okay we're recording all right good afternoon i'd like to call this meeting of the Joint Capital Planning Committee to order at 403 on Wednesday April 2nd it is Wednesday yes yes i'm Sarah Marshall i'm the vice
chair of the committee our chair town counselor Kathy Shane is away um so I'll I'll run this meeting and she'll be back uh for our next meeting a week from Friday on the 11th so because we're
meeting virtually um I'll take roll call make sure everybody can hear and be heard bob Hegner present lee Edwards present nat Larson I'm here bridget Hines present hala Lord present
great and uh there may be some members of the public um this is um this meeting is being recorded and that recording will be uploaded hopefully tomorrow um so before we dive
in who is taking minutes for today's meeting anybody kathy oh dear um okay that's fine
i I will do them if if we're absolutely sure this is being recorded because I my ability to take notes will be not the best while I'm trying to run so okay and Melissa Sarah since since you are um
chairing I I took minutes uh last time so I guess I'm able to do it again you're you're my hero yesterday it was Cor but today it's you yes um and by the way we're still
missing I think one set a minute so whoever hasn't submitted them Bridget that's me i'm halfway done okay wonderful um Emily if you can let Nat and me know when that recording is uploaded just so he can review it and I
I may need to as I work on the report okay um just run through the agenda we're going to well the goals for today what I think our goals are are to come to agreement about our recommendations
capital spending recommendations for the FY26 year including resident requests or or to come to some decision about what we want to do with those um we may
also have a look at out years and think about can we bring it to balance is there what can we do at this point if anything to um try to set us up for a success in the following years and then
thirdly we talked about um giving the town manager some recommendations for additional capital spending next fall perhaps should there be another free cash surplus certified and that opportunity arises again so we
can have that discussion i I assume that if there is such a surplus the town manager will let department heads know and they at least I certainly hope they do hope he does so that the departments including the schools which were I think a little behind the eightball this year
um can submit any requests and after we do all that we'll take public comment if there is any public comment um all right sound good okay so Melissa is there anything new
about there is no new version of this the uh So I I did just get um about five minutes before the meeting um something from um I haven't put it in the packet yet because I Yeah I was barely on time
um so um uh we did hear back today about the um grant that the IT department was trying to receive for the disaster recovery equipment and unfortunately they did not get any part of that grant
this year they are looking to apply again next year but um Sean had asked me to convey to the committee that um he would like to um start the project this year there are some things that need to be done now well not this year in the in
this fiscal year and so he would like to request or modify his request to down to $45,000 putting the balance of that $45,000 in next year and reapply for the grant and hope that the grant covers
that that the second phase of it um but he he's asking for that and I did change that on the um on the committee's spreadsheet um which I'm happy to share i was trying
to kind of lay out the I was trying to recreate the the funding model and the shortage um so maybe I'll hide that while I share this because it doesn't work right now um hey Melissa um I noticed that that some of the
figures had changed um from the previous draft so could you go through what changes you've made so I made those changes in committee um and they're highlighted in blue but we could certainly go through the I'm gonna what I'm going to do is I'm going to hide the
stuff that's wrong and not give myself that kind of grief for um Bob we'll run through all the requests and just to because we tossed around some ideas but we need to I need to know
if the we have buyin for Yeah okay so we will go over all the changes okay so I'm going to share the screen so share so um um I highlighted can you see do I have the right screen up i just want to
make sure yes make it larger though can I make it larger sure or hide all the the out rows here oh let's just do this okay so um
that might be too large okay no that's fine that's fine okay so facilities I had highlighted because I have a note further out that um we were in the discussion of that so I just kind of left it because that was a discussion item i highlighted in blue this disaster
recovery um because we um we were talking about eliminating it hoping that the grant would come through i changed this as we were talk as I was talking to Sean today to sort of make this adjustment and then see how the
committee felt about that seeing that we got that information that you guys had spoke about last time um wait why is why is the one above in blue why is technology so the blue um the th the
million no below the 219,000 219 thou so the blue was that um I had I had highlighted um changes to the amounts because the amounts had been upgraded over previous
years so any kind of change in year or the blue f uh font color is me noting a change from prior year um amounts or or it timing of the schedule if it's
highlighted but the number is not different than previous than pre this year's previous iterations right yeah thank you um and the highlighted in red were new submissions this year that I had highlighted before when we had done
this exercise and then these blue highlighted squares are we had talked about them um in previous um meetings so um so this 350 I have highlighted
because we had talked about whether or not that was the appropriate number for the school department um so I just highlighted in blue we hadn't made it any changes to it yet um and then I think there's it's not highlighted but I
should probably highlight here um bangs was removed yeah bangs was removed yeah you also didn't did you moved um the Southeast Street um design work intersection yeah for a year and then
you took out the 6 million right yeah that was a request not discussed in the meeting but it was um Cath Kathy had sent those changes to me and so that's when I started this new spreadsheet that was just based on discussions that the
committee was making separate from what had been submitted so that I could have you know so I have the the history of what was originally submitted versus now there is one other change here that we made in committee that I didn't
highlight in blue and that was around it was DPW for the design of that 6 million right he had decreased it to 260 260 right and then you moved I see it's been
moved to FY27 yeah so I think that again um that was a suggestion that Kathy had um suggested so and I had originally just sent this to her you know if she wanted to sort of
play around with it um but then we started using it in the meeting so I can put that back as 260 but that was originally um I believe 500 yes it was 500 originally um I don't know excuse me yeah i just don't know whether the
council has made a decision on whether they want to to do a study this year or not so we we may have to have some language around that well I mean certainly in your recommendations you can put it in whatever like that's kind
of why I did it this way so that we could I can move stuff around and then you know for your report like what this committee suggests you know I assume well I don't know that the town manager takes this all under advisement
but he can put in an additional put in a project that he thinks is more urgent well he can um like if you've eliminated a project um and it was part of the original submission um he can bring it back so these this is your this is your
document with your recommendations right yeah but like the design work for the Southeast Street right he might he might he might push it back a year he might push it forward based on different information or All right Bridget um yeah I just um
while I was going around online I saw that the police department had previously done some work on this southeast intersection and I just wondered how that was different than what we were looking at if that's something you know Melissa or if it's
something I'm sorry I don't have any history on that um Guilford is here because he did respond to all of the citizen requests in relation to um how they could fit into what work he has
planned or um presented here he may have more information about that if we um want to ask him about that yeah if we're not going to have it for this year it's not that important but it was the Fort River Elementary traffic engineering
services thing done by CDM Smith and I was just curious like how they were different and are there like several steps and consultants you need in a process like that it's possible yeah um I Well there was a traffic there was a
