Thank you for being here. Uh my name is Mark Forest. I'm chairman of the the board of county commissioners. We're excited to be in East Ham and uh it's exciting to be here with our quorum commissioner Lions and Commissioner Burkstrom. Um before we get into the agenda, I have to just read some preliminary stuff here. So um this meeting of the regional uh commissioners will be conducted in accordance with applicable laws. Members of the public are
invited to attend in person or may view the meeting via a live broadcast on our county YouTube channel or our website kapecod.gov. So our meeting uh is being called to order. What I'd like you to do is uh join us in a pledge of allegiance. And I need someone to point out where I know we have flags in front of us. It's right behind us. Okay. Please join us in a pledge of alge 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. And uh now I'm going to ask everyone to join us in a moment of silence uh to reflect on the bravery and the sacrifices of all those who have put on their lives on the line in service to our country protecting our safety, our freedom and our democracy. Thank you. Uh before I get to the next item on the agenda, which is public comment,
and for those who may want to speak, I'm going to direct folks to the podium. Um I just like to give at least just a brief explanation as to why we're here. Um the board made the decision last year that when we begin the new year, we'd like to get out on the road and and really get engaged in more direct conversations uh with our local officials and come out to the towns and engage in a dialogue and a discussion so that we can better understand some of the issues that you're wrestling with and
that you can tell us maybe where we can do a better job, where we can improve, the kinds of things that really you're you care Um, so we've this is this is our third town, but we we were snowed out of our last stop. So we were supposed to be in Barnstable for our last meeting. So the the blizzard took care of that. So we just skipped over Barnstable. We'll deal with them later. And we're happy to be here uh in in in the town of East. And um what I'd like to do is uh acknowledge
we have the presence of the chairman of the board of selectmen and the town administrator. Um and in a moment I'm going to invite you both to come up and join us at the table so we can begin at least a conversation and then you can stay with us while we go through at least the two initial presentations that we have for for today. And um and and I don't want to get too formal. So, um, we we should have a good a a good conversation. So, are is there anybody here who would like to make a public comment or statements? Well, that's pretty easy. I'm surprised being east
that I don't have anybody really. This is a first. You should make a note of that in the record. Um, all right. So, the next the next item on our agenda is an update and a discussion with the town manager and members of the select board. And uh Jerry, come on up. Uh Jackie, come on up. And uh I'm going to ask you for the record to state your full names. And uh and I'm going to I'll kick things off. Having my back, Tim. I know you want to have them. You want to sit on the edge? Yeah,
we can prefer that. Sorry. No, what's going to happen is once the presentation gets going, I'm going to ask you to flip your pairs around so we can you can hang with us and watch the presentation. I move over here. No, no, you're good. You're good. That's great. So, um, I won't I won't. I promise. Well, I can just say that it's a pleasant surprise to see Jackie here. I've I've I've known you and worked with you for a long, long time. and uh the town of East Tam is going to face a huge loss with you retiring later on in June. So, we're lucky to have you for the meeting
here. We're we really appreciate all your hard work on this town. Thanks. And you've done a great job. And uh we're going to miss you. I'm going to miss you all too. I really am. Sincerely. I know. So, so we're lucky this is one of as you hit the home stretch, this is one of your last sort of opportunities to engage with us and uh we're going to miss you. And I bring Rich's regards. Rich Benu is our going to be our new town manager. Um my last day is going to be June 10th. He'll be starting then. We've I've had the great fortune and so you Mark of working with Rich for the past
six years. You've known him longer. Um he's going to be phenomenal to I think we're hoping it's a seamless transition. Well, we broke him in in Yarmouth and we gave him a lot to do and he was terrific. He was we were so sad to see him leave us, but he's he's coming over the community and uh it it's it he he'll do a great job. He will. He will. And you mentioned Jerry Sarasel. He's the chairman of our select board. Um we also have Terry Gallagher, East Ham rep from the assembly
and Mary Kne who's the chairman of our zoning task force. So, a couple of other and some staffing broken and that's great. And I understand we have members of the climate is it the climate change committee collaborative. Yeah, that's great. So, um we'll have a chance to have a have more of a conversation with you folks. Let me get to that identity item. So, um in in our travels around the towns, the the message that we're hearing from most of our communities is how challenging it is financially. Yes. All right. declines in state aid, changes at the federal level, it's all sort
of trickling down to us. Um, in virtually every community, we're seeing communities wrestling with overrides. Yes. And trying to find ways to stretch a dollar. Isn't that a fairly safe statement? Um, so I'm assuming East Ham will probably have an override. Can you give us sort of just a brief assessment of how things are going financially, how things are looking for the budget, and how you're surviving? Well, I think overall things are going well financially because we've planned ahead and we're we feel ready. However, Eastam is in the unfortunate position of playing
catchup where we have 10 years ago we embarked on a $130 million water system and last year we approved $170 million wastewater system. So, we're moving ahead quickly, but it is really challenging for taxpayers because we've added water and wastewater debt. Um, Rich Benvvenu, as you know, is a brilliant finance person and he's worked out our our wastewater debt, so it should not
be as painful as water, but that adds this level. This year, uh, we are facing three overrides. One is a general override just to keep level services. Um, and Eastam likes to do a level service budget as opposed to a uh percentage budget. We want to if people have voted for services and they they enjoy the services they have and they want to keep them, that's what we're funding. Got it. So, um, we have a a small override for that. We have a small override for the schools,
mostly the elementary school, but I think a little bit of NSET is in that too. And then we have a an an override, a larger override for our three-year union contracts with employees. And that's um we love our employees. They're phenomenal. We've obviously done an awful lot in the last 10 years. and they've been, you know, we have to keep capacity in order to do those things, right? But it right now the, you know, the um labor market in the lower in outer Cape is especially challenging
as it is all over Cape Cod, but more so for us. And so those contracts are are contracts. So we need to fund them. They're an overrun. Yeah. Uh, one of the things I'd like to point out is, um, for for my fellow commissioners, is that there's been some discussions involving myself, Jackie, Rich, the town of the county administrator, um, about how we can as a region do a better job in meeting some of the staffing needs on on the on the outer Cape and the lower Cape. Um,
particularly in this part of the world. Um, this has been a fairly regular conversation with Rich Biendon about the need to find ways to collaborate, work together, particularly to support staffing. Um, when I was in the manager's office in Provincetown back in the the horse and buggy days, um, we were we were talking about sharing services for building inspectors, right? We were talking about how can we show services for health inspection. The good thing was that we had the county to rely on for regional for health inspection services. So if we needed help,
if there was a loss in a position, we're having trouble hiring somebody, the county was there to provide a backs stop for that. So I know there discussions that have been going on in this area. And um you know, I I I'm I'm looking forward to seeing the pace of those pick up. Did you want to jump in here, Jerry? Yeah, I I think it's important to look at work working together with other towns in the sense it may not you have the political issue if you wanted to combine police,
fire or whatever that this is really this is east hands and so forth, but if you work with a building inspector or health or try and see if you can can get anything that behind the scenes, not with a name in front of it, I I think that's a way way to start as we look at this. One of the things that I mean Jackie raised the issue of our our employees and keeping the team together. One of the things that happens out here is if you have a vacancy, you tend to be in competition
with your neighbors for for the same person. And that's a problem that that we not just east faces, but all of us on the arcade face. And so anything we can do to try and and work together on that uh that helps. And one of the things that Jack talked about the the the school override that we're going to have to have a lot of our elementary school off you know how it works. We have a regional school basic basically a but from grade six up and kind of a mixture on the elementary schools
but each town has its own. We really have been hit at East Ham with special needs costs, especially the cost of sending, you know, we morally and legally have to educate them. But off the Cape is is a significant increase. And I don't know if there's any way, and I'm I'm sure that we're not the only town. And it may be this year we're really hit and another year we're not, but we may not be the only town. Is there any way to look at from a countywide, you know, it should be I view
this should be the state, but from a countywide issue to of any help looking at that kind of special needs program because I think that's got that hits, you know, East Tam, it hits us hard, but I can't imagine that we're unique. Not at all. Commissioner B. Yeah. You know, when you're when you anticipate some unexpected expenses that you can't deal with, the first thing you do is take out insurance. And insurance spreads the cost over a bunch of people. You may have special needs students more than you expected, but the next town over doesn't and so on. So,
I absolutely agree with you. It's a broader issue that has to be dealt with by the towns. It should be dealt with by the state. It's unfair for a school committee or selectman to come up with a budget, not knowing yeartoear what your expenses are going to be. You're under the constraints of Proposition 2 and a half. So I think it's long overdue that the state didn't take, you know, some measure to control the cost of need students to the individual towns. you know about for years,
you know, and and I certainly agree that all students should be educated up to their their abilities, but it's unfair that one town would get hit hard and next town wouldn't. So, as far as countywide goes, look, we can look at that, but it really is some station. Yeah, Jackie and Commissioner, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Um, I just wanted to circle back to the regionalization issue or or you know, as Rich and I keep talking about it, shared services doesn't necessarily need to be a formal regional move, but shared services. Yeah. And I honestly I think we would welcome the
county's um leadership in in that area because I think you had more of a neutral tone to it whereas some sometimes when it's town to town trying to do it it the political overtones as Jerry said get too much. Um I have firsthand experience. You can tell us some stories. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that commissioner lines. uh just as far as the schools are concerned, I I agree and listening and
and participating in some of the regional meetings that we've been having looking at the budget, you know, I did, you know, hear the superintendent, you know, there school choice is a burden. It works in the in Boston. I mean, I'm not saying school choice is a bad thing, especially I mean, we fund our schools wrong, let's put it that way. But um it is uh you know he's saying you have these schools every one of them is pretty similar. You know they're they're good schools. They offer a lot but this person works up here or and they want their kid there. They can get closer to where
they are and it doesn't always work budget-wise. So I agree there has to be there should be another look at that. But I attended a uh mass works um retreat this past week and uh the super uh the principal of Cape Cod Tech, Fenton, Mr. Fenton, um I think that's his name. Am I right? Um he was saying how one of the because I was there to talk about s about educating I mean we have these young
people. How are we going to keep our what are the jobs? There is a lot of jobs in government and they pay very very well and if you have an accounting degree or a building inspector or um you know DPW whatever your passion is even environmental services why aren't we bringing this into the high schools bringing it into the um and he said that he had just received a call from one of the fire departments saying that they needed administrative help is there people being educated in town administration So, I thought that, you know, since he brought it up,
I jumped right on it. But I do think there's a way. I mean, we have to get that word out, but we also have to get people to realize these are good professions. And if we brought people, if high school started this, remember stenography and being in high school. And so, if we brought we brought um if we brought these opportunities and then mentored these kids within our town, you know, even outright out of high school and helped them along there. There could be a way we could figure this out, I think. But there should be on those lowhanging fruit of inspectional services,
health department, you know, I'm with the town. I'm on the board of Wellfleet and we've just hired a health agent and but all of these people need to be brought up to, you know, up to snuff and what's happening and you're always helpful. This town is always helpful with both feet, but there's there are these challenges that we're all going through, right? Yeah. Just just in a way regionalization, the county did a feasible feasibility study on a um organic waste um a composting facility at the
base. You know, I was like obviously we always talked about the tipping fees. You know, we already talked about how some of these landfills are being closed and you anticipate the expense to go up and you know, it is estimated that 30% of the waist stream could be composted. So, if indeed this comes to fruition, um that will save the town's money in the long run. Now I just it's a big issue big issue but it's just one of the ways that I want you to be aware that we and administrator are looking at how lower the regionalization can lower
the expenses. I want to get back to your point Jerry about the education special education. Um, one of the things that we worked on before Michael Dutton came on as our administrator is we did we did a study on behavioral health services. All right, we received some funding. We're able to get a grant. We brought the towns together. We identified an area of need and then we've helped facilitate efforts by the towns to secure funds to hire the appropriate personnel to help address
that problem. Um I I think that's one one of many things that we can do in this topic. I think if there can be an ongoing dialogue with the administrators to identify a service area, make sure that we're clear on what the the need is. We may need to bring in some outside grant money or some expertise. focus on the need, understand some detail, have a consensus on what the needs are on a particular area. Even as it relates to school related services, because
the schools are getting hit hard, particularly in some of these special needs areas, you're looking at consistently communities having to hire. I mean, I'm amazed actually the growth and the expenditures and all the some of these special services that towns need. There may be ways that we can creatively help provide support to that. We did it with like I said with behavioral health. I know the at the end result of all that and after the studies were done monies were raised. Grant
funds did come in and we found creative ways to put personnel you know around the cave to address that that would be excellent. the the biggest expense in this on the special needs side single things is when you have to transport a child off Cape to to get the services that child needs because there's not available on I don't know if you looked at it is there a way to you could cut down at least the transportation costs and the time that travel is a lot of time to the RTA
