good evening I'd like to uh call to order the select board meeting for April 8th 2025 We're going to start at 6:45 here and go into executive session until 700 p.m Um and do I have a motion to do
that i move to enter executive session pursuant to master general laws chapter 30A section 21 reason two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining
sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel the town administrator Ryan McN Mlane and reconvene an open session at 7 p.m in the clerk room Second Okay All in favor i roll call for Do we have need a roll
call vote for executive session okay Sure Arnold I Reed I Snell I and David Modell is absent but we were going to call him I have his comments Great Um all right So we are back from
executive session but I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Carile Select Board for April 8th 2025 We have a quorum of all members present and uh we will start tonight we as always with community input for a
brief period of time Um we will then go to the police and fire station renovation projects annual town election and town meeting discussion warrants and minutes liaison reports and community input Um so for the opening we have a few minutes for community input If
there's anyone who'd like to um raise a topic or speak to ask a question um we I typically would allow one to two minutes per speaker Um if you would just introduce yourself and uh state where your your address and um you can address
your questions or comments to me Is there anyone in the room who wants to make a comment yes Okay And I just want to make sure everyone can hear you And if not I'm gonna have you come up Well we have a microphone here that's kind of on the table So if you want to just All
right Perfect So please introduce yourself and uh again please limit your comment to one to two minutes please Okay Thank you very much Uh my name is Sarah Kylie Shuff and I live at 37 Evergreen Lane Uh and I came last week and I'm just coming this week again to
talk about the complete the streets grant and give you an update on the signators for the petition in support of the Westford sidewalk construction proposals one and two Proposal one just to remind everyone is from curve uh from
Actton Street to curve along Westford Street It's 675 ft and was estimated to cost about um $40,000 back in 2018 So the signatures for that project are up to 164 um and they I would just say that they
are not um immediate abutters although many of them are along Westford Street Aken Street Curve but there's Hutchkins um folks down Monroe Hill but there's also folks in the center of town um Bedford Street off of L Street So um I brought a copy of the list I'm happy to
email it to the board that indicates um sort of widespread town support for this first proposal Um and then the second project Westford Construction Project 2 uh has 128 signatures I would say there's um eight of the 15 or so of
butters have also signed on in support of that And that is the sidewalk construction that would allow us to sort of finish a network gap that I see um that has been outlined in our master plan that we wanted to have a half a mile sidewalks out from the center of town in all directions and it's been
completed with the first round of this funding on LOL Bedford and East Street Um and Conquer already has that half mile plus Um so this Westford remains the only street out of the roundabout that I understand has been on citizens minds for the last 30 plus years So I
would um I'm just here to support both of those and give you the update on um the numbers of signatures for both of those projects Um and then also to say that I I reviewed the tier three projects There's 21 other projects that the safety board is reviewing um in
their diligence that there I understand will be presenting to you next week their recommendations for which projects have the um that they they think is the most important Um I would also just say that in my looking at the specific criteria I think that these projects fulfill the network gap which is one of
the criteria pedestrian bicycle access which is criteria Um it improves safety or accessibility to a school and is located within one mile of a school Um that would be applicable to only the Westford 2 proposal which is again fire station to Monroe Hill And as I
mentioned last week that project was estimated at $535,000 in 2018 So it's likely likely much over budget for this particular grant But um in talking with residents I think the support was can we go as far as we can with this So they were even
hoping and brainstorming that we could go fire station to TA or toll Um so folks could then go safely through the woods and then cross at the crosswalk that exists that was privately funded with the development from Hannover to Monroe Hill Um and then the last thing that I saw in the criteria that is
relevant to both of these projects um is whether the development or the application included an opportunity for public engagement I mean I guess all of them do but I think these show demonstrate that there's been widespread support um um throughout the community for both of these and I will leave it there and leave you with some documents
that you can share Great We'll enter those in Thanks for your your comment Is there anyone else in the public here who wants to make a comment or has a question just making sure I have the right agenda Yeah Um seeing none I'll look online Is
there anyone online who would like to make a comment or has a question hi this is John Lavy I have a quick comment Sure John So I submitted my comments in writing I don't quite know
how they were submitted into I don't want I don't want to read them over again And um I would only add to that that when we get to that section you know one thing you could ask the designers is if they could uh take a cut at the design with my
suggestion omitting the large two large vehicles that I um have take an exception to and see what that looks like That's it One thing I may do tonight is open this up for public comment during this because we
have these uh professionals here and it's good to have questions that the board doesn't necessarily think of that have the public think of So with no further ado I will invite our OP our um pro our construction managers to come
forward and if you want with tech are we doing police first we're doing police Oh we're doing police fire and town meeting Yeah Well they're the same Isn't it the same people for the for the whole thing so well the our building same OPM building but the architects are different Okay
Well we're going to start So um with the police and fire renovation project So the police station renovation budget and warrant article So whichever group is um here to to discuss it Suzanne I think you Yeah it was just it was just this is
just we come forward Yeah please do introduce Yep We're doing police station first We'll do police station first I'm sorry that was very confusing I will Well this this will be pretty brief Um because we did talk about it and um we met as a committee and decided we we
talked about where we were with the budget and which is obviously over the budget and talked about the the alternates and which we felt were high priorities with chief and um we have
come to the decision that we would like to recommend alternates one two and three One is the interior fit out of the existing space that would not otherwise have been um addressed This way we feel
like there'll be parody between all the areas of the building And not only that it's if you're going to do it do it while that's the one where you're painting or Yeah painting a new other areas and new carpet Okay And that's 11,000 360 And then um there were other
two others were the heating at the sallyport and heating at um the storage area of the garage which which helps preserve certain types of evidence and and they were not big numbers They alternate 2 is 4,000 alternate 3 is
$96.99 So um but what we did decide was that alternate four and five which were which were more expensive which was some built-in casework on the second floor it was alternate for and then windows at the second floor office Um the chief and
the committee discussed that you know um that the project can live without it considering that we are already over where we thought we would where we'd hope to be Um so what we talked about and we talked about the contingency and um yeah somewhere in that 10 to 15% in a
renovated occupied building is a is a good target But what we thought was what we'd recommend to you is the base bid of 3.383 million add and add those three alternates which is
25,000 Um and that total is um can I just stop you for a second ryan is it Can you possibly bring that up on the screen so we can see it the renovation project Yeah the renovation page four of whatever tonight's thing
Thank you I tried to add on the fly what she's talking about in column E Okay Um yeah So I did it by hand and um Could you make it a little larger please
feel like I should just have a recording Thank you Okay So what we would do is add to add basically to what we're going to call the base bid the 3.383 the 11,360 and we would also add as part of the the contract with with the low
bidder um the four alternates two and three So four and nine that's 13,000 But what we would do is we're trying to minimize all the increases to what we're asking for um is take that 13,000 out of the contingency because the contingency is
451,000 which is a pretty substantial amount I know it's I know it's an occupied building but we're thinking that there isn't there's a lot in mechanical and things that you know that there will be some there could be some unsuitables underground some other things but we're
hoping that um that a good deal of the contingency with the help of our esteemed um construction managers um will be returned to the town So what we would have to do is basically ask for
um it's a $513,000 ad Does that make sense 513 over what we asked for last year Okay A half million Half million Half million
That's 13,000 Yeah Okay 500 And the contingency goes down to what like 435 or something um yeah 4 Yeah 438 438195 But didn't we 438
i don't understand that I thought last year we were at 3.5 million 3.55 And now you're going to 4.163 right how is that 500 that's more like 66 I took Did you take your re the rebates out of that did you take stuff
out of the contingency so there's a lot of discussion about this Oh that the contingency should be based off the construction total Oh okay Not the not the the rebate total I did it the other way last time Okay And everyone told me to do it this way this time All right
It's still it's still 600 almost $700,000 more That would be 600 600 Well the Okay I did I had the contingency is less but I mean we we can ask for that amount and that's what gets bonded but but in terms
of at the end of the project hopefully we'll return a good chunk of that contingency whatever that contingency is but I'm a little confused about contingency because Neil maybe you guys can help us but Neil put a number in a memo that was like 350,000
he said that was the sweet spot 375 5 to 450 is I believe what that's the latest maybe he had got religion later but he but that's lower than what's in here Well wait a minute like two weeks ago he put a note out and it was like 300 to
350 I can dig it out but that's what he said And then you guys or somebody said gee no 12% is a better like forget about the dollars like you need a percentage Okay so that's this and now he's kind of backing that up So why did he come in
lower i guess that's kind of my question I'm not sure I mean it's not a commitment I just I'm interested in how he thought it would be lower and now it he's not want And you guys have the experience right so if 12%'s the guideline then you know he's there for a
reason right that's what it really is So I mean I don't quite agree like we shouldn't bank on getting the money back Okay The fact is this thing was at 3.2 2 million a year ago and now it's a million dollars more That's the facts right so we need to like I think we need
to be pretty you know honest to voters about that Yeah Um Yeah And I'd rather ask for enough to finish the job um than to come back again A
have to come back again or um I mean you want to have a building that's going to last you now for 25 to 50 years And I hate to nickel and dime we you know we nickeled and dimed ourselves on these buildings to begin with And that's kind of why we're here right uh to begin
with So I and we're still frankly squashed into that building It's still not the right building but uh I hate to just kind of leave it you know like a duck with a broken wing Uh so I think you're better off asking for those three
um alternates and the full 12% And if there's money left over at the end there's money left over But you know let's not cut it so fine that you have to get rid of the alternates if you think they're that important And I think they're important
Okay Well we we we were just trying to figure out ways to make it more palatable but I understand but I think want it to be but it and still be realistic But we're happy I'm sure we'd be h we can't we can't vote on it But if
we ask for the full amount it it's fine You know it's not like anyone would object So what is the bottom line is it is it up there now or we need to adjust that with the alternates that you're recommending be included should be is the bid with alternates all
five of them or it's no bid with the alternates that includes the three the bid with alternates Yes the three alternates and the 454984 is the full 12% of the three four
3 million4 E13 Yeah Or is it a excuse or No that seems that seems right You really should do it on the constru My experience is you do it on the construction You certainly wouldn't do a contingency on on OPM On the OPM and
right and the fees and furnishings I would be happy to if everyone wants that number I can throw that up there Well what's the what what's normally done when you take that 12% contingency are you doing it based on the construction fee yeah not the other items up there
But they and your construction fee is a percentage of the bill right we usually do have some contingency in for soft cost as well So I think that like being more on the conservative side closer to 15% honestly might be based on the um might be a little better I you know I
ran some numbers earlier You know I was thinking about usually we wouldn't fund things like utility back charges Um there's a lot of miscellaneous expenses The fe these um they're not they're not in your they're not in that wouldn't come out of contingency and it's not up
there So it's not up there So insurance all I would say you know $100,000ish for miscellaneous expenses So well like builder insurance and all risk and all that that's not in that we don't need to worry about that That's we don't that's that's in the construction
number Okay Okay So let's let's start again from the top because all right the construction cost is 30 3 million4 that including contingencies No Three Oh you mean if you take out the other The first line Number eight The first
line right do we all agree on that it's the construction bid without any How can you build something without OPM and architect i don't know why Okay Construction I'm trying to get to the contingency David David I'm trying to get to contingency Okay No but you just heard from the guy You need to include
all the things No you do The architect may overrun He may overrun No I disagree with what you said Okay I just disagree Is that what you said i just Well I think it's I think it's conservative It would be safe to to have some
contingency on on the soft cost because you know I mean let's just you know the markets could be a little volatile of course right now um that we don't know about We have been I don't expect usually our fees are you know are good architects are good but
who knows So are we talking then are we talking about 15% of the 3,791 well is that what the recommend if you added I don't know did you change the math in 25e just now Ryan what did
you do there I changed it to be based off of construction cost not okay but our OPM is recommending not doing that so if you go back to I'm confused did you say you wanted 15% of the construction cost or 15% % as the contingency of the entire cost of the
project No if we're doing the entire cost then closer to 10 to 12% Okay So all right So that's why we need to get this So go back to the 12% So 12% of of the total of the 37 whatever 3791 like
you had before but okay but the PSBRC column E 13% Suzanne that includes the three uh add-ons the three um extras 3 3.4 million includes the three okay and the reason it's and then that's why it's
lower than the bid with alternates to the left of it Yeah cuz that has Okay All right So that's what you'll start So we'd be taking 12% of uh 3791 Yes Yeah But if you want to run a comparison and that's what four do for
for u Kate's sake do 15% just over in the right just do a 15% times the 3.4 No times that one just to check it Compare it 60 Okay So that's higher It is higher
And then do it one more check which would be I forget your first name Scott Scott If we had a lump sum 100,000 of the all in other stuff what would the percent contingency be is is that still
12 with the 100 added in or I I don't know how that I'm coming up with like a total of like 42 three But how you need the answer to his question We're trying to get to the So so the percent
I didn't do it I did a little different Well I mean you you mentioned that there was 100,000 not included So if we take that set aside Mhm you would do 15% of base or 12% or you said 10 to 12 I just give us some what's the 511 there that's
that's 15% of the 3.4 the construction costs only And then you could say well I think you're pretty close there Okay So like 500k is what you'd say roughly Okay And that would include the lawyers and this
other stuff Okay So if we add 500 to 34 No you add 379 Sorry 3791 Yeah Oh 3791 That's right 3708 I'm not sure where you go I guess 3708 maybe Right Where's the uh after you take out the 21 okay Yes So
could you add 3708 to the five whatever you did whatever math you've done Ryan 21 I just wanted to ask one last time about the OPM fees they went from 90 to 218 how certain are we that that is a good
estimate because we were obviously off pretty substantially in the first goound So as far as our Suzanne or the OPM if you want it's my understanding that was we increased the scope of services and that is the we've signed I don't know if
it's a fixed fee or it's a not to exceed actually I don't know the cont the contract is fixed fee it's a fixed fee so it's a fixed fee and we have asked for more services than maybe what was originally anticipated as you know and the and also
the early on we had a much lower bid concern rate which was the construction So and those were estimates that were given to you by TBA Yeah So the other So we've got the contract If we vote this we're
going to build it and you know it'd be great if it was less but this is where we are And so what is the overage that we would be asking for at town meeting we55 last time to so because because
this is a debt exclusion project authorize an addition you're going to have the same question So yes so because it's a debt exclusion and you're modifying a debt exclusion council said that you should amend the original vote So what you're saying is
that vote that we took is now X You're going to do that at town meeting and the election Right So you don't the difference between the vote last time and the vote this I'm asking what's the cash increase whatever you decide for this number minus 3.55 million yeah so I
was asking the okay no but I was just so what does that do end up I want the math yeah so 3.55 which number taken out of 4295 Okay I mean could we just anything further
so not on the details but again the actual warrant would basically say we're amending the prior authorization to be Yes 4.2 for dead include excl It'll
