e uh selectman's meeting if you are ready please uh welcome in this is the town of D regular selectman's uh Board of selectman's regular meeting Wednesday February 26 2025 at 6:00 p.m. this is an inperson in Via Zoom at
Oldtown Hall 1111 Somerset abite in Mass this meeting is being recorded the listing of matters are those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought for discussion to the extent
permitted by law we're going to have a call to order Pledge of Allegiance and just a moment of silence so after we do the Pledge of Allegiance can you just stay standing we lost our resident this week that we want to give them a moment of silence please so can I please have a call to order Nicole M present Mark Pico
present and Peter Karen present um now can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery
and justice for all we lost a resident this week his name is David Banks and we just like to pay tribute to him by giving him about 15 seconds of moment of silence please thank you uh we're going to get right into it uh the first uh things up tonight are
scheduled appointments uh we have a uh um somebody here from the Housing Authority yeah come on up please awesome Hi how are you uh please open to the podium we're going to grill you um I just spoke with you earlier uh these are the other two members of the
board of Selectmen that were not here so I I know what you want um or we know what you want but you want to be on the boorder of uh housing right any particular reason why you want to do it uh well my friend had only asked if I would be interested in that I do uh go
there every Thursday and meet with some of the people and uh great and and uh I'd just like to help okay cool and how long you've been in Titan oh about 20 years almost 20 years thank you um do you have any questions mark is it I is
there one year left on the term or is there four years left four years left right four years left okay that was a Dell right right yeah Nicole do you have any questions I don't have any questions okay is there a recommendation on the floor please um this is nobody no um how do
you say your first name I'm sorry Andre Andre I make a motion to recommend Andre mayard to the Dayton Housing Authority Board of Commissioners I'll second that motion me second any discussion all those in favor I I thank you sir thank you so bad was it thank you I think
thank you this again is a review discuss and act this is a recommendation to appoint B Bara cavia to 250th anniversary committee Pat are you doing this Oh I thought you were but I can oh I can that's okay okay it's uh barara uh you come on up
please I know you were at the last meeting but um oh not not this meeting the uh 250th anniversary meeting right uh how'd it go good yeah that pardon why do you want to be on the committee um because I was in the 200th parade were
you really yeah I was yeah I actually got a big trophy nice as long as you don't say I was on the 100th committee I think we no I had to watch it yeah I know I know years go by fast uh it's a fun committee to be on they've made a lot of Headway and um obviously there's a lot going on that's coming up in the
future so they're going to really need your assistance there's a lot to it they're doing a fantastic job over they do really are and it's fun uh I think they're going into the fundraising stage I am so uh you'll about time huh yeah okay uh is there a
uh motion on the floor please um I'd like to make a motion to recommend Barbara cavia to the 250th anniversary committee I'll second that motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I I thank you congratulations Barbara thank you uh the next item is a
recommendation to appoint somebody on to the cable committee but that's going to be tabled so we need a motion on the floor I think there's no motion no motion re to table no okay no motion uh Weston and
Samson hi on up how are you good how are you doing I'm doing excellent thank you uh my name is Dre Schwarz I'm with Weston and Samson thank you so much for having me here tonight um so Nancy had invited me here she wanted me to provide a little update on some of the work we've been doing um
to help the town comply with their ms4 permit um and I don't know how much discussion you guys have had on the ms4 permit in the past so you have good background knowledge then okay thank you I was just going to give a little kind of a quick little background for anybody that might not be familiar with the permit but so this is
a permit that regulates um the town storm water discharges to Waters of the United States um this permit's been around for a really long time now it was first issued back in 2003 um and with each reissuance of this permit obviously um the requir requirements have become more extensive and stringent and more
costly to kind of comply with um so right now we're in the midst of the 2016 permit so which became effective in 2018 um there're always fiveyear permit Cycles um this permit is technically an expired permit right now but it's administratively continued until EPA releases a new permit um so we're
currently in permit year 7 um which ends on June 30th uh 2025 coming up um and by Design um a lot of the requirements that were built into this permit actually extend beyond the fiveyear period because it does sometimes take a while for a new permit to be issued and so um there was a lot of built-in other
requirements at this point some go out 10 20 years at this point um as far as the regulated area of the permit I just wanted to kind of show I don't if you can see that map there with the outline of dayon but it kind of shows the the urbanized area so not all of Dion's storm water infrastructure is regulated
under this permit it's just within that shaded area which is based on Census Data um so you know the 2000 2010 census we have the 2020 census so that that area could could be modified or expanded based on that that 2020 data um so just wanted to kind of kind of point that out
too um and in terms of discharg is all about discharges that are going to reach a water of the US because it's all about water quality so if you have a discharge that might you know infiltrate before it would reach a water the us then it technically wouldn't be covered under this permit so those are different things that we kind of look at in terms of compliance um in terms of Dayton's ms4
system so one thing that we've kind of been working on and we're hired to do was to kind of facilitate helping with mapping of the town's drainage system so that's a requirement of the permit to get it into you know GIS so you have an electronic map of your drainage system because right now you've really been working off of kind of some hand
sketches um and so it's been we've been trying to kind of piece some of that together and the first piece of that is really the outfall mapping but just to kind of give you a picture so um with the year six annual report you guys had reported that you had 933 catch basins within the regulated area um and we've been out doing some field work so we've
been mapping outfalls basically those discharge points where you you know may reach a water of the US um so to date we've mapped uh n 79 outfalls at this point um we're also doing some dry weather screening as part of that effort which I'll talk about um there is still some obviously additional mapping
required really mapping the outfalls is just kind of the first step as part of this effort um so and and the focus again has been on that urbanized area which is regulated under the permit there are basically six minimum control measures um under the permit so these are kind of the main elements of
the permit um and the belief is that if certain best management practices are implemented under each of these control measures it's going to ultimately improve um receiving water quality so the items that I have kind of underlined here elicit discharge detection and elimination and constru construction and post construction runoff control as some
of the areas that we're kind of really focusing on as part of our current agreement with the town one of the other things outside those six minimum control measures when it comes to compliance is also thinking about impaired Waters um so the state um maintains a list it's called the 303d
list of integrated Waters um basically receiving Waters that aren't meeting water quality standards um and are impaired for certain designated uses um and so there there are more prescriptive requirements under the permit in terms of trying to restore those designated uses um for those particular receiving
Waters so here I'm just mentioning that there's actually a pathogen T tmdl that impacts um for the Chon River Watershed that would impact some of the areas within or some of the receiving Waters within within dayon and then there's other water bodies that don't have What's called the
total maximum daily load so a tmdl is basically like a study a model that was done to try to look at how we can you know bring that receiving water back to meeting water quality standards by reducing um the amount of pollutants of a certain type of pollutant that may be reaching that receiving water um and so
there are certain water bodies indict that are on this list as well that don't currently have a tmdl that the State has yet issued and again there's more extensive requirements related to compliance under the permit um so maybe you know additional public education requirements um with respect to discharges that ultimately go to the
Taunton river which has an impairment for nitrogen um there's a nitrogen Source identification report that needs to be completed kind of looking at sources of nitrogen um in the wed and how those can you know whether it's Source control through public education or um you know actual implementation of
structural control measures for treatment so our our current project um that we're working on which was funded through arpa um kind of three different components to this project so there's an ms4 implementation plan so basically what we're doing is we're going back and looking through the permit and identifying all of the requirements in
the permit that are applicable to dayon um and then evaluating what is the comp what is the status of all of those requirements you know have they been met what still needs to be met um you know the permit in a lot of ways is very prescriptive so there's certain things that needed to be completed in certain years of the permit um and again like I
mentioned because this permit is costly comply with um there's definitely many communities out there that aren't fully in compliance and are still trying to kind of catch up so this is kind of a creates like a blueprint for the town to look at what are the requirements what have we met what are we still working on you know what's a feasible timeline when
we can meet certain requirements and and what what is the cost going to be to the town you know are there certain things that the town can easily take the lead on is there certain things where you need more outside Consulting support or an outside contractor to provide assistance and so really trying to develop that kind of game plan kind of going forward um the other piece is
looking at and and I should say that the the two other pieces of this the storm water regulations and the dry weather outfall screening and mapping are based on things that we know are on epa's radar you know they're reaching out to certain communities and saying oh you don't have that done yet you know and that's a that's on their radar and we want to make sure that you know we're
prioritizing those things um so one is the with the regulations looking at your current regulations and making sure they meet the requirements of the 2016 permit with respect to construction and post construction storm water management so that's one thing we're also working on um and then we were talking before a little bit about the outfall mapping and
the dry weather screening um so again we've mapped about 79 outfalls to date we're doing this during a dry weather period we're trying to identify any non-storm water discharges that are getting into your drainage system so you know during dry weather you wouldn't expect there to be a discharge the outfall unless of course maybe groundwater intrusion is coming into
those pipelines um otherwise it could be an illicit discharge of some type of you know Source getting in um which is kind of what we're testing for and so so far after screening about 79 outfalls we've only identified three outfalls that actually had dry weather flow which is great um we've tested those and didn't
see any evidence of an illicit discharge so any evidence of a non-storm water discharge getting into the system which is great because if we find something that we need to um you know there's more ongoing investigative work that that needs to get done and be prioritized is part of that um so as far as kind of next steps um there's still some outfall
mapping to kind of fully complete outfall mapping within the urbanized area that needs to be completed um and we're trying to again do that at the same time as a dry weather period so we can meet the dry weather screening requirements of the permit um you know essentially the end product would be
which won't be done under this current contract unfortunately but we would map the entire drainage system within that urbanized area which is the requirement of the permit so mapping all of your catch pacin um train man holes your pipelines um any storm water treatment structures getting those all all mapped
into GIS is that is you know the ultimate goal under this perit of what's required so and then um look at the contributing drainage area for each outfall and prioritize catchments for further investigation so that's kind of again kind of a synopsis of the current
work um the next slide kind of shows um just some priority items you know at this point we haven't finished the implementation plan but based on the work that we've done to date we kind of evaluated and identified what we feel like you know a funding permitting what we encourage the
town to prioritize is next steps under permit year eight which starts on July 1 um and I know Nancy and I had kind of talked about this and I think she had provided you with just some background information on you know some of the items um you know and some of these were items again that were were required to be completed in earlier years of the
permit so we're just working to help the town kind of get get caught up and stuff um as part of that effort so but we can certainly further priorities priori these items based on any you know funding that the town has available and stuff and make some recommendations and then the next one
item is just kind of you know kind of looking out um a lot of the items under the current permit need to be completed by year 10 and so we're just thinking well what's it going to take for the town to get to the finish line by year 10 in terms of some of the you know more extensive field work that needs to be done some of the additional there's wet
weather outfall sampling some ins system catchment investigations where we're trying to isolate any flow and goes more quickly if there if there's not a lot of flow during dry weather which so far signs are good um yes when you say dry weather when when is do you have a specific time or you just judging by
yeah so we like to do it I mean generally you know during the summer months or or spring I mean we did some of this work already you know last fall and stuff so just trying to identify a dry period where it hasn't rained in like 24 hours or so or 48 Hours know how far yeah the longer we can get obviously the better because less you know but but