plan done yeah for anytime you do a new school usually you have to have some kind of study done yeah um can you just scroll right to the bottom first because I think whereas at the start we only h we were about
$485,000 over oh I see it doesn't link up to the first page I think we now are well below the target by a million basically we have a if
if everything we see here is acceptable to this group we can we have another $5002,000 okay Sarah what's what's the amount to get to 10% i
was um So it's three it's $340,000 difference okay thanks sorry I don't I don't follow that i'm looking at our original the summary table it showed us um over the
available funding by 485,000 correct yes um Sarah I what I was trying to answer is Bridget there's been a lot of discussion at town council about whether or not we reduce from a 10 and a half% um funding to a so in order to
meet that we would have to reduce this even further that decision hasn't been that guidance hasn't been given one way or another for us so I'm not sure you know right yeah but it's about
$340,000 different so if you wanted to assume that cut then you know that's sort of where you're we could give a recommendation as if Okay okay so um so let's talk
about let's start right where we are so so the town counselors may have a better sense of this and whether they agree with Kathy that bangs does not need need a half a million dollars at this time given given the big uh two and a half
$2.8 million it was just granted so is so is it a do you concur with Kathy's reasoning on this and could you just raise your hands because I don't see Holla and then I can know if
uh yeah I I concur with that um the rationale rationale being we're we're spending $2.8 8 million on basically stuff behind the walls more or less um you know wiring and and H
HVAC and we were told that the boiler itself was in pretty good shape um now that doesn't mean that we don't need to do a study to replace the boiler but I don't think it's it's a $500,000 study
um and so I I thought that that the bangs money was sort of redundant with the million dollars that we said that the facilities people had asked for so um I I I just think it's a it's a double
count okay okay uh Lee you had did you have a your an opinion about this i concur with what was just said okay does I don't know if Holla's listening or wants to weigh in holla do you have an opinion
about this uh removing this uh half a million dollars for the bank center i am okay with that as well okay all right so now we all we all get to vote as I don't even know if we really vote
but does anyone object put up your hand if you object put up your little virtual hand because I can't see everybody okay doesn't seem like anyone objects okay so with that we are we've already solved our solved our
big problem um but that doesn't mean we fund projects that we don't think are worth funding so um Melissa could you scroll up maybe to the next Sure blue bit of blue or maybe stop there because there was a question i think Nad had a
question about the school's request now I don't even know where it is it's not a vehicle yep so it's this yeah this the electric school bus the 200,000 so I I did put in the packet um earlier today so you may not have a chance to
look to it um but um Shannon from the school department did respond that um the um the additional this additional amount would reduce the $80,000 a year
um if I if I remember it correctly would reduce the the amount um requested down and it would over the 10year life of the project save like 280,000 is that correct i can pull up the um Yeah that's
what I remember yep that's correct yeah and I would I would say I don't know feels strongly about this one but um it's it's to any department's advantage to reduce its operating costs by
improving its infrastructure and certainly the schools are eager to reduce its operating costs so and I also think given it's liberation day right who knows what tariffs be who knows what prices are going to be i'd just love to
lock this lock this down you know so Matt do you want to say anything further about this item uh um I guess I would just say my calculation the 80,000 versus 200,000
upfront and 52,000 each year um saves about $35,000 in present value um so it's not that much um but I'm not going to object that strongly it
doesn't I think I think the the um the biggest question is as you said it does shift from the operating to the capital so as long as we all recognize that um you know it it's that but that that's what's happening anybody else want to comment on that
item so I would say um to sort of the rationale behind that is that um leases are because they're ongoing and they're a maintenance you know it's a lease and um service
agreement so it is part of operating but should we had we purchased the buses buses upfront all of that cost would have been capital right so it's a shared um but but what's bundled into this lease is also
maintenance so that's why it ends up and so they're just trying to reduce the amount um of the operating um because they they can't this is the easiest and most cost-effective way for them to
um acquire the vehicles without actually buying them and having a a um a debt payment which would always sit in capital so there's that kind of counter um so get while yes it's a shift from operating it's because it's a lease and
anything we can pay down on the lease um is usually an appropriate uh capital expenditure right can you scroll up yeah Bob whatever the next I was just gonna I
that's what I was going to say that that we are also talking about maintenance as I recall the only thing we're we would be be re responsible for are changing the tires out um as they get worn out so
um it's given the uncertainties or the you know the uncertainty of getting a new vehicle sometimes they're women sometimes they're they're they're not um I think it's it's wise to let the bus company take the risk of the
machine and you know we we can lock in a lease and get the charging equipment and it's you know I I'm I'm I don't think I don't see that being a problem um even though it probably is cheaper
over 10 years to buy it outright it might be it might not be c certainty is worth something I think yeah all right so what's next if we scroll up so um there's this um I don't
think there was any questions about the um the light truck no um the irrigation system at Cherry Hill did we want to talk about that i I don't personally don't see any reason to talk about it okay i'm sorry
any reason to what talk about the irrigation system at Cherry Hill okay so that is in there yeah i guess I didn't I was looking at that was added to the original list right i don't think so um
Uh Ry did come on one of our meetings to talk about that and I'm not sure if that was the meeting that you were not um at Sarah because you had um but there has been a failure uh at the
um at the at the Cherry Hill Golf Course and they have an irrigation system that was hit by lightning and they had to do some um repairs there uh last year and this is um a system upgrade upgrade to um sort of address some of the issues
around they did you know a fix to get them through the season and this is a system upgrade to um fix some of the the programming around the irrigation system and um protect against future um
lightning strikes right hopefully okay continue um so uh planning and conservation um I believe Dave is here if we had any more questions about this
but it wasn't it didn't wasn't brought up last time but right now these blue numbers under the tree planting and relamping why are they in blue can you remind us so I think that
the reling Um I feel like that might have been more and I think that these um I think that these traffic light improve it traffic calming and reamping used to be bundled together and we've kind of separated
them out so it's um I I maybe Guilford can help me but I think that in the past um and I know that we definitely did um we staggered he had asked for a hundred um thousand
and um he I I don't know if I can let him talk right now he's raising his hand so can can I unchare and let him in bring him in yeah that that's fine i was just I didn't know if we had changed that proposed changing that number but it's just new compared or it's a different
presentation compared to last year is what so is Guilford materializing yep yes okay there he is hi so the first two the traffic lights and the traffic calming they used to just
come out of road repair money so those are two separate articles to designate just for those uses and then the light relamping is just an increase it used to be 10 10 or 12,000 now we're asking for 50 because the price has gone up quite a
bit okay thank you gilford you you mentioned uh in the um the resident requests you mentioned some of these could be handled as part of the um the ongoing uh work uh is that do you need
more money to do that or can you do that within the budget you have bob do you mind if we table that for a moment if Guilford doesn't mind i I would just like make this first pass through and then turn to all the resident requests okay okay yeah so um
