town meeting warrant articles review the union building update the contract with Papus Industries with a general contractor for the exterior restoration uh release of overlay funds and then we'll be going into executive session
pursuant to general law chapter 30A section 21 A3 pursuant to purpose two to conduct strategy sessions with respect to collective bargaining with the police union um neb NEPBA local 7 We will coming out of
executive session back into public session to review the Dunville Police Union um contract And that is it Um we'll open up to the public anybody in the public who would like to
speak to something not on the agenda There being none we will move on All right So we have a set of meeting minutes from April 8th Is there a motion Move to approve the meeting minutes from April 8th
2025 as submitted Second Discussion All those in favor I I I next up repairs to the library We contract with at Painting to do slew of things over there Yeah
we bid the project We received I believe it was six states Um the low bid did not acknowledge the agenda that were um Yeah Okay So that we out he was out and
so the next lowest bid was $39,900 at painting We've checked um references and I've talked to them Um I had a meeting with them last Friday and um we're comfortable with proceeding
Okay We um it should be noted we received $75,000 ear mark in this um in the state budget to fund firefighter PPE and library repairs 35,000 was um earmarked for the
PPE leaving a remaining balance of 40,000 for the library So we're right on target Well not quite because we've spent 6,300 in design money Okay So what's left is a a $6,200 gap between
state funding that we have and the contract price So we do have capital money um from FY25 that is available to spend Um we had planned for a higher estimate for
the police work police station work that um is about to get started And so we have um we have some flexibility within our capital allotment for this year that we can use to fund the contract Okay
Is that 35 for the PPE solid I mean we have actual price for those Is there any It's been ordered That was the original air mark It's right It's not quite right there but it's very close It's very close Nothing that'll help this Not it
it will help but not by the entire net It might it's like I think it left the balance of slightly less than $1,000 So we will be able to apply a little more to that but not much more There's this isn't a tariff situation on the PPE The tariffs
won't get dinged with like a the PPE won't get dinged with like a tariff orders No we have the Y yeah we have the invoice We have the price We're just waiting for delivery All right Thank you What was the I just want to know for myself because it doesn't mean anything other than me The library low bidder
that was disqualified How much was left on the table between him and the second guy So the the price um that they submitted was somewhere right shy of $14,962 I have no confidence that the
project could be done for that amount Yeah So it wasn't it was really a bid integrity issue in addition to not acknowledging an addendum I I don't I don't know how you could do that job for 14,000 I have no idea No it's not reasonable Was he looking at the right
job I don't know So like I said we received six bids That was the low bid I thought we had to disqualify um them The high bid was Neil and Construction for $168,000 Construction Yeah But then there were three bids that were
right were between 80,000 and 73,000 That's a huge jump between those And then there was the at 4399 Um I know that they came out and viewed the site They did a site visit at
painting I'm talking about now Yeah Um he came back and talked to me about the project Um he had questions I sent him back to look at the building again Yeah like I said I talked to him Friday to confirm his understanding of the
scope of work and the price and um and we did reference checks I think his bid's good And we just think the other ones like Legacy and FRG are just too hot I mean
obviously they're high but they're just there's a 40 40 grand jump between them I'm just trying to understand why because you have three the median number is about 70 to 80 You have one way outside and you have two low
Yeah It's It's like with the Union Building the difference between the two is Y hundreds of thousands of dollars Bids to bid I know but if we qualify the guy does he have to have a bid bond
have all right perform payment bond payment and we have the bond already or not Not yet So once we sign the contract he's going to issue a bond Correct He's not going to get it out of some bank in Yugoslavia or something And he's I talked to his bonding company No no but
his staff ad I think admin staff or office manager project manager type and she's just waiting for the work to She knew exactly what she had to do you know Yeah Yeah So you're qu you're comfortable that this guy's qualified to do this job I am
I move to approve the contract between the town of Dunstable and AT Painting for repairs to the public libraries window trim sophets fascia gutters and exterior door a door in an amount not to
exceed $39,900 and authorize the chair to sign the contract on behalf of the board Second So any further discussion Seeing none All those in favor I I I All right Very
good Okay Update on the treasur collector position Okay Well some good news Uh so we've had we've been interviewing candidates We haven't interviewed a ton of candidates but we have been
interviewing candidates for months Um Yes And we um we're fortunate to have um a recent candidate we've interviewed has gone through the process and has accepted the position the regional position between Dunible and Pepell um
Theresa Roleri She's currently the treasure collector in ACT and she's been there since 2017 Um we're excited to have her We're not quite ready to um ask the board to appoint her because um I'm hoping she'll
