i'd like to call to order the uh March 25th 2025 meeting of the select board 7 p.m i'll just quick quick quickly run through our proposed agenda for this evening we're going to have a brief community input that we normally do at the beginning we're going to then have a
joint meeting with the board of health um we're going to move on to a um electric company poll location hearing then a joint meeting with the transfer station action committee town meeting discussion um then the uh discussion of
the Carlile police unit local contract town administrator report and then appointments warrants and minutes leazison reports and then we'll have further community input at the end um so I'd like to call to order the meeting um by we have all we have four members
present note that Barney Arnold is on that's her barney are you on the phone if you are please speak up you're muted Barney you're muted
oh it is Barney okay well when you have a moment if you would uh make yourself known if you're can do that otherwise we're going to consider that you know we'll have at least four members present um okay uh to
start we we do community input if there's anyone in the public who wants to um address the select board you can address me um just state your name and your address we typically allow one minute uh I sometimes allow two for comments this can be on any subject um
and um we'd appreciate if you uh just keep your comments concise is there anyone in the audience seeing none I will move online is there anyone online who wants to make a comment or has uh questions for the select
board okay seeing none this is this is Barney hey Barney you have a question state your address did we just do low road no anyway can you hear me now it's Barney Arnold we do and so now that you are online we're going to do a roll call vote here for
the meeting um Okay so we'll do it alphabetically go ahead Barney arnold I Modell I read I Snell I all right we got it all right so so we're all present all five members all
right um so it's approximately 7:05 and I'd like to invite the board of health um to uh if they wanted to Yeah if you want to come forward or Yeah whatever you meeting room like no no it's great it's great and I think our
microphones seem to work pretty well now so people can hear um but if you want to call your meeting to order so we actually have all all of our five um we'll do a roll call collins I Ericson I
Mariano I Wall I excellent perfect well we appreciate you uh coming and attending and participating really um this I think got started because we are working on a town administrator bylaw and we had
heard that there was some concerns about that and uh Linda had suggested that we set or through Linda at least set up a joint meeting as well as invite some guests to attend and so I think if if you're willing to do that let's have them
to go all right i'm sorry if I moved the chairs that you want to sit in but I figured you might be more do you want me to move the chairs back it doesn't make any difference i would just come closer it would be helpful because they can see no actually we're going to bring the other chairs okay that's fine i got
slide over here that way we can see the the audience it's going to be on the screen but they also have cameras so that the people looking remotely can see oh so you want us to stay here it's preferable if you Okay it's up to you we'll just use
smaller chairs yes all right we'll know for next time so welcome happy Thanks please introduce yourself and we can certainly um thank you very much for having us um my name is Cheryl Sabara i am the executive director and
senior staff attorney for the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards and I am here with my colleague Mike Hugo you can introduce i'm I'm Mike Hugo and I am the director of strategies and government relations for Mass Association of Health Boards
and we were asked to come before the board and talk a little bit about the legal authority of boards of health how they get their authority where it's from and basically um provide some
information on what their statutory and regulatory obligations are um and and look at some case law and some historical um information about how we got to where we are now as local boards
of health in mass in Massachusetts so I'm going to talk about the legal authority and then Mike is going to talk about some recent legislation that was just passed by the legislature in November of 2024 that has some pretty
broad implications for the work of the board of health and some standards that are going to need to be met by boards of health so I will start is some is someone gonna just turn the slides that's me great next slide as we attorneys like to do um we have a
disclaimer here to tell you that we do not represent the town of Carile you are abley represented by your municipal attorney um we are providing this educ this information for educational purposes um it's not legal advice next
slide so a little bit about us we were established in 1982 by the Conservation Law Foundation they are a nonprofit legal entity that were they were getting a lot of questions on boards of health
and laws that pertained to boards of health so um we ended up being being created through this foundation and we provide legal education technical assistance and training we have two trainings uh three trainings that are
coming up in April and May it's the certificate program for board of health members and staff usually come to those as well next slide so when we look at the the the main chapter in Massachusetts that
addresses public health and public health law is chapter 111 and when you're looking at public health law and you look first to the federal law because that is the law that trumps everything um so the federal law sets
minimum standards i know i'm sorry I use that word um so it it used to not be controversial he certainly thinks it trumps everything um so they set minimum standards the federal government and then states um
actually the the authority to regulate the public health safety and welfare is left to the states in the United States and in Massachusetts our legislature delegated most of the authority to um
enact reasonable health regulations to local boards of health so local boards of health are charged with protecting the health safety and welfare of the residents it's the police power which doesn't usually sit really well with
residents because they don't think about the board of health as having the same police power that fire and police have but they do and the courts in Massachusetts have consistently upheld
the authority of boards of health to protect public health and they've done it um you can see it it's at the expense of an individual's freedom and the right to engage in business so we're constantly utilizing this balancing test
between an individual's freedom and the need to protect public health and the right to engage in business and the need to protect public health and this was a huge issue 25 years ago when we were enacting local regulations banning smoking in restaurants and bars it was a
huge issue and this is a case that um put that issue in perspective next slide please so um and and when you look at the cases from the Supreme Judicial Court which is our highest court um you will see what
they have said throughout the years that Board of Health regulations stand on the same footing as a town bylaw as a state statute or a state regulation rational presumptions all rational presumptions are made in favor of the validity of
that regulation and the case that really hits home on on this specific issue is the Arthur D little case back in the 80s in Cambridge where Arthur D little was coming into the city to build a chemical
warfare plant they had all their approvals from everyone and the Cambridge board of health they have a commissioner form but he operates just like a board of health enacted a regulation that prohibited the regul the manufacturing of chemical warfare
weapons in the city um there were three um publica three reports that were published to look at what the actual danger would be for the residents and one was commissioned by the federal government because there were federal
funds involved one by the city and one by Arthur D little all three of them came back essentially saying that to a 99% degree of certainty there will not be any danger to the residents the court
upheld that regulation as reasonable because they said they were not going to substitute their judgment for the judgment of the board of health if the board of health felt that that 1% was sufficiently dangerous to the residents
of Cambridge they weren't going to substitute their judgment now I say that because that is a very extreme case um and I always tell my members that just because you can doesn't mean you should but that just gives you an inkling of of
the wide latitude and discretion that courts in Massachusetts have given to boards of health next slide there we go um so when I said just because you can doesn't mean you should there are
certain um considerations that I believe a board should look to first you want to know whether there's any preeemption does the federal or state law prevent you from acting um and then you want to look at what the actual risk is and
frequently boards regulate when they're looking at folks that can't really regulate well or protect themselves for instance um youth a lot of our tobacco laws are to prevent youth from being
exposed um elderly those with special needs these are some of the populations that we're looking at and or or are you just dealing with something that may be a private cause of action one neighbor is fighting with another neighbor over
something does that rise to the level or not so that's something these are the limitations and the considerations next slide please next slide i already said that so um other factors that you're going to want to consider are the
following and I won't go through them all but I'd like to give you an example of a board of health that was thinking of passing a regulation and again this was about 20 years ago to ban the use of cell phones and cars public health issue
yeah it's it's a safety issue um but how are they going to enforce that how is a board of health going to enforce a ban on using cell phones and cars they They don't have a car they if they do have access to a town vehicle
it's not going to have a siren on it how are they they even going to see whether someone's using it that just it wasn't going to be reasonable um and it wasn't going to be effective because they couldn't enforce it they decided not to go forward with that regulation and now
the legislator's passed laws and it's enforcement is with the police which is where it should be next slide so um the way we've the way we do our enforcing of public health laws in Massachusetts is as I said the
legislature delegated most the vast majority of its authority to local boards of health the Department of Public Health does have some authority to enforce so does D but I cannot think of one instance where the department of public health has actually stepped in
even though they do have the authority um so many most of the time the primary enforcing agent is going to be the board of health next slide so it the chapter 111 also has other sections in it and one of the sections
is section 27 and that section gives the authority to employ staff and to set budgets to the board of health itself um that's in the statute however there are
ways that a city or town can amend that section by either through a town charter a city charter or a piece of special legislation and I think that's one of the things that this that the select board is looking at next
slide and and and what I should also say about that is that well here it is um so the bo the board of health annually reorganizes and then this is where section 27 says that they may employ the
necessary officers agents and assistants um to to help them execute the laws and and enforce the laws and may fix the salary well you could fix the salary at whatever you want but if town meeting doesn't give you the budget you know that that great you know you just but
you don't have the money to do it so there are certainly limitations in section 27 itself um and also there are charters and special legislation that can um redo the infrastructure of um a
health department next slide so there are though the all municipal employees have to comply with standards of conduct that are in the conflict of interest law you know there can be no appearance of impropriy no misuse of a
position um you can't act inappropriately or outside regardless of who has the supervisory um role in health department staff staff has to be acting appropriately and in
the realm of acceptable conduct you can't a staff can't be rogue it just because they're under the supervision of um the board of health they still need to adhere to whatever standards of conduct that a city or town may have in
addition to the standards of conduct that are in the conflict of interest law next slide so now to look at some other sections in chapter 111 and again there are many more than this mike is going to show you a slide that's going to go through a
litany of statutory and regulatory responsibilities of boards of health we're going to just look at two of them we're going to look at nuisance next slide um this is a very very broad section of the law and it actually mandates boards
of health to examine into all nuisances sources of filth and causes of sickness which in its opinion and here's where the d discretion comes in again which in which in its opinion may be harmful
may be harmful to public health so it's a very very broad statute and when I was in law school Professor Proer wrote a book that said there is perhaps no more impenetrable jungle in the entire law than that which surrounds the word
nuisance so you've got five volunteers in your town getting paid the big bucks to determine what a nuisance is and if they do determine something is a nose nuisance next slide please they have the obligation to get
rid of it or to regulate it um an exception is generally acceptable farming procedures doesn't have to be best practices but it has to be generally accepted farming procedures they are not by definition a nuisance
next slide i just want to I threw these in just to Okay so not this one i threw in a couple of pictures so you could maybe if you were falling asleep you might want to Oh did you take them out i didn't I
I Okay so is there any assistance that your five board of health members can have when they're when they're thinking about whether there actually is a public health nuisance and yeah there are and and and you want to make sure that you're basing this on public health
principles um does the coni the condition affect the public or is the condition just about one individual or one household if it is about one individual or one household could that condition spread to neighboring
individuals or households um could the individual spread the nuisance to the wider community um and is there a real risk here you know is there a real risk and I would bring you back to the Arthur D little case it's a judgment call that
the board makes but it's something to really think about next slide other factors you know we've been through this with you know years ago with COVID um and and is it a condition
that might cause trauma or injury could it expose residents to hazardous elements or substances these are some of the factors that the board would be thinking about when they were determining whether something was a nuisance that needed to be abated next
slide and as I said if they find that a nuisance exists they need to issue a cease and desist order um within a reasonable amount of time to whoever the alleged violator is that violator is subject to a $1,000 per day fine um and
what frequently would happen is they would issue the cease and desist and ask the person to come before the board to explain to them how they're going to abate the nuisance and how long it's going to take and if the um person does not abate the nuisance then the town can
abate it and then put a lean on the property and we have all sorts of templates to assist in that process next slide so um we also I also wanted to talk a little bit about noise and trades um because that's
an area of the law where the board of health can actually either refuse to site a business or put conditions on a business that is even that is either potentially dangerous or could even
affect the property value of um um residents and examples of that would be fat rendering plants um asphalt plants manufacturing of fish meal auto body shops these are the kinds of noise of
trades that are considered noisome and frequently boards will um site either hours of operation or um a a better location but this is something that they need to be careful about doing because you want to work with your municipal attorney and make sure that you're not
um bucking heads with zoning laws and so forth so I think that might be it for me so I I just want to throw one thing and when when Cheryl said $1,000 per day for fines for nuisance sometimes a business doesn't care about $1,000 a day uh and
um we had we worked with a board of health out in Western Mass where we went with in our cease and assist order $1,000 per occurrence per day and it affected 480 households and the business had a net revenue of
$630,000 a year and came back to the board and said "If we miss this by one day you're going to kill us but by two days by noon the second day we're bankrupt." Got their attention and so sometimes that's what it takes when you're when you're going after a nuisance but I do I do want to emphasize
that that's not the goal of a board of health right the goal of a board of health is to get compliance not punishment and usually we can get compliance by just calling someone up and saying "Hey your restaurant dumpster is overflowing could you just clean it?" That's that's how it should work and
that's how it usually does work this is just for that's pretty extreme and and the board did back way up by about $480,000 a day for it but okay so uh these are actually this is one of our publications and these um and it's way
out of date but as of 2016 these were the the areas in which boards of health exclusively uh has jurisdiction over uh regulation if you want to go to the next slide please um this is a more graphic way of taking
a look at it but everything that's on this slide there's no one else in town that that does this it's it's totally up to the board okay so we're going to move on now and we're going to talk about the new legislation that just passed how it's going to affect boards of health
and how it's going to affect um uh really everything about about the way that you as selectman would look at your board of health and what the responsibilities are next slide please so in um in 2016
um the the uh special commission on local and regional health uh was convened by by the governor and by the legislature and um a a result of that was that uh a whole new system was was
devised in there the the go to the next slide please the the report of the of the special commission pointed out that public health in Massachusetts 351 separate boards of health uh it just doesn't work and it's it's cumbersome
it's slow it's it's it's broken it's just completely broken it's un it's just inequitable uh you have towns like Carlile that that have a good health department and good services uh you have towns that are bigger than Carlile that have smaller health departments you have
towns that are way bigger that have everything that they need and uh next slide please and so the legislature uh the legislature took a uh took took a good solid look at the whole picture and
um in the report of the special of the special commission which consisted of insurance people uh public health people the mass municipal association the mass taxpayers foundation Cheryl Sabara it was it was a a very broad basis of uh of
of knowledge that went into their report and um uh what they came up with was uh a a system where they would for the first time bring federal funding and state funding to local
public health up until this year there's been no program mandated by federal by state law that makes the state pay for anything you guys have had to you guys I'm sorry you folks have had to uh have had to fund uh
your your your health department completely and if they got a grant wonderful but if they didn't it's completely up to town meeting i know in my 15 years that I served in Framingham uh eight of them I was chair and I went eight times from for money to the to the
uh town meeting and it's it's difficult because there's so many competing ideas and it's easy for a really well functioning board of health not to draw any attention because if they're doing their job nobody knows that they're there and that I found that that was the
most difficult part about fundraising for for my board was the fact that we're doing great work nobody even knew we were there um so the second year I went back and showed them what we do and I got I got good funding but this is now the first time that the state is going
to be putting money into public health and um uh there are some requirements you you are part of a of a collaborative and your towns that you're working with are um I know I'm gonna get this wrong
um you're in Sbury Wayland Weston Conquered Lincoln and Bedford and that group is um has been around for several years and is considered really one of the best functioning groups that there is this there's 51 shared services groups now
