[Music] Good evening. It is Tuesday, August 26th, the meeting of the Kushnet Board of Selectment. Is there a motion to call the meeting order? So moved.
Second. All those in favor? Motion carries. As a reminder, this meeting will be audio and video recorded. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, gentlemen. Uh this is the first work product of uh Patty Cello who's doing our minutes for us. I'll just go back in time
and uh you know there's just a couple technical corrections that we have to offer up. Um but I just want to get a sense from you gentlemen feedback on the formatting and um I think it's really good stuff but want to make sure that we're all on the same page um when it
comes to the minutes. Okay, I think the format looks really good, Mr. Chairman. Um it's nice to see some minutes on the agenda. Let me get caught up. She's going to crank these out. She's already, you know, worked with Concom and Planning EVA and Gastro.
Any uh No, looks good so far. The only the only comments I would have for you, Mr. Chairman, is on the January 10th, 2023, there's a couple corrections. One on the meaning mail. Um, it says Christian Elementary School. That should be a Kushnet Elementary School. And then the conversation below
the first paragraph regarding Mr. Bansky review on the old colony building feasibility study. It was talking about old colony and then it goes further on to say o hour and then in the paragraph below as well. So just those two corrections that I have for that motion to accept the minutes of January
10, February 2nd, July 29, August 8th. Uh there's a motion to accept those. I'll make a motion to accept January 10, 2023, February 2nd, 2023, July 29th, 2025.
I will abstain from the last I was absent. We'll just take that one second. So, a second. I will second that. All those in favor? I motion carries. There's a motion, Mr. Hank. There is a motion to accept the August 8th, 2025
regular meeting minutes. I'll second that. All those in favor? I Mr. got some extension. Great. Thank you. All right. Next item. Good stuff here. The Daisy
Girl Scout. Girl Scouts. I know Bob, you were kind of involved in this thing or Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I may. Um, this is the same thing we did last year. Um, as you know, they've the public has been holding basically a townwide yard sale, Apple Peach weekend every year. And um
the Daisy Scouts have requested uh to set up on Parting Ways lawn just so they have access to a parking lot. Um they understand that they can't set up in the parking lot. Uh so this would be exactly the same as uh last year. They did let me know that they will not be doing it
both days and the scouts will let me know exactly which day just so we can give everybody a heads up. Um but it went off pretty well last year. They raised a lot of money and uh sold some cookies and were able to uh put it back towards the Daisy Scouts. Nice. All right.
This is a great great cause, Mr. Chairman. The only thing that I would ask is some mention about an insurance requirement and I don't see that attached. So, if we need to notify for insurance purposes, correct to bring that in for the for the town to be covered for liability issues.
Yep. I know. Uh Mr. Chairman, if I may, just to uh let Mr. Gasper know they did have it last year. I will reach out to the the it's cheap. It's one day like Apple Peach does the two-day event. It's cheap for liability insurance. They were given notice of the insurance
requirements which is what to come in. Motion to approve as long as the insurance is um posted with us. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries. All right. Next meeting is with I3 broadband. Mr. Mike Elum. Uh Mike, if you want to just uh bring us to the uh
come up to the uh podium. Gentlemen, by way of background, um I was contacted uh by representatives from I3 Broadband who wanted to inform the board of their activity um on the south coast. I did a premeating with them last week. uh was
really really impressed and wanted to make sure that the board had an opportunity to learn about uh I3 broadband um what they are and what they hope to do in South Coast. Um I think really at the the heart of this it's a
consumerf facing um broadband for internet and phone service. Um you know I think we've all been frustrated with the monopoly uh that currently exists in the Kushna. Um, you know, Kevin, I don't know if you were on the board with me, but
I was, you know, worked with colleagues, uh, when RCN was around. This is like 20some years ago, uh, to try to bring some competition, uh, for our residents. Uh, so with that, Mike, we'll turn it over to you. You can introduce yourselves to the board. This is, uh,
Mr. Gasper, uh, Mr. Hinckley, and, uh, David Wire, chairman of the board. So, the floor is yours, Mike. Well, gentlemen, we appreciate the opportunity. I did give you a quick little handout. Uh it's just a a quick thing to tell you a little bit about who we are. It tells you a little bit about
fiber. Um we'll go into more of that. I wanted to tell you um I've got um Brian Olsen with me who is our chief development officer, Matt Torrenti who is our general manager of Rhode Island, and our chief legal is Chris Bole here
in the back uh who I think you have uh cross history with. So there you go. The world is getting smaller every day. Whenever you have the opportunity to have a conversation, you're reminded about that. That's right. Uh so I am the uh vice president of community affairs and market development
for I3 broadband. Who is I3 broadband is probably your first question, right? So we are a mainly fiber to a home provider. We're based in pure, Illinois, and we've been doing fiber for just over 20 years as Brian likes to talk about. We've been in the internet business since Dialup was cool. uh which takes
you back a little ways, right? Um so uh it makes perfect sense when you think about the fact that we are based in Peoria. We're uh basically in a little over 70 communities in Illinois. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. So we expanded into the St. Louis region and into the
southern Missouri uh about 4 and 1/2 years ago. And uh you would think Illinois, Missouri, uh Massachusetts makes perfect sense, right? Well, it turns out that I don't know how many of you are familiar with full channel cable over in Rhode Island in East Bay, but
we've been there since 83. 83. 83. And uh Matt's been running this system over there. Uh they became part of I3 Broadband back in 2017. So, we are literally right next door uh over in East Bay and have been running fiber or
been running uh systems over there for a while. So, we're looking for places to expand. And unfortunately, going with what you just let in with, uh there's a lot of communities over here that have one choice. And that really stinks for
your residents because if you have a problem uh with your cable provider, you have one choice uh for you to be able to do anything. Which means when you don't have competition, price tends to go up, customer service tends to go down and the overall satisfaction of everything
just wanes. So we are looking to bring choice and competition to the area. Whenever you bring that in, the opposite also happens. Customer service has to get better because you're competing with each other to get a client, but you're also looking at price. So, we bring you
the potential of better quality, better price, better customer service. All of our customer service is literally right across the state line uh in East Bay. So, um if you have a problem, you're not talking to another country. You're
talking with another state that's right down the road. Um we just got our 10th consecutive A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. We're very proud of our customer service. And Paul Cronin, who is our CEO, who's uh a guy from the area
who grew up here, talks about the fact that your people make the difference. And I know people say that on a regular basis, but for us, we've got to be better, especially when you're competing with big corporate cable monopolies. Um the difference with us as opposed to the
electric company, the power company, uh the water company, you have to take their service. You have no choice. We're coming into your community or potentially coming into your community soon trying to get people to drop a service they already have and
pick us up. Uh we don't do contracts for residential service. And that's because we want to earn your business every month. If you decide that we're not right for you, you can drop us and go back to what you had before. The question would be, well, you dropped them for a reason, so why would you go
back? But that means we have to get better. We try to offer speeds that are competitive today, but the baseline for growth of tomorrow. What that means for your community is we're a multi- gig product. So, we're going to offer speeds
from 1 gig uh all the way up to 8 gig. And while that sounds amazing today, remember it wasn't very long ago, we thought DSL was fast. When you went from dialup to DSL, it changed your world. And then cable came along and you're like, "Wow, this is amazing." What we're
doing in fiber right now is the entry level of where we're going to be. About a year and a half ago, they did a speed test using the similar fiber that we're putting in the ground today. And they speed tested from Japan halfway around the world. To be fair, they did juice
the laser uh when they were shooting it down, but they got up to 318 terabits per second. We're talking about 1 gig, 2 gig, 8 gig. And we think 8 gig is amazing. I don't know what you're going to do with 8 gig at home, but what you do in your own house of mining Bitcoin
or something is up to you, right? What we're here to do is offer you the opportunity to meet the needs of today. When we talk about a gig coming into your house, uh it's not for any one particular application that you're going to use. Brian talks about a lot that you
have a home that runs on 220 amps, but you don't have anything in your home that requires 220 amps. that is there to power everything in your home. Today, the average household with children uh has about 37 different connections it's pulling on your internet feed, which
you're like, how could it possibly be 37? Well, almost all of us have streaming TVs, you have laptops, you have tablets, you have phones, uh Nest thermostat, Ring doorbells, all those type things. They all add up and they pull on your Wi-Fi. So that gig or 2 gig
or 8 gig that comes in is there to make sure that you're doing everything. Like the kids are just getting back to school, right? I have a 30-year-old, a 28-year-old, and a 23y old. I think about how school was when my kids started. And then by the time they finished where we are today, our kids
now are I don't even know that they know how to write anymore and they use pen and paper anymore. I know, David, that's frustrating. I I don't know how they're going to sign forms in the future, but that's a whole other work session that you can have. Um, but we're looking at
things like Google Classroom. So, your kids are kind of expected to be technology literate today. And when they are at home doing their homework, they are doing things that require a lot of bandwidth with all of our speeds,
they're symmetrical. So the big difference between us and what you may currently have is when your current provider says you have a gig, that means you have a gig download. Your upload speed might be 15 meg, 30 meg. If you're really lucky, 40, we're going to be a
gig down, a gig up. So when you have two, three, four kids at home, I'm not judging. However loving your family is is how it is. But however many kids that you have in the house, if they're all trying to do Google Classroom and they're doing video uploads and they're trying to do that, they need a lot of
bandwidth. Not to mention the fact what mom and dad are going to be using as well. So today's household requires the two-way traffic and making sure that we've got a big enough pipe for you to be able to do all the things that you need, plus talking about all those things that we said we're pulling. So,
we are uh going through the process right now of trying to do all of our make ready, which is always the longest part of trying to get this done because you have a lot of different providers who own all these poles out here. Uh trying to figure out how many poles need
to be replaced. If you're the last guy in, you're the guy who gets the bill for paying for that pole. So, we're going through that process right now in a number of different communities around the area. As that process finishes up, we're going to get closer to a this is
when we can start construction date and Matt can probably speak better to that. If you have any other questions, uh I got the whole team here to answer those. But that's a quick synopsis of Hi, we're I3 broadband and we're looking forward to coming to your community. So, so when we met, you got uh you
mentioned that you're working with Somerset and Secon or Somerset Swansea. Swansea Swansea, right? and talking with a number of others. Oh, good. Uh, I think, you know, Fall River, you know, obviously we appreciate you coming here. Um, and
we'll do what we can. I think it makes sense for us to like our partner, our neighbors in Fair Haven. You know, we've tried to reach out to the city of New Bedford. I think the more awareness, right, and then it makes it more attractive. You know, I know I pushed it. Um, might do it for you, might not, right? But if the more in the area that
you can we can help you get to know the bigger the scale the better it goes right it's better for the customer presumably it is um what's the pro just talk about the process right because if you're a utility you got to go through permitting and so on and so forth you can maybe just talk about the process
I'm going to have Matt speak on that a little bit more okay so basically what happens is when we start the process we we uh we'll go out and we do kind of a walk out of the area We look at pole conditions. We we write down everything so we can design a plan.
