Um, just identify yourself and tell us your address and you have to push that button to turn the mic on. >> Hi, I'm Carolyn Reid. Um, my in town address is 416 Great Road and I'm here from Habitat for Humanity to give a
really quick update about how everything is going. Um, so as you know, the inside was gutted. So now it's framed out for three units of housing, two one-bedroom and one two-bedroom house. So, we've got the framing done, the blocking done, the subfloors are in. Hopefully this week,
we'll do some of the window replacement for some of the windows that were broken. Um, we would love to have people come volunteer with us. We have volunteers there Wednesday through Saturday. In September, NHoba Valley Tech will be back to help us with carpentry, plumbing, and electric. Um,
so this summer, we're hoping to get everything else done. So, we'll get the sprinkler system in, some of the HVAC roughed in. Um, and the application for home ownership is open right now. So, it opened on June 4th. It'll be open till August 4th. So, anyone in town or in the
surrounding communities who would be interested in applying, we have applications available at the library right next door. We have some at the house at 416 Great Road as well and at our other office at 3 Park Street in Lemonster. People can call us or go to
the website ncmhabitat.org og and download an application from there as well. So, the applications are due. That's our hard deadline on August 4th. And then we'll be selecting the homeowners by public lottery probably in early September. And we hope to finish
next spring and have the homeowners move in by then. So, the homes will be highly energy efficient. And again, it's for families earning between 30 and 60% of area median income. Thank you so much for coming in,
Carolyn, and I hope that this will get you some more um volunteer builders, this announcement, and also some more applications. >> Um I just have one quick question for you. >> Is the office occupied right now or do
you have an expected date for that? >> We're building an office in the front um because it was limited business which is fabulous. we wanted to come back to act. So we will be one having one in the front. Right now we have kind of a um
field office in the barn and our hope is sometime in the future the barn will become another three or four bedroomedroom house. So we just we're working on a plan for septic for that for that to happen in the future. That'll be a different permitting process. But right now we have some
staff there just as a field office and then we'll be moving into the front. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anybody online for resident concerns? >> None with their hands raised. >> Okay.
All right. So, just moving on to our next item, which is the chair update and town manager update and members minutes. I have a couple of announcements or updates rather and they're a little lengthy so please bear with me. Um I
wanted to call on the board members especially but pretty much anyone in the public uh for some advocacy for the passage of the municipal empowerment act before the end of July. So before July
31st, the municipal um oh my goodness, Massachusetts Municipal Aent MMA, Massachusetts Municipal Association recently um sent out an action alert asking officials to
advocate with um their senator and representatives. So just to give you a little summary, it's right now at the um House Committee on Ways and Means. um they hold the the bulk of the bill's provisions and um those provisions would
make current remote and hybrid public meeting flexibilities permanent which I know would be a a big boon for for Actton's boards and committees. It would also reform procurement procedures and regulations including the threshold for
all municipal purchases to match the uh threshold for schools. streamline cooperative purchasing agreements um and include snow hauling services with snow plowing services as exempt from rules of the uniform procurement act. It would
also extend the borrowing term cap for municipal building projects to 40 years. So that would better reflect the life expectancy of municipal infrastructure while lowering annual debt impacts. Um, it also takes aim at the challenge faced by municipalities all over the state to
compete with the private sector for workers by introducing some temporary flexibilities for postretirement municipal employment to fill critical shortages and also allow for the creation of regional boards of assessors to pull resources and reduce staffing
strain. So, um, if you can reach out to our local delegation, um, board members and and any other person who is is interested in making municipal government more efficient and cost-effective.
I have some also really exciting news on the health insurance trust, which is no more. uh when we moved from being self-insured along with the school district to Maya which is Massachusetts
interlocal insurance agency association something like that. I'm not good with acronyms tonight. Um, the trust entered into a runout period to process any claims that were submitted for services prior to the ending of the health
insurance trust June 30th, 2024. Um, the Harvard Pilgrim runout ended last year on June 30th and the Blue Cross Blue Shield runout period ended this June 30th just a week ago. So basically our responsibility for any services provided
prior to June 30th, 2024 ended on June 30th, 2026. Um the Health Insurance Trust held our final meeting on June 24th and we ended the business of the trust and delegated uh remaining final
administrative tasks to staff. And just to give you a financial update, we are keeping a checking account open with a small balance of $2,000 um because Bluec Cross Blue Shield will continue to make adjustments
indefinitely, unfortunately. Um but these are tiny adjustments. So in May, for example, we had a $4 adjustment. Um but that's just going to continue forever. Um the town and school will receive reimbursement from funds that were held by Bluec Cross Blue Shield um
which is about a half a million dollars at the end of July and the town's share of that is 22.55% and the school district share is 77.45%. Um so what remains um for the runout claims is coming back
to both the town and the district. And I just wanted to take the opportunity also to share a reminder that the health insurance trust was a very good option for the district and town employees and retirees for its 20-year existence. Um, so even though we had a relatively small
pool, um, which a lot of people see as risky, um, we engaged an independent consultant and treasurer. We purchased stop-loss insurance to protect the trust from claims that reached $175,000
um, in a year. Um the trustees adjusted the rates to ensure that revenue matched the claims over those two decades and actually saved the town and the district um money. Reserves were actually too high at one point and we had to
deliberately reduce the um the rates. Um the the dissolution of the trust and the switch to Maya was the result of a six-month period postcoid when claims from 11 individuals totaled $3.2 $2 million and that was beyond the ability
of the trust to pay um and forced a mid-year um almost 23% rate height. Um and I just wanted to take the opportunity to applaud the work of the district and the town management for evaluating options for group coverage.
Um we looked at the group insurance commission GIC. We looked at Maya Mass strategic health group minute manopa health group and west suburban health group. Um and the town and the district successfully negotiated contracts with eight unions um managed the enrollment
into the new plans and also moved the retirees first to Etna and then to Maya. So this was a huge um effort and I just want to applaud all of the staff um and that that were involved in that and also the union members. And finally, I want
to um note that we had a great Independence Day celebration last week and recognize all the staff, volunteers, and community partners for their work um securing vendors and sponsors, preparing the site and working the event. Um the
lineup was extremely thoughtful and um I thought it was a good mix of activities for for everybody. We had free beach access. Um, bouncy houses and water slides, food trucks and vendors. Um, a soloist who sang the national anthem. We
had the active minute uh playing fif and drum and also doing a musket volley, a reading of the declaration and the boss project band and a laser show. Um, so there was really something for everyone and I know it took a lot of of work and time on the part of town staff,
volunteers, and all of our community partners. So, thank you. And that's it from me. Do you have an update for us, Tom? >> Uh, Madam Chair, I do. But before I I provide one, um I'm wondering if you would be willing to ask for public
comment again. I've been made aware that unfortunately Zoom was muted and there is a few people um in the waiting or in the attendance who may >> like to speak. >> All right. So, for those of you who are online, um we've already done resident
concerns, but if there's anybody who is online, if you wanted to participate in residents concerns and discuss something that's not on the agenda, please raise your hand. >> It does not look like anybody. >> All right. Thank you for noticing that.
>> Thank you. Um I do have uh three quick things. First, um, as you're all aware, uh, our interim police chief has been named as the police chief. Doug Sternolo was recently named as police chief. He has been with the town for, uh, over 20 years, and we're pretty excited that he
has now become the full-time, uh, police chief. Um, there will be a swearing in ceremony that will be sent around to you as well um, shortly if you've not received it already. Uh, additionally, we have uh named a director of the council on aging who is uh Aaron
Woodbury and she actually started today. She did a took a tour of town hall with Penny Fioli, the uh director of health and human services. So, Aaron has hit the ground running and if you have an opportunity to stop by um 30 Sbury Road to say hello and introduce yourself, I know that she'd be very excited to meet
you all. And then the third update and announcement I have is on Tuesday, July 14th from 7 from 5 to 7:00 p.m. at the AML parking lot right outside here, uh the sustainability department will be
hosting an EV energy efficiency and clean energy fair. So if you're interested, uh I do encourage uh anyone interested to attend. It's typically a very good time. And thank you very much. Thank you. And member minutes from
anybody. >> Pam. So I want to, you know, just acknowledge the important role that volunteers place in our town in our town governance and there are a couple of a number of
committees that are looking for volunteers. So, I encourage people to go on to the website to look for that. I'd like to call out just a couple of them. I know the transportation advisory committee is looking for new volunteers
um both associate and full members. The commission on disabilities is also looking for volunteers and associate members. and we are still looking for a um actin representative to the Minute
Man School Committee. And for that um position, if you're interested, please contact the town moderator. All right. Thank you very much. Um, it is not 6:30, but that's okay because we have one item ahead of our public
hearing, which is item number three, discussion on committee and board member emails. And I see we have our IT director here. Um, did you want to introduce this or have Carl? >> Uh, I would I would like to if you don't mind, please. Um, sounds good.
>> So, joining me at the table here is director of uh, innovation and technology Carl Vulker. Um Carl is here to talk about an email and some information he's provided in the past about handling some options on handling uh committee and board emails moving
forward. Um once Carl's provided some information, we'd like to receive some feedback, but ultimately some direction on how the board like us to move and potentially some policy creation that'll be discussed as well. So at this time, I' I'd be happy to pass it over to Carl.
>> Hello, I'm Carl. Thank you, members of the board. I'll keep it brief. I think uh I sent a note out to John Manerati uh last week. Um you know that we we're having trouble with committee emails and with the change to Office 365 and and
how in practice a lot of the members have um forward their email to external accounts. It just doesn't work any longer. It's inconsistent. It's unreliable. Um I have spent a considerable amount of time looking for workarounds. Um, I want to be clear, it's not broken. It doesn't need a fix.
It's it would be a workaround. And I can't find one that is reliable. And basically what's happening is the way uh when an email comes in to say the transportation advisory committee, the dog park committee, it goes, it forwards out. And if it has a town email address
in that distribution list, it delivers fine. If it goes to say verizon.net or Comcast or any of those, it's unreliable and sometimes the ISP will bounce it. It looks like we're a relay and we're just relaying the messages there. Then there's nothing I can do on the Office
365 to change that. You know, um our prior email system was on prem, so we were doing all of our mail delivery from onrem with an old system and now we're Microsoft delivers it all for us. So, um [snorts] it's become more of a problem. When we moved over, it wasn't quite uh
you know, it wasn't quite noticeable. I don't know. some some of the groups may or may not check their email as frequently and it may not have been noticed, but it's bouncing more and more. And so I put two options in front of um the town manager's office that I think we could go with and one would be
all town uh committee members have an act. Uh they're assigned one now as it is. um but forwarding not be allowed any longer and they would they would check the the email through the through the web portal or through their desktop access and any communication would be
done by there. I think that's the most um logical way to do it. I think it would be the cleanest. It would be even across the board. Um it does give them another email account that they have to check but it's a modern web interface. Um you know it's compatible with every
phone. You can put it on there pretty easily. The other suggestion that was floated after talking with the manager's office was whether a chair or a vice chair have town email accounts and they manage it and if a message comes in from a a you know a resident of the public
they would send it out to external email addresses um and be more of a manual option. I I think it would work. I think it it could lead to inconsistent delivery. it will put more burden on on um you know the the chair and the vice chair. Um but that's what we're looking
to do you know to make a decision. You know we are coming up to our agreement with Microsoft uh that we have to renew. Um and we have approximately 168 licenses that we pay for town u committee members right now. So it's a
fair amount. Um so it' be helpful uh one for costwise. If we have to continue purchasing that's great. we'll just see better use of them. Um and if not, we could reduce them and and potentially make some cost savings there. So, >> [clears throat] >> um the other thing we would do is if we
did go with the town, uh committee members, we'd like to introduce two-factor authentication. We rolled that out entirely for the staff earlier this year. Um it was it wasn't fully implemented and it should be and it really should be for the committee members, too. It's a town
resource. It's it's a very common best practice. um that you know and I understand you know the the committee members are volunteers that they're giving the the town the time and I I totally respect that. So I want to be cautious as an IT person not to be heavy-handed. But I think we've got to
make a decision here and looking to the the board and town management for guidance on that so that it can have a clear position on it. And just one final note because it might have been confusion. Um the email addresses would stay the same. So if it's you know uh
the duck park whatever I don't know them they would still go and if whether it went to all committee members as it does now with with town email addresses or the chair and vice chair would stay the same. So it wouldn't be uh distribution list would go to one person or or the email address would change. It would not
it would really be nothing visible from the um from the public or the resident side. Um and and finally too it would help with public records requests. Everything would be within town, you know, every communication there, you know, so if things are going outside to
public to a public email address, a personal email address, that could come under scope if we were requested for it. And that would, you know, we don't have it doesn't have access to it. The town doesn't. So that'd be up to the individual to do that. So hopefully it's clear. I know it's a
change. Um change is always tough. So um respect uh your thoughts and any questions you might have. I will say true words were never spoken. Change is always tough. Um, thank you. I I appreciate all of that information. It was very very clear. Um, what I heard
was mostly about functionality and I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit on security and any considerations that the board should be taking, you know, one option versus the other in terms of of security because I I've been
reading and hearing that that's a a much um bigger concern now than it was, you know, even 5 years ago. >> Absolutely. It's a great question. And um I think one of the biggest lifts would be putting the two factor on
there. We've had um a few committee email addresses get hacked in a in a pretty substantial way and it's hard to protect against that. I mean if a hacker gets into that account, it can send email with with false links and our
filters won't pick that off because it's um um it looks legit and the headers will all look like it's coming from that email address. So, we've had a few of those and it's not just committee members. You know, staff will run into that, too. But, um, the two-factor is a huge it it's it's due diligence. You
know, anything can get hacked at any time if somebody really wants it. But, I think if we say, you know, we did our due diligence and we're using, you know, best practice that we have available to us, um, I think that goes a long way. Um, you know, our Microsoft cloud
environment is in a government cloud, so that there's additional level security on there. how it's protected, how the data can be accessed by different um you know entities and whatnot whether it's in Microsoft itself. So I think there's a you know we we jump through hoops on that to get that there. It has made it a
little difficult if if somebody has like an Outlook account already and they have an app on their phone. We can't blend personal with GCC to govern cloud. It's just a um it's just it's a restriction that Microsoft puts in place to keep those accounts separate and we have workarounds for that. you know, if you
can use a native email account. The way the web interface works now, it um it actually you can put an icon on on your desk on your app on your phone and it'll look a lot like the um like the web interfa the the web interface and the app interface. So, um those are the main
security features of that. >> So, so that would that would apply to both of the options. then we can do the two-factor authentication or is is one of the options going to enable you to to have a higher level of security? >> The first option if we put all the town
if committee members use a town email we could we would have a broader um two-factor authentication and security whereas in the other sense >> uh it would just be for the the chair and if there's a vice chair or two members of that that would be secured. So, >> okay. >> And it is a it is a change. I
acknowledge that. And I what I would say to that is um you know, if if this gets approved and we decide to go that route, it will do it carefully and thoughtfully and and so and really assist the the committee members to make sure they have a good transition to it so it's not
painful and and we don't say somebody this is not worth it. I don't want to do it anymore. I want to avoid that. >> Okay. Thoughts? Um questions from board members? David? So I I just have one clarification for everyone because it was a clarification
for me. Um is that this is the the forwarding that uh Carl uh refers to is from the email shells to the individuals um not not another another kind of relay. And so um uh that's the the
biggest question here. And to me the the really the only acceptable uh course here is the is the first one option one. Um option two requires that individuals in each committee maintain an email list
and if anybody needs to send anything out to everyone like you know the the the chair is sick, we're canceling the meeting for tonight. um uh they need to know everybody who's on the committee, right? Um and what is typically, you
know, I maintain one of these myself and so what people often do is they keep the email list in a file or in a um an entry in their local address book. Um, and then if other people want to use it, they search their emails back and they reply all to the to the an old email
which will pick up all the the old email addresses, but that's an inherently archaic list, right? If the membership has changed, then that's not a current list. And so it it's to me uh alternatives too is um not the way we
want to run things. Uh so uh um that that that's just my my input here. Um I did want to ask uh Carl if is it an option um to forward the town's email account
to your own. So So if if if uh uh I'm um uh uh uh John Doho at actin.gov and I have my John Doe at atgmail.com and I use that and I prefer not to have
to manage two accounts. Can I forward just my account uh my john doactm.gov to john dogmail.com. >> You can. It's a great question, but the problem will be is that if onetoone
uh email forwarding works and so if it's John Doe at actin to John Joe at Gmail and I sent it, it will forward it because the mechanism that's doing it that way allows it and the ISPs aren't picking that off. When your
Joe John Doe at Acton MA shows up in a distribution list, it will bounce it. It's there. That's where it's happened. doesn't matter if it's a a user rule in the mailbox. It doesn't matter if I do it at an admin level at the Office 365 portal. It's that forwarding mechanism. What I would suggest too is if if we
approve this, if the board approves it um to go with town email, we would shut off forwarding. It's a security, you know, I mean, if you get audited or something, you know, every time somebody forwards their email, >> [snorts] >> um, it gets an alert just so we know
because it's it's, you know, it's looked as a, you know, as, uh, not a security breach, but a security lapse or it's a it's something that's not consistent with it. You know, you're not a relay server anymore. You don't we're not looking to be a relay server. We're looking to ingest email, deliver it,
send out email. So um my recommendation would be is that we shut it off. Um and and I would say you know if there is a unique case where it is it could always be open for discussion. I mean I think you know there's always you should never
say no no no. Um but I think it should be a clear policy that we shut off forwarding. >> Great. Um um and so I understand it could work but it's you know it's it's not a best practice to to turn that on. and >> two things. It's not a best practice and
it's not consistent. >> One to one will work, distribution list will work. So, um, just a a recommendation on the other side to me and this is more important if we don't allow individual forwarding and and that's maybe the and I'm sure this is part of the work that you're you're talking about that you said we'll do it
carefully and everything is that um uh we have good documentation for folks on how to have multiple email clients on their uh phones or computers and um in some cases on both you can mix them with other things
and you know I I can mix them on my computer. I can't mix them on my phone. Um, so you know, all that documentation so it's easy for people to uh, you know, because we're going to have 163 Well, some people already use their town accounts. We're going to have about 100 people or something try to set this up
for themselves. And just finally, for me, the two-factor authentication thing is a is good. Yeah, I think that's a good practice. Yeah, it's it's a change in it, but I think, you know, when we did it for the staff, you know, it was I think there was a lot of concern, you know, what if
I leave my phone at home and it's it's not um it ended up going much smoother, you know, and and I've really got a strong team. We're big on customer support. So, I think we'll look at that because I can run a report easily and find out how many people are forwarded and we would target those first. And
then I think what we would do is we'd put the um the forwarding ban in place so it doesn't happen. So we don't have any more. I run a report so use forwarded. We make sure we get in touch with those folks first. We write the instructions. We already have some that we did for staff. I can expand on those
throw them up on a very easily accessible site where they can see, you know, give our phone. Um you know, I I think we can provide really good customer service to to to make it a smooth transition. And just going back to your distribution lists and and how
people manage those. I think one of the benefits of doing this allin with the town is that it act and it can manage those distribution list. So we we keep in touch with the clerks the clerks tell us people leave. We take care of that on the back end and it and you know so
members you know it's not take away the keys necessarily but we pull them off when they're not supposed to get communications and we can do that and that way you're not running into working off an old list or something. So, I think it it makes the most sense from an organizational standpoint and um but I
agree. I think you know we can provide what the what the committee members will need to make sure it's smooth and and you know we're available and we'll make ourselves available. >> Pam and then Dean >> I agree that the first option is the
option that makes sense. I know I have heard from a number of volunteers who have said that they like to use their personal email in the shell because they felt that the town email didn't work for them. So, I just say that as I really
appreciate everything that you've been saying about um supporting the volunteers, but I think for this to work, there's going to have to be significant support and training um you know, for for all the volunteers.
