Wednesday 25th uh at 9:30 uh Commissioner Lions will be joining us. Um this meeting of the county board of regional commissioners will be conducted in accordance with applicable laws. Those who wish to participate may do so either in person or by accessing the meeting via Microsoft Teams or they might view the meeting via a live broadcast on uh YouTube and all the information on how to access that uh is on our website at kidcod.gov. Um I am going to suspend with any uh pledge of allegiance
or moment of silence. I'll do that when we come out into public session. But we are going to go uh into executive session and my expectation is is that we will uh be back here in public session at approximately 10 a.m. So what I would like to do and that is um this the item on the agenda that relates to executive session is our first item of business executive session. A discussion pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 3A section 21 subsection A6 to discuss the purchase, exchange,
lease, or value of the following real property for which an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the board as declared by the chair. And I so declare that such a discussion in in open session will have a detrimental effect. Um and the topic is obviously Children's Cove, the Cape Island Child Advocacy Center. And then after that discussion, we'll be also discussing um the review and approval and release of executive sessions minutes and that.
And um now I have a draft motion here and I think it's appropriate that as the chairman I going to look at guidance from the from our clerk and I so um I'm going to make the following motion to go into executive session. Uh, I move to enter into executive session at approximately uh 9:34 pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 3A section 21 A6 to discuss the purchase, exchange, lease,
or value of the following real property for which an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the board as declared by the chair. and I have made such a declaration. uh Children's Cove, the Cape Islands Advocacy Center, and for discussion pursuant to general laws chapter 3A section 21A7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or federal grant and aid requirements approval and or the release of executive session
meeting minutes pursuant to general laws chapter 38 section 22F. Executive session meetings review approval and/or the release of executive session meeting minutes for approval of the December 17th, 2025 executive session meeting minutes and to review for release the August 7th, 2019, August 14th, 2019, December 22nd, 2021, March 16th, 2022, March 23rd, 2022, February 14th,
2024, December 17th, 2025. Executive session meeting minutes and to return into open session at approximately 10 a.m. Okay. And I will second that motion. Okay. Did we get that right? Do I need to clarify? Not perfect. Okay. So, you you'll second that. So, I have a motion and a second. Uh, roll call vote. Commissioner Burkstrom. Commissioner Bergstrom votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I as well. So we are now in executive session.
and I'm calling the meeting to order and uh thank you all for being patient with us. Um I'm going to take an item out of uh out of turn here. Um, what I'd like to do is ask everyone to join us in a pledge of allegiance to the flagged of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The next item on our agenda is uh I'm asking you to join us in a brief moment of silence to reflect on the bravery and the sacrifices of all those who have uh put their lives on the line in service to your country. Thank you. The next item on the agenda, I understand we have Senator Dylan Fernandez
with us. Can we bring Senator Fernandez up on the screen? Uh we've invited Senator Fernandez to join us to update on his efforts to revise uh local aid funding. Senator, can you hear us? Commissioner, I I can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, you're looking good. Thank you. Thank you. Well, always an honor uh to be with you. Um, I don't want to be too long, but uh cuz we're actually
headed uh into caucus, but wanted to and and really appreciate you extending the invitation uh to talk about an issue that's really important to the towns uh in Barnstable County and really towns across the Commonwealth, which is how local aid is distributed. And you know, in the past 2 years, we've seen over 130 overrides in municipalities across the Commonwealth. So, communities are
really struggling with balancing budgets. We've seen a really large uptick and a lot a lot of this, as you know, the you commissioners know, has to do with the increased costs to to health care, which a lot of communities are are really struggling with. Um, but you know, in looking at all of these overrides, in looking at some of the proposed cuts, and this is uh really prevalent actually on the other half of my district in the Southshore, uh, luckily the the Cape, which does
face, you know, towns are facing some some budget constraints, um, but not as bad as as some areas in the Commonwealth. Um we took a look into well how is this local aid actually distributed and there's a couple forms of local aid um as you know uh you know there is and and there's certain ways that um the state funds uh people so uh or funds communities of course there's you know the chapter 70 for education uh formula there's chapter 90 for roads and bridges formula uh um
uh you know there's there's there's types of fees that communities can implement and then there's something called uh AGA or unrestricted general government aid which is basically a blank check that the state gives to communities that they can do whatever they want with that money based upon their needs. So they can use that to fund fire departments, police departments, schools, roads and bridges, you know, you you name whatever kind of issue is most central and most impactful
and most needed, they can use that allocation from the state to fund those necessary services. And so we took a look into this formula and it turned out that there actually isn't even a formula in place. So this is something unrestricted government aid formula is something that was kind of established in a combination of two different formulas. One being um uh you know the piece that the state
gave back to communities based upon um scratch tickets, another type of of lottery sales and the other being a smaller bucket around historic uh government aid that the state used to distribute to towns. They combined both of these formulas uh and and then they actually froze this in place in 2010. And so any allocation or any increase in unrestricted government aid is actually based upon
what the community received the previous year and not upon any need, not upon a series of variables uh based upon population or or town size or ability to pay for services. not based upon what you would think an actual formula would be based upon, just based upon what the community got the previous year. And so the the kind of results of this are are actually quite predictable in
that a lot has changed in, you know, the past 16 years. And so communities that look quite similar on paper now receive wildly disperate forms of un unrestricted government aid. So I'll give you example of a couple communities in my district um on the Cape. You know if you look at Medfield and Mashby they both have about 14,000 residents. Medfield actually has
uh a per capita income of over 110,000 which is double Mashby's per capita income. Um and despite having more wealth to draw from uh and the same population size, Medfield received $1.8 8 million in state aid which is four times what MASHB received and 450,000 uh in state aid. Want to give you an example around Borne and Newbury Port. I think this is particularly interesting
because both are are coastal communities. both uh have a tourism industry that's quite prevalent and and is kind of you know that that part of the state quite similar to the Cape being coastal and tourist based and so Matt Bourne and Newbury Port both have pretty much the exact same population as well. Uh their their their citizens their residents earn comparable uh amounts of income.
They're basically the same size. Yet, Newbury Port received $3.3 million in unrestricted government aid to Borne's 1.8 million. And this is even more distressing when you find out that they actually both have pretty much the exact same property wealth per person as well. Uh so on paper pretty much identical communities but one receiving double the the other. And so our
region is getting a really raw deal when it comes to this formula and a lot of other regions in the in the state see these disparities as well. So, you know, you look at uh Somerville and and Chillmark, Massachusetts. This might be the greatest disparity in UGGA funding. Chillmark, of course, an incredibly wealthy community. Um receives $4 per person uh for in terms of UGGA funding. Somerville, not as wealthy as Chillmark, but actually quite a wealthy community uh in the
Commonwealth now, receives $400 per person. And so, while it makes sense for Somerville to receive more on a per capita basis than Chillmark, uh because Chillmark is considerably more wealthy, it's it's not a hundred times wealthier. So these disparities are uh really glaring. Um they're a real problem particularly as our communities are facing budget constraints. And so what we did is
uh we filed a a a commission to to remake this formula. Um and we did this uh you know around you know based upon actual variables around what a community actually needs to meet uh services for its residents and and other types of really important factors that play into making sure that communities get the state support they need to balance their their budgets. And so I'm
really pleased to support that this was supported unanimously. uh by my Senate colleagues. The Senate's really been a leader on this in getting this legislation passed in the Senate budget. So now this moves to and the House already did their budget. So now this moves to a reconciliation process. Um, and we're really pushing um, for this to be uh, included in the final version of the budget because no community should, you know, have to look at cutting teachers, cutting back on
public safety, uh, reducing support for roads and bridges because of an outdated, unjust, unfair funding formula. Excellent. So, that's that's kind of the the gist of the update. Um, I don't know if if if folks have questions about that. We we do have questions. First of all, before we get to the questions though, I just want to commend you, Senator, for taking a leadership role in sort of addressing this issue. We've talked about it off and on over the years on KOD and how badly we've been hurt with uh with local aid and to to see you take a leadership role in pushing for change is
uh is both something that uh is to be applauded and uh it's refreshing quite frankly. So, we want to be as helpful as we can to you. We've done our own report that basically it's in draft form. It's getting reviewed with other town administrators, other local officials to get some input on it. Um, we certainly welcome any comments that you might have on this report before we finalize it. Um, but we definitely want to be helpful to you and your efforts and we have a motion uh later on after we're done discussing this uh to to sort of weigh in support of what you're
doing. Um but before we get to that motion, let me invite the commissioners to weigh in. Commissioner Lions. Yeah. Well, um Mark is sort of touching on it. Um thank you Dylan for bringing this up, Senator Fernandez. And um uh what is it? What can we do? What can the towns do to help support this and make sure that it's paid attention to and gets through and uh ultimately helps these towns? Yeah. That Thank you, Commissioner Lions. I I think one thing that could be helpful here is,
you know, we the uh the conference committee has been um appointed for the House and Senate uh budget negotiators. Um, I think it could make sense uh for the commissioners to send a letter um to uh the conferees there and our our staff would be happy to follow up with uh you know who that who who those members are. um in advocating happy to do that in advocating for this to make it
into the final version uh the compromise version of the budget which will be decided sometime in uh you know the next 3 weeks. So we'll our staff my staff will follow up with the the names and and and addresses and and how to move forward with that. That'd be helpful. Thank you. Good. That's good. Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah, Senator, you know, first of all, I'll do anything I can to bring more money down to to downs on the cake, but the and we had this discussion with the Yarmouth
um board of selectmen when we had our meeting there. And the issue that I had at the time was that given that the legislature will appropriate a certain amount of money for unrestricted local aid. If we change the formula so that some towns will get more, it makes sense that some towns are going to get less, which means that your colleagues, some of your colleagues who are on the wrong end of that legislation will of course not want to support it. So, which I think
is probably why they haven't touched the formula now in 16 years. Do you really think that we can make a strong enough case to the legislature to adjust the formula even though it's understood that some towns are going to be on the wrong end of it? Going to wind up getting rid of Yeah. Well, I mean, the amendment passed unanimously, so uh you know, 40 to zero um uh bipartisan support for it. the leader of uh the Republicans in the Senate joined me on the floor and speaking out
uh in favor of this legislation. Um the senator from Worcester joined me as well. Of course, I you know represent more rural communities. So, not only is this bipartisan, we actually see kind of this rural urban support for it as well that often oftentimes less things in the legislature are less uh uh you know, differences of opinion are not actually partisan. They're actually more kind of
urban rural in terms of of divide. And we saw that uh there's broad acceptance and agreement especially given that we've seen 130 overrides in the last two years. That's basically a third of the Commonwealth. Um uh I think over a third of the Commonwealth actually. Um that that this is uh something that that really needs to be addressed. And you know, you look at this, it makes no sense.
This formula isn't even a formula. Um, and so, uh, communities are really hurting. And I think that this is something, uh, we can we can absolutely get done and the overwhelming support for it across party lines, across geographic divides, uh, on the Senate side, you know, give gives me a lot of hope on being able to do it. And then of course this sets up this doesn't bake into legislation exactly what that formula is. It creates a you know a commission to look at these different
factors the communities need to to establish um a formula and there'll be you know you know needed and and and good uh debate upon um about what that actually looks like. Hey just one quick comment. I you know I appreciate what you're doing and I say I'll support you know changing the formula to help manage the Kens and the Cape but it doesn't touch unfortunately the underlying problem which is the expenses that the towns are facing um are and increasing expenses are much greater than their
ability to raise revenue under Proposition 2 and a half and that's not going to change. you know, changing the formula to advantage some towns, give them a little more money, may buy them some time, but ultimately down the road, that money is going to be eaten up by expenses in in, you know, health care and other other increased expenses. So, until we as a as a commonwealth, you know, address that issue, the increase in expenses beyond what we have ability to raise revenue, we're going to be back here in a couple more years. I know that's not your issue, but it is
something I've had to deal with and I know my colleagues have had to deal with it from their Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, Senator, uh, we know we know you're pressed for time. Once again, uh, we very much appreciate everything that you're doing on this issue. Uh, we look forward to working with you and getting to the conferees and also uh, urging our, uh, select boards and, uh, uh, town managers as well, um, uh, to weigh in on this. We'll be talking about this on Friday at our Capeen Islands Municipal Leaders Association meeting. We have our annual
meeting on Friday. We'll be bringing it up there and urging people to weigh in in support of your efforts. So once again, thank you so much for everything that you're doing. The lead on it. Y and uh we very much look forward to working with you and uh making making a local aid formula that actually makes sense and based on need would be a wonderful uh achievement I think. So well thank you all. Thank you for having me and thank you for your your support um in this effort and really uh joining and and always working to bring more res more resources uh back to Cape Cod. I I really
appreciate our partnership. So thank you again for having me and looking forward to working with you on this. Thank you and thank you for all your hard work different areas. All right, have a great day. All right, folks. Um, I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to take item six, uh, is it nine I out of order from our agenda since we're on this topic of, um, we set the agenda before we knew Senator Fernandez could be joining, we put this item on
the agenda. So, item I uh, can I have a motion on? Uh, yeah, Mr. Mr. Chair, I move to authorize the county administrator to draft and send a letter to the state legislators uh urging support for Senator Dylan Fernandez's proposal for commission to revise local aid formula. Second. Okay. And um I'd like to make an amendment on that that in addition to that we uh also uh reach out to our conferees a letter from the county commissioners to the conferees uh and we'll be getting those
names soon enough. Yes. All right. Is that okay? As as amended. And I amen. Okay. Good. Um any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. Opposed? It carries unanimously. All right. Now we can get back to our regular routine. scheduled. Yes. So, we are now on item public comment. Do we have anybody here wishing to make a public comment? Do we have anybody online wishing to make a public comment? Okay. The next item on the agenda is a communication an opportunity
to meet with our leadership from the Assembly of Delegates. And I see Susan Warner is here. Thank you for coming. Well, thank you for having me. Um, I'll try to be as brief as possible. I've learned that. No, this um Yeah, this opportunity to connect with Senator Fernandez sort of came up at the last minute. No, that's great. It's and as you know, sometimes I was happy to be here for that. It's always great to see you. What I' I'd like to just bring you up to speed on today
is an ordinance that is currently uh in committee in the standing committee for telecommunications and energy which is chaired by uh Jim Killian. Um and um the ordinance was initially presented by uh uh Dan Gesson and six other delegates who felt that this was uh something that could be uh looked at by the county as a possibility to support. Um initially uh it was uh brought before the assembly
and it was referred to committee um after we had a public hearing and we kind of got a mixed uh review and public hearing you know not not not a clear for not a clear against and um we also added as a result of uh uh chairman Kian's uh concerns um uh we reached out to Eversource and are asking them to um and do a presentation for us and let us know if there is anything that exists currently for uh establishing uh or already established a power outage resiliency fund. And then um we
uh we also uh took the time to uh talk with uh e administrator Dutton and um uh got quite a few uh questions answered regarding how it would affect the uh the administrative level of the county and um that was very very helpful and um there are a couple of legal questions that we have uh that we're we're trying to uh get resolved. So it's it's still in committee. It will stay in committee till we have till the committee is comfortable to make a recommendation to the assembly. Um um and
uh basically what this is is ordinance 20 2614 you have it electronically and um at the end of this presentation um clerk Owen Owen was kind enough to give us copies. Yeah. Oh okay. You got your copies. Okay. You've got them in front of us and you have uh great. Um so what what the provisions for the ordinance are uh is to establish a fund that would create a power outage resiliency uh fund re like a revolving loan fund designed to be self- sustaining uh through loan repayments
and interest. Um applicants would uh be limited to natural persons who own and occupy a residency in Barnstable uh county uh uh a as their yearround primary residence. Um authorized uses um would include uh purchase and installation of backup generators or battery storage systems including uh electrical upgrades, transfer switches and associated associated retrofits. Uh the maximum
amount each uh person could apply for would be $5,000. The uh I mean excuse me, yeah, the maximum amount the maximum term would be 10. And the interest rate uh would be capped at 1% above the prime federal prime rate perom. Um the default pen penalty would be late fees and interest on passive amounts at capped at 10%. Um and uh so the the the ordinance itself proposes a $65,000
uh pilot program to determine um whether this has any interest or not. Um uh the uh administrator would be uh managing the fund and establishing underwriting criteria. uh and then once uh at the end of the year there would be a report that would be generated to the uh commissioners and to the assembly about what has transpired through it. Um we did a background and analysis. Um and
this this this ordinance came as a result of the of the season we had this this winter. Um there were many people who had generators who were were successful using them. There were many people who uh had battery operated or generators that were not successful in using them. They they didn't work at the time they needed them uh for a variety of different reasons uh in in spite of them having a a program that would have them checked uh at different times during the year and um
