for the Wednesday, May 27th meeting of the Barnstable County Commissioners. Um, we expect Commissioner Burkstrom to join us shortly, but in the interest of time, since we have such a very busy agenda, I'm going to declare a quorum and call this meeting to order. This meeting uh of the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners is going to be conducted in accordance with applicable laws. When part public participation is required by law or allowed by the board chair, persons wishing to participate may do so by accessing
the Zoom link on the posted meeting agenda on our website or via in-person attendance. Members of the public may view the meeting li at uh live uh uh at on the YouTube channel for Barnstable County or on the Barnstable County website. Um and uh it's great to look out in this audience and see see this crowd. Um I'm I'm thrilled that we're here at Yarmouth Town Hall. This is a historic first. This is the first time we can recall in at least our recorded
history of the Barnstable County Commissioners holding a meeting here at Yarmouth Town Hall. So, uh this is a first. Um we're doing these meetings because we really want to as a board and as a county uh develop a closer relationship between our individual municipalities. Much of what we do is to provide services to the towns, to empower the towns, to help the towns address the the myriad issues that our local communities have to wrestle with. And uh we've put together an agenda that I think highlights some of the things that we've been working
on together. Uh we start the meeting today with a fairly robust conversation with Yarmatan officials on the things that we're collaborating on and uh I'm looking forward to uh today's discussion. So, um, having said all that, I'd like you to, uh, join our board in a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I'd like you all to uh join us in a brief moment of silence to reflect on the bravery and the sacrifices of all those who have put their lives on the line in service to our country protecting our safety, our freedom, and our democracy. Thank you. Our first order of business for today is uh public comment. And for those of you who don't have an agenda and would like an agenda,
there I think several floating around. There may be on the table. Okay. Um do we have anybody who would like to address the board of commissioners? Mr. Ktos, please take the podium working. Yep. Lighting. Good morning and thank you. I ask that you indulge me two or three minutes. I think it goes without saying that the environment encompassing the landscape, the seascape, the sand
dunes, salty air, lobster stew, and quaint little villages, if you will, um are all central to the identity of Cape Cod, to living here, to the tourist industry here. Matters of land, sea, air, and water pollution bear special attention here. Just take a drive or more often lately a detour along Route 28 as an example. Those types of pollution aren't the only ones of concern. However, scientific and medical research have also relatively recently been giving increased scrutiny
to noise pollution. in a sense a pollution of the soundsscape for the adverse effects not only on quality of life but on physical and mental health as well. Enough so that the American Public Health Association has deemed noise pollution the new secondhand smoke. You may recall that the county had a successful tobacco control program to address that public health issue some years back.
Noise is unwanted and/or harmful sound first recognized as a public health hazard in 1968. The Noise Control Act of 1972 declared that it is the policy of the United States to promote an environment for all Americans free from noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare. But the promise of that legislation remains unfulfilled more than 50 years later nationwide and here on
Cape Cod. Though the law remains on the books, the gutting of its funding for enforcement and further policy development has meant it doesn't do much good on the streets. However, the environment is getting noisier and human exposure to harmful noise levels is widespread. Major sources include transportation, commercial and military aircraft, noisy recreational vehicles, industrial machinery, recreational and leisure activities, outdoor power equipment, consumer products, and even
wind turbines. As if that isn't enough, it was just three years ago that Felmouth dismantled its wind one and wind 2 renewable energy turbines for the noise effects on those living nearby. Loud noise causes hearing loss and tinitus and can contribute to nonudiary auditory health problems. Chronic disease even at low chronic noise even at low levels can cause annoyance, sleep disruption and stress that contribute to cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease,
metabolic disturbances and more. This is what the scientific and medical literature is finding and reporting on. Nor should the quality of life dimen dimension be dismissed when the expectation of hearing the birds chirp of listening to nature's other songs as you try to enjoy your coffee on a Sunday morning is overridden by the oral graffiti of the roar and rumbling of a motorcycle often over a mile away. The nature of the problem is such that it
demands a regional approach. No town by itself has the resources to develop the knowledge base and to keep pace with the latest scientific and medical findings and legal developments with which to develop sound policies. Unlike more traditional public health undertakings, a principal treatment in addressing noise isn't with a vaccine, but through law enforcement. But enforcement of the law can fail if the laws are based on weak evidence or rationale and are easily challengeable in courts where the judges themselves know no better than the average Joe
on the street about the effects of noise on human health. So I am asking you to put noise pollution on a par with water pollution and air pollution and land pollution. Indeed, you've done it before with smoking. You're doing it presently with PAS chemicals. Yarmouth is doing it with plastics. as a communitywide public health matter, engaging the county health department as a prime resource, but other county agencies as well, so as to develop a the scientific basis for meaningful
evidence-based policy and for effective uniform enforcement throughout the Cape and demonstration of an integrated coordinated regional approach to address the matter when application for fundings to address noise pollution here on the Cape are made to state and federal agencies. Please, thank you for your time. You Harris, thank you. Anybody else interested in speaking? Yes, sir.
Please state your name and uh where you're from. How you folks doing? Uh Eric Schwab from Hyannis. Uh, as many as many of you may know, uh, we're having an issue with a shelter, uh, that is being moved, uh, to, uh, the West Hyannis part of town. Uh, it's currently owned by the Housing Assistance Corp., this body uh allocated uh over $3 million uh to facilitate that move without any effort being made to speak to the neighbors or ask
anyone how we feel about it. Uh the concern now is that $3 million was spent and not one additional bed was created for the homeless. Not one. And I understand that there's been a considerable amount of documentation sent your way. Uh and we have not heard from you. We have not heard a response. Uh would like to know if you're planning on clawing back that 3 million uh and giving that money to
uh organizations that are capable of producing beds for the homeless. The housing assistance corp has failed to do so and we would like you to intercede. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else from the public? How about online? Do we have anybody online seeking recognition? Robin, see anybody? We have a number of people here online, which is nice. But we do not have anybody raising a hand. Okay. So, we're going to move on. Just Commissioner Burk. Yeah. I just like
to apologize for being late. I was coming from Hyannis and I ran into the mother of all detours. So, you have a beautiful town and I saw quite a bit of it before I get back on 28th. Yeah. Okay. You can take that up with Mr. Colby when his turn comes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Very good. The first item on our agenda today is a town of Yarmouth update and discussion uh with our town manager uh any of the uh members of the select board and some of the other town officials. And I'm going to ask Bob to
uh kick things off and at least in the beginning sort of acknowledge who is here from the town. Thanks Bob. Thank you very much Mr. Forest. Welcome Barnesville County Commissioners and managers. It's great to have you here um this this morning. Also I I want to thank all of our town department heads, division heads. What a great outpouring. Here's a few folks I would like to to recognize. And uh we can start with our communications team. Paul Choffy, Lorie Sullivan, Marcel Longo, and the man behind the controls, Liam Sullivan, for getting us up and running
here. Very helpful. Also, I want to recognize select board member Liz Argo. I'm sitting at the the front here. So, um, and we have so many department heads, division heads. I'll try to mention everyone. Just give us a quick wave. We'll see who I I miss. Our assistant town administrator Amy Frigilti is with us this morning. Uh community development director immediately to my right, Megan Eldridge. Um our building commissioner is hiding in in the back. Uh Mark Grills who also in
our our building department that encompasses uh the health department as well. Um finance director Jennifer Mullen is with us this morning. Our DPW director to my left. Um Jeff Colby, our senior services director, Diane Kaine immediately to my left. Um I know we have Dave Condan, our DNR director is with us this morning. Kathy Williams, town planner, water wastewater superintendent Lori Rosala is with us this morning. our conservation administrator Brittany Denzo um is in the room and
also our fire chief and emergency management specialist Enrique Arasquee here this morning and I'm trying to think is anyone of our town departments and staff I've missed give us a wave but um thank you very much and we're all happy to be here. This is great. In the interest of full disclosure, um I have the the the the great fortune of also being a selectman in Yarmouth and uh I I can attest to the fact that the town is well served by its department heads and all of
the key town officials that are here today as well as staff. Um it's one of the things I'm very proud of and that is the the the the having the position of representing the town on the select board. uh and to also as a county commissioner um play a role in making sure that the county is doing everything it it can to meet not just the needs of all Cape Carters but also the unique needs here in the town of Yarmouth. So it's great it's great to see everybody here and thank you Bob this this part of the Liz. Hi, Liz Argo, another member of the select board in Yarmouth. And I just want to
uh briefly note the connection between the county commissioners and the county. And we have the Cape Cod Commission here today. And uh I want to say thank you because it it without it's very unique what we've what we have here on the Cape in terms of the county commissioners. It's a rarity. It doesn't exist in other counties. And I want to also give a shout out to Bob Writtenower. Uh I ran and was elected because I very much believe I grew up here born on Cape Cod that we are in a
crisis almost and I that is shared by uh the Cape Cod commissioners and the the Cape Cod Commission and in Yarmouth we are stepping up to confront the issues. The sewering is just one example. We did lose our our uh effort to get a library through a state grant, but we are going to reconstitute that committee and and keep at that because Yarmouth should have a library. And um so I I just wanted to say thank you. Um it's a it's such an honor as somebody who was raised on Cape Cod to be in
a position to make the difference and work towards a very um healthy future for everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Um Bob, let's um let's talk a little bit about um some of the key challenges uh that Yarmouth has been addressing. I know there's some things that you'd like to raise and others would like to raise. I want to point out that we did identify a couple of items that um are very obvious and we put them actually on the agenda so that we can get a report from uh
department heads. For example, we have uh Mary Vilbon on the agenda to give us an update on the uh the visitors center. Um the shine program is something that we're very proud of in Barnstable County, but it also is a very present program and initiative here in the town of Yarmouth. So, we've actually put some of these items uh there's a Bass River um uh project, a very unique project that might help us find other creative uses for our dredging program. So we actually on some of these
items put them on the general business agenda for a more detailed discussion. So I would suggest that any comments regarding those initiatives we wait until we bring them up and uh we we start off with maybe some other initiatives that are going on that we haven't highlighted on the agenda. So, well, first of all, if you're in Yarmouth, I I think you know the the key thing that leads um all of our discussions and the select board I know working with you and Liz has established
as the number one priority for our community. Um the environmental um issues and specifically water quality, not only water quality in our coastal and bayments um is a massive concern, but you know the protection of our public water supplies. you know, we have um you know, nearly 30 public water supply wells um all around the community that that serve water and almost every issue gets gets back to the water quality and the challenges that we face um are huge and um the county government here, you
know, we're very fortunate um dubtales the some of the initiatives that the county has taken on um have have really helped us tremendously. I know some of those we're going to be discussing, but it's a very wide range of issues. I mean, first and foremost, obviously, you know, with our um, you know, aggressive detours, you know, what you're looking at is, you know, the massive $27 million phase one wastewater construction project that really encompasses the entire backbone of
our community along Route 28 from Dennis to um the Barnstable Town line. And it's a massive project. that also has, you know, a hundred million of that tied up with a a brand new treatment plant. And, you know, we're over 50% completed with the construction on that project. We're going to be continuing for the next couple of years. And it it really sets the tone, I think, for everything that, you know, we're working with um in the community. And I know we can talk about that uh at at great length. there's a lot of um issues that stem from that related
in somehow that that we work directly with the county government on and and I think on Barnesville County and Liz said it we're extremely fortunate that we have a very diverse and wide set of county services that that help us. Um, and one that comes to mind immediately is the Aqua Fund, which is the lowinterest loan program, um, that has the sliding scale for income eligibility that
assists local residents in the connection to the system. And we're rapidly approaching that point. When we get to the first part of 2028, uh, Yarmouth is going to be the Aqua Fund power user. to get so many people tied up because, you know, the the costs are huge to connect, you know, up to $10,000 for a residential connection to a wastewater system. You know, to have the programs in place to assist local residents in making those connections and financing them. It's just another
key piece of the puzzle. Um, another initiative that the county supports tremendously is the the Capeen Islands Water Protection Fund. And I I know uh Mr. Forest represents the town of Yarmouth on that fund. It's incredibly important. And and that's the fund that um uses the revenues at 2.75% search charge on the short-term rentals to create a fund that has funded literally 25% of the
capital costs of all of these major wastewater projects and the the support that the Cape Cod Commission gives to that um in terms of the management and contracting for the financial analysis. It's tremendous and and that is has been um you know for our local government an enormous service. Uh I I will tell you without that 25% um we would not have been able to put together the financing for even our phase one. So I mean that's a a critical program. We're critically concerned
as we move forward. You know one of our greatest challenges is to ensure as more of these projects come online that there's adequate funding. And um you know we're learning that the 2.7 search charge on its own will not be adequate in the future to fund 25% of all of the Cape Cod wastewater projects. So that's a challenge that you know we readily accept. we take that on together with the county and um you know we hope to work with the commonwealth um as I know a lot of your efforts
have been geared uh to try to enhance that to ensure that that we have those funds and um there's many other ways that the wastewater is supported but there's also some of the water quality initiatives that I I just wanted to call out a little bit that are extremely important to um the town of Armor things were um very concerned about the um comprehensive site assessment that the county has been very aggressive on at the um former county fire training academy for the
um PAS remediation is an issue that is of tremendous concern to our community um as the the path of contaminants um together with what we're seeing from the um Cape Cod Gateway airport um is heading, you know, into our community um through the Mil Creek um area and and wershed in in the community. And to to have that comprehensive site assessment and the aggressive tone that's been set
by the county in highlighting um that assessment and um characterizing those plumes in a much more detailed fashion. um that will be what develops the the comprehensive remedial actions and we know what a huge challenge that that is. Um you know we're we're very happy to see the leadership role that the county government has taken to ensure that site assessment phase is comprehensive.
