Good evening. Welcome to the select board meeting of Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025. We have three select board members in person, two attending remotely. So, if we could do a roll call vote to uh kick things off.
Arnold present. Modell present. Am I the next? Christine Stevens present. Triola present. I am still here. There we are. Uh Travis, I just texted you. Your connectivity is a little shaky. So, um
if you you might need to mute your video at some point. Is it still that way? Uh you sound okay. Your your video is a little choppy, a little laggy. Okay. Thanks. Y So, let me just run down the agenda for this evening. At 7 o'clock, we'll open
as always with community input followed by appointments and resignations. The fire apparatus assessment committee report will be presented tonight followed by personnel policies re recommended by council and HR for immediate consideration. We'll have a deliberation about um dog
hearing requests. Discuss the select board goals. Uh discuss appointed public bodies residency requirements. uh review and approve the collective bargaining agreement with the Carile Police Unit Local 2011 a dispatch. Then
we'll have the town administrator report, review of warrants and minutes and liaison reports and we can end with community inputs if time allows. Um so I'm going to open community input and I'm going to actually begin with a statement of my own um regarding some
discussions going on in conquered tonight about anti-semitism. So prior to tonight's select board meeting, I attended the joint meeting between the conquered school committee, regional school committee, and conquered select board. This meeting included statements, discussion, and dialogue focused on anti-semitism at the conquered Carlile
High School, in the conquered community, and across the state. I'll provide a debrief of the meeting during liaison reports, but I'd like to take this opportunity at the outset of our meeting to underscore that Carlile is an inclusive community that respects the freedoms, the cultures, the religions,
and the rights of individuals. Anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, and hate have no place in the Carlile community or in our society. The discussions, dialogue, and action focused on combating anti-semitism and conquered is a reminder that no
community is immune to discrimination, intolerance, or acts of hate. Carile must remain vigilant and continue to stand united against anti-semitism and hate in all its forms. I'm in communication with both the Carile School Committee and regional school committee to both monitor this
issue and offer support as needed in taking tangible action against anti-semitism and other forms of intolerance in our schools. As repeatedly mentioned in the conquered statements tonight, awareness and transparency are two very important tools that we must collectively use to
combat combat anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination. To that end, and I know this can be difficult, but it's important. I would ask that any Carile resident or staff member that experiences or witnesses any form of hate or discrimination to please make themselves heard and report it. In
Carile, anyone can directly contact the Carile Police, town administrator, HR director, and select board. If you're not sure how to do that, just go to the town website, carilemma.gov, and search for the term complaint form, and it will be the first link shown. You can also find our direct emails on the
town website. If you're not comfortable reporting incidents in Carlile, the Middle Sex DA also allows individuals to report incidents of hate and bias on their website, middle sex da.com, under the tab victim services. And of course, local faith leaders and community
leaders are also an excellent resource to make your voices heard. Thank you. I'll now open it up to the room if anyone has any community comments. Seeing none, uh, look online. Does anyone online have any community
comments? Yeah, you've got one from Verinda. Um, yes, this is uh Ravi. I am from the mosquito. Just wanted to introduce myself. Uh, I'll be covering the meeting today and uh at some point maybe I'll
contact u Ryan or whoever is in charge to request a transcript of today's meeting for the report writing if that's all right. Uh but thank you so much for your for your time and the work that you do for the community. Okay, you as well. Thank you.
Okay, seeing no additional community comments, I am going to move on to appointments and resignations. So, if we could pull those up one second here. So, we have
Barney, you're my usual go-to for the uh the motion. I can do it. So, we we have some notifications of uh appointments and we have a couple of resignations. So, if we can just go through the appointments first. Um, starting with Mark, would you did Were you saying you'd like
me to do that? Yeah, if you if you don't mind making a motion. Yeah. No, I just want to double check that I I heard that right. Sure. No problem. Um so um the I would move that we appoint Glenn Reed as the environmental
sustainability committee representative to the safety committee. Okay. Is there a second on that? I'd second that. Any discussion or any additional information we should be aware of? No. Okay. Seeing no additional
discussion, let's take a roll call vote, please. Arnold, I Modell I. Now I, Stevens, I. Great. If we could move on to the next one. We have
What about Triola? Oh, Triola. Thank you. Sorry, I'm I'm dealing with like multiple things right now. Um, yeah, if we can move on to the next appointment. Now, I don't see another appointment on here. Okay. Do we have the uh volunteer appointment? Is Glen Reed, are we doing
that tonight? We just did that. I'm sorry. The um So, this is confused because this is a new process. So, um the town administrator bylaw, which you implemented, allows me to appoint employees and then notify you that they've been appointed. So, we're notifying you of Mark Kandra, who
is a van driver for the COS, recommended by HR and staff. He has a variety of experience, none of it driving a van, which isn't uncommon for the COS, but teaching experience. And um we're excited to add him and some others. So, we're getting an influx of van drivers,
which will be good. And then, this isn't my this is my appointment, but it was done by the cons because we're the interim period right now for the town administrator bylaw, but Megan Sullivan is our new conservation administrator. She started a week ago and she comes
from conservation work in Waltham and Canton. So she comes with prior experience including code inspection which makes her an expert in wetland protection act reviews. She was already cited by the consom for an excellent report she
wrote. She's fitting in. um she's been bombarded with resident concerns and things about conservation and and all the things that have been in the news recently and uh she's still coming to work every day. So, we're very excited. She seems very dedicated to um conservation work and and I think we got
pretty lucky with her as a hire. So, just letting you know that happened as well. And the other two are um resignations. One Helen Young from the conservation commission and the other Sasha Miamoto from the safety committee. Great. Thank you. volunteers
and welcome to the new hires. Great. Yeah, I am signed out of Zoom all of a sudden and I'm not able to get back in and I do not and I need to share my screen for the the next agenda item. So,
are you having any technical issues with Zoom? You want to email it to me? Yeah, I'm trying to do it up right now. That's a first, of course. Was there anything else in the um appointments we need to go over?
No. Okay, just bear with me one moment. You've got time. We're not even at 710. Yeah. I just want to I don't know what's happening with my computer. I can also work off of the PDF if we
have that available. I'm going to restart. You sent this yesterday, right? Yep. Yeah. I can send it to you. Here we go. Ready? Yep.
Can I drive? You just tell me slide and I'll go. Yeah. Okay. There it is. There it is. Okay. Thank you. Sorry for the technical issues. Of course, things don't work when you need the most. Um but tonight we're going to uh the the
fire apparatus assessment committee is going to present its recommendations uh resulting from the work we've done um on the fire station project. And if we could um just advance the slide, I'm going to open with just a brief recap and then
I'm going to talk about the fire department uh operations and some of the things that make the the fire response in Carlilele unique. And then I'll move into the apparatus itself and end with both the uh takeaways that that the committee found in the work and also our
recommendations um to drive the work forward. So, okay, Scott, do we need to start our committee meeting first? Oh, thank you. Yes, this is a joint meeting. So, we do have members from the committee here. So, let's open the fire assessment fire apparatus assessment
committee meeting with a roll call. President, Katachio here, Jameson present, Snell here, Triola here, and if maybe two or three of you folks want to come up to the the front, that would be great.
So, just as a recap, um this goes back to in the spring, uh late winter, spring, uh the select board allocated some ARPA funds to begin work on the fire station project and and one of the things we did was bring on CMS as our OPM and also uh
did an RFP process and brought on Tecton architects and they very quickly um did some work for us to um articulate some concepts for what the fire station project could be with with the goal of of attempting to present something at
town meeting. That timeline was was too brief, but it it did yield a lot of useful information. And in that process, uh they met with the fire department. They created a draft needs assessment which matched square footage to uh programmatic requirements. They they did some initial analysis on the site and
they presented three um options that we as a select board considered none of which um were sufficient for us to bring to town meeting at that point. And in that discussion uh if you could next slide please. Um these were the three options. Uh the the first one was really
not not an option. It was really just a high level aggregation of all the requirements. Then there was a second option which was in the $10 to12 million range which was identified as um only a short-term insufficient option. And then there was a a middle ground 14 to$16
million option. So they all satisfied some requirements none satisfied all requirements. So in in discussing as a select board, we reaffirmed some high level goals of the project specifically needing to support on call force uh improve firefighter safety, improve the
work life space. Um and if you could advance the next slide, the one area that we felt we needed more uh investigation and feedback on was in the apparatus bay and in the apparatus answering the question of what do we need? Similar questions were raised most
recently, you know, with the DPW. How many bays do we need? What equipment do we need? So, um, at that point, we formed the um, assessment committee to look specifically at apparatus bays. And that's important because we're not tonight. We're not talking about any other space requirements, including
public training, administration, living spaces, firematic support. We focused as a committee specifically on the fire apparatus, the engines, the vehicles um that ultimately trans translate into base or as I like to call them parking lots. Um so that was the focus of the
committee. Next slide please. We had a short time frame. We met 11 times in eight weeks. Uh we're consisted of five committee members. Two from the select board. Uh one from FINCOM uh MFCESC the facilities committee and the environmental sustainability committee.
Uh, Chief Sorrowos, Deputy Chief Zachch who's with us tonight um also participated as did Matt Salad from Tecton Architects who's here tonight. And we also engaged Municipal Resources Inc. to do a um a study on uh some some
key attributes. And I'll be referencing some uh excerpts from that study as as we review our recommendations. And the study itself uh was circulated to the select board. It's available in the meeting minutes which are posted online. Um, and everything we've done um, and
collected is available on a project site. It's an awful link, but that's what it is. Um, with a QR code that that can be accessed and that'll ultimately be uploaded into the document center on the town website because there's a lot of useful information there that I think was valuable to the committee, but will
also be valuable uh, going forward. Next slide, please. So, just in terms of framing the project, key dates. Tonight is an important night. What we're asking the select board to do is um essentially endorse uh recommendations that Tecton
can use to uh refine and update the original concepts. Um and that's what we need to do to take the next step if we want to make a special town meeting. Uh the input they received tonight will be used to present a revised concept on
August 12th, which is our next select board meeting. Um there will be some opportunity after that meeting to make some final revisions, but September 9th uh we do have a meeting. That's the drop dead date in terms of having something that Tecton can send out to a cost
estimator and that we can begin community outreach on. So those are important milestones we need to meet to make a special town meeting in which we would present a warrant article to fund schematic design and full construction documents with the goal of a warrant
article to fund the fire station project at annual town meeting. And that last goal in particular is a stretch goal. Um that would include both the construction documents and having the bids in to to present project funding at annual town meeting. But the select board when we
discuss this um our intent is to do everything in our power to meet those dates. Next slide please. So I want to start out with I think something that going into it was a bit surprising to me and probably to other people when you think about what do we
need? You figured that there are probably some clear guidelines and requirements of a community of our size that can can answer that question for you. And the answer is not not that simple. In fact, there are minimal requirements for fire response. And the one most often cited is the ISO rating.
And Carlile has an ISO rating of 8B, which is a good rating for a town that does not have a municipal water supply. If you have a higher rating or a lower rating, I should say, um, that infects your home insurance rates. Um, a higher rating meaning like nine or above, you'd
you'd have higher insurance rates and or not be able to get insured. We're in AAB, which basically all it says is you need to have one suitably equipped engine that responds to all first alarm structural fires. And you need to have a capacity of 750 gallons at 150 PSI and
200 gallons for 20 minutes. That's essentially a truck, a couple of firefighters, and about 4,000 gallons of water. So, can I interrupt? Yep. In my experience, because I asked my insurance company, Yep. that you get that rating if you're within a some range of a sistern,
but if you're outside the range of the sistern, which is a lot of houses, you don't get that rating. You get a nine. Yeah. Okay. So, it's not quite just that. Yeah. Okay. And I think the insurance companies always like to find ways to give you a nine versus an 8B. Yeah.
But even even with the 8B, the nine has even less requirements. This is this is kind of the for Carlile and to go to an eight or higher requires a whole different basically it's a water supply requirement that we're not going to
reach in Carlile. So this does not provide and I will say Carlile provides well north of what this requirement is and I think the community demands more than what this requirement is. Next slide please. The other often cited um
requirement, but it's not a requirement, is the NFPA guidelines. And again, these are guidelines only. These aren't requirements. These aren't laws, but that says for a rural community of our size, um these are more realistic in terms of real world. But that says that the minimum staffing for our department
is six personnel. And I believe that's generally what we we work to have on on call at any point is six six personnel, two officers, four on call. On call means you're available. You're not at station. Yeah. And chief, if you want to come up too, I no
sounds definitely chief. Okay. Okay. So again, not a lot of guidance in terms of um just beyond some basics and again these are guidelines only not not requirements. Next slide please. So, let's talk about the Carile Fire Department and how they approach um
their work. So, the mission of the Carile Fire Department, I won't read the whole thing, but essentially to protect the lives and property of citizens of Carile from fires and disasters. Um and I would say that and and correct me if I'm wrong, Deputy Chief, but our our
fire department takes an aggressive, comprehensive approach to fighting fires. Um we are, as as the chief likes to say, we are in the water transport business. So our goal is simply not to meet the minimum requirements, but it's actually to first save lives, second
knock down the fire, and third contain it, and in the third uh save the structure. So um our fire department prides itself on that. They invest in that and and as I talk you through the responses, that's what our uh staff and our apparatus and our operations are
geared toward. It's fighting fires. Um, and again that's well north of what the minimum requirements are when you look at something like ISO. Next slide please. So let's talk about what makes our fire department uh what it is. First obviously we have no
municipal water. So there's profound implications to that. First the apparatus needs to transport and access the water supply. So we have to use sistns, ponds, streams, whatever other water source is available to be able to access water, access water to fight the
fire. Once we access the water, we need to actually create a water supply at the scene. So we need to put the pipes down. We need to put them into the engine so we can pressurize the water and we essentially need to create a hydrant system on the site at the location to
get water on the fire and fight the fires. And this requires not only a lot of careful coordination and planning, but it requires additional customized apparatus uh to fight the fires. And I didn't have as a good appreciation of this before starting, but we you know,
and I'll talk about our different engines, but generally we carry more water than than other municipalities that do do have water supplies. Um the equipment itself is different. It has to be able to access dirty water. um and a whole host of issues. But this has a
profound effect on on how our operations um proceed. Next slide, please. Second, we have an on call department. We have around 45 part-time firefighters and EMTs on our staff and on our roster. We have a full-time chief. Um we do have
a minimum staffing of six firefighters. And essentially, as you probably know, in some form, a a call comes in. It's any kind of response. These are some examples of the um summary procedures when a when a call comes in. And then
based on what it is and where it is, uh a certain collection of apparatus and staff are sent out to fight the fire. And we have a custom software, I believe that the chief was showing that was built that can organize and categorize and contact
firefighters to call them in when when more is needed than what's on call. We can marshall more forces, but essentially there's a whole complex operation around responses, addresses, what vehicle goes out. It's all prescribed um and it's all built into custom software that one of our
volunteers program and built and maintains. Next slide, please. So one thing that I think is profoundly important that um was a real eye openener for me and I knew this to be true but to be quite honest I've never
really contemplated it and James I think from a fincom perspective you can chime in on this as well. When you look at um not only the manpower that we can deploy with on call, we can bring up to 20 or more firefighters to a scene
depending on the what what the what the emergency is to operate all that equipment that we need to create the water supply. That takes a lot of manpower. With the 45 on call staffs, our annual on call staffing cost because they're paid a a predeem or stipen per day when
they're on call is around $300,000. Our total operating budget for the fire department is $637,000. There's a lot of pressure on on call departments right now and getting volunteers. It's harder to get local volunteers. We have to cast a wider net
and overall the the pool of um available resources of people that want to volunteer and be on call firefighters is diminishing. It is it is an uphill battle. Um and a lot of departments are moving to either a combination force or a full career force. And that has that
has profound operational service level implications to Carlile and it also has profound economic uh and budgetary implications to Carlile. A combination department where you have eight full-time positions. So two of those six people you have to have on staff our career would add about a million dollars
in staffing costs to our town and would would push our operating budget over a million and a half dollars. That was the estimate from MRI. So just moving to a combination department would cost us about a million dollars more a year uh for those career firefighters. If we
went fully career, we would need 16 full-time positions to staff four career firefighters at any given point. Estimated cost of over $2.5 million a year from an operating budget standpoint.
