consulted about this, I will continue consulting with her. Great. Thank you very much. Item six, discuss acting leadership
group meeting. John, thank you. Um, last week in this room, the acting leadership group had its second meeting of the uh, budget season and uh, it went pretty well. Um, some of the takeaways were that uh the next
meeting date is scheduled to be determined. Uh, we had a little trouble identifying a morning that worked for everybody, but that happens every year, I would say. Uh, and then we then we get into a groove and then we set the schedule for the rest of the season. Um,
the deficit for FY27 is currently sitting at over $4 million. Uh so that was the bulk of the conversation. Um was that issue and um since both the town and both of the school districts that we fund are just
in the early stages in budget preparation, there wasn't a lot of discussions about changes to spending because we haven't identified our specific needs for the coming year. But uh that'll that'll come. I think our preliminary budget presentation to this
board will be on next week or the 3rd of November and at that point we'll have highle preliminary budget estimates for what we're looking at for FY27 and the school district I think is going to have that before the end of the year. So we'll
we'll uh continue to work at it. Um there wasn't any specific calls to action from the the meeting, but that that's the update uh that that I can come up with. Great. Thank you. Um Jim,
>> um the 4 million that's schools plus town or just town. >> That's the entire um mun, you know, that's the entire plan. So the entire plan we need to balance before every year. And right now uh the the challenge
to balance it will require us to solve a $4 million uh deficit. >> Got it. Thanks. Oh, and another question. Have um have we heard anything um sub substantive from Minute Man yet?
>> We did hear from Minute Man. Um they after many years of significant increases due to the enrollment shift, I think we've leveled off and steadied a bit. So last year our net uh change year-over-year was actually a decrease.
Uh I and we are projecting it to be approximately a 3% increase I think and when we talked to the business off office over there they said that's that's a good number to use for now. >> Thank you uh David.
>> Uh thank you. Two things. Um uh one is just to note that the um the numbers are not final and everything but the at the end towards the end of the meeting I just watched the the meeting um the the superintendent
said that um just the increases in health care would eat up the full normal Proposition 2 and a half increase for the Which means
everything else is level funded, not level services, level funded. And if you need to increase in one area, you need to probably lay off people in the other area, right? So that's that that that that's with normal um pro, you know, proposition two and a half funding.
Second, at the end of the um meeting um I encouraged um ALG to aortion the revenue.
Uh ALG always used to do this and we've gotten away from it in the last few years, you know. Um and that has two huge disadvantages in my mind. One is unless you get some
proposal out for people to react to you don't know the magnitude of any problem. Right? So ju just based on some initial I'll even call it an educated guess or you have a discussion at ALG where you
know put people make the case for a particular thing alg can come to consensus on these are the initial percentages for for the entities that we fund. Um and then that gives the entities something to plan to and then
in a future meeting they can say you know it was tough but we were able to make that work or I don't see how this works right and it's with without that last thing you can't tell if you're going to need an override right so
the the reason you know some people have pointed out that we used to know whether we were going to need an override early in the year That's because we aortioned revenue in in the early in the year and then could tell oop that's not going to
work. Um so until we do that you know you know we we you know are not making any pro progress. ALG has been reactive the past few years and has not taken the bull by the horns in order to abortion
revenue. we've waited and they've more managed expenses which is what really Fincom is job is supposed to be. Um and so anyway I I'm hoping that um ALG does that and I hope that the members from uh
this board um advocate for that. >> Thank you Alicia. So, springboarding off of that, I heard from our facilitator that he would like to have each entity's reaction or or
position initial position feelings about an operating override. So, I think that that's something that this board should discuss um before our next ALG meeting. And I don't know when that's going to be. So, it
doesn't have to be um tonight. It could be at our November 3rd meeting. Um but for those anybody who didn't watch, I shared that I wasn't eager to pursue that as an option. But to David's point about aortioning revenue and having the
time um advanced warning in order to to fully discuss it. Um I think that's a good point. And I think I think it's something we probably
should put in with a in our next agenda with a specific question so that the public will know that we're going to be discussing whether there's going to be a any support for an override. Um I think it's I think it's premature to
to uh discuss it and vote on it tonight. especially since we don't really know when the next ALG meeting is going to happen anyway. So, it's probably going to be after our next November 3rd meeting.