we do get concerned about you know doing work in the spring sometimes especially if groundw is high yeah CU you're more up to see groundwater intrusion into the pipes and then even now with like the snow melt and stuff obviously we wouldn't want to go out there and be capturing snow melon stuff so um so this just kind of gives you a snapshot of some of the other things as we're
projecting out to years nine and 10 of the permit of other priority items and again as we dig into dig into the implementation plan more and finalize that we'll have a better sense of of kind of next steps so the other item I just wanted to mention tonight is we were talking about this permit being expired and
administrated continued so there actually is a new draft permit that came out um in the fall the 2024 ms4 permit which is currently out for public comment um the public comment period was just extended it's going now till May 21st um but it's just an opportunity for
the town to comment on the draft permit you know items that may be concerning it's in ter in terms of you know the cost to comply or um and so we've been working with with communities also to kind of develop um a comment letter if that's something that you know the town would be interested in in doing submitting a formal com comment letter
to EPA um I just outlined some of the kind of the requirements um you know one of them is like a catch Bas and upgrade and replacement program um catch Basin maybe that don't have the required sump depth or are you in disrepair wanting to get a full inventory of the condition of those catch basins and then there's a
requirement to replace so many within a certain time period so just thinking about things that could be you know very costly for the town to to implement um so that that's kind of just another another thing to think about when when would we repair those only when there's
road construction or well they're saying the on need to Beed become the priority right so if you already have some condition assessment information based on your catch piece and cleaning operations you might know that certain need to be replaced um it's part of the one of the requirements to the perament is developing a catch Bas
and cleaning optimization plan and you're taking you're trying to figure out how quickly your catch Bas and sumps are filling up and so you're taking certain measurements to calculate that information so you might through that information have identified that oh wow a lot of your catch BAS don't have that that 4ot sump which aids with water
quality um so those might be placed on a list for replacement but yeah and um how how far is the oper funds going to pay for this so the ARA funds that you currently have designated for this current contract really just cover the
implementation plan the regulatory review um and all the dry weather screening outfall and mapping so I mean again these are draft permit requirements so who knows when they would actually be implement it into a final permit and and require compliance I guess the focus really now is on the 2016 permit and anything outstanding and
making sure you know the town is working to kind of catch up on items the the town is behind on but it is no it is it's definitely a costly initiative and there's not a lot of funding available to assist communities I know other communities have used the arpa funding um I have some clients that have taken out like an used an srf loan through the
Clean Water State revolving fund um to support some of these costs but there yeah there aren't a lot of um I mean there are I should say I mean there's a lot of active storm water coalitions um and there are resources and templates that are provided that can obviously streamline efforts so the state has
these mandates right but I know they don't have the funds behind them exactly yeah yep unfortunately so I know that's been said many times unfunded mandate on this end so um unfortunately okay I didn't mean to interrupt your no no no any questions are welcome um I think I
just have maybe one more one more slide yes so just talking about kind of next steps again so again just that reminder that the that you know if the town wishes to comment on the permit um you know and comments can be that wow this is a really costly measure and it's you
know burdensome to the town you know certain requirements um or the time frame to implement that requirement is is to accelerated it's not something the town thinks they can feasibly meet um but those that those comment letters are due on May 21st um we're working on finalizing our report for the the dry
weather outfall screening and mapping effort um working on finalizing the imple impementation plan which I said we'll definitely have provide more guidance and insight on on how to kind of move forward and prioritize requirements that the town might need to catch up on um and then finish our regulatory review work with the town to
try to make updates to the regulations as needed to um to meet those requirements um and then we've got again permit year 7 is coming to an end on June 30th and so 90 days after the the permit um year ends um the town is required to submit an annual report to EPA it's a template report that um EPA
provides and a different one each year that's reflective of what was supposed to be completed during that permit year um and that's required to be submitted by September 28th okay so and I know Nancy has been taking the lead on those annual report yeah no she's no it's great so
and this year we'll help her um with feeding her with information based on you know the work that we've done that the town can take credit for okay so yeah that's kind of that's it yeah I know yeah I know there's there's a lot more more to it but I didn't want to get into the too much into the week
sure okay is there any questions I you answer a couple questions that I have I don't have any questions mark do you have anything you want to add um the G GIS mapping of the catch basins does that have to be done by year 10 so by year 10 the town is supposed to have
their entire drainage system within that that urbanized area that we showed mapped so I think it's like a maybe a third of the town or so all of the drainage infrastructure mapped yeah technically that should be completed by year 10 um so like I said we're kind of getting started with the outfall mapping but still a good amount of mapping that
needs to be done and stuff as well okay and the regulated area was based on the 2000 and 2010 census and that's because it's a 2016 permit cuz you must have the based on what was available at that point so the 2020 data is available now
I did take a quick peek at it it looked like the urbanized area had pretty much stayed the same but have to take kind of a closer look just to confirm but it didn't I wouldn't say it expanded by any you know large measure it looked it looked a pretty follow pretty much follow up the existing um footprint one thing that's interesting is we've had
some communities where in 2000 something might have been urbanized in 2000 and it's not in 2010 which is always interesting to me because I feel like everything's just getting more developed but um in that case you're still kind of grandfathered in and you still have to comply with the 2000 footprint and you
know any even if areas fell off the you know fell off the map in 2010 so okay but um for like we just mentioned funded mandate do you know is is this the Feds that mandate this or is it the state that so it is a federal permit fedal so
it's a federal permit through the nipt program which is the national pollutant discharge elimination System Program which basically regulates all point source discharges to the Waters of the us whether that be you know you know uh combined SE overflows or an industrial discharge or anything
oh my God sorry about that folks we getting into the porn business now thanks Mark I'm I I apologize that's that's terrible okay sorry about that no no it's so um so just saying so part of
that nipy program so it is it is a fedal permit um but in some cases that authorities been deleg delegated to the states um so like in certain States like you know if it was Massachusetts and it was a delegated State the Department of Environmental Protection would take the lead with implementation of the permit
we are one of the few states where EPA still retains Primacy so EPA is the lead on this permit my last question is does Weston and Samson can they work with the towns to identify funding sources I I know you knew some and there was few and far
between but you guys share that well it's funny you say that because um previous ly we had worked with the town probably two or three years ago now there's an ms4 grant that comes out um and so you know it's a very limited amount of funding you know it might be like 250,000 um so it's very competitive and
they like to give the funding to um to different like Watershed associations or different Community groups um or different municipalities that kind of band together to get funding because they want to make sure the money is going to you know support more than just maybe one Community um so we did submit an application you guys had teamed with Berkeley at that time and we were
looking to do outfall mapping and stuff and trying to get that covered um but I think just because it wasn't benefiting you know enough enough communities um we did not get the funding when we worked with the town to apply for that so that so I I do feel like I tend to discourage communities from applying unless we have
a really good Consortium of communities and right um and it could be something that's transferable to a lot of communities afterward okay so very good thank you but but yeah we're always happy to try to work with the town and of course identify you know funding sources I mean with the Clean Water program it is you know it is a loan a low interest loan that needs to be paid
back so it's not unfortunately not like a grant that you guys have to have to pay back okay okay uh folks is there any questions while she's here you have anything you want to add no sir Nancy anything you want to add
just to address some of the cost issues uh Tom Ferry and I met with Serena and Town Administrator yester uh and looked at storm water budget for FY 26 we got a couple of items we're looking at from
the list that uh jice had sent to us um the uh the rest of it uh is pretty much we're going to play it by ear as far as what projects come next uh we're trying
to be very conservative uh we're really focused on the IDE plan and the management plan which I have with me tonight um to bring those up to speed and those are part of the list that was mentioned so um we'll just move ahead
and do what we can under the grant as far as getting the whole import the whole intent of the grant when I talked to Mike was we need to help getting up to speed and because even though we've had it since 200 seven um I haven't worked on it
continuously and when I was not on the board of Selectmen we didn't have a storm water committee so we've done more since 2018 when the committee got appointed uh there were those who thought in the past we should just sit back and coast and I uh want to thank
the boards of Selectmen and the town administrators who said no we're not going to Coast because if you Coast you're going to end up behind and we didn't want to cause problems with the relationship we have with the PA which is very good so I think that's why we
have not been um singled out for non-compliance uh they've worked with us and we've explained to them where we are with this whole thing and um I did let the senior permit writer know that we had this Grant and that this work would be done by Weston and Samson so they're
also aware what we're doing along those lines so I think that's a plus two and I know there are at least four members of the storm water committee here tonight so so thanks for coming thank you okay I guess we're all set well thank you for your presentation we
appreciate it um this is uh Shar you're up next this is a review discussion act for uh the mail and ballots thanks for having me here tonight I'm here before you regarding opting out of vote by mail for the
Saturday April 12th annual Town election I am asking you to opt out a vote by mail strictly due to the cost as you know I came before you last year with the opposite request with the vote by mail being
mandatory for the state and federal elections and with the postcards that were sent by the state and paid for by the state we were able to piggyback off of them and send ballots to everyone requesting all election on the on the
postcard we did this so as to be less confusing to the voter last year we had 6 I sorry 769 vote by mail that were requested paid for from the state with
335 ballots returned only giving us a 44% return rate if we so it would cost us to do vote by mail $437 46 to send a vote by mail application to
6,334 registered voters not covered by the state so that would be out of our budget we would also need to hire a couple of election workers to help send ballots and help with post tabulation of these [Music]
ballots and I know that you know especially with the elderly and disabled I understand the idea of vote by mail I really do and because of this we will have options for absentee we currently send them to every
new registered voter absentee applications we have the applications on our site on town clerk's page in two different places we can also add to the Facebook page with the application and I already
talked to Council on Aging and they're willing to put it on their Facebook page as well we can have it added to the strawberry Vine for April it'll give us about a week to anybody that wants to do applications they can come in and come
to the office fill something out email it call me you know what I mean anything like that we're definitely willing to work with anyone we can print the absentee applications and leave it with at the council on Aging at Lincoln Village we can even leave applications
in the library um post office I'm willing to put absentee applications so that way we have options um I can even try and work with the Lions and have some printed maybe
bring them to the food pantry or any other events um I'm willing to take any kind of you know anything that anybody has that you know say hey maybe if you try this by us coming up with some other
options to get the applications out we would be able to save a lot of money and right now it truly is not in my budget to spend all this money for vote by mail with having so little
return um so honestly it would technically put me in the red so this is why I'm definitely asking to uh opt out this time granted I might ask you another time to opt in because you know if the postcards are sent out by
the state we would piggy back off of it we wouldn't be spending that kind of money and um so that's why I'm asking this is just the opposite of L Year's argument yes yes exactly the oppos which is troublesome
um uh is it strictly fun funding that is strictly funding back yeah so the reason why I opted in last year was because the vote by mail um the postcards went out and it at all elections right so what we did was
we took that it was paid for by the state we took that and we sent out the ballots to everyone that requested a um all elections and that's why and it was paid for by the state it
didn't come out of my budget um the only thing that obviously comes out is when we um sent out the ballots but anybody that wants absentee of course we definitely want to right you would still still still app uh send them forward
