All right. Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, May 13th at 400 p.m. This is a meeting of the accushnet board of selectment. Is there is there a motion to call the meeting to order? So move. 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. Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, we have a bunch of poll
hearings. This is a continuence from the April 29th, 2025 and May 2nd, 2025 meetings for petition number mass 2024-23. Petition Mass 2024-25. Petition Massachusetts
2024-26. Anthony or whoever is uh I know Kevin you were out there talking to these guys. No, thanks uh for having me here tonight. Um I thought Verizon's contractor would be here, but I'm happy to answer those questions. I think we did a little slight visit. So I think there's a
couple that I questioned last time, Mr. Chairman. One of them was 284 Middle Road. I met with Ever Source Anthony and a couple of the staff engineers that were on the project and they've agreed to move the pole on from that property
line 23 ft north for the support line. And the resident was happened to be out there with me. Um and then we went out to Mendle Road and I believe it's 55 Well, across from 44.
Yeah, across from 55 or whatever on that side of the road. Um, and they're good with the pole being moved 5T to the right of the mailbox. Yep. Okay. Where we stood. So, they're all set with that as well. So, I don't
have any other really concerns. The only thing that I would ask from Eversource while you're here is when I was with you on Little Road, you mentioned it was due to a solar field proposed in the Whites Dairy Field.
Um, that's that's another poll. I think that's for the 17th of June. Okay. So, that was just that one is just the one. But you said you're going to redo all those polls. Yep. So, while I have you here, Anthony, maybe you can talk to your company instead of double pulling
and having them sitting around for so long that that solar field hasn't even been approved, okay, through Concom and I don't and planning board yet. And then we have that connection, you know, some connection agreement that they got to get from you and everything else. So, I would just
ask that you don't some of these polls are being put up for solar fields. If if the solar field is not going to be completed for 2 years out, can you just not go out and start slamming poles in the ground for something that's not going to come to fruition for a couple years down the road, keep that just keep that in mind. I know this one particular
one at 284 is a support line. Y that's fine. Um but any any other future ones due to solar farms, just keep that in mind, right? Because you know by the time they get planning board approval and then it gets built and then connection fee or whatever it is or
connection whatever that thing's called for you guys to get it done. Sure. Just try to close that gap so you're not setting polls two years in front of a project being completed. That's all I ask. Put that have some consideration when you when you're planning. That's all. All right. So we got these three.
the mass petition 2024 23 24 25 24 26 do we need a motion to approve before you guys do that can I just ask can you put that on the permits that it's the specific uh measurements 23 ft um and then the 5t but that's not I
don't think that's this one I think that's the last one number two that he's going to get to that 284 middle road one all right um we'll put it on the permit for the other one I'll make sure yeah yeah just Because building is it building uh or is it our permit? It's yours. This
is a grand location that comes right from you guys from our office. Can we just make sure I'll I'll talk to you Sydney later off off camera. I'll make sure that on that particular one for Mendle Road. We put that Yep. Okay. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Location. All right. So good. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I motion.
All right. The next uh petition is continued from April 29th, 2025 May 2nd, 2025. Mass petition 2024-40 from Verizon New England Inc. and NSTAR Company doing business ever source proposing new facilities pole
10455 on Middle Road. Middle Road install one midspan pole 10455- uh 555 on the east side of Middle Road which will be approximately 865 ft southwestly from the center line of Paris Lane. The new pole will be
installed in line and approximately 86 ft south of existing pole 104 uh height 56 and approximately 106 ft north of the existing pole 10455. the installation being requested by Eversource to support the existing pole line to keep the wire
at a safe height over the driveway of the property at 284 Middle Road. Any issues there, gentlemen? No. No, Mr. Chairman. That's the one I just talked about. 23 ft from the property line where the proposed pole location is going. All
right. There's no other uh issues. There's a motion to approve. Sydney, I'll talk to you. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Motion carries. City, before you issue any of these, can before you do that, I'll have to review it. Would you okay to make sure that these pole locations have been changed?
All right, Anthony, while I got you, great work over by Scuttlebutts. Do you know when that pole is going to be taken out by chance? Um, so ne next to go on those polls, basically from uh poll 66 to about 150 is um municipal fiber.
Okay. So that's that's town run fiber. I think you guys have comra right now doing some new fiber connections throughout the town. So that pole in the middle of the parking lot can't be taken down. It goes uh fiber Comcast if they're on it then Verizon then poll comes out. Okay. But
um so we have all polls 66 to 100 at least I think entered into our internal system and we're working our way through that. I send you guys a packet on that and I can resend it. All right. Sounds good. All right. Thank you. So I did go out with them too. I took Lennish me when I head from middle road to Mendo
road and I they talked about all the poles that are being chopped. So Eversource once they move their wires up onto the new poles, they chop the pole. That's a clear indication that it's not ever in Eversource's hands anymore. It's in if we have fiber
um Verizon and then the cable companies. So, we need to get those contacts from those companies um to talk to those folks about getting the job done now because those polls have been cut for a while. Got it. Okay. And I did notice a poll that you talk about in Relle's parking lot. So, Y'll be good to get
that out of there. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Good. Good stuff. All right. Thanks, Anthony. You're welcome. Thanks. That's under standard uh standard business. Just a recap from last week. We had talked about um
putting together the screen committee to look at town administrator resumes and town accountant. I can report back on my end. Spoke with Ryan Rosendi's Jesse St. Gile's uh who are both Ryan's got a lot of sight lines into this. He was on the conservation commission. He's on the
master plan committee as is Mr. St. Jul's. Dr. Bush is willing to serve and I'll head up that effort. uh along with Mr. Kelly. So, uh Sydney, if you could make packets of those resumes uh for each one of them and I'll work with you getting organized and we'll
pull something together. Um so, just want to give the board an update there. Yeah. And I I believe Mr. Ellis is on board with screening town accountants. Oh, good. So, I just have to contact Sue. Great. Get that ball rolling, too. Good. Thank you. All right. Uh, next
item under we've got a couple people who are interested in serving on the bicycle pedestrian committee. Uh, a Joy Lad from Leonard Street. Better great background. Is there a motion? Motion to appoint Joy
Lad to the bicycle and pedestrian safety committee. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries. Next one is same thing, Mr. Richard Mercier from Boilston Street. Um, is there a motion to appoint? Motion to appoint Richard
Berscia to the bicycle and pedestrian safety committee. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries. All right. So, we've got Serpent. Um, as you know, Serpent is a really important agency. Uh, Mr. Kelly has served as the selectman's
representative. Um, but obviously, so that appointment is uh is expiring and obviously with Mr. Kelly uh is pending retirement. Um I've done this in the past. I'm more than happy to uh to serve the board for the next year or however
long the appointment is. Um I'm happy to do that if you guys want me to. Well, okay. I'm fine. Right. Um at least both for the Yeah. And then the next one the next one would be we'll take up that one next. Uh these are two
separate Okay. two separate things. Motion to appoint chairman WA to ser second. All those in favor? I. All right. Motion carries. Next one is for the uh SER GTPG. It's more of the uh
planning and road work stuff. Um and Victoria Al Farro town planners offered to serve on that. And is there a motion to appoint? So move second. All those in favor? Motion carries. Great. Good stuff. Uh, next item, uh, Victoria has
identified a couple grant opportunities for us. Um, and as we've put, you know, sort of an informal policy that any grant, uh, you know, any grants that we pursue, we'd like to know about it ahead of time just to determine if there's any
town matching funds or what have you. The first one is uh it's called a building condition study for potential reuse of the Russell Memorial Library. Objective: conduct a comprehensive assessment of the vacant Russell Memorial Library to evaluate its
suitability for potential reuse including conversion into housing. Uh the justification is the the library was vacant in 2015. On November 6, 2023 at a special town meeting, the voters authorize the sale of the Russell Memorial Library. The grant-f funed
building condition study may make the purchase of the property more appealing to a developer. The estimated cost is $50,000. That's what that's the grant opportunity, not a cost uh to the town. Um I've checked with Victoria and asked
if there was any matching funds there. Um that does not appear to be the case. Um, so we can I just want to describe those and then I'll get into the next one. The next one is I think a real unique opportunity for us. Uh, it's design of sewer expansion on South Main Street to develop design plans for the
expansion of the sewer infrastructure along South Main Street to support future development, improve public health and environment standards. South Main Street is currently at the pre 25% design phase for the reconstruction of the roadway which is to be put on the the transportation improvement program.
The tip. The town has identified sewer expansion on South Main Street. It needs area one of the 2020 comprehensive wastewater management plan. Implementing sewer infrastructure prior to the roadway construction is optimal, though the project is not yet scheduled on the tip. The estimated cost is to be
determined. Both the mass works and the real estate service technical assistance programs matching funds are not required. Matching funds are not required. The deadline for submissions through the onetop is June 4th. And the awards expected to be announced in the fall with deadlines for the project
completion one to two. So I don't know gentlemen how you feel about this but it does not uh appear to be any risk for the town to go after these. Um up to you. I don't I don't know about the library one just for the simple fact that we did
put an article to sell the library. I don't know if it's in the town's best interest to explore grant opportunities to just put that property up and take the cash and stash it somewhere. And we've already we've done something as
you know, Mr. Long back in the day with I think was with Mr. Kina was here and the town administrator at the time from Mat of Poison um was trying to do something with veterans housing and just got so super stretched and cost we just kind of let it ride. So, uh, I know a lot of people are looking for us to kind
of get rid of that property instead of letting it fall apart further and further and further. I don't know where we've been, if town administrators done anything for appraisals on it to figure it out and just dispose of the property. I do know that it would be a huge uphill battle because of the way the building
is structured, especially with ADU compliance and things of the like. Um, ADA compliant, I'm sorry. um you know what kind of expenses that would be and who would burden those costs but I know it's not something the town could have a fund as a project right um for housing
purposes and again it was something that was mentioned maybe two or three units in it my opinion is sell it let somebody else invest the money into the property but if somebody else has got a better idea then and I think that's what this grant opportunity would do provide us
with some technical assistance help us market it and so on and so forth if we're not on the The last grant we had to put some matching funds against it. I personally don't see any downside in pursuing this and see if we can get some help to figure out how best to do it.