either go up or it'll go down Yeah I mean I don't see a choice So that number was 644 What was that uh Brian 669 669 But I
mean from a I guess Travis from it's hard to do this in a vacuum because either be we're going to talk sequence of articles but they're going to be paired Either this one comes first or the other one comes first Right We'll talk about that in a little bit I understand But I'm telling you yeah
you're going to present the town with a million dollars more than they thought it was going to cost Yep And then you're going to ask for something which we're going to talk about which is like 50% more than we thought it was going to cost So we have to think about that Let's do that when we get to the warrant
No I understand But I'm just saying there doesn't seem to be I guess the conclusion is there there's kind of no way to put the genie back on the bottle on this thing I agree Yeah I agree But the question we have is is
this the right contingency is this the amount we want to go to town as opposed to more you mean or or whatever or more or less whatever That's why I say my view is that these are this is what we've been advised I think it's reasonable foolish and we don't want it and we don't want to go less because we
don't want to go back to the town So I do agree with that So if we're in agreement on that we'll you know we'll move on from the police station because we have a long fire station discussion Okay Suzanne Thank you Thank you All right All right So now we're going to move on
to to the fire station So you guys are welcome to come forward and Tektron I think you guys are here too So great So we had a presentation that was submitted in our packet I think
you're going to go through that and tell us what you found Tell us the good news Let me introduce yourself again Oh absolutely Yeah Um Ryan are you gonna pull that sure am Tra is this presentation publicly available at this point or Yeah it was in the packet It
was in the packet So it's publicly available They get on the website You get up Yeah You have to go on the website It's there Okay Thank you Well welcome Thank you All right What oh sorry My name's Edge Oh that was just
your Yeah No harm no foul You're already making yourself useful Yeah And it's not even been one All right So please proceed and introduce yourself Thank you Uh next slide please Um good
evening everybody It's great to be back here since uh the interview Um uh my name is Matt Salad I'm project manager with Techtown Architects Been working here uh with you folks for the past few weeks with your with your chief fire department Um with me tonight who was it at the interview is Jeff Maly want to
introduce yourself yeah I'm Jeff Malary the principal at Techtown Architects I lead the public safety uh market for the company and doing public safety for a little while 38 years now So um I just returned from vacation So Matt is along on top of this I'm going to try to get
off island time and join in when I have something useful It's a tough life but somebody got to do it right not with us tonight who was at the interview uh Rebecca Hopkins uh who's another project manager on our public safety team uh and Tylerky uh who's the designer for the project who's been meeting with the fire
department and us as well as well as our larger team uh and and your OPM uh CMS who's who's here as well Um excuse me Matt I got one quick question for you Jeff So when it says you're uh the director of public safety design so are
you the one with the bulk of the knowledge for lack of a better word about fire station requirements best practices safety standards is that primarily your role i've got the the long experience in that and so I lead the market Great
That's good to know Thanks Um next slide please So um you have you guys have seen the slide deck you've seen the presentation and and I'm certain you already have questions and comments and things like that So you know we can run through this
presentation and and just go slide by slide by slide If you have comments or questions in in in the interm please feel free to interrupt and make this a little bit more of a conversation Um otherwise we have no problem just plowing through Um so so this slide this is a little bit about of our process uh
so far So uh the first step that we engage in as we go through these feasibility studies is really the exploratory phase really trying to understand in this case the fire department's values what their what the chief's vision is for the department over the next 30 40 50 years what their
immediate needs are um and and really trying to trying to go through that process of understanding all those different components that go into the fire station and their operations and incorporating that into our space needs summary you know all of those all those things that we listen to with the chief
with his membership creates a whole list of different different rooms descriptions things that go in that Um that's the first step Um and that that outlines really the the the wishes the wants as well as the needs Uh then we go into a
discussion phase where we say "All right this is everything we heard Now let's sit down and really start refining what is needed and what is going to be supportable by your community Right so um it's it's one thing to say you know this is the chief's list of spaces and this is the building that we're going to
sell to the town but it's another to have those more in-depth conversations about what's really the right fit for for Carlilele and and that's something that we engaged with their membership in um compared that against some of the priorities that you folks outlined in
the RFQ and and that's what ultimately is is providing the plan that we're going to go forward uh with presenting tonight We then take all that information and we start really optimizing that and looking for ways that we can overlap spaces ways that we can create more efficiencies right that
list of rooms It's one thing to put boxes at the end of a corridor and eat up all that square footage But there's also opportunities where spaces can lead into other spaces Things can be combined their uses can be integrated together so that we're not building all that square footage We're we're finding efficiencies
throughout that Uh and then ultimately planning for the future of the department looking for ways that this building could be adaptable So in 10 years you're not busting at the seams and in 20 years when he needs to do an addition or build further on this the building can adapt and it can change
over time So uh that we're not going and building a whole brand new building in 2530 years We're we're making less of a commitment in the future Uh next slide please Um so we've gone through that space needs assessment We've gone through some of those
discussions with fire departments members the the membership Um but what we really need to get down to is understanding the priorities the the fire department's priorities and the community's priorities layering it over all of that information and that ultimately brings us to a solution
that's going to be supportable and fits with everybody's needs Next slide please So so far today as I mentioned we've met with the chief we've met with his leadership we've met with fire department membership Um we're here
tonight talking to you folks Um so we've put together an initial draft space needs assessment What you see on the top left is is an example of what that looks like It's a list of spaces You know that's the summary Um included in that summary we also have uh
room detail So every single space that you see on the screen there's more of them That's just a snapshot We fully detail out every everything every thing that goes into those spaces If there's a coffee maker an outlet a telephone a computer all those inform what that room be you know is needed to be right if I
just say an office an office could be 100 square feet or 300 square feet What sets the size of that is the things that go into it and allow it to function So that's what happens with that Matt excuse me a second It's the um so the left hand side is cut off right the
administration part but you're saying this represents what actually exists now No What does this represent this is just a snapshot This is a snapshot of a larger document Our full spacing summary room detail and all that that whole
program dreams it's like 30 40 pages long Yeah Okay And then to the right the summation is so Yeah So um so the image you see on the right so this is these are just snapshots of the tasks we've we've done
thus far okay so we created our initial space needs we've evaluated the building uh and its existing site we've gone through and laser scanned the entire building measured everything um we then when we get when we get in initial space needs uh Jeff calls that the you know
your jaw hitting the floor moment because it's a lot bigger than what you were anticipating so we then took fall out of the chair fall out of the chair quote me five minutes Yeah Um so we took by the way we took the initiative right off the right off the bat to say there's
no way everything that we're that we're seeing here is going to be supported by the town It it was encompassing of a 30,000 foot building right and so we we took the liberty of saying "Here's some here's some options and and and took some cuts and said this is what uh our
suggestion of a of a $10 million option and a $15 million option would be." Uh we then met with membership and went through a list of understanding all of their priorities ranked those priorities and then applied that to the same metrics and then created a completely different set of space needs assessments
And that prioritization exercise is a real important part of the process because you know we could we could arbitrarily say well we should you know cut bays or we could cut this office or cut that but when you actually ask what are the priorities um of the department and we don't ask which which rooms are
your priority which ideas are your priority right and the one that so commonly rises to the top is health and safety um you know apparatus bay congestion um we'll see some of those we actually have some uh results of exercise in the slide deck later And I
have a question for you How do you how many people were in how many when you talk about members what was that total group i think we had a uh chief if you recall exactly I think it was about 22 of your members were there at that So I think that's about half of your total
membership And so when you get down to the bar graphs that show you know prior that's based on what 22 people concluded correct were their priorities Okay Yep Okay Process question So you had mentioned
this the needs assessment Um obviously starts with the the fire department You also get community input stakeholder input My understanding is right now we're we're at the point where we you haven't gotten the community input or stakeholder input Correct Correct Okay
Yep Because this is the first time we're seeing I haven't seen the space needs assessment Right Um and so just trying to get a a sense of where we are in the process at large and in the process approaching town meeting Yeah Um because
I don't want to overprescribe like the options you're presenting here and I think it's the tendency is to look at the initial space requirement which is the large number the options and it it feels like pick one of these and present one of these It sounds like there's
maybe another feedback loop before we get to that Is that correct yeah I mean this is this is the first step in that community engagement process speaking to all to all you folks So we've been under contract what two and a half three weeks something like that So um we've been moving at break deck pace and we've got to gather the initial data before we can
have those greater community conversations Great Okay Thank you And what we're really looking for in those exercises is finding the commonalities the alignments Y if the fire department feels this is important the community feels that's important then that's what we want to make sure that the program
program data reflects um because then we have alignment and and what matters You know we had to comment earlier about the number of vehicles You know that may be a place where we have a lack of alignment We've got to talk about that a little bit more But certainly you know that's that's part of the process and
and learning where everybody is because at the end of the day we're asking for you know community for a lot of money Yeah Uh but what we want to do is make sure that we're asking the community for a lot of money for things that they support and and the users can support
Okay next slide please Um so just touching real quick on the site So looking at some of our initial investigations you know it's it's certainly a challenge site and and some of the initial test fit options that we've looked at Um try to start to understand and unpack some of those challenges between between the existing
wetlands on site the wellhead protection zone that we have for the public water supply well that's that's back here the existing uh leech field in and septic system Um it's it's a very congested site and a large parcel but we're sort of hemmed in and it's just just a layer
to the challenges that that we will manage through the process Next slide So this is simply a summary of that initial space needs that we have looked at and and you know certainly caveat caveing that with the understanding that you've
flipped through the slide deck and understand this is not where we ended up or what we would recommend to this town But uh we need to start by understanding all of the needs and wants of the department through the vision of the chief and his and his membership over a
multiple decades um existence of this facility So if we don't we have to start there and then we can start peeling back the layers of the onion and we do that through the prioritization Uh next slide please So again as Jeff alluded right a
priority is not it's not a space Uh it's an idea And and so understanding what those ideas are then influence the space And these are some examples of some priorities Um and um and we'll get further into the detail throughout the presentation on fire department's
priorities Um this is just an example of a priority Um right Uh you could tell me that training is really important to your firefighters and I can go and say that that the American Fire Service actually says that improvements in training has is attributed to to less death incident
deaths um with within the fire service So there's a lot of data to support some of these some of these ideas Uh next slide Um so this is this is about right it's it's about finding finding that balance right the the the you know understanding
what these priorities mean against the ent the overall budget of the project right some of them might be really really great ideas you know it might be great to say let's put every single vehicle that the fire department has and put it in a heated apparatus bay within the main building like that that that'd be a really great thing to do but the
overall cost to do that is pro is probably going to be prohibitive prohibitive so we might want to think of you know alternative ways to achieve some of the same goals Um and so Matt on that slide that's a conceptual slide right yes Yes Not an actual matrix where
you No that would be now you have three alternatives I mean the one on the upper left is probably Well actually no I shouldn't say that I mean option one is somewhere in the upper right quadrant That would be correct Yes And option two I guess is in the lower left of sorts
Yep But I would be quite interested in where you put option three as a bubble Yeah Yeah that would be I mean having these random dots is doesn't help us We should actually populate that matrix Yeah we could certainly do that Okay
Um next slide So this gets into some of the priority prioritization conversations we had with fire department membership On the left you see sort of a questionnaire that we that we worked with them on um outlines a number of different questions about um really just conversation
starters about you know do they see a need um what sort of priorities are there um and then we had them rank a lot of them Number question number two is really the primary question that really gets to a lot of what we're going to be talking about today And and so we asked
them about seven seven different priorities um firefighter health operational safety bay capacity uh improvements in response time uh training officer workspace and living accommodations Um the bar graphs to the
right are their priority seven and six responses So basically that tabulates the top choices in the second tier choices So uh firefighter health operational safety bay capacity Um a overwhelming
majority said that is those three things are their number one priority as far as they could pick as many as they wanted or just one it was So what they were what they had to do was rank them one through seven So of of those seven different priorities uh a majority
ranked those three as the four like four people said firefighter health was the most important Yep and three others said operational safety was the most important Right those are those seem closely linked together but those are actually different in the implementation in the building And and this adds up to
22 Uh I didn't do it Four and four is 8 9 10 11 No it doesn't Let's see One two three 14 like that Yeah 14 Um I don't I'm not sure if everybody filled one out but uh so I don't understand the
difference between barraph one seven and six seven and six so so the choice so the top bar graph is the top choice the second bar graph is choice number two choice oh so you'd have if you did like they do in voting sometimes they'll force oh it's like rank choice yeah rank
choice voting yeah back with right all right now I get it I think what gets what what shows a little bit more value in this is if you Go to the next slide Um this is the average across all of all the respondents Um so this is showing that
uh overwhelmingly uh bay capacity firefighter health operational safety and training and development were prioritized by membership over over uh response time officer workspace and living accommodations Right so this is basically saying we need more space uh
for our vehicles We're concerned about our our health safety um and operational safety Um and training and development which we'll get into a little bit more is is is really about making sure that you've got the best trained volunteer firefighters who can have but it's also
a great recruitment and retention tool right that's that's a way to bring people in if you have training facilities that are modern Um and it's not a very expensive thing to to incorporate into the building Um Matt I'm sorry I'm having trouble
u making sense um on the the uh last this slide Sure You're saying that the training and development was was you know within the top four but if you look at the responses above training and development in the priority level seven
the first choice was and it looks like it was only one person that put that and then on the your second choice again it was only two people So that's that's that's so those two on the right those are those are people that's
that these are their number one I understand that So I don't understand though how do you get to training and development being up as high as it is um when those so are you overweing are you rank are you saying like your first choice is worth seven points and your second choice is worth six and so forth
Is that how you came up with that third yeah So you Yeah So you what was that tell us what that like if if we the six of us sitting here had to do that exercise Sure And you say what's your number one choice and I say bait capacity Mhm And that is one at a score