>> Totally agree. And I think, you know, once we get it in place and we set this as a new policy, as new members are on boarded, it should be easier. We'll smooth them out. I think the interfaces we can offer now with our newer system, it it's it it gives a much more modern look. I think they're easier, more
intuitive to use than some of the old web interface. So, um I get it. I think there'll be a big lift uh in the beginning and um you know, and we'll just have to do it carefully and um you know, and then I think it'll it'll get smoother from there. I mean, I'm
optimistic. Yeah, I uh I checked with the committees that I leaz with and the strong preferences for the first option. Uh I know one in particular conservation sometimes you know especially in the
runup before a uh a meeting they might be bouncing back 15 or 20 emails over a period of a day and a half and stick that on the chair to sort that all out using the second option. It just
wouldn't work. Um, so I I think the strong preference would be for the first option. >> All right. So, the only thing I have to add is I also checked in with some of my um liaison volunteers and and even
though it might be more convenient to check a single email account, um I think that everybody's on board with the inefficiency of the second option being not acceptable um and being, you know,
more work for someone and and getting lost if somebody's ill or or away on vacation. Um I have done some transitions um to new ways of doing things that uh were accompanied by a
video tutorial. So I I just want to share with everybody who's listening that yes, the IT department here has excellent customer service. I have been in many many many times and it's so quick and so easy to get assistance and resolve whatever issue I'm having.
um but just in a different form. You know, the the when we switched over to Outlook there there was a text um instructions and if there were more than one mode for different kinds of learners, you know, maybe some folks
might [snorts] don't want to give you more work, but that's just one suggestion that I have. Um and it seems like uh the board is all in agreement that option one is the the preferred option. Madam Chair, if um and thank you all for
that feedback. We would ask if the board's willing to approve this transition to utilizing townissued emails only and then uh approving a policy that requires board and committee members to only utilize that email and no longer utilize personal emails for
town business. >> Yes. Would you like a formal vote? >> That would be fantastic. >> Okay. So, I move that the select board authorize the town staff to begin a transition to require board and committee volunteers to use only
official email and no longer forward. >> No longer use personal emails. >> No longer use personal emails. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Second from Fran. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right.
Thank you so much. >> Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. >> All right. Our next item of business is a public hearing. Thank you for your patience. Um, the ACT and Select Board will hold a public hearing on July 6th,
2026 at 6:30 p.m. continued from June 15, 2026 in the Francis Faulner hearing room 204 at the town hall 472 Main Street, Actton, and virtually at acttonma.gov/meingb
on a site plan special permit under zoning bylaw section 10.4 4 at 13 School Street. The applicant, Alexander Moda, proposes to construct a mixeduse development consisting of groundf flooror commercial space with seven residential units located on the upper
levels. Application materials and how to participate remotely are available online and at Actton Town Hall at doc.acttonma.govdebcolction20116. gov/dsweb/view/collection-20116 and go ahead. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. Good evening. Paul Kersner
from Stampsky McNary. We're the engineers and surveyors for this project. Uh so it's been a while since we last appeared before the board. Uh but in that time we received the uh third party peer review from Bills and Thomas and uh responded um to the
comments that that they made. Um also made some changes in response to more of a discussion that we had with the board uh at the last public hearing in which we appeared. Uh most substantial change is that we have increased the number of
parking spaces being provided on the site. Um so that we now have 11 spaces proposed to the rear of the building. Um Kayla and planning staff were very helpful uh in uh coming up with this plan in order to maximize what we can
provide on the site um in order to satisfied realistic demand uh for parking on the property. I can't go into more specifics about the other changes that we we made, but those are primarily uh administrative u paperwork. Um a
little impact on the plans, but we did also submit an updated landscape plan. Uh so the board has that as well. We received conservation commission approval last Wednesday, so that uh component of the project is complete. But if you have any questions, please
ask away. Thank you. Thank you, Fran. This is your project, right? >> I I did and I have some points to make, but Okay. You also received um historic district commission June 17th. I didn't know if we knew that or not, but um and
the parking fix is awesome. Um should I run down the whole project or um the just just a little synops I have a synopsis of the of the decision. Um, it's a proposed 16,049 square foot
mixeduse building featuring five groundf flooror commercial units and seven res residential units spanning the upper levels and a portion of the ground floor. The site located at 13 school street um the South Actton Village-1
district and groundwater zone 4. It is currently a municipallyowned parking lot being sold to applicant Alexander Moda via an RFP process. Um the critical deadlines are the select board agrees to ex we extended the property closing date
to August 7th. Um the final permit decision is due by October 4th or 90 days post hearing. Um we did the outside board approvals. Um the commercial parking fix was huge. The original plan
slashed commercial parking down to six spaces due to a tight a tight 4- foot maneuvering deficiency in the rear. In response to heavy planning division, thank you planning division. Um concerns about a long-term business success. The
applicant submitted a revised plan increasing parking to 11 dedicated commercial spaces plus 11 residential spaces. So it's 22 in total. Um the staff now finds this layout maximizes the tight sites potential.
There will be bicycle and pedestrian assets meets the zoning bylaw with three bicycle spaces now property protected by labeled ballards. Um an existing concrete sidewalk along the 145 uh 82 ft frontage will be
maintained. Uh the in response to the board feedback, the applicant has agreed to grant the town an easement along the street frontage to help preserve on street parking and facilitate future town complete streets um in infrastructure improvements. Um in the
floor area ratio the pro the proposed F is 0.59 while the district baseline is 0.4 it can be expanded up to 1.0 Z because the applicant is committing the ground floor frontage entirely to specific allowed commercial uses,
retail, restaurant services, etc. Um, what else? What else? O'B said this already. Um, let's see. And I think that that's really it. Uh, the notable draft
conditions of approval. Um, if the board votes to grant the site plan permit tonight, key conditions binding the applicant and and jump in, Kayla, if I'm getting something wrong, um, tenant restrictions, future commercial tenants must strictly fit into the pre
pre-approved uh, SAV1 village categories, no unapproved uses. Um, infrastructure fees must pay all outstanding sewer assessments and sewer privilege fees prior to receiving a building permit. Um, operations and
nuisance control. Delivery and dumpster pickup hours are strictly restricted to 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Outdoor lighting must be turned off by 11:00 p.m. or 30 minutes after business close. And uh,
lastly, active um, strict adherence to erosion controls and construction debris management. That's that's all I have. Thank you for that. Kayla, do you have anything that you want to bring to the board's attention
additional? I think that was a great summary. So, thank you. Um, thank you for the the compliments, but I also just want to thank the applicant for being willing to work with us on the parking when they actually met the zoning at the time with the original plan. So, it was
nice to come to a happy conclusion on the parking. Thank you. >> Thank you. I've been learning a lot about parking and parking minimums and lots of communities eliminating them because builders know what the market
needs in terms of parking. So, a lot of times municipalities over require um on parking. I do have a question about the expected um parking for employees because Fran, I think I heard you say five commercial. Is it
four or five commercial? Five commercial >> five commercial. Okay. So, I guess I'm just wondering um about potential customers versus employees and if employees are going to be able to find other areas um in the village to park
and also I have a question about the three school street because the PNS for three and 13 I believe is a single PNS. No, it's not. Okay. So, I don't have a question about that then. >> Okay. Yeah, they're separate. They're separate uh PNS's. So, um I'd like to
freeze about parking uh matter that we have 11 exterior parking spots, but we do have 10 interior parking spots that will be underneath the building. So, that will service uh the residential units. So, all the residents will have
covered parking. So, that exterior parking lot will be um used by the commercial unit. So I think that along with the street parking that we should be able to conserve with the easement or having that flexibility um um or that
that option of having the street parking still um I think that would be plenty for for the commercial um for the commercial units. But yeah, I'd say that we have those 11 exterior parking spots plus street parking, which I think it
should uh should be plenty. Any other comments or questions from board members? >> Were you expecting a vote tonight or I think were you >> I don't think there's anything left outstanding. I will ask for public comment on this
if there is any in the room or online. Wow, this is going to be easy tonight because you fixed everything. I'm really excited about this project because I live like a block down the road. Um, so I'm I'm really happy to see that hole
filled in and and to see um mixeduse development. It's beautiful. Thank you very much for the architectural renderings. That's really super helpful, especially different street views where you see the proposed project in the contextual, you know, the rest of the
built environment. That's I wish everybody did that. >> All right. Well, I guess um I will accept a motion if there's no public comment and no more comments from board members. Let me let Fran make it. >> Well, I such a good >> Okay, go ahead. >> I was just going to move to close the
public hearing. >> Oh, yes. Thank you. >> Fran can make the big motion. So, I'm moving to close the public hearing. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. So we have closed the public hearing.
All you have to do is move to approve and then the site plan special permit application uh 03 0926497 for 14 14 13 school street [laughter]
as drafted in the packet. Thank you David. >> Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded to approve this application. All in favor? I I any opposed and any abstensions? Congratulations.
>> Thank you. Thank you everyone. >> All right. Our next item is a presentation on the Stow Street complete street study. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I am happy to introduce uh two people who are joining us at the front. Um first from Howard
Stein Hudson uh Hara Lampos Strathopoulos and the town engineer and assistant director for DPW Evan. Um oh my god Evan is at the front and he will be able to introduce everybody and give the presentation.
>> Thanks Tom. Um good evening uh act and select board. Um tonight we're going to go over the uh Stow Street uh preliminary design for complete streets. Um it's a section of Stow Street Stow Street from around Martin Street
intersection to the Stow Street um to the Stow Town line rather. And uh it it's going to include uh pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, uh some traffic calming things, and we have Bob Stthopoulos with Howard Side Hunson to
walk us through the final report. >> Thank you, Evan, and thank you uh members of the selected board for the opportunity to present this study to you tonight. Um Evan pretty much summarized what we've done for this but I will quickly give the the intro for the study
team or what was the purpose of the study uh the status which technically is basically we're trying to close it out with this uh uh presentation tonight uh quickly discuss the alternatives we looked into and open up the floor to any
questions. Next slide please. Um so from my [snorts] from my side the Howard Stein Hudson team it was myself as a project manager and we had uh a few engineers involving the roadway design uh the traffic analysis and any traffic
elements to be considered environmental engineer that uh was looking into any the permitting that would be required uh because we are in a heavily wooded area in one part with a lot of wetlands throughout the area and a structural engineer mainly to the three coverts we
have along street. Uh but in case also that shed juice path we're looking into required any retaining walls for anything. Uh so purpose u was already alluded to. We're looking into those pedestrian and bicycle recommendations as you may know street in the in the
stretch so that we was included in the study has no uh such recommendations and also look into any safety improvements along the corridor. the status as I mentioned we're trying to close out the study tonight with uh this presentation but as we can see in that little
calendar it was an eight-month process going through the data collection uh doing the analysis and pulling together the report to come uh and the the two public meetings that we did to come here tonight. Uh next slide please. Uh just quickly showing some of the information
that we collected on our traffic uh data collection effort uh with the speeds here. We can see coming from Stow uh on the on the left side of the screen here. The speeds are uh basically close to the 40 mph speed limit site, excuse me,
speed speed limit sign. That's uh that's around that area when you're coming from Stow. [clears throat] Uh but on the other side of Martin Street, on Stow Street, people travel uh 24 miles per hour all or all the way up to 32 miles per hour. Uh on
Martin Street and north of Stow, again, that speed ranges between 29 to 32 mph. And then on Liberty Street, just around that curvature as you're heading towards Stow Street, uh those speeds again range between 26 mph to 32 mph. So the speeds
are quite a bit of a range uh but it's still kind of high for the character of this area. Next slide please. I'm not going to spend too much time on the volumes. They are in the report that was provided to you. Uh I hope you've had some time to review that. Uh the main thing I wanted to show here is first how
that traffic is really pretty directional. you're heading towards uh the South Actton station or uh the areas up in that direction if you come from Stow and vice versa uh in the afternoon. Uh but uh on the next slide please uh
showing the pedestrian bicycle uh volumes there the st contrast but doesn't really tell the story because of the high vehicular volumes and accommodations. You really don't see that many people walking the street or biking it. But when we hosted the the
first public meeting, uh we had somebody that basically did their own little study and showed us a lot of pictures of joggers from the schools being on this on this road. Uh bicycles using this road and I know they use them and to connect into other areas or other bicycle routes in in the town of Actton
as well. Uh so this specific time uh of the day and this single day in the year picture doesn't really talk about the whole picture here of how many people really using uh the road or even going up to the Jonesfield playground as well.
Um next slide please. Uh moving over to the safety end on the crashes. uh the the public safety uh officer provided us with the the crash reports. And really what we saw the major or the most common uh crash type was a single vehicle
running out of control and either uh off to the side of the street uh stopping off to the side of the street or crashing into a fixed object whether utility pole, mailbox, um one of the stone walls. And the causes being inattention, distraction,
uh distracted driving, uh possibly even an animal being on the road and veing away from it and crashing into something. Um but that was like the main cause that that we saw out there for crashes. Sorry, the the main crash type that we saw out there for crashes. Uh if
you move to the next slide, please. Uh the only vehicle-to- vehicle crash that we saw was on Martin Street coming from the south and trying to enter that intersection. Um from what we read on the report, they were trying to enter but somebody else cut them off and got rear ended. Uh but again here all the
other crashes were um those single vehicles drivers losing control of their vehicles and and running off the road. Um uh next slide please. um kind of setting up the stage for to show you how those attorneys that we
looked into uh will look into this area in a high level view. We use some software that uh creates this cross-section to show you how the area looks. This is a specific uh part of street where you have the houses on either side uh of the street. Uh we're
not showing the the one that you have the trees on either side uh but you'll see it in the other slides. Next slide, please. Um when we hosted the first public meeting uh some of specific safety issues popped up. We talked already about some speeding. So speeding along
Stow Street was uh the the first one that we heard side distance at the intersections. We heard that mainly at Robin Street, but it comes into play over at Martin and uh um and Liberty and Stow is that's like almost a fivelegged intersection. how Liberty comes in. Uh
it ends up being quite of a large uh intersection as well. And I believe on the north side of Martin Street, uh the property is a bit up of a grade, a little hill there. So they can cut off a little bit the side distance. Um some we've heard also that some of the
crashes that happened out there may have not been in the crash reports as it was uh understood by the people that attended the meeting that there were more crashes than what we uh showed uh in those two slides, the previous slides. We only had 13 slides from the reports in the 5-year period from 2020
to 2025. Um, referred to the pedestrian, the cyclists that do use the road have to take up a lane. Uh, the pictures we also received from one of the residents that did show that they were taking up a whole travel lane and vehicles had to go around them because there's no shoulder
out there nor any sidewalk as we said before. And finally, uh there's quite a bit of uh commercial heavy vehicle traffic on Stow Street. Uh one uh business called that was the gravel business on the north side of Jonesfield there going up and down Stow Street to
their quarry. I think it's on South Aton Road in and Stow. Next slide, please. Some enhancements that were discussed right off the bat before we gone into anything we could propose were the speed feedback signs and the speed bumps. Those two I mentioned because we're
those are some of the lowh hanging fruit quick uh imple implementation items that can happen. Uh teeing up Liberty Liberty Street basically uh realigning it to uh intered 90° that way you're pulling it away from the Martin Street intersection
um by a couple hundred feet just about and then the oneway street was something that was seen in one of the older reports that was available to us from the town. uh and we brought that up and somebody actually also said yeah if it's feasible why not let's look into it so
that was something we will looked into uh our study that I'm going to show in a little bit in the presentation next slide please um I wanted to bring this back into this presentation because uh when we're talking about traffic coming and bringing down the the speeds any of
these uh elements that are shown on this uh slide right here can happen under any of the alternatives that I'm going discuss that are specific to pedestrian and bicycle accommodations. So they're not limited to what uh alternative you are going to choose for the bicycles and
the pedestrians. They can happen uh exclusively by themselves. Um next slide please. So now moving into the alternatives that were considered. The first one was we named it aptly widening street. It was widening more to provide the shared use
path that's shown on the south side of this slide here. I know it's not very clear. Uh I don't know if we can zoom in but they might disrupt a little bit the flow on the presentation. Uh so that you can see the blue cloud saying proposed shared use path on the south side of the
uh of Stow Street here. Um which shows the south street as the south side mainly for for the this uh time of the preliminary design. uh it seemed to be less impactful mainly on if you see the location of the proposed boardwalk
points over there. Um if the boardwalk uh crosses over some of these streams or even like the small lakes that you have out there, we wanted it to be short enough because those boardwalks are pretty expensive. Some of the coast we've gotten are up to like $2,000 per
foot. So the short shorter boardwalk you have uh the better uh the more cost effic efficient it is. Um but yeah, this shows the that the shed path on the south side, the two uh lane roadway, one lane in each direction with a double
yellow center line and the intersections, the Robin Street intersection over here. And if we can uh pan down a little bit to show the Martin Street one. Uh that's the the Martin uh and Stow Street intersection. No Liberty Street coming in over here. That's
another raised intersection. Uh potential raised intersection. And you can see the Liberty Street coming in uh to Sto as its own intersection right there. They can be raised or it can uh it can be just flat. It doesn't have to be raised. Uh it will really depend on
the um uh survey information and how costly would it be to make it raised, you know. Uh so that's the the one option was considered. Um next slide, please. The other Oh, sorry. Before I go to the next one, uh some cross-sections over
here to for you to see kind of visualize how that shared use path would look like in the area where the trees are only the trees in the wetlands. Obviously, we have to consider tree impacts over here. Uh next slide please. When I'm going to the residential area,
uh that this is how that shed path would look while keep maintaining the the one traveling in each direction as well. One thing I wanted to point out on this one is um when an actual survey is available, uh we wanted to look into how
we can balance any kind of impacts on either side of the street over here and not I know this may seem like you're only taking land on one side of the street and those properties only. If there's a way to balance them out, that's definitely something we would want to look into. Uh those impacts at
the residences. Uh next slide, please. Now going into uh the second alternative uh aptly named one-way pair because we were looking into making Stowed one way in this specific example it's away uh from Martin Street and towards Robin
Street or towards the town of Stow um in order to be able to kind of create uh to to maintain the connectivity throughout this little circle area. Liberty Street could also become one way going towards Martin Street and Robin Street actually
could also become one way going towards the Liberty. That opened up the opportunity to create actually a sidewalk along uh Robin Street and Liberty Street without too many impacts on those properties down those streets. Uh and you you keep uh the connectivity
throughout this little circle. Uh now this specific alternative did not is not showing anything west of Robin Street because there's no way to keep any circulation of traffic over there. There's no other side streets to connect traffic around. So that specific segment
would be exactly the same as alternative one. Two two lanes, one lane in each direction with the schedu path on the south side of the street. Um and another thing to point out, we show um roundabout uh alternatives uh for either the Robin Street intersection or the
Martin Street intersection uh because of the safety improvements that they provide. Slow down traffic, allow you to enter the intersection without having to worry about speeding traffic coming through and much safer also for the pedestrians, the bicycles that can cross
through there. Uh just an option to consider. They don't have to be the full balloon uh more than round buss. They can also be smaller traffic circles because even those still uh would uh reduce the speeds at the intersection. Uh next slide please.
