all right I'd like to call to order the select board meeting for February 25th um we are going to begin the meeting by entering executive session I'll need a motion for that maybe I can do that if you could do that that' be great uh I move to enter executive
session pursuant to Master General Law chapter 30A paragraph 21 reason three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating
position of the public body and the chair so declares Massachusetts Coalition of police local 201 and 2011a the board will reconvene an open session at 7 pm in the Clark room have a second second all right uh we'll do a
roll call vote all in favor Arnold oh we're all here what you are you doing roll call or how you doing you don't have to do because oh okay okay I'll do a Voice vote all in favor okay and only one exstension Scott triola who's not here all right I don't
think it's an exstension if he's not here yeah just is when right AB absent all right we are um in open session for the select board meeting for for Tuesday February 25th and um tonight we're going
to have uh we have a number of things on our agenda we're going to have Community input then we're going to uh have a joint meeting with the board of assessors um to work on an appointment um and we will go through a bog House discuss discussion annual town
meeting Municipal landscape policy Town Administrator report which will include a discussion on the 250th conquered celebration um and then we'll have warrant's minutes leaz on reports and further Community input at the end of the um meeting so I'd like to begin by
offering anyone in the public who wants to speak on any topic um this is our open session for Community input um if there's anyone in the audience who would like to has anything to say um please raise your hand and identify yourself
and could we see who's online on the zoom please um or maybe Ryan has to do that in okay lands on but nobody somebody's joining yeah
all right so we have a number of people on Zoom as well if there's anyone who would like to make a a comment um we also have an open comment period at the end of our meeting tonight no one okay seeing none I'm going to move to our
first agenda item which is is uh the vacancy and appoint well it's really the appointment uh to the assess the board of assessors I think that um why don't you come forward K open and you'll have to open your meeting uh thank you Travis well I'd
like to uh open the uh Board of assessors joint meeting with the select board uh I'll do a roll call uh since uh we're mostly remote uh Dave Boardman are you with us
I he yes okay and Karen is is out today so uh we have two people here uh and that constitutes quum Perfect all right so um so Ken and I work together to um
come up with a process that we thought would work well um it's similar to other processes that the select board has done for appointing uh to vacant positions um we reached out to the cand Cates and offered them three questions that we
plan to ask um and in our process here I'm going to call they'll be called in the order in which they applied um we'll have approximately 10 minutes per candidate um to answer these questions and if anyone on either of the boards wants to ask additional questions please
feel free to um to do so um once both candidates have had an opportunity to um answer these questions we will then open up to a public comment if there's anyone who has a public comment meaning a question or it could be just a comment
on either of the candidates or a further question please address your questions to me um and I will then um work with the candidate or determine how we proceed um and from there uh that's if
it's a question if it's a comment you can make your comment um and those will be limited to approximately one minute and from there we'll then um close that session or that part of it and uh we'll individually as boards vote um the board of assessors will take the
first vote individually on which candidate and then the select board will vote um and the majority of the total combined votes will be the nominated person so that's the process for tonight um so let's start um we did
have our we had three candidates and the first candidate I believe has U withdrawn her candidacy Rosemary Duda so um we appreciate your volunteerism and and um we'll move on to the second candidate which is uh Raven modin yes is
that right so um if you would wouldn't you mind just sliding forward or maybe pulling a chair forward just because the microphones are closest to the table there it's easier to for the people online to hear I have some notes that I may refer to as you ask as you grill me here
so terrific well welcome um so you did receive the um the the letter from us um and so we're going to just go through in those the three questions I'll just read them um individually and then if you'd answer after each one it would be great um so the first question was please
explain your understanding of the role of the board of assessors in relation to what the assessors department does for the town of Carlile okay so the board of assessors are elected positions and to that extent they represent the taxpayer and I think they
have a responsibility to be fair and impartial across the entire tax taxpayer base the board's role is mainly oversight and policy setting whereas the Department's role is to implement the policy that the board sets and what I
like to do to kind of elucidate these ideas is to give you some examples so let's take an interesting one which is abatements so the the board looks at the abatement cases every year I think it's the abatement case right now is that right we're in that time yeah and uh so
they look at these cases and people are looking for a reduction in their tax for one reason or another and the board has to look at these and either Grant or deny those those abatements when they do if they grant them they're shifting
taxes to the rest of the town everything is a tax shift everything is a balancing and rebalancing act almost everything the board does so another example would be the interim rate adjustments which occur every fall where they try to bring the different the tax classification
properties in line as as a member of the deck house hula Halu well the deck House's values went way up and the assessment rate was set up after a year of course because what what they do is they take historical sales data from the
year prior and they use that as the assessment rate for each classification so so that that c people started to complain but in fact what the board is trying to do is actually set the the value of the assessment to market value which is what they're supposed to do in fact they're measured
by that they're looking at assessment to sales ratio so they want to achieve a metric of about 100% they never hit that because the Market's constantly fluctuating so what they're about 93% now I guess something like that range that's really where we tged yeah so so
they they've actually they're pretty good I kind of set I call that the cruise control of the assessor board because they set the cruise control and they want the market to light up to it which it doesn't always do some kind of overshoots and sometimes it unders shoots um and then there's tax
exemptions so I'm as the select board I'm sure you you were at the uh the classification tax hearing last November right where they they talk about these different forms of exemptions again it's it's it's it's moving taxes from one side to another group and is it fair and
is Equitable so conquer did that that but in concrete if you look at distribution of the taxes they're skewed to one side not so in Carl they're very evenly distributed and so the board says wait a minute if if 1.3 million is the midpoint how can we Grant exemptions to
somebody you know evaluated at 1.5 million or 1 Point uh let's say four 1.25 million and then shift the taxes to somebody with 1.35 it doesn't make any sense so that's the sense of being fair and equitable for the tax exemp I just
point that particular case there's other tax exemption options that you as a board have to evaluate but the the uh the assessor board did not recommend that and you accepted that recommendation so those are four examples here's some examples of
Department's job which I call it the heavy lifting because I just had um Brian McDonald visit my home last year because I put new windows in a home and he comes by you know and I'm well you know with those windows those are older on those these are the new ones you know
but um he was really good uh did a great job then of course all that data was put in the assessor database which gets reflected in the property record cards which is really good thing so um so that's one form of heavy lifting they do another one is they they handle the same
cases that the board does at a different level but really what I think the department does is they pull together the data and they summarize it in a form that's actually and decision at the board level because the board can't be looking through all
1750 cases so they do that so um that's what they do for example they bring the abatement cases in fact that was one of the meetings where they had they have to I think the board members have to sign off on the application for the abatements and then the next cycle and so forth they bring all the sales data
so they can do the interim rate adjustments they bring these statistics on the distribution of property values they they do what I think was a great initiative on transparency because I think after the Deb case situation needed more transparency probably
advised by the board I wasn't there but what happened they wrote the taxpayer's guide and if you read that guide I mean that really explains the process if the town's people understand the process then they're going to trust the process more if they
understand it so I think that that act of transparency was very well done great I do want to try and get through all the questions so question number two that was number two well no number one number two is what do you feel are the important attributes of a member of the board of assessors so
you started to talk a little bit about that I think fair and fair and uh you know balance across all the um the shifting of taxes and so forth fair and impartial uh I think the decision should be bed on based on financial analysis
because most of what the board does is in terms of numbers and if they can act on decisions B based on numerical data that's that's a very important attribute I think people on on that board should be reasonably ficient with making decisions based on
numbers um they should be transparent in their activities and make transparent policy uh uh initiatives and then the last one is collaboration of the four so let's take an example the the board of assessors
collabor with the fincom the fincom is worried about the cost side of the equation the assessor board is worried about the revenue side of the equation and if if the the if the the assessor board is projecting you know very high Valu properties going on on undeveloped
land that's more Revenue than rebuilding you know refurbishing all home so so I think the the idea of collaboration with the fincom is a very important one they certainly collaborates with the select board because of some of the major uh you know policies that you have to adopt
or not so um I think that's that's those are the four attributes that I would outline good and then the last question is what skills and strengths do you feel you bring to the position if appointed okay so I'm retired that that's the skill I'm very good at fly fishing um
but um I'm a retired systems engineering manager from miter miter is a not for-profit if you know anything about the miter Corporation we do large defense Acquisitions but the characteristic of the job when I worked at my find for 30 years in the last phase of my career as an as a graduate
electrical engineer but um we would deal with multi-stakeholder teams we had the Government Contracting officer we had the war fighter at the table the war Fighters like the being a taxpayer representative in this case you're you're dealing with the war fighter who's going to have to use the equipment
and then you have the contractors who we would always call The Usual Suspects to take a line from classa Blanca because the the contractors will come in and they're trying to underbid each other and do all these things but our job really was to to be fair and Equitable across all those stakeholders and so the
the problem that we had the Sol had three basic variables cost schedule and system performance so the war fighter carried about Sy carried about system performance is this thing going to work when I push the button on
it jet or whatever the the the uh the government contractor's office worried about cost and schedule because they're measured against that and then the taxpayer for the us so we're all always balancing these things I think the skills that I learned over 30 years in doing that can be transferred to the uh
to the assessor Department great great does the select board have any questions I have one more comment by the way please sure this is a strength okay this is not a skill it's a strength okay all right so Mary Helen and I moved in town 52 years
ago it was in April of 73 the police were still parked in the library parking lot we saw the growth in population we saw the growth in schools we've been in all the town meetings where all these debates occurred we saw
the growth in uh Town services and we saw the growth in conservation land acquisition and we were at every one of those including for example yes for the toll land okay over all these years we never complained about our taxes I thought we
the grew these services and conservation initiatives very well balanced with the tax initiatives that they did and I just I just want to close with this they were fair I think in doing all these things at a town meeting many years
ago they were debating the school budget and some guys were saying ah you know that we lived we went in a Highland building you know we good enough for us this one guy gets up and he says I I educated three children in this town
and when I paid my taxes that did not pay for the school cost for my children now I'm retired my children are grown up but if you look at the and we love it here still so if you look at the tax over my entire life cycle I think that
was fair and that's the one message I would like to bring to the board of assessors if I can be fair with that kind of example that the um that was set by the time over all these years I'd be GL to serve thanks Ray okay um does do you have any further questions or does
the board have anything we I I no I don't have really much in the way of it just I guess I I'll ask one question do you have the you you're retired so it sounds like you're saying you do have the time to be make it available to be you know to attend board meetings and
and do the fulfill the responsibilities of the given that one it's one or two meetings a month it won't interfere with my fly fishing schedule especially in the summer I think I have more than enough time can to do that and I looked at the other boards by the way I thought this was the best board that I would fit
in given my my your background yeah okay uh by the way again I want to thank Dave bardman for joining tonight Dave is as you might guess not doing well but we needed a quarum so he he stepped in and I appreciate that Dave thank you very
much yeah thank you but I'll ask Dave do you have any questions you want to ask oops muted yeah unfortunately you're muted oh there there we go I questions listening and deal with it accordingly okay great
thank you dve thank you all right well thank you very much that uh concludes your time with this and we'll move on to the next candidate thank you okay all right like to whatever all right anyway I want to congratulate Ray on a good presentation
thank you and you're Paul verton yes and i' would like to thank you for inviting me here and my knowledge about the assessment and assessors board and assessors dates back to being the member
of The Advisory Group which Ryan set up to advise the uh assess Assessor's board on U the deck house the deck house sure I'm not going to talk about the deck house that's in the past okay can I can I can I just go
through and ask the questions and then you can answer and and state how you'd like to if you have certain things you want to say as well but I wanted to try and go through the questions so that they're the same for both I mean I I'm familiar with the questions and I'm ready to address them although I'd like
to address I'd like to address the skills the skills before the attributes because I think the attributes are the most important good go ahead then so my understanding of what the board and the assessors do first of all i' would like
to say that I have full confidence in Brian Brian McDonald and this is one of the best thing that the board has done Hing Brian thank you I'd like to say also that whatever
is done by by the assessors is not exact science they I know that they are playing values here and there for those factors and to come up with an an assess value
but the first thing that the uh the board is doing I believe is to follow the progress in terms of uh number of inspections because we know that in the past due to the uh the previous accessor
and the pandemic caral fell Way Beyond so now we have to catch up so I assume that we are we're monitoring the progress in terms of number of inspections that Brian and
his team are doing I uh I know that when you plug all those factors into the report card there are some that may be questionable you know they may the assessor may want to ask
the the members of the board their opinion before they come up with a final assess value so this is one way to to get an assess value is by doing an inspections and plugging all the attributes into the
report card the other way is to look back at the uh the sales from the previous year and see if there is any uh can draw any correlation and and decide that yes this group has gone
up 3% while this this category has only gone up 5% evaluate that but then I believe that the assessor and the board are meeting together and making final decision as to what is the correct number
and also I know that there are reports to the do to make sure that uh we are compliant with the the requirements and I I believe that the members of the boards are involved in that in terms of my skills um I believe I have strong
analytical skills in my last job before I retired I was responsible for u a project in a bank to integrate some 30 different applications so traditionally
applications have been interfaced through files us send a file to this one so you have a big uh big web of uh interfaces the the system we put I put in place with my team was U message
message base so that one one application sends one message and all the other applications that need this information can subscribe to that I think I'm also result oriented which means that I
don't want to over analyze and over analyze and waste time we need to have a result so and then before I finish um I will have two comments but first I want to address the
attributes and the attributes are fairness you know you have I think I am fair I my father was a mayor of a small village my brother is a mayor of a small village so I guess I have something there in my blood but
fairness and are also independent independently minded which means that I'm going to make my decision myself but I am also a team player which means that if the team decide to go this way I will follow their
decision now when it comes to my two two final comments um I understand that there will be elections in May and I have decided that if I am not the candidate that you select I will not
go not present myself to the elections I I spend my time painting I'm not fly fishing but I'm painting so that's my last comments uh you can look at my paintings on on the web but I also
invite you because you're all U big fan of the Art Council and what the Art Council does and one of the activities is the um open Open studio Day Tour so I invite you all to come and visit my
