Okay, welcome to the select board meeting of Tuesday, July 8th. We have all select board members in attendance. Um, and tonight, let me just run through the agenda. We'll start with community input, then we'll move on to appointments and resignations, followed by covert evaluation presentation at
7:15, followed by financial transfers. Um then a discussion on open special we're going to open the special town meeting ward and have a a brief discussion on that followed by the town administrator bylaw implementation. We'll briefly discuss select board FY26
goals preparation town scholarship fund priorities and procedures discussion at 9:05 920 administrator report then warrants and minutes approval liaison report cemetery deeds and again end with community input. So with that I will open it up to community input. First,
I'll ask if anyone in the room has any input. Seeing none, uh we'll look online. Does anyone have any community input? Reporters don't count. Now they count, but they don't. Seeing none, let's move on to appointments and resignations. So, we
have one appointment uh for Royce Taylor to the position of traffic safety officer for the police department. Ryan, is there anything specifically we need to know about this one? Nope. Just that he decided that he
didn't want to uh to do this and then changed his mind and we're thrilled. Take him back. Great. Okay. I move to appoint Royce Taylor to the position of traffic safety officer for the police department. You have a second.
Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a voice vote. All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion passes. And with that we are ahead of schedule. Is
keep going. Is I think engineering here maybe. I would give him a couple minutes. They one representative is here. Why don't we do transfers or something? Can uh we're going to need Kelly for that one. So why don't we uh bump down to warrant and minutes approval if people
had a chance. There you go. Yeah. To read the minutes. I did and I had some corrections. and some corrections. Okay. Who So, who's recording the correction under the um let's see here. It records
that Christine Lear abstained. It should be Christine Stevens. You sure? And um yeah, that was my only correction on the minutes. That is a substantive correction though.
So, can we have All right. So, yeah. Should we just um we can take a motion to approve them if nobody else has any u correction. We could just say as amended tonight. No, we would say motion to approve as amended and Gretchen would make that
change and add it to the uh meeting minutes. Works. Any further discussion on the minutes from June 10th? Can someone make a motion to approve as amended? Go ahead. I move that we approve the um June What
was the date? June 10th. June 10th minutes uh as presented in the packet tonight with uh the amendment to change the name Christine Lear to Christine Stevens. Not change the name, just second. Replace
Replace the name. There you go. Not legally changing. Not legally changing any names. You are now known as Okay. Uh any further discussion? No. Seeing none, let's take a voice vote. All in favor? I
opposed. Great. So that is done. Can we do cemetery deeds? Sure. Sure. Let's do them. So cemetery deeds we have I feel like we've been working him too
hard on the assessment committee, but All right. Just as a also had a correction there. The town of Carile is misspelled. On which deed? Uh, the sorrows. Do you see how it says c a r
li? It's odd. Yeah. You'd think if there's one word we'd get right. You think it'd be a template. Maybe we've been getting it wrong all these years. Yeah. Be It's on the actual um deed. It is not on the motion. Okay.
No. So this is administrative note to right exit on the deed. Yes. So can we um can we still approve it or do we need to redo the deed? That's not going to Yeah, we just sign it once we get
we don't sign it tonight, right? We wait and get the corrective version. Yep. So, um I move to transfer land in the public burial ground at the Green Cemetery described deed 846-
lot D392 graves 2 and3 to Brian and Molly Soros 96 Lichfield Road with the um note that the actual deed um should make the
spelling correction in the name Carile. Is there a second? I second that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, let's take a voice vote. All in favor? I
opposed. Motion passes. So, we will um I guess get that reprinted and resigned. I don't know that that's probably not We'll have to add that to the next agenda then. which is on the 22nd. [Music]
Okay, moving along. Well, and what time were we going to do? At 7:15. 7:15. I mean, we could take a quick look at the um liaison assignments. Let me pass that out. Anyone can take a and I can just run you through. I received comments from everyone. I did
my best to um reflect those comments in the assignments. There's a few we will talk about just because I wanted to there's one you guys are not in contention, but a couple there's one that What's up?
I love it. Colorcoded. So, let me just run through the main changes. So, for Barney, this has Barney taking on consom and LSC. um maybe adcom. We're going to talk about that just briefly. You're uh given up police renovation, so you're you're a
net ad. Um but have volunteered to do that. David, um your changes are taking on the affordable housing trust, which you volunteered to do. Uh keeping planning board, which is going to be a heavy lift. Uh giving up center park.
And then in this version, I have and we can talk about it. Travis picking up police. Travis, I think you had noted you might be open to that. Um, I thought that would be a good a good shift for the year if if you're amendable to that. Sure. Travis, I have you taking on police uh
the police renovation. Uh I was curious if you might want to take on historical commission in the in the demo bylaw. I currently have that. It's a bigger lift and and you know with the MFC and these other lazons. So, if I
did that, I'd want to maybe swap around something else. Um, let's talk about that because I can keep it. Maybe uh I I thought we should just have a and it's it's probably part of the MSC, but have actual like leaison for like the DPW projects just in terms
of I'm happy to do that because I'm already doing the MFC. And then you and Barney had both volunteered for adcom. Travis currently has it. Barney, you're taking on consom and LSC. So, I don't know if that makes sense to move over to Barney or if it's
better to keep it um with Travis. You guys have any thoughts on that? I sort of, you know, I thought just because of the issues that come up, but I think it's better if you do it than for because it dovtales in with the other Steuart. That's fine.
Okay. Um, so A. So, what's A is uh Arnold. Arnold. So, A will be Arnold. Uh, I'm taking on fincom, potentially giving up historical to somebody. Um, giving up scholarship. Uh,
I talked to Christine about taking on the the challenge of getting our um, which we'll talk about tonight, our scholarship advisory committee and processes up and running. Is it a is it an actual committee that we're rejuvenating or it's we creating a new one? We would be creating a new one is my understanding.
Yeah. Okay. that whole the whole thing essentially needs to be uh put into place and uh Christine was was willing to take that on. Um and
question. Okay. So I can keep historical. Um then Travis would you keep fire and I would stay on as the fire station liaison. fire. You mean just the chief talking? You would. Well, give them the whole thing then.
Give them dispatch, too. Why not? Right. Okay. No, I mean it. Well, the contracts are done. There's nothing to do with it. Fine. It's fine. Yeah, I'll do that. So, Travis, you you'll do uh fire, police, dispatch. Yep. Um I'll retain um demo bylaw
which is the historic historic is the this until we get to fall town meeting I think is kind of busy with them otherwise well I you know today I want to talk about how many articles we are actually going to agree to accept
okay but so may fall off Christine is taking up a number of Kate's assignments Um she's agreed and and we've discussed this and Christine chime in. Uh taking on board of health uh which I think will be a good fit.
Taking on the scholarship I think between board of health and scholarship that's kind of the meat of the assignments. Uh recreation and youth. We had the question of is youth related to recreation? Are they completely separate? But they're not completely separate. They're not heavy. No.
Okay. Um no. It's it's a very well-run committee and Yeah. Yeah. It's leadership. So, yep. Uh safety center park and then magic
map. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. We'll call it mapsy. Mapsy. Um, so that's what's reflected on the what there's a few edits uh that I have, but that's essentially what's reflected on the sheets with the edits of uh Tra Snell would be communication
dispatch. Um, Arnold would be adcom. I would retain historical and I think those are the only edits. Yeah, that's good. The other the other thought I had is that in this year in particular, maybe
somewhere in the winter or early spring, we review these uh in light of post fall town meeting and upcoming transitions on the select board. So maybe we we look at transitioning a couple of the key ones
just just for continuity um as we move into the summer. And the I think the workload is going to shift relatively dramatically on a few of these um after town meeting. After town meeting, we might have some new priorities too coming out of that. So, right. Uh we'll just keep an eye on that, but
um hopefully this works for everyone. Yeah. So, I have a question. Um if you're an appointed representative, do you need to be sworn in even though you're already sworn in? Yes. Oh, if you're a member, you're a member.
Well, you don't need for leison. You don't need to be if it says appointed representative. Yes, that's really me. Affordable housing. Do I have to get re even though I'm Ashley's really she's on it. All right. So, I have to get sworn out. Do we need to vote on these or is this
just a Not really. I mean, we can they look good to me, but I don't think it takes a vote, right? Doesn't take a vote. Um, what was the other thing on this? Oh, the other one was the LAPC. That's I just see your note here. And maybe that's a conversation.
Well, there's a couple or Yeah, the LAPC. And then there were a couple on there like the river stewardship committee. I I said I would take it on, but then honestly I Nobody
here had done it before. So I Nobody's reached out. I don't know what that is exactly. I I should have pursued it more, but I didn't. So I mean I can see what that's about. I think that there's Yeah. Do we do we you might want to look at that
committee. Is it an active committee? Well, it's not a Carile committee. You know, it's a Okay. It's a It's a regional I think the river is the um I think it's a regional thing. So, it includes conquered Sbury River. I'm not
sure what else, but it's a Yeah. So, it's kind of a regional group. I I will do better this year and I'll find out see if I can find out who the contest person is. We don't need to. They haven't. Nobody has come knocking. So I I don't even know what it is to be
quite honest. And I don't know if there's anything else on here that um I know there were a comment about the audit committee from last year. Does it need to be reconstituted? I don't um David I don't know if which one I'm sorry. The audit committee. you know, we weren't allowed.
I mean, we're allowed we're allowed to have an audit committee, but if we nominate it as a committee, then it's subject to OML, which is okay. But, um, we thought I think Ryan that we
would just review their I would just review the audit report just to flag things for our there's really no need for a committee, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Okay. Right. Am I saying it correctly? It's so I put together a working group every
year to to pre-review the audit. Yeah. And then it's presented to the select board. Right. So I can go in and scrub it or ask a bunch of questions and so if I found my working group had an issue then we would put together a committee to address it or if it was presented to you
and you wanted to establish a committee that could be a way to go. Yeah. Now there are some whose opinions I do respect who feel like we would be abregating as a word our fiscal fiduciary duty not to have an audit
committee a formal audit committee because it's uh seeding too much authority to the th so I mean I'm open to that but then you have then we have to form a real committee it's not just me going to visit well you can remain the leazison to that and
I'm happy the way it is right now. But if it's, you know, if that's something well, I mean, it's a governance issue that you could take up some other type. It's not I'm not uh you know, it's not a big deal for me. I don't I think it's fine. Okay. As long as somebody is
I think a select board person should be engaged in the process. I think that's a good idea to I've done enough in my life that I know how to do it. So, you know, I'm happy to do it in in a world where maybe there's not a financially
knowledgeable select word person may want to do it differently. Okay. Right now, well, most of us are pretty financially knowledgeable. You have our covert folks. So, let's Yeah, let's move on to
that. So, I will um update this, send it around, and I'll get it to Gretchen and if she could get that on the website for everyone. Um and then if everyone um at some point in the not too distant future can just reach out and let people know that you are either remaining the
liaison or you're the new liaison. Um that would be great. And if you need a contact want to contact just let um Gretchen know or check the website. I think they're all pretty pretty current. And if you're taking over a committee that somebody else had last year and you want to check in with them to kind of
just see, you know, how how things were left or if there are any concerns or whatever, I think that's a good idea, too. Great. Um, I would also suggest we have Gretchen, uh, you know, however she wants to send out the
information. I know she posts it on the website, but at the same time send it out to the chairs of all the committees if that's okay. Yep. Yeah, she should do, right? TA and the chair, right? And I know what we talked about last year was um the expectation
would be that each liaison would at least make contact with the chair early on and then if it's a committee that's you know has some significant um responsibility to make an effort to go
to at least one of the early meetings and then continue as needed in terms of being there personally. And I think that makes them feel like they know who to contact to if they have any concerns. Makes sense. Yep. Good practice.
All right. Very good. Let's move on to the much anticipated and awaited culvert evaluation presentation. Yeah. All right. So, we have Matthew here from our civil engineering firm, Nich. He's going to walk you through the state
of your coverts. Evening. Just quick check. You can all hear me barely. Just give it a second. We should be able to increase the volume. If I need to, I can. Wow. Give me one second. I'll just switch my
headphones. We can hear you now. How's that? Is that any better? Yeah. Yep. Perfect. Okay. Excellent. Um, all right. Evening everyone. Um, I can I able to
share my screen? Oh, yeah. There we go. Um, that's a lot. So, what white noise machine? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so I I'm Matthew Gaywoods. Uh, I'm a structural engineer um and project
manager with Niche Engineering. Uh recently Nich was uh engaged to do a culvert assessment and investigation of all uh boy it was quite a few culverts in the town of Colorado Carlile excuse me.
Um so I'm just going to give a quick uh overview of uh what we what we came up with and and what we prepared for you. Um, so I'm going to try and be I know time is short, so I'll try and be as brief as possible and and uh leave time
for questions at the end here. Um, we can skip the presentation summary and just get right into it. So uh, a brief history um, niche engineering uh, we prepared a pavement management plan last year in March of 2024. Basically, we did a an assessment of all the roads in
Carlile and prepared a a management plan of of how to best um maintain and and where to, you know, budget uh funds um in order to maintain them properly. Uh following that, in May of 2024, the Westford Street culvert um failed. A
large hole appeared in the roadway, was covered up with a plate. uh NICH uh designed and permitted an emergency cover replacement in June, a month later. Um and then following that emergency replacement, we were hired to
perform something similar to what we did for the roadways, but um for the culverts. So basically, we inspected uh we spent three weeks inspecting every culvert in the town of Carile. uh preparing a GIS database of all the information we collected um and then
preparing a management plan to uh provide recommendations and uh budget analysis of um how to approach repairs and maintenance over the next 10 to 15 years. Um so the the the culvert u assessment
uh included it was 157 culverts throughout the town. Uh ultimately what we prepared the deliverables were uh an inventory um a culprit inventory which is in the town GIS system. So anyone with uh you know municipal employees
with access to the town GIS will be able to see uh the locations and all of the data we collected um about each of the culverts including the um the characteristics and the um the the
ratings that we gave uh the to each of the culverts. Um and then we took all of that information we collected in the GIS and prepared an assessment report. Uh basically it highlighted any high-risisk structures, anything that was, you know, potentially
uh going to replicate what happened on the the Westford Road uh culvert. Uh we also recommended maintenance and repairs for for everything else. Um we compared a capital investment analysis to um give you an idea of how much you know repairs
and maintenance would cost over the next uh decade or so. and then provided grant recommendations of how we you know the the town could be um assisted with the funds to perform some of those repairs
um and maintenance. Um so again the goals really were to identify public safety concerns. Um, is there anything else that would would cause uh disruptions or um, you know, public safety issues throughout the town and to provide the town a tool to prioritize,
plan and budget for replacements and maintenance. Uh, this was sort of the existing condition. There were 140 culverts at the time in the town's GIS system. Uh but really all there was was a a data point giving the location and not very
much other information about it. Um we located 157 culverts. So we added 17 culverts um to the town GIS. We also used um high-res uh GPS location to locate the inlet and outlet of each of
the culverts. Um so now you have a a good idea of where the inlet and outlet are located. Um and in addition to that we supplemented all that um GIS data the location data with um many many other
data points. This is just a small summary of of the uh sort of tablet interface that we used to collect all this but um up to I think it was 40 or 50 data points including the type of culvert, the shape, the length, the width, the height, the depth beneath the roadway
um and then all the condition assessments that we we collected um including the you know the the head walls, the um the embankments, the the pipe themselves, how much flow was going through them, whether or not they were
obstructed did um and and any other concerns or things that were noted um about you know environmental issues or um traffic safety issues or um you know disruption if a culvert did fail what type of disruption it would cause. Um so
all of that will be in the GIS system that you know you should have access to. Um we rated all the culverts um on a bunch of structural criteria. So, uh, this is just a small snippet of the the very thorough report, but this was to
kind of give you an idea of of, um, you know, what we rated the culverts on, you know, from a good condition down to a failing condition and and gives the criteria on which those were were rated. Um, again, we looked at the pipes themselves, the head walls, the
embankments, and gave all of those ratings. Um these are just a couple quick examples of uh some of the the pipes and culverts in these conditions. So this is this is typically a good uh culvert.