Um I don't see there's any harm in doing that. I mean I was just with some members of the Fair Haven Housing Authority and they're building 30 units in Fair Haven working with the state. They have the basically the same charter as our housing
authority. So maybe with some technical assistance, we might be able to figure out how to get this thing moving and make it attractive. Maybe it's with the housing authority. Maybe it's with somebody private. I see a new bedroom. They're they're doing stuff with vacant schools, the former armory building. I
think a lot of that goes in you got to let developers or somebody know like here's what you're dealing with here, you know. So, Mr. chairman. Um, this actually came across the plate um about a month ago from Victoria to me when I
was still chairman and I asked her for some information. Um, the one-stop grant and sorry for pulling up the phone, but I wanted to read the email just to clarify some things. The program can fund building condition and feasibility studies among other pre-development
activities as long as the end use of the building is not for municipal purposes. So, this would actually enable us to hopefully I I want to clarify and I'd like to ask her questions because if it can actually do some kind of a
feasibility study on the condition of the actual building to give us an idea so we can better present it to potential buyers, right? The whole thing is is it can't remain a town building afterwards with this grant. So, it actually would benefit us, I think, to if we can get
some more clarification to offload it quicker and provide maybe a realtor. I didn't I didn't realize that that was part of the memo. Yeah. Well, it just it just clicked in my brain. I was like, I think I read something about the one stock brand. Yeah. I mean, if that's if that's I mean, I think the chairman kind of alluded to that, right? But if the
end use is not going to be something that we're going to do and it's just going to help us better like you say market it y and understand what we have um for sale purposes um all right I don't know if Mr. Hley needs more time to talk to Victoria on the grant I think
I would just say I can figure that out per personally I'm okay with it right now and I can just follow up with her afterwards if that's all right with you gentlemen yeah in the 201 Mr. gym. And I know that the state is planning on doing South Main Street over again, but um I don't know. It's kind of like design
features, whatever it may be for sewer. I would just ask Victoria to get together with Mr. Manard and Miss Silva, just walk through the door and have a conversation with him before applying for the grant. Make sure it ain't something that we already have in place is some some design phase for sewer intentions. I don't know what Woodward
current's done in the past in the CWMP, how in depth that got or just looked at it. So I would just refer to Mr. Minard and Miss Silva to talk to Victoria about this grant opportunity and if if if they think it's worthwhile. I think it's worthwhile. It's it's something that if
we can get some look at design phase from where our current sewer system stops, which I think Pot Street over by Shamad Penrook, Pembrook, whatever the name is. I know they change names across the street and on each side of the road or whatever it is. If that's the case
and they can come in and do some small portion of designing to get us down to the fave in line, um, more power to us. Yeah. And I so this weekend I saw uh Charlie Murphy of the baseball parade who's the
chairman of the board of selectment for Haven and I saw vice chair uh selecting Romano I think his name is and we had talked about like getting a joint meeting of the board of selectment the two boards together just to talk about issues you know and so this could be one
of them because they have capacity potentially in Fair Haven and I don't know if there's a way to tap into their infrastructure fructure. But, you know, I think Dan, you tal you and Kathy talking with Victoria about this grant opportunity, but if there's a way we can
do something and work with this with the town of Faven, um, that might be a one of the things I want to discuss a little bit. So, all right. So, look, I guess the bottom line is if we're good with uh letting telling Victoria to go forward with these and just keep us up to date
during the process, um, then I think that's that's what we're looking for here. she just doesn't want to get ahead of us. And u I just want Victoria to check with Kathy. There's no conflict between what this what this design phase would be with sewer versus what was done in the CWMP. And if there's no if
there's not redundancies, then let's go forward. All right. So motion to greenlight uh Victoria to pursue these two grant opportunities in coordination with uh DPW. So move second. All those in favor? I. Great. All right. Next
item, state my agenda's ended. Wait a minute. I got No, I got a continuation on it. I'm sorry. Are you sure? I was going to say meeting over. You wouldn't be so lucky, Mr. Kelly. All right. There's uh bottom line is Mr. McGlenn who's on
the finance committee. his wife is um just got elected to the uh school committee. Congratulations, deputy for that. So, he just wanted to make sure if there was any conflict of interest and the bottom line is uh doesn't appear to be the case. Um and so it was nice of
him. I appreciate him sharing this with us. Um he knows what he has to do. So, uh good for good for him on that. So, it's a motion to place on file. So, move second. All in favor. All right, Caris. All
right. Next item is the delegation agreement for the uh RFP for the um assessment center. Mr. Kelly, any uh if you could walk us through this, please. the we've gone back and forth a couple
times with civil service on these delegation letters from when you folks saw it originally. And uh the major concern
uh this latest concern was they were looking to put a name in and they started out with Mr. Hinckley. Then they went to me and since I'm not going to be here
through the process and Mr. Ankley was no longer the chair. Uh we convinced them that it would be viable uh and for these letters to survive through the
process that where it had to have a particular representative of the town, it say the chair of the board of selectment or their design. Fine. I'll just do it. Happy to do it. Mr. Jim, if we could if we could pump the brakes for
a second. I haven't read through any of these delegations. They're coming fast and furious with revisions and everything else. Um, this has been something that's been kicked. This can's been kicked for 8 months. Um, I know we like to get it going, but I would just ask for a twoe hold period so I can get through budgets and uh everything else
with Mr. Kelly in preparation of town meeting and I can read this and get through all of this stuff. And secondly, I would ask Mr. Kelly that the town council hasn't at least reviewed it twice. Okay. I know he had some concerns on the last visit. So, um two weeks in
her after kicking cans for 8 months and it's not fault of ours, but civil service it's a shared thing. Civil service has really stalled us out. Um again, I just need more time and time is just to be clear, the real issue is who's going to sign the thing, right?
So, that that's the big issue. Just so you guys know, it was a little language stuff. Mr. Ch. I just want to read as you're reading it. I'll sign it as the chair. Doesn't matter to me. So once we get to that point, I just want to make sure that that's not an issue. And also I got It's definitely not an
issue. Also in the packet is the RFP with uh revisions from Darren and uh I'd ask that the board look at it. And so when if you approve the delegation letter, then you can attach the
delegation letter and and uh to the RFP and you're one step closer. Okay. Is that all the red line stuff I see? That's Mr. Klein and mine both. Okay. Right. So are you ready to rip anyway?
Okay. Number nine. Item number nine which is Civic Plus town website migration options. It looks like it has checked the options for other website but Civic Plus was the most affordable option for the fiscal year. It's an annual contract, so they would be
looking to just Mr. Yeah. Is this Jamie? Is this just a additional $35 or $3,700 to upgrade the Civic Plus with the other options that we were looking for from the original yearly expenditure. This is like the $35
to $3,700. That's what I understand. This is the one, right? just that little additional spending for for different modules or something. When Nick went into it, some of it was beyond my technology understanding, but No, I
know. But there was like additional I forget exactly what the additional modules were or whatever for us to get it and it's the most affordable and it's I'm not sure it is. It's all our problems, but most of them. So the bottom line is to stay with the
existing vendor Civic Plus with the small additional cost of $35 or $37 for the upgrade. It's getting to be like uh most of the software technology thing
issues. a number where there were a number of companies available before for websites. They're all buying each other up and becoming Yeah. Now I think so they could charge you higher fees. That's all that's all about. Monopoly
higher fees and we got to be careful watching looking at some of these budgets that I've seen with software. I mean, some of this stuff's starting to cost dumb money and it's also the problem and the increases are being they're being bought out and they're
ending up being one company goes back doing that particular what did we do before we had it we survive some of the costs are really getting crazy is what I'm saying right so I mean if you don't watch out for this you could be spending half a
million dollars a year just on technology Yeah, we don't have right. Well, I know that if you get some agents, if you want to converse to M if you want if you're not using MUNS now
and you want to convert to it, they're quoting prices for small towns of $750 to $900,000. It's criminal. I don't know what to say anymore. Just just stop implementing more and more
things that that consist of technology and software agreements that you have that increase in in the thousands every year or you're going to be screwed. That's right. Right. Uh-uh. There's only so much of this stuff that
you really need. Um other things are just add-ons. And yay, look at how nice this is. Right. But all right. Uh, Civic Plus. Yeah. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor. Motion carries. All right, Mr. Kelly. Next item is the Hero
Act. Is this an extend? This is a continuation of the last conversation we had. Right. And uh quite a few materials from the veteran service officer for you to consider.
I'm assuming you have an which which option? It was the one that Mr. Fish was talking about the I thought we already cheaper option. Yeah. Yeah. And we said we're all aboard with a cheaper option. I forget which option that is, but yeah, I think we I thought we resolved this
last go around, but uh he added more information for you folks to All right. Motion from Mr. Fish to make sure we get this right. I know we have a proposed article, Mr. Chairman. um for you know program for veterans as
well. So we have to get with Mr. Fish and say what is what's the exemption that we're voting right the cheap option that we talked about. Yeah cuz there's a drastic difference. Yeah. It was the cheap option was the cheaper the option whatever it was.
