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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=6jXTyF4PZw0

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elcome to our July 8th meeting of the Huntsville County 
Commissioners. Um, Commissioner Bergstrom and I are here present uh in person and Commissioner 
Lions will be joining us by remote which means that all of all of our votes will be roll call 
votes. Okay. So uh without any further ado, let me just remind everybody that uh this meeting 
of uh the board of regional commissioners is

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going to be conducted in accordance with the 
laws. Anyone wishing to participate may do so either in person or by accessing the meeting via 
Microsoft Teams [clears throat] or you can view the meeting through our live broadcast 
on our Bonable County YouTube channel uh which can be found on our website at uh 
www.kimcot.gov. Um and any person who is or would like to record this meeting uh 
here in this room uh please let us know

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announce yourselves. Um and uh I want 
to uh what else do we want to say here? I think we've got everybody. We're ready to 
go. So, um, this meeting has been called to order and I'm going to ask folks to join 
us in a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to 
the republic for it stands one nation

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for all. [clears throat] And now I'd like to ask everyone to join us in a 
brief moment of silence to reflect on the bravery and the sacrifices of all those who put their 
lives on the line in service to our country.

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Thanks. Uh, the next item on the agenda is 
public comment. Is there anybody here in person who would like to make a public comment 
or statement for the commissioners? Is there anybody online? We have anybody online seeking 
recognition. Hearing none, we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is general 
business. Um, we got Excuse me. That's right. We have uh guests here from the assembly. 
So, I'm going to acknowledge and introduce uh Susan Warner and uh Deputy Speaker Carl 
Frenzal, the speaker and deputy speaker. Come on,

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join us up at the table and uh feel free to 
share with us any insights, observations, anything, any new from the assembly. So, it's 
good to see you both here. Welcome and uh thanks. Okay. Y good morning. Good morning. 
Beautiful day today. [laughter] Um I know that we've been doing a lot of different 
things at the assembly uh both um internally

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taking a look at our our own governance and 
stuff and trying to make adjustments internally to things that don't seem to really work anymore 
as well as they might have when they first were uh instituted. uh for example um the committee on uh 
governance um was was not really used the way in which we're using it now. We're using it much more 
actively and um that particular committee ended up having seven people and two alternates whereas 
all our other committees have five people and two

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alternates. And after several meetings together, 
we decided that we would like to have that a five meeting twoerson uh along with the others. And 
it it it and always ends up working better in that in that number because we want to part of the 
reason we we have been using the committee so much more is because we want to move things in a in a 
meaningful way and still do the homework we need to do to get there. And um sometimes when the 
committee I mean bringing it to in front of the assembly can be uh uh a a point of not being able 
to get it done because it gets stalled by all the

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different things that people want to bring into 
it. So um uh and we have been using the committees since uh uh in recent years a lot lot more 
than than before and and they've been very very effective. Um and it really I think has engaged 
a lot of them uh a lot differently than perhaps they had been before. Um uh we also recently um 
uh you might have gotten the press release on it. We we we voted to um support the um uh Diane 
Zigglio, uh on her effort to get um transparency

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in the federal and in [clears throat] the state 
government. Um, and that's one of the things that we've uh we've always pushed for and and we really 
feel since the the voters have already asked for it, I kind of find it um yeah, interesting that 
that there has been no movement in that direction and there's so much um push against it. Um and 
a lot of people think, as you all know, a lot of people think that that that uh audits are are bad 
things. That's not always true. I mean, sometimes it's just to to introduce you to to some new uh 
some new ways to do things better and um uh so

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many way um would you like to offer something Carl 
kind of where Oh, sure. So, we have some pending ordinances we haven't finished work on um that may 
or may not get to you. [laughter] Um and uh one of them I think um you might have already heard about 
and perhaps the speaker has talked to you about it when we dealt with uh potentially creating a 
something similar to the aqua fund with respect to um the ability of homeowners to borrow money in 
order to acquire generator equipment. Uh this

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really comes from the last terrible storm we had 
u where a lot of people were left in the cold for quite a while. um that has run into some trouble 
in terms of its legality according to our council. So it's uh back for more study um in committee 
telecommunications committee. Um another um article which or ordinance which is still pending 
is an ordinance on the ICE um activity. Um I know that you have issued an executive order which 
was piggybacking on the state executive order,

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the governor's order and there's another ordinance 
here which uh many members of the assembly feel would be um an improvement by making it official 
part you know something ordinance that's uh a permanent and cannot be changed and it is a little 
broader than some of the executive orders but that's pending uh what happens on Beacon Hill when 
they before they end this month in their session. on um their own protect act uh in what that will 
cover. So um that is still in committee shall we

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say and not pending before the assembly. Um 
and then there's a a new ordinance that has been submitted that will be studied and again in 
committee and that's an ordinance dealing with potential tax searchcharge um home rule petition. 
the Taylor Swift tax that the Taylor Swift tax of Rhode Island uh which I was surprised to read. Um 
but Taylor Swift I'm sure is not a problem for her but it could be for many others in the state. 
Um and um that is just beginning its work in

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committee. And then the last thing I'll point out 
on committees is that we've been very active in the finance committee uh dealing with some of the 
ordinances you've sent to us which we've passed and I think will be on your agenda today. Um some 
of them are housekeeping but some of them are um some change in the way in which the commission 
is going to finance its acquisition of its new property which we would all of them were following 
um in exactly what the board of commissioners had recommended. So I anticipate that signing it won't 
be a problem for you after we you see them we sent

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them back to you approved. Um, and then I think 
we're trying to and we're working very well with uh the administrator and your finance director 
and assistant administrator on getting ahead on looking forward on the projections for the 
operating budget for FY28 to 31 which is projecting cumulative deficits close to I think 
over 10 million but it's a projection um and uh but we want to see if we have some things which 
we can um pass by resolution which might be a

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statement at least from the assembly of where 
we think how we can work our way through this. We know we're have a combined squeeze here. We've 
got significant um potential capital expenses um some of those deferred maintenance um and some 
of those we know as PAS for example liabilities and that has to be finance and that squeezes the 
operating budget to some extent um and also just the continued um increase in expense for personnel 
and a major driver there is health insurance. We

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all know that everybody's dealing with this one 
alone in this problem. Um municipalities are dealing with this. So these are things coming 
at us from external sources that we have to uh manage with our excise tax which is the major 
source of revenue. But we also have been prudent right together the commissioners in the assembly 
we've put aside almost $16 million in in rainy day funds and capital funds. So we have something to 
work with there too. So anyway that's what we've been active doing. Um and uh so far it's worked 
very well working with the administration on that.

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Thank you. Well, let me just say just the reaction 
on the financing. I'm thrilled to hear this this kind of commentary because this is exactly where 
we've been for quite a while. We've been very concerned about this and to see the leadership of 
the assembly sort of talking the same way we're talking I think is incredibly important. We've 
put a lot of pressure on our finance director and our administrator to help us sort of come 
up with a game plan to walk us through this. My hope is is that uh when we do our budget 
message uh you know after Labor Day uh it will

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be what will be reflected in it is um significant 
movement in that direction. So we but we've got things that we've got to work out. Uh we've got 
to deal with our facilities planning. We've got to get the roster nuts on our Pass cleanup 
so that we can fine-tune those numbers. So, we may have some there may be some estimates uh of 
cost uh that we'll have to work from uh in terms of laying out a long-term plan, but I'm I'm very 
pleased to hear uh your comments. Um I'm going to ask Commissioner Bergstrom to uh to chime in. 
Yeah, it you know, we're all on the same page

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looking down the road at the county's finances. 
You know, we've been we've been fortunate so far and there's always a risk in predicting two 
or three years in advance because you never know what's going to happen. Yeah, no one could 
have predicted the the boom in the real estate uh sales the way it the way it has happened. And 
of course we I have lived and Mark has too through a downturn in county finances back you know 15 
16 years ago when we actually had to cut back in the fiscal year and some of the stuff that we 
did. So, and I have a record of of those years

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where actually fell short on revenues. As far as 
the the um activities of the assembly, you know, when you ask the legislature to do something, 
it's usually in the form of a homework petition. You pass an ordinance, it's basically the county 
doing something. So now I'm trying to figure and and I was speaker of the assembly for years and I 
don't know that I have a handle on this, but are we are we looking for a ordinance to create a home 
rule petition or are we looking for the assembly

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itself to send a home improve petition up to the 
legislature? I mean that's that's the question. I mean if he goes up there and does nothing, I don't 
want I don't want the commissioner's complaint for blocking it. So is is are we on firm legal ground 
that the assembly itself has the right to send all the petition to the legislature? Yes. the 
approval of commission before we actually uh uh did the last one which was uh very very even. I 
mean it was very controversial and it was there

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was about 50/50 uh and um we made sure that we 
had it uh looked at by uh legal and and made sure that whatever was not supposed to be in there uh 
wasn't. But it's it's the home petition that that uh went up. So, I would assume that if we decide 
to move the um the tax on on people with second homes who don't live here full-time, um uh not 
the tax because we don't tax, but um if we move

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the question to the to the assembly, I mean to 
the legislature that it would also be in that form. Okay. It's just it just that you know for 
years the county spoke with one voice. you know it wasn't you know going back a ways it wasn't 
the assembly they did something other that's but you know that changed for various reasons a while 
back so now want to make sure the process is clear so that for instance we don't you don't have to 
go through get a home to consent it on your own but I think it's important you know to keep you 
informed about you know what comes in I this this

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last ordinance that came in is a home would end 
up being a home rule petition and I think It's It's labeled that on a um and um uh again, I I I 
don't know. uh since it just came in, we're going to give it to committee first and we're going to 
probably break it up in two different committees uh because it's a big issue and and I I want to 
have the finances looked really carefully and I uh having having been on the finance committee 
myself, I I they do a great job and and uh I want to make sure that that's really looked 
at carefully and working with we usually work with

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who you file these home group petitions with. 
Um it's it's the legisle. It's either Julian or uh um Dylan. Um and then they tell us uh you 
know if if it has if it's going if it's still in the in the in the waiting for a hearing 
mode which is what the other uh particular petition is. And from what I gather it's going 
to be waiting for a while. Well, I mean it's it's also I think maybe I'm wrong because that 
it's not necessary for the legislator that you

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submit the petition to to actually agree with it. 
Simply handing That's right. Right. But that but we don't um our representatives have asked us to 
send it to them first and then they will uh hand walk it over to who and I think it's usually the 
the head of the uh uh probably the head of the uh they they have a process they got it could be 
going technically through the clerk and the reason that they asked us not to do that was to make sure 
that there that they didn't see anything that was

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uh andor that there was stuff in there that if 
they chose they would you know consider in other putting together with other uh people who have 
other counties who have say you don't want to see how laws and sausages are made [laughter] [clears 
throat] comment so just another quick question have you looked at a summer schedule I mean you're 
going to meet on a regular schedule coming up yeah we we we we meet on a regular schedule [cough] so 
um if if we if we have a limited amount of things

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to address. Um we may sometimes, which is rare, 
but we may sometimes uh uh take a break on a week um just so that we don't have everybody coming in 
for you know a 20-minute meeting and then going especially for our uh you know people that are 
further down the Cape. So um uh we we've still been doing what I uh hybrid meetings and uh in 
the summer it traditionally um upper cape is

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pretty much um it doesn't take try to try to 
fight the traffic up or down and that's fine because it it you know it is pretty busy on the 
weekends and or on the week days that we do it. So um so that's good. It works out okay. I think 
you know if if there's something which had to get done and is wouldn't only if the meeting would 
otherwise be short we could do a pure uh meeting by Zoom. We've done that before on any emergency 
ordinance. So if there's something that quickly has to be done um and we otherwise wouldn't meet 
that week because there just isn't enough business

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on the calendar um we could meet remotely and 
do the business. we taking also taking the time to do committee meetings if there's um if we 
don't have an assembly meeting we gives us a little more time to work in committee and right 
now as we mentioned there's a fair amount of work to be done in the committees frankly before 
reporting uh to the assembly um and uh one other thing I'll mention is that we are on this new 
Taylor Swift tax if you want to call it that um is um we are submitting that to council as well 
to have council look at that home room petition

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and get back to us about the legal aspects of 
that. So, just as the other home room petition, I think this one we're doing the same thing there. 
Are you submitting it to county general counsel or your own? Well, no, our assembly council special. 
I got one more one more thing is that my little discussion with some of your members. It seems 
that you might have a turnover coming up in the next election. And I think I don't know when the 
papers are due. Probably in sometime next month, but it would be be in the council. They're due 
now. They're due July 21st, by the way. 28th. It

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would be county's interest to make the word out 
so people, you know, qualified people understand that. I think that um uh there's a certain amount 
of that that's already being done. Okay. Um and um uh some people are are leaving for health. Some 
people are leaving because of their age. They've reached a certain milestone and feel that it's 
appropriate to step back and uh and let other people in, so to speak. And um uh and some people 
we we we're we're not sure uh you know why uh it

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is it is quite a big number right at this point. 
It's either six or seven and um um it's coming close to half. Yeah. So um it's um but there are 
people out trying to you know actively recruit if you will uh for positions that that will that we 
know for sure will be available. There's a couple who say, "Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to uh not 
run this year." But we never know because they do always run. So, um you know, I haven't That's why 
I say six or seven. It's it's But um um and it is

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that the three people that replaced people who 
left before [clears throat] are also electing to leave uh Chadam. Um uh let's see. Is it born as 
born and uh from before we know? Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I mentioned is because unfortunately 
what might happen is if if nobody steps forward, somebody else somebody might jump up who would 
never get elected to anything can say, "Hey, you know, I'll get my name on the ballot and 
I'll get Well, Glenn might try. It's important

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that we get, you know, people who are really 
interested in the job and have time. Yeah, I I understand that. and and and um I mean we 
there are like four people who are actively uh kind of word of mouthing around trying to find 
new people. Um and um but we'll we'll step that up once we have confirmation once the paperwork 
is in and we know for sure who who is actually uh not coming back next year. Commissioner Lions, 
would you like Thank you. I was just if they knew

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what towns those were, but if you're going to wait 
until all the papers are in, I understand. No, no, we there are uh let's see um Orleans is 
stepping off uh because he went into sort of suit retirement and now all the locksmiths are off 
the uh Cape and they have more business than his son can handle. So he's back 100% in the business 
and he just can't do both uh at this point because they also handle the the islands that you know 
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. So he's just

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way too busy and he's done a good job of keeping 
up his end of the bargain but he he said I can't run again. So um let's see that that's one. Um 
no Bourne say it again. Bourne Bourne is Yeah. Bourne. Uh those are the three new ones. That's 
um uh Samson. Yeah, Samson is Yeah. Yeah. Wayne Samson is is stepping down. Um the um uh we've 
heard that the wealthy person may step down, but she's the one I'm not sure she is definitely 
stepping down. Um because she's been on the

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assembly for a very long time. Um so she's one I 
I I would definitely wait on. Others are people who have definitely told us. I'm told that Sally 
Teague is stepping down from Truro as well. Um and I haven't yet spoke to her myself. So uh I 
I might try to convince her otherwise. But but um um let's see who else. How many is that? 
That's four. Well, we don't Chadam. Is Chad have you talking? Oh, right. Chadam. Chadam. Uh 
Michael King is uh stepping down. And um how about

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uh the new one from Nashby? Yeah, the one from 
Mashelby. Mckelby. Who is it? Mckelby Greg. Oh, right. Miguel then is right. Yeah, he's stepping 
down. He is. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, that's kind of it. And, uh, hopefully there aren't any more. 
Very good. Any other business that we need to discuss? Commissioner Lions, you good? No, I'm 
all set. Let me take my hand down. I apologize. Commissioner Bstrom? No, I'm I'm I'm fine. Very 
good. Listen, thank you for coming. Thank you. Pleasure. You're free to stick around uh while we 
uh yeah have some of some other business to attend

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to. Right. You can stay here actually. Be good. 
I'd like to keep free up the seats. Okay. Okay. Uh so our next I don't want you to talk. Our 
next item of business is um an overview of the county charter review process. uh 
the elected uh the elected creating an elected county charter commission. So 
we have with us today Lauren Goldberg, our county council. And uh can we bring can 
we bring Lauren up on the screen? Robin Ian

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has permission. Say that again. She has 
permissions to unmute and show her. There she is. Good morning, Lauren. Good morning, 
everyone. Thank you for having me today. Morning. Great to It's great to see you. Um, 
just before Lauren begins, I'm just going to just um and ask people to allow uh if you have 
any questions about her presentation, hold those questions till the end. Uh we're 
going to be using the recording of this for

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uh educational purposes. So, I'd like to get 
through her presentation and then we'll have plenty of time for questions. Commissioner Okay. 
And obviously Carl and Susan, you're more than happy to weigh in on the questions as well, but 
we know you've heard most of this because I think Lauren gave a similar presentation to you at 
your at your one of your meetings. Lauren, I'm going to turn it over to you. Wonderful. 
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And uh good morning everybody. I am going to share my screen. 
I'm going to try see how it goes. Um,

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okay. Let's see. Oops. That's not what I wanted. Um, all 
right. Let me go here. Hold on. I was in the wrong spot. And let's go here. That's unusual. Yeah, 
this isn't my uh my best uh my best skill set. Um, all right. So, let's try to play from the 
beginning. Can you see what you need to see? Perfect. Wonder. Looks good. Um, okay. So, 
have to tell us where the lighthouse is. Lauren,

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I'm going to let you tell me. Um, today's charter. 
Uh, today I'm going to talk about um kind of an overview of this charter study commission process 
and try to give you some context for that as well. And what I wanted to do was to start with kind of 
an overview of the home rule amendment and what it did in Massachusetts and also about charters and 
charter commissions kind of at the local municipal level and you draw some comparisons to the state 
uh to the county process and then briefly review

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the study commission process. So, um, in 1966, 
the state adopted the home rule amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution. And this was really 
important because it changed the relationship between cities and towns and counties and the 
state. Uh, prior to that time, local governments of any kind couldn't make changes to their form 
of government unless they received permission from the state. and that was active permission 
in the form of approval essentially of a special

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act. Uh or the general court could make kind of 
statutory forms of government available and those were the only real choices. Um, following the 
home rule amendment, cities and towns can elect a charter commission, as can Barcel, uh, to adopt 
or make significant revisions to a charter, or there are kind of easier processes to make smaller 
scale amendments to an already existing charter.