Uh again a cross-section over at the area where you can do the oneway and they will be over where the houses are as well that could potentially reduce the impacts at the residential area as well. Next slide please.
Uh the third attempt that we looked alternative we looked at and we eliminated earlier on was what we call just the boardwalk one. So this one really pulls you off completely off street. Uh but unfortunately you have to go through quite a few properties kind
of the back of their houses. Uh the orange um uh parts of that the that line there where the boardwalk path would be is the actual boardwalk because you have wetlands and you potentially have to go above it and not build through it because the environmental permitting for
that would be a nightmare. Uh the blue parts are just paved aselt where you could actually go through and keep it level and not have to worry about lands being impacted. But as I mentioned before, boardwalk is pretty expensive. And as the next slide would show. Um
this alternative, the third alternative looked into 2,000 ft uh 2,000 ft total of a of a boardwalk. Uh and mainly that would be the higher cost part of this alternative bringing it up to $4.9 million total when you consider also the
other impacts uh through the properties. uh uh but when we look into the other two alternatives, they're uh less uh with the second one being the least expensive one at $3 million. Relatively least expensive when you consider the second one being only half a million dollars more expensive. They have the
same amount of boardwalk there and the environmental permitting is still there. They used to have to do some of it because you're going to impact some trees um and build those boardwalks over the the um uh those wetlands uh or the the little lakes there and the streams
there are there but it's much less than the uh the boardwalk itself and uh the pro more properties being impacted though. Uh so this is kind of the quick snapshot of uh what we've determined for impacts uh for each one of these
alternatives that we studied. Next uh slide please. After we kind of did all this work, we came back to the public and presented uh our findings. At that point, you still wanted some more feedback to see what uh the public uh thought was on mainly the
two alternatives, the widening and the uh oneway alternative. Here you can see a snapshot of what the public liked uh for the alternatives. The liberty suit alignment uh which can happen under the either alternative uh it was definitely
a big thumbs up. Uh medians at the intersections were were not really shown the alternatives but it was one of the traffic calming elements we discussed. Uh they thought that was a good idea. Same thing with the curb extensions at the intersections. Uh what the public was concerned with was the roundabouts.
um heavy vehicle uh breaking noise when they come into a full stop, which if I may add, if we were able to uh provide traffic coming calming elements throughout the whole corridor, uh if those vehicles are slowing down or coming to a stop from a slower speed
anyways, that noise may not be as bad as uh the thought is. Um I mentioned earlier the stone walls and the trees that those will have to be looked into into detail when the design actually begins and we have available survey to
see what those impacts may be and uh we had heard uh that uh there was a double yellow center line before down state and that seemed to increase uh the speeding. We're hoping to kind of couple this with the double yellow center line with uh
maybe narrower travel narrower travel lanes which actually would help reduce those speeds as well because you're getting closer uh to the vehicles traveling on that road. Next slide please. Uh continuing on that input from the second public meeting more specifically
to the second alternative the oneway streets were thought to cause uh wrongway driving. They could cause the wrongway driving. Uh we heard about uh flooding on Liberty Street and Store Street in the past. So a one-way street may actually uh completely close off one
street uh if that were to happen. Uh so how do you get to those properties on uh either one of those streets? Um and we were asked to give consideration to the delivery trucks how they were able to make deliveries and how the local businesses uh like on Liberty Street on
Stow Street uh would be accommodated with this oneway options. Next slide please. Um then we had that online survey I mentioned earlier uh that was available to the whole town. Not only the people that attended the the meetings, the two public meetings, but the whole town uh
uh through the the link that we had that we gave over to Evan and made it uh available to the town website. Uh what we heard through that survey alternative one, this is really a summarized uh um voice over heard through those uh survey takers. It provided a more balanced a
less disruptive option. was alter alternative to uh provided made brought up concerns with traffic diversion, neighborhood disruption and round and they were concerned with the roundabout operations. Uh we asked them to also vote on a on a preferred alternative and
as you can see from this little pie chart there uh the uh first alternative the widening voted and the second alternative one way by 78%. Uh next slide please. So uh what uh we concluded from this study was that the
alternative one is the preferred alternative uh based on the public input and the neighborhood concerns. Um the next steps we uh basically suggest at this point is to do that field survey uh to get very detailed information of the
area and the rightway lines, the property lines in order to actually determine what the impact to be of that alternative one. come back to the public and discuss uh the refined impacts and gather some more public feedback and then if everything is all said and good
with those impacts continue that alternative one uh forward with the design and uh continue working with those impacted bers on the rightway takings that would be required under this alternative one at this point I would like to open it up to any questions sorry I know uh it was a lot
uh those eight months condensed down to one but I didn't want to take up too much of your time tonight. >> Thank you so much for for that information. Um the report was great. I really appreciated how much detail and all of the the graphics and the photos that were provided by residents. I have
a question about the cost. The cost analysis that showed that alternative 2 was slightly less. Does that also include adding sidewalks along Liberty and Robins? Uh yes. So those are
basically on both uh of the alternatives. If you could uh do anything obviously the property takings would have to be taken into consideration there. Uh but yeah mainly the number two definitely included uh the Liberty and the Stow Street. Uh sorry Liberty and Robins Street
sidewalks. >> So both alternative one and alternative two include a sidewalk along Liberty and Robins. >> Mainly the cost of the sidewalk not the property taken for alternative one. Yes. >> Okay. All right. Any
comments, questions from the board, Pam? So, yes, thank you for this information. Um, so that survey, the results, you know, you know, sent a strong message. Um, but I believe you said that that was
a townwide survey. Is there any sense of um you know looking at the um you know the neighborhood impact if the results would come out similarly like do you have any sense of what um you know how the
neighbors and the butters um weighed in? the neighbors in the bars that were present at the public meeting gave us their thoughts then and basically what I mentioned before on the on the uh one or two slides before uh their thoughts on the neighborhood being disrupted by the
one-way circulation there longer travel time to get where they needed to go uh and just the access to their to their homes from that oneway operation it just seemed very uh disruptive to them and also the wrong way uh driving
possibility they came up uh was definitely something that we heard during those public meetings from those residents that were there. Yeah. Thank you. Um I [clears throat] guess I've got a question and this is a
a great survey. Um really an excellent job you folks have done. Um and it's only been something that people have been asking for for about 40 years. So, I guess it's about time that we tackle this one. Um, [clears throat] but most of the work that you're
proposing in either scenario uh certainly is going to impact wetlands, flood plane, that sort of thing. And my question is whether you've had an opportunity to to preview this with the uh conservation commission. Um, I would
recommend that you meet with them. Um I was at a meeting with them uh some months ago when we talked about a short section of Stow Street [clears throat] um that was going to impact some wetlands and we got into some rough sailing. We got through it but I think
it would certainly be a politic thing to do to get an opportunity to get in front of the conservation commission and show them what the options are. I think they'll probably agree with what the majority of folks have agreed with, but I think it's certainly a good time to do
that. Thank you. >> And thank you for your comment and certainly I think just at the point that we were conservation commissioner would have gotten in more detail than we could provide because we didn't have a survey to really understand what those impacts would be, but there certainly will be impacts. You're right about that.
>> Um, yes, thank you for this. A number of uh residents of Sto Street have contacted me over the past couple of years and so you know there are definitely uh people concerned about this. Um I really only have um one question and then kind of a a short-term suggestion. Um is the reconstruction
here enough to uh that we would be reconstructing the culverts that go under the streets? Um one of the areas of uh Stow Street especially is subject to flooding and heavy rains. um you know, it can get six inches or more deep
uh uh there, which is reasonably deep to drive a a car through. And if we're It seems to me that if we're I don't know how much of the street we're reconstructing here. Um if we're uh reconstructing it um down, is this the right time to also do the covert work
that goes underneath Story? >> Thank you for that question. Um well, we were not considering any construction of the covers. Why? because uh of the expense of it but also um how much time will we actually take to actually design that because there's quite a bit of
analysis that needs to go through that what you mentioned exactly for the flooding the hydraulics how much water can actually handle but since we we have heard that flooding issue as well uh so that might be some a point for further discussion if this actually goes into
design is it really worth considering reconstructing this uh um this coverts or not. Uh that that's definitely a good question right there. Uh but all the options consider the boardwalks at those points of the coverts do not touch the coverts. Uh they're not in a condition from my understanding that they need the
construction. Uh but if uh the flooding is such a major issue and it happens consistently uh and the covers are worth looking into, this is the proper time to do it. Uh but yeah, as as I said, the borders were mainly looked into to avoid
touching the scores completely. >> Uh thank you uh for for that. Um yeah, it makes sense. So DPW would coordinate with other projects if if it made sense to do that. Um the other thing uh which is a suggestion just for Evan, one of the things noted at the public forum is
that as you're coming um eastbound from Stow, the first speed limit sign in Actton on Stow Street is about 210 of a mile into Actton. It might be good if we put another speed limit sign at the border. Um I don't I mean that would be
a minor traffic order by this board, right? It it you know it's not changing the speed limit or anything. it's just posting it um on the border. And I think that's important because in my, you know, just personal experience, um, the eastbound speeds are are, it didn't
seem to be reflected in the, um, so much in the statistics, but the the eastbound speeds are faster than the the westbound speeds, especi let let their car slow down. Um, you know, but it takes some time sometime to do that. Anyway, that's just a a
suggestion, a very simple suggestion. >> Yeah, that's certainly something we can add. Um, and that's from people exiting Stow entering um Actton, right? >> Yes. At the border now, we have the the sign that we have on many borders that says 25 miles an hour unless otherwise
posted. Um, but it's not it doesn't say what the speed limit there is. And then if you get 210 of a mile in, it says speed limit 30. But by that, you know, the speed limit is 45, I think, on in Stow, right? So people um take a while to get down from um 45, you know, the to
to 30. And you know, they don't even know that they're supposed to do that until a couple of ten of a mile in. And and in my I also live in South Aton, not on So Street, but in my personal experience, um uh again, the speeds are higher the closer you get to the Stower.
By the time you get um to to that Martin Street stop sign um and Liberty Street stop sign, you know, people are a little bit slower, but you know, as you get uh first entering Act and it's pretty fast. >> Yeah, I I think considering the speed in
Stow entering into Act and I think it makes a lot of sense to put a speed limit sign there at the border. >> Do you have anything? Go ahead. >> I think the traffic calming is really important. Um, and I know that Stow
Street and the neighborhood has been crying out for sidewalks for so long. So, if there's a way that we can um integrate that in a plan, that would be excellent. I'm always intrigued by those. Um I think that asphalt bike lane
pedestrian um photo, you know, the visual is so awesome. I think the boardwalks are too fancy, [laughter] even though they're they sound lovely, but I I I feel like just cal traffic
calming and and a pedestrian lane would be awesome. And I'm intrigued by the teeing up liberty. I love the New England, you know, intersections. They make it fun. [laughter] >> Thank you. Thank you very much for those comments. And yes, one thing I I forgot
to mention earlier that teeing up of liberty, I think because of how much we heard that intersection feels like a big intersection. We even consider it as it's happening in the future regardless of anything nothing else happening for the ped or whatn not or no no build future analysis really considered
liberty already te up just because it made sense I've driven through that in the section myself not only the field study I come to acton often enough I have kids that take over the discovery museum so I always take a chance to go by there there's a playground over there too for my kid so I've gone there and
that intersection is certainly something else and I know that stop signs on Stow Street were recently installed too. It was it used to be free flow STO street. So, and people don't uh uh pay attention to that stop sign many times is what we heard on the public meetings too. So,
>> yeah. >> Um before I open it up to public comment, I just have a couple of concerns that I want to share. Um, so I am not a Stow Street a butter, but I also live in in South Actton and have spent 20 years driving from South Actton
to Stow a few times a week um or Bolton and back again. So I I know the road well. I know the intersection well. Um I'm really happy that you're proposing to tee up Liberty um because even for me going through there so frequently, it is
definitely confusing. and you never know whether you should go or let the other person go. So, I think that's um that's a great change. Um my concern is the wetlands and how much wetlands there are
and how close they are to the roadway. Um and it's it's been documented, studied that when impervious surfaces are increased, you increase the magnitude of flooding, you increase the risk of flooding. So when um the
director of public works more than a year ago, I think suggested when we were discussing sidewalks on Stow Street to create a oneway that would enable the shared use pathway safety for pedestrians and cyclists without
widening the roadway and impacting the wetlands. I I got really excited. I understand that it's going to be inconvenient. It's going to be a change for people to and and you know people will be confused by it but they'll get used to it. There are oneway changes
that we've done in town before. Um I I'm looking at the conclusion and seeing that you are suggesting that alternative one is the preferred but it seems like it's based on the survey results and the public input that mostly you know to
answer Pam's question about the survey results. I don't remember if it was 58 or 68 or 78, but I'm sure it was mostly people from that area, not, you know, people up in North Actton weighing in on this. Um, so I I I'm really hesitant to
make a decision between alternative one and alternative two based on worry about change or um, you know, when when it says that it's al people see the alternative one is the least disruptive.
It seems to me looking at all of the data from the traffic um studies that you've done, the counts and the crashes, the speeds, the level of service declines for alternative one and alternative 2 or improvements. Um it
seems like it's the the least disruptive to existing traffic circulation and cars and it's actually more disruptive to the wetlands and to properties. it's going to be disruptive to um twice the number
of properties. And we hear a lot in town when when traffic engineers come in and propose little traffic circles, mini roundabouts, roundabouts, like no, you know, why do we need that? That's so complicated, so confusing. But the data
is clear that they are safer. Um they're safer for circulation, they're safer for vehicle circulation, for pedestrians and cyclists. So, I know that people don't typically like them, but you know, anybody who's spent any time in Europe,
you know, a month on vacation or living there, the roundabouts are everywhere and traffic flows and and they're they're much more safe. So, I just wanted to say that I'm I'm pretty concerned about going with alternative one because it's going to be more
impervious surface the impacts. I I I'm so grateful to Dean um for mentioning getting input from the conservation commission because if we bring them in to look at this for permitting after this board has decided on this you know
one option or another then I think the response is going to be why are you asking for our input when you've already made the decision now we're now our hands are tied and we have to permit this because the select board has made this decision So, I'm not sure, you
know, if we're making a decision tonight about which alternative. I'm definitely interested to to hear from residents that live in the area. Also, I'm pretty sure we probably have tra um transportation advisory committee folks here. Um and I'd love any response to
that concern from either one of you or both of you. >> Yeah, if I can go first. Um yeah, no, definitely myself, I wasn't looking for a decision. I just wanted to present the findings of of the study and honestly the the the really true question the
true answer is without having survey to really give you a good idea what those impacts may be even the one way may be impactful maybe not as much as uh the the first alternative you're correct about that but the thing is for the
oneway roadway the main idea would be emergency vehicles uh if I just give you an 11t lane and you have a breakdown of a car there. How is the emergency vehicle supposed to get around you or even get to you or even the other traffic behind you get around you to get to to let that emergency vehicle get to
you? So, we would have to be looking at a minimum uh I think many towns and other municipalities using 20 ft of roadway width in order to even for a single travel lane to have that um stopped vehicle be on the side of the street while people can get around you
and the emergency vehicle be able to reach you. So you're still going to have the 20T just for the roadway, just for the vehicles, and then you need at least 30 foot buffer plus a 10 foot shedus path. So you're still ending up with
like a 33T wide impervious area. Well, 30 if you take out the buffer, which would be grass. So not really knowing fully the picture there from without having a survey, it's tough to answer the question how impactful it can be.
either option can be. Um the other thing to consider too is within the mainly wetlands and uh the tree areas um west of Robins if you were to go down to 10ft travel lanes for the lower speed but
also less impervious area and maybe potentially a narrower schedule path you could go down to 8 ft. Uh maybe won't impact as much as you would think with a with a two-way roadway um and being maintained. Um regardless though under
the oneway option still west of Robbins you have to have the two-way uh roadway because there's no way to detour the traffic around if you went with one way. So that would be the most impactful area regardless. So whether you go with the oneway or not
that's the one area with the most wetland impacts. It might not be wetlands. It might be more of the trees because again without the surveying flagging out wetlands, they might not be as close to the roadway as you think. We may be impacting more trees than the wetlands basically. So it's kind of the
the broad view on that end. Uh and the one way sure it may seemed more impactful for from what the feedback was traffic analysis alone at the intersections did not show any degradation of the uh level of service. Actually, it should be like maybe a
couple of seconds or more, but that's not um really impactful. >> It sounds like a lot when it goes from A to C. >> Oh, no. Basically staying the same level of service. Saying the same level of service. >> Not a huge time. >> Yeah, it would be more the travel time for everybody going around there and
maybe even the the the uh the school buses going around to pick up everybody. Maybe you have to have the one specific spot to pick up everywhere so the school bus doesn't get as impacted uh with that. Then again, emergency vehicle response if they have to go all the way around to get back to where they are.
