Yes. Uh, it being 6 o'clock, I am calling to order the select board meeting of September 22nd, 2025. And if you'd join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it
stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This meeting is being telecast live by Chelms for Teledia and being recorded for later viewing by the public. Um, first up we have um public service
announcements. Um, and actually normally, well, I should I should note that we have um one member missing tonight. Um, Pat Maloney is not with us and Jeff Hardy I think is supposed to be here.
Yeah, we're expecting any moment. So, we are expecting him any moment. Um, does somebody else want to do public announcements? You want me to do you want to do them? Sure. Okay. because normally Pat Maloney does them. Thank you. Um, okay. So, first up is the LRTA is
still uh looking for people to take their uh regional comprehensive transit plan survey to come up with ideas on how they can improve service over the next five years and you can find that survey if you go to the uh to LR lrta.com
website. Um, second is the fall book sale for the Chsford Friends of the Library is coming up Friday, October 3rd, Saturday, October 4th, and Sunday, October 5th. Um, plenty of used books um on on all different genres for all different levels. Um, there is a
membersonly sale on Thursday, October 2nd, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. On Sunday, there's a an extra special where from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. you can get uh a complete box of books for just $5. It's a great deal. I usually go at the end of
the sale and stock up for at least the next year. Uh, next is a job fair on September 24th that is um sponsored by Mass Hire Lowel. that will be held at Chford Town Hall from 11:00 am to 1 pm again on September 24th.
Um, Chford Indigenous People's Day celebration sponsored by the diversity, equity, and inclusion committee will be held on the common in conjunction with the usual market on the common on Saturday, October 11, 2025 from 11:00
a.m. to 2 p.m. Um there will be um a panel discussion with stories and perspectives perspectives from indigenous leaders, dance and cultural celebrations, information tables, and kids activities. And lastly, the DPW is seeking plow
contractors for the 2025 to 2026 winter season. You can check out the uh DPW website or call or email uh m thomas@chumpswoodmma.gov gov to find out what the rates are, what the incentives are, and how you can uh
sign up for um plowing this winter season for the town. And that's it for PSAs. Thanks, Pat. Um next up, we have general public input. Do we have anyone for public input? And just a reminder,
we generally um go for about three minutes for public input. And if people could just give us their name before they start. Thanks. Uh hi. Hi, Mike Riggnney, 19 Bill Gil Ricker Road. Hi, Mike. Uh, I am here in my capacity as the chair of the uh, Center Village
Master Plan Committee. Uh, just um, we got a a late breaking blurb that didn't make it into the packet. On October 6, that's a Monday night, at the library, there will be a public input session. Um, this is it's being run by NEMCOG.
This is the beginning event to uh what may become a major reconstruction at Chumsford Street from Chicken Corner up to Fletcher Street. Uh as you know, the state has been has taken over the u the
roadway from Fletcher Street to uh Golden Cove. So that project's in the works. This is um kind of the first bit of another project uh between in kind of the center section of Chford Street. Um
so we're looking for people to kind of give us ideas about how they'd like that area to look uh what what's important to them. Um and we'll go from there. Uh there will be additional sessions um with more information after the after NEMCOG has had a chance to collect and
collate the input that we get on October 6th. uh with a final final report probably by the end of the year. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, Richard Bradus, precinct 9 town
meeting rep. I'm here mainly to bring up something that Virginia Crockett Timonss proposed before she left and that was to go after the leaks in the town of Chumpsford. Um,
I left the packet and since then, Congressman Lori Treyan and Senator Barrett have jumped on a federal bill to improve gas pipeline safety. I would
hope that you would go forward and talk to our representatives when you meet with them to see if we can improve the amount of leaks in the town of Chosen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Curtis.
Anyone else for public input? No. Anyone on Zoom? We have no Zoom this evening. Okay, great. Um, next we have committee vacancies. Pat, do you want to you if you like? Okay. We have the following uh vacancies available as of today. There's uh one
vacancy on the agricultural commission, one vacancy on the board of assessors, one vacancy on the capital planning committee. On the commission of disabilities, there are five uh vacancies of varying lengths. There are three vacancies on the council on aging board, one vacancy on the historic
district commission, two vacancies on the holiday decorating committee. The parade committee welcomes all applicants for one-year terms. There are two vacancies on the permanent building committee and one vacancy on the vinyl square strategic action plan committee. If you're interested in serving on any
committee, you can uh check this out at the town website and uh fill out an application there or through the town manager's office. Thanks, Pat. Um, next up we have a public hearing uh National Grid uh for and National Grid
and Verizon for a poll petition at Parkhurst Road. Do we have someone from National We just table this until hopefully somebody show our shows this evening. We we were told they would they were sending a representative in person. Okay.
Okay. We can go back to that. Yep. Um uh next we have um our recommendations on the fall annual town meeting warrant articles. Thank you, Madam Chair. There's 35 articles on the warrant. Um what I would
suggest, we have some presenters here uh this evening and much like was the case last Thursday night at the finance committee. We can allow those to present their articles. go on their way uh and then we can I can cover the ones that are you know financial and and town related. So um the order that they did
at the finance committee is they they had the coolest farm one um the petition article first followed by the um the rodenticides article uh and then we would then do the zoning articles and then I'll I'll sort of pick up the remainder after that. So that's probably the best way to proceed like courtesy to
those in attendance. Yep, that sounds good. So, yep, that sounds fine. So, first we have the coolest farm. Which um article is that again? 34. 34. Thank you.
Okay. And we have someone here to speak about that. Hi, John Ray. P23 Pinehill Road. Mr. Ray motions. Um so article 34 citizens petition for
select board action on culus. The citizen petition is asking the select board to keep a portion of kulis farm as restored open fields and community land rather than reverting to unmanaged growth until all uses are decided.
actual petition says to see if the town will vote to recommend that the select board maintain the town owned property known as Kulis Farm located at 185 Pinehill Road and acquired using community preservation
act funds in a condition last maintained by the Department of Public Works DBW as familyfriendly recreational open fields and managed agricultural land. The property should be formally designated
as community focused multi-use land as proposed by the coolest farm task force including in an event area suitable for larger not large but larger groups. The town should not allow the site to revert
to unmanaged habitat or forest. And further, the town is requested to refrain from finalizing any pertinent conservation restriction or long-term land use designated for coolest farms until these matters are fully addressed
and resolved or act in relation to thereof. Additional detail the condition of last maintained by the part department of public works. DPW alongside DTPW did most of the work clearing. Fantastic
alongside a friendly uh friends of family. Coolers farm restored the site. In April, regular mowing stopped and the fields began to grow again. Vent area suitable for larger groups. Examples include small what things that
we've had. Examples include small scout stargazing nights at or outdoor music similar to Sunny Meadow Farm. Always subject to the town's standard approval process. Community focused multi-use
lean definition is a blend of fields for events and recreation, community agriculture, and conservation buffers. the opportunity to maintain a modest open field area, approximately three acres as part of the
31 acres for public use in in employment in enjoyment. I should have my glasses on. In addition to the trails and picnic area just as we have at Redwing Farm. So the photograph on the left is coolest.
The photographer on the right is Redwing today. So, April and today inspired by a proven conservation model. Last year, volunteers and DPW successfully restored and created a
beautiful and accessible public space at Kulis Farm that respects the site's conservation value. Our model was inspired by Redwing Farm's low impact passive use model focusing on family activities appropriate for the coolest
farm landscape. Balanced use public use of the site on this maintained area would be defined and town managed. Conservation restriction requirements for wetland buffins buffers would be respected.
Volunteers would assist in maintenance building on the strong community interest in Kula's farm. As with Redwing Farm, this model minimizes the town's resources after initial restoration. No
DPW resources would be required for ongoing maintenance as it had been for the initial res restoration. Redwing Farm serves as a similar model for a conservation site maintained successfully for over a decade with no
cost to the town. Your voice does matter. This is not a demand. It's a request from the citizens for the select board to review the current and future plans of Culis Farm. It's an opportunity to ensure the conservation restriction reflects the
balanced vision of of conservation and communityfriendly open space. It should be noted that the town engaged the community after purchasing the time that land to help determine the use and broader public use for coolers was
recommended. A yes vote by the town meeting asked for the select board to consider the community's desire for a modest, family-friendly open area at Kulis Farm. Demonstrates to the select board how strongly the community feels about
maintaining a public open area on the land they purchased. Supports the balance between conservation and public use that is achieved successfully at Redwing Farm by the Conservation Commission. Please vote yes on article
4. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rice. Okay. Um, you want to do what is doing?
Do you have something? I was going to ask a question, but it's not. I'm good. Sure. Does the chair want to vote recommendations after each article or do you want to do it later in the evening or do you want to do this? Um I'm not sure how we normally do it. We
normally do it one by one. Yeah. Lately, as as we've been doing them, we as we get a presentation, we do we do a vote. We have a discussion and then we do a vote. Um, you know, that way the the proponent knows what the result is before they before they leave.
Okay. Rather than I mean that that would be my preference. So So before we vote, can I Yes, we can discuss. Y Oh, yeah. Well, we can ask questions too, right? Yes, we can ask questions to the petitioner to Mr. Ray and Okay. Yep. Okay.
Go ahead. Do you have questions? Yeah. Sorry. Um, Mr. Great. You you put the two side by sides up. I was here fortunately for the for your first presentation. Um and I think the the um finance committee had asked you to to if
you had pictures of the before and the after coolest just to confirm that's the before that's the coolest now in Redwing. Correct. The the coolest photo on the left the photo on the left is coolest April 30th. Okay.
Okay. The the photo on the right is Redwing now. And do you have a current one of coolest coolest? No, because I haven't been up there unfortunately. It's overgrown. Okay. The the the uh invasives and weeds are 3
to four feet high and and the last month or so is so dry up there. Some of that's fallen down some. And so I just want to make sure I'm clear too. You you cannot see in in that slide on the left, you can see that the
stone walls and and the stone walls are like a pearl necklace. It it just is a remarkable feature. Um and now you can't see them. The the weeds are so high. Okay. So, I just want to make sure I'm
I'm understanding and if somebody else has a has a good explanation exactly what what we're voting on. So, if we vote to support this and town meeting supports, what exactly are we going to we're going to get out of it? Because I did read the conservation chair's letter too. And
again, a lot of the things I think you've been asking for and and what they're see there's just there doesn't seem to be a lot of daylight between Friends of Coois other than this one parcel I think or one part of it that's not being mowed. So
no the three the three depends how you want to define it but the three three fields okay um are not being we we were instructed May 12th to stop mowing so we stopped mowing actually we we had finished up mowing in
April so that's why we had April there um and and we stopped mowing and it very quickly overgrew and and what what you're going to get out of Look at the photograph on the left. Okay, that's you you would get that
back. It's going to take a while to do that, but and and residents could go back to using the left field and depending on on uh whatever works out um between
conservation, I mean, if there's a meeting of the minds, at least the left field and hopefully some of the right field. Okay. But we there's been no official real dialogue. But I I was at a conservation meeting
where there was a plan for kind of all of our public lands that was laid out. Again, I'm not on that committee and and nor am I heavily involved in it. But there seems to be there seems to be a plan to maintain all of this. And I I you know, I certainly recognize all the
effort you put in and and the frustration that you have. But again, I think what I've heard in the last couple meetings and and again what I'm reading here today is that you know what you'd like to see and where conservation commission is going is we're not too far apart. So
we're a long ways apart. Okay. Okay. On on just what we're talking three three acres. Okay. The three fields about three acres. The whole rest is is fine. 31 acres. Okay. So again, I guess and and maybe if
somebody else has some other questions that can help clarify, right? Because I really want this to come to a resolution. I think we need to we all we need this to come to resolution. So, what what's the what's the with with the parcel that we're talking
about the 3 acres, not the 31 acres, what exactly do you want to see that conservation commission is not committing to in their their plan for all of the open space as well as to the replies that Well, I I'm I'm not addressing. I just want to know what I want to vote
what I'm voting on. That's all I Thank you. Um um anything outside we're not even discussing we're fine with everything outside that those three fields okay that we had cleared okay and
maintained and diligently worked had access to bittersweet and managed to cut back a lot still needs more um and and so all our discussion is really on those
three fields and and then I haven't had a chance to address that three-page um letter. Um Carl came down on Saturday to do a look, but that doesn't count.