Again the embankment this is a very nice embankment stable um you know not eroding uh a good pipe, you know, no section loss, no corrosion and you know good head wall is is fairly new. So a lot of these throughout the town which
was nice. Um and then just sort of it shows the progression through satisfactory uh fair. Uh this is where you begin to see cracking and um a lot of vegetation and overgrowth along the embankments which can often
lead to some of the erosion problems. You see just small deterioration culverts. Uh and then you sort of get into the the issues um with uh pork culverts. Um and then finally sort of
the worst case the the failing culverts with broken head walls and really uh very heavily corroded pipes and and separations like that. So um we took all that data like I said and we put it into the report. This is again just a small
example of um what we prepared in the report. So each of the each of the I believe it was 12 culverts that we identified as high risk culverts and I I should preface that by saying that there were no culverts identified that are in imminent you know
risk of failure. So there's nothing uh to the extent of the Westford Street culvert that is you know about you know was about to fail. We didn't we didn't identify anything that needed to be say immediately closed. Um so that is um you know a good thing. Uh but we did
identify 12 what we called high-risisk culverts. These are the the the most at risk for failure in the next five to 10 years. Um and this again is just an example of the information we provided for each of those 12 cups. So we you
know gave you a couple pictures to show the conditions uh the location uh we provided you know some of the data we the important data we collected uh the culver information the road and stream information. um that we the risk uh categories that
we provided um and then other other concerns. But then on the the very lefth hand side there um just a quick description of the existing conditions for each of the culverts that we identified and then more most importantly most relevant to you is the the recommendations what we would do uh
to repair those culverts. Um so like I said there were 12 uh high-risisk culverts throughout the town. Uh we worked with uh Ryan after we identified those 12 um to really dig down and identify the four uh basically
worst case of those 12, the the re the four that we really needed to um you know uh focus on the the ones that we would recommend be identified and um uh repaired first. Um, so those four are
three of them are on East Street and one is on Topet Road. Uh, again, we we kind of split it up. So those first four we would recommend addressing in the next five years. Um, and then the remaining eight could probably be pushed to uh the
eight years beyond that for you know six to 13 years. Um, a quick overview of just the the four primary culverts. You don't have to go too much in detail, but I just did want to give you a a quick snapshot of of what we're looking at here. Uh this is a pretty large culvert
on East Road, 42inch diameter uh culvert. Uh you can kind of see from the picture here, the the heavy corrosion on the bottom of the culvert. The the significant amount of erosion that's occurred beneath the culvert, it's it's basically 10 feet of this culvert is just kind of can levered past the outlet
uh hanging in in space there. The head wall is broken. um a lot of um overgrowth and uh you know erosion on the slopes. Um again don't want to spend too much time on these but um just to
give you this is the one on Topet Road. Again a lot of erosion on the embankments which is leading to undermining of the roadway. the culvert itself is failing and when uh the the culvert you know when there's you know holes in the culvert it it allows um you
know water to get out and fill to get in and that's what causes you know sink holes in the road and and other issues. Um, and then these last two are again are just smaller culverts on East Street uh both uh concrete, but um I believe
even I believe the culverts in these um themselves were not in terrible condition. So it really isn't even a full replacement that we would be recommending. It's more just the uh repair of these head walls and replacement of these head walls so that you don't you know lose these slopes and then ultimately lose the roadway that is
you know covering you know up above the the uh head walls here. Um and then so beyond that so th that was the the most important those high-risisk culverts are um going to be the the
priority really in our recommendations. Um but then beneath that the less critical maintenance. Um this is sort of the low level here. It's just general culvert maintenance. Um so this is generally nonstructural type
uh maintenance. It's it's primarily just cleaning out the culverts. Um a lot of the culverts were obstructed. There are leaves and sticks and logs and uh brush in the culvert um which is you know constricting the the flow area which
ends up causing flooding. And there were a couple neighbors that kind of stuck their heads out and and asked what we were doing when we were out there. Um and they sort of uh mentioned that you know yards and roads had been flooded in the past uh due to you know some
culverts here and there. So um again I think we we estimated a yearly cost of uh cleaning the culverts of of jetting a jet blasting. So there are contractors that will come and and shoot pressurized water through these culverts to to get a lot of the sediment debris out of these
culverts. Um we estimated a yearly cost of $51,000. Now, that cost is likely very inflated uh simply because a lot of um we assumed that all of this work would be done by a contractor. Um whereas many towns and municipalities
have um uh the equipment and personnel to do a lot of this equipment. Maybe not the jet blasting, but a lot of the you know pulling sticks and logs out of the the culverts. So again, it's it's really up to the town how much they're willing to do themselves. Um
And the other thing is here this may be what we've seen may have been years and years and years of of no clean out. Um so just doing cleanout once um may improve the condition of a lot of these culvers for years and years. So you know the the amount of cleanout that
needs to be done the following years is likely going to be significant less. Matt, can I just interrupt for just a second and ask you um and maybe it's really for our TA. Do we does DPW currently do this, you know, from time to time or is it just been kind of
fallen by the wayside? Jim and I have talked about being more proactive in doing it. Okay. It's been mostly done recently as a reactive measure when issues are identified, but as um Matt alluded to in
the beginning, there are some cohorts we didn't know existed. So, this report allows us to know all of them. and then like to create with Jim based on this report a multi-year approach to maintenance that can maintain these for longer so we're not fixing everything
all the time. Okay. Sorry to interrupt Matt. I just No, of course. No, that's what I'm here for. And yeah, I did we did talk to Jim briefly out in the field and he did mention, you know, he he was familiar with the jetting contractor and I believe they've done it. Yeah. Maybe maybe in the past as a reactionary
measure, but um um yeah, it's pretty easy maintenance. Um, and again, the more the more it's done, the better it's going to be year to year. Um, and then sort of there's this middle ground, the these routine repairs and and what we
call non-pritical maintenance. Again, this is not any these are all culverts that are rated with a poor condition or worse. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are in imminent risk of failure. um these repairs are not going to prevent
uh failure but they will prevent you know the deterioration of the culverts in the next 1015 years that you know may lead to failure down the road. So um again this is this is just sort of the routine maintenance to upkeep. Um more
structural than you know simple clean out. Um this is is stuff like patching spalls at the outlets of of a corrosion holes at the outlets and inlets of culverts. Resetting and repointing stone head walls. So these old stone head
walls that um you know are just through time are sort of falling apart and falling down. um resetting those stabilizing embankments. So embankments that have eroded or um you know maybe too steep or or uh you know not enough
vegetation in it to really keep it stabilized. Um just doing a little maintenance work on those to to prevent uh the wash out of the embankments which leads again to wash out of the roadways. Um so and and then that includes uh an
additional inspection in 10 years. So 10 years from now, a similar inspection to what we did where we would go through and and amateurizing those costs. Um we put a basically a sort of a an estimated lump sum cost for you know the number of culverts we identified in poor condition
and and figured out the cost at roughly $118,000 a year if you were to do all of that work over 10 years. Um, I have to ask Matt again just go ahead quick question. What What is a spall?
That's where the concrete a sp would be on a concrete. Um, let's see if I can I don't know if there's any in so would be sort of like that. You can maybe see it on one of these these photos here, but
it's basically a a crack in concrete that has progressed to where that that crack is sort of fallen off of the main chunk of concrete. So, you can you can think of it as kind of a sometimes that chunk will come out. Yeah. Basically losing a chunk of structural concrete.
Okay. Thanks. That was a brick. Oh, no. That was a spa. I wish I had known spa. I could have Yeah, it's it's structural jargon. Um but again so the the capital investment analysis here this is this is
sort of the breakdown that we came up with. Um again just to kind of reiterate what we've said before 51,000 ongoing for clean on maintenance is what we anticipate based on the number of culverts and the number that we saw you know that have sediment and and
obstructions within them. Like I said before depending on how much the town is willing to do themselves this number is you know potentially much less. And you know the you know the more maintenance that's done the less that cost goes you know year after year. Uh routine maintenance like I said uh non-critical
coververts but in poor condition over 10 years roughly 100 218,000 a year. We wouldn't anticipate if you were to address everything um sorry skip forward and then the the big items. So the the four prior primary high priority
culverts that we identified if we if you were to address all four of them in the next five years we estimate that to be about 261,000 per year over the next five years. Um and then the remaining eight after that um just under $300,000. And again these are
all accounting they're amateurized. So all accounting for inflation over the next um you know whatever this is 13 15 years. Did you calculate per year? What that is per year? That is per year. So uh Matt I mean you wouldn't
like on those four you would like do one a year, right? You wouldn't like do all of four like over five years. You just do one then do the next one, right? So each one's about maybe 300k or something. And we gave it we we did four over five years because um as Ryan could probably tell you with the Westford
Street Culver, it is not a it's not a very quick process. The the emergency repair can go quickly, but the the the sort of final design process is often tied up in permitting and and design and and looking at hydraulics and and other things. So give it a year give it a year
to start design and then another year to construct and maybe you start design of a second one while you're working on the the third one. So yes, this would be you know four five years to to complete the those four culverts assuming um you know it would be
I see 261,000 per year over those five years but basically 261 times five so 1.3 million over four that's like 300 and something thousand per cover roughly right you're going to overlap the
projects but a project's probably about 300 grand right roughly speaking Uh, roughly speaking, that that is that's pretty much in line with what we've seen. So, um, but you're looking at Yeah, culvert culvert and bridge replacements have have gotten pricey
over the past couple years of mostly just because it isn't as simple as just, you know, throwing a corrugated pipe in the ground and covering it up anymore each year. No, no, no. He didn't say it right. It's I want to make sure Travis understands includes this is the annual spend. It says anticipated yearly cost at the
top of like three quarters of a million dollars. Yes. So a question Matt when you guys did the uh pavement study, one of the things that you know jumped out at me was essentially your your your modeling that
spending money early saves money later, right? like get on, you know, you had the grading system of the pavement and you really if you wait too long basically on a bad one, it cost you way more. Uh yeah, in this one it seems like not as severe
a thing, right? You've got some hand out of 157, you've got like 14 things that have to get addressed a lot. Uh, okay. But then really the say 60 or 70,000 the top two lines that kind of PM forever
would would keep those things in better shape. Is that a theory? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So if if you did routine maintenance, you know, more regularly, you might not have 14 or whatever. We had 12 12 of these culverts
in you know the condition where we might you know where we identified them as high risk. Um a lot of it is it is progressive failure and and and the more progressive it gets the more expensive it does get to to repair. Usually it starts with the
head walls and the embankments and that leads to structural issues with the pipe itself. If you can get it so that you know you're maintaining the head walls and embankments, then you know the pipe won't need as many, you know, won't need repair as soon.
Um, but but it's also it's much more expensive, you can imagine, to replace the entire, you know, pipe underneath the roadway than it is to to replace, you know, the head walls or, you know, maintain the head walls on the end. So, I would say, yeah, I would agree with you. Maybe it isn't
as you know critical as the the roadways to get it early. Yeah. Um but there is some there is some benefit for sure to spending some money uh on maintenance to avoid the other thing is again with the Westford culvert
um it got to a point where it needed emergency it needed emergency repair. So we we spent money designing and constructing the emergency repair. Um but that isn't the final condition. So that the permit the uh that allowed us to do the emergency repair basically
required us to make sure that the emergency repair was adequate to current design standards. Um and that you know it it may require you know replacement with a more hydraulically adequate culvert you know. So there there is
that, you know, that extra spending you have to spend if there's something like a failure that you don't necessarily have to do if you get to it before it fails. That's not part of the 14, right? So that's or 12 or whatever that that's like another million dollars that might
be sitting out there someday if we right cuz we so we're spending right about rough number 60,000 to analyze the hydraology to make sure if that comes back that it's fine then we're done right if it doesn't then we have to spend
money to design and then fix it. So, um, Matt, again, like just for my edification, a culvert can in your pictures it shows it can be all the way from like a little bridge with like real poured concrete and a span
to like some little pipe that just runs under a road with some rocks shoring it up, right? I mean, they're all culverts. Um, yes. Yeah. So in in again structural jargon a culvert is generally under a 10-ft span and that's what we found.
We're not any spans larger than 10 ft. But roadways are wid pipes to So Westford Street's got to be wider, right? Any road as east street is wider. So it's span, not uh sorry. Yeah, span meaning the diameter of
the other way, the linear way. So the head wall measurement. I see. And these were put in typically when the roads were built. Like when were they put in? Like how old are they? Well, I mean, looking at East Street, I'm guessing when that road was put in, that's when those culverts, right?
So, I bet that's 50. You know what I mean? I'm thinking typically the barrel, as you call it, it's like it's stain mild steel or corrugated. It can vary. Uh there were a bunch of corrugated steel. The ones on East
Street were uh both reinforced concrete pipe and uh the other one was a corrugated steel pipe. Um there were also some other um like plastic corrugated plastic pipes. Um and uh I
believe there were some arches as well. Yeah. Like open bottom arches. Uh but yeah, it was it was a a variety of different So if it's if it's longer than a 10 foot span, you call it a bridge. Correct. A small bridge. 10 to 20 feet
is a small bridge. And which we also have some 20t bridge. Yeah. We haven't looked at those yet other than the big one over I I did address one. Um I I wouldn't say we have a big problem there. We have some bridges though. Yes.