they if they do I mean it's something to look out in the future they have yes this is this is usually the number one item on the gripe list with the state reps when they come in and the state senators all right I I honestly think because if you're following the debates on Beacon Hill right now on Beacon Hill this is exactly what they're do there this issue is what they're getting the reps and senators are getting hammered on all right is special ed costs transportation costs. If you look at the overall amount of aid, it's actually either
level or going down in many of these categories when our costs are going up significantly. So, I'm happy to continue this work on it, but they need to hear about it loudly and clearly because um I just read a letter that was submitted to um the legislative leadership. It was a letter um organized by educators around the Commonwealth. I think there were like over 2,000 signitories demanding help. All right, this was directed to the leadership on Beacon Hill demanding help in
precisely these areas. Okay, so you're not alone in this with this complaint, but I'm just letting you know that there's a there's a all the cannon fire has been aimed at Beacon Hill on it and uh I think to some degree maybe we can help aim some more fire on Beacon Hill on that issue. It just changed something. just keep up your work. I know we're here with the climate act climate action committee and what the county has done to help us looking at those environmental things has
been phenomenal. It is, you know, you've really helped Eastam move forward uh with both expertise and with finances to help reduce our cost. So, I wanted to say thanks on that. Great. And to follow up, I think East Ham has benefited in the last 10 years so so much by a collaboration with the commission and how much work the commission has helped us with just the support that we get for
new ideas for zoning changes for we've done a lot of work and the commission has been really such a helpful partner in that. Um that definitely shed that's a great segue. That's terrific. So is that is that I think I'm getting the hint that it's time to move. It's time to move on to the next not necessarily, but we we have there's more to come. First first of all, I appreciate your comments about the commission. Yeah. Um I think one of the I I used to serve on the old the former Cape
Cod Planning and Economic Development Commission, which gives you an idea of how old I like I said wasn't buggy days. You didn't even know what that is. question. You read about it in the book. Um, but when it was exclusively a regional planning agency, um, you know, it didn't have the the sort of the regulatory arm that sometimes people struggle with. All right, that's that's that's that's the part of the commission where you're saying no or you can't or right. Um, and so back in those days, it was always coming up with studies, doing reports, providing, doing
all doing all the good things. All right? And I'm not suggesting they they do a lot of good things, but sometimes we tend to focus on the regulatory side, but there are a lot of other good things that are that are great technical support. And I think this is a good segue to ask Christie to come up and let's see if we can begin um our presentations with the commission. So come on up, Christie, and I'm going to let you decide when to bring up Steve and how you want to proceed, but come on up. Did we go around? Yeah, join us for as long for as long as you can. Goodbye. My
my main job this evening is what on the select board was to find try and find a replacement for Jack. We're going to miss her. We know there is no replacement. There's no replacement. Exactly. I I we can make a motion to that. Okay, fellow commission. I'll second. Okay. Thanks, Jerry. Great. Good morning. Is this an okay place to stand on? Yes. All right. Great. Perfect. So, um, as you already introduced, Mark, I'm Christy Senator. I'm the executive director of the Cape Cod Commission. This is a great opportunity to talk about our collaborations with Eastam and
we're really pleased to be here this morning, not only to talk about our climate action planning work, but also some water quality efforts that have been ongoing in the East Ham. So, um, as many of you know, uh, a few years back, we completed the first ever climate action plan for our region. This included a number of key recommendations to address climate adaptation mitigation and it also included providing a number of resources and technical support that can be applied locally to address um adaptation and mitigation. So we are um as I mentioned
very pleased to be working collaboratively with the town of East Ham to really develop a draft climate action plan for the town. Um we have also developed several resources for our communities to use. including a municipal a municipal action um toolkit. This provides model bylaws, strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and guidance for local implementation. Um we have a coastal planner, our Capecler tool, which is another resource. This is a mapping application, decision support tool that um is really used to visualize coastal hazards. Um it can help us to
assess vulnerable infrastructure and evaluate some of those adaptation strategies. Um, we've also developed a model coastal resilience bylaw. We and updated wetlands regulations for flood protection. And these are part of some of those more regulatory tools that we've developed. Um, and so along with our multihazard mitigation planning technical assistance that we provide to our communities, um, we're also looking to expand our planning work into other um, disaster resiliency planning. So, we know the intensity and the frequency of significant storms
and climate related events that we're seeing is only increasing in our region is incredibly vulnerable. Um, so we're very pleased to see the town of East Ham leading the way on a lot of these local climate action planning um efforts. um we have some other towns across the region moving in a similar direction and we're hoping to see all of our towns across the region um taking this initiative over the co course of the coming months and years. Um so I want to thank not only the town of Easttown but all of the stakeholders that have been engaged in this work and then our team
at the commission who've spent uh an incredible amount of time really working to make sure that our resources and technical support are used in the right way. Um so with that I'd like to thank Steve Tupper who's our deputy director at the commission who's really been taking the lead on this project and he has a number of slides to share um so we can talk in more depth about the work that we've been doing here and um happy to answer questions after that. Thanks Christie.
Thank you Christie for the introduction and thank you for the welcome to be able to join today and talk about this project we've been doing about a year now. very happy to be sharing it with this group. Um so I'll kick it off um from where Christie left off in terms of the regional plan. Um when we put out the regional plan, we knew it put a lot of work on the shoulders of the towns. Um so we've been working in a number of different projects since the release of this plan, working on specific initiatives. Um but we're very happy when the town of East Ham administration reached out and asked for some support specifically on developing the climate action plan aligned with some available resources and the desire to think about resources for all
15 towns. So really thought of this as a great opportunity to pilot some work in Eastamp. Um so I'll give a little walkthrough on what we've been doing in the development of the plan. Um share some of the contents of the draft plan. Um and did want to highlight we will next be presenting this to the East Cam select board before it goes final. So what we're presenting today is draft. We'll still certainly work with the select board on those details but happy to come here for the update at this point. So I did want to highlight the fact that there was a lot going on. First, I'll jump into why I develop a climate action plan. Um, so certainly I want to be
clear that we don't feel like every town needs to develop exactly what we're presenting today. What we developed for East Ham was what East Ham asked for this well into other planning efforts and they felt like this was an important tool to be able to strategically think about climate investments. There's great discussion this morning about the lack of funding across the board. So, it's really important to be strategic in the climate space and this plan will help do that. And also um one of the other things to highlight here, they'll help go after additional resources at the state and federal level. Um certainly availability of funding es and flows, but I would
say across the board if there's a demonstrated um activity to get consensus in a community and a really clear objective in a plan, it always helps when we're going after those resources and particularly when communities can come together and make shared asks for resources. So on the slide here, you'll see a few other things things that are important here. Um I'll touch a little bit on communication and coordination as we get forward but did want to highlight this will be an important tool in the uh in the context of all the other great planning work going along in the town of East Camp. So I do talk want to talk a little bit about the process of developing the plan and
here highlights some of the underlying resources that fed into this process. So on the lefth hand side were some of the things that the commission had developed. These were resources we used um to support the development of this eastamp climate action plan. On the right, I want to highlight that there's a lot of specific work done in East Tam leading up. Um there was a greenhouse gas inventory that we supported the town on developing. There was a climate action survey that occurred before the start of this plan and we were able to tie this very specifically into the strategic plan um for East Ham um for able to think about how resources would be associated
with this plan on the back end and a number of other related planning activities as well. I wanted to show those in a timeline to to be clear that there's been a lot going on in East Tam in the climate space for a number of years. So on the slide here are a couple of key um dates along the time frame here going back um more than 15 years in terms of specific plans and actions taken by the town of East Ham in terms of climate action. These are all getting towards some goals in terms of improving resil resiliency for the community in very specific ways. Um so just want to be clear that this effort builds on all of those things. Um so we've coming in with the
knowledge that there have been a lot of great resiliency planning activities. There's a look at low-lying roads. There have been um specific actions like a fuel efficient vehicle policy. So these things are all um things that fed into the climate action planning process were able to be used as context to develop this more wide ranging climate plan. Um so how did we go about developing this plan? So I talked about initially is really that first phase. I want to take stock of everything that have been done already. Again, a lot of great resources going into it. What we really spent most of the staff time on this um was that second phase, gathering new information,
having communications about all municipal departments that touch this topic and a lot of community engagement that I'll talk touch on later. And really the hardest part in any of these planning process is pulling that all plan. You'll see um a relatively tight plan presenting a whole host of information that we collected throughout that process. really trying to boil it down to something more actionable to give you a sense of the time it takes for a plan of this. So, we kicked off roughly a year ago um with a staff kickoff actually in this room. Got great representation from administration down through departments including the select
board chair who was there at that kickoff meeting. So, we really saw a lot of great support um through the uh from the town on that kickoff. Um and that really kicked off the town um town side of those conversations. We had direct municipal interviews um with all of the staff that would interact with climate one way or another. Launched into community engagement that I'll talk about in more detail and then it took time to develop the plan. We u with the town released the draft plan earlier this calendar year was up for a 30-day public comment period. Again, we'll be going to the select board with that draft plan for them to review along with the public comments
before finalizing the plan. Um so roughly one-year time frame. This is a fairly in-depth planning activity. didn't want to spend most of the time talking about community engagement. Again, that was a focus um because it was important as we understood from town stat and relevant committees that I'll touch on in a little bit. Um so certainly a lot of time in those municipal interviews um I think that there are some um departments that everyone obviously associates with climate, those frontline departments that are dealing with the disasters related to climate emergency services, DPW, but really we talked to many different departments and I also want to
highlight many committees in town that somehow interact with it. So each of the committees, whether it be related to zoning, um whether it be conservation, whether it be planning, they all certainly have a role in implementing a plan. So we had direct conversations with each of those um committees and town departments. Um we also expanded to Temp to talk about talk with others that were interested in the topic including the schools. Um we work we work um both with the high school green club. Had great conversation with them. They had a lot of creative ideas. Um we did a specific project with the middle school on this. They had some interesting ideas as well. It's
really great to see the different ideas as you get to different age groups and so um appreciate the support of both those schools in this and also found other opportunities for conversations as well. Um I'll touch on the focus um groups a little bit here. There are some um groups that we know are tough to get up to public meetings and popups. We made some dedicated efforts to reach those groups. One I'll highlight in particular is a business focus group. Um we know they're really important in all communities but certainly east and we want to make sure we reached out to them. were able to find a business that was able actually to host that focus group, work through
the business network to bring together that group. Really some interesting perspectives and really um they wanted to understand if there's anything done on the town side, how does this affect the businesses? I want to make sure they are part of that conversation. So I really enjoyed that conversation. Um I'll talk touch on popups and workshops in a minute with some pictures. I think that's the best way um to explain those. And then on the right hand side are just some of the other things that typically go along with this. We have a project website. to certain everything that I'm presenting there is up on the website so anyone can take a look and we worked um with the town to make sure that integrated with media that they were putting out newsletters and those sort of
things. These are always my favorite slides. So I want to show some pictures of what we were doing. Um so I'll just walk through some of the types of activities we did. Um one would be popups. Um so certainly we wanted to be able to interact with people where they were not having necessarily come up to a meeting. Um so on the top left I want to highlight one being at the farmers market and this was an important collaboration with the energy and climate action committee. Um I'll talk about them a few times because they're really instrumental throughout this process but specifically they were um a force for us in the popups. Um as staff we can only be in so many places and only dedicate so
many hours but there's really dedicated volunteers that were able to spread that outreach quite a bit and we're managing stations like the farmers market. Um, we took shifts at the swap shop because apparently that's a hub in East Ham and we certainly experienced that. We got a lot of great input from popups like that as well as at the beach. Um, and that windmill weekend. Um, really an interesting crowd there. That was a great one. I was able to do that. Great one. And then community workshops certainly another cornerstone of this sort of activity. We had great turnout both inerson and virtual workshops um held here and also at the public library. Library again
being a great partner here as well. Um, had a great turnout. had a lot of conversations throughout the process that really shaped the recommendations in the plan. Want to share directly some of the things we were hearing when we were out and about. Um, so certainly people had very specific interests. Um, so we heard folks interested in solar panels, folks with questions on EVs. Um, but then a lot of just bigger picture questions as well and bigger picture sentiments about making sure that the town collectively was doing everything they could to think about finance as they're making investment decisions whereas they're kind of tracking the future of the town.
