good evening and welcome to the April 8th 2025 meeting of the Islam Town Council i'll call the meeting to order and ask that we stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one
nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and I would ask that we take a moment of silence at this time to reflect on all of the events going on thank you in accordance with Mass General Law this meeting is being recorded by ELCAT and if there's anyone
else in the audience recording if you could identify yourself okay seeing none public comments is there anyone in the public that would like to make a comment this evening i don't see anyone online or the physical audience council comments a
counselor with a comment this evening okay town manager report hi Tom good evening good evening how we doing um so uh as usual the
uh the first item here is the uh the last two weeks of reports from the the new high school uh still still on time and on budget uh I I love saying that out loud uh but yeah just continual progress
over there it's uh it's a sight to be seen um big big news FY26 draft budget uh submitted March 31st um and we had our first finance oversight uh me oversight committee
meeting uh last week on Wednesday um the the oversight committee will be chaired by Jim Broadick and the vice chair is Don Starks joined by Rich Fero Councelor Hill and Councelor Jones uh obviously Connor will be exeicio member of the
committee uh with looks like concurrent town council meetings so I'm sure we'll get to see everybody which is which is nice um so the first meeting was just sort of a general overview of the draft submitt which essentially we'll have in a little
while here as well um and they'll continue through April and the first week of May uh to to really dive dive deep into the budget um and uh pick apart him's
logic or my logic my logic my my logic uh and then they'll offer their recommendations obviously to the council um in advance of their first meeting in May um and um so I've been threatening this for quite some time now um I'm
happy to uh introduce our library director Katie McGonagal uh I've I've been wanting a special guest appearance for a long time i'm happy uh that it's library week this week and Katie is here
to uh tell us all things library week and East Loto Public Library thank you without further ado mind if I of course name and address for the record i'm just kidding i don't think
you're wired oh goodness here we go good evening good evening so thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to the town council on behalf of the East Long Meadow Public Library my name is Katie McGonagal and I'm the library
director i am here today during the American Library Association's National Library Week which runs this year from April 6th to April 12th national Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries librarians and library workers play in
transforming lives and strengthening our communities from the American Library Association's National Library website national library week website um the theme this year is drawn to the library millions of people across the country visit their libraries every
week what's the draw everything from young families stopping in for play and story time to students sketching out their next creative project in a maker space to seniors seeking tech help and everyone in between libraries of all kinds help us connect the dots from one
part of our journey to the next chart your next literary adventure by browsing the stacks or joining a book club let an author color your imagination at an author talk outline your big business idea at an entrepreneur workshop or trace your history with your family's
genealogy resources make your mark and get involved with your library by volunteering or spreading the word i hope my presentation before town council this evening will also be an annual occurrence so I can provide you with an update on our community public
library as well as library happenings across the Commonwealth and across the country there are many ways the library staff encourage our community to stay informed and engaged with the East Long Meadow Public Libraryies mission vision and values our library's mission the
Esong Meadow Public Library supports lifelong learning literacy and cultural enrichment by providing access to information knowledge and ideas through its collections services and programs our vision the East Long Meadow Public Library aims to be central to the
town's growth and development responsive to the needs of the community and committed to quality service through positive interactions in a welcoming environment for all our values the East Long Meadow Public Library values are those held by the American Library
Association access equity intellectual freedom and privacy public good and sustainability this is included in the strategic plan executive summary which is part of the packet that was provided for you the East Long Meadow Public Library plays a vital role in fostering lifelong
learning literacy and cultural enrichment within our community during 2024 the library welcomed over 100,000 visitors checked out more than 100 thousand 170,000 items in physical and downloadable format issued over 660 new
library cards provided hundreds of hours of volunteer opportunities for teens and adults for service credit community service and tax abatement and responded to nearly 7,000 reference inquiries our programs serve patrons of all ages both in our libraries programming spaces and
through outreach efforts across the community library staff provide patrons and residents a variety of methods to stay informed about the valuable services and resources provided by our library patrons are encouraged to to subscribe to our weekly e newsletter to
learn about and register for upcoming programs or through our online calendar linked to our website patrons can also sign up for Wow to receive updates on the latest additions to our collection there is also a monthly board of library trustees meeting held in the library's conference
room which includes a director's report with monthly library updates folks can enroll in Beanstack an online logging platform to participate in one of our online reading challenges and of course we have our communitywide summer reading kickoff event which will be held this year on June 10th from 4:30
to 6:30 the summer reading program will begin in June and run through mid August and we once again anticipate more than 1,200 participants i hope you all can come to our kickoff in your packet you will find the children teen and adult April program
calendar flyers about the East Long Meadow Public Library including how to use your CW Mars account hoopla living museum and park passes and information on the new adopt a book program where patrons can dedicate a book to our collection in memory or honor of another
person esong Meadow Public Library aims to meet the diverse needs of all those we serve through the CW Mars Consortium and the Commonwealth Catalog our library is able to connect with libraries across the state for resource sharing items from
books to DVDs to puzzles are delivered to patrons at their home libraries additional resource sharing is available throughout the state through Libby where patrons are able to access downloadable content shared by seven other library networks including the Boston Public
Library and the Minute Man Library Network our libraries provide invaluable resources and spaces for our patrons libraries are a place for people to learn connect feel safe and get involved during National Library Week it is crucial that we all come together to
demonstrate our commitment to libraries and the essential services they provide to help libraries meet the needs of patrons each year the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners launches a campaign to raise awareness and advocacy for libraries during their fiscal year agenda budget request this
year's theme for support is empowered by libraries this is an opportunity for local and state representatives and leaders libraries municipalities library adjacent groups and patrons to endorse and support libraries in which all are encouraged to tell us how your library
has helped you in your packet you will find information regarding the NDLC's empowered for libraries campaign as well as their FY26 budget request i hope each of you have the opportunity to tell us how your library has helped you you'll find a postcard in
your packet for this purpose there's actually four in case this um and I look forward to posting this in our display in the library lobby thank you for your time this evening our community appreciates your continued support of the library
together we can continue to ensure that libraries remain a vital resource for our community thanks thank you thank you i ask a question sure library cards yes and you issued 660 new is there any fees
or anything associated with getting one when you get your first library card there is no fee um one of my future requests is that the replacement fee right now is $2 and I'm hoping to have that waved going forward that's something that talk to the fee people
yes I hear there's like a time where that gets submitted that we make those requests to change the fee structure so that's a request um but one of the nice things about the CW Mars um there's like an app that you can download and you can actually put your library card on your app so even if you don't have
your physical card we accept like the app and we can actually scan your virtual library card that way awesome it's great well all I've heard is good things about our library so keep up the good work it's a team effort we work really hard
