and discussion on the municipal building's electrical supplier and the bandstand repair contract. The employee compensation and classification discussion and review of the document that was um finally uh
given to us from what was the Colin Center. Colin Center, right? That's right. Yeah. Um then we have Woodward's Mill Dam Repair task order to approve the establishing designer selection
committee for the Union Building Interior Design. We have a employee team building exercise and request for a early closure of the town hall on one day prohibiting the insurance of electrical permits for unlicensed homeowners.
Discussion consideration of waving building permit fees for 12 affordable units for the MCO cottages at the mud district. A discussion on 307 Pleasant Street for the junk and unregistered motor vehicle bylaw potential violations.
Then a discussion on fall special town meeting. And lastly, the appointments to the cultural council. Anybody in the public choose to speak to something not on the agenda? No. All right. Very good. We'll move on. We have a set of minutes from August
12th, 2025. That looks good. All right. So, thank you. Uh move to approve meeting minutes as written from August 12th, 2025. Second. All those in favor? I
Okay. Municipal buildings electrical supply. So this was um something Jason you sort of stumbled across and this would take the municipal buildings not including school and pro create a new
supplier still in Jason. I know. Okay. Are you and Brian there? Brian is here. Okay. Okay. Great. Sorry about that. Yeah. So, there's really not much more I
need to explain. I'll let the two people know more about this, but essentially putting the as we know the town is now has the dunable um power which we have a energy supplier with a locked rate that is lower than what National Grid is offering. is sort of a similar thing but
just for municipal buildings only not including the school you said at an even lower rate. So that's something we really want to consider that could provide us with you know some good enough savings. Yeah. Based on the prices for electricity right now any savings is
anything is great. The numbers are nuts. So So can you can you hear us? I can. Yeah. Okay. Um I'm going to try to turn you up a little bit. Give me a minute.
I'm just gonna call myself football practice. That's as loud as you can get. So, I'm gonna turn you here. Okay. So, um I I'll give a brief overview and then turn it to Brian. Um, so Ryan reached out to the
town, geez, about a month ago, I'd say, maybe a little longer than that, about looking at our municipal facilities and buildings accounts for electricity and procuring a supplier similar to what we did for the entire town not too long
ago. um with the hope that because of the amount of electricity we're purchasing, we may be able to get a lower rate than what's being provided now by Dunable Community Pile. Mhm. So, um in your packet, you'll see some
bid results from um a few weeks ago now that show that we're actually we've and and Brian actually has a more upto-date um u bid result that what was it this afternoon?
Okay. So, this afternoon that's um that's also lower than what we're currently paying. So, the estimate is around a $2,500 savings. It's not going to, you know, it's not going to, you know, help our budget
situation. You know, it's not going to solve all our budget problems. But any way we can save money is a welcome um welcome thing for the town. So, um, I Brian, I don't know if you have what you have to add, but I'm glad
you're here. Um, and if you can if you want to add anything to what I just said, that would be that'd be great. Just quickly, that's a savings from the municipal power rate, not the national grid rate. It's even better than it see.
Hello everybody. Thank you so much for inviting me to convene this evening. Uh, I think Jason did a pretty good job recapping uh the situation here. Uh, my name is Brian White and I'm the municipal program director at Freedom Energy. And in Massachusetts, we currently help 36
municipal cities, towns, water, sewer departments, housing authorities better manage their energy spending. And Jason kind of hit the nail on the head where the town of Dunable has been very proactive. is entered into the dustable community power program and that fixed
price is 14.074 cents all the way through December of 2026. So when I was speaking with Jason I suggested we collect the town's invoices and put those out in bid as a standalone
procurement and see what type of options we get back. We've had multiple supplies. Initially, Jason and I have done a few rounds of pricing, so we've kind of narrowed it down to NRG Constellation. And this afternoon, Constellation sent over what I picked in my recommendation
is a 36-month term at 12.799. It would work identical to the way that the dustable community power rate works. This would be for an October start. The rate would go right on the invoice. There's no changing away from the
utility. There's no added fees that you have to pay. This number of 12799 would simply replace the 14074. And as somebody indicated earlier, it's about a $2,500 savings, which I would agree is not huge, but it's about 10%
less than the Dunable community power. So, savings relative to spend. And when we're looking at dumpstable loads, we know that there's no schools involved. So, it's only about 12 accounts that the town is directly responsible for, but
still a 10% savings and in my opinion, a pretty easy decision for you folks. Um, if you're looking at it from $10,000, yeah, not a lot of questions for me. I think it's an opportunity to save some money. We're trying to um unturn any, you know,
all the rocks there to try to find anything we can. This is one way that we're we're able to find savings. So yeah. Yeah. Where where most of our utilities are increas we're seeing increases. This is the way we can say. We did just just for your information. Um Brian also went
out to market for natural gas if I got that right. And um the the rates were not as um as desirable. So we're not moving forward with that at the at the moment. At some point in the future it may be it may make more sense. But right now it doesn't. So
we decided we would hold off until utility releases their winter prices to make a better decision on on that just because the offers that came in are above what they charge currently and above what they charge last winter. So we can't find anything that's worth
reducing cost. It's probably not worth it. Unless everybody believes that prices are just going to skyrocket. We want to lock in anyways. My recommendation was to hold. Sounds good to me. Yeah, we we have all the buildings. We
have the pump station. Yeah, we have all 71 main. Yep, they are in the pump. Are they on here? Yeah. library is part of that too. Yeah. Nice.
So the current national rate so has 12 accounts. 11 of them are considered a G1 or small rate class. One of them is a G2. So about 80% of your uses on the G1 rate class. That rate
through January 26 is 14411. January's price is 21.7. That's crazy. So, I think it's an indication that rates are only going to go up as we go forward, especially once the wind come. Yeah. No, that's a no-brainer.
Yeah. I got a question and I don't know if this is Brian or not, but 7-Eleven Main Street is a pump station and it pumps water to a tank and it goes
to the town, right? And it's on this list. Has there been, and I don't know if this is you, Brian, has there been any consideration to putting in power factor correction capacitors or is that totally outside of your real? That's certainly not anything we're
looking at here. I don't know if the usage is high enough to go forward with a project like that. You know, you know, I don't know which comment is off the top of my head, but that is certainly not anything that we
scored to this point yet. Yeah, NRG does a a pretty fair amount of that. That particular and I know but this is a cost issue. that particular site is an inductive load to motor load, right? And so its power factor is around
73% which is not that great. And a correction capacitor in there would would bring that power factor into unity and you'd get a savings out of it. I just don't know. It's obviously this is simply just looking at consumption rates, right?
Right. I I think what you're referring to would probably have a bigger impact on the distribution and delivery side of the bill. They're doing a lot of work over there, Ron. Now, is that not part of what they're doing? No, that's okay. We'll uh I'm all right. I'm fine. I'll
have a discussion with a couple of others about that. The motor load is terri. It's killing that power factor and you're paying for that. What What number on the sheet over? It's 711 May
71. I'll let you know if I Well, it's it's number five. It's number five on the list, Brian. Perfect. So, and then if I were to look at this, right, with the 10,000 foot view, right?
