good all right I would like to call to order the more Board of the select board meeting of uh March 11th and um I will quickly go over the agenda but first let me uh
look to see who's here for the meeting it looks like we have four members present and one David Modell is not present so um so I'll quickly go over the agenda we have a public comment uh is our first
uh our community input uh we'll then go to appointments and resignations then the notice of the Town caucus zoning bylaw Amendment um Adu for annual town meeting going to discuss that then the town audit exit conference and note that
Mr Modell arrived right on time uh then we're going to have at 8:05 PM a joint meeting with the finance committee um and we're going to go through a number of questions that we had in the finance committee may have and I think the MFC is going to join us
and have a meeting and then as well and then at 9:35 we're going to have the Town Administrator bylaw draft review then uh at 9:45 the Town Administrator report and then warrant and minutes leaz and reports and Community input um so
now we have a full Quorum of five members and we have a number of people online um again this is an opportunity for anyone we're going to take Community input if you have questions or comments um you can direct them to me you will
have one minute um if I want additional at my discretion you can speak an additional minute but um please make your comments cogent and um can talk about anything any issues that we're facing or anything you want um so seeing
that I'll open it up to public comment yes please introduce yourself by your name and Street Mark Bernstein Peter Hans Road y I just had I had a question on a comment I was just wondering if the town has seen any effects of all the federal
cutbacks and you know pulling whether any money's disappear that we were counting on I will direct that to Our Town Administrator to respond to that question if you wouldn't mind you you would respond I would I would we don't have to respond but I'd like you to so
not yet um I don't think that would hit us immediately as it would mostly come through the federal funding of State priorities but um that's being analyzed at at every level so if there is something we'll know okay thank you is
there anyone else online perhaps who has question comment all right any last minute no seeing none we're going to move on then we will have Community input at the end of our
session and for certain things I may open up to public comment in various sections of the meeting tonight um so uh appointments and resignations so I would like to uh recognize uh that the board has been duly notified of the res
designation of Billy Joe Kelly from the youth commission and I would like to move to approve the amendment to the town meeting study committee Charter as included in the packet so we'll start with that one and
that was to um and maybe David wants to talk about it that is to include Wayne Davis as a full voting member of the correct um committee yes correct want to say anything else we had a quorum difficulty uh at
one point um and he because he's ex official even though he goes to every meeting he was ENC counted uh and he himself has said in somewhere in his notes that he originally asked to be ex official
because he did not want to guide policy or some he had some reason why he didn't feel at that time it was appropriate to be a regular regular member but now that we've essentially set our policy on town meeting and we're in the implementation
phase he no longer has an objection to being a full member and it would ease our Quorum issue because he always shows up okay and we thank him for his service it's been a big help so you're going to need a second what you're going to need
a second on that yeah I need a second okay is there any further discussion questions on this okay seeing you make yep seeing none I'll take a Voice vote all in favor I I I None opposed okay so I move to
point uh Wayne Davis as a voting member of the town meeting study committee termed end in in accordance with the committee's charter second okay any further discussion seeing none a Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed all
right I move to appoint Janelle kapusta as a member of the youth commission termed and June 30th 2027 second any discussion anyone have a comment on that no okay we saw it in the
package okay um so a Voice vote all in favor I I I None opposed lastly I move to appoint Jim Mastro Giovani to the position of police officer for the police department second um Mr Town
Administrator sure the employee in front of you for appointment Jim has a master's degree in counterterrorism has several training certificates having served as a police officer in Dudley Massachusetts since 2018 some people might recognize his
name as he did serve at one point here in Carlile as a part-time officer and other part-time officer positions and interestingly has his uh FAA Pilots license I believe for drone flying the provided we fund a drone well he can fly it I'm not sure he'll have one um but he
can fly it does he have his own drone so Jim comes with a ton of experience and uh we'd be hiring him starting at step four and would be uh a candidate for professional development hopefully eventually leadership in our
department any further questions I noticed he was beer certified did you see that yeah I skipped over that it doesn't sound great beer certified what does that represent B ER certified and I looked beer what do no a certification
it's a evidence it's um enter breaking entering evidence recovery or something that's the acronym they came up with yeah they need some PR help those well it caught my attention I thought it's easy to remember beer I
know a lot of people are beer certified I wouldn't trust any evidence whatsoever right all right so um we've had a second uh Voice vote all in favor hi hi none opposed welcome to the force
you'll see him again we'll have a pinning ceremony in the next couple meetings great all right so that ends our appointments and resignations um we can get started with the notice of the Town
caucus see that uh Ashley's on oh good shall we make the motion first or you want let Ashley talk about it why don't we have Ashley talk about it Ashley are you online at the moment if you want you can yes I am shime in great to hear from
you if you want to tell us a little bit about this um so it's pretty standard business it's just the uh call of the caucus which sets the time place in the open offices for the annual Town election okay the the town caucus or the
town so the town caucus um basically sets the offices that will be open for the annual Town election oh I see and at the caucus will make nominations for these positions got it so it's it's doing both
kind of huh yeah it's uh setting a time place location and kind of saying you know these are the open offices uh getting ready for the town election okay all right so we need a motion on that I move the select board vote to accept
and sign the notice of town caucuses presented in the packet second okay is there any further discussion on it yeah who are the two I know one of the two who is the other select board person up the one year I'm up I'm up and Barney's up and then she
has the one year so three it's say well there's a one year one the remainder of Kate's term and then there two three-year terms oh okay yeah all right very good thank you all
right anything further Ashley is that it we vote no that covers it okay great we have to vote all right so we have to vote there was a you seconded okay so all in favor I un opposed okay Mr chair
yes Mr so we skipped something I I had a question in the Wayne Davis appointment was also amending the charter we we that's the first thing we did we amended the we did yes and then we installed a so then I have a related question which I was going to ask Gretchen but I didn't
cu the rest of us our term was to end on a date which would be June 30 or was it to end with the charter what do the it's probably based on the charter isn't it yeah because it was a it was set up as a shortterm thing
okay so it wasn't um Gretchen had maybe Ryan recall scretchen thought it easier maybe we thought it easier to Simply extend the charter by a few months right which is in here which is what we approved right it was already written in that it would
um through June 30th 2025 during its period of service committee is requested to deliver okay so by doing this it automatic I don't really read that it automatically extends everyone else's term uh no it just it changed I guess
the final report to not later than January 15th 26 so you're right your terms would be up the end of uh June I mean yeah is the term in a separate document it's not usually in the charter or what no it's in the it's in the doc
in the charter um final report yeah you would think that you would still want to be in well I have to meet with them and meeting right so oh yeah in fact actually the the report and the term were coin uh coincidence so oh yeah term
timelines yeah sorry where are you looking it's the bottom of the first page ter through submission okay right it's kind of obliquely stated I guess I have to say it doesn't actually say that their terms are all right so I mean you feel I guess
it's clear enough that I can tell them they got to serve a few more months that you can't get out well they can always res okay is that long let me ask you this is that long enough is June 30th long enough or did you want to go through October or so well I mean because we haven't had a chance to test
any of these things right so we we agree let's say what we agree we certainly agree that we want to evaluate this upcoming Sunday meeting see how things went we going to do I think another survey quick survey get some data uh very soon thereafter because of
the way the special town meeting is set up we're going to have to set up for that meeting which I guess we have to finalize that date is that today we're going to do that um and I think we would want to I think we would want to apply Lessons Learned into that one right because that might be a long meeting as
well thanks to Julie and her crew and um so I think it's probably appropriate some people said yeah we agree it should be more some people said we really were a policy committee and now that we're policy sort of set we not really didn't
really sign up to be an implementation committee maybe there should be a meeting support committee or something that handles town meeting we didn't really we didn't really sign up to organize town meeting we signed up to study what was wrong with it or what we
could improve on and make and suggest those improvements so I guess I don't really know that answer it's something I intend to discuss with them this week I think they would probably accept this halfway point they might not be in love
with a whole another year of it it's been a lot of work yeah and some of the people are like poor Brian is you know region and school committee I mean so they have a lot to do so I'm okay with this and I think let's just see and then maybe what we have to think about is do
we want some kind of group that basically manages the town meeting process going forward yeah okay thank you sure sure all right moving along we are just about to the
time of our so I think we could kind of get started if Julie wanted to come up unless there's um this is the zoning byaw Amendment Adu bylaw for the annual town meeting we were going to discuss this tonight and Julie Mercer Our Town
planner is here yes sir I am um so Brian I don't know if you'll enable me to screen share of course just be easier probably do that should be good so hello everybody hi hi Julie I'm going
to start kind of at the end just with what tonight's request is um sorry it's a little bit small on the screen let me see if I can make it bigger um and I just want to say oh no never mind PDF doesn't like that um all right so in the
we hours of this morning actually the planning board voted 600 to refer this bylaw to you to request pursuant to chapter mgl chapter 40a Section 5 that you refer it back to them tonight so that they can have a public hearing um and so the request for tonight is for
you to refer this back to the planning board they do have their public hearing already advertised and scheduled to open on March 24th um all right let me just jump to the beginning I have 13 slides but only eight of them are released substantive so hopefully I can get through this quickly I know you gave me a lot of time
on your agenda so appreciate that try not to take it all um so let me just get some of you guys out of my way so I can see what I'm doing so tonight I'm here to talk to you about the accessory dwelling unit by law that the planning board's been working on for the last few
months um this is a preview of kind of the presentation I put together for their public hearing later this month get a sneak preview um so I went over this the last time I think I met with you in August so I don't need to go through all the reasons why accessory dwelling unit are an important housing policy
um I'll start right in on the proposal so just to give you an overview of what the planning board um is proposing for town meeting they're proposing to actually do away with the entirety of the existing accessory apartment bylaw and replace it with a new bylaw that's for accessory dwelling units um that t
that that um provides for two things so one would be protected use adus and that's the term the state's using to Define um adus that are protect protected under Mass General Law chapter 4A Section 3 um up to 900 square ft um
and the bylaw would be aligned with the state law and the state's regulations um and it would provide for a site plan review by the planning board the second part um of this bylaw would deal with adus what we're calling adus by special permit or larger adus
that would be between 91 and 1200 square ft this is something that's allowed under the current bylaw also a special perit process um and the planning board felt strongly that they wanted to continue to allow larger adus in town for people that want them um and the
applicability of this zoning is that it's townwide so under the Adu regulations from the state um single family zoning includes any zoning District that allows single family as a use so that's the entirety of the town of
Carlile um so just I was working on the warrant article marketing plan um and I just started with like okay so what does a yes vote mean um so yes vote means uh first and foremost that the town would be opting to have a local public process for protected use adus so they're
Allowed by law by right someone could come in and just get a building permit what we're saying is we'd like to have a local process which would include notification to a Butters and a public hearing with the planning board um and then would give the planning board the the um opportunity to reasonably
regulate the protected use aduse um sorry is a site review site plan review then a requirement because I thought they could do it by right without a site plan review so site plan review is considered a byright
process so they still have to right right okay yeah so it allows for some a discussion at the planning board level with a notification to a Butters and and an ability for the planning board to add reasonable regulations versus just someone coming in and applying for a building permit um and now obviously all
the other jurisdictions like apply still right follow law but they can't W protection make something up to deny you say it again you have to comply with all the regulations but they can't just categorically say no if you follow those things by right you then can build I
guess right so it's it's not discretionary like the planning board still has to approve it right um did you have another question no okay so a yes vote also means that property owners would still be able to apply for a larger Adu up to 1200 ft and that
would be a special permit process the special permit process is discretionary um meaning that the planning board um has the ability to to deny and they can negotiate and regulate and condition for additional things that they feel um would render the use not
substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood um and this is a right that property owners owners currently have now under the current byw um the provisions are clear and consistent between birite adus and larger adus and I'll get into this a
little bit in a minute but basically what the planning board's doing here in most cases is aligning the minimum requirements use and dimensional regulations calculation methodology and design standards for both the protected use adus and the larger adus um and what this means um and this
is where I have my little arrow here let me see if I can use my cursor um one of the results of this is that it means that larger adus are actually allowed under more circumstances than they are in the current bylaw so one example of this is
the current bylaw requires a 2 acre lot for an Adu up to 12200 square fet but if we align the larger adus with the protective use adus and we follow mostly follow the state law and regulations we would be allowing the larger adus in in more circumstances um than we do
currently um and the yes vote also means that the planning board maintains the ability to deny the larger ad use like they have today they haven't they don't have a history or pattern or um even proclivity to do that um but they
maintain that right and then the town also would maintain the cap on the total number of AD so the current bylaw has a cap of 75 um and the planning board wants to keep we can keep the cap for the adus by
special permit so how many adus are there currently so so yeah so the planning boards issued 36 permits in 36 years I have a bunch of data I can show you like later is it real what going on here any of them larger so so yes so um John and I did
some calculations and I can get into like the details later but yeah um and then of course like compliance with local Board of Health regulations and all other uh state and local regulations like still are is still required this doesn't get around that um
so before I get into how the birite Adu and the larger adus are aligned I want to talk to you about the main goal for why the planning board decided to do this um the main goal is to limit the number of adus to one per lot so a little background information on this is
that the state regulations are unclear they don't really say this but the state has been very clear that their intent is that any lot even Lots with an existing Adu can have a protected use Adu so what this would mean is that Lots with the special
permit um accessory apartment that's bigger than 900 square ft those Property Owners would still be eligible to come in and get a protective use up to 900 foot Adu so the planning board um wants to um try to craft language that would
give an either or choice for people um and they they figured that the best way to achieve that is to align the provisions the state Provisions with the local provision as much as possible um to make it harder for the state to reject this either or approach so the jury's still out on
whether this is going to be a successful approach um the initial feedback from Town Council is that it doesn't hurt to try it seems like a reasonable way to do it and it doesn't hurt to try but we do need to get feedback from the Attorney General's office on that
um but that is the goal for why they want to align the provisions sorry Julie what's the either in the OR that so someone could either have a protected use Adu or a larger Adu of one or the other they one or the other versus both
if they okay so they what's the impetus for this effort now is there something that's prompting uh this proposal in terms of what's being requested or what we've seen it's just um kind of getting ahead
of of it and like you know there are other protections and limitations right on someone's ability to do that probably the big one here in carile would be Title 5 okay right but just putting Protections in place now um to prevent against that so this isn't
related to some external thing like mdta communities or all this other stuff it's not yeah where's my water did I put it somewhere anyway um okay so yeah it's it's not and for there's a variety of reasons why like if that were allowed it
wouldn't neatly align with MBT Comm thank you so much Karen um but that that's a whole another conversation to have actually it's a very good question um so that is the main goal of of this
approach one result of this actually is that it then results in Provisions that are clear and consistent across the two different types of adus which can help streamline and simplify requirements for applicants and make the review process for staff and the board actually easier um but I wouldn't say that that would be
the main reason why they want to do this right um okay so really quick how the bught Adu and the larger Adu Provisions align so the left-and column is how they align with each other and then the right hand column is how they whether they
align with state law um so we're using all the definitions from the state regulations with no modifications to any of the definitions um I did we did add in some definitions for local to account for those special permit process for
some of the adus um but they they align with the state definitions um and that obviously aligns with the state law um the allowance for these in single family zoning districts those are aligned and those aligned with the state law um and then allowing them in pre-existing
non-conforming structures and on pre-existing non-conforming laws that's language from the state um and so that would be for both types of adus um the state also Julie before you continue from that another words if you if you if your house or
your property's been grandfathered from history it's presently non-complying you can't be penalized to have an not have an Adu because of that is that what you're saying yes thank you um and then another thing that the state is saying is that