When we get that done, we actually put together pole applications. So there's going to be two sets of pole applications that go out. One to Verizon, one to Eversource. They have to we'll put a 100 on each application. They work together and they go through
and they do like their own engineering and and they do load bearing analysis and they figure out okay what has to what work has to be done on the pole. Sometimes the poles are clean there's nothing that has to be done. Other times there's other plant like Comcast might
have to move their plant. Um poles may be replaced and this we start this process so we can have up to 125 poles on every application. So we submit those applications. We'll submit a whole bunch of them. Usually they can only do a
thousand polls a month. So they go through the process, they tell us what it's going to cost, then we that's the make ready piece of it. We pay for them to do the make ready. Once the make ready is done, our contractor goes out and starts building on the poles. That's
pretty much So you had spoke about in the ground. So, I wrote that down and now we're talking about poles because I have Sorry if I said in the ground. That was that was my mistake. Yeah, that in the Midwest everything is underground. Yeah, we build we build everything. We
bury everything in the Midwest here. Everything is aerial. Okay. You guys like your rock here. Yeah. So, that that was my concern, right? Cuz when you said in the ground, I was like that's that's like an virtually impossible task, especially with everything that's it's not like we don't
the community hasn't been built yet, right? and you're coming in going, "Hey, before you develop, let us be part of your ingground utilities." Right. Simpler process. So, it's not in the ground. So, then we're back in the polls. And you had just spoke on it, Matt. And I believe that you would have to not only do what you just said for
application, but then there's a lease, probably a lease agreement with Eversource, Verizon to keep your stuff on. We we sign a license agreement with Verizon and with Eversource. So, it's usually like a five or 10 year agreement. It could be up to 20 years.
We have to pay to annually to attach to the pole, right? So that's basically we pay a fee every year to stay on the pole. So obviously if you're in the area, you must have already looked at some of these costs, right? and did your own due
diligence on saying not feasible based on their rates they're looking at or it is feasible and that's why you're here saying it's feasible to do that and you know what you can offer if you were to come into a community like ours and start running fiber you know what your basic package would run for cost
analysis saying we can still be profitable by offering this fiber package to residents homes at just call it 50 bucks a month okay um and this is our operating cost of 40 bucks we're still you 10 bucks ahead margin on it. It's profitable for us to
do that. And that's how you look at it from a business model to say, "Yeah, we can get in there and develop this because we could still make a decent margin." Right. Correct. So I think Mona said something, I know you said something about being in Rhode Island, but and then he talked about
Fall River. I mean, like I agree with him is the more communities you can you can at least get interest from. Yes. And then you could start saying, "Hey, we have interest from the town of Aushnet. There's, you know, 3,300 residential homes. There's 1,500 businesses in town where you start
running." And then you really want to, as Mr. Mon alluded to, the fave and the Rochester of the world, the free towns of the world, right? The rural areas. I mean, it's it's spread out a little bit more, but the easier fish of the cities, right? Cuz all the homes are really congested. And it it makes the process a
lot faster because right now when you're dealing with small like you know few thousand homes here or there. Eversource and national grid will not give you the resources to to do like a mass project. If we were to say hey we're going to do 50,000 homes we want to build this year
or within two years. They would then work they would hire like outside contractors to work with us to actually speed the process up. So we can have the more we have the more they'll do for us and the faster everything will go.
Got it. Got it. Um I guess really the only question I have is this does come up quite often about competition monopolies and everything like that. Yeah. What kind of turnaround time are we
thinking if you progress this way? Turnaround in terms of operational. So, if this was to work out, you do your poll hearings and your license agreements and everything and you actually have fiber on the polls.
If you said you're in the make ready period now, what kind of time frame will we look? We have we haven't done anything yet as far as um pole applications, but probably from the beginning of the process to start a construction could be like 10
months out to possibly a year depending on how quickly um Eversource will move and how much repair needs to be done. If there's a lot of pole replacements, it's going to take a lot longer to get the project done. If the poles are clean, it's easy
because the construction piece is the easy piece. Yeah. Um, so we can get that done quickly because we can do anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 ft a day. So, it can move quick. It's just all that the whole process
that we have to go through. Um, and you know, the one thing Ever Source is in Connecticut and in Connecticut the the the rules are a little different with Makeay. You're allowed to attach to a poll before make ready is even discussed or paid. That's kind of done after the
fact. In Massachusetts, it's the opposite. You have to go through the process. And the one thing with Eversource, because they deal with Connecticut, the one thing we will ask for is a construction waiver if they would work with us that way. And if we get a waiver, then it can be done even faster.
Gotcha. If you're driving through a Kushnet, check all the double poles. Yeah, there's there's new polls going up left and right and um which is great. Yeah. So, I think the timing might be right for you. Great for you. Horrible for everybody else. That's all we hear about is double poles, right?
And fighting the double poles. Well, it's kind of like anything else, right? When you build a new road, everybody hates the new road that gets done, but they love the new road when it's finished, right? So, I get it's short-term pain. Um but once that's done, it does open up a lot of new possibilities for the community.
Great. Mr. J if I may just to double back on that point I think we had on our two main corridors roughly 212 new poles are up. Wow. And slowly the second pole is getting chopped down as utilities move over. So
you know from a standpoint of the two main characters that exist in this town. There's two streets and a bunch of sub streets. Um it would be pretty straightforward I would think. Yeah, because you have to with the double polls, you have to wait for all the transfers to get done. So in containing
that fight for two years, the new poll's already there. That's the good news for you guys. You got to hurry up and get on the pole before anybody else does. Verizon and cable are taking forever to move. You notice the poles have all been chopped. That means Eversource is done moving their utilities to the new pole and they chop the pole. They're required
to to chop the pole and that indicates we're done with our job. Now it's lying on Verizon and cable and if we have town fiber and all of that stuff the sooner we get going and apply pole applications the faster those poles get removed because they can't be sitting
there when we're putting up our our plan. So all right well gentlemen thank you. Um thank you. Let's stay in touch and you know I think what we can do is we can take this meeting which is going to be on YouTube. We can package it up and I'll email it.