And what about if it's smaller? Is there anything below a culvert? No. No. Culvert is uh yeah anything from like an 8 in 12 in pipe. Matthew, when you when you talk about the culvert, so we talk about cleaning the brush out, you know, obviously
within it, but then what how far does your analysis go outside of it? Because doesn't a culvert then dump into like a drainage swale and does that need to be cleaned out as well? Uh so if we identifi Yeah, we did and that that was part of what we looked at
when we we we looked at it. So there were environmental cons uh um physics risks I guess environmental risks that we identified at each culvert. So if there were um if the the channel was
undersized or if it was uh overgrown and and um or eroded. So if the the culvert was you know sticking up above and like there was an outfall down into the the channel. So we did identify identify that. I would say it was limited to
maybe um you know the first 10 or 15 feet on either side of the culvert and we didn't go you know 500 600 feet down a channel. Um, but if we did see anything, yeah, if it was in sort of the line of sight of the culvert, we did we did put that
information in the the GIS system and and did use that in our ranking of um like environmental risk. Nowhere to go, safety risk. Just you clean the culver, but then it can't go anywhere. So, it just so dredging. So, you also looked at
so obviously funding is is a big issue that we need to right. There's not there's not I don't know there's any debate on if this need this work needs to be done. Right. So really for us for the town it's how do we plan and bake this into our capital plans and
all the other projects we have going on. Yeah. So I mean right and there's some potential grant assistance that I would assume we need to start before we pivot to the grants. I know we're getting close to time. Um the what was it? I had that thought and then you told me
we could go a few extra minutes on this just given the financial transfers. Um, you know, Isn't the safety committee in charge of like roads and sidewalks? Maybe we take this on as a write some grants. No, I don't. I mean, in terms of the grant writing, we'll write the grants. The question is,
do we get them right? What how do you in terms of town who who would how would these grants typically be managed? because we've gotten grants for other projects. That would be me. Okay, great. I'm all in support of that.
Do you have the resource to um Matt, I have a quick question for you. Um since you also did Nich also did the um pavement analysis. Is there was there any sort of cross referencing particularly in a place I guess we only
have one where you're saying the full culvert has to be replaced, right? the one on top of road right if am I reading this correctly and I was just curious whether there's any I don't know is there any um benefit to
looking at the pavement repairs and sort of yeah we we did go back and cross reference we not for everything but for the uh for a couple of the critical culverts were like you said there there were a handful there I think there was one in the primary the four primary
culverts that we recommend full replacement, right? And then a handful in the the remaining eight. Um, and those did I think there were a few I'd have to go back and look at my notes. Um, I I believe there were a few that lined up with the some of the um
recommendations in the uh the pavement management plan. Yeah. Um, I guess I I I would I would before you went and did any pavement work, I would certainly, you know, reference what what culverts
you were doing first so that you weren't, you know, paving a road and then wasting money in a few years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just going to rip it up and pave it again. The other thing The other thing is Yeah. Culverts are a pretty small like roadways are
long infrastructure, you know, hundreds of feet, miles, where the culverts typically only take up 10 or 15 feet. So, there is some benefit, but it's it's not the end of the world if you pave the road and then a couple years later have to patch a, you know, a strip of it because of the the
Did you Matt, did you identify any culverts where the barrel has collapsed under the roadway? Uh no, no. So there we didn't ident we we couldn't crawl into every culvert.
So I guess we didn't have full eyes on but we we are trained in you know we've seen enough collapses and enough repairs in the past to to kind of identify the signs from the surface of you know that and we we did not identify any of that. We didn't see anything there where there might have been a a
collapse of a culvert that we you haven't seen. Um, right. And typically they are pretty, you know, uh, catastrophic. They they you end up with a pretty big hole in the road if that does happen. We have a few minutes left on this. So, in terms of Sure.
the reporters and I would I would tell anyone watching this, this is just town culverts. There's probably plenty of culverts. I know we have them in our neighborhood. That's a private street. So, exactly. This is just the town land, town road coververts. Private roads are not included in this study. They're not
included. Well, maybe they are in the GIS, but this is not part of that study. This is ours. Yeah. Just sometimes people are confused about what's ours and what's theirs. Um, so Ryan, what what do you need from
us tonight or in the near future? So, is it really a planning issue of you would be doing future use of service to start including this in the capital plan? And just like the road plan, there's no way to fully, and I think Matt would agree, there's no way to
fully fund this recommendation within current resources, right? The main reason for advocating for Chapter 90 and infrastructure dollars, including grant dollars, is because every town faces this, but small towns in particular.
Carile has done a good job investing in current day services, but long-term infrastructure is is quote unquote killing you, right? Between buildings and and road maintenance and covert maintenance. So, identifying the full scope of the problem, coordinating repairs to make it efficient, and then
deciding what level of risk you're willing to accept with this maintenance should be part of your capital planning. Right. And I sent this to Fincom, and I think they're going to discuss this a little bit on Thursday at their next meeting. So getting it on their radar and then you're working with Jim and it
as soon I don't know when we can get a better indication of some of these potential alternate grant assistant recommendations if that's a process using whatever means we can to get that in motion would be helpful to find out what's viable what's not is there extra money does this just have to come out of
our chapter 90 funds um so to answer that a bit in in the report I so I believe I should be sharing the report now we did provide nine I believe y uh yeah, nine uh grant programs um in this chart here. Basically, uh ranking
them from high alignment to low alignment with the town's needs and your likelihood to to secure those funds uh with a with some notes here on, you know, the available money, right? You know, how you would go about it, what what it kind of looks for in terms
of the grant. So, um, you know, if you dig into that report, you should have some, um, opportunity here. We did we did include, so just the the the the strap grants are the highest alignment. That's the small town road improvement within the Mass Works program. Um, these
are, you know, ideal funds for these types of projects. The MVP program is highly aligned. Uh, the Culvert, uh, assistant, uh, replacement assistant from DER. Uh, however, that's more of an incentive to upgrade culverts than it is to replace them. So, you have to be
careful with those because they can often end up costing you more money because you have to upgrade it. It turns, we did include chapter 90 funding. The, you know, the thing there is if you've already sort of drawn from that um, right? And these dates are all over the map in
terms of due dates. So, yeah. Yeah. you know, we don't want to miss, it seems like these upcoming dates, spring, June, we want to be We should talk about the strap, right? Because that's the most like in your experience, Matt, like would a town like
us get one such grant, like one fix one cover. So, uh, let's see. Um, honestly, I haven't we haven't done a tremendous amount of those small town grants. Um, but I believe I don't I think there's an
upper limit um per year. I want to say it's it's $1 million per year. It is a million. Um, and the grants themselves are between 50 and $500,000 a year. So, I don't believe it is restricted to what you've had in the past. Um, I think it's
based on a yearly limit. Yeah. Um so anything anything that you apply and is um eligible seems like the best one may maybe um yeah that that to me seems the best course right we should see
the top two the strap and the MVP are the most likely for us to get um as as discussed earlier the other ones would probably tie our hands in some way that we wouldn't want to be tied. So the the problem with the strap grant and the MVP grant is you had a presentation about
MVP and the various things the town wants to address and this competes directly with other priorities in town. And then you had a very robust meeting about walkability in town and we have been trying to put together the potential for a strap grant in order to address some of those concerns as well.
So walkability is nice to have and culverts are musthaves, right? So that's what I would say but had you know 50 to 100 people who wanted who wanted to walk. I mean this is a great segue in my mind this is a classic thing for tomorrow. I mean this is a
true that exactly that issue priority that issue you know I know I didn't give you back goals but because it was difficult for me because that is really the issue like can we afford the nice to have we think of ourselves in this idyllic way
but you know when you get back down to it people want their roads they want them plowed they don't want them to collapse they want to make sure the fire department gets you know those are the things you got to have and I I really feel Like there's so much of that, you
know, when we think about the uh DPW building on top of the fire station, like there's so much of that im immediate need. I feel like that's like got to be how we Yep. sort of let's discuss that. Yeah. Tomorrow. And so this is great input for that, right?
Because this is somewhere in the neighborhood of uh three or four million bucks, right? to kind of put to bed the and you're leading the charge on grants and working with Jim and all that stuff and so but what we need is policy direction. Yeah. So we can write whatever grant and I do
think we'll be successful but we need to what we run into is there's two or three different grants coming at us to write for that April MVP grant. Okay. So your time would best be spent directing safety committee and other committees to make their case and then
decide which one we're going for because we would likely get one strap grant every three to five years. One okay not even one a year. One every three to five. Oh yeah. Cuz you said a million dollars a town but there's only it's under 500,000 a grant. Yeah. Having competed for strap grants
before I can tell you a town without economic development and housing Yeah. is not very competitive for the state's biggest award. So, one of the must fixes might get paid for by this strap. Okay. So, we'll I mean we'll just build that into the either our goals and or
our agendas based on the timing and when people are raising this the possibility of going for a strap grant and then we'll give you that direction. I mean, can we still move money around in June July? I guess and everyone's got a different date. Um,
is there anything else we need to cover off with Matt tonight? Yes. Thank you for the report. Thank you for the the presentation. Um, absolutely. No, thank you for Yeah. Thank you for And do are you are you done on your end
with this project for now or is there still any work remaining? No, this was the this was the the final scope item in this. So you have all the the deliverables and um we are always available for if you have any questions on the report please don't hesitate to
give us a call. We're happy to answer questions give any advice in the future. So we are not going to presumably we're not going to start PMing culverts or repairing culverts until fiscal 27. Right. We got to
authorize this stuff in the springtime unless there's an emergency. We've been building your road maintenance and infrastructure plan. Yeah. We started with one years of roads and two years. We'd like it to be five and but I mean could we redirect some paving money or something else if we felt we
needed to prioritize? So that's what we want to discuss with you um priorities during the budget planning process as well. No, but budget planning I get that budget planning is fiscal 27 stuff, right? like the fing's going to look at it and
then the fall and d and then in the spring is when we will budget that for the following you know a year from today. So that's my question is there any if we decided that some sub part of culverts has more
urgency than some of these road paving things that were can we move the money around or no? Yeah. And we're going to be talking about road maintenance in we have the hearing in August and then we'll have a road maintenance discussion after that in September. Yes.
Which should inform the capital plan. Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great. And my last pitch constantly telling you to advocate for chapter 90. Chapter 90 is the most direct route for funding for small towns about this stuff. And the more small towns that get
on board saying this is much more helpful than be politically advocating for more. Yeah. Because if you could if you could get some of this off your plate without increasing taxes, then you can afford building projects and other things. But when you have to squeeze these projects
in through borrowing and other and other financial mechanisms that directly increase the tax base, you can't get big projects done like fire stations. So the town could greatly help you solve the big generational problems by helping you do the preventative maintenance and the other necessary capital. and federal
government was trending in that direction. We're hoping that they're still going to commit to these infrastructure dollars, but there is money there, too. That the state should be tapping into. Okay. Yep. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you, Matt.
We appreciate it. Yeah. Bye. Good night. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good night. And moving on, we have uh financial transfer and Kelly is on the line. Um, FINCOM is not meeting tonight. They did
not post a meeting. They are meeting Thursday to do their part of it, but um, I know James at least has reviewed the transfer and Kelly's here to just walk us through what's being requested. Good evening, everyone. Um, back again.
Um, just a a small transfer, kind of a final cleanup transfer this evening. um undercut the insurance just slightly with my last request. So, I'm asking for um an additional spread of $5,000 to
help cover um that difference. Right. And did you have the there was just a little I'll call it up. Do I don't know if I can I think Ryan has he's gonna bring it up. This little memo description vote approve. Well, we have the motion. Yeah. Well, while we're doing that,
Kelly, so COHS is going to take a little haircut. What is that? Unspent money or what is that? Yes. Yep. They had um they had a pretty comfortable turnback uh for FY25. Turn back as in they didn't spend it or
Correct. Yep. Okay. All right. Very good. Okay. Sounds good. Just want to proceed with the motion. Sure. Uh, I move that the select board vote pursuant to master journal law
chapter 44 section 33b to approve year-end transfers between various line items of the fiscal year 2025 budget as detailed in the memo from the town accountant dated July 8th 2025. And there that's the memo up on the
board. Correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. Up on the screen. Second discussion. Further discussion? Seeing none, let's take a voice vote. All in favor? I opposed.
Motion passes. Okay. Um and then FinCom will review and presumably approve on Thursday. Correct. So following that meeting and that vote, I'll um I can send a docu sign if everything's approved for you, Scott, to sign as chair. And do you
think that's the end of the transfers or you expecting any more? That's the end. I guess we're we're running out of time. Out of time, right? This is when we usually do most of them or we used to do most of them around this time. So,
okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks, Kelly. A quick note on the cos. So, there's no drop in service. Um, Jeff Jeff, our new director, is is working pretty closely with me, Kelly, Aubrey, and the COS board directly to
tie services to budget. We're trying to find ways to limit the increase while increasing the services, which sounds funny, but that's part of our previous discussions about revolving funds and goals and all of these things. So, we expect to give you a pretty a pretty good presentation on that. I just wanted
to allay any fears since we're taking money from the COS that we're we're not cutting services to seniors. In fact, it's the opposite. I would say they've increased from last year. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, with that, let's move on to the next
agenda item, which is to open the special town meeting warrant. Uh discuss the special town meeting schedule and then some other uh potential topics related to that. So, we should probably just start with the motion, correct? procedurally to get that open. Yeah. So,
I move uh to open the warrant of the special town meeting currently scheduled for November 2nd, 2026. 2025. I mean 2025. Yeah. 2025. Second. Thank you, Christine.
Okay. Any discussion? Do a voice vote on that. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. So, the currently scheduled language is to allow for a potential change if something comes up
where we think we need to move the date. Is that why it's written that way is currently scheduled? Yes. It's not anticipating a change. It gives
you the room. But there are there is a the potential discussion of if you split the right split it into two nights and make an adjustment in that way. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else we need to do at that's done with the opening the warrant? Right. And then we wanted to
talk about some other topics related to that the special town meeting schedule. What do we need to address there? Okay, you got it. So this is this is tentative but this is why everything is compressed. Give you a visual. We'd like to close the warrant by September, which means people have
another, you know, less than two months to go before or about two months before they can uh submit anything. And then you would have two weeks after that to to sign the warrant, get the warrant out. And then the motions booklet would be due two weeks after that. So once you
have all the warrants, you have about a month to approve them, which is why we're trying to get people in front of you now because the timeline is compressed in the back end, right? Is this something that we have uh Brian the the the schedule there or no? No, this is our
internal schedule that's in the select board calendar. Okay. Okay, great. And you don't need a you just want can you just support for that? You don't need approval over anything any of these specific? No. And these dates are yours so they can change. Um you might want to close the warrant
earlier. Yeah, there's no Right. I mean I I would suggest we do that. I would also say that we know of four articles, but we don't know what what isn't what hasn't been submitted yet. Right. I mean, but that's two things to note. One is if you tighten the window, you
will get fewer articles. Two, it is entirely the select board's discretion as to what articles they take up, which is what I would correct. When the chair would allow me some time, I'd like to talk about that. So, a couple small items that were scrubbed from the
annual town meeting include some bylaw cleanup. It's just language, probably consent agenda type items, and then um a solicitor or canvasing bylaw that the police wanted to do. I'm guessing that the warrant total will be closer to 10 than four by the time
you close the warrant unless you close it soon. So, what which ones are we anticipating? NBTA, wetlands, this police one, what else? Fire station. The police isn't in there yet. So the the wetland bylaw, the the MBTA, the demo del demo delay bylaw, and the fire
station, right? And then you had mentioned some cleanup. Well, solicitor may not be a fast article either. So I mean cleanup will be fast, but solicitor may. And are we going to have any personnel
policy changes that require bylaw changes? Not that you would need to do in the fall. So the personnel policies are your policy, right? The um impacts on the bylaw would be minimal and would just be name changes and other items.