be here So you can all meet meet um meet her and talk to her So but um but we're very excited um about getting her on board and also um just want to thank once again um Bonnie Ricardelli for um
for being such a good team player and supporting us in our time of need because um it wouldn't be as easy for sure without her So really really appreciate Bye Okay Is she coming tonight or is this
just an update No it was just I just wanted to give you an update No action needed Excellent Okay Yeah that is that is good news Um okay So the annual town meeting warrant So there have been some changes We went
through this at a draft at um the last select board meeting There have been some changes I'm trying to remember exactly which ones they were Um I think the
two I think the two that are new are um article 13 lardfield master plan that was approved by the CPC and then article 15 the tennis and pickle ball courts at Lardfield Um as you know that project's
essentially wrapped up Not quite though There may be a need um depending on what the planning board does um for an supplemental one more additional supplemental appropriation to fund the final um storm water drainage work that
um that the engineers re that the town engineer is recommending So but other than those two items everything else is as it was uh 8th I think your last meeting was Um we can if you want to run through them
we can Um again if not they're literally the same as we run through last time I don't have a lot of questions I don't have a lot of questions My only question I look at our agenda You're asking us for two votes One to approve the warrant
and one to um approve sponsoring certain articles the warrant in it in its entirety and which ones we want to support Okay My my only question was on because I know this was coming up in another town in article 21 this
amendment the flood plane district How does that impact folks that may see that their house is now in a flood plane We've already gone through it and there have been no significant there have been really no changes to our flood planes There's no properties okay that will be significantly impacted and we don't have
to like notify a butter like just like as a matter of practice we don't have to notify someone if like all of a sudden your house on Main Street was encro is now a part of that I don't know if there's We didn't have any of that Well no we didn't have anyone impacted Yeah
Yeah Nobody Wow Okay Um I don't think we could find one residential home that was affected Okay Not where there was not in a flood plane and is now in a flood plane There were some where it the house was already in a flood plane and extended a little further right into the property but
there were not any that were encumbered where they hadn't Okay Yeah I guess I just think of like homeowners insurance rates like if all of a sudden you realize jump you know crap like my taxes are going up and so is my homeowners insurance because of this Well they are still and we find
that that happens and it wasn't picked up in any of our reviews for that happening Okay But um there is still a process that a homeowner can go through to get a loma where they get a an engineering certificate they go out and survey to see where the line actually is
I mean this is still they're still based on not theoretical elevations because they're getting more and more data to set those elevations but you can still get micro topographies to okay counteract that So there are options for people This is something that's
something they have to do on their own Yeah And this is something that you're right every community Yeah Essentially every community has to do Yeah to adopt the new FEMA maps and to just to ensure that people can get flood insurance
Yeah But most most people don't have flood insurance Well if you're in a flood plane if you are in a flood plane or you become in a flood plane you're going to need to get it That's right If you can afford it Well but but it also changes the the ability to sell your house If all of a
sudden the 300year flood plane map Yeah exactly and and just as I know in a neighboring town people were coming up to the planning office and they were ripped Yeah Because all of a sudden they're like "Well you just killed the value in my house." And really it's not the town it's FEMA It is But who are
they going to ask questions of Yeah Yeah We again we actually did most of most of it but we did look at it and there didn't appear to be anyone in Dunville affected by the change of maps
Okay Move to approve the annual town meeting warrant to be presented to the residents of the town of Dunable at the annual town meeting on Monday May 12th 2025 at 7 p.m at the Swallow Union Elementary
School Second Further discussion All those in favor I I I So there's really too many that we need to take a stance
[Applause] on Article one's reports Two is unpaid bills Article three transfer to water enterprise fund Article four transfer to general stabilization fund Five is transfer to the capital
improvement program stabilization fund Article six is operating budget Seven is the revolving fund expenditure limits Article eight capital improvement to four municipal departments Article nine water system
infrastructure improvements Is there going to be a presentation of what they're going to do or is it just a for water I think for water they want some of their retained earnings set
aside in the case they need it basically because they don't really have that baked in their budget Okay So if there's a water break or if there's something else that happens that they need to respond to they want some money set aside for that purpose Okay So there's nothing there's no particular
improvements that need to be made under this article right now I don't think they have any specific plans for it How much do they want to hold 35 35,000 Retain retained earnings is um for 25 I believe was about 68,000