So, a couple things to highlight here. The one on the bottom left you can probably guess came from from one of the school conversations. Students saying they'd rather learn about climate change in school than math. I would argue you kind of need to understand both but but appreciate that they're really passionate about climate change and again have some really great ideas. Um, some of the conversations were really technical, some weren't. On the top right there, someone acknowledging that their pond near their house was that's how they were feeling the interaction with this. Um, so just wanted to acknowledge that people come up from different angles and certainly that's not a wholly climate issue. Um, we just wanted to highlight that was part of it. And
then just an appreciation whether it be for staff or the volunteers that are out there. Um, people just appreciated being heard. So I think that's an important element of this process as well, that community dialogue. I'll highlight very briefly some of the plan elements. I will say it's up on the project website. There's also an executive summary, so six pages of all the key things in this plan if someone wants a quick view of it. Um, one thing I did want to highlight is one another thing we put effort into is making this plan look good. I know that's not always the most important, but if you want someone to read the engagement of the plan, we did put a good amount of effort
in making sure that it was visually interesting to get people to engage with the document. So, you'll see consistent visuals throughout the document. Um, one other thing that we thought was important, I'll say this came directly from the energy a recommendation of the energy and climate action committee was a reader guide. So, this is really written in a way to engage an individual reader to say here's the things that you should think about in this plan. Here are things that as an individual you can do for climate action. So, this is a little bit of a twist from a lot of the climate plans we saw and I found it a really engaging um part of the plan. Um, we talked a
lot about uh and we set the context for the local climate planning. Um, I did want to highlight that this really involved a lot of coordination with town staff. Um, Shannon Broen was the lead on town staff and she really shephered us through this process. Um, and was uh successful on engaging all the different departments to make sure that their feedback um was brought into that. And as we get into the specific recommendations, they were talking with the department that would be the one to implement these things to make sure it made sense operationally for them. The bulk of the plan um as you get through there is the key findings and recommendations. So I'll touch on that a
little bit and then there's discussion about how a plan like this would be able to hit as well. So within the plan there are approximately 56 strategies. So I will not walk through those today but just wanted to highlight one on the slide here to give you sense of the type of information. So the strategies are broken out in the categories of building energy natural resources transportation and community. And on the slide here just an example from the natural resources. So for each of the strategies in the description, there's specific actions that
um could be taken to advance that strategy and talks about the people that would be involved, the types of benefits and equity considerations, how to measure progress. Um so a lot of information to help move things forward. One thing I want to highlight here is these are not all things that the town would advance. There are certainly other partners locally and across the region that can move these forward. So those are identified. I will also highlight these don't all cost money. So certainly some of them do um but some of them are more operational and functional changes that can be worked into existing processes and plans. Um so we want to be clear about where some things
would be new and would take money and where some things um take other other approaches to advance them. If someone were really concerned about um the funding implications, we have tables as well where you can start to kind of visually look at the things and look at the different strategies in terms of what they would cost, how easily they would implement if someone else was more concerned with really maximizing greenhouse gas emissions benefits. You can look in that. So, this is just a matrix to start to organize some of the strategies and then work out towards that prioritization. Um this is not a prescriptive plan. It doesn't tell the town what to do, but it gives the town
the tool to be able to prioritize and move towards implementation. So really the focus was how can we as technical experts put out that information in a way that's consumable by the town and put them in the best position to advance these initiatives. It doesn't tell the town what to do, but it gives them the resources to help prioritize these decisions locally. And we certainly know that this is a long-term plan um as with all these climate plans. So we also provided information about the different performance measures that could be tracked um to understand whether or not this plan is being successful. I will say this was done very intentionally to allow align with the regional
plan. Many of these things are things that we are tracking already. Um so we stand as a partner with the town um in terms of tracking climate action and so it's just a give a sense of what some of those metrics were um but certainly this is something we're going to be engaging um with the towns on in future in terms of how to track progress. and did want to close. So we have time for for questions here to highlight next steps and already highlighted. We'll be going to select board next and then leading to the preparation of the final plan and we'll be presenting them both with all the public comments and then the u edits we would suggest based on those public comments.
We did get a lot of robust public feedback in the comments and some very direct feedback from the energy and climate action committee. So on the slide here is a a clip of the letter that is included in the plan helps present the context from the perspective of the committee in that plan understanding that they would be an important element in terms of plan implementation. And then to tie back to where we started um this was really pilot and it took a lot of step effort because in parallel we're using this to develop resources that would be um potentially applicable to all 15 towns actually heard from towns outside of the Cape as well that are interested in what we're
doing here. and we had actually representation from a few other Cape Towns following this process along the way. Um so while it's not ready for prime time yet, we have a number of tools tools that we will be sharing to support towns as they work towards climate climate action planning or continue to work on. So that certainly have to ask answer any questions. Commissioner Lions, thank you. Um first of all, I thought it was really interesting that one of the comments of your sort of cigarette was um I'd rather study climate change than math. if you do need a little
math. But um grab that kid. But anyway, here's a future employee. But anyway, um so are the action are the climate action committees working with the other town? You were saying that there's other towns involved. Are the the outer Cape Towns because we all know these are man-made lines here, but we're all sort of sharing this uh portion of the Cape, which is mostly sand dune. And maybe maybe what we can do if it's okay with you, Steve, is is maybe we can invite um members of the
climate the energy climate action plan committee to come up. Would you like I I think let's spend a little bit of time in in engaging them in this conversation. Come on up and feel free to sit at the table and join us. Yeah, you can come right up here with us. Is there anybody else on your committee? Tom McNellis. Hey Tom. Yeah. and and a big thanks to the commission. Um it was, you know, they're they're they're guiding light in terms of working us through the process and keeping us well grounded in science and in really the the the way a a community can address this without
overreaching is really important. Um so in terms of your question on regional absolutely uh we are and again the commission is helping uh tape like compact is helping there's a couple other groups that are helping us expand because you can't do it alone right yeah the boundary the environment doesn't stop at at the boundaries um and so there's a pretty robust outer cape uh climate uh group um there's a widening group amongst the entire area of the Cape um where folks are looking
at, you know, how to how to combine resources, how to combine ideas, and how to combine, you know, volunteer activities and passion. Yeah. I want to follow up on Commissioner Lions's comment. Um the public engagement that seemed to be quite heavy. I mean, it seemed like you developed some techniques, some tools, some approaches to get all sorts of different segments of the community involved. Can you comment on that? Was that is that sure and we have done a lot prior to this uh
in terms of and with very good very good reception by um both east and surrounding towns that come to some of our events but I would say the commission expanded that significantly with some very interesting and and very engaging ways to to bring and reach hard to reach populations. How about the popup presentations? what comment on those and how effective those were. I we're it's meeting people where they are. Um and the farmers market was fabulous. People just kind of came through and
and talked in the weekend. We do that the beaches. Um one of my favorite stories was at at a popup uh down at First Encounter Beach and this little kid comes in with his parents and he could barely see above the table and uh the commission was great. you know, they they adapt, you know, the the the professionals there know how to adapt to, you know, the audience and they're like, "Oh, you know, what do you think of keeping the beach usable? What do you what are you worried about in
terms of your ability to use the beaches?" And the kid goes, "Blue crabs." I'm like, "Oh." And I learned something. He goes, "Blue crabs are invasive." And he went on, you know, how old about five years old. Oh my god. Something like that. About five years old. Yeah. And um uh yeah, he was very passionate about it and he knew all about blue crabs. It's very impressive. That's very old. How did the business I'm wondering how did the what was the interaction with the business community? How did they did they recognize that they have a role and how they could
participate or was it just about what is going to impact us? Well, I think Steve you probably have direct Sure. I wasn't at that particular meeting. I have to speak to the business. I did want to add one other thing to the outreach as well. I did want to acknowledge a lot of the resources we were dealing for Eastam. we are making more generalized versions. So if there's some of those activities were successful, we'll have a hope of how other communities can do that sort of engagement. Um but to answer your specific business question, it was actually Cape Associates that was kind enough to be able to host us through their network and through the program again number of businesses there. I will say there's a diversity of opinions among that community
as with all but I will say there was a general acknowledgement that um East Ham is changing and the climate is something we need to think about in the future. Um, so I think there was a general consensus that action was appropriate, but they were really interested on the specifics. Um, so if there was some sort of ban on a specific plastic product, they wanted an acknowledgement that it means different things to different businesses means something different to a local business um versus a large corporate entity. The change is different among those. So really what I got out of the conversation is they wanted to be part of those detailed conversations when there's any
change like that and they wanted to help shape shape the changes. they were generally supportive of climate action as long as they could think about it um as being partners in that change rather than being something you push on them. One of the questions I have is that often times in the past when we've done a study at the county level sometimes it's perceived as county experts coming in and dropping a whole laundry list of ideas and solutions for a local community. But what's
different about this is it looks like there was the active engagement of the community. This was not some group of experts sort of landing in your community, but actually an interactive engagement where the community was actively involved in the conversation, identifying issues, identifying problems, and figuring out ways to work together to identify solutions. Is that a fair observation? I would certainly say you're you're directly on. I mean, we very much wanted to make this a groundup um engagement uh not something coming down from Beacon Hill. Um and I think regionally, you know,
the the the value of of folks here who are in the region and in Barnstable um we all, as you said, experience similar issues and so we're in this boat together. We're on the sand spit together, but even then there's important uh um desires and and differences between the different cities and and towns. And so that's where this process really helped, I think, because it's it's it's really a foundational um uh you know, this is what's important to East Ham residents and businesses and and municipality, right? Uh that that's B to this. So you don't look at this as a Cape Cod Commission
plan for East Ham. You look at this as East Ham's plan. It it's an East plan, but it's informed by, you know, all the expertise that's Brown. Exactly. The best practices, the you know, the you know, the the science, the you know, the importance of No, that becomes very evident. I just wanted you to sort of help confirm or deny that that the the way that's coming across. No, I'm I'm I'm very impressed. Very impressed. This is very good. Commissioner Bergstrom. Hi, I'm here too. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. You know, this is all well and good, but in my experience with similar
um initiatives, at some point the leaders have to come up with solutions. In other words, you can reach out to the community, you can cover all your bases, business community, you can talk to environmental, but you know in the if you go to the congress, nobody ever gets up in front of the congress and says let's talk about this today. They put something on the table. They said this is we have we professionals the commission business they say we have looked at this and we think that this is what you should do and you'll get as you said Steve you'll get a lot of people complain so
