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[Music] Carlson Printing for all your printing needs. John's Liquor Store, 729 Main Street, Valmouth, 508-5482287. by the chair. If you are making a video or audio recording of this open session
meeting, uh the placement and operation of the recording equipment should not interfere with the conduct of the meeting. We will move on to proclamations and I'm going to ask Mr. Reid to read the first proclamation. I'd be happy to. Uh whereas the Felmouth
Genealological Society's mission is to inspire and engage individuals to explore their family history while promoting the importance of genealogy, history, and storytelling. Whereas Felmouth Genealogical Society provides information and interactive programs for members, prospective members, and the
community at large to engage and instruct in best practices for genealogical research and documentation. Whereas the Falmouth community benefits both educationally and socially from the society's collaborations with the Falmouth Public Library, the Falmouth Senior Center, the Falmouth Veterans
Services Office, and the Falmouth Historical Society. And whereas the Falmouth community benefits further from the society's advocacy of the various town cemeteries, including the placement of global positioning tags on all 17,000
gravestones, as well as honoring town veterans grave sites with markers and flags where appropriate. Now, therefore, we, Robert P. Mascali, Heather MH Goldstone, Douglas C. Brown, Colin W. Reed, and Jack P. Richardson as select
board members of the town of Felmouth do hereby proclaim Friday, September 12th, 2025 as Felmouth Genealogical Society Day. In witness thereof, we have here unto set our hand and caused a great seal of the town of Felmouth to be affixed on this 25th day of August,
2025. Thank you. Is anyone here from the genealogical society? Yes, we are. Would you care to step up to the podium and just say a couple of words? Sure. I'm Ralph Wadley. I am the clerk of the Junior
Society, formerly the president and I've done a lot of work in the cemetery and I want to appreciate thank give you my appreciation for this proclamation. We're happy to be serving Falmouth and serving the community and helping out. So,
and you have a big anniversary, which is what we're proclaiming. 40 40 years and going strong. All right. You mind if we take a picture? That' be great. Oh, please do. I'll just come up and have Peter take a picture.
Yeah. There we go. Good at it. No pressure. All right. how we're we're getting in it. All right, Doug's hiding. I'm sure this works. I got the seal. I got the flags. I got
everyone ready. One, two, here we go. Peter also serves as our DJ. Sir, I'm going to take that and we're going to process it and we'll we'll get it out on Yeah. Not so make it official. Yeah. All right. Thank you.
So, I'm going to take the second uh proclamation. Uh whereas with September being recognized as suicide prevention awareness month, the Cape Island Suicide Prevention Coalition invites our communities, mental health advocates,
prevention organization, survivors, and allies to join us in helping to destigmatize mental health and take proactive action towards suicide prevention. We seek to raise awareness and visibility of mental health and suicide prevention resources in our
communities and help connect individuals with the appropriate support services. And whereas according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34 with more than 48,000
people dying by suicide annually in the United States. And whereas with an average of 132 suicide deaths daily and each one directly impacting 125 additional people including friends, service members, family, social media
connections, and neighbors, we know a significant number of individuals have been impacted by suicide. And whereas Barnstable County's suicide rate is 1.5 times higher, standing at 14.4 4 per
100,000 versus the state of Massachusetts suicide rate of 9.5 per 100,000. We recognize the need to create hope through action by changing the narrative locally. And whereas our local Cape and Island Suicide Prevention
Coalition works hard to spread the word about prevention, awareness, education, and action through trainings, forums, and events in our region. And whereas the town of Fmouth, Massachusetts publicly places its full support behind the Cape Island Suicide Prevention
Coalition and those who work in the field of suicide prevention and research, mental health, education, and law enforcement on a daily basis. And whereas we encourage all residents to take time to understand mental health through education and recognize that we
need to take care of our mental health while we take care of each other. Now therefore, be it resolved that we, Robert P. Mscow, Heather MH Goldstone, Douglas C. Brown, Colin W. Reed, and Jack P. Richardson, do hereby proclaim
the month of September 2025 as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in the town of Falmouth, in witness whereof, we have here onto set our hand, and cause the great seal of the town of Felmouth to be affixed on this 25th day of August, 2025.
Is there anyone here from the coalition this evening? Okay. Well, we will process this and get to uh get to the appropriate person. Thank you. Sorry. No, I don't.
Okay. Um Okay. Uh recognition. Any recognition here this evening? We recognize that our member Mr. Richardson is back from a good sojourn. Uh uh welcome back.
Thank you. We also recognize that vice chair Goldstone is uh traveling getting her uh her son squared away at university uh in the Netherlands. So I would just if I could just a a brief recognition for the Emerald House uh
community garden group. They invited myself and Mr. McCanny to come and enjoy their uh harvest from their their garden. And what a great little social event it is. You know, they uh they're getting pretty organized. They sponsored a road race team and a Falmouth walk and
they work on the uh you know that fall marathon marathon. They're raising funds through those activities and that supplements their work in the garden. And it's just great to see how these these these things are pulling communities together. And the Falmouth patch, you know, the
Falmouth farming. Yeah. They're doing a great job, too. similar type. Yeah. Very nice. Anyone else? No. Uh I will make an announcement that tomorrow, August 26th, is Women's Equality Day uh which represents uh the
1920 certification of the 19th Amendment, which as we all know granted women the uh the right to vote. Uh any other announcements? Mr. Brown? I think you have one at least. I would like to announce that uh this weekend is a Bands for Badges concert. It's a great event that raises funds for
if uh first responders or military personnel have some sort of emergency in their lives, they can turn to the bands of badges group and they may get some assistance from them. So, it's a fun day. It starts at 2 o'clock on Saturday out at the fairgrounds. It goes till 10:00 at night. You don't have to stay
for the whole thing, but come and go as you please. It's really fun. I'll be there. Mr. Richardson, I believe it was you just mentioned it uh briefly and I believe it was mentioned last meeting. Uh but there's the ribbon cutting and opening of the Felmouth Patch is a new area they able to purchase. Um six
acres. They're going to have food trucks and open garden. Uh that's this Saturday, August 30th from 11 to 4. Uh the processions are uh around 11:30. Uh and uh I look forward to uh to to going on that one. We can catch that and still go to the
show. Yeah, exactly. All right. Anything else? I would just say that yes, it's interesting that you mentioned women's equality. I remember that being a single kid with a single mom in the 60s. You know, it was a real struggle to get
credit and my mom had to save up and pay cash for car when our car was no longer working and she was I remember her being mad about it when I was a little kid. A little older than you are, but had the same situation. So, yep. Yeah.
All right. Uh we're going to go into public comment. Uh public comment may be made on routine matters not on the agenda this evening. Comments are limited to two minutes. Please introduce yourself since the matter has not been included on the agenda. The select board
may not participate in the discussion of the topic. Is there anyone here to speak to public comment? I believe there is. Please step up. Introduce yourself. Uh uh this gentleman has asked for our indulgence. his uh public comment is
about 2 minutes and 45 seconds. So I've told him that that would be okay. So okay, thank you. Thank you. Um good evening, Falmouth Select Board. My name is Brandon Edel and I am representing Massachusetts for fair elections. We are a bipartisan
organization committed to safeguarding the integrity of our election process, which remains a fundamental cornerstone of our republic, a republic to which each town council pledges allegiance at the outset of every meeting. I am concerned that for many this pledge has unfortunately become more of a procedural formality rather than an
earnest affirmation of our collective responsibilities to our communities and nation. While we share the same goals with the national unite for freedom voter validity initiative, the sole focus of Mass for Fair elections is ensuring that elections within our state are conducted in a lawful transparent manner. Although numerous groups assert
bipartisan motives within today's political landscape, few issues are as essential and ultimately unifying as ensuring honest elections. For decades, voices from all sides have questioned the legitimacy of election outcomes, using terms such as rigged, stolen, or fraudulent. This rhetoric has deepened
partisan divides, resulting in a growing number of citizens prioritizing political narratives over objective truth. In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned against excessive partisanship, stating, "The spirit of party," quote, "The spirit of party serves always to distract the
public councils and infeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with illfounded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one party against another, fermentss occasional riot and insurrection." End quote. This observation remains relevant today. Nevertheless, it is encouraging
that we continue to engage in civil discourse at our local meetings, voicing concerns, and treating one another with respect. This demonstrates that by focusing less on partisan interests and more on collective purpose, we can make significant progress for our communities. To that end, Massachusetts for Fair Elections will soon be
conducting a signature drive to support election validity through practical measures, including voter identification to reduce potential fraud or the appearance of fraud. Measures that ensure valid elections will reduce propensity on both sides to question the legitimacy of election outcomes, which often lead to unwarranted hostility
toward elected officials. This environment of distrust hinders effective governance and undermines community cohesion. As we begin each meeting with a pledge of allegiance and at times a moment of silence, let us reflect sincerely on their significance and rededicate ourselves to collaborative service. Often when we set
aside distractions, we find the answers within ourselves and each other. Our website is massforairlections.org. That's mathections.org. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Okay, we will now move on.
Great. We will now move on to the uh consent agenda. Uh licenses. Consider a vote to approve an application from Joe Q Veteran Coffee Break for a special 1-day wine and malt liquor license Cape Cod Bachi Tournament
Falmouth Academy 7 Highfield Drive Falmouth Saturday 9205 10:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. Number two, consider a vote to authorize the town manager to execute a boat dock license with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Slip D12 180 Scranton Avenue, Falmouth. Administrative orders. Consider a vote to approve the petition by Nstar Electric Company, DBA, Eversource Energy, and Verizon New England, Inc. for permission to install one new JO
pole to be labeled number 1265/14 and Guy anchor on town property at 87 Acapescuit Road. The pole location is necessary to provide service to 87 Acapescuit Road. Consider a vote to withdraw $500 from
the beach donations account 28-632-5655-4830 for the Dr. David Garber dare to be great award given to Jack Wagner head guard of Falmouth Heights beach during the n during the 2025 annual banquet.
consider a vote to approve an extension to the uppercate regional transfer station interun municipal agreement and that's going to be held. Number four, consider a vote to amend the select board meeting calendar.
Number five, consider a vote to appoint John Dylan as a Capen Islands Veterans Outreach Center Civak representative to the Veterans Council committee. Uh, is there a motion to move the
consent agenda except for number four on administrative orders? I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I unanimous. Okay, Mr. Wrenchure on number three.
Yeah, just a point of clarification. You said we were holding number four. I think you meant to say holding number three. I'm sorry. Yeah, holding number three. Consider a vote to approve the extension to the upper Cape Regional Transfer Station Intermunicipal Agreement. Okay. Do you need a M Mr. Chair, do you need
another motion or you think that's fine as is? Consensus of the board. I I think that's fine. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, as you all may know, uh, our Department of Public Works director, Peter McCanny, has served as, uh, role on the board of
managers for the Upper Cape Regional Transport Station for about three or four years. I've asked Mr. McCcony to speak to this item tonight and answer any questions the board might have. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McConny. So, a little bit of history about the uh the Upper Cape Regional Transfer
Station. The the four towns of Mashpi uh Sandwich, Falmouth, and Bourne entered into an agreement in 1988 when the facility was built. And the uh the town of Falmouth has always been the lead town for that operation. Uh up until
2015, the uh town of Falmouth uh operated that facility with employee our employees. In 2015 um we stopped that operation. In 2017, there was a uh a uh a contract to have an a contractor run the operation of
that facility. Um in 2018, a uh a new IMA was created and voted upon. In 2022, the town of Bourne withdrew from the uh uh the Fourtown Collaborative. So, it became just Mashpiece Sandwich in
Felmouth. And here we are today to uh extend the contract. It it it ends on uh June 30, 2026. Um another part of this uh is to uh renew or put out an RFP RFQ for the
operations of the facility. Um, right now we can't put out an RFQ or RFP for the operations of the facility until the IMA gets resolved because that ends on June 30th, 2026. A new contract would go
several years. Just for the benefit of the audience, the difference between RFP, RFQ, you want to just So, a request, there's a request for proposals is for the RFP and a request for qualifications for a uh for an RFQ.
Um there's uh there's some subtle uh differences between them, but it could be advantageous to the four towns with with either way we go. Okay. Thank you. So So we're here tonight to see if we can extend the uh contract for it started in 2018. That would in 2025
would be year 7. Um we have a limit to go to 25 years. We would like to extend it to another 17 years to be uh June 30th, 2043. Um, under the last meeting in July uh
14th of 2025, the three towns under the board of managers voted to uh bring uh bring this to each of their select boards for an extension. Um so Farmouth is is now town of Sandwich and the town of Bourne will be forthcoming to extend.
So we would be voting to extend it and assuming the other two towns vote to extend it similarly then it'll be in place. Correct. Okay, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Richardson. Do you have any inclination? So, is is the town of Borne just they're done with this or do we know if there any interest
in rejoining the agreement? Yeah. No, the town of Bourne has requested to to opt out. They still opt out. As everyone knows, Town of Bourne operates the um the U intermunicipal operations, the uh ice swimw and and
Bourne. So they already have their operations in full gear up there. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any further discussion? Um there is there any concern about an email that we receive received about not
having minutes posted of the meeting or Yeah. So uh Mr. Chair and SL member Brown, thank you for bringing that up. Um so we did have a conversation uh Peter and I earlier today. Um, and after some research, I can report that um
there was a uh the the agenda, the Felmouth agenda has always been posted here at town hall in the bulletin in the class on the hallway. However, that's not sufficient. So, going forward, we'll make sure in addition to posting it in the hallway uh through the town clerk's office, we'll post it on on the website
as well online. So, that was uh we're going to own that. It was a miss. Uh going forward, we'll make sure that we have it posted on the website as well. And I understand the other two towns, at least Sandwich, had the upcoming meeting, this this afternoon's meeting posted on their website. Correct. So that'll be a practice that we follow. Vote forward.