across the state uh 321 cities and towns are participating in this program and so instead of having 351 boards of health doing their own thing now at least we have 51 groups
that are all working together uh and the funding uh we'll get into the funding in a second but in in exchange for uh uh being in this program the only things that the towns have to do are these five there's five obligations that you have
one is a letter of commitment that was done couple of years ago by the board of selectman and the board of health uh you have a shared services coordinator that works with your group she's excellent uh you you have to have one primary and one backup uh person to to uh do your Maven
reporting maven is the communicable disease reporter and uh those were the people during during COVID that were making the phone calls and saying you need to know who you were with when when you got CO um and then uh you have to
have a governance and advisory board that meets at least quarterly and you have to do a report every three years which um uh the the board of health hasn't come to that point yet because the law is so new so three years from now there's going to have to be some
periodic reporting uh but there is uh there is um I'm sorry there there is a three times a year report that's done now by the shared services group with a with financial a financial accounting and um that that's being done now those
are the only obligations that you have as a town next slide please in return for the obligations this is this is what it looks like financially uh your group this your your town last year or FY25
has $154,000 per year health budget next year's proposal is 167 the grant brings $447,64 a year it's it's funded already there was something in the news today about how the federal government is
clawing back some of the funds uh that they that they've committed from CO this money is all in the bank spent at this point so they can clar it back but they're not going to get anything because it's all committed and and it's it's protected so for the next for for
three fiscal years you're at $447,000 that money is coming from uh 200 $200 million from ARPA uh 52.6 6 million from the CDC on a public health infrastructure grant and then another
smaller grant uh that actually pays for us to be here we're not paid out out of th those funds the um uh all of that funding has been it's all it's all safe beyond that we don't know what's going to happen we would have
felt more comfortable a year ago sitting here and talking about what we think is going to happen but we just don't know but one thing that won't happen is I don't believe that the state will allow this program to fail because it's now uh it's it's now at a point where it's not
going to cost the $200 million a year like right now they're spending but because right now they're spending $98 million on data um modernization every board of health regardless if it's conquered or Boston is going to get new
computer equipment new software new hardware inspections uh inspection tablets so that your inspectors will be working on on a tablet-based program all paid for by the state regardless if you're in or not in that program where being in the program helps you is that
all of your trainings have to be supplied for free and we'll talk about that in a second but by being in the program you have you you won't get on a waiting list that you can't get through you might get on a waiting list for training but you'll get reached if you're not in the program you're going to get bumped down and down and down
you'll never get reached so that's just a quick thing on the advantage of that one of the advantages of the program um okay next slide please so the policy of the state action for public health excellence known as safe program
is the the policy is basically to bring all ships to the same level of a tide so Carlile will have the same public health services that Boston and Cambridge and uh wear and barnstable and you name the
town everybody is going to be looked at on the same level by the Department of Public Health and funded to all be functioning on on the core public health functions there's going to be things Boston has hospitals cambridge has hospitals you don't have a hospital that's in your budget but there are
there are things over and above the the the public health needs the the foundational services everything that that's that's a foundational service is going to be paid for right across the state by this
program so uh next one please so these are the new standards the the new standards and the new uh really the the new way of doing everything all inspections are going to be tablet based they're all going to be uh the reporting is going to go directly
to the state and to your office here uh epidemiology is going to become a two-way street right now if you have a disease you report it on the Maven system your nurse reports it through Maven the state collects that data and that's where it ends where it's going to
where where it's going to go now is the state's going to collect that data they're going to say you know something's going on in Carlile that's not going on in conquered why why is why is there a higher cancer rate in Plymouth than there is in uh Bourne
touching towns the state's going to start actually looking at this data they now have the money out of that $98 million portion to start to analyze what's going on with with health outcomes across across the state uh the
permitting I that that's all part of the part of the tablet base uh the workforce education training and credentiing standards instead of sending your your inspectors to Western Mass to go do soil school so that they know how to do title five work it's going to going to be
coming here they have training hubs 10 training hubs across the state nobody has to go to a hotel to stay overnight for trainings anymore under this program uh and okay next slide please and then under safe in addition to the to being in the program the five
things I told you about before uh there have to be uh the state will will come down with the standards and uh you will have to meet the standards naturally and the easiest way as I already talked about is through the crossjurisdictional sharing because that that gives you all of the advantages of
the funding um you will have an annual report that's the one that you don't have to do yet uh and and that annual report is aimed at giving the Department of Public Health enough fuel to go to get the budget that they need to keep this program going and and I'll tell you
right now that that we've been very blessed with uh with the current administration uh we we we we're funded there's there's a there's in addition to the 200 whatever million I'm going to move right along here i'm going fast I can in addition to that funding um
there's an annual line item in the in the um in the DPH budget which this year health and human services was cut $und00 million when on the governor's proposed budget this line item was not touched it's level funded from last year and the
governor has said when you run out of the $200 million when that's all implemented we know you're coming from more money we'll deal with it then so we we know we have their attention we know that we have their their their commitment to making this all work we'll move right along to the next slide i'm going to I'm going as fast as I can and
we're almost done okay so D and uh and DPH have obligations basically to give free trainings to to your whole staff and to everybody actually in town that works in public health if you're if you have building inspectors that do some of the
health work at all doing any any crossover they're they're all they're all able to take advantage of all of these trainings for free um and then um uh we can keep moving because we're going to give you these slides to be able to read them
so okay and then um uh the these are really the rest of the obligations that they have uh they're going to continue to be looking for funding uh that they can pass on to you technical assistance they're paying for that's why we're here we're paid out of out of out of grant
money for being here uh and that uh they're going to come up with some ideas and ways of measuring the effectiveness of all of this expenditure that they're doing and uh uh helping us to to sustain the program keep moving i know we're
running long i think that this is yeah this is in in this in the new statute this is the the the one provision that we stood very strong with and that is that boards of health do not give up any of their autonomy there's still 351 boards of health they can make
regulations that work in your town and the legislature has been very good about making sure that they can touch that and I think we're done okay great well thank you julie if you wouldn't mind just staying seated i mean this has been really helpful to understand kind of the
powers and authority and and some of the what what is happening at the state level um we had been involved tonight to try and with the board of health because as you you may have seen our town administrator bylaw we've had several
drafts initially it started out of a a task force that was independent of us five years ago that that looked at our town and suggested some things that would improve our operations internally within town within the town and we started with a bylaw we've reached out
to a number of boards we've taken feedback comments we've tried to work in those types of things and if you've have you had a chance to see the latest version i think it's Yeah and and I know I'd send it to the board of health as well and um you know I think that that
there is a concern and I can let the board of health articulate your concerns about this but if if you are experts in this at a state level if there's something in that bylaw that is you know antithetical or doesn't work for us you
know because of the law we certainly want to know about it we've had some legal opinions from our town council who doesn't think because it's really focused on HR human resource management it's not about policy the select board is not trying to reach into the uh board
of health or any other board and dictate policy we want that that's not what we're trying to do we're just trying to get the human resource personnel of the town all under kind of a common umbrella so that we have a better managerial structure so we can assess performance
and and other things um relative to the employees in town and so um I think there was concern and I can you know let Patrick or the board of health talk about any concerns they have but just if you can talk to that and say you know do we have an issue with the with our draft
bylaw we we'd like to know about it because we're trying to make it better yeah um what I would say is this this comes up a lot um and I the the personnel HR is HR for
everyone as as far as I'm concerned you know you don't I was looking at Boston today knowing that I was coming here and you know they have a huge um Boston Public Health Commission and all employees in that commission are subject
to the same um employee handbook that everyone else is um subject to so you know that that and as I said before you know behavior always has to be appropriate i don't care what department you work in um and and I'm thinking that
I'm hearing from you and I sensed in the tenor of the warrant article the most recent one is that you're not looking at what someone's job description is like what they what they would be doing on a
daily basis just in I think you're just looking at making sure that the behavior is appropriate am I am I is that what the intent of this bylaw is so that
there's one person and lots of t I I should I'm going to be politically incorrect but if a town is working well there is communication between and among departments all departments doesn't matter which department is and it
doesn't matter who is the supervisor of anyone that if a town is working well it all the employees are really on the same page they're all trying to do what's in the benefit of the town that's not always the case towns don't and and
board of health members have their own jobs you know they're volunteers just like select board members are and they can't do daytoday supervising of just like you can't do day-to-day supervising of who's
in your office either so I I don't think it's unreasonable to have a a a an HR department that is there let's say two employees have a conflict there
should be some way to work that out um that doesn't involve local board of health members or select board members that should be able to be worked out by someone um and you you would I don't know how big the staff is in
your health department i don't know how many you have if there's a conflict between two people in the health department you would hope that the health director would be able to help work that out if that's not the case then you're going to need someone else to help help work that out as as in any
department any municipal department the same thing would hold so and I'm sure you have I don't you I'm sure you have salary classifications for different people within the town the town meeting
dictates those you know the board of health while they by law have the ability they don't in practice because they can't change what the budget of the town is so the one thing that that did stick out
to me that I I would like to see it um maybe addressed a little differently is the um the ability to hire and fire staff
um I saw I I I would really like to see that be in consultation with the board of health not solely with a town administrator not just in you know so that each the board and the town
administrator because of the nature of the health department's work and the statutory and regulatory obligations I would like to see the board of health have a role in that that I don't really see the way it's written it says in it's
not in collaboration it's like we'll let you know what we're doing at least that's the way I read it the last time i think that would would um that's what happened when Belmont was looking at this that's what Belmont ended up um tweaking their agreement so that that
happened um and again we we see that happen not in Carlile but in larger municipalities where they have inspectors sitting in a different department than the board of health it's really important that there's communication between the building
department and the health department those kinds of things and if there's communication it it always works itself out in a functioning municipality you know as long as everyone's respectful and everyone understands the board is a
little different the board of health because of where they get their authority they don't get it from the select board or from town meeting they get it directly from the legislature and that creates a bit of a struggle sometimes a natural tension between you
know town meeting select boards and boards of health so and that's because of where they get their authority from and it's just where they get their authority from that's why we wanted to show you what the authority because it's it's so
different and and what Cheryl said I I can't emphasize enough when I was when I was on the board in Framingham planning board the zoning board uh town meeting passed even even passed something to to
bring in a development in Framingham two and a half million dollars in legal fees were spent on all of the planning work to get this done not by the town but by the developer 76 units he wanted to put in on bedrock and the board of health i
went to their very first meeting and said "Don't anybody do anything till you come to the board of health and they blew me off blew me off after two years of planning and after the appeals court came back and said "But you didn't do what the board of health said and you
didn't run it." Just a simple well pump test was all we wanted and they couldn't pass it they knew so that's that's the communication between the town and you know your town administrator sure knows that you know and he's he's He's going to keep an eye on that stuff good but
that's an important part we do have a legal hearing coming up so I need to to kind of wrap up but I'd offer to the board of health do you have any other questions at this point travis travis yes this is Jen oh hey sorry yep hi um sorry for being on Zoom i had some
conflicts but um I just wanted to to make a statement and sort of ask a question maybe of Cheryl but I think Travis you were asking for us to sort of help to explain some of the concerns so I'll just be it's pretty simple in my
mind that the concern is really around when you talk about an HR function and you talk about the role of a board and its independent responsibility to state law the employees in that team need to
be able to feel unencumbered to make decisions in the best interest of public health and in order to do that they need to structurally have the independence to do that and so I think of it a lot like a compliance function and when you think
about a compliance function in the business world you have to think about the reporting structure and who is handling the HR functions because you don't want there to be any fear of retribution or any concerns around decisions
conversations activities that need to occur and so I'm just saying that out loud Cheryl you're welcome to comment on that if you want to but that really is um in my mind the biggest concern around some of the changes um that we're talking about so no that I I couldn't
agree with you more that the judgment and the discretion of your staff is important because they should have the knowledge base to be able to make decisions that affect public health i
thought we when I say HR I I think of HR as um putting some parameters around behavior not about making decisions but around behavior not you know and and conflicts
that may arise between different staff members i'm not talking about the work that the health department does i don't think the town administrators should be involved in the work that they do at all i think that they that HR should be
involved in the the the behavior of all employees and the expectations of all employees not about decisionmaking about public health matters right and that's what we're trying to craft with this bylaw we're we're and we said it over
and over in the latest draft this is not about policy at all we don't But it is it's just about HR um I I love this discussion because I think we need to have this and it's important because you know there differing views on it within
our committee or select board versus or compared to other people so we need to keep talking about it but regrettably we do have some hard deadlines of things that we have to get to tonight um so I thank you for your both thank you for
your take up mosquito or after the hearing um if Well how long is the hearing it's only like five minutes five minutes would the board of health be willing to wait around for five minutes okay thank you because this is a legal
hearing so we have to We're already beyond the time we're supposed to start it but uh All right um is anyone Kate you want to I got to find it this is I got it he hearing a poll hearing on East Street all right i move to open the
public hearing pursuant to mass general law chapter 166 section 22 i move to open the public hearing for the joint or identical pole locations petition submitted by Verizon New England Inc and Instar Electric Company doing business
as Eversource Energy to locate poles wires cables and fixtures including the necessary anchors guides and other such sustaining and protecting fixtures to be owned and used in common by your petitioners along and across Bedford Road
great do we need to have a roll call vote to open this second first second yes any vote needs to be roll call or to o to to open the hearing yes because Okay so motion to open the hearing second okay um so we'll do a roll call
vote barney are you there arnold I thank you modell eye read snell i live I Okay great hi welcome hello uh Don Bonner with Verizon um I think I'm amazed you gave this five
minutes i hope it only takes that that would be great um uh the three poles on East Street um I do I trust you are they the ones that we see laying around on the side of the road right now um I'm not sure one of
them one or two of them might be but I know that they're replacing a whole bunch of poles on East Street um which is in sore need of being replaced this is what they see in their packet okay great and the the map as well the next page probably uh oh there's the map okay
so the um two of the poles the two on either end currently uh have guy wires attached to trees which is the old way of doing things and it's really bad because the tree comes down the pole does too and
the line with it so uh these the two on the ends are to rectify uh I know actually I should clarify something the the um the packet says all three are bolted to tree guy issues i didn't notice the middle one being voltage tree
guy it's possible that an old guy wire fell down but I didn't notice it what I did notice is the middle pole is leaning away from the curb it's being pulled towards the the wetland area um so that's the reason why this one's being
requested um I believe so um I went out there earlier i checked all the measurements uh stakes for two of them were either removed or cracked um I put them back in place measured them out so