So and that is for minimal service. That's for firefighters. you'd still have some some on call, but it would be a diminished force. So, we would have less apparatus. We would have less um tools at our disposal to create that water supply and fight fires. So, a huge
takeaway in all this is we have to do as as Carle everything in our power to maintain and and continue the on call department. And I'll talk a little bit later about the excellent job our current leadership is doing in doing that, but I don't know if anyone else has any comments or observations on this
particular point. Yeah, I mean I'll just chime in from a fi finance committee standpoint is the any investments in the fire department certainly should be looking to maintaining the on call department. That's obvious due to the slide and that was as Scott said a huge eye opener to
me. You know, in the back of my mind, I always did think what would it look like as a career department or a combination department, but here this clearly um and this was these numbers came from MRI, so it's all kind of independently vetted. But from the finance committee standpoint, we all know we have extremely tight budgets every year.
We're always looking for places to cost cost cut. We just bought this new fire truck for what would be the equivalent of an annual cost for the fire department in just the middle option there. So for us again um as a committee
member on this committee uh but also adjacent with uh FINCOM I really came to the conclusion that any investment we make from apparatus and even the fire department needs to be to make sure we can maintain an on call department for as long as possible and I think the station as a whole the
um we're talking about apparatus but and I and the and the select board has supported this is designed around the design decisions and everything is built around maintaining an on call department. And there's there's a lot of reasons to do that from a service and a safety standpoint, but there's also a
very strong um budgetary argument in support of that. And that's to me that colors everything we're going to talk about. Next slide, please. That's just some of the numbers. It's in the MRI report. Um next slide, please.
So, let's talk about our current apparatus. Enough preamble. um we have a robust set of apparatus and MRI will say it's you know it's it's larger than comparable size communities and that's true. Let me just talk you through what
we have and then I'll show you how we use it. Engine 3 is up in the upper left. That's the first due for structural fires. Um it's got 1500 gallons or sorry 1,270 gallon tank. So it's got more water than your typical engine of that type. And it's got 2,000
feet of of hose, which means basically it can it can lay a line down a long driveway, get get the initial force to the fire, start knocking down the fire, and start the um start the process. Engine 4, which if you saw it in a parade, you'd think it was the same
engine, is the same engine, but it's a different function, and it's got different attributes. That has a much smaller amount of water on it, 740 gallons, but it's got 4,000 ft of hose. So engine four, I like to call engine three the the water engine. Engine four
is the water supply engine. That engine and when we see the responses is really there to lay down the water supply. It can put out a 60 ft intake pipe into a pond which is more than most engines and backpipe can do. Suck up the water and
get it up the line. Engine five is our primary tanker. That's below. That's there to deliver and pump water. That's got a 3500galon tank. That is our mobile water supply. And surprisingly, it can drop basically an industrial kitty pool below it, dump its 3,500 gallons of
water into the kiddie pool, go off, get new water while the firefighters use that water source. So, it's got that 35gallon dump tank on it. I didn't I've not seen that operate, but I would be curious to see what that looks like. Yeah, that's not really a kidney pool, right? No, it's not a kidney pool. It's like a
portable, but it kind of looks like a one of those portable pools, right? Engine six, uh, in the upper right is for brush fires. It's got off-road capability. It's also used in the winter as first response. If it's snow or icy, they'll send that instead of engine
three up. Um, it's, you know, it's it's really made for off-roading, uh, getting to places, brush fires of that nature. Engine 7, that's the one that sits outside, the infamous engine 7. That's our secondary tanker. Um, that's very similar to engine five. That one uh was
1990, so it's 35 years old. It's in rough shape. It's only used seasonally, but it's it's an extra water supply uh when needed. And then there's ladder 9, which was purchased in 2001. That is sometimes first response depending on the structure and the location. It
cannot get up some places in Carlile. Um but it is there for instances where um there's a chimney fire or a rescue required or the the structure demands um you know more elevation. It also carries
the longest ladders in the fleet. So it's it's uh it's using those those functions. Next slide please. In addition to the engines, we have vehicles. Carile 10 is our command vehicle that goes out a lot. That's usually the first vehicle out and first on scene. Then we have the chief's car.
Um some other cars, the boat. Next slide, please. Boat is used for water rescue, ice rescue. We have two ambulances. Um ambulance one and ambulance 2. Ambulance one is our our newest purchased in 2019. It replaced ambulance 2. We kept
Ambulance 2 as a backup. We've gotten another, you know, six, seven years out of it. It's used sparingly, but it is a backup. When we did our tour, ambulance one was in for repair and ambulance 2 was available. uh to do emergencies. So, it's it's it's been beneficial in its
time and we're seeing overall an increase in medical calls and medical calls are becoming a larger part of the the the the department. And so, this is an area of potential growth that we see. And then we have a medical command vehicle that can be used um at the scene. It can also
be used if if the uh EMT is at home or in a different location, they can respond in that vehicle. Next slide, please. And then we have our two antiques, engine one and engine two. And you can see here how fire apparatus has changed
over the years and why fire stations are getting so big. That was a an engine in 1947. Um it was basically the size of a regular pickup. Now it's you see what what the ladder I read the mosquito article about Yeah. ferns and they had a
they didn't even know where the fire truck was. Like the horsedrawn fire truck. I thought it was in somebody's barn and then it was in some other barn. I mean, all right, next slide, please. So, in addition to that, all that stuff, we have a couple of trailers for hazmat
fuel spills, small engine trailer that houses pumps and whatnot. We have two UTVs, um, which came from different sources. I think one was from the police, another one was from a grant that are used for, uh, going up and down the line when it's set up, transporting,
um, and coordinating the firefighters. And then the UTV obviously can be used off-roading for brush fires or or missing persons. We have a light plant. Um and that's pretty much the universe of apparatus. It's a lot of stuff. Um but I think as you'll see everything has
its purpose in the current operation at the current service level. So next slide. So what does this look like? Um when you have a structure fire what happens? The call comes in it response code comes up. prescribes the response. We call in the
firefighters. We send out first depending on the situation. Usually engine three goes out. It goes up the driveway. It can um bring the initial uh few firefighters to fight the fight the fire. Uh put down some water and lay that line down to the road or wherever
the tanker can get. Um in some instances, ladder 9 is the first to respond. Uh more often than not, it's l it's engine three, but ladder 9 is there. And ladder nine has to go in first if it's if it's required because I think as you'll see once you start laying the hose down and organizing the
trucks it gets very complicated and very coordinated and if you put a truck in the wrong place it's a big problem and that's also a challenge for mutual aid in some instances. But so ladder n engine three show up first. Next up is
the uh engine five which is our tanker that gets there. They hook up that's your water supply to buy you more time. following engine five. Engine four will arrive. That's your water supply line. That's putting it in the sistern. That's putting it in the pond. Hooking up to the tanker that can hook up to engine
three. Uh car 10 is there. The command response vehicle. Ambulance is needed. But it takes a lot of apparatus to fight fires this way and it takes a lot of personnel. Next slide. Here's some photos. This was from a training drill down on
um down at the school. On the left we have engine four at the end of uh Church Street. You can see Bedford Road in the in the in the back left. That's pulling water out of the supply pond there. See the hose coming out of engine four on the upper left down past that UTV.
That's the Spalding field all the way up to engine five which is at the corner of the school. So that's a pretty long line. Engine five, you see that connection pipe. We got multiple hoses coming in. that's feeding water up to engine three, which is on the right.
Engine three is feeding the the ladder, and it's also fighting the fire. The ladder is up there doing its thing. Um, and on all of them, there's all these dials and knobs and gauges that firefighters are looking at to ensure that it's the right amount of water, it's the right amount of pressure, the water's getting from the bottom of the
line up to the top of the line. It takes a lot. It takes trucks serve as booster pumps. Yeah, they do serve as booster pumps. I You can speak to that, Deputy Chief, but like I'm assuming to get the water from engine four up to engine up to the tanker takes the pump of engine 4.
Yes, it takes takes the pump of engine four as well. But, uh, to speak to the booster pump thing, we have a whole another SOP if you really want to complicate it where we have something called a hydra cyst valve that we can put in and and put a booster pump. So, specifically long layers where you'd
have a lot of uh um friction loss in your in your in your hoses or if you're gaining a lot of elevation, you have friction loss there as well uh due to gravitational forces. So, you can put a relay pump halfway up the hill or
usually closer to the bottom a little bit and then boost that uh to to make it the rest of the way. Wow. And I'll also add the other thing that was an eye openener for me is they're generally using I think that's a 5 inch hose on engine four, but they're using
it's a story on that too. The they're using a 4 in hose and that's about a gallon of water per foot. So if you have a a th00and foot run, you need 2,000 gallons of water just to fill the the hose. Yeah. So we when we start talking about 2,000 gallons 4,000 gallons, that's not
a lot of water when you're when you're transporting it through a 4 inch hose. Um, and a lot of a lot of water is needed just to pressurize the water supply. And this all has to happen fast. This takes a lot of coordination, radios going between all these uh firefighters.
They're running up and down the line uh supervising. Issues can arise. Air can get in the pump. Water stops. Got to fix it. Got to find it. And these are volunteers. These are on call. These are uh people trained to be firefighters, CEOs,
whatever. A wide variety of people doing this work. They're young, they're old, different physical abilities. Uh this is this is important to consider as we think about firefighter safety and the people that are protecting Carlile. But it was an eye openener for me to see this operation, the complexity of it. Um
typically you just see fire trucks go by and you just assume they hook up to something and turn on the hose. This is a complicated procedure and it requires a lot of apparatus and a lot of manpower. Next slide. I'll just quickly go through a couple of other things to show you. So, a brush fire, for example,
you'd send out engine six, the brush truck, and engine 7, the secondary tanker, because they want to keep if the brush fire goes to a house, they need to fight a house fire. So, they want to send they want to keep engine five and engine three and our main main force in
play so that they can fight a a structure fire. Because you can imagine if everyone was here and then a house catches fire. Imagine what it would take to disassemble that operation. Yeah. Spool it up, get to the other site, call mutual aid. Okay. They arrive with an engine with what, 750 gallons on it
because they don't have a mun they have municipal water. They don't need these big tanks. We don't have a lot of tankers around us. So, it's great mutual aid can help, but they're going to run out of water unless we hook up a water supply for them. So, it's complicated. Next slide.
car accidents. Um, the interesting thing here, so the send out engine 4 doesn't have as much water on it. It's got specialized equipment for car accidents. Ladder 9 is sent out because it has like the jaws of life and some extraction equipment on it.
Jaws are on engine 4. Backup set is on the ladder. Yep. So, the ladder is sometimes used for the um car accidents and then obviously the ambulances and other cars go out for that. Next slide, please. And then for other responses, you know, different apparatus are used in different ways. So sufficees to say,
there's a lot of apparatus. They all have a role, a different role in different responses. And there's a coordination and a system behind every response. Next slide, please. In terms of how much of this is going on,
um, it's interesting to look at. You can see at the top A1 is ambulance one. Car 2 is the medical vehicle. Carile 10 is the command vehicle. So those are all vehicles that the the most frequent use and we're seeing and deputy chief can comment on this. We've seen a large
increase in emergency calls in Carlile and surrounding towns and we expect to continue to see a large increase. ALS is ALS is the station. There's a little key down there. Uh ALS are the paramedics in one of the other vehicles. Engine three
is the workhorse. Engine four. So you don't get down to real fires till light line six, right? Uh yeah, like engine what I mean to say is so skew this a little bit. Yep. Our typical response is sending an ambulance to a fire,
right? So right, so the ambulances go to all the fires, but if you if the I guess if I'm understanding this, engine 3 258, is that generally the first responder? That's what you said, right? That will go to any Right. Right. Right. So that means that
500 calls roughly are not fires, right? Yeah. 500 are ambulances and medical cars and cars and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then 250ish are they're not necessarily fires. They can be alarms and false alarms, but they're things that involve the trucks. Yeah. And I will say that
philosophically um one of the So you get down to ladder nine 11 calls in two years. Yeah. This is a two-year. This is two years. Yep. Sorry, it's cut off. The um It's interesting because you say, "Well, that's not that's not a lot." And I there's there's there's two interesting
house is one of the 11 when you need it. Well, I will say I went back and because I was interested. I went back and looked at Chief Coning's when he sold this when he put us in town in 2001. He said, and it was reported in the Mosquito, he said, "An engine like this we need to use four to six times per year."
Yeah. And so, you know, when we say, "Is it worth it?" Well, back in 2001, that's how it was presented. That's how it's been presented. It was it was heavily supported at that point. Twothirds vote. And when you need it, you need it. I will also say that uh to the credit of
the fire department, you could do vanity calls where you just send let's send ladder 9 out, right? Every car accident, send out ladder 9. They use ladder 9 sparingly and they use they use their engines overall sparingly so that they can minimize wear and tear so that they can maximize the life. Engine 9 is going
to be 25 years old next year. Not the one we have the threeear weight. What's the Sorry, no, engine three we just bought. Okay. Ladder 9, the big ladder truck is 25 years old and it's in great shape. Hasn't been used a lot, but we can get
the useful life in a in a heavy used department might be 20 years less less. Like a Westford, what's a what's a ladder truck? Uh replacement schedule is somewhere around 15 to 20. 15 to 20 with ladder nine. We're coming up on 25 and everyone
agrees, including MRI, we can get at least 10 more years out of that. Using it sparing. So, in a way, it's good it's not going out more because the philosophy is don't use it unless you have to. And that's generally across the different equipment to keep it and I don't want to steal
your thunder, but to keep it in the condition that would allow you to use it for 10 more years. Does it need to be inside? Yes, it needs to be inside. Everything needs to be inside. Okay. I think that's You can't just throw a tarp over. You could. We've tried that with with
engine uh seven. All right, next one. Hey, Scott. Yes. Uh what's car 4? The third from the bottom line. I couldn't find an description of car 4. Uh car four. Do you know off the top? I think my car. Is that your car?