Will that impede our vote tonight anyway? I don't think to go forward. I don't think it should. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. And we appreciate the uh email that pointed that out and we appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. So, uh, is there a motion to vote
to approve the extension of the Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station Intermunicipal Agreement, IMA? I would move approval extending the agreement. A second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in
favor? I I unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are going to move on to our public hearing and I'm going to ask Mr. Brown to uh read the notice. So, this notice uh was published in the Falmouth
Enterprise on Friday, August 15, 2025 liquor license hearing. Notice is hereby given under chapter 138 of the general laws as amended that Green Green Pond Yacht Club LLC has applied for a change of ownership interest, change of
officers, directors, LLC, and change of manager of its all alcohol beverage club license located at 366 Manant Road, East Felmouth, Massachusetts. A hearing on the above application will be held in the select board meeting room Falmouth town hall on Monday, August 25, 2025 at
6:45 p.m. Comments may be sent to select board at falmouth ma.gov per order of the select board. Licensing board Robert Pscali, Heather Mh Goldstone, Douglas C. Brown, Colin W. Reed, and Jack Peter Richardson.
Uh, thank you. Just for clarification, the public hearing is only going to be dealing with the issue for a change of ownership interest of its al all alcoholic beverage club license. We'll we'll discuss the others after the close of the public public hearing. So, please
introduce yourself. Sure. Thank you. For the record, my name is Matt Terry T is in Tom E R Y from the law firm of Ahmed Clower here in Falmouth. Uh I'm here this evening uh representing Koush Yasin Sata who is the
applicant um and looking to uh uh receive the select board's approval for this change of ownership. Um he is in the process of taking over operations of the Green Pond Yacht Club uh from Kevin Harrington. Uh and so as part of that
transition process, we're before you for an approval of the change of ownership and as the chair had mentioned also for a uh change of u manager uh of the liquor license and change of manager of the uh limited liability company that
operates um the the the business on site. Okay. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions of the applicant? Oh, I would ask, have you managed a operation like this in the past, sir?
Manag I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Curious if you've managed any kind of operation similar to this in the past. Not similar to this. I've been doing a man I've been managing business for last 40 years and uh you know I've had uh uh multilocations
uh uh in distribution and you know I've had like 300 employees at some point and uh you know I sort of semi-retired and then I got back to this one. Okay. Then I decided to retirement wasn't for
me but you know so I managed business for 40 years. I see. But so this will be your first experience with the liquor service business. Yes sir. Okay. Um, and it's just wanted to point out too for the record that um, the current owner Kevin Harrington is going
to be staying on in a transitional role um, to help uh, make that transition as smooth as possible and give the applicant the benefit of his experience having managed um, the uh, the food and beverage operations uh, at the yach
club. Um, and all of the employees are going to remain in place as well. there isn't a turnover uh with employees either. Okay, good. Well, you know, the yacht club is a fixture in the community. Do you intend to make any changes with respect to the
operation, the membership, anything? I mean, the the the membership bylaws are going to stay the same. Obviously, we're going to make the improvement mostly cosmetic improvement, technology improvement, which uh you know that is uh on the plan to be to be done. The
principle of the art club is not going to change. It's still going to stay the same. It's going to stay as a private club and uh you know we just want to make improvement with so the members be you know more satisfied and you know we try to acquire you know new members as
uh as we go on. That's basically the plan. Uh Mr. Retro did you have anything to add? I I neglected to Mr. Chair. Well, as indicated as indicated in your packet, uh, police and the health department have reviewed the application, have no objections. Okay. Uh, just one more.
Yes, sure. Just to volunteer a bit of information. I'm not sure if you're aware. Uh, I don't even know honestly if you have an entertainment license, but in the future, should you decide to have entertainment, just be aware that we do have entertainment regulations. So, if you have that or don't have it, just
become familiar with that, please. Sure. Of course. Thank you. Okay. Any more as motion to close the public hearing? I have a mo making a motion. You want to go to the audience first? Oh, good call. Oh, sorry. Is there anyone in the audience who
would like to speak to this application? Okay. Well, thank you. Please step up. Yes, please. Congratulations. Thank you. My name is Cynthia Rose and I've lived here a long time. So, I have a couple of
questions. Sure. Um, it is a spectacular location and I'm wondering as you set out on this new adventure in boating and entertainment, do you have plans to expand either the
peers or the buildings, the services? Could you give us a walk through what you think is going to happen? It's going to look like in three years. Okay. Thank you. Uh first of all, I'm not the owner of the building. The building is sold to a
different company and I'm a tenant, so I don't have any uh plan on expanding a footprint. I can't even do that, you know. So I'm just part the business which is operating the the yacht club uh which is the part of the green pond
yacht club. That's that's basically my as far as my uh involvement goes in regard to the boating and the marina that it has nothing to do with what what am I acquiring. So
I can't really talk about that. Understood. Okay. Anyone else in the audience? No. Okay. Well, now I'll entertain a motion. Motion to close public comment. Second. Okay. We have a motion, a second. All in favor? I I
Okay. Any discussion aboard the uh among the members? I see no problem with the application. Okay. No mention of any concerns. Approval. Is that a mo motion? There's a motion by Mr. Brown. Second. Second by Mr. Richardson. All in favor?
I I Okay, thank you. So, um we will now consider a vote to approve the application for a change of LLC manager. Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Terry? Uh no. Thank you. Okay. I think we'll do one and then the
other, right? Yeah. So, uh anyone making a a motion to approve the application for a change of LLC manager? This is just a change in the limited liability company that that has been formed. That's we do. Do we have to open a separate public hearing? It's not a public hearing. It's it's
just a vote. Just a straight motion to approve the application and change of a LLC uh manager for the club. Okay. Second. Okay. Uh there's a motion and a second to approve the application for a change of LLC manager. Uh all in favor? I.
Okay. We will then move to change of manager of the club. Uh again, Mr. Terry, anything to add to that? Thank you. Okay. And who will be the manager? I'm sorry. I didn't read that carefully. Mr. Mr. Y said the
So are you tip certified now then? That's in here. Okay. Y sorry I didn't pay more attention to that. No, that's fine. Thank you. Okay. Motion to approve the change of manager. Okay. Motion. Second. Uh any further discussion? Seeing or hearing none. All in favor?
I I unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Good luck. Thank you. Okay, we are almost right on schedule. Uh and uh we are now going to move to uh Mr. Wrenchaw to present, discuss, and
consider a vote to accept the FY26 capital plan. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of select board, members of the audience here and at home watching from home. Who's by show of hands whose eyes are hurting from reading the uh the small font?
Pretty small stuff there. Should I go out get my glasses? Are you going to be using this one? So, um, for the third time in a little over two years as your town manager, I'm really proud to have the opportunity to present tonight an overview of the FY26
proposed capital spending plan as well as the 10-year capital improvement plan. As you've heard me say before, the preparation of a plan of this scope is a long process. one that is that this year began with my distribution back in April, April 25th of my budget
instructions to the departments um just a couple of weeks after April town meeting. So that's how long this process has been has been going. The departments were then required to submit their full request no later than July 14th. Uh this year to the credit of our still relatively new finance director, we
inserted a new step in the process. uh back on July 31st uh Laura organi Laura Citroen the finance director organized a meeting with all the departments in this room which gave us an opportunity as a collective group to look kind of holistically and comprehensively at the
entire 10-year plan. So everybody at the department level got a better deeper understanding of exactly what the needs were over a 10-year period. And I want to thank Laura for that. It was a great suggestion and everybody walked out. It's kind of an eye openening experience for a lot of folks in the in the room.
The development of a 10-year capital improvement plan is a crit critically important process as a well-crafted plan really reflects truly reflects the strategic vision of the governing body.
As I did, beginning with my first capital plan development for FY24, fiscal year 24, I asked each department to tie every capital request to one or more of the select board's seven strategic priorities identified in the strategic plan. Um, we thought again
that nexus and connection was important. um when we go through a capital planning process. Following this evening's overview over overview presentation, I'm asking that the select board consider a vote to accept with amendments or without uh the FY26 proposed capital budget and submit it to the finance
committee who will then be conducting, as you all know, an in-depth review of each element at the department level of each element of the plan. So, with that, thank you for indulging me there. We'll go ahead and get into the the meat of the presentation.
As with any well-crafted plan, our proposed capital spending plan begins with a solid foundation based upon wellestablished, time-tested guiding principles and strategic priorities. These priorities are taken directly from the town's fiscal policy. We most recently updated uh by the select board
uh back on August 11th, so just a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to just briefly talk about the five kind of cornerstones or elements fun guiding principles and priorities. um of paramount importance obviously um is uh to ensure that we address imminent threats to the health,
welfare and safety of citizens, employees and our property assets throughout the community. Preserving existing operational levels um obviously meeting any legal requirements of federal or state agencies. Uh the improvement of infrastructure to include the physical condition um and and
protection of our assets and making sure that they operate in an efficient effective manner. And lastly, I'm serving to improve the efficiency of and effectiveness of how we deliver those services to the community. So, this 10-year capital improvement plan, which you have in front of you at
your desk, um truly is a comprehensive capital improvement plan. The FY26 total of $29.8 $8 million represents um a significant portion um of the 803,563,000 uh total 10-year capital plan spending
proposal that you have in front of you. As a reference point, I think I'd like to provide some references to the select board. As a reference point, the FY25, last year's voted capital spending plan was about $19.5 million. I'm going to illustrate in the later sections of the presentation um what elements or what
projects make up the significant increase in spending for this proposed FY26. Importantly, the plan includes all proposed capital spending from all funding sources including grants, community preservation, community preservation act, uh alternative funding
sources and uh borrowing. This year, as I previously mentioned, this year, as in the past two years, uh the uh strategic plan also includes those ties to the select board strategic planning document. As you all likely know, uh the largest
source of annual capital funding is typically free cash and the fiscical year 26 capital budget is clearly no exception. as it proposes, as it stands right now tonight, to use about $15.9 million in free cash. Free cash certification is expected this
year to be around $20 million. We won't know that total until sometime in early October. Again, as a reference point, last year's certified free cash was about $22.9 million. Clearly, um the goal is to reappropriate
um when possible uh to minimize the use of free cash by by reappropriating balances from prior capital appropriations. Um again, as a point of reference, last year's capital plan, the FY25 plan, relied on reappropriation in the amount of about $490,000.
This year, we're looking at about 1.67 67 $1.7 million in reo reappropriation transfer grants special revenues and other funding sources. Maximizing the use of these non-free cash funding sources um continues to be our emphasis and
priority uh and again making sure that we address priorities and maximize the reserves wherever possible. In this FY26 uh budget, proposed budget, we also propose a temporary short-term borrowing of about $4.7 million for the
police station design, which will get us through bidding documents. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment as well. This slide uh basically gives a high level overview of FY26 budget uh funding sources. Um, as I mentioned before, um, and you're going to get tired of me
saying this, uh, free cash represents the most significant, uh, element of our spending this year, at about $15.9 million, um, we're proposing, uh, utilizing $2.87 million in community preservation act funding. Um, this is primarily, uh,
going to be utilized for the trotting park soccer field, a little over $2 million, $2,70,000. Um, as a reference point again, in FY25, the capital budget relied on about $14 million in free cash. This year, we're relying on about $15.9 million.
And last year's capital spend was about $19.4 million. Uh, grants. Um, the $50,000 that's listed here and in your packets this evening is a little bit misleading. Um, so this only shows to my understanding after talking to the assistant town manager, it only shows uh those projects
for which we're uh seeking appropriation in November. So it doesn't give you the total picture. Um the departments are very um astute and identifying grant sources where possible. Um MEES is a good example of that through the I was forgetting the name of the grant opportunity.
Seapport is one and um coastal zone management is the other. That's right. Seapport grant. Um MEES has applied successfully this past year for about $330,000 and they have another application cycle coming up. So those amounts aren't included in this proposal because they're not part of the November
appropriations. question if if I may. Are these both state grants? Uh, yes. Cool. Thank you. Um, transfer some existing articles. Again, I talked about the reappropriation of funding from prior capital appropriations. Uh, the 1.679
million we're proposing to reappropriate from ex from past appropriations. And again, this uh represents a significant increase from last year's appropriation of of uh transfer. Um, last year we utilized about $490,000
borrowing. I mentioned um designing design and engineering for the new police facility. Uh we're proposing a borrow of about $4.7 million. I'll talk about that in this next slide. So, the uh police station design currently, as you all probably know, um the uh police facility advisory
committee uh which Peter uh sits on um has been working in earnest for the past several months. They're doing a great job. I've attended a couple of meetings myself. Um, right now the uh design and engineering of the facility is in concept stage. So the numbers that I'm going to be talking about, don't hold me
to them because they they could change. Um, but in regards in order to get us through um, you know, final design and through the bidding document stage, we're going to request borrowing of about $4.7 million 5.4 $4.7 million in borrowing about $700,000 in cash from
previous appropriations. So the total amount is about5 million. Could I important go ahead? I was just going to ask if as far as the design has the location been determined. So So it's still it hasn't been
released. Um the uh the as I mentioned the facility uh police facility advisory committee um at their last meeting uh reviewed um all three sites that were under consideration. I think they're very close to to making a final determination. Hasn't been officially
announced. Is the topography similar on the three sites so that the design would hold on either site? Uh topo is similar in all three sites. I think the site there's one site that that the topography is probably more ideal than the other two but they're all similar in topography.
Thank you. So so just to clarify it's actually 5.2 but you would be borrowing 4.7 uh 5.4 million 5.4 4 million but we borrow short-term borrow of about 4.7 and in shortterm being being you know
what would you be looking at when you say short term yeah so um I believe what the finance director is planning is like a short-term bar of like two years and then folding that short-term borrowing into a longer note right which might go as long as 20 years
important takeaway from the slide um and it's listed there is the notes um we're anticipating construction cost Again, we're with the police facility uh group meeting with the OPM and the architect engineer of record are finalizing numbers, but we're still at concept
stage. We're anticipating this cost in FY27 and is proposed being proposed as we stand here tonight to be exempt long-term borrowing. The important takeaway from the slide is this project, this construction project and the cost will impact real estate taxes if the
project and funding are approved by town meeting. Um, right now we're looking, as indicated in your packet, um, over $55 million. And again, don't hold me to that number. Still being kind of, um, looked at and analyzed and examined by the police facility advisory committee
and the OPM and and architect, but it will result in impact to real estate property taxes. And would we uh anticipate using a debt exclusion to approve? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Any any estimate on the impact? I know it's pretty pretty premature perhaps,
but is that do you have that number yet? We can work on that number. I asked I I Peter and I were talking about that this afternoon. Um in terms of having a tentative number, we don't have that yet. We'll get that to the board. Any other questions on that slide?
