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running and allow you to focus on growing your business 877634 2638 or mean net.net good evening and welcome to the meeting of the fouth select board it is Wednesday March 5th 2025 it is exactly 7
o'clock um and I would ask that if you do have cell phones please silence them and make sure that they are silenced and secondly if you are video or audio recording this Open Session please notify me as the chair thank you um and
the placement and operation of the recording equipment should not interfere with the conduct of this meeting and I would ask you to please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I aliance 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 right we have one agenda item this evening and I'd like Mr Rena to kick it off for me please thank you and good
evening Madam chair select board midweek last week it came to our attention that uh we staff management team neglected to address the assessment of betterments in the town meeting meeting Article 15 for the Great Pond Phase 1 sewer
project subsequently I learned that um The Little Pond sewer project I think our most recent in 2014 um within that warrant was a separate select board article that addressed again the assessment of betterments quite honestly Madam chair I missed this
requirement when I presented to the board back on January 27th the articles in the board executed the voted those articles and executed the warrant so that is on me as you all know um the betterments are very important
elements in terms of financing and funding uh the construction of a expensive Capital project like this like the great ponu project that's why we're here tonight um fortunately over the past three or four
days staff has come up with a I think a very strong plan and recommendation to get us back on path back back on track with the project I'm going to ask the assistant Town manager to kind of walk us through the mechanics of that plan to get us back on track and uh after Peter
has a chance to kind of walk us through that path going to turn it over to our finance director Laura citen she's going to talk she has a short presentation she'll talk a little bit about some of the financial implications Peter thank you thank you so as the town manager
said betterments are an important part of the financing plan for Wastewater projects it has been uh the the past practice for the the last um two sewer extension projects um but it's also been
part of the ongoing dialogue that the water quality management committee has had it's been um baked into the capital financing and debt financing plans that we have developed and periodically shared with this board uh and while
technically it it might have been possible to vote the to authorize the betterments after town meeting approves the funding for the project it's really not you know we feel pretty strongly that's not the right way to go about it because we we want to be able to go to
town meeting and the the voters at the ballot with a a clear defined financing plan um we you know we so a town meeting vote is required for assessing betterments and town meeting does have
to vote the apportionment of those betterments that is to say the percent that of the project that is charged to the homeowners that directly connect and benefit from the sewer and the percentage that is going to be paid by the taxpayers
um this this same 7030 split is what was used for the last two projects we continue to feel that it is an appropriate balance it recognizes that there is a benefit that the properties connected to the Sewer get that anyone
that's not on the sewer does not get um so what what we mean by that is it's a lowcost reliable Wastewater system and it does not require the property to be encumbered by a septic tank um and that
footprint as we know is going to get larger with the nitrogen reducing septic systems that will be required for some properties as part of the Watershed perit plans that are in development so you know we continue to feel that
it's appropriate that those who directly benefit more pay more of the cost of the project it's also important as we look at all of the town's Capital needs and I know you're probably tired of hearing us
continue to say that we've identified over $700 Million worth of capital needs over the next 10 years um and there there is the ability to pay for this project without a tax increase even
without betterments frankly we could pay for this project without a tax increase because the existing debt that drops off off can be replaced by the new debt from this project however we're not going to be able to finance the entire 10-year
Capital plan of 700 million which is likely to grow you know we we don't feel that we've fully identified all of those Capital needs we're not going to be able to do all of that without a tax increase so it's really important that any for any project that we can find a funding
source other than taxes it's important that we maximize those funing sources so that is an important element of why we're recommending the 7030 split procedurally um the way uh the way that we are
recommending that we proceed the finance committee has voted to recommend the borrowing authorization for this project of $60 million we tonight we are asking the select board to also vote to recommend this article and and we as you know from
