##VIDEO ID:yx16L4DQkwM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening chadam welcome to the January 28 2025 meeting of the chatam select board please note this meeting is being recorded and will be available shortly Hereafter for scheduled and On Demand viewing on any smartphone or tablet device if anyone else is recording the meeting please notify the chair seeing no such notification I'll proceed pursuant to Governor Healey March 29 2023 signing of the acts of 2023 extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law General Law chapter 30A section 20 until March 31 2025 this meeting of the chadam select board is being conducted in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the order a reminder that persons who would like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling the phone number 1 158 945 4410 conference ID 203 386 491 pound sign or join the meeting online via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda well this is a live broadcast and simoc cast on chatam t t v Xfinity channel 1072 despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide realtime access we will post a record of this meeting on the town's website as soon as possible our first order of business is establishing the existence of a quorum Mr necastro present Mr Shell is present Mr dykin present and Mr Mets present um we have a quorum um this evening we we have uh an agenda consisting of one set of minutes public announcements and agenda requests a public hearing uh concerning a request for a new seasonal all alcoholic beverages uh restaurant license um an update with for uh the shellfish advisory committee and then we'll turn to public comments on the business agenda and then finally the business agenda consists of four items the first is um an application to use town roads by the CH uh for the chadam harbor run uh and the chattam in the Fall Run uh in November the fir the the first one in June um next we'll have um a fiscal year 26 budget review um for the uh operating bu the public safety operating budget uh the operating and capital budget for public works and finally the um water operating budget all for fiscal uh 26 and the last one will be a vote to place and recommend the uh operating budget for the water uh and Sewer committee um uh for the water department um for the the 2025 annual uh town meeting warrant uh next we have um appointments to consider one to the historical commission and a second to the railroad museum Commission committee sorry and then finally the town manager's monthly report with that I will invite um comments Andor a motion on the minutes of December 5 2024 motion to approve the minutes of December 5th 2024 second um all those in favor Mr matters I Mr dykens I Mr Shell says I and Mr necastro I minutes are approved uh next uh we have public announcements and agenda requests do we have any on the board here yes sir Mr necastro thank you Mr chairman uh I received a communication from the town moderator on his behalf and on behalf of the chair of the finance committee um asking uh if we uh could consider a particular article to be placed on the warrant for town meeting um and so I'd like to request an agenda item to consider uh placing an article on the annual town meeting warrant to amend the town bylaws to allow members of the finance committee to serve on non-standing committees non-regulatory committees for example an advisory committee or an ad hoc committee um currently they are prohibited from doing so under the um General bylaws of the town and um the the moderator has submitted uh to me some draft language um which I can provide to Kathy um for the time when this is placed on the agenda so I'd ask given that we have an upcoming deadline to close the warrant on the 18th of March if this could be placed on the agenda it's sometime over the next couple of weeks and um that the town moderator and the finance chair be notified when that's when that takes place I I I have no problem with that I I just let's make sure I I something in my mind um uh made me think that there was U something in the charter about that as well interesting I had thought there was too and when when the moderator called spoke to me yesterday I returned his U communication we spoke by phone I had thought there was something in the charter and um he looked it over and called me back and and couldn't find anything and I couldn't find anything but we okay well no I obviously we'll take it up when we yeah would have to Runway I thought there was too thank you good uh anybody else on the board Miss mclen hello everyone uh Carol Mullen the chair of the Community Housing Partnership uh we had our meeting yesterday and we have some recommendations so I'm just going to go ahead and read what we have here um at are at the January 27 2025 meeting of the chattam Community Housing Partnership the partnership discussed various housing initiatives for potential inclusion on the annual town meeting 2025 warrant the members of the Community Housing Partnership all present voted unanimously in favor of the following recommendations uh want to recommend that the select board place an article on the warrant for the town meeting body to accept the seasonal community's designation as as provided for in the general laws chapter 23b section 32b this would be a proactive acceptance of the seasonal Community section of the affordable homes act if the executive office of housing livable communities provides guidance before town meeting that the designation is automatic and acceptance of the Town legislative body is not required the warrant article would be mooded and could be pulled the net select board uh recently approved a similar warrant article and two to recommend that the select board place on the article a warrant authorized in the use by the select Board of the attainable housing special revenue account funds from the 1% short-term rental tax up to the amount in the special Revenue fund as of the town meeting vote for attainable housing purposes for the town-owned properties of Stepping Stones Road and 127 old Harbor the special legislation that created the special revenue account for attainable housing requires appr appropriation by a majority vote of town meeting to expend the funds this warant article would authorize a expenditure of funds for these two specific um attainable housing projects under the vote of the select board and would enable funds to be accessed quickly access quickly as needed by the select board and three I recommend to recommend that the select board support a home R petition that would include fishermen as a group that could be targeted for affordable and attainable housing under the seasonal Community section of the affordable homes act section 32 of the seasonal communities of the affordable home act acts of 202 24 chapter 120 subsection DV allow seasonal communities to expend funds designated for the creation and preservation of year round affordable and attainable housing for individuals who by vocation produce or support artistic and literary activities subsection D enable seasonal communities to acquire and develop housing with a preference for Municipal Employees including teachers and First Responders necessary to the health and safety of maintaining year-round communities and missable operations this proposed home R petition would extend that same preference to includes include include the active fishing shellfish Community as an intcal part of our cultural and economic Heritage of the town of chadam so we hope you consider these and put it on a future agenda item in time for the the warrant so sorry um just a question request do you do you would you be thinking that you would give us actual um article language and the only reason I asked that is because we got a lot going on here and the sooner we can actually look at the language that you're you're um you're you're proposing I think the the better off will be number one and number two uh at least one of those I think probably is going to need a little um attention from Town Council sure um we can do that obviously we'd work with Gloria to to work that out and uh I guess we would want you guys to take it up as is is it something that the community's interest in supporting would you support it and then uh we'd have to work on the actual language um we know that um tuckets already done theirs I'm sure we can use that as a model um and we'll just have to see I I mean I'm not going to write it but it would be Gloria I assume in Town Council but I assume that would they would be available for us to do this project if we needed if we if there was an appetite in the in the town to do it okay I I'm I'm just today's the what no I realiz 28th of February I mean of January time is so we just we just heard that um was just on the the news about the um net accepting this um for their for their uh their select board just approved this so that was that and also the attainable housing fund if we don't do this we can't touch that until next town meeting all the 127 any you you'll have no funds available to move forward over the next year I'm not debating the wisdom or the desirability of it I'm just saying it's a lot easier for us if we have a proposed article in front of us that we can talk about that's all I'm saying right well it's all going to come from the town so whether you designate gloryia to do it a Town Council or a combination so okay all right thank you Kathy I did send this to you just moments ago so sorry about the all right great thank you thank you very much okay anybody else in the public either here or online I don't see anybody do Jill okay uh we'll move on to uh we our next uh item of business is a public hearing can I look to my left or my right for somebody to read that or you want me to read it please thank you town of chadam Select board public hearing notice notice is hereby given that the chattam select board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday January 28th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the large meeting room at the Town Office Annex 261 George Ryder Road chadam and remotely via m Micosoft teams platform to consider requests for a new seasonal all alcoholic beverages restaurant license for 10 Yen LLC DBA namazu Ramen 643 Main Street Michael JC manager all interested parties are encouraged to participate signed members of the the chair and members of the select board thank you uh Mr jasc are you here and would you like to um step to the uh Podium and present your application first introduce yourself if you would please hello my name is Michael jasik I'm the proprietor of namazo ramen sorry my voice is going a little bit uh we're located at 643 Main Street the old uh Lily's Diner uh we're intending to do a 35 seat uh Ramen and sake along with cocktail bar um we're uh hoping to open for dinner at first kind of test the waters make sure that the function is how we want it uh and then add uh an additional meal period hopefully next year 2026 um I'm happy to take any questions uh describe the menu or uh whatever you'd like I I think the only question I had I saw that you had uh experience Elsewhere on the cape you it might be useful if you just give us a quick thumbnail sketch of where else you're uh operating certainly uh we currently have a restaurant in Orleans on Main Street uh named Ten Yen uh very similar in size it's about 28 seats um the concept though not Sushi will be very very similar um we'll operate with a quality first mentality excuse me and uh we'll try to limit the uh the volume as much as possible until we feel confident that uh we're doing a good job with our preparations on our execution and then as time passes we get some good hires uh hopefully we can kind of move things along in 2026 uh expand the offerings um but we're really happy to be in shadam everybody's been super nice uh we've been offered to get a ribbon cutting ceremony which I think is super cool um so yeah we're just happy to be here just when do you think that ribbon cutting ceremony might be obviously the liquor license has a lot to do with our opening date and how we're hiring and scheduling things um my anticipation is it'll probably take about nine weeks from tonight if everything goes well um we'd like to have the ribbon cutting ceremony sometime in late March perhaps uh and then open for takeout and uh you know kind of first Pancake dry run uh without the liquor license I think and then uh just be really ready for when the kids got out of school in June uh Memorial Day and the when the summer hits thank you um de thank you uh Mr jasc I'm glad to see some something going into that location do you um have I I don't know whether you have already talked with the Board of Health you think you can fit 35 seats in there so it uh previously had 40 so we've actually reduced the number of seats yeah because our biggest concern was Refrigeration space uh the way that it's laid out currently um it's mostly in the dining room it's a big open sort of area between the bar and where the proposed table seating would be um that kind of eats into what would traditionally be uh you know Refrigeration space in the back kitchen or behind the bar area if you were to do a liquor or a wet bar um so we definitely uh are erroring on the side of less rather than more to make sure that we're able to produce like I said and execute uh the product we want to in a way that works for us and if we can expand it we will uh I think 40 is what I said uh was what it was licensed for I think we're opening with like 35 so yeah I think I think that's safe to start and you uh also have had experience in harwitch yes so uh currently where three monkeys in the Mad minnow is at 554 Main Street uh that was the original location of tenen but uh being basically a hallway um it was just a bar so we couldn't remain open during covid so we kind of pivoted we chose Orleans uh couldn't be happier with the choice okay okay thank you very much thank you anybody else Jeff you've been in Orleans how long uh so this is our fifth year in Orleans oh your fifth year wow okay it's been successful obviously you're excited about coming over here I am um we have a very loyal and devoted following um like I said we're small but we really try to craft our clientele rather than offer something for everybody uh we don't expect to uh be everybody's cup of tea but for those that do enjoy traditional Japanese meal I think they'll really uh find some some value in it super good luck thank you Cory um first thank you very much for your presentation um um basically did more curiosity um uh operating hours days times what what are you what are you testing the waters with and where you ultimately want to land so uh we're going to start with dinner for sure um more so because we're getting all new purveyors all new suppliers uh brand new location it's going to take time for them to understand how to get to the building uh how to you know get the stuff up the stairs and sometimes when you're open for lunch uh that can lead to disasters right out of the right out of the gate so uh dinner first to give us plenty of time to prep make sure that we're totally you know 100% bulletproof before we open up for any sort of lunch late night but eventually we would like to operate for either lunch dinner and late night or some combination of the two be nice yeah is is your license seasonal over your liquor license seasonal over in Orleans as well uh it's actually year round in Orleans it is year round but this is for a seasonal license here in it is yes um we you know we're going to kind of test the waters the first year and we're happy to operate without liquor especially at the beginning um we just want to kind of get the food process going and you know make sure that we're we're solid there and then if the liquers is kind of afterward that's that's totally fine but you you serve um um uh food meals at uh three the three monkeys Street Bar do you not uh yes I'm no longer involved with three monkeys no no I did leave I I took 10 Yen I left the three monkeys part and took the 10 Yen shares um but yeah we we do food and alcohol at all locations okay good okay anybody else move approval motion oh sorry yes thank you very much um any comments from the public I'll start here in the room I don't see anybody here in the room um anybody online I don't see any Body online now do we move to close the hearing before we move I never thought you had I never thought you had to but I think Cory does so he's very insistent on this I'm not going to know all right I'll I'll invite whatever the appropriate motion is I move approval of the application second all those in favor Mr Mets I uh Mr dykens I Mr Shell says I uh Mr necastro I now does somebody want to close the public hearing thank you thank very much or is it closed we can go around back in the planning board days we had a different procedure at the select board some of these you know correct I think we've gone around on this a couple times I don't think we formally are closing public hearings in this platform all right so I'll I'll deem it closed okay fair enough uh next we have a report from the uh shellfish advisory committee and I see Mr Davis are you going to do this by yourself I'm sorry I said are you going to do this by yourself I'm hoping to okay welcome thank you for com thank you for the record my name is Bob Davis I'm chair of the shelfish advisory committee uh thank you for inviting me this evening uh I presented our official report which is part of your packet this evening but rather than go through that I thought it might be helpful uh and more interesting just to kind of highlight some of the things that we've done throughout the past year and things we look forward to for next year uh but before doing that I want to tell a quick story about our committee uh several years ago when I first started as chair uh I thought I was doing everyone a favor by cancelling a meeting and lo and behold when I showed up at the next meeting they told me in no uncertain terms they want a meeting every month so since then we've had a meeting every month um and I learned that it's my job as chair to make sure that we have something substantive every month to talk about uh so clearly there are times where there aren't a lot of things going on but we invite outside speakers and have had speakers in the past year talk about such things as water quality invasive species use of shellfish to stabilize uh the shoreline at the opposite end of things we've also had some very very important issues most notably of which is 90 Bridge Street and I think uh 90 Bridge Street was our greatest accomplishment for last year our advocacy for that has been going on for years it's been a project that's taken over 10 years we've been there every step of the way from its Inception through further visioning and ultimately uh to the town meeting in May of last year at which time it was part of uh overall Waterfront bond issue of 4.5 million and uh of course that whole project uh was defeated by approximately 30 some votes because it required a two-thirds majority and there were two things I learned from that that meeting and the first one was uh I was somewhat critical of Staff because I felt that they didn't give a a comprehensive thorough presentation and only later did I find out that that was because they were limited to 5 minute presentation on 11.4 or five I forget which was but over $1 million proposal encompassing five different projects and they were limited to five minutes I mean I was astounded um if you look at the opposite side of that anybody in the audience any self-appointed expert can stand up forever and spout on and on about their version of the truth so I think that is an ill-advised approach and I'd encourage however it could be examined to reconsider the opportunity for staff professionals to present accordingly so that the members of the audience the people making the vote can do so on an informed basis so that was my personal takeaway the second thing that happened was that I and several