how come you didn't ask us first and the reason is is because what you recommend becomes the basis of the discussion otherwise it becomes so diffuse that you'll get half the people at the end of the day will be unhappy because they didn't listen to them so we know what the problems at least we can identify them and you bringing people into the process but somebody has to stand up and say this is where we're going to go this is what we're going to do and I'm sure you have a good you know a good background here and you have the committee and you have somebody else but
ultimately the way you come to consensus is to offer solutions well thought out backed up by scientific evidence and say this is what we're going to do and at the end of the 49% of the people will not agree with that. But that's how that's how it that's how it works in my this is my personal experience. It's not to be a good I'm on the commission by the way. I'm not I'm uh I'm the I'm the commissioner's appointed appointment to the commission. So anyway, this is this is a tremendous resource. I know East is under the gun. I've seen the pictures of people
standing on top of the bluff looking down. Mhm. We have a dredge that can can nourish beaches, but it doesn't work with high bluffs like that. So, and also just giving recommendations to what individuals can do to mitigate the cost, mitigate the effects of climate change. You know, I have solar panels on my house. You know, we recycle. talking about plastics, you know, talking about uh um you know, dealing with I would like to see for instance one suggestion is an area deal with
Cape Cod mapping out the green space we have even even areas that are residential, how many trees you have and so on and try to say look we're going to try to maintain the same level of green space versus developed space in the future, you know. So there's a lot of things you can do. So, as much as I appreciate this, I'm waiting somebody to put stake in the ground and say, "Miss, this is what the issue is. This is what we're going to do about it." Thanks. Thanks, Commissioner. Um, I I will say you got to start somewhere. You need to do this kind of work. Oh,
yeah. Because the leadership will emerge once you have the community sort of rallying around. I'd like to get some of the local offices. Jerry, you you've said through this. What do you think? Yeah. Well, uh, it's been brought before the select board quite a few times and we've actually put in a policy on the town. Yeah. For example, on vehicles. Here's a policy. Here's So, you're already starting to implement. You're already you're not you're not waiting for the plan to get not waiting for the plan in the climate committee
brought it before us. You know, I mean, there are option you can't find an electric bulldozer. So you buy you buy but where you can do it. So we've already started to implement some of those in our staff. Kudos to you. Jackie, did you want to I know that you have a really long meeting head. No, I've got I've got three more minutes. So I'm gonna give you one and I'm gonna give Mary is Shaina Broven. She's our project. Can you stand up please? Can you stand up please? I think
sorry Jenn but one of the one of the hallmarks of East Tam I think is that we have been able to not put these plans on shelves and that's why I think the energy and climate action committee is partic going to be particularly good at leadership but Shaina has been responsible over my tenure here for the harbor planning process the lowlying roads process she stewarded all of our major environmental projects and studies including writing the grants to get them. So I ple I just
didn't want her to face the background because I know the committee also appreciates her work. No, that's great. Thank you. Mary, did you want to say something? Sure. Um I chair the zoning task force and we're absolutely thrilled with it to have a plan like this because we always take the position the town adopts plans and visions and then we came in and look at the regulatory um supports that need to be in place. So the one thing I would say is having read this
uh and having attended the community meeting uh I was delighted and and very concerned at the level of scientific information that was presented in particular around the vulnerable coasts and those vulnerable areas. And so this is more of an appeal for future help because as if this plan is adopted and then this would go over to the zoning task force to look at it. Um yeah, you've presented scientifically some really concerning issues and Jerry mentioned politics.
So, you're taking coastal properties, right, that we're anticipating are going to be very, you know, subject uh to to um falling in the ocean and uh and the remedies are really difficult, you know, prohibitions against new constructions, managed retreat, you know, limitations. I mean, there is a huge amount of issues. So, I think it's important we want to look at it. Mhm. But I will say that when we get to some of those really big issues, there's going to be a need from much more
intensive support to help us. I think and I think we're here to sort of reaffirm our our commitment to provide that kind of support going forward. Uh the discussion of retreat, how we manage that, how we finance that, how we help homeowners. I mean, the reality is is we're not going to stop erosion here. Mother nature's much more powerful on that score, but we have to deal with it. Um, and it's not easy. Uh, when I worked for Congressman studs, we had to relocate two lighouses on the outer cape and uh I worked spent a lot of time here on on the NSET light as well as the Highland light
in Truro. And um it might look easy to the uh to the sidewalk engineer, but these are incredibly complicated projects. And going back to your early earlier discussion about town finances, we've got 97% of our revenues coming from property taxes and we are literally talking about the properties that produce the most tax revenue in the town. It's just a it's just a very difficult issue. Understood. Getting this up in a plan is is a great first step, but there's going to be a lot
of work to actually realize this. That's it. We're there. That was an excellent presentation, Steve. Thank you very much. We're gonna move on to the next for all the work, the next agenda item. And uh I'm gonna turn this back over to Christie to kick us off on to the next item on our agenda and uh water. This is uh this is another hot topic. Um the drought water and water resources and u Christie. Perfect. Great. Well, before um Tim Faces gets underway, I just wanted to preface his
remarks with a few um opening remarks, just that aquaill protection planning and water quality have been priorities of the commission for decades. And um as you know, we've spent a significant amount of time looking at addressing coastal water quality, more recently with our ponds and lakes and our freshwater quality. Um but water supply, aquafer protection planning are critical and especially on the lower and outer Cape. Um, and these are incredibly important issues and our regional policy plan that was just completed and adopted at the end of 2025 has a number of
recommendations within that plan and one of those really under the natural system section is really advancing aquifer protection planning. So um we're moving forward with these initiatives and uh certainly appreciate the invitation to be here today to present some of the data and information. um our natural resources team and specifically our water resources team um are are spending a number of um hours really addressing these challenges. And so I'm pleased to recognize Tim Pasakarnes, one of our water resources analysts who will walk through really um reviewing the data with you and
reviewing um what these conditions mean and where we can go from here. So um hopefully Tim's got his presentation queued up and we can go from there and then again have to answer questions. Thanks Christie. Tim. All right. Thank you, Christie. Commissioners, for the record, I'm Tim Pacarnes, water resources analyst at the commission. I'm sharing this presentation right now. And give me just a second for teams to come back. Okay. Um, so this is a topic that certainly the commissioners
will uh, you know, are familiar with. I've presented on it several times. Unfortunately, I keep having to come back and present on it because they are conditions that either uh keep showing up or persist. Uh so I will start with just an update or you know really an uh an attempt to provide some context to what I'm sure everyone is already aware of which is the current drought declaration um for the Cape Cod region which is a level two significant drought. Uh and I wanted to start with
uh a little bit of a zoom out which is to say uh that this is not a Cape Cod specific uh you know topic of interest. This is happening throughout the state that these conditions are you know in some cases like the northeast and central regions. Um they're actually worse than uh how Cape Cod is fairing right now. So it is it's a topic of great interest at the state level at the secretar's level. Um, while I have this map up, I just wanted to point out a couple of pieces of information again to uh make sure that I'm being very clear about the data I'm presenting
uh which has sort of a specific time component to it just because of the way that the drought management task force and data reporting works. Um, so this drought status map uh is effective as of February 1st. This was a declaration that you'll see at the bottom was made on March 9th. So typically the drought management task force meets monthly and at those monthly meetings they are looking at kind of the previous month's uh data. Um so this was a March March declaration based on February data. So most of what I will present is going to
uh you know is going to cover the information we had sort of at the end of the month of February. Um, I'll also note that and and it may be of interest particularly given the location of today's meeting. Um, there are six drought regions, sorry, seven drought regions uh under the the state's drought management plan. Um, and you'll see those are those are sort of uh broken out by the the black borders. Um, typically drought declarations are made at
those drought region levels. However, uh there is precedent and actually you can see right now that where there are significantly different conditions within a drought region um the task force has in the past and currently in the islands region um may make different declarations for sub regions or in the case of the islands you know separate for Martha's Vineyard from Nantucket. Uh so in the case of the Cape Codright region right now conditions are fairly uniform. So the whole region
has that level two uh drought declaration. Um but in the past there have been more specific callouts for when uh particularly precipitation conditions which we know can vary wildly right from the upper Cape say to the tip of Province Town. So that is something that is considered. Uh but right now the conditions are uniform enough that level two applies throughout the entire Cape Cod drought region. Uh in the past I've dived into a lot more detail about how these drought declarations are,
you know, sort of the the information that goes into them and the process. So I just wanted to because we are in you know we're in sort of still the winter phase of drought declarations just to point out kind of what fed into that level two or you know the the continuation of a level two de uh declaration. So the task force looks at a number of different indices. So they're looking at precipitation uh and that's usually a a look back of anywhere from 3 to at this point 12 months. Uh
and that sort of depends on how long drought conditions are have persisted. Uh so right now we're looking at a at the precipitation over the last 12 months and how that compares to you know a statistically normal amount of precipitation for the region. Uh they're also looking at stream flow. Uh so there are two stream flow you know two gauges on streams at the the Herring River in Harwitch and the Quashnat River in Mashp. Uh but most you know the the most information comes
from groundwater wells. So there are a lot of groundwater monitoring points. We all know that uh given the the sandy soil on Cape Cod um we can get a lot more information uh about the aquifer from groundwater wells maybe as compared to other regions. Um and then there's one lake and empoundment uh station at ament pond as well. Uh and just to show that you know they're not all all of these indices are not saying the same thing right. So if you look at the shading um the
precipitation is maybe better than the others. It's only based on percentile would indicate a level one uh drought while stream flow and lakes and impoundments you know are more severe uh kind of right on the edge of level three. You can kind of see with the the streamflow groundwater and lakes and impoundments where that line is between level two and level three. It's right between the 10th and 11th percentile. Um and all of those are weighed together by the task force uh to come to an overall drought recommendation. Uh one other thing that I want to point out and
this is included in the uh in the announcement about these latest drought declarations, right? Is I'm sure still on everyone's mind. there was a lot of precipitation the final week of February and at the time of this meeting uh all of that was still pretty much as you know it was still the ground was still frozen the snow was still on the ground so none of that precipitation shows up in the numbers that I'm showing you um we will get a better sense of what that all means at the next
uh drought task force meeting which is in two weeks uh I'm very curious about that I'm sure others are as well but I just wanted to point that out because I'm sure it's on everyone's mind. Um, how all of that snow and precipitation that has fallen since then uh factors in. Kim, can you just uh Commissioner Alliance has a quick question about this slide? So, on these numbers, I see the shading, but the numbers, what does that mean? Precipitation, is that 30 inches or is that a grade? Yeah, it's a great question. Great question. I should have mentioned. So,
these are all percentiles. Uh so these are based on historical records and the percentiles actually are it is based on the historical record for the month. So this is looking at the uh for instance the the distribution of streamflow measurements that have been measured in February for those two streamflow locations for you know I think most of these uh in order to be used they have to have at least 10 years of data. A lot of these stations have anywhere from
you know upwards of 30 years of data. some of the groundwater wells have uh over 50 years of data. Um which is which is an excellent point because when we move to kind of the March data uh we could have sort of improving conditions like we could have groundwater levels that are rising increased stream flow. Uh, and yet those may not change in terms of the percentile, right? Because as we typically get into the spring, that tends to be a wetter time of year. And so you can have
more precipitation, more stream flow, but if it's not if it's not increasing more than normal, um, it doesn't improve those percentiles and it sort of doesn't improve your relative, you know, your relative conditions. And so that's one of the the many nuances to the messaging about this that can be that can be challenging. Commissioner wanted to you. No, I just I you know um the reason I bring
