Evening everybody like to open the town of air select forum meeting for Tuesday May 20th 2025. This meeting/hering of the air select board will be held in person at the location provided on this notice. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Please
note that while an option for remote attendance and/or participation via Zoom is being provided as a courtesy to the public, the meeting/sharing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast
unless otherwise required by law. Members of the public with a particular interest in a specific item on this agenda should make plans for in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly. This meeting will be live on Zoom and channel A. The public may access the
proceedings by joining Zoom meeting ID number 978-772-8220 or by calling 9292056099. For additional information about remote participation, please contact Carly Antineellis, the assistant town manager at atmair.mma.
us or 978772-8220 extension 100 prior to the meeting. Would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Any amendments to the agenda? I have none. Okay, thanks a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted. Seconded. All those in favor? I say I and approved. Um, no
announcements this evening. Is there anybody here or online for public input? Okay. Not seeing or hearing anyone. Um move on to our first item of the evening is summary presentation on the results of the PAS health study in
air. Um Lori, if you want to come on up, introduce yourself and then um Dr. Shadler, if you'd like to introduce yourself as well. Thank you so much for having us today. U appreciate uh being on the agenda and being able to share this update with
you. Um, I'm Lori Nearing. Julie Kornwood is behind me. We've been uh active with PACE, people of air concerned about the environment for quite a long time and both of us have recently retired and we have new people that are stepping in. But both of us were very involved with the PAS health
study and we continue to stay involved in that aspect um of what we had been doing. Uh and so tonight Laurel Shader um who is from Silent Spring Institute and helped to lead the study um is here to present a very brief summary um of
what the study was about and then to focus mainly on the results as we know them so far. Um just to kind of emphasize that ER was really fortunate to be able to be part of this study. It is a national study. there are only seven places chosen across the whole
country and we were one of those seven and so for no charge to air residents matter of fact they got paid um people who qualified were able to get the results of their blood tests back and you'll see it's pretty surprising to me that we've been learning more and more
you know over time and the studies that we're following are showing that PAS is everywhere it's an everything um so many products all of us are probably wearing it right now. And as Laurel will reveal, 100% of the participants across the country have PAS in their bodies. And so
we're concerned about the health effects. Um, and I'm going to close with what I'm doing, um, in the state of Massachusetts, try to help some pass some regulations to make some differences, at least here in Massachusetts. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to Laurel. She has a PowerPoint
presentation for those of you who may be joining online. Um, it's very similar to what was shared in advance. They're just a couple of tweaks in the PowerPoint and I'll turn it over to Laurel. Laurel, you're on. All right.
Terrific. Thank you so much for the introduction. Um, and thanks to um to the select board for accommodating our request to be on the agenda kind of last minute. Um, and really grateful to Lori and Julie and everyone at Pace and everyone in the town of Air who was
really supportive of this study. um been working with um with PACE for over six years now back when this this study was just sort of an idea and so happy to have this opportunity to talk a little bit with you about um the study and the
status of it and hope to have some time at the end for a dialogue about how we can continue to keep the community updated and any uh questions and concerns that the community still has. Um, I could talk for a long time about PAS, but this is a brief update and I'll
send some uh share some resources for those of you who are a little less familiar with PAS and or less familiar with our study um and want more uh detail. Um, first though I did want to introduce the organization where I've worked for nearly 16 years now, Silence
for Institute, which is based in Newton. So, I'm glad to join remotely because it be a long drive to come out at this time of day to air. Um, so we're an independent nonprofit research organization and we're dedicated to understanding links between everyday chemical exposures and women's health
with a focus on breast cancer prevention. We were founded over 30 years ago by visionary activists at the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition who saw the need for more research on environmental causes of breast cancer. So we've evolved into a leading research organization
um focused on environmental chemical exposures, how we can reduce those exposures to protect health. We continue to partner really closely with mass breast cancer coalition and many other advocacy groups including PACE um who help to um translate and to have our
scientific research have a greater impact. Next slide. So I'm I'm sure this is very familiar to all of you who are sitting in the room. Um but as as you're probably aware, PAS were first discovered in uh the town of air
drinking water back in 2016. Um, the highest levels found in in the Grove Pond wells have been traced to the use of a certain class of firefighting foam at the former Fort Devon site. Uh, the spectacle pond wells on the other side of town are not impacted by Fort Devons.