the uh draft that you have in front of you we have identified in the explanation for the article that the finance committee is recommending the borrowing authorization and the select board is recommending the betterment apportionment 70% to the bettered
properties and 30% from the taxpayers um one one note that I neglected to put in the draft that's before you the the the line where it literally says recommendation and then in parenthesis it it says finance committee if the
select board supports our proposal tonight we would insert finance committee and select board right there so with that um Finance director Laura citan has um prepared to walk
through some of the steps and a little bit more detail about the financial elements of the betterments in this project could we have some questions before M Mr M just a couple of question question s um just to clarify and and
and first of all I want to you know appreciate Mr Reno's accepting responsibility uh I think it's very important that uh you know that when when that happens that staff steps up and I appreciate your your your willingness to do that we all make
mistakes um but is you said Peter it's not absolutely necessary could you explain a little bit on that that we have to do the betterment right so
so in order to assess betterments a town meeting vote is absolutely required right but it doesn't have to be incidental to what's happening at this town meeting right is that correct could you know it could theoretically be done in November for example the problem is when
we go to town meeting and town meeting says how are you paying for this project we have this big unknown and more importantly when we ask the voters at the ballot to vote for this $60 million project and they don't know if any
portion of it is going to be paid for by those 800 some odd properties that are going to have a direct benefit you know we feel that that would be a real disservice that not to mention it's it would appear a little disingenuous yeah we're going to do this
now but we'll figure it out later with all due respect I think it's disingenuous to to to be this far along and no one have asked the question how how are we going to pay for it and and what's the betterment going to to be and what's the effect to the to the property
owners I think that's a little bit more disingenuous to be quite honest you ask the question I'm sorry did you ask it no CU I I assumed maybe it was going to come at another at a different meeting what assumptions get you I know I didn't I didn't think I just I can I finish I
didn't think to ask about it either right I left that up to the town the management okay let's let's let's move on why isn't this uh the betterment issue a a separate article as opposed to
being just kind of in the recommendation I mean wouldn't as you said before in 2014 it was do I understand you to say it was a separate article at the time so why didn't we you know decide it to to put it in as a separate article as
opposed to just part of the recommendation as the can we put in we can't put in another AR we don't we don't have time to do that any April you can't add an article to the warrant is my understanding and the timeline for special within the annual
has also lapsed so right there is no way to present a separate article at the April town meeting at this time and the town moderator um knows our process yes thank you for mentioning that because I I
meant to um make a note of it the we have um had this reviewed by Bond Council so Bond Council has confirmed that we can include in the recommendation for this article the assessment of betterments and the the apportionment of the betterments um Town
Council has also reviewed it and approved it and David Vieira Town moderator has also concurred that um with the understanding that the bond Council has approved it that it's he's satisfied it's within the
scope of the article and he expressed no concerns thank you nitty-gritty procedural question does that mean that at town meeting it would have to be voted as amended to include or simply the fact that it was in the recommendation is enough of an approval
of that to to constitute the approval of the authorization of town meeting right to assess that betterment so we have not yet printed the town meeting warrant books so we we initially were going to do that on Monday but we had built in a little bit
of flexibility we really do need to send this to the printer tomorrow um but because the warrant book is not finalized the what the select board votes tonight will appear in the town meeting warrant book so that will be the
recommendation as it will be the article and the recommendation as printed I guess I'm just I'm curious because the article still as as presented here right the article still says nothing itself the body of the article says nothing about an assessment that's only in the recommendation and so does that need to
be in the language of the vote at town meeting to include the betterment language if I may yes so right so Bond Council and Town Council have confirmed that they can the okay scope and content of the
recommendation Falls within as we say the four corners of the article so the the legal vote is the combination of the article and the recommendation so it is all part of that one vote it does not require an amendment just one more question Mr so I mean is it is it fair
to say that the that that the 7030 betterment that you're recommending uh is based upon the fact that the prior two most recent two uh sewer extensions had 7030 as the uh as