Are we going to be coming off of the aggregators and we're going to be going directly with these guys? Just the municipal buildings. Just the municipal buildings. The rest of the town stays on dumpster power. Correct. Okay. And then the only issue that could would come up is people would say you
get a better deal for the municipal buildings than you do for the aggregation plant because of it's because of our load. It's just because of because of our usage. Okay. As long as we can explain that away. time aggregation is very unpredictable in terms of who's
going to supply power. It's an opt out program. Yes, you have customers coming and going at any point in time. So there there's a premium built into that. So that's not to say the town doesn't have a good rate because it does. It's lower than actual grids. But yeah, when you
look at a specific profile for compounds that's using, you know, almost 2005,000 kilowatt hours a year, there's a residence that's using anywhere close to that, right? Compared to that mining Bitcoin and we don't know about
Carol, you have a question. Um, we get credits from the Charlie Mfield, are we not? What happened to them? Does that affect us at all? We do. I'm gonna We get credit from a solar farm. Yeah. I'm gonna let Brian Brian I thought this might come up. Brian, do
you want to How does that affect? I'm glad this came up because at the time deciding they want to move forward with freedom. One of the things that I'll be happy to help you with is finding a way to utilize these debt metering credits. So to answer your question, no, this will have zero impact
on your debt. That will continue as is. Uh, and there's no change of service, no disruption in anything. You are absolutely allowed to be. Now, when I was reviewing the invoices, Jason and I had a conversation about how they have started to acrue negative
balances. So, when you get your national grid bill, you don't owe any money because there's a negative balance there. And this is a result of the net metering agreement producing more solar credits than the town has available
usage to consume. So basically, you're getting a $2,000 credit on a $1,000 bill. So what happens is that starts to acrue negative balances. And you are by far not the only town that I have run into that's had this exact same issue.
And one of the ways if we can that um utilizing these is partnering with like Mass State and doing maybe a deferred maintenance project where they will do on bill financing. So, if you've got one of your accounts that owes, you know, negative
$30,000, for example, we could do a $50,000 project and $30,000 of that would be automatically taken off the bill as a way to not only utilize the credits you have, but not lose them because I don't think you have any available accounts to redistribute these
credits to, right? You're just in a situation where it's it's again the project's working. you're getting credits, you're it's it's delivering the savings, you're just overs subscribed. So, yeah. So, the question is, and B I we talked about this is how we want to
go about using them. What are our options? So, he's thankfully willing to help us with figuring all that out, too. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah. Yeah. Mass has some pretty good deals and incentives, they often pay for a good portion of the project. Yeah. Yeah.
So, it's a great way to kind of, you know, gobble up your excess credits. What we can do is ship them all to one account. So, all like a one time transfer. So, all of those negative credits go into one account, then we'll have a very large negative balance that we can chip away at.
If you have any types of, you know, like I said, maintenance projects or or something you'd like to improve or upgrade, the highway pressure winter has it. Yeah. And it's pretty cold in there in the winter. We have one more question from an audience member
and who's gonna see this? The town got burnt a number of years ago before we had a town. We had signed up for some program like this and and it rolled over when it rolled over into a new a new term.
Uh it was at a much higher rate than what National Grid was offering at the time. What was the name of that company, Harold? I remember that. I think it has something to do with solo, wasn't it? I did. I just And I remember that issue with that roll. Now you bring it up.
They It rolled over and we were in shock over the Right. You know, it's kind of like a CD. You get a notice from from the bank. They have a CD that's going to roll over and you get 10 days do something about it. Well, who who's going to oversee this if we do
it and make sure that he is. Good thing he's on a four-year contract. Yeah. I don't understand what happened. What happened again? Tell me what happened again. We got scoped. Really? On what? We weren't paying attention. Yeah. I think what happens is when a supply
agreement expires, right? A supplier does not will you put you back to national grid unless they've been told to do so. Oh, what happens? It's like a balance transfer on a credit card for 12 months. You're you got a free trial. I got a free trial.
Yeah. very compared to what you were not only paying before but in some cases what the utility got. So okay just to address this concern working with freedom means that you will now be working with our municipal team that we will inform you not only when
your contract's about to expire but I'm going to approach you when the market's in a better spot to look at your next term because you're actually able to purchase your electricity agreements 24 months in advance of the start date. So what I mean by that is let's hypothetically lock in at 12.8
months from now the market takes a nose dive and we could buy another 18 or 24 month term at 11 cents. I would contact you and say I think it's worth looking at. Here's some renewal quotes and then it's up to you guys to decide, well, we can kind of
continue on with our plan, see how rates look at the end or we can take a guaranteed savings now, lock up our rate at the bottom. We're going to spend less money regardless of what the market. Okay.
Okay. Good question, John. It sounds like this is uh quite a bit of savings over the uh the current um energy
uh program we just started with. uh how come this isn't available to everybody and and it's only available to municipalities or to yeah builders I think as as you mentioned because the
the usage of the town is as an individual like user would be higher than any household would be and also there's an unpredictability of the residences it being an opt out that people can either opt in opt out at
any random time. So they sort of build into that little bit higher price some sort of a premium so that they're still making a little bit of money even though it's a lower rate than what National Grid is doing. Is that I think so. I guess the other the other thing I
would add to that is Brian correct me if I'm wrong but anyone can go and test the market on electricity supply. So, I mean, if if there was a better option for an individual homeowner, they they do have
the right to sign individual supply contracts with suppliers is my understanding. Um, there's an app Arbor is a really good one that you see like on Instagram, Facebook, and you can click it and you can enter your address and you can bump, you know, your rate that you get with
National Grid or Unatil, whoever provides your electricity and you can compare it to what they may have to offer you. Yeah. and it could be, you know, a 12-month, 18month, 36-month term. It's not a bad idea to always consider like looking for insurance, health
insurance or auto insurance. There's always different rates out there for different supply and opportunities. I mean, in this case, we're probably we're probably getting a better rate than what an individual homeowner would get because of because of the use that
we have versus a single family home, for instance. But they but anyone has the right to do it. Yeah, you can choose your own supplier. You just have to do the research. Almost a little sad, but it's a classic case of the rich get rich, right? Nobody
wants to supply Tony's pizza. Everybody wants to buy the city of Cambridge. So when you've done a lot of usage, you become more desirable for the suppliers. They make more money on the deal. they're more willing to go out and work with that business versus a single
homeowner trying to call around and find a competitive rate for the house. Yeah. So, when I look, like I said, with a lot of messages, I think I even sent Jason the list of our active customers. Um, not one of them
power choice, but they all have. Yeah. Thank you. Right. Okay. Oh, I think it's a good idea. I do too. Agreed. Well explained. Yeah. We all set. Yeah. Nice little motion there in the back page. moved to authorize town
administrator to sign an electricity supply contract for municipal buildings and facilities for no longer than 3 years and as long as the program price is lower than the current Dunstable
community power residential basic service price. Second. Any further discussion? No. All those in favor? I I I That's great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I'll be in touch with you at some point tomorrow. We'll set up the final bid dates are available agreements. What we traditionally do is send the bids over by 11 along with the recommendation. We'll then request, review, and send you the supplies assuming all the terms and conditions are in line with our
expectations. You'll have until 3:00 that afternoon to execute a document and get it back. Sounds good. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you all very much. Have a wonderful night. You too. Take care. All right.
