This is skip. You skip a couple of weeks and this is what happens. I don't know what we're doing. We're all get awful sloppy. Give it one second while everyone comes in. All right. You're good. We're good. Yeah. All right. Well, welcome everyone to the May 6 select board meeting at uh
the Clark room of town hall. Um I see Mr. Modell is walking in. So thought there'd be like a line out the door. Public comment, right? Public comment. The hottest ticket in town, right? Yeah. Well, um, look there. Bunch of people have Oh, yeah. They're online ready. The
usual suspect. So, tonight's a little different. We're going to be talking about the annual town meeting. Um, we're going to have public comment throughout the articles that we're going to be talking about. We're going to start with the police station renovation, then fire station renovation, MBTA community
citizen petition, accessory dwelling unit bylaw, town administrator bylaw, and then the budget and capital items. Um, and the way I'm going to kind of structure that is we do have some invited guests tonight for to discuss the um I believe police and fire, but
maybe it's just fire. And so we'll um have those and then um but we will open it up during that time for public comment. But that said, if there's anyone who has a um a public comment on something that we don't plan to talk
about this evening, um I just kind of went over those bulleted points. Um you're welcome to make that comment now or ask a question. Anyone online? All right. Anyone in the room? Most people here are for specific things. All right. Um so we do have a
quorum. All five members are present and um we will start with the unless the town administrator has any other new business that we should be aware of. Ready to go. Ready to go. All right. Um we'll start with the police station
renovation project. Actually, I'm sorry. Can I make a quick public comment? Yes, you may. Thank you. Um um first of all, I just wanted to say publicly since this is the first meeting we've had since the 250th celebration
that I think the town of Carlile did an amazing job. All of the staff that pitched in and Scott Evans and his committee and the experience we all had as five members of the select board being involved in the conquered celebration and the parade was um I think really meaningful for all of us.
Mhm. Um the other thing which is a very sad bit of news, but I I'm sure you're all aware of this, but I just wanted to say publicly that I know all of the select board members uh join me in just um sending our very um you know,
condolences and support for all of the families and friends and um teachers and students that have been affected by the tragedy of the four students um that were in a horrible car accident, the three of whom have died. Um, and I know
that I just want to acknowledge that here um, publicly as the select board really wanting to show our support for both communities as well as the specific family here in town that has lost um, their child. So, thank you.
Very well said. And thank you, Barney. Um, okay. So why don't we move into the first item on this agenda which is the police station renovation project. I think we have to discuss the warrant article on that and the specific
question we have is the amount that we want to ultimately put on that. So maybe Mr. Town Minister you can kind of get us up to speed or invite who you think should I do.
Great. Hello, Neil. Good evening. How are you tonight? Good. If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and Sure. Neil Joyce, Construction Monitoring Services. We're the OPM for the police station renovation project. Okay. So, we're we're down to the number
that needs to go into the motion and then will eventually be what is carried during the during the election. So, as you know, town meeting sets sets the budget and the election would allow for the debt exclusion override, which would fund the
project. So, walking through what we know is the construction bid, the general bid came in at $3,383,41. Alternate one was generally agreed upon as something that we wanted to accept and that did not change the bidding or who was selected for the
bidding. and that alternate is 11,360. The project has always carried a $75,000 furnishing allowance. And we have two updated numbers for the architect and the OPM fees, which are 102,000 and 218,000
respective. That 102,000 number has has changed uh from the last time you saw this. So, the total is 3,789,761. If you were to take what was last discussed, which is a 12% contingency for that total, that would
be 454,771. That's on everything that you was just discussed for a total of 4,244,532. If you remember the last time we talked about it, we approximated 4.3. So, this is under that. The only other thing that has been discussed since the
last meeting, the police station building renovation committee met. They decided because the specs on the project that were bid had resistant heat and not uh heat pumps for both of the garage and the sallyport that they were not going to support that. So they're recommending
not to accept alternates two and three. So this would be representation of what the police station building renovation committee is recommending for you. Can you refresh our memory? What's alternate one? Alternate one is the finishings on the first floor to
include flooring, painting, yep, etc. Got it. And on on the point with the heating, can you just clarify there will be no heating or will there be a f a future request for a heat pump system? There there will be no heating. If there was going to be
heating, it would be a future request. Okay. So, their their recommendation is to go the no heating route as opposed to doing this alternate this Correct. Interest. Yeah. Because the alternate didn't meet what what is currently the way we install heating. So they said, you know, for much less you
could put a space heater in there and test the heating that way. If you're going to do the full the full heating system, that should be in the future. How far in the future? It can't be included in this bid regardless. So it wouldn't matter.
It wasn't spec that way. Um, another quick question if I might. So the um the 102 architect fee is what we saw in our packet here um that describe which is on um for those that
want to see it page four of the packet if you just go in order and it shows I don't know if you can put that graph up Ryan but it shows that um four of the 10 I guess you'd say items that were
in I I believe in the original scope if I read this correctly Neil were have been completed according to this um chart and that the contract administration and the warranty
represents the $102,000 that's in the architect fees. I believe it's for the construction administration services when they say contract administration. You think that's construction construction administration which is in our packet. And then this warranty piece
of 1,200 is 9 months after sub substantial completion. They basically come back and do a last walk through. Okay. Um but that's the architect fee. So the where's the OPM fee and how has
that changed or not changed? Our OPM fee has not changed. Okay. So the other graph you just Well, maybe you want to let people catch up to this part. Yeah. Um, so the OPM fee is the original contract, okay, for the whole police
station renovation project, including Neil's appearance right here now. Right. So that's not changing unchanged. Okay. Okay. So the the total amount being asked for at town meeting though is more than the
102,000. Uh, so I'm just trying to Right. Didn't you just say it's What did you say we're asking for at town meeting? 4244. We're only asking for the incremental extra, right? It's 4244 minus the 3. You
should that top line right above the where it says item. You should do that math, Ryan, on the spreadsheet right now. Right. Where we can see what is it we're asking of this town meeting? How much more are we asking from them? Original from last. I erased it all to simplify it. I think that's funny. Well,
guess back to where it was before. Well, last year we approved how much? Just Okay. So, we don't even need all that. We just need that approved 3550. 3550 minus 188. Yeah, there we go. And
so, we're looking for another 700,000. A little under 700. A little under 700,000. But it's being present. And in the in the election, the amount will be for the debt exclusion will be the incremental amount that's being approved or the
whole amount. Remind me on that one. So town meeting sets this number, right? The 42 or the 700? The four the 42. So you're going to amend last year's vote to the new number. The election just allows you to tax that. So the number won't be in the election ballot. It'll
just be a town meeting. The number won't be in the election. What are they going to see in the ballot? That they're that you're asking them to override Prop 2 and a half for the debt for the police station building. I won't say how much. It never does. Okay. So, backing up
again to um that first briefer or it's probably on here somewhere. Where is the contingency? So, you've taken um what percentage is that? 12. 12% you settled on. Okay. Um because remember we had a lot of back
and forth on this and I think 12 is where we landed but I could be wrong. That's what I recall. We've got our you wanted just to ask him. Well yeah because I don't know if you listened to the recording or but you know three meetings ago or two meetings ago there
was quite a bit of back and forth and not a sort of clear agreement about what that contingency should that what what was being recommended for that contingency. Right. So any any renovation project we would recommend a minimum of 10%. Whereas you have not
done a tremendous amount of investigation in an occupied building, we recommended that it should be increased and I think the recommendation that was provided from the team last time was somewhere between 12 and 15% and I think you folks landed at 12. So
that's good. I'm good with that as long as you're comfortable with it and we'll go from there. That's 12% of the new cost that we're going to be total of the total new cost. Okay. But um Neil, so we're at the low side of the
contingency contingencies there because there might be things that happen. So is that advisable to be at the low side? Honestly, now that we've crossed a $4 million barrier, anybody going to care if we went to 15
or like what happens if you run out of contingency? So, not shown on this to try and simplify it because it I perhaps modeled it last time is the PEG fund and the rebate. So, that's another contingency. So, that's a little bit of contingency
there. And then you would have without another town meeting vote, you would have the the annual fincom reserve which you can't bank on, right? But a percentage of that could be used. So I would say you have another 100,000
backup here. Okay. That we could draw on from other sources if we had to. And isn't something like OPM's contract fix? So the 218 is locked in on this or not? It's pretty much so I I believe that our
contract is for a set period of time to the extent that we're finished within 12 months, which I believe is what the contract says, our fee is fixed. If we go 14 months for some unforeseen reason, we would look for an appropriate
adjustment in compensation based on the level of effort that's expended. And and is that based on the hourly fees that you quoted for the under the fire station part of this packet? No, this is a completely separate separate hourly fee. No, I know it is, but I didn't know
if your hourly fees would still apply if you all had to put in more time on it. I think they're the same, Barney. I don't think they changed because we ex provided proposals in the same time frame. Okay. I don't remember right off the top of my head, but they should be
very close. Okay. If not the same. So the architect fees are based on if something's found where there needs to be more design work or if some of the permitting and and regulatory stuff requires a significant amount of meetings then that could also increase.
Could it decrease? It's not going to decrease. All right. All right. And and so sorry just to come back. Um so the additional amount that we are asking town meeting to approve and I
know we're doing it in a way that they're sort of approving a new total cost but what is the additional amount from what it was originally $694,344 is the additional from the 355 that we
approved at town meeting to 694 $694,344 but that's not all coming from we're not asking for all of that to be approved approved because we are aren't we applying asking for that to be approved. We are I'm saying Barney is that that in and of itself may not be sufficient. No,
I get it. But some more money that we're not talking about, right? I'm just trying to remind us all that in previous conversations we were applying um some funds from other sources already to lower and you're saying now we're not
going to we're not going to apply for instance the um the media uh blanking on the name of our PEG funds for instance. Are we not doing that anymore in terms of trying to lower this cost? No, we will. So that's
embedded in this. I just tried to simplify the contingency calculation because it was being based on different markers. So this is the most consistent. If you wanted to have less contingency because you have PEG funds and then we can do that. But the first things we will use are non- tax dollars, right? So
the rebate will be applied first, the PEG funds will be applied first. Hopefully we don't use contingency and then we just tax with the project. But to Barney's question, the number the 4244 doesn't already have PEG funds deducted. So the idea if we can use PEG funds and maybe we have leftover money
which would first but okay you just bond less. That's all right. But we don't we have to bond before we know the final cost? No. No. Okay. So we to simplify it a lot. We will temporarily borrow
until the project is complete. Once the project is complete and the costs are known, then we'll permanently borrow. Got it. So, we'll only borrow as much as we need. Okay. Okay. Are we doing the the term on that? Are we We talked about 20 versus 30. Has that decision been made? That's your
decision. Do we do that tonight or is that future decision? You don't have to do it tonight. You have to do it before we borrow, which is end of the project. End of the project. Okay. So, I think we hold off till we know what we're doing.
where we are. Um, I'd actually open it up to the public at this point. Is there anyone who has a question about this or something? Yeah, just to state your name and your address. Yeah. Bernstein, Peter Hans Road. Okay. So, uh, the town administrator used a phrase I've never
heard used in this context before. He said, "At the warrant, we'll be asking for a Prop 2 and a half override." Did you actually mean that? Dead exclusion. Debt exclusion. You meant debt exclusion. Well, they're the same, but No, I don't think they're Maybe
technically, but not in the minds of the voters. I like that exclusion. I can't speak for the minds of the voters, but technically is a dead. I can speak for the minds of the voters. Use the term debt exclusion, please. That exclusion. You never called it a Prop 2 and a half override, right? We've always called it a excluded
debt. Yeah. But the wording will be dictated by the the statute. The statute. Yeah. I mean there's it's the your standard warning on the election ballot believe it's a debt exclusion say in the warrant exclusion it's called the debt exclusion because you're excluding the
debt from proposition 2 and a half right I wouldn't call that prop yeah here it is no something else yeah on the on our you know the current warrant book does not say anything about prop two and a half yeah just in common describe is that allowed to exempt from oh yes it
does sorry allowed to exempt from the provision of Prop 2 and a half, so-called the amounts required to pay for the bonds, etc., etc., etc. It's not how the the layman use Prop 2 and a half. Point taken. It's debt exclusion. Thank you. When we're just generally
referring to it, give Ryan credit. It is the same. It is the same. There's three types of Yep. Okay. Are there any further questions in the audience here? Comments? Is there anyone online that wants to talk about the police station?
has a question for the board or the OPM. Okay, seeing none, um, we just have to come up with a number here as to what we want to do. Do we want to go with the 4244 532 or David, you had suggested
maybe a contingency raising it a little bit? Well, I mean, rounding up the number, you could round it up to 700. What's the point of not doing that? But um yeah, I mean if as Ryan has articulated, there are some other sources. What I don't want to
get is 99% of the way and need more money and have to stop and then we have to extend Neil and his team. So if we're confident like I would go to the high side to 15. Now I haven't done the math but you know the difference between 12
and 15 is 3% 3% of 4 million is 120k. So, if Ryan feels like he can find 120K in the cushions, the seat cushions, then I'm good with that. But yeah, it's 100k difference basically, right? 120k what I said. So,
uh I don't really care at this point. We've crossed the barrier we said we'd never cross. So, fine. So, we're on the foot island. Huh. And if you don't need the contingency, you don't end up No, I know. borrowing it. Correct. You don't. That's correct.