of seven or something Correct And then you ask me my second choice and I say training and development It gets I like what is that what's the math behind it i guess because maybe you're overweing like if it by the third time I guess what I would say is given resource
constraints right you can't just say what's your first choice what's your second you got to say like you have two choices Give me your top two and that's it That's all you get like you can't give them 18 choices because some of these things bubble up to the top I think Barney's correct Training
development it may be like everybody's third or fourth choice and that's okay but in a constrained resource environment where we have to cap some stuff off it shouldn't make the list It gets it overweight in this uh diagram is what you're trying to say I mean I urge
you to go back through your go do you have a statistician and on call i mean I'm serious It's only a sample size of 22 or maybe you should do all 22 but like statistitians do that like they help you manipulate that data This data
is representative of seven Okay No seven priorities 14 people Yeah it looks like but I mean you really have to think about the impact of we have somebody in town who's very good at it by the way I'm sure she'd be happy to help you But I mean it's important because we're
going to have to make these hard decisions right and I Barney's absolutely correct If you you know if this skews our impression of the data it's not it's a not the right outcome We'll review that math and see if we can clean it up for you
But is it fair to say from the from the next one down the mean priority level is it fair to say that the top three are bay capacity firefighter health and operational safety yes I think it is fair to say And
you think that would carry through yeah Right Okay That would carry Yeah All right And Chief you agree with that Chief Sorrows yes Okay I think one of the things to understand in terms of wide membership is many of those people
have never seen a modern fire station Never been in one Never seen a what never been in a modern fire station right no I get that If they're in Boxboro if they're in Bedford they've never which they've seen That's not what that's not what the world's going
to be in five years So just to understand they're they're also skewed a little bit in terms of their response Okay But they're real on call firefighters right which is the group we're trying to continue to recruit to work here Yeah Okay But that brings up a
really good point Brian Like should you tour some Yeah We talked about that after Yeah I mean give people an idea like what could be right all right we're good Two more slides Yeah Right here So
um what what we can show you is is is some of these some of these ideas through the lens of a compar comparison of your existing facilities versus versus a modern fire station and and what some of these ideas might look like
Um so in this case we're we're looking at it through the lens of of Lexington Fire Headquarters which is a project we did which is not too far from here Um it's career fire station so it's not an applesto apples comparison But just because a large career fire department has amenities doesn't mean that there's
a lesser cost solution that can provide those same amenities in a volunteer fire organization Um so if you go to the next slide Well what is this program equity in this pie chart this is this is that pie chart
is is is this is the typical relationship of space distribution within a fire department Right So uh about 45% of the space is typically designated to fire response So that's your apparatus bays Fire medic support
are those rooms that live off the bays that help support the apparatus themselves These are these are storage rooms and supply rooms and things like that Um and then live and work environments or your or your office spaces your bunking and your day rooms and the like So that's that's a that's a
that's a snapshot of of what's typical in both career and volunteer fire departments That's what you mean by program Yeah Okay Um so uh your existing your existing facilities now uh so the apparatus phase
um right that those are there isn't a lot of support space off of the bays right there's some there's some standards and some best practices in terms of of bay size height door openings things like that you're actually not in bad shape with those
right now your your your bay width is 16'8 that's about the small side of what would be recommended in a modern fire facility Typically you're looking for 18 feet in your in your center aisles and and 22 feet on your end aisles Um but the problem that you have is because
there's no real support or storage space for all the equipment and gear they have it all lands in the aisles right so so when we're talking about operational safety that's what becomes a concern here right if you're a a call firefighter coming into the station
grabbing your gear running down the aisle to get on a truck and respond in a in a quick fashion it takes one thing to be out of place on that aisle for you to trip fall somebody else to come ripping out of there in a truck and not see you and cause a serious injury or or worse
So um getting stuff off the floors getting rid of all that clutter right would be would help for that um firefighter health Um very important to have separation between what are called hot and cold zones Um NFPA has two
standards They have a separate standard for uh call fire departments for their operations and response and they have another standard for career fire departments Both of those lead you to NFPA 1500 which is the health and safety standard for fire departments Doesn't
care if you're a volunteer organization Doesn't care if you're a career organization It says one risk is too much So we want to make sure that every firefighter has the same level of protection from carcinogens on the bay floor and it's exhaust from the vehicles It's the PPE that they wear It's the
gear when they come back from a fire response that's contaminated And it you want it to be contained to the apparatus phase and not migrate to the rest of the building That's done through uh active HVAC systems that are that are creating positive pressurization from support
spaces into the bays It's how you're storing and decontaminating your PPE air packs and things like that Um these are not extremely expensive things that need to be done but is something that would would certainly be impactful in any
renovation or addition going forward And there's a definite overlap between that bay congestion that Matt was talking about earlier and meeting satisfying some of these requirements If you get the proper decontamination area that means that gear is not on the bays It's in it's in the decontamination area Um
if you have turnout gear storage again you get that gear off the floor and into the proper turnout gear storage So a lot of these have a lot of overlap with with other considerations And the really good news is is that when it comes down to the biggest health and safety consideration
um we're talking about pressurization and maybe a small air lock so that you have a proper transition from the hot zone to the cold zone Um we have departments that like to do more than that Um but the NFPA guidance is a
transition zone in air pressurization um training So right now we've got a a very small classroom Fire department is not able to do all their trainings within that Um they're not able to get their entire membership in there Um but the classroom training is just one small
piece of training right there's a lot of on the job hands-on training that that fire departments uh undergo Um and then and then and then live workspaces especially in volunteer fire departments These live workspaces are are critically important for your recruitment and your
retention right you can only geographically recruit to a small area if you don't have a space for folks to come and spend time during the day or for their families to enjoy with themselves A lot of volunteer fire departments especially over the past decade have been really investing in
having some of these small these these live and work areas so that they can be there um and they can recruit from a larger radius like there's only so many folks you can get from four minutes away from a volunteer station But if you start to broaden that radius out you know if you're going to get someone from
20 30 minutes away how are you going to get them you know to participate in the fire department and be there when a when a call comes through um so a few examples of how that can be done um on the next slide So so the first image on
the top left right that's what a modern apparatus bay should look like It's just a place for the trucks There shouldn't be anything else cluttering the floors It's causing a safety issue Um having segregated space for things like the SCBA compressor that fills the air packs that they use for when they when they
fire that should be out on the fire floor That should be in a self-contained room The bottles the air packs they should be stored separately The gear should be stored separately These are all NFPA guidelines not codes but but they are guidelines Um training it's not just the
classroom the image on the left under that training slide that's showing the back of an apparatus bay Um you can have a mezzanine back there and that could be used for a number of different trainings You can do you can do combined space training in there repelling uh different ways that fire firefighters will
encounter issues in the field You can simulate that on the fire floor in a safe and effective manner with very little cost If there's most fire departments there's already going to be a mezzanine right because we have a tall base space but we have small support space that goes in it So if we're building one large structure and having
some support space underneath it you know that double height space will afford us to have a mezzanine that we can do a lot of this training on It can it can double as additional storage and things like that So it's sort of a win-win Um and then and then again live live workspace Um you know allowing
there to be some level of preparedness for folks that are in the department but also increasing your ability to recruit and retain Uh next slide So this is this is just a diagram showing how some of these spaces come together Uh this is actually a floor
plan for a small uh volunteer fire department that has classroom space on the right with living accommodations of a day room uh in in in living space a small fitness room some bunks off to the top and then the apparatus bays you know showing a 22 foot wide bay on the end uh
18 foot aisle bays and then all the support spaces that that share that And then you can see on the bottom left a spare that brings you up to the top above all those uh support spaces and provides a mezzanine that's used for storage training
Is that a comparable town where that um Bloomfield's a bigger community it's a Greenfield Bloomfield Bloomfield community This is a substation their sub Okay It's uh I think the population is around 20,000
residents They have two separate water districts So they're they're completely separate from the town So they have their own tax base Uh there's two t water districts One that has its own fire or they each have their own fire organization but there's about five fire departments in this town Okay Just
bigger geographic area too One of the most interesting wide demographic towns in the state of Connecticut Yes Extremely poor areas and extremely wealthy It's like it's like the craziest town All right My uh my great great my great-grandfather and my great great-grandfather both served as chief
in that community Really wow Founded the department In fact um so uh these are this is getting into the options So again this is option one This is the initial space needs uh that had all the all the needs as well as the wants at
29,000 square ft um back of the napkin you can you you know we're looking anywhere between $800 and $900 a square foot in construction costs for a fire station So um certainly an expensive project and and and one that we would not recommend to this community
Um if you go to the next slide this is looking at how that would sit on the site Uh this is looking at basically encapsulating the existing station in a large C Um that would be two stories elevators stairs all the support space associated with that Um elevators
We got to talk about elevators We're going to talk about that You need an elevator You shouldn't be uncomfortable So uh not not only you know is this program not supportable by the budget but it's also barely supportable by the
site itself It's really it's really going to be a constrained site with it It's it's taking up a lot of space Doesn't give us a lot of front line bays where the trucks are right at the door Um because you can see the way that C wraps We get all of our front doors are
are bay doors on the left side Um so if you go to the next slide So this is this is looking at uh a program that would be right around the $10 million budget This is about what you would get with that So in the in the
the all-in one that we looked at before that was looking at basically an addition of about seven apparatus bays to get all the vehicles in there eight bunk rooms training facilities all the support spaces that go in there private offices uh for all the different functions that that they would need This
looks at getting rid of all the bunking uh all the living facilities within within the building entirely reducing it down to one single uh apparatus bay addition Um it says two bay edition So that means two vehicles So it's one bay
double Oh two vehicles like head tohead You head to Yep So so what they have out there right now is those are those are double deep bays because they can fit two vehicles Um we'd be you know reducing a lot of the living space and and and really stripping this down to
basically the bare the bare minimum Um it excuse me Sorry Matt Sure just to um but the like the firefighter living space you're going from 451 to is that 1100 but um Ryan your cursor is right on
the yes it's 1100 1100 so it's a little less than triple or whatever So there must be something in there for the that would be living space day room kitchen area um a gathering space for all intents and purposes for the the firefighters when
they are on site but no bunk no sleep over What this is what this is the 451 square feet comprises is off of the bays Currently there's a small sort of kitchen living area here This is looking to just increase the size a little bit
Not additional rooms or or anything like that Um so go to the next slide Uh this is looking at that site test fit And basically what you're looking at is uh apparatus bay off to
the north with a little bit of support space for that Uh to the bottom right we'd be looking at basically a 32 foot by 32 foot classrooming room Basically a community training room So they would increase the capacity of the classroom that they have now use it as a public
amenity space and it would be ADA accessible because you wouldn't have to be going upstairs And this would be what's in there in yellow The one-story edition The one story edition correct so but um Matt I guess the next is it let's go to the block diagram because the next slide is Well there's one other point to
point out here too is is is recognizing that uh this isn't meeting the needs of the bay capacity challenge Well that's why I want to go to the index slide Yeah So this includes building this includes an out building off to the northwest of the of the site as well Oh yes
What's in the out all the extra just just extra trailers trucks things like that So so with a with a with a public safety building the building code says that you know public safety buildings hospitals things like that have to be operational when the worst disasters
occur right so there they they have different structural classifications within the building code and there's four risk categories and a public safety building is a risk category for structure So just by doing that it makes the architecture significantly more expensive than any any other building
type If it's not critical vehicles used for fighting a fire the support trailers the boat the other things that they use for other incidents we can put that in an outbuilding downgrade the classification of that structure to a risk category 2
and save money So that's that's what we're doing here in that So and that's part of the 6,000 additional square feet though correct okay And that's not heated It would be it would probably be warmed because there are some things that are going to be stored in that that
can't freeze Um they've got uh a trailer that houses a number of pumps they use to set up for when they're drafting on ponds and things like that There there's there's other you know small engines and things like that they use for certain incident response that sort of need to stay warm or they won't function But
think of it as you know tempered rather than warm and cozy We're talking 50 50° not 75 Next slide So this is this is a block diagram for what that would essentially look like So up on the top um you can see the
the the single double deep bay that we'd be adding with some support space Uh we'd have a little bit of EMS So we by positioning the ambulance up there we'd position right next to that any EMS storage and medical uh supply restocking closet uh a decontamination space so
that when you are coming back from a fire response that you have a space to properly decontaminate which they don't have now Uh a work room which is uh parts and tools and things like that for for operate working on the vehicles Uh and then a general storage space just to
kind of capture some of the stuff that's down on the on the floors all the other stuff Um and then to give them a little bit of a a little bit of support for some of their living quarters would be a fitness room for you know physical
fitness activities Um aside from that we basically to the plan South creating a small lobby some public restrooms and then that community training room But does go ahead Does that take into account renovating then the existing
because it looks like in dark gray there So you're changing I'm just trying to think of the scope like how how involved is this so um so in terms of the ground level renovations right so right here is where one of the ambulances is currently
parked Um so we would be taking half of that to extend this lobby for the training room and create public restrooms because we'll need those by by code Uh the other half of that will create a female locker and shower room the mail locker and shower room that exists now would remain as it is Uh
their current kitchen and dining area that they have down there we can use that to store bunker gear their turnout gear and then basically everything on the upper floor Mostly just leave it as it is What's up there what's up there yeah Right Right now they've got the training room they've got the the chief's office he's got an admin's
office and there's a small bathroom But we don't want to get in if we're if we're not going to get into adding stairs and elevators and making the second floor accessible we're pretty much going to just leave it alone So uh two questions Matt One is on that note I think Travis was kind of one there Is
there any rena that you can do in the existing that does not trigger bringing everything up to code so we can renovate 50% of the building before we have to bring everything up Is that what you're trying to accomplish you're trying to keep it below that threshold Yes Then on the proposed
addition which is a which is a height of a bay why wouldn't you or or would you potentially make it four bays instead of two bays like not put all that onetory stuff in there but just as long as you're building that structure add the