Mr. Kelly, we can email it to town administrator, you know, Fair Haven, our colleagues in this area to help. And I would suggest you reach out to those boards, um, you know, like you did with us. And so, uh, you know, we'll try still try to get attention of New
Bedford for you. Um, and we wish you well and you know, your success will hopefully be success for our consumers and our residents. So, good luck. We appreciate you being very accommodating. Thanks for taking the time and getting on that call and thanks for inviting us here. Um, we appreciate
communities that are excited and they see what competition can do in their community. Believe it or not, not everybody's as welcoming as you guys are. So, when when will we hear back like from you? Like, this can't be it, right? You mean you came in, you we got a lot of people watching TV. It's it's live right
now. It goes out on YouTube as the chairman alluded to, but you can't just leave and didn't leave us answering questions with the public. So like what's your next step now that you've been in a cushion anyways? Like he's going to have you know 20 30 people
tomorrow asking him when's this coming to town? Hey, it sounds great. We're tired of what we already have, right? We want better pricing and we don't have answers because we just don't have answers. So we we'll do our preliminary walk out and design on that once we start with uh submitting poll applications. Then we'll
notify you that the process is starting. poll applications are are sat and then kind of keep you updated. That's what we're that's what we're doing with other towns is just letting them know here we are in this phase of it. We're expecting it to be another like four or 6 months construction should be starting estimate
you know this time but we'll we'll we'll keep you a breast of everything that's going on back to you. The only the only reason the only way we're really going to be excited is if you tell everybody your price of broadband's getting chopped up your current bill. Yeah. And that's when
you'll draw real excitement. So, we will make sure that their price gets uh it's going to be a better price. It's going to be a more reliable product cuz we're at a 99.9% reliability on our network. So, uh we're hardly ever down and if we do have issues, Matt's team is
great about getting out there and getting things fixed. We pride ourselves on having very good customer service, but people really care about price and fiber is is much different than an HFC plant, which is Comcast. The Comcast has there's a lot more things out in the
plant, a lot more hardware, um, and a lot more things that can go wrong with an HFC plant. Not with fiber. I mean, because with HFC plants right now, you have power supplies out there, you have amplifiers, you have MIDI bridges, you you constantly have there's leakage in the system. And I deal with an HFC
plant. So I I know what these things are all the time. It with fiber, you're not you don't have all that out there. So it's unless there's a major fiber cut, you're not going to have any uh it's going to be very reliable. To your question, Mr. Gasper, we will
stay in touch with you. Yeah. The only other thing that I do want to bring up is um for you folks to keep in mind and it'd be nice if we didn't have that longerterm agreement, but I know that we did contract I think with Comcast. I think it was a 10-year deal. That's that's a franchise agreement.
We're not offering video. Yeah. So, Oh, do you mean for the city services? No, he means you mean as a customer of Comcast the towns. We have an agreement with Comcast franchise agreement. It's the license. I have it at I have it at home. It's a
book about that big. Yeah, it's it's the license agreement. So, yeah, with with a franchise with a video provider, they sign a license agreement where they pay you annually and then they have a quarterly like pay or public access that they provide. That's video.
We're not providing video service. We are phone and internet only. Okay, cool. So, I just wanted to bring it to your attention. you want to look into it and say, "Oh, and how many other communities are out there that may be locked into something and we can't join hands with you." Right? So, if that's if that's the case, great.
And we had touched on that in our pre call and I think what we did kind of talk about too was it tax gener generating the tax revenue. It's it's a question of how Massachusetts towns tax versus other towns in other states. Um, for example,
in Rhode Island, all the plant we have up on the poles, we pay a property tax to the town. Our assessor's here, so she might know that answer. I'm sorry I wasn't listening. So, Kelly, like with utilities, if these gentlemen, their their uh
apparatus is on is on the poll. Are we charging them a property tax or something? Personal property tax, right? Uh Verizon uh gets a personal not Eversource rather gets a personal property tax. Anything used with telephone and utility is a central value set by the department of revenue. Got it.
So I think they would fall under the purview though of what the heer source and utility. Yeah. How it works with the phone company is how it would work with us. So it's a few bucks coming to the town. You know some it's based on the asset value which for a
fiber system. Yeah. It's a good asset. It's a good asset. Great. All right. Well very good. Thank you. We're going to use while you're in town. We got some really good restaurants. Go check them out. Yeah. Grab dinner. Go grab an ice cream. Got an ice cream shop down the road. You can even go. We got a nice uh six
sixhole twilight special at the golf course with a Kushner too, right? A twilight special. I like that. All right. See you guys. Thank you all. All right. Thanking speaking of uh golf. Um gentlemen, I just wanted to get start
getting our head around the uh facility. Uh the facility committee has been meeting. Uh they're getting close to providing making a final recommendation. They're not there yet. Um but it's going
to come. And so actually Oh, I'm sorry, Steve. I meant to go just took it out of order. Um item number four, which is the golf facilities uh committee report. There's a slide in there of what they're working on. The goal is to try to get them here for the meeting of the 9th
well in advance of town meeting. Um but I think it's at a point where I would encourage you gentlemen if you have the time to reach out to Mr. Deprad, Mr. D. Ro, um who are the chair and vice chair just to get a sense of of where things stand. Um, you know, I know they've gone
through they've done a lot of work on it. Um, but obviously the devil's in the detail, what we can afford, whether it comes back and so on and so forth. But I just wanted to make sure you know that at the next meeting, the goal is to have them here for a uh to make a presentation to the board. But there is
I think there is enough data and information that if you want to talk to them in advance, so it's not the first time you're seeing it um on the night. So, I just wanted to up Yeah. So, sorry about that. Steve, Steve, you want to jump up?
This is uh an article, I guess, that was money that was appropriated. It was looking for some equipment for a vibe spike seating reel. Well, we're coming into um we're coming into what's best described as renovations season in um for the golf
course. Um we're we're looking at interceding um some new varieties of bankrass into our greens. And our um request this evening was to spend some of the remaining um article funds in
article 9008004 to purchase a set of three seating reels. what these reels will do. Um they have a if you reference the picture um in the second figure you can see there's a seating box in the front of the reel.
Seed comes down the reel creates a perforation in the ground and the seed drops into that perforation. Um the reason we'd like to use this particular type of method, there's approximately 6 million bent grass seeds per pound of
bankrass. Ben grass seeds are very small and if you place them too deep into the ground they'll germinate but they won't grow. Um these reels will allow us to um provide that placement at a much quicker
pace. Currently what we do is we'll take an airator out onto the green and use a dipple time which makes a hole about the size of a pencil eraser and it goes about about 3/4 of an inch deep. on any, you know, 7,000 foot green that
takes about 20 25 minutes to complete. Once we complete that task, we come back with the drop cedar and drop seed bent grass into those across the putting green surface. Then after that, we'll put a top dressing sand on it and use
the mat to drag the uh sand and the seed in to the holes uh in order to provide that small environment for germination. That whole process takes about an hour um give or take. Um with the
seeding reels, we can finish seeding a green in um less than 15 minutes in two directions. um seating reels can be operated once the uh once the um the settings are put onto the side of the
reels. Again, I'll draw your attention to figure two. There's a bunch of um gears that we select and change to get the appropriate interceding rate. And then once that's done, anybody who can operate a triplex can use that particular machine to oversee a green.
So any any one of our greens mowers or our uh our T- mowers could use that triplex, right? Um and they are is it is a set of reels um I guess best best described as an accessory um to a machine as opposed to
an actual purpose of machine itself. U Mr. Chairman, just to confirm that was actually going to be my question, Steve. So it's 13,500 for the set of three. It's not for the set of three reels. Yeah. Okay. So, what article did you say this would be a funded from?
Uh, article 9008004. There's approximately 13,97161 [Music] left in that article. Okay. We don't have an article with that kind of number. Yeah, it looks like a line item number. Yeah, it's a line item number that you just read.
So, I got that I got that number from the uh finance department in the last Say it slow again. article 9 08 04. Okay.
Excuse me. Well, that was that's how it was listed on the uh So the Steve you have could it be September of ' 08? It's possible the date is is there plus
the article number, but neither here or there. Steve does a pretty good job of keeping track of his articles and the funding is the the only question that I would have is the does the article support the expenditure for equipment or was it for cop pass or something else like that? As far as I understand it the article um
I believe the article was drafted by Mr. Isaac and it did include equipment because we discussed that at the uh golf committee meeting most recently and the golf committee approved moving forward to request the expense from the board of select
I pulled that number off the uh the most recent um Mr. Chairman accounting report that the uh folks in the office I'll make this real easy for you. I'll make a motion to to approve the amount of $13,500 from set article as long as set article
supports the expenditure. Okay. Second. All those in favor. I motion car. Steve, before you go, you you kind of said it, but I do me a favor for all the viewers out there who are grass and lawn afficionados. This time
of the year is the time to do an airate, recede, and then put some dirt over it or just give us some free advice. There's there's a lot of 30 seconds on what there's a lot there's a lot of things that I that we do in our business to
renovate um areas. Um not to the extent that the homeowner could really do that because it is expensive, labor intensive, and and so on. Um, but this is the time of year we're up in the portion of the country which grows cool season grasses.