there are a lot of people who just can't afford them. Um so this would would give a little bit of the seed money. Um the um the arguments that were presented um uh both in uh the assembly and at the uh committee meeting was proactive versus reactive spending. Um it provides a proactive alternative recurring emergency spending aiming to offset the millions of dollars spent by the regional government towns on warming shelters during prolonged outages. uh the vulnerable uh it
would assist a vulnerable residents um especially older residents and those on fixed in income. It's designed to help pay back to paycheck residents with otherwise uh cannot afford the upfront cost and uh backup power. Uh and then there's a climate preparedness, grant competitiveness, and a number of other uh arguments that were brought uh before and whether it was a worthwhile pilot. Um there were some who thought 65,000 was reasonable and there were others who did not. Um interesting
perspectives. Uh the so the arguments against uh the ordinance were structural operating deficits. It'll never achieve operational self-sufficiency under any scenario. Um we were lucky to have uh uh uh uh the finance director run a program for us and look at all the possible scenarios and it it did not come out favorable. um opportunity cost uh funding the program diverts money from the regional government's reserve funds and um at an assumed 4.5% reserve return rate the regional
growth foregoers uh and investment earnings annually for 65,000 appropriated the results is not not a net financial cost to the regional government uh an in an in an insufficient loan cap versus reach um the many many thought the loan of $5,000 was very all uh and environmental and equity concerns, arguing the program could foster more fossil fuel use, and that was not something a county wanted to adopt. Uh furthermore, uh battery storage options cost an estimated 15 to 25,000 and
are likely to uh financially um be unviable for low-income residents. Um and um and then of course the administrative bur burden. the assembly did run a a a on the 20th did run a public hearing and um uh received some feedback on that and um so at this point it's it's in committee um we have reached to ever source and they are looking at what they might be able to come in and and
give us a presentation of of what if anything they have or what they might be willing to look at. Um and so the fiscal impact this is the just the end of it and I I speak quickly so I hope I'm doing great. Um the fiscal impact uh which really looks at all the things once we looked at it after we thought oh yeah this is great and then looked at the back end of it where all of these other factors really need to be investigated to determine whether it is really great. Um and the fiscal impact the um direct cost. The director of finance
recommends structuring the pilot with a 5-year loan term which would minimize the regional government's total capital investment to 325,000 to achieve capital self-sufficiency by year five. Big difference than 65,000 I think. Um revenue impacts uh generates ongoing revenue through interest applied to the loans capped at 1%. Additional revenue would be collected via uh fees and interest on past due amounts which are capped at 10 per year. Uh funding source and self-sufficiency limits. Um 65,000 appropriation is drawn entirely from the
regional government general fund unreserved fund balance while the fund operates as a resolving excuse me a revolving resource and can achieve capital self-sufficiency. Um and um it can never but it can never achieve operational self-sufficiency and uh administrative costs. Um it the analysis identified it as a structural operating deficit. Um and they would not be
fully administrative costs would not be fully supported by the interest that could be earned by the program. uh and opportunity cost um for the fund carries an uh ongoing opportunity cost based on assumed reserve earnings of 4.5 cents uh percent each. Um and then of course the capacity uh augmentation the we have achieved certain things in the committee already and and we're waiting as I said on on uh uh the Eversource to give us a time that they're going to come in and
present to the uh and and we haven't determined yet whether that will be to the assembly or to the committee directly uh and um and for some of the other legal questions and things to be answered. Um but this gives you a good overview of where we have come in the assembly as to how we look at things that come to us. It it uh it's not simply by saying oh we love it or no we hate it. Um we we and I have found in the course of these kinds of investigations that I start thinking maybe I don't like it and then after I get a lot more data at the at the back end of it
I find that you know this does have a viability that I would support. So um it it's um we do it with with most most every ordinance and it it is the standing committees have become a very big operational part of the the assembly and um they have done a really good job at taking these in and and asking the hard questions and um hopefully that reflects on on the decisions that we've made thus far. Uh if you have any questions I can try and answer them. Uh otherwise I'll let you get to
your huge crowd behind me. We're glad you're here. We're very glad. Commissioner B. Yeah. Um you know assuming you have you seem to have the numbers and how it works and what it costs and so on. So I'm not going to get into that. I I appreciate what you've done. It brings up a bigger question. Do we do we as a county subsidize the personal expenses for various reasons of people on the pen? And we do that already with with the Aqua. Right. Right? We do that. So that's not a barrier. You know,
there's also been suggestions that we cover child care and stuff. So we have to ask how far the county wants to go down that road of subsidizing, but I mean, we're a service agency, so that's not that's not a block. Now, I know um Chairman Tillian, who is very tough with the numbers, he's a good good man with the pencil when it comes to expenditure. So I'm anxious to see what he and his committee will come up with. and I'm anxious and you come back to us and then I'll give it a I personally will give it a good look obviously it's it we have to worry about you know after the last
winter people were without power for quite a while and it was a real burden on them. Um so anyway good luck with that and hopefully you can get a not just a close vote but a consensus to come to us with with the ordinance. Uh the um just so you know, we we are uh in consult with the attorney about, you know, is is a loan something that the county really wants to get into with this kind of a program and and um and some other questions that that she's looking at right now and will get back
to us on. I had I had occasion and another to ask the finance director what we get on our the money that's currently in our various accounts and it comes to about three 3.2 I think somewhere. So, you know, if we were to recover that, that's fine. If we if it's less, well, how much less? You know, maybe it's not a big difference, but that's a, you know, it's not that the liability to the county is going to be the overriding factor because, like I say, we're a service agency. We like to do things for people, but at least we're going to have those numbers. It sounds like you're you're going to get
those numbers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the work. You're welcome into this. So, um, even though I think it's a great idea, I do want to look at what is out there available for people. Right. Right. That might we might be duplicating and there could be something we could we could, you know, get together with and and cut our costs and make it much more uh available to to more residents. Um, but uh we're in just that investigative stage right now. Okay. One of the
things that I'm interested in, Susan, is um the legal authority. I know municipalities sometime I think in some cases they have the ability from the legislature. They've been given the power to assist in financing energy related purchases for homeowners. But I'm interested in as you do your research, what what state statute authorizes counties to do this? Um, when we went through the Aqua Fund, we had to make sure that we were sufficiently enabled uh legislatively in getting
permission from the legislature. Um, the Aqua Fund is actually our version of what is going on in other towns around the Commonwealth. Commonwealth has passed a statute that allows municipalities to do much of what we do. And so that program operates under the framework of a state law and state legislation. So typically when we craft a program um like this, we're looking at what the state law is and what are the prescriptive components and compliance requirements under state
law that need to be baked in to the management of the program. So I think when this comes back to us again for more discussion, I think these are the things that we're going to be looking for is where is the state law authorizing counties to even do this or think about it. What is the state law? Does it lay out a framework uh a series of administrative burdens and other requirements that will have to be baked into the administrator program? And uh those should obviously be cited
and referenced in any kind of draft ordinance. So, as you're revising the ordinance, you might want to look at how that uh fits in. And then there the separated the separate issues relate to the financing the money. Um, and I I think I think it would be of interest to Eversource to participate in something particularly if it targets where the need is the greatest, right? It may very well be we're not going to solve everybody's problem, but if there's a way to target it to focus on those
most in need, for example, there may be people in the community that have a serious health problem, health issue, right? Where an interruption of power could be life or death or could raise a serious health complication. It may very well be that with the limited resources that can be assembled for something like this, it may very well be that there needs to be a target and a focus on them. I know that uh when we were going through the the last blizzard, uh we spent a lot of time talking about power and generators, the ones that worked, the ones that didn't, the ones
that needed, you know, something. So it it is a legitimate a legitimate area for discussion and I think collaboration and policym where I begin in this discussion is okay we're creatures of the state we're political subdivisions of the commonwealth the commonwealth defines what we can and can't do right what we can say yes to what we have to say no to and so that's where I think uh we we need to spend a little bit more time if we could terrific all right I was just going to say that if if more people had generators, it would be a net not only would help them, but it'
be a net savings to the towns and also to the EMT, you know, to the EMTs and and to the county in the sense that we wouldn't have to go through what we just went through. There's an expense to that. We were prepared for it, but nonetheless, you know, we there's a lot of organization and a lot of a lot of need involved in dealing with people who are out of power for more than a few days. So I I think I don't know well I don't have a generator so I'm not taking it but it would help. And even with that we had generators that failed at schools and that sort of thing. So um you know ECAM opened
and then it had to close because the generator went off. So there's um there's a need all around but um I do think that there is um an overall benefit to as you say uh people you wouldn't have to be worrying about the logistics of people being safe being warm in a storm. One of the things that the county has to put together is um and we're discussing some of this later on today in terms of
how do we stand up an emergency management program and develop a plan where we actually have a team a committee and folks that are actually looking at this and revising the plan and updating the plan and where something like this we can make sure that it fits in you know so that that's something that needs to happen in parallel but that's another conversation we want to have. So, we're looking at with this ordin possibility of a $5,000 loan. The finance director recommended a five-year loan. So, I'm talking about $1,000 a year plus interest, which is not nothing,
you know, for people who live on fixed incomes. Mhm. But she she was I mean to her credit, we we've all been talking about finances and long-term finances and how do we because we're we're we we're telling department heads that we're going to have to find ways to shrink significantly because as you know our costs are going up uh ahead of uh the revenue stream. And so we're going to be hitting some difficult decisions in the next couple of fiscal years. And so we're trying to figure out how do we limit future expenditures. So I'm glad she brought that
up. So it would have to fit in the context of that as well. But um it's a it's a it like I said we it's worthy it's a worthy discussion particularly if we're targeting the assistance to people most in need or to some degree their health, their life. Uh it's it's it's a matter of life and death because I think I think that's where the county really showed that in collaboration with the towns our whole emergency response during the last blizzard um you know we helped a lot of people and
really in really deep trouble. One more thing Mark you know that in in Chadam has voted to cover the cost of rider puff people. So go town sometimes do sometimes don't. I'd be curious to see whether the towns themselves would be interested in joining in this program. I know that they're they're just under the gun financially as we are, but it benefits them directly because they're the ones that have to respond to people who don't have need to be moved and so on. So, we'll make this, you know, if we have to, we can we can reach out. Okay. Anybody else? All right. Thank you,
Susan. Thank you very much. Great to see you. So good to see you. Good to see you, too. Yes, sir. It's going to be here today. All right. The next item on our agenda number 8 A is the U. It says two Hyannis Pass Group the HPG update discussion. Chris the wiki wiki Betsy Young Rachel Young Linda Volunteer is Linda joining us by uh Linda's I'm not sure. I don't believe she's joining but thank you for um recognizing you know it's good to see you. I recognize you out there,
but I get through it. So, I talk. That's okay. Stop for a second. I can get a hug later. Good. Good to see. How are you? All is good. All is good. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to ask you, Chris, to introduce everybody. So, for the record and for folks at home, uh, I'll let everybody introduce themselves if that's okay. Go ahead. Start. I am Betsy Young. Um, I am a board member of the, um, Greater Hyena Civic Association and we are the administrators of the grants that we get through the state. the D. Um I'm the past president and I'm also uh a P PAS carrier. Got
it. Um I participated in the um study that was done and uh my my PAS levels are very high and I lived and worked at Hyannis for many many years. Thank you, Rachel. Good morning. I'm Rachel Young. I am the vice president of the Hyannis Park Civic Association which is actually located in West Yarmouth. Uh and we uh became interested in this work uh back in 2021 when we found PAS leeching into our areas of Yarmmouth and specifically Mil Creek. I'm Chris Piki. I'm a Brewster resident and
I'm a chair of Sierra Club's Cape Coden Islands uh group. I'm Tom Camberi. I'm a hydro geologist, an LSP, and I've been uh uh hired to assist the highest PAS uh group uh through a DP technical assistance grant, which I've been doing for the last uh two years. Uh you may know me as I was hired back in uh 1988 with under Armdo Carbonel and and Barry Johnson. that time I think a deal
was cut that I would manage the cleanup of the fire training academy uh which I did for 31 years and uh I think I you know I always had the support of the county administrators through that time and I think uh the uh the responses uh were always uh um proactive and credible and uh kept the academy open uh for several decades under which period of time many cadets had received the uh certification and training that they needed. Um I think everyone might have been we call you hydraologist ameritus
is that I think that does happen sometimes but uh you know I'll be glad to accept that take that up at our tales of the fire proceed with your presentation. I do have copies of these handouts. Thanks, John. Okay, Rob, let's do it. Thank you. Here we go.
In the interest of brevity, we're going to try to work through our presentation as rapidly as possible so that we can have an open discussion on on your part. Uh we were launched in the spring of 2023 uh for grassroots discussion, coordination and collaboration to protect the environmental and public health from POS contamination attributable to historical use of POS containing firefighting chemicals at the former municipal firefighter training academy and at Cape Cod Gateway Airport. Our main purpose is to identify and address the communitywide needs uh
relating to the characterization and PAS control and remediation and especially public health. Uh we've been hosting information sessions and we will be informing you of an upcoming one uh shortly. Uh developing resources, developing a public information website for community access to the information and most importantly uh we've been applying for mass D technical assistance grants. These have been coming through the Greater Hyena Civic Association and these afford us the opportunity to actually do site testing so that we can have independent uh PAS levels uh
determined by an independent resource Tom Cumber. Uh I'd like to move it on to Chris. Great. Thanks for that uh Rachel. Um so next slide please. So um Rachel mentioned that we've been getting these technical assistance grants. We've been hiring Tom um and he's helped us um really understand and get a handle on the regional contamination pro problem and that's really our focus is the contamination throughout the Hyenus area. It's not on the airport site and the county site we're looking
at it from. It doesn't matter where the PAS came from. Um we understand that municipalities across the Cape contributed to um the use of uh these PEOS chemicals at the municipal firefighter training academy. Uh we also know that all kinds of firefighters uh were at Cape Cod Gateway Airport taking training. And so there's not really a sense that this is you know in a problem that was created by the responsible parties according to the state. We believe it that it's a it's a community issue and we needed a communitywide regional approach. So, one of the first things
we did um through our technical assistant grant um was we uh tried to get a a regional picture of the contamination and that's what this um map shows um and so it answers the question how did the contamination occur? I think you guys are familiar with it, but the use of these firefighting chemicals at these sites, um, you know, these were needed to be used for training. Um, they entered the groundwater. Groundwater flows downhill and so the groundwater has, um, contaminated groundwater has flowed into public water, uh, supply wells and ultimately uh, lots
of contaminated water was circulated through the Hyannis water system. Uh, exposures occurred over uh, decades um, and levels were extremely high. Um you I think you've heard all this before. Um and so we wanted to provide that regional picture and also understand that once the um drinking water supply was contaminated that meant that this PAS water was circulating throughout the town and the end result is a plume created at the um wastewater treatment plant. Many plumes created at at all the septic systems throughout the area. Um and then the the plumes are just flowing through the
groundwater throughout the region. And there's also ident unidentified plumes uh sources of PAS that are coming across the airport property. And so there's a a whole lot going on. It's very complicated. Um in our first tag, we also spent a lot of time focused on the on the airport. And so next slide, please. So um we did some community- based sampling as as uh Rachel mentioned uh with a small grant. The TAG grant does not allow us to do commu any sampling. The tag grant only allows us to analyze samples provided by others. Um so Tom is really analyzing existing data. We're not
creating new data. Um and basically we realized or through this research that there are multiple um unattributed plumes and they're all interacting. Um we also looked at the uh function of the airport's cap. Um and the airport officials have been saying for years that their cap is functioning perfectly uh reducing the amount of PAS flowing into the Marwells. The airport officials also said that their plume um was fully captured by the MAR Wellfield. It was not going downstream. Um and what we showed through our community-based sampling and through
Tom's analyses that actually the the airport's cap is not necessarily functioning properly. Uh there the POS compounds are continuing to be released from the site. Um the airport plume is not fully captured by carbon filtration at the Marwells. that's going through the Marwellfield and uh the POS is flowing into uh across the property line and uh into um the town of Yarmouth through Mil Creek and out to Lewis Bay. Um we based on these concerns and essentially all the asurances
that the airport has provided uh turned out to be wrong. You know, our our basic uh conclusion was that if the airport wants to expand um its operations, it should do site cleanup. And so I want to commend the county really clearly here here about your work on your PRV to try to keep the contamination from reaching the Mary Dunwell. That's what we we really need to be doing is keeping the contamination out of our water supply, keeping it on site, traping on site. So um with that, I'm gonna um turn it over to Tom. Next slide, please.