So, it's a terrible time for everybody, but mainly the emergency vehicles you have to consider and school buses too. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree with Bob. Without survey, it's difficult to quantify exactly what the impacts are, alternative one versus alternative two.
Um I do know we're you know in this next phase of design we'll be able to look at um some other options that aren't included in this study. We can you know have a um pvious uh shared use path something like that. Um we we can als I
mean the boardwalks are an attempt at reducing those types of impacts to the wetlands. Um there's more elements to that come in the next phase of the design that we can incorporate to kind of give you a better picture and better answer to that question. um and also look at ways to uh reduce the impact as
much as possible. >> Thank you. That's that's really helpful. And in in terms of the boardwalks, I agree it would be nice, but it would also be buggy to to walk through there to to the playground. um the im the pvious pathway I think um we would have
to think really carefully because I know that there's one along Main Street and there's a requirement for the you know I think it's twice a year sanding and and eventually they become impervious um because the the cost of that um and the
time that's required to maintain it as a pvious surface is pretty substantial. Um, I see a lot of folks that I know are from that neighborhood. So, if anybody is wanting to to step forward and and share some comments or ask questions,
you can come to the podium. Just share your name and your address and you have to push the button on the microphone. Thank you. Okay, this is confusing because I'm Laura Fay and I I'm from 83 Stow Street
and 84 Stow Street because the um the property that goes from and it's from Robins down to Jonesfield, there's only two property owners and one is a town and the other's me. Um so I am perfectly willing to give as much land as you want
and I know there was a concern about protecting this the trees and the rock walls. Um you can you you'll have enough land to grow to build a um 10- foot path um shared use path, but you could put it at 30 feet in if you needed to. Um so
just consider that you have free rain with this with this piece of property. Um thank you. You're on the record. [laughter] >> Yes. Okay. And I will say that um the idea of a a shared use path versus a sidewalk I think it's very important for the
neighborhood needs because we have a playground, we have the rail trail um right at the end we also have well we're getting new businesses too and I so many children want to go to the playground and they want to ride their bikes and they want to go down there and play in the volleyball courts and run around in
the field and a bicycle path with 10 feet is a much safer thing and they can ride back and forth. And one thing I know is that sidewalks um cannot use CPA funds, but a shared use path might be eligible for a partial
funding from the CPA. So, I just thought that might be interesting to consider and thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for that. Um and I I think that I'm clear that the even with that um pair of one way, it was a shared use
path along Stow and then the sidewalk is just on Liberty Street. >> That is correct. Yeah. >> Yeah. and I don't know about CPA funding. Go ahead. >> Just want to start by saying thank you. I really appreciate it's been a great discussion. I'm David Wolson. I live on
108 Stow Street. I know I've sent emails to probably most of you about the safety issues here. So, thank you for the responsiveness. It's exciting to see us get to this point. Um, you know, regarding number one or number two, I'm I'm good with either, right? Excited to see a shared use path being
contemplated. We've got two little kids and to Laura's point, right, we want to be able to walk to the playground, walk to the bike, get get on bikes and feel confident that we will be safe, right? We we do not do that today. Would not do that today. And so I think with that in
mind, my only comment to this committee is just to think about intermediate steps. Everything we're proposing here is lovely. It's great, but it's long term. I just know the reality is it takes a while to implement these things, to fund these things. Um, so in reality
for me with two little kids, I'm interested in what intermediate steps there might be, whether it's signage, pulling the, you know, the um, speed limit sign even closer to the STO line. Anything that's I know nothing is free, but just some of the smaller quick wins.
If there's anything we can do in terms of signs, police presence, I would encourage everyone to think about what those what those opportunities might be. Thank you. Hi. Um, I'm Ken Vickery. I'm from Two Apple Valley Drive, which is that tiny
little street that comes off of Liberty. Um, thanks everybody for this. Um, I just wanted to, um, first comment that most of my neighborhood had no idea any of this was in the works of planning until April when that survey came out.
And um so I don't know what process there was in terms of notifying residents particularly along Liberty and Apple Valley Drive, but I think that maybe some of the information you got in those early meetings was not entirely representative because most of my
neighborhood had no clue that those meetings were happening. Um, but we did catch wind of the survey and we texted it to all of our neighbors and friends. And so the the participation in that second survey was much more representative of our area. Um, and I
think what you're seeing in that is the the traffic diverting all of the Stow Street northbound traffic onto Robins and onto Liberty is going to double triple the amount of cars on those two streets cuz we're sort of almost side
streets to the SO street. And so the traffic impacts for all of those houses is going to be a lot bigger than with option one. And I think that's one of the reasons why you were seeing such a discrepancy in your survey results
versus maybe early participation when not all of the neighborhood really knew to participate. Not everybody can come to in-person meetings. And so moving forward, if we're doing more planning and surveying of the neighborhoods, I would really encourage you guys or you I
don't know who who does this to um to provide more online survey options for people who are two working parents, young kids at home, they can't come to a meeting with this. I'm here on the request of seven different families who
can't be here today. Um, and um, I I really think that it is important to take all of those other considerations into account because the folks on Liberty are really really opposed to that option, too. We moved there because
of that country feel, the rock walls, the Stonefield farmlands. I have a farm. Um, I'm concerned about the tee up of Liberty and how we're going to be able to negotiate livestock trailers into Martin Street. Um, for myself and
also the horse farm. I think teeing up is a good idea in many ways because that intersection is confusing. I get cut off a zillion times a day because I'm in and out of that intersection 20 times a day. But the the tightness of the turn is
going to be really difficult with livestock trailers. And that's because we have farms down that road on Liberty. That's a really important impact to consider. Um and um I had one more point and I'm completely
blanking. So I think I'll sign off. But anyway, >> you can come back after we take online comments, okay? and let your neighbors know that they can always zoom in and and speak. >> I actually didn't know that was an option, so I'll I'll let it. So, thanks.
>> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Could I quickly add something to that? Yes. Thank you for those comments. I appreciate that. Um, I just wanted to say the traffic disruption is definitely a summary of one of those things we did here that with a oneway basically rerouting the [clears throat] one
direction traffic down to Liberty uh can be opposed by the people living down the street. So, we definitely got that through the survey and when it comes to the design for the the trailers and intersection, well, thank you. Yeah, that's certainly going to be a point when it actually gets into the design to
look into with farther coordination from Aaris and everybody driving through there. Uh but obviously yeah it wasn't looked into in depth at this point but thank you very much for that comment. >> I'm Ann Chang. I live on 8 billing street and I'm one of the people who've been complaining for 40 more 40 40 more
or more years and since I've been to two different de do hearings within the last two weeks and I know that nothing's going to happen for this one for another maybe three years. Why can't we put a
line down the center of Stow Street to divide the traffic and put um fog lines on the side and again that's would be you know very a very simple thing to do
coming out tonight from Robin Street I have to pull out to see which which way uh which the what the traffic is coming down Stow street um because the things need to be cut again
at the intersection of um the fiveway stop sign where the bicycles never stop. Um the weeds are really high and there's a cement uh a granite block which makes it so those coming down Stow Street cannot
see the traffic coming down Liberty Street. They can be hidden behind the block. So that's something that can be changed easily without doing the other thing. I think you're wrong about the boardwalk because I think from the the uh first
culvert has been changed within the last I'd say 10 years. The culvert on Liberty Street has not been changed for ever. So, I think that that needs to be looked at. When you're talking about teeing up
Liberty Street, I know you're talking about at the intersection of Martin and Stow. Have you looked at the the uh teeing of Liberty Street or fixing the Liberty Street intersection off of Robin Street?
I mean, it's it's like very extremely wide. It was put I think you need a boardwalk from the culvert all the way to the end of uh the first house on the left hand side which is Martin Gratz's house and
then I don't know what you can do for a sidewalk. But if you do it on the other side you need it from the [clears throat] culvert all the way down to the intersection because it floods in the winter. The water comes up to the street, the ice comes up to the street.
Well, we haven't had a lot of ice, but it does come up to the street and sometimes it goes over the street. So, I think that Mr. Charter's idea of speaking to the Con conservation commission prior to your
doing any more construction ideas is very good because you're going to put them in a position that they uh is not tenable for them. because um as as they say, if the selectment say it's okay, well, what is the
conservation commission going to do even though it's not okay for the environment? And I'm opposed to a one-way street. And I don't know why if you were doing a one-way street, you would do it this way instead of doing it towards the >> Okay. Have you done a count of the cars
that come out of Martin Street and go up Stow Street as opposed to the number of cars that come from Stow Street that go all the way through to the train? >> Well, I haven't seen them, but that's okay. And then [clears throat] the last thing I will say, did you realize that
the area between in Stow Street between I guess maybe it's Tuttle down to the Actton line has is a raceourse. I mean you you know [laughter] it when it gets a little dusky at night, you can
hear the cars racing all the way down. >> Thank you very much for your input. You got some temporary measures to think about. >> Good evening. My name is Ramachandran Balakrishna. I'm the outgoing chair of the transportation advisory committee.
Um, it's great to see this discussion about >> I'm probably too tall for this. Okay. Um, it's great to see all this discussion going on. Uh, Sto Street complaints have been coming in for way longer than I've been in this town and I've been here for only about 12 years.
Um but having said that we have fielded a lot of complaints from residents who have attended our meetings and we had at some point suggested some temporary measures or at least look into some temporary measures and I think uh Evan can speak more about this. Um I just
wanted to find out what the results of those temporary um interventions were. What was the feedback? Did it do anything? uh what kind of uh response did we see from the from the traffic conditions and from residents around there just to see uh
how it was perceived. >> Um I'm sorry you're talking about temporary traffic calming measures. >> Right. >> Um uh as far as the resident feedback for the for these options, I I haven't provided any options to any of the
residents. We're what we're talking about is um um long-term more long-term options um in this study for traffic calming measures. Things like, you know, temporary speed bumps, um signage, stuff
like that. That's that's [snorts] not something I would typically seek resident feedback for from from them for um you know that it's more of a um we we have a process in place for that where um
>> you know we have the uh trafficcoming um uh trafficcoming procedures now where they have to submit something we I review it and then we have a committee that votes on it. Um, it's >> I understand that, but I think there was a discussion at one point about temporarily trying something like uh a
small section of it close to Jones Street being made one way with some concrete barriers and so on. So, I thought some of this was actually piloted on the ground. So, that's what I was asking about, not uh >> I I'm not I'm not familiar with what section you're talking about. We were
talking about temporarily making a section of roadway oneway. >> Yes. Closer to Jonesfield. It was at least discussed. Emmed and Roma, can you take this offline and maybe >> I thought it had already been done and it would be a quick answer, but that's all. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you.
>> Um I know that there were a couple of hands raised online. >> Yes, madam chair. We have two hands that are raised. Uh first one is calling user one. >> Hi, this is Sheriff moving west. Like I don't have a stake in this game, but I would like to speak. Can you hear me?
Yes. >> Yes. So, I just want to remind folks about the eminent domain process. And if the property owner that owns land that the town needs to implement a plan doesn't want it, they don't have to sign
the consent form. Uh even if they're pressured, they can just say no and the town would have to go to town meeting to get twothirds vote. Uh which is very hard to achieve if the residents don't like it. I'm glad that you like what's going on, but please watch carefully and don't sign the thing until you love it.
Uh the second thing is um uh please encourage the town to send paper notices like within 600 ft of a proposed major intersection change so that the owners get a paper thing in the mail as opposed to relying on social media and email
lists and all this kind of stuff. A paper notice. I don't think it's too hard to do that. Um, I want to say about lines. I don't like the idea of lines. Europe is taking away lines. They say that it indicates it's a raceourse and it's people are allowed to speed. So,
the more lines, the more speeding. Also, uh, insurance companies know this and if you get a line down your uh, your street, your property insurance goes up. Um, I love the evolutionary approach with calming measures before fullscale one-way option, etc. Um but again I feel
like there could be more transparency rather than private meetings uh approving uh coming measures. I feel like there needs to be more transparency and in general I am in favor of roundabouts and four-way stops. Thank you so much. >> We have two more people with their hands
raised. Next one is Rebecca. >> Hi. Uh, my name is Rebecca Kane. I'm from 25 Overlook Drive. Um, and I first of all just wanted to echo again if there's anything that we can do to kind
of help traffic calming measures in the meantime as we're going through the process of getting the shared youth path um, plan set in place. That would be fabulous. Um, but I also just wanted to
share a little personal story. Um, I was actually involved in an accident on Stow Street that was not captured in the police reports. Um, and I was walking with a child that I
was babysitting who lives on Robin Street. We were walking. Um, the child was in a stroller and I had their dog um to the playground. A car uh came speeding uh down Stow Street um and came
within an inch of hitting me and the child and unfortunately did hit the dog um who passed away. So, I just wanted to share that because I think there is a
very real very real impact of why we need a shared use path on that road, especially with the amount of families with children that live on Stow Street and roads off
of Stow Street and then having the playground right down there. Um, I know there would be a lot more people that would feel comfortable walking to the playground with a shared use path. Um,
so I just wanted to share that >> the next call-in user is MK. >> Hello. >> Hello. >> Yes. Um, this is Michelle Kilpatrick. I live on Prescott Road. That's the Robin Street neighborhood. Um, it really
hasn't been brought up. No one has said this, but there are over 90 or almost 90 houses in our neighborhood. Robin Street, Billing Street, Prescott, and Overlook. Because you can't see us from Stow Street, people kind of forget that
we're here. But it's filled with families, lots of children, lots of walkers, lots of dogs, lots lots of uh runners, and lots of bicycles. Um it's been we've lived here for over 30 years
and and I personally have been asking for sidewalks for all of that time. Um I wanted to thank Laura Fay. She has done a tremendous amount of work um and and amazing studies of of the area. Um she
has a binder that she's brought to every meeting that we could find. And we in 25 years ago we were probably third on the list. Then we were fifth on the list, 10th on the list. And then our n our street was completely ignored for
probably 15 years. Um so to weigh on in on some of the topics that um were brought up, uh the engineer is absolutely right that fiveway stop, it's not a four-way stop and it's not cute. It it's dangerous and when it was a
throughway, I think it was better. Um now that it's a fiveway stop, it it really is kind of crazy. It's not a cute New England anything. It's terrible. Um, I like the share shared stop, but if we could at least get a sidewalk,
um, a shared path, um, but if we could at least get a sidewalk, something to make it less dangerous, and thank you to Rebecca for sharing her story. Um, we have four children and there are so many kids in our neighborhood. Um and and if
you walk on Stow Street, which we all have to get to the playground and now the rail trail, you literally or or the train station. No one's mentioned that walking to this train station. Lots of our neighbors do that. Um you literally take your life into your hands walking
on Stow Street. Um, I've talked to many, many neighbors in the Robin Street area and most want the two-way traffic um because of the wrongway driver problem. And that's been a real issue in Massachusetts just in the last few
months. And we know someone that um got killed in one of those wrongway accidents on Route 93 personally. Um so two-way traffic is much what it's much better. Um there are always people that make mistakes with one-way um streets
and it it's a problem. Most of the people I've talked to in the Robin Street area have said absolutely no roundabout. They're not cute. They're not safe. And for this particular area, Stow Street is a main road connecting
two towns, but even more than two towns. Lots of people use that to cut through to Actton or to get to Stow. And a roundabout will only slow down our neighborhood, but it will also create a lot of unnecessary traffic. And the
roundabout in conquered at the at the prison definitely is not I would never call that safer safer. Um there's also an issue maybe the the engineer could address and it's the existence of the telephone poles that are along Stow
Street. those um are very dangerous and you really have that I mean it slows down traffic I guess but you have to really be careful especially when there are snow banks because the road gets so narrow um that those existing telephone poles along Stow Street should be
addressed also for traffic calming I would personally request no islands in the middle of the road I I don't think any are proposed but the huge island that they just created on Main street kind of sort of near stop and shop.