Deputy chief's car. Aha. Okay. What is it used for? for my responses. Yeah. And I will say the when we get to it, the vehicles are not something we're contemplating putting inside except for the command vehicle. So these are not
impacting the station layout. Next slide. So when we look at our station, this is generally how things are arranged. We have the engines inside. We have two ambulances inside. I say six bays. We're technically at seven bays, although ambulance 2, and I'll show it in a
second. It's not really a it doesn't meet current bay requirements. So it's not and I think in any re redesign we do that space will be reclaimed. So essentially we have six working bays. Engine 7 is outside and not shown here is the UTV which is stored between them
and engine one which is stored between ladder 9 and ladder 5 the antique and a whole bunch of other stuff inside. But this is generally what we have today in terms of bays. Next slide please. And that's kind of what it looks like. So on the left, you can see ambulance
and two engines, three engines on the right. And then right over on the right, that's the ambulance where they had to take the the little hitch off to be able to fit it in. So you can't walk around it. And it's literally up against um the gate and up against the back. Um
it's about as tight as fit as you can get. Um, but the base spaces we have are on the on the narrow end, but they're usable and our our doors are regulation and everything fits in there, which is great. So, now I'm going to move to our
key takeaways and I want to get through this next slide. Oh, sorry. This is outside engine 7 and some of the tents on the left where we store the boat and then UTV inside and gear inside. So, that this is what that's the temporary shelter. What are we looking
at? Uh on the left is a tent. The tent with a couple heaters where we keep the one we bought for CO or something that paid back and all this. It's okay. It's got some heating in it, but it's, you know, you can see it's What goes in there? Other ambulance. No. Uh UTV, a boat. Um we have our trailers
outside. We have engine 2, the antique in in one of these and a whole bunch of gear and stuff that we can stick. Looks like an ambulance in the middle photo. Oh, sorry. The the middle is inside, but it's just showing the UTV that's stored between vehicles, but the two ambulances are basically live in the
They're all inside. Yeah, they have to be inside. Yeah. Next slide, please. Someone sneezing. All right. So, let's go to our key committee takeaways. One, as we've mentioned, the highest priority for both cost and service levels is to maintain the on call staffing as long as
possible. It enables the current high level of service and response our fire department provides. And as we talked about, a career department would acquire an additional$1 to2 million a year in annual operating expense for a much reduced service. And we we do believe we need to invest
in the fire station now to better support on call staffing, recruiting, and retention. It's becoming harder to recruit and retain, and it's important that fire stations are getting more expensive. So delaying to to let things sort out is not really an option. And
then there's some quotes from MRI just related to this comment indicating they they support replacement and they did make a comment that it's true that having a station for members to be proud of and want to work out of has a tremendous positive impact on responders. The second point is the fire
department leadership has been effective in managing the on call department at the current service level. This is not an easy task and a lot of a lot of departments have had to move to combination or career. We've been able to maintain a strong core of dedicated firefighters. Um the chief and deputy
chief have been very cooperative with the committee in answering all of our dumb questions. Um and they've answered them in in what I believe to be a candidly and thoughtful way. They they had a response to every probing question we asked. Um and they were happy to provide that. and MRI offered a similar
perspective that it was clear that the town has a core group of committed and active firefighters and EMS providers. Um, and then they end this accomplishment should be recognized, celebrated and supported. And I know Travis had talked to another fire chief in a neighboring town. And
generally the reputation is Carlile has an excellent reputation in terms of being able to fight fires the way we fight fires and lay down water supply and and do things in a way that a lot of other towns that rely on municipal water simply can't do. Next
slide, please. So minimal requirements exist to guide apparatus needs. It's community dependent. And a related note, changes to existing operations need to be carefully considered. Um, and I would I would add Carlile looking back through the various
votes recent and past have supported um engine purchases. They've supported the fire design um study and in general I believe the community has shown support for the fire department and MRI noted it's the department is currently meeting
the needs and response levels. Um, and they do comment as well. There's no perfect staffing level or model that needs to fit every community. There's no cookie cutter response or answer to these questions. And finally, the fire department will need to continue to evolve to meet the changing community needs for fire and EMS response. And we believe that retaining some apparatus
space flexibility is important for the fire station design. An MRI kind of echoed that in the comment below. Um, good fire department needs to adapt to the needs of this community and be prepared for what the future sends for them. Next slide, please. We'll get to our recommendations in a
second and I think this is this is kind of a recommendation but the car the fire department should pursue more flexible lower cost andor more accessible apparatus i.e any less training required to support on call force and reduce future capital expenses. And this is
something that uh the chief and deputy chief have talked about in terms of MRI and and the department recommends a second tanker when engine 7 is is no longer usable, but replacing that with something like a commercial tanker on the left, which is much cheaper, simpler
to operate, simpler to maintain, easier easier for someone with less experience to drive. We need to look at solutions like that. Another thing that they're looking at to replace car 10, the command vehicle, is something like a mini pumper, which does have off-road capability, does have pumping capacity.
Working with a commercial tanker, you can start to survive the service. I mean, why why wouldn't we have gotten commercial tankers yet? There must be something you don't get. Because we kept we took we we kept the old engine 7. I mean, commercial tankers just suddenly
appeared on the scene in the last few years. Well, and and the the fire apparatus has gotten much much more expensive. I know, but it's for a reason, right? I mean, a commercial tanker is like the thing that brings your oil or your Well, these are I mean, these are specialized. These aren't Yeah, but I mean, I guess I got to ask
the deputy chief. I assume So, the engines have all these control valves and everything, right? When engine five was designed, engine five was designed not with the mind of keeping engine 7. So, engine 7 was going to go away. So, we needed a replacement for engine 7, which is a custom
pumping capable uh tanker. It has all sorts of cabinets for bringing stuff, personnel carrier six, so you could bring a lot of bodies to the scene to help out, but it wasn't with the uh thought that we would be retaining engine 7. So,
had we known we were going to uh retain engine 7 and and been able to keep it inside. Yeah. So, keep in mind Engine 7's seasonal, then you could have considered at that time doing commercial. But seven is the one that the winter one. Yes. It's stored outside. So, it's not usable in the winter months.
Usable, but with two hours notice, maybe. Um, what we're talking about is now that we have engine five, replacing engine 7 with a lower cost commercial, as you put it, the thing that delivers
your roll as opposed to a fully built custom pumper. Right. And the fact that it's red doesn't mean anything. It's basically your does not cost more for red paint. It does have some some pumps and gauges on it that you wouldn't find any in any
event. There are there are different apparatus options that we need to be contemplating looking forward to. But I mean that's yes, but that's like saving some money down the road on vehicle replacement, but it doesn't effectively change the parking spaces
that you need. That's correct. So, keep going. Scott, before you go to a different page, um I was a little confused. the the slide before says the opportunity to reduce two units exist you know in the MRI
I'll talk about that in a second okay thanks uh next slide so this is one of MRI's re so a couple of MRI's recommendation one is buy a commercial tanker two was uh consolidate
vehicles eliminate two engines um third key third takeway away is that the transition in apparatus will take time and must be carefully considered. Large apparatus decisions are 10 more 10 or more years away if engines continue to be maintained. So when we look at
what what engines can we eliminate or replace with other options um we have new engine 3 on order that's going to replace the current engine 3. Our our first response that's the one with the three-year weight where we had Okay. So that's and
that's our first response structural fire. That's like for like. Yes. Okay. Engine seven, we're going to retire. That's the one that's outside the tanker and potentially replace with a commercial tanker. That won't again that won't change the parking spaces. No. Engine four
uh is is the next one up that we could look at doing consolidating or doing something with an engine six, but the current engines have a another 10 years or more of useful life. So, you're not going to do that now. Ladder nine could be in operation for another 10 years and the chief thinks 15
15 more years. So in any way it sounds like whenever it retires you'll get another ladder. You'll have to have that. I think you'll that'll be a decision at that time, right? Oh, I don't I that's Well, I mean, if I channel my inner like John Levery, the question is less about
like how much money I save on the equipment, but what's the cost to house the thing I is it worth housing what I have now or sending it to early retirement on the ones that you I think our answer it's worth housing it now. Okay. Um and then the primary tanker engine
five has got another 15 years. Next slide, please. So MRI's recommendation to consolidate, I understand it, but they're suggesting ladder 9, you keep ladder 9 and you replace the next engine due. That would be engine four. Ladder 9 can't replace
engine four because engine four carries 4,000 ft of hose. D. So, so those consolidations are well beyond your building decision. Yes. So our recommendations are one, maintain current service level, operations, and culture. The on call
strategy is best from both a budget and service level perspective. The department leadership has managed and maintained committed a committed on call department and also maintain existing apparatus as long as feasible, maximize lifespan. We're going to have constrained apparatus funds
if we do this station and continuing to maximize the life of these vehicles um is well worth the the relatively minor investment in maintenance it's going to take. Um, so didn't we have a rule of thumb based on the square footage? Maybe
you're going to get to that. And the thousand square thousand dollar a foot or something. Yep. You're going to cover that later. I don't want to. No. But was it like $750,000? A bay? We talked about what's a bay cost? It's around 800 grand.
Yeah. We um so just just a recent bid that we had in in Mass and this is more southern south uh southeastern Mass. So, it's a little less expensive there. We're a little closer to Boston, but we we we had an alternate to add an
apparatus bay on rental that we're doing, right? And we were we had bid numbers in 800,000 to a million dollars or so per bay per per bay. And that was this past um April, right? Okay. And the cost of a vehicle
of this, not the big ladder, but the engine, well, a tanker, like a tanker replacement in today's dollars would be like 1.8. eight, right? An a ladder a ladder truck would be two and a half in today's and an engine would be 1.3 engine 3 is around 1.3 million. Okay. So again
um all right so the construction cost of a millionish if there's a million 800,000 to a million for extra bay that's that's like it's like buying another truck but then you it's it's
much longer lifespan I guess. So that's why you say it's better to house what you have and and I think retain the parking spot because you might need something in the future. You might have an op. So going from an a engine tanker to a commercial tanker
could be a savings of a million dollars, right? There may be some smart choices that don't to bifurcate a roll into two like so maybe there's something that can transport the hose that's still going to need to be housed in space. So the parking Yeah. So, it's better to The parking spot is forever once you
build it. Not forever, but for a long time. Yeah. And you don't know what's going to go in there, but Yeah. So, I think I I sort of answered my own question. Thank you. And can I just clarify because it's a little hard to hear. I think maybe that was um the gentleman from MRI maybe or Techon, but anyway, did you end up
saying it's about a million dollars to add a bay? 800 to a million. 800 to a million. Okay. Thanks. replace um existing apparatus with less expensive, more versatile equipment over time. Again, MRI recommends fleet
consolidation. Um I don't think that's feasible within the practically within the the time frame of building the station. It doing so would require basically a fundamental rethink of our fire department response
and operations. And there's a host of other potential um cascading issues there. Um, but I do think we need to develop and update a long-term fleet plan to to guide this. And again, we're going to have a different chief making most of these decisions because they're going to be 10 years out, seven years
out. So, that's an added unknown. Uh, but it it informs what's how important that next chief decision is going to be. Um, we should pursue looking at using mutual and automatic aid whenever possible. Um, I think we talked about
there's challenges to doing it, but we should continue to pursue opportunities to use mutual aid as we look at how we can transition to fleet. There might be some specific functions that we can use mutual aid for, and we should we should pursue those. Um, and I think that the
chief and deputy chief um think there might be some specific cases where we we could do more of that. Um, and again, the transition in apparatus will take time. ladder nine and engine four um are expected to be replaced in 2035 or
later. And the other major engines um have another 10-year lifespan. And so to to design a station where we had to house something outside doesn't make sense. Um that's just not going to be feasible for that equipment. And to sell stuff to buy new stuff is is not
cost-effective or operationally effective. Um and we think we should provide some reasonable capacity for EMS growth. One area that has been articulated as a potential need is a third ambulance or other medical vehicle within 10 years. That's something MRI mentioned. It's something the the
station hasn't mentioned. There's more medical service that we as a town may be able to provide. There's a different economics to that because again we don't we pay for our ambulances out of ambulance funds. If there's the opportunity to do that, I think it can be cost effective and it can provide a
valuable service to the community. Next slide, please. Um, so with that, and if you could pop it up a little bit, just move it up a little bit if you can. Just it's got a So we went through and looked at our existing apparatus. These aren't
necessarily recommending specific apparatus, but parking spots. So, one thing I will say is, uh, we as a committee agreed that we should not factor in the antique storage into the new station. Spaces are at a premium. They're important to the town for various reasons, but we should find a different
solution. and they're not part of our fire response fleet and other towns raise money to house these. There's other solutions. These can be stored offsite. We'll we'll figure that out, but it's not part of the station design. We think we need to reserve spots for
our current apparatus engines. Um, two ambulances. Uh, we want to bring car 10 inside that's currently outside and that's that's the command vehicle that can store medical equipment and and various things that should be inside,
right? Um, and that also could be replaced with a a mini pump or a more flexible vehicle in the future. Um, engine 7, which is outside, if that's replaced with a commercial tanker, you're going to need a spot for that inside,
right? So, so that engine, that was a question. Engine 7 sitting out there. Yep. Is okay for now. Well, no, you're going to build something so it'll be in the inside till it gets replaced. Yeah, I guess. Right. Yeah. I don't know how much longer engine 7 has. Okay. But I mean, if you're you're
building the thing on the right and you're not Well, the thing on the right is what we currently have. Yeah. Sorry. Right. Yeah. You what you would recommend to build is the the four base and then the the blue the outuilding is will that remain that little shelter or was that going to be a third structure? You know, the outbuilding is something that we're
going to talk about where it would be a simpler structure. It's not it's not cheap. It's still it's So, what's wrong with the little shed we have with putting all that stuff in there? Is that okay right now? It's okay for now, but I think if if we're if we're building a new station, I
think we want we want to put that into a more not permanent structure, but a better climate control structure. Why is it a problem right now? You want to comment on the Well, you mean floods and rodents and and all of the other things that occur in it?
I don't know. I mean, you tell me. You said it was okay. But maybe possible to maintain climate control in their humidity swings. So, it's not why a tent is not a viable option for expensive equipment. Okay, that's all I want. I think we can look at what the square footage is
required for that. But I do think for So what you're really saying is four bays of a classic fire station structure and four more bays that are in a shed type structure. Well, those I don't those like the UTV those aren't like full bays. It's a smaller that's a I think in the original
concept it was 2400 square feet. I think in revised be smaller. This would be much smaller. Okay. So this would Yeah. So it's and that's something we can look at when the key is for us to give Tecton this direction so that they can right
refine the refine the floor plan. So, but to your point, David, you're investing in additional bay space to and in the in the station overall. There's this is this is a small part of the larger renovation which includes work life space. Um,
right. So, you're investing in that again in the current operations in the current culture to maintain on call. Um, it all rolls up to that. And I think if you take an approach where you're adding
less bays or um not adding any bays, you're con you're potentially constraining yourself significantly in the future and you're potentially affecting your operations and relative to the cost of going combination or career relative to the cost of the
apparatus itself the cost of the bays and you know we'll get a better estimate. It's a good investment in I think in my opinion I think in the committee's opinion and I don't know if anyone else wants to comment on that. Agree. Yeah, just agree. So
it's a little past 8. You know from our standpoint what we're looking for the select board to do is essentially endorse this recommendation so that Tecton can get to work and come back to us on the 12th. And during that time, I'll be available to Tecton. The committee will be available to Tecton.
The chief and deputy chief will be available to Tecton so that we can have a dialogue as they figure out a new layout. It's not just see you in three weeks. So, can we You don't have a schematic to this, right? No. So, can we go back to options, 123 at
the head of your Yep. Can I ask a question first? Um, this is Barney. Yep. Yeah. Thanks. Um so uh what happens to engine 3 when it
it runs out of when its life is ended? I I don't know the answer to that. I think engine 3 is going to be have a life probably 25 years because we're going to get it in a few years and it's going to have a 20-year lifespan. So whether that's replaced with a one
for one or whether at that point we've we're transitioning the fleet and we don't need that engine. I think it's speculation. Okay. And the engine 4 that's described here as future apparatus
that what does that mean exactly? That means that was kind of some commentary to say that engine 4 is 10 years out. I'm not sure the replacement for engine 4 would be a one for one replacement. Okay. For what we have now, but that's all right. That's speculation as well.
Okay. And then I just have one sort of broader question. So if the if if the trend if the prediction is that um we're going to need more uh ambulances and more EMS personnel over, you know, the
next 10 years. Um, does that uh suggest any change then in the number of on call firefighters that we're trying to get volunteer firefighters? Would you like an application? No, I'm just wondering though is I I'm
sure you've thought about this if you're going to add more EMS personnel that that's typically a separate um certification, right? And uh and so I mean does that affect the number of on
call firefighters you need? So this is a very complex question which I will try to simplify as much as I can. One of the ways that we've evolved over the last few years is the chief has made a EMT only position. So we actually have separate um members that are only EMTs
and some that are only firefighters and some that do both. So it's it's kind of a complicated question. Our hiring process is ongoing. Uh I'm sure you've seen the sign board out there. It's a it's a kind of a proc
a process where we have received you know applications weekly and uh vetting those and making sure that they're within our our boundaries. Um by the time you put somebody on, you might lose somebody else. So it's kind of a an in-n-out type program. Um
would it be great to have more members? Absolutely. Are we always looking for more members? Absolutely. Uh anyone that's that's watching the meeting and wants an application could come down and see us and we happy to to show you how to join. Um does it necessarily require
more members? That's that's it's not really a mathematical problem there. Okay. And and I would add none of this is a guarantee. I mean, we're we're I think it's I think it's a smart bet and a good investment in in on call, but um you
know, I don't want to say if you do this, you will 100% have on call for the next 20 years. It's continue to be a challenge and it's going to require a lot of effort and management. But the point is every year you can delay it. It's significant savings.
Yes. Well, it's significant. It's not savings, but not adding a cost. But I mean if if the station again if if we went full career in five years and the station bought us five years that's almost the cost of the station.
Um and so even extending combination extending uh career 5 years 10 years through this project it would be well worth it both in terms of savings and in terms of the continued service level and firefighter safety and all the other
important things. So when you say um additional apparatus base space for two ambulances but you're do I understand this correctly that ambulance one you have the space for it and so the the the two additional is the
existing ambulance which is you know in there tight as a drum and an additional new ambulance is that why it says two uh sorry it's not up under space requirements on uh page 33 three where you get your chart.