other committee members were approached even before we left the building people came up and said you know we like the upweller uh we like 90 Bridge Street we just thought it was too much money and it felt like it was a blank check so we listened carefully to that we subsequently had a meeting shortly thereafter and on May 23rd we sent a letter to you folks wherein we request we made the the suggestion that 90 Bridge Street be separated as a as an individual project and be funded accordingly and that that be done as soon as possible at a special town meeting so we followed up a couple months later met in this room with you folks and uh pursued that and indeed you did vote for the special town meeting so fast forward to September we knew that we had a lot of work to do and so the member MERS of our committee as committee members did as much as they could to get out the vote but also as individual citizens they and lots of other people did the hard work behind the scenes to get out the vote and to get people to come and support the measure so the outcome of course was a vote of 462 to 9 99 which validated all of our hard work and I hope validated your decision to have a special town meeting so we're pleased that it's well on its way but I would also say that we're sort of the Yogi Yogi Bara idea of it ain't over till it's over so we're going to be hanging in there sort of shepherding this project all the way through to the time when you can walk in the door and enjoy the new facility uh and relative to that within the next uh oh I'd say within the next several weeks you'll be receiving from us some suggestions on uses of the 90 Bridge Street facility as well as some proposed regulations that we think would help support protect shell fishing in chatam so that was a big Endeavor and we're pleased with the outcome obviously uh a second major thing that we're involved in has to do with commercial aquaculture in chadam as you know there's currently a Prohibition we were approached by a member of the public to bring up the question which we did and had a meeting in this room which was well attended and I think the sentiment of those speaking from the public was that they were in great measure opposed to the idea of making a change and uh it came to uh a motion on our committee and that motion was never seconded so it died however I don't think the issue is dead I think anytime there's a profit motive there'll be more people coming back to want to do this uh I've spoken publicly in my position which is that I think the commercialization of aquaculture and chadam would be detrimental certainly to the culture of what we know as shellfishing Cham today so I'll continue to oppose it the third subject that is I think maybe ongoing has to do with public access to the uh to the waters and that whole notion goes back to Roman times u in uh 500 ad uh the concept of public trust docu Doctrine was first codified and put forth the importance of people having access to the Sea and that was later continued into English common law and uh of course ultimately to colonial law and now to commonwealth law I'd point out out that it was such an important issue in the eyes of the Romans that they saw access to the Sea as being as important as being able to breathe the air or feel the sun on your face so it was no small matter and I think the philosophy of that has continued we and our committee are certainly adamant about that and there were several issues that came up last year which I'll describe to kind of demonstrate uh some of those considerations uh one was in mono on monoy where uh over recent times recent two years I think uh fish and wildlife service had started posting some areas that had traditionally been used by commercial shell fishermen and uh it was unclear the purpose of that there had been Harmony among the groups over a long period of time and that subject was brought to this board and I remember a meeting with where uh the outcome was a subsequent meeting with the officials of us fish and wildlife and at that meeting there was discussions but to my knowledge no there was no never any resolution to it and part of it may be because they had their own issues obviously with the loss of their property and frankly uncertain questions as to local leadership uh it's on our radar I hope it's on yours uh we don't know where the future is going to go with the relationship between those two entities we hope that there is local representation and local leadership uh and there's a harmonious relationship as there has been in the past coming back to shore here in chadam there were a couple of other uh instances that weren't comment um but before I get into them I don't know whether you were aware or not but I was surprised to find out that we have 66 miles of Coastland in chadam and we're fortunate that we have 31 access points for the public to exercise their right of public access to the water and so one of those is that coward and you may recall uh again in this room meetings having to do with conflict between public interest and private interest and it sort of boiled down to parking at that location at that particular town landing and uh without going into detail there was some back and forth but my take on the whole thing was that Public Access means more than just being able to walk down a town landing and access the water in the 21st century it also requires parking and that's what much of the discussion was about and we were very adamant in uh protecting our the rights of our constituents of shellfishing community and so if you get down to car uh coward today you'll see signage that specifically uh identifies people with shellfish permits as having parking opportunities at that location so I thought that was an important um extension of the notion of access to the water on the flip side of that we had another uh another situation at Sears point or at Sears Uh Sears Road uh town landing and uh I recall 30 years ago of being able to go down there and uh unload kayaks and uh and indeed there was a 2011 survey of town Landings and it identified that location as having 10 to 12 parking spots available well if you go down there now uh I don't know what the official count is uh but it's dramatically changed and in my view uh our rights the speaking for the public generally and specifically for shellfishing people our rights have been encroached upon through the legal albeit unfriendly but the legal U action of the property owner by putting up a sort of institutional type of guard rail which eliminated many of those parking spots so uh I think many of us in in in the town committees water related committees were kind of blindsided by that uh I know going forward our committee will that'll never happen again so our antenna is up because we do value uh the importance of water access specifically uh for Shell fishing purposes so we hope that uh you will join us and protect that right for chadam Citizens and permit holders to have that long-standing right uh that's been uh part of the culture of shell fishing in chatam finally I'd like to uh that's the end of my comments um I would like to say a thank you to our committee uh the members of whom to a person are informed opinionated uh and dedicated to our to our to our mission so it's a pleasure to serve with them and also I have to say thank you to Renee our shellfish Constable for my making my job easier uh because without her expertise and historical knowledge uh I wouldn't know where to begin half the time so thank you very much so with that I'm happy to take any questions or comments go ahead Micha yeah great report um you do have a great committee shelfish committee is great is a great committee your ad advocacy for 90 Bridge was phenomenal um you got it done I'm I'm deeply disappointed in the outcome at Sears point that one got by us under the cover of Darkness if you will I it just and you know what I love your commitment that'll never happen again and you've got my commitment as long as I'm sitting up here that'll never happen again either thank you um I know that the uh waterways committee is doing a a survey of all the town Landings I think that's hugely important that we finish that that we support that and we codify it and document it somewhere so that future Generations don't don't get ripped off if you will again deeply disappointed in that one and I I agree with you in your assessment again I under the cover of Darkness on that one it's really really too bad um I've used that Landing uh for your very purposes I've shelfish down there and you're right the parking parking is severely um hampered uh down there um coward I've been shelfish in the coward and there is parking there on the right time of day um the right tide Etc there is parking there um it's somewhat constricted down towards the other end but think there's parking enough for for Shell fisherman for Shell fisherman extremely excited about 90 Bridge Street I'm glad you guys are going to be uh involved long longer term you got to be um but it's an exciting project think The Whole Town's excited about it so you do a great job how long have you been chair uh I don't year and a half maybe two years I don't having so much fun I've lost track you're a good chair you've done a lot thank you thank you any other comments or questions um Cory go ahead no just to f i I know I know the Waterway committees all of them are uh very concerned about water Waterway access and I know the waterways advisor committee you know as Jeff has mentioned um there's going to be some upgoing discussions um between the Waterway committees um to to kind of address that and try to figure out what is the best path forward um Sears um I think was an example that I think we have put in place as best as our ability of keeping a better communication of what is happening within our our permitting processes with the various committees conservations etc etc so that we're aware of what's going on so we can maybe respond um differently than we've been able to in the past so it was a it was a bright light on a situation that is concerning to a lot of people so um it's definitely on everyone's radar for sure great go ahead Jeff I just have one quick followup the what's going on with the eelgrass at cockal Cove what what's going on there you if just says you guys are looking at um marine fisheries proposal for Eel Grass restoration of Colo coov sound or forun expert expert that could help us answer that question my recollection was that we had a meeting where we had a presentation from the state and I'm not sure what the outcome of that was so with that I'll turn it over to Renee um there was a a proposal from division marine fisheries to conduct a um um a project there but um to dat it hasn't moved forward there was extra money from a grant that they had um but nothing has moved forward I can I can actually check to see you know where they are in the project but uh to date nothing's happened I think kcko coov would be tough I mean if it's nka sound I think it'd be real tough and pleasant Bay I would suggest would be a better spot right and and it the parameters of it were dictated um under the the the the parameters of the grant um because you're right and that was discussed that it's not it's not a really uh great place for it they don't have a lot of success with this type of project anyway it was just additional funds that DMF had and wanted to do some experiments thank you so I I I'm sorry did I interrupt somebody here um just a couple of things one um with respect to uh the the Sears Road Landing I I I think my family started using that not for um shell fishing but um just access 37 years ago and we've been using it ever since off and on um and and I I I was horrified by what I saw there uh when when I really saw it I I I do think and it's been mentioned um waterways is looking at that I think they're Consulting with Town Council I think there's my sense is or my understanding is that there's a um a concerted effort to to to look at every uh Landing every access point and make sure that we have a coordinated policy so I would hope that you're coordinating with them and they're coordinating discussion and that's absolutely correct yeah so um the only other thing I had was just sort of a question uh I had a vague vague recollection and there were others who had much more knowledge about it at the time but the the the uh the postings by fish and wildlife which I guess was a year or two ago that that came in front of us my my sense of the way that conversation ended was that um you know after everybody went out there and and and sort of surveyed the situation they holstered their weapons but there was no real resolution and I don't recall our hearing about it since then I don't know if that's an accurate recollection but um I just mentioned that uh yeah um I I want to Echo what my friends here have said the terrific report thanks for your engagement and energy and uh excellence in in and work in the territory so thank you very much well we thank you for your support along the way thank thank you okay anything else okay next case um this is an application to use town roads for the CH I'm sorry oh public was that a Oh I thought we had public comments oh forgive me I'm sorry yep um I will invite public comments on the business agenda I don't see anybody in the room anybody online okay we got that out of the way next um consider use of town roads specifically the chadam harbor run on June 22 2025 and chadam in the fall on November 23 2025 and we have the Cape Cod um athletic Club welcome thank you um I'm Howard tany the race director and member of the cape C Athletic Club and we are asking for the use of the roads for the chadam harbor run and I think you will notice that we looked for a different time for the uh chadam Harbor run for an 8:00 start um that is because I was talking with um Lieutenant Harris at the chatam in the Fall Road Race and we we're getting a little we're looking at safety more than anything um and also it's going to clear the town roads by 10:00 instead of 12:00 1:00 and the town will be more open especially in the June race um but we're you know looking at heat you know you know the 11:00 it used to be a 12:00 start you know and seems to be getting hotter every year and I also talked to um Justin devano with the fire department and uh he's an agreement and the police were agreement to start at 8 so we were that's what we were shooting for for um you know same you know it's the same course there's no walk at the moment uh you know that's still up in the air um but at this point there's still no walk um for the for the summer Race So this I'm just talking about the summer race right now and uh I don't know what you guys think about that but that's that's where we're at right now so Jeff go ahead so Howard you didn't say that this is the 44th running of the yes 4 that that's a pretty good that's a pretty good run yeah and how many years have you been involved uh you've been in I've been the race director I think this is going be my fourth year yeah coming up so yeah Larry gave it to me well gave it to the Athletic Club about four years ago Larry Bello yeah so um I think the change in time makes a lot of sense to be honest with you um no issue here I think makes a lot of sense for the town and for the runners yeah anybody else well um I the only question I had um I I was under the impression or I I remember that there are there's a religious service on the beach at um oyster Pond at 8:00 in the summertime I don't know if those have started by the 22nd of June but I wonder if that's crossed your radar I have not heard about that um and I'm not I've never I mean I knew back in the day it was more because of the there was a lot more churchgoers and the whole thing kind of like locked the town a little bit I didn't hear about that one um I I mean if you start your race up where you started um presumably even if they are um starting at 8 uh they on the beach at oyster Pond they you probably won't disturb them but I just want yeah because we just running by cross your your radar yeah okay anybody else so are we going to do these separately why don't we do a motion on June 22 I move to approve the use of town roads for the 44th Annual chadam Harbor run to be held on Sunday June 22nd 2025 at 8:00 a.m. so second all those in favor Mr nicastro I Mr Shell says I Mr dyens and Mr Mets I November 23 you want to talk about it yes um November 23 is uh the chat upman the fall 10K and I believe it's the eth is it the eth it's it's gone by really fast um and again this year we'll be um raising money for Sharing kindness which is a suicide awareness group that goes through all the um basically Cape Wide and Islands basically um and they do all kinds of different support groups and help people get through um suicide awareness um and stuff like that and also the cape um Foster CL uh yeah Cape Foster closet who you know they don't get kids that are in foster care clothes and whatever um this past year we actually raised quite a bit of money for both organizations after all bills paid and uh we're just going to do the same thing but we were shooting for a 9:00 start again it was a little more of a safety issue with the police department trying to get the you know the town cleared a little earlier and it's easier for them to get stuff that early and get it done so that was our goal there so anybody is is that the Sunday before Thanksgiving that is the Sunday before Thanksgiving chairman I moved to approve the use of town roads for the eth annual chatam in the fall 10k race to be held on Sunday November 23rd 2025 at 9:00 am second all those in favor Mr Mets I uh Mr Dyk Mr Shell says I and Mr necastro hi thanks very much thank you very much good luck we'll see you next year yep okay [Music] um next are the budget um 26 budget reviews and 125 um annual town meeting article welcome nice to see you hi good evening thank you Carrie masal Finance director um first presentation will be on Public Safety FY 2026 operating and capital um the public safety operating budget is presented at 9, 29,5 17 for FY 2026 an increase of 649,000 the fire division budget includes uh a total of 5,717 77 the fire dispatch Services assessment for FY 2026 is 61,2 188 the Emergency Management division is proposed at 54,1 33 the cape and Islands EMS division is um 6,500 the oil pollution Pollution Control division uh includes a budget of $500 and the 5-year Capital plan um which are the requests between 10 and 250,000 the police division requests are 40,000 for firearms replacement with mounted Optics 40,000 for a four-wheel UTV and trailer 140,000 for annual police cruisers the fire division requests are 50,000 for protective clothing 10,000 for mobile and portable radios and 35,000 for self-contained breathing apparatus the Emergency Management requests are 40,000 for generators and there is a um FY 2026 Capital warrant article request for the fire division in the amount of 410,000 for a new ambulance and um the police chief and fire chief are here tonight to present their budgets to you I think the fire department is going first okay thank you welcome Chief good evening everybody thank you for having me uh Justin Tano the fire chief just make sure we're all sit here all right thanks for having me it's kind of like deja vu we were here a couple hours ago at the fincom um so the fire department is proposing a 5,717 $777 operating budget for FY 26 um as Carrie mentioned it's a 6.2% increase over the fy2 budget most of the budget increases for FY 26 are related to Personnel expenses and the increases on the Personnel side of the budget are primar primarily contractual totaling $ 4,722 28 the increases to the expense side of the budget are mostly either inflationary or due to increase increases in service contracts and fees and this accounts for $369,500 of the total FY 26 operating budget most of the expense accounts were level funded aside from from um the vehicle and equipment maintenance line item for which I'm requesting an additional 10% this year