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And this is uh special and important because 
essentially this is what allows each municipality, each existing or currently existing county and 
um regional governments um to kind of adapt and reflect the priorities and values of the residents 
and voters in those communities. And so that is why you know you can't go from Brewster to Chadam 
and expect everything to be the same and why

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uh you know Barnstable has villages and 
a council while the other um towns in uh Barnstable County have uh select boards and 
you know open town meetings or representative meetings. These this the home rule amendment 
is what makes that allowable. Um and sometimes there are similarities. You know, bylaws can 
uh not contradict state law. Um so there are things from municipality to municipality and um 
in the county form of government that are similar,

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but there's also variations and those are unique 
to that municipality or um or county or regional government. Um under state law um in order 
to adopt or amend a municipal charter then um there are basically two branches to follow. One 
is the special act process and that's a petition filed or approved by the legislative body and if 
it's uh a mayor in that municipality then with

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the mayor's approval and it applies only to um to 
that municipality and a special act can make major amendments to the form of government and that 
would include the form of the legislative body uh and the executive cutive branch and um you know 
the uh manager in uh the county it would be an um county administrator or executive um so that's 
one option and then there's another option which

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is a statutory option and um chapter 43b of 
the general laws uh implements the home rule amendment for municipalities and essentially 
what it says is there can be an elected charter commission which can make major amendments to the 
form of government um and only an elected charter commission using the statutory method or minor 
amendments can be made using the statutory method which is a twothirds vote of the legislative 
branch and then approval by the voters. Um the

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statutory method then uh you know is a way 
to make these changes without going to the general court and there are a variety of different 
types of matters that are deemed consistent with the general laws um that can be done using the 
elected charter commission. Why then do towns use um an elected charter commission versus an 
appointed charter committee? And as you know uh the county also has similar um options available 
to it. Um and you know the reasons for cities and

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towns is often that there are content limitations. 
Uh the major amendments can be achieved by an elected charter commission and under state law 
relative to municipalities an elected charter commission can only be initiated by the voters by 
petition. the executive, meaning the select board, the city council or town council, cannot place a 
question on the ballot asking whether an elected charter commission should be um should be pursued. 
So those content limitations mean that sometimes

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um you know a um uh board of selectmen or select 
board or um you know a city council or mayor want to see a charter review or a significant charter 
review but there isn't a ground swell of support for that and so the only way to do it is through 
an appointment process. Um why do uh elected charter commissions or why are they attractive? 
And one of the reasons is that elected charter

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commissions typically reflect a b a broader 
range of viewpoints because the members are chosen directly by the voters. Um when there's an 
appointed committee those appointments are often made to um you know be similar to or to parallel 
the elected charter commission process. maybe five to nine members uh with each member, you know, 
let's just say a five member select board and then um maybe you know two appointments made by 
um by a moderator and maybe two from amongst

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uh the voters who apply. Uh so that is kind of 
a a a typical path but bottom line is elected charter commissions when they're created the 
members are elected directly by the voters um and so reflect you know the voters viewpoints. Um 
voter approval is required when an elected charter commission makes a recommendation or um proposes 
adoption or amendment of a charter. when an an

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appointed charter committee is used, the special 
act approach can be used for those um amendments or has to be used and then those amendments do 
not require approval by the voters although often times there is a provision in the special act 
that will submit uh the proposed amendment to the voters but it's not required. And then the 
final reason that elected charter commissions are sometimes um sought is because there is a 
specified process that has to be followed. Uh two

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public hearings. A preliminary and final report 
must be prepared. The final report is mailed to all the voters and the time frame is dictated by 
an election cycle. So it doesn't go on forever. It has to be resolved in a certain amount of time. 
Uh in Barcel County, uh the charter um the home rule charter does provide similarly for major and 
minor amendments. Um and it requires a special act

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process for major amendments. Um and uh it also 
provides however that the charter can be replaced, revised or amended in accordance with the 
procedures made available under chapter 801 of the acts of 1985. Um chapter 801 of the acts 
of 1985, specifically sections 3 and 14 identify three ways to initiate charter amendment adoption 
or revision. The first is through a resolution of

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the Barnstable County Commissioners and that is in 
fact what we are um what has happened here. That resolution is filed with the Secretary of State 
and um it proposes the election of a charter or or the the creation of an elected charter commission. 
Um an elected charter commission has the duties that you see here. Um it is to uh study the form 
of government, compare it with other forms um and

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determine whether you know the uh government 
of the county could be strengthened, made more clearly responsive or accountable to the people or 
whether its operation could be more economical or efficient under a changed form of government. And 
you know this plain text essentially sets a stage for a global review of the charter and of county 
government. Uh the ballot question of you know whether to elect a charter commission or whether 
to create an elected charter study commission

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uh will appear on the ballot in November that the 
November 3rd election. And that question is a yes or no question. Do the voters want to create an 
elected charter study commission? [snorts] If the answer to that is yes and the majority vote 
throughout the county is yes, then a charter study commission will be elected. The commissioners 
for the charter study commission are elected at that same November election and there will be 15 
charter commissioners elected on that ballot. one

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member by and from the registered voters of each 
town. Uh it is important to note that regardless of whether an individual voter is in favor or 
opposed to the election of a charter commission, every single voter gets to vote for a candidate 
for election. Um, so it's not required that voters, you know, vote yes or no on the question 
in order for them to vote for a candidate.

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Regardless of how they vote on the question, they 
can still vote for a candidate. Um, to summarize chapter 801 and the charter study commission, uh, 
we just said 15 members are elected, one from each town. The nomination papers are available from 
the local town clerks in each town. uh and they have to be filed with the town clerk by July 
28th. Um the process this the local process is for the signatures of of 20 registered voters to 
be certified and the the town clerk in each town

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is the only person that does the certification 
or the only office that does the certification. uh only the names of registered voters from that 
particular city or t um town can be certified. So if you had a nomination paper that had some you 
know residents from Truro and some from Province Town and some from East Ham submitted to the East 
Ham town clerk only the signatures of the Eastam registered voters could be certified. uh just 
to bear in mind. Um so the there's a signature

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requirement for 20 registered voters and just 
a note that the state typically recommends at least two times the number of signatures be um 
collected and submitted for certification because of the standards applicable to certification. Um 
and uh finally those papers will then be returned to the candidate at their request. Um and then 
the candidate will have to file those with the secretary of the commonwealth no later than August 
26th. So just a reminder if anyone's considering

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running that they have to both submit to the local 
town clerk and then to the state and they have to actually be filed with the secretary no later than 
August 25th. They can't be on their way. they have to be in the office by 5:00 p.m. Um, the charter 
study commission has also several ex official members and that is each of the Barnstable County 
Commissioners or their design and the speaker of the assembly of delegates or their design. So the 
there will be a total of the 15 elected and the

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four exopicial members. [snorts] Um there are also 
other participants who are essentially um you know exeicial but without the right to vote. So members 
of the assembly of delegates have the right to participate in the deliberations of the commission 
but not the right to vote and they can endorse or descent from any report of the commission in 
their official advisory role. Um, it does not prohibit members of the assembly from running 
for or being elected to the charter commission,

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but it wouldn't get them, and I think this is 
obvious, but it wouldn't give them two votes. They would have one vote and they would um already 
be able to weigh in. The other person that gets to participate um is the county administrator, 
non- voting advisor who's essentially providing support and information to the commission as the 
administrator deems you know important to to the form of government um and will attend meetings of 
the of the commission as requested. Um, in terms

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of the commission's votes and operations, the 15 
members each cast votes weighted by population and then the uh four non-elected members or their 
designates cast a vote representing the average of the weighted votes of the elected members. Um 
the county provides um space and the town um for hearings and then there's a financial um uh amount 
reserved for the commission if if a commission is created and that's 35,000 and the stat the 
chapter 801 says with or without appropriation.

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Um and then the uh commission can hire staff 
as it account permits. Um in terms of function, the commission is required to hold public hearings 
um sponsor public forums and provide for this is language right from chapter 801 for widespread 
dissemination of of information. It will report its findings and recommendations on or before 
the 18th calendar month following its election in a quote unquote final report filed with the 
county clerk and delivered to all elected county

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municipal officials, the legislative delegation 
and the secretary. Uh it has to be printed and made available at uh at it and at uh no cost to 
the public at large at a number of copies equal to at least 1% of the registered voters as of 40 
days um from the most recent primary or general election. uh the county the charter commission 
has to publish uh the full text of its proposed amendment or charter and a summary um along 
with analysis of its recommendations and then

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the charter revisions are later presented to the 
voters at an election. Um I mentioned earlier that a charter study commission has you know authority 
and a directive to review the charter in a global manner. But I do want to also remind um uh you 
know remind the body that uh the commission would also review matters that would typically 
be considered during a periodic charter review. um and they're listed there, but you know, 
clarifying language, you know, making uh making

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sure things are internally consistent, addressing 
grammar, um looking at state law and, you know, determining whether any updates or revisions 
need to be made based on changes in state law. um you know kind of looking at streamlining 
government functions and um reviewing and and I know I've talked about this at several meetings 
but kind of reviewing the difference between what the words of the charter say and how things are 
being implemented um and you know vice versa as

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well. you know, what's what's kind of happening on 
the ground versus what does it say in the charter and trying to consider whether those two things 
um should be made more consistent. And that is the end of my um presentation and I'm happy 
to answer any questions that the or that may be directed to me. Thank you very much. Uh we're 
going to start with Commissioner Brookstrom and then to Commissioner. Yeah. Uh You answered one of 
my questions. It's a weighted vote just like it is

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in the assembly. So the trio will only have less 
than 1% bars will have 20% in the original vote and the official will have an average. Yes. Yes. 
Thank you. Um it is a weighted vote and that's right in chapter 801. Um, and I'm just trying 
to see if I can give you this the reference. So, if anybody wants to look it up, they can. Um, 
just give me one second. I'll grab that for you.

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Okay. Um, let's see. It's 
too small for my eyes. So, one moment while I uh increase the size. So, um, yeah, it says the 15 elected members shall each 
cast votes weighted by the populations of their respective towns determined from the most federal 
and most recent federal or state census. The four non-elected members shall each cast a vote which 
is the average of the weighted votes of the

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elected members. Now the other question and this 
has come up before is then suppose that the major changes are made in this in the election I guess 
would be 2028 recommended major changes in the in the makeup of the of the commissioners of the 
assembly but it's not certain that voters will go along with that. So you could have people on the 
ballot let's say it was recommended that they have five commissioners instead of three. You'll have 
commissioners. You'll have people running for the for the existing system, but you'll also have 
a new system being introduced. In other words,

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h how can you have candidates running for offices 
that don't know it's going to exist, but they don't know the uh the term of office or any of the 
requirements? I mean, it it's it seems a little complicated. Yeah, Commissioner, that that's a a 
good point. I I believe that the charter change would appear on the ballot in 2028 if that's what 
was recommended and there was a change whether to the assembly or to the size of the county 
commission or anything else and that those changes would be implemented going forward and 
not at the same election. Um I you know it's not

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something I've I've spent a significant amount of 
time looking at commissioner but in my experience at the municipal level those changes would not 
you know be on the ballot at the same time as the question of whether to make them. So I think you 
know if I if I had to predict I would predict that the changes would not occur at the same at the 
same election. And um you know when the commission I if a commission is elected and it's working on 
um a proposed a proposed revision to the charter

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if it was of that kind of nature. My suggestion 
if I you know were to be asked would be that that should be addressed in the transition sections 
of the proposed new charter or the proposed revised charter so that it was very clear um for 
municipalities it will often say you know that that the uh question of or or that the additional 
offices of XYZ shall appear on the ballot at the next regular election and it'll even say how they 
should appear. year either whether they should

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appear you know in the same office i.e. vote for 
three or whether it should be one vote for one one vote for two one vote for three years. So that's 
something that can be addressed specifically in any new proposed revision. So we might be looking 
at we might be looking at 2030 before any any changes which passed the budget in 2028 wouldn't 
be actually implemented and the offices would be changed until 20 the ballot of 2030. Yeah, that 
would be my expectation. Again, I haven't looked

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at it closely, but in my experience, the change 
has to be approved before the option of electing new people or changing the format or anything 
like that could be done. So, changes that didn't require elections um could be addressed in terms 
of when to implement. That could also be addressed right in the document. So if there was going to 
be a change in the budget process and it happened before a change in the you know the number of 
commissioners or the assembly or whatever the

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process to be followed in the interim could be 
addressed right in the the um proposed revision. One more one more quick question. I know that the 
way at least my understanding is the weighted vote in the assembly and other organizations I I 
chair the regional transit authority. We also had a weighted vote for some things is sort of 
mandated in the constitution of Massachusetts so that everybody has the same vote. And I think that 
I mean I would think that the charter commission would need legal counsel not only on that issue 
but any other issues they might address that might

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come into conflict with the with the constit with 
the constitution of Massachusetts. So are they going to have you recommend they have separate 
legal counsel? Is KP law going to advise or how does this work? Um well that's also obviously a 
good question commissioner. Um, in my experience, it is important to have legal counsel um, when a 
new charter is being drafted. There are certainly entities out there that provide charter revision 
services where it is not an attorney who does that. Um, you know, I'm biased in that I do 
think it's better to involve an attorney.

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um not only because they're used to seeing, you 
know, this type of um writing and documentation, but also because they are aware of the issues 
similar to what you just discussed. You know, the one person, one vote concept and and lots 
of other um you know, matters that are that are um implicated by revi revision of a charter. Um 
that being said, uh I do that work frequently. I do it throughout the state, both for our regular 
clients and for special counsel clients. And there

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are other people in Massachusetts that do that as 
well. There's it's not just me. Yeah. Just just to say I I wouldn't want to put you in a conflict 
because obviously KP Law is fire is hired by the commissioners and we'll also be sitting on the on 
the charter commission, you know, if we don't like what you're telling us, you know. But no, I'm just 
saying I want to make sure that the process goes through so that nobody can question the process 
and how it works. Thank you. Yes. Well, I I would say um just to that point, um you you already 
know this about KP, but just for those that don't,

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um you know, we can't change our opinion because 
of who's asking the question, um we review the law and we review the implications of the law. And 
unfortunately for us, sometimes we do have to give clients the the advice that they wish they did 
not have to get. Um but you know this is you know as an attorney our duty is to provide decision 
makers with the information that they need and then they decide whether you know and how what and 
how they wanted to to do with that information. Um

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you know again we do this work both for clients 
and for non-clients and I personally do not feel conflicted um in providing you know the correct um 
advice. I provide the options and the information and the determining body whether that be the 
county commissioners in this case or the you know the charter study commission if one were 
elected a board a committee you know the the the information is provided and what to do with 
it um obviously is the decision of the policy

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makers and certainly we advise as to relative 
risk and to you know the options but ultimately um the information that we provide is going to 
be fair and accurate and appropriate. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah, just to say I never questioned that, 
but sometimes we have had attorneys who you may that made decisions that the commissioners 
agreed with and outside entities would say, well, you just say did that because of 
the commissioner. So, I'm trying to make

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it clear that we're not putting, you know, that 
you're you are an independent entity and you are going to give us and the and the committee the 
the advice that that you believe is sound. So, Thank you. Thank you for for that. Yeah, 
Commissioner Lance, unmute. You're gonna have to unmute yourself, Sean. Thank you. Uh 
what h Good morning, Lauren. Um what happens if um there aren't enough people to that decide 
they don't want to run and there's towns that

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are after the election don't have anyone to 
represent them? Is that the end of the process? um through you, Mr. Chair. Um I don't think that's 
the the end of the process. Um there is language in chapter 801 about vacancies and I'm just trying 
to get to it just to make sure. Um and what that said, just give me one second. It says if a, 
this is in section 7, if a member dies, resigns,

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or ceases to be a registered voter um of the town 
from which the member was elected, such a vacancy shall be filled by the unsuccessful candidate 
who received the greatest number of votes um in the election of that charter commission 
member. If the vacancy cannot be filled in this manner, the selectman of the town shall fill 
the vacancy. And then it specifically says the commission may continue to act notwithstanding 
the existence of any vacancy. Okay, great. And my

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and and I'm sorry, I don't mean to speak over you, 
Commissioner Lines. Yeah, I was just going to say under state law chapter 50 section two, a failure 
to elect is also considered, which is um a tie or you know, nobody um would be considered a vacancy. 
And I uh if I was asked, I would opine that that would be the way to fill it. But I would just like 
to remind uh the county commissioners and um that in an election, the person receiving the highest 
number of votes wins. So even if no one's name

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was printed on the ballot, if there were writins, 
the write in the per the candidate or the person with the highest number of writeins would be 
elected. Um and so you know that's important uh to consider when people are considering whether 
to pull papers because as you know that could be a planned write in campaign where you know people 
say I didn't I didn't submit my papers but I'm very much interested in running. They would notify 
the town clerk and the town in which they ch you

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know which they were going to run their writing 
campaign the town where they're registered. um and the clerk would then know to instruct the 
pole workers to look for that name and record that as writeins. However, this is a state election. 
The ballot is already going to be complicated. It's going to have many state election questions. 
It's going to have this question on whether to elect a charter commission. Um and uh you know 
the thinking about what's best or easiest for

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the voters. Submitting nomination papers if 
there's interest in running is likely the the easiest way for people to pursue this rather than 
waiting until later and saying I'm going to run a writing campaign. And if no writing campaign 
is is sought then anybody whose name is written in has the potential of being elected. And you 
know from the the presentation I just made there was a discussion about how um you know elected 
charter commissions one of the benefits is that

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it represents the viewpoints of the community. And 
if a person wins because, you know, five people wrote them in, that may not in fact be the best 
reflection of the community's viewpoint. So, um, you know, just kind of bearing all those things in 
mind as people consider whether to pull papers and whether to, um, submit them to the town clerks for 
certification. Right. Very good. is be um and so this is all due by the 28th. Am I right? Are you 
looking at that or is that just papers? Okay. So,

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it's going to be very complicated and it really 
is sort of up to county to make sure we get word out to try to educate people on this is that it 
seemed like that was in the beginning of your presentation, the responsibility of informing the 
public and getting this out so people are aware. Yeah, Commissioner Lions, I I think it is 
important knowing that the question is going to appear on the ballot and knowing, you know, as 
we just talked about the the complicated nature of

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this this year's ballot, the more people that 
are aware and, you know, people that hold and return papers, I think that is going to make it 
easier for the voters at large. Um, and you know, that there's real value. There's always real 
value in pulling papers and running in, you know, submitting and having your name printed on the 
ballot as a candidate. As you all know, having your name printed on the ballot is important. 
Um, but especially in the circumstances of this year's election, I think that will be um helpful 
to voters generally, not just to the person who's

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running. I just want to make a comment and um 
give my empathy and sympathy to the town clerks of uh of all towns this year. Number one, I mean, I 
just know from my own town, it's a small town, one clerk. When there's tremendous amount of ballot 
questions on there, there's lots of candidates. Uh and then there's things like this that are 
not out of the norm. That's a lot of work. So, I I'm putting in a plug for anyone who's listening 
uh up at the legislature to give more tools to our

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town clerks. Anyway, um I can't think of another 
question. I think you covered it mostly with uh Ron, and I'm sure Mark will uh have questions 
that maybe I'm not thinking of right now, but I'll chime in while you're still here if I think of 
one. And thank you. Uh, I look forward to having that presentation because it's going to help us 
explain this process and what's going on here. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Um, Lauren, we 
have with us uh, Speaker Warner and Deputy Speaker

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Frezel. I want to give them an opportunity if 
they have questions for council. Okay. Uh, hi. Uh, yeah, I do I do have a question. um if nobody 
fills in a particular town or nobody's running for a particular town, what happens in that case? 
Does do do the selectman from that town then place a candidate in there or uh does it just remain 
empty and instead of 15 there are 14? Um through

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01:01:37.760 --> 01:02:08.160
you Mr. Mr. Chair. Um, so the the way that the 
stat the chapter 801 is written, it talks about um filling vacancies and in my opinion if no one 
appears on the ballot and no one is written in, that would constitute a vacancy. And I would um 
refer to section 7 of chapter 801 where it says, you know, if there's um a candidate who received 
the greatest number of votes who wasn't elected,

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it would be filled by that person. But if not, the 
select board of that town shall fill the vacancy. So that would just be majority vote of those 
present and voting by that by that select board. But as as I was just discussing with Commissioner 
Lions, um under state law, a person is elected who receives the highest number of votes. So if 
you know on the way into the polls, someone was to say, you know what, write me in to uh for um 
charter, you know, the charter study commission,

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and five people heard that comment and five people 
wrote in that person's name, that person would be elected. the likelihood of no one getting elected 
in my opinion based on my experience is small. Um, somebody would be written in and somebody 
would get elected. Um, and as we were just talking about under the circumstances, you know, 
the ballot's going to be complicated. Um, so, you know, having names printed on the ballot is 
likely going to be easier for voters rather than

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having to write people in. But um again I expect 
that someone would get written in and whoever that someone is with the most number of write in votes 
even if that's you know five um that person would be elected. Thank you Carl. Yeah. Thank you Mr. 
Chair. Um so I have two questions. One is front end one is back end. Okay. So the front end 
question is it's an 18month process. So let's assume the voters say yes, we want a chart like 
the charter commission. What is the mandate of