I'm going to talk about some of the uh uh what what we understand about the contamination uh in the hyenas area and some of these knowledge gaps actually uh is what I want to focus on. Uh Chris had mentioned that uh we have uh uh these unidentified uh you know unattributed plumes uh coursing through the hyenas uh area of the Cape Cod aquifer and uh a lot of the work you know not only from us but the from your consultants GZA hired very prominent group that I think is doing
a really good job uh is looking at the data from a from a very uh you know objective uh lens. And so we we now we have uh of course the contamination from uh some of the main sites like fire training academy, deployment area in the airport and the air uh rescue uh uh fire facility. But these also we have these other areas that uh just really haven't been addressed yet and uh those uh kind of coingle alto together and end up going you know downgradient uh you know
through the mar wellfield and appears that the uh the milreek marsh system is huge marsh system that that you may be aware of out there just you know north of uh of uh 28 on the uh on the town line there and it it is a huge sink uh would of all a lot of the groundwater comes up through there. And so this uh this area is going a big draw that has uh uh received the the uh that receives the groundwater and with it the PAS from the uh from the airport and some of the uh the fire training
academy and uh it has not only impacted the wells but you know we have found it you know through the through the sampling that that was funded through the highness park uh association previously then we found it uh in uh uh Mil Creek, we found it at the Gris Mill, we found it in uh uh you know, even further down gradient. Uh some of these uh you know one one perspective is well a lot of maybe these uh unattributed plumes are from the water wastewater treatment plant
and we have this whole issue of well when the wells were contaminated uh decades ago that that contamination was served through the supply unknowingly for a long period of time and and got uh uh intertwined with the discharge through all the septic systems in in in the Hyannis area which is only 15% % sewered, you know, at that time. And then, you know, those areas that were sewered were collected. And so this uh we had these secondary sources of of contamination that uh was uh was uh
broadly distributed. And so it it it got it only into uh you know the Mil Creek um area at Marsh but into other area freshwater ponds down gradient of uh of uh the uh uh the West Main Street area, the Twin Brooks area and all that. So what we uh of our work is is really looking at uh as Chris said not just one source or anything but how does it all come together regionally uh and uh and and
how does it work uh uh because you know without understanding it we really can't make real uh you know um important budgetary types of decisions is what's important what do we really need to do and so I um there's uh been work to put together what we believe is that we need a regional model that puts this all together unattributed. It's not it transcends the the abilities of one specific party, county, airport, town to put together. We really uh that's what we're advocating for. So
that we need targeted sampling within this within these areas where we have these unattributed uh plumes. We we we can't say well you know it was a long time ago. We don't need to to sample that. uh which is kind of a prevailing um p perspective that we have received. Uh so we need to really that is one of the key areas of focus and then uh the silent spring work which is actually going to be coming out uh work I'm working on with silent spring uh on a on an aspect of a project where they're uh sampling the blood of uh the residents and looking at the past exposures from this
uh you know I'll call it a dark period of time that we didn't know about that we've emerged from and we're trying our best to uh clean clean up. And uh the next page on preventing the exposures uh uh we had the opportunity to go out to the fire training academy uh and and uh meet with uh Paul Rosala who's the facility director done a great job uh in selecting the uh the consultants to uh evaluate and and uh select what really needs to happen there. So we we looked at them
uh putting in the PRB. We we've looked at some of the response uh uh to that the the uh performance data and it looks like it's really working well. We as Chris said we are concerned about the lack of control at the airport and uh the upstream of the Marwell wells uh the continued spread of these uncontrollable plumes and we're not sure about the limitations of the standards. We have this pretty uh ratcheted down standards for drinking water and that, but we're not sure what where what will it where it will emerge for fish uh uh shellfish, things like that uh in in this area
that's receiving these really high concentrations. So you know I think we said it the community needs we're looking for PRBs or some other control meth methods uh you know near the uh uh the Marwell wells and uh mitigation of ingestion and inhalation concerns and to uh the state to take uh action to broaden and tighten uh PAS standards where they need to be done. Next slide please. So um this slide includes a letter uh to the Massachusetts Department of Public
Health from Mark Ell's um and that was written after a June 2025 presentation that inspires um with that public water supply contaminated for years. Um thousands of people who were exposed to high levels of PAS for a long period of time have not been tested. And so we're really interested in accessible and affordable blood testing. Um, also clinicians are not really
familiar with how a case for somebody with high blood levels might present itself or what to do um if somebody has high blood levels. And so, um, through, uh, outreach, uh, through having members of our steering team exposed, um, and through our our conversations, um, we're understanding that there are ways to for people to deal with this problem to lower their concentrations and marketkedly lower their concentrations. But the key is to know. And so, um, some of the public health needs, uh, that we're really interested in are is proactive outreach to exposed populations,
people who are living and working in Hyannus during the periods when it was the, uh, water supply was contaminated, um, low to no cost blood testing. Um, and then, um, once individuals know they were potentially exposed and they get a blood test, then they have an opportunity to act. And then uh we're also hoping that clinicians will have the education that's needed to uh go forward. And so we we've um worked with a local doctor to present uh resolution to the Mass Medical Society. They passed it early this year documenting that uh PAS is a concern and
that the Mass Medical Society doctors around the um state should work together to produce clinician guidance to advocate for um blood testing, things like that. Um and so we're here before you, you know, educating you on that need as well. Uh next slide, final slide. So, um we're going to continue to um advocate for community needs. Um and that means um continued work by uh as PAS group as well as as Silent Spring, one of our key community partners. biggest needs we we see are regional modeling and targeted sampling to address some of the uncertainties we highlighted
to guide selection of appropriate remediation or risk mitigation strategies in the future control measures somehow to keep contamination out of the Marwells just like you guys have done to try to keep contamination away from the Marary Dunwells um and then we'd like you know public health interventions and you know possibly the county the town of Barnstable um can step up here um But we previously through that letter from Mark Ell's we asked the state uh you know department of public health um to address this issue and there hasn't really been any response. And so we're um holding
a a forum uh a couple weeks from today um invite the county commissioners to be represented on a on a panel. We invited uh administrator Dutton to serve on the panel. also invitations going out to um Representative Diggs, Senator Seir, D and DPH officials um and town of Barsville officials. So um that's our presentation today from for today. Uh really interested in your sort of your thoughts big picture on some of these regional needs we've identified and thanks again for the opportunity
today. Really appreciate it. Commissioner Lions. Well, um this is a real concern and I'm sorry that you are um one of our one of our test people here. Um you know, we are we have been um focusing and I I don't think that we're prepared to give a report on this, but I do know that our public health department did do sampling of wells across especially on the outer Cape and that sort of thing. And it was amazing how many people signed up for that um and not really afraid to do
it in case somebody came back and said now you got to replace your will or something like that they went for it and we will hear back from that and I do think that Paul and his group has done a great job and the permeable um reactive barrier is I'm saying that out loud so people know what PRB is but um it has been successful and I keep think can we do that to ponds and you know other areas. My question is do is PAS in it's in jet fuel as well. Is that like the original with or is it
from the fire? It's from the the fire. It is. So it's not in oil. The aquous fire floating foam. So it's on the airport and you take off and land. Um so where where does it land and where does it go? I remember um in one of my campaigns somewhere I was in someone's backyard right near the airport and they said I want you to feel my soil and it was oily because of jet the fuel dumping fuel the fuel dumping fuel dump which is which really concerned me that really bothered me a separate
issue though it's a totally separate issue yeah so they can take that up in Bradville anyway um uh no I think this is great and it complements a lot of things that we're doing and I'm sure that your um your reading and hopefully taking some of our information as well that we're learning as along the way to help uh with this conversation. I am happy to participate in anything that you have. So, I'll be looking forward to that um uh invitation or even attending the 24th 24th same
day as the government meeting that we don't need to have. Commissioner Commissioner Bram. Yeah. um you know there's two ways of dealing two different directions you can take in dealing with this issue but one is the direction you're taking now which is basically to look at the extension of the plume and and what areas are contributing and see what you can do with it about it um the other area is to start with how is this affecting the public health which is what is the effect on the individual person who's affected by this okay so you start with the individual what's the
threat to them you know and That's a hard thing to determine. You can use statistical analysis like Silent Spring is, but then you have to factor out a whole bunch of other stuff. There's other stuff in the water. 14 dioxide is in the water. You know that how does that affect people? Okay. So, you know, I I take the second approach. I look at saying the threat is to the public health and start with how can we how can we isolate the individual from from the plume regardless of where it goes. Because we start with where the plume is and try to clean it up, we're never
going to be able to do that. I mean, that would take billions of dollars. So, determining the effect on the public health by certain amounts, small amounts of um POS is very difficult, but we'll have to go with the presumption that it does have a health effect. My understanding right now, anybody's on public water in the area is drinking water that's free from peas. Is that right? I mean, so if you're on the public health now, your water that you have in a well could be tested.
I've suggested and I know kids get that gone deaf ears that anytime any water is tested either private well or so on there should be a database that tells you exactly where my well is over here and I get this amount of peas in it and then you eventually you'll come up with a grid and that will determine where the stuff's coming from. So I don't I don't envy you at Silent Spring and your group and also the county and the airport in the in the work that goes forward. But I think we have to my feeling is we have to concentrate on public health. We have to make sure that no one will be
uh exposed to this in any kind of amounts and we have to understand what the cost is and and you know I applaud the county you know my experiences we we got on top of this as quickly as we could and and we've come to agreements with both the town of Barnstable and hopefully sometime with the airport to see what we can do to uh mitigate the the issue. So um I I applaud your group monitoring this. I'm curious to see what the Silent Spring um study does as far as people have long-term
exposure to PEOS and maybe I'll get tested and find out a reason for all my problems because it's actually a concentration of PEOS anyway. So, thank you. Yeah, thanks for that um thought, Ron. And I think um we went into this with real interest in focusing on the characterization of the sites because that's where the the money comes from basically. Um but in our outreach and just within our group um it was the public health issues that kept coming back and sort of the lack
of a concerted public health response to identify those people who may have high blood levels and to give them the testing. you know, Silent Spring got federal funds and um you know, through cajoling and through outreach um that they ran was able to get some people tested and the test results showed in this area people who were living uh you know in drinking served by the drinking public drinking water supply when it was contaminated had higher levels than people around the rest of the country. Um and this is all because of these legacy contaminants from firefighting
foam. It's not about the POS and other um other uh chemicals, other household products. And so what we are really interested in stepping up the focus on individuals and the people who were exposed, making sure they get blood testing. Um and so then the question becomes, how do you do that? And we've asked the state um we're here to encourage the county um to see if there's anything you can stand up to as a public health response to um help exposed individuals get that blood
testing and then you know if the state does its part and the Mass Medical Society does its part, they'll be trained clinicians who can then treat those people. But um it's really important to get those people who have not been tested but need to be uh get a blood test. Was that the thrust of the letter that the town of Barnstable sent in uh I can I'll share the letter with you. I think we said it before, but it it has a couple of of specific asks. Yes, definitely. Exposure to
fish and ponds and things like that. So, you is also ecological impacts also. It's they haven't really determined there's what what the impact is though. I mean they they're not saying or has there been maybe there's something I'm not aware of this medical condition relates to POS I think what you're trying to do is get people tested so that they can understand what what exposures they might have then be able to say and then from there you can make some kind of assessment as to your
health risk. Right. Right. Yes. And so at this point they're they link it to high cholesterol uh liver problems ulcerative colitis. What's being linked the PAS exposure to being linked to those? Yes. So the elevated blood level of POS is a direct variety of things it's linked to but um you know it's kind of hard to get beyond that without further testing. Let's just stick with this discussion for this topic for just a moment. So, if I'm a resident, I live in Hyannis, I'm drinking
water, I've been tested, who do I who do I go to to get information to help me understand the risk to my health? Would it be just my own doctor or is there can you is there somebody at DPH? You you could go to your own doctor and your own doctor could say to you, as mine did to me, what's PAS? So that's the that's the reason for the effort behind approaching the state and the mass medical association about let's get these people educated, you know, let's get Cape Cod Hospital educated
about this. There are there's a an unbelievable lack of understanding at the hospital that sits on top of the plume that was at one point I think the the largest plume in the United States or the known plume um of PAS plume. Hyannis was is a is a major I can show you a couple of others that are pretty pretty huge. And highest concentrations in public drinking water supply upper 1% really and the concentrations uh here uh in in some of the sites uh are the three times the highest level
found at the joint base Cape Cod. So the levels were astronomically high. to people who were, you know, exposed to it. Even me and my my family and my you and I have lived. You and I have lived through the mass the MMR the MMR contamination problem, right? And when we first started discovering the extent of the contamination, one of the first things that was done for the per for the benefit of residents was an effort made to help people understand what the public health risk
was. All right, that was sort of job number one. Then we had these extended discussions and battles over how to clean it up. But the public health risk assessments, that stuff was a priority. The federal government put lots of money into it. The state mass department of public health was heavily engaged in that effort. and the public did have access to good information about public
health risks. And I think for us, I think this is the area that I'd like to sort of see if we can zero in on and work with our own health department to find ways where we can make sure that we have adequate expertise available for Cape residents to engage in to understand, hey, I've been tested. This is what my this is what it shows. What what what can you tell me about the the health risk to exposure to PAS? We have as as as you pointed out in your presentation, PAS is everywhere and I
think we we need to um be aggressive uh in terms of advocating for the public health information that you've been asking for and have received no responses to. I think to some degree that's an area where we should be engaged is to make sure that there are resources there and some attention. That to me is just job one. Um as you know we're doing everything that we can to deal with our contribution to the problem but we all know it's a bigger problem and we've had discussions about
doing more testing, more sampling, finding ways we can be more of a resource. A lot of it's money related. So I don't think there's any there's any lack of desire. it's his lack of money and finding ways to get more money uh into our our testing program to help residents. So, I think that's something that we should put on our list of things to do is help make make resources available in terms of public health awareness and risk assessment and education. That's something that needs to happen. It's it's not it's not it's it's it's not a it's not an option that we can't
ignore. We have to deal with that. Mhm. Um, too many people cannot just be dealing with PAS knowing that they're they've been contaminated and not having public health experts telling them what what what's happening to them or what the risk is, what they should be doing. And um, for your doctor to be saying, "I don't know." Um, I I would imagine that's probably what a lot of doctors are saying. Absolutely. So, so we need to figure out a way to solve that problem. And if and if there can
be a consensus out of that, I'd like to see some people from maybe have, you know, again going back to the days Tom and I worked together on the MMR cleanup. Um, when we would have community meetings, DPH was all over the place. They were always there. They were always there. If we had a meeting on a plume and contamination and what is happening to the fish, what is happening to the to to the humans, people down gradient of a plume, what what do we need to know? They were there.
