ers will be conducted in via both inperson and remote means in accordance with applicable law. Persons wishing to participate may do so either in person or accessing the meeting via Microsoft Teams. For instructions on how to join the meeting remotely, please refer to the meeting agenda found on the Bonstable County website under the meeting center menu. Please use the team's raise hand feature to to be acknowledged when public participation is
required by law or allowed by the board chair. And with that, I call to order the December 3rd, 2025 meeting of the board of regional commissioners. And please join us for a pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And please, please join us in a moment of silence to reflect on the bravery and sacrifices of all those who put their lives on the line in service to our country, protecting our safety, our freedom, and our democracy. Thank you. Is there any public comment?
No public comment online that I can see. No. Okay. Moving on. Uh can we have a motion to approve the minutes? Madam Chair, I move to approve the regular meeting uh minutes of November 26, 2025. And I'll second. All in favor? I. All right. Moving on to general business. First on our agenda here is a report from the county health department. Please come up and bring Bob with you.
Good morning. Morning commissioners. Jay Gardner, director of health and environment. I'm joined by Bob Colette, the tobacco control program manager. Morning. Good morning. Hands are smoking. Well, um, this program is easily lost in the large portfolio of programs, whether it's seasonal influenza, COVID, certainly in other programs, and this can quickly fall to the wayside, but it actually can't. We have to we need to make sure the leading cause, right,
of of disease, cardiovascular, cancer, COPD, a number of different things. This this fight has gone on public health battle since 1964. the surgeon general Luther Terry put the warning label onto cigarettes and we certainly have made progress but but is when we talk about a campaign 60 years later this continues and it's really it for our youth our marginalized populations right some some communities that are vulnerable that's where that effort continues this is a state funded
grant it's an opportunity to educate you on this but really it's our responsibility ility now as I'm working with Bob and he's going to lay out the the work that he does is to make this more comprehensive and multifaceted. The state funding allows for compliance checks, retail education. We fortunately have the opportunity and quite frankly the responsibility to expand that to proactive education into for the youth into schools. We have community health uh educators that are
going to be putting this out to the schools in a number of different ways to proactively educate because you know the saying being the problem with smoking is starting right remember back from the '9s well that that mantra needs to continue. The youth are 20% of our population, but they're 100% of our future. And making sure that we educate them because the tobacco industry, the lobbying, the the tactics that are pushed back on us to say that these flavored tobacco, the ecigarettes are the the less that they're they're the safe alternative to tobacco. And
that's just not the case. It's unproven. There's nothing scientifically or medically positive that we can say. It's been proven. The science has been proven, but we're working with a very highly addictive substance and that campaign needs to continue. Bob has done a wonderful job. He serves all the 15 communities here on the Cape. Going to let him talk about that and maybe if you have some questions on what are some other things that we need to be doing because we're going to expand this beyond just compliance checks and just retail education to community education. I'll turn it over to Bob. Sure. So, I have some uh information for you. Good.
finances and recent statistics um relative to smoking rates and so forth and youth youth smoking rates as well as determined by garnered by the youth uh behavior uh risk surveys that are done at the high schools. But as Jay said, we've been pretty limited. I think all of you are famili are familiar with the history of the program, what we've been able to accomplish over the years and
we remain one of the more respected programs in Massachusetts uh considered one of the foremost um programs that we have. We don't have full coverage across the state, but we've been fortunate to have it consistently here on the Cape since 1994. So, uh, we, as Jay mentioned, we, you know, most of the, well, what we're contracted to do right now and have been for several years now since our budgets have been cut to the point that they are, um, is to focus on educating retailers,
uh, helping them to comply with local regulations, working with the local boards of health in a a technical assistance capacity to help them promulgate and implement and enforce regulations, too. um reduce youth access to tobacco products by uh youth and also to eliminate um secondhand smoke exposure which in turn helps people to you quit smoking those that are still uh remaining smokers and that number has dwindled down to uh 12.3% here on the Cape 12.3% we have smoking right that's
actually 12.3% of Barnesville residents it's about 11.9 or something here on across the Cape. So, which is consistent with what we have across Massachusetts within a percentage point or so. So, and that we've been able to reduce that number uh from around 35% back in the early 90s. Really an accomplishment. The actions that have been taken by the local boards of health um have been very effective. What we don't have the opportunity to do with the funding that we have is to provide a
lot of public education like we used to do. You know, going to health fairs, doing newsletters, uh, radio and television appearances to, you know, produce educational programs and share information with the public. We're just not funded to do that anymore and it's not, you know, we don't, it's not part of our work plan that we have on an annual basis from the state. I have a question. Do you have a question? Yeah, just a couple of things. You know, it would be nice to have an advertising campaign to try to lower the percentage of people who smoke,
especially kids, even more. But I know as soon as you do that, the industry is going to start to scream and claim that you're making cla, you know, if you said tobacco use was dangerous or that that, you know, that vaping is just as bad as smoking cigarettes, you'd get a flurry of lawsuits and stuff like that. So, you know, I I although I don't want to discourage you from doing that, but uh you know, it it seems that I mean, when I was growing up, everyone smoked and all the adults smoke and then right, you go into a house and somebody could be smoking. Now, very very rare. I don't think I've ever, you know, most of my the people I know socially
don't smoke. No, you can't smoke any smoke inside. If you're in somebody's house, they don't object. And I don't blame them. Even people who smoke mostly smoke outside. It's very rare. But uh and also um that was one question I had. But the other question I had is you I I see in your literature you're not allowed to carry over the funds yeartoear. Is that right? No. During co they allowed us to do that. Yeah. And and then uh DPH put a stop to it. So you know we're at we're really at a really bare bones minimum right now. I'm a oneperson operation. Um, I've traditionally
I've had one person that would help, you know, for the past say 15 years or so, but before I had to um, you know, lay her off a couple years ago. Um, but then carryover wouldn't be an issue if you're up against budget constraint anyway, right? Well, some of the carryover would allow me to fund that position where she was on as a contractor um to help with inspections and and all that. We have you know upwards of 375 or 380 stores within the region. The program extends beyond the 15 towns
here on the Cape. We also cover Plymouth Wearham and both islands. So it's quite a huge geographic area. It requires extensive travel as you know. So, uh, and the way the DPH, uh, likes to likes to have us do it, and it's actually requiring it now, is not not to be in every not to do all of the inspections in one community on a given day because we go once a year to each retailer uh, for a routine inspection and then we go back within 3 to 6 months to follow up on any violations. And
the same applies to compliance checks. So uh we we check every store once a year for an illegal sales and if there is a violation then we go back again within 3 to 6 months and then if they sell again we go back another time within 3 to 6 months until the problem is corrected. Uh but and and you know there's a heavy u emphasis on retailer education. So we do we do a lot of that uh to and we always lead with education. We're not strongarmming anybody here. Um, and as a result, it's been very
effective. Um, our efforts have been effective. You know, we have great relationships with all of the retailers, save one or two, who just don't want to play along all the time and don't like to be, you know, guided by somebody else as to how they should be doing. Yeah. So, but for the most part, yeah, it's overwhelmingly support, you know, a great u relationship and and partnership really because most of them are very good about not selling to kids and um and following the rules
that that are required by the state and the local boards of health relative to uh product placement, uh signage that's required, and uh requiring IDs of people that come through the or that sort of thing. So, not selling flavored products, right? Yeah. So, um are they still heavily available? Um flavored products? No. The vaping? No. Um vaping even flavored vapes are not not not legal. They're
not legal. No. No. They did they did do that because they were right under state law. Then anything that can be smoked or vaped cannot be flavored. Let's see. So, there was some confusion about that when the state law first came into play and um that was five years ago and mo almost every town has amended or their regulations to at least meet the statewide minimum standard and so there was a an extensive education um effort required to help retailers comply with that. So, it took a
couple of years, two or three years to get them all in line with the fact that you can't sell flavored vapes, even if they even if they don't contain tobacco. Some of them without nicotine or they have THC in them. We're finding some of these other substances out there, create them um that are problematic, but they think that they can sell them even if they are flavored. So, or for a while they did anyway. To me, it just intuitively looks like a chemical, right, that they've done, you know, and it's there's not even a tobac, you know, you're going to go straight tobacco
bad enough. But with all the additive, that's part of the problem with cigarettes. And now it looks like this is just the straight additives that why are you doing that? That's a great point. And you know, it leads to u another topic, another area that we're really dealing with here is is the FDA has recently authorized the sale of certain um vapes and uh nicotine pouches. And the nicotine pouches are the emergent problem. They've been a real problem for a few years with the young adults and now a lot of young people are using them in in larger numbers than they they vape these days.
So, but the the problem is a lot of most of them there are only five products that are authorized by the FDA. So, we're going to be working with the boards to have the retailers remove those that are not authorized because the state law requires that you can only sell products that are compliant with that. So, um a lot of those are the flavored pro products that are out there. But the problem is we don't there's been no analysis or reg or evaluation of what these products contain.
