##VIDEO ID:SDL2Jp7Q9lo## good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for January 14th 2025 um this is a hybrid meeting and um first I'll go over the agenda take a roll call vote and then um we can get started um we're going to have uh Community input to start then appointments 710 we'll use uh we're going to discuss the land use I believe but I think some of that's gotten oh no no the land use for this Great Brook ski touring is is at 710 um and then uh the climate resilience presentation at 7:20 8:20 the annual town meeting warrant article review um then at 8:50 Town Hall hours discussion 9:20 the appointment policy discussion and uh 935 Town Administrator report we'll do more warrants and minutes and then liais on reports afterwards so um I'd first like to do a roll call vote um for attendance um you want to start Modell here okay Snell here triola here okay and we have two absent Barney Arnold and Kate Reed um but we do have a quorum so from there we'll go to community input is there anyone in the community who would like to make a comment or uh have questions or like to address the board I usually allocate two minutes per person on this but if you have one please um you're welcome to speak up now is there anyone online well seeing none all right I'm good you don't have any comments for us all right all right um I'll move on to appointments a little early but uh it's okay uh we have two appointments it looks like Chris spinny and Dan Barlo um Mr ta is there anything you wanted to add about them or W in our packet their applications are in the packet Chris has been advising on the LSC hasn't been able to vote but he's been participating in LSC activities and he is one of the friends of the bog who's been helping to keep beaver degre out of out of the U the bog space even though it is a little dry there um because of the the drought this fall and uh Dan Barlo was recommended by the council aging and Human Services board for your appointment to serve on that committee great any questions comments i' take a motion to accept each of um I'll go ahead and move to appoint Chris spinny of 270 Fisk Street as a member of the land and stewardship committee term to end June 30th 2026 you want to do are we doing each independently yeah we'll do each we got a extra minute here all right so it's been second any further discussion seeing none uh we'll just do a Voice vote because we're all present all in favor I None opposed all right I move to appoint Dan Barlo of 2011 Handover Road as a member of the council and agent and Human Services Board term to end June 30th 2027 second all right any further discussion seeing none Voice vote all in favor I None opposed all right moving along we have a land use discussion it's 710 do I have to wait till 7:10 it's not a hearing I don't think so okay all right um so seven so the use of the Town land for Great Brook uh Farm ski touring Center um overflow parking discussion and we have our chief of the cross country ski program here I would you want to sit come forward and just sit uh that's a microphone there so we can all hear you introduce yourself and maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you'd like to do yeah it's Stuart Johnstone I'm from conquer operating a business Great Brook Farm ski touring Center at 1018 L Street and this is a for-profit business operating with a permit on the state park so we have a bit of a situation in that the popularity of the business has been growing steadily Through The Years this is my 37th year and I'm I'm I can say it's like twice as popular as it used to be our biggest day is involved over 2,000 people wow and uh we've just suffered a major reduction in parking capacity at the park which presents a a viability threat honestly and um so this isn't the town of car's problem but I'm I'm hoping to explore the possibility of utilizing spaces in the center of town specifically along Church Street and at Banta Davis Field to have skiers park there and then shuttle them at at the business's expense to the park I I haven't figured out if this is economically viable yet but I want to know if it's a possibility on from your perspective okay and so just to clarify the the locations you're thinking about it's the parking on street parking on Church Street yes I've been told that the school school department is not interested in entertaining this scenario yeah so there are spots lined along Church Street at the sping field and then there are more spots at bad Davis I'm wondering if that would be a possibility is it is it's Is it feasible are you are you looking primarily for for weekends or when school isn't in session it's it's impossible to imagine a weekday situation okay so this this is exclusively for weekends when school wouldn't be in session and correct okay and it would only be occasional weekends right most weekends we don't have for the snow so it's every now and then it's U it's a real scene and we need to figure something out but what happened last year or or at other time we've had two back toback bad years so it was the winter of 2022 we had we were closed for no snow one day and then the next day 213 people showed up that day I mean literally zero to everything overnight and where did they Park they we we maximized the capacity that we had and and it recycles itself through the day oh so they're not all at once right a cross country skar typically visits for a couple hours and then leaves steart did the school give you a reason why they said no they were worried about scheduling conflicts and I guess that's all I remember no we should challenge them on that yeah I mean I think we should challenge them on that because it's it's an easier parking lot it's paved it's plowed right right B Davis is not plowed I don't think right I'm personally I don't as long as there's no legal reason I'm I'm all in favor of it but I would I would want to go back to schools and say what are you doing what are you worried about well what is even well I mean if if if we were to allow parking along Church Street what would be I'd rather they be in a lot well what would stop someone from parking in the lot it's a shuttle service right but you probably go on and just walk out I mean you could walk there but I I think what you're saying you have some buses you would get yeah I would need to hire a some sort of what did they build I haven't been over there in a while what did they build that took all your parking spaces away yeah it's the innermost part of the lot the best part of the lot yeah uh it's been shrunken in perimeter drainage ditches installed in the middle and reconfigured with it's paved now so it's lined yeah and just we used to maximize a lot more of the space it's it's literally almost 50% smaller capacity you can't park beyond that because it's covered with snow and we do plow the whole field but that's subject to frozen ground which often doesn't happen the last two Winns we haven't had it really got it now but um it's also Al uh prone to flooding and the new asphalt drains into that area so we're actually more likely to have a water issue and it's more difficult to plow this there are less desirable places to put the plowed snow now and it's it's it's disrupted okay well and I know um I live off of curve Street and um I know on peak days like that or whenever there are large events at gra Brook eventually people will park some somewhere they're not given an alternative so along the road no but I mean they'll Park and I'm saying my point is that's not ideal having people Park yeah even a few cars on like curve Street or wherever they can stick a car right so I really feel like we should challenge schools like they should make that parking lot available like there's no reason not to we do I can follow up with Jim on that I'm going to see him Thursday um I don't I don't have any issue with unless there's some aspect to this that we should be considering in terms of allowing people to park and and run a shuttle service whether there any rules or regular no no issue I talked to the recreation director who talked to the Recreation Commission and what you said earlier is true there's no plowing so insignificant snow on B Davis bana wouldn't be great it's a you know the approach the dirt road be but if it's not a lot of snow then it's the school and that would be ideal and I think maybe what we can do is if they're concerned about scheduling we can ask for a if they have events on the weekend like let's take a look I'll take a look at the calendar and see I mean this isn't going to be going into April no it's a few weekends it's a few weekends right it would be January or February most likely possibly beginning of March but yeah after that things tail right off yeah I'll talk I'll I'll talk to Jim and and get more info again I don't my the only hesitancy is if if there is some kind of um uh production or event planned on the weekend I can we'll know what that is yeah so what let let me get that and let me get the schedule and at the very least I'm sure most weekends that wouldn't be an issue Ryan there's no insurance issue right as far as you know I don't think so okay what what do we what what does he need us to do to make this something he can do do we have to sign just authorize the use vote to authorize the use of the land for that purpose if you want to be formal about it or you just it do you have any sense of how many I mean you said 2,000 people how many vehicles given the current constraint say we have we get eight inches on Wednesday next week because we're probably not going to be able to turn this around I got to talk to the school we're going to have to come back at the we're meeting don't we have a special session like in a week for the morning at the 28th yeah we can vote it then if you get clearance so before the 28th before our next meeting TI talk tick talk okay okay oh no that's February it's not going to be till February really yeah the first meeting in February that's not good January 28th is would be our next our next name but the school isn't pending yeah we could do that we want to authorize Church Street at a minimum yeah Church Street and and then um can kind of conditional authorization I don't know that we can authorize can we authorize a school that really needs to be yeah it's probably it's their it's there yeah deal so that would need a school committee authorization when are they next meeting I can look at that well I think it sounds like we can authorize it we can authorize which would be use of Church Street um do you think anticipate the parking on curve Street I mean that's right across it would it would not be possible I've been told parking on the street is a yeah yeah we cannot do that yeah and it's problematic when people do park there because it's I mean it's bar wide enough in some spots for two vehicles and you start getting people and it's curvy that's the name um and snow Banks appear and then it's worse and some people like to really park off yeah they'll Park in the middle of the street in some cases can we authorize Town Hall it's not that many but on a weekend on a weekend yeah Park here I don't picture it being very big but maybe something something spot 40 spots okay well 40 more than you have the table if you're making a shuttle run you know it's right here right y so I'm not sure exactly how it would work for you how often the shuttle will come by but and are you able to use the other Great Brook I mean I've seen yeah we do we we do use that um it's difficult in that we have to position people who don't need to rent equipment out there so anybody who needs to rent ski equipment wants to be parking right at the building so they don't have to of course but that is being used so so regular users know to go down there well we actually sell them a ticket in our lot before they get out of their car and then we direct them to park over there good businessman all right so I mean I I think let's do that for now and then town hall and then I'll talk to the schools great thank you very much yeah well you want to do a motion or something okay so I moved to permit Great Brook Farm ski touring center Inc to utilize Church Street and the town hall parking lot for overflow parking when necessary on weekends on weekends for 2025 four not I don't have to say that need March all right March 31st you're right you're right right you're right I don't want to constraint him that guy poor guy he yeah he's got to many constraints I know I know all right second not through 2025 through 20 okay great uh so it's been moved seconded any further discussion seeing none Voice vote all in favor I None opposed okay great so we'll be in touch with we have your email we'll let you know if the school's we can add the school great thank you very much coming by Stuart pray for snow yeah right thanks snow y um all right oh Cru climate resilient policies presentation that's we're a few minutes ahead of schedule is it a go for it Go For It Rock and Roll come on forward come on down I'm happy to sit up here but I'm not like the main attraction the main attraction is on Zoom we can oh great um there's Ellie Baker and Gabriel Spitzer um hi there and this is their probably fifth or sixth presentation that we're calling a circle back with all the different boards and committees all the attached documents yeah those the prickets are kind of all the same thing as you get for different well there's the the structure piece of it the same and then they're going through specific recommendations that are like pertinent to the different jurisdiction of each committee they're meeting with so and they met with the planning board last night um okay for about an hour so you guys are having fun yeah um I am wondering if I could I'm going to send a request to share my screen and I don't think I am authorized at the moment you're good there we go okay sorry just rearranging things here all right um well good evening everybody uh thanks for having us my name is Ellie Baker I'm here with my colleague uh Gabriella Spitzer and we are both environmental planners with the horley Wht group and uh we have met with you before we've met with lots of the different boards and committees in town um about this project that we are supporting the town on which is climate resilient carile so we were asked to work with the town to try to identify recommendations uh first primarily with codes and um regulatory changes that could be made to make carile more resilient um but what we've uh ended up doing uh in all of our sort of listening and thinking about the goals and ideas that were identified uh over the past year with the boards and committees and public input um is really that not not everything can be done through code revisions um so some of the recommendations that we're making are uh other changes such as policy changes just actions that the community could take in terms of implementation or changes in the way it does things um or changes in particular um you know treatments of the land uh and then also educational uh you know education and engagement with the public and with different boards and committees so what I want to do uh today is uh first move to my next slide here uh I want to go over a little bit of sort of what we've learned so far and how we got to where we are I want to talk to you about how we're organizing ourselves uh in our final uh what the final report is going to look like in terms of uh structure and um just sort of how we um are organizing our thoughts around this and then the focus really today is this last item which is the discussion of the recommended actions um and as Julie said we have a number of of actions that we're recommending to all the different boards and committees and what we're bringing to you today are really the things that we think are most pertinent to the work that you do um so you're not seeing everything but uh we are talking with all the different boards and committees um that uh you know for which these things um matter to their everyday work so um just a quick review setting the stage for this discussion as a reminder uh you know we are trying to do this and do this work in in preparation for and in light of uh climate change and these are just some of the things that we've talked about to set the stage for understanding uh you know the coming changes we're already seeing some of these changes but uh greater annual rainfall with more intense rainfall events more frequent and intense drought um throughout the year more frequent and intense storms with high winds and warmer Winters uh and warmer Summers so um these are just you know sort of setting the stage for the changes that we're expecting and what we're trying to prepare for uh and help the community prepare for um again setting the stage for the discussion but this is just a very high level overview of the you know local conditions in town right you have a very heavily forested Community um there are significant flood planes and wetlands in the community there's a lot of water uh on the land uh you all are uh generally on private water wells um and private septic system so you are um you know you're doing a lot of interacting with your groundwater resources through your uh flood Plaines and wetlands and your drinking water and your septic systems um you have generally 2 acre uh zoning in town so you have uh large Lots with generally uh comparatively large homes for the most part um you also have uh a population that's aging I think the uh median population is town in town is uh in the 50s so um you know people are aging and want to stay in place and you'll hear that's kind of a a thread through some of this discussion as well you also have young families in town so let's not uh uh Overlook that as well they're aging as well uh with all of the discussions that we had we tried to organize what we were hearing from folks and so we've kind of binned uh the topics into the resilience goals um so we think that these resilience goals here sort of represent everything that we've talked about with the boards and committees and what we heard in the um in the public meetings but just to go through I'll highlight a few of these uh ecosystem protection uh is generally just the goal of you know promoting healthy ecosystems and what can you do to promote uh and protect ecosystems As you move forward um social resilience this is um something that I you know we heard a lot about and also something that maybe wasn't at the Forefront when you started this project but social resilience is really the um you know building networks in the community so that people have uh a support system and they know each other so that when you do have um emergencies or just changing conditions in the community people know each other and know about each other so that you can help each other there's a a network to depend on um housing resilience is um uh sort of a a big uh category that we we've thrown a few different elements related to housing together but this has to do with um keeping housing out of Harm's Way and having people you know have safe housing uh you know out of wetlands out of um flood Plaines uh Etc and also um having housing choice so having a variety of housing opportunities in the community so that uh you have housing that meets the changing uh and VAR needs of your population in town um I'll skip down um to another one uh forest fire protection and mitigation uh we might broaden this simply to fire protection and mitigation but we did hear a lot of concern about uh more droughts and more fire risk as um as we you know move into the future and how can carile sort of strengthen its Forest management and also its uh sort of Education and uh engagement with the public as to what they do on their own properties to protect uh against uh increasing fire risk um and then I'll jump down to uh the last one uh local food and farming uh how do agricultural lands play into carlile's vulnerabilities and resilience um and how can carile help support its Farms um in the face of climate change and sort of what are some of the challenges uh related to agricultural land so there are a few items that we heard that fall into this category uh as well so I'll just highlight that one there um so the other thing I just want to sort of lay out in terms of organization of our thoughts is there are a variety of tools and methods to reach these goals and as I said when this project began I think it was initially envisioned that we would be focused on uh working with the town on uh updating codes and regulations or making recommendations about updates codes and regulations to address uh you know how do you meet these goals what can you do in your codes to make carile more resilient and we are still doing that as part of our recommendations but not everything that we heard can actually be addressed or can be addressed most efficiently and effectively through code revision so we're also including other recommendations for other tools and methods such as changes in town policies uh