question Katie um my library card was issued to me probably before you were born do I get them do I apply to get a new one yes please you don't have to okay n um so the way that the library
cards work is um each patron's account will expire every two years and we just update your account but we have people that have had their cards for 30 40 years and they just keep bringing them back good i will tell you uh a lifetime story that my two-year-old granddaughter
was uh vis visited the library yesterday with another woman who was caring for her uh granddaughter as well and came back and said that place is rocking it's amazing how many people
um are there at 10:30 in the morning you know maybe younger parents or grandparents with with kids and seniors and of course during it was school time so not very many kids but she said "I'm just in awe how all of the resources
that are available." So kudos thank you and we have an incredibly supportive community so we have our regular patrons that come every day or every week and then we have people from outside of East Lo because everyone's welcome at the library so we have a ton of patrons that will come and just use our space or
comfort programs or borrow our items so it's it's really nice that we just have a lot of really great community support and traffic wonderful okay are you still doing your um newsletter yes i was getting it for a
long time and I'm off the list i don't know how I don't know back on because Did you have an overdue book i did actually I lost my library card oh that's the council had all you know expressed an interest and I think it's amazing
what's in there get this newsletter and see what's happening within your four walls we'll do that yeah you my pleasure that's something I can probably add to
my packet every quarter how when do you How is it every month what's that your your newsletter yes it comes out weekly oh that's why you got four postcards yes yeah thank you for everything i appreciate
you thanks for for being the inaugural thanks i'll be here every year uh yeah it's quite a it's quite a space our our public libraries um can't say enough about Katie and her staff and and
what kind of environment that this space is it's it's pretty amazing uh we got some upcoming events obviously we just talked about National Library Week is this week the 6th through the 12th um Earth Day festivities April 11th 1 to 4:30 and
April 12th at 9:00 a.m the COA uh the fishing derby's at Heritage Park on April 19th at starting at 7 a.m uh the recreation has an egg hunt on the 19th at 9:00 am on the rail trail and then we have our uh very exciting American
Revolution ceremony April 19th at 10 a.m on the town hall uh there's a flyer in here for that we're going to start posting those around town yeah there it is um and that's uh that's it for the report great i finally had one that got
you to your 615 it's because I brought some money too thank you thanks Tom any questions from any councils okay seeing none we move to public hearings we have a 6:15 public hearing
this evening so this is a public hearing for liquor license transfer for Iicura Asian cuisine located at 600 North Main Street council members are Tim Leiden Kathy Hill Anna Jones myself Connor O'Hay
Marilyn Richards Ralph Page and John Torcha on Zoom and I would ask that you read the legal notice into the record notice is hereby given under chapter 138 of the general laws that I Asian House LLC the Iura Asian House has applied for
a transfer of an on premises all alcoholic beverages license currently held by Wei Management LLC DBA IQ Asian House located at 600 North Main Street East Long Meadow Mass the town council will hold a public hearing on the application on Tuesday April 8 2025 at
6:15 p.m in the council on aging media room 328 North Main Street long Meadow the hearing can also be attended via webinar for the council gina Quagleti town court clerk of the council thank you Genie welcome he declined oh
interesting oh never mind there he is he keeps pressing decline um maybe I can send a note when you accept i don't know if we have chat enabled there he goes
yeah then now thank you there we go there we are there you go good evening my name's Don on behalf the applicant great thank you would you mind providing a brief overview of the requests before
us this evening yes uh the the business is in place operating um one of the owners there's two owners right now of the of the transfer or license transfer or which is we management LLC DBA IRA
Asian house the one of the owners one of the uh members of that LLC has started his own LLC Iakira Asian House LLC and is uh acquiring the other half ownership so it's basically just a
transfer of half ownership to whole ownership um so the the the business is in place staying in place and will will continue ongoing as I care Asian House great thank you for the overview does
any counselor have any question for the applicant okay at this point the it is a public hearing if there's anyone in the public audience that would like to offer any input okay seeing none I will close the public input portion of the hearing is
there any council discussion seeing none I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing so moved second motion's been made and seconded to close the public hearing any further discussion seeing none jim
yes kathy yes anna yes marilyn yes ralph yes thank you and then I'll entertain a motion oh and John sorry yes and then I'll entertain a motion to approve i make a motion to approve the
transfer of an on premises all all alcoholic beverage license currently held by Weed Management LLC doing business as I Asian House located at 1600 North Main Street to Icura Asian
House LLC doing business as I Asian House with W and Ny as the manager second motion's been made and seconded just a quick correction um you said 1600 North M i'm sorry 600 it's 600 correct as read
as motion's been made and seconded to approve any further discussion seeing none Jim yes kathy yes hannah yes i'm a yes marilyn yes ralph yes and John and I'm a yes great thank you thank you very
much thank you for your time okay we are done with public hearings orders of the day we have one licensing matter to approve a one-day liquor license and I believe the applicant is here if he wants to provide a brief overview or have everybody
chair before we start i am going to recuse myself from this uh prior relationship how's everybody doing tonight good how are you wanted to mention that there is a typo on the date it should actually be Saturday the 12th
oh that's I apologize for that oh okay um so what we're we're basically looking for a one-day liquor license to uh um operate between 11 and 400 p.m on the Saturday the 12th uh in kind of a
celebration of the Earth Day cleanup that'll happen in the morning um in partnership with the RC5 they're going to have a tent there there are some vendors will be there and um yeah um we'll talk about all the trash and things we moved from the property that
we're going to be on the uh 61 um 20 yard dumpsters that we removed so I think we uh did quite an Earth Day cleanup for uh the past year over there so for us it's a kind of a celebration of that as well so
great thank you for the overview does anyone have any questions or comments excuse me sure the application Jason says 11 to 5:00 p.m yeah i'm sorry so for the clarification exactly thanks Tom okay if there's no other questions I'll
entertain a motion to approve i motion to approve a one-day liquor license application for Oneway Brewing for an Earth Day cleanup and celebration at the farm at Hawks Landing 896 Summers Road
on April the 12th 2025 11:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m second motion's been made and seconded any further discussion seeing none Jim yes kathy yes anna yes i'm a yes marilyn yes and John yes and Ralph abstain thank
you it's approved thanks everybody hopefully we'll see you there should be a good day of cleanup hopefully the weather holds up and it'll be good okay thanks so much you too thank you thanks next for financial matters we have the town manager's presentation of the FY26
budget draft yay presentation there lights no i feel like we've been through it like 10 times already yeah so uh obviously we we presented to you um back on March
31st via email uh and once in a public meeting last Wednesday um so this was sort of a a challenging draft budget I suppose um I I'll I'll go through some of the highlights and if
there are any specific questions um I mean we I could talk about this all night perfectly honest um you don't want to go there you wait your turn challenge accepted challenge accepted um no obviously I
think it's been pretty standard the last few years to to we we have a a process sort of in place which which involves you know the departments uh submitting their budget for what we call level services which is essentially uh the
same whatever whatever you got to do to to provide the same services without without anything additional except for contract uh increases uh and so as the data started coming in we noticed quickly that there were some uh some of
our bigger expenses were um well larger increases than maybe we thought or would desire mainly uh health insurance property insurance and and retirement was particularly uh a big increase this
year um we sort of immediately shifted gears to trying to trim trim off some more fat now I think we all remember last year that we did a lot of that so we're we're we're pretty much at bare bones already and and trying to be
creative on ways to sort of get this budget down to somewhere where where we can all um operate efficiently yet try to keep our costs down um I think we we we ended up peeling off just over a