They might say they only have six milligrams of nicotine and more, but you who knows and and what other chemicals and constituents are in it. We just don't have any idea. So, it's a public health threat for sure. And so, the boards realize this and we're going to be acting on that very soon. Um, what is the cost of a pack of cigarettes today? upwards of $20. Something like, you know, uh what an addiction. Yeah. If you smoke a pack a day, that's 20 to 20 bucks. 15. Yeah,
I've seen them. The highest I've seen is 1980. They're not quite ready to cross that $20 line yet. But I I'm thinking next time I go out to Nantucket, I might find that. That's a pack of for a package of cigarettes. A pack of cigarettes. A package. 20 bucks. No. Yeah. I remember my father gave me a quarter. I was to say everybody I remember when they went up to $2 when I was a young young kid and my parents both smoked of course like everybody and they thought well I'm quitting of course everybody was saying they were going to quit when they went to $2 but it didn't happen. No the strategy in general did it for my father. That's when he said oh my god yeah we're
family of hypochondriacs and the smoking rates are higher in the low-income communities. So the the financial burden becomes even is is multiplied. Right. Right. I know, Commissioner Bergam, you you brought up something where at a time growing up where smoking was normalized, right? Smoking rates were probably in the low 40s at that time. I can remember when I worked in public health, I'd come home, my clothes smelt like people had ashtrays on their on their desks, right? They you were given an ashtray on an airplane, things of that nature. So, we've moved in a direction,
but the the job isn't finished yet. I was surprised that we took a trip to Ireland oh 25 years ago and when I we we unpacked our suitcases after we got back that the smell of the smoke from the the pubs and everything just waved it up and I was surprised years later actually in in Ireland they banned smoking in the that was a battle because it was part of the whole you know there's nothing like a beer and a cigarette we were all back there at some point I think I might have shared with you at that time that we have uh the work that we've done in our program specifically
here on the Cape. Um uh TW when we went smoke free as a state after the Cape became the first geographic region to be become smokefree through through the work that we did um from 1994 until 2003 when you think about that. Yeah. So when that happened, the health commissioner from Galway, Ireland, came to visit and spent three days with me and uh another gentleman who was working very closely with the tobacco grant from that was held by the sheriff's department. And
we traveled around the Cape and spoke to several restaurant owners, restaurant workers, and other uh employees of places where smoking was allowed up to that point. and they uh with the information that he gathered here and then met did a similar uh little tour in Boston with the program director there he went back and declared Galway about 3 weeks later that Gway would be smoke free and then the rest of Ireland followed suit. So that's something I think we can also wear as a feather on our collective caps. Right. Yeah. Might have to bring the mayor back. So what is the
budget situation in your department for this this service? Is that you are you going to work totally on the state funds or you're asking for more or No. So it's it's in our budget. What I'm what I am presenting and letting you as commissioners and the community to understand we're going to augment this program with the PHE grants things that we can do community outreach. We're in the schools with educators. It's incumbent upon us to deliver this message not just to the retailers but also to the students and and out into the community in a number of ways and we're going to have to
get creative and innovative in that the funding isn't there but you know we have the resources to be able to be innovative and and creative to deliver that message is important. Um you know I put this I put this item on and I asked Michael to put this on because of the great American smokeout right the third Thursday in November and you know that pass media used to pick that up and that was that was very important. It came and went and no one's no one saw that people have gotten the message but there's new people and that's just this is ongoing all the time and Ray has said
it made it into our newsletter. We have it on our website. Bob does a great job. He's works with the municipalities but there's more work to do and it was just simply I wanted to be able I don't want to take too much of your time. I know you have a capital budget to be talking about, but it's important that you as commissioners and the community understands there's an ongoing effort and and the threat is real and it's important and we're we take that responsibility seriously, right? Yeah. People don't know it's an addiction until it's an addiction. It's a highly addictive and you know, in the beginning it's your kids and well, but all of a sudden it's like I you know,
you have to have it's a craving and um and now it's an expensive craving. I think you should always emphasize uh you know the financial uh hardship it will give you. I mean hopefully that does deter some addiction for new kids coming on it joint right you know and we need to get creative on how we reach them but but to your point the in public health we look at that you
have a cigarette on Friday you have a cigarette on Saturday you're addicted by Monday right that's that's how that works and and we have to make sure that we combat that to be proactive if you can predict it you can prevent We're going to work in that effort now. And yeah, this is why we know that 96% of all tobacco users start by age 21. And so because the brain isn't fully developed, they can't make rational decision decisions. They they think it's cool and and they have that sense of immortality. I can do this now. It'll be fine. The kids always would say, um, well, I'll quit by
I'll quit when I get out of high school or I'll quit when I graduate from college or whatever. And then it doesn't because they said, "Yeah, I mean within two weeks you're addicted once you start using this stuff." And the problem now with the pouches is they do think it just as they did with the vapes. They they think that it's safer. It's natural. It's natural that, you know, it doesn't have all the chemicals that cigarettes or raw tobacco have in it, which is true to some extent, but there we're starting to see some illness now develop out of that. And you know, it takes
a long time, as you're probably aware, for public health data to accumulate and to be uh so that can be used to um in in a way to educate people and to find ways to deter people to from beginning to use this stuff. Um but the the pouches, the kids use it, and everybody who does use it without notice, so you can put it in your mouth. It doesn't cause any salivation. It opens itself up uh easily to overdosing. We we hear a lot of anecdotal reports from um you know school nurses and
administrators and teachers that kids are coming in high on you and they get the nicotine buzz, they can't concentrate, they're nauseous, they're vomiting, you know, and uh tic cardia, those kinds of things. So, uh it's causing problems with kids in school and at home. Uh parents don't know that they're using it because you can't see it. They're these little pouches and they just stick them in the cheek and they don't have to spit in the bottle or whatever. So, um, and and then what happens is a lot of times those smokers are trying to use it to quit, but
now they're becoming more addicted because they smoke on the outside, then they use the pouches where they otherwise can't smoke, and then they're back on the pouches when they leave, right? Uh, I mean, on smoking when they leave. So, it's not very helpful to most when it comes to that. And it's certainly not FDA approved as a smoking sessation tool, right? All right. So, one of the things that we I'd like to share with you uh as a sort of an endgame tactic that we've started
to explore and there are several communities in the greater Boston area that have done this and I just met with the the Yarmouth Board of Health on Monday night and the Arnable Board of Health last Tuesday evening um to consider adopting what's known as the nicotine free generation regulation. So what happens with that is they establish a date that after which nobody can nobody who turns 21 after that date can well everyone who's turned 21 by that date can legally purchase cigarettes
or any tobacco forever. But if you're born after that date you can never buy them in that town. So it's starting to happen. We have again I think there are 13 or 14 towns up in greater Boston and and a couple that are out in the Burks years. Um so they have the this particular community. So B uh Brookline was the first one to do this and so anybody who was born after January 1st 2020 in Brooklyn can never buy cigarettes or any tobacco there. And then same thing for Somerville, Malden,
Belrose, and Conquered, several other places up there. Uh, so we've asked these two towns to consider it because they're two of the larger communities here on the Cape, and they want to work in lock step similar to the way we did back when, uh, we would we were asking people to go smoke free in public workplaces and uh, indoor public places. Um, there'll be industry push back. There'll be industry push back on this. Be interesting to to see how well that works. So, uh, all right. Well, Yama's on on the hot seat there with we'll look forward to seeing you in
there. Always something happen, but y board of health has always sort of been uh a step ahead of Gohead. Yeah, they've been very proactive. So, we'll see. And it's going to take I'm glad you mentioned that. I mean, our board of health has been very aggressive on this. They have. And no, I always give them they deserve a lot of credit. And going back to when uh Bruce Murphy was the agent and then you know Jay was there for a while and now um Barry Lewis uh is is very um enthusiastic to move forward on this. So we'll see. Uh but it is going to be there'll be some
landmines. You know it's going to be difficult politically. Well, it's good for us that that we're aware of it that you're out there doing this so it's not a surprise to us and we can encourage uh participation possible. Yes. And so we're also working at restricting the the amount of um nicotine that's allowed in the pouches because of the fact fact that people are overdosing on this stuff. They're just abusing it. So Bourne just did this and u Tisberry out on the island and some of the other towns around the Cape have already done it. So that's you know these are all
these landmines especially for parents out there that you just another one pops up. You know, you think cigarettes, I get that kind of thing. Get that message. But there's another way of getting just like you say, you know, it's amazing how we we've legalized all sorts of addictions these days. People always smoked, you know, and they always drank. Now they Now, of course, there's all sorts of proliferation of all sorts of other drugs. I mean, gambling, I mean, you know, you can go online and, you know, it all takes money out of people's pockets and then time
when they're really constrained, you know. So I agree. And there's pot shops up and down, you know. So I mean I mean I'm not that's what people want to do, but it it doesn't help society in general. It just raises us. It's makes us stupid. And there will be longitudinal studies looking back on this to to see the impact on that. But you're absolutely right. We're going to do what we can. We have the opportunity. I just want you as commissioners and the community to understand DPH has very narrow funding. We have the opportunity and responsibility. We're gonna do
community education and and and move the margins on on that. Well, we thank you both for everything you're doing and we do look forward to having you back and giving us an update on that and we'll we'll support the word as we go forward as well. Yes. Yeah, you'll be hearing I'm sure about nicotine free generation. Uh it's always a genuine pleasure. Thank you for having us. Well, thank you for being here and for all the work you do overextended as you are and I appreciate that. No, I enjoy it and it's been a source of pride and and I just love doing You have a lot to be proud of
is all the good things that come out of this. So, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. May they be safe and happy and drug free. I'm excited for you to see this next it's this next topic is our lab and you're going to get to meet some of the staff that have made a tremendous impact and continue to. So, let's do it. agenda so I can call it. Okay. So, next on next on the um on our agenda as as stated by
health is the uh Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. No hiding. Come on. Get everybody up here. There's another chair over there. on everybody in Yes. on the whole gang here. Right. Administrative judges. That's correct. One county, one team. That's correct. All right. So, we're going to let you introduce yourself and your team. We're dealing We're here with the um county health lab and all of our progress. Well, hello.