base because that's what people want and then maybe do something on the other side to We certain So there's a trade-off here We could we could certainly do that Um but not within this $10 million budget So What we're looking at is not a 10 million Oh yeah This is the 10 million This is the $10 million
This is the 10 There are extra but on the top there's two proposed additions The one on the top there No I know But I'm saying the yellow on the upper stripe is a single story stuff Why not just clear that out of there and
make four like make four bays because number one is the support space that helps Well cram that in on the blower I mean if bass is the most important thing like make more bass Well it was not Well that's sort of priority discussion right yeah Um but you said upstairs currently
is a training there is a training space as well as an office and a bathroom So and then you have a community training room down here So what are you thinking the upstairs training room training room is storage or possibly an office Yeah If we if we start getting
into putting space up there that isn't down on the ground level now we're going to start talking about triggering an elevator right and um obviously it's hard to you know visualize the scale of things but the the lobby but the lobby
looks to be like I don't know maybe a third the size of the community training room I'm just curious what the thinking is about the lobby that is is it in reality would it be that uh because it seems like a lot of space for a lobby um
if it's about a third of the community training room So part of so part of this is uh under so let me rephrase that the lobby can be smaller certainly what we are trying to do is
provide a little bit of flexibility for future growth um down the road and that's not through the lobby Um should so our what we would probably end up doing is for this training room is instead of doing it just a normal roof structure we'd probably put a composite deck on top of that So we'd pour a
concrete deck roof structure over the training room such that in the future um you could add on vertically over that space If you did that and then took into account the rest of the second floor you could create quite a bit more office and living space up there but you would
probably need a stair You would probably need an elevator to do that So the lobby is sized such that you can spur off of it an elevator and a stair and and allow that access accessibility up above And that's based on a when you project ahead
what where are you getting your projections because it sounds like like when you just said you'd need to expand um and build something up above Where are there where is that coming from sort of a looking at the Carile population
and the potential area left for putting in yeah go ahead So for this scheme in particular it's because we're knowing that we're not building enough for today as this scheme sits And so we would anticipate that in 20 years someone's going to be like well we we we need to
build more now because it's been long enough and we want to make sure that that option is is is available to construct and and and add on without substantially more cost But you wouldn't be able to build more bays So right I mean if you're just going up and using
that second floor what and what So what's the thinking about what would be up there uh living space Ah okay Which is which this which is the one thing that this option cuts off the most This couldn't accommodate a full
full-time fire department Oh that's the projection that we would be moving to a full-time fire department Just that addition wouldn't get you there No it's just a living space So no I know I'm sorry What did you say first of all this assumes we are going to a
full-time No this assumes we're continuing to do on call This means that you're on call for forever Well not only that but what I heard him say though was that this is not really even enough for today Yes It means that we will have to
And of course the last time we thought we were going to build above the uh fire station that didn't pan out so well So okay Yeah there's been big adjustments in the structural code in the years that I've been doing this Yeah And but that's not to say there won't be any new ones
going down the road And we already you know we just had stretch code and then the special stretch code and uh and so there'll be more coming down And not to mention the fact that some of your building materials will be going out of
date because they'll be priced out of the possibility So all right Okay Well let's keep going Please keep going Yeah Well we Yeah we've got a we we do have a lot on our agenda tonight We want to get through
all this course quickly Um so this is uh this is third option Uh this is looking at adding an additional bay uh an additional double deep bay to the north This gets all of the necessary frontline
response vehicles into the bays um and able to respond This also includes some bunking and some living accommodations as well as some some office space We we did that by by creating some combined space So sort of not saying this is going to be a bunk this is going to be
an office but let's put some of these things together Um daytime office and a nighttime bunk Mhm Um so this this looks at uh basically an additional um 10,000 square feet over the existing
So this is about 4,000 square feet more than the than the previous option we looked at Um go to the next slide So in this you can see uh the bays here a little bit deeper So we we added another uh 18 feet
or so to to this mass And then we looking at a one-story addition wrapping around the front of the building and then up to the north Um we'd be cutting into the hillside a little bit in order to to achieve that Um but it's but it's certainly feasible
And you still don't have the out building Yeah The the other thing with this is this would require us um actually with with this and the previous option um reszoning this to a central business district zone I've spoken to the building uh official about this
Seems like it wouldn't be too big of an issue to do We'd have to present it at the town meeting to get that approved That's in order to get closer to the road Yeah To to get the 20 foot set back instead of the 40 Um you could go Luckily we're out of the
historic district by the time we get there So make it a little easier Uh next slide Um and so again like the like the previous option where we talked about the training room we could also put a composite deck um on this to help set it
up for future growth vertically Um as well as planning for if we're going to go down that road we would also probably pre-plan out some areas where an elevator might go or where stairs would go Um but but this also envisions this is is a singlestory edition with no
elevators no stairs none of that And what's different from this option from to the previous option option two is that instead of uh well what's written here it says four bays but it's just one long thing two of them headto
head right this would have double the addition to the previous option exactly okay uh next slide uh and this looks at that sort of spatial arrangement so um this is the existing fire station this box here and
what be looking at is taking um this is the addition off to the north with the with the two bays and then some support space Um we've actually where we showed it in the previous options where you saw like the apparatus bay and then a bar of support space We've actually scattered the support space based on the way the
fire department would operate and respond into the building to try to maximize the amount that we're reusing and limit the amount that we're building Um so Apparatus Bay Edition off to the north we'd have an area here where we'd have their their turnout gear their
bunker gear would be stored here This allows them to respond in come right into the bunker gear and then whichever way they need to go to to to depending on what vehicle they need to grab for the response are basically centrally located within within those bays So it
helps really improve that response time um down around the the bottom of this So we'd have a small lobby centrally located To the north of that would be a community training room classroom setting Below that would be our
restrooms We have a kitchen dining day room space Um and then around here is a series of what we're saying is office and bunking So you imagine these as little 100 square foot hoteling offices so that you could recruit from a larger radius with a pull down Murphy bed so
that you can you can be there for for longer um when there's longer duration storms uh in the future if you start to do duty shifts and things like that It starts to set the department up for 5 10 15 years down into in the future um and allows them to expand that that
recruitment radius Um we then take over that ambulance bay here Uh the northern side of it would become your firematic support spaces So these are all those storage pieces and and decon spaces We'd have a small fitness room within this
this sort of zone of of fire living and and workspace with a with a transition zone that allows you to create that hot zone cold zone uh separation Um the existing uh locker room would become the female locker room and shower The
existing kitchen day room area would become the male locker and shower Um and this one would also have a small out building a smaller out building than option two Um that would house the uh the rest of the ancillary uh vehicles and support trailers and things like
that that they that they have So this one it's just just it's a little bit more important on this option for that out building to to house those because we're utilizing so much more of the site capacity Yeah That we run out of space to to store a lot of stuff But I mean kind of where I was going before if you
built the upper edition which would pick up a lot of base space and you know bunker gear and that and didn't build the L the backwards L you just prepare that you could build it right Mhm I mean you know
lobby just I mean it's easy to say and harder to design but like just just build the side build the build the upper bay get the as many vehicles as is practical and then whatever else you need to put in there put in there and then
just have a plan whenever we if we do have to again build that we could build around the shell of the existing one I don't I'm not quite I'm not quite hearing a compelling argument for building that backwards
L That's my impression Well you've Where are you putting them during the day the kitchen dining day room and the Well you you may have maybe it takes two little yellow blocks I mean I don't I think before we get into the nitty-gritty of this we need to kind of see the whole
big picture here of the different options and figure out which I think we're seeing them This is the third option The reason I mean you say that but now he's going to go to what is evil about option two and all that So I mean it's important you know it's a pitch right it's a pitch pitch It's an upsell pitch
and I'm not saying because of you guys but it is an upsell pitch my benefit you you're talking you you're referring to growing just just so I understand being a a a call fire department is the general understanding that that will become continue to get harder with time
recruiting volunteers that we will have to have more volunteers from a wider radius in the next 5 years 10 years that's the trend correct the trend nationally is every volunteer fire department is struggling with recruitment and retention but when you
say grow that's what you're talking Yeah in order to make sure that you have the proper number of responders to operate the vehicles in compliance with the NFPA you know fire departments are always having to do recruitment and retention But yes you're absolutely right It's not about a growing
population growth It's about continuing to grow and encourage people to participate and be involved in you know important work that's done there because I think not grow not shrink at least because I think one of my big concerns with all of this is we we the town
approves an option We move forward and then it can't support a we can't support a call fire department anymore in 15 years and we don't have a building that supports a career fire department and then you're now you're stuck That's kind of idea Well that's I mean understanding
what that Yeah I mean this one is a little bit more transitional if it came to that Um you know we there are there's a lot of work that's being done by volunteer fire departments to continue to promote better recruitment and retention Um the shift schedule that the
duty shift that Matt talked about one of our clients right now is experimenting with doing duty shifts because their volunteers are saying "Yeah we'd be happy to you know to spend you know a Saturday night here one night you know every few weeks." um so that we're right
there and ready to respond um as part of their you know their obligation to the volunteer organization Um there's you know I can think of extraordinary measures that some communities have gone to I had a client in Mano Minnesota who came to me and said we I want you to
design us a fire station I'm like "Okay this is I want you to design us um like condos in the back because we have a lot of college kids and we can get the college kids give them free or reduced rent room and board to be participants in the volunteer fire department." I've
seen that twice in my career That's kind of extreme measure put them in a box but I see a lot of really good ideas for for improving recruitment and retention and that sense of camaraderie um that happens in a fire department And that's why day rooms and and and um even
the fitness rooms are such important aspects of that to get people to come to the fire station to do a little bit of workout We get the people to come to the fire station to do work from home and things like that That's been a big trend um to keep more people involved in the organization
The the only thing you've heard so far on priorities is the membership's priorities and I think the membership is is amazing right but one of your goals and priorities is to make sure that you have those members not just now but in the future So if you're in the organization now you're like this is
what I need to be successful but you're not considering the future members needs and coming in So if you don't create work living space fitness space it's going to be very hard in our economic bubble to continue to attract people
unless unless the the membership as it's existed continues And I hope so Let's talk top priorities Would you would you if it it came to it would you put
the living space the fitness the you know day room uh those pieces uh as a way to continue to recruit the the volunteers that you need ahead of having enough having more base space
or or less than ideal base space but some additional base space I'm just That's a tricky one Um because yes I think you know the the data says you know the response to the fire department said they're concerned about the bay congestion They're they're concerned
about the bay capacity Um they're concerned about the health and safety Um and those were top priorities Um however if you provide the bays and none of that other space then the the concern becomes do you are you able to continue to
recruit and and continue to keep people involved in volunteer firefighting and you know I think that is a decision that the community needs to weigh um a little bit as well Um you know how committed are we um to to seeing the
department continue to grow and thrive um and I don't mean to be you know scary about that in any way I just think it's something we all have to think about Um but yeah your priorities say base space so far That's kind of what option three
is If you look at it you're losing a lot of base in order to get that space that we're talking about That's kind of what that's doing But that Yeah but that's four more bays over losing a bunch Yeah but we're also quite a bit in here We're
also losing these um these these become second line response instead of frontline response over here as does this So there there are there are tradeoffs in this plan towards that Yeah I like that And so I see when you over
here to the right which you can't see all that well but the remaining vehicles So you're saying you have two of your engines that aren't in a bay scenarios too Those are well but no the scenario above that is more right that areating that are outside Yeah And then
option one I think had all of them I don't know how these could both go out of both directions and then these Okay It tries to make that walk the balance right so can we look at option two again the
block diagram cuz I I guess I don't know anything about firefighting but it seems to me that discussion losing the two-way doors in the main building I mean isn't that like pretty important for traffic flow to have doors at each side and you know the option three you're going to have
congestion right because you always have to go out one direction It just doesn't seem to um So my question is that is less of an issue than the fact that we don't really have uh secondary pieces secondary fact that something has to
leave before the engine behind it leaves Well but that you wouldn't in the double door you don't have that Exactly I mean that's what the constraint is Not so much that they're all granted at the same time Okay So you're making you're making my point better Great So so you want that And then why couldn't you
instead of community why couldn't you put a strip at the bottom if you need to you know backwards yeah Yeah The backwards L but not as big Just just to strip or even prepare Here's the question Matt Okay If if we're today an
on call fire department so presumably both the on call and the career guys need the trucks and they need the decon and they need the room to maneuver Everybody needs the same thing The difference seems to be when you go to the career fire department you need more
bunk room You need more that stuff again Can't you build that later can't or or put the found I mean I guess again my I'm not a firefighter but the elements of this look better really than option three to
me it preserves more of the important stuff right now and yes sensitive to the fact that there there may be you may have to plan for a changing type of firefighter but that's not going to be the equipment based stuff it's going to
be the other stuff right the life the Well this this one doesn't have any any sort of place to put you know if you want to stay overnight No but you that's what I'm saying Okay You could put the L at the bottom I mean you don't just not as big Okay I don't see an option How you
put the lobby where it is and then put the bunking and everything to the option 2 a where it's whatever Whatever It just I mean that's just my impression Option three actually seems to move to a more constrained condition in the thing that people val
in the two things that were the most valuable base and and congestion or whatever they call it So I don't I do I want the select board to kind of step back for a minute because I know we have a ton of stuff on our agenda We're a half hour over Wait
I'm just saying this is important and I I'm trying to figure out where like as a select board we want to head with all this because this is the first time we're getting all this stuff kind of by a fire hose No pun coming at us and we're going to need
we're going to need some input We're going to need community So I'm saying not ready for spring That's what I'm saying Yeah I agree it I just wanted to that's why I'm we can't end it right now just if we agree on that No but we want No we can end it for the moment because we do have the timeline but nothing I'm