Cool season grasses grow best and root best in the early fall and somewhat in the spring as your as your ground temperatures are getting cooler and your nighttime temperatures are getting cooler. The best time to start
seeding is probably mid August to the end of September. The other thing is that, you know, crab grass and other, you know, um, broadleaf weed species are always going to be there. They're not your biggest problem. Crabrass is normally your biggest problem. What happens in the spring if you start
seeding too much in the spring, you open up the soil, crab grass seed is always there. It's going to germinate at 50° soil temperature and then you've got to it's going to overtake your um the seed that you're actually putting down. But this time of year, crab grass is waning.
Um, and the other important thing about it is the first time you get a hard frost, crab grass is an annual weed. It's not a perennial weed and the frost will kill it. So, we try to do and it also allows us, you know, um, anytime you're going to renovate for the people
who are renovating the lawn, you need to have an irrigation source or or you need to water it. Um, turf grass or grass seed needs two things to germinate. First, it needs seed to soil contact. That's why we're
looking at these reels because the reel will place the seed into the ground. Now, we're interseeding, which means we're putting seed into an already established turf grass. And whereas, if you're overseeding, you're seeding into basically bare ground. So, your seeding
rates are a little bit different. But once you get the seed into the ground, it needs seed to soil contact and it needs heat. As soon as it germinates, it's going to send that little green tiller up. it starts photosynthesis. That when it doesn't so much need the heat as much as it does nutrients. So,
you're going to want to fertilize uh with a starter fertilizer that's got phosphorus in it at the time you put the seed into the ground. But, you need to keep the seed moist in order for it to germinate. So, a lot of times you if you have irrigation, you can set up a program that runs 10 minutes three times
a day. just keeps the soil moist enough, especially in this particular type of weather because once your due point goes down, you lose the soil moisture because it goes from a point of heavy contact to to less contact. Cool. But now's the best time, you know, now's
the best time to do it. It doesn't seem like it does, you know, August is because it's hot, but if you're going to get it in there opened up and get it to grow, now is the best time to do it. The spring is a little bit more questionable. As we all know, it can be wet and miserable and stuck and cold and
it's just not going to germinate grow at that time. The other thing you could do if you wanted to is you could do what they call dormant seating. As you can see, a lot of people um will seed across their lawns in in late October and in November. And the seed will sit there
and a lot of times what happens when you have freeze and thaw, the ground freezes, then it thaws it. that you get fissures, it opens up, freezes again, seeds pull down into the ground. You'll get some germination from that, too. All right. Well, thanks, Steve. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
All right. Uh, next uh, Miss Costco, uh, Canada for gentlemen. Um, I'm here with Sarah Millo. She is the new candidate for the senior clerk position. And uh thank you chairman
Wolar and um Chairman Brown for the interview process. We interviewed several candidates and the offer was made to Sarah and she accepted and she's going to start on September 2nd. She signed the offer. Uh Jamie and I left it on Sydney's desk. Um now we're here for
her appointment formally by the board of selection. Great. gentlemen, you can ask your your own questions, but I had, as Kelly mentioned, I had the chance to sit in and interview, go through two rounds of different candidates, and um Sarah really stood out. And I think what was kind of interesting, was cool, is that
Kelly gave her a little homework assignment for Excel to see what her Excel skills were and her computer skills, and she turned that around over the weekend, and Kelly said, "All right, we got to hire this person." So, I thought that was kind of cool to do. So, uh, Sarah, um, gentlemen, unless you
have any questions, but great background and I think the things that we really touched upon in the interview process was being consumer friendly and and you know, really being able to take care of the taxpayer, especially our older population and, you know, I think Sarah's background working in the U
health industry as a home health aid where she had a lot of exposure to elderly people and older older people um, I think would be a nice touch for for uh that department itself. Mr. Chairman, I have no I have no questions for for Sarah. I mean, if if
the recommendation comes from Miss Costa, yourself, and Mr. Brown, the chairman of the board of assessors, I have the utmost confidence in you three to make a great decision on behalf of the town's people. So, I'm fine with that. Welcome aboard, Sarah. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I'll second what Mr.
Gasper just said. Congratulations. Welcome aboard, Sarah. Is there a motion to appoint Sarah Melo? So move. Second. All those in favor? I for Thank you, gentlemen, for your time. Thank you. All right. Next one, gentlemen, there's a a memo here that I drafted sort of on
behalf of the as you recall, we had a ad hoc search committee that reviewed um resumeumés for the town administrator's position. We went through two rounds um and I'll paraphrase but uh essentially after several rounds of review looking at 17
resumes with the town administrative position the screening committee has narrowed down the field to seven applicants who they believe are worthy of a personal interview. They're suggesting that an interview committee be named to meet with these candidates and ultimately provide the selection of three finalists who come before the
board and interview and an open session. These seven candidates have different degrees of experience and skill sets with no one candidate being 100% perfect. With that said, the screening committee feels there is something here to work with. Um, you know, I had kind of helped just kind of keep things
organized, but I think it's important at this point to step back from that process and the the names that, you know, were discussed. Ryan Ruthendes and Jesse St. Jul initial screening committee. Pam Leonte is the town clerk,
uh, elected position. Bob Brown holds a number of positions in town, elected, and Les Day as the moderator. Um, you know, former selectman who has visibility on how town government works. So, if you guys are are okay with this
concept, um, Mr. Kelly be glad said he will st you know help organize it and schedule you know schedule the interviews and all that kind of stuff. Um and we can bring you know this group in reappoint them at
our next meeting kind of tell them what you guys are looking for and candidates and provide questions or whatever. But at this point, this is the best. This is where we're at. And this should be, you know, I endorse this recommendation and you know, the board has other ideas,
then I turn it over to you guys. Just a quick question, Mr. Chairman. Have you spoken with Pam, Bob, unless I have and they're on board. They're they're more than more than excited to help us participate. Mr. Chairman, I'm fine. I'm fine with um this process,
but the one thing that I am deeply saddened about is that the ad's still not running. Um we we've had time people are looking at resumes and I've spoken on this issue no matter what position it is in this town that the the ad stays running until the position is filled.
Period. And that hasn't been and that hasn't been done. Um why? I don't know. I've I've talked to Mr. Kelly a number of times. I've done it publicly in in this session in border selection sessions saying you the MMA the way it works you pay 50 bucks you advertise for 30 days you get dropped off you wait 2
days you readvertise and you're back at the top and you're in perfect visibility of everybody why that process hasn't continued to to be had I've looked at certain resumes that we've gone in and I agree with the concept of the letter that was written from you and at at this
point nobody's 100% right and I don't think anybody's going to be 100% but why would we take that opportunity away from ourselves in this committee to be able to have more resumes come in whether it's three, five, whatever it be more. You never know what's going to come in and say, "Hey, you know what? Look at
this one. This one just came in. Good to go." And if it doesn't, we fulfilled our obligation to the community and said, "We've kept everything running as far as possible. This is what we have. Have a nice day. This is what this is what we got to screen with." So, I I would like to keep to readvertise the position as
advertised in the past and keep that advertisement open. Um, so I would make a motion to have Mr. Kelly reverted tonight before he leaves for vacation tomorrow. Second. All those in favor? I you and I.
Yeah. Okay. Here's the deal. And we can absolutely do that. But, you know, the only thing is we we ran it twice essentially two rounds. Nothing says that after this process, if no one candidate sticks out after going through the seven, we go back to the drawing
board again. So essentially, it's going to be a rolling thing. But I just want that's the that's the that's the point. Just keep it rolling and let the advertisement stay running and let the resumes keep coming in. Who knows? Maybe you won't get any more resumes. Maybe you'll get five more. Maybe you get 10 more. And at least then the screening
committee is already in place. They can go through the ones that you currently went through, screen through them and say, they might look at this and say, you know what, the full committee, this new one in which we appoint them, they might look at it and say, "We don't like the seven. We only like three." And and that's not going to be feasible because we know some of those
folks resumes are old now. Yeah. And they might have taken jobs somewhere else. And then you have the problem um where the screening committee is going to bring people in for interviews. Once they're done interviewing, I think one of the pertinent questions for the screening committee to ask the candidates is, are you willing to have
your name on a board of selectman's agenda for an interview? If they're finalists, then I would hope that they don't have to be under the open meeting law. That's what I'm trying to say. But somebody's got to communicate that with them. You can't just put their name on, right? But if somebody's a finalist, the
top three, I would hope that they going into it would say, "Oh, gez." Well, that's the question that the that's the question the committee is supposed to ask when they're interviewing, right? Saying if you become a finalist, are you accepting to have your name on a board of selected agenda for a formal interview in front of the board of
selective? And if they say no, now you ain't bringing three in front of the board of selectment anymore. That's the that's the process of keeping the pool open. Yep. All right, sounds good. So, is there a motion to appoint Ryan Rosendi, Jesse St. Pam Levante, Bob Brown, Les Dacon as the
uh interview selectman's representatives as an interview committee. So move. Second. All those in favor? I carry. So Jamie will have to have Sydney notify these people, do it by email, not by snail mail. We got to get uh sworn in and then we can bring them
in on the 9th to uh by then. We could get some more names that come in. Um we're already be two weeks into that posting. So, uh, I think that's a good idea and we should be hopefully we'll come to some resolution here because the clock is ticking. Um, Mr. Mr. Kelly,
there was also a motion to have you readvertise tonight before you leave for vacation because I know you're taking the next 3 days off. Time is of the essence. So, please do that as well. All right. Thank you. Very good. Uh, unfortunately, we got a few letters of
resignation or air quotes retirement. First one is uh by the acting police chief Tom Karu. And I am going to take the time to read this because I think uh Chief Karu uh deserves that and deserves
that air time. Dear members of the board of Luckman, after 33 and a2 years of dedicated service to the town of Ausha and its residents, I'm writing to formally announce my retirement from the Aushna Police Department effective Friday, September 5th. And keep in mind, this was sent to us on August 5th.