Thanks for having us here. Uh, I'm Dan White, the director of the water quality laboratory, and with me today is our microbiology team, Ryan Lucier, our bacteriologist, Ava Rose, our assistant bacteriologist, and Jenny McMullen, our beach monitoring program coordinator. Uh, and we're going to talk to you a little bit about a new instrument that we just received certification for from the state, from the Department of Environmental Protection. We're the first ones to receive this certification from the state. Um, it's an instrument used for detecting bacteria in
drinking water, total colififor and ecoli. It's called a tecta and it's a fully automated system, state-of-the-art. We purchased this with ARPA, by the way. Um, the the tecta, you set it up, you let it run overnight, and not only does it report its own uh detect and report its own results, but it'll send you an email about those results. And this is really important for us on weekends and on holidays if we have emergency samples because as it is normally now with our other methods,
you have to set up a sample, let it incubate overnight and then read it back the next day, which it's fine for samples Monday through Thursday, but if you get a sample in on Friday, we would have to send it to another lab or we would have to send somebody in on a Saturday to read it back. and we'd actually have to send two people in because we don't like to have a single person working alone in the lab. It's just a safety concern, right? detector instrument will allow us to set it up on Friday or if it's an emergency sample on a Saturday or or a holiday and then the
next day someone just has to check their email and make sure that it's not a a presence for harmful bacteria because if if we do get a presence we have to notify the client within 24 hours. Right. Got it. So, uh, it helps us a lot and sending samples out to other laboratories. We lose control over them. You know, we have to rely on them to contact the client or contact us to contact the client and it's it's just not the best policy. So, uh, this is I don't think you'll find any
dispute over that. I give No. Yeah, we're we're very happy we um and I I got to give the credit to the team. they put together, flagged this new piece of equipment when IDEX uh showed it to us, had a demo come out, they gave us a demonstration of it and uh really did the application process uh and got this through. And like I said, we're the first ones in the state to do it. Um congratulations. Thanks. We also have a um this has applications for the beach monitoring program.
Um, so it's capable of doing the beach samples and getting an enumeration um, which would prevent uh, Jenny from having to come in on a Saturday to read back or emergency samples. You know, when a there's a beach closure, they're very excited to get results back so they could open it again, right? And during the summer, that's that's important. Right now, the the state doesn't recognize this method for beach samples. It's going through the EPA. They have their value
added. Idex is is put out some studies and they're petitioning the EPA to recognize it and then it will go into the federal register and then we can petition the state to uh uh do it. How long that takes, I'm not exactly sure, but it it'd be wonderful to get it in for the summer. We'll see. We'll see. No, that I was thinking of the beaches immediately because um you know sometimes it is a steal or it's just something that you pick up and you have to close that beach and they're like you
know it's really you know I've I've been in that experience. So, I feel for you if you're the one that has to make the call to say you're going to close your beach, uh especially on a Fourth of July weekend, which is when it happened to me from Orleans, uh when I was first commissioner. But, um anyway, yes. Right. You know, you're trumping at the pit to say something. Yeah. One of the one of the best parts of being about being a commissioner of public officials is when you get to see the results of some of the things the decisions that you made, you know, and some of the work that the employees have done. And going around the Cape over the last few years,
the biggest issues that people consistently bring up are housing and water quality. Those are the two issues, right? So when we got the ARPA funds, seems like a long time ago now we got there, you know, we had a chance and I've had a chance and I know my fellow commissioners, we've had a chance to see housing projects go up because we put a lot of money. We also put a lot of money into the lab and the water quality and here's an opportunity for us to see the results of those efforts too. So it does my heart good. It takes a while between, you know, the concept
to conceive of these ideas and and to see them in fruition. But it really it really makes a big difference because the water my understanding is the water quality in Cape is pretty good. But there's a lot of concern out there. You know, it's a lot it's more fear than there is reality. But people think am I, you know, I water it's you drink it every day. You shower in it. you want to make sure it's it's uh it's quality that you're not consuming any bad substances and also it'd be nice the beach is also of course part of our economy. So this is this is a big
step. I mean it's a it's an item on our agenda and you know but you guys have been working on it for years and it really makes a big difference. So we appreciate it. Yeah, I I want to I think that was very well stated. Um we do make these decisions and it is nice to see that they come to fruition. they're doing what we think they are. I've been a big supporter of uh funding the lab and upgrading these systems back when George was here and um back then you didn't really want to know because if there is something in the water what are you going to do about it? Yeah. I mean,
I'm telling you, we had these conversations about PAS and stuff like we don't have the instrumentation to get the Well, we need to get that and it was kind of sitting there for a while, but finally we have a team that knows how to calibrate different uh instruments and so kudos to all of you. I'm very happy to hear um that and it was money well spent. Very much so. How much was the final cost? The cost of the instrument was 26,000. 26,000. Okay. A modest amount of money.
Yeah. Give them give them the real impact that it has. And we usually say instruments last about 10 years. This could be more, could be less. We're not sure. It's new. It's a new piece of equipment. So, I'm I'm interested in hearing from the rest of your team. Looks like they've been obviously very quiet at our meeting. Do you have anything to add? How do you like doing? Are you excited about this appointment? Um, yeah, we are very excited and I think that's a part of why um I'm grateful
to be able to be here to say thank you for, you know, allowing us to put this these funds towards this project because, you know, one of the really neat things is if there is bacteria in the water, it detects it in as soon as two hours. So really, we're maybe Yeah, we're maybe even able to get you a result the same day. Oh. and and being at the forefront and doing these you know taking these innovative steps it just helps I think improve water quality management overall so and this is
what you all went to school for I imagine uh these types of fields so it's nice to be able to practice what you've been we have some real talent up the hill like this crew is great yeah well you've done a good job in selecting your your people So, um, that's excellent. You were going to say I was just going to say it's exciting to bring some like state-of-the-art technology into the micro lab. Our chemistry labs, they have, you know, very expensive, high-end technology,
but the micro lab is still very manual. We have to come in and physically take the samples out and interpret them and use judgment. But now we have this brand new technology, and it really is the latest technology in bacteria detection. um and to yeah to have some I don't know it it's just it's exciting and yeah we're very grateful and Ryan did all the hard work so she I think also just the fact that you're letting us all be here as a team because that is I I think for us how we operate we're very much a team operation so thank you for excellent yeah you're quite welcome
you know as as the my commissioners have said fellow commissioners have said um we all agree on the important of this and and periodically uh we get grief for going to bat to spend money on initiatives like this even though the amount of money isn't huge. We got we got a lot of grief during the whole ARPA processing and we had a lot of criticism about investing uh dollars in county resources. Um but I don't think any one of us would have done anything different by continuing
to make the investments. We're very proud of the work that you did at the lab and we're very uh very happy to go to bat uh for for for you folks and the work that you do. Well, we appreciate that support. We couldn't do our jobs without it. Yeah. Well, we couldn't um we wouldn't be able to sit here and pat ourselves on the back if we didn't have you. So, um so it's a mutual admiration. Thanks for making us look good. Yes. And that really is the truth. I just wanted and I know you probably heard me say this before but I beat this drum but when you get a test from a private well
do you keep track of where that test is in other words and if there's somebody across the street gets a test and somebody down the block gets a test that you eventually develop whether it's a I mean it could be the neighbor put something in the water but it could be a pattern that that particular it's area is is it's something there's a real need for like currently We don't do that because we don't have really someone who's an epidemiologist for instance who can really look at those those trends. We don't have contract. We do now and we're working on getting our old
data out of our old limb system. We changed limb systems. That was a big one a few years back. Um you're saying because we have this capacity that we're able to do more. Yep. and they're putting that I won't want to speak for them but they're they're making that uh information much more accessible and the techa project uh the sorry the tetratech project sampling around the cape you know the the the analysis we've given out pas and VOCC's and routine wells that's going to supply a lot of information as well that is there for interpretation yeah
so there's there's a lot of potential there with this data but we're about twothirds the through the the Tetrate Tech project, 300 samples from around the Cape, different wells throughout the different towns looking at POS uh our routine tests of you know total caulifform and nitrate and those and volatile organic compounds. That's an awful lot of data. That is um really wonderful for someone to dig in there and see what lessons we can learn. Well, this is one of the things that
we've talked about in the past is to be able to not only collect more data, but be able to u analyze and make assessments as to what the data is telling us in terms of the big picture. Yeah, I can recall, you know, in my in my past life in the town manager's office out on the outer tape that um our real knowledge about groundwater contamination issues, much of it came from an individual well sampling exercise. Yeah. Right. So, or a resident smelling something in their in
their bathroom sink or their kitchen sink. Um and so it's critical that we have the ability inhouse to basically connect the dots but you need to have good as any any scientist any lab director will tell you you need to have good clean uh credible data and that's that's where you folks come and it needs to be accessible. Yes. Exactly. Well that's that's where you come at making it. Exactly. But I honestly think that once you do that, you we we because the Cape is developing and changing
and we there's so little we know about the extent of our pollution issues, right? And people often think that we know we have a ton of information about where groundwater contamination might be or plumes might be or threats might be. The reality is we don't know nearly as much as we would like. Yeah. And so that's why this basic these this foundational work at the lab is so critical not just to the county but it's also critical to our our mission of protecting public health. We have
to be the ones on the front lines. We have to be the ones doing the aggressive work. You all need to tell us the things that we need to do to support you so that you can continue to sort of stay at that high standard that that we want to maintain. Um there's nothing more important in terms of the work that we do in Barnstable County or as or in any level of government than protecting the public health of the people that live here. And so you have a great responsibility on your shoulders and that's why it's important for us to give you whatever support that you need.