They have lower levels of PAS and we've been learning a bit about where those um may be coming from. Um, and so I think an important thing to note and something that we're we mention when we're doing our work is to know that the town of air has done a really great job in stepping
up and putting in place filtration really promptly um to protect air residents um so the grow pond well started to be treated in 2020 um and spectacle pond wells since 2022. So all water and air is now filtered for PAS.
Um but because of the past elevated levels um there is concern um and an opportunity potentially to learn from those past exposures in terms of how those chemicals can affect our health. Next slide. So what I'm here to talk tonight about is what's called the
multi-sight health study. So this is being funded and coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, and their sister agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Um so the the broad goal for this study is to better
understand how um how PAS exposures can affect people's health. Um so this is was kind of this study was started actually in New Hampshire at the Peas Trade Port. So ATSDR first did a kind of pilot phase of the study. Um and then they wanted to include communities in
seven additional states. And so overall the target study population was 7,000 adults and 2100 children. Um we at Silent Spring Institute applied to be part of this study. Um we uh were fortunate to meet Lori and the team at
Pace around the time that we were putting our proposal together and um it was a really great opportunity and a great fit to partner with the town of air in this work. Uh you can see on the map the other states um in the study. So California, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
So these are all including re these are research teams working with local communities that also um had or experienced contamination of their drinking water. Next slide. So our study here in Massachusetts is called the Massachusetts PAS in your health study.
It's based in air and in hyannis um on Cape Cod. So, a lot of our work over time has focused on Cape Cod because of elevated breast cancer rates and our initial human health study that was based there um in the 1990s. And hyenas
actually used to have higher levels of PAS than any other public water supply in Massachusetts and Silence Institute was first to test for and find PAS in Hyannis and in other communities on the Cape. So we knew we wanted to work with um hyenas because of those high
exposures and so including air allowed us to have more participants that we could uh take part in the study and because the levels in hyenas were higher than in air it gave us some opportunities to kind of compare and contrast the two communities. So our our study here in Massachusetts is led by
Silent Spring Institute. Other researchers on our team are based the Harvard School of Public Health and a nonprofit organization called the Eastern Research Group. our local partners in air as you know are at pace and then on in hyannis we've worked closely with the mass breast cancer
coalition and probably all of you in the room received postcards and and many u and were contacted by our team in lots of different ways to as we were getting the word out about the study that's my cat that yeah that's my cat and and your
postcard you got in the mail next slide um so just to walk through the the timeline uh for the study. And for those of you who've seen the film Dark Waters, which was about a human health study based in West Virginia, you might remember from the film that it was kind
of a long process to go from starting a health study to um to finishing it and getting a result. So this um this is I understand it is quite a long endeavor here. So we first applied for the study or funding for to be part of the study
in early 2019 and we were awarded uh the grant and you know found out we were going to be part of the study later in 2019 and then we all know 2020 you know threw a lot of things off in terms of timing with COVID and certainly CDC and ATSTR um had a lot of challenges on
their hands during COVID. So things proceeded a little more slowly at the beginning. It took a while to get all the approvals in place. Um but by 2021 we had received all the study protocols and kind of the green light to start the study. Um we had planned to start our work in Hyannis. Um so we launched
recruitment there in 2021 and in 2022 launched recruitment in air and by 2023 in September we wrapped up data collection across our two communities and that's when the the whole study ended data collection. Um, and as Lori
mentioned, people who took part in the study had the opportunity to get results back of their tests. Um, so we for everyone who provided a blood sample, we sent them back a result as quickly as we could get the results back from the CDC lab with the results of the PAS blood
testing and participants also received the results of clinical lab tests as well. Um, and some of you may remember that last June we had a community meeting where we shared community level findings about fast levels in the um our participants in air and hyanis and the
I'll I'm going to present just a few highlights from that presentation tonight um and I'll share a link um with you if you missed that meeting and want some more information about our findings in greater depth um there there was a video recording and our slides from that
meeting are available online so next slide um in brief uh we enrolled nearly 300 adults and 48 children in air and we had kind of a similar number in Hyannis. I
think we had about 400 adults and 41 kids in Hyannis. So across our two sites we had nearly 700 adults and 300 and 100 kids um in the Massachusetts study. Um being a participant involved a few different steps. So, we had a um a
clinic in the Nova Valley Medical Center medical building um where participants would come provide a blood draw, a blood and urine sample, complete a clinical visit with blood um blood pressure, heightened weight, that kind of thing. Uh we had a questionnaire for participants to fill out um and for kids
ages 5 to 17, a set of neurobbehavioral tests as well. Um, and as I mentioned, we tested the blood samples for PAS and for some clinical lab tests like uh glucose and cholesterol and thyroid hormones and many other uh lab tests.