studio when when we have this toour and otherwise my website is www Paul uh paintings by Paul Berta it's easy to remember my my wife say it's pbpb peanut butter peanut
butter paintings by Paul ban.com thank you very much thank you Paul thank you does the board of assessors have any further questions Paul I'm I'm just going to say you know Paul did serve on the deck
house committee uh that we had the deck house Advisory Board Paul was a pleasure to work with on the board uh Paul I mean we obviously in some cases had different points of view but Paul in all cases was
constructive was a gentleman uh was a pleasure to work with and regardless of how we end this tonight I just want to say that thank you how about the select board any
questions okay well thank you very much all right so as I mentioned the next step in this process is I'm going to invite if there's any public comment um we'll entertain public comment uh approximately limit your comments to one
minute but uh if there's a question please just address your question to me and I will then ask it of one of the candidates um you can both stay around yeah it's not a secret bot secret but uh but I I would look to the
audience if that's what we're aiming for um if there's anything in the audience anyone have a question or a comment seeing none I'll look online anyone online okay well seeing no public comment um I think we will move to um
you know to our next step in this process which is to vote um and I think we would we as Ken and I discussed we're going to start with the board of assessors and have them come up with how they with their vote and then we'll do that individually and then we'll vote individually as well okay thank you so I
guess I have to go first you do all right all right I mean and I I will just start by saying I wish I could have both of these gentlemen okay but I've got one position to fill and there is an election again
as as Paul pointed out so whether you choose to run or not run you have a second opportunity at this literally this appointment covers a period of about two and a half months okay so just want to make that clear um
I i' OB I've had time to get to know both of these gentlemen and I will say I think uh as I said they're both fine people and I'd be happy with either one of them uh it comes down to a decision I have to make based on my skill
assessment of the two of them I think from a standpoint of character and understanding what we do and being and doing it in the manner we would look you to do it they both could fulfill that responsibility uh in terms of just pure
analytical ability that they would bring to the job I have to favor uh Rey on that in that regard and for that reason I will cast a vote for Ry on this because I do think he he is extremely strong
analytically uh and we really rely on that process sometime quite often to get through some of the deliberations that we have but it's not an easy decision I wish I could cast two votes
honestly okay thank you David David I'm sorry it's got busy in here at the moment um yeah I I concur with kis is that it's it's good to have two candidates to say it's good that
we've got some uh interest here uh but again I feel I I will concur with Ken's uh uh recommendation here and uh and second his uh uh recommendation as such
so that's a vote for for Ray is that correct correct okay all right um the select board now it's to us um I I guess I would lead off and say you know I too I was impressed
by both of your um you know what you had responded with um in in many ways um you know I would look also to the board of Assessors for guidance on this um but making my own decision as well um but I
I think that uh sounds like based on experience as well and and just the presentation I would I would vote for um for Raymond me mod mod Barney I wish you would say that you're planning to run no matter what yeah
that's all um yeah I mean I I would have to defer to the board of assessors because you all you know understand the role and um I too thought both of you were really
strong candidates and I think it's wonderful that you both wanted to volunteer to do this so do I that's very important I mean I really was concerned we wouldn't have anyone but we got two strong candidates yeah and yeah I have I have a couple of other
ideas about committees you could serve on if you want to with you not heavy lift but in any case I would also uh cast my boat for R I think that's a
decision what's that it's a decision but but I think I I agree with uh absolutely what Barney said you your commitment to Will and willingness to serve the town there are plenty of places we can use people okay so uh by
all means uh talk to Barney we do have two more members I didn't want to oh I was just going to say I'm uh shortly going to be uh moving to France uh so if you're I wish you good
luck looking for she's looking for a porter I grew up in a small chatau and I can tell you it was not the most uh comfortable place so um I I'll vote for Ray in that case
he's not supporting my move to France David I me I defer to the I have no way we met for 10 minutes so I I defer to the board of assessors so you vote thank you I have to vote Yes you do have to vote I can abstain right you can
abstain if you'd like sure I mean I think the board has spoken so okay my vote all right well I appreciate both of your time and this is um it's a process and we appreciate all volunteers in carile and really hope that you would
think about volunteering for something else because we do need volunteers throughout other committees and and if you wanted to run change your mind you're welcome to do that too yeah absolutely King St here does not
lock you in or out of running okay I think that concludes this um all right you're congratulations guys and you'll have to we will need to get you'll need to get sworn in by the town clerk okay there is a process you have to adjourn
your meeting though oh right all right I uh motion to adjourn the uh Board of assessors meeting all second second all in favor we're adjourned all right thank you thank you for making the effort tonight
to David over and above thank you no problem wow okay well we're early for our bog house discussion we have we have to accept these appointments appointments
yeah that's right all right so we'll move on to the appointments yeah yeah it's on page four page four are you good to go or you want me to do them Kate go ahead and do them I all right um should we should I run through all three of these yeah sure
yeah okay well well the bottom one is more of a um appointment you know for Aubrey should I do the first two those are positions within the town do we need to have a motion though on the voler we're going to do that oh do we actually have to
have a formal you have to we have to move let's do that so move to appoint Raymond Modine as a member of the board of assessors term to end at the next annual Town election spring 2025 to complete the term vacated by
Karen also vote yeah you know actually we all voted you just didn't hear the the motion we just didn't have so I don't think that was the motion that we all voted on okay all right okay so moving right along I'll move to um
appoint Carter Tilman to the position of driver laborer for the Department of Public Works pending successful completion of pre-employment requirements and I also moved to appoint Emma Casey to the position of Public Safety Administrative Assistant for the
police and fire departments pending successful comple completion of pre-employment requirements second okay um Ryan I saw these in our packet and we've read a little bit but you tell us anything
about so Carter is a a candidate in front of you for our driver labor position at the DPW this is our last open driver labor position so we're excited to to fill that we do have one more vacancy at the DPW which is the mechanic position Carter uh is currently
a manager at Walgreens has management experience and then just I noted in his letter I just wanted to read it sorry one second says I'm particularly drawn to the town Carla's commitment to community service and personal growth and I believe uh that my
passion would allow me to contribute significantly to your team so those are the types of DPW workers and other workers we're looking for and we're very excited to present Carter to you Carter with a d not a t yes it's Carter that's going to haunt me I I I want to say that
was one of the best put together CVS and cover letters that I've seen for any yeah very well done y okay well we have a motion in a second is there anything else on Emma Casey that is there so Emma I'm sorry because there
was two motions there yeah so this position requires just a little bit of background the current assistant for fire and the current assistant for police are filled by three people three part-time positions Susan carrier who's done a tremendous job is is retiring from the police department we wish she
wouldn't be she is a a tremendous asset to the town and uh you'll hear more about her in the future cuz she's not quite gone yet cuz there's going to be a little bit of overlap but she essentially helped or she did help with the transition between Chiefs she is one of the the institutional memories in the
police department and helps both in HR and finance and same thing on the fire side so two people fill the role of HR in finance assisting the fire chief so because of uh these three vacancies we're we're putting them into one full-time position that's going to
assist police and fire we think this will connect the position better to the accounting office and finance office and the HR office to give the Chiefs more more support on HR and on the finance side so we we think it's a really good
good process in Emma is a u currently a project manager brings a tremendous amount of HR skill and analytical skill which would be very important so this position analyzes Union contracts is involved in interpreting HR and finance as it relates to paying and managing the
HR relations for our employees and to make it it even more complicated the fire is a call fire department and um you know the police department is transitioning from parttime to fulltime so very excited to bring Emma on board and have her assist in this position and in the current changes in the public
safety offices great okay so there was a motion in a second uh we'll do a Voice vote all in favor I and none opposed and Mr Trio is not present and then I move to appoint
Aubrey Thomas to serve as the town of Carlile representative to the L Regional Transit Advisory Board second this would be a temporary appointment until there is a permanent Coos director hire she's fulfilling this role in part of her interm role as
director super any further questions all right Voice vote all in favor I None opposed all right okay then with the moving right along so you're disposition
um we're oh we're close so we'll get started on the bog house discussion that's great Julie hi hi welcome can I bring Theon with me L it
right you just keep going night after night I know man what time did you get finish last night oh got home at midnight late yeah you were there the whole time oh man I left her some people like to
talk a lot so are you going to screen share it for me or I can should I I can I'm right on it okay what right yes right exactly I'm in the Housing Trust so that's why I'm not just sitting here
just for the fun of it all right yeah so um once again I'm giving you guys an update and I'm probably like the least qualified person in town to talk about the bo house since it's just existed for so long and has so much history um and I'm so new but um I
did want to give you an update on the feasibility study step one so we got the deliverables from Gap Architects and Niche engineering um this is just an overview of how uh they were paid for um next slide Ryan so um Niche was hired
to do a wetland selenation and a topo and property line survey of this area that's around the B house um it's about 1.42 Acres that the area that's outlined by that like hashed line um the information on this is helpful to for our future carveout EA
carve out um next slide and then the architecture piece is probably the more uh interesting piece of this work um the uh Architects believe that four to six units is possible in the B house I don't know if
you all looked at the like whole report that was sent around this is just a little screen capture um of the four unit options um the 4 unit options like just in my opinion seem a little more feasible they don't require an addition to the building they cost less they respect the historic structure um a
little more easily um you don't need an elevator so um and then just the cost estimate they put together ranging between like 2.5 and 2.9 if I'm reading that correctly um and they went through in their report they kind of went through how they got
there right um so at this point um there's no showstoppers from the engineering firm there's no showstoppers from the Architecture Firm they do believe housing is possible um I'm working on the next step which is the utility piece
right so septic and well feasibility um you know what I don't think I put a map in here I didn't but um there's an area of the site that's on the same side of curb street but it's a little bit like Southwest that's like an old kind
of sand pit area that's been identified as a possibility for the septic um and so I'm working with Mitch on scoping like the minimum information necessary to determine if it's feasible there like can it fit based on our local design requirements does it perk things like
that so um they've come back um with an estimate for $166,000 for the septic location and feasibility piece as well as determining if the current well on the property has the recharge and flow rate capacity to support four units
where's the current septic Julie so the my understanding is the septic is a um Cesspool kind of in front of the house underneath the rock lovely um that's the current septic situation as far as I not me code you couldn't yeah I mean it's probably like may be okay for right now
but it wouldn't certainly wouldn't be okay for anything else um yeah like you know upgrade one thing you got to upgrade all the things right right um and then the well is pretty new it's I think was putting in 2018 um but just
determining if it has capacity to actually support housing um more than what's there currently um so I'm working with Niche to refine the scope a little bit they didn't quite hit the mark with the well like they got the the septic piece right I think for what I want um
or what the town needs um but the well piece I'm working out they they Outsource that to a well person who I need to coordinate with so that's like still in the works um but the estimate at this point is $116,000 um and then there is a little bit of a question about how that would
be paid for Julie just a quick follow up on the um Niche part of things so they've completed the um septic uh some part of the septic analysis you're saying no they haven't done anything I'm working with them just
to scope it and figure out how much it will cost yeah that okay but you have to wait for the other company to actually do this specific analysis and the flow rate determination right so Niche will will hire someone like Outsource the well piece because that's not an area of expertise for them they can do the
septic analysis then they they have a well guy yeah um and why the hold up get this to happen right um mainly just oration I was out most of last week the guy I'm coordinating with was out the week before and then the well gu is like
you know not in house he's so coordinating with him um so hopefully next week so before you think the work could be completed before town meeting that I mean depends on the money I think
where does that that comes from CPA money where does it come from the six well we we've gotten maybe some different advice from a couple different sources but um as the chair of the CPC uh I feel quite confident that we
can use um existing caht funds that were you don't have to wait for Tommy that's that's my opinion based on conversations with um the community preservation Coalition people who have a lot of experience in this area but I know that
our own Town Council said something different so we'll have to work work that out okay right I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth but so yes anyway if if best case now worst case town meeting but if you spent the money now and later
it was determined that was the wrong decision what do they do make you undo the study I mean what's the Remy right no it's more that and maybe I shouldn't say this publicly but it's really much more about whether um
anybody in town feels that it was inappropriate to spend this CT money but what's the remedy well none if they have to decide to file a complaint and then the Department of Revenue would have to investigate and it's yeah it's highly
unlikely frankly that that would happen okay yeah okay it's not as if we're stealing funds you know and you as the new chair of the caht well I I okay there two wrinkles I
want to throw in this and one one's a wrench a positive wrench um this was a three total right the wrink the wrinkle and Suzanne spinny and I as you know our neighbors and so she's looked at this and the the cost estimates are clearly
proor as you saw you know you know they just use a square footage and they did a thing so she thinks that they're high and but you know obviously this is something that you you refine when in terms of of design so you know because 2.6 two you know she feels and again as
she knows as you know has experienced on a lot of experience in kind of working with the uh the police station so that we'll see what happens so that's the one wrinkles kind of get that I think the other wrinkle which is much more complicated is how actually we end up
doing this transaction and figuring out how to do it how do you do a carve out how do you do how do you satisfy article 97 and there are a bunch of issues and can we if we had rental income so that is a much more complicated sort of process to figure out um and and and I
know that Julie's first of all she's wonderful she's overworked and doing too much and this is this is and so one of the issues is how do we get somebody on board who could help us through this process because this is not a small process of getting a housing together
and and doing it and it's a small project but it needs a lot of attention the other thing Julie and I met with um people in hartch today and harwitch has and the reason I did that was Suzanne spinny was down there harwitch has done
an incredible job of preserving its bogs building affordable housing and doing a big project and we met with their with their consultant who helped them through this so it's a lot about how to do the water management and everything else so if we step back and not just look at this as the
cranberry bog house that's one piece of property that we're carving out it's rather the cranberry bog which is you know we have this water steady which is which is kind of in a bance at the moment we haven't kind of gone out we've got the dam repair we've got the whole area and what harage did is they did a
whole Fe and we and the Consultants were they did a whole feasibility plan and then figured out who the different parties were for the housing which happened to be for fire converting fire and having housing for the fire people they had uh they did a whole conver version of the sort of um cleaning up
the water because it's a there's a whole sort of nitrogen sort of um in the in the B because of being bogg things and so what came out of that and this is the this wrench is that we do not have a feasibility steady and plan for what we should be doing with the bog longer term
as a largest conservation property that we share with Chelmsford um and so the water steady's kind of one part of it the Dam's another part and the the house is another part all the typical Carl way transaction by transaction rather than
what are we trying to do with this and the stewardship committee is supposed to be doing this but as you know they're also overworked and overloaded and so this is this is actually fairly complicated because there's water that comes down from Chelmsford goes through here then goes back up to chelsford to