Absolutely. No, you're you're rolling along here. So you're going to be creating a need. You'll see that we got this much. If we only had this, we could really do something with this. So, you have to let us know when those things. Does the people do do pe does the the general population know that we have this service and that they can they can avail themselves of that if they have we we that will be going out in a press release. There will be in the in our newsletter. We're going to publicize, but we wanted to let you guys know first. I'm gonna tell everybody that. Well,
there will be a newsletter I think of today. But um no, this is very exciting and we thank you all for being so dedicated and loving what you do and being able to do what you do and um and Dan, you're doing a great job. So, thank you. So far, you've you're building great teams over there. Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. Thank you all for everything you do every day. So, all right. We'll see you around. Take care. Happy holidays. Okay, we're ready for our next item and that is a review of our fiscal year 2027 budget
presentation. Capital budget. Capital budget, pardon me. And going solo on the Carol and me and Carol seems pretty hiding back there. Yeah, I know. She see. Come on, Carol. Just for backup, you know, moral support. She's the death side of the business. So, come on. I know. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Could you introduce yourself?
I'm Vera Herik. I'm the assistant county administrator. Thank you. I'm Carol Capola. I'm the finance director and treasurer. Thank you. Okay. Opening words of wisdom. Uh so I think as as the uh commissioners know, the capital budget is designed to come 30 days prior to the the um the operational budget. This is uh your your first look at at our capital plan. It's not uh very ownorous. It's pretty predictable this year. um mostly uh replacement of of building
systems uh perhaps a vehicle here or there um but fairly fairly uh I would say benign but nothing is terribly benign caring for benign and 27. Yeah. And I think Vera will will walk you through it um and walk you through the five-year outlook. Um and I I would uh encourage the the board to pay attention to the five-year outlook. not quite as uh benign and as yeah I know so and it does I will roads ahead I will point out that um this none of the the five-year capital outlook
includes anything to do with um with our you know future plans for for whatever we do whatever the commissioners decide to do uh in terms of of new building you know shifts and and where we put people and and all of that. So, this is we're dealing with what we have now. Um, and and uh moving forward with what we have now. All right, let it go. Good morning. Good morning. Let's go.
Get this working. Thank you. So, um there's a bit of a delay. Apologies there. So, this is the five-year uh uh block of time we're planning for is next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That's fiscal 27 and and then the subsequent four years through fiscal 31. Like last year, we're going to summarize the 5-year proposed capital improvement program. Um introduce the financial implications of that rel uh in terms of debt mostly. And uh then there's seven
departmental requests in fiscal 27 uh to uh that you will have you have an ordinance before you for your consideration. Entire number of projects throughout the uh period is is 32 projects. So in this year uh in this fiscal this five-year period the uh capital improvement program encompasses about 30 $30 and.5 million worth of spending vast majority of it in the facilities department which is not unusual. Um but uh what is what is
remarkable is that there there are two projects which which alone comprise half of that which uh could which are are are we we view as problematic and need of some additional planning. Here's a summary of this and I'll be I'll be zooming in a little bit on this. Uh what this shows is uh the entire cost of the project. So there's the five-year period we're talking about
which is in the yellow, the yellow highlighted. Uh fiscal 27 is circled in red. And so that is only a million dollars of the what's circled in green is the $30.5 million total costs across the five years of the projects. They've also got in their prior uh the total project costs left of the of the red circle and then prior year appropriations. So some projects have been on the books for a while and in fact have prior appropriations um uh but uh have have yet to sort of reach reach
the stage of moving moving forward. Uh also uh importantly with regard to facilities projects, we have the courts which are our tenant and we have a lease with the courts that provides for reimbursement of expenses. And so you'll see in the blue the far two right columns there possibly difficult to read from the screen but it's in your budget books there. I'll just refer you page. You have a capital budget book in front of you and the pages are referenced as well if you need
um the reimbursement amounts for the five-year capital plan fully 20 million of the 30 million over the five years and then reimbursement amounts for for all all told 32 million which which would which would lead one to think well I mean it's you're okay because these large costs are going to be reimbured but the problem is the cash flow management of the cash flow in the interim, right? By the time we get that money back. Yeah. Um and the oper the we'll get there. Um so in
fiscal 27, as I said, there's seven projects, two departments, seven projects. Facilities department uh has u you know almost a million of it. It's relatively small in fiscal 27, but if you look just to the to the right of that red circle in the lower bottom, the total fiscal 28 is where you know some rubber starts hitting the road with a $18 million fully six six million and then across the 5-year period it it we have escalating costs. This is associated with courts related projects.
So in fiscal 27 in the in the ordinance you see relatively simple seven projects about a million bucks. Carol I'm going to pause Carol if there's anything or Michael that you want to add at this point. I don't have anything. Okay. So across the five years 32 projects that's circled in green there. The $30.5 million cost. Again, I've circled the facilities uh department budget portion of that 30 30.2 million say of that total amount. The vast majority of the spending in the facilities
department spending on what? Well, of that 30.5 million, more than 16 million of it, over half of that is on two would be on two projects that are that are necessary renovations at, you know, at at this time. the renovation of the first district courthouse for $3 million and change and the second district courthouse $13 million coming to 16.2 million estimated for expenditures for the period. Now again reimbursements to that is very close to the full amount out of our outlay. The
problem is we have to front that money. We have to spend that money and in order to and and we have no recourse but to borrow the funds basically. I have a question. So we borrow the funds knowing that somewhere in the next five years we may get reimbursed and the funds the loan has interest. Do we pay that interest or does that get reimbursed as well in the final analysis of things? So the the county is completely responsible for the debt which is would principal and interest
but the the trial courts would be reimbursing the that interest. Okay. It's typically a year after the county has made that appropriation. So we're in two different fiscal years and that's part of the challenge. It is. And we're also strapped a bit, you know, because we have this floating debt that we know will get resolved, but right now we're unable to do A, B, or C because of it, right? To pay the debt service. That's the challenge that we the reimbursements are
subject to annual appropriation at the state. They won't promise. They won't promise. That's what I'm saying. It it's between now and whenever they decide to give it to us could be. So the reimbursement rates that we get they're facing challenges. So these are things that they try to put off. Exactly. As long as they can. This gives one a feeling of unease. So the reimbursement rates are are uh very close to the full the the estimated cost because the re uh the uh the courts occupy 97% of the first district courthouse and 100% of the second district courthouse in Orleans.
