good evening and welcome everyone we're going to reopen our meeting from our executive session we've already called the meeting to order at 5:00 pm and uh the next item on the agenda is to um you we didn't set a time hearing
right so we have public comment listed here so we can wait on that at this point I'm going to change the order of the the agenda to allow for public comment after the poll hearings that are scheduled so that we
can do this promptly and I'll ask uh Trevor McDaniel to read the uh hearing notice okay notice town of Deerfield notice of pole petition hearing April 2nd 2025 pursuant to general law chapter 1 uh 166 section 22
and any additions thereto or amendments thereof the Deerfield Select Board will hold a public hearing on April 2nd 2025 at 6 p.m both for the town of office um both at the town offices 8 Conway Street South Dearfield and via Zoom on the
petition of Verizon New England and NSTAR electric DBA Eversource Energy to erect a line of poles fires and fixtures on lower road in Deerfield as presented in the petition and plan uh petition plans the full text of the proposal
petition plan may be viewed at the eight at the uh town offices at 8 Conway Street South Deerfield or on the town's website this hearing will be held in a hybrid fashion with the opportunity for both in-person attendance and remote particip uh participation for purposes of in-person
attendance the town of Deerfield will host the meeting in the main meeting room of the Deerfield Municipal Offices 8 Conway Street South Deerfield and remote uh meeting connections are listed on the agenda and the notice um if you'd like to dial in uh toll-free number is
8335480276 the meeting ID is 911 6041580 and the passcode should you need it is 570012 okay yes yep at this moment I'll um ask Christopher Dunn to take over because
this is a a lot of stuff and we'll invite the first group of people up maybe it's all the same people it was several sure so this is our second major poll hearing uh in the past month um the first one was for Upper
Road Albany Road um and uh part of Lee Road as well and now I believe we're we're handling a poll petition for Lower Road i believe we have representatives from Eversource and Verizon here so if you want to come on up um and you can speak to the project a little bit um I
will just mention for the audience poll petitions are usually quite small and this is a very large one so I'm glad we have a lot of folks who turned out um and we'll have an opportunity for all of you to to come up if you have questions or concerns um or would like to see some slight adjustments to some of these
polls um you know this is an opportunity to talk directly with Eversource and Verizon regarding those concerns so at this point um if you don't mind just identifying yourselves uh speaking right up close to that mic eat the microphone um that would be great we'll we'll hear from you as well so my name is Edward
Usi really really eat the mic so my name is Edward Yusadi i'm a representative from Laros Engineering thank you my name is Asade i'm a contract engineer from Laros Engineering my name is Gilberto Silva i'm with Eversource Energy
don Bonner with Verizon welcome tell us tell us a bit about about the project what you're what you're proposing the project u involves reconductoring and conversion in on lower road so we'll convert all infrastructure to current
standards and uh voltage system to 138,000 volts which is the standard for this area uh se a decent amount of midspans will be required for installation uh in order to bridge the gap for longer spans that we used to
have for smaller lighter wire um because we will be replacing with heavier wire more resilient to tree damage uh poles will be replaced u to class one poles and two poles um just for for the extra
hardening should u should we have you know uh tree damage and um right so that's the overall scope of the project there's a couple of areas where Eversource now is in a semi rightaway that will be relocating the pole lines roadside that does assist with
restoration efforts um especially during uh inclement weather in the winter where it it would avoid us having to require a track machine and and everything that comes with so so just to improve reliability in this area yeah it's just from my layman's understanding it's that
the wires are getting heavier and uh the items on them are heavy so you need a couple more poles in or maybe nine nine more poles in between um to carry that weight and the span correct are you replacing poles yes
you're shifting a few putting some new ones in correct correct y um for the people in attending virtually and for the people in the audience do we want to step through this package um or do we want to have them I think I think
likely the best way to handle it i'll have the map pulled up here on the screen and actually Greg I don't know if you want to turn the screen a little for folks but um if you don't mind thank you um and then we'll just have uh you know if folks have questions or concerns and want to come up we'll just ask that you come up to the front table here um
identify yourself in the microphone and then let us know what your thoughts are on that map i'll pull up your property and uh we can take a look and obviously we've got folks from Verizon and Eversource here who can address your concerns um so at this time if if there's anyone who wants to come forward
and has a question or concern in regards to the poll petition um we invite you up to the the front table it looks just looking at the packet it looks like you're starting kind of at the north end of Lower Road up in Greenfield and kind of coming coming south a bit towards um
Jones Crossing and Alb Road West maybe too um yes yeah okay great so is there anyone in the audience said "Is there anyone in the audience who wants to come up and ask a question
about polls near your property?" Yes my name is Joseph Haynes i live at 341 Lower Road and currently there are several poles that run right through my land
and uh I was when I questioned somebody about it with that was cutting the trees i he said "Well possibly they may not run through your land anymore." And I was wondering if that's a possibility the job as designed now electric infrastructure will be moving to
roadside but uh communications will still remain in the pole line that's in the tree line now um so it's a direct a question really for for for cons and Verizon more so than ever source i I can't speak to
341 i that is not one of the polls uh do we know what poll number that is by any chance at 341 cars from P 8 87 over 58 i see 341 here yeah highway right across my
all the way down to 87 over 61 if it's 87 over 61 that's not I I skipped that area so I don't I don't I can't actually speak to that poll that part of the poll line uh that's not one of the polls I'm here for today i'm here
for 13 different polls and not the ones and not the ones in your area so I apologize i'm not able to answer that question gotcha so so Mr haynes so my suggestion given that this poll petition won't deal directly with the polls you're concerned about um if you want to