million dollars from level one to level two which is this submitt um and you know we we we tried to keep most of our historical outlooks in place for instance trying not to tax our
residents to the levy this is something that Islam Meadow has been very good at uh haven't done since I can remember um and so we were we were able to accomplish that again obviously um trimming down some expenses and and
uh examining our revenues to the point where we could sort of balance that equation a little more in our favor um so uh all that to say uh the the tax rate here at this draft budget is uh right now estimated at $19.85
uh of course everyone knows that uh we have a portion of that uh is paying for our new high school uh that was a $187 uh well down from what we thought it was going to be when we were talking about
the the new school um but but still a significant uh expense to the taxpayer um we we've we're up to about 83% of borrowing so uh there will be yet another increase to that number uh but
most of it is here in this $187 um we also have included uh as per our policy uh $1.5 million in general fund capital layout uh and then an
additional $2 million between the uh enterprise funds and and other funding sources grants and things of this nature so uh we were able to uh stay in line with our policy and still get a lot of muchneeded projects done uh
in this submitt um and so again there there as I as I kind of joked by but I love the word because I'm a ma math dork uh there are many permutations of a municipal budget all of which we've been through I think uh but
um this is the the this is the the best fiscally responsible budget to that we put forward uh in our opinion in my opinion um and that that's sort of what we submitted we we have posted it on the town manager website uh on the the town
page but on the manager tab there's the the FY26 a lot of information uh um but I look forward to sort of discussing all of it uh at the financial oversight level and then uh back again at at council level but um yeah that
that that's sort of where we're where we're at right now with the with the draft budget um and again I'll answer any questions uh that that you have thank you Tom does anyone have any to the extent that you may be able to
answer this we know that Governor has submitted her budget uh and the resultant cherry sheet estimates based on what she knows at this time it then will go to the Senate and then the House and then a joint committee is that I
think so right is there there's three iterations the Senate and then the conference committee the conference committee and so historically that goes up and down and it changes do Do you have any sense yet which way the winds are blowing do
you have I don't and I' I' I'd hate to venture a guess at this point uh typically we won't see many deviation uh anything that would drastically change our budget uh I think you'd be talking
plus or minus one or 2% here and there and and like last year for instance I think chapter 70 went up but they took it from undesated government aid so our our total number didn't change by that much so um I I there there are I've
heard a bunch of conversations uh there is obviously a lot of conversations about education uh there obviously we have a a a new president in the White House and there are policy changes all over the place but we don't know
anything and you know it's we can't really speculate andor panic about anything at this point i think we just kind of think uh status quo and and take care of our business thank you y you're the chair sure so if
the cherry sheet estimate is higher than we're anticipating higher than what we actually get yep i'm assuming that's the reason we're leaving some cushion in the levy limit and can we adjust during the year as we go along or is it once we
vote a budget and all of a sudden the state aid instead of being you know 50 million comes in at 40 million and all the towns are left hanging can we still borrow against the levy up until the end of the year or how
does that work i should probably let Kim answer that question though uh typically by the time you set the budget we are in the last level so any changes uh would happen kind of between when finance oversight reviews
it and then town council approves it we're usually up to I think the Senate point if not the conference committee at that point so like any of those changes would be reflected in this budget if something happened later where they came out and just said we're pulling funding we're actually reducing what everybody's
getting everybody's going to be in the same boat but you would be able to raise and appropriate at additional meetings cuz you know you're you're allowed to do that as opposed to a town um town meeting so you would be able if we have money in the levy you'd be able to raise
and appropriate at a regular meeting okay just that was my question yeah yeah i just like I said God forbid something happens um and that's one of the reasons why you leave some cushion in your levy limit if you can just in
case unexpected things happen yep well that and again that that statement that that at the beginning that you you're you're not taxing all the way to that maximum and and I think it's a good message to send the community that you're not just doing all
the way to the max every single year tax tax tax right so there there's there's a lot of good reasons to have that excess levy and that's why we we try to leave as much as we can in there
thank you great thanks any other comments or questions okay thanks for the presentation Tom thanks that was easy and following along with budget uh the next item under financial matters was
the third quarter FY25 budget update yeah uh same i'm sure a lot of the same questions right i mean someone ice typically at this point is in a deficit which it is
uh a lot of the other ones that are over 75% where they should be are because the money's been encumbered um and will be there uh for the rest of the year but I you know nothing stood out to me Kim i don't I don't think there was any red
flags there um I don't know if anybody had any questions about anything in particular but um most most of the departments are are right in range um and then the ones that aren't it's just because of the incumbrance so there's still an available balance in that
account it's just all encumbered for the rest of the year good any questions from anyone so our legal budget I noticed that we look pretty good in it this year we do compared to the past few years that's a good sign i learned a lot last year no
I'm just kidding uh no uh there was obviously special circumstances last year but I I will uh I will plug uh our new HR director um that I had to make a lot of calls to to legal last year uh plain and simple yep um and now we have
a professional in that office that answers those questions for the employees and me and it's it's great that's how it should be working so yeah there there was a couple factors there but I'd be remiss if I didn't uh mention Audrey's impact on that budget
a good setup huh well she's certainly better than I was as the HR director i'll tell you that thank you yeah everything seemed to look in line there wasn't anything that really stood out other than some of those positive
things any other comments or questions okay moving on we have accepting donations is there a motion make a motion to accept the second and third quarter donations to the town per Massachusetts general Law Chapter 44
section 53A totaling $72,932.7 for the following amounts library $1,491 Council on Aging $69,631.17 Fire Department $1,89.90 second second motion's been made and seconded any further discussion i think
it's wonderful the donations that have come in yeah um absolutely amazing and greatly appreciated yeah I echo that same sentiment it I feel like sometimes in previous quarters it doesn't seem like it's a lot but then when you see like $72,000 that's that's
huge it's incredible but wonderful for those departments because they do a lot of impressive services for the community any other discussion yep so seeing none Jim yes kathy yes
anna yes i'm a yes marilyn yes and John I'm a yes great thank you thank you everybody on that list appreciate you absolutely next we have approval of the March 25th
open session minutes i move to approve the March 25th 2025 open session minutes i'll second that motion's been made and seconded any other discussion seeing none yes kathy yes anna yes emmy yes marilyn yes ralph
yes and John and I'm a yes motions are approved business we have continuing the discussion on a proposed bylaw regarding transparency for the Islam employee contracts and salary so at our last meeting Ralph had
provided us a draft some of his thoughts in there i didn't know if anyone had any other comments questions concerns or if we wanted to move this along to the bylaw committee for any other review and
revision before it comes back to the council sure Marilyn maybe there it's simple but there's a lot of information that's being requested with this bylaw how do we do it i'm I'm serious do we um I mean is there all of this
information is in one computer you can just move it to another computer or do we have to have a a person you know download this or put this into a um a document so so truthfully like everything else um updating information
on the town website is is a constant process and obviously sometimes doesn't happen as quickly as maybe it could uh but uh and I don't want to downplay it and say that this is easy this will be some work for people to do but again I
