All right. Well, good morning everyone. Welcome to our annual summer workshop. At workshops, we get together and have more of a free flowing conversation uh generally around longer term goals. Although today we do also have some
business as usual items at the outset. So, it's a bigger mix. So, why don't we dive right in? First up we have approval of miscellaneous items, licenses and contracts. Uh 1A is question of approving the meeting minutes from June
2. Did anyone uh seek to amend those minutes? All right. Okay. So I move then approval of the meeting minutes from June 2nd. Bernard. >> Hi. >> Michael. >> Hi. >> Amanda.
>> Hi. >> Anthony. >> Yes. And I also vote yes. Next, why don't we take one B through one
see S in omnibus fashion although I would like to maybe remove. >> Oh, never mind. Okay, let's take that omnibus fashion. >> One quick flag. one key just needs to be postponed. That's a one day
entertainment license um for Jun Mach and T. They're going to move when they want it to be dead. Um so they're going to come back to you on the 30th. So everything except one. >> All right. So 1B through 1 S not including 1 P. >> Yeah. I'd like to pull up and not really
discuss but just confirm that the acid grant we're talking about relates to fiscal year 2.3 um and that does not have any of the um affirmations that we're concerned about with respect to uh
the administration's new efforts to um attack immigrants. >> That's right. >> And and that mainly because I think people get really upset and and agitated about US grants and we just want to give assurance that this is not one of those
that are going to at least um you know rely on cause problems. >> Right. That is correct. >> And we should note that in a minute. >> Yeah, we will. >> I have one other question. There are just in general a number of
uh authorizations to hire. Yes. >> Um and I'm just wondering are these by and large authorizations to hire that are made possible by the override? >> Yes. I mean in the absence in the absence of the override we would be looking at which of these positions you
would not be filling. Um so yes >> um uh for uh for communications purposes it would be helpful to have a list of positions that we're able to fill in for the over because of the override um just to let town meeting members know where
their override dollars are going. >> Sure. Happy to do that. I mean it's you know it's can be can be difficult in the sense that right we we had proposed positions to cut in the event no override scenario but for example you look at the sustainability natural
resources position at EP um had we had the override not passed we we didn't specifically say that that position would be cut in FY27 but because the sustainability division would sunset in FY28 we likely leave that position unfilled so there are there's some
nuance there. But we can definitely, you know, try and demon try and show, you know, what positions we're able to fill as a result of having the funds. >> Fill or maintain? >> Maintain. Yeah. >> Right. >> Right. To that point that Michael just made about maintain, it would be helpful to know how many of these positions were
we already seeking to fill as opposed to how many are new as a result of having additional dollars. >> Well, the good news is none of these are new positions right now. the newer positions are going to come later in the year as in FY27. Um so once the fiscal
year turns over when we start looking at some of those new positions that's what you'll see these are positions that we already have that need to be filled. >> Okay. >> I al sorry go ahead. >> Yeah. So just just to button that up. um as a m since I'm not going to be here between now and the next meeting if if
we could prepare some sort of announcement to to this effect that these are position your uh creative remain because of the override for the next meeting. >> Sure. >> All right. I have a question about 1 C.
It's relatively minor question, but I'm just curious why collection services and a reference librarian would be K through seven as opposed to K. >> That's a grade a job. >> Oh, it's a job grade academic. >> It's a good question. Yeah, it's a good question. No, there it's a job grade. Yep.
>> Okay. And then regarding one R. So one R proposes approval of the design advisory team uh for the Ches Hill commercial overlay zoning district and it set number of positions by category. Uh the specific individuals who would comprise
the design advisory team have not yet been selected. Correct. >> Correct. >> Uh so there will be an application process for that. People will be notified publicly and then there will be a selection process. >> Yes. Um the only thing that I would amend on
that um one are it says the proposed late includes it should say the proposed late includes at a minimum um because that was a that was a very important point. >> All right. So that's >> how long do you think until that entire
committee is staffed? How long does that normally take? >> I mean not too long. Uh the planning board will move forward on this. Um so it's it's a it's a statutory requirement to sign advisory teams. the the planning board will um will make that appointment. And so as part of this,
you've got that um letter in your packet uh proposed letter in your packet that will be sent to the chair planning board. Uh they'll meet and you know move as expeditiously as they can. Um just just so everybody is aware the reason that I wrote that letter is
because there is an element in the memorandum of agreement that says that the select board will advocate for a design advisory team that includes all of these rules. So this is all language that's taken directly from the memorandum agreement >> and at the minimum within the MOA.
>> Yes, at the minimum is the minimum. I just have one general comment if we can I I know this isn't that way but I would like us to shift a little less prescriptive in boards going forward because I have found as I've been like
digging into old boards there are some really active volunteers in the town which is like great for them but like it would be great to not have the same like five people on like 20 boards because we've written the description so narrowly. Um, so in as much as we have the ability to recruit new faces to some
of these boards and committees, uh, that would be great. >> All right. So, >> has hand raised. >> Go ahead. You can unmute. >> All right. All right. I guess we can go back to you. Uh, so I'm going to amend
then my motion. So, one approval. I move that we approve items 1B through 1 S excluding 1 P and 1 R as amended by Michael. >> Sorry. Thank you. Apologize. Hold on, Jonathan.
>> Okay. Can you hear me now? >> Okay. Maybe. >> Well, he's being >> Hold on. Second. >> All right. Try again, Jonathan. >> Uh, can you hear me now? >> No, but you're being picked up by the
transcript. So, >> your sound is kind of >> You'll get a robot lawyer. >> You sure that the Zoom is set to use the owls to sound? >> So, look at the audio settings. >> Wait, there's an X next to the um speaker.
>> Make sure the speaker cancel. >> I pull that up again. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Great. So then do the same thing you just did where you had the unmute it. >> Are you are you looking down? >> Yeah. No on the popup >> and then
see there's an X right in that line. >> Make sure you choose echo cancel. There you go. Now go back. Wish you just had to change your sound device. Now you have to unmute it. There you go. >> How about now? Can you hear me? there.
>> Okay, this is uh not I just wanted to to address Anony's question in an additional way. Um the design advisory team uh doesn't really kick into effect until the the plans are submitted and the city realy won't be submitting any plans until the zoning is approved by
the AG. So there's not a need to necessarily staff this team right away. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Uh just a question I have. Uh so for aren't design advisory teams the purview of a planning board as opposed to select
board >> uh you usually yes um but we um for standard major impact projects however for this one we agreed that the uh the MOA says that the select board will will be appointing it
>> it specifically says that the select board will advocate >> it does not say that the select board will >> will specify Right. We are advocating to the planning board for this. >> Okay. >> In in as a result of the negotiation with the neighbors and city real team in
town. >> All right. So the select board is simply in an advocacy role here and planning board will still be running the design advisory team. >> That's correct. >> Okay. All right. So with that we were midvote. Bernard voted yes. >> Michael >> yes. >> Amanda >> yes.
>> Anthony >> yes. And I also vote yes. All right. With that, we will move to item number two, temporary extended hours for on premise alcohol licenses. Discussion and possible vote on conditionally authorizing holders of
alcoholic beverage service licenses to remain open until 3 in the morning following World Cup matches. Now, this was brought to my attention by Chris Muddy, who had informed me that Elola in particular was interested in staying
open uh late uh during the World Cup because there are some matches that are beginning at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, even midnight Eastern, and they want to be able to show games to various patrons. I don't know whether other restaurants have expressed interest. I know Public
House has been showing World Cup games, uh Sunset Cantina, several places. So there might be um several local businesses that might want to avail themselves of this opportunity. Uh I certainly am inclined to support this.
It's being recommended to us by someone who's obviously very active in our uh local business community. >> And I do want to flag. So the as as with everything that you know a good lesson on how to how rushing things sometimes makes them more difficult than they need
to be. The state legislature rushed this through and what the law actually says is places you know places without alcohol alcohol licenses can stay open an hour late. So really tech so in order for this as it's as the law is written
it basically means if you were if your current closing hours are one it could be two. If your closing hours are two they could be three. Well, what we can do in practice is you because you are the licensing authority, you know, you can craft a motion that basically says if places wish to stay open, you know,
however late they currently are until 3 um subject to approval from the um police department, um then they can they can do that. So, we did some research and figured that out, but it is just you know the the law as it's drafted is a little awkwardly phrased. So you you
just have to basically say for the pendency of the World Cup, if uh holders of alcohol licenses wish to stay open till 3:00, they can subject to the police department at this point. >> I think we did check with the police department and they seem genu generally
supportive at this. >> Yes, Chief Pastor is online. Um we talked and Lieutenant Brother who's the licensing um official and and and we all we all had a conversation. Michelle had a conversation. We all think you know we don't we don't have any objection to it in principle. Um, we just want to make sure that if someone flies, you know,
for example, they have past history and so forth, we just want to make sure that they know that they can, you know, just stay open until 3:00. It's not a license to, for example, overcrowd the bar or something. Um, so >> does this include outdoor dining?
>> No, outdoor dining stops at 11. Um, no matter what. Um, >> what time are bars normally allowed to be open? >> Good question. So in most area, so townwide the rule is generally midnight.
Um you have a certain areas that the select board designated um entertainment zones um glitch corner St. Mary's um JFK crossing and uh I'm sorry, Kish Corner, uh uh Brookline Village, Washington
Square and um I think yeah, sorry. That's right. That's right. come out. >> Yep. So, those are the four areas where you can stay open as late as one. Um, but the board did ask that anyone wanting to stay open till two need to
come directly to the select one rather than the licensing path to sort of get approved. So, theoretically, some places can stay open until two. Um, but in practice, what happened for example, you just approved on the um miscellaneous agenda a new business on comm. They had wanted to stay open until 3. Taco Bell
next door to them stays open until three. I think that's a they were uh uh they were an exception. It was that was uh moved in under prior licensing rules. We had to tell them you know the latest you can go was one um unless you want to
come to the board and master. So, um, >> but we do have a policy that I'm I'm just thinking more broadly. Yeah. If we want to support our local businesses, um, and supporting nightife, it we do have a policy that they can come ask us to stay up until two outside of the cup.
>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Or uh, we talk about local world cup matches or broader >> any any World Cup game people want to watch at a bar. >> Usually, yeah, the late night ones tend to be the ones that are on the West Coast. Um, you know, starting in
midnight our time. >> All right. So, I move approval of authorizing holders of alcoholic beverage service licenses remain open until 300 a.m. on the nights of World Cup matches. >> I'm John. Oh, go ahead.
Okay. >> Sorry, that that was my question about were we is it was it just going to be a blanket approval until July 31st or was it did it need to be the night of a that a World Cup match was being broadcast? I just >> Right. How do we want to handle that? >> Do you have a recommendation there?
>> I would recommend that you do it on the night world cups matches are being broadcast. People understand that. The only other thing I would just add to your motion is that if we um subject to the police department's approval um and that's a very that's very easy, right? you know, someone can call our office, the police
department can run the, you know, run the records, make sure there are no past infractions, talk to them about the requirements, and then we can just move forward. So, it's a very basic process, but it's not going to cause speed up. We just want to know what these places these places are asking so we can keep drivers of it.
>> That sort of like really clear the steps that they have to do. >> Yes, absolutely. Yeah, Michelle has already Michelle and brother have already talked about this, so I don't. >> All right. So, subject to police authorization conditionally allowing holders of alcoholic beverage service licenses remain open until 3:00 in the
morning on the nights of World Cup matches. >> Bernard, >> yes. >> Michael, >> yes. >> Amanda, >> yes. >> Anthony, >> yes. >> And I also vote yes. >> All right, with that we will move to boards and commissions appointments.
question of appointing JJ Forementi to the Brooklyn Disability Commission. >> Can we say how many applicants and how many seats when we're discussing this? Is this just one for one?
>> Disability. I think there are two vacancies on disability and you will have somebody coming forward I believe on the 30th for another interview. I just want to verify there actually just one vacancy currently. >> How many total applicants do we have?
>> Two. I believe there's one other. Let me just verify. >> She was she came in after this was on the agenda. >> All right then. I I recommend we probably hold off on that so we interview the other candidate. They can't get on to our share drive to tell
you who the other applicant is. >> That's fine. No matter who it is, I think we owe it to that person. Give them an opportunity to be heard. >> Uh item 3B. >> Um Go ahead. >> Is is this is this is an open seat. This is not replacing the vacancy.
>> Correct. >> I'm sorry. Replacing somebody whose term is expired. >> Right. There is currently one vacancy. >> All right. 3B is the question of appointing Shawn O'Neal to the Brooklyn Commission for Women. Similar question. How many available spots? How many
applicants? >> She's the only applicant that I'm aware of and there are three vacancies. >> Okay. All right. I think we can move forward there. Um, any discussion? All right. So I will move that we
appoint Shawn O'Neal to the Brooklyn Commission for Women. Bernard, >> yes. >> Michael, >> yes. >> Amanda, >> yes. >> Anthony, >> yes. >> And I also vote yes. Next is question of appointing Hondan
Baron to the Brooklyn Commission for the Arts. So once again, how many vacancies, how many applicants? There are three vacancies. Um, you have another person, two other people being interviewed on your 30th agenda, but
there are three vacancies currently. >> Um, I will note that on her application in the packet at least, um, the primary phone and the email address are not redacted. Oh, >> thank you for that. Yeah. Also, I is
this the applicant who also applied for conservation? >> She is. >> Um, and then how many applicants do we have for conservation? How many? Because I I I don't, just speaking for myself, I'm not sure I would want to point somebody to two commissions. And so, if
she has a strong preference for one and we prefer her for the other, then maybe we might want to hold off. >> So, there's two current vacancies on conservation. We do have additional applicants that are going to be on the June 30th agenda. >> All right. Um, >> do we know what your preference is
between Commission for the Arts and Conservation? >> Reach out. >> All right. My suggestion would be maybe we wait because conservation is more competitive, but I'm not sure which one she prefers. And if we were to her commission for the arts, I'm not sure if
we would appoint her to a second commission. >> Thanks, Tess. >> All right. Uh 3D is question of appointing Vasili Demenco to the preservation commission. So once again, how many vacancies? How many applicants?
>> Two vacancies. He's the only applicant and preservation commission does recommend his appointment. He has been attending meetings. >> All right. Uh any further discussion? No. Okay. So I will move that we appoint facility demenco to the preservation
commission. Bernard. >> Yes. Michael, >> yes. >> Amanda, >> yes. >> Anthony, >> yes. >> And I also vote yes. All right. So, with that, we will move to review of boards and committees handbook. Review of all currently active boards and committees
appointed by the select board. You can see in your packet you got a list actually of every public body that you appoint. You got >> um this that's the that's the proposed appointments for the lessons. So, this
is This is just a list of people as you can see. >> You guys take that advisor. >> Yeah. So that that should be >> which one? >> Pedestrian advisory is actually appointed by transportation.
>> I have to update Grant then because they have it as select board appointed committee. >> Fix that. Do we need to add a 911 committee after our vote at town meeting >> if that's if you know we were talking about that in we the town meeting uh
action? Yes. >> If that's again it's a resolution but if you want to follow along with that resolution. Yes. >> And then also there would be the committee related to warrant article 22. >> Yep. So later on today when we discuss the actions of town meeting if you choose to
create those committees the next step would be to build a charge and then once the charge is created then we would talk about appointments. >> I don't I actually don't think the current version of pass 22 require a committee >> sorry coordinating with NBC and MA and center.
>> Got it. Got it. Thanks. So >> um of this list, do you have an idea of how many of them are essentially biased? >> Yes. Um so look at this list. Um some of
them are, you know, fairly act some of these are category, right? You have to have assessors, you have to have very high. Um some of these are quite active. um you know the um the example of parks
and recognition and so forth and then some of these are more like the surveillance technology and military produced a report in 2021 I don't think or 2022 >> before I yeah >> I don't remember >> yeah um but it hasn't met since um
>> but then co hit 2021 >> okay um so I think you know when we you know we think about and you know the real ass property asset board is out there but we haven't actually staffing because we're we want to have that discussion with you. Um but you know the
vision zero committee has produced a report so technically its work is complete but there's been because there's been discussion about what you know the role of vision zero is and broader uh town usage we want to have that uh available and potentially revise
that but yeah I mean we think about um electronic communication review committee right that hasn't I don't know when that last um so when you think about committ that that for a year or more. Um you're looking at um right the
electronic communication review committee, the CIS oversight committee, um the information technology advisory committee, um the um OPEC committee, um the um
um the surveillance committee, taxation aid committee, um >> register our voters, >> register voters have pend um >> right what is the climate action committee >> before ZAB existed that was a committee
climate >> action committee I >> I served on that eons ago as a school committee rep and that's basically got replaced by ZB >> and the sustainability >> right >> so from all of the ones that you're
mentioning maybe it's worth discussing which members of the societ like we're going to revive any of them and like whatever there is not interested in reviving it sort of makes sense to me to close those so we don't have all like committees committees >> so two that come to mind and this
somewhat overlaps with the discussion around liaison assignments there have been a lot of questions around surveillance recently that have been brought to select board in the context of flock cameras in the context of uh soupa boards and also sometimes around
increased school surveillance uh the current group of KA principles seem to want more surveillance and so this is uh a foreseeable discussion that I think will need to be revived and I'm suggesting that uh Anthony end up being
the chair of the surveillance committee. Bernard used to serve in that capacity and he's willing to hand that off to Anthony. Uh so I I'd like to see that revived. I think it's an important topic that's coming up in a lot of different contexts. I just mentioned another one would be vision zero. >> Can I just about that? That's also
something that maybe we should or a committee that we should incorporate the information technology advisory committee and stems committee and merge that. >> Yeah, that makes sort of the same >> there there's a lot of people that are interested in sort of as we saw meeting
the AI question how it's used and so >> in terms of like setting policy that like that's worth holding in there as well. I I actually think those those two might actually be a benefit for being separated out if you want if you because that that is a separate question right
AI and it's a broader question than just surveillance it's a question what are our polic we have now a policy on AI we have a policy on you know usage we we have all of that but I think to the extent the community wants to be engaged in that conversation about how is our
data being used and so forth I think that actually probably belongs in its own space unless you disagree I'm not sure I agree because a lot of a lot of the question and power from surveillance comes from basically comes from its uh
interpretation through AI. Um and so if you're going to end up with a jurisdictional problem of like is the AI associated with surveillance different than the AI um associated with other things. Um, I I guess the the the
question is in my mind is does the information technology advisory committee have a full enough plate that they need potentially a subcommittee to deal with this or >> I mean they haven't yet that's that's a more committee. It hasn't been >> Yeah. And since they're both dormant and
I I I think the AI question is the is the entire pipeline of data collection to data usage. So I think and surveillance is involved in that. So I I think it would benefit from being one to be honest. >> Okay. I I agree and to the extent that there may be areas where uh you don't have overlap, there could maybe be a
subcommittee, maybe there could be a separate report if need be, but they do seem to overlap quite significantly. >> Yeah. >> And I need I I need to run out really quick for a work meeting, but um I want to just call out the OPED and I think that that should probably be revived given what given the pension payoff
timeline in 2030, right? Well, I think that's a definitely a discussion for a town school partnership because I think the schools have to have be a part of that as well and I think it's a good I I do think it's important to have that conversation, but I wonder if you need a separate committee for it as opposed to having the decision makers really being
the having that discussion because >> I think you're you're raising sort of an interesting issue, right, of like making council partnership and some things from ESRC came up there as well just like a much more robust committee that is like
dealing like not just saying okay schools get this town gets this but like actually dealing with these issues that are joined. >> Yeah. >> Um I would really like to see that. >> I would I would too. I think you know town school partnership because of the
ENRC's work and because of the capacity I think has really fallen off from where it could or should be and because you know frankly the schools have lacked capacity now until now with you know Bella finally having the the full slate
of you know support around her. Um, you know, the TSP used to be much more active. It used to be, you know, was the kind of driving force behind, you know, down from the split and the, you know, revenue projections and the policies around pension and so forth. And so
having it come back to that sort of stronger position, I think, is really is really important. Um, making sure that the town and schools are talking to one another and I, you know, know what they're doing in terms of >> just just quickly as Anony's leaving the room. So Anthony also as a part of
taking on surveillance and folding in information technology and AI if maybe you want to work on creating a new charge for it because this is going to be expanded >> and uh that also will be one of your major projects. >> Sure. Do we have an example of the previous charge?
>> Yes. Okay. Um, one thing that I one thing that I would also add, um, I'm assuming this might fall to the information technology advisory committee, but I know that Christina Metaf has talked about a website refresh, >> um, which I presume would also fall in
would it fall into that committee's review or somewhere else? So last time we did a refresh, I think it it ended up having some like user group meetings with like town meeting members and things like that to get feedback on the changes. I would envision kind of a similar process.
>> I just know we didn't have a communications officer at that point. Right. >> She was around the last refresh that we did. Yes. >> Okay. In terms of this OPEs discussion and some of these other items, I think what we might want to do is uh sort of
have an indentation and have some of these older groups underneath some others where they're folding in and merging >> so that we have an understanding of uh where we're going to be developing new charges. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um with regard to the vision zero, I
realize we're bouncing around a lot trackable. Um but with regard to the vision zero committee um so the transportation board held a workshop last Friday um that talked about a lot
of um sort of how they're going to merge vision zero complete streets the R&P all those things um I am a little worried that if we have a separate standalone vision committee vision zero committee
that it will sort of become another another sort of stream of decision making independent or separated from the transportation board and it's really the transportation board that at this point I think has adopted the vision zero committee and is charged with
integrating that into the other with the other issues that they face in terms of managing our roadways and um and the uh the road map. Frankly, the roadbat 2030 goals that we also have. Right. So, um I would actually recommend
that we not have a standalone committee there and specifically charge make sure that the transportation board is incorporating that work into their overall roadway because I think that'll >> I would actually agree with that especially since the vision zero is
committee was essentially like the folks that are involved in the transportation board or any of the subcommittees right >> that are already like part of this discussion. The one caveat is, and I know we put this into our 2030 road map um by asking of like reporting back on
on milestones, but I would like to see some sort of annual reporting to the select board of like what we used to get the bike advisory committee was a monthly crash report um and what happened. And I don't think, but I would like to see at least like a yearly
update of like this is what our streets are producing in terms of crashes around town and where they're happening. Um, I don't think that we necessarily need the vision zero committee unless we need an impetus to get that information to the select board. Um,
>> I was looking at revival of the vision zero committee more in the context of the recent budget amendment for where there's going to be communication with uh, DPW around roadway repairs and making sure that uh, vision zero is part
of the implementation and what we're doing with our roadways. Now, that could be structured differently. I just want to make sure that somebody is uh, picking that up, >> right? And I and I think based on at least what from what I saw last Friday,
it's really the transport that's really the transportation board because they're the only ones they're the ones who are doing the sort of integration of that concern with the other concerns. Michael, since I didn't make that meeting and I I wanted to um are they
interpreting when we get to the outcomes from town meeting right discussion later on are they actually um having the charge to staff that says for every street that's coming up in the next year staff is going to present division zero
proposals. Do we need to have an extra emphasis from the select board saying this was passed by town meeting and therefore we expect this to happen or is that already message already um made? >> So let me put my conditions of appropriation uh reach into effect
essentially um you know I I I always say that it's really the agreement between the department that's in charge of um executing the special appropriation and the whoever is mandating the the specific condition. So, you know, I feel like that's under the purview of
Commissioner Shu. Um, and that she's, you know, she's made an agreement that this condition is is something that she can work through with the various parties and things like that. So, that that I kind of see as um under her domain at this point, >> but she has made that clear that this is
something that she can do. She doesn't need extra guidance from anyone. >> Right. the the the purpose the what I took out of that meeting is that there is developing an alignment between DPW specifically its transportation division
and the transportation board on establishing a prioritization for roadways uh roadway safety improvements broadly and and coordinating those in the way that town meeting has asked with the RP
RP. Um, so that and the five-year RP construction plan will then be shared and everybody will know it and it will be coordinated with all of the safeties and that's how those
things are going to be professional. >> Um, and I guess the only other question I have from that standpoint is um, what will come before the select board is budget, right? >> Is contract approval. Well, yes. Yeah.
