being six o'clock I am calling to order the select board meeting of April 7th 2025 if you would all join me in the pledge of allegiance to the republic it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all so first up we have some public announcements and Pat Maloney is um on Zoom tonight pat are you going to do the public announcements i uh I am going to do the public announcements and um just let everybody know that uh this meeting
is being recorded and broadcast live um for those of everybody at home so I will start with a proclamation this evening um so town of Chster proclamation in honor of Armenian Genocide Remembrance
Day April 24th 2025 whereas Armenians fled oppression from the Ottoman government during the 20th century coming to America in search of freedom where they could live in dignity without fear and oppression and whereas
like many ethnic ethnic groups Armenians settled in Chumsid seeking a safe place to live raise their families practice their religion and educate their children they became an asset to the growth and vitality of the town of Chelford through their strong work ethic
family values and civic pride and whereas the Armenian community of Chelse is comprised of the children grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the survivors of the Armenian genocide and whereas 1.5 million Armenian men
women and children victims of genocide perished in the Ottoman EN empire from 1915 to 1923 now therefore the Chryford Select Board does hereby issue this proclamation in remembrance of the
Armenian genocide of 1915 and urge all residents to take part in this observance signed this 7th day of April 2025 the um Chelsea select board and Patricia E durus town clerk some notices from the Chelsea Health
Department can I just hold Can I just hold up for one second i think we have somebody here to accept the proclamation thank you good evening thank you uh my name is Arajek Novorian residing at Fort Perron Road in Chsford and I'm here representing the Armenian-American
community of Chsford i am joined here this evening with my fellow residents of Armenian heritage essentially all of which are the children and grandchildren of a survivor of the Armenian genocide the Armenian American community of Chumsford extends its heartfelt appreciation to the select board for
helping us remind towns residents of the Armenian genocide which perpetrated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire claimed the lives over one o of over 1.5 million Armenian women children from 1915 to 1923 considering that the Armenian
genocide is often regarded as a forgotten genocide most tragically it became the prototype of the genocides and holocaust that followed and are still actively taking place today in 1939 some 20 years after the Armenian genocide Hitler was about to invade
Poland and wipe out all the Jews throughout Europe and his advisor said "Adolf you can't walk in and kill all those people." And what did Hitler say who now remembers the Armenians chsford has always been a welcoming community to Armenians fleeing oppression in
different parts of the world we are blessed to have our beautiful house of worship St bartan's Armenian church on Old Westford Road 180 Old Westford Road and with Father Khachabian as our pastor who continues to welcome with open arms those
Armenians who today continue to flee tyranny and oppression in many Middle East countries and especially Azan which has recently attempted the ethnic cleansing over 120,000 Armenians we are grateful to have today two of our most senior members of the community steve
Belgarian at 91 years old and George Simmonian who of course is no stranger to many people here in fact George reminded me that he taught high school here when he was a high school back in the 50s george is the oldest living Armenian here in Chsford at the
beautiful age of 96 soon to be 97 and he's here today because his mother and my father escaped the army and genocide miraculously jumped on a boat and came to Ellis Island in 1918 otherwise we'd be history with today's proclamation let
us not only honor the hallowed memory of the men women and children who perished during genocide but also embrace the virtues of love tolerance and mutual respect for all peoples of this blessed world thank you oh thank you
real picture i can take that question you want me to grab you chair sure okay you sure you don't want a chair sorry we can we can't just stand here i am
the pulling out don't worry George i'm only 78 oh this is another one okay thank you so much thank you everybody so sorry I couldn't be there to join you tonight thanks
thank you so much thank you very much pat I think you can I think you can continue now if you'd like okay um some notices from the Chford Health Department upcoming free events the first one is hoarding 101 community
class on May 20th from 5:30 to 6:30 at the Chson Public Library this informative session on hoarding designed for community members family and friends who want to learn more about hoarding behaviors um the next thing is save a life with opioid overdose response
training on April 30th from 3:30 to 4 at the Chumps Town Hall Fire Training Room learn how to recognize and respond to an overdose the next one is sexually transmitted infections in older adults that was actually today from 1 to 2:00
at the Chumps Senior Center so we've missed that one um but and then the final one is um community adult and child CPR first aid and AED class on May 21st from 9 to 1 um at Chelford Town
Hall Fire Training Room each participant will um who completes this 4-hour training will obtain an American Heart Association Hearts Saver CPR AED first aid certificate that is valid for 2 years please note that there is a $20
fee for the card under free services from the childhood health department the Massachusetts Behavioral Health helpline available 24/7 365 days a year providing free and confidential support for mental health and substance abuse concerns um
you can call or text 833773245 or chat online at masseline.com sobera karaoke takes place every second Friday of the month from 7 to 10 at the Chelford Center for the Arts in the Cabaret Room it's free admission snacks
and mocktails available for purchase and the final is a blood pressure screening first Thursday of the month 9 to 12 at the Chsford Health Department um when last Thursday of the month 8:30 to 10:30 we're at Chumsford Senior Center um so
those are free services provided by the Chsford Health Department um as some updates um the Chsa Health Department joined the regional preparedness action uh workshop with police fire and emergency management professionals and other health departments um to um um
provide preparedness training um other updates they've joined the um they've been invited to join NA NACCC ho's maternal and child health policy innovation program learning community
this opportunity focuses on policy development and imple implementation to improve access to care nutrition and food security for material and child health cpr classes are also filling up fast don't miss your chance to learn life-saving skills from certified
instructors whether a beginner or just looking to refresh your knowledge classes are perfect for everybody and the um they also want to note that the 4th annual fall festival is excited health department is excited to announce that planning our fourth fall festival
is in full swing um this beloved community event promises fun food and festivities for all ages we are now accepting vendor applications so if you're interested don't miss this opportunity to be part of the celebration um the next um notice is
under the housing production plan virtual forum that will take place tomorrow Tuesday April 8th 4:30 p.m online i will give you a um uh a website to go to uh which is https/nimmco.org
org/chmpp and that will get you um to registration and get you to the forum on uh the housing production plan that is so vital to our community um the next notice is from Chelford Friends of the Library their annual book sale is Friday
April 11th from 9 to 7:30 p.m 9:00 a.m to 7:30 p.m and Saturday April 12th from 9:00 a.m to 2:00 p.m large selection of fiction non-fiction children's books DVDs and CDs uh members only can can go
on Thursday April 10th from 5 to 7:30 lower crowds and best selection join the friends of the library to in to attend again um that's the um Chelmsford Library annual book sale the next notice is join Chelshoot's
townwide cleanup April 19th to April 27th 2025 pick up yellow bags at DPW 9 Alpha Road between April 14th and April 25th place yellow bags at your home curbside for pickup with a regular trash until Friday May 2nd together we can
keep Chelsea with a clean and litter-free place to work live and play any questions contact sustainability manager Chris Haley at 978-250-5203 and the Chelsea Minute Man Company invites the public to join them
on their 14th and final Patriots Day march from Chelford to conquer join the Chelsea men and men scouts and fellow citizens on the on our 250th anniversary reliving the fateful day of April 19th 1717 1775 that thrust the colonies into
the start of the American Revolution chinutmen will be in full outfit complete with musketss and traumant outfitted like our town sires were in 1775 scouts will receive the rare chamster trail to conquer patch again
that date is Patriots Day holiday Saturday April 19th step off time is 4:00 a.m at the Sundial on the Chelsea Common and it will end at 9:00 a.m at the Old North Bridge in conquered and again that's the Chumford Minutemen last
uh last march to conquer we have another proclamation Town of Chford proclamation in celebration of Arbor Day April 25th 2025 whereas in 1872 J sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of
Agriculture that a special day be set aside for planting of trees and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska and whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the
nation and the world and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water cut heating and cooling costs moderate the temperature clean the air produce life-giving oxygen and provide habitat
habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes fuel for our fires and beautify our community and whereas trees in our town increase property values enhance the economic vitality of
the business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal now therefore we the Chelmsford Select Board do hereby proclaim April 25th 2025 as Arbor Day in
the town of Chelmsford and urge all its citizens to protect our trees and woodlands and to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations to take part in programs to celebrate Arbor Day presented this 7th day of April 2025 by
the Chelsea Select Board and the town clerk um next notice is spring annual town meeting uh the spring annual town meeting will convene at 7:30 on Monday April 28th at the senior center at 75
Garten Road a copy of the spring annual town meeting warrant is available now on the town's website any resident of the town who is not an elected town meeting member may attend sessions of the town meeting and participate in question and answers and discussion portions of the
proceedings links to the town meeting presentation document and finance committee's warrant booked can be found on town meeting web page at least one week prior to town meeting and our final notice is we want
to hear from you funded by the municipal vulner vulnerability preparedness program for the town of Chumsford um I'm going to give you another um website and that is https colon/tinyurl.com/chelm project and um
go there to see uh how you can help out and they want to hear from you and that's it for um notices this evening so Aaron if I could just for my last time ever obviously remind um everyone that newly elected select board members
are required to to go along with the the march from Chumsford to Conquer on Patriots Day i heard that i missed I missed that a couple years ago myself actually put me in a golf cart and I'll play a drum i mean
so much for that reminder Pat thank you Pat thank you Pat and Pat um next we have general public input do we have anyone who wants to speak during the public input session they'll be on Zoom okay um Pat if you'd like to do the
committee vacancies absolutely committee vacancies as of 47 2025 there is agricultural commission there is one unexpired three-year term ending on 6:30 2026 on the Commission on Disabilities there is one unexpired three-year term
ending on 6:30 2025 one unexpired three-year term ending on 6:30 2026 and two three-year terms ending on 6:30 2027 the Council on Aging Board has one unexpired three-year term ending 6:30
2025 the conservation commission has one unexpired three-year term ending on 6:30 2025 historic district commission alternate member has one three-year term ending 6:30 2027 the holiday decorating committee
has two unexpired one-year terms ending 1231 2025 the parade committee welcomes all applicants one-year terms ending 7:31 2025 and the recycling committee has one
unexpired three-year term ending 6:30 2026 if you're interested in serving on a town board or committee please complete an online application available on the town website or contact the town manager's office at 978-250-5202
thanks Matt that's the shortest committee vacancies list I think I've ever seen which is really really great actually um I agree yeah so next up we have reports and presentations and the first uh thing on the list here is the select board recommendations on spring annual town
meeting warrant articles yeah madam chair we have 34 articles on the warrant for the spring annual town meeting which begins three weeks from tonight um the board is meeting again next week so if there's any items that we have to follow up upon and there's a couple articles that are still pending that we're
working on regarding adjustments to the current year's budget and contract settlements but what we traditionally do in this situation is we'll allow those guests who are who are here um to take their articles out of order to allow them to go home and enjoy the rest of their evening while we slog through the other you know balance of the articles
and so first we have Mary Donovan and and her uh and her at the back of the room presenting article 20 yeah we'll find it article regarding the pet cemetery 27 27 regarding the pet cemetery so we'll we'll pull that up
hi Mary good evening i My name is Mary Donovan i live in Chsled there we are and I wish to thank the select board for inviting me to speak in
the need for a pet cemetery in town a pet cemetery run like the chsid human cemeteries would be a safe legal resting place for one's pets forever pets are family
our children and should be treated the same as humans in their time of death a pet cemetery would not cost the town or taxpayers pet owners would be
responsible for cost of the burials such as burial lots opening of lots caskets markers and a maintenance fee the maintenance fee goes into an endowment account for
maintaining the cemetery a pet cemetery is a place where you can always visit to share memories with family friends with safety security for an
eternity a law in 1950 or so on human burials were to be in a cemetery burials of humans and pets were always buried on your
land a law was then passed humans to be buried in a human ceary no mention of pets except now it is illegal to bury pets in your yard i
have papers telling costs price and what it is the only difference between a human burial and a dog burial you have to sorry hire a funeral director you
don't the parents the family of pets do it there will we please we need to add a pet cemetery in town
please vote for it i thank you and I do have a law right now in the legislature hoping it will get voted on to protect pet cemeteries because there
is no law in the state of Massachusetts to protect a pet cemetery as you can see one has been sold in the area around here and our two family house has been built on part of it over a thousand pets thank you and if
you have any questions I'll be more than happy to answer but please forgive me i'm a little deaf so you'll have to speak loud does anyone have any questions mary did you reach out to the uh pet loss professional association like I suggest did you reach out to the pet loss
association like I suggested you and I spoke on the phone a while back i don't I have been reaching out to just about everybody and it seems like none of them call me back okay well I'll be seeing them at the end of the month i'll be seeing that group at the end of the
month and I'll ask them why they haven't responded oh god I feel bad jeeoff if you speak into your microphone I think she'll be able to hear i'll be seeing them at the end of the month and I'll find out why they haven't responded thank you you're welcome anybody else have any questions and if
you need Can I Can I ask a question actually Mary I'm I'm just I'm curious what are the What are the fees this is where my six pets are buried right now mary what are the fees like if somebody wants to bury their pet in the pet cemetery sorry what
it says your your warrant article says that there's a collection of fees by the town for the use of the land and maintenance what are the fees like if someone wants to bury their pet in the cemetery do you mind if I come a little closer i didn't hear you sorry I thought the microphone would help but I'm