hearing tells us we're ready for spring I I tend to agree That's why I brought this up because I think that we are now faced with a lot of big decisions as a town and how as a select board how we want to present this going forward What is the next step in the process if this
were a fully funded project what would be the next step obviously we'd refine settle on an option and then go into design Yes Yeah And then we would then then we would you say like in a week like what would
No just no time constraint just how the how the process would normally flow in a in a project like I'm just trying to figure out what's the next step in moving this project forward Yeah Yeah So after after that we would start we would start sort of refining this so that's not just a block diagram It's more of a
plan We would start doing some the the community engagement session start presenting this to to the greater public right um getting their input understanding what their priorities are seeing where the alignment is Um and then exploring options exploring multiple options suggested Yeah You
would the next step from a town meeting standpoint though would be to fund a project No this is me now So yes um what we have funded so far through through ARPA y is Neil
and oh CMS and Tecton's going to bring us to town meeting with a number and then we were going to go for more design fees So if you stopped this now and said we want to move it to the fall you do not have any more funding for design So there has to be something at the spring
unless you want to fully wait until the fall to restart I guess my question is is the design based on a picking an option or does the design so this is what you discussed I'm sorry because so you discussed previously you wanted to bring something
solid to town meeting to say right we want to get all this design money so you you wanted an estimate and some basic idea right because if you ask for design money the first question is this is your words they're going to ask is well what's the project cost and how big it is yeah exactly so that's the dilemma
yep is you need more money to explore more options But you won't have that fidelity of number How much was the ARPA funding about 150 right So instead of the many hundreds of thousands here could ask for some small amount to kind of keep it going Right Yes To continue
the design development This kind of level of is is the $150,000 level not the $800,000 Yeah It was to get you to concept right yeah We So maybe that's You don't have one yet But I don't think we want
to shut it all off to the point where we can't get get to a decision That's the thing And do we need more design work to to to request something at this spring town meeting is that what you're not for the fall or even the next
spring i think we need to go through more iterations like we've just done here We need community input we need to have you know more discussion of what is essential and figure out which plan we generally support And then we kind of once we get through that we then take
that to town meeting and say this is what we've come up with We've had community buy in and now we want to raise the money or have the town fund to be able to do the full set of design on that plan And I think what we're you're hearing is we're not there tonight So we
just need a path to kind of get us designing or not designing designing and moderating I don't know Allow us to get to Yeah get to the the answer of what would the what's the preferred option for the community right To enough granularity where we could
take it to the town and get it funded Yeah And what would that mean then for the continuation of the work that you would would be expecting to do at this point when when does that how far
do we get with the um money that we have at the moment is this it well it so not quite it Not quite it No So this is not a conceptual design but we sort of need direction on an option in order
to get to the conceptual design piece So we can put some more options together like this I I don't know that we need more options before we go and get We also do have we also do have a line item for community outreach So we start we can start we
need the community outreach before we choose one of those options right we need Yeah Yeah So we're missing a step for us Well we also need to give our input right but right but it would be
helpful to have one community So we've got the experts in front of us We only got a few more minutes but what did what do you want to I was just exploring where we're at and you know we could continue with the money that's allotted to explore more options and to do more engagement If you ultimately want a
conceptual design that that we can put an estimate to um that's solid enough to take to a town meeting there is the possibility some additional um fee would be required to do that Nowhere near the full design services as you pointed out
Um you know we could I don't I don't think we're talking huge dollars here but I think we should put together proposal proposal Yeah Can we are we inside i mean have we left a warrant broad enough that we could do that it could be changed It can still be
changed We got to talk about the structure of the warrant article Okay So we can still change it So mean ask for a small amount at the Springtown meeting to continue to get to the town meeting I thought we closed the warrant right but
we have a written warrant This is to bring a fire station So this is the fire Okay So it's within That's all I'm asking It's consistent with Yeah Yeah Okay All right I think you have seven days More time is seven days All right Well yeah I mean we're we're a month from town meeting basically and like
we're seeing it for the first time in the community You know there's it would be extremely rushed to try to we've already made that decision We appreciate how how hard you guys were working with that idea of getting something ready by Springtown meeting I know we did but I'm
just saying And if I put something on the screen the first time in front of you folks and you said that's the right solution you probably didn't study it that often So that's the wrong approach is to just Well I I think then we should turn it back to giving the TA the
authority to kind of work a a um a plan together so with to get an estimate so we could put that on the warrant Is that what we're Yeah the what needed to have them to have a get to where that we have a a conceptual design that we felt we
could talk to the town about Yeah Now and we do need to start community out like if if there is and yes funds to do community outreach I know Um that would be great to start that Yeah Okay Well let's let the town
administrator handle that unless you feel otherwise There's only one there's one other item in that context There's an individual who's attending the meeting who made a comment which um has to do with a third party consultant
like and we have the what the what our firefighters say they need is a group We have us I guess and citizens at large who have their opinion But what about our OPM i don't know is is are you guys the independent needs consultant like to
balance everybody we can do all this outreach and get all these opinions but how do we synthesize them i I help you guys with this a lot so I would like to weigh in on this So if you were to describe what would convince you then we could get you that expert but I'm not sure that we can
It's really about controlling cost So if everybody tells you that to accomplish X goal it's X I'm not sure that someone you'd have to tell me who to bring in Well let's then you're paying more money for another person to I think well I'll just speak for myself
and say that you know I am just extremely conscious of um the the amount of money we were hoping to keep this at the 10 million and that um and and so you know when you ask
about priorities I look at the various options and I think none of those three get us to come in around 10 million and it's 10 to 12 here and if we're not going to start if we're slowing it down we're not going to start building till next year who knows what the costs are
going to be then And so my inclination is to say go back to the drawing board and figure out you know given the things we've talked about and the importance of some decent you know living space Now this is just me talking We have you know
this is not all of us as a select board saying this but that's sort of where I feel like I am I don't feel like any one of those three options is like you know is hits the sweet spot Um because you know we're just under enormous financial pressure here in town with the building
project That's not your fault but that's what we're you know dealing with in town Yep I the select board then has to talk about this further And unfortunately we do have a lot we've got to get done tonight with the warrant So we're going to have to move on But I think we're going to have to have a whole another
meeting just so should we instruct them to pencils down till we come back to them with Yeah Yeah I think I thought it was that we needed a proposal for getting us to the fall We're not even in agreement so that in the spring we know how much we're going to ask for
additional um I think our chair is saying we we need to discuss it I think we need to discuss it because Barney you know is is suggesting certain elements are important to her There may be other elements important to other members So we need to discuss it We may not get to
Springtown meeting with something I I would hope we do but I don't know You mean even an ask for continuation of we may not because we we we need to know what we're asking for and we haven't even but in terms of their immediate direction we should probably tell them to just pause till we tell them there is
some money left but they shouldn't spend it till we clarify our own position What do you think Scott no I mean is it worthwhile getting some community input um understanding what the priorities are i mean would include us would include stakeholders that are here on the call
tonight Um I think it's good to get that perspective and we're going to want to know that perspective So I think that phase and I would also like to take this information as input with the with the finance committee and just start looking at you know I know they're looking at different things with different terms
different lengths Yeah I'd like to model out some of these things what they look like so that we can really understand what a 12 million project look like versus a 10 million project you know because we really haven't looked at it Everything in terms of the expense to the town over time Everything we've looked at has been that 10 million
plug So and it's been a 20-year horizon So I'd like to look at some of those different alternatives Okay question is can we do get money to do that if we're going to have consultants and our you know designers do that we have to go to town meeting I
think Is that to get funding well they have enough money to do the outreach You have funds to do the outreach Okay So they could do that I agree So then no pencils down We'll do we'll keep going the outreach and is that absolutely feedback We won't do any more options
until we've got feedback create guidance Right Okay And that includes your feedback as well as community Can Can we pause for one week we um Yeah Can we pause them for one week sure What do we recommend where they start yeah sure My fear is that
they're going to go for community outreach and bring it back and we're going to talk about respect about you but I don't But what what type of survey should be done and what type of data should have been gathered and we really should communicate that before we spend the money Right Okay So we need to talk again Okay So back to pause for a week
Okay I got good Thank you very much Thank you very much All right Thank you I appreciate it So we have had we've run way over I appreciate the uh library trustees here Our terms have ended once Okay
I appreciate you coming Um and I'm sorry to keep you waiting but uh this is important All these things like the old board meetings Yeah this is like the old Thank you I'm not doing my job A lot of tough stuff
No that's going to be entered into the thing She gave a correction of a I just want to add this to us That goes to the correspondence Can you add that into correspondence that is their petition Give us two copies Um if the library trustees want to call their
meeting to order this Yes I know Christine told me this is my first joint um so called order 8:42 We are all here The select board is here I'm looking at um the proposed admin town administrator by on my phone so I apologize not that's okay we'll bring it up we'll have it up
on the screen do you have anyone online Martha is online no trustes though no it's just the three of us okay so what what we're trying to do in this brief session is just um we had uh reached out to for input from the library trustees
you have been very kind in in not only providing that along the way but now you have a we're having a joint meeting just to get your latest input and feedback We have tried to make some revisions Um and for the public this is um the TA bylaw
the draft went back to legal counsel having listened to uh opinions from the planning board Uh the the um not the plan the um chair of the planning board and the chair of the library trustees last time um as well as as comments from
the vice chair of the board of health We went back we made uh some revisions that's now before us and um we'd love to hear what the library trustees have to say Cool Thank you Yeah thank you for inviting us We were thrilled to see our name along with the other boards
in in included in the bylaw and I think our feeling very much is that as long as the policies that we have in place at the library the town administrator will uphold those that that this is this is what we wanted You removed the word day-to-day operations which you know we
were worried about So I think this is we support it We do good Excellent That's what Travis is like what no but this is a process It is a process that happens in all these process and we hear feedback and input and this is
we're trying to wake something that works but in at the same time you know as far as the policies go we've tried to make it so clear we don't want to be involved in policy we're not we're at least this board and I just think in the future boards aren't going to be you
know but but it's we're trying to get HR you know Kate has said that repeatedly to us and I mean and we had posted this we posted this meeting prior to seeing the revisions and we just felt like it was important to then come and have on public record our support on public
record Great Really grateful for that Yeah Great Appreciate Thank you guys We know that it's not easy It's like trying to make dinner for five kids and everybody wants something different Yeah No but it's also important to get the the language correct in the bylaw because you know what we're thinking We
know what we're thinking But 12 years down the line it has to be crystal clear what this meant that we don't have interpretations later that this is this is how it is Right Well short of that thank you for coming You know you'll be
ready to give your community input on the fire station right can you please just beat Travis up for a little bit just to I feel like this is a let down Well it's not beating me up but I I do see um the
the chair of the planning board is on and I know she had wanted to uh say something but this was I believe regarding the MBTA communities but I don't know if you have other further input uh on the TA bylaw but Sarah you're welcome to We I have it we have
it on our next agenda for up from Monday night Okay Super TA Super Um but I know you you have some time constraints and so I wanted to allow you some time Do you have some something you wanted to put forward regarding um the MBTA or or
the um the consultant i thought that that maybe I had that wrong No not the consultant Okay Anything else that you um you probably do need that though so I will I will text Julie Um but I know we we do need to get you some information
on that we need to to sort of nail down the what additional scope of consultant help we think we might need Um Julie did procure a a fairly significant amount of grant assistance uh for consultant help um on NBCA So um and I actually had
wanted to I thought you might be voting for or against the sort of the citizens petition So I just wanted the opportunity to you know number one answer questions and number two say a little bit sort of about the process we've been going through if that would be of interest to the select board This
would be a good time if you want to take a couple minutes Sure Sure Um I do not have sharing Well here comes Ryan He can give you that I think Perfect Just a quick We're running early
so no worries I thought I thought this would be a little bit later Ryan do you have the ability to share the slide that I sent today sure Or I could He's so accommodating He can take care of it I allowed you to share
Fantastic All right All right So this is just something that we see Can you see this okay Yeah Yep Great Um so this is something that we um that we came up with for our last
um planning board meeting Sorry I just lost all of your faces and I want to be able to see you when I'm talking to you Um so I so just again I wanted to make myself available to answer questions um if you all had any Um we do we haven't had the opportunity at our planning
board meetings We had we've had super packed agendas Our last meetings have gone till 11:30 12:30 at night Uh we do have this citizens petition on our upcoming meeting this Monday So I'm happy to circle back with with Travis or all of you after that Um but I just
wanted to um we also do actually have a um set up meeting today to talk to Wayne Davis just sort of about the logistics of potent of presenting several different compliance strategies at town meeting and and sort of what those logistics um might look like I know
other towns have have done that So we wanted to talk through that process with Wayne Um and I just wanted to have the opportunity to talk um to respond to a few points that Maline Maline Blake brought up last week um about the the fact that the planning board is just
going through the motions and has already decided what we're going to um suggest for compliance to the town And that's that really um is not true We have been engaged um in an honest and transparent planning process to consider
and evaluate multiple options um to solicit opinions from other boards and committees in town Um all of these meetings have been in public um with opportunity for public comment and questions and the process
has been you know this is this is a process So we're trying to get all this input We're trying to develop a matrix of pros and cons for each of the var the you know the various scenario uh compliance strategies that we've come up with Um we've already met with fincom
Hanscom the environmental sustainability committee the fire tooth last last week Um we're meeting with the board of health this week So this as you said this is a process We've also got the ADU bylaw going on We are doing our absolute best to address as many questions as we
can when they come up And we actually have a question tracker Anything that we can't answer we're we're trying to get answers to through you know um town council who are land use attorney attorneys We also have um some
grantf funded consultant input available through Bowler Engineering Osley Whitten Um and so we're really doing our best to get all the answers to pre to present sort of the data that the town needs to make this decisions and come up with
some pros and cons And I think that voting to not force but strongly suggest to the board to jump over this process and get to a singular conclusion that this group
wants um I think would just sort of be subverting the process Um and then I you know I think you've all probably been following along this process but I wanted to give you all the opportunity to ask me questions if you had any Is there anyone sarah just to clarify