Serving this community has been one of the greatest honors of my life. Throughout the years, I've witnessed both the challenges and the growth of our town, and I'm proud to have contributed to the safety, well-being, and progress of Kushnet. From my earliest days as a patrol officer to my most recent role as a provisional chief
of police, I have always approached my duties with integrity, professionalism, and deep commitment to public service. I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the board of selectman for your ongoing support throughout my tenure. I'm equally grateful to the dedicated men and women of the Akushna Police Department whose commitment and
courage have inspired me daily. As I step away from this chapter of my life, I do so with confidence in the department's future and the strength of the community we have all worked so hard to protect. I remain committed to ensuring a smooth and respectful transition and am available to assist in
any way deemed helpful during this period. Thank you once again for the opportunity to serve with sincere appreciation. Thomas Kuru, Provisional Chief of Police, Town of Aushin. Um, a first of all to uh
Tom Kuru, thank you and your family for uh the work you've done over the years. Hate to see you go. Um, but you know, when there's opportunities that present themselves after a long story career, you've earned the right to make the decision that's in your best interest
and your family's best interest. So, um, I commend you for all your work and, uh, I'm sorry to see you go, but you've left a huge, huge mark on the on the community in in a time over the last year, I can't think of anybody better to
have served in this provisional role uh, with the right touch and the right level of uh, structure uh, to guide the young to guide the men and women of the department. So to Tom Crew, thank you very much for all you've done. Thank you.
Um I don't think I could have said that better, Mr. Chairman. So the only thing that I do want to say, um I've known Tommy for a long period of time. Um truly commendable police officer, became sergeant and then provisional chief, and he moved into that position and didn't miss a beat and for what he's done and
served for the board of selectment in this community. Thank you very much, Tom Karu. You're a fabulous man. Mr. Jim, if I may, um, I think both of you said pretty much everything that could be said other than I just want to say thanks to Tom Karu for what he's done
since he's been in this position and I can honestly say it was one of the easiest decisions I had the pleasure of participating in putting him in that position and I wish him best of luck for him and his family. All right. So, is there a motion to accept? So moved. With regret.
With regret. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries. Gentlemen, obviously we're going to have to make some decisions. Um and we'll touch upon that a little later on the agenda with the assessment center RFQ, but um I can't
think of anything more important on our agenda over the next month or so is to make sure that we provide um some decisions on the leadership of the department when we look for a permanent chief. So, Mr. Chairman, yes, sir. With that said, I I know the
process has been a little bit messy with civil service um trying to get everything coordinated um and move forward with the assessment center, but um we do need to do something and we maybe we might need to do an emergency executive session to put somebody in Mr.
Ku's place as another provisional. Um we can set one up for Friday if we have to do that. Um but you know, we need to act and act swiftly. We we the current sergeants of that department and the police officers of our department deserve better. Um, and
that's what we're here to do and deliver. And I think we have that obligation to do something ASAP. I don't know, gentlemen, what your uh what the schedule is like for Friday. I think we Jamie, if we post Wednesday, we can meet Friday's deadline.
Yes, sir. I'd have to do it early. Okay. Whatever works for me. When it when it comes to this position, I'll make whatever time available. What's early for? 9:30. It's fine by me. Works for me. All right. 9:30 a.m.
So, the posting, Mr. Chairman, has to be done by 9:30 tomorrow morning as well. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. So, I don't know. We'll make sure executive session. Yep. And maybe even an open session. We have to have an open after the You'll take care of those logistics,
right, Jamie? Make sure Sydney's on point. All right, sounds good. Thank you. Next item is from Thomas Whitehead regarding agricultural commission resignation. Is there a motion to accept regret?
So moved. He he was an alternate and I'd like to thank Mr. Whiten for his service. Second. All those in favor. Motion carries. All right. Cultural council uh Kelsey Janick. A motion to accept. Motion to accept her resignation with
regret. Second. All those in favor? I carries. Great. Thank you. All right. Next item is the cemetery board salaries. Uh I got to be honest with you, I've been doing this stuff in town for quite some time and
this is a new one for me and I didn't realize this was actually uh at the um here it is board of selections. Anyway, somebody from the cemetery uh board wants to speak to this. Paul Foron
here, chairman of solitary board. We're only paying $15 an hour for people to trim. And I can't I can't keep nobody to, you know, and I figured we go up to $18, but you know, we don't have 40 hours a week. It depends on the grass
where it grows and they might make 10 15 hours a week if they do work. And I I can't keep anybody over there. Now I'm doing half of it. not the one person doing it, you know, it's m Mr. Chairman.
Yeah. So, I I did do a little bit of uh research and I you know, I I look at this and I'm I'm saying to myself, okay, wow, 15 bucks an hour, right? And then we have park. They they also some of the kids over there cut grass, right? And I think some of them might be at 15 and
others might be at 17. And then of course we have the golf course which is a little bit different kind of cutting grass and things of the like but I have been an advocate over the last couple years to try to look at the salary structure of all of our unions and things of the like prioritizing everything. And I I agree with Mr.
Floren. I mean it's it's 15 bucks an hour. I mean you know who wants to do the job? So I I I looked at it and I'm like okay wait a minute because I did look at your past your budget. Okay. And I I looked at your f fiscal year 24 and you appropriated for salaries a whole
whopping $5,464. You actually spent in fiscal year 2024 of that salary item 4837. Right. So depending on how many hours Paul that we you give each person for a $3 an hour race, we'll we'll exceed the budget.
Right. So in my opinion, I think we can still make budget if we split the difference now and then when we come in because you only have a few more months. So we'll give you maybe so my without us going crazy. I mean we could always at the end of the year just give them the 18 bucks an hour or split it and give
them 1650 and when we go to next year have a budget cycle we up the cemetery boards you know I I'll have a conversation with Mr. and say, "How many hours does everybody do?" Multiply it by the 18. And we appropriate budget. Instead of this year we did 5,500, maybe next year we have to put $6,000 and give
an extra 500 bucks. I I know the history of the cemetery board's budget um year-to- date expenditures. So, they go like everybody else does. We go a little bit crazy in April, May, and the early part of June cutting grass cuz that's the grow season. things grow like weeds because of all the rainfall things and
all like and then he he seems to slow down. July and August seem to be a slow month as far as his payroll goes because of the drought season and grass ain't growing as much. So they do manage the budget very well. Mr. Foreign does a very good job doing that with his staff and then it picks back up in September
and that's where he expends his budget. So with that said, we have a couple decisions we can make. We're not going to make budgets, but at the end of the year, we could always do interdep departmental transfers to cover the shortfall in in salaries or we say right now instead of it being 15, we go to
1650 and we readjust budget for the following calendar year coming up in June. Yeah, let's talk about it. You know, I mean, if that's something that you want to if you if y'all good with that, we just say 1650. We might still have a small shop all depending on how managing grass grows and all that. There's so
many variations, but I think we can stay in budget and not create. It's just an incentive to keep somebody. It's like, you know, it's like how can you get you can't even get anybody to work for eight hours. So, it's you're not going to work every day, you know? That's correct. So, here here's the
problem, right? Is and he's spot on. So, these are these are kind of like small jobs that certain people are doing to make a little extra income. And it's not full-time salary. So, it's not like, oh my god, $3 an hour raise. It's it's it's penny change. But I think from our perspective, again, looking at that
salary scale, if somebody's in the cemetery board cutting grass, we if they're getting paid 15 bucks an hour, then why is the guy over here getting paid $18 an hour for the same job? So, we need to look at do a better job at looking at that and be more accommodate to our park department, our cemetery board, and anybody else that might be
doing the same job, but with different salaries. I don't think that makes any sense. So, we make that adjustment. We look at that and say it's easy enough for us to do and say everybody's at 18 bucks an hour to cut grass. Sounds good. Yeah. All right. Absolutely. So, I make a motion to go to 1650 and then readjust in the in the spring with
a budget so that come town meeting in June, we'll be at 18 bucks. I'm going to I'm going to ask the board to move everybody that cuts grass 18 bucks. All right. Right. You know, there's just that get somebody to cut. Sounds good. That's it. You know what do you got for uh what do you got
like a zero? What do you have a a tractor or a tractor over here? I'm actually using the highway department tractor now. We just had that fixed on the highway department. We're getting it back and I have zero cut that uh long plane. Okay.