So, what a good thing to keep in mind when we prepare the next agenda. David, >> I think Jim >> Jim >> um just reflecting on the last couple years um
I want us to be sure that if we're talking about ALG matters we're, you know, we're presenting some thoughts or opinions, but we're not um binding the representatives to ALG uh to
a particular position. um so that they can really have a useful back and forth with the other members of ALG coming to come up with a decision um if they're stuck in a position because we've told
them they have to do a certain thing that prevents the magic of the consensus process from happening on ALG. But I still think it'd be really useful to have a conversation about any of these topics as long as we pay attention to the difference between, you know, giving
guidance and, you know, taking a vote on a particular position prior to an ALG meeting. >> Thank you, David. So w with complete respect for the um facilitator and everybody else on trying
to figure out whether we need an override. We don't have any information on whe on whether to to base any decision and you know if someone else has another way of doing it that that's completely fine. And I'm I'm but I think
that we need to go through the exercise of having proposed splits of revenue and letting people react right. I mean without any you know if we can come up with a split
that works for both entities even if both entities need to make some sacrifice I'm guessing that we would would want to support that. I'd probably want to support that. But if we make a an educated split, right, and both entities
come back and say this is what it means to the schools and this is what it means to the town and we consider that unacceptable, right? Um either we can tweak the percentages, maybe that works, maybe it's worse for one entity than the other, we can tweak those. Or if there
it's just dire for both, we might want to consider an override. I at least for me I would not want to consider an override until we've tried to aortion the revenue. I don't know how I would I mean I would have to I could put in make my own ALG sheet and guess
what it might be but it would be not agreed to by anybody, right? I can say I'm going to give the the the school district 5.1% and I'm going to give the town 2.9% and whatever it is and say um and um but it's it's it's it's not based
in anything. It's not based in any kind of agreement or consensus. Right. So um I would like ALG to to do that aortionment. >> Thank you Alyssa. So David, you said educated
um split. What information is required for the ALG to make that decision? >> So as a straw man, ALG can just do it with the discussion among its members. And that's what we did in the past. Um
you know, we just said we have this much revenue. Do we want to try to do an even percentage for both entities? Is which is a different number of dollars, right? If we do an even percentage for both entities, is that fair for this year? Right? I mean, what's reasonable changes
from year to year? Um, or do we want to bias it towards one entity or the other, right? And I think you can kind of get to that in one morning's discussion and because it's not permanent, right? You can say this is what we're setting as
the goal, right? You know, then Mr. Superintendent, Mr. Manager, please go off and tell us what this means in general terms to your budgets. And they come back and say, we would have to do this, that, and the other thing. Um, and then you can tweak those numbers or say,
"Oh, it's those numbers, that situation is not acceptable." And then we can do a couple of things right there. We can use the untaxed levy to get us more dollars to split. Suppose that the initial percentages are good for one entity and the other entity
is really feeling, you know, in a bad situation, terrible situation. We can say, okay, we can take um $800 of the untax levy and give it to the the entity that's having the problem. And does that work? And please come back and tell us. And if we c if we
use all the untaxed living and we still don't have a reasonable proposal for the town, then we have to consider an override, you know, and then it's up to the taxpayers. But I wouldn't want to go there without some understanding of what it means if
we just try to do things the quote normal way without an override. All right, one one last comment and then I think we're kind of getting into what we're supposed to be talking about at the next meeting. So, Alyssa, what do you have to say?
>> I have, let me re rephrase my question. So, what information goes into the decision? So you're saying look at the revenue and then decide whether it's going to be evenly split
different dollars between the two entities or will it be biased towards one entity or another. What is the info that you need in order to make that decision? because if we don't if I don't understand the information that's
necessary then I'm anticipating um each entity presenting the you know trying to present it you know we will experience the greatest harm if
we don't have the higher split or if it's even or or going down, you know, well, here's what we cut over the last few years. Well, here's what we cut or delayed over the last few years. So, I'm just looking for the not how does it
happen, but what information is the decision based on? >> So, both of these in my mind are due to the feedback from the manager and the superintendent, right? that and just really broadbrush numbers because they won't have done their budgets yet,
right? And so one, you know, one broad brush number is that um uh just the health insurance increases eats up two and a half% increase of the school district's budget. It's probably similar for the town. And then where do you you
know what other things you know what number of dollars do you need to pay the normal salary increases for staff? Because if you can't pay the normal salary increases for staff, you have to get the money from someplace else, right? Because you have to pay your
staff or lay off people, right? Um and so it's it's a little bit in the back and forth in the beginning. it um it's not always worked well, but it used to be that we would set a percentage, get feedback from the manager and the superintendent, and then adjust the
percentage. And I was never um in a year where we did the percentage and then the the um well, I should that's not quite true. in in the year that we did the override, it
was in that initial discussion where the um superintendent hit us with some top, you know, a half a dozen or handful of things that were pushing the school district over the edge. And I'd say a
majority of us on ALG that year were were assuming that we would not have an override that year. If you had asked everybody, anyone two months before who was on ALG, I think none of them would have said we're going to have an override. But after that, it became obvious that, you know, there's no way
we can get these numbers to add up um without dire consequences. And so then we had then the the the conversation changed into what should the magnitude of an override be and that kind of thing.
Thank you. Okay. There will be an agenda item um about this at our next meeting. Uh before I go on to consent, uh something I neglected to discuss in my opening remarks is
all of you folks have uh responded back that you will be in attendance at the multi-board meeting Wednesday. Um and you know this is the first time we've tried to do this so don't really know what's going to happen u what the
output is going to be. Uh I'll be making some initial remarks right at the beginning and and they will frankly reflect kind of my own personal feelings because obviously we haven't discussed this as a board.