the betterment percentage and that it has been as you say discussed with water quality and and kind of baked into the you know into the discussion I mean were were any was any consideration given to any other type of
percentage 6535 7525 or I mean we just set on 7030 and went with that so it's it's really all of the above it's not you know it's not just because we've always done it this way um
but there literally is an equity issue there right if you if one project is 8020 and the next project is 5050 you need to have a good reason right to explain to both parties this is why you paid more and this is why you paid less so so we do feel that that is
a very important consideration what was charged you know particularly in the more recent sewer articles what were the betterments so that that is definitely a big a a big consideration for us you know so did we spend a lot of time debating you know 7030 versus 7525
no we did not um but from all of the discussions that the water quality management committee has been having over the years to you know right up to date it it does seem like a a pretty reasonable apportionment you know it may not be yeah that right and just just so
I'm I'm clear when you say that that you want to explore all or alternative funding sources we're talking about 850 homeowners being that alternative source of funding is that correct I was speaking broadly not just about this
project but in general Whenever there are alternative funding sources we should look at them in this case yes in this case it's 850 home thank you do you have a comment Mr Brown no I was going to put in earlier but it was
explained okay sufficiently all right right do you want to is centr hi I'm Laura citran Director of Finance for the town of fouth so we're just going to talk basically about projected
debt to start with a little bit about the phase one part of the project and um then again betterments but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that since Peter's already given you quite a bit of information so General
overview the town warrant for April 7th includes Article 15 which is the approval to borrow 60 million for the Great Pond phase one sewering project and to a portion cost between the town and the butters which is what the betterment
is um it's really obviously when you're looking at issuing any type of debt but particularly a large debt issuance like the 60 million would be it's really important to take a look at all of the
current outstanding debt um and also what's projected over the course of the next few years in our case we have a fall 2024 10year CIP that breaks it down
pretty clearly as to just if if by no other reason by amount where the debt is going to be needed could you just say Capital Improvement project so people know C Capital Improvement project yes you're right you're absolutely
right um okay so this table which I hope you can see is going to show you in the column in the First Column not the fiscal year column but total non-exempt and exempt
debt what that includes is obviously all our current issued debt that's still outstanding that we've issued over the course of the last 30 years that that hasn't been paid off it also includes um a number of banss that we have
outstanding right now and it includes um approved debt for the Bourne Pond Bridge widening project as well because that debt has already been approved and authorized um obviously it hasn't been issued and we haven't issued any notes
related to that but that's makes up the total non-exempt and exempt Debt Service that we have currently outstanding by year for 10 years we didn't want a 30-year schedule because you wouldn't be able to read the numbers at all so we just went with 10
years the next three columns relate to the $60 million project that we're talking about so the First Column is the amount that is um 55.68 million that's the amount that is eligible for the Massachusetts cleanwater trust
or um State revolving fund Loan program um right now we're projecting that that will be at 0% interest and um we're hopeful that we would get a 25% subsidy on the debt amortised over the life of the
loan the second column is for the the balance of the 60 million 4.62 that amount is not eligible under the um clean water trust program and so that's factored in and
we're using the same interest rate that our financial advisors recommended for the others which is 4.25% all right so right now we have a betterment revenues number plugged in there an annual amount of um almost $1.1
million the next column is the sum total and then you'll see over under fiscal year 25 total debt service and the reason that we did that is because in fiscal year 26 and going um forward any
debt drop off that we see we're we're putting a raise and appropriate into the budget to move that money into the debt and capital stabilization fund so that we don't see the impact in our budget um 3 years down the road when all
this debt gets issued and we have to appropriate it all in that particular year so what you see here is that we have capacity excuse me currently of um except in the one year
863 th000 down to 4 m81 in year 2035 the one year that we do have um the need to probably take some money out of the debt stabilization is just in
fiscal year 2027 but these numbers are on here because it's important when we go to the next page that you understand what the capacity is here so $800,000 to $4 million so if we go to the next
page you'll see that in our 10-year Capital plan just the amount of cash Capital that we project will need debt is $487