correct um but in Clement weather was last year um the disabled th those hold true today of course uh and I don't want to spend $4,000 but I don't want to in anybody as well this year just because uh just a
second John um just because we've decided that $4,000 is too much um obviously you have Alternatives which um still works today but uh I'm curious to see what everybody else has to say they can do so
my understanding you're saying if they do an abstine ballot they can send that paperwork to you like absolutely for anyone that's like a shut in that's not able to get so okay and and honestly I that's why I'm saying like I want to give as much options as how to get those
absentee um applications out there so you know anybody is able to have them so I did talk to councel on aging and talk to them about the strawberry Vine I talked about you know getting it on their Facebook page as well as obviously Our Town one um so I'm trying to come up
with as many options sure to save that money okay just a second Mark okay uh out of these 769 you got 34% back uh how much of that 34% back was just done out of convenience that's exactly you know what
I mean we don't know it's it's it's we sent it to everybody that requested all elections and what we got back we don't know if it was just because they didn't want to make it out that day or if they really had a disability or anything like that we just
we don't know that Mark do you have any concerns um you mentioned you send every new registered voter an absentee ballot application do you also send them a vote by mail application um just the uh absentee okay so the votes act requires the local election official you have to
send every new registered voter a vote by mail application that's required in the votes act um section 25b of the votes act says that the board of Selectmen May opt out a vote by mail no fewer than 45 days after a public
hearing is held so um the election's exactly 45 days from today we'd have to vote on it today it's not posted as a public hearing we would have needed to have posted this as one uh in the past the board of Selectmen has received the request from
the local election official to opt out a vote by mail they voted to have a public hearing it was on the next agenda but it would have to be advertised as a public hearing for the votes act in 20 um 22 when the votes Act was sign into law the
um Two Towns went to the state auditor um the town of Plymouth and the town of Hardwick and they both challenged the state that it was an unfunded mandate um auditor daglio did rule on on both
towns that vote by mail is an unfunded mandate for local elections as well they did rule to your point that towns don't have to send vote by mail ballot applications to every voter so um for consistency that's too bad because I
wish we could get reimbursed for that however um everything else is reimbursable paper glue sticks your labor for election workers um the labor for post and pre-election tabulations um any extra cost to the
town would be 100% reimbursed by the state auditor so the only cost that could possibly be incurred for both by mail would be setting out applications if it was not in the budget I'd support that but there's no legal way for us to
opt out a vote by mail for this election okay so then if it's 45 days so after this so you so by not voting today that's why if you were to vote today you you can't do that if it was
posted as a public hearing CU like I said 25b says um it would would be a vote of the board of Selectmen um not less than 45 days prior to the date of the election um and it would have to
be um you need a public hearing as well a separate public hearing yes see I didn't I yeah yes you need the public hearing I'll I'll find the exact wording for it while he's doing that I I I know John you have uh you want to address everybody no you can do it has to come
to the cable oh cable I'm sorry John cable needs to be able to hear you can you come up yeah sorry I think I know where I'm going okay you're to so as first of all as far as what um
you're referring to for the public he notification I'm going to give this to Shar and ask her to pass this out to each of you herself and to the TA this is the regulation that Mark is referring to I believe right now that Chico is
referring to there's five copies here and it does talk about requiring a 48 hour notice for the public hearing and you haven't done that so you haven't met that part of the of the burden if you would could take this and thank you pass it on I appreciate it with regard to the
vote by mail in general um I'm speaking both as the Ada coordinator from town and as a resident and I think as far as the Ada goes yes there are many residents who would need to vote by mail simply if not for their disability as a
result of that a lot of those residents also are not able to use or read the strawberry Vine they're not able to use the internet many of them don't have to use the FB page they don't know how to use the time website so you're singling out a lot of residents by not allowing
it simply by making the decision not to do it you're also singling out families who have young children eventally if a family member if there's a a single family member there's not two persons in the family it may be difficult for that person to get down and vote if they have young children or even older children
and they're committed to other activities or work for example you're not allowing those people to participate there are absentee issues as well I think there are a lot of residents in town who may be absent and if you change this now they may not be aware of the
changes and they may not be able to make any decisions at this point they they're not going to be able to come back to town necessarily they may not even get the information at this point in time so if you put those reasons together let alone the fact that all of the cost is covered if the if the town
cler needs to hire people on a pro 10 basis and she needs to pay stiens to people that's covered as well the the reimbursement takes time the reimbursement is sent to the state auditor the state auditor reviews it for approval the state or honor secret sends it to the Secretary of State's office
the Secretary of State's office does have the funding available for reimbursement so it's not a question of whether the funds will be there or not if if you put all of that together it makes sense to me to continue to opt in as opposed to opting out I can't find
any rational reason why the town would want to do that it doesn't make sense to the vast majority of residents you know she mentioned 300 and some OD ballots came back and 700 and some odd went out that's still 300 and some odd voters you're not giving opportunity potentially to
vote and I think that's part of what you have to consider what's the cost of a vote if the cost of the vote is zero because you're going to be reimbursed then why should you disenfranchise over 300 Ro Town residents or potentially 700 W Town's residents to vote and I'll
leave it there thank you thank you John Mar did you find what you were looking for yes sir basically says what you just said okay so the only thing that would not be covered obviously is sending out the vote by mail so I'm going to clarify that that it's going to cost
$437 46 which I will have to go in front of the board and get money okay uh this is a review discussion act we're at the discuss uh uh portion of that does anybody else have something
they want to say okay uh is there a motion on the floor then okay hearing no motion it doesn't pass okay thank you I will send them out thank you no it's fine thank you for coming thank you uh Chief how are you good how are you hello
do excellent thank you excellent excellent um tonight firing ranges first uh what do what do you what do you want to St on that um we Ted it last uh the last meeting uh we wanted some input from you and some more information uh at the time
you wanted uh Somerset to join yeah and I I um I tabled that we're we're not allowing Somerset to uh to join us on the Range so that issue is dead it is dead um one of the things uh we we get a few complaints a
year uh when when a town is and there's only two towns or one town one city um of what is happening is there a schedule that you can post so um I speaking to gentleman today uh I was actually speaking to Woody earlier today about um
we put some we have a new platform coming out new website with all new questions uh that explain all the drop downs uh it's under the resources tab so when you go to resources they go to firing range there's uh several different uh questions on there um that we got from different websites from
other towns um popular questions um there's all the drop downs and um we're going to put out on on our on our Facebook and um the days we're training out there okay um it's been asked about releasing schedules but that's not that's not safe to release
schedules ahead of time okay but we will we will be transparent as transparent can be sure how often does Toton use it um same as us so we have to we have to it's mandated by the state on the post and on the post that we have to shoot twice a year so we shoot in the spring and we shoot in the
fall Okay so uh Nicole do you have any concerns about this aspect of the no um the chief did put something out on Facebook today that was very thorough um I think it answers a lot of those questions for res okay uh just everybody's on Facebook so that's why I asked Mark do you have anything no I did
know the summer set issue was table I was yeah I I um I I thought about it and getting getting a lot of negative feedbacks from it so I I thought it'd be the best okay great thank you uh Now we move on to the uh appointment
yes uh tell uh it's my recommendation that that the board appoint Tyler Lopes to a full-time patrolman position Tyler is an alumni graduate of curry curry uh College he's a bridge uh Academy certified uh post certified police
officer he started his career off with the cushion at Police Department as a Reserve officer he's currently now working full-time with UMass dmouth uh he brings to the table as a uh he's a certified handgun and rifle instructor um and he he' be a great fit for the the
what do you do at you dmouth police officer there police officer there oh great umco do you have any uh questions no you sound like a great addition absolutely a Mark I Echo your comments oh he just called me ma'am
now now you're in trouble uh I don't have any questions I think it's great that you want to do it uh D is a great Community it's small uh probably uh equal in numbers wise to UMass dmouth uh they have several
students a little bit bigger uh yes um well landwise we are but um well I think you're going to be a great addition if the chief recommends you in uh judging by the people who came here to support you this evening I think it's a it's a great move apprciate that okay this is a review discuss act so we need a motion
on the floor I'll make a motion to appoint Tyler Lopes for the position of Patrol patrolman for the dayon police department I'll second that okay motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I I I congratulations sir thank
[Applause] you that's exciting another police officer yes right um okay this is a a recommendation for an appointment as a dispatcher
is my recommendation that the town appoints Angelina how do I pronounce your last name eia eia I was going to butcher I was gonna I was going to butcher that one uh Angelina is a resident um of of town she uh forly resided in Fall River um she did apply
to us as a for a part-time dispatch position and Communications and she'd be an outstanding fit to add to our part-time uh Workforce great uh where do you live now I currently live in dyon yeah where abouts uh around on Williams Street sure great um and what did you
live in for over I live near street so around like that near the Fall River Police Department so why' you want to move to dton I actually moved in with my aunt cool excellent it was a better opportunity for me environment wise personal reason so nice uh D's a great Community I think you'll like it here I
do like it so far so okay uh this is a revie discussion act um we're at the discussion St stage anybody have anything they want to add then it's a uh recommendation on the floor I'll make a motion to appoint Angelina etaria as a part-time dispatcher I'll second that
motion made in second that any discussion all those in favor I I I okay great you're all set good [Applause]
luck so you have some police time um donations please time did were you aware that was on the agenda uh yes yes okay um yeah um so so it came to my attention that the uh the police Union wanted to uh donate six time to um patrolman
Bennett for being out um and I was for that um the police Union was in contact with uh Serena and has been in contact through email about what they're they're going to donate for six okay this is great what is the status as far as they
I guess they agreed to six uh Sergeant baros six people voting I mean uh donating time to start off that that's awesome great thank you for doing that we appreciate it thank
you oh you're welcome okay this is a uh um par uh through the chair just uh just for clarification for the um uh for the town accountant can you um vote uh if you do if it's uh vote to accept this
vote U as written as presented by the as presented by the Union uh Serena just needs some uh she's going to take out take it out as blocks of time as needed by Officer Bennett because the up to it's just it's just going to be
problematic so if you vote it this way then every time she needs another block of time she has the authority we've given her the authority to do that sure thank you okay um then uh we need a motion on the floor please I'll make a motion to approve the
police time donations as presented in writing by the union and to give the accountants the authority to oh whatever Mark says no h second okay motion made in second then any more discussion all
those in favor I I great all set Chief thank you very much thank you everyone that came tonight thank you um D and school committee budget is uh anybody here from the school committee oh I'm sorry I didn't see you how's it going you're back in town
there Phil you were out of town right you're back I'm back how was your conference it was really good was it good thank you yeah why we give it just a second until everybody clears out it's a shame I thought they were here to hear about your budget about my what I
thought they were here to hear about your budget Oh No Agenda tonight out on the voting we should have notified her earlier very of on it that's sometimes the way you do it
yeah yeah I hate to say it but it's true been in trouble yeah no I agree with you no no I didn't know if you you probably knew from a few years ago when you were here um one to ask yeah
yeah okay sir whenever you're ready oh uh good evening everyone thanks for having us I'm joined by the chair of the committee Mr Andre as well as uh uh two uh school committee members of Mrs coer you want to wait hey guys excuse me we have to continue with our
meeting see you later bu okay I'm sorry that's fine that's fine so uh again thank you for having me here tonight I'm joined by uh the chair of the school committee Mr andreid as well as uh Mr Jefferson and Mrs coocher um
last night I made a proposal to the uh budget subcommittee first and then to the uh full school committee um for our uh tentative or preliminary budget for them to consider as our tentative budget uh just a few of the highlights um you