leave some contact information with Greg Zetek our assistant town administrator we're happy to reach out to Verizon and our community lays on there and make sure that there's an opportunity to discuss those polls with them at some point what What's your address again 341
yep and that's on this list though right am I not am I not seeing that so he's but he's talking about the communications polls so I see and these are not the communication polls that we're looking at right um I think the disconnect is so we have polls that will be in front of that property but there
will be Eversource solely owned polls because Verizon refused u to relocate as well okay and that's what's going on i believe the customer is interested in having Verizon also relocate move over gotcha so all we're looking at is the Eversource polls here not the other
polls i understand so there's not two sets of poles there's only one set of poles it's got to run down it the way you're explaining it is there's right now there's two sets of poles but there isn't so obviously everything
that's running through the current or whatever communication goes through those polls if I have this right there will be two sets of polls there is one set right now that goes through your property which carries both electrical
and phone your Eversource is looking to put them alongside the road so there'll be a new set of poles going along there that will carry just electricity what he would like to see is the other ones pulled and Verizon pushed over to the new poles as well correct correct
where will you hook up again uh will you hook up so so if you look if you could refer to this map here the green right now is the current line that goes to the rightway and the red new red is new electric infrastructure
so this only shows electric infrastructure so the green is where we'll be removing electric infrastructure from here we're located here not shown is communications infrastructure will still remain there and then they'll rejoin approximately near pole uh electric pole number 87
over 61 which is right on the corner of our property where the transformers correct yes so what about the maintenance of it now a few years ago they all came in and cleared my
land underneath the poles but it's up again so can I expect another gang of tree cutters to come um I'll have to refer to communications um the I know electric has more strict uh requirements
for for vegetation management um I refer to Mhm anything I tell you right now will be just from my own knowledge but not your land specifically it looks like Verizon has
an easement going right through that property and from time to time they probably come in and manage and they'll probably do that again at some point uh unless in the future join the Verizon polls eventually
i I don't know if that's going to happen i can't speak to that specifically but that's all I can tell you from what I can see there and from my own experience seems that way that's right removing some wires yeah and and
potentially giving a pathway to go around right if they want to buy in someday and move over because if they will eventually need to do something like that unless Well well I'm not going to say that i'm not going to commit to that
because I can't speak for that well is there any chance that you can talk to your powers to be to maybe get an answer for him yes I've taken his address number down in the poll just go just go through the assistant town administrator and see if you can get that squared away
i will definitely mention it to the powers that be thank you i sure appreciate that yeah thanks for your questions y So is there um any other person in the audience that has a question um for
online oh great okay Ed Wong how are you how you doing hi my name is Ed Wong i have a lot on lower road and
Ed can you speak yeah do you mind just Yeah speaking the mic close and then apologies do you you happen to have your lot number yeah I'm looking I'm looking for it right now it's um the booking page lot
you know what i think I found it it looks like it's parcel 18-1 yep got it 18-1 yeah yes um 15 looks like they're insisting they're
moving mhm just a few feet 15 feet or something so this lot is 2 and a half acres and it has roughly 600 um feet of road frontage
and you got power lines and communication lines that go right through the middle of the lot and when I purchased this it said a rightaway but there was no um deed that was found right
away so so is there an easement on that lot i know it's been there for a while but there's no access to the property going through that right now yes
i don't know i can't tell you that's correct i'm here to talk about Yes yeah um couple years ago they came and did some tree work there they just had to walk up through the field to get
to the holes so there's no really way you can get equipment bucket trucks or dicks or diggers or holes in there without doing it by hand
so give you an exact answer without research i can speak to that okay bottom right corner and then a new one would be Yeah 15 foot south right on the corner
okay and that field exist why would they move it oh that that groove right there there's no holes along that street section right there and they're just moving out to that yellow line or the orange line I
guess yeah okay I see what you mean this the road there got it yeah all the all the communications over which I'm sure they will eventually but Okay so you said there's existing pole there and there's lines going to the
pole now that you're going to be moving that pole 15 ft south on lower road okay and where are the wires coming from that pole they're running up and down the street i assume they're going north
you guys have there's no wires holes along the street belt if I may clarify this is the same uh zone it's like from uh the other discussion where we have currently in the right away but Eversource will
relocate electric lines roadside so a separate pole line will be installed roadside and ever source infrastructure will be relocated there but as of right now communications will still remain through the property which similar to the other
person's question eventually can we get that moved over to the main road and free up that so he he is south of this building that's right that's right and um okay so you're not so you're moving
the power lines along lower road perfect and you're going to get an answer about moving the communication if that's possible i'm going to bring it to just like and sounds like you're in the same situation yeah yeah it's just killing
the value of the property right down to them yeah I didn't they all all they told me was uh Al told me that they were going to just move one pole off my property but he didn't tell me about
adding probably two 150 lane so it's probably six more poles along that property line okay yeah so what about the tree is that on the same side of the lot or across the