So, as in any Make sure I'm on the right side. So, as in any uh budget year, u difficult decisions have to be made with regards to what projects get recommended for funding and which don't. Uh important to note in total uh this year the FY26 capital spending plan there was about $2.4 million in department
requests that were not uh recommended for funding and instead were deferred. They're not removed. They're just being deferred and moved uh down the down the scale of the plan down the 10-year plan. Um and again, this was based upon some pretty extensive discussions with those departments that were involved. Um it
wasn't just done on a whim. Um it was after some extensive discussions with the department heads and division heads. Um, I'm going to go through a few of these. Um, but again, the $2.4 million, if you add up everything on that slide, it comes to $2.4 million, the bulk of it, half of it literally, um, was the
removal, um, not funding the, uh, IIA cost mitigation, removing the $1.2 million in both FY26 and 27. The reason for that, after much discussion, um, we currently have no, as you all know, we have no policy that's been developed and approved. In addition, um, we're not
certain quite yet whether we can utilize these public funds in this way. So there's a lot of questions still. I think it's going to be something that we deal with obviously, but we're not prepared to deal with it in this CIP. IA being innovative alternative and the mitigation meaning
assisting. Yes. Yeah. Assisting homeowners with with with the cost with the cost of of those system of installing those systems. Yes. Thank you. Um, and again, I'm not going to go through each one of these, but the important takeaway from this slide was, um, yes, there were some tough decisions that had to be made with regards to
this, uh, fiscal year spend 20, we're over $29 million now, and this slide represents the $2.4 million of projects that didn't make the cut and weren't recommended for funding. If I could, just one more that that I think didn't make it was the uh design of the outfall. Could you touch on that?
Is that was that actually formally requested? No, it's the design of the outfall is in there. I think that was for 1.3 We did not defer that. EI that signed an EI. Okay. I thought, right, we did not defer it related to the outcome. I thought I saw 700,000 that was
requested, but I maybe that wasn't Yeah. Apologies. I don't have that sheet in front of me, but I know for a fact it's still it's still in there. Okay. The outall design and I think it's listed as design environmental impact report.
Thank you. Okay, just on this slide, I'm going to hit some of the highlights. I talked earlier about, you know, what made up the the difference between last year spend of a little over 19 and now we're at 29. So, what's that $10 million delta? This will give you a good indication. Um, water mane replacements,
if you all remember, um, the commitment was to do $3 million of water man replacements based upon revenue generated through the, uh, the rates. Um, we're upping that this year. We're proposing to up that to $4.6 $6 million in water line replacements because and uh the water superintendent proposed
this and in discussions with the DPW director. We thought it was a great idea on Brickill Road when they're installing the sewer force man down Brick. Why not go ahead and install the water? Just makes more sense to do it that way. Um and uh so that takes up that makes up the uh the $1.6 million difference
between last year's spend on the waterline replacements and and this proposed FY26 spend. Does that have to go on the other side of the road? Uh yeah, it'll fit into the waste water go up. Waste water will go up the middle of the road and water will
be probably on the opposite side of the road on the school side of the road. Okay. Thank you. So that whole road will be closed for a while. Detours will be in place, right? Uh John, the Trotting Park baseball fields, um primarily free cash, but $3.2
million. Nobody sitting here in this room in FY24 um really contemplated or anticipated the need to have to remediate the the fields at John Neil at Troder Park. Um so $3.2 million um is a pretty significant portion of that $10 million additional spend. So I just
wanted to point that out to select board. Um we did anticipate and knew the need for the replacement to the library windows, roof and AC repairs at $1.4 million. Um the $1.8 $8 million, pretty standard amount for road maintenance, construction of sidewalks, a fire engine
and ambulance. Um so one a little over $1.1 million. Uh 556,000 of which um is for the replacement at the request of fire rescue of an ambulance that's got about 150,000 miles roughly on it. So it's getting towards the end of its life. Uh we talked about remounts to the
ambulance. Um we made the decision just to go forward with the replacement. Remount is taking the the box off the back and drop and redoing it. retooling it and then dropping it on a brand new chassis and motor. Um, that's a practice that's done in other places, but it just didn't end up resulting in significant
savings. So, we're just regular replacement. So, of that $1.1 million, more than half of that is the ambulance replacement for the ambulance in the fleet that's got the most mileage. Um the other the balanced $550,000 is to replace uh the current engine in station
4 um which is a 1990 I always get the date wrong 1998 um engine u that was purchased used. Um so they're recommending a purchase of a replacement engine for that. Um, if you recall the discussions, I think a town meeting last last year. Um, there and and I remember having discussions with the fire chief
and uh and the staff, um, we felt we could get another year, this is last year, out of that engine. Um, mechanically, uh, it was sound. Um, there were significant issues with the body, um, the floor, uh, basically where the driver and operator sit. Um, had some rust and rot. So, uh, it it was
time. So, we're recommending $550,000 in this upcoming capital budget to replace that that engine. have some questions about that. Should I hold them to um if if Well, Mr. Chair, you're Whenever your pleasure is, Mr. Her. Let's go ahead and Yeah, let's go ahead
and I don't have a lot of the sheets in front of me, but go ahead. Well, I was just going to say it. I know we were interested to to know if we can add a bay to that station and maybe then fit a fullsize truck. I wonder if we should hold off a little bit and get a sense of
whether or not that's a practical thing to expect to be able to do. Yeah. So, great point and uh and actually I I conferred with the DPW director. DPW engineering is kind of helping assist in leading this project. Gail Associates is our engineer consultant that's actually doing the feasibility station 4 expansion
feasibility study. you know, we're looking at the station from a much structural standpoint, whether it could withstand um whether an expansion is feasible and basically by expansion I mean going out I forget to the east
uh north is a little north. Thank you. Um taking out shouldn't go into too many details going to the north um with an expansion of a bay um and and basically um making that station 4 capable of holding both an engine and an ambulance.
So, the ambulance, if you can visualize this, would slide into where the current engine is, and the new extension bay, if feasible, would slide into the new new bay. Um, all that being said, we're still waiting on the final report from Gail, and I just found out we're expecting that midweek this week. So,
we're very close to knowing. Um, we're plugged in $250,000 right now, I think, is the number um for some of the projected uh cost. um I'll have a better indication next time we speak uh on on on the budget. So, we'll let that go for now and just figure it out later. I guess
I think it's important that we look at it. I think what impact would that have on the uh on the on the engine itself that we're Well, because I think in the chief's description would be that he would have to try to find a specialty vehicle that doesn't exactly fit with our fleet. And I've talked with them about this in the
past. He prefers the Pierce Arrow is the I think the preferred brand that he wants to have a uniform fleet. They don't make one of the size that would fit in that station. So now as is as is. So now finding a real specialty
vehicle try to fit in there. So yeah, I forget the dimensions of the current bay. Uh but it is a challenge and it's restrictive and uh and it is always a preference everywhere I've ever managed to have a a standardized fleet. You don't want to have two you know apparatus that are you know different
brands and models what different brands. Um that being said um yeah um our our priority or pref preferred uh vendor uh doesn't offer anything in that size and to rebuild from start to finish as you all know is about a 46month window. Um
so that makes that impractical. So we that's why we're looking at a purchasing a a used apparatus, a used engine. Um we're successful doing that. When we purchased this 1998, we're we're relatively comfortable we'd be successful again. They've already
started the process, I understand, and looking around to see what's available. And then the final last question on this one, it would uh so a couple years or last year or the year before we bought that other vehicle, I think it was maybe a 2006, right? Y is that operational that would be able
to get us by for a little while? So I'll have to I'll have to verify. I don't want to speak too much of this. I know that I think it's the 2006 that's the replacement when when the 1998 goes into the shop this 2006 if I understand that sounds right is the replacement. Um but I'll have to
I'll to verify kind of the status of 2006 because I I can't say tonight for certain. Got it. Thank you. Um yes. So, uh, wastewater outfall permitting, here it is, $1.34 million for the permitting, uh, EIR,
environmental impact report and conceptual design. Um, this 1.34 million, um, is a proposed capital debt stabilization. I make that point. Uh, this is new. Um, uh, Morris Pond school feasibility study. I mentioned the July
31st meeting at Laura's, uh, suggestion where all the departments got in this room. Um, that included school department. Uh so Mr. Paul Dart with the school uh was here to talk about you know future plans for Morris Pond and uh and as you all know the school is
contemplating uh consolidation which could in effect uh uh make Morris Pond um not not needed in in the school's inventory. Um so what we're proposing is $150,000 um in free cash utilizing free cash to
do a um feasibility study which would basically look at the best possible use of that 20 acre site. The building itself is a little over 100 3,000 square feet. So it's a significant asset. We just want to make sure that we do our due diligence and make sure that we're
we're finding the best possible use. If that's subdividing and having multiple uses on the site, we don't know. But we think we would not be doing it justice if we didn't do a feasibility study to look at all the options and keep those options open. Maybe those could put town hall there. Maybe
it's too big. Some housing maybe. And uh and the last item again under these highlights um other than the borrowing that we've talked about is Trotting Park. Uh the master plan um we're proposing about $75,000 um in master planning effort for Trotting
Park. Uh pickle ball design. um about $30,000 to finalize wrap up the uh pickle ball facility complex uh design. And lastly, the synthetic soccer field um at about 2,70,000. Well, not about at 2,70,000. That's the construction input
installation of the synthetic fields. Uh the town meeting previously approved the trottic bar. Got a lot of comments about that field. Is that really the the recommended so far? Um it was town meeting voted and approved. Right Peters? I don't
understand. Right. So um I guess town meeting approved design funds for replacing one rectangular soccer field at Trotting Park with a synthetic field. So there was some debate at town meeting about the environmental implications,
but it was it was approved. And of course it'll have to go back to town meeting again. And I'm sure that question will come up again. Used to be a big debate. I think it's probably more important that the baseball fields be natural because that's the summertime and we're going to talk a little bit about
that, not go into a whole lot of detail, but that's that's that's later in the agenda tonight. Um, so the next couple of slides I wanted to uh we wanted to give uh select board and the community um and it's all included in your 10-year plan, kind of a glimpse going forward of where we're at. Um, as a result, if you recall, as a result of the recent
comprehensive building facility needs assessment, that study that we did, um, using the firm Brightly, um, we, uh, as a result of that effort, we've estimated now the need for about $10 million a year for the next five years in terms of remediating, repairing, and again prioritizing using using this new
system, prioritizing those based upon life safety, um, structural issues, that sort of thing. uh so we have a better understanding of what our true capital needs are when it comes to the buildings facilities of town. So I think that's very important. Just wanted to give you the scope of what we're looking at in terms of magnitude of of dollars. Um
although still at the concept design stage and being evaluated as I mentioned earlier by the police facility uh advisory committee. The police construction construction estimate is approximately $55 million. Again I'd ask you not to hold me to that number because it is a moving target as you all
know with tariffs and cost escalations. Um it uh it's it's been a challenge. Uh so we're still kind of trying to sharpen pencils to the best of our ability. Uh in accordance with the strategic plan, um we're still looking at this um uh potential of combining stations. The I
think it was called uh in the McGrath study the Northwest connector. That's still in the strategic plan. Um again, when the select board meets again and reviews that strategic plan, I take direction from the board. So currently that's the direction is that we're continuing to look at that. That's why it remains in the in the 10-year plan.
Um the land acquisition is programmed in FY28, so a couple of years from now and design in FY29. Um land acquisition at about a million dollars and uh construction design at about 950,000 or I'm sorry, design and engineering at about 900,000.
Aquaculture, uh we talked about this um right when I got here a couple of years ago. um expanding that aquaculture program um and uh at about at the pace of about $4 million from FY27 through FY29. Bulkhead replacements. Again, these are MEES projects, marine environmental
services projects, bulkhead replacements, and dredging. We're estimating projecting 11 a little a little over 11 million over the next 10 years. Um phase two of the marine park improvements about $5 million programmed right now in F-128.
Um and other costs, mees cost, dredging in and repairs, um again close to $11 million. Lawrence school reservation, huge number, um looming in FY28. Um projected right now at about $150 million. That number appears in your packets. Um East Felmouth roof and
windows. I can't understand I can't I'm getting a better appreciation for the cost of replacing roofs and windows. Um $4.5 million in FY29 for East Felmouth School. um AC projects about $12.5 million again spread out over the next 10 years. This is this is just giving
you kind of a conceptual idea and although we're still currently evaluating it uh school electrical needs um they're unknown but we anticipate being significant and uh looking ahead again continuing this uh trend of looking at at projects Manant Road and Grand Avenue $13 million
in 29 fleet replacement needs we're projecting over $8 million over the next 10 years sometimes the fleet replacement needs some of those can be pushed and moved so it's a bit of a moving target, but that's what we're projecting. Um, police, fire, consolidated communications equipment. As you all
know, uh, the equipment to run modern public safety agencies are not is not inexpensive. So, we're anticipating about 13.5 million over the next 10 years. Outfall design and construction, 87 million. Um, I'm just going through the list real quickly. Water manes over the next 10 years. We talked about the
$3 million clip. This stays on that clip at about $30.7 million over the next 10 years. the film of the library, $6 million in FY27. And lastly, but not least importantly, Surf Drive Beach Nourishment, we're looking at $3 million
in FY27. So, this year's capital budget has been a significant challenge. Um, I love doing the capital budgeting because I love how it ties to strategic vision and and planning. Um, but this has been a challenge. Um, as the board is fully
aware, um, two major projects, construction of the new police station and remediation of the Trotting Park baseball fields represents about $8.6 million of the $10.3 million increase in capital spending between last year and this year. Um, and quite honestly,
nobody really anticipate we we likely saw the need of having to do something with the police station. Nobody anticipated the cost and what we're looking at just over the past couple of years, the increase in in construction costs. So that's what we're dealing with right now. Um we we always seek to
maintain a balance um in maintaining equipment and infrastructure within the limitations of our funding that's available and and most importantly the bandwidth and capacity of the staff to pull off the project successfully because that's an important part as well. proposals represent these
proposals that I'm presenting to you this evening uh represent what we consider to be the upper limit of what we can spend while maintaining and hopefully uh building our cap our our financial reserves. Uh proposed capital projects represent a tremendous amount of work for staff. That's like that's an
understatement of the evening. Um, it's a huge amount of work that's gone into us and I cannot thank uh the assistant town manager, uh, the finance director, all the department heads, all the division managers because just a tremendous amount of work literally since the end of April has gone into what you have before you this evening.