Um, and it was quite an effort and we're grateful to everyone who helped us get the word out about the the study um in lots of different ways including at the transfer station. Yeah, great place to be. I I just want to add that um when we did our outreach to try to recruit people,
adults and children, people generally understood what POS was and what the study was all about, the reason for it. And I think that's because of the excellent outreach that's been done by you and and the DPW. Um and people seem to like get it pretty quickly and that
was different in other communities. They didn't have that same level of understanding. So, we did really well for a small community. I'm really proud of of the success we had in our part of the study. It's really well done. Absolutely. Um I I totally agree. In
Hyannis, even though the levels used to be higher in the water in Hyannis, we definitely found that there were more people who who weren't aware of what PAS were or the the past contamination in the water supply. Um and we're we're really grateful for the support of the town of air. For instance, the the school
superintendent let Lori and I come to the first day of the teacher training. um to help get the word out in the schools. Um the yeah, it was just it was there were a lot of things that were definitely went really smoothly in air. I'm grateful to everyone who helped with that. Um so again, when we did our
community meeting last year, we had a lot more details about the results. So I just wanted to share um a couple of the highle findings here and happy to answer questions um if people want to delve into this more. Um so PAS is not just
one thing. PASS are a family of chemicals and there are some PASS that show up fairly frequently in people's bodies. Um, as Lori mentioned, every participant in our study had detectable levels of PAS in their blood. Um, and that's not unusual. The same is true
really of the general population. Um, so I'm going to walk you through this graph because I know there's a lot going on here. Um, so what the height of the bars is showing is the median or kind of middle concentration of four different PAS chemicals and their names are on the bottom. Um, and I'll say that the two on
the left, PFOS and PFHXS are two PAS that used to be um, present in firefighting foams, for instance, at military bases as well as at certain airports. And these two PAS tend to be elevated in the blood of people in communities where water was contaminated
by firefighting foam. Um the other two PAS um can also be present in firefighting foam but aren't as um tightly linked to those types of of um firefighting foams. Um and so what I'm showing here are a couple of different things. So there are three sets of bars
for each chemical. Um so the hyenas levels are in blue. Um the orange bar is the air median level and then the gray bar is uh the median level from the US general population. Um and so if you can go to the next slide kind of
walk through this um so looking at PFH excess so that one in the middle what we do see is that the levels in air so the median level was um about 36% higher than in the general US population. Um,
and this again is is not unexpected because this is a chemical that tends to um be elevated in people exposed to water that was contaminated by firefighting foam. It also tends to stay in our body the longest compared to the other chemicals and we collected our
samples in 2022 and 2023 and as I said the water had already started to be treated but because it takes a while for these chemicals to be it kind of gets really slowly excreted from our bodies we still kind of this elevated level. Um, as you'll note, the level in Hyannis
was quite a bit higher and that's not surprising because the water there was more severely contaminated. So, that one chemical um, we did see a higher level in air. You go to the next slide, you'll see that the levels for the other three
PAS tended to be similar or um, if anything lower than the general US population. You might wonder why would it be lower than the the general population. Um and I think the reason for that really just has to do with timing. So these um what we call
longchain PAS have been phased out of use in the US. Um these chemicals do stick around in our bodies. They stay there for a long time. But when you reduce exposure over time the levels in people's blood are going down. And CDC has done testing in the general US population and shown the levels in the
general population are going down. So the US um kind of the reference group the general population number here comes from 2017 to 2020 and the air numbers are from 2022 to 2023. We've done some estimating. Um we don't have official