Adam can you go back to sharing your screen Melissa oh yeah i think the next one we've already discussed which is um and we did discuss it in our meeting it wasn't just Kathy's did did it in the spreadsheet herself okay so but I want to
ask is anybody opposed to this change from uh what was it originally i don't know $500,000 original request for 500 and Guilford had said he could right just the study
part or the modeling part would be less right so everybody here and maybe I'll put it this way if you have an objection to this change please put up your virtual And all right um I think the entire Well
we'll that's out years we'll get to that later okay so what's next Melissa moving moving on up we get to sixth grade relocation um right this is highlighted because
it we we had the sense from Shannon that she was you know that was kind of skimpy she'd be more comfortable if it were a larger amount okay so I and we talked about how about another $100,000
and and I think she said "Sure that'd be great." I reached out to her by email to say "Do you have you know she said she'd be more comfortable with $450,000?" I said "Is there a number at which you are comfortable?" You know not
just more comfortable but comfortable and she can't give a number yet so so I don't she's not asking for more than 450,000 if we would like to put more
money there um so this is the first instance where we're proposing adding some money does anybody wish to argue for or against that this is and I should just say this
work has to be finished by the end of next summer so there are two people with their hands up i don't know if you can see them i can't see them can you Oh they should have moved to the All right who's Bob bob's is up and someone else i just
panel okay Bob go ahead so So I I support adding another 100,000 in uh this particular item and if if Brit if she needs more money then um I think this would be one that we would flag for
if there's a surplus and we need to spend some you know there's some extra money that we have that maybe this is uh something we could put that money towards extra money mean at the end of this fiscal year at the appropriation once we
get free cash certified and we know what what the budget surplus is if there's extra that doesn't have to go into other things um then that that would be a target for for me be a good target to to
look at that oh I was going to say roughly the same thing that Yeah i mean why not 100,000 we don't know exactly what it is but it's going to be a large amount so yeah that sounds good all right if anyone objects to
increasing this by $100,000 please raise your hand natt your hand's still up i think you just got it okay i don't see that anyone objects so Melissa you can make that 450 well that's a little too
all right but now we have a bigger problem yeah thank you uh and that is blue just because it's a difference from what was estimated last year yeah okay uh keep going up please
[Music] so some numbers seem kind of purple or a different shade of blue is there some significant oh those are the fund items maybe or borrowing uh no and I think that they went up um I think the a cost amounts I I think that in the
defiills or the CPR units went down and the um or the protective gear went down and the defiills and the um radio system went up and I just had a different it was a different day and I picked the
wrong blue that I mean okay there I have my hand up i don't know yes you do go ahead thanks well I want there were two items I wanted to raise last week and we were out of time and had to get to school committee so the first one
is about the police vehicles i'm just thinking about two things in that the first one is just fairness between departments we're not replacing any other um daily vehicles except ones that were totaled or that are 15 years old
and with 230,000 miles on the spreadsheet these vehicles are listed as good and um so I feel like that the second thing is I just went to look because I looked at the base cost on the
um on the invoice that Melissa sent over and then all the add-ons and it goes from like late 40s up to 90,000 and so then I priced out what other communities in our area South Hadley Monagu um
Belchuretown are playing paying for police cars and they're all in the um 50 to $60,000 range and so I just feel like that that I would I would reconsider it on both those counts fairness between
departments and also just needing some sort of explanation for why the overall cost in 2020 10-year plan the price per car was 40,000 5 years ago and estimated to be um 50 this year and I understand
there's inflation but there's not inflation that would double that amount that just feels like a lot so I can answer some of that um and um one is that we buy um hybrid vehicles
in Ammerst um based on our um we have you know sustainability policies and um I can't remember the name of one of the we got like some climate leader
designation and part of that climate leader designation is that we um purchase um hybrid or electric vehicles whenever possible and those vehicles are more expensive and they are more expensive to maintain so I know that that um
increases the price of a vehicle in any circumstances at this given time um and so I know that that's part of the the price increase and the reason that we did um two vehicles in
the police department is that they were scheduled for four and so um in order to just not have a zero year we cut it in half um which to them at least two of their vehicles got pushed
off so that I mean you don't have to agree with that but that was the rationale when we presented it this way but all the others were cut out um with the exception of um the truck that was
um totaled in an accident um they're repurposing that vehicle for another purpose but it no longer has the lift capacity to to be the light truck so that vehicle has to be replaced in order to continue to main maintain our street lights and Guilford can talk about that more because he certainly knows more
about his fleet than than I do um but some of his um some of his pickup trucks were pushed off can I say I don't I don't understand the the concern
about e equity or inequity i mean look at what happens in the next couple years everybody's asking for new vehicles so and the schools are requesting special ed vans and this you know electric bus
so I mean they're heavily used vehicles i'm I I'm not sure where you see an unfairness in this i would speak to the fact that these vehicles are like 3 to four years old the school vehicles that are being
replaced were over 10 years or 10 years old the mileage is like like 100,000 or so for the school vehicle were 230 215 and then just the general principal Melissa said she asked everyone to hold
off on vehicles until next year except the ones that were totaled or like the school said it's illegal to drive children in those right now so it just seems like not fair at all to just give that one department spe like a special
privilege melissa can you comment on So I mean we did we did this um based on the fact that the the list of needs was exceeded the dollars that we knew we had available we I uh the town manager said
we should eliminate vehicles to whatever amount we can and when I did the first pass with him um he was like "Well you have you you have to do some police just because of the way that the" And I think that when
um Chief Ting was in our meeting he did discuss that the the way that those vehicles are used that those mileage that mileage um affects those vehicles differently than like your mine or your vehicle i don't know i'm not a
fleet manager i'm just repeating what I've I've been told so um what um the decision to do half was um based on um the town managers um saying "Well we have to cut back on vehicles this
year in order to do other capital projects." And this was the this was a compromise that he uh asked me to present okay um and then I had a second item the second
item was um was about the radio system if I understand correctly it came in at the last minute last year and it's 2 million in total and so I was doing some looking around you can find a whole
presentation to Wells Le's town meeting about this system and how it's legally needing to be replaced um and that type of thing but they spread it out over two years for 600,000 and then South Hadley replaced
it this year for 800,000 and I'm just wondering why is ours 2 million and the final thing is that there's grants available i see other communities getting grants for them so that made me really want to ask more questions before
funding this line i I mean I don't I I don't have any answers i don't know about that system well enough i did I believe that was one of the things we got quotes for but um I
do know that um that that they had spread it out over the two years last year when it came before the um committee and um and I know that
the that they haven't even um move forward on the first Um my understanding is they haven't moved forward on the first half because their bids exceeded exceeded the um the
amount they had authorized my concern also was just this amount of borrowing when we're looking at the same time at DPW route um repair and or rebuilding and all that just to be adding that much