wondering the fees the fees associated what the fees if you want to bury your pet in the in the cemetery what kind of fees do you think it will be how much do you think it will be it cost me she has to go to the mic you have to go to the
microphone I'm sorry I'm sorry Mary nobody at home's going to hear sorry maybe in the room too cost me Oh for your information here's a pictures of what it costs for caskets
you can pay a 20 in for $75 or a 52 inch for $350 it cost $199 to open the grave to buy the plot was5 to $600 each time you put one in then if
you buy a marker which is good they're all the same markers the same my god I got so many i didn't expect that question so I kind of got them mixed up sorry i'm just curious you can just ballpark it if you know off the top of your head like
$1,000 plain square with the names on them and that costs only about 200 maybe $300 okay and then you pay a maintenance fee you can each time I put a dog in there yeah
my maintenance fee goes up how much is the maintenance fee sorry how much is the maintenance fee well right now I'm paying nothing because of what's going on up there the fella is hoping that we'll take our pets out and he can build
more houses on it so I pay overund $150 a month okay and I pay it every month okay and I pay it from the day they go in and I keep paying it okay that's what I was looking for thank you
that's And it's worth it okay because it goes into the endowment and I know the grass will never look like this okay thank you does anyone else have any be more than happy if you want this stuff in printed writing i will give it to you
okay and I don't want to have to pick up my pets to dig them up because my only alternative sorry is my backyard and I got six of them and two more waiting in a counter at
home okay thank you for listening thank you thank you Mary by the way the town would make money it wouldn't cost them uh the next next presentation would be
article you want to vote now do you want to go at the end which which How do you want to do this oh we probably do do you want to do it now or do you want to do at the end of the evening go it's up to you why don't we let Kelly I'm assuming Kelly's going to be Yeah then you're going to hear from Chris Levali and then Well yeah no but the question is do we
want to go through all through all of the article items and then vote as Paul said I think it's best to let the people who are here to speak let them speak right and I think no but but I also think if we vote then they can leave is kind of so like if we just give Mary how we're voting now and that's all she
wants to stay forth then she's able to leave and then the next person can speak we can go through them one by one and vote as we speak about each one or we can go through them all and vote on all of them at the end which is but then people have to sit and wait longer you know so yeah I'm inclined to just vote
now if that's okay yeah I I for that and I you know then we don't have to relitigate them red debate them when we get to them again yeah I'm okay with that comment Jerry Hardy um Sure can you if
if you want to come up I was a cemetery commissioner for about 45 years i'll get Is this I'm sorry is this is this some push back by the lot owners in the
regular human cemeteries of having a a animal cemetery within the cemeteries and I think if you want to pursue this and I'm agreeing with her 100% you'll have to find a spot in
Chelford which is separate from the human cemeteries because we've we've uh considered this on the board a number of times and uh some of the lot owners are a little uh against this so uh before
you vote I think you should consider whether there's a place in Chels that you can put a pet cemetery that isn't on a bunch of rock now I thought it would be great to go out to Ledge Avenue and then they told me it was all rock out
there a ledge so that wasn't going to work but uh I think this you should consider a separate location for the pet cemetery well I think that's what it says in the article it says to obtain a town owned
parcel of land so yeah that's that's the purpose of the article it doesn't specify where we haven't identified this is almost like a resolution from town meeting in other words if this were to pass a town meeting then myself and the board would come back at a future town meeting with a particular parcel of land and a plan
on how to implement it so that's that's what would come out of this vote because obviously at this this point it doesn't identify the parcel of land and how it would do we have any do we have any like financial projections about how the no what the fees would be or anything like that we don't no the the only town that
we know that runs a cemetery is Littleton um and it's not very active so and the only other thing I can report to the board that the finance committee's recommendation on this article was zero in favor six opposed one abstension okay and and Paul says we'd have to
identify or obtain obtain would indicate that we might have to buy something yeah well you can't buy anything without town meeting approval so you'd have to come back with a proposed location and if it were not already town owned and and the the issue is you cannot use cemetery
land and you cannot use conservation land um and you cannot use community preservation money to acquire it and so the only parcel of town owned land that the town has of any significance at this point that's not conservation or school
or cemetery is really 5 Richardson Road but as you know that's near the aquifer for the and that's where the dog park is but but you know but that's that's you know but adjacent to the aquifer for the north of water district wells so it might be a struggle to find a
parcel anyways or again we'd have to identify and then bring it back to the town for approval well my concern is seeing what happened in Tesbo i don't want to see that happen in Chsford i just don't want to see what happened in Tingbo happen in Chsford in 10 years um they've Tinsro created their own mess
and it's not our responsibility to fix their mess i mean that's what they've done and and as I mentioned earlier to Mary I said there's a group out there the Pet loss professional association that would look into this stuff what's going on in Sboro
and I just you know being a cemetery commissioner over the past few years I know I mean I've been I've been in the industry my entire life and I as Paul mentioned the uh pet cemetery that's adjacent to the back of Westl Cemetery in Littleton is very is not very active
they had they had some people that were all gung-ho to get it done but nobody's putting their pets there so now you have the cemetery that's going to have to continue to maintain more property and our cemetery division cannot take on any more properties they're already
maintaining six cemeteries in town and only and two of which are not active so they have they have plenty of work as it currently stands so I mean if if a solid piece of land can be brought forth and um you could
definitely have some kind of definitive financing and perpetuity as far as maintaining then I think I'd be more in favor of it under those circumstances but just to grab a piece of land and say we're going to do this I just don't think is a smart move at this
point that's just my opinion i mean I I I think you know as a as a courtesy to Mary I mean she's been working on this she's been pushing this for for years now um I would favor this article the way it's written because it doesn't say we'd use it as part it doesn't say the cemetery commission would would would
manager manage or monitor it and it doesn't say it'd be part of any of our cemeteries because as Paul said it can't be but I don't have an issue with us doing some research to find out if there isn't something and how it would work and go forward with that if it if the
answer turns out to be no then I would hope that Mary would accept that but I don't have a problem with doing what it says in this one article to do yeah I I I mean I agree with you know as a pet owner myself Pat I I agree with you
um it doesn't make any commitment to us other than to consider the article um you know again based on what Paul said I think we're going to you know we're going to run into a problem finding a location um and I think if it gets a town meeting and they approve it then we
can take a deeper dive um because I I wholeheartedly agree with Jeff um people are going to have to pay a monthly fee and somebody's going to have to maintain it and seeing structure around that would be helpful so it's just not doesn't become unused so you know I'm uh
I'm kind of leaning towards where where you are Pat pat Maloney do you have anything you'd like to share no ready to make a motion okay um I'll take a motion
uh I'll make a motion to uh for the site board to support article 27 Happy Tales Pet Cemetery uh as submitted and presented okay and this is going to be a roll call vote because
Second Do you second i'll second it and this is going to be a roll call vote because we have a member on Zoom so uh Pat Wess yes pat Waloney nay jeff no erin yes and I'm a nay so
the motion um fails with recommend against two to three it fails to be How do I state this it fails if the motion fails the motion fails with two in favor and three opposed
thank you all right the next article is article 29 we have Kelly Bees here this is for the lighting bylaw um and then there's an accompanying it's article article I'm on this on this list then that anyway the
lighting two zoning right one's a zoning and one's a general and article 29 is a general bylaw and if that were to be approved then action would take place in article 30 which would be to rescend or modify technically the uh zoning bylaw
Kelly Bey and then Crystal Valley is here as well uh good evening and uh thank you for having me uh here this evening oh get the presentation as background as Paul's scrolling through let me just tell you that we've had a outdoor lighting bylaw on the books for
a quarter of a century in 2000 the town meeting voted unanimously in favor of what we have now which is a zoning bylaw it was very basic but one of the first for its time it basically said if your light is too above a certain brightness it needs to be pointed down and uh that
was a solid way to go for its time there were some exemptions um but the problem has been that in that time since then Paul you can flip to the next one a lot has changed and in particular the advent of LEDs which are very powerful and
useful light sources but they are very different than what we had to deal with in the year 2000 and in particular uh they are they are uh used widely and and very strongly in a lot of circumstances around town both for
residences and for businesses and for the town itself the problem is that unless these are pointed down and most are not then they're already in violation of the existing bylaw but since that's a complaint driven by bylaw with very few specifics and no vehicle
for enforcement uh it has not been called uh into play very often so one of the things that has changed besides the advent of LED is that lighting science now understands that one of the big concerns is glare
the glare from fixtures if you want to flip Paul thank you to the next one um this will give you a sense of what glare is it's life that does go below horizontal but it's it's hit hits hit hits you in the face and I have no better example than you've all driven
down the street and some car is coming with its headlights on bright and it's almost debilitating for you trying to see your way on the road from these bright light sources so glare has become kind of the catchphrase for trying to control lighting uh in in current best
practices and so uh uh go ahead Paul you can go to the next one um this is an example of how you would control the glare this is not in Chelert although I hope to have an a good example in time for town meeting this is on Nantucket this is a school
you can see the glare from the fixtures on the side of the building and uh Nantucket passed a a lighting ordinance to try to control this and what they did in this particular case is just point the lights down next Paul and this was the result very nice even illumination
no glare in your eye you can see everything that's in the field of view please the next one Paul okay i'm trying to get through this quickly just follow your lead just follow my lead next um another uh concept that is relatively new but I think we're all we've had some experience with it is the notion of
color temperature it's a number that tells you how much blue light is in the bulb you're using the higher that number it's an actual temperature uh the bluer the light and so these days the amount of uh a typical bulb for household use
is about a 4,000 Kelvin to 3,000 Kelvin the lower the number the less blue light and blue light at night is environmentally mr harrington please mr harington John
I'll continue um you speak up mr harrington mr harrington could you take your call outside okay um the uh I kind of lost my train of thought uh blue light is really a problem at night on many many different levels uh from the standpoint
of nocturnal uh wildlife human circadian rhythm like whether you can stay awake during the day because you couldn't get good sleep at night um and so the less blue light we have in our evening envir nighttime environment the better and that's one of the things that we're trying to get a grasp on with this new
bylaw go ahead Paul next we are all familiar with this color temperature it's now on all the bulbs that we buy uh we you might have remember it back in the day being called warm wide or cool wide but now there's an actual number that we can associate with it and in
best practice our our town street lights as a for example uh are 4,000 Kelvin actually a little warmer than that and they're actually very quite good in terms of control and reducing glare uh this is the street lights after that
other lights that we have in town municipal commercial residential are maybe not so good next please so what what will this bylaw do first of all it creates a let me explain why we're going for a general bylaw instead of a an
update to the zoning bylaw a general bylaw will allow us a couple of things first of all it would bring under the umbrella of regulation the town's lighting utilities lighting and and uh fixtures that hadn't been uh uh in play
before the second thing is it it it allows us to do something with all of the lights over the last 25 years that have been installed that weren't complying with the existing bylaw which is once this bylaw is enacted then all of those lights become non-conforming
now I don't expect people to do it to change them out overnight to become conforming one of the components of this is a what we call a sunset clause for 10 years so you would have 10 years to take your bad light and make it a good one and in many cases doing that is simply
taking the light and pointing it down and that's all you would have to do um certainly certainly for for everyday lighting in our homes uh in most cases like your your your porch light would be okay as is because it's not bright
enough to be triggered by this bylaw um so this sunset clause uh I say it lasts 10 years the lifetime of LEDs is of order 20 years and so for example our town street lights were installed uh
12 years ago more or less and uh in my discussions with uh Christine Clancy there is a there is a you know a long-term plan to replace the lighting that is here in our street lights as well as some of the lighting that's around our municipal buildings you may
recall that it was a energy services contract with Johnson Controls that led to the installation of the the street lights and the aerial lighting that we have they did a great job with the street lights they did a not so great job with the the lighting around the municipal buildings and so uh one final
thing I want to mention is that uh as I said the existing bylaw has is is vague and completely uninforcable and there is no mechanism for enforcement so my the bylaw that I'm proposing with the planning board would create a position
called a lighting standards officer this is not a new hire it's not even a part-time hire it would be somebody appointed uh uh probably within the building inspector's office to be responsible for complaints when they come in and uh of of course most of the
time a complaint is going to come in at night and so I wouldn't expect the lighting in uh the building officer to go out as is the case now uh probably would be a public safety person goes out and makes the first determination what's really important is that now we have
defined numerically with standards best practice standards what a nuisance would be so so we if if one neighbor was complaining about another neighbor or if you didn't like the lights from a mall that was next to your you know property you would have a way a a quantifiable
way a measurable way to determine whether that lighting was in compliance or not and and as far as the homeowner is concerned really nothing has changed it's still the case that if you um have a light above a certain brightness it needs to be pointed down in early