for me Um so the the the graph that we're looking at now is uh what you're what you're in the midst of the first section of it on the left and then the Yeah we're kind of in the middle of the in input from town boards and commissions So your idea is this is
what you're going to be doing between now and fall town meeting to arrive at what you want to present to the fall town meeting Exactly Okay I I do think that there's a good possibility and I do think it would be a good idea to present several options to the town Yeah Okay So
again I can't speak for the whole planning board but that's what has been driving this process And again the direct result um and the subcommittee did a lot of work We have a lot of you know facts already on the books Um but we did hear
the public feedback after the open houses and this process was developed in direct response to all of that feedback that we heard And so we are very much listening and we are again we're we're recording all these questions We're trying to get answers to as as many of
them that we can and we actually have a strategy to to to sort of track and present answers to those questions So that's that's all in the works Um we've got we've got a lot of hefty agendas with with ADU bylaws too So we're we're doing our best We've doubled the amount
of meetings that we had Um and I I just think we need a little time to let this process play out a little bit more before being sort of um I don't want to say forced because I know it's not forced It's it's an advisory um petition my understanding
But I I I think it would be a mistake to to um to jump directly to a conclusion before going through the whole process Yeah that's helpful I Good Thank you Yeah Thanks Sarah And I'm glad you came on to talk about that because we did
hear last week from kind of one you know group and one opinion So it's nice to hear from the chair of the planning board that you know this process and thank you for your time I appreciate it Yeah appreciate the opportunity to speak I know you all have a lot on your agenda
We do We do All right Thanks Sarah Okay Have a good night everybody Thank you All right Bye Bye Bye All right Mr Town Administrator We are going to cruise through the warrant and get everything
agreed to tonight or else Excellent So why don't you lead that discussion as far as um you know I I think it makes sense to just kind of go through in the order general order that we've been going
through with starting with the operating budget and unless you think there's a a better approach whatever you Well the the most pressing question tonight is the order and then I think we should do a rapid round and then see
where we're at in terms of Okay Details and we have to vote u for the town clerk Do we need to do these election ballot questions do we have to vote on that tonight too we don't have to vote on it tonight Okay But that was in there in case we did vote on it and Okay People want to know
Um Okay One of the main problems with that is the fire station is now a question Yeah So right Okay Definitely need to vote it by the 15th Okay I'd like to try and get as much as we can tonight even if we have to stay a little bit longer to get get our thing I
mean well let's just let's just plow through this Um some of these I think we're in pretty good shape I admire my sense of the board like what are we referring which document should we yeah Well maybe Brian could put it up on the screen Are we talking4 the town articles
cheat sheet the motions memo the Are we doing order you said order first right so you had asked last meeting for Wayne and I to Wayne and me to draft that and we I sent that around and it's in the packet It's So is this page 45 that must
be page 45 right the proposed Yeah we're looking at the same thing Yeah page 45 is our if you if you do the whole on the line so he can So I could present that for you That's that one I guess Is that that one i tried to add your numbers to
the left I just didn't quite but I mean it's in the packet It doesn't matter Whichever way you want to present it What's the title of it it says proposed FY It's page 465 in the packet Proposed FY26 warrant articles STMW AD That's what it looks like Pink highlights Well
I don't have it in this one Well the pink is the artifact from Well but David if you want to walk sir or Ryan whichever But let's you know I I'll tell you So I I can repeat I didn't I think I Yeah everybody So we Wayne and I well we
took your lead I think somebody else has had this lead before of different sort of groupings or buckets I called them of uh articles Um and so in in the order in which we've all been looking at it the top stuff is the
consent agenda bucket The next one is the financial bucket And then you know if you further more it's a little more mix and match as you go down there's some at least in my opinion and I think Wayne's um there's some
significant articles but that we also don't think will be that long of a debate Mhm Then there are the CPA group which generally is also like that kind of substantive not usually not super
long and then you get to the tough ones right so those are kind of the buckets So the sequence that we thought we would propose or we are proposing is to actually not lead with the consent agenda like we normally do
to actually lead with the first the five articles of 14 through 18 which are the operating budget the capital plan the fire truck the elevator borrow the library
coils Those are all financial items Uh and um Mark I know you've you've proposed to James Katacio that he actually be the presenter of I think he usually is the presenter of the operating budget capital plan So So
James would do that Ryan or Brian I'm not sure who's going to do the fire truck Uh the chief The chief would but I'll stand with him And then Jerry on the representing the MFC would do the elevator bar and library So that would
be that first bank of uh the bucket you know the financial bucket Then we would then we would do the consent agenda which would be the the first 13 articles Uh and you can see there that Wayne I think just drives through those Now
again as you know he will ask he'll read them off and people can raise their hand and pull them out if they want and if they pull them out they pull them out But we don't I don't think there's anything particularly controversial there Then the next going down So now we're at 18 and now you want to page
down to 19 and what did I do 19 Okay So 19 and 20 are fire station and police station It was more as I mentioned earlier I was more concerned about the which one do you put first before but I think now I
would say Wayne can is you'd want to get the police station first and then you say "Hey by the way we're doing this first." Okay everyone go get a snack But it's not a it's not a 20 million by the way It's a no $100,000 by the way Yeah Okay
And then um it was never 20 right then you get to the ones again this is just kind of our opinion that we think are significant but hopefully not controversial and that's the Davis land the cemetery and I actually feel the TA
by law I know there'll be some vocal there'll be some people have things to say about it but you know other people be like sure that's fine right okay so that's sort of that little you have the you have the TA bylaw at 26 yeah could we do I Okay Then
21 and then and then do the you have appropriations amend after amendities 22 is cemetery Okay I hope I did it right I did it like three times Cemetery appropriations then then Yeah CPC Next time you do this just put them in the
Yeah this is really just weird this way Well I was trying to be compatible with I know but just just order I I would like to see honestly TA before a bunch of these other I I would like to see the TA bylaw earlier
um like earlier than you know before 21 let's say because I'm afraid people will leave before we get there and I really want to see this and because you've got it coming after the police and fire right yeah but like right right after
right what is it oh you have uh no police and fire has police and fire This order has the first thing after CPC 19 and 20 and then you don't have the PI bylaw Okay fair enough Fair enough So that's
Yeah Okay you're right So you'd like to move that to TA bylaw 21 and then 21 through the rest moves down one So you want it before you want it but you want police station first right Police and fire Police and fire Police
and fire and then TA by law And then Yeah So TA by law would be 202 19 and uh police would be 21 Right And fire station ask would be 20 No the other way
around Police station first Police station first Police station's 19 Yeah Right Then fire is 20 by 21 21 21 Okay And then trails is 22 Okay Just Davis CR right pace lines Well
I've got cemetery I guess Yeah So you trails is 22 cemeteries 23 Yeah And then Okay And there's some I think Wayne and various people Barney went back and forth that I'm not I'm confused whether
as to whi whether the CPC articles are each individual or they we're going to try to do the consent agenda Okay So or all but um the however that these buildings in in this however that whole little CPC bank is organized would be
the next group chunk Okay And then finally now you get to the ADU bylaw the two MBTAs and uh the mosquito monitoring So you think mosquito monitoring will you know mosquito monitoring has a chance to
be a lengthy it's it depends on how many people are left in the room but there will be some people who will say that's the camel's nose in the tent I believe Right It's okay Kennels's nose nose and the tent because it's just monitor first step toward Gotcha Gotcha So uh so
that's kind of it I mean that's the general Okay Anyone object or have any I mean we did talk about moving the TA bylaw but I think generally that's good list order The the money ones the global PS Well I
mean we had the last one then is a money one So I guess well I didn't I when I said I didn't mean money exclusively but um the the big budget items big the big budget items should go up front like right that's always these other two and
other things do cost money but they're not money you know they're not well like police station is a money thing obviously but it's and you could say well that should go well what's your cut off I mean it's $40 $40,000 you know we didn't I mean uh Wayne you want to weigh
in here I don't I don't 50 Where oh there he is I I I think look you can do anything you want You've got all the power here on this Um I our
concept was just sort of the operating and capital budget items go up front Yeah And then the sort of projectbased financial things get scattered through the rest of the warrant which is traditionally how we've
we've done it the the biggest change is simply to move those uh operating and capital budget items in front of the consent agenda instead of behind it Yeah Okay
Okay Okay That's all we got So Ryan you have enough information to reorder that list Hold on The one no the one question I have it's not really about the order though is when and it's something again I brought this up with fincom when they're presenting the operating budget
and the capital plan and the lookout and all that stuff uh people are going to want to know where the fire station I mean where the police station fits in where some of these these um projectbased things fit
in and so is if is James going to touch on that and then if if So do we want to have those all in succession of that versus putting like the TA bylaw in there that's my only question is how do we how do we give people the the financial context for those projects it
could go that's a good point They could go right at the end of the first piece Right Right In the finance piece Mhm I think the bigger especially like the police station obviously if the fire station had been a bigger project that would be but making people are going to need to
understand how this impacts the the budget down the line You see but typically do we present a multi-year or we just No we don't It's an open question of how do we different question but we got it be better to give people a
bigger context or do you just bake that into the that section of it and have a slide or someone maybe someone from fincom can talk to that piece of I mean right I I haven't thought about it
before but I think it's a good idea but I would say it may be too much information to absorb absorb all at once Here's the operating budget and by the way here's the next five years like like okay this is the operating budget like you know three and a half% whatever
blahy blah it's part of the capital like it's part of the capital but is the capital going to show the multi-year thing I don't know I mean that's a question but but I would say no matter what you do there it would be a good idea in the for example the police station
portion itself to say if approved this results in x dollars a year maybe that's fine standalone that's typically how it's been done Um it's a lot to absorb Yeah No it is You know multi-year and how do I I mean
people are Yep But I I mean I like the overall I like the order I don't have any issue with that Okay You all set almost set Okay All right Well I think Ryan maybe is working on this a little bit or no I
jumped again I'm just trying to follow Okay Got it Did you keep track and Yes So we're going to leave though the way we just did earlier speaking We're leaving the uh So we got the five finance then the consent
agenda and we go to police station fire station TA bylaw Davis land cemetery all the CPA MBTA consultant Well then that's a question of ordering as well The you've
got the the uh the planning board's MBTA You've got the group on here right yeah Article and then you got ADU which is also going to be a non-trivial event So I have MBTA consultant MBTA communities citizens
petition ADU bylaw and mosquito monitor mosquito monitoring Yeah So does the citizens petition that to your point does that follow the MBTA or not i guess I mean I don't know You know it's I thought Tom was going to
stick around talk about it I guess they're not they're related but they're not contingent on one another No Right So the outcome of the the consultant doesn't impact the request of the citizens petition Either way you're
going to be presenting recommendations Yeah I mean I think I guess my feeling is it's appropriate for the official planning board when first Yeah And then citizens can the last say the last Right So I'd be okay with that
Okay Good All right Let's this was helpful in fincom so hopefully let's do rapid round Okay So this is your will you or will you not recommend the updated this is order Well you can go in now It doesn't matter You can just go in the order Okay Okay Which one are we
going to look at just start line one and go I'm going to say going to go right off this You're going to hold this buzzers Oh yeah So the consent agenda includes the agenda itself the town reports elected folks salaries the OPB
actu OPEB actuary study chapter 90 spending PEG spending revolving fund limits the wage and class plan the the tailings article from the treasurer the hero tax abatement the prudent investment law from the treasurer and
the increase in demand fees The only one that the Fincom didn't recommend yet that they've held is the prudent investment law They want to hear from Bartholomew as a board which is our financial adviser Why why excuse me Why is Veterans Hero Activatement in there
twice so originally we said it was going to need to be two articles Town council says it only needs to be one So we are cutting one out but I didn't want to change the numbering in order So one goes away One goes away Oh okay Okay And then I should know the answer to this but peg
150 increase for police That means to outfit the community room of the police station Y So we want to make sure there's enough to use as much as we can Okay And somebody could say well we haven't voted the police station yet Or no that wouldn't be a thing
So that's just to say how much we can spend It's not to say how much we will spend So if we don't spend it then that just goes back to pay Okay Thank you Any more discussion any of those or are you ready to recommend them ready I'm
ready Ready Okay Do you need a motion do each article or it's consent We should do unless you raise your hand Do we want to hold Well Fincom's holding on one Do we want to hold on one do we want I just wanted to clarify Ryan the the peg was
or just the police station or No it's was all of the Sean all of the MN staff and everyone the police was only 30,000 of that or something We're hoping it's 50 50 We've told you it's 25 so far Okay All right
Yep Okay So well go through each one or can we I guess the question is the investment the rapid round but the prudent investment law you're saying Scott you pulled it out I'm good with it Okay I'm good with it So we're not voting yet We're just seeing if anything needs more discussion
or you're ready and then we'll vote Okay Okay Um any more discussion on the operating budget as presented at last meeting nope No No Capital plan has presented last meeting Nope No No Fire truck borrow nope No Elevator borrow no
Nope Library corals borrow No Okay we're through the financials TA bylaw old but I a little bit are we going to amend the language a little based on what they recommend We have revised version packet which is what they were saying This is
the rapid round We're not going to talk about it but we're going to come back and talk It's a hold Hold is a hold All right No no no Kev was joking Any CP we can So you're going to write in there that you recommended or not I'm not sure that you know what you're recommending yet So I would say that you're going to make your recommendation Oh sorry What
are you on now okay So for the warrant the warrant just says whether or not you recommend that article Yeah But the TA by does not it does not appear in the warrant because you're not done with it yet So I wouldn't recommend it Shouldn't it doesn't look good to recommend you have it right you're pre-recommending something that doesn't exist yet Yep
When you say it doesn't exist because we haven't finalized the language You mean correct We're going to have another discussion about it Okay Which may be that we agree to it but we're still first by the rules of wraparound we continue
Um all the CPC articles Yes Yeah I see no reason not to Yes I would say yes Sorry We get we get guess Okay All right Straw poll says yes to all CPC
The Davis land transfer Yes Yes Yes Definitely Okay The ADU bylaw Are you ready to recommend it we haven't seen that Hold Hold The MBTA consultant funds Yes Yes Yes
Yes Okay This uh citizens petition Are you ready to recommend it no Hold for me Okay Fire station design Hold I don't mean to laugh Sorry Mosquito monitoring 15,000 Yes Yes
Everyone Yep Yeah If you you can hold the police station Yes Police station Yes Police station So the warrant article will say you're going to ask for something It's not going to say the number So you ready to ask for something we are Absolutely
I thought we determined and then the cemetery improvements Yes All right So it looks like for discussion purposes you're down to TA bylaw And this can change right this is just straw poll ADU bylaw the citizens
petition and the fire station Mhm All right So let me show you the warrant We can get out of here Really can't This is great This is great Ignore the order but expands to fill the time allowed Don't course So the details
of the elected salaries are here They've been described to you And we don't Do we have this in our packet this I'm just showing this to you No Okay This is the first time All right Okay So the salary and compensation plan is
based off a 20 two 25% cola Wow that'd be great 2.5% cola right and all the positions that exist This is more or less boilerplate Yes