numbers from the CDC but kind of looking at the graph over time we think that if the US samples had been collected at the same time that they'd look pretty similar to air. Um whereas for um hyenas we did see that the levels were higher for both POS and
PFHXS. Um and again if you would like some more details about this I'm happy to answer questions here. And the the community presentation we did last year really goes through this in some more detail as well as talking about the demographics of our two study
populations. Um so next slide is about our community meeting. So which we had at Air High School last June. Um the video recording from the event is online. You can use that link or scan the QR code in the um picture there. You
can see our terrific study coordinator Emily Huckle from Silent Spring. Um and so you can um yeah find more resources there about what we presented. So on the next slide, so what's next for the study? So one
component of our study and I think something that makes it unique compared to some other studies that are also being done uh is that we have a component to go backwards in time. So when we look at the levels of PAS in people's blood 2022 2023 that doesn't
necessarily tell us about who was more highly exposed over the past five or 10 or 20 years or maybe even longer. uh because we know people who say lived in air their whole life maybe had higher exposure than someone who moved to the area more recently. So an important
other part of our study is groundwater modeling to go back in time to estimate what levels of PAS were in the drinking water and we're going back to the year 2000. And then and for those of you who are in the study know we had a very long questionnaire and we asked about where
people lived and some questions about water consumption, whether people tended to drink bottled water, tap water, whether they filtered their water. And so we're using those pieces to go back in time and try to estimate what people's blood levels were over time. And that will tell us and give us some
more ability to really look at these relationships between PAS levels, PAS exposures, and the types of health effects that we're looking for in our study. Um, our community presentation last year allowed us to compare our two Massachusetts communities to each other
and to the general population, but we didn't have the results for the other sites to talk about. There is a paper that is close to being published uh in which we can see how the Massachusetts levels compare to the other communities within the multicight study and that should be published soon. And then I've
learned a lot because my background is actually environmental engineering and environmental chemistry. I'm not an epidemiologist by training and so I'm learning a lot about how long it takes to analyze data. There's kind of a lot of behind thescenes work. I won't get into all the details of that but in terms of the um key outcomes that we are
looking at um so for our site in Massachusetts we're leading analyses on PAS and blood pressure and hypertension and also on metabolic syndrome. Um there are also a whole series of other papers being led by other sites within the
study but the data from Massachusetts are part of this looking at other types of health outcomes like diabetes, cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and effect and effects in kids. Um, and then we also are digging a little bit deeper among our Massachusetts participants
where we have a little bit more detailed information about their residential history and looking at differences between the participants in air and hyenas and also looking at how long do we still see this the signal say for people who all always drank bottled
water or always filtered their water versus always drinking unfiltered tap water. We still are seeing these elevated levels in hyenas and still differences as a relationship with in relationship to their water related behaviors. And so we have a paper that we'll soon be submitting that answers
those kinds of questions. I just want to highlight that each of these components that Laurel just mentions, they're huge behind the scenes things. you saw the you know the sort of in your the facetoface um part of it when people went in and did their study but the groundwater
modeling just by itself is massive because we had to work with DPW and find out what people drank from what which well source and when and how much. So tremendous amount of data digging is going into all of that. It's a lot of work going on here.