to borrowing if we could do it cheaper so I guess you know just um just would love to to reconsider putting 2 million just sort of on the fly towards something you won't get any
argument for me about the borrowing if we could get it so that we could do only cash capital this year um that would make me feel much more comfortable knowing what's coming and it's always a better bang for your buck if you can um if you can absorb the cost up front you
know there the long-term cost of borrowing $2 million you know eats up another project unfortunately so I don't have a good answer to that i could suggest um Bridget I don't know if you
looked for the recordings of the JCPC meetings last year they're probably still on Ammeris Media site because there was a the police gave a presentation about this and certainly there were lots of questions
um I maybe I mean I think it ha I think it I it's my understanding that they have to do it that their current system is failing andor must be
replaced for other reasons and they had to extend their areas in town that weren't adequately covered there was no radio reception so they have to increase the coverage by adding base stations and the new systems operate on several bands
so there's inner comm community different different towns and different departments can all communicate more effectively um it was too much to do all at once so I guess we split it in half to spread it
out but you know the longer I get it sounds like it's already getting more expensive um if you want we could have ask the police chief to come back next time to explain it more so this is a um this is
actually a police and fire um project together and so um I think that they both could speak to it both chiefs it is I think under um fire um is where the request originally came from and it is under them too but is it is you're
correct Bridget it is um basically a public safetywide uh communication system so it does cover both departments yeah and it's a legal requirement for the state of Massachusetts so I'm not opposed to replacing it at some point at
all i'm just opposed to why the price point is so much more than other communities why we haven't applied for grants and if there's borrowing available well maybe we could ask if there's grants available yeah could
invite invite uh both chiefs back with those specific questions i don't remember who made the presentation we have two new chiefs this year compared to last year so um and we can also resurrect the information maybe it was
in the packet last year it looks like Jennifer might have something to add she might might know something from last year um so I'm looking at the request from last year and it says that the cost presented is the total cost using state
contract pricing for outright purchase of parts one and two the vendor does also offer a lease program for both the infrastructure replacement and the subscriber unit replacement which spreads the cost out over 5 years so just wanted to share that information if
that's helpful at all thank you lee you have a comment yeah it's a tiny comment but as to you know why grants haven't been applied for or various questions have come up and
people have said we don't have the internal capacity to do these things so it's something to think about ongoing or maybe reconsider
the it's the opposite of for the schools you know I mean in terms of you know right in terms of how you describe who you want to hire or what you think you need to do in an ongoing
way if you want people to be imaginative and apply for grants then that needs to be built into the structure of the department as I say this may be nonsense but just a thought
all right so we'll pick that one up again next time perhaps okay so I believe we have knocked the net $900,000 off this list
yeah removed oh no but now they're more than that because of this disaster recovery so Melissa maybe you can update us as to what our current so to speak surplus is that we could
Yeah think about allocating back to any of these projects or resident projects or pay down debt if that's also an option so let's see if um yeah so it I think that what we have
right now um is in cash capital assuming that the um radio station remains in a borrowing or or something else that we have
5,248 $8,200 um of cash capital and I believe the number I mean I could look I could look it up but I believe the number from before was around 57 57 5,700,000 i could new the new
projects line under you're talking about this yeah the new projects line our expenditure summary is 5,5009,00 so you have about you have about 300,000 surplus yeah not quite more like more like 250 I
think okay okay all right so let's all just keep that in mind right now and turn to the resident requests um I have one other project I'd like to discuss yes um it's
it's under um the information technology and it's the budget software line um Melissa is that broadly requested or was that something that you had requested personally um so I did request it um I
did request it in in conjunction with the IT department and um I I'm going to fight for it and you know I'll be overruled but I'm going to do it um so um so I worked with Michael in the um IT department for this this is something
that um he an initiative that he had wanted to undertake um prior to me coming here but there wasn't um support in the um you know in the finance team before to to take on a project like that my
thought on on this project is while I think that the decisions about how and what should be implemented should be made by the next finance director I um while we are re-evaluating the way that we look at budgets and we are rethinking
how we um structure our departments this process of even the capital planning and or the budget even more so um is very timeconuming the way that we do that and the kind of information that
we present to you um as um the elected officials and as our um constituents and the depth of information that would be helpful to you in making those decisions like a lot of times we get asked well
how much does um it's easier to represent in uh the regular budget but when I say you know Melissa's position there's my salary which is very easily attainable in the budget But what is the additional cost attached to my um
to to my benefits fully fully loaded yeah fully loaded and all that stuff can come over it's easy for us to to create different scenarios and as we update information every single one of our uh it updates through
it's through a system rather than separate side sheets like I'm maintaining this separate spreadsheet for you versus the spreadsheet I'm maintaining for the town manager and then I'm like are they in alignment where's the you know where's the savings oh I had to update you know the the
um the debt amount for the school moved by you know maybe $50,000 but it you know th those small changes matter so um the I think that it's a tool that would
be a great asset to the next um finance director and to the whole finance team especially if we want to look at do they have different responsibilities because we have to rethink how we um organize or structure
our departments um you know this is a tool that um would allow more um time of the staff to do other things so that's my argument for it but you can take it off if you like
bob was that was did that I mean I have a question about it also maybe is something you were getting at I so I just learned that Melissa is leaving i'm very sorry about that um but good luck what comes next but does it make sense to
implement this in the coming year i mean if there's a new finance director who needs to learn how we do everything currently before before training on and figuring
out how to use I mean that will it make sense to do this next year is my question so you you you could do that and my argument against that is that um I had tried to get this before the budget process um and I just it just wasn't available you know um there was
no funding available for me to do that and my thought was that um it would have made this budget process easier and so it just if it's it if if it's voted this year it can sit open and unused for a
number of years and when that person is ready to implement it they'll have it you know and maybe there won't be availability of $100,000 next year you know there'll be other things and if they if they decide you know what this is not something that's for me then they give it back and
you can repurpose it next year so that's Yeah i mean I know it's a losing battle but I'm gonna fight oh I don't I don't know i don't know if it's losing matt Matt Bobby I would I would actually wonder if approving this amount and
having it in the budget might even help uh attract the next finance director that this is something we're committed to making it more efficient um and more professional and we want to hire someone who is ready to use this and we you know
we have it ready for them and I did talk with the software company recently and I said you know I told them you know because they they're checking in and I said "Well you know this is going to be hard but this is my you know this is my pitch i I believe in um in this idea."