that they were where they should be um and that's my introduction so you putting the poles on the other side of the street from where they originally were is that what I'm understanding correct okay um because right now the the two um where there
where you see poles um on the other side of the street they're actually there's a tree there with the guy wire attached to the tree and that has to be removed okay okay are there any questions from the select board i mean are the property owners on the
other side of the street that are getting polls I mean are they aware and on board with this they should have been sent we may hear from one or more but they have all been sent notification
okay um one of these I can tell you is to the right of someone's driveway um I checked where the pole should be going it It should not be in the line of sight uh it because I I don't see any way they they're not pulling to the end of the driveway because it's a tight turn um
it's 525 east um because people are coming around that corner they're going to need to pull up to make sure um the other two there's no ho there's no houses at 1112 off Lowel Street where the other two are going there is a gate
uh towards some old road um and that st conservation parcel Yeah it's it's been moved off to the side of the gate okay i think there's been a lot of problems with the one on the corner of East Writing and East
Street i think whenever we have power failures around there it's because that wire is the one that's down is that right yeah well and a wire currently crosses the road there to the house so you're just moving the pole okay i'd open it up to the public is there
anyone who wants to ask a question or make a comment regarding this issue seeing none in the audience can we look on Zoom if there's anyone on Zoom okay okay um let me see no more questions from the select board i'd ask that we someone move to close the
hearing and Okay i move to close the public hearing uh for the joint or identical poll locations petition second okay roll call vote barney arnold i read I triel okay we got you twice there
Barney i voted twice now now I'm going to move to approve the petition and plan submitted by Verizon New England Inc and Instar Electric Company doing business as Eversource Energy for the purpose of obtaining a joint or identical pole location to locate poles wires cables
and fixtures including the necessary anchors guides and other such sustaining and protecting fixtures to be owned and used in common by your petitioners along and across East Street said work is necessary to remedy an existing poleto tree guing issues and to provide for the
distribution of intelligence and telecommunications and the transmission of high and low voltage electric current second all right uh any further discussion well it should either be an existing pole to
tree issue or existing pole to tree issues pick one so pick which one is it multiple issues or the same issue twice it's it's multiple issues to two so it should be edited to say to remove the n
the existing poll to to remedy existing pole to treat issues right okay so we'll amend it okay i accept the amendment okay great reading the script come on give me great all right we're going to do a roll call vote have some fun come on starting with I modell I read I Snell
I I Okay thank you very much five minutes yeah you were right thank you thank you for coming i know we have the transfer station action committee up next but we're going to delay that just a few minutes while we finish our discussion with the board of health if that's all right um okay
so where were we we I think I think Jen made some really good comments that's really what our concern was and it was reiterated the the way I read it sounds like kind of most of the people that
have read the call TA bylaw administrator by the concern of the hiring and firing and it sounds very cursory that we'll be consulted it sounds like yeah you can make your
decision who you want but like that I mean from from my perspective from the board of health's perspective we talked about this we'd like that at least to be you know it needs to be more than just a we'll let you know kind of thing it I think it
needs to be I mean ideally I'd like us to be able as a board of health decide who we'd like to hire and fire but you know I understand what you're after and I think that it's very important that the board of health be really the
decider of people that we want to have working for us and if we feel somebody needs to go we would really feel that the board of health should be the decider so you know to just say that we'll just be consulted about those type
of things is a real concern tony did you want to just to add to that i I think um and you can kind of steer me the right direction if I'm off here but the board of health has the authority and the responsibility to
protect public health they need to have the authority to staff a department that they feel will protect public health it's their responsibility to do that and they uh we all have training we all have experience we all um are involved in a
almost day-to-day basis some some not as much as others because we're volunteers but in in public health in Carlile and I think the board in Carlile should be uh given the full authority to hire and staff u the the health department so
just just a little bit of a modification as to how authority and responsibility relate to those practices u I would agree with all that but I I would go a little further i mean according to your presentation
uh we have the responsibility to hire and fire uh public health employees and I don't think that according to state law I don't think that we should be giving up that responsibility so I think
the final responsibility does need to stay with the board okay well I don't want to re get in a rebuttal but I I would like to read the section that I think we're talking about okay and I would like to um understand
how this could be then amended in order to do this and or be shown where this language is taking away any responsibility but anyway where an employee is responsible for assisting the operations of an elected or
appointed town official or multiple member body we're talking about your sort of situation um the town administrator shall consult with such official or multiple member body prior to making an appointment or removal under this
section how can how well that's the word is it the word consult so what other word could be used then that would be I don't think the administrator should have the authority to hire or fire an employee of
the board of health he's welcome to consult with us and tell us his concerns but I think I think that's just the opposite of what it should be the way that's written the town administrator makes the final decision it should be the board of health that makes the final
decision um ma'am you mentioned Belmont is there language i mean is there some language for you and that was the big concern this was a few years this is probably five years ago um where the board was they fixed the
language but the the town administrator act still went down the town meeting voted against it because they still wanted the board of health to have more authority but they did change the language so that it was a a joint
decision you know which might be a compromise here but it would be a joint decision the town administrator would not have the authority unless the board of health agreed and so was it joint town administrator and board of health or joint select board and board of health it was in this case it was the
town administrator but the town administrator gets it his authority from you yes right right i know but we're not if it's joint it's not joint between board to board and no the case you're talking about it's joint between the administrator and the other it was and I
guess to a little bit of just David's comment is it I didn't read from the part you uh had on the screen i didn't quite read it the way David read it that the authority to hire and fire flows from the state can you It does in
chapter 111 section 27 which is what you have now you don't have now oh that's why you're we have to ask for a special that's why you're that's why you would go to town meeting and then go to a special a piece of special legislation
right because right now the state law says that the board of health has that authority i see to hire fire and supervise right okay and that's kind of one of the challenges we're dealing with is really this supervision hiring and firing is a personnel issue and if
you're going to have report to a board your board has to have a meeting and has a public meeting to address that and that's a different scenario than having a employee of the town the town administrator who then has the authority
to do those types of things and can implement the policies that the select board has put forward for personnel policies implement those policies do it in a professional way the way it's done in most companies throughout America it's different because we're public
entity here so what we're trying to do is move this to a more I bet I guess a betterun situation because you don't have to then pull up an employee through a public process let me speak to that for a minute
because the major piece here is that this function of the board of health is not like any other corporation in America in the the purpose of in my mind and I have a long a lot of experience with quality and compliance in
healthcare and so in my experience and in my mind this function is pushed through a public conversation because that holds to the integrity of the decision being on behalf of the public
health when you pull that into a room and you shut the doors with a person or even a small board or small group of people like with that power and authority to manage the human resources
we'd be kidding ourselves to say that that management practice doesn't drive performance and decision making of someone or a team of people that need to be responsible to the public so to me that's it is not like corporate America
it is like a compliance function and that reporting structure gets pulled right out they report directly into a board of directors not even to a CEO right because of the importance of the integrity of those decisions so I'm just I continue to bring that up because I
think even as we discuss compromising we need to make sure that that principle stays intact somehow right well we are doing that to some degree currently because our town administrator has the authority to you know hire and fire
employees but it's it's certain at certain levels perhaps that's where you're saying it's different i mean one of the things that we're struggling with is we'd like as a town at least our select board is thinking that it makes a lot more sense to be able to allow
resource sharing and if each silo of each com board doesn't allow that it it creates a situation where a town is going to have a lot more resources dedicated to something than it may need and that's
going to ultimately cost taxpayers a lot more and we're balancing that with you know obviously we always want to offer the service and we want to do it in a transparent way but you know we've got to find that right balance and I don't think we've got it at the moment and
that makes sense and I think but I do believe we could be because everything that you say completely makes sense to me and there should be efficiencies we absolut that to me is a different a different issue and probably a slightly different solution than you know keeping
the integrity of the board of health and its independence and its thinking and decision making to me we're not trying to take your decision making away again this is not about policy this is just and this is not about just the board of health either i mean this is a discussion we're having that's where we
have our disagreement we had that disagreement before okay and it could just be that we're just going to maintain that we don't agree but I from my personal experience cannot accept that someone who has the ability to hire fire promote decide raise everything
does not have a thumb on the scale and we if there's a conflict and we've had plenty of those between what the select board wants and what the board of health wants that thumb on the scale is going
to have the potential to affect public health and I don't think that that thumb should be there and that's that's that's the opinion that we talked about this at length in our meeting and I think David you heard what we were saying i hear it
and I I understand it i think that will be resolved I suppose by the town in a vote but I would say we're not going to resolve that tonight no we're not i think I think we but I think the attempt here and and I would appreciate you know any other insight like you told us we
could maybe research the I don't know if you can find it since it went down but the actual verbiage that I can I I think I think we have a duty regardless of where we stand on the issue to try to at least modify the language so that we are
sensitive to a compromise if we're never going to convince you guys and you're not going to convince these guys but the town will I recuse myself from that but the town the town will ultimately decide
it and we owe the town the voters a decent job at a at a compromise so just saying no I disagree is not a helpful thing right so I I have a question so a lot of this seems to boil down to uh
proper behavior whatever proper behavior is now there's some behaviors that I think we can all agree are improper uh sexual harassment being one of them uh do we actually have a problem i mean have we had what people consider inappropriate behavior some people would
say yes i I don't want to get into a public discussion it's just so the the primary issue that I have with the the statutory nature of Carlile is when two employees with different appointing authorities have conflict with each other it is nearly impossible for me to
get the two boards to perform HR functions in a way that's fair to all employees so it's less about the person at the top of the hierarchy and it's more can employees equitably execute the town policy when two employees disagree and one of them has one appointing
authority and one of them has the other i can't compel either appointing authority to do anything including enforce HR policy and rule okay uh I mean I I certainly think if
there are serious uh serious uh employee infractions that that should be addressed but I do think that if that were that's the case and it involves an employee of the board of health I think the board of health should be involved
and should at least have equal authority in deciding whether whether an employee of the board of health is terminated for instance and I think the board of health should be involved too well but not just involved i don't I don't mean in an advisory capacity i mean in making the
final decision i think that should happen too okay so thank you for everything thank Yes we appreciate and and I mean we showed we came here all five of us because this is very important to us and and appreciate the uh request you know
the offer to come here and try to come up with a compromise because I hear what you you guys are saying and I'm trying to figure out the best way where we can find that middle ground and hopefully Warren article whatever it's called that you're going to put out is something that we can be behind and
great that's what we are we'll continue working on this with you we're not we're not going to walk out of this room and walk away we'll we'll continue to still got to talk about mosquitoes y Okay so we're gonna finish that one the actual exciting kill off the
mosquito we don't have a ton of time because I we have such a packed agenda but we did want to ask you about the mosquito um program okay do you want do you have I know you have a hearing tomorrow night on it but just in the event that we're we're not all
going to be there or whatever is there something you might want to publicly share about that that would be helpful to us because we have to you know we'll ultimately take a position on that as well or maybe maybe not the select court
may or may not take okay um so we we um don't hesitate we we will when we present and tell me we'll show our map but I don't have it here i wasn't prepared for a presentation sorry but um sorry to catch you off guard but um if
you look at the state map car is this one little donnut hole in the entire area that is not part of a mosquito uh what we like to call surveillance program it's really they're all called mosquito control programs but that gives
the wrong impression and I David recently presented to uh planning board about marketing your bylaws and and getting the message out the message we want to get out is that we believe it's in the interest of public health in Carlile for us to be on top of
understanding what types of mosquitoes we have in Carlile and what the populations are and what which ones carry E and West Nile virus which are on the rise and in towns um within within
our region in Massachusetts and um and to do that we need to be part of some sort of program that's not something we can contract out and do ourselves so um we are proposing that the town um
approve funding for for that's that's what we're bringing before the town to be part of that program and I think it's imperative that we get the message across to the town that this is not a spray program we would have nothing to do with spraying and it it's it's a
although these mosquito control um groups do spray larvaide adult um adult mosquito um sprays that type of thing um we would bring it on only for the um the experts
to come into town and do the surveillance do the sampling do the testing and give us as a board um the information we need to say "Okay um it's ramped up we're seeing cases in surrounding towns carl has this type of
mosquito this uh the virus is present in these mosquitoes um we need to advise um town programs not to have um people out in in public activities at at just before dusk when they are more readily
out and and doing their their blood collecting so um that's solely what we're looking for is to really get a handle on what's going on in Carl Island how to best advise the public um as to what the implications are to public
health of these uh of these mosquito-born illnesses uh yeah Tony so two questions one is since you're looking for West Nile and Tripoli E and Linda's memo or your memo to us uh West
Nile is not found till late June early July triple E in August can you is it two different collections you're advocating is that what's going on or are you able to tell the MS how do you tell that so I'm I'm at a loss for that we've had we'll have the experts at our
meeting tomorrow night it's your understanding that you're getting both yes it's a it's a it's a year- round surveillance and they pick the times to collect their data so I don't understand exactly what those times are for each then the second thing again this may be helpful for your hearing is
um uh there's a part of this calendar issue is the funding so I guess if if it's not ready in time for the West Nile wave you catch it on the back end is that the idea so you'll get both over the course
of a 12 month and then my last question is is this an once we start this is it recommended that it's just annual it's an ongoing so in terms of operating expense that's an expense we should consider to be recurring at this point if we are serious about monitoring it's
data driven it's we talk about having data so I don't I don't disagree i'm just saying is it snapshot data or it's continuous monitoring no it's it's an ongoing if you pay you get on a regular basis and then you know when you or you have a snapshot and then you don't have any
more and and these um uh authorities I guess are you know when they're calling doing the data they have their threshold where I mean there's always some right but it has to reach some critical amount where you start warning people not to stay out in the afternoon or something
evening right and um you know some residents have brought up some good points We've been we've been pursuing this for years and um some residents have discussed some pretty good points um saying hey well if all the towns around us have that information because they're part of the program why don't we
just find out what they've got and just that's the car way by the way we brought that question to to the experts that are advising us on this and they said absolutely not car's completely different environment we see from town to town area to area different uh populations of different species of
mosquitoes that carry this and different distributions of the viruses so really just because we look at what's going on and say in Bedford doesn't mean that that's what's going on in car i I learned when I bought the mosquito magnet which I no longer use that the
reason why it's effective the mosquito magnet has that little carbon dioxide is that mosquito populations are intensely local so if I can deter the population in my own little parcel twoacre parcel or whatever I I'm effective because they
don't travel very far so how would this work in that no no but I mean then the same argument could be made that Scott has a problem and I don't because he lives across town it's true so yeah I can't speak to that because there are