as I said educating not just the public but educating uh all the uh volunteers that serve on boards and commissions in in town uh as to how um you know some of these issues uh will be uh affecting the town and then also there's things that kind of just land in this other category which is Town initiatives or programs or actions that the town can take so you'll see how these play out but this is kind of how we're organizing um and one thing to note as we move forward on this is that a lot of the resilience actions uh and the goals themselves are very interdisciplinary so an action May address multiple goals or uh a goal might might be addressed by uh multiple actions so um each action will be Advanced through one or more of the tools and methods and you'll see that and then also something to be thinking about as you hear us talking today in this discussion is that all of the actions that are recommended uh at the end of the day as with any plan need a champion they need someone or some group that's going to kind of agree to say yes we will make this happen you might not be the only people or the only group in involved in making an action happen um but it needs to be something that someone can actually say yes we believe in this and we're going to make this happen so um we are thinking about which boards and commissions make the most sense perhaps to um you know to take charge of some of these actions but that's something that we'll be looking to the town for input on as as well um and then I present this um graphic just to sort of show you how we're tracking uh the various recommendations and I don't mean for you to be able to necessarily read everything on this page but I want to show you how it's organized so on the Le hand side you can see sort of a category of General topics um and then the recommended actions in white and then all of those green columns are essentially the goals that uh the actions intend to meet and so if there's a check mark in it you know that uh action is uh aimed towards addressing that goal um the blue categories are uh the type of tool that we're recommending and then the yellow category is the board or Commission in the community uh that would be involved in making that action happen so um this is an evolving spreadsheet so as I said I don't mean for this to be you know the be all and end all but I want you to see how we're kind of organized and tracking this um and then this is how we will be organizing uh the final report um pretty um you know pretty expected but we'll talk about existing conditions and Trends resilience goals we'll describe the different tools and methods and then we'll actually dig into the actions and have a description for each of the actions who might be uh the champion for that action um and sort of what the next steps would be um for each of those so that's all kind of background and framing for the discussion today so you understand where we are and what our think is we're actually uh our project is supposed to uh wrap up by the summer so by the beginning of the summer you should have that final report and we will have had uh hopefully another chance to to get um some feedback and input uh from you all um but the items today that I want to talk about I have eight items um that are all set up like you see here where we've uh presented a recommendation and kind of talk about the goals Who's involved and the uh sort of tools or methods that were recommending um so I'll go through all eight of these and then um you can feel free I can't really see you so it's hard for me to take questions in the middle of this but if someone wants to uh manage that I'm fine with that or you can wait till the end and and uh talk about questions at the end so we should I think we should take questions at the end of each of the okay six at the end of each one yeah because otherwise we'll okay that's great um let's just keep in mind for timing I don't know exactly uh what your timing constraints are but there are eight of these that we'll try to get through we got extra time you've got a little time yeah but we're we're targeting kind of 820 to finish so I think you you got some time excuse me perfect um well good hopefully we can have some good discussion on this so this first one um is in sort of the category of fire protection um topic so increase the number of firefighting water sister and throughout the town so we heard very clearly when we met with the local emergency planning committee uh and particularly from churos that this is something um you know that he's concerned about uh that that you know the town should be thinking about and um this isn't necessarily something that can be done just by addressing new development it's really um you know combination of making sure that if there are new uh you know significant new developments that they do consider uh water supply uh for firefighting and that is already in your regulations the the fire chief does have the ability uh to you know sort of approve and and negotiate over what the uh water supply would be in a new subdivision um but what this is really getting at is trying to understand where you do have vulnerabilities in the community now and where you should uh be installing or looking to install new systemns uh in different areas of town and then along with that uh making an effort to really map and um and kind of uh moderate the all the different systemns that you do have so the fire department the fire chief knows where the sisters are but really putting those you have a GIS system that's in development so mapping those um those systemns understanding what sort of the service area is for each of those uh emergency water ssts um and then you could consider also code updates that would strengthen the fire protection standards uh in the subdivision reg so as I said Chief Saros has the ability to sort of negotiate and approve uh water sources for Fire Protection in a new subdivision but you could um strengthen that with additional standards or clarified standards um for those uh for those ssts um so those are I'll stop there and open it up and see if folks have comments questions we'd love to hear any questions but also it's good to hear feedback as to whether this is yes something that's very important or H maybe not something we would prioritize or uh any feedback such as that that you want to provide well I would start by saying you know with given what's going on out in Los Angeles and you know thinking about what's important to protecting people and property within our Community this would be really high level of importance and I I think it's good that we're talking about that at this point one of the things Ellie I did want to kind of ask and maybe you'll get to this or not but um you you started the this with that chart or the schematic that had the um resilience goals and you had an awful lot of them and this one is one that you picked which is fire protection which I think is you know personally I think is really good and appropriate um I I was looking at the uh U comprehensive emergency management plan of Carlile and there's a table in there that shows you know what what is considered the they s talk about threats hazards and vulnerability analysis summary and the they have the frequency of the threats and they the threats are flooding tornadoes wildfires hurricanes tropical storms pandemic and winter storms and Wildfire Wildland Fire is a moderate frequency but you know obviously a high impact but the the frequency um one that's the highest is winter storms and I was curious you know I didn't see winter storms or anything like that I see water and flooding which is important and I See Fire um you know wildfires as as potential um you know big threat and big impact but um you know what about winter storms because um you know with the with coming down or you know there's huge impacts that could happen as well so I just wondered if that's being Advanced as well so we do have one of the items we brought to talk to you today is um about what to do about ensuring continued power uh service and that isn't you know we're talking about essentially trying to uh strategically underground wires or at least have a better open conversation with eversource about how to do um you know limbing of trees and maintaining of trees in areas where you do have this kind of a uh heightened threat and you know sort of having a better uh back and forth communication with ever source and in your town uh internally about maintaining trees and considering strategically undergrounding wires in certain places so uh we'll get to that later on but that's really the one that uh the item that kind of rides Rose to the top in response to the uh winter storm threat our our sister in locations that is that a layer in GIS yeah so they have been mapped and um our GIS consultant has put together like a a a plan for running an analysis so we can figure out where there are areas that the fire uh hoses wouldn't be able to reach from the systems we have so that we know where our most vulnerable areas are do you know jul what percent of the homes would be reach by those I don't know yet but that would be part of the analysis he's um we're hoping he can get to it like at some point in the next year or two um but yeah he have we have a whole strategy we've been working on with the chief about how to do an analysis to figure this out so yeah so obviously as uh Travis mentioned it's very much in the news it's funny because I got a question from a constituent today about it and I emailed Brian and of course Brian gave a very thoughtful long thoughtful response uh and I recommended actually was the citizen recommended that he probably should put an article in the paper or you know because people are thinking about that so when you think about and Brian himself said like I'll quote him wildfires are the issue I believe is most likely to become a disaster so storms are bad things happen but an uncontrolled Wildfire going to take out a lot of houses and they cannot and there is no way he he raised some points that unlike la we don't depend on a single water source so the good news on the sistens is they exist independent of other ones but you know if it's a really bad fire the local other local fire departments are probably also going to be dealing with it's going to be a high wind you know I mean if that if the situation is such that it would lead to those kind of fires everybody's going to have a problem so there's not going to be the ability of all these people like we rely on come to one town and help them out right so bear that in mind I think the thing that probably we should think about if we're going to think about it is not so much the water supply and all that he's got that but do you know what's going on in La now and what will go on it's Insurance driven is you got to make your houses more fire we live in the woods and we build wood houses right you know do we have to tighten that up and I know in some of the other stuff that horse wh was looking at are this flood planes like you need this the trees to be farther away you know we love our trees and we have trees everywhere I mean those are the kind of things from a code standpoint in planning board stand I think we would have to start thinking about if we perceived that that risk is because that single risk would take out a lot of houses and we would not be able catastrophic we just wouldn't be able to right and that's a good point and and practically I I can't imagine you could ever build enough systemns you could not and you just cuz they're each they're each right for like two minutes right and so I think it's I think your points are taken um and it's yeah how would how would a town like Carlile best to its best ability prepare for something like that that's why I say it's not just what the fire department does it's what the builders do and the homeowners do to protect and that's the where it's going to go with I'm sure with LA is they just won't ensure those houses unless they need but even to to the point that was made about educating residents about you know burning all you know there's there's lots of things that people I think most people in town are generally conscientious but you probably can't communicate that enough or during times of drought how is we as a town do we you know you don't really ever see you see it in other towns water rationing and stuff we don't really have everybody their own a town like Red Flag Warning or high high fire risk that we proactively promote un like the major streets and things and so maybe there are things like that we can also consider but a fire risk isn't necessarily it is could start here but it could be in chelsford and then below here you know so I I think some of the I guess easier ways of of I don't know less costly and and potentially easier to get at solving that would be you know Forest management um you know having and working with um the companies to to do a better job limming and trimming and you know and and that's going to be a political discussion because a lot of we love our trees too you know and but but I think a lot of at least what's going on in in the western part of the United States is that you know the undergrowth has just been allowed to come up and there hasn't been the kind of fire you know the forest management plan put in place we don't necessarily have the ability to even do that we have a lot of private lands we have you know in indiv home owners but you're right maybe education for homeowners would be and I will say like my house in particular I I bought wetlands and I have Tall Pines um that I've gotten permission to remove um and there's more trees I would like to remove but it's in some cases onerous to go through that process and they prevent they they present multiple risks in terms of fire wind everything and um as a town we work to to protect the natural habitat and to protect the wetlands but I do think we have to look at how we balance that protection with some of these other issues agre anyway well we've got seven more you guys did really good job on disc thoughts I I just want to note too that a lot of that did come up when we met we met with the um lepc uh last week I can't remember what day um but a lot of those discussions did come up um as I said we're not presenting every single sort of recommendation to you tonight but we did talk about educating the public or residents on how they can manage their own lands and we also talked about bringing together convening the large land owners in town including sort of conservation groups uh State uh local and private land owners that have large properties that might want to do some of that um you know Forest management uh you know there have been some requests for prescribed Burns and um just sort of facilitating discussions around that so that they can you know so that you as a community can start to think more about fire management sure um so that is that is definitely part of this discussion I also flip to the next recommendation here which is related to that um but a different issue related to homeowner education um but this is another item that has come up that many households in carile are already using new battery technologies um energy storage batteries electric vehicles electric scooters and educating folks on you know how to properly use those uh and store those in their homes or install them in their homes in the safest possible way uh and then also the idea of potentially um requiring those uh home you you know homes with those um facilities to actually register them with the fire department or register with them with the town so that the fire department knows that that risk is out there when they go to fight a fire because there are some unique firefighting risks related to um these lithium lithium ion batteries uh and other uh sort of renewable sources so um this this idea re really comes down to this combination of education and registering equipment and mapping those locations uh for some risk reduction um purposes you're saying register like where everybody everybody that has EV what are you talking about register it could be everyone who has an EV could be everyone who has a um if you have a uh apparently you know the Tesla batteries are becoming more popular for you know connecting up to your solar system and then uh you have a Tesla battery and there's some concern about where those get uh installed and how easy they are to um address if there were to be a fire um so if the fire department knows where they are and can communicate with those homeowners about those you know any issues or or risks that would be helpful and it's not you know not to say that's an effort to not have those Technologies at all it's just um you know uh mitigating the risk of those Technologies and making sure that they're installed prop properly they are still new and changing and evolving in the lepc meeting I think it was the fire chief who brought up maybe they could just in and maybe it's the building inspector but in their permits for installing things like that if you're going to get an electrical permit to put in one of these things just provide some specifications so that then the the fire department knows what they're going to be dealing with it could be at least knowable and if we map it GIS I mean they could have a director that exactly should I move on to the next one sure okay so we're going to move on to flood protection so this recommendation um you have a lot of uh a lot of your codes various codes uh refer to flood protection or excuse me refer to the flood plane in the codes so the zoning and wetlands um protection bylaw does the flood Hazard district and your zoning refers to the flood plane the water supply regulations have uh some references to uh the flood plane and proximity to the flood plane Board of Health regulations in several different ways have uh references to a flood plane and all of these bylaws generally and regulations generally have a different um slightly different terminology that's used for defining the flood plane and also uh different definitions in some case no definition for the flood plane um so we're recommending kind of two things here one is to bring all of those codes into um conformance so that they all use the same terminology uh for the flood plane and how you define the flood plane based on you know whatever it is that you use um so right now typically people understand the flood plane to be the FEMA 100-year flood plane which is also known as the FEMA the 1% annual chance flood boundary so that's the boundary of the flood that has a one in 100 chance of happening uh in a given year um so what we're recommending is given climate change and what we know or what we understand to be happening with climate change there uh we are having more intense rainfall events and that there will be sort of more water on uh the land surface and flood planes will grow because with this more intense rainfall uh the water has to go somewhere and it's coming down faster it doesn't have as much time to infiltrate so you will have larger flood planes um and we're already seeing that you're probably already experiencing that that you have floods that occur outside of the mapped 100-year flood plane um so what FMA has on its Maps now in carile is the essentially what you know what we might use or might call the the 500e flood plane um but that's the 2% annual chance flood boundary so that's uh the boundary of floods that happen uh at a one in 500 or one in yeah one in 500 um frequency so those floods are going to be more frequent than uh a one in 500 chance of happening uh the five one in 500e flood or excuse me the 500y year flood is essentially going to become the 100y year flood the 100-year flood will become more frequent and will have you know will be a 50-year flood um so in preparation for that uh we're suggesting that you start to use the 500-year flood boundary in your codes and that doesn't mean necessarily that you would regulate the 500-year flood as you do the 100-year flood now but you could and we would say over time that is the way you should go but perhaps there's an intermediate uh requirement um particularly with regard to the the flood Hazard district and the um the wetlands protection RS where you have sort of this interim area between the 100-year flood and the 500-year flood that you do apply some additional protections on um and one thing I just want to kind of talk about a little bit is that you have a um your flood regulations and your flood zone are really geared toward protecting buildings and structures and property on or within the flood plane the wetlands protection RS U both state and local are geared toward protecting the flood plane for the purposes of the services provided by the flood plane so the flood plane is part of an ecosystem or part of a hydraulic system hydrology system in the landscape and the Wetland protection bylaw and and uh State RS are geared toward protecting that uh that natural