million and a rough calculation of interest at 5% on that increases that so that you end up with a total of principal and interest likely if every project went through at the amount
that's in the capital plan as of November 2024 it would cost us about 800 $ 52 million um what I did here is I took the principle portion only divided it by 30
years and you'll see by the categories we have up here School Public Works Wastewater you'll see what the annual principal payment only would be and you'll get a to and there's a total of $16
million so it would increase inrease our debt by $16 million on an annual basis plus probably an additional 66% or more for interest to make it a little more
current down below we have um I showed 12 million almost third uh 12.7 million is what's in the fiscal year 26 CIP for funding and 69 million is what's in the
fiscal year 2027 CI Capital Improvement plan for funding now I did a rough calculation so in the first year the 2026 the principal would cost us maybe about if we went with every one of those
projects which includes everything from the main library L roof green pound Pond dock School roof and air conditioning School renovation studies and design of the Woods Hole and trunk River Force
M cost us about $500,000 a year in principle when you add in fiscal year 27 you would increase to um with 66% just roughly for interest our annual
Debt Service would increase by $4.3 million approximately so if you go back to that first page you'll and remember that we're talking we have capacity for the next 10 years of up to $4 million in year 10
increasing each year and so that's why we're a little concerned about the capital needs and the need for debt going forward and how we're going to pay for all of these projects obviously some decisions will have to be made as to you know what
projects are critical and and what needs to be done um but fiscal year 27 for instance you got 28 million for the police station 4 million for aquaculture um 1.2 and A5 for design of
the bulkhead and dock at Main Marina another school roof the design of the outfall in the Force main for $8 million construction of the Woods Hole in trunk River Force M for $15 million
um East Falmouth Library renovation and pickle ball carts so all right so moving on the phase one sewering project just for um the sake of the audience it's the first phase of
sewering plan to reduce the nitrogen load to Great Pond it's in the town's um approved Great Pond targeted watershed manag plan um the project involves sewering and collecting Wastewater from the northeastern portion of the marav Vista
pens Peninsula and the T ticket path Peninsula and then conveying it to the main wastewater treatment facility for treatment and discharge um okay Article 15 requests the approval of the issuance of the 60 million in bonds for the construction of phase 1
which if approved by town meeting is expected to take two years and anticipated to begin sometime in um 2025 Article 15 as we already talked about also proposes town meeting to approve the special assessments or the
betterment for the property owners to be connected to the new sewer system and um those who will benefit specifically from that project betterments are a method of allocating the cost of providing public improvements equitably among those
Parcels of real estate that receive the benefit either directly or indirectly from those improvements benefits can be individual or General in nature um individual benefits would obviously the be the benefit of of being attached to um the
sewer system but also any realized increase in property value as opposed to a general benefit which is a general increase in property values as a result of the of the project other General benefits include obviously increased level envir
environmental health Public Health availability of infrastructure any money that comes in from a betterment is restricted and would be used only to pay debt service related to the project that's all it can be used for the process um Peter went through
this pretty thoroughly but I just just want to stress that in this particular case the select board would recommend the betterment on the project and the apportionment percentage to town meeting for approval um but if after that the select
board will then determine the method of betterment apportionment um either sewer equivalent units versus Frontage what project costs may or may not be included in the betterment all of that is done once the bids are open and the estimated
costs are known at that point I believe and then you would set an initial not to exceed estimated betterment value when final project costs come in obviously we'll have the numbers to
figure out what the actual betterment will be um the final cost it cannot be more than the initial estimated but it can be less and then um once everything is done the select
board would uh basically call the lean send it to the assessor's office for collection or start the process of collection all right we did do a preliminary as you saw in this in the table we did a pre preliminary
betterment projection I'm going to read the disclaimer this is a very preliminary projection based on general information to date we don't have the breakdown of costs um any kind of determination of what a sewer equivalent unit or how how
it would be assessed has not been done um we don't have that information decisions will have to be made in the future by the select board as to what um Falls within the category of um betterment cost and what an whether to