But you know these are challenges in order to provide the funding um for comprehensive remedial actions. it it's going to be something that, you know, may very well transcend just, you know, one agency and and, you know, we're going to have to all work together to ensure that um we're able to um make those comprehensive actions. And um just an example of a few of the initiatives, how some of the counties priorities link together with priorities that we have at the local level.
Yeah, that's great, Bob. Uh, commissioners, any comments? Commissioner Bergstrom? Yeah, you know, I went through this in Chadam with the comprehensive wastewater management plan and at the time we did have some funds coming through from the state, but you know, as as probably Mark will tell you, have working for the congressman. At one point, the federal government stepped up and the state government stepped up for wastewater management funds. And since then, unfortunately, it's been left to the towns, but the towns have stepped up, too. I mean you guys go to town meeting and you ask for the funds and the people understand the priority of having clean
water and having your estuaries you know safe to swim in and and and safe for shell fishing and fishing. So you know it's really a team effort between our our legislative delegation um the county officials and the town officials you know and I know that uh Mr. Whitenower mentioned all the staff that you have behind him, but we have staff behind us too. You know, we we set priorities and we give it a sense of urgency and we have people fortunately, young professionals who step up and they they monitor what's going on at the uh fire training academy. We have an
on-site professional from GZA that we've hired that keeps monitoring. So, yeah, it's it's been a team effort all around and and you know, I wish you all the success in the world. I know you have a ways to go yet. I don't mind the detour, you know. I mean, it has to be done. You know, if it's going to clean up the water, it's going to assure safe drinking water. Commissioner Lines, no, I just um I appreciate these challenges. I'm now I'm also on the board of WellFleet now, so we are uh
trying to get to the step of a TWWMP um approval. And uh I'm wondering if there's going to be any money left if it get does get approved by the time we get around to it. But it's also the balance of where we are as a region and how much can we do, how much more um population all of these things are coming to a it feels like a critical screeching point and all at the same time uh in in
addition to just our overall anxiety about what is the future in our governments. So, um I appreciate all of your, uh challenges and I think they're shared by other towns, but I think Yarmouth, we I started out in Yarmouth. My family uh was here for a long time. Some of them still are. And um you know, it's a great town, so it's well worth the effort. Thank you. Um I'm glad you pointed out the uh the Cape Islands Water Protection Fund. It's it's an incredibly important resource for
us. And I'm glad you also pointed out the work of the Cape Cut Commission, Christy, Erin Perry, and staff for managing and helping us stretch every dollar in that fund. It's not an easy thing to do, and they do an incredible job. So, thanks for thanks for bringing that up. What I'd like to do, if it's okay with folks, is that we can continue this discussion, but we can actually do it on some of the topics that are coming up. So, what I'd like to do is move directly to our general business agenda, if that's okay, and get an update from Mary Vilbon on how things are progressing.
Liz, I'm going to ask you to join us up here, and I'm going to leave that table for the people that are making presentations. Why don't you come on up? Soft seat. Mary. Yeah, she gets a one of the cush one of the cushy seats. Liz, you can join us right up over here. Thanks, Mary. It's good to see you. You, too. In person. Hi. How are you? Every year it's usually on Zoom. So, it's a pleasure to see you. Hopping your spring break. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Well, update us on how things are going with our visitors center out there on Route 6. Okay. If I could, I'd love
to um as the president of the Yarmouth Chamber. I too would like to thank the town of Yarmmouth and their staff, Bob, and your leadership. Um, as you know, the Chamber of Commerce is a separate entity from the town, but most people think we're intertwined because we work so closely together. So, I'd like to thank all of the staff that's here and that are working every day um to make this relationship so strong. And uh in particular, the wastewater project, as you can imagine, on the business community has been an extreme challenge. Um, but the town has been absolutely wonderful to
work with with the communication, with detours. Um, so I just wanted to take a moment and thank all of you that are here and that work every day with the chamber. So, thank you. Um, Route Six Welcome Center, Cape Cod Welcome Center is um, going full steam. We opened up this weekend. Our numbers were down significantly. Uh we're thinking it's contributed to the weather, but as many of you know, this is a great partnership. Without the support from the Cape Cod Commission commissioners, we could not fund this site. Um keeping the amenities opened for
the 100,000 people that use that restroom in four and a half months. Um and we track those numbers by door counts. Um, and so we are thrilled that it provides 7 to 10 part-time jobs throughout the summer between the staff with the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce as well as the custodial uh services, the landscaping that we provide. Um, this year, Mass DOT really stepped up for us this winter. They replaced all of the ceiling tiles within the facility. They painted, they powerwashed,
they installed all new mirrors in the restrooms. And you know, Mass DOT, their staff is amazing as well, and they tell us that this is one of the most um popular sites that they have in the state because we do such a great job maintaining it. And it wouldn't be without your support, MASDOT, um the Cape Cod Chamber, as well as the Yarmouth Chamber and all of our volunteers that help us out there. So, we really appreciate and this has been nine years that you guys have been funding
us at the same amount and we greatly greatly appreciate it. That's great. Thank you. Any questions from Commissioners Bergstrom? just just to say that, you know, that may be the first stop that anyone ever makes on Cape Cod when they come here from wherever they come from, you know, and to have clean restrooms and a nice uh rest area, it sets sets a standard for their visit, you know, they know they're on Cape Cod, they know they're going to be well taken care of when they're here. So, yeah, I really appreciate it. And and uh we do what we can. It was controversial nine years ago, but we got over that and now now we're on a steady a steady uh revenue stream. you should come up
and visit because sometimes when people walk in the visitor center, they don't realize they're on Cape Cod and they're like, "So, we're just around the corner from Providence, right?" No, you're headed towards Providence Town. So, it's fun. Providence Town. Oh, dear. I know people do. Commissioner Lions. No, I just think it's great. I I remember when the re relationship started and um I was supportive of it then and still and it really has improved over the years. It's really amazing uh how nice it is. The one I think was on 25 or 195 used to get all the kudos and you know
it's looking kind of you know sad. So um thank you for all the work you do and making sure that that is such a wonderful welcome portal for people to come in. Great. Uh any of our Yarmouth uh folks? Liz, I'm curious. Do the uh Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, do they still camp and run some things? That was a a wonderful era, too. Yeah. When when COVID hit stopped and then I think the permitting
also changed with the safety issues on the site. Are there plans and I I'm trying to remember my Cape Cod mun municipal uh planning organization. Are there plans to install any um electric vehicle charge chargers? We are not because the state has some type of a regulation because they will be installing them at the rest area or the stop and going westbound within the next year or two. So there's um Oh yes, it it's part of each other. Right. Very good. Thank you, Mary. Welcome. Great.
Anybody else? Oh, Commissioner, just quickly as a dog owner, I'd like to in speaking for all the dogs that come through here like to thank you very much for having your rest area there. Appreciate it. Yes. All the dogs as well. Oh, wow. I should start counting those, too. Yeah. Visitors, dog visitors, responsible dog owners. Yeah. Well, on behalf of the board of commissioners, we appreciate what you do for not just us, but for the entire Cape. So, thank you. Thank you. and thank you for supporting the businesses on Cape Cod because that visitor center could not
be open without that. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. The next item on our agenda is uh we're going to talk about the Shine program and I'm going to invite uh our Shine team uh to the table for a brief presentation on some of the great work going on in Shine uh and uh here with our with our council on aging and our I think they're having a dinner team. What's that? Hey, how are you? Good. You good. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself for the audience and for the folks at home. And
uh welcome. Yes. Good morning. I'm Christina Whit O'Brien. I am the program manager for Shine. And good morning. I'm Mandy Spieman. I'm deputy director for Barnesville County Department of Human Services and one of the um co-chairs for Healthy Aging Cape Cod. That's great. Well, we're going to turn it over to you for your presentation and update. Great. So, I'll get us started talking about the Shine program at Barnstable County. Um, let's see if I can advance these slides.
Excellent. So, Shine stands for serving the health insurance needs of everyone on Medicare. And we really want to make sure people understand that we're Medicare experts. We certainly do have some intersection with Mass Health, which is the state program of Medicaid, but our staff and volunteers really focus on Medicare. Our goal is really to provide free, unbiased health insurance information and counseling to the residents here on Cape Cod in the islands. Our program extends
through this entire region. We also work with a lot of caregivers. We hear from adult children, uh, relatives of older adults in the community. We receive our funding mostly from the federal government, the Administration for Community Living, uh, through the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through the Executive Office of Aging and Independence, also known as Aid. and we're incredibly grateful to Barnstable County and our commissioners who have had um unwavering support of the program to really help us serve
the residents here uh in Barnstable County and across the region. So again, our overall goal is to really provide as much um access as possible to accurate unbiased information regarding health insurance. And the unbiased piece is something that I want to really lift up because you know we these are volunteers who are giving their time mostly um and we are talking about all of the products and programs available uh for health insurance for folks through Medicare. So
a little history about Shine in Massachusetts. Uh we started in the 80s. Uh it actually started in Springfield, Massachusetts as a pilot program. Uh and then it kind of moved its way across uh the Commonwealth as well as across the country. Um and in 1992, the history on Cape Cod was it started in Chadam, I think, at the Council on Aging and then moved to Yarmouth. Uh and the county took over the contract in 2014 and has been administering the Shine program here in the region since 2014.
So we in Massachusetts like to be different so we call it shine but across the country it's called SHIP which is the state health insurance assistance program. So SHIP is also part of the federal government and then is administered to all the other states. So I think Florida also calls it shine and it may be called I think cares in Connecticut but everybody likes to do a little twist on the name. So in Massachusetts we have 13 regional offices. There's also an office in greater Boston at the Chinese Golden Age Center and there are 700 Shine counselors across the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 60% of those folks are volunteers and I'll talk a little bit more about on Cape Cod but the other percentage are folks who are called inind counselors. An inkind counselor is employed by a hospital or a community- based organization and they're trained to do shine counseling as part of their job. So here we are considered region 12. Um and we are the Cape Cod and Islands and we are administered uh through the Barnesville County Human Services Department. Our director Joe Pacho is here and Mandy is our uh deputy director. Um and there are
two of us who were employed in the Shine program. As I said, I'm the program manager. And I will tell you personally, I've been a social worker for what I can't believe is 35 years now. My college reunion is in a couple weeks. Um and this is some of the most rewarding work I have ever done as a social worker. Um, it's really amazing to sit with a couple or with a family or an individual. Um, I worked with someone recently and we saved him $85,000 because his he originally signed up for a plan where it didn't cover his medication and we were able to get him a special enrollment period
and get him the medication he needed to breathe. So, it's a really big deal the work that we do. William Redmond is our project specialist. He's been doing this for about 10 years uh and is uh a very uh helpful and uh informed colleague. Uh in Cape Cod in the islands we have about 57 folks uh who are our um volunteer counselors. We actually have some of those folks in the room. We have Paula Peron who is here who's one of our counselors. Uh we'll talk a little bit more about
Yarmouth. Um but those folks are your neighbors. They are members of the community who are looking to give their time to their neighbors. They have probably been on their own Medicare journey and realized how challenging it is and they want to help out uh other folks. So, they want to give back and we're very lucky to have those folks come forward. We have uh 14 of those counselors or those inkind folks who are working for our community- based organizations giving us a total of 71 counselors. And we are now in the midst of training a new cohort of counselors and we have 21
people in that class. Uh and 72% are volunteers. So here in this region we actually have the majority of our counselors are volunteers and we could not run this program without our volunteers. So just examples of what we do. We educate people about their health insurance options. A lot of people don't really understand Medicare. They don't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. They don't know all the different parts. They think what they're seeing on TV from that actor who's no longer acting um and trying to make a buck is that's the best program for them.
And little do they know that that program doesn't cross the bridge to come to Cape Cod. So we really try to give people the best information possible. Um we assist people with understanding what their rights are, what their benefits are. We assist them with finding the most costeffective plan. Health insurance is very specific to the individual. If I'm sitting with a couple, one spouse may have a Medicare Advantage plan and the other spouse may have medic original Medicare because their needs are different, their budgets are different. We screen people for public benefits, both state and federal. Uh two years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts changed
the requirements for the Medicare Savings Program. That's a program that assists with the costs of Medicare and it saves people that Medicare Part B premium which is 20290. So when you're meeting with people who are just getting their Social Security and that's all they're living on, getting that 20290 back and their Social Security check is a huge help. We get calls from people all the time who are struggling between paying for their groceries or paying for their medication. They're rationing their medication because they can't afford to cut to purchase it. So we at Shine
can really help them find the most cost-effective plan. And then we resolve problems with insurance companies. We have really close partnerships with a lot of community- based organizations. South Coastal County Legal Services is one of the organizations we work with. They have a Medicare advocacy project. Uh so we collaborate with them. So this is some data. Hopefully you can read the numbers there. But what I really want to point out is our growth. Um, if you look at this past year in 2025, we had over 7,000 contacts with beneficiaries. I asked Bill to dig into some of
our data and say because I was like, have we ever seen more than 7,000 7,000 people before? And he's like, we haven't. This is the most we've seen. So, um, we're really proud of that number. And again, we couldn't do this without our shine counselors who are giving of their time uh, and meeting with folks right in their communities. So, um, we've had about 12 to 13% growth every year of increasing those numbers. So, we're seeing year-over-year more beneficiaries reached. And last year, we made a real effort to get out into the community and to meet uh people where they are
at to work with our local councils on aging. Um, I think in Yarmouth, we had what hundred people come to one of our Medicare 101s last year. So, we're really being able to do that work in the community with with some of our information sessions as well as meeting people individually. So, uh again, just community outreach and education by uh offering seminars, Medicare 101, cost-saving seminars, doing those outreach activities in our local towns.