And so we are reimbursed in proportionate amount to those their their occupancy. Yeah. Now, let me ask you, when we if we were to build another building, we would take a 30-year, we'd bond it for 30 years or whatever. But here, we're borrowing the money in anticipation of getting paid right away. So, how do how does that work? Do we do we go we just say we borrow the money and say we'll pay you back when soon as we get it, or is it the base? No, we don't we don't say right away is is for the smaller scale projects. They have to tell us. Yeah. for the smaller sc
relatively smaller scale projects they've been comfortable saying yes this is $16 million but we borrow the 16 million they charge us interest until we pay it back that's correct okay and they know that you know you borrowing it for 30 years I'm just cur to borrow money for a year or two that amount money for a year or two years from a financial institution seems diff strange to me but right so we we typically look at a 10-year repay payment schedule. Okay. Rather than 30 years,
a new building would be, right? So, and as soon as you have it, you pay it and then but you you're anticipating that payment to be made within those 10 years that of the loan. But the county has a capacity concern, right, on an annual basis, right? Um and so this the right time for the slide. Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. All right. That's what I'm looking for. Okay. Yeah, let's let's do this. So So this we borrow all of that which we are obligated to do in order
to renovate these buildings and that is in that is in contravention to our policy our uh of you know maintaining debt service of 10% or less of our operating budget. I have I said that yeah and so that's where this proposition for the five years without without trying to address with the courts some way around the first and second district courthouse
renovations being our solely our responsibility there there there's some there's some logic uh to trying to discuss this with the courts and perhaps have DAM take over those two projects which would help with the the violation of the 10% curve there that you see. Here's some background on that policy. This is just a slide we have that basically is a citation of that policy. Yeah. The 10% is based on the overall budget. Correct. Yeah.
Questions on the foregoing. I think for the record, it's also important to note that financial policies have been uh positively reviewed and one of the reasons why we got an increase in our bond rating. Right. So, I'm trying to tie these all together because, right, they all relate to each other. Yes. So, you certainly run the risk of a of a degradation in your bond rating if you exceed um you know, principal and debt payments more than 10% of your budget. Yeah, that's that is not a place that that we want to be and we want to proactively address
this. Now, the these big costs we're talking about here, particularly for first and second district courthouse, we have them slated to to start in fiscal 28. So, that's fully 18 months from now. So that's 18 months worth of time to have these uh um conversations, shall we say, with the court system and with DAM perhaps to to have to to figure out a way a way forward.
So just uh uh to to to bring this home here. Uh so in fiscal 27 now we're now now we're back to the easy part of the conversation which is in this this coming fiscal year slightly more than a million dollars worth of requests, seven projects, two departments. One is the dredge and the um here's a some just a summary. The dredge needs to replace a vehicle that's just talk about the dredge for a second. Sure. You know um I looked at the first slide. It shows that we have in terms of the long-term needs for the dreads department, there's not really much on our radar screen.
And I saw was it $60,000? Yeah. Very, very good. In capital requests, yes. Um the he has why why is there nothing else? We know we need to make reinvestments. Well, as I understand it, uh the the dredge has some some major um sort of dry dock hauling out and repairing needs that we have moved from the capital budget planning process onto the operating side. I see. Yeah. And I I I would only add that I think um you know the the department is waiting for sort of direction policy direction
on on how it's going to continue to operate and and what technologies that we'll adopt. Um and so that that proposal is going to come to you fairly soon. Um after that then they'll have more capital requests coming the AR the combination of the ARPA. So the requests are there we we know that we're going to need to spend but that's going to be part of a larger conversation correct going beyond operation that's so on the operational side somewhat you know and the capital will be commensurate with that it's more operational question about how the dredge proceeds the
capital needs will we'll attend that so the seven projects I was just I'm summarizing here uh the two uh for deeds probate the uh replacements, the three for the superior courthouse. Um, one of which the FAC17 there is going to is slated to take place while the uh exterior renovation of the courthouse is going going forward. um various electric you replace a couple of boilers, electrical service upgrades, and then there's the the uh you know request again um now that the
uh the master planning facility assessment and master planning process is completed uh for uh to fully fund a county administration and finance uh office renovations in this building. I'll go through each of these in turn. I see the retaining wall is on 275,000. How bad is that done? Uh Paul is here. John Donnie is here. It's uh um I mean it's in need of updates. Some of the grant blocking is shifting and is concerned with code compliance and complete loss set law
against heavily traveled. Yeah. Exactly. There's a picture of it right there that's exactly about 20 yards away from 30 yards away from us. Yeah. I mean it it's it's not crumbling to the ground but you know it's necess definitely necessary. You don't want falling falling on Yeah. Right. Right. So uh here's the dredge project. Uh they need a truck um after the 20 the one they're replacing is
uh of 2014 vintage. Once the new one is in place hopefully it'll look like this shining example. Um, and the 01 will be surplus, right? Won't be red unless red is the cheapest one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you get white or black? Usually cheapest one. Yeah. You have a list of when you put a vehicle out for surplus, do you offer it to other public facility, you know, other places or you just put it on put on Craigslist or what do you do? Our colleague Paul is our surplus guy.
We would evaluate the worth of the vehicle if it could be used internally, you know, and then from there, yes. Depending on the value of the vehicle, we would put it up for surplus. Yeah. Because when it when I was on the regional transit authority and we we decommissioned a a bus or a small van, we would offer it to council on aging and so on. So there was a list of priorities there. I don't know if they have that similar here, but yeah, in our case when it comes up, we have a discussion with Vera and Michael and Carol and we just uh Okay. typically we look like Paul said,
we look within uh other departmental needs uh to see if you know if there's enough life left in it net of I mean they they use this for heavy mechanical purposes. If there would enough life left in the in the vehicle to be useful in it to or for another departmental need, then we would truck would go there. Uh and and if it's it's really beyond its useful life entirely, then it goes out to auction. An F350 would be a great plow vehicle. I think somebody has to sit there all summer and then use in the winter, it' be fine. But one thing to mention is the
cost benefit to having that vehicle where some of these older vehicles, you know, they get to be 10 years old. The cost you put in to just maintain the vehicle, it wouldn't be worthwhile keeping it. Okay. So that's something that, you know, we've had the conversation with Don many times where, you know, you're putting many thousands into it. It's not worth Oh, I'm not I'm not disputing our right to to to turn it over. I'm just wondering what, you know, that it could be have a useful life in some other Yeah, we definitely do. We we have we look in very sharpeyed fashion at vehicles and and the requests to purchase new vehicles are evaluated fully for what's what's
around in our complex first. Yeah. So on the facil that's the first project. Uh the next six are the facilities projects. There's a replacement of the deeds uh the air handler and uh controls in uh these probate building and electrical service upgrades and deeds probate. These two uh these two uh costs in fiscal 27 are for the design and bid process and then in in in subsequent fiscal years um would be the actual installation. What are we looking at installation wise in terms of uh going
from memory here? I think the uh HVAC air handlers further 275 and these the electrical service upgrades once you're implementing is 1.9 million. So these are roughly 10% lower. Right. So what we're doing is we're sort of edging our way into having to we don't want to do this work and not be prepared to go forward with it. Right. Correct. So yes, which which lays which laying the groundwork for the the bigger conversation about the FY 28. Right. Once we start going down this road, we
really have no choice but to figure out a better game plan on how we finance the FY28 improvements. That's right. Right. Right. So Right. We're getting the good news first. So that's the D the D probate building. I've collected the the pro the projects in terms of like the building conceptually. So de appropriate two projects fiscal 27 and then follow on in in the subsequent years. Um here is superior courthouse the repair the retaining wall that you were just talking about. Um two boilers need replacement. Uh and then again it's an electrical service
upgrade. These are the cost of the replacements or the cost the cost of the for projects three and four. That's the actual cost of the project. And then again in five it's this is the uh design bid cost of a further so deeds deeds probate electrical upgrade and uh superior courthouse electrical upgrade same basic price 1.9 million this the in fiscal 27 falls the design bid costs in your in your budget books there's uh full uh so here's the pages are noted in your
budget books you can really look at there's some design drawings in the with regard regard to the uh the the ancient wall the wall with everybody here. Uh sometimes for me at least it's helpful with everybody here to be able to ask questions. Absolutely. And details here just yeah including the uh the debt associated debt cost we have in there as well. So each of I should mention just for the benefit of people who might be listening. So each of these projects we're talking about has
a full writeup uh and budget request form in our budget book. Uh our budget book is um released today. Uh and so the page numbers that I have in these slides correspond to the page numbers in the budget book where you can look further for further information. And then there's the lastly uh is the the sixth facilities project seventh project in fiscal 27 is the remainderman of the office uh county office suite renovation which is the uh includes the room we're sitting in administrative office spaces and uh the office office uh office space that the
finance department um occupies in last last fiscal year's budget process. The entire renovation uh was was um estimated at uh $200,000. Um we proposed that the entire renovation uh to be to be authorized last year um through the budget process that uh that request was cut down to $50,000 to only to only look at the um the ceiling in the in the finance department.
um and uh pending the outcome of the uh Gendler facilities assessment and master planning process report. So now we have that report and in fact the report does assert that uh the a renovation of the entire space is recommended and so now we're back with the remaining 150,000 of the original 200,000 requests plus the nine 9% escal cost escalation. So it's um so waiting them people are aware of in putting a project off what it does in terms of your costs.