know very proud of the fact that in the first two years that uh I've been um in the district uh we've worked towards a uh a very comprehensive strategic plan that strategic plan um is called driving toward 2030 uh and as we put this budget
together the I think the three priorities that I have made for myself based on how difficult the first two budget C Les that I've been responsible for have been are as follows first of all prioritizing what is best for our
kids uh secondly um careers that may be in the balance based on decisions that ultimately land on my desk um and that also includes cutting programs uh but also number three uh being mindful of the district's relationship uh with each
town and um it is no secret that uh last year's budget uh put a significant burden on the town the uh assessment increase was 99.47% uh for the town of reoboth it was 7.68% um and I know that was I know that
was difficult for the town it put um put stress on the town uh it still comes back to uh issues that are at the state level um and so for the last two years I have proposed 33 Staffing cuts um 12.5
Cuts in uh FY 24 and um a whopping 20.5 Cuts last year uh to go into fy2 so uh We've proposed not only 33 Staffing Cuts uh but we've also uh cut some programs
and so it has been um gut-wrenching for uh for a lot of our teachers a lot of our students who are losing their their favorite teacher or losing their favorite program I am uh happy to say that this year the state gave us more money than
what they gave us the year before because when we went from fy2 24 to fy2 they actually gave us less money which given the the astronomical rates of inflation was you know just unfathomable to me but it was what it was um and I I do think receiving less money from the
previous fiscal year was one of the contributing factors to why the assessment rates were exorbitant um the budget that I proposed to our school committee last night that they did vote in as the tenative budget um is a districtwide increase of
4.11% um the impact on the town of dayon is a 4.36% increase the impact to the town of rovi is a 6.03% increase um total increase is $2.1 million just for a little bit of context
um I would like to share that the last two non-id budget Cycles back in fy19 and fy20 um in in 2019 um the assessment for the district
was 7.8% the town of dayon was seven uh was 99.78% town of R Hope with 7.89% and then the last non-co budget uh was fy20 uh that was an increase districtwide of
4.61% uh impact to the town of dayon was 3.9 and impact to the town of reoboth was 5.7 um what I what I'll close with before any questions that you have um is that
um the $471,000 increase that we received from the state represents less than 1% of the increase that we are proposing um this again the the U the regional school
districts are taking a hit um I'm actually going to to attend a meeting next Tuesday it's a virtual meeting that's sponsored um by the mass Municipal Association is also sponsored by Massachusetts assciation of Regional School committees um about how we can uh
as Regional School Districts how we can try to um implore the state to uh to give us more funding but um we have our uh annual budget hearing uh will be held on March 25th um at our high school and
um at that point uh anyone from the public would also have the opportunity to weigh in on the budget great thank you um it's not for us or myself and other people to tell you how to cut your budget or not cut your
budget uh well let me back that up it's not for us to tell you how to cut your budget um but we are uh like every year facing um drastic Cuts in our own budget and
um and not increasing anyone's it it concerns me that you're coming in with a 4.3 increase at a time when the police and the fire are taking substantial hits uh I'm hoping that it's preliminary and
uh it is room for negotiation in that uh with your own team uh of school committee members and your Administration uh you are stuck with obligations like we are State mandates um common copy of what the town
as a whole but we have to look at everything together and not just one isolated chunk and say they're exempt from from Cuts uh we we have I I understand that you have lost teachers
and you have lost favorite programs I went through high school with a similar situ ations in in Swansea where yeah the teaching was there one year and go on the next and uh you take a take a take it personally uh I'm concerned that
we're not going to be able to absorb a 4% 4 point something per increase I I I don't physically I don't see us being able to do that I'm hoping that you can go back to your members and say where where can we come up with a little bit
more money in cuts so that the uh the town can can help function the way it's supposed to function uh what I just what I will say is that um you know I I think the the
the gouging of our staff the last two years um is something that um you know not only has an effect on a child who is losing their favorite teacher sure um but now we are getting to the point where um we are stretched almost to the
limit of contractual class sizes and contractual class sizes to me in this District are even far more reasonable um than what I would like to have in our elementary schools and in our middle schools uh to be able to effectively
educate the children um that are in this town um again I uh I certainly understand where you're coming from we started at level services at 7.92% so you know we've we've cut um 3.8
% off of level Services thus far um I don't know if there's a Target you have in mind um but no no specific Target I mean your team has done an outstanding job I I've watched them and uh it's amazing how hard they work and I don't
want to take anything away from anyone um I is there a number that that say come in at at 3% or 2% not yet uh we would like you to do the best you can and come back with absolutely this is what we need uh maybe
you've done that I I don't know for sure uh I just want you to be aware of the situation the town is in you're you're one part of a much larger uh budget but you are the main chunk of that budget uh so you have the greatest impact on
whether it be a cut or a positive flow unfortunately uh you're the elephant in the room and not and you know not to be koi but uh you know the we we do have the biggest impact on the budget and we also have the biggest
impact on the future of the community absolutely you have a big impact on on the town as a whole and we've always have uh looked to the school to again help the future of of the children that are there and providing a well-educated
system there are just times when uh yes you can say I don't have any kids in school so what do I care about the school budget but and then everybody says well when you were in school you were the benefit of our parents uh making those decisions uh but financially sometimes it just becomes
impossible and I think we're at that stage where um if if we ever have to dig this is the year we need to dig um again you know your budget better than I do you know where um you can look at it and say yes
this is a section that maybe we can do without again it's not for me to tell you that and I want to make that perfectly clear there we're not running your department for you um it's just that uh we need your help I understand Nicole do you have anything please um no I this is a process we're at the
beginning of the process this year I appreciate all your work I appreciate all the work of the school committee I know this isn't easy um that's all I have when we come uh before you again on March I think our appointment is March 18th at 6 o' um you know we will we will
I will continue to be consulted by by the committee obviously but um we will do what we can to uh you know to try to make it more palatable thank you Mark um thank you for coming out tonight and U for transparency that helps with the town
you know uh folks getting an idea of the numbers early on so I'm sorry to interrupt those resources are posted on our website as of this afternoon so okay sorry um I was just going to ask I wasn't sure what the numbers were walking into the meeting um I wish there
was enough packet so in in the future for these things could you provide us with those talking points ahead of time sure I I W I wasn't I remember from previous years we would come in March to meet with a joint meeting uh fincom was typically there um
I didn't see any other districts on the agenda for tonight so I wasn't really 100% sure exactly what I was asked for I brought all my materials from last night uh we had members of advisory finance committee that were at uh bud subcommittee last night Mr vaco was at
budget subcommittee last night so uh I do apologize that you didn't have this in advance I'm I'm a phone call away or I'm an email away if anybody needs anything and they want something in advance I'm more than happy to uh provide that for you sure um could you explain for me
really because I don't know I know how a town budget works department heads create their budget they work with the Town Administrator at some point it's brought before the bo Selman and the fincom for a um for the Dr school districts is that a similar process is it department heads that are creating
the budgets that would go to the administration how does that work so the department heads for us are are principles um so you know each principal is responsible for looking at their building's budget um and so our district
business administrator um he sits with them he sits with the accounting assistant and they go through essentially line by line and it's you know last year we allocated $1,000 for pencils um it looks as if at
this point in fy2 you know we've we've only spent 300 in pencils we've got about half the year left so you know can we cut that down to maybe $650 in pencils for the following year um and um
so what they do is and then they also have to look at Staffing so there are times where uh first gr we may be B at first grade but there's a little bit of a dip in third grade so there have been times where we have reassigned maybe a third grade teacher to go to help out
with first grade and so on um the only I would say outlier as far as principles are concerned is um our director of vocational um because he's essentially running a school within a school um but then also you have our facilities
Department director uh so it is a department head type model uh they then come in and sit with um my leadership team so the director of special ed director of Technology the budget administrator the assistant superintendent myself um and we go
through it and we we try to find efficiencies for us to go from 7.92% as level Services down to 4.3 which is what I presented to the committee just floating a number to them uh two weeks ago uh to now as of today
being at 4.11% uh we definitely have looked at efficiencies and um you know there are uh there are two retirements that we're not going to backfill so those are positions that will be considered Cuts
uh but we do have three positions one is for special ed compliance and the other two are for um uh situations where we're we're flirting with contractual um violations in terms of class sizes that we're looking to bring two positions
back so um it's it's a net of one position and again not to be a dead horse but you know we've proposed 33 positions over the last two years okay um thank you for that I appreciate it sure is there anyone in your
Administration that is charged with looking at alternative funding sources and grants or is that something that kind of as a team how does that work yes uh I I proposed to the school committee uh two years ago and um they approved uh
taking our treasury Services which we were at that particular time we were Outsourcing it through a contracted vendor um and bringing those Services back in allocating that money towards um a 0.5 position that we also share with a grant writer so uh there is now a 1.0
position that is halftime grant writer halftime treasur um and uh we have been successful thus far uh with um being able to receive some grants last year uh we received $316,000 grant for U two of our
vocational programs uh but we've also found some grants here and there for 10,000 5,000 every little bit helps uh for various things and um you know some of those are for special education some of those are for wellness some of those are for literacy um because there are
still some grants out there to kind of help our students catch back up from uh the learning loss during Co awesome what would you say is the biggest cost driver is it the lack of federal reimburse uh state reimbursements or is it is there a
different main driver for the budget there are two um and and uh I presented these last night so it's a very timely question uh the first is the fact that you know we're receiving minimal uh increases in state aid um you know when
you when we put things into the assessment worksheet I had said $471,000 because the initial cherry sheet that comes out from the state in late January it used to be on a cherry sheet of paper so that's why they refer to it as a cherry sheet um was an
increase of 471000 and that's where I got the you know 0.9% increase over um you know uh fy2 but when you start putting it in and we you know we have to give back because
of charter schools and different things like that we only actually really only have a $39,000 increase in Revenue so um we are we're we're getting hammered by the state the other aspect of it um is that uh for the last three years we have
seen almost a 26% increase in uh special education services so um our students who live in our two towns um whose needs are such that they need to be educated outside of the district um those costs
have have gone up 25% over 3 years and um you know it's not those children's fault it's not those families fault uh it's just that the um the OSD has taken it upon themselves to to increase those costs over the last three years and so
um you know at the budget subcommittee meeting last night the the chair of the school committee asked to make sure that when we present at our um budget hearing in in um late March that we have a pie chart that indicates you know how much
special ed is costing us how much transportation is costing us and so on and so forth thank you that was very I appreciate that you're welcome if a resident had the concern with the budget it's is it safe to say that the best place to go would be at that budget hearing instead of when you go to the
board of Selectmen next month it's you guys are assessing the town so is it safe to say it's best to go to that hearing that you discussed correct U we're we're going to be advertising that we placed the ads today um but it is uh
March 25th uh which is a Tuesday 6 pm and it's in the uh auditorium at the high school would you be comfortable sharing that with our Town Administrator and we can put that on our Facebook page and also help get the word out absolutely okay that would be great it'd be nice if possible if we could put it
on a highway e sign as well um you know that'd be nice to get the word out for for that bud I appreciate that thank you so much you're welcome um this is a review discuss an act what are we going to be exactly voting on to accept the preliminary budget or is that no it was
um um no it's not the it's it's more of a discussion if if I may through the chair the the intent and purpose of the of of asking of requesting the superintendent and members of the schools committee to come and I do appreciate uh uh your
presence here is just to have a sort of a a a friendly discussion as to where we're at with you know where we're at the with the budget um and and if I if I may I do appreciate the efforts that the has put forward um and I know the superintendent is sincere in in the