different species of mosquitoes that have very different life cycles and different habits they're not it's not all mosquitoes are the same and I'd learn that from these experts so I would just caution i mean it sounds like a good thing but more data is better but it's what you do with the data right exactly well well I think it goes beyond
that uh because there are times when there's an outbreak of triple E where I think the state comes in and wants to spray and you can opt out of spraying if you have some means of dealing with the issue yourself if we're not part of a
mosquito control district we don't have that means and so we might in fact end up having the state spray when we don't want them to spray right and we don't want them to spray because it's really destructive to the food chain basically i mean it's a blunt instrument right
they they claim it's targeted so So that's a great question too um and we've pushed on that because um what their answer is is that it's it's very targeted to those species and um you know it's not like a broadspread
killer of everything um number one number two um there's one point we got to consider when we're thinking about things like that people are already spraying everywhere all around town and it's completely uncontrolled it's just you know some people think they're
getting cedar oil or something sprayed around their yard they don't know what's in that and other people may not be looking for the more natural things they just bring in the contractors to spray this those aren't regulated the state doesn't regulate them the mosquito
programs the state knows exactly what they're using and everything is understood as to the risks of it so even if even if there was spraying going on it's much better to be spraying through that program than each individual in town considering whether they're going
to bring their their landscape contractor in to do the spraying and and that's unfortunate we don't have control over that um and so that is a concern but that isn't something I think it's going to get resolved anytime soon but really a surveillance program to
understand what's going on because you we don't want closed playing fields for the for the youth in town if we don't have to and if conquer's closing theirs but we know that we don't have the problem in Carlile we can say look proceed with caution but as far as the
data shows we're okay to leave fields open and we'd like to be able to make those types of decisions in an informed way and that's why we're recommending this thank you i appreciate you telling us about that and I hope uh everyone who's listening learned something so do you need to call your Yeah we're gonna
close so can I get a motion to I move we have a second second all those in favor Collins I Ericson I Mariana I great thank you thank you appreciate it
d um all right well now the transfer station action committee and action it will be here we go all right welcome thank you sorry for our delay but we've had obviously a lot of interesting discussion and it's all
important nice to see you all thanks if you would introduce yourself and if you wanted to uh make your presentation or Yeah ryan can you put up our PowerPoint sure can so I'm Laura Snowden and the chair Tomato member former chair former chair
yeah man and Ben Sherry the vice chair is on Zoom yes hello everybody thank you for having us need to open you need to open a meeting then we don't have a quorum so I don't think we need to do that oh you six members we need for a quorum so Oh perfect barney now is
Barney a real member or No she's just a select board license okay can you put full screen and also then go to the next slide that's right i'm going to try to be for the sake of brevity move on a good pace because this was in our packet too so she doesn't talk as fast as me
those are our members ben is the newest member all of us have been there for quite a while barney is the select board leaison um I will speak briefly about some of our major accomplishments in 2024 um and touch on some of touch on
our 2025 plans which kind of bleed from accomplishments into plans so I can a lot of the same things we're continuing to focus on and then I'll turn the meeting over to Tom who will discuss the transfer station permit fee and the
transfer station changes next so this is data from the last few years um in 2024 solid waste was reduced from about 1590 to about 1550 tons um and over the
last three years of TAX focus our solid waste has been reduced by 15% which is consistent with the mass D objective of a 30% reduction from 2018 to 2030 um we're way ahead of other
areas in this uh endeavor so our efforts to promote organic recycling last fall which brought some of the solid waste numbers down actually contributed to need for seven black earth bin at the transfer station and should trends
continue will capture an additional 10 tons of organic waste okay you can go to the next slide i just want to ask a question before you go you can skip that slide can you go back because Okay okay it it the thing that concerns me is that
it looks like your recycling is going down it's the same time as the other i'm wondering does that just mean that that's actually a good thing um for one Amazon has made efforts to reduce cardboard content uh substantially and
for example I think it's 10% right now so cardboard is one where there's just less content in there and other manufacturers as well so we believe recycling behavior amongst the town is pretty much near optimal right now including the local college yeah and I think papers the use of paper it's
really a question of behavior at source remarkably and it's not just that it's being trucked somewhere else no somebody else's town so no I know it is interesting so you looked at that like how can that be you know but it's good it's all good okay
next and then you can actually go to the next one because I basically said all that so I'm going to just focus on the top two accomplishments really put a lot of time into promoting organic recycling or composting did a lot of community
outreach to uh encourage people to purchase subsidized um yard compost bins we added a second one um birth machine which most other municipalities have and really advertise
this program we reached out about black roof curbside pickup and also using the black roof bins at the transportation board i am actually really for me it's a huge victory to say that we sold 34 yard
compost bins previous years it was like one or two every year so hey that was great and we're gonna keep doing it and uh you know really keep because I think that's clearly an area we could still do
better in and then Tom in particular spent so much time working with DPW also Gretchen was invaluable and really looking at all the written policies and processes around
strict enforcement mechanisms not only for permits the stickers but also for local haulers they created language to close loopholes to make it you know make them have to actually adhere to our
policies and then as you know probably there was a lot of emphasis on enforcing everyone having stickers we feel like the numbers also came down because people from other towns were using our transfer station and um and
also to change all the policies gretch and really worked hard with Tom on that also so that's something into this year that um we've done a lot of work on so I think the rest I'm going to touch on in different ways you can just go to next slide so yep 2025
um we started developing a survey to send out to really understand resident behaviors around solid waste recycling composting and also requests for changes at the transfer station um we'd like to
increase the transfer station permit fee which Tom will talk about we want to bring solid waste down more and it will become harder because we've been working pretty hard on this um so organic recycling bring it down more
that's compost yard waste glass crushing do you guys know what glass crushing is i learned okay you all know already well I'm a newbie anyway I assume it involves crushing glass well all kinds of things and let's expand that a little bit so you know how
all our glass is bottles now we're not allowed to put windows in or broken bowls ceramics ceramics so let's say on a Saturday at the end of the day at the transfer station in the swap shop there's a bunch of um ceramic planters
or something they would get tossed into solid waste this way they could get tossed into the glass and the glass all goes over to hopefully Groten which has a facility and should be doing it already and that would bring our our solid waste down
it'll be all good so we're working on that actively working on that large items i started a a um section on the website on reuse and we've listed a lot of different resources for people to get rid of
larger items um and people contacted me us saying "Will you add by charity?" So hopefully people will get used to doing that and some of those things can go elsewhere and then just source reduction so we'll just keep chipping away at it
and next slide um oh you're already there community outreach again we would like to do some more around event planning and setting up some sort of best practices for big events one-time
events um continue supporting DPW with reporting recycling hazardous waste sticker sales and enforcement um development of plans which Colin will touch on for uh changes with repavement
and also continue to work with ESC on developing invasive plant disposal program which conquer has and we'd like to do something like that because right now people ask we say no you can't compost you know your bittersweet it's
like well I'm not supposed to put in a solid waste yeah I know but you have I mean what I do is I'll just leave it on my driveway until it all dries out but then I have to throw it out so it's a it's of a hot topic and um we're going
to continue figuring something out i don't think it's a huge topic but important anyway so next slide i'm going to turn the conversation over to Tom okay so we are recommending an increase
in the transfer station fee from 50 $30 to $50 for the first sticker and 10 to 15 for additional stickers in terms of the rationale for that there's really two ways of looking at it um first off the the fee originally started around hazardous waste and then went to
covering recycling net costs recycling costs have increased in the last five years we have organic recycling of mattresses probably added 15 16k and we've had a reduction in the revenue stream from the traditional recyclables due to the recycling market behavior
about again 15k so about a 30k adverse impact on recycling fees this fee increase will bring in about 35k however we are also including in this that we want the sticker uh unipay fee to be absorbed by the town that's about 4k so
bottom line uh 35k comes in 4K covers the fee the resident pays 50 and and 15 not 53 and 1650 or something and uh uh so the town basically offsets the increase in recycling recycling market is variable you know we're hoping it's
going to get better and most folks think it's going to get better is that next year in five years whatever but it certainly took a real hit during COVID and may continue uh to be down for a bit uh on the other hand we may see increased black earth recycling and that's going to increase our cost so
this the objective here is to cover that the other thing to keep in mind is that the sticker fee traditionally has covered about 20% of the total burdened operating cost of the transfer station and this fee will be about 20% of the you know cost over the next five years for example so that's the two
ris increase and that's what we're recommending so Tom first of all what percentage of the households have a sticker roughly would Well only 100 residences in town do not use the
station so it's like 95 so why given the time and effort to process this why not just put 60 bucks on the tax bill and send everybody two stickers when they pay their tax bill you could do that that would probably increase solid waste
um because why well I'll tell you why one of the things we've noticed um you remember a year ago we came here to seek stricter enforcement because we had seen about a 10 15 ton increase in per month in and we we got that under control not only that we're convinced right now that
enforcement is the best it's ever been that we're actually the reason for a big part of that reduction of last year is enforcement so you can still enforce the issue is when you when you prolate stickers okay um then more folks you know for example if you give two
stickers to everybody and somebody's not using them well give them one sticker but why can't you you've got a census put their light ask them in the tax bill which vehicle do you want and put the license plate i understand what you're saying and and I don't totally and I think it makes a lot of sense the problem you have is if you proliferate
what people do around trash is unbelievable you know Carl is a very affluent town one of the highest you know average incomes in the state but notwithstanding that people will import trash they'll take it from a family member if you proliferate stickers you will see an increase well then don't
proliferate just give them No but you if I have two res and they have to ask for the second but my point is that we spend so much admin time on stickers it's a silly system if we could be smarter and
just say in the tax bill have a line item which vehicle would you like for your sticker give us the plate well there's a different question if if you were to build them as part of the tax bill for the sticker that'd be great but if they don't want a sticker I would I wouldn't give the They could opt out i
guess they could opt out of the sticker I suppose but is that possible even well I we actually looked into that and I thought that was difficult to do if it could be paid for at the same time your tax bill that would be great it would not be just as much admin time there's no way you have to mail a sticker separate and we've had this argument
with the dispatchers don't want to do it and Gretchen doesn't want it absolutely would be not more work it would be most of the most of the administrative work is people who would not accept that they only get two stickers that they want to assign it to a certain car um a lot of the admin work is when people come in
and they have their car in the body shop they need an alternate or they have someone that they're caring for and they need a sticker for disability they can do everything you're saying through this tax system which we already have we're already sending out that 70 to 80% of people sticker fees um will help i think
being able to get it online and pay credit card will be one of the that'll be one of the biggest admin the admin process has been improved this year a lot smoother why even need a sticker i mean you just have it on your phone with your license plate or whatever there's a color code and you just go there I am we
can't get everyone to buy it online yet we're moving in that direction but you you will not solve the 20% of people who will not tolerate true true uh an online function those are the people going to the dispatch center the ones who who can't purchase it on their own who um
who wouldn't who wouldn't serve well in an automated system so until that catches up I think you're going to have just as much admin even if you just Where is it in this proposed thing do we cut out the middleman in other words you just direct it to a website you give your card and that's the end of it well
it's the same as what we did this year except instead of the fee being assessed to the resident it's absorbed by the town sandy Nation did confirm that could be done today and they town would be built quarterly for that it is about $4,000 a year that would occur there um I have no problem making it easier to buy stickers and I we actually have I
think the administrative system we have in place now is working pretty well actually but um I have a real problem with proliferating stickers because we will we'll have more solid waste i guarantee with that they'll get they'll get put in place they should it's just going to happen so the when when they buy it at whatever
price let's go with this system sure i can't remember now what I do but you have to put in your plate number right because it's printed on this thing yes so I could put my cousin's plate number or is somebody checking to make sure that it's check to a degree but understand that it's difficult to do um
and and but folks game the system for example is that happen the 50 bucks i'm going to pay my 50 but gee I can get my friend for 15 folks game the system you know there are times when a transport station is very busy and you couldn't possibly check every license plate and
folks know about that and folks trying to slip in it happens i'm just telling you i mean and it's 10 15 tons a month it's not trivial folks game the system that That's how trash is so we just want to make it really easy for the attendants to see this sticker on every
card and not have to worry about phones or anything and po is off the table right there just one thing Laura did not say whatever you noticed that our trash went down 15% in three years the state of Massachusetts had an objective of 30%
over 12 years we're halfway there do you know how much they went down in those six years they went up 3% they got zeroed down and the reason for that is their whole reliance is on pay payt does not reduce trash it that is a fraud pt transfers trash around it moves it from it you move it from towns that have pay
to towns that don't have pay hey throw is a throw okay they get a bag so that that's why they haven't done anything the reason they're now totally focused on organics because the only prayer they have to get anywhere near the 8% is they can deal with organics and they're not going to succeed because it's too small all right they're going
to be 5% so one thing I don't think I'll gentlemen from the gentleman from we're going to go to your house now and just do the stickers you can fill them out so we're signing a five-year contract and so this would stay in place for five
years so if people say "Oh my god that's a huge jump." Well it's been the same price for a long time and this will Well that's five i mean we typically don't change this every five years the contract has to do with solid waste that's a different that's a different animal the five-year contract is wind
waste i mean that's okay okay that's what you're saying that has no bearing on recycling we're not going to change it we typically don't change it we're thinking of this as a 5year increase right we only pay 20% of the cost so that that's a great deal well we're still paying cost the tax
code so that you could actually deduct the you know sticker no well you would deduct your property taxes then you just have the property tax okay we're not going to solve that we got to we got to move cheaper next $60 so anyway it's up to you folks to decide
what to do here obviously we have authorities you will need to approve the stick yes I have a Hang on next year before you vote i'm sorry sorry so the the inclusion of the fee we do not have a budget line item for that and we would have to pay it quarterly so
we would have to increase the budget so I'm suggesting to offset that by local receipt projections in order to not increase sorry I lost something there we approve this what so if you include the fees in the in the re receiving we don't have a line item in the budget to pay the fees it's like a revolver kind of
right we don't have a revolving account for this anymore so how do you handle it now we're going to get the money we don't so the person buying it pays for it so now the town is going to pay for it we're going to get a bill the the transaction the transaction fee but he doesn't show,000 i know but you're
getting more revenue than you It's a wash but he's saying it's not a wash unless you tell me to increase the local receipt we will of course if we're going to do 50 so you would have to increase the the projection of local receipts in accordance with the line item of course
we will i I just don't have the authority to do that what is the current 35 30 how much is 35 i I'm No the increase is about 35 currently we collect about 48 $50,000 in like an annual per 35 per permit
per we're proposing go to 50 and the second so it's a 60% increase do you do you do you project a decrease in the number of PE stickers no I don't okay so there you go you're going to get more money are we sure we want it to just be
50 because you know if you're going to make it a bigger fee I wondered that too um and and and if we are going to uh incorporate the the uh processing fee it won't be for everybody but I I don't see why we wouldn't do it 55 or 60 um
well I like the idea of just not separating out the processing fee let the let us pay that i agree i agree but that but that cost us something so then in order to do that we need to increase the fee because you're suggesting 55 i'm
suggesting 55 and which would then you know it's 55 and 20 there you go because it's it's a 3% fee normally yeah so but so 55 would certainly cover it in fact that's 10% close to an 8% fee because it's not just a credit card fee it's a
transaction oh and then there's Okay so so putting putting the 10% up making it 55 would mention that our this would be in line with other towns what What do other towns typically yeah in terms of other towns the range of the range of sticker fees is from zero to 100 because some folks do what Dave said he just put