Most towns have have health benefit fairs. You'll see a table with Barnstable County Human Services and Shine. Uh we were just in Yarmouth a couple weeks ago. Uh it's a great way to meet people again where they're at. Um and all the projects that we've done. And then our individual counseling. We're trying to increase our our touch points in the community by making more connections to community- based organizations. We've been able to this past um open enrollment. We had a counselor or a couple counselors at the Outer Cape Community
Health Center uh serving people out in the Outer Cape. I'm also trying to work with finding a health center location uh in Bourne knowing that there's going to be bridge traffic. So, uh preparing ahead of time to make sure that Bourne is one of those areas that's on both sides of the bridge. So, making sure we have access to our services on both sides of the bridge. Uh so those are just some of the examples uh that we have going on and it's not going forward.
I don't know if I'm supposed to point to something. Oh, okay. So this is some uh just feedback. We do satisfaction surveys. I'm very proud to say that our region has been uh the region that has surpassed all others in returning our satisfaction surveys. Uh so we have quotes from uh some of our residents, Chadam, Wellfleet, Yarmouth. Uh the Chadam residents as a definite plus having the service. It was a successful appointment and we left much relieved. We appreciate everything that Shine does for the citizens. Uh in Wellfleet, the counselor I met with were very knowledgeable and pleasant to deal with. They were incredibly
helpful. I appreciated it. And finally, in Yarmouth, my Shang counselor was excellent. The service that Shine offers is indispensable and greatly appreciated. elderly people like us need the service Shine offers. Thank you very much. Uh so we're really able to help people feel relieved um confident in what they're choosing and really helping them to uh you know live a better life by saving money and getting access to the care that they need. So in Yarmouth uh we have uh five is that one two three four five counselors uh David Paula
who's here Don and Maryanne we have an amazing relationship with the Yarma Senior Center I want to thank Diane uh for all of your work to work with us um during open enrollment um the the front desk is it is it Judith Judith she calls and she's like Christina we had a cancellation can you fill somebody with this appointment um So, you know, we're really lucky to be able to do that. Um, they offer appointments Monday through Thursday, which is very unique. So, uh, there is a presence here,
a very strong presence um, in in this this town. And in 2025, uh, that number of over 7,000 people, we serviced about 712 people in Yarmouth and 91% of those folks were at the Council on Aging. Oh, dear. Point it more that way. While we're on while we're on this slide. Yeah. Um Diane, can you what is it that we need of you in order to make this work? It's space, right? We have a
professional office that we dedicate to them in the Shine office. Um so we dedicate that area to to them. Um so basically, yeah, if you could grab that mic and just get a little bit closer so we can all hear you. So um we what we do is we coordinate the appointments for them. We take all the appointments down. Um, and then when they come in, we give them a call the night before to tell them what their appointment schedule is. Um, so that they're the counselor is prepared so for who they're going to see. So, it's truly a a a county municipal collaboration. And I would
assume it's with all of our councils on aging or all of our senior centers or centers for active living as we're calling them these days. Yes. Um so our um volunteers come from most of them are from Yarmouth but one of them is from Brewster. Um she travels half an hour each each Wednesday to come up to the center. So she is our long longest serving um volunteer so she's been there for at least 15 years. So that's great. Much appreciated. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's fine.
There you go. Okay. Great. Um, so we're really uh focused on uh making sure that folks have access. We've done a lot of work with the Mashpwampenog tribe. Uh we're I'm actually co-chairing with the state leads for the Shine program on access in our rural communities. Uh there are parts of Cape Cod that are considered rural by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the islands certainly are by the federal government. We're working towards multilingual accessibility. Uh we've really struggled with that area, but um we're trying more. We do have access to a statewide
uh translation service that we can offer shine counseling on the phone in other languages. Um and again we have uh there's no cost for our service. Our service is um free and again we're really trying to get to a lot of different types of places like during open enrollment. We'll go into some of the housing authorities and meet with folks there because of getting help with access uh because people may not be able to get to a council on aging. Um and again, we're trying to just continuously expand our volunteer recruit recruitment. The state has
put the training online. Shine volunteers go through about 40 hours plus of training. They also go through mentoring and they have to take a test and it's 80 questions. But the good news is this is an open book test. Um, and then they reertify every year. Um, I know people are like, "I haven't taken a test since college. What are you doing?" Um, so we're again just really trying to strengthen our community partnerships, continue our outreach, um, get out there to, uh, all different types of locations, uh, libraries, other community- based organizations
to do presentations, uh, and our continued work with the state program on any new initiatives. And that's it. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Christina. Any questions? Commissioners? I am, if I may. Commissioner Lions. Okay. So, um I'm a big supporter of this mainly because I did work with Shine. Um I was a um social work uh healthc care assistance access person at the Outer Cape Health in uh Province Town I worked at and I we met just as you came
aboard. I went to one of your sessions there in Province Town. Um, so I took care of Mass Health and a lot of people would come in and say, "Okay, I'm turning 65 now and what do I do?" And I'd say, "Well, that's the end of our relationship. I'm going to hand you over to Shine." Unless they had financial situations that made it different. But, um, the assistance that this group provides to people across the Cape, uh, we all know that health care is challenging. Even if we're getting it through our employment, we sort of take what we get. But even when we're using it, it's doesn't
seem to kind of meet the expectations we all have. And they really uh the the group here, including Bill, who is really a master, um really can help you. And if you just you don't you got all this information from them and you're just not sure it you can go back and get that clarity. And uh it's not just a one time. They will hold your hand through that. So kudos. Thank you. And um it's a great program and um it would be nice one day if we didn't need it. Everybody just
woke up and we all had healthcare. But that's in a very distant future maybe and uh but until then I thank you uh for all the work you do. Thank you, Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah, I agree with I agree with everything that Sheila just said, but you know, it is it is a confusing landscape out there when it comes to med to uh medical care. I mean I know quite a few people now who are turning 65 just coincidentally and you know many of them a lot of us now work past 65. So now we have ins maybe we have carryover insurance from our jobs. We have the option of getting Medicare,
Medicare advantage. How much do we pay for how much do we pay for our current insurance? How much what benefit they have you know for drug? Then you go and you look at you know the schedule of how what you know how much they pay for each drug that you take and so on and so it's very confusing. You have Joe Nameoth on TV telling us that we should you know get his Medicare advantage program. So without I mean and even sophisticated people who are sophisticated in other ways don't understand this. They need someone to sit down with them. So this is a very valuable program. I like to mention
it whenever I talk about county government and not just because you guys do such a great job but because I want to get the word out. It's there. You know you do a good job getting the word out but we can do an even better job letting people know. So yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Diane. Is there anything that you would like to add? Is there anything specifically that you would would like to suggest that we could do to maybe make things work? I want to uh say how much we appreciate this program. Um so thank you to the commission but also thank you to um Christina and to Mandy um for doing it um so for keeping um to provide it. Um the volunteers that
we have are amazing. So um just that they they can train for this um and reertify every year. they get together as a group and just kind of hash things out. Um, so they're it's an amazing group and it's self-led. Um, so they they really take it seriously. So, um, they put in quite the effort. So, that's great. That's great to hear. There's really nothing as far as anything to anything to add. Well, yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner. No, no, go right ahead. I was just going to say thank you
for all of of all of your work uh to make this possible. That's just one of many programs I'm sure that you oversee and assist with. So, it's a big job. That's great. Anybody else on uh Shine? Okay. Have one comment. I just wanted to bring up that you are having a Shine volunteer lunch on Monday. Yes. Uh and uh I did say I was going to go and I can't go, but Commissioner Burkstrom is going to go in my place. Unfortunately, I have a chicken for him. But um I wish I was there and I I
do want you to um you know relay my my sentiments and appreciation. So thank you. Yeah, sorry about that. But thank you. I was looking forward to it actually. Okay, the next item we we asked Mandy to talk about healthy aging Cape Cod because Yarmouth is a community where this whole topic more or less began on Cape Cod. Right Diane? did um in 2014 we started um age friendly community team second in
um sorry the Commonwealth. So Yarmouth sort of had a hand in sort of launching this initiative and Mandy's here today to give us an update on how things are going. Well, thanks for having me and um thanks to the commissioners and the town of Yarmouth for making time for this today. So, Mandy Spieman um Barnes County Department of Human Services deputy director and I am one of the co-chairs for healthy aging Cape Cod and I'm also the staff leazison for one of the work groups, our digital equity and access um work group and I'm going to struggle with the Okay,
looks like Michael, you're going to have to step in there and pretend you're Robin. There we go. Well done. Thank you. So, very briefly, Healthy Agent Cape Cod was launched in 2017, and I really want to acknowledge um assistant county administrator Vera Herik who's in the room. She was part of raise your hand. Founding good group who set this up. Um and at that time, I was in the council on aging world, so I got to be on the other side of the partnership for this. Um and the mission has not changed.
It's a collaborative effort among stakeholders across our region to make sure that we can all age in place regardless of our income and the the um website is on that um that slide. So Barnesville County Department of Human Services um is happy to provide more information through our website. Thank you, Michael. So quickly um demographics. So so often um demographics are are framed in a kind of gloom and doom um the agist silver tsunami. We hear that. So we are working really hard to help
reframe that conversation and talk about older adults. We are all aging and uh we know that by 2030 approximately half of Barnstable County residents will be over the age of 60 and so that has impacts for all of us. Um, I just want to point out that um, Yarmouth, the town of Yarmouth is tracking at nearly double um, the state of Massachusetts for older adults overall um, as are many of the other towns on Cape Cod. Um, the growth of older adults in Massachusetts um,
is significant. The growth of Yarmouth is slightly less, but that's only because Yarmouth started at a higher rate. Um so you are in good company uh with our with our neighbors across the region. Um slide please. So I want to quickly um kind of talk about the work healthy aging Cape Cod is doing. Uh we are focused on age and dementia friendly and with the support of the commissioners um we were able Barnesville County was able to join the state age friendly network and the state dementia
friendly network in 2025. Um they are separate but parallel processes and we are currently actively involved in um in pursuing our action plan which will be one plan submitted to both AARP who is our state lead for age friendly and MCOA who is our state lead for um dementia friendly Massachusetts. So what does this mean? What does this work mean? Um, beyond convening meetings,
uh, we actively have three work groups at this time. In 2025, we were able to stand up the digital equity and volunteer work groups. Um, in 2026, we have added the older adult housing workg group. Um all three of those areas are are broad in scope and so those work groups um have really um focused in on specific action items that they want to achieve in the coming year. Um each year we come together for an annual retreat and help us um brainstorm
together and focus on what that might mean. So the volunteer workg group is working together to either um build upon an existing database or explore options for creating a database where um the huge pool of talented people we have on Cape Cod can go to find opportunities um and our organizations can post opportunities. Um so we're really looking to create that help create that connection. digital equity, equity and access. Um it's about um internet access. It's
about hardware and it's about the knowledge and the confidence to utilize that. And we know that um digital access helps with um teleaalth and accessing health care. It can help with um work and volunteer opportunities and it helps with social connection and reduced isolation. And the older adult housing piece is so broad. housing is such a broad thing to get your arms around. So really what the work group that has been in um meeting for about four months now is focusing on
um the idea of identifying our highest need for older adults on Cape Cod and really um from a broad sector of of stakeholders that are participating. They're saying we need more one-bedroom and studio units for our older adults. Um so we are actively um inviting in speakers and looking for opportunities to educate um and forward that conversation. Slide please.
So uh accomplishments and milestones. um Healthy Agent Cape Cod established in 2017 obviously um had the brakes hit when COVID hit and I was um lucky to come into the county um at the end of 2021 and so um I got to work with Vera in transitioning um picking that back up and helping uh reinvigorate healthy aging Cape Cod. And so we have uh reconstituted our governance
um and updated it actually just this year and it's based on a really successful model we've used for the regional substance addiction coalition which relies on shared leadership and so with very minimal dedicated staff time for this initiative. Um we have a group of three co-chairs, one um seat preserved for the human services department and the other two from stakeholders um across the county and then those work groups are also led by co-chairs from across the county.
And so in that way we are never relying on one individual or one group. we have an ongoing um consistency of the work and so as I said we entered the age and dementia friendly networks in 2025 we've worked really hard to have a broad cross- sector coalition that is truly representative of every part of our geographic region and uh the makeup of our population and we have over 30 organizations and when I say organizations that could be private nonprofit
municipal um it's a broad sector we have um been able to um offer some professional development and community education in that um reframe aging, agism. Um if you spend more than five minutes with me, you'll know I'm like really excited about this topic because we are all all aging. We've all given one of those horrible birthday cards with the black balloons on it um that no one wants to get. Um so kind of destigmatizing the idea of aging as well as sage care um how
do we better serve um our friends and neighbors who are LGBTQ plus older adults. Um so we had um a really phenomenal turnout for those uh trainings last year. public public awareness campaigns, community engagement, um talking about that um in-person most time consuming part of um you know community involvement. But at those at those health fairs, wellness fairs,
um tableabling events that we have an opportunity to get to, we can have face-to-face interactions which are often the most um impactful and we also can connect with like those non-traditional partners. Libraries are just rising to the top. Libraries are phenomenal community partners. Um the county, our department has taken the lead in creating a um everyone wants to have the list. So, we're working really hard to create a list that will be ever evolving of having one place where we
um can refer to tableabling events, opportunities that typically happen on an annual basis so that we can work together um with our colleagues in the health department, our colleagues in the human rights commission to make sure that as a county we are getting out there in person to to be at all of these events. And then we're focused on strategic planning. Um it's an ever evolving thing. It will never stop. Um we want to make sure that we are making sure the table is always fully set um representative of our entire geographic region and of our um special populations.