three pillar in the three pillars he um he he articulated and of course the one that's most you know concerning to me is what what is the effect of the Dr Budget on on the members towns and and I
do and I do believe they have taken that they have taken that to heart back in December uh the superintendent and his uh business manager Leo buer came to my office and we had a very Frank discussion I think more Frank than than Mr Rooney anticipated but uh but um but
it but it was a Frank dis a very Frank discussion and you know I'm glad he came in and articulated to the board so you know I wanted us both besides to have an understanding of the budget as you know I had forecasted 4% uh you know for Dr
it's still we're still tight if you know if as you go through the process if you could get down a little under 4% I'd be greatly appreciate it uh but but uh you know we understand it's a process and and I think we just wanted you know you
you to be here so you know we could again um you know not to not to beat anybody up we do understand it's a process and uh where we're at where you're at and I think these conversations are good I reach out to you know I reach out to the uh superintendent we were at a meeting
earlier this morning and I do reach out to his business manager we had some connection from the P he had work on the cape cot collaborative so so uh I think we have a good working relationship uh you know with the and um and it getting information from them in a timely
fashion is very helpful and on on um how we um and how we do our budget and and again I want to say to their credit a lot of the pressures that are on our budget are out are as a result are outside of Dr Dr has its own pressures
uh pressures on us but but um the really significant ones are out you know are educational but but again outside outside of Dr and um and that was part of our R discussion in December and um and I'm sure wasi had the same discussion with them and and uh you know
I do truly believe um they've done their they've done their best to come in with a with a reasonable budget and I just hope you could make it a little more reasonable for us AB can you come back below the 4% Mark say again can you come back below
that 4% Mark oh sure if uh go ahead please whoever wants to go first please he so I guess I'll I'll speak I'm not speak in the school committee because as Chris was mentioned we were kind of told
and Bill was invited here and we came just as chrisst his meeting but first question I'd have is where are the other two Regional districts at the towns of and what's being asked of them to they haven't made their presentation yet uh which they will right but generally we meet with the finance committee I guess
what's a little concerning is I guess and what I want to ask is Bill hasn't been through this process this is old news for know Chris and Li because reith has been in the shoes titans's in from 2005 we've heard that before right so that's what I kind of wanted to bring up
like I've reached out to you guys shared the history of some of the things and the process and I think people honestly don't necessarily fully understand I've heard like let's say Woody wants to table the budget at town meeting town can do that it's going to cost the town more money because you're going to have to hold a second meeting sure we'll end
up getting our budget through a long process because it's unfortunate and the point is like the TA just admit um shared um we'll probably come to the agreement and the thing that's unfortunate is as we all know we're in this predicament because of the BP debt
exclusion and I don't want to see the town Services getting cut but I still think we and I don't know what the deadline is for the April election but I still think we need to start looking at budget scenario a budget scenario B presenting to the town's people and
going up back even for a debt exclusion if if we have a delter of $500,000 at the Town short I think what it failed in November for where people really didn't know what they were voting on and I know it was presented at the previous what did we have it at the auditorium it was
kind of like we have a 900,000 $900,000 line of credit people might be more apt to say well the selectman did their due diligence they know if we don't pass it we're losing two police officers veteran services are going you know
um but I do encourage you know we're going to have to figure this out because the towns I don't think's going to sustain this BP debt for the next 30 Years with Bristol Aggie um and it's unfortunate as Bill said you know we one thing we mentioned last night at the finance committee when you look at where
the cost is of the district people don't necessarily know like some of the fincom members were asking the good questions the special education costs are are rising significantly and the state's not reimbursing us on that so then it gets taken from from the regular Ed and the more we cut from the regular ed students
they're going to look at why am I going to go to Dr when I have options of BP and Bristol Aggy which then drive our contribution up more that we got to pay for BP based on enrollment so hopefully we get through this year but it'll be great I still think if we I think the
town needs the debt exclusion for BP and I don't know well we can't keep voting to get the answer that we we only voted once yeah but so we didn't get get the answer that some people were hoping for we're not just going to keep throwing votes out there until somebody the vote finally
comes back and says well will give you the debt exclusion right but what I'm saying is have you guys and at what point is the deadline and where are you planning on a scenario A and B like do you is the fincom coming back with C recommendations as far as we're meeting together I don't know if you were aware
of that okay when is that coming up in March in March I don't know I do have the dates for you uh well I think uh Mr you said what the 18th yeah I think you guys are no no I didn't mean school I meant the town
fincom like it's okay oh I'm sorry yeah so that's so you guys are starting that because usually like to to the point like Bill had shared usually we're at this point starting to meet with the fincom both towns and and and we'll usually do the joint ones with the selectman so right but yeah no I that's
all we're having this year we're not doing separate selectman s and and fincom we're doing it combined so a meeting with the fin Comet okay correct makes sense just at March 18th is when March 18th so right and that's again it it's unfortunate but I just hope
everyone understands the process and even residents because you know the tables can go both ways back in 2014 that's when reoboth parents stacked the meeting and reoboth had to eat 1.2 million out of their Town budget so we
we had been working great to rebuild the relationship between the two towns obviously BP through a monkey wrench and Dion financi so so that's all I wanted to share I mean hopefully you guys you guys are in a tough spot because I wouldn't want to be in your shoes because the town service budget isn't
that big and it's going to end up absorbing most of the BP debt so we have about a $28 million budget right now you got almost an extra 600,000 do we know I'm curious has the BP estimate come down or is it still 900,000 they looking at uh I think it's 900 and change still
still coming this year uh starting next year yeah I was just ask because I know they thought it might go down I was curious if you guys not that I have receiv received through the chair the uh they're still in the ban process so it's about 625 okay so it is for this year
for this year right yeah and it's going to go up next year and then by fiscal year 28 is when we hit it gets the full hit yeah okay good luck I want sure thank you sir yes please yeah so my name is uh Chris Andre the chair
of the committee live on Milk Street um hopefully the road gets fixed pretty soon because my car is out of alignment once but um I'm here so too just to uh let you know that the budget that passed that Mr Rooney discussed passed
unanimously by the committee and um I've uh I don't think that the committee is going to entertain additional like Staffing Cuts because the last one that we we did you know 20-some was very difficult for several committee members to agree to and if you were at the
public hearing or even if you weren't it was very contentious a lot of people um get very angry when the marketing program is cut and the Business program is cut and the chorus is cutting the music is cutting the class sizes go up from 25 to 35 students etc etc so I just
want to level set that Mr Rooney will do is due diligence and and look for other efficiencies but I don't see the number getting too much lower than what it already is sure and having and having the committee agree to pass that right like I said it's not for us to tell you where a cut uh you know I don't want to see teachers cut I don't want to see
class sizes increase that much I don't know what it is now it's um but uh we obviously we have an obligation uh as you're well aware just like you have an obligation to your committees and your students and the the parents we have
that same obligation to accept lodger uh so we wouldn't be doing due diligence if we just came up here and said okay 4 point something per no problem uh and we have to be able to absorb that if we're going to make those comments uh so for for you to shopen your pencil is is it's
a request that's all yeah we understand that and Mr R's team will do that sure I just want to make you also aware that the way this assessment formula works we can't just cut like a diet in elementary school and a DI in middle school if we make a cut that's be equally applied to all the schools so if you wanted let's
say uh a 2 $50,000 cut that ends up being like a $600,000 cut across the budget so you could say okay well we can lose one or two teachers here but then it's two here it's four at the high school and it's three in reoboth so it's really hard to do that the other thing I want you to be aware of is sure I don't
know what your contract situation is with fire and police and and and the other unions but we're negotiating Union contracts right now and I don't know if you have been paying attention to the MTA and what's happening out in the in the industry for the teachers they're really pushing for significant cost of living increases which to date we've
actually had very uh cooperative and and uh they've been very helpful I think our last increase is 2.25% yep so um I'm sure that they're going to want to see more this year well again negotiating committee we'll do the best we can but you know well that's what we're giving average across the
board is a two two and a half% um obviously that's something you guys will have to yeah negotiate with them and and I don't wish that upon you but you have to do it uh but we also saw strikes this year which is the first time in in many years that they've shut schools down for
for weeks at a time right and um yeah you guys will be in that same boat uh discussing discussing those contracts uh we've done that this year uh we've with the police in fire uh the town uh uh Public Works is is now coming up to to
do that same thing and um it's not an easy easy task absolutely y thank you I just want to make you that uh it's going to be difficult to get down much lower just so that there's no surprises when when we go to the public hearing uh in a couple of weeks sure great thank you
thank you uh this this is not going to be a vote uh but there's still open for discussion if anybody has something they want to add yes Mr good evening lard Hall 760 Main Street Titan budgetary process especially for
schools is a long negotiation there are currently a couple if not three unknowns the number that is presented to you of a
9% increase is the governor's funding proposal the Massachusetts legislature as they did last year you will remember will weigh in house Ways and Means plays a huge role in appropriation of the
final budget and monies for that budget and there was a significant increase if you remember last time to Chapter 70 funding which would be a benefit for the district negotiations involve
fincom I would recommend especially where this board did not want to have a layers on with the school committee that Mr Cameron is the chairman Ralph as the Town Administrator
Mr Andre and Mr Rooney and his budget people have some discussions um one of the things I would ask as a former teacher who lived through
seven years of budget prob two and a half layoff notices and this is really important for the Dr School District because it is a village that's raising our children and that being the gloom and
doom and fear be kept to a minimum especially now because one of the things that can happen is the teachers what they get afraid they will go somewhere else and then you're bringing in brand
new people that are inexperienced and one of the things that the DI school district is trying very hard to do is to retain its students well if you can't retain administrators
because they're afraid they're going to lose their job you can't retain teachers for the same reason you're not going to be able to reach that culture of Excellence that the people indict and want thank you thank you is there anyone
else okay um like I said this was not a review discuss an act so we're going to move on to announcements please um Highway Department Public notice there is a townwide parking band in effect from November 1st 2024 to April 1st 2025 no person shall allow any vehicle
to remain in the the street so as to obstruct snow removal the Dion lion Food Bank distribution will be held next Saturday March 15th no held next on Saturday I was like next Saturday is not March 15th 2025 located at the Town Hall it's in the
lower level the open space committee will be organizing a town cleanup of open space in town on April 12th 2025 with a rain date of April 19th they are looking for volunteers to assist these cleanup efforts and addition anyone who suggests any particular area to clean up
can contact Jonathan Gail the Dion Council on Aging will now be hosting um host location for free tax aid program the AARP Foundation offers each year this program focuses on assisting older adults with low to moderate income
please call the dayon Council on Aging to learn more in book your free appointment today thank you uh this is a section of the agenda tonight where we have public input is there anyone yes sir my name is Matt Arwin I live at 621 Middle Street um wanted to have a
discussion on the shooting range we were not allowed to have a public discussion on that um so if we have an opportunity now is that possibly we get a discussion sure um it was just uh ended there was no yes I understand that suet they've tabled having suet come but there was
much larger questions about that actual shooting range that I wish the chief of police was here to answer okay um we fully support all of us surrounding the the um shooting range support the police department um but the I had several questions that I was hoping would get answered um first was when was this
facility built anybody know when the facility was built uh Nancy was it Nancy okay I've been here since I've been on Middle Street since 2005 it wasn't there when we when we bought the home um next
question is that property was a landfill correct correct okay zoned for what zone for you can't use it other than a landfill okay without without going through and getting um um a u