Okay The prudent investment law rule Um Fincom wanted to know more about what the treasurer could invest in or our it's really our advisers Our adviserss help the treasur invest So Bartholomew is going to the fincom to talk to them I'm not speaking for the fincom but
there was one objection There has been no vote to hold it or to not recommend it They just want more information But I would point out and Mark is on the line Mark didn't we hear from We heard we learned about that You and I did right
mark Bernstein Uh yeah this is Mark uh from the FinCom Mark Bernstein Uh yeah but uh there was as Ryan said there was one person who personally wanted to hear more
information Okay Uh before you know Fincom would make its recommendation and James agreed to to get more info Okay It'll be fine I believe Okay Okay Town
council said um we're going back and forth but the demand fees increase has to go to town meeting So you don't need to know that but you should know that the Hero Act needs more What we're trying to do here is is peg the veteran
exemption to COLA So the only thing I have left with town council is to make sure this doesn't peg all of the exemptions to cola because that's not what we've discussed or what was submitted So you might see that language change but it's only for that purpose This is um the removal of that Hero Act
article They said it would conflict with the one you've already passed so not to don't do it So we listen to council mostly Okay Okay The budget you know capital you know the police station So this is the language that we talked about earlier
additional funding So vote to amend the prior appropriation authorized by article 13 of the annual town meeting which was last year's vote So this vote would amend it to a new number but right now the number is not set Right Do you want me in the summary to include a
number or do you want to still talk about it i'm good with the number So what number the one that we ended up with the 668,000 extra I mean if you want to throw that chart
up if you still have it but it's the three ad alts whatever and the 500,000 contingency Is it right the 12% contingency right well it ends up Yeah No more 15 on the whole right or the
base right sorry I got a few charts up here I mean since we broke the four million barrier I was trying to hold us Yeah To four last but now we've broken it 4.1 4.2 left And you'll be lucky if you stick at
that at this point We're going to fly in our French program manager to deal with that No no my kid works for a design build firm and they've lost they've had a couple of
contracts canceled now Well that's right Canadian Lumber etc etc Yeah And they were told you know get your Well that's why Well you need the contingency right so so that's So is your argument um Kate that we should just ask for more well I'm Yeah I guess
I you as long as you're asking for this much I think you should ask I mean I'm just really worried Yeah it's not real c You're asking for extra contingency Mhm It's not Yeah I make it 600 then
No whatever the number was we agreed to like Well no but it's been crept up right so Again Neil said three to three something Then there was talk about 12% which is this 450 So Neil said 375 450 What's his name scott Scott Did you hear
what Ryan said sorry So I looked it up in Neil's email It's 375 to 450 is what he said now But before he had a higher a lower it doesn't matter But now Scott his guy said he's more comfortable with 500 Yeah So Okay And should it be 600
based on you know Trump tariffs and who knows what i don't know Okay So there's a few calculations here So there's construction cost whether or not to include this revenue and then what the contingencies
should be So you should You said the revenue the rebates you're talking about is a slam dunk right we've already applied for them and we'll get them We should get those Yeah we have a letter from the state I mean I almost wonder if you shouldn't throw that in the take those out and and just have them as
extra contingency Yeah Yeah I would add you know so why not just go to go to 4.3 mill,000 more just go to 40 4.3,000 This is it This is it You can you can uh
you can not reelect K It's all Kate's fault You get to say it's all Kate's fault We've sent her to France Yeah Exile from the country Yeah Right now what we're asking is in
the summary in the warrant book it'll say a number or not So you can continue to discuss this number and not put a number in But then you're saying we can't recommend if we don't have a number You can So you're recommending that something's going to happen you know then do that Do that There's I'll
keep it Yeah I'd keep it because who knows what happens in one month We could be in a different Okay Okay All right We're good with that Just do you want to say in the summary that it's about 4.2 million or you just leave that no because Wayne said we only
get a 5% variance Not that we're going to So that's this difference between the summary and the warrant are Let me show you what I'm talking about I know but the warrant you can say I think it's better not to say a number in case it's wildly different because then you're stuck But the warrant makes clear we're
gonna ask for more money I would rather I know it sounds so nice to have a nice round number I actually think you should have a little bit of little not round number we really pencil whipped it Okay There's there's some logic to that
There some human studies that show that that's effective Yeah Yeah Okay Fair enough All right What do we have here all right So this is the number Do the math Do the calculation and put the number That's why gas is 299 No that's
the rule of not on the summary You're right You're right Does it give some explanation for the increase yes I will explain Okay That the increase is mostly conting That's what we just talked about Yeah Mostly
contingency The summary will explain But I'm not going to use a number I'm just going to say it will be a right increase to last year's vote based off these factors Yeah All right Um we got to talk for a minute about the fire engine Uh not the fire engine You guys already talked about
that So here's the fire engine So last year you did do this as excluded debt but you're not going to do the additional as excluded debt because of the impact on the ballot So they just said to vote it a new warrant article Don't amend the old one Just explaining to you what town council said Uhhuh
Doesn't really impact you but you should know So if it's a new article then it is excluded then Or you mean the article is just the delta the article is the delta Okay fair enough Not an amendment Yep I got it The elevator We don't know the sum of
money yet because it's out to bid So we put a sum of money which is legal ease Okay Wow We got a lot of these library heating and cooling We did put in the number because that is based off an estimate and it has contingency in it
Okay Right This is one we have to talk about Fire station renovation Yeah Mhm So you had previously said you were going to do everything but build the fire station and you were going to dead exclude that cost of that design
So if you're not doing that now that cost of that design has to come from somewhere If you don't debt excluded it has to be either free cash or borrowing right meaning you were saying that these costs are up and above of what you already
have for an impact of the budget Yeah If you don't do that then it has to come from somewhere Either your reserves or future borrowing How much yeah How much over the 12% are with that 79%
What is that in money What what do you think that going forward we have the design funds i mean the the public outreach funds are nine of a $35 million bill Is that not enough what else are we going to spend on between now and potentially the fall
town meeting getting the information we need from our design team How much is that is it $50,000 or is it $250,000 so 79 is $276,000 Isn't that enough pay money for them to
do whatever they How much 276 He said it was plenty I would think if we can't,000 or something Yeah Well but let's just kind of map it out We want to have community outreach We're going to go back We're going to get feedback We're going to probably do another
schematic plan but that can't be that extensive Well we Well they did all what they did so far for a buck 50 right so yeah but they had to measure the station They've done all that stuff So they're just going to come back with a schematic or a you know
But they were going to give us a number and then we stopped them Right Well we have to give them a S We we need to give them a S So you should really start with what do you want to bring to Falltown meeting right what are you trying to bring we
think two options or no one option or two One One One One option So we do a lot of community outreach and figure out in their community if they want something bigger by smaller Okay If
money is the limiting factor versus the right So we want them to bring bring a final uh cost estimate based on a Yeah Like like we would have done like the way they mathed it out for this
670,000 or whatever it was Right That was pretty specific We're going to do these things You can have a set of CDs and you go right so that seems like the right approach It's just we're not ready for the baseline assumption which reminds me just as you I was listening
in community outreach because it tends to be very you know focused on needs and trades but the community where they could be the most valuable is if we get if in that survey or in that outreach
they get an understanding of the impact on the tax bill of a $10 million a $50 million because that's what they really That's all they care about Well but also I didn't want to say this but also there not too many people that are going to
know anything about what the fire station should or shouldn't have in it I mean they can give an opinion about whether it sounds good to have more living space but yeah but I mean I think there's I think your point about the tax increase but there is actually in their presentation it's pretty good actually
And there's not enough I mean there is enough information to say like that one chart that would say like in these different then you wouldn't do maybe the high one but let's just say it's two options or or you know or three different options but based on
what the firefighters said they need this is how this addresses that Right you could tell people that they don't have to be fire experts Okay the guys who are fighting the fires say they need X Y and Z and these are the options and this is how well they accomplish those options Then you say
okay you know we thought we 10 million was affordable Turns out gee that's going to be like 12 So this option and then this other option and this is what your tax bill looks like for the next 10 years or whatever if we do those things I mean that's where they can say gee okay I can I think people can to me
correlate those this town goals from the RF Yeah that that one exactly where it says this this one is only good this is good 30 to 50 years this one's only good for 5 years so do you want to spend 10 to 12 minute million for something that's only good for 5 years or do you think you want to do 14 to 16 that's a
little bit of fear that that one point there's a little bit of fear monitoring well I don't know that's why I said my upsell community outreach I mean they they've done this they know I think that they probably we could probably see what their standard outreach tools are
yeah But I don't know if they've overlaid a piece about how much it's going to cost in tax Yeah And and and Lexington is a very different town Let's say you know and the towns like that are very And that fire station that was in
the original proposal was $17 million but it didn't cost that right that's what they said it cost in their eight years ago or something Anyway okay So looking at costs this does not include an OPM Yeah So 70,000 is what what you
were going to get to go to town meeting with which was a very nice napkin Okay A napkin drawing Okay So for a schematic design it's going to be another 140ish Yeah But when they say schematic that's
a pretty detailed thing Brian That's way more than the block diagram So I'm show All right So the overall C I'm trying to give you some scope here So yeah if the project is let's say 12 million then you can expect the design to be somewhere around a million right so this pieces it
out for you what that would be and then you have to add the OPM costs So a schematic design you're going to go to town meeting you're going to say we think this is going to be about 12 million Then when you design it that could change a lot Mhm Because you actually have to do the design Or you could go all the way through
construction documents and bidding which you're not ready for but that gets you to 700 So really what you're spending is for the fidelity of the number How close do you want to be to the actual number so if you say we'll do another 70,000 then you're going to get a very rough
estimate Right so I think at least from my view we are repeating this step because we didn't find that the We didn't find their analysis was incomplete It didn't have the community I mean maybe it's just timing but it
didn't have the community piece We didn't coales around a design and um and now we're presented with a more expensive set of scenarios than we thought originally So for those reasons we kind of just have to cycle back
through another you know 70 or 100 thousand to get us to a point where we can say we really like we like that design You've done your homework This is going to be in August and we're ready to now give us
this menu for this design and we'll go to a fall town meeting or whatever with that ask Yeah It's just it's what I'm trying to say and not well but is how strong do you want that initial design to be because once you get to November then they have to do construction documents You're not going to get a good
number until February March and then we're going to be back in the same boat So if you spend more design money now okay you get further You're going to get further But it's But we don't know what we're spending We don't know what we're spending We need we need to get to
a maybe the level of detail that they had today but a design that that we and the community and the fire are in general agreement about and can get on the same page about we don't need a detailed design We just need enough to say and we think it's going to be 14 to
what 10 to 14 or whatever it is as a range That's what we need But the community supports this level versus this level or whatever What's the ask in the fall or whatever maybe it's trying to get to maybe it's another maybe it's another whatever 100,000 to
get more detailed numbers I don't know Yeah So using their language I think what you need is a schematic design So use their numbers here 140 plus some testing and some site work to make sure you're not going to run into anything crazy So that's the
46,000 down there and then you're going to add 50 for the APM So you're looking at about 300 I don't think so I don't think so I don't think so Can you scroll up a little bit please ryan we want to see what's in the 70
So space they've kind of done face one a we want them to redo 1 C So and they're going to finish one E and one E but they have a little money So let's say that's that's 50,000 for them to redo phase one And then in phase
two you seem to think we need schematics I'm not clear on but but phase two we were going to go to the town once we had phase one done We don't have phase one done So I think I think what we're thinking is we're going to redo elements of phase one So the we
don't need to well we may need to shore up space needs assessment just to you know finalize get conceptual design like say okay we're going to coales around this design and then come up with an estimate and then we'll go if we do that by fall town
meeting we'll go to fall town meeting then ask for the money for phase two at the fall town meeting right that's that's what I that's what we're trying to do I don't I don't think we want to go into the spring after we just said "Well police is going to cost 4 something." And somebody raises their
hand and said and we asked for you know what you said 350 or something They're like "Well what are we building?" We're like "I don't know yet That's not a good answer." No No One of the things we've learned though is that we were hoping to keep this
project at 10 million and that was not a reasonable expectation Well I think that's what we we've been told I don't know And listening to Barney you had some insightful questions tonight And your questions were more you know are
should does the public want to keep within 10 million and if they do is there a way to do that and and maybe you know maybe there isn't And that's what Kate's saying But I don't know I don't want you to be you know your thoughts on that
Well I just you know we had that 10 million out there We went through the whole process you know last year and we set that 10 million right so and that was higher than we originally had been talking about Um yeah but time has been going
um 6% you know but we're also you know if you look at the towns that did it for cheap like John had cited Ashlin but there's other ones when we went through all the studies we saw that modulars and this they don't towns do it for cheap do they
or don't they well the question we don't have western mass mentality like just get it done cheap and we'll live with it Yankee mentality right do what I got to do to go to the next thing We're like in that this is more of a philosophical thing but we're in that middle space
where we're kind of prudent you know type of the buck but we're also like playing with the you know Welssley's and the the bigger rich conquered right we're playing with the richer towns and and we're we're drinking the we're drinking the Kool-Aid And I don't mean
this in a deprecating way because our uh on call department and the prof they do an incredible job right but you know that's what they're about right i need this I need this I need this And and there are many many towns that saym "Sorry." Yeah We can't do it And we're
we're not we're we got to resolve in our mind where we sit in that matrix Right Really I I do think though we need the support of the community and we haven't really asked We've been sitting here making these decisions and we've really never asked them Right And that's what
you think I totally agree I totally agree Yeah So maybe it's 100,000 Maybe it's redo phase one and some more money to do a very thorough definitely the outreach I think I think showing people things like this and getting their their
input their reactions to this would be that I would say finish phase one I phase one isn't done yet They haven't done the community input So how can you have final conceptual designs when you haven't even you've only talked to the
but I I might say a little yes I guess I mean what was the idea that they would talk to fire have three concepts and we pick one and then get community input yeah No but it might be as I'm listening to you It might be an iterative thing Yeah You go to community output to help
you refine the options and we have back to the community with this Okay here's what we boil down to and here's what like the cost look like What do you think about those trades right I don't think we need schematic though I think we just need the time to kind of I think what I was not articulating well again
is it's 4 and a half months I think what you're talking about is going to be done by July and you're going to wish that you had to go further It won't summertime it No it will take it will take and then if you add 10% to the cost of the project you're going to wish we'd
gone farther That's what I'm saying But the 10% I'm assuming we're going to add 40% by the time it actually comes to anything It's It's not going to be anytime soon anyways But what do we You know Yeah But that means in in a month we're asking for