So, it's it's a basically an option buffer. All I'm saying is I don't think we're going to lose people's vote if we ask for 700 or 800. Well, and I think it it also people who don't like Costco creep will say no anyway and then the others will be fine. I'd like to think we wouldn't inherently spend the extra money just because No, I don't think we
will, right? Because it's contingency and it gives you that extra cushion. I mean, you made a point, right? We haven't done I I don't know exactly how you said it, but there's some risk in this project, right? Some risk in every project. In every project. I know. But I mean, especially a building that's
occupied Exactly. 24/7 prior to beginning a renovation. So that's that's right. Yeah. So if we ask for I I really at this point I I'm ambivalent as to what we ask for.
Why don't we just go to like 4.3 and that gives us another sure a little bit. Are we asking but again I'm a little confused now. Are we going to ask for the overage or are we going to ask for the total? So we are amending last
year's project. So I have to apologize. I mean my mom is I got a medical issue. So I'm going to be in and out. To answer David's question. You were amending last year's vote. So, you're taking that 3.5 number and turning it into this new number from tonight. And last time it
was the vote was 3.383. This one 35. That was the town meeting 355. Can you roll down just one more line where you had that number? So, she given the other way. My point was given that the last time we did it, you know, as a
as a specific number, not rounding up or rounding down, I would recommend we stick with the, you know, 600 or 42 44532 rather than rounding it up or down
somehow. I see. the original, don't you? See the original that logic, but well, it just because we've had this conversation a couple times before. When you round it to an even number, then some folks wonder, is is this a real number? And
because we gave a real n we approved a real number at the last town meeting, which was not a real number. Well, I when I say real, I mean it was a specific itemized number and it was not an even. It's not a big deal, but it just a suggestion rather than I don't want to get into debate about that
rounding it up. One of my criticisms of last year was it was a very specific dollar number when in fact we didn't know was an estimate like just as this is an estimate. Um but we've honed in on this estimate. We now have the plans done. We have every I mean this is a
much better estimate than what we were you have you have a bid in hand. So you have the largest 3.4 four of that $4.2 million is fixed and the other 218 and 102 is strongly restricted. Well, then let's
just leave it at the number that they're recommending. And I mean everything else is arbitrary. So, okay. I I think yeah, I would prefer to just leave it at the 4244 532 if we encounter a significant over, you know, something that we didn't
probably more than 50 grand if we do, I guess. Yeah. then we're really into finding something major is kind of my take on it because I think 12%'s a pretty healthy contingency even for an operating building. So that's my opinion but
anyone else I agree with that. Let's go. I'm agnostic. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. Do we need a vote on that or do you just need direction on that? Yeah, we should No, we need a vote. Um, I move that we present um the um
police station uh article at town meeting uh at this new number of 4,244,532. Is that enough? That's what we're But I mean, isn't that enough of a motion? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Second. Scott seconds
it. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go a voice vote. All in favor? I. None. Well, none. One abstained. Yes. Or just one. Not one. Present. Abs. Absent. Okay. Okay. Moving
on. All right. To the fire station renovation project. Yes, sir. So, we uh we heard a presentation at two meetings ago. Um, regrettably, you weren't able to attend. I know you had another professional
commitment at that time. Um, apologies to the board. Yeah. Well, they come up. That's part of being a professional, right? You got to juggle these things. Um, at this point, I think we need to determine where we're going to go with this project. And in the broadest sense,
um, you presented or we were presented with three options. Um, so what do you think? Should we review those three or what? How do you So where do we end up? I'd be happy to number and I assume you've been
brought up to speed with you you're familiar with the presentation that was given but also some of the deliberations around that. Yeah. Okay. All right. So the the two contracts that you have currently are Tecton who is our designer for
70,000. Actually for you should have done that immediately. for 70,000 and CMS for 72,500. So, um CMS is here and they're being carried through the town meeting their services
in in helping you so far. What what still remains from the Tecton contract uh in in addition to what you've already received is a cost estimate, community outreach, and a final conceptual design. So, you saw a draft conceptual design. uh they owe you
a final some community outreach and then a cost estimate of that design. So that is included in the 70,000 that you've already contracted and have funding for. What was prepared for you um was four options from Tecton as to how you
might move forward to fall town meeting. This is something that I requested of them based off of your conversation. So in option one, you can see up here you would get and all of these include what's already been contracted. So that plus um significant community outreach would be option
number one. So they would take your complete that conceptual design and then really beef up the community outreach outreach based off your conversation to to talk about that design and to get feedback then get a cost estimate and that's what you would bring to town
meeting in the fall for funding design decision. Clar just a clarification question when you say conceptual design is that essentially at the level of what we saw the first three up. It's It's probably a little bit more defined than that, but
but it's not a full schematic design, but it's enough it's enough specificity that you could bring that to a town meeting. It would it would probably be a floor plan with a site plan and a rendering of what the finished product
would appear. Okay, that's for the 70. That's what is owed. That's what's owned right now without us paying more money, right? Of what is the question, right? Okay. So, um, so in option one, the 25,000 is is a answer to what you talked
about, which is then taking that agreed upon design and then really flushing it out with the community. So, that would be option one. Well, don't I miss I think you're mischaracterizing at least what I intended to say. It's not that you would take a design and socialize it. It's that you would socialize the
concept of what do we need for a fire station and then come up with a design. It's it with this process. It's driving me crazy. We're always putting the cart before the horse. Here's the design. What do you think? That's not the way to do it. It's what do we need? What are our options? And then we take a look. So
I think that this whole thing I have to say I think has been basswards. Okay. My opinion. David, I hear you. But I do want to push back a little bit on that because we started this by getting an OPM, someone who could represent our
interests and then we hired Teon, which we interviewed and to go about this and we came up with a programmatic concept that we wanted. We said that there were four things essentially. I'm just going to run through them for the public, too. But but we we wanted we we think there's
an issue. When the fire station was first designed, it was all male firefighters. Now there's some gender issues. That's the So we think that the you know facilities needed to be upgraded to accommodate the women in the fire department which is approximately 25%. We um we looked at the uh
firefighter equipment and the hazardous equipment, the hazardous chemicals they're dealing with. They don't have proper um decontamination areas for that. So we think there's issues with firefighter safety. We also looked at the u the apparatus that they have in in
there and there's a question as to what additional storage space do we need interior storage space for that apparatus and and there's a question about what that apparatus is. Is it just ambulances? Is it just like and that's I think the one of the things that's still
at least in my mind a real open question but I think in in all of ours just listen and the last thing is really I think the biggest thing that we're dealing with which is that we have a on call fire force that is harder to come by. They have there fewer people in town
who are volunteering. We're getting them from farther out. We and the chief has said in order to keep this for force the way it is, we're going to need to build a facility that can attract them and so that they can, you know, have better camaraderie. But it's not just that.
It's actually having some quarters where people who are from outside of town can come stay overnight when they're on call and that will add to the longevity of this type of force. Otherwise, what work during the day? So in that being kind of
the biggest component of this because we have to think about how long we're designing this fire station for because we may reach a point where it's a tipping point where we no longer can have an on call force and we have to get a professional fire force for
firefighters for this town. And so we given that we said we want you to evaluate all this those four things and do it for 10 million bucks. That was what which they couldn't right which they came down which they which they came back and they said here are the
various options and the lowest cost option they presented was 10 to 12 million and it achieved and this is where I'm going to rely on the OPM here to explain you know what those options were just to refresh our memory as to
what the what you put forward. So, as I as I recall, the the 10 to1 12 million option provided um some additional bays or additional apparatus space and a
uh small portion of additional office and administrative areas for the department. That was option that was the lowest cost. it was somewhere between 10 and 12 million sort of to be determined. And interjecting in there that that there was an estimated lifespan and I
don't know who came up with that but saying potentially that we would be out of that that would serve us for five years and we really would grow out of that. Was that something you performed? It was in your report. That was with that was done that was forecasted by
Tecton and I I have to admit Travis I don't have that committed to memory. Okay. So, in concept, first option was 10 to 12, address the needs for the apparatus and equipment. Um, didn't really provide any
um of the other points that were included or only minimally accounted for a a a segregated amount of the other points that were inside of the scope of the project. The next auction I think
was 15 million. 1516 14 16 somewhere in that range. Um yeah I'm looking at it here. It was 14 to 16. And that uh if there were um six goals that was um
appropriately addressing I want to say four out of the six. It was six out of seven. Okay. Six out of seven. Why don't we just have Ryan? Do you have that? Uh that's page um it's page 31 from the packet of uh to there it is right select
there it is. Yeah. And the area to the right is what you were just talking about the goals based on you know what Travis was reviewing for what we said we wanted. And then the the the final option was addressing it as if it were a full
station. It's a much larger um addition to the existing building and it was um estimated at somewhere between 20 and 27 and 30 million which we knew was a non-starter for the for the town. It's still only addressed six out of the
seven. Well, it's the 10 million budget. So in your judgment that was not addressed in any of No, no. saying the the 27 to30 didn't address more issues than the 14 to 16. Well, the only they didn't do the 10 million budget. Didn't meet the 10 million budget. So, what's
the difference then between I don't know because the square footage is significantly different between one and three, right? It's 10 five. I don't know. Maybe we won't want to get into this level of detail right Well, they had said at the time they just did a if
you throw all the requirements in, but so let me go back to I appreciate that Travis reiterated the points for the audience and I think it is important that we went through a process to identify those goals. Right. What we did not do, we
self-described, we'll call it fire station building committee, right? We haven't done jack. We didn't go out to the community and stress test those. We didn't do a deep dive with the firefighters to stress test those. We knew nothing. But give it
to these guys. They cranked it through and they present options. And now, and I'm sorry I got mad, but now take one and socialize that one. That is not a good process. It is not a good process. We need to belly up to be in a real building committee and do a process like
I presume the police guys did. I know the school guys did when we were did that. and do a real process and really vet out for ourselves what we really need and then commit them to helping us uh you know make sharetses and all the
stuff they do. Yeah, that's what I think we need to do. Right. So I blame us. I don't blame Ryan. I don't blame OPM. Well, I don't think the select board is the right. But then we shouldn't be the building committee. That's fine. Agree with that. Let's not sign up for that assignment going forward. you can't no
here here's our issue as a and this is just we're dealing with this this is not really our consultants's issue but that we we started this process and we said let's get a building committee or let's get a design committee the design committee went out and and said you know
we've got all these great ideas and we want to do this and the select board we said wait a second guys we can't we can't like start because they they I think you know had grander vision than perhaps we did. So our, you
know, we said, well, let's take it back to the select board and let's us figure out what, you know, representing the town, what do we think will be sold, you know, get through town meeting and and be appropriate. So it's on us now. You're saying, well, let's throw it back
out, but you've got to give us direction. And and we gave some direction of let's we thought 10 million was kind of the the top cap of what we could do. And now that we know it's not, I think we have to take another look at that whole thing. And I do believe we
have not done our job to um solicit enough opinions especially the ones that I I think one of the things that we the only thing we have done so far is to be informed basically that for those four
or five goals that you just articulated we have to spend more than 10 million because we cannot achieve even those go those those we cannot achieve those goals with the budget we set. I think that was the a very the bottom line
realization of this. Okay. And so now we have to figure out you have to figure out uh where do you go with that information um and and which of the goals either a which of the goals are you willing to
um sacrifice or b how much more are you willing to spend? And I think a third thing that we should really be thinking of is you know maybe we we need one other piece of information and that is some sort of a forecast as to how long
we can actually maintain an on call fire department. We started at one point talking about regionalization of various projects and it's taken up services and it's that study has taken a backseat because we've got really busy with other
things. But maybe that's another piece that has to be still at least explored and answered before you build a fire department that we may or may not end up using. or that we may need to um think about
this renovation uh as a transition um renovation from an on call or or with the potential for it to be a transition from an on call to a career or an on call fire department satellite or an on
call to a satellite fire station. Um I I do think that's a question we as a select board and we should be that is part of the community outreach conversation I think is to find out sort of what you know in terms of cost and
and you know long-term what kind of a fire station do we think where what what are the trends and what do we see happening uh in in terms of um Carile's ability to maintain an
unknown call fire department and therefore so this you know the most expensive option was for 30 to 50 years. Well maybe that doesn't make any sense to be thinking we need to build renovate for 30 to 50 years from now if we know that we need to renovate for you know
something that'll last 10 years because we know we're going to transition to something else. just to recalibrate a little bit. When when we started this, we we we took some ARPA funds to to get some of this pre-work done with the hope that hey,
maybe if and we articulate these requirements, let's get some preliminary work done. If they come back with something that hits all the marks and is it a correct budget, maybe we'll be in a position to present something at this town meeting. We're not at that place. Absolutely not. Um and that's just
that's fine. That's you know we we knew that we might not be there and we aren't but we do and we should acknowledge that we were asking tech we you know in a very condensed amount of time to come up with that. So now that the question is the next the next target is fall town
meeting and what can we do between now and fall town meeting in terms of answering doing the outreach doing the work required to get to perhaps the concept design that we could present at a fall town meeting. So I'm glad you asked that. That wasn't a question.