Okay. So David had had asked if he could speak to a couple of other issues and we do have time this evening because everything basically from this point beyond is is select board. We've covered off some of the later agenda items. So, um, Dave, do you want to introduce some
of the the topics you want to discuss? Yeah, I do. Thank you. So, um, town, you know, the last time, I think it was the last time or the time before, we we the town meeting study committee provided um a sort of summary of its analysis of
what worked, what didn't work. Um the the largest single there were two major takeaways I would say from our town meeting efforts. One was that people generally did like Sunday Sunday. They kind of liked that
starting earlier and having more time and you know not running late at night but overwhelmingly it was too long. Now, you know, I've certainly been critical of some things that were done. Uh, and the town moderator has taken some of
that criticism to heart in terms of driving a more streamlined process. We could have probably saved ourselves an hour, but regardless of that, we started at noon or one and we went till after five and people were like, I'm not doing that. Right? So, I want to start with
the the big picture and then go to the more small thing. So the big picture which again we can talk about tomorrow is kind of philosophically what's our goal right so one of our goals town meeting committee is greater civic
engagement and to get greater civic engagement we don't have to tap the 50 60 70 year olds that we see every year at town meeting we got to get at the 20 30 40 year olds who have busy lives with younger kids and you know all this jazz
they are not going to put up with those long meetings. They are not interested in it. They think it's an antiquated process. That's stupid because they grew up with, you know, virtual meetings. Like they don't understand like why it's so high bound. Now, there's a lot of reasons why you can't just change those
laws. But if you don't make it accessible, they won't come. That's it. They won't come. Maybe when they're retired, they'll start coming. So, it's it's important to me, at least personally, to continue that outreach. And part of that has to do with
managing as Brian said, Brian is a good Brian Wat's a good thoughtful representative of that demographic who actually does participate. He's like, why aren't we time st why aren't we time binding this? Like why isn't it bound by a certain amount of time? It's three hours, four hours, you're done. Like that's it.
Um so that's like something we really have to consider. and particularly in this town meeting because we have beyond and I didn't even consider those other things you mentioned Ryan but there are four
potentially lengthy debate issues MBTA is certainly going to go because we're on a clock and we have to get that thing done that could be between a two and a threeh hour time block now I personally believe I'll just give my
personal opinion that Wayne could be way more aggressive at limiting debate, but he has absolutely no interest in doing that. He he believes that this and legitimately, okay, it's I'm just giving my opinion and what I perceive as his
opinion. I wouldn't say has no interest, but he firmly believes that it's the length and complexity of the debate that makes for a rich town meeting. And that's an important issue and certainly as evidenced by the open houses I mean there's lots of stuff going on right so
maybe there'll be some time binding of that but not a ton of it right and they are we are planning for up to a thousand people for that particular segment like the cafeteria the gym I don't know there's a whole bunch of stuff going on right so I think we have to start
mentally with like between again tighten up the preamble we're going to start immed immediately as there's a quorum, we'll do all this like little housekeeping things we can do. But it still could be up to three hours of the first issue like the issue which gets to
the next thing. The next most in my mind the next most urgent thing if it's ready is the fire station because we want to be in the clock on that. And a question for you Scott and the others is I think we talked about it would be disingenuous to present the fire station without
mentioning the magnitude of the DPW. Right. Yes. So the first the question I have to ask of you is do you feel we'll be well you and Ryan do you feel you'll be ready and I guess you two will will you be ready for a presentation? Will we be ready for
to take that issue up in the fall? I think so. Yeah. Okay. So that's the next issue, right? That's at least an hour in my opinion. I mean, it's possible that Yeah, great. But, you know, it's it's a big ass. So, so now we get to
kind of the sweet spot of like four hours and maybe, you know, we're cramming in some bylaw cleanup and solicitor. But what we haven't done yet are two things which are on nobody's radar screen which
is the historical demol I mean it's on if I judge by city on the woods it's on some people's radar screen but they're not nearly as amped up now as the MBTAs are right and the conservation one which is on nobody's and as soon as they look at
those maps and go ah that's going to be a huge issue. So what's the conservation issue? Bible presented last time. So, so the I got all excited about. Yeah. So, the the the two the two
alternatives I would like to present for us so we don't decide it tonight, but I'd like us to present two models and I want us to line up behind one of the two. Model one says it's 12 to 4 or it's 1:5
and we are taking up these four articles, right? the two cleanup articles, MBTA and Fire Station, that's all we're taking. And you guys, you wait till later on this other stuff. I mean, yes, people, oh, we got to have it. But actually, it's not in my mind. And then
people can yell at me in the paper if they read all this, but I do not feel like there's an urgency behind those other two, which could have been done anytime in the last 30 years. Other towns have done it, and suddenly we have to do it this time. So, one
model says, "We're capping the issues and we're going to have a one-day meeting and you know what? We're going to drive hard to try to get done by, you know, t plus four hours, right?" The other model says, "No, that's not right. We got all these things. We really have to address them. It's not fair to push
them off. We're going to have a whole another bunch of things in the spring, so we can't just keep kicking the can down. Those are fair." So we say instead we're taking up these issues on Sunday and we're going to stop, you know, after those issues. I mean,
unless somehow we magically get done quickly, but you know, and and Wayne is definitely behind this and he does it himself during the other time. Let's say it's 12 to 4 at 3:30. We do not take up another
ginormous issue. We have a right like that's it. like you have a window. If you can't get that one in like a t minus an hour or whatever, you're not going to take it up. And then we commit ourselves to a Monday night meeting like conquered and we say, "Okay, you got another three
hours from maybe we could start a little earlier." Some people have asked, you know, maybe 6:30 to 9:30 so it's not so terrible on people that have to get home. And we just say, "Okay, but again, we still probably have to cap. We can't have like all new things come in, but we could probably then get through." And by
the way, again, if MBTA is the first day, which I would strongly advocate, you're not going to have a thousand people the next day, you're going to struggle for a quorum, right? Which maybe is okay because, you know, not so many people raising their hand about stuff. But so that's that's the
thought piece that I want I wanted to present to you and have you think about. We the cycle have to exhibit the discipline to manage. But we're at the point where we really have to manage this process if we want to be if we
agree again if we agree that there is a um a a worthy goal of really managing people's time and not overimposing them. So David, let me make sure I'm clear on these two. So you're saying, okay, so
the first model is, you know, you name whatever the time slot is, but there's a defined time period. Let's call it 12 to 4. Yeah. and you go, well, we use our judgment based on the issues, right? And we down select. Just because somebody raises their hand that they
want a warrant doesn't mean we have to accept it, right? Uhhuh. We could say those aren't as important. I mean, we have to do MBTA because we're running out of time, right? And if we want to do a public a building, you know, public safety building within a re if you don't make
the cycle, you you get even further behind. So, you know, those are two that you could say are non-negotiable due to time constraints. The other two, again, I may be being unfair to them, but those are bylaws that other towns have adopted
years and years ago. So, that we tell them you got to wait till spring or some other time. Yeah. Yeah. Next fall. I mean, it's not popular. Maybe they said, "Well, well, you know, why why me?" Right? But if you I'm just saying if we're serious about time boxing, we have to impose it this way.
Got it. We can't and from a moderator's perspective, we can't really push to time box issues. So MBTA, for example, that's going to raise I imagine sitting there Yeah. and hearing if you know for people that
have been engaged, you you're going to hear a lot of individual testimonials which are valuable, right? But at some point, a lot of minds are made up and it's time to vote and and people and it's not an option to say the select
board wants to keep this to a twohour discussion or something. You know, it depends on your moderator. And I don't I don't know how other towns have done this or how long they've gone, but it it's something that could be it's a conversation with with uh with um
Wayne, but the moderator is an independent person, right? But this is a this is a specific a unique issue. Like normally it's it's fine. This one in particular I can see could just go I could see it like a brokered convention. Yes. You know, those things
go on for days until we come up with a solution that works for Not only are we voting on a solution, but we have to vote on zoning language. Yes. Yeah. That and we don't know if it's two if N is two or two plus more. You know, that's another thing that this
I will say I've been I've been sitting in on the planning board meetings and they're doing an amazing job. I mean, they're really drilling down. Um but you know, floor amendments, I don't like that. I want this one. Change this to that. So, there's so many
variables. I believe that Wayne's intention or there's a couple things we've learned, right? One of which is, again, I think I've said to this to you before, but the guy in Andover, for example, he says when he's contentious issue, the
moderator, these are facts not to be debated. We're going to agree on those. if you come to the mic and you want to go to those, I'm going to shut you off because we I don't want to re I don't want to relitigate stuff we know. So, he's going to adopt that. So, that's one thing I've suggested. He's been kind of
reluctant to do this as you know like again and if you have multiple options it's a problem but for and against or for one two or three and people can line up behind that microphone and then at least you can get a balance and you can kind of judge who's you know going on. I mean these are some simple things. The
last one we're considering, you know, I suggested to him that uh there's some sequence if there's like two variables. Instead of using the clicker to say yes or no, we say do you like one or do you like two of two options, let's say,
right? And they can use the same two button clicker or he can get the company to bring him fancy clickers out of nothing. I mean there's a bunch of things he can do but the biggest thing he can do as moderator is simply say you know you have 30 seconds and if he
perceives it's a repeat he says you're repeating goodbye like he could be tougher but I don't or we could call the question you yes I think the question can he does not have to allow that right and he won't allow it if he doesn't feel
there's still time for debate so I mean listen it To me, a 2hour block of substantive debate is okay. You on a big issue like that. Yeah. Right. And three hours gets pretty long. So hopefully it's not three hours. It's just that the debate then runs into
okay voting and then the voting could be a kind of a morass of different things and we don't know. we we project this out and David I liked you how you started saying oh I'd like to have the time frame and I think Brian may have suggested that and that's great idea but
then you get into the reality of okay so if this does drag on and and you say okay well we're going to end it but it doesn't end and then you say well we got to cut the fire station because we don't have time for that so so then do you right so well it's interesting so the
suggestion that we came up with was if it's going to be a lot of people like way more than the 300, right? Yeah. And it's Sunday afternoon and we start and we don't have the food truck because that didn't seem to resonate. So, we have it start at noon or we start a little earlier, right? The suggestion is
you actually start with the fire station thing because a lot of people are going to be dribbling in. Yeah. And they'll want to be a part of MBTA. So you you start with that and you might get it done in half an hour, 45 minutes and then by then everybody's settled in
and then the rest of the afternoon is about MBTA and when you're done listen if it goes past okay but we're deep in the issue at that point right and people can go home but they probably want to stay to vote but you don't then
have in your mind that you've got three other issues you got to cover there will and there will be a mass exodus that creates ETA and and yeah, the logistics of having people leaving from all the different Yeah. Well, it will take more time, too,
because they have to check in with each little satellite. I mean, it's going to be it's going to be a unique thing. Is there a world where you just do MBTA on Sunday? You could do it that way. It's its own. That's okay, too. I mean, I don't know. No, there's a every They're all worlds.
You just have to decide if you want a second. Now, let's get to the other thing. There was no appetite from our committee to abandon Sunday and go Monday, Tuesday for example. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I agree. I think we should continue the weekend experiment.
Um I think again if we start early enough um people will show up. They want that issue. But you know by five let's say they're like it's dinner time. Like it's Sunday night. I got to do. Right. You know what I mean? Totally. So, it's
not fair to people. I think it's also it's disrespectful in some way to just drag these things on. And right and Wayne's going to have to be Wayne will be I will I may be a little harsh. Wayne will be sensitive to
there's no way there's not rep if it goes like the three four there's no way it's not repeating itself, right? There's no way. There's not that many things to talk about unless people make amendments. even that they they're still gonna bring up the same issues. So I I believe that
David for moderator. Yeah, [Music] I'd love that's it. I'd have the I'd have like the door with So are you looking for do you want us to think about this? Do you want people to
chime in with initial thoughts? All of the above. I don't think you don't have to decide tonight. I definitely think tomorrow we could spend a few minutes on your reflections of what I said about civic engagement because it's very important in the long run that we understand
the best way to we have a certain unique form of government and I love it and I think if you look across the entire globe there are only a few true democracies and even in those democracies there's very few places where an individual can really make their opinion
and heard in a meaningful way and we happen to live in one of those places so we shouldn't give that up but we I think we should and for me on the surface I don't have a necessarily a I don't think it's a we need to discuss it but it's not disqualifying if you had two nights or
two days like we've always done but I would strongly suggest that you schedule and promote what the acts are each night so to speak. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think you would have to. And I I think for I would think most residents would appreciate that and wouldn't necessarily
have an issue with that. So, I don't again I don't know that's the right decision, but I don't think that's necessarily I don't think people would mind if we were I think people would appreciate it if we did time box it so that if they're coming for that they know and if you're done early, right? And if you happen to really like
the demo by that's your thing and you don't care about the other one, you come on that day. You come that day. And that's what that's what happens in conquered. People pick and choose. The other thing that we talked about is it is livereamed on is it Minivan or YouTube? One of those or both of those, right?
So we have to do a better job at promoting that link. And again, in the spirit of democracy, it's okay if you want to stay home and listen. And then when it's moving towards a vote, you show up, drive down, show up and vote. That's
okay. You don't have to be there to raise your hand all the time. You could get the information and then you could come and vote. It's It's a little different. Could Wayne do something to assist with that to say like 10 minutes to vote like Well, yeah. No, no, we did because sometimes it's hard to know when
like suddenly we did talk about that. We could do that. We could say we could say those of you listening, you know, remotely, we we are planning to take a vote in the next 15 or 20 minutes. Don't come in. What's the difference? democracy.
And it happens anyway. People arrange it so that like I'm there. Like my husband does this. He does text me. No, not usually. He tells you this, but No, no, he doesn't tell me that. He just says, "Give, you know, text me when it's close to a vote." But I haven't noticed you. I haven't
noticed in our town meetings that suddenly there's a whole Yeah. But these these other ones, the demo, even though they're not on the radar, they will be on people's rad and there will be a lot of interest in them. And you know what's also, Scott, what will be compounding that is that they haven't
gotten nearly the runup, right, that the MBTA is getting. People are going to wake up to that like a week or two before and they're going to be like, I have all these questions and those two bodies, there is no way they'll prepare the level of de planning board's done a ton of work, right?