Not only that, we had people from the federal the federal government. They were there. The agency for toxic substances registry, ATSDR, they were a subarm of health and human services. So, there are public agencies that are supposed to be doing this work. Um, and we I just think we just have to work harder. And I I'm not blaming you. I'm saying we collectively need to we should be engaged in this effort to get them engaged here. So, I I'm I'm willing to sign up for that. Chris. Yeah. I I
think that um the county and the town have done the most important thing which is to ensure the public drinking water supply is safe. Like that was job number one and that's been the case for a while. The problem is that the people who were exposed before the drinking water became safe. That's now 10 years past almost 5 to 10 years past depending on where they where they lived. um that POS level does not come down over time if for example you're not a woman who's still
menrating because it gets in your blood and unless you're shedding blood and it's unless you're donating blood your blood's going to stay contaminated and so it's the legacy contamination that's really the main interest and the main focus of our work. It's not the sort of background residual POS in everybody's blood. It's the people who were living, working, going to school in the Hyannis area when the contamination occurred. And that's really where the public health response we'd like to see directed is making sure those legacy contaminated people know that they should
be getting blood testing and then have access to it. You know, there's so many, if I may, go ahead. Um there's so many ailments that people are um presenting and nobody knows what's causing nobody knows they're causing it. And in this area until this conversation I kept saying I don't know why doctors don't immediately do a blood test for lime because that's also one of those sleeper in some people can be a sleeper condition that's giving you arthritis or joint problems these
types of things. And when there are these other thing these just to bring it to the consciousness of doctors to say could this be a problem and and we don't know how it is but at least now we know this is maybe has a relation and that more of that is better. So, I totally support this in trying to get that moving forward. But, you know, the environmental um hazards we have just breathing in from fires, everything else, nobody's really looking at what what what are we absorbing that
could be creating these new somewhat ailments other than just that we're living longer. You know, that's also one but um Okay, Commissioner Bergstrom, one last question. Yeah. Well, well, the good question is that, you know, I know for a fact that this work that we're doing is creating a process that is being duplicated up and down the coast in other areas, especially areas adjacent to military bases where they they're recognizing they have a problem. They're leaning on some of the expertise that they have at Joint Base Cape Cod to try to help them. Uh, and the bad that's the
bad news. The good news is that as they go further on down the road with their own individual issues, we will gain a body of knowledge on the health effects of this, not just from our particular but from other areas that have studied this. So I mean it's a time it's down the road but ultimately we're going to get it we're going to get more and more information on the the health effects of POS exposure and uh you know I don't think that the actual link has been made between why exposure to POS would would cause a certain element a lot of it statistical analysis but we we'd like to find
that link so that we can do something about it u and uh that's pretty much all I have to say I think you guys keep doing the work and we're going to keep doing our work and see what we can and see what we can do together. Let me ask you Chris one last question. Um, as MD as Department of Public Health's been invited to this, uh, yeah, they have. Have they responded? They have not yet. The invites just went out yesterday and we're looking for the the right people in DPH um, to be invited, not just the the commissioner, but um, you know, there's environmental toxicologists. That's not
the the people we want to talk to. I want to talk to people who are um you know capable of mounting a public health response to get resources. When we get to the end of our meeting and we talk about we get we speak with the county administrator, we'll we'll talk ourselves about what we can do to get somebody from DPH there. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. All of you pay all the time. You guys good to see you. Thank you so much. All right. Our next item on our agenda
is a discussion of a Cape Cod clean water week. Brian, speaking of clean water, Mr. Clean Water Center himself, Brian Bombgard, Brian. All right, welcome. Hello. So, David, you've been able to hang out with us all morning. Yeah, hopefully you entertained and learning. Always an education. So, clean water week. Clean water week. What week is that again? So that's going to be September. Well,
the proposed date for this is September 13th through the 19th. I'm just waiting. Robin, can you something happening like nationally being recognized right now? So, I feel like I heard about it before I heard of other counties. Yep. Yep. So, that's what this is kind of based on, but we want to really tailor it to our specific region and our our needs. Um there there's a there's a world water week um that occurs in August each year. There's a national water week which occurs in April of each year, right? Um but you know our our needs here on Cape Cod are as we
all know as we discussed unique unique and special and we you know we want to bring um more awareness um you know it was just mentioned that the doctor didn't know what PASS is you know that's right what it could do to you or what it could do to you um I think it's important that we um don't you like that logo we try to bring all these types of things forward there we go Okay, so u clean water week September 13th through the 19th and as I said based on the basic concept
of bringing awareness and hopefully stewardship. Awareness is great. We need people to take action, right? Um what we want to do is celebrate this as a region and it's not just Barnesville County participating in this. The concept is really to get our regional partner organizations um to participate throughout the week and perhaps hold their own events. So, um, the theme that we've worked out for this first inaugural Cape Cod Clean Water Week, uh, is from aquafer to tap and back
again, which is really focused on the concept that it's it's one water, it's one cycle. What we call waste water, what we call tap water, what we call our recreational waters, they're all one thing. Um, and I think it's important that we put a focus um on that particular concept so that people understand that when you, you know, you flush things down the drain, you flush your toilet, um, that eventually it's going to go into the same aquifer that we all share. Um, and it's all going to come back to us in some way, shape, or form. Um, so that's the the key theme for this
particular uh this year. Um we've got a few events planned um just for uh the county perspective. So as I said what the real goal here is for us to provide the framework for this week provide some events and to bring awareness to through our own programming but also as I said to encourage other organizations to hold similar events during the course of the week. Um so what we'd like to do is hold an opening celebration um which I think ideally we do right here at the county complex
um being centrally located. Um about midweek, uh we want to do a technology showcase at the clean water center um to really um expose people a little bit more to the various types of waste on-site wastewater treatment technologies because um that's uh one of the focuses of of um the testing center and the clean water center are those particular types of technologies. Uh the third event that we have planned right now is to start to engage the kids a little bit more in the work that we're doing. And what's better than a touch a truck event for kids to come
and experience some of the um equipment that are that are putting in all this infrastructure into our area. Um so what we plan on doing there is having uh like a number of like excavators and heavy equipment for kids to be able to come and look at and see. Um bring a septic pump out drugs, you know, I think I think we'll have look but don't touch on the septic on the septic. But I think it's it's important for people to understand what those pieces of equipment are, you know, and kids get excited for this stuff and, you know, the parents come with the kids and they get, you know,
they get the information along the way. Uh the other piece that we want to do on that same day, and this is a Saturday, by the way, to make sure we get exposure um to families, um is a wastewater uh microscopy demo. So, uh basically in our clean water center conference room, uh we'll set up a microscope and a series of smaller ones. Um, but with our good microscope, what we'll do is connect those to the TVs. We'll put samples on so that we can show what's actually, you know, the water, what it looks like. Yeah. See the bugs and see the bugs and the important
things that are living there. Um, you know, we'll set up stations for kids to, you know, they'll draw their favorite microbe, those types of things. Uh, so we're excited about these, you know, these three primary events. Um, we've got ideas for some smaller things that we might develop. Well, PAS is about PAS is a very high, so we might want to add that to our list of of things to look at. Um, you know, we didn't want to um totally inundate ourselves for the week. You know, we wanted to also be able to um promote the other organizations and what they're doing, right? Uh but I think one of the goals for this is really each each uh day of that week there's
an event happening somewhere and I would love for all the towns to have an event through the week, right? you know, I think for end to end and on on the week and on the cape would be the would be the sort of success metric for us on this particular initiative. Um, maybe we have a conscience. I would love who puts who puts on the best, you know, and then we get we give them a compost toilet or something and nobody. Yep. Um, so we do have some participating organizations
that are already interested in in doing this with us. uh Webner uh Dennis Conservation Land Trust, Mashp Ponds Advisory Committee, Cape Cod's Children's Museum, which is actually hosting an entire uh exhibit this summer um that's focused on wastewater. It's good. That's good. It's in uh No, the one in Mashby. The one in Mash. Okay. Yep. Um, so they're actually uh they're building an outhouse and we're doing a whole model septic system that kids will be able to plunk little ping pong balls into and stuff and there'll be a video um kind of explaining some of this that
um I'm actually responsible for recording. Um and then the Varnable Clean Water Coalition. So this is our initial slate. We reached out to a few organizations that we knew would probably be interested, but after today, we'll really start our outreach campaign to these organizations to get them to uh hopefully sign up and participate in hold events of their own. So, what I was thinking about in Brewster is the natural um history museum, which might also be interested. They have a heavy water component there. So, I think, you know, water touches everything we do and I think there's an opportunity for many, many organizations across
the Cape, coalitions But yeah, there's how one in every town just about. I this past weekend um I spoke at the Haritch Pond Coalition annual meeting which was pretty well attended. By the way, they have a really nice community center in Haritch if you ever been there. Yes, they do. Yeah. And I you know I wanted to to make that that was Saturday you were talking about and I have I had people in town and they just Brewster has a very active one. Brewster is Brewster is one of the originals
that Yeah, we're trying even though uh the board doesn't listen to Balmouth is very active. Mashp has a newer bond. So, you know, I think there's a lot of there's a lot of interest in it. I think the ponds associations will be one of our larger participants in this. Absolutely. Um but if there are organizations that you think, you know, you might ask that we haven't thought of and you want us to reach out to specifically um and please feel free to reach out to them yourselves as well, uh to encourage participation. I would also lean on obviously APCC. They're they're right on our
list. Yeah, we have a pretty extensive list of who we'll be reaching out to after today. Um, slide five. One of the big things is the uh the ripple effect award. Um, so like we have the Mercy Otis or uh Owen Mercy Mercy Otis Warren. Owen, I have Owen in my head because he was here. Uh, so what we want to do is honor up to six community members who have made substantial contributions protecting and restoring Cape Cod's water resources. um we would have a set of nominations that go with that
and have you all pick uh a set of winners for us. One of the little um sort of bonus things that we're putting together for this ripple effect award is um a special photography session um that will will display their photo along with some of their work in our clean water center so that people can come and and see the work that they've done. And is there a criteria of how you can be a nominee? Is there like an example of what somebody might have done? I think I think it's, you know, we have a nomination form that I'll share that gives you some, you know, some ideas of people
who you might want to nominate. Um, but my hope is that it'll be people from all different, you know, different organizations at different levels. You know, it tends to be that the the top person in the organization gets these types of things, but I would love to see I would love to see others get those as well. Uh, one candidate that I definitely think ought to be nominated is Dennis Levlang from the US Geological Survey. Um, he's been here like 50 years, just I guess officially retired. And um, we've got to find some way to acknowledge and honor
him because he's done incredible work on Cape Cod and helping us understand uh, the water supply, the water, the hydraology, how the system works. Um, so I would definitely the name jumps up. Yeah. So I think they're the two folks right there that um have done a lot. So we'll start thinking yes we'll jump right into uh soliciting nominations and then and also those that are really up against it that continually bring it forward, fight it up, you know,
try to educate those they're the like the campaign workers, you know, and they are on a campaign. they're on their campaign to bring this forward. So, absolutely that should we need to recognize those people as well. Absolutely. And I would hope we can make this an annual thing. So, you know, it'll be like a hall of honor eventually. Um, and my last slide here, just more information. Um, so we'll put this all up on the website after today's meeting, the schedule of events, participating in organizations. We'll be able to um, you know, we'll list their events on there so that people
can kind of come to a centralized location and find where all the different events are occurring. Uh we'll provide the nomination forms on there as well. Um that's um that's my presentation. That sounds good. Sounds great. Looks good. It's exciting. And I love the logo. Yes. Um you know, I think one of the unagnowledged successes of the um the ARPA funds was to upgrade our lab so it could test people's water because you know there's a lot of misinformation out of there, a lot of fear out of there. You take you know you turn on your tab what's in it. So, we now have the ability to allow
people on Cape Cod to have their water tested and and we can determine for them exactly what they're drinking. So, a good a big step toward toward getting people to drink clean water is to letting them know what they're drinking out and to assure them that it is good and it is. Yes, absolutely agree. Very good. Okay, great. Thank you so much for your support as always. We'll be looking for all your Thanks a lot. So the next item on our agenda is the regional housing incentives.
Commissioner Burks looking for an update on all the great housing initiatives which will be in the works. Morning commissioners. Oh always good to see you commissioner. A couple of weekends ago I didn't and I never got you at other place where we were. So to see you as well Mr. Chairman commissioner. Thank you. Always get morning. Good morning. Good to go. You are good to go. All right. Um in your package, you should have a copy of um a mass housing flyer. So, Commissioner
Bergstrom had uh asked us to do an initial review of a proposal the uh Haley Driscoll administration launched back in uh midappril which in partnership with Mass Housing, which is essentially a quasi state agency uh provides for $25,000 uh to first-time home buyers uh in assistance at a 0% interest rate uh as the flyer stipulates. It's a fixed period. It's from April 27th to July 31st. $25,000 uh available statewide. So that means folks in Barnesville County are eligible,
0% interest, and it's structured uh typical uh similar to a lean where there's no monthly payments. It's payable on a triggering event. So uh I gave Commissioner Bergstrom two examples that I'll give to the full board. The first is uh option A. A person buys a house, gets the $25,000, and after eight years uh refinances. That refi is a triggering event and the person would pay back the full $25,000 at 0% interest. Option B is a person gets the $25,000, keeps the house
for 32 years, and at the sale of the property, the $25,000 is paid back to Mass Housing at that time. Again, in both instances, there's no um penalty. There's no time frame as to when it can be repaid. There's no interest and there's no monthly payment. Uh so I suspect it's going to be a pretty popular program. It can be used for down payment. It can be used for closing costs. It can be used uh for rate buy down which right now the rates are around six and a half percent. So you can buy down that rate by buying points and it can be used to upfront the cost of PMI which is typically
required on mortgage products when you're not doing the traditional 20% down. Uh so it has a lot of flexibility. Uh it's not something we in the county do right now, but again it is available to county residents. Uh, and one of the caveats is with it, in order to be eligible, you have to have a mortgage product locked in by that July 31st deadline. There are lenders on Cape Cod because Mass Housing doesn't do the lending. You go through a traditional bank. There are Cape Cod lenders who are participating in that. Um, and so that is really the quick overview of that
program. This replaces a product Mass Housing had which was a more traditional mortgage for 15 years at a reduced rate of either two or 3% of interest. Uh that was also popular as well and a little bit more revenue generating to offset the costs of running the program. So that's that piece and we wanted to take the opportunity before you and then happy to take any questions commissioners to talk a little bit about the home program because while this is certainly a great program with the support of the three of you we operate the home program and that's really making some measurable impacts
throughout all of Barnes County as well. So I'm going to turn it over to Reinie Hammond to give you a little info on that. One second. I have to step out and take the call. Turn the meeting over to vice chairs first. Yes, sir. You're right. Good morning. So, um, as you know, the home the the home consortium began in Bons County. Um, there was an ordinance created in 1992. We've been running the program since 1995. Um, for a period of time, we did do a down payment closing cost assistance program, which is an allowed activity um, from the home program from HUD. Um, we did one
from uh, 1995 to about 2018. um in the first years 1995 to 2001 um they did what was a uh forgivable program. So it was for down payment closing cost assistance you would keep the house for um 7 years or 15 years and then the loan would be forgivable. Most of those back then you were talking about $5,000 or less for a down payment closing cost assistance. Um in 2002 the program switched to what Joe was explaining. It's called a time of sale um mortgage. So, the time a sale mortgage
sits on the property, it's zero interest deferred uh payment. So, there's no payments on principal and it sits there until the house is sold or in in certain circumstances refinanced. And that's when it was paid back to the home program and then that money was reput um recirculated out for other for other projects. um when I arrived in 2019. So in 2018 the the the program was already um experiencing some difficulties and the difficulty being that um under HUD regulations
we can only supply this to uh people making 80% area median income and under um AMI. Um and then as the house prices rose and the 80% median income stayed kind of this there was a little bit of a disconnect in finding those houses that would meet um the program. Um so give you an example you know where we are where we are with it today. Um and I will tell you HUD HUD puts out what they
call a um a moderate price. They have their own different calculations for how they calculate what the program how much the program for the sales price could be used for. In all of Bonso County, they take all of Bonso County. It's about 850,000. So any house that's 850,000 or under, you could use this program. The problem being is is that it needs to be affordable to someone making 80% AMI or under. So right now um using the assumptions for calculations of an interest rate
um a two-bedroom single family home would have to be about 330,000 or less. Um and a three-bedroom about 365,000 or less. That's what an 80% AMI person spending no more than 30% of their income on a home could afford. Um, so as you can see looking at the county, there is no homes for sale at 365,000. Um, and it also has to meet housing quality standards. So they can't buy a fixer upper. Um, so that's pro that's why the program dwindled out in 2018. Um,
there was found that they we could no more no longer meet that 80% AMI and find a house um on Cape Cod. they were far and few between and we found that the program was starting to limit itself to you know hyenas areas of of Yamoth and then with the escalation during CO um this is where we are now um at 365 I could do a condo the condos come out a little differently because you have to add in the condo fee a two-bedroom condo would have to be at around 270,000 and a threebedroom at around 310. Um so that's why we discontinued that program. The program that we
use now we which we've done since 1995 is for affordable rental housing development. Um you know as you have funded these through the the past years. Okay. I think you have anything else? No. I I just, you know, I know um as our uh the push for more affordable housing is is uh underway and not everyone is happy with the structures and everybody argues that we have to have that structure because it's dense city and it saves money and I can't help but think that there's
um different alternatives and maybe we're not looking at HUD even though we don't know how long long that will be. So, our housing coordinator did say that there was some sort of like small home program. There were some things that she found in HUD that seemed like they would be alternatives, not just a down payment, but it had to do with the structure itself. They were looking more of a small home concept. You know anything about that? I know that they've been discussing um not
necessarily with HUD but with um the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, HLC. Um you know, when when they want to do um projects, they want them to be around, you know, 20 units or more. Usually 30, 40, 50 units. Um and what we're looking for on the cave is to, you know, if we could do some more small scale, um but how to make the numbers work, right? Right. So that's kind of what the discussion and that discussion ties into like the seasonal communities and what we what funding we can get to do more smallcale um and not only because you know this
is fits the cape better is that small scale is you know there are properties that are just not that large that you can't put 20 30 40 units on that maybe six would be better. Um so that is that that discussion is is happening. Also, as you go out into the outer Cape, as you well know, um larger scale projects just don't fit. I mean, they really are overwhelming. I, you know, I was driving down to Toro and I saw the clover leaf, all of which we supported. I was there with the groundbreaking and
it was um it was shocking to me, especially when you're going towards Province. You don't see it so much because the way the trees are, but it kind of like right hits you and I was like, it's up on a hillside. Yeah. And I was like that's you know the first cut into a which was just pristine forest without so to me I'm much more into rehabbing the ex if there's an existing footprint that's already been you know cut out what can we do there and the smaller scale having that assistance for six units
here four units it it's it's it doesn't fit the outer cape and we don't have the water supply then there's like what are we really putting everybody at risk while we're doing this. So these are the concerns because we really are a sand dune. We change geology on the outer Cape and a lot of this doesn't fit and I feel like we're being uh there's it's almost like extortion. If you don't do this you don't get the seasonal communities benefits and uh some people call it carrot and sticks in this point. It does feel like extortion, but um I'll be blunt, but um it just doesn't fit.
And it's and you're killing the golden goose in many ways. That's why people go there because there is nothing, you know, or or there isn't as much development as there is everywhere else. So, and it's not just because of the seashore. So, anyway, I was just wondering is there are there alternatives and how can we advocate for that? I just and to build off of what Reinie said, Commissioner, I think if the county were to look to do something with HUD out of the equation, you obviously have more flexibilities in the same manner of which mass housing is running this.