system whereas the other sort of flood plane um and flood zoning district is really geared toward protecting property from Harm's Way so by o by using both of these both the wetlands protection requirements and this 500-year flood boundary you kind of have two different layers of protection on these and the reason I'm explaining this is because um I can show you this at the end I might be able to do it now but I have a map that shows essentially the FEMA map of the 100 and 500 year flood and how that overlays with wetlands in your community and essentially the difference between the most of the 500e flood plane is also Wetlands which is not unexpected so making this change to regulating the 500-year flood boundary um wouldn't necessarily incorporate a whole new area of know regulatory area in town but it does provide strengthened protections for both the ecosystem Services provided by the flood plane and the uh property safety um Services Ellie it sounds it sounds like that the Conservation Commission may already be protecting those areas anyway I mean well to to a degree stronger than the flood plane maps to to per if you're talking about building throw up the because it's very inform what she just said that's what I was going to ask you ell throw up those two maps because it's really quite um revealing that and now I I didn't understand until you mentioned it that the um the majority of the flood plane is already Wetland sure so the question Ellie that I have on that is maybe this is where Travis is going is we're there's already rules about Wetlands like you mentioned here non-invasive species but you can't plant anything they don't we just it's like a no touch Zone isn't it it's not like you have to go in there and eradicate purple well you can you can but I don't think you're mandated right I mean purple BL stri yeah so so this is you're seeing my map right yes it's not pretty I apologize because I'm just using the mass mapper um which any of you could play around with the one in the kcom the side by side I think it'd be more educational that the consom pitch that was in the package has the two maps next to each other yeah so this is essentially the same idea I'll just show you here so what you're looking at right now is the flood plane map and I just picked whatever you know random place in carile right um but what you're looking at is the the blue is the hundred-year flood plane yeah this red striped area is the flood way so that's you know the high flow area within the uh flood and then this orange is the 500e flood plane so the this is the you know one in 500 uh chance of flooding in any given year right um and if you look at these areas just kind of keep your eye on these on you know pick one and keep your eye on it and I'll turn the Wetland line on this is just the D Wetland so this is not super accurate this is just you know a guess yeah um but you can see that the wetlands and the 500-year flood plane overlap right almost entirely so there's very little area of the 500-year flood plane that's not in Wetlands but there is some um and so that's I think that's interesting in a couple ways first of all it's not unexpected I think it makes a lot of sense that the areas that will flood in a big storm are already considered to be wetlands and they're kind of ready to hold that water um that that's logical but also um these areas in the future will flood more and more often right and you if you can protect them both under the uh flood plane uh you know flood zoning as well as the uh Wetlands protection RS then you're protecting it for two different purposes that are overlapping so all of the wetlands RS you might say oh well these are you know these areas are protected we can't do much there um they're protected for the purposes of ecosystem Services essentially so you're trying to preserve the function of the Wetland system the Wetland Network the flood storage that's provide that's provided for the purposes of protecting nature but all of the flood uh flood plane zoning is geared toward keeping houses and keeping buildings out of Harm's Way so that they're not built in a flood plane so they regulate how buildings can be built they can be built up higher they can be built back they can you know have certain um flood Mi mitigation elements on their first floor depending on what the buildings are um but a Wetlands protection reg will protect the services the the environment itself and sometimes those things don't necessarily Jive if it's only being protected by the wetlands protection act and the uh the Conservation Commission wants to offer you know not offer but they respond to some sort of variance request and they allow development well it might be in a flood plane it might be in a 500-year flood plane and you don't really want development there because you know that that's going to be flooding relatively soon yeah let me take another crack let me take another crack at this CU you said that you said that you've said it and we get it I think the point and that's why I like the overlay map that you have in the cons company if they simply what I'm understanding is and if I look at that map and I see how the the amount of purple in that map that isn't in a already in a Wetlands is Tiny so that's 8020 rule okay there there's some people maybe they're maybe we have to you know tighten up the RS but if we're simply protecting if we just enforce the wetlands RS we have and not give variances right but my question remains when you say Ellie like we should beef up the wetlands protection you know part of it what would we beef up what would we do other than just enforce what's on the books like How do you make it tighter because you're already not supposed to build anything we don't require that you go in and take out species I mean it exists as it is right and if it floods once in a while that's like nature right so yeah so there's also different requirements for alteration of a flood plane and if those were there are storage requirements um compensatory storage requirements for alteration of a flood plane under the Wetland protection act and if you're protecting that area for as a wetland but not recognizing that it's a flood plane because you're only looking at the 100-year flood plane and not the 500e flood plane then you're not addressing compensatory storage what does storage mean in this case the holding water so that like a flood plane the whole purpose of a flood plane right is to hold water um when there's you know a flood uh it's the area that holds the water story storage is I'm sorry you're trying to contain the flood yeah well you're trying to give it a place to go yeah okay well all right so I think did kcom understand it I mean we don't have to reinvent the wheel here did they did they understand what you were doing and support it they understood it to some degree um I think we're going to have another conversation with them I had one conversation with them a couple I don't know a month ago maybe ago I think it was October I know might have been long time I can I have a very I have a very specific question because I know we need to move on and it's that that at what point does FEMA update its map so the the 500 year just becomes the 100 year do you know what I mean like if it's not every hundred years what do they at some point are they going to change it or is that just bureaucracy and it's not going to change because we could change it to the 500 year and then FEMA can change it the 500 the 100 and the 500 become you know what I mean like what's that process do they update these things do they not update these things it's insurance too yeah your maps are 10 years old okay they're from uh 2013 or 2014 so maybe a little bit more than 10 years old now okay uh and FEMA updates them at irregular intervals that have to do with how many people live in a particular location okay uh and they do it typically by wated uh sometimes by County but they've been switching to Watershed the thing about FEMA Maps is that they are always backward looking they only map the risk as they understand it right now yep uh so by the time based on past experience based on past experience that makes sense so by the time they get and it's a it's a like 3 to five year process to get them done okay so by the time they get approved they're out of date so yes some point fima will come back and redo the maps uh of the Watershed for carile uh but even when they do that the way that they adjust it will likely uh not reflect as much Forward Thinking uh concerns about climate change because FEMA is only going to look at risk as they understand it today as of the time that they are doing the Mapp okay one other element of this is that the whole reason for the FEMA firm Maps is for insurance purposes and insurance companies and reinsurance companies are ahead of the game they are you know you've heard the stories about them pulling out of California and other places for fire risk they're pulling out of Florida for flood risk you know you are you all are not in major flood risk areas Etc but the insurance company is likely to be ahead of fima on this one well I would think that you know the easiest way to address locally if we wanted to tighten this up is with the you know our local vla of the you know Wetlands protection act of what we can do because we can't change the FEMA Maps you know so if you know but that's just a suggestion I don't know just as far as trying to do something sooner rather than later I don't know if that was no I agree so one adjustment to what I said was that the FEMA Maps only have the uh risk as they see it but they do have the 1% annual chance and the 2% annual chance uh and so that gives you a sense of where the flood plane might go and the wetlands on into a static map like you can see them on the map that Ellie showed but those are just an estimate the wetlands get delineated with every project so the way that you understand the way that the landscape is functioning uh the the biological changes the ecological changes happen faster then the hydrological changes of where the water's going to go and move uh though if there's a lot more development in a lot of areas get paved you have a lot moreia surface that can change things pretty quickly but uh having the delineation of the wetlands uh is more of a uh moving Target than saying we're going to use the flood plane for the 2% annual chance uh and it allows for a more solid way of looking at your zoning because then the zoning isn't uh dependent on delineations of the wetlands which are not uh supposed to be part of zoning necessarily anyway I think we're gettinger we're in the Ws all right sorry all right Ellie keep going sorry we bed you down here I did yeah no good yeah it's good [Laughter] weeds yeah the weeds okay so this is the recommendation that addresses your first question y Ry are you seeing my screen no your I'm not driving Ryan what' you do no it's me no it's Ry here we go stay upstairs I agree what's in the bottle okay so um maintaining power so our suggestion is uh to consider undergrounding some power lines um and then along with that I think we would broaden this to say also consider strategic planning for where you're going to work with eversource on uh you know limming trees and trimming trees uh to protect you know certain areas of town and what we what we talked about with the lepc is that uh there are areas of town that are sort of more prone to power outages uh during these big winter storms heavy winds certain areas if you know can be sort of you know a whole area or neighborhood can be um you know sort of cut off by down trees down wires they have no power they can't get out um and working with eversource to start to understand and put on a map uh using your GIS as to where those locations are and then thinking strategically about are there you know certain power lines that should be undergrounded are there certain areas that should be maintained more heavily than others to protect those wires um and I think hearing from the fire department and others there are some areas that are sort of known to the emergency responders in town but putting those on a map and really Str thinking strategically about how to uh you know act in a Forward Thinking way in terms of better maintenance um and and undergrounding wires would be helpful you have an eversource uh representative there's a municipal representative at eversource for all of their um client communities and so making you know building on that relationship and and uh sort of broadening their communication with the town can also be helpful uh they communicate generally with uh you know the fire department or the tree Warden and that's kind of it um but bringing them in on some of these discussions as well on a more regular basis can can help with this uh topic as well Ellie it's already had an impact because in that last lepc meeting Jim Hall our DPW superintendent uh director he sent this uh eversource's 2025 pruning plan I don't know if you've seen it but he sent it to everyone I thought wow we're like moving here things are happening things good PR pruning is I think something I think they plan on doing regularly but moving underground is pretty expensive does eversource have any kind of policy about that I've not seen a case where they actually decommission the overheads and they bury cables I I would be surprised if they would Embrace that do you have any sense Ellie um I don't know that there's a policy on that but nothing's going to happen unless you talk to them right and I think if they probably know I'm sure they know where they have problem areas yeah and they're going to say oh it's too expensive but if you have conversations with them and it really becomes evident that that's maybe the the best approach then you have you know at least a basis of conversation and you can start to work with them on where the money might come from and how that might happen um or the alternative but it what we've heard to date is that they you know there's sort of a a very narrow line of communication that's maybe not happening all that frequently between eversource and the community and you all are dear dealing with a lot of you know concerns about storms and power outages and you know lines that are are issues so starting that communication is you know the first yeah right the you know the first action but I think part of the discussion you know should be how do we think strategically about this is it better maintenance and what is that maintenance plan is it how are they deciding where their maintenance happens they're only concerned about their infrastructure but you all are probably concerned about where do you know where do certain people uh with certain needs live are they being affected over and over and over again by these outages how do we protect them you know who's being affected and impacted um what areas of town what services can't they reach or what services are unable to be provided because there's no power Etc um and those are the kinds of things that the town is concerned about but ever source is probably not quite as concerned about that in the way that you all would be yeah okay okay next one sure um so I think I have two items related to housing that I wanted to bring up um this one is uh you know promoting small small scale density reuse existing buildings and materials and create and and allow for a variety of housing options uh all of these things help to advance social resilience uh and housing resilience which is sort of uh you know houses that in and of themselves are more resilient and the ability for people to have housing that uh you know allows them to be resilient and then also reducing carbon emissions and and uh efficiency of uh energy use um so what we're proposing here is either code or policy changes and education uh to you know allow for or have the discussion around small scale density um reusing existing building materials there may be some sort of uh demolition review bylaw that you could consider for all you know proposed demolition over a certain amount of a of a structure so that um you know it considers a requirement for deconstruction or Andor diversion of some proportion of materials from the the landfill when a structure is taken down um the other topic that I would kind of fold into this uh housing issue is the idea of um you know there is this Adu law that has come into play in uh is in enforced or um enacted in the state of Massachusetts you already allow adus that are different than the state um but how do you sort of have a discussion and facilitate the implementation of the Adu law uh locally in a way that helps to provide this variety of housing options um reusing existing you know buildings and structures and incorporating some of those adus um in a way that is also this sort of small scale density right uh and the idea there is that a lot of these um you know small scale homes using existing materials and um sort of this variety of housing options also can be more resource efficient um if you're reusing materials there's a lot of embedded carbon that is um you know sort of held up in that building and rather than tearing it down you're reusing it you can incorporate different housing types in existing structures um I could go on and on about this but there's sort of a lot of elements of um housing variety and reuse uh that fall under this so I guess the the main item here is education on this issue and really having discussions about the housing uh housing needs uh the you know what does small scale density look like and how might it fit in um and what are the resilience benefits of that there's a lot of social resilience benefits of having people uh being able to live you know near family members in communities where they are from or where they have lived for a long time um and then also living near each other um in certain cases so uh I'll stop there but that's uh that's the gist of this recommendation next one yep yep this sit a lot of areas did I skip one hold on nope okay so um septic systems you as uh you know as well as I do that you all are on um septic systems in town um one thing that we have talked about in a couple of the different meetings with different boards and commissions uh I think maybe this board as well is the idea that you have septic systems in all of your you know for all of your residences uh not everybody necessarily knows how to maintain them properly or is able to maintain them properly and also you have alternative septic systems with um sort of enhanced nitrogen removal nitrogen removal capabilities that are a little bit more complex than normal septic systems or traditional septic systems and they can be very effective and they are being you know they're being used or or or um approved uh to allow for you know um addressing other constraints on a site so that somebody can have a septic system but they require maintenance and not every you know as I said like not everybody necessarily recognizes or or you know fully understands why it's necessary what is required um and you don't as a community in your regs necessarily have a way of tracking and ensuring that septic systems are being maintained properly um so the idea here is to consider essentially a septic system utility uh which could be part of the local government it could be a a separate entity but having a utility that would essentially provide maintenance ongoing maintenance and operations in some cases for septic systems so that you would have some you know Insurance in town that septic systems are functioning properly if they're not maintained They don't serve their purpose um and and therefore your groundwater is not being uh protected you know waste waterer is not being treated properly and uh it can be a public health issue so um the septic system utility idea is not something that's been implemented uh in very many places it is being explored and I think I talked to this board about this that it is being explored and researched by by um the on the cape by the um onsite I can't think of the name of the formal name of but it's a research center in barnable County that focuses on on-site systems um and understanding how to better uh treat Wastewater onsite so there are resources out there to look into this uh and it's um one of our recommendations so well it's an interesting on that one yeah I think it's I hadn't thought of that about this uh we we feel kind of I mean I'm going to say it but it may be out of line we feel sort of overregulation not the other way but but everybody does have a septic system and unless you're going for a permit or new construction there isn't any oversight so really my question I think there's two parts to this one I might ask Ryan because we're doing things like getting bulk paved contracts that offer discounts and we did it with power right even though people pay for their own utility we're kind of a agrega aggregating you know people's needs to get more purchasing power it's not unreasonable to say let's