the adus um shall only comply with the most permissive setbacks so if we in this town we have the same setback requirements for the principal structure and the accessory structure but if we had different ones we would have to allow the protected use Adu to to align
with whatever the most permissive setback requirements are and then also dimensional standards so um The Proposal is to align this with like what we require right now for single family um and that aligns with the state another
Dum question are are these detached attached or either both okay so if you're if you live in a non-complying structure and you do like a major Rena you have to everything has to go back to code right there's some parting line where yep I suppose if you do your
kitchen it's okay but if you do everything is not so the Adu then is considered like a minor renovation in that world right in other words we said it's not I would have to defer John on on like on that um while you're saying aloud so so I'm talking about zoning so
step back it doesn't mean might not trigger right a bunch of compliance issues in your house if you do it right yeah I'm talking about zoning strictly zoning stay in my lane and then um so how gross floor area
will be measured that's another one where the state has a definition for protected use adus we adopted the same definition for the the larger adus that makes the this much simpler for everybody involved um and it aligns with the
law um and then one Adu per lot um whether it's like I said whether protected use are the larger and that is unclear whether that complies with the state law or not um jur is still out um parking so the state says we can only require one space for every protected
use Adu so we're doing the same thing for the larger adus we're requiring one space that doesn't mean someone can't provide more right um and then owner occupancy is not allowed to be required so the owner occupancy um is
currently in the in the bylaw for access Apartments won't be anymore um short-term rentals the state allows um towns to restrict the use of proteced use adus for short-term rentals what the planning board wants to do is restrict
them for both types of Adu in the instance in which the principal dwelling is owner occupied so if the principal dwelling is owner occupied then a protected use Adu or larger ad you could be used as a short-term rental
um so that's what's on the table for that so you can't uh Airbnb your house and the Adu so right you could live in could you live in Adu and Airbnb your house that's a great question which the planning board talked about last night and this
bylaw is just about the adus right so and currently in our B we don't have a restriction on Airbnb or shortterm rental town have any objections to airbn being we don't have restrictions on that currently right so if someone wanted to live in the Adu right and short rental
or primary dwelling this bot doesn't really talk about that okay but without forgetting the Adu we can anybody could airb be their house there's no like as far as I know as far as I know okay um
yeah and then Kate's taking notes well yeah I just I'm not sure what you just said was correct because you you could Adu your house but if you had an sorry you could Airbnb your house y but if if you had an Adu in there no I understand
that then okay that might complicate then you can't because now you're not living in the house right living in the you could want call the ad you could shut it yeah okay yes I mean there separate things I'm just curious about the airbn totally clear yeah okay got it
okay is it clear okay um and then the planning board has some design standards um most of them comply with the state law there's one that as far as we know most of them comply um there's one that may may not which I'll get into in a little bit um are you getting into
septic stuff nope that's not my Lane it's just zoning but that's adus have a bathroom in them right so so Title Five and local Board of Health regulations still apply to these yes so
but is it I know it's not your L but is that like adding another bedroom they have a whole review process yes okay so they don't distinguish it's a dwelling with a certain number right okay they do have Provisions for multi-use dwellings which
is two or more which includes accessory Apartments yeah thank you um accessory dwelling units so a few ways in which they differ right and this list is short because the whole intention was to align them as much as possible um so obviously the sizes are different the processes are
different the birate adus cannot have a cap right there's no we can't say there's a ma maximum number allowed in town because they're allowed on every single family lot um but the larger adus can have a cap the planning board has reduced the cap from 75 to 40
to partly to account for the fact that the town has already issued a bunch of these um and this would be 40 additional going forward from the effective date of the bylaw um and then the one thing here
that uh differs and may not be allowed is that um the state is clear that modular dwelling units must be allowed to be like adus can be modular dwelling units right um
and in their definition they originally excluded manufactured homes then in their final regulations definitions they took that exclusion out the planning board wants to add it back in but add it into the design standards
instead of adding it back into the definitions add it into the design standards of but that would be only for the 9901 to 1200 ft right and then for the larger ones modular dwelling units are not really considered they're not allowed right so so this is so it's the
smaller one small and when they say modular are they thinking you know like a trailer trailer I think that's what they're well I don't want to speak for them whole there's you know de house and and acorn were modular houses so and they don't you know we have all over
town right so that's why I'd like to see the definition of that the definition is is in the draft bylaw yeah um and I'll have to get smarter about this like before town meeting this is a good practice yes I
I'll this is actually gu a trial rotten right for like you guys give me all your feedback and then I can make it smarter for next time um so there are some things that are lost transitioning from access the the accessory apartment to the Adu by special apartment right so
this is the larger ones right so I don't want to overlook this right um so certain like I discussed earlier certain restrictions on where and when the larger accessory apartments or adus are allowed like the lot size um The Zone
the zoning districts are allowed in the fact that they would also be allowed in non-conforming structures and on non-conforming Lots like those those are lost with this right um cuz now we aligning it with the what the state has said um the cap as I mentioned they're
proposing to reduce it from 75 to 40 um and then there's no mention of attached versus detached like we have in the current cap it's like 75 total 25 can be detached that language is is gone um just on that if we have we reduce the
cap to 40 and we have 36 so it's actually not so are we not counting here let me just jump ahead real quick yeah um we just this 36 permits and 36 years right four were
never built so four according to the the way that we do this like don't count towards the cap anymore right and then of the remaining 32 9 to 11 of them will now qualify as protected use because they're under that 900 square ft and they they are not
subject to special permit conditions or anything like that um so there's definitely and then there's two that are like questionable we need more information on before we can right so the broader picture is that eats eats a way the count the ones that aren't all those things do count towards the cab
right so it be about 22 maybe right okay um Julie so I'm sorry if I missed it but prior to this there were two different rules adus and accessory Apartments so prior to this we just had
the accessory apartment byw Adu just accessory we just called it accessory apartment up to 1,200 sare F feet you're sort of combining these things in right yes and so some were and original ones that were permitted were less than 900 square fet right and those based on the
new way gross floor areas calculated some of those now kind of are not are no longer subject to the special permit restrictions that are on them um and that's something that the state has made very clear in their regulations um those are now considered protected use so
there's sort of net less than 75 that's what you're saying right depends on how you look at it6 well they used to they used to have the cap at 75 40 and there's been less than
30 of them built so right if our cap goes from 75 to 40 so they've kind of made it a few less than there used to beac original won't be that many take scatch Point okay should cover the next 32 years but well interesting the if you
look at the dates though 18 and the 1st what is that 26 whatever number of years and then It sped up from 2017 to 2020 get them all they're hot well actually we've had an aging population the COA has uh done some education around it
about what it's necessary and that's what's kind of so that I mean isn't the larger question then if we socially believe that and we want either affordability or make allow seniors to remain in the town why are we knocking
down the cap that's why I'm pointing it out maybe Julie wants to what's the did the plan board part talk about that uh issue in that way um not in that way okay there is no cap on under 900 square
fet so so we could have every lot in Carlile with one if it met all the other requirements of Title Five and everything but maybe people don't want to live in 900 square feet dwelling you like Liv in 900 square
feet that's like a college apartment this is what the states mandated and now no no no there no the 1200 is what understand that but I'm saying we are capping the 1200 like
why like why well I think it's something that maybe they're testing out and over in time we'll see how it goes and maybe the town decides it wants to expand the cap okay I don't have any answer that I haven't been listening to the planning board how does one change like if you
what's the process to change a cap is that go back to town meeting okay yeah and does all of this have to get reviewed by the state and approved yeah so um bylaw the typical bylaw process right will happen but the state's also offered well do should I
explain the typical process that happens uh how we doing on I can do it real quick briefly two seconds so after the town meeting vote if it's approved or denied however but let's say approved right um the town has 30 days to file paperwork with the state and then the state has the Attorney General's office has 90 days to issue an opinion so
they'll review it then but now um there's like a housing I forget what they call it yeah always forget the middle work there's like housing advocacy it's not that but unit at the Attorney General's office and they've offered to do pre-review of some of these bylaws um and that's great they
lawyers and so we have our Town Council like involved and then we can have lawyers from the state also giving us um before it goes to town meeting right right so um where was I the owner occupancy requirement goes away um the permit
renewal requirement when the property changes hands that's something that's not contemplated in this byw it probably could be though when I was writing this I was thinking oh maybe maybe that's one we would want to keep um and then the affordable accessory apartment Provisions are also not in this um it
doesn't mean that it can't happen right it just means that they're not so those are AAS that are priced at some right like there's no C they vibrate as well or so that it's not something that's contemplated by the state in the state law or in the state regulations is
something we had in the current byaw um and it was not utilized um so it goes away so it's not in this new bylaw but it doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen is the new bylaw superseding the old bylaw the yes so that means it goes away it goes away yes it doesn't mean it
can't happen sometime but it go it hasn't been a single unit built in state it just this concept is we just asking right there aren't enough incentives among other things right um so that that landscape is changing so maybe CH we'll
change um okay and then just really quick like our timeline in context of the state timeline so this the became effective in early February um the legal ad for the public hearing uh for the planning board was published in late
February so that that was the time frame when if someone came in they could have just gotten a building permit right obviously Wetlands Board of Health all that too right but not planning board um no one applied for or received a building permit during that time now
that the legal ads published notifying the hearing with the planning board anyone who comes in actually is subject to whatever where the zoning ends up being um it's a cback provision so we I've actually spoken to three people this week um and because because I call it the transition phase that we're in
right now so they need they go ahead at their own risk right um if they want to if they want to keep going and apply they just need to know like what I'm doing is that I'm advising them to follow the the regulations that we right
that we're working on 2026 Julie say it again this is now now be now if we're not going to V on until May this is all the pre-work oh the ad became okay I see right how how
um all the public hearing presuming you were on the fall town meeting would you have to redo the entire yep so the the um public hearing has to be within 6 months of the town meeting vote six months yeah okay there's all
there's so many timelines attached to to all of these things like um so yeah so the public hearing will open on the 24th it the planning board has a scheduled for it to continue at two additional meetings in April and then to meeting in May
um want a motion and then yeah then here we are with my request we have to do and some upcoming things that I talked about a little bit um you refer it to the Ping Bo for public hearing W that's job yeah it is you're an elected board right yeah this is it's a it's a Mass General law
um I figure you could do what you wanted okay they can but and by referring you're just referring stupid step it's just a administrative step CH you have a hand up take comments or not oh sure we have
a minute or two for a few comments I see that there's uh thank you for Brian for letting me know um Chris I see you have your hand up would you like to ask a question uh yes please actually a comment um I've been following and thank you I've been following uh the planning
board meetings I've been attending um and uh my understanding is one of the reasons um they have decided to put a cap on and Julie please correct me if I'm wrong but to put a cap on the 1200 uh square foot um special permit adus is
because now with the new law um the um the pars either neither unit needs to be owner occupied and it seems like there's the ability to condo eyes uh if that's a word um the the parcel the units on the
parcel and so it seems like there could be the possibility of selling each one separately and um a 12200 sare foot um individual unit if you will um is a lot more attractive for uh developers to
come in buy a property build an Adu and then sell each one separately um effectively um sort of negating the the the thought that ad are being built to help um residents who are
living on the property and so that was a definitely a discussion that took place um and I think that possibly factored into the decision to uh to put a cap or to keep the cap on on the larger ones thank you and can you just tell us your
address for the record oh I'm so sorry um okay just the street please name and Street just name and Street okay just in case any other quick questions on this Julie can I just ask
what very brief stepping back executive summary why do they want to like what is they voted in favor of this could you just recap in a couple of bullet points what the high level goals are of this and why they believe this is an improvement over what we currently have I know you have
those points but at a very at the highest of high levels seems like there's some pros and cons what's the is it really just to clarify no I think it's primarily to have a local process for the bate adus right that folds into and relates to our
process for the larger ones okay um and to try to achieve the ability to have just one Adu per lot okay um okay thank you okay so we have to send this back if we choose back to the planning board um so can I get a motion
I move to refer the proposed zoning bylaw Amendment to the planning board in accordance with Mass General Law chapter 48 Section 5 Second okay um any further discussion once you do that you have your hearing we still have to decide
whether goes on our agenda right on the town meeting town meeting warrant warrant correct okay yep okay and Julie had made a case why should why it should be why it should be and we don't have to wait for the hearing to decide that right that's an independent thing it's
independent yeah okay thank you okay so motion has been seconded all in favor I None opposed okay 7:45 we're going to move on to the next topic yeah thank you very much um so we have until 8:05 but we're
going to next meet with uh our uh we're going to review the fiscal year 24 Town audit exit conference I think gentl online yep Kell it looks like yeah Kell thank you Kelly's online and we have
someone from ciz Scott McIntyre is that right yes okay well welcome good evening we have Scott and Derek here um to go over FY 24 audit um we finished up the audit within the last
month roughly um so the financial statements are in your meeting packet tonight um and that's what they're going to present thank you Kelly um I'd also like to U introduce Derek jelo on on the call
in the meeting uh Derek was out the field much more than than I was and um just inviting him to these types of meetings is just a good way to continue his uh excellent development to see what uh pequs the interest of the board and answering questions and the give and
take about um the conversation that we were having about how the audit went um also we issued what we call a governance letter um and I'm going to share my screen in just a minute I'm going to very quickly walk through the governance letter and the financial statements it's
going to be a rather brisk walk through it's a lot to get through in a short per period of time uh but we're really going to hit the high point so if I may try to share my screen real quickly good to go ER I'm going to ask if you would just make sure I have the
governance letter up there I believe that I do but uh there it is thanks D all right I'm just going to walk through the the governance letter real real quickly we call it a governance letter because our Professional Standards the standards known as generally accepted auditing standards in the United States
as well as generally accepted been auditing standards require we report this information to the phrase that's in the standards is those charged with governance thus it's a little bit of a slang term if you will but it's in our professions become known as as a
governance letter it tells you a lot in here and in my opinion this is the highlight of of of the audit uh we're going to get to the financial statements we're going to look at your onund balance we to look at uh budget versus actual results but I really think this
governance letter is to highlight it tells you our responsibilities under the auditing standards that that we followed uh it tells you what our planned timing and scope of the audit was is outlined in our engagement letter you have some significant audit findings and I will
tell you that's a standard heading uh the rest of the information underneath here is very normal and customary and and the word findings is probably not the best use of language in my opinion but it's what the uh Professional Standards require us to to use you we have the qualita aspects of the
accounting that takes place in carile that's a fancy way of talking about the the significant estimates that are present in your financial statements we list three of them right here because we think those are the most significant uh that doesn't mean there aren't others uh the estimated useful lives in
depreciation of of your Capital assets the net pension liability and the related related to FAL accounts and the net net and total opep liability in those to Boral accounts we think those disclosures while they're based on estimates are are neutral clear and very
and very concise so moving down uh this is what area I always like to talk about is difficulties per uh encountered during the performance of the audit happy to be able to report that with carile there were no significant difficulties in dealing with management
uh in completing our our audit Independence is of course a big item in in in our profession uh one thing that is a little bit new in in this letter that wasn't prior letters uh because standards evolve all the time just like accounting standards change so do
auditing standards um where we talk about we were engaged to prepare the government-wide fin financial statements we do this in Carlile and we do it in virtually 98% of all of our clients here in in New England where uh technically preparing financial statements is a non-
audit service so again our Professional Standards require us to communicate to you that in addition to per Performing the AIT we also did a non- audit service and we helped you prepare your government-wide financial statement nothing to be concerned about in our in our opinion happy to be able to report
that there were no correct no uncorrected misstatements in other words a fancy way of saying we found that the books and records were in good working order and we did not need to propose any significant adjustments for your financial statements to be in accordance with generally accepted accounting