Um and lastly, um again the ask tonight and uh although it's not critical, the ask tonight is that the board consider accepting and transmitting submitting to the finance committee with or without amendments the FY26 proposed capital spending plan. And with that, I'll sit
down and have all my in front of me be able to talk to you. Thank you. But I certainly um I'm I'm sure we all uh want to compliment you on a on a you know big effort. uh Miss Citroen, Mr. Johnson Stab, all your all
your staff, it was a very uh understandable uh presentation and what we had in our packet. Um I will just just so the members know uh I did speak with uh the finance committee chair Keith Schueel this
morning. Um and if the board chooses not to move forward tonight with a vote, uh that's not an impediment as far as they're concerned. uh it could wait until our next meeting uh when you know vice chair Goldstone is here as well. Um
but just wanted you to have that information as we go forward this evening. So point of protocol question are we just simply looking at the highle needs and costs here or are we diving into specifics within this?
What's typically the way to go ahead Doug? I would say that my feeling is always that we are the political aspect of it. So things like whether or not we want to do that northwest fire station or if we want to add to a fire station, those are the
political type comments that I think we share with the finance committee. As far as the details of the actual projects, I think the finance committee certainly capable and more than capable of of doing that. I don't really nitpick the the details because I know that they
will. I just look at the big picture and then try to give comments that hopefully will lead them and guide them in their decisions. Great. That helps. Thank you. And in Mr. Richardson, whatever. I was going to say in that respect, you
know, that's why I asked the questions about the fire station in the truck. Um, thank you. Just echoing it was fantastic. you know, a lot of work, a lot of I can't imagine how squinting at whatever however long this Excel spreadsheet was. Uh the governor Healey uh had her budget signed recently and
Falmouth got uh over double uh in chapter 90 funding. Uh is that reflected in your your what your estimates were? I think it was a little over million for road repairs. Is that around what you were looking for or are you looking to increase that? We're backed so we need it all. What was that?
We're backed so we need it all. Peter saying we're backlog so we need it all. So so so it's my understanding and again I think that would be an example of one of the state funding uh the it's not a grant per se but it's it's not appropriate that we do not appropriate it right it's a
formula grant and I mean Mr. McCanny is here can certainly speak to it in greater detail, but um we you know if we had triple the amount of state funding every year um we would easily be able to spend it and still need to supplement it with local tax dollars in order to maintain the roadways.
Thank you. I always like to just send this as quickly as we get it that staff put so much effort into getting it ready. I'd love to have the finance committee have it. If we can just transmit our comments, I'm sure some of the members will watch our meeting this evening and take those
comments into consideration as they deliberate. We're certainly going to have more chances to to comment on it later, but I never like to hold them up if they soon as we can get it out the door the better. I mean, just to clarify, I don't think we're holding anybody up. So, I don't
think that's the uh that's the issue. Mr. Reno is going to give his overview to the finance committee on Wednesday night. Uh and so, you know, I I was a little concerned with voting it tonight with Miss Goldstone not being here, although she did make a couple of
comments that I think we've responded to. Uh but with Mr. Richardson and Mr. Reed being new to the process, uh my inclination was that maybe we wanted to defer it until September 8th and asked uh Keith if that was okay and he said
yes. But if the board feels that uh you know that that it's prepared to uh to vote it and move it uh that's that's fine. Someone can make a motion or if there's any further discussion. I have a few more comments. Sure. Go for it. Um I I also just want to commend the amount of spending to recreation. You
know the build it and they'll come. Uh you know as um someone who grew up not too recently uh you know I've I've I referee Trident Park every weekend. I play FAMA soccer club. started at the Heights Field, you know, when I was four or five and, you know, those fields in
Tri Park need a lot of work. So, I'm glad that the money is there um to do that. Um, you know, so I I thank you for that. Um, I don't and I know I've brought this up uh in other avenues, two points here. Uh, I think that this shows the need to
increase revenues uh within the town. This is a very expensive capital budget and as you mentioned costs are only going up and you know today's Monday, Wednesday the tariff rate could be different for a different thing. So we don't know how that would affect our budget. Um is there anywhere that areas
that you're looking potentially uh you know putting you a little bit in the hotspe seat I guess uh for revenue uh increases you know I've mentioned wanting to change the tax rate on um res exemption to increase tax rate on summer residents. Um, is there any any
area where you think that we're can do the, you know, least amount of uh increase our revenues while still, you know, benefiting and trying to keep our tax as low as possible for the people who live here? It's a great question. Uh, and Chairman Mskelli and Select Member Richardson. So, Peter and I have been talking a little bit just recently over the past
week about um I'd like to first look at fees, user fees. Um, and then so what we're looking at right now is the potential. I think it's been a couple of years since we've looked at uh at ambulance uh EMS fees and rates I should say rates I think is the more accurate
term. Um so we're going to working with Chief Smith start that review process to see where we're at. You know you don't want to uh lead that pack certainly but we want to make sure that we're you know not not at the bottom of that rate structure either. So, I think there's an opportunity to uh to generate some
additional revenue, but I don't hold me to the number, but I think it was a little over a million dollars. The last rate study and change that we made with EMS ambulance rates um resulted in about a million dollars. So, not insignificant amount. Could also consider the moing fees where
we're were half the price of MASHB and I know one of the waterways committee members was doing an analysis. She had the Cape Town and we were probably the lowest. That's an opportunity as well. Yes. Another one um for me and uh again I'm
not sure I know this isn't everything but I I don't see an allocation here. Uh correct me if I'm wrong for housing. Uh could you speak to that and you know how will that align with our strategic goals with the board and how we need to build a lot of new unit building? Sure.
Sure. Great question. So, um, we we don't really consider housing a capital project because it's not an asset that's owned by the town. Um, but it's, you know, it's certainly relevant to bring into the conversation. Um, we we do have a recurring funding
source within that we appropriate. Uh, we recently made the change in the cycle in terms of when it's appropriated, appropriated now in April, and that comes from recurring um, lodging uh, rooms excise tax revenue. Uh so that's a policy the select board adopted. So we
have a recurring funding source there. And of course um there's a request made to the community preservation committee for appropriation for affordable housing from the community preservation funds as well. So the only instance it would be in here is if it was something like co-op city
in New York whereas the city ran and own that would be the only example where the town would be paying for it if we had like entirely hypothetical that things facility similar to that. Yeah. Correct. Right. if we owned it and and you know we've got the Falmouth Housing Authority, Falmouth Housing
Trust nonprofit, Falmouth Housing Corp nonprofit. You know, we have three different entities that own affordable housing locally. So that's I just I just wanted to make sure. Yep. You got it. Another one uh might come into play is the short-term rental committee had a presentation from Leslie
Sandberg from Provincetown and she was explaining how even though their town is quite a bit smaller than Felma between the rooms tax and the short-term rentals and the registration fees they got $5 million of revenue each year. So
they also have the residential exemption proud. Yeah. So, if I may just briefly, so we we bring in 5 million as well. Um, but it's allocated that's that supports the ongoing operating budget that we have in place. There's again a portion of that
through policy that's allocated toward housing, but the rest of it we're relying on for the operating budget. I remember that. Well, yeah. All good points, but I think we need to focus just on, you know, on the capital is issues. So, Mr. read. Um,
being new to this, I appreciate all the work. Uh, there's a tremendous amount of manipulation onto these uh, spreadsheets to see how they all add up. So, I I definitely know where how much work you put into it. Um, just some highlevel observations um, to everybody is I
overall support the direction that we need to go in and I'm comfortable with making the motion here for us to cons to to move on. his comments are meant more of a reflection for the strategic plan. Um, and tying these things, I think to
your point, Mr. Renshaw, um, this this list that you gave to us and that we read it represents a bottom up all the bottomup needs from each and every department and individual that works here at the town. And you've done a really nice job fitting those or tying
them into the strategic plan. Some of them were really obvious and some of them were reaches. Um, and whereas I think you know Jack and I newly here uh we campaigned and and listened a lot to
strategic planning and there are some obvious ties to that but not necessarily anything from the strategic plan driving um some of the investments there. There are a few big numbers in there. So overall I would say that there is some alignment there. My overall
recommendation is that um when we go into our strategic planning process, especially for the transparency of us um to the town is to align our strategic plan um with the spending plan and use the capital improvement plan as the
backbone. So in each section that we have so for instance we noted housing there aren't anything you know and to your point justified why there wasn't anything in the capital planning budget for housing but inside that strategic
plan kind of break it down into the day-to-day stuff that we're trying to do in addition to the capital planning I think just so that we can kind of get these chunks moving and then to the previous conversations we have measurable things that we're going after
And the budget drives everything, drives all of our capacity to do new things and keep current operations. So I just implore this group to um take those next steps necessary to make sure that we're you know operating in unison.
You know, I ju just will point out that u as as you know, the u the capital plan uh does tie uh each and every request to the strategic plan uh and justifies it with with those requests. So, so noted.
Yep. One last question if I could. I'm unfamiliar. I have a question and I'd like to ask it. I'm not sure when. Okay. One more. is somewhere in here the uh new roof for the old pump station.
No, that's not pump station. Yeah, pumping station. No, we uh so no, we did not include that that project. Um we we talked uh we talked about um parsing out another kind of
feasibility study looking at one I think the last last go at that we included both 65 pumping station road and 10 pumping station road both buildings. We talked briefly about trying to parse that out um and uh opted because of quite literally the size of this $29
million request to not include that this year. It's but the roof's leaking, right? I think I don't know that. Uh so, um I I I toured the building a year over a year ago. Um and uh Peter, can you speak to 10
Pumping Station Road? Uh select board member Brown, I'm sorry, through the chair. If uh do we have water intrusion into that building? Uh yes we do. So so between between there is some damage on the roof with the roof shingles and also vandalism up
there with the windows get broken what have you that there is intrusion. So yeah there is getting some water damage up there. Um we have been looking in the past two three years at uh replacing the roof and putting a new asphalt roof on there. But it wouldn't just be shingles.
You'd have to trim it out. It would be gutters. There's several dormeras that would need to be also included. So, it's a it's a good size job, right, to do that roof. It would secure it, but then we would still need to um secure it from vandalism for the for the walls on
the inside, right? Such a shame. I just like to think of some way we could do some kind of interim measures to at least protect it from just deteriorating. We'll take another look at it, but there's nothing in this FY26 plan that
proposes spending. Okay, got it. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I mean, it's ma'am, if you want to have a question, please come up, which is not really a, you know, public meeting discussion, but I'm happy to take your question. Appreciate it. And I I appreciate the
discussion. I think it's really important that I'm a neighbor to park. My name is Ro and why I'm here is the line item for Trotting Park is
quite large. We have a super fun site at the ball field coming up. It's gorgeous. They did a knockout job underneath that land. We do not know what is there.
Now I have spent a lot of hours counting birds and the planning that has been done in the past has now created a place where birds go. The brick kiln village, the
YMCA, the Habitat for Humanity, the sandwich road, the Dunkin Donuts. Do you have a question with respect to the capital plan? M is Thank you very much. The question is why would you even consider putting
plastic on top of ground materials which are expensive? $2 million worth of expensive in a town that's closing schools and that has an environmental backbone which has made us
great and known around the world. That's my question. Okay. Thank you. I know you all to be people who care deeply and I do too and all these people do. Cork comes from Europe, tariffs, ground
tires. I'm not having it. This will be an ongoing discussion with respect to this issue. Thank you. Please defer the vote until Kevin Kroger weighs in on is this safe. I think that was a different matter. Yeah. I mean, I don't think this is uh
this is the ball field. You're talking about the soccer field. I'm talking about the soccer fields, which I feel that was from last year. That was already discussed. Well, I'm sorry. That's not in this budget. That's that's a different I I do know that, but we also didn't know that a dump was going to show up.
Okay. We've got a police station going in. we've uh that is going to take out trees, lots of trees, 122 varieties of birds, rare birds, migrating birds. Okay? So, I'm asking you, hit the pause
button on the fields. You've got a big mess up there. We've got a $55 million police station, a dog building. You got your point, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. I hope you do something.
Okay, Mr. Reid, I'm ready to make a motion to uh transmit transmit this accept to accept this and transmit it to the finance committee. So your your motion is to accept the FY capital plan as presented by Mr.
Renshaw. Yes. Second. And there's a second. Any further discussion? There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? I I Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for all the work on that. I appreciate it.