to their Wells so so there's a so there's something that we've not really gotten our arms around and so my thought is that this might be a time to step back and say how do we look at this whole picture and then figure out how to do the pieces bit by bit and this is
what harwitch was sort of saying to us and they were very excited and eager and thought we had a they thought it was great but uh you know it's sort of if we just kind of try to do the houses but and and and and CPC um uh CA no you all in one of our
meetings were saying you should be looking at uh Christie was saying we should be looking at how do we make it as a conservation pro project the housing and the bog house and everything else and sort of or maybe it was in a separate meeting and just sort of thinking about thinking about this as a
broader sort of thing much like Great Brook which is our other large conservation property which is managed by the state so my thought and is maybe we should say yes this looks feasible but how does it all fit into overall
plan and how would we go about doing it um and it cannot be just done with nice hardworking smart volunteers this is a more comp Land Trust basically the hardw land trust did this all the way down there and we're going to go down at least they invited us to go down and
visit the consultant you know said he come out and take a look here and give us an outline of how we would do a feasibility proposal on all these things all the different components the housing the Water Management the dam and everything else so John I mean I'm glad
you brought this up cuz it's really it's sort of trouble this this chart is like the troubling one to me and I think why why we would why would we and why would harwit co-mingle I'm not saying housing
with land Stu well that's what we're that's what we're talking about with B what car which because they they need they need they had a a property right there in there it was similar like to us because it was a bog and they had a property and it was police right there and they bought a property that
comingled right there so they basically said hey here's an opportunity to do how many units four they four yeah are three yeah three three rental three studio rentals that are affordable so I mean to me I mean there's another component
which is like our budget is out of control yeah no I understand that okay so I I can't reconcile I understand land conservation and certainly the bog is an important piece of carile and if you're going to have a bog and you got water
management you got to have dams I mean those are things to me I understand that I don't understand the insertion of a housing consideration on that I get it that there's a nice house in it but we can't do everything and why would we do that at the price that even at suzan's
lower price well well that's a separate issue of whether you want to do it but they was they were talking about how there were grant fundings for doing this because they had a they were Grant so this becomes a so there was a lot of State money and again this is areas that we just didn't know much about and I just reached out to him and said what do
you what have you done was it State money because it was affordable housing or no because because of the propert conservation property and within that they also got some State money for the housing now again so and again I don't know all the pieces we just had an hour
meeting with them this afternoon and I kind of looked at what they did on the website but I said oh okay they they've thought about this they've got some experience and it seems that we ought to take do some basic due diligence does this make any sense because I get very
concerned that we're doing each little step each thing that's 50 00,000 and it's all not all integrated and it just is and I totally understand your the budget constraints um and so but what makes sense for 10 years on we have
CPC um I've long advocated for a project that CPC actually would take the lead on in certain respects because that's where you have the Nexus of conservation historic and housing right uh and and
those you know forces should coordinate and come up with a good plan um and cpc's money can only be used for that so it doesn't in certain respects affect the budget in the same could be used for housing not on conservation land or only
you're saying affordable housing right regardless of that's just regardless of where it's located exactly but the thing is that um it's always been hard to sell a housing project in town um this would
be a project that would not only be housing but it would also be conservation and historic uh so I think you could get better support uh for that kind of a project if it weren't just you know hanging out by itself um yeah
and we have this structure right it's it's there and we know we want to use it or preserve it well do we really I mean at what price I mean honestly what price it's 3 million bucks to get four Apartments see
let me just throw out one other bit of information I don't know if you recall this but it's another element to this which is um we're the town to do what's needed to um transfer the custody of the
land y to the town then if we were to then give the property to Habitat yep and we've explored this with them extensively there's no more cost to us there's no more cost to the town and
we've seen you know there I can't remember did you go with yeah you was right to the Westford where we saw their work so I know we're getting off the track point though if successful because we don't want to pre judge that it would be Hab that is that's an element of this
whole thing that that I was supportive of because at first I I'm not in particularly in favor of the Town becoming a affordable housing developer another another but this is an opportunity it's an existing structure it's historic and
doing a little bit of work up front to then you know be able to shepher this over to someone and you know makes more sense we've we've explored a bit of people who are you know supporters of habitat who have come forward and said we would be definitely supportive of
that so I I think that it's kind of a neat it fits a lot not A3 million expense to the town yeah and they have a long track record of doing this to so well and and there are ways to structure this so it's a separate entity that you have a separate mortgage and that the
basically you have the rentals rent payit covers all of that no no if if we go with habitat or any sort of or any other organization that fits the criteria that we put an RFP right right but we're not there at this point so
that's the issue well I think we're taking small steps I like Barney's Point spend the 16k whatever you understand what could be done possible but thenit the habitat equivalent be qualified to maneuver the chapter 97 and
stuff I no no no we do we would still have to do all that yeah okay but we don't know if habitat's the right solution so I think well a habitat I mean we're using them and generic generically right so I mean I think we ought to be right but okay yeah but I
think you know what you were saying about CPC maybe or with L Stewarts being the way to sort of manage this process because this is not a simple this is not simple it takes a lot of work and there are a lot of pieces to it and Julie's you know flat out already and we need a
consult we need people to help us with all the pieces and you know and the dam and the repair there all these things that we just haven't you know don't have enough information the other hand a lot of work has been done um on the damn uh
correct questions and I I hate to see all that money go to waste um I don't think it will I think you've got a baseline that's information and then how do you make it all work is there an urgency to improve the dam
though is there well there were some repairs that we were supposed to be doing um well I think the 10-year deadline was this year about that we're doing something and I pretty sure Sylvia communicated to them this is this is
what we're doing and that there was going to be a water study and I'm not sure where the office of Dan safety kind of fell in that what happened with that because then you know she got injured but I'm sure there was communication something we could obviously follow up on yeah they're waiting to see what we
want to do right okay but it's not like the Dam's going to break I mean we had some urgency on the dam at Green now we had a right this isn't that case here succinctly as I can put it there was a repair proposed Y
part of the repair was disagreeable to the community around oh yeah the boardwalks in all so that part was removed and the office of dam safety said the remaining repair is minus big repair could be done so we're going to do that okay in the meantime we're doing
a water study to solve the disagreable part of the dam okay it's but it's not a it's bu an impending safety issue no it's more that the offic safy wants then we would have to act if there are some things that need to be done but we can
do them now okay all right good but as a process I think is that what you're you're presenting to us tonight this is the research you've done to date this is the Consulting and now the next step if we were to go forward with the process as it's currently being
presented aside from what you're talking about John but would be to um figure out how to fund an additional 16,000 for the water yeah right yes that's the like immediate kind of next step in my mind and then kind of after that I I think
there's a couple questions like based on my research on the different like aspects of this yeah there's a couple questions that keep coming up like regarding the level of affordability that we want to Target and whether we're talking about ownership or rental and I think just understanding what the town
wants to achieve like if if housing continues to be feasible at the bog house in terms of what that housing looks like right and um isn't that will help kind of determine the path for like what funding sources are available um and some of the other steps we could
take to help with financing but if we decided that we would rather you know pursue a third party to man to do that the habitat model then why would we do all that why wouldn't we understand about the wells and sort out the chapter 97 you know
prep it and then soit I'm not going to be that simple well I know but Julie is proposing things that we would not do if we have a habitat well so this chart kind of outlines like the maybe it's hard to see but I I just tried to put
like all my thoughts in one chart so um you know a lot of terms get thrown around and there's different levels of affordability that mean different things right so if you look at the levels of affordability that in that column and you look at the boxes right so um like on the left you have the CPA fund
allowable spending up to 100% of area median income and then subsidize H housing inventory units those are called capital A affordable um 80% area median income is kind of the upper end of that um and then Workforce housing is typically 60 to 120 Sometimes some programs are 60 to 140 so there's a
little variation there but if we're talking about community housing um that might not necessarily necessarily be capital A affordable um you know that's like a a different Target Racket and then on the right hand side there's the ownership and Rental
columns right so Habitat for Humanity does ownership projects um from reading through the materials um and the the presentation that they gave that I missed unfortunately um it looks like they look for eligible um families earning uh incomes up to 60% of area
meum income so right so that's even a slightly lower uh um income bracket and then if you're looking at rental right if if the town is interested in doing rental units like we could look at trying to achieve Federal historic tax
credits in the timing of that process I was talking to Gap about this depending on how many restrictions we want to have to deal with we approach that process differently um but that can be instrumental in financing affordable housing projects um
and then um the there are other grants like so I put the mass house housing planning for housing production Grant on here and that's just one example there's probably plenty of others but they all come with strings and you know the different requirements right so I'm just trying to figure
out like what is the goal right and then that'll help kind of determine some of these no I I agree with that approach and I'm saying what I'm hearing on our side is the goal should be what do we have to do to prep it to market for a habitat for that type right so then you would be deciding that if you want
ownership units that are going to be subsidized housing inventory capital A affordable right well there issues that you're first of all you're you're going to be selling a valuable property which is going to have some market value of donating it to to a development so there's going to have to be a so you'll
have a so it'll be a market value let's say 6 700,000 that we're going to have to therefore you know as our Equity contribution all that structure and then we obvious have to replace that from an article 97 so right we have to so there so there
are a lot of different pieces to it right but but and it's not it's not just TurnKey no I'm not suggesting it's TurnKey but I am suggesting and I think um Julie's very good at V creating visual maps that are easy to follow in this is one of them is like declutter it
like simplify it eliminate the things we don't think we want to do like we don't want to be a a landlord right we don't really need historical I mean we don't need the tax credits and the grants because I mean the grants for those things because we would want to like
you're selling your own house and I'm the real estate agent and I'm like John paint the bedrooms it's the cheapest thing to get your value so you know get the well stuff make sure it works got to figure out 97 I don't know all the things I'm not saying it's simple but
let's narrow the playing field of the things we need to do with the objective of presenting a package that the pros will take and they'll figure out the rest of it so it it might as an exploratory thing be make sense to talk
to a perspective bidder whether that the habitat or a competitor but to get some more information and sounds like you've done that through a presentation um at least gotten some information on what what they would need so that you can you know help tailor a
package as David was saying I think that chapter 97 is the question I I mean that I'm assuming that that is not going to be a showstopper because it's but I don't know but if that was that would be the
thing I think we should explore first well then we should explore that first and get it because if we find out we can't do it then we shouldn't be spending all this other money doing everything else our meeting with with the with the chapter 97 people is if it's for use and housing that is in the
general concept of good not just market rate so if if you're just carving it out for market rate would be market so sorry so I've actually met with them more recently okay oh you did the staff there are recommending that regardless of whether like if we do ownership and then it has to be carved
out but regardless because housing isn't a change of use but the auxiliary things that are needed the additional parking the additional septic they're considering a change of use so we wouldn't need to carve out the full whatever area we need bro rule is you have to add the equivalent amount
somewhere else make it and so they they they are recommending obviously they can only recommend because it's not up to them it's up to the legislature right but based on their experience working at EA and dealing with the legislature they're recommending we go for a car out of whatever minimum land area we need to
support the housing and all the auxiliary functions um but to Travis's point is that hard to get so yeah there's some documents required like we would need some additional like first of all understanding where the sep septic is
going to go right and then you need to do that right the minimum area kind of needs to be um the prop like the property survey boundaries are going to change um everything we've done to date actually has been working towards this chapter 97 documentation so we haven't
wasted given no no I'm not suggesting that but I'm asking back to Travis's Point like if we keep doing that stuff let's say we get you some help you know consultant whatever but we do that and we put together the packages is that typically something that they do Grant
the car bouts if you've done your homework I don't know if I can answer that okay we don't know depends on what you want to do depends on what you're going to do with I mean it seems like well you're giving maret housing is something the state is spreading and the Attorney
General's office housing advocacy unit or whatever they're calling it has like said they would advate on our behalf to so that's a good thing so hopefully and I do think the town has equivalent land
that can swap yes right um it doesn't have to be on the bug no no okay great so and so that would con so that wouldn't cost us anything okay that's good those are good facts um on the question of a consultant um maybe this a
question for Ryan I who who who would you see uh leading the process of um moving the whatever the amount of land is in the final result of the surveys moving
the process to have it um taken out of conservation and going to the town is there do you think we need a a consultant on that we hire to do to do that part of the process
the only piece that I would need is how much is it doable right so what do we need to make this housing project happen and what is that land swap once we know that I think town counil and staff can handle you do okay
so the it's really what's needed and does Carlile allow what's needed yeah okay know the area and then all right and so um Julie when you say you'd really like to have some help on the housing part of this what tell us a
little more about what you mean by that if if if the piece that Ryan just described is not yours to um lead yeah so I mean I think like it just depends on how easy it is to make the decision about the path you want to take right
ownership habitat well let's let's do a for instance if it's not that easy right and there's a lot of ideas swirling around about how this can be achieved there's a like I'm not in the housing world every day there's a lot of programs there's a lot of that all have different strings attached and
requirements um that would be helpful to have someone who's really in the housing world like kind of help un like help this Housing Trust help me help CBC help the town understand like do these ideas like are they really feasible could they work at a for a project of this scale um
like and what what what are the ramifications like what are all the considerations that needs be made for the different different ideas that are out there um but you're you're saying you would when you say the goals will help determine the path are you looking it sounds like the select board though
is the group that ought to make some of these decisions at this point in terms of whether it's rental or ownership and whether we're talking about market rate or below market rate and um to to provide some leadership on
this question question um because I've been in the discussions you know where people have all kinds of ideas and some are so exciting and creative and but I I feel like we're kind of
narrowing things down with every step that we take to get more information and so I'm not opposed to a consultant but I don't want to hire a consultant I wouldn't want to hire a consultant that's reopening the whole discussion about what you do with the B house
that's I guess that's my point and so I think the question then is can either we as a select board or working with the Housing Trust or working you know jointly with some boards or committees
make the those basic level decisions uh about what we want to have done with the bog house that for the moment we are on the path to turn it into housing right that's the path we've chosen with the money we've put out so