So Paul looks like I I see this we got this thing attached. I don't know if you noticed is looking to purchase a lawnmower in the future. If you need a lawnmower just come to us. Yeah. Okay. And say I need a lawnmower. We do police cruises, fire engines, ambulances, all that stuff. We have free
cash. If you need a $2,000 or $2,500 riding lawnmower, tell us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we got we got that from the uh the trust fund, the the interest from the trust one. And it was a lot easier doing that. Boom. Boom. And it, you know, was just the interest. We can't touch the trust one, but we can
use the interest. So, we had the interest. So, you know, why burden the taxpayer when we have it there if we need it? You know, just I I don't think we would have a taxpayer in this town that would be resentful of saying, "Let's get them a new lawn riding lawnmower for 3,000
bucks. It's a cemetery board. Have a nice day." Right. I mean, we we do plenty of other things. We we manage money the best we can. We buy equipment as we see fit. And if you folks need a a riding lawnmower or a zeroturn, whatever you want that everybody can use, right?
Have a nice day. Let us know. Thank you, Mr. F. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Second, Mr. Gasper's motion. All right. All in favor? Motion carries. All right. Next item, gentlemen. Um,
this has kind of been a fun one. Um, as uh I'm trying to think. I think it was late July. uh got a not, you know, get an email from the town clerk who was concerned about ZBA and the staffing there because
we were Mr. Sullivan was was stepping down and meeting minutes and filings and all that stuff. Um Mr. Hinckley posted an ad, you know, put something out on Facebook. Um we found Patty Pella to do the
minutes. We then subsequently met was involved in a meeting with Mr. Kelly and uh Mr. Brown, talked to Mr. Brown um planning building and talking with Lori Walsh that we came to the conclusion
that it might be best to have Li um who would be willing to do it serve as the clerk for the ZBA to do all the filings and things of that nature. it's a little more symmetry with the building department and um you know so she'd
agreed to do that and thank thank you to her for doing that. Um, and then also what we discovered was sort of some of the procedures that the ZBA was following was a little bit antiquated and not in alignment with like Concom and some of the other uh
boards who you know put the onus on the uh the um the applicant when it comes to a butters and things of that nature. So I wanted to make sure that the board was aware of this and from a procedural standpoint and a
policy standpoint and then what we would need from the ZBA is to adopt these procedures which I think will lighten the load in having it more alignment with what goes on with concoming
where the the applicant is taking on the burden of notifying of butters and so on and so forth. So, I think we've got a good procedure in place and a a good team over there to handle this stuff. Um, we just want to make sure you guys were aware of it. Somebody says, "Oh,
what the hell's going on over there?" I don't want to make that decision unilaterally, but this is based, this recommendation is based on some meetings that we had um over the last month. Mr. Chairman, I'll just comment on on the fees. Yeah. So,
um I was I don't know how long ago it was. We'll just call it a year ago. I was talking with Miss Costa in the assessor's office about the abundance list and all of that stuff and uh we the applicant pays I believe for concom and planning board it's the applicant's
responsibility to pay to have that all done but not ZVA so it's in our bylaws the ZBA does it and we that's the thing we want uh this I've asked for town council
the way I read in the bylaw. It gives the board of appeals just has to hold a public hearing
after publishing notice in the newspaper and sending notices to the abotters. But it doesn't say that the board of appeals has to do it. Just says it has to be done. Okay. Well, we'll get that. There's a comma there.
Okay. And I asked Darren Klein because I thought it was bizarre honestly a year ago when it came to my attention now if we were wasting our time doing that for an applicant. And I'm like that doesn't work right. Planning doesn't do it. Conservation doesn't do it. Why would
ZBA be different? Yeah. And then it goes on. Then the next sentence says, "The board shall establish within its rules and may from time to time change by vote and file with the town clerk
reasonable application fees to cover the cost of notices and hearings. So it's giving it the similar power, similar language that planning board,
con we compared it to some of the other towns around same type of thing. So I uh Darren Klein's coming back to me. It looks like he said from first glance uh
that it's part of the rule making or process making authority of the CBA. I I would like to have that in writing. We'll put it on record with the town clerk's office so that if anybody comes back to haunt us down the road, we have
something from town council saying that this is the interpretation of the bylaw. Period. And I'm all for it. The applicant should be responsible. Otherwise, I've asked him to give us language that if the board wants to, they can change the bylaw. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. That's fine.
But I just want to make sure again that we're all on the same page here. So, Mr. Chairman, if I may, um, anything involving Miss Walsh, and I appreciate her willingness to do this would involve renegotiation with ask me. Um, so I
would have to and Jamie and I have been working to sit down with them again. um this would have to be discussed with the union. We already went through an MOA and
switching her into a principal clerk to serve on another committee. So, this might have some some back and forth. Okay. This might be a little bit more delayed than you're expecting. Uh but I am planning on sitting down with me soon.
warrants if it's if it involves a union, it should be on executive session, the contract negotiations before any decisions are made. Correct. The uh uh other issue, Mr. chairman is uh that
the in re this research with other communities, I found that most of the other communities, the ZBA staff or
resources for the ZBA come out of the building department that the building commissioner being the zoning enforcement officer is there to advise the ZBA and the building commissioner's clerical
assistants are the clerical assistants for the ZBA. So that's great, you know, but I think this this speaks to a larger issue and I would like to get some clarification from Darren on theseUS and you know I
think at some point we've got to look at what our management rights are and if we don't have strong enough management rights to be able to make a simple change like this which is un which is for the betterment of the the taxpayer and for the town. We got to be able to get to a point where people are
interchangeable that if somebody is willing to do it and is willing to make that jump and then we're taking something, you know, like we got to be able to do this. I mean, this is what happens in the private sector. And so, we got to figure out how we can get
either better management rights, but all theseus anytime we want to do something, you know, we want to change the color of the drapes, we got to get anou, we got to change this. bring an ergonomic chair. Let's get anou. Like, I just don't think we can operate that way. The union the union always argues, and
you know this, Mr. Inkley knows this, Mr. Kelly knows this, and I know this. Whenever something like this occurs, even when somebody wants to volunteer to do some extra responsibilities. It's a change in work conditions, it warrants, triggers, opening up contract
negotiations. I get it, right? And that's the pain in the butt about the whole thing. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean, we as management should be able to make these decisions on the fly and say, "This is what we're doing. This is what we need you to do, bing bam, boom." But that's not the case when you're negotiating with unions,
unfortunately. It's just the nature of the beast. But I'm all set with getting grievances from unions, too. So, we do things by the book. We do things right. We bring them in, have a conversation, see what happens. Um, we'll figure it out. All right. But as far as uh charging,
you know, the butters and all that stuff, cool with that, right? So is there a motion to accept that policy, ratify that policy and um pending town council opinion, right? And that's the ZBA adopted. Is there a motion?
So move second. All those in favor? Motion carries. That says there's another way around that too, Mr. Chairman, even if the ZBA thing with with the the fee that we charge. It's like 25 bucks. I think we had that inside the book a while back from Miss Costa. the the fee is like 25 bucks for
an abutters list. That's peanuts, right? If they're getting paid 25 bucks an hour, if it takes them a little bit more than an hour to get it done, we're losing money. So, I would just raise the fee. Yes, I would disagree. One thing I'll just say about this from the from the time we were notified by Pam that we had
an issue to today or when we came up with this memo in a in a month's time frame which in government is like considered lightning speed. I'm glad to see that we were able to come to some potential resolution. So
doesn't usually happen that way in government. Glad this should be a a good case study. Uh, all right. Next item. Assessment center RFQ regarding the police department. We got that thing finally out the door. Mr. Kelly,
it's two uh still live, right? Yeah, it's due back the 5th. Uh I asked that it be on the agenda for the 9th. uh the board can look at the
uh top candidates, choose a candidate, then you've got to send it to civil service. Uh I've given you a list that of the uh vendors that civil service said uh
are the vendors that are acceptable to them. Uh as you can see, two are out of business. Uh which two? There's three of them highlighted in yellow. Yeah. One is no longer doing assessment centers. Okay.