Barbara and I let him finish. No, no, no. But I think so I think that involves there is some some work that still needs to be done with the initial funding. Exactly. Right. And what we want to talk about for this town meeting is what additional funding resource do
we need to take the next step with a target of a fall town meeting to get the information to do the the the research required. And I think that's what we need to figure out is that may cost some amount of certainly internal time but external funds and what is that amount right I completely agree and Barney and
I did sort of socialize with each other some ideas I'll give you my idea which I kind of just made up but it's a general it's a general framework right we have five months we have essentially May so May June July August September
May we have six well we'll have five month by the time he won five months um and we should develop a notional statement of work that again very roughly I'll just say conceptually perhaps we commit to
two months of outreach and data gathering and organizing we ask tecton to then take that data which is basically a lot of what they've done but we've maybe curated it with more input and these other considerations and come
up with you know maybe two designs and then uh see in a ROM sense what those look like and what they think they cost and then spend the last month or so developing the marketing campaign around whichever one or ones we want to present
to fall and I guess my question is I don't see this a fivep person select board doing all of that absolutely true and so it's some form of working group that can report into the select board on a regular basis but and do the do the things in between these meetings. We can
get volunteers to do that in the summer. I absolutely agree. Well, no, I do. I But I don't think it's realistic to try to fit it into our two. It shouldn't be even if it was us. It shouldn't be only us. No. Right. I mean, you got firefighters obviously who live in town. You've got ex firefighters who are very
knowledgeable. You've got other guys who have opinions. You know, I mean, we should be gathering what we can. Is it your opinion though that what we got is is it because it was expensive or is it a question of that you don't are
are not of these options you're not prepared to support one because you feel as though it's overdoing it or underdo what what is it for me personally? Yeah. Well, I mean I I I've got to credit John
Levery, I guess, in his version of which is first like go minimal like what's the minimum thing you need like establish that and then you can decide what other features we kind of went from the top down and we started stripping stuff away
but I kind of think we got to build it up from like what is the absolute challenge the assumptions of how much stuff has to be stored how much of that stuff has to be stored in the building versus maybe the satellite building or a satellite building or tent. Can we you
know rejigger the way we or I mean I don't think I guess I don't feel like there's been that kind of rigor into how we got to the solution. I could be wrong but that's my feel. And and so just so I'm clear our OPM were you involved in that with Tecton? Yes. At
all. So were you evaluating that as far as the So they reached out to the police department, fire, sorry, fire department and uh you know did and I remember there were surveys and we got caught up in like all this but they provided you
information as to what the fire department thought was needed appropriate and then explain your process there. So, there was a there was a programming session with several members of the fire
department as well as an outreach to the general membership, 20 plus people that were asked to fill out a survey of what their priorities were related to the station and and any subsequent project that would come of it.
Um during the programming piece, we literally broke it down, you know, practically room by room. What's needed, what is uh what do you currently have? What would you need under ideal circumstances? And then uh sort of a
fallback of well, if it's not ideal, then what is what would be the minimum amount that you could live with? And that was essentially what was provided. That was the low lowest price option. The or or no the the lowest price option
was derived essentially because we felt that it was extremely respon it would have been irresponsible or nonresponsive of us to come back with a solution that didn't meet all of your goals. So there was a
there was a real desire at least from my side of the table to say, "Hey, listen. that gave us a $10 million ceiling. We need to give them a $10 million solution, but we're not listening to them. Right? So, there was a there was a question of if if the if the number is
what's driving this, we need to have something to come back to them that meets that objective. So, that was sort of part one. So, that was the short-term solution. And then we objectively evaluated that and said, "Okay, what's the for $10
million, what's the most that we can do for $10 million and how many goals does that address as was outlined in the original RFQ?" So that was sort of our our our methodology for getting to that $10 million solution. So we looked at
it, we said, "Okay, for 10 million bucks, we can give them this much square footage and then based on that square footage, this is what gets addressed on the original goal." So we almost reverse engineered it starting from the number, right? And then when we looked at the
middle option, we did the same thing only we sort of built it the other way. We said okay we can provide bays we can provide some administrative space but the objective was not to renovate the interior of the existing building to a
great extent to not touch that. So we looked at what we could do and then how that flowed in to the estimate after that was how we developed the the middle ground option. Excuse me. Does that answer your question? And
this was also done on a very tight time frame. I mean this was Yeah. Like over 10 weeks. It was it was a really tight Yeah. tight effort which we recognize. Right. Um but we didn't have at least I I guess you had seen these options before we actually were presented them
at the select board meeting. I had not seen them. No. I had I had a conversation with Neil just to have some context of what what we were going to be seeing. So I think part of it was receiving the presentation
um and not it's it's a it's a lot to digest and you know true you can also say hey you know the select board I was the lead person that started asking about the survey numbers you know that we kind of derailed things but and I understand idea was to make a whole
presentation but we didn't have the opportunity to sort of go back and forth about how did you arrive at this and did you consider this and what is involved in you know the cost effective materials what what did that actually mean you
know we didn't have we haven't had an opportunity to do that at all like a working session we haven't had a working session exactly right so um yeah so I think if I share some of David's concern that
we haven't dug into this stuff enough um to to be able as a select board slash, you know, building committee say that we would support any one of these three options with confidence. I don't feel I could do that now, whether it's for the fall town
meeting for spring, right, based on how much discussion we've actually had. So, um, uh, and I do think, um, being able to take this to various boards and committees in town that are
already volunteers that are playing a leadership role in the town to get feedback on some of the major questions. One is the total cost and also how much the the sort of how much do we create a really nice residence workspace. you know, some of the bigger questions about
this, we don't have any input from anybody else but ourselves at the moment. Um so that's why I support the idea of um trying to you know figure out what's the best way to
uh both have some of those real working sessions about what we know right now what's being proposed as well as get input from the community here in Carile about what it is they would want to have and how much would they be willing to
spend for that. Um as well as this question of the on call versus uh transitioning to a different approach in terms of our fire safety here in town. Um that we do those things almost um concurrently and then go back to Tecton
to say, "Okay, we've got some more data. we know better sort of what we what we would feel confident having you use now as your um sort of goals or you know specifics for then coming back with a more developed design and cost estimate
that we get ready for the fall town meeting. But I think there's a I think there's a real benefit to having both CMS and Tecton involved in that process. Absolutely. Absolutely. I I would not
suggest that it's a good idea to do it on your own. Oh, no. I wasn't suggesting that. I thought I thought I heard something that indicated that, but if I miss her, um I'm I'm sorry. No, I my reference to um going to boards, other boards and committees of volunteers in
town was that options. We are all doing that together and we figure out what's the right way to do that. But it basically goes to a number of different groups in town to give us feedback. Yeah. So, I was just asking right I he was he was starting to present options
to us and the question is I mean you've been through this, Tecton's been through this. Um do one or more of the options address that kind of process and workflow that that we would want to consider between now and fall in terms
of what the cost would be, what the process would be. Yes. So, do we want to hear what those options were? But also, there's no timeline. There's no um talking about like the 60% solution and all that jazz. No, this is the the options in this the specific money we
would ask for a town meeting to fund us to the fun. I know, but Oh, they were around one solution. Do you want the 50% fidelity, the 60%, the like, no, we don't want any of those, right? I I didn't I didn't understand that approach at all. Given we don't know what we
want, why would we want a higher fidelity on something we don't know we want yet? Oh, yeah. That's Isn't that what they were proposing? Let me let's just like just if I could spend one minute just zooming out. So originally you had farmed this decision out to a group and that group made a
decision um and and you didn't like the decision because you didn't trust or have high fidelity in the decision because the architect selected came back with a huge cost. So that's what he's saying that well he's saying we didn't like it. I
mean it was it's that it was too expensive. you didn't trust that that high cost one was was the one that was needed. Yeah, I don't think that's unfair to say. Um, so that's why you hired people to help guide you in the process. And then the second thing I'll say is is you've asked me to rush you in
this process and I just want to remind so um if this was to take two more years then that unacceptable base level pro um cost is going to become what is the middle option right now. So you will get for the middle option price you you will get
the worst possible option just because of the way costs are escalating. And I hope I'm wrong there. I hope the world turns around and things get cheaper. And the sec the second piece is and I trust my department heads. You know I do your department heads are telling you that
they need help in order to recruit and retain volunteer fire firefighters. The the current way we're going is not is not going to work forever. So the speed in this decision is for those two reasons to try and retain that call firefighter approach which is slowly
fading away because of socioeconomic reasons and also because costs are just going bananas. So any process is possible but you do have those constraints which is why you asked me to rush you through the design process this this winter.
Right. Right. And and building on that, I just want to say, you know, we hired our OPM CMS with the intention that they were going to help guide us to get us comfortable that what, you know, because in the prior process, you just had an
architecture firm and the architecture firm says, "Oh, we need all this." And we wanted some kind of third-party, you know, person. We interviewed CMS and selected them because this is what they do. they design or they they work on building fire stations. And so we got
comfortable that they're experts. We're not experts at this and they're saying this is what you need to do. And that's why we were asking what did you do in your interface with the fire department to push back or to understand they they're the experts doing that. So the
question is if we trust those experts then we're kind of in this position right now. We've got these different options. Now, it's not to say we can't tweak those options, and that's kind of what David I think you're talking about a little bit, but I don't think it's necessarily to throw everything out and,
you know, start over. He's doing something. No, but I think even for me, and maybe it was a function of the the presentation itself or how it was presented, is I wouldn't be comfortable taking any of those options to the town and saying, "Let's commit
14. I I need I need more it needs more vetting. It needs they talk to the the fire department. How's that vetting? But it we need to talk to other stakeholders and get there needs to be a process around. So we're all agreeing. So just expul exculpatory question. How
much how much is unspent? You you asked I think in a separate letter that it's taken more months. So we need some more money for it was kind of a monthly rate, right? And they are saying you're kind of saying and they're also sort of saying we haven't spent all the money we
sent. So how much money is left right now there? I presume Tecton is not spending money on this program at the moment, right? They're kind of on hold. Half is left is how much is 70,000. And what's remaining is um a final conceptual design which includes the
talk to get there. The community outreach about that particular design and a cost estimate of But I'm not I say Brian I'm not so concerned with what piece of the SA have you not yet completed. I'm like, "Stop spending. Here's a new SA. What does this cost?
Let's deduct what we haven't spent." That's what we have to fund, right? I mean, I don't think whatever they said they signed up for is even relevant. I think I agree with Scott. There's a new process for the next months and tell us what it's going to cost you to support that. Tell us what it's going to cost
you to support that. How much of what we've already authorized is there and how much more do we got to ask at town meeting? That's what I thought we asked last night. What? I think that was the question we asked last. We got a different I mean they're hung up on what we told them contractually. He's like, "Yeah, don't worry about that. This is
the new spec." That's what I would say. What are your thoughts? It's okay. I mean, we have to find We have We have to I think we're committed to moving this thing forward and we're committed to having a substantive proposal at Falltown meeting. So, how do
we get from wherever we are right now to there? It's a lot of It's some It's more vetting. It's more outreach. It's I don't understand how what you're saying is different than finalizing a
design, outreaching and getting a cost estimate for that design. I think what if I hear you right, David, you don't want to say, "Well, let's pick option two like they're like socialize. I'll give you right where where you're saying there's
more let's target one of the options and let's dig into it and do do more molding of it to either confirm or make some adjustments as needed to get to a final concept.
could be wrong, but what what was described to me that we were trying to bring to this town meeting, what was said was without a without a picture and a cost that no one was going to support the big ask. So, I'm assuming that still applies in the fall. Yes. Yes. So, you
will need to consolidate around a conceptual design, a cost estimate, and outreach that, right? But I would say it in different order. Outreach, conceptual design, cost, outreach. Sure. So, that's what they still owe you. And they're saying that plus more outreach, more
robust community outreach, which is really just more of their time, is is another 25,000. Okay. What what I've interjected and will probably immediate with withdraw is the more fidelity you can get in that design process going to fall town meeting is
going to make that number better more because because what was discussed with police station during this round what we leed is well the number changed a million dollars well that's why it changed a million dollars because you didn't have a high fidelity
so I was just bringing it in front of you to try and authorize more design time so that we can shorten and increase the fidelity and shorten the design on the other side. If we're trying to sprint to springtime meeting, if that time frame doesn't exist and and we want to pull back,
then it's fine to just do the I I think we we rushed. We got these designs and there's concerns or questions and we need and so we didn't have enough time and that was you know well and honestly I think what we we were talking as a $10
million project we're all kind of it's if you tell me 12 to 14 it's going to be 16 to 18. So now to me a $10 million project is closer to a 15 to20 million project and hope it's not well the cheapest viable
option was 12 to 14. No, cheapest was 10 to 12. Well, that was But that will be there. To me, there's there's a clear scope change. If they came back and said, "Hey, we can do all your requirements and it's $8 million." We probably would have said, "Hey, let's grow the town." So, I I do think it's
partly the product of we we have a lot of big projects in this town. We we have more in the pipeline. And so we really need to make sure we spend a little extra time and a little extra money to sell it to make sure it's right to get the community's buy in so that we can
get it past the town meeting. Um, and I don't think like right now even if we all supported this this project in its current form, I don't know that the community would support it given, you know, the lack of of um detail and outreach behind it, just
the this socializing of it, right? Um, so that work needs to happen. If I if I can just offer some perspective, yeah, within within the proposal that we have, whether it's a schematic design to address Dave's concerns or whether it's
a concept design or whatever else, in addition to that, there's a certain amount of I'll call it site investigation. Yeah. that really makes sense to do. If the if there is commitment to the project, you're going
to have to do this now or later. And it really happens sort of aside from the designer's efforts, but it will help shape what options they present in terms of what the site will allow and how
those might relate to bylaws and other restrictions that you have within the community that may affect how the site is utilized. So, I agree with the outreach. I agree with keeping it conceptual to some degree, but I think there's a lot of other things that we
can be doing now to better use the time and and and get you to bid date sooner, which ultimately is going to save you folks money. And I'm assuming some of that information would also inform the design. The design. Yeah. Exactly. You
wouldn't want to fall in love with a concept and only to realize, well, it's sitting on Yeah. Who would do the site work? The it would be underneath Tecton's umbrella and it would be services that they would provide through vendors to separate from
the design come in survey wetlands delineation. Yeah, that's phase two. Title five investigations. Well, this has more wetland topo environmental test pits and geo the geotechnical. How much of that from a very high level? How much of that work
is design independent? meaning it's just you're going to have you're going to have to do that whether you do option one or option nine which I'm pretty sure we're going to get to eventually and the and but the actual specific items that fall within that aren't necessarily contingent on a
particular okay so this is just basically they're going to survey the lot they're going to determine where the boundaries are so we can have setbacks and reasonable information that we can go in and say okay we've got 15 ft to work with on the front of the building
before we run into a setback issue. You know, we've got 20 feet on each side that we can do. And this is where the septic field has to go because it's what's not impacted by wetlands or or high groundwater or whatever else. So
again, I think there's a lot of things that we can be doing over and above concept and outreach and community development and whatnot that is going to drive the design and ultimately the solution that's presented. Neil, can you do that timing wise because we I think
we got in a little had our troubles here because we tried to do things so quickly and we didn't have time to go through a process with the town and get enough feedback and us thinking about it and everything. Can you professionally get takes 45 days, 60 days to do a site
survey, wetland survey? I do. I think you can do that. Um, and the reason being is because largely it's done by independent parties. You have one person that's doing the survey. You have one person that's doing geotech. You have one person that's doing wetland flagging. And they're not necessarily
the same people, right? And then you have you go you take all that data you go back to Tecton they say oh we didn't realize this then they have to kind of put those constraints can they do all that though we talked about what five months I I think I think that we can and
have enough time to then have the community and well the select board and the really the community weigh in participate in that in some capacity. I I do I do think it is it is possible. I think we also have to get moving. Yeah.