Yeah. But also, uh, yeah, I see you'll also do that. But in terms of making sure that I know this was a fight at town meeting, which uh, and was not the appropriate channel to do, but to increase the pedestrian budget to start
to like address a lot of our our pedestrian walkways. Um, and I want to make sure that there is some sort of information flow from either staff or the team board to the spec board and or AC that says okay we are not going to be
able to meet our vision zero goals if we don't increase funding for this so that we know that and have can take that into account in decision- making. >> Right. So my un my understanding of the of uh the way that the the funding for
this prioritization plan is going to ultimately occur is that they need to develop the prioritization plan first and then advocate either as part of the CIP or as part of operating funds for the various components. And uh David Tvette, for example, brought up the
question of like uh uh can we advocate for more money specifically for safer pedestrian uh uh corners and crosswalks, etc.? Um and and there have also been advocacy
for improved bicycle infrastructure. and all of those things um as they get coordinated into the prioritization plan will be reflected in our funding requests for those priorities as they come through. So this is very much similar process that parking park and
rec commission does for the prioritization of park improvements. So instead of parks it's now roadways. So, it's kind of the same um process that Aaron is kind of positioning setting up >> and there will be Yeah, that my my biggest concern is that we're we're going to set these expectations at the
level of this life board for road paving and vision zero and then not actually give the resources in order to do that. Um >> well, that's why I think the prioritization plan for roadways has to come to the select board uh early in the
budget process so that we can we can val so if that is the case then I I can agree with with Michael on not necessarily have a main lead for a vision zero committee um I I do still
raise the I would love to figure out a way to get annual reporting on crashes and I don't know who that should come from I know um Sergeant Hatchet now I forget what whatut >> uh used to stop the bike advisory
committee and now someone else does, but like someone in the police department is tracking this and they have the ability to map out where these happen. Um, and it would be great to sort of get an annual update on that. Um, I don't know how to make that happen. Sorry.
>> No, no, that's fine. I think, you know, we can definitely communicate that to both police and DPW that that's something that the board's interested in. Yeah. >> All right. So it sounds like there's a general consensus perhaps to not proceed with a vision zero committee assuming that this work can get done within the
transportation. >> Um getting back for a moment to the OPED discussion and where we're going to combine some of these uh committees. So OPEDs ERSC that can fold into town school partnership. Is there anything
else that we feel should fold into town school partnership? not the structure. >> Oh, taxation. Taxation was not met. >> What was that? >> So, that was just to establish the policy for um there is a voluntary
contribution that taxpayers can make um and I don't think that that's being being done. So I think the policy around the distribution of additional taxpayer money um for uh those purposes I think that's what the committee was initially
established to do is create the policy but I I think they're they're dormant because their work is complete. >> Yeah. So to the extent that anything left in that jurisdiction obviously that falls into TSP. So I think all all three of those you can declare closed.
>> I have a question. Sure. Why do we have a separate tree planting and tree protection committee? Could those be combined? >> They're in the bylaws. So that that is why there's two different >> uh is there in the in the effort to streamline is it
possible to consider a bylaw amendment to combine them? >> Yes, sort of. We could we could do that if that's what the board wants to propose for fall. We could have that. Now do you see the purviews as sufficiently overlapping or are these truly distinct groups? I you know they
are distinct functions but I think but they they overlap you know there this the the missions are are distinct but I think there are a lot of simil same same players same same concepts um same overall goal which is to maintain and retrieve um so yes I think that I will
say that the tree protection committee um does serve uh you know a statutory function in the bylaws that's important >> that's the tree planting committ >> is that the tree there you They've been around for a very long time. Essentially help choose the
species of trees that the town >> Oh, I was Isn't there also a statutory requirement for example to hold hearings when we lose public trees and that's in the >> tree planting planting committee? >> Yes. >> So I think
>> for the MBTA seine accessibility project, wasn't it the tree? >> Well, it has to be protection. I thought it was the tree protection >> command clear is that there's a lot of overlap and if it is not too difficult um I
think it would streamline it to have basically one tree committee. >> Yeah. >> And and we should just make sure that the members of those two committees are aware of what we're doing. >> Oh yes. >> Well and and we should make sure that the size of that committee is
sufficient. is it to we should consider what the appropriate size of that committee is relative to the to the members of those two committees. >> So we so I just want to read for the description of the tree planting committee which has been established in
1886. So it is the um the longest standing tree planting committee in the nation. So I don't think we want to get rid of that. Um but they advise the tree warden on the species and placement of street trees and to hold public hearings for street tree removal requests. So that is the description there. The tree
protection committee was created in 2016. Um and they uh this was a referral motion. Refer the subject matter of article 11 to the select board for the appointment of a committee with members to be chosen from the public and appropriate town
committees having the necessary skills and expertise to evaluate the best way to provide tree tree protection in the town including whether this should be a zoning or general bylaw amendment. So it sounds like there was a specific charge for this committee. Whether or not they're still active, I don't I don't
know. But they're not active. >> They may have already served their purpose by providing recommendation for the tree protection. >> Who's the chair of the tree protection committee? >> Yeah, it's see it says Elizabeth Urban. Um >> I am I am certain that she chaired the
tree protection for the C accessibility project. >> Yeah, it doesn't say that she's the chair, but she's the first person listed here. and Hugh Madison >> that's tree protection >> in terms of membership size. So tree protection has three members
>> and no excuse me tree protection has six and tree planting has three. >> Is there overlap in the membership? Somebody was on both. >> Uh probably um yeah Elizabeth Arman's on both. Um looks like there are four members on tree planting.
>> One is tree brand. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a possibility that the troop protection committee is is quiet and so therefore like we just have the protection committee. >> I don't think I don't think it is but but that I still think we can combine them.
>> The last official record we have of that meeting is a 2023 >> of the tree protection committee. >> Yes. >> All right. any other uh committees that we feel we could remove or combine?
>> The human resources ah the mine I spent. Um so yes I have I put it this way a lot of communities have moved away from human resources board. The human
resources board was created in in uh in the 40s. um back when the town was run primarily by volunteers um and they handled a lot of the HR function of the town and for time as the town became
more professionalized fewer and fewer functions remain in resources but is still creature bylaws and it does two it does serve two important functions. one, it um reviews job new job descriptions or job reclassifications and determines
whether or not they're appropriate forwarding them on to before they are allowed to be posted. And the other thing it does is it serves as an intermediate um hearing step when there are grievances filed by a union. Um and that's built into all of the union
contracts that step two of the grievance process is the human resources board. Now, one of the reasons why I one of the reasons why I hoped that we might be able to talk about removing the HR port was because we were having trouble filling templates. They have to
be residents of Brooklyn and have to have HR experience, but they can't be conflicted out. So, oftentimes we say, "Oh, hey, you're a laborer." And we'd say, "Yeah, well, I may be representing someone who has an interest uh and therefore I can't take this job." So, it was very hard to find recruits. We were
down. We were we were at bare minimum require and we were burdened we're going to lose it. Thankfully someone did step up so it's no longer as emergent issue but it is still something I would like us to see look at. But what I learned in so doing is that really the way that
that's going to have to happen is it's going to have to come through union negotiations first. Um the we're going to go through collective bargaining. We're in collective bargaining now with ask me that's progressing. We will be back in part all over the unions for be in in the
next calendar year um because FY they're sorry um these expire these agreements expire at the end of FY27. So once it is bared once we bar in that um change
>> um it would become effective on the passage of a bylaw revising it. So I think that's the order of operations we would need to go through >> already on your radar in terms of collective bargaining with all these different groups. >> Yes. And again I you know there's nothing against people on the human
resources board. They've I mean they've done incredible work. Um, but you know, it's it is a it's a it's a remnant of a different form of government operation. Um, and I understand some people say, well, that's
great. We should have we, you know, we should be returning to that. We should have more volunteers running the functions of government, but I don't think HR is a volunteer function. I think that's a weak link in our processes. Um, and again, that's not it's not because of the people doing people doing it are doing a great job.
What I worry about is what happens when those people retire. Um, >> but so that's something we will visit again in the future. >> Yes. >> Well, so this is this is road mapap item 2 action 2D1 for year one of of the road
>> is to consolidate eliminate public bodies. >> Yeah. Um, and so we we may not be able to get it done in year one because of the of the order of operations that you described and we should probably adjust the road map accordingly. >> Well, I think you're getting a lot of the other ones.
>> Yeah. >> Um, you know, certainly I do it's my hope, you know, that we're able to come up with a better grievance process that the union serve that the unions find examples. Um and if that happens in year
one of the road map um you know we will be back at the bargaining table folks because the contract expires um showing July 1 of next year. though um is not possible um but you know in terms of you know right you may have a tail in terms
of the HR that >> so we're saying that the newly formed surveillance and AI committee or whatever we're calling it that's going to take IT advisory the sims and surveillance does that also include the
electronic communication review so that committee was prior to co prior to when we had a distribution of electronic packet when everything was still done in paper. So >> that one we consented. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> The last meeting was literally the day
before the shutdown. >> So I'm like trying to go through all of them right now to know which we can >> electronic question. I think that's the first alphabetically that is not going to be um consumed by a different
>> committee and and I'm presuming that the overarching committee of of what you described Amanda would be the information technology advisory committee that would have all their descriptions. >> Okay. So then going down alphabetically,
expenditures and revenues goes to the newly formed town school along with OPEDs. Okay. >> Um Pedak gets taken off. Um what did we say with registars and voters? that is that's uh required and
their town clerk um he essentially manages staffs the committee but it's um required by law as well. So the board just has a point of authority. >> Let the register certify every election. You know, for example, if there's a if there's a writing vote or if there are contested ballots, the registers, they
will be sitting in Ben's office looking >> and the retirement board >> also statuto. >> Okay. Uh solid waste is active. >> Yeah. >> Taxation aid is more abundant.
>> Yeah. Um and and tree protection is either being sunseted or absorbed by tree planting to be determined. And so that leaves the real property asset. Oh, wait. Is there anything at the bottom
here? Oh, and climate uh I don't think I said that to begin with. >> Climate action is is being sunseted. Um and so then that leaves the discussion of real assets which would be good for
someone to explain. >> Sure. Um so in last um last year we had a we had a conversation um in the winter. Uh this came up around
the discussion of Twark Road. two Clark Road came to the market to fund part of the Myanmities Committee. Um, and there was a push, a really sudden push among some members of the community, well, we should buy that. We should buy that. Um, and the um because the select board is
the body that determines, you know, whether to buy property and town that uh even though town meetings has to agree funds, funding mechanism, so forth. and the executive negotiates those uh those
potential deals. Um we kind of we we felt like there wasn't a good process in place for determining when and whether the select board would make decisions like that, right? It it all seemed very ad hoc. Um you know,
something comes on the market, oh, you know, should we jump on that? You know, why not? You know, and then it consumes a lot of energy. select board had a number of meetings in executive session where it discussed whether or not it wanted to buy that property. Um, and what struck us at the time was maybe we
should have a committee of some kind, a standing committee that deals with real property more generally. Real property legal term basically meaning you know land um stuff you can't move um as opposed to personal property like your
phone. uh also the things like uh right to purchase and things like >> which are very important. >> Yes. All of those things related to land use or land land acquisition. And so um
we built charge uh for a standing committee that would be responsible for setting those policies and then um making recommendations to the select board when opportunities arose to buy or sell property. Um, and we had a good
discussion and I think at the time the board's feeling was we don't want to create and David Bernard you were part of this conversation so correct me if I'm misrepresenting the the sense of the board but at the time the sense of the board was we don't want to create a standing committee that has this
responsibility because it could be perceived as sort of an outside you know power base right it's something beyond outside of the select board that um people could lobby people could you try and influence in some way. Uh and their recommendations would carry a lot of
weight. We didn't want to we don't want to necessarily create that opportunity. We would rather continue investing the authority. Even though the select board would still be final authority of this, we wouldn't want to create a circumstance where
another board was out there that people might be able to go and lobby for a specific outcome. Um what we what the board instead said was when we reach a lull in the conversation about all this other stuff we should look at creating a
time limited committee with a specific purpose of developing policy about real property um for the select board to use. So rather than having a standing committee that would you know review that would develop these policies and then make recommendations about a specific property they would just have a
charge of developing policy for the board to review and you know re recommend on um that would then u be you that the select board would then use to determine whether or not if opportunities came up to buy or sell property let's do. So
>> didn't didn't we also talk about a search staff working group because among the other issues are >> what property do we own? >> Yes. >> And monitoring that and being aware of that as well as aware of other properties that could be on the market
coming on the market. >> Yes. And so we've done that. Um we did that that process is now finished internally. We now have uh a long list of everything we own um which we can give to you all. It's a you know Excel spreadsheet basically every real asset
that the town owns. We also have you know the easements that we own you know rights of access and so forth which is a longer you know process longer document. Um and so we we know we have uh and then I think the question is more do you want
to do you still are is the board still interested in creating either a purpose-built committee that develops policy and then dissolves or a standing committee that develops policy and then is charged like the building you know the model that we took is the building
commission the building commission when projects come up is responsible for a lot of that um managed and it is viewed um you know I think Brookline does a really good job it's building commission about having it be viewed as a um you
know straight shooting you know it's not very it's it's not subject to political pressure um it's very much focused on what the bottom line is um so um we wanted to have that discussion with you
now since we've done the internal work And this seems like a good opportunity to bring this back as you were all down discussing opportunities for growth and development whether you want this board or some version of it um to come back and if so. So, at a minimum, I think
that the work that you're outlining is absolutely critical both toward our long-term planning, but also immediate because when you at the outset of your explanation, uh you uh mentioned to Clark Road as sort of the impetus for
considering creation of this board and there was a lot of concern that sometimes we are caught flat-footed when these uh opportunities arise and often times if we're only trying to uh make a decision at the 11th hour, it's already
too late. And so having this work on an ongoing basis so that we're actually identifying opportunities before they're widely known and before there's a lot of uh competition and before it's maybe too late because we have certain statutory
requirements we need to adhere to and ultimately depending on the scope of the project how meeting we have to get involved it's not so simple for us to come in at the last minute if we really want something and that's why I think we need to be very deliberate and preemptive where possible. So, I do
think it needs to be standing, but whether it's a committee or it's a work group, um I'm I'm not necessarily wedded to the details of how it happens, but I want to make sure it does happen. >> Well, and how do you set it up so that
um things come before the select board? I'm assuming we can put them before executive session because you don't want to like tip your hand that we're interested in a property, >> right? >> Um without naming what property we're discussing in executive session. >> Alas, you have to my understanding and
Jonathan can correct me is that when you the open meeting law requires you can discuss it in executive session. You can discuss the acquisition or disposition of the property, but if you are looking at a specific property, then you do need to list in the agenda what it is that you're looking at. What if we're looking
at one or more properties in a certain area? >> I think you could you >> we'd always rely on Jonathan for our whether or not we could list it or not. >> One one potential way to finesse it somewhat is if there's a particular
purpose that we're seeking to fill in acquiring new land, sort of articulating it that way. Yes, >> because then it seems like it's more of a broader discussion about what would fit the need rather than a specific property. >> Although I would think obviously in the
course of that discussion, specific properties might be brought up. >> But if it's not known ahead of time what it is specifically we would be discussing in terms of a particular site, then that might be a path forward there. or if you have a set sort of like
quarterly check-in where whatever may be of interest someone comes and sort of presents before the dashboard. Um I I'm just trying to think of well one like the the way forward to yeah if it's a working
group or or individuals or I don't know if if sort of the economic development planners have the most insight uh it might be more useful than uh volunteers in the town to to serve this purpose. So
they do often know what what's going on of course, but at the same time there's staff that follow our direction. And so if we don't have some kind of regular check-in at least about what our priorities are, staff might not necessarily know what information to
channel to us. So that's why I think at a minimum we want some kind of work route model. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think about this in the context of all of our other plans.
um whether it's the comprehensive plan, the open space plan, um the housing production plan, um and and and try just want to make sure
that when we craft the charge of this committee um and maybe it needs to be staffed with people uh from who are responsible for those plans so that they can advocate for them appropriately. Um but
but it would be important that this group sort of not sort of develop a real asset management policy that is in conflict with all of those other >> existing functions. >> Right. I worry about that too. I'm actually less concerned about the policy
part and more the practical. So if there's an opportunity that presents itself, we want to be prepared to act. And it's important that we are deliberate in that process and not just being reactive when again the cost is
higher, there's more competition and the statutory logistics complicated. And to your point, we want to make sure that those who are actively involved in specific um development projects and also are working with open space, for
example, that those voices are being heard so we know what it is we're aiming for, >> right? I mean just as as another sort of use case um besides from my monodity school um you know there was discussion at the economic development advisory
board last night regarding the center street box was like a fair bit of discussion um which is of course currently a town-owned property and you know there was discussion about you know what should it be used for uh uh do we
do we implement a ground lease and it seems like that this is also an intersection point >> right >> in terms of economic development and what this board would do. But my hope in in creating the policies
would be that the policies would help us act on individual instances with more equity so that we weren't platforming. So I would I would hope that we you know if we are going to set something some something up to analyze
specific uh uh cases that we have a set of policies established to do that. >> Correct. >> And the policy might be as simple as we think that a parcel of X size might
become available, bring it to the attention of select >> that could be a component of it so that we're aware of what the uh practical opportunities are in a given moment, >> right? or assign the planning department to bring those to the select board and come on on whatever the appropriate
basis is because this does come up a lot. So you just raised center street a couple years back Pine Manor came up and realistically it was too late for us to do anything. Um Helenic has come up multiple times. Chess and hope benevolent association has come up and
um so we do need to really I agree with you we need to be very active in this area >> and I think too this this conversation is helpful just in terms of a broader communication policy too if you if it's the sense of the board that if large part when large parcels become available
the board wants the town should be informed at the earliest opportunity so that we can be part of the process then I think we should we we have ways communicating that out to to the current parcel holders. >> And it could also be based on the
certain needs that we're looking to fill. So, for example, with open space, if uh there are two or three houses that are next to each other that go for that go on sale at the same time and it's in a part of town that doesn't have a park, that's worth knowing because that could
possibly be an opportunity. And even if it's not for open space, but for something else. So just knowing even when it's relatively small dollars, not that houses here are cheap, but macro level from a town perspective, if it's relatively small dollars and you see that there are adjacent parcels that
could form a larger property for some kind of use, I would want to know about that. >> Great. >> Yeah. I mean, any any property owner would presumably want to let the town know if for no other reason than it creates one more
bidder for for the problems. >> Yeah. And I I will just give my soccer parent hat for a second and that like the the last open space plan also referenced the last recreation and then the master plan.
use the acronyms of just how short we are in terms of athletic field space for the town >> and >> being aware of that again there's multiple uses that means right like but depending on where in town it is a couple of houses worth can do a lot of
good there >> right another example would be if a house goes for sale next to a school uh because our schools long-term realistically are going to need to expand as population grows so being thoughtful about that type of planning when the opportunity presents itself, at
least being made aware of it. Maybe we decide we're not going to proceed, but we should at least know. >> This might get too granular, but is is it possible? You just mentioned like some good parameters on like, oh, if when this thing comes up near a school, this should be done for that. And I would like the idea of this of the of
the committee or hearing or working group, whatever you said, um, but develop those parameters beforehand. I think that's a pretty good idea to be able to like like and then we could approve those parameters. >> Yeah. >> So what I'm hearing from you is you would like this committee to exist. You
would like it to develop a proposed policy for when uh when when assets come on the market or or when it is I think the other aspect of this is when is it incorporated with disposed assets that is that are in its control. >> Yes. Birectional. So also when we have
property that we own and we feel that uh maybe we would be better off selling it to also have uh parameters around when or why. >> Yes. >> And I think to limit the the you mentioned the lobbying aspect that could
be difficult because this committee's recommendations could carry heavy weight. I think it would be worth it to not have the committee give recommendations just to give analysis and then we give the recommendation based off their analysis. They like this committee doesn't give a recommendation just gives us the facts and then we make a recommendation
>> or or gives us the policy which may which may direct the recommendation process whether it's through the planning department or >> or somewhere else. Yeah, >> I also think that if we are going to do any status with any sort of volunteers,
getting people who understand real estate um would be really important. I know I know a few people in town that have a wealth of knowledge. I'm sure there are others, but um that understand that way better than like those of us in this room. >> We had we had a charge ready to go that
was pretty pretty good. >> It even had a roster of names and everything. >> We had to navigate ourselves. So I think it's but I again I would want to contact those people but also I'll I'll run that by you all again and if you have additional names or if you think there should be a revised composition by all
means um beyond parameters of when something would be brought to our attention. What are some other elements policy elements that you would like to see? >> I would like to see I would like to see um I mean I I would like to see ROI analysis on any project that's going
through. I think that's important to always focus in on that. I know open space you're not going to have an ROI analysis on that. You'll have like a social benefit, but um I think if you're going to make an economic case, I want to see the cost to return. I feel like we don't always get that on some of these projects. I
>> mean the other thing in terms of the policy creation is to be explicit about the set of plans that are points of consideration in in the analysis. I mean, I I still wish I understood this
topic better, and we'll get to it when we're talking planning, but public private partnerships are something that like I don't think we've done as much work as we could have as a town. Um, and it would be great if if there was a policy on this property
would be good for that because of why like my understanding, especially when um addressing sort of the workforce housing issue in that you're not going to easily get um state or federal funds
for um that tier of housing. And so you need to offset it with private funds. And so that that kind of project might make a lot of sense for public private partnerships. Um but a policy sort of around that I think would be quite
>> yeah I will say on that front you know as we talk as we transition that conversation about planning that is possible right you know the town can within the scope of the procurement law issue an RFP basically saying town wants to go into business with a private
developer to develop workforce housing and here is what the town is willing to do to to make that happen. here subsidies the potential to provide. You know, you've got to, you know, in thinking of it, you have to, you know, craft it carefully that you're talking about this is a net public good. You
know, the community needs this workforce housing. It needs to have people work in the town, live in the town, and work in the town and all that. But, you know, there is a way to develop that and other communities have done that. Other communities have have partnered with private developers to build projects
like that. And I think we can do that not just with respect to housing but also recreation. So something I've been uh having some discussions with uh planning about is that when we're pursuing uh MOAS for mid-level to large
scale development projects perhaps considering that the developer will put in indoor tennis courts on the roof of the apartment building or whatever it might be. Whatever recreational need we're looking to fill that might fit at that site. I think there are potential opportunities there that we should look
at. >> Yeah, I'm thinking of Hancock Village in the War Lake is an example of that as well and the tennis courts in Baker, >> right? >> This might be a little shooting for the moon, but as part of these private
public partnerships and stuff like that, um I I would love to increase the municipal solar capacity wherever possible. So um you know if we can say like a private building you're going to build here with this land you know we will put solar panels on your roof and then we own the energy and that's per
the agreement. I think that that's something that we should pursue like every possible avenue. >> I think Eric you have you have a solar work group that's working on those questions now it's a good flag. Um but yes that's definitely on our radar. So
>> one question I have there is not to oppose this. Uh, occasionally the fire department has expressed concerns about solar roofs. Uh, so how how does that work in terms of are there new solar designs that are less concerning from a
fire safety perspective? >> I can talk a little bit with the chief about that. I don't I don't have familiarity off the top of my head with how those designs have improved. I mean, in general, right, electrification has resulted in increased fire risk. Um, you know, electric cars when they catch
fire, they don't go out. Um, and you know, that's a it's a serious concern. It's one of the things that has driven up the cost of the still money, but don't worry, but like, you know, the cost of the Pierce project has been, you know, we're going to have to re sprinkler that garage for electric
vehicles, which is, you know, very expensive. Um so all all of this electrification work does increase risk and therefore increases cost for mitigation but that is something that we're trying to take into account we
think of these projects and the specifics on solar panels and fire risk I'm not aware of. So I'll ask the chief to break through all kinds if we're encouraging developers solar panels off the roof there's also cost to that. Yeah. I mean,
you know, to figure out how to recover that cost. >> Yeah. >> Well, cost, >> right? You think true about the math. >> It's not a free course. >> Yeah. That's the question, right? You just always have to do that analysis, >> right? And and and it's not just solar panels either. I mean, there the car the
climate action resilience plan, which maybe is one of the things that should be listed on that list of plans. Yeah. you know, has a whole bunch of strategies, you know, starting with fossil fuel for me that we can build into the negotiation process of any
arrangement that we care going forward with. >> I will say that the reason that I bring up the solar thing isn't just from like a climate perspective of fighting climate change. It's also from a money-saving perspect and that's like the main that's the main >> but remember it's another regulation
that are imposing on development that could slow down. Yeah. Our goals. >> That makes sense, too. >> That makes sense, too. >> And drive up cost. >> Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um I'm going to attempt to focus us a little bit because I do think these are interesting questions, but in terms
of the charge of a new committee, is there anything else that we want incorporated in it or are we all in agreement that this is something that should be formed? Oh, are we just talking at this point about the policy side as opposed to the
recommendation side? >> I mean, I would be fine with that because that I think would mllify the concerns from a year ago about whether who's really making the decisions, who's really making the recommendations. So if it's solely about crafting policies
including around the parameters of when something is brought to our attention uh and also well I guess that would be the safest way to limit it. >> We go beyond that is really a recommendation. >> Yeah I think that I think that's enough. >> Okay.