Yeah, I think the the ambulance too I I said 200 you we would we would essentially we have a partial bay for that one now. So we would be net adding additional space for the ambulance and I think you know when tech time gets into it and and preparing for a third ambulance
is that my leaving leaving a leaving capacity for a future third ambulance. Yes. Okay. A question back on the usage statistics bar chart. Are all of those statistics for Carile
only or do those count mutual aid funds as well? That Yeah. So all of those calls are within Carile or does that is that like everything under the sun? I wasn't the one that provided these statistics so unfortunately I can't
answer to that. I can say that um Scott had me run some numbers and I think what if I wanted to guess it was about 30 and change mutually mutually responses but again 30 like a whole year. Yeah. Oh okay. So we're talking really on the fringes here.
But a lot of those are medical responses and then again he's talking about a separate ambulance enterprise. So any of those medical transports mutual aid actually help us. Yeah. Yeah. So we want to do as many mutual aid medicals as we can. Okay. That's my understanding this is predom this is this may include mutual
aid but the mutual aid numbers are relatively small and um so I wanted to look briefly again at the uh original three proposals just to kind of get a sense of
yeah so I I have the slide but I don't have it on Ryan's thing okay let me send you another email Ryan real But those were block diagrams. Those weren't No, I know. Didn't have as much
information as I wanted. But do you guys recall how many bays in each of these options? Because you're now going you're going to how many extra bays, I guess. Yeah. I think um if I'm recalling correctly, I I think the uh option two
was was one double deep bay. So you can call that two bays, two extra bays. I think option three was uh four additional bays. So two double bay. So three is the size from a bay perspective. That's the four bays. Yep. Exactly.
That would be similar I think would and and for the from your view the training rooms and the decon rooms and all that is it are we is it sort of going to is the option that incorporates this recommendation more or less going to look like three?
Yes. Yeah. That's more more or less the program. You know, we'll certainly work to continue. And then the little red guy to the left would be the shed where you put the SUVs and things. Yeah, that's right. ATVs. And there's also a site plan going on right now that we fund the town being funded that is going to inform this.
There's issues around septic and wetlands that they're getting information on. Will that information be? They surveyed the site. They're they're coming back next week to wrap that. It's topographic survey. They've done geotechnical borings, wetland or any.
So that will allow you to site your design. Exactly. All right. So we're back to where we sort of thought we would get to, right? Which is the middle the middle option. Well, again, I think looking at
we want to give Tecton the space requirements and then see as they work through it what that looks like. And then, you know, as we discussed, if there's something that's not working or doesn't fit in the sight space, we might have to make some compromises to this recommendation, but we'll have that
dialogue with with Tech Time. What we want to give them is Right. Go ahead. Sorry. We want to give them is the is the feedback on the apparatus to say factor this in and let's let's look at that. But again, I want to sort of channel my inner labor here. Yep. Um,
are you renoing the current space as part of the plan or is the I thought you don't really want to do that because then you have to bring everything up to code. We are we're we're renovation we're renovating portions of the space. Um so, you know, as we get tighter into
like the actual layout of everything and how how the pieces come together will determine what level of renovation we're going to undergo. But our intent right now is that a majority of the floor plan y of the existing building is that 3,800 ft of those six existing bays that are
adequate. Right. you kind of leave that and so we leave those alone. The threshold to where we have to bring the whole building up to code is if we renovate more than 50% of the building, right? So once we take those six bays out of it, it keeps us below that threshold. Let's just do a thought modeling here.
Four bays at a million a bay all in. Let's call it. So there's of your 14 million or whatever. Four millions for four new bays. Half it's half that. So when I was saying a bay, I was talking one of these double deep. So what would effectively house two vehicles? Yeah. So, it's only
two million to add those for base. Okay. And then the cost of that shed, broadly speaking, we'd have to run the numbers and see exactly how big that is. But if if if the main fire station is running, call it a thousand bucks a square foot
in in today's dollars. Um, you might see that as a pre-engineered metal building with prevailing wage rates and everything else that goes along with that. 750 bucks a square foot which is what in terms of the building though I don't know how big it is at 1,200 square feet
um so 850 900 yeah so another million we'll call it so now I'm at 3 million so that means there's like and then how much for the rena of non-base space in the current structure it it's going to depend on the type of
space and the level of renovation it's it could be anywhere from $200 to $800 a square foot yeah well I mean my point is that I think you've done a great job at identifying the base base that we need and why we need it. So, I'm all in on
that. But all I get out of that is $3 million of construction. So, that means that there's like 10 million plus to do the training, the decon, the blah blah blah. And I question whether we need all of that. That's I guess you need some of it, but do you need $10
million worth of it? Well, I think that's so the select board when when we when we started out on this said, yeah, we we we we recognized the need to do the station design and these other things we need for on call and that that
makes sense. And so we focused on apparatus, right? We want to give them that feedback so that they can factor that into design so we can have confidence that this is what we're saying we need. Then we look at it and say, is this something we can bring? I don't want to come to the 12th. I mean, I agree, but you know, we come to
the meeting, they present, we poop on it, then they have to go back. I mean, it it delays everything. So, I'm trying to I'm trying to set expectations, right? Yeah. So, we said, you said, you know, Lory certainly said, other people said like, let's focus first on the equipment and
how much we have to house. So, you guys did a great job. We came back four bays, two million bucks, and a shed, another million. So, I'm at $3 million to satisfy that. So, I'm back to the rest of it to say we should set expectations
about the rest of it now so that they don't design something that we don't like. Like, can we get the whole thing in under 10 million? No. No. because because the space requirements and I'm going to defer to the the the
chief and the deputy chief on what they need in these other areas and they're saying what was in option three in those other categories were the minimum requirements and and when you talk to when you talk to MRI and they say you need bunk space for four to six people and you need a
meeting room that can handle 30 people and all the and the stuff you just need for the the fire support and safety stuff to store that and get it off the bays. That's where you end up and and it's going to be more than 10 million and it's probably going to be closer to the 15 million and we I still think
that's a good investment versus doing nothing. Uh because if we do nothing, I think we at least don't paint a false choice, Scott. Do nothing is not a choice. So, let's not even consider that. It's I'm just and I'm being obstinate here only
because I'm trying to be efficient with time. I don't want to have this discussion in three weeks and we're three weeks. I'd rather have the discussion now so that we can set their expectations so that they come in with Are you planning to come with choices or a single design?
Um, we hope to get some choices together, not just a single design. So, we've got the bay thing sorted out. I guess I would like based on that, I'd like to kind of see a range of, you know, the rest of the stuff.
Because is there a range of the rest of the stuff in your mind or is that like if if maybe we have to start a a work life app another committee but it is doing nothing because we take we take special town meeting and all that off
the board like the goal was to try to the goal is to have a choice a design on the 12th that we like which we can have a fall time meeting but I'm I'm on board I'm on board with the goal. Yeah. I don't want my whole point is I don't want to miss the window. That's why I'm doing it now. My point is they
did a lot of work defining the programmatic requirements in the beginning with the department, right? And are we if we're saying we as a select board are going to say no, you don't need a you know this space for the the fire support like
at some point we need to trust and I I thought we agreed as a select board that in those areas we're we're deferring to the department leadership. So only in the storage only in the vehicle storage we weren't deferring to leadership. That's correct. What do we need in terms of equipment and apparatus? That was my
I'd like to hear from Well, can I chime in here? Hi, Barney. Um, you know, we we we definitely here's my understanding of of the as the select board, what we were saying is that um
because we there was a lot of focus I think among the five of us about the apparatus just how many vehicles we have. Yeah. how many needed to be, you know, uh, undercover in a bay. And so that's
why we set up this special committee. Uh, I don't believe though, Scott, that we said and that means that all the rest of the proposal in option two is uh is um that we were supporting the rest of
the proposal. um that it was more that I I think we I was feeling that the the increase in bays was going to be a significant increase in the cost of the overall project and um
so I I don't want to derail us. I don't want to make it impossible to do this uh and get ready by this fall town meeting, but I do think it's reasonable to be asking
uh if and and maybe this needs to go back to um both the fire chief and um the architects, but is there a way to reduce the other
expenses? for the non uh bay portion of this project. You know, are we going with um you know, are we going with what's what would be really good to have but is not
uh the absolute the the the minimum that we need. You know, it's that question we have raised before and I I'm not trying to suggest that we set up a new committee, but I do think uh David's raising a you know, a reasonable question. Um,
and so I don't think we should just, you know, move on quickly without seriously looking at it. How how do you anticipate getting comfortable then with that? Are you thinking, Barney, or any other committee
members that you would want MRI as kind of an independent party to weigh in on that or Well, is is that something that I don't know, you know, MRI at all and you all worked with them. Is that something they could do? Well, one of the things our
committee, the the apparatus committee was really focused on apparatus, but we all have examined this, you know, fire station. And if you look and step back holistically and there was some writing that we read that was some national uh
fire station uh journals and so forth that that really indicate for an on call force and this is more of the subjective rather than the objective numbers point. But to really build an on call force, as we talked about, it's a culture. And
to attract that kind of culture, you need to have certain things that that are attractive. And we're going to have to we're going to have to get firefighters on call firefighters from surrounding towns. There's just not enough people in Carlile willing to
volunteer at this point. So to do that, we're going to need some type of of overnight accommodations. And so we're going to have to build that in there. And that's the all these assumptions that have gone into it from what I can tell are are generally
reasonable for what they're trying to accomplish here. And and I don't think that that I've seen anything that is, you know, we're we're trying to protect firefighter safety. So the architects have designed in space for specialized
decontamination areas. Those are totally on board with that. So So if if you're on board with that, then I would suggest you you let the architects work with the chief to kind of design those um in keeping with with
you know what is needed for this type of thing. I don't know if anyone else on the committee or Scott if you have thoughts on that. No, I agree, Travis. And I think if you do look at the MRI report, I mean they do give some independent guidelines around
training meeting community space. They they recommend a community room that seats a minimum of 30 people, proper living space for four to six people, separate locker room, shower, separate small individual sleeping space, a kitchen, a day room space. So, um, that
wasn't what their focus was on, but I do think there's some some generally agreed upon parameters that I would expect and and again, um, Matt from Tecton, he's he's been in all these meetings and he has this report and I would expect that we would if this differs from what we
discussed with the chief, we would, you know, adjust accordingly. So, I I think those different components, I think the big variables are the training workspace, would we allow for that? Would we allow for kitchen space and sleeping space? I mean, those then you have the gear stuff which is kind of
prescribed based on the gear you have. So, yeah, I do think there's reasonable um assumptions and and independent guidelines on on what we need in in the current MRI report. And again, they didn't deep dive on this stuff, but they have a pretty good sense of it. Can I
also add on the other hand, Scott, they were also making it very clear that every community is different, you know, and every particular um and that and and and our community in particular given the
nature of, you know, our our firefighting needs uh is quite different, right, than than I mean they, you know, they said it's it's very uh it's unusual, right, to have that many uh pieces pieces of apparatus, but you've made a really
clear case for why that's really important. So I'm um I I just you know I just want us we we haven't really you know set any guidance around the areas you just described not the uh storage of
of equipment I mean of uh gear or the you know decont decontamination pieces but uh I I would love for instance it would be interesting to see kind of a a a design of the living spaces that you
just described that are, you know, maybe they're not all exactly separate the way that that MRI is saying in the report. I'm not trying to dictate, you know, how it looks, but given the cost impact, you
know, that David's really sort of shown that, you know, the bays are a significant expense, the additional ones, but then we've still got 10 million that we're spending on other stuff. I think it's worth asking for maybe some creativity around
that living space needs and maybe coming up with two options just just for that portion of the renovation. Um yeah, what happens if you have a smaller training room? What happens if some of the space is more shared than it is separate? So
yeah, I think I know we we're got time limits here, but I I do think it's it's a an important conversation. So let me just conclude and we do need to wrap up and I apologize as chair. I'm we're way off schedule, but um
behind the and we didn't talk about it. We only talked briefly about it as a select board. Behind the original concepts are program requirements that were set up around these different things that can be articulated and clearly explained, right? And so what uh Matt has heard all this discussion
and he knows I think our perspective. I I know in talking to the chief they've looked at using combined living workspace. So I think my recommendation would be to uh take the apparatus direction. Let Tecton go to work. We're available. we can ask those questions
and on the 12th we can specifically um make the request that we understand exactly what's driving these space requirements and and we can have a dialogue around why the training room is here and we can say well we can look at and ask them to look at how can we do
this most efficiently but I think they need some time to actually do the work and work with the base base and put it all together but I I think what you're hearing that is um choices right cho cases and as I mentioned earlier I really like the
simplicity of your analysis on the equipment bay like a bay costs 800k think of a bay as 800k and do that with a train like a training room costs x and could it be a bunk room and a training room like why not and you know I mean we
have to do some if we could have some scrubbing let's call it a due diligence around those trades you know maybe we'd feel better if we could carve another million or two out. The other thing I want to ask just in passing is I'm just looking at the minutes we have in the packet from June 24th, which has nothing
to do with the fire station. It's actually the DPW, but 900 9,000 square feet was 14 million bucks. And that's a DPW shed. Yeah. How did that get to be more than $1,000 a square foot? That's like $1,400.
Need a DPW apparatus assessment. No, but I mean is is construction trending greater than a thousand? Construction is always construction I should say all in cost all in on a construction on the whole year overyear
is always increasing faster than the value of the dollar. Right. So when you give us the $1,000 a square foot, is that construction only or everything sighting soft cost? Is that all in the thousand or is it really more
like 1500 or some number like that? It's again these are these are round numbers that were taken and thrown at a wall. It can be $200 a square foot less. It could be $300 a square foot more. It's going to depend on the scope scale finish of the project
that plus or minus around a,000 or plus or minus around like 1500. It could be plus or minus a couple hundred dollar. Okay, I think we've got it. So from a select board standpoint, do we support
them moving forward and for the 12th with the recommendations? Yeah, if they can make the 12th short, do you have the information you need? Y and and we're available to work with you and answer questions and absolutely and I'm not on the same page in terms of
the work life space. I want to defer to the requirements and the chief, but we're both available and deputy chief's available to bounce things off of before the 12th. Yep. Uh, Matt, I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I would like to put you on the spot.
I guess I'm What are you taking away from this conversation? I'm I'm a little bit frightened actually because you guys are talking about reducing the training room to 30 members, but when you look at our our roster of 45, are you are you going to ask me to tell people to go home and
it's time for training? Only training here. That's Deputy Chief Matt. That's the other Matt. Oh, other Matt. Sorry. No, but why why wouldn't we like train here? We have we have rooms. I I don't know that part. I kind of can you train somewhere not in the fire station. That's a question.
We do train frequently in places that is not the fire station. But our general meetings uh and you know what we're meeting tomorrow. Why don't you come and take a look and see what we go through? What time is that meeting? 7 o'clock. AM or PM? PM.
I I actually think it is helpful for the select board to see firsthand the fire station and I think the fire state apparatus committee we learned a lot by just participating in tours and seeing the entire operation because you realize
it's not simply apparatus only or it it is an interconnected team and structure that is is taking place there and these are all little components you know we talk about this bay but this equipment, this shower
room, whatever, but they all interrelate as to keeping this on call force. And I I do think it would be shortsighted of our town to say, "Well, we're going to shrink this so small just for the shortterm gain because the long-term
gain of keeping an on call force and having that culture and attracting that culture that fights fires and is successful is really valuable to our community. We need to wrap up the the discussion tonight." So, from a select board, do we
need to we don't need to vote on anything? We're fine. I think name, but he's Matt's got and Matt, did you want Matt from Tecton to answer your question, Barney? Yeah, sorry. I was It was Matt. I apologize. I wasn't clear. Yeah. No, I think I think I'm pretty clear on the direction. You know, we're
going to pro proceed with the apparatus bay count as recommended by the FAAC. Um, and then we're going to take what was effectively the option three program that we had initially discussed, which was the the sort of trim down version that the fire department and myself
worked together on to to generate, which was that 14 to 16 million option, um, and find creative solutions to combine space or consolidate um, and present those options to you on the 12th. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
Easier said than done. All right. Sorry. Thank you everyone. That's perfect. Let's close out the um motion to adjourn the FAAC meeting. So moved. Second. Second. Roll call real quick. I Jameson I
Snell I Triel I. Thank you. Thank you all for your time and commitment to this and thanks very much to the committee. Yeah. Good job. It was a lot of work, but I I have to tell you it's it was really interesting and and uh I'm I'm
I'm glad I was involved in it because learning I didn't know a lot about the fire department and what I've learned is is pretty impressive and something we should be proud of as Carile. Yeah. All right. Great. I apologize. Um we are way behind schedule, but this was an important discussion. Um let's move on to the
personnel policies recommended by council and HR for immediate consideration. always always after a really exciting topic. God, I'm going to need to drop off for the from the meeting. I apologize. Okay. Thank you, Travis. But thank you. Thank you all.