Okay. So like 3% versus Why don't we do this? We're meeting Friday. Um, maybe we can bring Brad in real quick just to give us a quick refresher refresher on it. Well, there's an article for it, too. So, he can come in and just give us this. We'll put that one thing back on
the agenda, right? If we can stick this on the agenda for Friday when we meet, that would be great. Um, good stuff. All right, next item is I know we sort of frown on this
stuff, but um we did approve last week and we've got a few folks who would like to carry over some unused vacation time. If you want to review this, we are meeting Friday. We can make a determination, but
I think what's before us is pretty reasonable. But again, um, you know, I leave it up to you. It's not a lot. Um, it's just, you know, we do want people to use their time. Um, because I think that's really important, but,
um, you know, we also understand that people sometimes aren't able to do that. So, um, you want to hold off on making a determination and we can take it up on Friday? Sure. Okay. Sounds good to me. 10 and 11.
All right. So, we'll do that Sydney as well. We'll just do a final final on these. Give everybody an opportunity to review this one last time. All right. Next item. Under number 12, I put in order selectment operations. It's really just more to um
you know as a continuation of the last conversation that we had about you know department heads and having them come in uh to talk to the board but also wanted to propose to you gentlemen like this Friday we have a meeting scheduled to do a lot of cleanup with the budget and
other you know things that impact our our employees and so on and so forth. So, I know I know everybody's busy. Um, but we meet Tuesdays. We meet two Tuesdays a month. And I would like to propose that we pick a Friday either in
between those dates or at the end of the month, reserve a Friday uh at a date certain, whether it's 11:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. or noon or whatever, um, for us to have a a selectman's meeting. This way, we can bring in our department
heads. I hate to I hate seeing I like seeing Dan and Kathy here, but I hate seeing them here after hours, right? So, if we can utilize that time and the staff that we have on board to deal with issues like, you know, this vacation buyback stuff or some of these other things that come up that we're not able
to resolve on a Tuesday night meeting. I don't know how you gentlemen feel about that. Um, but I'm down for that and, you know, for as long as we have to until we don't have to. So, um, wanted to talk about that. And then also, you know, I don't want this to come out the
wrong way, but you know, sometimes we get uh whether it's grievances or complaints from members of the union, um I want to make myself available and you know, if we can resolve something at a meeting before the board rather than it going to a letter, you know, letter
getting sent and I was just looking at the contracts today. 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, all this stuff that goes on and on that we might be able to just resolve just by having a presentation and a conversation that I'm up for that as well. So, I just feel like there's some
things that we can do um just to maybe smooth out some of the the things that are going on um and hopefully try to get it running. Um it's been I feel running well, but maybe just enhance it a little bit. So, um, I don't want anybody to feel like I'm dissing how we've done
things in the past, but proposing a Friday meeting here and there. I don't have a problem with Friday afternoons. Yeah. As long as it's not every week, just because my schedule won't allow it, but I, you know, this Friday, for instance, Tanya texted me and said, "Hey, is this cool?" And I said, "As long as it's at this
time, I'm okay with it." I have a little bit more flexibility these days on Fridays. I know I don't want to speak for you. So, Bob, would it be better like if we picked one like the last Friday of the month or the the one sandwiched in between maybe the one in between the two Tuesdays because if you do something on the first meeting and
you can't resolve it, then you can bang it out the next day. I I think that would work. That's all right with you guys. I mean, that would work for me and then I as long as his schedule accommodates it. Is there a time better for you as long as we settle on it? If we pick a day, I can put it on my calendar that'll prevent me from being,
you know, northern Massachusetts at 11:00 a.m. Friday at 1:15. Works good for me. Thanks for asking. Does that Does that work? It does work for me. I mean, I know we're doing I think this week is 1:30. 1:30. Yeah, cuz I got cuz I got at first I thought it was 11. So,
I'm like, "Yeah, that'll work." But then I seen a text and it was like, "Hey, 1:30." And I'm like, "That works even better for me. Let's check it out." I mean, it is the summer time, you know? So, like, okay. No, we'll just see how what comes up for business, right? if things things pop up in between like
you're saying and we can do something like that as long as I think Mr. Hankley over the last year when he was chairman he and even when I was chairman still he was he was pretty good at accommodating meanies because we gave him a heads up right it ain't the day before or two days before if you to say hey maybe this
Friday we'll do this and he can schedule his his prep around for his schedule good stuff it's all up to Mr. book. Yep. 15 works for me. All right. Good stuff. Um, all right. Next item, DPW. Um, I know
Mr. Gast's been working with Dan and Kathy on some things, but before you before you grab the podium, Dan, I want to just call out Kathy. Um, we had some issues at Lake Street uh the other day with signage and what was the other one, Kathy? Oh, the dock. The dock was
broken. Dock. Yeah, dock. And you know, I sent an email which got Kathy got right back to me. Issue was resolved and I appreciate that. So, thank you for that. And that was brought to my attention by uh the ambassador of Lake Street, Scott Daget. So, I think, you know, when Scott calls, we got to make
sure that we take care of business. So, I do want to just publicly recognize that uh that customer service. So, thank you for that, Kathy. With that said, then u you want to grab um grab the mic some proposals. I guess we apologize.
Last one would just been a little crazy. Sure. We got this all together. Thank you. And also um from what I understand last week, Dan, you uh got an award. Y right. So I know you don't like to brag on that, but maybe don't just tell us about that and
that was actually um it's from the department award as well, right? Yeah. environmental protection from DP. Um it's for three consecutive years um with like perfect um housekeeping I guess with the cars. That's all the testing, no hits, no all the paperworks actually
which is Cathy's, you know, all our reports um and everything's been in line for the last three years. And actually we were one of 15 towns out of 351 that got that award pretty consecutive years. And I know you know you're the head of the department, but
there's a lot of people that go into making John West, he does all the testing. Kath is doing all the paperwork in the office. So, it's it's a team effort, you know, with everybody over there. And it's it's uh it's it was kind of nice to hear it was only 15 towns out of 351 that got that award. So,
sometimes when the Kushner gets stuff, say it's alphabetical, so we're up in the top. Yeah, we in this case in that category, we did get up. Well, good. Congratulations. Good for you guys. I think anytime we can get recognized for the work we do uh and it's good it's good stuff for us. I'm glad to be able
to highlight that tonight. So, thank you. First thing on the agenda is to talk about chapter 90 and road paving projects. I think what we're looking for is you know the comprehensive report on what we have for money where you want to go with it um and what we're looking to do. So you guys did you
guys if you want to look at that quick like um so that's what we have as of now. Um, so the total right now we have 1,257,84354. So that's the balance as of well as of July cuz that's the 510 is going to be
in July for us. So right now we get 747 510 is what we're going to get as of July cuz this as of we used to get 314,000 every year which now for the next 5 years we're getting additional 200,000. So we'll be getting 500,000 for
the next 5 years. So So that was new plus we get that additional 74,000 this year. So So this is what I proposed. That's why I'm looking for I kind of to see if we get a sweeper cuz the way I looked at it. One of the roads is I wanted to do was Mendle Road cuz
that one the drainage is done. We done last year and that road's pretty bad. So I was thinking of trying to get that one done this year reclaimed and paved. Um, even back then when they they did this road, it was just a overlay. So, it wasn't done, you know what I mean? It was just a quick they just went over it,
which is not a good base. The way the right way to do it is we paint it and then, you know, put a binder and top coat on it. So, and that cost would be $500,000 for for that road alone. So the other thing I was looking for this year because of this additional funding was
to try to purchase a sweeper because again this would be not in taxation and you know my opinion is kind of a vital piece to have. Um we use that a lot even on our own construction jobs. um even if there's an accident is you know we got
to put down sand, sweep it up and you know to hire it out it it's kind of you got to count on somebody to do that and that's that's difficult you know so that's that's my opinion but I mean I know the funding it is what it is the lifespan of a sweeper probably at least 20 ours is probably 20 years old now
take care of it right yeah ours is 20 years old and the problem with the how much it changed over the 20 years there that sweeper is all mechanical so it was all chain chains and sprockets and everything. All the newer equipment is hoses with um hydraulic motors, you
know, for pumps, runs, the sweepers, runs, everything. You still got the maintenance with the brooms and stuff like that. But as far as like a a ton of maintenance is the old ones are, like I said, all mechanical and the new ones are all hydraulic. So, you blow a hose, it's a lot less
expensive to repair. Um, again, that's my thoughts. I don't know what the board's thoughts are on this, but I mean, so that was my two proposal for this year. I kind of wanted to hold off on Hamlin Street. I know, um, they did the bridge and everything, but I got some more drainage I want to
try to get done. It's been too wet to get out there. So, I'm going to try to get in there in July and get that done, but I'd rather let that settle over the the winter. I mean, well, the summer and the winter, and then maybe try to tackle that next season. So I mean if you look down on that paper and that was my next
so with additional money from next year we should have enough funding to do handling the following year. So so that's that's my thoughts. I don't know if the board's got different but that's we can go back and forth and talk about a sweeper and all that stuff. I don't know my my initial reaction is I don't
know if we need to take it out of chapter 90 funds because I hate to take from that and not use that for roads. Maybe that's something that's a free cash item or something like that or you know some something outside of the stuff
that's going to fix the roads. That's just my initial thought, but I want to hear from the board what you guys feel how you feel about this, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, of course. So, you know, and my initial thought is no, not spending $275 or $300,000 um for a speech sweep but out of chapter 90 funds. However, when
we get to the articles, I think there's ways to squeeze some money from the proposed money being spent from free cash to squeeze some of those down. And I think we can do some pretty good squeezing. Um, and maybe we could get
50% of the street sweeper from article money and then 50%. So, if we could take, just call it $300,000. If we could take 150 from squeezing some free cash article money and then we do, you know, the other