So that so that would look like option one which is some variation of a a design consolidated design outreach with a cost estimate in addition to the robust community outreach which will
help get you to that point to include I'm sure working with the building committee andor you. And then everything that he just talked about under the current proposal is 62,000 for a total town meeting of ask of around
125,000 of new money. When you say option one, what does that correspond to on this tecton? Because there's a phase one, then there's a phase two, phase phase two, option one, phase two, option two, phase two, option three. What are
those four? What how what do they correlate back to? Yep. Aren't they just your options? You're you're So is it the same for I translated them. I tried to simplify them back to TCON. So um but if we were
to do what um did get the the various pieces of the site investigations done, which my understanding is it's under Tecton's umbrella that they get people different from the designers, the architects, right? They have independent
contractors. Independent contractors. And there those are going to be discrete tasks that different contractors would do for us. So that's what I just I was just describing to, but yeah, I'm going to have to jump around a little bit on this document. So I just I tried to put it all in the one spreadsheet, but I'll I'll walk you through it. So the the
current 70,000 is broken down here which is the space needs assessment which you're currently working through some design at some point maybe two a cost estimate in that community outreach. Uh, Tecton saying another $25,000 in outreach money to to meet the
robustness of your request and all the way to town meeting plus plus wetlands flagging topo environmental assessment test pits and geo geotechnical borings and analysis which combined is 62,000.
Can I but if you go up Ryan to the first part I just want to be clear have they you said they spent about half so of the I presume they've done phase 1 a like Neil what which of those phases are complete versus they've done they've
done a space needs assessment they have done they've largely done a couple of different conceptual designs and they have not done a cost estimate and they have done limited if any community outreach. All right. So, so they've spent about 47. Okay. So, fair enough.
225. What I want to make sure is if we that we don't simply then take phase 1C designs and do more outreach on it. That was kind of my opening salo, you know, half an hour ago. I don't I don't believe that that's the case, Dave. I believe that they're
intending to further develop other concepts in addition to what they have and then bringing them back in. Okay. in whole because I mean I don't want to speak for them but 25k doesn't seem like much add-on for what we're talking about
from a process if if they're okay with it want you know I want to make sure that we're kind of repeating the process again so well I think David the question is on the schematic design that they that Tecton would
provide right now my understanding is the conceptual design phase 1C is fairly limited and that if we wanted to bring something right like they're describing here 60% schematic design and then the last option 100% that would cost us
additional what's no I'm just hang on a sec that would cost more than what the conceptual design is listed at up there and so one of the questions we need to answer and I think we've kind of partially answered it we would like to have more more before we go to fall town
meeting on the concept on the schematic Well, on even the conceptual because if I say to you, let's say you did this and I'm like, Barney, I love, you know, like as they say in Hollywood, I love your thing. Just change one little thing, right? Which means if I don't like it,
we're going to do it completely over again, right? So, if I say that and I say, you know, that those three concepts, I'm ripping them up. Please start over. you're going to say, "Okay, I need I don't need maybe one A anymore because I've done that, but I need another 37 or maybe I need 50 to do a
couple more and then I'll go to all these site things and blah blah blah." So, I just want to make sure there's I'm not trying to add more money to them, but I want to make sure there's clarity that we're not going with those things. We're going with some new thing and it's going to require them to repeat that piece of the process. It's almost like
we wanted to take their possibility space, chuck out the one with the fiveyear lifespan and the $30 million one. Let's look at that low one and explode it out and just Yes. Let's see what we can do there. Take some We have some ideas that have been out there, but let's live in that space and see if we
can maybe we find a 1 million option or a 14 million. Sure. The the intent the intention is not the intention is not to build what you don't need or drive the cost up unnecessarily. We want to give
you exactly what you want at the lowest possible price that we can. And to get there is going to be a struggle, but we'll get there. I'm confident in it. And it's it's just going to take time. And I I do believe
that we have enough time to move forward, but we need to move forward with diligence. I think well, we've kind of come to a I wouldn't say a conclusion, but I wanted to ask the fire chiefs here. We have the former
fire chief. We have some other lots of interested parties online. I want to give them an opportunity to ask questions or talk about what we've been talking about and see if there's any Yeah. further things that we should know. So, I'd start with you, Chief Soros, if you want if you want. I'm
Chief Soros, uh, current fire chief. Um, I think the one thing that I would add is I think a lot of what drove the initial what they were looking at is also FBA standards. There are standards for a lot of these things. It wasn't just us coming high in
the sky. It's this is this is the size thing should be. And in fact, what they were coming up with was the standard is, you know, a bigger space here, more safety there, and those kinds of things were some of the things where we're looking at. And we took that and we we
cut it down quite a bit. I mean, I welcome us trying to bet it out, but I think you are probably like you have ended up with taking the middle one and seeing what we can bet on that. Um, I think not
doing these things and ending up with a career department, I don't think is going to be end up good for the town in terms of the kinds of services you have and the kind of risks that we have in our town. So, I I encourage us to come up with a good solution here.
Would you like to speak over Chief Chief Flannry? Flry um David Flenry. uh fire chief for the last 16 years before chief sorrow but on fire department for longer than I would like to admit. Um I just want to do one thing
which is to validate the architect that you have. I had not heard of Tecton before uh but I did watch their presentations um albeit not when they were going on but but later thanks to YouTube. Um I had spent a significant
amount of time in the time I was chief uh which is 16 years to have my thumb on the expansion of the fire station every year by studying the national trends square footage costs the types of things that were happening in the fire service that would change you know design what
we needed what would happen if this happened what would happen if that happened and just kept right up with it up till when I left and it's if you went back and read my town reports that I a lot of the things that I was thinking of, I was ready to go for this day.
Let's just put it that way. Um, what I want to say is that the fire service has changed so much in that period of time. And today, the health and safety is one of the most important things that we need to consider in this building. We
can't have apparatus outside in the rain and the cold that we need to use in an emergency. We have to have spaces to, let's call it, um, gather in, whether it be an eating space or a meeting space like
this, a large enough space to have a class of 30 or 40 people. We can't host a EMT training in our own community to keep our call people in the community or any large training in our own station because we just don't have the room. And
that's a negative. Um, there's a lot of things that are pretty much prescriptive in designing and Tekkron will tell you that you design a Fiser, you have to have these elements. If you're building a school, there's certain things you need. If you're building a hospital, there's certain things you need built
in. They could be smaller or bigger and they can be real flashy with fancy roofs and design on the outside. I don't think we're looking for that. We're looking for spaces that are necessary. But I also think the last thing I'll say is we have to think of the future. Now, we don't want to build something that we
don't need and big and not spend the money. You're in a difficult position because looking at the town's finances and what we have for capital going forward, it's it's, you know, it it's a real challenge of what we have. But we need this. This is a priority for our
future and our community. What's going to happen with the call fire department? We don't know. But we do know just like we watch the weather when the you know when the clouds come dark and you see lightning flash and things happening you know what's going to happen next. This has been going on for a long time in the
volunteer and call service. And you talk to all the chiefs in New England there's very few departments like us and it's because of the dedication of the people and the leadership. We made a commitment to it. we can continue to foster that by
some designing some friendly things in the building that will allow us to make it a place they want to be. And the chief's articulated that a little bit. I started some of that when we went for the um the outside mobile trailer to take some of the load off the building, put
it out there and and lighten things up. We had people that would work in the building on their computer because they can work at home and they'd be in call in the station and there's a call they drop what they're doing and they go. So that kind of thing, you know, if we don't make the space for that, it's not an attractive thing. But I do think just
like we did in the spa in the um in the grant building when we built it. I was an advocate that the architect design into that building the foundation and the roof, a cement roof. So if we need an escape hatch in the future that we we
should do that. It was very difficult to convince people, we did it and it didn't cost a lot of money and in 10 years we built a second floor, right? And we had kids in school. So you know you you need to be forward
looking and thinking creativity creativity on when we design. We need to talk to the architect about that. So maybe we don't need this particular space now, but we may need it in the future. Can we design it in there so we can expand in the future? And we're not locked in. Remember, this is our site.
And this gentleman made a very important statement to you tonight about that site. There are problems there. It's full ledge. You have the swamp. You need septic. The wells in one spot. There's no parking. You can go up. You can go
up. You don't want an elevator. And I I agree with that. We can go up. So we have some problems that need to be, you know, work worked out. Then we have the historical element because neighbors don't want to be looking at a butler building like a DPW building. They want to look at something, you know, track.
That was a big thing when we built this building that we have here. So you're smart to go slower. Put the brakes on right now and think about these things and work with the chief. He knows what he needs. I knew what we need and I had
a whole list. I left it. So he he knows what I was thinking of and um I think we can come out of this and and do but it's it's now going to be 10 million when I left and I had my thumb on you know the square footage stuff it was 17 that was
in my mind of what that needed that was six years ago. So if you can do it between 13 and 14, maybe we can do it creativly, I I think we can do it. But that's the process I think we should need and I applaud you tonight for for taking the time. It's been over an hour
that you've been discussing it and I do appreciate because I think it's time well spent. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room who has questions or comment on this process for the fire department? All right, I'm going to go
online. Um, we have I see um is Dave or Dave Newman. John Newman. Dave. No, Dave. Newman. Oh, Newman. Yeah, right there. Dave, did you want to say anything? Um, yeah. I thought I'd just add one or two things to what um Chief Flary said there from point of view of
someone who works in the station just so you can kind of get a sense of what this looks like daytoday for people that are listening. Um, you know, I did a CPR class over the weekend in our classroom. We could only fit nine people in there. So we we can't hold a class for more than nine people.
Um you know today we pull up a truck back into the bay. It had gone out for service came back in. So the exhaust from that truck is blowing onto the water cooler and onto someone's gear. So if you can picture a fire truck blowing
exhaust into um you know into your closet at home where all your clothes are that you wear every day. That's what um next week on Tuesday we have children's hospital coming in to do a advanced pediatric simulation lab with some of our
EMTs. So that class we have to do in the kitchen. So So we're doing a pediatric sim lab in our kitchen, you know, which is that's the only place that we can have it now. Um our EMS supplies are held in a
portable rolling cabinet which we don't have enough room in there. So some of them get held underneath my desk. There's not really enough room there. So we keep some of them in the classroom, which doesn't have enough room. So we keep other supplies out in a tent outside behind the station. So when
anyone is looking for supplies, they have to look in all these different places to figure out where we have EMS supplies that they need at, you know, 2 in the morning when they get back from a call. So, I mean, I could kind of keep on going, but I just wanted to give you some examples of what, you know, the
current station, which which we love and we like working there, but you know, just some examples of kind of how we've we've started to outgrow that station and, you know, like Neil was saying a little while ago, you know, how we wound up with some of the priorities and, you know, around safety and usability and
operability that that, you know, that went into the program that came out of this. Okay. Thanks, David. Um, I'd go next to John Lavy. Um, no, Tom. Tom Bada had his hand up first. I'll let him go if he wants to. All
right. Tom, would you like to go? Go ahead. Sure. Tom Nathan Lane. I've been involved with the fire station project for about two years, both as a member of a couple committees and just an observer. And we've tried several attempts, none of which has yet produced
the desired result, even though we're all, I think, very committed to the concept that we need to have an on call department. Looking back at that, I really believe that's because we haven't defined upfront what folks are supposed to do. I think that dates back to the original $30 million Taj Mahal. Um, if
you're going to go this way, I'd strongly encourage you to prioritize what is needed. It is clear to me that there are two top priorities and those are firefighter safety and on call recruitment. Those are the two top priorities. I just don't know Bay
capacity does not cut it. The proposal that came in with bay capacity number one shows that I don't think those folks understand the priorities. Um we as a volunteer, we're a community with volunteer firemen uh relying on town leadership to assure they're operating
safely. That has to be number one. We we cannot have volunteers operating unsafely. To me, me as a citizen, that's just totally unacceptable. Um, bake capacity is another story. You know, there's multiple opinions on that. Do we really need a ladder truck is a question
that has to be asked. That looks like a $5 million question. You know, two to two and a half million on the building today and maybe two two and a half million to buy a new ladder truck in a couple years. That ought to be mutual aid in my estimation. So, we have to define their priorities. Tech 10 can't
possibly succeed if they don't know what their goal is. It ought, in my opinion, be 10 million. I'm absolutely convinced this can be done for $10 million based on my involvement today. But you need to set priorities. Is it firefighter safety or bay or bay capacity? How do we effectively store all this ancillary
equipment that folks would like to have? That's my input. Thank you. I I would like to follow up and and have Neil, if you wouldn't mind, um weighing in on that because in my mind, we've hired your firm to kind of be our
representative on working with the fire department, but also with your expertise, your professional judgment as to what is needed and what isn't needed. And so that kind of comment is a I think an important comment but I think it needs to be addressed by you know
professional too. Honestly Travis and respectfully I think that's a decision that the community has to make. I don't think that that should be my decision based on my experience because every single community that we serve is different and everybody has different needs and this is a very unique
community. So I think it's very hard for me to apply my experience and say to the chief, hey listen, I don't think you need that apparatus. Believe me, if my house was in Carlile and it was burning, I would want him to bring everything to put the fire out. And and it I just I
think it puts me in a very difficult position to to dictate what's necessary and what isn't. Okay. Wow. That's such a dodge. I cannot believe it. All right, John Lavy, you can weigh in. What do you have to say?