the fire department is not seeking any new positions in FY 26 uh calendar year 24 was a near Mirror Image to calendar year 23 which happen to be a record year for cfd in terms of total incident responses and total ambulance transports uh I'm I'm extremely proud to lead uh dedicated passionate motivated staff at the fire department who always go the extra mile for chadam and continue to set the bar for Public Safety and public service Excellence across the cap and Islands my thanks go to you folks the finance committee the town manager the finance director and the taxpayers for continuing to provide the necessary funding which allows our responders to perform their duties safely and efficiently through your approval in November uh we are in the process of finalizing the language in the mo Moa with the Barnesville County Sheriff's Office to transition our dispatch Services the transition um as presented in in November is still uh on track for a change over on March 3rd of this year as initially proposed the assessment formula if you can recall was not finalized at that time we hadn't received the state funding um numbers um so I'm happy to report that that has since been finalized and the the initial proposed assessment of a around $100,000 um has come in at uh $ 61,2 188 so good news there uh the Emergency Management budget request contains a minor increase um in salary providing for a 3% increase for the deputy director's salary uh this budget's otherwise level funded the operating supplies line accounts for majority of the expense side of that budget the operating supplies funds are utilized for a v variety of operational expenditures throughout the year and will also be utilized to help support our uh boxer that's our Brewster Orleans chadan haror CT team uh which is a volunteer organization that's been largely Grant funded uh each Town each of the four towns represented by the CT has once again been asked to earmark up to $2,500 towards operating supplies which will be funded out of the Emergency Management operating budget so with that I'll get on to our Pres presentation um some of the initial slides here um very similar to the slides you you saw during my my dispatch presentation a few months ago um just with some updates um going into December 1st um when I presented in November we were well on track to surpass last year's totals for uh total calls in transports we had a particularly slow December um and as I mentioned we we ended up at almost a mirror image from last year um 15 calls short total incidents uh short of what we did in 2023 for our ambulance transports uh same same data there um we were on on Pace to to surpass 2023 uh we had a slow December um which is a good thing uh in terms of in terms of business um and we we ended up just just shy of what we did in 2023 with a total of uh 1,354 ambulance transport s for calendar year 24 this chart just looks at our ambulance Revenue um this takes a look at it through the fiscal years for the last 10 years rather than the calendar year um FY 24 you can see um over the last few years the the revenue is uh significantly increased each year um took in approximately $900,000 in fy2 24 in ambulance Revenue um this pie chart just represents um the the type of work we did and just the percentages for each um for each category um these categories I know that're they're difficult to read from your perspective um are are the general categories that we report to the United States fire Administration um so very typical this is what the pie chart looks for us looks like for us almost every year um so we typically see between 62 and 66% of our calls um being as you can see in that gray area which is our rescue and EMS type calls um that's that's that's a large percentage of what we do um and then um spread out across the board in our other categories um but each of the other colors there represents calls that um would require a fire truck um response uh nothing's changed with our with our with our Personnel um we still have a chief and a deputy chief uh day positions which are uh our EMS captain and our fire inspector uh each shift has a captain a lieutenant and five firefighters and the makeup of of those Personnel the split between paramedics and EMTs as you can see of our four captains our four shift captains three are paramedics one we have one EMT of the four lieutenants one's a paramedic and three are EMTs and of our 20 firefighters 14 are paramedics and sixer EMTs and we also have a a part-time Administrative Assistant similarly nothing has changed in our fire department Fleet we still have our two engines uh our mini pumper our Quint which is our ladder truck um combination if you're not familiar with Quint It's a combination of a a fire pumper um and a ladder truck we have our three ambulances our high water vehicle which is the army truck you've SE driving around town that we use for for flood evacuations our four administrative staff vehicles our service pickup truck to to our variety of trailers we have and uh we have a a a rigid Hull inflatable boat which is on a trailer at the station and a UTV just wanted to highlight some of the grants that we've received um the the first slide looks at some of the grants we're working on that we've received and are working on now uh the next slide represents some of the grants we've received over the past few years uh we've received an emergency management planning Grant um through Mima and this uh just under $20,000 to support um trailers and equipment for our seert team those trailers uh go towards um supporting um all four towns um this is a regional grant for all four towns um they support police and fire operations incident rehab um incident command post and uh they have a variety of equipment in there to assist with some passive crowd control um and and road closures bar uh barricades cones things of that nature so uh quite a quite a good siiz Grant there to to help support uh the equipment for that team uh small Grant just about $1,400 from uh some leftover funding from the old Medicenter 5 days um and that that Grant is purchasing uh mass casualty incident uh patient triage equipment our Emergency Management planning Grant of $2,700 uh went towards fund uh purchasing gas meters for our fire trucks the Massachusetts Department of fire Services equipment Grant uh each of the past four years we've received between 13 and $15,000 um this year we received right around $133,000 um to uh the $2,700 from the the previous Grant didn't purchase all the all the meters that we need the gas meters that we need so this grant will purchase the remainder of the gas meters um some calibration equipment for those meters and some additional uh firefighting firefighter protective equipment our student awareness of fire education and Senior safety Grant um is approximately $7,000 this year um and that's our uh there's there's two sides of that there's our students and our our um elder population our senior safety um Grant um and that's to that's to provide services to the schools two vulnerable populations our students and our and our seniors so we have uh two members of the department who are trained um to provide this public education one who focuses on the schools and one who collaborates with the with the seafall to provide services and education to those folks and then lastly a FEMA assistance to Firefighters Grant which we were awarded towards the end of the summer of this year um we haven't started that Grant PR project yet um due to the timing of the award um but that is about $55,000 uh to provide paramedic training for um one of our existing EMTs on the department um so what that Grant will do will um provide for backfill of that person's shift um so when they're scheduled to work at the fire station and they have class or need to do their Hospital hours or clinical time um we can cover their shifts without impacting the overtime budget um and also provide that person the incentive of earning over time when they're attending class and doing their Hospital hours and then just a quick look at uh previous years's uh FEMA assistance to Firefighters grants um a couple years ago we received $65,000 for radio repeaters to boost our radio signal um those that those are vehicle mounted repeaters so they go on on the fire trucks and they boost the signal on scene which uh enhances Communications for some of our buildings that we have difficult Communications in our CPR devices um we received $75,000 for four of those one for each ambulance and then one for the station these are our mechanical CPR devices um U $50,000 grant for a training mannequin this is a very lifelike mannequin it bleeds it breathes has a heartbeat um we can start IVs on it we can intubate it and we can control all its uh conditions with a computer so we can uh do some really lifelike scenarios with it and then our power load systems for our stretchers um these are the systems that are are mounted to the ambulance that allow us to lift the patient and the stretcher into the ambulance um with a push of a button uh mechanically rather than with Manpower um Emergency Man another Emergency Management planning Grant $5,000 from last year um which supported our C team and finally a few years ago a uh radio Grant of uh $47,000 so we're going to flip over to the digital budget book here and just take a look at our individual line items good for you again a little bit uh difficult to see from your perspective um some fine print uh but uh um if you've become familiar with the digital budget book um the first portion of it reviews our Personnel expenses um as I mentioned up front um really this is all driven by the uh contract the successful contract negotiations we had last year um you see our total regular wages um contractually that includes step increases for our our more junior members who are who haven't hit TOP Step yet um has an increase of 99.3% um some of our our other uh increases here our our training overtime budget our overtime budget and our special teams training budget um also have increases associated with them you can see the the overtime budget um generally mirrors the increase um associated with the regular wages um there are some corrections in there for the training and the Special Teams however um if you recall the timing of it FY 25's budget had already we were already deep into the process when the contract was settled last year um so there's an additional correction in those uh line items to make up for um the the the the contract uh negotiations so there's a little bit of a there's there's the increase for this year contractually with a little bit more that that didn't get added in last year based on the timing of the the settlement that's pretty much it on the Personnel side and on the expense side like I mentioned everything is level funded except for our vehicle and equipment maintenance line um which we are requesting an additional 10% um our fire apparatus is all getting a year older I know it seems like yesterday that we purchased the the ladder truck and our our two Pumpers um the the ladder truck is a 2015 the two Pumpers are are both 2017 so they they they're they're not old um but they are getting older um and with that requires a little bit more repair and maintenance um costs continue to go up with for parts and uh and in the Labor uh costs for for our mechanics continue to go up as well so that's that's the only expense line item that we're that we're requesting an increase in of 10% and then the only other thing that you'll notice um our Capital outlay um we have a significant decrease in that request this year um we've traditionally carried um a pretty healthy amount in that account um and and we haven't really had to tap into it so we felt comfortable dropping that down quite a bit overall uh as mentioned before uh we're looking at a 6.2% increase in the total operating budget for fire any questions on fire you want me to move right on to Capital go ahead thank thank you Chief um I'm fully supportive of your budget and um as everyone else up here does I applaud um the work of your department and your your force and your leadership I just had a question about the overtime because when I first got on the select board in fact before that when I was on the finance committee that was always kind of a hot red Hot Topic um and I remember when Chief and Brisco was would come before us and the budg the overtime back then was significantly less than it is now but the department was not fully staffed up I don't think if I remember right um we are now and I'm happy happy that that's the case do you do you think that this is kind you indicated that it kind of parallels the contractual obligations do you think that the overtime is largely stabilized and you know we'll see modest increases going forward yeah what we try to do as an increase each year is really just mirror the percentage increase of of whatever the the salary increase is so if it's a 3% increase um obviously the the the overtime rate for each individual person is directly tied to their to their salary um so we really just mirror the quest based on that is a large part of it due to uh filling in for injured uh Personnel or is it's uh it's it's a combin the majority of it a better better than half of it is associated with our with contractual pay time off okay um so between for paid leave um in backfilling those shifts um and then obviously uh emergency backfill call back when there's emergencies going on um it I I I can't definitively say that with the transition and dispatch that we'll see a reduction in overtime um I'd be really hesitant to say that um especially as you know as build we we did the dispatch transition to improve services to the town um but it can be expected that there will be some some modest savings there um with that transition okay thank you very much yeah go ahead thank you Michael uh again Chief uh tight budget I was impressed that you were willing to put up that those slides uh their detail from the from the budget book um select uh select board member necastro stole my thunder on overtime I had that very self that exact same question but I do have a further one and have have you ever not spent the overtime budget no so so I mean yeah and and then I had the sell the same question on holiday pay um a significant increase there 10.9% in holiday pay H that I'm not sure that can be explained by the overall increase in the contractual uh increases so so holiday pay is is is is it overtime too or it's not overtime um there every every employee is paid for 13 holidays at their straight time rate so you know if if their if their salary went up 10% then their holiday pay is going to go up 10% with it because it's they're directly tied to each other I have two more follow questions uh uh Carrie mentioned that the five-year Capital was for the Department 50,000 for protective clothing 10 for mobile and portable radios and 35 for self-contained breathing is that going to hit year one year two year three year four or year five is that you're asking for that's all for this year for this year okay okay thanks and then I was intrigued in reading the narrative about how you're coordinating with uh the demolitions that might be planned here in chadam and you're doing training could you just you know uh elaborate on that a bit I thought that was very interesting very creative very creative yep um so you know training's been been really difficult to find uh locally the Barnesville County fire academy closed several years ago just prior to covid um due to the contamination of the pond adjacent to the the site up there um so we lost the ability to to have a place where we can go and have live burn training uh do search and rescue training um and it it was a really really heavily utilized training facility um so we lost that locally um the the state um there there's really not a lot of a lot of burn buildings around the state it's really really hard to get into classes at the state firey there's one in Springfield there's one in Stow which is a two-hour drive for us and now there's one in Bridgewater that burn building is just about to go online um and and those that's really our only access to to those types of facilities now um so we've had to get a little bit creative in how we do our training um we are um for for live burn training where they actually see live fire um several of our members have have been willing to drive out of state for um where they can find that training which is great but locally um a few years ago we we kind of worked with with J Briggs and the building division um and and some of our bigger contractors in town said if you have a house that's going to be slated for demolition um can you can you work with the homeowner fill out this this form um and Grant it to the fire department so we can get in there and do some training um before it gets torn down um it's provided tremendous value to us um the ability for us you know the burn buildings are great but if you if if you've done training in a burn building five times you C you can do it with your eyes closed you know the layout and and you really aren't tested that much um so the ability to get into these homes where we have we can we can throw a really live realistic scenario at the crew they haven't done a walkth through of the inside of the home before they show up and get put put to work it it it really creates a very realistic training environment for him um we have a a high-powered smoke generator that we use which within 5 minutes can completely make the house full of smoke of theatrical smoke where you can't see a foot in front of your uh face so they go in there they pull hose lines um we we put victims uh mannequins throughout the the house and it it it's as realistic as we can we can make it without the actual heat from the fire so it's been it's it's created a lot of great value for us yeah as I said earlier I think it's creative I think it's it's smart it's cool I think I think it's think it's really neat um you guys do a great job I think you had I notably had a really neat rescue if you will a couple weeks ago a month or so ago that was really cool so thank you thank you yeah go ahead Cory thank you Mr chair uh I mean I think Chad was so fortunate with our fire and police departments I mean the community uh relationship you guys both all have um with our citizens has been extremely positive so I applaud you for continuing that um you know environment um I just one quick question Mr Jeff kind of mention on the the capital side um on the protective clothing 50,000 I mean obviously that's a very expensive product where does that put us with overall inventory of protective gear because I mean personally I don't want to Short Change you know the department with making sure that we're up to speed with enough of that inventory and the second part on the on the the radios and I mean 10,000 how many radios because those other things are pretty darn expensive aren't they yeah they're really expensive yeah so um so I yeah I can touch on the capital um real quick that was going to be where I was heading next anyway so uh with the with the personal protective equipment um it's $50,000 requests this year um we keep a pretty detailed inventory of everybody's gear when it was manufactured when it's due for replacement um through industry standards which we follow um contractually is every firefighters outfitted with two sets of gear um they get one when they're initially hired and then they're issued a second set of gear when they complete their one-year probationary period um the gear itself has a has a a life expectancy of 10 years at 10 years it's retired and it's removed from service um and the the the standards that we follow the nfba standards indicate that at five years a a your your primary set of turnout gear gets turned into your second set your secondary set your backup set and then you're you you should have a new set that's less than 5 years old um so that's kind of our replacement cycle for that so through kind of looking at our inventory