street so in the lower section so there's a lot of big trees hanging off that property that probably needs to be addressed before you get the new lines in it right no most likely will that's part of the process the job
gets project okay yeah sounds sounds good to me we just need a big song you're mute you press that little push on the sound off we're good all right
all right thanks thank you all right okay okay i guess we're Thanks for your comment perfect thanks thank you Mr wong got another gentleman coming up as well great how are you Steve Milmick uh um I talked
to the two gentlemen i just want this recorded because sure we kind of settled our agreement before meeting uh the pole is near my inter entrance or an exit to the uh
field and I thought it was a little close and they agreed to move it 10 feet to the north and I have no problem after that is that zero zero lower road uh the is the one on the only one on the right side of the road right yes yeah okay and
you're going to just were kind of close with the trailer trucks and everything i don't want to Yeah hit them so right the he they agreed 10 feet to the north would be fine great okay thank you excellent thank you Steve steve I'm sure you're going to be out there when
they're putting those poles in right tape measure anyone else in the audience that has a concern they want to bring to the attention of these gentlemen i don't see any hands online all right Christopher what's the
next order of business on take any question yeah I think at this point then if there are no further comments or questions from uh folks in the audience then you are free to close the hearing i'll make a motion to close the uh poll petition hearing second any further
discussion hearing none all those in favor mcdaniel I blake Gilmore I so then um motion would be to approve unless you want to get answers beforehand but I think I think electrical is going to do what they're going to do and you'll you'll get back to the residents and
hopefully maybe contact our administration if you find any news like hey we're looking to move it over it'd be great to get get the communications on that same new run too but I know you don't have the say to do that here but uh if you could pass that along that'd
be great love to free up that that right away it'd be great so as far as um making a motion we would need to mention we're not we're not party to any potential changes nope so
Right okay so I'll take a motion then mo motion to approve the uh pole petition and um are we all signing or is it just you to sign the clerk and then the three of us okay make a motion the uh pole petition second any further
discussion hearing none all those in favor mcdaniel i Gilmore I tim Helychi I thank you guys thank you signatures done thank you gentlemen have a good night thank you
are there multiple copies of this or is there just I think I think we'll get to the signatures maybe at the end just to keep things moving here okay yeah that's fine okay yeah I'll be right back all right so um should
I let people have two minutes of public comment if they wish yeah sure so at this point if there's anybody in the audience or online who has a two-minute public comment they wish to make I'll entertain that now if not we'll continue with the rest of the uh
agenda i can't see i can't see julie does okay yeah the speaker there hi Julie i guess your hand's up my hand is up um my only comment is that you guys are really really hard to hear okay very hard like even when we speak in It's better better
but not great how about now oh that was worse yeah so way to to uh increase our volume no I know i I I understand that yeah being facicious guess that doesn't come across
any uh is that any better Julie a little bit yes thank you okay yeah i think we had some uh technical difficulties at the beginning where we had screeching sounds and our sound engineer assistant town administrator is now working on that problem
try to talk right into the mic oh sorry okay um since there are no people other than Julie who had a very valid constructive constructive comment to make um we will now move on to the next section of the agenda which is hearings
and appearances um is that Alex Galloway yeah Alex is Alex is online tonight she wanted to be here in person but was able to so So welcome Alex hi yes i'm so sorry i have
a 10-month old daughter who's subject to all the daycare viruses um yeah I just wanted to say hi um thank you guys again for the opportunity to be with Deerfield it's been a pretty eventful I'd say week and
a half now that I've been here um definitely I'm learning that I have bigger shoes to fill maybe than I initially knew about as Christopher and Greg keep showing me all the projects that we have um but I'm just grateful to the staff across the whole town i mean
everyone's been so kind and welcoming and just um you know really uh getting me up to speed on all the things that we have going and I'm just really looking forward to stay getting on board yeah Alex has been a great addition to the team uh she's she sat in on a couple
1888 meetings uh talked about the Elm Street complete streets project uh the Deerfield Weightley Industrial Park project she's gonna be taking the lead on that as well great and I know she's also been helping out uh Chief Purik on the CDS application for the turf field
piece as well that we'll talk about a little bit later in the evening so yeah so it's been it's been great having her we're Greg and I know are already feeling the a little bit of a load being lifted and really seeing some some awesome stuff coming from Alex so yeah great to have her here alex and Alex you
you put up with me and in the same office so you know after a week we're all surprised you're still here so thank you also you may not know this but apparently u you're part of a national trend of municipalities hiring people who were formerly employed by the
federal government so um we're very happy that you're here and we know that you have a lot of knowledge that could potentially help us as we move forward so welcome aboard i just Thank you i had I had a chance to stop in and say hi to Alex the other day i really enjoyed our conversation i'm very excited you're
here i can't wait to work with you uh in the future so yeah Alex you've already seen a lot of me in that office so and you're not sick of me yet at this point so I'm I'm I'm grateful for that yeah no I'm here for the long term thank
you all so much it's it's really a fun team and like I said it's it's been so fun so far and I know we've got a lot of good work to get done here yeah sounds good thanks a lot well thanks for stopping in yep of course enjoy that baby good night thanks Alex
all right at this point I would uh I would maybe suggest we move to the senior housing proposal just because I know we've got Le here and maybe get her home a little bit earlier sounds good so Lely Dwight why don't you come on down you're the next contestant um Bryce