Yeah. a lot behind the scenes. And one component that we're incorporating into our our modeling in addition to going back in time to estimate what the levels were in the grove pond and the spectacle pond wells over time. We also think that there are some differences in the levels
of exposure depending on where in town you live because the water doesn't fully mix in one big tank before going into the distribution system. People who live on the west side of town over time probably got more of their water from grove pond wells and people on the east side of town over time got more of their
exposure or got more of their water from probably had lower exposures. And so we're trying to account for that in our modeling. Um for those of you who'd like to learn more about PAS, I also wanted to mention an online resource center
called the PAS exchange. Um, it's got fact sheets that answer the types of questions that I often get from community members. There's a map that shows locations of known and suspected contamination sources all across the country. We've got a tool to help people interpret results of water and blood
testing and resources for clinicians. And this is one area where we would like to uh deepen our work in the community um because often the advice when people get lab results is to go talk to your doctor. And we know that a lot of learned about PAS before um and may not
have um information to answer um questions from their patients. I know the community of air is in a a strange spot right now with the closure of the hospital and people may be finding different places to um find medical care. And so we created resources including a a continuing medical
education course to um help clinicians and patients um better um you know apply the information about PAS exposures to include improve clinical care. I just handed out one of the fact sheets that is from this database. It looks like um
a couple of you got an additional one that was sort of mixed in, but you're welcome to have it anyhow. Thanks, Lori. You're welcome. All right. Um so, and then just being mindful of time here. So, the next slide, um I think it's kind of coming Yeah. coming down the home stretch here. So, I I know
everyone it's hard to avoid kind of listening to the news and hearing about the changes that are coming out of DC. There are definitely challenges for the public health field um as well as for our specific study. Um so EPA just last week um said they plan to roll back some
of the drinking water standards. Um and there's also talk of undoing PAS two PAS chemicals being part of the super fund circle law. Um so that's worrisome to me. Um I think in in Massachusetts even if the federal standards get rolled back
we you know we had standards here in Massachusetts going back to 2020. So I think the regulators here are more on top of this. But I worry about this patchwork, you know, across the country where some states that means their residents won't be protected. And it's it's so frustrating because it was so
much work and so much science that went into the development of those standards and to see those being rolled back. Um it's it's disheartening. Um so I I hope that that won't really happen, but I'm not I'm not a policy or legal expert. Um
for us as an institution, we get over half of our funding from federal research grants. And so um that seems like a challenging path moving forward. Um, we're in a little bit different spot than the big universities, but it's still hard. There's a whole network of
researchers that, you know, over time have always relied on the availability of federal research grants. They're still really hard to get, but um, you know, they've always been there. And so, I worry about what that means for um, for the future of public health research. Um so far the staff for the
study at CDC and ATSR are still you know in place but um it's I think it's a really challenging time for our friends in the federal government. Um the study officially ends at the end of September. So um and it still feels like there's still a lot of work to do and there's a
lot more that we can learn from the results that we have. Um and as we think ahead towards finishing the analyses and publishing them and you know to be really credible and carry the weight to inform future policies and regulations and laws um you know research needs to
go through rigorous peer review and because um this is funded and is a partnership with the these federal agencies. They have to go through a clearance process. So far there hasn't been any challenges with that though you know it is a worry. Um and then Again, I
don't know how much time we'll have here, but just some discussion questions. You know, are there ways that we can work together? How would you like to hear updates about the study? You know, um there won't be one one report. There won't be one thing and then like, okay, we're done with the study. You
know, it's going to be this progression of research findings over time. Some things that will be led by our team in Massachusetts, some things that will be led by other sites, but we'll include Massachusetts data. So, we want to know how to um share those results. I'd like
to hear about them. Um and as Lori said, PASS are in everything. They're hard to avoid. We all have them in our bodies. Um so, are there other questions or concerns that you have? Um and with that, Lori, I think the next um slides
are yours. Yeah. And um the questions that you may have, you can reflect back to either Laurel directly or to me. Um, I know we're a little bit over our time and I I value your time. Um, one of my concerns is that my levels are higher than my personal levels are higher than
