##VIDEO ID:JZBpDmhmIos## uh it's 7 o'clock and I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for the town of Carlile um we will start thank you um we'll start by actually doing a u a to see if we have Quorum um I thought we were going to have oh Barney it looks like is is on y Bar's phone so why don't we take a roll call vote to uh start the meeting um we'll do it in alphabetical order Barney if you're on the line if you'd like to start us off or not or not she's muted okay Barney if that is you on the line if if you'd like to start us with a roll call vote please all right well we will continue and if Barney you can hear this just please chime in when you uh get this we'll do a roll call vote to start in in any event so Snell I Reed ey well here triola I model I okay and Barney did you hear that if you are online please uh notice that you're here for the meeting or chat us or or maybe yeah you send me a text or something let me know is everybody muted is that something we're doing on our end it may be that possible yeah well it looks like she came off mute there yeah she came hi can you hear me now all right yeah we can hear you all right oh great I'm here yep and because you're a member um you know as far as the zoom goes please uh you can keep her unmuted throughout the um thing but you're welcome to go on mute obviously Barney if you want so we're going to our agenda tonight we're going to have Community input briefly then appointments and resignations we're going to have a tax classification hearing for fiscal year 20 25 we're going to move on to the fire station owners project manager goal discussion then we're going to have a Town Administrator bylaw discussion Financial policy Amendment approval and this will be to discuss the employee expense reimbursement and then we'll discuss the alcohol beverages control commission for a license renewal we'll have the town administrator's report warrants and minutes approval Cemetery deed approval liaison reports and then at the end we will again have Community input it's possible I will include some Community input on some of the other items if there's interest from the public um so you know you could indicate as such as we're going through um but I will start with General open Community input the way we do this is we limit it to one minute um and if if at my discretion I can add an additional minute but I would like to uh ask you to please keep your comments succinct and um you know know convey what you're trying to convey so if there any initial comments i' uh seeing none in the room I'd look to zoom but will is this everyone that's online for the zoom yeah all right um I don't see any comments or anyone indicating they have lost John we did lose John lavy but's here is he coming here is he online no I'm here Travis I'm saving my comments if you allow them during the uh the discussion of the fire station yeah I I think we will open up a short period of time for some additional comments so if that but it it's not a a long period so um but we did receive weed something from you today the select board did um as well so in redit in rdit okay um so moving on from here um we're going to do appointments and resignations um and the first was the amendment to the transfer station action committee Charter which is reducing its membership I don't know if there's anything further um that Ryan you wanted to discuss on that it's a request from them it's it's just for quum purposes so I move to amend the transfer station action committee Charter as included in the packet and I'll just say from nine to nine members to seven members do I hear a second second second okay uh is there any discussion among the board I think I think this a good move okay is there a is there a I wasn't part of this committee when this was set up is there a expected Lifetime on this or is this an ongoing committee I I think um they're thinking about phasing themselves out but I'm going to let Ryan weigh in knows more than I do just that these the select board um I think when there's no longer recommendations or actions would consider dissolving it but uh they believe for sure that there's still more to do okay great thank you okay so we've had a second uh I guess we'll take a roll call vote we'll start with Barney Arnold I M Ali Reed ey it's anel I triola I okay so that's unanimous move go ahead move to appoint Jennifer gagy to the position of transportation and services coordinator for the Council on Aging and Human Services effective November 27th 2024 second okay Barney seconded um is there anything to discuss Ryan on this I we saw it in our P just uh introducing Jennifer to the to the select board she has a tremendous amount of customer service experience and also management experience so her ability to manage the I would frankly say she's overqualified to manage the uh Transportation staff here in the programming for transportation so her additional skill set will allow for more uh redundancy and resilience in the council and aging office so highly qualified wants to be here talked it through we had a ton of candidates uh it was very competitive and we are we are happy to present Jennifer to you for appointment great okay y uh so roll call vote start with Barney Arnold I mod I Redi Snell I triola I great so that passes congratulations welcome aboard try to stop in and um so say hi tomorrow yeah so we have the tax classification hearing but because that's a hearing I'm going to wait till 7:15 I was thinking we could do um either the cemetery Deeds or the warrants and minutes rather than start on the TA report because that sure decide which one you want so um Cemetery Deeds let's go ahead and get that go through those I mve to transfer land in the public burial ground of the Green Cemetery described as follows lot d394 Graves 1 and two to Richard and Barbara fine at 435 Brook Street there a second second all right um any discussion okay seeing none Barney we're going to do a roll call vote Arnold I mod Al I Reed ey Snell I triola I okay want to do the minutes yep we'll do the minutes next for October 15th oh you did you want to get that we can do those at some point too it looks like we'll have time okay great thank you for okay that up um I move approval um actually I'll do them all three of the uh minutes of uh October 15th November 7th and November 12th as presented in the packet second did we have any revisions I don't know if they went in I didn't okay usually thought they were actually pretty good they were very good good opening they were you know they had all conclusion I'd like to note that I wrote the October 15th ones those are the ones I going to mention we should do that each time we should guess who wrote the minutes all right um so roll vote starting with Barney Arnold I mod Ali red ey Snell ey Tri I okay so that's unanimous and then um it looks like Scott you mentioned that we have some arpa discussion yes um let me pass out these hard copies um so I had met with Kelly last week to review remaining projects and based on those that meeting and and conversations with the project owners um I'd like to move the following adjustments that are in front of you which essentially would bring the the available arpa funds which are currently at available at $122,500 to $146,300 64 and again these adjustments are uh simply based on uh what what these projects need and essentially these would close out these projects so this has all been discussed with the project owners and is really administrative in nature I just had one question about number uh one the health department operations yes um I was at their meeting and I thought they had voted to return all of the funds that were left over and I thought these are all of the funds I thought 21,000 was what was left over no they have $3,000 left ah okay so essentially by making this budget adjustment we're going to zero the balance and effectively close the CL the project yeah so that's what I didn't understand what they were yeah how much they had left over yeah they had roughly 3,000 and part of that was um based on state reimbursements for they vaccination clinics and and this was just Kelly had had followed up with Linda to ensure that there was one remaining invoice of like $50 that's been accounted for so this should be good great Barney did you have any questions on the arpa no no thank you and uh well done Scot a lot of details well done if we spend 146 we'll find a way we will well can I get a motion then or did you already make it um no I didn't make the motion so go ahead Kate well I I move that select board amends the following ARA project budgets um the health department operations in response to covid-19 Staffing and supplies arpa um reducing it from 24,000 to $2,232 um the stop the bleed training workshops are project um reduced from 2,800 to $1,599 23 and the gis implementation R for project uh reduced from $87,500 to $67,500 second okay any further discussion seeing none uh Barney you want to start us off with a roll call vote Arnold I mod Ali I Snell ey triola I great okay super um thank you well hold on we've got four minutes um can we do the alcohol beverages Control Commission or does that have to wait till the time no that good he he's not coming so all he would be the only one interested I think so I move pursuant to Massachusetts General Law chapter 138 to approve the retail license renewal for a package store sell wines and malt to Art Specialties uh LLC doing business as art Specialties located at 8 L Street Carlile mass 01741 for calendar year 2025 second okay are there any questions about this okay seeing none we'll do a roll call vote Arnold ey mod Ali Reed ey smell ey Tri ey we are cruising through these things thank you all good meeting have a Happy Thanksgiving I have one the light and one the warrants okay just a quick thing so I saw Jim o it's kind of for Ryan and I didn't check Jim but Jim O'Shea wrote this little letter I know that Edco dissolved and I'm just trying to kind of follow what he was saying so were you familiar with the Ed Co stuff not enough not enough to answer questions on it no okay all right then maybe I can take your questions well I briefly reviewed it with Kelly cuz I signed the warant and she this was kind of the final step in the so they gave us some money but then we have some bills we have to pay I just understand talking about the I I wish I could remember her explanation of it um well we got it's looks like I know that all the I know that all the member towns have to deal with the yeah all the crap right and and it sounds like maybe they had I'm guessing they had some cash I dis they dispersed it proportionally to something so we got you know $6,700 and then everybody had to pay some bills right that's the part I kind of don't did they like divy them out and I guess I my understanding pay what they had to they would have paid for their students this is what it's like the final dispersement or the last step in this process and I believe it was the money was dispersed and we're paying these things and this is I don't have specifics we can follow up on that well I mean it doesn't really matter we did it it just sounds like so anyone sounds the money we got sort of washed out with the Hun with amorisco so that's kind of a wash and then 6,000 18,000 28 30 40 50 60 70 about 70,000 went away right we had to pay that and that was our final exit and now we're done that's but I believe yeah okay all right Kelly Kelly can answer this question I gu all right I get her to send you something okay okay since we have one more minute Mr chair one other question well it's short question one minute okay so the the RS the uh Old North Bridge thing that we Cally invited to I also have in my calendar a placeholder for a Carlile celebration that day but it wouldn't be the same time as that right no that is that yes or should be staged I believe caring on 6:00 a.m. is usually the carile and then they go to 8:30 this one's 8:30 okay so we can RSVP in that yes if you I mean is anyone here no are you planning to attend I think I like to okay just curious go I'll make sure I I don't want I won't be around for the 500 so 300 um Kate how about you I'm just looking I I I you know I'm here I would want to be so we it gives a little email address right to yeah but I can do it for on behalf of the board and we'll I'll tell I just want to know who was going to Barney do you plan to be at the 250th celebration we were invited uh formally by the town of conquered to be um present at as an honored guest at the parade in ceremonies in conquered we're apparently playing the British soldiers in the rean where where um and the date on that is that actually going to be on the 19th or is it on the weekend this is on the 19th which is Saturday Okay 8:30 a.m. oh oh right that's right it falls in the Saturday I right now I'm not sure sorry I'm a maybe you're a maybe defin maybe four and a half all right so four and a half well Kate has it said but uh I know I I it's in my calendar you're in okay good all right thank you we don't have to we'll take care of the okay so it is it is 7:16 we're a little late but but you we have scheduled on here until 7:45 so just so you know you have a half hour I'm going to keep the same Pace that you all have with with start the meeting so great I'll try to keep it free all right so if you want to we're going to turn it over to you if you want to introduce yourself and then walk us through your presentation be great do we need to open the hearing is there a formal request like requirement to open it no okay this is pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 40 section 56 thank you very much um for having me and on behalf of Kella the uh chairman of the board of assessors my name is Brian McDonald I'm the principal assessor and uh I'm here to present the four classification options tax classification options for fiscal 2025 um for those attending remotely um via Zoom I will uh let everybody know that the documents that that I will be discussing will be um summarized they go into greater detail and they are all available um at the assessor page on the town of carile website so whether you are attending live or listening to a recording all of the documents are available and have been as of yesterday okay keep going yeah okay he's just working on the audio so this does it work so the four uh classification hearing agenda there'll be four votes that the select board will be required to make today first would be the selection of minimum residential Factor that's the selection of the tax rate uh Grant if you an open space discount that will be very brief in its summary as there are no Parcels that qualify the granting of a residential exemption and the fourth is the granting of a small commercial exemption which will also will be brief so first I just run through the calculation of the single tax rate so we begin with the tax levy that is the budget approve at town meeting net of estimated receipts we have total assessed value of community as established and approved U established by the assessor Department approved by the Department of Revenue division of local Services multiply by a th000 get the single tax rate so this is the budget net of estimated receipts this is the total value of the various property classes you have residential open space as you can see we have zero which is why we won't go through uh vote number two commercial industrial personal property value 30 million personal property that results in a single tax rate calculation of $13.22 so moving forward here so just a couple comments with regards to um the valuation adjustments made for fiscal 2025 um you had minimal uh changes to days on Market um slight decrease in the median list price sale price indicates a stable market conditions just as a note my observations for going for calendar year 2024 for fiscal 26 is that they have started to increase slightly so we're not seeing a change downward in the market just to let people at home know you you choose okay so these are the two most recently completed years so this yes this would be calendar year 22 and calendar year 23 those would be effective for fiscal 24 and 25 not the fiscal yeah yeah because we we are required by law to look at a full calendar Year's worth of sales yeah so excuse me um just another you know sale the list ratio which is the the percentage uh that really is a measurement of the buyer and seller sentiment and whether they are in agreement with where the market uh the perceived market value at 101% this is indicating uh once again a similar buyer and seller expectations not the rapid rate of appreciation that we saw over the last three years but what we have seen is in stabilization and the comments I've made about uh in calendar year 24 is this is the new Norm um as we've seen from 2020 this is really the the establishment of a of a base Market since my arrival here are you saying that bank because it's stabilizing yes as opposed to fluctuating yep I'm not I am seeing you're not seeing the rapid appreciation that we saw in 20 to 21 as you know 20% undervalued coming into fiscal 23 uh we are not seeing that at all with more what I would characterize as typical Market base adjustments somewhere between and those last two lines the 10-point adjustment in 22 on the ASR is because of that right because you were reacting to that that's a measurement the beginning ASR is where those sales are headed into the following year in order to meet statistical standards they require that 10% adjustment right around I'm supposed to be between 90 and 110% 95% is I think really The Sweet Spot where where we I like to be as it has leadway for both up and down um as you can see we came in at a 93 beginning for fiscal 25 using 23 sales and the ending assessment of sales ratio is right around a 96% it looks like gross living area has gone down which is interesting why um it's just the sales that occurred because sample size 100% than I imagine has to do with K's walk probably being um no um I don't think this is strictly single family sales it but I think what David touched on is really the the point it really depends of what is being sold right um eight deck house sales in uh calendar 2023 they tend to be on the smaller side smaller than the median uh gross living area in carile you know when you have a a cluster of um undersized homes like that that can skew these U these statistics that you see here what what is is gross living area is that total square feet versus that is the total heated finished living area within the DW so simply the drop I think that that accounts for the yeah the drop in median as well because as I was stating I think getting back to what David was saying is really the point here limited sample size we've gone I think in calendar 21 for fiscal 23 we had approximately 73 sales so when you when you see such a drop in the sales volume um you don't know what your sample size will indicate I think uh what I tried to to indicate is the 224 sales through October the 41 sales that we've had have ated that those numbers will be increasing from where they are once again you're seeing a lot of newer construction come on which definitely exceed the median 3200 sare ft um significantly the median so once again I think we already touched on the assessment of sales ratio you have um just some quick notes there were adjustments made to land across the board um building value adjustments were isolated to the three largest um building styles colon from temporary deck house the average single family now is up to approximately $1.27 million and the total New Growth for um or to the prop local property tax uh base is 32 20787 that's like a quarter of a house what is yeah that is not value that is actual tax dollars tax oh that's the