125. You sure it's 275? Correct. Yep. Brand new, right? Yep. I just checked. It was It was a little cheaper. Is it Is it Is it a good street sweeper? One that dumps by itself and you don't have to bring a machine. Somebody crashes the Correct. This one's actually a driving
one, so you can drive from either side and you can It's got a thing. So you can dump into a a dump truck. So it can either dump into a dump truck or you can just drive down the road. This thing will do 50 m hour. So you don't have to go cuz that our sweeper right now too is so slow and it takes forever. So you got to put a truck with them so we can dump
into where this thing you go sweep drive to the barn dump. I don't even have to send anybody with them, you know. So that's that's a huge plus, you know. Sit in. Oh yeah, that's it right there. You guys want to take a quick look at it? That's that would be nice. Yeah. Sorry. Right. A picture tells everybody a lot,
right? Yeah. And if you open it up, it'll show you the dunking stuff in there as well. But so again, going back to the funding, and you know, the other good thing, which I I know you're going to be happy with this, it's low enough to get in our barn. So I can put that inside. They don't have to stay outside. Yeah. This
is a little different than the the yellow one. That looks like mobile. The yellow one that spits the rocks at the center of the road, off the side of the road. This doesn't really pick it up. And again, it's it can stay in the front bar. And cuz we only got 10ft doors in the front garage. sleeves too, right? Yep. So, yeah, this goes Yeah. This
ain't This ain't a vacuum. It's just a brush. There's no vacuum to it. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, if we can get creative squishing down articles, which I think we can, we may be able to take, you know,
appropriate, you know, whatever is a buck and a quarter from article money and then maybe fund the other 150, okay, from chapter 90 and skin it that way. But take the full amount from chapter 90. I'm like, yeah. Well, I figured this year was the first year we actually got
that additional 274,000. So, it was kind of we weren't counting on this money. It was actually a good thing that we got it. So, that's why I figured, well, we didn't know about it before. We might as well take advantage of it. But again, you know, as well as I, we got so many to fix as well. Yeah. Well, we got we
got to try to be creative. I think that's what the board's willing to do, right? So, but it's just because you get additional funding and it's always additional funding only for a certain amount of time and it's allocated for a specific reason and we go out and do something different with it, right? It's kind of I've talked about this year over
year about our excise tax collections, right? It was original intent was roads and bridges and here we are balancing the general fund with 1.5 million which pretty much is all of it. Yeah. Right. So it's just the way government operates and I kind of don't want to be any part of that. I mean we get money to do a
specific thing. Take a look at our roads. They're falling apart. Right. We need as much money as we can to continue doing what we should be doing which is paving roads. Right? There's people roads that are horrible. And I was going to have a conversation with you, but it's not on the agenda about what you
have left over in the remainder of your budget, which isn't a lot of money and road paving to take care of a side street, but it's a reclaim job. Y cuz that's chip seal road. The road's blowing apart now and people are calling me and seeing me in places and going,
"Hey, while you're here, can I talk to you about my road?" Well, this is one while we're talking about this year. It wasn't just them. I wanted well cuz we brought up for Haven and stuff. So one of them was to lane and if maybe we can like get this involved as well and if I
want cuz this one I want to reclaim. Originally when we proposed this I was going to dig it out and put process and all that. And this might in our best interest maybe to reclaim it instead which would cost us the same kind of money. And where's that? I don't see that. Oh well I just put you just
talking about school. Well, we we talked about this in the past and Yeah. No, I know I know that. It's just not Okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry. And we did have the inter municipal agreement they wanted us to sign. So, that's the other thing I kind of wanted to go over as well. So,
um I know Mr. W, I was thinking on the on the on the thing, but this intermissible agreement, I don't know. Again, I can get you guys all copies. This is something I have and I think I gave it to you a while ago but it just kind of was dead in the water for now.
So I kind of want to when we meet with those guys like all this different stuff. Let's Dan when you when you let's talk to the lane for a minute. Right. So you got process 12 bucks. Yes. 900 yards. Yeah. Correct.
You're going to reclaim Mendel Road. Why can't you use the pro what extra? The stuff I got in the yard we already crush. So that's part of that money I spend for crushing every year doing the concrete and the asphalt and all those stuff. Our stuff I already have that material at the yard. So you don't need a 108 for that? No, no, nope. I don't
need that. So So that's one of the things that would be in house. So and the other thing I put in for the labor cost, which originally I was going to go in there, excavate it, Kev, dig it out, and then put our process in and grade it to kind of save on the the reclaiming,
but technically it's it's probably cheaper. It's going to be cheaper for the us to get just have to reclaim it. It's 275 a square yard and I already figured it out. It was like 14 grand for them guys to come in here. They're going to reclaim it, road gra it and then we can pave it. It's a better job with a
skid steer than a road grader. It comes out. We did Anthony Street and that's what it did and it came out perfect. You know what I mean? So you definitely to do with a road grader is the better option in a small street one thing but if you got a longer street you're better off with a road graater. you know, they
got big rollers and all that stuff helps to to come out a better job. So, we're just going to hold off for now on Tood Lane and not do any approving on that. I think I think it it does make sense. Well, Meno Road's a disaster. We got to put that out the bid. Okay. But Toodel, don't forget for Haven is going to be
footing the pill in this one. That's no money from us. I'm not saying we're not going to do it. I'm just I don't have the details. You're you're shining in front of the board's face right now a intermittent agreement for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it wasn't the first time I had it. I haven't seen it.
Kelly for a long time. A while ago that it was part of this package. So, a long time ago. So, after I gave you guys I know. I remember I remember us talking about it, but I thought we were sending you off to FA to get something in writing. Well, that's what I got the
paperwork that I sent. Oh, okay. That's fine. So, we just have to review it. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I'm just revisiting Dev. It's not. Yeah. And I think that might help even with Mr. the W hours thing if we get the agreement with them guys and we can work together. So that that intermittent agreement is just for the paving job on
Toodel, right? No, it's actually I I think it's more than that. I mean again boy I'll give you my copy. So I can get a copy from you. The problem let me talk can I Mr. Ch can I talk about the sewer thing? So we we also did this several years back probably 2014 15 with the
town of F and it was on the Alen Catino right we had a gentleman that was proposing some building over here on a vacant lot that's turned into a junkyard. Yep. I remember that. Right. And the reason why we never did that and it got killed was because when Mr. Cino went over and spoke with V Haven their
rates were much higher than the city of New Bethford's rates. So and then Mr. the casino and that conversation, we talked about that and it was like then I got to set up two different software to run two different, you know, different sections of the town with different rates and generate bills and it was just
kind of like this big to-do thing. Now, I don't know if it's really that complicated and if that was 100% y I don't know was a decade ago, we'll call it, right? But I do know about the rates. So, we have to be very careful because ultimately it's the people that
decide if they want to sew there and we got to figure out what those rates are. Even with the rates that we're tagged, we're pegged with the city of New Buffett because of some old grant from 1970. Um, without us, they couldn't have got that grant for the sewer thing. So, we're pegged with their rate, which we
get a decent rate. It's our fixed cost that boost our sewage sewer rate for a Kushner residence. Right. It's a fixed cost. Yep. Right. So that rate, whatever that rate is in favor and difference from there, that could be a big deterrence for those people to say, "I'm
all set." Yep. Right. So I mean, I wouldn't want to run to the races. I think it's worth having another conversation with Ven, but that's a big ask for the people of the Kushman, right? We got to figure that out. Yep. And that would just be sewer. It wouldn't be water. It's just sewer
because you can't stop intermangling water and system from New Bethford with but again it should be a discussion before South Main Street if they are doing it you know cuz laying that soup that's why that's why we're doing the green thing that South Main Street is
going to be like probably 10 years. Yeah. No, no, but either way it should be in the in that thing and try to get that water cuz now we're going to have brand new pipe right up to South Main and it's stubbing on each side of Sloum. You know what I mean? So, it's kind of to tie into that is huge. And again,
that's all 100y year better pipe and at least kind of, you know what I mean? Slow street's 120 year old pipe. What do we think South Main Street is the old oldest area of the town with Slogan, right? So, it's got to be pretty close to matching and we have that list of age and pipe. Right. Correct. The problem is
the water that that water pipe all the way down South Main Street is multi-millions of dollars. Right. Correct. So again, it's something that we need to start thinking about and planning for and looking at and say we're out of funding. Well, again, if that's coming something with the state, maybe they would be taking care of that or something like that and then doing
the side streets later. Again, it's just like we're doing there. You put the gates on the edge and then that can actually be done something in house in the future too if you had a the board discussed when when Mr. WA was talking to mass do I don't know call it a year
or two ago and we said that there's one way that we would take over that road definitely is lay a new water man and a dummy sewer pipe down the road while you open up the road and I believe Mr. you came back and said it's there's nothing that they they're not
responsible for anything under the road, right? They they wouldn't be opposed if it was in coordination with you know y that said could we try to chase other grants or whatever like from different things. So yeah,
I mean it's it's the right time to do it, don't get me wrong. Well, before we pave that road while doing that, you know what I mean? No, that's what that's why we spurred that conversation back then and I was smart enough to know that we need to replace infrastructure. If that road is going to get redone, let's talk to the state, right, and figure
that out because that's absolutely the time to do it. Yep. Okay. I mean, it's something that we can talk to them about. But you know, you got to check into I wouldn't go too deep with an intermittent agreement with Faven until you stop talking rates and finding out what that difference is. Y
All right. Uh any other Mr. Henley, any questions? before us. Can I would make good I would make so that Mr. Manard can get working on um the bid specs um for men no for Mendle Mendle Road.