principles the rest of the letter is is pretty standard uh it talks about uh um other a whole lot of other things we understand that management is not consulted with other Auditors those types of things but in general I would look at this governance letter as the
the substantial uh results of our of our audit uh and then and then maybe the most basic way that I can really think about describing that is our audit went well and as I said a second ago we found your books and Records to be in good working order in other words key account
reconciliations have taken place on a regular timely basis so going to flip over to the uh financial statements now uh these are again this is our independent Auditors report I'm not going to walk through this in detail and I'm actually
only going to uh hit a few pages in in the financial statements um I'm going to make reference to print pages and PDF Pages U if you're following along on the screen wonderful I'll be going to the PDF pages but I'll get for those who might be following along with a hard
copy I will give a print page reference and um if you're following Along online with your own copy of the PDF of the financials I'll give you that page number as well uh our independent auditor report is what we call a a clean opinion technically it's called an
unmodified opinion in other words our opinion has no modifications to to it um it's thought of as the best type of Auditor's opinion you can receive that based on the based on the audit work that we did in accordance with those those two sets of auditing standards
that I mentioned earlier generally accepted auditing standards in the United States and generally accepted government auditing standards in our opinion your financial statements are materially fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in in the United
States now following the opinion is your Management's discussion and Analysis uh sometimes referred to as the MBNA we think it's a great resource to go back to at a later point in time to understand why certain key account balances have changed and in fact
tonight when we go go through these financial statements I'm going to focus primarily on the general fund because our our our experience tells us that that's where most of the focus of readers is oops on the general fund and we're
going to look there and look accounts as well as your budget versus actual accounts and then I'm going to go back to page I believe it's nine in MBNA which will hopefully connect the dots for you give you something to to take away from this cont conversation about the key account balance which is your unassigned fund balance and your general
fund but before we get there as I mentioned following the opinion is your Management's discussion and Analysis and then there are your long-term financial statements um is included in here are both a long-term perspective financial statement and a short-term perspective
uh print page 13 12 and 13 are your long-term perspective financial statements most of the time I'm going to I would only focus on these two accounts um I will the net pension liability and the not net opep liability there's a wealth of disclosures in the uh
footnotes to your financial statements um what I'll do this evening because it looks like you have a very busy agenda I will take questions that the board may have on these but I won't specifically get into any detail uh unless there's a desire to when we conclude the conversation about the general fund and
budgetary results so I'm going to go all the way over to um print page 15 and if you're following along uh PDF page 17 uh we're going to look at your governmental funds financial statements most of our focus is going to be on that first column of
numbers uh the general fund but I did want to point out there are two other three other columns before the totals your community preservation fund uh that qualifies as what is known as a major fund for the Town based on its size relative to the overall Community as
does your American Rescue plan fund uh where where you received what's different about the arpa fund as opposed to other grants is with the arpa funds you received the money up front so you were sitting on
$719,000 and you hadn't recognized about $686,000 of that you recognize that as when the money came in but you recognize it as Revenue when you spend the money uh so you'll you'll recognize that in fiscal year 2025 just wanted to point
out those are also known as major funds just the way the general fund is then you have this column called the non- major governmental funds that's really a a a aggregation if you will of all of the much smaller funds there might be some capital projects in there some other other grants could be accounted
for and then your permanent funds would be included in there as well so uh these major funds are are the same major funds as as the prior year so there was no real change in presentation and with the general fund uh the focus really is in the fund balance section of of your
balance sheet uh really it's the difference between your assets and and your liabilities I just do want to just point out that remember this is the what we what I refer to as the short-term perspective it's not quite cash bases technically it's called modified Accu basis but it's quite similar to to cash
basis uh so the difference between your assets and your liabilities as of 630 2024 was uh $8.9 million broken down into three categories your unassigned fund balance of uh 6.3 million assigned
fund balance of 385,000 and your committed fund balance of $2.2 Mill million generally speaking almost all of the focus is on your unassigned fund balance this unassigned fund balance as of June 30 2024 is up about
$450,000 o over the prior year so it's nice to see a nice increase in that key account balance I also want to point out that there are really two components to this number the two components are highlighted in in the footnotes not necessarily going to turn there uh the
way the town keeps its books and Records is is the case with all the communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uh Kelly would have a general funding her uh trial accounting system as well as a general stabilization fund separate accounting entities within the financial management
system of the town of Carline uh she's required to do that based on the way the common the Massachusetts division of local Services uh requires you to do that but for Gap or generally accepted accounting purposes those two columns those those two funds need to be
Consolidated to together essentially the stabilization fund is really a byproduct of the general fund so it it meets doesn't meet the definition of being a standalone fund so so just as a quick point of reference of that $6.3 million
$5 million of that represents the general fund of the community and that really is the starting point for certifying uh your your free cash and about $1.3 million of that represents your general stabilization account and both of those numbers both of those
components of the numbers are also up over the same period of time of the year ago or June 30 2023 so keeping in mind this $6.3 million and I indicated it was about a $4.5 million pardon me pardon me
$450,000 increase over the prior year year let's look at why that changed and and that account balance will change based primarily on budget budgetary results page 13 uh so I'm going to turn to print page 59 or PDF page
61 uh and this if unassigned fund balance is the first place that most readers turn to the budget versus actual page is generally speaking the second Focus really is on this last column of numbers here the variance of the actual results of operations on the budgetary
basis uh compared with the budget and what this statement is telling you is that on the revenue side of your equation you collected $827,000 more than you anticipated a lot of that is coming as in carile as it is in most communities right now on the
motor vehicle excise uh motor vehicle excise tax uh licenses in permits and investment income in fiscal year 2024 were also up so you can see there's some nice breakdown between the various uh Revenue types that give you a favorable
result of operation budget actual wise of $827,000 on the revenue side of your equation on the expenditure side of your equation almost the exact same number if you will uh unspent and unincumbered appropriations of $816,000 that's right
you add those two numbers up the $827 and the $816 you have budgetary results of operations before transfers of $1.6 million couple things go on with transfers as they always do so the bottom bottom line in the lower right hand corner of print
page 59 the budgetary results are positive $1.9 million now as I mentioned earlier I'm actually going to go back to a page in the mdna to hopefully connect the dots and give you a a sentence that the town added to the financial
statements as to you we got positive budgetary results of operations of 1.8 but remembering we mentioned that the unassigned fund balance only went up by about $450,000
Scott I I've got to I've got to interrupt you I apologize we we do have limited time this evening and I know you're going into great detail my understanding is is that uh you know you've met with uh our with Dave Modell and and and Mark I think was there right
Mark raise your hand yep right and have been through through this audit uh and uh we very much appreciate the the high level overview and as well as the assurance that everything has you know turned out well we've we've been through
it we've have it in our packet and and we've uh reviewed it as well so I was going to ask if there are any questions though from the from the select board I I have one and that's about the non- major governmental funds I know we were
um focusing on the general fund but I'd like to know a little more about what's in there are those our revolving accounts uh what What's what is that because it's still a fairly sizable chunk of money yeah uh revolving accounts are probably the single biggest
uh component of that like a recreation revolving account and things like that there are capital projects that are that are in there as well um if I won't take any more time but I will tell you that if you were to look on print page 38 or PDF page 40 you
would find a detail to to those numbers okay so so all right guess I'll just do that oh my thanks okay is there anything else from the select board I just had a quick question this
may be on be beyond the scope of of what we're discussing but the um the net pension liability net oped liability together total there 16 million and 8.7 million respectively totaling about 25 million is
is that total amount relative to our other Financial positions uh is there an assessment around that in terms of where we are as a community is that a high number a low number are we tracking is the trend of those liabilities um where we want it to be or
is is that something you look at or is that beyond the scope of of what you look at well it's a it's a little bit of a complicated answer to that what I will tell you on the pension liability is that is your proportional share of the overall middle sex County uh uh
unfunded p p pension Li liability so if you're a the numbers in your footnotes I'm not going to turn there if you're a two and a half% member of of uh based on uh payroll if you're a 2 and a half% contributor into the middle six County
Retirement System your liability is 2 and a half% of the overall liability further and this is also outlined in the in the footnotes you are on a funding schedule and I believe and Kelly I'm sure can can get you the exact date uh I
don't want to take too much time here but I believe it's like 2035 or 2036 that the system is scheduled to be fully funded in other words if you keep doing what you're doing and you make all and the system makes all of the
Actuarial assumptions as far as earnings and things like that uh that pension liability goes to zero in 2035 2037 forgive me I don't know that number up the top of my head but Kelly would could get it to you quite easily okay on the opep side of things uh that's a little
bit of a different story you are funding it with a with a trust and there's some assumptions in there to continue funding it maybe even at uh great greater rates in future years uh so that that becomes fully funded but I think that that's uh
few years away okay okay but none of those numbers uh from I do a lot of these meetings none of those numbers in my opinion uh should necessarily be overly concerning um rating agencies do look at them but they like to know that
they will they will definitely know that your pension liability is going to mature in 2035 2037 in that range and they will also look at how well funded your opep plan is and what are you doing to escalate funding and you can in in
the town's management team has the ability to point that out to the to a rating agency very well okay 27% funded okay but I would say there's a whole separate I mean the these Auditors are looking at our financial picture they're not doing Actuarial analyses right we
have a separate group uh Kelly it's Odyssey who was it that what's the group that does correct yep Odyssey advisers yeah and we sit with them as well and we get oh you got a buddy they um we go in depth on the Actuarial
assumptions on the rates of return you know the the sensitivity analysis discount rates all that stuff you know and I think we're okay I mean I think that staff's doing a good job all right well we we do have a packed agenda for tonight so um we are going to have to
kind of end this part of our our analysis or our thoughts on it but uh Scott we appreciate it is Derek is that right um appreciate your time this evening and Kelly thank you for coming on and Kelly it's uh really helpful and it's great to know that we're in in good
shape from uh you know on the in our audit so thank you thank you very much folks have a good evening all right you thank you thank you thanks Kelly all right so I'd like to move on it's uh 8:05 and we have a meeting agenda for a joint meeting with the
finance committee um for our annual town meeting discussion so I'd invite the finance committee to come forward and if you wanted to open your meeting that's great all right perfect we're going to do a roll call because we have some people on
the line so if uh we do a roll call attendance kacho here we missed Nathan oh sorry Nathan I'm still not used to that delete here too Leah yep right Le I'm here show we're
here okay meeting's open great I we have one other committee that happens to be here as well I think do we have a quorum for this or not um if you meing you we do well I'm here so um maybe we should open the MFC meeting was it posted as it
was posted yes is a meeting I'd like to open the MC I'm present from the facilities committee oh yeah thank you I'm sorry I didn't see you Scott PR is
here lurman is here great is present all right wonderful you want to give a review yeah I think that'd be a good place to start so this is a review of a lot of meetings and a lot of work by the the finance committee and the finance team so I'm
going to keep it brief so that the discussion can happen but I can dive into detail in in any of this so first I'm going to start with the operating budget so the summary of the fincom recommendation or
the current draft of budget two curent budget draft two is a total budget increase of 4.5 8% this includes uh a CPS assessment of 3.9% in significant more than 20%
increases to the retirement and the health insurance as as we've been talking about so that is the the overall budget increase the drivers of that include I'm sorry I'm going to jump to the summary and then the drivers it's not jumping but it will
so the the result of that is a um as you saw on the last page a budget request for town meeting of 36,7 60,3 the other charges or expenses you see here are based off either the current version of the state budget or
5year averages as we've done for the last couple years on the revenue side it includes the the current state figure for state aid local receipts which I'll get to in a second and free cash which I'll get to in a second as changes from
draft one to draft two so the total impact on the budget is a proposed Levy increase of almost 1.3 million or an average tax bill increase of 3.41% and that includes the following Revenue changes
so $100,000 was added to local receipts you'll note in the presentation on the financial statements one of the big changes um or realizations of Revenue in last in FY 24 was motor vehicle excise tax and and that continues to go up that in addition to what you'll hear at your
next meeting which is tac's recommendation to increase the sticker fund would cover um reasonably this $100,000 increased local receipts which you know have been conservative the last couple of years which is a budgeting best practice but something to adjust from time to time the fincom also added
$200,000 in free cash to offset the tax impact of this budget and $50,000 from the ambulance receipts fund this was discussed at length the money here would still allow for the accumulation of funds in that account to pay for an ambulance when the next ambulance comes
due on the expense side changes from the last version of the budget you saw to this one include increases for Union contra TRS and the inclusion of all um nonunion cost increases at a 2% level
these are exact increases at 2% last time you discussed a 2 and a half% cola that would be an additional $23,000 to this budget or a little under 05% to the average tax bill it also includes an increase of our health
insurance to 20% more than last year this includes a 15.5% increase in our health insurance rates um which has significant impact to employees in the town it includes the 1% increase in the employee contribution as
has been discussed the last few years and additional plan use on our insurance which is a Delta of 20% or a little over $330,000 new money for decreases the finance
committee discussed at length removing any excess debt capacity was in the budget which is this is wrong 150,000 reducing the CPS budget by 35,000 which will um from our understanding come primarily from the special ed contingency line which they
had increased uh this year they also asked the library to reduce their new fund asked to the mar or the Mi which is limit uh the minimum funding you need in order to get Library state aid this was discussed at the last meeting and change
to a $1,900 cut in order to avoid our cuts at the library this also includes reducing the legal budget by $8,000 including CPA funding for two positions the town accountant and the uh executive assistant who assist in the CPA this
comes from the admin line which would offset the budget by 8.8 th000 reducing the kcom budget which is an unsettled item still needs to be discussed with the kcom and the planning board for a combined um for a combined position or a combined assistant position which would net
$30,000 return to the budget it removes the board of Health's request for additional Staffing hours for the public health nurse and the health assistant removes $3,000 from the CHS Transportation line it removes um the entire youth Commission
operating budget the youth commission operates fully on their revolving fund and has has not touched this account in years so that's a pretty easy remove and then cchs reported a 25 approximately a $25,000 reduction in their budget based off of enrollment shifts and what
conquer asked them to do to uh to meet their guideline so that in total equals that Revenue change and those uh increases to the budget and the decreases to the budget result in that
3.41% average tax bill increase Ryan What's the total of the ads and the reductions so the reductions to the budget are about 250,000 okay total and the additions are
$350,000 in Revenue well that's Revenue but expenses so Revenue up 35 well Revenue I know free cast is revenue sources are up
350 right expenses total how much the net is a $250,000 reduction to the the additional minus the the T obligations or whatever is is a
lowering and you need that so didn't you started with a gap I guess right of nearly 700,000 so if I add 250 plus what did you say two in a quarter 350 minus 250 and now it's 350 plus 250 to close
the gap right yeah yes your so that would have closed the Gap to 3% so 600 closed it to 3.41% I see that's say 3.41 and we had this discussion about whether we should use the 200 free cash does that knock us below our pad or something right or is
that a separate thing I can't remember now last meeting has reported by the mosquito so I left that for this tonight for you to discuss that's not whether to put it well we'll get to it when he talks about Capital cu the capital drop us below 12
that's all the free cash that would be applied to the operating budget just the 200 yes okay which is in line with what we generally do we did I think 150 last year and close to 200 the year before okay so it's
in okay got it thank you okay so I'd like to give you some background information about building costs and capital costs and then go into the capital plan unless there's any more questions about the operating budget this is just a spreadsheet just quickly I want to make sure I caught the numbers right so the average
tax increase is 3.1% 41 3.41 4.41 3.41 okay thank you weend his long weekend and I will add that I can't calculate it exactly but that that is a conservative calculation because of the way our tool is designed so it's
supposed to give you a look at what the tax rate might be but we can't be exact with that based off values of homes uhuh so I do think that would be the ceiling increase it would probably be closer to 3 3 and a quar than 3.41 but can't promise that and I can't predict the
future and that was with the 2% Cola factored in for non-union staff okay yes correct yes I haven't added it I haven't been told to add it yet y okay um so important in this discussion is
the inclusion of debt in the operating budget which is included as one of the line items in the budget we just discussed so this middle section here this spreadsheet shows what we're going to be talking about in terms of capital for what's already been approved in the fir truck and what's needed to