Um and I said "If you know anyone who you know so there there are people in the state of Massachusetts who use this software who might come in and say "Yeah I want" and they might not want the one I would have picked but they might be the one want the one that they're comfortable with and they have had success with so you know if they have
that as an option and it's a tool that was available to them in any of the other communities that um have this kind of reporting um that might be a a benefit too lee I just want to repeat what I said
this would be to enhance the capacity of the town's departments to do their job and I think it would be a good idea okay Bob I don't know if you have another question or a hand still up well
I just I I I wanted to just follow up um I um I I do think we we should be cognizant of the stress on town staff and especially going into this coming
year it's gonna be a tough year and uh I do think that since we appear to have money in the budget um I think we should set this aside you know for for a software system it doesn't have to be
the one that that Melissa particularly liked but um I do think we ought to make it available to the next finance director if they want it um and uh I I I
do take um Melissa's uh um explanation about efficiency and um and accuracy of the you know I I do think it's it's time to move to a system
that's accurate and that everybody uses and and gives one answer to everybody gives the same answer to everybody yes yes okay that's fine anybody else have a uh Jennifer so in the upcoming years with all the
big projects that are going on and there's going to be a lot of borrowing and a lot of debt it would be super helpful to have one software that everything's in one central point so um myself as the treasurer and Holly as the comproller and then the finance director
we're all looking at the same data in the same place and that way there's no confusion that my my information is not matching Holl's and then we're in disagreement and then anything that gets presented isn't accurate
thank you all right so everyone has raised any particular project they wanted to discuss yeah we can move to resident requests oh Bob's hand is up yeah yeah the other
issue is and this is something Kathy brought up is could do we want to set aside a million dollars for facilities or should we cut that back a little bit um and I you know I re I look at Yes yes
we have a $10 million um looming um cost for uh addressing facility issues and that will only address you know urgent issues um so I I there's a part of me that says if we have the
money in this budget we should put it in um on the other hand you know the the town hall seems to be the the project of choice and you know there's 50,000 from last year that
wasn't spent if we get or 500,000 that wasn't spent if we give another million then we got 1.5 million and then they want to they say they want to go to uh you know the CPA funds and I I I just I
I mean I they gave a very impassioned um presentation about flexibility and this would give them something to work with uh I just don't know that we need to fund it at that level so that's
something I think we should consider we should we should discuss okay yeah if we can we stay with this issue bridget is you yeah that I am I'm just concurring with Bob and also saying I feel like we had a long discussion last week where we had come to some consensus
around 750,000 so well I know we did have a long discussion and that's why I flagged it but I I guess I didn't understand the consensus so you guys can Yeah I would say that I I think it was I who proposed
750,000 but I was looking for things looking for things to cut and this was this is at the very top of the list so I think we can afford it there is a big backlog i think we could perhaps
relay the message that we'd like you to put this money to work you know you're asking for it please use it we also had a discussion about the roof and I was arguing don't try to fix the roof out of cash capital you know over multiple
years so the roof may be important but do other do all the other things and and get cracking so I am happy to leave this at a million dollars perfect you know the needs just grow and grow matt
yeah I would concur with what you just said that that I have no doubt that they can find the projects for 1 million and if we don't keep on investing that that just gets deferred down the line so um it may not be the town hall roof but but
there are lots of buildings that um that need work and and I almost wondered the same thing about about roads is the 500,000 even enough for the roads i won't I won't open that can of worms never enough never enough it's not actually um you should you should look
at the uh the presentation that Jason Steels gave to uh I think it was to TSO and it's pretty scary i know i read the the newspaper article about it the that that made me very scared too um yeah i
mean we need we need a minimum of three or four million on top of state aid in order to kind of keep the roads the way they are now if we continue to invest half a million a million each year and you know above what the state
gives us which is about 800 900 Yeah about 800,000 um we're going to we're going to the roads are going to deteriorate over time we'll never catch up well we'll never you know we'll we'll lose we'll lose you
know the they have that this index it'll go down by 10 points the average will go down by 10 points over 10 years so we're going to lose the integrity of of many of our roads and you know when they get to a certain point you got to do you got
to fix them so we're going to I don't know what we're going to do but I mean he he was he was put out the number of you know $4 to5 million a year in order to kind of maintain the roads the way we we have them now let alone let let them deteriorate
so okay I don't know what we're going to do with it um but that that's you know that's engineers best estimate of what what it'll cost all right so as far as this first line
the million dollars for all buildings repair how many peop your virtual hands because I can't see everyone how many people are okay with this amount and I am um Holla are you
listening i think Bridget is not i'm sorry i'm in and out my connection is poor question yeah so we've been talking about the the million dollars that has been requested by the town to for maintenance and repairs of various
buildings and some folks have argued that maybe they don't need that much and I'm asking um who in this group is okay with the million dollar number as opposed to something lower so are you okay with million or Thank you for that
my only um contingency or or question would be if we're factoring in the tariffs which might seem to be actually a reality when it was maybe a possibility so if there are going to be extra tariffs and stuff it's going to be so
much more expensive i would say I I'm okay with that million but also I don't have all the information oh yeah sorry no no it's Yeah we don't know what's going to happen to prices anywhere no okay for
everything right for Yes yes it looks like a majority are fine with this number but so we'll just leave it for now uh Kathy will be back next week and if people still have strong feelings um we can talk it over matt do you have
another question or just All right okay all right now let's go to resident requests guilford thank you for um commenting on each of them it seemed like some are basically ineligible like Butternut Farm because
it's private property and the Kushman Village sign no sorry the uh street lighting on some road Dana Street or somewhere that that's against town
policy i don't know why but that's if that's true then I guess that's not eligible or the person could appeal to town council for uh for help on that um the street light is not against town
policy it's that the if you approve the funding for it then the then they do need to go to town council to get it approved to have it installed so it's a two-step process okay because they're the keeper of the way or something
yes plus we can't Yes we can't add new street lights without the town council approval oh okay all right bridget looks surprised about that one um well who who would like to jump in
are there some some seem that they're really going to be much more costly than the $50,000 but maybe some we could recommend to DPW that they consider including those projects in their
priorities uh did I hear that Bridget had something to say i don't see any hand no I was just going to um share with Bridget that at the last town council meeting that I believe you were at remember the first uh topic of business was to approve a street light I
believe that we did before all of the um all the stuff all the information from the schools oh okay it was a it was it was a a telephone poll an electric poll oh yeah yeah you do those every meeting
well miss that in the excitement but um yeah but yeah I with all you have to do it makes me wonder tso is going to bring up whether we want to try to establish a commission to look at stuff like that um
so well let me ask about the street light if it has to go if it has to be approved by council assuming it can even be paid for does it first need to go to one of the committees or would it get referred should we tell this
applicant you should go speak to CRC first and see what they think or how how would you suggest they proceed if we can't just say sure no problem um I I I think I think they need to
bring the request to the to the council um and then Oh well they've they've sort of brought the request forward you know we have we have the request um I think that um uh you my personal feeling