They're putting stuff out all the time. They just won't be that much material, which means you're going to have way more expository questions. It'll just and you can't say they're not legitimate like well what about this Martian what about you know well and also we have a you know we have
staff that are doing a lot of work for the MBTA right and that's not so much the case for well but not for the right so the question is can we is there a way that we can provide support so that more of that
you know again we made a big we made a big focus of committee outreach last time. No, I know. But organizing like an open, you know, once once it gets on people's radar, you do a September open house around the Well, going back to the calendar, that's where again I I think
closing if we go with the multi-issue model, I would s I would certainly advocate an early close. I wouldn't wait till September. I'd close it like I'd leave it open for the month and that's it because we already know what they are. And then I would really work
and we will certainly do some of this to work with the the liaison should work with those committees and say you guys if you really want to get this thing going you got to get to work like right after Labor Day like you got to you should be thinking about what you need and you got to hit it right after Labor
Day because you have like a month and it's a busy month and people are going back to school like you got to get on people you know and and they haven't planning board's got it they understand that now the marketing plan but most of the ones I think that's the important also
decision in here is if we are going to limit the number of articles and maybe you know not include some of these wetland or demo um we should notify we should decide and notify early. Yeah. Early, right? Exactly.
Right. So, anyway. Okay. Um, that's it. I thank you for listening. I mean, we can do you want does the does the committee want time on the 22nd to revisit this? Because I do think we need to make a a decision on this. Um,
particularly if the decision was to limit the articles, we do need to to tell since uh Brian and Nancy, you're on. I see you're on. Do you can we invite them to comment? It's not a we didn't make it a joint meeting but Brian you have anything to add to this dialogue particularly that question of
we don't have a draft do we want to get the committee or Nancy do we want to get the committee in front of it's do we want to meet as a joint meeting we don't have our own meeting scheduled again till the end of August them scheduled to come even talk to us right
uh definitely happy to do another joint meeting uh over the course of the summer but to answer your other question no I don't think I have anything else to had. You summarized it very well. Okay, Nancy, I I don't have anything to add either. Okay. All right. You know, we can meet
as a committee. I as I said, I think I think it's important to get Wayne in. I think once we have some idea of where how we want to do it. So maybe it is you I noticed you had a placeholder in the 22nd, right? Yeah, there's a placeholder. So if Wayne could make it
and demo, we were we're trying to get uh demo bylaw in here and and they can't come until the 12th. So of August of August. Well, again, philosophically, it's almost better if you don't know because they're from an agenda
standpoint, we do have a a last glam, we'll talk about it tomorrow, but we do have an open spot to to you know, we could we can let's think about it. if if Wayne's available, it might be good. He's not available tonight. Okay. And so, um, but
anyway, so I think it's tough to think about. I just don't know how much more we're going to know in a month versus in two weeks. So, we should probably Well, my point, I guess, guys, I don't know how much you need to know. That's what I Yeah. So, what this is like a philosophical thing and we already know that there's more than you can cram into. I'm all for closing the warrant early
and just right picking our picking our lane and because we're it's not that far away. No, I mean not much is honestly what's going to happen in if you close it August 8th versus September 8th like
Well, you also I think um run the risk. We'd need to make sure that there's a lot of information gets out to people about when we're closing it, not just the mosquito, but also some social media because if you if we close it even earlier than being proposed,
you don't want some people that were planning to bring something in to say, "Wait, what what happened to you, resident engagement?" So, when's our We have 22nd and then what? We have July 22nd, August 12th, August 26th.
So yeah, I would say if by next meeting we made a decision of closure, we could notice there's still plenty of time two, three weeks, four. Well, this is a special town meeting, too. So I don't feel quite as like it's not like right if
I don't feel this obligation to I mean annual town meeting is not going to be too far away after we get through the Well, you know, again, from my own sort of time discipline, I'm I'm like a bus stop guy, right? Yeah. The bus comes at 455. If you're there at 455, you get on the bus. If
you're there at 456, you wait for the next bus. Like, that's a basic thing, right? All right. Let's talk to Wayne about that. Yeah. All right. All right. And just one other thing, just um thinking about the the CPA money. Yeah. U you know, we had talked about doing
another uh round of another grant round Yeah. for the fall. And I know in particular um there are a couple of we made one mistake. We being the
Oh, so some grant recommendations. Yeah. And but maybe we don't want to, you know, we should decide we we should discuss that tomorrow night. Yeah. to see if we want to hold off. But it was there there are a couple of things that people would again I'm not I'm not personally
concerned with if if there's three or four things that we feel we can essentially consent agenda or quickly riff through and that's an extra 15 20 minutes to me personally. Yeah. It's okay. I'm
worried about engaging in a really meaty issue that clips another hour or two on top of things. Right. and definitely not wanting to do that when people are fatigued at the end of whatever. Right. Right. It's going to be an emotional thing MBTA. So, like you
say, maybe it's its own thing and everything else gets Monday. So, okay. Okay. So, you'll check with Wayne on the I can check with Wayne for the 22nd. All right. Excellent. So, let's move on to the town administrator bylaw
implementation. So, for clarity for me, we're going to send out that the warrant is open. Should we should we send out a warning that it may close soon? As soon as August 12th or should we just say I would say August
26th would be probably there early. I mean, that's I don't think much is going to be going on. I I Okay. I I don't think I August 12th seems a little tight. Sure. August 26 seems a reasonable it's end of the month.
Um what do you think Barney? Well, yeah. Um of course a lot of people aren't even around too right at the end of August. Um but um I do think we should tell people we're
Yeah, we're going to close it much earlier than they might be expecting. Why don't we just wait on this till tomorrow? We can sort of circle back. um on on what we want to publicize now having opened it. Do we want to fix it? Do we are we ready
meeting with Ryan? Yeah. Yeah. The goals meeting. Oh well. Oh no. I was actually thinking our goals conversation tomorrow night. Just so all five of us can make a decision together about the the end date, the closing of the warrant date.
But you does that work if you if we revisit this tomorrow or do you want to get something out tomorrow? People are they're going to immediately want to know dates. So we'll tell them it's open and we'll give them a snippet of the discussion and then
or can you wait till um Thursday to let people know? I can 6th of August. There is media on. So you think that's No, I know that's fine. But yeah, no, that's fine. Mary Lynn will I think it's fine recognize that we've said it's going to close earlier than soual
decide now the closing of the warrant. No, what we were saying maybe we ought to I mean a why don't we just I mean we could always move it back if we had to. Right. Right. So why don't we why don't we set an early bogey and if if that creates issues that we can address
that down the road. That's what I'm saying. We would but I mean I think August 26 gives enough money time and that allows Ryan the committees have to meet to draft language to submit or they just put a placeholder. No, the schedule well the language and the summary is due. Yeah,
placeholder. But then the summary would be due, you know, less than 30 days after that. Well, that's okay. Less than 30 days, but I'm just sensitive to committees not meeting frequently over the summer. Right. Right. That's the only thing. I mean, I was advocating for early clothes, so I'm not
trying to un advocate for that, but if it's Conscom, like what's their meeting schedule, like, you know, well, Conscom is going to be able to We have a placeholder for it's a placeholder. It doesn't Yeah, it doesn't need to be final language or final motion or it's just the
placeholder language. Correct. Yeah. It should be okay then. Yeah. I mean, what it's telling anybody that was considering something that we haven't heard about yet, you've only got We should have heard about it by now. Yeah. Well, I learned three things I didn't
know. I learned you guys are thinking about uh some appropriation. I learned that we're going to take up the solicitor bylaw again. And then switching around. It's not necessarily, but I'm just saying that then that needs to be rounded up in the
next month or so. September 9th to November 2nd is not a lot of time. Yeah. I mean it's Well, right. Wayne would certainly be in support of early close. Yeah. Because early close focuses everybody the ones we have in front of us because we closed for the
spring one in what was that? That one's open a long time. But that was right. But we closed it in what? Earlier than usual. We closed it in when February February, March, April, May. Like three months. This is two month like Yeah. There's if you're not prepared by the 26th, I don't think you'd be prepared to
have your whole communications and outreach and everything. They're going to need I agree with you. They're going to need those committees are going to need a fair amount of time to get organized. So, this would force in some ways this would force you to Yes. engage early. Yep. I absolutely agree. All right. So, do do we want to
entertain a motion tonight then to set um that August 26th as the close of the warrant? Sure. So moved. Are you making a motion? So moved. So moved. So, I'll second that. Okay. Any further discussion?
Take a voice vote. All in favor? I opposed. There you go. All right. Very good. All right. Now, on to town administrator bylaw implementation, Ryan. All right.
So, there seems like a lot here, but it can be summarized pretty quickly. The the new bylaw essentially talks about authorities and primarily the the town administrator's authority, but other authorities still remain. So I'd like you to think about employees in four
different categories. So one of them is the positions that you identified that the select board directly hires. That includes the police chief, the fire chief, the town clerk, the town treasurer collector, and town council. Those are your your appointments and
that's clearly laid out in the bylaw. Then there's three categories of employee that I I would be involved in more directly now that there a bylaw exists. So the first is is my direct appointments. So these are employees that you did not identify as your
authority and that did not that do not require consultation with another board. See it's in the packet or do not I sent it to you uh late today. Okay. So it's not in the packet. Okay. So, think of direct appointments as the bylaw says the town administrator shall now appoint this person and there's no
other language around that appointment. Um, I'll give you an example. The town accountant would be directly hired. But don't you already now directly hire those people? Only because you've delegated that authority to me. But in practical terms, that none of
that changes, right? Correct. Okay. the whole thing really can be snapped back immediately with just your authority. But we won't we won't reopen that that can of worms. So the second category that I would be involved in is what what the bylaw describes as
collaborative appointments or consultations. So these are employees that I need to consult with another board that has been identified by Mass General Law as someone who used to have hiring authority. What's an example of that? An example
that is the um board of assessors, board of appeals, historical commission, the conservation commission and the planning board. Then the third category of employee is those who are working for someone else, not you and not me.
So that is the library, the fire department and the board of health. So if you think about in those four buckets, I think it's a little bit easier. So your direct hires, my direct hires, my hires where I need to consult with a board that normally where that
used to have hiring power and then um completely separate entities. And is this just because you want to include us in category three where the planning board hiring for that? You didn't you you would have under the bylaw the
authority to do that, but you're saying I just want to bring them along. The bylaw says that that I shall consult with them. Shall consult. So that's what makes them their own special category. show consult.
And so in category three, the the the different groups would would officially declare their director of HR, which I don't believe they they don't all have done that now. Correct. That that that's a new thing that we would ask them to
do, but they would not be required to do. Yeah. So this is the implementation of of a clearer role for me. Right. Okay. So, I'd like to walk you through each type and then take your questions. And before we do that, there's and then there's the other piece of the sending the legislation in to And how does this
just the the draft legislation and the cover letter, correct? I'm assuming you have no problem submitting your bylaw. Yeah. So, that's just a vote. So, should we just vote and get that done? I I don't want to miss that. So the first piece of it is just send in the do you just send it in or you
it's a it's a cover letter that they wrote with basically that says here's the draft legislation for your goes to somebody who racks and stacks these issues Senator Barrett and Simon Cthaldo they're going to sponsor it. You're telling them to submit this on your behalf. I move to authorize Ryan
Mlan to submit to the legislature on behalf of the select board special legislation authorizing the town of Carile to pass a bylaw that expands the duties and responsibilities of the town administrator position pertaining to town personnel as authorized by article
23 of the May 18th, 2025 annual town meeting. Second. Any further discussion on this piece of it? Let's do a voice vote. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes.
And so with this and we should also reach out to those representatives with some expressed urgency around the need to do this. Okay. And what's what's the best way? Just emails or is there anything else we can do tactically to Well, not to show everyone what happens
behind the curtain, but we'll write you a nice email that you can forward to. very good to the legislature. Okay. Okay. So, believe it or not, we're still involved in in all hiring and firing and discipline and HR. So, for your appointments, this is the police
chief, the fire chief, the town clerk, the treasur collector, and the town council. When a vacancy occurs here, we would notify you. Then, we would create a plan and timeline and present this to you in open session for your approval or your modification or whatever. So you can imagine you can do what you did for
the police chief last time where you put together an assessment center and a screening committee and the final interviews come in front of you all the way down to delegating the authority to me and Aubrey to hire the treasurer collector because you don't want it to be an open process but in every vacancy will come
to you and ask you how you want to hire your person and that's that's really it um for discipline of your people of your direct appointments We would notify you um because you have delegated authority of day-to-day
management to to myself. We would notify you of any disciplinary action taken and this um would be done in executive session and the employee has the right to grieve to you that we have exceeded our authority or that you have exceeded your authority. And the same thing with
with termination. So if um one of your employees was recommended for termination, we would bring it to you in executive session and then you would you would have to meet with that employee and decide. So I think that one's fairly simple and and not that different than now. So you're going to see is the same general
theme in all of these because you're still involved and I'm still involved in all of these. So for my direct appointments, so this is the authority that has now been granted to me by this new bylaw. we would create a hiring plan and we would bring that to you uh in
open session and this could be done prior to the vacancy existing. So we'll say this is how we will normally hire this type of person and if you agree that that's the right way to hire say a police officer then we will just go execute that policy within your
parameters and bring you an appointment or notify you of an appointment. But again don't you do that now? Yes. But only it sounds like only because we're delegating on a one-off basis. Is that Well, no, not on a one-off. We delegated it. So, this is so that I'm We don't have to delegate it on.
So, I'm hiring. So, I'm just want you to be comfortable with how we're going to hire. So, anything outside of that general strategy, we would bring to you if there was something off, right, or different like we want to pay this employee more or we want to restructure the department in this way, we want to eliminate this position, we would bring
that to an open session. Yeah. I thought you your example of the police officer, I thought that you were trying to get away from that because you didn't want to have, you know, hold up a police officer who's in a des district or whatever. So, wouldn't you just have the authority to go do it, execute it, and make the offer and
they're done or we still Yeah. So, what we're doing tonight is explaining to you the hiring process, and if you accept that for our direct hires, then we know we have your blessing to to go hire that person. They don't need to because you use the word appointment.
So we don't have to appoint them anymore. No. Okay. And you'd just be telling us under the HR report or whatever. We hired a police officer. Yeah. Yeah. But generally you would know that a vacancy existed and that we were following because we like to
communicate. Same thing with discipline. I would notify you if um I disciplined an employee. And this notification just for clarity is can be an email. It's not a doesn't have to be an obviously not an open meeting but is that the mechanism typically
yes we would notify all of you immediately that discipline happened and then you could decide as a board to bring that into some discussion of of my knowledge skills and abilities and the same thing with the termination.