So they're going to take about half of it and put it in a kitty for water system upgrades Yeah When you know Yeah I mean it's wise to do that Well they have a there's a pretty significant
liability at the pump station because it has a skater in it right The computer's telling it what to do The lightning storm put you in a bad way real quick Should we be just creating a fund for them Like an That's what this is This is for
improvements Well is it improvements and repairs Design repair replace construct install design repair design repair replacement construction installation covers the whole
gamut is involved and associated work Yeah but so isn't repairs including all incidental and related costs What would you call it Maybe it's like water fund water system
water system infrastructure fund because it's an an improvement to me tells me you have a plan you're designating the money for like you're going to boost all the pumping abilities An emergency fund to me is to what Ron
said is where something fails overnight get hit by a crazy storm and you've got to drain the count to pay skillings or whoever to repair the system I don't know Just like but I mean it's it's in the So I said emergency I mean I I think what this is for is if there is an
emergency they have money there Yeah But it's not necessarily only for emergencies like if they get through the year and there's no emergency but they know hey we have this project that needs to get done and they may just go ahead and use it for that knowing that we're
going to we're going to have retained earnings next year We're going to have a portion of money next year hopefully fingers crossed and you know we'll look at what we have certified and then appropriate based on that for the
following year The idea was we kind of went back and forth on should we bake something in a budget every year rather than doing this or should we take the returned earnings and have article money set aside for it similar to what we do with capital every year and I landed on
my recommendation is I landed on retained earnings because if you're baking in the budget you're you're basically increasing rates um annually because you're bacon you're increasing the budget right that needs to be funded for rates so rather than
doing that I thought the better alternative was let's use retained earnings every year we'll go we'll have the article in place if we don't have sufficient one year then we won't be able to do it but hopefully we'll be able to do it and um and it will act as
kind of you know an annual just um standard article that appears on the war that makes so it's money that's already coming in it's not new money that the taxpayers would be paying So that is true Makes more sense to do it that way Yeah I mean so the retained earnings are
similar to generated similar to how free cash is generated on the general fund side So if we bring more revenue in than what we planned and if we spend less than what we budgeted those two things total and that's our retained earnings
certification every year How about rather than just just say it's a fund instead of an improvements water system infrastructure fund We're not creating a fund though Is it is it difficult creating a fund It's just a
matter language at this point in time I mean we could It would just delay posting and everything like that Yes We're just like we're at semantics like you ask We could I'm not well if you if you
covers everything and what it would be used for I think there's a narrative after that which explains it in in greater detail and I'm I'm okay with that Although the the title in of itself may be somewhat misleading infrastructure improvements but when you go on to read the rest of it it does
okay I think I think it does I think it does the trick It is I think that's what it does If it fails you want to improve that If we think I seriously I'm not kidding If we think the title of the article is misleading we should 100% change it because that's not that's not
the intent of the warrant The warrant is to be very clear on what we have planned If it's misleading we should change it I don't understand how it is but if you think it is let's come up with a better name because I don't I don't want anything to be misleading on the ground
That's the last thing I want Yeah But I don't think you can capture all of this in a title but I I think you're okay with it The fact that the rest of it it goes through significant detail to explain what that money could be used for It makes sense We didn't mislead anybody
My thought I wasn't a good student in the class My first thought was "Oh what are they improving I'm going to read the rest of this." Yeah I was literally my brain's like "Oh like I didn't realize the water department was doing something." Like "What are they going to improve
Well and here we are Okay because I think of people who were so against the town taking the burden of the water rate Remember we had that It was many moons ago And now the town taxpayer is responsible for someone else to get their water and now we're going to offer
them an improvement Is your well going to get improved this year Well we're not offering but it's not I know I'm just playing it out No but the money that's going toward the improvements which they are I don't know how else to say it is water rate money It's already It's not
taxpayer money Yeah Right But the subsidizes that No they don't No they don't No The Well the only way the only way they subsidize is through the the U bond payment of the tank not the
operations We do not subsidize the operations to water uh department I I don't think we have since I've been here Um maybe the first year but the last two No Yeah Um and I don't we do again we do