new growth of tax dollars yes that's not the newow that's tax that doesn't buy you a lot now no that is the actual to the can I multiply that by the mill rate to get the house value of New Growth yes that'd be quite a nice house 13 of over a th000 or something what is yep that includes all new homes as well as uh additions um significant Renovations pools barns is is the mill rate it's 13 right 13 that would New Growth this is interesting the new growth value is always based off of the LA previous year's uh tax R so that be 1333 13333 in terms of the assessment process for homes in Carlile I again a few years ago I know I think when you came on there was there was a lot of outdated assessments and I think that process for for some homes particularly deck houses has resulted in higher assessments and a higher tax bill where where do we stand right now with the whole assessment status of the town in terms of are we caught up on assessments do should more people expect uh more regular assessments because I've had questions about that in terms of individuals tax bill versus the yeah that is a great question uh we have made great strides towards increasing the compliance of the 10-year cyclical reinspection requirement it's 10 years you're required toass to do a site inspection we had the department had gone into uh aers significantly and I will touch upon in the last slide that I that I present tonight okay as to the progress the department has made through the efforts of both myself and a third party contractor that we that is continuing expect now and I'll add one comment to that which is I mean the statistic is one thing our compliance is is really really close to where we want it to be uh but beyond that the quality of the inspections I think is far better than what we had in the past uh we replaced the contractor we were working with um I think we're getting a far better inspection now we had reports of issues with the prior contractor we were using we replaced him and uh I I think the results have been very much improved hard to you know show statistics on that but from what but we have a lot of anecdotal evidence to say that that is the case right I thought you are doing inspections I am doing them as well yes I have uh personally inspected over 400 homes on my own um the outside contractor is closing in on 300 I think uh he is also a former assessor a former license a previous licensed Fraser mass as well as a retired employee from the Department of Revenue division of local Services there's no one that is more qualified to do this work than the person that we're Contracting with so that's a hugely important role because I think I you know I know in in talking with neighbors and people who might come speak to the select board um a lot you know there are a lot of people that um directly they're seeing you know they're they're getting reassessed or you know they're doing a project and they don't really understand necessarily the the tax process and they say my taxes went up 20% why is the town spending 20% more and trying to detangle the overall budget process from individual tax bills and how all how it all works is hugely important and obviously falling behind on that stuff is is and catching up is is a volatile process we have an initiative to address that too Scott which he'll cover at the tail end of the presentation we will all of the questions you just had will be answered with a a new release and I will uh a document that we have put together awesome and I will address that in my final slide this even great go ahead okay moving right on started with your end Slide the first the first option is the selection of minimum residential Factor so what you have the classification to options table to your left this ranges uh selection of a single tax rate which is uh for a residential factor of one which is the top line the table that would result in a tax rate of $13.22 and then an average single family tax bill of $168 uh $16,784.23 only have uh where residential open space accounts for 98.16% of the entire valuation of the entire Community um the shift to the max of 150 would have minimal effect and save just the average single family home $158 while increasing the average commercial industrial property tax bill approximately 5,000 so with that said the board of assessors makes the recommendation that the select board vote on the acceptance of a residential factor of one right and a single tax rate for all property classes and that's the current status that has been the status here for forever can I make that um motion now yes go ahead okay I move the select board for the purpose of setting the fiscal 2024 property tax rate approve a residential factor of one thereby establishing a uniformed tax rate with no difference between residential open space property classes and commercial industrial person property property classes second okay um is there any discussion among the board I can't see uh Barney on there so if you did have any questions Barney just chime in or you can always text me and let me know that you're you're trying to talk I'm good okay yeah great this is what we've done in memorial memorial so yeah just given the makeup of the Town doesn't sense makes no sense to do anything other than this okay so I it sounds like the board's in agreement but uh we need to vote on this so take a roll call vote Arnold I mod Ali Reed ey Snell I triola I okay okay moving on uh just a quick note here is U I have made this a part of the presentation but I also have made this available electronically online as well so so the last 10 years in the tax rate and average single family tax bill history I have to say say Bri it's the first time in my career I think I've seen a Time phase chart where the first where the current years on the left me that way I do apologize I I will take that under consideration I apologize no D it's a left brain right brain thing like I'm like okay what's going on one of the things I just want to point out before we move on is if you look at the revaluation we're coming up on a revaluation and how we're setting this up for a more balanced and Equitable assessments here so what I want to point out is these two years that are highlighted and bold are the revaluation years you can see the significant adjustments that were made during those years of 14 and almost 11% then you look at the previous year's adjustments and how modest they were you know at only 1% I can tell you that those were really falling on the lower end of the assessment of sales ratio what that does that sets up for significant increases that come in that fifth year when there's a higher level of scrutiny I think what um I think that by being consistent as I've tried to be in keeping up that assessment you won't have that so this with the the the uh slowing of the market still appreciating but at a lower rate but also keeping these assessments up to a a consistent level the assessment sales ratio she' really set that up for what I'm anticipating to be 3 or 4% of Market based adjustment I know we're at a 94 now the revaluation year does require a higher l level closer to one than I would typically have but I think through the efforts that have been made over the last few years um I think that we're set up nicely to see more um balanced adjustments and also keeping those values uh fair and Equitable across the board any did anybody have any questions I apologize I I want to yeah I just want to ask a question um even though we've already passed it a town that would have a CIP shift would have a much wider base in all kinds of glasses correct you wouldn't treat everybody the same the basic yeah if we did it here it would be highly but I mean if you had a town where there was a lot of industrial or a lot of commercial it would make more I think base is about 10 maybe eight to little minimum of 8 to 10 by that then you're going to actually um provide meaningful tax relief to the residential class if you were to shift so that's the thing you give the residence a break that's like what Michelle W was trying to do uh they're actually going to this happened before they sunsetted this where they're going to exceed and now car is at 150 because that's where they're capped at there are some communities that Capa it's capped at 1.75 um when you say 1501 sure I apologize so what it is how do they come up with this new tax rate or how do they figure this out they're taking the single tax rate multiplying this so 150 would be 1.5 times the single tax rate would be the new tax rate for for the commercial industrial property class okay you take the total value of the commercial property class multiply it by the new tax rate that's what they would contribute and the remainder would be what would be attributable to the residential class so that I'll just go back real quick because I want to show you this yeah really fast so that shift that you're seeing right there on the left that's the factor is the percentage from one that you would be reducing so as you can see it's almost you don't even get to a percent difference that's because 98% exactly you would see that go significantly below that number if you had enough commercial uh commercial dust personal property value okay I was trying to figure out where these 11 million and 2.4 million are I was in carile cuz I but there doesn't seem like there a whole lot there a few there a few I mean you've got aure Tech and you know right yeah okay not a whole lot is so the grant open space discount I'm going to keep this very brief I think the board has been updated on this I all of the documents are available online the key points of this 16 communities and mass use it only one provide an open space discount uh the better option is to go with the chapter land U process that has been encouraged here in carile there are 27 properties that are currently classified as chapter 60 61 61a or 61b it allows for roll back to recapture of that tax break at a later date if they convert so with that said the board of assessors does recommend that no um that an open space not be granted do we do a motion at this point Y move that the board does not Grant an open space discount for fiscal year 2025 second second any further discussion yes so I have a question here Brian so if you if you fall under the chapter land exemption you pay the regular tax now but if you do something later you can call it back no so chapter 61 is Forester land so 61 and 61a are forestry and farmland those valuations are provided by the state they are significantly below what they would be you need to have at least five contiguous acres per you don't assess them I don't come up with those values those values are dictated from and provided to us by the Department of Revenue Division and chapter 61b is open space so those are people that like to they have 5 Acres they choose not to develop it leave it underserved basically almost a nature preserve um those those people receive a a discount significantly less than under the previous two uh chapter 61 or 61a but the key is is that if there if the owner decide to change the use from which they are currently using there are different procedures in order to recapture the tax savings that they received five years previous from the date of so it's a 5e call back the other way yes and and I presume that that on the 61b it would have to be a buildable lot it couldn't just be 5 Acres of marsh or what because we have lots of people lot well that's no it could be it could be 5 of wetland what it is though the amount of if it it's a percentage discount of the total cess value it doesn't really make much sense if you have five areas of back land that is inaccessible no and no Frontage because from an assessed value standpoint it only has value to the people that immediately AB it if it is not wet as many a lot of the land here in carile is okay so there are a few properties that do uh that are conforming um that would allow for that but um very few use that y all right so we have well just the last point so so this is a conser financially conservative approach because this is they're paying the lowest tax they can pay there's only upside for us there's no we're not building a liability we're only building this is this is ensuring that that the tax rate uh the the taxes that have been saved by the property owner there is a method by which to CLW back those taxes thank you all right so we had a motion in a second we'll do a roll call vote starting with Barney Arnold I no Al Reed ey sell ey ey great moving on so the residential exemption I have made this available to the to the select board prior to the meeting uh the key points to this slide here is a residential exemption is a method by which the governing body of community can Prov provide a uh a tax break in the form of a reduction of the total taxable value to the um to those Residential Properties that are both domiciled within the community and live there year round this is the this is a method by which uh the communities that do enact a residential and mass residential exemption in Massachusetts utilize so it's U it is a they begin with the average assess residential value that is the total value of the residential class divided by the total number of residential Parcels that's where that $1,175 th000 number comes from uh the resident the exemption ranges of between 0 to 35% and that is the percentage of that 1.75 number that you see there um so you can see the impact is the the exempt percentage is increased you can see it's incredibly minimal as you continue to in uh increase that exemption amount the the savings to the average uh single family home reaches a maximum of 3.75% uh where lower value properties such as Condominiums as they're continuing to develop elsewhere see a significant tax break through this the implementation of this type of an exemption so qualifying criteria you have to um has to be a residential property own and occupied as of the first of 2024 but from what we've the analysis I've seen you have 89 . 29% of the residential Parcels would qualify which means it's not being selective and targeting just those people that are domicile because carile is a bedroom community people live in in domicile here in their homes but you're saying it wouldn't pardon it's like the commercial it's like the CIP enough diversity to make yes and I just to get through this David you asked a great question so the typical community that have uh residential exemptions can be classified within one or two categories you have high density Urban such as the Boston Brooks line Cambridge or Resort communities where basically out on Cape Cod where you see a high percentage of um of second homes so so that allows them the the the select Boards of those communities to um to provide those people that are domiciled there year round with a with a tax through the reduction so the one I don't know one note I wanted to make here is during this during my last year's presentation and I mentioned conquered it it implemented the residential exemption I know that s a lot of uh discussion um one of the things that I would say here is it is the outlier Community I think I've I've researched it in the paper that I put together the feasibility study I think details why conquer went that route in order to implement that res uh that residential um also one of the things that I know a lot of people see the the um the similarities between conquer and car but after we did a deep dive both uh myself and Frank thank you Frank um having gone through this he is in attendance um the distribution of resident of single family home values is significantly different between the two communities and that is what is allowed for conquer to have a higher percentage of properties that have seen a tax break or no increase versus those on the on the higher end that really have subsidized the um the majority of those properties falling they have a more diverse housing stock they're like expensive if you graph the standard distribution for them it's like this for us it's like this it is not perfect not normally distributed it's much more the the the right side tail of the 99% tails off significantly as to car is far more normally distributed so for that reason the um the board uh the board of assessors had recommended to not adopt a residential exemption of any percentage for fiscal 2 I move the board does not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2025 second is there any discussion among the board all right seeing none Barney you want to start us with a roll call Vote Yes sir Arnold I mode Ally read ey smell ey triola ey okay I know we were very brief on that the residential exemption discussion I just want to remind people at home there is a feasibility study that is one of the documents we have online that really goes into depth as to the the analysis that was done by the department I would recommend and I will just add one comment that to implement that kind of plan plan the overhead is significant requires a lot of administrative effort to vet the applications and proc system conquer has definitely talked about can is condo a different thing or is it all part of this your chart had the I get the adjustment of the you know higher and lower all residential property but you had a different sort of metric on the your table showed the condos as a different yeah I mean how would you that's because there's more condos that are rented out oh why do they see a big oh why did I include condo here well I mean because they see the same percentage that 5% of the average residential value is a far more significant number of the the average condominium than it is it's represents because condominiums in general are valued less than the average single family home that is why they see a significant decrease in oh because they occup prob the way cheaper end of the scale just the median value of condominiums or average is far less than as you can see but it's it's not if I if there was a condo over here that was 800,000 or whatever and then there's a sha that's also 800,000 they'd be treated the same it's not it's not that they're a condo no it's that just not that it is condominium specific there's no special rule about condom that's all I'm just using this for analysis purposes here so that is the average condominium value so I was just reflecting on they would see a much bigger decrease than the largest land use class which is s b okay thank you all right moving forward last but not least this small commercial exemption four properties in car qualify they're not the most important part is a 0 to 10 uh% reduction um the most important part of this is there's no guarantee this is seldomly utilized in Massachusetts there only 12 people that are 12 different communities that offer this the big problem is you can never guarantee that the the if you reduce the value of the property by 0 to 10% that the person receiving that red reduced tax bill is going to if it's not owned and occupied by the same person running the business you can't guarantee that it's going to go the to the the person that occupies it U same they're one and the same so you may be giving a tax break to somebody who may not be passing it through to the tenant running the business on the company and the it's the business is one of the qualifying factors so with it for that reason alone um because you can't guarantee that the board of assessors has recommended not to Grant a small business Commercial exemption small commercial exemp move the board does not adopt a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2025 second any other questions okay roll call vote Arnold I read ey smell ey Tria eye okay really quick this is my last slide I promise great so what we have here is I just want to mention coming