And I think that's something that we may need to sort of hammer home with the folks up on the hill is that every year a delay is very costly, right? To them and to us and again it's not like we have a lot of wiggle room here. Now the total cost of this project will be $29,000. Well, you know, and so here we are back at at a at a appropriation request process um as as we're required. Yeah. So
that is that's the uh that's the presentation of the capital budget at this time. There are FY27 for FY27 and the capital improvement program for the five years. And so there are as we discussed the weighty the weighty issues surrounding leave us with this uh for further discussion at at your actually can you go is there a spreadsheet that show can you go back to the spreadsheet showing what we're spending each year there we go now on the FY 29 FY30 FY31 did you touch on all
those projects. Yeah. No, no. Okay. No. I mean, characterize generally what those are. Well, I mean, the again the the vast majority they're they're all really ma mostly all in the in the uh facilities department, and they're, you know, similar to these, you know, a boiler here, a generator there, a roof there, and so on so forth. But the two the two that we've mentioned of of concern. So, so Don has the responsibility of keeping all of these old buildings which all of
which well be beyond their 50y year 50 years old um up up and running. Um but these are the two Nam that that we're calling out here. The reason why I'm interested in having some discussion about those other projects is because if we can't come up with a game plan on how to finance the 18 million, there's some value in knowing what it h the projects that are immediately on the heels of that how they get impacted. All right. So, what I'm saying is that if we can't figure out a way
to finance the 18 million, right? Let's say plan A is to get DAM and the state to take on those the two main projects. All right. If we can't do that, then it bottles up these other what I would say critical uh capital influence that are needed in 50 year 29 and 30. Yeah. I mean these two getting that these are this all ties together. We can't solve that. It delays our ability to get other things done that are critical which is why we are where we are because uh when the county
had no money capital expenditures just were over there. I mean maybe a truck was needed this and that but as far as building improvement it just didn't come on the radar because we couldn't it wasn't possible. And now it's even I'm not saying it wasn't possible. They there wasn't the the the ability to see through it to get there. However, now it's even the the problems have exacerbated in their own right. And the costs are three times 10 times what they would have been 10 years ago. So
it's we're a prime example of what you're saying. Let me let me just jump back in here. I mean, this whole thing is premised on the our ability to borrow this money and pay for it. Is that it's not in other words, we're going forward with the confidence that we're going to be able to accomplish all this. No, for FY27, I would say. Yeah. For 27, but 28 we're hitting FY to pay for that, but what else can we do? What we're doing is we're walking closer and closer to the cliff.
Commissioner, I know. But the the contingency plans, we have to start off with a plan. The contingency plans as we go forward, if things don't work out, it's a bigger issue that we need to discuss right now. We have to regroup and say, "Okay, yeah, there's nothing else." But one presumes that I mean there's a lot of work went into this. One presumes that we're not doing anything that's not ne not at least necessary. May not be necessary tomorrow, but it's necessary at some point. We're going to have to do it. put it off this year, have to do it next year. So,
I'm just looking at what we have in front of us right now. What's in front of us right now right now is 27, right? We adopt this plan and we're with with all faith, you know, and we and prayer and assuming that we're going to we're going to be able to pay for it as far as the seven I think it's seven years. One, two, three, four, seven years where we may go above the 10% debt limit. I mean, we're going to have to deal with that. What I'm saying, commissioner, is we can't pay for that. We can't we don't have the money. We don't have So, what we're saying is after this year,
what are we going to do? And we have a lot of big hard decisions to make coming up. One option, option A is toh convince the state to take on this nut. Yeah. These two in particular. And that's going to be plan A for us. I yeah I think there's some meetings or something we have to have with people. We've got we got to put together a delegation to put some pressure on the yeah the administration to take these on for us. I think quite frankly we have no choice but to move in
that direction. Right. I agree. That's plan A. We've got to really have an aggressive effort with our legislators and others. Uh the plan B is um I you know at the moment I don't even want to think about it because it's so awful really but it is I mean we're going to have it's going to be blood blood on the floors right cutting to we're going to be we're going to be cutting to bone right and we may have to lay people off because we won't be able to to handle the debt service of that. Can you go back to the go back to where we're looking at there? I mean look at them but Oh yeah. No,
it's Yeah, talk about a huge jump in debt service and then it's not only 2028, but it's 2029. Y uh I mean that's I mean 20 2028 is when we make the commitments and then everything starts popping up on your balance sheet for 29 3031. This gets back to what I've been saying all along is the part of the structural problem of the way in which this county is set up. It's not set up to work. So, um, that's just the reality of it. And that's why we need to look at structural changes. That's why we
need to have a charter review, which we're going to be doing next year. And that's why we have to be aggressive right now in keeping the ship afloat. We have no choice but to work aggressively with our legislators because I mean, we're creatures of state government. Our ability to borrow, our ability to spend, our ability to get access revenues is all based on state law. We've talked before about needing help on the on lease. Leases are under, you know, are not properly structured and uh this relationship with with some of these buildings is not properly structured. So,
I think um while we're not ready to sort of lay out a whole list of solutions to work us through this crisis, we do know one thing and that is is we need immediate help in getting the state to pick up the cost on what Barry just showed us. That's a fairly significant. What was it? 15 million. Yeah. That that to me has got to be our first priority right there. The other thing that we have to do is we have to start thinking about um with our um with our funds or our you know
some of the the the sort of free cash as we as we call it in municipal government. We need to start sequestering that and putting it in our capital stabilization. Um, so we need to really look to our team to identify an amount of money there that we can sequester so that we can again be prepared to deal with that. Um, but I think we're at one of those fork in the road moments where we have some tough decisions to make and we have some tough um it's it's really where we everybody's got to put their big pants on, as they say, and really step up and be incredibly aggressive uh with
u with our legislators and with top officials in the administration. They need DAM needs to step up and work with us. Otherwise, if this is on us, there's just a ton of stuff we're not going to be able to do. And that's where we talk about cutting to the bone. We're talking about losing staff or coming up with what furlows um or early retirement program. We have to be aggressive in that. I know. And it's going to be very these two buildings, this first and second district courthouse, we don't we have no county staff there. We don't even occupy these buildings, right? Understood.
Yeah. No, honestly, I'm in violent agreement with you. Yes. Yes. Understood. We there. We get it. We're there. You don't have to convince us. No, we need to figure out a way to move forward on that. I think the approach that we've just talked about, I think, is the way we Yeah. Thank you. That's it. Uh yes, that that's it. Is that any other questions you might have? There's a I beg your pardon. I'll sleep well today. Yeah. Right. Um there's an ordinance before you to move this forward and and in a worst time um you know we have really the
worst administration in place to help us to you know to think that there's a there's a level above here that we can go to and and beg our funds because they're not there and nobody cares about this stuff where currently who's occupying their doing other things. So, um I think we need do we need we need a further discussion on the ordinance or can we just there's a motion before you uh in your packet to approve this? I move to approve the introduction
of proposed ordinance 2025 to be named later be numbered later fiscal year 2027 capital budget to the to approve the to the assembly delegates and I'll second that. All right. All in favor I I Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lot of work. No, it is. But it's also We have to know the ground. We do. Thanks, Paul. Always good to see you, John. And Don, thank you so much.