zoning change correct uh corre well yes okay since I've been there in 2005 there was never an a Butter's notice that they were going to change the use of that property to be a shooting range so my question is was the proper process
followed to build that shooting range public was not notified to build that shooting range I I don't know the procedure uh we can certainly find out um I don't know if the chief would even have had that answer for you so I um but if Nancy knows um I'm more than happy to
let her speak on through the chair through the chairs as Miss G Miss gulad stepping up uh I I don't know I have to take a look at zoning but generally speaking Municipal purposes are a byright so um byright uh byright uses do not require notification to the
butters okay uh just through the chair I've been to that firing range it's not in the landfill am I correct Mr Ferry corre thank you um what was constructed out there is I
don't know if any of you have been there but if you're at the landfill and you drive over as as if you go into the trailer where the animal thing is but there's a road that's really not accessible unless you got four-wheel
drive we walked in the road is in the w we walked in and um the the reason I went there was because at that time it was being used by the uh dayon uh police department this had to
be I believe when I came back in 2015 I don't remember it being here in 200 between 7 and 10 anyhow there was a proposal to allow the city of tarton police department to use the facility and in order to do that I
wanted to see what this place was like so that's why I went to the site we then discussed it with Town Council and David gay said in order to do this there has to be a written uh intermunicipal agreement and David drafted an agreement
between the town of dayon and the City of tanton so that the town of dayon would not have liability if a Taunton police officer was injured on the site so that was negotiated and it was agreed to by the two municipalities and I can
tell you at the time there was public discussion because there were people here who were opposed to it because there were reasons that they had that Taunton was no longer going to I'll just say the location they were at so the first agreement was handled
just the way I'm describing it was made public we did go through Town Council there is a written agreement anything after that I don't remember ever voting again on letting anybody else in uh I'm not opposed to it I mean I can hear it
where I live obviously but um the only thing I would say is that uh we had to go ahead to do it it is not in the landfill um we we would never allow anyone to be shooting into the landfill for obvious reasons
and from what I remembered during the negotiations and the discussion with attorney gay in order for anyone else to use that facility they would have to appeal uh excuse me apply to the town through the board there would have to be a mutual agreement with similar language
to protect the town against lawsuits or anything else and each and any group municipality that wanted to use it would have to follow those procedures and this was set up that it was the first one so I'm almost thinking
um Dean Cronin might have been on the board at the time when I came on it was Dean Cronin Patrick meni uh that was September 2015 so it was back around that time but there is something on file
uh that would go back to when it started yeah can you please stay here for a second sir is you have other questions I have yes I do have two questions on that um so my my only other two questions are um number one obviously noise remediation because it is quite loud um
and I'm sure other people here have some concerns as well but the other one is are there proper back stops and Lead collection yes okay before the bo bullets are I don't want to say they're not lead but we just went through this recently does anyone remember the
outcome of this RW there too remember we went through this whole thing because we were worried about obviously the landfill and now we have drainage and we have bullets I don't I'm not going to pretend I know anything about bullets but we did look into it and they weren't I don't want to say they weren't lad but
they weren't they were some kind of bullet that wasn't gonna do something I don't that's not the best answer but I that's all I have right now were you part of it Lenny correct right from before the it was determined
which bullets they were going to use right one of the things was described was that some of the bullets have res res in the uh gunpowder if you will so that they would come in and assure that
there were no environmental issues okay thank youen you I'm sorry I just knew you knew a lot about it I will just add there were uh complaints um it might have been around or just
before covid when everything got you know everyone was uh everything got shut down but um as a result of that um I was I know I was on the board at the time um we we the board asked Mr ferry to do
something about um additional noise mitigation and he did go out and I think you made the the I want to call not the the banks uh you reinforced the banks you made the them higher you did did
things out there to help mitigate sound I'm probably not describing it properly didn't work it's not working so okay that has been done sir anything else I Y home Mee phone calls you can hear it
even the windows in the it's ridiculously loud other than that it would you know I know the police chief said that he couldn't do for whatever reason but should be a lied amount and notand a lot more random it sounds like
it's four times a year uh twice by each town is what he it's more than that yeah they can't be out there every day no I understand they said it was long days which I thought was disappointing they were like we do it all day whatever day they do it but they keep telling us
it's only four times a year okay okay okay uh Woody how are you very good thank you Robert Woods 158 Chase Street okay and I'd like to start off by
saying I'd like to thank the chief of police George Nichols and deputy chief Ryan Richards I've been in communication with them now for a couple of weeks over this I've been on Facebook trying to get some residents to you know voice their concerns M A lot of people believe it or
not and I'm some of you know me they call me to complain okay they don't call town hall because they don't want to be known and they know that Robert Woods will speak up for them sure you know and I put it out there on Facebook don't complain to me no more about the rifle range after today so please I'll accept
all other complaints other than rifle range and I will advocate for anyone in this town um as far as the rifle range goes you know when it first started it was for our police officers and we respect them and we honor them and we need them and we'll do anything for our
police department and then they decided to take in the tarton police department with over 150 officers okay and we do a lot of um work with the T police department and our police department they train
them at their facilities so and we use them for Mutual Aid they use us for Mutual Aid and I've seen it actually happen where the Dayan police have to go to toon to help them and they come to help us so I can see that you know and then
when they decided they wanted to have some asset come I said hey that's enough you know that is enough these people are right now they do say it's four days yes they have four days of required training but it's hard to get everybody
there on that day okay so then it goes to another day or now it rains or it's bad weather so then they got to put it back to another day or another week so like these people that live in the neighborhood including myself and there was a lot of people
here earlier that left that wanted to say something about the rifle range and I'd like to thank them all for coming too sure and I know that you received a lot of letters about this also right um but it is Relentless Bang bang bang and it's
non-stop these people are not exaggerating um and it's okay it's acceptable on certain days so if we could just have more communication put it on the dayon Police website on the town of dton Facebook
page that we know what days is going to be operated in kind of in advance let's say these people want to have a a cookout right and then bang bang bang all day long and it's loud you know you know and one day I was home and it was Non-Stop and I called Mike Mullen the
old the old ta and I said what are you doing he said I a't doing nothing I said well step outside for a minute he's like what I said just step outside so he steps outside I get him on a cell phone I says what do you hear he said w sounds like there's a war going on yeah I said
Thank you right and that's all the way from town hall Bob Adams who lives way out in South Titan at the somerset line if was it's not a windy day he can hear it at his house so I mean these people Mrs rain
scenes here I know she sent you a letter because I talk with her um it's unbearable some days but we understand that it has to be done so we're just looking for you know some
scheduling in advance so we know it's going to happen sure and then all of a sudden you hear bang bang bang bang bang and it's not the police well you know it's coming from babbit's house y right they do a lot of shooting over there too especially on Sundays if you people are hearing shooting on Sundays it's not our
people okay it's over at babit property they shoot a lot of big stuff over there so that's about all I have to say about the gun range well your re your request is not unreasonable right and I don't see why that we can't come to some kind of agreement it's not my
neighborhood and I wouldn't want to live with that and but we represent the people who live in that neighborhood uh if it's if it's a d detrimental to your life then we can at least do what we can which is uh contacting trying to hinder
the police department we we all love the police department sure right we need them um but I think we can contact the police and come to something some kind of an agreement I sent the police um some websites to look at y with some real good information and Ryan did look it over and the chief looked it over and
they said it was fantastic okay so they're going to be putting some of that same stuff on their website and hopefully you know it's going to get better we're still going to hear the bang bang bang and thank God they're not bringing any more departments over yeah that's not going to happen because yeah that that's good so I have some other
things that I'd like to say dur on public input sure not regarding the rifle range so if anybody else wants to talk about the rifle range have at it and I'll come back hi 624 Middle Street North Titan okay you're going to stay there um I was the
one who sent the letter um explaining you know all the ramifications of the noise and first of all I want to start out by saying we love the police we don't want we support the police department wholeheartedly but after speaking to Residents nearby it really
has out of hand and I just have some questions and I don't know if you can answer or not but um and some of the questions were were asked by Matt but um has anybody ever taken um decibel levels measured the decibel levels in the
neighborhood to see what it is I know there are uh deciel meters and I don't know if anybody has ever not that I'm aware of um but that would be for the chief and we can certainly bring him back to address just this issue again uh tonight's issue with him was not
strictly he was here for other reasons but one of the requests which was two weeks ago was to ask if we would allow Somerset to do it uh to join the the the group uh some uh tton and and Dion and we had objections to that so the chief
was ultimately decided it was not going to happen Somerset is not allowed uh if I had known and I apologize please uh if everybody's request here this evening was to have a disc question with the chief I would have asked him to stay um so no I don't I'm not aware if there
were decimal uh readings ever done okay um also uh do you know what police departments are allowed just Taunton and Dyan uh well uh when I was going around to talk to the residents um we were under the impression that it was also
Brockton it was seon it was barnaville and sometimes the state police and people that live nearby saw those cars those departments no they are not allowed through the chair if if I'm sorry just quick I know I know this
answerers Dion ton and the um the ma the training academy Mass uh I know Mass training academ and I think said you Mass Dartmouth too I believe part of the part of the part of training C what I what I suspect you see
is probably those depart because it's a training AC when it's a training academy probably those departments allow their their recruits to take a like u a department car to to the range okay dep it's it's the training academy
so it's not it's not the whole department it's it's through the training when you go those other departments when they become fully sworn in officers they probably have other ranges that they use but there in the training academy um as I had the
discussion with the chief uh they get to uh they use the uh dayon uh the dayon range offic they're their Academy they're their Academy officers so what's in addition to the
dton and the Toton police when there's an academy class that's that's what why are they using our firing range uh that was an agreement approved by the select one point are uh as as far as I know I have to look back it but it was um it
seems like they've been doing it for for some time so because it sounds like a war zone it really does and it's Relentless and it's loud and people when I'm on the phone have said that you know what is going on there so I really think
that uh we're recommending that you make a very significant restrictions on the time and the use and the days of use you know who is using it why are they using our range sure you know we have no problems with dayon using it dayon has
only what maybe 15 police officers it's significant that taon is using it because that's like 150 police officers and so that adds a lot more it's not certain days that they're using it they're using it almost every day wow and and it's that's not fair no it isn't
and I've been there for 44 years and never had a problem until like I would say it's gotten really bad like two or three years ago okay okay so I just wanted to make you aware of it and hope that maybe you could look into that we certainly will thank you thank
you hi I'm Joy Wendell uh 244 Forest Street so I also live about half a mile from the shooting range and yeah it is loud um they've Al they've mentioned it sounds like a war zone I I keep wondering what it's like for people who may have PTSD and what that does to them
um but other things that haven't been mentioned um is property devaluation if we live that close to a gun range and we were going to sell our house we would have to give full disclosure that there's a gun range and that brings down the value and yet our houses are still
on assessed p i mean maybe we should get a rebate for being in this uh war zone so to speak um one other issue I'm really worried about safety um and we have um this range design criteria I made a copy
for the board I made a copy for the police too I don't know follow those guidelines and criteria when they designed and created this but um it bothers me uh just to give a brief
synopsis of that um it was put out by the US Department of energy the office of Health Safety and Security in 2012 and they published this a range design criteria um there's something