Absolutely. Good job. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to an overview of water quality monitoring program for Falmouth bathing beaches. Mr. Renaw. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh we invited the regional experts in this area, which uh certainly not me. Uh
Scott Mcan, our health agent, is going to talk uh give a brief presentation on current efforts, monitoring efforts uh on the beaches and then offer some other insights in regards to perhaps some other regions of the country and what they do. Sure. Thank you. Uh good evening. So um yeah, we do a lot
of things at the health department. So, one of the things we do is um we have a Massachusetts bathing beach water quality program, which is the state's regulation called 105 CMR 445. And what it basically does say is there's three types of beaches. There's
public beaches, which is the beaches that the town's responsible for, Chapoy, Old Silver, and so forth. There's also semi-public beaches be the Moors Association, Knobsker Beach, uh Jenkins Pond. Um, and so we have and then there's private and the regulation
basically is for public and semi-public beaches and it's the responsibility of the local borders of health to regulate public and semi-public beaches under the CMR and we have 52 sampling uh sites in town both fresh and salt. So it's a pretty good number of of semi-public
beaches which we do license. Um the beach testing itself um we test for indicator bacteria. Bacteria indicate the presence of fecal caulifform. For salt water we use enoraki and e.coli for freshwater. And um the reason being is um narcockey test
out better in saltwater environments. So um we do that on a weekly basis. We are very lucky on the Cape that we have Barnstable County because we have Barnstable County Health in the Environment has their own water testing laboratory and they also provide courier service for the water samples which is
huge. I don't know what they do off Cape U but that is definitely a heavy lift. Um so the beach sampler comes on Tuesdays uh this year and they do 52 samples and they get that out to the lab. Okay. So we do that. The operators of the semib public beaches pay for
their own. The town takes care of the town beaches and the private beaches aren't tested and they start sampling within five days roughly the five days to a week before and uh throughout the ba the beach season. So it'll be up until about sometime in September there will be early September they'll stop
testing it. So we're not testing for anything other than uh fecal indic uh indicators of fecal uh cifform bacteria. And I did some research on what um because we'll talk a little bit about the the incident that we did a press release on is that essentially uh we're doing the similar thing that what
Florida, Texas and Louisiana doing. They're testing with the same uh indicator organism um with very close to the same um water quality standards. So our water quality stands for marine is CFU to 100 milligrams as colony colony forming units per 100 mls of water and
those are the standards. The geomine is relatively an average. So that basically says you can be passing at, you know, 103, but if you continue to test for 103 for several weeks, you're going to be outside your geo mean. And so how this works is essentially we test um one
failure to one failed test does not uh constitute a closure. It would be a second failed test in a row. Generally what we do is if the if it's failing we'll know by the lab generally knows by Wednesday and we'll get somebody in route to test again to make sure that we um aren't having a problem and also that
it wasn't a one-off thing because things can happen sort of one-off. You could get a failure but the beach is relatively clean. So um that's what we do on a weekly basis. It's similar to what well it's basically the state regulation. It's also what they're doing from what I can tell elsewhere. So each
week I'll get a result like this. Um whether it exceeded its geomine um whether I need to take action and close a beach um or you know whether any action takes. So you have the geomine the result of each test in the time it was taken. Um that's just a snippet of
the 52 that we would do on any given week. And as far as public notification uh and this year we have not had a beach closure. We've had a failed test but the second test been a pass. Um and a lot of times that's due to tides outgoing tides
behind a salt marsh may bring some more heavy rains also can play a part in increasing the caulifform levels. So after the two samples are collected on consecutive days both exceed the single uh test or you exceed your geom mean you would post the beach until it tested
itself out. Um some years seem to be worse than others. This year is, like I said, uh been a good year drought. Um well, drought. Well, if we did have a heavy rain on a Monday night, um then you would tend to wash things in. You could have more of an issue with heavy rains, a lot of things washing into the
salt wash, which then for works its way out to the beach and then you pick up a sample on an outgoing tide, you'll have a higher probability of having an issue. But um we haven't had an issue this year and that's good. Um and then again, it's great to have the lab. We would post and then what we do is it kind of cool is
each semi-public beach operator also have signs. So they get a permit from us every year. We only charge $10 because they do have to spend quite a bit of money throughout the beach season to pay for this. And they would have a sign that we would look at every year. They uploaded on to permitize for our our permitting. And we make sure that they
have a sign that would say that the place was the the beach was closed. So, um, we do that. And again, we haven't had any semi-publiclix this year either. Even on the private ones, private ones we don't test, but I mean, did you hear any reports? Do they report to you?
They don't test. Private would be somebody who had a house on the water. No, I meant uh semi-publiclix. Semi semiublics are treated just like public. So, if I go back up one slide, you'll see some of these assumement valley property owners. Oh, I see. They're all listed together.
They're all listed. The 52. We don't test probably 15 or 18 maybe from our beaches and then the rest it's all goes into one. So they're treated just like semi-public and public beaches are treated the same. Okay. Thank you. Sorry I didn't mean to I should have been clearer on that. And so we post the beach and would
reopen it based on getting either getting below the geo mean the average or getting to um to testing pass. Other reasons why you would close it would um you know it may perhaps a heavy rainfall if there was a reason to do that. Um o
you know a release of oil scum hazardous materials um you know clar could be other reasons not seen that before but that could be there could be other reasons shark could be a reason so we would have the authority under um
our regulation to do it for a shark. Um so let's talk about why the press release. So we had a case of necroizing fasciitis is the medical term for I haven't said it yet but for the vibrio bacteria. It's also staff can also cause that. Um generally vi well vibrio is a
bacteria that lives in coastal salt water. Okay. So it lives in salt water. It's naturally occurring. It's nothing that's new. It's actually very important with our shellfish program. Uh vibrio control. So vibrio is not something that just magically showed up. Now the water's warmer and perhaps the levels
are higher but it is not um anything that is not naturally found. It it lives in salt water. There is no regulations on it. I couldn't find any regulations in the other states as well. Like the three states that I looked at that I thought would be the most would be Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. Um they don't um
there was 20 cases so far this year in Florida, 14 in Texas, and I believe five in Louisiana, but don't quote me on that. Um so there has been a handful of that. That does happen every year. they have basically the same things that we posted in the in the press release and then we have on our website. Really the issue is with uh wounds um especially
some people that are immune compromised and just having enough of the vibrio to get in there or the staff there's a there there's types of staff that also do this. So there is no regulations. It's not part of the testing program. Um and even states that tend to have more of a chronic issue than we do um seem to
have the same sort of system that we have and they're testing for fecal caulifform not ne testing for bibos. So, um, any questions? Interesting to learn that when I was a kid, my mom said, "Oh, you're go in the ocean. It'll cure your cuts and
salt water." But, um, just just another question. I don't know if you're prepared to answer it, but there's been a lot in the news about West Nile virus and Falmouth in particular. Can can you just
say a few words about that? Sure. So, um, Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project, um, is what we have on the Cape. Also really nice to have. Um, they're out s they're out all year round. You'll see them the green trucks, if anybody's seen the green trucks that come out. Um, and they'll do all kinds
of work year round um, to make sure that we're not having stagnant water. And they also, what they do is they essentially have sites at which they collect mosquitoes and they test the mosqu they check for the species. Certain species are mamalian biters and others aren't. Some are bird biters. We're not really worried about those, but they'll they'll look at the
different species and then test a a sample which is usually got somewhere between 20 and 40 mosquitoes usually in a sample and um test for triple Eini kinetic sephilitis and west Nile virus. Um some years um we have more West Nile
virus hits in the mosquitoes than usual. This year it's been four. We've had one in the end of June I believe at the end of July and then two this past week in what you know in the ones this week we're in two of the samples in the spots that we generally get hit are here
behind town hall off the sitters pond and there's another sampling site over on Woods Hole Road and um it probably has a lot to do with the migratory patterns of birds and and different reasons why it generally comes up and down. I I can tell you E definitely is cyclical. Um it it it looked like you
know we had an issue they were about seven to 10 years apart it seems. Uh West Nile uh we can go a year without we can have a go a year with two we can have a year with four. Um but the same control that you would say just don't get bit by mosquitoes or do the best you can. And the species that most is worrisome is the one that you could
control the best as a homeowner is by taking and dumping uh water from bird baths, water from, you know, I I noticed the other day I left my uh wheelbarrow u flat and so water was in there. So dump that. You know, I had a five gallallon bucket when I went clamming and that had
some water in it. I dumped that. So after a rainstorm, just dump. And that that type of species, the pippins, kulix pippins is um the one that we worry about the most as far as biting biting people around their homes. So just taking care of standing water, wearing de uh just taking those controls. I mean
there haven't been any human cases um in Falmouth of of West Nile. Thank you, Mr. Brown. It's good to know that they're uh ongoing with the testing and uh what would it take to raise it to the level you you said four so far this
year. When do you say human human transmission would definitely kick that up? Okay. But so a human case wouldn't be like if you saw 10 mosquitoes that tested positive, would you? Well, the state will determine whether what risk category we're in. I see. So if the state
report it and they tell you where you're at, state's reporting it to me. So we really the mosquito control project is kicking that to the state and the state will send out a HANA alert which is the health and homeland alert network and that's when both of my phones my cell phone and my house phone all go off at once if there's a HANA emergency. So that's
usually what get notified and then we would do um you know right now we just need to do a press release because there is no human. If you remember in 2018 you were on the select we had a joint meeting with the board of health because we had to do we did some spring regarding triple E. That was 2019
actually. Yeah. So, um you know that does happen. Triple E is much you're taken much more seriously than that say that West Nile is. Um but the key is do the best you can not to get bitten by mosquitoes. Good. Thank you.
Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, M. Thank you very much. All right. Our next uh item is a report of the bicycle and pedestrian committee. Thank you. Oh, you got it in here already. Theoretically,
[Music] well, Miss Davidson had said that it was on here, but I don't see it. Just grab a Does anyone have a phone? This may take me a minute. So, if you can get started, Katherine, if that's possible. Sure. My name is Katherine Jansen. I'm
the chair of the Felmouth Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee. Thank you, Chairman Mscali, select board members, and town members for inviting us to do the annual report. Um, I will kind of summarize the first part and then hopefully we'll get the
PowerPoint back in time to look at the graphs. Well, maybe you could start with the pardon me. How's things going at the Steamship Authority if you want to start with that? Uh, that was a one of our highlights of 2025. Um, sure, I'll start there. That
was one of our highlights of 2025. Um, just in the spring of 2025, uh, the steamshipip authority installed two ballards at the top of the bike path exit. Um, luckily we have a lot of commuters who are great at communicating
with us and um, and also luckily I reported to Mr. Renshaw and he and Ms. O'Keefe got working and uh the next couple of days they took him down, but they still have one ballard there. They also put in jersey barriers, the bike
path exit uh to quote protect the cyclist from exiting traffic. The problem is that it narrowed that bike path. Um and the other problem is that children do not look at the base of a barrier. You know, jersey barrier flares at the bottom. Children look at, you
know, the wall. Um, so it's not safe. They then widened that area exposing sandy soil which is also not safe. Uh, they moved bike parking to that corner of Luskamman Railroad which is sort of like you know if the Bermuda Triangle was highly dangerous and in your face
every day that would be Woodsole Bermuda Triangle. Um, and we work with DPW and uh Mr. Renshaw and our plan for steamship authority is to hold a public listening session. Um we are waiting for
the new general manager to be named uh which is theoretically October oneish but nobody's heard any word. So Oh thank you. That was actually really fast. She's done.
I'm gonna use it the next pardon me. I'm going to use it on the next slide. Oh, okay. Good. Um, so, uh, to have a listening session with the community and with the steamship authority and EVW and, uh, FPD to make sure we have a
comprehensive and exhaustive list of issues around specifically bike ped and the um, ongoing construction which is another 18 monthsish, two years to improve safety. Um, but we want to wait for the new GM.
And thank you, Mr. Wshaw, for that catch. Okay, let's see here. All right. All right. Back to the beginning. So, our vision is that Felmouth is a great place to live and visit because our bike and pedestrian
friendly culture and infrastructure give us calm roads, clean air, and a healthy population in a vibrant economy. And so I'd like to pause for a moment and um ask you to think about bicycle pedestrian infrastructure in the context of ecosystem. So if you have affordable
housing, what is the least expensive way to get to your job? Ride a bike, take a bus, walk, walk to the bus. Um if you want cleaner air, we emit less carbon dioxide, although I'm sure I'll make up for it tonight. Um,
if you want quieter streets, you get traffic off the street for short errands. So, please think of it in the context of the ecos ecosystem of our town. Okay. So, there's this great vision. How do we look compared to this vision? Well, last year we reported that
compared to other Cape Towns, Felmouth had notably higher rates of bicycle and pedestrian accidents and a share of bike and pedestrian accidents that was higher. This information was based on mass data compiled by Paul Joyce from our committee.
Vision Zero has been an effort this year led by Cape Cod Commission. I was on the board of Vision Zero advisory board um and they created action plans for each Cape Town um in uh based on the data and also in cooperation with the towns and
vision zero is a nationwide effort to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Uh this plan was endorsed by the Cape Cod NPO mid June. Barnstable County also adopted a recommendation for a 50% reduction in fatalities and
serious crashes by 2030 and the same out of pattern data for Felmouth was found. So let me take a minute here. So this is all crashes from 2018 through the end of uh calendar
2023. And you can see that uh Barnes is the highest and we are second. So this is every mode of transportation, car, bike, pedestrian, motorcycle. And I have a link to the vision zero action plan at the bottom. You can see all this stuff. Let's take a look at
fatal and serious injury crashes. So now we've dissected that data down. and the blue are the um fatalities and the yellow are the serious cr serious injury crashes. And you could see that
we're neck and neck with Barnstable. What are the share of crashes? Well, about twothirds are cars. Um and then motorcyclist and pedestrian about excuse me and pedestrian about equal and about 1% cyclist. This is across the cape.
What about bicycle pedestrian share of crashes? Now we're getting closer to our heart here. You can see that we're number two after Barnstable. So pedestrians are in the green and bicyclists are in the red and significantly higher than many other
towns. Again, we're a large town. We got a lot of traffic. Um but still okay. Why why is this? So, um I don't know if you can see it on the slide up there, but there is a cluster of crashes that are
the biggest cluster in our area is the Davis Straits and 28 through Ticket. So, that's true of cars, bicycles, pedestrians, everybody. Um also, our traffic systems, you know, we're a small town actually. Our traffic systems are
overloaded in summer and unfortunately, I'm sure you've all experienced this. If you've ever had to drive 28 to Hyenas, you've seen outrageous driving behavior on the two-lane portions. Outrageous. Um, drivers, bikes, and pedestrians are routinely acting aggressively and
inconsiderately. And so, um, does the character of our roads promote crashes? So, let's look at Central Avenue, big wide thoroughfare. Um the end by the ocean, there was that fatality a couple years ago. Flashing
stop sign installed. Uh crashed the next day where they went through the homeowner's yard, crash of the fence into the homeowner's yard. The other side of Central Avenue, and certainly you know this well, um that poor house has been hit three times by cars going so fast they don't even hit the rocks.
They fly over the rocks and land in their yard. Cipoissit would be another example of a character of a road very narrow very windy. Last year we had multiple incidents of car meets tree on cipoissit
and then many individuals cars bikes pedestrians are distracted. I'm sure you've all seen people walking and talking like this. Um, the other day I saw a young woman cycling in flip-flops, no helmet, and her cell phone on the road talking on Davisville.