All right. So, thank you for visiting this with me. Um, so this is the first round of personnel policy review um that we would like to do. So, the first one is the workplace violence policy that's in your packet. Um this was recommended
by not only legal counsel but just uh general HR um uh compliance in general is strongly recommended to have this uh we already have the anti-harassment policy that protects folks from discrimination you
know if it's discrimination based harassment and al also sexual harassment this uh helps with those who are being harassed bullied threatened and not because they're in um they're being discriminated against, just because they
are a person, right? So, this covers that. Um this encompasses, you know, folks who come in, this co-workers. So, this can really help um protect employees and can even protect volunteers from the language in this
policy. So, it's pretty comp comprehensive, but it's about trying to make sure that situations don't escalate, that people feel safe, that they don't feel like they're in a hostile work environment. Because right now, if somebody feels like they're being harassed, if they're
not being harassed due to discriminatory reasons, they are there's no real protection for them. So, this can really help with that so folks feel safe at work. Okay. Makes sense. These are standard policies
that are like across the Commonwealth towns are adopting policies. Yes. Yes. It's it's um these are templated, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's increasingly being recommended. These have been reviewed. So, they will be reviewed next by town council.
Okay. So, the process would be we approve them and then they're reviewed or with the contingency of their review. So, if there's anything that's concerning and that that changes the policy significantly, I will I will let you know. Do do you guys conduct active shooter
drills? Is that a training you guys do? We we've done a workplace violence drill, I would call it, which included active shooter scenarios. It It's something that it did freak some people out, but it's
important to uh to have that type of thing. have to do it. It happens, right? We don't want to do it high frequency, but we've had some turnover, so we should consider doing it again, right? Yeah. No, I think you got to have these policies. Yeah. Hey, Aubrey, I have a couple questions if you don't mind.
Sure. Um, just in some places in this uh workplace violence policy, which I think is terrific, by the way. I'm I'm fully supportive of us having one that is as detailed as this is. Some places you
refer to this um it it um as for instance right under in the section about policy you say the best way to prevent workplace violence is to raise the awareness of department heads and employees. Um but I'm assuming you that because the
policy covers uh you know volunteers and elected members and uh guests that might come into town hall. Um so some of the places where you talk about education
um are you thinking that would also be provided to sort of non employees in some way? That's a good point. Uh we should also make sure that this is also um part of policy review for volunteers if this is being enacted.
And the other one I had a question about under in this same uh policy if you go down to um I think it's page uh 15 of your actual memo you know where you're describing um definitions and the
violence by personal relationship. So that would mean um if someone that worked for the town had something happening on a personal level but that happened outside of their
work at town hall that would still be covered under this policy. I think this is in in context of at the workplace but the okay um domestic violence you know for um leave. So if somebody came into town hall,
uh that would be my interpretation of it, but I can check with legal counsel. Yeah, I just it might be helpful. Sure. Um Okay. And the other was um the procedure for reporting threat which is on page 15
also sort of the last big sure section that last second the last sentence in the first paragraph. uh human resources when appropriate will inform the victim of their right. So um is that is the term victim the one
that's commonly used? I can check on that. It just has a I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. It's it just sounds um odd. Anyway, um and I was just I think that's all I
had questions about. Thanks. Thank you. Is there any more discussion on this one? I want to take a So I want to move to approve the workplace violence policy as presented by the assistant town administrator administrator HR director for review by town council.
So moved. Is there a second? I second. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? just for the for the board and the public. Part of this is enforcement of these policies as well. So this does say
that elected officials and other volunteers are subject to this policy, but the only people that can enforce that policy on said elected official are are the residents of Carile. So I do want to point out that because the different appointment authorities and
different uh statuses of people, this is a tool to use, not one that is that is automatically used. For example, if we had an employee who was harassing another employee, you would use this policy in order to justify a just cause firing or that type of thing. Without
it, you don't have that that tool. But since it does talk about people like yourselves, um it's it's important to know how it would be applied to you. The town administrator or the HR director cannot enforce this policy on an elected official
or a volunteer. It would have to be you as the appointing authority of the volunteers or the the residents of of Carlile enforcing it. But it would have to be brought to our attention, right? Yes. Okay. You could use it in a political way then, but it wouldn't be um
you know. So you mean if a if a chair of a committee was harassing a staff person that that would not be couldn't couldn't wouldn't ne wouldn't be covered under this policy.
It it would and you could you could do an investigation on that but enforcing it would be would be difficult. But this is this is something a layer that we didn't have at all enforcement of it. Okay. I mean it goes to
That's part of what we discussed. I think Aubrey, you and I discussed in the the next month's onboarding and training discussion about. So if it's a committee, if it's a committee we appoint, then we stand above that committee. So if it's brought to our attention that
there's some harassing behavior occurring in that committee, we have some leverage, I think, to act or to bring it because we're the boss of that committee. Yeah. But if it happens at an independently if one of us is the one doing the harassing or similarly
independently elected board there's not much that's where the training just try to train people to like not do that right. Yeah. But you you could use it as a tool and comment on it and and vote on it. It just doesn't have that same as a it's better than pointed a point.
It's better than not having Yeah. And that's where the um code of conduct for volunteers would come in too. Right. Right. Right. Which we also, right, need to move on. Exactly. And what's great about this is often if you have this in place and you train on it, um, anybody who would who would be
willing to do this usually knocks it off. So just having the policy in general allows you to Yeah. So stem a lot of problems. That's great. Okay. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Okay. Any uh let's take a vote. Roll call. Arnold. I
Stevens I. Triola. I. Okay. Very good. Okay. And then general labor law compliance. Sure. So this is a very general one. Um so we'll see what legal counsel says, but I I think it would be helpful to and I know it would be helpful to refer to
other laws that are state and federal level to say that we are applying right you know uh we comply right now. The policies show that there's a rules of interpretation on section 13 that the policies are intended to be in
accordance with all laws. but that's all it refers to. So, it's good to have just expand a little more and refer to other laws that we need to make sure we're inclusive of. Um, especially since more laws have come into place in the state
since the last policy edition. And is this kind of just like the blanket statement that if we're silent on something or it just kind of says that's the goal and I feel like other towns are still working on getting more
of these compliance policies in place. So there wasn't a lot to compare to for this but I think it's good to but the HR recommendations is to make sure that we do have policies in place. If legal council recommends expanding it then we'll do that. And is there any
downside to having does this put something in place that is? Well, we have to apply comply anyways, right? So, um just making sure that folks understand you need to comply to state and federal law. Okay. Um and you can't just say that.
Yeah. Okay. Is there any and there's there's nothing in here that's uh non-standard or not within the normal No, this is the law. This is the law. So we're saying we comply with the law. Yeah. This also talks to succession.
So making sure that your HR director is is capable of enforcing and training and understanding all of these laws as well. So rather than say you're working to comply, you're telling the employee you will you will comply. So So that's just an
important statement. Okay. Any So I move to approve the general labor law compliance statement as presented by the assistant town administrator and HR director for review by town council.
Second further discussion do roll call vote. Arnold I. Modell I. Stevens I. Triola I. Great. Right. Thank you all very much and we'll be seeing you again. Yeah. Appreciate it. Next meeting. I believe
they get harder than this. Yeah. Yeah. This is the easy one. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. All right. Um, next on the agenda, we have deliberation about dog hearing requests. And I just want to frame this
one uh just so there's no confusion about the scope of tonight's discussion. Um, we are we are not having a hearing. We are not debating the the merits or the of of a particular uh request. The decision tonight is purely do we want to
have one or two hearings um on these two instances. The first being um the dog Dexter that was reviewed by the select board in I think 2020 2021 and more recently the incident with the dog Sasha. Um Dexter the discussion
would be it's a hearing would be a hearing to terminate the nuisance designation that was agreed upon for the Sasha case. It's two parts. It's the hearing would in the hearing we would determine one if Carlile has jurisdiction in this case
because it's not clear. It's a low resident. It's a low res took place in Carile with took place in Carile and there's a question if the dog was staying in Carile or is staying in Carlile. So, we'd have to determine that first, right? And then if
if it was determined in Carile, we would have the hearing and we don't make that determination. Somebody else does that, right? No, you would make it. We would make the determination. We have purview over a non-carolian. Well, so the forgive me public or anyone
who's interested in this, but the the it's not crystal clear in the law. So the what's being stated is in the claim is that this dog has a carile residency component. So you would have to find that compelling for your jurisdiction to kick in. All right. So let me ask it a different
way. If there was no such component, it's like we would have, you know, an out of town dog comes in and bites a town dog and then leaves town, we we don't have much to do with that. Right. Right. So there are legal federal and state laws that apply, but your jurisdiction
as a dog authority does not. Okay. Because you can only we did not have a hearing of this top Sasha thing, right? The old one, I remember that pretty well. So this is where hey we've been a good citizen for four years. The first one yeah can we relax the
restriction this the second one is jurisdiction then then what do we do then you and if you the team you do have jurisdiction you have the hearing and you continue and say nuisance or dangerous but we're not here to review the facts of the case. No we're here to decide do we want to have hearings for
they both happen to involve these dog lawyers this one firm in the same Yeah. and they both came in. In one case, the dog lawyer is representing the accused dog and saying, "I've served my time." And in the second case, the dog lawyer is representing the
victim, saying, "Go after this one." Right. Yes. So, normally by law, if a complaint is made, you have to hold a hearing. You don't have a choice. Right. In this instance, it's not clear that in either one that you have to hold a hearing, but you're being asked to. But somebody, not the dog lawyer, needs
to present the evidence of the car connection, right? Or would that be part of the hearing? The lawyer is claiming that there is a car. But you can't just take the lawyers. There has to be another side to that, right? We would have I didn't want them to come tonight to save a little money, but the lawyers would be here to help you with
juris. Is there a lawyer on the other side? The law people, do they have a lawyer, too? I'm sure they would if you brought them here. Okay. They don't have to show up either. Okay. So, we're being asked by a lawyer.
Carillian. Carillian is raising her hand, right? My dog got euthanized. The lawyer is representing their clients who are Carl residents. Okay. So, we have some duty to respond to that. Both of them are car. Well, the first one's clearly a car matter. Yes. But there's no no in that case
there's no obligation to have a hearing to terminate a a decision. Residents are asking us to but if we don't have the hearing then those conditions we placed on that dog and the dog owner remain that they remain in place. Right. Right. The nuisance.
I mean they're ne are they still neighbors? Those two people the nails and the I don't have that information. Well, anyway, I mean, to me, if you're going to bring the dog lawyers in, you might as well talk about both of them, both cases. Well, I know Barney and David, you were
involved in these, so I guess I defer to you in terms of the first one. Is is there a is there a set of criteria you would consider terminating the the the nuisance aspect of it?
Yeah. Well, I I think let me I I I don't know if if I'm accurate about this, but my understanding is we could leave certain conditions on. Yeah. But remove others. So, for instance, one of the conditions was that
uh whenever they took the dog outside of their property, he had to have muzzle on, right? And Right. and and as well as being on a leash, you know, we could take the so we could take the muzzle requirement off, you know, that kind of thing. I again, I I'm
not sure how that works, but um but as someone who was involved and part of the the initial hearing in your I mean to me I kind of defer to to you and David is people who are familiar with this pro like do you think
this is worth from your standpoint having gone through it worth considering? um in a hearing. To me it is because I mean to me it is too. Yeah. I think they're making a case that their dog's been well behaved and maybe they got training and you know I mean
again and this is we you weren't you guys weren't around when we had this whole series of dog hearings but I tell you from personal experience and my dogs have never been aggressive but they would still run off and do stupid things and we got a dog trainer and guess what? They don't do stupid
things anymore. So it's possible that the dog has been trained and is okay, you know, and so you got to it's like with people, you got to give them the recip, you know, the advantage of of remediation. So I think on that one, I agree with Barney. On the other one,
I think we have a duty to hear the case because a Carlile resident, her dog got killed. Like we got to think about that. So I don't know how I don't know the facts of how we determine and I would argue even if we deem we don't have jurisdiction Well, we have to find out if we have jurisdiction
and if we don't even I think saying making a determination and saying let's reach out to LOL, right, to say what's going on. Yeah, because I don't believe ACO said at least if I recall the level of something like the level of
commitment of the owner that is the the uh defendant owner is well below what one would expect of a dog owner with that kind of aggressive behavior. So there is a mismatch in the acco's mind on right compliance versus
do we not to get too into the details do we know if the the victims put a request into lol if there was clear residency there or we do not so it says you know I'd be curious if lol denied or
had a hearing like l would not have we can get you that but the the key sentence here is we're requesting the board's to schedule a hearing pursuant to determine whether the dog who had been kept in Carlile at the time of the incident is a nuisance dog. And if it was kept in Carl at the time,
we would have jurisdiction versus where it resides now. Maybe. Maybe. So I all we're trying to decide here today is are we going to have a hearing? Both of these I think both I mean sounds like there's enough sounds like there's there's a reason for both. So
I think every select board should do dog hearing since our you know two of our members at least maybe three if I can't remember whether Travis was part of it. He was not he was part of it already. Okay. So and for the record Barney volunteered to
uh chair the hearing. So yeah I don't I don't mind doing that. I think we can do that. And then so we want to set a date. We need to set a date and time and and we talked in our weekly about August 26th meeting. Okay. Okay. I mean, you have to decide what
you've got on their plate because these things are not short, right? We had we had talked about August 26, correct? Yeah. Yeah. And do we have a time I I'm trying to recall what time we Well, there was something else scheduled. What was it that's already
hearing? public road hearing and that's already been u I wouldn't I wouldn't put two hearing don't torture us with two hearings in one meeting I think you should push it to the next I mean it's on the case of the first one it's already been three and a half years
so another week or two so how why don't we do this um if it's not going to be on the 26 why don't we discuss it in our weekly and on the 12th we'll we'll recommend a date and time you got to you for the two things you got to allocate like an hour yeah And and I think if I think if we
decide on the 12th the earliest it would be would be the 9th that should be sufficient notice. Correct. September 9th. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So we can we can figure out and maybe it's not the 9th. Maybe it's the next meeting. But I think if if it's not the 26th, I want us to look at our
schedule and pick a spot for it. Okay. Or alternatively, we might say not that we want to have another meeting, but we have a only hearing, you know, the dog hearings. You may decide based on the
how much stuff's on the agenda exactly what Barney said and that's okay too. So we will we will we will bring a date and time to the next meeting and have a very quick agenda item in motion. That's all you need. Okay. Um so we won't do a motion but that is
the understanding and we will proceed accordingly. Great. Trying to get you caught up Mr. Chair. Let's go. We're working on it. Goals were good. Goals were good. I like them. Um so the next agenda item is select
board goals and I will endeavor to uh be succinct on this. First I wanted to just discuss some of uh the discussion around the FY25 goals and and what the select board um took on as goals and and what our self-evaluation was on that. And and
I would just want to say at the outset that that was my first year on the select board and I'd sat on the other side of the aisle for many years and I I will say I I think it was an ambitious slate and I think the select board while not achieving all of its goals which you know perfection is
never attainable in this business but accomplished a lot and I think that's not to pat ourselves on the back. I also think it speaks to the efforts of the town staff, the other elected officials and the volunteers. So, um overall, a lot was done and a lot was
done that will benefit the town going forward. Specifically, um looking at the goals we had under Carlile character. Um we had a goal around the fire station. Um we did accomplish uh much last year. We still have more to accomplish. We spent a lot of time discussing that
tonight. Suffice to say, that continues to be a goal. In fiscal 26, we also talked about studying the Highland building in the Bog House. On the Bog House, um we did complete some studies and there were some initial um thoughts and plans around how that could
be tackled, but those both remain plans and unfinished plans in fiscal 26. And Highland, the school committee looked into some things, but didn't advance the concept as far as they would like. Again, that's a priority for fiscal 26 and we'll talk about that, but I think we're feeling like we need to find a
purpose for that building if one exists or make a longerterm decision about it. Um, fiscal sustainability, you know, a lot's been done um behind the scenes to support the town in terms of finance, and I want to shout out to
Kelly and Sandy for the work they've done and continue to do in the finance department in terms of getting the revolving funds organized. A lot was accomplished there. There's still some remaining work, but it's in a lot better shape than it used to be. The performance review system that Ryan and
Aubrey have implemented that was accomplished and is in place for employees and I think is benefiting um the staff and and the performance process overall. Um and you know, work in progress, but we we are continuing to promote a culture of resource sharing.