in the fee um most other towns almost all others hit the residents with incremental fees for everything refrigerators tires all that stuff which we do not do so you know I don't think there's a problem going to 55 it's a big increase but it'll add 8K that's not what we want it's $136 and it's pay as you grow and then
there's incremental fees for everything that you put in so this is such a bargain it's ridiculous and we'll be the ones getting the only bargain in car it's the only bargain in car um Barney's on the line barney if you're still there if I was just you wondered if you had
any comments questions because I think we're slowly moving to a vote here wanted to get you back nope i you know I've been at many of the meetings and um I very much support the increase in the fee and and I think the way we're doing it online makes sense okay and you
support the 55 potentially yeah and yeah that's fine uh and we're thinking that'll be a five-year plan i don't know i would basically Yeah you you're very much against
proliferation of stickers should we be increasing or discouraging the second the additional sticker fee what we did in the policy last year is we don't allow someone to buy more than two stickers unless they come to Gretchen with a story you know and because the
problem is we were concerned about we were concerned about businesses using it for for stuff so but you know a person having a second had two cars and wanted both we're not trying to you know Yeah i mean my husband and I each have a and Gretchian checks with us is a weird
story so you would advocate would we increase the 15 to 20 i think that's already increasing it's going from 10 to 15 each $5 is worth about 8K just so you aware of that okay but the I think where this is going is you don't think that
the relatively inexpensive second sticker proliferates out of town in any meaningful way no it's not we're not going to any more fees we now have a very detailed database Gretchen does of of sticker purchase history so we know what's going on and right now the second
stickers look very you know solid um when we get into five and six stickers that's when you know less solid okay all right i move to set the transfer station permit fees um at $55 for the first sticker and $15 for
additional stickers as recommended by the transfer station action committee is this effective immediately or how does it would be next year i'm assuming we don't have we don't have a course so we can't I think it's yeah the next cycle
right yeah the next So effective we they run on the calendar year right well no we recommended that you actually increase it July one all right i'll tell you why because there's a small number of stickers between July and December we actually start 2026 December one and
we'd like to get a little history with the new unit bay system without the fee just to iron out any things before we get the thousands sounds good so um I will amend my thing effective July 1st 20 2025
second great any further discussion barney anything if not good i'll move to roll call vote starting with you Barney arnold I Reed i Snell I Triola I Great
Sticker French sticker sticker sticker sticker on to adjust the budget in a tax neutral way and yes and u do you want a motion i don't need one he doesn't need a motion so yes there and that's budget authorization or you're giving me the
authority is it authority to change the budget great um is there anything else yeah the transfer station changes last slide okay okay so there's two separate issues associated with the transfer station um first is the issue of does the transfer station need to be repaid
um it's the belief of the transportation action committee and the DPW Jim Hall that it needs to be re repaved should have been done earlier and represents a public safety issue so that whether or not you do what we want to do we think that should be repaid we're pretty much of the understanding is not going to
happen in FY26 though we think it should so we're advocating it be done for FY27 um Jim's estimate of the repaving cost currently is at around 250K which is up from 100K a couple years ago as we thought however at the time the repaving
is done TSAC use that as a lifetime opportunity to enhance the operation of the transfer station and position for the next 30 years and so we're recommending some additional changes um which in order to really accommodate required that we expand the footprint of
the transfer station by about 15 feet in two directions along Morse Road Old Morse Road and behind the extra trailers um that requires a wetlands uh mitigation study because the entire DPW property is is in the wetlands buffer
zone i met with the uh finance the land committee and they said we should be able to do that but you have to do a study to find out what that means and what you really have to do which will cost about 5 to 8k and take three to four months and so we're looking for funding of that wetland study in FY26 so
that the transportation could be repaved in FY27 in terms of if you want to switch to the next slide um that shows the we currently have a rough drawing of what we're trying to do and uh basically Um the addition of the 15 ft in two
directions allows us to do a couple things we add two lanes of traffic in each dimension we can also move the swap shop over by off by itself that's currently where the extra trailers are the contractors don't move uh so basically the swap shop moves aside the
recycling area becomes more compact and we add two lanes of traffic in both directions um this is our current thought on how to do it again that requires that the footprint be expanded and we don't know that for sure so the the three the the um uh the three
trailers the compactors don't don't touch don't touch that's they're they're frozen and where they are correct the only thing that has to be done there Jim informed me that there is maintenance needed on the pits in which the compactors reside so there is going to be some additional expense associated with that maintenance that has to occur
you is the is the 250 paving uh include grading like making it less slopey or somehow repair and pave that's what Jim estimated Yeah and and is that in our paving plan anywhere okay of course not of course not the other aspects of this are is
TSAC's opinion and also Jim that the transportation should be secured currently the fence around that is broken in most places and so bottom line TAC is advocating at the time of repaving expanded a bit um rebuild the
swap shop is somewhat larger and have a reuse area where large items can stay there more than overnight yeah um and uh put a fence around it probably some cameras so the fence is not part of the 250 either no and so we're thinking that the incremental cost of the swap shop
the fence etc you know another couple hundredk so we're looking at the total project so we should have had this discussion before we voted on $55 did you mean $155 you just got an extra 8K and that by just chance happens to be what we need for the list this is not in
the capital plan anywhere i want to know have you guys looked at the um survey plan that was done by the MFC when they were citing looking to site the new septic for the DPW because that
might not need to have another survey done okay i mean when I went with the land committee there there were a whole bunch of folks there from Cons and all these other places they felt that they seem to be pretty educated on what had been done that by the Morse building but that's
kind of like back there but the area they're most concerned about is behind the trailers into the wetlands area the Morse road is you know old Morris road they weren't too worried about but it's I'm pretty sure all of that was surveyed by Stansky and McNary about five years ago and uh Steve Steve um Hinton should
have that plan if if the MFC doesn't have it somewhere because when we look we're looking to site the septic we Yep we did all that and I know it's separate but this has to somehow be related to
anything we do at the DPW yes yes so I guess what I'm worried about I So why I'm bringing this up i'm worried about the TAC going off and I understand that you know you have these I also met with them at the beautiful facilities committee and uh they were involved in a
DPW building thing and said that the survey that was done there does not address this area so we couldn't jump onto that one um so they were unaware of a study that would cover the area we want to expand i'm not talking about the study i'm talking about I can see this
becoming a very large expensive project sure that is probably part of the DPW oh sure that's what I mean you don't like we we have to get advocate for is that you do a full site plan of the entire DPW operation which is what we were
trying to do when we were doing the site plan to begin with for the septic and we were looking at you know trying to but now I think the whole thing needs to be back put back together and you know if if you do any more studies it's got to be as for the whole site i think that's
right so that's not a fiscal 26 that to the MFC may not be on the MFC going forward but whoever the select board represent but that can't be a 26 item because we would have to put a warning well doing a study i don't know we'll dy noted duly
noted all right let's see what Yeah um is there anything else no that's it that's been really helpful thank you thank you for all your work on this and did you get a copy of the letter of the eighth from the eighth grader who was talking about how um because they were
doing a civics thing so she wrote to me about the DPW and how she thought it really needed to be repaid and that and that she knew there was going to be expensive so that in the meantime could you put in the winter when the some of the the dimples thank
you next year i I see Chief Amadola is in our patiently waiting and and Gordon um so why don't we move to those items uh are are you here for to talk about something in particular there's also I know the contract i was just to say hi
oh good hey welcome this relates to three warrant articles so the cemetery improvements warrant article you have the capital article which includes a couple police items and then the police station renovation yes those are the immediate things to talk about all right
let's do it great let's go move to the Let's just do that um I think really we start with that why don't we start with Chief yeah would you come forward please Chief ryan do you want to kind of shape the So what do we discussion of what you what
what do we're going to talk about the these particular warrant articles is that Yeah so the chief wasn't here for the discussion of three of the capital items the the drone the sign board i'm sorry I'm forgetting the third one
the the CAD system um so those items we got new information about the police station building renovation which is one of the articles um and the costs that the bids come in so those are the items to discuss with the chief i know the finance committee is looking for your opinion on on the
police capital and then of course we got to talk about the building yeah we talked about this last at our last meeting but um are there questions we did get the updated information thank you for the drone um it's helpful to know yes absolutely
insurance Friday okay but it's a rotary I when I made my comment I thought it was a fixed wing drone but it is a rotary drone your guys confirmed that right yeah uh Officer Corwood all right so it shouldn't be as big a deal I guess yeah they're very excited about that
drawing he's actually an operator too so we have No I know he is he's got his license yeah he's doing a great job by the way great job oh yeah it's great it's really interesting good i'm glad to hear that it's been a quite the undertaking so
yeah we're part of this uh police academy thing i think that's wonderful i wish I'd had it when I was when I was a young cadet barney did you have any questions on this relative to the the police items which
were the CAD system the drone or the sign board yeah can you hear me yes we can hear you fine okay great um well I you know as I was looking over the
um request for various items from other departments as well um I thought given where we are uh in terms of our we're over our um you know goal of getting to
a 3% tax increase um I while I certainly appreciate the importance of uh having a drone added to the police department um you know uh equipment and also the uh sign boards i
think those are uh items that uh while while useful are not essential and I think the CAD system absolutely is essential so I would support that and u I would not support the other two at
this time i guess I kind of feel a little bit the same way and then also because of I think it's really more important for us to get this construction done and if we're going to save some money I'm I I really want
to get the money you know push the money around towards the construction to make sure that we get that construction done first you're talking about the policeing construction just I don't I mean because I got to this point when how long ago
five years ago uh and we didn't go forward and I just don't want to see that happen again so and a lot of resources are going towards the police and a you can't equate the hundreds of thousands of dollars of construction overage with well but the
thing is that you know I can't also feel good about putting so many resources into one department um that might that seem to be more nice to haves rather than need to haves and and but the need that what the real need
to have is also the building so I just I'm trying to look at the whole picture of what the whole department is getting so still needed but not at the moment yeah i'm not saying Yeah yeah if it was be nice to have it this year but it and it's on the radar screen now it's on the
radar screen and it can get into the queue like all the other things yeah it was on I think the sign board was there previously no was that the sign board was not in my defense i was here just a few months
when I created the 5-year capital plan so needs populated as you know as I decided to sort them through so that's why it's new this year but uh I get it but that's that's that's my defense but you you put drone as the top right or
some uh CAD RMS system as the top yeah because we won't communicate if that goes down that's correct so that'll be the top i I think that that you know Barney kind of led this and I I tend to think that the same way that it seems like that's the way we should head is
CAD systems essential and these others you know at some point are going to be needed but not maybe not this year because of what we're dealing with that's a question one one of the if I'm remembering correctly one of the points
that was raised was that some of the cost of the drone could be potentially offset by was this point made about working sharing sharing the resource with other communities that might not have the drone or might need assistance i we
didn't really get into it i didn't know if there was a way um if you're looking at the cost is is there any realistic way to defer the cost or offset the costs through uh other towns or if if we're giving mutual aid using the drone is there a benefit to Carlile from other
towns so the unfortunate part of that is we wouldn't charge another town mutual aid because we may use something of theirs and and that kind of deflates the whole mutual aid sharing of resources yeah so probably not okay and then there's also the question of the
insurance cost i I'm trying to remember if we actually It wasn't that much though it wasn't that much okay about a thousand so we sent you an estimate it was about a thousand a year or less yeah or less i think what's important though for the select board to remember and I'm
I'm on the same page but to say "Oh we'll look at it next year is not realistic because next year we're actually going to be dealing with the financial impacts of the police station renovation potentially a fire station renovation and we know it's not like this going to be suddenly a lack of
capital items where um so I I think it would take um some change in in our requirements to say to make this a higher priority." So I um I agree with you i don't think it's realistic to say "Well we'll look at it next year." Because I think it's going to be even harder i think we're going to be in a much tougher place next year
when we're looking at these competing items given given the the burden on the taxpayer as as some of these debt payments come due i mean you just look at those numbers and the next three years is is going to be really challenging for non-essential items and
services well but non-essential that's that's the operating point i and I agree i just I just want to make that point i don't want to set false expectation that suddenly we're going to you know put it off a year or not not just this item but any any item that's not essential or
expanding the service in in some respect of of what the town government does it's going to be very difficult over the next several years as we bring on these building projects and I think in fact we're going to have more difficult to the tune of 400k than five minutes ago
we're going to pave the well we're going to have to decide I think well discussion for another day maybe the next meeting is you know I think we're going to have to start very soon looking at um where we find efficiencies and and actually um get get smarter or more
productive about how we provide services given the additional costs we're going to be bringing in i mean Scott we've been saying that for as long as I've been around this town well I was saying do I understand this correctly though the police station are
we now at 3.7 plus more contain are we at 4 million bucks i mean that's kind of what I'm getting what I'm hearing i can bring that up you have to bring up Neil's yeah if you want to walk us through how we got there
so what you're seeing in column B is the estimate you received from TBA right before town meeting yes we voted that right which was voted the C column is the bid that came in so the actual prices compared to what was
estimated so the biggest drivers in increase was the cost of construction that was offset slightly by the uh contingency or twothirds of it and then Say that again so if you look the estimate was a little over 3 million with a close to $250,000 contingency and
the actual bid came in at but with zero contingency but is that he used it is that right are you still they don't include so that contingency was cost escalators for the time of bidding for bidding but it doesn't there still need to be a Okay keep going i'll come back
so cost of construction you don't need that contingency anymore because this is an actual bid right furnishings is is they're necessary but it's not purchased yet so that's why it's its own category so you can not do that you could lessen that cost um the architect fees include
some of the work we did to get a rebate which I'll talk about the OPM fee was the largest miss in the estimation so the OPM we hired was 218,000 and um that is Neil and his that is Neil and team
so the total was uh 216,000 if you include all those lines over the bid yep if you include alternates which is another the four alternates that were part of the bid it's 296,000 so there's a couple um a couple things
to consider so first of all we're creating a community room and we're advising that that become a backup Clark room for a lack of a better term which would mean we can use PEG funds to install some of the technology and other things that would make that a usable backup to this room so we can use PEG
funds and then Sarah and team worked hard on making sure that we secured rebates up front for a lot of the HVAC installation so that's another 60K so the total we're expecting to come off that is 83,000 in in other funds potential other funds which means the
delta is now 132,000 or with alternates 212,000 can you remind us the four alts yes i'll need a minute though okay okay um also be meeting with Kelly at the end of this week um to review the current
state of the ARPA funds if you recall oh yeah any unexpended ARPA funds would be redistributed to project OPMs so we can we aren't past a sell by date of those no no we we we um the votes in December
allow us to transfer funds so there may be some some relief there uh have to go through those like there's there's $30,000 in funding for the grant elevator which I don't know if it's being fact so there may be some either a little bit or Okay um we could still
stay on the grand elevator and we get some Yeah I I I won't know till we sit down with that i don't think it's going to be big money but it's a little bit play-doh you know a little bit every little bit what well so the alternates include uh interior finishes
heat at the new storage garage heat at the sallyport and case work interior finishes i say is that the furniture but you've already counted that no it's floor paint in and as I recall um some
of those finishes were um for energy um efficiency not just No none of them were they were just So we were expecting maybe a potential problem with cost so these were pulled out of the bid as alternates so you could say
yes or no do we have any issues with some of these like heat in the Sallyport garage if the garage is open in the middle of winter and then we have pipes freeze up or something like that i mean are there or can we do this without there alternates so obviously we can live without it but I just don't want to