HUD's not part of the equation. Um, and certainly we could we could explore those options. I had the opportunity, we were sitting here through your whole meeting and the chairman rose uh some good points around does the county have the authority to to do that type of lending. I don't have that answer for you today. Uh, I think that's a great question. And then, uh, outside of my pay grade, I would defer to the administrator and you folks, but um, how do you fund those types of things? And if it's desire of the board, we can certainly dig in as we did with the initial request. It's
a lot to u for the county to be able to offer. I mean, we've had other proposals come before here. Sorry. And we've said, you know, that's a great idea, but we don't have that capacity. And I don't think that we have the capacity to do such a robust program that the state is doing. But if we can assist somehow um in a smaller way. Well, you know, I agree. I agree with a lot of what Commissioner Lions said. You know, the approach to housing right now has been basically build. We build somehow the costs don't that's it. But I started off after I heard about this program
state. I started off with the individual, a man and his wife sitting in front of a banker. Okay, start with their this is this is where housing starts from. you're sitting in the bank, you're looking for a mortgage. And that bank, they're going to the banker of the bank is going to look at what your income is. They're going to look at what your expenses are. They're going to look at the total cost of the mortgage, and they're going to determine whether or not you're you're eligible for the mortgage. Now, everything that you can do to lower your expenses or lower the cost of that
mortgage will help you. I mean, even with a few hundred dollars, you know, to make a difference whether you get given a mortgage or you don't. So, there's various ways that we're looking at to try to make it easier for a person to get a mortgage. One is the residential tax exemption. Basically, you're going in there and saying, "Your taxes are tied up with your mortgage payment. I pay a little less because I'm a resident." Another thing is the soft second mortgage. If you give if you give somebody u you you um supply $25,000 $30,000 as a soft second at 3% which is for
instance what the county gets on its money in the bank. The difference between that 3% and the six a half% that you're paying on the overall cost of the mortgage reduces it that much less. Now is that going to help everybody? No. But basically, we're trying little by little to come up with with proposals that allow people to buy existing houses or to buy houses that are currently available under deed restrictions and income restrictions. So, that's what I'm looking at now. As far as the county supplying a $25,000 soft second mortgage, I'm not looking to wait 32 years. I'm saying you
we'll lend you the money at three and a half%. You don't have to pay. The bank will look at that and say, "Well, I'm going to give this guy a mortgage because I'm in I'm in I'm in front. I'm the first one. So I I don't have to worry about that extra 25 grand that you owe me. And the other thing is is that you're going to save the ability between the over the time of the the three 3% difference in the in the interest rate you pay to the bank and the interest pay to the county. Now, is this realistic? I don't know. That's why I'm asking that's why I ask you to look into it. I know there's some some administrative costs that's been an issue. You know, we're going to have to have
somebody do this. But I am looking right now. I'm going to agree with Commissioner Lions. I've seen a lot of housing projects lately, even in the last cycle of town meetings. Some have been passed, but some of you think would pass not been passed. And it's very divisive issue. So, I'm going to start to concentrate in my efforts to look at how I can get people who need housing, especially public employees. I mean, you could limit it you legally, that's another question. Can you how how closely can you limit this? Can you limit to public employees? can deliver it to firemen and
policemen and teachers because uh that's really what in very selfish motives those are people we need those people the town needs you know so you could you could do that so you know so because of the divisive nature of the housing problem right now I'd like to see us concentrate on allowing people to move into existing housing but move into some of the projects that are coming to fruition that supply workforce housing and and affordable housing and you know uh because we're never going
to build our way out of this situation you know and you know and I I think that that's and also you know the they say there's a housing shortage on Cape Cod the problem is not that there's a housing shortage problem that the housing is being taken by other demographic groups be second homes people who are retired and also short-term rentals. So the people who need a house to live in because they work on the cave have to deal, you know, have to struggle to get for the rest,
you know, the the little limited amount of housing that's left. So it's it's a multiaceted problem and I take both several approaches and trying to help people get a mortgage or an existing home, I think, is part of it. So I appreciate you looking into that. Sure. and and you know I'll follow up a little bit on it but uh I know that I know it's reluct the county reluctant to get into issues that we had not even before. Well, I think commissioner, if I might make a suggestion to the board, I always look when we're looking at our programming and our strategic plan, what's
being done out there and the the efficacy of it. And I think we have the advantage right now that this program that the governor introduced is term limited. It ends July 31st. And Reinie and I have both have had conversations with uh colleagues of ours at Mass Housing. we'll be able to have a sample size of how many people actually availed themselves of this program in Barnstable County after July 31st and that might uh dictate to us whether it's something we want to dig further into or not. If it was popular down here and if it was what the volume was, if it was concentrated
in certain areas and stuff like that and I like to be data driven. I know the assistant administrator always pushes me to be that way. So, we'll have our hands on free data and not the administrator. Not a good so uh what I might yeah what I might suggest is if we wait to see the results of that and that could help guide uh further discussion and decision making. You know I wonder how many people are aware of this and does it fit you know will it fit the the price the price tag you know and that is going to be the challenge. It's nice to have,
but if it's not going to fit what the reality is on the ground, we're really going to Yeah, that's that's a good point because some people do these down payment closing cost assistance programs, but if they're not successful, then and that helps in itself gives you data that they were not because the prices are going. So, it's it's really becomes like 25 is nothing, you know, you're not really helping me. And um and then when you start going into different professions now that I'm on a select board, you know, and you see the collective bargaining like really we're going
to help I mean like would you help me a little? But um you know that's th those are soaring. So uh the the the outcomes of people's salary. So I don't know how you're going to justify that but I'd like and I'd like to say that that that this conversation is happening throughout the towns. Um the advisory council is is interested in this. You know, we have very vibrant advisory council, the Bonsville County Home Consession Advisory Council who are looking at doing things differently. Um looking outside the box this we can't keep doing the same thing. um with the shared regional
housing service program with our drop-in centers um you know they're always constantly trying to well how can we help in this sense and how can we help in that sense and that helps because that kind of brings all the ideas together and then we can kind of take a look at some towns have tried some things that have worked and some towns have tried some things that haven't you know Cape Cod in the beginning it was all about the kids we have to have our kids to live here and then it was uh we need people who work here and then it's like people want to live on Cape Cod why why are you blocking that well you know not every but I kind of moved back to selfing me. So anyway
um it's out of my price range. So um but the thing it it's it's something that we have to um you know for forever it was everybody was happy to have the second people have vacation homes here or build their second home. It gave you a tax base and it really didn't add a layer of infrastructure need or burden to the town because those people weren't here. It was really in the summer that people rented most of the time. And so we've built ourselves out. We
don't have room now because everybody was sort of happy with that. And now all of that is costing more. I mean it co it's like everybody came in and changed the game while we were all inside. Yeah. and uh bought people's houses and just I I hate to interject but we're going to have to wrap it up anyway to be it's just this is we can take this at a coffee or something anytime anyway. All right. Thank you commissioners to provide any data. I'm I'm a datab.
Yes, sir. Thank you. Have a good day. Thanks for everything. Thank you. All right, Carol. Good afternoon. It's nice to see you as well. This item on the agenda is uh we're going to talk about authorizing the assessment of the towns within the county under the provisions of the home rule charter. And we have a total municipal assessment of $3.9 million. Since Carol's is going to um answer any questions that we might have on municipal assessment.
Do we have any questions? I have one question. 2 and a half% increase. Yes, sir. Okay. You want to answer? No. I'll take a motion. I move to authorize the assessment of the towns within the county under the provisions of the Barnesville County home rule charter the amount of 3,997,746 as the county tax for the county of Barnes for the period of July 1st 2026 through June 30th 2027.
Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I post carries unanimously. Um, and it says it roll call. So, let me just call this out again. Commissioner Burks from Yuri. Yes. Burks from BAI. BAI. Forest votes. All right. Now, the next item uh D2 is authorizing the assessment of the towns within the county under the provisions of the home charter. The amount of 4.2 million for the environmental protection fund tax. This
is to fund the Cape work of the Cape Cod Commission. That's a separately authorized um uh levy. Do I have a motion? Um before that, any questions for for Carol? No. No. Okay. Have a motion. Okay. I move to authorize the assessment of the towns within the county under the provisions of the Baltimore County home charter the amount of 4,28. Excuse me. I didn't go all the way through that number. 4 million uh286,140
as the environmental protection fund tax for the county of Brownstable for the period of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? Uh roll call vote. Commissioner Bergstrom. Commissioner Bergstrom votes I. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes I. Commissioner Forest votes I. It carries unanimously. The third item is authorizing an intracategory transfer within category C group 9 French benefits within the FY26
general operating fund budget pursuant to section 8 of ordinance number 20 2025-03. I'm going to ask Carol just to give a brief explanation on this one. Okay. Thank you so much. Um the fringe benefit is your group insurance line items along with some workers compensation and other minor categories um which include your retirement assessments as well. Um and so this year, you know, there are changes that occur during the fiscal year, qualifying events we call them,
um that are aren't anticipated at the time that a budget is prepared. Um and so there's a few departments here that um that um required some additional funds in their fringe benefits. Um and that would be um the administrator's office, the assembly of delegates, and your retirees. Um and and so bringing forth a budget transfer that is um provided for within um section 8 of the ordinance that um appropriated the general fund
budget. And I can certainly read that to you if you wish. That's not necessary. Okay. Um, so the total amount of the increases for the departments that I mentioned for fringe benefits is $123,750. And I identified funds, available funds in three other departments, information technology, finance and health and environment which were available to um decrease those fringe benefits in order to fund the um the areas the departments that required additional funding in the same
amount. Great. So there's no fiscal impact whatsoever. That's great. Thank you, Carol, for making that clear. I have a motion. Um I I move to authorize to accept where are we here? I move to authorize an inter in intercategory transfer within category C group 9 branch benefits of the fiscal year 2026 general fund operating budget pursuant to section 8 of ordinance number 2025-03. I second. Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote. Commissioner Bergster. Mr.
Bster votes I. Votes I and Commissioner Forest votes I. It carries unanimously. Let's go on to item number four which deals with the disposition of abandoned funds. Do you want Thank you. Real quick. Um so we typically call these tailings. Um and that that really refers to stale dated checks whether they're vendor checks or whether they're payroll checks. Um there is a new provision in Mass General law that eases the requirement for uh municipalities and county governments
to deal with tailings um or to manage tailings. Whereas um historically this has been managed by the state treasurer's office. This allows local management of those funds. And so no longer would we need to those funds to the state treasurer's office. It would stay within the county. And then um once the period has expired and we've met all the requirements um then those funds would then be transferred into the general fund or the most appropriate um uh fund that in which
they originated. Um so accepting the provisions of um of this mass general law would allow for um ease in management of stale data checks. Um and we ask for your um and this is a requirement that you would need to accept these provisions. Understood. Go ahead. Go ahead. So is this available to the towns? Is this otherwise known as the free cash when they reconcile at the end of the year? No, it's totally okay. This this came about a number of years ago and that yes
um many towns that I'm familiar with accepted the provisions at town meeting. Mhm. Um the the the provisions here would be accepted by the board of regional commissioners and this just allows for for management of stale dated checks or checks that are not cashed that were had been issued um to to move back to their county funds to clean things up quickly. You got it. That that that answers my question. These these checks we issue nobody cashed them hanging out there. a certain
time amount of time elapses and the money will then revert to the general fund. Yes. Once we once we have um checked all the boxes, if you will, reached out to the the vendor or employee um advertised it on the website, advertised it in a general circulation, things of that nature. Once we meet all those objectives, then yes, you're correct. Okay. Commissioner Bergster, do we have a motion? I move to authorize I move to authorize to accept provisions of Massachusetts general law chapter um 200A section 9A relative to the disposition of abandoned funds and uncash
checks and authorize the county treasurer to implement administrative procedures consistent with said statute. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote. Commissioner Bergstrom. Bergstrom votes I. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes I and Commissioner Forest votes I. It carries unanimously. Item E proposed ordinance uh 20 2026- to be named authorizing the recision of a portion of borrowing authorization previously approved under ordinance 2024-01 for
the cooperative extension Americanore vehicle replacement project in the amount of 6,63425. I think this is pretty self-explanatory. Mhm. Um would you like to make a motion? I move to introduce proposed ordinance 2026 to be named authorizing the recession of a portion of borrowing authorization previously approved under ordinance 2024-01 for the cooperative extension of our core vehicle replacement project in the amount of 6,63425.
Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none. Uh, Commissioner Bergstrom. Bergstrom votes eye. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes eye. Commissioner Forest votes I as well. It carries unanimously. Uh item number F, proposed ordinance to be named authorizes the recision of a borrowing authorization dealing with the K cut commission and uh and and and and language that authorizes the project to be funded through the use
of restricted balances within the Cape Cod Environmental Protection Fund. Um let's at least get a motion on the table and then we'll see if anybody has any questions. I move to introduce proposed ordinance 2026 to be named authorizing the recision of borrowing authorization previously approved under ordinance 22-09 of 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 Environment Protection Fund CC. CF in the same amount of $4 million. You have a second. Second. Uh, are there any question, comment, concerns? Hearing none. Roll call vote. Commissioner Bergstroen. Bergkst. Commissioner Lions. Lions. Both vote. I kick passes unanimously. Item number G involves uh authorizing expenditures or for the for the
dredge. Uh, I'll take a motion and then we'll have a discussion. Um, Mr. Chair, I move to introduce proposed ordinance 2026 to be named authorizing the Dredge Enterprise Fund Capital Program to rescend borrowing authorization previously approved under ordinance 2025-01 in the amount of $150,000 for the replacement of a CAT engine on a booster station and to authorize the repurposing
of the remaining authorized ized unissued and/or unexpended bond proceeds in the amount of $76,6131 for the cat engine capital project for the dredge enterprise fund. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Are there any questions on this motion? So, what we're doing is just transferring um you are correct. Back in 2013, it was authorized to purchase a dredge. Um, that
dredge was purchased and those funds were borrowed for a total of $2 million. Um, the the the actual expenditures were lower than $2 million, meaning that there were surplus borrowing of $172,500. And so we need to we the county should um um um utilize all of those borrowed funds um rather than going out into the market and borrowing new funds. Um and so this is this is
just a step in that process. That's exactly right. Okay. Great. Any other questions? Okay. Roll call vote. Commissioner Bther votes I. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes I. Commissioner Fors votes I. Carries unanimously. And let's move on to video. Next item, moving right along, proposed ordinance dealing with the uh this is H. Uh dealing with another uh budget transfer. Let's get a motion on the table and then we'll go from there. I move to introduce proposed ordinance
2026 to be numbered later. Authorize general fund balance transfers totaling $81,500 for the purpose of funding information technology salaries of $1,500 and laboratory supplies of $80,000. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Are there any questions on this motion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Commissioner Bergstrom. Uh Bergstrom. Commissioner Lions. Commissioner Forest. Let me have one question after. The laboratory doesn't have its own
uh fun um fund capital fund that they can dish into. The laboratory is part of the general fund. So it's a department or division within the health and environment department. Um and as I have been um um presenting to the board in the quarterly financial reports um I began discussing supplies, laboratory supplies and tariffs and the increase the significant increase in those supplies and that's $80,000 of this transfer of this request is for
that purpose. The other $1,500 is due to an IT employee that retired unexpectedly. serve serve the county very well. Oh, too bad they're gone. Yeah, that's great. Carol, I hate to say it, Carol, but I don't think we have any more items for you. I think you're well done. Thank you so much. Let me just thank you for all your hard work. And uh this week we heard the assembly officials talking about a structural financial challenge that needs to be met. This is the first time I've heard them talk openly about our financial challenges. So I want to commend you
for your education uh of uh the other body because um we need to be all on the same page in terms of understanding the financial challenges ahead of us and as you know my frustration here has been that uh while we've grasped the challenge uh we need to convince some others in county government and and I'm pleased to see that uh they they see some of the challenges that we face as well. So thank you for your work on that regard. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. It's a little easier. So, the next item
is uh J. Review and discuss a possible vote on a draft proposed ordinance creating the emergency management department. And uh we're going to turn this over to our administrator, Michael Dutton, to sort of lead the conversation, but we have an army of people here to answer any questions, but Michael, for some reason, is unable to do so. It's all about the details and the data. Yes. the data. Yes. And you know, you don't care too much about that. No, this is minor. That's
why Bar's here. Minor stuff. Um I I do need help to try to figure out which of these presentations I'm bringing up. Uh and why it's not showing up. Robin's here. Well, no. Robin Robin, why are you grease the wheels? Uh to allow me to share. And for some reason my open um well in any case you have um you have in front of you uh this handout. So we'll emergency management resort back to paper
um and I just uh want to walk you through our proposal and and let you know why we think this is uh a good time uh to be doing this and why we think it's good to do this. Um, number one, let me just sort of explain uh that this is a conversation that's been going on for probably about a year now. Um, and uh we will uh with I'm fairly certain we will be coming back to the board uh with more uh proposals to to reorganize uh county government. A real reorganization hasn't
occurred in a number of decades. So uh so it's time for us uh internally to really take a look at what we're doing and make sure that we are allocating uh the among the departments the the uh programs that truly belong within those departments. So uh so this has been a long time coming. This is the first piece and because of some changes in emergency management uh we felt that now was a good time to pull this trigger uh and and propose this to you so that uh so that can have uh you can vote it and then hopefully uh once you vote it can go back uh up to the assembly
for their approval. Um let me just give you an idea where we came from. uh post uh 9/11 uh there was an influx of a significant amount of federal funding uh into sort of the emergency management realm. Um that that that money really was focused on counterterrorism uh hazardous materials uh and that became sort of the federal priority for for state and county and local governments. Um over the period of uh of years uh between 1986 2002 um the uh SR title 3 created local requirements
uh for uh for local emergency planning committees and Barnesville County founded uh the regional emergency planning committee in September of 2002 to support the towns in their efforts uh planning efforts. Um over the course of years um emergency planning was a department or a division that was placed underneath emergency uh rather the health department uh and that focus uh at the time was a hazmat uh focus. So the town still sort of dealt with their their
uh planning uh local planning and the county sort of looked at hazmat uh as as its major focus uh as you would expect under under uh health department. Um today uh emergency management really covers a host of things as you've seen uh during the blizzard we had emergency the emergency operation center uh the MAC as we call it uh we dealt with sheltering logistics uh hazmat mitigation and and recovery. Um and we we as you have for those that participated in
uh in the MAC calls during that uh that blizzard uh you realize that the uh the towns are more and more relying on us to really take the lead. Um so it begs a whole different set of questions which aren't really relevant here as to you know what is the county's role uh within emergency management and how how do we fulfill that role uh within u within the the structure that we have now and the structure we're proposing. So I think there's a lot a very significant amount of work to be done
um to really fill the role uh that uh that we have become uh and make sure that the towns are good with that. And I've I've explained this uh to many of of my uh town administrator, town manager peers um as well as uh the leadership of the regional emergency planning committee. We are here to serve the towns. So the towns need to tell us what how they want us to serve them and their emergency management planning uh needs and uh and to the extent that we can find the budget to do that,
we will do that. So so those discussions will be ongoing. they've already occurred post uh post blizzard in many of the afteraction uh sessions but uh but that'll be an ongoing discussion um where we are today um picking up a little bit what I already talked about uh we provide regional sheltering support um and and uh there'll be more discussion about that we provide training and exercises uh we run exercises for the towns and and staff uh as well as internally We build
uh improvement plans and uh certify EOC uh and shelter personnel. We run tabletops and so forth. Uh regional and community preparedness. We coordinate uh obviously with our regional u um emergency planning committee uh to make sure that we are in compliance with federal standards uh as well as local state and local uh standards. Uh we provide disaster recovery assistance. Uh we coordinate debris management. Uh which is something that that I think we uh is sort of the
hidden um the hidden crisis uh as we move forward as more and more land is developed. Uh there are fewer and fewer places to dispose of debris and nobody really thinks about the debris post storm. Um but in conversations I've had with some of my peers um they're looking for places. Yeah. It's a huge problem. Huge problem. So, um just logistics and emergency equipment um storage. Uh we we have uh a small uh amount of equipment that we can use uh during emergency emergencies and uh and we loan
that out u and make sure that uh we maintain it. Um and then county emergency management and safety. Uh obviously we provide uh expertise to the towns when the towns need it um most. So why why a separate department? Um and I won't take credit for creating this slide because it's um I don't have such a good sense of humor. Um but uh Andrew uh plugged in why would you put
your fire department under your health agent? uh as sort of an example uh right of of of why we are proposing a separate department for emergency management. As I've mentioned the the the job of emergency management has has changed over the years and uh is much more robust and I think we can we can demonstrate uh and provide a significant value to the towns uh providing uh a more more robust approach to this. Um so first of all it matches how governments organized in
most of the other areas. So federal, state uh and local governments are are sort of organized uh as emergency management as a as a standalone. Um so there are decisions that have to be made during a disaster that really can't wait for the the bureaucracy to to move. Uh so uh moving this as a separate department really clears the way and and eliminate some of the bureaucracy uh during crisis. Um some of the the national standards uh really do require um that we elevate
um emergency management. Uh also reduces friction uh with our public safety partners. uh making it clear that emergency management has a director and uh that director can coordinate very directly with the police and fire departments and emergency management directors in the towns really helps um potentially unlocks uh public safety funding uh which is particularly important in this uh this department uh this proposed department because it'll be a small department um and our
success will really depend on our ability to uh grant fund a number of different items that the Cape uh Cape Towns really need. Um and then recovery works better uh when when the organizational structures uh mirror each other. So so it's uh just making things a more efficient uh more efficient operation. So moving on to proposed department structure. Um not proposing any additional FTEES uh at this point. Um but we'd have uh the the two and a half existing existing
employees or existing positions um would uh would remmanage as a department uh director and then the emergency management uh sorry the emergency planning specialist and the logistics specialist. Um I would suspect that once we come back to the board with more changes to our organizational structure likely the the towards the end of summer uh you will see uh some additional programming and and perhaps uh additional employees plugged in uh proposed to be plugged in under under
emergency management but management. But for right now um this is what we're looking at. fairly straightforward uh fairly straightforward but um work stream for 2027 quite an ambitious one um we've got a lot of work to do um just establishing the department and its governance uh revisiting as I mentioned before regional uh sheltering plans and working with the towns to make sure that that we can um be very clear about what our role is uh in emergency sheltering uh obviously training
multiple training programs,ou uh work and and revamped agreements, reddrafted agreements, um and uh strategic planning, which is critical, I think, for emergency planning. Um revisiting the the uh emergency operations center concept, what what do we do? What don't we do? Um and then helping communities uh with with their uh planning and uh community preparedness. So that is um that is what uh is in front of you. Um there is uh verbiage in your packet uh in terms of of
uh an ordinance um that gets uh once once passed here if you choose to pass it would then go up to the assembly uh for their approval. Um, and I have uh briefed a couple uh of the delegates uh on on our work here and uh so it's they're expecting it. Um and um and so far I think uh the response has been fairly positive. So Commissioner L. So I'm assuming that this has all been discussed with the
uh the team the players that are in that room. They're on that call. So they're all been talking about this. Uh I haven't discussed it with all 265 some odd um but the leadership of uh both the uh the Capeen Islands Chiefs Association as well as leadership of the REPC. Okay. So everybody's happy with this and you know I do always look at our role and I will go to Bill D. He always says you know the county uh convenes builds collaboration and comes out with consensus. So uh the three
C's. So, um, anyway, I I think it's, um, high time. Not that it wasn't, um, you know, horrible under the health department, but I think it can relieve Jay to do more of public health and, uh, not worry too much during a storm. So I have every my my eyes do start dotted and that sort of thing. But this is this is a separate part of work and you have to make sure that and whoever uh is not
there you have everybody knows what their job is. You know just like on a ship on a Navy ship they know whether the commander goes down they know what to do. Exactly. Commissioner Ber. Yeah. just to say this is long overdue and I wish that we had and I think the the need for this was recognized quite a several years ago and you know even before the recent uh issues with emergency management. So sorry that we didn't pull the trigger on sooner because the disperate responsibilities of this
department in the past just didn't seem to match up so that we're doing this now. I mean there was no harm done was done but it's better this way. No, I think um from from my perspective, the recent storm was clearly an indicator that we needed to pull the trigger on this and move this uh make the change. Um I think um that all the reasons for doing this have been stated um and they've been stated well. I think my biggest uh concern has been the absence of uh planning
because this is something that has come up in the past. We talked about planning and how well organized we are and that's been a deficiency in the past. Um, and I felt it's been inappropriate to sort of lay that deficiency at the leadership of the health department when in fact this is a department that really should stand on its own and be responsible for addressing those issues on its own. That's really not the health department's role. It's really should be the responsibility of the people that have been empowered. So it's time to now create the department and empower those
personnel and uh to create some expectations in terms of how this position is going to function. Um the towns like to have it both ways in some respects. All right. I mean with all due respect as a former town manager myself here in Barnsville County at times the towns like to have it both ways. We like to um give the county all the work to do in terms of helping prepare for a storm. But then on the other hand, um when when things go well, they're right out there taking credit for all the great work that's been done to respond to the storm. That's just the nature of the business.
Um I think there is a recognition that's um pretty evident that the county's role uh is an important one in responding. And I think quite frankly what worries me is we're due for a hurricane, you know, and um I'm really very very concerned about our ability as a region to be sufficiently prepared given the fact that the feds have reduced their role, right? And the states have been to some degree uh impacted by that. So if there was ever a time where we have to step up and do more to be
engaged in this this effort, I think it's now just given the changing uh responsibilities or the attempt to change responsibilities at the federal level and then to some degree at the state level. This is what county government it's in Barnstable County what we've always been about and that is taking care of our own, taking care of our communities and working together with our communities to make sure that when something gets dumped on us, we can figure out a way to work together to respond to that crisis, whether it's dredging, a health crisis, you name it. Um,
you know, we've had to stand stand tall. Um, and so this is another area where um, it is time. It's it, as Commissioner Bergman said, it's long overdue. I'm glad we're taking this and I'm and I'm glad we have the right people here uh, in place to help carry us to the next stage. So, I'm I'm all in favor of this. So, I'd like to at least it sounds like we're all ready to actually not just discuss this, but actually endorse the ordinance. And so I'm going to ask for a a motion
to uh introduce this proposed ordinance. Uh I move to introduce proposed ordinance 26 um to be remembered later creation of an emergency management department. Second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Um any more discussion hearing? None. Uh Commissioner Bergstrom both eye. Commissioner Lions. Lions both. Commissioner Forest. It's unanimous. And thank you all for your hard work, all the work together. Thank you. And thank you for hanging in there all day with us.
So, um, there you go. No, I think it's good. You know, I think at the beginning, uh, the county was a little hesitant and, uh, really, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a, you know, the future was uncertain in many ways. Uh, and this is even before Vera was there. and uh they they put some money in, but it's it really is the place where you can convene the entire region and get everybody. So, gentlemen, thank you once again. You're excused. Thanks for
hanging in there all day with us. Yes. Right. Thank you. So, facilities planning now. Robin, are we at a point where we want to take a quick recess? Okay. Grab some nourishment. Uh so uh if there's no objection, we're going to take a fivem minute recess, grab some food, and then reconvene and make it 10. You want to make it 10? Okay. 10 minute. 10 minutes. Very good.
the facility condition assessment and master plan um update where we are today. It's not advancing the space bar. There we go. You're okay. Um, so just to review, um, you know, we we have to look at all the county property on a a global perspective. Uh, this map just shows for those that aren't familiar with Barnesville County, we have property leases, licenses, um, across Cape Cod, um, high high volume of square footage,
um, lots of bodies, and we're trying to look at our organization as a whole and figure out how to strategically move forward with, um, planning to house them and grow in the future. Um, so with part of the master plan, we we started off with just a survey of what we have. So, um, when you when you get a we'll be providing you with a a final copy of the master plan. So, when you review, you'll see we have, um, a summary of all of our buildings we have, um, staff headcount, square footages, um, how they're how they're broken up
into different groups. Um, it also includes property outside of the complex. So we have Masttec the farm um the uh former fire train academy children's cove um so with that we are looking um with the master plan uh essentially two or I call it even three phases where the first phase was our our data collection um so the master plan program started with interviewing all staff departments all stakeholders visioning sessions with our
county administrator um assistant administrator and uh finance director um looking how we can we can support our needs now and how we could grow in the future. The other part was the facility condition assessment looking at what we have for our building inventory. Um what you know document the condition of the buildings have engineering teams go through and review them. Um we did a laser scan of all of our buildings to uh develop uh AutoCAD drawings, Revit drawings so we could work off of in the future. There's significant cost savings to do that. um and then obtaining a dollar value associated with the work um identified in the facility condition assessment
for for new projects. From there um once we had this large data collection um we were looking to plan different uh growth scenarios. So uh looking at how we would house different departments um what would be a public facing group, what wouldn't be. Um, we looked at the ability to expand onto different county- owned properties with, you know, zoning um and planning analysis and also cost associated with that. In the end, what what we we're looking to get is um, you know, hopefully a select group of scenarios to maybe proceed with as a guide. Um, but obviously we would need your um,
your review and buy in on that. So, just to give a quick recap of the facil facilities condition assessment, um, it was a series of multiple site visits. again data collection. We had different engineers under disciplines of structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, um lighting, security, building envelope, uh sight and civil code. Um looking at all these different components of the buildings and essentially putting together a master docu master document. This slide right here shows um a highle assessment of of all of our buildings and um the
needs associated with them. So we uh dedicated a rating system to the condition of the building. Um most of ours are in the middle of the ra uh middle of the road uh range. We had some that fell into the poor category. Um some that were in the good category. Um so once we identified these series of projects, we then went and ranked them as far as what is a high urgency project versus what is a low urgency. So some critical you know say facade repairs for example where we have a known leak or a perceived leak coming we want to take care of that so we don't have water infiltration damaging
the interior of the building or for example uh HBAC equipment that needs to be addressed or an electrical service like the registry of deeds and um this building here that have been around since the beginning of a construction we need to update them we're going to have a critical failure and then we're all out of business here where our generator wouldn't be able to support that work. So we came up with our ranking system and then from there we came up uh with a deferred maintenance cost summary and I think as you can note there's some significant values associated with each building. This is a conglomerate of all the projects we've identified. So again
they don't all need to be done at once. There's high priority, medium and low mixed together. One key takeaway is even from last year when we started this program um the initial cost came in at 72 million for deferred maintenance. Now we're looking at 78 million. So part of that we know there's a natural uh inflation with construction work you know four to eight% depending on you know what you look at but also we have fuel fuel cost uh tariffs and other outside unique circumstances you know just given the Cape Cape Cod economy that are creating I think elevated elevated cost
to do the work. So it's important that we have a a grasp on all of all the details of what needs to be done as we're looking forward uh to put our best foot forward. The other key thing I'll just quickly touch on is the trial courts. Uh we have a lease with them. They occupy 55% of our square footage. So if you look at a quick just a quick breakdown, um 44 million of that could be very easily attributed to them and work associated with uh the space that they're in. Likely even more if we start really um detailing the nitty-gritty of each each project. So it's a huge a huge
component of the to pay for that. Yeah. Yes. This is this is where we're looking. This master plan is going to act as a a stepping stone where we're going to this is we I mean they do pay. They do pay. So I mean we're not going to say 44 million tomorrow, but I mean year by year every couple of years we're going to be adding asking again. I imagine yes we need a plan to you know to base our work off that's vetted that obviously our county administrator approves and obviously commissioners and elected officials. So right now this is just for you know an update uhformational
purposes. At some point we'll be looking for um feedback from you on it. Moving forward with the master plan review. Um again I said we looked through a headcount of all all our different staff. We looked at square footages. We broke our departments up into who was public facing, who was a behind the scenes administration administrative uh and then who was a field department. So we we made some connections from you know certain groups that they're you know working in close proximity might might be an advantage. So we looked at existing we looked at potential future
configuration. Um not a huge expansion but just some you know to be aware either we we have to have some you know ideas or game plans to you know not build a building and then realize it's too small for our group. Um so can you go back to the Yarmouth building that last slide there? I'm looking at that the yard. What do we have an idea of what we roughly pay for that 4,200 ballpark? Yeah. Give me a sec. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to turn this into a career. I'm
just curious what that cost us. That's that's a fairly goodsized piece of property. Yes. 5200. I've been in that building. What do we do with that building? Cooperative Extension Center. Oh. 68,000 a year. Is that the least? Is that what you're ask? I believe it's 68,000. 60 something. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I'm all about the data. You have when we speak of the old data. We're talking about the that portion of the old jail that's already in in use. Yes. Not not the south
wing. And and this is a really tricky one to present on in that there's there's so many details and everything. or um once you dig into the report, you'll see there's an analysis of the south wing itself and the advantages and disadvantages of trying to rehab it. Yes, today's news. So, so again, in a perfect perfect world scenario, you know, as far as a plan or guide to go by, we looked at our different groups, who's public facing. So for example, the
nursing, aqua fund, um human human rights, human services, parts of cooperative extension. It would make sense in the perfect world if they we had a hub where the public could come in and and meet with all of them. Then behind the scenes, some of the agencies where okay, county administration, finance, um even emergency preparedness, we we work with each other quite a bit. Um so uh other other groups could be more standalone for the fire, dredge or children's cove. Um there's there's lots of uh block diagrams as far as how staff could be oriented and what
would make the most sense efficiency purposes. Um from there, this is just a cut into the into the master plan where knowing what we need for square footage for each group. We did some basic uh block and stack diagrams as far as okay, what would we occupy for space? Okay, if we have, you know, 30 people in a building, we have code issues for uh a lot of bathrooms or potentially multi multi-story. we're going to have elevators um common space. So tried to get a visual of what we would need for each each condition. So that that's all included in the master plan too. So from there
um I think the the key part to really identify is you know our you know we went through our data collection background phase now we're moving into this second component as far as the scenarios. So when we went through these scenarios, we're looking at uh you know colllocation, room for growth, um a public interface, um site placement to meet department needs. Um it's hard if you're you know on the second floor of the health department building having a public person navigate through there obviously single floor um ease of entrance and then addressing
code. So from here on in there's going to be a ton of information on these slides. I'm going to try to do my best to quickly summarize them. Obviously, when you go jump into reviewing it, um you could, you know, there's there's multiple pages to back up each each slide here, but um just to go over the the five scenarios, essentially we we we came down to working with our consultant, Gendler. So, the first scenario one would be um taking the old jail, renovating the existing, and then adding an addition to it to accommodate our So, so that would be essentially the concept
model where we take that existing building and add to it. They they identified that the south wing was not um cost-effective to um you know utilize. It'd be better to build new than um utilize that south wing. And there's a there's a there's a long list of backup on there. But would they demolish the south wing? Yes. Include demolition and then a new build. Yes. And and the thing to keep in mind too, this is a high level. Um, so say if we need to add on an additional 25,000 square ft,
there's different concepts you could you could have um with this and they they in in the master plan they have a couple different visions um of it. So the key thing with this scenario is knowing it's you know existing building with a significant addition. The other components would be the lab, renovate the second floor of the lab to get human services out of there. Lab would stay as a lab. And then our other buildings, you know, like with the fire uh uh former fire training academy, uh the count the county farmhouse and children's co would be um utilizing existing space plus um
additions there. So essentially no new builds here. Um but there's, you know, you can see on the left of each sheet here, there's some pros and cons where okay, one pro would be trying to pull everyone together into that old jail rehab building. um water quality lab could be operate operate fully under their own control and not have you know public coming in um for human services. Um but then there's some risk associated with renovating an existing building. The floor plate in the old jail is extremely inefficient. Um I
that's that's a concern. And then accessibility. So there's not a lot of parking there and it's inconvenient from the public to get into that that building. So that's scenario one. Scenario two would be a, and this is broke up into 2 A and 2B, but but a new build. So, we'd look at our location on our county c uh complex, build a new a new building, call it 57,000 square feet. Um, so this would be great in that it would be the ideal scenario. You could bring all of our our groups together. It'd be laid out specifically for us. Um, the the concern obviously is cost.