the medium. Quite a bit higher. And I have always filtered my water very carefully. I'm very meticulous about it. So, what's going on with that, you know? Um, shower. Um, do you have So, is it It doesn't so much Yeah. What I'm saying is
it do you have like a whole house? No, it's a drinking water filter. Yeah, cuz I mean you might have drank some of it. I'm just thinking a lot, you know. Yeah, it or the the filter that I was using wasn't working. That too. That too. Yeah, one of those things. Um, so since we're going over time, I'm just going to
pass this out quite quickly. Um, we can go to the next. Yeah, this is what's up there is the same as this. So, I mentioned that um I became involved through this work with Laurel with um a whole range of nonprofit organizations. all their emblems are on the back of the
page there. Um, and so we've been meeting um once a week, once every other week to try to um work with the state legislature to get some regulations passed. This flyer is actually from last year. We didn't quite get it to the floor last year. We're hopeful we'll get
it this year. Um, so we're working with Senator Julian Seir and Kate Hogan, Rep. Kate Hogan. They're both wonderful. We're working hard to get it on the floor. So, I may come back and at some point and ask for your support in writing a letter to help get this this
to be passed. Um, especially since the EPA is backing out of its regulations, we need to protect our citizens. And as we've been saying, it's in everything. We need to stop using it. It's in so many products where it's not necessary. It's a convenience factor. And it it's
you'd be surprised. You'd be shocked. It's in so many things we put on on and in our bodies, including children's products. Um, and and there are a few things where it's it's necessary, a few medical things, but um, I would love your support down the road to push this
forward. Um, and I'm I'm guessing that we're all in favor of this. We're calling it casually turn off the tap. So, that's what we really need to do. So, um, be happy to answer any questions, but we're over at this point. So, if you want to follow up at some point later, we could do that as well.
Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Thank you, Laurel. Do you have any questions? No, I thank them uh very much for this. Okay. And I have another meeting at seven, so I'll stay for a few more minutes. Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Appreciate it. Thank you. And my my email address is on the last slide, so if anyone wants to reach out or ask more questions, please do reach out. Um hope to see you in person next time. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Next up be our town manager report. Oh, we got ratification. Oh, sorry. I skipped right over. In the interest of time, we skipped over the uh next up our ratification of appointment of the new economic
development director Freellander. Mr. Chairman, uh members of the board, uh good evening. through you. I'd ask Miss Rachel Freedland to come up to the um to the table. Um it wasn't on purpose.
So, it gives me great pleasure uh this evening to introduce to you uh Rachel Freedellander and to respectfully uh request uh your ratification of her appointment uh as the next economic uh
development director uh for the town of Air. Um, as the board is aware, uh, when the position, um, opened, uh, the town advertised the position in the Massachusetts Municipal Association, uh, website, the town's website, social
media, uh, the Indeed online advertising, um, in all of the venues we usually use. Um, we received, um, 10 applications for the position. I put together a screening committee consisting of the assistant town
manager, the town planner, the DPW director, the program coordinator and the chair of the planning board uh to conduct to screen the um applications and to conduct uh the interviews. Um, we interviewed uh candidates and um without
uh question or reservation um it was unanimous uh to recommend um Rachel for this important uh position. I also followed up with all of her professional references that she provided that uh
were glowing and spoke uh very very highly of her. Uh the board has in your packet her letter of intent for the position as well as her resume. And I just want to add um couple of things
that really stuck out um Rachel's candidacy is as you could see I first of all I just like the sentence uh that she provided. I believe strategic planning is one of my strongest skill sets as a leader. I can think quickly, bring
multiple stakeholders together and lead with vision. Um, which really uh stuck out. Uh, she holds a bachelor's uh degree from Berkeley uh in conservation resource studies this Saturday. I understand she'll be uh receiving her
master's in public affairs um from Brown uh with a focus on democracy and human rights. As you can see in her letter, uh she has extensive not only extensive experience but a track record of securing CDBG funding uh from her work
uh in Alaska and of course air is also a CDBG community. Um she also speaks to um interest and expertise um in the IDFA uh which we would like to get uh back up and going. uh the industrial uh
development finance authority which is uh key to the town. also uh the TIFF tax increment uh finance review committee uh extensive credentials in land use and economic development, a communicator um
an advocate uh grant writing again uh solid track record there and um overall I think that she will be an excellent addition uh not only to the team at town hall but uh to the town of air. So Mr.