we know that we have a little uh some additional sets that we're going to have to replace this year which is why that that you know that the the PPE request is an annual request but that's why it's gone up a little bit this year um we're also seeing um there's been some recent legislation as of January 1st of this year um manufacturers are are required to label the gear as containing Posas if it has pasas in it um and then as of January 1 next year of next year of 2026 um it has to be manufactured with no pasas um we have no idea what that's going to do to expenses of the gear radio sorry and the radio yep and then the uh the radio request again that's another annual uh request of $110,000 um as I mentioned in the fincom earlier um the radio I have on my hip right now um is a little over $4,000 um and uh the radios that the firefighters are outfitted with are over $6,000 um because they're they're designed for high heat environments and and a little bit more rugged I just have one Qui one Mike you mentioned the you mentioned the ladder truck and the pumps Pumpers and stuff and you know one's 15 and 17 what's the earliest year you anticipate needing to replace one of those so we have a maybe two or three year heads up when we clean our cap you'll definitely have a two or three year heads up you'll have probably a fiveyear heads up okay good all right thanks those are pricey and I just want to note with the radios too you know as I mentioned on the grant slide it was a few years ago that we got about a $50,000 grant for to replace some radios um so that was really important and then you know as we go forward um some of this equipment our SCBA our radios um we've been fortunate to get assistance to firefighter grants in the past four um currently all the all of our breathing us right now were Grant funded um and and all of our radios right now essentially except for Replacements and repairs that we've had to make along the way have been Grant funded so as those start to reach the end of their their life and they start to qualify for replacement we'll certainly put in a Grant application to replace them again um I'm sorry go ahead no I go ahead go ahead um so with that with the capital um I'm just going to get back on track here with my slides we also see $35,000 for self-contained breathing apparatus um again this is another annual request that numberers gone up this year as I just mentioned a lot all of our uh self-contained breathing apparatus were Grant funded several years ago um and the the self-contained breathing apparatus is is made up of two parts it's got the air cylinder and then the pack itself um the the air pack itself doesn't have an end of use life but the the cylinder itself has to get tested every year and is only can only be tested so many times before it has to be removed from service so we have several of those cylinders that are up for replacement this year each one of those cylinders um if we bought them individually they can run up to about $1,200 we buy them in bulk we'll get a little bit better of a price um but we have several of those that need need replacement this year which is why that that uh annual request has gone up a little bit um and then the ambulance um we've typically historically requested an ambulance every other year as part of our long-standing ambulance replacement policy um which has put us um in a position where our our our oldest ambulance is about six seven years old with a rate around 100,000 miles on it when it's time to be replaced um the industry is seeing significant delays in production it's about 3 years to build an ambulance right now um so it it's it's Paramount that we get this on schedule um and and even getting this one the FY 24 funds that were appropriated for an ambulance we haven't received that ambulance yet I'm hoping to get it this August um so to get this on schedule um and get this ordered uh right now the vendor telling me if we ordered it now we'd hope we'd hopefully see it around September of 2027 um so we keep seeing these delays uh and they they the best they can do is to tell us to build in 8 to 10% on the cost each year so that's our ambulance request any other questions on Capital um Fire Department dispatch um I I presented obviously to you folks back in November um as I mentioned in my opener um that assessment came back favorably um and as we expected it would and that assessment is $ 61,2 188 um and just to to remind you there the um our we we had typically paid for cement expenses every year as an assessment and that's baked into this cost so just a Qui quick question I I recall that in your presentation on this specific item um there was a sort of a a correlative benefit terms of freeing up for firefighters I can't remember exactly how that related to I mean effectively additional um FTE availability but um I I take it that didn't help much with the overtime uh well it hasn't taken effect yet so we're looking at March 3rd for for implementation um but we're talking about fiscal 26 here yes yep so yep so so if you can recall for the remainder of fy2 there will be no cost for right um paid to the county um this assessment will be for FY 26 um with those four Personnel being uh Deployable out into the field to provide emergency response um it in theory um I I think we can expect some some modest Savings in overtime um because there should be a little bit less call back necessary okay that I mean I it's speculative I understand but I just wondered if it was on your sort of in your calculation or your thought process we're we're certainly going to be taking a close look at it and seeing how it how it impacts the overtime yeah okay thank you um as I mentioned uh you know in the interest of time I don't think I need to bring the digital budget book back up for this um the Emergency Management budget is level funded aside from uh a modest 3% increase cost of living for the deputy director um separate budget are cap Island's Emergency Medical Services annual assessment um fy2 was $5,900 um we've we've the um cap and Islands board of directors has has recalculated the formula and how people are assessed um and that's gone up $600 to $6,500 for FY 26 yeah go ahead uh Chief every town in the cape um pay that or pay something like that every Department yeah so the districts and and all the districts do so so B pays it's fair share yep and it's and it's and it's it's tiered it's based on the number of people on your roster um got you so that's that's one thing that we just that the board of directors just tweaked um the the tiers were were pretty expansive it was like 20 each tier was it went up by like 20 Personnel so now we shrink they shrink down to five um and then it's a $500 increase for each tier that you go up um so I you know we we should stay in the same tier for quite a while gotch you thanks and then a small oil Pollution Control account um level funded at $500 that's all I got any other questions I I'll just add I you heard from my friends to the right here or and left as well um what a great job we think you're doing I certainly do um and it's it's extraordinarily I don't know if this is the right term but user friendly I mean you're you you you present a um very friendly face to the community in addition to essential and life-saving C services so thanks for all of that I appreciate it thank you folks next case Hunter took control I was going to try to do it bu he's got it thank you thank you thank you Mr chair members of the board uh Mike Anderson I'm your police chief again it's always a pleasure to come before you and present the budget uh I will be uh very respectful of the time um before I go through the presentation and thank all of you at the end I just want to bring this slide up because I think it's important to show uh some past return on some Investments that you guys have made in the past for our department like I told the fincom this afternoon it's easy to drive by a a pumping station that's under construction to see the progress uh but my first budget I I proposed in 2022 I wanted to increase the Department's training not just the training funding budget but the the officer training hours uh and the goal was to increase their training hours to 10% and with your generosity uh of increasing my budget I was actually able to increase each individual's officers personal training on average of 16% and what that does is that makes each officer a little bit more valuable to me uh to the department and you um my next budget we introduced the Community Service Officer program uh last year we increased that by one and I think we are all in agreement that that is so far a successful program again a return on the investment so thank you uh tied into that real quickly is the parking enforcement uh component uh last year we uh implemented a new parking uh electronic parking ticket program which again I was cautiously optimistic and now after our first season I am I'm thrilled at how easy userfriendly it is um um it again you you you know the details because you helped W walk us through the whole process but last year alone we had almost a 50% increase in the tickets that we issued uh equaling over 106% increase in fines for almost 145,000 and what's not mentioned on that slide is also a decrease in the amount of successful appeals um that new system we have really is accountable to the violators so a lot of the tactics that some of the scoff laws tried to get by us in the past they they were not successful and again this is really the first year where that uh where the scoff laws do not pay it is going to be tied into the registry of motor vehicles so they will see some type of um uh connection to their driver's license or their vehicle registration and lastly we are in probably the fifth month of our body war and Cruiser mounted camera program uh couldn't be happier with it uh it's already improved our evidence collection our transparency our safety and our training opportunities um we the the the capital request that was granted easily sets us up for the next three to five years and in addition to the uh request that was provided by you guys uh we were able to secure a $44,000 Federal grant to supplement that so we are in great shape with that moving forward so thank you real quickly these are our calls for service as you can see 24 is on the far right and what it shows is accurate it's a a gentle decline in citizens calls for service uh what you see here is just a brief description of some of our calls for service real quick everything in red is an increase the uh the par pareses next to it is what the number was for last year so the total reported criminal violations the increase of 219 that's from 172 uh 6814 calls for service that's primarily reactive calls for service draw your attention to the bottom of the slide in red the 12,000 uh building of property checks 12,700 those are proactive officer uh checks on your businesses and your properties and again a 284 Park tickets issued uh an increase from 1397 and and that 125 highlighted for the Firearms permit I apologize that number should be 134 I just draw your attention real briefly to that box on the right even though the calls for service seem to be on a decline you'll see that the total reported criminal offenses are higher this year and again I'll draw your attention to the aggravated assaults the simple assaults the intimidations the weapons law violations which include Firearms the dis disorderly conduct calls the fraud cases and the drug and narcotic violations those have increased significantly this year um and if and if I say significantly if we had none the year before and we had three or four or five to me this year that's significant um again uh we were able to handle every call for service uh I'm I'm proud of the staff we had at the way that they handled that just to assure you and the community we are well trained and well prepared for anything that happens inside or outside that box on the right just a quick look of what our staffing looks like it has not changed uh we have 22 sworn personnel that means sworn police officers for myself down to our newest officer um 28 total budgeted Personnel that includes the dispatch animal control and the admin assistant uh I will note that that 22 sworn personnel number has not changed uh as you recall a couple of meetings ago the town manager had her budget uh Staffing uh recommendations uh and she and I uh hopefully uh are going to be adding one to make that total sworn personnel to 23 personnel and again I'll remind you that's the first time we've increased our staffing since 1984 that's our current Police Department Fleet again you can look at that I apologize for the typo that marked 2024 Ford it's not a 2150 it's a 250 uh it's a brand new vehicle uh your attention on line number one we've got six marked Ford Explorer police interceptors we have two that are 2019 and you'll see in the next following slides uh those are the two that we are looking to replace uh we have 18 total Vehicles the trailers for support are not included and again later on in the in the in the presentation you'll see we are looking to add one more Specialty Vehicle uh but that is our current Fleet and they're all well taken care of we have got a great maintenance uh budget uh we've got a good maintenance program and uh we've got a Ford dealership in town again they take really good care of us the apartment's First Capital request is usually an annual replacement of two mock police vehicles um the combined is going to be for about $140,000 and this is a regular replacement of our police Fleet to keep the uh Fleet up and running uh we rotate and replace the marked line cruises on a regular basis uh it maintains the vehicle's value at a regular 2-year tradein it maximizes our savings uh by keeping the mileage and repairs cost low one of the reasons why this number has inflated a little bit I'll draw your attention to the picture on the left that's what the in interior of that Cruiser would look like as far as the console the equipment the mounts the cage in the back the boxes in the back for the equipment if we're replacing a 19 with a 25 you guys all know that Ford usually changes the body styles just a little bit or just enough that if we tried to take the 19 equipment from the interior it just won't fit in the 25 and if it did it's still 2019 equipment and it's used every single day 24 hours a day 365 days a year it goes through an incredible amount of use so even if we were allowed or able to transfer most of our equipment into a new vehicle a lot of our interior equipment has reached its unfortunate end of life so last year uh we were looking for uh the purchase of a Polaris Ranger uh we had it weighted a little bit less of a priority so it it kind of got nixed but we we're trying again this year and I think um the the time has come where I I think I think it's it's long overdue the fire department has one and I'll talk about theirs a little bit more in a minute but these are some of the events that the fire department uses theirs and last summer we were able to borrow one from bondable County um and we had it for pretty much the month of July and about half of the month of August and it did get used um it got used for remote Patrol on uh beaches and our Woods um so what basically what we're looking for is uh a four-wheel drive uh UTV the picture is somewhat different the one that we are envisioning has an enclosed cab so you'll have heat you'll have air conditioning uh it's an all-wheel drive all season emergency response vehicle easily deployed to areas that include uh large crowds or isolated areas such as beaches and wooden Trails where we've had in the past uh the UTV would be able to carry Emergency Equipment as you can see uh two and from scenes uh they're also beneficial in storm response by navigating around hazards like trees lines and other structures there is no specialized training that the officers need to use this as far as as comparison to currently like a motorcycle or the four-wheel ATV that we have there's a special environmental police certification course that select offices have to go this one anyone with a mass driver's license can drive it it would be fully lit it would be F fully street legal it would be registered it could be able to be driven on the street having this would allow us to patrol these remote areas um so last year I'm sure you saw and were aware of the campaign we had some large parties some were on North Beach Island uh some were on Far remote sections of beaches thanks to social media these things can pop up without uh much notice uh or can move without notice and then when we when we respond it's usually a one or two officer response in a police vehicle uh and then they have to exit their vehicle and March you know significant distances to a party where now two or three officers are encountered by probably two to 300 people with alcohol fireworks and tempers um we also answer calls for service uh search and rescue in our conservation areas and the reason why we're asking for a trailer with this is not only to make it easier for us to maybe pre-employ this to certain areas in town but we can also assist neighboring communities if they need our equipment um as we've had to ask for their assistance uh just a side note why this is important is that the fire department had has one and when we had the one from the county on loan it was very valuable because the timing was good because the fire department's UTV was out of service for the cons several weeks in in in July so they were able to to use the one that we had for us um so again that's for your consideration with me in the audience is my deputy chief Lou Malzone he's going to assist me in in presenting this next uh uh Capital request and I will turn it over to Deputy Malzone good evening Lou Malzone Deputy Chief of Police uh this request is for a regular replacement of our Firearms uh we replace our Firearms every 3 to four years um like our Cruisers our Firearms are out with us every day they are exposed to the elements fortunately they spend most of their life in the holster um but they are out in the elements there is hundreds of rounds of ammunition put through them yearly for training um we also um trade them in to avoid the costly maintenance uh maintain their reliability and of course to keep a reasonable trade in value so the addition to the regular replacement is the addition of the uh optic that you see on the top of the rear of that handgun um on the front of it you see the The Lighting systems that we added in 202 22 um that was to um change our tactics so officers weren't deciding how they were going to hold their flashlight where they were going to hold their flashlight in no light or low light conditions um kind of a work smarter not hotter um piece of equipment there this optic um has a lot of benefits over uh traditional uh firearm sites what you see on that optic the the front of it there is a um a small glass screen on that screen there is a red dot LED that is projected and the shooter imposes superimposes that dot over their target your target foser is not a laser it does not uh illuminate um the target uh traditionally shooting you are sight focused so as you can imagine in a stressful situation um being sight focused uh creates a lot of tunnel vision the uh the optic opens up that field field of view for the officers and they are um able to be Target focused and one of the Cardinal rules in um shooting is knowing you Target and what's behind it um so without having trying to avoid the having that tunnel vision you're able to see the the bigger picture and be and be Target focused so the the advantage is a f faster Target acquisition improved low light performance improved situational awareness sharper officer focus and improved around accountability uh with proper firearm fundamentals where that um Red Dot is placed is where the round will end up so again um Regular replacement of firearms with the addition of the optic and that optic is just really a crucial piece of equipment