versions of this and I've had I've had many good discussions with stakeholders around the town not only with uh with the town managers uh the department managers but also uh the chumpster uh business association uh the various uh
conservation boards uh the planning board of course and so we're hoping that this represents a good compromise something that the town can get behind and as I said it is not an it's not going to be something that's going to reflect uh a need for change overnight
already the planning board is applying standards like this when new projects come into town and what we're going to do what we hope to do is to gradually uh rein in some of the existing lighting that we have um to to make it a little bit more a little bit more make that the
glare to when the glare is reduced you can actually see better your security is better thank you very much i'll leave it at that chris I just wanted Thank you i was just going to say can
somebody Chris you can you can go ahead if you'd like i just wanted to add that the um planning board has had a lot of discussions with Kelly and um we've made some adjustments with him um but if this does go forward we do see it as a
positive um step in the right direction because this does provide the enforcement um and complaint driven uh process with standards that can be applied um in those cases okay does anyone on the board have any
questions i don't have any questions Kelly i really like the idea of the 10-year buffer where if people are are in violation so to speak gives them time to try to discuss it and figure out ways they can make it better so I think that
sunset clause is crucial here thank you uh yeah thank as thank you Kelly for for somebody that likes to look at the the night sky or break out the telescope um I often have complaints with light pollution but you know I also live near
a bigger city um and I agree with Jeff the the sunset clause is important what I worry about with these things is just some of the unintended consequences and one of the first things that comes to mind is is you know people that have like complaints now are going to have
you know they're going to go up more um and I just want to make sure that we don't we don't create burden um via complaints would be would be the thing that really pops into mind and again I I think as long as we're not uh driving
costs to people especially today to make these changes to conform um then in principle I think I think what you're trying to do is is overall the right thing to to do um and I noticed one of the things back there in particular with stadium lighting I do think that that's
something that um if there's new practices today that as new things get built or things get re be replaced then um then having those standards is good because that does create a tremendous amount of of light pollution that you can see from everywhere so other than that I don't have any other questions at
the moment pat um well I I think um everybody uh recognizes Kelly as our lighting expert in town so but I have not but thank you um so um he knows this a lot better than
I do and I respect his his taking the time to bring this forward i know it is a long time coming i know you've been working on it for for quite some time um and you know given the the the 10-year time frame as has been mentioned that that allows for for some time um not
just for people to conform but also if there is something in it that we that we discover has unintended consequences we have time to adjust it so and and I'm sure that that would happen if something like that does if I may address that uh Pat um this notion of color temperature
it's been a moving target for like the last 10 years when the town installed its street lights it had a choice of two 5700 Kelvin which would be very obnoxiously blue or 4,000 today even 3,00 or 2700 is not what is happening if
you go to Peral they replaced their street lights with 2200 Kelvin which is kind of like the peachy color uh highress sodium lights that we've all become accustomed to but now they have LED street lights so one of the things we've had a discussion with on the planning board is that maybe this would
be uh now revisited in say f five years halfway through the sunset clause period see where we stand and tweak as necessary okay good sorry one other thing um Kelly the photo you showed that they did at you said it
was Nantucket um that was simply an adjustment they made by re-angling the lights right so that is correct i didn't replace them so there's having being the town expert on this are there areas where you know of in town that that we can do some of
these simple things like this and and make a difference that you can think of yes i would say um for starters um you know I don't want to put work on anybody but like bis businesses that have installed LED lights that are on a pivot
they are easily redirected and often there you know there if you have an LED that's on the side of your building and you're attempting to light your whole parking lot it's a fixed attachment then that's a different issue that's that's going to have to be something to be addressed within this 10-year period i I
I meant to mention something if you don't mind of this a little off topic but one of the original components we had in here as a um what we call accent lighting and there are various ideas there was something called string lights these are these fairly bright lights
that get hung they're party lights uh you'll see them around restaurants a lot and in the great discussions that I had with the finance committee in particular about this we there was some time spent on this there there's would be the potential for a lot of confusion between
string lights and holiday lights what one person might call a string light another might call a holiday light you notice there's no mention of controlling holiday lights here so in deference to all of that we removed the component which might be in an earlier version that you have this has just happened
within the last few days we've removed string lights as one of the things that we're going to try to control and and in particular it's not really a problem here in town yet maybe in five years it will be and we'll go back and address it can I ask you a question do we have the text in here for what's on what the
current bylaw states it's not here paul in the zoning by the current zoning bylaw no no I'm sorry i don't I can just I mean he has comparisons but he doesn't have the actual text of the bylaw i mean that would
be that would be a lot of you know I can pull it up if you'd like to see it can you can you hang on while he's c it's um Thank you it's about it's about two pages long the standards for that i wrote that with Bob
Morse uh back in the day and um as I said it it had essentially the same kind of trigger point in terms of brightness brightness of a light is measured by something called lumens and uh in in the case of the exist the existing bylaw and
what I am proposing those trigger points are still the same it's a thousand lumens for for a um an unshielded light and it's 2,000 lumens for a security light and so uh those are unchanged in
fact where where the residential lighting is mentioned at all uh they there are some new standards that would apply townwide not specifically for residences or commercial but for example if you've got landscape lighting of any
kind then um that would that would be uh uh subject to a curfew between midnight and 6:00 a.m which is the industry best practice for that sorry Paul why
i have I have it right here in print if there's a specific question it's outdoor illumination yeah what is it that which se do you know which section you want to see or it's 19534 outdoor illumination um and you can see it runs
I one of the things if I may one of the things that's in the the existing bylaw that that is now um duplicative is there's information there about illuminating signs this is in the existing bylaw and about 10 years ago I think I worked with the planning board
to to update the sign bylaw to include illumination requirements and so that's no longer needed here so that's actually been removed does anyone else have questions pat Maloney do you have any questions for anyone
yeah you're muted you're muted sorry sorry folks um yeah um no no questions i um I'm just not sure I'm ready to support this um just because of some of the things that have been said like unintended consequences but as well
as you know being um you know totally adjacent to a major city center um where you know parts of town may benefit more than other parts of town and I know you have to start someplace but um and I can see it also placing some undue burden on
you know many homeowners who are you know just um and I know you know we have the 10year sunset clause but even then um you know there's a lot people um in town that uh just get by so I um I'm not sure I can support this in its current
form um mostly because I don't think that it would do a lot in different spots around town you know especially adjacent to major city centers and so on so I think um I think at this point I would not be
supporting this does anyone else have any questions or comments may maybe just one more and because I don't want to harp on this but but say this goes into effect and somebody makes a call to that's got to get logged with
the lighting standards officer you said you're going to have to it's at night right so this is not something somebody can solve during the day um and I thought I heard you say you know you have to send out you know somebody to to look at it because obviously the building inspector is not going to go out at night um is there and again I
looked through this again is there anything in here that kind of defines on how that those complaints would get logged and then resolved or or what's your intention i guess sure i actually I don't necessarily want patrols going out there and saying "Yep there's a light there we think it's non-conforming."
Let let me just re-emphasize that it's it's the same initial process as we have now with the existing bylaw okay if somebody has a complaint that their neighbors lights are too bright just as a for example then typically I had an extended conversation with Paul about
this then typically a policeman will be dispatched to see you know what's going on under the existing bylaw there's no way to declare a winner or a loser right right because there are no standards um and so what we're trying to do is make
it um uh a little bit more objective and so that that would continue I think that public safety off officer would continue to be the first uh line of of uh engagement um it is it is possible for
the building inspector to go out during the daytime and just with a little bit of training from me or from somebody else to see just by the design of the light whether it's likely to be conforming or not if it comes to going out at night to determine it um what
this requires is a certain level of intensity at the property line and uh a a light meter it's a oneb button light meter you press it it gives you a number and that determines whether it's invi in conforming or not so it's not a long
process in more complicated situations say you have you know um a project that goes in and they've they've are those lights 3,000 Kelvin or not are they bright are they blue or then you might need in some cases to engage a lighting
professional but what we are the intent here is if there is a uh say a project that comes forward and gets installed and it sometimes what gets what's on paper versus what gets installed could be different things then the the the cost for bringing in that expert for
enforcement would be borne by the by the petitioner right whoever is making that we're trying to make this um as as as Chris was saying the biggest problem with the existing bylaw is that there's no way to say whether it's
conforming or not really that and and this is just to put some meat on those bones um and if I might address what Pat was mentioning uh there is no new requirement for a homeowner out other than if you've got landscape lighting to
turn it off at midnight there's no requirement for a curfew on your security lights security lights themselves are not covered uh because I don't want to everyone has the right to illuminate their property for safety and security but they don't have the right
to illuminate their neighbors property while they're doing that and we're just trying to put a little bit of a guardrail on that so if can I just add one more thing sure um under the current because the current bylaw is a zoning bylaw the enforcement goes to the um
building inspector and again the the current bylaw states that you can't um you can't bleed over into the neighbor's property doesn't say by how much doesn't say um by how little so if they go out
there there's no like Kelly said there's no real way to to figure out a resolution um so it's it's completely subjective right now and so by having this objective metering uh that can be used they're able to really determine
whether it's it's in compliance or not so the kind of the last question I would have with this so if I'm a if I'm a builder in town and I'm I'm building a new um a new home is the is the lighting choices that
they have today is it more expensive to be compliant this law not at all and in fact it's you know it's uh I one of my uh presentations before the planning board happened to have a developer behind me or in front of me and he said
that they builders actually welcome having numerical standards for this kind of stuff because it takes the guesswork out of it from their point of view and and no there would be no further cost if I if I want to install a choice between
you know 5,000 or 4,000 or 2,700 those those it's like different flavors of ice cream you're not going to take away my Christmas lights are you no that was never the intent i love
lighting my house up at the holidays and I think my neighbors like it too and I've been in town for 40 years now i'm I'm smart enough to know that trying to regulate Christmas lighting is the third rail of local politics thank you for that
anyone else good um and did the finance did the finance committee vote on this can you share with us the finance committee's vote on this article was zero in favor six opposed with one abstension ready for a motion yep sure i'll take a
motion thank you okay um I'll make a motion uh that the select board um uh approve or make approval of article 29 um general bylaw amendment chapter 108 outdoor lighting as submitted i'll
second it thank you uh Pat Boas yes cataloney nay no jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a no so
the motion Oh wait a minute i got a yes no yes yes no correct yeah three in favor so the motion passes with three in favor and two opposed thank you very much thank you and then the accompanying article while we're here is article 30 which is the zoning
article that would amend the the zoning bylaw to reference this general bylaw if it were approved so similar vote from the finance committee obviously logically and and obviously if this were not approved at town meeting there'd be no action under the article
does anyone have questions on 30 but you will be asked a recommendation at town meeting right and I think we should do y Okay so I'll take a motion uh I'll make a motion that the select board approve article 30 zoning bylaw amendment section
195-34 outdoor illumination as presented i'll second that thank you pat Wales yes pat Maloney nay jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a no and the
motion passes with three in favor and two opposed okay again thank you thank you okay the next one since Crystal Valley is there we'll go to the zoning the planning board zoning articles uh first one being article 31 which are which is
properly titled zoning bylaw amendment regarding technical corrections thank you Paul okay let me go to your uh your presentation slide all right so after uh town meeting adopts any uh bylaws uh zoning bylaws there is a 90-day review period for the
attorney general to review them in the 90-day review period for the MBTA zoning bylaws that we passed to town meeting um the attorney general's office did find a few other areas of the bylaws that were problematic um not specifically related
to MBTA zoning um but they suggested we review those areas and potentially change them um if town council suggests we do so so you can go to the next slide so there are three areas uh that were
potential issues uh the first is section 19540 erosion control this uh had possible conflicting language applying the requirement to special permits or for special permits to as of right projects um the second one was in the
fiscal impact of projects to town services uh we found out that the land court has held it is unlawful for special permit um uh to be or for a special permit granting authority to
consider the the impacts on schools as part of its decision and then the third area is the definition of family where the attorney general said that our definition may conflict with the fair housing act so we had town council review the
recommendations um we also had a discussion in um the planning board work session uh about this um I reviewed the appropriate uh sections according to our discussion and then we came back to uh