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the date it must start and the date it must end. 
Um that's the front end question along with how does it even get organized? I mean and who runs 
this? Um who gets it started and launched and get off the ground and then who's in charge once it's 
off the ground. Then my backend question is on your slides I saw that after there's an approved 
report it the whole thing goes to the voters of Bonable County. So in that equation I don't see 
the legislature. So just confirm for me that it

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goes to the voters and the legislature is not part 
of this process or if I'm wrong explain why I'm wrong about that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. um 
let's take those uh let's take those separately. So the first um part is that the committee 
uh the commission sorry um is required to uh organize I think it's 15 days after the date 
that the election is certified by the governor's

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council um which is usually like 15 days after 
the date of the election. Um, at that point, the person who received the highest number of 
votes organizes and posts the meeting. Um, let me just double check here. Uh, yeah, no later than 
15 days after the certification. If that person doesn't act to post a meeting, then the Secretary 
of the Commonwealth can designate another member to convene the first meeting. At that meeting, 
the commission will organize by electing a chair,

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a vice chair, a treasurer, and a clerk, and 
they have to file notice with the secretary of that organization. Um, I do want to point out 
that those positions um and the discussion of who should fill them are subject to the open meeting 
law. So, the 15 member board um ultimately has to make that decision at the table. um no more than 
a quorum can discuss that outside of a meeting and there are several attorney general decisions on 
that. So just important to remember if that goes

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forward and certainly I'll be happy to um you 
know remind uh remind the the commissioners if we get closer. Um but uh once that happens then 
the um you know whoever's the the chair would be the one to schedule and run meetings. um with 
whatever assistance they they needed from the administration. Um and uh they would continue to 
do their work. as as I said, they're required to

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um hold hearings and to um just going to 
see um it says um um the county um okay um sorry hold public hearings, sponsor public 
forums and provide for wide dissemination of information and stimulation of public discussion. 
Um essentially, uh at the municipal level, that's at least two public hearings. Um one 
before this initial report is um prepared and

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one before a final report is prepared. Um chapter 
801 doesn't provide for that specifically. It just says hold public hearings. It says that the 
the findings have to be reported to the citizens um on or before the 18th calendar month next 
following um in a final report and the final report and the analysis and recommendations 
have to be published twice um on two successive weeks. Um once that happens then the um if the 
commission now we're switching to section or to

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question two section 13 of chapter 801 says if 
the commission shall have recommended adoption of one of the forms of government they place 
a question on um if which is unlikely if they have proposed a special charter. It shall be the 
duty of the commission to petition the legislature forth with for a special law or laws pursuant 
to the state constitution um and in the manner provided by general enabling legislation to carry 
out the recommendations of the charter commission. Upon enactment of the enabling legislation, the 
special charter shall be submitted to the voters

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of Barnstable County for adoption. Um, so, uh, I 
it will go to the legislature for the legislature to pass a law allowing the county to adopt a 
special act. Um in terms of the timing of that um again it's going to happen at a state or 
the elect the election to um whether to adopt the special act is likely to happen at a state 
election and therefore um you know it would get

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pushed uh to um the next occurring state election 
for which it could qualify. Um certainly the uh county's uh legislative delegation is 
going to be aware that that's happening. Um my kind of thoughts about how to um how 
to minimize the amount of time it takes to get from one process to the next is to um 
you know work collaboratively with the the legislature and house counsel and senate council 
as things go along with its final recommendations

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so that there's some feedback already from 
from the state level about whether and how um you know what's being recommended um 
is consistent with state law making any changes that are needed um and then hopefully 
the legislative process could be expedited. Yes. So Mr. Clar it sounds to me then that 
after the report of the commission working collaboratively as you mentioned with the 
legislature we need a special act of the

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legislature to happen before it can go on the 
ballot for the voters to say yes. So the voters are saying yes after the legislature has acted. 
So that could delay our time in class past the election of November of 30 even depending upon 
how fast the legislature acts. Great. Uh Mr. Chair through you. Um yes. So that agreed. It could take 
longer. Um I think if if the goal is to get it on the ballot um you know at the uh next election 
then the goal would be to work collaboratively

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with the legislature um throughout the process 
and usually house and senate council. Obviously, I can't speak for them and I can't speak for your 
legislative delegation, but in my experience, um, they are willing to work collaboratively and 
to address any legal issues that might impact, uh, it's the the bill's ability to proceed, 
um, you know, uh, in in an expeditious and efficient manner. Um, and I would imagine that 
whoever works with the commission would be um,

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making that contact and trying to ensure that 
uh, that there won't be a delay based on legal issues that would prevent the legislature from 
being able to act quickly. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah, I can say that in 
1988 when we did this before, there was very close collaboration with the 
with the legislative delegation. They were very hands-on, very engaged. Um, having been 
around back then when this was previously done, um, I I can attest to that. Um, Commissioner 
Burst, did you have another question? Yeah,

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just, you know, I'm running the math through my 
head and I'm not getting any results because what you're saying is that there'll be four exopicio 
delegates and they will have a weighted vote, each one, I assume, as the average weighted vote 
of the of the entire population of Cape Cod, which means that the the the committee will 
actually represent a population that's greater than the existing population because you'll have 
15 members who represent the 15 the population of Cape Cod and then you'll have four members numbers 
which will will add an additional 30% on top of

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that. So you understand? So then the question I 
mean it's a little complicated. The question is how does the vote go and who who decides what 
you know? I mean so I mean it's I'm sure we can all figure it out but it's it takes a little 
map to figure out who's who's going to have say in the in the uh final break makeup of the uh 
of the committee. The other question I have is u you know I've been through several uh charter 
reviews in in towns my town of Cadam and normally

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everyone on the charter committee was independent 
of the actual organization. They didn't have any uh selectment on there and they usually 
didn't have any town employees but there's no prohibition against say a department 
head or town employee being being elected. Um Mr. Chair you go ahead please. Um, so 
under the under the conflict of interest law, that that would really be what would prohibit 
someone from serving in two capacities. Um,

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and typically once you uh, you know, you can hold 
an elected position and um, serve in an appointed position, there are sometimes conflict of interest 
law issues. um for current employees, there's various exemptions that um could be available for 
that. Um and I do think, you know, that the state ethics commission is available um certainly um to 
call. And I always say if you're forwardlooking,

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you can always call the state ethics commission 
and ask them for an opinion. Usually, if you're calling about something that's already happened, 
um they'll change you over to the enforcement division because they're an enforcement agency. 
But forward-looking questions, um are typically okay. And then the other thing is that under 
chapter 268A section 1 which is the definition section um when you're looking at the definition 
of um a uh I'm just trying to see of a municipal

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official. Um, you will find that members of a 
charter commission established under the home rule amendment are not considered municipal employees, 
and I'm putting it in quotes, for purposes of the conflict of interest law, meaning that a person 
could serve as an employee of a town and serve on an elected charter commission. Um, it doesn't 
specifically say that for county for counties. Um

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but that is something we certainly could examine 
before um the election. In any event, however, it would not prevent a person who works for a 
municipality or for the county from running for the office. Um so there's time, as I said, to kind 
of sort that out. Also, I just want to note that just because nomination papers are submitted to 
the clerk for certification doesn't mean that it's automatic that they get forwarded to the secretary 
of state for filing. That's a choice and anybody

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because the conflict belongs to the individual. 
any municipal or county employee who has concerns about that um you know can can work between now 
and the sep the um the August filing deadline to try and sort that out um andor even if they 
didn't sort it out in that time they could still sort it out before they were sworn into office 
if they had concerns. So that's something to follow up on. But again um I you know for for the 
state I mean for the municipal employees they can

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serve in an elected charter commission without 
any conflict. So that would be something again that if for if it's a county employee we would 
want to um you know to to double check. But um I don't you know I I don't imagine that it's going 
to be a conflict to serve on an elected charter commission. Okay. Well, we're gonna we're going 
to end this this subject uh right here at this point. Uh Lauren, you've been incredibly helpful 
and informative. Uh we appreciate all your time, all your insight. Um and uh I I would also like to 
uh uh compliment you on your grasp of this. You've

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obviously worked on a lot of charters and uh we 
we appreciate you bringing this level of expertise to this whole topic. So, thank you and Oh, thank 
you. And I wish you guys all the best. I know this is an exciting time and um you know we'll we'll 
see uh we'll see where things are after after the end of July and and August when we know it's been 
filed, but happy to to um you know to come back as needed and answer any further questions, Mr. Chair 
and members of the commission. That's great. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you commissioners. 
Byebye. Okay, we're going to move on to our

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our next item on our agenda and I'm going to ask 
the staff to bring up another chair to the table. Um because I'm going to invite Andrew Flat 
uh Ronique Goldstein and Andrew Palachi from Eversource to come to the table. We're going 
to talk about um emergency response, emergency management. We're going to talk about uh the July 
heatwave and we're going to talk a little bit about Blizzard Hernando and some sort of look back 
uh on on that situation. But I want to welcome Ron

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and Andrew to to our meetings. Thank you very much 
for coming to join us on such short notice. Um and uh I think you folks have been incredibly busy 
in terms of interacting with the community and I appreciate you carving out time to join us today. 
And Andrew obviously Andrew is our emergency management zar and u we we appreciate everything 
that he's doing as well. Um, I'm going to ask Michael Dutton, our county administrator, to kind 
of help us lead this discussion. I do think that,

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uh, in the interest of time, we want to talk about 
the heatwave first and then look at the, uh, the look back on the other situation. But I just want 
to just go on the record and thank Ever Source uh for all of the all of the incredible attention, 
energy, and effort uh that you have made uh here on Cape Cod in dealing with our emergencies, 
particularly the winter blizzard. Um you know, we were we we ran shelters. We were very busy. 
Uh Andrew was in our operations center helping

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uh run things and uh we could see firsthand a 
tremendous amount of work and effort by Eversource and uh I just want to on behalf of everybody 
here in Barnstable County, thank you for the for the tremendous effort. Uh Cape Cod uh was 
very well taken care of by Eversource during the storm and we appreciate it. So um thank you. Uh 
um [laughter] I'd like to if for a moment Roique Roique Goldstein uh manager of community relations 
uh with Eversource I I see a lot of familiar faces in the room. Um as you know I've been I'm in my 
ninth year with the utility. Uh been on a lot

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of uh storm events and and emergencies including 
tornadoes on the Cape. Um and I'd like to thank uh the board of commissioners for having us uh here 
today. And I do want to give some credit to your uh your county employees, many of whom are in 
the room uh who may be online, whom uh we have a longstanding relationship with. Uh it's a great 
partnership uh with the multi- agency coordination center, i.e. the MAC. Um, and so we really really 
appreciate uh that that partnership throughout,

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01:19:58.400 --> 01:20:30.480
especially uh her uh Blizzard Hernando uh which 
was uh you know many folks at the utility are saying it's it's the worst storm that they've seen 
in in decades uh on the Cape and in the we had the entire south and and the Cape uh but specific to 
the Cape there was a significant amount of damage and really significant amount of uh just really 
really difficult conditions. uh both ice and the amount of snow. So, and as well as the wind, not 
to mention the wind. Not to forget the wind. Yeah.

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01:20:30.480 --> 01:21:06.240
Well, I appreciate your comments. That's one of 
the reasons why we want to talk about this recent heat wave that we've now um come out of. Thank 
God. Yes. Um you know, we we saw significant power outages around the Cape and in some communities 
the power would come on, go off, go on, go off. uh we wanted to give you an opportunity to help 
explain to us essentially uh what was happening uh what's going on and what the challenges are 
that might lie ahead. There's some people that are concerned that is this something that we're likely 
to continue to experience and and if we when the

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heat wave comes back later on this summer. I 
think those are some of the questions that that uh that we've been getting as commissioners and 
here into the office. So, uh, we thought if now would be a good time to give you a chance to 
talk to us a little bit about what happened. Sure. The heatwave, what's going on, and what kind 
of problems or issues do we need to work together on to see what we can be of some help to you. 
I know sometimes with the utilities, we end up putting limitations. the communities themselves. I 
hear this a lot in the lower cape because yeah, um when I was a municipal official on the lower cape, 
we hated we hated it when cell towers would kept

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popping up and so we we're putting restrictions 
on cell tower operators and then we complain about not having decent cell service. So sometimes we 
can be we we we can shoot ourselves in the foot on some things and I'm sure sometimes we find ways 
to make your lives complicated too. Um, so I'm I'm interested in hearing any and all angles and 
perspectives on this, but I don't know if Michael or Andrew, you wanted to tee things up first. You 
want to say a few words and then let Andrew and and Monique Sure. Um uh just just as in terms 
of a introduction, I think we were originally

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intending today to be uh sort of a introduction 
uh for Andrew uh to the commissioners and also uh sort of a little bit of a a uh pre-introduction 
to the emergency management department that's on your agenda a little bit later. Um obviously 
the heatwave took uh took a little bit of uh u attention away from that. So, we thought it 
would be good to have our Eversource folks in to have a discussion about, you know, what what 
really happened and and if there's anything that

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we can do at the county level to encourage uh 
towns to adjust some policies that might make uh outages less common. So, um so that was really 
it and uh we'll get to Andrew and and he can uh talk a little bit about the afteraction for uh the 
blizzard, but um but I you teed it up fairly well. Let's go right to the heatwave and I know you want 
to make Yeah. So, I'll jump in. I I would like to introduce Andrew. Another There's too many Andrews 
in the room, right? Not too too just enough. Just enough. So, Andrew Palace is uh new to Eversource. 
He's in his fourth week. Is it third or fourth

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01:23:18.560 --> 01:23:51.920
week, Andrew? So, I'll take the lead on the 
discussion, but he's here for the opportunity to engage with all of you and and here um and 
continue to to to be on boarded with the utility. Um so I'll sort of pivot if I can just level set 
with respect to the heat wave. It's an emergency uh like any other it's a little bit different. 
So Eversource as a utility has an a dedicated emergency preparedness department that is 
planning year round for all types of emergencies.

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Uh in fact they were planning uh months and 
months in advance for the World Cup because of access issues both in the city of Boston and 
in our gas territories for emergencies. So you know it's not just weather. They they prepare for 
everything and look at the full scope of staging and housing you know lodging and lay down areas 
for material uh depending on the severity of the um of the event uh the heat wave. And so we do 
that as a matter of practice and we stand up an an incident command structure similar to your 
police and fire. We work very very closely with

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01:24:25.120 --> 01:24:58.960
all of the public safety officials on the Cape. 
We have a great relationship with with all of the towns. Uh a heat wave is a little bit different 
because we can see it coming. We're monitoring the weather as a matter of regular business 24/7. 
We in fact we have a meteorologist that serves the utility in all three states and they look at the 
weather and there's a model a couple of modeling systems that they look at in terms of not just 
weather but based on the predictions where there going to be trouble areas right trouble spots 
um they put this into a model it spits out some numbers and it gets adjusted based on uh and it 
looks at system conditions the same with a heat

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01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:33.120
wave the difference with a heat wave is that we're 
really focused on meeting demand ensuring that the utility can keep Everybody's running their ACs. 
We also have to look so so we started calls on Wednesday I would say for this particular heat 
wave uh Wednesday morning early afternoon and they go through all branches of the operating system 
including supply right so we supply is is is owned if you want to call it it's not really owned but 
it's uh overseen by ISO New England independent

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01:25:33.120 --> 01:26:07.040
system operator um we didn't go into a level where 
supply we came close but they for monitoring. Um there's a level called OP4 where you start to 
get a little concerned that the entirety of New England would have to go into rolling blockouts 
because of lack of supply. We did not go into that. Uh that was reported out at the beginning 
of every call. We also look at demand response. So people can uh subscribe to a program called 
connected solutions. Um it's through the mass save. Um, Eversource and all of the administrators 
of of energy efficiency run that help to run that

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01:26:07.040 --> 01:26:40.000
program and people can uh are incentivized to 
reduce load. Uh, they do a outbound call. They called every single program available in this last 
heat wave because we could see it was going to be, you know, close to 100 degrees for 3 to four 
days straight. Um, you get head room from that. You know, you get, I want to say a thousand 
megawatts, right? Um just one of the things that were called out and this is reported out on 
every call you go to then to transmission. How's the TR transmission system holding up substations 
and then the distribution systems um you know how

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01:26:40.000 --> 01:27:10.080
are transmission uh uh substation forgive me 
substation uh transformers operating. They look at anything that's operating at over 80%. What 
can we do in the way of switching or offloading they call it right? switching the the from 
circuit to circuit to supply. Uh so big picture, I will say that the system held up. Um it didn't 
hold up without issues, but it held up pretty well all things considered. We rolled into an ERP level 
five uh starting at noon on Wednesday. What that

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01:27:10.080 --> 01:27:46.720
means is we anticipate less than 14,000 customers 
across the state, which it was, and 1 to two days of restoration. So 24 to 36 hours at max, which 
most outages were. So it was inaccurate. We would have elevated had it been more severe. Um but 
I think what you saw especially to give bring it from the big picture to hyper local. Uh what 
I heard from from operations and and Andrew and I were fielding calls throughout the weekend is 
that um there were a lot of single outages which makes it harder to you know if you can pick up 
300 or 200 or even 50 at once with a resource

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01:27:46.720 --> 01:28:23.280
or two resources versus going to a 100 different 
calls, right? were a lot of single um what and and there were a and there were a fair amount 
and I I don't have the number before me but I know looking on Sunday there were a couple dozen 
uh pull top transformers that were just you know uh on the fourth day of almost 100 weather they're 
starting to heat up. Yeah. Um, so you did see some equipment failure. Um, and they continued to 
see uh into, you know, running into, you know, with the rain yesterday. Um, our counterparts in 
Connecticut had a significant um windstorm that

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pulled some resources at the end of the weekend. I 
don't know if folks are aware, but there was about 100,000 customers out in in Connecticut. So, we we 
provide mutual aid. We requested folks stay back and they did to close out folks that had been out 
on the Cape and they did that and closed everybody out. I would say by uh sometime on Sunday, anyone 
that had any remaining outages. Um so that's a big picture. Hopefully I covered everything. Um I 
don't know if there's anything I missed. Keep me honest here, Andrew. Um and I I'd love to take 
questions. The experience that I've been I've

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01:28:57.120 --> 01:29:29.680
heard is that in some communities literally every 
hour every sometimes even frequency levels that were shorter. Um, power would come on, it would 
go off. Power would then would come back on 15, 20 minutes later go off. And I'm assuming is 
that a transformer? What's what what's what's causing that? Yeah. I couldn't say specifically. 
It depends. So if we're talking about flickering lights, yes. Right. That's flickering, but also 
it's out and then literally within seconds it

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01:29:29.680 --> 01:30:04.720
comes back. So that's actually the system is 
working as that is true. That's auto. There's a lot of switching. We've done a tremendous amount 
of installation of automated switches on the Cape. So, the flickering lights, folks don't usually 
know, but that means the system's working. It's an automated recloser or a switch that kind you can 
see them on the poles. They try to self-regulate, right? They open to shake the the branch, the 
squirrel, the whatever might be, you know, in reality on there. And by the third time, if 
it's flat, it means this troubleshooter needs to go out there, there are first responders, and 
manually make the fix. But that that flickering

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01:30:04.720 --> 01:30:36.800
is is actually the system working as it should. 
It's a nuisance, but it's the system working as it should. In terms of intermittent, it could be 
that we were doing some switching. Um, you know, our goal is is anything under five minutes is 
considered a uh a momentary call it. I don't know if that's the right terminology, but I've heard 
it said multiple times. So, it's it's a very quick restoration under five minutes. And you're saying 
it sometimes less than that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there was our dispatch was uh people were working 
all throughout the weekend. Our engineers are