So that would be town administrator hire. So anyone not identified, not in consultation or not with their own authority. For the second type that we're calling collaborative appointments, instead of bringing it to you, we would
bring it in the same way to that relevant board. So we would tell them either ahead of time before vacancy existed with their blessing to go ahead and hire in that way or when their vacancy exists we'd go to them and say this is our plan and this is like a who category
be the conservation administrator or so these are people who support those independent or those multimember boards correct but still fall under not the board of health they still fall under
or the board of So in order for this to happen now would require these boards and committees to either vote to delegate that authority or sign some type of memorandum of agreement with you and me that this is the way they want to go that they it is
oh no go ahead until the legislation is approved correct and then and then it's not no longer required that they have to well it's required that I consult and this is how I've defined consult but you wouldn't have to go through this process of of um creating a hiring plan
and a timeline that you that you present to the relevant board. I wouldn't have to, but I would. Right. Okay. But again, you kind of do that now, right? We do do that now. Yeah. Okay. As we stated over and over through this process, nothing would change. We're just formalizing it. The biggest thing that
changes is we don't have to go to you for each van hire, van driver hire, or police officer hire. Um Yeah. Okay. And then same thing with discipline and termination. These boards would be you skipped category three. So
category two. Oh I see. You're going that way. Okay. Okay. So category three top to bottom. Um this one is the most interesting. Interesting because they don't have to do any of this. The the thing that we're
recommending is that each border department identify and define their human resource responsibilities, including the delegation of authority to any staff or board members. This protects the town from liability. So, an example would be um for some boards, the
the authority lies with the chair, but that that is not codified in any way, nor is it in any Massachusetts general law. It's just practice that Carlile does. So, we're recommending that boards vote to do that because putting, as we learned in the debates about this,
putting power in one person's hand isn't necessarily the best way to do it when you're talking about something like health or library services. But because it's HR, to do it as a board requires a significant amount of public u public input. So, we're suggesting
that these boards vote to to describe how they're going to conduct their human resource processes to include evaluations, discipline, termination, hiring, and um day-to-day management. So, if this if say the board of health
wants me to sign Linda's time sheet, which I do now, or Janine's time sheet, which I do now, um they should be more descriptive about what what oversight I have on signing that time sheet or if um
if I'm involved in the review process or any disagreement between folks. And this is the same thing of the library as well, which is a independent building and everything. um they should be using HR and best practices and personnel policies and we need to know how they're going to do that and enforce those
standards in the day-to-day management of employees, but there's nothing compelling them to do so. So, they are required to follow human resource law. So, every time they don't, assuming they don't, they put the town at tremendous legal liability and risk.
So, it would be in the town's best interest to enforce that standard. But what does that mean? Yeah. What is that? Yeah. But is the human resource? So there are rules they can't they can't avoid sexually harass or you know stuff like that. But but if if a particular individual
decides that she wants to work 10 to two and her board says okay then she works she's not breaking on the HR law. Right. Correct. Yeah. But I would be unwilling to sign a time sheet. You don't have to sign it that says that employee was working. But you couldn't not pay her. But you couldn't say well you didn't work the
full 36. You don't get paid. But I would say liabilitywise, without knowledge of someone's hours and when they work and if they're working, it would be fraudulent to sign a time sheet. And I I'm not saying you should sign it. I'm saying
they don't that board doesn't ask you to sign it. They say don't sign it, Ryan. That's fine. But you can't withhold that person's pay if if they've gotten the approval of their board to set those hours, right? They're not breaking any HR law, I
guess, is what I'm trying to say. Correct. Yeah. You're you're talking about a specific But I do sign that time sheet now. You do now, but I'm just saying if what I'm trying to get at him is is nobody can break the law. They can't smoke marijuana in the building or
whatever. But these squishy issues, which are really the troublesome ones, you still have no authority. And if you don't want to sign the time sheet or you don't like the way they dress at work and they get the approval of their
board, those three boards, they're like big whoop. Correct. Right. Okay. So the what we're suggesting is that why are you signing the time sheets? Yeah. Well, I was wondering that for those for those boards like why why
wouldn't you make them sign off the chair of the whatever sign? It requires them physically coming here. That's great. You want to get paid? Yeah. Get your title on there. I No, I I I signed his time sheet, right? And they opted, you know, they
But I mean, even you when I was a library trustee, it was very difficult for one of the three of us to get over here to sign Martha's time sheet. It was difficult. It was. But that's part of the responsibility of having your own employees. Right. That's right. I absolutely agree.
With that freedom responsibility, I would not brought that up at town meeting. Can you just let them let them chew on that? They should go and sign the time sheets. I in terms of how they move this forward in terms of the
in terms of the implementation it would be it would be best practice if the these boards would discuss these things. So when that authority was delegated to me I was told there's no way we would know if the person needed time off
there. So that's why I sign it. It's it's it's a little I mean the consequences are quite dire. Does that employee not get paid that week? They're not dire. This is No, I totally disagree. Okay, this is the bargain they made. They want
independence. Have at it, baby. You're not getting the support. You You can't cherrypick that. I want these services, but I don't want these services. They don't get that right. I would absolutely not sign that time sheet. Okay. I would say you, your
chair, you get in here, make sure that that person gets paid. Sign the damn time sheet. signing off on the time sheets was not part of the basket of goods offered when we were talking trying to do is trying to I'm calling it a basket of goods but
he's not going to he failed that terms he didn't the select board failed so we failed and now I think we should tell him congratulations you guys carved your independence here's what you guys are going to do totally but but if he can bring him in the fold
here and we're going to move on I don't So we don't want you to take have liability for something if So it's not me, it's the town. So the town if if an employee does something wrong, the town would face legal suit or or problem,
right? Fraudulent time sheets or um actions done by employees. So the reason for for following the HR law is to prevent the town expending resources on something that was done. So you hire a professional HR director in order to implement personnel policies that have been decided, right?
And then my job is to enforce their execution. Um, so what we're recommend Go ahead. What we're recommending is that the the boards clarify their their HR functions and who's doing what so we know what
lanes we're in. And then that um we have the ability to bring because we we still do HR functions. So we still bring recommendations for hiring, discipline and termination to the boards and then we have a clear
avenue of understanding how they will execute those functions. Yeah. So why I my thought would be this is here and if they if a if one of the three boards um
does not want to define two boards and the fire chief. Okay. I presume the fire chief signs his own guy's time sheets, right? Right. So, it's actually not. And who signs his time sheet? Me. Yeah. Delegated from you. That's okay. Um, what I was going to say is um it's
kind of up to each board, right? they're if they want to work out a process that and and and clarify what they're going to do, what they'll be responsible for and then what authority they're turning over to the town administrator, then
that's that's what gets um approved, you know, publicly. And but if they want to retain the authority for all these different things that we're raising now, then that's what they choose to do. uh and then it and then you don't uh you no
longer have uh the responsibility for signing time sheets, right? I mean, can't they choose with a full understanding of what it would mean to be responsible for their staff person? I mean, that's their choice, right? In this process of defining
uh the HR responsibilities including delegation of authority to staff or board members. I think the main thing that I would like to convey is that the whole board, right, all the trustees, all the board of health members, and the select board with the fire department understands who
has what authority is doing what, because it it was clear to me that that some board members don't know the process of trustees and and board of health members that that I sign a time sheet or I yes, don't sign one or approve time off or don't or involved in evaluations or not,
right? Um yeah I I agree. I think it's very important for that to be very clear. So what do you need from us? So the it it would be helpful in clarifying especially for your personnel policy discussions if the U relevant
boards were to agree or to modify or to comment on the implementation of this. And it would definitely be great if you would bless this as a select board for your for processes on your hires and um my hires so that we can do that now. For
example, we had a van driver who came in late. We couldn't make the agenda. We would like to hire the van driver because we're short on van drivers, but we'd have to wait until the 22nd to appoint. So if you did pass this tonight or vote on this, then I could appoint that van driver inside your parameters and notify
you at the next sure meeting. So this is a policy. What is this? This is making the TA bylaw um effective now. But the TA bylaw doesn't define everything because you wanted to keep it right relatively policy driven. So this
it is a policy. This is a swing at what that means. This is a policy. Policy. It's a it's a policy which we have the authority to do because it carves out the groups we don't have authority over. Well, we have the authority to
I guess what we'd say category 1 and category two. We have the authority on category 1 and category two. Yeah. Category 3 requires we don't have the authority on category 2 yet. If they agree to it, then it enacts. Otherwise, it doesn't occur till
we have special legislation passed. Category 3. We It's all just a recommendation. So tonight, whatever we approve would go into effect for category one. It would go into effect if category two agrees to it, votes on it, and agrees to it. And in
category three, it's always just going to be uh Well, it's also if they agree to it, right? Category three. Yeah. If they agree to it, but there's it's so what what's to clarify what's being asked tonight is you've already delegated your authority to me for for most things. This would be reaffirming that in the
model of the the town administrative bylaw as a example to others. the category two and category three employees are conversations that liaison are going to have to have. So we so we can't actually approve this. We don't have the authority. We could we could just we could
express our support it. We could indicate our support of it and then you have to go and we could also approve the process that he's laying out under the category one. Well, yeah, but he already has that. So I know but we're
we can reaffirm that. Yes, he has the authority over category one, but I think the cleaner thing is indicate our support of this approach and tell you to go off and get support from those other boards and committees. Right. Does that work? Hopefully handinhand with liaison who
right right talk about the policy. Yeah. Does that work for you? Yes. Okay. This does give me a little Well, it does give me a lot more authority in that I'm appointing not you if you approve this, right? I'm comfortable with that.
Do you have a motion? Uh, so we the motion would be that we um approve the uh town administrator appointments um memo provided by the town administrator. We we
I don't think you can do that. I think we have to bifrocate it and say I can simplify it. you you would be approving the implementation of the town administrative bylaw or delegating the authority as written by the town administrative bylaw. All I did was describe to you what that would look like. Delegating the authority.
So the motion is to delegate uh the authority to the town administrator as described in the TA bylaw or in theformational memorandum. Do you want this memorate this this document? This was just an attempt to show you what it would look like. The TA bylaw
does grant this authority, right? But the E we've already voted on the TA bylaw. We clearly support that. This is just clarifying how you're going to implement it, right? No, I don't I don't agree. I think I think that this at the now time is the transitional
authority between now and whenever MGL approves the bylaw and not what comes forward for category two. Well, period. And then it mostly affects category 2. So I think we can
vote to affirm that the process outline in category one is we agree to it. And then he has that because he always had that anyway. amateur doesn't mean and indicate our support for his approach to categories two and three and recommend
that he start socializing that to get the agreement of those boards affected and then we can always circle back if they agree and we can codified into policy that's that's the limit of our authority I think
so what's Would that work? So, what would the motion look like? Well, we would move to approve the process outlined in the memorandum for the quote unquote category 1 employees and further recommend that the town
administrator in conjunction with the select board liaison to the relevant boards and committees that fall under the categories two and three uh work with those boards and committees to uh gain their support for the process as outlined. Yeah,
I just would vote to support the memorandum. All right, I like that language. I gave him my best informationational memorandum. This is lays out what how he's going to implement it. And I think he's looking for support so he can go to the staff and the committees and say, "This is
what I showed the select board. This is what I, you know, they voted on." Okay, fair enough. Does that work for you, Ryan? Sure. Sure. I'm I'm worried about the back. Well, they have the you know like people saying why did how did they get to
approve it? They don't have that authority to approve it. But we have the authority. He's asking for our approval. He's got the authority. He wants he wants our approval before he moves. Right. So the the motion will be to um approve the
Are you withdrawing your last motion or do we I'm withdrawing my No, it was never seconded. So Okay. So, we would u make a motion to approve the uhformational memorandum um provided by the town
administrator tonight um regarding the implementation of the new town administrator bylaw. Sure. Period. Period. Somebody writing down the motion?
No, it's a AI's got it. Okay, good. I'll second that. Sure. Okay. Additional discussion. Okay. So, let's do a voice vote. All in favor? I opposed.
The motion passes. Um and so next steps. Do you want liaison? you I'm assuming do you want to send out an initial um communication about this and then then copy the liaison and we do a
fast followup. Yeah, that's fine. I think it's better to initially come from you versus us bringing it in, but we should be right there behind you. We're joined with you in the Yeah. conversations that you end up having. Yeah.
And I just would like to reiterate this isn't that much different than what already exists. It's just codified, right? Um, secondarily, haven't had a chance to comment on the TA bylaw since it passed, but um, the process we described is is very collaborative and communicative.
Um, some of that stuff is communicated prior to vacancies, so it's executed automatically, which helps boards. And the main point that the community could take from that is this is for administrative positions that are very important, but don't don't really rise to the level of the the board
necessarily. And when they have these vacancies, they want them filled immediately because they can't function. Right. So the point of this is not policy efficiency, it's operational efficiency. Yeah. Second, if if you do have a town administrator someday who does not believe in communicating or the collaborative nature of this, you should
not hire them because it's important that um hiring discipline and termination be heavily discussed and clear to everybody. Yeah. Because when it gets bad, it gets bad. And when it's good, it's really good.
and you should continue that. So, um, yep. implement it the way that it should and it should work fine. Yeah, that's I agree with that completely. I think we all do. So, it's helpful to have it outlined here. And I I I think
recommending or requesting that these other the category 3 groups do appoint someone to be the point of contact for HR and whatever we can do to educate those boards about what the responsibilities are um is important because we should continue to promote
that because I I agree I think a lot of especially if you're a new board member you really have no idea how the mechanics work and where your responsibility ends and and um I I think I think a lot of people would appreciate understanding that because it is their responsibility.
Um and then we can go from there. It's not punitive. It's just education about uh and then you should have a point person into that committee or that board from an HR standpoint. If you have a question or a concern, there should be someone you can go to. Maybe it's the
chair. Um but there should be a point of contact. That's a good idea. Are we having is there going to be another uh board and committee on boarding session this year? This month. Yeah. Later this month. I mean I think there should be a module
on that. You know HR liaison. How to that? Every single professional development I go to includes a class on board and board and employee relations. And most of them for me are obviously town administrator select board. But this is
an issue. We're not imparting that to the volunteer government necessarily, right? Well, just the how do you manage? That's how you guys do, but we're not doing the companion site, which is educating the volunteers to Scott's point.
Yeah, that's we offer it, but it's my point was that this is a this is a thing that has to be discussed and yeah, clarified because it like you said, it can be very difficult. So, you should definitely be wary of a bad boss. A bad boss can ruin an organization for sure. Yeah.