far to study that sounds great if that if you think that can that sounds great we yeah and I don't I don't want to I don't want to um so I guess I made my point well I think the issue the really difficult issue we just have proor of
cost estimates we do not have detailed what would the design be how do you do it what's the cost and that information then starts to determine what are the Alternatives and in in our conversations with habitat they have to so whoever would work with us on this has to do a
lot of basic due diligence and design and what's the out of gutting it and have the cost we and that's we don't have that information so you can't go through what the mix of alternatives are so this housing consult and working with historic building that everything else and this is not it's a small project but
it's got a lot of detail to it and so how do you get someone involved you can't just say oh who habitat in quotations will you tell us what what's involved they would have to have to do a whole bunch of information and and work with different probably but they could
probably tell you what no we've already they they have to have project consultants in there they have to look at things they've got their subs and all that stuff but you know John they' they've just done yeah I know something in Westford where it was a historic property right and they and they came
into the the portion of it that they were responsible for renovating and they were starting with just the wall of the old barn and and they did all of the and maybe they hired some people to help them but they did all of the work on
what the design would be and then they do the actual work to do the renovation uh along with the people but somebody has to spend some money and time they had to raise the money to it doesn't happen just on the back of an let let me help us maybe look at it from a
different point of view if we we have already Gap has gave us a a thing uh we could decide uh the we don't want more than four units on this because of the number of bedrooms and the the our nitrogen loading and all this stuff we
can't have more than eight bedrooms in this whole project and makes sense to have the four units we do not want to be um landlords and so we want them to be ownership we want them to be low income because this way we can um legitimately
use CPC funds to do all the studies for it and to get it ready to be handed off to an RFP to a developer who will then do it and you can write the RFP you know if it watchs like a duck and quacks like a duck and you know um you can write it
like that um and then you're done right I mean I don't see what like that's a plan of how and we want to take it incrementally with the eye to getting to that goal so we're not spending money on
Superfluous things and and even though it would be helpful to know more about other aspects here I just don't think that's I think we I think you're right bar we need to and you too Kate we need to focus on this I would say about the elevators do not put no
El to spend a million dollars May on elevators we do not want more I wouldn't constrain yourself for low income because you don't know what the economics are you want affordable in the affordable I'm sorry I I well what I meant was I wanted qualifying
cify yeah that's a edge condition so um we do kind of need to W our discussion but but I think we just have to figure out how we're going to get there relative to your time oh I know what I want to ask sorry if I mean the the the per square foot cost of the
architect's quote is based on it being a municipally managed project which like basically doubles the cost right if if a habitat type take it they don't have to did gnap is that was that part of gap's consideration don't remember no no no
it's just a it's a basic for 300 they didn't do any of that due diligence exactly that was just a bed R exactly okay good so it sounds like we're in agreement about the direction
we're taking was that enough for you Julie cuz I we don't want to re okay okay so John same thing for the Housing Trust we don't want to reopen a discussion about other ideas for what to do with the bog house oh yeah
AB joh was suggesting what I think John was suggesting was more what I was saying earlier was that it would be nice if um other players that are in that area were to get together and talk about the bog as a whole and how this is just
one part of it uh and you know yes and to not to be budget neutral because it would be utilizing funds that possibly that you know or leveraging funds from CPC to to have a community
project that would work I think we have a consensus from the select board hopefully that if you need more I wasn't even expecting that that would happen tonight it was just great putting ideas out there well just a quick thing on the
consultant question I think we have to finish this next uh phase of the research or studies and see where we are but assuming that suggests that we can yes we can definitely go ahead and put some units inside that building that can
be supported by the water issues um then I think we have the discussion about uh whether or not we need a consultant because I think in the meantime there should be some work done to
identify not just habitat but if there other well that'sit that's why you you do want that housing consultant because they know all those right things that are out there and they can help you write the RFP so that you attract the right developer so we don't end up with
but we we you you weren't here for the um habitat presentation right so it might be make sense though to at least for that one to understand at least how they operate to to meet with them um and maybe it Mak sense John for a couple
people from the Housing Trust you know um with the Housing Trust have already had presentations from we've already no I meant to but to go sit down and talk with them or visit the barn or whatever but um to understand exactly what they do and don't do I mean you can get a lot
of that off their website but um we we are a little over our agenda item here and we need do need to move on um thank you so just in terms of timing we get the septic done before town meeting and then if we need a consultant then we ask for separate monies because I gather
there's problems with the housing consultant we wouldn't have we don't have the monies for that correct I think you need to come back about it yeah right y that's right I understand and there's also a fall town meeting yes no I know I mean I just in terms ofp CPA F money for that yeah great okay
all right also quickly someone needs to talk to the Conservation Commission yeah and um yes they have to okay this so right well once once we get the carve out um they did say they were um originally um when I went to them uh
they did vote to support the carve out a carve out of chapter 9 out of 97 for for preservation and Redevelopment of the fog house so when was that before we even started before we started this
whole thing this whole thing last year sometime but last year sometime we wrote it in a memo so yes and we had it in them so it's it was voted and memoed it's in their minutes uh so once this uh car out is all that's La study is done
then that should probably go back to uh ccom for their re you know approval yes uh reevaluation and and you know help on
that um yeah ran were you thinking there needed to be something more in terms of kcom I'm more than happy to reach out to the new chair now I would just keep Lea oning with them about this so there who is our are you the liaison yeah but somebody really should step in sooner
rather than later right for for that yeah okay oh I I really yeah you're okay because I could also do it I know you're doing everything in a good way you always say that you do but you're welcome we could
talk about it all right all right question really quick sure Chris thank you does please introduce yourself sorry Christina CH with the USC um does the um property have to be that's carved out have to be two acre or
can it be a non-conforming I don't know you don't know probably it has to be two acres wiely I don't septic wise if it's eight right yeah mean you're saying you don't mean what has to be uh put into conservation to make up for what will be
at the around the house because I I don't I think we have um decided against a friendly 40b and even then I'm not sure have you well I don't know at this moment I think we have
unless unless we learn things that it it you know from this process would say that we couldn't proceed with our planned potential developer of of a nonprofit right so if you're opting out of a friendly 40b then we need some sort
of zoning mechanism in place so then you need oh I didn't I didn't take any of what you just said to be opting out of a friendly 40b uh right habitat and friendly 4B are not mutually exclusive yeah we could do a friendly 40b is
simply that you're just you're the town is working with them on it that you know could be a solution as well yeah but I don't know that uh even with the friendly 40b we could sidestep the 2 acre requirement for the nitrogen loading we can't not from the septic
Title Five yeah I don't think we can yeah no so so that's why I'm saying I I'm thinking yes okay what I guess I was thinking in terms of the the friendly 40b being able to SCP certain zoning requirements and Bo is not a zoning
requirement it's it's a it's a septic requirement it's different different class right so yes we do need the two acres minimum correct right okay I guess that's what I was trying to get at question thank you
thank you Julie appreciate it yeah all right we're going to move on to the annual town meeting and start with the town meeting study committee update okay David because we've run late you don't get much time all right Ryan can you put that spreadsheet
up I sent with the warrant you sent me one I sent you one this afternoon hold on I haven't gotten to those emails yet got it [Music] all right so uh go to marketing plan outline I think the second so I think we
agreed that can you make that a little larg excuse me yeah open blow it up okay that's good all right so basically uh where we are we we uh agreed that we have and we have asked we are in the process of asking the proponents of each
article for a basic like you know two to four sentence summary like what does yes mean right and and what is the article about eventually I mean that all generally gets done anyway in the warrant book but we'd like to have it like now part of the reason we want to now is maybe to give it to our own board
here so we can look at those articles in March to decide you know if we want to support them or whatever um uh and then secondly is sort of the onepage pro and cons which may be more difficult for them to actually do but in the long run we would
like it the style if you remember the um Massachusetts ballot from last fall was pretty good right yes like it was pretty balanced and we didn't really say one way or the other and we are encouraging the sponsors to think about and even talk to people who are against it
especially people who are articulately against it to understand the point of view so that's kind of part A Part B is develop a marketing plan and um uh some ideas that we're tossing out to people are you know first of all find out think
about the groups that might be interested might support it um and uh and put stuff on the website you know and we're working with Aubrey to uh to make sure that the when you go to the
town meeting section of the website you can easily see like each article and then you can click on supporting information people ought to be able to go there and find all the support that they can so that's kind of what we're working there and then there's a bunch of Outreach things where Aubrey has taken the lead and been very helpful to
uh she's coordinating a day that minam man's going to come in and shoot videos and she said again we've only started marketing this to everybody but if you have b-roll footage if you have photographs anything you have just send it cuz let's get content out there right um and then finally keep scrolling down
just a little um if they're planning if if we'll get to this in a second if if we're if the sponsors are planning a presentation we uh we took a best practice from somewhere else I think it was um might have been um Tom Harrington that gave us this idea is
have uh we're going to have a uh presenters meeting there'll be a negotiation about the time allotted and we'll do the dry runs and we'll make sure you know that that's all prepped Wayne has done some of that before um
and then uh finally which is not really here but in the uh in the meeting itself again if we can pull it off we're encouraging them to develop a poster and then they can be at the cafeteria IA let's say in an hour or so before town meeting and people can maybe get their
food and they can talk to them so that's sort of the overall plan let's go to the Articles the next tab so the Articles at least I don't know if this is still the group of Articles and I won't go through each one but we've uh We've looked at
who which what are the Articles and some are on the consent agenda the ones in purple we think will be on the consent agenda and then if they're not is there a presentation and in that case like who's got the action so Ryan has
some Travis we gave you MFC I think you were at that meeting um so the MFC stuff is yours uh Brian Waton who's on school committee has got the amenities building if it gets that far keep going um there's a
bunch of other things we're going to try to put in the consent I'm sorry that the purple is not all a consent agenda there's also all the CPC stuff so Barney yeah I'm looking to you to kind of I can you can talk to me offline and let's talk about what yep you may want to do
there and and divide that work up because there's a lot of Articles so we can skip down you know your articles um uh the bylaws again that's a question I think I think
the Julie's here still the plan is the Adu and the the two those two are going to be on the spring right be one yes they're going to be one article and then the msba is the fall right MB M yeah MB
my alphabet right so um bylaws are the you know most complex I think uh the demo delay and the historical delay uh I guess that's Travis for you to consider well it's that's for the board
to consider move well if you move forward it's for you to consider how you want to Market that I mean well I'm I'm reaching out to Chrissy and you know see if that's the appropriate they want to right I how just a quick I thought we
were going to move most of the bylaws to the fall town meeting it's okay with me we got to we have to do MBTA in the fall right so you might might as well move the rest of them along unless they were some reason that they were you know
urgent that's those uh historical ones are Urgent agree they are I agree are you telling me or I said I doubt that they are okay sorry okay so that would be a good outcome there and so that would mean
item 33 34 well 20 35 and I can't see what's pass well let's 28 29 30 would go to the fall uh 31 is a consent agenda thing we think right 32 Wayne has that is that 32
that's happening Wayne's going to take oh Davis land okay then the Adu slaa which becomes one I that was I I was supposed to talk to PB yesterday and I I missed my window I apologize but I think I would just say
for the record in this meeting and to you Julie the the important thing that I got out of listening to the body and Fender work on the bylaw drafting is you can have the perfect bylaw that gets defeated at town meeting so I know your
guys are very process oriented like that's why they're on planning board right but marketing is really important and these are complex issues so that's my message is uh and I was drafting some notes yesterday I didn't get to say
but there's doing the thing right and there's doing the right thing they do the thing right but they also have to do the right thing which in my view is get that information out make sure that the issues are not like they
have to do that for rigs I get it but like we ought to make distill it to some big picture are you recommending that they wait until fall to do this no I don't think no Julie doesn't want to wait till fall I'm just saying there's a lot to do they're in the middle of all this Body and Fender work I call it
right this details yeah which is great and that's what they're there for and I respect that but I don't think it's in their rers knowing those people I don't get the sense like marketing is not like their skill set right speaking speaking of staff I would say that that has to be
a board to board conversation well I yeah that's why that's why I'm supposed to do it but I but you have you have the teacher the student and the lesson right I mean I'm just saying and maybe it's an appeal to you Julie that somebody there has to be
like a guy like Eric maybe you know somebody that's got more of a marketing view to help kind of get that message I I think though the point is that the select some version of the select board you and well
I'm on for the 10 we leave Julie no I'm just telling she's here if she wasn't I know but that's that's why I was asking you are you recommending to the planning board that they not move this in the spring oh no no no no I'm not at all okay I'm
they're committed to moving to the spring so so what you recommending is that they do a lot of Outreach and education in the middle of their deep minui and they're focused on that yeah you can't forget about this this is not something you slap in at the last minute
cuz if it gets defeated then all you're work and then you can't go back because so can I suggest that the chair of our our board and the liais on to the planning board uh have a meeting with
the chair of the planning board at at the very least to to have that discussion right yeah and and back to the discussion of the Articles and whether we will you think they're going to be postponed to fall town meeting I
mean that would be helpful for to know sooner rather than later so we're not yeah spending a lot of time and energy well it may be just on the other hand up to us which ones go now and which ones go later I mean as I said unless the
board a board or committee um can show us that it is urgent and imperative that it be done in the spring okay so maybe it would be helpful if we go to our respective you have your list up here with who and and
I can pull out who our liaison are but on anyone that is a um what is it a zoning article or a bylaw bylaw change except we are going to keep the TA bylaw we've decided that we want to do that um
but you know other bylaw changes and and reach out to those boards to talk with them and and suggest that this we are headed in that direction to find out if there's any strong objections and what they might be and we can come back and we will put that on another discussion
here at the select board and and then pull out because I would hate to do a lot of this work only to have it you know so we'll all right so we'll reach out to court is Court the chair no who's the chair Sarah Sarah sah so let's reach
out to her okay good the ad bylaws like okay good all right all right so let's PIV it to marking on the marketing materials today actually awesome so let's let's have a meeting and great okay so let's move on cuz it's time so M for sure is the fall
so that's a whole another battle these two things are not though so this is consultant yes right consultant and this is citiz petition that's been valid legally filed filed so all right so um but sorry
I want to just clarify so except for the the Adu bylaw we anyone who's a liaison to uh some other group that has a bylaw up there is to reach out to them and say we
want to have these bylaws put on the fall town meeting you slide the correct the bar go back up the so we can read it better blow it up a little we know what our Duties are let's just get it out right there we go
okay that's right good point so I think it's go up a little more I think was a yeah these right here so the historical Commission the two and the Wetland by law oh the Wetland bylaw that's who's the cons com