out of the deck house advisory committee and I know Scott you mentioned about assessment uh the questions at the beginning of the hearing I'd like to address that so one of the big things that came out of that deck house advisory committee was some of the concerns that the that the community had with the operations of the department and it wasn't until I wasn't aware of some of this information until after this went out I think we worked with the deck house advisory committee from the various members that were elected from public uh the three of myself Frank as well as a rotating member of the board we came up with four different recommendations that we uh we committed to so and it was really a transparency situation that they wanted to be made aware of what the board was doing and I just want to we have finally uh committed and about to achieve that fourth goal that came out of that de house advisory committee um that concluded approximately 18 months ago so we have they we've committ valuation transp uh transparency we have committed to releasing values on an annual basis where the Department of Revenue only requires it once every five years they're allowed to review their value before it's actually committed to the Department of Revenue if they have an issue it's almost having a pre pre- abatement process there have been Pro taxpayers that have that have uh taken advantage of this it it's great for the town and it's it's great for the taxpayer because they don't have to file for an abatement we can adjust these values beforehand I think that this has been a great uh a great process that we have implemented and committed to uh Advanced notification to those people in the community of of valuation changes that are forcoming and it has no impact on the overlay fund which makes everybody happy because the value because adjusted value is not included in the tax rate derivation that overlay account is not reduced by what would typically would be a formal abatement application after January 1st so valuation Equity you wanted to me Scott you were talking about the re cyclical reinspection rate so in 22 when I arrived we were at 47% that have been inspected in the last 10 years you can see through the efforts of both myself Frank and the uh third party that we've hired we are now over 91% so we aimed to we have we have already have the scheduled slate of those homes that need to be inspected be beginning in the spring and Bruce is committed to coming back and rejoining us as well as Frank and myself into to getting us as close to 100% before uh July 1st so one thing I want to point out is the abatement applications you have that huge spike in fiscal 23 as you can see last year only 17 applications I think that's a reflection of the the increase in the quality of the data that we have here truly um the feasibility study report in presentation of the new Med cury modern this is requested that came out and thought about doing this we gave this presentation I believe in March of this past year uh we provided all that data that is another study that we've placed on the website that is still available if anybody's interested in that um the last and not least is the uh administrative transparency um great efforts by Frank my assistant who's worked incredibly hard in developing this new publication that we anticipate having released by the end of the year it will go through the the local property tax levy the assess values the tax rate it will go through the changes the the same questions that you had Scott how does my value change why you know the big question was deck house why did they see such a big jump where others did not um it will go through all of those different scenarios to present to the public so they have a better understanding they can go through this guide and understand how valuation adjustments may or may not affect their tax bill more or less than the average within the community um the mass appraisal process understanding what what sales we use and finally a a visual guide of the property record card they want to understand how do we understand the information about our property it will be a section by section detailed guide with um with photos and uh should detail exactly what information and how to interpret their property record card and we look forward to having that available electronically by the end of the year with a president presentation sometime in the first few months of the year thank you very much are there any questions I would go well um it's just that on the sheet that um I'm wondering if you're going to cover the excess delivery capacity or is that access I have a quick question while we're waiting on that go ahead Barney yeah um Brian I'm just wondering on those 90 abatement applications that came in in 23 yes how many of them were how many of them were approved great question I believe there were 60 that got were approved it's about 60 I was going to say about 2third of them baring you know that was part of um I excuse me and I do apologize I'm about to jump on to the um the DLS website I will get you that ex it's interesting if you look at the ones that were approved most of it related to condition there were a large there were 60 deck houses that filed and one of the one of the issues was um there were a number of those homes that had been inspected since the 90s they were non-compliant so that's what uh that's one of the reasons I think that that we that so many uh abatements were granted because of the lack of current in U uh reflecting the condition quality of some of those homes I think with the over 600 inspections that we've done between Bruce and myself we've really in understanding and being on the same page when we both inspect a home uh which is imperative to once again providing those Equitable assessments that's why I think you've seen such a drop between fiscal 23 to 24 and again I'll come back to what I said earlier the quality of the inspection and making an effort to inspect the interior asking to do that uh is very important uh we've had incidences in the past where that wasn't really uh uh attempted and as a result you get these superficial inspections that don't necessarily tell you what you need to know about things like condition uh so hopefully we've rectified that problem now yeah thank you I am about where I need to be I do apologize okay just a comment I I mean looking forward to the release of the the guide um I think a lot this is the type of thing that a lot of people don't think about or care about until they see a sudden spike in their tax bill and then suddenly they're they're looking looking to understand the process of um of how all this works and so I think if if we have um a a guide that helps with that that we can promote on the website that we as select board members can refer people to and that we ourselves can read to make sure we understand it all um is is hugely valuable yeah what we do is really boring until it isn't until it isn't did I understand you to say under number one that you you notify the people if there's going to be a tax that a change in the assessment or they're they're responsible to look in September to find out if they had we announced that it's available electronically um on on our website both in PDF and Excel format they are free to download that that file and do their own analysis but it will it is for every property within the community we also make uh we have paper copies available here inhouse if anybody would like to review those I think most people get them Electronics the amount of out on City in the woods it went out and or there was a discussion about it and then everyone kind of jumped to it they said that the way they said it it sounded like they come out yeah yeah okay yeah a mailing so they've gotten away with that much like we don't have to now as Ryan let me know that we don't have to actually public put publicize that this classification hearing will occur in the paper now for igr you um I think that it most people being technologically inclined here in this town um we do put something in the mosquito as a reminder for those that are not but we put all that information on our website we think that the town has done an excellent job not not just with not just with our information but across the board and making that information available and this is just uh I think it really speaks to the the members that live here and their their ability to retrieve that information great with regards to what you requested Kate the excess Levy capacity is 3,575 562 10 I love the 10 C all right you want to make that motion furthermore we acknowledge that the board of assessors has informed the select board that the excess Levy capacity for fiscal year 2025 is 3,575 55755 6210 I move it's not a motion okay and I furthermore I move to close the fiscal 2525 tax classification hearing second all right I'd just like to say thank you um to the assessors and to the assessing board um is an excellent job and I really think you're on the right track and it's really but it's well for our town to have you appreciate Ken was you know is as much time as I have I put in here um I could not have done it without Ken uh that first year I will tell you was incredibly challenging and the town is incredibly lucky to have someone like Ken on the board that is really um put more than his fair share of time into assisting me at a time when I didn't have any staff so I you know it it speaks to the Civic engagement and responsibility and Ken is a prime example of that great well thank you thank you all thank you for your time sure we'll do a roll call vote I die Al re ey smell ey Tria great all right thank you very much thank you very much we' run a little behind our uh normal timing but I think that was really important and I'm glad we went through that um now we're on to the fire station owners project manager goals discussion and do we have he's out in the hallway oh he's out in the hallway great come on in is there a Neil I wasn't going to commit Brian to it during that but we're going to read every value in the podcast next year go through every if you want to hey guys welcome come on in pull up a chair we we're thrilled you're here glad while our guests are getting settled I I was asked to give just a quick uh brief intro on where we're at with this with this process welcome gentlemen good to have you back good to be here thank you so first I'd like to remind the board about the goals of this project and then go over quickly the history of the project and then why why we're having this discussion tonight so the uh goals of the project as written in the RFS and decided by the board prior to submitting it to hire our OPM was to um expand the capacity to accommodate a on call volunteer fire department for the Next Generation to provide proper health and safety of our firefighters to accommodate gender Equity within the facility to carefully consider existing space and provide adequate and appropriate truck storage and to promote uh and attract candidates for the for the volunteer Workforce so that that was the reason for the building expansion the process as it started during during my time here because it's been a long time the board has done has done much with this but to suin please summarize what what has been done during my time here Julie came in and talked to you about a potential scope for design we were going to hire a designer and the board walked with Julie and I through that process we we went out we um tried to get a designer to do and meet these goals designer selection committee came with a recommendation but it was it was pretty clear to the board and and during discussions that the uh people that were applying were were were interested in in helping us but building perhaps a building that that they felt the town needed and the select board wasn't necessarily comfortable that it was building the type of building that the select board was willing to support publicly so then we talked again about hiring a owner's project manager to help us with designer selection to help understand um what the needs of the of the building could be in comparison to the fire chief's explanations and recommendations and Brian is online right now as well for this and now we're here so the we hired CMS we're very happy to work with CMS and the crew and they are they are now your your employee your project manager for this and are to help you with this next phase this design phase which is to create a feas or a conceptual design to bring to town meeting for uh design funding and then eventually and hopefully a uh Project funding for the actual construction so the board is um I sent out some notes today on on what you should be discussing but I think Neil has some intro for you Neil and crew has some intro for you and then also you should be conversing and explaining to them what you want to get out of this project so we can we can move the project forward great well you want to introduce yourselves and let's go to it happy too um Neil Joyce construction monitoring Services I'm the vice president Project Director for the project and I'm Scott ler I'm a principal and project manager and I'm Steve aaro and I'm uh the on-site representative great go to it and tell us what you think so we I I guess sort of to we we will in the next couple of days we will draft up a a selection RFQ for designer selection um there's really two different ways that we could go about this um we certainly have a recommendation as to which way we think is best for you and most expedient um but essentially um as part of our scope of services and as we had outlined in our fee proposal we could hire uh subc consultant an architectural subc consultant that we work with that could sort of uh vet your program um ask some questions uh do some uh really pretty minimal research into the site and whatnot sort of make sure the overall plan is sound and then come up with a conceptual design that we could roll out um to the town in May um that could be done at a relatively uh low cost um we could get started on that right away uh we would not have to do a designer selection process until a full uh design was vetted and um that person was would be presumably brought in late spring early summer um after the project is affirmed to move forward Neo can I stop you before you please so that scenario has you effectively you guys with your consultant doing the doing the conceptual design so the schematic that we would present at town meeting would be like your work product basically yes it would be doing and that would be based on programming it would well correct our version progam right okay so um that that is not necessarily what I think is the best way to go forward but it is certainly a pathway um that we could move forward um the second process would be to affect a designer selection process immediately um we could put an RFQ together um and with Ryan reviewing it um we could certainly restate the goals of the project as they've been presented tonight um certainly add any additional color commentary uh that would be desirable by the board um we could have that proposal out uh on the street before the Christmas and New Year holidays and likely a designer selection process would take us till about on or around February 1 to complete and have a designer on board and what would be the if we took that route what would be the delivery for town meeting it would be a more in-depth um so that would that would roughly give us about 60 to 75 days to put together a concept design um I in in speaking with Ryan sort of offline I I was told there may be some flexibility as to what a annual town meeting date would be whether it was May or June and I think under that pretense I think a June date would be beneficial um I don't think we're headed to there okay but I just as we haven't set the date y but uh the dates that we've kind of reserved are in May okay so again I think the the most important thing for any RFQ is that you set a realistic expectation for performance clearly outline the goals and objectives of the project and you make sure that you have that design team affirm those goals as part of the selection process right so if you want a proposal and you want people and you want to vote in May then we'll take that may date we'll back off of it we'll know exactly what you need when you need it and we'll we'll get there I have no problem making that commitment a little more time is always nice but if if we're held to a deadline we'll we'll make the deadline um I think it's important particularly in in evaluating the two paths forward I think that there's an inherent advantage to getting the designer on board as soon as possible and most importantly that they have some skin in the game when you go to the town we I think it's more important that you have the right solution for the town and the right team in place rather rather than saying here's one option and that might change a little bit when we get a new designer on board you know kind of after the fact it just seems seems a little out of order to me frankly yeah y yeah we've already been through several kind of been there I think Ryan yeah Ryan outlined it that the fact that we've had a designer and it maybe you know was not what we necessarily thought was going to be best for the town and and I think you know maybe tonight you can hear from us a little bit about what we're looking for I mean you talked about goals and objectives of the project and I think that's the real Crux of this because you know you have to be in sync with what we think and I'm speaking for myself but maybe I'd like the board to chime in I think that is one of our biggest hurdles is understanding what is the appropriate way to get us forward because you know we've outlined these goals we want to have an on call fire department that's something we're a town at least this select board is committed to and thinks that you know from an economic standpoint that makes a lot more sense we have some issues with you know the police the fire force being you know having more gender parity and so we need bathroom facilities in there you know that's something that's obvious um we've gone through these different things but the question is you know what's essential and what's not because we're faced with like most towns in Massachusetts and everywhere else we're faced with huge you know kind of looming additional costs for things and we're I think as a board trying our best to you know really dive in and say what's essential and what's not and so we need some expertise to and this is my opinion but maybe the board will chime in and but expertise of saying this is what and I have great respect for our chief and I think he does a tremendous job and I think he is Thrifty by nature which is good I don't think he's you know out saying he needs everything but at the same time it's hard to know exactly what is essential and what makes the most sense so we're trying to get some expertise from a designer or from a consultant that will help us with that so does that path too kind of can we get to that absolutely yep okay yeah I think we want to work from principle so in other words um you know the criteria of what's what's as you were saying essential you know what are the criteria that are going to be used and the the you know the benchmarks that we need to to check and so that because it's easy to pile things in that you may or may not need but we don't we don't know how to you know separate the wheat from the chaff but we would also like to know you know if you were to have separated it well on what criteria did you separate it because we we need to kind of be come along with you on this so that we can then in turn explain to the be convinced and explain to the town that