make the changes the changes um are really around the school impacts and the definition of family uh town council found that there was really no need to do anything with the erosion control section so I'm going to go over the specific um changes that we're
recommending um so for school impacts uh the first one is 19561 uh for special permitting uh it actually specifically talked about um the impact
on school facilities uh so we are recommending removing that and then in 19510 special permit section um we're actually explicitly um mentioning the exclusion of the public school system as
a consideration of impacts the third one is in the definition of family um we found that there was actually a use of the term family that wasn't
needed in 105 195 108 so we're removing that and just calling it a dwelling unit as opposed to a family unit and then the definition of family that uh the attorney general has recommended to us was the um the one used in Brooklyn uh
that did pass the uh test for the fair housing uh act and so that's the one we are suggesting putting in here uh one or more persons occupying a dwelling unit and living as a single nonprofit housekeeping unit
and so that is essentially the minor changes that we're proposing to the zoning thank you Chris does anyone have any questions for Chris comments nope seems pretty straightforward it's
clean up of the minor changes yep okay finance committee endors 70 okay thank you take a motion then okay i'll make a motion to for the select board to
support article 31 zoning bylaw amendment various corrections as presented can I get a second second it thank you and Pat Wes yes yes pat Maloney i
jeff I aaron yes and I'm a yes uh the motion passes unanimously with five in favor zero opposed the next one is article 32 this is the uh zoning bylaw amendment pertaining to
the flood plane district so this one is uh quite a bit more complex um but actually pretty straightforward because these are uh required changes of us um so these changes are required of municipalities participating in the National Flood
Insurance Act of 1968 um we do get benefits as a community and as individuals uh from participating in the National Flood Insurance Program um I've listed those benefits here on this
slide and if you go to the next slide FEMA develops um detailed requirements and periodically updates their flood plane map our the current requirements that we're updating uh to are not new um they've actually been in place for
decades but uh Massachusetts communities have not been required to update to those uh those current requirements um however more recently FEMA has told communities that they'll no longer
accept local codes lacking these specific components um and that um all future bylaw and ordinance reviews must conform to their changes the 2014 map changes that went before town meeting um were focused on the
conquered river wershed and the current map changes that we're proposing um or that FEMA's actually proposing are um focused on the Marramac River wershed area um the DCR uh flood hazard management
program uh worked with us to to go through these bylaws figure out what updates are needed um Massachusetts has a model bylaw that meets the minimum standard uh that's approved by FEMA and the state AG's office so we use that as
the model um local bylaws are allowed to be more restrictive than the Massachusetts model so we didn't want to just take that wholesale and put it into our bylaws because we do have a couple areas where there are more restrictive for example 195 ADC prohibits new
buildings from being erected or constructed um or and no existing structure shall be altered enlarged or moved that is located in the flood plane um so we wanted to make sure that those more restrictive points stay in our
bylaws the um maps on the slides are extremely small u but I did want to give you um a little picture of what they look like uh these are available um on the FEMA website and I have links at the last
slide if people are interested in taking a look at what the changes are it's an interactive map that provides the before and after changes uh that you can take a look at um also some uh additional links there if people want to take a look at
our DCR review um and then the uh state uh model by law but again the changes are pretty straightforward they're all required by FEMA and they were um modeled after the state model that is approved by the
attorney general does anyone have any questions comments for Chris no okay I'll take a motion i recommend that the select board um recommend uh approval of article 32
zoning bylaw amendment flood plane district as presented can I get a second second okay and we'll do a roll call vote again pat Woodus yes pat Maloney I Jeff I Aaron yes and I'm a
yes so the motion passes unanimously with five in favor zero opposed thank you very much thank you Chris thank you okay so that that concludes our out side presentations what I will do since Chris is here and I'll be courtesy because I
don't know how long he's planning on staying is I'll go to article 28 which is a zoning bylaw but it's proposed by me as town manager but obviously the planning board has a recommendation as did the finance committee um so let me get to that real quick this has to do
with an amendment regarding in the 129 district here we are went way too fast okay right here article 28 um this article would amend our route
129 business amenities overlay district um by deleting the strike due text and underline text as shown on the screen let me just sort of summarize it um this would allow standalone drive-thru fast casual restaurants in that portion of
the business corridor located between on Ricka Road from Alpha Road to the Burka Town line and at the end of Mill Road near 129 um the bylaw is uh would only allow for three fast casual restaurants
one already exists which is Press Cafe that's not standalone because that's in a existing building as you know Triton Systems is in that building that already exists and was obviously permitted under the current bylaw um and I'm also proposing expanded hours of operation
beyond the 10pm where the where this the genesis of this um has to do the with bringing amenities into the 129 overlay district um the bylaw was adopted nine years ago
um and um thus far we've had the successful entry of Press Cafe but now even despite Press Caf's success unquestioned success no one else has come in um and even the plaza that was
permitted ac across on on Mil Road um which was envisioned to be a small plaza for for amenities ended up being shelved and and and now is sort of you know um a autism facility uh to care for students
with autism um what brought this to light was um the parcel when you see outlined here in the green you know obviously here's Route 3 here's 129 this part on the green used used to uh was currently tened uh by um
the lighthouse school and and um they vacated the site because they put their addition out at their campus and the property owner met with Evan and me you know the community development director Evan Blansky and me and basically reported that because of
the current situation in the office market um they're having difficulty retenting that plaza as we know office vacancies are in a slump because of the post pandemic economy um and so his proposal was to raise the building in
its entirety um and allow for two standalone drive-thru restaurants um the article was then presented to the chair and the vice chair of the planning board with no action for coming from that I put the article on the warrant
and the reason I I do this is because there is an expressed desire from occupants in the business district to have more than one amenity uh the you know press cafe um why this parcel in my mind is is favorable for that development even though it the area as I
mentioned earlier would go from Alpha Road down to the town line by the forum and onto this portion of of Mil Road is because this particular parcel where there's interest as you can see it's bounded on three sides basically by highway there's no residential
properties it's a it here's the off-ramp if you if you're coming um onto the property if you if you were exiting route three south and we're coming into JHSwood um basically you've got you know off-ramp on three sides so therefore
there's no residential impact also there's a traffic signal here at Mill Road and you have dedicated a dedicated left turn lane um and then obviously the ability to to come back out uh traffic signal because what's envisioned by their marketing people is 90 plus% of
the traffic is going to come from Route 3 Corridor in 129 you're really not going to see an impact from the Mill Road or Elizabeth Drive area certainly not Elizabeth Drive so this is sort of a conceptual image of what of how you would place um two parcels on that
property uh standalone drive-throughs and then the last question is what would it look like and this would retain the ability for the planning board as a special permitting authority to regulate the appearance of any structure as part of the permitting process much like they did with the CVS in and as you know in
Chsford Center which this building appearance was not what was originally submitted uh and anyway so it's a reflection of the market realities on 129 as the board may be aware and I shared with you last week and it's going before the planning board
next week there's a similar project going being requested at the Chumpswood Mall um by the new owners of the Chswood Mall because today's consumer wants to stay in their vehicle they don't want to get out of their car and that's why you're seeing these what they call
upscale type of of u of rest of you know of fast casual restaurants you know your your press cafes your Panera Breads your Starbucks and so forth um and yes it does even allow the extent of McDonald's if if that's you know it the market
dictates um and the reason for this interest is again it's consumer-driven but also if you go from Drum Hill to the Burlington end of Route 3 there's no convenient quick on andoff amenities off
of the highway so you know so if you're coming if some a lot of traffic gets on at the low connector which is you know on this side of Drum Hill and it's going towards Burlington there's nowhere convenient you can get on and off the highway um so what this would do is this would allow that use in this area again
from Alpha Road to the line brick line in this area again would have to go to the planning board for special permitting or process and then the other benefit the town would have in addition to having additional amenities in the corridor um but obviously not impacting the corridor because it's it's right on
the edge right by the highway is we'd also generate the meal stacks that would come from those who would frequent this location so that's the presentation on this what I can tell you is both the planning board and the finance committee support this article
uh with with abstensions there were two abstensions on the planning board and one on the one being the same person abstained on the finance committee um so those are the abstensions in the vote i'm sorry could you repeat that you said they were all in favor with the exception yeah the the planning board
had two abstensions uh and Anita Tanini who sits also on the finance committee abstained at the finance committee as well other votes were were in favor and Chris was the other abstension yeah so Paul that's a tiff property correct that's a what a t has a tiff on the
property no that does we're not proposing that no the one that has the tip is the uh analog devices on over here in Elizabeth and uh and uh their two locations on the way so that's not going to fall no but
when I did talk to them they support I I was in contact with them because obviously they're trying to figure out what's going on with the chips act um but when I spoke to them with the latest update I said "Well what would your thought be about allowing another amenity drive-thru you know or two in the location?" and they thought their
their employees would welcome it you know not that there's anything wrong with Press Cafe is but they'd like a little bit another place to choose in addition to Press Cafe that's convenient and close that they could get in get back to work in a reasonable time frame i think when you see um you know a
standalone restaurant or a standalone business without any other sort of competition isn't always necessarily a good thing so if if you're building up the amenities in there um I think what I liked about this I know folks in town are not necessarily huge fans of of the
fast food the fast casual the drive-throughs um but this almost seems like a little bit of an ideal location and it's and it would bring in a lot of people that were not in town and that's some of the new revenue sources that you know we're talking about and looking for
so I think um I don't see the traffic impact having an impact over there like I would with other parts of town um so I would definitely be in support of this and it I think it supports the property owner too and ensures we get something in there versus potential blight
i agree i'm generally in favor do you mind if I just make a comment that's why I did while you were here Chris thank you for I just wanted to mention too that since I was the the other person to abstain um the reason why I abstained is because the overlay of how the overlay
was created uh the overlay was created with a pretty significant cross town uh committee it went to town meeting um and I didn't feel as a planning board we should be the ones to make that type of change um so that's why I felt I wanted
to abstain and then bring it to town meeting as part of the town meeting discussion because you're essentially yeah you're making changes to an overlay that was adopted by by town meeting and not by the planning board so and it was it was not only adopted by town meeting but it was also conceived and developed
by a pretty significant cross town committee thank you does anyone else have any questions comments pat pat on Zoom no okay i'll take a motion then okay i'll make a
motion that the select board recommend approval of article 28 zoning bylaw amendment fast casual restaurants in Route 129 Overlay District as presented can I get a second okay um we'll take a roll call vote pat
Wis yes pat Maloney i Jeff yes aaron yes yes dam yes the passion the um motion passes with
um five in favor zero opposed all right now we'll go back to the beginning uh and it'll be more like a lightning round I think compared to what we just went through um article one is is no action it's just reports we're going to hear reports from the strategic plan brief reports strategic regarding
the strategic plan the Parker School mil building committee and the and the financial overview as we always do at the beginning of of the uh town meeting there will be 10 sorry a dozen articles of the 34 on consent and I'll I'll identify them as we go through it article two is amendments of the current
year operating budgets we'll have that for you at your next meeting darlene sort of wrapped up some of work on it today and we're just proofing that out uh so we'll present that to you next Monday night and then present it to the finance committee next Thursday uh article 3 is the tech budget the budget
uh is is amount of $4,35,630 and is was shown through the tech presentations and we have a member of the NHob committee here with us this evening um on the board uh it's a dimminimous uh nominal increase in their budget because of the change in
enrollment and the request and the fact that their budget is overall is going up by a by u by a minor amount as presented in the detailed documents I shared with you in your packet this evening and so a finance committee recommended this article 7 to zero
does anyone have comments questions I'll take a motion now Pat you're muted Sorry about that uh okay i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 3 NOVA Valley Technical School District FY26
assessment second i'll second that pat Wes yes pat Maloney I jeff yes erin yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article
four is a challenge of public schools proposed operating budget for fiscal year 26 in the amount of $75,650,000 and again I shared with you the voluminous detailed school uh operating budget um which you know again
has a is a mod an increase um that's below level service and below the request from the school committee any questions and finance committee recommends this article 7 to zero thank you does anyone have anything if not
I'll take a motion all right uh I'll make a motion that this board recommend approval of article 4 fiscal year 2026 Chson Public Schools operating budget as presented i'll second
and Pat Wes yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion motion passes with five in favor zero opposed article five sort of completes the operating budget by the general government fiscal year 26 operating
budget and you can see it's there as presented um with the various funding sources um the obviously the budget as we've discussed and you have the detailed narrative of of the presentation from January as well as the
um the uh detail line items of the budget uh the budget increase for for you know general government is is uh only 222,000 or 0.58% and again the reason it's less than what the schools got at this point and still would be is