shop everybody needs to pump their septic every four years or some interval like that right so you know we could aggregate the need and we could maybe get a good pricing for cuz there's all these little guys out there and you know I read didn't City in the woods is this guy good is that guy good you know who knows right and and they all need the same thing and it's pretty simple right you bump your septic out so that Andor an inspection service I don't I'm not interested in overregulation but I'm definitely interested in providing that kind of a service a service to the population it seems like something we probably are pretty good at right is vetting those guys and maybe having a list of approved and some best favor Nation pricing that they give us in exchange for that Good Housekeeping SE so I would be in favor of that and maybe maybe when you said utility I was thinking like a utility like an app like maybe we we could track like remind people like if it's been for years or because people do forget right yeah that's the main thing I think people forget that they actually need help thanks okay next one also related to what happens on you know your individual Residential Properties so um this is an education piece or education recommendation for the most part and the idea here is just Clarity for all the different boards and commissions and the public about the protections that are offered by the well and septic standards that you have and the constraints that are created and what that may mean for you know recommendations to update some of those uh requirements so your local septic RS uh require as you know they require a leech field that's a little bit larger than what's required under the state's Title 5 regulations um there are already a number of um safety valves or or buffers built into the assumptions in Title 5 about the design flows for you know the per bedroom in a home and so just making it clear to you know the not just the Board of Health but others you know that are involved in development decisions in town what those flow calculations already incorporate and what they address and how they you know how it relates on a you know the septic system flows are calculated on a per bedroom basis but there's a lot of assumptions in there about you know how many people per bedroom and um you know that includes all the other uh waste streams from kitchens you know toilets bathroom toilets uh showers everything are Incorporated in there so it's not necessarily um on a per person basis well it is on a per person basis but there are assumptions that are important to understand about that and how do those relate when you're comparing perhaps a you know a house over here with four bedrooms versus two houses over here with two bedrooms um and how do you how do you understand comparing Apples to Apples or clarify comparing Apples to Apples for different types of development and this is related to our recommendation about trying to promote a variety of different housing types um and in order to do that and understand sort of what the um you know what the balance means for different housing types or what the impacts are it's helpful to know how to measure or understand the impacts and the benefits of septic system treatment uh and design and then also the same goes for Wells so uh local Wells are regulated essentially by the Board of Health this is no surprise to you um but there are not necessarily very stringent requirements on uh on Wells there are some requirements on Wells uh and they tend to and I looked at you know we've looked at yours your requirements as well your requirements uh tend to focus very much on how a well is built and what the water quality is in the water which are both very important things there is not a lot of information or requirements or guidelines in the local Board of Health regs about um the quantity or the flow that is produced by a well and that is something that we've heard about as a concern uh in various you know different conversations through this project um about you know whether a home has enough water um and you know what a home next door might do uh how how that might impact the water on you know someone's property and so I think our recommendation here would be first understanding what your RS actually do to protect the quantity of water um which is somewhat limited and then what can you do to better ensure that the uh water supply in a given well is actually going to supply the water that's needed for that home um and rather than you know just sort of saying well there's a risk that it might you know harm the house next to it or that there's sort of a um an impact on the house next to it really using um you know data from Individual Wells and building that into uh the requirements of the Board of Health regulations um there is guidance from the state that you know is kind of a step I would say on what you can incorporate in your local Board of Health regulations with regard to well um development and water supply requirements but there is no hard and fast um you know State regulation or anything that says if you're going to have a well for a private house you have to have a flow of X for your home you know five milligrams or five um gallons per day or or whatever it is is million gallons per day minutes sorry that's right Ellie we are getting towards the end of the time we have available here is there anything else that you wanted to wrap up with or I do want to touch on this last one we've I can do it quickly we've touched on social resilience and I just kind of want to highlight that I think this is something that may maybe wasn't on your radar at the beginning I suspect perhaps at the beginning of this project and it came out as something that was of interest to folks and was of a concern to folks and there's also been a lot of research uh recently out uh in the in Academia on this topic but social resilience is very important and can be very helpful uh in recovering from and making it through different emergency situations and what we would recommend here is just facilitating social networks in your community by you know building networks among neighbors um you know you can do that with funds for you know helping them meet each other have parties administrative tools for communication among those neighborhoods Etc so building social resilience can be um beneficial and relatively inexpensive but very effective great so I'll close with that great well thank you I'd like to make just three brief closing remarks so one is great you know really interesting and I see your timeline um so you're going to you're kind of done with the board Outreach part and now you're going to gather your findings and you're going to come back to us again uh before you're done right is that what you're going to do yes we will have a draft report I was looking at Julie but she can't tell that because I'm okay on a screen I my own comment is that some of the things you touched on are right in line with like that last one and the affordable housing or the small that's already we're already covering all that with our own master plan initiatives so we where resonates with me I would say are things that are actionable that are really like what we started with disasters you know the the storms and the fires and the floods I mean the things that really require us to do something in implementation I think that what I'm trying to say is that the affordable housing initi the adus the social networking we are doing it we're aware of it and we are doing it maybe not specifically through the lens of climate resilience but we're doing it anyway so I'd rather see a more focused recommendation set on the things that are like we started with like the fire what can we do there I mean that would be of more use to us so and my last question is I see in your the grid where you had all those things it's a very Julie Merc are looking kind of grid um is uh that's a compliment there's it is a compliment every very thorough everybody there's a little bit here for all the boards but the MVP core has every action item what is the MVP core it's a group of mostly staff accordingly so it's you guys it's the daytime government staff yeah that meets with them periodic it's a thing it's a real it is a real thing it includes representation from a ton of different departments and Public Safety uh is on it like there's a few volunteers as well um some people from ESC okay yeah terrific all right I think it was created by the TA right it was created before my time what does MVP stand for vulnerability the core committee has been was established in 2020 I think and then there was a whole Community resilience building process and then there was um a planning Grant and then now this is an action Grant but it's not a public board or it subject to open meeting LW oh it is oh I didn't realize that okay Julie for all these things obviously we're talking at a a town level but disasters are not restricted to town lines um and I know we've gotten some some grant money uh for some or all of these things is there additional grant funding what's where's the state fit in all this in terms of supporting towns in taking some of these actions or is it more of a here you go guys figure it out there's a lot of money will we remain eligible for the money is the big question on my mind related to MBT communities oh right well okay but there there's a lot of money to support assuming the state's not suing suing us um or withholding funds or bringing the hammer get in line but so the state the state is is supporting Grant programs that support specific areas or in general especially recommendations that come out of a process like this for sure it would be helpful to at a high level understand what potential funding there is there as we as we have some of these other discussions y that would be helpful um well thank you Ellie and Gabriella this was really helpful and informative so um we'll look forward to having you back here and getting an update on where things are thank you very much good to see you thank you thank you bye bye bye bye all right so moving on thanks Julie um we are going to talk about the annual town meeting warrant article review um I think we are GNA talk the estri road uh next week right didn't I get next meeting next meeting yeah so I mistakenly put this one on here as something that need to be approved at town meeting but that I was confusing two different two different things so SD Road will be its own vote at the next meeting it wasn't properly advertised of the select board yes so Trail and conservation already approved this easement and now it's up for select Board review and final signature okay for the next time great but also our next thing in this agenda item was operating budget townwide Cola so there's two things we wanted to accomplish here one is to um go over Warren articles as we know them now MH with specific request of the board to start thinking about what you want for presentation information about these various warrant articles there's a lot of meet to a lot of them and we have time but it's obviously disappearing quickly so wanted to go over them and and just see what you wanted for further information and then Scott actually asked for time to talk about townwide Cola based off um budget discussions at the finance committee so I'll start here um so we can move along the consent agenda typically runs through or in article 8 which is the wage and classification plan so on the consent agenda you have the town reports your town elected salaries which is now down to just the board of assessors and the moderator you have the actuary study for OPB this is just an annual you put aside money annually to make sure that we are constantly valuating our our OPB fund the authorization of chapter 90 spending Peg spending and then you have to annually authorize revolving funds for the town and then vote on the town waging class plan so that's the first eight so then you're very familiar with the operating budget the the capital plan there is more requested in the capital plan than there is money above reserve for you to pay for the capital plan assuming there's no other warrant articles or additional requests which would seem unlikely uh as people are looking for money so my question for you on the capital plan answer it tonight or not is the finance committee is scrubbing the capital plan and we'll come with a recommendation but what what will you need in terms of information about the various Capital that's been presented and it is very similar to the presentation in the fall so this isn't the first time you've seen it but you haven't seen or recommended the individual items probably is there a list of that in here or it's no separate we haven't seen it it's in the draft one budget got it I think seeing what's recommended what's been hold off and a brief explanation for why it is because obviously the the main concern would be that we not we don't fund something that we for other reasons should be funding um and maybe we have a different perspective than fincom on an item I'm sure you're you have significant input into this though but understanding the the prioritization at a high level of prioritization I think most of these things will be self-evident and some of the rationale for why some things may have been bumped bumped down bumped out and just some assurance that we're not creating a bigger problem um down the road by by pushing something out a year I.E maintenance or or something to that effect that that's what I would want to see instead of not necessarily an argument for each item but just a high level review of how the prioritization was done I don't know do we not we normally don't pull out the capital items just the operating budget no it'll be the capital items will be its own article I I don't need a detailed discussion on every item though for us for the select are you talking about for our discussion here eventually you're going to have to recommend this Capital plan I just want to know what you need to feel comfortable about doing that or not I guess doing it or not for us taking taking a position on their cap on their items I want to make sure we don't all right so let's make sure that we're clear you're the purpose of this chart and your question is what do we need in terms of information support or not support or understand okay and it could be I send you a report to we have people come in and present to whatever it is you need for you know there's a lot of Articles here so right so I want to make sure we don't work at across purposes on uh Thursday we're meeting the tmfc's meeting and we're moving to the new phase of prepping now for the meeting right so closing the warrant early was the recommendation looks like it's going that's good that gives us more time you know so so one of our pivot we're going to what this is a little out of turn but I think it's gerain to the point we're going to close off like the data Gathering and we're going to refine our things but I looked at it this week in preparation and the overwhelming you know sentiment besides what time of day and what day it is is be brief you know there maybe Mantra right be bright be brief be gone I mean people want like they want to get the information ahead of time they want it crisp they want it to move along crisply and tell me the you know what's important so as we we may need more to you know weigh in but as we think about what's needed I mean our you know the committee will decide but I think where we're going with our plan is to go back to each of these proposing entities and say what's your marketing plan what's your pread you know help them work that out and the reason I'm bringing up now is I think in keeping with that that will flow obviously to us so we can help them I think we need the same thing as everybody needs right yeah we need enough pertinent information that we can make a decision ours may be a little bit more P you know complete because we've got analyze things but I think we should kind of keep that lens in mind as we go forward and encourage these boards to do exactly what we're asking put the important stuff up front say it in a way that's easily understand understandable and doesn't take forever to you know so just what say so I want to be helpful here so I'm going to give the quick one sentence on each of these and then maybe we can talk about which ones are more interested in you than others so we just talked about the capital plan the fir Tru we discussed during budget presentation the fire truck that was approved last year prices have gone up to the point where we need to authorize additional borrowing or not buy that truck stabilization is just a placeholder for for additional savings if necessary the MFC article is is called out here because they typically ask for building maintenance to be rolled up into an article under the mfc's control ta bylaw you're familiar with kcom put a placeholder in for a wetland bylaw um pretty significant bylaw change and I'm not following any more about their work than just they asked for a placeholder the treasurer is looking for a couple a couple things to be considered first uh what to do with tailings to make that process more efficient she mentioned that in her meeting with you also some minor investment changes so some of the what we'd call medium movement funds would be able to be invested if we if we adopted certain Mass general laws so try to take advantage of investing in in interest and then increasing the demand fee for people who are late with their taxes we we have a very low demand fee so she would she would like you to consider increasing that can I interrupt you tailing remind me tailings is what tailings is is uncashed checks and how we can process those more efficiently get them can we cover that already at some point policy we had a policy we had a presentation on it is it needed to the town isn't it already a policy to give to change that we would need a town meeting vote that's a brief presentation we don't need we don't need all right I've mislabeled it here but there will be a a um conservation restrict and or easement coming to you for the uh Davis land potentially so this is a placeholder this is the this number 17 18 oh Trans transfer C R11 so this is part of my confusion from today so ignore the the language this is the Davis land and how to process our interest in that land when uh it might be sold to the state we talked about that okay a Great Brook um these are probably meetings in of thems eles but the AA bylaw and its various uh accessory apartment bylaw and its various proposals and changes and then NBTA communities as you know is more likely than not moving to the fall but the planning board has put in placeholder for consultant work to help with that MBTA community's work certain the state's not giving us any money to there some trying to get more yeah I'd like I mean they should good Julie has secured a lot of money to assist in this effort we haven't anything so far okay good hey uh two of your own Creations here the fire station design it's alive um if we can get that work done in time there'll be an ask for fire station design money actual design not this uh initial feasibility to study and then this is a fingers cross but the police station is isn't here for a placeholder we're going out to bid in about a week so we should know this number next month whether or not it is on point or higher or maybe even lower the Board of Health has asked for placeholder on um implementing a mosquito monitoring program in town and then two bylaw changes um one is just a name change the celebration bylaw changing it to the veterans and celebrations committee and then this other one is a little bit more significant the police are asking for you to consider a solicitor bylaw change which would have anybody soliciting around town register with the police or making that activity illegal without registration oh like that one what's not in here is um any CPC articles as well so that is currently missing but we know that and we're waiting for that deadline to complete what is dead what I'm sorry for Community preservation CP articles all that for $44,000 44,000 so I mean just looking at this list I mean I think the like the operating budget and capital plan I think our recommendation would just come out of our our meetings our working meetings and then they would do their presentation to the town primarily on the operating budget like I don't know that we need any our process should take care of those I would think and a lot of these other things are very discreet I don't know much about obviously the Wetland bylaw would would need some more discussion certainly the MBTA communities is going to be a you well it's just money for the it's for this town yeah this the the the real discussion will be in the fall in the fall um so I mean there's so just just sorry so the Wetland bylaw even a dollar to MBTA communities this is just Brian's opinion now