Um I have I have bullets here. Um we will take this back um and it will come back before you probably later this summer. And um once that happens, if the charge looks good and the you know membership looks good, we can get that moving. Cool. Great.
>> And and make sure that we also include in there um refusals and using that using for example CDBG to essentially have it right >> um as leverage to to get that type of um agreement.
>> All right. So, uh, any discussion of recruitment and outreach efforts for boards and committees? And the one thing I'll flag is that I raised earlier in that I would like as much as possible to um go outside the Brooklyn 100 for staffing boards and
committees >> that that we've been saying that for years. as much do um I think one one thing that uh is worthwhile is actively promoting um which terms not only we have which
committees not only have vacancies but have terms expiring. I know we have a bunch of them expiring at the end of August or beginning of September. Um and I don't think we should always default to reappointing folks to committees even if they've done a great job. Um, so
thinking about how we can get the word out to different circles. Um, and I don't know as much as your communications go out if the um the I see our Edward puts out things saying like we actually really want new voices
coming on the committees um just to try to like shin up some general interest in folks that are not used to saying >> yeah I know sorry I was just going to say uh my first year in select board I said the same thing the respon the response that I received and I won't name names was do we really want to
spend that much time interviewing uh all the time for every position that expires that it would be an enormous amount of time. But I still agree with you at least to an extent that we want to be uh bringing in more voices including many more people. And I'm not sure why we have this tendency to
automatically reappoint people. And I don't say that because I don't value who we currently have, but precisely for that reason about having other voices. And especially where somebody is on five committees or boards, could they maybe give up one and let somebody else in the
club? I I think possibly. So I I agree with you. I don't think we should necessarily always rubber stamp. So I think if you if you're what would what would be your parameters for that? Is it you know would would you like us to effectively trial a period where we
don't automatically reappoint people who are interested in being reappointed? Would you like us to focus on people who are on more than one board committee? would you like us to have a >> really if we're hiring like if we are pointing to preservation right and we
know that five people of have applied and I would like to interview those five on the same day uh and in the discussion of that is well two of these also serve on three other committees right then that gives us a little bit of oversight into who we might want to point for preservation
>> and in terms of interviewing on the same day uh one challenge that's been coming up and it came up even today is it seems that uh application process on a rolling basis. Yes. And so we've interviewed a few people and then somebody else crops up and I think we might want to set
deadlines around this. Start applying on this date. Application needs to be in by Y date and you're going to interview. Maybe give a little flexibility over two dates, but let's try to keep this process a little more um organized. Is
there is there any appetite I I listen I I come from a generation of the workforce where normally my first screening interviews are me recording myself talk about myself um before I even get an interview. Is there any possibility that we could do use that to streamline this where we don't have to have an interview right away for all
these candidates? They can get spray limiting to limiting your audience to >> people who are in your generation that kind of stuff. >> Yeah, I get it. I get it. to to go back to your question, Chaz, I I don't want to necessarily be actively trying to
remove people, but I think uh announcing to the broader public opportunities to apply for positions, whether it's a vacant position or because of terms expiring, even if we don't select that person, at least we'll they'll be on the radar. And there are opportunities to make them associate members and they can
spend a year sort of getting more familiar because sometimes in these interviews we learn that the person has maybe watched once, maybe not at all. And so is that person that new applicant, do they really know what they're getting themselves into? And so maybe a way to get some of those new
voices on. Is there an associate member for a year? And then maybe somebody decides that this new member is ready to go and they uh step off. Uh but there could be a way to handle it that way. We even do that with select board members as you know that sometimes a former
select board member stays in charge of a committee and then there's a current select board member who will be a leazison and I think that's fine because uh they've developed a certain level of expertise and relationships and we should value that. So I I don't look at this as a way to get rid of people but to bring more people on.
>> Yeah. I think so the the other aspect of that though that's that was raised last time we had this conversation was do you want to do you want you get set expectation according right if we post these as available and list them like every other listing for like open
listings but you know that there's someone who is currently serving who wants to keep serving um and the chances of that person of a new person being appointed are low are they going to be disappointed by the process of showing up and then saying well why did I go through this if you know at the end of
the day I'm not going to be you know it's just going to be the same person who gets through >> we could maybe consider offering associate membership and just be upfront about it. >> Yeah. And I I I don't I've talked to even like a few committee chairs who are long serving and they've
said that they don't assume that they're going to be reappointed. like was talking to someone last night who was like, "Hey, I resubmitted because I'm coming up and I put in my application." Uh so I I don't think that there's always the assumption. uh some people
will assume that but I I do think it is important to highlight both for currently serving as well as um new voices that like we will consider them and it's not automatically right like you might get someone to the T board
who's been working for the MBTA for 30 years or whatever it is right like and they might be new to this and that's like it might mean that we want to add them as opposed to one of the the current members and so I I don't want to rule out new people just because they're
new people. >> Do reappointments all come to the select board or do are there any that are processed administratively? >> No. If if you if you appoint a body, uh if you appoint to the body, then you reappoint.
>> Yeah. >> Board has varied on whether or not people that are seeking reappoint are also interviewed. So that >> that's a separate question, but ultimately the decision does come true. >> So what I hear you saying potentially is
we should be posting all the consent um even if we are even if the individual who is currently serving has expressed an intent to receive to reapply um and see what we get. Um I >> I think though that I would maybe
include a note about traditionally incumbency has been heavily favor because your point about the or maybe make it associate member opportunity and express that if you are not named a member you may be named an associate member because I don't want to
be setting false expectations either. >> Yeah. >> But at the same time I don't want to totally preclude the opportunity to bring in new voices. I think that I think that uh information like that probably belongs more in the
handbook than in our posting of positions because just as a matter of practice, I think it will be easier for us to maintain if we keep the postings
consistent and straightforward. I I just don't know that the average applicant's going to look in the handbook. I think they're going to see this position might be available and just apply. So, I think maybe they would need it in both. >> I'm not sure that's a big problem.
I mean, because as you say, you know, what we're what we're trying to do is source more applicants, right? ultimately. And you know, if somebody sees that like 20 there are 20 different positions open and they look at them and and they apply for one, then it turns
out that that one is also has an incumbent that we're likely to held, then you know what we should have is a strategy in those cases for encouraging that person to look at the rest of the list. Because you know we had somebody
today that we actually deferred because for the commission for the arts right because you know they'd applied to multiple items and if we had a better way of managing people who are trying to uh
participate um then I think that we could we should be more consistent in our policy because I don't think we want to signal I don't think we want to signal either way that incumbency is gives you a right of first refusal along the sea or we're not considering
incumbency and you know you could end up sending vote by the message >> that's fine but but I do like the idea of highlighting somewhere that there's an associate member opportunity because I I think that brings more people on board this came up very recently in the context of Lars Anderson rank we ended
up liking more people than there were spots we expanded it we can't always expand it but also there we named an associate member. Uh, and I think that's a good way to bring in new people. >> So maybe we go back to the here we will
we will post vacancies even if there are incumbents in the position who've expressed interest in ratifying. One thing I may maybe difference here is that we have a general statement on the application page that says we ask everyone you know we ask everyone to apply including people who currently are
in position. If you are not selected, even if you feel that you may not be selected, but you have an interest, we strongly encourage you to apply. There are other opportunities such as associate non- voting memberships that may be available even if you are not selected.
>> And the way to make an associate membership a little more attractive, I know that some boards allow associate members to vote if a regular member is not there at a particular meeting. >> Yes, there's associate those are alternate >> alternate. Those are >> Yeah, I I I agree. I like the idea of
alternates rather than associates just because it does make it more appealing. There's lots of meetings where someone will show up. >> Exactly. Okay. So, alternate members. >> Okay. Some of those probably would need to be um if they're creatures of the bylaw, it may not be >> you may not be able to add it without
actually amending the bylaw. >> Okay. >> But for a lot of the a lot of the bodies that you have created um just as you know your executive capacity, that's easy to do. So, >> and I what your friend who just now was like some of these are there will be incumbents and so you're warning them so
they're not going to get caught off guard and if they're curious about the committee they'll look up and see whose term is up and they'll know who the incumbents are. >> Right. Um but also you're not waiting it saying we'll automatically um re renominate incumbents.
And and in my conversations with some uh longtime incumbents, the reason that they continue to apply is because they're not even they feel that no one else is interested. That's part of it. It's not always that they want to continue serving. >> Yeah.
>> All right. Any further discussion around potential changes to the boards and committees handbook? >> Yeah. >> And outreach efforts? Go ahead. >> Yeah. I sent to um Melanie some changes I proposed and can you put it up on the board there
just for but I need to do that just call >> my outlook is not operating I'm Just want to make sure did we we
finish up with the list and what's the next action item for the list of boards and commissions? >> So I think yes we I have a list of what we're what we're um either consolidating or recommending the um uh taken down.
What I would suggest is that we send out formal notification to the the the posted member of the sports and committees just to give them notice that this is happening. if there's any, you know, comment that they want to make or concern that they have about it that they can bring it to you and then on the 30th you could take a formal vote to
consolidate certain boards and committees or close the others. So you don't have to vote today, but you you give us time to notify the people who be impacted by it can come back on the 30th. Does that sound >> Yeah. Yeah. And if you get all that feedback by the 30th, that will be
great. Yes. You do our best. >> Are you able to do this? I'm >> having some technical difficulties and my outlook is just being slow to open your >> Let's try it the 20th century way. Um so I I'd like to add under uh pa at page
five under requirements uh a new one. Um and this is you know intended to address the issue of um committee members treating each other and staff badly you which is has been a problem uh for many
years. in my experience. So, a new uh requirement under you know requirements be comprised of members who will treat other members of the public body, town staff and residents with respect and courtesy. And this is mentioned a few
times throughout the handbook. I think it's important where we're talking about uh requirements for membership to emphasize it at the beginning. That also says as we're re-evaluating reappoints, if we know that folks are
not doing that, that might be a reason not to reappoint. >> And then on page seven, there's sort of an inconsistency between the first sentence and the second sentence. Um, and so in the second sentence, um, it should read up here.
>> It's up there. >> Oh, it's up there. Okay. >> Good. Um, so there I'm concerned about in the first in the first sentence we uh talk about there being two reasons for removal, not attending meetings and a conflict of interest. But then the
second sentence we talk about not attending meetings or history of absence or other legal concerns as opposed to a conflict of interest. I mean other legal concerns could mean a lot of things. Uh and I think it's a dangerous phrase to use. You mean like they've gone gone
into incarceration? >> No. Uh that they they they've said something online that uh is unpopular. >> So >> what is what is the point of that line if the member does not resign within one month of being asked and there's a well
doumented history of absence or other legal. So that little concern is like if we put in there. So it has always been an open question in this past whether or not once you appoint someone you have the ability to remove them. Um
my take on it has been the power to appoint usually inherently includes the power of but not everyone sees it that way. Uh there is no specific language in either the bylaws or the town administrator act which controls my job.
these be your jobs. Um that says if you appoint someone, you also have the authority. Um so with that said, absence is if this language was intended to create a way in which absence would
chronic absenteeism would basically be taken as a de facto resignation. Um if you are not doing the job of the committee and you don't show up to these meetings then you are presumed to have those signings. Um and in order to make
that as clean as possible we would have to formally say hey you've been asking for social time and you believe step down. If that person doesn't step down um then if there's a well doumented history basically if you have proof you
can say yeah know this person really hasn't come showing up or there's a concern that the work of the committee might not be done otherwise for example there's a lot of quorum has a statuto purpose that needs to be fulfilled like you know is that the planning board or the zoning board
appeals um again unlikely but in because those committees are well attended but theoretically there could be a situation for a committee like we've got trouble with the audit committee getting for example we need the audit committee to function. Um so being able to say in that instance
listen you've got you know we've got to be able to do something here and you're not coming to meetings so we're going to consider the stem that's the purpose. So really the focus is on absenteeism. I guess your question is like do we as a
board want the ability to remove members of committees for anything other than not showing up. >> I I would like to add another one. If they treat someone on the board or town staff poorly like you were saying as a requirement if that happens I feel like
we have an obligation to consider removing the people. I you know I I agree with that. Um but I think it's the question of do you have the authority to do the >> and so you know I think you could you could assert that authority but when it comes up that would be a case of first
impression right there would be there would be a legal challenge to that which again I don't you know in some ways maybe it's better to have that settled it's better to have that question settled. >> Well we could we could also settle that by introducing a bylaw change. Good. >> That's interesting.
>> That might be a bylaw we're taking up because I agree that probably the one that's going to come up the most often. I think it's going to be very rare that somebody is going to apply for a board and not show up. It's happened and I remember we actually did get a resignation on a fairly highprofile board a couple years ago because of this.
>> Uh but overall, I think most people attend. >> Uh where it comes up is the disrespect to other members. >> I also have another question. Um I feel like I don't agree with that sentence um that you want to add. Removal shall not
be used to penalize a person. Um >> you mean the third? >> Yeah, the third because I'm just going to take the extreme just so like I understand the principle, right? If someone's on a diversity commission and then they join the clan, I would like to
remove them. You know what I mean? >> But then you have a problem of you know being polar and infringing on their reading the speech, >> but then they're no longer they're they're no longer >> that was that was a chioo situation. >> Well, we had an investigation into this
and we know how the investigation turned out and you can consider someone's conduct if it's in conflict with the commission and the charge of the commission. So, so I don't see I don't see anything inherently wrong with what you're saying, but to Anony's point,
there are times where somebody could construe it as being penalized, but if it goes against the charge of the commission, that's always going to be relevant and that's what the investigation found. >> Yeah. So, if you're right, the rule is, as I understand it, and Jonathan might chime in on this too, right? Usually,
right, members of public bodies have a first amendment right to speak out on matters of concern to the public, right? You don't you don't lose your first amendment rights just because you become a employee or, you know, so forth. So, yes, you can show up in public comment and say what you want theoretically. Um
the limit of that is if you are on a if you were in a policym position um or otherwise have a role that requires you to do certain things and you express an opinion or something that makes it clear that you can't do the job that was appointed for um then there is the
opportunity to say right your statement is in conflict b with what we asked you to do. Um, so >> I have a question to take it to different context because I think it might be easy. Let's say someone appointed to the preservation commission is like, I really don't understand why
we have all these local historic districts. Um, I I don't think we should have that many. Could that then be construed to take this person off the preservation commission because they are in conflict with the mission of that but
also that might be an important perspective to have on that commission. I think that's a that's why you get into these very difficult elements, you know, and it's not and that's not an edge case, right? I think that person would argue no, like it's really critically important for the preservation
commission to have uh a voice from someone who it's not I'm not saying I disbelieve in preservation's mission. I'm just saying I think that we are on the side of uh from the preserving. Um like that's that's well within the
bounds of the charge of the commission. And I think that then becomes a I think that also almost becomes a political question at that point where you're like where whereas you know the extreme example I gave is just so easy to see like okay this the charge is like to do
this and your conduct is indicating you don't believe in this whereas you can make an argument where you know the preservation committee with that edge case you just or that case that you just said like that that that's a possible position that can be politically argued whereas the the reverse is Uh, and I
think giving us the safety to have that, >> I think to give a slight spin to Amanda's example, if a member of the conservation commission is saying all open space areas should be turned into toxic dumps, whatever problem that would be, you know, then then we have the that
would Yeah. Then then >> yours I think there was a little bit of a gray area, >> right? >> But if they said that then they got to go. >> So I guess two things. one. Can we go back to the the removal of the the middle one that you wanted to
>> the the second one? Um I do like the idea of either by by law or elsewhere adding the condition of if you cannot treat other members of the committee with respect to staff with respect. We have the ability to remove it. >> Um and instead of the state legal
reasons, >> right? Yeah. And then the last one, um, I do think, um, yeah, having a sentence along those lines that clarifies, um, exactly what is free speech, I I I'm
not great for that, but like what is direct opposition, right, dump, toxic dump in the conservation commission is clearly against the mission, but I want to make sure that we are not touching the gray zone and making it a political
decision for the select board to say >> this is against the mission when it's like >> so I think Bernard's language is is fine but there should probably be another sentence about >> yeah after reading it again it's fine >> it it can't go against the express mission of the commission you're serving
on >> again you run problems I think for example someone on Zad who may believe that uh um fossil fuels in certain situations is an important source of energy. Is that that going to disqualify
them from the air? >> Well, I think that's where right it's it's tough to craft a policy that covers all these edge cases. I think in that instance, right, I you make the argument that again take take the extreme of you know conservation toxic waste but I
don't necessarily if the mission of ZAB is to reach fossil fuel freedom and someone says I don't think it's feasible to do that because X Y and Z and but I'm still in favor of moving towards fewer possible less fossil >> and net to zero is specifically net
because there are ways to incorporate Yeah, the word certain kind of made it okay because when someone if someone were to join Zapat and then like you know a year later they're like I don't believe in climate change at all then that'd be a problem. >> That's different though, >> right? That'd be a problem. >> But you know
>> I mean for some of them say that they think that for example in certain third world countries fossil fuels are better than burning coal or burning wood. Um I mean that that that goes against the idea of net zero for with such fossil
fuels but um I mean that's an example of how it can be it can be abused that it could be abused. I I think I understand that it could >> so we can we can try and work with town council's office to address that threads
that need >> we may not we may not get that right you know it is it is you as as with anything in the law eventually you'll come up with some wild edge case like oh yeah we didn't think of that um but >> yes I I like that suggestion have town
council maybe draft um some language around there that uses Bernard's but adds that caveat around going directly against the mission of the board. >> Yeah. And there's there's case law on this. So even just reading the case law on it and seeing how judges have explained it. >> Yeah.
>> And in terms of treating other members badly. >> Yeah. I think that should be a separate uh sentence >> because it's really different from what I think that we are trying to get at with respect to conflicts of interest. >> Yes, it makes sense. So just just so I
understand sort of the the impetus behind this, are you trying to be to establish more explicit criteria for removal such that when those criteria in
the opinion of the board occur that removals become less controversial? No. What I'm trying to do is prevent another chi-chioo situation. In other words, be perfectly frank with you. >> No, no, no. I
but in that situation um I mean we decided to that situation was politically controversial. Um and ultimately the decision was made not to reoint him. >> No, we it was two to two. So there's no
way >> the reappoint failed because >> the reappoint failed but >> because you never appointed someone else into the into the position she's >> right but but the reason why it you know it it was
politically controversial right there was politics involved and I I guess what I'm wondering is whether you know, we should certainly be crafting guidelines, which is what this document is, but I'm I'm I'm wondering
whether trying to uh establish all the edge cases is actually is is a worthwhile exercise because ultimately even if we establish those edge cases, there's still going to be politics involved in
all of these cases and the select board is going to have to sort negotiate that it's polit. >> I agree with Michael, but to your original question, I I do like the idea of making it very clear when we might remove someone. I think having that type
of transparency helps and I also like your idea of uh possibly doing this via that would probably be the safest rather than just asserting it now. >> Yes. >> Well, the only thing that I was proposing in bylaw is to establish
clearly that the select board has powers can has the power to remove right based based on specific criteria to remove >> well I didn't I didn't say I didn't say that
because I'm not because if you say according to specific criteria then you're going to get or specific or specific reasons then you're going to get into a political argument about well did that reason actually apply in this case was an appropriate reason and I
don't think you can avoid the politics. >> So you might as well just accept the fact that you have politics here and and give yourself the latitude to and the future boards the latitude to apply the politics as they see fit because
ultimately we are being judged you know with elections and so forth on our our capacity. >> So I think right the question of a bylaw. So here are the pros and cons of a bylaw. The probe bylaw is provides it provides certainty without needing a
legal case to test it. Um it um sets clear it sets clear parameters. I think if you were to go with a bylaw, you would really want to Michael's point, you would want to just have it be as clean as possible. The select board has the ability to appoint and remove
officials from bodies that it uh that it oversees um and leave it at that. So it creates scatwill of appointment. You could be removed for any reason for no reason. You can't be removed for any legal reason. >> Um so that's that gives you the broadest
latitude. Um >> but I don't want to be able to remove for any reason. I think that puts every appointment in this political territory that you're going to get people lobbying because they don't like the direction for the Lars Anderson rank. Right. >> I I don't think you can avoid that. I
think you can. I can I can I give can I give try to give like a just just a federal example just because I know more about it. Right. So like when we established the Federal Trade Commission, you could the the the president could appoint Senate approved but could not remove except for cause and that that was like the law for until
recently which is now gone the Humphrey executive decision in 36 whatever. So that's now gone. But that's what applies to the Federal Reserve Board where you can't remove a member of the Federal Reserve without cause. And I think that it's, you know, our job to define what cause is. And I think we can in the handbook.
>> Yeah. >> And I think that, you know, we could change the bylaw and say will not be removed for without cause. And our cause can be absenteeism, conflict of interest, being mean to people in board meetings, or going against directly the charge of the commission blatantly. And I think that that's I think that's fair.
>> I agree with you. That's good. >> Yeah. >> I like that for for cause clause in there. >> Yeah. And we can define for the clauses in this handbook. We can define clauses here. >> Right. So you that gives you some certainty. Um I think then you know I
would want to run this through cos want to run it through the traditional process that you run through bylaws and I think you'll get some push back. Um I think you will get folks who will >> potentially say you know I don't you know we don't you know there there
should be an independent you know there should be a check on select point. They shouldn't be able to do that. Once they appoint someone, they should have a protection at that position until their term expires, etc. So, you might, you know, you're you be at you're you're
putting town meeting into a separation of powers discussion. Uh, and just as you don't like having your power circumscribed meeting, town meeting doesn't like having its power circumcribed by you. And so, you you may wind up in a or you you may wind up in
that discussion with town meeting, which is fine. Um, maybe it needs to happen. I think it's a good discussion. >> I agree. I think it's a good discussion. I think it's a safer path because it shows that we were soliciting public input. We were trying to get buy into what we're doing because this is an authority that we believe we inherently have anyway, right?