we we cannot fund collective bargaining agreements in advance of settlements and so there's a separate article that deals with collective bargaining agreements for public safety and the library unions so the increase is only 222,000.58% uh in the for the general government
department budgets and then obviously as we as we've noted in the presentations the major increase of almost 12 and a half% is the benefits and insurance a $4 million funding increase primarily due to the the escalating cost of our health insurance premiums and retirement
assessment um unfortunately our our um our health insurance budget is going up by $2.98 million because of the 17.77% increase in premiums and our retirement assessment is going up by 1,ion12,000 because of the 8.4% in our
retirement assessment um again finance committee um recommends this budget which as we know is not level service on the general government side and we've obviously did not fund a number of positions including the three layoffs that we had um you know several weeks
ago so the finance committee recommends 7 to zero thank you does anyone have questions comments oh right i'll take a motion then okay okay i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval
approval of article 5 fiscal year 2026 general government operating budget as presented i'll second okay and we're going to take a roll call vote pat Wis yes pat Maloney i jeff yes
aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor and zero opposed article six is collective bargaining agreements uh we don't have any final for you this evening we expect to have um uh uh some p police uh contracts
again that would be pending ratification by the union and by the board um uh prior to the next meeting um so so there's no action at this point under article six article seven is the traditional article to fund the finance committee reserve fund and the amount
requested once again uh is $400,000 um to address emergency unforeseen expenditures during the current uh fiscal year for the $168.4 million proposed budget uh the finance committee recommends 70 questions
comments oh I'll take a motion i make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 7 finance committee uh reserve fund in the amount of $400,000 as presented i'll second it
pat Wes yes pat Maloney i jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero post okay article eight is the proposed fiscal year 2026 capital budget uh in a total appropriation of $5,969,385
um to fund all the items you see here listed on the page as was recommended unanimously by the capital plan committee last December and is unanimously endorsed by the finance committee by a seven to zero vote and John Souzer is the the chair of
that committee and he can answer any questions that you might have but and you have the detailed presentations questions does anyone have questions comments okay I'll take a motion okay I'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 8 fiscal
year 2026 capital budget as presented i'll second okay pat Wes yes and Pat Maloney I jeff I aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed thank you article nine is is we now
leave the operating budget going in and capital budget go into the enterprise funds which are the self-contained funding for certain uh operations of the town the first one being the sewer enterprise operating budget um you can see the proposal is for $5.6 million um
and the finance committee recommends seven to zero and you have the detail line items in the materials we presented for you it's an increase of of 4.82% over the current fiscal year much of that driven by the increased assessment for the treatment of our effluent
wastewater by the city of LOL questions comments no i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval approval of article 9 fiscal year 2026 sewer enterprise fund
operating budget as presented we get a second okay pat Was Pataloney I jeff yes erin yes i'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article 10 stays within the DPW
enterprise as prepared by uh finance public works director Christine Clansancy this would fund the storm water management enterprise for fiscal year 26 as you can see n just over 900,000 in personnel and 765,000 in expenses um it's a budget increase of
$4.92% or 78,000 again to maintain our all of our miles of drainage catch basins culverts and so forth finance committee recommends 7 to zero questions or comments
i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 10 fiscal year 2026 storm water management enterprise fund operating budget as presented i'll second that thank you pat Wes yes pat
Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article 11 is a capital equipment purchase for the stormwater enterprise fund which is why it's separate because it's voted separately and the debt service gets paid in that enterprise fund in future
years this would purchase appropriate $290,000 that would be borrowed for the purchase of a 10-he dump truck for the storm water division finance Committee recommends seven to zero thank you any questions or comments no is this a new purchase or is this
This is a new purchase they they they don't have this type of vehicle good okay i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 11 storm order um for a storm water 10 wheel dump truck as
presented i'll second it thank you pat Rogers yes pat Maloney I Jeff yes Aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes five in favor zero opposed okay thank you the next article is is now go into the forum
enterprise fund which is people may be aware the form is is owned by the town it's we we contract competitively for a management firm and then the $65,000 that it's appropriated that comes from the revenues from the lease pays for the town's investment into the forum again
this this article is level funded It's 65,000 for the current upcoming fiscal year and finance committee recommends 7 to zero questions or comments i'll take a motion i recommend that um I'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval
of article 12 fiscal year 2026 forum ice rink enterprise fund operating budget as presented i'll second it thank you pat Rogers yes pat Maloney i Yes aaron yes i'm a yes the motion passes five in
favor zero opposed thank you article 13 is the public educational government access and cable related enterprise fund uh that basically provides the what we call PEG access which includes the telecasting of tonight's meeting uh Pete Paduller is
the custodian of this budget uh which is a component of the town but again stand alone the revenues you can see come from the cable television licensing still just under $578,000 uh and and again they're able to sustain their operations despite
people cutting the cord at this point so the that's the budget stands and it um finance committee recommends uh favor 7 to zero thank you questions comments i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the
select board recommend approval of article 13 fiscal year 2026 PEG ask Access and cable related enterprise fund operating budget as presented i'll second thank you pat Wes yes pat Maloney
I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes five in favor zero opposed article 14 is the golf course enterprise fund operating budget this is level funded once again the $30,000 for the upcoming fiscal year and similar to the
forum we hire we contract competitively uh for a professional golf course management company to operate the fund and again it doesn't it's not funded from the property tax levy and then the money from the 30,000 goes into the enterprise fund and is expended to care and maintain the facility and improve it
when necessary the finance committee recommends seven to zero thank you Paul yes how has the receipts been over there good relatively strong i mean part of what's helping us is um the the sort of a little bit of more popularity of golf
but also some of these smaller nine hall courses have gone away oh a lot of the public course have gone away and that's helping us so yeah we're we're holding our own over there well they've done a great job over there yeah they keeping it to keep it in good good condition and our latest investment is obviously putting up the higher netting because
the big swingers are going over our net at this point anyone else i'll take a motion okay i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 14 fiscal
year 2026 golf course enterprise fund operating budget as presented i'll second it thank you and I'll take a roll call vote pat Wes yes pat Maloney i and Jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero
opposed okay article 15 is the required under current state law to annually appropriate the departmental revolving funds um that again as the name suggests there are funds that are set up that their operations fund the expenses from that as you can see it has to do with
the dog pound and licensing senior citizen trips uh police cruiser equipment fire safety cemetery wreath floral decorations and so forth um again these mounts are level uh funded for the year um and again uh we're required
under current state law even though there's been a request to amend it to only have to change it when you they vote it when you wanted to change the amount but current state law were required annually to vote this fund in finance committee recommends 7 to zero questions
well I recently saw an article somewhere that the folks that were doing the wreaths at the cemetery are no longer going to do it yeah so hopefully some folks will step forward and want to continue that good tradition it's a lot of work i know people who do it throughout the country and it it is it's a lot i mean you're asking people to
spend a lot of time and and if you make a mistake it it would be upsetting so you got to got to be careful with that that's okay i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 15 the
annual authorization of departmental revolving funds as presented i'll second thank you pat Wes yes pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes five in favor zero
opposed article 16 is is an article appears almost at every town meeting now this is to transfer funds from the cemetery improvement fund from the sale of lots and graves to the cemetery improvement and development fund this town meeting the request is for $50,000 to pave and repair drainage structures
at the West Chumps Cemetery and remove older potentially hazardous trees throughout all the six cemeteries in town finance commands 7 to zero no questions comments um I just recently drove through Wester they put a new fence in there that was from community
preservation funds I believe looks fantastic so much better than it did before okay I'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 16 cemetery improvement and development fund as
presented i'll second thank you Jeff pat yes pat I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes five in favor zero opposed article 17 is for property valuation services this is a request um
to trans transfer $160,000 from overlay surplus to fund the property valuation services um as part of the town's 5-year property valuation certification by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue um what what's taking place here is every five years we do a property revaluation
we're in that year right now in addition the Department of Revenue requires the town to inspect every property once every 10 years so you'll see this article this year and then a complimentary article a year from now so we can complete all that work uh and then the first part of the motion is the
vote that we took last um April was was technically incorrect so it but so now we're correcting it because we this time we have this the assess the board of assessors declared the overlay surplus overlay surplus is the amount that's left over that you set aside for abatements and exemptions when you when
you close out the uh fiscal years um so again this article would would basically provide us with a contractor because we don't have the in-house capability in the assessor's office um to perform professional valuation inspections on on properties throughout the town as required by state law uh finance
committee recommends 6 with one abstension does anyone have questions i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 17 property valuation services for FY26 5-year property
valuation certification as presented i'll second all right and have another roll call vote pat Wis yes pat Maloney i jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed article
18 is veterans exemptions and this article was brought forth by our veterans agent Regina Jackson who unfortunately is not physically able to be here this evening but I'm probably watching and really was spearheaded this basically upon legislation that was enacted by the legislature last last
fall um this would provide an annual increase in the amount of veterans exemptions um by basically the inflation factor the CPI as you can see and this would start at the start of the upcoming fiscal year on July 1st um basically you
can see that the Heroes Act um so right now the exemption is $400 um and so this would allow that amount to increase every year by the consumer price index and we project the first year cost under this article would be about $5,000 and then again it would just compound as you
move forward and the idea is to keep the the value of the exemption somewhat current with the value of of money as you move forward and so again um this is a benefit for for veterans and the finance committee recommends seven to zero
is is there any thought of making this be statewide so it's not a like a local option no because the what happens here is the town's responsible for the additional CPI every year so the state when they give us some reimbursement for
exemptions they did not include themselves in it so they're not going to mandate it if they don't fund it because if they mandate it then it's becomes an unfunded mandate and they'd have to fund it so they leave that to the local government to do so no there's no indication that the state would uh would
and and historically when there've been these type of CPI adjustments they've never have contributed to that they leave that to the local community okay thank you anyone else any thoughts guess I'll have to play more kino
seems to be the right thing to do for sure do we have We don't have any other Oh yeah the next article you'll see one on seniors coming up right after this oh we do have one for seniors okay i was going to say I don't have anything else i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the
select board recommend approval of article 18 to accept Mass General Law Chapter 59 section 5 clause 221 to increase the veterans exemption as presented i'll second
i have a first and a second pois yes pavalini I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed so article 19 is is the equivalent language which has been
longstanding for senior exemptions um and again this increases the $175 exemption annually by the consumer price index because there are so few that qualify we think the estimated cost is about $50 for the upcoming fiscal year
and then it would compound going forward so we're recommending at this time that we um adopt this and then the board of assessors has agreed to and they're undertaking to see what further options the town could take could to increase exemptions for seniors because sadly
this 175 exemption has been in place for I think since the 1990s and and obviously it doesn't hold its market value uh and so there are other levels of exemption you can by increasing the income level and the asset levels and so the assessors are going to do that study and come back probably at a fall town
meeting as early as fall town meeting perhaps to look what further exemptions we can provide for seniors but this is the first step um on this effort okay finance committee recommended 70
anyone have questions okay you'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 19 to accept Mass General Law Chapter 59 section 5 clause 17F to increase seniors
exemption as presented i'll second okay we'll take a roll call vote pat Oess yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed thank you article 20 is is an article
I've submitted to request $50,000 to fund the study to fund municipal operations streamline municipal services cost effectiveness customer service basically be all catchall and I think the reason I submitted this is is we're in
for a who knows what's ahead of us we do know from our financial forecast that that our current level of operation is not sustainable as we saw in the reductions this year um because of the inflationary environment um and now with the further uncertainty of cuts from
Washington the federal funding that may go through the state as well whatever else is going to happen in the in the months ahead um requesting $50,000 for the board to basically approve areas that as we set our goals and what we
should be looking at in terms of how we can operate effectively and meet the service needs that are present in in any manner so it's a long-winded way of saying is we need this because we don't know what we're going to look at or how we're going to look at it but we know we've got to look at things because we