Well, just past it. It's It's just an albatross in the road. You kind of have to almost swerve to miss it. And it it's dangerous when there are snowstorms and plow trucks out. I don't think islands in the middle of the road
are are good or safe. Um, also, I've done a lot of research on pvious pavement. They used it on a little subdivision in our neighborhood on a sidewalk or a mixed you mixeduse path. It does not take a lot more to
maintain. If it's on a roadway, then you have to sweep it because of But they don't even really use sand anymore. They use salt in in the in the winters. So, it doesn't really cost a lot more. Um, also some of those culverts that people
are talking about under Stow Street, some of them are from the colonial times and there was a neighbor on the corner of Robins and Stow Street. She has since moved but she had walked me through Stow Street so at one point and she knew
where they all were. I I don't remember all of them, but there are several culverts going under the street that are from colonial times. So, you may want to take a look at those also. Um, and also I heard one of the selectmen mention it
could be buggy. It won't be a buggy problem. The bug problem here walking on Stow Street are ticks. The grass gets to be knee or waist or hip high. And when we used to
have our dog and walk on Stow Street, he would always come back with ticks because the ticks are always in the tall grass on the side of Stow Street. So the ticks are what we're concerned about, not flying bugs. It won't be buggy on a
mixed path. and having the tall hip high grass um gone and having a clear path would be really really helpful and so much safer. Um all of our family members in our house have had some type of type
of tick disease and getting rid of that tall grass would be helpful even right now. It needs to be um mowed or gotten rid of right now. So, um, that's just some input and I I thank everybody that's been involved with this. It's been a long time coming and it's a huge
safety issue and we all really appreciate the fact that this could be a possibility for our area. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll take one more comment in the room. >> Thank you. Um, my name is Samantha Knock and I live at 81 Stow Street. Um, keep
it really brief. Um we're excited about the possibility of um any sort of traffic calming of um a shared pedestrian way. Um I bring the perspective of a mom to young kids, which we've talked about. I have a three
and a six-year-old who love the playground, love the rail trail. We also go to Blossom Station um childc care center, which is linked from um the beginning of the rail trail. Um, so it's a convenient way for us to actually
access our child care um is to to walk. Um, I also um have been a commuter for the last 13 years um from my house to get to the Boston hospital where I work. And when we first moved there, we didn't have another car. We also couldn't
honestly afford to pay to park. Um, nor at that point could you really find a parking spot. Um, so walking for me has been a necessity. I've had to walk to um the train station and something that
isn't represented in any reports is how many times I've been harassed. Um, I have in the last month been harassed by someone who I was I was taking I mean somebody said taking your your your life in your hands kind of putting yourself
at risk. I was I I dropped my daughter at school and was walking back with um a double stroller and I had a truck that was driving towards me and I thought they were driving a little fast. I gave just a little calming hand signal and I
had them and I had them roll down their window and stop and tell me basically what a bad mother I was. Um and I didn't even have a child with me at that point in time. I've had trucks drive past me, turn around, and come back to yell at
me. I've had people play chicken with me in the road like they're going to hit me. I've had one incident where I was walking on a snowy evening coming back from the hospital. Um, and someone demand that I get in their car because I
was being so unsafe. Um, just lots of lots of incidents. Um, again, this would be life-changing for us to have um to have this um and to support some sort of um immediate action really just trimming the street so you
can walk off. It's full of poison ivy and the bamboo that is coming up, especially near the intersection um of Stow Street and Martin. You cannot get off the road and it's right where people are whipping around at that um that five street intersection. and I hurry through
there um as fast as I possibly can because it is nobody can see anybody really at that. So, if we could just trim that down, get that invasive plant out of there, um that could be an immediate um immediate step. So, thank you. [snorts]
All right. I think [laughter] it's very clear that everybody is in support of making this um area safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Um and I look forward to to hearing more
from you after you connect after you do the survey and connect with conservation commission. I think it's it's absolutely critical to um engage with uh the consideration of culvert work at the
same time um just because of the the water issues in the wetlands and and it would be great if we could get some temporary measures, flashing speed limit, feedback sign, trimming vegetation. And I just want to thank everybody for sharing um your very
passionate um comments and your stories with us tonight. And thank you, Evan and Bob. Appreciate you coming in tonight. >> Thank you. >> Oh, and I just want to make it clear that I was talking about going on a boardwalk through the middle of the
wetlands behind people's houses, the shared use path that's paved, is not going to be buggy. But if you went right through the the wetlands between Stow and Liberty, that might be a little buggy. But I'm so sorry about the ticks there and the poison ivy.
All right. Next up on our agenda is a presentation by our transportation advisory committee. Uh madame chair before we get into it um Rama I did receive your presentation. So as you go through and I apologize we weren't able to connect before the meeting but as you go through if you say
next slide I can advance the slide. Apologies for sending the presentation that late, but that's how it's always been these days. Um, I think I'll start out by thanking the select board and our new uh leison uh Pam for uh facilitating this on extremely short notice. So,
we've kind of assembled this in the last week or so. Um, once again, my name is Rama Balakrishna. I'm the outgoing chair of the transportation advisory committee. Been in this role for more than two years. Um our new chair is right here, Chris. Um >> yeah, I'm uh Chris Brandon. I'm the the
incoming chair of the TAC. And um if I could just say a little bit. >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Before you before you start, um I mean, I've been on the TAC for a couple of years now. Um, Brahma is a few more years than me and
I had never um sort of seen anything official that said what what's expected of us. Um, you know, sort of through talking with the other people, I got some idea of what we were working on. Um, but as an incoming chair, I was really I was thinking I'd really like to
know I'd like some reinforcement of what the select board would like us to be working on, looking at, focusing on. Um very recently I learned that there was a document created in um 2020 and I think
Rama hadn't seen it either um until just the last month we've we've seen it and so that's certainly helpful but I I think it's still you know having been six years since then and um the select board has rolled over and the TAC has rolled over I think it would just be
worth going back and revisiting um you know what the expectations are of our committee um so that we can do the best that we can do and with that Rama was very generous in agreeing to actually put it together the presentation
together. So all right so uh this is a two slide presentation so we're not going to take up too much of your time if you can go to the first one. Um thank you. So um as uh Chris mentioned there is a charge from the select board
to the transportation advisory committee the last one dated uh 2020 um I got onto the committee after little after that and I was not aware of this so it just cropped up in the last couple of weeks. It's a two-page document I believe is accessible on the website now right?
>> Yeah. uh um so um obviously it should be reviewed but what I've done here is to summarize uh what we see as the key roles of transportation advisory committee as described in that document. So uh from
the charge uh from 2020 we see uh TAC is supposed to be uh a channel of communication both directions from the town to the residents and also to listen to the the residents uh concerns and so on. um tech makes recommendations to the select board to the town meeting um to
the town manager and other committees on anything transportation related. Uh typically this has happened by request. We have not necessarily gone after these uh recommendations on our own but when engineering department or someone else comes and asks us to weigh in on something we have discussions and we
weigh in on them. Uh we engage with uh consultants when they come and present their studies and so on. um TAC engages with all the regional um and local groups like LRTA, MAGIC, MAPC and host whole host of other ones. Um the second page of the document actually has a more
detailed scope uh in terms of what exactly comes under the purview of something that TAC might discuss and public transportation is as a big part of that. Uh local roadway problems anything related uh to uh to safety to access to design things of that kind. Traffic calming um bike and pedestrian
access and safety sidewalk construction repair maintaining a priority list. Uh specifically evaluating sidewalk locations based on established criteria. So just to give some background, there is an Excel spreadsheet that TAC maintains which lists all the locations
where sidewalks have been requested. Um there have been criteria to evaluate these and rank them and so on. We've heard about a lot of people from Stow Street for example talk about it. It is true we there is a log in that sheet about who has asked for these sidewalks when and so on. Um Sto Street does go
back decades but there are other locations also that have gone back uh fair amount of time. So we've taken this very seriously over the last several years. We we've decided to revamp the sheet, make it more modern, make it more datadriven things where we can collect the data easily. Um and in the last few
months, we've had members actually do a lot of leg work in trying to figure out all these data points and put them in and rank them and so on. So we just want to make sure that and the engineering department uses it actively. they use it as a way of figuring out where's the next location where they should be
focusing their efforts on and they have this constant pipeline of locations to work on. Um so that's always been our understanding but it would be good for the select board to review this charge make sure that it's still valid um just so that we get some confirmation that what we're doing is not wasted or
duplicated or anything of that kind. Um so so that's uh that's the basic um premise from from the charge. If we can go on to the next slide. So we have some uh some requests uh from the select board today. One of course is to review this document. It's about 6 years old
now um and um see if it needs to be edited in some form. But just I think it's like Chris said it's been a while. So it's good to take a look at it, review it and make sure that we're all reinforcing what we are supposed to be doing. Um it's good to also get some actionable directions from the
committee. Um I have been on TAC for um about four years now and this is probably the first time I'm sitting in front of the select board talking to you all. So I think that hopefully should change. I think we should have some uh regularity to meeting with uh our committee and potentially other
committees as well. You're not asking for anything too much. Maybe twice or thrice a year. Just come in front of you, bring the the big issues here, and if we have any um uh anything that needs to be clarified in terms of priorities, we can we can thrash that out. Um
transportation goals, we always push for it in the in the in the goal setting agenda, but I think it's uh it's a high time we actually increase the priority on that because we have no progress on anything um uh transportation related in this town as far as we could tell. uh partly because the goals are u they're
well intentioned but I know that there are budget constraints and so on but there is no way for us to measure our progress against any any tangible goals that can be measured and um and progressed in in some uh meaningful fashion. So that's what we wanted to
bring here uh a little more communication a little more um priority on these issues. Clearly people are interested in all of this. Um if you attend uh transportation uh the the committee meetings you will you will see the level of engagement we've had especially in the last two or three
years. So residents are keen to move things forward. I know there are practical constraints but I think we need to somehow make it progress. So uh that's that's our pitch. We just wanted to bring this in front of the select
board uh for your consideration. >> Right. Obviously, we don't need any immediate correct >> feedback today, but I'm just putting it out there that if you could uh you know, re review the 2020 charge edit if you
feel it's necessary and um we can work with you through Pam to um start going the right direction. Keep going the right direction. [laughter] >> Thank you both. Um before we say anything, Pam, do you want to add
anything to this discussion? >> So, excuse me. I've had a few well actually I've had the opportunity to attend one TAC meeting at this point um and have had um several conversations with um with Rama and with Chris. And I
think that where this um I mean just to be very clear kind of where this issue first came up is that it's my understanding that the TAC members have been putting a lot of energy into sidewalk
um prioritization that that there's been a lot of work as you said you know working on lots of data points a lot of work that's been put into that and I think there was a question of you how does that mesh with the complete streets projects and looking for a little bit of
guidance on that and in the course of that I I know I I had asked for a copy of the charge and that's when you know we uncovered the 2020 um charge the committee and in looking at it and recognizing you know as Chris was saying
there's a lot of other transportation items on that that the committee is saying yeah now we you know we're ready to really dig into some of the other pieces that are on this as well. >> So, just to clarify on that, uh, public transportation has always been a big
focus of TAC as well. So, we've we keep looking at, uh, uh, Chris is one of our van drivers as well. So, we have inside information. Uh, but we also have Laura chime in, give us uh, ridership data on the different transportation options and so on. So, we keep tracking that and try to see. I know it's a practical issue uh
finding drivers and keeping these services on but there have been other efforts recently to try to revamp them add some new service and tweak them and so on. So that's also always been that and sidewalks I think have been the two big topics that we have uh and and I think somewhat recently going back to
Pam's comments um uh there was some communication with the town in terms of uh why are we doing sidewalk ranking if there is complete streets and that's that's what triggered a big discussion for us because for us it's very clear complete streets and sidewalks are not
the same thing. Complete streets as you've seen store street is a major problem. It's a it's a big facility. It's high volume and so on. But complete streets will not come will not cover every single location in in the town that can potentially benefit from sidewalks. So they need to talk to each
other but they are a little separate as well. So it's not one or the other. It has to be a combined collaborative effort. >> All right. Thank you so much for for coming in for sharing these um this information and also your your questions
and and requests. Um, I just want to start off by sharing that when I very first became a committee member, it was at my swearing in at the clerk's office where the clerk told me, "Make sure you
get a copy of the charge from your committee chair." Um, so that was, you know, my introduction was through the town clerk and and who knows what the experience of of other committee and board volunteers are. Um later on on our
consent agenda, we have approval of a volunteer board and committee member survey that you know that kind of information is is what we're trying to collect. Like how many people out there are having an experience similar to yours where you didn't actually um you
weren't actually made aware of the charge when you joined the committee? So definitely fill that out when you when you see it coming to your inbox. Um I have I have a couple of other comments I wanted to make in questions and then I'll open it up to other board members.
Um through the liaison we have which was Jim um before Pam joined us. We've heard actually a lot of of input because Jim has reported to the board oh yes TAC
discussed this project and here's the feedback. The the one that I remember most clearly is the feedback that was provided by TAC when you discussed the state's proposed roundabout at the route 2 exit. So I know that that
communication is happening and you may not if you're not listening to those particular board meetings where where um the liaison is sharing but but that is a an avenue of communication. Um, also I've seen TAC members at some of these
public workshops or or um at the tableabling events that our engineering consultants do. So I'm ve I'm very aware that communication is happening and you're providing input into a lot of different projects in town. Um, I was going to ask if if it would be helpful
to have Laura come in and present um all of the the advances that she's made on since taking over transportation, but it sounds like she already has been >> she regularly attends our meetings or at least provides us monthly spreadsheet updates. >> Okay. So, I don't need to ask that, but
I do want to ask is a member of TAC a member of the traffic calming working group, whatever the name is. So, so now okay we reviewed TAC ironically TAC reviewed the draft trafficcoming policy
and provided guidance on that. Um and once it was adopted um there was a there was a summary of that process to a at a tax meeting and we had actually asked that somebody from TAC should be in involved in that process. um just so
that we're aware of uh the locations that people are requesting uh this or if the if the department engineering department is going to proceed with something I mean typically they do uh engineering department just come does come to us and present uh on a fairly
regular basis but it should be a formal u membership there should be somebody from TAC um in involved in the in that process >> okay now I'm yeah you're jogging my memory that we did have that conversation with with Jim when we were creating the traffic calming policy. Um,
and I think that the working group is al all internal staff. >> Yeah. So, Evan saying yeah. Um, so thank you. I'm glad you're getting um updated on on those requests that are coming in. Any other comments from other
board members? David, >> hi. Thank you and thank you for uh coming here today to, you know, to to to raise these issues. Um uh just as a you know bit of general background usually
maybe I don't know if it's quite usual but very often um committee members will make requests to change their charge. So um if there are things that you think should be different I would work with Pam on those and then Pam would bring
forward a proposed change to your charge to the to the board. Um so if there's something um you know that you you feel particularly uh either concerned about or want to advocate for or whatever um
to to to bring those things forward and I would say at any time where you know I'm not speaking for this chair or any but most committees if they would like to have you know bring up something to the select board almost all chairs would
say work with you to schedule a time to do that. So, I mean, if there's an issue that you think is important to bring bring forward, um, you know, no matter who's in office, probably that that's possible. Um, uh, one of the things that
I I would I think about in and and I think you guys touched on it is, um, you know, I'm not sure how it exactly would work, um, and how it relates to the trafficcoming policy, but I think there's some role here to work with, um,
people from neighborhoods to work out what should be done in that neighborhood, right? um you know uh you know helping um the neighbors understand the possibilities and you know what the
realities are in the um you know for long and short-term term action and and then you know make make a re recommendation as to what's what's appropriate um you know for for those things. uh um you know whether that mean
you know exactly what the the details of that are you know and exactly the relationships that are established to do that I'm not sure but it seems to me that you know you heard some of that tonight although I'd say that this neighborhood is pretty the Stow neighborhood is pretty well informed
because they've been working on this for a while but I think a lot of neighborhoods are not so well informed as to what's possible and and what they should do could do etc And I and I think there's um there are possibilities there. Um may
maybe short-term work, you know, short-term work kind of can preempt long-term work. And so it's that's a really tough call in some cases, but maybe, you know, uh you know, things like changing traffic orders come up to the select board,
right? So um uh u but even those usually require um you know DPW work to do right you know even if you know uh even something as simple as putting in a stop sign you would think it is trivial but it's not trivial right >> right so that those things um and I just
wanted to be clear that you know you you guys both uh uh or you maybe more alluded to the um uh the the funding as being the pro uh the issue both for ongoing transportation like public
public transportation and for capital-based transportation like a new sidewalk or an intersection improvement and things like that. We rely on rely on grants heavily to do that and it's really difficult to predict progress because it's hard to predict money right
the money is passed next year by town meeting or we um get a grant to do something and so I just wanted to be clear that what we kind of do what DPW does is to have a small queue or cache
of shovel ready projects that they can be um ready when a grant opportunity comes up and those are taken in the order that the grants are available, right? They're not always taken in terms of what might be the most important that
there's a particular grant works for a particular project. Um and yeah, let's do it right and even if it's the third or eighth or 13th um project that we would do if we had, you know, just doing them in money order. So I
just wanted to say that we don't always we're not always ignoring you know any prioritization and stuff. It's it's really really money dependent. >> Absolutely. [clears throat] We agree. So so I just want to respond to that briefly. So we are clearly aware of that
and one of the uh the roles that the sidewalk ranking list serves is exactly that that the the department DPW has a list of locations that they can hit one after the other and at least it's based on some objective criteria and saying okay we can't do this one we can do this one but it's second on the list so at
least it's high priority enough that we can hit it. So we feel that the sidewalk ranking is um a useful exercise for everyone concerned. Um, another aspect about the grants, I know this has been uh we've been a little frustrated about it for several years in in the sense
that we we are we think we should be going after more grants and uh I know there's a there needs to be staff that are willing to work on it and so on and in the past multiple times we have offered our time to help write some of them. So we'll make that offer again. Um
anytime you need help going after the grants, writing drafts and so on, we are all available to help. Um the third point I wanted to make was u we absolutely agree that short-term solutions should be looked at. Um uh but we've also had u examples where we have
proposed a lot of short-term solutions and they haven't moved either. Uh one example is High Street where we locate we identified four key issues that people with visual impairments were actually facing walking down High Street to access the train lines and so on. And um
ironically that that action gets tied to complete streets because it's right at the intersection of Main Street and there is a Main Street complete streets in the works. Um so everything gets shelved because of that. Um and that's a never ending it's like an indefinite postponement because we we never know
when the main street complete streets will ever see light of day. But something as simple as putting down uh tactile feedback across the wide driveway outside the Ericson Grain Company will help people who are trying to navigate that stretch with a cane to
not walk into the intersection space and become a risk of of getting hit by traffic. Um uh we I actually did a walk down from Faulner Street all the way down to Main Street with a visually impaired resident on Faulner leading the way. And we we
actually identified a critical issue there that even he wasn't aware of. Very close to the grain company. There is a there's a sheer drop off at the right of the side right side not the left the right at the property boundary. You take one wrong foot and you're down 10 ft
down uh on stones at the bottom. And he he wasn't even aware of that. This is an issue with visually impaired people. There's an issue with kids riding bicycles there. Whatever it is, one little slip and you're down 10 ft. Um, and we initiated a discussion with town. It turned out whoever was developing
that property was supposed to put a barrier there did not. Um, and then there was this process of trying to figure out how to fix this, but it hasn't been fixed yet. It's been more than a year. So, these are small things that can change. Uh, some things did change. I think the town did put a um um
an audio signal for the crosswalk at High Street and Maine that happened. So I'm happy for that. But out of the four issues we raised only one I think got addressed. And maybe the crosswalk at Falner is there now. >> That's there. Yeah. So there are putting
the tactile strip can be done now. Uh if it has to be redone when the complete streets happens, I think that's a small price to pay because I think the tactile strip is a very cheap option. But it can it will create immediate impact for those people who are trying to access the train line.