>> So, we don't necessarily from a technical perspective, our argument is we have this power anyway, but despite that, we want community buyin. We want to be transparent about what it is we're doing, why we're doing it, right? >> And the parameters around what a four cause removal would be, >> right? And so I think there the the big
question will you you'll have two focuses. One will be is it do do the question the question of what cause means live in bylaw or in the regulations? Is it that is is it your job to interpret what cause means or is it town's job? So that will be I think
the subject of some discussion. Um and I think you're going to want to you know be prepared to discuss because I do think you know you should you should be able to define it regulations. Um but meeting may disagree. So you should be ready for that conversation. >> So are we okay with a version going into
the handbook for now with the assumption that to do the bylaw change is going to be on a longer route. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I'm comfortable with that. Um but I think right the the other big thing right is if this goes through if you if you put it on put it on the agenda for and the warrant for town
meeting fails uh doesn't pass then um boarding committee members have a stronger argument that they can't be removed um because they will when if it does go to court they will then use that legislative district and say see you know the select board said that they
didn't do this but it went to town meeting it didn't pass. So, um I I personally do think I do think we need to do this. I don't think we currently have the authority. I I think that and I think that we can propose the
amendment to the bylaw as I described for like four clause removal. Um and then, you know, politically if necessary where town meeting says no, we need more specifics. I I don't think it's improbable or ridiculous to say we can throw those into an amendment and say
listen these are the four things that we have and >> so that would be something to check with the monitor. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Right. >> Also just from a practical perspective I don't think we have ever removed anyone that I can recall. So I this problem
this hopefully will not come up but for transparency purposes I think it's beneficial for having the discussion. Again, the example you raised was not reappointing someone. It wasn't a removal. No one proposed removal. >> No, but the implication was that you could do that.
>> Right. I would like to take away the lobbying effort from people >> in that a similar circumstance to be like, well, really, you need to like like remove the appointment of this individual because I don't like them for X, Y, or Z. >> And remember, the Chichi Woo situation
is not the only situation we faced, right? Right. I mean during the George Fore era there was a lot of push back against people who did not agree particular lines of thinking about policing. >> But to Michael's point that's going to
come up no matter what. It's just the the nature of being a political body. >> And I think I think defining some parameters actually gives us a lot of defense. Yeah. >> Because when we say like these are the four things. If it's not one of those four things Yeah. Stop talking to us about it. It's over it. Yeah. >> You know.
Um, okay. So, this is all really helpful. Um, we have I have proposals here that are we can >> uh I don't think the last one was controversial. Page 24, we have person as opposed to citizen. That makes good sense. >> There's just some language at the top. Page seven that I would like to fix. Um
it's it's ambiguous as to you know the um you know if someone is how someone stays on a board past their term that just we need to fix that language um to conform to our current practices. So that's basically it's more of a discriminator error. So we'll fix that.
Um is there anything else that other members have identified? So we will redline this. Um we'll talk to town council's office. I don't know what the turnaround will be. Um Joe's out right now and I know he and Jonathan both have done some research on this. So I want to make sure that um they have
the opportunity to take a look. So probably be after the 30th but it won't be >> and and at the same time look into the final question. >> Yes. >> All right. So we're starting to fall behind a little bit. So why don't we move on to the next item?
>> Next item hopefully relatively quick. Item five. >> Yes. Affordable housing trust actions. 5A. question of authorizing $146,000 of housing trust funds to be utilized for the salary and related employee benefits of the senior housing planner position
for fiscal year 2027. >> The only thing I I would flag is I want this to be a one time fix um I don't think that we should be in perpetuity funding >> back of the housing trust funds. >> So that is the expectation. And um we
talked about that year two we would be looking at uh overhead funds to restore position uh on the general fund. >> Any further discussion? >> I do have some further discussion. Not about these things specifically. So if you want to take a vote on this, but then I have a discussion about the affordable housing trust fund generally. Sure. >> First.
>> So let's vote on 5A. Uh I move that we authorize $146,000 of housing trust funds to be utilized for the salary and related employee benefits of the senior housing planner for fiscal year 2027. I have a I have a thinking I thought that the housing advisory board operes from
the weekly >> there's two usually they both first and then the select >> okay so >> their request right >> their vote is necessary but not sufficient um >> so Bernard voted yes Michael >> yes >> Amanda
>> yes >> Anthony >> yes >> and I also vote yes >> uh 5B was your comment related to 5B that's the question of voting to approve unencumbering $3.75 million from the affordable housing trust fund. And Cara has something to say on that. Go ahead.
>> Need to vote on this one. Thanks to Lincoln Heinman in the background. Um, this already happened in March. So, apologies for it on your agenda. >> I do have a question about before. Apparently, this goes back to something I brought up a year ago with the $5
million rule where we only give 15% to affordable housing trust fund if the affordable housing trust fund is under $5 million. I brought up then that the $5 million number was first instigate, first initiated in 2013 and has not
caught up with inflation. And I was wondering if we could talk about maybe amending that policy to make it more fluid the way we do CIP as a percent of netar prior year revenue or the same way we do liability or stabilization. >> I think so you're talking about amending
the cash policy the waterfall policy. >> Um we can I don't think that's this >> yes but that's I would like to have that discussion and maybe we could drop it. Let's let's notice that for a future agenda because yeah, we can have that discussion. >> Okay, cool.
>> No, I I do have a somewhat vague recollection of you presenting that to us before. >> Yes. >> Uh I don't recall the details of why we didn't go for it before. >> There there were members of the board at the time that felt that given the infusion of CPA funds to support affordable housing that maybe the policy
should be changed in the other way and that maybe free cash was not needed to support um the affordable housing trust fund. Obviously, the prerogative of the board has shifted again. So, we can revisit the fiscal policies and see what the board uh would like to do. >> And because we'll set this over for a
future agenda item, I'll also just say it's probably won't be a problem for the next couple years because if if the if the city realy project goes in, we're going to be far beyond whatever $5 million for inflation would be in the affordable housing trust fund probably. So, I don't know the direct effects to be honest, but I we can talk about that
later. >> Right. pays off. I think >> I also I also do think right we saw this really acutely this year. There's a lot of pressure on the farm free cash right >> like we're fortunate to be pulling the
number of pulling. um like the the the the the good times, the sort of New Orleans brulee that we've had is coming in. Um and there we saw in the CIP in particular this year there was a lot of
pressure on using that tail end of the waterfall to make ends meet in terms of the projects. So I think we should have that conversation. I think we should show you how in practice that will work like how that will work out in practice. Yeah. because it will result in projects
coming off the CIB. Uh and so we just got to you know balance that out >> and keep in mind I quick question then we can move on. I apologize. CIP we spent >> the goal was 6.6 and we only did six this year. Yes. >> Yes. So going on for the for the balance of this override cycle we're down to
six. Yeah. Um >> which is the >> all the way to 23rd. >> Yes. >> For the duration of the override cycle. Yes. >> Oh >> in order to balance the budget. Yeah. >> That stinks. Okay. Nobody will sorry but I I will say right that's still
>> that's still good right that's still you know other communities don't even have a policy like that at all um so it is one of the reasons why we're aa to expressly make sure that our capital projects are funded to ascend to a level >> um other communities really just rely on
free cash to make it um we do a better job of that um >> so 6% is good I wouldn't go alone. Um, >> yeah. All right, Bernard. >> Yeah, I I know we we voted this uh back in I think January or March or some I
thought there was a reason why we were putting it back on the agenda. >> Am I am I miss misremembering? >> I I don't know, but I've also uh texted Roger, but I can't think of any >> Okay. Okay. >> So, it is currently it is currently unencumbered.
>> Correct. Apparently there's 3.75 unencumbered and not the whole seven and a half. >> All right. So with that, why don't we move on to item number six, which is discussion of future development project opportunities with the planning department.
Do you have a presentation for us? >> As you can see, is here is well, which I'm very thankful for. >> Hello. Nice to see you. >> Do you want to sit here? >> Yeah. Okay. Can you
tell the flatter? Pleasure. Okay. Let me make the screen bigger. I'm trying. >> There you go. Thank you. >> I just want to make sure we have captioning where it's not covering your presentation.
>> Perfect. Thanks. So, um, thank you for carving out some time to talk about development opportunities. There's a short memo that was in your um, packet that you all got on Friday. And this presentation is hot off the press, but
we will make sure that it's posted um for the public as well. This image, by the way, is um just west of Marian Street as it comes to Beacon Street looking east towards um the city of Los.
>> So, uh what I'm looking from you today, um is whether there's any priorities that you can see, >> um any priorities you'd like to reorder. And secondly, if there's um I would love to start the conversation to know um what would be the most helpful for any
land use boards. Uh ladies, >> this is a very small text graphic. You don't need to read any of the words. >> Can't see anything. >> The colors will tell you everything. Um although it does look a little bit 80s. I I agree. Um the time the years are
going across left to right. So the black um bolded rectangular column is 207. Um and the green is for each of these large development projects when the money starts flowing in from the project. What comes before that those orange uh
rectangles are years where um construction um happened and the yellow is permitting. That's both permitting with planning boards, EVA, but also building permitting. Um and there is usually a year from the CBA permit and someone pulling a building permit
because they have to put together construction documents and that kind of thing. So, this is just a graphic showing all of the things that have to happen before that yellow permitting um colored in pink here are the number of years that each of these projects took
for um prezoning work how to get the zoning in place. And um this there's been different economic cycles in in Brookline. Um we're not seeing a lot of cranes in the whole Boston metro area right now which is um not surprising. Um
but up until COVID you can see kind of a steady march of prezoning permitting and then new construction coming online until we hit COVID. And I don't think it was just because of COVID. Um but we also had um at least what we had two big
development um zoning efforts that did not have enough support to move forward and those are kind of in the middle here. You could see those white boxes coming after that, right? That nothing came of that those efforts. One was the lower boil um reszoning work and the
other one was tender line place which for a hot second um we were thinking maybe lab use in the long run. I'm very glad that didn't go anywhere that we didn't tear down here place um because that same developer is um looking at
doing housing um like we've lost commercial space and we put you know self clean for housing there. So um that is that moving forward some of the work that was done like with the adjustments to the um river road zoning that was
done a while ago we're starting to see that come to fruition. Um Claremont has submitted an application or pre-application um for housing with the next couple of parcels next to the hotel which we remember road. So that
permitting is started is underway. There's also larger projects that you all on the select board may not hear about if you're not in the neighborhood, but things like uh 40 Kent Street has been going through permitting for a couple years now. It didn't require resoning to move forward, but did
require maybe some variances or something. experiences >> and some very creative thinking like board members, right? >> Yes. And they did also change the project um kind of at a late stage to provide more um small units.
So that's coming online. And then um Chestnut Hill West is already um starting the the talks going of setting up pre-lication meetings and that kind of thing. So that's great to see that kind of um pattern coming back again where we're seeing next steps happening
at Louisiana Park and we can come back to this um later. This slide is actually from a couple of years ago but I think just helpful especially for maybe some of the newer SLboard members. So all these projects take time. This was a slide that was part of my budget presentation to the
select boarding for fiscal 25. Um, and at the time I was asking answering Mike Salmon's question of how do you prioritize your work these kind of bigger projects? Um, and so here, you know, this isn't exact, but there's
basically two axes. Is there already documented community support? And then on the x-axis, what's the um efficient use of resources? What, you know, how are we going to get the most effectiveness um based on the resources we're spending? And again, this is kind of departmentwide, not just development
specific initiatives. And then the size of the circle is how we came up with this. So at the time, right, the Brooklyn Housing Authority, Walnut Highway development because we reszoned that as part of the NBTA work that was an as of right project, but it only took them a couple months to permit it. They
saved millions of dollars compared to their other project that on Marian Street. um that was both you know well community supporting as well as a great use of barley enough to spend time on and then on the lower end of the spectrum um at the time uh broadly expanding accessory building units at
that time there wasn't a lot of community support to do that um and it it would have um not been a very use resources because of community support plan so that's just a couple years ago the other piece just kind of graphically
is that many of these projects interrelate with other um efforts um and sometimes we forget where they began. said that Kage Corner um center street lots exploratory study that I think you all were talking about earlier today that was grounded right after co um it's
been talked about since the 60s of doing something quote something with the center sheet block but it was grounded after co um when the business community and residents did um with economic development corner and um there's some
here JNK area plan um that was funded by the state. There's many recommendations in there like some of the grants and art u work that we did this pop-up businesses that were harpa funded um a parking and curricularization study that's been done
um offshoot of that was updated parking fees that you just voted on a couple weeks ago. Um and so now we're at the center street exploratory study for park done and there's some good conversation with the economic development board last night about next steps. Um we're going
to meet on that one more time and then we'll be back to you late summer, early fall. Another example here is that um Kent Street, Station Street, Senior Housing Project. Some of you may not even know that that was a thing. Um but that got
to you know request for information went out if you wanted to through develop a negotiation. Um the negotiation happened 1922. um Washington Street complete streets project was coming into concept and those two things combined there's a lot
of community parking availability so we took a pause in partnership with DW and did a parking study with both Washington Square and Brooklyn Village we're now ready to resume both the Kent Street senior housing um as well as 40 um Kent
Street there's a property between Kent and um station street that's actively for sale and it's also adjacent to um so I think it makes sense to link those together. Um you all had asked for some
of you all asked and this also has come up in the conference and plan committee if we were to look at only new development to offset the need of our fiscal revenue gaps that we have what would that look like? So, um, taking the
construction since, you know, for the last 15 years or so, larger projects, um, condominiums, apartments, the third row here is Brooklyn Place, I think, office, campus, development, and then hotels. We have several of those. The
middle column is that estimated net fiscal impact. So, that's net of cost, but that's also net of the of what the land was throwing off of property taxes before the redevelopment happened. So net everything and they range wide w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w
w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w um with apartments for example whether or not there's ground floor retail um does seem to make a shift of you know kind of factor of safety of whether that's going to be a fiscally positive um property in
any given year um compared to primarily children um condos place the hotels it's a very wide range anywhere between 7 and 22,000 per thousand square foot of building. Um and the last column here is the looking at
by land. So middle column is kind of by housing unit or thousand square feet of building. The third column is what's the net impact divided by the third column is all positive. So that is revenue >> that is net revenue
>> net cost to the town. >> Correct. So that include that that has already deduct costs and it's also already deducted um the property value prior to development. The um caveat to that is it did not do that for the residential properties. It did that for the commercial properties. The
residential properties you see there it says no deduction but pre-development val. Um I need I I need a little more context to understand the numbers here. So, when I look at apartments, some with ground floor retail, and it says estimated
annual net fiscal impact, 1,750 per home um to 5,400. What's making up the gap? Is it number of bedrooms per unit size? >> Um it's that it's also uh primarily um Yes. What you just said, it's the school age children that are
>> Yes. And that's derived from bedrooms per unit, right? >> Yes. um not it's not a perfect linear situation but >> for example Hancock Village the kind of town home style um developments on the edge whereas you know beautiful walking distance to elementary school sees
almost one schoolish shoulder per unit um the rest of the h the apartments in this scenario are more like very very low as far as that >> for the because of what we learned from Hancock Village is There a way now is
there a way to not just say number of bedrooms equals or sorry it's not a linear relationship right so number of bedrooms times whatever nonlinear factor equals number of school age children is it possible to include miles to school district that could maybe help you get
closer to what might be true >> um I have looked at that there's there's so many factors like how tall is the building how many units are in a building >> um you know if it's a eight story condo town home. It just is a different field
than a 40 or 60 unit apartment. Families are in both. >> Y >> but we do have so far have seen more school age children in things that are more like condos and single family. >> But even that isn't true like so perfectly because like the crown shield
development we're seeing no school age children enrolled in Brookline schools at those town homes um on the in crown shields. Maybe they're going into private school. I you know I don't know. >> Can we I'm really interested in that specific case. Could you send uh a memo
about how much tax revenue that one building gets listed with town? >> Yeah, I what I can do is share that with you. I would rather not none of us want people going around and saying this development has kids and therefore it's bad. >> Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Okay, got it. Thank you so much. >> Yeah, thanks.
>> Just a quick question in the third column. Um, does that incorporate open space or is that just the land? Is that presumed that these buildings uh cover the entire
area? >> It's just the net impact divided by the square feet of the land. So, does it's agnostic to what the ground coverage is. It's just saying if you think of that as real estate like what is your first square how efficient is that development
throwing off dollars compared to the land that's on >> so it does include the open space >> yes >> and this third column are these averages are these medians >> the range um so lowest to highest um
development performance and also take into effect um >> so we have no apartment building in the entire town that is a net negative financially >> built in the last 15 years. Remember this is an estimate. Remember that you
know in one year we could have more enrollment. So caveat caveat caveat but yes >> I'm going to add I'm going to I might add another piece of homework here and I apologize. Could I tell you all No, go ahead. Yeah. Um can can we get like a a box and whiskers plot of all the developments that stretches from either end?
>> Um I can give you the data and you can probably >> That's perfect. Yeah, I would love to collaborate with anybody in his happy place cuz Okay, that's awesome. Thanks. >> Also, with that apartments to see your results >> with that apartments column, I'm curious because 60 cents to 970 is a very wide
span. >> Yeah. >> Uh so in addition to bedrooms, would you say that whether the building has a retail component is a significant factor there? >> A retail component is a piece of it. Um um the highest apartment value I believe
is um in North Brooklyn. It's a taller building. Um you know the the highest amount is actually um is it 40 k and 429 Harvard? I'm not the addresses >> 429
permitting. >> I'm forgetting that. I think it's 420 Harvard and 49. So, it's a larger site that went through some adjudication at the courts and came back taller than the Zeke they wanted. Um, so it's a taller building. >> Do they have retail?
>> They do have retail. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And and does this specifically exclude either BHA or other 100% affordable buildings or are those in list? >> Um, then it's not in this. I didn't consider that as a development, you
know, for this discussion that development scenario because we don't text them. >> The reason I'm asking about the uh retail component for this uh apartment span is as we discuss future development and also uh meeting our goals for the
housing production plan. I think it's helpful to know how can we get more of these apartment buildings closer to that 970 and is that about building height? Is it about having first floor retail? Uh what are those factors that make it 970 as opposed to 60 cents? >> Yeah,
>> I I'd be glad to explore more. I'm not seeing a bright right line that would that I would feel confident recommending we should do this, but there's some trends that are obvious. The other thing that that's important for me to say, especially as a planner, is that if the
town were to make any land use decisions based on bedroom size or avoiding bands, that would likely be open. So, we just need to be careful in our language even though we're exploring that sandboxes to learn more, but we
don't want to be um taking any actions or causing any actions that we need better, >> right? But even just from a purely factual perspective, because obviously we want to be welcoming to families of all sizes, but to the extent that there
obviously are some certain economic consequences to know how we can compensate for that uh in the design or in what we allow for potential uses. >> Okay, this is good. I I just like the
fact that you're essentially showing and I wanted to highlight David's point which is that worst case scenario new apartments are still a net positive. It's a minimal net positive. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Have
not always >> in the last 15 years. >> In the last 15 years, but it it does get you thinking okay what things are depending on the site can get you closer to the 970. I think a lot of times in discussion people throw out the fact that new housing
>> can't we offer can't be the same or can't we identify the 65 plus type housing that uh we have like at Route 9. >> Yes. >> So take that out and look at what what the other department
>> we could. Yeah. I have a question with regards to the condominium versus apartments. It was I thought this and I might be wrong but after I thought condos were less tax positive
as compared to apartments because I thought most condos benefit so much from the standard housing deduction that that reduces their net tax liability whereas that doesn't apply to apartments. This shows the opposite of my assumption.
That was just my assumption. But >> um I need to check on that. So this that value comes from tax paid and from the assessor's big database dump, >> but I'm not sure whether that includes exertion or not exemption. >> Got it. >> So I should double check.
>> Sort of the other variable in there is some retail is listed on both. Do we have more retail on the condo side than on the apartment side or is that about even? There's I think there's only two condo projects in this data set. So it I
think they both happen to have ground floor retail, but I feel >> Okay. >> Okay. So um >> and just one one other question on ground floor. We talk a lot about ground floor retail, but I'm noticing there seems to be with uh increased popularity
of having the first two floors be retail. And we we even see that in Koolage Corner where uh when I was an elementary school student at the dent of ocean it was Barnes & Noble on the second floor and now it's health works but that model's existed a while and is that something that we're also looking
at to try to maximize revenue because second floor retail seems to be workable >> or second floor commercial >> commercial >> yeah um something that city realy has been >> proposing as well I I don't know enough to know the current market for that kind
of thing for new construction but think it would be a good question to ask in the um market study that I I'll get to in a second that I'd like for us to do because I I don't I don't know that >> everything that said brings up a new point in my mind there with the Pleasant Street thing that was recently pulled from the warrant um because there's new
there's other work that needs to be done on that. I I feel like I recall them wanting to put their office like their regional office in that building right and I think that that's a really good example of two floor commercial space availability. So yeah, we'll just pause there.
So um one or more of you asked Melissa to come up when Melissa you should expect. >> Yeah I mean I have a couple of slides also that talks about kind of you know looking at the next three-year cycle after this current three-year period. um the not noting that the further out that
we get the less act less accurate we are um you know I came up with a range of 25 to 28 million for the next three-year period and there are a lot of assumptions built into that um and a lot of factors that could change um but just as a way to give car kind of a number to work with um that that's kind of where
we are right now >> wait help me what does the 25 to 28 mean >> so that is essentially the next gap uh over the next three-year period after this current override cycle >> okay so so you're suggest testing the next override cycle will need to be a 25 to 20.
>> No, >> that's what I'm not understanding. >> It's the next shortfall over the three the three-year period after this current override is over. >> The structural deficit after this current override. >> That would be the rough estimate though. >> Well, what policies?
>> Well, and so if I can, it looks like this slide is saying what you would need to develop in order to offset the predicted difference. Does this does this uh does this include um a base run rate
of new growth? >> So new growth is $2 million for that that assumption because there's nothing kind of in the pipeline currently and without kind of more positive news about a change in the way that the economy is that's >> so the so the answer is yes. It includes
a baseline somehow. >> Wait, what was >> here? I can let me pull up I some assumptions. Yeah, we needed to switch quickly switch. >> I just understand what the difference was between what I said and that this is the next fiscal hole. >> We could instead instead have more cuts,
>> right? >> Sorry. >> I understand. I understand. >> There is a gap of 25 to 28 million. >> I understand. Thank you. >> Yeah. And and Melissa will say this, but it is very early to be making that call by by David to make that call so we can
have this conversation. >> We need to have the conversation. And the reason we're doing that, understanding all these caveats, that's very preliminary, is I think that this board has a lot of interest in trying to uh engage in long-term planning so that over the long haul, probably not in
three years, but over the long haul, we might be able to uh extricate ourselves from three-year override cycles. And so, we need to use some kind of baseline fully understanding that it's very rough, >> right? >> Yep. So these are kind of some of the
base assumptions um in that estimate. So 2 million in new growth, one and a half% increase in local receipts, two and a half uh% increase in state aid, free cash at the same kind of level that we've been seeing that meets the policy targets. Obviously Chaz just uh kind of
spotlighted that that as we kind of shrink our revenues um you know that that potentially could change a 5% increase in uh school appropriations. Obviously, we we're about to have a new deputy superintendent for administration and finance. We'll have revised projections once once he has kind of uh
gotten his feet under him. Um 2% cola for town departments, 2 and a half% for non-personnel increases. And then beyond the 3 years, we have a 12% assumption for the three years in the override, the current override. Um hoping that the group health uh landscape would change
that we wouldn't see double digit increases, but still feeling like seven and a half was a decent enough effort. Um so then just some things that could change the outlook either on the positive or the negative side. Um, you know, obviously if we saw kind of a resumption of some of the economic
activity, that would generate additional new growth. Um, if we change the 8317 for group health, that would have a lot of positives uh in the outlook as well. Um, and then a change in policy about the use of the pension runoff. We'll be
having more conversations about that. um state aid. Obviously, there's been a lot of conversation about Prop 2 and a half and the state's contribution to cities and towns and um whether or not it's it's sufficient. Um there will also be kind of a a committee looking at chapter
70 as well uh statewide. Uh and then obviously energy is always kind of a question mark in terms of what's happening in the in the overall market and and what potentially the town could do uh for savings as well. And then you know on the negative uh a deeper economic recession JLMC award that would
be beyond our ability to pay um additional mandates uh for new services uh and then school growth factor in excess of 5% utility. So these are kind of >> this is awesome >> things that could shift but that range
caveat caveat like like Cara said um is what we kind of just started working through. So it seems like the standard distribution roughly for that number 25 to 28 million could like it could easily go 10 million in either direction. Yes.