close the gap to purchase that firet truck from last year the elevator project and the library coils project which are going to be major discussion points tonight so this shows what the annual cost of that borrowing would be at a conservative 5 5% borrow and how it
would impact the budget so the story that I'm trying to show you here is we can afford the elevator project in the coils project as compared
to if if we were to keep our debt line the same keep your debt capacity in the budget from year to year it can be it can we can afford this for the next few years however these yellow lines indicate things in the capital plan that we would probably have to borrow for significant
projects to include um renovations to the town hall dispatch radios of about a million dollars in cost in the DPW fuel pumps which we could not fit into this picture until you know approximately fy3 FY 31 Ryan
that's just two of like 400 things that we right have to find why those two because the coils are new and I just want to show you that they're replacing what we had previously told you in the budget everything else like that mfc's going to ask for and Jim Hall's going to
ask for and everybody asks for is that all tucked in here too so this is just on the borrowing side a lot of those items from the Departments would be paid for with free cash which is a different calculation I just wanted to show you where the debt is okay so you understand it and then the other question that's
always asked is the ever looming building projects so uh on the left here for now have just included police and fire so you conveniently left off the zeros wait so we can understand yes that group is in dollars
K and the group in the middle is in real in dollars of one right yes so what you're seeing here is good point um the next few years for the police station so next year would be a interest payment and then it would hit an FY 27 this is
the design that you're going to include in the town meeting budget so this would be to borrow for that $650,000 initial design yeah with the building you know and this this could move a couple years right but FY 28 so the biggest impact if everything lined up would be an
additional 4.4% on the average tax bill for those building projects not including the other regular operational increase not including the four and not including the DBW shed or any other number correct Capital things and this is at again 5% interest um if the
federal government's going to cut all of our funding maybe they can at least cut the interest rate as well to help these numbers way just at some point it's got to give for us right on the finance side all right so those would be an addition so I just want to book in the conversation
with that so that we can reference it if but I I'm having trouble putting these pieces together so the operational side is nominally a 4 point something but we did the pcom did some surgery and
B some more cash and got it down to 3.4 so three and a half for the average tax ax build just to operate the the town it's 4 58 but they knocked it down
but it's no it's 4.58 but 3.14 is when you factor in sources free cash is one of several but there were also but there were some Cuts you also cut and increased some Revenue assumptions you did cut 250 out
of the bu oh yeah no I agree okay yeah all right so net net though if I'm a tax like to just run the town I got to Fork over three and a half% more just to run the town now I go over to the things we want to buy and build so can you put
that back up on top of that right the go to the right first P so the things we need to buy that we use I guess excluded debt that we can more or less squeeze in
most of that stuff stuff to that assuming everything holds and there's no more retirements that's use of free cash to get us borrowing and use of free cash keeps that nominal right so let's just say that so I'm still at three and a half and I can buy fire trucks and
things and now I go to the building side and I got to basically double or more my increase right that's basically the picture right yes okay thank you double your tax yeah dou tax not double your tax tax increase
mqu sorry taxe percentage increase right so if you if you and I will say um certainly need to put a working group together this summer to talk about or earlier if you want there's a lot of assumptions built in
here including how long to borrow uh for the building 20 years it's a good heuristic so yeah I think it would be the the standard package of borrowing that you might consider in a conservative way so will it be 4.4 I'm not I'm not sure
it might come lower than that but Famous Last higher cost don't seem to ever go down right right all right so then Capital um I think of spreadsheet would
be better and if we uh is it pretty much set that we would use excluded debt for those projects excluded debt for which excluded debt for the big projects that we just finished talking about I would
recommend yes agre yeah great so the the capital plan um the only the only changes I can report before you before you discuss them and then are there are people here to present and all the things that you wanted to have presented is the school it infrastructure so if we
purchase on the eate program we can lock in a cost that is approximately $40,000 less than last year the only caveat is we'd have to back it up we have to say now that we'll pay for it even if town meeting said no so the school has put up
their revolving accounts to cover that in an emergency so we are able to reduce the capital plan for this year and next year by that $40,000 and reduce school it infrastructure from 112,000 to 90 and then nothing next year it's not a lot but at least it's some good news yeah
and then the CHS has said that they're going to hold off on the um their seni their senior SUV for another year to just analyze the funding of that and then talk about it in the capital process um
Additionally the yeah additionally chapter 90 came in at 425 so the 400,000 will be 375 it came in higher or lower came in higher than we thought way higher shockingly 50% higher higher is good in
this case higher is good so what what I did in this chart for you based off of what you requested was I put the funding the recommended funding source for each item so whether it's coming from free cash or another fund and identified the
fund that it would be coming from and then down below um grouped it into article form so the MFC article the two debt articles which would be the library coils and the elevators the capital which is essentially free
cash um your warrant articles which are funding outside of this Capital plan CP they get paid for it from from free cash if you want more free cash and then here is a reserve calculation that you're
used to now which is free cash above Reserve or above that 12% so meaning we dip below is the negative 117 so right now you don't have enough to fund all of this 12% and maintain so let me ask
a a town meeting process question are we going to present this overview prior to like MFC presents its article and blah blah so people understand what a Yes means and those
things or do you first present what's the sequencing because like Jerry ambles up and he talks about the you know the rtu in the building do they have the context of this picture Jerry do they have the
context of this picture prior to that I I would certainly help build that but that's the the moderator would would have the finance committee present that or not so that would be a question for James you would do this before MFC you you do the budget I think so but with things that are coming up as articles
right there's the operational piece well there's typically the if all the articles are approved you have to yeah yeah okay you have to assume all the articles are approved in the okay so that's question all right so you have here I have a report from the fire chief and the police chief
on the items that you discussed Jim's here for the DPW request uh the whole MFC is here pretty much for their their request and I think they have some comments about their funding recommendations for next year so I turn it over
to to you help okay to help facilitate the discussion however we can sure well I I do see just in out of uh you know we we have Jim Hall here so maybe we can start with him it's a little out of order but uh will we talked about but Jim if you want to talk about the
roadside mower I know the select board had questions about that and um maybe you can give us some more insight into that as well as the um so when I started at a TK by to build a 5year capital plan
which kind of based off of Gary's old one okay and um you know we put some things on there uh one of them was uh a six wheeel cab chassis sander plow combination uh that was ordered and that
got stalled in the process and it was cancelled so um on my Capital plan I had ordered I had requested um a truck for one year and a Truck a truck for 2025 and a truck for 2026 both coming in at
an estimated 220 at the time so when they canceled the first truck um uh that was a year and a year ongoing process for me checking on them going what's going on with this truck and uh all of a sudden out of the blue they canceled the
order and it was 180,000 allocated for that and um so we scrambled around we were able to find a dealer the reason for the the canceled order was the emissions new emissions and things of that nature engine component parts uh very hard to
get uh so we scrambled around we found one from Peterbuilt which was considerably higher about 226 U fortunately we had some arpa funding that helped and I think we requested around 17 from fincom to balance that whole truck out so we were
able to get that and then this year coming up I I was requesting another truck but we can't get one we just don't manufacture them right now that meet the standards and the cost is obviously a little too high for this year so going back the roadside mow was put on and off
of the capital plan for several years Gary had put it on and it was moved around from you know year to year and now because of this truck that we can't get I decided to move it up um taking into consideration uh the vendor that we
use we've used him for at least two decades and he's been very reasonable very good um and we hire him for a twoe period and he just went up in his rates this past year so it's $100 an hour so for a twoe period uh that's $8,000 and
that only gets us um the main roads modowe and some trouble spots uh so you know you're looking at conquer Westford L Bedford River EAS r that's it $8,000 $8,000 okay and um so in
comparison and a few trouble spots so after he's gone we can't you know we're left to our own Resources with complaints and from schools and residents are like hey this intersection is bad or we can't get that out there so all year long we you know summer into
fall we have our crew go out and just do everything by hand do you Jim is it that he would not give you more time he's busy with other towns uh no he he would give us more time it's the way I budgeted budgeted it out so we can I
know but I mean this is a 20-year payback on that 8,000 like I get it that you have more to do I I'd like to reut that because now if he does have a lot of um um other towns that he does so if
we were to spend the 160 on this we could be able to use I have a guy that's licensed to Mo now uh we could use it 10 to 12 weeks out of the year no problem all what I'm asking you I understand that Jim but what I'm asking you is let's what's the vendor's
name vendor's Glen Cole Glen Cole is a guy or a company uh coal Industries I some people a regular guy he usually comes himself but in comparison to hiring him for you know 100 bucks an hour and having him stay here 10 weeks
that's 40 Grand if we have our own vehicle and we run it for four or five years that in comparison that mower pays for itself within five years and we have it the extended life of that expectancy
is probably 20 to 25 years with routine maintenance and stuff like that so that's part of the reason I'm advocating for this I know it's a it's a tough ask but U I think in the long run it also helps uh protect my workers from you
know going into brush that's this high and poison ivy Beast Nest you know know what you're running into and there and and they do it diligently they do a great job but I think this would uh you know allow me to allocate that work elsewhere where you know where it's
needed in other areas of the town so um I think going by that stat and going by the comparison of hiring Glenn at 100 bucks an hour and a four or five year period would pay for itself that's that's about what I have okay how many
hours were you saying that these people would go out your employees to to cut the brush like how much time are you spending doing that uh that's all depending on the complaints and uh you know like we'll have a set schedule okay we got to do the bus routes so I would
say you know daily probably four hours you know one person four hours two or three guys that's what you're now doing two or three we will be doing what do you do now would you estimate ongoing basis by about the same um winter obviously we don't do anything but like
in summer spring and spring summer and fall so you don't see more labor more DPW labor being you just does it way more efficiently so you could do more of it uh it would be less less people that I have to commit to do that job and uh you know like I said you know
you don't know what you run into there I've had guys with just like out of work for weeks with poison ivy all over them I have a couple guys that new guy that carries an EP pin get stung you know it's I just think it would pay for itself in a short amount of time it be
worth the investment Capital not it's on this here and what's the yeah what's the um free they need free cast 160 so this goes in the capital plan so is fincom taking a position on this one we haven't taken the position no okay we want to hear more information as well this is
It's a fairly new meeting to we've asked to hear more they want to hear more too right but it's also fincom they recommend Capital items so I would assume assume that this has been through that process or some of these items have been through that process well I think what Jim explained was that there was a truck that would
that he's swapping out because they can't get the truck so he would like I think to put this in instead corre so um so that's why that hasn't been heard yet exactly uh truck as I recall was um
agreed to and approved last year but now if you can't we did we did get one truck we got one truck okay with six wheel cab chassity dump body sander that cost 236 so anything above and beyond that the next vehicle we get
will be that or more uh you know because of the park constrictions I don't know if there's going to be an exemption for municipals uh as far as the emissions go uh they're still working on that so uh I don't see us even getting a a request
for a truck for a couple years uh we've had two that were down uh one is is still down because that was the one I was replacing for the followup truck but we can't get it so that's why I ton down the cach a little bit uh and got a more
important piece of equipment that we can use you know 12 15 weeks out of the area and make that Mo back that way okay and these are available I take it pardon me they're available they are available get
them I got a a quot actually for uh 153 um but that was uh a few months back so you know I that's why I put it for 160 hopefully that will cover any increased
costs I well if we're using free cash and it's not a standalone warrant article it doesn't matter right we don't need to get more authorization if it's more we just I mean do you have any questions for
me some of these are what volume of complaints would you estimate you get uh that right over the course over course of the Season we probably get um so this is 100 you know just a resident calling hey
I can't see other you know know I can't see around the corner or I can't see this way or the you know Mario from school will you know inform me the school bus is having trouble seeing here not going and trimming that so you those type of complaints were right on top of
right away this would nip it in the butt because we'd be able to trim everything 8 in off the off the deck and just keep going we don't have to be so precise with as Glenn is Glenn's a very good operator but he like
goes low and rides over rocks and everything this we could just set 8 in 12 in go and then mow it again to a month later so it's definitely going to pay for itself any other fincom questions here Jim we have a sort of process question
generally where's the cut off where we start considering excluded debt like the dollar value where you stop thinking it's a free cash and it's maybe it should be its own wor article a dead article so you have to borrow so that would be the the trigger
you have to what does have to mean so if you included it in your borrowing package you could I understand but where's your on a unit item like how much is the fire truck like 700 or something total 1.3 million okay so where's the cut off like what's the smallest thing we would try to put is in
a debt item like separate out you got coils in there for 700,000 for example I manag this at something so I get that the quails are their own thing they debt right they would have to be yeah right so 700 do you go lower than 700 you go 500 you go 160 I mean where's
the cut off lowest thing we've talked about in capital planning is the dispatch radios but they would be lumped with other things but it was 350,000 would it would seem to me that it should be based more on useful lifetime than on the number necessarily
because you if it's going to be something that's going to be used for a long time you don't want today's taxpayers to pay for it necessarily you want to have all the taxpayers who are going to be using paying for it so I would say all right so you got a 20-year mower should that
be a debt then in your theory that should be debt Yeah well yeah 160k okay yeah that's a theory we're not doing I mean it's a I but you know I'm not debating I mean it's a good idea but it's not the way they're doing the majority of things probably have a long
life well not everything a truck doesn't the the um we TR police cars don't police cars and the the computers don't and uh what else is it you know that's true um there's a whole bunch of junk that's on there you
know they don't have long lifetimes all right that's fair and I'm asking a question on the agenda there's riew of financial warrant articles of which Department of Public Works mower is listed as a financial warrant article so some of these are warrant articles some of these are capital items that would go
under the capital items that's that's my confusion it was confusing I'm sorry we put we lumped everything together okay just as an agenda because um we want to now I haven't established a process for this but I figured we could go through all these just get more information and then so why don't thank you Jim unless
there are other questions all right um so then uh moving on well it looks like we the Council on Aging and Human Services SUV is no longer off all right we're saving money delay delay right right right um
so I I guess one of the the biggest ones we can talk about is uh the well there's a lot of big ones uh facilities so Jerry strong where would you like me to start don't you amble up and
uh I think they can hear you hear yeah or you can move the mic back to the Y very soft spoken as well as an amble um
Rob elevators start there there are three elevators that this covers there are one in town hall one in the library and one in the school all three of them are past their useful lifetime getting replacement parts for them is difficult
perhaps impossible um we if we put off replacing them at some point they may fail catastrophically and those buildings will be without an elevator um our Consultants that looked
at the elevators have come to the conclusion that they need to be replaced and the estimated cost is that amount that's on the warrant article um the fan coil units there are
43 or so fan coil units in the library most of them are located in the Little Grill Boxes by windows and they blow out hot air in the winter and cold air in the summer um some of them are original
equipment they are not very efficient they're not easily controlled um they're controlled by a little thermostat that's built into the fan call unit rather than being controlled by the building management computer that's going to be
installed um replacing those will will make the libraries Heating much more efficient and much more controllable um doing it in conjunction with the Liber renovation project since
it may involve tearing up walls and running wires and and pipes and things doing it in conjunction with the library renovation makes a lot of sense um and for that reason putting it off doesn't make sense
um what else should I talk about Town Hall doors and windows Town Hall doors and windows um when we did a a study of of town hall um there are several parts of the of the building envelope Windows
Doors and some siding things that are in need of replacing is that something we could put off yeah we probably could it's not something that we want to put off for very long because if we don't take care of the
building it bad things will happen um if if we had to put off something for a year that's the one thing which one which Robins no here doors doors if if we had to put off something
that's the one thing that would is is kind of least time sensitive um if one window failed we probably could just replace that one window um the doors some some of them are not particularly energy efficient
replacing them would have some payback in terms of Energy savings and it would cost more to um sort of break it into chunks well it is actually broken into chunks that that amount is just for part of the total
cost oh okay so I other chunks of it come out the 150,000 me that's in there there's more of that yes to come in following years so so postponing it would just shift all