Don't sugarcoat it, John. That was such a That's exactly why we hired you is to uh try to make that call. And if you're not going to make that call, then we don't want you. Um, sorry about that.
Uh, when I was listening to this, I was really struck by a couple comments. uh David's original comment, you know, of what what are we designing here? And that goes to Tom's comments and other
people's comments as well. We really we've never done a bottom up assessment of needs versus wants. And unless you do that, um actually, let me just start over a
little bit. That's how you do project management. what you guys are doing. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's not project management um that I've ever seen in a 40-year professional and construction career. This is just not how you do it. Um you start off by
defining the problem. Then you make a list of the, you know, the feature set with prioritizing needs versus wants. You work through it. You vet it. Uh the design is way down the list. Um and we haven't done that uh at the To your
credit, some of you has recognized that and vocalized that um before we before we determine design and wetlands marking and any of that stuff, we really have to determine what the needs are of the town. And we haven't done that. And you
know, you guys mentioned that you had gone through an objective process with Tecton defining needs versus wants. Well, how does an objective process defining needs versus wants yield a boat in Carlile and space for a boat? What do we
need a boat for? Same question for the ladder truck. You know, I' I've tried to document as best I could uh how many times the ladder truck is actually used every year to put out a fire. It's basically not
used. It's a recruitment tool. Um, it's just a big fancy expensive recruitment tool. And if you guys decide that you want to build a space to accommodate this ladder truck, you also are doing
what Tom said, you're buying into another two and a half or $3 million a couple years down the road. You're committing the town to that because this the one we have is obsolete. And Chief Flannry's comment about keeping stuff outside. Well,
that's his fault. When we got the new tank that we have now and the old tank got moved outside, long-term capital told Chief Flry, "Look, we're not building you a new fire station or an expansion on the fire station to accommodate that extra tanker. We want
you to sell it." He never did. It's been sitting outside useless for half the year ever since. It cannot be a critical need in Carlile if it's only useful six months a year. It can't be a critical need and you shouldn't be designing
space around it like Tecton has come up with. Those are probably my three biggest pieces of um like need versus wants feedback. As far as the antique fire trucks, maybe they are a recruitment tool, maybe they
aren't, but they don't belong in the station because they're not functional pieces of quick. Oops. That wasn't me. Sure. You're back. Hold on. We got to Okay, we
lost you for a second, but I'd like you to wrap up, John. I mean, this this is very helpful. It is helpful. That's fine. Sorry. Um I I I until I interjected there, I was kind of at a loss of even what to say because you guys don't do project finance like I
understand it. I mean project management like I understand it. You have to begin with an assessment um of needs versus wants. And you have to have somebody or some entity that's willing to push back on the fire department and say no. And
no one's willing to do that. And at the end of the day, uh, we're not going to let you, we the town are not going to let you get away with shuffling this off on somebody else. You guys are going to stand up before the town and defend what you've come up with. And so, you need to
have a a clear rationale for needing some equipment versus others and in turn dictating all the spaces you need. I'm kind of with Tom on health and safety is a first priority and then recruitment after that. and we don't need a lot of
the other spaces that we've got in the plan so far. All right, thanks for your comment, John. Is there anyone else online who wants to to comment or has a question? I think these are important discussions to have. I know this is
publicly airing, a lot of um different opinions, which is important. Um, is there anyone on the board that wants to respond or you have a question? Yeah, I have a question. Um, Chief SARS, I hope you don't mind if I ask you this. So,
um, John Lavy refers to the ladder truck and that it's I think John you said it's uh going to be obsolete or something or in a few years it's going to be obsolete.
Um would you uh give us your um un your you know professional opinion about the current the latter talk that we have and its useful life going forward. So other than
some minor things it is still a state of the arts state of the art. We bought it and it still is. um its projected life was to 2030. Um I do not see any reason it doesn't last for quite a while longer
than that. And it's in this region it is not uncommon for departments like ours to keep their ladders past their projected life. I mean you want to have a drip projected life but this is not uncommon. I don't see any reason why it is not going to last for quite a bit longer. Um the other thing that is
happening is the the style of building that we're getting is where a ladder truck is actually more important than it used to be. Something called lightweight construction where these roofs collapse a lot more quickly and you need if you have something in the attic, you need to
get it out quickly. Having a pre- pipe waterway made all the difference in a fire we had within the last year and a half in this town. It put it out where we would have lost the house possibly without that. So you're talking about the new uh homes that are being built here in Carlile like well maybe don't
need to describe to self say that for the homeowners that are in them but um that they're built with different materials that are more susceptible to more serious collapse. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to add just to the latter track
discussion because I was with Chief Coning when we uh proposed the ladder to the town and the reasons why. There were two reasons why. One was with a very limited staff call staff at a scene for three people to get a a 28
foot or or 32 foot ladder off the truck and up while the fire is raging is very difficult. It's quicker to put a ladder up and get it to the roof where firefighters might be working cutting a hole for their safety. That was number one, the the speed, the efficiency. And
you also have to be able to get the water sometimes over the fire. And you can rather than put a person up on a ladder with a hose, which is very dangerous, you can use a ladder pipe. It's piped up to the and it's a remote nozzle that can put the water over the
fire. That's an important firefighting aspect. But more importantly, the truck is more than a ladder than what we call a stick in a fire service. It carries um self-contained breathing apparatus with multiple air change bottles. We
don't have any way to refill bottles at the scene when a firefighter breathes his 30 minute bottle out. And so you have to carry multiple bottles. It carries I've lost the count there, but there's a lot. It has a full complement of ground ladders. It has rescue tools.
There's medical gear and a host of other equipment. But more importantly, it has a fire pump. It can be put in a relay where maybe the ladder isn't needed to move water over a very long distance with a very large pumping capacity. Most
ladder trucks that are bought by other communities do not have pumps. We bought it. It's a little more expensive to buy with a pump, but because we don't have municipal water, we're in the business of moving water several thousand feet and you need big pumps and the ladder truck is a key element in the strategic
plan for water supply. That is very important. These are the things that the community do not understand which I put into my letter which I sent to the board because we need to do some education on this. People don't understand. They think it's a big expensive piece of equipment. And the other comment that
I'll make is about Carlile. You know, Carlilele, you know, two and a half story. They're not two and a half story. They're threetory. And you know, you can't put a 24T ladder on a three-story building. It just doesn't happen. And when you you have ground ladders that are made for
the fire service, they're not like your homeowner's painting ladder. They're extremely heavy and you have to train train people on the department to use them. Some people that are call people are not
adept at learning those skills and you can't count on the people that have those skills to be on that truck when it goes. It's a challenge of a call fire department. The chief knows what I'm talking about. But this is the way we operate. So the ladder truck, if you can train people to use it, which we've had
people that have learned how to use it, is much more efficient and safe for the community. That's the next one I should have heard. Many along here, right? Did you have I don't I um I mean I think all of this points to
what we were talking about earlier which is the answer may not be the one we like but it maybe we need a big big old you know garage basically. Um and but if we go stepwise as John articulated and we
sort of articulated I think I would feel better you know some of the and you framed it well Travis in the beginning you know there's a balance of storage of equipment safety I agree absolutely safety is paramount
um and and then all the other ancillary things we didn't touch on everyone you know the training and this and that and workspace all of that. So, but there has to be a trade line and it just didn't strike me as methodical enough in that way. Now, Neil
may disagree, but uh and and one thing that was we haven't mentioned in this meeting tonight, but um the idea of a satellite storage, which was down the street, I kind of like that one, but I don't know, and it
would be up to the professionals to say whether that's practical for the things that are maybe not used as frequently. Can you run down there and you know because as David points out there's problems when you try to put big vehicles with all this other stuff.
I mean that's just a natural thing. And so we're paying a premium in a way not only because there's ledge and all this and that but also because we're trying to do multi things in a space that kind of stuff really you know should be get a little more. I think we still have more
time. Absolutely. From what I heard too from the kind of leading objections to this from Tom well not objections but you know different viewpoint from Tom and from John is Lavy is that you know the bay the extra bay the size of the
bays is the thing nobody's arguing about you know saying we don't need health and safety apparatus or we you know hazard to decontamination areas and no one's saying you know that the on call we we are going to need some of these rooms for training and and I think Dave Newman
made a great point about you know how how can you do this training if you don't have the proper you know facility. So I think that that you know using a few people on this this meeting as as just different viewpoints but as really representative of different viewpoints
in town you know that isn't the issue. So the really the only issue we're dealing with is the the bay sizing. And the question is can we do anything about that relative to using the the kind of information we have currently on the I
guess second scenario and and talk about the bay sizing and and figuring out is there is there a way what how would you recommend going forward on that getting community outreach and determining and then redesigning Travis, normally the way that we've done
it is we've gotten a list of equipment from the department that's determined to be necessary and critical to their operations and we size the bays to accommodate the equipment. And everyone is different. Everyone's different front
line whether you can stack the apparatus for a primary response or a secondary response. Every every department is different the way that they organize it and the way they respond to a fire. And Carlile is no different. So, we would start with the equipment list, how the equipment rolls out in the event of a
call, and then we'll we'll build it based on the needs of the equipment and the size of the equipment that we have and we're dealing with. But that determination has to come from us. It does in my opinion and I know and we haven't had the we haven't had that
conversation. Yeah. Or that working discuss the core of it or education. We haven't had the at the core of what the feedback and I'm I'm no expert. So, you know, I'm trying to to filter all this out myself, but
you know, the main points of feedback I've heard and questions are I I do think as you said, everyone agrees health and safety recruitment and then the question comes around some of this apparatus, what do we need versus, you know, what do we have and and how much has to be stored.
Yeah. And then I I look at it a step further of you know we have a DPW that needs a lot of investment and so you know if this is going to be 15 million and that's like what what is the town can we afford and how do we how do we manage right so there's you know I
like everybody in this room I think and most people in town we we highly value our on call department. Yeah we love it but and I've been struggling with this for 20s something years here. What is the tipping point at which we really
have to confront regional regionalized services? Now, we went through that years ago in police. We didn't reach a consensus. Um, but there may be a time, you know, where that's a thing. And dispatch has
been discussed and fire. Now, we don't want to go into that now because that would be giving up our own call department. But if we're looking at a $20 million investment to meet the needs, we do have to ask ourselves, you
know, do we just say when that time comes, we need to be we need to think in terms of a satellite station and not a self-contained station. Maybe we do have to do that, you know, to design a for I say this because I'm not a
volunteer and I don't want to, you know, I mean, I volunteer, but our volunteer time is nothing compared to what they do. So, I'm very conscious of that. I don't want to be, you know, dictating, but is the 20, 30 year time horizon with
an on call in mind really a reachable goal? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's let's satisfy what we need and let's have a lens of if that's not sufficient, what does it look like when it's a satellite to a larger department? Well, and to you know to the point
earlier made is we certainly don't want to design this project goes forward as constructed which I think it will be eventually um we don't want to design ourselves into a corner. Yeah. And so I think that's just part of the the follow
on with with Tecton and in this in the in the refinement of any concept is what happens if in 10 years we become a satellite station. What works, what doesn't work, what what how should we build that flexibility in? I I have
no idea what what the difference is. But I think that's another piece that we would want to look at that we didn't cover in our initial conceptual overview. And that's something we we need to when we present this to the town, we need to be able to answer these questions, answer the concerns uh being raised by the community, have good
answers, vetted answers um to justify whatever investment we're asking because we we are going to be asking for a large investment. We are asking for large investments for police and and we just owe it. And this community is they're they're smart people. They they pay
attention and they demand those answers. So, um, that's all all that back to the original question of how do we get answers to those questions so we can keep this project moving forward? Thank you, Scott. Um, what do we need to do at town meeting? Do we need to ask for more money? How much more money should we ask
for given the work that still needs to happen? Um, and how does that impact, you know, putting on my old FINCOM hat. I don't like adding numbers at the very end of the process because that messes everything up to some extent, but you know, where are we at
with that? You we were talking about the 125, right? You're asking me. Yeah. Okay. Um Sorry. I don't know. Well, are you think partly it depends on which of these So,
I think the big question is do you want I think it sounds so simple. Town meeting is in 12 days. Do do you are you prepared to do the math tonight to get the number you need and be done with it or do you want us to bring you a number
on the 13th next Tuesday that you can discuss? And the downside of that is you only have five days before town meeting. What Neil from your It's a great question and you're you're listening all this like how long would
it take you to turn around what you need to uh scope the next five months? I don't think my number changes. Okay, you're done. Personally, and and how long would you think it would take Tecton to react to this and sharpen come back and say either 25 is good enough or
we really need I think I think you just need to clearly ask them for what you expect from them for the next five months and they can turn it around fairly quickly. Okay. So, I'm good. I would be good with Are we meeting next week? because we are we have a regular meeting but don't we have to decide
whether we want Tecton to come to do enough work and have the other investigations done that we're getting a 60% schematic design for the fall town meeting or less than that so or 100%
which terms-wise a conceptual design is a is a nice drawing a well-informed drawing a schematic design is is more robust so it's actually digging into the building and so based on this conversation I don't think we get to a schematic design by the fall. By the fall. Okay. So really it's do you want
to add the site investigations and how much will tectar tecton require to do a fully vetted conceptual design a cost estimate and outreach which I think we're most of the way there. Mhm.