I am okay so that's for you um and they are they've been ready but I don't think they have put done any you know the education part and the pr preparation part with their staff I'm not sure how that's going to work okay
Kate will you reach out and discuss that um with George okay okay all right so Kate's got that one and the hcom uh I think actually yeah it's funny though that I think somehow rather they thought
um Scott was their uh representative because Chrissy reached out to Scott um did I know it's I don't know how that happened but um I think it is Scott oh okay okay I had it wrong okay well
that's why that happened know then all right when Scott gets back we'll get homework before he gets back I'll get him homework you can reach out well you can do go ahead it be more okay yeah all right so I'm just going to correct my
chart though so uh concom is Kate yes and uh hcom is Scott Scott and and we're reaching out about moving their bylaw to the fall moving to fall right and um
that's as far as you have to take it at this point okay well because of the I just just cons J is too full so I'd like to know you know do they have a a um communication plan well you can start
that but first do the first one and then because we have more time then are there any others uh let's just keep um okay tailings Davis Adu we just talked about MBTA so I think that's for me also to talk to planning just Julie from the standpoint and you and I have spoken
about it it should be straightforward cuz that is getting more information to make a uh a more informed decision about MBTA in the fall right that's the whole purpose so are you talking about the planning boards
request for fund yes yes I'm saying that's a pretty straightforward ask that should be in line with the general trend is we need more information to make an informed decision sensitive to we can't wait till right we can't I'm not suggesting we do what I'm saying a let
me explain it no no I'm making a different point I'm sorry which is that however as the diligent reader of city in the woods that I am people are going to conflate things why are you spending this money so it's
equally important to have a very crisp presentation of that ask that hey we're doing this not to make a decision about mvta but rather to get more information to prepare us I mean that's the message that I want to convey to playboard which I'm sure you are doing right another
piece of like it's intended to be backup funds right I am applying for all the grants available y Tech so those are messages we need to get out then below that and I'd forgotten thank you for reminding me is Miss Blake and Barney we thought you might want to talk to her
about if she's going to present okay she's going to present same thing for her get your ducks in the room okay let's move on fire station Travis you all you know all that stuff so Nancy's doing Nancy has taken on Board of Health I
think n mon Nancy Pierce I'm sorry she's in our committee right so I have to I'll Circle back with her Thursday see if she's doing that uh keep going celebration most of this we think we can do to the consent agenda we're going to try to be more aggressive with consent
agenda uh Treasurer that's again pretty simple is there anybody else is it's a solicitor bylaw uh keep going the police they don't want people walking around town solic so that would go to fall I guess right that go to fall I think so bylaw on the fall town meeting who
would uh I think that's a good idea are we kind of on consensus that that would be yeah yeah okay Ryan and I have a typo there okay uh let's see C select board typo is accepted okay oh select board question on
45 is it CPA or bust that's Cemetery improvements we have more updates during the CPA section of this okay so I don't need to rebit that all right okay that's it so that's all I got that's great we're good all right next warrant
article discussion that was kind of part of our discussion we beat you to it okay okay my goal my goal here is to have the select board continue to answer some questions and specifically ask you what information you need or what
presentations you want about some stuff that's going to be happening in town meeting so that we can prepare that and get that on an agenda for you so I will discuss the budget with you as long as you let me bracket it so I mean I'll do whatever you guys want
but uh the the budget right now in the first swing at draft 2 to be confirmed Thursday in preparation for a presentation to you on March 11th the finance committee has has tentatively recommended a cut of 250,000 in expenses
and introduced 350,000 in new Revenue which has which has reduced the average tax bill increase to to a little bit under 3.5% which is within your target range if you consider the conservatism of the tool we use that being
said um the rest of this financial picture is is within within those constraints to be decided on Thursday and present it to you as a full recommendation from the finance committee is draft to the budget on March 11th so can I stop you before I forget yes so Thursday's fincom right
that's what they're doing and the the cuts have been identified and the revenue upsides have been identify yes okay um as a draft okay I'm just conveying that information so the if that if that held I'll increase the size
before amassed the thank you um here here is the available free cash or the the ammunition as a military guy would say for the the warrant articles in the capital that that's being considered and I want to give this to you so that when we go through the capital you can let me know what you
want for additional information about each one of those items so current stabilization amount is around 1.3 million with our free pass being certified at around 4.8 for a total Reserve about 6.2 million which is 16.86% of the current budget version
draft to which I just described to you so pretty solid number if you continue your reserve Target of 12% of that so that's that 12% of the current projected budget you would have 1.78 7 million
over Reserve so available current proposed uses if you pay if you agree to everything that's been asked which is a big if the operating budget would have 200,000 in free cash use the capital plan is about
1.7 and change and the warrant articles being proposed are 44,000 to include some of the ones we just talked about for a total free cash use of around 2 million which puts us 200,000 in the whole in the hole when you compare it to cash above Reserve below 12% you said if
you did everything right so doing that math out that you were just trying to do in your head that leaves you at 11.45% and that 200,000 that would be the amount required to close the gap with a 35% increase and those cuts
and all that stuff yes so the cuts and the free cash use and other onetime funds would equal 3 and a half% so still need three and a half% okay and I'm going to ask another so the percent of operating budget for of free cash would
be 11.45 total Reserve not free cash so stabilization and free cash don't like that at all no no but I mean I guess I would like to leave that St stabilization right but K the first part is the the the 44 we understand
those are worn articles and then yeah that's why I asked about the operating budget because I think that's the you you can go to the capitalist and say we got to we got to clear a couple hundred grand out of that I mean it's a huge list right yeah you just don't do some things right the operating budget though is troubling because we're we're asking
let's just understand we're going to make some budget cuts to departments but not really that much right a quarter million on a $36 million budget is not a big cut right so that's a question one question two is you're take making some assumptions on more Revenue let's assume that those are
prudent I don't know what they are but that's okay fair enough and then you're applying fore cash and then you're applying a three and a half% increase to make everything work so I mean to me I would say like more cuts
like more Cuts because to use free cash to patch up your operating budget is generally not a good PR right I well I agree and worse yet uh I mean I don't mind using a certain amount of free cash for operating budget but that
stabilization fund is in there because we are looking at a lot of building things and we I don't want to use that before we've done the building haven't even started the building that's got to be saved is fincom going over the cap
plan as well yes and are they making cut are they suggesting or recommending Cuts so that's what we're going to be talking about on Thursday and they'll be recommending to you directly not through me on the 11th but I don't think I can do the next section of this without giving you that overview right what I wasn't intending to do was to speak for the finance
committee's recommendation right okay but I mean you're hearing the message that they got a cut at a minimum 200,000 more has to get cut out I think that's what I'm hearing so yeah they're going to bring you why that didn't make sense to them and that's for you guys to talk about not not for me no
I wouldn't say that I would say their mission on Thursday is to find 200,000 then come back and tell us don't tell us what we already know we don't want like don't do that I would want the whole board to vote I'm giving you my opinion but yes right um well then you're talking about
significant cuts to schools and I didn't say operating budget take it out of the cap plan oh yeah okay well that's one of the things I want to talk to you about so um complicating the picture which I like to do to you guys I'm going to make it bigger Bar's
already leaning thank you that's right's a quick study I cannot thank you enough all right so FY 26 right total request 1.7 I'm sorry it's really 35 3.5 and what's left that you would
have to pay for with free cash after we use all other sources that we can use use is 1.7 next year it goes assuming that you keep everything and right there's a lot of assumptions that go into that it own presentation but it's 1.9 and then it drops off so also
included in that if you're adding if you're squeezing the revenue and squeezing the expenses you're going to generate less free cash yeah so next year you're going to have a big Capital problem so you won't be able to fund all the things that are being asked unless
you unless you do something so that being said I'm going to go through the capital quickly what we're looking for is what you want more information about um and it could be all of it and it could be none of it how the
colors so red is taken out yellow is the numbers changed green is added okay oh this exercise was done in the fall and presented to you in the fall yeah yeah okay so the school is asking for a two-part upgrade of HVAC systems at robins and Grant they're asking for a
person lift for safety reasons um if you've seen the Corey Auditorium video you'll understand why they're asking for this because of some ladder work that was sketchy and the rtu change there the 200 was upwards right or split I believe was what we changed I think it was split I
don't think it changed them uh Paving the facilities parking lot this would be the right time of year for you to go see why if you wanted to drive up there it is a nightmare wastewater treatment repairs so this is 1.5 million spread out over 10 years
these repairs in an agreement of 150,000 per year and is decommissioning on the table at all anymore it's I'm waiting for more directive but it is on the table the um School infrastructure is um
servers and Wi-Fi equipment known for a while that this needs to be done DPW is asking for a trash container a roadside tractor and Mower and a standup mower for the cemetery so two small mowers and a and a
big mower for roadside work the select I'm sorry that but didn't that that has the intention of saving cost along the way right it does rather than sub it out would do it ourselves cor um also convenience and um
Effectiveness so you could Target mowing rather than hoping you get everything that's going to be an issue and then return the select board um asked for 800,000 in road maintenance which 400,000 is being paid being F funded by the state funds and
reserves the fire department is asking to upgrade their Master box system and for a power cut and loader the power cotton loader is coming from the ambulance Reserve fund so it's not free money but it's not impacting free cash the entire Public Safety team is asking
for an upgrade to their CAD system that dollar 230,000 is that in the purple that we can't read it's black on purple so that's so we don't see it white yeah that's how to get it past and then the uh police is asking for a a cyclical
replacement of their Cruiser and a drone a drone how much is that what's the cost of the Drone 167 16,7 think of a small plane not not a Walmart buzzer uh they're also asking for a sign
board this is for enforcement and a liar unit which is speed enforcement again a lot of these requests are coming from Safety Committee discussions and other traffic concerns yeah town then um this is a current CPC
consideration which one you looking at this wouldn't be so this is wrong so pickle ball courts are on here it's actually a renovation of several Renovations that are going to come it's CPC yeah and same thing with a splashpad that's not on there anymore either no
okay the seniors uh senior Coos is asking for an upgrade to their SUV which is how much 45,000 um buy a whole new SUV for that game that's what they want new Nissan oh
new um does that count getting anything in ex selling or the one we've got or is it not worth anything a tra current SUV is a trade in from the police already so yes but I don't think you're going to
get much and um they also mentioned using their own revolving funds for this which we' we've put in this calculation and then there's a consideration of this just popped on and maybe maybe you should think about it or have the new director assess it yeah yeah yeah yeah
right cuzz seems to me they get a car also from the LRTA they get two two Vans yeah so where's that so they need three vans is that it again each one of these is its own presentation so try and succinctly explain it but they would do
a better job of advocating for it so the the Vans allow for certain types of service the SUV is much more Nimble so for those oneoff carries to Boston or other longer trips it's a much more useful tool and they need an SUV because of handicapped accessibility or I mean why
is know sedan you're reaching the limit of my advocacy question would be well does it does our vehicle acquisition policy require us to have a certain type of
vehicle yes good question so this didn't come up during the capital process which is why it's purple yes that's not a good thing never a good thing when those purple things pop popped up because it had to okay okay um it would be helpful ran if the next generation of this chart
had a column for the source of funds cuz if there's certain ones for the source of funds from you taxpayers no no no some of it is like CPC or chapter 90 other words if you cut it you don't help your free cash that is at the end of this
just um yeah so the it upgrades good news this is going to go down cuz we've done a lot of work in town hall and we don't need to do as much about $10,000 savings the bathrooms we're get we're handling this year so that's going to go away um wait so that's you have it in
there twice yep because it's coming out of the mfc's budget correct ah which is unspent which is FY 25 not 26 and then um windows and doors for two-part project for the town hall windows and doors replacement which came
out of their their study the last thing that's on here is the elevators so it's 3.5 as we said before what's helping offs at this is uh 400,000 in chapter 90 whatever can be CPA is going to be CPA again I made an error on this um
debt so the elevator is a one for one and then other funds are the um ambulance Reserve fund the point is if you were seeking to carve 200,000 out of the free cash you'd
want to know which of those projects would be the ones we would Target okay in my opinion like what's a compelling reason for the windows and doors in town hall um deferred Building Maintenance you can read the report the
MFC the MFC discussed this more important than roads I don't know the MFC discussed this and they said it could be moved but it would have to be done next year which you saw the number for next year is 1.9 so you're going to do this eventually and again that's up to you whether it's 26 27 28 29 half the
road maintenance comes out of chapter 90 right yes I mean my advice is well you already cut a few things didn't you mention a couple things here y so the finance committee is going to give you a recommendation on this and I'm trying to
reserve their Authority there what I need to know is what you need to know more information about like which ones do you need presentations on if any and maybe you don't need to answer me now based on what I saw there the Drone I'd like to know why that's needed yeah um
the I think we talked about Nissan you and think about the policy or whatever vehicle acquisition policy and understand that can we limp along without a new Cruiser we bring that up all the time do we yeah we always do bring that up don't we um what are the
other uh and the cad system um that's a new popup right the are new popups it's a huge number too yeah we talked about this a lot in the capital yeah um the the cad system
replacement is is vital so when it goes It goes and then we're in a lot of trouble because this is what it was how much what was the amount again sorry uh it is the dispatch system it's what comes up and allows you to respond to any public safety emergency and how
what's the amount 230,000 30,000,000 right there yeah yeah but if you move to the right you're not helping yourself right that's not eventually you'll have to address it and probably in the next 18 to 24 months yeah yes
okay I mean again I would say because the fcom has spent you know many meetings wire brushing these things and listening to presentations I would prefer to say that we are uncomfortable piercing
the 12% barrier yeah so you got to get down to the you got to take 200 out it can come from any combination of operating expenses and capital we want we we don't want your recommendation that says for 200,000 over we want your recommendation of what you would do if
that's your mandate taking 200,000 out of the package that's you think uh um so how these will come to the select board you're going to get an MFC article with anything that's facilities that's
the MFC article that was in the warrant then you're going to get the elevator Bor is going to be its own and then a list of the remaining oneof items will be Capital you're going to be asked to recommend it so the reason why I'm trying to gauge whether or not you need more information is eventually you're
going to be asked do we recommend this and I I want to make sure we have enough time to get you the info yeah yeah okay and also um I mean some of if we say we want you to come back with 200,000 less then it's
putting the decision about what but that's their job they they spend the time I'm trying to be efficient this is a page old thing we repeat the process that fincom does fincom is there I spent nine years doing this listen to all these man but David they've already done
that with the with the request to people to cut their budgets right and so they've already done both sides of and there still expense and more Revenue I mean then then I guess what we would then I think what I would say is
we need as a select board to discuss what their recommending get cut or how they're recomending I agree we need to know and and then depending what's on their list like if the Drone is still in and you know the COA van is still in
there that we would want to know you know why they chose what they chose but I'm saying we come here two weeks from today you know and we're always packed and we don't have enough time and all this and that they got a whole session Thursday and then they probably have another meeting even before they see us