um to be successful in any kind of critical incident involving a firearm yeah go ahead thank you uh deputy chief are we buying one for each uh officer are we doing this in bits and bites or and and have we um we've we've tested them we do we have any now in use so so we do um there are uh two of us now that have them myself and Sergeant vardaris firearm instructors and we got them several months ago to start using training with them to get used to them before we can instruct others this request also uh includes uh the the holsters that will be needed for the um new weapon system uh the 16 hours of training for each officer and each officer is required to do a th000 rounds with the new optic uh it is quite a transition going from a a traditional site to the optic so so we're buying 22 of them or 28 of them or they would I 28 to 30 of them thank you what how much does each one of these cost so the most recent um price that I just received for uh one that comes you know all together all set up the cost is about $720 a piece and and how many rounds in a clip I assume it's a clip in the 17 17 plus one so right okay anybody else thank you okay thanks thank you and just to add a lot of that cost would be offset because we are trading in our current uh weapons which are only 3 to four years old so we would get some significant trade in value on that okay bear with me on this one I got to do this okay just to Echo what the fire chief said earlier again most of these increases uh are the result of the successful uh contract negotiation we just came from um and I I know the question was uh brought up about the holiday pay it's the same increase here um one of the questions that came up with the fincom was the Quinn Bill educational incentive um a lot of the Quinn Bill eligible officers were grandfathered in older contracts they are aging out they're retiring out uh the difference between the Quinn Bill incentive and the current educational incentives the Quinn Bill incentive was built in as a percentage to the officers base pay uh currently the grandfather new language for current and new police officers it is a one-time stip and based on upon that what type of degree of higher education you have um anybody have any questions about the salaries before I move on to operational does the Quinn build uh extra ever go away Chief it will we've got a couple of other officers um you lost a couple of them because they've been they were promoted out of the contract myself uh Lieutenant Harris and Lou Malzone were Quinn Bill eligible uh all of us had the Mass's degree so it was a substantial uh Quinn Bill incentive piece I think right now we have maybe three or four left before they retire out probably within the next five years okay thank um the first line that comes up uh with an increase on the operational is What's called the band concerts and events right here so I'll try to explain what this means and and I'll do the best I can so this account pays for police officers to work details at certain town events um chattam police officers are paid overtime for certain events that are not billable that we don't charge some of these organizations are the band concert the uh Independence Day parade and half of the chadam Anglers season we absorb that cost so um if a chattam police officer Works a band concert they get paid their overtime rate from this account and why this account is so important and why there is a significant increase is when these positions go unfilled the department requests police offices from neighboring agencies through our mutual Aid these police officers whether from hoit Brewster Orleans then they bill us they invoice us us to get paid so they get paid from this account uh and the reason why this number has also gone up is over the past few years the average police detail rate has increased pretty much uniformly to $75 across the board um and again it's it's important that we maintain the funding in this because if we don't there's an opportunity where there are rare occasions where some of these position itions go unfilled so usually a band concert is usually a five post operation if we're short one or two it it it puts a it puts a strain on pretty much everybody involved um any questions Jeff go ahead yeah so we have dedicated officers for A's games every A's home game and every band concert every band concert we have five five police officers and we also have officers downtown patrolling that the M it's a busy night Friday nights downtown so if available huh now is that is that our request or is that the request of the folks that run the band concerts or they chatam A's who the A's detail agreement came into play probably a little less than 10 years ago because there was some upticks and activity down there and other communities do the same thing they have a post- a detail post so what we did to not really harm the Anglers is we said look we'll pay for half of your season you're on the hook for the other half of the season so H like the beginning of the season I think until July 5th we fit the bill for the remaining the remainder of the season the A's pay for one detailed police officer but but you we don't have five officers at the band concert we have them patrolling downtown and no you have five offices at a band concert five offices at a band concert yes they doing the Bunny Hop let's go on down there NOP uh I mean five offices at a band con yeah and and we've we've run it sometimes with less but it's a challenge we might have to pull a sector car off the road because what we do is we close uh chattam bars Avenue I have to post an officer at one end I have to post an officer at the other end so it's traffic not to interrupt Michael but it's more traffic than it is crowd control is it is uh and I need I need two officers in the parking lot itself one to make sure everybody from the imput oyer can safely leave and not get boxed in and two I have to control people to get into the parking lot who want to stay almost like a checkpoint because once they're in that parking lot we triple and foral park them in there and they're there and they and they're parked like almost like a valet service where every parking spot is filled and then I put three cars bumper a trunk uh in the in the middle so that's usually a two officer job I've got one at Main Street um I've got one at Main Street at chattam bar in chattam barav I've got chattam barav at Shore Road and if it's busy or depending upon the crowd or the weather I've got somebody at Bay Lane to keep people from coming at Bay or I move them to one of the one of the crosswalks to make sure that the people can cross safely now when you say do I have anybody walking downtown I might not with the Staffing I might not I might not have enough to even even fill uh the band concert details they might be short and I still have to put three at minimum three cars on the road yeah that that's helpful it just seems I don't know I'm just surprised that's that many um and I guess I understand why yeah it it we have those those the non the non-uniform folks downtown on Friday nights at all we have one that works a schedule that brings them into the band concert but that's Main Street Patrol but they also cover pretty much from Main Street to the ball field but they're not a dedicated post like would be paid for from this account okay thanks H how many band C what are there like eight uh a summer I think there's 12 12 is it that many okay isn't there yeah go ahead isn't there usually uh Chief um on the band concert nights one of your officers is usually on Main Street you mentioned the crosswalk there going into so there's usually someone there right is that one of the five if I can fill it okay the crosswalk usually is the first one to go unfilled because I still need road closure ones it's a little bit more important okay but if if I have the luxury to maintain someone for that crosswalk out that's where that person goes okay all right thanks okay um other than that everything else is level funded except my uniform budget again it's an increase of 3.5% to reflect the current yearly uh inflation rate again our equipment is extremely expensive um and then the meetings dues and travels is again 3.5% increase to reflect the current yearly inflation rate um a lot of these dues are for organizations uh that some of my special specialized officers have as far as uh crash reconstruction uh tactical officers uh school resource officers uh mental health uh these memberships uh what's the other big one is uh police accreditation uh these memberships are crucial for us to keep in the loop as far as these programs going forward um and then last I will have uh Deputy Malone come up and present some more material on this there's a significant increase in the capital outlay so the capital outlay originally was designed to uh is a fund to pay for our police motorcycle that we had leased for the past several years recently we took purchase of that motorcycle however the uh the the the that fund was funded for about two years and that turned into almost like a an unexpected emergency fund to give you an example uh the year before last we had to tap into it one of our printer copiers at the police station needed to be replaced because it had a failure year and the the ticket on it was like $112,000 so we were able to pay for that from the capital outlay um we've we've found uh an issue uh that we had to address immediately uh Deputy Malon will explain it it's a very important piece of equipment that we wear and uh I'll let you I'll let you explain that thank you so in 2015 we started the electronic control weapons program taser uh manufactured by axon at the time we bought six taser x2s um so each officer does not have their own they are assigned to the officer on the shift um we are now down to uh three tasers um we were down to four now we're down to three uh taser x2s um since 2015 axon also came out with the taser 7 which we did not purchase we thought we were still still in our life cycle for our x2s our x2s started to fail uh this past year and when axon was contacted they informed us they discontinued them they're not supporting them they're not servicing them so we had a decision to make the chief and I met with axon um they didn't even bring the taser 7 with them which was telling and they brought the taser 10 which is the newest uh taser platform so we have purchased eight of the taser 10 that have not arrived yet um but it comes with a a hefty price which is 72,1 146 which we're able to pay um over the next five years in annual installments um the first payment being $1 15,38 in the additional four $3,778 tasers the 22 user licenses so that uh individual off officers can use them uh it also includes the training axon will send out their instructors and um train five of our Personnel to be instructors and all the training equipment and the holsters that go with them so that is um we got the money from the small capital account and that's where we are um asking for the increase in $6,900 to fund that account at $25,000 go ahead Jeff yeah so so what's the ask how many T how many tases do we want for our our department and one question second question is how many times have we used tasa since 2015 in this town so fortunately not a lot but I can tell you that the incidents that we've had to use them uh if we didn't have them it it would have been using a firearm just this past October we responded to a shots fired call in town where there were two Firearms involved and when the officer got there he was able to deploy his taser and I'm confident to stand in front of you and tell you if he didn't have that taser would have used his firearm and then the cost again I I lost you on the it sounded extremely expensive to me to be honest with you it is yeah it is so it's it's eight physical tasers that they refer to as the handle but it's 22 user licenses um because it's every time uh a taser is assigned to an officer it's assigned to them it goes onto the axon Software System so if it's deployed it's assigned to that officer how do you decide to assign it to how do you decide who to assign it to who gets who gets the taser the the the patrol Force gets okay the taser and then you know the additional ones uh school resource um details special assignments um it is expensive it's $2,144 um and you know like like I said we can pay that annually over the five years and not pay the lump Sun but it is it's it's expensive go ahead yeah I just wanted to say with respect to this item and the the um band concerts I mean yeah the budget shows a significant increase but it's a percentage increase so we're only talking s or $8,000 on each item and as you mentioned with the tasers that's paid over time so I assume for over the next what did you say seven years uh five years five years over the next five years we'll see another seven or eight in the budget so you know it's not a whole lot of money thank you sure good thanks good thank you and and just just to stress again um there there was a long period when we did not have the tasers uh we've had them uh we've used them um just to to expand on the case that he referred to um luckily it was captured on a body camera I if if you'd like to come over and view that footage um you know it's it's it's pretty eye-opening footage it's one of those things where again a lot of people say well that could never happen in chadam it almost did um and and the taser uh deployment was was well within policy well within the use of force and probably saved the officer's life the suspect's life and probably the town whatever type of money a lawsuit would have come out of it um it's it's the most feasible way for us to have an extremely important tool on our tool belt you heard the fire chief mention this is $6,000 mine is 6,000 um they have two different styles again this is probably the most important tool on my tool belt because this is used the most um but that that taser on these officers tool belt um is is a is a absolute Mission critical piece of equipment not to good on the road even further this this new taser uh again it would not be going to every officer there are some police departments that outfit every police officer with their own taser that's a too much of an ask for us there are police dep departments which outfit their individual officers with individual Patrol rifles we don't do that um and what we tried to do is when we purchased these taser the first generation tasers that we had we didn't go to the next taser 7 because we thought we could save some money and kick this can further down the road and again when it came time for these now not to just expire but to fail there's no support anymore from the company that makes them again they're they're into making a new product um as as much as anything else um but but again I I I just I I can't I can't express not not the urgency but the necessity for these pieces of equipment on on their toolboxes and their and their and their Duty belts so so if I may I let me start by saying anytime you can use anything that doesn't involve a firearm that's a plus I mean it's an absolute plus quick question couple questions one what's the what's the what's the range reliable range of the taser the the current range is about 20 feet and I think these new taser tends go out a little bit further it's 25 25 to 40 feet and and one and again not not to give a taser class tonight but while we're on the subject if if you look at them on your belt I'm not wearing one tonight but they're they're bright yellow they're they're designed to attract attention so when we show up at a scene with someone who is at a high level of agitation or or needs to be deescalate if we deploy the current taser that we have just the fact that we are deploying it and maybe doing a spark test a reasonable person will see that they're going to get hit with that and usually be become compliant unfortunately you had alcohol or some type of Mental Health crisis they're not that concerned the addition what this new taser model has which is pretty slick it doesn't have the Spock test but when you display it and when you power it on it has a very loud audible alarm it's like and and it is an attention getter so when you see this this device deployed there is an audible warning plus a verbal warning from us multiple times to deescalate before we use this thing um we've seen him in action we've seen them demonstrated hell before we have to carry the original ones to be certified we all had to be tased by them they work trust me I don't want to be tased again um but again I I it's it's a it's a it's a big number if you look at it in one big lump sum I think we did the best we could do at the at the ear urgency to get them replaced in a timeliness and I think that by using the capital outlay mechanism to pay these installments I I think that's the only way the best way that we can we can fund this and I hope you agree thank you um and and that's it as far as the police department operational I will go back I will try to go back hold on that one one no sorry hold on this one real quickly for the animal control I don't have to go back to the budget book uh animal control officer Diane buers who does a fantastic job uh her budget is level funded I asked if she needed anything she said she's fine level funded the only thing that she has is a contractual uh pay increase um I will show you some of her numbers again her numbers went down uh doesn't mean she doesn't work as hard as as anybody else um those are her calls for service last year again everything in red is an increase everything in Black is a decrease uh 517 proactive uh calls for service last year that she handled and again I I can't speak highly uh more highly of her she does a great job she's an asset to us in the community again level funded budget um just contractual salaries for her and that is my presentation I will happily answer any question go Jean thank you Chief I'm just going to make the same comment I made to Chief devano and I think everybody up here feels the same way uh we really appreciate uh your department your Force the leadership you and deputy chief Mel own show it's a great asset to the community I think our Public Safety uh div department is um you know surpassed by nobody in this Commonwealth thank you thank you and again I just I just want to say when when I come up here uh please believe me when I tell you a lot of thought goes into what we look for to present to you and the fincom in the town and and believe me when I say that these are needs not want go ahead Jeff yeah thank you Michael yeah Mike you know you know I'm super supportive of the department I got you and any question I have about tasers is one of comes from perhaps some surprise um um maybe I was just uneducated about even having them or or or their use I would hope as Mike said you know anytime you use a Taser you're not using a bullet perhaps so that's a good thing um I'm just you know I'm just sensitive to it I guess I would like to go back to your the the block that you had to the side um one of your first slides the areas of concern that you have right there Y is there anything that we could do to um assuage concerns you have about uh anything in that in that box um to be proactive and and I'm looking frankly at drugs and narcotic violations as well it's I I I'm it's endemic to the cape and to the to the state and the nation um as we well know but um do you need anything to to to help us in that regard um because I believe it's a constant threat whether in chadam or Yarmouth or barnable or off Cape um so is there anything anything missing from your tool belt as you said no as as long as as long as we can either maintain what we have or replace what we need that's that's all we're looking for plus your support because let's let's be honest it's easy for me to investigate a motor vehicle crash sometimes when we respond to an investigate or handle an aggravated assault a simple assault a weapons law violation a disorderly conduct or a drug and narcotic violation not going to say