feel like it's probably worth it to the community for us all to say "Yeah here's all our stuff." I don't have any problem with that but yes no there will be some work of course and and I think I'll say I I feel like we brought this up a month ago uh the first time you guys talked
about it and we went back to the office and there was a um freedom of information request for everybody's salary from 2024 so the information the the information usually has to get put together anyway okay um but yeah no I
mean it's going to be it's going to be some work and we're going to have to make sure we update it every time we do something but I think we it was like the it's like the fee thing now right like we're we're going to we're going to have to do this every time right my my suggestion would have been uh and I don't know how everybody feels but the
fiscal year thing and I know that doesn't make sense to the public probably but because we're doing all of our stuff on a fiscal year and this says calendar year I if there was some discussion about maybe making it fiscal um it might just be easier for us to to
chunk it out but again somebody asked for a calendar year they got the information somebody ran a report in Munice and put it in exported into Excel it's it's some work um but again we just have to as we're updating our policies
and procedures and the way we do business we just have to remember these points in time where we have to oh you know the two meetings in June we got to update the fee schedule right first reading second reading we're good to go july 1 and we'll just have to remember as we're getting close to the end of the
calendar year that when the calendar flips by March 1st we got to make sure it's just another thing to do but uh and I think once we get it done updating it will be will be will be a little easier but thank you for the consideration yeah I mean it it will be some work but but I
think the transparency piece is really the part of this um as I'm having these conversations most everybody has this on their website whether you can find it or not with a simple search uh is another thing but we have a transparency tab right up top it's got the open checkbook
stuff like there there's we already have the the tab on the website so uh this would just be one more thing uh that we chunk in and make sure that we we're keeping it updated thank you yeah I think I think the I think I think the
the information itself far outweighs whatever extra work anybody would have to put into updating it because I think it's important for the community to to know that we're committed to let them see everything we're doing i think that that's the the most important part of
this public sector that we're in I think okay so through the chair sure so the reason I suggested a calendar year is I believe typically you get your W2 or your tax forms once a year and my thought process was if the town's
already got to print those out in January for the federal government all that information's current right there yep and yeah it's easier the contract contracts and all that are going to be on fiscal but yeah well the contracts are set up a
little bit different it's basically so when you ratify or approve a new contract once everything's all done it's been accepted and all then it gets loaded up and that's every three years most contracts I think so it's not something you have to renew every single
year because it lasted three so that was my thought on it okay try and make it a little bit easier for you no no yeah again I I feel like No we're not going to do 10-year contracts no I'm guess I'm guessing you're not going to give me permission to sign one of those
got that right um yeah no I I I think I think that this is important and uh whether it's a bylaw or or just a way of doing business either way I think a bylaw always makes sure that we're doing what we're
supposed to be doing when we're supposed to be doing it so um yep we'll figure it out so um I had brought up the last time did some um about adding language maybe that says uh you know other public documents are
available through um you know public records request or something like that i don't know if in this we want to add that or not i again more open for suggestions if you guys think of anything um I'm sure the bylaw committee
will come up with something too um yeah I thought it was a good start and maybe a little bit of verbiage changes when we get to the bylaw committee but I think overall like the the spirit of it is a a good start and I don't think we
need to go crazy with adding too many other things to add to it at the moment until we see how this works out and we can always enhance but harder to take away okay there's no other thoughts so I'll entertain a motion then
okay I can a motion i make a motion to refer the proposed bylaw regarding transparency of East Long Middle employee contracts and salaries to the bylaw review committee for recommendation to the town council second motion's been made and seconded
any other discussion seeing none Jen yes kathy yes anna yes i'm a yes marilyn yes ralph yes and John i'm a yes great okay next under old business we have a charter amendment update from our town
clerk so we had a special meeting March 5th where you uh approved the proposed charter change next morning I sent it to the attorney general's office for their review and approval which I heard back from them on March 13th which was great so right now I'm working on a
notification to the voters which is required um I got prices for postcard and letter i think the postcard's the way to go so I'm in the I'm almost done designing that um that'll be about $3,400 to send out to all the households
why'd you look at me look at your money and then of course it'll appear on the ballot June 3rd so I hope that postcard will like mid Mayish it'll remind people to vote things like that so okay cool great so before then is there
funding in the budget or are we going to need to make a um transfer or something okay i don't have the money we should be good okay kim will magically make it appear in your account
we've worked with PIP before they do our census mailing they did this typ this similar thing with the representing they do a good job with it so great thank you for the update welcome okay new business we have discussion of
a proposed zoning amendment relative to private cars like that great hello hi Rob i think I'm a frequent flyer at this meeting a lot of zoning
changes hey Rob hello how are you doing good so how do you want to proceed with uh this first reading um if you wanted to just give a brief overview maybe whatever you put in your memo or maybe some of the context as to how this came
about yeah so I'll give some brief background so the planning board brought up this idea there not the last meeting but the meeting before they had me looking into crafting like a small bylaw addition for um private sales of used cars on people's
private property um I know that might be ambiguous enough to include used car dealerships or people who sell cars on private property such as dealerships or car auctions in this case it's just for individual who owns a piece of private property could be somebody's home could
be somebody owns a a building in general um regulating their rights to list a car for sale on their property so the playing board um I guess they they saw it as something they wanted to start um capping the number of that you can do within a
calendar year and uh we did kind of go through one or two renditions of this before they sent it to the council for their initial consideration um overall uh it would limit to just two cars that you would list for sale on your property within a 12-month period but you can
only do one car at a time within 30 days so you don't have a car for sale like every week or something like that um the inspiration was pulled from other towns in the county such as Lello and Chipe which already have bylaws that are actually a little more restrictive than
this one um just a rule of thumb um the RMV unofficially says that if you sell more than three cars within a 12-month period you're technically a used car dealership that needs a class 2 license which thought was a little bit interesting um
and this wouldn't be a detriment to any car dealership that's looking to open in town because they would already need a special permit this is not something they would need approval from the planning board or the town in regards to doing it's just limiting their the number that they can have displayed on
the property at all times so that's pretty much the gist of it uh if you like we can go through the text i believe it's in your packets it's just one addition to um sorry I have to pull it up section uh 453.3 which is titled additional use dimensional and density
regulations and it will be added as a new subsection 10 uh titled use motor vehicle sales on private property so that's pretty much the background um be happy to answer any questions that the council has are there any questions
this is um this has been a problem on and off for years and my question is enforcement how what's what's in place to control the person who has a used car license
from another community selling a vehicle a week a vehicle a month every month who how is that I mean it's happening how is that any idea how that can be enforced so I say the same answer for most zoning violation or force related issues it's
just a matter of people filing a complaint if the building commissioner drives around they notice that there's a car on somebody's front lawn being sold every week um it's one of those mechanisms that usually the complaint driven structure is what gets us more informed about what's happening in these