Um, yeah. So, it's these two things in concert with each other that I believe caused this plus this cluster on Davis Straits and 28. What are our next steps? Um, one of the things is to not accept that
accidents will happen. The other is that we've targeted six dangerous intersections and road segments and this is based on a conversation Mr. McCanny and I had after the Dillingham Gford fatality um where I was pretty much ranting um
that you know traffic advisory is an incredible group but it handles items one by one as they're brought forward. What about an umbrella approach? So we have identified six. we will meet with DPW and work together to figure out um you know what each site needs to make
improvements and start there. Vision Zero has traditionally carried with it federal funding and they did have a round of grants in February of this year. Uh theoretically next year, if so,
one of the nice things about it is you can apply townwide. So you can apply for things like uh flashing stop signs townwide. um you know all the kinds of infrastructure that you might like. So 2025 highlights I don't know if I'd call it a highlight but Eversource
consumed about half of the fiscal year. Construction began in mid-occtober and it ended in midmay. Um this required a lot of close attention to construction details to um partnering with the community and
with DPW and with Eversource. Um there were many many weeks of tactical problems with the detours closed. Um the detail didn't let someone into the detour. Uh there's a closure of there was a neighborhood that actually locked access to a road that people were using
in Woods Hole to kind of navigate around. Um, this closure helped us understand that there's a large commuting community to whom the bikeway is a lifeline service. Um, I had one of the commuters tell me a story that he is
a scientist in Woods Hole. His wife works in Sandwich. They have two children. They have one car and he commutes every single day on the Shining Sea bikeway. Rain, wind, snow, you name it. But this is how they make ends meet because they only have to have one car.
to help you size this. In January, the bikeway saw over 5,500 trips. That's 5,500 trips with lousy weather and a mileong detour. Um, for those who are new on the select board, we typically see about 350,000 trips a year on the
bikeway. Um, I want to shout out to the DPW, especially Mr. Peter McCanny and Mr. Jim Grady for the constant communication and for making a difficult six months go much better than expected. Another achievement in 2025 is that
safety zones at the beaches were implemented. This project began in fiscal 2024. Um bike ped committee was a um participant an active member with the community. It was actually two gentlemen from quissit that kicked off the initiative and those were implemented.
So one of the things I've heard often is well but if you say 20 they go 25. If you say 30 they go 35. What's the difference between 20 and 30? It's a significant difference. If you are hit by a car and they are driving 20 miles an hour, you have a 5% probability that
you will die. At 30 miles an hour, that's 45%. At 40 miles an hour, that's 85%. And by the way, these are um federal government highway uh data. It's even worse. Uh if you were to strip out
pickup trucks, big SUVs, etc. We have a we have a pickup truck um as our utility vehicle. Um but they hit people in the chest and head, not in the legs and hips. So the fatality rate is higher. That's why the speed limit's important.
There's another reason for lower speed limits, and that is that the field of vision of the driver narrows the faster they're going. So at 20 miles an hour, you got a nice full curb to curb field of vision. At 30, it narrows. at 40, it narrows way more to the middle. And uh
to those that are doing, you know, 60 and 70 on 151, I'm sure it's, you know, they're not ever going to see someone crossing their path. So that's why the lower speed limits are important. I'm sure you've probably gotten some complaints um from folks about uh you know, the safety zones at the beaches.
Um my observation is kind of because we drive on Surf Drive a lot. I'd rather drive there than on 28 in the summer. Um my personal observation is about 50% compliance. Um another so we had started with the
steamshipip authority terminal area. Um and I told you about this and I want to thank Mr. Renshaw and Mr. McCanny for the support of pedestrian and cyclist safety here. By the way um you know not to be nudgy but if you look at the photo
that's the two ballards they put in. You'll notice there's a utility pole. There's no car that's going to go down that exit. There's a utility pole there. It's crazy. And a fence. And Yeah. And a fence. Yeah. Did there was there any explanation of
what was the idea with that? Um cyclist and pedestrian safety. Unfortunately, what has happened is that most Yeah, I didn't read that carefully enough, you know. Um unfortunately what's happened
is most are exiting out the car exit now. Uh because you know uh you've got sand on one side. They are supposed to widen it. It hasn't happened yet. They got sand on one side, the Jersey berry's on the other. So a lot of people are just exiting out the car exit which is
not safe of course. Uh, one of our long-term pieces of work is to establish an east west connection, a multi-use path, um, for residents of Felmouth to go east west. Twothirds of our town lives in East Felmouth. Um, as an East Felmouth resident, um, I can
can't tell you how many people yell at me to get on the bike path and I yell back, "It's nine miles that way." Um so Rick Kilro from Gford to 28A in our early sites we work cooperatively and
collaboratively with DPW on this project. In fact we first went to Jim Mclofflin and said we want to do an east west connector where and brick kiln. Um one of the really compelling reasons for a multi-use path on brick kiln is we've got Felmouth High School. um their track
team doesn't have any place to run cross country team except you know around the track and the little bit of forest that's there the YMCA um and eventually this would connect to the shining sea bikeway across 28A um it would be a huge benefit to our town
resident and visitors. Our next steps here is we are going to apply for a safe routts to school grant in October for preliminary design of course collaboratively with uh DPW and with Felmouth High School. Um it'll be a long project but a very worthwhile one and
hopefully I'll see you September 8th to get your permission to apply. Uh we did a bunch of community events this year. Uh we held a grand reopening of the bikeway uh that involved a bike ride, a walk, and an event at the depot bus station. Thank you EDIC. Um they're
awesome. Uh really helpful. Um we held a bike rodeo for school kids at Mullman Hall in late May. We gave away bike helmets and lights. Thank you to Friends of Family Bikeways. And had mass bike providing instruction to the children. Despite the disgruntled look on the young man's face, he was actually happy
to have a helmet. Um, Friday of last week, we went to the back to school bash at the recreation center. Um, I have to tell you guys, we gave away 35 helmets and uh, 50 sets of lights in about 45 minutes flat. It was unbelievable. And
we now have a list of people who wanted to get and um, there's a need. There's a real need there. So, we plan to go back next year uh, in bigger forest with more stuff. And again, thank you friends of Felmouth Bikeways. Okay, what's next?
Our near-term focus is improvements to bicycle and pedestrian safety in the SSA terminal area and nearby streets. I've said this before, but we've just been lucky, honestly. Um, we went down there to pick up my uh son and his girlfriend
on a ferry and we parked all the way down Water Street Way at the end uh and walked up and I stood there with a pastry from Mison Belat and it is still insanity and chaos down there. Um, it's
crazy. Uh, so that's the really the near-term focus. It's an accident waiting to happen. Uh we're going to review our goals at our September meeting and then as we did last year hold a strategic planning session with Felman DPW in October and this helps us
align our goals and continue to work together going forward. We're going to continue to partner with the community has been a theme for the past couple years to help improve safety. Sometimes this takes the shape of tactical local improvements. So the May not street sidewalk, we had a small part in that
and that I got Cape Cod commission to send interns and manually count pedestrians and cyclists who are going down why not and that proved the point. Yeah, there's really a need. Sometimes it's more townwide like the safety zones, but it's important to align with
the community and make sure that we're moving together forward. How can the select board help uh continue to work with our community and the SSA and Mr. Renshaw and Mr. McConny to make the terminal areas safe for walkers and bike riders?
Um, okay. This next one, Mr. McConny does not know I put this in here. He didn't ask me. He didn't tell me. I didn't tell him. But, um, I have a long background in corporate strategy. And when I look at DPW, I feel like it's
like an emergency room doing triage. Um, and of course they're the long-term projects, but but um when you have the water mane break and you have the giant pothole appear after the rains and you have the beach disappear and you have sand all over the place and you got that
guy's flooding on Surf Drive. Uh, I can't argue that getting the Cheryls painted on Shore Drive is a higher priority. I I can't, right? But they shouldn't have to make that tradeoff. So, sorry, Peter, I didn't tell you. Um,
so I would argue that if you want to build the ecosystem, you have to make some spending in areas that are not currently critical so that behavior shifts. How many more people would ride to downtown if they could do so safely
on a protected bike lane and stop the traffic from going there? Um, finally, almost finally, I would say the select board can really help shift the mindset. It's not a bunch of like clad cyclists. Okay, I'm a like a clad cyclist, but the
vast majority are in the category of I ride my bike to work so my family can make ends meet. and shift the mindset from why are they walking to I walk for my health and I walk to town for meetings. We've had some great sidewalk improvements this
year. Shore Street, Old Dock Road, May not um it's great, but you can help lead this mindset change. Um I want to make special thanks to Mr. Bob Mscali um a great adviser including Yeah, don't do that KJ. Um Mr. McConny
and his team. Um, Mr. Grady jumped in his truck at the crack of dawn when that road was padlocked and the commuter uh kind of went defcon one on me. Um, and he like I called him and he jumped in his truck and went down there and figured it out. And Mr. Wshaw for the
very prompt action over the two ballards that were not ADA compliant or even safe. Um, and that's all I have for you. Excellent. I wonder if you could speak to the proliferation of scooters on our uh on our roads. I was coming here this
this evening and um there was one right in the middle of the street uh and I was going the speed limit and he must have been going more than the speed limit because I couldn't even shorten the distance between the two of us. So maybe you could sure give us a
So that's not a street legal vehicle. Um, and there are actually two young women who I regularly see in the Hyannis uh, Rotary on those electric scooters. And I just say, "Oh, God, protect them. Please let them get through this." Um,
and we have the same problem on the bike way. Um, the throttle controlled ebikes that are easily modifiable, uh, that are quite heavy and go very fast. U, we looked at banning them, but the state doesn't really provide
for that. Um, so my opinion is, uh, they need to be off the street. It's not safe in any way, shape, or form. Um, and it's actually not even very safe for them on the sidewalks. Um, and they don't wear helmets. So, yeah. And same thing with the little floaty hoverboard things.
And, um, you know, the little the uh it's like a skateboard um kind of a device. Those aren't safe. Um, and then we have a couple of kids that ride dirt bikes on the bike way. So also not allowed, not safe. So only thing I think
that can be done, the law already exists is just catch them and enforce the law. So I see some of them trying to ride within the uh the bike lanes. Is is that it's not still not still notitted.
No, not a street legal vehicle. I don't know about sidewalks. I know not sidewalks downtown. Uh because bicycles are also prohibited from there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Oh yes. Any more questions, Mr. Richardson?
Yeah. Um thank you. I I really like the last lines you had about shifting the mindset. I just spent a little over two weeks in Japan and I used a car once the entire time I was there. Um uh I I think that I also just want to commend um town manager and Mr. McCanny for you
mentioned uh Dillingham and um Dillingham and uh Gford and there's now the pedestrian stoplight in the new crosswalk there. I used it my grandmother lives on Dillingham. I used used it today to help bring up the water. Um so in the past select board for the the speed limits uh on the beach
as well. I think that's been a good good step as as your things have noted. Um mentioning uh you mentioned how East Falmouth is is lacking. Uh, you know, I on the campaign trail, I went to uh the Van V business owners village
association meeting and they said the same thing as was at Moto Pizza and on and you just see people flying by. Um, have you guys looked into at all? What's the because I think I think it's great to to start um you know, Brick Kilm Road, that's fantastic. You know, we're
looking to build housing kind of near there as well and and I think that's a great step. Uh, what about over other parts of town in East Fmouth? Have you looked more into to recommendations of you know where how can we build uh more sidewalks?
Sure. Um, so our town has a complete streets plan, um, that was developed in 2019, I think, and approved by the select board. Um, and so, um, it is quite exhaustive, and I can send you a link to it that lists the targeted
areas. Um, for the bike ped committee personally, um, once we feel like we got some traction on Brick Kilm, our eyes are on 151. It would be great to connect up to Mashp. um the cost of con construction is
somewhat staggering for almost all of these projects. Um so I think that we are um thinking more of how do we get um how do we create an interconnected network of protected bike lanes so that you could reasonably
um you know maybe have a 5 10 minute ride to get to one of them right um but there there's quite a few I mean look I ride on carriage shop anytime I go to ride I have to my only other option is 28 right great yeah and and I you know I been meaning
to reach out to uh Mastery Town Manager, you know, Rodney Collins on a number of issues, but I I you know, I wonder the cost of that extension they did there. Uh 23 million. Yeah, it's a big number. It's a big number. Well, they've thrown down the challenge for us, haven't they? Yeah.
Well, I think over four phases, three phases, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's going to be great. And then just another one if I may. Um, Woods Hole Road. Have you been a consider on, you know, I've there's been people have, you know, emailed me about,
you know, can we get bike access there? Is that something you've looked into or heard of at all? Um, we have not. I know that the residents had petitioned for a sidewalk. Um, but we had not. Um, simply because we were trying to target um, you know,
an east west connector. Okay. Um, you do have the option in Woods Hole of the back roads to get in as a cyclist. Um, one of those is simplicit and you know dicey. Yeah, of the point. Yeah.
Yep. Mr. Reed. Um, Brown again. Mr. Brown, uh, really thank you for this report. Uh, I lived in Washington DC for uh, 12 years and I felt safer biking there in the middle of a city than here and it's largely due to what you said is speed.