Chair, without further ado, I I recommend enthusiastically the ratification of uh Rachel's appointment as economic development director um at grade 12 uh step three later this evening subject to the uh ratification
of the personal service contract. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Chair, and Rachel. any questions that the board may have for Rachel or anything Rachel through the chair would like to add. And her effective start date would be July um first. So, thank
you. What brings you to air from Alaska? That's what um that's that's a great question. I also just wanted to say to the to the select board, feel free to call me Ray. Of course, you can call me Rachel, but I also go by Rey. Um I'm very lucky to
have family in air. So I grew up coming here and when I was thinking through this uh next uh decade of my life and prioritizing um aspects to a good life like family um I was looking for an opportunity where I could live close to
family and uh that's how that's how I got out of Alaska first for grad school and then to find um a new place to call home. impressive. I I mean, I'm just even just looking at the the job
title, you know, city manager, executive administrative assistant, lands and resources specialist. I mean, legislative aid. I mean, you know, what a find. Um, you know, I think this is going to be awesome.
We'll make it awesome. I mean, I was I was telling um I I feel like I need to speak very highly of your town manager after it was such an incredible introduction he gave of me, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can do together because there is no silver bullet. It's definitely um
government is all about service. And so, let's just see what we can do together, not just as um this immediate team, but with the community. I'm really curious to learn uh what folks think about air and to just approach it as open-mindedly as possible with a lot of curiosity to
see what answers we get out there about how people see air growing into the future. It was mentioned about grant writing. Um, you know, one of my things with grant writing is not worrying about the
percentage that you get, but striving out there and trying to grab even ones that are maybe far-fetched, you know, but possible. Um so what is your thoughts on when you go for grants as
far as um you know kind of the percentage of whether you get it or not or just trying to reach out to every possible area. Um so I I learned this concept called opportunity cost. And so when you're
saying yes to something that means you're saying no to a lot of things. And especially in a time when we're actually seeing the grants and outside funding shrinking that's available for municipalities to tackle the challenges and opportunities of their community. I think we have to be very strategic and
actually pursuing the ones that we're very confident we'll get. Of course aspirational is great. I mean that's why very curious to learn um through the manager what the select board members priorities are for what we want to see air accomplish. But in the short term, I
think you have to be very strategic about where you're going to get your yes from because there's going to be um a much smaller pool that we're looking at into the future. I like that. It's a good answer. Any other questions?
No. I think uh I think she's going to be a welcome asset. Yes. Thank you so much. People behind you nodding their head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how it was during the interview, too. I can tell you that. A lot of nods. It was a pleasure interviewing Rachel.
She's going to be a great fit here. Yeah, for sure. All right. Okay. With that, then I will take a motion. I'll make a motion that the select board ratify the appointment for the economic development director, Miss Rachel
Frylander. Did I say that right? Freedellander. Freedellander. Thank you. Uh, seconded. Favor. I chair says I welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you. [Applause] And she's right. We'll call you Ray.