this up is that everybody thinks that things are you know okay and you have a rainy month and you know that's going to take care of things and we're drawing from that and there's more of us drawing from the from the well. But um you know we have uh history books in um in the county and one is uh the history of Bonable County from 19 oh 1685 to to 1885. It was the 300th anniversary and they gave a snapshot in Walthleet in Eastam. I took a snapshot of this out of the book, but uh in 1985,
the annual precipitation over 48 days was I mean, excuse me, over 120 days was 48 in and the average snowfall was 37 um inches over 17 days. So that goes to climate change as well. And we have to always keep in mind that this is only in 50 years the changes that we can see. I mean that's within my lifetime. Most people here in their lifetime. And um so we have to really be conscious that this
is a a changing climate and uh it is impacting our water resources. So I just wanted to put that put that out there. Put that out there of how rapidly it has changed. Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. I know this may be subject for a future slide, but could you go over the the challenge that we face as we go into a drought, but particularly with groundwater? Are we are we seeing a situation where the water table will go low that it would not be able to recharge the the the uh wells in
the summer when there's peak demand? Um so what is what is the what is the ultimate challenge we're facing if if this job continues and and the the groundwater levels uh are reduced? Yeah. So if it's okay I will keep going um because we will we will get to that later in the presentation but yes that is that is an excellent question and the one that I think everyone is most interested in is less so you know or in addition to sort of where things are at is what what can be done about it
and what does it mean? Um so very quickly just to sort of uh again reorient ourselves right so we had a nice run in 2023 lots of precipitation um we were in normal conditions for about a year and a half until fall of 2024 um when a level one drought was declared uh again sort of dry conditions a dry winter led to that uh you know going to level two drought at the beginning of 2025 had very wet spring 2 in above normal precipitation um led to a brief uh you know
drawing back to a level one in June, but then that quickly uh was changed to level two in July of 2025. And again, I'm sure everyone remembers from last summer that it felt like at least uh when people wanted to be outside, there was a lot of rain like every weekend for 12 or 13 weekends or whatever the final tally was. Um, and that's again this this sort of challenge that it can feel like there is a lot of rain and a lot of precipitation. Um, but as Commissioner Lions pointed out, a lot
of rain historically was normal. And so to get out of a drought condition, you not only need that normal level of precipitation, you actually need to be above normal. Uh and so you know moving into the summer where we had sort of a double whammy of both higher than average temperatures and lower than average precipitation uh basically you know has led to the persistence of these conditions. So that even with a sort of normal level of precipitation throughout the fall when we expect
to, you know, to have more rainfall to uh kind of recharge the aquafer, increase those groundwater levels, it hasn't been enough above normal to really push conditions out of those level two drought. Uh you know, the where the indices would point towards it being level two. Um, and of course everyone wants to know so like what does the future hold? Uh, if if I had concrete answers,
you know, I'd have a great business on my hands there. But we do with the task force, you know, we look to the National Weather Service as part of their presentation every month. Um, they give us these sort of outlooks and this is for the next month. So the month of April, um you'll see for basically the entire New England region, you know, equal chances of above or below average uh both temperature and precipitation. They also do seasonal outlooks that look three months ahead. They look very similar to this. So, you know, depending on how you look at it, it's
good that it does not say chances are well below normal for precipitation or chances of higher than normal temperatures are likely. Um, but it's hard to say, you know, what that means, uh, in terms of precipitation, especially given that we've seen, you know, sort of the the vagaries of individual storms and they may track up kind of the uh, Atlantic coast and then some of them veer south and they only hit Martha's Vineyard. Some of them veer north and they hit, you know, Vermont and
Cape Cod or Massachusetts in as a whole can miss these individual storms. So it's hard to you know hard to predict but that is that is the outlook that we have uh you know for the the short term. Okay so getting into the questions about we're in a level two drought. What are some recommendations? What are things that can be done? Uh these are you know so this came from EA. They have some uh you know some guidance for both residents and businesses. And this gets you know I
think this gets to a couple of the questions. Um which is you know is correctly pointed out that we are in a level two drought and we are heading into uh this summer which is the season of highest demand both in terms of simply you know human demand uh additional residents visitors but also other demands. So things like higher temperatures means more water is evaporating from lakes and ponds means that plants are pulling water out of the ground and they're releasing it through
their leaves. So you have, you know, all of these different demands on the water supply compounded upon one another. So this is where it's very important to uh you know to start to develop a culture of water conservation that you know it does not seem we have the luxury of doing just during the summer just when we're talking about lawn watering. Um but really that we want to make that just a daily sort of thing knowing that uh conservation before peak demand season can
uh you know can basically provide more of you know more buffer more flexibility in the event that these conditions continue. Uh and then also there's a whole set of uh recommendations for you know they call they being the the state call it communities and municipalities you know really it's water suppliers and on Cape Cod some of those water suppliers are part of you know town divisions or town departments but some of them are not they're you know they're self- sustaining entities and so that's where this can get a little complicated. Um again you know some
of those recommendations are immediate things that can be done short and medium-term steps also looking at things like uh you know like u water rate studies andor changing water rates um you know are great recommendations we've heard through our through last year's drought grant they can be really challenging and timeconuming both in terms of kind of the the math behind doing water rates and then the process process of setting them. One thing that I did want to highlight is,
you know, emergency interconnections for water supply. So, that's a recommendation that we've been trying to put out there uh as ways that water suppliers can, you know, develop interconnects with their neighbors uh as as a much faster way of sort of adding in redundancy as compared to developing new water supplies. Um and that's you know development of new water supplies something I'll get into in subsequent slides as well. Um I think there's also a an opportunity here. You
know several of these recommendations talk about kind of communication and outreach and educating customers about you know why how their behavior um at the tap connects to you know this aquafer which is mostly sight unseen. it's under the ground, you just, you know, may not think about where the water is coming from. You open the faucet and the water comes out. Um, and so some basic education about, you know, connecting that behavior to the resource that's below us. Uh,
I think that's an opportunity certainly for the water suppliers. Uh but especially for at the regional level, at the county level, um for us to get some of that information and education out um because the landscape is so different in terms of the water suppliers, their size, their priority, um whether they have uh you know, whether they have restrictions required through their water management act permits, it makes for a very patchwork landscape right now. So uniform messaging I think is is really important for you know starting to plant the
seeds of behavior change. Uh and so to get into that uh the commission has already started in you know in responding to some of the questions and information that is you know that is out in the public about the aquifer in general about water supplies about some of these challenges as they relate to drought. Um, we've put together someformational, you know, one-pagers, uh, that are slightly more than one page. Um, but really looking to one help kind of,
uh, foster a general understanding of, you know, what is groundwater, what is the aquafer, how are they different, where does, you know, where does your drinking water come from? and also to put some numbers to uh help contextualize, you know, questions about are we draining the aquifer? How much water is there? Uh I think it's it's really hard to wrap your head around what some of these numbers mean that 450 million gallons of water enter the aquifer daily. Um and that's of course
right if it's dry right now they're not entering today but that's sort of averaged out over a year with all the precipitation. Um and of that water that you know that that every year is recharging through precipitation. Uh most of it is basically flowing out to the coastal embmentsments. Right. And a lot of us who have worked through, you know, worked through the the coastal nutrient management may have a good sense of that if you've had to try and study the watersheds and figure out, you know,
why the planning works in that way. Um, we may know that, but I think what is what's important to uh to understand is with all of the public water supplies, we're currently withdrawing less than 10% of that annual recharge. So, that's the amount of water going back into the aquafer each year from precipitation. Um, and that's about 11 billion gallons based on the the currently
permitted and registered amounts in uh for all of the public water supplies on Cape Cod. But this is very clearly it's not a black and white issue. It is nuanced, which is not to say that hey, you know, we have lots of water, no problem. Like we can waste it. We can we can use it however we want and whenever we want. Um, and this is this is where it is, you know, where some of the nuance in the messaging is really important, which is to say that the uh the 11 billion gallons that are being
pumped each year by public water suppliers is a relatively small percentage of overall recharge. It's also, you know, they're not operating at 100% capacity. So there is still additional capacity um within those already existing water supplies, permitted volumes, etc. Um but again like like all of these numbers I've been putting out, you know, these are annual withdrawals that I'm talking about here. But water supplies also have either physical limitations which is you
know given the the geology around a well you can only pump a certain amount of water you know or a certain flow rate. Uh there are also limits placed on individual wells through the water management act. And so these are where even though there may be plenty of water, getting it when you want and in the amount you want, when we think about peak summer season, uh, and we think about some of these conditions on the right. So if you start to layer on, perhaps there is an ongoing drought,
perhaps there's a need for fire response, perhaps there is a problem with uh equipment, a well pump, there's a need to take a well offline to install treatment. All of those things, you know, can eat into that additional flexibility. And so that's where it's really critical to just because we have additional capacity to pump water, not to uh use it or use it frivolously. Uh so that's all been kind of capewide, but because you all are in East Ham today
and because there's been additional uh you know certainly additional interest on the outer cape about this water supply question. Uh I wanted to very briefly zoom in. Uh so what we're showing here on the left is kind of a conceptual model of what the you know what the aquafer or the groundwater lenses look like on the left that's kind of a a midcape look at it. What's important to take from here is that uh the from the top of the water table sort of straight down it's
all freshwater until you hit bedrock uh typically hundreds of feet kind of below the land surface. uh the way that the groundwater flows sort of from the top of the lens out to the coasts. That's all the same uh when you move to the outer cape, but what's a little different is that the bedrock is significantly deeper on the outer cape. Uh and so you don't actually have fresh water all the way down to that bedrock layer. The freshwater lens is actually, you know,
floating in a sense on more dense salt water. Uh, also, you know, anyone who's seen kind of an aerial photo of the Cape or knows the geography knows that just the land form is narrower. So, when we talk about these outer Cape lenses, um, they are both not as thick or as deep because they have that underlying saline groundwater layer. Um, and then they're also not as wide just because they follow the land. So it means that you know some of the volumes we're talking about
uh in those lenses are smaller. And just a quick cheat sheet uh you know before the pop quiz because I'm going to show information about these individual lenses. Uh so just as a reminder town of Eastam uh is you know is within the NSET lens. The Chaquest lens is primarily the town of Wellfleet. PamT lens is mostly the town of Turo. Uh and then the pilgrim lens is in Province Town. So as we switch to uh you know as we switch to this graphic uh what's important to look
at here again this is kind of a similar breakdown to what I previously showed which is for each of these lenses how much uh recharge do they get you know annually or here it's shown daily uh and then where does that water flow to I will point out that uh this is this information is from a 2005 USGS report so you astute um astute listeners and watchers will say, "Hey, what about East Ham's uh public water supply?" Um it it is not reflected in here because it didn't exist then. Uh I did look
up the uh volume of water that they're permitted to withdraw. It's about 2% of what's shown here in the NSET lens. So just to give everyone a sense of for the outer cape um about 2% of the NSET lens goes to public water supplies 7% of the Pameit lens those being the wells and churo that serve the province town water department and overall for all four of those outer Cape lenses uh you know it is it is well under 10% much like the rest of the Cape uh likely you know much less than 5%.