Okay. It because it's it's not open meeting, right, Paul? if you're doing something in the field. So, so the and and there's three parties in this
negotiation or are ownership. The the select board owns this property. Conservation manages it and then there's Paul who gets a large say on this, but the
citizens have a large say. And the citizens didn't like it being taken away from them. It was open but kick infested. So I have not seen
anybody using the property since I was here in May. So are you asking me to vote on this article is basically going to allow you to m would would allow friends of koulis and I would suspect any other volunteers because I I can't imagine that this is
only friends of kulis other volunteers ought to be able to to spend their time. Are you asking me to vote yes so that you can go back to maintaining the fields? Is that is it that simple or is there more to it than that? It's it's I guess you'd have to ask how.
Okay. Uh how simple it is and and be because he's laid down some some um rules, okay, that may be timesensitive and and it seems like he's amendable to
back off on some of those. But maybe what we need to do, Erin, is have a little meeting with conservation select board. No, maybe Paul and work out the differences.
I'm open to anything. So, I think I think what Erin's kind of getting, and I have trouble with this, too, is this condition last maintained by the Department of Public Works. I mean the select board I think is happy to work to find some sort of cooperation here but condition last maintained by
the department of public works leaves a lot of room for interpretation. You say roughly 3 acres. I mean which field exactly are you talking about? What parameters are you talking about? Um you know from what I understand one of the issues in the past was the mowing in
proximity to the vernal pools. Can you agree that you are going to stop mowing within a certain distance from the vernal pools? I mean, for us to to go back to the conservation commission that we've tked with maintaining this and to say we want to allow this, we need to
give them very specific parameters. So, this is my yeah, my main question with this is what are those parameters? Condition last maintained by the DPW does not it's not definitive. uh for me and
that's where I think there's been misunderstanding in the past between the friends of Kulus and the conservation commission and I feel that telling us condition last maintained by the DPW is also just leaves too much
room for interpretation. I don't um I don't know how to do that as a as a board without stepping on one party's toes or the others. Um well yeah and and I guess to you know kind of piggyback on that um there's
there's there's really not much detail. It's not it's to me it's not specific enough because then on the next page it says condition last maintained and then event suitable for larger groups and then it defines large what it you call larger groups there and then community-based multi-use land and then
you define that there but unless that's in the article that's it's really meaningless unfortunately. I mean, there's no definition in the article about what those things mean. Um, it you're asking us to provide specific
guidance to the conservation commission, but what is that guidance? Um, I don't. Yeah. And do we all do we have the authority to sign on to something like this? I'd still Well, this is an advisory article only.
It's not binding on anybody. No matter how the town meeting votes, the the care custody and control of the property rests with the select board. Okay. And the select board has asked the commission to manage the property while the conservation preservation restriction is being
developed and that's ongoing. You know, the survey has been out there. You know, the baseline survey and that takes time as we've seen with Borne Pole and other properties and that's where we are at this point in time. What I might suggest to the board is we have the chair of the conservation commission, Carl Bishoff,
here this evening. Um I I think it'd be appropriate to hear from the from Carl as to what's you know what's the commission's activities, what's on their agenda, uh and and the efforts that he's made recently as John referred to as an effort to get resolution to this matter.
Yeah. because I just from what I'm picking up it's we're talking about these couple of parcels and we're talking about mowing and and again I think in some of the other stuff that I've seen from conservation commission there's no intent to just leave the property as it is like that's not the long-term plan. So I'm wondering how
much of this is really just timing. Um so if the if the chairman of the commission is willing to come up and help clarify his understanding that'd be great. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the of the uh select board. Um yeah, um
we don't have a hard plan. We have a general plan for Koulis. Our main focus is to get the conservation restriction in place. That's our number one objective. We have a lot of work that has happened. It's ongoing. Paul and I had discussions about that topic today
um with David Kun, our agent. Uh we don't plan to revert uh the site to just general unmanaged habitat. That's never been the case. Uh we are willing and happy to expand some amount of the mowing. I've been out there mowing myself. I've been out there brush
hogging it. I've uh we have members of the commission working there. We have other volunteers working there. I haven't had any ticks all summer I've been out there. Um, we can work. Uh, I made a discuss I had a discussion on Saturday with members of the Kulis family on the site and John joined in
and I had some proposals. Um, and here we're still here. We're still here. Um, it is one acre of land that we're talking about. It's not three acres, it's one acre. The the meadow on the right should be left as a meadow. We'll still have to manage it as a managed
meadow. And we have to come up with a plan for that. It could take two or three years to come up with that. The part in the middle that John's really referring to is one acre of land of which a portion of that is already planned to be blocked off for the vernal pool exclusion, the buffer zone. And
another part of that we're already cutting. If we want to cut some more, that's fine. We can do that. We can cut some more. Um, I think it is a good idea to expose the stone walls. We all love New England stone walls. That's a great idea. Um, we absolutely need to work on
invasive plant management on that site. Um, it's a it's a nice site. It's a great site. It's uh there's got a lot of possibilities for that site. We have to get a granite sign. We have to get a kiosk installed. We can do some more trails. We have lots of ideas to to get
that site uh into into a better shape than it is right now. There are three cement pads where the cow barn was. They have to be removed. They're an eyesore in spite of one of the family members likes it as the the old family barn and doesn't want to lose that, but um none
of the other family agreed with them. So um so I think there's, you know, we're close. I I believe we are really close to this and we've made some uh some attempts to try to not have this be a uh a townwide referendum. This is we're
just too close. It's just the amount of of mowing is is the way I look at it. Any specific questions? Uh, oh, and DPW did not maintain the site last year. They developed it, cleaned it up, but they weren't doing any any uh maintenance of that site. The other
thing is we have um reached out with scouts trying to connect with scouts and do more work on our conservation sites with scouts. We have a liaison in our committee uh on our commission. So, we're trying to step that up. We'd be happy to have more scout events on the
site. would be happy to have um if if somebody said they wanted more space for something on that site, we can make that work. We we can make a lot of this work. There's there's not I think you hit on it that we're not that far apart. Um we can make this work.
So Carl, um just listening to the indications I've gotten there, you guys are not far apart. Would it not make sense to table this until springtime meeting? Because winterwise, what are you really going to do? We we plan to brush hog the field now
that uh pollinator season is just about over. The nesting season is now definitely over. Uh so we can brush hog the field, get some uh invasives knocked down. Uh then we can work on some of the rocks that are in the field and get those out of there so that it's easier to cut going forward. U so we plan on
doing that and and making that happen over the fall, winter, spring. So this article isn't going to change anything. It won't change anything between now and April or May. No. So, some of the things you've talked about maintaining, you said you you personally are doing some of the mowing.
Um, there's a plan to maintain one parcel as a meadow so that doesn't get cut all the time, but it's got to be maintained otherwise it gets out of control. It's And by the way, a lot of those he said weeds, those are pollinators. Many of them are native pollinators. Okay. That's definitely above my pay
grade. Um, I'll have to trust you guys on that. Um and and then we you we had talked about you know Mr. talked about bittersweet and all that stuff. Is there any reason why that the things like the bittersweet can't be maintained because I know that gets
it's it's a lot of work. Uh we're we're in the process of doing that at Warren Pole. We have a contractor coming in to do work. We have volunteers that have been doing it for four years at Warren Pole. These guys were doing it. They can keep doing it. They there's nothing stopping them from doing that now.
Nothing to stop them from maintaining the bittersweet. The fields are getting mowed, but maybe there's some of disagreement on where and how often or something. Is that what we're being asked? No, no restriction on invasive bittersweet removal. Okay. And then if there was if there
were I think we had talked about this before, if there were rules and guidelines around where to mow and what to mow that there could be some agreement there. So all the work that they had put in and unfortunately maybe some of that was lost. I don't know how much because I don't know the before and after, but
it's it doesn't sound like you're it doesn't sound like again I I don't know what I'm voting on tonight because it just doesn't sound like if they can remove the bittersweet, which is what Mr. Ray wanted to maintain. If we could maintain one of the fields, maybe there's a disagreement on how much of
the fields and the type of mowing, but again, at least part of it is there. It seems again it's like I asked earlier it seems like we're a little closer than we than it sounds like to have a an article at town meeting but I agree more.