Okay. Yeah. Well, uh that's the other thing too. I I do I did I give numbers on that kind of roughly? But the other thing is well since we're talking to bid specs um we do have the option to renew for Tucket Hot Mix's contract. So up to
two more years. So So that's keeping the same money as last year. So I got that with me too as well. I mean the contract. So we can renew that. We don't have to go back out to bid if he keeps the number the same. So I would go out to bid. Huh. I'd go out to bid. Okay.
Usually prices don't go down is what I'm getting at. Usually they go higher, but that's different conversations with different people. So y and there was a reason why the last bid came in higher. Okay. Okay. And that could change. Okay. So, I wouldn't want to rule anything out
and just go with that. No, I'm just bringing it up cuz we did we could renew that contract if we if we choose to. So, okay. But I would make a you want to make I think we need to make a motion to approve Mendo Road. I agree. Okay. And
go out to bid though. Okay. No worries. It ain't going to hurt going out to bid. Nope. Not at all. Right. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Second. Those in favor? for Mendle Road only. Dan, while we got you Yes. Keen Road,
how we doing over there? Cuz I, you know, it's been a while. Um, I got to get back over there. We got um that uh the patch settled down on Wood Duck. So, I got a few complaints on that. I got to get over there and and redo that patch. We w up doing the other one on Hamlin
the other day, yesterday actually. So, we got that manhole set and stone. We just got to get over there and do that again. We're kind of it's been short staffed guys out with knee surgery and this and that too. So we haven't that's the problem right now. He's the what he's got left of me and powers trying to
burn up slim burnification. So it is that kind of time of year but we're trying but sure but no that's settling in me putting the board over. So that's basically going to take care of that one which I'm going to try actually get if the weather Yeah. No no I know I see I
seen but Yeah. Yeah. I mean he knows a bunch of them. I know a bunch of them. I get I get nailed all the time on that road and I'm like we're going to go back and fix it. But yeah, you know it does settle. Trenches do settle, right? Well, and even like you said, even if you compact, that's why I like letting stuff settle over the winter and then just
redo them and you're good. You know what I mean? It's unless you use flowable fill, you know, it's I've seen you can jet it with water. You can I mean they got compact as electronic ones and do it. It's it's definitely a little better than what because again we don't have the time and the manpower to to sit
there and compact it all up in lifts. It's we just don't got the time. It's not we would never get nothing done if we did that. You know what I mean? It's that's turns into a little bigger project. So that's why I let it go and and we'll repair them. It's usually simper. Even on water breaks we do them and then we go back and fix them after.
I mean it's kind of what we have to do with the main power we have. But yeah. Anything else gentlemen? No on that subject matter. All right. Next. Chapter 90. Yeah. Next item is snowplow driver bonuses. Mr.
Gastra. I don't I don't have I don't think I have anything in my book. So anyways, I'll just go off my memory. And do do you have the the list of the three? Is that in there? I have an old list. Yeah. So I I'll just briefly talk. I don't need the
names of the three. So we we have what 19 that made 21 21 drivers. So we had 18 drivers. We only had two storms. Correct. We had 18 drivers that are eligible for the perfect attendance. There's three of them that plowed the
last storm. Um my recommendation to the board um would be to try and I think the three understand that they're not getting the $1,000 bonus, but because there was only two storms and it wasn't like a multitude of storms and they only came
in for the last ones and because we could only we only got 21 contractors to sign on, I think it would go a long way with the other three if we gave them something. And and you know, I I I've talked to Dian and Kathy about this and I said, "Okay,
so we're not really we don't have a perfect system designed around the snow plaque plow contractors." But I said to Dan and Kathy when I had a conversation with them, I said, "Maybe we need to set a hard date for the initial sign up, perfect attendance, and I think that date should be somewhere around November
15th because you could get snow after that." Right? So if you come in, you sign up by November 15th and we get that list, boom, that's the hard list. But then I also think in certain circumstances like these other three that come in a little bit later and we can't do it in you know January February
but I said if we created the second list where they come in by January 1st New Year's they would be eligible for 50% of the bonus. Right? So it is that initial 100%,000 bucks if you sign up between November 15th and January
1st. We really should be open to that as a board to try to incentivize because let's face it, I mean, not everybody knows what they're doing by November 15th. But if they don't, at least then we can say, "So, you you have to have perfect attendance, but you only get 500
bucks cuz you signed after the date of November 15th." And and then just kill it that way, right? And if anybody comes in and signs up after that, there's nothing. But I think if we make a little bit more fair system for signing up. The reason I put these guys in, well, one of the guys probably been with us for 10
years. And if you look up his record, the guy hasn't missed a storm since he's been here. Um, that's one of the reasons I put them in. And he told me he was on vacation. He was out of the country that time. Actually, two of the three were vacation. They were on vacation. And the
third one was actually just really sick and he couldn't come in. So that's why I put them guys in for it. I mean, again, it's a board's decision, but again, that the one of them, if you look up his his his record, he's been here probably 10 years, and that guy has not missed one
stone. He's he's awesome. So, that's why I did that and that's to stay fair to what we did in the what the vote was. I think we're being more than fair to give him 50%. I have no problem with that. And, you know, instead of giving them nothing, I because that's really technically what it is. Perfect tense is perfect tense. It's the way the motion
was made. But I would I would um to to hold these other three um snowplow contractors to hopefully have them sign up again with the town. And it was only two storms, 50% give them the $500 a $500 bonus to hopefully bring them back
next year and say, "Hey, that was pretty fair on the town." And look, we don't have to wait until, you know, October to recruit. You should say like as soon as they get their bonus, you know, when they come in to get their bonus, say, "Hey, you want in for next year, sign them up then, right?" Yeah. I've already been talking to them. I've been calling
asking for the bonuses and I am thanking them for plowing for us and how much we appreciate them and I hope they come back next year. So, the the the problem for Dan um and I know cuz I'm worked pretty closely with Mr. Man, Miss Silva, and DBW is 21 contractors aren't enough.
Right. We've been we've been fortunate. I say we I say we, but I'm going to say I I do mean we cuz we out of town, right? But I'm going to say Dan's been extremely fortunate that he hasn't seen a bad winter like we had in 2015. Cuz I can tell you right now, even with the
small crew that Dan has for our workers and then 20 21 contractors, we're losing roads if we had a 2015 season, right? And that's horrendous for this community. So again, we need to really be 25 30 contractors at that point in
15. We have like 34 at at that point with 34 contracts. You know what I mean? So I mean we're dealing with a already a small crew and then we have a small amount of contractors. It doesn't sound like a lot, but those three to me I think it would be a good gesture for the town to pay them a $500 bonus. No
problem with that. So I'll make a motion to pay the three that don't have perfect attendance a $500 bonus and pay the rest of them the $1,000 bonus. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries. Sound good, Dan? Yep. All right. All right. Uh, let's see. Next item. FY. And Dan,
for next year when we do this, let's try to get that system built, right? So, there'll be no more. We have a system built with the two sign up periods, right? And anybody can sign up after J1, but there's no bonus. Yep. Right. Okay. But at least we have two windows. Yep.
Next item. I think we kind of touched on it under overall plan and key projects, but you know, Dan, there's a lot of stuff that you do and Kathy that you do above and beyond, you know, like big projects, right? So, kind of want to get a sense from you and Kathy just to kind
of educate the board and the general public like sort of the lowhanging fruit that may not be visible, but like just talk about what you're doing and you know, I I also got another uh sheet for you guys. All right, let's go. actually uh that so this is kind of what we did
this fiscal so it's basically I gave I gave you the road materials I gave you um the IronM equipment and I gave you this the snow so you know what we've spent the money on and so that's Kathy's very good with that and keeping track of
exactly what we spent all our money on and um so I know there was an issue like with buying tires um but if you looked that if you look at my R&M, I bike tires on both. Reason, I mean, we've been doing this since I started here, even
when Paul Sylvie was here. Um, a lot of times we get the rubber in the in the winter just because you need good rubber to be out there in the in the in the weather. So, if the tires need them, we usually get them for the winter, you know what I mean? So, the trucks ain't slipping and sliding around out there.
So, so the let me comment on that one cuz that the conversation around the tires I think can be applied for many other things that are being spent from snow and ice removal to clear the air with everybody that doesn't really understand y what happens right is so we
get an invoice for a set of just call it one of our one ton trucks right just call it four tires right could be six on on the dies whatever the maximum amount that if if we started getting audited and we and they start looking at which we do get audited but if they stop and which they seem to be
doing more more of is scrutinized expenditures right I'm fine with saying and and I can make the case cuz I've done it in my own professional life right is I can make the case that 6 months out of the year that truck is being used for snow removal right so I
would say you can buy tires under snow removal and allocate 50% of that expenditure and take it from snow and ice but you can't take 100% of it So what about vice versa? If you look at my R&M equipment, I probably got more trucks. I got tires during the regular
year than on snow. So that's when I do. So that's so that's that's still that doesn't matter what time of the year we do. No, you know, listen, it doesn't matter what I'm not saying that you can only go put tires once. What I'm telling you is what I'm telling you what I'm trying to say to
you is if you're going to do it, you can do it any time of the year because the truck will be used six months out of the year for snow and ice removal. Doesn't matter when you do it. Okay. Charge 50%. That'll probably work because, right, so you charge 50% to snow and ice, 50% to your R&M budget. Done. It doesn't
matter. I did. And I can make the argument if somebody says to me, "Well, geez, Mr. Gasper, you put tires on your truck in July. That wasn't really snow and ice." Say, "Really? I needed tires in July and I used the truck come November, December, January, February, March, April, May." Well, not really May. Hopefully, we don't get snow in
May, right? So, it doesn't really matter when. And it's just when the vehicle needs tires, we can easily justify 50% of that cost, right? Y and you know, even if you look at my R&M, I don't know if you got that in front of you, too. I got truck 11 and 13 that we couldn't
take out of snow that got sand blasted. But if I didn't use them trucks with snow and I got sanders in them, guess what? They wouldn't be needing sand blasting and and painting. You know what I mean? So, I'm trying to prevent maintenance cuz if you look at truck 21, that body, what it cost me for a body,
you know what I mean? So 11 and 13 were getting rusty again because we're throwing the sanders in in the back of them. You know what I mean? Just just keeping in mind that the truck ain't only used if the truck was only used for snow and ice removal and you could do 100%.