Um and that's that's going to be a continued point of emphasis going forward. uh connectivity and access. We toured the buildings. Um some of them some of them that was helpful and I think that should continue and that was discussed a little bit tonight about the fire department. Um certainly with the
town meeting study some some new concepts were put in place. I think overall uh it worked well and as we've discussed in our own meetings there's still new things to try and adjustments to make but I think the the committee did great work and I think with the
select board support we did some some good things at the last town meeting and for special town meeting we'll we'll continue to do the things that we work and adjust on the things that uh maybe didn't work as well. Um, and then the administrator bylaw, we brought that to town meeting. We got it passed, amended, but we got it
passed. Um, and we've begun implementation of that bylaw. Um, I reached out to the various chairs this week. Um, communicating what we agreed on last week to support the early implementation. We've sent that to legislation for approval. Um, and I think that'll benefit the town going
forward. So, that that was a big accomplishment. Environmental stewardship. Um I think in some areas the certainly the MVP study, the municipal vulnerability preparedness study, um that was accomplished, the report was delivered. Now we need to follow up and and uh
review it and prioritize, but a lot of good work was done there. We also were one of the first towns to be designated a climate leader. Uh that was a really strong accomplishment for the community. Um and I think that will yield dividends in terms of grant and and just visibility going forward. Um and then
you know these other things we continue to do work on the underground water supply that was a goal uh not fully accomplished and then we had talked about developing metrics to evaluate the cost benefits of economic and climate impact work is needed there but it's it's definitely on the radar um and
something we're all thinking about in terms of the caring community. Uh Benfield continues to be a challenge we'll talk about in in our goals going forward. Um there's still issues there that that need to be addressed. Um, we continue to collaborate with the planning board to
establish the goals and a path for the MBA communities law. They're doing a tremendous amount of work and again that's going to be a goal and a focus for fiscal 26 as we move towards special town meeting. Um, and again support and finalized the MVP study that was
accomplished and then the rental assistance program that that was not accomplished and and needs additional attention. And then we had some other unnec ongoing necessary business. Um a whole bunch of items that you know are not small items but were accomplished
like the removal of the goal barn um the study of the culverts uh bidding and construction of the police station. A lot of good things were accomplished. So work remains but with regard to fiscal 25 um I think the the select board and the town made a lot of progress last
year. And looking forward to fiscal 26, the the committee met um last two Wednesdays ago and we developed the select board goals. Um I guess first from a from a committee standpoint, did anyone have any additional comment or
thoughts on the fiscal 26 goals? Uh Scott, I've got a question on one of them under the caring community. Yes. Where it's in the last uh section, volunteer support. Yes. So it says develop a training
module to guide volunteers who manage collaborative staff. And what I've forgotten what we meant by collaborative staff. A training module to guide volunteers who manage collaborative staff. That's a term we created for staff that
That's right. falls under an elected body. So, um, in the TA bylaw, I'm supposed to collaborate with boards on, uh, HR decisions. Do you remember in that in the in the
the memo we endorsed, one of the categories is collaborative or one of the terms that's used is collaborative staff. So, it's referring to an internal term. Yeah. I I I just wondered if we like if it's you know this will get published in
the mosquito whether it would be helpful to put some description in parenthesis next to that you know to explain what that who who that is but what would what would we put in that in the parenthesis Ryan? Do do you have a brief suggestion? Uh, we can spell it
out and say who manage staff that work directly for elected. It's more complicated than that, but yeah. Is there like a reference? See? Yeah. Or I can put a is there a blurb we can
put at the after the goals that would have a a little more definition to it? How about guide volunteers who manage staff? To guide volunteers. That's fine. who wanted staff. Yeah, that works. If that works Yeah. for you, Ryan, I
think that's clearer. You know, I think any volunteers that interact with staff should get some training on it. So, I think it's fine. So, we would we would delete the word collaborative in that one. Okay.
And and the only other thing, Scott, is I was thinking about the um uh the connectivity and access. Yeah. You know how you know how we've been talking about um and I I don't know exactly I don't have the wording so I
apologize but it seemed to me we might want to I don't know say something about our efforts that we've discussed about uh kind of promoting transparency and better communication
you know within or by you know committees and boards and you across committees and boards or or something about that because that really is, you know, that's connect that's can connectivity and access in terms of
people having access to information, access to what's going on. Uh as well as, you know, connecting Yeah. boards to one another. I I don't know what you're thinking. Crossunctional collaboration needed. Yeah. We're not using the word collaborative. No, but Okay.
I mean, it works either way. boards, committees. So maybe I'm just writing something as you speak. So promote transparency and communication. Promote transparency. I'll I'll put
collaborative in there. Promote transparency, communication, and collaboration across town boards, committee, commissions, and town staff. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great, I think. Don't Don't you think it's good to put something in like that? Yes, I do think. Yeah, I think Yeah. just given the conversations we've
been having. Yeah. So again, the the wording would be promote transparency, communication, and collaboration across town boards, committees, commissions, and town staff. Which which go which heading does that
go under? That'll be under connectivity and access. Okay. So if people are amendable to that, I will add that. Okay. Great, good suggestion, Barney. Thank you.
And I think this all looks great. Well done, Scott. You really helped us move along on this one. Any other discussion on this or does someone might want to make a motion to approve as amended and then it will then
be uh posted on the town website and we'll provide to the mosquito. I'll move to accept the goals as amended. I would second that. Any more discussion?
Let's take a roll call. Arnold I. Modell I. Stevens I. Triola I. Excellent. Thank you very much. Now we're moving on to appointed public
bodies residency requirement discussion. And again, I want to scope the conversation on this one. We're not making a decision about residency requirements. I think the question is as a select board, is this something we want to uh
have some effort on and and allocate some future agenda time to? And so, u this has come up in a couple instances. Um Christine had forward me a forwarded a question about a volunteer who wanted to uh participate on a couple of community or a couple of committees and
the question was residency requirement. How does it work? How do we how does it work within Carlile? I thought it was a simple answer as those tend to normally become it became a complicated answer. So then I asked Gretchen
to work with um Ashley to write a memo on their understanding of it and how it works currently and that's what's in front of us tonight. And based on that, is this something that we think needs some select board attention in terms of
clarifying? So I was surprised to read that except for the historical commission and the gap anybody you don't have to be a resident to serve. Like you don't have to be resident to be elected as a select board.
Elected positions do have a residency requirement like FinCom. No FINCOM I thought did but then I went back and read the bylaw and it says voting not a voting resident just a voter. So I don't believe that counts as a res all those things all those
well to to vote in carile don't you have to it doesn't say vote in carile you said a voter a voter so someone who votes I guess I interpret it as voter in carile but when they it wasn't anyway getting too much but at a high level
non-residents can serve on comm boards and committees unless here's a complicated answer so mass law is silent on the issue, right? Yeah. Most of our committees are silent on the
issue, which means technically yes, they can serve, but and again, this is an exception based issue. They're in the in the memo they say we kind of assume a residency requirement. Who's we? Gretchen and
Yeah. In the memo, they do. Yeah. Yeah. They do. Well, and and that's sort of been our past practice, I would say, having been on the select board, you know, for a couple of terms now. And David, don't you think we've generally Well, right. I mean, that's right. We're always asking, you know, we
we ask for um proof that they're a resident and you know, and it's provided because yeah, volunteers like usually would volunteer for their town. Like, why would you volunteer for somebody else's town? Well, the I I'll give you an example of people that have technically there's a description of
what they use for residency. Yeah. Well, right. If you have two homes and someone right, but that's either or. I mean, I'm saying why would like a western person want to serve on a car committee? Like why would they do do we care? We always looking for volunteers, right?
So, usually it's a Carile resident. Usually, there's many examples. There there are cases where someone might own land here. No. No, I get that. But there's also cases where they did live here, but they no longer do. So there Right. So there there's people who absolutely this is their primary
residence. That's one class. That's most of the people. Then there's people with two residences or they have land but no house or they their parents still live here or they used to live here and they like the
town. And that is a question. Do we if they have a emotional or other tie to the town and they want to serve, what's wrong with that? And then there's some outlying thing which would be somebody who absolutely doesn't have any of those
cases. And in that situation, even that could be somebody who just likes the town and wants to do it, or somebody who has an agenda and sees a loophole and they could come in and make mischief. I mean that those are the or his family in town or something.
No, no. The family in town is the middle group. There's a group of people that No, but I mean their residence is elsewhere and maybe they have Let me Maybe I wasn't clear. There's a group where it's clearly they're a resident. Yeah. Then there's a group where it's not so clear that they're a resident, but they have a tie to Carlo.
My parents live here. I grew up here. I have land here, but no house, but they want to serve, right? They like the town. That's okay. Then there's a group that has, it's never come up that I know, but there's they don't have any identifiable connection to the town,
but they want to serve. And the question in that case is why do you want to serve? Because somebody could potentially find a loophole in our bylaw, as we found, and come in to make mischief. But we still have appointing authority. Yeah. Right. So,
at the end of the day, y we can we can do it on a case- by case basis. I guess the question is right now as I read it, if someone's not an official resident, yeah, they'd be screened out and not unless they raise your hand and they say, why are you penalizing me? There's
nothing in the law that says I can't. Right. So, the question I have is people don't know that you're right. Most people know thank to Mr. Verinda. Do we a do we think there's something that as a select board we should address or look into in some form or fashion as
a a policy? Do we keep it status quo? Do we want to articulate specifically in a charter if there is or is not a residency requirement? I don't know. Well, I think this merits discussion by us. Yeah. Um and I think particularly the uh
you know the point that uh the memo makes is that um you know you don't want be the staff to be in the position of having to um decide. Right. Right. You know when it when it's ambiguous or when there's nothing to go by that
they're in the position of having to decide. Um, so I I think we want to make clear what the policy is even if it's well whatever we should make clear what it is and then well before you make I mean Barney I think
I think the first things we have to ask ourselves well let me use the correlary this came up a lot when I was on the school committee where let's say there's a divorced couple
and the parents are forum shopping like which of the towns gives like say the kid's a spedk kid which town gives better services how do I engineer the residency of that child in the town I want to be in right
and so when we looked at you know especially again especially a kid that is now going to go for out of district placement and magically appears as a resident of the town and we have to look and say what's the test. And in
that situation, the first thing is there's a clear uh advantage or disadvantage to us as a town. Like we don't really just want to accept people that just move in for convenience, right? So we would want to apply a residency test and there's a
pretty formulaic residency test for that. And so I'm using that correlary. So now if I pivot, the first question for us is, is it detrimental or beneficial or neutral to us to have somebody who has some connection to the town who wants to
serve? We have to answer that one first. If we think it's beneficial, then we should be pretty relaxed about it and just do what we're doing. If we think it's not beneficial, then we can go to some means testing. That's my opinion. But my understanding is there there
currently is means testing for non-residents based on the memo, they'll say no. Nobody's ever complained about that. I mean, nobody's ever really been caught in that. I don't think it's a problem. Or do we or do we give the direction of
unless there's a residency requirement? If it's a non-resident, just flag it in the application so we can see it when we're looking at it as a decide and then we we can decide. Yeah. Which is fine. Which is basically status quo. Well, I think status quo there's an initial screen though that
takes it out. So any we don't need to decide this tonight. I don't know. Barney, did you have Well, I I was just going to say I think the other thing to consider is um in addition to what we're saying is the
sort of first question is um if you're serving on a committee that is making is taking votes and making decisions about something that will be happening in Carlile and the person doesn't have
residence here, it doesn't you know even they have a connection to the town but they don't live here. Um I think that's something we got to think about too, right? If who you know when a committee is taking votes and the vote is going to determine
something that happens in town. That's pretty much every committee, isn't it though? Pardon? Don't pretty much all committees take votes on things? Well, that's what I'm saying. So would you you know how would residents feel about a non-resident? Right. So I mean you're making but I
mean you're making my point which is the discussion we need to have is is potentially a non-resident or partyear resident or tangential resident serving a good thing or not a good thing. I think that's the
I was just trying to add that because in this case what we're discussing is bodies where a person could be voting on things whereas with the school committee example you you know that's just it's just different. They're not elected. The analogy of the school committee was
just to determine it wasn't a good thing, but there's a means test that one can apply. I just think we should formulate test this and come up with Right. I agree. Yeah. Make a decision. I agree. Yeah. Because again, the the the the point that surprised me or was news to
me was at the bottom of page one where it says staff had generally assumed a residency requirement. When silent, we have been assuming a residency requirement. Yeah. meaning, and again, I don't think this is common, but if you're a non-resident and it's silent, your application would get
rejected before it got to us, right? And is that how we want them to handle it, or do we want them to pass those through, but flag them as non-residents and then we make the decision as the appointing authority? We're deliberating on something I thought we were just going to decide we're going to deliberate on in the future.
Yeah, I agree. But I think that's the issue with the status quo is is I think different than what we might be talking about. I I like the suggestion that you had Scott where you know if it's appointed an appointed position let's you know not automatically reject them put it through
for appointment but flag that you know whatever the situation is of their non-residenty. I think that's that's great. We need all the volunteers we can get. So, I don't know if there's one more talking point, not for tonight, though. You have some current
volunteers that are not residents who were appointed. Um, the the one thing that staff wants to flag to you is traditionally when people disagree with those residents, that is or those volunteers, that is something that comes up that they're not residents. So, they use it as a
Oh, it happened in one of your meetings. I'm not sure if you caught it, but one of the meetings they said, "Well, this is a person who serves on multiple committees that doesn't live here." Right. So, it's usually during a disagreement that it becomes a problem. Yeah. Whereas, like if you're on the fire
station, not that you guys aren't a great committee, but you might want to bring outside expertise in order to inform a committees, but usually when they make decisions that involve budget or land use or something. Well, that's that's uh Barney's point. Yeah. Right. Okay. So,
you want to take it up at a future date or do we decide it? What's the ask here right now? Well, we're going to take it up at a future date. I guess the question is if we want to change the bottom part, we can just change the status quo for now in terms of the assuming a residency
requirement. Meaning we change it as in don't have the staff look up residency. No, when it's silent, don't they? Right. someone's not a resident instead of uh not considering their application
they note that and forward it to us to do we have evidence is that whether they get appointed or not I don't think this is a common occurrence but I also certainly not common has it ever happened I don't know well so I think we ought to look you know we ought to take a little time uh and
let's get a little more Brian if this is if this is high enough priority I don't know whether we'd want to say could you know a staff person We have so much to do. What do other towns is this a problem looking for? Is a solution looking? No, it's a real problem. The town
it is staff have no direction here. That is what the case is. Yeah. Tell them what you're doing. Give them that direction for right now. The Well, the most recent case you said, does it ever happen? The one of the cases before us is we have someone who wanted to volunteer for the library
building committee. This guy has 30 years of construction experience. He's lived in Carl for a number of years, but he spends 20% of his time or so he estimates at his house in the Cape. And he actually does not vote in Carile. So
that's what Gretchen flagged for me. And I said, "Hm, that's interesting. A voter, but he has a house here. He has a house here, but he's not a resident. He's Well, he lives there. He says he lives there, but he here. So by their by their word by, wasn't it in this thing? where you at?
They also look at where it's not clear. Yes. So, it's that's what the town staff is looking for. They said this is a real hangup for them. But see though, but in that in that case it's the trustees, the library trustees and it's their charter. But I think in those cases the appointment should come to us. All right. So, so what you're saying is
flag it. Don't ding it. Flag it. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Great. Let's do that. I'm all for that. about that. Gosh, I hate to slow be the fly in the ointment or whatever, but David, then what happens
if we get se, you know, if we get these over time and we then how do we decide whether or not we're going to approve somebody serving on a committee that doesn't live here? Then does that mean well you say doesn't live here but the
Christine example is no I know but let's just let's circumst it's I think it's happened virtually zero in my time David hang on a sec you didn't let me make my point okay I I think it becomes harder for the select board to be
consistent and fair if it's a casebycase um decision. It's I think it's easier, you know, to have a just a standard policy and that that's what we should figure out.