we can't as evidenced by the current budget that sustain what we're doing uh and so again I list examples uh but we don't know and not that's why I use the words for example and not limited to because we've got there are no more sacred cows everything's got to be
looked at and so this would provide the kind of money that we would need to see if perhaps we need out outside assistance to to really dig into something um and you know some of them aren't pleasant uh and and you've seen some of our neighboring communities look at those items most notably the the town
of Drakit did a $4 million um trash fee which mirrored the city of LOL because they didn't think they could sell an override in Draket it's and and and and as you can tell there's questions that we've got to look at in terms of whether it's trash collection whether it's you
know snow removal on sidewalks whether it's how you know whether we can do participate in or conduct or perform regional dispatch whether it's issues that are extraneous to us like the water districts but but affects residents uh and so forth so that's what this article
is is seeking to do and um and the finance committee recommends seven to zero is the the professional technical assistance is that I mean is 50,000 I don't know appropriate we don't know if we have to come back in the fall we'll come back in the fall or maybe it's too
much we don't know what we do know is we're going to have to get on this real real soon be you know um it's the same problem the state is dealing with right now is how do you prepare a budget with an unknown parameters of of funding
Um and so we're going to have to deal with that as best the best information we have available so we don't know and that's what the discussion I think we'll have as a board after town meeting is what should we be looking at because you'll see in the financial forecast and we'll have detailed discussions the
current pace that we're on right now is not sustainable and the cuts we had this year were not pleasant and and not insignificant but all the lowhanging fruit is gone and so now the question is what do we look at so this just releases the the 50,000 so that we can have it if
we want if we want to engage someone immediately exactly okay i like this because we're acting and not reacting and it's not anything specific you have in mind we could use it for studies we could use it for consulting yep yeah it's it's basically providing the board
and the manager with some means that we can effectively look wherever we have to i'm with Jeff i as proactive as we can be is where I want to be okay Pat pat almost with it okay I'll
take a motion then no one has anything i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 20 to study operations to fund and improve municipal operations as presented i'll second thank you we'll take a roll
call vote and Pat yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed article 21 is sort of another one of these things where you're looking under every stone this was submitted by
the superintendent of schools um and placing it on here because this would allow the school department to be reimbursed for from the federal government under title 4 um for transportation of foster children um and
in order to do that the school committee has to approve an a memorandum of agreement um but town has to authorize that initial year or initial contract for this so the idea is you they may be able to obtain a 20% reimbursement for foster care transportation services
again assuming that you know that those are provided in the future from the federal government so again there's no downside to this article and finance committee recommends 7 to zero is there any estimate for what this could mean it's I I think it was around
$20,000 it wasn't a huge amount but again you know pennies here pennies there add up yeah that's what they estimate in the immediate exactly yeah oh that's interesting okay anyone else i'll take a motion then i'll make a
motion that the select board recommend approval of article 21 school department foster care children transportation reimbursement as as presented i'll second thank you Jeff we have a motion and a second patis yes pat
Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article 22 is an article that I submitted that would amend the general bylaw regarding the deadline for the release of the town manager u proposed operating capital
budgets uh under the under the provisions of the town charter and bylaw um and the reason I'm doing this is because we're no longer in sort of the level service traditional customary budget process you look at the if you look at the language of the charter the
section 6.2 two it it provides that the um manager releases his budget um 90 days you know prior to prior to the release of the town meeting
um and what it says is that the the preliminary budget as adopted by the school committee should be submitted to the town manager at least 90 days prior to the spring session of town meeting to enable the town manager to consider the effect of the school department's requested appropriation
um on the budget as a whole the town bylaw section 35 basically says that the town manager's budget has to be 90 days well 90 days and 90 days is equal um so therefore what's happened in recent years is and including this year is I'm
releasing a budget not knowing the detail of the school department budget which is not what's envisioned in the charter um and quite frankly it any manager it's not me because I won't be manager forever but any manager needs to know what the whole component is in
order to make an informed decision about how much to fund the chances what are they requesting just like we received the request from the show public schools uh and also from the department heads and so the pro the reason I'm trying to push the town management from 90 to 80
days is I'm I'm leaving the school traditional pro budgetary process alone but then allowing me to release the budget 10 days after the school department releases its budget and how that would work in the upcoming year is you work from the end so be the town
meeting in next year will be April 27th so My budget would then be released on February 5th which is 10 days later than the current year the school department's preliminary budget is always it would be on the 3 um the show releases theirs on January 30th and then the governor
submits the budget on the 28th of January so that's why I I going into these extraordinary times and for the future the manager's budget has to be delayed the good news is is in recent years the finance committee hasn't begun their deliberations until the second
week of February anyway so this isn't going to slow down the finance committee process as well um finance committee recommends this seven to zero so from February 3rd to February 5th is not 10 days yeah so because they technically don't release it um they
don't release it 90 days but but I but I at least need to have it and so what I'm doing is I'm leaving their non-compliance alone um and at least allowing me the the ability to see that budget because that budget is you know is released as we've seen on the third
that would give me a couple days before I finalize the numbers on the town side and certainly throughout this whole process we're going to continue the collaboration and communication amongst all the parties including the select board finance committee and school committee but when it comes down to the end of the difficult choices you need to know what's there in order to recommend
a funding level for for all components of the budget and especially where the school department budget is is twice as large as the general government budget um when you look at the the different departments is this a is this a Chumsford thing or
is this kind of is is the 90-day standard no it's a Chumsford thing by the charter every towns have different schedules schedules and cities have different schedules but um in this case or in this model where the manager submits the budget and even at the finance committee you need to
know the whole you need to know the whole puzzle before you can make the final call and so it it would make a difference quite frankly it would have this year had I seen what what was what was being what was being uh proposed on the school side it would have affected what I thought was reasonable level of
funding amongst all the parties uh and and I can tell you we didn't do that i mean John Sus and I worked on this and we could not we were basically you know discussing numbers with the superintendent without knowing what the numbers meant right and is there any what was the the premise behind the 90
days before to get it released what's the Oh the idea is you need to have time to have the the budget hearings the process and then the recommendation schedule so what happens is is the budget gets released 90 days finance committee holds you know several weeks of hearings and then they make their recommendations and then they got to
print the report and release the report in advance of town meeting so that's the 90-day criteria it's the same you know it's that's yeah it's it's just it's just a a sound way of budgeting to allow the sufficient time for review and consideration same thing that's why this board has to do it because the new board
seated has to make recommendations three weeks before town meeting i mean I think the extra the extra 10 days to get better clarity and quality seems seems worth it to me okay nobody else has questions comments
i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 22 general bylaw amendment submission of the town manager's proposed budget as presented i'll second thank you we have a motion and a second
pat Wes yes pame Maloney i jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay the next article article 23 this this is an increase in dog license fees this came out of the review that we had
to see if we're covering our costs with our with with our um fees and you can see this this increases the dog licensing fees as presented finance committee recommends seven to zero anybody have questions
comments i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 23 general bylaw amendment ding kennel license fees as presented i'll second thank you Jeff pat Wes yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron
yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed same thing on article 24 a seal of weights and measures fees those are the people that go out and do all the the price scanners and the fuel pumps and and scales and so forth and again we're now in a
collaborative which I hope you'll vote this evening because NIMCOG stopped providing the service part of the reason Nimco stopped providing the service is it wasn't financially oba viable and they they couldn't employ people to to do the service so now we've come in and again um we're proposing you'll see
later this evening a three town collaborative and these are the fees that we believe will cover the costs for for this service uh to these businesses who have the scales and you know whether it's market basket or Kohl's and or jewelry stores and so forth so finance
committee recommends seven to zero thank you anyone have questions comments okay I'll take a motion then i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 24 general bylaw amendment sealer of weights and
measures fees as presented i'll second we have a motion and a second and Pat Wes yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes erin yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article 25 is a community
preservation fund traditional article at Springtown Meeting this article funds the debt service the administrative expenses and sets reserves as required under the community preservation law um you can see our projected revenue is 1.8 million uh of which 250,000 comes from
the state uh we have to set aside 10% to the required allocations minimum by state law uh and then here's our debt service 1,187,965 for previously approved projects uh and then the $50,000 is what they fund for their admin expenses
finance committee recommends favorably by seven to zero vote as does the community preservation committee obviously any questions or comments one okay i'll take a motion i'll make a
motion that the select board recommend approval of article 25 community preservation fund FY26 debt service admin expenses and reserves as presented i'll second and we have a motion and a second pat Wis yes pat Maloney i jeff
yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed okay article 26 is a community preservation funded article um that has the endorsement of the community preservation committee and this again came from the select board goal and a
longstanding overdue town goal of continuing the underground utility project through the town center this would transfer a million dollars from the community preservation general reserve and borrow a million dollars through the community preservation fund to fund the suppression of the overhead
utility lines um in the town center um this as you know is what it looks like this is what we want to get rid of um this is the view right that's the center that portion that we're talking about because as you know the common area has already been completed this would bring it down through the through
the uh central square to the library um the reason we need to do this is we have you know almost $4 million in G in national grid funds to do their portion of the project the problem is under the antiquated state law the
Verizon portion comes from landlines and as you know not many people have landlines anymore and the price of them is kind of stagnant um so because of that Verizon won't won't undertake the project without a viable funding source um and so this would provide community
preservation funds to uh restore the historic appearance of the town center uh community preservation committee as I noted endorses this as does the finance committee unanimously um and what would happen is if this is funded we would move from
town meeting to begin the design work for the two utilities and hopefully have some construction work perhaps by the end of 26 or so it's going to take some time for them to do the design work on this project meanwhile there's no search charge from National Grid because their funding is already in place and we shut
that search charge down years ago but this basically provides the funding for the for Verizon cost those are the two main utilities um uh Comcast their costs are minor they they just tack it on to their bills um as another one of those line items at the end and their costs
are relatively insignificant they're just running a conduit why it's so expensive for Verizon is if you go through the center look at that there are major trunk lines from Verizon going through the center of town um so that's why the cost is significant the biggest part is is underneath here as we know is
a brook um so you've got to put it underneath the brook and and and you know make it uh possible through the center so again finance committee and community preservation recommend this article so is the intent that Verizon would eventually repay this no the
intent is the portion of Champ residents would have paid for it anyway because the search charge only comes in the community where you're doing the work um and so this isn't increasing the community preservation tax because it's leaving the assessment amount alone it's just taking a portion of those monies that have been collected and will be collected and putting it towards this
historic restoration project so in one way the chumps would have paid for it one way or the other in this way it's being paid for by the entirety of the town rather than the people who have landlines and the problem with the landlines is it was taking in less than $70,000 a year the search charge level
under the state law and Verizon wasn't going to do a project that cost in the millions at a $70,000 per year payback and you know just even you know it just it's just not going to happen so if we do this then would we cancel the Verizon search charge we don't have a Yeah we've
the Verizon Verizon canceled the search charge itself after they finished the work at the common okay i didn't know so there has not been a Verizon search charge yeah right so this won't create any more burden on the tax li nope comes under the preservation and the preservation search charge and the
Verizon and National Grid already have this money set aside we just need this rest of it to Yeah national Grid has the money set aside our money is set aside from previous electric bills in Chelmsford verizon would will take the money that we provide from the community preservation act on to reimburse itself
for its costs the the thing is you got to understand this is not a priority for Verizon or National Grid because it doesn't bring any revenue into them it just takes the existing lines and puts them under the ground doesn't bring them any new customers it may bring a little bit of you know improved service in the
center because your your pole you're not going to have poles hit you're not going to have storms causing above ground damage but no it doesn't it's it's not a priority for the utilities and this this will be an everything they're putting in we're putting in is enough to kind of cover any of the unexpected i mean