situations and that's that's how we we would continue to do it in this situation we just have a legal mechanism to prevent more than two cars per year being sold on somebody's property now I may have missed it but the car doesn't
necessarily have to be owned by the individual or does it so it has to be owned by either um the property owner or a tenant so it could be a renter who lives there it could be a business owner um as such okay thank you
Kathy well my question was uh the motivation for this addition to the bylaw was more out of prudent practice and trying to get in line with some of
you know the uh practices of adjoining town or budding towns versus the planning board it feels there's a it the issue was troublesome and felt that it was a need to begin to regulate it so I felt like it was a little bit of both i
think the plane board saw this as a constant issue because there was um I think there was a business on North Main Street that had a boat for sale for several weeks still does still does and I think the board felt that it might be a detriment against abuing property
owners to see something listed for sale for that length of time and that's the impression I got from them when we had this discussion okay thank you yep so through the chair sorry so currently doesn't our bylaw prohibit um if you're a business owner um selling something
else so if that's still there um that would be a zoning enforcement issue currently so state law allows for it especially for used cars um it could allow for municipalities to regulate it as well so on business property not on residential
property on business property I'm not fully sure what the regulations are but I know on residential properties they have the state protection unless municipality regulates it so on a business property um especially let's say a restaurant
possibly under special permit special permit definitely doesn't say that they can sell items like that outside so again I would think that's a zoning issue but with that being put aside um I only if um sorry go ahead i didn't mean
I have some concerns over the wording as far as um property owner or tenant um so I don't have any kids but let's say I did and my daughter's looking to sell a car she's not the owner of the property she's not technically a tenant um I
would think that we need to adjust some of that to maybe lives at the premises or something on that idea that's what a tenant is it's somebody who has a lease to live on the property that pays rent yeah so we have to ask for that proof
i don't know you could be um pay rent i know in my day everyone I had to yeah but again I I I think there may be some adjustments in uh the wording and stuff um you could probably include it to say individual who pays rent to use the
premises as like an additional explanation of the or resides at resides at the correct you know immediate family member of the owner of the property so I I do think there's an issue in town i don't think the issue is
as much with residents selling their personal vehicles whether it be one two or four a year i think this has to do with multiple people in town that have decided that it was easier to do a used car lot on their property and sell a car
every two weeks or three weeks instead of going out and buying and getting business property and operating out of there um and that's I know of a few in town um location location location
exactly okay and um I believe we um in the past the police department uh discussed one because it wasn't on the person's property that was selling the car they were paying someone else to use their front lawn because it was in a high
visibility area um and again through some great work um between Maryland Police Department they were able to come up with detective you got it i don't I don't want
to hurt residents that aren't doing anything wrong they go on uh Facebook Marketplace you know post their car for sale and they're trying to sell it instead of turning it in but I also see the need to do some
type of language to try and prevent someone that is doing something illegally um it's it's a tough balance and I don't want to hurt our residents no but with that being said I do think there's enough here to send it to the
planning board with some of our thoughts adjust and then bring it back to go to our subcompetence staff but we I do have a question actually to add on to that um the planning board didn't really seem to be up for this specific idea that I brought to them but
what if we consider limiting it to just residential properties and ban it on commercial and industrial unless you have a special permit to be a used car dealer or to sell the other vehicles that are listed in this definition which includes boats RVs campers uh
motorcycles and off-road vehicles or is that too limiting what happens with the business owner that has a business vehicle and puts a for sale sign on it it's parked there is he now in violation he's selling his own vehicle on his own
property um again it's I guess also when you think about tenant does tenant also apply to a tenant of commercial property or does that not count in the situation that's why the word tenant was I know why tenant was kind of left ambiguous
the way it was because it's not just a residential tenant it's also a business owner who could be doing what you just said so I think if we make it legally resides on the premises that means a tenant of commercial property wouldn't be able to do that that's how I would interpret
it so I think it just really depends on who we want to have the ability to do this twice a year and again twice a year so calendar or calendar i'm the parent i sell a vehicle
each of my kids want to sell their vehicles which one do I tell no you can't um whichever's your favorite shopping right and again it's probably never going to come to that because no one's ever going to say anything um it's just it's the places
that you see the vehicle for sale and all of a sudden next week it you know it's a different vehicle and the week after that it's a different vehicle and it's like oh how many vehicles do you have um come to find out quite a few
you know I wonder if the um RMV um or wherever you know when you sell a vehicle is it registered anywhere that there would be a listing um in East Law Meadow that would say "Okay East Law Meadow you've had 20
vehicles sold at this particular address in a six-month period." You know that kind of thing i don't you know so I know when I did a private sale back I'm from Delaware that's where I sold my vehicle usually they just take the car title and like write when you sold it and who you sold it to and you take that to the
registry and then you just do it there i believe it's similar in Massachusetts for private vehicle sales and I believe they just show it on the back and then that's process and you get a new title or you just keep the same one I believe and they update information i'm not really fully sure what the process is
you turn over your title you sign on the back who it's going and they take it yeah it's really quick process actually it's very easy but yeah I there's like no way for them to tell the town like who does this i mean it's just up to us to kind of just know from looking around
and getting complaints about it thank you we have anything sorry through the chair do we have anything through the building department as far as number of complaints on different locations
so not for this one specifically um I know it's for commercial vehicles parked on private property that's been one we've been getting but that's about it um but but I know it's happening and it's
happening yeah yeah and we now have the the complaint form online yeah and so that's all getting tracked and ask that question again in 10 years in a month or two months oh yeah but all all of the complaints are now tracked and you know
check up on them so we'll have a record soon and we're still trying to get that system out to people who would complain about something like this so they can I have a question sure um and just something to think about so I live on a main road and I think I've done this in
the past a family member said "Can I put my car on your front lawn or the driveway facing the main road?" And I said "Yes but they don't reside there." And it wasn't my car so would that not be allowed with this technically yes it
wouldn't be allowed the only car I've ever sold there so far get to complaints so I don't know if that's something maybe we can kind of think about where do I find that complaint form yes
so it sounds like um that's what we're trying to prevent because I I think I got the impression that people come from other towns to do that here on people's private property am I mistaken on that yeah as a as a general as a general noticing of things from someone who's
been in town for a while and was a long time ago as well there are busy intersections that always seem to end up with a car on the corner with a for sale sign there are more than one occasion and more than one location where that happens
the situation that Ralph referenced was a home that was owned by someone who was not there renting it out to someone else y the agreement was made with the homeowner and the rental had no the renter had no choice but there were
vehicles sometimes two three a week on the corner of on the front lawn and it became a real hazard when people stopped to look at the car well and and it was a dangerous intersection yeah the police chief got involved went to the owner
and basically said "Knock it off." And the whole thing ended up but the person who was selling the cars is still selling them in town in other places and we know it it's really difficult but um I would like to see that controlled but