When you have more space, you have more speed. You're restricted in cities. If you're restricted in Japan, you'll see a lot more utility. But here, I'm a little worried. So, anything you can do to separate uh bikes from cars, I think, and even bikes from pedestrians would be
uh very good. I use an example of Burlington, Vermont, where they have the roads, but then off to the side you have a nice bike path. Right. That's right. But it's it comes at an expense. And to that point, um, our strategic plan calls for traffic and transportation planning,
but nowhere in our c in our capital investment, we had limited capital devoted to these kind of things. So, I challenge the select board and the town to really, aside from sidewalks and ADA compliance that we have in there. I
would I would encourage all of us within the town capacity to really think about a traffic advisory and a bicycle pedestrian kind of holistic look, a comprehensive look starting with the brick kiln connector and see how we can
do that right to then duplicate it in further things. But I commend you for all the work that you've done. So thank you. It's in cooperation with DPW and um uh the plan for Bricktown would be grants all the way. Yeah. So, and all right,
Mr. Brown, it's true that one thing the select board can do is fund initiatives to support your mission. And I would note that in our budget, I saw $90,000 for bikeway improvements and asphalt. So, maybe that's hopefully to take care of
the bumps on the two ends. So, there's something. Asphalt's really expensive. The last time uh that section by auto camp was 147,000 I think which was actually more than our budget. Um
but uh yeah it's really expensive. Maybe they can at least grind the bumps and Yeah. just Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for your report. One more question, Mr. Chair, if I may. Yes. Uh have you heard any uh you know, I've received a couple emails about um Shore
Street. Um, have you heard any concerns from riders in the summer uh of feeling less safe there? I just, you know, I've not necessarily the bend, but I've I've heard from some residents of, you know, kind of when you get more the down portion before you get to Main Street,
uh, of riders not feeling as as safe. I don't know if you've had that volume. I've not heard that. People are pretty good about writing, but it, you know, it just could be luck of the draw. Um, I've not not actually heard that. Is it the volume of traffic or it's more speed
speed speed of individual drivers on that which then means another straightaway. Yeah. Yeah. Just another straight straight shot. Yeah. Many people ride it from Clinton, right? You know, down. Um but no, I have not heard that. And it was part of the so interestingly that
was part of the detour during the six months the bike way was closed. Um so maybe that but that wasn't in season. That was October day. I and I think and then sorry m I I think I I've liked how you pointed out that like human behaviors is a huge part of this
like we got Tik Tok now you know people the attention span is a lot less and that is reflected in people's behaviors so I I think that's very important to point out that we could change all of our policies to be 100% perfect you can't stop people from going on the phones even mass dot says quote signs don't
work to improve behavior meaning to improve behavior right um what sign worked Um, do you guys remember when they had the digital sign that said use your blinker over the highway? That actually worked. It did. But signs typically like slow down,
school zone, 30 miles an hour. They don't work. You know what I found interesting? When I stayed at a campground over on Thomas Landis Road this year, the uh speed limit is 5 and a half miles per hour in the campground. So that means they really mean it because
you got to look. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Yes. Do you have a comment with respect to the report, ma'am? Yes, I do. Thank you very much. I've not had the pleasure.
Please go come to the podium, please. I am. Thank you. I'm walking that way. My name is Cynthia Rose. I've not had the pleasure to see your report or to hear you and this net zero
thing was something new and this is great progress. This is very good progress because it's itemized. My concerns or what I wanted to say is what are the six specific places you're
looking at? How many fatalities were there? numbers, not chart uh uh bar charts. And then my biggest thing is this. Yes, we can design success. We need benches that allow people to walk
the less than one mile to town. Nobody's going to do it if they're out of shape or have a bad heart. There are not enough benches to indicate that walking is okay. these workers that come in, they're on these bicycles. That is the
most affordable way we need to mandate. If you're going to be on a bike and on our road, you should be wearing. We don't want to run you over. So, these are the kind of things that I think are important are the specifics. Yes, this is wonderful, but people are dying.
Those are not numbers. Those are people. So, that's what I wanted to say. And you don't know me, but I've paid a long time attention to this and this was really good. Thank you. And I really appreciate all
of what you guys have done. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. And also you Thank you. Okay. Uh Mr. McConny, Mr. Wrencher, do you have a sir introduction for uh for Mr. McCanner?
Mr. McCanny needs no introduction. That's That's for sure. But he needs more money apparently we've learned today. So, thank you, Peter McCannady, director of public works. Wanted to give you an update. Uh I'm not opening this up yet because it's just one slide, but wanted
to give you an update on the John Neil Fields. Uh the last time I think we had a public meeting was at the end of April. Um like two, three months ago. And the reason I remember that so clearly is that was the night that we had seven inches of rain drop in Woodsole Road in two hours, two or three
hours. But with me tonight, I got Jim Lucer uh with Arcadus. He's been working on the uh getting us out of the ground with the environmental remediation and also Jeremiah Pearson because um with all these improvements that we're going to be doing at the fields, um Jeremiah
will be um picking up a lot of the additional work of the cutting up there. So, wanted to give you an update of um where we are. Of course, if there's any questions with the remediation, Jim, Luca can answer all the questions, but as a whole, um Jim and I have been
working since the beginning, since day one on this project, trying to bring this forward, meeting with Mass D, having the public meetings, um informing the town of the reports that we've done, the environmental assessments that we've done. Um and also we've been uh we
retain the services of Gail Associates for doing the fields. So we're basically working as a joint venture between uh the town of Farmouth uh Gail Associates and Arcadus to bring this uh project to fruition. So with that um we have a
concept plan um that I'm going to bring that up so it fits basically the whole site. um for the site. It it holds the three fields in their existing locations. It holds the asphalt parking lot in their existing locations.
And it also includes ADA improvements. It includes um uh like an amphitheater seating area, terrain area where you can have seating, walking paths to get through the three fields and greenery. Um we have been meeting with Mass D.
Matter of fact, last week um we had a meeting with uh John Handahan with Mass D to go over our options of what might be possible for what we'd like to do. All along we have talked about looking at the different options. This shows um natural grass field ball fields. We also
looked at the option um because it is common of uh using the synthetic field turf when the convers we had the conversation with mass DP to see if if there would be any benefits to go with a synthetic turf than a natural grass field. So you'd be
actually having two barriers um to to to separate the um the previous landfill. mass EP um basically stated that there would be no there's no difference in the level of fill between a natural field and a synthetic field. Um so that for the benefit wise there'd be no real
benefits per mass D what they would be looking at some of the options that we would look at and we're talking about mass D is so and I think we've brought it up in public meetings our goal is to bring in fill we have to move some of the material on the site we're going to
have to dig new um foundations for light poles we're going to have to dig new foundations for the back stops and some other minor uh uh fill area that we're trying to we're going to look to keep that on site. Um, and to uh hold the
orientation of everything as it is out there as this shows, but to replace all three fields, to replace the uh press boxes on fields one and two, new scoreboards. Um, the lighting on field one will remain. We'll be adding
lighting on field two. Um, and then there is a slope between the parking lot and the fields. There's a sloped grass area. We're going to need to build that up. So, we're going to be looking at putting a retaining wall type of material in there to build the material
up to be able to get the fill over the uh o over the field so that it would be approved through master. So, at this time, um this is a concept we are working with Gail, we're working with Arcadus, we're working with master.
This all has to go through master also because they have to approve how this is going to be um how this is going to be built. Our plan we had talked um cost numbers in the past about the the to reprove to improve these fields. So there's hard cost and the soft costs. So
the the soft cost for engineering for permitting for additional work we're going to do we've already spent several hundred,000. We're probably going to spend another couple of hundred,000 and then the remainder of that budget will be for um the construction of the fields. Our goal is to um go through we
have this as a conceptual design. We're looking to bring this in preliminary design with Gail. Um so we're going to need to make a decision relatively quickly. I'd say within the next few weeks to a month to Gail so they can start working on a conceptual design as
to if we're going to go with natural turf or natural grass or if we're going to go with turf. Indications at this point right now seem to seem to be leaning towards the natural grass field um for us. Um but that'll have to those decisions will have to be made in in the
next several weeks. Our goal is to to go through the fall doing um uh final drawings, schematics, uh 50% 75% final construction drawings, putting the bids and specs together and going out going to town meeting for the additional
funding that we had in for $3.2 million to do the construction. If that is approved through town meeting, then we'll be looking to go out to bid in early of 2026 and have construction run through 2026 and um look to have the ball fields open
in the the uh end of 27 2027 for um for uh youth baseball in the fall. So that's a synopsis of where we are at this point in time. If you have individual questions about the underground and where we are coming out of the ground uh with the remediation, Jim can answer
those questions. But where we are right now, we're on target to go through with design and have design ready um this fall. Mr. Richards, thank you for how quickly you've put this together and, you know, after town meeting voting for it and having it
ready for the next um town meeting. You know, it's it's incredible. Um, so you just mentioned that you're leaning towards grass. Great. Uh, when town meeting goes to vote for it, will it be decided of like when they vote on it? It's like that is what it will be. So
like if if you decide it's grass or or synthetic or whatever, town meeting will know that when they vote for it in November. Yeah. Our preference is to to to keep this design going so we'll be on track to go out in the early of 2026 is to have those decisions made um so we can
relay that to Gail Associates and they can start working on Great um on the design for it. So the plan is to have which option would be in the next okay several weeks. Awesome. Thank you. Mr. Brown, will there be an irrigation system? So,
currently right now, there is an irrigation system out there that's on town um that's on the town water and uh it it will stay the same. It'll still be on town water. We don't have a well in the area, so it'll stay on the town water coming in off of Gford Street.
Could we incorporate a well? I think with the area that we have right now with the with the the old landfill below, um it would probably be probably not a good idea. It would probably be best for us just to stay on the town water for the irrigation. One of the areas that we are looking
into and and I meant to mention is that um the EP would like to see they call it a clean clean corridor or clean trench area. So if we're if we're doing anything underground like the irrigation um the fencing um that goes that goes
down set 3 ft that there is a clean corridor of clean fill that's above the landfill and above the um the uh the uh the poly texture uh mat that we'll be putting down um because if we have to do work in that in the future, we do not
want to be digging into the old landfill. One other item on this is that, and we had mentioned this in the past, is these fields will have an AUL on it. It's an activity use limitation. And what it basically states is, yes, they're going
to be ball fields, but if we do any future work and we're going to dig down and we're going to be penetrating that old landfill, um, that we'll have to have an LSP, a work plan to be approved to be able to do that work. And I think with D is they they want the commitment
from the town that the town's just going to upkeep the fields like we do with our other fields, upkeep the park and the fields and the work. Um so we won't have any problems in the future um with the AUL or with the site. I have one more question if I could. Sure.
Is there um do we plan to plant the grass or use sod? Have that figured out yet? Yeah. So that's why we bring Jeremy in. But I think we'd be looking at bringing sod in. If you if you do loom and seed um
especially through the summertime or what have you, it picks up a lot of weeds and it just if you another season mist if you put down a saw sod it's immediate it's a median grass it takes and and then they can you can play right on it. Differential in price.
There is a uh a cost difference in price. Yeah. Significant. Um, I'd say, don't quote me on it, I'd say probably a probably 150,000 difference. Yeah. Is there a is there more more or less
maintenance on sod than planted grass? I This is a question for Jeremiah. I would say it would be less on um sod, but the price of sod would be overall more, but the maintenance for for uh seating would be greatly be a lot longer and you
know more expensive because that's you know I I don't play baseball but I play soccer at trotten park frequently and um you know it's it's a massive field that you can't maintain it and the offseason you don't even as much and I think that it's a worthy investment to to pursue sod over over grass.
I think so too. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. McConny. Next matter. So, yeah, this was not a vote. This was just an update for the uh for where we are. So, yeah, we're planning on moving
forward and um we'll be back to see you in at Falltown meeting for the uh Okay. Thank you. the uh in the capital budget. Do you want to stay up there and discuss the u contract? So, so yeah. So, we entered into a a
town contract with um it actually started with Republic in 2022 and then a couple of weeks after that, Republic actually um sold the contract basically for another means to NASA disposal. So, we ended up with NASA disposal and it actually
worked out very well with the town. Um for the folks at home, you should tell them we changed the subject. What's that? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, yeah, we're discussing the recycling and solid waste collection contract. So, yes, the the the ne the next item.
Um, so so, uh, we've had a good relationship with NOS at disposal. Uh, they're under agreement until June 30th of 2027. Um, but, um, it it it would be good to go out for an RFP or an RFQ process.
We're not required to follow the uh 30B process, but to see we we did go out to bid last time, but we went out a little late um because it the investment that it takes for a contractor to build up with uh trash trucks and hauling trucks, it's it's a big lift on the contractor
side. So, if we did go out to um for an RFQ or an RFP or an RFQ process, um we would be looking to go out this fall and at the beginning of the year have a review for the uh for the RFPs, the RFQS and we'll be working with town council
of course on uh on all the documentation coming back back and forth. That's what we did last time. Last time we did not um we only got one bidder last time and I think it was because of the time limit because it was a short time limit and uh
there's not a lot of hauling contractors out there. I think I think at this point we also want to be careful because I think at this point everyone's been hearing what's been happening over the bridge north of Boston and that's something we experienced a little of
that down here back in 2021 22 and it's not something we want to go into. Do you want to talk about the um uniform containers and and and that issue with respect to the contract or going forward? So, so in 2021,
um the town went for a uh a COT program went that we put an article in the town meeting to go for CS and um obviously it passed and we and it was a success story. Um but what we did find out for the town, we own the carts, so the carts
break, the wheels break, the lids break. Um we incorporated another duty for the highway department. and every Friday they go out and replace barrels and what have you. Under the contract, what we'd be looking for, we'd like to see the uh if we went for um the MSW carts to have
the contractor own them because then the contractor would own the carts, the contractor would replace the carts if they get damaged or broken. Um so that's something. And also the the uh contractor they they include that in the price over typically they include that
in the price over the duration of the contract and then they amortize it back to the back to the town. If we did that we'd be looking at the same type of program we'd be looking at 65gallon um trash containers. The good thing about that is um obviously uh with the
recycling, if the recycling does not fit in the container, it doesn't get picked up. With the trash, if the trash bags do not fit in the container, it won't get picked up. And I think that'll take care of some of our problems currently that we have trash bags on the street and the driver has to get out and pick them up.
It'd be it'd be beneficial for the hauler that they could grab up a uh if they have automation that they could grab these cats and just drive down the street and pick them up. So we would be looking as that as being part of the RFP. We would include that as a requirement.
Yeah. Currently we have been working with waste connections to see if we could include those under the this the carts under the contract. Um and and we've been moving back and forth. It's just that the cost right now of those carts is uh is high for us to include in
our in our budget. If Sure. You know, I I actually uh thought about this and I reached out to Alan Robinson and I don't know if his committee has has taken it up or talked about it, but it occurred to me that when we did get those recycling carts
and all the residents saw how the automation works, I think that inspired a lot of people to go out and buy barrels. And so now I'm wondering if maybe it might not be the best investment for us to to encourage the the operator to provide these barrels or
for us to buy them because couldn't we just say town has a new contract with the waste operator coming up. You better go out and buy a barrel with a lid that's automatic, you know, that's compatible with the automatic uh lift. And just say people, if you're not
putting your barrels out correctly, your trash won't be picked up. I mean, we're providing a free service. Not free, but it's part of your municipal service. I think that's a condition we could put on. The the thing I'm thinking of is if we spend a couple million dollars on trash barrels and then we tell everyone,
you got to use these barrels and they just went out and spent 70 bucks on one that would probably do the job. We're probably going to get some push back because it seems like a lot of people have already bought them. So one item is to and it's outside of
this discussion here but to to uh we did a regulation with the uh recycling regulation. We did the recycling bylaw. Yeah. You do if there is a possibility to do something within a um solid waste bylaw that no trash bags on the ground. It has to be in a container.