all the time but a high percentage of the time there's a use of force component that we have to be involved in and and when you use Force it's ugly it's it's ugly it's disturbing uh but if used correctly within policy it it's necessary and again it's not a question of of if but when these calls return and we are forced to handle them you you might get some public outcry oh I can't believe a this happens in town or I can't believe the police responded the way they did why didn't they just give them a stern lecture um again I I can't speak highly enough of the training that we we offer these men and women um the dedication that they have the adherence to the the policies and procedures and the knowledge of what my and your expectations of them are in the Station House and on the street um you know we again we we have the same Pro problems as everybody else does on the cape except in much smaller doses but those problems are here um would would the select board changing a an alcohol regulation or a licensing uh permission prob probably not um do we have bands of aggravated assaulters that come in from other communities not usually usually the victims and the suspects of these things are known to each other I hate to say that I don't want to say that they're random to the community uh but they might be foreign to the community as far as the crimes themselves but usually everything in that that box to the side is disturbing as they are and as difficult as they are to predict or challenging to deal with and respond to and handle the majority of the suspects and the victims in that box are familiar to each other so that's that's a plus okay if that answers your question it does Michael I appreciate it and you know I'm strong support of the department I appreciate it I know I know I appreciate it yeah I'm just gonna oh I'm sorry go ahead Corey just want to just make one comment because I mean we we again we are very fortunate of the of the police department and fire department um but I also don't want to forget too over the last couple years we've had some kind of higher profile type scenarios situations that have happened in this community and I know full well the public Outreach the Ambassador you've be been to not only to chadam but to the cap and Islands engaging with certain particular groups that you know want to have a conversation and I know the conversations you've had with different parties the meetings you've attended the the visual visual support that you've expressed on behalf of chadam in these you know topics has been very positive and I very much appreciate that and I think a lot of people probably don't realize what the things that you do um and I and I assure you that our chief is very much engaged in on in all these topics so I I I just want to thank you for that thank you to that did you want to say something else no I'm good I'm good thank you I I'm just going to add U pretty much you know a slightly different version of what what Cory said I totally agree with that um most of the time uh it it seems that you manage uh and the department manages um the the just what's going on whether it's all those people at the band concert or uh a lot of these other things I I would cite the um uh the piece that I think you wrote uh regarding all of the forethought that goes into um not only managing big crowds when we have for example a a road race or whatever but anticipating the possibility of some kind of uh I hate to I wouldn't use the word terrorist but but really planned um uh you know activity illegal um and violent activity uh that that the department is clearly extremely well trained extremely thoughtful about what can happen as well as how to deal with what is happening and uh I and and again as I said to Chief Tano um generally speaking I know there are occasions where it's not the case but but but in the vast majority of cases um it's with a very friendly face to the uh to to the community and a very soft touch and good judgment and so I appreciate all of that thank you I I have a great team and a great Public Safety team and I again I we we can't do this without your support so thank you thank you anything else okay great thank you very much okay thank you yeah on to public works thank you sorry I was just trying to close out of what he had open um Car masero Finance director um we'll be going over the FY 2026 operating and capital budget for public works and the FY 2026 water operating budget as well um the public works and Facilities operating B budget is presented at 7,7 $ 7,334 for FY 2026 an increase of $368,500 2% over the current fiscal year the FY 2026 Highway division budget is 95210 reflecting a 5.05% increase the snow and ice division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget of 9 $5,000 the street lighting division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget amount of 22,500 the FY 2026 transfer station division budget is 1, 91294 reflecting a 5.69% increase the Fuel Depot division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget of 235,000 the proposed FY 2026 facilities division budget totals 1,668 770 um the proposed FY 2026 project in operation Administration division budget totals $313,200 290 the FY 2026 Cemetery division budget total $61,800 the FY 2026 parks and grounds division budget total $696,000 and the proposed Capital that is between 10 and 250 for the public works are um let's see Public Works 60,000 for facility safety equipment upgrade 10,000 for water main replacement the highway division requests are 20,000 for annual road maintenance 5,000 for bike trail maintenance 10,000 for emergency road repairs 200,000 for Road resurfacing 100,000 for sidewalk construction um there is a replace I did a typo it's actually a a 2015 one truck plow and sander for 95,000 and replace a 2005 backo for 160,000 under projects operation Administration there is 200,000 for property management and building maintenance projects under Municipal Building requests there is 250,000 for Ada improvements for all buildings 32,600 50,000 for Basset house energy conservation measures sorry 50,000 for DPW building upgrade study 150,000 for DPW Fuel Depot fire suppression upgrade and 50,000 for PD anx boilers under the transfer station there is 175,000 for a transfer station trash truck Cemetery Department requests are 10,000 for cleaning of headstones and 15,000 for fence repair and vegetation removal I will just go over the um FY 2026 water operating budget um um yeah go ahead Jeff yeah go ahe Carrie just for a second the you just read out the five-year Capital plan but what what is going to hit the budget next year so we call we call it the 5-year Capital plan but this is for FY 2026 so all these items are not to interrupt I'm sorry but they're all going to be on either our capital budget that's out of free cash or Standalone items in the warrant y these are all on the um the sorry the one-year plan basically under free cash these are there's no 2.9 they're yes yeah y so they're all included there they're all included there including $175,000 for the transfer station trash truck yeah because it goes up to 250,000 the requests go from 10 to 250 um okay got it y these are I'm going to tell you these are mostly all of the requests for our Capital plan are from public works that's the majority of the okay uh requests yep if I may I I why is I mean cleaning of headstones s excuse me sounds a lot more operational than it does Capital as does fence repair and vegetation removal what why are those Capital requests I can't answer to that I think it's always been under the capital requests but those are actually um we don't use our free cash to fund those those are actually funded through um sale of lots or Perpetual care one of those uh I can't really remember but I believe it's sale of lots so we take the funding from sale of lots that we collect and we use it for the cleaning of headstones and the fence repair and vegetation removal so it's more the source of the funds than it is the activity that's being funded right yeah and I agree that's exactly how it is source of fund yeah that that's counterintuitive to in some sense but thank you yeah that's fine you're welcome um um yeah so you're going to the water budget so yep the water budget for FY 2026 um is 5 million4 47,800 $1,810 of 15.42% um over the current FY 2025 budget the largest portion of this increase is due to the debt service service which has risen by 622,000 this includes um $2,473 42 for the principal 4 41,48 for interest and $50,000 for short short-term interest or bonding costs um salaries and wages have increased 5.48% um and that's the contractual adjustments and overtime and Longevity operational expenses are up $ 78,2 with a 3.77% increase and I have um Rob failey the DPW director here to go over in detail more of this and I believe Terry whan the projects and operations um administrator is online to go over his portion of the budget as well thank you okay thank you good evening Rob failey director of Public Works uh thanks for having me and uh again as the the other two chiefs mentioned appreciate your your longstanding support uh for some of these uh programs we couldn't get what we get done in chadam without your your support so we do appreciate it um I will go through uh kind of an overview quick overview try to be respectful of your time um just a a higher level with uh description of Public Works um seven divisions it excludes projects and operations Administration even though that is still under technically under Public Works Terry is going to do his presentation after this it's still carried under the DW budget though that's our current Staffing levels uh Administration we technically only have one vacancy currently but we are realigning a couple of part-time positions to get another engineering technician position I think you're aware of that so technically that's a second vacancy that we have uh right now and we also have one vacancy under highways we have requested two additional staff for FY 26 in the Parks and grounds um Department and that's to cover the contracted mowing of the two largest cemeteries in chadam so list of our vehicles um it's quite extensive but uh you'll see us out on the road every day um getting work done and um the ones that are in a lighter gray under sewer and water uh those are violia vehicles um they're owned under by the town under sewer but underwater that's part of their contracted service they provide those vehicles and here's a quick uh breakdown of uh the entire Public Works budget uh you see the bigger pieces of the pie are municipal buildings or facilities at 22% highways is at 12% transfer station is 25% and the sewer department is 23% and the rest are uh just smaller pieces of the pie so the budget for FY 26 is 7,773 4 which is an increase of 368,000 there and operational increases are $179 $277 so a breakdown of the Personnel um just tried to bring it into all the different departments individually municipal buildings um you see just slight increases a lot of you know if it's municipal buildings were at 6.1% that may be a couple of longevity bonuses um the big thing that stands out here is Parks and grounds and that's a again that two uh additional employees that we were requesting that will be offset by $70,000 reduction in contracted mowing services so it's it's not quite as um as high as it would normally be but that number the 132,000 shows the full amount and I did carry uh the projects Administration budget here that there was actually a reduction due to a retirement but just to track it so the numbers all matched up uh municipal buildings oh so that was the end of the Personnel piece now we're into operational forgive me I haven't had the benefit of doing a fincom presentation yet so you're getting the first draft here so I apologize in advance so municipal buildings uh 1. 668 million um increases I've shown here uh gas and heat went up 55,000 operational supplies up 10,000 and buildings grounds and maintenance up 48,3 300 all the other categories have been level funded highways $952,000 I just raised $4,000 in street signs I know there have been many Street requests street sign requests before you U that's just to cover some of those additional costs that we keep seeing and Sewer is 1,749 290 um again the contracted service increase is the uh is the only change there uh transfer station operational Cass tipping uh increased by 65,000 with the uh with the number of tonnage that we normally see we expect that number to be around 650,000 we just signed a five-year contract with Cass so they increase their fees 3% every year so that's basically a reflection of that 3% um plus plus we are seeing a few more um summer residents here and uh we're just throwing out more trash it's just of the Beast um recycling materials are more difficult to get rid of additional $30,000 the markets are fluctuating substantially but it's a lot harder to get rid of our recycling materials all the other categories have been level funded for the transfer station we do anticipate raising some rates for the transfer station not necessarily the sticker fees but more for construction demolition debris uh and the Tipping fees we're doing a study now but we will get back to the selectboard with that that and hopefully that will be uh that will be in place before FY 26 starts and and tipping fees are paid by uh local trash collector the commercial haulers yes yeah okay so more operational increases parks and grounds uh everything's level funded there uh cemeteries again that went down because we had that reduction of $70,000 for the two largest cemetery maintenance uh snow and ice Street lighting Central fuel Depot all level funded and uh projects Administration that's that's Terry I believe he's going to speak to you about that shortly the water department budget um it's this is the only slide I have for that it's just there's there's not much to explain it's primarily Debt Service that's uh driving the cost there is some salary increases both for staff that works uh for the water department and for the contracted services and they're both covered in there otherwise um yeah there's really not a change the depth service is really driving uh the increase in water and that's it for the operational piece uh I can go into Capital unless you have any questions go ahead I just have one quick question what we have Viola for the subcontractor for both Water and Sewer what do we pay them in total and are we are we pleased I assume we are because we keep Contracting with them we changed to them we changed to them last July and in total what what's their contract valued at it's it's pretty healthy right uh yeah for water it's little over a million a year sewer it's like 900,000 you know roughly so we're talking close to 2 million for one one n or two or so correct and and we're satisfied with them though I mean we are okay they're they're finding some uh some efficiencies number one they're they're um the struggles that we've had before were Staffing um there's only so many licensed operators on the cape uh it seems like um they don't want either people don't want to come across the bridge for those type of jobs um and it seems like there is a vicious cycle it's almost like a Cutthroat industry uh people stealing license operators from each other um violia has a they're an international organization they have a training program I I saw them at a conference last week they were talking to Mass Maritime so they were trying to get people interested early and and to come here um they've uh they found some efficiencies for us um we're working I'll get into something in a few minutes about um our our cake sludge on where that gets deposited um they're also allowing us to jump on their contracts for chemical purchasing to treat uh uh water uh drinking water um so that's a lower price for us so they're they're um we're seeing some major improvements that's for sure good thank you um Rob just uh in the U maybe I'm jumping ahead but on the Water Department operating budget are you going to talk about that separately or can I ask a question about it absolutely so in in the memo it says that the revenues estimated for FY 26 show a 45% increase what does that do to I we're making a lot of money on water now or is well the finance director and I are are U working with waterw worth uh to increase rates so this would reflect um those would be reflected in this amount it would reflect are are you uh assuming that when you have your proposal ready you're going to go to the water and sewer committee first as has been done in the past and they come before us with our recommendations yes we will We want to make sure we target the right dollar value based on what our projected debt is and not just arbitrarily uh come up with a figure that doesn't have any backing behind it okay thank you so I just want to add one thing um this is the amount that we need to take in to cover okay their their expenses so that's why I put that in there thank you you're welcome so I I There's an opportunity to ask a question that's always on my mind and that is to get you to speak to the tension between the need I mean the the revenues you need um with respect to water um versus two things one conservation efforts um but two more importantly uh what I think we ought to be doing maybe I'm wrong about that but um encouraging people to um drill Wells for their irrigation and getting them off of the um off of town water for irrigation yeah and we have those conversations almost on a daily basis um I think we maybe need to get some more media presence out there to try to encourage people to do that more of course an increase in rates may help people make that decision for themselves okay but but you don't feel that that if we were really successful in that latter thing in particular the the the the conversion from town water to private Wells that that um puts an unbearable strain on our our Revenue generation it does I mean uh our infrastructure is built for you know two and a half months in the summer and that's when people are irrigating their their lawns so if we took that off the table our infrastructure would be quite capable of supplying the water for chadam okay did I answer well I I'm really focused on but but I I'll take that answer and I'll ask the other question again later on when when um I appreciate the answer um but I I I am also focused on the possibility that the revenue loss is something that would would our enthusiasm or our ability to really go hard on getting people people off of town water for irrigation purposes it may it may affect the rates the overall rate structure okay um but we'd have to we'd have to see how that plays out it's not like I don't think people would we would eliminate all irrigation off of town water in an instant it would phased fair enough fair enough that's if that yes okay thanks okay but but just a comment just longer term it would take the pressure off the demand curve for water is what really what we're aiming for that would be huge right the did water exactly correct so you're taking you taking you know you're taking pressure well I remember I mean I don't have hard data but this is this conversations I had with some of the contractors I know when we years ago when we had to get that separate meter for irrigation talking to some of the irrigation company I mean the well well companies there seem to be a little bit of a spike in activity in people driving in their own Wells because they didn't want to have that separate meter they didn't want to pay higher prices so there was at you know a little nudge in that direction I mean potentially if we depending where the rates fall there could be another nudge and good to go into that direction which which does has some benefit because we're not putting treated water onto people's Lawns but it's said back and forth about you know we're losing Revenue that's coming in yeah it's it's a conversation we seem to have on an annual basis so I I don't know it's we will see okay sorry go ahead no thank you