But any good accounting or auditor will look at it and and question it, right? I did it with my own my own vehicle when I bought a plow. I tried to do 100%. And then the question was simply asked from the accounting my accountant is really do you only use that plow for your
business? And I was like no and he's like what percentage we going to use? I was like I don't know 60 40 75 25. He goes anything better than 100%. Right. Yep. So, you know, it's one of those deals where I kind of learned from my
personal side and we've been there's been questions this side of government side and I said, well, you know what the reality of it is? I could easily justify 50% of anything that goes on that cuz it's 50% of the time that truck's being used in this in the winter months,
right? Yep. So, yeah. You know, we just got to try to keep that in mind, right? So we could stop the the questioning of you know you know what's this and 100% of it and I'm like ah that's not cool. Right. You shouldn't be doing that but we can do it and and in the end it's probably going to equal to the same. That's what I'm
saying. It's it's going to be the same. But it's just it's just how we do it. Yep. Right. When people start looking at slips and everything else they're like yep. Okay. So when you do your bill and you get rolling four tires right,000 bucks 500 snow and ice 500 R&M from DPW
and that's on there. They're like, "It's legit. Feel it. Have a nice day." All right. That's all. That's so We're just trying to clean it up on how we're doing business. We can do that. That's for accounting purposes. Simple and auditing, right? And auditing, right?
You guys do you have any other questions on that or what you guys? No. I mean, you can look at it. So, you know, before Mr. takes off and Miss Silva takes off. I think it's important because we froze the budgets
Friday, but and I think we did cass snow and ice is done, right? More money is being spent out of that. That's that's double other than whatever we're going to do for the bonuses and how we're going to pay that there. That freeze was put on Friday, but we need to discuss that because this
thing's in Camass and this thing's in your DBW. We can absolutely not freeze. Correct. So I would like for you actually Kathy has I would like for you to well you have this opportunity to speak to the board.
Speak to us about we can't just freeze. Yeah. Cuz we get bills in from seam mass and trash hauling and recycle and all that stuff that we got going to get bills in. Correct. And we got to freeze. But we need to pay bills. Correct. And I
don't want problems with vendors and and contracts that we have out there. And I know we have contracts for hauling and stuff like that. And I don't want to put anybody in a bad position. And I surely don't want you or Kathy to be getting those phone calls saying, "Why hasn't the bill been paid?" Yep. Right. So
whatever we I don't know what we can still freeze if we need to do that or I mean, talk about the things. Talk about the things, Dana. Please talk about the things that can't be frozen, right? It's fuel. one fuels for the whole entire town. That's I got it. I understand. Um
as far as the rest of the DPW stuff, I mean I mean I'm gonna need grass seed. I'm going to need you know what I mean cuz I'm even if I'm not doing that, I'm still working on detention ponds. I got to finish them couple up. I I'm doing one behind the DPW there in reservation or reservoir or whatever it is down in
the back there. We're going to be starting to work on. I'm still working on Cheshshire. So again, that's more uh like I said, fuel and and labor, but it's going to be like grass seed. We already got the loom and again we um mutual aid, which worked out good for
Weham, and we use their screener and you know, screen the material we had. So we have loan for these jobs. So that ain't costing us nothing, you know. Um, I think pretty much the seed for now and asphalt for patching roads. We're going to need still getting, you know, there's
always potholes and I do definitely got some patches and some um and some basins to fix. So, it's pretty much concrete and and mix. Not I don't not buying a lot of tonnage, but it adds up if you look at that paper, you know what I mean? You just even potholes and stuff,
you get a ton here, a ton there, a ton there, you know what I mean? A couple tons. So, um, can we fix the pothole? Bottom of N's Lane. You just mentioned pothole. Nice lane in middle road right there. That right on the corner. Everybody. So, again, that's like ongoing. We get Huh. I get lists of
stuff to fix. Oh, that's cuz that that what do they call that? They use cold patch. Yes. And that's I mean, again, you put it in the hole and a week later it's gone. And again, we had a hot time this year and then um uh Rochester was sold out and then so
they usually open in the winter. So we w up going to Edwards which is out of Avon. So that's a little hype to get mix you know but um so we were doing it but and even them then they they closed their plant for a certain amount of time that would do the work on the plant. So they're good for the spring. So so now
you have to buy the coal patch. We have a local unfortunately. Huh. I know. But they're not open in the winter. Asphalt you get asphalt in the winter. I know it'd be nice if they were but they haven't been open. What is that? like the cold patch stuff. That's like a special process that they do. It's like
Yeah, it's cold and it's it's a nice oil and stuff in it. But it does it just falls out in the snow. It doesn't stay in there. So you're putting it in there in the winter just so people aren't blowing out their tires. It's dark, they're driving, they don't see it. It's a temporary path. You can't I mean the
So I mean I know we're talking about these other roads with Dan, but if you drive down so he did a stretch of road like somewhere around N lane maybe I don't know Dan. What do you think? 800 ft down from the library down like 800
ft or something like that. You can you can see the line. That's where the duplexes are, right? And then it stops and there's an old water man that was replaced um all the way down Middle Road all the way I think it goes all the way to Mores Lane where your road is. I know it goes at least at least to B a little after Bert maybe I think it goes a
little fairway at least fairway I'm sorry fairway right in the trenches and the road starting to buckle and and it's just going so we need to I mean we think that oh look you see I got a million something but no you don't because there's so many other things I could be
telling him and hey we need to talking to the board and saying we need to do x y and z like the little side street right right off the m middlefield place it's a mess that needs to get done it's a reclaim job it's a small job he's got a little the money. Maybe we can put that on a near agenda and get that done,
too. Yep. Well, that's not again if like I said, if I'm going to I'll go out to bid and I'll put the reclaim out to bid as well and then we can pick and choose what you want to do with reclaim. I'll just put in, you know, x amount of things or something for a reclaim. And but the problem with So, you got a
little bit of I I forget what is like 40 35 or 40 grand left in your road paving line. Yep. That can get middle field place done. I'm pretty sure with reclaiming you mean or paving and everything. Yeah. Well, if we do it Yeah. in house.