Moving on. Banscan repairs contract. So we had what? Three bids come in. So we we received three bids. Um quite a difference between Yeah. CK SK roofing is the uh low bid.
It is right under what we have remaining in the earmark. So it's right within budget. Um we had a remaining amount of like close to 30,000. It's like 28 28 28 I think. Yeah. So it's right under that. So we are in good shape to get the
project going. It it's to install roof caps on the seams of the the roof the hips the hips of the roof. um replacing the lattice, light fixtures, and doing a little painting. Any concerns about the difference
between the big numbers there? I talked to the vendor. I checked their references and all checked out. We've seen we saw it with the library project, too. And the numbers were huge. Yeah. Yeah. And so CNK roofing, he's going to
do the lighting. Yeah. Does he was there a file sub bid light fixture replacement? No. Okay. It's not. And there's I mean that that to Karen's point that this pricing matrix scares
the daylights out of me and we don't have a lot of contingency money. No. Or if CNK somehow says I screwed my job up and does he have a bid bond? No. No. It's not it's not the size contract.
He'll have a um does he have a payment bond? If we were to toss him, the next one is 30 grand more. So, we would do the project. Yeah. I mean, I have been in contact with him. He's Yeah, they're ready to go.
The fact that you got two others that are so close to each other and you got him, he's 50% of their number where I'd be. waking up at night. But you vetted the guy out and he's got all his
There's no addendums he missed or any of that stuff, right? No, I don't. I'll communicate with him one more time. You check out his references. I did. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't I don't want Don't scare the guy away. I mean, because if that does he know these numbers? Does he know the spread?
I said all So, he knows them all. And he has no issue. He's excited to get all sign. All right, let's do it. Move to approve a contract with CNK roofing incorporated in the amount of $27,513
[Music] for the purpose of making repairs to the town common band stand and authorize the chair to sign contract on behalf of the board. Second. Any further discussion?
None. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay. Would you know that? No, actually the next up is the classification cons. That's a second separate document. Yeah.
Let me get this into a view that that Sorry. Just going to walk through this very quickly. Um, so as you know, we received a $20,000 best practices community compact grant to
conduct the comp class compensation classification study. We contracted with UMass Boston College center to do the work. Um the work included updates to our job descriptions. They they looked at creating um positions.
They did a salary survey and compensation review. And um while they're not doing the implementation, that wasn't part of their scope. They've kind of been they've been helping me through that process.
So job descriptions were updated. Um the process I think was a good one. Um and I thank Sue for helping to spearhead this. Um employee they initially issued a questionnaire. There were interviews conducted
with most um employees, not all. Um based on both of those things, they were um position descriptions developed. They would then submit it to us for final review. Um incorporated feedback and
finalized the descriptions. They um what happened? I get a new computer and everything. It's a big pad. It's not a doubt. I love Lenovo. I love big pads. I for one.
Is that Lenovo? Used to be IBM, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have it in front of us here. So, okay. Talk about that. So, There we go. So, um they also looked at
how positions were classified. They use a variety of characteristics for each job, too. Um and they do this in a lot of communities. So, it's kind of a plugandplay model that they have at this point. So, um based on the rating of um
each of these characteristics, they grade each position compensation. So they do a salary survey. Um we received 12 um uh 12 responses.
Um those are the communities that responded to our survey. So we had a decent sized pool of communities that were able to um to to look at when developing our ranges. Um they also listed these challenges. I'm not going
to go through each one, but because Dunable has um because Dunable is a small community and has um a lot of part-time staff and also different responsibilities based on our size to find comps sometimes can
be be a bit of a challenge. So based on all their work, these are the these are the recommended uh salary ranges based on grade So implementation um the calling center b best practice their recommendation is a 30% range from
minimum to maximum step um I looked at a 10 and 15step schedule um I landed on a 10step schedule so there's 30% range 10 steps there's 3% um
between each step. Um place employee placement on the schedule is always kind of a tricky thing. So um the recommended recommended approach is to look at the higher but closest step to people's
current um hourly rate and to place them on that um on that step. And then um recommendation is for employees to advance every two years. Um this gives you kind of a comparison
between what we have now and what is being recommended. Um I should say what we're looking at right now. I don't I don't want to be as as strong as recommended but right now the range in uh steps between minimum maximum is between 19 and 20%. I think
the intent was to be the it's close to 20 in each one. Again, the recommended range is 30%. Um the current step schedule is 10 steps with 2% increases. The recommendation is 10 steps with 3%
increases. Um and current schedule there's advancement every 3 years with 2% step. The recommendation is for every two years with 3% step. So, I was asked to do my best to do a
cost projection, a forecast. Please don't hold me to these numbers. I did my best, but that these will not be on the money. Um, this is this is my best estimate. Um, and this is over a six-year period. I
just took an average. Um, this is my best estimate on on cost difference. And so a few other highlights. Um, so there are three current employees that make their hourly rate is higher
than the highest step in their grade. What that means is obvious, but I'll say it. It means that they won't receive another step. they'll just receive the cola on any given year. Um, at least one employee, there may be more, but at least one employees job
title after kind of reviewing everything just doesn't match the position. Um, so we may need to look at um at least one job position and rework the the title and responsibilities.
Um, there are four employees that have pay rates that are less than the lowest step in their grade and there are also 10 positions with recommended title changes that they that they gave us. Um, that's basically an
overview. Um, in your packet you also have the report, the final report that was put together by the calling center. Um, and I believe you have the proposed
schedule. I'm sorry, not the four schedule, but you do have the ranges and also the 10 step and the 15 step schedule in your in your packet. So, um, so I guess the the decision
point up here to implementation, these are really the decision points. the range, the amount of steps, how folks will be placed on the new schedule, and how people how people would advance on the
new on the new schedule. Um, so so every three years with the 3% step, they'd also be getting a 2% cola if that's Yeah. Yes. So in in so on those years that someone receives a step assuming the polar is
2%. It doesn't have to be but assume that's what it has been assuming if then they will get a five they will get five total and just from a big picture view and maybe the Collins Center is the best source of information for this is are a lot of municipalities doing this or are
we sort of leading a charge here within the market basket of comparable towns and just like the state of Mass in general I think that's probably important for the public to know why this is important and If other groups are doing this, other towns are doing this type of exercise.
It's it's something that's done in communities on a regular basis. I know that right now the towns of Bratton and Kell are doing are in the middle of it doing the same thing and I think that I think at least one of them is working with a calling center.