um building build new builds are significantly expensive. And then the other thing to mention in this one is the lab would have a new addition or you know reconstruction which any kind of lab work is significantly expensive. So the other the other other groups I talked about essentially they're going to be existing or an addition onto. So they they kind of go into the same pod for each group. So to recap, scenario one would be old jail with an addition. Scenario two would be a new build.
Scenario 2B, very similar to the one I just spoke about with except that we would just continue to renovate the lab. We wouldn't do a new all new construction of the lab. So essentially the same same thing, but there's some significant cost of savings by not uh renovating the entire lab. Scenario three, we're moving off of our campus to look at Finey's Lane to build a roughly 33,000 square foot building. Um, so be new build on Fine's Lane. Most of the other buildings would remain re the same or as a, you know, an addition. Um, this would be a great,
you know, a great location. Um, the footprint could be custom, uh, built for us. The problem is uh the Finn's property is even though it looks large from from you know an overhead view there's site development restrictions right there's a 300 foot offset off of Route 132. There's a groundwater protection area um and this the the square footage is really even though it seems like it's a very large building it's it's small for us so it wouldn't be the wouldn't be the best fit and it also moves us off of our legacy that we have here at the the complex offsite. Right.
So that's an important piece to keep in mind where we're trying to value keeping the complex relevant until something comes up whether it's direction or you know cost a cost issue where we can't proceed that way. We've looked at Vinny's Lane off and on a number of times and it's the water restriction. It really does it's not going to conform to what you unless you have or something but it's yes employee housing. Yeah. the these and the master plan explores different ideas and scenarios and de development plans for each. So we can you know take the deep dive at some point on all of that.
And the the final scenario would be essentially renovate in place. So do the do the best we can with what we have. So we we'd really try to gut the old jail. Um try to squeeze people in. Maybe go with the an extreme hybrid option. Maybe have um you know conference rooms be shared. Um maybe you could have convertible conference rooms where say the Harborview room could be staffed during the day and then um but again it would it would be great for optimizing our existing properties. Um it would likely be the most cost-effective approach. Um but then we have a compromised
workplace. Uh the teams would be disconnected and our public service would likely be impacted too if we had staff overflowing into all the space. We might not have um conference rooms or things available for say a nursing clinic or something like that. Um the other thing is some of the other buildings we would try to really just put minimal input into or into for uh renovations. So wouldn't do anything um um elaborate for additions just uh bare bones trying to get by with what we have.
So, an important thing just to note um with these, you know, in a new build scenario or or the the complex in general, part of the um study was to have our consultant look at our site and just see what we could do with it on on either extreme. You know, keep it as is, but also just know know all the parameters we have to work in. So, um the key thing about this one um this this plan would be looking at if we had a new building, where would we put it? Uh this this option shows the building at the um music grandstand um as far as an adjacent location. They ex they explored uh
potential for a parking deck as far as the extreme end of expansion. Um they looked at also potential for our development to um you know for mixed use commercial or or housing. I know those terms scare people but we just wanted to set some parameters where in the future say you know few years down the road someone decides that is a strong interest we at least have the background. So if you look at this master plan document, you have all the in all the all the details about what we're looking at and you can make some decisions from there. Um so option A going another option option B um would
create a quad hub around the superior courthouse and registry of deeds putting a new building there with potential for another building next to the old uh White House sheriff's residence. So again a parking deck you know footprint was included in case that option would want to be explored. And then again potential for development housing. So to to sum it all up again and you know going through our scenarios. So scenario one was renovate the old jail with an addition with some renovations to our existing property. Scenario two would be a new build with a
new water quality lab. You know 2B would be a new build without a new water quality lab and um renovations. Scenario three would be a new build at Finey's Lane and scenario four would be renovating what we have. And if you look at the final dollar values where you know scenario one is at 174 million. Um the new build is 189 million. Scenario 2B is at 185 million. The Finny's Lane property 148 million and scenario 4 the renovate 139 bill million. They're all significant values.
So after after that whole process we went back to to Gendler and we you know we said we're these costs are you know obviously um you know significant where what can we do to really cut back um so with scenario 2B just with that new build it it created everyone's interest where how could we how could we maybe hibernate hybridize certain groups how could we shrink some of the space and by trying to shrink the footprint on you know to the extreme end we we got it down to 55 million. So it's it's not not perfect for what we need but it it suit needs but again a
significant cost. And the other thing to note um with this component we did look at leasing and um even the potential to buy you know existing properties. There's there's challenges with either but they're summarized in the report too for inference. So, if somebody says, "Well, why doesn't the county just look at leasing a property or why don't you look at purchasing an existing?" Um, that's that's backed up in the master plan as well, and it could all warrant further discussion. So, with with that, from here, um, I was going to open it up for discussion and questions. And essentially, what we're looking to do is present you with the the final master plan. Um, you
could review and we look to regroup. Um, I know Michael had some ideas about u discussion points or schedule in the future, but we look forward to having more more conversations with maybe a future meeting meeting where we get um input from you as far as a direction or which way to explore. Just one quick question about court space. Is building new court facilities an option that we
looked at? Because I'm wondering if we're building something new, for example, if we're building because I'm assuming it's the same deal with the registry of deeds and the probate court, right? If we improve those facilities, we get reimbursed for that work. Right. Right. I'm wondering because um in my mind I look at them as those tenants as potential candidates for new facilities.
Bake in a reimbursement for the capital cost of that. That frees up that space for county reuse rather than us having to the old jail and spending an enormous amount of money to demolish um the back end of it and build new that I I get worried about that becoming a real money pit. It is already, you know, you know what I mean? And so there's a part of me that would, it's almost like
I'd like to find a way to build new facilities for the uh for the registry and for probate, build a reimbursement plan that that works, that's fluid, and then renovate that facility and allow that to be used for county space. And so they get something new. Let's face it. Um, when you go through their facilities, it's tight over there. It's tight and it's it's dated. This building such
the same. It is. And, you know, quite frankly, um, they do a lot of interaction with the public. They They're incredibly busy offices. To me, in my mind, if we were going to build a new building on the campus, it's like, where's the where's the public's demand for access? I I look at the probate court as generating a lot of activity. The courts are busy. They seem to be generating
more traffic. And it's almost like there's a part of me that would be more interested in figuring out a way to finance those improvements, get them out of older facilities and move county personnel in the older buildings and then not necessarily have a high expectation on how quickly those are renovated, if you know what I mean. See what I'm getting at? So, sort of as a conceptual I'm I'm
looking for a sort of a conceptual approach. And so, every time I look at this, I keep thinking, well, every time I'm over at the registry, I mean, they're they're out straight. I mean, they're busting at the scenes. Um, the registry of deeds, not so much, right? But those are areas where the public utilizes those spaces quite a bit. The courouses are busy. District courthouse is busy. It's almost like there's clearly a need to renovate that. Maybe there are court related offices that could be baked into a renovated courthouse. Yeah. You know, and again, we inherit
um the space that those other offices would abandon. I'm just I don't Does that conceptually make any sense at all? It it absolutely does. Um we we planned on taking this master plan uh facilities condition assessment also providing it to the facilities group on the courts just for an FY FYI to them and opening up potential for future discussion which we're looking for. Yeah, I Yeah, but I see Vera's got her hand up as he just a follow-up question to your thinking commissioner. Are you are you suggesting that that perhaps new facilities for the courts
would would be accompanied by new a new new lease agreement? Oh yeah, definitely. There'd be new lease agreements long-term and we'd work it out so that the financing would be there. Um whether it's baked into our rent or in in subsequent additional reimbursements or whatever. But yeah, there see the thing is is we know we need to build new. I'd rather build new for somebody else that's going to be paying for the cost of it or reimbursing us for the cost of it and we can bake those added costs into the rents rather than building new for the county and then we have to eat those costs. See
what I mean? Mhm. So that's from a from a from a paradigm point of view, that's sort of where my head is at. How do we solve the problem by getting somebody else to pay the most we can get from them to pay for the new facilities and then we utilize what's being left behind or unused? That's my thought. Is there anything that um restricts like u probate court being with district court? I mean, say we built over on that side where the district court is. Say you built a brand new building that
encompasses probate, district court, and even in the registry of deeds, you can throw in there. I mean, if possible, it all depends on how you go back with the size. Yeah. Can you go back to one of the scenarios showing the footprint of uh some of the new buildings in the in the middle? I think you had one site plan showing a new build option in the middle courtyard. Y concept
and also I think it's Yeah. One second. It's giving me a hard time um you want a hard time. It's giving me a hard time sharing here with going to the slide. Yeah.
There's a parking deck. Now there's there now that scenario there. All right. Oh jeez. I'm trying to share a bigger um That's okay. No, that's good. Good. All right. There we go. Bingo. This I find this slide to be a fascinating one because when I look and I don't look at a new county administrative building uh I look at that as a potential building for registry of deeds
and probate and maybe other court related needs. Right? Probation is over in the new courthouse. Right? the state pays for their facility costs, right? They reimburse us on that. So, I'm looking at the spaces that generate a lot of public activity. And to me, I find and again, it doesn't have to be there. I mean, it could be up on the hill like off to the uh the far what is it?
The southwest corner of the complex. Um there's space up there. It could be almost anywhere, but I don't necessarily if if the public is going to be utilizing significantly space like probate, registry of deeds, other court related functions. That to me does not appear to be an unattractive place to put a new building for those purposes. I'm not sure. Like I said, I want to start off thinking about a new building for the county because that's all on us. All right. whereas
I'd rather see what I'm getting at. I know exactly what you're getting, right? Um it's the same thing with um the first district courthouse. Um maybe there's a way to reconstruct or redo or maybe demolish one section, make a larger section on the southeast corner of that area, do more with that area. Right. Completely understood. Yeah. could be further evaluate evaluated. Right? So
from my point of again I'm trying to start from a sort of a philosophical approach that may offer the potential for greater yields and benefits to the county long term. So the thinking is is is does it is it does it potentially make sense for us to approach this as a scenario in in in one add add that as a scenario right I think that's and I think that's exactly why Paul is sort of
presenting what counselor our consultants come up with uh because we want to get exactly those types of ideas back so that we can begin to do some work um to figure out the feasibility. So that's exactly so if we're building new space in this area or in some other related nearby area to me I'm thinking of the courts the other state offices that we lease space to particularly those that the
public utilizes. The other thing that I think we need to be cons cognizant of is um the way things are designed. Now, I'm not suggesting that in anything new we go after the Quinzy granite. All right? I mean, if money was no object, well, then maybe that's on the list. But I don't want to repeat what we did with this building, right? You have this beautiful historic structure and then we
added this ridiculous addition that just trashes uh this historic structure, right? We're going to build something. I mean, yeah, compliment beautifully. And you know, I'm you know, we we always like to say we want to keep Cape Cod special, keep a special place special. You know, the reality is is that we sometimes we get laughed at for saying that. Sometimes people use it as a joke. But I think with this complex, we need to be very mindful of architecture, design,
style. So I I guess what I'm saying is no matter how close we get to a consensus. I honestly believe there'll be a huge reservation factor because uh many people are going to be concerned about well what having said all that what's it going to look like? Are we going to be trashing this place? We had someone just as an aside quick. had someone come to the Yama select board meeting last night and he basically wicked articulate um he would have fit in perfectly and welf
it was like talking to the select board saying what are you people nuts you proposed a $40 million library over there did you look at what it looked like this is Cape Cod you know it didn't even look like it fit here right you know and he was basically trying to knock some sense into people. And I honestly think that particularly in this village, if there's a place where there might be a heavy dose of skepticism about and scrutiny and building something new,
it's going to be here. So to the if if we're going to be involved in trying to conceptualize for any public consumption, anything that we come up with, we need to be working with an architect or a design firm, someone that can concept again for conceptual drawings, not for the the the the something that has a grasp. Yeah. Of new but consistent because the the track record is awful. We got neofascist up on the hill, right? We got god awful here on the back end of the courthouse.