is right into the mic right take a break i'm going to swallow this thing so so tell us uh exactly why Lely is before us sure so um as some of you may recall we have an RFP currently out for
senior housing at 8385 North Main Street which is the former St james Church rectory and and associated buildings um part of the process here was to look at forming a committee that would essentially review any proposals that
came in from developers um and provide some kind of community perspective um at the end of the day obviously it's the select board that has the authority to convey the property to a developer um but the idea here was to have neighbors but also knowledgeable folks architects people with experience with senior
housing um weigh in on you know the quality of the proposals that are put before us as well as their conformance to the the stipulations in the RFP um so I think Lely had had come forward uh maybe a month ago maybe two months ago
with all the whirlwind now um with a with a list of folks um and we I think the select board had some some additional thoughts on that so at this point you know um the only additional information I want to add is just that you know the RFP is out there um we have
so far only received questions from one developer um and so it's very possible that's what we'll end up with it's one proposal from one developer which is not unheard of in Western Mass better than zero correct better than some town has had yeah yeah yeah so um so that that
does open up the question you know exactly what the charge of this committee would be if there's only one proposal to review so I think um I'll I'll leave it at that and happy if Lely if you have further i guess I would like to just say I don't think the charge changes because the purpose of the
review committee is to ensure that the developer has met the specifications of the RFP right now if there were if we are lucky enough to have more than one it doesn't close until the 17th okay but to Christopher's point nobody else has
asked questions so it does seem like we'll have one but regardless the charge of the committee is to ensure that it the their proposal meets the the RFP standards and if you have more than one you would love to see extras but we'll
you know but we'll see um so that that's our job to make sure that we get the best mhm and that if we find questions which is great about having a builder um I'm not sure if you know but I was the
chief information officer for Masonic Health System for a number of years and responsible for physically uh being a part of a team that constructed that very large retirement community on Route Two at the corner when you make the right turn to head
into Boston so I was a part of the team that built that so um I actually have experience with that um and I don't know why I brought that up except that you probably didn't know that about me and I figured that's worth knowing that's really good to know um yeah yeah
so you know there's the technical people and there's the neighborhood people and um the Jason Clark has made it clear that even though he can't be voting he will be there so that'll be you know so we we'll get everybody's voices at least
but we do have two neighbors that spoke with the um the attorney general's ethics to make sure they were far enough away and um and that they could be voting members okay and also um I did
want to say that Kathy Sylvester is on the senior housing committee and is also the chair of the CPC which um for large projects the new modus operandi as in
the 1888 building is to include a member of the CPC so you kind of get a twofur with uh Kathy as well so I just wanted to because I know we asked for our whole committee and I know you all don't want that i understand no I think um I think
that um at our last meeting I know that Holly Lancowsky mentioned that she thought that a smaller committee would be more appropriate and that um people including um you know some builders that were not originally
considered or they might be retired i don't know their current status um would be in attendance with these public meetings as well sure um and we also wanted to have a select board member on and and seems appropriate that um you
know our feeling is that Blake Gilmore would be a good representative uh you know so uh well he made the mistake of saying he wanted to do it so that No I've done that quite a few times but you're learning yep uh so and then um
Vern Harrington is a he's a builder he's the builder inspector for Hadley he's former owner and principal of the Associates um he used to be a building inspector in Deerfield well he was he was Yeah he was a sort of an on call um
I don't know what they called them but uh not a full-time building inspector um but and he may have served that function for other communities as well um he did also um help out on the uh 1888 building and so you know he's
got experience he works well in committees um and as you point out ultimately this is going to come back to the select board whoever those members might be in in a month or two and uh so um that cover all the people I was did
you mention the two neighbors names I think Christensen I and um Fitzpatrick I believe her first name is Gail gail Fitzpatrick and they live far enough away from them to be not considered a direct to Butter correct so we would have uh just for clarity we'd have we'd
have uh Blake Tia Christensen Gail Fitzpatrick Kathy Sylvester Vern Harrington and you as well right so six members i think is that Do we want an odd number i don't know does that matter i don't think so because this is a collaborative
process correct and it's gonna we're we really want to hear and there will be other voices of people who are there so right and actually we're going to be a board that's going to make recommendations to the board of selectman anyway so it's just got to be a general consensus anyway yeah just doing all the leg work to lay out does
it qualify does it fit all that get all those things laid out concerns because there will be they're not going to be able you know there may there's going to be concern for sure well there also might be you know um even if it's only one developer i know that um a architect
also visited and is still involved in the process and a landscape designer is also in the process there might be different footprints that they explore and you know the committee might want to weigh in on well this one probably works
better for for resiliency or whatever factors that are at play right it's a neighborhood that kind of thing yeah i I'd make a motion to approve um Vern Harrington Kathy Sylvester Blake
Gilmore Tia Christensen and Gail Fitzpatrick and Ley Dwight as the committee uh to make up this evaluation um if there's no further discussion all those in favor McDaniel I Blake Gilmore
I Tim Hilchi I and so thank you for coming so um I guess what I can do is take the lead in contacting everybody and trying to um I think we'll let the town administrator Okay figure out when we Yeah let's let's chat about it oh