But employees can also take advantage of holes in human resource functions. We have happen to have tremendous employees here that work much harder than they should. Um but there are situations when um there are situations when if there's
a hole, people will take advantage of it. And that's the time when people look at government and they say, "Oh, government doesn't run well." So you want to make sure that you protect against that, too. Right. When when we get into goals, there's a I have a a few different elements that for discussion that fall under this bucket of volunteer HR, I'll
call it because as a volunteer and I asked this question, I didn't it wasn't clear, you know, are you subject to the HR policies and code of conduct if you're elected or appointed? If you're interacting with our employees, do we hold volunteers or are they held
to the same standards as employees? And we we focused a lot on the employee part of it, but I do think we we do need to focus on do we have a code of conduct for volunteers? Something we should that's actually something we should take up
and just this whole onboarding. We have an onboarding process for and I'm not looking to create a whole new infrastructure, but I do think we need to think about with with the turnover we see with people getting new responsibilities, right? Um it's a lot and we need to we need to
pay attention to that and and put some process in place or just bar use the process we have for employees code of conduct the school committees typically have those right here create and publicize volunteer and elected official code of conduct. Is that in your goals? That's one of my goals. Right.
Well, it's, you know, it's but but it's it's one specific thing, but I think there's this larger it's a larger goal of helping helping the volunteers be more effective in in their roles and and educated. All right. Anything else on the town administrator bylaw
implementation? That you got what you need? That is uh the start. It should take six months or so before the legislature even takes it up. So that's a long time to this is to cover be in limbo. Yeah. Yeah.
But I think even just what's what we have now and what we've expressed and codified is such a huge leap to where the town administrator position was a few years ago where we had nothing right. We didn't have a job description. Um so we've come a long way. Still ways to go
but moving in the right direction. Yeah. Making good progress. Government does not move fast. Um, all right. Let's move on to select board FY26 goals preparation. I'm not sure how much we need to to cover off on tonight. Um, I did want to generally
um review some of the things that we'll talk about tomorrow and see if there's any uh specific goals uh you want me to think about because I do want to prepare some stuff to react to tomorrow. Um, so what I have on on my radar based on um,
feedback so far is things that we know like the fire station renovation project and and moving forward with that. The DPW project in the in the coming year is an important one. We we we should have a discussion about the everpresent
Highland building and the boghouse and what are our goals this year. And this gets into the need to have versus nice to have and if it's nice to have, what's the implication there? Um, so I think those will be discussion points. Um, I
had added uh we do need to put something in there around culvert the whole culvert plan and um we just need to figure out what our high level goals are there and and I think you know baking into the capital plan is important. So, um,
in terms of budget comments, again, this was on the the docket last year and and continues as, uh, looking at shared services both within the town and across towns. Um, especially in light of some of the large uh, potential projects we're taking on, finding
finding savings and without compromising service is important. And I think there's we've talked about it a long time. I think there's going to be a clear imperative to to need to do some things. So, talking about that and what we want to get out of the next year and working with the other committees like
FINCOM to do that. Um Travis had a comment about obviously working with the school committee to see if there's ways to to best manage resources. And then I had a general comment around
this plan of we have a capital plan. We need a now we need a kind of a lower resolution but important 20 year 30-year plan that really looks at these building projects, culverts, some of these large things that we intend to take on and we and we we hope to get approval on
figuring out what that looks like. This is critically important to special town meeting with the fire station. Maybe we don't want every dollar, but we need to give people an expectation about what we're looking at taking on and if they move forward with the with the fire station to the next step,
what's the implication to the DPW project? So, there's a whole set of things around this. I call it long-term plan and these large projects, especially these debt projects. Um, so can I make a comment on that? Yes. So yeah, I completely agree and I I
think that we really should spend a little bit of the time again at the high level philosophical view that are we aligned like what let's just use fiscal $25 and not worry about inflation. Let's just you know
we're we're approaching the $20,000 per property tax threshold. And we know that despite whatever trimming we do on the operating budget, it's generally going to rise in that sort of 3%
range a year. So you can just line that. You don't have to get all specific about sharing. It's just going to go that way. So I think that understanding philosophically what is the a like it gets to kind of the it's kind of a combination of the fiscal sustainability and sort of
Carlile character. Yep. and a few other things, but mostly that in terms of, you know, do we want a town that everything runs perfectly, the streets look great, the culverts are
taken care of, we have the biggest the big enough building for the fire apparatus, and the the shed looks nice, you know? I mean, there's that, and then there's something short of that that's adequate, not perfect, has has
limitations we're going to live with or the get along you know I mean we we really have to as a board we really should get ourselves calibrated like what is our philosophic approach and and like I said I think it's all about and certainly you and
Ryan are saying the same thing it's all about the capital the operating budget we more or less manage the operating budget pretty well and it will be on a three to something percent slope it doesn't matter what else we do That's the slope it's going to be. So if we just set that aside, it's capital that
really swings the arc. And we have all these things besides the big buildings. We now have these, you know, roads and culverts. And then we have, if you go down Ryan's list, there's all those other things lurking in the shadows that are coming up in the next few years. So,
I think to your point, uh, we don't do it tomorrow, but we should be able to make a reasonably high fidelity five-year plan. Yeah, we know those projects and a not too bad years 5 through10 plan. And I think
that's like where we should start. And what does that really look like in terms of the fiscal $25 type tax bill? Where does that land us? And is that are we comfortable with where that lands us? Yeah, I don't think we'll get to that answer tomorrow. But
no, it won't be tomorrow. But we could take on a modeling exercise. Again, that's that's in big chunks. And and what I'd like to understand a little more from people tomorrow is let's hypothetically say again using now
dollars, we're comfortable with a $20,000 average tax bill. Are we comfortable with a $25,000 average tax bill? Like like where's our tolerance for spending money? Well, I think the other piece of that is if you sign up, it's back to the nice to have versus Yeah. What are the trades?
If we say we got to do a we gota do a fire station, even if it's a not not the gold standard, it's going to be expensive for that and the DPW and the police station and all the other stuff, the the nice to haves
fall by the wayside. We we can no longer entertain, which goes counter. I'm glad you mentioned that because then now you get into Not exactly environmental stewardship because we're not going to be like big polluters, but we won't be as green as we like because green is expensive and
we might not be as caring a community as we like because maybe we don't have the bike pathways or you know something like that that people like. So yeah, I definitely would like to in terms of those trades and where we are go go right to the Highland building, right? That's a that's a building in
search of a purpose for as long as I've been in town. And can can someone come up with a with something to do with it? Sure. Is it going to be worth when you balance it against the other priorities? Right. So, do we see a if if we don't see a path
for that with town funding, what do we do with this building? Right. Assume you're not going to approve $15 million for it. Demo is cheap in the next 20 years. Yeah, I'm not saying you demo it, but like but we we keep there's these projects like that that are just can keep coming
back to spend time. So I again not to have tomorrow's meeting tonight. I think that understanding that tomorrow's session should we should approach it from a philosophical perspective first
and we're not going to fill in all the pieces but at least we can get a sense of our direction. Well, the goal over the course of the year should be that really because we're going to be we're going to be if we're advocating for projects like the fire station and DPW, there are implications to those projects and the
culvert that's probably over $30 million of stuff. Oh, yeah. It's easily. So, if we're getting behind those things, we have to be aware of what the broader implications are. All right. So, um all good stuff. uh
sidewalk connectivity in Carlile that came up as a potent that we should discuss because there is a lot of public support for that. I threw out a lot of ideas. Yep. That's what I was No, but this is what we'll talk about. Um on the on the environmental stewardship
front or whatever, I think really um and Barney, you can you'll take the lead on this is working with Conscom and LSC. a potential goal is to to have the town develop a or update the land use plan and some policies around that. That
might be a goal um that we've talked about. Well, and the other piece of on the sustainability side is also taking advantage of the climate leader designation for us as we're getting into these other projects. There is
potential for applying um taking advantage of some of the money that's available climate leader grants over the next year to 18 months. We're eligible for what a million and a half when a million plus um y
design not design money but uh feasibility money in in our initial conversation we're one of the first communities we want to be a fast mover to get that money. So, that's a potential goal is to just make sure we maximize our climate leader grants. Um,
and then, you know, there's some some goals around the U MVP plan that we may want to discuss as well. Um, and then we'll talk about MBTA communities and and what our goals are
with the work and the special town meeting there. um in terms of uh do we I think you know last year the the language was like support the support the planning board and you know but the you know what do we want to say about
you know supporting um because there are people that don't want the town to be in compliance does do do we take a position on that and also what do we want to do as a committee do we just support the the progress in the process but we don't
take a position on a a plan um or a specific tactic or do we not? That's something we can talk about tomorrow because that'll inform how we operate with that process over the remaining three or four months. Um so we'll talk about that. Um I I had a thing around
the staff and volunteerism and all. I think that kind of falls under the volunteer bucket. Um implement a chair training program, something to that effect. But those all fall within a larger goal. Is there anything any other large I think the Travis expressed this. I I
also believe this is that we took on a lot last year. We have a lot on our plate this year, especially the first half of this year. So, um really focusing on seeing some of these existing projects to completion and doing some continued what I'll call
house cleaning professionalization of town hall is probably a good use of our time. Um, is there anything else that is on individuals radars that we want to discuss tomorrow that might be a new project or might be something I didn't mention and we can talk about it. It's
just helpful for me to know tonight so I can pull together some language. Well, you know, reviewing the our goals from last year. Yep. the area, one of the areas where we had some, you know, uh, sort of private
conversations, but really haven't made any progresses around Benfield. Benfield and, um, I'm not sure what. Anyway, I I think that's a I had it right here at least. Benfield. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a it's a problem. board of health issue or who is the issue is is the town going to support the capital improvements of Benfield. They're unable to take care of that and the management company that manages it
is unwilling or unable but unwilling to spend capital there that it doesn't have reportedly. But Brian and I met with the principles there and I don't know it's it's a you're right Barney it's going to be an ongoing
saga but again I I think in the rubric of you know nice to have like it's a cleanup issue and it's ours and so you know there's that but I like where Travis I mean where Scott's going like big things
like you got to finish what you started we have some imperatives that cost a lot of money we've got to get our arms around all that and then we have to I think look at that whole basket of all the other things that are there and they all have reasons to do them and reasons to defer them and we have to be
realistic about what you know what are our prior what are our priorities like given it's not infinite resources certainly our resources not infinite and neither is the staff so do you want to go down that rabbit hole with whatchamacallit for months on end
no but I think what we do need to do in that case is at least take a a general position as a select board. Are we going to um are we are we willing to fund the
essential sort of health and safety issues that are not being met at Benfield because they are town residents there and they're by most of them can't advocate for themselves but those are Yes. Yes, and I agree. But that's more like a budgeting decision
for the budget committee. Yeah, we can talk about it to make sure we are in agreement, right? But I wouldn't call it like a goal. I would just say if we're in agreement that that's an imperative and they can't advocate and we put a placeholder. Well, if it's a goal, we end up focusing
on it. And if we don't, if if it drops off, then we're going to not worry about it until it erupts as a problem. And then we're going to say, why don't we focus on that? Or maybe we maybe we need a leazison on to that you know. No but maybe someone just this meeting for Travis right now.
So this will we can discuss this tomorrow. Is there anything else in terms of well the other is on the flip side which was the CPA goal from last year and it's um it's it I think I think it needs to
involve more than just the CPC committee to look at prioritization. Yeah. and the and the the funds that are currently um available and those funds that have already been committed to specific um categories.
Is it the same goal as last year generally speaking or is it okay? Yeah. So we can start from so we're we'll open with a the first part of the meeting first whatever 20 30 minutes we'll go back over last year's goals do notes and then we can pull stuff out
of there that we think warrants consideration for continuing his goals. So it sounds like CPA will be another one. Yeah. And take a few off, right? Looks like Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully take more than a few off. No, we did a lot. I mean it's like the culverts like most of them are good and then we still have a couple
of needs attentions. So 5:00 pm. 5:00 pm here. There'll be um sandwiches. Here's the town hall. It's right here. Okay. Only in town hall. Yeah. Yeah. I just I thought we were offsite. I wrote offsite. Well, we looked at off-site options, but doing an on-site offsite.
We're on site. There weren't any great options and like we looked at Gleon and AC's an issue. Like this was the easiest um and we're starting at five. We can sit on that side of the room though. There you go. Change it up. Starting at 5. Yeah, starting at 5.
All right, let's move on here. Let's move on. So, uh, we had a brief discussion set for the the town scholarship funds, priorities, and procedures discussion. I don't know, um, Gretchen had included some information.
I don't know how much we need to get into this tonight. Um when we when we booked this time on the agenda, a it was because of a couple of we had we had some some time available and Gretchen was going to talk to the attorneys. Um
I don't know what the outcome of those discussions were, but we have the document in the packet. So that is the outcome. Um she summarized her her meeting with council and created some recommendations about she's dealt with this a lot. So Gretchen
is kind of our subject matter expert on the scholarship committee and its existence and where we should go with it. But she you said she has some recommendations but that's not in here right in the memo. Which memo? I
in the packet. It's in the packet. Oh maybe the memo. I mean there's a today's packet memo doesn't recommend it. Just Yeah. just outlines all the different uh funds and how they're, you know, what what the language is for how they're to
be used in the amounts. So, um hold on a second. Hold on. It might have gone out today. She has some she just listed a few funds and those are only some of the Well, this is in the new packet, right, that we got this afternoon. 20 funds. I didn't see most of them. She
says she recommends vote to dissolve the current scholarship advice. She's a list of certain things in the in the memo she sent. What page are you? It's page 68 of the PDF, but it's the PDF that came out the 3:00 this afternoon. Yeah, I thought that's what I was
looking at. Jinx. Control. I see. So, the bullet points there. Yeah. So, yeah, we do have it. You have Okay. I thought it Can you put it? Do you have it on screen? Can you put it on screen?
Page 68 you said of the Yeah. PE single vote to dissolve the current. Yeah, that would be great to put it up because somehow or other I didn't see this. Move to dissolve. Okay. I think Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I think it was in the packet but not in the the folder. Do you know what I mean? It's here. It's in the packet. I No, but I don't think it was in the folder. Oh, in the one drive. In the one drive. Yeah, that's how I was looking. Okay. So, should formally dissolve the current scholarship advis. So, there is a
does not have members and any recent history of the committee has not been complying with open meeting law. It is better to formally dissolve and begin a new. Okay. So, the motion is dissolve the scholarship advisory committee. So, we can do that tonight. We can do that. And then the second
point is the board may consider consolidating or dissolving the smaller accounts. There is a legal process with the attorney general to complete this and council would assist and the board may consider working with the school committee to adjust the rules of the robins fund. So there's I think the immediate action item is to dissolve the
scholarship committee. Um, and then I think the other two, um, I think Christine, if you want to start digging into it a little bit and then we can schedule once you've maybe talked to Gretchen and then yeah, you can educate us with with some
recommendations about I mean consolidating sounds like it makes a lot of sense, right? Some of these are pretty small. What council suggested on protecting personal information? The third one would be working I think. So let's let's dissolve tonight and then
let's let's take the other recommendations under consideration and there's more just beyond the bullet there about you know the idea of and I don't think we have to take it up tonight but just so that you're aware to avoid discussing personal financial and
other protected information right yeah it is very helpful I thought it was really she did a nice job she's a star so the well Christina You had said you had with your involvement with the Glee and you had done some work in this area. We we had a couple.