Based on those correct yeah >> but for purposes of this exercise. >> Yes. >> And is is is cola 2%. >> So that is what we currently have in our model. >> It is the outuse. Yeah. For like FI27 it's one.
>> Understood. Thanks. And I will say right like not to bar against ourselves but inflation is higher than that. Yeah. Um so that's it's it's tough. It's tough on our on our staff. Yeah. That's really
>> you have to change the name of it. >> Right. It's not really a wage adjustment. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So now that we've understood the headline of >> the slide is actually quite easy. It's the same slide. It's just that the third
um column is saying over that preyear period, if you were to make up a delta from just one of these land uses, what would that be like? >> So, you could make that up over three years by adding 15 to 2,000 2,000 condos
in three years. You could do that by adding 4600 to 16,000 apartments. You could do that by adding 10 to 11 more Brooklyn places. I don't do that by adding 14 to 16 more hotels. I don't think there's a market for that many but you know it's gives you a sense
of magnitude which I think is a helpful exercise and of course a reasonable thing to do to start looking at this more easy mixing. >> I think that this slide does um force us all to recognize that growth is not the
only way we solve this. So yeah, >> but >> it's a tool. >> It is a tool that can decrease that number. >> Yes. Yes. >> And there's the opeds element which will help >> a whole bunch of other stuff caveat. >> So we're only looking at the growth part. So I don't want to strike too
pessimistic. >> Okay. Okay. So compared let's say apartments and condos smoke me up whatever between 1500 and 16,000 over three years. That's like whatever 500 to 5,000 homes adding a year. Um, and right
now we're around 499. That's based on building the last three years. >> Can we go back one more slide? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. And then do we have that the next slide broken down by housing type? >> We do. I don't have that with me today
because the way we track it for the regional planning agency is not by ownership but by bedroom count. So, okay, >> it's all we'd have to do. Got it. >> And this net new homes are $4.99. Is that including single family or is that just a part of those?
>> Sorry. Single family and they are net new homes. So if a single family is demolished and another single family built that doesn't >> I see but the reason I ask that is if we uh end up taking on multiple projects at once as opposed to doing a smaller
number each year that that top line about around 1,500 uh new units. So if we're already at 500 and we do triple the number of projects we do now that actually does seem realizable. Not not within the next
three years but but longer term that type of trajectory >> could be done >> if they're all condos. >> I get >> I think yeah it's not um this is a good exercise you can start >> bouncing between reality and
reality. So uh this slide using the same color coding as at the very beginning. So um as I presented this board in the past budget discussions I was promoting priorities. This is primarily
Ollie and all the work that her staff does. Um um so getting those projects through to you know actually being able to start construction. We've got some some very large projects um happening in this current fiscal 27th um started
already. So one is the Claremont owned property I was talking about between Brooklyn Avenue and the road that's housing with the ground floor. They are also asking for a variety of variances. So to be determined um two Brooklyn place children's hospital is coming back
in to amend their special permit so they can finish the commercial space on the ground floor. Um that would be an effort. not a lot of you know revenue added in the land but some um 40th street is underway and then uh city
realy as I said is has already started their pre-application work with the town and the building department you mean they may go to the planning board uh at end of August for the preliminary presentation pretty fast
>> quick question I have on two Brooklyn plays so the uh finishing the commercial space does that suggest that there is going to be more efforts of filling it. >> Yes, it means that they have um a tenant in hand for the two land place. They
don't yet for one place which is also unfinished. Um but they would like the permitting flexibility to have uses um in between two. >> Do we know the category of commercial for that tenant? >> I don't know, but I think they're talking about medical office.
>> Okay. Um so development priorities is that kind of pre-zoning those pink rectangles we saw earlier. Um it's about finishing things. We finished spinners wreath. Um last discussion be down talked about
that last night. We'll be back to probably later in the summer. Uh the Kent uh Webster discussions. This is a new one. Um, again, this is the town owned that's behind like the Starbucks building and the convenience store in
the village, which is adjacent to two parcels that are currently for sale. Um, so my balloon that I'm blowing with you all is I imagine we want to explore um working with the potential buyers to
do a joint partnership or at least explore those conversations utilizing the town land as well. um not necessarily deploy the parking the airways from um that parcel combined is about the same size as well and Duran to
give you a sense of how big it is. Um third is third priority is restarting the Kent station street housing which is on the other side of Kent Street and we might even want to talk about whether those two sites could be in partnership
with each other at some creative way. I don't have any specific ideas but we should talk about that. >> All right. The disposition of parking is one one obvious
>> potentially obvious way in which they could tell >> that particular project froze. There was a lot of that went into it and then we basically didn't do anything because of concerns over
>> concerns over parking. Um, and also staff both in our department as well as the EW. I remember Todd Cra saying, "I promise you I'll figure out a way to change the parking around the plane village and then be left many things including but yeah,
>> in terms of these parking concerns, I was talking to uh Kathyman the other day and she made what I found to be a very insightful comment that we don't talk much about, which is differentiating the type of parking. Is it destination parking or is it residential parking? And and that can be very helpful to know
in terms of assessing the need. Often times in these conversations, we just look at parking generically. Uh but knowing if it's destination or residential has high impact in terms of how many space you need and that could be useful in this project.
>> Yeah. Um, and then I thought it was important to put on here other activities, not everything that we're doing, but other activities that um, in the long run support development priorities as well because that's not their only objective. So, finishing the comprehensive plan.
And the second one I wanted to pause and make sure you all hear. We're thinking we need to talk about this with EDAB and our other ranges boards, but we're thinking it probably makes sense in January to do a commercial market study so that we have
updated information about what is realistic for commercial growth these days in Brooklyn. And that would probably look a lot different on comboid um on water,
but it' be good to know what those are. And also um to get some more information from those industry experts, we got a question about like what are people doing on the second floor for commercial space? You know, the breweries were a big hot thing that kind of went through, but what's the next thing that's like a
brewery that could support larger ground floor spaces? Um and then also talking with our institutional partners and um just making sure that there's not any accessory uses that they wish they could do add-on even if not on their property.
Um we don't we don't know until we ask questions. >> When did we last go through this exercise >> do a commercial market study? >> Yes. I don't think we I'm not aware of
one being done. There was a vibrancy study that was done 15 years ago, but not with uh real estate experts and it was more about like retail demand compared to households and how much of that is uh leakage leaving the town kind of back of
the envelope, but not all commercial uses. We've also used McKenna in the distant distant past to ask us about some insights like could we do another hotel in North could we do another hotel or something? um because she had experience with those but not townwide
and not homes at once. Then >> have we looked at whether uh neighboring municipalities have conducted similar studies and if so what that data reveals and I don't say that as uh to preempt undertaking our own commercial study but it could still offer helpful information
in the interim. Newton is somewhat similar the more suburban parts of Boston like West Roxbury. >> Yeah, it's a good question. I need to look around some more to understand that more. I'm only aware of um either communities that are you know looking
for anything anywhere like some of the gateway communities doing things for their downtown which is a still a mountain market study or you know the size of corner corner or um suburban communities saying this industrial park is no longer working. What should we do for that? Like
>> I know that needed in particular, they've been doing a lot of uh work around their town center and development there and adding more multif family housing and mixed use. So maybe seeing what their studies showed might help inform just as a bridge to when we get to conducting our own.
>> Yeah, I haven't seen a lot of reports showing partial demand anywhere from the last year or two, but um you know, we'll see. And how long do you expect such a study to take?
>> Um, I think because this is meant to be a stashed subject and not, you know, public process, if we're just giving data, I think it could be fairly quite good. I know it's great. >> Um, so coming out of that, I would like
to see, you know, what the reality is. My guess is it might make sense for us to talk when I come to you and talk about budget press on 28 next spring. I wouldn't be surprised if I was bringing out Commonwealth area that's um thinking about a corridor
rather than just one site at a time um that has some potential and that's also realistic in adding commercial tax space not just resation. Um I know we are over time so this is um very small this is this is a priority I
think >> yes very you tell me when to go faster so um this is a very very small image which has a draft map um and that's all capitalized draft from the comprehensive plan steering
committee I think this is the second version and they're probably going to reiterate that you know at least two or three more times. Um, broadly speaking, this is taking community um, input to date and say, okay, when we look at the
town as a whole, what are the areas where we want to support? There might be some change, but it might be more about supporting the fact that it's there. That's those tan areas most of the town. Um, what are areas that we expect or we want to direct significant change? Um,
and that's that dark purple which you see along come out. But also in some spots like on site or some Route 9, there's still some dark spot or you know the famous MBTA yards. That would be amazing. Don't
think it's going to happen. Uh TJ Maxx, there's nothing, you know, surprising here. Um some parcels along Harvard Street that were those larger parcels that the community wanted to carve out of the Harvard Street zoning like Stop and Shop, PJs, um sites like those. And
then that there's a color in between that's more like a magenta color and that's somewhere between um you know high change and sun change. So for example, Washington Square is that middle color. >> Um and well there's there were comments
from um that neighborhood or that precinct from the community that said four stories feels about right for a new development. There is also recognition that there's there's properties like the grocery store site that has you know um
parking lot behind it and that might it would take a lot of work and compensation but that might be a reasonable redevelopment site that keeps the grocery store going but adds um so that's just context there's uh some large kind of almost I guess ivory
or white colored parcels those are institution utional properties and not even all of them, but some of the larger ones um that the the steering committee is still sifting through the comments received and trying to figure out what
and how they make any recommendations regarding those larger properties. Um because I think as someone mentioned earlier, you know, once they come up for sale or if we get a call, it'd be helpful to have some direction from the community as to what to see on those
properties next. This um other light colored very large area is the tox neighborhood um that is undergoing study right now um being uh led by Marine Relli and with uh very
strong support from the town members that neighborhood used to be neighborhood conservation district. Um we'll see what the town members goals are there. Um but what's interesting about that work is it we I suspect that
we will find um some conclusions about how to support the existing fabric but still um allow for some change you know more than a local historic district and that could then be replicated in other two family neighborhoods. So this is the largest kind of two family um
neighborhood. So kind of indirect potential development priorities um Victor Hill reuse study we're going to learn a lot about market demand through that um your point David know other projects and give us information about what's on the
market generally. Um Perry we just talked about AGU outreach. So here where we're starting to get into like not everything requires for zoning to see change. So once you attorney general hopefully approves the language that stumb
um then we are planning to do a big outreach to property owners hopefully combined with select board offices conversations about streamlining permitting um and kind of getting that information out to the homeowners or small family portfolio owners would be
another way that we can move forward. Um, number four is, um, we've had conversations with you all about the real estate property committee. It'd be great to just coordinate. Everybody's talking to different property owners at different levels, but it would be
helpful to get the land use boards together, just coordinate who's hearing what um, from time to time. And then the last thing is uh, one of my favorite slides of like new information today and that's infrastructure. So if we were a Greenfield community, we might talk
about water too broadly. Um but in Brooklyn, we don't have all the infrastructure we need. Um it's my opinion, and I'll show you why that is coming up, too, that we do need to think about adding more open space when people are talking about
adding in, you know, being intentional about adding more um residential or commercial and also our electrical grid, which I know hardly anything about, but I have it. um that slide that hopefully can get you interested. So, open space.
These are just two snapshots from um residency website, a website that this the state uses and um you can clearly see what the number of dwelling units per parcel is is what the different colors are showing you. Um so
on the left is a neighborhood that's more or less around the Baker School playground. Um and on the right is a neighborhood that's around kind of regularly square park. It's hard to do these exact um but kind of thinking what's the watershed of those parks um
compared to them going people most likely going here for neighborhood park other than the next park outside. Obviously people are able to walk across municipal boundaries. So you will see on the left you know I'm including neighborhoods that are not in folk line because they are near parks in our town.
Um, and this is only thinking about like playground field space. This isn't including sanctuaries. It's not including some of the historic um, don't touch, but you can look at areas of cottage farm. Um, these are, you know, usable think about usable spaces. Um,
and there's there's a difference. So, on the left, we're seeing about um one and a half acres of this kind of recreational open space per thousand people. And on the right, about half that in North Brooklyn, about seven acres per thousand people. Even though
there's a lot more open space in that neighborhood on the right, um it's a lot more dense. And um the there's no national standard and the um parks director does a great job of talking about different kinds of park use and why they're needed for
maintenance reasons or, you know, regional um play reasons. And that's not my field of expertise, but just to give you a kind of a standard um the National Institutes of Health has a review of literature about different kinds of
community reservation parks. So again, not sanctuaries, not conservation land. And the literature suggests somewhere between one and a quarter to two and a half acres per thousand. So um the you know neighborhood on the left is probably as minimum as you want
to get and probably more. The neighborhood on the right is certainly under um and my my thought is that we should be very clear that we want to add open space if we want to add the amount of housing in either anywhere.
>> I think this ties in a little bit to an earlier discussion we're having about parameters for when we might want to look to acquire property. So, I I brought up if two houses next to each other go on sale, we should be alerted because that's a potential opportunity to add a park. Or if there's a house
that's right next to a school, that's an opportunity as well. Um, I think also we could consider a rooftop green space there. Of course, there's the challenge of making sure that you have enough shade, right? Tree
canopy somehow on a roof. We don't want more of a Driscoll playground situation. uh trees are heavy too, >> but but ground space is finite. So I think we have to find other ways to add green space in addition to the traditional. >> Yeah. And you were mentioning like
indoor recreation space private, right? That's another way for people to >> do something outside of their house >> or making sure that if there is private space that is publicly accessible which like >> sometimes we make arrangements for
public access that then is not really accessible. Um and so thinking a lot more holistically about that. >> A lot of shopping malls that are sort of borderline defunct now are doing these conversions where they have pickle ball courts inside and they're sort of becoming recreation facilities. We don't
have that here in Brooklyn, but uh as a part of MOAs with developments of mid to large scale, we might try to think of kind of asking them to include some kind of indoor recreation because also given our climate, so maybe
seven months out of the year here, we need to be indoors anyway for recreation. Um when we look at the Washington Square magenta map two two slides ago I think. >> Yeah I feel like Washington Square is right by the the Driscoll school is the
one that's right there. Right. And now now I know that Driscoll has a lot of open capacity. Right. So that reads to me as highly advantageous for future development. Um I just wanted to call that out.
Um, and while you have this up, everyone here knows that I've been interested in lower boil stone, but it does seem like the dark purple denotes a portion of what was originally talked about in that project um, as being well suited for
development. >> Yeah. >> And again, this is a draft of where, >> but it's it's good to think of of these places as we start to sort of scope out where they're planned. um because I do think there is a lot of potential and especially given the timeline that you
were showing in terms of the amount of time that it takes to plan for it. Uh we can talk permitting later of whether that can actually be sped up. >> Um but like you're talking five plus years in the future for when we start something.
>> Okay. >> And then >> um Eversource. So, Eversource um has started putting publicly on their uh website. You can just go look Eversource headroom map. Um and they have another version that's not called headroom. I
think it's called capacity and the capacity. There's two tabs if you go to this. One tab is not called headroom and that's more for finding parcels that it's appropriate to add solar or other technologies easier to the electrical
grid. Headroom. The headroom tab is more about what is the um existing capacity in the network to handle additional load. So taking away the electrically um and that seasonal business snapshot.
So in the summer that's usually worse. Um and uh we've been hearing about this from the governor from Eversource talking about um updating the bread especially as more communities are trying to move
towards spot kill free um and um you'll see at the top here a little sneak peek of Cambridge which is a very dark purple and that's basically showing zero um capacity for up to 1 kil was and
you might have seen um in the press recently that there's a very large substation that's being built underground um in Kendall Square or some somewhere in Cambridge. Um so clearly the state and and Cambridge especially
are very concerned about electrical capacity that does some work that's going to be improved but we also know that Eversource is looking to update their electrical grid in Brooklyn. Um there's several substations that already exist. They're doing due diligence work
to see what equipment is there. And regionally, they've also talked very publicly about wanting to add more infrastructure, you know, for the region kind of in this North Brook line, Holston, Brighton, getting over the Cambridge area, like the trunk line. Um
so it's just good to know that that is a limiting factor. Um this came to a head with the Brooklyn Housing Authority who's extremely well organized, has done several developments in their own works with all these utility companies and at the very end of
32 Marian Street in their construction phase. They were told that the last connection that they needed was going to take an additional two months, which means that they that was the only factor that kept getting residents into their homes for two months was um at the
source of >> what was what did they need to do in those two months? Um it was way it wasn't amount of work that needed to be done. It was just weighing the queue for every source to come out and connect something. >> If we're talking capacity, I mean this
isn't your area of expertise, but like if we build capacity, is that us doing a favor for our source that helps us, but like is that something that is somewhat of a negotiation? I'm like thinking about the Z folks wanting to create sort
of a municipal solar option, right? which as a condo owner would be very helpful for for those who uh might be able to generate more use. And so I'm wondering if you could pair it with something that would be a win for the
town. Um if we are thinking about expanding electrical infrastructure in our towns to >> Yeah. Yeah. >> for future. But yeah, I I would like to like think about it if in terms of like
right, you're you're you're looking at Cambridge building that maybe infrastructure will help with fine. If they are putting emphasis on wanting to build more infrastructure here, we should be thinking about what that relationship looks like. >> Yeah, >> I think this has to be a whole agenda
item >> for this whole electric thing. I think we need >> consulted. Yeah, we we need a >> we need a lot more on this because this is a little over my head. So, >> um I am guessing based on the third varian conversation and some very quick
numbers that anything that's like yellow, green, dark green and that light pink above it are likely areas talk about having likely areas where you could put in a 40unit building today. Um, and those areas are very few. You
know, even where 32 marine was. Um, it's it's sorry, down here, it's kind of spotty between the yellow and and not yellow. >> I see my block there and I'm in a 14story building and I'm I'm pink, which is pretty crazy.
>> Yeah. But the takeaway is where you're limited to be able to do development. And you know, on the face of it, it's probably not something we can say today whether you're going to be able to strike a deal with NSTAR. But I think what Cara's pointing out is you need to be starting to be need to start being aware of Star needing to develop, you
know, more more capacity and being willing where you can to help them do that, right? >> I I would like Anony's idea of like can we have some time at a future select board meeting to actually dive into like what decisions we even could make along those lines?
>> Yeah. Does us adding municipal solar hurt this? Because I I also don't understand that. >> It does in a way. >> It does. >> Absolutely. >> When you play with it, you'll see it's a kind of a flip flop of each other, >> right? >> There's two tabs, but you'll see where >> in areas where it's going to be harder to add a significant like solar farm.
>> Yeah. >> The same areas where it's going to be hard to add. >> There's a step when you're doing any solar project, there's a step called the interconnection agreement where you actually have to ask Eversource, is there capacity to be able to do this on the grid? um because it's gonna have to run on, you know, it may have to run on
their wires at some point, right? Um and so generally they say yes, but sometimes those things get hung up for a long time. So they say, "Oh, we've got to replace transformers. We've got to do XYZ in order to make that happen." So >> So it is a broader conversation, but for the purposes here, it's sort of like this is where you're limited to what we
can do. >> Yeah. And that's right. And developers will add infrastructure did realy well if they need to. Um, but it's helpful just to know in the background to your plan that there's something we can do that's more supportive that makes sense for the town
and the utility company, but also just for broad planning purposes like this, you know, another purple area is west of Han Pan Parkway and a lot of Regina's neighborhood. I'm sorry, she just left. Um, and it's very limited. And so there's been, you know, musings, I'll
say it, on the steering committee for the comprehensive plan of like, could we do something interesting with the Flutterham library and circle to make that uh more of a destination community space just and just broadly thinking out loud and this would this is important
for us to take into consideration that okay, we should also realize that that would probably require some infrastructure upgrades for that happen. So last slide. um anything you'd like me to reorder and um if you want to start the
conversation or we can do it another time about what you all think would be the most helpful for like scoping a select board leazison on to any board whether it's housing advisory board or VAB um I help
>> I have two questions in ter I suppose this falls into priorities um number one is uh in terms of things like the ADU bylaw and toxic flarity that where their impacts are more diffuse
than individual projects. Can you give us a sense of the the I guess mostly in terms of housing? Um um what the how you think about those adding to the town's
housing inventory relative to these other specific projects? Um they're ones that I'm not counting on when we're looking at how to get to the 9.2% you know affordable units of adding um affordable units by 20 40 whatever it is. Um they're not they're not ones I'm
saying okay this project is going to help us we know get there because we haven't been through that community conversation. Um the ADU is at this point very small effort. It's educational relatively speaking. It's education outreach. It's not a big public process.
Talk to Harry um will be significant for at least another six months probably um >> in terms of effort >> in terms of effort. Yeah. Engaging the community they want. >> Right. I I was sort of thinking about it
on the on the flip side. So if you take something like to talk Perry or ADUs and look out say 10 years 15 years you know obviously there's an education phase and a startup phase to all of these things but if you compare that to say you know
40 Kent Street you know 40 Ken Street has a defined number of units that it could create and you know then you got the land and you got the number of units but you have a sense of where those kinds of projects that are more fixed how those compare to
the overall area of opportunity for the of the project. >> Yeah. So I don't see either of those examples. You can use the ority as a housing production primary my primary goal. >> And so that's why our housing staff would not be looking at those projects. Our housing staff would be working on
BOP Street, Ken Street, Center Street. Those are much bigger what they are because they're much better use of their time. >> But in terms of effort, so I if I'm getting what Michael was saying, right? like there's a limited capacity of staff time, right? And so if we're giving you
priorities, I would like most of staff time and clearly there's specialization in that, but I would like most of staff time to be focused on things that um can meet more goals. So like the 40 cat, right? Like that's a clear like we can
create x number of housing units and also get us closer to affordability numbers. Um, so that might make uh sense to spend more time of town staff energy there than um tax. I think ADUs are
probably a little bit different because it's minimal staff time, >> right? But but and at this point ADUs are a um if things are approved, it's a how do we make it easier for people to build within the rules of the
environment sensing. Um, but I I am I would like to be thinking about prioritizing staff time in terms of uh return on investment for lack of a better phrase uh to meet some of the goals that we are interested in.