And I in and again looking forward if if we are successful in that we could get money approved to do the schematic design for spring town meeting after the fall at the fall town this fall town meeting we would be asking for
if we're successful next five months in the fall we'd say we need x number of dollars we have the concept now we need the schematic so we can come back to you in the spring with a refined number to say that to get approved. Is that would that be the ultimate plan? That would be the ask in the fall. Yeah. How much more
design do you want to do? Right. So, we don't need a schematic or more schematic for the fall in my opinion. We need to be able to get everything on the same page so we could stand up there and defend a a concept and ask for more money to get the schematic if that makes
sense. And the schematic would also we would also be trying to get actual bids before spring of 26 town meeting. No. Okay. So, you have to do the schematic design, then you take the schematic design and you build construction documents. Oh, sorry. And so, those
construction documents we would have for that spring 26 town meeting. That's not what Yeah. So, no. So, you're How do we get to a a project that could be approved in the spring, a year from now? So, right, because that's what we were talking. This goes back to my
original Yeah. comment to so if you just go conceptual to the fall, you're going to be in the same sprint you are now for the spring. Yeah. See, that's why I think we the idea of adding more design money was so that you can do more pre-esign so that the fall to spring
goes smoother. Y yeah, not to rush. But that's not, you know, if you don't have a congealed idea too, right, then it's it's hard to design it. So, so if we wanted to have Tecton get further closer to a schematic design by
the fall, how much additional Maybe the question to them is how much additional money would they Let me try Let me try this. Can you get Can you get one solid idea for this fire station by October?
That's a question. Can the board will will you be able to do that? And that that if you can't then you don't need a schematic design yet. Yeah. And the October would be it would take a month to do the schematic. No, it's you have to have the number for the fall by
October, right? And some type of presentation. You need the schematic for the number, right? Or you need it if you want a fidelity number. Can this group come up with a concept? Yeah.
I don't think we have a choice. An agreed upon vetted community outreach. I think we have to commit to that. If we don't commit to that, then what do we Right. Right. We're not moving anywhere. Yes. We it has to be a top priority. Now, I just don't know how what that is. What's the ask in the fall then? Say we
come up we we do this. We do this. We we come up with a a concept picture and a scope that everyone is in agreement about. It's been vetted. We've addressed concerns, answered concerns. We It's concept this. We think it's going to be this fall town meeting. What are we
asking for? Are we asking for $15 million at fall town meeting or are we asking for the rest of the design money design money to get everything to sort of bid for spring? And is that enough time?
I believe so, but that I would like to confer with my colleagues at TechCon and ask them. It's really their labor, not mine. The reason you're seeing us hesitate. Yeah. No, I can speak for my friend Neil, which I would never do. Um, but I'm about to.
If you said, "We agree on this design. Just go do it." And there was no iteration. Yeah. Then yes. But if it comes back or there's a building committee that wants to continue to vet at 25 60 and 100% then it really does
slow it down. So to ask you to commit to that now is very difficult. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think it is likely given the way that the town goes through projects that you could sprint from November to May and get that done. So you'd really
be looking at the next fall which greatly increases your cost which is why I was suggesting to try and get to schematic design. But this conversation tonight indicates that it's probably going to take all summer to get to conceptual design which is the first step.
I think that's probably true. I mean just given the summer and everything else. Summer's a tough time to get people to do things and especially if we're not if we're I mean I do think we still need to personally drive the process but if we're not going to be the committee or only part of us will be the
committee. We have to figure out asking people to spend time for the summer. We're going to it is going to take a while. Well, I'm going to offer a little I know here's my p my take on the community
input. If we said, you know, after May 18th, we have a plan that we have worked out with CMS and Tecton about how we're what meetings are happening with whom
and we want them to happen before uh you know July 4th um which is you know a month and a half basically after town meeting. If we put our nose to the grindstone I think we can make that happen. particularly if we use existing
the meetings the monthly meetings of existing boards and committees as one vehicle for getting input and then I think we've got to schedule a couple of community meetings that and we do it we try to do it before school ends right because we know what happens here once
school gets out and that if we can you know get into gear to do that that's when I think the we get Um, and I guess it's I don't know if it's Tecton or CMS or but we get the the summary findings
from that outreach. Um, you know, as soon as the outreach ends, I mean, I don't know how long it takes to put that together, but we get the summary of what the outreach showed with with, you know, real specifics about um, you know, these were the top
two priorities and and whatever else. And then that's what we're then we as a select board I think that's when we have to decide which would be in July what we're what [Music] um what sort of I don't know what the
right words design I guess right what what elements are we are we changing at all what the goals are or can we make them more specific and then we want to turn it over to Tecton to do as much as they possibly can but then they have to come back with half of July and August
and early September. But then we're we're only then at the agreement of a concept. Right. Right. Well, I don't know whether I don't know how the schematic works if we can get I mean, can you do that faster? I mean, you you know, obviously I don't know what I'm
talking about. Um, but once you had the community input, if you have that by the end of June, what could be done in terms of getting further closer to a schematic design by the
fall? What do you think is possible? I think I think that if the vision was congealed and there was a clear direction on which to go, we could easily produce a schematic design for
fall town meeting. I think that's attainable. When would you have to have the congeal design done? I know. Isn't that funny? Again, it's it's more I'm not encouraged
based on the discussion tonight. Yeah. That it is attainable, which is why I'm if you guys are comfortable to get to us a conceptual in the fall, that's where we'll be. And I I'm not trying to pressure the process. I'm
not trying to force the process. And we've seen how well the first eight weeks went or 10 weeks or whatever it was. um it just led to more question and more speculation. So clearly that's not the right way to continue forward.
Frankly, I think we need to right just let the process take its time and we'll bring a concept in the fall. But and and do you think that uh would do you agree that as Ryan was saying he
doesn't think we can get a schematic and uh cost estimate in time for spring of 26 town meeting to ask for what we need to actually get the construction documents
if I'm using the right terms. Is that that was what I I thought I heard you say right. Everything's got to go right. So I' but I'd like to know what what you think on that because I do I am conscious that we six months and the it just increases the cost that I would say that it's
fairly common that a design from from schematic design through construction documents for a job of this size would roughly take nine months from start to finish. Okay. So, do I think that if we went to schematic design level in the
fall that we could get to a finished set of construction documents in the spring? It would be close, but I think we could get there, but it would it would just require a lot of commitment and a lot of not secondg guessing that has not
demonstrated. What's the ROM cost of that? like we got to figure out how much money we're going to ask for like in two weeks, right? So that's some $100,000ish. But then this piece that piece, what would that I I think I told you before, Dave, the
the order of magnitude for design costs is roughly 10%. Okay, 10% of the construction, a couple million bucks. So if it's a $14 million job, you're looking at roughly 1.2. And that would be the fall ask. That would be the fall. It would be around a con conceptual
drawing. Okay. I mean, and then so the race to get back on Ryan's preferred timeline would be that would be the race to try to get the CDs in the spring. And that's a hard that's a hard cost that would be asked.
That was your your timeline that I was pushing you to do, not my timeline. So, back to the spring of 2025. It does seem to me that the point you made makes sense about at least site
work including site work in the school. Oh, absolutely. We agree. Yep. So, as I think we're at the $124,000 number, right? The extra 25 plus the 62 and and Yep. And that includes some of like the wetland
flagging, the site survey. That's never sunk. You know, that would never be a sunk cost. I mean, unless you never did the anything, right? That's and that would save time later when you're right. So, I think it's appropriate, too. I
think it's appropriate. I agree. Okay. Um, so I think that that kind of is our direction forward. Is that everyone on board with that? Ryan, are you um not on board? Are you Did you follow all that from a We want to get the site
in We want enough money to have the site investigations done. this full list and enough money to um have Tecton. The question is are they producing we going with a conceptual design by fall town meeting or trying to push it to get a
schematic? And I I'm hearing folks say it's given how we're operating now, it's unlikely we can get to a schematic. So, we should just accept that we're going to slow the we're going to slow down and not get to a final Well, I think I was picking over his shoulder. I think the
schematic adding that work would be like another couple hundred thousand. So now we're looking to ask for $300,000 in a warrant article at the last minute at town meeting. No, I we I thought we weren't going to do hypothetically. This time he was
rhetoric. I'm I was talking just from a cost standpoint. I think that's too much to try to add in in the very short. Yeah. I mean I think baby steps. Okay. So if I could take a swing the original conversation. So um option
one included adding 25,000 for outreach to the existing contract. It's 62,000 for site investigation and 375 for the OPM which is 124,000. I also heard David say that he would like a more robust
conceptual design which may add cost. Um no I didn't mean more robust. I meant a more robust community outreach process that would get us to a design that had the imprint of community. So I was saying it's not design cost community
outreach, it's community outreach, design cost, community outreach. So that may be a scope creep for tech time from their 25k. So add another 25k. So that's what I was saying. Maybe you add another just but
you should ask them that and they ought to be able to turn that around in the week between now and the 13th. Is that what day we as friendly as I can? I would like to tell them that 150 is what we've got and that's what we want. Okay. So I think as a board are we settled on
that as 150,000 and that process that we just the 150 is 50 for them whatever Neil asked for and site work. What is the 150? Is that what it is? 62 for site work, 375 for the OPM, and the remainder for design. Sure, that sounds great to
me. Um, I would like to ask and you tell me if it's reasonable or not. I would like to see at least the the outline of a community outreach plan. And if that's in normally I don't
know if you generate that or tecton does but I would like that presented to us next Tuesday if at all possible because I think it would be very helpful when we get at questions at town meeting to be able to say and here's
here's what's going to happen over the next period of time. Okay, that's possible. We'll do the best we can. Okay. All right. I wanted to kind of wrap up with the fire department here because we have some other things to do. So, thanks to everybody. Thank you for staying so late. This was helpful
though. I think we had to go through this process. Pleasure. So, we're on B, huh? Well, we're on agenda. Actually, just finished B. Now, we're on C. We're on C. Come on. All right. Um, and some people
have been waiting very patiently. Oh, I know. Maybe we should jump to those topics um that they're here, you know, and interested in. Was there Let's see. Was there one that you were referring to, Barney? Well, I think we should ask um are is everybody
here that's non staff? Are you here to talk about the MBTA citizens petition? Okay. And is anybody else Yeah. No, but I just wondered if And so no one else is here to talk about a different topic. Okay. nor online. All right, I guess.
Okay. All right. So, we'll talk about the MBTA community citizen petition. So, yes, there are two items that you haven't made recommendations on now. So, one of them is the citizens petition and the other one is the ADU bylaw, right? So, those are not required tonight, but
should be the main focus. Great. Okay. So, we'll start with the MBTA community citizens petition. Um, I'm looking for community input. So, if you wanted to come forward and introduce yourself, go ahead. No, I just wanted to clarify something. So, Ryan's
saying we haven't taken a position on the citizens petition. Is it uh that we're deciding whether or not we support the concept in the petition of asking the planning board to provide more than
one option when they bring an MBTA plan to the fall? Is that what we're we would be taking a position on? It's to read exactly what that says in the petition of the article and we will take a position on that. Not anything else than
what is written right there. All right. Great. That's helpful. Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you, Travis. I'm Ken Mello, 30 Kimble Road. Uh, just to before I say anything, let me just say I'm speaking as a private citizen, not as a
representative of the board of assessors. Okay. So, I want to talk about this warrant article briefly and explain what it's about and why we submitted it. So the citizens warrant article 25 asks for the following really of the planning
board. We're asking for one or more options on the MBTA law in addition to the so-called multifamily conservation cluster plan that includes one that reszones for minimal minimal acreage. We're also asking for regular and
sustained community input and education leading up to the fall vote on the proposed uh plans. Now, let me be clear about what this is not, okay? It's in no way intended to be a rebuke of the planning board. Okay? Instead, it's
intended to be an affirmation of a process, a process that hopefully benefits uh from the mistakes other communities have made and gets us gets Carlile an approved plan in November. It's also non-binding.