Can I say something? Is it a public meeting? We can It's up to you as chair. Sure. Carl, do you mind if if someone else comes up and Okay. Thank you. Let this get get to be a debate. Yeah. Well, just we're we're not going to go on on this for too too long, but
No, that's fine. But I do as as a citizen of Chumsford who was very much involved in the coolest task force meetings. Um, could you state your name for that? My name is Martha Seeker. I'm known as Jane New House. I run New House Wildlife Rescue. And there were a lot of meetings and discussions about what to do with the
coolest property. and I spent I don't know countless hours uh representing and talking about what we wanted to do and speaking with a lot of other members of the community and a lot of people did vote and a lot of time went into it and it felt like for nothing in the end. It
really did. Like as a citizen, that has frustrated me so much because I don't understand why we were asked to put so much time and effort into it and why we were asked our opinions and why we were allowed to vote and why there even was a task force because in the end nothing that was suggested really ended up
happening except the farmers got their land. But citizens of Chumsford worked hard tirelessly uh volunteering their time to clear those fields and they did make them beautiful. Like nobody got paid for that. They did it because they
were proud citizens of this town and it looked gorgeous and they were posting about it everywhere and there were plans and things to do there. They were told to stop mowing and all their hard work that they had donated, all their time, they watched it all grow up. That's what
they're frustrated about. They wanted to be part of the community. They wanted to help. They saw something. They were proud of it. That's what they're frustrated about. They just want to mow. They just want to mow. So, I mean, I don't I don't also don't understand why it's frustrating because if it means that much to them, how much does it hurt
the town to let them mow? Let them work for free. They love it. It looked great when they were taking care of it. Like, I don't I don't understand. It is frustrating if if the town is going to be allowed if citizens of this town are going to be allowed to have input then don't waste our time if it's not
actually going to be considered later. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um is going to answer the question. Okay. Mr. Ray, you can one more turn to questions. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um conservation commission wrote a three-page note which you have and it
went to the finance committee. What Carl is talking about is a change from that. Now, we're not talking about we had a nice conversation on Saturday, but we also, Carl, were talking about a little
bit of the right field, maybe from the red ash down to the the um the stone wall that what goes horizontally across the field and and mow that and make let citizens enjoy that. and a perimeter
trail around the right field. That would give everybody access to any in in uh uh any bittersweet coming in from the side where we did all that major cutting and there's a lot of berries down the
ground. All right. it it and and to answer your other your other question uh it's not documented but Carl has marked off the buffer zone and I promised him last year we would not
impinge on that we would not mow I think we should have a perimeter around there he said no I'm fine with that now there's no m there we were the only ones the friends of coolers only had the ones that had mowers there and and and
but that's behind the table. No, we're not doing that. So, we're we're talking about the left field and I think we've tentatively got an agreement on the but it's not an official agreement because not it's not an open meeting agreement discussed. Um, but I think there's an
opportunity on the right field to do maybe a third of the the uh uh well the front side of the hill and just mow that and let people have you're going to have a picnic here table up there. What are
they going to look at? I I like the flowers and and but you could mow it down so you could see the the stone wall and then enjoy all the fl flowers down there. But so Mr. Ray, this is the problem. You started off with saying you want all
three fields mode, and now we're down to one field and a third of the other field. So I I don't know how to fulfill a request to the select board to to maintain a space in the way that you
want it unless it's specific. Um, I the town meeting is welcome to ask us to to maintain it in a family-friendly manner, but without defining what that is, I I don't I don't know exactly what
you're asking us for here. Um it's just it it's it's difficult to before that before uh the or when the the petition was written, we were not allowed to mo maintain maintenance, do
any maintenance at all per your instruction. That is incorrect. Sorry. Um I I I I think I would say um we're here to vote tonight on the article before us and the article before us in my mind is not very specific as
you have said Aaron and and seems to differ from you know what Mr. Ray is actually asking for. So I think maybe it's either premature or needs to be more concise or rewritten or
something or wait until the conservation restriction is complete as the conservation commission has has advised um and there would be input that would be accepted as the conservation restriction is being uh developed. Right. So, um I I think it's as I said,
I think it's premature and and just not doesn't really give us much direction to go on. This this this uh the conservation rest this issue needs to be resolved before the conservation restriction is written beforehand.
I because you can't change it after it's written and signed off to at the state level in my understanding. But the restriction will come before the select board before it gets submitted to the state. And as we saw with Warren Pole, that took two years.
Yeah, maybe. Maybe three. And we still don't have comments back from the state on Warren Pole yet. And that was submitted nine months ago. So I I guess I don't see the downside of of postponing this for till springtown meeting. And hopefully in the next few
months these things can be ironed out and then there's no need for town meeting because as we said earlier town meeting doesn't have jurisdiction. All they are is providing an advisory. I don't see the downside of allowing the parties a few more months to see if they can bring a
resolution which would then get incorporated into the draft restriction that will be presented to the select board for submitted to the state which probably again probably won't even occur a year from now at this point. And then the restriction because we're still waiting for the baseline survey. We're waiting for the
other conditions on that property that take time and the restriction can be written to include things like familyfriendly spaces and mode spaces. So yes, sure. Nothing I've heard from John
would be um prohibited in the restriction that I that I envision. It doesn't mean it's um mandated, but it wouldn't be prohibited. I Paul am I that's correct because the restrictions in perpetuity and the restrictions don't
get to that level of specificity because you don't know what's going to be here 50 years from now 100 years from now what have you when we have those evidence from the ones at Redwing Farm and Sunny Metal Farm and and Sheen Farm and so forth and and Warren Pole. So again, we're like I said, we're about a
year probably away from from that submitt. Um and and that's why I'm saying I it's I don't see the downside of allowing the parties more time to engage in constructive dialogue because nothing there's going to be no mowing between now and April. We know that
because of the winter conditions. uh I don't see the downside of giving the parties an extra you know an extra opportunity because one of the concerns that we do have with town meeting is is we we do have concerns with people volunteering to serve at town meeting
because some of them you know you know prefer efficiency at town meeting and and therefore u you know not you know having actions that are that are that are you
tend to, you know, take a belabored request as as we've seen in the past. And so you know and I I and that's that's I just again in the interest of also the interest of future acquisitions of
conservation land if you know if this town can't get itself together regarding the acquisition and maintenance of conservation lands and the prospects of acquiring future conservation lands are diminished and that's really the most important thing for everybody I think would share in in terms of how do we
preserve the conservation and and open space opportunities that remain in this community. Yeah. And I think in the meantime, you know, regardless of the mowing, there's plenty of other work that needs to be done there, right? I think the fall and the winter are huge for invasive work.
Um, and it doesn't sound like the conservation commission has any issue with the Friends of Kulis or anyone else going in to do invasive removal. So, there's a lot of stuff that can be done there over the next, you know, six months. Um, outside of the mowing, I I just don't
I I would I I agree with you. I um we don't want to waste this winter time because it's an efficient time to to get and um uh do any work there and not disturb any creatures or whatever. I mean, you just don't want to do that.
It's just safer. I don't want to have a work group and that gets tick. Carl was lucky. I mean, I've had my share of ticks, but we had an individual that was ended up in the hospital for four days uh from a tick. Um I don't know where he
went. I can't attest to that. Um but the conservation commission has a um project a site pan what what do you what do you call it Carl? It has a site plan. Project plan.
I I've never seen that until this week. It's been up since July on the website. I I'm sure. But I could just, you know, bring it back. We're getting way off topic of what's what we're voting here tonight, which is what's in this article. I mean, that's what we're voting for,
what the words are in this article. Yeah. So, so I think we're Is everybody good? Yeah. But Pat, I would like to respond to the previous speaker. this board was under the impression that we couldn't do anything until we had a baseline study finished and and presented conservation.
So, uh to the uh third party that we're bringing in to do the restriction and um that's why there's been such hesitation which is unfortunately how things work. Okay. All right. Does anybody else have any
questions for Mr. Ray or anyone else? No. Okay. If you guys are good, should we just Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ray. I think we're go ahead and work with conservation for the winter time. Of course,
we would love to that would be wonderful and I'm sure conservation would appreciate your help again also between you and be mammled to that. Yeah. Fantastic. But we have to do it in open because
open meeting we have to do it. Okay, that's my understanding. I do not understand that that has is how it has been done in the past or how it needs to be done. Conservation works with volunteers all over town regularly
and the friends of Kulis and and the other volunteers who want to offer their assistance to the conservation commission from what I understand are welcome to do so anytime and it does not need to be discussed in open meeting just with them. So, does this have to be
voted on or can we have no action? I think we should make a recommendation. Unless it's withdrawn. Thank you, Mr. It's not been withdrawn, then you have to make a recommendation. No. So, you have to vote on something. It doesn't make any sense. If if you're looking for a a motion. Okay. Yeah, I will. I'll take a motion.
Thank you, Pat. I make a motion that we recommend not to approve article 34. I have a second. Is that no action or no? Not Not approval. Not approval. Okay. Not not recommend approval. Not to recommend approval. Okay. Um we
have you second, Jeff. Okay. I have a motion in a second. Um Oh, we don't need to do a roll call vote because we don't have anyone on Zoom. Hallelujah. All right. All in favor of not recommending of not recommending recommendation.
Not recommending approval. Not recommending approval. Approval of article 34. I I not in favor. I'm gonna have to abstain because I don't feel like we should be taking action on it.
Okay. So, we have three in favor, one abstain. Needs to come in the spring. I agree. The motion passes. Thank you. To this next time.
Next time I go to the site. Okay, great. Um, and who else do we have here for what? Article 33, the second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides prohibition home rule petition. Okay. Thank you.
Hi. if you don't mind just stating your your name. Yep. My name is Derek Suhoo. 78 Davis Road. Could you just speak into the microphone so they can hear you? Sorry. Um my name is Derek Zoo. I'm 78 Davis Road. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. So, he's going to walk through his presentation. You can go. So, again, uh my name is Derek Su. I'm here as the founder of Save Chumsword Wildlife. Tonight, I'd like to talk about our home rule petition to protect
Chelsea's wildlife, water, and community health by addressing the uses of redicides in town. What are escars? Second generation antiquagulant redicides are poisons used in black boxes to kill rats and mice. They work
by preventing blood clots, which leads to internal bleeding. These were banned in 2015 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for resale due to the dangers of pets and children. This means everyday consumers cannot buy them at hardware stores, but they are still available
online. This is where pest control companies obtain um escars. In 2022, 96% of roicides that were used in Massachusetts were escars. ESCAR don't kill immediately. Poisoned rodents
wander around for days before dying. In that time, they are often eaten by predators like owls, hawks, and foxes, which are also then poisoned. These poisons can stay potent for months before losing their potency. When escars are used in everyday homes,
that poison rodent will hide in your home until death and could be found by pets and children. They could also die in your walls and creating a foul odor. In 2022, the American Poison Control Center reported over 11,000 people in the United States were treated due to
exposures of escars. 5,500 of them were children under 5 years old. This isn't just a rodent problem, it's a community problem. Owls, hawks, foxes, coyotes, pets, and even our national bird, the bald eagle, can be poisoned when they eat contaminated rodents.
These poisons ripple through the food chain, wiping out the very predators that naturally keep our rodent populations in check. Here in Massachusetts, uh testing has found densides in many species of wildlife. 2020, the toughs
wildlife clinic found 100% of red tail hawks that were found dead had traces of escars in them. This has been an increasing number over the last decade. Wildlife rehabers treat dozens of cats, dogs, and other pets each years that were affected by escars. Traces have
also been found in waterways which could be threatening our drinking water. Uh Chamster's conservation land, wetlands, and local wildlife are all at risk. The good news is that there are safer alternatives. Owl boxes can attract
rodent hunters um naturally. A single owl can eat up to a thousand mice per year. Snap traps and exclusion methods are effective and safe. With with simple steps like securing trash and reducing waste, we can prevent infestations
before they start. Public education has been a focus for CH uh save chumps for wildlife. We will continue to organize free public education events like this one that we had in town uh over this past summer. Other cities and cities and towns in
Massachusetts are beginning to look at rodent restrictions. There are 91 out of 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts that have organized groups like save jumpsford wildlife. 40 um have reduced the use of escars and 18 have home rule petitions like the one we are talking
about tonight. These numbers are growing each month as we are all pushing for the state bill an act of reducing the restricting uh restricting the use of rodenticides in the environment. July 24th, we had our lobby day at the state house organized by the mass Ottoman and
MSPCA. Save child uh save chamsford wildlife members participated and met our district representatives and Elliot and Senator Barrett all of which co-signed this bill along with 50 uh 95 other representatives and 24
senators. Chumsford has the opportunity to lead and show that we can protect our families, our pets, environment without relying on dangerous poisons. This petition is ask uh to give Chumsford the authority to restrict the use of escars
within our town. It does not ban pest control. People and businesses can still manage rodents. It simply encourages a safer solution. By passing this petition, Chumps will be able to protect our children, pets, and wildlife. will safeguard our rivers, wetlands, and
water supply, and will support healthier long-term solutions to roing control that work with nature and not against. Tonight, I'm asking for your support for this um chumpster petition. We're choosing to protect our wildlife, water, and families. This is a chance to show
our town, the state, and country that we care about our future. So, on behalf of Save Cherford Wildlife, uh we thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Um, does anyone have any questions?