So looking ahead um we are working on our strategic plan and this picture is from our retreat last year which just shows you the kind of brainstorming that we're working on together. Um the three active work groups are currently each working on their piece. Um I'm happy to say we have some folks from the Cape Cod Commission who participate and are um going to help us with our um community overview portion. So it really is um sometimes it's a challenge to write as a group,
but I think um we will be the better for it when this comes together. And uh we kicked that off last October. We will have our annual retreat again this fall um where we will start to tighten and wrap it up um to submit it by the end of this calendar year. And my parting thoughts um I want to leave you all with is um you know aging well means we can do what we want to do for as long as possible. If that means staying in our homes, staying at our jobs, continuing our volunteer opportunities,
um thinking differently about um longevity, so lifespan versus health span. How do we as a community create a livable environment that will help us be healthy and engaged for as long as possible? Health span as opposed to just lifespan and longevity. Great. And there you go. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks. Uh any questions, Commissioner? Commissioner, I I would just like to make a comment that I think that
um of all of these challenges uh the the tech uh ability um is going to be even more crucial. And I have very good friends and including myself that sometimes really uh don't want to deal with it because you're not sure what you're dealing with online. It's a sort of a scary place these days and you got to be so careful of what you log on to and what you respond to. But the tea health is going to increase. I know that from outer cape. uh we had a talk with the uh CEO there and um they're
really transforming to a predominantly teleaalth mainly because just to have access to doctors. So, it's something we're all going to have to wrap our head around and something we're going to have to know how to use and um I I just think that that is going to be so crucial going forward is the access and how can we make it as simple as possible for people to understand. So, good work and um and of course all the others are kind of shared um problems by all ages. Well, even tech,
but even more so for uh as we get older. So, thank you for focusing on that. Diane, any comments, any thoughts, doing a phenomenal job. She came from Chadam as a COA director. So, she brings all that experience. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I think the as as Commissioner Lions said, the the whole digital piece to this. I've actually been in a teleaalth conference with someone you
could say that was cognitively impaired and that is not an easy experience. Uh, and so the fact that we're zeroing in on this is huge and finding ways to work with seniors and families to help figure out a way to make that work because that is going to be increasingly uh a a preferred option for many of our residents on Cape Cod in terms of accessing health care or a certain array or suite
of health care services. And um I just I just see that as incredibly challenging and and a very very big obstacle and problem for many people. So I'm glad to see that the county's working on it and interfacing with the towns to find ways to sort of overcome that challenge here in local communities. So I'm glad to see healthy aging is alive and well and uh it's it's it's very busy. Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. Uh just to put some numbers on this, it costs between 30 and $40 an hour for in
inhouse care for elderly people. I mean that year you're you do the numbers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and very expensive and of course the cost of uh you know assisted living is is really out of sight. So, I mean, the healthier we can keep people, the better off they're going to be because it really is a tremendous financial burden on people, you know, and uh we live too long, unfortunately. Yes. Thanks, Commissioner. Good things and bad things. Any other questions for
Christina or Mandy? Hearing none. Thank you. Thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you. Have a good five minutes. Okay. without. Okay, we're going to invite uh uh Bill Bill Traverse and Jack me who's here, our register of deeds. We always love hearing from Jack. He always brings us He used to bring us good news all the time, but hopefully lots of good news. Oh, but um yeah,
we're very interested in what's going on in terms of scams and uh we don't need to spend too much time on this, but please update us on what you folks have been discovering, what you folks have found out, and what we need to be concerned about in terms of scams targeting seniors. Well, I'll let uh you would you like to lead in? Sorry. You want me to start? Whatever you want to you want to go first. We haven't we haven't teamed up now. This is going to be a road show. Let Billy do most the the overall stuff regarding scams. But specifically with regard to real
estate since I got that lovely introduction from you. Um it's not really happening. Okay. I want to put that on the record. Um what is it that's not happening, Jack? What's being put out there? I I you know, notwithstanding the ads you hear continuously, and I think that's a theme we've heard today uh to some degree that, you know, money is being made on scaring people. And um so I'm here not to scare you. I'm here to to assuage your fears. Um relative to real estate fraud as a
as a a large thing. It happens. Does it happen in in the United States? Yes, it does. Uh does it happen with any kind of high percentage? No, very very low percentage of fraud. Um, when you look at the FBI statistics nationally, etc., there really it is a lot. It's it's not what it's made out to be. Okay. So, I want to put that out there. It's difficult to commit fraud with real estate. But what you're but what you're telling us is that there are emails, there's there's literature,
there's messaging going out into the elder population that is attempting to scam folks into making decisions or taking actions that could conceivably jeopardize Well, I think I think there's a lot of advertising that's going out to But what you're trying to reassure us is is that no one's going to steal your home. You know, don't get it's not something I would I would worry about. um as a you know if you practice common sense I mean it takes a lot
to transfer title to pro real a deed to property title to property is what you own it's the basket of things that make your ownership of the property yours a deed is the reflection of what that of the transfer of that title but title doesn't exist like a car title it exists as a a basket of rights that you have and I'm not trying to get too legal here but ultimately the issue it's more like they call deed, you know, more accurate would be deed fraud or mortgage fraud. Um, and ultimately the goal of the people involved in this is to get money. Okay? So, the fraud is is
is prior to that hap if there's fraud happening, it's going to happen on trying to pretend that they own a piece of property and get somebody to give them a deposit on it and then they disappear. Um zero uh is an issue where people uh affairs people will put they'll find vacant lots. Vacant lots are a target nationally. Okay. What they'll do is list a lot for sale on vacant. They'll take they'll say, "Oh, I'm the real estate agent or I'm the owner of this lot." Usually they say the real
estate agent and they'll figure out and somebody will will go and say, "Oh, I want that lot. That's a good deal." Cape Cod, you know, trying builders are trying to, oh, oh, the vacant lot for sale. We'll go for that. See it on Zillow. Looks like a pretty good deal. You know, first instinct is send a quick deposit check and then find out it's in the ether. Okay, that's it. never generally gets to the point where it's going to be an actual transaction at the registry level at the final stage especially now that the industry is much more aware of the fact that this can happen
at all levels attorneys, banks, uh uh uh credit companies, the whole the whole aspect of it is now geared up to recognize that they're pro, you know, assume a fraud and then work their way back. Okay. to to stop it in its in its tracks. So ultimately it doesn't get to our level for the most part because those professionals that are involved along the way, the attorneys, bankers, realtors, they're the ones on the hook if they fall down on their jobs. And so they're saying, "Okay,
our insurance guys are telling us we have to be on this, you know, and that's how that works." So ultimately, it's not that big. It's not happening nationally because of those things. It's difficult to sell a piece of property that's not yours. People come, they have to inspections. I mean, it's not everyone's buying, you know, buying a pro. How's they get inspections? They get surveys. They get a lot of people involved in those transactions. Vacant piece of land may be a little easier. To make sure I understand it, the scam is in getting someone to online put up a deposit or
transfer money to try to at least make an initial part of a transaction and then it's dump 10, 20, 30 grand deposit and disappear for just putting your name up there and getting someone to bite. Um, that'll happen. That has happened. I think as time, you know, a few years back this was people were more vulnerable to that in terms of the general people putting a check on the line. It's never been the issue where the other way around. I shouldn't say never, but it's it's it's not like they're targeting people's property to get money out of it. I have yet I've been doing
this for a long time, almost 40 years now. And I've never seen a mortgage come through where they were able to say mortgage my house to get money out of it. Um, at the end of the day, somebody's got to pay the money. And that person is putting the money on the line. That entity, that corporation, whatever, is not going to just hand out money. They're going to make sure they're handing the money out to the proper entity that's doing it. Now, you know, in the grand grand scheme of things, could it possibly happen? Yes. Does it happen? No, one thing we've also but
not withstanding up what I just said, we do have a consumer protection service that we offer on our website at barsibledeeds.org. You can go to the registry homepage, click on title fraud uh and um and consumer protection and there's a link that allow you to sign up and get a notice. You can't protect it ahead of time, but you will get noticed immediately if anything comes if you sign up and put your name in or your spouse's name or your neighbor's name or whatever. You know,
you can put a number of different names in and you will get an email sent to you the second a document is recorded with that name and you will then be able to check or call us or you can even check yourself. You can go online. It gives you the information about the recording itself and you can go look it up and say, "Oh, okay. Jack me's that's not the there's another Jack me. He lives in Chadam. Not my pro, you know, not my property. There's another, you know, uh, so you can look and see what's going Oh, I recorded a discharge of mortgage. I forgot,
you know, my bank was sending that in the other day that got on record. You got noticed immediately that that has happened." So, and you can take care of your neighbors who may not be up, you know, keep put their name in as many you can put five names in for each email address that you are using. So, it's all public record. So, it's you're not giving anything away here, but it's the reality is you will get an email notice that says a particular document came on under that name. Now, if we have a common name, you know, you can narrow it down by town,
which makes your life easier, but uh you want to be, you know, you may get a lot of emails uh if you have So, it's right there at the registry of deeds web page. Then web page. Absolutely. So, Bill, did you have something to add? Um, yes, actually. And that's a very specific example and maybe I should have gone first since I'm my my whole thing is a bit more negative. But uh I guess uh macroscopically speaking um this type of these attempted frauds are extremely pervasive. They're everywhere. Everybody gets them constantly. Um and quite often they they have nothing to do with just
speaking from the perspective of an internal IT department. It's completely external to us. So we have very little control over what goes down and we can do our best to offer guidance but that's where you know human services outreach and the the deeds posting information on their site is is so valuable. Um, but the more kind of all-inclusive rules of the road to live by um just try to generalize as much as possible is um just look out for the telltale signs, sense of urgency, changes of patterns. Um so someone an urgent request to wire money. No,
don't just uh the person will understand if you take a second to call them to verify. And that is really the cornerstone of everything. If I were to take the the eight or so bullet points of of uh you know how to navigate these situations, it would really boil down to you get a notification, go to the source and verify it um to a known contact, the the town website, what have you, and and start from there. Um that's uh that's really the the moral of the story there. Um, outside of that, this is, you know, specifically, I touched on it before, very interesting for me
just because it's, um, it's beyond our direct control. Um, so we can't, there's been so many trouble tickets that we get over the years where um, at face value it looks like it's a business email compromise, like someone in one of our customers or the county that was compromised and is sending something out. Not the case at all. It's just a cleverly spoofed email address with a, you know, a misspelled domain name and it's completely outside of our purview. It's basically one private individual scamming another private individual and it's unfortunate. Um, but it's uh,
I think growing pains of society in general. Um, there's people call us on the phone all the time and we're used to not answering and screening phone calls. Don't trust caller ID, by the way. Um, but uh I mean I think eventually we'll get there in the grand scheme of things, but um it's a it's a rough patch. And not to mention the the AI element not being a problem in and of itself for this specifically, but it's certainly amplifying this and making it easier for threat
actors that would otherwise not bother perhaps to to dabble in it. And it is also it's a a mixed kind of signal for other aspects like from my perspective historically these sorts of compromises were um technology focused as in there was an exploit a vulnerability in the hardware or the software that was being leveraged but turns out things are pretty good these days and those are more difficult to find. They're corrected more quickly so people are exploiting the the
next best thing which is the person. Thanks. Thanks Jack. Uh questions from the commission. Um Commissioner L. So I'm sure anybody that works in municipal government here and I know on the county and even in healthcare when I worked in that you're going through trainings um periodic trainings of uh we call it no before. That's right. Um so it's how to identify these things and I find them very helpful and scary and that's what makes me not want to go on the computer. But um uh I do feel somewhat educated and armed. Um so for people who are not in
uh affiliated with the workplace of some kind that might be offering this training, say the average citizen, are there are there programs applications that they could go to that you know of? I mean you if you don't know you don't know that's okay but where the average citizen can go in and really kind of educate themselves as to what to look for these types of scams especially in the world of AI coming on and it could even be a person coming across that you think you know and it's not that person at all. Exactly right. Um there's a a good amount
of free resources out there publicly available. Um but the the issue becomes um you know leading a horse to water or whatever euphemism you want to use. Um seeking that out and it's if you if you would like to learn more about it, there's a lot of avenues to do it. But I think the proactive outreach like with the the healthy aging program I think is something that can kind of push this out there to be more visible and not rely on people seeking it out specifically. Good. Thank you, Commissioner Burstrom. Yeah. You know, often times when somebody's victim of one of these scams and,
you know, they send $5,000 to some relative that's in jail somewhere, you say, and you go, "Well, what can you do about it?" And they go, "Well, you know, we can look into it, but you know, it disappears into cyerspace." I don't believe that for a minute. I don't believe that for a minute. I mean, if we can read Putin's license plate from some satellite up, if we can spend billions and tens of billions of dollars in and armaments and understanding the, you know, military assets all around the world, we certainly with the cooperation of the companies,
the IT companies, we could find a way to determine who's doing this. And I'm I think that part of it is that it's a privacy concern. Well, you know, we leave us alone. Don't don't go into it. Don't, you know, don't question who's, you know, who's uh sending money through our services and stuff, but I really do believe that somewhere along the line, I'm going to have to come to grips with this because my inbox is full of stuff that I don't even bother to click on unless I know who it is, you know, and and more and more, I mean, it's becoming such a scam whereas someone, you know,
on a computer that sound a hundred of these things and if one person bites, they get they get the money. So, I mean, I'm not I'm not by any means very savvy about about uh the internet and so on, but I do believe that we as a society have to go a little further in determining where the crypto quip the crypto currency goes and and who's getting it and and who's responsible. And we're going to get into that because I know that currently local district attorney is looking for
a staff person to look into this. They haven't we haven't got the resources. The state hasn't committed. It's not their fault, but they haven't committed the resources to follow up on a lot of these locally based scams. That's important that we we give them the assistance they need. So, Bill, did you want to respond? Yeah, on the forensic side, you're right on that last point for sure. But I was just going to kind of uh say that your entire approach towards this as a concept is healthy um healthy skepticism. You don't have to really understand something fully to know to be careful and tiptoe around it. I think this this topic was put on the agenda because our
IT directors want us to do all of the training and all the compliance programing. I think that's where this came from. Cyber security training. I think exactly because I get bombarded by these emails all the time. I know we're sick and tired of getting them, but um I get I think we get it. I think we get it. All right. So, everybody the message to all staff is do your training. Yes. Right. Yes. Liz question. Yeah. Um, I'm I had a a scam issue and what saved me was the fact that I had used a credit card. So, I would ask you as somewhat of our specialist, maybe there's
some maybe your credit card company can be your best friend if you stick to using credit cards because they have their own wall. They certainly can be and that goes back to the whole um changes in patterns is like why would someone ask me to wire money when you know they could accept payment through other means or they could ask you to go down to town town hall and give them a check. Why? Yeah. So that's a skepticism. Yes. Exactly. Wiring money is probably not a good idea. Bad idea in