Okay. So yeah, I mean it's definitely a best practice. It hasn't been done for a little while now. So we're defin it's definitely time. We haven't done it for a long for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So it's definitely time to do it. There's no doubt about that. Um
and implementation there are options. The the option that I talked about is the one based on the recommendation in many conversations with the call-in center is based on
that's the recommendation is based on those two things. Um, but it could those could change based on the board's opinion on it. So, I don't I don't think we're to be
frank, I don't think we're ready to I don't think I'm ready to ask for a vote on this. I if you could kind of give it some more thought because I'm going to I have a few things I still need to look at in terms of timing on implementation and making sure that what we have
budgeted this year is going to be able to support the implementation and kind of working that out. And also just know that I'm I've started the forecast for next year. And just know that the first
year of budgeting the new schedule, I've kind of plugged in the numbers that I that I looked at based on this um presentation. You're going to see a higher increase than you're going to see moving forward just because it's the
start of it's the start of the new schedule. So people being people received if we do if we do it people will have received 2% increase this year and then they're going to see an adjustment this year. So on top of the 2% they'll see some sort of adjustment
and then next year they're going to see 2% on the adjusted rate. Right. Right. So that's it's plus the step potentially plus potential steps. Yes. So next year we are going to if we were to are to do this next year we will see
a higher increase than it should level up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then you know just for process wise is this in the event that we vote on it down the road as a board would you have
a public forum to share it with the residents per se like a night? I mean idea it um I mean I would well the part of me transparency would be I would want the public to know like I want them to know at all.
This is part of it right now. I mean but we're not taking a vote tonight. Well, correct. But still the people can we are still openly I don't I agree. I wouldn't necessarily have a public forum for this sort of a thing. I just I mean it's a management
issue and it's at this table for that and I mean you'd have everybody would have something to say about it and it would just I don't know I I I like airing the grievances out on TV for everybody to look at in person face to face rather than silo it based on Facebook and coming
into Jason's office or the time administrator's office and giving people an earful. I'd rather us take the airful than I mean we could I don't know that I'd have a standalone it seems it doesn't strike me as appropriate to have a standalone
um public forum on this but maybe next time it's on the agenda we if if you'd like to promote it as such like hey this is an opportunity for reviewing this this is what it is this is what this is the work that's been done if I mean it's kind of the same thing you know what's
the story to to come and look at. Yeah. Wouldn't it be covered during the budget? Yeah. I think it's coming up now. Will come up at a future select board meeting will come up at budget meetings come up at town meeting. Yeah. Yeah. All of
them. Yeah. And does advisory board get a chance to review this and bake it out as well from their you know viewpoint? advisory board's going to have to because the way we set this up is within the fincom
budget, we had a salary reserve of $10,000 to fund a a new compensation plan. Yeah. And by the way, that was discussed at um during budget um throughout the process, too.
Um and so in order for us to access the 10,000 reserve um advisory is going to have to be um have to approve the the the appro the transfer of funds from that account. Yep.
To the individual salary lines. Okay. Yep. I mean I just think you know you're starting to see the state projections aren't coming in as people thought. So budget numbers are going to get real crunchy again. It's never going to be easy.
Yes, Joe. Is uh is this system similar to the system that the school district uses? I don't know what system the school district uses, so I'm not sure. I'm not sure how they steps and lanes and all.
Um No. So we don't have lanes. We just right now it's no different. I mean, we have a step schedule in place now. It's It's in place now. It's just outdated. Um and it hasn't been updated since Tracy Hutton was here.
Okay. So, it's been a while. So, the idea is to update the schedule um to make it more comp or Yeah. more competitive. Make it current. Make it current. Make it modern. Yes. Yeah. And so that's that's what the
Colin Center that's the work they did. Um so these these are now to be fair the con center did not make recommendations on implementation. They made recommendations on what the range of salary should be for each
grade. So I wanted I do want to be clear about that we we the board can implement this or not but implement it however you like. I mean to you could do a 15 step rather than a 10. You could do every
steps every three years rather than two years. My thing with the steps was if we do a threeyear step on a 10ear schedule, someone's not going to you got to be here 30 years to get to the top step. It to me that doesn't make any sense. Um I
can I could be wrong but that doesn't make sense to me. So anyway, we're not Yeah, we're not voting on no vote or anything like that. I just wanted to give the overview tonight um for purposes of transparency. Yeah. And um
and this is essentially remedies. We used to have a wage what was the name of that board? Personnel board. Personel that that board is now out the door, right? Yeah. Based on our handbook and everything doesn't exist. It's they they they
it still isn't on. We should change the We should change the bylaw, but they're not there's no members of members. There's no meetings. Just so someone can point to it and be like consider that. Yeah. But it should be Yeah. Yeah. struck through basically. So Yes.
Absolutely. No, it's good. It's a It's a good study. I mean, they did really nice work. Yeah. with you guys. It's very thoughtful and informative. So, okay. All right. That's it. You have a hand up in the crowd.
Okay. Just wondering if you have an extra copy of that or if you could send me a copy of that on the website. Yeah, it's we can we'll send you It's on the website. We'll send it to you. Oh, okay. It's on the website. Yeah, I'll send you the link, John. What?
I'll send you the link. Okay. Thank you. And I wanted to um give this I wanted to give the presentation to the select board first, but um I'm also going to I also want to sit down with the staff and
I'm going to send them everything and all that too, but I want to leave this first before I cut into that. So, good. Well, thank you. Cool. Good start. Thanks. Okay, next up we have the Woodward Dam Repair.
So, there's So, um, a hole in the raceway that needs to be repaired. That's about it. Yeah, that's it. Um, and, uh, this is for the engineering portion of the
of the work. So, we received the proposed task order from Tanner. Um, it's $9,99 for the engineering Um, and this money is coming from the CPA.
It's already been appropriated approved by town. $25,000 appropriate um appropriation from town meeting. Yes. Um, so I had I had been going back and forth with them on um on the scope of work. I
think I sent you the emails on that. So we there was some revision in the scope of work to get the price down a bit because I was just concerned that we'd run out of budget on the um on the construction piece project. So
it go down to 10. Um so is this a dam that's worth having like the division of ecological restoration look at any future? So they did initi they did initially that's one of the reasons we did the
phase two assessment. We applied for um I don't know if I sent you the the the um the the response we received but we did apply for the dam repair um damall
dam and seaw wall. Yes. Yes. Yes. Dam seaw wall repair grant. And unfortunately we didn't we didn't get the we weren't awarded the grant. So, um, right now I'm working with NEMCOG to apply for another federal grant to try
to get some design money for the larger project. Yeah. Um, this is trying to piece it together until then. Yeah. I mean, you got to do you got to do it, right? And if the CPA has the money set aside, undesated funds, I assume, right?
Or restoration. Uh forget I forget if it was I think it was on designated fun. I think it was. What's that? For the dam. Yeah, I think so. All right. I move to approve a task order with oil tanner in the amount of
50 excuse me in the amount of 9,990 for the purposees of design bid in construction administration support for repairs to Woodward's Mill Dam and authorize the chair to sign the task
order on behalf of the board. Second. Further discussion in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. All right. Good. [Applause] Union building.