we're really doing the best job here and we're making the best decisions so Neil yes you outlin you know choice a is like you guys basically would with our help we sort of grope around to get the SCH in the choice B there's this is the consultant him or herself an architect or just somebody who specializes no they'd be they would be it would be a registered design professional within the or not necessarily would be the actual architect for the design not necessarily right it it it would likely be structured so that the town had the ability to terminate the agreement at any point if you so choose right but you would be doing the design process with the intent that this is the firm that you would like okay to to go through the whole process so the the you know as as Travis played out it's all about trade-offs right so it's one thing to say you know code for three fire trucks is blah blah you know these are the things you can do to it's another thing to challenge us to say as I think we're going to hear from one of our citizens why do you need three fir trucks like what do you really need is that part of what this person would do or are they going to take that's kind of the question I think that the the the definition of the program is largely dependent upon the feedback we get from the Department right from the fire department from the fire department and from this board okay so I guess I'm maybe I'm looking for yet another missing piece which is this is a extremely technical this will be in my opinion the most technical building we've ever built yep and by that I mean you know it's not a office it's not even a even a police station is pretty technical but this is really technical cuz it's got all these codes and the hot Z and the middle Zone and I'm still struggling with some neutral third party who has absolutely no real stake in the outcome who challenges us on I mean you listed some broad assumptions on that Brian I want you put up there but really what does that mean in terms of programmatics before you even get to design what does it mean in terms of programmatics that would be an expert of like you know maybe it's you guys it's like fire station right and just to to add to that you know specific examples would be truck storage you know what are what are essential trucks that we may need to store what are things that we may not and and that's a discussion and I don't think it's been it certainly hasn't been decided but that's where we need someone who is objective to to help us that's one example anyone other example of you know that's that's largely it well objective but also deeply experienced exactly experienced to be able to to to push back and and again I'm I'm not there's no disrespect to the fire chief but it's just understanding and it's it's working that within our kind of thoughts of our budget going forward and so what what could we do the same is true and I've dealt with a number of Architects but you know some want to build a a beautiful you they all do and and it's and it can sometimes take a life of its own and and who's going to keep that in check I mean there is maybe a need for a new structure that is just a prefab type structure or something is that going to be considered and right now one of a a budget item that's going to come before the town is we're going to ask the town to spend a million dollars on elevators and so is it considered that maybe this doesn't need an elevator because we're going to do a single level and that longer term will save us Capital costs in repair costs and so forth I mean those are the types of things we need to Value engineer but at the same time I don't as a individual I don't want to be shortsighted and say well we didn't build anything and you know it it doesn't get us where we want to go because we can't retain firefighters or you know on call staff so we need some expertise right and and I think honestly I think the best way to get that is to get your design are on board ASAP honestly they they're they are going to be the most experienced um they're going to have the the Insight the knowledge the desire which I hope is what we're vetting out during the selection process to make sure that at the end of the day they're building the right project for you folks I know that's what we we came in and pitched to you right away there's no cookie cutter decision here we want to build you the building that right for you so Neil this is Barney Arnold I'm on uh Zoom um so it sounds like you're saying the um the designer that that you would then help us select through this process who would have an architectural degree would also be somebody who has experience building or or designing fire stations and would be able to address these technical questions that were talking about is that right that's correct we we would make okay we would make one of the criteria for evaluation of the design proposals their prior experience on similar projects of this size nature complexity Etc good I'm relatively new to this project um and I'm certainly not an expert on fire stations or Municipal construction to begin with but if I were to have a wish list of what we would have in evaluating these things it would be and again making sure we have agreement on what the vision is but if we're mapping design and and and all these potential costs and trade-offs i' I'd like to know which aspects of it are critical to maintaining our current protection level as a community I mean I mean like the basic what is core critical without this you will not what is what is the next level of something we need in carile to meet that goal so maybe it's not critical criteria but it's in carile we need to do this feature or this function to be able to maintain an on call department but it's not Mission critical so it's the next ring out of what we need in a design the next ring would be a nice to have maybe that's the antique fire trucks or things like that that we may decide are important for Community purposes for other purposes but they're not culture of the department actually but they're they're nice to have and then we can we can we can discuss those tradeoffs and decide well this is something we think is important and we're willing to invest this extra you know $30,000 to be able to do this or it's $2 million and it's just we can't do it because we need to accomplish uh those first two core so I don't know what the right striations are but I it's I think the concern is that everything is Mission critical everything is needed and but being able to break it down into the the core requirements to to meet the the basic level of our current protection level which I don't know a ton about but I understand it's 8B um what's needed to do that then what's needed we believe for Carlile and so we can make those trade-offs and evaluate some of these you you Scott you've just done an outstanding job of describing the program process you really have well you can hire me no you you have you've hit you've hit the nail on the head on many fronts that is what the program right process is is going through a process and asking the critical questions need versus want must have versus like to have and at the end of the day at the end of that programming effort it gives you a Target square footage to build to and then you look at how those plans sort of come together with the existing station and how it would work with an addition if it was here or it would work with an addition if it was here right and sort of lay out the new station in very high a very low level of detail very highly conceptual detail and then look at the existing spaces and how those can be repurposed to meet the goal without building new space right that that is that is that iterative process of programming that will be that sounds very early on longer than a 70-day process for this car do it anyway it it can be right you can get stuck in an in an eternal Loop and and do nothing at the end of the day yes it can take it can take a while but I think like our goal is to sort of help to separate it to your example the wheat from the chaff early on what do we need what do we want yeah no I think we're in agreement now you've laid out you know you you've laid out good process we seem to be line with it but I'm back to the timeline right so it's coming up on holiday period if we were to tell you tonight yes you want to go that direction you're going to go vets some firms right and then how long remind me again how long the design process the designer selection process typically is 45 to 60 days so you can expect yeah so in this this time of year 60 right we'll get the RFP or RFQ out on the street M prior to the holidays either the week of the fourth of the week of the 11th most likely uh two weeks in a day minimum yeah rfqs come back yeah first week in January after the holidays um and then you vet them we're vetting not you we're V right okay we select rank top three finalists the same very much like you did with us frankly so that sound and then you do interviews and and make your selection okay so say FB when you're ready to go I guess right February March it get tight I mean if it is if it this is a big project right I mean yeah no I've not that's why I'm wondering you know is it a fall town meeting maybe it I don't know we I mean you can always shot for that I guess you can just try what you but do we as taking another step back as a select board as a town as working working with the chief are we in agreement about what the target is what the I mean we we saw those goals what does that translate into is it just basically maintaining the existing level of service for the fire department I mean and what I what I mean by that is what what is the is that what we're saying like we're not trying to enhance service in some way we're just trying to maintain the current level of protection and on call in an on call nature correct yeah okay is that well you do we have I mean you alluded to Mr L's coming 8B or whatever it is is that the highest category of no we can go higher but we could put in water no I mean 10 one a small town with our type of water are we at the highest we can be with the type of town we are or is there room to get a better classification this is something our do you know that um I don't on okay all right I mean that's to that's perent to his question like if we're already at the best we can like our bond rating you know is high it's not the highest but it's the highest we can get cuz we're a little down so yeah we could save more op we could do and our home insurance our home insurance is you know has been pointed out is a it feeds into things so our you know are we at the at the most practical reasonable best place we can be right now exactly right and that's something we right I maybe we'll ask uh Chief Soros you're on the line do you want to chime in on that comment I want to ask so there are two uh directions you can go with this one is um the direction of the insurance world and that is that um I am regularly asked what is the Water Source within 1,000 ft and so um if you were uh an HB without some additional capabilities there may be a lot of insurance companies are not willing to insure in car out and that's going for that's just the way the insurance uh industry has changed in terms of towns our size with our kinds of water system um getting to a six is not a huge lift getting to a four is harder um I've there are towns without water systems that are in the range of three um so it's definitely possible to get there um we just have to and and without without putting a water system system in um so it's there um I it's not the thing to promise and I don't think necessarily that's I I think what we have to look at is how can we maintain a system that requires an a fair number of people um you know for us three guys in a truck is not really a fire department um that can can do what we have been doing um and in order to maintain a call Department what what we're sing swimming Upstream trying to do this right nobody in our area is is able to we are um but we're going to need some help we kind of have multiple hands tied behind our back and one of them is a station that doesn't Foster um and and is cannot support um people being in it other than when a when there's a call so there's a lot of answers to that the answer to you asked is can towns Without Water Systems get lower than 8B absolutely they can lower than and if we did that if that was where we got um it could be that the savings and insurance rates you know would would be a wash with uh or might even be better than than but but that's not the kind of discussion we probably need to have in terms of deciding what what we're doing so we're currently at 8 correct okay and chief this is Barney also on Zoom are you are you are you um advocating for trying to lower that are you saying at the 8B level which is where we've been for some time if I'm remembering correctly that that is you think we're fine I mean obviously I understand the homeowners and Insurance question but that since we've since people that have homes in car have been paying those insurance rates for some you know for however long you've lived here are you are you in favor of trying to lower it are you comfortable keeping it at 8 I think um when we have the capabilities and we have multiple people on the department who are um experts in compliance um we probably should just because we should um but that's not the goal of the building should try to lower it you mean absolutely I mean uhuh you might as well we when we have the capability to do that we we may as well but that's not we won't be investing money into things in order to do that it's just in order to be successful at what we do um we have to have certain capabilities if if you know we're a department that's going to that can't put fires out or handle um you know brush fires and and and the kinds of problems we have in this town we won't be able to attract people right so we have to be competent and capable in order to attract attract the people to keep it a call department so that's where I'm focused but if we're competent and capable and it can be reflected and lower on ISO rating yeah we should go ahead and do that so the question for us is how do we we get the information that we need to answer the question about ISO ratings what it would take to get a lower one what it would possibly save the town in insurance rates versus cost the town in additional costs exactly uh so that because um I I don't have that expertise you have to insurance I mean I just want to back up a little bit and I'll give you my impression of what I heard from Brian so I'd like us to be clear on this issue I think Brian is saying of course a better a lower rating is better right of course it is but it's not that be all and end all we are a full service fire department we take cats out of trees we have EMTs we do this we do that we the first thing I mean we need that piece of data to frame our own prioritization I think and so that's what I heard is that really we don't we don't know where a lower rating sits in the priority compared with these other activities so to answer that I think we have to get an insurance specialist they would be able to say correct me if I'm wrong these lower in this kind of town you know going down to a six or whatever is typically x% on your homeowners bill we can do the math of you know 3,000 houses and save collectively saves you know whatever and decide if that's something we really want to pursue and maybe it's not maybe it's well David it sounded like a lot of what and we've got the gon we should ask him but it's a lot of what he was saying was compliance which may be you know paperwork relative to you know different aspects of the comp but it could but it really the bigger picture is how do we keep an on call fire exactly Department exactly and so he's ad the chief is advocating for a facility that has the structure and the ability to attract right that's exactly what it said but but to Kate's point so he's got that position Kate I think leg say how do we know how do we know that the rating isn't more important from a collective economic I mean we we are torn always in this town between you know our tradition our antique fire truck the P truck that'll work you know but to be purely an economic actor we should look at the total savings potentially to the homeowners and insurance and what it takes to get there we should just kind of that's what you're asking right K what do you do that insance that's an additional charge another cost to us real question for the building though is not is not the department service function it's do you need more space or certain space in the building in order to to meet that lower criteria I think that's a solvable I think you can get it's a two-part thing it's the same like Travis say paperwork what do the ratings Buy in a percent discount that's like a thing that I bet an insurance a good insurance agent will be able to help us with and by the way we have a very good one in town I'm not going to plug him in a public meeting but he lives in town and he's very good secondly secondly then you say okay if that's a thing what are the steps to get to the lower ready is it a bigger Bay is it better paperwork you know what is it right I mean maybe it's an admin maybe it's a part-time admin who does all that stuff I don't know but I mean that's the kind of but all that is not that's not a Springtown meeting no it's clearly that's now a fault on me that's like taking your time and really stepping through these things I mean what I what what I'd like to be able to you know back to standing up in front of the residents and justifying what we we know is going to be an expensive building project no matter what is here's the here's the design rough design design that we want you to fund these are the things these are the aspects of it that we absolutely have to do no questions asked just to maintain um for the base level and then here are the things that are included because we need to maintain an onall fire department and and these things will enable us to do that because of this or because of that and so that at least for the residents they know that everything has been properly considered and is properly thought about in terms of how it's going to ultimately allow us to achieve that goal and it's not you know it's it's not oh because we just we thought that would be cool or you know that's all I want to be able to do and and and so you need to understand what the base criteria are and then we need to understand how each aspect of the of the the new building will support the challenges we have of maintaining on call and and I think that's perfectly fine we just need to make sure as we go through the design process that we're we're looking at it through that lens but you didn't mention ISO the the rating in your analysis well that's what I say the core requirement to maintain our current protection level right okay and so it there may not be much in the new building that is needed to maintain the current protection level right but there may be some aspects of the building say square footage we want a bigger why because we need to we want to maintain an on call and to do that we need this amount of square feet I I can't take it all the way down the line because I'm not a a station designer but every every aspect of it needs to tie to achieving that goal in my mind does that make any sense or am I just no no I agree but I'm just wondering on the David's point about the you know ISO component if there's an economic component that that reduces the you know cost to town residents because we're doing some of this we should be able to is that what you were saying David we should be able to articulate a pure Economist