so um yes cleaning of headstones so um uh the last couple of year I think it was just last year was the first time um the cemetery Commissioners were successful in getting CPC money for cleaning of headstones and they did a um the contractor did a remarkable job so based on that success I mean whether we get this money or not I mean whether they get the CPC money or not we still have an obligation to maintain some of the headstones um it's usually done by a contracted third party um again they do a great job they they repair damaged stones and they also clean stones without causing any damage to the surface so uh so this is just whether whether we get CPC funding or not we still would like to you know proceed with maintaining the cemeteries it's all part of our Perpetual CARE program I did take a tour the other day that it's they did a great job in cleaning headstones there's more to be done with like and growth and stuff but anyway it really does look great they look great uh water main service replacement again this is another annual request as we are in um people are replacing their service lines we would uh like to replace the the town's part of the service line again we we recently undertook the uh submitt to De um about all the lead and un unlined water service lines in town um they they got back to us with some clarifications we just responded to them again last week um we don't have a Direction uh where we're heading yet until they fully uh digest what what's going on and um and where we're going to head so I would imagine in future years this number would be substantially increased based on the D's uh instructions on how we want to how do we want to address this quick question sorry but this is the the line that runs through Main Street down Route 28 it's a SE Mains are under every street basically okay thanks any any place where a resident is hooked up to town water there's a sewer m in the street in front of them uh $5,000 another annual request for bike path maintenance this isn't just for things where we maintain it with our parks and grounds division or Highway division it's for you know purchasing fencing material and things of that nature where we actually have to outlay money it doesn't cover any labor cost it's just for purchase of materials fence repair and vegetation removal at the cemeteries if you see on that picture on the left you'll see a couple of blue flags there there were trees there not that long ago we were able to remove the trees we used our stump grinder that we were able to buy last year with the uh Dingo and grind the stumps and return that back to um it's not really grass yet but it will be in the spring um so it's just a you know maintaining things that we own um fence repair again it's not for labor it's for um buying materials some of the trees we have run into are a little more challenging for our staff to handle in-house we've had to hire tree companies to come in and handle those so we are slowly chipping away at the maintenance of the cemeteries seems like they are they're looking better all the time and we still have a long way to go just a quick quick comment Joseph C Lincoln's grave was totally covered by growth you didn't even know it was there and these guys went in and and cleaned it up and we now know where Joseph Lincoln the I tried to find that once and I could can show you where it is I'll take you up on that Mr D I'm I'm delighted to hear that uh again emergency road repairs again an annual request um just for areas that need a little extra material that we don't have in our normal budget um uh on the left side was a battlefield Landing we put a few french trains in there to try to keep the stairs at the bottom of the landing from washing out I think it's helped a little bit um I think we have to do a little bit more work there and just uh some drainage curbing that we uh we installed to help keep a property from being flooded out it's just purchase of materials here's our um trash truck for the transfer station it's a 2014 compactor trash truck has 100,000 miles over 100,000 miles on it it comes uh has frequent breakdowns and um there 135 barrels around town in the winter time that it travels to um several times a week to pick up trash in the summer that's 155 barrels and it's a daily activity so um if we don't replace this truck we have to use it one ton like when it breaks down it breaks down sometimes for a week or two at a time because it's difficult to get parts um we have to put all the trash on a on ton dump truck so it has to make several trips just to do the route and then it puts our employees at risk for shoulder injuries for having to throw the trash up at a much higher level so really is something that we would like to uh have replaced another annual request for road maintenance just to keep the roads in better shape um I think we do a pretty good job um but we um you know patching potholes and crack ceiling and all that things that are not covered under chapter 90 typically they're typically smaller smaller activities that we can handle and keep the roads in better shape line striping is also covered under here sidewalk construction I know this is a Hot Topic um but uh you know part of the reason part of uh this you know we have a little bit of a fund right now uh in sidewalk construction and um part of the role of that engineering technician I'd like to hire is to put out a kind of a larger scale sidewalk construction project to handle a number of ADA Compliant ramps with the truncated domes a detectable warning surface and Rehab a bunch of sidewalks in town I just haven't had the time not trying to make excuses I just haven't had the time to put formulate a good plan together um but I'd like that uh engineering technician that would be one of their first tasks and this is a replacement of the 2015 onton pick TR pickup truck um existing trucks 10 years old over 100,000 miles uh it's just to keep the fleet reliable um during snow and ice operations I think you from the other Chiefs that um repairs are becoming more expensive on older fleet vehicles and it just becomes a challenge when you have a a piece of equipment that breaks down and you don't have it to use for a number of weeks this is a replacement this one has been on our Capital plan for a number of years 2005 John Deere backto backo it's 20 years old um it's a versatile piece of equipment it actually looks like it's in really good shape um we do a good job of keeping it maintained um its reach is really long um they use it sometimes to bury dead seals on the beach but we use our mini escavator as well for that um when it breaks down it's um it's tough to get parts for again so um just part of the fleet keeping the fleet fresh and keeping things rotated um we would really like to have that replaced as well this piece of equipment is something new to the capital budget um it's a 20-year old dump truck last couple of times it broke down we've had to have our mechanic fabricate the parts because the parts are no longer available it wasn't in the digital budget book um and I I'll explain where we uh where we think we can get some funding for this um violia um came to us they they said um bear with me I'm just trying to think of the story it's getting late um so they have we have our sludge cake that we to Yarmouth it's after it comes out of the belt filter press at the Wastewater Plant we take it to Yarmouth it sits there in storage for a while until we get enough of it to haul to Maine to a landfill so then our our trucking company goes and grabs it drives it all the way up to Maine gets deposited of in cella's landfill I think the total cost is around 300 I have it I have it written down about $318 per ton of this cake sludge by the time we start handling it and by the time it gets deposited in a landfill in Maine we are about to sign a contract uh we're just doing some of the testing to make sure the the sludge is not too contaminated uh a contract with a company that uses it and sells it for a mulch product um perfectly legal keeps it out of the landfill they mix it and blend it with other materials and they sell it to like commercial farmers and things of that nature um the cost would save us about $40,000 a year but we also have have our rolloff truck at the at the water at the wastewater treatment plant that rolloff truck we had one approved at last annual town meeting a rolloff truck for the transfer station so we could potentially reuse that rolloff truck at the transfer station and free up some money for a new dump truck the the only reason we had the rolloff truck was to bring the the Sledge cake to Yarmouth and deposit it there it is about 10 years old but it has very low mileage on it this company that we would do business with would bring in a 30- yard container a covered container and leave it there and when we fill it they would haul it away so we're trying to find efficiencies and this is just another example of where violia is trying to you know help us realize the larger market out there um that we may not have realized before so so it is a cost saving and we're keeping things out of landfills that's being reused so I I like the sustainability piece of it as well just a question you've mentioned two or three times here breaking down you know trucks breaking down or equipment breaking down are you talking about uh Motors and drivetrains or are you talking about the the the equipment that's on it the you know the whatever it happens to be whether it's the dump or the um yeah hydraulic stuff or whatever it could it could be a number of things depending on which vehicle you're talking about okay yeah even even Beyond regular periodic maintenance it's preventive maintenance is just things break down when it's when it's an older vehicle right okay thank you sorry sorry if I the explanation wasn't as clear but hopefully hopefully you understood what uh you know the piece I was getting at so so Rob just to chime in here so before you vote the capital article we'll reconfigure what Rob had suggested about reusing the other rolloff track and so you'll see it in in in a presentation for your vote thank you and this is the annual request to basically supplement chapter 90 funds for uh for Paving projects again it's an annual request um just the larger amount of money just helps chadam um chadam roads be um better maintained and that's all I had for you unless you have any other questions de um I just want to say I appreciate the presentation um I I appreciate the quality of all the presentations still um and in the digital budget book I think it's great um and um you know my my impression is and I'm very supportive of your budget I I think your department is well organized and well managed I think you have some very good staff and I would say that whenever I have had um a concern or even a complaint from a citizen resident and I have contacted either you or Tom bar um your Department's been very responsive and we had a uh watermain break on Saturday night in my neighborhood and we were out of water for about nine hours uh and I know that Folia handled that um very capably I spoke with uh just as a citizen with the fellow from violia he was very helpful good was glad to hear thank you think that good thank you thank you sorry um I thought Terry was going to be online to present his oh okay all right no I I am online sorry yeah I was just waiting for I didn't know if I was going to get introduced or not but uh oh no I can just jump right in or whatever you want I'm sorry I just didn't see you so I I wanted to make sure you were there thank you great so Terry Terry wellan uh project and operations administrator I'm just going to share my screen here real quickly um I have um okay so again um Terry whan projects and operations administrator um so the projects and operations uh Administration budget has been referenced a couple of times again it's carried under the broader DPW budget the uh proposed um FY 26 division uh funding is U uh 31 13,220 uh total and of that 38378 is allocated for salaries and wages so we're smaller Department of three people and some part-time folks uh 48 485 th excuse me $4,850 of that uh budget is operating expenses in the salary line as I believe Rob mentioned it might have been red a couple times as well uh reflects savings this year of 9,652 due to uh retirement of a longtime employee in FY 25 um there are some slight increases in expenses uh over this uh projected over the next uh fiscal year so there's a slight increase of $850 which in a total within the budget which includes $100 for continuing education uh and $70 for other charges and expenses so again just uh associated with regular uh increases in costs in general uh the primary support areas that uh projects and operations Administration um provides includes capital and special projects so various articles grants and other projects assigned by the town manager um committees so we're Liaisons we we do compliance Administration for them an Operational Support facilities division DPW and we also um have the GE geographic information system mapping in the department uh so again just a quick uh some of the projects most of them you're you're aware of because they're uh some of them are larger and we've been before you and we'll be back on some of these so just couple highlights so the center for active living so we've been working that uh most of the year as you you know and we'll be back uh with uh that that project short for the renovation expansion at 193 Stony Hill uh for an article uh we're also running the American with Disabilities Act transition plan implementation uh we also are are tracking and planning uh new projects for the green communities energy conservation measures uh the eldrige public library projects so those are related to the site master plan and HVAC those have both Ada components um site components and uh energy components they're also working with the airport commission uh with um if you recollect the uh with the closure or removal of the station at the um um mono Reserve uh we've been working closely with Noah and National Weather Service to potentially relocate the upper air inflation balloon station uh at the airport um in the former fisherman storage area so the three basically we do uh support commit commes uh three committees um and those include the airport commission energy and climate action committee and the Railroad Museum committee oh that didn't get changed so they are now a committee so again all the everything that goes along with running these um um entities and you know two of those are management entities so the airport commission and the Railroad Museum group so we do uh not only the meeting management but we help them with Administration their capital and budget planning uh project implementation and coordination Grant Administration compliance and particularly with the um airport commission um lots of um um om oml compliance um uh issues um come up from time to time from the public and various public records requests on the operation side within within the within the division we're doing our facilities planning we're supporting and implementing uh projects across all all the Departments where as needed uh we're doing energy manag agement and planning projects and this year we've been working with a uh consultant position from the uh uh shared position through capik compact with uh three other communities so that's a new element uh that we're working with on um getting into um really TR finitely tracking our uh energy use our energy production and then also um translating those into what types of projects we should be pursuing uh to continue to make uh improvements along those lines uh we also are are dealing with property management and agreement activities so the town's a landlord for multiple uh types of entities uh so we're we're um often involved in those types of activities and we've been supporting and working very closely with um the implementation of work order systems and asset management um aspects of uh the town operations and that's going to be um in the future here are going to be more um heavily integrated with uh the geographic information system mapping so we're changing to a more uh modern platform not only on on GIS but also uh the work order systems and asset management systems so we're going to be able to do more robust things with mapping so uh if you're familiar with u my monthly report you can look um uh on there and see some of the things that that we're that we're doing but you know in in the upcoming year we're looking to um have a much more robust mapping portal on the town's website and also we're very involved in Grants and agreements so I've already mentioned green communities with the projects cap light compact you know any of the energy projects we're looking at we're always looking for Capel compact for any um incentives rebates and then often partnering um with capelot Compact and green communities for uh communities um similar relationship with cape and Vineyard electrical collaborative we're always um on the power supply supply side or sustainable energy side we're we're often working with them on uh integrating any prod any um solar aspects in particular and we're starting to do some battery storage and a couple of other uh things again as we move along this is something most likely that we'll do as we've been doing it uh with some of our building projects and most likely be a situation with um uh 193 Stony Hill Road and of course all our grants uh that are involved with the Federal Aviation uh Administration for the airport in mass. Aeronautics and working with those uh entities uh for the um you know the strong Grant support that the community gets uh for uh the M uh safety improvements at the airport uh with both of those entities providing typically up to 95% of uh the major projects and Mast out Aeronautics on some of the smaller projects uh also provides up to 100% funding so that the Community can meet its U obligations for um under under both chapter 90 and uh FAA gr Assurance documents so if you want me to stop right can keep going and I think maybe uh in the interest of time un let's say here something different I'll just run through uh six Capital articles here uh for for tonight um and those being the property management Building Maintenance project which is an recurring article at $200,000 the Ada and improvements um which is the transition plan implementation at 250,000 uh the B Basset house energy conservation measures at 32650 a a DPW building upgrade study at $50,000 DPW Fuel Depot fire suppression system upgrade at $150,000 and replacement of PDX boilers that name uh it's really we've done the PD and we need to do the annex so uh this article is um the first um of the on that list that I just went through quickly the overview this is an annual recurring request and it's basically for funding larger uh cost in repair and replacement items um to maintain the buildings and facilities and again this is really um this is funded every year this is to basically deal with unplanned repairs that are needed um and need attention they're urgent for uh either maintaining a buildings uh being operational uh and are typically greater than the order magnitude um than um the capacity of the operational budget to to handle so the uh project I mentioned here so again is the select board might remember back in 2022 um they the select board um endorsed the Ada transition plan which is basically um it was a survey completed on all the uh buildings fac facilities and certain grounds areas within Town it there's uh uh a multitude hundreds and hundreds of action items that were identified um this um um effort uh was programmed to occur over five years we're into the third year of of uh implementation so um We are continuing to um basically um go after action items that kind of fall into two categories for readily achievable those are projects that are things that are um easily to easy to achieve they adjustments they small small scale uh items and then um a separate track as