This is for the interior. We um put out requests for qualifications to start doing some work on the inside of the building. And of the what 14 or so people that took out the bid package, we only had one response submitted to us. So,
yeah. I guess that makes the choice easy if we What's up with that? Choose to go with it. Well, that's unusual. I mean, I think it was eight. I think it ended up being 18 firms
and we received one. Now, fortunately, it was from the firm we're currently working with and we've had good experience. Yeah. So, um so that's good news. But as part of the um design of services procedures
that the board adopted, we need to um the board needs to designate a selection committee. So that's the next step in the process. So hoping that um last time the union building rehab committee played that role. So I thought
it made sense for them to do so again. That's probably easiest. Yeah. if that group I mean if everyone's on board with the interior so there's leg work right I mean it's not an easy process even to get one one response so it makes it a little simpler
well we still need to make sure that we feel it there qualified qualified to do that yeah this would be one do we do so it's an RFP or request for proposals right so we this is RFQ just for qualifications
qualifications to make sure that the people that are going to put in bids are qualified to do so. Did we get any feedback from other groups that just say, "Hey, this is a crazy project." And any sort of guiding parameters for why no one else
responded? I I did not. No. No. Did Josh apply for requested Josh Kelly the looking at the the fire station
fire station move to designate the members of the union building rehabilitation committee as the designer services evaluation and selection committee to discuss the
designer selection process for the interior designation, excuse me, interior design of the Union Building School. Second. All those in favor? I I
call meeting that. Okay, next up team building. So, this is one of my wacky ideas, but um so um as you know, we've partnered
with the Greater YMCA to have access to Camp Massipog um for the beach days we held over the summer. Um they also have a ropes course um at Camp Massipog. And so, um, I I was want to ask the board if
they would consider allowing us to close early one day for us to do a team building, um, activity on the ropes course. I can't ask a ropes course. Can you be a little more explicit for ropes course? Huh? For ropes course. I don't understand. You know, like trust falls and all that.
I'll go there, too. I would love to. I would love for the board to join. I would go for sure. When is it by the way? What do you plan? Um Wednesday, September 17th. Yeah. Yes. If you can come, that would be amazing.
You all excited about that soon. Am I excited about it? I am. It'll be fun. I'm not gross, but I'm excited about this building. It'll be fun. I always just think of the office when the guy put that big like sumo costume on and just floating
around. So good. Somebody someone could do that. He can do that. Put you in that floating around. And so the the camp director, right? Is it? Yes. Camp director is going to be there and
help us. He's going to facilitate. He's going to facilitate. So it's going to be fun. So what time you thinking of doing this? I don't So what time are we? Was it 12:30 to So yeah, we said 12:30 to 2:30
um with a rain date of September 24th. Okay. Is this mandatory participation? Yes. Including all members of board. Yeah. I generally don't make I try not to make
trainings and stuff mandatory, but I like people to do this. I think it's going to be I think it's going to be fun. Yeah. Yeah, but it would doesn't necessarily mean that you want No, I'll stop with that. People will have different participation participation.
I move to approve closing town hall on Wednesday, December, excuse me, September 17th, no earlier than 12 p.m. for the purposes of an employee team building activity. Second.
Any further discussion? come and walk. Yes. You're only obligated to absolutely climb one rope. Oh, I love it. All those in favor? I I I
All right. Thank you. Okay. Another interesting topic of conversation here is prohibiting the issuance of electrical permits to unlicensed homeowners. So, oh yeah,
this was so this is an issue that came up um I think we talked at our last meeting about the um meeting we had with in the inspectional team about some properties that we had issues um that we
were dealing with. So, um, this has been mentioned to me a a little while ago, but it was brought up again by the electrical inspector about, um, how the town of Dunible at currently issues will issue electrical
permits to homeowners that are licensed. Um, and that is allowed under the law. Um but is it is also municipalities are also allowed to have stricter um regulations and policies if we choose to. So um
so that is going to be like a whole rule thing, right? If we choose to do this. You mean like a No, we No, no, no. It doesn't have to be a whole rule thing. We have the flexibility. The board has the flexibility to make this decision. Um, and you don't have to do it tonight
if you want to if you want to give it a little more thought because there hasn't been a ton of discussion about it, but Peter Martin brought it to um to my attention. Um, Sue did um some research on how other communities deal with it.
They're included in this kind of FAQ, I guess. And most all of the property of the towns that was were easily um this information was easily found um require a license a master's licensed
electrician or electrical department. Um, so I figured it was worth at least bringing to your attention and is worth you considering um changing the policy um given the given the risk, the liability
um with the with just electrical work in general and what what could happen if if um if the work wasn't done properly. Mhm. Is this what's highlighted is what would be proposed? No, I don't know about it reads very strangely and hard time figuring.
Yeah, that's that's the law. Um, but I don't know why I don't know why that portion of highlight. It does. It does. If I could point out the Carlile guidelines, they're the most kind of friendly, right? So, you can apply for a
permit. Um, but then you need to get a letter from your homeowner's insurance stating that the insurance company is aware that they're going to be doing their own electrical work. Yeah. So, and then that's going to deter everybody and then they probably won't cover you
if you electrocute yourself, right? So, they just could do you work on their own and Yeah. say, you know, not even get a permit, right? Just wing it. So, the only So, I got a couple of things. All right.
I'm okay with moving this forward. I and just for a sake of for the sake of clarity. All right. When a homeowner takes out a wiring permit and the electrical inspector goes and does that work, all right, there's a misunderstanding and a misconception
that the electrical inspector signed off on my work, everything's going to be okay. That's not how that is. Okay? Electrical inspector's given you a cursory review and you're complying with the code and then he signs that. But you know there was an event in Portsouth,
New Hampshire where there was a stove not wired correctly and the lady grabs the faucet and the stove pot at the same time and electrocuted us up. That was a fatality. All right. And the and the deal was Portsouth approved the work. No, they didn't. The the work that done
by her husband wired the stove. So it's neither here nor there. I I I agree with this, but I I did send this off to you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The the the pending uh legislation. Yeah. I don't know because I I stop this
that excerpt came from Mass Electrical Contractors and I'm a member of that group. All right. I don't know if House Bill 147 is good or bad. Well, there so there's a I don't have it with me, but I I did look at there's an updated that I
think that was from a prior session. It might have been. There is another there is a bill though filed which I'm I'm assuming is identical. Um which um which is now it looked like a senate then not a house bill but anyway it's neither here nor there. Um but it's in committee
it doesn't look like it's moved. So this doesn't have any traction to it is what you're saying other than the fact someone's put it out there and said but ideally we we tonight with this are going to um go against this bill if this bill
ever becomes law. I don't know get buried in study for the next 30 years. So so that bill would require communities to issue permits to home owners. Yeah. That's what that bill does. Yeah. This bill says it's an act relative to clarifying homeowners rights
to perform electrical work. It amends general law 143 by prohibiting the inspector of wires from rejecting a permit application from an applicant who is not a licensed electrician if the
property indicated on the application is the applicant's resident and the applicant is the owner of the property and the property is a single family home. So whether or not this ever got ever went any place, I I I I don't know.
But I I I do understand Peter Martin's position. He is not I mean, someone could hang that guy out to dry all the town. I don't know. There's no there's no there's there's no history with it about Well, you told me that light was okay. I didn't know the paddle fan could
fall out of the ceiling during the middle of the night and land us laying in the pit, right? Because those things happen. So, I I'm okay with with this. Watch out for that. And I'm I completely support Peter's effort here. It's It's completely on
point. It's to let a homeowner do their own electric work. And I have a bias, okay? But I've seen a lot of it over the years. And yeah, the paddle fan fell out of the guy's ceiling and landed on the husband and wife that was sleeping at 2 in the morning while it was still spinning. So,
and that's Peter says it's like a two to three times a year occurrence. here to here. Yes. Just to just to give you some sense of the magnitude of it. So, I'm going to move that all electrical permits issued by the town to
be obtained by a Massachusetts licensed electrician and all electrical work be performed by a Massachusetts licensed electrician without exception for all homeowners. Uh second. Any further discussion?