So that's that's what I wanted to say. We need more communication. We know that these things complete streets etc long-term projects but there are a lot of short-term projects that need to be done. We heard from store street residents. They want to see short-term solutions take effect. I spoke a little earlier. The reason I brought it up was
because we've had these meetings where engineering has come forward, store residents have come forward and we were discussing what we could do in the short term for store street and there was some discussion about trying a pilot program with a oneway street and so on. I was trying to raise that but it looks like nothing happened. So I think there needs
to be a focus on the short-term um solutions while we look at the bigger picture that takes longer and needs more money. I do. Um that's that's where I heard it was at a TAC meeting where director York said we could try out the the oneway and I think what happened is
not nothing. What happened was this complete streets project that we've just been presented. That's what happened. Um as part of that and the one way is one of those options. Um, one thing that I would suggest, um, just to your point of
improving communications is when you identify those small, um, fixes that are inexpensive. Um, if the committee has come to a determination um, with a vote that this is what we see
as a solution that might be temporary, that might be permanent, that's a small thing that would make a very large impact. It would be great um you know either to have the liaison bring it to the board but you know that's during a member minute we can't really discuss it so it would be great if um if you're
sending that suggestion to public works staff to the town engineer you know CC the select board just so that we stay in the loop of of these little things and then we can track them we can you know ask management hey did that ever get done um and I I completely understand
your frustration with the the distinction between the sidewalk prioritization plan and the complete streets efforts that the town has been engaged in. I'm glad David brought up the point that we're trying to get these projects to a state where they're shovel
ready when a when grant funding comes in. Um, but there are other projects that are that we're able to do as as a town with town staff. you know, the Taylor Roads sidewalk, the Willow Street sidewalk, the things that they did at
the intersections along High Street with I think some of it was tactile and some of it was crosswalks. Um, so we're doing our best, but we really appreciate um both of you coming in. Then are there any other comments or questions from the
board? David, I'm so sorry. I think you guys need to switch seats. [laughter] >> Thank you. and thanks for coming in. The uh you know at one time there was a totally independent sidewalk committee separate from
transportation advisory and at some point they got merged. So I guess one of the things I'd challenge you folks with is when you start thinking about maybe wanting to change your charge is was that the right decision to make?
um eliminating the independent, you know, the sidewalk committee was strictly dealing with sidewalk issues. Um has combining those duties with looking at things like public transportation has
that uh diluted the focus? So, I don't know whether it has or it hasn't, but I I think that's something that internally you folks might want to think about and see if you know we we create and we dissolve committees with some frequency
around here. So, we're always looking trying to find the right fix and it's a combination obviously of the personalities of the volunteers are available to us. It's uh a function of, you know, specifically for
transportation, you know, who have we got in DPW that's focused on this. Um so there's a lot of different factors, but that might be something you might want to think about. I think, you know, obviously, uh we'd love to get huge grants as we do
from time to time, and right now they seem to all be tied into complete streets projects. But I think there's some other projects uh some of the quick fixes that you've spoken about. I think the question is is
there sufficient funding in the town's operating budget from year to year to do those quick fixes or not? That's probably a discussion that you folks should have with the public works director and the town manager. Um,
it seems like town meeting is a long way away from us right now when we go for appropriation, but it's really not, >> right? >> Uh, I know when when I was working here full-time, this is about when we start from a department point of view, we start pulling together our ideas for
budget for next year. So I think look at is there sufficient funding traditionally for the small projects that we're talking about. Is there a way that uh that that funding
source can be increased which is basically taxes which means you end up having to fight with somebody else that's got something they want. Um, and I think I think looking at the dollars and cents
early on, um, and feeding that information to public works and the town manager in the time period of midepptember, I think, is when you want to start hitting it up. And it's like, you know,
if we're not providing enough money for those small projects that you've talked about um year after year, then maybe that's something that we should focus on, >> right? >> So, I would encourage you to, you know, ponder a bunch of those things over the
summer. And uh I look forward to seeing a hit list come in. Um maybe the town manager doesn't look forward to it, but I'll look forward to it. Thank you. Yes. So, so I I think you wanted to say something perhaps, but I'll just mention that so far we have been communicating
directly with town manager. Uh it's only recently we realized that we should probably be coming to the select board first and before doing that. So we were assuming that I mean someone recommended to us that we take his uh town manager's permission for
certain things for example getting DPW involved in TAC meetings and so on and he was very responsive to that saying yes this should happen and so on. So I think we continued with that mode of communication but uh Jim's been great uh in bringing our uh uh
issues in front of select board I think uh but it's just [snorts] many items have not moved that's that's basically the reality of it and we we know why I mean we know what the challenges are. Did you want to say anything else?
it. Well, I was just when Dean was talking about the sidewalk committee being um finished up, but it they did finish a you know, sort of a work parcel I guess to put it. They they built a they put together a design um
guide that's I think something like 22 pages and um and they had come up with you know their process for prioritizing sidewalks and it was pretty complex and they'd gone through and um gathered the data and they
came up with the prioritization list. So, you know, we can we probably should think about it again, but um I think they did a lot of work that means that it's less work now to uh continue tracking sidewalks. We don't have to
build that design guide book for instance >> design guide book. But what we did see was uh the sidewalk committee was shut down in 2018 um and uh its purview was rolled into TAC towards the end of 2018. So what we inherited from them uh was uh
the ranking criteria and the ranking list that they had maintained until that point. Uh what we've seen in the years since then is that those ranking criteria probably can be better and uh a lot of the stuff the criteria that went
into it are difficult to measure and often times are very qualitative in nature. So what we have tried to do the last 2 years is to make it more measurable, objective uh stuff. We can go to the town GIS uh website and look at the map and say okay this is what we
have going around 2 miles around this street. Somebody sitting at home can do this and put it into the sheet as opposed to sending someone out into the field with a measuring tape and trying to figure things out. Right? So and sometimes it's been a while since they worked on it too. So a lot of things
have changed. Um, and I think the rankings need to be also revisited because like people like Sto Street, uh, they've been on this ranking list for 30 plus years. Uh, and u, the ground reality has changed for them. A lot of that neighborhood has changed. Uh, there
is a lot more traffic there, a lot more heavy traffic going on. There's a lot more playground stuff and things like that which didn't even exist when they were initially ranked. So it is time to revamp all of this, take another look um and see if we can keep it going because
DPW definitely uses it. Um we used to get quarterly updates from them as to how sidewalks are improving, which which places have been finished, which places are still half there and so on. So I think it's an important service. We just want to make sure that we still have the backing of the select board to continue
doing that work. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, I think that what I've heard tonight is that if there are um items in the charge, aspects of the charge that you think would be good to to edit, you know, bring that through
through Pam to the board. Um, I'm going to I'm going to maybe edit what Dean suggested of, you know, your what what little fixes need funding. Bring that to the public works director or the town manager. He's not here to to weigh in on
that suggestion, but my sense is that is that the transportation advisory committee is an advisory committee to the select board. So I think you know he's on our email shell, so if you send it to the select board um he'll he'll get it um certainly um and choose
whether or not to share with the public works staff. Um and and and yes, I think that that might be the two biggest things that that I was going to suggest. Um but before we move on to the next item, are there folks
that are online or in the room who wanted to share public comment? >> You do have one person online. >> Okay, great. >> That is calling user two. Hi. >> We can hear you. Oh, you just muted. We
cannot hear you. >> Hi, it's Sarah again. I had to hang up. So, I just want to say I'm really super excited to uh see the new energy with the uh TAC in particular for sidewalks and point out that the the two
committees, if I remember correctly, were merged not because of any mission uh change. It was because uh of lack of quorum. So, so if you have the uh the the people, I would recommend separating them. Again, um it's also um I I want to
make the point that there's a difference between permission to use staff resources and uh gaining the political momentum to direct staff resources. So, yes, go through town manager to uh access staff resources, but when it comes to prioritizing or if you're not
getting the staff support, I say come back to the select board. That's where the power is. Um, I like the idea of more measurable because that's how we got sidewalks on Route 2A. Uh, we um were trying for the number of residents per square mile and then the mile of
sidewalks. So, that's a something I hope you measure affect especially when you look at places where like on Martin Street you've got you basically double the size of a um neighborhood with 30 new homes or whatever, you can get the developer to give you money. Um I know
that that uh yes there's a requirement or whatever to do that but uh you can get more uh if the project requires select board approval. Um I also want to um just briefly if I have another minute or two um the democra democratizing I
want to remind people that last century there was one person at town hall that decided where the sidewalks went and if you knew him and you were friends you got your sidewalk. Okay. Then that changed to like uh a bunch of people that would kind of lobby him and all that stuff. Okay. I feel like we're
going back to that with this uh what do we call trafficcoming working group. That's a secret meeting. They carefully choose people so they don't make a quorum of officials and then they make decisions which are really hard to unravel folks. I do not like that at all. I love the idea of using those
ranking sheets and democratizing, making sure that we do more to to to spread democracy, not less. It's maybe efficient to have these secret meetings, but frankly, I don't like it. I love the rankings. I love the openness. I love um the energy, and I thank you so much for
caring about sidewalks. Thanks so much. Bye. >> So, I'll just make one comment uh in response to that. So, this is one of the points that was raised was uh looking at the number of people who live around sidewalks. This is the type of analysis we are doing right now. We're looking at the GIS map that the town has. Um, and
we see if there's a certain street that we're trying to evaluate. We go in there and draw a buffer on to see how many people live there. If you build the sidewalk, how many people are going to benefit from that? Um, can they walk to something reasonable like a shopping complex or a school or some such thing. So, these are the type of measurable metrics we're trying to bring into the
sheet which were missing from the original um um ranking system. >> All right. Thanks. There are other co couple others online. >> We do have one other person who rose raised their hand. Um MK, you're now unmuted.
>> Yes. Um just to add one more comment about the sidewalk committee because I am one of the people that have been trying to get a sidewalk for over 30 years. Um we were third on the list as far as the police station um or the
public works when I we when I first moved here. years later when the sidewalk committee was formed, it was really just a partisan group of insiders who wanted sidewalks for their neighborhoods. And they actually took Stow Street off the
list even when their list to determine who needs a sidewalk. um they would say that we didn't qualify for many many things we did qualify for just because they wanted their their neighborhoods to have
sidewalks before ours. The head of the sidewalk committee was really partisan. She really just wanted sidewalks in her neighborhood and she picked she chose and picked her friends. So even though they did have a list, it was not
accurate and they they took us off took us off the list completely and then put us back on when we complained. So I'm not quite sure the sidewalk committee formed with a group of citizens will help because it it ends up being the
just the people pretty much just the people who want sidewalks in their area. So that's it. Thank you for for taking all of our qu questions. I really appreciate it. >> Yeah, I did hear that angle brought up at one of the TAC meetings and it surprised me. It's no longer the case. I I keep telling people it's no longer the
case. That's not how we operate. Um and the sidewalk list uh is on the docu share. It is publicly available for people to look at. And this is the transparency we want to bring here. Uh a measurable metric that is out there. People can take a look and if they want to challenge it, they can. If you make a mistake, we fix it. And and that's it.
>> Yeah. I think um we we don't need to focus backwards. Let's focus forwards on on what your work is now. How you are standardizing the criteria, the traffic calming policy was meant to do the same.
Let's make it standardized. Let's make it transparent. Um we have a proper procedure now. the complete streets. There's incredible outreach that happens with those public forums and surveys, tableabling um out in the community. So,
I think we are on a good path now and we can just leave the past behind us. And I would if it's quick, Fran, go ahead. But I would really like to get to our remaining four items. >> Believe me, so would I. But I just want to clarify that um I don't think the
complete streets is anything designign. I think uh sidewalks serve a purpose in a certain area. I think these pedestrian you know bike paths and walkways would be great in a sto you know stow road
area connected to the Bruce Freeman. So I think there is a place for each of them but not always the same place. So >> we really appreciate you coming in. We have a lot of other business to do so. So please stay in touch with us through
your um liaison and also just send us an email directly. Thanks. >> I know this was supposed to be a fivem minute presentation. Thank you for [laughter] taking the time. >> Appreciate you being here. All right. So our next item is to discuss the next steps for municipal wastewater
governance study by the Collins Center from 2025. Speaking of the past, um do you have anything prepared or do you want me to just read the recommendation? That's how the the discussion started last June. The
town manager read the recommendation from the report and then we talked about where we go from here. But we have a new member now. >> Yes. Um, so it it is up to you. I have a document that was shared earlier today that is from that meeting that has a recommendations for the wastewater
commission responsibilities as well as the wastewater commission structure. I can put it up on the screen and and you could run through it. I can run through it. However, >> let's wait on that um just to make sure that we're all um reminded of of where we landed at the end of our discussion
last June. and then we'll put that up because that was the that was the next step. All right. So the um the Collins Center conducted a study of our wastewater or specifically sewer governance um in the
town and their recommendation was that the town should establish through a bylaw a wastewater commission that develops policies and budgets within the framework of town government while reserving certain decision-making for the select board upon the commission's
recommendation. And for anybody who doesn't already know, the select board is currently acting as the sewer commissioners. Um the project team determined that the wastewater governance model, which would best align with the values and goals of the town, would be the establishment of a separate
independent board with limited autonomy, which also advises the select board on wastewater issues. Um key roles that should be retained by the select board should include setting of rates and fees, authorization for borrowing, authorization for land takings and easements, and endorsement of plans for
major system expansion. Um so the board's discussion um following our review of that report um focused on those um tasks um but in addition many others and we
gave direction to David to create a list of which tasks would stay with the select board which would be with an independent wastewater commission that would be appointed by the select board and then beyond that there are additional considerations like the
number of people writing the charge, what their what their expertise qualifications would be, um, etc. So, I'm going to put you on the the spot, Pam, and find out if you have any burning questions,
um, concerns, questions, suggestions. I don't know if you reviewed the minutes or watched the meeting last year, a whole 12 months ago. >> Well, [clears throat] I read the report that was in the
packet. So, um, so I was going from what was in the report. Um, so and no, I did not I thought this was a discussion on the report. So, [laughter]
we can do that. >> Well, you know, so but it sounds like there have been a number and you know, so one of my questions certainly, you know, there was a strong recommendation from the report throughout the report,
you know, it it talked about the strong benefits of having technical expertise and whatever system that you do. Um there were sort of two options, an independent
um commission which was the recommendation but also an advisory group that would have that technical expertise and I assume that you all talked about the benefits of both of those.
>> Okay, >> that is correct. >> Okay. Do you have any questions or thoughts on the >> Well, I was just curious, you know, looking at um both of those sort of, you
know, what well then as I thought um what the rationale was for going with, you know, setting up a separate commission rather than going the advisory board route.
I'm not sure I can answer that. Um well, number one, it was the recommendation of the report. Um after they completed this pretty thorough study, um they interviewed officials,
staff, um members of the water district staff as well as commission um folks at uh the wastewater treatment plant. I'm forgetting the entire list of people. They also did a a literature
review. They also studied um other towns and that were that were similar and and and you saw that in the report. Um, so there was some concern expressed by board members about um having the the
commission well it wasn't really a concern expressed but we talked about having the commission be appointed or elected and I think that um we concluded that the Colin Center had recommended that this
be an appointed board because it's a very small section segment of the population that is sewarded it's only 10% you know as opposed to um conquered which is 35% and then they have actually I don't even know if their their public
works commission is elected or appointed um but that was that was part of it the um the preference for this independent commission versus an advisory committee um in my mind and and other folks can
add into this is that an independent commission um would be making a lot of decisions and holding a lot of meetings to increase engagement with the public. Um grapple with different questions that
the select board does not have the time on our agenda because we have such a broad scope um and full agendas. So they could be um making decisions, you know, waving fees um and um making decisions
on minor expansions independent of us if they had that autonomy. Um so it would be taking lots of uh work off of the the select board's plate, but retain we would retain, you know, approving the budget. Ultimately, town meeting
approves the budget. um and other decisions like a a major expansion or changing the funding structure how how sewer um is is funded and and in that sense the commission would would act as an advisory committee. So there would be
some things that they would be recommending and some things that they would be um responsible for. So I think maybe it is appropriate at this point unless there's something else you want to add before we look at David's list.
>> So So we have we have to come to an agreement about um creating this commission what which tasks this commission would be responsible for and which tasks would stay with this board. So, we sent David off to create a list
based on our based on the report and based on our discussion last year. Um, and I also see that he um has added some details about the the charge and the and the makeup of the committee. >> So, they were always there in our
meeting in October. So, this is the um I made a really minor formatting change. I didn't change any content at all uh today. So, so um can >> So, Tom, can you share that? Can I make two quick quick points? One was this
intermediate kind of bullet oriented list is a half step to get to text, right? So we didn't have to review a draft of text. Um we decide on we would
use a bulleted list or line item list to decide on the parameters and then someone would develop text. And the second thing is depending on the amount of autonomy given the wastewater commission it needs a bylaw probably
right so if it's uh it's not advisory if it does too much right so um or can do too much but we we also could take an intermediate step and have you know a you know a committee like TAC for example that can take some steps and
then if that's working make it into a an autonomous thing we we have a lot of freedom as to how we how we implement this. Um, do you want me to just explain what the two pages are? >> Yeah. So, I would just before you explain this, I would just say that my
preference would be to have not an intermediary advisory committee, but to go with the Collins um center recommendation to create a commission and um take enabling unabling legislation to the town meeting.
Go ahead. the the the first thing the the uh recommended items here are are uh the recommend items that they they would recommend to the select board to take an action. they would not be authorized to
take that action themselves. And the responsible list and the the responsible list and I can I can send you this this is documented or we can put the document in the the packet afterward um is the things that
they would be authorized to do on their own without any select board approval. So the main division here between the the things that they would recommend they're mostly associated with money and the things that they were
responsible for are mostly associated with um the uh uh the technical day-to-day operation of of the facility. And so Tom, you could scroll down and just show the bottom of the the
responsibles. Um so the um the the for example the waves fees when deemed necessary um we we actually discussed that at one meeting which even though it's that's a little bit money oriented
that's there. So sometimes we have um waved fees for um um uh new sub uh subscribers to the um the district uh if they have low-income
housing for example. Um and we could decide to take that you know in one list or another if you know this list was a draft list. This is not any final list. This was based on the discussion that we had um at the final meeting where we
actually discussed this. And then um if Tom if you could just go to the next page and then this was a list of just general um the structure of the the the
commissions commission body. Um uh and and this would be turned in, you know, if if whatever we agree on here, if we want to delete an item from this list or add an item or change an item and then we have this list and the list above that would be um
translated into a bylaw, you know, into text for a bylaw um uh that we'd bring to town >> [snorts] >> Dean, it's all coming back to me now. Um yeah, I think uh if we go back to the uh
the first page, I'm pretty comfortable with the list except I agree with David. I think he was pointing in this direction under the last item, wave fees when deemed necessary. I really think that that is
something that should be still held by the select board. Um I know anytime for instance when folks come in looking for a waiver of any kind of a fee uh building permit fee or whatever it's
always something that's the responsibility of the select board. So I would I feel comfortable in recommending the list that Dave has put together with that one change.