and the accessory apartment bylaws are going to generate significant conversation yeah and require the B to weigh in pretty heavily Julie yeah okay I take it from your timeline yesterday that MBTA stuff is gonna you're going to struggle even to get it into the fall based on that fairly aggressive a lot of work to be done a lot of work to be done Adu wasn't as clear to me but it seems like there's also a lot of work a lot to in aor so is that also maybe going to get push to the right it might get to the but at least as of yesterday going to try to go to springt meeting with two bylaws Adu the Adu per the state right and then an amendment to our AA bylaw okay that would be packed in this so you might want to actually I would they would be separate articles okay so you got to do that okay two separate articles when do you think you'll know if you need money from town meeting for the planning or for the MBTA so would we find out before town meeting if we had got this additional funding from the state I'm hoping but they have rolling there's many different Grant programs and they all have different time frames so I might not get ones now but might in the future I think we would my understanding is the planning Bo wants to keep this as a placeholder regardless yeah and there were people at the planning board meeting last night who were like the town needs to hire a consultant like very supportive of I don't know you think this would be contentious to have someone look at how to best because it it looks like it's it's going to happen right I mean by town meeting it's it's not like there's going to be an option to do this unless we want to this again this just my opinion but I think there'll be significant discussion about MBTA as as long as the word is in the article right but the the idea of getting outside resource to help us how to best approach it I mean if people if the and Wayne would have to be and I'm sure he would be if people start to get into a debate about MBTA in general like that's no the question here is so so I guess my yeah I don't see fear's the wrong word but my thing that would extend it is someone asking well how are you going to spend this and then that would open upic discussion right and there's varying opinions I've already heard about how we should spend the money so I think it it's right I think the people are supportive of a consultant as long as it matches an investigation of of their particular interest which is what town meeting is so yeah okay don't think it's a simple vote no but I think and I also think you know and I don't know from your standpoint your the committee David is I think also Wayne just needs to be ious of the amount of debate and the well we're going to I mean it's great that this came out because I actually made a copy of this the only thing I copied out of our packet uh for Thursday because I I and I want to get it to people and I start thinking and these comments I probably move it is there can you send me is this in a spreadsheet s yeah I'll update it too but no don't send it as a PDF can you send me a spreadsheet because I'll I'll uh I'll add the comments here because we need to start thinking about a few things one is we Wayne particularly would like to expand the consent agenda like more things in the consent looking at this I have a hard time seeing things that going there but you know tailings like maybe the maybe the treasure stuff can get lumped in you know simple stuff like that the more of the you know the more of the housekeeping things we can be efficient at opens up more time for the media issues but having said that we have to think also strategically like for example from what you guys were just talking about if if we don't need the money right away for the MBTA consultant then we' just save 45 minutes of like talk for $25,000 right I mean let's think about what's important like if the police station or the fire station if we have to present something that needs real decision with real money and we suck the oxygen out of the room you do it we have to be a little more strategic too move that first well that's another piece of this right is the is also very important but I think I think it's also and I don't know again where where you guys and Wayne Fall falls on this I think at some level we have to also be cognizant about what's the nature of the discussion going on is this truly a media issue or is this just a chance for oh it's a media issue but you know the point I think that I heard just now and I agree with some time boxing I guess is my point well that and everything we let's say we talk about BTA only for the purpose of getting a consultant right everybody will Air all their issues on ta and you're all going to just do it again in the fall so you're not really going to advance the ball you're just going to kind well if you allow that to be the discussion I mean we could always unallow once you you could call the question you can I mean you're right but I'm just saying let's be a little more I think we're we're learning we should be a little more strategic yeah in sequencing in how we require people to pre you know Market their position etc etc and again another suggestion that we will think about is do we want to publish a notional schedule like an estimated time and do we really want that like is that where people are going to cherry pick when they come in and not again it's a Sunday afternoon so they're going to have more flexibility well gee I can go you know take my kid blah blah and then come in at 4 because that's when that issue we we have to think about that stuff that's it's all new world for us on um the other thing on this I think is um how much is and this is a question I guess is the planning board going to um Define what the 25,000 is to be used for in advance of town meeting right yeah that be the goal to like get more specifics around that yeah and and then the other part of that is you know we haven't really discussed what's the what's the uh what's happening between the end of the warrant closing of the warrant and the meeting in terms of getting more information out there that's exactly what we're going to take up we're going to take that up and say okay you know Julie and planning board like here's like I mean we're going to make it up here but here's the template for the for the presentation you have five minutes but you can have a you know I know you've already done a great job of having these sessions ahead of time but you can do these things to pre-market you can post a much longer presentation on the website you can and have a QR code and I mean we're going to we don't need to lecture you on that because you already know that but there's a lot of boards that don't really think that way and we're trying to say put your marketing like we're here at the you know middle of um uh January February March April May we have four months from roughly today to get everything ready and there's lots of things that can be done and we've got to kind of encourage people to go do that and some of it may be as extensive as you you guys did like your open house and your suggestions but a lot of them are pretty simple just get the material out there just you know encourage uh dialogue and through the social media just do things like that so that people both get interested in the issue and get informed about the issue and again we don't know this is like a new territory for us but that's the way I think we want to get that more so you have about six meetings until uh Town meetings so um I would ask that you take a look at this list and make sure work with the chair to identify any additional presentations information you need so that you don't feel rushed at the end to make a recommendation I just wanted to get this to as quickly as possible Cola so um the fincom met with all the Departments last week um I set in on most of them I Know Travis you were there for most of them um we also have as as we know different uh collective bargaining agreements negotiations going on um and a and a common question that's raised in all this and certainly with fincom trying you know now assembling the budget is what's the town Cola and you know most of the budgets presentations do not include Cola some do projections of cola all these other things but I think it would be helpful if not tonight to vote on a cola to maybe set an expectation of what we think an acceptable uh consideration range is for Cola because depending on who you talk to people think you I heard the number of say oh what's it going to be 3% and you know it's that's a high Cola um so I wanted to discuss that tonight just to get a sense of where the the select board feels about that and I also wanted to see if Ryan had a recommendation um I do know the Social Security uh Cola adjustment next year is 2.5% so that's obviously an important data point um but I also wanted to see if we could put um at least a a b or a range or an expectation in terms of what we're thinking so that um because I think at the end of the day it's Pro we're probably in a fairly narrow range that that would be helpful for fincom to at least model and include in its its uh its thing and and also would be feedback in terms of the the town at large so Ryan I don't know do you have a a cola recommendation at this point or any any thoughts you want to share about Cola you could say no I mean um I there's only a small class of employee in town that the townwide Colo applies to so most people are on some type of contract so um I would advocate for the employees that are on that unfortunately I'm in that in that mix so the um so it's a little awkward but the the idea that that this budget could be made or not based on a low townwide Cola I think would be shortsighted but I don't think we can afford you know a record-breaking Cola either so in my presentation I had done 2% because I thought that would at least give you a look but I haven't heard anything from any of the Union negotiations where two would even be right so that's really the issue is has never been how much as you say small number of people are affected so the actual dollars of cola is peanuts it's the signaling and the benchmarking that the teachers union police Union so forth well I will say like over time and I'm I'm not going to necessarily put this up but I've looked at our Cola Our Town Cola over since fiscal 2015 compared to like the the previous teacher agreements and I didn't go into police but I know police the current agreement is tied to the town Cola um and it's all it's it's been within um even though they're separate they've always been in the same range and they haven't really departed if you look at at the average I think it's 200 sub a percent difference if you average those so I do think it's important as a town um it's not a policy per se but I I do think it's important that we try to maintain in all these different agreements and with the town employees a a consistent Cola what remind me I know you're in a police negotiation now we have teachers police teachers is now too yes are you on that I am on that committee you're aware of that so you should be the one that should actually come up with the no because I think I don't think he can come out with that well he can out with a recommendation here he knows stuff he can't unknown what he knows no no no what what I what I've looked at no what I've the my point there's two things in looking at historical Cola in this town one is that it's not like we have wildly different colas and I and I think and that's but that's important and two is that that as we're looking at um in a larger in a broader sense when we're looking at the operating budget and we can talk more about that another time but there is a lot of pressure on the budget and we say like level we say things like level service but in truth level we cannot afford level Service as we Define it you know basically doing all the scope of things we do I get it right but that you're making my point for me I mean my my point is that we fight I have fought hard battles over two versus two .25% yeah versus 2.5 right these are battles when you have 100 Union employees up the hill yep you get 30 here 20 I don't know maybe it's not so much a battle but those two things to my mind are tethered in a way you're in the perfect position because you kind of are aware with school committee as to where that's going without tipping your hand you can help us with your guideline that doesn't undermine the negotiating position of that those negoti that's really and my my general view on it is that a 2 and a half% cola is not sustainable when you add in steps and Lanes okay it's it's achievable but not sustainable okay um historically we've we've been in a Range we've really stayed in the range um we had we had a high year um recently coming out of Co much less than Social Security was if they had they had two consecutive years of six and almost 9% which we you know we've always been in a range between two and I don't I could pull it up not two and a half school no this is for the town and the the town as a whole okay because once you get out of two and two and a half right yeah two and two and a half two and a half is almost not sustainable right two is so I think 2.25 and Social Security being two and a half I don't see any any world where we would go above 2 and a half% but would you go below it is the question yeah and I don't see a world where we'd go below two 2% % no no no you're in that range so it's a two to two and a half range and I think it's fine to to I think it's fine to not vote on it but to just kind of echo that we think that's a a reasonable saying right if you look at the spin curves of I maybe a little unfair to teachers here but you look at the span curve of teachers including by the way the CCS CU they're kind of in the mix too yeah they're at a 3% C right now two 5 versus a 2.5 it's a pretty over time it oh it spreads out and therefore it's a much larger issue in that context and so yeah well and it's I would air on the side of being a little more concerned and and with we know what the teachers and and in different areas there's there's Cola and then there's steps and Lanes different progression theyy they get more stuff so but but Cola applies to all of that and so it it it right it's it's not like a salary line goes up two and a half percent it goes up ex that plus and so when you look at when you look at historically like a 2 and a half% cola would consume most of what would be a two and a half or 3% budget increase exactly um and that doesn't allow for any other cost increases so I think it's important that as a as a select board um we make sure everyone's the the town all of our different contracts are all are all kind of working toward a common goal because it is it is and it is difficult these are all independent negotiations but everyone's looking at everyone else there's morale there's all these other things that need to be taken into consideration police you reminded me that police at least last go round agreed to abide by the town Coler that's correct they they agreed to a floor they agreed to what 2.25% floor floor floor 2.25 they got the floor it's a small difference but it matters generally and we have not gone below 2.25 in the last 3 years so I think we answered to me we've answered the question there's inflation all effec of that we did go three two years ago because again Social Security it's another challenge is people look at that and say well you know we're not keeping up with CPI no you can't I mean it's there's a two years of combined growth of almost 14% right and if we did that as a town well you could do that as a town but we would absolutely have to reduce staff um right so anyway looking forward I don't you know given social secuity is at two and a half inflation is is coming down to to more realistic levels you know I I think two and a half is the absolute Max that we should look at for the town and I think two is like the men so we're back I just see us in that range I would I agree I think we should um 2.25 and we could vote on that another day right okay but uh for fincom I would say you know maybe they model you know they they can pick a given that we haven't voted they can they can make a reasonable assumption in their objection generally our banned yeah I think that's kind of a consensus right yep okay thank you all right so we do need to move on to uh the town hall hour discussion and I think it's Aubrey yep there you are hi Aubrey hey there hi Aubrey hi everybody how are you doing doing great great well thank you so much for uh connecting more about the Town Hall hours um so I know we talked about it before but it'll be good to um revisit that so I wanted to touch followup uh so with the Town Hall hours as you know it's Monday through F Friday from 9:00 to 3 um we've received a lot of feedback from residents uh that it's uh not very convenient for those who have work commitments to try to fit within that six-h hour window Monday through Friday um and additionally there's different office hours depending on the department um so that's not consistent and that just increases the frustration and inconvenience um and also uh when uh job candidates are come in for an interview um this inconsistent of what they're told will be their hours and so there's also just some um confusion even within staff members of what other folks hours are so that just has created a lot of confusion um and frustration when uh Public Service you know whenever he was trying to um give public service so um what I've been uh collecting some data from surveys from residents from staff members I've also got information from as as I mentioned job candidates also with exent interviews other staff feedback um even you know any contractors that might come in um and I also uh researched uh the other towns in the Commonwealth and what their hours are um and trying to make sure that uh when we are in trying to recruit uh interested uh staff members uh job uh candidates that they you know there might be some incentive on Good Town you know good office hours for them to you know to increase interest one of the solutions that I would propose is to make it half day on Friday uh the main reason for this is that most towns in the common wealth are now on half days on Fridays um this would allow longer hours from Monday through Thursday and either that's the same all four days or have one extra long day um um that's kind of defied what other towns do across the Commonwealth but that just makes us so that's makes more accessibility for residents to come in a little earlier a little later after their work hours um and then if they still need to come in on a Friday they still have Friday morning as an option um this also can help be consistent for the department so if there's any deviation from these new hours um it has to be formalized and appr and so that everybody's on the same page um on what those department hours are one of the main examples would be the coah HS uh for van drivers and for their events they might still fall on Friday afternoon so there still would be need for uh flexibility for that those staff members so what I'm looking for is what the next steps might be um for the select Bo what you would like to do um so you know if we went to imp ment new town he hours we'd have to make sure that uh it's the messaging goes out to the town that's also means as I've mentioned uh the tax collector would need to know for the tax bills um to make sure that that's uh reflected appropriately and uh and then if there's any deviation for any of the Departments that we know ahead of time and can advertise that appropriately to staff members and this and like I also mentioned with trying to recruit um new candidates it would be fantastic to uh offer halfday Friday as um a reason to uh come to carile uh it's it's definitely been challenging to recruit I know I've mentioned that several times um recently so um this would be very helpful because that would also match um the surrounding communities of what their hours are and I'm just happy to answer any other questions and you know what those next steps might look like um so Aubrey yeah I appreciate all the data um so questions are you didn't in your options offer up being closed on Friday right so I assume you guys talked about it and feel like that's too long of a gap three days where we can't get stuff done so I'll say for for the options that I provided that was just more reflected on the majority of the towns in the Commonwealth um but I definitely think it's abs absolutely an option to consider the well I'm looking at all these towns so it's it's related I let me go through it and then you can Circle back so the companion a companion question is is six o'clock I like it that one night is late it's 6 o' late enough I know a lot of times are going to s or even 8 CU people maybe six is still a struggle to try to get so again the reason I'm bringing up the Friday thing is also if you're