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01:30:36.800 --> 01:31:07.200
still working to mitigate some of the uh issues 
that were caused and and create and do the fixes days later into the end of this week. Sure. 
I understand you interact regularly with ISO New England making sure that from the supply side 
there's ample supply and then based on that they may have we may have these individual issues where 
it's equipment or some surge in demand and the system itself is structured in a way to respond 
to that in some way. Uh and like you said in the

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01:31:07.200 --> 01:31:39.040
instances that I've the cases that I've presented 
um that's an indication that the system itself is trying to correct in some way. Forgive me. To be 
clear, yeah, the utility plans for the hottest day of the year. That's what the util for the peak 
demand. That's what we build our infrastructure to plan to be able to withstand. Now, I don't have 
the numbers just yet, but I saw anecdotally that we came really close to the all-time peak on 
the 4th of July. Um, I don't know if it's the I didn't it's something that I brushed I skimmed 
over really quickly in an email. I don't know

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if it's the all-time peak overall or the hottest 
fourth of you know the all-time peak for Fourth of July ever on the Cape. Uh but I know the South 
was um very very busy and and you all you know you live it. There were a lot of people here. 
So [laughter] yeah. Yeah. Commissioner Burton, you have any questions? Then I'm going to go to 
commission. The question I have is is you know the there's there's a lot of talk about the 
the the effects on the Cape's infrastructure, the roads and you know the water supply and stuff 
and of course also the electricity. Do you have an

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01:32:13.840 --> 01:32:47.360
a a analysis of the the increase in demand if you 
average the demand out? Now you're saying this is the demand. This is the peak demand today. peak 
demand in 2030 will probably be x number of more you know and and you built that because obviously 
there's bigger population people are building houses that you know McMansion takes a lot more 
air conditioning than you know small house so do you have does does source have an idea what 
the demand is going to be so that you can meet

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emergencies like this not just now but maybe five 
years from now. Yes we do. So we have a system planning department both on the transmission, 
the high voltage and the distribution. They do a 10-year outlook that is redone every year. So 
every year it's recalculated because they have to take into account. So it's not just for the peak 
demand that we plan, but we also have to serve everybody every other day of the year, right? So 
if there's a big development coming, if there's a mall, if there's a a large user and even the small 
users, we have to calculate all that in. But the

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reason we do it every year is because that could 
change. a developer could decide not to build that development or you know things things change. We 
have an electric sector modernization plan that we filed with the state along with the other utility 
electric utilities in the state uh with that tenure outlook. So there's new substations that'll 
be needed to meet demand and you're so you're you're pretty much keeping up with that. Yes. 
Yes. Commissioner that's our job system planning. Commissioner Alliance is out in Wellfleet, which 
is always a challenging environment. But we well,

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I can only speak personally, but all went well in 
the last heatwave, and I thank you for that. Um, yes, the I the uh use of generators. So, 
those click on when someone's power goes off, correct? I mean, they're that's how they're 
triggered. It's not someone can't use a generator manually like I there's a heat wave coming. I'm 
going to switch my house to my generator. That's not possible. Correct. So, you can you can go on 
generator even if you have street power. It all

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01:34:23.920 --> 01:34:59.520
depends on how it's set up in the home. We don't 
you know we don't regulate how those how those are installed. We actually don't even know I wish 
we did but we don't know who has generation in their home and who doesn't. they're not required 
to report that out and how they've installed it in their home. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking 
um as as um things change here and you know, some of us would say not for the better with 
more more development. However, I somehow I see a relationship there um that could be helpful 
to everyone. But that's another conversation.

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01:34:59.520 --> 01:35:31.120
But I'm just throwing that out there because it's 
um some people could take the load off if if that was uh deemed to be so you know it would take work 
and legislation and all that I'm sure but um and then reporting who has generators and not but I 
think that's information that would be good to have for for everyone. Yeah, there are ways Yeah. 
Yeah. Go ahead. I don't know if um if the example

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01:35:31.120 --> 01:36:04.080
of a generator is is the direction but there are 
there are a lot of uh there's a lot of industry development and and if we can get the regulation 
in the state in the right direction there's ways for I'm going to call it people to share in the 
ecosystem is my best description. Um so we we're we're involved in something called DERMS. It's 
distributed energy resources management system. So with new smart metering that's also going to 
open up a lot of pathways that'll be installed in the next year or so. Everybody's going to get 
a new meter and it's going to be a smart meter

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01:36:04.080 --> 01:36:37.040
that reads people will have much more insight into 
how much they're using and they can reduce they'll have more control both from a bill perspective 
right to reduce their usage and if they opt to go into this say connected solutions then it gives 
us sometimes it gives the utility the opportunity to turn down the automatically it turns down the 
thermostat they get incentivized. So there's I guess my point is there ways to incentivize and 
work um through sharing the ecosystem. I'll just call it that. That's my my best description and 
and having enough for all. Right. I think it makes

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01:36:37.040 --> 01:37:09.520
Yeah. Can I just follow up on that, Commissioner 
Lance? Um, so what you're suggesting is the scenario that you envision developing over time is 
that let's say in my neighborhood, my community, there are several there may be some businesses 
that have uh battery power, let's say battery storage, uh other residences that have storage. 
The system is evolving to the point where in an area there may be opportunities for sharing that 
energy from other power sources. Is that what you

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01:37:09.520 --> 01:37:40.960
Yes. Yes. So if someone had a Tesla battery and 
they wanted to discharge it into the you know once this is it's going to take some time and and some 
additional from a regulatory perspect everything we do is right we have to ask permission for so 
literally so it's it's it is a vision you know um no that's encouraging because I think what it 
does it also encourages solar development. I mean, I happen to be a supporter of solar energy 
development because it's so distributed. It's so decentralized and it's easy to access, 
particularly if you have a battery that's

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connected to your system. Um, I want to also 
just acknowledge we have the the speaker and the deputy speaker of the assembly here. Uh, 
I know they have uh probably been getting questions from constituents on this topic and I 
want to invite them if they have any questions. Carl or Susan, if you have any questions for 
our friends here at Eversource, don't be shy. All right. So, [laughter] but um no, I think I I I 
think this is a very interesting de development. I

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I would be interested in appropriate time to have 
more conversations about this. Now, as you know, at the county level, one of the things that we did 
during this heat wave is we were engaged with our municipalities and and other partners, uh, because 
we're concerned about making sure that we had cooling stations and places for people to go to 
get some to to to cool off and deal with us. And I want to give Andrew an opportunity just to update 
us a little bit on how that went and whether or not doing that. Can I just ask one one question 
just a global question but in your opinion at

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01:38:46.800 --> 01:39:18.800
Eversource is it more generators owned by private 
homes better that help us in crises of cold or hot um when the say the system is down the overall 
system is down is it better to have that as a backup plan so generally speaking I can't speak 
for the entire utility on that. I will say that it um you know there's I'm you know it certainly 
helps to to alleviate the stress when power is

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01:39:18.800 --> 01:39:50.400
out to have that as a backup. But I think again 
our goal is to is to provide safe reliable power at all times and to ensure that it's um you 
know at the most affordable price to the extent possible. I should say that and I know that that 
that's a hot topic as well, pun intended with the word hot but um or maybe pun intended. Um, so I 
don't know the answer to that. I think we live, you know, we live in New England. We live in 
an area that can be very unpredictable. I mean, who would have thought that that you'd have to 
four tornadoes or three confirmed, fourth possible

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01:39:50.400 --> 01:40:21.440
on the Cape. I mean, that was to me I I don't know 
that anybody would have ever imagined that. So, I think um it certainly can't hurt, but I don't 
know that the the utility really doesn't take a position on that. Um, yeah, I will say in terms 
of what the the county can do to help or the commissioners in general is that we, you know, 
we're in the business of building infrastructure and it's not always um I guess beauty is in the 
eye of the beholder and not everybody thinks our infrastructure is beautiful. So, just to to 
work with us to to figure out how to build this

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01:40:21.440 --> 01:40:54.240
infrastructure because it's needed. It's not, 
you know, I don't think I don't see us I don't see electricity going down. Um, especially if 
people electrify adopt heat pumps, which they have now as a heat pump rate. So, we just need to 
work together and figure out um you know, well, we build it together. We're very interested in 
working closely with you and being helpful and addressing whatever needs or issues that you have 
long term. I'm particularly interested in the the the your vision and particularly this whole 
aspect of distributed energy and the ability

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to move energy from non-traditional sources of 
power, let's say. I think that's fascinating. I think it's potentially revolutionary and I think 
getting a sense of your vision, your thinking on that I think uh at the appropriate time and you 
know I I would encourage you to stay in touch with Andrew and Michael. Sure. And uh I think 
we definitely want to have an idea of what that vision is and how this is going to unfold. 
And again, we're county government can can be helpful. Um but Andrew, I know you were about 
ready to say something. Oh, Commissioner Lines,

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go ahead. I just wanted to say one thing before 
Renita is off uh off the stage there that I did to a lot of the um you know, I chimed in on 
those emergency calls and I just want to say that I thought her information and participation 
was really valuable and I wanted to thank her for that. Thank you. Thanks, Commissioner Andrew. 
All right. Uh so as far as the the heat wave um that we saw um as far as county actions and 
emergency management um you know we we saw this

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coming you know pretty far out. So we we had 
already uh been engaging with the towns for the Fourth of July holiday which of course is that 
added risk factor. We had a lot more people on Cape a lot of events people going to be outside. 
Um we had already deployed uh quite a number of pieces of equipment to the towns for that effort. 
We do a lot of uh planned event support. So, um, lighting towers, our sign boards all went out. Um, 
our mobile wireless camera trailer was out in the town. Um, we also deployed our AM radio station to 
the town of Chadam. Um, so 1620 um was was going

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and they they utilize that for um communications 
and that's something I'd like to see expanded um as well. But uh those pieces were already in place 
um with the heatwave. We were able to uh work with the towns to open seven plus cooling centers. Um 
so the the towns and again this is a a situation where when we look at what is an emergency when do 
we activate the county kind of at what level? Um I I use the word capacity a lot. Um so an emergency 
or disaster is when we are exceeding the capacity of so a local emergency is exceeding the capacity 
of the municipality regional emergency exceeding

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the capacity of the region. Now we're asking the 
state for help so on and so forth. Um I I think we we look at this as something that is within the 
local's capacity to to to manage but something that we want to be supporting and helping them 
with coordination. So um we worked with our public information officer Sonia Seasily um to make sure 
that we're helping them push that information out um as far as uh people finding out where 
those cooling centers are. Cooling centers uh you know similar to uh warming centers in 
the winter obviously for cooling. Um, one of the

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advantages is it's usually in a building that's 
already open. Um, they might expand the hours. They'll add um some services like providing water 
and things like that. Um, so most of them were in libraries and and community centers. Places that 
were going to be closed on the 3rd of July because that was the observed holiday um were kept open 
um and made cooling centers um and notified to the towns um as well as on the 4th of July holiday. 
So th those are the a lot of the actions we saw. Um, we also asked our partners at the Family 
Table Collaborative to support these. I know a few of the towns did uh take advantage of that 
and getting um just some light snacks and and

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and water for folks who might come in. Um as 
well as our uh partners at the Kid RTA once again activating their dispatch line. Um so 
if you know towns could put out that number, people can dial that number and get picked up 
through their more direct uh pickup system and brought to those cooling centers. Um working to 
get some numbers on on what that ended up looking like um and how many took advantage of that. And 
of course they were had normal operations running as well because this wasn't a snowstorm where they 
were suspended. So um so that that was really um a lot of what we had uh put before the storm out. Um 
you know as far as how the weekend went. We didn't

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see you know outside of the you know some of the 
the power flickering. We didn't see a lot of major incidents occur outside of you can call traffic 
a major incident. There is a lot of traffic but um you know I things went relatively smoothly 
smoothly across the towns. I know folks did take advantage of the cooling centers. Um and uh 
you know I think it was a good effort to another effort to kind of practice in how we we help our 
towns kind of grow in their capability and these these things that are a little bit between you 
know day-to-day operations and emergencies and

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the more you know hurricanes, winter storms. this 
is something where you know how do we be proactive about these especially when we have a lot of 
risks coming together drought high heat fourth of July weekend wildfire risk all those things 
converging so um I think from that perspective it was a successful weekend um and uh yeah I just 
thank everyone who was uh you know willing to read my thousands of emails that I sent out [laughter] 
I I did you didn't Commissioner Lions I did yes

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I even shared Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner 
Bster. No, I mean just another example how Bible County is is poised to respond [clears throat] 
to these kind of emergencies. I mean that they they don't come all that often. Sometimes they 
come in bunches like they have lately, you know, but uh uh you know, for all the good things that 
we do proactively, there's also these reactive uh situations that we're prepared to deal with. 
So, it's a kudos to your department and people

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involved. Yeah, very much so. Um, I think this 
can kind of conclude our discussion of the heat wave. I don't think there's anything to add on 
that. Should we go to the talk a little bit more about the the blizzard itself and the next steps? 
Um, and I I don't are we going to have a resource participating in that discussion or is it largely 
focused on us? I I think it's probably just if you guys want to uh I think it's welcome to stay. 
We just don't want to feel feel like you're on the hot seat while we do an afteraction review 
and look at some of our lessons learned. Yeah.

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On on the Blizzard. Do you want I think the only 
thing I'll say is that Eversource has done after action immediately after the Blizzard as well and 
we have all of our branches of of the incident command structure are doing you know we're we're 
in the business of doing the same work. So yeah, just I just want to say I noticed that there were 
crews from as far away as Illinois, Kentucky. You guys didn't spare anybody else. Canada didn't even 
speak English. [laughter] Really? No, you got your

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resources. Whatever resources were available, 
you you applied to I think it's a reflection on the leadership of Eversource. When people here on 
Cape Cot go out their street and they see a huge line of utility trucks in the middle of a blizzard 
going down their streets with with local officials plowing out areas to get in there to restore 
power to people's homes. Um I just thought in this blizzard there were so many examples of this 
fullcourt press. It was incredibly impressive.

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It really was. But it says something about the 
corporation. It says something about what it's all about. That you care about the customers here 
and that you're going to step up when when there's big need. And uh I I just want you to know we 
we heard that loud and clearly from people all around the region. And you should and I'm I hope 
you've been hearing a lot of that too because I know we've had our days where people get the 
complaints. Um but uh during during the blizzard Yeah. Eversource uh I thought shine very well. 
Great. I will with your permission relay that to

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our president of electric Doug Foley. [laughter] 
Yeah. Know the president the engagement was very noticeable and appreciated. Okay Andrew. Okay. 
All right. I'll you guys if you like and thank you again. Thank you for having us. Um I will use 
my my as all the staff know my powers of brevity um speaking to not take up too much of your 
time but you're almost unique in that [laughter]

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way. So um thank you commissioners. Um so a 
as you know we've been working through and Michael's brought up a few times an afteraction 
review process from the storm. Um it is now uh July after actions and I've done many of these 
uh postco I did hundreds uh too many of them but um you know these are processes this is a formal 
process that that you go through um and there are many different ways to do it but uh the way we 
went about it was to get the best information

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we could on the county's internal operations and 
how we responded to the storm the county staff um and kind of the the things that were within 
our purview. Um so certainly there's there's more uh pieces and and more things that occurred that 
are likely to be seen in other afteractions as you know Eversource for example and um I know many 
of the towns have undergone after actions partner agencies like the Red Cross do their afteractions 
um so um having everyone do these bring them together into um findings. I'm going to be 
making the same present uh presentation a little

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bit different next week to the RECC um to kind of 
get some of that regional perspective as well and and start to link those together. Um, if I could 
move my slides forward. There we go. Um, so just to give uh bring everyone back a few months, if 
you if you want to go back to the the cold months um in the incident that we had um we saw uh over 
a foot in some cases close to 2 feet of uh he uh uh wet heavy snow. Um 3 to 4 in uh peak. Um 
the the big piece of this was that this was

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uh Franco Olaflin, the REPC meteorologist, calls 
it Gorilla Glue snow. This was very wet, heavy, dense snow um because it was near that rain snow 
line. So it stuck to everything. Um and then when you combine that with the 75 mph wind gusts 
uh near hurricane force um in some cases over hurricane force um you're going to get a lot 
of not only power outages, but you see a lot of tree damage. Um and the trees coming down. 
It complicates things where you have you see over 150,000 customers without power. You have to 
first clear the roads so that the tree crews can

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get to the trees who can then clear the trees 
so that then Eversource can come in or whoever can come in and restore power. So it's a it's a 
process and we actually saw with some of this snow it got so dense that it was almost like concrete 
and uh some towns actually had to bring in heavy equipment to [laughter] move the snow. It was too 
much for their typical uh their their trucks with plows on them. So, um, we saw pretty significant 
power outages. Um, the, uh, our first REPC call, um, regional call was on the Saturday before 
the 21st. Um, so we we got folks, uh, over 200,

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uh, participants. There was a blizzard warning, 
um, and a state of emergency had already been, uh, declared by, um, the state of Massachusetts. Um 
we activated our multi- agency coordination center the next day um around 5:00 p.m. um bringing 
in county staff and our our partners um to help manage uh the event. Um importantly, NSET Regional 
High School and Barnesville Intermediate School um opened before the storm of shelters. That was 
a decision made by the town of East Ham emergency manager and the town of Barnesville emergency 
manager. They're the ones who make the ultimate

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decision to open the shelters in their towns. 
[clears throat] Um and we saw the storm begin uh peaked on Monday. Um we did have an incident where 
uh it turns out NSIT's heating system was not working on the generator. Um and so what we had to 
do pretty quickly was identify um an alternative if we once we determined that wasn't going to be 
able to be restored. Um and so uh Dennis Yarmas High School um had been opened as a shelter by the 
town of Yarmouth post storm. So once the storm had died down, they decided to open theirs. Um and 
we used the Cape Cod RTA to um basically evacuate

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the folks from the NSET shelter and transport 
them to Dennis Yarmouth. Um uh through Tuesday and Wednesday um we continued to operate those 
shelters. NSET had since closed. Um, as I said, um, Cape Cod Tech and Harwitch, uh, we made the 
decision, uh, with the town of Harwitch to open in order to help support the outer cave, especially, 
um, with our primary shelter on the outer case being closed and make sure there was something a 
little bit closer, um, that was open as well. Um, and then we saw um, on uh, Thursday and Friday, 
that was when we transitioned command up in the

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MAC. Um, I turned things over to Vera um, and uh, 
Misty finally got some sleep um, from Americanore, who was running our shelter operations. Um and 
uh we transitioned that and then by Friday um the shelters began to demobilize and close um and 
the uh uh MAC closed as well soon thereafter. Um so that's just kind of a a brief bringing people 
back to to the incident that occurred. Um there's a bunch of numbers up here. Um I will say um you 
know we we've seen these before but um really when we look at um a response to a storm like this 
um there's the county there's our department

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um and what we do and then there's the Barnsible 
County Regional Emergency Planning Committee that is a coalition of the towns appointed by you all 
of course um who really bring together the fire police um EMA all of them to help um with the 
response to help coordinate regional action um that has existed for a long time um many many 
regional coordination calls. Um there's some findings related to that and how those how those 
go because there's a lot of folks on those calls. But that's our um Sean O'Brien who uh kind of 
worked and started all this a long time ago used

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to describe it as a big conference room table to 
bring everyone around um and and and speak. So um that's where uh kind of that piece went from. So, 
how we conducted our afteraction review um using kind of FEMA's uh process that they recommend. 
Um we went through and we did a bunch of um focus groups. Um we met with county staff um for an 
internal hotwash. Um we met with uh different um groups from our municipal partners and partner 
agencies. We met with town health agents. Um we