>> I agree. So I think that the list of priorities you've outlined are are quite sound and those seem do seem to be that they would be the higher return on investment uh as you put it. They're larger scale for the most part. Uh so I would agree with those. I would like to add some more though because I think
that we need to be doing multiple items at once and I'm I'm very conscious of limited staff bandwidth but to the extent that community volunteers can do a lion share of the work for you and maybe bring things to the 10 yard line
so that there's less for staff to have to worry about that might be a potential path forward. So there were uh two items that were raised in this discussion earlier. Lower Boilston and I think you were talking about Washington Square around Driscoll. And uh given that we do
have a lot of very willing volunteers in town who are very knowledgeable uh it's also not unprecedented for there to be uh zoning warrant articles that are drafted by private petitioners. I'm not suggesting that it be exclusively from
uh citizen volunteers. Obviously, some staff input would be u instrumental, but to the extent that we can keep uh your workload manageable, but at the same time be working on multiple fronts. >> Yeah. >> Is there select board task force is
coming into play? It could be. Yes. Um, and what and I think you started to allude to this, but there, you know, there are things like 26 Pleasant Street obviously that's that's also going to take staff time. Could we could we go
back to the earlier chart that showed um the years across the top of the projects on the side? Yeah, that that right. So, so I guess the the it looks like for example, you've got four significant
boxes that are paying this year, right? >> For fiscal 27 >> for fiscal, I'm sorry, for fiscal 27. And you've got five set up for fiscal 28. And then and then it's >> to be determined. >> To be determined,
>> zero, >> right? None yet none yet established, right? And so when we're talking about pri priorities, are we talking about 2029 or are we talking about like I can't tell what the
maximum number is that you had in any one year? >> Yeah. So um what I'm especially looking for is for fiscal 27 because these are things that we've started. We're in the middle, you know, talk most of them were in the middle talking the community on we talked about with select work in the
spring. I think we should continue with these as our priorities, but I'm also hearing clues of what to think about fiscal 28 priority. >> Right. Well, I think 26 pleasant is going to come back to the the >> right. That's going to take a lot of work, but it
doesn't meet this level of effort. Other things here. >> Oh, so it's a lower level. >> Yeah. There's not going to be any public process between that. So, like it is what it is. So in terms of staff efforts,
>> yeah, I mean there might be a planning board meeting. There will be neighborhood meeting discussion, but it's not going to be a open-ended let's think about what we want to see on this property for two years, right? >> Yes, that is that is fair. Fair enough. Okay. So that gives that gives me a set
better sense of scale of what box >> Sorry, can I follow up on the pleasant question? Yeah. >> With that, um I are we communicating with them at all about desire for first floor commercial to try to get it through the finish line. >> Yeah. They don't see it as a retail spot at all. They're willing to do the um
they want to do the office support space. >> Good. >> Yeah. And they would need a bar to do >> commercial. >> Yeah. or or or it would have to be included
here in other ways, I believe. >> Yeah. >> So, the only new thing up here is the Webster kind of twin discussion of the town lot and the property was for sale, which is one that I think we should add for
thinking about um large efforts that are also development priorities for fiscal 27, but that would be helpful because that's um So, >> right. So, what I hear you saying is that if we wanted to look at something like Washington Square or lower boil,
those would be at the scale of development priorities that you have there. And and if we wanted to do that, then then we would have to start looking at staff capacity and increasing staff
capacity in order to do those faster. >> Yes. And I think it would be hopeful and not that much more time to wait for the comprehensive plan to be finished this fall, which you'll get some revenue. >> Sure. And and it might be that that
those other um well, let me ask the question this way. Can we set aside basically a a the staff whatever the staff needs are for one more pink box based on what the
comprehensive plan does that starts in the second half of fiscal year 27 so that we don't lose >> no we're down three and a half people we don't have the budget no >> that's a wait can you explain you're down people
are we >> we're not restoring one position and restoring another position um that we talked about earlier with the housing planner. this year fiscal 27 and that's coming on to the towns fiscal 28
>> right >> so between those two >> but is is this a capacity issue right like if we are to actually to address not having these crazy differences between what we what we need just to maintain services after this override
cycle ends like maybe it is a good worth good use of time to like bring on some fractional help um because Yeah, you're at capacity and I think there there sounds like there's interest from the select board to add at least one more box
and clearly like can't clone yourself any >> and so understanding what is within the capacity and one like it's a longer term conversation of whether we need to be staffing your office more at large. Um,
but also in the short term, like you're right, the comp plan is coming up and it would be nice to be able to take one of the stretches highlighted and actually in the second half of 27 act on it. >> So, I I don't know if that is like
feasible for us to hire either someone new or rational like a consultant to help with. >> I think it takes budget first. And what I'm hearing from Cara is that is they don't have a budget, >> right? That's within planning, but there
might be some other areas in our budget. So, we have consulting lines now. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's really, you know, um we we do this exercise every year like where are the priorities and where do the resources go? And so, you
know, if the board is wanting to rep prioritize, then we'd have to come up with a recommendation on how to provide the resources to the department. >> I want to ask a question about David's point of can a community group get something to the maybe not 10 to the 30
yard line and that can make your job easier in the second half of 20 seconds. >> Yeah. So, I'm sorry. >> No, that's it. >> Um, yes. And I think um you know Paul's special division does that very well. Helps people and so does the town council spends a lot of time doing that.
Um making sure that it's in the right form that it makes common sense with zoning. Um and our department views the select board as a political partner, right? Like we don't handle right out the front end and that's what you are a partner in for us. So if you all as a
select board say hey we want planning to support this and this um then that makes it much easier for us to prioritize than a single resident calling saying this is my pet project this year >> and put everything else to the side. So
I think the sooner those ideas bubble up and you guys can talk about in that category of like supporting a petitioner article where the public process is not on us, it's on what he really wants to do. Um that's that's much faster,
>> right? And then also remember that the first six months at least on any of these projects is the community engagement and going to the neighborhood and getting that type of uh buy in and their vision and concerns and positive attributes you're looking for in a
project. And I don't see why that needs to necessarily be staffled those portions. So I I think we can take on more with the understanding that planning is not going to be able to oversee absolutely everything, >> right?
>> And we get it we get as much done for you as we can. >> Yeah. and I will be technical advisors making sure fits in with >> so if we want to do that then what we need is is some sort of communication
plan to let people know that that is something that the select board is interested in engaging right as as as one of the next steps as well as sort of establishing sort of what the process is right now it's been sort of ad hoc talk.
We've >> we've all been talking to various folks to varying degrees. Um but but if that's if that's the way that we can expand the capacity for fiscal year 27 and then have this discussion
again for fiscal year 28 then we should understand that and we'll move forward on the basis. >> Right. I agree. I agree. Okay. >> Okay. >> All right. Now we are running a bit behind but does anyone else have any points they want to raise before we move
on? >> The only thing I would say is if there's any way to speed up the class of Perry work um if it's probably unrealistic to get something by November but definitely by May like either like we need to come
to or not so we can free up staff time for some of these other work. It it would certainly be helpful in this presentation if you could um identify the not just what you're working on but
like when will this come to I think of of like a town meeting article as the as the um point of closure. >> Yeah. >> Right. Um but to to understand that for these various projects. So is Kent
Street something for May for no November of 27th like just understanding what those pieces are so that we understand how those things how you were expecting those things to >> would be definitely do that especially for the know earlier then sometimes they
extend as as Bernard Hill committee or as Eub discussed center streets you know >> the community responds and the timing changes we don't have full control Right. But but sometimes the the um
the timeline expands because of community feedback. That's a political um choice, right? And that's why the select board is political agents have the opportunity to influence that factor. >> And maybe the select board sometimes
should weigh in more and be like actually let's not expand the pipeline. um like let's set a deadline and come to decision and it comes to a vote, >> right? >> Yeah. I think that that's one thing that I think >> I I I I think the select board policy
should change the most on is setting our deadlines for a lot of these things. I feel like that's super >> or at least Wayne as Amanda says Wayne is more strong >> on maintaining them but knowing if you're saying uh no earlier than X and
the select board is through its discussions and policy saying no later than X then we can get the politics and the technical work to coalesce. >> Yeah that makes sense. I think that's the one of the most important things.
And as as with many things, it's very easy in the abstract. >> Oh yes. >> And it's very hard when you are up there and you have 10 people who show up in public comment and say you didn't do enough public process. I feel
>> I've never had that. I have no idea what you're talking about. >> Yeah. that you were over there and you know you know how how bad it was. Um you know it was touch and go there while um a long while
>> and lots of touch. >> Yes go and that's and that is true too. It was a it was a high contact environment. It required a lot of you know a lot of one-on-one time with people to get where I needed to go. Um
>> and some people will say that made the process better and that's good and we should do more of that and I think it is great to have that level of engagement but at a certain point the board has to say no right at a certain point the board has to say we have done we have we are satisfied with the process that
we've followed and we are sorry if you were not um that's going to be the single biggest change because I think that's that is what we have encountered in the past is that we've and it's what we struggled with we've developed we've reiterated and retoled their public processes and the reality of the
situation is there one there will never be enough process satisfy everybody um that's okay and there are people who will make good faith arguments that the process was not appropriate for thinking the question and then there are people who just use process as a cule um and you just have to deal with so just I I
wanted to name that because I do think it is very important to identify that in the abstract we can say this but when the rubber meets the road. You know, the board the board serving is that that political uh arm of the process to be able to say,
"No, from a political perspective, we have done what they're willing to do." It's really important. >> All right. So, we are 15 minutes behind. Well, actually more than that because we have another item. Town partnership, but this was >> just lunch,
>> right? No, no, I agree. No, we'll have we'll have lunch and when we come back we'll address town school partnership. Uh I don't think town school partnership is going to be a 30-minute item. It's a two-page draft to go over and we already discussed town school partnership earlier in some other context. But why don't we go have lunch
now? >> Should we get back at 1:15? Is that enough time? >> Yeah, it's fine. >> Yeah, it should be fine. >> Okay. >> All right. We are now back with our meeting from a lunch break and we will
take up item number seven town school partnership question of reviewing and approving anou between the public schools of Brooklyn and the town of Brooklyn. >> Yes, we um this is a draft document uh this I would say the school committee
signed off on this document. Um it's designed to u begin uh and continue the process of implementing um the expenditures revenue study committee recommendations. Um we are and you know I think it's good for us to talk about
this um but also more generally you know the town school partnership as a as a operating body because it has been relatively dormant with NRSC operating. Um the goal here is to fulfill the
recommendations of the NRSC with regard particularly to um efficiencies, shared services, finances and all the things that we need to work on um as a community at large as opposed to just the town and schools. So um if there are
any proposed changes um comments thoughts on this interview and then uh if you're if you want to move it or um have it come back um in two weeks uh we can do that and then I think maybe it would be helpful to discuss council
partnership more broadly. So this specific document I don't know if there are questions or comments. >> Um were there any recommendations from the expenditures and revenues that were not incorporated in this document.
>> Yeah. >> All right. Then with any further discussion, >> just one quick point. Everything that also says town of Brooklyn um is the thought that this will be done at the town school partnership.
So yes, in general the town school partnership is going to be the space where we uh except for you know for example the munus working group um you know the stuff that's in the if it's if it's at the staff level but the the body at which the the body for which that
will be monitoring the accountability for this is the national partnership. Um >> two two things I'm a little concerned about. Number one is uh school model. Um yeah that is not going to be easy and
and you know if it's not done with uh extensive uh community input it could really blow off our faces. I assume that that would be uh considered by the committee. And the
other thing is I get the sense that people think that bargaining with respect to the uh healthcare split is going to be easy. It seems to me and I know you know not saying it's easy
here but um I just hope that we're very careful with that too. >> Yes. >> I mean I can't imagine why unions would would go for that without a really really expecting a really really high price. and Bella and I have had conversations about that and um we have
internally now had conversations with our um healthcare consultants um about what it's going to take you know how have other communities done this how do we what what is the most enticing offer that we can make that still is financially makes financial sense how
are we going to get down where we need to get in terms of the shift u so we are putting together a formal proposal um that I'm going to put to the board in executive session shortly because I think it's >> we're going to we're going to have to
move on and it's got to be sooner rather than later. So >> that does fit one question I have which I I don't know needs to be hashed out right now. But number eight here is getting at what the purpose of beep is
and I don't know if we as a town have debate is a policy of covering, right? Like if if the it is a TSB policy or it is a town policy that students uh that
preschoolers get free education. Um because I think a lot of the discussions I saw from the outside were around like making it uh financially solvent but uh if it is an external mandate saying this
is a goal in the town then that costs something and so I just I don't know if that is part of the discussion as to who made that decision and is that something that like the town or the school owns because preschool is like not usually covered in
Right now, my understanding is that's something that the schools are completely in charge of >> to the extent that we wanted to express uh universal preschool as a town value. Um realistically, I don't think we would have the funding for that, but we can
always set goals on the town side that are aspirational. And there are discussions at the federal level even and at the state level of having universal preschool. And I would like to think that if the state government or the federal government moved in that
direction that there would be corresponding funds for it rather than creating an unfunded mandate. Uh but right now preschool is only mandatory uh for those who are in special education who are at least 2.9 years old. >> But it's mandatory by who?
>> Uh by the federal government. So that is the sorry >> that's the one the one preschool mandate is special education and you're two years nine months old then the federal government says you have preschool covered but that's that's the one
>> and do they fund that mandate or not >> not fully >> not fully >> the IDA is not fully funded so right be is intended through its structure to be self-funding um you know it has a revolving fund that's designed to do
that work but it is not um and but yet there you know and superintendent raised this point during ENRC conversations a lot of the time right be really does serve two purposes and one of those is a mandate um we are required to provide
service special education services to students who need them um once they are two years to nine months old um and so be is the way we do that um and as a you know b an added benefit we area we've been able to construct a preschool
program um that is popular and you know serves the campus needs but um >> but that piece is mandated and we're essentially saying that the students that are paying for preschool are covering the federal mandate >> that is correct
>> and when we have this discussion about reviewing deep financials we're saying we want to make sure that those who are paying market rate preschool are covering a federal mandate and I think like that's >> subsidiz >> are subsidizing a federal mandate that
is a mandate on us orb right but I think it is >> it gets problematic if we are saying like you need to get your books in order when it is essentially a a federal mandate I don't
know who get them in order but >> the unfortunate reality is that's how special education's addressed more broadly never just for beep in preschool, but special education up until students are 22 is essentially uh it's a federal mandate
that's not fully funded and it not even majority funded, not even close. And so this is something that I think uh this comes up in the in override years in particular that the schools have this unfunded mandate that gets paid by town taxpayers because the state government
is not coming remotely close to funding it nor the federal government. But but I think what no one is saying is that parents paying at market rates are also subsid providing the subsidy for for the special ed and and um so right you look
at their beep's books you guys take that into consideration um in terms of deciding whether they are I think the issue was paying you know full cost of program. >> Yes. them being like financial self-
sustaining is is not really the model that I would see because they are covering they are subsidizing a unfunded mandate essentially. Um and I guess like the only thing I would say is if there
is a role for the town of Brooklyn in addition to PSB to advocate at the state level for funding it is something that we should do. Uh so something that the school committee does each year and that I would actually like select board to do as well and I talked to Chaz about this
is having uh sort of an annual get together with our legislative delegation. So our four state reps, our state senator, uh traditionally uh represent Congressman Okenclaus comes as well and it's a great opportunity for us to express these desires and these
concerns to those who are in a position to try to effectuate change in terms of getting more uh funding to municipalities to fill these gaps. Do we know in the case of beep how much that subsidy is or
>> we do, but I don't know off the top of my head. I mean, I'm just I'm just wondering whether it is worth having the conversation of whether whether the appropriate model for funding that gap
is on the through the wallets of preschool parents, >> right? I think that's that's the equity question. No, I I explicitly looked into beep for my kids and the numbers didn't crunch
because of what it would cost to do extended day on top of preschool. Um, and so already when I was looking three years ago or so, like uh it was not cost competitive and the more we drive up the
the fees for BEP, the fewer parents will actually cover it. um even if the program is amazing. Uh and so I am I am one that thinks it is problematic that we currently ask the daycare parents to
subsidize this mandate. I mean, it this sounds like a conversation that should come to the town school partnership and then uh be um at least considered within the budget
conversation just just so we know, you know. >> Yeah, absolutely. I like that. >> All right. Any further discussion? Are we ready to approve theou?
All right. So I move approval of theou between the public schools of Brooklyn and the town of Brooklyn. Bernard, >> yes. >> Michael, >> yes. >> Amanda, >> yes. >> Anthony, >> yes. >> And I also Yes. With that, we will now move to appointments of liaison to
boards and committees. I believe everybody has received a copy of the proposed assignments. Is everyone satisfied or does anyone want to modify >> question about the licensing award?
>> Yes. >> When does it meet? >> It meets Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. Can you bring in >> maybe it's how often? >> Um what's the third? >> Is there any flexibility in moving that earlier?
>> Yeah, we you we can do it. Yeah, we can do that >> because that would simplify it. But yeah, >> how how are we? >> Yeah. >> Okay, >> let's we'll talk offline, but I think we can do that. >> Is there a way for you to to just get me to meeting times of all of these? >> Sure. Absolutely. Yeah.
>> And you're, you know, as liaison, right? There's different boards have different expectations of you. Um, you know, you would ask for the council on aging and, you know, there there's generally an expectation that folks want you want you to be there. Other boards will tell you, you know, for example, oh, you know, do
you know, you you may want to come on a certain date, not on another. So, there's a variety of expectation there. >> Gotcha. And so, the surveillance committee um that I'm going to be chair of, >> that one is going to be combined with the information one that we discussed.
>> Yes. >> Okay. >> And then, >> so right now it doesn't really exist. So I think you're, you know, kind of first order of business is to come up with a charge. >> Yeah. And I can get and I can get example charges. >> Yes, absolutely. We'll get you the charge of the fire committee. We'll get
you the charge of it, which is the IT committee. If >> you have an idea, >> pardon me. >> If you have any ideas, it's only >> um we can we can discuss. Yeah. First thing you should do is get a hold of the members of the committee. Make sure that uh >> you know you can w you can lasso them back into work.
>> Okay. Well, I think the goal I think the thought here is that we would close the old committees and I'm basically saying a new committee. Um, we we want to start off with people who are on the the POS committee because um they have a lot of
knowledge of what was going on before and I think you know in discussions that we had there everyone was on board with the idea of creating something new once uh that committee sort of ended up
All right. Any other questions about liaison assignments? >> So, we're cutting the vision zero committee. So, that's not an assignment. And Anthony, you know, the CDBG advisory committee is just either once or twice
in February or March. So long as CDBG money might exist. >> Okay. No, I have no questions. I'm good. >> Okay. >> All right. So, with that, we can move to our next This is not something we need to vote.
>> All right. >> So, the next item, 2026 annual town meeting followup. >> Wait, wait, sorry. before before we were going to roll something into the IT committee which I know >> that was surveillance right
>> then these surveillance and I attack to get consolidated into one group >> I see and Anony's going to be the leazison for that combined group >> right >> yeah Anthony I have some background on send the ITA so we can talk
>> okay so now 2026 annual town meeting followup items. >> We'll see you. >> Sure. So, this is a memo I put together after town meeting that basically um outlines anything that uh specifically calls on the select board for additional
action. Um usually what we would do is you know uh we would put most of these items on the futures list and it would be something that would be scheduled if if it's required at an additional select board meeting. So, um, obviously art article one wouldn't bark you'll be
doing at your, uh, June June 30th meeting. Um, we talked a little bit about the conditions of appropriation around roadway. Um, if you wanted to, um, you know, engage with the commissioner kind of on her action plan. That's something that we can get more information. Obviously, she's um, out of
the country right now, but I'm sure we can get an update on what the plan is to meet that condition of appropriation. Um and then we have uh article 17 um which doesn't specifically um you know mandate uh the board do something but I did you
know kind of read into that there should be some kind of guidance provided to departments on um you know what is prohibited and what the reporting requirements are um so that should probably come from our office. Then we have the non-binding resolutions which
the board can choose how they would like to treat these things. Um we have the 911 memorial which uh is attached as part of um this packet and uh the charges in there for um what they're requesting uh a committee be established. Uh so that's also in your
packet. Um the prop 2 and a half resolution is just encouraging us to work with the MAPC to create that regional index. Um, obviously, you know, Shaz is on the Metro Manorers Group. I'm on the executive board of the Mass Municipal Association. So, these kind of
relationships already do exist. Um, then we have article 23, which uh obviously we've talked a lot about the stipens for select board members. Uh, they'll likely be a moderators committee that gets formed and then, you know, the board would need to consider the recommendations coming out of that
committee. Uh and then article 25 um looks asked the board to uh direct the the PCAC to examine the town's relationship with the brick. That that's also attached to this packet for the full um resolution language. And then um
the special town meeting two article two special time meeting one article two um the MOA and tax certainty agreement. I think the MOA has already been taken care of but the tax certainty will be coming later on in the process. So, >> but who's excuse me uh who's a leazison
to PCAC >> on the select board? >> You historically not appointed the leazison. >> Oh, really? >> And so I think one of our questions here was do you want to change >> I for I feel like you should be a liazison but please don't.
>> It is Mike that created it. But >> I think one of one of the one of the one of the things about PCAC right is that like sometimes committees will ask you know for example ACPH did not historically have the advisory committee on public health did not historically
have a select board leaison but they asked for one because they wanted to you up to date and they also wanted to make sure that they were on getting out ahead of the select board on concepts and ideas that they were working on. Um PC has not asked that historically. um
they've kind of they they op they take their mandate seriously to advise you all on you know matters of you know police operation and so forth from a civilian perspective. Um and so they have not historically asked for you to
be a part of that conversation. They feel like it's more formal for them to do the work and then come to you with a recommendation. Um but we haven't had that conversation in a long time. Um, so I don't know if it is worth asking the
chair of PCAC whether they think it would be helpful because I believe they're co-chairs currently. Um, whether the co-chairs think helpful for a software leaison. Um, but yeah, it's absolutely a conversation you could have if you wanted. We can reach out. It's up to you.
>> And I think we at least need to have someone from Lloyd discuss with them the task that we've given them. Um, >> but you could also just show up to their next meeting and have get on their agenda and tell them, right? Like, >> well, we would call them up and say
they'd like to be on the agenda. >> No. No. Yes. But I said you don't necessarily need a standing. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not suggesting that, but >> All right. >> So, is this the kind of thing that perhaps we should do with a formal letter?
Should somebody like draft a letter to the chair of the PCAC and sort of so that we are all sort of on the same page as to what that message should be? >> I mean, can we just take the text of the
resolution of this is the charge? Yeah. I don't know what else what else would be added. >> It's it's none of the whereas clauses and just the the ask at the end. >> Yeah. >> Right. I think just I like that idea. just alerting them this is what town
meeting has asked and we would like you to take it up. >> Yeah, they're already working. I talked to Paul Ye days ago. It's ready to go. >> I was I was thinking about it like in the same way that I drafted a letter for
the MOA to send to the planning board to do this. It's it it it it communicates to all the stakeholders and in this case back to town meeting as well that we took you uh we took this resolution seriously and we acted upon
it as as town meeting directed. So from a from a relationship with town meeting that that that formality might be on. >> But would that letter then go to town meeting? Otherwise, how's town meeting aware of it? >> The annual report does require that you
report actions on resolutions. So that would be an update for the annual report. >> Yeah. >> All right. In terms of other action items, What are you going to do? >> I mean I I do not want to be less on
willing unless Anthony wants to to talk to them about >> gearing up uh the work that they're going to do. >> Well, we don't even know if they want a leazison. So, I think the first step is to have a >> find out if they want one. If they do, it sounds like you wouldn't want that, but Anthony was sort of the other.