would say ively whether you pay your home insurance premium or your tax bill it's money and if you just put everything in the pot they might say great I want a $15 million station because you've shown me that collectively we're going to save $30 million across the town I don't know but I mean if that's a thing and I don't even know if it's a thing it's hard it takes some time to nut that out yeah I think we need to look at that I don't know I have no idea what that looks like in terms of what would be required I think and the chief can me I know water source is a big big part for the home insurance right like and we're not going to be putting in a central water that's why I say might put in more a cap to what we can get yeah but that's separate from the even from the building project it is right right yeah well but yeah okay I don't know yeah more s i maybe you need less pipe hose so you don't need that hose St let not yeah we can't possibly one of the thoughts I have is that there are there are residents who whove expressed interest in this maybe we hear a few from a few residents and see what they have to say um I don't know if John lavry is still on I don't see him posted on here but I suspect he's on black squ he's a black Square all right so here you want to I give you you know two minutes but you know what would you what do you think of this and tell us your thoughts on how to approach this or whatever else you want okay um I think first of all good job so far from the select board uh with the questions you asked tonight and the and thoughts you expressed because they're they're moving towards uh the concerns that I U expressed in my note um I think I agree with Chief Soros on one point uh and that is the way the way I heard him he said if we do what we need to do to the fire station and I'm going to assume uh that includes M to maintain the current public protection level um and do all the other things we need to do to maintain a the call fire department and the full services that we current deliver if it so happens that through the training and expertise Etc we develop um uh in in building that um that we have an Avenue to improve our protection class then we should do it because at that point it's kind of a freebie but when you look at it other way what he didn't say was we should build towards um trying to improve our uh PPC rating because uh the cost is uncertain where I um where I agree with him and uh it's in again in my note this was part of where I said this is where we need to focus some of our analysis the cost benefit part he asserted that you could get to six or four or even three without a public water source I hadn't seen that um so that would be something that we could I we should probably task someone to find out if that's true um in uh broad terms rather than some specific example and how much it would cost to do that and that in turn May answer Mr Modell's question which would say if we spend x amount of money to improve our class to Y then we get Z amount of benefit and that math might prove that to be positive uh that might be a good thing people might want that even if the initial cost is eye popping high so my takeaway um overall though is what we're too early for the design verm I disagree with the gentleman in front of you that that that posited that all this is going to come out during the programming phase I don't think so I think that um we need a little bit longer term of more focused uh study to see uh as Scott said if we pause it that we're just going to maintain our current PPC rating or ISO rating however you want to put it of 8B uh how much does it cost to do the other things that Brian wants or that we want um to maintain the cifi fire department um uh that we that we want to have and and really focus on that and really focus on on bare boning that you know kind of what's what's our Baseline what's our minimum you know really where where's our starting point what's the problem we're trying to solve okay and then go from there and I just think it's going to take more work than jumping into hiring a designer and and running towards a Maytown meeting I just don't think that's going to happen in a manner that um is going to satisfy the public okay thank you John um I saw yeah thank you I saw Eric Pils you'd want to speak if you want to make a brief questions or go ahead thank you Travis can you hear me yes we can hear you fine great um so the comment really is that as the select board and the fire chief oversee the preliminary design you know I realized that the primary intent is to meet the the core Mission requirements as you discussed them so far and I guess some of those are still um under consideration but I hope and I Envision that the at the appropriate time and at the appropriate level that we have we incorporate car decarbonization commitment and take environmental sustainability generally into consideration and an important piece of information that I have not had the opportunity yet to relay to the select board and to others is that the state has finally announced the first round of climate leader funding at the $60 million level level and that goes again to um projects that reduce the amount of our carbon footprint uh the ESC of course looks forward to working with SAR wasman and others appropriately um to help in that overall process and it is um my my opinion like probably others the preliminary design is a very important First Step um it's hard to then work things back into it um so that's why I wanted to be able to make that comment now thank you great thank you uh is there anyone else Christina I see you just have a thumbs up but if you U something to add okay um is there anyone else who would like to speak to this as a resident Chief Soros do you have anything else to add to our discussion at the moment sorry I might oh I'm not on mute um no um I you know there we do have some examples that we can share we have some analysis that we can share at some point about insurance rates but again I my my big goal is that we have a strong call department and I think the only way to do that is to have a successful call department so that's my goal and if we can get lower insurance rates out of that I think that's a wonderful thing and we'll try to do that but I I don't think that's the real goal I think the goal is that we have a strong uncalled department and we try to maintain that okay thank you so I think we're talking process now of of how best to move this forward and do we have to I'm curious based on this discussion does the the recommendation to find a designer is is your sense that the designer would either work with us or help us to resolve some of these things or do we need to resolve these things before we bring on a good question I think your I think your aspirations are certainly admirable and I understand them but but I think I think you're going down the road of paralysis by analysis to some degree okay and I mean that with all due respect the the concept of building a fire station to better suit the needs of your community if you haven't defined what the needs of your community yet then you're you're going out of order and that's not going to get you where you want to go so I think you you kind of you're at a little bit of a Crossroads now um I think the need for the station as it's been conveyed to us is real I believe it's supported by the community what happens CommunityWide in order to improve insurance rates or whatever else is to some degree related but to some degree completely unrelated as to what the needs of the station are in order to serve the community to some degree um so I would just sort of caution you on that um well can I I'd like to push back a little on that Neil So I think these guys know me I'm a data driven guy right I like my as much data as I can get before I make a decision I don't think I'm analysis by paralysis I just want the relevant data I like to move through a decision so that's my bias so thanks to John laver's opened our eyes to something which you know we've been aware of I don't think it's that complex a task and I was just looking online there's services that do it to get some insurers view we can do that in parallel with your 60 days of selecting a designer to get more knowledgeable about where where does that put us and what kind of things Comm communities do to improve their rating and that's something we can go get ourselves that we could have ready when your designer shows up we can ask him in the interviews you know I mean because to me that's a core programmatic element it could be we made decide may decide it's not worth it or it's not related it's not related or who knows what fine then we know that but I don't think it's a big lift and I think we can do it I don't I think data is important I wouldn't dismiss that thing in this community right and then but on the broader picture I agree with you I was going to say and I I support you 100% if there's something else that we can put into that station that saves your residents money down the road on insurance or whatever else we would be crazy to do it because it or crazy not to do it excuse me because it it will be yeah I think our goals as expressed in our original letter about parody of uh facilities for safety um whatever else we had in there I have not Chang my opinion about those I'm still in support of those I don't think there's any other one except for getting maybe this information um just to help I like I like what Neil as these guys laid out like let's get a designer let's a designer let's find somebody can work with got back so given what you've heard tonight you know I think you want you even what you're tonight you're probably regretting taking contract you sure you wanted this um but I I do think there is significant push back not push back but our community is a Thrifty Community we don't want to spend money where we don't have to we're not we have a lot of projects as you know we have a lot of projects in process and we need to do so every we and we can't what they're going to do now we and and you know we do have the benefit of they don't they know that I am not afraid to go public with all my concern John John La can you please mute yourself um and uh you know we're we're trying to do this in a efficient manner so taking that into account if we do go this way I'd ask you to hone in on those types of Architects and designers who have that approach rather than you know are coming out of uh a significant urban area and saying hey we need to do this brick fire you know or whatever I mean maybe it is go well with the antique we'll go well with the right right I think we're we're more of the we just want what's ma'am yeah Sergeant Friday obviously the on call piece and I don't know if certain designers have more experience with on call like that's a Hu that's clearly the central thing of how we can at minimum do what we're doing now but continue to recruit as part of the RFQ we can identify that as a criteria yeah I think tell us how many call departments you've worked with provide us references with them so we can call them and ask them what their experience was like real practical examples that are good matches to your department I suspect a lot of the gray area or things that if we need this to dox are going to be in that realm of this is an important feature because it'll help us attract and that's kind of a qualitative thing in a lot of cases but if we have a a firm that's worked on that that's seen it that can help inform and think of things that maybe we haven't thought of that have proven successful in design a building to recruit and retain and keep keep the volunteers happy that's important and the other aspect is what Eric brought up on the call is that we are not only a green communities we're a climate leader community so we do we have one of the first in the state so we have access to grant money um to do these things to as part of a design element and we have a person on staff Sarah waserman who's done a fantastic job with other buildings in town in getting grants and and can and so I think including that in a process or even asking about that as far as the design is important just because it has the potential to save us money for sure I have a couple of comments if I could uh Travis sure Barney great thanks um I just want to Second the the uh what Travis was just talking about in terms of looking at uh this building design from a sustainable point of view um both inside and outside uh and but also as part of that and maybe we have our ESC or our staff help with this but to be able to when we do have a preliminary design to be able to say you know these uh Energy Efficiency um uh aspects while they may cost X now and it's slightly more than the you know the conventional what it does over time in terms of of how those costs balance out um that's one thing the other is um at what point do we um sort of look at questions um or or have at at what point do you Neil or your team or the uh the AR the designer that you hire look at things like um how much space is needed some of the more specific things how much space is needed uh for being able to provide the you know option of people sleeping at the fire station working not as firefighters but working on their own you know professional um roles so that you know they have a place to work uh and are there when they're on call um as well as the issue about um you know socializing and um a space for um the the men's and women's uh bathrooms Etc uh and and another point for me is to look at the question about training and um looking at and also a space to be able to work out those have have been raised and I I don't know if again in this process the uh architectural firm that gets hired can look at some of those issues um as well as um sharing with our existing police department and therefore being able to really think of in a really you know creative practical uh functional way of how much space we do actually need for some of those additional elements that will make it more attractive for people to be part of our on call service when when does when do those you know that level of conversation when does that take place so from a from a practical standpoint the the uh programming process that we have talked about previously is what drives setting the square footage that is allocated for each of the functions that you've described as well as others that you have not described as part of the and pinning that square footage during your program is the largest is the single largest cost driver in determining the ultimate project cost is the size of the facility so all of those discussions will happen very early on and they'll be vetted and we'll make recommendations and if if those recommendations would not be supported they'll be taken off of the the table and the size of the project will be reduced conversely if there are functions out there that um need to be addressed and are not addressed in the program then that would increase the size of the project so we'll we'll do our best to nail it down and it it's a process that's very largely driven by the feedback and the answers that we receive to the questions that'll be asked during the and that's between now and whatever the meeting date is going to be whether it's in the spring or the fall um that would happen between now and then when we're asking the town to support additional funding is that correct that is correct okay great and the people you're going to be coming back to with questions or suggestions are going to be a um are we are we thinking there's going to be a what do you call a building committee H that's going to or is it going to be the select board that plays that role I know Ryan you've talked about that a little bit and uh we I think we as a select board have talked about the need for us to be involved but I'm I'm just interested in sort of what's the current thinking on that that's I think up to the board that's it's a board question so the designer selection process is is it follows your own policy your designer selection policy so you have to put together designer selection committee as you remember during the OPM process that was you uh that is both good because you're heavily involved in the process and bad because you're slower than most dsc's because you have other things to do so you have to decide with the selection of this designer are you going to again serve as your designer selection committee or you going to delegate this to to someone and I would think very carefully if you do delegate it who you delegate it to because you have to have confidence in their decision yeah I would be inclined to keep it y me too as much as I know we're trying to shed these things I I just think that's how this is how we're going to keep the delegated this whole thing the last time and it's it's it us yeah I mean I think they have what they need I think they can get we would certainly be the vetting Board of the designer and then we can figure it out I would be more inclined to have you vet down to three you know or something like that rather than don't give us 10 or whatever and say oh well these are all you're the experts like you've got and I think tonight hopefully you got a sense of our board our town where we're coming from what we were trying to do help us find the right consult or the right designer yeah yeah I think the only thing I would challenge you on Travis is I think you folks have the right to see every proposal that comes in whether you vent it thoroughly or whether you review it I would not I I've never represented a board where we have not been fully transparent on everything that's committed so I whereas I'm I'm flattered that you would like us to to short list it and vet it and we can certainly provide a recommendation to the board and give you all the reasons why we think this is the right way to go I think it would be short changing yourselves to whether you look at them or not as your decision but I think it's important for us that you have the opportunity to review everything that let me ask Ryan to clarify on procurement rules I we went through this very formalistic process to choose you guys there's all kind of rules about that now that we've chosen you any sub tier thing I understand your perspective but is there any rules that say we have we have to to like when you come to Plumbing fixtures we're not going to vet like three different plumbing companies right no going to the selection of the designer is described by Mass General law so the actually I have the authority to create the design selection committee however in this particular procurement I would be very interested in W in what you believe would be a good designer selection committee if you remember during the OPM process you selected yourselves well I but that's even a different question I'm just saying let's say we are the design selection committee for the designer we have to follow those same we can't I can these guys even say we recommend Mr X over Mr y or does that violate some Arcane Nest they can but it would be in public meeting oh but they can okay so do that I and I like your us all of them how many I just got a curiosity is it we've we've done projects where we've gotten three we've done projects where we've gotten 12 okay that's that's you should you should make mandatory listening to this meeting before they PID will be one maybe um so you're picturing the process bring an RFQ or RFS to you yeah you will look at it to make sure it meets the criteria um you can get all of the proposals but that that narrowing to a final three Endor interviews has to be done in a public meeting right fine so you can't just rate them and send them back to us so um in your in your letter there's 72,000 for some stuff and