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met with the town emergency management directors. 
Um we had a a session with our community partners. Um we had a separate session with all of the 
Americanore members um the alumni um and their ad board who also um assisted in responding to the 
storm. Um and then we following all of those we also sent out surveys to all of those groups as 
well to capture as much data as we could um and bring that together. Um from all that information 
we um distilled that down into a series of findings. Um these findings are categorized um in 
these ways. So we have uh best practices. These

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are things that um where we had to do something in 
an ad hoc fashion that was outside of our normal procedure, but um it's something that we think is 
worth continuing doing. Uh strengths are things that we plan to do and that did happen and work 
well. Um areas of improvement are things that um we uh uh areas that we we think we can do 
better. Um and then mission critical, those are really the the key things that you know we need 
to make immediate changes or take action on. um ideally before the next um before the next event 
occurs. Um so we had over 29 findings across seven

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focus areas. We broke them down into um these 
focus areas. So sheltering, um communications, uh Mac or EOC operations, uh mobilization, um 
IT and infrastructure, um admin and finance, and just kind of organizational culture. Um we'll 
and I will say before uh going through all of them um really this response succeed and we got a lot 
from on the outside of people like this hey we did really well this is a good response a lot of folks 
got a lot of accolades and I think it was because of the people um the people who responded the 
different agencies the leadership um of different

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folks in the towns and at the county um in a lot 
of ways they compensated for any structural gaps that might have existed or challenges that might 
have existed. So um in looking through this it's really figuring out where are those uh gaps that 
we can start to fill with with policy and with structure and with frameworks so that it doesn't 
matter if I'm here someone else is here. It's something that we have continuity in um as we go. 
So our first set of findings um really came into uh sheltering which was the major operation that 
we really undertook during the storm. Um there's a

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01:57:14.880 --> 01:57:49.440
few different things. Um there is a full written 
report um that after we present to the RECC, we're going to be able to um kind of uh then 
produce um for you all um that's going to go into a lot more details in these things. Um but 
um just as a a basic overview for sheltering, um we did find that there were certain uh shelter 
models um that existed in some areas that worked better than others. Um we saw uh Dennis Yarmouth 
is a good example. They actually provide their own kitchen staff. They have their own system for 
utilizing the food that they already have in the shelter. um and the staff that they have there to 
provide feeding um and to and that really worked

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really well. We also saw Province Town take the 
initiative to open and manage their own shelter um through kind of a very locally controlled program 
with resources within the town and that worked very well for them. Um and you know we certainly 
supported them but I think that's uh something that we could carry forward. Um uh challenges 
that we saw in sheltering specifically um facility readiness um I already mentioned NSET. That was 
a a particular issue with just the how it was built. But um you know making sure that we are we 
have a formalized process of pre-torm inspections

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going through each of these shelters. What has 
changed? You know these are all schools um that we use for our regional shelters. Sometimes the 
school districts changes things move around. Um we saw at some of the shelters um it just took a 
little longer to mobilize because we had to clean out certain rooms in order to use them for other 
things. So making sure that we we as the county can can assist the towns um on an annual basis of 
inspecting all of this, inspecting the equipment, utilizing our Americanore to do that will be 
important. Um we also saw that we you know we had a lot of volunteers come in um and people 
come in from out of the state. The Red Cross

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01:58:56.400 --> 01:59:30.800
and other volunteer agencies brought folks in. Um 
we didn't really have standard identification for them. You saw a lot of people in the shelters 
with some with Red Cross, some Americanore, some you know different agencies. um developing 
some more standards identification so people in the shelter can identify these as shelter workers, 
shelter employees um whatever it may be um I think was important and really a big one was just roles 
being kind of unclear. I think it depended on, you know, we've had this long uh process. We've 
had this long history of having the shelter program. I think over time it's evolved. Different 
people have come and gone about who owns what um

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in the sheltering program. Is it the town shelter? 
Is it the county? You know, some people will say, "Oh, the county does sheltering." Some people 
will say, "Oh, well, the town owns the shelter or Americanore runs the shelter." And it it 
was different in some of the towns. And I think um uh a big thing that we saw is we really 
need to update a lot of those agreements. And you'll see kind of the the mission critical 
um finding here is that we don't really have any more updated formalized agreements related to 
the shelters. You know, the REPC has a shelter

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02:00:00.880 --> 02:00:32.080
plan. We are party to the REPC. It's our you know, 
it's a county it's a county board essentially. Um but that's not a signed binding document. Um the 
what we really need to see are MOAs or memorandums of understanding or contracts with the towns with 
our partners really defining what the county does versus what town does or the agency does as far 
as command staff for the shelter, feeding staff, health inspection, um rather than dealing with 
it in an ad hoc fashion. Um, I'll say that this

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02:00:32.080 --> 02:01:03.520
a finding that'll be highlighted a little bit 
later is I think a symptom of over time the lines between the RECC and our department and 
the county being a little bit blurred. I think as folks have changed, you know, the the original 
REPC, the chiefs that that started that, you know, it was a much more town driven. those those 
chiefs kind of ran everything and and it was um really a coalition of them the towns coming 
together and and over time I think what we've seen is a lot more of it has been put on the 
county to say and probably through our own

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02:01:03.520 --> 02:01:37.520
admission saying we'll do that we'll take this 
on we'll we'll run this piece um but we never really followed that up with any sort of written 
agreements that kind of holds us to it but also holds the towns to their end of the bargain as far 
as what is supplied to these shelters um we see that The last time the regional shelter plan was 
updated was 2017 when I when I was last year. So um it it doesn't necessarily the framework that 
exists doesn't necessarily match I think the postcoid landscape especially that we've seen. 
Um, we I I think the direction things are really

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02:01:37.520 --> 02:02:09.520
going and that I I would recommend would be 
really focusing on building up local capacity so that every town has an idea of how they're 
managing local sheltering like we saw with heat uh with the heat wave and with cooling centers and 
warming centers. And then how do we as a region and as a county build a framework on top of that 
so that when their capacity is exceeded, we now um activate regional resources to support that 
and develop the and and bring these into regional shelters if that makes sense. So starting 
all disasters start local and then building

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02:02:09.520 --> 02:02:40.560
a framework on top of that rather than building a 
system that might look like oh well the county or the region's just doing it for you if that makes 
sense the way I'm saying that. Um the kind of the third mission critical and I think this is the one 
that most people are aware of. Um medical staffing was critically lacking. Um we did not have a 
large deployment from our medical reserve corps. I think a lot of what we found especially in the 
postcoid landscape. A lot of volunteer agencies are struggling to not only recruit folks but 
getting folks to deploy especially in the winter.

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02:02:40.560 --> 02:03:17.440
A lot of our volunteers are snowbirds. Um, but 
you know, I I think there's also a lot of, well, I can come for an hour or I can come for four 
hours, but then I need to go check on my dog, you know, or I need to go, you know, check on my 
house. And the reality is is that once you go in for one of these storms, you're not going to be 
able to leave. You're not going to be able to travel. And I think that's a um a disconnect with 
some of our um volunteer agencies and kind of how, you know, postcoid volunteerism works. Um I think 
what we've seen since the storm is some of the towns actively looking within their communities 
for what healthc care uh capabilities exist. So

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02:03:17.440 --> 02:03:49.920
for example um sandwich you know working with 
Spalding because they're there you know can you pro can we have an MOA for you to provide for our 
shelter um some CNAs or some some staff. Um really the need that we saw within the shelter was less 
so um you know we do need nurses um for certain medical situations and EMTs for emergencies 
but really what it came down to was more the the home health aid level of you know supporting 
people going to the bathroom mobility assistance things like that. Um and unfortunately in the 
absence of those medical staff it put a lot of

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02:03:49.920 --> 02:04:27.680
our Americanore members who we deploy to the 
shelters in a tough position where they ended up having to assist with a lot of those things 
which they're not really trained to do. that's not really what they're there to do, but they are 
very uh as I say, they're very empathetic people and they're not going to let someone go without 
assisting them. So, they stepped up to do that, but that should not be the way that things are 
done in the future. Um, so that's a big topic. Yeah, I saw that in in in in my observations at 
the shelter, but I I clearly agree with you. It's because there the absence of that personnel. Yeah. 
people stepped up to take and and and I applaud

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02:04:27.680 --> 02:05:01.760
them for doing that because otherwise things could 
have deteriorated with an individual. So I get all that but your your your point's well taken 
the need we have a need to sort of find a way to strengthen that capacity at the facility. So 
thank you and and I think that's um there's a lot of different ways to address that. Um, I think 
all of this kind of goes back to the primary, which is it's not a one-sizefits-all approach. 
What works for sheltering in Sandwich doesn't necessarily work in Province Town or in they 
might they're going to have different resources

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02:05:01.760 --> 02:05:34.960
available to their local community. And I think 
it's understanding what's there and building those public private partnerships I think is 
is I know some of the the kind of sub regions of the county are already doing that and that's 
something we certainly support and want to build a framework to support. On top of that, um the 
next few are a little bit shorter, uh thankfully, but um communications um was obviously another big 
pillar of what we do, uh for emergency management. Um Sonia Shazley, our PIO, and all of the um the 
staff that she pulled in to assist her. Um again, in a very ad hoc fashion. I think that's um 
kind of the the theme here. Um we pulled a

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02:05:34.960 --> 02:06:06.720
lot of things together um and they worked, but 
we want to we want to codify those. So, um, our communications plan, the the sit reps that Sonia 
was putting out and her team were putting out, the county website, pulling information regarding, 
um, gas stations that were open, things like that as people requested that information. Um, that 
has been consistently pointed out as a strength, something that, um, is a very good place for the 
county to sit and doing. Um, helping the town public information officers and the communications 
folk amplify um, speak uh, with the same language.

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02:06:06.720 --> 02:06:41.760
Um, you know, I say sing from the same sheet music 
in in terms of what's being said. Um, and how we making sure that that information is getting to 
our elected officials and to our um our our Cape Cod delegation to make sure they're saying the 
same things and that we're all kind of on the same page. Um, I think that was a strength. I think 
it's certainly something we can we can continue to improve and and build out. I think that's 
definitely an area of growth for what we do. Um, but I'll also say that I think one of the findings 
we definitely had was that the PIO, you know, Sonia herself was doing a lot of the work for 
just like many of us for 96 hours. And I think um,

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02:06:41.760 --> 02:07:12.080
another recommend recommended theme here is going 
to be how do we better leverage all of the county staff and all of the county resources to support 
that. We have other communications folk that could potentially um, work as an assistant PIO under 
Sonia or be trained to do that in an emergency. And so being able to identify how do we build 
capacity for these um for these different roles and functions without having to you know hire a 
bunch of staff rather how do we leverage what we already have and the people that you know across 
all the departments that that touch these things.

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02:07:12.080 --> 02:07:43.360
Um we did see that we had um you know we we had 
some degraded communications. We have a lot of redundancies here at the county complex. We have 
um you know open cape. We have Verizon backups. We have Starlinks. But um you know it we don't 
necessarily have a good um you know we kind of do again do that in an ad hoc fashion. It's like 
oh this went out okay turn this on. Um rather than having kind of a more written program around how 
we do that um you know building some of that more into you know our our infrastructure. Um we did 
have a little bit of um um trouble um because

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02:07:43.360 --> 02:08:17.040
it just we didn't move quickly enough I think 
in some areas for um quick translation um into other we have a lot of other uh or we have a lot 
of um different communities represented around the Cape. So how are we getting information to those 
people? Um you know we push things through our county website that doesn't necessarily hit people 
who aren't on the computer or people who don't have power internet right. Um so I talked about 
the AM radio station. Is that something we could expand so that we can really use a cakewide rather 
than in a region? um are there um are we building relationships with these uh local community 
groups and and trusted uh you know people within

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02:08:17.040 --> 02:08:50.240
those communities non you know non-native English 
speaking communities and um different communities to make sure that information is getting passed 
along to them um in a way that's accessible. So that's something that we can work on. Um I also 
think we you know we heard from our health agents we didn't really integrate them well enough. Um 
they um would typically work through our health agents coalition with our department of health 
and environment. I think that was an oversight on our part where um we were communicating with 
the emergency management folks and that wasn't necessarily getting to them. So I think there 
was a lot of roles they could have played in the shelters um above and beyond what they did. 
Um and and again how do we not only leverage our

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02:08:50.240 --> 02:09:23.920
county staff but all of the staff within the 
towns as well and what they do and make sure that we're we're coordinating. Um so that was a 
big piece as far as our EOC operations. Um again uh the REPC can and certainly is a regional anchor 
for preparedness. Um I think once again we see that is a much older structure. Um we it it those 
a lot of those calls used to run in the days where it was literally a conference line as as as we 
all remember. It's now on teams. Um it's a large 300 person call the way that we run it. Anyone 
can speak at any time. We've already had a lot

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of discussions around how we can structure that 
um in a way that's a bit uh more efficient for folks so that we're not taking up a bunch of time 
from from the emergency managers in the field, but we're also getting information out to people. 
Um using different models to have maybe some sub meetings with certain groups beforehand so we 
can hash out certain issues and elected officials meeting and then use the big call with 300 people 
as more of a brief out of all of that information to try to streamline it. Um so that's something 
that we we've definitely been looking at. um and how we the county engage with the REPC. You know, 
what is our role the county versus what is the

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RECC doing as far as, you know, creating different 
functions. I think that's something conversation that we're going to want to have going forward. 
Um we've already talked a lot about our external partners, Family Table, Cape Town RTA, all of 
them um did a tremendous amount of work. Um how we communicate with the state. So they use what's 
called web EOC, web emergency operations center, where you um input all of this information. and 
they've really gone to this more that sort of uh digital framework. Um I think it took us a 
while to really be getting information uploaded into that for them especially with the power 
outages we experienced. Um and that led to a

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gap where even though we had a state liaison um 
he knew everything that was going on but that wasn't necessarily reaching um up at the state um 
EOC which meant you know they didn't have a clear uh situational awareness of what was going on 
here in Barnsible County for the first few days. um they didn't realize quite how bad it was. 
And I think um we can be more consistent and we can get that information to them a little 
bit better um and making sure they understand so that they're operating from the same sheet 
music as well. Um I talked about um utilizing

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county services. We have multiple departments that 
have a lot of programs and services that I think could have been deployed county helplines um and 
different uh programs that we could have brought in a little bit earlier. I think as we identified 
in the map, um it was important for us to bring in um we started to do something we hadn't done 
before, which is rather than relying on external folks coming in, understanding they're very busy 
out in the field, we brought in county employees um from other departments and kind of tied them 
into their areas of specialty. Um and that worked really well. So I think how we uh go about 
doing that is going to be very important. Um,

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and you'll see at the bottom there's something 
called an incident support model, which is how do we build out an EOC or a MAC that is really 
run by county staff versus what it used to be, which was a bunch of police and fire coming 
in and running it um from this REPC coalition, which doesn't really happen as much anymore. 
Um, really because they are so busy in their own communities, they can't really spend the time 
coming to the county um to do that. It's more and more than county staff running this. So, we should 
build our framework to better support that. Um and then we also saw a need and this is something you 
know I'll be talking a lot about um in the next

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few years um which is going to be improving our 
equipment caching um and infrastructure. We have a lot of you know as I mentioned we put out a lot 
of equipment for the storm. We have those large generator trailers and different things. Making 
sure that those things are in a state of readiness so that they can go right away and we're not 
having issues with starting generators. They're not being stored outside where they have you 
know they start to get issues from being you know outside in an idle capacity for too long. that 
can start to create um kind of a a um a debt with them, a uh a maintenance debt um that um I think 
all of our stuff sort of at the fire academy um

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we've identified that's kind of you know it's in 
the back woods there so it's not really that well accessible during a storm. So things like that um 
definitely came up as well. Support functions. Um, again, this is more about um incorporating some 
places where we can incorporate more of our county departments into uh what we're doing in emergency 
management. IT is a great example. They run it for multiple towns. Um they don't typically have a 
seat in the EOC um other than helping us with our own issues, but they're a great resource to 
to coordinate with the towns to get us information

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about police departments that are down um and 
to and to help provide, you know, tech services related to emergency management around the around 
the Cape as well. Um likewise with finance, we you know, uh Carol got the the joy of coming 
in towards the end and trying to pour through our paperwork and get ready for FEMA reimbursement. Um 
that is a that is a process that I think starting that from the beginning by embedding them earlier 
on and getting them involved from the outset would have made that a lot more smooth for folks. Um I 
already mentioned the the leadership transition. I think that was handled cleanly, but I think 
that we could um do a little bit better as far

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as how we determine when we activate. talked 
about um the uh I talked about for the the the heat wave how there's a difference in when is 
it an emergency that we need to activate. Um, traditionally the MAC was activated through the 
REPC deciding to activate it. Again, coalition of the towns, but since it's transitioned more 
to the county kind of running this, who decides, you know, I said we're opening the MAC at this 
time and I, you know, I talked to to Michael about that and we kind of having that again written down 
as a as a program and policy for really how we're

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going to do that in the in the postcoavid era, as 
I keep saying. Um, and then as we identify these different staff and these different departments 
that we think could better support our mission, um, what training are we providing them? 
You know, all of our staff in emergency management are obviously trained in ICS and all 
of those things, but um, are we training are we, uh, you know, what sort of training and and stuff 
should we be providing for other county staff that we may bring in in an emergency situation? So, I 
won't read these again, but that's kind of just

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an overview of those mission critical findings. 
Um, again, a lot of it has to do with the the regional sheltering plan. Um, you know, I I think 
there's a lot of different uh paths that need to to go from here. Um, as we look at the path 
path forward, um, a lot of things went well. Um, our our partnerships were strong. We have a good 
baseline. We need to both strategically plan for this department for emergency management for 
how the county engages in this for the next two, five, 10 years going forward. how do we build this 
function? We also have but we also have the added

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um need to make sure that in that intervening time 
we're still providing the service, right? So, we both need to be planning for the long term, but we 
need to be ready for a tornado tomorrow. Um, and that's kind of a big piece of a lot of this, and 
you'll see that in in the full written report. Um, so that's really all I had. I'm happy to kind of 
answer any questions um and go into more detail. Again, this is just kind of an overview of of what 
we found in the AR. There's certainly more pieces, but I'm happy to answer any questions and 
talk for longer. Commissioner Ber. Yeah. Uh,

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you know, this seems to be an exercise in 
going into the past darkly, but I think we're in hurricane season. We're currently in 
hurricane season, so it's possible. I mean, Hurricane Bob hit in August. I remember it very 
well. So, this is important that we we review what we've done and we're ready for the next event, 
which fortunately we'll get um you know, I've got nothing but praise for a response from the 
people I talked to and I get the impression some of them that they weren't aware of any of this. 
You know, they they they wind up out of power and

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02:16:30.800 --> 02:17:02.000
their idea was a shelter. Well, you know, they'll 
open up the gym and I'll go there, I get it. amazing that they found out what exactly was 
involved and the resources were put into place. So I think all in all you're getting a you know 
an A minus maybe [laughter] getting an A minus. How's that room for improvement is always 
always but I think we've done well and uh you know the basic the basics is yes decide 
who does what who made who makes the call on

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02:17:02.000 --> 02:17:37.120
when the shelters are open and who organizes the 
the resources and that res those resources are aware early on that they may be utilized and and 
so on. As far as the nursing staff goes that's a tough one because it covers [clears throat] the 
whole cape. I mean, lack of medical personnel, but by and large, you seem to have covered a lot 
of bases and uh hopefully we're never going to have to utilize this again. Yep. You never want to 
see me on a small screen talking. That's usually a bad time. [laughter] Commissioner Lions, um I 
just think this was a very thorough review and,

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you know, an honest review of what what didn't 
what needs to be improved and what really uh was lacking. And um you know I think it is 
something that the that the towns really do need to be sort of engaged in onto a certain 
level because you know there's a lot of good information in here and things that they could put 
in place and then you know what's happening. So I know it's a lot of work to coordinate all of that 
and to get everybody's feedback and commitments