Do we want to hear from thinking about your comment about the push back there as someone who's replaced his own outlets before? Like Yeah. Do we want to hear from them? I mean, it scares me and I won't do it. No, because you got a homeowner that put
And you know what? I'm I'm gonna tell you, you can make a mistake, okay? You can put an outlet in and you could clearly outlets are polarized, right? So, you can't you could clearly reverse those conductors and the homeowner put the plug in and say, "That's all set.
Don't worry about it." And then they go plug the vacuum cleaner in, they get electrocuted out of it. So, you know, everyone thinks they're an electrician and it's, you know, someone says to me, "Home home wiring is common sense." Yeah, I take issue with that. But I I
would prefer that we not let homeowners take their own permits out because of the risk of it. And that's that's just the way I feel about. Can I walk you through a scenario here? So Massachusetts is going to require that you have a home inspection done now
as a as in a quality of your offer for buying a new house. So, if Ron, you're selling your house and you have an accepted offer, you have a home inspection and they say you got to replace all your outlets in your kitchen with GFCI outlets and you got two weeks to do it.
How like you know that world like it's almost impossible to get someone to come out in two weeks to do that work and it is something you could do on your own. But if you do it incorrectly, I mean, there's just there's not enough trades
people around to actually support this need, though. But at the risk of when you put a ground fault outlet in, there is a device that you have to set into the outlet. Yeah. To test its functionality. How many
homeowners have that and understand it? I don't know. It's about a 10-minute video on YouTube as someone who's done it. Well, see, that's why people are doing all this stuff because of YouTube. They Yeah. But I mean, it's it's also the you could be slowing someone down from
I know, but it's Think about the person that's buying the house and the guy did his own wiring and the connections loose and they plug the coffee pot in and it starts a fire on the wall. I wouldn't trust it. Yeah. I wouldn't want that. As soon as I heard if someone was doing electrical work in
my house and they didn't have a license, see it cuz the light the license doesn't guarantee that their work's going to become perfect, but it certainly gives you more comfort that the guy or the girl who's doing the work understands
what they've got to do to make that. And how many people test those ground faults with that trip device? How many people even own one? Yeah. But we're and we're also not going back in time with our electrical inspector to go through any permits that were opened and closed. Okay.
It's only for It's only forward and forward. Yeah. Yeah. I seconded it. So, I understand the hypothetical and the push back that you could get from residents. I'm sure there will be, but you know, and that literally there's just not enough trades people out there that are
licensed or ran New Hampshire line. So in New Hampshire electrician can't necessarily come into Mass and do work either. Well, they're not supposed to. Well, if they were New Hampshire person appropriately applying for a permit, you know, following the proper channels,
would they be allowed to do it without a mass license anyway? Yeah. But I mean, just like, you know, if you just watch like the Facebook and Next Door threads, these are the questions people ask and it's always like, "Oh, call Jimmy's electricity." You know, Jimmy comes and does it. Doesn't go to the town hall and just
Yeah. So be it. Well, that's I mean, and I'm sure that's happening for some some stuff. People just aren't applying for permits, period. They just do the work themselves. Yeah. And I guess I would also stretch this out into other permits that we issued
for gas, septic, plumbing, plumbing. I think most septic systems, the homeowners probably not doing it, but they could do plumbing and gas. Well, there aren't control that the that exists with gas and plumbing. Plumbing you can't do.
No, I don't. I think I don't think you can. I I'll I thought plumbing I always found it strange that you could for electricity but not for plumbing when the electricity is way more dangerous in my opinion. Well, and I guess it goes back to then Peter's role as the electrical
inspector is heightened now because he's going to be working with said contractors on any homeowner's work that was done. This now his liability doesn't increase. No. Okay. No. No. This is in fact,
you know, he he has Peter has insurance. We all do. I do. And he he just doesn't want to get hit with something. And I I I get it. Yeah. I the way he described it to me is that
um he's talked to other inspectors. Yeah. And other inspectors have given him advice that we don't do that. Why would you do that? Right. Mhm. And so I think he wanted to bring it to the board, to my attention, to the
board's attention because he was getting that feedback and it made him question whether or not we should be doing it. That that was I think that was how it came about. Okay. All right. You ready for a vote? Yeah. All those in favor? I
I I I'd be curious to emphasize the importance of proper inspections and things like that for all our departments. Yep. Port of health, plumbing, gas, the whole nine yards.
Yep. Yep. Okay. Next up, consideration of waiver of building permit fees for the for the 12 affordable units at the MCO cottages at the M district. So that would be 12 out of the 48.
Yes, that is I just wanted to put it on the agenda. It's a ZBA decision. Yeah, I wasn't aware of this when the process started, but they do have the authority to wave uh permit fees, local fees. MCO
has requested that building permit fees for the 12 affordable units be waved and also water connection fees. Um so for for the affordable only the water connection fees for the 12
for the entire project. That's what I thought. That's the way to learn it is for the project. Yeah, for the project. So the water connected for the entire project. Um so at the last EBA uh hearing
um they members said they wouldn't mind getting feedback from the oversight boards. So um so because building falls under select board, I figured I'd put it on the agenda to see if there was any
opinion or thoughts that you wanted to um to share with the ZBA. At any point in time, did we have a discussion with MCO about waving these? I don't remember. Oh, did we tell them at that time that you got to pay them?
I don't remember either way, but I I'll That's a good It's a good question. I don't recall either way. Affordable housing asked them if they were going to be asking for any affordable housing money at the time of application and they declined at that time.
They declined to answer or they declined to get the money. They they declined money funding at that time because there was what 300 or so 350 or something like that. They were not going to be asking and they were like we're not going to be asking for it self-funded per se. Um,
I think affordable housing, this is feels like light years ago now, like think kind of new there might be a request for some waiver of fees, building fees and such, but there was nothing in writing, nothing, you know, pen the paper. I don't think so. That's right.
Yeah. I I would just ask that we look at what we may have asked or said through the RFP process. And then the other piece of it that kind of looks to me as though it potentially could be a bigger item is the waiver of
um water connection fees, right? Who owns the water line? Doesn't that isn't that their job? I I sent that to um Yeah, I sent it to John Paul and um Well, I actually sent to the entire waterboard.
I mean that that's that's I mean the building inspection fees are not really going to incur a lot of cost but if we wave the water connection fees um and that that line is sitting behind
those green boxes right now right it ends there stubbed out for that someone's got to pick that line carry it down into the project is he saying he ain't paying for that oh no he'll pay he he'll pay for that for the work. He just doesn't want to pay to connect it to the project. Like
we have we have I I don't even know what the water connection fees is, but he he just doesn't want to. Okay. Yeah. It says we propose to pay the meter cost and the installation administrative fee. So water connection fees. So is that the
connection to each unit or the just initial connection? Each unit to each unit. Yeah. And like PPL is going through this with the big Lorden project behind the BFW and they got into a monstrous battle over the 180 or so units they put in there
and and the Prol Waterboard to my understanding wanted to charge for every single unit. I think their hookup fees like $2,500 a unit. I just speculate. I don't know the numbers. Don't quote me on that, but it's some number like that. And the project owner was like, "That's
insane." at 180 prohibited at some point. Yeah. You can't you can't do it. Yeah. So then they it's gone to petrol EBA and I think they're going through the meeting process now like a comprehensive review. Um do we know what our connection fees are?