I don't want to be pennywise pound foolish here on some item that we say oh we can is Andrew is Sallyport presently heated dep so it depends it can be so uh but the way that it's set up the sally port is going to
be off of the booking room so realistically what happens is the prisoner transport car brings the prisoner in and then takes the prisoner from there into the booking room which is obviously heated so um that's kind of why we listed it a little bit further down in the alternates because people are not hanging out in the salt then no
okay so maybe they used to have to clean their guns in there so they did but they got to do that somewhere else so that's that's a little bit of money it's not shown here the alt is not identified as a separate so the line but I guess we can do our accepted all the alternates this would be the number it's
80,000 of all is what you're saying so we're talking what but we're not done yet Kate okay well I'm just I'm Let's go to Neil's email neil writes "In terms of sharing my perspective on contingency for a typical renovation project we
recommend and this is after the bids came in we recommend a minimum of 10% total project value blahy blahy blah blah blah blah uh the town may want to consider a higher contingency closer to 12 to 15% based on the review of the
attached spreadsheet I think this one it looks like the sweet spot is somewhere in the two 375 to 450k so you zeroed it out but I don't think it gets zeroed out right it's it becomes a different not a bid contingency but an execution contingency so the top is only
so you can compare the estimate to the bid now you have to consider the contingency on top right right exactly so I say again are we at a $4 million rental the answer is yes with contingency yes well you know we got to go to the town we can't go every you
know we go to the town we ask for more money right we're asking for we were you know um uh what's his name nathan you know the table 3 million 3 million we crept it up and then we went back again somehow in the noise it got to three and a half and now we're saying 400
well as I recall Nathan when we were at 1.8 million didn't want to spend the extra $200,000 then and that's why we're here i don't want to tattoo poor Nathan he can live with this what was the two but I mean the point is that I go back
to Scott's point i mean it's 4 million for the rental right so we haven't even got to the fire station so the options uh are don't do the project obviously that's an option the the non so a project solution that doesn't
impact any of your reserves or anything like that but impacts taxes would be to debt exclude the difference to include the contingency so you could ask for another ballot in debt exclusion or you can use reserves so the one the one piece that you did put away for the
future was capital stabilization which hasn't been included in your reserve calculations which is 300,000 so you have that available it's not part of the 12% it's not wow use it first year i I I have an issue with this whole thing i went back and I looked at the
town meeting i looked at the materials i looked at the presentation and it was presented a very specific number to the town for what the project was cost there were no disclaimers about well we might be coming back next year it might be whatever and I get things happen but I think I think we got to bring the if
whatever number we decide we got to bring to the town we got to have them either vote it up or vote it down with the new number because I don't think getting town approval on this number and then working all this other stuff without the same level of approval is
appropriate and if you if you do exclude the one way to accomplish that I don't know how to do I think I think the town needs to we need to present them the new budget and the in and the plan and have them is the rest of it all excluded debt it is right because it's construction
right the 3.5 is excluded so to to Scott's point would you just declare that null and void and put a fresh number out there i do like the idea of forcing it into a town ballot not just town meeting people raising their hands
but make people vote it like make them vote it the next week because we're also going to be going back to the same town with another project and the logical question will be well you're telling us it's going to cost this you're going to be back next is going to be crap right it will be crap because we're already
like way over where we said we were i think it's fair to say this is the reality and we're you know we're not trying to find an easier path to get the total project approved now it's it's the same
level of uh scrutiny and support it not great but Kate well you know I first of all I think it's really unfortunate um because I think we've had inflation and and when I
look at it it's a 10% the actual bid is 10% higher than the estimate which is actually not that hugely different we've had other years in fact the the first time we went through it was like double what we thought it was going to be so I
think we're getting better at this um but this was not presented that way though but I understand so and I so I totally hear what you're saying um and I think but I do think it's important to re because last time we didn't even
presented the a choice to the town la uh the first time around it did not go back to the town for any for their approbation of the extra money for the extra money it was just killed right here in this room you mean in the 1.8 or Yes
and that's that I was I'm still smart about so I agree with Scott i think it has to go back to town meeting it has to be presented properly but at least the town has to have the choice of making it should not be killed here i agree we're not We're not going to suggesting that i
think we have to we have to give guidance on what the ask is right what right well but I think it's important last time we didn't even ask that's what I'm saying well I guess from a process and I that's double now a process question as we look forward to as we discuss this and we also look forward to
the fire station discussion is how do we avoid this where um and I know there's inflation but there's always there's going to continue to be inflation i don't know how the OPM number is so far off um and are we going to be dealing
with this same situation again something wasn't working right in terms of either the estimate or how it was presented to the town um how do we avoid that with the next project so the only way to avoid it is to bid it but you're going to pay a couple hundred grand up front
to bid it that's right you bid it before you only bid with construction documents if you look at all the towns that are considering and I'm not justifying well another way to avoid it is to tell the town this is the estimate this will go out to bid we may be back here next year
or this or or you know here's our estimate and we we want approval of four million because all these other things I my worry is you get approval on something people go okay three million and then you're back next year and you're moving things around and it you
feel like well It's not only that but if you say I mean if you broadly say that this project is going to be like what was the original one 32 or three what was the first number i know threeish on this on this iteration yeah in this
iteration was it three we went in at three or 3.2 3.2 or something okay so if we're at we're almost a million over if you if you take his 375 let's just use the one that Well maybe you're right at 4 million you're going to be at 4 million so you're 800,000 so you're
actually 25% higher than you came in so now if you leverage that up to the police station which I mean the fire station then that becomes a 12.5 million potential yeah well you have to assume we're going it's going to repeat and so then and the bigger picture which I know
we all struggle if it's the the DPW shed and the this and the and we don't have any money for any of that and I don't know how to really really square up to that problem i just don't I don't even know what to say about it like unless we say we cut the line like I mean there's
one thing to say like we made public safety a priority and we're doing these projects and then that's it the the uh the windows closed for a while i'm sorry Jim i'm sorry well DPW could be considered
public and so you know it's like the board of health saying everything's public health i'm not justifying but I do think you're a nuisance we're on the right path David we We've start We finally got a capital plan we're like we're doing better than we did as a town and And you know you just solve these
things one step at a time you can't get overwhelmed by That's true that's true i I would recommend that going forward we do spend the money up front to get the bids in before town meeting if this is going to be a problem I think this is the way to this is the way to do it
because it's we used to do it that way way so where do you find the 200k to get the drawings done and stuff well same way we got them this way this time so you ask in one town meeting cycle instead of asking for I don't know 100k for a study or whatever we did you ask
for like 300k study and drawings so the fire station is an example of that so you are doing the full design up to construction documents and then the plan was to bid it okay so that you bring a full number so that will be a higher fidelity uh yes it will be but either way I'm not trying to justify either way
you're paying that 300 grand of course you're paying you're paying it up front to be sure or you're missing and having to ask for that 300 more and I'd rather pay it up front and be sure yeah because I think I think just from a transparency credibility standpoint
um the town needs to know that what they're voting for um either it's going to come in at that or if it's not they still have the same say to approve like the the project changes fundamentally to me when the when the budget changes that
much and so I'm not saying they wouldn't support it i don't know but um I think it's important to go back and not feel like oh we you know we got this when we went to ballot and it was important to do a debt exclusion we got that validation now we're going to use some offset funds we're going to use reserve and now we just need another 200 grand
and we're not going to do a debt exclusion but it's still a formally you know it still would leave a bad taste in my mouth as a resident of you're trying to pull one by me um and I know that's not the intent but we just have to be very careful with all these projects that were as transparent and above board
and um straightforward all right Barney you're on the line and do you have any comment on this um I would say that um I think we should
uh be very straightforward at town meeting about how this has happened and what we need in order to go forward um and I think we just also acknowledge
that uh how difficult it is to um estimate u you know a year in advance or of what you're going to actually need and we're trying to figure out a way to do this better the next time around uh the other
thing I'd say is um you know I I think it just forces us to to take a really hard look at you know what is absolutely essential in the fire station and similarly for the DPW i mean I just
think we have to be more rigorous uh about eliminating all but what is absolutely essential yeah out okay um well we have a lot to cover here um I
don't I don't think I I want to kind of continue this i think the bottom line though is that that from a warrant standpoint uh the the drone and the um the sign board I just don't think is going
to be going to fly thank you it's not going to fly thank you um but uh and now you know we have to deal with the police station as far as this and I I it seems like I think we're also going to be asking for money for a fire
station design so these are two like things we have to think about of how we present these things right in terms of um I I think we're pretty unified though on that at least from this discussion it seemed like everyone was The only other thing though that I think we need to
talk about is uh for the extras um I mean we did the extras will cost more if we don't do them now if you find that the you need to to heat the Well we should let the the OPM earnest $218,000
well the thing is are they are they necessary or not i guess that's what we pay him for so let's The police station renovation building committee is meeting next week to to discuss the alternates make a recommendation to So what we need I think as a select
board is we need to know what's absolutely necessary or not we can make a statement to that committee to say that we're looking at the bigger picture and we're now feeling the real pinch of the fiscal pressures
that are coming down and we're Yeah because if we get a do that who I would like to do that because if we get a substantially better police department without those alternates then we're much closer to the
mark than with the alternates right i mean that was a couple good couple hundred $300,000 for the total for the alternates well they're not monolithic but there's four different ones well I know but but again we got people who are going to
study that right to let them come back with their estimate but I mean I agree as it stands now als for a reason as you said right because they're not critical right either or we have a particular you feel well you know I we hemmed and hot a
little bit with at as a committee on you know deciding those factors but you know we did prioritize them so you know um when we looked at the grand scheme of thing we did look at the big picture we're trying to solve a you know a longer problem here than just a couple years and coming back and saying "Well
actually we need to renovate these rooms now too." So that's mainly the reason we put the number one priority is to lighten renovate those spaces so that we're not coming back when those you know you put them on the capital plan yeah you can always do as well um hey
Ryan so sounds like I see eight did you get eight bids and you pick the lowest is that you have to pick the lowest and you operate in in Massachusetts
that's the bathroom the bathrooms all I mean they carry with them the MEP and all that everything like this is the G the GC this is all in okay all right we have a lot to cover and I know there's some more people who've joined in because we're going to be talking about
other things like other warrant articles and whether we include them or not gordon you're here um would you like to Andrew we're all set I think thanks Chief thank you appreciate it thank you for standing
um so Gordon if you want to come forward you know I know you have an important role here with the cemetery well I haven't received a lot of uh steering on what I'm going to talk about so I'm open to questions i I don't come
with an agenda i'm here at your pleasure okay well we had um this was one of the Warren articles we were considering is um you know whether to spend the money for the ground penetrating radar or the the all the the different components of
it and I think that you know we need to make a decision as a board here to you know again how we want to approach this so if if it might help you know in the town meeting marketing plan that Ryan sent out there were some helpful hints
about thinking about what you're offering as a something for the town you know why this why now what's the importance of it you know that sort of thing so I did put some notes together that kind of cut down our present our
forward presentation so I can offer that as sort of the the the kernel of what we're looking for in this warrant item if that's helpful so if you recall the uh the request of the select board to
the cemetery task fund was sort of broad but really it's about operation and it's about uh how sound is the operation and are there areas that would need to be remediated in a sense by any kind of
software so we found a bunch of things that we're going to set aside that we're call recommendations that the task force is still looking at now and focus on what the software would solve because that's the line item that we're talking about for 40,000
so I've sat with Jim Hall uh several times and most recently looking through some um some situations he's dealing with right now and what he has to do to determine a grave suitability is he looks in these
ancient ledgers that are from the 1950s onward we went through this we saw that and he has a master sheet too and he compares them and they're not the same sometimes doesn't know sometimes why this one has a notusable mark in in one
area so there's some ambiguity there and those situations come up quite often those could be ironed out and put into this software and that would in the future make that
process more stable more accurate more reliable but also more replicable anybody not at a senior staff level could be using that system and it wouldn't take up nearly as much time as it does now for Jim to make those burial decisions it would also ensure that we
have a succession plan in place for the next cemetery supervisor who wouldn't be able to probably decipher these various decisions that were made over time this happens in every cemetery we've talked to cemetery supervisors have to make
decisions based on what they're dealing with that day and that time this isn't unusual at all that's why they're all going to software to solve that problem going forward but to straighten it out from the back end as well and also to preserve historic information i think we
got all that how much is it 40,000 a year or just that's a onetime setup cost and there 2,000 yearly support cost and do we know does is any of this eligible for like CPA or anything like that or we did look into that and it's not there's
a provision in the um CPA about creation of something which cannot be supported by CPA funds and we are creating software little bit of a technicality what is there that's what the CPA is all
about technicalities right all these little yes The bottom line is it won't qualify excuse me yes we can't make it qualify is what you're saying that's correct correct barney have spoken okay barney yeah all right
well thanks okay that's a warrant that's currently a warrant article potential warrant article mhm and it's financial so we should It would be nice if we knew what the payback was in terms of how much time yeah well well not that kind of one of the things we're trying to do
here is to really ask our remaining questions of any of these applicants or people who want money or or want select board support or andor talking about warrant articles what to include or exclude from this upcoming Springtown
meeting so I just was wondering if there was any discussion of of the fees that are currently you know charged for cemetery you know for plots and things and if if we should be considering augmenting some of those and all that to offset some of these that discussion
that's not this question though well it's it's a question of my mind because I want to know is there are there any offsetting fees that we could be starting to charge that would be paying for this for so that the cemetery then this is not coming out of the
taxpayers's pocket but it's coming out of the cemetery users pocket yes we already have done a benchmarking with other cemeteries around here for example we know are under uh most rates so yes that's an opportunity we're looking at surely y that money goes you're dying for answers
aren't you well you know well you know if there's such a thing as a cemetery revenue bond we could uh float that but the uh the revenue could be pre-refunded very quickly i don't Did we raise the plot rates we did previously two years
ago or a year ago it wasn't before me uh it wasn't the plot rates it was the um it was there two components to this it was the it was the actual interament rate internment rate yeah i think I mean do you have any other questions Barney you're do you have any
questions you're familiar with this with the CPC well very quickly so why now question is if for some reason Jim took a job in another town for example or the ledger books caught on fire would I hope he has a backup he should be scanning
those um yes like now but but his knowledge is the key well I know that but same is true of his predecessor who yeah okay fair enough okay all right thank you there there are some others who have joined online and I
know they've reached out uh regarding make various articles and we're we're running late because this evening we've had lots of discussion about a lot of these articles as well as other things going on in town so um but one of the one of the uh bylaws under consideration
at the upcoming for the warrant is the demolition delay bylaw i'm going off the top of my head if that's the official name yes um and I see that uh Ben Herder is on and uh and Chrissy O'Shea and I didn't know if they wanted to uh take a
you know five minutes max to uh to tell us more about that uh for our consideration of that sure thanks Travis sure um well as you know we're hoping to come
back and speak with you guys on the 8th of April as well it may be tight that's why I'm trying to Yeah yeah so we we don't have a uh you know thank you for the notice to join the meeting tonight we don't have a presentation necessarily
to share uh with you this evening but high level you know yes we are proposing a demolition review bylaw for uh Springtown meeting and uh you know high level this is um really for the