Yeah. What are those safer methods getting away from the poisons? I'll say again, what are the safer meth methods that would be used to get away from the poisons? Uh, snapshots, inclusions. Um, you know, we working with um, you probably might
have more expert here. Um they just recently did this in LOL in Bil Raa too. Uh so they're using as a last resort vitamin D3 which is a poison but it's not as harmful to wildlife because they don't the uh with the
current escars right now the animals can gorge on it. They don't realize that they're sick for a few days so they'll eat a lot of it and then when a predator gets them they get that full load. Whereas with the vitamin D3 they feel sick pretty quickly. They don't eat as much of it. uh and they're more apt to
not die out in the wild. Uh they might die closer to to home. So um so the vitamin D3 the exclusion is huge. Um and snap traps. LOL changed this a few months ago and they've had great success with it.
Okay. Thank you. Just a quick question on the home rule petition. So, if this were to pass, we could um we could put a bylaw in that says no, no, we have to wait until it passes with the state.
But this does it it authorizes select board to submit a home rule petition to the legislature much like Baricker and a number of other towns have done which would um prohibit the application of these pesticides in in well if it was statewide in in our community that their
goal and the overall goal is to prohibit it statewide. But this would allow the board to act have the legislature address enact a home rule petition. then the town meeting would have to adopt a bylaw that would regulate and restrict. But the problem is we don't currently
have that authority now much like other things that we'd like to do like cryptocurrency ATMs and other things. You know that we only have authority that's granted to us by the state. So this would basically be a special law by the legislature for Chamster to then enact bylaws um to
prohibitive restrict it. But again, and I think part of it is it's it's sort of what we did with the plastic bag ban. you remember, you know, the idea was that if enough cities and towns sort of pushed it to the state, the state would enact it. Of course, that didn't happen, but that was that was the intent. Uh much like you've seen similar things uh
but that have taken place in communities. But if they do that, then we can again we would Yeah. If this were if this gets to the legislature, they file it, they enact it, then the next step would be the town meeting adopting a bylaw that would would restrict it and impose penalties prohibit that restrict the uh
application of this in the community. And it only affects like the professional poison control folks because they're the only ones that can get it. They can legally buy it. Correct. And because it's already federally restricted for retail sale, right? It only negatively impacts them. It positively impacts your local wildlife
rehabilitators and your local wildlife. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I understood the process again. Yeah. Okay. I have no questions because I heard the presentation last time. Does anyone else have questions? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone
want to discuss anything? Good. I don't see any D. Any motion? Okay. I'll make a motion that we recommend approval of article 33. We get a second. I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion, a second. All those in favor? I
four in favor. None opposed. The motion passes. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Okay. And one more. Yeah, this was the long one. This is I'm not sure you'd say one more. Which one is your article?
This is the This is These are articles 15 through 26 to start out with under the consent agenda and then a couple other zoning ones beyond that. So, as I told finance committee last night, um Chris, can you just say your name again? Sure.
Chris Lavali, planning board chair, 10 Edgewood Street. Um, as I mentioned to the fincom, um, I'm going to go through these slides a little bit quicker than I will at town meeting uh, to spare you um, some of the details uh, since you have them ahead of
time. Um but if you do have any questions, feel free to stop me um at any time. So the first set of articles I'll talk through as a group are articles 15 through 26 uh since we are presenting them as a consent agenda because they
are all related to the establishment of a CBLT zoning district. Um so first I'm going to tell you a little bit about a background. Um so we have worked with NEMCOG to identify a number of zoning conflicts in town. Um
these include IIA in the middle of a very residential neighborhood properties split into two different zoning districts. Uh residential abing right up to IIA districts. Um and so there are a number of ways that we can mitigate
these. We can uh work on introducing overlays. Um but that is a little bit um uh the mitigation there is really if you want to encourage um additional uh
things instead of restricting things or changing things. Um so we looked at changing the zoning the underlying zoning. And the challenge with changing the underlying zoning in some of these conflicting areas is if you change it in
one zone, it's automatically going to take effect in all zones around town um for that zone. So what we looked at is um a new zone uh and it's the CBLT zone. We used Kate's Corner as a model for
this. Um, and so we worked through the this zone as we worked through some of the changes in Kate's Corner. Um, and then we also started looking at a couple other areas uh 51 through 57 Middle Sex Street and Riverneck Road um to stress
test uh the the zoning as well. um after we or hopefully once we do pass this, we can look at uh implementing it in uh Kate's corner in this town meeting. Uh but we still have um other areas that we
do want to continue looking at. So, the summary of the bylaw changes um is really uh to create the zone, to change a couple of the use definitions to uh align with what we're looking to do, update the use table,
and then a lot of housekeeping changes to dimensional requirements, the sead overlay, uh property line, street frontage. So, that's um why we're packaging it together in a consent agenda because all of that has to happen. um for these changes.
Um after we go through that consent agenda, then one of the next articles will be uh looking at applying it in Kate's Corner specifically. So let's start with the first change. Um these are the current manufacturing
definitions uh for your reference. The first one is the heavy manufacturing which we are not changing at all. Um the next one is light manufacturing. That one we are proposing some changes that I'll get to in a minute. And then
the next one is the ultralight manufacturing. Uh so this is a new definition, a new use that we are um proposing. Um, and I'm not going to go through the the detail, but it's intended to be less impactful to the
neighborhood and the uh surrounding properties than the light manufacturing and the heavy manufacturing. Um, if you look at some of the examples, we tried to illustrate some of the examples in here of what we're thinking of. uh 3D
printing, manufacturing of precision instruments and prototypes, uh boutique furniture manu furniture furniture making um smallcale wood and metal fabrication. So really some of the trade the small
artist artisal trades that we're looking to promote in this ultralight use. So because we're introducing that, we also had to adjust the uh light manufacturing. And so the changes that we're proposing here are to bring it
more in line with what um we have in the ultralight uh but with a little bit more of the uh the impacts. Um, we're also clarifying some of the language in here because some of the language as it appeared almost gave it the impression that we were looking at wood
manufacturing or paper manufacturing as opposed to manufacturing things made out of wood. Um, so we wanted to clarify that in the definition as well. All right. Um,
the next is the zoning table changes. I'm not going to go through all of these. Um, Chris, can I can I just ask a question? Sure. Why Why are these numbers we we do article 23 and then article 16? I guess I don't understand that and it seems like you've done your best to confuse
everybody as far at least me as far as the numbering and and the sequence. So, the numbering is just how things were prepared. Um, and so what we're trying to do is get the flow through how the planning board has been working on
these changes. So that didn't that didn't correspond to the numbering of the articles unfortunately. Okay. And were there any suggestions to instead of having a consent agenda that has, you know, 11 articles or whatever to combine some of them so that I mean,
you know, like the use tables, I mean, they couldn't have been combined into all into one. Well, the use table is one of the articles. We just couldn't fit it all into one slide. Okay. But yeah, then it seems like there's other use tables like 24, 25, 26. It's just the way it was structured.
Okay. Unfortunately, it's just it just it seems to be skipping all over the place as you know the numbering and but anyway, go ahead. Um so the use table is where we looked
at the different uses in the different zones um related to CBLT. Uh in the in the Warren article, you'll only see the CB light um column. Uh but I did want to show some of the
comparisons of the uses for people as well. So what we did is we looked at the IIA zone, the CB and the CA and the RB districts. looked at the best of what those districts had to offer and combined them into a new zone that would
kind of blend into that transitional uh district. And so what you'll see is it's not a one for one match for any one of these zones, but we're really taking some of the least impactful and most uh beneficial to the neighborhoods.
On slide one more on this slide at the end of the table, you'll see um parking lot accessory use. Right now, we're allowing parking lots
um for uses on the same property, but as the properties are a little bit smaller in some of these areas and businesses may need to expand parking in different areas, we wanted to allow that flexibility here as well. So, by special
permit, um a business could um put a accessory use parking lot on a different property. It ha still has to be within the 300 feet of the principal use. Uh but we wanted to allow that flexibility
in case there was a parking lot in a neighboring um property. In the next slide, you'll see that we also added the um accessory use parking for industrial as well as the ultralight
manufacturing in the zone. This just shows the added uh footnote where the principal use has to be within 300 ft of the principal use parking.
These are uh housekeeping. uh we were really focused on looking at the zone that we were uh introducing, but as town council reviewed these, we realized that we needed to expand uh that line across
all of the other zones. Uh so for the parking lot accessory use, uh we are only allowing it by special permit in the CBLT and not in the other zones at this time. Um if we want to expand it to other zones, we could in the future. Um
but we wanted to limit that for right now. The ultralight manufacturing um we added it to the CBLT and we mirrored the uh light manufacturing um in the other zones. So where there's light
manufacturing allowed or by special permit um we wanted to allow this ultra light since it is a also a uh less impactful use. This is again dimensional requirement housekeeping. Uh for the dimensional
requirements um in the CB districts and the CBLT districts a lot of the properties are fairly small. So we wanted to um keep it as aligned with the CB district as we could for the dimensional requirements.
The next slide is primarily just for reference um as we get into the the overlay uh slide. And for this one in the overlay slide, uh the next one, um again, we wanted to
keep it as close to the spirit of the CB and residential as we could, um and really minimize some of the impacts that industrial might have in this zone. And then the next slide is just a quick um summary. We didn't really need to get
into the property line details in the slides. people have it in their articles. So, I didn't want to get into those details in this slide. Are there any questions on those? Can I just ask how this came to how this came up? How this came to be an idea?