I you know and it's been it's been complained i've never been complained before just keeps coming back and also when you think about it if we allow for that it might create the slippery slope that leads back to that because how can you ask for somebody of proof that's a
family member like it could be that individual and say "Well that's my cousin Tom you know he sells car he's related to me you know I'll let him sell my car his car on my property." I mean that's just it's hard to really ask for proof for those things i mean we don't really have to have them provide us a
DNA test or anything but I think it's only two vehicles in a year budget time that's what I was saying doesn't really matter whose vehicle it is right as long as it's limited that's true and it's hard for us to kind of really prove that right either way
I think it's just back to enforcement you got it which is the whole chapter 450 isn't it and if we know for a fact somebody is constantly selling other people's cars on their front lawn then this gives us a legal mechanism to tell them to stop right if we said you can
have family members who don't live in town sell their cars on your property that might be hard hard to enforce because we're going to be asking for personal information of this other person and Yeah as long as there's limited what is two in a year yeah it's
just frequency zoom out a lot not going to do very or they're not going to do very good business if they can only sell two in a year okay yeah and I think if you leave it the way you know kind of do like the property owner tenant are the only people that are allowed to do it that would work out a lot better because it wouldn't really prohibit as I
mentioned earlier commercial tenants or residential tenants from being able to do this legally speaking yeah i guess my take on it is I have a lot of concerns about it and generally I'm not in favor in the way it's worded at the moment i can understand
not trying to prevent you know this sort of quasi used car lot situation things from happening but I also think it has the potential to like some of the concerns mentioned by others tonight to sweep up a lot of other people that I honestly don't care what someone does on
their private property if they're trying to get rid of a couple cars like I don't think the whole nosy neighbor thing should be that big of a deal here that's just my take on it and I think most people obviously are following you know
the rules it's just couple bad eggs you're probably right yeah and I'd hate to see us put in a lot of rules for a couple people that we're concerned about and we end up making it a mess for everyone else and the enforcement part of it too like you know who's going to keep a calendar
of oh you sold the car today you can't do it again for six more months so I would assume I would assume though if there's a neighbor that's very aggravated at it that they're going to take pictures and
document um there's someone doing it they that the neighbor should do that right you know we also have a drone that No I'm serious and the nice car lot is
in town um you can't see it from the road but you can see it if you're in the neighbor's next door and you go in the back and look over the fence you can see it it's there and you know it's But a drone would show that is that
the drone is not allowed to fly over anyone else's property i mean the building inspector can have the drone just a thought i I would still like to see us at least send it in and see if we can't adjust language and all to get it um so that
we're all okay with it um it may work it may not work and at least this way here it doesn't cut the process off okay is there a motion i may No go ahead i make a motion to
refer the proposed zoning bylaw amendment regarding private car sales to the planning board for recommendation to the town council second motion's been made and seconded any further discussion jim yes kathy yes
yes no marilyn yes ralph yes john yes thank you thank you all thank you for coming thanks Rob thank you thanks Rob leave the file the way it is for now have a good day thank you
okay next under new business we had discussing advertising and banners on town fields uh so this topic had sort of come up over the last few weeks especially part of the budget discussion in town kind of looking at revenue
sources and expenses and so forth um and whether it was even allowed we had thought that it wasn't but we weren't sure where it said it wasn't um a lot of research so thank you for that um I can try to summarize it but I don't know if
you'd be better suited to summarize your findings if you don't mind sure um initially um we looked at the or I looked at the zoning bylaw and I looked at the signed bylaw which is different it's created different in each district
the residential district has a certain set of standards commercial business industrial garden park and so forth um the only reference to banners in um and I'm assuming that's what will be displayed on the fields the only
reference to banners um would be under temporary signs where you can go to the building commissioner and ask for a um a permit for a temporary sign and I believe it's maximum 90 days that they could have that signed if that's the
building commissioners if the building officials agree to that but there's nothing that addresses this specifically there have been discussions before and um a lot of discussion focused on not so much the
banner on the signs but what they were saying and um there was concern about um perhaps the fact that all of these signs would be on fields where our young folks would be more inclined to be playing
that um we had to be extremely careful what the signage said um the I reached out to Donna Prather in the recck department and she told me that you know there's nothing that they have for park
and wreck in terms of their property and right now we have what the schools have but they're not and they're not dealing with fields at least I don't see it there um Donna explained to me that um a
lot of times the um the athletic associations go out and raise money there was no mention of money in what we looked at in terms of a policy and it was just an example i realize that but
um you know there was a concern about that kind of thing who gets the money um and what's it going to be used for um and you know obviously there's no bylaw that's written or there's no um memorandum of understanding or policy
that addresses this right now she did tell me that um there was a situation at the high school um during a football game i don't know when i don't know who was playing whom but there was a banner on the fence advertising a firearms shop
in town and there were guns in the picture and that raised a lot of u red flags to the folks that saw it and I understand why um so that's a thing that if we were inclined to move forward um that that's something that we would have
to be very specific about in terms of the criteria now you can say um that it's it can't be offensive it can't you know can't be political can't be religious um it's tricky as to what we you know
what the advertisement how we could control that and I think there needs to be um some sort of um oversight if we go forward with this um because it's happening i don't know if it's happened more than that one time
um where there was a a banner on a on school property uh I can't speak to how it was dealt with um but um it happened but it was onea one case um I said I mentioned to Connor when we
talked about it that perhaps we need to think about what we might be able to do um you know I'm not looking to loiter up the town but I look at Picnell Field as you leave Long Meadow and go to the um highway i mean
it's a pristine field it's got you know flags it's got green turf overhead lights i mean it really looks like a neat place and um but I don't I've never looked to see what's advertised on the you know on the fence around the on the
field we could suggest proud you know proudly sponsored by Dunkin Donuts um for an equal amount of athletics i mean we could do something like that rather than um a an individual putting their logo on the on the you know the banner
if we if that were something that we would consider it's just a lot of you know there's a lot of things to consider i think it would be okay for the company to have its logo there as long as they're not in the banner selling the product but as
you said Dunkin Donuts proudly supports East Long Meadow Athletics athletics that's to me is okay right absolutely but then at what point do you saturate every field with a parade
of banners and when they begin to show wear and tear how do you refresh it i mean there's a lot to consider more importantly um the reason why Connor was approached was a a venue or an ability
to raise generate funds and how much money are we talking about in terms of advertising a banner and it I would think that a um a business if they were limited to
this business proudly supports it may not be worth it to them because it really doesn't sell their product and that's what they want to do right so um I don't know it's Connor say
my thought was to at least have the discussion before anybody did any further work on it just to see what the council's appetite was if we wanted to move forward and investigate maybe there's other similar communities that have stuff or take a look around at other fields that might have
advertisements and what they're doing yeah so so you the banners would be on the fields and that would be in exchange for a monetary donation possibly possibly well but that's what
that's what the interest is yeah because I so this has come up before and I think something happened like this at Maple Shade where a couple parents whose business is landscaping tried