protection of historically significant buildings and structures um that are not in the historic district the established historic district which accounts for um roughly 2 and a.5% of the buildings
in town uh it's only about 51 properties um there are a number of historically significant properties that are outside of the district that are not uh protected in in any way from demolition um and
uh we have been witnessing in recent months um that there have been uh a number of properties that have been impacted by this um we've had full
demolitions partial demolitions uh that have occurred in town and so uh we feel that there is an urgency to u uh establish a demolition review bylaw in Carlile um and to have it be consistent
with other towns we are um one of the only towns in the Metro West area that does not have a demolition review bylaw um we shared a a
map with uh you've previously um showing that we are sort of an island um there are neighboring towns that have demolition review bylaws demolition delay bylaws they you know different names for it um but um so we are um we are requesting
presence on the on the warrant for this spring to propose this bylaw to the town um there's a lot more detail to that it's a good summary we are Yeah i guess I I would like to add also that
um you know it's been a very helpful process to start to socialize this with with you guys the planning board uh other groups um we've been getting a lot of great questions from people and um
through that process we've developed uh an FAQ document that we have uploaded to the historical commission website so um if anybody in the public has some queries about what the demolition review
bylaw is all about um we'd like to at this point direct them to the historical commission website that's really great approach um David since you are in charge of this study committee of of the you know and we're talk you're really
focused on the how this town meeting is going to play out are how are we doing relative to the length and how we're going to have to think about you know not not in not only just on this bylaw but in the the one of the reasons that this came about this whole discussion I
mean this is obviously important to the select board just in general with the bylaw but But the timing of the bylaw as far as in the spring and in the fall I believe it has to be in the fall and I'll say that for two reasons and I know Ben's working hard on this and his whole
commission number one is yes the volume of things we have to do what do we have how many Warren articles 30 i a lot of war articles the ADU bylaw will be a time sync i think the uh the um TA bylaw
will be a time sync and I think now as we get into these capital projects there's going to be some rigorous debate on that uh and we typically have on those I mean we typically have put the financially impactful issues in the spring so that
it's it fits with the following budget cycle as compared with the fall the big the you know the elephant in the room for the fall town meeting is MBTA and that will be lengthy but uh I I I believe I can speak for the committee
that we all feel like any discretionary bylaw type articles should be pushed to the fall at this point separately well the MBTA bylaw though does have some relevance to this springtown meeting because there's the warrant the petition
for the for the arguments that could lead into a longer discussion about it all of which says it's going to be a long spring meeting the other thing and I I don't want to I don't want to say I'm careful with City in the Woods in terms of I certainly don't personally
ever weigh in right and I wouldn't advise any elected official to weigh in but it's a reasonably good barometer of the temperature of various issues of those who care enough to comment and the comments have been overwhelmingly this is not fully thought
out what about this what about this what about this it's going to take more work to determine and I don't want to get into it with Ben right now he he may come in front but I believe from what I read and what I understand that there's considerably
more vetting of the nuances of that thing before it's ready uh to be presented at town meeting and Ben I would just give you some advice which is it's better to delay than get denied because if it goes down it will be many
cycles before you can bring it back up whereas if you go through it and you really think about and I'm sure you read all those issues yourself you got to pay attention to that stuff and address them and like we're doing with the TA bylaw have to
craft these things so that it has a good chance of passing because if it doesn't besides being a time sync people will just maybe say "Ah you guys haven't figured it out i'm going to say no till you figure it out." And then you have to wait like two or three years before you can bring it back up so it's my strong recommendation that that get pushed to
the Barney did you have something you wanted to say at this point or be drinking water anything to add but I don't know okay well she's still muted so I
don't know if she's allowed to barney is there anything i know you're Okay well Kate I Sorry um I was I was just going to say I know Ben and Christie have been working on this a lot but if
um you know what what David's saying uh makes a lot of sense to me and I know it's really challenging for the commission because um you know the concern is there maybe a a couple of residences that are being considered for
demolition between now and the fall um I don't know if there's any short-term uh pro authority or way you could um um you know have some sort of
temporary sounds crazy but not an injunction but you know some do you have any authority that holds up somebody considering support demolition uh over the summer anyway uh I I do think though that David's making important points
about um really getting around and talking to all the kind of relevant boards and committees and uh I know Christy I think you wrote me about having a you know an open community meeting and that's a really good thing to do too but it's awful close to
Maytown meeting that's right um you know to be doing this at this point yeah i think I I feel like it's too compressed the timeline is too compressed and you'd be much better off in the fall you can have you know
uh forums and bigger you know presentations more complex than it appears yes it is and you know especially if you use the 50 year mark which well my house my house was built in 70 sweeps in yeah if you were to say 100 years or I would
say fine but or even 75 years 50 years is going to sweep in a lot of houses and there a lot of people are going to have issues so we owe it I think we owe it to those owners to think through that okay and just briefly I was at the the last meeting where they they reviewed this
they used the questions that were asked there to populate parts of this FAQ um I thought there was some feedback there wasn't a lot of uh lot of people there at that meeting i thought there'd be more which meeting was that this was their last where they reviewed this um and so it was an And I know they were
planning and I don't know a public hearing in in a week or so um I did ask the question of is there aside from just you know the risk of losing more structures that might be historic is there something uh going on that would
would really dictate a need for this now and I and I don't want to answer for you but I think the answer was no but obviously um you know we've lost some structures that we might want to have kept and the longer we push this out you risk losing more structures but it wasn't my question was more around is there some regulatory change or
something that we know is about to happen that where we really need to act and and I don't want to speak for you but it didn't sound like that was the case it's more just the um risk of losing more structures in the interim to give you an example of what has occurred
recently is we we lost a historic barn structure on Maple Street uh recently and it was applied for demolition early December and the structure was gone and a new foundation and building was being
put up by uh midFebruary so there really wasn't the time to reflect on its historical significance in town and to kind of register that um it was just you know in
effect gone in in the blink of an eye and so we're concerned that that will happen to uh other structures moving forward and we're certainly keeping an eye on um you know
historic properties changing hands um because those are thresholds that um when that happens you know there is the chance that um something might be lost okay well I I think we've tried to you
know Ben I know you reached out and I'm trying to you know do my best to guide all these different boards and committees and you know through the this process and you've at least heard it I think from the select board now on how we're approaching it
may not be the may not be what you're looking for but at least I'm trying to give you an answer the better on the other the other thing is um we have set the fall town meeting will be November 2nd yes correct so it's it's not a hypothetical it's and it is it's five
and a half months so it's not ideal but it's also not um it's five and a half months it's not even six months from Yeah i mean right it's an there is risk as for any article that we end up No there is risk to delay of things that are needed same as you could say we didn't buy a drone or we won't do this
won't do X right i mean there's always risk and delay i would my re again my advice is use that use that time to really craft a very good B I don't disagree with the phil philosophical approach but um you know you're hearing
from the population or if you haven't you certainly will from the many people who own homes that are in the 50ish years old and say what are you doing in me are you you know and you just got to anticipate and have those conversations uh it's a great time for you to really
you know reach out as been said and maybe burnish the law so you've thoughtfully picked those things up okay all right thank you all for your comments thanks thank you Ben and Chrissy appreciate you coming on is there a chance that in the fall this
could get kicked down the line i'm just curious about how that might happen knowing that it's a full docket um in the fall as well it's not it's a one it's one behemoth it's the MBTA is a big one we have I I think there's enough
There's going to be enough stuff um that we're going to be moving that I think we'll have to give assurance that it's I I don't I personally would give the assurance that it would be in your your chit is in the queue now so that you know first of all I would say that I
would say um there's a zero chance that there'll be no fall town meeting there's been times in the past where we thought we'd have a fall town meeting like last fall and we didn't have it zero chance of that because we have a calendar mandate on MBTA so we're definitely going to have a fall town meeting those
meetings are four hours plus and you know by moving the financial stuff into the spring and clearing it that was the intent of the governance committee i think that's the right thing to do and yeah I think uh it's the appropriate
time to have that conversation okay good we have a Thank you thank you yep we have a lot and we're running a little late um so we're gonna run late on this meeting a little bit but there's one other item um I do see Caitlyn Wat on and I had uh communicated with her or
actually and Kate you have have communicated with the library trustees and they had presented some concerns about the actual TA bylaw um so in response to those they'd send some written concerns through you and um in response I had reached out to town
council that was included in our packet today i think you've all have seen that but um really that they they were concerned that similar to what the board of health is saying that they would like you know complete autonomy or maybe that's not that's too strong but they
the uh that because of the Mass General laws and some of the sections they've cited to have the custody and management of the library and the reading room and all property owned by the town relating there too um so the Ethan had responded
and that that is in our packet and basically has said that you know our our bylaw as it's now been reddrafted in this kind of the third iteration um we we really don't you know kind of have any of those concerns relative to you
know because we're not trying to oversee the you know policies of the library or what books they're buying or anything like that all we're trying to do is have some human resource pol you know oversight and policy through the town
administrator bylaw but given that I did want um to to open it up to um to Caitlyn if you if you were willing to to take you know a couple of minutes like two or three minutes but to talk about those concerns and if and I know you've
seen the the um you know the the letter for email from um from Ethan as well as um you know the the most updated draft of the TA bylaw do you still have those concerns or are there new concerns that you might have if you want to take a
minute and tell us about that thanks Travis and I mean like Ben said I think as you know um we're hoping to come as a board to uh to meet with all of you so the trustees have not officially reviewed the updated policy um the
updated by that you sent me this evening um so I it does not appear that the changes that we would have liked to have made appear in that we do as you said we do want to maintain our autonomy um we
certainly appreciate the goal of the proposed bylaw to support human resource efforts of town employees who are currently selected and managed by elected committees but we don't think that this is appropriate for the library it's essential that libraries remain independent in every sense at I mean
this time right now libraries are being scrutinized losing funding there's federal legislation coming after libraries as well we want to make sure our library is in the hands of our residents we're suggesting that the library is governed like the school independently and without oversight
beyond the trustees state and consortium regulations that we already abide by and feel that it's of utmost importance for the library to maintain autonomy over hiring the director and our day-to-day operations but of course we appreciate that you're still under revisions i know
you have very very long meetings as it is um but we'll really we're very hopeful that you will consider our request for an exemption okay well thank you Caitlyn appreciate it i apologize I got it to you so late in the day but I did want to make sure I
I you know gave you a you know anyone who's reached out which have been a lot of different committees and groups about not only the TA bylaw but as you just saw about the you know demolition bylaw we're we're getting barged with lots of requests so we're trying our best to uh
to take in as much information as a as a committee too not just you know the written stuff that we're getting um so well thank you for that i I think we we should spend a few more minutes talking about the TA bylaw because we've certainly uh had some feedback from the
board of health at the beginning of this and um you know we've we've made those revisions um are does the board this is not this is not the you know Travis by law I just happen to be kind of shephering it through this the select board's decision
it better not be no it's not it started I I started it it better not be but but I no this is the board the select board we need to figure out what is the right approach for Carile and and I think we've started down a path and the question is do you know you said it
tonight David do you want to we're going likely take it to the we are taking it to the voters and do we want the voters to decide and at what level do we want to start making these compromises now and does that assure success or is are
we just kind of I I think Caitlyn's and the live not Caitlyn the library's argument I think we have to distinguish two things and and these are two useful things that we had tonight the the broader issue
that board of health raised which also and any other elected like planning board was the other well somebody who was the other elected planning board right planning board yeah the the points that boards who are not under the
purview of us the select board so those independently elected boards all have a common theme which is I need my independence I believe personally that we can address that through what you've been saying we're going to make this
procedure UAL HR and we have to work on maybe some of the language about the consultation or whatever the verb is we've made it clear that it's not about policy so that's good and I think we still have a little bit of work to do
to clarify that the process of hiring and firing in such a way that makes those boards feel comfortable i do believe that there's a different issue that we created anyway because we said schools are not included and the
argument that libraries are making is we're more like a school than like a planning board right but statutoily schools are separate but so are libraries well but not on HR are I mean that's that's what Ethan
Ethan thinks there's zero examples of a school that's under a town administrator's authority zero that's okay and libraries different it's mixed i mean I Okay fair enough can I respond to just libraries being under
jurisdiction sure Kaitlin go ahead generally speaking and I I can pull statistics for you and send them over but the vast majority of libraries are self-governing by trustees there a very very and we went over the we went over this with Kate um at our February 10th meeting I do not have again I don't have
the figures here the vast majority of libraries are self governing even in towns with a TA bylaw very few fall under a TA b or under a town administrator a small number are shared responsibility but the vast majority are
are still independent so I'm not weighing into this but this TA bylaw does not does cannot supersede that authority so the the library board of trustees has full authority of the library this is over the the management of personnel
but the argument is as you know Ryan but the argument is that the personnel you know if you're going to start telling every board what they can and can't do um personnel-wise then you know what authority do they really have i mean that is the ar the counterargument and
we're dealing with that but at the same time we're trying to get everyone in town kind of pulling in the same direction being able to have some shared services and more oversight frankly on personnel through policies because right now you know you have all these evening
time government evening volunteers who are responsible for this we don't you know we don't need to re we've all gone through the argument okay fair enough i mean I I think I'll just leave it at we already created the dual system because we said we already excluded schools and
the fire chief and I mean well the fire chief again I'm just saying anything can be overturned by the MGL we could say everybody reports to us right we could I mean I'm just saying we already created our own two tiers and so the arguments
are a little different though I hear libraries saying we want to be in the school tier I'm not hearing planning board and board of health saying we want to be in the school tier they're saying how can you assure me that there'll be independence on the execution of my policy i I believe we can solve for that
one well the board of health was specific about the personnel they just want they just want to say they weren't you they weren't monolithic i think there's a there's a path forward in that one i'm just pointing out that this is a slightly different argument that we
created because we cut that score okay but how can we select board solve that make a decision include put them in the school bucket or put them in the where the health planning board bucket that's it phone's right there there you go there's
well and this is a semi uninformed opinion so please correct me but a lot of what we're trying to accomplish is within the operations of town hall so library is different in
that yes their staff lives somewhere else lives somewhere else doesn't necessarily need to adhere to some of the operational things of us and and they for the most part work independently from town hall so we're not talking about necess that I'm aware of people crossf functional between the
library and planning board so it's qualitatively it's a different thing than these other boards we're talking about Right the the other side of the coin is if you start making the more exceptions you
make the diff the more difficult it is to you open the door for the other so this is one of those there I do see the qualitative difference from an operational standpoint right um but again as you add more exceptions you um add more exceptions and and exactly but
again it's the issue that Ryan brought up earlier about HR and how do you deal with those two is that the same with the dealing with that with the library i I hate using examples because Yep i don't know there's a more there's a better employee in town than Martha which is
part of the problem martha's a library director absolutely but if an employee accused Martha of something significant to the point where a reasonable person would say that that that person needs to be fired it would have to be the board of trustees that decided that right