like if they were to rack and stack we don't have to accept it we can override it we always can but at least we know I'd rather not say bring me your list and make us chop the money chop the money we can always decide that no we
don't agree with the way you stacked it but I like they're the experts they're right now they're the subject matter experts that's my op and you're at saying Ryan you want to know um whichever way it goes when if they come back with with a list that now is
200,000 less we don't know what'll be on that list to be able to say and so we'd want more information about X Y or Z on the list yeah just think about you know if it showed up I'm trying to be Punchy at 905 on purpose but like this is stupid
why is this on here trying to avoid that by yes because each one of these has its own presentation and story yeah so if it if just you need more information now we're trying to trying to pull that out so when the finance committee recommendation comes in front of you it's going to be based off the whole
picture and then you'll have the ability to I guess my question is of the new things why now why not later so you sort of answered some of the dispatch but um I want to know how come it didn't appear on our list last year already in that
case you know so and because I want also to put people on notice that they can't just suddenly come in at the last minute and decide that they want these things so I people I want people to feel a little nervous that they're not going to
get this because they didn't plan well I want them to look forward see the you on the purple again so all the purple things I would like to know why now I think that's fair I think I do too yeah I think that's right what we're trying to get is everyone get on the capital
list early ahead yeah this one should be Pur so but and then make the lettering white when you do that if you're going to use dark purple make the so the ones in green right what does the green mean the other one yeah this one is inappropriately colored yeah there you go you can just
make the oh the Drone you knew about earlier yes okay okay I see but the green means uh we known about no what does the green mean during the fall Capital cycle it was added they did it the right way
okay so the two real things are the cad and there is it's expensive and there's reasons to not do it but there are compelling reasons to do it and why it was late and then the SUV and the Drone the SUV okay the Drone was on before mhm well even though it was on before you
can still challenge yeah okay so then of the ones that are not were not Purp we have questions we'd like to know more again about the Drone and if it can I guess the next question is which of these could be done three years from now
you know and not all right not next year but the year year after that on that note Ryan the if I understand correctly the 160,000 for the mower or whatever it is that's so we can do the mowing ourselves yes and right now what do we
pay outside like what's the payback of that guy well this would be a presentation probably right yeah I would I would want to give you the exact numbers okay that would be one I would flank so on the you could always let on for a couple years doing what you're doing you could the capex yes so I okay
the a good question would be payback on um the mowers the mower and I I guess I'd like to know about payback on Windows on the town hall yeah I'd like that too I agree and the roadside tractor and mower is replacing something that we already have no it's an
addition okay and that's for the same reason because then we could do it ourselves instead of Contracting it out yeah that is the thing it's a generational request from the DPW this has always been something they they wanted they wanted a bucket truck too
and then oh and then what's the what's the timeline to determine whether we can decom the um waste water a couple it would take a couple years couple years so we're in on the hook for repairs like 150 of repairs anyway no
matter what we do decommissioning is a it's a political it's a public and political discussion as well so sorry what did we do Waste Water Treatment Plant oh the Wastewater recruitment another great investment by the town okay thank you Ryan really more
work are we out of time hey are we going to try to settle the town meeting for fall we going to look at those dates we're going to do that we can move to that now if you want but we do have more time right okay so I just have a a few
more big items that I want I want to put on your radar okay because it gets lost in the in the in the big picture stuff so the the fire Tru is an additional borrow of 325,000 yeah that that fits into the current operating budget model
that you that you saw it would not change costs it just would be but it's borrow it's debt it's debt yeah it's going to be squeezed into the de picture yeah yeah okay what's new from the MFC is the library coils oh they had 200,000
for it last year the um did the engineering study and it's it's a little under 700,000 Library coils wow yeah I think that's high but somewhere between 600 and 700,000 yeah so that's a borrow they're going to bring this to you as a borrow
okay um the timing of it is so to time up with the library renovation so could it go next spring maybe but in order to so you could authorize it but not borrow it for X years but you know it's 75% of the elevator borrow so this would impact
the operating budget quite a bit once it get borrowed yeah so the amenities building this is my editorial please note um if the CP if the CPC does not recommend using CPC funds then I do believe in Brian's on so
he can tell you that the school's going to bring this as a not CPC article so you should just have that in the back of your mind so is it been passed by conquer is it for sure going to be on there they meetings after ours okay so we don't know and and Conquer did not to
use their CPC voted not to not to provide any c is it because it is illegal use of or just they don't think it's a priority no it's permissible okay so you you've determined it would be and we could do it a different way than them right we could use our absolutely okay
and how much are we talking 450,000 on the high end you got plenty of SE okay although I still feel that school should go out and look for other money as well yeah yeah this really irritates me
CPC it's it it's its own presentation and of course you're going to but there's a lot of stuff in here well well let you should unfortunately take off the cemetery the two cemeteries applications cuz we've learned that they're not eligible ah given what they
are yeah how we going to pay for those um but yeah the amenities building is on there and then uh and did we get the presentation from Julie or was that was that a different meeting Bo the chair of the um school board for the amenities building we have
not we haven't had Inc has yeah so that's probably something that we want as a select board don't we yes y I said I would yeah uh and then what's below that uh Ryan uh let's see yep the
Highland building um the rental assistance you know it's the same as we've had before so I don't know and Highland did we did get a present oh that was in The Joint school committee select board meeting I don't know do you want more on the Highland building uh and by the way they've they
put in a revised request a revised application is that the new amount they're asking for no I haven't heard I was waiting for you it'll be a slightly less because they're not going to do all of the studies that they wanted to do this time out
um demon Park Diamond Park uh it's a very clear project and the and they've done a good job of getting estimates U but the I'm sure they'd be happy to come explain that further Banta Davis is the
rehab of the exist existing track uh plus some other things around accessibility uh for parking and for uh people that are um you know using a cane or a wheelchair or a walker to be able to actually get out onto the track
sidewalk part around the track and uh and the baseball field yes so this is um so the uh if you're looking at Spalding that baseball field to the
right in the corner just below Diamond Park that was the original ball field that was built when Spalding donated the land and um it's the only 90 foot ball field certainly in carile and there's only
only one other evidently in conquered and it's so it's you can't have like the high school play on them be they need a 90 foot field um for their practicing and then I guess there's some local groups that have said they'd love to do an adult league if it was a 90 foot
field and in addition to that it's got a um there's the original um what would you call it kind of the stone wall that um holds up that little Hill behold behind demon Park is a is the original
kind of historic wall that was built early on so the um that's why the Historical Society uh is interested as well as the reccom in um rehabilitating that and uh
Ballfield solicited money from those leagues that might be wanting to use it no soan but they they have said put them their money where their mouths yeah because I hate to build a baseball field that nobody comes but I would say that
you know as a baseball parent back in the day like we suck compared to conquered like all the baseball games are in conquer so if you're looking at it from the ccyb you know we got we really should be having
some ball fields that can be used by the leagues we always travel to yeah but they don't use 90 foot fields unless it's well but they can be adapted yeah they can be adapted um I don't know the ins and outs of it I'm just pointing that we haven't held up our but we could
we could also have a we could have that presented to the board if if we want to no more and then the heeled house and barn is um you know they've done a whole Capital campaign that they've quite successfully raised a significant amount
of money like over it's over I think 160,000 or something so they've done a bunch of the rehab work but they want 24 they need 24,000 to do the outside of the barn repaint it and then there's
some Clapp birs and some uh shingles that need repair um and so this is coming from the Historical Society um and it's that's for 24,000 so so these have all been vetted
by your committee and recommended yeah I mean there's some things where there's some followup we're doing with heed house because inside stuff they want to do isn't actually eligible but again not not doing opting not to do any of these would not does
our and so unless you're not going to support the amenities building there's not really a free cash issue yeah okay and in fact our committee without we hadn't taken a vote yet but our committee felt uh we were in agreement that we should um
assuming that it it's going forward that uh we would want the um the cost of that to come out of CPA funds right good rather than adding to the tax bill good yeah so
any talking of the amenities yeah yeah so any bylaws that sneak through I'm recommending you have a presentation about each the three from the treasurer you've talked with the treasurer about y Davis land I think you're familiar with with mhm the bylaw more to come on MBT
I'm tracking that so fire station design we have what would get us to construction for design is we have an estimate of about 650,000 so the the question that you have to ask yourself for this is are
you going to Deb exclude it the whole project to include the design like you did the police station which would mean outside of your normal 3% 3 3 and half% um 3% tax increase if so then we need to do a ballot so that's why we have to
discuss that one soon police station will know that number in mid-march I thought you said we weren't going to need but on the is it now you think we will okay so we don't need any money to get to the town meeting if you want to go past town meeting that's when you're going to need
more money no I mean I thought so what did we authorize three and a half Poli we already authorized three and police Poli Poli station didn't we do that last year yeah yeah talking you saying it's going to cost more than I'm just police holder just in case well but last time you kind of said you didn't think it would cost more but now it
sounds like think it might cost more well I I always hoped that it didn't cost more I know that I ever committed to we need a placeholder no of course we do I'm just handicapping the thing yeah so I um can we go back to the fire station design though for a second
um so we should have a conversation about that of SEL board level right abely so that should be on there is one of our right so what are the choices the choices are if we don't put it in debt
exclusion where it it's a capital how is it Tre you could either use free cash or you'd have to borrow I understand but if but if it's free cash it's it's like it's on the capital side I guess right is it considered a capital expense so the risk if we're trying to and it's not
part of the 1.7 it's not it's not even on the list right it's how much money 650 really so I mean the this is the 1 million in design we talked about I know so if you if you opt
for the debt which I think is the appropriate path we do subject ourselves to basically a double vote right yes at town meeting and again at the the yep and we have in the past not always but
sometimes people raise their hand to town meeting because they like getting in the bandwagon and then they and others who didn't go to town meeting go to The Ballot Box and say well what are we doing this for again right so we do have a secret ballot now at at town
meeting so that's changed a little that's true that's true but you're talking about 5% at most of the people correct coming and turn out may not be huge but it'll be more than 5% that will vote the next year at the ballot I mean yeah but but
you know in a way it's more appropriate I mean yeah put it before everyone yeah and and generally the people at town meeting I would think of as voters so you'll get a pretty good game goodle right I agree with that so I mean that would be my bias would beat like I can't
get my head around another 600,000 fre like what are you going to do how are you going to do that so I don't think there's probably a choice out the big ass is going to be N9 plus million well right and so I mean so if you can't get support for this then
right no I think that's a fair statement and I also want to make the point that we've looked at free cash and we've looked at other sources of capital like CPC and chapter 90 but we really really have to focus on the big Deb picture we
need some presentation that says okay you got a million for elevators and 600 here and there was some other stuff up top some other excluded debt that you squeezed in there and that's the little stuff right and then the 3 million plus
on the police station and now the n and then the DPW shed and by the way you you know maybe we wouldn't layer on B house because we wouldn't sounds like we wouldn't have to use Deb for that but I mean that's the picture we's coming
what's that maybe maybe that's why I think we need that it's helpful to see that whole picture big picture because of you get to your 20 million pretty quickly pretty quickly and what's the takeown of that so yeah we did during the capital presentation which is still available on
the website we continue to tell you the finance team that you cannot fit these projects into your current operating picture without major cuts to services to include education so these votes are saying we're going above the noral increase for these
projects and if you if that's not possible then we have to have a much bigger conversation well we do have to have much bigger conversation because I mean that's sort of my visceral objection let's say to both B house and Highland I mean they're nice to have but
how do you stack that against and I realize bog house B house we're not we're not going to pay for it that way so it's not really by the way would Highland qualify for CPC oh sure oh they would okay yeah because of the historic element okay right okay so I mean that's
and possibly if there's any Recreation being done in there some a recreation to be outside remember oh does it have to be outside can't be indoor Recreation oh clean air and that you know Recreation
um so um police station so BH B mosquito monitoring program I think that's going to generate significant discussion so I I would would like to know more about that for sure um two of these are the treasurer the ones you haven't really the only one
you haven't really talked about is the hero Act tax abatement which increases the money and threshold for veterans in your community we we think that tax impact would be very low that might be by the way the celebration committee bylaw change is
that one that needs to happen at this town meeting or can we include that in the fall that can go to the fall yeah great so somebody will follow up with Scott move that it hasn't stopped Scott Evans from running Buck yeah and then um all right so just real quick because I
know time is a thing yeah so if it can't be CPC um the cemetery improvements you got a presentation about the cemetery improvements yeah then it would have to come from free cash the only other thing that I can think of David and I met with um our
investing firm was part of my working group to look at overall town finance operations we do have the cemetery Perpetual fund which could could be tapped for some of this stuff maybe I got to look into it you're looking yeah we definitely look because that would be
totally appropriate right um because what else is are those funds for if not to sit around make it possible for people to find the grave of their relatives yes yes okay yeah I think most of the project would be appropriate for that
but I I think it's going to be another discussion yeah if you're not all of these are going to be on the 11th we're going to go through all this so um in our agenda building I wanted to have this conversation so we could so we can figure out what what we will be on okay
you guys you and and for the CTF if you didn't find this out in a time for Springtown meeting could we just bring that to the fall town meeting for the cemetery funds yes I mean so I mean because it's not budget budget 10 years from now you
are going to be saying why didn't they focus on the cemetery renovation and expansion earlier so we're just trying to save Futures you eight years we're done yeah right so yes it can be fun to the fall but they're going to be matter we'll find where the bodies are
okay all right two more two more things that have to be dis don't you guys don't have to do anything but Cola continues to be the side and then kind of talked about and then the cultural Council you have not answered the question about
whether or not you support that funding well I for One support the funding well we had a uh where did this come up I can't remember but one uh and we happen to have some couple of people
from the ESC here um whether there might be a willingness on the part of the ESC to help support that Quest and have um if there were funds in the ESC budget um to maybe put something in toward the
cultural Council and the town we would put in you know half the request in our operating budget I don't know if that's your suggestion well where where was I with this I thought well I think we talked about the fact that the ESC had 30,000
in their budget 155 155 okay sorry doubled um and was sort of an artifact of the fact that we thought we were going to hire an ESC coordinator and that that was was put in their budget for that and then it wasn't used for that so then they ended up with that
left in their budget because yeah we had funded the uh route to sustainability I think that might be last year I don't think you don't have that kind of money now they do they do it was never taken out of the budget
so as a result a different way to do that would be to to not give them they already have the money from last year can they spend it for next year I'm going to show it to you well still there not the 30,000 not the 30 okay how
much is cultural one 5,000 5700 you went 8,500 yeah 80 the request 8700 something like that I thought it we split it then so right now in the draft budget the cultural Council has their request oh I