is since we appear to have some room in the budget um I think we should try to uh we should try to deal with these the the ones we can deal with i know the one on Station Road Guilford is way too
expensive that that's we can't we can't possibly do that but um but I mean there were a couple of uh there was a crosswalk at by the Wildwood Cemetery and there were a couple there was one
speed uh speed monitor yeah um and you know I I do think you know if if we do go to the if people go to the trouble of requesting
um capital projects we should at least discuss them at a minimum but but we should take them seriously and we should we should see whether they are actually you know these sound like Guilford from your re review of these um many of these
were seemed like reasonable requests um and you know that that it's something that you could support so I think anything that that the DPW thinks is is reasonable I think we should go ahead with so ahead
so the the only the only thing is how to prioritize it so do all these things jump ahead of things that are going on now in the planning process so how do you prioritize it um so the question would be yes they're good some of these are good projects but that that's my
only thing is how to prioritize them uh the traffic calming ones if you we the DPW's already got some spots we want to use some of the the money in if um if we uh if we get it um so then the question
would be do we put some of these in into that just in if you increase it to $100,000 that would probably cover all the requests that are basically traffic calming um the station the station road u request I met with them today and
they're probably going to request instead of going the whole project because they now know it's a pretty big project that they might want to ask for some traffic calming some driver feedback signs and some other signs that would could come out of the traffic calming account as well
um the um this Tan Brook project um c can we hold on because you were talking about traffic coming can you just so we're totally clear you said if you had $100,000 instead of the 50 I guess you could address these
trafficcoming requests well can you can we just be very specific about which those are that means the speed monitor for Southeast Street yes is that that one okay does that include the crosswalk the Wildwood
across Strong Street uh no okay does it It includes uh Well somebody wanted speed bumps on Station Road but we're told that's a main road and you don't want to We wouldn't recommend it but the council
overruled us and said yes do it they would be done um but but that is a installing the speed bumps would be a change to the public way and would eventually go to the town council for final approval too though i see h uh what else is So I can't There's
nothing else there's nothing else that's traffic coming i don't think Well um number So I I'll go down the list i have Yeah you said that go ahead so number two that's the one on Southeast Street they want a driver feedback sign that's traffic calming number three um is
traffic calming but I think you the JCPC approved money last year for this one um so I I don't I would skip that one i think they want a second sign Guilford i think they
they did we did we we put a sign up didn't we on We did but there there is an account in the capital it's in my capital it's um I think it's $60,000 and it's it says and I think it's specifically for this request that was
made last year so so okay um yeah um Sarah pointed that out to me and I updated the sheet um I had sent out all the requests that had came in calendar 24 which includes some February requests so I had two duplicate requests but one
of them I left on the sheet because Guilford had noted one of the traffic coming by the same person who had requested them again this year so what I did um is those first two on the list are last year's so and he made a comment
about um the one of them and when when you say it's a duplicate that it was also a trafficcoming request so the one he's talking about here is a duplicate he's he's correct and then there's another
one where there was a second request for a similar project this is being too vague i'm sorry and we had different like I printed out column i'll start at the top again what's the first one you're looking at because it may be I'm looking at line number two
i I've seen multiple versions what's the name of the project please is it This is ID number 21762 i don't even have I don't That's the one you told me was a duplicate Sarah he's saying it's a duplicate just like you
told me right um so that's the Southeast Street they want a driver feedback sign and it's on the list twice so that could be traffic calming um the next one I is dynamic school zone signs which is from Jeremy Anderson maybe I'll use people's
names because that wasn't on the list that we first printed out this is why I thought they were left over from last year jared that one is leftover from last year there is an account for that so you can skip that one right so what's the first
next one num number three is from Peter uh Jacob Jacobe um they want to upgrade the culvert on Fairing Street and this is a really big project unless Unless I can convince the uh Oh
wait wait no Jacobe wants Jacobe wants Sely oh good that's good seely street kobe wants sidewalks on Celely Street um we actually have a project going on on Celely Street so we would not recommend this one at this time because we're
about to rip up a huge section of Celely Street in a year or so and then when we put everything back we can put the sidewalks in at that time and we just put it into the bigger project so so it will be done but we don't have to advocate for it is that what you're
saying it's like you're already going to do it he just didn't know we can Yeah we're already gonna put it in and and it's it's over it's it's over $50,000 so so it will be included in an in a
project already underway yes okay great thank you um the next one is a sign for Kushman Village um that that's not really us um we're happy to install it if if if people make
the sign but I think they want something a little more special than just a street sign so that's not us um the ne the next one down is the that's the that's the duplicate from the first one that's the Southeast
Street sign so So did we so the last year's request for this was approved do I understand no it was not oh it was not approved i thought you said it was in the budget and I thought maybe it just hadn't been installed yet so no oh it was not in
okay but this could be traffic calming this would be something that's as simple as traffic calming um the the next one down is Wildwood crosswalks that that number is valid we we actually talked to them we worked out
that number with them um so that is a valid number um it would take up half if you gave us $100,000 for traffic coming that would take up half of it um so it would be if you want to uh fund that as well um we
would ask for you to fund it separately right and it would have to it would end up going to town council as well because we're adding a crosswalk and we're required to get town council approval for adding crosswalks mhm
the next one down is Tan Brook um this is a huge project if we actually replace the culverts um so it's it's not even doable the way it's set up if we wanted to if you wanted to fund
some survey work and planning work we could do that and move the move the project along a little bit um personally I think the solution to the problem is take the the culverts out and make the road a a dead end on each side and you
can name you can name one side north fearing and one south fearing and just don't let them cross oh I see i thought how does this solve the problem you know you just have flooding on both sides so you're saying interrupt the road yeah just get rid of the road and the covert
and you won't have the backup there sounds like traffic me too then oh the neighborhood the neighbors neighborhoods would be livid because then they'd have to cut through um but okay yeah the state requirements there there's two
state requirements here that are going to make this very expensive one is the wetland rules which say you have to have um I wrote it in there i can't stream you have to meet the stream flow crossing standards that's very expensive and then the next one is is it will be
more than 12 feet long so you would have to get mass DOT approval and go through the chapter 85 section 35 requirements for getting it approved which means you have to design it to mass DOT standards it'll be the engineering alone will
probably be over $200,000 to design that well that I I wonder if you have anything to suggest about the problem that exists according to this applicant that that a resident's property is being
damaged when the culvert fails and the brook is fl like I I assume he just it's his property and he doesn't want it flooded or eroded so is there something else that can the culvert be cleaned out can is there
Well it's pretty The culvert's very clean it it flushes itself out very well because it rips the water rips through there pretty quick it's just inadequate it's the size is too small for the storms we're having in the and the so forth so I mean taking it out would be the quickest and easiest and cheapest
solution okay but it's it's it's the whole project if the project the way he's proposing it's not 50,000 is quite more expensive okay all right please continue if you have any more comments um speed bumps on station road
yes that it'll be more than $10,000 it'll probably be in the 25 to 30,000 range for the those speed bumps um so that's something that's doable but we would the DPW would not support it because of the type of road it is um