wait a minute one question um it would be good to have a representative of the town administration on exopicio um like Yeah we can leave that that doesn't have to be we can leave that up to the town administrator to see what Okay whether they appoint us or not we'll be there
you're going to be there all right alex alex is gone oh no she's still here say you know we'll sign one of them up thank you very much thank you Lulu appreciate all your work all right so we're back to the select board
reports and announcements anybody got anything let's Well just recck department doing anything oh I just want to mention you know just to get get it out there and the public and get people excited about going on May I want to say it's May 5th
or 3rd bear with me one sec the Western the third uh the Western Mass Summit is happening um at Delaney House and that is um we have a rural contingency going on this year we have a lot of uh speakers and workshops going on so it's
a it's a morning kind of morning to noon maybe one at the latest because if people want to hang around have have conversations and a box lunch after but um I plan on going with you know opening up to planners if Alex wanted to come or you know anybody else wanted to go i think that both Tim and I are signed up
for it great yes that's awesome so rural affairs director Anne Gobi will be there and uh a guest speaker from um Texas texas texas who knew that there were small communities in Texas but yes very interest intriguing uh lineup and there
will be um legislators as well um I think the final final roster is being locked down because uh there were a couple of people who committed then an unconmitted So that's that's going to be exciting that's coming up and um obviously we're
all working hard on the budget and getting getting things ready for town meeting so please you know and and again just to say it out there again that we'll have child care available for this annual town meeting so families please come um love to have as many people come to our town meeting as we can and I know
that we've we've initiated in many ways to notify people about this change um I think I recently received something from um Cassie Sanderell's uh office notifying that the gym would be the place where the meeting takes place and
the child care would be offered but um if we do a advanced calls as we often do about these meetings it would be um something to add to the list that we will have child care available for children that are four and older is that correct i believe that's what we landed
on yes and that the the caregivers are um vetted through the school system so we're we're not meeting in the auditorium this year we're going to do it in the gym in the gymnasium I believe is Yeah okay yeah cassie was concerned about we were kind of pushing our limit
we were of the auditorium and if we encourage more people to come we more space for them to sit we've done it before in there and it worked out well and I think we did it one year in CO Yeah times yep um Okay good are we using the bleachers yeah we do yep pull out
all the bleachers yep like the old days we did uh we did order an extra 250 chairs so people can sit on the floor yeah some people the overflow will be bleachers yeah yeah or if somebody wants
and the the only other thing I wanted to mention is I think since we last discussed this I just want to um keep reminding people of how happy we are about this um I believe that we've now solidified all of the lease documents
etc for Nex Amp's project at the uh town landfill to put in a three megawatt solar array system um which in the coming 20 years once it comes online will bring in an a new uh 6.1 or2 million to the town so this is
going to be a great great opportunity for us to look to fill up our capital stabilization fund and other things like that and of course those decisions will be made in conjunction with the finance committee and the next select board so
um anyway terribly exciting and uh I think that's about it i have anything from you Blake i'm all set okay so uh Ned is um at his he's got his Becket Board of Health uh conflict tonight so he did just ask me to mention
a couple things um so one he's been working on um you know barn inspection info uh we still need to actually appoint him as the the uh inspector of animals uh so we'll have that on the agenda for the 16th um he did put together a little packet of info for
barn owners um just so that they have a little bit of heads up um that he'll be stopping by essentially doing this census of of barn of of farm animals um in the community and try to also maybe get some of those folks who just have backyard chickens in the mix as well
though that's that's always a challenge is that something that we'll put out on the the table as well yeah and I think we'll talk to Ned about it might be you know it might end up being a bill stuffer with tax bills in June or or something along those lines so um beyond that uh obviously we had conversations
about the budget last week um and I have been talking to Ned about the uh opioid settlement funds that the town has um you know we currently have around I think 85,000 I want to say in settlement funds it's uh I believe it's been the Valley Regional Health Collaborative has
been working on some kind of plan around those um so we're checking in with uh Megan Tudran about that process um and then also seeing you know what are some other options for the town uh to actually make use of those funds because they're currently just sitting there and obviously that you want the health agent involved and whatever you decide to do
with that okay um and then other than that just uh he's had just you know some routine inspections and things but nothing that uh needs to be brought up here so that's that's Ned's report for for this week thank you um the next thing up is we have a a
bunch of um minutes to take a whack at so yes I was just reading a couple minutes some of these go back quite a ways
they're um interesting but we're catching up yep those and then I just review these real quick you're the only one that was involved in some of these
oh okay the only ones did okay and they get chance to get in here early and thankfully a lot of them are very lean yep just the facts
um Oh yeah one second well while you're reading I will say that um I am happy us working through this backlog of minutes i know that it's been a concern and
um it's just great to see progress yes yeah that's right crazy i can't remember the meeting well we're not keeping anybody nope no i think I'm almost done just good
no we need the uh Jeopardy music okay I'm good um so we'll make a motion to approve um minutes um January 22nd 2025 executive session
uh March 5th 2025 executive session march 11th 2025 executive session um March 19th 2025 executive session march 10th 2025 joint fin um and select board march 3rd 2025
uh joint fincom and select board um 4 uh 7 2022 is a joint um CPC and uh select board and March 29th 2022 is a joint FINCOM meeting with the select board uh