>> Yeah, I could I could take it. >> Okay, I can do that if you want. Is this a leazison on for the committee generally or a leazison specifically for this task? >> This isn't this isn't a leazison at all. It would be me going to a committee meeting and then making sure that the committee chair is aware of the charge
in a formal meeting and walking through what we expect. >> Right. And I think it would make more sense to do that. >> I can write it >> through a letter and then have all of us sign it and give it to me. >> Okay. I can work on that for our next meeting. Okay. Okay. >> Let's talk about that.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And then the one thing I will flag is I think that committee is currently short people. And so it would be good now that we're about to give them more tasks um to to emphasize that we should try to fully staff that committee. >> I'm aware of at least one vacancy.
There's more than one. >> Just be one. I'm not sure. >> Who left? >> I'm not sure, but I know Christine N is on it and she was telling me that there's a vacancy, but I'm not sure who left. Okay. So, we'll write the letter. I'll have that for next meeting. I'll work
with you on it and then we'll we can all sign it. Um and then I'll go with the next PCAC meeting and make sure they're >> delivered. Yeah, >> that sounds like a good plan. >> Um and then for 17, just as we're on the topic of immigration. Yes. >> Um I'm already working with stakeholders to try to see what general orders could
be done and stuff. So, I'll be in contact with other members of the town staff where I have questions and then once ready I can bring them to the an agenda and like maybe we can put one on the agenda um after I notify you if I have something that I think we should talk about. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Uh for the condition of appropriation, I would like to be follow up with um the commissioner when she's back in town and or someone on the keyboard to say how are we actually addressing this condition. Absolutely.
>> Yeah. And I may also discuss that in a day. Aaron is out for the next two weeks as well. So I was planning on sort of also talking to her about that. >> Yeah. As long as we don't coordinate, we can obviously
each do that. >> I mean, the alternative is to ask when she gets back in town for her to take the slate order. >> Yeah. >> And not to put too many things on the commissioner's plate, but um
just with a a plan of how we're going to deal with this. um maybe we should wait until >> the prior >> the priorization plan comes and have her address this issue in the context of that. I >> was going to suggest moving this
actually into that conversation about the 2030 road map. Um you know I think that that is a year one priority in a road map. Um thinking about how to you know increase you know do more for roadways but also get that
prioritization in place. So I think having that first you which you know should be done pretty soon right and then having that conversation at that juncture sounds >> right >> the action steps are like we can check in with the commissioner individually to
try to get an update on on just the condition of appropriation and then with the 2030 road map when they have a prioritization work get an update to the slide board. I think the condition I think the the update to the select board on the condition of appropriation can be
answered basically in the same presentation as the prioritization plan. So I think they're ultimately going to come together. I mean we may get updates in the interim but in terms of formally closing out this item. >> Yeah. >> It can just come to the select department
and and we should just prep the commission for does that make sense? >> All right. Then for the 911 committee uh >> what do we want to do there? >> So is it calling for a committee see a test resolution for question 91
ceremony? Yeah ceremony committee doing committee charges. Okay board to establish a remembrance and a committee. Oh, very prescriptive. >> I think I can tell forward a few other
times. It's not a big It's not a heavy lift. >> So, I I worked with Elizabeth Child last year on that ceremony. I'm happy to take that on. >> I don't want to work with Elizabeth. >> Um
I s in this context. I want to raise the question um you know and I maybe should have raised it when we were looking at the whole list of committees but I'm a little worried that we have a lot
of committees for specific you know celebrations uh commemorations etc. Um, I don't know if we actually have a lot at this point, but but it isn't clear to me sort of what
the criteria is generally. Is it just letting town meeting sort of uh express that we that that this is a thing we should commemorate? Um, or should we have some sort of more overarching structure that handles
commemorations more broadly? We have discussed celebration committee in the past. An idea of consolidating all the committees that are designed for celebrations of specific events into a more general celebration committee that would be, you
know, more logistically oriented. Um, and I think some of the push back to that we got on the fact is there are celebrations that the town has done for a number of years, particularly in okay day that that are, you know, um, not so not that logistically complex, but that
they have, you know, great importance. The town really wants to focus on wants people to think about how to, you know, really commemorate the day way. Um and there was a concern that we would lose that focus if we instead turned to
celebrations at large um as opposed to um committees that that were focused on the specific purpose of the celebration in question. Um, I will say that, you know, the number of resolutions the town
has put that the town meeting has put out there for things that we are supposed to celebrate and recognize has increased dramatically over the last two years. Um, and a lot of those celebrations do not have committees um associated with them. Um, and so it does
fall to staff. You know, we keep a list in your office of everything that we're required to commemorate. Um and we you know often times that is you know through a resolution or some sort of recognition of the of the day in question. Um but a celebration committee
could theoretically do that and potentially have subcommittees dedicated to specific events that the town thinks are important. Um that is one way we could go about it >> and that would require town meeting by >> Yes. because some of these are said,
right? >> Yeah. >> So, it's not something we could resolve today per se, but it is a we could consider a bylaw change if you wanted to move in that direction. >> Clarification,
most of these have been set up based on resolutions, right? >> I believe MLK and Indigenous People's Day are biased. >> Yeah. Certainly. Okay. But I don't know if Yeah, I'll double check if it is just comm as well. So yes, some some of the
some of the commemorations that have been requested have been by resolution, but I think there are specific committees setting the bylaws that we would need to look into there. But yeah, I I do take what I think is Michael's point in that there's a lot of effort to name and
staff a committee that plans an individual event and then sits quescent the rest of the year. Um, which might be fine like in terms of the level of commitment from folks, but might be a better way to do it. >> Just I also take Chaz's point though that uh some of these committees being
singularly focused on that one day, that's what those members are passionate about. that's what they're thinking about. And I do worry that over time if we relied upon a more generic celebrations committee, then you're not going to have as dedicated a membership
to each particular day as before and it might end up being more peruncter. Uh Bernard has led the MLK committee for many years and it's actually pretty active year round. Yeah, we have events year round >> and you know the indigenous people's
committee also has events I think year round >> and you know I think those two in particular really have set up structure for carrying out their mission that doesn't wouldn't really fit with a celebration committee
>> right commission for women actually it's also >> okay so it sounds like >> but No, I was just going to say it sounds like we're not going to do anything to to streamline here, which I think might just make sense given what you guys are saying.
>> I don't think we necessarily need to streamline in this instance. Nevertheless, I do like Michael's idea of maybe having a celebrations committee sort of for maybe everything else that might come up and it might help staff if there are volunteers who work on uh sort
of broader celebrations that come up in town because there are many that are not encompassed by the existing committees. >> Yeah. I mean, for example, the um this came up around Junth in terms of you trying to get that under control. Um
so that you know this Junth that that could would lend itself to a celebration committee that does some oversight. Uh they're also you know gay pride or LGBTQ you month you know would lend itself to that. I mean sort of vaguely something
that we're supposed to do anyway. Um and there you other Jewish American history month and and all these months that we put out proclamations for could be handled the proclamations could be handled by its committee. So I think
it's a good idea as long as we just limit it to those committees or those celebrations that uh most appropriate. >> Is is this an appropriate function for uh the deon commission? That's really
what that's in a lot of cases. Um, >> but to make the charge sort of more explicit, right? Like it would be great. I know they've been talking about wanting to like have a general calendar that can be shared with whoever about all the various holidays and which of
them are necessary to avoid, which are nice to avoid, etc., etc. Um but in terms of months, they could also be coming out with um a calendar and and potentially planning or proposing things for those functions that we don't have
specified committees. >> That was a good idea. >> Are all of those committees in terms of staff supports supported through that office? >> Yes.
And there were also celebrations the town used to observe that it stopped doing for whatever reason. Like one that would be coming up this weekend, uh, Flag Day. >> That turned into >> I thought that was fun. >> Sunday, excuse. >> Yeah. Yeah. They purposely turned into
Brookline day because it conflicted with Father's Day a lot and it was a lot of effort to try and manage that with all the other commitments that people had. So, uh, the rec director convinced the board at the time that having Brooklyn Day would be a better alternative. >> Okay.
>> Um, if we want to continue working on this, could we start with seeing the list that that at least you guys are keeping? I don't know if >> the DEICR
commission also has a separate list. Um, >> we can do that. >> Why don't we start there and then see >> is it worth floating it to CDICR or having our new leaison to CDICR float it to them in the next meeting?
>> Um, at their next meeting. >> Yeah. And then like >> and get feedback. >> Yeah. Get feedback. >> That's a good idea. Yes. >> All right. Any other town meeting warrant articles or resolutions that we want to discuss? action items in
relation to all right so I don't think we need to take any votes here so that brings us to 2030 road mapap any assignments for the select board >> uh let me >> start
we've caught what your goals sufficiency there you So um we have been using um >> yes I'm doing my my utmost possibly hide your ribbon here
you'll get you get you a little bit Yeah, get you a little bit bigger. >> There you go. All right, there it is. So, I have we have highlighted here all the
items that are um due this year. Um they are year one priorities uh and involve the select board of the select board office. Um, I wanted to walk through these with the understanding and I want to thank Michael and I apologize. We haven't had a chance. There are a couple of things here that are duplicative or
that are a little um uh that are just, you know, either scrimmage errors or things that are are repeated just by nature of them showing up in different places. So, we're going to talk through those as well, but they shouldn't require, you know, any action other than just, you know, the slight revision to
the actual road map um to put it out there. But, I wanted to That's not a Whoops. Okay. So, that's a huge trap.
So, we're, you know, so I I wanted to walk through these and kind of summarize where we are, but also what um what opportunities we potentially see for the board's involvement and we can continue to be responsive to you uh and brief you
on what it is that we're doing here. Um, one of the, you know, so with Eve, what I've done is I've highlighted, um, things that potentially have board involved, members of the select board involved in in this sort of gold color, uh, and items that you have already accomplished, uh, in green.
Congratulations. You're already making progress. Something that you made today. Um, so I want to walk through, you know, for example, express the included resources being implemented with war articles and select board reports. That's on staff side. We are planning on doing that beginning this last town
meeting. Um we are planning on um asking all departments to submit cost estimates for war articles going forward. >> So this is 1B2 >> 1B. Yeah. So there we go. 1B2. Um >> so should this be moved from the select
boards list to the town staffs list? >> Well it's it's it's on SBO um select office. Yeah. So um you know we try to where possible identify the difference between select board and select for office but sometimes there is some
overlap there. Um so this one is us review and update adapt the updated comprehensive plan. There's nothing there's no action on that as of yet. Um promote existing systems that improve response to citizen inquiries. Um Christina is Metaf, our communications
director, is working on um how we deal with this promotion. Um but one of the things as you will see in here kind of three major categories that I see the potential for a select board member to get involved are in
communication strategy, public bodies, process improvements, and funding prioritization. Those are the three kind of overarching categories where I think having a select board, you know, effectively a liaison to those
processes that we can, you know, work with, touch base on, update, um, would be helpful. And so for this one, promoting the existing systems, this is really a communications issue. Um, determine whether the expenditures and revenue study committee will continue
beyond the spring. This is really a public bodies process improvements issue. Um but it's also one that I think you have already discussed in this discussion of um you know the town school partnership at large. So I think if there is if the if the decision based
on today's discussion has been that TSP should take up the mantle and continue ENRSC's work then I think we can mark this as complete and kind of move from there if that makes sense to the board. >> Yes, >> that does make sense. And the only thing I would say is I don't know if we would
consider asking any of the DSRC folks to serve on TSP. I don't know what the >> So the makeup of TS Yes. So the makeup of TSP is is prescribed. It is two members of the select board, two members of the school committee and two members of the advisory committee. Um but with
that said, members of the ERC are appointees of the so you know for example it will be David and Michael will be on um the select will be the select board leaison but Cliff Brown has historically been one of the two advisory committee members on TSP and
Dennis is usually the other as chair. Um Jesser is the finance committee who's the finance subcommittee director for um um the school committee now and that's historically been the other school committee position addition to the chair. So you will have two ENRC members
on the TSP going forward which is good. Um I would just also add to that these are public meetings of course and uh many times there are several other people who attend and participate. Yes, you gota be very careful with the select board because you guys you you can't
break the meeting law. Uh so you you know select board members can obviously attend but um sometimes we get advisory members you know advisory committee members will come in and if it's something specific that the advisory committee has asked them to comment on they can do that. Um but we can't
because we have an open meeting law problem. So we just need to make sure that the two obviously you can you can transmit whatever it is you would like to discuss would like TFP to discuss to your two reps um but you yourself portionally can't come to the meeting and have that conversation.
>> I bring that up more in the context of ERSC members who want to participate. >> Yes. Yeah. >> So um revised we've done that. >> Can we go back to the um communications? >> Yes. line their phones. So, um, in 2024,
we actually put out a policy. You did >> on this. >> Um, so I assume that that's going to and I think it's a good policy. >> Yeah. >> Um, I think I assume that that will be the basis of addressing this issue. >> Yes. And I think one of the reason one of the reasons particular we'd like a select board member to talk about this
is because one of the things you know historic right you have a good policy on this you've done but I think it you you know candidly you every everyone gets busy right you all have a lot that you're doing um and I think sometimes it kind of falls by the wayside particularly this you know the school
committee has a really good and David you can kind of this right has a really good practice that they've established of responding to emails right they have the rotation they have the way that you a a dedicated school committee member responds to the emails addressed to the school committee as a whole. Um the
select board has tried to institute that practice and it's never really taken. Um, so I think maybe reestablishing that or coming up with a way to, you know, think about how to make that stick. Um, or coming up with a new strategy potentially, um, that would enable you
to feel confident that you're being you're you're viewed as responsive when emails come in addressed to the board as a whole rather than to the five of you individually. Um so um that's an area where I think we would benefit from you
guys needing someone to work with us to figure out with us. What do you think that is? I >> I think that the the policy that we adopted would work. Sorry Melanie um to the extent that Melanie and and probably
um make it work. coming because it's really a question of directing inquiries to the appropriate board members and you know providing them with support to respond to to uh questions or comments from the committee. >> Um I think three of us are operating in
I think three of us are operating in the dark here because I I >> Yes. So the >> the way it had worked in the past is that uh staff would direct those uh emails the select board as a whole to
the specific select board member who's sort of the go-to person based on the category that the email falls into or the subject matter. Uh that became I think an overwhelming amount of work. And so that hasn't consistently been done. On the school committee side, what
they do is, but granted there are nine of them is each week it's a school committee member's turn to respond. >> Could I ask that we take up as an agenda item in a future meeting just bring back this policy so we can look at it, make a
decision? >> Well, I think that we're doing that at 2:30. That's item 12. But we didn't specifically flag flag that policy which are to bring up. Yeah. So we we will bring that back to you. I think that's a good when you've had time to review and and think through. So we
will circulate the 2024 policy and have that conversation. Um so that's sort of this question of response to citizen inquiries. um you've done the work, you've done the memorandum of understanding and there's a duplicative thing here. Let me scroll
over a little bit so you can see the numbers that we're talking about. Um um you consolidate eliminate public bodies. We had that discussion earlier today. Um deate develop an evaluation protocol and routinely assist the
efficacy of public bodies and propose improvements. uh and then define roles and expectations for select board leaison, public body members, staff including staff and when select board involvement is necessary. um you've started that process I think
um but the question is really you know right what is the how do we assess the efficacy of public bodies um what is what's more work you know how do we determine when a committee submits a report to you you know do you want to have kind of more of an evaluative process you want committees to come in
and talk about the work that they're doing and why it's important or is there another way to kind of handle that and I wonder if you someone under the broad heading of kind of public bodies process improvements might want to take that sort of work on
in year one. >> Yeah, I mean I would take that on in the context of the handbook, right? So yeah, >> if it's there and I and I don't think that we we would have to establish an evaluation protocol with like share with all the bodies before we hold them to
any expectation. >> Correct. Um are you volunteering? >> Yes. Is everyone okay with better than me? >> Um, >> by the way, my understanding of the
process that we set up is that the committee would make a report every year and in that report they would assess the uh value of the committee and sort of self- evvaluate. >> So we have we have given them wide
latitude in what they choose to report now. So I think you can as we look at the handbook and you know look at potential revisions to it maybe be a little more prescriptive and saying you know identify your you know metrics and success you know or you know >> do we have all of the annual reports to
do at the same time or are they >> no they're stagnant >> okay because otherwise we certainly won't give proper attention to >> that's right we try we try and schedule them so that >> well no but they also provide an annual report in the annual report so there's kind of two different evaluative
processes the board um kind of inviting them in to report on their work and then also just the town's formal annual report. But but but what what we're expecting or should expect is an answer to the question should you continue as a
as a committee um which it would not be an annual report force but >> or potentially a if so how because you could see a committee maybe not meeting the expectations we had but meeting a different use or a different focus in
the next year. >> That's good. Well, we engaged in that exercise somewhat earlier today. The committees, sometimes it's obvious a committee hasn't met in two years or whatever the need was that led to its creation has been met.
Yeah. Um, so sorry, scroll down here. Show you where we are. So that's where we were defining roles and expectations for SLR leazison, reducing administrative burden, technology used for transcripts and summaries. Staff is working on that. Um we have then these
two you know get about the future of expenditures and revenues. We have we we've addressed that you know where that's the rest of the TSP. These next three deal with um ingov work. Um to David's point we're going to have that we're going to try and set up that meeting for fall to talk to the legislative delegation about the
priorities there. Um, I don't think there's an immediate need for select board involvement beyond making sure that we we impress upon the the the legislative delegation the importance of uh coming and hanging out. Um, and I think in the future we're trying to consolidate that actually the school
committee can have a joint meeting so that everyone's priorities can be heard at the same time. >> Um, tailing to find reserves and restricted funds. Yep. That's you know we continue to do that. Um we will talk you know obviously about the free cash
we put on the futures list Anthony your request about affordable housing trust and the free cash policy there. Um so the five-year service and priority list uh for strategies and existing plans to receive funding when available. I think this actually dubtales a bit with OPEDS because it is one of those policies the
unfunded liabilities policy. Again this is the same um the same language student here. Um this is you know this this is the you know uh funding priorities area. >> Can you can you scroll to show the numbers? >> Yes.
>> 331. So here, you know, what we're what we're trying to do is now talk with departments, talk about how they integrating these various plans and prioritizations. Um, but then I think at the select board level, it would be
helpful to have the leaison to have that those conversations with with everything kind of laid out so that people could see where the priorities are. Um and then a select board member can help walk the broader board through um you know
where the pri where your priorities intersect and where we where we on staff need to rep prioritize in order to meet the community's needs. Um I'm going to keep walking through these but I I'll come back to this and kind of the broader um overhead of
finance. Um continue analyzing overtime. We are doing that. The staff is doing that. attend town provided emergency training on a regular basis. We are I flagged this for you. You will you will get invitations. We're going to try and rotate to make sure that as many of you as possible will attend. For example, we
have an annual tabletop exercise about hazardous materials. We um we're doing regional training about door preparedness. Um rolling weather preparedness. So obviously you will as many of you as possible will be invited
to that. um and we will just continue to make those efforts. So I flag that there's no immediate need for action item but that it does involve you and it will involve you know individual members of the board and so more to come on that but no need to their part. >> So we have a a number of policies
related to this and maybe they should be circulated to the new members of the board. >> Sure. I will also say there's a FEMA provided training for government officials that's free which we will circulate to you as well um and allows you to kind of understand the role of
the of elected executive boards in the event of an emergency um you know what the roles and responsibilities are. We will also make sure that everyone has the most recent version of the um emergency management plan um which talks about everyone's roles and
responsibilities as well. Um you know what the in you know how we can provide information you know the chief role of the select board in a crisis situation is reassuring the public and providing accurate information to the public um as
emergency responders deal with those issues. Um and so uh and it's my job in those situations to you know manage that relationship and manage that information flow between the emermergency responders, the incident commanders and
you all um often as the public facing uh folks who are um helping to uh reassure constituents to make sure everyone has accurate information out there. So um all of that is important uh and it's just critical that we all continue to
understand you know in a crisis what do we do and the same way you know when those things come up you Anthony and Amanda you're both are newer to this but you will receive a series of running text messages from me um or emails um depending on how urgent the situation is um
>> but it does mean that when we receive those somewhat of the ask is to disseminate the information although it seems like in the case of a real emergency, you probably don't want like five of us all trying to figure out what to do that. >> And that's and that's why, you know, we
there is a single point of press contact. There's a single point of contact at town hall in an emergency. So, you are all not all expected to be going on TV and doing all that. In fact, you're expected to try and put a unified front together. But >> you guys know where the community is, right? You have constituents. You have
people who are reaching out to you probably on a regular basis who are saying, "What's going on here? What do I need to know? is, you know, is there a danger to my family? And that's where you all providing that reassurance is really critical. Um, making sure that your con you have that direct constituent contact and are able to
reassure people that they have accurate information. >> Um, I might have missed it, but just before this, the white box on overtime usage. >> Yes. >> How are we analyzing that and what is the role in the lightboard?
>> Charlie puts an annual quarterly overtime report together. um for all the departments that you know all the public safety departments. Um we analyze you know you know used patterns we you know down to day of the week type of leave used and so forth. You know all all of
that even overtime is reported to the advisory committee on a quarterly basis. Um and is also sent to you all um so that you have an update on where all of this you know where our usage is and if there are any concerns there. Um, so you
um, in terms of your role there, um, I think it's always if you have questions or if you want to have a discussion about, you know, where we see these projections or why they are where they are, we're always happy to have that conversation with you as um, you know, we are doing our, you know, when people
say, you know, what strategies are you employing to keep overtime down, we can obviously talk about that. Um but you know it's um it's this is definitely an area where you know it's more about public education um because we are employing a large variety of strategies
to try and control over time cost etc. >> Yeah. Know and my my naive take on those things is like if you have a body that uses a certain amount of overtime that's usually a sign that you need more employees in that body. >> That's correct. Um and so like if we realize that's always happening then we
should probably be part of this conversation of like should we be stacking up. >> Yeah. And so you know um the ENRC report has uh all of the um the final report has all the memos that I've put out. Uh and you you should check those out and you know even if you're just scanning
them because we we have looked into that question of whether or not adding staff is a solution and it actually isn't a solution for various reasons. Uh this on the fire side, it has to do with the fact that uh with how they do their shifts. They work two shifts a week on
average. Uh and they're not always the same days. So it's not possible for adding staff to sort of absorb other people's overtime. They can't work two 24-hour shifts in a row. Um, so it's it's detailed in the memos, but um the the overtime issues, we actually just
sort of had a referendum on the foot fire overtime issues with the overtime uh which you know funded the overtime issues that for years we've been asking are these normal? Do we want these to be funded or not? And so in large part the question has been answered, but I have raised the point that overtime costs
kind of continue to creep up a little bit at a time. And so I think this remains to be an issue that the board wants to keep an eye on as far as overall fiscal stability and health. You know what I mean? Do is this going to continue? What are we going to do about it? Um but for now the deficit that we
see is is has been funded by so >> again I this I think this is item 3 E6. Um but you know we this is list this is listed as a select board office >> town staff issue not a select board
issue. Correct. Yeah. But I do think, you know, you should be aware aware and informed in the group. >> There's a policy role in that because, you know, it's not really it's not necessarily up to staff to determine necessarily what's, you know, what's appropriate or not appropriate, right? I
think the it's our job to sort of tell you what we're seeing, what's happening, why it's happening, and then or to get the board's response to that. There there are there are some goals that are listed both as select board goals and town staff goals. This is doesn't appear
to be one of them. >> Yeah, it's just in most like a office, >> right? And but you know maybe that maybe maybe this needs to be split so that we understand that both are both relationships. And just one quick point, I would wouldn't necessarily interpret
the override as being anything one way or another on overtime because that was not part of the argument supporting firefighters. Yes. Um but like it was built as like >> laying off 20, not like whether or not you should actually have overtime. So be
careful not to over interpret that vote. >> Yes, there was talk about an interesting right. That was an interesting conversation. Um um moving on again collaboration on departments that's that's our that's on
our end we are doing that work. Um the uh helping recruit under underrepresented voices on public bodies broadening the pool of residents engaged and reflected in decision- making. These two I think are part of this communications strategy. How are we how are we communicating out? So I want to
flag those. >> These two establish um That is something that the diversity office is actually doing. Yes, >> I think we need to, you know, just be aware of that and maybe see if you know
they need some additional push or additional help. >> Yeah, we ourselves also address this partially this morning where we were talking about bringing other voices in, right, to serve on our boards and commissions. >> Yeah, I will say the number one way that I have found to get people to serve on a board or commission is ask them
directly. um just to find them, find them, you know, track them down, say, "Hey, you um you'd be good at this. Uh come come do this work. Um do it for free uh in your company." Um but um it
direct recruitment is almost always the best way to get someone. Um we have been much more proactive. You know, it's not just my newsletter. For example, we're going to go out and table at um the farmers market this summer. uh and we bring the list of vacant boards and committee seats and we say hey you want
to want to work you know come do some cool work for the town here here's a list we do it at Brookline day you know any event where we have a presence we try and uh we we be the select office we try and um talk up service boards and committees and we have got you know a number of applicants as a result of that
um which has been great um but you know still the best way of outreach is personto person so I would just encourage you all um you know you have a thought you're like oh that person would be really good on that committee tell them uh see if
they see if they want to do it. Uh so those two are part of the communication strategy. Um then we have these two which I think are part of the funding priorities. You know they're basically the same thing. The accelerated starting for roadway maintenance and the roadway safety improvements on the high priority
network. Um, again, I don't think this is a year, the funding priorities are a year one item, but I don't think it's emerged yet. I think you've got to wait until the commissioner gets the get goes through that prioritization process and then have that broader conversation.