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but looks like you're you've done a good job in 
analyzing the situation and seeing what would make everything better. So, thank you. I mean, 
it's really a very good report. Yeah. Thanks, Commissioner. Uh, I I would agree with everything 
that's been said. I think it's a terrific report. Uh, I know you got some help in putting it 
together and organizing it, and I appreciate all the folks that were helping out uh in organizing 
this effort and coming up with something quite thorough and comprehensive. I think this is 
exactly what we need to help you figure out what

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you're going to be doing 247. Yeah. for the next 
sever. I mean, this is this is a tremendous amount of work and I think I think it's a reflection 
of the board. I mean, we we've been anxious to create a better structure for this and I'm glad 
we're doing it now [clears throat] because as Commissioner Bergstrom said, um, we're going to 
be in the emergency management business, I think, with a greater degree of frequency than we might 
have thought in the in the past. All right. between what's happening with climate change and 
heating events and some of these other things that

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02:19:12.160 --> 02:19:45.840
are going on, the winter storms and the weirdness 
of the weather patterns. I just think that this is something that's going to keep us busy uh on a far 
more sustained basis. And I think uh the approach that you're taking is is terrific. I think you're 
doing you're on all the right things with respect to the the working with the towns. That's going 
to take some creativity. All right. Um and I think from my point of view having worked uh you know 
with administrators and as an administrator in

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02:19:45.840 --> 02:20:16.559
municipal government off and on for for several 
years uh I think um you know the managers can be helpful but I think quite frankly you know 
you're almost dealing with a constituency that sometimes managers don't even interact with with a 
great deal of frequency. you know, you're dealing with people um that um you know um are [clears 
throat] hard to reach and that's going to be the challenge is working to get those people and get 
them engaged and um and and it's going to take

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02:20:16.560 --> 02:20:47.359
time. It really is. Um, what I'd like to see is 
if in terms of interacting with the health agents, I'm wondering if the health agents can play more 
of a role. If if if we have our health department regularly meeting and interacting with all the 
health agents, maybe the conversation they need to be focused on is maybe they can take the nursing 
piece of this. Yeah. All right. Maybe we just get the health department and the health agents. You 
guys have to This is what we need from you. When

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02:20:47.359 --> 02:21:25.520
the call goes up, when the whistle's up, when the 
balloon's up, when we have to mobilize, here's what we need you folks to deliver with deliver us 
with. And I think that becomes the conversation for them. Okay? I need for each town two nurses or 
three nurses or whatever the whatever it is. But every partner that we connect with has something 
that they have to bring to the table. And I'd like to I' I'd like to see yes, the the agents may felt 
disconnected. And you know what? Unfortunately,

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02:21:25.520 --> 02:22:00.880
that happened. But on the other hand, here's what 
we need you to do. It may very well be that they step up and and rise to the challenge. And the 
thing is is since we're pumping some additional dollars in collaborating and working with public 
on the public health side uh with some of the state funding that we're getting, I'm wondering 
to what degree any of those resources could be utilized or leveraged. All right, because we're 
getting money, big money on the public health side. I think if there's an area of public health 
need, it's clearly here. This is a priority. You

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02:22:00.880 --> 02:22:30.880
know that, we all know that. And obviously this 
report documents that. So I think I'm going to be interested and I'm happy I [clears throat] 
mean I'm happy to to to to to chime in or be helpful in any way beyond just sitting, you know, 
behind this desk as as a chairman of the board of commission. We all would, I think. Yeah. I mean, 
we we can we're we're helpful. We're we're we're ready to be as hands on as you need us to be. 
Uh, but tell in terms of dealing with the nursing

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02:22:30.880 --> 02:23:02.720
because I've been I've been wrestling with that 
question on the back of my mind after being in in um the DY high school hanging out in that shelter 
and watching all of these people coming in needing a home health aid or some help. And I'm looking at 
these incredibly energetic diehard Americaore can do spirit Americanore volunteers and I'm thinking, 
okay, this is it's great that they're there. It's great that they've got that attitude. It's great 
that they've got that in their DNA because that's

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02:23:02.720 --> 02:23:37.040
that's what we're trying to facilitate. Right. 
Right. We we want Americanore volunteers leaving Barnstable County with that can do spirit. We can 
get stuff done, you know, uh attitude and they've got it and and they clearly it's evident there. 
But we also need to know that we want that spirit and that energy directed in some areas and other 
areas we need to find ways to get more people to cover for that. the health side, the nursing side, 
I think I' I'd like to see better collaborations on that end. Now, the other thing is is I think 
it's nice that we have our own radio station,

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02:23:37.040 --> 02:24:11.920
but when 1620 is if I went to it right now, 
what am I going to hear? that it'll be dead. So, it gets activated in the event of a storm and is 
it largely something that Chattam people can tune into or can I [laughter] uh No, it's so it is a um 
so we've licensed from the FCC um the 1620 radio station. There's certain requirements on how and 
when we can use it for training purposes or for emergency broadcasts. Um we have three basic uh 
radio systems. We they are basically a box with

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02:24:11.920 --> 02:24:44.319
the radio system and then a large antenna. Um two 
of which are mobile units. One is in Chadam right now on top of the uh the fire station that we set 
up for them for the event. Um one is in my truck um out back and one is actually mounted on a very 
large sign board um that's also in Chattam right now. Um and those all operate on 1620. They they 
can't overlap. The the distance really depends on where the antenna is. So, it's on top of the 
fire tower for that. Um, so but it can't um it we

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02:24:44.319 --> 02:25:23.280
wouldn't be able to reach the whole cape with what 
we have now. But it is something that if we put it up on the the the jail for example um how far 
throughout Barnstable would be able to hear it. It was really purchased to put mean the old jail. 
The old jail. Yeah. Um it was really purchased to put on the side of Route 6 um the particularly 
the sign board to say tune in to 1620 for bridge information or something like that. Is there any 
value connecting with or having a partnership agreement with an FM radio station where during 
a storm we can just be on they can give us time public service time like QRC or XTK um and or the 
community college they have an FM uh station and I

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02:25:23.280 --> 02:25:54.160
think they may even have their own tower. Yeah, 
I I I think there's a lot of value to do there. Um that's an area we can certainly grow. Yeah, I 
I think finding a way to build a partnership with the with with a a network of FM radio stations 
on the Cape because I'm not sure if there's one station that covers the entire region, but there 
may be. Who knows? And I think that's that's something that I think is worth exploring is is 
being able to partner with uh a radio station or a network of radio stations where they'd be willing 
to pick up a feed live every half hour or every,

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02:25:54.160 --> 02:26:27.040
you know, at a period of time. Or maybe the press 
strategy is is that we do communications wise a press call or a press conference. We did this 
during co Yeah. where we had press calls but they quite frankly I I I don't want to talk long 
about the problems that I saw with those but we may want to do our own version of a communication 
blast of some sort that we get some help with. Um but I I I like what you've done. I think this is 
terrific report. Um, I appreciate you and your

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02:26:27.040 --> 02:27:02.319
team sort of touching all the bases. Um, and like 
I said, I think the commissioners want to be as hands-on as you need us and obviously we want to 
be as supportive as you need us. Um, so back to my fellow commissioners, is there anything else that 
we need to talk about? Just a number. What's the number of people you think you serve [clears 
throat] on Capecon? Uh, during the storm, uh, what's the population? Uh, let's see. Two 200,000. 
Um I mean realistically um you know as far as the sheltering goes we saw a peak of around 250 at DY 
I think about 150 at Bars school. So, you know,

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02:27:02.319 --> 02:27:33.920
close to a thousand people sheltered. Um, and 
you know, obviously we provided services across I think, you know, because it went as well as 
could go under the circumstances. I know there's improvement. I think people underestimate what a 
dangerous situation it was for a lot of people, especially the elderly population. You know, 
to be without power and heat in the middle of the winter could could have been a lot worse than 
it was. Yeah. There are people that came and took advantage of shelters. But there there's so The 
challenge you're going to have is keeping track

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02:27:33.920 --> 02:28:07.599
of all the people that we've helped. That that's 
a low number. We we help far more than that. I'm convinced of it. Uh it's just we I I don't 
think we figured out a metric yet to calculate all that. And who knows if we ever will find a 
good metric. Uh but you're focused on doing all the right stuff. Clearly, you have now a fairly 
long list of things to do. [clears throat] you're going to be very incredibly busy and again we want 
to be supportive when we want to be helpful. So, you need to, you know, through through your chain, 
let us know when we have to be engaged again. Um,

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02:28:07.600 --> 02:28:43.599
and I'm all big on uh and I think we're 
open, you know, we've developed a very good relationship with our elected officials if 
there's something unusual on the capital side that we need to pursue to improve our ability 
to respond and deliver an emergency. you know, if if we have to make a special request, 
knock on some other doors or whatever, I think we're all in on that. I keep wondering if 
we need to have our own physical structure where we can bring people where we can do stuff. I've 
often wondered do we need a place where we can do

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02:28:43.600 --> 02:29:19.120
a larger clinic or a larger healthc care work or 
do we need a facility where uh the certainty of you know operations in any kind of event is is is 
there do we need to partner more with JBCC I keep wondering that when the next hurricane comes the 
amount of debris alone how are we going to manage that what's in the plan for that we have a plan 
for that or is that on the list of the multitude of things that you're working on to figure out? 
I I'll tell you that um that you you're talking

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02:29:19.120 --> 02:29:49.519
you're hitting on right now is recovery and that's 
I think an area where the recovery piece we can prepare for a storm. We we try to mitigate impact. 
We try to prevent loss of life to the greatest extent possible. But the the real challenge is 
going to be how do we how rapidly can the Cape recover a hurricane? I I will always be very blunt 
about this will be devastating to the region. Um a major hurricane will cause a lot will have major 
impacts, right? Do we have the systems in place?

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02:29:49.520 --> 02:30:22.479
Economic recovery, that's obviously going to be 
a major issue. Debris management is one that I we actually are focusing on right now. We want to 
have an exercise for debris management. the state has a debris management plan, but I think for 
a lot of those things what we see is the state has a big plan, but it's for the state and we 
have some very unique needs and local needs that we need to try to address in that regard. 
Yeah. And the thing is is with Joint Base Cape Cod going through a master planning process. 
I think we need to be at the table. I mean, we're at the table with Mass Development and 
the military on regional composting. Uh the

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02:30:22.479 --> 02:30:54.639
towns are at the table on wastewater. We have our 
own clean water center there that is going to grow out at the base. But when it comes to disaster 
management and disaster response, they have needs, we have needs, we need to I would like to see 
us have more collaboration with the military and how we can work together because sometimes a 
partnership with the military will bring assets to the table that are military in nature, right? 
heavy equipment for example um that military they

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02:30:54.640 --> 02:31:27.359
can activate engineering divisions you know 
there's just what I I would love to figure out a way to have the national guard as an active 
partner with us in the MAC or somehow and and the more we have a presence at Joint Base Cape Cod the 
more we have the opportunity to mobilize people there and and I would say for that piece a big 
part of that is going to be the relation ship with MIMA because under in an e in a response phase the 
national guard is under the governor they're under

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02:31:27.359 --> 02:31:58.960
MIMA's you know MIMA is the one who deploys them 
and can control those resources um for example the ones that were deployed here during the storm um 
and so I think the the stronger relationship we have with MIMA and actually having an agreement 
with how that works how we almost operate as a subregional EOC for them um in the sense that that 
gives us greater access and and quicker access to those things. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think on the 
planning front, we need to to do more. But, you know, we we've had meetings with Mass Maritime 
and their emergency management program and their

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02:31:58.960 --> 02:32:34.800
leadership there. They're they're anxious to work 
with us to take take on some of the load. And I would love to find a way to take advantage of the 
mass maritime talent because right now this is a you've got a massive workload sitting [clears 
throat] on your on your lap right now and uh you need some more partners to help you carry it 
out. Uh, and I would I would definitely, you know, encourage more interaction with Mass Maritime 
and their their team, their emergency management program. Like I said, they in fact, we may have 
they may want to have interns and help us staff

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02:32:34.800 --> 02:33:14.000
uh an operation center. Right. Absolutely. In 
order to train their people that will be doing this stuff. So, I see enormous opportunity there. 
So, in any event, I appreciate you coming in. I appreciate your update for the commissioners. 
Again, we're we're we're we're hands-on. We want to be as helpful as you need us to be. Thank 
you. All right. So, thank you, Andrew. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to the uh another item. 
I'm going to ask that we pull something out of order. Um and we get into item C6 D. and that is 
we discuss and uh get briefed on the mass service

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02:33:14.000 --> 02:33:47.280
alliance grant and we take that item up out of 
order if that's okay without objection. Uh I know that there's some pressures on people's time 
today and so we're going to take this item out of order and this is obviously exciting news and uh 
we're thrilled to get an update on new funding for America. Last time we were together were talking 
about no funding, right? and uh we seem to be at

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02:33:47.280 --> 02:34:18.000
the moment having something to celebrate. So, 
thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I just need to connect to the meeting really 
quick. Okay. Apologize I was out of the room. And you know, from my point of view, I know we talked 
about probably going over a number of things, but I think in everyone's interest of time since 
I know you're under a lot of pressure, if we just go to the grant, talk about the grant, what the 
funding is for, what the requirements are, and that we let the commissioners vote on that without 
going into any other detail about all the things

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02:34:18.000 --> 02:34:51.840
that we're doing. I think that would probably 
be helpful to you and be helpful to the rest of us. Absolutely. I'm happy to do that. I'm also 
happy to come back and share the rest of the the wonderful updates if you would like. As you know, 
the Americanore program is a is a hot program at the assembly. It's a hot program clearly with 
us as commissioners. Uh if you've got good news to share, I think we're all everyone we're all 
ears. I'm just waiting to join. Um but I can you know obviously start um talking and then once the 
slides are up I can um share them. But thank you

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02:34:51.840 --> 02:35:27.280
for having me today. Um I'll just start jump right 
into the great news and that we um were awarded a three-year recompete grant. Uh that is for this 
year $499,999. So just short of the 500,000 mark. And we are um locked in then for three years for 
that amount. it'll get re um renewed and uh we'll get a new contract each year, but that is locked 
in for those three years. And we have not had one of these um grants in um we've had two service 
years that we have been on a one-year uh grant

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02:35:27.280 --> 02:36:04.000
that is still a national federal funding, but was 
directed from um MSA whereas this is directly from the Americanore state and national program. That's 
great. Um, I'm going to need you to state your name and Yes, sorry. I'm sorry, a little bit um 
off here. Uh, Misty Nemer. I'm the program manager for Americanore Cape Cod. And um I will I think 
I'm ready to share my slides here. Go live. Yes. And I will just skip ahead. Um, sorry. Get to 
where we're going. It's a nice photo. Thank

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02:36:04.000 --> 02:36:35.280
you. Um yes, I will make sure we get to share 
these um with you uh right later on. So yeah, so I don't have um many slides at this point, so 
I can keep it pretty short, but we um received our um our funding and or we received um notification 
of our funding and we um like I said, this will give us stability for the next um three years, 
which is really wonderful. And it will also allow us to focus on other things like um supporting our 
members and other challenges that we know we're

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02:36:35.280 --> 02:37:07.120
going to be facing over the next um few years 
and also allows us to more extremely move from um service year to service year whereas we are 
always waiting for funding but always delayed um projects and delayed moving forward. Uh so we 
already are having a really stellar recruitment year. Um twice the number of applications we had 
last year which as you guys know we've been having a really remarkable um year and I'll touch base 
on that in at another meeting. Um but we think the real uh key component of that is recruitment. 
So if recruitment is strong and we're able to

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02:37:07.120 --> 02:37:42.640
select members that are you know compassionate, 
service-minded and dedicated and committed to this program um then that is leads to the success. 
So, we already have 189 applications for our 20 positions. We've accepted 19 already. We're 
just finalizing the last one probably today. So, we have a full core and we're back up to the 20 we 
had reduced last year due to funding limitations at the the state level. So we are back to our full 
full force and um which I'm really excited about because this year 18 people have done remarkable 
amount of work and so at 20 I'm really excited at

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what we can do next year and we are also currently 
uh hiring for our three program supervisors because we will have three leading this year um 
which is pretty typical for um for this program. So we're hiring for those positions and hoping 
to have that wrapped up in the next few weeks and now focusing on next year. So, we're working on 
agendas for our Haritch meeting uh later on this month and also we have a meeting in Turo. Um might 
want to consult with Michael. We should figure out um when we're on the road on a road show, maybe 
we can do a highlight and maybe focused on an

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individual town to anchor the presentation. So, 
um what I'd like to do to move things along, Commissioner Burkstrom, do you have a motion? 
Yes, I do. I have a motion. I move to authorize I move to authorize to accept and execute a 
grant agreement between Massachusetts Service Alliance acting by and through Americanore 
state and national and Barsal County acting by and through Americanore Cape Cod and the 
cooperative extension in the amount of $499,999 for the first year of a three-year award for 
the Americanore Cape Cod service year for the

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period beginning on September 30th, 2026 through 
September 29th, 2027 with the three-year award will continue through September 29th, 2029 for 
a full grant award totaling approximately $1.5 million. And Commissioner Lions, would you like to 
second that? She's saying yes. Second. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Uh, is there any 
more discussion or any more things or comments, my fellow board members? No, just congratulations 
and excellent news. Great. Okay. Uh, roll call

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vote. All those in favor? Commissioner Lions. 
Uh, Lions votes I vot and Forest votes I. It's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. And I I just 
wanted to take the moment to just thank you all for your support. The last few years 
have been a little bit bumpy and we just really appreciate your continued support of 
our program. Well, we're happy to do It was a long and difficult process and we didn't 
know where it was going to go. So gladly it worked out the way it did. Thanks. Thank 
you. Thank you. All right. We continue.