then there's like a 25,000 is that what this is incrementally expect the 25,000 was if we were to hire a design consultant as a as a subc consultant to us right and sort of predo the programming process that that charge would not apply if we go Direct that's not what you're recommending no we're saying we go direct to the designer selection process I got you okay and and then the fee would be yeah okay thank you you going to make a a motion to what am I moving to option we like option b move that we go to option b we need to move this we don't need to vote on I don't know I think kind of moving that direction that we well and I'm Wonder ing this the other PC analysis around the concurrent analysis around uh protection rating and stuff I me we can do that I me I to provide data out there we can the and the one thing that we can contemplate on the 10th is related to um the available remaining arpa funds if we do need to allocate some money to a study or there's some service that can do that let's look at if we can look at that fairly insurance I I think it's free if it is that's great I few things I one other question that occurred to me is is the when you do this RFP you obviously you must give a range or something of the dollar cost of what this project May anticipate being so so we can do a I think the way that the guidelines are written is you either have to identify a not to exceed amount or you simply state that it will be a negotiated fee with the top rank finalist so that's the fee though not the project cost so we can put we anticipate this would be a $10 million project and your fee for that will be a fixed fee or a negotiated fee but we can't we can just let them know that it's 10 million and then during the interview process like you did with the OPM you say are you interested in but presumably I mean do these I would think these guys would take on this part of the task as someone of lost leader to get the actual are these guys doing the actual CDs and everything again I mean presum a presumably yes let me rephrase it I feel like I'm talking to my attorney and Architectural firm I'll take that as a compliment okay you should because I'm married to one I have these discussions all the time anyway a an architect or an architectural firm yes that we engag yes through the process will go all the way through CDs and everything yes right so that's the more expensive stuff right so yes presumably these firms would be inclined to come in light on the front end in order to win that business or is that I think what you will find is that they will negotiate a fee for a scope of services okay and they will be less concerned about profit and loss on the front end than they will be when you come in on the back side okay yep but I also will suggest to you that if you try to bring them in at an exorbitantly low fee yeah you pay for it in one you're going to roll the dice I get it right because they're not going to they're not going to do all the leg work up front that they would do under normal fee structure so good advice you get what you pay for yep but that's why we're hiring you is to help us take the right not necessarily the right firm we we can evaluate that but I hope it's the right firm yeah right well we'll evaluate it but but did you get an answer to your previous question do we specify like do you do you definitely put that in or do you pick a number out of the air or do you not put that in do you need to put that in well last time we didn't put it in you would do what you would I'm sorry I would put what you want the cost to be yeah and as I as I've said a couple times to the entire board what you're hoping is between the OPM your staff and the designer if they know that you want to spend 10 million and they come to you and say it is 12 what you're trying to accomplish that you trust that it is 12 right and not say it's the type of firm that's like hey I just can't I can't sugar cat this what you need is 12 whether or not you have faith in that team that's what we're looking for ex that's one answer but the other answer is what do you get for 10 what don't you get for when you go to 10 right that's also important that's important so based on this flat if we go to fix Fe I mean you identified in your note like okay $10 million we get 4 and half% it's going to be about 450 so is there that metric like for this piece like 1% of the thing you can expect that a design fee typically will run you about 10% of the estimated construction cost the total but this piece of it would be 1% no normally for schematic design it's probably 20 to 25% of the overall fee right so what you're saying is 10% of 10 million is a million so the architect the architectural services will be about a Mill and this will be 200,000 200 200 250,000 in that range and again I think that that's somewhat negotiable okay right so to even get that money arper doesn't have that much money right so what where are we going to get that money cuz we have to do that in advance of town meeting I should turn this we I think knowing that figure would solve that answer that question so if it is qu million then we got to go to town meeting anyway so now you go to town meeting just to get the designer on board and say we'll see you next year MH okay or the fall okay or the fall okay all right okay what do we do with 150,000 in our there burnning a hole in your pocket can we prepay you guys yes so we're dedicating it to the and the fire OPM contracts to make sure that the arpa money is obligated it's not enough to cover either but it's enough to get us okay all right I'm good it's exhausting we need to obligate that tonight all right no but the no as long as we do it on the top okay for some emergency Christmas anything else anything else from the board we've had a long discussion I appreciate you guys coming where do you guys live we're close okay I appreciate it face face yes it is we look forward to working with you we're not do you need anything else from us right now no I think we're good thanks for asking this is a lot of handholding number we are actually I think after we get through all four million questions we'll get there despite us all and you're work yeah I know you're working on other projects with the town so yeah easy to find that's for sure all right guys thank you thanks than you much yes happy turkey day yeah all right all right moving right along a little bit later than we anticipated but that's okay got a lot of this other stuff done so we did the end the end was the payoff we'll catch up with this is not a 24 STM all right so we're going to move on to the Town Administrator bylaw discussion oh should only 15 minutes late on that I know not B so I am the one who put this on here and wanted to move this discussion forward as we've done we've uh as we've done in the past we've talked about this I sent you a memo with this um ahead of time because I've been thinking a lot about it and I think that the um just pull up the you are you okay David I can wait a few minutes yeah all right um just trying to find the uh memo here I think my uh my real question with this I I would like to get this so that we can socialize it with other boards and committees within town and really move this to um get it in a shape to take it to town meeting yep um to to get that to that point I think we have as a board finalize it um we've had a couple of drafts the most recent was included in here and when I was looking through it I think stepping back what we're trying to do is really focus on the authority of the Town Administrator and you know we've talked about the responsibilities and and Our Town Administrator had said when he came on board it wasn't expressly clear what those responsibilities were um and so he he worked as as best as he could to establish how he would move forward with those um in our current draft of this I think that there are enumerated a number of responsibilities that I personally think would be better in a just policies of the select board because what we're really trying to do is to have the authority be given to the Town Administrator but then the select board retain means it's um obviously authority over the Town Administrator but then can set policies that talk about how procedures will take place so to that end I had suggested that my my opinion would be to to Elite um section 3.3.4 through Section 3.3.2 in the um in the in the current draft bylaw as it stands but it's really a discussion of what we want as a board and how we want to move this forward so I don't know if there are questions or comments orate I see okay well you said to 3.3.2 why not uh 13 because that's not a that's not a Authority either I just thought that was a catch all but you're right we could take that unless you said it changed 3. 3.13 to say the Town Administrator shall also perform such other duties as set forth in the select board policy I think I think that would be a really good that would seem like that would fit but I'm um I just want to say I'm agreement with you that um this would be far better document if it were just just talked about Authority rather than responsibilities Y and um and I guess the question then that leaves the last question is whether to do the 3.2 or the 3.3.2 or the 3 3.2 that's that's the key thing right definitely but but otherwise I'm I'm in total agreement with you and what are your thoughts on that the the two sections I think I like the second one too me too because it talks about how the other boards everything else is just a policy at the end of the day like I don't yeah I agree completely sorry and we um you know we've had this discussion at at the select board meetings everal times uh I don't remember exactly when that was but it was um anyway we I I thought the conclusion that all five of us reached was that we wanted to um do everything in one um bylaw change including the part of it that requires special act and so that would be the the second of those two options I agree yes I I'm in agreement with that I just want to make sure we're all on the same page because we're going to present a unified front on this yep yep um yeah and then I think you know if we do do that 13 as a or which will now be 3.5 right uh or four uh yeah you cut K where are you cutting off which three do you end with 3 point what 33 3.4 is the answer you keep forget the 3.3.2 thing 3.3.3 and 3.3.4 you keep and then no actually there'll be a new 3.3.4 which will be the old 3.3.3 redrafted to point to the policies yeah don't let's not get to draft what gets chopped here do 3.3.4 on all the way down to 3 no from yes don't don't no ring just the numbers as they are yes 3.3.4 on get chock so the sh recommend Town policies that's too prescriptive you think that itself is a okay we may not want them to do that later and then we can change that as a policy however I do think we should have a new 3.3.4 once we've chopped everything out which would be sort of like 13 but it would just point to saying everything else he does look if for anything else he does look at our policy right y yeah cuz we want to make sure that also that the policy is present and maintained well that's a story but I mean maybe this doesn't require you but at least it puts it in there so it's like it's a policy is important it doesn't get lost yes yeah I mean if that's if that's amendable and that's I think symbolically is at least a good thing and I think concurrently we should have potentially a a a policy to share at town meeting if we're like I I agree we should have that work done so people can understand what the policy would be or what the policy is and U Travis or ran um has has this idea of of really scaling this back to just be about um Authority is that um something you've run by Council yeah yeah they they have looked at this and I've discussed it with them and they're they're fine with it as you know as truncated and I I was commenting to Travis that I went back and looked at our existing bylaws and and that's also seems to be in in agreement with how in general our bylaws are are written currently you you don't you see fairly brief authoritative descriptions for different roles um something like this would be an exception within the bylaw with in its full form so I think it's consistent with our existing approach to bylaws y agreed so do we need to take a vote on this or can we just agree that the that we're all in favor of it we got to we got to talk about 3.3.2 but I guess no I guess we did no we did I think we're all we're all in agreement that we we prefer the second options are going to require a special act and we would truncate we would cut it at 3.3.4 is eliminated through the end of it which is 3.3.1 3 but Kate had suggested that we change 3.1 3. 3.13 make it 3.4 3.3.4 sorry yes okay we know what you're talking about and and what did you exactly the language and um Town Administrator uh shall perform um his or their duties as directed by the select board and um uh and presented in the their policy handbook or something don't know board pursuant to pursu town Minister perform its duties as directed by the select board pursuant to policies select board policies select yeah select board policies just direct just put a bookmark in there for the policies yeah the Town Council will be able to draft this much better okay maybe we name I don't know if we Nam policies maybe we we at one point we did go through policies where are we with policies these days Ryan it's a whole another Finance policies no no the finance policies I know we're our our select board policies we had started at some point a couple of years ago as soon as we get a break we will start out again okay so but this would be the first policy to be put in there and we would we'd like to have that probably um and and a lot of these 3.7 through 3.12 and stuff will be in that policy book yep along with you know what I would say is probably our job description for the yep plus things that we've added along the way as responsibility you know yep responsibilities that should be a priority for this board okay so so I think that the next step would be if we just kind of I don't know maybe we vote but to as a board to agree to this I can then have it um you know edited as we just discussed I'll I'll run it by Council one more time just to quickly look at our new language as you said they they probably will TW it a little bit if you're comfortable um with their language that it comes up with unless you want to see it at another meeting um I would like to just then take take that using their language get it out to you all and then we start socializing it sure sure does that work y great yes to me all right um so we all on board I don't I don't know do we need to take a motion on it or I don't I think so all right I will approach it that way and I will send it back not only to council but then once I get it I'll send it to all of you as a final and we'll go from there makes me very happy and Travis um I think it would also be helpful to sort of suggest uh where which bodies which committees how we're going to socialize it and if there's some preliminary idea about who is going to take responsibility for you know organizing a discussion with various bodies communication plan yes well my my initial thanks Barney um my initial reaction is we all have liaison of you know committees that we you know are are to report to and back and forth and I would ask that you just go to those committees and and you know ask the chair maybe you know forward it to the chair and say we're you know select board is in favor of this and wants to um you know get your feedback and and support do we want to schedule or offer to schedule time in future agendas and in a rough thing of when people could come and meet with us I think that's a maybe better idea you'd have them come here if they if they invite them if they want to discuss it yeah yeah I don't know about that because I think um it's you know it's it's hard for some people that are on a committee and then we ask them to you know plan to come another night um to meet with us I was thinking at at least for some of them I I think it might be more um politically uh Savvy to for the liaison to that committee to ask if they could have some time on an upcoming agenda to talk about this byw I I think we should do this like what the town meeting study committee has done they've they've actually taken their presentation from group to group to group this was the same presentation to every single group Fair I've seen it about five times now um and I think that's what we should do with this if we I think this is very sensitive and very important and I think it's important that we all go with the same me with the same message message to everything and that we go as a body so Kate I'm going to work on some I I think a presentation would be more kind of a we don't have charts and graphs for this but more of a of a bullet point type presentation that uh I will work on and if you'll help me out with that because you have some history with this too I'll I'll do something and then is or is am I creating a group created a group by saying that okay well then I don't have to go that direction I can just do it um just not involve but I'll as part of my what I said I do before I will go to Town Council and I will come up with some bullet points that I think are the you know the should be the the talking points for a consistent presentation and then if each of you would go take that to your boards that'd be fine well as I said I think this entire board should be taking it to the board not just one individual I I don't know if we well I think there's only there's really only well probably the boards that areed right I mean like I could I feel comfortable bringing this to the school committee and and talking about it yeah because I it's not going to have a real on them but it is getting awareness to our community which is what we want that's fine I think in other cases we may want to but there are several boards that this will directly impact so those need board to board that's why having well let me say you know and I you've you've seen my little memo I sent to you guys or you at least done we town meeting study committee is but we're one of our recommendations is that anybody who has an article also has a Communications plan so eat your own dog food yeah it's us right so that communication plan I don't think we should be prescripted here one of the other recommendations which uh Mr mlan has taken on for shortly is that we close the warrant early and gives us plenty of time to do that so to me it's a blend of going to these committees and I don't think unless you want to get pelted with eggs and tomatoes I think we need to go you know as a board have open discussion that's separately though there's a whole lot of social media and other things we should Assemble what do other towns do you know what's best practice da I mean we should have a whole plan in my opinion to make sure not just the boards but our constituents you know understand why we're doing what we're doing and hopefully support okay so it doesn't can I offer just a quick comment here yes Barney thanks um I I think I actually think there going be two stages to this and we talked about it this way early on when we were looking at whether or not we wanted to choose the option uh that would require a special Act of the legislature and we know that there are three boards that are going to particularly um have that this will change their relationship with their employee or employees and so you know when we talked about this originally we said let's make sure that we range for some portion of the select board to go meet with those boards early on before we've finalized what we want to put on the warrant and have a