of those important to see our long term we've got a lot and that's what we've really tried to do is put all these Capital needs on a budget and on a plan and see what we have going out well that chart is only 26 um that's
not the time phe chart oh there no it is 30 so this is it is 52 Town Hall chunk right here okay but really that's the biggest chunk it's a two-year chunk so it's biggest chunk is the roof in the rtu
right ah well you know well there's elevators you can't get the elevators that's not really I don't to you three elevators made sense at once right because of the cost saving or is there plus we we can we can
replace them with similar pieces so the parts are interchangeable and and they'll be on the same main they all be the same type of elevator you mean well the library elevator is slightly different because it has it opens front and back right but the town hall library
and the school library will will be pretty much identical okay there's no um economy of scale to do the windows together or only to the sense that the longer we
put things off the more expensive they are yeah and Jerry when you say they need replacing what how is what does that mean what what's going on with them now I heard what you said about the doors not being very energy efficient but well
the windows are are not similar are not energy efficient some of them don't open and they should others don't open because they've been sealed shut um the outer the outer casing on the Windows is
is um not in great shape and part part of that there are if you look at the building there's some siding pieces that that should get get replaced as well so it's in general the the building
envelope okay so the robins rtu at the school on the robins building the rtu unit needs to be replaced hopefully there would be rebates or something there but um this this is the projected cost because it's dying or end of life
right was it exhibiting end of life things like not working know the robin yeah that's is that on here we're not looking at it now that's the only unit that wasn't replaced when oh there it is under Articles got it got it it's up here but I Consolidated them for MFC yeah
Y and then the so the facilities parking lot comes directly from the facilities director so it is in bad shape if you saw it this time of year it's a mud pit um it could be pav the shw where the shed is no at the school where the facilities entrance is at the school
okay got you so this could be put off it could also be rolled rolled into the annual Paving plan yeah it would cut away from from other Paving but 30,000 isn't a huge chunk do that I like
that not a bad idea back I would take out those middle two there's your 200k almost so then the the other thing on the these MFC requests is they have enough funding in their current warrant
article to pay for all this so this can this can come off the I'm sorry which one is that the the one that we approved last year okay oh I see yeah yeah so that was supposed to pay for the library coils which you see the price was way
off and um the elevators which which was way off became a study and was way off that was what like 200 Grand I think back I think that that's even past the category of Wishful thing so the good news for FY 26 is this
380 can come off the plan and assuming that everybody agrees to that but these other items would need to be funded got it and it would be deferred so it's a good news for if you don't spend all the 380 does more you have some credit for the following year as well yes the the warrant article is less for three years
and this is year two of three or two one of three two of three two of three okay okay so this is this month has already been raised so this has an impact on the next year's tax increase it can only be
apply to things that are under the MFC purview yes yes and we wrote it as such so it can cover any deferred maintenance of facilities okay but you can't use it for partial payment of the debt things or
you could I mean you could use it for a down payment okay so you could use it up without necessarily spending on those items so that's why I'm saying it's not like a net positive it's you're deferring the the things to other fun fing mechanisms but it helps the free
cash situation yeah which is good to help free cash okay we didn't want to do that without people discussing and saying that that was the right move so um how much actually is left in your MFC in the F MFC article I mean
after you spend the 380 but there's there's still a balance yes of approximately 200 something thousand so so I'm just wondering if that if that's the case why we don't just do the all the town windows and doors Town Hall windows and doors since that's another
additional 100,000 if nothing else comes up then we we certainly could do that I got a different way looking do the windows and doors and take that 150 and take your 250 and apply 400 to the library calls or something else so you have a little more debt room for all the other stuff you got to because if you
look at the total if you go down to your time phe chart you know this is a big year for it's I think the next one well I don't know is in there the capital plan in the thing you sent us next down how it affects every year
yeah oh the debt I'm sorry yeah come on well while he's doing that um are we do we know for sure CPA funds can be used for the amenities building yes okay good that's a good answer okay
we can talk about that next open there just on the before we move on from the I'm saying is you could help your Gap here right if you did it that way you borrow less for the quails you just borrow less yeah well also keep in mind that all of
these are estimates based on consultant's Judgment of what things cost when they looked at it when it actually goes out to bid it's doubtful it's going to be less right but that's are you making the case that we need to do sooner rather than
later or well I'm making the case it's good to have a little extra money to to cover well we could do that anyway I mean that's that that advice is good advice regardless of how we apply the money we do apply right I'm just saying
we can't do everything and just because you have 380 or 600 or what it doesn't mean it's got to be spent here or it has to be spent in that way so we're very conscious of easing up on this borrowing part of the
equation all right so I'm going to add that in and is any for the for thein Robins rtu I know the Wilkins HVAC we got a sizable rebate on that project I'm guessing there's similar rebates still available is
anyone from the town or from the school looking at that looking at the timing of that to ensure we're not timing out on a potential rebate or I just know they Sarah is on top of most of that okay we just don't like to
count it before it right we know what system but you may be able to do that project commit the funds do the project get the rebate you know that shows up another year right would be the free C
free cash so you end up getting yep okay so are we done with MFC yep yep um we can move on to the School departments the amenities building at cchs can I amble on
back thank you KCK Mark out of his seat again though ameni it's a good word for bathroom yeah and I know Brian I think of okay wonderful Brian I guess welcome
Brian waterson's on good evening happy to help answer any questions along with Barney I know she's uh heard a lot about this in the last few weeks sure well we had questions just because we weren't as familiar with it so maybe
you could uh tell us a little bit about you the project yeah uh so as someone just alluded to uh amenities building is essentially just a a fancy word for um for a toilet
building um in um and especially you know the reason why the RSC feels that this is so important is for um the ability to finally have accessible uh toilets uh near um near the field so this was
something that was part of the campus ution plan um back when the school was built in 2015 um unfortunately there just weren't funds available um since that time so the decade since there's been three ouses
located near um the football field the lower field and one of them while it is a handicap out house um it's just not meeting uh the needs of the the community um and we've heard you know
many um you know rather sad stories um you know whether it's people just not making it in time or having to be carried in um you know and it's just means that these bathrooms are not accessible to to everybody
um besides the the bathrooms the other things that would be added in is a small concession area this is not very glamorous this would just be shelves a sink um Outlets uh a window you know with a counter where different groups
could sell uh food and drinks uh for different events and then there would be some storage space uh as well uh this would this building would be available basically spring summer and fall there's not going to be heat or air conditioning and it would have to be a winterize and
it's going to be available not just of course for um CC sports events but it would be available for community recreation events um the M moose kicks for cancer graduation all the different things that happen on
campus and when we put in the application for CPA funds uh we did put it in at the um based on the the high side of the range that we've been given uh from gal Associates and later on this
month we will have a more uh dialed in estimate so you know the overall building um was projected at 1 .55 to 1.85 um it's going to be somewhere in that range um and we'll know more in a
couple weeks hey Brian Brian can you hear us y y um how do they treat the waste is it septic does it tee into some waste disposal what do they do sewer SE there is a sewer there it would
be tied into the sewer okay um last year was it last year that they wanted this yes or the year before yeah again um we asked them to do a study did they do the study and we asked them to to pay
particular attention um to you know creative uh construction uh uh types because this has not gone down it's still it was 2 million then and it's still 2 million so I'm not honestly too pleased um and and I don't and we
also ask them to uh look at um fundraising um and you know I can't I'm a little miffed that uh they are not even look or that so conquer didn't open CPA for them but
maybe they should have done it earlier than at least to see you know I I I'm still unhappy about the um the ask yep so couple things um the application so conquered CPC application
is much earlier than Carl's it closed I believe in September um we didn't have all the information at that point we got the pr preliminary report around uh Thanksgiving um with those ranges that I gave you um we have been in
communication with representative kelo's office with state senator Barrett's office with us rep uh Lor trahan's office about different funding that's available um unfortunately we have stru out um in all of those uh Outreach
efforts um there were conversations with the town of conquered because as everybody knows uh conquered wreck does use um the fields um as well um unfortunately nothing
materialized there and in terms of fundraising like I said at the start we're talking about toilets it's not something that we feel people are going to as the there are some people that I might
want to you know name a toilet after but um $10,000 you know the other piece on the campus completion is the the track and the track is something we do expect to handle through fundraising um I'm we're going to have
um another town meeting in the fall and if Carl I is conquered going to open their CPC in the fall does that help us any it doesn't that conqu do help usan
willing to pay for some toilets but I don't know okay James do your Finance do you have questions um Brian could you I don't think you fully answered uh Keith question about options that were considered so maybe you can go through
cuz they were a few different things that were considered and they decided upon this one so you just share just a high level picture of that yeah so um the study did come back with a few different options one was to do use um
basically prefab um modular um facilities um more of a a you know a temporary structure these would these would only while they would be cheaper significantly cheaper they would only have a lifespan of 10 years years and
after the 10 years time they would have to be removed and essentially put into landfills there's no repurposing them uh so the school committee ruled that out just because 10 years is going to go by very quickly I mean my youngest is in
kindergarten those toilets would be you know past their LIF span before she graduates the cchs uh we did look at um other modular options and they were actually more expensive and then it was really between
the cinder block option that we're leading towards or um a wood frame construction and we went with the the CMU the cinder block because it's has less um annual maintenance or you know over the 50 years that this building
will be around you know we're not going to have to do you know painting or as much uh exterior work so you know the school committee carefully looked at the different options that were presented and
CMU um between the lifespan and the cost of the options seemed like it was the the smart choice for both communities Brian remind me that a discussion came up last year about renting one of those trailers that you pay annually for for
someone to maintain it and such I think you we asked that when you came out why was that ruled out uh about kind we had the the reason Bob conry being the um assistant superintendent of finance and operations for the region um had that answer um I
believe it was actually a cost um scenario just to be able to to have them and also I don't know that you could have them in place for um the same amount of time um I would have to I can confirm that answer with him and send it
back to both chairs but I believe it was a cost and just the amount of time that they would be on campus any other questions thoughts no well I would thought is I would remind uh us that it doesn't matter how
conquer decides to pay for their share but we've determined you're saying is CPA eligible and we are sitting on around $4 million in the CPA bucket so whether if we were managed through some other suboptimal solution to save in our
share only our share 100,000 we're paying for it with something where we under we're underutilizing the anyway so a lot of work is I don't know but a lot of work is going into an analysis of what would be the thing like okay you know to me
it's it's less I know it's money's money but it's not the same color of money as our hard earned free cash that's all I want to say yeah okay well I'll quote you on that just want to say just for the benefit of everyone on the conquered side the warrant article is going to be
for the town to borrow not the district not the Regional School District but the town to borrow and their share is based on the current assessment it's 1.4 million so um Bob con and I spent a lot of time
making sure we get that warrant language right so that it's the town of conquer and Conquer is paying you know paying back the the debt there and we go first yep great and we go first yep okay well Brian thank you this has been really
helpful to understand it better um so we're moving on to Public Safety the select board I know had some questions on the computerated dispatch and the uh police drone okay I'm speak okay I'm speaking
for the Chiefs uh for these projects okay and comfortable doing after the conversations we've had so uh the fire chief the masterbox system which is a $65,000 ask on the FY 26 Capital plan he says it's working fine uh it is outdated
with no parts available it should be on the list but it does not have to be a this year thing so it will need to be replaced it does need to be placed somewhere if it went it would be a problem but right now it's working okay that's how much again
65,000 um for the cad system he essentially deferred to the police chief which I'll get to putting on his emergency manager hat because some of these things are cross purpose uh he mentioned that sign boards are available at uh near so that is
something we can borrow to use we wouldn't have the same capacity so it's very similar to what Jim was talking about so we could use it in a limited way we could have our own and have that these are electric signs that's say road closure at 50th yeah right a lot of
speed enforcement how many of these would I don't see it on the list here oh there it is how how many did you get for 25k 25k yep the um how many do you get for 25k one one one one one good one and what's our did you find out what our
rental cost is now how much we spend per year to rent zero we don't because we're borrow them you borrow them from yeah okay um so he as an emergency manager if you were talking about the police ass would prioritize the Drone
because of really because of his Emergency Management capabilities especially if it has infrared technology so one of our biggest vulnerabilities in Carlile is fire and um missing persons in our forest do we have drone operators
on staff what we do now we just hir that new police officer and what's is the the cost that's not easy actually Shan is does that include one that's got the infrared capability yes that's why it's so expensive it's pretty expensive one
again just for the public and for everyone it's not your Walmart drone it's things like an airplane it's a big no I'm serious like where does it live we would land in a field yeah honest question here like in terms of neighboring towns do they have drones is
there any provision where we could Mutual Aid of drone I mean it seems like the type of thing we would it's important to have but we would use we wouldn't be using on a regular basis so is there is there any any opportunity to to leverage the
Drone Network that may exist around us that's a good question um we would also have the capacity to assist others with our drone as well right now can you charge them back of the area we would use it more given our I want to remind people and I don't know what the
insurance is but I mean we build drones in my company those big drones are not easy to fly and they crash a lot so I mean it's not like you're going to borrow the car it's a much higher risk Endeavor when you're flying that drone
especially in the conditions that they're going to be doing so if we do it we need to understand the insurance world of it and the replacement of it because it will crash and it will need repair I guarantee you that it's a big it's a big hit to our insurance to have
a draw for those reasons and that's why other towns are not necessarily going to spend the money yeah how much is what's in the budget for it the drawing 167 yeah 167 yeah but that's not putting it obviously into the operating budget
that's just for buying it what he's saying what David is pointing out ins un some other things that are cost saving or pay back this does neither pays itself back nor further expenses that we have to be
of and you'll see in the um in the memo from the chief which was in the packet the payoff is the capabilities too so I just don't want to ignore the capabilities that it would add to our department for some of our largest Public Safety vulnerabilities um as mentioned by by
the the emergency manager as well so I asked the police chief to prioritize the three police requests that you asked for and to number the severity if if it wasn't the impact on his operations if if it wasn't funded so the cad system he
said is is absolutely number one if we don't replace it it's a vulnerability of 9 to 10 on a scale of 10 for the Drone um second and the severity level was five and for the sign board third and three and then his memo details um I
think pretty well his case for for includ him he does have a strong case it's just whether or not it fits into the town's priorities I have to say the sign board is a new item that I haven't seen before on that list also so that's when kind of for me a strike against it
because I don't like popup items you know we we've started a couple of years ago already or at least a year ago asking people for fiveyear plan so I'm I'm wondering if that that couldn't just be put off at least a year not a
couple and it's not like they're not available we would need sign boards in April if anytime yeah and he he does reference renting it for thousands of dollars but is there some reason we would I mean I know for the 250th that's a very
specific event but um generally is has any do we know that the borrowing from uh called n no well n is what he put up there but um whatever is that so for
General day-to-day as possible I do know when we went to borrow for the 250th for our stuff they didn't have any right well that makes sense CU everybody's borrowing so when you would want to use it you're likely not to get one except for the day-to-day stuff that the chief wants to do two which is speed
enforcement and Community messaging right so we through our list we are through our list unless there's anything else well did we talk about the mosquito spraying or that in a different different area the mosquito study from our agenda talks they're coming next
meeting so we we're going to talk about that wait till then same with the MF uh CTF those are that's a good Cemetery you're asking for money we have to where is that money in your it's not a capital item it's a war war articles okay War it's pay for how though free cash free
cash got to put it so in your summary didn't you have a free cash summary somewhere yep is it in that it's right here all right there you go so that's really so that's great shot right there so what you're saying I mean what fincom
may be saying is we're sitting on a million eight of free cash over our 12% self-imposed limit right which includes stabilization but so this is the extra cash if we want to stay at
12% is that right yeah okay we would need to cut 112 so you have now you're to the good now 112 oh we're to the no we're not to the good of 112 you are are the MFC items came out oh but before we were