have a standard article um on the warrant for that in the case we need it because in the PA past we have had to do that But um we didn't do it last year I don't I've not been notified of the fact we need to do it this year
Um that said we do sub the the tax rate subsidizes 50% of the bond payments annually for the water tile or the water tank But this is water rate money I won't beat the dead horse here I'll be
a better student in the classroom Thank you Is there a motion Never mind We've already done that Yeah Okay Article 10 community preservation committee recommendations Um 11 is removal of
invasive weeds at um Lake Massipog That's a CPA project Are these the ones do we want to either support or not support Are there any here that we're not supporting I don't think so I don't think so either No Okay
Article 12 Ladder Field Improvements 13 Lauderfield master plan 14 is Woodward Mill Dam improvements 15 tennis pickle ball court at Larderfield That's to as Jason said earlier to do the drainage
work Um 16 establishment of the Dunwell Commission on Accensibility 17 the lease purchase agreement What's this for specifically Okay Yeah Um 18 Chapter 90 funds 19 the
veterans tax exemption annual cost of living increase 20 the municipal charges lean And 21 the amendments to uh amend section 15.2 flood plane district the town zoning bylaw And that's it right
There was some debate on the social media platform about charges and leads but I don't think I don't know if it was quite related to this article per se just to acknowledge Yep All right Are we all set here Move to
sponsor 2025 annual town meeting warrant articles One two So you're talking about two things One is sponsoring them just to put them on the warrant If you could also take a
vote to support all the articles if you Well okay My question with that is um we we're numerically out of sequence here We've got one two no three four five six no seven We have an eight and then we go
from 8 to 17 We we I think we're going to vote them to approve all of them So you approve the warrant There are some warrants on the article I'm sorry Some articles some articles on the warrant that the select
board sponsors meaning you sponsor the articles to place them on the warrant Typically you don't you don't sponsor every article on the ground Okay So these these are the ones that you're only that you're sponsoring Never mind
However however no but you're you're making a good point Yeah If you'd like if you want us take a vote to support the articles on the warrant you can do that too Yeah but voting this But you got a sponsor You got to you got to
sponsor the Okay Fellow board members You want to support all the articles Um in my opinion I have no issue I don't have an issue The only the only one that gives me pause is because we don't know
what the planning board is going to do for one of the CPA articles But I don't want to say no I don't want to support that because Right And and honestly if the planning board doesn't require the the um the expanded uh then
we can take requirements Yeah Exactly Which one is that In that case I have no issue with supporting all the articles It's article 15 Okay Yeah Okay I move to support Excuse me I move to sponsor 2025
annual town meeting articles all inclusive Second Does that make sense Sure You want to sponsor Yeah Sponsor in support Yep Okay All in favor I I I
Okay moving on That was okay The Union Building contract with Papus Industries for the general contractor for the exterior restoration of the building Um the Union Building Committee Um there
were two bids that were submitted Um quite a big difference between the two numbers but the lowest bid um was recommended Well they were found to be fit to serve I guess
for the um for the project and the committee uh reviewed that as well and did choose to go with the lowest bidder and put that request forward to the select board Um so it was actually um good It was significantly lower than
than what we have allotted through the CPA funds which is fantastic Yeah and they have should be able to get the work done or should be they're claiming they will get the work done the start date that we've asked in the time period that
we've asked and see completed before start so we need to we could do it for free you with us yeah I'm ready okay you ready to go I move to approve the contract between the town of Dunstable and Papis Industries for the exterior
area restoration of the union building in the amount of $655,000 and authorize the chair to sign the contract on behalf of the board Second Is there any further
discussion None All those in favor I I I think good Okay Release of overlay funds Could you just give a quick explanation on that for Yeah the public would be great Sure So
um Olay is what we use to fund um abatements and um what the board of assessors uses to fund abatements And um I um the board of assessors has agreed to release
$25,000 from overlay to help us balance FY26 budget So this is just um we in order to release the funds the select board has to request the release of the funds but the board of assessments is also has has already
agreed to do that Okay Well I think that's a good idea I I I I I understand it I think it's a great idea Absolutely 25K is 25K is we all start with this one Yeah Move to approve
the release of $25,000 from the fiscal year 2025 overlay account to support the fiscal year 2026 operating budget in accordance with the vote of the board of assessors Second
Any further discussion No All those in favor I I I Okay So we will be now entering into executive session Um come back to
Yeah Yeah We'll come we'll be coming back Yeah So we will be entering into executive session um pursuant to general law chapter 30A section 21A 3 pursuant to purpose 2 to conduct strategy sessions with respect to collective bargaining
bargaining with the Dunville Police Union NVPA local number seven [Music] Um roll call Ron Michael yes Kieran yes Basins yes