Yep. This is a lot of thought and work that you guys have into this. It's very detailed. It's very I can tell like you've considered a lot of things, but I'm curious. It really came about in two different ways. Um the first was the NEMCOG study
on um some of the zoning conflicts in town. Some of their recommendations are to do overlays. Some of them are to change the underlying zoning. um the have we just already done too much of that so this is maybe a better solution is that kind of
that's what we're hoping um in my experience the overlays add additional options but if we're looking to minimize the impacts of IIA on residential an overlay won't do that it'll potentially
the overlays are supposed to incentivize what you're putting in the overlay but we've seen that it doesn't always happen that way sometimes times they still go in under the underlying zoning. The project come to us without the overlay and um the impact is still there on the
residents. And so our thought is in these spec specific areas specifically Kate's Corner, Riverneck and the Middle Sex um street mills. These are opportunities to enhance some of the businesses in there um to give them
places that they may not have otherwise been able to put. Um as an example in the Middle Sex Mills, that um side of the Middle Sex Street is is zoned IIA. So shops, small businesses
cannot go in there. Um whereas on the other side of the street on the establishment side um that's CB. So uh commercial businesses could go in there. Uh so that's kind of what we wanted to take a look at is where are their
residences right next to IIA potentially use this if the area is big enough as a buffer between the IIA and the residential to make that transition. in areas where there's a small IIA right in the middle of residential like we see in
Kate's Corner. Um our proposal there is to not keep any IIA to change at all to CBLT. Um so it it allows the business that is there to maintain um its business, but it doesn't allow uh a warehouse or
distribution center if they do leave. So, it's looking what's on the ground now and also protecting the residents from potential future impacts. And it's only those three areas that we're looking at now. Um I before
bringing this to town meeting, I wanted to make sure that we did stress test it in a couple different areas to see if it would work. Um we're not officially done our investigations of those areas yet. Um, we've only finished Kate's Corner. Um, which is why it's coming before town
meeting as well. Um, but we think that if this does pass, then we'll have those discussions with those neighborhoods in those other areas to see if it's something they would want to do. We haven't figured out how big or where the properties, but we've done a a quick
draft to see if it would work, and we think it would. We think this could be useful in a number of different areas. And this is just to create the zone. Would this actually apply the zone to those areas? This is just to create this is just to create it. Yeah. Uh one of the next articles that would
the very next article would be applying this then to the Kate's Corner area. Okay. So 15 to 27 15 to 26 is creating the zone itself and then 27 is applying the zone to Kate's corner.
Okay. Thank you. Just to Kate's corner. Yep. And you're not asking at this town meeting to apply it to any of the other areas? No. Our plan is if it does pass, we would then start talking to the neighborhoods for uh the Middle Sex and
Riverneck. Um and then figuring out which properties would go to which zone. Okay. So, um so that's how it's going to be presented is the 15 to 26 will be the consent agenda. So I guess you know we
can we can vote on on those as a group since that is prior to the uh the specific application over to the other one. Okay, everybody ready for a motion? Do you guys have any questions or comments now? No, I think I think it's great.
I've had the opportunity to watch some of your meetings after the fact and I know the amount of work you guys have put into this has been incredible and I thank you for that. Thanks. Thoughtful. Okay, I'll take a motion. Okay, I'll make a motion that we
recommend approval of articles 15- 26. I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion in a second. All those in favor? I motion passes. Articles 15 to 26 are recommended for approval.
Okay. And then next up we have 27, right? Yeah. And you're going to speak to that also, Chris? So, this one um would be applying the CBLT. Uh again, this is an area that was identified as a zoning conflict
area. Um it also came before us because of the Maxwell's property that was in the process of being sold. Um and so there was a lot of question because that is a that is currently a CB um property
uh commercial property. Um, Lockheed did have interest in um, purchasing it. I believe there's a purchase and sale. I think they're in the process. Um, and so we worked with the neighbors, we worked with the residents, we worked with
Loheed Martin. Um and uh we looked at the different uh zone or the different uh properties to see how we can um make sure that we're reszoning the area for what's there now and to to make sure
that we are protecting the residents for the future development. So this shows what the current parcels are. If you start on the top left, you'll see the uh residential zone. Um
moving to the right, you see the CB zone. Uh the property that's outlined there, the weird shaped one, is Maxwell, the old Maxwell's property. Uh and you'll notice that the residences to the left of that Maxwell's property are split between two different zones,
residential and uh CB. So that's the other thing we wanted to fix is making sure that the residents have um their property fully in in the residential zone. If you go to the right um on the right side it's uh RB down below near the pond
and the gas station that is CB. uh to the top right is CA which is roadside commercial and then uh IIA is uh in the middle. Uh you'll notice the IIA includes the
building for Lockheed but not the parking lot in CA. You'll also notice that um IA also does extend down pretty close to the pond which was another concern that we had um that there could
potentially be high impact IIIA uses so close to the pond. Um so what we did is we took a look at what's there um what properties are what those properties are being used as. Um we talked to the neighbors, we talked to
Lockheed. Um and if you go to the next slide, Paul, this is our proposal. So the two um extremes stay what they are, RB. Um we reszone the properties,
the residential properties on the left as uh RB. The public area down below near the pond we reszone as public. And then going to the right, the gas
station at the tip is uh stays CB, but we wanted to uh recognize the public properties as well. Uh so those two town-owned properties which had um CB and IA zones, we are proposing to change
those all the way completely over to public. Um the roadside on the right stays CA and then the property that is partially IIA and partially CA we would completely resone it to CA.
Um and then the locked the two locked properties plus the Maxwells we would reszone to CBLT. Um so in this area we wouldn't because the IIA is so small we wouldn't really have a transition area. We would
essentially get rid of the IIA zone in this neighborhood and convert that IIA area to more of a CV light area. So everything that Loheed Martin does at that facility now falls within these the
parameters. Yep. Yeah. Because it's not considered large scale manufacturing. It's really considered prototyping manufacturing and smallcale manufacturing. A lot of it is R&D. Chris, if it stays IIA, if you did
nothing, right, that means anything under IIA today on that property is is going to be allowed by right, so to speak. Yep. So, if Lockheed moves, we could get
anything in there. And again, if it was if it was changed to CB or CA, again, anything in those which wouldn't necessar you wouldn't necessarily want in there. Um, there's some things that you do and some things that you don't, which is why we
kind of looked at the best of everything. I think that's what you're trying to accomplish with the the CB is a blend the zones together sensibly but but make sure that you know Lockheed or anybody else that's in there can continue to do their business
appropriately. Yeah. Um and then um and then you know I think I I go back to the definition. I think I like where we define some things that that really target some of the types of businesses that would fit in town today that are low impact but higher value.
Yeah. Yeah, things like um I believe I'm doing this from memory, but I think a bank but not a bank with a drive-thru, right? Uh those types of uses. Um things that are smaller scale IIIA. Um so we took
the nice the nice things from IIA, the nice things from CB, CA, and brought it all into this area. Why can't the bank have a drive-thru? I love a drive-thru. That's very spec. It's so specific.
It's very we wanted lower traffic types of uses. Um so car wash is um in a CB is allowed in CB but not allowed in CB light because we didn't want that type of
traffic coming into this neighborhood. I think all these zones that they're looking at as potentials are ones where it's it's just blatantly, you know, IA against against RB. You know what I mean? It's so they're trying to minimize the impact on the surrounding neighbors.
I mean, neighbors came out and spoke very vocally about this because I was at those at least dozen meetings. Um, and as this got built, I I did watch them, you know, come around and they spent a lot of time working with heat and everything else. So,
their biggest concern is the Lockheed expansion. Um, and we did make sure that one of the things that we wouldn't want Lockheed to do, which we're not allowing in this zone, is expand to a full-scale
manufacturing plant. Um, so that is not allowed in this zone, whereas their R&D low-level manufacturing is, which is what they're doing now. We also want to be careful that we're not prohibiting
current uses and as much as possible in making them non-conforming uses. There are going to be some areas where we may have to do that. Um, but our goal is to minimize that type of change. Anybody
have any? It's my only my only kind of concern is it seems fairly restrictive, which I like on one hand. Um, but on the other it's so specific. It's very um
Yeah. What do you mean? Um, and I feel like we're zoning for what's there. Like it's not really more than like a big picture future. Um, like we're kind of zoning for what's
there. No. I just worry that it'll be inflexible in the future and something might come up that we think would be a good fit there, but it just won't quite fit because the if you look at the zoning table,
we allowed a lot of different types of uses. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it it it seems like as as you mentioned when you started out about the the the zoning discrepancies basically that we're trying to fix. I mean, that seems to be a big part of
what this is. Yeah. It's fixing those the public areas that the town owns now and and the the you know, the residential and I mean, it absolutely does restrict some of the stuff that would be allowed in IIA, but at the same time, there's a
lot of commercial things that are not allowed in IIA. So it does open it up to different uses. Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have any other questions? No. Okay. I'll make a motion that we
recommend approval of article 27. I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I. Thanks, Chris. Oh, he's got more. Not done. Oh. Oh, that's not
We have a bit more. You just keep going and going. Next article is article 28, massage establishment. Um, this came before the board because of some uh a case where the building commissioner um was getting
ready to issue a permit for a massage establishment but realized the massage therapist was moving from one salon to another across the street and massage services were not allowed in that zone um even though it was right
across the street. We also when he was looking at the bylaw realized that the definition of massage services is outdated and not aligned with the state definition. Um even though the state is the one that um defines and licenses
massage therapists. We also found in part D that it references the um lensure of therapists from the board of chsford board of health and they do not license massage therapists. So we had to correct
that while we were at it. So this housekeeping change does three things. It updates the definition of massage to that which the state uses. It uh removes the reference to the board Chsford board of health and references
the state licensing. And then it allows by right um massage services in the areas where we had it by special permit. Um it's a pretty typical
spa type service. Uh the other spa services are by right um in those zones. So we wanted to align it more with that as well. Anyone have questions? No. Okay. I'll take a motion. I'll make a motion that we recommend
approval of article 28. I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I approved. Great. And you have Keep going. You have a few more, don't you? So many. Okay. Now, we get to the definition of family.
Okay. Um, we are bringing this back at this town meeting. Um, after the last town meeting, I did some additional research. Um, I want to stress uh that
you can go to the next slide, Paul. I'm sorry. Um, I want to stress that what we're looking to do is change the zoning definition of family and not the societal definition of family. We're not trying to redefine what a family is in
society. We're trying to define it what it is in zoning. Um, the zoning regulates the use of land, not personal relationships. The current definition, as the attorney general has warned us, is not inclusive of different types and
could run up against some uh um legal issues. enforcement of the familial definition would be very intrusive and essentially um it's really impossible for the
familial connections to be determined through any building permit or certificate of occupancy which is how the zoning determinations are made. Um, so because of that, we really wanted to make sure that we're falling in line
with the zoning definition of family. So let's look at how enforcement is done on zoning article uh zoning bylaws. So essentially the property owner is responsible for compliance. Um but most zoning enforcement happens when a
building permit or certificate of occupancy is being sought and that's based on the the site plan and review. If things go further then the zoning enforcement can also be requested after use is in place um if neighbors or
butters see any violations. So if you extend this to the definition of family, it can be very very problematic um to determine if a household is determined to be a family. We also have a relationship here with
other codes and regulations. So one of the concerns that people had is um that we weren't restricting the number of people in a unit. Well, the state san state sanitary code and building codes do take care of that. um they regulate
the number of people in a unit based on the size of the unit. So, we don't want to put that into zoning. Um I also did some research in other towns and found that our original definition
that we proposed about 100 to 150 of the 351 towns and cities in Massachusetts use this or very similar definition. And I provided some examples here um for reference.