this day and age. Law firms won't do it anymore. All right. Unless there's any other comments, I'm going to excuse you. Thank you both for being here today to let us know that you're working on this problem and uh it's great to see the register of deeds has got actually a place on the website and an office that can provide some answers. So thank you for doing that. Thank you much. Good to see you. All right. See you, Billy. Next item on the agenda is um we're going to invite Christy Senator up to talk a little bit about where we stand with a regional open space plan and how that
can assist towns as well as a discussion uh and a a brief presentation followed by a discussion on the construction disruption assistance program that the commission is working on. So Christie, welcome. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Um and thank you very much for the invitation to be here. It's really impressive to see the collaboration between the Barnesville County Commissioners and the town of Yarmouth. Um, and really the breadth and diversity of the topics you've already discussed and what's left on your agenda is is fantastic. Um, so congratulations to you all. I'm very excited to be here to talk about two initiatives that are still in their early stages,
but wanted to give you an update on some of the work that we're doing and then have an opportunity for a dialogue here. And the first is our regional open space plan. Um, am I going to be able to use this? I'll try. Okay, let's see if this works. Sure. So, um again, we're in the very early stages of the development of a regional open space plan. And to set the stage, typically we use maps. Obviously, we are a regional planning agency. We like to um really frame everything with data and information. And I don't think that's going to work. There we go. So, here what you're seeing um and many of you um may be familiar with this map series that I'm going
to show, but this is the parcel development by decade. You can see those parcels that are shaded in the darker colors are the development patterns from the 1900s through to the present day with the majority of the development happening on the Cape from about 1950 to 2000. If you click forward to the next one, you can see the amount of protected open space across the region which is about 40% of our land constituted by um protected open space. And so if you take the developed parcels and you
layer those with those protected open space parcels, if we click to the next slide, what you can see here is about 87% of our land is either already developed or already protected. So we know a lot of the discussion and the dialogue is really um understanding the pressures that are facing our region whether it's with relation to protecting open space, building um new housing development. And so really the conversation is um to set the context about why protecting open space going forward is critical um and and um certainly something that all of our
communities need to continue to discuss. Um so you can see here in this chart we've broken it down by uh each of the 15 towns across the region and the percent of that area that's protected open space. And you can see those range in some of the higher towns on the outer Cape. Province Town, Truro certainly have higher numbers in terms of that um percent of their um area within their community. Some of those towns um perhaps in the lower um Cape are a little bit less. And
then if you go to the next slide, we can see the percent of area that's not developed or protected. Um you can see Province Town leaving very little left um that's either not protected or developed and maybe some opportunities in some of those other communities such as Harwitch and Mashp. Um and so as many of you know, we have a regional policy plan which um is updated about every five years or so. The most recent regional policy plan was adopted as a Barnesville County ordinance and completed in the at the end of 2025. There is a goal for um open space within that regional policy
plan to conserve, preserve or enhance a network of open space that contributes to the region's natural and community resources and systems. And within the regional policy plan itself, there's a recommendation for the development of a regional open space plan. As you know, um we have a number of topic specific plans. We have an economic development strategy, a transportation plan, a climate action plan, a housing strategy, a number of topic specific plans. Um and so we um through a series of focus groups during the development of our regional
policy plan identified this as a recommendation. So now we're moving forward with the development of a regional open space plan. So really trying to identify those opportunities for a regional look at protecting our open spaces across the Cape. And so we've really identified that there are a number of regional priorities that we need to address during the development of this regional plan. Certainly looking at our sensitive habitats, uh identifying and protecting those potential public water supply areas. That's already come up a bit today. um as well as protecting those areas
um and addressing coastal flood planes as some of our priorities within the development of this plan. And so here you can see the draft framework for the development of the plan. Um we are still in the very early stages of this, but we are um in the data collection and analysis phase right now. We've developed open space profiles. We're doing an economic analysis of open space values. Obviously looking at mapping and um uh identifying and analyzing those lands that are undeveloped, unprotected, and then certainly making sure that we're reaching out to a broader um section of the
community through stakeholder and community engagement. Meeting with the municipalities um land trusts and is do and doing a number of stakeholder and public meetings to make sure that the the the plan itself is fully informed and that the plan is something that uh the local communities are interested in uh in moving forward. And then of course developing the regional open space plan with a number of resources that can help our communities. So the open space profiles that I mentioned are in draft form and um we have been meeting with
all of our Cape Towns through our municipal staff and really trying to make sure that um we have the best available data and information contained within those profiles. Um so you can see a draft of one here contains a number of different elements that are helpful for our communities. And so we're looking to make sure that that has the most accurate information contained within it so that those can then be a resource for our communities. And you can see that the next slide the um status of all of the local open space and recreational plans um from all of our towns. Many
of those are current plans, some that are we know are in progress and some that have expired um and that we know we'll be working with hopefully in the next um several months or years to be u making sure that those are updated. The value of having these open space um and recreation plans approved by the state is really to be able to bring in some more resources to protect land. So um this will certainly be an important component of the regional um planning process. And then I mentioned the municipal meeting. So we really wanted to start this stakeholder engagement process with
um reaching out to the towns to identify a number of priorities and challenges as well as um what resources would be helpful going forward. So you can see the towns on the left that we've met with. I think we've met with 12 of the 15 so far. They've been very productive meetings. Thank you certainly to the staff in Yarmouth for participating. Um we appreciate all the valuable feedback and input. We have a few more towns left to schedule. Um so really the focus has been on identifying some of the local priorities and challenges really the the goals around open
space that are at the local level and um the identification of specific parcels or locations that um the towns may want to prioritize for open space and then how they're prioritizing open space acquisition and some of those top challenges that the region or the towns are facing as they look to prioritize protecting open space. And then we really want to make sure that this is a regional plan that's going to be useful for the local community. So making sure that we're asking the questions about what tools and resources will be helpful as we develop this regional open space
plan. And then of course we want to make sure that we're reaching out to the right stakeholders within the communities. And so finding out who within the communities should be involved in this regional stakeholder process. And then who um will we need to make sure is engaged because we want to make sure that the process is successful. So, we want to make sure that all of the right people are at the table um to support the process and the plan itself. And so, some of the feedback that we received to date, I mentioned that we've met with 12 of the 15 towns so far are consistent with some of the priorities that we identified at the outset. So, really making sure that we're
protecting our water supply, we're protecting the buffers to water bodies, we're making sure that the plan and the local connectivity between trails and habitat is prioritized. enhancing access to open space um that's already existing and then of course protecting that town character. Um many of the challenges that we heard were consistent from uh meeting to meeting and that um some of the challenges were really related to staff resources related to public education and really um balancing competing interests. I think we've already heard this morning that that balance is
really critical um and so making sure that we can com continue to balance competing interests is something that we need to make sure is incorporated into this plan. And then as we look at what tools and resources might be useful and helpful as we develop the plan, an interactive map of open space across the region was identified as something that um would be prioritized. So that's something that we'll be looking at. Um and then potential um regional um resources that could be brought in to acquire different open space um uh uh parcels across the region.
Um so the the slide just right before that is just a quick snapshot of our data cube pod site which um contains a lot more data and information around permanently protected space across the region. Um so certainly if you want to you're welcome to go in you can play with the different toggles. You can turn off different um parameters and it gives you an opportunity to really interact with the data and information yourself. So um happy to answer questions. This is just a really brief um snapshot of what we're doing with the regional open space plan. Um I also did just want to
identify Heather Mroy who's our um project or program manager within our natural and water resources uh department is here if you have more specific questions. She's certainly the expert here. Um but wanted to just give you a brief um high level overview of some of the work that we're doing on open space. That's great. Thanks Christie. Commissioners. Yeah, just you know this this goes along with an presentation that were given to us by Andy Gotautle a couple of meetings ago on on the limit the limits of the the limited amount of truly open space that's left on the Cape
you know and more and more and I'm sure my fellow commissioners have experienced this. It's become a big issue because people are starting to realize that there's so much so little left and and they so each decision on housing or some other public facilities that would result in even a small amount of open space being uh eliminated becomes a big issue now more so than it ever did before. And and so and a lot of it unfortunately falls on the commission you know when when they come in there and and they say well we can't do this because we don't want to cut down any trees and so on.
And I sympathize with that. But somehow we have to a comprehensive look like this and a decision to what we want the Cape to look like in 10 years is is a is a way of avoiding each little, you know, argument. So we we have a goal, you know, when we can identify those areas which can be developed, we identify those areas which are already developed, which can be redeveloped and we can identify those areas which we want to maintain open space in perpetuity. And that will help us as we go along town meeting by town meeting and we decide what we're going to do, you know,
and a lot of work went into this. I can tell a lot, you know, but it's really appreciated and uh your staff does a terrific job. Commissioner Lions, you know, I have I have a lot of things um thoughts about about this, but um you know, we keep saying uh when I first started in in this job, it was like 18% was left. So, now we're down to about 10 across the board of undeveloped um yeah, it's about 13 14%. So, you know, I'm not sure how we track that, but when when what do we
do and when is the point of no more? I mean, when do we recognize that and make that hard decision? because it just seems to me um you know the again there's this uh this feeling of everything is racing towards a point and uh lately it feels like everybody's racing to see how much they can squeeze out of Cape Cod uh for their own um interest or ownership and um all of that will
is changing the Cape and you know we all know that um the environment is our economy here and uh when will it hit that tipping point where it's just going to be like any place else. So, um I always felt that the county is here to keep us special place special and I'm not putting this on the commission. This is the forces. These are these competing forces that are huge because there's usually a lot of money behind them. uh we're at the point where um the state is
uh giving some sort of allowance through different mechanisms that you can uh change environmental uh regulations to squeeze in these things. These were regulations that we all bought into and said we're not we're going to keep we're going to be good stewards and now it's almost being encouraged to undo that. And um I have a real problem with all of those things uh as a commissioner, as a citizen, as a person who really does feel that this was a very special piece of land. And
um you know, I started coming here, I have memories of Cape Cod going back over 50 years now, I hate to admit. And um it's a very different place and I get very nervous. And I live on the outer Cape and I feel like this is the last of what the Cape was about. And even we are going through those struggles and the biggest you know concern of the outer cape is the water water availability. We you know province town hasn't had its own water in you know probably 30 40 years. Um
they are allowed to take it from Toro. So there's these issues that I think that we have to be very well aware of and uh advocate for vocally and in question. But this is something for us to see where we are now and where do we want to go? This is up to us to make these decisions. So, and I know that the commission's there to help support those decisions, but um all right, I'll get off my soap box. There's my editorial of the day. Thank you for helping me, Mr. Chair. And thank you,
Christie, for all the work the commission does and in keeping us informed. And uh I'm going to invite some of our local officials to chime in and offer some comments. Obviously, this is being done to help the towns as well. Yes. Um identify priorities uh for local open space committees, local officials that are working on protecting open space, which I think is terrific. I like the fact that this planning effort helps target critical areas for protection. And I am pleased
to see that the water supply, water resources priority shows up on this um this part of this process, which I think is terrific. Um I too want to uh thank Christie for all the hard work that's going into this process and uh all the hard work that Heather is putting into this as well. Um, I think this is kind of at a critical point for us because the pace of development is has
been picking up and we need to make sure that we don't lose some of these critical environmental resources that we know are increasingly threatened. So, I think um the county by stepping into this void to help address this is playing a a critical role for those like you, Commissioner Lions, that are worried that we may find ourselves developing areas that would probably be better preserved or protected, whether it's for wildlife habitat, water supply purposes, or just pure open
space that's been enjoyed and has a real value in a community. I think um where I see this plan being helpful uh to the towns is identifying those areas but also to the extent that we're competing for grant funding. My hope is is that the plan itself can confer a certain status. So when let's say the town of Yarmouth because the town of Yarmouth has uh pursued grant funding in the recent past and has been successful. Kudos to team Yarmouth and uh by having perhaps some of our some
of the town's land parcels that it's pursuing to protect to also get conferred some kind of status of being designated in a regional plan in addition to a local plan. I hope uh we can convince the state to somehow confer some status to this regional plan so that it ranks higher in terms of priorities for for acquisition. I think that's that's where I'd like to see us go is to make sure that the parcels, the properties, the resources that you've identified as being a priority can
somehow help the towns and convincing the state to help the towns get grant money. So, I think having the county cuz let's face it, the counties have played that role over the years. Um, you know, I remember the uh the horse and buggy days where you in order to get a grant, you had to basically get a sign off from the regional planning agency on so many grants. Was it consistent with the regional plan? Was it consistent with this, that, or the other thing? So, there's been a tendency to do that. if we can somehow make it so that a town gets more brownie points and more points for
a land acquisition project because it uh meets a county priority. Um I think that's all to the good. So having said that, Liz, yes. And I'm I don't know. Did you want to say anything, Bob? I should defer to you. Well, you know, um I had an issue that I I did want to raise, but before I do that, I I just want to celebrate um a little bit um and recognize I know Brit Britney Drienzo um is is here, our conservation administrator, and working with the the select board. Um we're just
planning on on closing a wonderful um open space acquisition which is um you know an enlargement of our historic Taylor Bray farm in in Yarmouthport that is just a a wonderful acquisition of property that was specifically threatened with residential development. Um, in fact, it was owned by the local condominium association uh up at Kingsway and um you know in in order to gain the um you know benefit for their residents, they were planning a residential development and
in working with um our team, we were able to um you know attract a $350,000 land grant um and get a a nice um price on this property. And you know, it was very complicated. we had to wind up in the land court and um all all of these issues coming together and and it really helps having um not only a team in place but um to also you know support for local land trusts is critical.
you look at the communities with the strong land trusts, those are the communities that are um really moving forward in doing things and um I I know, you know, we've got a great land trust here in Yarmouth, but to to have more uh types of support, you know, regionally for those land trusts, I think would be um extremely helpful. And um um another great victory that we've had recently again working with the the select board and also our DPW team in water wastewater the
um acquisition of properties on Higgins Crawl Road that was literally subdivided into 10 you know big lots immediately adjacent to the public water supply um wells and by wrapping that property up. Um again, it it turned into a tremendously um complex acquisition as now that we're getting, you know, to the bitter nub, right, of of all of these. Why isn't this property developed yet?