Hang in there. We will. Yeah. John, if you ever have anything else you want to say, just come right forward. He looked like he had good luck. He's saying good luck to others. Yeah. Right. Um where are we? Um we're on new business. Is there any new business? I'm going to bring up some new business. It's about correspondence we have. And I just want to bring this up for um acknowledgement. I just want people to understand that we are reading our emails and we've been getting
um emails from different communities with concerns about development and um we're not ignoring it and we just want to to say that I don't think we've been on an agenda for a conversation further than that but maybe we will. Um other than that I um don't have any business. Can I just add something to the unit business? Um I'm glad you raised this because I think um as we go out on the
road and we start visiting and holding meetings at individual towns, I think that one of the things that we're going to pick up is a theme related to development. I agree. I think they're going to be issues that come to us and I think it's incumbent incumbent on us when we're like town like Harwitch even though uh we may not have an item on the agenda. I think at least at the very least when we're out on the road to be in in a listening mode and giving residents and other citizens that are
coming before us ample opportunity to be able to express themselves even on things that we can't deliberate in that meeting because you can't predict what's going to come up, right? But um we need to show an incredible right and we have to make sure people know that we are going to be there. So they can come and talk to us directly and sometimes it's going to be venting and that's fine. Venting is that's fine. Venting part of the job. It's that it's part of the job and it's good for the soul. It's not at the top of the job description. It's usually at the bottom somewhere, but it's very much part of the job. Yes. So, I'm with you. I'm I'm glad that you acknowledge that
we'll be getting some some emails. Um and I'm sure we'll be able to respond to them, maybe talk about them at our next meeting. You know, I think that we have this um you know, when there was the election coming up for governor and they were going on their listening tour, everybody heard of housing, housing, housing. people were saying that not really understanding what was the h what exactly was necessary for each community of what they're talking about and I do think it comes down and so therefore a lot of money has gone into this with a lot of a lot of support from people who are
going to make money off of these things and so we're all into this we want to do good things for people and take care of them and and yet we really do care about the environment and yet building system, you know, structures, uh, legal structures that we can change what's already in place because we know that that protects the environment. So, in a sense, it's almost like a schizophrenic approach of what we're doing. And, um, even though we did put a lot of money into housing, I really trusted
the fact that they were doing the due diligence of protecting. And I'm I'm kind of questioning that myself. So, um I think it is a time to take a look at this. I knew Harri was having issues when I read in the paper one time. Um they're having us restrict water here in the summer and yet they're proposing all these developments. I mean, is there a justification for this? So, right there is a good, you know, that's a good question. Uh what are we doing? So to this place
that is different and unique from the rest of the state. All right. Um that's under new business. Nobody else has anything else. Uh commissioners consent agenda. We have um Ron needs to make the first motion. Ron, you have to make the first motion. Okay. Um and it's as it's listed. in world. I move authorize the commissioner's consent agenda items 8B through 8H. No, wait a minute. I move authorize the commissioners and consent agenda item 8A as listed on the December 3rd,
2025 agenda. And I second. All in favor? I I and I abstain. Okay. Okay. I move to authorize the commission's consent agenda item 8B through 8H as listed on the December 20 December 3rd 2025 agenda. Second. All in favor? I moving along. We're going to get you out of here. Yeah. Before we go too far, I just want to note for the record that um the item 8A involved dredging work
involving the town of Y County. So I abstain from yes participating in that. And then on the other items in here I just want to make note that many of these are project dredging projects involving uh county dredge program mash puro. Uh I also um excited to see us doing some more support for the beekeepers here taking care of our bees in Baronville County. We try we try. So I'm glad that uh we're leveraging county resources to help the bees. Yes. Yes. So, I just want down to our
smallest. I want to be on the record for that. And uh I also want to basically acknowledge that um the the hard work of the uh Americanore. We've got this uh commitment of support from uh the service alliance, a closeout letter for a subgrant, and that's a fairly significant step forward. So, um, all good stuff and, um, let's hope the bees can make it through. Okay. Same.
All right. Commissioner's reports. Do we have any, um, have you been out there, uh, in any trouble or I've been out stirring up trouble? Yes, we This is the This is your chance to check up on me. Yeah. And I can I can report in. Um, the other day I was I think um it's safe to say I was presenting as the president of the Cape Islands Municipal Leaders Association to the uh to the town of Chadam, this select board in Chattam. Uh talking about some of the association's priorities. Um,
and I just wanted to just note that um, they too are concerned as we are about uh, the absence of dredging funding in the governor's budget. And I think that there may be some value. I know Michael's had this conversation with the town administrators, but um, I think there may be some value in encouraging the managers and the towns to actually write letters Yeah. to the governor's office. And Michael, I know you guys have a manager meeting coming up and I just want to
make a pitch to our administrator that on the list of things to talk to them about is we need letters going to the governor's office in support of funding for dredging on Cape Cod. Yeah, I agree. Um, as you know, some of that money comes back to us uh to sustain our dredging program, which in essence goes Yeah. The question the question is I mean if you know the governor's budget is very is a thing is is a request to the legislature. So I mean I would think that our our delegate our you
know county delegates representatives and senators would be one also want well my recommendation is the first crack in the budget process is to make sure that you don't have a problem right that it's in the budget the governor requests it that's at least solves one part of the problem right yes it would be helpful to weigh in with the legislature so that they can keep it in there but I'd love to start off the budget process with ample money in there right uh for dredging we seem to go through this cycle every 10 years where um they take the money out, the money disappears,
and then we scramble and fight and scream for more dredging money and there's an administration maybe one or two administrations down the road. They finally figure out that, hey, listen, this is something that we have to do. Then they put the money in and then another administration or two goes along and then they forget about the importance of it and then the cycle starts all over again. Right? So, let's just get in the habit of urging our governor's office to make sure that when they submit the budget in February that it has dredge money in it. Well, the way to do that
is to is to convince them and it wouldn't take too much convincing that any every dollar that we don't spend on dredging means that the the towns have to spend two or three dollars on getting it done by themselves. So, you're saying there won't be trouble convincing the governor of that? Yeah, I would say I would say that the the the people you know like the the municipal leaders associations other groups are saying if you don't pay this you're going to dump the expense on us and that expense is going to be considerably more or else or else you know the people who own
the yachts are going to run around. We can always write another letter if you want. I think it would be good. Yeah. I think it would be good because um the more they hear that I mean this is an economic development situation as well. I mean this is part of the economy and that's the reason why it got Charlie Baker's administration started putting money in the budget is because the economic development people thought it was an important thing to do. So that's another angle to go in on it and remind her that they did that. Now, we had the economic development people come We had the
economic development officials come through here a couple of months ago to make a tour. Did they Did you get flagged on that at all? No. Yeah. All right. Well, we're gonna We want them We should get them to come and make another tour and we can put dredging on the on on the list of things to do. That's what I would recommend. So, on my list of things, um, dredging, I want to highlight that. I I I I think we're all in agreement that we got to make more noise on dredging, Commissioner Burstrom. Um and obviously there's no other I don't think there's any place on Cape Cod that,
you know, needs dredging more on a regular basis than than Chhatt right between stage. We have been shoveling sand against the tide for generations. You got it. You got it. So, uh I just wanted to report on that. The Caven Islands Municipal Leaders Association is meeting, our next meeting next Friday, the 12th, and we'll be talking with school superintendents about the challenges that they're facing and what's happening with enrollment. What's the latest on that? I know. So,
um, that should be an interesting one. So, I I look forward to seeing you there next Friday. We will be there. And that's my that's my report for today. Uh, any reports, Commissioner? I have nothing. Um, excuse me. I will report that we were invited as a board um a select board to a meeting with Damian Archer who is the CEO of Outer Cape. Now OterCape has facilities in Haritch,
Wellfleet and Orleans. Um for historically it was the only health clinic on the outer Cape located in Wleley and then they built the Province Town site and then for some reason they did build this um Harriidge site which I think um well who am I to say anything but um regardless what he was saying is that you know it was really sort of a a fiscal outlook of what their operations going to
look like in light of federal cuts and um you know uh outer cape and all of Cape since I did a lot of healthc care assistance uh the majority of people are on Medicaid here and you know we are going to be facing a big disaster next uh month when people are either signing off their health care because they can't afford it or going without food because they can't afford that is because they have a
healthc care bill and um you know there there's a lot of talk about this and really it's just about reinstating these reimbursements to a system that doesn't work perfectly anyway and it's unfortunate that members of Congress do not want to get together and actually solve problems. Um and I'm talking about um one party in particular. They're great at uh breaking things up or uh pointing fingers about other things, but they don't know how to come up with a plan and u that's not good.