Um so again kind of a similar situation in terms of the overall magnitude of water supply withdrawals on the lower cape to the the upper and mid cape as well. But just wanted to make sure that we were able to uh you know zoom in and look at things in a lower cape specific way. And so that's going to take me to my final slide here. And I think this, you know, this does a really good job of trying to take a complicated question and boil it down into a succinct answer, which
is both, you know, the overall volume of water is generally not the issue, but accessing that water uh is in the way that we want at the time that we want. Uh and that in thinking about doing that and thinking about you know water supplies which exist as you know as individual entities but thinking about just sort of regional water supply capacity. It's not just about meeting current
demand. It's really about future proofing, about thinking about additional demands, thinking about, you know, changing conditions and that we may not want to be relying on using 100% of our capacity for extended periods. um that building redundancy into the system will both you know help uh maintain operational flexibility under challenging conditions as well as then make
uh supplies better able to meet those future needs. Um, and again, you know, one of the big questions is like, can we build our way out of this, right? Like, if there's lots of water, can we in just install more wells and pump more water? Um, and that's, you know, it's a complicated question. So, in updated mapping, the amount of land that uh that could support future water supplies is, you know, less than 10% or less than 11% of land on Cape Cod.
The process for exploration, development of new water supplies is also is not a fast one. It takes multiple years. And so when we think about kind of immediate and short-term solutions, adding new wells doesn't just fit into those kinds of timelines. So that's why it's, you know, all of these conservation measures and education are so critical to, you know, efficiently use the capacity that we currently have. uh and to basically provide some time so that we can be,
you know, effective with planning for additional water supplies to meet either future demands or to just provide more flexibility to meet current demands. That's great, Tim. Thank you very much. Commissioner, any questions? Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. Um, this is probably outside of housing, one of the biggest issues on the minds of Cape Cod is the water supply and the quality of the water that we drink. Um, I know you we have to consider development patterns when we
talk about our future ability to provide water to people to houses and and to businesses. We talk about extending the infrastructure which is expensive, but you know, not not all water is exactly the same. It's all safe to drink, but some of them is discolored. Some of us may have some of it that may have elements in it to make it less palatable, which means you have to put on, you know, more treatment on each one. So, it it could be an expensive enterprise in the future. Um, the other thing is development patterns as far as um short-term rentals. I think we have to
look at what the effects of things like short-term rentals. Does that produce an exponential increase in water use for those properties? And if so, what are we going to do about that? Um, I think the quality of water that we drink, when I first came to the Cape 50 years ago, I thought the water was great. And I still do still think that way, especially if it's not uh treated in any way. But um I think I think this this issue that you bring up and the the decisions we have to make are going to be important going forward because we have to know that we have enough water. We have to know
that the water that we drink is safe and not contaminated and we have to make sure that the infrastructure that we can afford to expand the infrastructure to accommodate uh potential future development. Thanks Commissioner. Commissioner Lions, did you have any comments or questions? No, I mean I just think that we have to really recognize that uh there's more of us living here year round than there used to be. And part of the health of those ponds were people left. You know, we came for a temporary period in the summer and we left and they were able to recharge and and
uh you know, heal as we healed while we were here. And um and you know, I know that the this all goes into housing and that's what we're talking about here today, but we really have to be mindful of what is this resource not just for us, but for future people. I mean, are we going to be the ones that say this is where it ends and we're going to we're going to make this a different place or are we going to keep this and be good stewards? So, as far as the summer consumption, I think that there's there part of our education to visitors is to have something in each home
that's rented to tell people this is, you know, if you love it here, help us extend its life, so to speak, and be conscious of these things. I I'll never forget somebody in elevator and this was in Boston but um they obviously paid for their water and he was coming and he's in on the elevator he says to his wife oh god now I can take a shower as long as I'm going to take a 4hour shower and I'm like don't do that just because you're I'm like that's not the way to think but that's how people will be because they're paying money to go on vacation they want to do what they
normally do right so we have to really be very u conscious of educating ing people who visit here, not just about the water, but the land and and the beaches and the dunes and that sort of thing. Yeah, thank you. Um, and excellent, Tim. Thank you. Yeah, Tim, thanks for the presentation. Um, and I'm I'm glad I'm glad that the commission I I'll come to the audience in a moment. I'm glad to see the commission really spending more time and energy on this. Um, I think we as a county, this
is one of the things that we're going to need more discussion about this, but I I believe we need to do more to support our towns in terms of water conservation education. The droughts themselves have been challenging in some communities. There's some communities where there's there are water restrictions in place, but you would never know it. All right? You drive by certain buildings and you'd see the the sprinkler system on. you'd be seeing all sorts of uses and activities that are inconsistent with town bylaws and so forth. So, I think we've got to figure out a way as a county to
collaborate with our communities to do more water conservation, water aquifer awareness, but also the importance of getting home the message about the importance of conservation. And I come to this conclusion just based on my my years of experience with working with communities that have been dealing with groundwater contamination impacting water supplies. When I worked in Province Town in the manager's office, we had three major wells. One was threatened with groundwater contamination
from a gasoline spill. It had to get shut down until it was remediated. The other two wells were overped and had to deal with saltwater intrusion. And so now um what what the sodium levels are in those water supplies I don't want to venture to say but nonetheless what happens is yes you can have the volume but particularly on the outer cape when you have the the the freshwater lens sitting above all the salt water is that it's very easy to engage and impact the the water supply by drawing
in the saline water the hydraologist ologist call it saltwater intrusion. And so, um, in the Pameit lens, that's been an issue. That's been a problem historically because Province Town can't use the water in the pilgrim lens because that water is totally undrinkable. Um, so it relies it relies on being able by statute to tap into Churro's water. If there's going to be this and this is the this is what worries me about water supply issues on the outer cape is because there's
there's there's not as much redundancy on water supply as there is on the upper Cape and in the mid Cape. This is where it's a bit challenging. If you get a an accident or two or a problem or two, um the idea of telling folks in Province Sanuro that they're going to get their water from the NSET lens, maybe we need to build an interconnect to NSET. Um I'm not sure how well that's going to go over in the town of East. All right. When and and in order to do that, you need legislative
permission to do it. So the interconnects um might be easier in other parts of the Cape, but all of this stuff becomes incredibly challenging out here, which is where I believe this is if there's an area of the Cape where we as the county and the county commissioners need to be heavily engaged in working with our towns on water conservation and water conser the and the education part of it and be aggressive about it. It's out here because we don't have there's not much room for error out here. Um and so uh and you're not going to identify a lot of other places out here where
you can draw or develop wells because a lot of work has already been done on that and they're not a there's there's not a large number of sites out here for future water supplies. So this this I believe is one of the as as Commissioner Bergstrom has said this is one of our biggest challenges out here. Um, and I think it's a pro an initiative that we have to work on collaboratively with Christie and Tim and the commission staff with and the towns and and and find ways that we can collaborate and create. It may not be it may be an intergovernmental regional service,
right, like we're doing on housing and some other areas, but we've got to figure out a way to work together on this because um we need to do more and and it relates to the big picture as well in terms of climate change. um commission real quick. I'm just going to say as Mark brings up there's two issues here which is the quantity of water that we have built for us and also the quality of the water and Tim has covered pretty much the issues regarding the quantity of water. As far as the quality of water, I think it's a good opportunity for us to point out that we directed um several million dollars of ARP of funds toward our lab. And because of that,
if you have any questions about the water you're drinking when you turn on the tap, you'll send a sample to our lab and they will tell you what's in it down to almost nondetect levels because, you know, there's a lot of information, a lot of misinformation out there about, well, is it water safe to drink? What's in it, you know, and so on. So, you know, we want people to have confidence in the water that they drink. We've made this board has made the investment in our lab to make sure that happens. And uh I I just encourage anyone has any questions about it. May not taste good,
but it may still be safe, you know. All right. You should be able to find that out. I'm going to ask Jerry, did you want to comment on any of this or anybody else in the audience? But I'm going to start with the local officials first. Water is important here. Uh I know we spent a lot of money to access a lot of money. One of the things we have to worry about we have maybe only 50% of the the homes are hooked up to our water. So we need from our perspective to try to encourage more. We need to have that excess capacity be able to go. We do have an agreement with parts
of South Wle but we had to limit the amount of water they can take daily in our agreement. So you're providing w your lens is providing water to the roughly you know where that's good to know where the movie theater are in in that area and we're probably where Maurice's campground when they work on that but there's a limit that we have put on how much they can draw right yeah I mean Turo is in a bound thank you got to go Mary did you have something I did but someone else said
no I'm going to count officials first and then I'm going to go to the audience at large. I have a question and a comment. The question I have espec especially as you describe the Province Town situation has has the Cape ever looked at desalinization plants as yes as an alternative. Yes. When when the town of Province Town was in the midst of the water supply crisis back in the late 70s again I'm showing my age here. Um, I mean the water the the water contamination problem impacted pro it was at a gasoline station in Churo. All right. Next to the South Hollow
Wellfield which is across the street. Talk about bad placement for a gasoline station. Chips. So the um that was in 1978 in order to access water within the Cape Cod National Seashore. Okay. You have to understand the limitations that you have out here are that most of the properties in the boundaries of the national park, right? The national park does not allow water supply withdrawal. All right? So, talk about limitations on sites. So, the park is not going to be where you're going to be developing new wells. You're going to have to find ways to develop those
water supplies someplace else. Now, in this case, Province Town had to in order to access that water on an emergency basis. That's allowed by law by statute. federal statute province had to develop a long range plan and in order to meet their long range needs. They had to look at where the other supplies were that could be developed for the purposes of supplying province town residents. The studies done showed that they could act they they could without dealing with the politics of
course go to the chicesset neck the chicesset lens in Walthleet or there were other areas where there are a few other areas available for water supply development in the payment lens and and again the Cape Cod National Seashore takes out most of the land area available uh or that would be considered worthwhile for developing because the of the prohibitions there. So, we looked at sal desalinization and found it incredibly expensive. So, yes, it's been looked at. Now, this was the
last time a study was done. I I don't know if the commission is done. I'm going to put Christie on the spot in a moment, but um when Province Town looked at it, it was seen as prohibitively expensive for one municipality, 3,500 people year round, 50,000 in the summer. It might again might be a regional option. Well, we may want to take a look at that. I don't think you're going to need to get into that discussion for the midcape and the uh the upper Cape. Um I think there it's
a different situation there. The lower cape is a very very unique situation. Christy, are you aware of any desalinization water supply studies that have been done lately? Um not as of recent. Um, but I do think that that is something that should be at least reviewed as part of larger protection planning. So something that I think should be considered as Yeah. So as you can see, Mary, we're we're sure the commission is we've been spending a lot of time having conversations about doing more and helping better understand what our limitations are and how the drought is impacting
what's going on. So I think this becomes the conversation that we have in terms of what more studies we pursue. Yeah. But we should definitely put that on the table. Israel and the whole Middle East over the last 20 years has just built these out. So I wonder whether the economies the efficiency and being it's just common. Well, they don't have any other options. So that's that's so and that's really what here's my one comment and I'll tell you in the climate change when I went to that community meeting one of the things that got the biggest applause was and I don't know if this is possible the notion of embracing on the on the Cape in general the Cape Cod lawn
no irrigation systems no fertilizers we're going to live with some brown grass the middle of the summer but we're going to have a Cape Cod lawn And whether that's an education campaign, a marketing campaign or legislation, you know, a regulatory change that could make a major impact on a lot of environmental issues and that was the thing that everyone plotted in the community. Really got a got a standing O, huh? It was it was positive. That's good. So Christiey's taking notes. We're
going to put that on on our next effort in the audience. Yes, sir. Eric. Yeah. from highest. Just so you know, we pay 89 cents a gallon for drinking water drive to board and market love, which I love dearly. Um the uh concern that we have uh in Mid Cape and the concern that we're I'm hearing here is that the zoning changes being pursued by the Cape Cod Division
are creating conditions which are challenging our water supply specifically the contract with East Maricus and some of the activity that's being considered on Walsh property. So we would like to know Cape Cod Commission when they consider passing on consideration by regional impact do they take into account the water? Do they consider that we could have a 5 10 year drought sometime
have a lot of high density housing where East's going to turn off the plug. Yeah. and uh do they is that part of their calculus? So that's a question directed to the chair. I'm going to ask Christie if if you'd like to respond to that. Sure. Yes, absolutely. So projects that are reviewed by our board, so those projects that uh trigger commission review thresholds that are reviewed as developments of regional impact are reviewed pursuant to our regional policy plan and have to adhere to goals and objectives within that policy plan that are geared towards
water resources. So certainly many of those considerations are um looked at as we review those plans and make those recommendations to our board and make built into decisions. Um but certainly water resources one of is one of those critical um components of the review process. Yeah. I think one of the things that do you have a followup real quick? So can you mention a single that you've ever declined uh because of water conditions? I probably would have venture to just
we could what I'd like to do is we could bring this up as an agenda topic at a future meeting to kind of get into this a little bit. If you want to do me a favor and sort of outline some of the questions that you think are worth our delving into that relate to this. No, I think it's a legitimate it's a legitimate question. I think the the constraints on water supply are more prominent particularly out in this part of the Cape. I think if there are major developments that would be promoted out here, some of the ma um you know the the concerns that I hear in the midcape um if you take some of those issues regarding housing development and then apply them out
here people out here are much more nervous and much more concerned because there's well there's not just the space but also there the water supply again I mentioned some limit there the limitations are more there's more of an awareness out here and I think they become factors in the conversation. Yes, sir. Now, I hear a lot of talk today about conserving water. Um, to me, it's just common sense. As you build more housing on Cape Cod under the disguise of the 40B affordable
housing program, you're going to ex exaggerate this problem. You're going to be using more water with more housing. It's just common sense. You don't need committees. You don't need studies and all that. More houses, you use more water. In regards to protecting the aquifer, which I behard, which I am completely in favor of obviously, uh, the offshore wind farm wants to put their substation right over the sole source aquifer of Cape Cod with 100,000 gallons of highly toxic fluid. And if that fluid gets into the aquifer, it's over for Cape Cod. I appreciate that. Thanks.