In addition to that, some other towns and cities added as distinguished from a group occupying a boarding house, group home, lodging house, club, fraternity or hotel. Um in most case law that is found to be superfluous. Uh so we did not add that in.
uh a few towns did keep the blood relative definition but also added an or and then added um this standard definition. Um I don't know why they did that because it's really the standard definition that
would be the the main uh focus of zoning. We also we also found that um again fair housing act compliance is one issue. The model language that we were provided um is
also in use by other regional planning organizations in their model bylaws uh similar to NMCOG. It's administrative uh administratively simple to um enforce. And also if you look at case law um case law has
reinforced that zoning articles cannot discriminate. Commonwealth versus Jaffy is the um primary case law that we were looking at. It does not provide a definition uh but it does provide for aspects of a
definition um that they recommend using the single housekeeping unit language describing the functional aspects of the unit avoiding requiring kinship and then emphasizing the unit's stability permanence and cohesion.
And then the fifth thing that we looked at is the uh cap on occupancy um in the definition of family and zoning could be found to be in conflict with byright ADUs according to the uh the state review of ADU bylaws.
So we wanted to also avoid that conflict as well. So in proposing the new definition of family, um we removed the references to degree of kinship, we updated the definition to be more consistent with
the uh current state laws and sanitary codes and building codes. And then we wanted to clarify the distinction from the transient nature of other uh units. So again, I want to remind everyone that we're not trying to change the society
definition of family. We're only looking at it from a bylaw perspective. Um, another option for us would have been instead of changing the definition of family that's used in a lot of standard terms like multif family. We could have
changed the words multifamily to a new term. uh maybe using household, but that would have been even more complicated because we would have had to go through the entire bylaw uh code and change single family, multif family, three
family, two family to uh multi household, multi-unit, things like that. And if you look at the words multif family, they're really industry standard terms. So, we didn't want to play too much with that and start
confusing uh developers and residents and uh people who are looking at the code. So, this is what we're proposing. One or more persons occupying a dwelling unit who share access to common living, cooking, and eating areas living
together as a single housekeeping unit with permanence and cohesiveness. Okay. Anybody have questions, comments? Okay. I'll make a motion that we recommend approval of article 29. I'll second that.
I have a motion, a second. All those in favor? I motion passes. Okay. Article 30. The next one is school impacts. Um, this one is unchanged from the last time I brought it to town
meeting, uh, last meeting. Um, it was bundled with the definition of family in one article at that town meeting. Um, so we have no clear not a lot of people addressed it. Uh, some people did address it um and were concerned that we
were uh removing the school impacts. Um but the fact remains that the planning board cannot uh take school impact into consideration when we are doing uh special um special permits. Um it cannot
be considered by the the board um as a consideration in our decision. Um it's unlawful. It's a state law. Um we cannot do it. And so to leave it in there provides a
lot of confusion uh to uh people coming before the board for residents and um developers. But it also opens us up uh potentially in the future where new planning boards start rotating through and people are not aware of some of
these issues. And so they look at the the zoning bylaw and if they see that school impacts is in there, they may include it as part of their decision. So removing it completely is the only
prudent alternative. Okay, anybody questions? Hey, I make a motion to recommend approval of article 30. Second that. Okay, we have a motion, a second. All those in favor?
and the last one. When the attorney general reviewed our ADU bylaws, um they found that in general the bylaws were found to be compliant. Um they had no issues with
some of the parts of the bylaw that some of the residents were concerned about. Um they did receive a uh a letter from one of the residents in town challenging some of the uh areas. They did look at those areas and found that they were not
um they were they were compliant. However, there were two areas where the attorney general did find that we had some potential um problematic language. So for deletion one, um
the attorney general had some concerns about those five words in the first sentence. Um so they the attorney general's office did strike those. After consulting with town meeting uh
town council, we realized that when the attorney general does strike um parts or sections of the bylaw in their review, it does get enacted um uh on the spot.
So, we don't have to re pass the changes um at town meeting. It's automatically uh passed with those changes. However, in section C4, the attorney general's office ended up
striking this entire subsection. Um and so the concern that we had after a discussion with town council is that so the issue that that the attorney general did have is that they felt that
it left too much interpretation to the fact that we might apply the special permit process and voting to the ADUs which we're not allowed to do. Um, so that's why they they ended up striking the entire section.
Chris, educate me please. What is an ADU? Oh, sorry. The ADUs are essentially the accessory dwelling units. Sure. That are now by right um in the state. Um, and this was that bylaw that we ended up passing um with some additional
restrictions than what the state's model had. So, the attorney general said you can't um even hint that there's a special permit process or a vote as part of the ADU process. It's just a a site plan
review and a regular majority vote. So, town council did work with their office to come up with language that still allows us to apply our processes, but make it very clear that we're not um
applying the special permit criteria or the voting. Um, and so I wanted to show you this strikeout version to show you the difference from our current version between the current version and the
prior version that we had in there. Um, but from a an article perspective, we're replacing the entire paragraph because the attorney general struck the entire paragraph. So, we're replacing the new
wording in total into the bylaw. They they struck the text that in either case that the ADU will not be substantially more detrimental than the existing non-con whole paragraph. They struck the whole paragraph right here.
So, the well because that's part of the special permit consideration anyways. So, that's kind of so they struck the whole paragraph. Yeah. So, what town council did is he worked with the attorney general's office on our original text to see how
could we change the original text to make the messaging clear. And this updated text slide are the changes to our original text. Yeah. The clean text is what we're actually inserting
into the bylaw into a blank section. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that sentence in particular I found interesting. But that's because that's like a special permit. That's special permit verbiage. Okay.
So if if by some if if this does not pass, will it revert back to that whole section being deleted like the attorney general has? Okay. Yep. There will be a blank section in there that will not um talk about the
requirements that we do need in there. Okay. So, it would favor us to pass this. Okay. Okay. Anybody else have questions? No. I'll make a motion that we recommend approval of article 31. I second that.
I have a motion, a second. All those in favor? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Now you're done. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. One more time, right? Town meeting. Yeah. A town meeting information session.
He's got he's got another trial run before we get to the town meeting. So, we're going back to article go back to article one. Yeah. And I I'll I'll recognize you've only been here two hours. I'll I'll move uh try to efficiently and again if just
stop me say I'll you know elaborate or slow down or whatever. But um So anyway, we'll just start article one. Obviously, there's no vote. This is reports of town offices and committees. We'll hear from the Christine Clanty, our public works director, will provide an update on the projects she's been
working on, mostly capital in the community. Our John Suzer, our finance director, provide the five five-year financial forecasts. I'll provide a financial overview of how we're what's going to take place in this town meeting. And then I also thought and and I've mentioned to you and look for your
guidance. I probably should just do a quick update on the pet cemetery from the press town meetings to let people know where we are because I think that would just help rather than saying well you didn't come back to us. Okay. Um so so moving on you you have the slides go
through things. As you can see two three five and 35 would be a consent agenda. Uh but you don't need to vote on that. Um so the first one is article two. with $65,000 from the sale of graves and lots to the cemetery improvement development fund. Again, a customary article at at
all town meetings fall and annual. And they wanted the $65,000 to purchase and install another niche wall uh at Pineriidge Cemetery. Okay. Okay. I'll make a motion to recommend approval of article two. I'll second that.
A motion and a second. All those in favor? I I'd like to abstain, please. Okay. All right. Then maybe you couldn't second. Oh, well. Oh, is that true? Yeah, I don't know. But I don't know either. No, because you can still you can still second and vote no or Yeah,
you still second. Yeah, you're not conflicted. It's not Yeah, you're not It's not conflicted. So, he's saying we should vote on it. I'm also saying that. All right. I see a potential secondary to me. Conflict of interest. That's why I'm Okay. Do you think he can second? Is that okay? Good.
Okay. All right. Moving on. Thank you. Article three is again the housekeeping, but it's required uh every fall town meeting we transfer the interest from the um investment interest earnings over the past fiscal year um into the sewer
capital improvement betterment fund because we need to do that in provisions of state law again. So this year's amount is 195,833. Um I'll make a motion we recommend approval of article 3. I'll second that. We have a motion and a
second. All those in favor? I. Okay. Article four is collective bargaining agreements. This is to appropriate 42,485 to fund the first year of the collective bargain agreement between the dispatchers and the town. And again, we reviewed you you approved this at a
previous meeting. So, three-year agreement with the wage schedule and so forth. So, okay. Okay. I'll make a motion. We recommend approval of article four. And I'll second that as well. And we have a motion, a second. All those in favor? I I
article five is no action. So you don't have to you don't have to do anything there. Uh this is a placeholder to be kept in case something arose unexpectedly. Article six is to transfer a million dollars from free cash to fund roadway and sidewalk construction. Um again, this has been customary in recent years
because of the backlog and the u necessity to maintain our road infrastructure. Um, and we have a paving candidate list at this point in time, which is always ever changing because we do evaluate the list and it will change again. But the point is is we're seeking
to continue our improvements in our 190 miles of roadway. We received an increase in chapter 90 monies this year um of $1.8 million. We also fund 800,000 in capital for sidewalk and and u and
roadway improvements. And again, this extra million, which is less than prior years because it offsets the reduction from the additional chapter 90 that we received. So again, it allows us to keep making progress on our roads. Um, we do have a $3 million backlog and again, we're we're chipping away at it. And
later this year, you'll get the update in the score on our pavement management condition. But, um, again, probably one of the most popular things we do in town and one that we get the most calls about in condition of our roadways. Okay. Yeah. Make a motion we recommend
approval of article six. I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Article 7 is a transfer of 300,000 in free cash for the preliminary design for the reconstruction of route 3A the portion that's called North Road and
that section from Technology Drive to Richardson Road for the VI and for the vinyl square intersection safety improvement. Um these are two mass dot projects and how this works is we have to do the upfront design work in order to then get placed hopefully on the tip
for the NIMCOG tip for these projects. Um as you may recall you know we're we're on our way in terms of both of these projects um for the technology drive Richardson Road that would be the new traffic intersection signal at
Richardson Road and and uh North Road. Um and we had a public input session back in July and we're um heading towards 25% design submission. And then in vinyl square there've been a number of hearings over a prolonger period of
time with how sign Hudson and again we're trying to finalize the 25% design hearing which we anticipate would take place this coming spring. So this this would fund these two projects. Okay.
Yeah. I make a motion. We recommend approval of article 7. I'll second that. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I pass. Article eight is a transfer $100,000 from free cash for the replacement of the police station emergency power
supply system. Um the system is original to the building. Um we've had to do some critical repairs uh in the last three years where there were three outages. And so obviously this emergency supply keeps the building running 24/7. um for a facility that like to you know
it's at the end of its useful life and we really didn't want to hold this off until spring or any later time. Nobody has any questions comments. Yeah, I'll uh make a motion. We recommend approval of article 8. I'll second that as well.