So that is they're under a lot of duress. Um I think he is you know reaching out for assistance but you know the towns are under the same duress. So you can see a big uh capital campaign happening just to keep these buildings in existence these services. Never mind. Uh, adding more. So, that's one thing I went to. And I did just want to give a shout out to I reported this a little bit before the meeting. I went to a community dinner last night at Walthley. They do this during
the winter so to kind of relieve loneliness and build community once a week. And they have a very special uh designated table for the Americanore kids. and they really celebrated them and make a big deal that they're there and so they are very appreciated on the outer cape and people were telling me all the things they did and I said I people who didn't know who I was. I'm like yeah I know and I'm happy to hear it all. I think America has better poll numbers than any we and and rightfully so. So um anyway they're out there really slugging they having a good job. They're
doing a good job. Yeah, they've already done they've already stepped up and it's early in their run when you run again. Yeah. Yeah. Got to push that Americanore to Americanore and nature nature. Sorry, we can't talk politics. So much to to to explain as far as whether running or not to All of us have the obligation to explain all the great things that Barnesville County does. Exactly. It's tough. you're you're going, you know, people have so much on their mind these days that it they they can't really dig into all the things that local government does, but it's important and I think if
we bring it down to what affects directly affects their lives in a positive sense, we can get we can get the word out that March County is alive and well and hopefully will be throughout the capital budget or not. Right. Right. Exactly. Okay. So now upcoming business any um what do we need to know and nothing out of the nothing uh nothing too much out of the ordinary. I do have one item uh that I'll bring to you uh in two weeks and that is uh a draft opposition letter to a bill that was
filed uh not too long ago um H3971 uh which would uh remove from county purview all the registries that exist in active county um locations and put them under the the or it's a study that would put them under the secretary of state's office. talked to uh Jack me, our register, and uh and he was fully supportive of of a letter of opposition uh to that. So, uh I'll have that in front of you for
review. That would change that that chemistry a lot. Um All right. Uh if that's that, uh any Okay, before we go, yeah, I just want to stick with our meeting our next meeting agenda. Sorry, our next meeting is for December 17th, right? Yes. And I wanted to make sure make sure we're going through the agenda that we can and any items to be highlighted. Um you have uh the annual
report is done. So Sonia will be here to present you the annual report. We're also getting a um a coordinated uh presentation from health department and also cooperative extension on tickborne illnesses. Uh I think as you know there's been a a healthy increase in the number of tickborne illnesses and the severity of tickborne illnesses. Uh so we want to make sure that um our our group gets uh in front of the public gets in front of you to discuss that and uh things that we can do to to prevent uh tickborne illnesses. Um, we still I still don't know when we're going to get uh back
um a report or a recommendation from the dredge subcommittee uh reviewing the the permitting study that was done and making recommendations uh for that. But as I alluded to earlier, we'll get back to you uh with with a recommendation and then based on that recommendation, we can begin filling out more capital. Can we stay on this comic for just a second, Madam Chair? Um, you know, I think this report, um, is incredibly important because it really is going to, I hope,
lay out some ideas about how we, um, create a little bit more stability and security in our overall dredge program. We know the dredge program is incredibly popular. We know it's very important. We know the towns depend on it. Uh, we have a good team, a good group. Um Ken works his tail off as we know, but part of the challenge that we're up against is we're dealing with a permitting structure that is just incredibly uh difficult. Let's leave it at that. And leave gives
us some exposure. And I think one of the things that I've always seen as incredibly important is having a conversation about the county expanding capacity and and we've talked about this before, capacity at the in the dredge department for the purposes of helping steer and create more certainty and deal with any potential glitches or problems the towns may be having in securing permits. We don't we don't apply for the permits. We're sort of dependent on their ability. Some towns are very good on permitting, some towns are not as good. Let's just leave it at that. And um
to me, having someone bird dogging the permitting process on behalf of the county um is ultimately in everyone's uh best interest. So, I'm looking forward to those recommendations. I also believe further down the road and I know it's kind of this is kind of a this is probably not the time to be talking about this but I honestly believe with the increased emphasis on resiliency initiatives um you know around the country uh that the county dredge department plays an important
role in resiliency and I think we're going to have to take yet another look at capacity at the dredge program so that we can evaluate how much we want to be involved in a shoreline protection program, right, where we work with the state, identify some borrow sites offshore uh so that we can find ways to help nourish and build up beaches in certain communities where the rate of erosion is pretty significant. And the community has made the decision that they want to do shoreline protection, right? Because the reality is going to be uh as communities deal with increasing erosion
problems, they're going to want to do something. uh they're not going to be able to build huge seaw walls or reetments and the only options that will be at least given any real serious consideration will be uh dredging and shoreline protections putting sand on the beach. Well, we're in that situation right now. So, but the point I'm getting at is is that we will need to ex to consider even adding more capabil capability to manage that. And um we we're we're already doing
it well with our dredging projects to date. All the dredge material that we pretty much pull out goes on the beaches. We work well with the towns to do that. But what's going to happen is is they're going to be times where we get it we get asked, can you come out and help us, you know, dredge or pull sand from a spot. And the state in the past had one time looked at having borrowing spots and borrowing sites. And so, you know, I've suggested to our the dredge advisory committee and
the CZM people that um this should be a state initiative. The state should put money into it. They should lead it. We should identify potential borrow sites off the Cape where sand can be mined, so to speak. And that's the term they use, mined, and then brought ashore because in many cases, the sand that is mined actually at one time was on the beach. Um and uh I think we may need to be studying that and evaluating that. So that's just down the road, but um we need to make a decision
soon on uh the dredge department's cap capacity and capabilities. I think there's an emergency there. Yep. All right, moving on to administrative reports. Uh just have a couple quick items. Um just uh to let the board know, I have uh I'm meeting with um stakeholders on the composting initiative next week um to sort of formalize and and finalize a relationship there for the next step of uh engineering and permitting. Um also appearing soon uh in front of the Armouth uh
select board uh concerning the the burn building and turning over the burn building. Uh the burn building is almost finished uh thankfully and and I think uh the parties the chief's association is ready to take it over and hold trainings in it. Um we have a little bit of work to do to get live fire into into the building but other than that um it's pretty much done. Uh I think as you know the budget process has started. Um departments are are inputting their requests as we speak. Um
and that's what I have for right now. All right. I have a couple items for the for the county. Um, do we the there was talk about the League of Women Voters doing some kind of Oh, yes. There is a uh Yes, I talked to um Lynn Pluffner um earlier this week. We're uh taping on Friday. Um and uh it's designed to be uh just purelyformational. You know, what does the county
do? how is the county how did the county come about in its current structure and governance? Um and and what what does the county actually do? And I it's not not designed to be a political debate uh just yet. You know, that will certainly come when we when we if and when we have an elected charter commission, but uh but this is just a to provide information about So, it's just going to be you and you. Oh, and me. Okay. and and uh and uh John Omen uh from the assembly and uh Christy
Senator from the commission. I just hope that at this forum there's plenty of time to actually explain what the county does that when I saw the the original material it was like five minutes on what the county does. It takes Beth Albert and I used to do meetings with select boards when I chaired this board and um Beth put together a really good u PowerPoint presentation and it would take 15 minutes just to kind of go through it. The towns loved it. Um in fact Warren for a while
there when when Beth was here she they invited us to come by like every year. Um, so that that I just think that that that PowerPoint presentation was well done and like I said, it took a good 15 20 minutes just to get through what we do. So hopefully this won't be a just a quick gloss over what we do. But I think if we really want to educate people on what the county is up to and what it does is we got to give ample time to that. The five minutes or 10 minutes that I saw on the
program is totally insufficient. I I do think that there'll be plenty of opportunity for us between now and and November of 26. There'll be plenty of opportunity for even if we do it internally to to you know tape uh a presentation. So this is not a public meeting. This is just a interview session that will be put on the airwaves correct at some point down the road by the correct so I I uh is it 11 o'clock I think. Am I right? I can I can check you know we'll check before I leave and coordinate
that. Yeah. The other item Michael is that um when you meet with the min ad min ad ministrators I hope we can talk they talk up the cyber security yes that we can maybe work on a field trip or something. We went to Bridgewater State Michael and I I was invited by the president to meet their to meet with their cyber security team. Right. And uh I dragged Michael along with me because he being in Bridgewater. Yes. He knows everybody there. He gave you entree. So the lot attendants, the janitors, everybody there pretty much know him and uh had nothing but nice things to say
about him by the way. But um we went there, we saw the cyber program and it was so impressive and we were sort of brainstorming a little bit. It would be nice to sort of maybe do a field trip, bring other municipal leaders, other municipal officials. We had a lot of IT people including our own that might benefit from just learning about their capabilities. So um I heard last night from Bob Writtenower uh he he wanted to bring up cyber security at our select board meeting and so I suggested that you know make himself available to get out to Bridgewater and take advantage of
um whatever they want to offer. Um I was amazed that they just they have they have computer software programs where they can monitor our system and our servers uh for cyber threats and they can just do it from remote from where they are and they have people they're staffed in their cyber security operations center tracking threats real wish we had a personal person like that to you know warn us ahead of time well that's we and you know to the to the extent the county does does
um constant training. It does. We do constant training uh for the towns in which uh for which we provide IT services. We do constant training um and and we do have uh some degree of of uh real time uh oversight. So it's um but but what Commissioner Forest is talking about is is a sock essentially a securityurities operations center and and there there a handful in the state. Um the one at BSU uh as as you point out uh monitors real time 247 um and uh it's fascinating. I bet
it is. I bet it is. That would be worth all of us going to visit at some point again. Um, you know, last night we this came up at our meeting and I had recently been my an old email got hacked and I think it was through Facebook or something but um anyway I had to change a lot of things and it was a real pain in the neck and put out on Facebook I've been hacked and don't answer any emails and I must have gotten 25 contacts from people saying I think you've been hacked. However, with all the training we have, I I mean, I do appreciate the um no before um emails we get to to either go through
scenarios or here's the new threat of the week. And you know, one of our board members has this thing saying, "If you get this email, I don't think you should open it because I did and it promised to a different and I'm like that's not the way it was supposed to work." But anyway, um so really pay attention to those everybody in the staff because it they are helpful and it does seem like they do see what's coming up, what's going to be the next um and it makes you look for it and there it is and oh my god someone's trying to get there. So um you know it's the world is
just a constant uh you need to be alert of these things. So okay with that we are on our last item. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I we are jouring at 11:45. Thank you everyone.