I mean you do it if you were forced to but it's not something you would recommend well I mean we're not forced to we make our recommendation like everybody makes a recommendation it's up to the people who maintain the road or the keepers of the way to make their decision right right but and there's
other there's other factors besides what we think um Butternut Farm is not a public works thing uh Station Road's a major project uh to put a sidewalk in we're looking at 750
to 100 to $1 million to do that um so this the residents will may come back and request that that get changed to being a driver feedback sign to start with and they also then may request that maybe $40,000 to $50,000 be set aside to
survey the project area so that it can be examined more closely and possible plans developed but it's totally not fundable at this time at this time for that amount mhm um the next one is
the the cyclist protection on uh Southeast Street uh that that is that is doable it's it'll be more than $2,000 just for the the stenciling and labeling on the roads and putting the signs up um and if if that's decided that we want to
go forward with that more we would just have to put work on it and develop a plan and come up with a better number but uh $2,000 won't do just the infrastructure that's needed before you start doing the the program and the education part yeah can I ask Melissa is
the programmatic parts of that request even eligible for these for capital funds to have a public education campaign i I mean I wouldn't think so you know painting on the roads could that could be you know the shared lane
markings and I I wouldn't think so but I don't Yeah i mean doesn't seem like a capital it doesn't end up giving you an asset other than educated people maybe
all right um last one we talked about the lighting so the request and and the and the request is I mean to put a street light in is about $2,000 right now so there's three things that make up that price that you got to buy the fixture you have to buy the arm that
holds the fixture and then Eversources charges us to make the pole ready so that's usually uh that's usually around $1,000 a pole depending on where you are it can be a little less but if they have to replace the pole it's usually $1,000
to replace the pole and make the connections for the street light okay all right um so are there any are there any of these that you would consider straightforward to implement with fund that the funding you've
already requested or does even the simplest one require additional funds i think the simplest one is the speed monitor maybe for the the driver feedback driver feedback signs we could we could fund you could fund out of out
of the um trafficcoming one that's really what that was made was put there for was to fund these requests that come for people who want driver feedback signs or rectangular rapid flashing beacons at crosswalks and or more signage at crosswalks that's kind of why
we developed that request um and that's kind of why it was 100,000 um we're getting a lot of requests for these there's a lot coming in um so most of those could probably be funded through that um but there are
other ones ahead of these requests so then there has to be and there really isn't a methodology for who goes who would go first so um Guilford could you say like the the well you like Guilford said he had originally requested a
hundred and then what we did is we staggered the hundred between the two different types of um new requests there that had been been coming out of roads so that they could concentrate the road money on actually repairing the roads instead of the road
way sort of thing so um but um if you had your priority list that you've already you know sort of gone over with requests that have come directly to you or things that you you and your staff have noticed of like oh this is an issue or whatever and then we
were to do all of these together would that fit in a 100,000 or um with with the exception of the Wildwood one which is its own little uh project um or how much would it take to do your priority list that you have now and the ones on
this list uh if we were told to do all the this list and the ones we have to do would be 100,000 at least okay and then plus an extra 50 for the Wildwood one right which I think is already approved
oh okay that was approved last year okay it was I don't remember that um I I have an account that says I have an account that's kind of identified for that oh so I'm I'm let me
first declare crosswalk one guilford um hold on let me open it up while he's doing that Natt what what I um I have a conflict of interest because I'm a um board member at Wildwood Cemetery but that also
um gives me information that that is a a new uh request this year yeah I think it's new yeah I don't remember seeing it before the Wildwood one is new oh I thought that's what you said oh that Oh you were talking about
the 50,000 one yes we need 50,000 for the Wildwood one sorry in addition to the 100,000 for your list that you already have all the other trafficcoming ones on this list and then another 50,000 to do the Wildwood one if
if we were to do it all that's what it would take and assuming you have the time and energy to do it the assumption is I don't have that part that's pretty straightforward then maybe we should just say no well I
mean it's I I I take what you said Guilford about the the the the prioritization issue it's a it's a you know these are squeaky wheels and and we don't want to just give squeaky wheels
higher priority than other needs of the town um so it it would we do have to think about this a little bit and you know think about how to balance these i mean maybe the the way to do it is to
put some money aside and then you can work it in Guilford you know whenever it makes sense from from the your perspective to do it um just a thought
i'm completely okay with that i do I would definitely like to have a methodology for sorting these out yes okay I don't think we need to keep Guilford anymore um is that all right with folks we'll let him go and we can
figure out Well now you know now what are we going to do um all right hearing no objection guilford thank you you're welcome good night all right good night okay we have half an hour i'm
gonna have to leave promptly at 6 um so so to bet remind everybody we concluded that we have about $250,000 to to add to funding for next capital
request capital for 2026 so we could add it to the roads we've heard the roads never have enough money we could add some to DPW for some of these
projects uh we could I don't know pay down I don't know if Melissa thinks it's a good idea to pay down debt or it would not be enough to be worthwhile use of the funds or or
that's really we're supposed to be spending it on things not on debt so would anybody like to propose then a way to use the
$250,000 and this remember we've already given the sixth grade move 100k i would suggest that we don't use it that we actually say this is what we propose allocating um I think that if we're searching and and looking there's
need in all different places but it's hard to come up with a fair process for it especially that you know then we're starting to talk outside requests and so forth and also that makes it much easier if the 10 the 10.5 goes to 10%
then it's not a process of cutting things are already fairly close i think then we're only another 90,000 off and and I will say to um Sarah's suggestion you know we have estimated um
in some payowns for some of the debt that we know will be coming on from last year's projects in the year before um and we could certainly be more aggressive with those payowns um and and we aren't going to actually have our numbers for debt um for another
couple of weeks so um we're there's another set of borrowing that that we are um Jen and I are working on so you know if there's a little bit of flexibility there that way we could be more aggressive in paying off other projects that have been funded in the
past um you know we could certainly get to that um get to that 10 and a half% um and and maybe save some money for future projects by by being more aggressive in paying paying back debt okay
Bob yeah I I I putting another $250,000 into the roads I I hate to say it won't make any difference um I I'd rather see us pay down debt and have
that money uh have more debt uh availability uh going forward because we're sure going to need it that just on the traffic calming and and the um the citizen requests um if we could
without specifically saying which ones ought to be prioritized if we can respond to the requests by adding some more money to traffic calming um that would be one way we can respond and um and then
Guilford can use his and DPW's you know good judgment as to what to prioritize but but to me that seems better than you know kind of not responding at all to the citizen requests so would you propose a certain amount um
you know 50,000 an additional 50,000 right all right so so and I assume you don't since you told us you're conflicted but on the well that you don't mean for the Wildwood sidewalk
or this It's it's it's not about any particular project it's it's so that that um DPW has more funds they can choose what the priorities are I guess okay um I wonder I wonder then what we like we
tell the residents y'all go y'all go fight for your project in Guilford's office i mean I it's like we put we're not choosing recommending any specific one of your projects there are a lot of
trafficcoming related requests so we're just going to let Guilford decide is that Lee yeah i mean I think I remember from a previous meeting that an idea was