go with an seu or the frontage something along those lines those are all select board decisions for the future our preliminary indication based on what we did is that the assessment Peru would be somewhere in the range of
$35,000 to $45,000 in total um they we're we're using 820 seus right now for the purpose of of making that um trying to come up with a number the assessment would could be paid over
30 years resulting in roughly a cost of about $1,300 a year to an seu and this would generate as I as we had in the schedule approximately $1.1 million per year which would be used to
offset a portion of the annual Debt Service on the $60 million project that's it questions from the board I have Mr Brown I have one so I I agree that the starting point is the
7030 because it's what we've done in the past but I wonder if we get to the point we we know this project is a lot more expensive than previous projects for multitude of reasons but one of them is uh lower density in this area so less people contributing to the amount of
piping and so forth that's going on it if we find out in the future that the next phase which is more dense has significantly lower cost and maybe the the one after that also has significantly lower cost per capita say there in the closer to 30,000 range not
likely cuz cost are can keep going up but if it happens and we look back can we then reimburse these residents in an effort to be fair or is it it's once it's done it's done so I'm not an attorney but I'm pretty sure the answer
is no okay and it's also not likely it's going to be less but okay thank you gone couple of questions and some of these I know we have our uh Wastewater superintendent uh Amy L here maybe a
question for her but um so my understanding is when we assess the betterments in previous projects part of uh the the private benefit to those homeowners was um an extra bedroom by right four bedrooms so up to right up to
four so um is that in any way included in this plan is that something that would be included in the the select board policy at a later date that that's in a policy that's in our uh flow neutral bylaw policy right
yeah I would defer to uh Doug Brown and Amy L can she go ahead um Doug's right the uh the town sewer um the flow neutral bylaw um allows properties uh within the sewer
area the number of you of bedrooms they already have or up to uh four if they are less than that now so that's that's in the in the bylaw now okay one other question while you're there at the microphone um rough estimate and I know
this is over uh a few decades really but um by the time we're done with this Wastewater stuff what percentage of homes in town will either be on sewer or on I up quiz on sewer or on IIA um so
Kristen Ron would know that number better she's been spending a lot more time on it uh it'll be so right now it's only 11% um it would it will the town has not decided that yet so it it will be a large percent but I really can't say
what it'll be when we're done we can call it 50 if you want to for now but I think that that has that really is to to be determined other questions from the board Mr Brown I have another question question uh not related to the
betterment but to the general debt uh Capital Improvement plan so it's good that we're taking all that in in a comprehensive way but it's my hope that some of those projects will be funded through debt exclusions and reduce our
Capital Improvement plan so I hope sometime in the near future we could have a joint meeting maybe with the finance committee and talk about which ones be might be appropriate for you know targeting for dedic exclusion so that we can maybe bring our big number down a little bit you know
theoretically go ahead so um I know what you're getting at but let me just clarify a little bit so this project we will have a debt exclusion for it um most of our borrowing we do as exempt debt but you know we talk about debt drop off or the windows of opportunity
right so I think what you're saying is if you know if we can't do if if we can't address all of our Capital needs without increasing the tax burden then let's have a conversation about which projects we bring forward and with a
plan that says this will increase the tax burden um so is that is that clear so with this project for example we're saying this $60 million exempt debt fits within expiring exempt debt so it won't cause
the total exempt debt to go up right um and there will be more opportunities in the future to do that for some additional projects but not enough opportunities so we could as a policy say you know we're going to we're going
to try to stay within our debt drop off for these projects and for these projects we're either not going to do them or we're going to bring them forward and say to the taxpayers this is if you want to do this it will be a tax increase right individual items I think we've had good
success with that and the voters are supportive most of the time so I guess I would say in terms of completely understand the um broad principle of we have a lot of capital
expenditures coming up in the next 10 years and we need to manage for that um I find it hard to translate between a 10e total which they will not all be borrowed in year one and charged for the whole 10 years with the the annual annual breakdown it's kind of an apples
to oranges that I I have a hard time fully integrating and I guess I would say that in terms of assessing this betterment I do feel like at a at a policy at a philosophical