We've got 90 minutes for this meeting to occur and we're going to have five different entities all wanting to make their pitch. So remarks will have to be very
brief and straightforward. Um, I would encourage you after I make my remarks, which will be brief, you know, two minutes, um, if other members of the board wish to
make their remarks as well, that would be great. Um, I have no predisposition in any way of what folks should say or how we're going to say it. It's say we're in uncharted territory here.
U but I think you know we will have to be cognizant of the time constraints here and David I specifically I'm thinking about your remark you've made about trying to come up with a split and the the split between of the revenues
between the town side and the school side. I think that would be a good point that I've not addressed in my remarks. So that's one item in particular which I think you know it's it's sitting out there. We might as well get out in front of it. Um
and uh you know for any of the rest of you I certainly encourage you to participate. Like I say it is time constraints are pretty rigorous for this. With that, I will move on to the consent items.
Item eight, approve traffic calming policy. Item nine, approve meeting minutes October 6, 2025. Item 10, appoint Fang Yang as an associate member from full member with a
term to expire term to end on June 30th, 2026. And I guess the question is what committee? >> Oh, sorry. VCC. >> VCC. Thank you. And number 11, approve a oneday malt and
wine license for Actton Memorial Library at 468 Main Street on November 12th, 2025. >> Move to approve consent items 9 through 11, noting that item 10 uh is the appointment is to the BCC. >> Second.
>> Moved and seconded to accept 9, 10, and 11. 10 as edited. All in favor say I. >> I. opposed extensions. Okay, approved. We'll go back to item eight.
>> Jim, >> just a couple small things. Um, just first of all, it seemed helpful to make this new policy visible. Um, so I was wondering how is there a time frame in
mind for when this would become live? uh assuming we approve it tonight which I don't have any doubt about >> yeah we would um we would implement it in the coming weeks I think it's there's a getting it online will be easy
>> sort of the secondary outreach and um informing the public about it would would be a different you know would take longer but we can certainly get it online um where it says in the policy directly in the policy document it
directly says is where the information will be posted. >> So, we would do that at a minimum and then take it from there. And I think the the thing that we would really benefit from in our office and maybe each of you out in the community is that when a
member of the community approaches us, we have a place that we can point directly to say, "This is it right here. This is what you would need to do if you're interested in making changes on your street." So, I think it'll be word of mouth. Jim,
>> couple more follow-ups. Um, uh, a suggestion I have is to, um, first focus on getting the pace car program going. Um, the process for traffic improvements,
uh, includes um, references to the pace program, you know, like if you have a certain percentage of people signed up, that gives you, you know, extra points. Uh, so we want to have that program ready and it it it's it's not fully specified in the in the document. So I
think it'll take a little bit it'll take a surprising amount of time to get it working. Um, but I think it's a great program. I look forward to having a little pace car sticker on the back of my car to remind me to always drive the speed limit when I'm within Actton. Um,
because I don't do that. Um what's the last point? Um the um another key part of the policy is the the traffic management group. Um and having a publicly available address
to reach it, the TMG actma.gov, which does not exist yet. So, I would encourage you to um to create that and fill it with at least a person so that if anybody like reads this online in our packet and starts trying
to implement something, they they will at least reach someone rather than getting a a mail error back. Um that I'm really looking forward to it. Um, I think we could also consider uh, you know, we have traffic calming
requests in front of us already that are in process and some of them might make sense to just move right into this process. [Music] >> Okay. Uh, David. Yes. I I just wanted to say I know of one neighborhood who I think will apply as soon as this uh
process is is ready and maybe the gentleman from from Chadwick would also try to get get his neighbors interested in in applying. Um I also wanted to say that there's one person online with their hand raised. Okay. Uh let's hear from the person
whose hand is raised. Hi, it's just Terra from PMSAB and I just want to thank you uh for making the distinction between uh signalization and um traffic coming and I also hope that you add at some other point or at least
consider adding that um that it's good to do traffic coming first before you decide to pursue or spend a lot of engineering time on signalization um and then see h take some period of time after trafficcoming has been put in
place and see what happens. So in other words instead of relying on 10 year old accident data look at what happens after tra traffic coming because I think that Cory's done a really good job at trafficcoming stuff. Um and I think that uh we should give that a chance. Um also
I just went through where was it? Lexington not uh a day or so ago and they've got two of these mini roundabouts and they're fabulous. Um and I hope that you go and check them out. One they're one is on either side of the downtown area. So thank you so much uh
for making that distinction and I hope that you consider adding at some point that we do traffic coming first before we start spending a lot of money on signalization which can often make things worse. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay. Um,
call for a vote on consent item number eight. All in favor? >> I I >> I opposed. >> Oh, sorry. >> I sorry. >> Extensions. Okay, it's passed. Looking
for one more motion. >> I move to adjurnn. Second. >> Moved and second to adjurnn. All in favor say I. >> I. I. opposed extensions. Thank you.