to you know tidy up the fields i think there was an issue with the lawn mowing at like Maple Shade where there was like clumps of like grass everywhere because there was no bagger could would it be something in in that respect too like care of the fields or just like could we
go to that step or is that like a DPW kind of adopt a field something on that idea like in Springfield has adopt an island y where you can adopt it and in return for maintaining it taking care of
it you're allowed to put a but I think when they brought that up at Maple Shade they were kind of they kind of were met with the DPW contract something and I'm not sure if that makes even sense but that's what I remember yep so so is that
a possibility or is that not even I have multiple thoughts but Okay um in Springfield I do know at one point they had an issue with with the adopted terrace designed like that where someone would adopt it they might take care of
for a year or two the sign would stay up and then they just fall off okay so that turned into a monetary donation for the sign the money would go to the park department and they would pay for the maintenance of so they give somebody a dollar figure out how much it would cost to maintain okay that terrace for how long and and that's the way it ran on
the other side of it I just by chance happened having this conversation with my boss today um he was the um president or director of the booster club in Wilberham in association with the with the um miniatur athletic director so the
booster club there would raise funds separately from the school for equipment and some other type of purpose but strictly for that i I can't quite recall what Speck Pond looks like and I can't remember if there's like a bunch of various signage up there as well yep so maybe just talking to some other
communities like the Springville parks and recck department about how they design those programs but I spec I pretty sure for a lot of them there's like a 501c3 attached to it where the donations go to and then they they discuss it you know between the organization and like an athletic
director or recreation director about how to use those funds but the other side of it what he clued me into was they really got to be careful especially with parents who feel really um committed when they're especially when
their son and or daughter are on the team they want new you know something outside the scope of what the money is supposed to be designed for so I I I think you know maybe we look at this and then farm it out to the appropriate department or or people who are asking
you want to do this lift and establish a 501c3 you can do it and then come up with some type of aesthetically pleasing way to to do so it's complicated it sure is okay let's move on i just wanted to point out under the
zoning bylaws when you look under definition um a banner is nothing more than a type of sign um so any sign bylaw includes banners um it includes basically any type of lettering or anything that calls attention to it um
doesn't even have to have wording on it it could be you know birdhouse with a bluebird and name of the company is Bluebird something or other and so so we do have some language in here for the banners and stuff um I do
remember and I can probably go through my 30 vaults and dig it out um Colin Drury had brought this forwards through the wreck department and I think he brought it to the planning board and he
had a whole um packet on a suggestion as far as for um banners to be put up um like at on the fence at Lehey Field uh for the summer and how to go about it
and um I just don't know exactly where that proposal went i know it was never finalized never adopted um I'm not sure if it was ever put into the record um with the minutes which we know it
it's probably supposed to be when you're submitting something but it doesn't always happen um but there is something that was put together by Wreck years ago and again I I think Piccelli Field um I have no issues with the banners i drive
by and I look and I'm like how did he get his up you know um I I have concerns as far as who's doing it and where the funds would actually go to um
especially you know if it's on school property does it go into a general account for the school does it go to the 501c3 that's in charge of you know football or baseball or something uh if it's on town property you know and I
think that's something that we really need to look at just a point of information if I can i think the school policy around signage on their fields uh
might since it's already established and it's it's been there in place for several years wouldn't I don't know can we regulate what signage could go on a school
field wouldn't their policy already take precedent so can I if it's in a zoning bylaw so in our if it's in a zoning Okay our charter specifically says the town manager is in charge of all properties of the town i understand that and so I'm
thinking once the charter went into effect the right to do stuff on properties went to the town manager again I don't know chapter 70 and everything i haven't I haven't made it to chapter 70 under Mass General law yet
um no but it's a question to be asked I suppose yeah i just there there's I just want to make sure everyone together and that we don't have two completely different policies right so to follow on that whatever gets ultimately developed
needs to be able to somehow dovetail with the spirit of the school I would think the spirit of the school policy right which one suggestion if we wanted to move forward there could potentially be an ad hoc committee to have a school
committee member and a counselor and a planning board member or something and see what everyone's thoughts are so we're not all going in different directions with different policies did you have something to add John yeah I was just going to say when kind of thinking about this ahead of the meeting
I felt like I I think it's an interesting idea um I think making sure that we have clear kind of procedures on who's approving or denying because you know there could theoretically I mean it's unlikely but maybe a banner that may not be suitable or a type of
business or something that may not be ideally suited to you know for children to be seeing um on a regular basis so I think having clear guidelines but also being you know a free speech issue just being mindful of like we're not arbitrarily denying people uncertain you
know having clear standards so I think that would be really important before we actually approve some type of uh or consider approving some type of policy yeah no there I do have a few thoughts i don't know how many I want to get into at this particular moment but uh yeah
Ralph uh it our sign definition basically means everything uh we had this conversation last year with a flag right so everything is a sign um the the the advertising and I think
like John just said the the guidelines is just by putting things in place that your sign can and cannot say is probably going to be an issue with the first amendment
so uh as of this moment on town property uh it's no to everyone because it's not a discriminatory answer it's either yes to everyone or no to everyone and as soon as you say yes you're opening yourself up to a wide
range of you can say whatever you want right i mean there is a first i mean obviously there are consequences every time we open our mouth but you can say whatever you want and every time I talk to our attorney or ask for an opinion
about anything that touches the first amendment the answer is usually usually stay away from that um so there's plenty to talk about here and I think we should because I feel like I've heard a lot spec has spec pan
has come up since I started working here um there that's a little bit of a different animal that that's an endowment and that that's sort of privately done where we start getting if there's 12 signs in the
outfield who gets to pick which 12 go on there if 15 people want to go on there and who's worried about discriminating who's the people on there and you know I'll just use an example why is Paige landscaping on there and I didn't get on
there right so we just have to be I don't mean to put you on the spot no you were just you're right there so there are a lot of things to talk about here and and I know it would be easy to say you know why can't we just let the kids put up the softball banner like they
should i mean good for them have a good day right like they're they're having they're supposed to be having fun there and you want that to happen we just have to again we have all these laws and we have to enforce them the way that they're written and the way that the lawyer tells me I have to so we just
have to have this conversation and and make sure it's all thought out and think of all the things because everything gets sticky especially in this sort of world my question is if I may sure um this
whole thing started to raise revenue what kind of money are we talking about well that I guess I don't Yeah I don't I don't know yeah I don't think it would be a substantial amount at all maybe we should think of other ways to fund raise instead of you know if it's going to be
that troublesome trying to figure out how to make everyone happy um without taking away anyone's you know rights of expression and I would think perhaps maybe we can have a lot of bake sales no I'm serious
it's the whole purpose of this coming up was to raise money yep and um if the money isn't that lucrative I don't know that's something to look into like what do they pay for a sign over a picnell