And the others have not uh uh sent anything in yet. But we do know that people got it because we did have a reply for the se the the second one
listed that responded and said they're not doing assessment centers anymore. So that's good as far as our testing our communication. Did we put a um when we sent you out the RFQ a time frame as to
how long like how Yeah. when we were going to keep it open until like did we have a deadline when we need to get these responses? 30. So that was by August 30th. No, that was uh Mr. uh So you have 30 days to respond.
Mr. Gasper's uh that to contract within 30 days. Mr. WA. Yeah. The next day after that meeting, I came in and sat with Mr. Kelly to go over what we thought was I thought interpreted was the RFP and we changed it. He gave me a different document with an RFQ. We
reviewed the job descriptions, made some minor changes to the job descriptions for police chief, deputy police chief, and after I read his RFQ, I also called him back and said, "I will be back in your office in the next 30 minutes." Because there was nothing under what we call a rule of award. So, we did, Mr.
Kelly did enter in rule of award and what that means is is the amount of time that they would have after we award to an assessment center right assessment center we say you're the one they have 30 days to start the assessment center process but that wasn't my question my question
was how long when we put out the RFQ when's the deadline for responses 95 95 okay and uh I just wanted to make sure like was August 30th or whatever, then we don't
need to wait till the 9th. We should get moving like ASAP. But if it's the 5th, then we can wait till the 9th. The rule of award is that one of the most important things that to make sure was inside that RFQ because as I told Mr. Kelly, if that's not in there, then
the assessment center, we can say Dave Roner assessment center, you've won the award. We're going to give you the the job and they could take 6 months to come here and start the assessment center. That's the whole point of the rule of award. So, I made sure it was 30 days. No more time. Haven't That's great. I want to make sure this
thing is languished long enough. I wanted to make sure that there was a response deadline. That's what I'm most interested in right now. But if you're telling me it's the 5th, then it's the fifth. Good. All right. Good stuff. Uh fall town meeting.
Uh, I asked that the board uh decide whether uh the last time we discussed it uh you left open whether it would be October 20th or October 27th. I ask that the
board decide which one it is because that basic then we have to build back our time frames as far as advertising and posting and having all the articles
reviewed and written. I would choose August to October 27th. I agree. We we need time. One more week matters. Works for me. All right. There's a motion to uh choose October 27th. So moved.
Second for the fall time. Fall time meeting. Yep. All those in favor? I I Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I would also advise the board to you have some information with different articles that Mr. Kelly's put here to just take that with a grain of salt because some of the things will change.
That was just a jumping off point of of artic of issues that have been percolating over the last year or so. All right. Very good. Class 2 license application. Sir, I'm
sorry that you had to wait. Oh, no problem. I Jared. All right. Uh I know Mr. Hley has some questions. Correct. Uh Mr. Chairman, if I may and Mr. Marinelli. Um I I'm excited to hear everything about this, but and this is
no disrespect to the process or you um some new information came to light about the legal process of this today. I sat down with the town clerk and just to get ahead of it so this isn't done the wrong way, right? I'm going to make a motion to refer
this to town council before we make an active vote on it. Okay. um really early right before we started this meeting is when I had asked some questions and needed some clarity on something. So, I'm going to make that motion now, but I'd love to hear about this and what your plans are because
that information is going to help when we put it all together. So, uh Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'll make a motion to refer this to town council. Second. All those in favor? I motion passes. And once again, I apologize for having to sit through all
that. Um, I'm I'm not trying to has no determination on the outcome of this. I just want to make sure that there's no legals that we're going to run into because of this involving possible public hearings. Yes. And certain things like that. Okay. But tell us about what you want to do. I
would like to open up a gem auto sales over at three haze street, the former Haze Street auto sales, just to bring some nice cars to the area and FA prices, reliable cars, and just make it nice over here, you know.
Yeah. As long as you maintain, you know, like with anything, we ask you maintain the property, keep it classy. Absolutely. There'll be no repairs on done on site. That would all be shipped out. It's in the uh application, Mr. Chairman. Yes. So, I'm pretty familiar with this
business. Yes, sir. Um, and there's I agree with Mr. Hinckley, there are some questions that need to be run by town council um especially on use variances um in principal places of business. So, there are some things of concerns here on, you know, what we can and can't do.
Yes, sir. Um with this, but um I'd be more than happy to I've done it before in the past and u Mr. distinctly can write down his questions or whatever he needs to do and I'd be more than happy to work with town council as well on some past injuries that I I've had in town um and try to do
what we can to accommodate it but there are some big hiccups with this situation. So I mean we'd be foolish to try to take a vote as Mr. Hinckley alluded to. Um and we need to make sure that we check our boxes because once we set precedents it's game over.
Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. So, we just got to make sure we're doing things right and following the law properly. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Mayor, my concerns, I will make sure selecting a gas for has them for town council as soon as possible. This
way, we're not stringing you along. We can get back to you once we get some more headway. I'll have Sydney reach out to you and we'll we'll figure it out. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next one, gentlemen. I put this on there uh put this on the agenda. put in your
packet uh regarding the Civil War monuments. Uh got a resident inquire with a uh Ryan Rosendi's inquire about a uh Freedom of Information Act. Wanted some history of what was going on there. As you can see, this is this has been a
moving target. Uh town meeting approved an appropriation. Um look, I'll eat this one. um you know the the company that was uh you know our staff recommended this is what they do you know it's easy
to say we'll get this person that person but the company that was ultimately settled on um what it is the ones who the most qualified you got a 100 plus year monument I guess how old it is and you know it's got all the liability
insurance so on and so forth there's one there was one fly in the ointment. Um it's it's a learning for us is it required us to have a building permit which uh was pointed out by Mr. Rosendi. So good for him for doing that and we appreciate that. Um but there wasn't
anything being done here to try to like you know go around a process. It's a very intricate issue and you know but that's where it's at. Um so Mr. Chairman Yeah. So when I seen this and I talked
to Mr. Kelly about this foyer request. Um, obviously I do my due diligence and I think the concern is the article was for $60,000 and it didn't go out for procurement. It just
went out for bids, right? And I I looked at the bids and it is a little bit concerning. Um, and for the record, I had nothing to do with the monument or the bids or any of that stuff. I mean, I got phone calls right
away as what the hell's going on with the Civil War monument. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I came in and crane guy was here and I was like, I have no idea what's going on. So, I can tell you that I think the concern is it didn't go out
for procurement and we anticipated it being up to $60,000. So, I said, "Okay, if you if we went out for an article and we put it for more than $50,000, good point. It probably should go out for procurement, right? So, more people can bid on it. I get
it." Um, so that's that. Neither here or there. that's where we're at um with this. I I had nothing to do with decisions of where it's going, who we're using, anything like that. Um but I I I will tell you this is I I believe there's
been a significant mistake in locating the Civil War monument. And by that I mean I looked at the deed because somebody took me off and said, "You better look into that." Kind of like the tree that was cut down over here, right? Some significance blah blah blah blah.
the other day, yesterday morning or whatever it was. So, I looked at the deed on Patriot Properties and I turned to whatever it was, 880, 460 or whatever that was. And the deed specifically says there's a deed restriction on it and it says specifically you cannot have any monument of war on
the grounds. And that was very disturbing when I seen this. I'm like, "Oh, well, here we go." Oh. Unfortunately says that the area adjoining the cemetery on
the plot watering main street and which is approximately 1.14 acres in area shall be maintained by the town of a Krishna as a park or peace memorial
free of buildings of any size or type. It shall not be used to display display any implement or article of war and shall not be in use be used as
common or gathering place for any kind of games, picnics or any other group or party gatherings. The purpose of this it's small. I'm trying to blow up. The purpose of this release being sold to
clear the title to the property described in said deed from this condition in order that the town of a Kushnet may build a fire station on said land
and that was pretty devastating when I seen that. So, unfortunately, somebody made a decision to move. I'll tell you who did, Kevin. And it didn't. And it didn't.
Let's just get right to the point. I I made a decision. I'm not I'm not naming names, pointy fingers. I'm just bringing up a point that the whatever you say. The question was asked to me by the maintenance guy where I thought it should be. And quite
honestly, I made that comment, I don't know, six weeks ago, and I said, "Where else would it go?" "The Veterans Memorial Park." And he said, "Okay." And that was the last I knew about the Veterans Memorial being moved. Period. So, just setting that out on the record. Yep. And we were there's a lot of friction out there
circular circulating with this thing. Didn't have anything to do with this. Yeah. Good. Um, we were told by the veterans agent that the Veterans Memorial Park wasn't the appropriate place for it. So I happened to be in town hall that day where the the maintenance manager said can't put it
there. Parting ways isn't the best location for it. So absent any other location, I said well what about by the fire station? We've got already the um 9/11 memorial which is you know part of
that thing and said okay this might be a suitable location. Talked to cemetery board they didn't have an issue with it. So that was that. Um, you know, in retrospect, like I said, I'll eat it. Okay. Wasn't made meant to be like, you
know, to go around the board. Wasn't meant to do anything on the list of looking back on it. Could have put together a committee. Could have done all that stuff. That was it. So, anybody wants to lay blame, I'll own it. I'll lead it.