Well, you know, there were tremendous problems with the deed, but um we were able to identify those, work through them. We're in the land court now trying to get the deeds cleared up. But those are some um big big opportunities issues that that we've leveraged and it kind of points to another area that increasingly we see and now Yarmouth is a developed community. We don't have as as much you know percentage that that is not developed. Um yet the needs here,
you could even argue are are more so than in areas that have more rural properties. We're finding that the new frontier for identifying water supply protection, recreational opportunities, open space preservation comes in the form of um redevelopment and undevelopment. Mhm. And um you know, we've been looking at some properties and we've partnered with the Barnstable Land Trust um in looking at a a very interesting piece of property that is straddles the town of Barnstable
and the town of Yarmouth over the Anony's Comequid that had the um you know horrible fire out there. But w with the building gone, you know, we've been working again. Pope Mark's still here, our building commissioner. He's here. He's fighting in the back, giving his hand. His efforts and our fire chief to eliminate the um toxic waste issues associated with that that horrible fire. I mean, it been um unbelievable efforts, but now, you know, we're left with it's about 10 acres of
property that is in a a very very um just exposed um area that is um right, you know, waterfront and you know, what's going to be the future of that property? Are we just going to see it, you know, be more residential development? It's a very iconic spot. um people that you know grew up here in the Cape have all um had that Anony's Koquid spot you know a very central part of just
you know their identity whether it's marriages or parties and things like that and um it's just another example of of a a piece of property that was not open space yet is it is in the one of the most sensitive environmental and you know scenic areas and and how do we continue to identify those opportunities to take advantage of properties that that may have previously been developed but could be undeveloped and and how do we work? You you mentioned um Mark the um
idea of getting a designation with with the state to identify these sites as priorities because the funding we find is um more than when you have just uh pristine open space that is say forested. Um we have paved areas, pavement needs to be removed. We have engineering 21E studies, environmental remediation, all of these things. But if you can navigate this whole labrenthian system and then be able to clear up the title issues, you know, you have some um open space
that's extremely iconic. So I I bring out a a couple of those issues and and I know um our team works on that stuff all the time and um it would be great to you know just do more partnering on that. I think you make go ahead. Yeah, I just want to say I think Bob makes an excellent point that today with open space acquisition, it's more than just buying the land. There usually today there are a host of other issues involved with dealing with an acquisition, particularly if it's one
that is precious and as in some cases historic as that particular site that you just mentioned. No, I think that's that's well stated, Liz. I just want to add that we also uh in Yarmouth are working towards what can we do with the property that was home for Madakis Middle School and the Emmy Small Elementary School and um there's a been a lot of work by a committee that was very friendly named the Madakis Reutilization Committee known as MUK. they've mucked around for years and
um I believe we're going to be looking to the private sector to see if there's any interest in some development and there is concern from some people that this is it is uh um water adjacent to water preservation lands and conservation lands and um and the other issue that raises my concerns is it's also home to one of the larger uh solar installations on the Cape and um to carry
out some of the plans that have been looked at by this committee that would have to be removed and and I worry that we're getting our um economic values confused uh in the in the light of having not enough space to do what we want to do and do we need to then compromise and can the commission and the county guide us through the work that you're doing right now in this in this process
that we're under we've undertaken in Yarmouth with this property the man madakis utilization committee so thank you thank you Liz anybody else on this topic and I'm gonna just call out to shout out to the folks in the audience Britney Christine yes Christine do you want to come up to the podium Uh yes, by all means grab it and just introduce yourself, Christine, so everybody knows who who you are. Christine Marzigleiano from the Armouth Conservation Trust. Uh I have two points. One is
we have the open space uh report and everything. We need in each town to make that there's a segue to the selectman's priorities. If it doesn't make the priority list of the selectmen, perhaps they're not going to move on something for open space. That's one I think. The second thing is in Yarmouth recently there were two parcels of property. Nothing special about them. It wouldn't make the list you know of wetlands or anything else. They were two pieces
of o um upland woods where the neighbors wanted to buy the property. In one case, it was already sold. It was up for sale for 10 years. Once it's sold and somebody wants to put a house on it, the neighbors really can't object to it. I think we have to reach out to the public saying that if there's open space near you that's not part yet you want to purchase, you've got to move on it. Uh the second parcel recently was just happened two weeks ago where
uh the parcel's been opened has been owned by a a family for a hundred years and everybody in the neighborhood wanted to buy it. They came up too late. it got sold uh on the market before it even became you know up for sale and now it's going to be developed. So that there's another avenue that we need to reach out to both both parcels were just upland woods plain pieces of property right
but they were open space and if people want to purchase them they've got to move ahead of time. Thank you. Thank you Christine. Anybody else? All right. What I'd like to do, Britney, come on up. Hi, I'm Britney Duranzo, the conservation administrator for the town of Yarmmouth, and I appreciate this plan very much um that the commission has put together. And I just wanted to um add that I think it would be extremely helpful as part of this program. You know,
the first thing we think about when protecting open space is outright ownership from the town, but is to facilitate those other avenues of protection, permanent protection, temporary protection um for our existing land owners so that they can understand there's options for them to pursue to protect this open space that may even have financial benefits for them in addition to the rest of their community. Thank you. Right. I think that's very important, Britney. Thanks. Yeah, Commissioner Bergstrom. you know, just in the previous comments, yeah, the the ability to move quickly on a piece of property that becomes available is very important and and
you know, to try to put in some kind of process by which local conservation trusts can act, you know, have a have a a uh basically a fund of money supplied to by the town where they can act quickly. It would have to probably go, it couldn't go through town meeting because town meetings only occur once or twice a year. probably would have to go to the approval of the selectman because we're we're responsible to the public. So if we mess up, they have someone to blame. You know, you can't happen to a local committee. But I think the ability to act, the ability to have a
fund dedicated to purchasing even small pieces of property. I go by the Harish Conservation Trust. Every so often you go by a lot and it has a sign there. You know, it's not a big lot, but it's part of the open space. So that's that's important. I think that's something that towns can look at. And another thing is that when you protect open space from development, not only are you providing environmental relief, but you're also taking cars off the road and you're you're preventing the infrastructure from having to be extended that much further. I went
by Route Six where where it narrows down from the two-lane highway to the one lane and it's backed up and here it is May. You know, so the more development we get, not only does it take away from open space, but it adds to existing problems of traffic and water and everything else that we have. If I could just Commissioner Lions, yes, one final thought on this. Um, you know, for and I've talked about this with our administrator here. So, you know, towns are uh sort of tied to development for e income and taxes and property taxes and that sort of thing. But we're at the point where
um you're going to be spending those taxes and protecting these you're going to be putting it out in wastewater treatment plants and you're going to so everything we develop is costing what is the cost benefit and that's where I think we have to look and what do we do when we don't have that economic growth in that way the traditional way we're not 20 miles wide we're not all on bedrock we're not in the middle of the state where we can keep you know pushing out are are um there's not a lot of there's not a lot of room here and the room that we have could potentially cost you know
every time we add we're it's costing us to protect that. So, this is what I think we have to start getting our minds around as municipalities and as a region. Um, what why are we why do we keep doing it, you know, if it's just more and more to protect it or to clean it up what we're doing. So, I think these are things that we have to really take into consideration when these things are before us. And the more you can pursue keeping something um undeveloped, I mean, we're we're
all going to be gone, you know, at some point and there's going to be other people. Do they not have a chance of anything? I mean, there's there are hopefully going to be generations beyond us. Maybe they'll get to see some of the cape as it was if we can kind of put it back together again. And uh I just keep feeling like we're we're all sitting here like we're the the last and we're not and we have to think about those other generations and and what the benefit of this beauty and special place brings to others. So even if they're just visiting which we all did in the beginning and
then fell in love but uh and now we're loving it to death. So um thank you commissioner way. Thank you. Thank you. All right. What I'd like to do is there's another part of Christiey's presentation and it's to get into this conversation about construction disruption assistance. So, let's get into that. Hopefully, Yarmoth is getting some of that. Yeah, you hopefully could use some too. Okay, great. Thank you. Um and so, and first I just wanted to thank you for all of that feedback on our regional open space planning. That's very helpful for us. We're again in the very
early stages and so we look forward to coming back to you um as we proceed through the process. But um as the chairman mentioned, we are working on a construction disruption assistance strategy. And you can see the purpose really is um to provide research and strategies to support our towns and local business community during significant construction projects, primarily wastewater, um to lessen some of those disruptions to business operations and economic hardships. I think we already heard Commissioner Bergstrom this morning identify that there was a major um detour. I think
we've all if you've traversed the Cape at all recently, you've probably encountered um some of these detours and these disruptions. And so we've heard from several of our communities. I know Yarmouth is really taking the lead on this um to I to really we've heard that this is um becoming a a challenge that um we're looking for some resources and some support to work with our communities and our local businesses on. So um if we move to the next slide, you can see here that it's uh we've developed a scope of work. It really is um three different categories here. Doing a needs assessment, um doing some research, and then developing some strategies and recommendations. Um
so the first part is really that needs assessment. And that's really where we'll start um and we've already begun some of this work is really uh looking at um what uh municipal and business stakeholder engagement will be necessary. We want to do some interviews and a survey to really determine what the range of impacts and needs are for our local communities, our local businesses so that we can then summarize all of that and identify what the what the real needs are. And then that gap analysis really what's um what's needed, what's missing, and what um would be able to help our overburden businesses. That um next part here is really doing some research. there are
programs um that are working in other communities not in not only across the Commonwealth but even across the country and beyond. So, we want to see what might be helpful where we could pay potentially use some of those resources here, identify funding sources and programs that are working in other places, some of those beneficiaries um that are able to take advantage of some of these potential funding opportunities. Um and then really kind of pull all this together into um some information that we can share with our communities, with our municipalities so that
they can determine what might be the best approach for the local communities. And then the final piece is on the next side under the strategies and recommendations. Really identifying some of those short-term and long-term strategies to support our towns and businesses. Um really with the key of um mitigating the financial impacts and reducing economic disruption through um possible new programs or programs that might be existing that could be fully or um further resourced. Um so really looking at doing some um research on best practices, models that have worked elsewhere.
um developing a resource guide and then um uh one of the key components here is really a communications toolkit. Um every community seems to be approaching this a little bit differently, but perhaps there's another approach that could be um useful here. So that's something that we'd like to develop and um work with our local communities to see what would be um most useful um for supporting local businesses during these construction phases. Um and then finally really looking at um opportunities to mitigate the financial stress during construction and
um identifying those financial instruments that could potentially help meet some of the capital needs. Um so this is something that uh we have heard would be really valuable would be useful for many of our communities not only now but as we look at long-term infrastructure projects over the course of the next decade. How can we help our communities? So um this is uh very early stages. We're just in this uh scope of work phase but I wanted to highlight it for you. I do know that Yarmmouth has really taken the lead on a lot of this and I think that you know we're looking forward to working with the communities um as as we can identify solutions that might be
helpful. So I think that's my last slide. Yeah, perfect. Okay, great. Great. Thank you Christie. Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. Um a lot of this is plan planning speak. You have to you have to get through it to know exactly what you're saying. Mitigate this and and and you know discuss that. But I mean, we we all understand what the issue is. I mean, in the in the businesses along that stretch of 28 that were closed, they're going to people have a hard time accessing them and they're going to suffer a financial loss. So, what do we do about it? Maybe there's not much that we can
do, but I I I applaud you for looking into this and coming at least some kind of a game plan that we can work on to help them because I mean, it's a short season on Cape Cod. People have to make their money in a short time and and we value those businesses. is they employ people and they support families and and uh my my sympathy goes out to them. I you know you try I'm sure the town of uh Jeff and his his friends have probably tried to limit the amount of the impact of those but you can only do so much you know so yeah I I think it's an issue. Glad you brought it up.