March 22nd 2022 is a joint finance committee meeting and select board uh March 15 2022 is a joint finance committee and select board and 38 2022 is a joint finance committee and select
board and then uh February 17th 2022 is a joint finance committee and select board and then uh February 16th 2022 is a joint capital improvement planning committee and select board make a motion to approve all those all right motion's
been made and seconded um all those in favor trevor McDaniel I blake Gilmore I tim Helychi I thank you all thanks thank Alex Hersen yes all right and um some discussion items
we've taken ticked off the senior housing proposal committee um and uh now we're going to move into the DPC old Deerfield wastewater treatment facility phased upgrades proposal and do you want to start and then have Trevor
pick up this or I was wondering if we wanted to do we want to just wait and read this we want to have this as you you haven't read first reading that that's fine as well can we do a first reading and then I mean I I did review it but yeah let's give everyone an opportunity to yeah a
bit there's a huge rush so no I mean it follows the sort of general thought that uh in in terms of the cost of the proposal and y and also the you know that this will be born in house through the uh enterprise fund so right um it
won't be but yes I think that's a good idea we'll take it up at the is the 16th the next meeting correct yeah all right let's do that yeah that'd be good 16 so can you talk us through the Birkshire Design Group uh be the Cometic Rock
survey contract yeah happy to so um just as a reminder so back at special special town meeting uh we had an article to place all of Pumptuk Rock which is an enormous property that the town owns uh at the top of the ridge there uh under
article 97 protections so you know only used for open space and wreck um we determined that given the presence of those utilities there that we wanted to make sure those were kind of carved out and protected we didn't want to end up in a situation where we weren't able to replace those or something along those
lines so um the open space committee heard that loud and clear they went out and got grant funding um for um the survey work uh they got a quote from they got a few quotes actually from a variety of surveyors and ended up going with Berkshire Design Group um so uh
they've got a proposal for about $35,000 um that would be covered by the grant and then uh the match would be a CPA um Oh good uh a proposal that's going to be before town meeting okay um
that sounds great so at at this point because of the tight timeline with the grant um we're hoping to get uh Berser Design under contract uh and and move forward so that they can complete their work before June 30th sounds good and could you um typically these matches are
like 10% but what is the match for CPC uh do you know 397 is the total yeah I want to say it was around $4,000 I I would feel comfortable you know assuming that if CPC doesn't match this
that we could find we could find the 4,000 somewhere for sure for sure we it's important to do and it just my only two cents is like when they do that could can we just explain like it might be good to have a couple of feet around like who knows what size equipment might have to come but just we had some space
around it to work with sure and I think during at some point during the process we're going to want to have you know a conversation with Berserker Design about what exactly are we trying to get out of this obviously they've been informed through the the the request for quotes that Open Space put out but definitely makes sense to have great some select
board members in the room okay I'll make a motion to approve the uh virtue of design group contract to survey um Rock second okay um there's no further discussion all those in favor trevor
McDaniel i Blake Gilmore I tim Hilchie I so we're going to do a mass signing at the end of this yeah I think and and and just maybe friendly amendment i think it's the chair that would sign or your designate is fine with me so yes great
okay and then the final thing under discussion items is the the wonderfully prompt and uh complete Frontier Turf Field CDS application so if you or Alex want to talk about that sure sure uh so so Chief
Purk as as you may know is a soccer enthusiast and uh is heavily involved in in Frontier's athletics program um I know for years a challenge for them has just been obviously like Carolyn would say we're at the bottom of the bowl we often have pretty wet um you know grass
um and so pretty frequently they get their their home games canled um and they have to to play in other home games in other locations outside of Deerfield right um you know one option that has emerged for those kinds of situations is uh artificial turf um that also you know
it doesn't require watering and uh there's some other advantages if you ask the chief at least about it um so you know it's perhaps a long shot but there is um you know we're in the window right now where we can submit an application for congressionally directed spending
i.e an earmark from Congress so um you know Alex Galloway in her first couple weeks here has been working on an application that would be submitted Friday to senators Warren and Marky um and we were hoping to include in that packet a letter of support from the
select board okay a motion to approve I think make a motion to approve the letter of support from the athletic fields at Frontier okay one question on this thing that so this is a matching grant we've got to come up with part of the money on this there's no there's no match requirement for CVS yeah it's just
a request on Okay second and uh for purposes of discussion has there been any has the um I don't think that the House calls it a CDS they they they call it a straight up grant earmark um has there been any discussion to submitting
this to um Congressman McGover's office so we we missed the deadline for that so that was way back in early March or late February yep these deadlines are Yep they drive up you know and you find out you've got six days to apply so um you
know hey let's try but it's Yeah and the the good thing about this application was that uh both I think Eaglebrook and Deerfield Academy have recently done similar projects yes which allowed us to um have with some confidence um the cost
of this kind of project and then factoring in um you know prevailing wage etc so yeah um you know it's you can't get money unless you ask you got to ask so show up participate all
right so no further discussion all those in favor of writing a letter of support for this application Trevor McDaniel I blake Gilmore I Tim Hilchi i excellent and uh thanks again Alex um Oh and I would say also thank you to
Greg who helped out with the the actual crafting of the letter so support letter yeah it was good i read it and you did all the good things um so I don't think we have any uh anything under the board committee applications at this point correct we'll