discussion not this is what we're doing but here is here is what we're proposing and you know why we're proposing it and we want to get your feedback and it seems to me that is a that's a stage want to do first and then the second stage is what you're describing David which is we've got the you know we've got the language we want it's it's been finalized and now we're going to figure out our Communications plan to have it go you know as far as we can make it go um and the reason I say that is because you know when we talked about this early on we said you know strategically and politically this is going to be um pretty significant for some boards and um and that we it would it would be a good idea to bring them in before everything has been finalized and and get their feedback I I think that that's a great idea Barney I appreciate that approach and and I think I mean I didn't articulate well enough but I was hoping we would socialize it as our Liaisons and then you know I think that's a great approach so so it's a liaison and just no but as a Le do you Barney do you think that that's appropriate is that again we just we asked the Liaisons on the select Board of your committees just to to socialize it to go and to ask or are you suggesting something else no I that's exactly what I was suggesting and if if if you know if we want to suggest that two members that the liaison plus another member of the select board go just so it's you know two people to hear their the feedback I I think that's a perfectly good way to do it too I think that would be helpful for certain boards in particular yeah the reason I'm sort of you know I'm the liais onto two of them right you're not pushing me out there by myself sorry I will I will to go I will plan to work with you on that or if anyone else wants to no or maybe Barney I don't know you and I yeah I'm I'm more than happy to uh you know be a partner with somebody yeah absolutely okay okay and maybe maybe we just uh so if we're going to run this by Council then maybe we set a time frame that we want to try to have that back to the council as soon as we can that and then maybe in January right we're trying to do these I limited uh preliminary conversations I have a question about I actually wrote it in my in the D's memo here the planning board employee is actually your employee right no I was not no it's an elected board elected board they voted to delegate Authority to me they already did okay there you go I'm happy to go to that I'm I'm supporting you I would have a joint there's one word in particular I would have a joint meeting that's just my recommendation to go to socialize it oh yes yeah Barney what do you think of that I I know yeah I think yes I think that might be wise one board in particular yeah well if I think all the board should be treated the same way and all of the we should visit all of the boards well let me let me I want to challenge that one again when when we did our little town meeting study committee thing had three we did but we had three tiers tier one you guys and a couple others were joint meetings where we felt there was enough richness of dialogue that people should be able to deliberate tier two was we went in person but just like you're saying one or two people to a meeting and tier three was we just presented what we're working it's informational here's the information so because there's a lot of boards and committees that's all I'm I I got that but I'm only talking about the boards the tier ones yes ones were were joint meetings yes the that's all I'm talking about we said Tre everybody equal the other ones the other you mean treat treat the affected boards equally exactly or at least offer to treat them equally they don't need to have a meeting all right would you be willing to allow me to just send you a memo of what had like you to do and we'll go from there absolutely all right that good Barney yep sounds good great all right moving right along so we have consensus on at least where we're headed maybe all right um we've done uh oh Financial policy Amendment approval oh oh yeah a little late on that sorry that's okay that's okay so the the this amendment started with the staff because of some things that popped up once this policy was implemented sign these which is to be expected it went to the finance team and it was it was deliberated heavily so Finance team is mostly staff with a couple of invited volunteers and then it went to the finance committee for a couple iterations so this has been this has been looked at but um your input is necessary and your approval is is obviously necessary so there's three things that I'd like to discuss the first is mileage so we had a policy discussion about this and this board went back and forth so the finance committee about where does mileage business mileage start so originally we said it's from your home of record to wherever you're going um no it's from the town hall to wherever you're going just to make it simple so the unions pushed back on this when we talked to council Etc um they said that it would be this police Union in particular said it would be a violation of their ethics to say that they they would be reimbursed from X to why and ethics matter and policing ethics matter everywhere so we took another look at it and we um we meaning all of those boards and committees and people combined said that okay here is here is a more succinct and clear definition to be considered so first that business mileage is when you use a personal vehicle as part of business travel and that it only really matters on days where you're regularly scheduled to work in terms of commuting miles Etc so the the idea would be and this this has been tested too that if it's your commuting day wherever you were going for training Etc you would take out your regular commute from that calculation and if it was a nonwork day where you weren't commuting then you would just get the full mileage and that's it so um pretty simple and we think clear for everybody it the reason why we tried to do the one for one was just to make it a faster processing but we think this is in conversations with everybody more fair all right so that's number one the second part of that was certain employees regularly use their vehicle so the the old formula many decades ago was any Town employee would have a employee have a vehicle and they obviously went away with that because of because of cost so picture Al who the town wouldn't run without Al Alf foot he goes from police station to here to the school and just bounces back and forth in his car so by policy he would have to print out the map and write down every time he did mileage same thing with part-time inspectors the assessor Etc people who regularly use their vehicle and bounce around so we thought it would make more sense rather than all of that processing time and employee time which which I do think is a waste of funds and time that these employees would just get regular stiens and the way we calculated these was we took a 5year average of the employee we would grant them that is a monthly mileage sipon only to be paid per month in case they leave employment Etc and this would be verified again with a new 5-year rolling average every year so that's the second piece third piece to this policy was the idea of reimbursement for meals uh particularly employees that are staying overnight overnight conferences Etc there's only a few of us that that do this so the lot of discussion on this but the end result was that there would be an an authorized per DM rate for anyone who was traveling based off the locality using the usga's per DM rate for that location and it would be reimbursable up to that rate with the submission of receipts so to make it more clear if Boston's PDM is $74 a day for all meals breakfast lunch and dinner you would submit receipts for your day up to that $74 rate and that's what you'd be reimbursed for um if your conference Etc includes meals and that then this wouldn't apply so it's only for those conferences where you're on your own and and you need to be reimbursed it's not for day trips or or day trainings Etc that would just be your regular lunch receipt if you went to lunch and that are those are the the three significant changes thank you I have a couple questions so on uh business mileage which is I don't know on page I got it up here 58 yeah business mileage for certain employ employees that regularly use their personal vehicle who are those employees and how many is that kind of where we are with our current policy will this change the that number it could we have a list that I can share with you it is um all the assistant inspectors the assessing Department Sylvia or the conservation agent in particular these are all by position and then the custodial and and stuff is are the people who regularly travel around town okay I'm going to use specific examples though and I I'm not calling out people but I'm just using so we have a sustainability coordinator who may go look at multiple buildings to evaluate them she drives throughout town is that charged back no that would be she would have to submit mileage cuz she doesn't do it often she's not regular but but I'm saying it's kind of subjective like how how do you you know how do it is it's up to you basically to decide that authorization part two I guess okay I'm just kind of I want to understand how it how it goes so so in my in my definition you you'd have to be doing this as part of your job description weekly if not daily so Sarah when she does move around to Sarah's position I hate to use people's names noain ability coord right or one example or you know the assessor going around obviously he would be yes but if the Assessor's assistant does two houses you know so we're and you should rate us on this but we're pretty judicious so if um Frank does travel he does either with Brian or in conjunction with someone else or he's given mileage if he's made to use his own vehicle we try not to make him use his own vehicle just want understand how you're coming up with it I'm also not a person although I do a lot of travel around town that would be authorized this I do not regularly do it in a consistent way I do go to a lot of things but okay I wouldn't be receiving a monthly stien okay unless you change my contract funny you mention that all right um non reimbursable expenses my other question was um Massachusetts sales tax is not non reimbursing why would that be it's because you're a nonprofit and they don't pay sales tax so you can't reimburse it well they do they don't claim that exemption when they buy a meal and there's a tax Lo right so why is it I agree with you so it's sales tax nothing else so you cannot the town gets uh doesn't have to pay sales tax right if you buy something maybe it should be clarified because to me a meal tax is still a sales tax it's just so you meals tax is a meals tax it's not the and lodging tax so you're saying sales tax is buying like a widget let the town buy it and use their example sure and we get we believe or not we flag this a lot okay so we have almost eliminated all personal use of credit card for this type of reason so we don't think it's fair the employee has to pay the tax but we also absolutely will not pay it y okay fair enough most push back on this a lot of carile employee employees were processing their own reimbursements and buying things because of convenience or in no fault of theirs but we almost eliminated all of it okay it doesn't make everyone happy just letting you know that's how you Financial controls good yeah it's one of our biggest risks so we don't want to we want to eliminate it great I'm fine with this anyone else Barney did you have any comments questions she's not hearone still there move on okay okay um all right well we I think we could move to move to sorry yes it all looks fine to me thanks okay sorry Barney I know you're enough no problem no no no I was I just had muted just for general purposes and forgot so I move approve the amended employee expense reimbursement policy and procedures as in included in the packet second all right any further discussion seeing none do a roll call vote Arnold I mod Reed ey Snell ey triola I great all right all right I think we are on to the TA report yes we are all right I'd like to give my Town Administrator report as you know we launched our first successful podcast we have advertised this service many of you your voices were in the initial podcast with your voting and you will be regularly this joins our print email and social media efforts is a way to deliver information to Residents were you ask for people who are looking to subscribe to our podcast which we recommend it is the carile connection on Apple podcast and Spotify and we also have accounts with Facebook Twitter X Instagram LinkedIn you can receive email notification notifications and we have a newsletter so those all get you to the podcast all those sources all of those get the same information we blast out when we blast information the podcast is limited to this report and then a every other week the staff will be doing something to include we just did a winter help video that we put on YouTube for residents to see that will become a podcast as well so just another way to share that information we know how many hits we've had so far we don't is there a way of knowing or eventually yeah okay probably two to three million is two to three million is so fun my next coffee hour will be held here at Town Hall first time I'm doing that in the Parlin room just to give a different venue for for people to come in it's a good opportunity to ask questions share ideas and provide feedback I always get one or two folks that come in and I always learn something from the community so we encourage people to stop by I can also have zoom going at that time if you just want to meet with me virtually and don't want to make an appointment I'm available the first floor remodel here moving on to town hall news we should have a final decision in design based off of conversations with the town clerk's office and the cohs so more to come on on that for HR updates from the assistant Town Administrator and HR Director Aubrey you heard about us adding Jennifer to our team as the transportation and services coordinator she brings a ton of experience 15 years experience and we're excited to have her join the chos and add to their resilience we also have offered a town clerk position to a um very good candidate we're not ready to announce this publicly as we're still going through the HR process but that will be an appointment at your December 10th meeting for those who are following along with the town clerk appointment process we will have the candidate come and meet you to in a meet and greet type way so that you can meet the candidate before you appoint them still looking for candidates with our DPW it's a long-term conversation and going to be a long-term problem just making you aware of that we'll also be advertising for a public safety Administrative Assistant role this is going to combine the administrative assistance for police fire and Communications a good long-term strategy turning three part-time positions into a full-time position this was discussed with both Chiefs and is the only reason we're considering it right now is because Susan carrier who has been doing more than her share in this role is retiring we cannot replace her with just a part-time employee this will be budget neutral and will allow a lot more hrn financial control into our satellite departments from auditing tax rate and budget performance news you'll receive two important important reports in December at your meeting first an analysis of fy2 24's budget and how revenue and expenses contribute to the free cash certification and then also an overdue fy2 q1 report not an excuse but we have been working to not only close the year in the tax rate but also the chart of accounts which has confused some of the reporting we didn't want to give it to you Half Baked so you're going to get that also my working group which I friend to my left here is a part of met with Markham to kick off the fy2 24 external audit they went over goals with the with the firm and they should be getting a completed first draft of financial statements and management letter to the town in January and to this board in February for a budget update departments are continuing to submit their requests I'm gathering all of that into a presentation for you on December 10th also we're recommending that tonight and if you're willing to vote on this that the board open the annual town meeting warrant immediately this is consistent with the town meeting study committee's recommendation and we're asking you to close it on February 11th to allow for that Communications plan process that the tmsc recommended so if you're willing to do that ask that you do that now moved to open the warrant of the 2025 annual town meeting to be held no earlier than May 4th with an anticipated closing date of February 11th of closing of the warrant second all right any discussion Barney anything nope okay um we'll do a roll call vote on that Arnold I Redi Snell ey TR I you are now all podcast famous in your packet is uh green communities report so Sarah as I keep saying just a tremendous asset to the community I wanted her to summarize the green communities program as we move towards climate leader so you understand it there's also going to be some discussions at the MFC about finalizing our green community's Grant monies and I wanted to you aware of everything that was going on before those came through so some quick highlights car complies with all six green communities criteria currently I found it interesting that uh the following five buildings account for 73% of Carl's Municipal output CPS DPW Library town hall and police station with CPS being 10 times larger than the second so the by far the largest energy producer in the community is CPS our energy consumption is supported by less than a percent of renewable energy really the only way to impact that would be to switch to the green option which would increase costs but we thought we would point that out well I just want to say though to be fair the schools also have 10 times more people in them and are used kind of more intensively than a lot of the other spaces so just I think Sarah and I wanted to highlight that to you for potential Grand opportunities as as they come down okay how we can best use the climate leader monies for potential projects that' be good it would would be helpful to have you one of our goals this year was to environmental stewardship um is to the environmental sustainability committees to develop a metric to evaluate the cost and benefits of Economic and climate impacts costs and benefits and so you know when I looked at this I think this is really in informative but you know what is the biggest bang for the buck for how we're going to to reduce the um you know the or get the get the grant money but also that that offsets and can get get us to those goals faster and I noticed that further down in the in Sarah's memo where she had taken um the I don't have it right should pull it up but it has um I think it's in here she she had um the the budget or or or U yeah right right here the um the green communities the project status and and we have certain things like car the carile public school the municipal the fire station and various you know variable speed compressor and everything and they're planned but I was just curious what is the biggest bang for the buck because maybe at some point you start to make decisions that you say oh well both of these things need to be done but we don't have the money but if one of them gets a grant or something like that