called surface danger zones s dz's um and that's the area that's established to contain these projectiles and any debris caused by firing ammunition so that would be the the ditch and the BMS and things like that
but then it's also supposed to contain this area um any ammunition that may Ricochet from Rock or Pebbles or something any um gunfire that may be misdirected misfired I've heard that
sometimes guns can accidentally fire twice you know I mean they go chew and then think they're done and it fires off um fortunately we haven't heard of any accidents but sometimes accidents can happen and some of these bullets like a
9mm it can travel over a mile 1900 yards um m193 that's like I don't know rifle ammo it travels almost 2 miles 33 um
3,390 yards so I don't think our range is that large to handle you know these accidental firings and there aren't supposed to be any um um roads that would cross through
this DD um sdz Zone um and yet I mean I don't know how the firing range is oriented but I mean you know we've got tront Street and um Middle Street and even Williams Street if it's faced that way so I worry about
the safety and maybe what the town should do is hold off try to stop any shooting there until you can actually look through that and evaluate the situation sure okay that's my request thank you well you certainly
have educated us this evening certainly myself uh I don't know anything about it I don't know a lot about it uh thank thank you Nancy for for being here uh first of all is there anybody else that wants to be heard I just wanted to say sure um when I was talking to the near
by residents a person who is actually on the same side as me across the street from where the firing range is he told me that a bullet hit his garage wow so yeah and he heard a ping and and it dented his door so apparently there is
there are cases of misfiring okay and he said luckily his granddaughter wasn't riding her bike over there sure so it is dangerous in some situations okay so just to make you aware of that sure thank you yes hi thank you for hearing all of us I'm
Carrie Diaz from 631 Middle Street um almost probably directly in line of that uh firing range I do have two kids I do have dogs that live in our yard and um my husband and my son also ride dirt
bikes through our property which um goes it does AB but the um not the firing range but the um stream the stream right so we can go pretty far back on our property so now if I'm hearing that a
bullet hit my neighbor garage that would be um right where my son is riding his dirt bike with with my husband so that is a very big concern of mine um I originally was going to come here just to talk about the noise pollution that is absolutely ridiculous on a daily
basis but everyone has covered that um but now it is definitely a safety issue that um I will also be calling the chief of police and raising my concerns tomorrow sure thank you for listening thanks Well you certainly have given us enough to go by that we have to react and um I I can't tell you what the final
outcome will be but we'll do the best that we can can U Mr CH could we have the chief back in two weeks and have a community update I think the police department would know best um some solutions that they could offer and at least we have a certain date where we
can talk about it again and hopefully make some actionable changes absolutely okay just come back in two weeks for the first uh second Tuesday of of March right thank you guys thank you
uh Woody you had some other things you'd like to go over I would like to say though I do think that road to the rifal range yeah was built in a wetland okay I'm not a wetland scientist yeah am on a stall water committee and I think it was built in a
wetland we wouldn't allow anyone else to build in Wetlands no okay the other the other thing I'm here for and I've discussed it a little little bit um with Ralph and spoke with um The Building Commissioner the other
day too about the pack meetings at P act do any of you know what pack stands for no but I know that you guys used to have those meetings and now they still do oh you still know do you know what pack stands for anybody
okay it stands for permitting and compliance team okay okay so recently these pack meetings are they're not posted they're not open to the public public don't know nothing about them there's no
agenda and lately in the last month or so they've had major developers going to these pack meetings kind of feeling out the town about what they would like or what they could build and you know I found out about it
and I was a little upset but I found out and I came to the meeting anyway and um the commission asked me if I would sit at the table and I said no I'm not here in an official capacity I'm just here as a concerned Citizen and a resident um
because I'm talking about 620 Spring Street um which is near and dear to me because I live near there and I care about the neighborhood um so this guy's coming in he wanted to redevelop the whole thing he wanted to put hundreds of apartments in there and I'm like oh wait a minute
pal you at a pack meeting right no public involved nothing's being recorded they're around no minutes and here's this guy like talking to some of our department heads about his plan you know in my personal opinion
that guy should be before the board of Selectmen where the presentation or the plany board now this week at pack meeting there let me back up last Wednesday at stormw Water meeting we had an individual with an issue with one of
our solar Farms so we told this resident that he needs to go to the planning board so I guess I don't know how he ended up in pack but he was at pack yesterday complaining about his
issue like I said it's not a posted meeting lot open to the public there's no minutes it's like what what kind of meeting is this and what else goes on at pack when nobody's watching can I interrupt you for a second who is the department heads
that are at this meeting well that's another thing right now you got four department heads at this meeting that are not in their office right they're not taking phone calls and they're over here every single Tuesday at 11 o'clock
my personal opinion just my personal opinion I don't you know maybe they need to get together but we have permanent leak right we got permanent leak so anybody can look online and see who's pulling permits for what so so if you're wondering who's
doing what and where you look at permanently Le M peral leak whatever they call so now whenever they have pack there's nobody in the planning board office uh we have a conservation agent who's not in office or not in the fields and she's
a part-time worker and she has she's a little overloaded with work so she's spending like two hours over here where she could be in the field of doing paperwork I talked to the Building Commissioner and he told me says he's got a lot better things to do on Tuesdays then go to pack right so I don't know what's going
on with these pack meetings but I think they should be a posted meeting with an agenda and I like to see who's going to these meetings and why you know if it just some basic permitting in between departments but when you're bringing in
people from the outside I I don't know if that's illegal or not you know I'm not going to call the state ethics Commission on my own people yep but uh you know I'd like to get this cleared up sure yeah I don't
think I'm asking too much no it's uh I i' be curious to know who's running thing needs to get a good look at yeah yeah that's what I think okay that's just my opinion sure could we put that on our agenda too absolutely thank you I can address any questions right now go
ahead please meeting so um the pack was established um to sort of you know as as uh Mr Woods explained so um people who um
want or have a um have a plan or something to go to go before before they go to the planning board or anything like that um so it's sort of a preliminary meeting these meetings don't have to be posted because it's staff so it's not we're not in open meeting law
open meeting law violation so what what occurs at these meetings is you know some comes before um a resident developer so we lay out uh we lay out to them okay this is the thing this is zoning this is the zoning that um that you have to comply with this is you know
oh you're in you're in a uh you're in a watershed there's um there's um water there so you're going to have to go to uh a conservation you know is there there's a Board of Health thing you have to go so what it does it's sort of like a clearing house for for for residents
developers anybody who's who's looking to to begin the permitting process here in town to understand what they have to do streamlining things to stream or or to understand you know what the you know what the what the roadblocks are and and you know what what the appropriate zoning is and what what appropriate
Department you have to go to um the the few that I've been involved with and I was there at the um um the one for 620 was you know the developer came in he did his homework but you know what we do is we advise them you know the next step
is you know what he was asking for required zoning changes and a few other things so we we we what we do and and I and I know what the um the Building Commissioner and and uh you know and the um carrye does is sort of inform inform
the potential applicant this is what you have to do these are the department you have to go to and at that stage it rises to the uh it may rise to the level of of of an open meeting I know uh Mr woods and I have a disagreement on this we've
we've talked about it but uh that that's how it was I'm in total disagreement with that okay years ago been going on for years you know other people have come with big developments they go right to you guys the voter Selectmen it
shouldn't be no little committee that nobody's keeping an eye on yeah um again through the chair if they want to talk about permits and what's going on with this department of that department I can do that yeah it's through the chair it's not a committee no approvals no no
approvals are granted at that meeting it's it's an information session okay I think it'd be beneficial to hear from every department head that's a member of pack yeah um to hear if it's beneficial in their role U because I'm hearing some folks say they could use their time
better that's what they take so I'd like to hear maybe either only Jim is the one who said it to me I I was just saying like my my secretary in planning she's not over there in the office while she's here and and liser I'm not advocate for
her she's not in my department I have no control of her but I know what she does and I know what she needs to do and sitting over here for a couple hours ain't getting none of that done okay right then they discuss other things after thank
you okay um Town Administrator report um so um we're still uh still in the budget we're winding down meeting with uh with the Departments um I did attend as you heard I attended the the
budget meeting last night for uh for the Dion rovi um also we had uh we had made those amendments uh to the uh to the schedule uh that that you have requested uh U you may have received we just we
just sent it out so no no changes no changing in the dates or times just who's going to show up on on the days uh and and I and the last thing is that um um I know I've gotten a few phone calls from you regarding the the saw horses in
front of town hall so we did uh we did order High viz Treads to be placed on those stairs so um we should be getting them in a in a few weeks they'll be installed and so um take
down great so um you just said something what was the first thing you you talked about the budget uh the budget oh the change the reason why the change it was my request we're not changing dates or times just who's coming right now who's coming and
on what day uh I'm not going to be here the middle date um but I'll be here for the other two so that's why I just asked that the bigger departments be here when I was going to be we're going to miss you it's not going to be the same for
sure um okay thank you is there a s report on your behalf I just had one thing um and I don't have all the information so it's going to be kind of peacee but um and I was going to bring it up when Rooney was here but I felt like we had enough problems sure um but
it's in regards to the state there's a I don't know if it's a bill or what it is coming down for schools like bris lagy and for BP that they want to go this the schools don't seem to want this but it wants to go to a lottery like system and if that is to happen what that means for
towns like dayon um I don't know if we if there is a limit on how many of our students can be selected um this is just the beginning of the talks for it um but I just wanted us all to be aware because um it is definitely if it is something that goes through that could potentially
impact the amount of students that we have going to Dr if they go to a lottery system definitely um but that's all I had I wasn't aware of that okay thank you m thank you I don't have anything okay um then we're moving to Old business this is for the zon board of
appeals uh sorry to keep you guys here so long but um this is a request to have your own attorney as opposed to using Town attorney uh just to let everybody know Zachary is the chairman of the zoning board of appeals and he is my son but I checked with the Town
Administrator there's no reason why I can't sit in on on this particular case because there's no benefit to either one of us uh so if you guys want in if you guys are in agreement that with that I'll I will stay okay Zach how are you good good um so first
of all I saw the letter of um from the from from Gay and gay and his and his office reasons as to why so I I assume that at the last meeting you guys had you discussed the discussions that were had so you're allware the situation um so one concern
that he had was that uh whether the town would receive consistent legal advice um I would like to say that with the attorney that we have this is the attorney that has been on since I think when you first were on the board so going with gay and gay and no longer having margarit yes she's a different
office but I would argue that it'd be more inconsistent to not because we'd be going with a different attorney that the zoning board has not had any relationship with second of all for the what's best for the town uh there's no additional cost to have our own Turney
if we were to have to turn over to Gay and gay we would need to probably double the line item for our professional and Technical because we have outstanding 40 BS and potential 40 BS that Gay's office is not well versed on yet which they easily can with their expertise but
that's going to require time and money additional money that budg the Z did not allocate for because that's not expense that we would have to worry about so especially with we have the budgets under concern I I don't know if I'm EXA by saying we would have to probably double a professional technical just to allow
them to be brought up to speed on those items um I am not ever an opponent for well it's the way we've always done it I know boards could argue well this the only person that we know that to me is especially relevant because we have
outstand big outstanding items that she is the only one for legal that is well versed on those items so yes it's the only thing that that we know but she's also the only one that knows of the things that we currently are dealing with especially when it comes to the 40b which would be the biggest expense to the
town uh how many 40 beasts do you have going right now that are still so we have that that legal is involved in the biggest one right now is across the street how many how many though total just one okay um but that's