next week we'll uh or the week after we'll have um uh Ned to a point as inspector of animals as I mentioned but for the moment I don't think we have any applications for border committee positions before us okay okay so we've got a little bit of correspondence do you want to take us through those two
things i mean I don't know if we No action on this FCAP request at this point right right yep uh so FCAT uh did um send us a letter in regards to uh those giant screens behind me over my my right shoulder there um so those are the
what we're calling the D10s um so this is a project that Jonathan had been working on just to basically make sure we can always have um a camera present for for Zoom meetings so similar to the owl that we use in the conference room that follows people around and and and
zooms in on them when they're talking there's a camera in that that thing has Oh five cameras yeah no kidding it's using it for TV well so here here's the the catch so it does it works with a different Zoom platform than what we
currently use okay um so after town meeting we're going to talk to Jonathan about the exact logistics of you know accounts and who would use what um obviously it's you know very exciting could be a great feature but we just got to talk through some of the the mechanics of it so did want to just put
that uh caveat on that letter from Jonathan in there okay um so that's the the correspondence from Cat thank you and is this uh is this just parked there because that's a place where nobody can walk down the stairs or is that like a suggested future location or we don't
know yet probably there eventually yeah it's going to take the place of that one yeah okay just out of the way for the moment y So it'll be subject to the same solar glare etc yes all right and um I think there's a there's a letter
from Darren USDA Davis and you want to talk about that as well this is J basically um we have been exploring um options for working with NRCS and uh on um oh
right yeah so uh so USDA got back to us uh in regards to I forget the exact wording of pipper the piffer but I'll just call it the piffer so essentially this was going to be a preliminary study that USDA would undertake for us uh about whether or not
we would be eligible to apply for construction funds to mitigate inland flooding events um through their their a national program that USDA is involved with uh it sounds like at this time um you know they're not really they're not really funding projects obviously the
the climate at the federal level has changed pretty substantially the last couple months to say the least um so at this time it doesn't sound like they're going to be moving forward with projects but we'll we'll keep an eye on it if things change i did just hear that um you know certain people are going to be
done with uh their job in May and the federal government and we'll see what happens after that but um yeah so that is the the communication from Darren at this point going to be done in May yep so it's uh it's on hold correct and um
then um are you going to handle the EVs in your section yeah good all right so that's that's it for correspondence tonight and um now we'll have the town administrator and assistant
town administrator um discussion reports sure uh no real updates on the warrant because we didn't end up holding a finance committee meeting on on Monday evening but uh we'll have a chance to run that by the committee uh I believe next week uh when we have a rescheduled meeting um joint with the select board
uh we've already talked about the FCAT D10 and the PFER and and I would just u mention one other item uh is the East Deerfield Railard Intermoal project um so this is a I think it's a roughly $6 million project um with that's partially
federally and state funded um that's occurring at the East Deerfield Railard basically to make it easier to transfer uh cargo from trains to trucks and vice versa um so I mentioned it here just for a couple reasons one is I assume we're going to in the next few months as they
undertake construction hear from residents asking about it so I did want to just highlight that for everyone um additionally you know I believe there is going to be a traffic study as part of this so we're going to want to kind of be monitoring it um just to make sure there aren't any undue impacts to
Deerfield residents not sure we can do much about it given that it is a federal project a federal rail project but um it is something to be aware of and then related I just bring up um rail because as our treasurer collector Sarah Kimble mentioned in the past we had had an
actual pilot with the rail um and that sort of fell off during CO as I understand it um currently uh you know the Commonwealth of Massachusetts owns that railard so um and they actually own a lot of the associated rail infrastructure so it's something we're
discussing about whether or not there's someone uh worth approaching about a pilot for all of that infrastructure um and we're still working to determine whether or not um that facility itself is already accounted for in our stateowned land pilot um unfortunately
not the most transparent uh you know list yeah so uh so some more research to be done there but just wanted to kind of So Christopher they're they're not telling you what the infrastructure is that's going to be built there is it
going to be Is it going to be a building or tracks tracks yeah yep and uh if you want we do have uh from combis uh you know the proposed site plans and all that information one that was fine for me i just there was a few tracks going
in and then a new one it is it um I mean obviously these proposals as the uh the um all state materials when they were doing their work they go before certain boards but we don't really have a lot of authority over railroads is
yeah it's pretty much all up to them all federal yeah um yeah okay so just wanted to provide that update real quick and then uh lastly because it just uh just came in today but uh the FHWA has finally um you know shown some
good graces towards us and they actually uh provided the full reimbursement for the Liry lot today so that was a little more than 1.5 there are uh and so fortunately that uh that portion of the project is uh funded and complete so
just wanted to give that update thank you and then uh Greg I think you've got maybe some EV stuff to report and just bring us through the the the actual and not the recommendations well I mean Tim you know I'm just I'm throwing out some uh some ideas
certainly can look at them but the um uh you know Tim asked me this morning to come up with some numbers uh we don't have you although we did receive uh March uh ever source bills we didn't actually receive the ones for the the charging decision so they're yet to come
still um but there's enough data in here that I felt comfortable you know putting forward the expenses and revenues uh over a couple months and looking at the revenues coming in in this past month u