well for uh projects that require design uh as you may have seen in uh the main sheet uh or in some of the announcements we're we're kicking actually today um the fence went in for a major project at um the town Town Offices at 54 Main Street to re um rework the um public restrooms in the back to deal with multiple Ada accessibility issues uh regarding um size fixture locations ramp access um and so on and so forth uh so that's um what's what's going on with that project uh and again I would direct you to the um my monthly report you get a monthly um um um accounting of what what's going on and then we did also just meet recently with the committee for people with disabilities and we're going to be providing them a quarterly report uh so they can more easily track um status as well um and really this project is important just to maintain compliance with the ADA requirements and just basically enhance access for users of all Mobility levels to all Town facilities and again that's uh very consistent with the the select boards um a live livability goal for for the town uh this this project includes uh this is for the Basset house so if you're familiar with um down by Meeting House Road where the Chamber of Commerce um is located um the you know the buildings clearly very historical the buildings the the systems to some extent you know as it's not as heavily used as some of our build other buildings um you know is is in sore need of U of upgrading uh to improve the um uh climate control and just uh Moisture Control in in the building as a whole so it's part of that uh we worked with capik compact to do conduct an audit out there and basically uh came up uh with a um framework to replace the outdated uh and underperforming Equipment um basically going into heat pumps for both um the um general climate control and also a hot water uh and this would also um the total project budget also uh includes uh enhancing um insulation in um certain certain areas of the building uh just to improve in performance um here's a a new item that uh for folks who are familiar with the um DPW building um this is um based on um changes um you know since Co um uh addition of staff and other other changes and responsibilities uh within the overall Department of Public Works we're we're looking a fund to study to um to review potential improvements to uh look at different options um to restore the first floor conference room uh which was um displaced by um um some moves in the lower level and this now occupied by the cemetery division um and then also a need to increase administrative storage within the building and also looking at building out unfinished space for some future flexible programming and creating compliant um archive storage so this is really W would um be a study to look at U some of these items and then also would serve as the basis or foundation for uh future um either future comprehensive Capital requests or or or phased requests so just for some context I don't know how many people have been up upstairs at the uh DPW in a while but this this area was built out um so it was not uh finished originally um as part of the original um DPW facility that was um fully complete in 2007 but we did build this out as part of the um uh the PD anex project so to as part of a a broad temporary relocation for that 2-year uh duration project uh this area was built out um and uh multiple uh staff from uh mostly natural resources were over here during that time period they moved out um obviously when the uh um pediatics uh site came online and then as as uh employees have been added and um functions changed over here we've basically are utilizing all the existing offices uh and as you can see some of these pictures uh clearly need for um some storage space we also have a the sign machine is located up up upstairs here uh and then um other files for uh water in particular and archive uh Road um plans uh and then further I mentioned um unfinished space that might be available for for buildout in particular if you look to the picture on the left uh right now we have um you know an ad hoc storage um Loc location that could definitely uh at a minimum um look at some formalization for formalization uh racting so on and so forth but really uh should be brought up to a standard that um you know has climate control um and other um other measures to build that out and uh to the right side of the picture uh there's also area there for other flexible programming space uh for for other DPW functions if you're familiar with the building um this isn't real easy to to see um if you're familiar with the front part kind of a more traditional um kind of housing structure um or housing look look look lookalike structure uh connected to a big um you know metal box building so this this area is in between those two um two locations so it's it's it's space that's there um and that we can look at um we want to look at um you know optimizing our use and I mentioned as well um and we talked a little bit Rob and secetaries have come up a couple of times so with um again staff um um being added on the lower level at DPW the um Cemetery office was located in the former conference room and as you can see uh within the um division carols those are uh the uh that's the cemetery office proper and then around the facil uh around the carols you can see that uh we're using um the area for um file storage as well it's used by the uh first level um administrative staff uh this this project again pretty self explanatory this is the DPW Fuel Depot uh which you might be familiar with if you um drive into the site and you look directly to the back you see the canopy uh and basically this is um the um the um fire suppression system it's at the end of its life um so just for context here's the the full canopy and then we're talking about the the system here um and and other improvements to the uh to the whole the whole system so so that's again really it's important to do this because of um you know the maintenance of especially with u uh the fuel uh functioning fire suppression system it it's a key component uh for Public Safety and compliance with um sa fire safety and insurance standards and I'm just I'm sorry if I can answer any questions these but kind of moving along through these and as I mentioned the the Panic spoilers that was the name of the the line item that we had carried previously and and has been carried projected out but on the left you see um a system that we used to replace um the boilers um um of the one boiler that was included in the original Annex uh excuse me the PD facility and on the right is the um remaining um unit that we have over at the annex so as we you know with the buildings are you know U coming on so we've been occupied you we've been in there um uh quite a few years now um these systems are so let's um uh in need of uh performance enhancements and we found over the years too the uh if you look at the system on the on the left with the double uh boiler uh system they're actually the same capacity but it it provides uh resting capacity and some redundancy in a storm event um excuse me um you know other potential excuse me an event where uh one of the boilers might not be working so it it's easier to ride out a a maintenance condition the uh one of the complicating factors with the um uh the the components that were originally installed uh we are having a lot of hard um uh it's hard to get parts for that that um uh brand so it's it's really um just in time it need needs to be to be changed out so um and with that um I'll take any questions or um respond to any comments you have go ahead Dean I just have one Terry with respect to the library um I I know you're working with a project manager how close are we to um getting a new Heating and ventilation system in there I know we working on that trying to get y It upgraded and you're looking for funding too yeah so yeah we have we have funding for that through the article and we we're finishing up a thermal um a thermal study there um and as I think Dean as you mentioned before too so this also this the effort over there is going to include a lot of other aspects of um of um Shoring different things up um you know because it's an entire replacement of of the full uh the full system so it's it's not only electrifying the system so bringing everything over to to heat pumps and more modern equipment but it's the entire entire system so uh once we finish this thermal study we should be pretty close to um getting together a bid package to get that out um and um some of that also if there's some additional study or additional uh work that we need to identify as that so we are moving along with uh with that and uh we met with the library again it supports you know the overall goal too they they've got their sustainable Library initiative as well so it kind of ma matches well with uh what what they're trying to do over there as well okay thanks Terry welome Chef thanks Mike I have one quick question Terry the the natural gas costs are going up almost 80% what's what it's going from 70 grand to 125 Grand that's $55,000 jump are we adding facilities are we adding natural gas somewhere or are we anticipating a rather large increase to the largest producer of natural gas in the world which is the United States yeah so what what you know what the direction we're going so while the the the um the anx boiler is gas at the moment that's that's quite you know a large system um and it's not as much money um to to just keep that going as is for right now uh but we are looking at uh continuing um again the idea whether it's the library we just finished up the existing 193 um uh uh Stony Hill with uh electrifying that building you also saw the proposal to do uh the um uh Basset house so we just had a meeting you know working with our our energy manager um energy man manager who is a consultant and is a you know employee as well with uh capik compact so we're looking at uh also electrifying some of the the bigger buildings uh such as the U uh Community Center town hall and DPW um and we're looking at more um um their air to water systems so um I'm just starting to learn learn about those but those are things that are we're looking at including in our April around um for Green community submission uh those we put in the projects that have the highest um potential for um recapturing funding so that's that's what we're doing um right now those are our three um you know with um working with um Capac compact that they're recommending that we pursue but we're we are also looking at all of the other buildings um and we'll probably be coming back with something I just got word today that they are going to do um some additional Audits and work on all our remaining buildings that which is or almost all of them um on you know what electrification might um might cost so again that could form also the basis of a a future Capital article that might require some um uh Grant matching but that's that's we're going to be working that on that over the course of of the spring here for the remainder of the buildings coming up with this um electri electrification plan until we come up with a better name for it thanks Terry you're welcome um Terry um it it it's my understanding that we had a five-year um Ada uh Capital compliance Pro program that was um $250,000 a year um we have $250,000 in the current um um request uh which you've identified as the the third year of the program H have we expended um all or a large part of or how much of um those first two years of of capital um allocations yeah so we we've had in and you know with the as you're aware the um um we're close I don't have the exact number right in front of me I apologize for that but the um the arpa uh funding that was received to um um help with the basically cover the the the cost of the Town Offices renovation has freed up uh uh funding so we we we do have um um you know that's basically cleared up funding but a as as you can see you know that project was 433,000 so those design projects are uh while our next projects we again we're focusing on bathrooms in the short run here so we've got Kate G uh and oyster Pond will be some of the next ones they're not as expansive from the building perspective they have a lot more site issues and other things like that but that has freed up a lot of funding uh for um for for this for the from the first two years that you know we would have fully expended the the the $500,000 so that was a big a big help uh for that um and then we're continuing also you know with other projects if if we do move forward with uh the 193 uh Stony Hill Renovations um lots of the uh as you saw in the previous uh presentation a few weeks ago lots of the identified action items in that project would be um you know achieved in the plan so um yeah so we're we're again we're very thankful for the oper project it's allowing us to do um more things but yeah so it's like I said I I I was trying to scramble here look while we're but I I can get you that number um we and we are going to be putting together as I mentioned a quarterly um tracking system online where folks can go and look at that that'll have both a a quarterly Financial summary and then a page by Page um um or action item by action item listing of of of status complete underway or or not started okay good thank you anybody else thanks Terry uh oh no problem I think the one thing we we have if we're a mind to we still have to deal with the uh actually placing and recommending the water budget do we not yes that's correct okay unless there's something else I'll take a motion to place the water budget some article yeah okay Mr Shel or want I just moved it so okay okay you second second all those in favor can I just ask a question you say earlier there was going to be a numerical change in this or number or no not for the water but for the DPW capital okay okay all right thank you all right we have a a motion and a second on the table uh Mr nicastro hi Mr Shell says I Mr Dyk and Mr matters Mr chairman I move to to recommend the water second uh all those in favor Mr Mets hi Mr Dy Mr Shel say I and Mr NC Castro hi thank you I think that takes care of it good night Carrie um Jill oh no no no we still have committee appointments um the historical commission we had we um we interviewed Mr Wilson well it's been a couple of of weeks anyway uh January 7th um anybody want to make a motion Mr chairman yes I move to appoint Robert Wilson as an alternate member of the historical commission until June 30th and I'm going to pick 2026 unless soon a revoke revoked or a successor is appointed second all those in favor Mr nastro I Mr Shel say I Mr Dyk I and Mr Mets I okay next um The Railroad Museum Museum committee we have one open seat and we are appointing somebody who was um interviewed quite some time ago and for some reason we haven't appointed him so we can do that now Mr chairman I move to appoint Robert Denny as a member of the Railroad Museum committee until June 30th 2025 unless soona revoked or successor is appointed second all those in favor Mr Mets I uh Mr Dyk Mr Shell says I am Mr Mastro all right Jill Town manager's report uh thank you Mr chair so in your packet you have the monthly report from the Departments as well as a few current items and I will go over them very briefly so the first item as you've just me uh this meeting is the FY 2026 budget and it's introducing the budget to the public so that they know um how and when to participate in the meetings and so there's an introduction in here including um some important dates coming up the select Board review the finance committee's review uh your trans your transmitt official transmitt to the finance committee and then our town meeting which is on Saturday May 10th at 11 a.m. um with the town meeting on May 10th uh we'll also as usual provide child care so there's some information that we're previewing and then more information will be placed um and and promoted as we get closer to posting of the warrant but we will have child care available uh and that's uh offered by our Park program through our Recreation division um exciting week for the writers Cove respit Center that's our adult day uh they started uh a really great turnout uh great activities thanks to Joe our director and she's working really closely with the um other members of the co COA team including a new hire who I'll uh preview a little further into this document and then as you've seen uh also highlighted in the main sheet um no good transitioned here but a deceased water fou um more Ducks we we have found um but there hasn't been a link to any of the Aven flu um HP aai so if there is there is information in the main sheet in here to contact uh Diane buyers or animal control officer okay uh we have our standard uh years of service anniversary and this is for February 2025 uh Pam Jones uh the longest longevity for February uh DPW coordinator for 20 years uh our own shaan Neely with her new title here Communications manager Community engagement officer for 18 years Richard corus our facilities for in seven years Cassie wiell our police officer for four years James Hamilton also police officer for 2 years Clint cier police officer for 2 years and then Lisa steel our HR Administrative Assistant for one year uh the main sheet also highlighted the new hires um we have for our COA adult supportive Day program eileene Aldrich and it's a little bio about her and we're really excited to have her also joined uh just recently this past week was the DPW transfer station heavy equipment operator Jason Jones we're working with him to get a picture and introduced him to the community but we're very excited to have him um he's certainly a very skilled truck driver and very committed to customer service which uh came out of very clear in his interview our Deputy Harbor Pastor Harbor Master position um Marshall Burke was recommended unanimously by the review team including the Harbor Master and he's soon to retire from the US Coast Guard and will join us on May 21st so we're very excited and he also lives locally too and then always Bittersweet as I mentioned when I announce retirements uh Ted Keon our Coastal Resources Director is going to be retiring on April 18th 2025 what a fantastic picture he provided to he always he looks already relaxed and retired um really there's so much to say about Ted so incense so important to our Coastal resource program as well as our dredging program he's been the person to get all of our permits which are certainly a long Arc to get so I know you've all congratul congratulated Ted and I'll keep you um up to date on any party or any official recognition so we thank him uh job posting for our our police officer vacant position and then as Kathy normally does with the monthly report she does a sort of a table of Contex cont content uh to direct you to various initiatives many of them that um meet the select board's vision statement and goals and objectives and then on our continued effort to keep connected to the community uh we have our chatam TV Productions which we call Messi TV and the data in here is provided by it as well as Shauna on the number of uh people accessing our social media the duration and our main sheet as well so um I know with this version here the DPW report is not included but we add that to the updated version to the website and I'm happy to answer any questions no good job Jill thank you good job always amen I just want to say regarding the Ducks I've never seen more ducks at Agway than I have tonight I don't know if you saw them there were probably 40 or 50 Ducks out there I don't know where they're coming from but I I I I tur I haven't seen a lot of ducks but I see a lot of turkeys a lot of ducks up the mono River there's been a lot of ducks around and that's not the first time we've had to see SW water foul from gunshots on our beaches believe me motion to ajour Mr chair uh all those in favor Mr matters hi uh Mr dykens uh Mr Shell says I Mr necastro hi good meeting thank you all and we are adjourned at 8 47