level ensuring Equity across um the sewering projects is is the the stronger guiding principle um I understand the you know and the 7030 is a very rational that's what we did before we kind of on philosophical
grounds decided that was the right split between town and homeowners um the difference between what the average betterment was at a 7030 split the last time and what it is this time is um is daunting um I think the ability to come
back when we have actual costs and think about um what project costs are actually included in that betterment um may also be a way of addressing Doug what you're talking about in terms of um the lower density right and thinking about how
much of the the project build is directly affect is is building to um the private benefit of that homeowner versus how much of the the project build is um I guess part of the general benefit in that it's it's just necessary for the
project as a whole to to move forward and so maybe there's some wiggle room in that part of the process to address some of the the inequity across projects in absolute costs and Mr Brown I will say that it's you know good that we're having this
conversation we may get to town meeting and town meeting May say that we want to change the apportionment and they can right yes right you ready for a motion go ahead uh just to re re enforce Miss goldstone's point we you know we did draft this in
such a way that you know we we thought about you know do we do we get into the details of all the different project costs and give you a really detailed proposal about what the betterman applies to and doesn't and we felt that the better approach was to give the board flexibility just as as Miss
Goldstone described so that after the bids come in you can really look at all those details and all those options and mod what you think is the right balance and you can ask what will be assigned I mean I'm sure there are rules about what can come under a
betterment there there are I think I I think the betterment is pretty broad that almost all of the cost I think all of the costs can could be bettered theoretically so the select board will have input under what goes in what column right and that's going to change
your number right corre for example the the the betterment law allows for a better to be assessed for the cost of the treatment plan we didn't do you know we didn't apply any betterment to the treatment plan um because we just don't you know didn't feel that it was reasonable for
the small number of rate pairs that we currently have rate pairs mean those connected to the Sewer or about to be it's just too small to pay for the cost of the treatment plant of a treatment plant that others use and and there's a benefit totic and then moving forward
you'll add more from other people so that makes sense but I think the I think your point is at some point the select word will be able to weigh in on what goes where corre and I think that's that's key and if we do uh if town meeting say for instance goes along with
the 7030 for now and then in a year or two when we get more accurate numbers and we know that what the cost really is perhaps it'll be more then we can revisit this if we do revisit this at that time and change the apportionment
will we then have to go back to town meeting again to ratify that yeah my understanding is a change in the apportionment would require a town meeting vote but if you if you're looking at the $60 million and you say we're not going to charge we're not going to apply the betterment to the
discharge beds or the lift station that's within the domain of the select board as I understand it so you could do that without a town meeting vote and there other be we won't be revisiting the abortion but the final number that
people will be required to pay as the betterment can be adjusted based upon what the policy is we determine at that time and what's assigned to the betterment and what isn't so there are costs in there that the board could say no that doesn't that should not go the
lift St for instance we can say that's Town infrastructure that out yes um police details whatever comes up I think the the board will have more of a say on where what column it goes in whether it's betterment town and I think that's
an important point and when do we when do we expect that to happen when I mean bids opening and you know what's the timeline that we might be looking at do we know we have an estimation so um it
was outlined in um in that presentation there's there's first just the apportionment and then there is so there's room for discussion about this this is the process that was followed previously um the the the next step would be a discussion about the sewer
equivalent units is that the method of of assessment and how are those going to be distributed then my take on it and this is the way it was done before but there's room for discussion about the timing that um after after the bids are
open the two construction projects under this project after the bids are open the select board would hold a meeting where you would talk about apportionment and the um and the and set the order of betterment assessment that would then be
that would that would uh that that order has a list of properties and the sewer equivalent units associated with it and and a map and that gets recorded um as a lean on each property but the betterment number the betterment amount that is in