We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Right. Article 9 is a transfer of 45,000 from free cash to improve the acoustics at the senior center primarily in the main hall. Um you've you've heard the concerns from Bob Snyder. You've been in the hall. Uh the acoustics are
are need enhancement. Uh and so the council on aging worked with our public works director and did an acoustical study um earlier this year. It recommends the sound absorption materials in the roof and the back wall. Uh and the idea would be to do this work
now so that springtown meeting and and obviously all the events that transpire in that facility will be greatly enhanced. Okay. Okay. I'll make motion we recommend approval of article 9. I'll second that. Have a motion and a second. All those in
favor? I. Article 10 is the transfer of $400,000 from free cash for the rehabilitation of the Chsford public schools switch gear. Um again, this is a critical component of buildings that are 50 to 70 years old. This is the
replacing the existing emergency power supply system at the schools. Uh it maintains the electricity in the buildings. We recently completed this past summer the work at McCarthy because again that was our oldest school building. Now, we want to basically go into more schools, most notably the work
that's going on at South Row as we're doing the roof and the ceiling tile project, but also at the high school. Again, because of a failure of one of these things would basically shut the buildings down. And um again, they're at the end of their useful life. And we want to reason we do it now is we can do
it now, we can bid it and get it done next summer. Whereas, if we wait till spring, you don't leave springtime meeting until May, you can't get it done next summer. Um, so that's that's the request here again as a safeguard. Okay, any questions?
Okay, I make motion we recommend approval of article 10. And I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I. Thank you. Article 11. This is um, you know, sort of housekeeping, but sort of an unfortunate circumstance. We we're
transferring $48,963 exactly from free cash to the council of public schools for the payment of out of district special education tuitions. This arose in the last month. Um basically what happened was the state in assisting cities and towns provided an
advanced payment in that dollar amount in May of 2024 to Chelston and other communities. So they were trying to help communities coming out of COVID and providing financial assistance. Um, and the way circuit breaker works is you can carry your funds forward one year. So
when the school department prepared the current fiscal year budget, they included this prior year payment as part of an advanced payment for 25. Well, of course, when Donald submits the balance sheet, the state says, "Oh, no, that's an FY24. You receive that money in 24. Therefore, you've got to close it out."
So we closed the 48,000. So now we're looking to restore that into the current year school budget plan. So that's what's taking place here. So again, had it been what we would have done, we our free cash would have been 400,000 less, but because we had to close it out,
we're now sort of restoring it into the budget. So we're not funding their budget. We're not funding their budget. It's an accounting thing that because they basically, you know, had received circuit breaker monies, which is special ed tuition monies outside of the budget. Okay. I'll make a motion. We recommend
approval of article 11. Second. Okay. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I article 12 is is the last free cash article and this is a particular dollar amount and the reason it's placed last is that if anything were to run astray,
meaning not be approved, we would put the funding into this article which is why it's placed here rather than going back and reconsidering. It's 2,484,842 or roughly $2.5 million. And this is obviously for the continued the phases
and the replacement of the McCarthy school roof. Um we've already funded 1.25 million uh in design and initial construction work. It's going to begin next summer. Um the the issue with this roof is one is it's huge because again
that was our high school. It's McCarthy school roof. Um but it doesn't meet the criteria like Southro did because it's not 25 plus years. The roof of that building is only 20 to 24 years old. Um it's at the end of its useful life. We
have leaks. Um the masonry repairs. Um and while we're doing it, much like South Row School and others, we're going to replace the solar panel systems along the sections of the roof as you see depicted here. Um it's probably when we're all said and done, it'll probably
be about a $5 million project. And we we're basically trying to do is keep chipping away at this because our capital program for for a year is about $6 million. And so obviously if you funded a $5 million roof project, you're not going to do anything else. And we know the backlog is you can't do
anything else. And the other thing is is well, why not just wait a couple more years and you'll get to the 25-y year threshold for MSBA. The problem is the MSBA requests are such that this past year they didn't find anything less than 29 years old for a roof. So, we can't
just say, "Oh, let's just wait and you know, hopefully get there and put some more buckets out or do some more patching." Um, so that's what's taking place in this article again is and so you'll see this now and then and then we'll when we incorporate the plan for next Springtown meeting and so forth, we'll keep putting money in to get to
this entire roof project because the plan obviously is to maintain the integrity of the roof and the building and obviously the solar gets replaced and enhanced at the same time. Yeah. Make a motion we recommend approval of article 12. I'll second it.
We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I. Okay. Article 13 is the last financial article, but it's not a free cash article. It's $500,000 from the sewer enterprise fund retained earnings or that individual funds free cash uh to do
drainage improvements along Westfit Street. Uh and the question is why now? Why Westford Street? This is the area. This is the section that's closed because of the I495 bridge replacement at Westwood Street. It's about 650 feet of drainage. And the idea is to do this
work uh while this work is the road is closed because it's less disruptive of everything else. But it also is an area that needs drainage repair and would also remove inflow into our um sewer system. Um so that's what's taking place here. And the goal would be again to get
this work done prior to the bridge reopening. No questions. Before you say that, because we're just sitting here, we're going through these pretty quick and we're all voting. Um, I just think it's important because when I was sitting on the other side of the table, I often wondered why. I think it's
really important that people know that, you know, we have opportunities to see these presentations, watch them on TV. So, I think, you know, this is a little bit of housekeeping for us to vote on them. And if there's no discussion, it's because we've had a lot of our questions answered. Just so for those that were sitting there like I used to, I think
that's an important message. Okay, I'll make a motion. We recommend approval of article 13. Second. We have a motion, a second. All those in favor? Article 14 is is an authorization for the town meeting. This has to do with
the Vinyl Square parking lot. As we talked about when we were doing the warrant, the town owns the lot that's right by the road, but the second lot is actually leased by the town and we're at the end of that 30-year initial lease period. Uh I'll just show it here on the map. Basically, this is Vinyl Square as
you came in, you know, from Princeton Street and so forth. You know, there would be Tingsboro Road. There's the lot that you see almost across from Rosies. We own the yellow. We lease for a dollar over a 30-year period, the pink. The 30-year lease is up. We've spoken to the
new property owner that which is the owner of this new building and they're agreeable to um renew it for another 30-year period at the same dollar price. Um but we have to have town meeting authorization because it's a 30-year period. Um so that's what's taking place here.
Okay. Take a motion. Make a motion we recommend approval of article 14. I'll second that. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I. And then I think the last article is article was it 32? 35.
35. I know it's right it's way to the end. It's No. No. It's 3. I'm sorry. 32 and 3. 3. Yeah. I'm sorry. Let me speak to those two. 35 would Yeah, let me speak to 32. um which is the bylaw change for the um ATF.
Okay. Oh, where is article 32? This is a bylaw request that was submitted by the ATF committee. And basically what they're doing is that they're deleting language that specified their application period. They just found it to be too restrictive. Um so
again you see the strikeout language. So now basically grant requests can be presented in the format specified by the ATF at any time. Whereas if the current languages they'd only be accept applications from January through March. That's all that's taking place.
Questions, comments? I'll take a motion. Make a motion. We recommend approval of article 32. I'll second it. We have a motion, a second. All those in favor? And then the last article is the final article and I'm requesting no action on
the article. Um, this is the one to sell of surplus tax possession property. Whoops. Property of the town. Let me just put it into context because I the intent right now is to bring it back to town meeting. You can see the motion here is no action. And I'm not going to ask the board because I'm going to take
no action in the article, but just to say, well, what was going on? What, you know, the town acquired this quarter of an acre parcel, a third of an acre parcel back in 1979 to property tax delinquency. It doesn't enjoy any other open space or serve any municipal
purpose. The assessed value is 169,000. Uh and then basically as we've done in the past, you we do a sealed bid process with advanced notice much sim similar to what we did a couple years ago here at Summer and and uh Bara Road. So this is the parcel here in pink. Uh it's vacant.
You can see there's a couple other vacant ones, but those are privately owned and taxes are being paid. This is the one we've had concerns from abutters. And I just think the simpler thing is is let's just table this uh and have more dialogue with the abutters.
But also we're probably gonna we come back and looking at other parcels and then just do it as a bundle in the spring because like I said the last thing we want to do is you know upset people needlessly because again whether we sell it now or six months from now it's no big deal. But the bottom line is
is we want to return this property to the tax roles and with in today's world where you get ADUs and other things it most likely has a benefit to the uh abutters um because it's not a buildable lot um and also we're you know there was
a concern and again we touched base with the planning board we just want to make sure that there isn't any threat that if somebody acquired this that they could access the commercial property although I we know the planning board would never allow that but we again but in the process in the process. Yeah. We just don't want Yeah. We just don't
want to upset people needlessly, you know, it just again, we've aired it. Let's go back, spend a few more time, some more work, and then come back in the spring and hopefully again everybody's on the same sheet music. So, this one's being table. So, no action. Yeah. I know. We were hoping that maybe one of
the abutters across the street would use it for additional parking. Exactly. Yep. So, it may happen, but we'll but again, all those opportunities will be there six months from now. But we did hear from from another butter who was very alarmed and and you know again and we know as I was saying earlier we
know town meeting doesn't like the passion blaze and it just doesn't Is it the end of the street? No, it's right there. It's that it's right here. No, it's right there. It's right there. It's this big right here. It's right at Riverneck. Yeah, this this is Riverneck here. This is Mod Goes down. Yeah.
Okay. I was looking and then obviously this is 300 Apollo back here. And you know, and again, the interest wasn't from this. I don't want it. The last thing I want is people thinking that the owners of 300 Paul were trying to do a, you know, some backdoor thing. That's not what it is. The interest came, as Jeff know,
if you drive down Monmouth, is it on the right or the left? It would be on your left if you're driving down from from um So again, we'll come back in a few months. No harm, but again, it's good to air it and then we'll come back. So that that concludes the uh review of the articles.
Okay. Before we go on to the next one, um should we um continue the public hearing for that poll petition? Yeah, I may as well cuz I don't look like anybody's showing up from Yeah, because otherwise you'd have to read before No one's here. Yeah, nobody showed up. Yeah. So, we'll we'll um I say continue to your next
meeting on October 6th. Okay, we can do that. Do we need to need a motion? Yeah. Yep. I'll make a motion that we um continue the public hearing on petition 31188 387 to our meeting on October which October 6.
October 6. Yeah. Can I get a second? Second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Um all those in favor? Sorry. Okay.
All right. Thank you. Um the next one u finance director John Souzer regretfully is not able to be here this evening. I will step in his place. I did meet with John earlier today and he again he sends his regrets. Um it just is unavoidable. Anyway, what we have here going back to
unforclosed properties. Here's a property at 10 Smoke Rise Drive that the town's in the process of foreclosing. Uh and we have new provisions under the state law on foreclosures. Um, we have to make a decision within 14 days after the foreclosure judgment whether the
town is wants to hold on to the property or wants to sell the property. Um, again, this is a property that's assessed at almost $700,000. Uh, there's no municipal purpose for it. It doesn't adjoin any other municipal land. There's no municipal benefit. Uh,
the taxes owed on this property right now exceed $55,000. Um and so again, when this foreclosure takes place, under the current standards of law, um the board, uh need to make a determination
within 14 days. So, we're asking you to make that vote this evening in advance um because sometimes we don't meet in a 14-day period depending on what happens, particularly like with town meeting coming up and so forth. You could see how that could occur and this actually may occur during that period. So again,
we're we're asking the board this evening to vote um to um to sell the property at 10 smoke drive upon the entry of a foreclosure foreclosure judgment by the master of this land court.