Yeah. Yep. We got to get We got to spend it by June 30th. Okay. We have 40 grand. No, I think I remember having 40 grand, Mr. Kelly. Uh, also we need a
plan where we have some accounts that are in the negative, some accounts that are in the positive. We need a plan on how we're going to balance it all out by June 30th. So, what Mr. Kelly's referring to is
there's in the DPW's budget, there's line items that have run negative by a substantial amount, right? And there's got to be some rationale why those line items are being expended that far above and beyond what the account line is there for, right? And I know that you
look at it and say, well, if my budget's a million, I could just finangle the money at the end of the year and make everything work as long as I stay in my budget. But again, it's coming down to this whole thing of how we're doing business, right? Well, again, this is another thing that I've been doing for 14 years like that, Kevin. I've never
come to this board once and asked for extra money out of my budget. I never over spent my entire budget um like some departments have. I don't want to say what, but um never once came to this board and asked for extra money. So, we keep track
of our funding. I know some line some go over some don't some and that's just the way we do business every year because sometimes it turns into this thing we weren't planning on going over that kept but the road you want it done right we had to reclaim that we had to put binder
in top so that's why that road paving line went way over you know but it was done right that was not that's not one of them to talk deficit that one's not deficit that's a big one that's a big one yeah it is that's the biggest one snow and ice is the biggest. No, wait a
minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought we were talking about individual line items inside of DPW's budget, not what he's talking about. I mean, I know what we when we did the paving of the three Helen, Joseph, and Earl. Yes, correct. That's
we I thought when I looked at the road paving line item, there was still like 35 grand. No, you're negative. And I gave you an explanation that's in that packet of where we grow. All right. Well, forget about the middlefield place one for right now because I thought we had like 35 grand
to go out and play with that. No, no, but we we're definitely going to have to have a plan in all of that because what might have been done for 14 years, now we've got different people looking
at us, different accountants, different auditors. So, our direction, Mr. Kelly, was always do not overspend your budget. and the accounting department always went back and reclassed. So that anything that was
negative, anything we left as positive, they took the money so it all balanced out in the end. That's was we haven't got any since then. We don't spend it. We always put money back in the budget. It's not like and this year and again this is another one is fuel. Fuel is
like an unknown that could go up, go down. This year we got extra money in fuel. That money in fuel is going to go towards that. So again, we watch the numbers and again we don't you know what I mean? We unfortunately some of these line items go over but again sometimes it's an impossible thing especially even
few how you going to if if if the prices go crazy we might go over on that line item you you'll never you can't you know but give the example Yep. Yeah. Mr. Gasparter did where you buy four tires. Yep. No no no I get and I think that's
in the past. Yep. You put four to snow. Yep. Now we've got to put two to highlight, two to snow. Okay, I'm good with that. Yeah, I don't got a problem with that. You do two trucks, it balances out. No, I it says it doesn't two at a time. The bill itself
we have to look at. It's a different uh it's different now that the auditors and the accounting rules. So, it has to be done a lot more specifically and
according to their rules. And so, I'm asking them work with the accounting office to make a plan. Can we So with all this stuff, can I suggest that we like for all our department heads that
have to spend money on stuff? Let's get a workshop, sit down, tell them everything that needs to be done or a memo or something or other. So because I think what's going on, here's what's going on. We're we got budget problems. And so when we have budget problems, we
got to tighten up process. So if the process is is as tight and buttoned up as possible, then it doesn't call into question what we're up to. You know, at the last meeting we talked about we want to do a full audit on economies and efficiencies. It's not to like bust
people's chops. Is that we want to know everything that's going coming in and going out so that when we make a when we build a budget, we then have the credibility to go before the finance committee and ask for the money and then ultimately the taxpayer. is just, you know, I think we've been all doing
things so long a certain way, but I think now we got to kind of shift and Yeah. No wonder it a little bit. No problem at all. One thing that if you could put on your list, I know you guys are super busy, but just kind of an annoyance thing for me. It's not nothing you guys have done, but we've got a lot
of like faded burnt out signs that are like, you know, like, you know, the golf course sign. We got a lot of like we got a lot of stuff. If we can get a crew out there and, you know, take them down, it'd be better to have nothing than have
stuff that looks terrible, right? So, we actually do have some new ones. How we do get some new ones in there, but we just haven't again residents call. We usually replace those if it's with that kind of stuff. You're driving around. I think like Hill there's some blown out signs and
different you know you drive around town and I'm like oh man I you but like with Eric you drive by it every day you kind of just forget about it but I just think it's it becomes agree 100%. It's annoy it's annoying seeing some of these signs that are just decrepit and you know we
we we have the money and if if we don't in your budget Dan then even if you accumulate the list as Mr. is talking about instead of just taking down ones that like curve, you know, uh, you know, driveway signs, you know, you know, warning about driveways on curves and
stuff like that. Straighten them out, fix them up as best we can. Make a list and get compile a list of signs. And we're going to town meeting, right? And if if we need to to do $10,000 for signs to replace signs in this town, so be it.
It is what it is. I mean, look where we're going to town right now for some of these expenditures, right? I mean, what's 10 grand to to make sure that the community looks good and you know what I mean? And we got good signage up and you know, there's no excuse for us to have signs up that from 1901 that are all
bent over and guardrails that look like crap. I mean, it just looks like we can't maintain the community, right? And it's not your fault. It's it's just that's on us to say that's a priority and we set the money to We'll get We'll get you the money one way or another, right? I mean, we'll get you. I'm not expecting you to go, "Oh, well, you got
you only given me this much in my budget now. You want me to use 10,000? I'm just using for instances 10,000 bucks for science." I get it. You you're limited with the amount of money that we have nowadays for your budget and everybody else's budget, right? So, if that's what
we need to do, y 5 grand, 10 grand, whatever the amount of money is at at a town meeting from free cash, that's what we do. I mean, we should talk to Dana. We had nice golf course signs, but we should have them at every, you know, South Main Street down there,
you know, Christian River Valley Golf Course, a nice sign directing people. I mean, we should even, what do we have like eight restaurants in town like you see on the highway, you know, these places like maybe we can do some stuff like that that would help some of our businesses or whatever at a minimum,
right? That's kind of relatively cheap. It's not like you're saying 10,000. I don't It's not that crazy. I'm just I don't think it's that crazy to do. So I trying to help you guy. You know what I mean? You say it. You say it's not right. But did you think about I know it does add up signs.
I mean it does add up. It really does. You don't realize you know that's what I told you just even the pothole one right. It's it's crazy. I can probably I could probably locate as Mr. Boner is talking about 50 of them that need to be replaced. Yeah. So yeah. I don't know. I know they're out there, but sometimes
they go like this. I'm like, so much to do. You see it, yank it out of the ground, in the truck, yeah, unless it's one that's saying, you know, you know, blind corner or driveway, whatever that sign is on curves. I mean, you got to let people know. You can't just take people's signs away. Yeah. You know what
I mean? Well, like I said, some of them we do have, I think, in stock so we can get out. That some of them just need to be straightened out. New hole needs to be dug and straightened out and so back to being straight instead of, you know. Yeah. All right, we're good. Anything else, J? No, I I I I don't think Mr.
Manard and Miss Silva's got an answer on freezing. We got to take a vote to kind of stuff. Do you Did you just be conscientious? So, I'll make a motion to unfreeze Camass. You want to hear what like we kind of like I said, I just told
you what like highway, but CESS we have contract. I just unfroze CA S Cass. You don't have to worry about it. Also, I'm making a motion to unfreeze seam mass and DBW's budget and with and stone ice. No, Snow Ice is still frozen. You still have to pay the bonus payments though.
So, we have to pay the plow payments out of there and then figure out how to deal with the deficit. Okay. Well, I'll be snow and ice to pay the bonuses. Period. No more expenditures. Correct.
which is done anyways. But um we should have additional funds in Camass this year as well. Um again, recycling is that line item is good. So I think we should have some funding in there left over. Um which would be should be a good
amount in that. Again, the reason again we kept it this way because we just seen the trends. We watch the trends on it cuz that's all based on market and when Trump was messing with China and everything else the the prices start shooting up when it like Biden got in
there they went down so it's kind of on the up climb now so it was over 100 a ton I think so we got kind so now it's going it might go drop back down so again that's a market thing and I don't want to be with outer so it's kind of not the cut but it's that's a tough one too
because we've seen the the climb and then now it might dropped because of that. It's it's crazy. So how it how that works. But yeah, that's something that that's something that none of us are smart enough to predict. So there is an inflation factor that we have in that number, right? Correct. So that we're
not coming back going, you know, reserve fund transfer. But again, so that money usually, like I said, even last year, I think Kev, that's going back to the general fund. So that should be able to take care of I mean, we can come up with somewhat a rough number what you're going to have left over. So you guys
know what you're going to do. I think the board's just asking at this point, Dan, be conscientious of spending throughout the remainder of the year. Y um I made a motion to unfreeze DPW's budget, SEMAS's budget, and snow
and ice, but no further expenditures in snow and ice other than bonuses. Motion. All those in favor? Motion carries. Great. Thank you. Have a good night. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tell the troops thank you for their work. Thank you. All right, we have
got FY26 update. Jamie, we got some uh finance committee took some action yesterday, I think it was, right? They uh reviewed uh the
uh very rough draft warrant, asked some questions about it. Uh it still has to be formatted. Uh there are some articles that have to be removed, some articles
that are not really under my purview that have to be inserted. They also uh reviewed the quote unquote no change from last year individual budgets and approve
those. uh and uh uh they are meeting again Monday and possibly uh Tuesday next week to go over everything and I know the board's
meeting Friday. Uh there are a number of uh articles that are annual articles like the consent agenda that goes through uh that you do uh pretty much to
for example to accept grants uh or chapter 90 money. And then there's the revolving fund articles and the stabilization free cash
articles. And then there's the budget. And as of last night, I heard that the uh school passed a budget. We haven't seen the line items yet in the budget, but uh
they went from $750,000 increase to uh approximately $141,000 increase. It's progress. It's in It's incredible. I wish we could have got uh It's a good
jump all to do. This is a good jumping off point. It's a it's it's it's a shame that K through eight budget increases 141 and 8 through 12 increases
350 and that's only our share, right? That is beyond me. Um I I I I like old Colony. I have nothing bad to say about Old Colony. I'm a graduate of Old Colony. My son's a graduate of Gold Colony. My brother's a graduates of Old Colony. But that doesn't make it right.