going to make like a really long day you got to got to give somewhere so um I think I also like the 8:30 I think that that makes sense like 9 is too late when people have to get places maybe even 8 maybe one morning really so those are my I like the approach it's just a question of the details I I just I had a couple things to just to add so what we're looking for is is consistency I think this is important for residents and for and for staff I do think that we can talk about impl mation if you want if there is to be a change it's going to be slow so this isn't going to be something that we can change overnight because of employee patterns that exist now but over time as employees are are replaced you would have consistency accountability is also something that that people don't don't necessarily think about so um 99% of our employees are extremely accountable and but every once in a while you get an employee who can take advantage of an our situation in order to to not be accountable and if if you don't have anything to to base it on any policy that is consistent across the board then it then it can be difficult to enforce and then yeah David you brought this up it would be my recommendation maybe not now but at some point that we are a 4-day work week there a couple reasons we we are in an arms race with the people around us and it's not the town's fault or the resident's fault or the select board's fault but there isn't an employee here that really can afford to live here if they were to move here now so we're drawing from the area and every everybody in the area is in an arms race to pay employees and steal employees so we are uniquely positioned as a small town to be the one in your advertisement that can say hey it would be nice to work in conquered but here you get to work four days a week rather than five and that would attract um certain employees who would like that quality of life over say a dollar or two an hour so it is a way of controlling cost on that let me just stop you there generally you would say that would be a Friday or a Monday in other words what they want is a 3-day weekend as opposed to say Wednesday or something right correct okay so I do think we're going to pay you know my feelings on the next 5 to 10 years in terms of Recruitment and Retention we're going to pay for it somehow it's either going to be salary or insurance benefits or some type of flexibility but in that again let's say we pick Friday as a closing day um you still go 35 hours right you're just spreading it differently that's another thing we are 35 hour work week so the I know 8:30 to 4 doesn't seem like a big expansion but it is from 9: to 3 and it does fit into but you look at these other towns there's a lot of them if you look at all the towns that are say closed on Friday there's a pretty consistent pattern of you know 8 to four and then one long day right something like that well and most of them seem to have a Friday for partial day but if you go Frid if you go the next SU if if if really what Ryan's saying is to win the the uh retention war or the recruitment War you want to go the extra step of saying actually you get a three-day weekend I mean that is very attractive and if we decided to do that I'm saying the pattern of the towns that have done that is 8 to 4ish and one long day one long you know seven or you know really um so the again I go back to my opening question which is can do you believe based on the Citizens need for service that the three-day block where you cannot go to down hall is that okay you have to get it done by Thursday or you gota wait till Monday basically if you're a contractor or who knows what so now you're going to get into my theory of government but for the next 5 to 10 years I do think that you need to be sensitive to the use of town hall for for populations that that need Town Hall in order to execute their their business pay their taxes access services but for non-public safety and nonresident Services offices so you're talking Recreation Council and aging and your Public Safety you'll always have a need for more hours but all the other core functions of the town in 10 years there won't be anyone coming around town hall people will be access online and Etc so maybe you don't go to the 4-day work week in 20125 it's going to be so glaringly obvious in five years that you should that um um but why not be proactive then and just accelerate because it takes time to convince people of these things okay you know people need to make plans to change that right you still need to post like the town clerk needs to post you know and eliminating a day to post would be challenging if these boards and committees want to meet so you you think that that's going to go online and be a a thing that we could post electronically for in asking for all forgiveness from boards and committees that extra day to post is a convenience so if you if you are consistently posting your meeting 48 hours in advance of your meeting you should do it earlier so it's more of a training thing so there's very few examples of needing to emergency post within 48 Hours except for all of the volunteers I love that just kind of forget and and post at the last minute so it's not a problem for staff it's a problem on the volunteer side but it you can post electronically on the town website and that that counts but only if the town hall is open which probably but can you change that the state will just not yet so I mean a question would ask Ashley hasn't been here long enough but of course she was at another town but I would ask Ashley and Alana how much hosting activity happens on a Friday I bet you not a lot so we know because um when one of our interms was here they W great with the website would say it if he was here um and so Gretchen was the backup so I knew when we were posting things or not and it it was very minimal right on Friday talking over the course of those two months half a dozen postings or so yeah so I mean and I guess my question is and I like the summary of other community hours which is above that and obviously the most popular is the half day Friday with one late night um is it's an effort to get to a change obviously the nice thing with that approach is you can see how many people are using the late night and how much is going on on a shorten day in Friday and is there any casualty in service to that and then if we find hey everyone loves the late night and we're not getting a lot of traffic on Friday just let you take that next step how much is let's put something in make a change see how it goes yeah sure does that make but but is that but then you then that the expectation is you might make another change and does that is that hard to do or is what would your preference be because I would say just go forth with the this gives the most interesting data in terms of one late night short and Friday you kind of see how it goes and then it's it's a less of a step to go to your three-day weekend at that point if you're already in a half day Friday is that your preferred approach and Aubrey's preferred approach well I'll let Aubrey speak for herself I I think the only people that truly care about the hours are the volunteers and the employees I think most people come to town hall once or twice a year and if there's a set and consistent schedule then yeah then there'll be an adaptation but I I think your approach is sound to test something I don't think it it would be a radical change for the employees the employees it's difficult to implement but for residents we see the same people over and over and over again but what about I'm not as concerned with residents as I am contractors people that have to actually yeah come here for something get something done and if they can't come for three straight days I think that's leg I think that's a good concern let's go to the half day Friday and they can get here and must be and you do the late night morning guys anyway right so and you see what the behavior is and if it doesn't work you change it I know that's and I would just mention that the staff that work with contractors the most didn't raise any Flags or any concerns about this so I will mention that in the surveys and and other times I've asked about it um so I think that that I mean if you believe in crowdsourcing I think you got Scott's well you're not going to know you're not going to know until you do one of them no but I mean if 75 if 44% of the towns have done it yeah they didn't do it in a vacuum no right so it must be working for them so I knew that that's make sense to me except for the we're saying regular hour is the second most popular one we want to change from so if yeah but it's a big that's a pretty big gap right I mean lot of towns more towns have done it than no I know but and you look at you still have regular like yeah and there's still a lot of towns that haven't done the close Friday so I don't know I I would say move forward with the half day late one one I would but I would like to I'd rather clip an hour somewhere like have a 8:30 to 3 on one of the days and then have a s that long day I think or or break that day up but that doesn't help people cuz where they going to go so that would be weird having having I don't know but I'm guessing Seven's more impactful than six like if you're if you're not working at home if you actually work somewhere and you have to commute back six is a tough like think about us like right I don't make six I wouldn't make six for a meeting I struggle with 6:30 executive session 7 o'clock you struggle with I think it's a pretty big test actually I think it's a pretty big test I I personally think the the you know Friday option for partial day Friday but then just extending the hours but having them consistent is a better place to start than you know saying oh we're going to tell employees well one night a week we're going to do this and then have to educate residents and say oh you know wins the late night okay but that's my personal opinion based on the what I'm saying I don't but I I like what I actually appreciate this Aubrey thank you you did great research and and I think um you know this is where we're headed is trying to be you know think about how we can run the town more effectively and and attract and retain employees and this is a way to do that so what so what are you looking for from us well either let us do something delegate it to us or or we schedule like option A B and C and you vote on it I mean you've heard our comments I think you're in the best position to make the Tactical judgment about half hour here hour there but I think we support short half day Friday yeah and then where's where's the best use of those additional hours like is it P pushing everything back a half hour is it going one day later I mean you guys can determine that and then we'll see what it looks like if if it doesn't work we'll hear about it right like and we can change it U just one comment on that is um I think it might be easier for residents if if the Monday through Thursday are the same hours all the time all those days and then just the half day on Friday rather than having you don't think there's a group that really needs to get here late well there may be but if we're but I think what I'm hearing is we're not really I mean I don't know maybe that's one that that uh Ryan you and I really should be tried out but I just I'm looking at that option and so it gets confusing with all what open today what you've got is you know um Friday you're open till 1 and then you have Wednesday and Thursday you're and uh Monday you're open till 3:30 and then you have the Tuesday when you're open later and I just I don't think our citizenry is smart enough to figure well not smart enough but it just you know it means you have to stop and look it up it's like the way I it's like the dump schedule the trans a library right I have to I have to go look at my little magnet on the refrigerator to remember what the hours are for the library to Ryan's point the people this is for is not they're not going to the library once Town Hall once a week right this is you have a core hours right yeah Friday's short and then there's one late night that the people that need that know like oh I got it Tuesday's late night or I I don't know you guys know who comes in and what goes on and the employees know what people want and don't want so I would just say reduce the Friday and then figure out the best use of where to shift those hours to I mean they know it better than we do I agree the only thing I'd cave out that it it fits with what we're talking about with the TA bylaw is to you know delegate that so we're not but this is you know forward facing with the town it's the interface with with our citizenry and I think it's important that we have some you know oversight and I guess we do we're giving I'm not but I just want to be clear that you know this isn't I think more important than we think maybe it won't be maybe we don't care but so Aubrey you said in Resident feedback 61 residents responded and they supported you know shorter hours Etc did they not mention or did you not prompt them in the poll about what they felt about an evening a week I'd have to look back at the original survey um because the data you get is very depend on how you I don't know how specific I was at that point um but my understanding from staff um because we've had a lot of meetings about this is that H and and you might know more than I do about this it has been tried in the past having one late night and it wasn't really utilized that no allegedly nobody came in but there I don't know how advertised that was and how long that lasted and residents were aware of it for very long no one comes in then I think I think too bad understanding the service that you're trying to provide is important so if it is the oneoff person that can come in at 6 o' because they're trying to pay the tax bill or apply for whatever then I really think the town should be considering more flexible staff so that one or two people can be here until 6:00 rather than the whole town hall yeah you don't that's right you only need a few people that are forward facing but you would need agreement on that Concept in order to to execute it across but my point is the the people who would come in at six o'cl it would be for a meeting or some or some type of directed service very few people that would just swing in at six o'clock because of the work schedule are paying their taxes not through a mortgage or not online right um contractors are working during the day that's three key staff here don't work on Fridays and as a as a testament to some of the stuff that I'm trying to get across I don't think you could name them and I don't think the residents could either because the service is provided we figured out how to do it um okay it's it's just one of those things I think it's it sounds good have more hours and do whatever but the the bang for the buck is so small so you don't recommend that you don't recommend the late I I don't know that that person wouldn't just sitting around all right for the one so you guys just do I agree Scott go do go half day Friday and you guys decide it sounds like you think of more regular 8:30 more consistent hours it's is if that's what you think would work best then I would support that sure there's one other comment on this sorry but I'm just looking at the um the data on U I guess it's where you have the summary of community hours so if I'm reading this right 90 5 of the 172 communities have a late night which is a it's more than half and I don't know if if there's an opportunity to like check with a you know are there some towns on here that are like us I mean roughly that could you it'd be interesting to know what what are people are people coming in on those late nights and what are they doing when they come in and is there any but I don't I don't want to add a lot more work because I this is a lot of data that I know you've already collected and if if U Ryan you and Aubrey are comfortable with the um I guess we're calling it option one yeah right um yeah I'm I'm fine with going ahead with that and let's see what happens it's not we haven't heard from residents or or uh business people clamoring for a late night here so yeah I think the biggest thing is consistency right like 9 to three isn't 35 hours and I think what I found from some of the uh resident survey responses is that they were unaware um we weren't just paying uh staff for 35 hours but only working 30 hours right they were thinking that 9 9 to3 is the only time that uh staff was in so there's definitely um some miscommunication with that and so that having yeah so I think as long as it's consistent and residents are aware will be huge because I think right now it's you know oh your the department uh hours it all that matters as long as you're covered by 9 to 3 so some might come in early some might say later so um eliminating that you know um huge you know that's very different between each department making making that not so different um will be huge for residents them aware that we are here for 35 hours yeah the most m one is sorry goad the most mad people get is when one department's open and another one's not right and they're wandering around the building trying to find somebody they're trying they want to get everything done at once and like well I was able to pay this but now I can't pay that I I needed this permit just looks makes the whole thing look disorganized and it's also that person I know this is anecdotal but I could gather data for you says I took a day off to come here and to do this function you said you were open from 9: to 3 and this Department's closed why is this one open right so that cons you matter way more than oh yeah I agree with that 8:30 to 4 seems it's going to be when town hall is open and people can come in and do business yeah okay people do come in at 8:30 now it's just their Department they're going to may or may not be open right and this won't necessarily fix that or will fix should okay in cases where you don't we don't necessarily have purview over the employee oh good question that is a good question no we would not okay so we're moving in that direction so I think that I don't know do you need a vote or I think this is a consensus from the select board that that option one would be our preferred option yep we're going to do it we're going to blame operator you can still blame blame us we're setting the policy I would never we're we're setting and um what are you thinking for for when you might uh when it might be appropriate to actually implement this are we talking six months or this one is me sorry auy so probably July 1 okay and there will be Town Hall I'm only talking now half a dozen employees that will have to have some exemption but the idea is that they would bring their alternate schedule and it would be approved so that could also be consistent right and then anyone hired new would have to pick hours on the schedule and not some alternate schedule so we would honor old agreements and slowly MH okay move in a direction okay and this will also give time for the tax collector to have that on the new bill because I know I've mentioned in a previous meeting but that needs to be reflected by law you accused us of punting in the past on this issue and here we've tackled it so well done thank you thanks Au you all so much app it okay thank you all right moving along um we're going to handle the appointment policy see I think um I don't know what was written yeah nothing nothing I approve um so I don't I don't think the select Board needs to vote on anything tonight and I want to try to make it really short what uh about what what this is why why this has come up and um it it should be fairly straightforward but I'm guess we want to wait till the next meeting to actually make a decision but um just quick history you know back in um May of uh no October of 23 we adopted we went through a process of and I Scott you weren't on the board then we went through a process of defining the policy about uh volunteers and committees and in as a part of that there was a section about Theo appointment of uh volunteers to serve on boards and committees in town and then um in last last May last last spring when we went through the process as a select Board of having uh boards and committees for the for the first time ac across all of them uh based on the policy we adopted um they all had to submit to uh in this case it was are the you know executive assistant to the select board um the people that were currently on their committee that wanted to be uh whose terms were about to be up and they want and wanted to be reappointed and then any new people they were recommending to go onto their onto their board and last spring really was I I went back and looked at this uh it was we as a board um we had we had the uh list of all those uh individuals that came to us um in a at an April a late April select board meeting but