So, you must be a voter here is what you're saying or something. Well, Christine, you would say no to the guy who's got plenty of experience because he doesn't vote here. I haven't said no. I I said this is the libraryies decision. It's the libraryies. But when Gretchen
flagged it for me, she put the question to me and said this is a real hangup for the town staff, right? But if we're saying it's not what I mean, I take part's point. So it can't be the library's decision anymore. The town select. No, no, no. That's their committee that they can. It is they can do. So the independently elected people,
they have their own chart. They set their charters and they do their own appointments. So only for our guys. Only for our guys. Yeah. It only came to me because I am the library building. We're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. But I I'm happy to go with whatever people want because I don't think it's mission critical in any
way. Let's table this. Let me follow up with get some more data. See if it ever really happens. Yeah. And and I can I we can just informally say, hey, next time we get an application that's a non-resident like
let me know. I want to like just let's see. Right. And let's see. This is not a common occurrence. Um but I do think I do think it is an occurrence and I do think it there is it will be an raises an issue. Okay. And that's why we're talking and we do also have a current you know
someone serving on a different committee not the library trustees chairing committee you know is not is no longer a Carlile resident by any of the measures. Well that's another case and we've had that a lot where people resign because they are moving to conquered someplace.
Right. That happens all the time. Sometimes they don't resign. No, but this is someone who who does no longer. I'm fine. I'm fine imposing a standard or not. I really don't care. That one we can. Whichever way you want to go. We can committee. We'll go boommy poo like the motivations.
Let's let's table this. Let's keep an eye on it. I'm fascinated by it now just to see what But I I do think there's a good chance this will be coming back on our plate. All right. Um, let's go. Okay. So, let's move on.
Collective bargaining agreement with Carile Police Dispatch. Ryan. All right. So, we'll be adding this document to the packet. It was sent to you for review. This is the memorandum of agreement with the Carile Public Safety Dispatchers, Massachusetts
Coalition of Police Local 2011A. And that is correct. It is police. They have the same union representation as the police. Our police are 2011, dispatches 201A. This is the first agreement, three-year agreement in more than five years with
dispatch. So that in itself is a success. The negotiating team consisted of myself, Aubrey and Kate until Kate moved to France and we were able to finalize it and again we sent this to you for your review. So at a very high
level, this agreement with dispatch includes 2.5% COLA over the next three years. It adds a state of emergency differential and a training incentive, a small training incentive for people who are assigned to train new employees, which is rare, but it does happen. The
select board discussed EMD and other education certifications for dispatchers, and we agreed to pilot an EMD certification, which will look something like one employee going through this program and seeing the value that it adds and then discussing it. at the next cycle. We increased the
uniform allowance. We also uh clarified language about how to calculate base pay and um that sounds easy but it's a very complicated discussion. Our stipens rolled in, our longevity is rolled into
base pay and how is all that calculated? Uh we were able to clarify that with the union. We also significantly removed one union employee from the union and made this employee the director of communications. This person was serving in that role but
um because of union constraints was not fully able to complete all department head functions. Both sides agreed to that and we removed this employee that's Kirk Bishop. He will be the assuming we we pass this will be the director of communications and become a non-union
role and the cost is equivalent. A small increase in shift differential and then a few um administrative cleanups on language calling things the same thing. Instead of comp days there'll be personal days.
Just trying to hit the big stuff. Um, if a member dies, their benefits would be, we clarified that their benefits would be passed on to their next of kin, which is federal law. Anyway, we added a the ability to remove a probationary period for new hires,
assuming um many department heads in the town agree, including the communications director, the fire chief, the chief of police, and myself. This sounds, why would you do that? It's because sometimes we hire a really experienced person and they don't want to leave their job to come to a job that has a
probation. So in that case, we may wave it, but we don't have to. And then the remainder of the agreement is about uh the union receiving reasonable time off for union stuff. So overall, we're recommending the negotiation team is recommending to the
this to you as a solid investment in our employees that is fiscally responsible. Great. Okay. So, if you agree um to implement this MOA, it becomes the agreement and then you can authorize me to sign the actual
contract which would be modeled after the MOA's changes. Okay. Would you like me to read the motion? Please. I move that we approve the memorandum of agreement between the town and the Carlile Police Massachusetts Coalition
of Police Local 2011A and authorized the town administrator and town council to finalize a contract memorializing the three-year agreement as described in the memorandum of agreement included in the packet and to
sign on the town's behalf. Before you vote, just a friendly amendment that it would be between the town and the Carile dispatch and then the rest would be the same. Uh, okay. Between the town and the car Oh, right. Okay. So, um, please amend my
motion to show that it's the Carlile dispatch instead of police. Yes, I would second that as amended. Any further discussion? Seeing none, let's do a roll call.
Arnold I. Modell I. Stevens I. Triola. I All right. We have labor piece. That's our last union for a couple years. Yeah. Well done. Thank you, Ryan. Why are they all in the same cycle?
They weren't. So, the dispatch union was out of cycle, and we did a a series of one-year agreements because there was no contract for three years, and that put them on the same cycle. something we can fix in future years. There are some benefits to the same year, though. Yeah.
All right, let's move on to the town administrator report. You've caught up. I'm ahead of schedule. Woohoo. All right, here is my town administrator report for July 22nd, 2025. Some town hall events and news. We are holding a
professional development day on August 19th. This is significant because we will be closing town hall, but this will allow staff to participate in a full day of professional development and training. This is designed to meet your mandatory training and professional development goals and strengthen our departments. So staff will receive
targeted training, a tour of proposed construction sites. They'll experience COS transportation services by traveling around in our vans, and then we will do personal development training at Great Brook Farm. And as long as no staff are listening, we might give them some ice
cream at the end of the day just to make them happy. But it's our first full professional development day. It's a concept we're testing. We're hoping that it's successful and leads to better service overall. That same day, an ambitious day, we are holding our volunteer
training. This is for chairs, new volunteers, and any other volunteer who wants to come. The training will be at 6 p.m. in this room and will also be offered in a hybrid format. It's designed to provide newly appointed and elected officials essential information about Carile's government to include our
structure, training on the ethics and open meeting law, managing public comment during meetings, appointing and res uh appointment and resignation procedures, financial basics about the town, and then the roles of responsibilities of the volunteers and the chairs. We usually get a strong
turnout for this, so we're inviting everybody to to participate. And then just continuing to remind folks as we go through our soft opening month here in July that town hall hours are now 8:30 to 4:30 Monday through Thursday and Friday from 9 to 12. The only
exception is the board of health who is closed to the public on Friday. These expanded hours aim to improve access to town hall services and create greater consistency across departments. And then we wanted to stabilize employee schedules to make sure that we're not
only providing recruitment and retention but also accountability. It's a double-edged double-edged sword as they say here in my report on uh human resources. You'll you will see in addition to in our section on appointments the town administrator appointments that have
been made. This is twice. You'll be notified ahead of any appointments that I do and um any appointments that are done in consultation with other boards. And then we'll also publicly notify you of any appointments that are done by the independent authorities which is the library, the board of health, and the
fire department. But this is to provide transparency during this transition to the town administrator bylaw. We also have an accepted offer for the finance and HR assistant position which we'll make public at your next meeting. I'll be appointing this person assuming
reference checks are positive. Then we'll notify you as I said at your next meeting. We also started recruiting and have a significant amount of applications for the assistant town clerk role. This is the one that was filled by Alana Lynch. We are rolling her two duties together into one full.
She was already full-time, but she was part-time with the historical commission. This will now become part of that job description. And they'll also be able to assist other kind of funnily calling orphan boards when they need help with minutes and other administrative duties. Okay. We're still looking for a DPW
mechanic. If you know any that are good, we would we would love to interview them. This section is going to require some of your approval. We're going to go into department updates and information. So, we have a final bid for our 2025 road maintenance project, and it is as
follows. The base bid includes pheasant hill, the repairing some of the drainage issues that were discussed during last year's maintenance hearing and then a top coat which was delayed a few years in the transition between Gary and Jim. Then we're also paving the CPS parking
lot as we discussed during last year's capital plans. That's the base bid. Then you have Berry Corner Road and Lane which is your so-called parody road which was alternate one. And then Actton Street was something we wanted to add if pricing was favorable.
The other projects we're looking to fund are the Westford Street covert design. This has already been approved there. They have begun. You probably see the survey equipment working on whether or not that that covert is going to hold and we are hoping for that. And then we do need to discuss the shared and complete streets design and
implementation. There is a grant out for that that we're hoping to get, but that'll be a cost to implement those two grant projects totaling more than $600,000 in grants. So, here I'm going to put this up for you so you can see it and ask you for
some guidance. I could share quickly try to make it bigger for Barney. Thank you. Here we go. available funds. Our current reserve is 409,000. This includes the Westford Street
Culbert study already completed. Part of that study money is reserved in case we have to design a other fix. So, we might return some of that money, about 50,000 of it, but we can't say that for sure right now. The governor signed a supplemental budget. They haven't put
out the appropriations, but it is approved. We know we're going to get somewhere between 70 and $100,000 from the fair share act and that is noted here. And then the governor has also been advocating for 300 million. It was
a two-year bond. Now it is a one-year bond that all of our legislative friends have said we that that it's a sure thing. It just hasn't been passed yet. So I don't count sure things until they happen. But um if you add if you add those three
the reserve um the first line is assuming we don't have to redo that culver right correct the culver is not included in that but I mean we're taking the money we reserve for it and putting it to this we haven't reserved any for it it's an unknown cost at this point so what is current reserve mean then oh
it's exclusive of that chapter 90 I get the chapter 90 but the 409 is uncommitted money uncommitted money okay got so our total Our total available funds is 939,000.
So here's a breakdown of the costs as I just described. So the base bid, right, Hill and school is 154. Here's your Berry Corner costs in Actton Road. The design, which is variable, it could be anywhere from 80 to 135,000. So we
conservatively put the top number puts total expenses here at 660,000 if you approved at all. And just for clarity, the school parking is in the back. It's not the area in the front that was recent. Small piece. What's the design? Design what?
All of the sidewalks that were part of the complete streets and shared streets. Designing that for construction documents and implementation. Okay. But where's the money to actually do that? The grants shared street shared and complete streets provides 600. We have to do we have to pay for the
design, but the actual construction the grant will pay for it. Yes, but the state just launched LEAP, which is a program designed to help rural communities with design costs for the implementation of things like complete streets. We apply for that. We could get that. We could. Okay. All right. Good.
All right. So, next year, these are also not counted funds, but usually the state doesn't go down in chapter 90 and then you have in your capital plan to supplement up to 800,000 with free cash. So this would be a total
of your current reserves left plus next year's money for next year's project. It would mean we wouldn't have enough money to do this in the spring. We would have to do it in the fall. So you're saying well I'm lost track. So we end if we do the business plan we
still have 278k left un uncommitted. Yeah. That goes into next year let's say and 450 and 350. So you'd have a million. So is it really a million dollars or more? Assuming that you have the capital money
and Yeah. or we we cut back the capital money, right? And you'd have less. But this is when you say 2026, do you mean town meeting 26 or what was approved at last town meeting? The next year's money. So this is you wouldn't spend it till this is this is FY27.
Yeah. Right. Okay. So what I'm asking you is we do not have to do alternates A and B. So I'm strongly recommending that we do very corner road and lane. Is that the squeaky wheel part or is that
it is it was heavily discussed last year as things that would never get done normally as part of your parody effort. But I mean it it affects on a dollars per person effective. It's the most expensive one, right?
Yes. So what is the reason to do it? Just people that are well remember the discussion David we you know that came out of the hearing people squat and also isn't this the one Ryan that you just mentioned that because of the
transition between Gary and Jim that the top coat was never done. Am I remembering that correctly? That's Fezenh Hill and Actton. Oh. Oh okay. Sorry one. This is more we're basically saying if you squawk loud enough, we're going to
do your thing. Well, no, we you recall last year we made a decision that we would try uh because um that we would we would try to address the roads that were not um you
know priorities on our master maintenance list. No, I remember that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Tell me about Actton Street. What's the Actton Street one? This is a road that falls into the next level of priority. We wanted to see if we would get a favorable cost by including it and we did.
So it is a favorable cost. This will go up next year, but it doesn't mean we have to do it this year. You don't have to do either of them. But don't have to do any of it. Don't have to do anything, but we are sort of committed to paving some stuff. So
this is we talked about getting up to 800,000. We've done half of that this year. So, this would be the So, what additional 400,000 is. What are you asking for tonight? Because this is part of your update. You had a motion in the packet, right?
Yeah. just I just want to know that you're comfortable with this paving plan and the level of reserves it brings us down to. What does it do to if we do these we still have the the vast majority of the roads that are on
some longer term plan and isn't it at around 800,000 a year to Yep. And how many squeaky wheels are left after these two? Enough.
So you would hear to do one a year or something. That's the idea was that we would do one that's not normally done per year which here is very So isn't this year berry corner and not acting? Correct. Yes. Both need to be paved. It's just when Well, everything needs to be paved. My
question is my recollection and it's dimmer than uh Barney's is the squeaky wheelroads just don't the costbenefit analysis is not they don't make it on costbenefit analysis because fewer people use them
but yet they they make it on sort of damage and general annoyance. And so we prioritize the costbenefit analysis of the other roads that lots of people use and then we feather in one or more of these a year. Right.
Which is why you have decent big roads and terrible local roads. I don't see any big roads on this. Are we caught up on big roads right now? No. So why wouldn't we do a big road instead of actton road for example? So we did the so-called big roads. That
was the other half. We did do a big road this year. We did Sterns, Rogers. I feel like I'm getting half a story. What's the total spend in fiscal 25 on roads? Is there some something we've spent that's not showing up here? Fiscal 26. Half of this.
So, we've already spent 370 is what you're saying. Yes. Plus, put 370 on there. Just type it in. I just feel like we're not getting the full story and we should try to stick to 800. So we're 200 over. So it seems to me acting
road. Well, that's that includes the design or you got to spend that. No, but I'm saying so take design zero that out. Let's pretend that it's not there. Okay. What do you guys want to do? Seems to me
one we said we should do one a year. If Barry Corner is the one then acting roads next year, right? Well, acting wrote it was also because we were going to get a more favorable price this year. You're always going to get a more favor. Why don't we pay everything now? Because it's cheaper now than it'll be 10 years
from now. I mean, yeah, I get it. But your recommendation is to do these the ones that you're presenting. Correct. I'm trying to give the full picture now, right? Which I should have done. Um, we did do it. It's just a while ago,
but it's in the fiscal year. So, it's not it's not being our general guidance is 800,000 a year. So, we presented a 2425 road maintenance plan to you that included completing last year's projects, Church Curve, Proctor, Prospect River,
and then this is this year's slate. And we did all that. We did all of that. Right. Right. And remind me these were these in the plan that when we saw it these were. Yes. So then we came to you and we said over multiple years we want to expand this to
a fiveyear project and and these these would be the next roads right so the culvert we did yes well the temporary fix but that is the temporary fix the 500,000. Yeah. Right. Okay. And uh
so is that 1.5 million? Was that over two years? I'm sorry. So this didn't come because we did the temporary replacement and we haven't decided whether or not we need to do the full but somewhere else in the niche study was about 800,000 a year was not was the amount that would keep us sort of from
you know keeping things more or less a grade B or whatever. Right. C plus. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I you know seems to me we had a if we had a model and it says you do that model and you add one extra one whatever what would you call it advocacy
you had some parity road par road so one parody road so pick a parody road I don't care which one you pick one is actton road a parody road it is not oh it's not a parody road
what is it then it's another road we need to pave trying here. Was this the original plan and are we just is this sticking to the plan with one parody road? It is, but we have to fit in pieces as
they work. So, there are some projects that are so huge that it'll only be that project we can do. We're trying to expand it to 10, right? Let's just do it. I mean, you're closer to this. I I don't know how to evaluate. He recommends it. It's okay. I thought it was another parody road. I was
objecting because I thought it was a parody. If it's a regular road and you're saying do it now rather than later because it's cost effective then right I'm I'm I'm more inclined to greenlight cost effect you know
like if the metric is dollars per user whatever that would be I'm not suggesting we study that but you know generally if it's if it's low road like everybody uses it then pave the thing and act roads probably like that so it's pave Yeah.