right so the issue is if you have one employee claiming against another employee you need some type of Right what happens over at the school what happens if a teacher Jim O'Shea has a set of policies so it's more so Jim the
superintendent is in charge of everyone the school committee doesn't doesn't fire and fire anyone they fire and fire that person yes okay i see so here if you have and it's I'm not saying there shouldn't be people exempted or I'm just saying that that
It is more in my opinion now this is my opinion it is more likely that an employee would hide behind their board than an executive would right take over the authority of a board it happens all the time okay all right where employees use use their boards as a shield so that they can violate policy or not come in
on time or not execute their job function and the boards are very reluctant to act not here but everywhere because they don't observe the day-to-day and they don't see the interaction with other employees it is and we also heard said seed said and who
did we talk to where we were saying they said well you know how many other towns there's hundred bylaws you're going to get a hundred different ways to handle this and it usually reflects the dynamics at that moment that they did the bylaw so if you have um in our case
a well functioning library and and director and and board of trustees then those are usually exempted if your problem's over here then those you know it's so it reflects the I think part of what we're trying to do is is something that isn't just a snapshot of of how
things are operating today just you know Ryan what would prevent though in your scenario if you had if you had a conflict like that and then you went you took that information because we had a policy in place and you're you're the
lead of that policy and you took that information about the employees to the board and and made them make a decision what the issue there is that it becomes public or what first of all so in in the instances that it has happened here with
me the board has not acted just the boarding question has not acted and secondly they I disagree that they would have to they would have to conduct disciplinary hearing so you can delegate authority to a chair right you can say the chair now has full HR authority and
and maybe the board's okay with that the problem the problem that exists is if they don't share that information with the entire board now you have one elected board member of a board of five or seven that's making full HR decisions if they do or do not do it sometimes they do sometimes they don't in order
for the whole board to weigh in on it which is I think what was heard you would have to have an executive session where you invite the employee and now it's a full board discussion about about discipline and it in my experience boards are reluctant to listen I'm okay
with I like consistency i I can accept I think the argument that in the case of the schools there is a superintendent who is the ultimate authority not the board and I presume similar construct in the fire chief case where he's the ultimate exactly right
correct so if that's the parting line let's keep that partying line i mean we need to be consistent so that argument seems good to me so you know even though put it to the voters and put it to the voters and let's see and the voters may reject it the MGL may reject it right i
mean well according to town council so far they he doesn't think that anything on there that that will be rejected by the MGL by but they don't I mean caveat to me the question is that and I no one's in disagreement about how we want
it to work yeah i think the concern is that what if we get a rogue TA or someone who's doing something that is impinging trying to impinge on the policy of the board what prevents what's the check against that we're talking
about the check against a board this is answering the question of a maybe a board that doesn't take appropriate action what's what's the check against um a town administrator looking you know some point in the future trying to exert control over a board by leveraging the employees or pressuring the employees
what is the remedy for that is it a policy is it verbage in the thing or is there select board is the remedy because the select board has the the authority to hire and fire the TA and if that's were to um if if the library trustees
came to us and said you know we heard from the town administrator that that they were that he that the town administrator was considering firing the director and you know the town administrator notified us and said I'm going to do that and you know we and
heard from the trustees and they said you know we don't really want that and that's not appropriate and the town administrator if they this is all hypothetical did that went ahead and fired them we would we would hear about it not only from them but other town residents and we would say you know what
that was not appropriate and and so we would have to take action against the town administrator I think is how them would play out but and that's the check on that assuming or what if we're the select board's a bad actor and pressuring the t you know what I mean you can't you can't that's elected
represent we've had crappy boards and you recover so either in some kind of FAQ I don't know if is that true yeah okay I don't know if we're in the bylaw itself or if it's in policy or if it's in the FAQ this is how it works I think
we need to be very explicit it about a highlight like what that process is and that you we're not going to have a scenario where someone's just going in and roughshod right rough shod and there's what's the check to that and we have to be and I I don't know I don't know where where that should live if
it's implicit in the bylaw and it's in the FAQ well we certainly made it so we should we should we have to communicate that and that's why it's important we get the so I think the two important things to communicate are the de demarcation line between who got
excluded and who didn't and yep um and it's it's not a matter of um um MGL because we're actually petitioning to change the MGL by our
action but it's a matter that there is a staff rather than a board who does Right we got the right i I'm good with all that okay so but but that's what has to be really explicit it has to come out in your in the marketing campaign marketing
campaign and then the other one is what the recourse is if there were some rogue guy running roughshod over everybody and um well I would say where I thought you were going with issue two so that's
issue two then issue three is make sure people are comfortable with the ultimate power which is the power to fire make sure that the process by which nobody's going to argue about
hiring and nobody's going to really argue no I think they are arguing about hiring as well all right then take it both ways the hiring and firing are the two lynch pins of the control of who gets selected and how they how they use
that word consultation that's making people that's the thing so there is word smithing still to be maybe or maybe that is maybe maybe not but I'm saying in terms of issues right so I think it's really okay three issues then right the the partying line make it clear what our
methodology was the that we thought through the safety mechanism for a O TA and then the main one I think those two are not the main one is going to be well how do you make sure as what's his face
said thumb on the scale how what's the thumb on the scale and look you're not going to get everyone saying we fully support this thing the very nature of it and so I think it's really the question we're not for the voter I know but my computer died so okay all right it only
lasts till 10 I haven't strategically Well we are done with this discussion for now where we may need to have more time not just on the TA bylaw but we have to now start callulling through these warrant articles i mean no no we're not we're we run out of steam
pretty quickly here but can I make two points one we have a meeting the week of April break i will not be here i can participate the 20 so okay let's one okay so we may need to add a meeting somewhere which I'm fine with and if there's a way to either
I can take that call from I'll be in abroad so but if we can move that meeting sure given it's vacation week we can but we should the 22nd the week of the 22nd is April break the board is here
except for David and Barney dropped off but I can't do the 29th 12 but on this one maybe the back half of April early May we just add So you have to sign the warrant by next week by the 15th at the latest so can we do another
meeting in the interim so we have a meeting the 8th and then do like the either that we could either do next week a meeting if that's helpful to get something accomplished ahead further ahead or after the 8th the 10th
the first meet the 15th as long as you finish we could meet the 15th is that I can wait the 15th just because it's it's tax day doesn't mean we can't meet it's my son's birthday okay do we need a room for Sunday i will
ask David but uh I the 15th is a great one let's just do that okay let's just put it in there you have to order these articles recommend on all the articles and um we should just have that should be the only agenda item April that's
going to be 15th we don't want we don't want to give that time seven add okay sorry don't you think like we don't we probably might make that the only agenda item for that meeting is just just the
nervous because we're that's it and he wants to get this get the presses rolling here so you can save your recommendations for the motions book typically we'd like to have the recommendations in the warrant book but you have to have the order and what's in
the warrant and it's signed by the 15th okay because right now we would be we would are we slotted to do that on the eth or do we take our eth meeting and move it to the 15th and we use the eth to do the do the warrant does that make you happier i don't know if there's not
me it's well in terms of timeline process I would say like what are we doing on the 8th can we move that to the 15th and then move the just in case something goes is unanswered or we All right that's what I'll recommend i think you should add one on the 1st next week
to just do warrant stuff you'll have final stuff for the finance committee your regular meeting is on the 8th and I would move your meeting on the 22nd to the 15th you want a meeting every week every week for the next three weeks three weeks meeting every week for the next three
weeks next two years shouldn't have gone to That's fine with me that's fine with me i mean you know this is it the reason Did you hear Ryan's recommendation we have too much to do well if we think about how we would go through that that's fine you
need a standalone warrant meeting can we And we So the first is the standalone warrant meeting so what are the meeting dates keep that 7 o'clock that would be great first 8th and 15th first 8th and 15th and then cancel the 22nd which you should already select board okay so the
first is what kind of general agenda just the warrant warrant April 1st and April Fool's Day 700 p.m okay the eth is the order right uh hopefully on the first we do order recommendations and then the
eighth is left for anything left over which would be and our current agendas right and and I don't think you'll get through everything next week okay so it's the what's left the four or five articles that you still have to finish warren okay and does anyone want to
start early i know not on the 1st you can't but does anyone think help find it helpful to start at 6:30 no I definitely don't you don't okay so we'll keep it at 7 on the 8th and then on the 15th what else we have to we'll we'll vote
probably the 8th to to finalize it so the 22nd all the agenda i can't be there i know Scott can't and I'm assuming school vacation week some of you might not be but we still have a meeting it's No the 15th no we're just vacation
that's fine right we're skipping the 22nd and the 29th what would be the purpose of the 15th is just normal business that's going to come oh yeah all Okay yep all we're going to have to talk about so but I just want to
point out though that you're not we won't have any meetings or one two three weeks because we won't have one on the 22nd uh we won't have one the merit of having the 15th and then
not the 22nd that seems silly well nobody's hereation week it's not going to be here and Okay yeah um or we could do the 29th i can't do the 29th okay you can't do the 29th we've got another board meeting
or we could do So how many are we missing on the 22nd i can I can call in it's just if if other if it's not a conf and then our next scheduled meeting would be the 13th of May that's probably going to be a long time and we said the 29th doesn't
work why well you guys can meet the 29th i I can't make it well we have the ETH i haven't figured out how to be in May 8th right i might leave my other one thing tomorrow we'll do it okay i just want to We have everyone here for timing okay
thank you Ryan we could do the on the 29th i could probably get here by 7 we're going to at least pencil in or we're going to do the 1st the 8th and the 15th and we'll go from there and figure out afterwards we're gonna Yeah leave well right leave him okay so we have limited time because
we're late in the evening we have a TA report and we have to get an update on We have to get an update and we have to do some committee appointments as well okay I'm going to take a break i will be right why don't we Why don't we skip the TA report you can No there's some a few
important things and there's a 250th update that we have to Does any of that because it's go stale if we wait a week 250th year in a week no it doesn't i don't have a significant 250th update it's just there for to remind us that
it's important talked about okay um do you have the approval of the the memorandum agreement for the Carile Police Unit local 2011 contract yes yeah we should do we have to do that so this has not changed from your discussion in executive session the MOA is binding so
if you approve the MOA then we can approve the contract without bringing it back to you so this was ratified by the police union so your vote is the only thing left yeah let's do it all right i had a question on it though i know no one wants out of it this hour
i did we said that that uh one and a half% is for three years and then it's done was that it that called that was the what was it called the uh PEG or not PEG yeah it's it's for um for the
training postg and it's in there that's 1 and a.5% is that right yes and it's for three years and then the expectation is it goes away that will be in the contract yes we agreed on that language okay but that didn't say that in the
contract that's why I I pulled it up i want to I've got to find my here find it in there the the wording in there concerned me that it wasn't um where is the 3 and a half% um uh one and a
half% permanent increases to pay that was the thing that that threw me yeah but the what we discussed was that the you wouldn't there wouldn't be another one and a half in the following year it's just the word permanent that made
me think when I read that so the footnote says the parties agree that the increase to base salary granted in recognition of post in this section will persist after the agreement but that annual increases to base salary and recognition of post shall cease July 1st 2027
okay as long as permanent increases I I I don't know i just wanted to point that out to everyone sound is it permanent it sound When you say permanent increase sorry it's not a bonus it's a It's a salary increase so what stops after
three years stop the increasing the increasing oh the increasing of it yes but you're not going to decrease it then 4 and a.5% in year four or whatever okay i'm moving to France before they ride me
out on a rail okay okay you want anyone want to make a motion about this I'd be happy to if I Hang on do we have Do we have a script a motion script you're permanent perman permanent because the footnote at the bottom takes
away the permanent increase well I'm I don't understand what you're I'm trusting that the word permanent means that it's after that it persists in the salary that it's permanent not meaning it's going to increase every year
permanent in that you're once the contract ends you're not then reverting the salaries back the increase it's it's a little bit I don't I wouldn't think you'd need the word permanent but I'm not necessarily concerned by it okay you know what I mean that then yeah given But there was a discussion about the
fact that it was going to be the increase was going to be for three years it's in the footnote i got that and I and I had missed the footnote because I was focused on the word permanent and threw me for a loop so all right all right good we we understand the intent and we'll make sure that it's in the
contract correctly because what we do is we actually do the base rate as a chart and we'll do that for three years and then you renegotiate the wages after the fourth year i just don't want them to say "Oh see it's permanent." This permanent you know that word is sticks
with me you footnote one all right i move to approve the memorandum of agreement between the town and the Carlile Police Massachusetts Coalition of Police Local 2011 and authorize the town administrator and town council to finalize a contract memorializing the three-year agreement
as described in the memorandum of agreement included in the packet and sign on the town's behalf a second okay so and and when I guess I I guess what you're hearing uh Ryan is that when you you and town council
memorialize thisou that that language in there about the permanent and the post and all that will be really crystal clear so that three years from now everybody will still understand what it meant right that's my point yeah if this
great all right so we'll vote uh we no longer have Barney Arnold so we just have four members present we can do a voice vote all in favor i and none opposed okay is this public record we have uh
the last thing would be the um appointments okay i think that's important we should do those vote them yep okay i just need Kate or one of you or I can do it i guess it's not under appointments where is it and the T8
where's It's not under eight for some reason it should have been on the TA reports right no it is under eight it's under eight selvet what page or maybe it's on
um yeah but I don't see a script usually there's a a cover page that gives us you know appointments oh here it is i found it i found it i found it yeah I found it it was at the end that's why okay i move to appoint Steven Hitten as an associate member of the zoning board of appeals
term to end June 30th 2025 and to appoint WJ Lee as a full member of the Zerning Board of Appeals term to end June 30th 2027 for Stephen Steve Hinton's vacancy i move to appoint Susan Evans as a member of the Celebrations
and Veterans Committee's term to end June 30th 2025 and I move to appoint Dale Ryder as a member of the Celebrations and Veterans Committee term to end June 30th 2025 second all right um any any discussion
the the ZBA was just because Steve's backing away and Mhm okay okay great so there was second so now we need a vote okay all in favor i I Okay i move to appoint Leaf Hansen to this position
of van driver for the Council of Aging and Human Services and to appoint Lois Hartley to the position of van driver for the Council of Aging and Human Services second okay any questions all in favor i okay
so your appointments are done great all right all right so Ryan if there was one essential thing I you can say it about your report just I would encourage you to take a look at the financial policy update preventing fraud waste and abuse is that a new policy or rev it's a rev
we added the process okay to include I have to ask and I don't have in front of me anymore because my computer but it didn't look like it was redlined so in the the only thing that was added was the process i would just say once more it is extremely difficult when you're amending policies not to include a red
line i've asked several times i'll ask again till I get my way thank you it's going to beat you into submission okay anything else ta had a red line the TA by line i knew I was beaten into it i
did it i won't do that again i don't want to do that it was appreciated the whole world runs on red yes okay it does make it easier to sort through okay um the last thing and we need we're going to skip the warrants and minutes we'll do that next time um Lee is in our
sports for skipping we have community input which we always have i see that Mr ly is on the line christina is on the line any final comments ah Mary Lynn go ahead could you could someone please send me
the packet from the meeting it wasn't up on the website that's not because it went up Sunday i have your it's it's up there but it's it's hard to find so I I will email I have your email i just didn't want to email you during the meeting okay thank you i appreciate it okay
great um John Laby anyone else going once twice no comment no mic no comment anyway wow okay okay John thanks um all right he must be doing something right he's saving his finally working saving his powder smart move
all right motion to adjurnn all right all in favor i okay we're done