I don't know if you remember but the format of receiving that information was quite confusing and hard for us to sort of go through so we asked for a different way of presenting that and so we didn't actually adopt we didn't actually vote on the proposed appointments um until the last meeting in June till our last meeting in June and the term typically starts July 1 for every you know for all those members so um one thing that came up was for some boards in particular um the cahs which starts some planning in the spring uh but but I think there were a few other boards too that would that had would have preferred that we had been making those appointments at least a month earlier if not more so that um there you know people have time to come get sworn in there's time to get up to speed you know etc etc so um what I think we need to think about then is what um when do we want to uh open up the process and that means when we open it up it means publicity goes out through the various uh social media outlets and to the mosquito that says um these are the Committees that uh these are uh openings on these committees where somebody's appointment their term is going to be up so there are these available um volunteer roles you know here's how you can express your interest Etc so that that date and then um committees and Boards doing the work to say oh these current these two current members do want to be reappointed this person doesn't want to be repointed and get it that into um the exec I assistant and then the cut off for when we people can put those names in and then us getting those getting that uh presented to us and US voting on it so um we can I don't know if anybody has any general thoughts about timing but uh that's that's what this is specifically about it's not going back and changing the policy so my general comment for this coming year yeah we picked May 18th for town meeting we're going to be pretty busy yeah so we're not really going to have time to fuss around with appointments until after that so you're anyway in the last month now we could if the daytime government can support it because we can if fret andant Al can or auy can support polling all the boards and committees and getting them to you know make decisions on are people going to re up are they not going to reup Etc and we could have that dat ready right after the May meeting then okay but that's really the only way that I could see that beinge practical this year every committee I've ever been on it's like yeah you don't even think about you don't even think about it and that's not true of every committee but like it's like until the person's off and you're like oh we got to fil yeah I'm not really sure it's a problem that needs solving because little happens in the month or two after the town meeting and especially as late as it is yeah not a lot Happ and if they miss a meeting and then they catch up in August you know um one of the things we we we those of us that were involved in that policy one of the things we uh decided was that we wanted to be consistent and we wanted any any individual here in town that was interested in being on a committee had the opportunity to put their name forward and one of the things that has happened is for some groups and in particular the Council on Aging y they you know just it's sort of historically been um they've they've started their process earlier you know they're they're more prepared maybe or or they they want to you know and they and they uh want to uh in a sense you know do more screening of people that may want to participate have them come to a meeting see if they show up and after they've been to the meeting do are they still interested and you know have sort of a more of an interview process that some committees and Boards do um so there's nothing to prevent advertising and communicating those positions earlier right again a lot of committees are just they don't start doing it until they need to do it if a committee wants to do that you know maybe we have we know what seats are coming available we could that's why I say it's on the daytime government somebody yeah so you could you could go back T minus three months and and and just put the posting up and then those committees can start recruiting people or talking to people on their own time and then by the time we get it it's fully it's it's baked and then we can move on afterward I'm good with that yeah or we might consider if you know if a board or committee is ready and and it's been publicized right because the one thing in the policy is I think we said two weeks has to be publicized for two weeks right but let's say that's been done and a committee is is ready to you know put forward their uh appr for the next year could what what would we think about that coming before us and getting approved sure earlier meing a question though if if it's say it's two months early and we appoint someone but the seat's not open for two months you know what I mean we're appointing them for two months that's okay right they can't begin the they can't begin to actually vote on anything they they all start at different times too is there no I mean they're supposed to all start July 1 I don't think yeah I don't think the the proactive ones who come to us with yeah we could is a problem it's great to knock those knock those off I'm it's the dele of on last minute right some was not on the celebration committee oh gee like what are we going to do like but if we if we just advertised all of them anyway then we don't have to go oh we gez we got to advertise it keep it up at least you said we've done that part of it yeah right well and encouraging that's what I say if you I'll use Gretch and she will shoot me but if some if a person in town hall were to actually contact the chair then and say by the way you have these people are up please tell us who plans to re up and who doesn't because we need to you know you need you need to think about like the placement there's nothing wrong with and and she did some of that last last year is that hardcoded in it anyway like is there in that system is there any kind of reporting that says here's a report of the seats that are coming open we we track it yeah so you if I you look on the website it's easy you know every committee's listed and it shows their term when their term is up so no but it's it's challenging the chair to say yes Barney your term is up are you planning to re up or you not planning do that two months ahead but you still want to and in terms of advertising I mean I know it's put in the mosquito yeah and put on the website I mean is there is there a world where we just take out like a half page ad in the mosquito and it's like all here are the openings in Carlile and because it's always at the end and it's always like one peace meal if it was more organized and more Consolidated you could just do it all in one shot early on I would and you know I'm sorry but let me just add one other thing and and you know one of the things we did in that policy as we said um if your term is ending then you have to reapply just like anybody who uh is interested in being on the committee for the first time because we're trying to level the playing field so that if there's somebody out there that really wanted to get on to you know the Recreation Commission they wouldn't be you know they wouldn't have to necessarily go to the meetings to make sure that people knew about them right they'd have a they'd have a clear process a transparent process right and they don't necessarily you know we say yes we'd love to hear from committees and Boards who you are recommending but that doesn't necessarily mean that we would always approve that recommendation let's say there are three other people that want to you know be volunteers on that committee that haven't been serving but you look at their background and they look like good you know was the rationale yeah that was the rationale of the policy and I think it's been a good policy one of the things though that we hadn't really considered was or maybe we did but is how much staff time is involved in this and that's one of the things when we talk again about making government you know work efficiently and thoroughly and for us you know I think that should be a consideration of whatever this policy is so if if it requires Gretchen or whoever the assistant is to do you know hours worth of additional work I think that that has to factor into our decision here what to do I mean I think I think Scott's suggestion like if we were to publish the list of openings to your point atic as to whether there was an incumbent or not these terms there's you know three vacancies on this board I think and encourage and maybe that ad is a good idea encourage people who are interested like you could have the chart you know the committee the and who to contact like the chair right and yeah please get your interest in we don't really control if we do that we'll help ourselves get more maybe more some more people it's up to then those committees to if if I email you know Scott Jameson and say I'm really interested in Rec like he's like yeah come to a meeting like then it's on me and him to right figure that out right we don't get involved till later they come back and say all right these are the candidates but at least we could you know maybe accelerate that so it's not a last minute thing the truth is generally speaking if if an incumbent wants to reup they're probably going to reup this it's probably not going to well because we haven't had very many cases where we have more people interested than we have slots but yeah um do we need a vote or no I just I think I think what um my thought is maybe Arbor and I and Gretchen can yeah then try to come up with a timeline and if we have a list it's I mean it's probably too late tell me meting but that's something you could well that's right down meeting you could and did you talk about that in this in your study group at all because openings well no just I thought I thought it was your group that said the way we have it in the back of the book well we would like has is sort of useless nobody we would like to I think again that is a little line item but we'd like to utilize the screen more effectively so we could put up for example when we honor people's service we could put the list up rather than you know and we could yeah we maybe do openings or something we could we're now looking more things I was just going to ask Aubrey is there anything you wanted to add in this discussion yeah so just kind of revisiting you know advertising openings so that was already the standard I think for quite some time even when Jen given was here to be in the mosquito we have expanded on that since then so if there's any openings and we include those whose terms are up and they might be still reapplying for that for their position again but we still advertis it an opening was a little bit of a point in contention actually last year about that um there's not actually an opening I'm you I'm just going to be reup you know so uh so we were advertising that so not only in the mosquito but also social media and other um places so uh it wouldn't be really additional staff work because Gretchen it was as as everybody's mentioned Gretchen already was reaching out to folks asking if they were interested in um continuing another term and they'd have to apply again and everything so was a lot of it was a first for a lot of the Committees last year to do that um but they're getting a better understanding of that so we could do this a little earlier um for especially for the COA if there you know and let's say an opening happens in the middle of the term let's say somebody resigns it's easy to say that there's a vacancy um we're doing that now with some um so it it shouldn't be that much additional work so that has been um done in the past so it's not really really extra staff time but yeah if if we're they're looking to see have us start that earlier that's not a problem and so I think I'm also hearing from some of you or maybe all of you that once we open up once we say okay put that the word out that the you know these committees have openings um that if a committee is ready to come in with their proposed members earlier than uh July or I mean June or end of May we're fine with that yeah and then they they just understand as long as they they don't get to and they don't get to um that if it's a new person coming on they won't be able to vote until July 1 yeah as long as the policy is transparent so that if you're if I wanted to join some committee and I don't know much about it and they say well I'm sorry we've already voted and they say well wait a second I thought the policy is that yeah yeah that's just about transparency and and about Clarity of what we're doing fairness and following the rules yeah okay all right anything else nope okay I think we're moving on on to uh yeah Town ta report unless okay anything else I don't know if you want to see this report ta report all right good evening everyone this is my Town Administrator report so starting with the first floor remodel we've been discussing a lot we have a finalized contract with Joyce Contract Interiors out of Westford they're going to be reallocating space in the town clerk's office office and the cohs the goal here is to create better employee space work spaces and also a more welcoming area for the CHS this area right right over here next to us will allow people to come in sit down spend some time at the cohos and I think get better Services right now the way it's it's set up a resident comes to the door and they they sort of feel like they need to be welcomed in or or asked in we want them to just walk in and get those services so I think it's going to be great in terms of our human resources update we are still actively collecting resumés for three Department of Public Works positions a driver laborer heavy equipment operator and mechanic we did have a good interview today and we think we'll have an offer out for a driver laborer also we had a very competitive process for the public safety Administrative Assistant with five strong interviews and believe we have a final candidate and and job offer heading out soon uh this is all from our HR Director Aubrey Thomas we approved an expansion of our HR software platform bamboo we've been rolling that out slowly this next enhancement will digitize our onboarding process we just created a new new checklist process and and implemented it for the first time making sure that we're having an extensive onboarding process that welcomes new employees we believe we've been having some success with it and this would be the next step to formalize it and then the employee review process which I know is of importance to the select board began today sent out the emails with self assessment being due by the end of the month and then the formal review process finalizing by February if you remember I was a little late with this process last year so we're going to get it done by the end of February this year for your budget update the finance committee recently concluded their Marathon review sessions those were very fun they examined the department budgets over two nights and it allowed every Department to come in and advocate for their particular needs and requests in the level Services budgets they presented two more meetings are scheduled in January one to debrief the marathon sessions and then a second one to come up with the first draft of their recommendations that they'll eventually bring to you for a presentation sometime in March as you know this year's budget faces significant challenges including large proposed increases in both School budgets Rising health care costs in excess of 10% the 28% plus middle sex retirement assessment increase and then other basic increases and no reductions un fortunately that are going to likely make this budget exceed your guideline of a 3% tax bill increase without significant change to the budget last month we uh later this month I'm sorry a couple things are going to be coming in the governor is expected to release house one on January 23rd this is typically done on the first day of the MMA annual conference that'll be our first look at state aid numbers we should know at that same conference what the first draft of numbers for my our health insurance provider is and there will be continued refinement of uh School District budgets in the in the coming month per the staff over there an update on our Corey Auditorium lighting project so we can we can announce that it is finally finally done the upgraded space is now hosting Productions and will be fully lighting the annual town meeting which we've been talking about tonight thanks to Sarah our sustainability coordinator who does a good job chasing down every dollar the town secured $144,000 in rebates this will come and eventually turn into free cash for your use next year and the LED fixtures surprisingly how much power they put out are expected to save the town more than $7,000 annually PR for the new lighting having been on the stage concert tonight yeah it's it's great and it's a little powerful for the person standing on the stage but very nice for the audience too I'm sure yeah so with 7,000 a year annually I I did some quick math uh when they replace this in 30 years we'll have made our money back all right so we'll put it into a fund for the next lighting system couple quick Capital project updates our Culvert analysis is complete this report will be coming to you soon this is going to look a very similar to the road maintenance presentation you received grading culverts and understanding where we may or may not need to make significant investments in our Capital planning also the elevator maintenance project which is going to be a significant part of the capital plan is going to be coming in on time with exact cost estimates so that when you do present if you're willing to present the town meeting this cost they'll know exactly what it's going to be for future borrowing of course we have many important building construction projects going on in town right now I'll start with the library Renovations I met with the trustees last week they have directed me to finalize contracts with construction monitoring Services you recognize that name as their OPM and Schwarz silver who is is the designer over the next 6 months these firms will collaborate in finalizing a design so right now we have a feasibility study it needs to first go to design and then construction documents for bidding if everything proceeds on schedule this project could begin as early as next spring there are still significant financial challenges in this project we are still looking for people to donate to their capital c campaign and hunting down every type of Grant we might be able to get to bridge the gap between the original estimated cost cost and what we think the cost might be before we finalize constru finalize construction documents which there is a couple $1,000 Gap right now can you finalize CS without having the money you can finalize the documents you can't contract with a contractor until you have the money so I believe the trustees and the building committee will be discussing strategies on bidding so that certain phases of the project will be alternates in case they're not able to hit hit their number but for those who are interested in the library renovation lots of interesting topics coming up in discussions with the trustees and the library building committee the police station renovation which is a little bit ahead of the library will be going out to bid at the end of this month I'll make sure the select board in the town knows when those bids go out it'll be a a couple weeks before those bids come back and then we'll have we'll have the number in terms of what this Project's going to cost we will contract immediately with the winning bidder assuming that the prices come in under budget and U as you know from our discussion earlier tonight I have put a placeholder in the town meeting Warren article in case we don't come in under budget and we need to do something for the fire station renovation the select board was sent four bid packages for your review you are scheduled to have a special meeting next week the 21st to narrow candidates down to three or four that you'll interview in your January 28th meeting so we are meeting next week 21st 21st not a regular select board meeting special meeting I know but we were talking about voting about the parking L you said no it's February but we are meeting next week so if no but that was with the school committee I thought we were talking about oh well that's different that was I guess we need the whole school committee to do the part yeah and they're talking about the beginning of February all right got it okay so we said it's the 21st yeah which our next uh Tuesday morning 9 to 11 yep okay and we have the bids I'm prepared but we haven't gotten the yeah we