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Okay. The next item on our agenda getting back on 
track is uh an update on our finances. Um we have u I think that's where we are correct. Fiscal 
year 2025 independent audit report by Carol and Renee Davis. Is Renee with Oh, there's Renee. 
She's on the screen. Bingo. So, you're gonna let Renee do all the talking? I I can let Renee 
do all the talking. Thank you. You heard that, Renee? Right. Yeah. Can you hear me? Okay, we 
can. You're great. Okay. Thanks. Are we Are

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you ready to go? Um Roina is actually with me 
as well. So, good afternoon. I'm going to say good afternoon at this point. Um, thank you for 
having us. We appreciate the opportunity to come in. We are here to talk about the FY25 audit. 
So, we just ended FY26. It's always a looking back at the financial progress that you made and 
and the financial statements of the past. Um, can you see the presentation now? Yep, 
we can. Okay, good. Okay, beautiful. So, again, Renee Davis, I was managing director 
on the engagement. With me today is Romina

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Mli. who was the director on the engagement. 
And what we're going to do is walk through the results. I think in your packets you have the 
the annual comprehensive financial report for um for the county. And we're going to go through 
some of the financial highlights in that and the results of our audit. So, next slide, please. 
I'm trying. Hold on. It's not moving. Well, while she does that, there we go. Um we're going 
to talk a little bit about what the audit does. We we do a lot of communicating back and forth 
with the county about what an audit is and what

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an audit is not. We come in always again after 
the fact once the books are closed, once Carol's done all of her hard work and got the county's 
numbers reconciled and has good ledgers, we come in to test those numbers. So the audit really is 
designed to verify that the financial statements are presented fairly. We do not look at every 
account. We do not look at every transaction. We look at your systems. We look at your internal 
controls, your financial policies, and how you're

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um transacting, how you're recording revenues 
that are coming into the county, how you're recording [snorts] expenditures and managing your 
budget, and really your processes and procedures to come up with your financial statements. Now, to 
do that, we also help as a non- audit service. We put together the ACT first. So, not part of the 
audit, but an additional service. We do help to put together that pretty large report, but all of 
the information comes from your records and and you actually review and approve. Carol reviews 
and approves all the information in that. Um,

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we also audit your compliance with laws and 
regulations. We're going to talk about that today. That's your single audit or your audit of your 
federal grants. Um, for the past several years, ARPA has been the name of the game there. 
We're finally getting to the end of ARPA, but you still got a little ways to go. And what 
the audit really is designed to do is to give you an independent opinion on your financial 
statement. So, it's not just Carol telling you how well you're doing, but really, we're not part 
of management. We're not there every day. We come

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in after the fact. We verify that the information 
that she's reporting to you is accurate. Um, and that your financial statements are in compliance 
with generally accepted accounting principles. so that your financial statements can be compared to 
other financial statements of similar governments. And there's two um there's two reports that 
gets issued as part of your audit. One, the first part of it is the financial statement 
audit that is in your annual comprehensive financial reports. What we call an ACTER. Used 
to be a CAFER, now it's an ACER. But within the

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acter is your financial statements, your full 
financial statements as well as our opinion on the financial statements. So really the part 
that we are responsible for is three pages of the report where we give an opinion and the financial 
statements are put together in accordance with US um generally accepted auditing standards 
and government auditing standards. So we follow a set of rules, the Gazsby statements. We 
make sure that the county is up to date on all the latest Gazsby standards. Changes from one 
year to the other always happen due due to new

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implementation of Gazsby standards. And the second 
report that gets issued is what we call the single audit or your federal award report. It would be 
triggered when you had federal expenditures over $750,000. You're clearly well over that. The 
threshold for that is going up to a million dollar starting in FY26. you will exceed 
you'll exceed that every year anyway. Um the standards that we follow are called uniform 
guidance and that the federal government comes

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out with a compliance supplement every year 
to tell us what we have to test. So we have to go through a process to say what are your 
major federal programs? How much did you spend? Are they big enough to be considered potential for 
major programs and which ones are the riskiest and really need the attention of the auditors? 
And again, for the past several years, ARPA, ARPA is the name of the game, right? So, we have 
a couple more years of hopefully one hopefully one more year of testing of testing ARPA, but ARPA 
was so new and so big um and so many different

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compliance requirements associated with it that 
we had to structure our testing related to that. And we'll talk about that in a few slides. And 
part of that report, there's a full schedule of all of your expenditures of federal awards and 
any findings that would have resulted from that. So the audit opinion I mentioned um that's the 
result of the audit of your financial statements. The three pages with our letterhead, my 
signature on it is an unmodified audit opinion. So the best result that you can have, no 
material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies,

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no non-compliance noted in your um your SIFA 
and a consistent track record. You've had um several years of having unmodified audit 
opinions and what we call clean audit opinions. And your federal awards, this is again, we 
talked about your SIFA. you had a total of $23 million in federal awards. Um, of that 
n um 19 18.5 million was all related to

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02:46:37.760 --> 02:47:12.240
um ARPA the ARPA grant and so we have to do 
a deep dive that's considered your one major program this year. So we have to do specific 
testing of all the transactions that happened within ARPA. So a deeper dive than you would do 
if it was just within your financial statements. We are testing transactions for allowability. 
So, did you spend the money in accordance with um the federal final rule that came out related 
to ARPA cash management and reporting? Are you um are you reporting it correctly to the federal 
government? You have to report your expenditures.

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You have reports that are due. I know you go 
through sort of the county process to do that, but we're testing to make sure they're accurate. 
They tie back to your ledgers. They're filed on time. Um no issues related to that. [snorts] 
checking for procurement to make sure you're following both federal and state um procurement 
laws for eligibility of vendors and period of performance. That's big right now, right? 
You had to obligate all of your all of your ARPA funds by a certain date. That date's 
now passed. You now have now you're on a

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02:47:44.640 --> 02:48:17.840
short timeline to make sure those funds go 
out the door and that they're expended. So period of performance is something that the 
federal government really wants us to look at. They give us instructions on that and you 
are giving a lot of that money out of course to subreipients within within Barnstville County. 
So subreient monitoring is on the county to do. We have to test to make sure you have internal 
controls and processes to be able to do that. And [clears throat] what the audit covers 
this is the audit covers all of everything

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02:48:17.840 --> 02:48:50.560
in your financial statement. So, not just your 
general fund, it's all of it's all of your funds, but really you have um over $80 million in cash 
and investments under management. That does not include the OPED trust. That's $80 million 
in all other county funds. So, of course, we're focused on that to be able to audit that. 
we get confirmations on any significant amount of investments um or cash from an outside party 
to make sure they're there, that they exist, that you're reconciling them back to your 
records and you're reporting them accurately

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02:48:50.560 --> 02:49:21.840
in your financial statements. Um the big news 
for fiscal year 25 of course was your stab you increased your stabilization funds. So, you 
know, strong financial policies but also strong reserves. You now have over $33 million in your 
stabilization funds. um with a big transfer in from your general fund to to bring that number 
up for fiscal year 25. The OPED, we're going to talk a little bit more about the OPED liability, 
but you have $5.2 million invested for OPED. Um

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that helps to bring your liability down and make 
your whole financial picture look better in your financial statements because you're funding 
a known long-term liability. And of course, there's all the other funds. So you have over 
a hundred other indiv individual funds, grants, all the smaller revolving funds and grants um 
within your financial statement. So the audit covers everything I mentioned earlier. We're not 
testing every transaction. Some of them are very very small. They may not get picked at all, but 
we do a riskbased assessment on what could go

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02:49:54.080 --> 02:50:26.800
wrong in your financial statements and we design 
our audit procedures based on what could happen and what goes wrong. what could go wrong. And 
I'm going to go through some very, very brief, you have the financial statements. Um, I'm going 
to go through some brief highlights of how you did this year. And I just want to make sure we explain 
the financial statements. It's a big report. Um, but really, we always start with the general 
fund. That's your your key operating fund. And we talk about your internal controls. We look at 
your financial policies that you have documented

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02:50:26.800 --> 02:50:58.319
built-in controls. you know your budget process 
way more than I way better than I do. Um, but your general fund budget for fiscal year 25, this 
is going to look like a big number. It was $ 38.3 million. That number includes the large transfer 
out to the um the new stabilization funds. So you budgeted in total to use 38.3 million of that you 
budgeted to use. When I say use 15.6 6 million of reserves. Of course, that's your fund balance in 
the general fund that you voted to transfer out

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02:50:58.319 --> 02:51:33.120
to build up some of your some of your reserves 
and your new revenue contingency stabilization fund. So, within your budget, you you used 
13.9 million to transfer to that new reserve, a million just used for county operations, and 
then some to go towards the P the PAS cleanup. Um we're seeing that in a lot of communities 
that there's money now that's being put aside for PAS. Um every community has a different 
a different situation and way of dealing with that. But overall you had strong controls. 
Your revenues came in over budget by over

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02:51:33.120 --> 02:52:07.840
$6 million. Your expenditures um and incumbrances 
of your current budget were under by 2 million. So all of that adds back to your fund balance, 
your general fund net position. Your net position on a budgetary basis, that's right in your 
budget to actual in your financial statements. You had a net decrease of 7.2. So again, you 
planned on using some of your savings account, um, if you will, I'm sorry, some of your checking 
account to go into savings. You budgeted to use general fund to go into your stabilization or 
your savings accounts, but then you had strong

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02:52:07.840 --> 02:52:43.359
performance and that made your net position only 
go down by $7.2 million on a budgetary basis. And what happens when you go from the budgetary 
basis up to the financial statements is you you merge together your general fund and your 
stabilization funds. So accounting standards require that you report them together. So when 
you're looking at or any outside party is looking at the county's financial statements, your general 
fund balance looks large. You have $44.5 million

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in your general fund. Most of that 33.5 is now 
in stabilization funds. You have about $1 million um in your actual operating general fund on 
a budgetary basis. So just make sure it's it's really hard to go from one to the other 
just because there's so much money in the way you report it. And that's why your general fund 
balance is looks so big, right? 192% of general fund expenditures. All of that is because you 
have um taken a proactive step to put a lot of money away in your stabilization funds. Um 
you've reserved some money for incumbrances,

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02:53:16.319 --> 02:53:52.240
not too much at the end of the year. And again, 
that unassigned fund balance is 40. The 44.4 33.4 4 is all in stabilization money and it's 
reported within your footnotes and your financial statements. There's a nice chart now that breaks 
out all of your stabilization money um separately. This is the first year we've done that. But 
you know the numbers um here your general stabilization is 1.3. Capital stabilization, 
you've had that for a while 7.8. Emergency is 1.6. You've got 8.2 in PAS. And the new one 
is the revenue stabilization over $14 million.

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02:53:52.240 --> 02:54:24.240
Um, so that's sort of the one of the bigger things 
that happened financially for the county this year and other funds above and beyond the general fund. 
Of course, you have some unique funds related to Barnesville County Cape Cod Commission um with a 
$10 million balance and of course that had over $4 million this year and in your special tax and 
about $4 million in expenditures related to that. um the septic loan program. You have $17 
million. This is a lot of your borrowing

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02:54:24.240 --> 02:54:57.200
relates to the community septic loan program. You 
have loans receivable outstanding which right now are fully deferred on your financial statements. 
Um great program to take advantage of. You know, most of your debt relates to that and they're 
0% loans. So, it's a wonderful program that you're take you're taking advantage of. We talked 
about ARPA. Um for ARPA your balance right now is $3 million at the end of the year for the good 
thing about ARPA one of the nice things other than the federal government giving us money is that you 
get to keep the interest and use that interest. So

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02:54:57.200 --> 02:55:27.359
the balance in ARPA very typically is just the 
accumulated interest that you've gotten on those funds throughout the years. That's $3.2 million. 
Your unearned revenue is $4.9. What happens with federal grants is when you get the money, ARPA, 
they gave you the money up front, you got cash in the bank, you don't recognize it as revenue 
until you've actually lend um given the money out, you've granted it to to parties or you've used 
it. So once you spend or use that money, you

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02:55:27.359 --> 02:56:02.720
recognize the revenue. So at the end of 25, that 
4.9 million in unearned revenue on your balance sheet is all money that you haven't you have the 
cash in the bank, but you haven't used it yet. and smaller funds. The gifts and grants funds of 
course 356,000 and then everything else that's governmental um other than the enterprise 
fund goes into a category called non- major governmental funds. That's all of your other 
um revolving funds, special revenue funds, anything else of a capital nature. And you have 
because you're doing a comprehensive report,

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02:56:02.720 --> 02:56:38.160
there's schedules in the back of your ACT for 
that will give you a breakout if anybody's interested balance sheet and income statement 
for all of those non- major governmental funds. And another unique one for for Barnesville 
County is the dredge enterprise fund. The dredge enterprise fund is always shown on the full 
acral basis of accounting. So, it's easier to look at it from a cash basis really than than a fund 
balance basis. When you look fund balance-wise, you only have $435,000 of ending balance, 
but really it's because you're reporting the

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02:56:38.160 --> 02:57:11.519
long-term liabilities pension and OP related to 
dredge. So, if you want to look at it, you want to look at it and manage it more on a cash flow 
basis. And um and you're fine that way. It looks like a little balance, but that little balance 
is really because of the long-term liabilities. and we'll talk a little bit about the big 
liabilities. So, from an audit perspective, we um spend a lot of focus on the big numbers in the 
financial statements and how we can audit those and make sure they're accurate. And of course, 
OPEDB and OP and pension are always the big

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02:57:11.520 --> 02:57:43.439
numbers in the financial statements. OPE of course 
is your um requirement to pay for health insurance um and benefits for retirees. So, you have an 
obligation to measure the liability, to report the liability, and you have the opportunity 
to put money aside to fund the liability, which you've actually done a good job on. 
You in fiscal 25 set aside $500,000 towards funding that liability um in a trust fund that 
you've established, you're now at $5 million,

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02:57:43.439 --> 02:58:17.200
which is invested with a long-term outlook on 
those investments. Helps to bring the whole liability down. Um the valuation that was used 
to measure your liability was as of June 30th 24. You rememeasure this every two years. So every two 
years the actuary comes in and says how did we do? We made some assumptions on how long people would 
live, what health insurance was going to cost, um how many people in retirement were actually 
going to take advantage advantage of our health insurance plan and you you really compare that 
to what really happened and rememeasure the

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02:58:17.200 --> 02:58:48.799
liability. So, your unfunded liability reported 
um as of June 30th ends up being $20 million. You are just over 20% funded now with OPED, which 
is better than most. Um you know, we have some odd communities that are that are fully funded 
or getting really close, but really if you're averaging yourself across the across the street 
state, you're doing pretty well. Um, there's a lot in the financial statements, note disclosures 
related to OPED, and what you're building on to,

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02:58:48.800 --> 02:59:23.760
what the accounting standards started to let you 
build on to is a 10-year trend schedule. So, if you look in the back of the report, it will give 
you show you that nine, we have we're up to nine years, but nine years ago, you had zero funding 
for OPED, and now you've put aside $5.2 million. So the standards in measuring it really have 
helped to bring those liabilities down because people are measuring paying attention to the 
benefits that are offered and and really putting money aside to help fund that um fund that in the 
future. And the next one you have less control

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02:59:23.760 --> 02:59:55.679
over um is your share of Barnesville County 
Retirement Association. So Barnesville County of course is um groups all of the communities in 
Barnsville County. you are a portion of that and you are required to pay your um what they come up 
with for your assessment into Barnesville County. Now the county system is almost 70% funded um some 
good years some required contributions. So our anticipation always is that the retirement systems 
will be fully funded far before OPED because the

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02:59:55.680 --> 03:00:26.160
law requires you to be on a funding schedule. They 
too have um they reme-measure it every two years. they have a new valuation, the actuary comes in 
and to see how they did, how their investments did um and how their, you know, how people measured 
up or all their assumptions measured up compared to what they expected. and our other than getting 
the the reports from Barnesville County Retirement um which we we end up doing one of our one of 
our other departments another group of people do

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03:00:26.160 --> 03:01:01.520
that audit report but other than getting that we 
have to focus to make sure the information coming from Barnes County going over to the retirement 
system is accurate so your share of Bible county depends on you giving them good information so 
our focus when we're auditing that number from your perspective active is to make sure that 
the reports that you're transmitting to them, the census information that they get from 
you is accurate so that they are accurately reporting back to you your share of the 
liability and no issues related to that.

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03:01:01.520 --> 03:01:31.520
And some of the other big numbers in your 
financial statements, yours not so bad, but I was just looking at your governmental debt. 
Overall, you have um your debt burden is pretty low compared to other other governments. Um, 
you've been very fortunate. I mentioned earlier that your long-term debt, even with the dredge 
and with um, your general government, most of it is in Mass Clean Water Trust interest free loans. 
We like to think that's good debt, right? That's good. If someone's going to lend you money to 
operate a really good program and they're going

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03:01:31.520 --> 03:02:04.720
to give it to you interest free, um, it's a good 
program that the state runs to that you should take advantage of. So really, your debt service is 
1% of your budget. Very, very low. um compared to other governments. So that's really strong when 
somebody's looking at your financial position. And we'll talk a little bit about how your your 
policies that you have in place and how they relate to the audit and help you financially. Um 
this this um this slide really has all of your

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03:02:04.720 --> 03:02:35.840
your key financial policies listed. I will say 
we pay attention to all of these for the audit except for financial forecasting. That's the one 
area that I'm not concerned with because we're we always have sort of a looking back view. But 
we start the audit. We talked about budgeting, your budget process. Do you have a process to 
have a balanced budget and do you have controls in place to make sure that you are keeping people 
in line with that budget? That you're watching it, that you have strong budgetary results. We talked 
about that and you do. Of course, accounting and

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03:02:35.840 --> 03:03:08.479
financial reporting, having documented controls 
over that helps you to be able to prepare your financial statements. Financial statements that 
are accurate, um, that are timely, that don't require a lot of adjustments, and so and so forth. 
Financial reserves, those are your stabilization funds. That was the key thing that happened 
this year for your audit. Um, [snorts] capital, of course, capital you're planning. We I heard 
you earlier talking about capital planning and how you were going to fund capital going forward. 
As far as the financial statements go, you report

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03:03:08.479 --> 03:03:42.880
your capital assets once a year. We check to 
make sure that you have strong controls over identifying um not only the assets but estimating 
your lives of the assets so that you have a strong plan in place not only to to build new assets but 
to maintain and account for the assets that you have. um debt. We just talked about investments. 
Um we want to make sure you're in compliance with the law, that the investments you have comply 
with the law. OPE of course can be invested differently than other funds. Um and you do 
and you do that, you take advantage of that,

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03:03:42.880 --> 03:04:17.840
but making sure you've valued them properly 
and they're again they're in compliance with we have strict laws in Massachusetts about what 
you can and cannot invest in. Grant management, that's ARPA. Um and then the smaller gifts and 
donations. So your these come right off of your financial policies. Having them in writing helps. 
Um Roina if you can just go to the next slide. So you know good good policies that are documented. 
That is what not only um the government finance officers association recommends, division 
of local services recommends. That is one

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03:04:17.840 --> 03:04:51.600
of the first things that the rating agencies 
look for. Do you have strong policies that um that are documented and that will outlive 
you know transitions in staff, transitions in elected officials and so forth. Um if you have 
them in writing then they will live you know through those. Right now we are in a world that 
people have a lot of transition and financial positions. It's hard to find people. It's 
hard to find you know good qual quality staff. And if you have any kind of downturn, having your 
documented policies really helps. They help to

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03:04:51.600 --> 03:05:23.439
have strong internal controls that are not sort 
of ad hoc, but that you have them documented and you're following them. And really, it gives 
you discipline in your financial reporting. So, um, your report, your act, we talked about you 
have an ACE for not just financial statements. You did get an award of excellence in financial 
reporting from the GFOA. Um, you've gotten that for several years. you are were the first 
county I don't think we have any other counties in Massachusetts that are getting that are submitting 
an act for that I'm aware of but I know you were

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03:05:23.439 --> 03:05:57.600
the first to do that you did get the certificate 
um you've put you've again put the put your you know put this in to you know your next act for you 
you always go forward and put the next act for in so 24 got the award 25 was put in for the award 
um and consistent clean opinions if you didn't have clean audit opinions you wouldn't be able to 
do that and submit for that special recognition. And I'll wrap up with this. Um, some key takeaways 
from this. Clean on both accounts. So again, clean

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03:05:57.600 --> 03:06:28.640
audit opinions, all the work, all the testing, and 
audits never fun. I think I heard somebody earlier um early at the beginning of the meeting saying 
that audits aren't always a bad thing. Um, audits aren't a bad thing. Audits are a good 
thing, but I will tell you they're not convenient. um we come in and really disrupt um the day-to-day 
operations and we do a lot of testing and and it can be a little bit annoying for people to do 
but um we get a lot of support in Barnstable County. I think Carol and her team do a great 
job helping us. The result of that is clean audit

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03:06:28.640 --> 03:07:03.679
opinions. Um your policies really are driving 
consistency. Your internal controls are strong and really the outcome is shown in um the audit 
opinions and the GFOA award that you receive. And with that, I will take um any questions you 
have on the audit. Great. Thank you. Um excellent report. Uh Commissioner Lions, would you like 
to go first? Well, um you know, we have uh we have an excellent uh director of finance and 
she does a great job and it shows. But a lot

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03:07:03.680 --> 03:07:35.359
of people will look at this and say, "You're 
sitting on a lot of money there." You know, give give me some. [laughter] How do we say that 
this is actually a good thing and we're doing the right thing by being prudent and um uh go ahead 
you no no I I will right so I mean that does come back to having strong policies and yes if you so 
there is a lot of money there and you you know I hear you talking about right there's budgetary 
constraints and we have you know what are we

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going to be looking at for deficits going forward 
how are we going to move forward word. Um, you can't live dayto-day in the in governments, right? 
Having policies to make sure that you are setting limits. You don't want to have, you know, your 
stabilization funds at whatever you can have them. You want to set them at limits. Here's what's 
right for us. We know we have these things coming down the road. We know we have some potential PAS 
liability. We know we're going to have some budget constraints going forward. You want to set your 
policies and you do have a general fund policy to say we're going to keep our general fund balance. 
um at approximately a certain percent I think

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you're you know a certain percent of our operating 
budget. You want to have enough liquid money you know just think about your personal finances 
enough liquid money that if you have a couple of down months that you're still going to be able 
to pay the bills and operate. You want to you know you're you have some good guaranteed revenue. 
So we you know you have strong revenue sources which is really good going forward but there's 
always the constraints on the requirements of we don't know you know you've got a fund pension you 
don't know what health insurance is the costs of everything are going up you know sometimes 
in some cases higher than the revenues are

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um but when you're looking to say how much cash do 
we have don't look at it from a cash perspective because that cash is not all available for you 
to go and spend it's not all all available for the budget process. Thank you. That's [laughter] 
what I needed to be said. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Commissioner Commission. Yeah. [clears throat] 
Um, yeah, obviously it's a good picture. You know, you can look at it and say we built up reserves 
and, uh, we should be set, especially with revenue contingencies in case we do have a couple of down 
years. But, you know, I've always said the county

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is not a bank. We we we exist to supply services 
to people. So collecting money in the bank is it's not really our purpose in life. Fortunately or 
unfortunately we have you know some financial liabilities going forward with uh a lot of capital 
expenditures. We don't know what OPED is. So we so to I think it's important to take the reserves 
that we have and designate them for the future so that they're not hanging out there for people 
to to speculate on what what we can do which would

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probably be unrealistic and financial financially 
because uh you know to some that the county might be the goose that laid the golden egg and think 
well let's see what we can get out of it but uh right now I think we're on a we're on a good 
path and we should beat [clears throat] that path and be conservative. ative because as is said 
many times we have future responsibilities, future liabilities and we want to make sure we can meet 
those and look ahead five 10 years in the future.