minus 113 or something oh okay so now we're okay so we look good all right and that we could even to be we could be even to the better if we cut some other things cuz they already have the money came out of the cash I get you yeah and
the 200 you guys feel is more or less in the range of our annual I mean Victor will be remember and Jerry perhaps Thou shalt not use free cash to patch up operating holes right so you're okay
with that like 200ish as a you know Band-Aid basically it would take us from a whatever it was 4 and a half up to like a 5 and a quarter I think or so if we didn't apply the 200 well that's a different way of looking at it I'm simply saying as a matter of past
practice and with the budgets grow so the numbers grow 200 is a reasonable number thoron Ash used to say peanut butter at in other words you're you're pasting over I'd look at it as that you
know we're getting this really uh significant initial hit from sped out of dist this year okay that and there's the year lag for circuit breaker yeah so I would mentally kind of file it into like okay smoothing that bump the school the
school's pulling some levers on their own through their their fee program to do some other things but in particular that's like a 200 really okay they're apping more than we are that I that is all right so I I I kind of mentally would you're there too okay good and waren articles I mean
none of them seem excessive in their value right I'm not opining on their worthiness can you go down just so I mean it's not big money I guess when again we'll we'll deal with each one but in and of themselves that's
not a huge amount of money compared with the other things and then the capital plan is now netting out the MFC stuff so okay sounds okay to me
my one warning Y is this problem you mean FY 27 FY 27 yeah so these and 28 so these are this is over Reserve what you would need to
pay right but if you put your 112 to the good to a stabilization fund that will help that right but you the way you are using increasing revenue and decreasing free cash generation you will not have the
free cash to spend 1.3 million next year to cover that $1.9 million Delta and then it's worse in FY 28 so how couple questions Kate mentioned Capital stabil we put in I saw in that Financial AIT we
we put in 300 into the cap stabilization and what's the lockbox rules of that to tap that you have to use it for Capital what do it need a tell meting boat or two3 tell meting Bo y so does that have we created a problem in other words not
this year go to next year we decide we want to break that in place of in case of emergency break loss we want to go pull that 300 out and apply it to this we can't actually plan that because we have to vote it at the same time we're committing like have we created a
problem for ourselves by doing it that way I mean I think I think if you can't get a two-third vote then no no no but you have to get the two3 vote coincident with the approval of these articles it makes it harder to plan because you're
not really sure right right whereas if you just kept it in free cash we don't trust ourselves like just to hold the free cash I mean I think that's a little bit of so I'm thinking about like next year and let's say we even do what Kate's saying
put the next ,000 and so now it's 400,000 that we've sort of locked away what's the sequence and and then we're at next year and we decide we need that money how do we how do we have this meeting next year with needing
that you're asking me so Pol politely asking when we talk about capital in the fall yeah it makes the recommendations for stabilization make sense because you want to smooth these bumps when you need to use it in the spring you're so you like to lock it
away in the fall but you want to unlock it in the spring right so I think you just need a reasonable plan that you can sell okay and if the town says no they say no meaning but we're going to have a list of things we recommend spending money on separately we're going to have the article to say can we Liberate the
lock boox if the spending passes and the lock box doesn't what do we do then they you raise the taxes and people pay a lot more in the taxes that year okay so I think there's an incentive for people to vote for it know but it is sort of either that or they say no we don't
want you year like why why create these things to put day forain day when we know it's going to start raining why couldn't we like in the fall should we just keep maximum flexibility yeah I that's what I think this isn't a this isn't six years down the road this is
this is now basically he's saying why create the lock box for like next year could we it's too late in that spring but could we in the fall knowing maybe more about the capit coming up could we have an article in fall toown meeting to to free it up so that we can do Capital
planning for the spring good okay so anyway that's side show but all so what you're saying um Ryan is on columns I and J basically we're facing 4 point something million like
four yeah north of four million of which you expect will'll have free cash of how over that threee period if you made me guess right now I'd say you're you're going to generate so if you remember the financial statements you generated eight and eight for 1.6 I think five and five is more
realistic so a million of the four so a million has applied to 1.9 and 2.3 without warrant articles yeah no that's what I'm looking at I'm looking at the the balance that presumably is the free cash cap which means you've made a
decision at least in this notional one that there's a dead article in 27 of a million one but no Deb article in 28 and I don't know if we're going to have that discipline because we've got going
forward that's why we got all these new capital things coming we've got about DPW potentially High you know whatever else comes in our so right so that's great so to fold it back to this year do we want to just not spend on some things
just to kind of keep phones in CU they get racist sometimes what's Happ are there any other you good are there any other comments questions on this from the boards I would I might even ask if there's anyone in the public or on that
has a question um just because this is we've got all these boards and a lot of a lot of people in the room to talk about this is there any other thoughts well do you guys feel like you have enough direction from us do you have questions
for when we were in the whole 150ish th000 then it was going to be a policy question about applying the 200,000 to operating versus Capital right that was kind of the main takeaway that we wanted to get from the select board now that we're in the positive for the capital I
think it seems like both committees are pretty comfortable applying that 200,000 to the free cash that was the main direction we were looking for for tonight and it's not as much of an issue now so right but that's and I agree with that what you said um but I
believe the big we we are we need to pay attention to the looming two years and therefore yeah so say got that 200 here you go you know operating budget okay fine 3 point something percent everybody we live to fight another year great now
we go over to the capital side do we haircut the request list knowing that there's just more and more stuff coming like should we be like if you don't have money you don't spend right that's like household Finance right and we had discussions internally
about not applying that 200,000 keep as almost a prepayment into free cash for future years having tax rates go up four or so percent right and we landed on applying it point there I I'm comfortable with what you did yeah I'm now at the other
side of the equation which is we're still we do all these things we want to do and we still have 100,000 so that's great but it's above a floor I mean it's sort of a self-imposed floor but it's still a floor so that's not enough if he says we are only going to have 1 million
out of the 4 million needs over the next two years right so that's my question is back to the capital list are there things I think we should move to the right just to kind of be conservative move to the right to skip over the next
two years to the I don't know that but I mean that's the challenge right I mean you've got to kick it pretty far down I know but I mean you heard maybe windows can wait and I don't know sign boards can wait I I just don't we haven't taken a position on any of the the capital yet
we've flushed out with some of our marathon meetings and such so we'll take that away to discuss and I would say there's no you know if you're looking at oh let's push it two a year or two like that doesn't help you got take it three or four years well you have to move the whole p I me if you go down and things are going to show up in three years of
course they will but at the moment at the moment there's a precipitous but they just showed up this year my vote is you can push it at least a year if not three right because many of those things that we've been needing for a long time I've been on the list for a long time
and legitimate for sure push it say people have to plan more forward and if they don't they don't get it necessarily unless it's really something critical last meeting we discussed how if a new ask suddenly shows up right
the the kind of strict eye that we would have on it um and not just an automatic yeah sure add it to the list approach right is this all Che it can't be just added to the head of the list added into the CU right and historically the
finance committee's prioritize Public Safety things and so forth I get it so he's not agre what he is he adds it all up okay and then he says is anything else from the finance committee select thank you I have I have two that still
never mind still need discussion um the cola question I know you need direction for that and the second piece is it doesn't have to be decided tonight but excluded debt versus non-excluded debt and the main reason for that is
because it requires ballots so you could have a scenario where you're you have four ballot questions if you exclude all of these projects and they excluded that right now is quails elevators fire station renovation
yep that's it just three three is that three different votes or each three different votes at the bot and elevators El elev if you exclude the debt you have to vote it yeah if you don't exclude it you don't but if you don't exclude it
you have to how how do you well counts towards your Levy youor but it goes to the tax increase station you're just but you're not I guess the question is how does it affect
notos to no I know but tax bill no difference it's the ly capacity tax I don't think so that's what I meant your ly so you can't exceed two and a half if you don't exclude the debt
the debt would still be paid for as the operating budget it really wouldn't have tax impact but it will impact your um excess Levy capacity yes which you show is going yeah what's the down a little bit right if we exclude those items the levy limit our excess Levy capacity
stays generally the same correct if we were to not exclude that debt it would shrink and it would not shrink it would only shrink if you spent over what we're saying so that the two projects the elevator and the coils fit
into that that's why I showed you that debt chart so they fit into the debt chart it's future debt that's going to eat into your Levy capacity so it's not an FY 26 problem which is why I was hesitant to bring it up in this section but but the buildings will have to be excluded debt yeah you would do
definitely do otherwise you could just kiss the department I mean I don't think we should exclude debt unless there's a if we have a strategic reason where we can maintain the debt level I think that's fine we we don't the key is preserving our access ly capacity and
not getting to an override situation so I don't think that means you put everything into excluded debt I don't think that's the correct no but the 1.7 million of the two projects if you don't exclude it aren't you eating into your but he was just saying no because that keeps our debt at our
current level if you can fit it in your operating budget it doesn't it's when like the building you can't so you have to add it that's when you exclude it you can raise so these would be nonexcluded you don't have to you can but well it's the offset I mean it's I I don't 100%
agree with the way uh Ryan's proposing it at the end of the day everything adds up if you exclude it you do create more headro in the long run against for excess Levy capacity for excess Levy capacity the risk you run is you might fail at The Ballot Box right and it's
something you need like Library coils like that's not helpful we have enough excess living capacity today so we shouldn't and we're going to be looking to exclude some major projects in the future so I wouldn't go too many times we should not exclude those projects I you save it for when you need subject to
just confirming that it doesn't deteriorate our exility capacity too much but it sounds like it won't in FY 26 it will not at all okay so I I would say let's not but it does go back to my point that you could for
example take not spend the Town Hall windows and whatever and take that 3 400,000 of MFC money put a down payment on the elevator and borrow 600 and then you actually you're still not excluding it
but you've actually not you produced your deadline a little you reduced your deadline a little bit is good that's what I mean about trying to figure out really a rack and stack of all these things of like where where's the cut line like you know
I don't feel like particularly wealthy at the moment no and we're going to have major major projects coming down the pipeline and so you don't take a vacation when your kids are getting ready to go we don't want to get Windows today and on the other hand fail at the you want to
make sure that this doesn't become a major project because you didn't do the windows and now they leak and they and and you that's the wire brushing that they do right and then they come back and so that's yeah or maybe maybe it's just triage you know like like my house if
there's a bad window you place the window and you move on like if that's we send the guys out there to clock it up and leave we got to talk about Cola okay don't forget and then because we got we're busy so you everybody's got stuff well I I am never
ever one that wants to balance the budget on the backs of our non uh employees I feel that year after year they've been and then we had to have a major recently we had to have a major resetting of the salaries because
they were they fell too far behind which is also not good business practice so I I'm I guess I'm putting in for advocating for 2 and a half% this year and I think if Ryan your numbers Ryan were that um that would be an increase
of 23,000 those are Kelly's numbers so I would trust them more okay all right or trust them at all yeah thanks app that yeah I would support that it's not that much money and I know
we're really counting every penny but um I think it sends a really important message right I think we we talked about that previously and I think as a board we were pretty unified on that so that was our take on it I don't know if incom had other questions or no we ran the
numbers both way and however you support that that's fine do you a motion no I think that have to vote on it or no their budget that they're going to come back to us and present a message from us we'll plug it in and then they'll put it in or not and then
justify why they did or not sir is there anything else that because this doesn't happen every day no it does not so maybe though Ryan did you want to bring up the demand letter the demand dollar thing at this or is that a um sent everybody sy's
analysis of of demand so demand when someone does not does not pay their taxes timely they get they get a fee right now that fee is $5 and it hasn't it hasn't increased since I was in high school I think so here so do you want to consider it you have put it on the
warrant for discussion and then um want to talk about a recommendation for sure this wasn't discussed as the committee so this was just on the um Ryan's Finance group so um yeah originally it was $5 in 1987 and most neighboring
towns are at 15 yeah so or 20 somewhere that range but um it can go up to 30 um this is revenue so the it's nice to actually talk about money in um but I plugged it into three online calculators for inflation and they all landed around
14 something from that original $5 to today so we wanted to keep it at roughly the same proportional amount increasing it from 5 to 15 and uh I meant to jot down how much that would be but I think that's about a $15,000 increase of memory really that many people who don't pay there am I
wrong on that no so the excise tax bills just went out and 800 of them missed the mark so oh the excise tax bill okay yeah out of the real estate I mean it's about 20% it's not people pay on time
but it's a significant J I'm all for the $15 15 15 yep okay so I think select boards on board I think that was it anything else
on the FC the select board can I'm I'm just thinking about um new Revenue Brian what happened on the U proposed uh transfer station sticker increase has that factored into these
numbers at all no but you're discussing that with them at your next meeting if they did increase it you would see 20 to 40,000 additional Revenue okay so that would offset the
local receipts increase yeah okay okay we before we go we also have the MFC here is there anything else we the MFC is going to be coming before us in another month I think to uh talk about DBW so we'll get we don't need a preview
I don't think at this point we're and arms about ppw okay okay so um well with that I think you want to we'll close our meeting yeah y could I have a motion to adjourn
move can I use the same motion uh who second you okay roll call to close Jam Miss and I wrong your next Scott kach away
there thei okay great thank you all you very much MFC has a motion to okay and a call Snell I now it's my turn James and I perfect thank you Scott thanks for coming
Scott it's better okay moving right along that was helpful that was thank you very good here all right um all right so the next thing on the agenda we wanted to talk about the TA
bylaw and as as you all know we have I've asked each of the select board members to go to their reison the Committees and uh get comments we have the scars to prove it we have the scars to prove it we have a lot of people who
have different thoughts on this some are wildly supportive and some have uh you know insightful comments so um I tried to summarize the feedback that we've heard and kind of the Five Points that that were in your packet um there the
fifth one um I called out there I'll talk about it um the gleon public library trustees um specifically are not uh supportive of this if they lose their autonomy I I think they could probably
do a better job of articulating it I mean they've done a nice job of articulating they put a message out to us um that clearly said that and um I I did not when we we approached or I approached Town Council and took this
feedback and asked Town Council to incorporate the feedback I did not ask them to um to exclude the um Gleason Public Library trustees or the public library because I did think it was not in keeping with what the select board
had talked about but we can certainly do that because it's a select board decision it's not my decision um and so taking this information I'll just quickly walk through um you have both of those in your packet and they did not
highlight what changed so I wanted to just walk you through quickly um if you are on the new draft warrant article revised 3525 I would normally log on but I'm not U on the zoom at could I ne
could I ask you in future to please produce marked text yes and I it's very difficult to find I know I know and Town Council did not provide it and they should slap their if they make an hour they can certainly give us Mark right
well we we had a couple of iterations in the process so um I'll just start with um so on the the draft dated 3525 the things that have really changed on there you'll see how they've added the the um an act relative to the Town
Administrator of the town of carile so they've added the language that the legislature would use when it um adopts this as well so that's that's the opening Preamble I I that's you know I guess is as substantial as I need to get
but where where we should start is in section 3.3.1 where it says um the select board as Chief Executive Officer of the town so that was in response to just highlighting the fact that the select board retains its Authority um that was
kind of a comment that we heard that that they we want make sure that we the select board and we're not giving up any Authority or not we are giving up some Authority but we are not giving up our executive Authority here um and then we have changes at the direction of the
select board that this is the change the Town Administrator is not a policy creating position and shall have the authority to create not shall not sorry she not thank you we're not going to let that one slip no and thank you yeah yeah
the kind of important little word there shall not have the authority to create or set policy independent of Select board approval or authorization nor may they do so on behalf of other Town officials or multiple member bodies I
will also refer you to the last section or second to last section of 3.3.3 where that same kind of sentiment is added in the Town Administrator shall supervise and manage the employees operation and staff resources of all
Town Department's employees except for employees of the school department and fire department it in this supervisory and managerial capacity the Town Administrator shall ensure efficient day-to-day operation of all Town
departments and Facilities by implementing the policy directives of the select board or other Town official or multiple member body as applicable so let me ask you Travis those both of those where they refer to multiple