got the documents oh we did okay sent those around they're they're on in the score sheets they're on a Dropbox file I think okay and everyone will be happy to hear CMS is dominating the reference game so you'll have all their reports on reference I might not be able to access drop it's did it come from you Ryan the Dropbox only drop okay I mean I can I have them on my computer I can I have physical copies upstairs no I don't have physical copies I can email well they're huge well it doesn't matter I won't be able to get drop box I can tell you right now I'll find a way to get flash drive can you do one drive I'll do it one one drive yeah you can through a link some upcoming discussion points the the DPW building the MFC is finalizing their analysis of their renovation options for your consideration remember these are these are at the conceptual phase right now they're looking at a February meeting with you to go over this upcoming project and discuss timelines and costs when you say the an analysis of renovating is that involving a third party or is that just amongst okay it is it's done by third party it is our one of our host doctor Architects is that through their their funds the MFC funds from previous years okay so they invested U we encumbered the fund so that they could complete this project so it's not new money okay and then this this budget thing you guys have to get done is also going to become a significant disc point I do encourage you to look at the the budget the capital documents as we discussed earlier to to make sure that I'm getting you as much information as you need to be armed and ready for discussions with the finance committee this report includes a couple sign approvals to include the the chorus which I think one of your members is on was singing tonight and then of course I'd like to recognize some staff so Sergeant Steven Mack of the police department has announced his retirement effective January 31st of this year after 33 years of exemplary service he's known for his dedication to safety and Community Values who was very involved in the community almost everyone in carile has met Sergeant Mack it was also interesting to read in a recent mosquito article that Sergeant Mack has assisted delivery of three Carlile babies during his tenure which is approximately 10% of the population wow wow there's no way that thanks AR MAF for service to carile 33 years as a police officer is is incredible um and his leadership in the department so he's a fixture in the community and his mark on the careers of future officers and residents elevated expectations of professional Police Service and will last for decades hoping that we honor Sergeant Max's career before his retirement or shortly after and we are recommending retaining him as a perdm and traffic officer so you will see him around I also want to mention another retirement of Bob Connor from the DPW just a mere 12 and A2 years improving our roads providing the public safety that comes with plowing serving at the transfer station so many of them many people in town know Bob's face he was a dedicated and loyal employee who was one of uh Jim Hall's best friends hardest worker and then when Jim was elevated to the director position was someone he really leaned on to make sure that that everything continued the way it had been for years and I'll read it right from Jim because his writing in the newsletter is excellent he said but do not fres he will be working part-time for us running transfer station on his usual schedule so although he's retiring we will be retaining his services for a little bit at least good the end of my report includes update upcoming select board dates of Interest most importantly I think for you the uh entire executive office Aubrey myself and greten will be at the MMA annual conference January 23rd 24th so two days out of the office but we are accessible and can make sure that we're meeting any of your needs also attached to this report is a draft agenda for the 21st which is just focused on the fire station designer proposals and then the 28th which is primarily interviewing for the proposals that is my report unless the select board has any questions any questions any more okay sounds good um warrants and minutes anyone oh yeah like we do some uh um great Appo I mean uh motions that' be great getting there let's see thanks Julie Julie thank you Julie um yeah do we want to do these one by one or do people have any comments on any of them can we just do them all together them all together okay so I move that we accept the um select board minutes of uh Tuesday November 26 2024 and the minutes of course these are boy some of these minutes are long the minutes Thursday December 5th 2024 right in there oh great um there's one wasn't at so I guess you have to that's our piece of the whole planning board meeting I thought I was there were you virtual I was here yeah we were sitting right here oh and you says you weren't well I guess that has those were not written by Gretchen so just tell her you were there and we can have them at okay great we can vote them all together and then the minutes of December 9th and then the minutes of December 10th 2024 as written second okay the only comment I have was that none of these actually say minutes on the top I don't have to change it but going forward maybe you want to say minutes or you know to describe what you putting forward one thing there's certain standard form they wrap your down there on the lower left is the lower left well it just oh you're right it do say teeny minutes I just thought the heading says car select board gives the date where it was and everything but it doesn't say minutes official minutes or whatever sorry all right um so any other comments questions all right uh Voice Voice vote all in favor all right un opposed all right um so we've got those done liaison reports is there anything anyone wants to kind have already covered that one the on the and more to more to come you know when we have our meetings restarting um I did sit in on the planning board meeting last night Julie's left now but the agenda for the upcoming planning boards to tackle this is extremely aggressive I would just say the board to attack to tackle the MBT MBTA by on top of all the other stuff they have um so that's all um we were informed of the resignation on the school committee so right um we will have to work with the school committee to appoint someone to fill that position long I'm already working with that just to the end of this s months July one right y so Aubrey is taking care of that and along with the town staff of of publicizing and Gretch and and publicizing and I talked to Sharon and they're prepared to do a meet jointly with us at our beginning first February meeting okay um but we just wanted to finalize that so I'll work on the agenda and make sure that that gets on it but um I got one more and it's not I haven't talked to Mark about it but I know uh that came up in the budget discussions um on the L on of the cultural Council they're they're asking for money out of the or the money to be included in the town operating budget they've utilized grants um I'm not sure I think the question was raised if what's the what's the process for a request that's not a department and so I don't know if it was kind of one of those what does the select board think what is so I I don't know if we should in him in here as a select board to hear the request and then give our position to fincom or if he should meet with fincom I'm not sure what the right who's that the cultural Council their request for operating funds body independent that I think that that's important I was at that meeting too yeah well they yeah I think I I don't know the exact amount but they're looking for so they've they've existed off of a small amount of grant funding if you recall during arer we sponsored some cultural events they've they've expanded that now they they're they want to put in the request of the town to use to become part of the operating budget to to do that um So within the budget process they didn't meet with fincom because they're not an existing department so they didn't hear his request the question is a process one um do we want to have him come talk to us first and then we could tell fincom our position or should he meet with fincom probably come talk to us I think fincom my on it was fincom was looking to us us because it's kind of a policy you know decision of you know is this something that the town supports and at what level would we want to support them yeah so I think that that was one of the things I was going to talk about with the agenda for upcoming meeting is to potentially have them yeah spoiler it's going to be a very difficult year to broaden the services the town provides but I think we should we should allow Mark the opportunity to clear present to us and and hear what he's so maybe we invite him in we we probably want to invite him in the next couple of meetings before we were to meet with fincom right I don't know what people think is that something yeah I was going to suggest we do okay you want me to reach out to him and then coordinate with you on the or do you want to yeah let me let me um tomorrow morning I'm going to be setting the the kind of timing of the agenda and if we can fit that in we'll try and do it if there's a place a time and a date let me know and I I can Circle back with him and see if he's available great I mean the other thing we just also I'm sure we're all thinking about this but is the is the precedent then of other non town this groups this is similar to like a Center Park type request where you know I think we have to in terms of something that was them down yeah no well not saying we don't know what we're going to do but I think it's valid to meet with them oh yeah absolutely I'm just saying I think we also need to just be it's not just specifically about his request no I think understanding that this would be something new and it would be outside there's a philosophical question that I think you know even it's a much bigger scale but even like a community center is what as a town what are we doing now what are we looking to expand the services we're providing are we looking to contract the services we're providing um I think when you see the operating budget it's going to it's going to raise some right well I'm also thinking of other groups in town that provide a lot of you know benefit to the town but yeah if they you know well yeah be prepared for other groups to come in and and request funding in in the future that's all yeah yeah I I I I think we have to give them the opportunity at least one of us either us or fincom to say to make a request and if other groups want to make a request then you know we don't have to allocate a ton of time I think Mark can can lay it out pretty quickly we we'll fit in on the agenda somehow don't do that y okay um you all are aware of the TA bylaw just as an update that John is it ta bylaw John Maier had suggested that uh there may be a conflict because he has to report directly to a board an appointing was it the I'm trying to think of how he has to have an appointing authority he has to have an appointing authority um it ran it by legal counsel and they said well now it you know if the State Rep or if the state um Representatives or yeah the representatives vote to um our bylaw in and and can supersede it then that wouldn't be a conflict or you know it be he'd be similar to the conservation administrator or you know the um you know Board of Health you know and he could report the bylaw acknowledges that piece but it then says that the other parts of the uh employees function report to the TA right so what I'm saying is it doesn't appear like it's going to be any kind of conflict it was brought up and it was just I I just wanted to bring that up um one other thing that that has come out I'm on a um Ryan had asked me to to be involved with the 250th celebration yeah and I need to at least start to talk about that and what is going on I don't know how familiar you all are with that but you know they're talking about between 150,000 to 200,000 people in conquer on April 19th which is a Saturday the the um event would in carile would really start at 6:00 amm they're talking about a dawn salute and having you know it's traditional every year they walk all the way to the North Bridge but because of this they're going to have more Minutemen participating in carile they'll likely have other groups and so that'll be a bigger event there'll be some parking challenges closer to town and so there's a a group um that includes at this point you know with the talking about the safety of all this um you know with the fire chief the police chief and um Scott Evans and and some others but um the the bigger impact is really the traffic flow to get to the North Bridge because conquer is going to be shutting down the access to conquered starting at 6 o'clock on the Friday night before and um so we're going to actually kind of have to catch all these cars going into conquered they're going to have to go somewhere and in the past in 1975 they uh parked along you know really on they they shut down we have two major arteries into to conquered conquered road which becomes l Road or you know River Road which yeah so so um at those Town lines they basically tried to catch the cars going in because there's nowhere for them to park they're not going to be allowed to go into town and they parked along the streets so on Indian Hill that neighborhood that's up off of um off of conquer Street and then um and then on the null Farm is it uh or Judy Farm Lane it's um oh off of river off a off a River Road right n Farm I'm sorry n farm and that whole kind of uh network of streets in 1975 they had 600 cars at one location and 800 at another they were allowed to park there and they were allowed to and so we're evaluating that and going to kind of bring a plan to the select Board of what you know we think is the best strategy but I want to kind of just prep you now the the the big thing that I think about I mean safety is the most important thing but also you got to start think about the cost of all this because what we're talking about is not just overtime police detail overtime police fire because they're gonna have to have response and then um we're we're gonna have to get people from carow to and they shuttle they use shuttle buses in 1975 car pay for that part well I think they did in 1975 and they're looking for us to pay for it now and so um they they being the state basically who is the the state is we we had a well it's not the state it's the the um this event is going to happen I guess it's a historical event and so it's a celebration of that and the state's aware of it they're all kind of looking at each other as as who's going to do what and Ryan um initiated a call with representative catalo which was really helpful to to get him you know to really commit to us to you know be you know alert to this problem and to try and get some funding there's been reportedly there will be funding allocated but nobody's seen any money at this point is that right or can you articulate was it 750,000 but the Senate has not so we're going to petition Senator Barrett to have the Senate approve this funding if that funding level is approved I'm pretty confident we'll get something okay and that's all the but how many different towns are having these celebration conquer and Lexington are trying to outo each other right now and then um all the outlying towns have something so shouldn't they I mean they're presumably going to be doing the advertising the promotion of it right yes and so are they going to come up when they do that are they going to publicize a transportation and parking plan it's already well underway but this is much bigger than um there's there's rumors that the president's going to come the AR the president I'm sure will have his own he yeah he won't need parking the Army's going to we W make him parking car celebrating their birthday at this event um it could it could get very big they're setting up Regional command centers right but yeah I mean two different things so we have to be ready for a lot of vehicles coming and we have to have a plan for that but I mean Transportation I would look back to conquer and say do you want him to get there Pony up Pony up get them out that is an option that is an option David but if if people come and and they have closed off their Town physic right but that's where I get back the first part the publicizing of but they own buses yeah they own buses if they do close off their town and they do not want to fund our this initiative and you're right what we would essentially one strategy would be to say okay well we're going to close off Carlile and you know you can't come into Carlile cuz we can't absorb all your traffic so we'll push the problem out to chelsford or well that's not a great solution but I would say but isn't there an official like aren't they having people directing people to go to Hans isn't there like a plan there is a huge plan they have parking in walam they're going to bust from walam they're going to bust from all well they've got they've got a lot of people but you can imagine how many people are going to drive and this isn't just for those this is for our residents so we have to think about you want to go you want to go you got walk no no you could be busted if we want to pay for it no I'm saying if we don't want to pay for it we say yeah you walk in no we have to publicize our transportation and embarking are they closing at the border like the car yes and they're talking about even physically closing with trucks or you know to really to really we clearly need to tell our citizens these are going to be closed and if you want to get there you basically have to you can park here and you have to walk I have no problem bik but but we also don't want everyone outside of carile saying well I bet I can I don't want to go from wallam so I'm just going to go get as close as I can get because that can become a real cluster so that is one this is turning into what we've been talking about in the small group um shut just just to understand the magnitude Scott said 750 people marched in the last so we're expecting somewhere around 1,000 to 1100 people to march from Carlile to conquer so just those cars alone is 3 400 cars but how many can we we got a lot of Roads there's a lot of Roads right so yeah we should make this its own agenda item but the I was just giving them back just consider this this is not for really we're not solving anything and we're going to have the 250th come committee com right or something I don't think we want to become an unofficial official parking area where we're like come bus in from Carlile cuz don't you think we would I do not believe we should provide transportation we should not encourage people to park here we're not answer okay I was this is again this was just is this is my committee report this is not the venue to discuss it we're gonna we're going to have we're going to have more to to discuss and have an official presentation but I want you to be aware of it that's why yeah so it's complicated just just again I'm trying to give context so Scott said 80% of the Town participated the last time 80% 80 808 zero of car he expects two to 3,000 people to be going to conquer from carile right so the idea of everybody walking real to the one shuttle bus that's why it's got to be discussed more right because if there's this massive you know and then people invite their friends and family into Carlile so it could be thousands of people wandering the streets and and we just need to be prepared for a I mean we don't want we charge $50 per car well funny you say that so the next time I'll put that in the agenda I have some strategies for not me we've had some clever ideas kayb we invited the mosquito to the next meeting to discuss the logistics so yes we'd love to have you not going to tell you what's tell you to report but maybe wait until it's more yeah maybe yeah that was just a at this parade so we got to walk too right I'm walking well we that's a different thing we were invited by conquered so I think we can participate in the conquered event but I think that I don't not sure if the timing works to do both we're going to have to find I'll find out and report back on that they will we get there you're GNA have to March how are your walking shoes Barney April April April 19th April we're going to get a helicopter it's that's Saturday yeah or hot air balloon April 19th oh my gosh just Flo away something but yeah that's that would be great if that'll be a whole new my discussion point the month before town meeting and that's the lead into uh what's that right that's the beginning of the school vacation week oh yeah I would think we'd want to stay okay I take a motion to adjourn so moved all right favor hi okay thank you I think if we get a TA by law pass ran