that special order is a maximum based on the the project cost estimate at the time of that um that bid opening and at the time of this meeting so at the very end of the project after we know the total project
cost the selectman has a final select board would have a final meeting where they would find where they would document the total project cost and then document the the sewer equivalent the cost per property based on the number of sewer equivalent units and that total
final project cost and I think one of the questions was when is the bin opening Amy assuming that uh town meeting passes this article and that this the it's voted by the on the ballot we'd go out
to bid this summer and the cons so the bids would be open in the fall so that betterment meeting where the special order of a betterment assessment is voted would be in the fall of this year go ahead I'm curious what the bid window is it's like 90 days or
something for a big project like this approximately thank you any other questions from the board or comments have one from the audience come for motion we're not I'm not taking
public comment tonight meeting yes it is and it's a business meeting I'm not taking public comment tonight any other questions or comments from the board I mean I'll just you know my comment is uh you know I understand the
practicalities of it I understand the argument that 7030 has been done it's an equitable um you know Arrangement uh but you know I I must again object that here we are you know a minute before midnight like we were with
the golf course and like we were with the church street parking lot and uh and here we are again you know uh with with you know sword over our heads being required to make a determination that's a pretty important
determination uh but that's that's my comment I'm disappointed that uh that it has taken this long uh to to get to us so that we have to make a decision you know a day before the book gets published when was the last time this was
done 2014 2014 thank you I would make an alternate comment that I'm glad we got cleaned up before we got to town meeting I would absolutely agree with you I'm going to also in the spirit of of accountability um just note that that this board had the the budget
binder uh for what about a week and passed it to the finance committee at the earliest possible moment and so I think we also bear responsibility in um the level of scrutiny that this board offered um to the budget and then um you know in in looking at the the town
meeting warrant so I think there is is shared responsibility there this is absolutely not the ideal way to be doing this there's a lot of information that I wish we had at our fingertips to be considering in making this decision because um while the president of the
7030 split I think is a strong policy precedent a lot has changed in in 10 years as well um so certainly not ideal um given where we are and the goal of achieving giv some flexibility going
forward I I guess my last question is and and I don't know if we have the the folks in the room to to fully answer this but um is whether language um authorizing the select board to assess a betterment up to 70% is language that
would be viable which would also create flexibility in that that authorization um I don't know if that's a level of flexibility and and it's not something may be amended on the floor of town meeting though I mean that may not even be a percentage that ends up if I'm not
true but it might be a useful uh right it sets it sets a cap on what that that betterment rate would be could be but if if a if that is viable language it would create an additional level of flexibility in that assessment and it also invites discussion at town meeting
I mean we know that the discussion could happen but that would probably be a good I would agree with that suggestion Madam chair go ahead so um my my suggestion would be that um that we run that by Bond Council so
you know essentially what I'm saying is I don't know that that's viable it might be I would not want to bring it to a town meeting vote not knowing whether or not it's viable so I guess my suggestion would be that we not have that be the
recommendation printed in the warrant but we can absolutely get that question uh run that question by Bond Council and if it is viable we can come back to the board and we can make a motion from the floor of town meeting to amend the
recommendation that sounds safer are you ready for a motion everybody ready there any other questions or comments no Madam chair I make a motion uh to move the select board to submit the town meeting to town meeting recommendation for Article 15 as
presented would second that okay I have a motion and a second any further discussion amongst the board do we need to formalize the request to investigate the up to the flexibility language or in this I think
we've given it I think we've given it to town management and they have agreed to do it and a motion to a vote to uh adopt the recommendation at as presented uh includes that select board a joint
recommendation by finance committee and select board yes yes presented um I will second that motion I think it's as presented third yeah so we have a motion and a second any further discussion amongst the board seeing none
all those in favor I I I unanimous thank you okay I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second okay I have a motion in a second any further discussion amongst the board seeing none all those in favor I unanimous [Music]
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