that's what we hope yeah that's we design hasn't been right if if there if there was something that was extraordinary the first thing will happen be the design then we'll report back to you on the design and the construction costs and whether and how to proceed anyone else questions
comments oh I'll take a motion then pat I'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 26 community preservation fund town center underground utilities project as presented i'll second thank you we have a motion
to second pat Wess yes pat Maloney I jeff yes erin yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed paul what's the time right now it's about five minutes oh the timetable on that project oh it's you're probably not it's going to take them a year to
design it easily so you're probably not going to see construction out there till maybe late fall 26 but we if you had good weather when we did the first phase they actually did the work through the through the winter the the the good news is is we've already acted on 27 28 29 30
31 so we only have a couple left which are real easy they're easement articles um let me get there oops that looking for 33 right yeah 33 you just get there 33 you got get through 31 32
33 is basically this is work for for being performed by national grid in the um I'm getting it back feed this in the um for for our electric vehicle charging stations uh normally work that's done
within the rightway the select board can grant but because these work are going to be on town owned properties we have to have town meeting approve the easement for the utilities to put in uh the work uh for the electrical service as shown at at this building the senior
center in Vinyl Square at um Robertsfield um and yeah I think that's all of them in the library and sorry in the library um so that's what's requested under this article is the granting of of allow the
select board to grant easements to perform the electric vehicle charging stations at those locations um for the town again finance committee recommends unanimously in favor of this article any questions or comments oh take a
motion then i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 33 easements on town properties for electrical electric vehicle charging stations as presented i'll second thank you we have a motion
and a second pat how would you yes yes pat Maloney i jeff yes aaron yes and I have an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed and then the final article is Woodbine Street acceptance at the extension of Woodbine Street which you can see on the
map here this on the far right is is Market Basket Plaza um and there's Woodbine Street uh it's when DPW is out there doing the work on the drainage in the roadway much like we found we did Parker we there's an area that was never formally accepted by the town um so this
would bring that into acceptance and the benefit of of it being accepted also adds adds mileage inventory to our chapter 90 formula which you know is the amount of money that's distributed to the town for um resurfacing of roadways finance committee recommends 7 to zero
questions or comments i'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board recommend approval of article 34 street acceptance of Woodbine Street Extension as presented i'll second okay we're going to roll
call vote pat Roas yes pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed and that's it right that's it yes that's it okay
so I guess we move on next we have is that right that's it for reports and presentations yep so next we have um a request to install a memorial bench at Vney Playground um
yeah u as you know you had this request from a resident and Christine Clancy is sort of with with her staff has facilitated um the ability to install memorial bench uh at Varnney playground and they've determined that it is uh viable to to do it at that location but
and per the board's policy we have a formal request and then it has to be accepted by the board under its memorial policy um and so um yeah we we we are seeking the board's approval so that we can work with the family to uh memorize their lost loved
one so just so you know this Pat brought this to me maybe over a month ago and I met with them and I uh with the with the mother that submitted the request and I talked to the um um the DPW director and I talked to
um Joe Tierney with the um final square yes the final square committee thank you to make sure that they didn't have any concerns and um neither of nobody involved seemed to have any concerns and the DBW is okay with the placement and they've talked to
um Miss Manning about the cost of the bench and everything so and they are good to go um as soon as they have our approval so are there any other spots or opportunities for other people to do the same thing i think so so with the in the
discussion with the with the DPW director the the benches that I think they have been putting up there the DPW actually suggested that they use a different type of bench because the existing benches that they're using have not been holding up due to vandalism and
um other weather I guess um but they haven't been holding up the way that they had originally hoped so they have new metal benches and I think at some point there is space I think for more benches but also I think at some point they will probably have to swap out some
of those other ones because they're not doing so i'm Christine Clancy could speak better to that if if she'd like to if you want to if you want to come thanks Christine thank you yes so that was asked of us do we have a list so right now we don't have a list um of recommended trees or
benches which is often request we have but we do I guess if someone comes forward with a request we try to accommodate them and so at our a lot of spaces um we have put them up at Robertsfield Vney would be um our first and yes so we have the composite benches that just are not holding up well um and
so we're just we want these to last you know more than 10 years um and the metal benches are recommended so that's pro that will be our standard moving forward and we so if we do have any requests we could look to see if potential opportunities around town thank you
thank you thank you i guess it's on a case by case basis does anyone have any other questions or comments no um we need a vote we need We do need a We need a motion to approve
this right yes okay so I'll take a motion out of here i'll make a motion that the select board approve the request to install a memorial bench at Barney Playground and the request for recognition as presented i'll second thank you we have a motion
in a second pat Wis yes and Pat Maloney i Yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes with five in favor zero approved zero opposed sorry okay
um next on the agenda we have the approval of the regulatory agreement for 255 Princeton Street yeah Madam Chair members of the board um believe it or not the first units for the former development of the the development of the former UMass West campus are are
basically ready to come online within the next few weeks one of the things that has to be completed as part of this is what's here before you nothing like a deadline to get work done by the applicant uh this is the um the revised regulatory agreement for 255 Princeton
Street uh and what this allows us to do is submit you know the project um to the state uh because we have seven uh affordable uh units under the um I'm sorry six affordable units under the development for that project um so again
we we asked your formal vote approval this evening um to um submit that required to the executive office of housing livable communities and again to allow the developer uh to proceed with uh compliance with the occupancy permit
and there are other components as well they have sent the check payment you may recall under the project to the chos public schools and so forth um so this is again part of the completion of the uh readiness of the project okay so I have a question about this who
who monitors um who who gets those is it is it the town or is that is the town no the housing authority there are they're a monitoring agent it is the housing authority okay unless unless we switch to the NIMCOG model i know Nimco's trying to do that but at this point that's I didn't know if it was some some No this this is what we have to submit
because these are local initiative uh units as part of the development okay thank you this is not the housing authority units at the site this is the ones that are in the Tramlcrow re you know rental market unit u mix so since
I'm relatively new at this how does how are they ar how do they arrive at the decision that six of these Oh that was part of the negotiations with the planning board as part of the permitting for the process years ago yep as part of the is there any sort of formula i'm just doing No it was part of the negotiations between the planning board
and the uh and in the town and ultimately went to town meeting approval for the reszoning of that site uh and that included again they provided cash donations to the CH public schools they also provide funding for traffic mitigation and so forth so we could do another project not that we have space
yeah we're not bound by this we could do somebody we could say "Hey we want 10 or 20." Exactly yeah yeah there's no formula anybody have anything else questions comments i'll take a motion then i'll make a motion that the select board
approves the regulatory agreement for 255 Princeton Street as presented i'll second it okay we have a motion a second pat or yes pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I the motion passes
with five in favor zero approved great thank you and next we have um the select board approval of in municipal agreements with the towns of Tukbury and Westford for shared serial weights and measure services yeah as as I mentioned earlier in the
budget review when we were talking about the fees for the seal of weights and measures for the last several years the seal of weights and measures um which again of the scales and the fuel pump you know gas pumps and the price scanners and so forth was provided by NIMCOG under an under the regional
planning authorities agreement with the member towns they uh have have terminated that benefit and service so what what we've done uh is I've basically proposing to you for approval is an intermunicipal agreement where a
shared seal of weights and measures uh would provide the services for Chelmsford Turksbury and Westford um and how it would be paid for is we based upon the fees that we looked at what Nimco was charging us and then brought it to what it would cost to do it ourselves as well as the number of
inspections that are per community chsford and Tukbury are about the same and Westford is slightly smaller so uh Tukbury would pay the town $20,000 westford would pay us 25 $30,000 westford would pay us $25,000 we contribute our share that would come
from the revenues and then the full-time seal of Weights and Measures would be administered by the town um of Schumpsford um and so this is basically an intermunicipal agreement between the member towns um this document has been reviewed by council for each community
um and has already been approved by the West forward Board of Selectmen and the Tuksbury Board of Selectment so now that their approval here you're the final piece in leg of the stool to approve this intermunicipal agreement for shared sealer of weights and measures going forward
so so this is a flat rate it's not going to be per piece that we're charging exactly yeah it'd be you know flat flat rate um it will go basically to the end of the um you know period and then we you know we'll continue to reassess the costs but at this point you know we
we've um it's you know it's basically a known commodity in terms of the type of work that's done uh and it's regulated and overseen and reported to the state division of standards um so they had so in other words the weighing believe it or not the the weights and everything that you used they had to bring them
down to Ashlin Mass and be certified uh and so forth and then all your They had to seal the weights they had to Exactly and then you and then you um you go and do that and again it's the idea is for consumer protection so that way if you buy a gallon of gas you're going to get a gallon of gas from the gas pump or it's also heating oil and and you know
and if you go and get a scale at you know a deli that the scale is accurate and and again they also hear upon complaints so they do the annual inspections and then respond to complaints so um what department will this person be under it's returning to where it had been previously before
NIMCOG which is the bu inspections department so the position would be overseen by the building commissioner and the seal of weights and measures would basically work you know depending upon the day of the week and and schedule for the three towns um and and
obviously the seals and everything are separate and the and actually the revenue handling is separate so if if the person's performing a inspection in Tukbury the person that they're inspected is going to get invoice and make payment to the town of Tukbury we're not going to be in the collections business um so only ones that we would
collect and and handle are Chsford so is that why this agreement is only only has Tuksbury and identical one identical one for Westford yeah exactly but Tuksbury holds the Yeah exactly yeah and so they provide a letter of appointment as does Turksbury for the individual like we do
and then that that's how it's certified by the state so that's when you see those things that's the person's name is on the uh little seal so this person will be full-time yes and under union or not non-union no there's no there's no union in the inspection one other minor
thing minor typo oops number one chance with the sealer of weights and measures you see that okay i'll I'll correct that okay yeah I see it there okay yeah under paragraph one yeah so Paul um Nimcog's not providing this
anymore because were they were they trying to do too many they couldn't find somebody like they could they claimed they couldn't find anybody i mean Pat's Pat's the rep to Nimcog and she may have her own opinions on this i think they didn't want to do it anymore is my true personal opinion they they were having
difficulty finding the person um and and and but they didn't come to us and say "Hey can we should we bump up your fees?" They basically said "We're not doing this anymore it's you know so I mean I like the idea of it because we don't have to employ a full-time person
for a non-fultime job um so I think this will be an interesting process to to go through so I'd support it i went through some of the clauses in here and decided that they're really not questions I had anymore about termination and all that it's I think this is probably kind of
boilerplate yeah that's what I was anyone else have questions comments okay I'll take a motion i'll make a motion that the select board approve of the intermunicipal agreement with the towns of Tukbury and Westford for sheer
sail sealer of weights and measures services as presented i'll second okay pat or yes pamelone I jeff yes aaron yep and I'm an I the motion passes with five
in favor zero opposed all right so next up we have um the select board liaison assignments so I am trying to remember how we went through these last year i think we normally just go line by line um you
sure we want to do this tonight i don't know that's a good question although we don't have much i don't know well we have a I mean what what about your your manager reports Paul they'll be very brief yeah but I think we have a pretty lengthy executive session executive session will be long um I mean so
honestly I've sent out emails and gone through and asked all of you what you kind of wanted to do um I don't know what next week looks like um yeah we'll have we'll have an executive we'll have an agenda next week and an executive session but it may not be as as long as
this we only have two articles to go over on next so next week will be pretty suggestion um maybe just um if you cuz I know you've talked to all of us about this maybe just um go ahead and and
input um what you've got so far for next week's discussion and um we can move on from this and and um I can do that i can literally just read down and tell you who I'm proposing and if anyone has any we can finalize it next week and if any of you have any comments or concerns you
can either reach out to me during the week or we can just Does that make sense it'll be quick okay um so for the agent friendly implementation committee I was going to appoint Aaron Cunningham the agricultural commission I have Pat Wis
the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee I have Pat Wes the board of assessors I have Aaron the board of appeals I have myself um the board of health I have Aaron capital Planning I have Pat
Maloney um Jeff I have you slated for the CCA advisory committee the cemetery commission and the center village master plan implementation um I have myself here for the Chumsford public schools Chelmsford Teledia i have Pat Wis um the Clean
Energy and Sustainability Committee I assigned myself the Commission on Disabilities um I have Jeff Hardy here jeff I also have you on the Conservation Commission erin I have you on the Council on Aging the Cultural Council I