I mean I don't know just a metric that we can use so that we can get to our goals fast F if that's we're trying to I thought they're work I thought Christine is on I thought the ESC was working on that was kind of Christina if you wanted to chime in be happy to hear about your efforts on that but I'm catching off guard so I don't it's okay I'll check in just I mean I'm the but my impression was they're working on that okay good I have a note to get you uh get you that answer okay the Historical Society has requested a building permit waiver this comes from Larry sorley who's on the historical society it's less than $500 to the permit not the work to repair and replace deteriorated trim and Sash on the heeled house Building Commissioner John mtiv is aware of the request uh he's in favor of it but he wanted to make sure the board approved it for policy so if you're willing to consider that now we would appr make the motion then we can discuss it move to wave building permit fees for the Carlile historical Society for Applied permits to repair replace deteriorated trim and sash at 698 conquer Street Carl Mass 01741 second any further discussion on it uh they they're nonprofit besides being a nonprofit they're also housing a lot of the town's Town artifacts yes artifacts I just want to be sure that we have ducks in a room so I have no problem with it okay uh we'll take a roll call vote Arnold I model I Reed ey Snell ey triola I moving on to Capital project updates our culbert analysis will complete this week with the last 15 we also have started a process of scrubbing initial scrubbing of grants that are possible for both our roads and our c as a result of this plan so this plan not only categorizes things for you and feeds the capital report but is also the beginning of our analysis of potential funding to help speed up the capital plan federal state and and local or Regional grants the elevator maintenance project launched uh last week with a coordination meeting we met with the engineers the construction documents are starting to be built so this will this will meet our timeline for town meeting vote1 million yeah there's been a hiccup with the moving of the the Koopa so I don't at the Greeno Barn deconstruction site it's just way bigger than people thought so uh I don't have a good answer for you just to let you know that there is there is no answer right now as we're exploring alternatives for the kiosk anything from another option to to abandoning the kiosk idea are in play right now just because of the size and cost it will involve a crane and other significant piece of if you if you haven't gone to see it yet I suggest you do cuz it's way bigger than you yeah where is it Greeno the where the bar right by the greo dam oh it's it's still there yeah okay you can't we can't move it so it's still there two people have tried there way to know how big it was the dog park project there's a more than two people to move it report in your there is a project report in attached to this report for your review also in toward the fire department's new newly installed Bay heaters this was a project that was led by Lieutenant David Newman did a great job job came in under budget and it's going to provide heat heat for the tankers to keep the the water warm I don't know how it's better to describe that keep it from freezing and also offers a training space for for the um for the firefighters building quick building construction project updates so CMS and Town Council have approved the final contract for OPM Services we'll start to work with CMS and silver and Swartz to finalize these contracts however we're working on consolidating funding for the project and collaborating With Friends of Leon public library and the library trustees we're also working with recommendations from the town auditor and Council to make sure that this process is correct so simply put we're recommending that the friends gift the money to the town so the town can run the construction project and not the friends because of significant liability I don't think anyone is in disagreement but we are having those conversations to make sure they're finalized we talked about the police station renovation a lot the only other news I have to add is we we did sign the formal contract with CMS so they were willing to come with an unsigned contract but they were here legitimately tonight some upcoming discussions include Town Hall hours climate resilient policies and your meeting with representative Cataldo next month um we are assembling a document based on all your comments um we just don't want to Ambush the representatives so if you have any more just send them to us and we'll make sure they get into the document there are several rotary signs that I'm informing you about finally staff recognition as I mentioned earlier in this report Susan carrier has announced her retirement from the police department after years of dedicated service in her admin role including the overseeing the trans transition from Chief Fischer to Chief amandola which was no small feat our current chief consistently refers to Susan as the Department's institutional memory ensuring operations run smoothly and efficiently the finance team has relied on Susan's expertise to navigate policy issues and plan for future initiatives aimed at retaining officers also understanding historical significance of Union contracts and other significant details simply put the police department knows much of its current success to Susan's contributions and she's worked with the new Chief to try and clarify policy and make sure we're set up for the future her knowledge and professionalism will be deeply missed and we hope to capture as much as her and valuable insight as possible in the remaining months to ensure a transition to this new position that will be new to the town but nice and set up because of people like Susan the report finalized with some dates of interest to include many holidays coming up which I hope everyone enjoys and if I was a decent person I would have said Happy Thanksgiving to the board at some point in this report so Happy Thanksgiving Ryan I have a quick question for you on something you mentioned earlier is this a good time yep okay um you talked about the first floor um reorganization and sort of new spaces for the cahs so I heard um during our interviews actually for the town clerk um I heard that there had been some changes from what I originally thought that was going to be and I'm just interested in why that changed so initially as I recall the discussion was about uh the space over by the town clerk's office that would be available to um the cahs was going to include some sort of a um you know small meeting space or you know place where uh folks could come in and just have a seat and they'd have coffee and tea and you know if somebody just wanted to hang out for a little while sort of a mini trial of this idea of a dropin center but I understand from Carol that that's been changed and there's going to be two you know separate offices over there for staff so I'm just interested in how that change came about and what the thinking is sa are is going to be over here so the two areas that are being discussed are the current Council and aging office and then excess space in the town clerk's office so you're reconfigure the town clerk's space so that as you walk in everything to the left is a customer customer desk with a little bit of a waiting area and then you're correct Barney that there would be two offices there for employees and some some waiting space for people looking for social services or programming support the transportation service coordinator who was who was appointed tonight would work in the current office and the space that you're talking about Barnie would be in that office so a little bit of a walk-in space coffee and other availability to quote unquote hang out or to to move from there in here to the Clark space we don't think you could accomplish the socializing in the space that is across the way and okay um even though it's not a ton of space we do think it'll be pretty open once we move the desk and take away the cubicles in that corner off office while you're talking about it I've been talking a lot with the CHS about about space utilization based off your conversations and have asked them to work up for me what they think the services are required for the next 5 to 10 years in case um the building decision is is pushed that far out or or maybe it's never made so that we can accomplish what they need to do over the next 5 to 10 years and we can make a proper recommendation on Space whether that is what we're currently configuring or some other interum stuff but we would like to tie it to service need and not and not want like yeah like discussions we had with fire station tonight and the police station previously our draft agenda for the meeting on December 10th contemplates spending a little bit of time talking about the Council on Aging Human Service Community Center discussion and so we're hopeful to kind of determine which direction the select board would like to take that in going forward okay at that time finally Bary okay thanks the way we are considering the space to thinks about the future so if the cohs was to leave here what would be left for us to use and how considering that as well yeah yeah that's smart okay thanks that is my reports the um other thing I mention on the upcoming agenda for the 10th you know we've got Simon talo coming in we've got a budget present it's a joint meeting with fincom and then um a town meeting discussion well the cohs discussion I mentioned but town meeting discussion I think is that uh that'll be determining how we want to pursue the the recommendations of the Town committee is that right um yeah I mean I think um I we met I just I guess now yeah so uh so we met with you guys on short notice I appreciate you making the time uh we then met um we also met two more committees we had two more to do we finished that U Outreach so everybody of significance has been consulted with the notable exception of one board that never bothered to respond we can figure out which board that is um and then we met again as a group and basically thought you know what is what is most important to do right now which was summarized kind of already which is um set the start the warrant and end it early which you've done thank you and then number two is we recommend and you've recommended and the other boards have consistently that we try a Sunday meeting and and see and then there's a bunch of things that will flow from that and then the third thing is that we also recommend that you know all the sponsors of Warrant developer community ation plan so those are the three like high level things that we will talk about on the 10th now what we're going to do and it won't be by the 10th because our meeting will be after that um we're going to now go back through and make kind of a total list of all the recommendations that we've gotten and try to figure out which ones we think we should incorporate and then what do we have to do some of those are very simple things like Wayne you know we talked about just have a list of all the sponsoring any board that supports a warrant article we'll just have it on the screen we don't have to wait for them to shuffle up to the microphone and say their name and do all that I mean there's a couple you know there's 30 seconds right there there's a lot of little things just to kind of consistent with streamlining the process we can do a lot of that on our own then there's some larger things and then there's a whole pile of logistics that we should consider we don't have to do it on the 10 but as we move forward if we're going to have a Sunday meeting if we're going to have people out in the playground if we're going to have a food truck we have things to do whether that's the daytime government that should do it or we should do it you know and furthermore since we have offered this prescription of a Communications plan we're going to take it on to sort of template what is a Communications plan what are the elements try to standardize the format make sure it's in the website all looks like when people go to get it all the information looks fairly consistent so there's a lot of little things that we're going to then pivot towards and we'll work with you guys to you know hopefully make that a success great thank you so on the 10th we'll talk a little bit more yeah so it's a short I think okay okay great well we're I think at the ending stages of our meeting I have Al on report from Board of Health I think they'll be coming to us with a warrant article Poss well I don't think they're going to come they they're considering whether they'll come with another mosquito um either surveillance or spraying or some sort of uh new program um they're looking into it I did tell them that you know we're closing the warrant pretty you know early so that if they're going to do it we need to get on their you know uh horse and get it done um but I think that might be coming um after our last meeting I attended the uh Carl school committee meeting just to give them a kind of a a condensed version of the presentation we got from both to review our select board financial goals that we articulated and to give them kind of a condensed version of the presentations Ryan gave to us on the building projects and and the other um other the pro the forecast model looking out um so I think that was helpful and then following that uh joshe presented the first draft of the administration budget which um is 5.2% was the uh initial budget then that's for just telling you it's going to be a challenging year that's that's for a level service budget that includes no additional staff the cost drivers are primarily special education both in the cost of out a district tuitions in an increased number of students requiring out of District starting next year combined with a reduction in our circuit breaker Grant because last year we had less students so our yearly expense are so there's a lag there um and also Transportation costs those are the big cost drivers so um I gave some I'm I'm sure they're going to be working with fincom and respectively you know I tried to paint the picture of the budget challenges and you know I just said just be prepared to answer the question of what are the trade-offs required if it's not 5.2% if it's 4% if it's 3 and a half um and uh so that'll be that'll be an ongoing discussion um it's a it's a challenge we're we're seeing the same challenges you're reading about in the paper with the teacher strikes and what the communities are trying to deal with in terms of increasing costs that are putting pressure on the operating budget which again it's these are I know but then when I hear about the teacher the teacher strikes they're striking for some things that our teachers have had for years and years and years already I I don't I'm not I'm not comparing it to the the actual strikes I'm just in the in the what what they're talking about the the cost pressures on schools through some of these especially out of District tuitions which have gone up 14% in the last year that would be nice to have actually broken out and see what the rest of our looks like and I yeah and I did uh you know the other comment was let's model out what the next five years looks like in terms of especially that because if presume and I will add the uh the 5.2% includes applying all the entirety of their fee account to offset next year's expenses the what account the the student fee account oh okay so that there's a $250,000 offset that gets it down to 5.2% um but again theoretically you'd have circuit breaker increase kick in the next year like so the the request I had it to them was let's model it out let's understand the flow of monies um because we know special education can be volatile and there's the lag well if you have I mean yes if they have in if they have incoming students with identified needs if those incoming students are in the early grades and they got a pretty steady diet of that yeah tuition so I I get that but and then part of the challenge is both that and the circuit breaker for that isn't kicking until next year and we're seeing a decrease because we had a decrease last year so right circuit breaker always lags so it it pays you when you don't need it which is when you go down and it doesn't it pays you less when you need it but it's I would I would like to see the budget though with the out of it the the outou of District sped out of it to see what the this CPS yeah increases yeah you know by itself yeah I won't even com because it's the SP alone is is almost is is every you know if it were if it weren't for that it would be your typical like what we've seen the sub three but you do have to just to clarify I think from my experience it's really a three-part thing okay it's regular Ed right then it's special Leed inside the district yeah right which includes a lot of but those are in their budget and then out of the district right there is that breaks out they in so it's it's very easy to look at those cost break what's not as easy is understanding what they expect that will look like over the next five years I understand but but I also want to be careful not bance the not to balance the budget on the backs of regular Ed no and I but if if if we have the same number students or fewer in regular aded and the price the cost is still going up 5.2% like to know then what's driving that again enrollments expected to be and I'd like to know what the class sizes look like overall and see if there's they reviewed all that and enrollments expected to be stable so again all that information will be will be available it's just it's going to be it's there's and I and I I think from the region similar there's there's a lot of cost pressures that we're you know that are obviously part of the school that's going to put pressure additional pressure on the operating budget so there was a time I mean obviously we have a Regional High School there was a time in my tenure where um one of the problems of the small District we have is that with and it's also a reason why sped has increased is there's much more knowledge and a sorting of learning styles yeah so you could be Spectrum that's a big category but there like this kind of spectrum this kind of and so we you know we have the we have the same problem you know an analog to like Brian's problem like small sample size yeah if you have one kid who has a disorder you don't have much Choice the make by decision is out of District can serve that child much better we just can't devote a whole teacher to that however conquer may have four of those and there was a time when that was explored and I wonder if that's also something that they should do I rais that point okay and I think they I mean yeah problematic because it's two different districts but no well case though there's case well but and and and I raised that point and I think jimy even said that for parents there's a a higher Comfort level sending your kid to if there's a program at the region then sending him off to somewhere that's not so I think these are things that are being discussed um and I I just raised this and again they're they're at the very beginning of their process but it's it's going to be a challenging these aren't these where the increases are coming from are very difficult things to to to cost control okay thank you you're welcome thank you um if there's nothing else I will invite Community input is the last is there anyone in the community anyone here present in the room crickets G all right i' take a motion to in the room Happy Happy Thanksgiving every Happy Thanksgiving thank you all right that