member body that means whether appointed or correct correct and so the major feedback we've had is that people some boards were very concerned that they don't want to give up their policymaking decision and and their um and and this
is not about that this bylaw from at least from the select board to this point and I think what Our intention is is it's a managerial type of bylaw because we think as a board that our town would function better by giving the
town admin some Direction but they're they're going to come some people in the public may not yet so that's why I want to keep I want to keep you know describing this is managerial this is about having one person who has if if the employees are not showing up on time
and you're right now if you're on a particular elected board you were supposed to report to the chair of that board and the chair of the board is a has a daytime job and is not monitoring what is going on with the employees so
employee a uh is been appointed by a board to enact certain to enact their policies because usually those employees also don't make policy right and and they shouldn't
right so let's say that employee is not in a policy making role but is a implementing implementing thank you the the policies that his or her board not her board but the board to which
they're applied um you know is supposed to enact and starts not showing up on time and the administrator we've designated to monitor that has a series of disciplinary actions to get that
employee to comport with agreed on standards and that employee does not and now the administrator says I have the authority to hire and fire and and the multi-member board that we talk about they're not going to complain that that
person's not in fact they're going to say they're doing my policy actions what do you care that they show up at 10 that's the real problem they have not the I mean this is a clarification that is helpful but it is not going to eliminate their their concern their
concern is the hiring and firing how how do you adjudicate that responsibility with with their authority to have that person Implement their Poli that's just a difference I think and I mean I don't think that's a a gap
we can Bridge um because I I think what this is saying is no in that case that's not at your discretion if they're not doing the job or the following the policies and procedures of town hall or the town then okay what one of these things whole
point of this right the point of this too is that as we're looking out and as a board we've been really studying the budget we've been trying to think of ways to make our town run better and how to attract great employees to our town and that's one of our biggest challenges
is employee attra attraction and retention and to do that having a strong or a better managerial structure where you have clear policies that are adhered to and have someone who can oversee those makes a lot of sense you're
running you're running a $ 35 million business here is essentially what we're doing and right now we've got this hodgepodge of nobody's nobody's keeping track of anything of who's reporting to whom and what they're showing up and so if we don't do this and what this will
allow the town to do is to be able to say and that really as the select board but through the Town Administrator we can start to say wow we're going to get all your policy goals accomplished and we're going to make sure that we have the resources because we can start
sharing or cross-sharing resources where they're needed and that's going to help the town in general so I mean it's time it's time that we move this direction and these and I you can Ryan can speak to it more but these different
departments are interconnected it's for the for the public it's they're not coming in you know they're coming into town hall a lot of the processes and regulations and permits require cross functional approvals and cooperation and
so um it makes sense from a service standpoint to to look at it that way right and and it also matters a lot for just um kind of the culture in town hall right and the sense that if you're working here everybody's following the
same set of you know Personnel policies and people are you know all evaluated and they're all setting goals and everybody's being held account and you know it just makes for a much more uh positive Cooperative team I
think and and whenever I talk to anyone that's not directly involved in town government and I try to explain this the response is well isn't that how it works now yeah and then you try to explain how it works and then and people look at you like why why is it set up that way
so I think there's a common sense element to this and I think from a public perception in general unless you know again for people that are just interacting with the town occasionally or for certain thing they view it as a you know a coordinated uh managed service and and
um so I I think for most people not in balom town this this is actually how they think it works how we propose it right I I think one other item that I think we should discuss because it's going to come up as questions and I want to make sure this is not this clearly this is not my by this is the select
board's bylaw and we have excluded the school we have excluded the fire chief and we've done so um for and the fire department the fire department sorry and then as as as individuals we've excluded
the fire chief the police chief the the Town Clerk and counsel Town counsel and then the finance um right our new the new one is the the the tax collector
and there's a treasure tax collector right and there's a clear rationale for each we don't need to go through them all tonight but we should write them up or we'll do that but I want to we could go through them I mean I think the school is clear you have a school committee that's elected by the town to
run the school it's kind of well you could say that eled but the planning board or or any of the health or the library right but isn't there some statuto uh element in terms of state law
that that why there's a statuto that's what I'm talking approach reach would you it's a and with a strong fire chief you can't we um cannot well I think we don't have oversight yeah right I think
I don't think we should these are tricky legal matters that we should not weigh in on okay I will I will follow up and but I want to say and I thought we read it here there is another piece of the naysayers if you will that would say this is a land grabbed by the select
board it's not that they're teeing up on the TA they're like he works for you and you're grabbing more Authority I thought we were going to say and clarify that you know we we're saying here clearly the TA does not have policymaking responsibility but we didn't really
super Clearly say the select board is not like adding new authority to its mandate like the policymaking authority of those multiple member bodies that have such remains like it
didn't come out clearly it is strictly an HR no no I know no you need to State like for this for the sake of clarity yeah because it says the TA shall it's not a policy creating position shall not have the authority to create instead policy independent of Select board
approval or authorization comma nor may they which say he may do so on behalf of other towns but it doesn't tie the not the Third Way which is say nor shall the select board have any policymaking Authority that it doesn't already have like something or just something that
said this bylaw does not add or add or change thec policy Authority I think that Clarity needs to be made because that is a comment that we heard that might just be a that's probably the lawyer would say you don't need that but
this is more of a visibility we got to massage this this is a so that's my comment this is these are the comments we received we're trying to incorporate we want something that is going to be well received at town meeting but I know that you know in
talking with the school committee um there it does when you do have exceptions as we do it does raise the question of why this and not this and so I think with the library for example the latest example it is I I don't know what the correct response to that question
well why this why this why this and but we need to be in there it's we we need to have a better response to that to that push back of of why these are why we do have some exclusions MH we have a minute or two do you want
me to ask people online sure yeah I mean we we're always looking for feedback so this is the time so Scott I see you nodding I think that's Scott's excited great um I speaking now on behalf of the Recreation Commission who discussed this
in their most recent meeting and the question they have they just wanted some clarification around uh they understand the need to have the Town Administrator or the desire to manage all the town employees uh and the efficiency that brings and whatnot and
consistency the question was around unilaterally ter terminating employees meaning could or a suggestion is could the uh select board retain dismissal you
know review let's let's say rather than just having the Town Administrator hire and fire at will kind of thing that that was the one concern they had which is they understood the managing aspect and the you know aligned under one umbrella
aspect it was more if we had a rogue ton administrator present company excluded let's say that you know fired uh maybe in a in a way that was not appropriate for example and having that extra you
know catch uh level of safety let's say of the select board you know authorizing that provided Comfort to those members so I just want to provide that it's actually built in it's actually built in because the select board hir and fires
um the Town Administrator so if there were bo uh boards you know let's say you know the reccom um were unhappy with that they would come to us to the select board and then the select board would
either reinstate the the you know employee or fire the TA or you know there there there's re it's not it's not unilateral and the other thing i' say I understand there's there's a way to sort of recover from that over time for sure
but I just wanted to provide the feedback the other yeah just just one followup Scott is that our human resources uh policies have a very clearly spelled out process if um
someone has who's supervising you or in this case the TA um you know is concerned about your performance there's a very very thorough and lengthy process that has to be followed and if that weren't followed then that would
absolutely be grounds for you know the select board stepping in but it means that that employee has a lot of protection um and that's specifically what the um Human Resources Personnel director which is not the Town
Administrator you know it's our assistant Town Administrator I mean that's their role right and and we didn't explicitly say it in here that they will consult the select board but we did say that the Town Administrator shall consult with such Lo official or
multiple member body prior to making an appointment or removal under this section so to the extent that you know that that you know using your committee if you know the head of of reccom or whatever if if wasn't working the administrator um they the Town
Administrator will come to you and talk to you about it ahead of time it doesn't preclude you the Town Administrator from actually taking action but if you were to hear that the thought is is that you would immediately call up the select board Bo and say hey we think something
funny is going on or this doesn't make sense and explain it and then we would take it up and frankly if there's a problem the select board will will have to deal with it address it so that's kind of the the rationale we took on this but but thank you for the feedback
and we're trying to the more the more questions we get the you know or comments the better that's sort of subtextual I mean I think Scott's point and some of the other criticisms would you consider that in those cases where the
employee works at the direction of one of these multi-member bodies would you consider that we as a select board would have to review any disciplinary actions or you know certainly termination in other
words yes you know you got to wear a tie on Tuesdays yes you have to come in at 9:00 all the but you know chronic problems like we got elevated it's it's too subtle like well yeah Aubrey has these procedures that's not going to be their beef right I mean at least we
would say we're going to serve as a firewall like we're going to make sure that there's not some Rogue ta that's their concern right well right now I think maybe we can ask the TA but the policy is is that don't we have the authority right now the TA doesn't have
the authority I know but it's all it's not explicit in your I mean what can you your your authorities are not laid out right now so you've delegated your Human Resources Authority to me except for the positions that you've discussed so I
have your full authority to do these things right and in good faith I will just say publicly but on any major thing he the TA has come to us as a board in some some so there's some Municipal things
that you should that you should consider here so if the select board is going take up an HR action or any public body is going to take up an HR you you would want to do it in executive session if you do it in executive session you you have to invite the person into that conversation and then produce the minutes the problem with human resources
is they're not meant to be public but municipal government forces it to be M so a lot of the a lot of the issues come up because the the boards don't know how to handle something like a discipline action because you have to do it publicly yeah so the employee could say based off of
the open meeting law want this hearing to be public and now now you have a you know giant problem when someone just wasn't wearing the right tie to use David's analogy not that you would discipline a real thing well that that's
helpful that's I mean sure so it's better if it's handled by people who routinely know how to handle such Ms but that's not really what I'm saying I'm saying and it maybe in the subtext of
our procedures but we're preparing a change I think we should be explicit at the point of being overly explicit and I think again one of the you know I raised two points one is land grab by select board so we'll address that the other
one is Rogue TA down the line and why not have in certain cases where again that employee takes direction is there a primary direction from a policy Direction however you want to phrase it from a multi-member body that and maybe
restricted to termination or dismissal removal yeah that that elevates to exe exactly executive session representation Council like it's a bigger deal we know how to handle it we're the pros but it still needs to happen and it
needs to happen with some oversight if they're going to relinquish their board oversight of that I don't think they want to relinquish it to one of our minions us that that's what keeps it private that's right but I don't know about private being important at that point
determination I don't think so they don't care if they're going to lose their job I don't think public private is an issue the real I think process is the issue the real problem to consider in this scenario this is my opinion now um but on behalf of employees is when
one employee accuses another employee of something that employee who who was who was wronged hypo thetically has to go to a a public body and board to make that no no no we're we're past that we we agree that that shouldn't be that way but most firings happen because of that
conflict it's not a conflict but Ryan employ if employee a an employee be have a fight and you're in the middle because you're now the administrator and you sit him down and you do whatever it is you would do with people who are not part of those boards you keep doing that but if
it doesn't adjudicate and you get to the point where termination is the remedy I think it's kind of above they're going to say that's above your pay grade now they are probably not super comfortable
with relinquishing it at their board level to us but the fact is we are a board and we do that sort of thing and maybe that's a remedy you would consider in this law just to assuage people that it's not just going to be we're handing
this off to the admin rator the hot button issue is you're firing my guy and I have no control cuz you're firing my guy yeah you're going to get me somebody else great but I didn't have anything to say say well we're here we're going to be fair we're going to do this and that
we're also elected we have a a you know responsibility to the citizen but in the bylaw they do have a say because this is done in consultation do not have say read the thing it says consideration or consult they ran over that with track
shoes in two Nan seconds on both the boards we talk to that I talk to right that's not the same I'm saying put a mechanism the thing that most sticks in their craw is you're going to fire my guy and yeah you told me and yeah you tell me the reasons why and I protested
I said sorry and then he's gone and now you're going to get me a new one and I got to start over and I had no say so we want it to be out of their hands we agree with that for all the reason that Travis said but I think we should
consider us as an elected body as a fire wall for the final determination if it gets to what level termination no no at which staff level because the staffs that you it's a word smithing for the
council but the staffs that receive their po their policy direction or some reports to well reports do know cuz they're not going to report to but their policy direction from I'm not sure the verbs but their
direction from the multi-member body that's not many people but isn't that all of the people in the chain so it is abolutely not all the people it's not Jim Hall is it Julie yes it's Julie but it's not Jim Hall and it's not Gretchen
you know it's only a few people well but Council on Aging and Human Services has all they've got a board they've got you know a director they've got four people or say or three people you know I mean do you have to do you have to include I'm saying I would I would elevate it I
would just elevate it to the the senior most person of those yeah no no yes the senior yes that's what I mean right yes we're not we're not dipping down the whole point of this is the senior most person the senior yes yes I think we're all in agreement on that right the the
the one person talking about the senior people anyway it's a consideration procedurally though if you have a situation like you described when then you mooves to termination to a conflict now you have a like doesn't that create problems if
you have an executive session where you have to invite the people you have to make the minutes available and involve sensitive yeah doesn't that become untenable at some level yes so what do we do how does it become untenable well it's all that information is
public if you have a harassment casee I mean if it's leading to termination if you were being terminated what would you want for remedy well if if someone's accusing someone of harassment of some kind I would certainly I don't think either
party would want all the the details of that information you're disciplinary action and you're the person that's going whose job is at risk what do you want for protection we've had hearings with Union Personnel right are those public or no they're it's executive
right but it's event the the um the employes can request to have it done in public right so they wave people have that right I mean I I I think people have that right there's risks to it but we are I would just add
I would just ask that you consider the other side of that so we've had employees in this town who who have who have been experienced a policy violation and we've brought that violation to a duly elected member board and they did nothing so that employee now in town did
not what they did nothing the town the town employee is left thinking to themselves well then this town doesn't care about my work environment doing nothing how is it brought to their attention in executive or public meeting by me in executive or public meeting if the chair is willing to share it with
their other employee their other board members then it might have a full and fair hearing but if the chair is not I don't have the authority to tell the chair to I know but isn't that but the chair is an elected official by the town mhm who carries a higher level of responsibility and should be sharing it
with the rest of his should be but a rogue chairman okay I can't you that's I mean you could have a rogue chairman it may happen but so may it the other way where he it gets buried and we never even know about it I I I don't know I mean I
believe there's a Mech there's when we go into executive on a Personnel matter then the people have the right to be be represented at that executive yes and the public disclosure of that is governed by some period of time or yeah
once isn't it once the matter is settled then the executive then the select board has to agree to release the but that's way down so from a immediate process standpoint it's not released not so it's not public it's simply a hearing at
which they have the right to be present and there's now a third party like an utsman but let me put it to you this way if there is an a complaint and it is communicated to the chairman of that board if they don't act on it there
isn't a hearing I understand and we need a a mechanism to enforce that there is a hearing well you could say they have to have you could write it in that they have to have a hearing if they request it they have to that is the Personnel policy they have to have a hearing if they request it but we but we can't but
because it's the board we can't do anything about it I'm not saying it's their board we're beyond that it's now at the select board no it's not I mean proposing it is my my concern is if by involving the select board it now has to go into executive