have Pat Wis the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee I have myself the Finance Committee I have Aaron uh the Historic Commission and historic district commission I have Pat Maloney the Housing Authority and the Insurance Advisory I have Pat
Wis um the reps I'd like to skip for a second and come back to if that's okay um the library trustees I have Pat WJIS the military community covenant task force I have Pat Wess the Nshoba Valley Technical High School I have Pat Wess uh
the parade committee I have Jeff Hardy permanent building committee I have Pat Maloney the personnel board Pat Wess the planning board Aaron Cunningham the recycling committee Pat Wess the Roberts field committee has
been disbanded from what I understand so that's not uh the tree committee I have myself the vinyl square strategic action plan committee I have Aaron Cunningham um and then my suggestion for the water districts is to have Pat Maloney on
north um Pat I would leave Pat just I would leave you on center and I would take east um the community preservation under the voting member assignments community preservation committee I have Pat Maloney the fire station study
committee is disbanded now yep um the housing advisory board I have myself um the LRTA I have Pat Wess and the master plan implementation committee I have Jeff Hardy and Numcog I have Pat WJS as our
long-standing Numcog member um strategic plan steering committee I have Aaron and the school building committee i have Pat Maloney staying on there um and as far as our reps um the
only ones that I I'm I'm a little bit open to the reps so um you know I I know that um I'm a little bit open to the reps i don't know if we want to move them around or but I mean maybe we can have that discussion next week and that can
be part of the discussion for next week or if you have any other issues with what I've already kind of laid out um or if anybody has ideas about what they want i do have Jeff Hardy's name next to Representative Elliott here
um as a potential um I did want to suggest maybe Pat for Senator Barrett if you want to make a if we want to move things around a little bit um Pat Maloney didn't said he didn't
mind staying with RCRO um but I'm pretty comfortable being forever i don't really mind erin do you have any preference no so Jeeoff I'll leave you with rep with Representative Elliott um Pat do you have any
preference doesn't matter no okay um Okay so Okay so I'll leave Pat Maloney with Rep rco pat I'll put you with Senator Barrett if that's okay um and I think I
in looking at Simon Cotaldo I think we are all almost in Catalo's district so that was a that was kind of a funny one because I said but historically I feel like it's been me but we're all in there so um so if it's okay I'm going to move over to Lori Tran and I guess Aaron I'll
put you with Katalo is that okay okay so we can just leave those as suggestions and if you guys have any comments or any suggestions or any complaints I guess you can reach out to me over the course of next week and if not we'll just approve this next week well I would just ask then I mean everything looks fine to
me um the NEMCOG has to be a vote of this board so I mean if we could do that tonight so we don't have to worry about it anymore is it just the NUMCOG yes the NumCog is the only one that we have to vote on okay so we could do that now if you'd like okay um so we'll take a motion I guess
pat can you make a motion to just for the NEMCOG position um I guess I'll make a motion to nominate nominate is that the right word pat Wes to be the representative to Nimco as presented would it be a Is she Are we assigning
appointing yeah appointing appointing as a select representative representative Nimco yeah appointing Pato just as the representative to Nimco second okay and we're going to do a roll call vote pat Wis yes pat Maloney I jeff
yes aaron yes and I'm also an I so the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed congratulations Pat Was to another term as our Nco representative thank you okay great okay so we'll put that on for
next week also to just finalize if that's okay paul yep looks like it is but Okay sounds good okay um and next we have our meeting schedule yeah again I've drafted a a meeting schedule for for the remainder
of this you know basically board through next April's election um again it's not written in stone because I know people have vacations and things come up but this is sort of also gives the new members an overview of like what what's ahead in the in the months and ahead of
us so uh but so if the board has no objections again we can table it for next meeting but but um like I said where we're going out of tonight is we're meeting next Monday night then we're off for what could be you know three sessions or two weeks of town meeting after the Patriots Day holiday
then coming back here on May 12th so my we can we can change these as the time goes on but we the more immediate ones we have to schedule as we're scheduling licensing and permitting hearings and so forth but this can all be changed as your vacation plans and summer plans and other things arise
it's already in my calendar don't change it are these are these um these were all things that occurred during the select board meeting yeah that's why they're on Monday yeah they're just sort of highlights yeah there'll be a lot other things going on but these are sort of what what I
foresee is is what's going to happen well and I feel like where there's where it's not every other week that's where Paul's kind of strategically moved bumped things up a week or forward a week because of deadlines and town meeting so you have you have June
16th as a municipal open house but it's not right oh sorry yeah I scratched just a regular meeting yeah it's a regular meeting yep yep so my only I think the I had a comment here about May 12th and the 19th and I was wondering why we didn't just combine
them but I think that's probably because well because we're going to come out of going three weeks without a meeting almost a month because think about we're we're going to go from April 14th to to May 12th because we have town meeting on the 28th so you're basically going four four weeks and then we don't have a
meeting on the 5th right because that could be the third session of of Springtown meeting oh that's why that's why we that's why we do that and you know um and then the idea is you then got Memorial Day at the end of the month so you're trying to avoid that so the
idea would be if possible we could spread it out over two meetings as opposed to having a marathon meet only one meeting in a month and then the problem would be because of Memorial Day you wouldn't be meeting for till June 2nd so that's the I had it on my So I had it on my phone for the 5th and the 19th yeah so I have that would be the
12th then the 19th so I have a little bit of a conflict on the 12th just because I wasn't planning that but that um but I understand what you're saying about town meeting i think generally I was f I have one conflict date I just couldn't make and then one I could do remotely other than
that I put them all on my calendar already okay you can't believe we can play into 2026 now I know August I have a conflict but I can come in remotely it's not a problem we don't have to vote on anything on the train it's just No no it just helps us
to put the planning putting it okay um does anybody have anything else on this no okay so next up we have the town manager bid awards yeah real quick we have two bid awards pertaining to DPW one is for tree planting and the rec the
the four bid four bids were received the lowest responsible bidder was Cassidy Landscaping of Woen Mass in the amount of $44,550 and then the second one is for the ADA compliant pedestrian ramps that are again part of the DPW's road and
sidewalk and there there were five bid received and the lowest bid was Tasco Construction of Belmont in the amount of $69,025 again seek your confirmation of these two bid awards okay does anyone have any questions or comments no okay i'll take a motion Pat
if you're ready oh um I'll make a motion that the select board recommend Cassidy Landscaping uh as the low bidder for the 2025 tree planting project as presented can I get a second i'll second it okay
we'll do a roll call vote pat Wis yes pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an at yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed i'll make a motion that the we award Tasco Construction as
the low bidder um for the ADA compliant pedestrian ramps as presented a second a second thank you um Pat Wis yes and Pat Maloney I jeff yes and Aaron
yes and I'm also a yes the motion passes with five in favor zero opposed thank you and next up we have town manager reports yeah real quick um just wanted to let the board know at your next meeting next Monday you'll be receiving a presentation from Barry Dunn the
consultant on the strategic plan and just giving you sort of the outline of that uh and then the idea would be is that town meeting there'd be a very short presentation to inform the town meeting members that the strategic plan is completed uh and um and then the work will you know move from then on to
implementation so that's that item the next item is the national grid financial statement as I mentioned earlier under the underground utility project that we we received the monthly statement and as you can see in their detail there's roughly $4 million available under the
search charge which is why the board suspended it um you know no additional need for monies to come in and then hope that should meet the next phase of the project uh and then finally um since our last meeting on April 1st we received notice from the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts uh Executive Office of Administration and Finance and the Lieutenant Governors that the town of Chamsford has been awarded a community compact cabinet information technology grant in the amount of $100,500 this grant uh was produced out
of the town clerk's office and Harrison Mayot who is the uh sort of the grant writer in the office pulled this together and this is going to help with our archiving and digitization of storage records so again want to thank the clerk's office and thank Harrison uh for their work uh in obtaining this
grant monies for the town that's my report this evening madam chair thank you okay thank you um next up we have appointments so so I have a question about the these um applications for the commercial uh
diversity um were they were they told they could come and talk to us no I don't know how the board wanted to handle it that was how we did it the first time if you want I can invite all four of them to come to next Monday night i I thought that whenever we had more than more than seats in we had them come in so from what I understand one of
them is withdrawn caitlyn no that was five now there's four okay so now there's four yeah so this first one that's in here Caitlyn is withdrawn so if you want I can invite the four of them to come to your meeting next Monday night i I I think so because I I really don't know how many positions are available makes sense two okay two okay
we'll invite i mean I only know one of them so um Okay i think that All right we'll table that till next meeting right and then the only appointment that I have on my realm is to the vinyl square strategic action plan committee this uh
person named Virginia Crockett Timonss is seeking to be anybody know anything about her and then next week you're gonna get an application from Mike Walsh to join the committee as well former planning board member so I'm seeking your confirmation of appointing Virginia to the final square strategic
action plan committee for a term ending June 30th 2028 also for the Council on Aging Craig Craig Bonceto for an experiment ending June 30th 26 and for the CCA town hall advisory committee
Eliza Dugen for a term ending 6:3025 okay and can we approve these together you can do these together Pat i'll make a motion that we approve the town manager's appointments as presented i'll second all right okay pat Wes yes
pat Maloney I jeff yes aaron yes i'm also a yes the motion passes five in favor zero opposed okay and we are up to meeting minutes so we have some meeting minutes
here for March 24th does anyone have any comments corrections just just one thing to kind of make it more formal i and I I should have caught this but I didn't on page four the the second to last paragraph says "Mimids
thank board members." I normally would have changed that to say board member Timonss i think it's uh more as I said more formal okay um how how do these a Oh we just we just approve them as amended correct
yeah exactly yeah okay ready yep i'm ready i'll make a motion that we approve the regular meeting minutes of March 24th 2025 as amended great second i wasn't there so I have to
oh yeah you guys can second yeah I'll second okay thank you Pat um and then I guess if they're saying is it just three of us voting yep okay so Pat how do you do you vote i vote yes okay thank you pat Maloney I okay and I'm also an I so
the uh minutes are approved the motion passes 5 to zero three to z three to zero oh sorry three to zero with two abstensions thank you okay so next we are up to select board
member liaison reports and referrals um you do not have liaison committees yet so uh or if you have any other reports or referrals about anything I guess you're welcome i can tell you uh the other day I spoke to
the um director of the conquered 250th celebration the treasurer and he's they're playing a drone show as as we've discussed going to try to get the information from them so we can bring it to the break me great
okay it's interesting um Erin you don't have anything all right Pat Maloney yeah um just a couple of things um so uh most recently we've um there's been a subcommittee of the school building
committee to select an owners project manager for the feasibility study for the replacement or uh renovation of Parker Middle School and um the subcommittee has um selected somebody so
Wednesday night at 6:00 um there will be a school building committee at uh central admin and uh we will get a full board vote to uh approve um Left Field
LLC as the OPM for the feasibility study for Parker Middle School and uh amongst a few other things and then um again the SBC the school building committee will be meeting on the 24th where we will
actually bring in left field and they will start to um show their wares and um and once we get approval from um MSBA on all of this then they're on board and we start the um architect selection process
which we hope to have done maybe by the end of the summer might be a little wishful thinking but we're we're being very aggressive so um we're really off to the races on this stuff we now have an OPM we think we got the right people um with great marketing experience and
so on so uh really um um really excited to um get out there and start getting the word out and uh getting the work done so that's all I have this evening thank you yeah Pat on that I can bring that appointment uh contract approval to the select board
next Monday night uh as a as a manager bid award and then we can have a little more discussion at that time thank you thank you Pat or just um yeah just a couple of things uh first of all anybody watching tonight probably notices a few differences at this table so congratulations to Aaron Drew our new
chair uh Pat Maloney our new vice chair and Aaron Cunningham our new clerk and we did have an election last week so congratulations to all elected all newly elected and reelected um officials um and I just want to mention um later
this month the author of the of the library's one book the one book for this year as you probably recall is Master Slave Husband Wife by Elon Woo and the author will be in Chford at the library on April 17th at 6 PM if you want to
join in person uh registration is required and when I look today there were only nine seats left so if you're interested if you've read the book and you're interested in meeting the author um April 17th at 6 p.m that's all I have
thank you um so with that we are going to go to I will make a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation regarding the ledge road commercial trucking complaint as well as to discuss
strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the following employee labor unions chs of Police Commanding Officers Association NEPBA local 6 Chelsea Police Superior Officers Association NEPBA Local 20 Chelsea
Police Officers Association FOP Lodge 110 Chelford Public Safety Dispatchers Association AFS CME Council 93 and International Association of Firefighters Local 1839 Library
Employees AFT Local 3569 and um and also for approval of executive session meeting minutes of December 23rd 20 uh 2024 and January 6 2025 not to return
paul do we have to make a declaration about why the just to clarify that the meeting is being held in executive session because an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the town great and I do need a second for Pat's motion
i'll second the motion okay with that we have a motion and a second pat Wis yes pat Maloney i jeff yes aaron yes and I'm an I and with that we are adjourned thank you gary gary we'll see you over
there john okay