Um I think going to the second page uh when we talk about the makeup of the board I think five member board makes a lot of sense. Um I think it's very important that we have people with technical expertise. Um, how are you going to recruit those
folks is something else entirely, but it's would be a challenge. But I think so long as we've got a clear expectation set up, uh, it might be somewhat easier um, to attract folks that would be
interested in it. But, you know, I think I think it's it's been obvious to me anyway for the last 7 years or so that the uh having the select board being in charge of sewer rate setting and
everything else to do with sewers, it's not something that most of us have any expertise or comfort with. So, I think it's really important that we get some folks that can focus on these things. Fran
and I completely agree with Dean on on the list. Um and I think the committee makeup looks great, [clears throat] >> David. >> Yeah, I'm not uh arguing with this. I'm I would be completely fine with the
moving the waves fees up to the recommended section. I just will say that from the board's discussion last year, some people, some members of the board were concerned, the reason I put it this way, um about um a potential
political um situation that would disadvantage the the people in the sewer district, right? So, we might politically give away the fees, which would indirectly increase the rates for people in the
district. I'm I'm not again arguing with that with that. I'm just explaining what we discussed last year. Um and an additional thing that we might want to discuss is what is the connection to the select board? Um is a member of the select board a member of this? Uh
presumably we'd have at least a liaison. We have a liaison to everything else. But should a member of the select board be a member here? And um how does that you know you know basically that's the decision is it is a lison leison on our member um because the obviously the two
bodies have to be well coordinated because we have these financial issues and we have the operational issues and they're never completely separate right uh even if you think them purely operationally there's you know you spend
money to do the the maintenance upgrades whatever And so um we we need to that's an area that's not covered by this currently and we didn't discuss that really last year that I remember.
So I will say that I'm I'm certain I was one of the people who felt that an independent commission would be responsible for waving fees whether they are privilege well I guess
they would be privileged fees regardless. Um, and for some reason, I cannot remember which projects. I know it was McManus Manor, but there was a second project. It may have been Parker Street. >> Yes,
>> Parker Street. Um that actually was part of the the impetus for me to bring uh the citizens petition to town meeting to ask town meeting to look at this governance um and see if there was a
better way of of of managing um everything that was related to sewer. I like I like how it's focused on wastewater and not only sewer though. if we create a wastewater commission. That being said, um there was a meeting at
which the sewer commissioners and I believe it was in 2022 waved almost >> [clears throat] >> $2 million in privilege fees um for McManus Manor and I guess it was Parker
Street. Um, so the that spoke to me of uh a conflict between the select boards overarching affordable housing goals and
responsibility to the rateayers and and I learned through my development of the citizens petition that the water district commissioners do not wave fees because their respons responsibility is to the rateayers. Now granted the water
district services 95% of the town whereas um the sewer district is only about 10% of the town. Um but I feel strongly that that it should stay um with an independent commission that wave fees. Also, it makes sense because you
have um in this list, David, the um approval of policies, rules, and regulations as a responsibility of the commission. Um the only the only item that I'm not sure I guess I'm not sure
what it means and I'm not sure I think it should um be a responsibility of the commission rather than the select board is coordinating with the water district and rack. Um I'm not absolutely not opposed
to collaboration and communication between those entities. I just don't know what coordination means, especially given that RACK is an advisory committee to the select board. Um, and your
suggestion to have a select board member be a voting member or a liaison. I I don't think I have a strong preference one way or another. I think either would be would be fine. Um there would still
potentially be that tension between a select board member being a voting member of the independent wastewater commission. Would they be would that person if they were a voting member be voting in their capacity as a
member of an independent wastewater commission or in their capacity as a select board member? So that's that's it's and that's similar to um the way rack is set up right now is we have a member from the water district who is a
voting member of rack but there are a couple of other people who are associated with the water district but there's only one representative from the water district. So only that individual member and that's and that's Corey Godfrey can speak for the water district
even though there's a commissioner and a finance committee member and now the clerk of the water district serve on rack. Um, so I just said that I would be okay either way, but it sounds like I've just convinced myself that I think that the select board should should have a liaison assignment to an independent
commission because we the the aim is for this commission to be independent in my estimation. Um, and to be able to establish policies and make decisions that maybe the select board would not
tend to make. Um there's also um mention in the in the report about how sometimes elected folks um who are serving on these commissions making these decisions might not set rates high enough um because
they're might set rates not high enough because they're concerned about the political outfall of of that. And um so that's another another consideration. But you know we in this list uh you are
keeping sewer rate setting with the select board which is the elected body. [snorts] I just don't um want to set us up for a situation where we would um
undercharge like we need to we need to have the sewer rate set um at a level that continues to enable the the operation and also maintenance
of the wastewater treatment plant. I I think that what the what the independent commission can can help with is um not only having more engagement with the public, but also with the staff um in public works as well as our consultant
that's operating the wastewater treatment plant. But beyond that, looking at um necessary uh work that needs to be done on the in infiltration
and inflow issue that we have, the issue with limited um discharge capacity not being, you know, there's not enough remaining discharge capacity at the wastewater treatment plant for some of the properties in the district to hook
up when they need to when their septics fail. I I'm not sure whether or not our new equalization tank will will support that. as well as, you know, we keep um and this was mentioned in our in our
discussion last time that each time a sewer expansion vote has failed at town meeting, the board has discussed reconsidering how we fund sewer um in the town and finding a
better way than having only bettered properties bear the bear the cost of that. And that's something that it doesn't seem that the select board has time to to work on. So I it may be that we don't need to spell that out here or maybe you have
I mean you have you have talked about expansion but have you talked about the funding structure of such >> it's the fourth item. >> Sorry it's the fourth item down on the screen. >> Funding models for Okay. So it is there. Great. >> So that's a recommend. So that's still
the select board's responsibility. So, uh, may I res? So, a few of your things. Um, that that last thing with the wave fees, um, I'm I could deal with it either way myself, but if it got, as Fran and Dean have said, move that up to
the recommended, that still means that it would, um, the, uh, independent commission would deal with it, make a specific recommendation to the board. So, in some ways, that would be good. It would get two eyes on it. Um and you know I think the select board would be
loathed to change the um uh recommendation of the sewer commission unless we had a strong reason to do so right you know they I think it would be 80 90% maybe you know that we would take the
recommendation of of the commission now we we do that with a lot of even just advisory committees and this is a stronger >> so how how Would that be seen by the person or entity that's coming to a
board for to request a fee waiver? So, you're telling me I'm the actin housing authority and I'm building this project. So, now I need to go to this independent wastewater commission and present my request for a fee waiver and then they're going to take the recommendation
to the select board who will ultimately approve it. that seems extra lengthy and extra um anxiety fraught to me. >> Yes, and I I agree with that point, but I would also say that the fee wavers,
and this is something I think Dean was alluding to, are often policy related things for the town, right? And having this that's the where the select board comes into play, right? If if I were the the the commission, I would say I'm never waving fees. I need the money to
be able to do everything, but the the town may have other motivations and that's where the select board comes in. I I I we have to decide how to where to put that. >> All right, I'm going to interrupt you again. We don't have a policy to wave fees whenever they're requested for
affordable housing. We just have a practice or we have a past practice. I I haven't been on the board where where that vote has come before the sewer commission. Um, and similar to, you know, the the building permit fees and the inspection fees that we have been
asked to wave, we don't have a policy on that. We just hear from the applicant and we discuss it and we make a decision. So, I I'm not seeing that that this is an issue. Um, especially where you have approval of wastewater policies, rules, and regulations as a
responsibility of the commission. >> No, I'm not saying that this is a policy. In fact, just the opposite. I'm saying that this is a case by case basis, right? The the um the town may have other motivations, right? The uh this commission may want the money to
maintain the system and that makes perfect sense, but the town may want to expand affordable housing, right? And that's a different motivation. I, you know, and I we have to decide what bucket to put that in, right? Um uh and you're right
which we in the past we've just had conventions. Of course they could be made into policies but we've just had had uh um conventions. I I also don't have a strong um uh thing as to whether a select board
member should be a voting member or not. Um I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both ways. Um and I'm forgetting your other point but um those are my main things. Just on the issue of whether a select board member should be a voting or non- voting member of the four I believe it
was towns that were presented in the report um the only one where it was um I think talked about is that Orleans has the select board as a leazison. I don't
believe any of the others had sort of a voting member or even a leazison role or at least it wasn't mentioned. >> I don't want to lead us astray. Do we have any committees that we're members of?
>> Yes, we do. CPC 250. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And I'm sure there are others. >> I have to look at you and I know what your name is. >> I'm going to look at you hard. >> Okay. >> Dean. >> Yeah. Um
so I strongly feel that um if there's going to be a member of the select board on this commission, it should be a liaison role only, not a voting member. Um, I'd draw the parallel here with my liaison work with the conservation
commission. You know, sit in the back, listen to it. Um, if there are things that need to be brought to the attention of the select board and the town manager or if there's some way that I can facilitate things, I do so. But um that's clearly
with with conscom because they're dealing with highly technical issues and with this presumably this committee is going to be dealing with highly technical issues. I think it's important that uh select board members stay in their lane. So I think [snorts] um
liaison uh would be I I think that's desirable but I don't think that they should be a voting member. Um, and I I feel uncomfortable saying this, but I agree with David once again. Um [sighs and gasps]
the uh I think there are some some broad policy issues that we've dealt with in the past and you know encouraging uh affordable housing and yes waving fees for that is something
that you know that's been a goal through how many different studies and policies that the town has brought through and this is a way that we do it. Now, if we have an independent commission who will recommend the waving fees,
they can recommend not to wave the fees and they can make their presentation saying we don't recommend this because we think it's going to create financial problems for the rateayers. And that's a voice that frankly we
haven't heard in the past. Usually when somebody housing authority comes in wants a w a fee waiver, we hear about why we should do this and why it supports one of our goals, but we haven't heard that other piece of the argument.
So I think it's important that we have that um frankly I think having that under the recommended category makes the most sense. But I think it's it will no matter what we do if we establish
this committee they will have a voice and they will be able to bring those kind of concerns you brought forward that u the rate payers are not necessarily well rep represented in the decision-m process. So I think in either
case you're going to end up better than you are right now. >> Fair enough. Um, [snorts] so David, my other question was about coordinating with water district and rack. I just don't know what that means. >> I I agree. You use the word
communication and that might be a communicate and that might be a better um word there. Right. I I do think that there is an un the communication is important. Um, you know, uh, water rates
are used for sewer rates, right? um water use and um issues to discover I ini right and so there there are other communicates fine and and if you don't object to that I think that's better
>> and then the other question I have is um you know woodard and current has been our our operating consultant for as long as I can remember um even though it's gone out to bid um no one else has put
forth a bid to take that over. I remember in the report it said specifically that um you know co coordinating with the public works director this independent commission could decide on that but you have um
contracts and agreements as a recommend. What kind of relationship um do folks envision uh this commission having with Woodard and Curran? Are they getting quarterly
reports from them, annual reports? No relationship because that that would be an external contract. Correct. >> [snorts] >> Oversight of wastewater operations is in the responsible list.
>> So, does that mean >> Yes. And there's also something here about staff, but I thought, but anyway, >> yeah, >> Tom. >> Um, thank you, Madam Chair. If I could, um, you're touching on kind of a topic that I wanted to relay to you after
discussing with the town manager, and it pertains to external contracts and agreements. And this being in the recommended uh category is suitable because the town manager is chief procurement officer is responsible and the signatory for all contracts which this maintains that uh practice. One
item that I would recommend considering changing to a recommend is authorization of new projects to proceed. as the chief procurement officer and town manager. Um the town manager typically signs notice to proceeds for any project whether it's a design project or a construction
project to move forward and that is listed here as a responsibility of this committee [snorts] or commission. I would recommend moving that to the recommended file. >> That sounds good. And David is oversight
both of those sound good. Sorry Tom. Um the oversight of wastewater operations was that meant to cover our discussion of keep tabs on. Do you remember that? >> Yes. >> All the things that we would keep tab we would want this commission to keep tabs
on with the operation of the plant. >> Yes. And then the one above that says coordination coordination with town engineering staff on proposed changes recommendations. Um, I suppose we could also add a coordination with the contractor, but
um, town staff is really the interface to the contractor. So, um, um, anyway, >> I I like oversight. So, it sounds to me like we're in agreement that a select board member
should be a liaison rather than a voting member. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yep. And the only other um potential disagreement is on waving fees and and I
hear what you are saying, Dean, where they would have a voice in our decision if we kept that. But how about we do a a thumbs up for waving fees is a responsibility of the commission.
Thumbs up or thumbs down if you don't agree with that. [laughter] >> So if you have thumbs up, you think that this independent wastewater commission should have the responsibility for waving fees. Okay, everybody disagrees
with me. I love it. Okay. So, it sounds like we're moving that one from responsible. We are changing coordination with AWD and RACK to communication. We are moving authorization of new
projects and external contracts and Oh, nope. That's already recommend >> authorization. >> Authorization of new projects to proceed is changing to recommendation. >> Is everybody on board with that? >> Yes. Well, [laughter]
>> Tom, could you scroll down to the second page again just to see if there's any other changes or additions we want to make to this? >> Madame Chair, this might be a good spot where we could add in that we should have a select board member as liaison.
>> Sounds good. >> [snorts] >> And is this going to be three-year term, fiveyear term? [laughter] If we get some good folks, let's keep them for as long as we can. >> Almost everything else is three. >> Just kidding. Sorry, I should not kid
because people think I'm serious. Any other additions to this? Um, one. Yep. >> I'm not seeing it here. I thought early on you had said something about reporting and [snorts]
should that be on this list as well? >> Reporting from from from >> commission >> to the select >> to the select board. >> Would that be your charge? >> Yes. This is kind of the ch there isn't
a charge. There'll be a bylaw. >> I feel like >> definitely it would be um what you're saying about reporting that would be um included in whatever they're bringing to us as a recommendation. And so if they're recommending that we wave this
fee or we don't wave this fee, if they're recommending this expansion or not, and an expansion could be, you know, to an entire neighborhood or, you know, this section of Great Road, or it
could be um somebody has a a house and they want to add an ADU that, you know, they would need to to increase because that's an increase to their betterment that they originally paid or somebody is
developing like um Hawk Ridge, Hawk Crest Ridge was had was two parcels put together for a subdivision. One of them was in the district, one of them was not and so it was added. That's sort of a minor expansion. Yes, Pam.
No, I understand sort of as things are happening, there'll be communication, but I guess I was thinking more of a you like almost like an annual report. >> Okay, >> here's what you know has happened over the past year just you know as a way of
making sure that you know it's a way of just increasing that that um communication and I think they're the ones to give us kind of that overall picture. Maybe that could happen when um the
budget director presents the sewer rate recommendation because they're going to weigh in on that. So, could they could this commission provide an annual report in June when that annual rate setting happens or would it be better at a different time
of year? >> I agree with Pam. I think we and I if everybody agrees, I'll write it down. um that we should ask them to produce an annual report on the state of the wastewater district. And and that to me would include um uh any upcoming
changes that they think are needed or um expansions that are possible or um uh desired. Um thing things like that that would be a report to the town. Of course, we would kind of be the prime
audience, but uh uh uh report to the town. And so I think maybe we should just talk for just a second about the rate setting. They would I presume that they would be the ones to say what the rate setting would be for the district. They would work with the budget director and they
would make the decision because I think that's what we're saying right now. We make that decision. the budget director recommends to us. And so they would work um with staff to um understand what the pros and cons of rates are and and
change the and make a recommendation to change the rates. >> But that's in the recommend not the responsible section. Is that right, >> Tom? Sorry. Can you go back up to the first page? recommend. Okay. So, they might make that presentation
maybe. Um, so I agree that we should have them um give us an annual report, but maybe not specify the time of the of the year. Maybe it happens in June when they're presenting the sewer rate setting, or maybe it happens at a different time of year.
because there might be something that needs, you know, pressing reporting on. >> Often those happen before town meeting. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I [snorts] mean, we can I think we can just say annual >> annual report. >> But so do you have enough information to go
and expand this into a textual um >> I guess we we really shouldn't call it a charge. It's going to be a bylaw. >> That's correct. Also, I want to remind everybody that this is um it's a priority for the board, but it's in the long-term goal.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, um the plan last year was to do what we did now. We didn't get around to it last year. Um and um then, um we had talked about me working with council to develop a bylaw. Um, and if that makes sense, I can work with the
town manager and um and town manager's office to uh and council to produce a bylaw and bring it back. >> Nice. >> Sound good? >> Does that make sense to you, Tom? >> It does. Yes.
>> Okay. Thank you, everybody. And [snorts] we can move on to the next agenda item, which is to Oh, yes. Go ahead. So, if if I just echo back with the the updated list that I been taking notes on where I
think we made decisions, how should I do that? Should I include that in the uh next packet? Um uh should I include it in the past packet? Maybe I should include it in the past packet or the additional information section of the packet. Um
uh I mean it would be a public document in either case but um >> yeah I think including it because it's a summary of the discussion that we had today >> and I just want to make sure all you guys can then look at it once more and say and before we get too far into it to say oh that's not what I thought we decided.
>> Okay. >> Okay. Sorry to interrupt. >> So our next item is to approve memorandum of agreement for the use of Luther B. Conan school as a temporary location for actton town hall. Um we have mapped out or drafted a
memorandum of agreement with the superintendent and that has been adopted by the um act box regional school district school committee. And what I'm happy to highlight a couple different things before I show you the floor plan
is that we mapped out an agreement that would give us uh occupancy for approximately 16 months. Um that would allow us to also move the transportation vans from Nara over to the back of Conan
as well. We have uh mapped out snow removal operations where town will focus on certain areas and Acton Boxboro School District will focus on other areas to make sure that it's clear for bus drivers who will still be located there, but also town staff and residents
who will be visiting um the relocated temporarily town hall. Uh utility expenses will be split between the two entities based off of a percentage of square footage occupancy which is yet to be determined. um or finalized I should
say. And um what we've also agreed upon is any alterations to the building that'll accommodate town staff. We'll be working with Actton Boxboro um staff to make sure that those are appropriate as well as the building commissioner and act
district has been um kind enough to allow usage of some of the furniture that's inside the building that they will not be taking. So that'll lessen some of the moving requirements and also expenses for the town um for renting or relocating furniture. So what does that
look like? And let me just bring up this floor plan and it was in your packet, but I'd like to share this here with you, give you a little bit of an explanation. Um so if you can see the yellow area is shaded and that would be the town staff.