It's over. Um, as far as climate change, out of everybody who's been to the National Seashore over here, it's a great facility. They did a great documentary on the sands of T. seeing that for the last 20,000 years long before the invention internal combustion engine 20,000 years the Cape has been shifting and changing with the climate you mentioned yourself Mr. for us. You can't stop mother nature, right? And that's the way it is. You can you can ban this, you can ban that. Cod lawns. Good idea. Okay. I got lawns. I like to keep it green if I had to. I don't have to. It's
less work for me. I'm all that too. Yeah. But um I appreciate your comments. Yeah, you really got to watch the development. I my personal feelings just stop. You're destroying Cape Cod. Just stop. Affordable housing. You build 100 units, you get 10 affordable. Okay. Well, we're Yeah, we're not we're not in that position time on everybody. We're running out of time. I've got 10 minutes to 12 and we've got a rest of our agenda to go through. I'm going to speak Hang on a second. I
Okay. I appreciate your comments. If you want to submit anything in writing Sure. in addition to what you've commented on today, can let Can I just be uninterrupted for a moment so I can engage in this constituent? Go right ahead. Yep. If you have other comments that you'd like to submit to us, um, we're all ears. Okay. So, feel free to expand and add any other commentary. All right. So, I'm going to I'm going to end the conversation. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Bergstrom. Yeah. Just, you know, the talk about desalinization plans anticipates there's going to be some some point
we're going to have to fall back on that. And that's totally unacceptable. I mean, with two two threats. One is the threat of further water use. The other threat is the fact that climate change may reduce the water that we have now. Right? Nothing we can do about the second one. First one we can do something about. There's always going to be more development. How much in what pace that's something that we can determine. But as we find that there's going to be some inevitable development, we can make accommodations to see that water use through conservation is reduced.
So the amount of water that we use now or we can set a limit in the future of 10 or 20% increase and we could determine that we're not going to go beyond that in total water use by enacting regulations and by enacting restrictions that would keep us underneath that amount. So yes, I know we we we're not going to we're not going to put a pipe out into the into uh Nucket Sound or or or the ocean and start to salinate him. We have to use conservation is absolutely number one.
I don't think with all due respect I don't think Mary's suggesting that we go that way. She's just trying to help us make sure that we understand what the cost and the implications are. That's all she's asking for. It's a legitimate question. It should be looked at. People should know what it would cost if we need to go in that direction. Change. Commissioner Lions, do you have any final comments? No, I do not. I know that we have time is of the essence, so we'll keep that for another time. So, do we have any other questions for Christie because she has to leave to another appointment. She's got to go. Okay. Thank you very much, Tim. Thank you very much. And all your staff
with a great Thank you, Tim. Great presentation. And uh for the folks that are in the audience, the next part of our agenda is relatively boring and routine, but you're certainly welcome. Okay. Yes, we can see. Very good. We're going to move on to the next item on our agenda, which is authorizing the execution of the closing documents related to the financing agreement number CWD25-04 for the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust interim loan in the amount not to exceed uh 1,140, $489. Um, and I'm going to ask if um, now we've taken this matter up before
and so this is an just a subsequent action uh, to finalize approval of the financing of this. Does anybody have any questions for Carol Capola before we move on this one? I do not. Okay. So, Carol, you're off the hook. Thanks for hanging around. Uh, could I have a motion, please? So, um, I'm happy to make this motion. Do I read all of this for the purposes of good thing everybody left because they did not hear all this. All right. I move that the county shall issue a bond or bonds
in the aggregate principal amount not to exceed $11 million. all of the bonds uh pursuant to chapter 163 of the acts of 1988 as amended chapter 29C of the general laws and ordinance number 21-0 24-01 adopted by a vote of the assembly of delegates on May 1st 2024 and ordinance number
23-06 adopted by the Assembly of Delegates on February 15, 2023 for planning or construction construction of sewers or other water pollution control abatement infrastructure otherwise known as the project. Number two, the terms of the financing agreement between the county and the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust, referred to as the trust and the financing agreement and the project regulatory agreement between the county and the department of environmental protection
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, DP, the project regulatory agreement, each relating to the notes and bonds are hereby approved. Three, in anticipation of the issuance of the bonds, the county director of finance or treasurer is allowed is authorized to issue an interim loan notes or notes called the notes from time to time in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $11
million. that each bond or note shall be issued as a single registered security and sold to the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust at the price determined pursuant to the financing agreement. that the county director of finance is authorized to determine the date, the form, and maximum interest rate and principal maturities of each bond or note and to execute a finance agreement financing agreement with the trust with respect to the sale of the bonds and notes. such date,
form in maturities and the specific interest rate or rates of the bonds or notes to be approved by a majority of the board and the county director of finance and evidenced by their execution of bonds or notes. that the certificates number six, the certificates or documents relating to each bond and note collectively the documents may be executed in several counterparts each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which constitute one in the same document.
Delivery of an executed counterpart of a signature page to a document by electronic email in a PDF file or other electronic transmission shall be as effective as delivery of a mutually executed counterc signature page to such document. And electronic signatures of any of the documents shall be deemed original signatures for the purposes of the documents and all matters relating there to having the same legal effect as the original signatures. Almost done. Mhm. Number
seven, all of the action taken to date by the county and its offices and agents to carry out the project and its financing include the execution of any loan commitment or agreement by the county director of finance treasurer are hereby ratified, approved, and confirmed. And number eight, that the county director of finance, treasurer, and other appropriate county officials are hereby authorized to take any and all actions necessary or convenient to carry out the provisions of this
vote, including execution and delivery of the financing agreement and the project regulatory agreement relating to the project. Done. Thank you. That's the motion. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. I'm just going to ask staff, is there anything here that we need to adjust or tweak? It's all accurate. Everything is all set. Carol. Okay. Very good. So, we have a motion in the second. Is there any more discussion on this? No. Okay. Roll call vote. Commissioner Lions I. Commissioner Bergstrom. I. Commissioner Forest votes I. It's unanimous.
Uh agenda item number D and this relates to a proposed ordinance regarding the transfer of a remaining balance in our ARPA funds and uh I'm going to ask Commissioner Lions if she'd like to make a motion. Sure. I I move to So this is about uh moving funds from the towns and the small medium grants tranches to the opera administrative budget. I move to introduce proposed ordinance 26
to be named transfer remaining balances of $79 of the American Rescue Plan Act grant funds by moving them from the towns and small me small to medium grant tranches to the opera administration budget to ensure the expenditure of these funds. Second on that motion. Yeah, second. Okay. Uh this is going to require a roll call vote. Commissioner Bergstrom Bergstrom votes eye. Commissioner Lions Lions votes I and Commissioner Forest votes I. So that is what's left of the opera unanimously.