Yeah. PCI of 75. So starting to deteriorate to Okay. All right. Does someone want to make a motion? David, do you want to make a motion? I move I move to approve the plan as presented. Road maintenance project as described in the town administrator.
Yes. Thank you. 2025. Yeah. I would second that. 2025. We're using 25,000. Are we using calendar years on these? Calendar because it's calendar year. That's confusing too, isn't it? The whole thing is. Yep. Because
it's the chapter 90. We didn't have enough money or approval to do the 800. We had to wait till town meeting. We had already bid last year in a two-year bid and now we're trying to catch up. All right. So, we have a motion. We have a second. Any more deliberation or discussion?
Seeing none, let's take a roll call vote. Arnold, I. Modell, I. Stevens, I. Triola I. And we're still in the town administrative report, correct? Yes. There's still there's still more. We're allocating more time to the town
administrative report going forward. Okay. Contract approvals. Please contract is complete as discussed at your last meeting. And tonight, we discussed the dispatch union contract and agreed to a new MOA that would give us a three-year contract with dispatch, which is good news. The finance
committee is planning is currently doing a a planning process with all of our departments that includes investigating a MBTA community scenario to to gather whether or not they're going to offer an opinion during the fall town meeting. This gives
departments some model to use in order to address how service would be impacted by an increase in housing. They're also asking departments to complete a five-year financial forecast and request out any personnel changes or any department level changes in services
over the next five years and updating the capital plan which we're trying to expand from 5 to 10. The point of this is to evaluate the long-term affordability and to better understand how our projected revenues, which are decreasing, are going to pay
for our anticipated increasing expenses. I held a training with the workshop in here to go over how to do financial forecasting and capital plan modeling and helped each department to develop their response to the finance committee. So, it should be a great process. I'm also pleased to share that the Commonwealth supplemental budget
included a $30,000 appropriation for Carlilele to support the 250th celebration which was now several months ago, which is how the state likes to do it. But we do thank the state, especially our legislative delegation, Representative Simon Catalo and Senator Mike Barrett and their dedicated staff
for their advocacy. I don't like to talk about myself, but I am your employee. So, I'm telling you two professional development things that that I've completed recently for your awareness. I was elected to be the president of STAM, which is a small town administrators of Massachusetts, and I do a lot of leg legislative advocacy
there to include some of the things you've heard about tonight. And I also received notice from the Commonwealth that renewed my notary public which I offer services to Carlile uh staff and volunteers. Occasionally residents for capital
congratulations. Thanks. Yeah, congratulations. That's a good one. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Ryan two year position so I'm not sure it's good yet. 10 years. Two years. 10 years. Barney. I'm locked in. It's two two years. Two years.
Two. 10 years. All right. Jim and I worked pretty hard to turn that Culvert report into a product for you to review. It should be just as just as confusing as tonight's road maintenance project because we're we're trying to
do a lot with a little. Yep. The elevator modernization project. The attorney general is going to hold a hearing about our bid protest and that will be scheduled while I'm gone mercifully on military leave. But our our lawyers have got it and we're hoping to win.
The brick building HVAC project is now out to bid. We expect to receive those back by August 21st and I'm working with Steven to finalize the scope on our bathrooms project. Uh because of changes in scope caused by plumbing issues, we'll likely be able to
only do two bathrooms this year and then maybe two next year. Lastly, Gretchen worked very closely with your cemetery committee to finalize the bid for cemetery mapping and software project as approved at town meeting. The contract was awarded to Sims. The cemetery committee is now implementing that
mapping program. So, you should see a lot of that come to fruition in the spring and the summer. Quick update on CPA projects. The Panther Davis track rehabilitation is also out to bid. The response is due by July 25th. You can see I've been doing a
lot of procurement. The hydraological studies are now the field work is now complete. We're able to coordinate volunteers and residents meeting with the data gatherers in the field to enrich that data. I think everybody involved, as you remember, it's been a long process approving these
hydraological studies is happy with the way that it was conducted. Now, we'll see how the results inform the infrastructure decisions at the Cranberry Bog and the Greeno Pond. And lastly, Julie sent out an update about uh niche engineering beginning the
septic capacity feasibility study at the boghouse. We expect that next week or the week after and they also coordinated with the board of health to do this study and the results of that will help us with the next phase of any project at the bar house building
construction projects. I do not have any significant updates for the library or the police station except things are moving. And tonight you heard a pretty comprehensive report from your fire station apparatus committee who's uh presented these findings and will result
in a presentation to you at your next meeting August 12th. No significant update on the DPW building except that we need to schedule that for discussion at some point for next steps upcoming discussions. Fall town meeting is going to dominate much of your
September and October. And I do want to remind you that you need a finalized recommendation on the number of nights and associated nightly agendas, final list of warrant articles, and your recommendations for each. When did we vote closing? We voted closing, right?
Yes. That is August 22nd. Yes. When do we need to finalize? Is that next meeting? As soon as soon as possible. So, next meeting. I've talked a lot about MCR MCS presenting you at some point. We'll do
that when the schedule allows. We have advertised your road maintenance hearing on the 26th to get more feedback. Maybe you won't get a lot of feedback. We have 10 responses so far, much less than last year's 70 or 80. Oh, wow. And then what responses to our
road maintenance? We sent out a request for people to send in road maintenance requests and complaints. So, it's good that we have fewer. Yes. It means we're addressing those parody roads. Right. Right. I got it. I got it. All right. I'm going to notify you of some approvals. We approve the use of
the town common on Sunday, July 27th for the India Association of Greater Boston to conduct their annual India and US flag raising ceremony. and your chair has volunteered to be your representative there. But of course, you're all invited. And we also approved a request to use
Carlile roads for the annual tour to cure ride scheduled for August 17th. Our public safety officials are coordinating and support this request. Lastly, for staff recognition, I would like to recognize the following people. First, the facilities department, particularly the dynamic team of Steven and Steve for
their recent cost-saving work at the grant building. Instead of hiring an outside contractor to replace flooring, the team took the project themselves, removing old carpeting and glue, then refinishing the floors. This saved the town over $5,000. Steven specifically commended Steve for going above and beyond during this challenging but
successful project. Also, Chief Aendole and I would like to extend our sincere appreciation for animal inspector Deb Tor for her many years of dedicated service. She's continuing to serve, but we thought she deserves some recognition. She's played a critical role in the community wrangling large animals, advising residents on animal related to include
horses like big animals and coordination of barn inspections. Recently, she met with us to help us understand the long-term picture for this procedure, especially as we hire an acco and the coordination between her and the acco will continue until Dev no longer
wants to wrangle animals. She is compassionate. She's professional. She often does a lot of this with little to no cost. and she's a great example of a civic-minded resident who has helped fill a need in Carlile for a very long
time. And then Gretchen continues continues to show her leadership managing our MIA MIA insurance rewards program. So her efforts was charged to tie a lot of our training to the rewards program in order to reduce the cost of our general insurance. Through our
efforts getting staff to document training and aligning this professional development, the town earned more than $3,000 in annual savings. This will increase in the years to come as she highlights this procedure. So, we're not only more compliant, but we're saving money because of this compliance. And
that's because of Gretchen. It's great. Big upcoming dates of interest that November 2nd fall town meeting, which I'm going to continue to remind you about. You have a bunch of meetings and I will be at Fort Drum fighting mosquitoes and shooting artillery from July 31st to August 16th.
That is my full report. Great. Thank you, Ryan. You have a few things going on. So, when does your annual review normally take place? In September.
Okay. And we're moving it to December just because September is full or I don't understand what was the reason for the movement because of fall time meeting. Okay. I remember I think Yeah. And discussion of the timing of the term of
when we're I think we're we're looking to reset the timing a little bit and by doing it in December. Yeah. There there I don't remember all the particulars but it was in September because you hired me in August. Yep. So, this would align me more with the staff which is done in December, January.
Okay. All right. Let's move on to the review of warrants and minutes. So, there were three minutes in the packet for June 24th, July 8th, and July 9th. Did folks have a chance to review those?
I had a couple little nits in the six 24 minutes so I can cover them quickly. So on the page uh 96 of the PDF packet it's there's like a typo on the note in the
very top line of that page I approve move to approve the sale of it says 200,000 no space 5.25%. It should be dollar sign 2 million space 5.25 25 notes. So, it's just a quick typo that
somebody can correct. Uh, and then um on page 101 of that uh about halfway down, select board is on lowerase. It should be uppercase, capital S, capital B. That's it.
But good job as usual, Gretchen. That's all work. Okay. Any other comments? Someone want to make a motion on all three minutes? I move to approve the minutes for 624
with those minor amendments uh 78 and 79 as presented. I would second that. Okay. Any more discussion? Seeing none, let's have a roll call. That was quick. Arnold I
Modell I Stevens I Triola I um onto liaison reports I I did want to as I said at the outset I did want to take a moment I know we're short on time uh but I did want to just give a a quick
recap of of the portion of the conquered joint committee between the conquered school committee regional school committee and select board. Um there was a a remote meeting tonight at I think at one point they had commented there were I think upwards of 275 people on the
meeting with the focus being a statements dialogue and discussion on anti-semitism both at the high school and in the community. Um Mark I believe you were on the on the call as well. Um, it'll be available for review, so I won't go over everything I said,
everything they covered, but there was a statement initially from the conquered school committee, um, acknowledging the issue. We also heard from, uh, Dr. Lori Hunter, the superintendent, um, talking about, uh, action items they
want to take and, and I think making an interesting comment that she said that Jewish Jewish students don't have a presence in the high school like like they like they see in other schools. Um, and so I think it was an acknowledgement of of working to build more of a a presence in a community.
There's fewer there's no Jewish student union. Yeah. And so it was an interesting observation. Uh, but you know, I think the the chair of the select board spoke Simon Katada who is um Jewish and and he's the co-chair of the the
commission to combat anti-semitism which is the first state commission for this purpose. So he's a he's a great resource for both communities. He spoke to the issue. Um, and I won't go over all the comments, but there was acknowledgement of the issue. There was discussion about obviously needing to take action, the
importance of transparency, uh, transparency and, uh, reporting of the process. Um, and I do believe there's a lot of resource for for Carlile both through conquered um, and through Simon Catalo. Um, and
it's something that, you know, we need to stay engaged on through the schools, through our community. Um, and I don't know if you have any other additional comments, Mark, on on I was going to Yeah, I was going to uh
give them during the community input part. Okay. Well, why don't you just give those give those now if you don't mind. Okay. All right. I had two comments. Well, I guess really three comments. Uh I'm not as uh confident as you are that the the conquered administration whether
it's the school or select board is actually uh going to take serious action here. This has been this is not something that just happened last month or three months ago. Mhm. It was rather appalling when you read the uh when you read the complaint
against uh the the conquered school system, conquered Carlile and the uh middle schools that this has been going on for years and it's been allowed to fester and it's there's been no transparency at all. So I'd say uh we've
we've got our Carile kids in the high school. uh I am not confident that the conquered administration is going to protect them the way they need to be protected. So that's something discussion at a later date. Yep.
Uh, of course we I we had our kids go through the Carile public schools and it seems anecdotally that the conquered uh elementary and middle schools just rife with anti-semitism. It
does just it didn't pop up in the high school. It was being bred uh at a very early age with lots of incidents. I don't think we're I'm not aware of this happening in Carlile, but maybe we're not getting it's not being reported or
if it's not happening then we're doing something that conquered isn't doing and there's some there's something to be shared there. So I think there's an action to like review like do we really know what's happening in the to be honest do we really know what's happening in the Carile public school
system because it's clear that in the conquered public school system the public had no clue what was happening everything was uh all the incidents were being suppressed by the administration that was it
other than that let did you have one other comment and I think David had wanted to say something no that was Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, my experience on Carlile school committee and region.
I would say I agree with you, Mark, that I think Carla's doing something better. Now, Carl has a smaller system. It's a lot easier to drill down on things. There are during my time my six years on that committee
there were sporadic incidents like a swastika on a bathroom or whatever and they were immediately dealt with and I would say our carile administration is very proactive uh and that's the superintendent and the then two
principles one of which is now left but you know very proactive on that very proactive in education and outreach um so maybe there is a lesson learned. The question is would conquer ever acknowledge that of Carlile and I would say unlikely. The conquered
administration has always been and not just here. You just can look at the um what's the one that Andrew what's his name was on the uh the metco thing very defensive when it comes to
these kind of issues and not proactive more spend more resource on defending their position than trying to address the problem. That's just been a hallmark in my experience on that. But we don't have control over that. We we certainly I I believe do a good job in Carlo
at doing that and I been away from that now for almost six years again. But you know we're all in the community and it's pretty it would be pretty well known if something happened. So I think uh you know we should continue to make sure that our kids get those lessons. I I
don't have any advice particularly on what to do in the high school, but I think we do a good job. And I would I would just encourage everyone uh I'm assuming the video if it's not already posted of the of the meeting will be posted, certainly watch it. Um I had to drop off to come here
during community comments, but certainly the the comments that Mark provided were were echoed. Um and you know it's kind of it's eye openening and I think it's important as select board members as community that that we um remain really engaged. School committees presumably were part of this, right? Yes.
So I mean maybe the action that we can take is to circle back with our school committee and I' I've talked to to Mark um who's the chair of CPS and vice chair of the region. Um and so we're we'll right I mean they have two seats on the region. They have two seats on the
region. so that it'll be a we'll stay engaged in communicating with him and and a breast of what's going on. That was my leazison comment. Um I I don't know if this could ever be done, but I'm thinking David about your comment about, you know,
Carile having a chance to share or talk to, you know, some the PR some principles in the middle school or elementary school in conquered. Is that would that ever be entertained and would that go through the school committees? I'm just thinking, you know, a a um
nonpublic, you know, just a a meeting of colleagues around this issue, but that it's at the elementary level, not the high school. Well, I mean, it's a good idea. The question is whether they would view that as lecturing by their neighbor. I mean,
it's sort of a delicate thing. I think I what I would say to that is Jim O'Shea has a pretty good relationship with Lorie Hunter. I don't know off the top of my head whether there's much principal to
principal interaction between the five I think it's five right school I don't know how many six maybe school principles and the conquered system and our now only one we used to have two principles you know
and Barney I'm gonna be I'm meeting with um Brian next week just to check in on this and all things school so this will be a topic of conversation and I think yeah I think school committee the school committee can lead we support I want to stay engaged and it's it is a community issue as well and even though
we're not seeing the same uh reports here recently I it's the comment is transparency report and as a as a town as a as boards we need to we need to support that and reinforce that
great any other leazison reports Ah, yes. So, I'm sorry I forgot already. Yeah, we met the uh the now reconstituted CAT, the Carl Affordable Housing Trust. We met I think it was last week. Can't remember now. I think it was last week.
Uh we had pretty productive meeting. I think uh you know we we talked about particularly approaches to the boghouse and the sequence of things and more broadly you know what our goals would be and then we talked about Benfield. I kind of gave them what our dialogue
was. So, no particular conclusions yet, but um I think uh I like to actually like the committee committee um John um Valentine. Valentine. Thank you. Valentine, sorry. Senior moment here. John's John's
chairing and he's he's very good at it and I think, you know, we're we're kind of focusing. So, good. I'm encouraged by that. I see. Good energy, good initiative. I think you know so are important. That's what you need. You know, I have an update on the how
are we calling it? The scholarship fund. I get that sorted. I got like two weeks. Well, I was on vacation for one of those weeks, but I in the other week I did uh manage to uh recruit two of our neighbors to be on the committee to
frame out the policies and procedures. So, we're I told them to go get sworn in while I was on vacation. and I haven't followed up with them to see if all is done, but that is uh the update there. So, we're hot on the trail. Good. We're already on our goals, chair.
Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. 20 whatever 20 25 meetings left or 20. Um Barney, anything? I know it's getting late. All good. Safe travels back tomorrow. Um any other
uh I know Mark provided some community input in the last section. Uh, does anyone else online have any additional community input for the end of the meeting? Okay, seeing none, can we take a motion to adjurnn? So moved. So moved.
Second. Second. Roll call. I. Arnold. I. All right. Thank you everyone. Thank you Scott and Ryan. Thanks.