It's the way it goes. I bring up the point of the deed, Mr. to figure out what we're going to do next. Plug the hole and slide it over to the fire department. I mean, it's if that's the issue, you can't it can't be on the entire plot.
Well, we've got a 9/11 memorial. That's not a war memorial. That's Well, you can argue that when war or a war memorial, we'll we'll get the D from Kelly. I took a picture of it. I don't feel like scrolling back through blowing things
up. I just read what I ought to. was just I I think you said articles of war. We need to look at We need to look at it before we continue. No monuments of war is what Mr. Gasper said, which by definition that is a monument of war. I was unaware of it. I
didn't know that deed restriction was there. No, I thought he said article when he took credit, which could be a canon type of thing. He said monument of war. She can Kelly can give us the deed, have it run through council before we continue any further work. Um, and we'll figure it
out. And if we need to relocate, we relocate. It's that simple. We need to figure it out. That's all. Anyway, point of the point of it is I put this on the agenda because I wanted to take full responsibility for it. So,
wasn't wasn't Kevin, wasn't Bob, it was me. I own it. I eat it. Right. Next issue. Uh car show. Mr. Gasper. Want to give you the opportunity to talk about the car show. Yeah. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I mean, it's just annth year we've been doing it. I've already coordinated with the police chief, Tommy Karu, for details. He said he's all set with that. I've already coordinated with the fire chief, Mr. Tommy Fallon. He's all set. The fire association's looking
forward to doing what they do every year at the car show. Um Matt Lope said he's got everything all coordinated as far as that goes. And the only other thing that I need is Mr. Inkley to help me park car cuz last year people got a little crazy. Mr. Chairman, if I may, uh Mr. Gasper, I
spent all day trying to reschedu my Thursday at 4:30 appointment. Um it should be a short one, but I probably won't get here until Yeah, you're not going to make it. I think if the folks some of these people come, they're in the parking lot at 12:00 11:00. Right. Last year we had
somebody I think at 11:00 in the back parking ways parking lot sitting in his lawn chair. Yep. Um it's tough. I like to try to get everybody in the St. Francis parking lot. Um and then bringing them out when there's a certain car club that parks here in the town hall parking lot. Um Matt Lopes knows that. I think it's a
legendary club or something that he dedicates the parking lot to. But um neither here or there. It's the 16th anniversary of the cruise night. We started on the sesses tennial of the town of Aushnet 2010. So, it's been a great night. It's a couple of nights out. It's going to be beautiful weather
finally. I'm not going to be parking cars in 90° weather. So, um now I won't have you. We'll see if uh Brady's going to be around. I think he helped us out last year as well. I don't know if the other gentleman did it as well, but um I can talk to him tomorrow and see if he's
available to help me maneuver some of these folks in and out. I apologize, Mr. Gas, but I was actually really looking forward to it. Um I'm still showing up to the cruise night. Pass out magnets. I'll pass out some magnets to make up for it. Okay, very good.
All right, next item. Was just in your book again, pre-eread. Apparently, it's an ABCCC law advisory that's come about that's uh been um announced regarding malt and wine
beverage licenses being exchanged for uh full licenses. Um anyway, this is more of a pre-eread. No need to talk about it today. If we decide we want to adopt it, you guys can do your homework and come back to me. Perfect. All right. Next item. Mr. G, uh Mr. Mr.
Hinckley, we have it on here, but we also have an executive session regarding the fire chief. I don't know what you want to do with that. We've been going around this thing round and round. So, Mr. Jim, if I may, um, there's a couple of details left off the last time, which is uh, and we weren't able to
review this at the last meeting. Um, everything is updated in here. Um, so I'm asking you guys if you had a chance to review it. Um, everything that we've changed in here has been brought to your attention over the past couple of meetings. Um, and
there was a couple particular items in here that we had to refine and make do, and I'm pretty sure I got them all through there. Uh, unless you gentlemen happen to see anything you didn't like or didn't agree with. Um, I would like a motion to approve the
fire chief MOA. Mr. Jim, so when someone crossed out or we ought to cross out performance evaluation under compensation, it still says subject to is receiving a satisfactory or better performance evaluation. If we
took that out of there, it may be restricted from fiscal year 27 and 28. Just that line and just put period after salary and then schedule of work. instead of having average since fire chief shall
work a minimum 40 hours per week instead of an average because we all know that the chief is filling in for shifts and things of the like. So how that'll work out for us will be good. So I would just say I would just make the correction of
correction shall work a minimum 40 hours. If that works for you that'll be and I'm all set with the rest of it. So great job. Thank you. Um, so yeah, I'll make a motion to accept the fire chief MOA with the
corrections just mentioned. Is there a second? Second. Are those just up for discussion? I'm fine with this work product. Mr. Hinckley, thank you for doing this. But I think and this is not a reflection
on you. Um, but I think as a board, we did a disservice to Mr. Mr. Farland for this taking so long. Correct. this started four or five months ago two paragraphs. So I think as a board we can do better. Correct. And um Mr. Chairman um just to
start on that um I spoke with the chief and I actually told him that a lot of that was on my shoulders. Um I should have been more active and sitting down with him. Uh my normal day-to-day job got a little bit hectic
and I wouldn't beat yourself up. Yeah, we we've gone around this thing. We've probably met on this thing more than any other subject matter in the recent history. So, um but anyway, all right. Uh there's a motion and a second. All those in favor?
I motion carries. Uh next item, bylaw fee schedule. This is again just a read. I don't know that we need to adopt it. We can get this in one final format. It's clear by looking at these things. We are
well below uh what our peer communities are charging for some of these things. Um but I think we've asked for this. We can sort of collate it into one document and come up with final recommendations uh
for us to consider. So um no action needed here. We've got a couple executive sessions. We don't need to do the one with the fire chief. Um so we got the first executive session. We've got a number of staffing
issues. Um one that impacts the um planning board. So I've asked Mr. Chair, uh Mr. Francois be part of that and then he can leave so we can discuss the other stuff. Our first executive session. Mr. Chairman, I don't mean to interrupt you. Do you think we could do some selectment announcements?
Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. By all means, please. Um I just want to remind everybody that tomorrow is the first day of school for Kushnet students. Um there will be buses, there will be a lot of traffic, there will be a lot of hectic stuff going on. Uh so everybody uh plan
accordingly. Um be safe. There's going to be a lot more people out on the streets. There's going to be a lot of traffic in front of the schools as people get used to this again. Um and shake off that summer rust, I guess you could say. Um and good luck to all the
students starting tomorrow and uh hope you have a great year. Yeah, see um so we probably we won't be meeting before the Apple Peach Festival. So again, same warning Mr. Inkley just gave about school buses and children at
the school bus stops. Um please watch out on the Apple Peach weekend. There's a lot of people doing yard sales. There'll be one out here as you heard at town hall. Traffic congestion, the width of the street way is narrowed because of this. Um, please just drive safely and
pay attention to what you're doing um when you're driving through town. And the other thing that I just wanted to bring up for probably the hundth time is double poles. Whether or not, Mr. Kelly, we're being charged to move our street lamps due to these double poles which
should be on the solar company. And now that we have fiber line, Main Street, and I think Middle Road, and this area over here, I know down on Main Street there's a bunch of double poles as well. I don't think that should come at the c the cost of the taxpayers, just as I spoke about years ago with the lamps not
coming at the cost of the taxpayers. That should be on the solar company um that's doing the project and is responsible for those polling. Eversource is getting paid, Verizon's getting paid, cables are getting paid by the solar company. We should also get paid by the solar company.
Is that okay? Great. All right. Executive session uh executive session under Mass General Law Chapter 3A section 21 subsection A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel
but to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-UN personnel staffing. And the chair so declares and the board will not return to public session at the conclusion of the executive session. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Uh roll call vote. Mr. Gasper.
Yes. Mr. Hinckley. Yes. Yes. All right. The other one is executive session number two. Executive session in the Mass General Law Chapter 3A subsection sub uh section 21 subsection A3 to discuss strategy with respect to
collective bargaining. asks me if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares and the board will not return to public session at the conclusion of executive session. Is there a motion to go into executive session? So move second. Mr.
Hley, uh roll call vote. Mr. Gasper, yes. Mr. Hingley, yes. I Yes. in the executive session. [Music]