Personally, I believe the article by its mere presence on the town meeting agenda is already having a positive impact. We had a substantial dialogue with the planning board on April 28th. That came later than we would have liked, but it
did happen. They also are exploring other plans. I'll commend that effort regardless of whether the planning board agrees with the article or chooses to endorse it. In the spirit of cooperation, we did seek their endorsement. That said, I care more
about their actions than picking up an endorsement on the article. The Warren article is just a means to lead us to a more favorable end in the fall. The Carlile Alliance for Preservation, it's the group that sponsored the
article, is concerned about the impact the MBTA law will have on health and safety, town finances, and the preservation of the community we all call home. I will point out that we feel validated by a recent vote of the board
of health, which reiterated the health and safety concerns we voiced with the planning board's original proposal. The planning board should be equally concerned They live here too and they drink the same water we do. Uh, in defense of the planning board, let me
say they've been they've been handed a difficult and maybe impossible job to do. In a semi-ural community devoid of public water and sewer, there can be no perfect plan for dense development, nor are we expecting one. This is a planning
board that previously held one to two-hour meetings on occasion to review and approve development proposals. Then they got handed the MBTA Communities Act, a law that has embroiled them in some political controversy. They did not ask for this and and it has created
unprecedented polarization throughout the 177 Eastern Massachusetts communities that are affected. And now this board of volunteers is lucky to finish their weekly meetings by 11 p.m. And each time they fill the room with
agitated public. I've served in town government for 16 years, most of them as a board chair, and I'm no stranger to some controversy either. That may be why I'm more sympathetic to their ordeal than they understand. Like them, I had no perfect
plan to offer either, nor did I invite controversy. What I can tell you through uh the lessons I've learned is that there is really no substitute for community engagement. You need to engage and listen to the people who don't necessarily agree with you. If you look
at around look around at the mistakes that have been made by other communities in devising an MBTA plan, they all point to a lack of public discourse during the formation process and I am speaking about Lexington, Bedford and Nem just to
name a few. In March, for example, a Lexington special town meeting rescended much of their MBTA resoning by an astounding 94% landslide vote. I do not want to see that happen here. I want Carl Ali to get
it right the first time. We cannot afford to wait until November to educate our public on a law that is so complex, even those who work with it every day don't fully understand all its nuances. Nor can we wait to hear the public's
questions or objections. Our process will be better for to have sustained public engagement now rather than expecting we'll somehow get through it all in a few hours at a fall town meeting. That won't happen. That's why
we need this warrant article. You would be supporting a request for options, education, and sustained public discourse and nothing more. Thank you. Any questions? In terms of your interactions with the
planning board, have they responded to this request or indicated what they plan to do at the town meeting in terms of how they at a at a at a broad level in terms of if they do intend to present one option or if they do intend to present multiple options. I have had
discussions uh both at planning board meetings and one-on-one with their committee chair and she tells me they are intending to present more than one option. We like to think we've had some influence in kind of getting them to
think about that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the immediate audience here who wants to speak on behalf of the anything about the MBTA warrant article? Is there anyone on the line who wants to make a comment or
a question about the MBTA community citizen petition? Okay. Well, we have to decide if we're going to take a position on this or not.
I have an opinion on this. Good. And I I say this from a so my my inclination is that we do not take a position on the citizens petition. Not to say we don't individually make a decision on whether
or not we want to support it as private citizens, but I think as a select board, if if we want to give feedback feedback and direction to the planning board, we should do that as a select board with a with a memo or a statement or our own
vote versus um taking a position on a citizens position petition which I believe is brought by the residents for the residents. Um, so I, you know, I I support the the the cause and and this the the the very
fact that there is a citizens position, but I think as a select board, um, I think it's more appropriate we not take a position on this and instead if we want to direct the the planning board, we do that as a select board to them directly. Okay.
rather than get crickets from me. I actually think that's a a good suggestion. I mean, I have worked, you know, openly to encourage with the citizens petition people to speak on behalf of it. I've worked in, you know, private and one-on-one conversations
with people to try and bridge, you know, the planning board and those different interests. But, you know, from a as an elected official here on the select board, and I I I kind of like that approach. I think that, you know, not taking a position on this is appropriate in this case. And I I actually do think,
you know, what Ken said, you know, they have had an influence here. Um, just in the mere fact doing it. And if the town, you know, wants to move this forward and, you know, in its collective wisdom, that's great. Or if it doesn't, you know, that's I I think, you know, the
town people will decide. And I don't think we have to particularly weigh in on this. Agree. You agree? Absolutely. I move um select board take no position on article 25. Second. Okay. One thing I'd just
encourage then us as a select board, following up on Scott's comment, is um that we have some kind of I' I'd like to know what the planning board is planning to
say. Are they going to say anything at town meeting regarding this article regarding the citizens petition? Yeah. Yeah. Because right and then that's because because if they're opposing it then that
sends a real signal about how they're thinking about what they want to present in the fall and have they taken a position to your knowledge? Have have any other board of health have any boards or committees taken an official position? I don't think any have as
right now Scott. Now, we have asked the uh planning board for an endorsement of the article. I think they're I don't think they're real keen on endorsing it, but they haven't really given us any reasons. I mean, it's a pretty simple ask, right? Have multiple options and
talk to the town. It's not binding. It's about it's nonbinding, right? It's an advisory. Yeah. Right. And it's it is nonbinding. They they could choose to ignore it if they so desired. And what they have told me is they essentially are planning on doing what we are
asking, but they don't want to endorse the warrant argument. Well, yeah, I think that's okay. We don't have many citizens positions. So, it's it's a unique uh type of warrant article, especially given that it's non-binding. And I think you've in many ways, as you said, achieved
a lot. there's, you know, we're there's still some time before town meeting in the fall, but to this point, you you've achieved your goals in terms of at least what I've seen a lot of options being considered and I would expect as a as a resident that as we get past this town meeting and as we start focusing on the
next town meeting that, you know, I as a citizen, I want to see options. I want to understand I don't need to see all the options, but I want to understand what what what the different options are. And I think it's important. It's a very important issue and the town needs to there needs to be just as we're talking about community feedback for the
fire station. I would expect the planning board should be soliciting similar community feedback on the various different approaches. And I think that's something to do and I and I think we should just keep an eye on that and if we feel like something is is not being done, we should communicate that
to the planning board. I mean to be fair I I realize in Ken and you know this has gone on a while and there was some you know remarks let's say about they were homing in on one option but if you went to those information sessions
they presented a lot of stuff a really lot of wellressearched stuff I went to one of them and almost I would say too much information because it may have galvanized people who were neutral on this topic but I don't think you can accuse them of not reaching out and
trying to uh you know promote discussion of the issue. But hold on, we have some more public comment. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Sydney Craft 75 Pentime Lane. I attended those sessions and and they had a specific plan that they were
promoting. There were not multiple plans. Multiple plans came about as a as a response to angry residents. Okay. Um, and I guess my concern here, I don't actually care who who endorses or
doesn't endorse. I My concern is that information um is not necessarily getting out. The board of health came out and supported based on the vote the smallest option that didn't appear in the mosquito. I
don't know if you guys know it. Um, I don't know how to what degree boards listen to each other, but I I I there's there's concern that, you know, they're still on their own track. Okay.
I I'd like to add to that. Yeah. I do feel we've come a long way since those fall sessions. I agree with Cindy. I don't the the agenda in those fall sessions was to sell the community on the multif family cluster plan and just
to underscore the point they took surveys going in and leaving on to really two questions how do you feel about the law and how do you feel about this plan and they didn't ask about other plans or you know other ideas in those sessions and the results were
overwhelmingly negative especially on the plan about 80% %. So again, we've come a long way. It's gotten better. I hope I like to think we've all, you know, collectively as a community, we've had some good input into that and that's
help to uh shape what is happening, but uh yeah, I'm encouraged that they are going the right way. Well, and ultimately it's up to the town whether they approve whatever plan or plans are presented. So, my advice is do your
work. If you really want to, if you need the community support, you have to listen to the community. And so, um, and Scott, I understand we want a plan. Oh, yeah. That and I appreciate that. um in in listening to the comments um at the
last planning board meeting and in in watching the video the YouTube video um being very clear that your goal is not to uh not pass something you want you want a solution you just want to see the options as opposed to some communities
where people are saying we don't no we're we shouldn't comply we will not comply so I I do appreciate that and that did come across clearly in in your communication To be clear though, there are still gradients of compliance and so that's
something that the planning board is wrestling with now in part due to the community support that you're seeing you know in this group or others or people have spoken of that relative to perhaps they zone over an area that you know
would would be harder to develop. Um and and so that has to be factored in and there's just there's all this stuff. But I think it's actually played out as messy it as it is. It's like this is pretty good in that you know the the planning board had a direction. They
felt that that was the right direction. They did community output outreach and then they pulled it back and they said you know what we're taking it from the the committee the subcommittee and we're going to we're going to re-evaluate and now they're coming up with multiple plans. It's because of sounds familiar.
I just want to add one other thing in terms of precedent. I cannot remember the select board ever taking a position on a citizen's petition. Okay. Okay. I I do want to ask one question of of the group and maybe you can't speak on behalf of of the group,
you know, because you're not all here, but the language of the actual article says um that you you are um want you're advis you'd like the town to pass something
that advises the planning board to include at least one article that satisfies the town's obligation. to comply with the MBTA communities MBTA communities legislation. But you start with two alternatives. So I just want to
I don't know again if you can say do you support two options but that both of them comply with the MBTA act even if there there's some questions within that but because one could read this
that you're okay if one of the options doesn't comply with the MBTA I mean just the way this is written you know that no we won't comply option Okay. Okay. And there is a process to get Yeah,
that's not anything. We're not looking to knock. Great. All right. So, there was a motion, a second. We're going to have a vote um of to not take a statement position on this. Um so, we'll do a voice vote. All in favor? I. None
opposed. Okay. Thank you for your continued time and efforts. Okay. Thank you. Um, next to the accessory dwelling unit bylaw. We we don't need to cover the MBTA
request for the planning board for more money 25 consultant. You already you already recommend support of that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you all. Mark's still here making me nervous. Bitter end. He
does. And these fine folks. Yes. All these other people. leave. No. Something you cannot support. No. No. Now we're on the We're on the edu. So Brian, what is um our question
here? We take a decision. So whether or not you're going to take a position and if you're ready to take a position. So you have up until the vote at town meeting. All right. And the proposed bylaw, I just pulled it up here.
So, we're hoping to print the motions book right after your meeting next week. So, if you want it in the motions book, it would have probably been helpful to have a short presentation from the planning board on this because it it's been kind of a moving target. She's
given Hasn't she pretty much given that? Not on the latest. No. And it it has, you're right, it has been a moving target. They've changed Yes. provisions in the Mlet at last meeting. I don't have the same attention span that I've had in the past. So, I've lost track of
where we're at with it to tell you the truth. So, is um the video that's online that you and Julie did, is that current? Yes. Yeah. Because you should watch that. It's very helpful. Okay. Um and I
I think that's quite clear in describing what this is all about. Um well I know I know about the state ADU. So this just it's a matter of adopting the state ADU with a um my understanding
um law with a a uh site plan approval process. So they they have some controls over thing and they they've decoupled it now from the the 1200 square foot accessory apartment. Well, not only that, but it it if I heard it correctly,
Ryan, that um the byite uh law that the state passed is for the size of an ADU is 900 900 and the 1,200 that we used to allow that's going to be eliminated
altogether. Yes. Right. Am I reading the understanding the video correctly? That that's eliminated. So 900 is the max size. because they changed from how it used to be. When they were originally doing it, they were going to have both. They were going to do both because we
we've always, you know, accepted 12,200 square foot ones, right? Um and I thought and it was a different process as a special permit and so they've eliminated that altogether. You can't even get a special permit for that now. And the other thing is that the con they
are allowed to put some conditions on a on a special I mean on the buy right ADU but not I guess the language is not unreasonable conditions right well because that part I understood because I
used to stand the state part um okay was there anything else that Julie had pointed out in that video I I just watched it recently but I don't remember I thought she I thought A, she did a great job. Um, but it's fairly long. Um,
and so were there any other specific changes that she had highlighted besides No, not not that I can remember. Yeah. Okay. Fly here. Because I I I believe it [Music] um doesn't doesn't it also eliminate the
um what did we used to call the other version? Um the affordable accessory apartments. Well, that's been eliminated a long time ago. Okay. Well, they Okay. I mean, I I thought they Okay, so they've eliminated those as well. Okay. Is there anyone online who has a
question or wanted to provide more information on this the accessory dwelling unit bylaw? Okay. Hi, I um Christina local hill. I've actually been attending all the planning board meetings and I
believe the reason they um eliminated the 1,200 uh square foot um um special permit option. Yeah, special permit option is because the state uh did not allow an eitheror
approach. And so if they kept the,200 square foot um by special permit option, those properties would still be eligible for a protected ADU uh an additional ADU uh up to 900 square f feet. Oh. And so
and so the since the state did not allow an eitheror, they just eliminated the,200 square foot option. All right. Okay. Great. That's sort of unfortunate, but uh there you go. That's good answer. Yes.