I doubt it's not even it's up to the water. Yeah. Let's get them. And I before I wouldn't necessarily, Madam Chair, vote on this until we just be sure that we know what we got going on here. Whether or not there was this
discussion through negotiations, it seems like I remember some aspects of that. I just don't remember what we said. Okay. I'll look at I I'll look at the agreements we have in place to see if there's any mention of this. I don't recall. I don't recall it, but I'll I'll confirm
that. If John Hughes or Carol Bacon may have better I'm sure they have a better memory than I do, so they may have a better recollection. Again, we they declined taking any funding from affordable housing. Yes. But I don't remember if if there was
that's changed. Now they want $300,000. Of course, the price of construction's through the roof. Yeah. Are they Is this going to be over and above the $300,000 money that they they're already requesting?
Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's absolutely that's exactly how it is. It's over and above that 300 grand. Yep. Was that your question or comment? Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean just the price of doing
business now, right? So the fee is it looks like if I'm reading this right the connection fee is based on the size of pipe size of the pipe system development fee
but they're rentals so like each it's a one inch line right if it's a one inch line 400 I don't know I'm not I don't want don't I'm not sure. All right. Okay. So, we'll think about
this. I mean, we don't have a lot of influence, but we can provide input. Yeah. No, that's fine. Their their next meeting, I think their next hearing is on the 18th um of September. Yeah. Next week.
Um do we have any questions on the permit fees for the building? I don't know. That's I know it's a less intense number than the water because they're also asking for the 12 unit waiver for building. You know, it's $500 per building or whatever. It's 6,000 bucks,
right? I don't know. Um our math was a little more than that. We did I'd say the range was like 10 to 15. Okay. Total. You think that's fair, too? Yeah. Okay. Um,
so and and honestly, I mean the the I mean the water connection fee is more with correct me if I'm wrong, but more with the waterboard select board. It's more of the building permit fees. I think that's in our um in our basket.
Unless you think otherwise. No, I don't. Okay. So, I'll I'll um I'll go back and look at those agreements and make sure that doesn't state anything um already about
them. All right. All right. Sounds good. Okay. Next up, 307 Pleasant Street. Ron, you wanted this one. Did you say
this one? I I I I I I honestly don't have any words. It's probably, if I were to scope out the town, right, it's probably the most unkempt
property in the entire town. There are a few others maybe, but this one is in clear line of sight from everybody. All right. And now we have a trailer out there. And that does appear
as though there was storm damage where a tree fell and landed on a shed and partly on the house. And you know there is I don't know there's got to be 10 cars in the yard. I think one car's piled up on top of the other ones. I I
mean at what point does the town take action against this? He's just here's, you know, Bridget writing him a letter back in April. She brushed it off. Don't worry about it. And, you know, she's, this is a second notice. She's hit them with violations. I mean,
the the junk car uh bylaw that we have, it's certainly obvious. I'm going to be honest with you. I've looked at the house. I I think that should be condemned, but that's not my decision. But it's and and maybe they're living in the trailer cuz they
can't live in the house. Um I I I I I don't know. But it is really um it's a mess. It's a mess. And all the overgrown brush and the there's a tree in the front that's half broken. It's
like oh my I I don't for the life of me I don't understand why someone would want to live like that. Well, maybe they have a choice. But so I think that we've got to have some sort of a path forward to um certainly support Bridget and her um letter saying
you guys got to get your act together. Man, they're just blowing it off. And I just I I just don't see us sitting here and just letting that just keep going the way it's going. But at the same time, I don't know what the cause of action is other than the motor vehicles, right? He's got a there's a there's a
charge in there and you know a cost and the vehicles need to be removed and he's just those some of those vehicles have been there for years and years and we just how can we let that keep going like that and everybody's couple of people at
the concert when I was at a couple of people said you know what are you guys doing about that everybody drives by it's on the main drag So that is why I have spoken about this and
you know it's just the place is I don't even have the words for it to collapse anyway. So well it's been going on since 93. Yeah. Yeah. 92. Here we go. 2009 a letter was written to them about
following the rules by at that time West. Um, you know, they're just basically thumbming their nose at us saying, "Yeah, we have to write them." Here's Susodakus's letter
saying that the place is a public eyesaw Davis. He's still alive. I mean, he's written them a letter in 1992. It's not a story. Well, what's our recourse here? Just Well, you can start finding them every
day, $100 a day for each offense, but you have to write out a citation every single day, which you know what's going to happen with that. So, it won't get paid and you try to collect it, you go to, you're not going to go to court. You can lean it
under the under the bylaw for the um for the junk vehicle bylaw. The next step for the board is to hold a hearing and notify them of notify the owners and the directors of the hearing.
Um and then if there isn't compliance after the hearing, then there's a variety of things that that we could we can do under the bylaw. Um Board of Health is pursuing their own um enforcement on the um
on this accessory trailer. Yeah. And um that's health. Yes. Yes. Um and that's best to my knowledge those are the two um enforcement avenues that
we have right now. Yeah. Um there may be others down the road with building a fire, but um right now those are the those are the two action items. So the select board can consider
having a hearing under the bylaw under the junk vehicle bylaw. And I know that Bridget, like um Ron was saying, Bridget has sent two letters and um I don't know to be fair whether
or not she has heard that from the owner um from the second letter that was second notice that was issued. I'm not sure of that. And there's a registered and you know I guess if we're going to heavily pursue this one there's probably
a couple others in town that might we want to make sure we treat everyone alike if you will. I know we have a couple other properties that may have some violation type issues. So maybe it's just one of those nights we roll through a couple hearings and
I don't know. Right. I think at the ve at the very least we've got to move forward here with this. I mean, look at all these letters. I mean, these these letters Well, they're not all pertaining to the They're not. But nonetheless, what they do identify is the fact that the homeowner is just just not going to do
anything in town as him to do or talk to him about. His I mean, this one's from Saladakus talking about all the junk and unregistered cars. uh March 17th, 1992.
Here we have all this many years later. I was 8 years old. Eight years old. Oh boy, look at all the Doesn't the uh inspector
uh have something to do here, but he needs to know that we have his back too and you know and helping him through the process. So if the first step is for us to have a hearing then we decide what Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have he doesn't
have a role in the junk vehicle issue. Might there be issues on the property that he does have a role in? Possibly. Yeah. Well, I mean, my worry is in the event there's, you know, a small fire or
something like that, are we sending in our first responders to help in a building that isn't stable enough? I wouldn't want to risk, you know, anyone Yeah. or car blocking the way. Any of those type of scenarios could be really pretty scary. Has anybody
knocked on the door and to I would think that the the you know zoning inspector would you know go and say what's going on here. That has not happened. Huh? That hasn't happened.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what I mean if we have a process to follow here and the next step in the process is to hold the hearing then I think we need to move in that path because I don't know what else to do here.