broached to give the departments bigger buckets and let them decide how to use the funds and if I'm understanding correctly what Nat is saying I'm in favor of that uhhuh
uh Bob is your hand up again yeah I I I I I think I think uh Nat's suggestion is is worthwhile i think uh we we should maybe couch it in terms of you know we we've increased the
budget for the town to spend you know money on traffic calming but the town has priorities and you know it's it's really up to DPW working with the town manager to set the priorities it's not up to this committee or even I don't
even think it's the council's uh purview to do that i think it's the the town manager is the one who would set priorities for these these kinds of projects okay i mean we we fund things but we don't really
direct you know we we give we give funding to DPW every year but we don't tell them exactly how to spend it i mean the town manager works with DPW to figure out how to spend it and the request for the facilities this year is
also just a here's a buck here's a pool of money right address your priorities yep so if we add $50,000 to traffic calming then that leaves $200,000 we could decide not to decide
and say this could either be used to pay down debt or if town council reduces the c capital rate I forget what you call it to 10% you know here's here's a big chunk
of that um Melissa do you remember you said it was 300 or something would need to come off i think it's 340 yeah it's about 350 something like that yeah h Okay all right so and I realize we're going to next at
our next meeting talk more about the the police and fire the whole radio thing that Bridget wanted to talk about um but for now if we if we give DPW 50,000 more then we have 200,000
so do we also want to figure out where where what we would cut what would be $150,000 worth of cuts if um that capital levy goes
down you say we save two thou $200,000 you know don't pay down debt does anyone want to suggest what would be the first thing we cut could take it off the the facilities
you know the maintenance yeah that's my order is looking at the two things we'll talk about next time and then facilities i'd love to see the person in Melissa's position be extra agile
thank you that what I missed something what do you want the person who takes Melissa's spot you know that they can be really agile because you know you can only use the money well if you can track it well
oh I didn't I didn't think we were at this point contemplating removing that request i didn't see any support for that um Bob yeah I I I think we should just
make our recommendation to the to the town manager uh you know at whatever it is I think if we have a surplus uh at 10.5% we should say this is not going to 10.5% you could you know spend the money
on other things or pay down debt or put it onto roads or whatever but I I don't think I think the the the whole issue of 10% versus 10 and a half percent I don't think that the council has really decided on that so I don't think we should be worrying too much about about
that number um and let the council and the town manager work that out um you know this is a recommendation to the town manager he's going to take it and he could add to it uh in his capital plan i mean this is just a recommendation so I think we should just make our best
recommendation and we're we have $200,000 we could I think what Sarah suggested we can identify two or three or four different ways that that money can be used um you know we could fund some other projects or we could pay down
debt or we could um you know put it into roads uh etc so okay all right uh any other comments on this
issue so I think then assume assuming that we were leaving the police to fire radio business in which is borrowing anyway we have we've added 50,000 for
traffic caling we've added 100 for the sixth grade move and we'll have a balance of approximately $200,000 and we will say here's some here's some ideas right okay does that sound
like okay all right so that's good for now um what I gather we're all supposed also supposed to maybe tweak the outears and try to make them balanced or at least that's how Kathy talks talks
about it and for the life of me I can't we don't know what how we would do that I I I don't I don't see that we need to balance the outy years um I I don't think we can do it number one and number two um you know I said that I've said
this before but once you get past the year you're you're actually funding it's just you know it's just speculation um and there's no there isn't There isn't you shouldn't spend too much time i mean we should look at it we should think about it i mean there's some some big
projects like Puffer Pond is a big project when when you look at it we should you know maybe um you know talk to Dave Zomac a bit bit more about that um you know what grants are available
you know how much are we actually going to have to spend we don't know i understand there's a there's some some uncertainty now until you put divers in the water and and take a look at things but but you know that's a huge project um and so that that's something that
we're going to have to think about um whether we can support that or not given where we're going to be with other budget other budget issues so I also will be interested to know in what sort of flexibility we have because there are
laws regarding dams and I don't know what part what aspects of th this whole project we might not have a choice about maybe there we wouldn't improve the beaches we wouldn't do anything but there might be some expensive piece we did will be obliged to do understood
yeah um anybody else especially those who've been been down this through this process before have a comment on the outy years is does our report simply point out some of these issues that will need to be
decided or in investigated and maybe reconsidered because there's there's definitely a lot of a lot of numbers in the out in the out years a lot more than in this year's column and maybe that's the way it
always is but we Yeah I mean just like Crocker Farm we Bridget and I can take this back to the committee crocker Farm is um slated to have millions of dollars of work it's all borrowing but still
we're going to be borrowing millions and millions of dollars by then so um again we can take that back and and ask we have a new facilities director um
and ask you know so please have a look and be ready to um maybe modify this next February or Yeah right anybody else lee yeah i I want to support Bob Hegner
uh in saying you know you can't know what the outlying years are actually going to show up and I think maybe in the past there's been a desire to make the the charts look
neat to make them look as though they were balanced and so yeah I I believe that we need to understand that there's a lot of uncertainty and we just need to go forward and do the best we can anybody else want to say anything
about thou ears or Yeah I I can see why the new financial track financial software will be useful it's going to be a tremendous amount of borrowing um I'm sure Melissa doesn't put too much effort into the out
years at this point either oh it's the miracle will happen it'll Yeah yeah we'll hire a grant writer and and the federal government will give us Yeah the federal government will have lots of money yeah all right the state
Yeah yeah it's going to be tough okay um then unless there's something else anybody wants to talk about I will just move to public comment anybody I don't see anything so I will
all right say now we have three people in the audience if any of you would like to make a comment please put your hand No hands are going up so there is no public comment
um so what else i have no matters not anticipated did anyone else have any matters not anticipated all right then I'll just remind you that our next meeting is a week from Friday i forget the time maybe it's I don't know if it's two or four but we
are already have the I think it's two i think it's been posted so um yeah Melissa if you can Kathy gave me a draft of the report she's been working on I'm happy to work do more on it it would help me if you can send the
updated yeah I'll send you this chart yeah and I'll try and get the um the bottom to balance so that you know it shows exactly the surplus that we think you have at this time and Right and you will and you will invite the
police and fire chiefs to next to Friday's meeting right not not this Friday next Friday right right yeah and there's no meeting this Friday right yeah no I I'm just it's more than a week away is when I'm Friday of next week yes
yeah and um you got the questions that we were asking is like it was a you know a lease lease versus buying what the costs how the costs have changed and oh what was the other one and how we're how come we're so much
more than why are we spending so much more than our neighboring communities right like what's different about our system right and can they apply or do they uh apply for grants are grants for this purpose so that would be great and then we'll make a decision um all right
then I think we are done little bit early so oh Lee has her hand up lee I want to say thank you Sarah for chairing this meeting and thank you Melissa for being the
finance director and I'm sorry that you're leaving yes yes me too we're all sorry to see her go yeah all right well in that ca Melissa sorry were you about to say something okay all right well
thank you Melissa and Jennifer for attending and everybody for your time and we'll see you next week uh I guess who wants to adjourn at 5:47 i see Le is still up so we are
thank you thank you bye bye