field i don't know um yeah maybe maybe it's more than we think i don't It might be maybe it isn't that that one time oh good none of my signs up there it may be as you said around adopt a terrace uh it's an annual fee
which goes to the parks department to help maintain that field but it's advertising and that's that's the question too it's exposure of your product right there's a lot there lot of angles here
that have to very very well said I guess so I would suggest our president analyze and give back to us how's that yeah which I'm happy to move forward i just wanted to see if it was the council's pleasure to have an appetite for it or if we just wanted to say nah we don't
need to waste time on it now what does everyone think to continue researching at least there's a lot of even the school one like somebody said is is well written and it and it points back to our bylaw and our bylaw does a decent job of making sure that
signs aren't in disrepair and are a certain size and so I feel like there is an angle here uh but there are a lot of things to think about uh and a lot of legalities as well so um but I certainly
so we say all the time we got to have all the conversations doesn't make any sense not to i'd like to at least know what we're talking at for funding for the signage and if it's worth going through it or not i mean if you're only talking a
small amount of money it may not be worth going through all of the the legal issues our attorney may cost more than the the banners they're advertising by law change right okay well we'll continue to do
some research then and see where that takes us okay thank you okay moving on we have the discussion of the town manager contract and performance evaluation process so I think as I mentioned probably at our last council meeting
um May 1st is the council's deadline if we I'm not suggesting that we intend to do this but it was in Tom's contract for the as the town 10-year contract if we weren't going to If we weren't going to option
sorry oh that's if we weren't going to renew Tom's contract that would be the last day that we could give him notice that we weren't going to do so so I wanted to at least start the evaluation process in advance of that um but also the contract negotiations that we're not
waiting till June 30th to approve that so if I didn't know if the council had any particular thoughts we had the process that we followed last time which I thought worked out well but I wanted to make sure it was good with them before we proceed with that where we had
developed a few goals for the town manager and then we also had a evaluation form that every counselor would fill out i believe there were 10 question or 10 categories that would be scored and then you could
provide additional open-ended comments or feedback about any topic does that format still work for everyone for this upcoming evaluation cycle sure i would say yes yeah seems to I'm going to do that okay
great i'll plan to at some point over the next week or two to send that out to everyone so we can start that process and then probably at some point in May we'll uh I don't think we'll have it in time for our next April meeting but maybe one of our our first May meeting
or so we can have all the feedback back and then we'll I think last time we also had the subcommittee of the council that put them all together and came up with the cumul ative score and compiled all the
feedback i think that's over coffee um the if I may um was there I believe there was a selfie bell as part of that process too there was okay okay just want to make sure that wasn't because that's very helpful and we're looking do that again also
i'm good with that if everyone else wants to do that as well just wanted to put it in there for you i remember going through this last year on our scale from 1 to 10 and I thought it would be better just to be one through five i just felt like it was I
mean I agree oh right okay yeah okay bring it down to I mean what distinguishes in terms of moving to the point of a merit increase a six versus a seven or a 7.5
versus an eight i would tighten up personally the scale my my issue with going one to five is we had that before and it was either three or four and to to me there wasn't enough of a range
it's sort of like going to a 100 i mean I'd rather say hey someone scored a 75 than I would say a a three which to me is a 66 the only reason why I say one through five is because right here the categories always exceeds generally
exceeds generally meets does not always meet frequently fails so there's five there's five standards well you don't even need that last one that out well that number is a zero
i can see both of it i like baseline's a one i like the idea of 10 floors and 10 possible points sort of adding up to a hundred because that just sort of makes it easy like percentage wise to see
what it might be but yeah it having so that scale at the bottom I I use that more just hey as a reference and not as okay if he always succeeds this is what he gets um I thought that was more just
hey a guy what are we looking at does he always fail well then that's down here does he always succeed well that's here i I just I didn't use that i'll be truthful i didn't use that last time i based on Okay well I know he does this
but maybe not quite here or somewhere in between i don't know i I just I just for some reason it was besides scale tell me on a basis a one to 10 you know what's this oh okay you never hear one to five i
like one to five okay pain level one to All right well that was just my suggestion but I guess it's okay does anyone have any else other feedback jim Marilyn John about the scale
one to five one to five or one to 10 no just kidding i just like to see it consistent so there's like five criteria or 10 cr but are somehow providing and I've never criteria I've never seen that the the
actual remove those as long as it's consistent once we did it before we we used to do it on a scale of one to five and then and then they didn't understand well how'd you come up with a 3.6 Six
i'm accustomed to like Amazon reviews zero zero zero oh is that a 3.6 all right five stars five stars see there's your scale there's your scale there's an example of five i could always take the liberty of adding a bit more criteria of
what the range are to each of those categories and that might help clarify what the numbers could be add five more into that yeah I could always try to figure Well that's okay you can leave that we'll just do like more of a range I guess thanks Ralph
thank you i do appreciate that okay great so I'll send that out over the next week or so and then begin that process if it's also the council oh go sorry um I think last time you had said that
with the self-evaluation we did sort of um I think we gave it to you on a Monday and asked for it on a Friday um as far as time frame kind of like be's acceptable i mean do you need a
couple weeks to do one do you need Well I mean 35 minutes um so it's call it ongoing again I just you know if it's something where hey it takes this much time to do it i know the last time it was like hey
here's your evaluation and please turn it in by Tuesday i guess the question is do we want Tom to have submitted his self-evaluation before we submit ours or do we want those to be like happening at
the same time may I sure okay um it was helpful to see it before because we don't we're not with Tom you know day in and day out there are things that he is doing to satisfy our the goals that we've established that we may not see
and may not you know put a great star next to it because we don't know i think it's important that we see it first okay wasn't that the way we did it yes i couldn't remember um so how about for our next council meeting if Tom could
submit his self-ealuation so that would give him two weeks and then the council would have up to two weeks after that to finish putting our evaluation together so we could start our consolidation process and then
that sounds good and then if it's the council's pleasure in terms of contract discussions I don't know if you want me to meet with Tom and see what he's looking for and then our May meetings we could have our executive session to
figure out contract details on the council level so before you go into basically contract negotiations with the town manager um shouldn't we meet an executive to discuss our thoughts concerns and all
before i'm happy to do it either way i didn't know if we wanted to see what Tom was thinking before we meet twice on our end or if we wanted to meet once then meet with him and then we'll have to meet again to
note before okay sounds good we'll plan that for sometime in May then perfect great okay any other discussion on that topic okay seeing none uh the action items we'll start looking at the
performance evaluation stuff for our next meeting and sure there's things on our I don't have my calendar in front of me continue the Hero Act or did you want to wait oh yes that was April 22nd right yep
the numbers coming from the FOC before we go back to that yeah I think we had slated and told at the meeting but I I think it probably is prudent for us to wait until our first
meeting in May so Genie if you wouldn't mind reaching out to um Sure Lena well yes thank you so that would be still your your first public hearing for the budget too on that date May 13 okay yeah
so we have a busy May okay that's all I can think of at the moment for action items i'm sure more things could come up but if there's no other business I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so move she's been made and seconded any other
yes kathy Anna yes i'm a yes marilyn yes yes and John I'm a yes we are adjourned at 7:36 thank you