they're in line with the uh January 17 to4 14 uh February 14th numbers so they're probably around for the um ED sorry level 3es they're going to be somewhere around 1350 to 1450 uh in
revenue so I don't expect it to be u a lot of you know much difference there but what I'm seeing is that in December 17th through 17 uh January 16th you you know you're starting to see the ramping up of the usage of the level three so
yeah they're becoming more popular the uh the level twos um are sort of remain steady as far as the expenses the uh revenues kind of fluctuate sometimes they can be as low as 70 sometimes they're up around 110 um
but looking at the uh the cost of the level twos because of the delivery charges are wind up being um higher as a percentage um you know it's almost like a sort of like a base rate coming in but it's
just it's costing us for the level twos so so on one side the level threes are bringing in in extra revenue and then we're losing on the on the level twos so the um the second chart down below what is that yeah so that I separated that out
because that is the uh the original level two that was in the LI lot the one single one that we had and that is a different uh it's being paid for differently so it's it's not it it has the net metering credit assigned to it
through the schedule Z we can we can remove that so you know I put that as that is uh how it's being paid for is through the net metering but the expense if you look at the um the 174.93 there
uh you know to be sort of complete the complete picture of all of them you'd want to add that to the uh the expenses above at 1348 so we're about breaking even when you look at the 1514 you you know uh because of the revenues and then
you know it's a little bit over 1,500 uh for um for the expenses level twos that are costing us the level twos are definitely so you know I I I say you could you could certainly up the price to just try it out to see not not really touch the level 3es i wouldn't want to
make you know a lot of changes with this to sort of see if if that helps correct a little bit and uh well you know it may not i don't know currently I just want to explore further so sure on the level twos we have credits assigned to them to
to essentially take take account of the expenses related to operating them yeah so the schedule Z is coming through our solar uh agreement that we have uh so we're getting we're part of road getting the net metering uh credits from the um
was it the Lake Street yeah Lake Street development yeah so the Lake Street development and so a portion of that uh there's I think what six or seven towns involved in that and we get an aortionment of that and we can apply the credits to we have some credits going to
town hall some going to DPW right and we have some of it going to the Liry lot and that was to uh you know cover some of the u electrical charges for yeah electric bills here um are these the l just got built so are these new credits
that we've put toward them no they're they've just been existing so that other fund that we had yeah yes it's just part of the an existing credit so you can see it went it went down you know from the 266E to 2485 with the you know the 174
so um after we get a couple more months under our belt with the level 3es I I fully expect to trend up if we reach a point where Valer lot is paying for all of these EV chargers we have the opportunity to consider changing where
the schedule Z is going yeah we could do that and you could change the pricing at any time oh yeah and I I think that I've been going into the Liry lot on a regular basis because I have an EV i don't necessarily recharge my car there i I've done it a couple of times but my
purpose is to find other people who are using the high-speed chargers talk to them find out what they're doing while they're waiting um the most recent uh conversation I had with somebody who drives up from Connecticut to go to Peterborough to visit his dad and he
stops here because these high-speed chargers are great resource and not they haven't been fully discovered yet right so he goes I think the last time he was here is at Chzik's market buying a coffee um and he's really thrilled that
it's so close to the highway um so I suspect that we'll reach a break even and probably a little profit on all of these EV chargers i I would have been happier if we had eight level threes in the Lot because they really are the only
ones that get used um as for like an industrial charge um the others are kind of courtesies to you know people who have like a two hours to kill and they're having dinner at Johnny Figs but um anyway it's great news well Tim do you do you know if I mean do some of the
the level two chargers do they I mean are there EV cars that only can use the level two chargers um I don't I don't know the answer to that it could be that um you know plug-in hybrids they might not have high-speed capability so they
would they only generally get four 40 or 50 miles of range so yeah I just wonder if like maybe the older ones were you know not not up to the level threes i don't I don't know you know I'm just asking i have a question uh Yankee Candle has them they have the level twos
they do so my question is why didn't we get in uh cahoots with them because I've seen several cars on their level twos that if they need a level two they can go to the center of South Deerfield and we have level twos there so maybe doing a little bit of advertising to direct
them into the center of town and then they don't have to go just to the pizza place at or you know the the kind of the concession stand stuff at they can go in and have a dinner in there as well yeah I could I could reach out to them and just uh give them a heads up in case their management doesn't know free over
there or they people would pay it no I believe they're pay and um I think the only local uh place where you get free electrical charge is um Treehouse and um but their chargers I don't even
know if you qualify as a level two they do right like 22 miles an hour oh okay of charge so they're almost like a 110 circuit okay uh but it's nice if you're you know sitting and having a pizza for two hours you know you can get 44 miles
of right drive home for free so yeah i mean I honestly I think we could just leave the prices where they are and just see how it plays out because the level threes may just continue to go up especially with the summer coming exactly and I mean the only thing that was a red flag was just seeing how how you know how much of a loss it was on
that side but you know the again the level threes might just continue to keep going up so Yep yep okay okay excellent thanks for that um anything else anyone has if not we can sign this stuff right yeah we need to stay in the meeting
while we're signing or No I think we Okay so if there's nothing else uh I'd take a motion second all those in favor mcdaniel i like Gilmore i Tim Hil thank you all have a good night have a good week all right so