Any questions? So if we So if this gets sold, yeah, we we then would recur our taxes owed as well as the costs of litigation and tax title work, everything else that gets involved. Then when the property gets sold that then the heirs of the
property get the balance. Okay. Or anybody or anyone else who has a lean on the property. Okay. Like Mass Health or these other groups. So that's that's the what's going would occur here. What? Because again, why else would a $700,000 property go for tax foreclosure.
Well, so how Okay, yeah. Yeah, you're right. These don't happen all that often as you can imagine. Um but in this case it was we do know we do know is it a tax foreclosure? Yes, it's a tax foreclosure. It's not a bank foreclosure. No, it's a tax foreclosure
and the couple was elderly. So are we essentially forcing the sale by trying to sell like we're via a tax lean, right? And the reason we do that and we historically done that is that 55,000 is going to become 65,000. It's going to become 75. know it's going to keep
growing and therefore you know we're not then it becomes a problem from us because if we do nothing then the the the debt the equity just drains out of the house. Let's let's we foreclose on it the town collects what it's owed. we now start collecting taxes by the
subsequent owners and then anybody who has an equity right and that gets their equity on the property and if the I don't know who the equity people are but if it's either family members or it could be you know mass health or who knows who might have it. So that's that's what occurs in these
instances which is why they're rare um but they periodically arise. Do we usually wait for a certain threshold before we go ahead and Well, yeah. As you can see there right now there there's years of tax foreclosure. Yeah. To go through tax
foreclosure judgment takes about four years. Yeah. So that's what I said. This has been ongoing now for for that period of time. Um that's kind of sad. Taxes go owed back to 2021. Okay.
Sorry. I need a motion. Ready for a motion? Yeah, I'll take a motion. Sorry. Okay. I'll make a motion that pursuant to Mass General law chapter 60 section 64A to direct the treasurer tax co tax title custodian to sell the property located at 10 Smoke Rice Drive, Chsford upon entry of a foreclosure judgment by
the Massachusetts Land Court. Second that. Motion and a second. All those in favor? I Great. Thank you. Okay, next up we have town manager bid awards. Yeah, thank you. I have three uh two bid awards, three on the agenda and we're going to act on two of them. We're going
to table one. First one is the Colonel Moses Parker Middle School designer services contract. Um as you may recall u early discussion with the Massachusett School Building Authority, we've selected a designer working with our owners project manager.
Uh the permanent the school building committee has approved the contract uh and recommends approval to you this evening. It's with a I3 is the designer firm architectural firm out of Framingham, Mass. that they
build exclusively school projects. Um the contract that you're approving is standard MSBA contract um language. We're not allowed to amend the MSBA's language. The contract amount is a million for designer fees and then it's
$248,000 for designer specialty consultants uh in that project. So the total bid award is $1,248,000. Um and again it had unanimous approval last Thursday evening at the school building authority. And so I'm here this
evening as manager seeking your confirmation of this bid award um to AI3 um as presented and they'll get going right away. You're going to see a lot of activity in the next between now and January with a lot of community input uh on the first phase
of this project which will be educational values, grade configuration and so forth in the next few months. And is this is this part of the um part of the funds under the umbrella that would get reimbured for? Yes, we we'll be reimbursed at 52 52%.
Yeah. And we get reimbured in as you go. It's not like, oh, when you're done, you know, it's like we submit monthly reimbursements for for the costs on this project. Awesome. Good. Anybody else questions? No. Okay. I make a motion that we approve
the town manager's bid award to AI3 in the amount of $1,248,000 as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor. Hey, thank you. The next one is the Adams Library Chs public library, the
Adams Library building exterior masonry stairs and chimney repair project. Here, this was bid by public works. Seven biders submitted. We're recommending the lowest bid and the lowest qualified bid for the for this um project uh to Tito Masonry and Construction LLC out of
Portland, Maine in the amount of $105,000. And as you can see, there were seven bids submitted on the beat summary sheet. And you can see those bids range from $105,000 up until uh $276,000.
And again, we check references, everything's good. Um, it's showing you that things are becoming more competitive uh as we're bidding now. Any questions? I'll take a motion. Make a motion that we approve the town manager's bid award for Adam's library
replacement and chimney rebuild to Tito Masonry and Construction LLC in the amount of 105,000. Second dollars as presented. We have a motion, a second. All those in favor. And then the last one on the agenda was
the various school elevators project. I'm tableabling that this evening. We've re since the bid opening last Thursday, we received a bid protest on one of the filed sub bids and under the advice of council, we have asked to table this. So this may or may not return at your October 6 meeting. We are working with
the attorney general's office to resolve this matter. Um and again this is a project we'd like to get bid to have work performed uh starting next summer but so we stay tuned. So that concludes the bid awards this evening. Thank you. Um and now we have town
manager reports. Yeah. Real briefly as as I've updating the board I've given you provided you with a summary sheet of the fee structure evaluation from departments. I don't need any votes this evening. I just wanted to formally inform the board with more detail from the last update I
provided to you that we are um continuing our annual review of departmental fees. Um do do some of these have to go to town meeting at any point? No. No. Okay. Not even a dog one. I thought that went Okay. No, that goes to the clerk's office.
Okay. Okay. Does anyone have any questions on any of these comments? Okay. Okay. Um, next up we have appointments. And our first appointment is select
board appointment uh for Dan Ward for the Military Community Covenant Task Force for an unexpired three-year term ending June 30th, 2026.
Does anyone have any questions? I have met Dan and he will be a good addition to the committee. So, I'll make a motion that we appoint Dan Ward to the military community covenant task force as presented. Second.
We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Congratulations, Stan. Okay. And then we have a couple of town manager appointments. Yeah. I'm seeking your confirmation of the appointment of um Jukuma Dave to the
bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee for a three-year term ending June 30th, 2028 and to Richard McGawan to the parade committee for a term ending July 31st, 2026. Okay. Can we do these together? Yeah. Okay.
Take a motion. Okay. Okay, I'll make a motion that we approve the appointments of Jigakuma be Dave to the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee and Raymond of Gawan to the parade committee as presented. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All
those in favor? I great. Well, that was quick. Um, and now we are on to meeting minutes. So we have well we have meeting minutes and then we
have an announcement of determination of okay in in my packet we it did not have the meeting minutes for for um 8 for for August 18th but but they were posted correctly just they were not added to to my packet anyway. I didn't
know if everybody's was the same. I only have Okay. Um, so I don't know if you guys I did not review them. Um, maybe we can those. Well, whatever you want to do, we can we can defer them to next time.
Can we defer them to next time? Sure. Since we don't have them in the packet here for review. Um, okay. And then we have announcement of determination of releasability for executive session minutes. But I don't
have that either. Well, you wouldn't have that. Should be in here. Should No. No, it's not. It's usually not. That's That's just released. You just release it and then it will be posted. Oh, we have to vote to release them. No. Oh. For that one, you don't have to because
all it was was an executive session to approve minutes and it didn't have any minutes in it. Just two approved minutes. Oh, okay. I'll explain later. Okay. But we don't need to do anything. We don't need to motion to Right. You just need to make that announcement. Oh, okay. Oh, and they are But I don't
know what the release is. It It says right there, announcement of releasability of executive session minutes just for that set. April 7th. Oh, we're releasing them. Okay. So, I'm just making an announcement of determination of releasability of executive session minutes from April
7th, 2025 segment 3. Correct. to be released. Okay. Okay. Um, sorry about that. That was confusing. Um, and next up we have
leison on reports and referrals. Uh, um, just a a quick one about two new patrol officers that were recently joined the Chancellor Police Force. uh Joshua Deersio who uh graduated from the police academy a couple of weeks ago and
Landon Johnson who was a transfer from another police department to the council police department. So, welcome them on board and you will see them patrolling the town very soon. Do you have anything? Yeah, I received a request from the uh Chumswood Alex
Wednesday Night Golf Club to put a memorial bench commemorating um Ron White Jr. who we all know was tragically killed in a car accident recently. I'm going to need guidance on how to put that through.
Okay. Um did you want to handle it? Yeah. So, we have a we have a form that they can fill out for um the memorials and monuments form and submit and then I can I can make sure that you can manage that if you want. Yeah. You just have to like run it by the DPW
and I can talk to you about it after. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. And as you know, cons well conservation is meeting tomorrow night and um we all know what they've been doing recently and the challenges they're up against. So, and I've had
many conversations with Kyle Bishop regarding Kulus Farms and other issues, but everything seems to be going well with they're all in good frame of mind and you know, regardless of all the challenges they've had, I have to say they're doing fantastic.
Um, besides that, I missed parade last week. Pat, you were there? No, I was not. I was there. Yeah. So, there's more food then. Yeah. Yeah. And unfortunately because of my travel I'm going to miss next month as well. So I read in the minutes it didn't seem
like a heck of a lot was done. I mean it seems like they they working on the banners. That's where you can promote the banner. Yeah, we got the new banners coming out. I've seen some of the designs, but we have to vote on those and uh Paige Gillette does an amazing job getting that that information to us. Um
cemetery I haven't I saw Kirk today and he hasn't said anything to me about anything. So, I really don't have much to report. Okay. Thanks, Aaron. Yep. Um, I'll go pretty quick here to be mindful. Um, board of health had a
meeting on the 9th and um, most of the discussion other than their normal course of business was around the 242 Bill Ricker Road project um, just because they're near the um, aquafer protection zone. Um so I think that
that's likely to be um resolved um fairly simply. Um and for council on aging uh my friends up at the senior center had yet uh another lively meeting. Um I got to meet the new president of the the uh friends of the
senior center update. Um so they they just they have a lot going on, a lot of services that they provide on some pretty tight budgets. And um again, Debbie always said, "If you're not old enough to join, you're old enough to go volunteer." And that certainly would um
I know be much um much appreciated. Um the planning board also met. A lot of it was preparation for this. Uh we do have a the first kickoff meeting to the task force um the managed growth strategy task force um this Wednesday.
So that's uh that's moving uh forward pretty quickly. Again, their meetings are pretty lengthy. I encourage folks to watch those. And then um obviously tonight uh like I said earlier um attended the finance committee meetings and saw the
detailed presentations of what we voted on um tonight and then I think they're voting on it this Thursday. Y um so they'll go through their they're done meeting on those at this point. are just going to do their um do their votes and recommendations and that's all I have.
Okay. Um and I don't have anything. So with that, we are um all set and I'll take a motion to adjourn to executive session. Okay. Okay. I'll make a motion that we uh adjourn to executive session pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 38 section
21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if the chair declares having such a discussion in open session will have a detrimental effect on a town litigating position. The board will discuss strategy with respect to 243 Riverneck Road LLC versus Chancellor ZBA
housing appeals committee number uh number 2025-05 and in a matter of Chancellor ZBA and 243 Riverneck Road LLC housing appeals committee 2025-09 votes may be taken and also to review
executive executive session meeting minutes for approval from April 3rd 2025 April 7th 2025 segment 1 and two April 14th, 2025. May 19th, 2025, segment one and segment two. June 30th, 2025, not to
return to open session. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Um, and I think this is a roll call, right? I'll do a roll call. Patric? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Aaron? Yes. And I'm a yes. With that, we are adjourned to executive session.