Well items seven yet. Um item number seven, new business. Is there any other new business to come before the board of commissioners? Hearing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda. And I'm going to ask Commissioner Bergstrom to since there number of abstensions involving myself. I'm going to ask Commissioner Bergstrom to do the honors of reading through each of the motions here since uh you're unaffected. I I move to approve commissioner's consent agenda items AAA as listed
on the March 25th, 2026 meeting agenda for use by the town of Yarmouth. I second. Okay. And moved and seconded. Um I call a roll call. Commissioner Lions. Lions votes. Commissioner Forest abstains and Commissioner Burst votes I. Okay, next item. The next item I Excuse me. I move to approve commissioner's consent agenda item 8A. Is this is the same exactly one that we just did, right? But because we're both on it, but it's read the rest. I'll move I move to approve commissioner's
consent agenda item 8A is listed on the March 25th, 2026 meeting agenda for use by the town of Welley. Okay. And I'll second that. Okay. We've been seconded. Um, Commissioner Forest votes I and Commissioner Bilson votes eye. And Commissioner Lions abstains. There you go. Next one. I move to approve commissioner's consent agenda item 8A as listed on March 25th, 2026 meeting agenda for use by the towns of Barnstable, Bourne, Grewster, Chadam, Dennis, Felmouth, Orleans,
and Sandwich. I second. Okay. I um roll call vote. Roll call vote. Commissioner Lions. I Commissioner Forest I and Commissioner Forest can vote I will vote I will we will exc right along. I move to approve commissioner's consent agendum agenda consent agenda item 8B as listed on the March 25th 26 meeting agenda. Uh second go ahead. Okay I moved to seconded. Um I'll call vote. Commissioner
Lions Lions votes eye. Berkshire votes eye and Forest abstains. Okay. Second. Next. I move to approve commissioner's agend commissioner consent agenda item AC as listed on the March 25th 20 26 meeting agenda. And I will second them. Okay. Been moved and seconded. Um, Commissioner F votes I. And Commissioner Bergen votes I. And Commissioner Lens abstains. Okay. I move to approve commissioner's agenda consent agenda item 8D as listed on the March 20 25th 2026 meeting agenda
you got to oh second okay okay I'll call for a vote commissioner alliance I commissioner Bergstrom votes I and commissioner forest abstains okay next I move to approve commissioner's consent agenda items 8 through 8 aa as listed on the March 25th 26 meeting agenda. Second. Okay. I I also vote I I will call for a vote. All those in favor say I or Commissioner Alliance. Lions
votes I and votes I and Bert votes I. So that is all because of open meeting law. Yeah. Now let me just explain for the folks in the audience that had to sit through all this what it is we voted on. So that you know, right? Um the first set of motions dealt with uh uh making awarding a bid for construction work and construction materials basically that affect all our town. But since I'm
a select board member in the town of Yarmouth, any of the activities that vote from that involve providing a benefit or some impact to the town of Yarmouth, I will abstain from voting on. And that's the same for Commissioner Lions since she's on the select board in the town of Wfleet. So if there's anything that involves the town of Wleet, she will she will not she will abstain from voting on it. So we had to award a contract or award a bid rather for roadway and construction items. And then on that then following that there was road resurfacing contracts. Now again to to explain
this, the county has a regionwide procurement service. So we go out to bid for materials and uh involving uh construction materials involving road resurfacing contracts. And what the county does is it tries to get the lowest and best possible bid for the local community. And so if we have prices for each of the towns, again, I will abstain from voting on any acceptance of a bid that might involve the town of Yarmut. Commissioner Lions will do
the same for Wley. So and that's to save everybody money and up in the state and ethics and us having to get lawyers to address things. And then the last area is that there are dredging contracts. So, we approved a number of dredging agreements uh for various towns. One involves Bass River and because that might implicate the town of Yarmouth since Yarmouth uh utilizes Bass River, I abstain from voting for that and Commissioner Lions would do the same for any threatening involving
uh East Ham. So, just to let you know, um I've requested not East Ham, excuse me. When we go, any may be interested in this meeting. Um when they we come to Wilson, I did ask about procurement to be on the agenda and talk about our procurement service and how it might help the outcome. Anyway, there you go. Sorry. So there you go. And um also in the um consent agenda is we authorized a letter of support to the national seashore for uh a relocation project involving
the NASDA light beach road. They're working on an exchange under the law. They need to ask us for an endorsement. So we endorsed that. So just so that you're aware of that. So we also endorsed um a similar seashore letter for another project in a neighboring town. So um that was important. We also um needed to basically acknowledge the receipt the notice from the Mass Department of Transportation for their land acquisition work associated with the new Sagamore bridge. So
they're doing a lot of land acquisition. By law they have to notify us. Mhm. And in order for us to approve of the notification, we have to we had all these acknowledgements of a receipt for all of these individual parcels, and each one needs to be spelled out. So, um, we spared everyone the uh the the the the time involved in uh going through each of the parcels. So we put it on the consent agenda which is again for anybody that's interested you go to our website look at our
agenda as it was posted and you can see all of the parcels and then finally what we did was we also um approved a number of appointments to the health and human services advisory council. So these are individuals that represent the towns. They're often nominated by the towns. And if I just want to add that uh for all those dog lovers out there and there are many and especially those who love dachshunds, there is a Cape Cod Doxy day and that is held uh on September 26th,
2026 at the Barnesville County Concepts Browns. So you can bring your little doggy and meet other Dachons and maybe have more joins. There you go. If they fall in love. Yeah, I have a comment on that. I went to the doxy day once. I had a dachshund since a doggy reward and there were probably oh dozens of dachshundons there and finally it was time to leave. So I picked up my dachshun and wandered off with them. Turns out it was the wrong dog. The poor dog looking at me like
change. Great. Very good. Poor dog. Um I'm going to move on to the next item on our agenda to move down. I'm going to go to the approval of the meeting minutes. Yes. And uh could I have a motion? Mr. Chair, I move to approve the revised February 11th, 2026 regular meeting minutes as drafted. Okay. Roll call vote. Forest votes I. Bergman votes I and Lions votes I. Very good. Do I have another motion? Yes. I move to approve the March 4th,
2026 regular meeting minutes as drafted. Forest votes I. Burks from both sides and Lions by side. Very good. Do we have any other commissioner reports? Well, I just did want to mention um I did go to uh the Mass Works uh retreat and um it is fascinating uh the work they're doing in the schools, the work they're doing um as far as teaching skills. We don't get that here as much as that you are aware of it in Hyannis. Uh there is a uh career center there. There's uh education
classes that go on in conjunction with uh Cape Cod Community College. There's job placement. There's um English language. There's a lot of things they're helping people to be able to secure work. And I think uh I'd like to have them come to our meeting and talk about um one of our meetings in the future to talk about uh where they're going, what they're doing. But they are working a lot with the tech schools. And I do think that uh as municipalities and a county, we could be
um helpful in creating curriculums that would be helpful to all of us. So, and and to keep our young people here. One of the cries is everybody has to leave because there's no jobs. There are jobs. It's just these I'm not sure if Herby's being directed to them. So, it was really a very interesting thing and um I'll just leave it at that. One more time. Thank you, Commissioner Burkstrom. Any Commissioner? No, I don't have anything right now. Okay. Um, upcoming business, this is where we look at the upcoming agendas. Um, I think, um, for the county administrator,
um, I think we should add the Mass Works who has an agenda topic for future meeting. Massire Mass, but they're under a MA. Yeah, it's mass hire and it's the um Okay. Once was the K bud was what was it? Workforce development. Yes, thank you. Um, how do we look for our next meeting? You look busy uh for your next meeting. We've got uh several presentations um one or two of which we could rearrange a little bit, but uh we'd like to get that done. Um and you've got
county business that we want to save for our Do you think we need to start earlier on that day? Um I think it'll be all right. Uh we we have some flexibility in presentations. Um so so we can talk about that. Okay. Might we need some nutrition or nourishments brought in at certain point? Always. Um just requested we discuss Governor uh Beley's executive order 650 which concerns the uh ban on
ice on state property and state facilities. So, I'd like to add that to Yeah. Let's make sure that that's on the agenda. I think we put it on the on the 8th. That request came in to us what, a month ago, the seventh. Yeah. Okay. So, good. We've got that on there. Um, that's great. Any other items that you'd like to bring up? We've got your uh and for for Wednesday the 22nd, we're going to be in wealth. Any special topics? We Oh, yeah. Your elite went over the administrator. That's good. You'll be surprised. No, one of them is the procurement and um Okay,
what else do we I gave you? We've talked about a few things there. Um we did uh seasonal a little update on seasonal communities uh perhaps um update on our composting initiative. Yeah, is that came up at a recycle meeting? potential uh discussion or presentation about uh IIA systems and the work the county is doing with IIA systems u in order to reduce nitrogen discharge. So we might want to invite Brian out there, Carrie out there and Jennifer. Yeah, Jennifer come out. Yeah,
we can get her out. Get her out on the road. Um that's that's enticing to everybody. Is it Linda? Yeah, you. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm trying to put you I recognize your face, but I can't move on. Any other uh agenda items that we should talk about, commissioners? Okay, then hearing none, we're going to move on to the next item. Welcome if we don't get out of here. County administrator reports. Uh just have a couple of items. Uh just let you know that the assembly has taken up uh the commissioner's budget. Uh obviously different components go to different committees.
That process kicked off earlier in the week and uh continues tonight and uh tomorrow uh and then next week as well. So that is moving along uh well. Um I next meeting or the meeting after I'll probably come to you with a proposal to try to uh complete the burn building that that we constructed in Yarmouth as you know. Uh we've been trying to complete that since 2017. So I think I think we've got a plan in place. You have whenever that's ready, we should invite Beth. That was really
Yeah. A stone that she carried around. She'll be thrilled. I think Yeah, we should put the name. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Beth Albert building. There you go. That'll make her happy. No, she doesn't want to remember it really. And then the uh the only other thing I just want to let you know that we are uh tracking and uh beginning compliance with electronic accessibility. uh specifically our website has to be compliant by the end of April. Um we will probably nobody is going to meet that date. I can tell you that. Uh but but um governments our size are required to to
comply uh this year. Governments uh all the other governments on the Cape are required to comply uh municipal governments are required to comply next year. So uh we are going through quite a lot of uh research uh on what programs to use, what uh practices to to take and uh and so I've asked Sydney Stley, our communications manager, to um look at potentially being able to offer a service to all the towns uh on how to comply. uh and if it makes sense for us to do a joint procurement for
for whatever uh software software we need then then excellent thank you do that so but that's what I have great because I do that must be why we're undergoing any other on our website needs a lot of work but it is you know mandatory that it's more accessible and important for fleet or for all the towns it'll be about a year from now year from now uh before we go on to the next agenda item I just wanted to make uh uh uh a my own commissioner's report. Um the county administrator
and I attended we were invited to speak at the uh Barnstable uh civic association the other night uh to up we did a county 101 presentation and um we wanted to at least engage in a discussion about um the courthouse and some of the renovations that are being planned there. And uh they were very welcoming, very uh very it was an very very enjoyable conversation with them that the both
of us had. Um and the st the folks there, several of them were incredibly complimentary about Robin and the service that she provides uh in the in to them and to the people of Barnstable County. And it was nice to hear all the accolades going Robin's way. Um, and I we promised that we would be back to keep in touch with them as the county courthouse improvements progress. Uh, they're engaged in that. They have a lot of interest in it. We talked about this before, the
need to have community involvement in it, so they appreciated us being there to talk about it. And, uh, I think they're looking forward to having having us back there, particularly Michael. They he he was he was the uh, he was the he was the star of the event. And uh I actually had feedback on that meeting. That's how I knew you were there. And um um I heard only good things. Everything you say is true. And I did put a request into Michael yesterday that please don't let that par don't start the construction until after the 4th of July parade. They do have a big parade. This is the
250th. Yeah. And they didn't want Mercy and James Otis to be shrouded in. Trust me, they they were not shy about coming up with Oh, I know. I heard I heard. Yeah. So, do we have a motion? Yes, ma'am. How helpful Robin has been to Cape Cod Doxy Day over the years. This will be our 18th year. That's how I remember you. Answered every email that I've sent. She's reent sent some that I lost. and
um really appreciate appreciate your help and your support. Great. Yeah. Thank thanks thanks for for sharing that with us. And so before we um move to a journ I want to thank Jerry thank our host here in the town of East Ham. You've been incredibly accommodating. Uh anytime you want us back, you know we're here. We're ready to come. But we have a regular rotation. So um hopefully we'll continue this. If you want to speed up the rotation, come here and more in your Okay. Well,
thank you. If you if you if you want to, you can come to our wellfleet meeting, which will be next month. Next month. Yeah. So, we'll be moving. We've learned that the lower cape likes to be referred to as the lower cape and the outer cape wants their own special attention. Absolutely. So, we now have we have wealth we have, Churro, and Province Town sort of lumped together in a group. So, and anyway, we'll we'll we'll be there. We'll be there uh next month. Thank you. Thank you for your hospitality. Yes. Thank you very much. This was all right. Do I have a motion? And with that,
Mr. Chair, I move that we adjourned. Okay. Motion and second. It's 12:20. 12:20. And uh all in favor say I. I. Opposed. It carries unanimously. The meeting is Thank you. Ajourned. Thank you.