It's great. Commissioner Lions. No I I'm not going to add anything. I could go on and we're getting short on time, but um I do think that you know, if Yamoth took the lead, I can see why because you do have a lot going on and you do have that corridor that's being affected. Um but you know, all of these towns are going through it. I know that we've had backups and wealthy trying to get just a road paved. So, um it does really impact the communities. There's not a lot of places to divert and detour to that are simple. So that's great. Bob, Jeff, anybody from the town of
Yarmouth want to chime in? No, thanks. Feel free to. Yeah, I'm happy to make a couple of comments. Jeff Colby, the public works director. Uh, this is definitely an impactful project for wastewater. I I think it's it's helpful that the commission is is looking at this because it really impacts most communities on Cape Cod, frankly. And we just happen to be very active right now, but there's other communities that be more active kind of going forward. And the other thought is the Yarmouth plan and I think many communities are in the same situation, our 30 or 40year plan. So we have a long-term ahead of us with these types of impacts. We're doing our major commercial corridor
and then then we'll be moving into neighborhoods. So it'll certainly be less impactful. But I think any lessons learned could be helpful to share with other communities and we're also very happy to see if if what we're doing can be improved in any way and I think all these u studies and informations will be helpful in that regard. That's great. I think that's great. Thanks, Joe. This is uh any other comments from our friends in Yarmouth. Oh, yes. Megan, grab that mic. Um I'm glad the county is taking the lead on this. It's it's a regional problem
and Yarmouth has has experienced it in the business front and talking with businesses, it's first and foremost money. They're they're losing money. That's the bottom line. Um, but finding a a good communication plan is going to be key because visitors that go down 28, they don't know what they're not what they don't see. So, they're being detourred around businesses and having a sign that says businesses are open during construction. They're getting detourred around,
but they don't know what those businesses are. So, you don't know what you're missing if you're getting detourred around. Um, so we're happy to help partner with you going through this, but um, thank you for for for taking on this project. That's great. Anybody else? I will just say that you somehow your GPS has picked up on a lot of these detours because I had to go to the RMV, which is always a challenge and, you know, it moved it and then where is it in that mall and uh, but it brought me right into the right place in the back line lanes and Jupiter Lane
brought me right in. So, um, you know, it does help to know the geography of the town a bit, but I trusted what it was saying and yeah, it got me there. So, whoever's logging that in is doing a good job as far as that's concerned, but I knew what I was looking for. As you say, if you go by and say, "Oh, that I want to go in there." You don't know what's there. Very good. Christie, thank you so much for being with us today and these exciting updates. Great work. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, our next item on the agenda is a fascinating one. Uh, uh, the town of
Yarmouth's natural resources department has been working with the friends of Bass River and our county dredge program to figure out creative ways to deal with uh, uh, dredged material uh, stuff that typically gets put up on the beach. They're actually thinking of another creative way to use dredge material. and uh the multifaceted, multi-dimensional Ken Cerillo. Uh he's going to have many titles to his uh to his position. So, I'm going to turn it over to them. Go ahead. I'm
going to turn it over to them to give just sort of a brief update on this uh very creative project that they're working on. Thank you, Mark. Uh my name is Rick Bishop. I'm the executive director for the Friends of Bass River. And if some of you may know, Bass River at 7.1 miles long unites the towns of Barmouth and Dennis. It's a it's the longest river or estuary on Cape Cod by far. Um Fres River is a nonprofit that was established to help protect the water quality of Bass River.
Uh in 2020 we in initiated a upper bass river headwaters restoration project which is 52.7 acres of retired crary bogs two undersized culverts and they'll be replaced with uh a 60 foot wide bridge on northwest road and a 24 foot wide bridge on where road which will reestablish a a fish habitat that's been dormant for maybe a hundred years. But today I I wanted to um to share an urgently needed project I believe the county is uniquely positioned to participate in.
The photo first photo please. Button one, button three, screenshot or windmill. Windmill, please. Can you make that larger for me? Maybe not. Uh if Robin can make Yeah, she if anybody can do it, Robin can. That was good. You had it. So the the um the salt marsh island behind that is Stage Island and coastal systems like Stage Island protect coastal communities and that's really a
critical point. So what you're saying, Rick, is that grassy area behind the windmill that we're looking at. That's correct. That's it's called Stage Island. And I would say that photograph's probably from the late 60s or early '7s. much smaller now. Well, we'll get there in a second, Mark. Okay. What year is this? I would say late 60s or early '7s. When I was a kid and used to fish in Bass, too. Salt marshes have long been recognized as buffers for storm surges, wind generated waves, sea level rise, as well as habitat for many land-based
and water-based species. uh dredge spoils can effectively um restore these salt marshes and it's something we need very definitely. Can you go to uh photograph one please? As you can see it's dramatically different today from from what we had uh 50 years ago. Uh the island is in very very serious uh condition. Uh just this past week, uh the friends of Bass River hired the Center for Coastal Studies to do a um uh confirmation
of existing conditions on Stage Island in help of preparations for permitting a project that would restore that because it is it's so important. Um throughout almost all of Bass River, we have Salt Marsh that needs restoration, but this is obviously the biggest project. It's 20.8 8 acres. Uh, and it will have a significant impact on on the health of our communities, as I said before. So, it's it's something that I've been speaking to Ken about for probably a year now. And, uh, you should know that uh, the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut have
very successfully had what they call thin layer restoration projects in place for 20 25 years. I visited the uh the project in Rhode Island uh this past winter to see exactly how successful this can be. And it's as I said, it's uh Ken and the Barnes County Dredge is uniquely positioned to uh to help us with this. And I think I'll turn it over to Ken now to talk about it. Join push his mic over.
You need help, Ken? Not yet. Okay. Waiting. I joined Robin. Yeah. Don't tell me you're doing a cross word puzzle over there.
Um I'm not sure what request presenter perhaps if there is an option to do so request presenter I'm sharing you're in the zoom link you're on zoom yeah well anyway I'll start So, um, as Rick said, I am the director of the, uh, Barsville County Dredge,
and I just wanted to kind of go through a handful of slides to kind of give you some background. We have been dredging for this is the 30th year that the program has been uh, in existence. So, it's started back in 1996 and here we are 19 2026. 30 years has gone by. Uh, this year right now is the most successful season for us. And I'll kind of show you a slide on that when we get to that. But the main mission that the program has is clearing the sholes in the channel. We've
done a lot of projects in Yarmouth, Bass River, Parker's River primarily are the number one, two, one and two projects that we usually work on. Uh there was been a handful of years where there was a permitting problem or printing de delay uh several years ago where we had to go ahead and do some emergency authorization for that with the former director and and obviously now with Dave as your director of natural resources. We have a great relationship uh with that department. You know, they are the ones that manage all the dredge permitting. Um certainly with the DPW as
well as we kind of move from town to town and take our our equipment with us. Um, one of the things that I think is very important is that, you know, we are trying to look and explore different types of work that we can do. And as Rick mentioned, uh, there's been sort of an increase recently on this Mars restoration, uh, thin layer deposition. Two years ago, the D issued some guidelines to allow for hopefully some permitting that would allow that to be done. Right now, it's not allowed in
Massachusetts. uh many other states south of here very common place to restore drip marshes that have been you know eroded as this is an example most of the other ones are sort of further up uh in the ecosystem up in the river more towards the headarters uh but there's a lot of examples on the Cape that have been identified and hopefully as as these next months go by we'll be able to try to f focus on where the priority projects are but I think the most important takeaway here is that
From the dredges perspective, from the county's perspective, you know, we are ready, willing, and able. Uh the equipment required is a very minimal adjustment. Uh we we broadcast the material onto the marsh. It's it's can use the exact same system except for just some modification on the other end of that. So the for this application, I think the most challenging part of this is that you got some really strong currents that run alongside uh the the uh island here. And that picture shows you how
badly eroded it is from uh what it used to look like. You know, we have dredged here last year right on this western side. Uh the currents are three, five knots strong as we work through this area. Um, I think hopefully the consultants will look at some ways to kind of build up some type of revetment because uh putting material on there, you know, the next set of tides will move it right back out of there again. So, it has to be some way to reinforce uh the island to be able to accept
the material and you really can't put the muck that we'd like to be putting onto these marshes. That is that what we're calling How about we call it that was the other sand. Let's call it sand. can't use muck, but uh you know it would it would have to be some kind of a it would have to be some kind of a mix uh you know a sandy material, not the not the embainment like material which north of the bridge there is quite a bit of that as you know. Um well looks like we might not be getting our presentation. Okay. I think we've got a pretty good idea what you folks are working on. Yeah. Um,
it sounds it sounds like the the work that the friends of Bass River is contracting with the Center for Coastal Studies will give us a better idea of what kind of project we might have and that'll sort of lay out the dimensions. It will probably also tell us what's causing this problem, what is actually what is going on there. We know it's shrinking, it's breaking up. Uh, are those impacts related largely to dredging, boating, pollution, or is mother nature and and have storms
had a real impact on this site? So, we'll have a better idea of what's causing the problem and then what the potential remedy is. You know, Mark, I think you're right on with those points. It's interesting when I first uh discussed this project with the Center for Coastal Studies, the first word they said is the marsh is drowning. So that's that's what's killing off all of it. So this may be an impact of sea level rise. You correct. It's partially Yeah. And storm surge and and boat traffic because all those boat wakes. Uh last year at Children's Beach, we had 250 boats just to
the west of that and we counted over 900 boats on Bass River this year. So it's pretty significant. There are a number of contributing factors. Wow. Now, did you mention that there was a larger study being done and by somebody else to identify other potential projects? Ken, well, at the Cape Coastal conference that we attended last this past month, early in the month, you know, there there was this sort of a lot of interest in marsh restoration projects from the Ottabban Nature Conservancy,
the Webster people in Falmouth. So I think all of a sudden now we've kind of created a little bit of a of a of a following that hopefully will continue because the the material for these embmentsments especially, you know, it it's very costly to dredge that material and put upland disposal or bags or whatever. So if it can be repurposed for marsh work, then you know, you're much better off use it doing that. That's great. Terrific. Yes. Liz, did did you say though, Ken, that that there's regulations against that at this point? Yeah. uh there is not a regulation in place
that allows it in the state of Massachusetts. So to December of 24, the D issued these guidelines and uh the latest update is that's all they've done is to sort of try to accept some comment to see what they should do, how it should work, etc. So you know, I think the first the first permit application will hopefully drive that to become something that becomes a test pilot project or something like that. So it won't prohibit you. It may be the test pilot project. Correct. Yeah. I think we need to find, you know, a few candidates to go ahead and work on the permitting side of
this thing to force the D to move this along as a provisional permit at the least. Right. Excellent. Right. Perhaps the county could be the first. Well, and with in partnership with the town of Yarm and and does Dennis play a role in this, too? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Technically, this island is the town of Dennis, right? But they are very much excited about it. Yes. Okay. This is terrific. This is good. Any questions, anybody? Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. Um, you know, if you get any kind of concession from D to allow this, it's a big ask because normally when it comes
to coastal processes, they they don't believe in any kind of interference at all. You know, I mean, those creeks that go up into that marsh are actually habitat. I know because I've climbed into those creeks in Chadam, you know, and they're they're they're spawning areas for small fish and stuff like that. So, I mean it, you know, you do what's necessary and I I applaud your effort, but you're right. Running the regulatory gamut and and allowing this having the state allow us to do this is the first big hurdle and after that the mechanics of it we can work out later. But,
uh, and also asking yourself how much of a per or even a semi-permanent solution is this going to be? I mean, are we looking at a fiveyear time where we might have to do it again? I mean, have you looked into it all? Any speculation as to how long this would last if we remediated it? I think the Center for Coastal Studies will answer some of these questions for us because that that was the question that I proposed to them. You know, perhaps we need a living shoreline as a way to augment part of this, as a way to deflect some of the the activity around it. It's it's I
think as we've seen throughout the other projects that we've done, you know, I think you have a case here where it's not a matter of if but a matter of when this is going to become non-existent. Right. Right. You know, the town of Wealthy used to have um a an island called Billingsgate that people lived on and that is totally gone. And this is just another challenge for managers and municipalities to factor in um when you're thinking of that property out there that Anony's used to be on is where what's the balance here and what can we protect and how much protection
is that giving us for the rest of the town coming forward. Yeah, I think this is this is part of a discussion that on the board of commissioners we've been having over and over again and and that is to what degree does the dredge program sort of cover other areas like resiliency. So when we're working in a community, are we looking at utilizing that material not just for beach nourishment and extending a beach, but might it be more valuable as material for shoreline
protection, dealing with other sort of resiliency initiatives in a community? So as Yarmouth sort of focuses on some of its resiliency options, you know, we at least want to have more tools in our toolbox to help towns. So this is something potentially that has I think uh it it's not only exciting, but I think it has potential for some additional applications in other communities as we progress. But right now the regulatory framework isn't receptive to it. So,
we're going to be having to work with D. I could Yes. I'm sorry, Ron was, but I just wanted to just a quick question. Getting away from the entrance, what you're doing up in the watershed area is terrific by by allowing the the natural flow of water through previously restricted areas. Really, it cleans up some of the water and it allows Nadraimus fish to move through there and and so we we've done a little bit of that in my town. I know they're doing it wellfleet and trying to trying to open up those areas historically closed and it makes a big environmental benefit. So it does.