Brutalism over there. Brutalism over there. I mean, everything that's been built in this village has been basically a departure from what makes Cape Cod special, but it makes it a great place, right? So, I think we just can't allow it to be screwed up again, right? No, I agree. And that that will cost my base question just yeah you know I had this experience with the the old uh combined high school built in 1925 in Chadam which you know you look at it face it's it's square it has
a clock tower it's the sides are both symmetrical with big windows it's all brick beautiful building and we were going to renovate it since it was not occupied to make it into a community center which he eventually did and the first thing I said well I want the architecture to be consistent with the building that's there now. And I lost that battle. Okay. The total loss. And so now you have this beautiful old brick building and attached to it is this glass and steel structure going back there. And you know, yes, it's efficient. But and you compare that you compare that to
the library which was was you know imminent more ancient structure in Chadam where they did put an addition on which was consistent architecturally not necessarily internally but externally with with the building was there and it's beautiful you know so I agree totally agree with Mark I mean a few extra bucks to make a building look like it belongs there and then and consistent with the structure that's there is well worth it. Yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, I probably if I chattam during your your t tenure there, I probably would have started with the proposed glass structure first,
let people rebel against that and then come back with the brick building. But, you know, just to go on, um I I agree with Mark. I think that um you know for instance can giving this structure over to county organiz the county government and building new uh courouses new would probably be from financial standpoint pretty good idea. My my mind goes to the this road goes up and eventually parallels the the old jail. Well, if you look down to the to toward the uh toward the north toward
the u the parcel harbor, the road drops off, you know, and a structure could be built there that would actually have a ground level entrance with and offices down below, you know, which would would overlook the parking lot and overlook the the Barnesville Harbor and, you know, that could be turned into county offices and so on. I mean, it's not there's nothing much there now. So, yeah. The other thing if I could just add another item with respect to the old I don't see us ever in my lifetime abandoning uh the old jail but there may be other uses that can be accommodated
with grant money. All right. I honestly believe if we get our act together with and I I know we will get our act together on emergency management and long-term emergency planning. um the odds that we could get federal funding for an emergency operations center for I mean I'm making the assumption that some degree of sanity is going to come back to Washington DC and we'll be in the business of helping regions do what needs to be done in terms of a man emergency management. Um,
you know, FEMA in the past has funded emergency operations centers. Um, it may very well be in our long-term planning that we can have we can designate the back end of that building as a place where we improve our emergency operations center. We use grant monies to underwrite the modernization of the building and do it in phases. So, as funds become available, as some of, you know, we've had a lot of success in getting grant earmark type funding for projects lately, um, that
could potentially be a source of funding. Um, and so we should be thinking about within our plan, have we thought through potential needs here for an improved and more modern emergency operations center? maybe even shelter space. Uh maybe better space, single floor for doing clinics for folks, flu shots and stuff like that. Sort of a public health because I think some of that stuff could be
funded by grants. And what we could do is we could just say, listen, the back end of the the jail is going to be a bit challenging. So these are the things that we have basically dedicated for this part of the building and our approach to funding that stuff is going to be through grants and federal funding and so forth and we're going to target the stuff that we know has the potentially reasonably good chance of getting funded again over a 5 to 10 year period because I could conceivably see you know when folks in Barnstable Village need to go shelter somewhere where do they
go? M why not to I mean if we're going to have an emergency operations center and be doing business in the county wouldn't it make sense for us to have at least a small shelter for folks from the village for them to come and get shelter and get warm in the event intermediate down they go down the streets of Barnstable Intermediate isn't that where I don't know I guess what I'm what I'm I think it's worth thinking about is there a potential buildout before we completely say let's
flip it to housing. Um and again I think the same a lot of I think housing becomes controversial for a variety of reasons particularly in the and it is surrounded by wetlands. I think some of that would be more challenging than it appears right there. Yeah. Can I ask a So I want to go back to the existing jail. So you're saying with the south side or the section Yeah. The south wing. Do you have anything with a footprint on the jail on in your slide packet? That's not We should
take another walk up there someday. And look at that. So, what would we do with that if it's not a rehab type of thing? Could it be used? Can it be utilized for what? Um storage. Um the about the old the unrenovated section. Yeah, it could be it could be potentially modified for storage space equipment, you know, maybe emergency management. Um, but again, if it would be a larger garage space, you have to cut in to that concrete and build up a structure and then we would trigger,
you know, all the different code issues where you'd have to have air exchange, you know, HVAC. So, it'd be a significant project. I mean, we could I guess there's a way to what what I'm trying to figure out is there a way to utilize it without having to spend a lot of our money, right? Nothing or any. So, right now it I mean I think some of the some of the major expenses up there in terms of rehab u are just you know the utility you know MEPs u as well as the facade. I
mean the facade is in bad shape. I mean, everybody thinks a brick facade is going to last forever. It could last forever, but it needs to be maintained. And so, there's a lot of work that would need to be done on the facade and and the roof uh in order to to really make that a usable space. So, it would have it, conversely, would it just be um cheaper to put that and cut it out? The key note I I I got out of the the text was that Genzo looked at renovating at versus building new. And the
cost to renovate is almost the same as building exactly new. So their their recommendation would be you're going to put this money into it in the can of worms. You'd be better off demoing it and building new in in place. And I know you have the railroad tracks right there too, which is another setback challenge. But they were pushing us. Just be aware. That that's absolutely makes sense because it's dank. It's it's moldy. Even when we try to do stuff, it doesn't keep machinery. Well,
all of those issues would be huge. Best probably would probably as best and I'm sure all of those things. Anyway, Ron, yeah, let me just jump in here. you know, just thinking off the top of my head, it' be amazing to get a conceptual um plan of the unrated event section and basically see if there's anybody's interested to lease part of it, you know? I mean, just do a conceptual saying, "Hey, look, we have this building. it's centrally located and and uh you know we will take care of
the the the you know utilities and the HVAC and everything like that and here's you know you can lease this this this and this and and maybe we could we could do it that way. Um, you know, but, uh, you know, the because I hate to see I mean, we could tear down the building, but as Mark says, that opens up a can of worms tearing down a building and all of this stuff away, you know. So, uh, you know, it's it's going to be an issue. And, u Oh, another thing I want to say is a few
years ago, we renovated what is now the Mary Pat Conference Center. Okay. Did a beautiful job. You got big screens and stuff. It's totally underutilized. I mean it is really underutilized. I mean and and for all the high stuff that's put in there, how often is this people meet plus the fixed fixed uh desks and so on basically limit the use of the building. So it can't be used because you know otherwise we have a conference center the the Harborview conference center which you can use but one of those spaces could have been used for um office space and you know and you know even
if it meant cubicles and stuff but I I just think that we could have done a better job of utilizing the space that we have now. I don't want to go through the past too much, but nonetheless, yeah, I missed you. It was No, I I think I think it's a great idea. And the reality is is maybe maybe you could look at a divider in the Mary Pad flim room and then um you get plenty of tables in there and if you need to shrink it, you can you can shrink it. You can use two conference rooms there maybe
and then use the other space uh for for office space to get more office space out of that. you know, there may be some value in looking at that part as part of an option run. That building, that room was always difficult because of the um the poles, because of the um structure of it. You can't remove those. They're structural poles. You can't remove those. There's I'm not suggesting No, I know. But I'm just saying it just made it hard as Yeah. I think it would be much more efficient to be an office as opposed to trying to make it uh a meeting room or whatever when you can't see
everybody and you're over here and it's it's a hard logistic place for meeting. We've talked about the electricity is fed through the poles right now, but I've talked with Don Reynolds, our facility director, about having the poles removed and there's some structural, right, leaps you'd have to take, but again, for a maybe a relatively short investment for a um a good a good turnaround, it might be worth looking into for sure. Well, another thing I just another thing I'd like to bring up is that we we will be finishing the fiscal year in a few weeks and we'll
get a report on on the whether we have you know accumulated a surplus in in the operating budget and you mean an unserve fund balance. Yeah, we we what what we do with the money that we get is is going to be a question and right now we're talking about capital expenditures which of which this was included. So, I'm I'm thinking, and I mentioned this before, that we cap the amount of money we put into revenue contingency and we decide to put to shift some of the money that we're getting into into capital, you know, I mean, yeah, we may I think those are all interesting ideas,
Commissioner. I think what we need to do is figure this out, give some direction to this. No, but the point is is you don't know what you're paying for until you know what it is you're buying. Uh so let's figure out what we're buying and figure out our game plan sort of in terms of the the big capital expenditures. Let's figure out what that number is roughly the general time frame and then from there that's your starting point for taking your next cut at a long range financial plan. We look forward to um obviously getting some of the comments you have already into motion
and we plan on revisiting this conversation I think many times in front of you to but we're going to have to take multiple iterations and we're going to rethink things again but I I share your reservation about spending a lot of money on old stuff the money pit problem. Oh yeah right. So I I'm I'm there but the question is if you're building new building new for who? Do you build new for us or maybe it makes sense to build new uh for some of the other tenants where you have a chance of getting a lot of that work paid for? All right. Yes. And then we vac we
take the spaces that have been abandoned uh for for county folks. We'll have some conversations with Carol to get to get going on some conceptual modeling. We always like to approach with our what what how how is the process going to go and then from there we can um Carol who Carol yeah just uh conceptual financing you know her ideas and we'll we'll come up with a plan um maybe some sort of a memo for for circulation as far as a visualization and how we how we start tackling a lot of internal
work yet to play with before we come back and have a public discussion with us here on this stuff but we got to put the cart before the horse we decide what we going to do and then ask Carol what cost or do we tell Carol give us some cost and then we'll decide what to do. So that's that's the thing we should have some direction. A little of both. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll So what's on on my list? I think feedback now. Yeah. I think this is perfect. I think I think we'll go back and and do a little digging on on some of the concepts that that you brought up. Um, we'll also,
you know, try to put some rough uh cost estimates on what we'd have to put into the old jail uh in order to make it usable as either emergency operations center um or uh office space or uh or storage space. We'll we'll we'll plug plug in some numbers there. And it's like getting the maximum utilization with the least amount of investment. you know, we get what's the most we can get out of it without really going broke over it because it is it's basically it's a money pit. No, it is. It
always has been. And you know there was I remember when ARA ar the uh Obama recovery 2010 and we had already put maybe 150 200,000 which sounded like a lot back then you and it was for the county because we had nothing and I kept saying what maybe this grants we could just tear it down with the money we've already invested and I'm like we might as well stop now before you do more. I mean, we're realizing and really for years the odor and the smell of the you couldn't get from you
get headaches, you get sick, especially in the room with the columns. It's like ingrained into that concrete. It's just So, are we done with this agenda item for now? I guess we are. Okay, let's move on to the next and commissioner do a lot of work. And do we have a motion for the consent? Yes. Um, Mr. Chair, I move to approve the cons the commissioner's consent agenda items 8A through,
excuse me, 10 A through 10J as listed on the June 10, 2026 meeting agenda. Um, second. Okay. So, we have a motion in the second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I I carries your man on approval of the meeting minutes 27th. Do I have a motion? I go ahead. I have it. I move to approve the May 27th, 2026 regular meetings meeting minutes as drafted. Okay.
Do I have a second? Second. Okay. A motion, a second. Uh any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Carries unanimously. Commissioner reports. Commissioner Bergstrom, do you have I don't have anything right now to report. Okay. Were you at the um did you attend the shine? Oh, we Oh, yes, I did. As a matter of fact, okay, you did. And it was and the administrator was there, too. And that went very well. Um a great deal of praise. We gave out some awards. Um each one of the members who uh either volunteers or staff received
recognition. I got a little computer bag that was nice to produce and I mean all in all it was a it was a a lovely a lovely architect but it was it reinforces our idea that this is a very valuable very well-known county program worth continuing and I pledged on behalf of the board that we would do whatever we could that it does continue. So there you go. So we're on the hook for keeping it going. Yes. Right. And you know rightfully so. How about Commissioner Lions? Any reports?
Um I was at a bridge uh update yesterday. I went to that and which I found fascinating and we met to he were introduced to uh interim secretary interim secretary Bill and I was very impressed who works 247. He's in charge of the MBTA. Yeah. I mean this guy he's pretty good. He he was very he's a very good communicator and and he has vision uh and experience behind it. So I was
uh happy to hear that and um so you were there, Michael was there, I attended. Yeah. And I think we all did some networking and yeah and learned some things that we're following up on. And um I also went to the wrong place in the first place and I went to the U human rights academy which they were and I looked forward to it and I regretted that I didn't uh I couldn't I said you know unfortunately I'm in the wrong place. So they were all excited to see me. So uh I will
try to make that meeting in the future with other on my part. keeping yearning for more. Yes. Well, it it got me yearning for more because they really were. It was a good you could see this was a good discussion. They were putting together their academy for the upcoming year. So, I look forward to hearing more about that because that is also um you know the human rights commission goes back I was part of that whole effort when people didn't want it because it was going to cost money and um it really was the volunteers that that we had amazing ones back then Tom Ryan is the one person
I think is still around from those days but um they do great work more unfortunately needed more now than before and um the rest of my burden is just from the town of Lley so not worth sharing. Thank you. Uh for me quick update um I wanted to just call attention to my fellow commissioners that the state housing appeals board has basically shot down Martha's Vineyard's profess the Martha's
Vineyard commission's alleged authority Yeah. to take action on 40B projects. Right. As you know, it's been it's come up with us. There have been some in the community that have suggested that on Cape Cod, the Cape Cod Commission uh either has or should seek authority to review 40B proposals uh under the Cape Cod Commission Act. Yeah. And uh the vineyard commission for years has asserted authority under to review 40B projects not as a local board but using the commission's
own authority and own uh regulations and uh that's been shut down. This is a court decision. Uh it's it's going to be appealed. It'll end up in courts but the state housing appeals court itself. It's sort of the housing appeals court that review these um these housing disputes. They they've ruled in favor of the developer. Yeah. Well, the administration right now, the current administration in Massachusetts is very pro- housing. So, it's not surprising that they they you know, their opinion went along with the developers on a 40B.
But I think we when this conversation came up in Haritch because I think it was there was a group of people that would were being told uh they were upset about the Pine Oaks Village 4 project and people were being told that somehow the Cape Cod Commission in fact I think it was the select board that was telling local residents that they should ask the county commissioners to get the Cape Cod Commission to review it under some authority of their own. and we explained to the Howard Select Board that that's not our understanding of the law. And so there became some conversation
about the county pursuing uh on Beacon Hill getting the legislative authority to have the Cape Cod Commission uh to to to have the power to review uh uh 40b housing projects under their own uh purview. And uh clearly to do that would be an uphill battle. But as you can see, even the Martha's Vineyard Commission, which was cited as the example, um their authority has been shut down, at least in this venue. Uh and and I doubt Looks like you're going to try to appeal it.
Yeah. And uh I think that's going to be a bit of a challenge. So just an FYI on that story. No, this is um So that's that's my only disappointing. I I mean I I'm disappointed that we have a legislature now just changing rules because of their design. Okay. So, um can we go over our next meeting and our next agenda? Um I saw in an email that we may have a problem being in born on the 24th. So,
we may have to revisit the venue on that. So, um we'll come back to that later. But can we at least talk about some of the things that we were at least initially thinking about for that agenda or do we have much to report? Uh I think we uh had tenatively planned a um update on the composting facility proposed composting uh facility for joint base Cape Cod that the four uh um Upper Cape Towns would be be participating in. Um so that was a big big part of uh what we were looking to do. Um and
um we're also going to discuss the property update with the town of board that as well as prevention. So one of the questions we were asked is would we be okay in changing the date? Now did they come back with any proposed dates? No, I haven't communicated with them. Um do so after the meeting. Are the commissioners open to talking about another alternate date on that week? I am. Well, we have to know what their objections are to the the original I think the objections are they
don't have they're not going to be there. Oh, that's a good objection. The town administrator will be on vacation and some that's not their regularly scheduled meeting. No. Uh these in these meetings that we're setting up, we're trying to set them up so that they're convenient for some of the select board members and the administrators. But in this case, the administrator is gone. Will she be out the entire week? Um, I'll review that with her, but she just said she'd be on vacation that day. That day. She's out that week on vacation next year. We don't know. We don't know.
So, if they could come back with a couple dates that we could sort of work on that would be great. And so, the agenda is in flux. It was originally designed to be very centric, but since born at the moment is in doubt, I'm not sure we're going to do much work until we can get this settled. Is that a fair way to characterize? I think that's fair way. Y is there any other upcoming business? Yeah, Mark, just one little minor point. It's it's you know we made a couple of appointments one regular member and one alternate to the health and human services advisory council and you know these are
volunteers for the county and oftentimes they might think that their work is being overlooked you know so at some point I would like to have them come in express our appreciation have them explain exactly what they've been doing and and uh we could if we could do anything to make their life a little easier. Sounds good to me. If you have any particular agenda topics to go over with them, that would be great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Put that on the list. Yep. On the list of future meeting agenda items. Robin, any other upcoming business we should talk about? Not that I'm Okay,
Robin, you have enough guidance for us in terms of how to proceed on boring, right? I do. Would the commissioners be open to changing the day of a different day of the week for for borne? Yeah, there's another day in the week. Let's take a look. Um, yeah. So, if the administrator's on vacation, he's probably on vacation the whole week, right? Sure. She pardon me. Right. But the assistant or the select board might be available. But could we swap a different town perhaps if you want to reach out to Well, let's make sure that with porn we exhausted the options. All right.
And then if that doesn't work, Yeah. then we have no choice. 24th. 24th. Yeah. Yeah. No, I could do the 25th and I could do the morning of the 23rd. I can't do the afternoon of the 23rd. I could even do Monday if they want to do it then. But I could do it uh Monday, the morning of Tuesday and the and Monday the 22nd, are you saying? Yeah. And anytime uh on the 25th,
that week always go into next week. Yeah. Yeah, my schedule at the moment is very flexible that week and the following week. All right. So, at least try to get a couple of dates that they would say they they they could say would work for us for them. Yeah. I'd be just interested in seeing what's going on, how they're handling all this. Yeah. And the following week is the week of the July event. You know, they were talking they were talking about the noise, the pounding. That is going to be a nightmare. That bridge the bridge pounding of getting those
not going to be the noise. It's going to be the earth shaking. The earth shaking and the noise. I'm telling you, just doing the chquestcent neck, that little gut branch that we had. Oh my god, the noise. You could hear it. I know. Okay, we're approaching 2 o'clock. Yes. Uh let's get to the county administrator's report. I have in the interest of time, I don't have much of any pressing items. What I would like to pitch on behalf of the board received an email from a woman named Sandy Jones Fitzgerald uh regarding ARPA funding and how some dollars were spent. I I'd like you on behalf of the board to take a look at that complaint and
some of the questions that are being raised in it and um a lot of details. Yeah. Do some appropriate due diligence on that. I would happy to. Thank you. Yeah, I I I discussed this with Mike briefly before the meeting and you know I don't want to set a precedent that the you know the individuals with the bone to pick can all of a sudden um obligate the the staff or the administrator to do a lot of unnecessary work. If they want to file a Freedom of Information Act,
they can do that and specify exactly what they want. If they want to get engage in a debate with us or the administrator, that's another thing entirely. So, I'm sure Mike will use his discretion in in responding, be very discreet. You know what? Um, I I hate to disagree, but uh we're public officials. We should be held accountable if people have questions for us. I'm happy to answer them or have them investigated. And that's what public statements are for. Public comments are for. People should come in and uh engage in us in in any kind of inquiry. And and
I have no problem uh providing a response. Um I I I understand what you're saying. Um but I feel very strongly that it comes with the job. So um anything else to come before the board? Then I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second at 2:02 p.m. And all in favor say I. I. Opposed. It carries unanimously. Thank you to everyone. Robin, thank you.