So town offices and town hall. There's roughly 45 staff members who are located in this building full-time would relocate to these areas. The space for green would remain uh occupied by Actton Boxboro School District. And one thing I did want to point out is you'll see the
kitchen area is highlighted in green, which means the school district will maintain operations in that area. They'll be cooking food and then shipping that out to the schools um throughout the district. So that's why they'll be utilizing that space inside of a a sea of yellow in that area of the
building. Some of the things that we're working through with town staff is a relocation plan and a footprint that would give residents easy access to town or to communityf facing departments. So, we're talking about the finance wing and the
land use wing and how do we incorporate that into the building while making services easy to find for residents and also enough room to be able to adequately provide services to the community. Some of the ideas include usage of the library uh and then usage
of the and I'm just going to move my cursor two different school wings here. Some creative ideas that we've had is building um some counters inside of this space that would act as greeting areas for staff and residents [snorts] who visit. And then signage
signage will be a big piece of this puzzle that we're working on to ensure that residents who are coming in have a full understanding of where they're going inside of the building. uh to separate Actton Boxboro Burough side from the town side. Uh AB will be
building temporary walls that'll stretch the hallways, prohibiting access from anybody who's entering in on the town side from accessing the side for the district and they'll be utilizing a different entrance for kids who will be attending after school programs as well,
removing any concerns from both entities. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions. We're still working on where each office would be located inside of this building. We do have a great working group internally that includes members of the land use wing, finance wing, IT, um, town managers area, HR.
So, it's it's a good collection of different people who will be impacted by this move. Um, we plan on meeting uh quite a few times over the next few months and finalizing plans and then starting to look at how we really um roll this out to the community and start
to publicize where in the building you can find service A or service B. So, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer and I'm also happy to talk through the MOA if you have any questions. >> Thank you very much. Um, I don't have any questions about the MOA. I think it
looks great. I didn't have any additions um to suggest. Um but you mentioned signage to point people to the areas that they need to go in order to interact with town staff. Um inside the building, I think you may have already
considered this and it has nothing to do with the MOA, which is our agenda item, but from Taylor Road, there are two driveways. So, are we going to be using one driveway to access municipal
space and the other to access the school space, or are people going to be coming into the same driveway and parking area? And if it's too different or the same, I just think that there should be really clear signage to direct vehicles so you don't end up having people driving in
and then having to come back around and drive into the other entrance. >> That That's a great point. Um, in short, that driveway will be used by both. Um, but what we'll be doing, and I'm sorry, the main driveway, that secondary driveway, uh, leading to the back of the
building will not be utilized by town staff or residents. So, we're going to be focusing all vehicular traffic to the front entrance. And thank you for that note. We are going to put signage out there. And that's something I wanted to point out. Um, it's not just wayfinding inside the building, it's also around
the building as well. So, we'll work to have signage to clearly uh highlight and point out parking areas for visitors um and staff as well. And one additional item, if I could that I didn't mention that I wanted to make sure that I did tonight is where do we move these
meetings, finance committee meetings, entities that are using this room so that we can have a larger crowd or have it videotaped by ACT TV. Uh we've been able to util or able to negotiate usage of the cafeterium which will now put all
of us up on a stage and have seats. Um we can meet down at the floor if we want, no problem. But we'll be utilizing the cafeterium for these type of meetings. Uh as part of the uh space usage, we're also identifying conference rooms so that we can still work to accommodate committees who would
use room 9, 126, or a different space that's not necessarily here. And we're hopeful that we can have at least two conference room conference rooms inside of this building that could be utilized by those committees. >> Great. I'm glad you mentioned that because that would be my choice, the
cafeterium. Any questions or comments from board members? Pam, >> I'm just curious, will this accommodate all of the like current staff who work here and departments that work out of this building?
>> Yes. Okay. >> Um I I think the theou is great. The plan is great. I would prefer not to meet be on the stage. I think we can go to [laughter] I think it's important.
>> Anyway, if it's a foot high stage, I can get that right. If it's a three- foot high stage, I'd rather be down. Um, I I don't see us looking down on people that come to talk to us. >> I'll accept a motion. I move to approve
the MOA between AB the town of Actton and the AB school. I don't have anything in front district. Uh, sorry. >> Um, um, could I just offer uh and to
authorize the town manager to sign the agreement? >> Oh, and and to off authorize the town manager to sign the agreement. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? And any abstensions? That
passes unanimously. Thank you, Tom. >> Thank you. >> And you're up again for item number nine. approve the ASF Parliament facility use and fee policy. >> Yes, thank you. Um, up on the screen, let me see if I can
make this a little bit bigger, is a revised policy that incorporates comments that were provided at the last meeting um in June where we rolled the first draft out. Uh, thank you for all your comments at the last meeting. Since
then, we've received some additional comments. Um, I've not had an opportunity to put them in here, but we could discuss those and incorporate those into this policy. Uh, our hope is that if we're able to come to an agreement or if the board's able to come
to an agreement on a final policy tonight that you would approve it and if you would like another draft, we're happy to come back on the July 20th um, meeting for uh, another proposal. But some of the things that were noted at
the last meeting was to incorporate or include the interior usage capacity um limitation at the top. And then some of the conversations that were had by the board at the last meeting about exterior
capacity had some concerns on identifying a final number where in one example was the uh library book sale that if you place a specific capacity limitation on it but you have people arriving throughout the day you could exceed that total number. So, we did not
put an an exterior capacity limit in this document, but that doesn't mean that one can't exist if the board so chooses. Um, a couple other items that will change. The top bullet point, the reservations must be made via email to the facilities department using this
email address. We are transitioning reservations for this space. I believe we discussed it previously but haven't made this edit here through an online system that we're currently reserving space inside the building for. And this bullet point will change to that. It'll
say uh reservations must be made via email via website or to the facilities department via this website. So that's one edit that'll occur. And then one major change is outlining
the use group classifications. This is modeled after the Actton Boxboro Regional School District policy. Um after hearing feedback from the board and looking into this further, one idea that we pivoted towards was creating
categories and then fitting people or fitting organizations and departments and groups into these categories for consideration. And that would tie into a fee structure below as well and then liability insurance [snorts]
which is included in the last one. It was just moved to the bottom of this policy. So I'm happy to answer any questions, go more in depth uh and also take any feedback that you have as well. Dean, >> it all looks good. Um, the question I've
got is under some of the lower categories of users. Um, I just want to make sure that um, the town is recovering the full cost of the use of the facility, especially
if it's a if it's not a town of Actton group. I want to make sure that either category two or category 3 uh pay their fair share. Um, I know in the past in in
other towns I've heard horror stories about they set an unrealistically low fee, rental fee, and then they end up having to put town staff in there and end up basically tying up town staff and not
um sufficiently generating enough revenue to pay for them. So I just want to make sure that especially in category three that there is um more than
adequate compensation to the taxpayers. Thank you for that feedback. So, one item that you'll see is it breaks out roughly to $50 per hour for a space until you get to category 3, where it's $150 per hour for the building and the
lawn or $50 an hour for the lawn only. Um, one item that's not included in that $150 or $50 is a custodial fee, which would be an additional $50 an hour. So, if you were an outside entity in
category 3 utilizing the space for 3 hours, you would pay the $150 for the building usage and then $50 for the custodial fee per hour and the kitchenet use fee if you were to so use that
space. >> And is that $50 per hour calculated on the straight rate of the employee or an overtime rate? That's estimated overtime, right? [laughter] >> I'm waiting for you to follow me, Tom. I
have a question. Um, I didn't notice that the custodial fee was an hourly fee um before. And I'm wondering if um a group has an event that's or a
meeting function that's 5 hours long, but the custodial tasks are, you know, setting up maybe chairs and tables before for an hour and then an hour of cleaning. Why would we
do 5 hours charge for that hourly fee? That's a fair question. Um, at that point it becomes difficult to appropriately or to schedule appropriate coverage for that period. If we're asking a staff member to come in for the first hour and then come back 4 hours
later, it becomes a little difficult to to do that because that would occur on um essentially time outside of their normal working day. >> Thank you, David. Yes, I have a handful of things. Um, I
think the the bullet point above where they talk about security deposit that should be moved down with the fees. Um, uh, and I would like to see a little bit more guidance in this policy. I want
to see it a little less arbitrary. um for example the size of the event or if food were being served or whatever criteria we want but I don't want it to be arbitrary to say we're charging group A for you know a security deposit we're not
charging group B a security deposit um so I I think and we just need some guidelines as to why we would have a security deposit or always do it right I I think it just shouldn't shouldn't be arbitrary. Um se the second thing is I
think we want something in this policy about signage. Um uh I I'm sure the town manager copied you this morning. I sent a note to the town manager this morning. Um I'm okay that if um someone puts a sign in the lawn that says act an environmental group event here, that's
okay. if they want to put in a sign that says um uh oppose Hansum expansion, I don't think that should go on town property, right? And so I think we need a a a policy that says, you know, you can put some group identification or whatever wording you want to do, but no
advocacy signs uh on on um uh you know, is associated with the with the event. Um, I think this is should definitely call it the ASAF Parliament House and not 17 Woodbury. There were people who
complained that we didn't know whether it was ASA or ASAF in the beginning and they said we should call it something else and so we started using 17 Woodbury, but now I think we should call it the ASF Parlan House. Um that's just you know uh uh I I think it
honors the the heritage of the house and you know the this uh historical commission has you know did its research to say it was ASAP Parliament that was there the most. So I'm I'm happy to go with that. I don't know what the other board members um uh thinks. Um the
policy says that there's priority for town um events. That makes sense, right? So, um, but it I'm wondering how that works in practice. If sometime during the con reconstruction of town hall, we have a
um someone has the thing reserved on a Monday night, is a select board meeting going to kick them out? Maybe they've reserved it 3 months ago and they were planning to have this event on, you know, Monday night uh uh October 15th or something. I think we
need it can't be just 100% priority for for events. Maybe we can block out when we think, but I don't think we should kick people who've made long-term reservations and especially put down a dollar amount, right? So, um or even if they didn't put I mean if it's a local
um uh group or club or whatever um and we're just letting them use the facility for free because they don't have food and whatever they're meeting there. Um I think that's fine but um I I I just want to understand this policy needs to be more explicit as to what priority means.
And finally, I'm wondering if we want to have a bathroomssonly usage policy. Right? So m maybe in the automated system uh Tom someone can say um we're having an event at the uh Goward playground um can I have the bathrooms
open between 2 and 5 uh next Sunday or whatever and whatever charge I don't know whether it involves a charge but it should be on this policy to allow them neither to reserve the building nor the lawn or maybe it's a lawn only event I don't know if that's
if it's a lawn only event and that includes the bathrooms. I'm good with that. But this doesn't I didn't notice the word bathrooms. I looked for it. I didn't search for it. But anyway, we we should it should be explicit how someone can get the bathrooms. Maybe if they're having that gower playground thing and
they just do a lawn only event, they get the bathrooms. Um anyway, that's my that's my final Oh, actually that's my final comment to the policy. There's two two other things that I think should be really upfront for people actually
making the reservation. One is and whether it's on the for reservation form or part of the policy, I don't really care as long as they it's really upfront. What's the trash policy? I mean, when they reserve the room, do we provide um two big buckets and they
can fill those? Anything more they they have to take home or or what? you know, it just should say um um I I think we should say whatever policy we want, but it should be explicit. And I don't
care if we put out a a lawn capacity. Um I'm find that being limited by the size of the parking lot. I think that's going to effectively limit it anyway. Um but um or we could put guidance that you
know says Kuan really can't handle more than 75 people or whatever number we think but I I think really upfront should be the interior fire fire department capacity of the building. So the it should say interior capacity 35 people or whatever
the number is not to exceed ever 35 people so that they don't we don't violate the fire code. Thanks. That's all my stuff. Sorry for being for being long-winded and I can send you that in writing if you'd like.
>> Do you have any response? I I wanted to point out that trash is you've you've scrolled past it now, but it's it's um closer to the There it is. All trash to be placed in waste baskets. Any items
left behind will be considered trash. Do we when we rent out other facilities like the rec center or narrow park picnic pavilion, do we have a trash carry out policy or do we provide trash
removal expecting people to put it into a a container? >> Um, great question. Looking at Narrow Pavilion, we have park stewards who are assigned to those events. So, um, and that's unique, right? So we we staff
Nara so that we focus the operations to uh best accommodate whatever's happening there whether it's events in the evening but we typically will have the staff assigned um when we have park stewards to be able to clean up after whoever is there. Some of the items that were
brought up are great things that we need to consider. Um one thing with the exterior bathroom rental possibility are some security concerns when it's outside of operating hours. we don't have a staff member who's available to go back over to the bathroom at the end of the
evening and make sure that it's completely um empty before it gets locked up for the night. And one concern that we've been trying to navigate through is what if we and we do have the ability to schedule the doors to be unlocked on the swipes. What in the
event that something occurs in that space and it's locked and nobody's been able to check that until Monday when it's occurred on the Sunday. So, it's some of the stuff that we're looking at and trying to navigate and that if that's something that's needed for a large event that's um utilizing the lawn
or an event that's using uh Gower playground, then I think one of the things we would ask for is for overtime to be put on for a custodian or um um a facilities staff member to be able to go by and lock up that facility at the
evening for security purposes. Um, from a trash standpoint, one of the notes you had mentioned, David, was exterior trash receptacles and recycling. And we do have, um, we've had some conversations about putting those out there and just
maintaining those like we would a normal exterior space like a playground or a park. And that's part of it. I think the trickier thing is when we get into larger events that are generating a lot of waste or um having a large footprint and a large need that would trigger the
need to have um facilities staff members on um through the custodial fee to be able to support that event. But those notes that you provided are definitely um appreciated and we can incorporate that into another draft policy.
David. >> So I thank you for that, Tom. I just wanted to say with the trash, I just think we need to be upfront with the expectation. I'm fine with whatever you guys decide, but if the expectation is they don't leave any trash, we should we should say that in the when they apply
for the space, right? Or if the expectation is that they get two barrels, anything more than that they have to take away. Whatever the expectation is, it should just say because otherwise we're going to get, I think, trash strewn around. Um, and the the u the the bathrooms. I'm actually
okay also with what you said. I don't know how the other board members feel, but I'm fine that it be have to be a lawn only event for the bathrooms if that's what makes sense. Um, and um, but I do think that the library should be able to use the bathrooms. So, let's
suppose we have holy, right? It was library event um or June Junth which the library participated in. the library should be able to tell facilities or do themselves that you know we're having holy for two hours on such and such a day the bathroom the
outdoor bathrooms will be available. Um so just a there are I said gard playground but there are really things behind the library that that happened and the the library should be able to incorporate the bathrooms into its um events I
think. So, it sounds like we're going to bring back a another draft for the July 20th meeting. And maybe um we could also clarify for category one. These are, you know, town
boards and committees. So, you know, let's say if the finance committee wants to meet in the ASF parland house, are are we going to charge them for AV setup, custodial fee, actual costs?
I just feel like that category one um we shouldn't be charging anything for trash removal cuz there might be something that's tossed into a waste basket. Like I might, you know, toss a can into the trash can here
before I leave room 204. Same for a town board or committee meeting. I don't think that we should be charging a fee. But if somebody is paying a rental fee, then a trash fee um makes sense or a bathroom fee if we have to cover the cost of somebody coming back and
checking to make sure that that it's empty before it gets locked. >> Madam Chair, >> yep. >> Uh one line underneath the custodial kitchen may be fees. The first bullet category one users may opt to may opt to
cover the custodial and AV setup in Louis. So one idea would be either to have town staff go down and set up a screen and um a hookup for finance committee to be
able to plug their laptop in. And that's a service that's done by town staff during town staff time. Uh I believe that the intent of this is any fee that's outside [snorts] of normal operational needs. Okay. Um if finance committee were to meet in this space, it
would meet typically with anybody who needed assistance to walk them through the system which has occurred not to pick on the finance committee. So use a different one acting 250 um DPW building committee. So any committee that needs some support from it they they typically
provide that. I believe that the intent that we're looking at at the fee schedule is anything above and beyond normal expectations. So, if there was a committee and they were going to have an evening meeting at 7:00 p.m. and require it assistance throughout the entire
night, that carries a cost that we would have to incorporate. And we can better outline that too, that it would be any fee associated with these categories or category one that's outside of normal expectations and operating hours. if that helps.
>> Yeah, I think I'm just getting tripped up by the what's in the table. Like there's yes, a fee or actual cost that tells me I'm going to be paying. All right. Thank you for outlining this and taking even more feedback. Who knew it was going to be this complicated? But
at least it's not seven pages like the school districts be. Um, we are ready to move on to consent items. Item 10, approve meeting minutes for January 27, 2025,
June 15 and 18, 2026. Item 11, approve executive session minutes from June 26, 2026. Item 12, approve disposition of surplus property. Item 13, approve actton
committee questionnaire and distribution to volunteers. Item 14, accept donation of $1,653.50 from McKinnon Printing Company towards shared profit of Actton 250 marketing sales to be deposited in the Actton 250
gift account. Item 15, approve reappoint of members of land stewardship committee with terms to end on June 30th, 2029. Bill Smith, associate member. Todd Sakurus, associate member. Ken Apple, associate
member. Item 16, appoint Annie Channon as a full member of the Cemetery Commission with a term to end June 30th, 2029. Item 17, accept donations towards the 2026 summer concert series and special events. Stamsky and McNary, Inc. for
$1,000. Actton Pharmacy for $500. Kitchen Outfitters for $500. Squash West for $500. Prime Painting for $200. Item 18, approve on one-day malt and wine licenses. Noa Valley Neighbors Club on
July 12, 2026 at Nara Park Bath House Pavilion. Annervan Mandal on July 26, 2026 at Nara Park Picnic Pavilion from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Priest Curyat on July 26, 2026 at Nara Park
Picnic Pavilion from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. >> Move to approve consent items 10 through 18 inclusive. >> Second. >> All right, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? That is
unanimous. >> Move to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I. >> Any opposed? Any extensions? Exemptions. >> 10 extensions
expectations. It is 10:00 and I cannot talk. >> Sorry. But I think um even think of timing when you said that I was like
>> and also and also >> Thank you. Are you leaving on vacation? >> Have a great vacation.