just zeroed out the whole budget that's not good I'm kidding SC oh you're right it is 5700 57 for the cultural Council and the ESC has
15,000 in the budget so for you all what what did you think your budgeted amount was in the town 15,000 oh you did okay so and what is your what are you what do you other than the not that other than but the rout to
sustainability are you are you um we've already kept in um we what but I mean what's your estimate for the cost of that this time around it's going to be close to 8,000 this time around because we're actually have one which is what would been in the
past or at least what we what we had um approved and so what's your budget what what use are you planning for the other 7,000 we've already tapped into the other 7,000 for um events that we've sponsored and have are planning to
sponsor um that's for this fiscal year though year yeah I think we we you know we certainly don't have like 4,000 to I'm not suggest if you think I was thinking about the FY 26 budget not the
current one so you would still be getting the 8,000 for the route to sustainability and if we um you know I I I again this is I thought we had some discussion about this I was thinking well maybe we put
you know 2500 in the operating budget for the cultural Council because it's true we put money in for other committees right but then reduce the sustain the U ESC budget um by the amount we need to to make it gave the
ESC money for for some stuff did you get a grant from counc counselor we've applied okay but they that's sort of a slightly they sort of requested for us to apply and so we don't we're not
relying on that money um I think it helps with their oh my goodness um but I um so it's that's a little in your pocket but didn't come prepared to discuss our
budget no no I know I know it's and I'm not I'm not taking this is but I'll also say that it's not a big budget it's like if out of well no it's more cultural we're trying to um respond to the cultural council's request they've never
had any money in our operating budget and they've been doing a a lot more in the last three or four years than the than the original Council was doing so we you know we want to try to show some
support for them but on the other hand we're try as you can hear from the conversation we're trying to uh keep the budget as tight as we can and and they've been doing fundraising as well so be nice to that's true to
show some support of some right the C Council yeah if I may say I getting into numbers because as glad said we we're not prepared for that but a huge portion of our commission is
Outreach and so we have budgeted um outside of the 8,000 for root sustainability day the majority of that has already is being used and has been budgeted for outreach for a wide array
array of information we have in the past used some to support other Environmental Endeavors that wouldn't happen if they didn't have a little bit um and we've also set aside a little bit for opportunistic if you will um things that
might come up that again wouldn't happen if they didn't have the funding so I think that it's you know no I understand and you know you don't want to see your budget cut any more than anybody else does um you know we're but as I said we're
trying to address um and be fair to other committees that have not received any support I can't think of any other committee that has much money if at all other than this and whatever we would think about giving
to the cultural coun yeah so the finance committee the current draft still be discussed on Thursday does not include or does include the 5700 request from the culture Castle cuz you haven't acted on it yet and it includes a 2% Cola so
the reason for bringing those two questions up are any recommendation that the fincon makes to you will include those unless you tell them not to yeah which so it's the low end of the band
Yes yeah not good and you think the extra half% would be sounds like you kind of look at that well did you get us the um you on the on the cola increase you had were saying earlier that you thought it was about
this much but you want to double check yeah I do want to look at it okay if you want me to get calculate I'll get it to you yeah if you want to shoot us a note yeah I have it for Thursday for I think for f time it's more important because I feel strongly that
um you know if other uh entities in town are going to get a two and a half% Col but let's I mean yeah but I think let's take it up a level uh Barney and think about not now I think we're
done with it tonight but for the March 11 again I try to think in terms of broad outlines so we already talked about cutting 200,000 somehow but that still leaves us and maybe more now if
you add these things like extra Cola with a 3 and 1 half% increase so we also have to think about that's what we're recommending right and are we going to be tougher or are we going to just do it and I you
know honestly I don't know I mean that's the that's the philosophical thing when I you know and I'm probably bringing up slightly slightly he's on the finance committee yeah exactly well the other question is the
school budget I know what you wrote To Us was in this in that yeah list of reductions yeah they were reducing by how much the fincom said that the school budget should be reduced by
35,000 which was which was a commentary on their contingency line so they increased their special education contingency line by around that so incom is telling them what to cut but that's why they chose that number School committe cut so the school committee didn't come back and make any didn't
offer any information of what they would cut okay whereas the town or the town dep went through Department by department and and we had asked for 2% reduction and you found that within all
most departments but not from schools either of them so they asked to cut 2% from town hall budget so recommended a 2% cut and I did the exercise then no one else did what about so they cut the town stuff what about
the police fire the not the library I mean only the town hall is got cut police and fire recommended Cuts but they were they were too much for the fincom to consider okay so they really too much to the impact on Services was
too too high okay but but schools wasn't really challenged that way right challeng more they didn't even get any information well I mean you asked the question of the new candidate and you got like nothing and I mean generally I don't know that they're
focused on this at all they're used to asking and getting so find and what is 35,000 of their B what percent is that of their budget 13 million yeah tiny right .1% right yeah well you cut half a
percent 200 my you collectively $200,000 A36 million budget it's like a half a percent and their budget is how much yeah so you're you're going to get a full recommendation from so I'll tell you the health insurance and retirement
is 700,000 in new new spend yeah the schools both came in at over 4% which is 65% of the budget the rest of it is like right out DAV and I are trying to do the
math the school budget is how much how much for CPS uh almost 14 million 14 million approximately okay right and you've got and and you so they would have to cut 78,000 and not 35,000 so to make a 2%
cut no to make a half a percent C that 200,000 that we cut is half a% of our total budget I got you but the schools didn't play right right right like in a meaningful way in fact fact they went the other way now we can't again these are philosophical arguments that I feel
like we never really like and the other thing that I'd like to point out is that a great deal of that 75,000 of the extra money that we're paying for insurance is being generated by School Employees right as well right
but I mean you have to I mean that's like saying the the heat bill is mostly the schools those the biggest building I mean okay but no no I'm what I'm saying is is that not only are they not playing
but then we we are weing covering a lot of their expenses and then employ us damn well it is it is an us damn thing because they make it so I'm sorry okay um our employees are
paying and our residents in certain respects and in the loss of services but our employees are paying for that because of our then our unwillingness to give them the reasonable Cola when they're when the teachers are going to be I don't know they're in the middle of uh negotiations I don't know what
they're going to end up negotiating but I bet your dollars to Donuts is going to be more than the cola we're going to be able to afford to give our employees and I just feel that's just patently unfair and I don't it's a disservice to the entire town right so what's the remedy
get it I get the remedy is we tell the school committee they may have this amount and no more we we make the cut and I agree we have to make the the cut but my point so my point is and you know we're doing the math is we should give them at least the haircut that we're
taking absolutely so 78k not 35k whatever so I guess we just have to push that I mean it's too late to have a I don't want to have a that one I think we we need to figure out how we're going to
message I guess well it's too bad Brian was on earlier and he dropped off it would helpful yes right but really it's got to be the I mean I found it very de in our joint meeting and I realized we had some other things but the the modest
attempts by Barney to initiate a budget discussion was like fell completely flat they don't I don't think they get it they do not get it so we have to figure out Mr chair another Avenue to have that ADV that discussion this seems like an
ongoing thing this is yes this is not new so but I think for this year we cannot tell them what to cut we cannot tell them how to cut I should say but we can tell them limit their budget we can limit their budget and we have got to do it so we're coming
out of right so but you know again you get in a problem of time because I mean we don't have a choice but I would say on March 11th however it long it takes guess we need to do that job to
say these are like the final guidance numbers and we've got to push those back because those departments have to have time to react to that message and and we also have to be prepared by the way that for the school to come to the floor of town meeting and um offer an an
amendment but uh you know they they can't just sit there with their arms crossed and say oh no we can't do cut anything you know that's just not that's not acceptable okay well we've had a long discussion on this I think that the only you Ryan had
proposed the two items though and and I don't think we've resolve the well the cola and the cultural Council and whether what how we want to approach that and I think it's important that we think about it and and move well maybe
the what on the cola here's one thought is that we have a budget with a 2% they present us with a budget that's a 2% Cola and then we see what a 2 and half% cola looks like what do you think of that David yeah I mean we already know
the answer we already know the answer well we don't know the dollar amount we don't know it's 50 or 60 but we basically know the answer yeah I'm more on like because I my point being I would like us to try for a two and half% Cola it's
fine for the that's what I think you tell the school cut 50 more you got it so just do it I mean we don't need the exact number we already know the answer the answer is school has to find 50 fcom has to come back with recommendations to carve
200 in some combination and fine you got your Cola I mean we don't need to know every on top of the 35,000 that has already asked them okay um what do you think of that I think they're going to give you their recommendation based on
the work they have no but you tell them what this is the way you do it this is you say what would you give up if you have to cut 50 oh the CH you know the language teacher the the extra fine but put on a list listen I mean I sound like a hard
ass but the fact is you know and I lived this in the 08 910 and again we did we all lived it in the pandemic and we had that conversation and you just say give us your racken stack and we'll figure
out where the cut line is but you got to cut you just got to cut and if it means some sections are bigger to your point again I don't want to sounding really like a bad guy but when the unions say I
need this and the commit to the negotiating bodies that negotiated give them that yeah they are effectively saying you going to have fewer teachers that's exactly right is exactly what they're saying they or they should understand that that's what they're
saying and if they don't they do understand it and that's okay with them and I think okay then that's what it if that's okay that's okay then right because they would rather do that this is not a new discussion they'd rather do that than not have the the compensation
package and I'm okay with that too but we have to eventually those two things have to be realigned and so if you say like 50,000 that's like a half a FTE or maybe it's some programs but let them come back with that answer and the other one was the cultural Council what are we
doing right well I would like to put I think we should put a modest amount in there uh in the operating budget not the full request and I think as uh if it's not the ESC budget we should look for some other place or I don't know there if there is another alternative
sorry you guys but where we would um you know reduce that budget by whatever the difference between what they ask for 5700 yeah yeah you think three or two yeah
three this you know this is off the top of my head but I think that's not unreasonable um and I you know totally understand about wanting to be able to support discretionary programs and also the Outreach but I think we got to balance the
support for the cultural Council in some way yeah sorry sir you're saying we're we're being doed 3000 no okay well no that is what I'm saying oh it is what you're saying or something in or you know if we're doing
2500 whatever the difference between or maybe it's 2500 out of the ESC budget and we give the cultural Council 5,000 they ask are 5700 we give them 5,000 so I'm sorry for for that little amount of
money in the big scheme of the budget it doesn't seem like an extra $2,000 is going to significantly skew the 3.5% that you're aiming for that little bit amount that little bit of money can
actually have a huge impact we have it or a huge negative impact if we don't have it on what we're doing and so I would ask you to consider that you know if we're talking about $3,000 is it really
worth hampering our efforts which it would hamper quite a bit is it worth doing that as opposed to just adding that extra $3,000 to to the
budget I we we understand that but you know I'm just thinking ese also has a lot of Staff time that don't show up in their budget and this is another right uh part of our our yeah town which is that is getting zero in resources of any
kind and I really would like to see us the cultural Council the cultural Council yeah yeah and and it's again it's a matter of you know we're a family and we're trying to not you know totally choke any anybody off but on the other hand we see
that there's another you know member there that needs to have some more support y okay may I say something else then if that's the case can you make it allowable for us to raise money and to
accept donations because right now we're not allowed to do that and we've actually had people whove been willing to donate to us and we have not been allow to accept donations and that is something that's been like no because you know we'll open a can of worms and
stuff and so yeah so the cultural Council can accept donations they're U right they do fund they want to do it online and remember we were going to have to and they found a way of doing it yeah so I think you should talk with the I mean is there
would there be something illegal about using uh the cultural council's mechanism for they could accept donations on on you know how sometimes you have a uh what do they call it a sponsor charity yeah do this in Chari but I don't but this isn't a
charity but um I mean I think that's a really good point Christina that you should be able to accept donations what um I guess I guess we need to we shouldn't get into that conversation right now but that's a really good point and a very reasonable one I I know we're
getting late but these are coming real time give us your thoughts on like on the mechanism of that is that possible in terms of accepting Town gifts so each gift has to come before the board so each not each committee but many of your committees want to accept donations for
this exact reason they they don't want to fight for resources in the in the constrainted budget so um we as a finance team believe that that it would be extremely cumbersome to continue to accept gifts using the town's bank
accounts and that it should be it should go to alternate funds like the the cultural Council came before you several times asking for for this and you made I think a compelling argument to to not flood the town's coffers with this the Flop
side is they are finding funding for sources that don't come from taxes so that's a good thing but they do that independently or how they I forget what it's called it's a it's a advised fund or donor
aded a Donor advised fund there you go that's a option is there is there any reason why the select board would not want any board or committee to to use that a similar mechanism for raising funds for whatever work they they want
is there a downside to that no as long as it's legal I think it is C Council found that it is yeah well I know the C great so is there any restriction as to who can provide
funding I don't think so maybe you should just check in with Mark um Levan yeah about how they did it who they did it and so would there be an objection from the select board for us to proceed with that um there was
sort of um a Maybe not maybe the root is for you to or not you for us to establish a charitable charitable organization and that was just like a whole can of that we don't have the bandwidth to deal with so for the record is there any objection from the select
board for us to pursue this see no I don't have no no objection for I think the that the the objection was the additional staff time that would have been necessary if it had to go through town hall it's also using the town's bank accounts for nonprofit
purpose is not what they're designed to do right unfortunately right so can we move on yes we can move on I'm sorry and I'm so sorry that we've kept you guys who have waited this whole meeting um but we do want to hear your presentation on the municiple Landscaping policy so
if you want to come forward um keep it quick hope the previous conversation doesn't impact this one you hope what oh no no I'm joking okay we won't hold it against you no you won't hold it against us maybe yeah so thank you so um I'll do a
very very quick recap of the policy uh which is basically um for all non-conservation Municipal land um for um any uh new landscaping or alterations of existing Landscaping to contain a
minimum of um 70% native non- cultivar species um a maximum of 20% um cultivar um species and uh a maximum of 10% uh non-invasive
ornamental species um and um there were some questions uh at the last time presented and so some changes to the original um proposed policy uh is originally we had um a higher percentage
of native non- cultivars for alterations um and we've removed that so it's just a consistent uh percentage whether it's um alterations to existing or um new Landscaping so that's cleaner
um um just have that consistency across the board um we addressed the question regarding uh recreational um surfaces uh playing fields and such and so um we've
um added a SE um sentence that excludes recreational um surfaces um we've also added clarifying language um based B on a consultation that I had with the people from Somerville who have a native plant
ordinance uh that was um um initiated or um actually took place in 2021 um and that is to clarify that it's 70% biomass or um area coverage um and
um we also added some additional resource information so those are the changes um to the policy um and again this is not retroactive this is moving forward um so the policy again just as a