What did she say? Well, if you if you had a,200 square foot uh accessory apartment by special permit, you could also then have a 900 foot different places. They did talk about having a person required to live
in the unit or on the property or something. So, yeah. Got it. Well, actually because they were concerned about condominiumizing and different Yeah. Okay. Um All right. So, that makes a lot of sense. Ask Ryan, has there been any
um push back on the ADU bylaw from any particular board or committee or member or members of the public? Oh, it's another one of those. Not that I know of, but that's not an informed No. Yeah. I I'm Has the zoning board um
weighed in on it? Not that I know of. The ZBA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not going to be a determining taken away from them. So, they're not a board that would decide
if if it was allowed or not. They would zoning consideration. It goes to it goes to a site plan review, I believe, with the planning board. With the planning board and they don't have a role now. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Now I sus may well I
don't know that might be a question to follow up with Julie because maybe if there was a setback requirement that that they needed a variance to do or something on a new structure that would be something that might go to the ZBA but I don't remember if that falls now
to the planning board because of if they're applying for this particular you know ADU permit then then it kicks over to the planning board. Yeah, I don't think it I I don't I think they kind of listed on this zoning VA for years or
was and the the power keeps being taken away over and over and I it was fine. I understood it. Okay. So, uh so the question on the table is do we support this or not? And I guess I can't see any reason not to support it. I I
would actually say do we have to do this because we have to get in the motion book if we don't do it tonight. No, he said he was going to wait till next Tuesday. I'd like to wait Tuesday night's meeting. Yeah, because I'd like to hear maybe is is there anything from Julie that we need to hear or not
additional information? I don't know. Maybe we should watch the video together at the end of this meeting. I watched the video. I mean, it I thought it was I just don't know if there's any ramifications that I'm not aware of that we should know about, but it seems
fairly straightforward. It's a state mandate. Yeah, these these are trying to be compliant. They're compliant and and what it does is it gives them, you know, more control because they're give submitting they're Yeah. submitting it
to the uh that site plan um to the planning board. Planning board. Yeah. Otherwise, people could just build anything and not and and it also gives more that's the other thing she said. It gives more um the the building commissioner instead of
having to make his own judgment, right? I this this would provide more public transparent process around it about Yeah. It seems like it's as everything I know about it, I would support it. I just don't know if there's anything I don't know about it. Right.
Um, just be glad that planning board now has site plan approval authority because when I was on planning board, select board was doing site approval. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, boy.
Okay. So, that do you want to hold off or you Well, what do people do people want to hear more information? I don't really want to bring her in here if she doesn't need to. We have to beat her to death. So, if there's a motion on this one. I I move that we support the ADU
bylaw number whatever number it is. Article 26. Article 26. Second. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? David, did you want to weigh in? No, I'm happy. Okay. Voice vote. All in favor? I. All
right. All right. We supported that. Town administrator bylaw. I support that. I think we already did support it. Yes. John here for public participation comment. Ah. Oh. Oh. Well.
All right. Well, is there anyone who would like to make a comment? Okay. Anyone online? It's it's unfortunate um that there's nobody here for us to once again have an opportunity to review because we kind of
went back and forth on this one as well. It had several iterations which we did, you know, take and present to various boards and committees and then changed it at the end, right? And then changed it again and then changed it a third time. But, you know, Yeah. But wait,
wait a minute. We went to boards and committee specifically to get input with the understanding that we might change it as a result of that feedback. Right. So I think remember at our last select board meeting I mean if there was infinite time you would do it.
We decided to exclude Gleon Library as a even though our new draft did not have that in it. We decided that at our No, I know last select board meeting. If there was infinite time, we would go around to everybody one more time and then we go
around to everybody and maybe even one more time if there was more. But I think we did okay. Like we went to we kind of went to almost every board and we didn't always agree with them but we always listened to them. Right. So y and I've had conversations with various individually with various board chairs
discussing it further. reccom um had an initial vote but was looking at the wrong an older version and in talking with them I think they're going to re-evaluate or or something in an upcoming meeting that's mostly what I
want to kind of guard against yes that excuse me some of the um support or non-sup support will be of the wrong product you know so yeah Right.
But we've done a I think a our best to reach out and we'll see and I'll and to answer the what is the answer or what do we say to folks that are asking why the library I know has been excluded. I I appreciate you bringing that up because
I was going to ask that too. That that has been the you know one of the questions that's central to people's questioning of what is the logic there? Is there anything? Um, come on. Go. What one of the things that
I would suggest is that the school committee is by statute and in all 351 towns in Massachusetts, the school committee is separate. The libraries have a similar statute that gives them
autonomy over their um over their staff and their their product or um services, their services. And um in evaluating that, when looking at at other communities, there are an awful lot that
really do separate that out. Um as you know, a separate entity, a separate facility. Um and then I guess the facility argument is also out there as well, which is that you have a a completely distinct building with um
similar to the fire department. And someone could say, well, what about the, you know, DPW? They're not, but the DPW really falls under clearly under the town administrator um just in the day-to-day operations and activities
whereas the library is a bit distinct in having a board of trustees also has its own set of policies and procedures which other entities don't really I mean they're real codified policies and procedures and well I'm just thinking
about the flag pole when we did our flagpole policy It was just for our flag poles and it indicated that the library had its own flag pole and they have control over their policy about really we did. Yes. Okay. Good memory.
So I think that that's an also another differentiating quality of it. Well, I'm getting off topic, but speaking of flag pole Oh gosh, I didn't mean to. Um, that's something that I think a
a future board here because we're out of time on I think our tenure here, this exact board, but should take up is um because we have a a right now a flag is it what's the official title, Ryan?
Keeper of the flag. Keeper of the flag. Y and the keeper of the flag, you know, is a paid position. Um but it it's an individual and individuals go on vacation and individuals do you know have their their own and and and we have
a policy and um I think it's going to be wise to actually move that out of the independent realm of a keeper of the flag and into a town role from you know however the town administrator thinks it's best to be administered but maybe
it's the DPW or the fire department or something but to take care of our flag relative to raising and lowering it because there was a um I think miscommunication or something that didn't get quite get established correctly when we were I
had asked that it be lowered in respect for the three high schoolers who perished one of whom was from Carlile so it went down up it had a little little mishap so I think we need to take that up when do we is that require town
meeting stuff or no I think it would be logically fall because we would we appoint the town the keeper of the flag in right it's not it doesn't need to go to town meeting okay all right
um sorry to get off topic so t that was TA by anything else on that separation that you the select board and its infinite wisdom and I'll just say that the um the COHS asked specifically about
that, you know, and we had a conversation at the last board meeting and they were comfortable with my response and voted to support the great final version. Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. Um well the last one is the
budget and capital investment items. And what I don't know well in is FINCOM's budget meeting is coming up Thursday. Thursday. Yeah. Two nights from now. So what do we have what do we have to discuss on that one? It's just here for for discussion community input
if they wanted to. If there's anybody, this has been a long meeting, but I think important it's only 20 at 10. It feels like Well, it feels like it's been that should be midnight. You know, fire station was about 3 hours. Yeah. So, a
couple notes. The about the budget. The House Ways and Means put out their version of the budget today. It indicated $150 for minimum aid for students, which is good for us. We're a minimum aid community, which translates to a state aid change positive in our
favor of 47,000 from our original estimate, which brings Excellent. I'm going to add a lot of caveats. So, this still has to go to conference committee and is not the final state budget. So, we projected off the governor's budget. Yeah. The difference between the governor's budget and this budget is
47,000, which would lower the tax impact from 346 to 331. So, again, we were conservative. Yeah. Hopefully it continues to to march down. Yeah. Um library and library. Well, elevator
which has Oh, has a library which lives in the library. There we go. I got there is the bids come in tomorrow. So, we'll have a number for you for your meeting on the 13th to talk about that article. Uh the fincom will get the first crack at it because they meet on Thursday. And
then um there is one note in the folder that I need you to decide. So we are borrowing for the I believe it's the fire truck, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's just the I didn't understand that thing at all. Yeah. But I thought um we have to designate the useful life. The maximum
useful life. Yes. Tell us a little more about that. We're trying to set it up so that we can immediately contract the fire truck assuming the vote passes at town meeting. So, um, we do need to determine the max life of the of the
firetruck. So, you heard tonight that the chief said about 25 years for a firetruck. They hope to extend it longer. Um, all the projections you've seen from me are 15 years for the borrowing costs. So, I would be my recommendation to you is I'm not
comfortable with anything longer than 20 years, but you can be. So, if you want to say 10 years, 15 years, want to advertise it. Tanker. No, because so I don't want to have a truck we can't use that we're still far. Is
there no standard on like advertise it vehicle? Right. Yeah. But about 25 years is the is the usual life. I'm comfortable with that. Isn't that what we target when we buy these things? That's what we usually say. So I How old is I misunderstood what
Ryan was saying that he was he when you said you were comfortable with the 10 or 15 years you were talking about how long the loan was or how long the life the truck was. So the two are connected. So the select board has to decide if it's longer than 5 years how
long they believe a piece of equipment will last. And this gets sent to the loan officers who then allow us to borrow the money for it. Okay. But if we have a 25 year uh let's say estimated lifetime and we only want to bond it for
you know or borrow for 15 that should not present a problem, right? Okay. So I mean the longer we think it's going to last the the easier we could do 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah, benefit of paying enough early is is is less interest and you
don't run into problems. The benefit of borrowing longer is the lower annual cost that gets put into the operating budget. Yeah. Okay. How old is the current tanker that it's replacing? How many years of service? I'd have to look at the video. I think it's uh
2003. Let me look at the 20. It'll be about 25, but 23 24. Okay. Okay. I mean, if we built a fire station, we probably won't be buying any money. We're not getting this one for They're connected, but they're not connected. Because if we said it's only going to last for 10 years, you can't
borrow for 20 years on it then. Yeah. Right. So, Right. Uh, but it is something that if you got in a fiscal crunch, you might extend it out. You might We might be advertising it at 20 years and say, "Well, we'll extend 30." If we've set it at 30 right now, right?
And I'm not advocating that. 25. I think 25 is a good The current one he just said went into service in 2000. So it's 25 years old. The current one which is the ladder truck that was talking about the one that this is replacing. This is replacing. Okay. Which is or we could
send a message to say 50 I don't think the banks will let you do that. So Mark, did you have any thoughts? I think it's you guys talked about it at your meeting one time couple
you didn't in particular but one of your other members income have sounds like it's a choice between a 30-year and a 20 year 20 and 25 I think 20 and 25 okay but you're saying you we could choose to flip at that point
um advertise it earlier you do the gives you more options so it gives you more options So, I think go 25. We need a motion. Yeah. Here's the motion. I move to approve the maximum useful life of the fire engine to be financed with the proceeds of the
$975,000 bowering authorized by the votes of the town passed May 13, 2024, article 14 and May 21st, 2024. Question one is hereby determined pursuant to general laws chapter 44 section 7
um subsection one to be 25 years second. Okay. Any further discussion? I was just look noting the date and I was changing the date on the Okay. All in favor? I I none opposed and David uh was not in the
meeting at the moment. You're going to come there's a few more of these coming in the right after town meetings. Great. Hopefully if things Do you want me to change it up here too? Yes, please. Okay. Good. All right. Anything else
that anyone wants to discuss? 25, right? 25. It's probably 250. Okay. Um, you let Yeah. Are we going to talk about Woodward or we're going to Okay, we have 15 minutes that we never have. Well,
it's just included in our packet as if maybe well, but it's not on the agenda. So, I'm not sure we're supposed to talk about things, especially when it's about transparency and everything. We don't Okay. Just because of its I I thought it's important though, we put all the
stuff that we get in the packet as public comment regardless of what I think. Okay. You submit it to the select board, it goes in there. Is there anything else around town meeting logistics or anything we should cover off on tonight? David's not here
at the moment, but yeah. Is everything all set for the like I did we did we do we do we know that I've forgotten what the conclusion was around the posters people that are there is some
we're still doing a post there's going to be some kind of indoor information with people for each of the articles there to with some kind of posted information. Yeah, he's on the committee. I'm on the committee with that. Oh, good. If you want me to please
do tell us I don't think I don't think we're forcing anybody to do a poster but we're we asked them all everybody we asked each each uh sponsor sponsor of one of the articles to provide a poster.
I think many of them are uh and then there'll be so that there's going to be a food truck I think uh an hour and a half or so before the meeting something like that I forget it is huh 12:00 or 11:30
yeah an hour and a half before and then the posters and then the people can bring their food into the cafeteria and the posters will be around the uh set up inside the side like we did for the uh like the MBTA input session so they can eat and walk
around, but that's got it. Okay, sounds good. David may know. We don't know how many posters we're going to have. You know, it's hard to tell. I put out another APB today. APB. Um and uh James actually responded, so I think he's going to do
post on the finance. Julie for sure is going to have whatever she has. Julie always has. Um a couple other people have chimed in to Gretchen. I'm kind of got out of it because Gretchen was taking over and we got a lot to do. So, okay,
it's going. I learned just now from um Brian that child care registration is up. Oh. So, people can sign up. There'll be some publishing of the menu for the truck so people kind of can pre think about what they can order. They can't pre-order, which I was hoping they could
do, but doesn't seem to be possible. Um, you know, I hope the weather's good. I think Aubre's been doing an awesome job on the March. Yeah, the social media. She really took that over. So, you know what we what we've talked I think we talked about before is at after
the town meeting and as we review it, we're going to do some more of it this summer, but we really need to think about a standing committee kind of like the old home date. We need to have a committee that basically just runs that, you know, process every year. But I think I'm hopeful that, you know, we'll
get some good outcome out of it. Yeah. Great. Okay. Anything else? Is there anyone in the public left who wants to make a comment or a question? This is it. All right. Seeing none. Motion to
adjurnn. So moved. All right.