They just you continue to spend over a million dollars a year year-over-year. That that's not sustainable. And their request from the town of Ausha increase of I think it's $347,000 for four grade school. Don't give me the stuff. It's a vocational school. All your stuff has already been
bought and paid for. So give me a break. Um that's twothirds of our Prop 2 and a half levy increase. They've taken twothirds. I don't know who thinks that's okay, but I surely don't. That's not that is clearly unsustainable. You
want you need that message needs to be sent to them ASAP because 1.2 million increase year-over-year. I don't know what's going on, but that's not even close to what they should be doing. As you know, we had multiple
meetings with them. We had meetings on health insurance. We had meetings on what the town was looking at. We had meetings on how new growth was drying up and it fell on Jeffrey. See, that's
correct. But it is very unfair when I look at the big picture and we make cuts. The school department has just demonstrated that they've made cuts, dramatic cuts. if the real increase was 750 um whatever that number incorporated before that involved that 750 but clearly coming in at up
$141. I'm going to be honest with you I don't know the last time a Kushnet public schools budget went up only $141,000. So that's in my opinion incredible and and and quite honestly I
think it deserves a giant thank you because this is the year that we really really needed that um help and as long as that number is true that you're giving the board at 141 um it's a huge help this year for the town and the
town's people quite honestly. So kudos to them um for doing whatever they did to make it happen. Hopefully it's it's, you know, having dramatic impacts on it, but they've clearly demonstrated they make cuts. We're going to make cuts. We can't let the other whole colony just
say this is what it is. Suck it up, buttercup. Well, not make you're not sharing that pain. I think while you're congratulating this Krishna schools, you should also congratulate this board. And
this board opened the books totally to both old colony and a Kushnet schools and showed them what the financial picture was as bleak as it
was. And you, this board was asking for not only understanding but was asking for collaboration and I think Kushnet
schools answered. Yeah, absolutely. So, thank Mr. WA, Mr. Hinckley and I would also extend that um thank you to the finance committee, right? They put in a lot of hard work and dedication to the budgets. Um, and I know we haven't given them all of our
budgets because that's ultimately what it comes down to as the board of selecting to get through these budgets. Um, but kudos to our fincom as well, right? A lot of lot of hardworking individuals on our fin. So, agree. I I look I I don't disagree. I think it's great that we're at this number, but I
still think when I've when I see the budget, the school department budget, I think we've got I think there's some structural issues there that still need to be addressed over time. I mean, to be honest with you, some of the I got to see what the final the final final is and who's getting impacted. You know, if
it's going to impact the children, then that's not a good budget. But it's not I'm not an elected member of the school committee. It's, you know, if I wanted I had that job. I got thrown out of that job 30 years ago. So, you know, um I think at the end of the day, there's going to be a critical look at what the
impact is to the kids um before I can wave any pompoms, but I also think there's some structural issues there that I think the juryy's still out on. So, Mr. Chairman, I I I'd agree with that extensively. Um I think at the last finance committee meeting, there was a
joint meeting with the school. I was there um as a representative of the board of selectment and I think all of us really put our heads together and understand that any kind of position that's going to get cut shouldn't be studentf facing and I think we all were
very clear saying that there's not necessarily not necessarily redundancies but options where there was some administrative positions that could be removed or shortened that would have less of an impact on the student population and I think it's very
important where no matter what yes any cut is going to affect the overall process but the least impactful should be applied in my opinion that's why I've always been saying look at the teachers less we
don't want bigger classroom sizes we want the education of the children to be at the forefront and if we can cut down on some administration positions they're the only positions that aren't union, they can take on a little bit of an extra responsibility. I
don't think making classroom sizes bigger by cutting teachers is the answer. I think it's lowhanging fruit and I completely agree that I think an actual operational audit mentality needs to be looked at in this and you know we
all want to support education. I think every member of this board here has mentioned how much we want to support education, but we also have to do it within a budget that the town of Akushnik can support. And I think it's important that everybody looks at everything and realizes that yes, we
want the best of the best, but sometimes the best of the best is above what we can actually provide. So, let's try to streamline it. Yeah. I mean, it's a like everything we do in town in the the town of Aushnet needs to be looked at from the
the lens and you know, Kevin says it all the time, the lens of the taxpayer. And if we choose a business model that yes, would would I love to hire uh you know the the most highly qualified town administrator that could cost us
potentially $220,000 like some of these other other municipalities and you know some superhero. Um yeah, of course, but I think we're all self-aware enough to know that that's not something that we can afford. And if our business model is
to either tap into existing talent within town or our business model is to um bring somebody in who's younger that we can help grow into a position and then set them free to go to another community uh on somebody else's dime to make the next big paycheck, then that's
that's it is what it is, right? But I just think we've got to really view everything we do uh not from the lens of well, we've always done it this way and this is just the way it is. the more innovative we are, the more creative we are in our thinking, I think ultimately
um you know, we'll we'll be able to serve the taxpayer. So anyway, but that said, um I think on balance, thank you to the finance committee. Thank you for the school committee and the administration for taking a critical look at this stuff. Um so with that said, Jamie, I think the the operative
thing is this is still draft draft draft of this uh warrant. So there's going to be tweaks, more tweaks from what the major probably shakes because this was put together. Yeah. With the uh lens so
to speak of uh a lot larger Yeah. uh uh impact from the education sector. Fair enough. So all I'm asking is like if we're going to get another draft of this warrant, this is just a Can you just not
put big draft across every page? It's a little distracting. Maybe just at the bottom or something or other. Can we make it a lighter shade of red? I It's just It's just a little distracting for for these old Well, no. Well, when we come in, it would be I'm
going to come in with a formatted and it's We're going to do that Friday. Yep. Okay. So, we need a All right. Good. All right. Can Can we Can we talk about one thing? Yeah, of course. One article and I know that I've had conversations with the fire chief about it's trying to
create another revolving fund for fire and EMS and it's only 25,000 bucks for like unforeseen expenditures like emergency repairs like we replace an engine out of the reserve fund. Y I talked to Mr. Kelly this morning. I
mean, enough with these revolving funds and articles every year, more and more articles and getting just consuming our time. It's a simple philosophy to that 25,000 bucks. I would actually say 50,000 bucks would probably be better for us to carry in a fire EMS budget is
just take from EMS reserve receipt account, put $50,000 in a reserve fund like we do with golf. There's 100 there for golf. We do it for sewer and we also do it for water. It's inside the budget reserve fund. The only way it can get expended is come from approval from the
board of selectmen, but it's inside of a budget. Kills that article. There's no reason to have an article. We've involved in fun. Mr. Chairman, if I may, just to touch base on that, too. I think um Chief Varin's ultimate goal regardless of this is being able to not have to wait until town meeting,
correct, to get approval. So, I think he'd be all right with that as long as he can access it quicker. It's in the budget. That's why we do it with all the other ones because if something a water main break, we what are we going to do? Call a town meeting if we don't have enough money inside the budget to do it. So we carry I think 60,000 in the water
budget. Um sewers either $60 or $100,000. Golf's $100,000. It's there for emergency and unforeseen reasons. And I again I'm like so I talked to Chief Allen and he's like I don't care how it's done. It would just be nice to do it and not hit the reserve fund like
I did this year. Right. And I get it. I mean he's the money sitting I forget what it is 1.4 million in EMS reserve receipt that comes we're going to take a chunk of that to buy a fire engine. I think there's something in the for that right to carry for a fire engine for the debt for that. If the money is sitting
inside of a bank account it's never it's just put it there and it sits there and if he needs it it's there and 25 grand we just spent 21 on an ambulance engine. I I'm of the mindset for reserve 50 grand. He's going to come to the board
of selectment for approval for expenditures just like any other department that does when you have that kind of a line carrying in your budget. Just do it that way. It gets rid of it. I don't know. I mean, so what do we need to do? Just just dissolve. We can put it in the uh the budget. The budget. You do
it for CV, too. We put the reserve. Yeah, there's a reserve in the budget. I mean, what are we doing with these? We we're going to town meeting now very soon. The next town administrator will have 50 articles at town meeting. It takes us four hours at town meeting to get through it because we got so many stupid articles that are just redundant
redundant. Redundant. So regarding Friday going over the warrant. Should we invite make sure we invite Mr. Don the moderator? Uh I hope he's back by then. He's uh All right. He was away and he sent his uh uh excuse and good wishes.
But yeah. Yeah. I just want to make sure he he's taking a couple days vacation. Oh, it's good. Good. Okay, cool. I wish I was with him when uh I heard where he's going. All right. Anything from selectman's announcements?
Mr. Chairman, actually. Yes. Um sorry once again pulling out the phone for notes. I apologize. Um it's a digital world. Yeah, it is. Um, just want to give residents a heads up just in case they didn't see it. Um,
uh, through conjunction with Operation Clean Sweep, the beautifification committee is doing a townwide cleanup on June 7th. Um, there is a website out there that you could pre-register uh that gives you the information, but they're supplying
the tools, the bags, the gloves, some pizzas, some donuts. So, if you want to uh help clean up your neighborhood, um check that out. Uh it is on social media, on our town website, and also on other various town boards. Um but I'll
see you out there. Um I also believe that Scott Daget is organizing something for the 17th on Lake Street to do the same thing. Um, as much as people try to keep that clean, um, there have been people
dumping stuff on the trail and making a mess out of that parking lot again. Um, so if every anybody in town wants to help out, same thing. Gloves and bags will be available at Lake Street as well. Great. And I know I saw the crew out there today cutting grass and, you
know, make sure that everything's weed whacked and all that jazz and make sure it look good. Mr. Gasper, no, I don't. But I I'll touch on what cuz it is a little disturbing seeing Lake Street. Um some people disrespecting the property, right? Um so I know we're getting the
fiber optic cable run down Lake Street now. So I think we'll be setting up some cameras down here as well. So hopefully the people that are doing this, we can we can catch them and you know, we can find them as well. So, I would just ask
for people to be a little bit more, you know, honorable honorable. When you're down there doing things, there's trash cans there. Put the stuff in the trash cans. Recycle bins are down there as well. I mean, there's no need to be throwing things or leaving things behind. Clean up after yourself, please.
Okay, sounds good. Uh, next meeting is going to be Friday and then we have a the selectum meeting on May 27th. We get an executive session on hand. We still have to do that, right? Yeah. Be quick. All right. Uh, is there Can can we so for Friday's Friday's
meeting we can put some executive sessions because I think it's for because it's going to affect some you know contract negotiations and budgets and things of the like to have that conversation too on there. We'll put that on first. Yep. And then we'll come out and do budgets and warrant and you
want to see if Darren can be there. That's the plan. If we need him. Who's Dan? Darren Klein. Oh, sure. by uh Zoom if he's available. Yeah, sure. Whatever you want to do.
All right, sounds good. Uh we got executive session under Mass Journal Law Chapter 3A section 21 subsection A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining fire agreements. 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 the executive session. Roll call. Roll call vote. Mr. Gasper. Yes. Roll call vote. Mr. Hinckley. Yes. And I am a yes. We are now in executive
session. Who will not