reminder Lin with master plan uh recommendations and stated select board recommendations to embed environmental sustainability in Municipal decision-making it also aligns with uh the state's uh DCR growing wild initiative which was uh implemented four
years ago to um in increase it's an effort to increase uh uh Native um habitat uh native plants uh to support uh um pollinators and and Wildlife um it also
aligns with other Regional efforts and it's based on current scientific uh information best practices and uh I as I mentioned I consulted with uh the lead uh from the Somerville uh Native Plant ordinance um so um she actually helped me with um
clarifying some some things um and also uh consulted with um Heidi Dollard who's a Master Gardener and she's also a um co-chair of of the steering committee of the mass pollinator network uh she has a
an MS in biology um and she thinks that the uh policy is very doable and by the way she is presenting she'll be doing a presentation on March 8th in this room with a lot of information um about uh gardening with Native uh non- cultivar
plants um so just a little plug for that um I reached out and obtained support excuse me from uh the school superintendent and this uh facility manager um spoke DPW Fire Department
police department the library um they all supported it um kcom um supported it and I should uh also point out that kcom in um their information really advocate for the use of uh Native non- cultivar
um and also LSC fully supports it as well with an unanimous vote and they also um advocate for the use of uh non- cultivar natives I did reach out and present it to the reccom I have not uh had an official response from them but
um they seem to ask really thoughtful questions um I did not and Barney correct me if I'm wrong I know you were there um they didn't seem to be any like negative um comments in relation to it um so um
and the only two um the only resistance to this were from two members of The Garden Club um who were invited um to participate in one of the ESC meetings um I included the portion of the minutes from their participation in the packet
um and um I alerted them about the fact that uh this was on the agenda for tonight as well and um yeah and then uh for the uh question of cost that also came up um I it's it's a little hard to
make uh exact comparisons um but um I did submit just like a little table of of of sort of comps if you will um for uh upfront costs um and overall it with
the if it was for an individual resident um it probably would end up being a little more expensive expensive um because native um plants tend to be a little more expensive than you know the run-of- a-mill um um varieties that you find at Like Home Depot and stuff
however um a lot of the nurseries that I spoke to have Municipal discounts um or wholesale prices which actually ends up bringing the price to um the same amount and in some cases even less uh and of
course with the caveat that I'm sure you'll always be able to find individual cases of specific plants that might end up being more expensive but overall it really does not add any cost to uh to projects for on the municipal level um
and of course um for maintenance costs uh they tend to be less because they require um less watering less fertilizer uh once established um they're sort of good to go on their own um and of course uh as far as costs or benefits there's a
huge benefit to the environment um and again just a reminder that the policy is not R retroactive and it does allow for inclusion of cultivars and ornamentals as well speaking fast sorry trying to keep
it down I thought it was very thorough thank you we had heard it you know before so yeah that was great there any questions not from me all right well I I don't know if it's a
question or a more of a comment I um I guess I was disappointed you know with the reading through the discussion uh with the the two volunteers from the Garden Club that um
yeah they're uh nons support I guess generally right for the for the uh policy um but I'm glad that you invited them and I'm glad you had the discussion um
so I think my perception of it and I'm speaking for myself not speaking for the entire committee my perception is is that um it this will
restrict what can be planted um and I think there is this really strong tradition um coming from the Horticultural Garden Club perspective of um placing incredible value or
incredible priority on the Aesthetics and uniqueness of different unique um exotic um species um and uh one of the comments that was made uh at our meeting
was you know oh yeah I want to plant um these species from Asia and and and Europe and they in order to make a difference environmentally I think they're really needs
to have a change begin to change the the whole approach of how we think about what what is a priority and is it strictly Aesthetics or is substance also really important and you
know it's difficult people come from these established long established beliefs and it's hard to change that perception and so I understand that yeah you know I this would limit the number of these exotic
species that could be planted but if we're trying to make a positive difference to support really vital um ecosystems that support us ultimately yeah we kind of have to make that that slightly
difficult push yeah so I have one quick question and that's about our public garden because that's one of the is it Garden you knower Center Park yes um this policy is not requiring that they all be ripped out and planted it's
just requiring that if a plant were to die should be replaced with something that would be native and any new plantings so I think that that that I'm just wanting to point that out and to say that
um I personally would like to adopt this policy and I would like us to then also ensure that whoever is you know we have a sort of a separate entity um maintaining that Park that they are made aware that this is our policy and that
we will expect them to adhere to it yeah that's right I agree I agree and I also support it I I I think you're right Christina we need to we need to um show leadership in our and these are towns if
you want to plant what you want to plant in your garden change exactly so do I have a motion I'm uh hang on I had it up here in a seconding away yeah yeah yeah uh move to accept the municipal Landscaping policy
is it appears in the packet second okay any further discussion seeing none I'll take a Voice vote all in favor I I None opposed thank you guys you and thank you for squeezing it in the timing is good it's good to I know this we're
getting toward the spring y all right thank you so much you're welcome now we're going to move on to our last item or one of our last items Town administ report excellent before we do that sorry were we supposed to set a fall town meeting date tonight probably come up in
this no but we do need to okay let's let's all right so let's definitely we just do that can we can we do that in March 11th we have to do that tonight we do I mean and they were recommending a Sunday this is the planning board right proposed these dates I had written to
Ryan just with a couple of questions about them relative to I haven't heard back from the school yet on I mean why do we need to decide today I'm not understanding that well the earlier we decide that uh no but it's going to be like November right so I mean how much Fidelity do they need
honestly it's you know can it wait till March 11th is the question but I I just had asked about the schools also if there's any um with what is it veterans um yeah you need to know that stuff before you yeah we need our opinion it's not it wouldn't interfere with Veterans
Day but I didn't know if there was any kind of use of the right I don't know like whatever it or performances or we had an issue with flags interfering with a thing want to make sure there's I think that's exactly right right okay
all right so let's make sure we do do this on the 11th then y that'll be the agenda item yeah don't put it at 10:30 no we'll put it right up front yeah right okay go I'm going to get going with my town administrative report so under town events and Town Hall news the
first floor Furniture install will be on March 12th our contractors are coming in to renovate the CHS and town clerk space this is arpa funded you'll remember yep residents should anticipate varying service levels at Town Hall that week it will take about 3 days for this to to
complete we're going to try to keep as much as Town Hall open as possible while remaining safe and it is on the first floor so there will be some disruptions we're hosting an all chairs meeting on March 7th the agenda includes uh information about employee reviews the the town meeting warrant budgets and of
course reports from the committee I'll be holding a coffee hour on March 11 at 10 a.m. and I expect town meeting in various budget articles to be something that is discussed there I had the honor with many of you of attending the town replica Flag Ceremony on February 15th
it was very interesting my daughter my 11-year-old daughter even thought so some of the highlights included the unveiling of the handsone replica flag the original flag was created by Beverly Heath who was in attendance 50 years ago and so was the original flag it's been
held by the Minutemen since that time uh late Barbara Lewis began the effort to replicate the flag after a resident saw that the state house did not have carlile's flag flying uh she passed away during the creation of it unfortunately it was taken up by a couple people and
then Mary Beth Stevenson finished it and we got to see the two flags side by side at that ceremony and I thought that was great the national brain tumor Society has requested permission to conduct their annual ride through Carlile on Sunday May 18th there's a lots of
information in your packet about this and I am looking for a motion for you to support the town use both Chiefs are recommending this event that's not our town meeting is it that Sunday um May 18th oh it is it is
yes it is does that um good ey wow it would be in the morning so it wouldn't interfere okay okay move maybe they'll use the food truck I moved to approve the request of the national br tumor Society ride for the use of town roadways as described in
the packet for their charity bike ride on Sunday May 18th 2025 second okay all any all in favor I okay under our human resources update Arbor is reporting as you heard tonight two
new town hall staff members Carter Tilman will serve as a DPW driver laborer and Emma Casey will serve as our new Public Safety Administrative Assistant we're also working with the CHS board I met them today to further Define the
Coos director role and come up with a process for replacing um or for installing a new a new director and Aubrey serving as the interim director as you know during this time and doing a great job analyzing and working with our talented team so Services continue with almost no
interruption you heard a lot tonight about the FY 26 budget and here's an update on that the finance committee is nearing the completion of of draft two with results being an average tax bill increase of less than 3.5% addressing a so-called deficit of 700,000 using a
combination of $250,000 in cuts to Department budgets while using free free cash and other onetime revenues to offset taxes some other budget news this week we received an update from Maya that our health insurance will increase by 15.54%
this is the employee side and the employer side if you include the 1% increase and increased Town health insurance use that budget is projected to grow by 20% exceeding 300,000 in new spending so health insurance is a problem here and everywhere the average
increase for Town health insurance in Massachusetts is 14% so we are we are on the bad side of 14 but nowhere near the 19 that some people are seeing we discussed at length today capital and it's a major Focus for FY 26
as we cannot fund all the department requests and maintain a 12% Reserve per your policy so that will be a significant focus in the next month the municipal facilities committee is also proposing three substantial warrant articles one for their deferred maintenance the way they attack deferred
maintenance in town the other for a town elevator modernization project and then the replacement of the libraryies HVAC coils it'll be three separate articles and lastly the the tsac plans to recommend increasing the transfer station sticker fee to $50 in 2026 they
will present their rationale and project in the projected impact of this increase at your March 25th meeting just want to give you a heads up on that and is there anything included in the operating budget in terms of additional Revenue so that will offset the finance committee
is going to recommend $100,000 in local receipt projections that would offset that $100,000 not fully but about half we just had a little discussion about fall town meeting date the planning board is proposing the following dates Sunday November 9th
Monday November 10th Sunday November 16th or Monday November 17th we're checking with the schools right now to see what's available and you all just agreed to set that date on March 11th we did we did we will volunteer appointment process attached to this report is a tenative
timeline for the board's annual appointment process this was requested by many boards including your CS cohs which is the most interested party this will make sure that all appointments are open for for a competitive process and we'll complete timely in June to make
sure we have full boards and committees for Capital project updates tomorrow I'm meeting with Niche to go over our comprehensive covert analysis and this will influence our FY 27 and Beyond Capital plan the elevator project is just about ready for bid it should go out to bid
next week this means the number the number for the elevator borrow will be a known number as of next month or the month after after in they hold that price though through the they they will be required to hold that bid for town meeting so
that borrow number will be exact unlike what happened with the fire truck so we're trying to learn these lessons the brick building HVAC continues to be a discussion Point weighing sustainable options versus cost versus our ability to uh obtain grants
versus the use of the building so the MFC is discussing this heavily if you see that in the mosquito there should be a final decision coming in the next month and then the first good news I think I've received on on Capital Our Town Hall bathroom renovation came in slightly under what we were expecting so we will be able to renovate all four
bathrooms for for less than we thought over a 2-year period we're going to be able to do it all at once by July 1st for building construction projects I completed the uh for Library renovation I completed the Contracting process with Schwarz silver and now the library
building committee is taking over this taking over this project now that it's done Contracting to talk design with the designers in the OPM and begin this renovation project so that's good news still awaiting the bids for the police station renovation they are expected in mid-march this timeline will
allow you to see bid proposals at your March 25th meeting and understand the cost and the timeline for the construction in terms of your fire station renovation project the OPM and design contracts are now final tekon held an initial meeting with the fire
department and had a programming meeting with the fire department Department today and they will be bringing findings about programming to hopefully one of your meetings in March so you can continue to discuss this including the costs of the design which we discussed tonight during the during the budget
part of this meeting in the DPW building the MFC received the final report on the DPW feasibility study and they will be discussing it at their next meeting which is next week they are trying to hold a joint meeting with you in April this has been pushed off so that they
could have this discussion about the building with you some upcoming discussion topics as you like to know still looking to have a discussion about the community garden manager and appointing a permanent one the tsac as I mentioned will be coming to discuss not only operations and
capital needs but that proposed sticker fee the town's Auditors will be at your meeting on March 11th to describe our financial condition and the results of the fy2 24 audit and Aubrey has been Gathering requested ch changes and necessary changes to your personnel
policies she'll be vetting this with a small group and then bringing it to the board for an initial discussion about updates to the Personnel policies that we would like to get in place by July 1 I have one approval notification for you we approve the use of the Town common as it met with your policies for
the annual Memorial Day poppy display this is one of my favorite things that Carlile does the display will appear from May 17th to June 1st then for staff recognition although it's been nice this week the last couple weeks have been pretty terrible in terms of snow oh yeah I want to express my
gratitude to our Public Safety teams for their exceptional work during the recent storms I'd like to recognize the DPW for their dedication during these prolonged and challenging storms three of which exceeded 12 hours of operational time for our DPW this largely occurred during the nighttime and weekend hours removing
these important employees from their families these extended storms are demanding they require multiple sweeps and treatments and they lead to again extended overtime shifts but our teams never complain they always respond promptly they do a great job I always know when I hit another town I won't
Point them out to embarrass them but when I come to car it's pretty good and when I go to other the towns it's trash so we're doing a great job um they also work to plow and clear Municipal parking lots uh our facilities team does so this helps offset the impact on our DPW so I
want to recognize Steve and Steven for coming in and and conducting this overtime work to make sure our schools are open and our municipal building are open so um just want to recognize this extraordinary work and make make sure the town understands all that goes into it my report also includes some updating
upcoming select board dates of interest and a draft agenda for your consideration and review unless there's any questions Mr chair that's my report great thank you um when the motion for the one day
liquor license a motion to what for the one day liquor license yes please I move to approve the application submitted by Phil Drew of the Carlile Historical Society for the issuance of a one-day special license to sell Cider at an event to be held on March 15th 2025
during the hours of 10: a.m. through 3 p.m. at the first religious Society 27 School Street Carl mass and I assume that's hard cider second all right all in favor I okay
that passes warrant minutes um we had some minutes I reviewed them and had some comments and gave them to Gretchen I don't know if anyone else did just um two nits I should have written her but
Sarah Wilson is without an H without an H Deborah Bentley is with a second e so we trade the H for an e great we can fix that we we'll fix that do I have a motion on the
minutes minutes I move to accept the minutes as modified for February 11th for February 11th second all right all in favor I okay so they're now accepted um the last thing we'll do is public
input uh is there anyone in the room who would like to make a comment I seeing none uh is there anyone online who would like to speak nope I'm good I don't know that anyone else is here Alan's here's here maybe
but thank you for hanging on so long appreciate your involvement I took a break to make cookies and then I came back you got share yeah you should bring him next bring down John all right is Kate really moving to France Kate's
moving to France I thought she was joking no sorry I'm done okay it's all right all right I have a motion to adjourn so moved soov all right all in favor all right by okay we're
done oh my gosh