We're we're going to ask Christina to do some research on that. She's also done some of these. She Gretchen or she No. Good. All right. We have a volunteer. One of the problems with the scholarship committee as it existed was this question of of many of the members, this is just very
anecdotal, but many many of the members liked being on the committee, but they didn't like the idea of meeting and open about the scholarship and all those things, which I'm sure sounds familiar with many of the boards, but in particular, this one is tricky because of the financial aid aspects and the need aspects.
So, the the question really that you should that you should ponder and try to settle reasonably quickly is Do you want to continue the scholarship idea? And if so, how can you delegate it in a way that that meets your intent without having to which is that last
paragraph without having to have it an open meeting? The second piece in here that that really needs a policy thought is the funds that are being used are really for financial need as well. So, how does that tie into the COS especially the HS part,
right? and how do you want to set these funds up in order to address multiple things? So, if it's a scholarship in perpetuity, then that's one route. If it's helping people in need, but some go back to their charter, right? You can't just undo their charter just
the Carolyn Hill, which was the primary scholarship fund, isn't is not a scholarship fund. It's a need fund. And um Ryan C can you for example TA driven working group that advisory
group that doesn't subject itself to OML to administer these grants and so that's what it says. So council recommends a member of staff the bottom down here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. um one person, right? Maybe that's a big discussion though
that staff screens based on your parameters and then presents final options to but so can we tonight dissolve the sack and then nominate Christine to dive into those issues with well she's already
well she's the leazison the leazison she's the leazison to a committee we just dissolved well I'm going to stand up a new committee yeah you're going to go the committee route well Okay. So, I'm I don't even think that was decided yet. No, no. She's going to lead the effort, right? Like,
yeah, lead the effort is not the lead the effort is research all this stuff and come up with your recommendations. I'm coming up with a framework is the way that Scott described it to me. So, that this committee that I draft will not be a replacement to the
scholarship committee. It will just be the framers of how this thing should operate. Do I have that right, Scott? Yeah. you want to you want to work to recommend the process and the policies and how I think I'm hearing two different things so I just want to be clear. I don't
think you should stand up a committee yet. You should do what Scott said. You should come up with a process a framework that may or may not a recommendation in that may or may not be to stand up a new committee because I don't want to do that unilaterally.
No, no, you're not doing anything unilaterally. You're going to come back to us and we would just based on your research because one of these recommendations is that we just give it to the town administrator ultimately for you know a policy implementation and and maybe that is the
best course but it may be better to say oh we prefer to have it in a public a a committee and you know have it but that's part of the but we need a person to spearhead that that research right. So do you accept Yeah. We're sorry. If you would choose
to I just I have a list of scholarship funds. Am I missing the packet email that you got from this afternoon? It is a link to the packet, not the one drive. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I missed it too. So
So sticking around, I think. Yeah. So amazing Christine can spearhead it because this this needs this needs attention from the select board working with is Gretchen the who who's who on the town side is the best starting point she'll be
staffing this um when needed. So you can you can go to Gretchian's private point of contact. The financial stuff will have to be a combination of Sandy and and town council. Okay. And school committee. You have to reach
out to them. Don't they control one of at least one of the funds? Yeah. Yeah. So and then it presumably comes back here and then we go out to school committee and get their buy in and everyone else.
She can do some outreach now. I think come back with recommendations and yeah again maybe standing up committee maybe delegating. Great. So can we move to dissolve the sack today? Let's do that. I move to dissolve the sack.
I second the the sack the scholarship scholarship advisory committee. We have a second. Um any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a voice vote. All in favor? I opposed.
And we don't need a vote to empower Christine to know. Great. Great. Go forth and conquer. Go forth and conquer. All right, let's do TA report. Let's get out of here. Yeah, I agree. Yep. TA report. Let's go. Let's go. Just a simple Hurry up. Simple.
This is the last agenda item besides community. Want you to know that Barney wanted me to make this longer. So, ahead of schedule. Here is my uh wellreceived town administrative report. in under town events and town hall news. Just calling
attention to the municipal newsletter that goes out monthly. This does have a strong lead readership. We do want to encourage boards and committees and through our liaison, boards and committees to submit more information to this. The the general idea besides informing the public is for boards and
committees to inform each other. So this is a standin for what we call our all boards meetings so that boards and committees can be more familiar with other pe what other people are doing and then that encourages collaboration. We did start our new town hall public
hours effective on July 1st. The town hall hours are now Monday through Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. They used to be 9 to 3. Then Friday is a shorter day 9:00 am to 12 pm. We have processed all of the there wasn't many
employee requests for alternate hours and none of them conflict with keeping departments open. So we do have small departments many cases it's one or two people. So there will never be a time where we can fully say everything is open but we have a pretty good plan to have consistency across departments. So
everyone is um um following the process that if they're they want their if their hours they want them changed from what we're saying is the town hall hours that they've come to you with that change otherwise
and had them approved. Yes. It's very few people we did expect in any organization when you implement a change. So the problem was there wasn't a standard hours for employees. There was definitely a standard hours for the town hall operations. So there was a patchwork of of hours. So to standardize
all of these hours without smashing morale or or losing employees, etc. We had to create a slow process. So we're doing we're doing it slow. We're honoring prior agreements that that still have accountability and moving people towards uh standard hours,
especially new hires. So when a new hireer comes in, they're told this is the schedule and um they would have to be negotiated prior to the hire that they would be in an alternate schedule. Okay. for department updates. We talked a lot tonight about the fall town meeting. You
are tracking the four big discussions which are MBTA communities, the demolition delay bylaw, the the wetland bylaw, and the fire station. Continuing to ask you, it's one thing to talk about the logistics, but at some point you will have to dig into the
details of these issues. So in terms of your own process, understanding what you need for the information about each, whether it's written information or presentations in person or discussions is is really important because of that compressed timeline. So you know this, but I'm I'm trying to get you to not
forget that you need to actually advise on these as well, not just run the process. So what do you need for road maintenance? We the next round of road maintenance which includes Feeasant Hill for sure and then alternately possibly Actton Street and
Berry Corner Road and Lane is out to bid. We have a strong interest at least four of our traditional paving companies that are all great have come to the the pre-bid process. These will be open on July 15th and we able to present you a picture of what paving can be done while
maintaining funding for the future. Additionally, we are reserving money for the complete streets and shared streets design initiative, assuming that we did get the complete streets grant, which we don't know yet. And then started, as you heard tonight, a structural analysis of the Westward Street cover, praying that
the temporary fix is now the permanent fix. Um, I am not an engineer and I know nothing, but it looks great. So, I'm hoping that holds. We uh lastly, we are tenatively penciling in a road maintenance hearing for August 22nd. We are directing people
who have road issues to 22nd or 26th. 26th, sorry, August 26th. I'll make that change. At your regularly scheduled meeting, this will give residents an opportunity to voice their concerns. And I will note that I was going to be gone on the 12th and I recommended that it be on this
date so I could be here with you while people complain about their roads. I'm with you. Thank you. some contract approvals that you'll definitely care about but that are in within the budget. The Wheelbraider contract, North Andover, Inc. uh is our partner for waste
delivery. This is our DPW brings uh trash from our transport station to this facility. Uh we signed a new 5-year contract with them. We've had a good relationship and there are surprisingly not a lot of people who do this but we're able to keep the current year under three and a half percent which is
less than what we budgeted for with a five a 4% annual increase which we did comps and is industry standard. They also agreed to pay us $5,000 per year as a community benefit which offsets some of that increase and allows us to pay for something like hazardous waste day.
This was all done uh with the T-AC and um gym hall. So, we feel good about this new contract and continuing a very strong relationship. We also finalized the new annual agreement with the LRTA. And I would call out that Jeff did a great job negotiating new capital,
making sure that we had good, strong buses to work with. He advocated for the community. The primary thing we get out of LRTA is these capital investments. So, we get the buses as part of this. We used to pay into the MBTA fee and get almost nothing out of that. I don't want
to bring up MBTA as an issue, just saying we didn't have that that access. Uh the LRTA is a much better deal for us. And I'm working with Jeff to make sure that we're covering all of our transportation costs and aligning them with budget goals. You heard a lot about culverts tonight,
so I'm not going to go over culverts again, except to note that it needs to be part of the long-term capital plan, which which you stated tonight. The elevator modernization project is still awaiting decision from the Attorney General's office. that could come any minute and I'll make sure to update you when it does. The best case scenario for
us is that we continue what we've already lined up, which is our work with our winning vendor. Worst case is we have to rebid the project. I will be finalizing the bid package for the brick building HVAC system upgrade. This will go out this week and should
return in August for uh probably a September or October install. And lastly, as you know, there was a major leak in the the bathrooms here in town hall. So, that required us to redo the scope of work. We're finalizing that and then we'll put that back out to bid
for the for the MFC to run. CPA projects, some updates. We've put the Bant Davis track rehabilitation out to bid. This is mostly a paving contract and we've had a lot of interest in this as well. Those responses are due by July
25th and we have contracted with Nichch to begin assessing the septic capacity at the boghouse land. This would inform the board on on how much land you would need in order to do a septic system and whether or not it's feasible to do affordable housing project. So you'll get a lot of information out of this.
This is funded through the administration fund of the CPC using CPA funds and that should be done within the next month or two. Um and this will come directly to you for a discussion about the boghouse building
construction projects. Um the design continues for the library. Not much information beyond that. They are planning to meet next week. So we should see an update on the design then. Police station renovation is starting to really move. We had our first coordination and kickoff meeting with APC, the project's
contractor. They are finalizing all of the last documentation with CMS before they get an official notice to proceed. And then construction will begin in September. It looks like full construction will conclude by early next summer with the
bulk of it happening in the spring. The police station will remain open throughout most of the construction period. Um we do need to reach out to the owner of Ferns and talk to Center Park about parking and and other ways to alleviate some costs there. One savings
we were able to have is the both the OPM and the contractor did not require a trailer. So, we're going to see some savings there as long as we can be agreeable with things like parking. And lastly, you you heard about the DPW building. So, this is now pending direction from you where you want to go
with with what you learned. Some upcoming discussion topics. I still would like to get MCRS in front of you when you have time just so you understand the long-term assessment costs as it does relate to tax tax and affordability in the next 10 years or so
because of the um the liability that they're funding. Remind me who MCS is. The Middle Sex County Retirement System. Got it. This is a copy and paste error, but another discussion point would be Tecton coming in front of you uh I believe at
your August 12th meeting in order to discuss design. Yep. Probably more about that during the liaison reports. The road maintenance hearing we talked about and that is correct there. August 26 and then at some point you have to evaluate me again. Just reminding you it's that time
of year. You're all pumped. I can tell. Two sign approvals for you. The Congressional Church is advertising their block party from August 24th to 26. And the Savoyard Light Opera Company is advertising their fall show with a banner and a Rotary sign request.
And just quick clarification, so the um Congregational Church block party, it's August 24th to August 26th, not September. It's not a month's worth or is it a month's worth of publicity? That's what they requested. I will check.
You don't do a month typically. Yeah. Even those wild congregationalists don't party. Just party for a month. Party for a month. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I think that that's correct. It's probably two weeks, but I will make sure
it's in the thing the application. Let's look. Let's see. Let's keep going. Keep rolling. Okay. Staff recognition. So, if you if you have not heard yet, um Alana wanted to
Lynch, our assistant town clerk, has put in her resignation. So, I'd like to thank Alana Lynch for her dedicated service as our assistant town clerk. She submitted a resignation. She'd be leaving at the end of the month, but we were thrilled to share that she accepted an opportunity as a video game production producer, which I think is a
pretty cool job. We knew when we hired her, that's what her dream was. Um she she was one who was good at municipal government, but that was never her long-term goal. So, we were able to get as much out of Alana as we we could and um this is an opportunity that if she didn't take it,
I think we'd be mad at her. So, although she initially sought just part-time work here, she was quickly placed into a very challenging situation when our town clerk sadly Peggy Wang passed away. So, Alana played a crucial role during this transition, going above her job description to support one of the most
demanding election seasons in recent memory. She assisted the onboarding of two interim town clerks and three if you include Gretchen when she was the temporary town clerk and then helped welcome Ashley. So she had four bosses in in two years. Um it wouldn't be an overstatement or five I should say. It
wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Alana helped the town function smoothly during one of its its toughest periods in terms of staff support. In addition to her primary duties, she worked extra hours assisting the historical commission with their complex administrative work. and she makes the best millionaire shortbread, which I
didn't know what it was. She brought it in today and we're definitely going to miss that. So, we wish her the best as she pursues her dreams. And she uh does have two ends, by the way. It's a L A M. Yes. Which I fixed in the public document.
And the And so her it's the end of the month, you said, right? Uh this Yeah. Yeah. And so are we starting the process then to find a replacement? Yep. This is a consultation appointment. So we're um discussing it with the historical commission. We are
recommending that this position be rolled into the assistant town clerk position. It become uh the historical commission one gets rolled into the assistant town clerk for a full-time position. Right now it's 25 hours which is still benefits eligible and then Alana does part-time with the historical
commission. So making that one job. We'd also add the duties of um on call or necessary board support, mostly um minutes and catching people up on minutes to this job description as well to make it more robust. And that's
part of our shared assistance strategy. But you're learning about this at the same time the historical commission is. So we're hoping they support that and then we can advertise this at the end of the week. Okay. And I've got some dates for you. The the thing I just want to remind everyone is I'm going to be gone for two weeks. I'll
be appointing Aubrey as the acting town administrator while I'm at Fort Drum. And I was told there is some cell reception up there. So I might call some of you. There is. I was just up there. That's the area. Um I'll FaceTime you for the artillery
fire. Wasn't expecting that. No. So I won't be able to hear you when I get back, but I'm excited to be back. Right. Great. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Ryan. Um I don't think we need to do liazison
reports, but did you want to give an update on the um No, we'll be meeting um at the next meeting fire station. We'll be talking to the select board and I'll include the dates for that. But we have dates um August 12th, Tecton will present revised concepts and then we have an opportunity to refine on
September 9th. So, um August 12th. Okay. Yep. What? All right, I'll just raise this later. The conversation that we had two weeks ago, you know, at our select board meeting
about OPM, but we can talk about it. Oh, that. Yeah. Okay. Um, so at this point, we'll see if anyone remaining has any community input. Christina, seeing none, um, can I get a motion to adjurnn?
So moved. All in favor? I I opposed. All right. Thank you everyone. All right. Five minutes to speak.