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Thank you. Any questions commissioner? No. 
Okay, great. Um Renee, I I think this is um was a terrific presentation and I also appreciate 
uh your commenting on our financial policies and our financial position. I think what we've been 
working hard to do is to put the county in the strongest financial position so that it can deal 
with some challenges that are in front of us. Now, we haven't finalized the plans and we're 
working on that now. particularly with the

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county complex. Um, you know, we're working very 
hard on addressing a a PAS pollution problem. So, that we we know we have some big builds ahead of 
us, but I I I do think your report is just further confirmation that we've positioned ourselves 
well in terms of meeting those challenges. Now, what we have to do is just sort of figure out 
um more details and and and and spend more time sort of laying out a longer term plan. But we're 
um I think your report um is just confirmation

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that the way I look at it, it's confirmation that 
we're on the right direction. We're headed in the right direction and we're managing our resources 
prudently on behalf of the uh the taxpayers and the people of Barnstable County. So, um it's 
always nice when you get a a very strong, very positive report from the auditors. No significant 
findings. I always that's always the first thing that I look for when I hear from the auditors. 
are there any material significant findings? And uh once again, this is another year where we're 
in strong shape on that score. Um the other thing

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that I think is also important and and and one 
of the reasons why we do this publicly is I think um and have this public presentation, it's 
it's to promote transparency in terms of how we uh manage the county's finances. um you know we 
don't have to have I mean we should have in in in the interest of transparency it's important to 
have this kind of discussion so that the public can hear directly from the auditors and other 
interested officials can hear directly from the auditors what they think um you know what they 
think of our financial statements and financial

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reports. Um I appreciate the fact that uh in your 
initial the initial slides in the presentation you talk about reviewing procurement you uh and 
monitoring of grant recipients subreients the way we go about staying on top of um making sure 
the subreients managing manage their dollars in accordance with the requirements that we're 
obligated to follow. Um, you know, I don't think

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03:13:04.880 --> 03:13:39.200
we talk enough about that, but I think for folks 
watching this presentation, I think it's important to get across the point that um, particularly 
with the grant funds, we go through significant scrutiny um, and we we undertake significant 
scrutiny um, and we sometimes will be criticized um, for the level of scrutiny or let's put it 
this way, we we we often get complaints uh, of from uh recipients for the level of scrutiny 
that we apply. But we think it's incredibly

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03:13:39.200 --> 03:14:09.760
important that we make sure that we do follow and 
adhere to uh the federal grant requirements and the other grant requirements that we're obligated 
to work under and we follow procurement policies that the Commonwealth has established and we we 
we we safeguard these resources and manage them with a great deal of care. Um, and I think that's 
another sort of aspect of an audit like this that comes out and becomes pretty evident to the p 
to the public. You know, we live in an age where

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um, you know, a lot of people are cynical. Uh, 
it's easy to get cynical if you follow social media. Um, but every now and then you need to 
have an outside auditor come in and basically take a hard look at what you're doing and give 
an honest and straightforward assessment as to how the county's finances are being managed. And 
that's what you've provided. And um and it it it also reaffirms the confidence that we have in our 
county administrator and the confidence that we have in our financial team which is led by Carol 
Capola. Carol and her team do an outstanding job

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03:14:42.239 --> 03:15:14.719
uh of managing the county finances. Uh they 
provide great advice and counsel to us as commissioners because we've made it very very 
clear from for quite a while that we want to meet um the highest standards. We want to follow the 
best practices. We want Barnstable County to be sort of the on the cutting edge and the flagship 
county uh county government in Massachusetts. We're often called the flagship county government 
in Massachusetts. And that takes a great deal of

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03:15:14.720 --> 03:15:48.319
work and effort. So, um like I said, this is 
sort of the uh the report card. That's the way I look at it. It's a report card on how 
we're doing and our financial team clearly uh they they get all A's and uh it's nice hearing 
that publicly quite frankly and uh and we and and uh I know as as you said Renee do doing an audit 
can sometimes be excruciating um and it's always nice when it ends um but really the the the the 
most enjoyment that I get is when you get the when

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03:15:48.319 --> 03:16:23.520
you get the report and you get the statements 
and you get a presentation. like this. So, I appreciate you being here today. I appreciate 
it all every time you come before us and give us the straight scoop on our county finances and uh 
you do a great job for us and uh we appreciate all your service to Barnesville County. Thank you. 
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, unless there are any more questions, Carol, Michael, anything 
else we need to highlight or talk about? No. We'll see the auditors in a few weeks. Okay, [laughter] 
Susan, is there anything you would like to ask?

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03:16:23.520 --> 03:16:58.000
No. Okay, great. Listen, once again, uh, Renee and 
Roina, thank you so much for all your work and, uh, I'm sure we'll see you soon. Okay. Thank 
you. Thank you. Okay. A very big thank you to Carol Capola and her team. All right. For that. 
Very good. So, we're going to move on to the next item on our agenda, which is 6D. And this is 
the reauthorization of the annual delegation of certain duties to the county administrator. 
You have before you uh an updated version of the

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03:16:58.000 --> 03:17:33.359
annual delegation. I'm going to ask if I can have 
a motion. Uh yes. Um I move to what's the where are we? Six 6D. E 6D. I think it's E. No, I'm on 
6D. Oh D. I move to authorize the reauthorization of the annual delegation of certain duties to the 
county administrator as outlined in the July 8th, 2026 memo. Second. Okay. So, we have a motion in 
the second. Uh, let me ask, am I do I is there Oh,

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03:17:33.359 --> 03:18:04.160
I see. I I have a PDF version of the agenda that 
is different from the one that is in front of me right now. So, things have been reorganized. We 
do that just to confuse you. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. So uh no the administrator is uh right and uh so 
we are on in with respect to the revised agenda on item E. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a 
second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. A

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03:18:04.160 --> 03:18:41.121
roll call vote. All those in favor? Commissioner 
Lions. Lions votes I. Commissioner Bergstrom. Bergstrom votes I. Commissioner Fors votes I. 
It carries unanimously. Uh we're going to move on to item uh F in our revised um agenda. 
Okay. What did Commissioner Lion say? Oh, I thought we were Yeah, we're on Does everybody 
have the correct agenda? I mean, well, we have it's following along. It's just the lettering is 
um missed the letter. Somebody skipped talking.

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03:18:42.080 --> 03:19:14.399
Well, we just the next the next item. Yeah. 
The next the next the next item F. Yeah. Do I have a motion? I move to to approve ordinance 
2026-15 authorizing the recession recision of a portion of borrowing authority authorization 
previously approved under ordinance 2024-01 for the cooperative extension Americanore vehicle 
replacement project in the amount of $6,63425.

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03:19:14.399 --> 03:19:47.839
Second. Do we have a we've got a second on that? 
Yeah. Okay. Second. So, um, any discussion? Hearing none. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes I. 
Burkstrom. Burkstrom votes I. Forest votes I. Next item on our agenda is G. Ordinance 26, 2026-16. Do 
I have a motion? I move to authorize, excuse me, I move to approve ordinance 2026-16 authorizing 
the recision of borrowing of authorization

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03:19:47.840 --> 03:20:20.160
previously approved under ordinance 22-09 for 
the Cape Cod Commission Capital Building Project associated with the purchase and renovation 
of office and meeting space in the amount of $4 million and would further authorize the 
project to instead be funded through the use of restricted balances within the Cape Cod 
Environmental Protection Fund in the same amount of $4 million. Lions second. Okay, we have a 
motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing

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03:20:20.160 --> 03:20:54.160
none. All those in favor? Commissioner Bergstrom? 
Burkstrom votes I. Commissioner Lions votes I. And Commissioner Forest votes I as well. It 
passes unanimously. Um item H regarding the uh authorizing the Dredge Enterprise Fund. 
Do I have a motion? Yes. Um, Mr. Chairman, I move to approve ordinance 2026-17 authorizing 
the Dredge Enterprise Fund Capital Program to resend borrowing authorization previously 
approved under Ordinance 2025-01 in the amount of

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03:20:54.160 --> 03:21:27.920
$150,000 for the replacement of a CAT engine on a 
booster station and to authorize the repurposing of remaining authorized, unissued, and/or 
unexpended bond proceeds in the amount of 76,6131 for the cat engine capital project for the 
Dredge Enterprise Fund. Buy and second. Yeah, we have a motion and a second. Um, I'll call for 
a vote. Commissioner Lion votes I. Commissioner

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03:21:27.920 --> 03:22:00.800
Bergstrom. Burst votes I. Commissioner Forest 
votes I as well. It carries unanimously. Uh, we're on to uh item I, ordinance 26, 2026-18. Do 
I have a motion? Yes. U Mr. Chairman, I move to approve ordinance 2026-18 authorize general fund 
budget transfers totaling $81,500 for the purpose of funding information technology salaries of 
$1,500 and laboratory supplies of $80,000. By

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03:22:00.800 --> 03:22:33.120
second. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second 
on the floor. I'm going to call for a vote. Commissioner Lion. Lions votes I. Commissioner 
Burkstrom. Burkstrom votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I as well. It carries unanimously. 
Uh the next uh item J ordinance 2026-9 creating an emergency management department. Do 
I have a motion? Yes. Uh Mr. Chairman, we've discussed this in the past and given um 
the administration authority to create such a

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03:22:33.120 --> 03:23:10.239
department. So I move to approve ordinance 2026-9 
creating an emergency management department. Lions second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. 
Um I'm going to call for a vote. Commissioner Alliance. Lions votes I. Commissioner 
Bergstrom. Bergstrom votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I. It passes unanimously. Uh 
item number K, proposed resolution 2026-06 supporting the voters's approval for an audit of 
the state legislature. Do I have a motion? Um so

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03:23:10.239 --> 03:23:42.800
moved. I don't have anything in front of me. Lion 
seconds. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Yeah. I just I talked 
to one of the sponsors of this ordinance and his feeling was that his constituents felt that they 
had voted in a positive positively to create such a a an authority for the auditor to audit the 
legislature and simply they were reflecting the views of their constituents. Okay. Is there any 
other discussion? Commissioning alliance? No,

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03:23:42.800 --> 03:24:13.359
I I do think that that's um the the sentiment of 
the voters uh in the majority. There's a majority sentiment there. I'm not sure if I'm part of 
it, but I will I will second that. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second to support the uh 
approval of an audit for the state legislature. Uh Commissioner Alliance. Lions. Commissioner 
Bergstro. Birchham votes I and Commissioner Forest

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03:24:13.359 --> 03:24:46.960
votes I as well. Uh new business. Do we have any 
new business that we need to bring up at this time? Hearing none, I'm going to move on to the 
commissioner's consent agenda item number eight. Um and we have a a multitude of items, bid awards, 
contract amendments, discharges, all posted on our agenda. Commissioner Bergstrom, would you like 
to make a motion or commissioner? I I move to approve the commissioner's consent agenda items 
8 um Roman numeral 1 through 8, Roman numeral 5,

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03:24:46.960 --> 03:25:25.680
including all subsections as listed on the July 
8th, 2026 meeting agenda. Lions second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Um and I'm going to 
ask for roll call vote. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I. Commissioner 
Bergstrom. virtue votes I. Okay, it passes unanimously. Uh the next item nine on our agenda 
is the approval of the meeting minutes for June 29th. Do I have a motion? Um yes. Go ahead. I move 
to approve the June 29th, 2026 regular meeting

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03:25:25.680 --> 03:25:57.040
minutes as drafted. Second. You have a motion and 
a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. Roll call vote. Commissioner 
Lions. Lions votes I. Commissioner Bergstrom. Burkstrom votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I 
as well. It passes unanimously. Item number 10 on our agenda. Commissioner reports. Commissioner 
Alliance. Do you have a report for us today? I do not. Okay. Commissioner Bergstrom. Nope, I do 
not. Okay. We'll move along to uh number uh 11,

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03:25:57.040 --> 03:26:27.600
upcoming business. Um and let's take a quick 
look at our schedules. Our uh Yes, Mr. Chair, the the uh schedule for your next meeting is 
actually Thursday, July 30th in Harwitch. Uh we adjusted your normal uh Wednesday meeting uh 
pushed it off a day to Thursday. So it's Thursday, July 30th. Um in Harwitch, excuse me, in Harwitch. 
Uh as the chair mentioned, we may be reviewing uh the Americanore projects, which we 
didn't uh get to today, but uh specifically

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03:26:27.600 --> 03:27:04.720
uh Haritch projects that Americanore has worked 
on. We'll have some new staff introductions. Uh we'll also have an update on the Cape Cod license 
plate fund um and the kickoff for the new round of uh of opportunity funding opportunities there. 
Um and between now and then I'm sure we'll have a number of other items that get added to the 
agenda. That's what we have right now though. That's great. Can I ask question? Go ahead. Where 
are we going to meet in Haritch? Should we at town hall or the community center or I believe we're 
a town hall. Uh but obviously we'll confirm that

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03:27:04.720 --> 03:27:35.600
and advertise that. Yeah. Right. Most likely in 
the Don B Griffin, otherwise referred to as Bucky Griffin conference room. Griffin. Yes, I work 
with Bucky Griffin. He was the leader of uh in the independence movement on Cape Cod when I was on 
the Harvard Select Board. He actually even helped put together a flag. So, I know. And you were on 
the Harvard Select Board. I I used to work for the Harvard Select Board. Oh, yeah. That's where 
I started. I worked by the uh in I worked next to

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03:27:35.600 --> 03:28:12.719
the vault in the basement of town hall. All right. 
Any other comments or questions, Chila? No. Thank you. No, Commissioner Bergstrom. No, I'm happy 
with that. Yeah, I think it's going to be fun being in Rich. Um, one of the one of the things uh 
as we go on to um uh a commissioner a a sort of an item I want to mention this to Michael because um 
at last night's Yarmouth select board meeting we invited the Cape Cod Commission rep to come in 
to uh update the select boards and he actually

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03:28:12.720 --> 03:28:46.640
brought a handout handout of materials that were 
prepared by staff at the Cape cut commission and I thought the packet of information was very very 
thorough, very interesting. Uh provided background on the amount of open space and a host of other 
characteristics of the town. It was a very very um I think a display of some just some of the some 
of the data collected by the Cape Cut Commission that is clearly of interest and of use to the 
towns. And Dennis brought this in. Sarah Kovven

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03:28:46.640 --> 03:29:18.800
was there. She handed it up to the select board. 
It was great. I think when we go to Haritch, we should ask uh Christie and the staff to maybe 
do prepare something like that for Haritch because I think we're asking the commission to come in 
to give us an update on the license plate funds and they're going to update us on the next round 
of funding and some of the priorities of funding. I do think that in Haritch if Christy and staff 
will be there now. We need to make sure that that

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03:29:18.800 --> 03:29:50.479
date works for them. I think it will, but we need 
to just double check with her. [snorts] Um then I think it might be helpful to bring in a packet 
of some of that information. Uh because I thought it went over very well with the select board. 
Good. Uh that handoff and obviously we we have a very good rep in the town of Yarmouth serving 
on the commission. So, um, are there any county administrator staff reports? We have very lengthy 
report. No, we don't. Um, I just want to let you

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03:29:50.479 --> 03:30:25.760
know [laughter] I just want to let you know that 
the shared regional housing uh, program for 2027 is uh, up and going and uh, we've had obviously 
good response. um Haritch, as I had mentioned, has joined uh which is great and uh and so we'll 
we'll be uh carrying on with that program for the next fiscal year and the fiscal year after very 
likely. um had an opportunity to get out and visit the dredge uh in its last one of its last days 
in Harwitch and uh saw firsthand the critical um

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03:30:25.760 --> 03:31:04.239
service they provide uh as evidenced by uh fishing 
boat getting uh uh stranded up on a on a sand uh sand uh sand sandbar. Thank you. Um and then 
uh last I want to tell you that uh we are working internally on the uh another change order for uh 
GZA, our contractor that's working on PAS issues. Um and that will be coming to you fairly shortly, 
but I just want to let you know we're working on that. That's great. Happy to answer questions. 
Any questions for Michael Sheila? No. No. Um the

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03:31:04.239 --> 03:31:35.760
the only other thing that I just wanted to add a 
footnote in terms of Michael's report is that he and I have been regularly talking to our state 
representatives uh making sure that there are amendments being worked into a couple of pieces 
of legislation to provide funding for dredging throughout the Commonwealth and including our Cape 
community and funding for uh Representative Luddy wants to do a study on long-term dredging needs. 
And there are others that think it might be also

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03:31:35.760 --> 03:32:11.200
helpful to analyze the econ the economics of our 
ports because we generate a lot of economic activ economic activity and that's information that 
could be helpful for in a variety of purposes. So um there's a study measure that has been both 
of these measures have been adopted in the mass ready act bill that was the house and now there's 
discussion and it may have already happened. I'll be getting an update later today of amending the 
House economic development bill uh that is working

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03:32:11.200 --> 03:32:45.200
its way through to include similar language for 
dredging and a county study on the economic value activity in our ports. So just an update on that 
Michael we've been sort of tag teaming on that. So um that's moving forward. So anything else? That 
is it for now. Okay. Um then I have one final item on the agenda. Do we have a motion? I move 
to a All right. Uh do that. Was that a second,

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03:32:45.200 --> 03:33:29.840
Sheila? Yes, it was. Okay. Um let's go right 
to a vote. Uh all those in favor? Commissioner Lions? Lions votes I. Burkstrom. Commissioner 
Burkstrom votes I. Commissioner Boris votes I. And uh that was unanimous. And we are now 
adjourned at roughly what? 1:30. 1:30. Hey,