$400,000 on for for what i mean if I were in the audience I'd be like you're just spending more money on studies and concepts Like get out of here I'd rather just do a little bit more and get to a point where you actually have a plan and then ask for maybe you ask for the
250,000 to get you to Springtown meeting so you can have the number and it's a year late It's a but it's a year I mean we got to we got to get this right One thing that Ryan did at a past town meeting at the beginning remember he talked about the things that are coming up and that he wanted people to be aware
It would be really neat to if you've got this audience to be able to say "By the way one of the big things that we're really looking at down the road is the fire station and here are you know even a micro presentation of what we just saw but you know here are different concepts
and we need your input and you know get them get the town engaged somehow going forward." Yeah I agree with that Yeah My concern with the whole project is everything that firefighters prize and and rank highly
is is no space They benefit to the public like respon like I think most people are just going to I mean they support the the fire department They they want to stay on call I think as we as do we and they want to keep the cost as low as possible to keep but you're not going to see any kind of service
improvement or No but I don't I don't I don't think people are looking for service like the police station too They're not looking for service improvement It's going to be It's going to be People aren't expecting a $10 million fire station though which we which they are They are They're not What do you
think they're expect i don't think people are who haven't been engaged with this when they hear I guess we'll find out But that's why we have to work on it That's why I think this presentation just this exact same almost exact same presentation needs to be given to the public and you find out what their appetite is for this whole
thing and we need to look at what that looks like for the tax bill I agree Yes that's an important part Yes because 16 million is probably eight your spreadsheet was already at 570 increase for the fire station
project in when at the peak bump 900 now Well the most relevant metric to me is year yeah we had a we had a $3 million essentially police station design We've changed it almost
none from a design standpoint and it's now four million So I would say and that's in a and that was during an inflationary period and we're in another one So 25% higher than whatever number we think is probably or 33% number whatever the math is I think we can
expect like if we park it at 12 it's really going to be 16 by the time we're done I guess I still want to know how many years is this because you know if it's really indeed only going to last you five years Well that's that's well 10 years Not that it
won't present an option that's only going to last five years Well that's so the question how do we get that information about how long because you don't want to bond something for 30 years that's only really going to be that's the whole call
versus career Well that's you know let's so if you have to switch to career what they're saying in five years then this building that they're new the newly designed $10 million thing would not serve that purpose No And and imagine what the operating budget would look
like Mhm Well there's that So that I mean one of the arguments is you go to regional if you're spending $3 million a year for a um a professional fire department that is you know there's a
payback or for that 15 million then instead of 10 million The real question would be if you don't go to call how do you convert it to a substation because if you because if if you don't go call and we go career we would have to regionalize and then this would become
not the main substation This would be a substation Well it would still need a lot of renovation for a substation Yeah No granted So that's what we should be talking about So that means you're throwing more money after it and you've bonded this thing for 15 years and it hasn't lasted you So now you have to you
know I I don't want to I don't think it's smart no policy to bond something for longer than it's going to be used Those are those are all good reasons We've got a lot to Let's Let's see Let's You said we were ahead of schedule Yeah
I'm trying to keep you but but All right So what do you need Ryan all right So it sounds like something around 100,000 free cash That's what I think Yeah Yeah But where does that and and we have that in our We can do we can shave off our from our reserve We have Okay great We'll just
monitor as we go We only pay as we go with these consultants right so does that need that needs to go to Fincom though too does it need to go to town no not if it's approved Free cash It's approved out of free cash Okay They would need to They would just need to slightly Well we're getting it though
from Right But we're lowering the percentage of our um stable We're still about 12 Yeah Yeah Okay Okay Let's move on Move on So TA bylaw what's needed here is your language of the summary
which council has been writing following your edits Okay We just to Travis because just cuz I stepped out So we did a little edit last week which we gave to them but they had some more edits right no they didn't No they looked at what
the in our remember we put in our that is the latest version the the the latest version I thought in the back and forth of the emails was like dayto day took human resources there are no changes from what
they so the draft we have is what unless we felt there was more to discuss but I frankly think we've really done our outreach reach and we've taken in feedback and we've amended it and I think we have something that we should take to town meeting and that's the one
in the latest packet correct now it needs to be you know no but the changes take school committee wants the latest draft that's it so I will send that y and I will go and answer questions so do we want to just vote it now or do you want to wait because it's school and
planning right they still have a I don't we should send it also to planning board right I don't think school's not going to have any like to wait and I mean I I have a sense that the site board will will support this unanimously but I just
think it's appropriate to I agree with you Yep Okay Yep What else you got Ryan great MBTA done Old board of health done Which one of them which which MBTA was it oh
no Um sorry I'm thinking ADU Consultant Yes Sorry Okay Sorry Uh by the way though I think we should It was a little confusing that Sarah was saying she wasn't sure what the consultant was doing because we'd also already gotten some other money
So it' be good to get an explanation for them to clarify right they're asking I mean just whoever makes the presentation on it needs to be clear So at time meeting they can always say scratch it Yeah but you can't add it So
this is Julie Julie's Julie's going to present She knows No I'm just saying it is Anyway I think what Sarah was saying is that they're looking for grant money uh and would use that if they got it instead of this article I think that's
what she was saying Okay got it Okay The CR the read cemetery ADU bylaw which does not have language yet Citizens petition is in here as written and they wrote the summary
Okay And then all the CPAs I did have a question here Barney do you want me to keep these a sum of money or do you want the exact dollar amounts this is the appropriation one And I did get your note about we should make the funds as flexible as possible But this is the
appropriation one right yes Uh this isn't the motion That's just the Oh the So do you want the the act the exact money oh Oh Oh Of the CPA project being recommended I I think we put the exact
amount in Yeah So I'll do that The only one we don't know yet firmly is the amenities building But maybe if you want to leave it at 450 it sounds like those can be lower Uh that one should change to a sum of money
No I'm saying I don't know that there's a dollar amount that's the accurate amount that we we don't have it yet Right Brian was saying so in the war we can just say we're going to propose a sum of money and then at the motion you give the number
Okay All right That's fine The benefit of putting the number in is that people have more time to understand it But you don't need to in a warrant And since it's being where you have it they're putting it in where you don't
have it They're just money Okay that's it Can I go back up election sorry So we're taking out the fire debt exclusion and we're going for a free cash model for a design cost So no ballot for the fire station Just the police station Yeah just the police
Do we need to vote that or something was that the Well the vote Yeah when you vote on the whole because we're not going to do it tonight because obviously there's a lot of changes I need to make So the um the whole vote will include the election warrant Okay And that's what
Ashley was saying she needed but we can wait and do that next meeting or some point Okay The the one item I just wanted to jump back to was the police station We talked about excluding the
number from the police station and I' I've just been thinking about that relative to the CPC and all this Is that fair i mean do we want to let the town know because if people don't even they don't even know if there there's maybe
less informed voters but if they have nothing in a warrant and they don't they haven't paid attention to this we should try to put as much as we can I I think that it's a disservice if we just said "Oh there's a police station." And they say "Well I thought we voted on that." And then they're shocked
Well they don't there's nothing I just think that we should put something I know we don't want to tie our hands too much if it's But you know in the in the explanatory not the formal part but the informal part the summary you can say estimated to be about Oh you can ask in
the summary part Whatever you want summary No So then we'll just put it in the summer Okay that's fair I'm on board Big discussion about this in Fincom 30-year borrow on the police station What do we normally What do we normally do i had done 20 to keep it conservative
but what did we do for Vant uh for Spalding do you remember does anybody know i mean the school building Yes School building is probably good So that'll bring the number up I know
What's in the current what have you been modeling 20 20 25 income wanted at 30 I mean we want to reduce our Yeah Well what the questions are to Kate's point
Do we when do we anticipate that that will be now to your point I think the next iteration of this is also a substation of a regionalized police force Yeah But I don't think you'll have to change it to be So that's a question So if we
think this will last for 30 I think it will Then go 30 It should match it It should match its life I think we're going to have so much we're trying to make up for about 30 years of neglect Yeah I mean you're
trying to do if if we're looking at a fire station in a couple of years I think we'll we'll want to have a I mean we had this very discussion I don't know 12 15 years ago where we had to build a great school and right on the back of that we had to upgrade the high school
because we built these sort of not very good buildings in the 60s and it was time to redo them And you know this is kind of like that these two things are coming together and then hopefully and yeah absolutely So anyway well we
solve that by building one that only lasts five years and the other one that's 30 years and then they're spread apart right that's exactly one So we don't have an answer on the 20 or 30 That was right I recommend I I agree with Scott I would I agree with Fincom's recommendation recommendation also
That's why that's why we Yeah I think I think for the police station it's a safe bet It's a safe bet Let's do that All right And the police station in the summary it will say something about the
the additional cost the range of the additional cost Right In the summary for the police station You had said not to do that You want you do want that in there in the summary not in the actual language of the article 4.2 million 4.3
No What did we we came up with a little bit higher i'm not sure I know the the calculations We were at 69 and then we went up from there because we took the contingency took or not the revenue the revenue out which was 80,000
or so 4.213 4.293 or so because we did not take this 4.293 but you wouldn't say that in the summary In the summer you'd say 4.3 around 4.3 approximately 4.3 but in the actual warrant when you're ready you put
that so and so and 67 cents yes okay okay so what is the actually what is the number Ryan that you wrote down 4.3 4.3 So the total cost of the yeah of
the build and what's the additional we're going to be asking for though the difference 3.55 no I know when I think that's the number that should also be explained 7 something plus the 80 something so it's like 750
I think the summary should just say more detail about that it's approximately 4.3 as increase the average tax bill next year oh increase from last year increase from last year okay but that's I didn't realize that that didn't have to be in the war in the
article in the article it's late we're close what else do we That's it Yay We need to do minutes Oh no We have a memo Yeah we do We do
Memo Memo Demo memo Minutes memo Memo Yep Yes That's it for the town meeting We got to do our minutes That's it for town me We have to do embarrass myself This weekly meeting is driving Okay All right So we had Where am I here
we could do warrants and minutes and then Right Well there's also the CR Thank you If you can find that There's also the what oh the Davis CR Well or the other one No it's a different one The one on West Street Oh from the trails I don't I don't think we have to do that I think that was just in this
packet for because we're going to do it We're going to do it next week But he wanted I had suggested that we want to see that ahead of time so that you can kind of prepare if you had questions The point is some of these things shouldn't be the first time you see them right
when we vote on them Right now my major question is I don't want the town to be taking care make I want to make sure it's not the town that's taking care of this property Okay Well we have a lot of open space that cost us a lot of money to to maintain So
or to not maintain Or to not maintain Yeah Yeah Okay Oscars Okay Okay from the sports So where are we what are we on we're going to the minutes aren't we we are
Okay So I just need a motion on the minutes Yeah Where is that they're on page uh 64 of the revised packet Okay Did everyone have a chance to read through them nope
Uh okay Wow Well before we do that then maybe maybe Scott is the bylaw though That's not Yeah hold on Scott do you want to talk about your memo or the memo that is in there yeah So um if you go to the agenda and minutes center and you
look at minutes for a lot of key committees Oh yeah There are no minutes Um not to call them out FinCom there haven't been minutes posted since July um cemetery task for I I this came across in an email to to Travis about
one committee I've had the issue with trying to catch up on like the cemetery task force and fin and just down the line there's a lot of committees that aren't posting minutes and in the past um Peggy would have occasionally sent out a reminder Um I don't know what the process is but I thought it was
appropriate approaching town meeting that that maybe the select board just send out a memo to all committees and chairs just saying post your minutes So that's what that memo is I think what you wrote is fine Great Um I I do think we do we need to have this as a policy a
written policy um because I don't think it's um the law the open meeting law says you just have to um make them available Yeah Approve your minutes within three meetings or 30 days It doesn't say anything about posting I think we have to have a should be our
policy Yeah I'll ask the TA Do we have a policy on that do you know it's this Barney You have it on on posting minutes No that's the thing Yeah it is Did the select board ever wrote it
for all item open meeting law at the bottom It says you have to take them and then you have to page within 30 days or three meetings whichever is longest by learning Okay Wait 65 and I
think we should post right here And of course that would be our numbered different things It's fine Okay And then that would give her authority then to hit you know rag on these people Yeah I mean the secret only has authority over your boards and
committees Yeah So we're you giving this to everybody or only our boards and committees everybody We can write a memo to everybody Yeah Well they don't have to follow it I'm not going to follow We're not It's just a Yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with this And I
and I think maybe I will ask or have the TA can ask Ashley to uh also follow up because you'd said and I remember Peggy used to follow up when I was on ZBA and she'd be like we gota even though she was doing the minutes but
no occasionally do this but then it would you know it wasn't it wasn't a regular thing but I think it we need as a as a town especially as we get closer to like town meeting to have these things available because people will be interested People will go to the look at the minutes and they have and they've
contacted they've mentioned that and they don't want to have to request them of each committee individually right okay Yeah So can we can you send that out to all boards and committees or should I or what's a what do you want me to send it out sure Whatever This is the
main account I just Okay I will Well why don't you just have Gretchen send it to the list yeah Okay All right Okay So it was decided minutes right we have to Yep minutes And then we're going to
64 Page 64 This is the No it's like 70 something I know there the numbering is different but do you want me to go ahead and make the motion yeah sure All right I move to approve the minutes of the March 11th 2025 meeting and the March 25th 2025
meeting as presented unless somebody has a change Now you know you Gretchen did say in her note to us that she's did the had to do these quickly and so there may be some small
grammatical errors So I I didn't go over them I second Well if Okay my discussion would be if you haven't gone over them should we wait another week even though Scott Well no I was gonna say if other people have looked at them and they looked okay
then I'm I'm fine I'm just being straightforward that I Me too I'm not you know factual things grammatical things I'm not too concerned about No me neither And typos So I went through them and I thought gosh
we've done a lot Yeah So second Was it second i already second Yeah I'm fine with that then Okay Um all in favor i I Okay so those are now approved Our last thing is
liaison reports I don't think we have any right anyone okay And then uh for final thing if there's anyone in the community who would like to make a comment now is your time Mr Lavy
is anybody else there not in the room but you're there Christina is on Good good work guys It's that's really was hard work getting through that um remotely as well Uh no no comments I got
to think about um what you what kind of the conclusion or the the the memo you came up with tonight and and um I'll try to write you with some thoughts That's it Great Okay Thanks John Great Thank you John
Christina Eric anyone Marilyn any questions this is it Ryan any questions for your name up there i said thanks Oh okay All Thank you You're welcome All right So I'm going to end the comments section and uh our community input and I'll take
a motion to adjourn So move 10:00 Excellent All right Thank you We're all done Thank you Okay