um a big factor so it's there's a a things going on there that legal is very very involved margar is here that she can certainly speak on how involved they are with the and then the any potential 40 BS I would like to say that now that
it's can be discuss arquest would not be a new 40b that any attorney could just be brought the speed on this is going to be a returning right that's what I mean how many of those collectively so we as of right now arest has not come back before us with any modified plans yet
but if they did gay and gay would need to be brought up to speed um with knowledge that margarit has correct okay and not to mention that um I this I I'll say because it's on our posted agendas ferof who is the developer of stonate
comes before us just about every single meeting and margarit is there for that okay if he were to come to our next meeting and we had to have gay and gay gay and gay would by the next meeting not have to be brought this B on everything but I mean I know it cost the town a bit of money to have a new peer
review engineer review that project obviously we had no choice in that matter um and it was good to have that clean slate with that new uh piew engineer but to have a new attorney because well the town always has one
attorney now we're that's going to be quite an expense to bring them up to speed for I don't think the town needs to spend that there's no need for the town to spend that money and there's no detriment to having I guess the biggest concern they have was inconsistency I
would argue that changing our attorney that's the definition of being inconsistent I understand it's consistent with the rest of the town and the rest of the boards for what I know which I don't want to speak on their reasons planning board has their own attorney okay Mar I mean Marg I'm sorry Nicole do you
have any questions no no okay Mark do you have any questions no in in addition to your uh feedback uh gay and gay did submit a letter to us um basically assenting to the attorney of um attorney Mitchell so that was the only reason you
know I brought it up was it was in conflict with our town council's advice but at this point Town Council as sents we have a positive recommendation from the zoning board so it all sounds very positive thank you for being being here I appreciate it okay this is a r review discuss and act so uh is there a motion
on the floor I'll make a motion to appoint Margaret Mitchell as legal counsel for the zoning board of appeals I'll second that motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I I okay thank you much you thank you I'm sorry you had to sit through all that oh it was
entertaining thanks margarite um this is a new business now review discuss an act proposed annual town meeting schedule I have no issues with it now that it's uh been changed oh no if I I
could just give you sort of a lump Su between yeah because they kind of go the proposed annual town meeting schedule and the open uh open uh annual town meeting warrant so I I know that the um the schedule is in your packet we're looking to open up the meeting today uh
oh look open up the warrant today so we could start taking In Articles um and then uh on the schedule as you see it's and we're also setting the date for the annual town meeting for Monday June 9th so okay Nicole do you have any questions on
the schedule Mark I don't have any questions okay so this is a review discussion act so is there a motion on the floor to accept the uh town meeting date um um in the uh opening and closing of the warrant I'll make a motion to
accept the annual town meeting schedule as presented I'll second that motion me is seconded any discussion all those in favor I I'll make a motion to open the annual town meeting warrant I'll second that motion May seconded any discussion all those in favor I
I Tom you're up sir it's your moment to shine finally I did request uh superintendent Ferry wear a tie this and uh see how much he respects me
good evening sir so um our last meeting L we made you aware of uh moved on to another job y we have the opportunity for a vacancy U the wishes were to table it to look into whether or
not we should consider rehiring y so that's why we're here tonight so I can either hopefully uh entertain filling that position absolutely I have no issues with it AR own uh this would be the opening of it you'd advertised for how long it'll be 10 days 10 days and um
open to anybody who meets certain qualifications I guess yes uh the contract is very specific on that okay so it's the positions operator class one you need a class B driver's license with air bra endorsement also Engineers
license to be minimum at this time okay great Nicole do you have anything you want to add no Mark um no you know the fiscal position that we're in right now is the town so knowing that and knowing the needs of your department you
recommend to hire a highway department Operator Operator class one yes yes okay they will be notified of the town's financial position also as always okay and I would make a motion to um move
forward the request that's presented I'll second that motion made and seconded any discussion uh one thing when is it going to start tomorrow the ad yes we'll put the ad together and get it posted tomorrow okay um that's it for discussion then um motion made in second
any no more discussion is there a vote I I I thank you real quick while I he have you here Tom um I want to thank the highway department how quickly they moved on I I don't know how many weeks ago it was but it was on Center Street there was a very large
pothole um on that bridge yes um I went by it and I had said to my son I was like oh God that looks dangerous and I was like maybe I should call Tom and but the night before you it said how much you had gotten no sleep because of the storm and my son was like well how many lives are going to be lost cuz Tom got
no sleep so but we went we went by within that hour and your guys were already out there working on it and I hadn't called you and lives were lost so should have called me though I know I know I when I went back by I was like I should have called my my son knew better he was like how many lives mom but I was
like Poor Tom can't keep bothering this guy but thank you so much you guys get to things so quickly thank you oh great uh they do an excellent job I we can't say that enough thank you Tom and to your staff too um Service Awards is that
for you I'm here to answer any questions but should be straightforward it is pretty straightforward I have no questions uh Nicole no I don't have any questions mark I don't understand how how can you explain how this works like I don't even get how this works like just the process of this so cers is an
acronym for CES Regional uh Services Group Services Group it's made up of I believe 22 towns we're in a consor so we consolidate our um volumes of service
and some cases uh quantities for materials and also for office supplies and that's what you're looking at now is the bid results and the contract that we're asking you to sign thank you so it's it's a way that we save money and
also the procurement process free it definitely frees up it streamlines the procurement process because this has already been vetted and if we need whatever Tom needs black top he could just go get black top it's done and if there's something there that we didn't
procure or we didn't add quants to we can piggy back on to you know it's just of did that recently with just sand because we need some with to sand for stone removal great thank you um this is a review discussed and
act so is there any uh motion on the floor um through the chair I would recommend um if it's um if you are going to approve it uh please approve it giving me the authority to sign the contract so you don't have to yes sir uh didn't we do that last week um yeah just
for clarity yeah just just yeah you did but sure might as well say it okay so is there a motion on the floor uh giving the Town Administrator um approval to sign so move I'll second motion made in seconded
any more discussion all those in favor I Tom are you you doing the HVAC system too no okay uh thank you um then there's a EST to use the Oldtown Hall um I think it's pretty straightforward yeah just just quickly
through chair um we did receive the check for it okay uh we have not received the oh we just got it okay so so we did all right so we got the insurance by your so so I was going to say we didn't have we're expecting it early next week but we did get it okay I
had no issues with it Nicole I didn't see anything wrong beautiful great motion made motion to approve the facilities request as presented I'll second that motion being seconded any discussion all
those in favor I I um HVAC system for the town um Library yeah the um we uh they put out the bid for HVAC system we did receive one bidder back but they were a
responsive and responsible bidder we've done work with them um uh we've done work with them before um it is um North North Star Refrigeration so um just to just to let the um the board know that
we have funds have been procured uh for this and um it it sort of it fell within within our procurement amount both the uh the Building Commissioner and and Granite City are um you know reviewed uh
reviewed the uh the uh the bid sheet and uh they're happy with with the response okay and this is still through Granite City Granite City is the yeah as as our OPM yes okay um is there a motion on the
floor to accept it's too bad there's only one bid submitted yeah unfortunately that happens a lot yeah that's that's disappointing but nothing we can do so I'll I'll make a motion to approve the HVAC bid as presented by Granite City I'll second that motion
made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I uh Comcast so we received um a request from uh from Comcast to uh provide them with a letter of support I think Mark you had
sent that to me uh for um MBI Massachusetts uh Broadband uh initiative which is um it's um uh a Statewide entity uh providing grant money to extend Broadband to uh
underserved underserved various areas that don't have access to it so so what they're doing is they requesting a letter of support from from the town of dayon is there a motion on the floor to accept then do you do you we we must have underserved areas if they're
sending us this letter okay all right yeah I don't know where they are but you know it's my house we're we're roll town we probably have dead spots around yeah yeah does this make sense you Mr chairman yes it does make sense I only briefly looked over it I'm not going to
pretend that I it's over my head yeah completely um but it no I saw the word no cost right that that was okay that definitely helped my yes uh there's certainly dead areas in town that um by right not by right um that's wrong but
should have access to it Absolut if uh if they so choose okay I'll make a motion to uh sign the letter of support for Comcast as presented I'll second that motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor
I um Chief has a letter of appointment for a new uh full-time firefighter Ruben Jacob who's not here this evening I don't think they come they don't come yeah usually yeah the chief it's more it's like um so it's just the
letter welcome Reuben welcome Reuben yeah uh so this is a review discussion act so is there a motion on the floor motion to accept the letter from uh Chief McGee as presented I'll second that motion made
in seconded any discussion all those in favor I I approval of the warrants I make a motion to pay the warrants paid by February 20th 2025 34 a-25 in the amount of 147 ,
36277 in 34 B-25 in the amount of 38,4 49651 warrants paid by February 27 2025 35 a-25 in the amount of
144,50 2715 and 35 B-25 in the amount of $165,700 C I'll second that motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I I uh public input if there's
none I have one more thing to say I just was digesting the public input we had on the firing range yeah and just the stray bullet comment um I was just thinking it might be beneficial since we know about this now would you mind just making sure the chief's aware of that oh yeah
absolutely yeah I was I've going to reach out to the chief that make decision as um um he he said he was and he's a he's a minimal obviously to come back but I'll I'll give him I'll give him an update on what was said after he had left yeah so he can take a take uh
this is for him and for you um it was nice that they put it together uh obviously we've asked that he come two weeks from now but he should be prepared to answer the questions so that he's not hearing them for the first time and then we have to give him another two weeks
yeah so we should go over a list of things that people have discussed tonight with uh with Tom and Alternatives if there is any to modifying the range itself um yeah we um we'll go over the minutes and I'll you know get the
questions out of there and I'll I'll inform I'll inform the chief um I'm I'm just making an assumption I'm sure they they follow that you know that range but it's good it's good to have yeah yeah I'm familiar with it because oh okay so mind if I take your copy to read no yeah
go ahead um only because um I was the um a town represent the Joint Base Cape Cod and we we you know we you know I I kind of aware the um Range safety and the Fallout and I know what uh what Nancy was was discussing so okay so it's their
neighborhood and like I said we don't live there and we don't it doesn't affect us but it's no different than if a housing project wanted to go in right beside us uh we we'd find it a detriment to our neighborhood uh I'm not so sure
it affects the value of their homes but it it certainly affects their quality of life and and we uh should discuss it with them um okay and one more thing pain tonight as usual I'll at least be consistent right um You were actually
pretty good up to now you're ruining it um I also had time to digest what was displayed on the um TV screen and uh I was going to ask could we do I don't know if it's necessary but maybe a police report on that uh and also Loop in Chris rer so that never can happen
again but I like it investigated if we could that question we'll look into we will definitely look into that um not that I'm surp that was pretty popular at the beginning of Zoom like when oh I was in pretty popular I didn't seems to know
a lot yeah um um yeah and you could you had to be quick on the trigger finger sometime yeah you know but uh but we will I'll bring up the achievement we'll take it up with Christen see you know what things we could put in place to
avoid that usually um we did it in um because I was kind of like the zooms are in Sandwich uh what we would do is people would have to sign in and we would have to admit them in and if they could you know if we identify them we admit them in and I'm sure like one was just like it's probably the one that
just said iPhone right you know I have the name but yeah yeah so that would help so we'll um we'll look at the protocols again just so that doesn't that was gross that was you know and there were kids here too is like terrible yes
you thank you for bringing that up again mark it was a little shocking when it happened so it was just absolutely thank you um if nothing else then we have approval of the minutes I'll make approval of the minutes of the board of selectman's regular meeting minutes of February 12th 2025 second
motion made seconded any discussion all those in favor I and last but not least make a motion to adjourn second motion made in seconded any discussion all those in favor I