Yes. Thank you. Okay. Now to the town marriage report. Mr. Chair, members of the board, I know I have a one minute penalty. Apologies. Um just briefly on the
administrative uh update for this evening and you have the town warrants and the packet that would were approved uh since the board last um met. Um just a few things uh under the administrative update. Uh we had a want to thank the
board uh and the finance committee and town meeting uh for their continued support. We had a very successful town meeting uh with all articles passing including uh the budget. Um for the June 3 meeting uh the passage of the citizens
petition which asks the select board to do some research on the um which passed to make a recommendation on the um town meeting counters. Um, I'll have a a framework for your June 3rd meeting as
to how we should proceed in doing our uh due diligence on that. So, more to come on that front. We also had a successful election on May 13th. A special thanks to the town clerk and her team. Congratulations, Mr. Chair, on your reelection. Um,
uh, we're now in the fiscal year end. Uh so as in previous years effective June 1st any expenditures over $1,000 require uh preapproval. Um that's designed to ensure that uh budgets remain in line as
we close out the fiscal year. I'm also pleased to report that along with the towns of Grten, Harvard, and Shirley, uh we secured a shared energy manager that will be grant funded for three years that will work with the four towns on
further energy issues. It's part of the whole green communities. There's no cost to the town of air. And there's also not an expectation that at the end of the grant, this will somehow become a position. It's it's a three-year uh commitment to and what's of key interest
to air because Chuck Schultz, the facilities director, has done a really great job with the energy issues in the town is that this will focus on the schools. So, uh more to come on that front. On May 14th, uh town council did
the open meeting law training which was uh successful. We had about 30 people attend between Zoom uh and in person. The board has that presentation um which we'll continue to um uh share with folks
as we move forward. Tomorrow night at 6:00 in the great hall as the 71 Sandy Pond public design meeting as the board appointed the working group to develop a recommendation for 71 Sandy Pond. Uh this is going to be a public uh design
uh exercise tomorrow uh with the consultant. Uh we encourage um folks to attend. Uh and then we anticipate in the near future uh the working group having a recommendation or recommendations for
the future of that that site. Um Memorial Day, uh per the American Legion, uh we did hear from them. Uh there's not going to be a parade this year, but they are planning services this Saturday, May 24th, as follows.
Woodlon Cemetery at 8:45 a.m. St. Mary's Cemetery at 9:15 a.m. And then out here in the Veterans Memorial Garden at Town Hall at 10:00 a.m. And of course, uh that is open to the public. And that's
my report. I don't have any action items tonight unless there's any questions from the board. Nope. Okay. Um, next up is new business select board member questions. Didn't have any.
Next up, approval of the meeting minutes for May 6, 2025. I had no edits or changes. No, I um I didn't see anything. I wanted to make sure the new manager at um AllTown, his name was spelled correctly
because Oh, yeah. That was a a little I not Yes. But in the record, so we're good. All right. I'll take a motion on that. Uh I'll make a motion to uh approve the uh minutes
for May 6, 2025 as submitted. Seconded. All those in favor? I chair says I. And it's approved. brings us to reorganization of the select board
thoughts, feelings. Do you have any Well, I mean, in the past, you know, we've we've been willy-nilly, and I I Yeah, I don't like willy-nilly. It's caused me distress. Um or you know you just kind of rotate. Uh
so um you you can rotate you know this direction or you can rotate in that direction. So um I haven't been chair for a while so you know I don't mind being chair unless you really want.
But you can certainly be chair. He sounded really eager about it. It's one of those things I just figure like I just finished my first term and um you know either it it's fine with me either way. I don't have a burning desire but if no one else wanted to do
it then I would certainly do it. So So do you want to be vice chair? You want to be clerk? Do you want to be vice chair? You want to be clerk? If you'll be vice chair again I'll be the clerk. Okay, that works fine for me. All right. So, I'll make a motion that
the board reorganized to board member Livingston being the chair, board member Tvarus being the vice chair again, and myself being the clerk. I will second that. You're still chair. You have to call the call in favor.
I chair agrees. Former chair got all right. Um, with that, Mr. Mr. Chair. Yes. Yes, please. Uh, I'd like to make a motion that the select board move into executive session pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 30 alpha section 21
Alpha exemption number two, non-UN personnel, ratification of economic development director personal services contract and that the select board not reconvene in open session but to adjourn from executive session. I'll second. All
those in favor? I chair says I. And we are in executive session. Thank you.