But I I just wanted to leave on the note that I would like to see um Cape Cod be um the model for resiliency and not development. Um that we we know how to take care of this. We are working at it and we are a community that are that is collectively good stewards. So thank you. Um, I want to give kudos to the friends of Mass River, Ken and Al also Dave Condan, the natural resources director. They've all worked together to sort of strategize on this. It's been a terrific collaboration
involving the town and these other groups. So, I just want to note that I know Dave had to leave, but uh, we do appreciate his support, his help. So, thank you. Thank you very much for inviting us in. Thank you. You're welcome. The last item that we have on the agenda, we're running up against time. Uh, I'm going to I'm going to suggest uh to my fellow commissioners that we do an incredibly abbreviated discussion of item F, which is a draft report on lottery spending in Barnstable County,
and maybe just touch on it briefly as it relates to Yarmouth because I know Carol had to leave. So, thank you. Carol did have to leave and I I'll cut it down from 110 slides to 47 slides. Oh, yeah. How about Yeah, just how about a couple of quick ones? Super super quick. Um so I think uh first of all, thanks to Bob and and the Yarmouth staff. Uh really appreciate having um having you host us. We learn a lot. I learn a lot as well as the commissioners. But uh but we take that back and use it uh as we do the work of the county. Just a quick point, Michael. Um do
you have a copy of the report draft letter? Our our report. Did they have a copy of the draft? they can have. We want to make sure that you have it. This has been prepared for us, but we wanted to make sure that we had copies for you because this will tell us and showcase um just how much the town of Yarmouth is getting screwed on local aid. So, I'm sorry, did I say that word? Okay, we can we can bleep that out later. Right. Does not appear in the report. Yeah, that's that's mild compared to what our some of our official say. So, um, it's is this is the the commissioners have
been very interested in helping the towns deal with the financial pressures that they're under. Um, and this is an area that we wanted to spend a little bit of time on because this is a problem that has persisted for quite some time. We keep hearing talk on Beacon Hill that uh other towns do very well with their local aid distribution. We know that we're getting underserved, but we really didn't want it. We didn't really have time to put a picture paint the picture in Yarmouth and in other communities on Cape Cut. So this is what this report's all about painting a picture
on how much the Cape is getting shortchanged on state aid. So uh thank you uh commissioner. So the just to give you a very broad overview uh the Massachusetts state lottery uh created 1971. It was a funding mechanism uh when times were particularly tough and and the the legislature was looking for ways to help uh municipalities avoid uh property tax increases. So, it's it is funded through gaming revenue, lottery revenue. Um it takes a little bit a little slice out of
uh actual gaming uh casino uh revenues uh and then combines it all and gives us unrestricted uh local government aid or unrestricted general government aid. I guess it's now called. So the paradox for Cape Cod communities is that we uh we spend collectively all 15 towns on the Cape spend 216 a little over $216 million in annual uh lottery sales. Uh collectively we get back a little over $13 million in unrestricted general government aid. That's a return of about six a little over
6%. Which is fairly anemic and I'll get to that in just a sec. So we see some structural bias. Um the the lottery uses a 1991 baseline uh and then uh uses weighted property valuations and population to determine to determine the distribution of uh aid. So just very quick on the on the law, the law lottery law basically says that uh at least 45% of the uh revenues will be doled out
as prizes. Um in Massachusetts, whether good or bad uh a policy decision was made and that that uh percentage is about 70% of lottery revenues um are then turned around and distributed as prize money. Um, in terms of operations, just managing the lottery system. The law allows no more than 15% of the revenues to be used for uh for operational expenses. Um, and the good thing is the lottery actually uses just a little over 2% of the revenues for
administration. That's pretty good. And then the remainder is set to be distributed to the towns uh through unrestricted government aid. Um, I will skip that one. So just to give you an idea of the return ratio of each of the towns on the Cape uh varies from uh 3 point something up to one there's a oneoff um and that's Truro. We do have a little more research to do to see why Truro gets uh 54% but the all the rest of us uh definitely um uh under underperforming in terms of money coming
back to us. Okay. What it translates to Um, so the Cape Cod disadvantage, as I said, 216 million uh going up to Boston, only about uh 13 million coming back to us. Uh that's about six a little over six cents per dollar um coming back to us. Um and you know, the high volume uh retail quarters, Barnstable and Yarmouth, uh together combined for 85 million, they get less than 5% uh return. So,
as I pointed out, the equalized property valuation formula is rooted back in the 1980s. Um, it's uh an inverse relationship. So, so the higher the uh the amount of equalized valuation, the less uh the formula will allow us uh to to uh get back to the cape. So, the the problems are uh there's a wealth illusion. Um you know the the state thinks that high property values uh equates to high high earning um and that is not the case as we all know. Um the Cape Cod
year-round working population uh regularly reports median income that's below the state average. Um we've got a tourism infrastructure burden. Um we we uh created infrastructure as you well know uh as you're putting in sewer uh sewer mains and distribution or collection systems um that there's quite a capital investment there. The lottery uh calculation doesn't account for for that uh
at all. And then I pointed out uh before we've got sort of a frozen bias uh frozen base bias so that the base that was established in 1991 um through through the Massachusetts general laws uh still exists without without room for uh adjustments there. So if there's a percentage increase in distribution, it's across the board. uh there's no accounting for increase in population, increase in capital expenses that that we all know uh have occurred uh mostly around sewering,
water uh infrastructure. Um so some of the very preliminary uh um things that we'd like to see a minimum floor allocation. So if a town uh sends up, you know, a certain uh amount of money, we should see a percentage of that as a floor coming back. And uh we think that that would be a fair distribution. Uh we think there's room for more uh multivariable indexing instead of just the static population and the static uh uh um values. Um and we think that there should be some dedicated
regional infrastructure offsets which would allow um you know towns that have heavy um capital investments in infrastructure uh to receive a bump in their their local aid distributions. Um anyway, that's a rehash of what I've already talked about. Um and that's it. Uh but I would like to say that um you know, we're midway as as I think um Robin uh gave out a copy of of the report. We're midway through it. There's more work to be done and you know, with the
commissioner's consent, we'd like to proceed and and really uh drill down some more. Carol Capola who who had to leave was really instrumental in uh in making sure we had the data that that we could uh the data data needed to put together the report that we uh see today. But we there's more to do. Um and we appreciate that. And the last thing I'll say that local aid, just so folks know, local aid does not uh contribute at all to the county uh revenue stream. Uh but it does contribute a fair
amount to to all 15 towns uh on the Cape. So with that, I will turn it back over. Thank you. Yeah, this is this is a chance to get a first crack at our work on this because we do think that it will be helpful in our advocacy change local aid for all of our Cape communities. So the the reason why this is in draft form is that we want input from managers. This will become a a discussion item at your next Cape Islands managers meeting, I'm sure. And uh we're interested also in any feedback,
particularly as it relates to advocacy, things that we should do. There is one thing, however, that you should be aware of. We've been we've heard from Senator Fernandez's office. Dylan Fernandez has actually been successful in getting an amendment to the Senate budget, the Senate FY27 budget that has language calling for a commission to sort of redo the formula. And what he's seek he's going to be seeking our collective efforts to insist that the House have the same language.
So, we're going to take this up in in a much greater detail at our next commissioner meeting, but we wanted to at least make you aware of what we're up to and what we're trying to do. As you can see when you look at the report, uh, all these Cape Towns, um, Yarmouth is really it it generates $33 million in lottery sale revenue, but only gets back 1.5 million roughly. And that's been pretty much the trend for a while, right, Bob? It's amazing. And if I can add, I I
just want to say from a preliminary standpoint, it's a very excellent piece of work, Michael. I I think you've nailed the issues that we've dealt with for generations um completely. And the idea that property value is wealth, it's not. We're one of the lowest income communities in the Commonwealth. And you know, to have that mistaken assumption that we're all wealthy down here, uh that is a travesty that the aid is distributed based on property value and not income. That's the
most regressive form um you could possibly do. And and the other thing that I I just wanted to say, it's always been I mean, we've failed repeatedly on getting the legislature to address this item, but the the one thing that should have been done um and I I think could much more easily be accomplished is to just set some circuit breaker level so there is a minimum floor for the state aid because it's really um ridiculous. the the the last point that you you know you might take
a peek at for the final draft of of the report. Um don't forget that the the cherry sheet, right, is the old one that used to come in pink, right, with the with the green sheet and your your state aid is actually on the the green sheet and the cherry sheet are are the state charges. And when you see all of this aid distributed based on the the property value not having income, we actually have a net that's about zero. And in some of the communities um are negative. So there
there's no uh discount on the cherry sheet charges yet without having the aid to support them. There are communities on Cape Cod that get zero net aid or negative net aid. And so I I think, you know, I I really appreciate um having this work um regionally. We struggle with this um every year. We can't even balance our budgets at this point in 2027 without overrides. And a big reason is the failure to distribute revenues equitably, you know, that that are based on,
you know, these collection methods that we do not have access to at the local level. I think that's commissioner commission. You know, this has been an issue for as long as I can remember is the distribution of of of state aid. So you have the the the basic let's put it down to the basic problem we have. You know all the statistics you want, but if there's a limited amount of state aid and we get more of that limited amount, that means everybody else is going to get less. Okay? which means that our delegation is going to have to convince all the other senators and
representatives in the entire state to vote on something which is going to provide less income for their towns. Now, I'm not saying that that's they should do that. I'm saying let's let's talk about what the obstacle is that we're in what we're trying to accomplish. A minimum was a good is a good idea. Give everybody certain minimum. But I mean, I'm just I'm just saying, haven't I heard this argument before? Haven't I seen these statistics before? Haven't we talked about how we don't get the money back? We have. Question is, what are we going to do about it? Do we really believe that we can convince the state legislature, vast majority of them, to accept less
in state aid so that we can have more? If you can do that, I'll be right there with you. Believe me, I'll be I'll I'll pound. Okay. Well, we're going to need we're going to we're going to lead the charge, Commissioner. Okay. I just Commissioner Lions I just um I I'm glad that we're going to talk about this again. I know that you'll bring it before the municipal association and the managers association. Uh I think it would be nice if we and I know it's a busy time, but maybe we could get Senator Fernandez to come and speak to us about his bill, how he sees this and um we'll keep you
all in in tuned, invited if you we're always on Zoom, so you'd be able to ask questions of him uh while we have that. That's great. We'll get him. So, um thanks for this mini presentation. Yeah, sounds like we're ready there. Yeah. Now, um, unless there's any other comment, what I'm going to just sort of let everybody know is we have, this sort of ends the sort of more interesting portion of our agenda. We have what I would call Yeah. meaning you folks, the stuff that
you're interested and we're interested in talking to you about. The next section of our agenda deals with consent agenda items that are fairly routine commissioner's business. So you are you've given been incredibly generous with your time. You are free to go. We will not feel insulted or feel bad in any way. Um and that goes for the audience as well. Um it's all being recorded. Yeah. Or the or the public as well. But if I can add, you know, while you while you have the agenda, if you do look at the consent agenda, it does also, you know, highlight money that we are able to secure
and bring in. And there's a lot of things that the county does that we don't really talk about in depth. So now you have it, but you're welcome to stick around. I just want to make sure that before everybody goes, we give a big shout out to the town of Yarmouth and folks here at Town Hall. Bob, thank you. Thanks Paul Shia and Lorie Sullivan, the communications team. Appreciate your help and supporting us. Thank you. And appreciate all the department heads for participating in this conversation. It's wonderful to have you here with us. Uh we've enjoyed every minute of it. And
uh we'll be back again in another year and a half. Um yeah, it takes us about a year and takes us about 14 15 months to get through uh all of the towns every month. So the kingdoms, but you can you always know how to find us. So thank you once again for all all your help and all your support with this meeting. It's been good. It's been productive. Have a wonderful summer. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Um we're going to head on to the next item here. Okay. Um, and uh, new business.
I'm going to pass over that because we don't have any new business, do we? No. No. Okay. Uh, commissioner's consent agenda. I'm going to ask Commissioner Bergstrom to read the first motion. Okay. Um, I move to approve the commissioner's consent agenda items um, items 8A and 8B as listed on the May 27, 2026 meeting agenda. And I will second that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Commissioner Lions, you abstain. Correct.
I abstain. Okay. Okay. I heard you abstain. Yes. Okay. I move to my page too quickly. Can you do the next motion, Commissioner Berg? I move to approve the commissioner's consent agenda items 8 item 8C as listed on the May 27, 2026 meeting agenda. And I will second. Okay. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Commissioner Forest abstains. Okay. Can you read the next one? I move to approve commissioner's consent agenda items 8D through 8 S as listed
on the May 27th, 2026 meeting agenda. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Carries unanimously. So, and if anybody in the audience or anybody in the public would like to read the items that we just deliberated on and acted on, um it's right on the agenda here on the table or it's posted on our website. Um we are going to go on to the next item, item nine. Um Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the May 13, 2026 regular meeting minutes as drafted. Thank um second. Okay,
so we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I proposed carries unanimously. Commissioner reports. Commissioner Bergstrom. I have nothing right now. No, I I am not going to. Okay. And I will uh I will hold off on that as well. Upcoming business. Commissioner. Yes. Yeah. I I recently uh was informed that the state of Massachusetts under the Healey administration was going to extend $25,000 as a down payment uh as a no interest
loan as as a down payment on people who are trying to people of certain uh income levels who are trying to access affordable housing and it was a limited program and it it has a a window. So, I made a preliminary request from the u the the human services department to find out what information they could about it with the idea that the county might be interested in having a similar program. I don't want to go any further in asking any more information without bringing it before
the board before I ask the already belleagleered staff to go for, but I'm not asking you to support it. I'm just wondering if we could put it on the agenda and discuss it as a as a future agenda item. Future agenda item. That's right. No. Unless there's an objection, let's proceed. Thank you. Anything else? Any other Okay, that's an upcoming business item. Any other upcoming business item? No. Okay. County administrator and staff reports. Uh nothing uh right now. Thank you. Okay. And uh that only leaves us with uh Mr. Chair, I move that we adjourn at um one at a
uh at 12:47 p.m. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. It carries unanimously. Thank you everybody. Recording stopped. Robin, thank you for all of your help. And uh Ken, thank you for being here for being here. Vera, always see everybody. And Harris.