I mean I if if to just um add to Joan's comment if the first approach if you'd like the first approach to be a more informal call or even just a letter from me just
saying, "Hey, could we talk to you about this? I can before we go this route." I'd be happy to do that. I think we ought to at least do that as an opening. Okay. Right. That's our opening. Okay. Salvo, right? So, they got to let us in a lot of
complaints and you know, however you want to word smith it, but we got to get a plan with this thing. Okay. for just concern concern over the building. Yeah. Yeah. Just and it's the appearance of it and the towns. Well, the appearance the as you said
that potential hazards if there's a fire or Yeah. I mean, and it's what I said earlier like there are other properties in town that are not on the main thoroughare that are of equal concern. Well, this seems to be so I just want to be careful
with but people making complaints is seems to be what's triggering this. It's not like we're out searching for properties that are violating, right? Complaints being made to the board. That's correct. Y yeah,
but complaints are positional. So like I could say, you know, Lee, I don't like your stone wall. I could keep saying it over and over and over again. But if it's not in violation of the law, then that's different. You can complain all you want. I'm going to make it even uglier when I go home.
You can't. But I just want to make sure like I don't I just don't want anyone to feel like we're seeking them out and not the other guy down on, you know, other parts of Main Street that have a dilapidated building, you know, right? But again, it's this based up we have received complaints
regarding this property where the one down the street hypothetically hypothetically the one down the street we have not received a complaint from somebody, right? But we know it's bad. And it was on that list that we went through. You Well, that list came through from
people making complaints. Okay. Most there were there were some that were mentioned by depart department heads who had concerns with the property. Okay. But the vast majority were based on complaints we received. Yes.
So that's the vehicle to carry this forward as a complaint. I kind of way I'm looking at it. You've been receiving letters uh of complaint for more than 30 years.
No, this is more recent on my right. Longer than 30 years. Yeah, my 30-year anniversary, not anniversary, reunion is coming up. So, it's like 33 years. So yes, there's one particular property
that has been getting complaints and have had citations and hearings and nothing has come of it and letters and but it's like we hit a wall with where we hit a wall. Where do you go when you get to a point?
then you then it becomes legal fees that so I think at this point the is going to be Jason's going to craft the letter send it off to him um I've put some teeth in the thing to the extent that you can all right and let the guy know
hey this is and you know and somewhat to Joany's issue right since 1992 this this letter was written by Susan Salakis in 1992 2 about junk vehicles. Now, I think back in 1992, maybe we didn't have a bylaw in place that allowed us to
execute against, right? And it was just you can't have them there, but it's there was nothing other than that. But we do now have a by alarm place and um the the place continues to slide and
it it that house is a spectacle. It's a spectacle. I think people absolutely slow down, take a look at it because no one can believe it. Well, it's tough on like Memorial Day when we're doing a little ceremony at the rock right there and looking over and like
our little only pointing one way for that. There was a bylaw 92. Yeah, but I digress. All right, good. I'll do that. Okay, I'll I'll copy you on
Okay, next up discussion fall town meeting. Do we need one? That's the that is the question. Um so the the major driver for one would be um the ambulance service issue
on that. So on that that's that would be the major driver for one. Does that come to a point where it's time to sign? Well, so I I have a I sent a draft IMA
to town council for their review and I I think last week received a um response back. So um I've yet to share it back with Tingsboro, but that is the next step. I want to share it internally first, but then um share it with
Kingsboro and uh and um based on how they want the IMA um drafted, we are unable to enter the contract until we have a funding stream in place to fund it. So they I think
they they want some assurance that if they're gonna which I don't blame them by the way that if they're going to hire new staff and they're going to you know do a lot of other things in preparation of taking Dunable they want to have an assurance that there's funding in place to actually do it.
So we couldn't sign the agreement until we have an appropriation in place which will which requires time. Um you can't let this sit though till spring. That's what I was just going to say. You can you could you can either call a special time meeting to do it and and
there'll be other things that we can do um and want to do um or we could wait till till May. Not with the ambulance service because it's just something bad's going to happen.
Well, we want to be sure that it's ready by the time you have the time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I before the So yeah, I think um I think
they're not going to hire I mean we're not going to be able to go to town meeting hopefully can um you know get approval from town meeting and then start the next day because they're not going to hire until we sign that. You know what I mean? It's like still be a process but to kickstart the process
you need that approval. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think the answer to that question is you ought to probably think about Yeah. Yep. I'm sure there'll be a couple of other little things that'll show up that there always need to be addressed. So, I would pencil
it in and and and let's get motivated or positioned so that we can have that and that IMA, if I heard you right, Brian Falbar already said it's okay. Well, he he's offered his comments. Okay. Yeah. So the soonest we can do it
based on all all of the time deadlines would be like towards the end of October, right? The 27th. Yeah. I was thinking about November, but Okay. Oh, yeah. Do you want to do it in October?
No. No. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out timeline of it. Yeah. Maybe like the 10th or the 17th of November. He's starting to get into the holiday season. The 10th is Veterans Day on that on Veterans Day.
Veterans Day for that Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving's late this year. It's on the 22th. Junth 17. Is the 17th too close to No, it's a week before.
Why not? Yeah. 11. Yeah. Okay. Either the 11 the 11th or the 17th. The 11th is the holiday. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. It's probably the 17th.
17th. So, it be like ambulance. Do we have any like zoning type stuff clean up? I don't I don't know if planning is ready. We're uh we're working on the ADU
the ADU thing. Okay. And some CPA maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Do you have any I think I asked you before and I can't remember any requests.
There was something I thought you were going to need more money for. CPA money. Yeah, there might there may be. Yeah. for um well I don't know where so the park park parks and wreck has started the water
field stuff so they may be in a depending on how that goes they may be in a position to come in and ask for funds there's been talk also with parks around the baseball diamonds and back of the school and potentially needing funds for
those um the school I mean there there are CPA projects that may mature enough to to be ready for November. It's possible they aren't either though. So like we have no like land dispositions, anything like that?
No, not at this point. So I think at this point the direction is to pencil it in and uh Gotcha. Go from there. Okay. Good. And and tenatively the 17th people are okay with Okay, great. Thank you.
All right. And our final agenda item, appointments to the Dunville Cultural Council. There was a fair amount of interest in that. Yeah. Yeah. Any issues here with anybody? Probably based on the communication.
That's right. That's right. Who did that? Who on what? So the cultural council had a vacancy already. Um Claudia Novak had to resign. Usually the calls cancelled with two vacancies. Um Claudia Novak had to
resign. So you have um we have seen five people reach out. Um so you've got u these three in front of you. Um Amy Watson, who is our chair of library trustees, has a lot of grant writing experience and is
excited to to jump in with us. Um I am now the chair of the cultural council. Um, so she doesn't wear enough hats, so she takes on another one. This one's This is fun. Um, so if if
you're willing, these folks would like to be appointed so they can jump in and we'll be um in the November time frame um distributing our or making the choices on our uh grant distribution.
Could these people all agree to take this? Yeah. Yeah, they all put their requests forward. Beautiful. I move to appoint the following to the Dunstable Cultural Council. Jessica Price with a term
expiring June 30th, 2026. Moren Booth with a term expiring June 30th, 2027. Amy Watson with the term expiring June 30th, 2028. Second. Those in favor?
I I I excit motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Yo. I I thank you. Thank you all.