session or public hearing does that create additional HR issues or does that that creates extra complexity versus not requiring that it you don't it doesn't have to go into the public process and so does that public process through EX ex cutive session or a public
meeting as an agenda item for a termination does that create HR problems potentially well I I will also point out that we um delegated all of our HR functions to our TA because this is not something we
really want to be doing and so why would we be taking somebody else's HR only only because we are taking over certain person who here to for did not even touch the
Aubrey Thomas system in some ways so right you know it's a change they were supposed to be governed by our HR policy and they if they're refusing to be and their boards don't do it we need to have a mechanism to see that it gets
done um and this is what this is trying to do and some boards are on board the the Conservation Commission was in favor of this and voted in favor of it the planning board has has appreciated its Staffing support or HR Support that it's
gotten so it's not as though you know and in their other boards you know the MFC doesn't have I guess it's elected board but uh I feel like we've already we did have this specific discussion earlier in the process about what
happens with the TA goes Rogue well then then we step in and the TA and reinstate you know reate there is fafe exactly there is a fail safe it's kind of maybe but we did have this discussion we
did have this specific discussion exactly in the process and we nut it out where we n it out well and some of it too David is that we're trying to get we're trying to not get down into the Personnel we're just trying to say offer it as a suggestion get the uh I off it
as a suggestion no and that's all I'll say okay well i i as a suggestion I do need the board here to be you know if we can be unified great but I need to have some direction um I did get the direction that I I think the first I
support the idea the first clarification of not adding Authority or role making this and I kind of lean on what we had I thought we had discussed and decided earlier of there are checks and balances in place we need to do a better job communicating what those are to people
so we have a response fair enough fair enough but we don't want to and we and we need to make it clear to the chairs of these various boards that what their responsib them to re well and to reach out to a select board member I
mean I guess that's a process question um Ryan if you're in a position where a disciplinary action is needed and it is one of those kind of employees would you generally involve the board or the chair of the board uh of the to whom that
person generally takes Direction so it gets tricky so the board and I'm sorry to give you a convoluted answer but the the board only has Authority as a board so if the board hasn't voted to give authority to one single person like a chair then it's
it's hard for me because I have to go to the to try to get the whole board to act but they all want to act through their chair so if the chair you can only do so in public meeting then right or or would you request that they have an executive session to discuss it yes in instances
where there's been disagreement over employees and I've requested any action I've been told no no we're not going to take it up or no you can't do it or what or that it's not true or that okay but let's say you now have the authority that we have given you the town has
given you the town has given you to Yes uh thank you to take disciplinary action on that individual that board involved can no longer say don't do it they don't they lost that road blocking effort however as a matter of practice how
would you engage that board because it is related in some way to the things they need to get done yeah no no Town Administrator wouldn't have a conversation with a board who works closely with the and that happens now so I do have the authority to to discipline
someone like Holly Recreation but I would never not talk to the recreation department how would you talk to them in public what would be the mechanism by which so I would have an agreement with each board to to delegate that initial conversation to a chair and then that chair and I would work out so we would
need to do that it's not to be written in the B but that's it's a policy that comes later right and this is I know but people ask questions you want to have answers so yeah I think you need to think that through and may the consultation
with the answer to the question of what does consultation with mean yeah it means that the Town Administrator would contact the um chairman yeah ask the chairman to uh get approval from his
board to or their board to give them the authority to to discuss this with Ryan and or if they don't want to give them the authority to have Ryan discuss it with them either ex or an open exective session in so the planning board is a
great example so I went to the planning board and said how would you like me to help you manage your employee and the main things are signing payroll approving Town time off requests and doing annual evaluations so for annual evaluation I reach out individually to all planning board members gather their
input incorporate that into the review or any deviation from what we've talked about in terms of employee oversight and time I give them a heads up and say Hey you know who's them though the board chair individually collectively or so the planning board likes to go through their board chair but that was discussed
so one way is through the board chair one way is in an open meeting to have to sit to be on the agenda to say to ask whatever question you need to ask so usually you do it in happy times when the employees really well performing and everyone wants to talk about the employee then you say how would the
employee be managed okay so I guess back so let's putting it up but you know in my pitch that uh Travis has heard and Ryan's heard marketing materials for this you know pro and con same like Julie right what's a yes get you what's
reasons for no like that needs to be clear and and I think based on this I would have an FAQ little section like these other things like how would that work like we thought it through yeah questions that we've been asked let's answer them yeah yeah okay well we've
gone a lot longer but I do I think this is important this the only time we have to talk about it and we have to do it okay very good as a body so um we are going to move on into the TA report oh God I need a minute oh okay
well we could do uh warm we could do Warr warrants and minutes then quickly or we could vote oh okay I was because say we do the town meeting vote but um oh yeah yeah we can do minutes if you want to when is it tell me vote about the town meeting so what do we decide
it's only two days November we heard from one of the members or the town committee Town study committee who said November 2nd is the only well no there suay there were two we agreed that um a Sunday we wouldd like to continue Sunday
to see cuz give it more time um I just from the beginning of the clock and thank you Brian for helping me with this um the voice of the school parents October 26th or something is on the heels of parent teacher conferences
where a lot of parents use the opportunity to take a long weekend so they might not be around on that Sunday so that's not good the Sava yard is going to be there all of November my understanding is they're actually going to be setting up right at the beginning of November so the second creates some
issue but they're not like rehearsing yet is my understanding the next one the ninth seven second ninth right the ninth is the Sunday before uh Veterans Day which is the Tuesday maybe I don't know yeah anyway
another potential long weekend but 11th less clear and then the 16th is absolutely the sav yard performance so the 16th is out 26th is out and between the 2nd and the 9th um I think we were sort of
ambivalent that's what it is now you had done some other research right so the the second works the best for the orchestra and the school reserved that date assuming everyone agrees then that would become the date that would be good for us right yeah okay so do we need a
motion on that yeah I move to uh that the special town meeting to be held in the fall of 2025 shall be on Sunday November 2nd 2025 time TBD second all right any
further discussion seeing none all in favor I None opposed all right it's no November 2nd it's also fall back day so we can have an extra [Music] hour we're going to go to 2:00 in the
morning started at 1:00 a.m. well that might be the the last one right fall back so people if we said we're starting at 1 then people would show up it's really that let let's get Ryan through
this thing quickly if we can okay okay I'll try so this is my town administrative report as you can see from all the clutter around the first floor Furniture install is occurring I'll have more of this in employee recognition in my next report but Steve and Al have been
dynamite in helping the staff the staff as well on the town clerk side and the council aging side it's always a rush at the end to move as anyone who's moved knows but if you go in those spaces there's plenty of room for activities right now and it'll be improved space for both the employees and I I just have
to say I was at the at the transfer station on Saturday and I saw a guy loading all those cabinets that um Al took to the transfer station onto his truck and took them home so very sustainable it's great yeah we
held Aubrey and I held our quarterly all chairs meeting on Friday we were joined by the majority of town committees and Boards we talked about the employee review process and updates to HR the FY 26 budget where it's at we'll give them an update after tonight's discussion as well preparation for the annual town meeting to include reviewing the
warrants and then we heard reports from all the Committees great way for all the Committees to engage love seeing the chairs talking after about ways they can collaborate the town flag dedication is going to be scheduled for the end of this month I'll make sure the select board is invited when we install the flag that was
paraded in here during the dedication ceremony it will be installed at the state house and car will join towns that that have this honor at the State House in the Hall of flag more than a week in advance hopefully because last time was like only a week and I had already had plans for that day so end of March um I
guarantee you it's going to be a week in advance all right we talked about HR tonight including uh James being appointed as our newest police officer however I just want to update the board we are working on visioning with the cohs to make a
strong recommendation for our new director this is helping us to clarify the job description and the the overall vision of the next few years so that the CHS can recommend someone that that matches this the service level delivery the select board I wish we had
a town CER to do this but the select board is officially declaring the vacancies for FY 26 volunteer positions across the town spectrum and Boards committees open so your policy requires that this be announced prior to March 14th check and also hear you that people
can um can seek these opportunities and we'll make sure they're posted a lot so anybody looking to volunteer for the town there are plenty of vacancies and we do need you yeah and don't forget the town caucus on March 29th for the elected
vacancies 31 some budget updates from tonight you heard that the average tax bill will be just around 3.5% with the current draft of the budget 3.5% increase to address the deficit the finance committee
recommended some Revenue adjustments and over $250,000 in Department request Cuts we also talked about a cola which the select board instructed the finance committee to bring back a recommendation with a 2.5% Cola which is about a
$23,000 change in that budget also we are going we went through the capital plan and the finance committee will make a final recommendation by the end of this month to include in the town meeting warrant as you may or may not have heard the select board just announced that the fall town meeting will be on November
2nd 2025 we have secured the Corey Auditorium this gives mostly the planning board but other boards plenty of time to have public discussion about many of the very popular debates that will happen in the fall the governor's office if approved has sent out uh 300
million do Bond authorization for chapter 90 this has to go through the legislature but it's a good sign our allotment would be $434,000 which is 50% increase in state funding and up from our $253,000 allotment you have to compare
it to the fair share so it's really only an $80,000 net gain but the state's also talking about including R funding which is winter winter uh recovery funds and that would increase this total even more so we'll be able to do more Town
Projects all right hold on to your tables but um the comprehensive culbert analysis is complete and it identifies more than $3 million in necessary covert repairs over the next 10 years put that on the capital plan y yep well that's going that's why they did not all bad news the final report will prioritize 10
large culs and I've asked the Consultants to consider two major Grant programs that that may help design and fund these these projects so we're not just going to directly add them the capital plan we're going to make sure that um other funding sources to to blunt the blow but these these do have to be done
some of them are significant coverts that are have been identified in our um climate change vulnerability planning as significant areas of flooding if we were to have an issue you heard a lot about elevators tonight the project is ready for bid and
we'll go out to bid next week we'll ask all vendors to hold their bids through town meeting so we'll bring a solid number to town meeting for that debt authorization article the M the MF continues to work through their um discussion of the brick buildings
HVAC so this is going to require uh a one for one replacement they had talked about more sustainable options and using the Green community communities funding but um it's just the bank for the buck wasn't there so we're going to do a one forone replacement this is supported by
ESC folks and we'll be using FY 25 money for this so it will not come on to the capital plan and lastly for Capital the town hall bathroom renovation will begin and be complete before June this is also using fy2 Money Town Hall
amenities amenities renovation that cost a million dollar amenities we had this in two years 40,000 over two years we're going to be able to do it in one year because the bid came in favorable and I don't get to say that very often yeah well it's because you decided not to gold plate
the toilets finally yes that is still room to make the Kate Reed donation 10,000 bucks Kate we'll put a plaque over it all right building get you one year stall building construction projects um the library
renovation building committee had a kickoff meeting with the designer and the OPM to start this process the committee anticipates construction could begin around this time next year the police station renovation bid results are coming in you'll have these for your next meeting we're hoping for good news here this will outline the construction
timeline and potential funding needs tekon and CMS for your fire station renovation investigation recently met with fire department staff to discuss programming and their findings will be coming to the select board for your review in April and this will identify whether or not you're
going to go forward with a design Warren article as discussed tonight and lastly the DPW building investigation with the MFC is complete they finalize their work with lero Hill they're ready to meet with the select board this will ALS will happen in April
some upcoming discussions for you to consider and potentially ask questions about the appointment of a permanent community garden manager following the um unfortunate passing of Jack O Conor the Conservation Commission is looking to appoint a successor the TAC is coming
to talk to you about operations future Capital needs and a proposed sticker fee increase we already did the town audit so check uh Aubrey's been Gathering necessary updates to our town Personnel policies believe that Barney Aubrey and I are going to meet about it tomorrow
and this will come before the board at some point for you to to approve Personnel policy changes um I know that's going to be a multiple meeting discussion so we'll we'll try to time the release of that information so you feel informed and then the uh scholarship process for the Caroline e
hill scholarship we we do not have a committee currently so the select board is going to have to consider either appointing a quick subcommittee of you doing it as a board or really um you looking through the town for volunteers but Scott stepp I volunteered well who
he can't do it no that was something else that you another scholarship that's more than this is the awarding of the scholarship that was a different thing withdraw mying all right some um approval notifications so we have approved the use of the Town common for route to
sustainability day that'll be uh up on the 26th and down on the 30th and this will be happening on Earth Day the use of the Town common was approved for the colonial Fair on March 15th there should be a lot of firing people people should know that there musket fire oh that not
not employees not employees no conversation Mr musk's getting fired that's also the first time you can pick up a parking pass for the 250th and if you want more information about that listen to our podcast about the 250th yeah where I'm not kidding Scott Evans takes you from the history of Lexington
and conquer all the way through the 44 years in a row he's marched from carile to the town center during that day awesome uh rotary assign was approved for the pto's Allison Wonderland Junior play and rotary sign for the scholarship fund of scholarship fund of conquer K
has been approved and will be displayed so for this week I would like to express I just mentioned him my gratitude for Scott Evans and Rich sibl both well known in car for the Civic involvement and rich is on our as a call firefighter here in town so Scott serves on the veterans and celebrations
committee and is the commander of the Carlile Minutemen while it's impressive he has not missed a patriot day since since 1984 I especially wanted to recognize his dedication to carlile's 250th celebration when I say he's put in hundreds of hours I'm it's not hyperbole
so nearly single-handedly Scott has prepared the town for this Milestone event working with his Public Safety group and uring accessibility for the more than 3,000 residents that are expected to participate and 1,800 residents who are going to March through the woods to answer the call on the 250th anners of Lexi didn't conquer
that's that's the his projection huh at 1800 right we'll March and gather grow me and my kids are going to be them part of that so the select board is too I'm going to I'm going to walk yeah we're not walking right no but that's fine but you'll
get at 6 yeah we have a pass right we're yeah you're going to gather at 6: a.m. at the town I don't know we're doing whatever whatever Frenchie says we're gonna do all right dve said he's bringing coffee for everybody so oh good quickly about
rich rich is a dedicated volunteer in town Ry get through I know it's getting late here so rich has served on carile scouting organizations for years he served on the um as as a member of the call department and his expertise in event planning and parking coordination
has been instrumental in making the 250th more accessible to the community so for more information visit www.car.org and listen to our podcast also attached to this report is a draft agenda for review and some upcoming
dates for the March 11th meeting though you says you attached a proposed draft for the March 11th and since it's March 11th then we're done March 17th I guess just and April 21st Patriots Day is a a town holiday right correct
okay okay the town's going to close half day on the Friday before just because of everything in car so so that employees can get out of here before the town closes right makes sense okay good conquered shuts conquered shuts down the roads in the yes we
expect traffic to be S very similar to um the Hazardous Waste Day event that happened um traffic is going to back up through town just for residents only it's going to be pretty significant maybe maybe not maybe we're wrong and
you'll all say you overan significant on on the Friday Satur you saying Saturday Friday night's commute and through Friday night's commute yeah yeah yep conquered shutting down 6 p.m. on Friday so a lot of that traffic is going to be rerouted and it's going to come through Carlile people
trying to get North too but aren we closing our the uh early Sunday early Saturday morning oh not till Saturday morning ah okay so I got you okay is that it okay thank you Ryan all
right so we just have some minutes to approve it looks like you have a motion we saw you all saw Gretchen had amended minutes that were in the revised packet that came out today there wasn't anything it was little things Barney caught some tip I moved to approve the
minutes of the February 25th 2025 select board meeting as presented no in the or as amended in the uh packet we've received this afternoon perfect okay second okay all all in favor I I okay
that is it except for liaison reports which we're going to skip because it's so late and we go for our last item Community input this gentleman has been with us all hi Dave has been here he's listening intently but we have people online is there anyone who wants to make
a comment ask a question no okay all right seeing none running on running thank you all all right um I take a motion to adjourn so
moved all right second second all in favor right we're done for the thank you SE