>> So, before you move off of this, yes. Um I'm noticing that there's a key performance indicator under this this goal for uh about that says participation by underrepresented groups increases annually. >> Yes.
>> Um is there a baseline being established for what that means? >> We have a baseline. Um both HR and ODICR keep a baseline of comm of service on boards and committees. You know who is the demographics of who is serving. Can we see that?
>> Beyond that, when we talk about underrepresented, are we referring to the Brooklyn population, regional population, national? >> That's a good question. Um, we historically interpreted it to mean the local population. Um, we've tried to,
you know, we we know that our demographic makeup is different than other demographic makeups, but we also know that, you know, to a point that I think Bernard often raises, you know, one reason why people of color don't come to Brooklyn is because they viewed
Brookline as historically hostile to their um, you know, their communities. And so we, you know, just to take one example. And so but we realize that ensuring that people have a voice and are represented and are able to be um
and and feel confident that that this is a community that welcomes and encourages participation from everybody is important. So it's not just oh there aren't a lot of people of ex you know minority around so we're not going to put them we're not going to recommend them for boards or commissions. We don't have a quota system or anything like
that. Well, well, that's why I'm a little bit concerned about how we define underrepresented because if we go strictly by local population, I I wouldn't want to ever be in a position where we're saying, for example, our black population is pretty small. And on if we have two or three black members on
something, one could say over represented, but that's >> I don't think on a regional and a national basis, we would never think that. And of course, we want to be lifting minority voices. I'm a little worried about tracking it solely based on the local population.
>> I think we can we can and that's a that's a good piece of feedback that we can take back. You know, we we tend to use that as the as the baseline, but we try it's not a mandate, right? It's not the be all to get it all. Um we know that just because the population might
be small doesn't mean that that group is somehow not entitled to representation. Um in fact, often it's the opposite. It's you really want to reach out to communities that are feel that are underrepresented and heard and even you know within I think you got
you really have to think you know even more deeply in terms of you know different populations even within subgroups that are not always recognized. You know, I think there's, for example, um we there's a huge Asian diaspora in Brooklyn. Um but those
communities are very different depending on who you talk to. Um it's not, you know, not to say, oh, you know, we have Asian representation. um really have to think of, you know, someone who coming from the Indian diaspora is very a very different uh background and um
upbringing and someone coming out of the you know Chinese or Japanese diaspora both of which all three of which are substantive populations in Brooklyn. >> Um can I add one thing? Yes. Um, one of the
key issues that the issue of um, black residents and you know surrounding areas feeling Brooklyn is not an engaging or or not hostile place is based on what we tell them and and that
was a big problem few years ago when the the message coming out of Brooklyn residents, not all some was that Brookline is not where you want to be if you're black. So an important part of you know this effort should be to make
sure that we are always marketing Brookline in a positive way in a truthful but positive way. So >> and to the extent that a negative perception is real, trying to correct that underlying real.
>> Yeah. Or making sure that it it's it's it's actually real and is presented in a context that makes it um you know >> truthful. I mean for example you know the number of uh this was the issue that
came up a number of years ago. Um, US News and World Report said that um, Brooklyn was one of the cities where the number of traffic stops uh, far exceeded the number of the percentage of black population in town.
Well, of course, the reason is we have Route 9 going through through town. So, I mean, that's a true a true situ, but the context is important in terms of really helping people understand what
it's really like in Brooklyn. >> I just want to point out um yes, yes, context is really important. I just want to make sure that in our attempts to promote the goods of Brooklyn, we're not quieting voices that have real concerns
that need to be addressed. >> Of course. Yeah. >> Right. That's why I'm saying to the extent that the concern is legitimate or merits further inquiry that we work to remediate. So it's not just about selling Brookline but also correcting where we may be falling short. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Moving through um these last couple ones um you know again we're working on competitive wages. You know obviously the role of the board there is as you know the executive is to set our negotiating parameters and move through
that. We are doing that now. Um we will be doing that again um as uh FY208 approaches um excuse me reviewing the roadway safety plans that's currently ongoing at the T board as part of that working group and that comes out
obviously I think that's something for the um prioritization uh bucket but right now that's resting with the um resting with that working group um and then review and adopt the final action plan you got it you
>> you skipped 983. >> Yes, I'm sorry. Establish and fund. Um both of these uh items again I think are the discussion of um once the once the working group um comes out with that
recommendation then I think that then falls into the broader discussion of prioritization um funding prioritizations. Um the this particular item um is in my mind
directly related to the graphs that we have seen from DPW that show that if you spend X dollars then you get roadway quality of Y, right? Um and I
I understand how all three of these things are linked, right? The the the funding for roadway maintenance, the questions of safety plans and how those get incorporated and then the overall budget. Right. >> Right. So, you know, there are
trade-offs amongst amongst all of them. So, I guess maybe >> uh >> Yeah. And there there are probably other things to fold into this as well in terms of sourcing money like the affordable housing trust fund payment, right? This is the whole CIP discussion
but um part of that discussion. Um so so I I I just wanted would want to make sure that that that particular graph is like sort of central to this to that particular item so that we
>> so that in meeting that goal we're very conscientious about that the choice that we're making >> I think one of the that graph is really important it tells it tells a vivid story but it's also inherently incomplete because it doesn't tell the story of how far your dollar goes,
right? It makes an assumption about how far each dollar goes in terms of roadway repair and maintenance. But then once if you change that assumption, if for example you move more towards just you know milling overlay and no changes etc
then then the cost go to set your roadways at a certain level goes down. Um >> but do you mean up >> the cost to get our roadway to a certain level goes up the more So the more the more complex you make a project, the higher the cost and
therefore your dollar, you know, the average cost per foot to do your your your road um increases. Um so it makes an assumption on what the average cost of your of a project is and when you alter the basket of projects that you're doing, you alter that number and
therefore those graphs change. Um >> um my understanding of that graph is that less expensive treatments
that have a lower impact are are reflected in that graph. So that if you spend, you know, if you spend $1,000 towards a milling overlay project, you will get more improvement
o over a shorter distance because you can't go as far. But if you spend 10,000 uh $1,000 on a less impactful treatment, you can go farther and then raise raise the PCI
>> uh over a greater distance. you're just not raising it as as far off for the roadways to treat. So I'm not sure I understand why the budget how you get the budget PCI. >> I think it it makes an inherent there as
I understand those graphs it makes an inherent assumption, right? It says the average cost to the you know factoring all of Brooklyn's projects in the average cost to bring PCI up in Brooklyn is X. And so if you >> make that assumption, then you have to
spend >> $5 million, say in this case it's really like $8.1 million >> in order to just maintain the roads as they are. >> Um but if you alter that assumption of what the average cost is um by altering
the basket of the projects that we do um >> or by increasing the amount of safety improvements >> or by increasing the amount of safety improvements, you can change that calculus. Um you could bring it down, you could bring it up. Um I think maybe we're saying the same thing.
>> Uh I'm not sure. >> Okay. On line 84, did we put any thought in in regards to vacancy? Did we put any thought in updating the website to have a like a >> Yes. In fact, you made the kind of website refresh more general because I think one of the things, Michael, that
you brought up that I think is really important for us to discuss is not just vacancies, but messaging this out um messaging the 2020 road out. >> And I really um I thought the demo that you put together of the site was really
effective and I would like us to, you know, take a look at that as part of the broader communication process. Okay. So, um, you know, we're, you know, we're talking about a number of potential improvements to the website and messaging that will, um, you know, for example, some towns have a chatbot on
their website. Um, that can be used to, you know, answer questions in real language. Um, I want I want to test it. Um, >> I tend to be more of the skeptic u of AI. Um, but I um, you know, yeah,
>> I'm not a I'm not a light. I'm not out there smashing. Maybe I should be. I don't know. >> So, um, so all of this say, you can see there I have sort of this three broad categories
where I think having regular touch points with a single select for member to then broad bring out to the broader board is helpful. That would be the funding prioritizations, the communication strategy, and the public body's process improvements. Michael has graciously volunteered for the public body's process improvements. Um, funding
priorities, I think, is going to, like I said, is probably going to be in your conversation in the fall after the budget gets started in earnest and this process, you know, um, kicks into gear and we have the results of the working curve for the roadways stuff. So um not
a heavy lift till the summer but probably as the budget kicks up and then communication strategy I think is you know probably going to be more of a regular touch point meeting with Christina talking about how we get the message out we can do on that front. So I guess my question to you all is do you agree that's something that board member
would be helpful a single board member as a point of contact would be helpful for and if so does anyone want to pause here? still wrapping my head around the process. >> So the two the two buckets that I obviously have are funding
prioritization um thinking about as as we prepare the FY28 budget and beyond um how we structure the select board's priorities in order to make sure that they're reflected in the budget. Um and that will involve looking at all the various plans that we have in terms of
and identifying you know the priorities that are listed there and how they are then reflected in your budget. Um and that's a process that would involve you know walking through with you some of that stuff as the budget cycle gets started in earnest in September. Um so
>> that sounds like a whole select board thing because it's really there's a lot of politics involved in that. Well, I don't think that can be one person. >> I But I think that's Yeah, I think that's that's right. Uh I think it comes back to the full board in September, right? September is also where you want
to set your FY28 goals and objectives so that we are going the budget cycle ready to have those conversations. Um so if you think that's more of a whole board thing, we can certainly do that. I >> I mean this morning we had granted it was partial, we sort of identified that
planning is very very important. almost anything else flows from our ability to pay for things. >> U so I think at least for me that's a priority. I got the sense that it's probably a priority for a majority of the board. >> Yeah, we heard that and I think you know
to Melissa's point too question then is you know that that is a priority for us as well. I think it is through through a lot a thing through which a lot of other things flow and we got to keep picking up the trash. Um we got to keep the police off the streets. We got to, you
know, the cost of running the lion share of what we spend our money, I mean, almost all we spend our money on is on people and it's the people who keep the, you know, bread and butter of the town running. You know, you know, the people at the desk who who
would often pay your taxes, the people in the clerk's office, uh the people um you know, at least service. Um and so when we talk about those that prioritization you know core government
function takes up I would say conservatively 85% of the budget and what remains in that 15% um are something you don't have control over and then a very vanishingly small
portion of the budget that I would call discretionary um you know make one point. I think one thing that very rarely seems to come up um is weighing sort of staff between buckets and not
that that's an easy conversation, right? But we tend to move forward on planning has this number uh economic well that's planning too GPW sustainability. Um, but I do think that there might be shifts based on
prioritization of of where you might want more personnel. Um, and I I know that's hard to have that conversation when you're talking about real people. >> Um, but there there should be some level of like, okay, maybe we are not staffing
this office appropriately and we need to devote more resources to this office. um and and like me making some trade-off of like okay maybe this is less important to us at this time and can deal with one viewer staff um and I don't know how to have those conversations but I do think
it's important that we have those without going into a lot of detail right now I know that the town administrator is looking at certain consolidations based on retirements primarily and some restructurings and that can sometimes
open up enough room for a new position Right. I think it is, you know, ultimately because we budget at the departmental level, having those cross departmental conversations can be tough. Um, it is, you know,
um, with that said, it's not impossible. Um, and I want the board to feel that you have the ability to set the priorities and that priorities are then reflected to the board. So, like not impossible. Um, absolutely. We will, you know, I think how this tends to work is
if you tell me after through this bud, you know, the initial budget discussion in September, we really think we need an extra person, you know, the department has told us that in order to do the things we want, you know, in any department, we need x number of people. We agree we want x number of people,
then it's my job to come to you and basically offer you a menu of options for how to get that done. >> Um, and so I would work with other departments. I would figure out where we would need to make cuts and I I would present that to you that present options. So that's how we would do that. Um yeah.
>> So, so you you have the road map, right, which >> you know we we haven't necessarily prioritized within the road map. But I guess my question is if if you assume that the road map was everything
on the road map was a relatively even priority and anything not on the road map was for year one was less of priority. How much does that answer your question about
prioritization? Is it sufficient or not? >> It goes it goes a good distance, but I think the ultimate question is I I know where your priorities are and where they aren't. Um what I want to know is what level of trade-off are you willing to make in order to have those
priorities focused on? Right? Because we can we can do this work. We can do the work that you're asking us to do. But if you want us to accelerate that work, if you want, to David's point, if you want us to do more um on some of this stuff, it will inherently mean that we're going
to have to make cuts elsewhere. Um and for example, there's a lot that isn't on this road map that is the basics of keeping the lights on. Um and that's really where I that's that's the kind of missing piece in this discussion is um
>> road map is dominated by DPW and planning. That's a lot of the a lot of the goals which makes sense because DPW touches a lot of things and so does in planning but there's other aspects that keep the town running that are still priorities but not as visible. Um the
constituencies that have a voice tend to get the most resources because they know how to use that. So that you know we just have to balance that out >> and I think right there's you know too like Amanda you raised a question you know earlier this week about assessing you know like assessing is a relatively small office but the function they
perform is you know actually cloud um and so yeah >> and that's part of the the road map right like thinking about spending more to have make more right um and so realizing where those positions are >> yeah yeah I think what you No it's fine
I I think what you'll find too is, you know, when when you look at the look at the conversation we had in the override cycle where, you know, to get to a number that allowed the schools to have what they needed to have, we made cuts, right? We got we are we've already cuts
where we thought we could. Um and so um we we can continue to rep prioritize but it will be a similar discussion to what we had with the override which is if you know what are some of those no override scenario situations and how will we deal
with that? I I'm I'm looking at the the roadmap page and I'm looking at number uh action number one A1 which is document the required base services each uh each department provides which is a year two to three
operation but I'm wondering if we need that in order to do the prioritization that you're talking about and whether it's worth putting some level of effort with some into working on putting that
information together. >> So, we are planning on trying to do that this summer. We have an intern from the Department of uh the Division of Local Services. That that's one of the assignments that we're going to be getting the intern is to categorize things that are state mandates and things that are town bylaw mandates so
that the service levels for each department are kind of traced to the actual genesis of the bylaw or mandate that where it's coming from. Um, and then I have one general question in terms of budgeting, and that is I I'm sure you've probably already thought
this, but like I know at least from roadway stuff, we do a lot of like contracting out or consultants that are probably a lot more per hour. And I don't know if we've ever thought of like what we can do in house and whether we might save money by hiring an additional staffer in house. >> Yeah, it is a good question. We do we do
consider that a lot. And in effect, I think one of the most effective things that Berkeland does is it tries to manage as many practices as it can in-house. Um, we really do not have large consulting budgets, especially when compared to some of our peer communities because we try and hire and
maintain internal talent. And that's the reason why of all of the, you know, half a billion dollars of capital projects that have been done in the last 20 years, one of them was over budget. Um and it was one one that we actually rely more on outside help than than others of
the high school. Um every every other project has come in on time um because we use internal project management strong control. So it is definitely an area where we focus but the reality is we don't spend a lot of um
of operating budget dollars on consultants um especially with compared to pure communities. >> Yeah. Charlie did an analysis for the expenditure and revenue committee that basically proved that out as well. So less than half a percent of the budget goes to any sort of outside
services and I think of that most of it was planning dollars to do planning consulting services and that's you know we take that we take recommendation from car on whether on whether or not you know how much to fund that I mean she requests that money to a certain level so it's you know again it's is a very
small portion of what we do you know what we do that is outside contracted services yeah >> does that include DPW W operation. >> It doesn't include for example the outsourcing of a sanitation operation which we did just do last year. Um and that was you know after some heavy
analysis um remember that >> right but but other in terms of roads like I know we often end up my husband sat on the Washington street corridor and it's like okay now we've like brought in the these design consultants but that's still like only a fraction of
the cost. Well, we were looking just at operating budget dollars. We weren't looking at capital budgets when I did that analysis. So, we, you know, I think if you factor that in, sure, we do spend money on architect engineering services beyond what I'm talking about. >> Well, and but also things like the $5
million for repaving roadways. That was mostly contracts for >> right Chaz's referring to consulting services. So, you're right. You're right though. Uh, you know, we have contracted services for roadways. Yes. I guess my ask would be to there might not be any
anything there there but at least like to like look at what we contract to see whether we might be able to save money and do more by >> yeah we we have conversations with department heads every year in their budget um during the budget season in the fall and we talk you know in depth about you know how their operations are
going and what they're spending their money on and you know for example we've talked to the um to the health director the new health director about a couple of outside contracts we have that we'd like to think about bringing in um that he thinks he could do better work for the same amount of money, not necessarily saving any money. Um
>> building with HBAC tech, things like that, >> right? We we do we do analyze, you know, we're basically constantly working with department heads um to find some kind of efficiency or savings. So, it's it is a continuous process, right? Uh but you know when when we come around, you know,
and maybe we can find a way to talk about it sooner, but when we come around to budget season next year, it's a good time to ask departments about that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? How much of your work is contracted out versus how much is in house? >> And and it may be it may be to your point about looking at operating costs
versus the CIP. It may be that that we we are spending money in the CIP that could be more efficiently used with in-house staff, but that would turn it from a CIP
operation into an operating expense. health intentions and all that. >> But I mean it's some of the stuff we're talking about here like designing for example, you know, complete streets projects or really complicated projects, you know, you want world class expertise on you and you can't necessarily afford
to pay people to do that in house sometimes, you know, we like we pay our project managers for all these building projects, but we still hire architects. >> Yeah. I and I I I get all of that. I'm just when you have a organization that thinks of separate pools of money
funding separate things and we don't always think about cross savings between them. >> Um and I don't know the best way to like think about that but it it is worth considering of like CIP versus operating and like if we would come out in the end ahead
>> right >> we can re-evaluate how we're funding CIP versus operating budgets. at that. >> So what I'm hearing is in terms of the finance discussion, we should have a discussion with the full board in September about prioritization as part
of your portal retreat and goal setting process for February 28th. >> Sure. >> Yes. >> Okay. And and what was the third thing? Communications. >> So we already started to talk about that under some of these other discussion items and that's also what we have
docketed for our last item today. >> Yep. So, communication outreach, communication strategies, education on more articles, email response policies, office hours, we talked about office hours potential option. Um, I wonder given Bernard's point about the 2024
policy and how that folds into this if you might want to take this on at a future meeting. Um, because it's almost three. You guys did a lot of work already today. Um, we can obviously have I'm happy to have the discussion, but I
think maybe giving you the opportunity to read what your the current policy is and work through that and then come back with the proposal for we can come back with a proposal for updates. Um, Michael, also your proposed language about educational environment standing,
>> right? We should also fold into the information that you sent me as well because >> yeah, >> I felt a bit I felt a little Well, I was a little ignorant at the time because like if I'd known about those things, then there's there's lots of duplication there that we don't know
anything >> on the point of office hours. So, when I was on school committee, we we did that for a time. >> And to my surprise, literally nobody would show up. >> Yeah. >> And it it seems that the more effective way, at least I found, is people will
reach out to us when they reach out to us and then you just try to find the time to meet with them. Uh I mean we could try office hours but I haven't found that to be successful. >> One thing I found that would be helpful that that has been helpful is um office
hours focused around a particular topic. If you say, you know, hey, come and see us, but talk about anything like, well, I don't want to talk about anything. Um, or, you know, right, I'll raise it, you know, I'll raise it when I want to raise it with you. But if you say like, I'm having an off I'm having office hours and focus, you know, I would love to
hear from you about X, then people who are interested in that particular topic tend do tend to show up and oftentimes you may then get kind of spillover about, you know, conversation may evolve into other topics. So potentially one way of doing that is to think about you
know what are what are areas of conversation you'd like to solicit the community's feedback on um and then structure that as kind of a free flowing conversation rather than response. >> I mean we may we may end up amongst the five of us also employing different
strategies because like um we might do that. I might, for example, do the thing that I did with Chestnut Hill where I sort of contacted town meeting members and said, "Can we can we get together for an hour and talk
amongst however many town meeting members and talk about >> X and sort of schedule that?" I do think we might want to create a somewhat more formalized system around that model that you very effectively
executed in the ambit of Chest Hill West of meeting with various town meeting delegations to go over something. I I think that's u provided a lot of information to people and really clarified a lot of concerns. I really
like the idea of splitting the town into multiple like splitting the the precincts amongst ourselves and being like, "Oh, let's go do one more reviews with them." Nothing. >> Well, I mean, we are all
uh representatives of all 63,000 residents. >> Yes. >> So, I wouldn't want to say, "Okay, these are my folks and those are your folks." >> Yeah. I was just talking Yeah. I was talking about logistic thematically rather than geographically. >> Yeah, that's Yeah.
>> Yeah, sure. That makes more sense because we all have different >> idea of tableabling most of this till the next meeting. But I I do want to flag that um we should be cognizant of time spent and
who engages. I really like the idea of reaching out to folks. Um, but if we take on something like office hours and the Brooklyn 100 show up, how helpful is that? Is this opening a up a new way of
communicating with the same people you're already communicating in other channels or are we actually reaching more people and making this life more accessible? Um and I don't know the answer but >> I will say another another area there the best turnout I got for the budget
101 which was also not well attended um was uh at the housing um so you know taking the show on the road is really helpful um it was the housing and the senior center those were the two areas
>> most interest and the most you know dynamic conversation um you know I had one very eager um young person show up to the school. Um >> they were interested. We had a good conversation. Um but um >> yeah, even South Brooklyn, you know, we
went to the Potter Library. We had a handful of people >> you know, I think we could have probably advertised a little bit better, but >> it does vary a lot. So I remember in my school committee time, we used to regularly do that. We'd have meetings at each school. Yeah. Uh different parts of town and some schools you'd get two
people, some schools you'd get 40 people and just the the variation was quite striking. >> So we'll table communications. Um we'll come back. Well, I will circulate the both the documents that I sent to you, Michael. Is it okay to circulate your draft?
>> If you like. Sure. >> Yeah. Um and about war articles, about how to help people draft war articles. Um and we'll we'll we'll come back once we have more of that background uh distributed amongst the members. >> All right, sounds good.
>> Okay, cool. >> So that concludes our meeting >> right at 3:00. >> Good job. >> 3 o' tight.