What happens with the contractor is um the soft containers when you go and buy the soft barrels their arms crush the barrel. Yeah. So me personally, I went over to Eastman. Eastman sells them. They buy the 45 or the 60 and it's the composite barrels that are the hard plastic.
So when they pick them up, it picks it up and puts it into the and they put it back on the on the roadway. Um so it's that is another option. It's outside this discuss discussion, but um it could be something we could work on. It would be a a bylaw or a regulation with
through the town. Yeah, maybe that's something we should try to work on. See? Okay. Okay. Thank you. And I just wanted to also mention that uh we recently we just signed up Master EP has a uh a new um solid waste
contracts for for cities and towns, municipalities that are going to be going out. They have work uh seven or eight workshops over a duration of weeks that um we had signed up for myself, town manager and assistant town manager. So that's going to be happening in uh
September, October. So, uh, we we sent the state our existing contract and then, um, I think what they do is they get other municipalities together and it's a workshop between all municipalities to come up with the best contract. Get a statewide standard kind of
more of a standardized, right? Correct. I think Alan wanted to say something. Did you want to say something, Mr. Robinson? Thank you. Alan Robinson, chair of the solid wastist advisory committee. A number of things that you've talked about, Doug, you brought up the uh the carts and a
number of people having compliant carts. We've actually we together with Mary Ryther of the Department of Public Works have been surveying um driving down driving down familyless roads on on trash collection day and we've actually been gathering we've we've surveyed over
500 residences and have data on the number the percentage of homes that have compliant carts. A lot of people have carts with wheels, but compliant carts that the that as Peter was describing that are rigid plastic that the trucks can lift without crushing them. Um,
we've got numbers on those as well as the non-compliant and then people with barrels. So, the data is readily available to base things as Peter said, the need for having a regulation in terms of no bags on the side. the 64
gallons. We've also been serving how many gallons worth of containers and bags people have uh on trash day and those data can support developing sound regulations. So certainly will be folks one way or another that will have a have
a complaint about one thing or concern about one thing, but uh having a you know a plan that's discussed that's that's communicated well in advance to the community before the barrels the the standardized carts come out is really
really important. And as we mentioned, I guess about a month or so ago when we made our presentation, our committee's presentation, um, getting the message out to the community, um, and engaging the community into the discussion in advance of getting the carts out will be
important. There were challenges with the with the recycling carts. DPW handled them really, really well. And uh, the town, you know, the folks really received that well. trash is even more challenging than recycling in terms
of carts and so forth. And so really putting some thought into how we do it. And just one last thing, um I know there's been some discussions and negotiations about possibly extending the contract, the current contract. And there's some advantages to that uh in
terms of making a agreement now going at the bid if there is only one bidder again even with more advanced time. We certainly support getting if there's going to be bid to get the bids bid request out early, but uh there may be advantages in terms of financial
advantages of signing a long-term contract now uh that would be advantageous um to getting a good price for the town. So, a lot of I think rather than jumping one way or another, you can certainly start planning for a bid. We'll look to see if there's a way
to negotiate good conditions with the current contractor. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Okay. Yes. Question. Um I don't know who it's appropriate for, but with the uniform
carts, what are we solving for? Um because are we solving for problematic residents and that's a few or is it a large? Is it aesthetics? Is it speed? Are we paying the pick it
pick up people by time or by house or is it you know cost because getting out costs more in a in a contract than putting up. So I'm just wondering what we're sol I'm all for it because I like it. I like watching it. But the question is like what are we solving for with
uniformity? So there'd be multiple things. So it would be obviously they would be beneficial to the contractor because they'd be doing automation. They wouldn't be going out the if you see two trucks go down the street, one's automation and the other one's not. You the one that's not, you'll have two two people in the truck. The guy jumping in
and out of the truck picking up the barrels. So that obviously takes longer. There's also jumping in and out of the truck and picking up the barrels. There could be room for injury, you know, so the contractor would rather just Right. So a new truck costs half a
million dollars for one truck and they last seven to 10 years. So, if the contractor is going to go that route, they're going to want to know that the town's going automated because they're not going to want to if they're going to go automated or they're not going to go automated. The the industry standard is going automated, but if they're going to
be spending, they typically go out and buy we have in the winter time eight trucks running. In the summer and summer time, we have 10 trucks running. So, 10 times a half a million dollars is, you know, it's it's a lot of it's a lot of money for that. for the town. Um, one of
the goals for me is to get the bags off the ground. If they have the bags on the ground, you get rodents, you get vectors, and sometimes what happens is residents in town um or if they have a um if they're down on a weekend and their trash day is on a Wednesday, they
Sunday night they drop that on the grass and then they're gone. And by Wednesday, it's it's either all over the street or what have you. So, um, for the town, it would be beneficial to get it off the ground and also for the town just branding is we have the the recycling
with the seals on it right now for recycling. So, everyone has the blue recycle bins. For us, it would be the blue um solid waste bins with a different color color on it. And then the contractor knows if it if it's a town that has the seal on it, they know that it's it's a
town seal. The other route would be, you know, there's people have barrels, but what kind of condition are they are in? And if the contractor is going to be responsible to fix that, at least if they get a new barrel, they know they're starting from zero and they're not starting at a 50% barrel. You know,
they're crappy barrels, just throw them in. Yeah. And then and then what happens is that people complain and then the contractor or the town has to go out and buy a new new barrel. I appreciate and ultimately the the they there would be a savings to the town with respect to to
the the cost with the with the provider. Yeah. So what happens is uh the contract actually has a a weight for for barrels if you have a barrel for for weight limit. Um we typically give out one barrel. Um sometimes you drive down the street you'll see four barrels and a
lot of it's not recycling that should be in recycling. They're putting it in the trash. So, um you'll save on um cost for the um solid waste going to the Bourne. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. That the goal is is to re, you know, and then to also have a large recycling and
a small trash. It's it shows the relativity. We're trying to recycle more than than trash municipal household waste. I will thanks for giving that's something we'll be working on over the next several. Thank you.
Yes. [Music] email comments. My name's Cynthia Rose again. Um, I want to say that the new barrels, fantastic idea, because what we're trying to avoid is litter and litter was
a huge problem before these new barrels showed up. What Jack said, which crossed with me, is this is your great revenue opportunity. Everybody pays for a dumpster or somebody to come pick up their trash. We pay for fishing licenses
and dog licenses and boat licenses. Why can't we all pay $25 for our new trash can? I'll say I was not a fan of the new trash cans. I wasn't. and I am now a big fan of the new trash cans. Thank you.
You're welcome. Okay. All right. We're gonna move on to discuss and consider a vote to approve a request from Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod for a waiver of the application and permit fees for four affordable
homes at 805 Gford Street Extension and 14 affordable homes at 48 Benjamin NY Lane. Move approval. Mr. Renshaw. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to ask Mr. Johnson Stal to lead the uh,
presentation and then turn it over to So, as most of you, I think, are aware, the town has um, you know, pretty well established precedent of waving uh, application and permit fees for affordable housing projects. Um there is
specific language in your fee waiver policy that addresses um the type of affordable housing projects that qualify. So if it's a for-profit developer and they're only doing 25% required affordable, that project would not be eligible for a waiver of fees.
But when 100% of the units are affordable, the town uh has a policy and a well-established precedent to wave those fees. So, the recommendation from staff here is to follow that policy and wave the um building sorry to wave the
permit and application fees for these 18 affordable units as requested by Habitat for Humanity. There is a question about the install water meter installation fees, right? So that would not include there's language in the policy about if there is
a direct cost to the town that those fees would not be waved and the only fee that um that really comes up in that regard is related to water service connections and water meters. So there are direct costs the town purchases a
water meter um and so there's a fee to um for the the purchase of that water waving those fees. Correct. Correct. So, permit uh application and permit fees, not water service or water meter fees.
Well, you've been waiting a long time, so tell us. Well, you just said my we know who you are, but tell us anyway. I'm Norin Brown, the director of land um acquisition for Cape Cod Habitat Humanity, and we are here to see if there is a chance to wave the fees under section one of the um the waiver fee
policy. And the other fee we would pick up is any kind of peerreview or consultant fees. Those would be our cost. Anything that doesn't really come out of pocket for the town. Mr. Chair. Yes. I make a motion to vote to approve the waiver of all permanent application fees associated with this affordable housing
construction. Uh the waiver would not include water services and municipation fees. Second. Okay, we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor? I. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Thanks for hanging out. Yeah. Okay. Are we ready to review and consider a vote to approve the minutes of the meetings July 28th, 2025, which we took off uh the uh the agenda last time and our August 11th, 2025 meeting.
So moved. Okay. Motion and a second. And a third time and a third. All in favor? I I. Okay. Town manager supplemental report. Just a quick update. Uh project update. Uh I'm going to go out on a limb and commit to uh by September 29th uh select
board meeting. Uh we're we're Peter and I are in the process of finalizing that strategic plan, performance measurement, capital project tracker um platform um that we've been working on for a year and a half. Um it's been a uh challenge to say the least. um departments uh are
have been tasked with having all of their metrics in the system by the end of uh this week actually which is going to give us about a month to kind of review everything and make sure it's fine-tuned and ready to go. Um so I want to do a demo u my goal on September 29th. So look for that should be just
after unfortunately the uh the workshop that we're planning but we're going to have a I think we're going to have a a really excellent management tool going forward. Awesome. Thank you. How are we going to do that together? So the week before like could we really mess you up?
I don't purposely thinking but well this platform is meant to uh to grow. Uh so we're starting it out relatively small in terms of the numbers of metrics. I think you know we've discussed this and I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole. We've discussed um a lot about the need to take a hard look at the goals and
objectives within the seven core areas of the plan. Um so this I I think to answer your question is going to help us in the long run. So, we'll be able to tweak it and add additional elements to the to the platform. I really like the idea because it's what I was speaking about before and I'm glad you're working on this, which is just
tying it all the pieces together because it comes down to dollars and cents at the end of it, but it's metrics, right? Okay. Any select board reports? The one thing uh that I did before I
left uh for Japan was I uh attended uh EOHLC secretary uh at Augustus was in Plymouth. uh unfortunately I wasn't able to attend his tour of the Falmouth housing authority uh but he had encouraged that uh the town work closer
with the housing authority uh in his view that there was a lot of and I share this there's a lot of potential for redevelopment um in certain you know particularly Scranton a is is not optimized for the amount of space they have um and to the extent that the town and the select board can get involved he
he recommended we do and I and I I know that's been a matter matter that some members of the Falmouth Housing Authority have been pushing for the redevelopment forward former members of that and former members of of of that property and I think it is u certainly
something and and in in keeping with the governor's uh you know proposals I think it's something that uh the Fmouth Housing Authority should be looking at. So to whatever extent we can Thank you. Anyone else? I just uh mention again about the uh short-term
rental committee. We met uh last week and was a pretty interesting exchange of ideas and thoughts. We agreed to keep the base of the u short-term rental bylaw that we have in place that uh town
council O'Keefe did the majority of the work on. And so what we uh have agreed on is we're going to just add some definitions and some uh other language that we've been looking at other towns bylaws and I don't think there's really anything that's going to come out of
ours but just that will probably want to add to it and um it was really nice of Leslie Sandberg to come down from Province Town on a rainy night and tell us how herb program or their town's program is working and uh it it's very informative and we're going to meet
again on the 20th of next month to uh take it up again. Okay. Hopefully not during strategic working not the 20th. Let's see. Uh 27th 10th of next week next month.
September 10th day. Yeah. So we're still on for uh strategic planning on September 20th. Correct. We're we're looking at the following I think it's the following week. I didn't want to throw a date out. We're still We actually received a proposal
back from the consultant that we're looking at and we haven't finalized that date, but I think it's the following I think it's the following weekend. I had penciled in the 20th. It might. Yeah. There you go. So, you're thinking maybe the September 27th. That's the date that's sticking in my head right now, by the way.
Okay. Okay. Any future agenda items? And uh Saturday that's September 27th. It will be away at a wedding. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Let's you know where I stand on those annual
meeting at 9:00 a.m. on the 27th for my for work my summerwood condos. Peter and I will work with the consultants. There was a little flexibility. One one of them was one of them was avail it's a going to be a tag team approach with the consultants. One of them was available
one date and one wasn't. But we'll work with the consultants. Okay. Do we want to consider a a weekday? Is that possible for anybody else? Um, I would prefer weekends. I can probably get I get When do you leave for your wedding with the wedding?
Wedding's on Saturday. Uh, Friday. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, I can probably work out a weekday uh if needed. I prefer a weekend, but if I absolutely need to, I can. I could do a weekday as well. So, if that's something that people want to consider, just throwing it out there.
Are you you thinking of a of a meeting that would start on a weekday at 9:00 in the morning or in the afternoon evening? Be flexible. Maybe an afternoon into early evening or who knows whatever you guys want to come up with. Just just can't do the Saturday the 27th.
We got to try something can do the 20th. Try and stay with the 20th. It may still Peter saying it may still be on the table. That was the date. Let's try and and push that if we can. I think that's the date most of us were were looking at. So, thank you. Uh, future agenda items. Um, you know, Mr.
Reed, thank you for your very detailed email. Uh, and I think there's a lot in there with respect to tying things together going forward. So I I think in setting the agenda going forward, I think we're going to try and keep those principles and uh you know in mind as we
set the agenda and see what we can thematic approach tie on some thematic approach uh to setting the agenda. Um do in the future do we want to list some of the things that we have you know spoken about as future agenda items? can
certainly do that so we can at least, you know, people can know what what what we're thinking of. The only new one I have that I can't I might have mentioned this already. Um I probably did. Uh but I think I've heard a lot of complaints,
some warranted, some not warranted, uh about just improving the accessibility of the website and just the way the website looks. Uh if that's something we could have discuss. I thought you were going to talk about the beaches when you started talking about accessibility. Yeah, I know. Accessibility is a it's a wide variety of things.
But yeah, so that's a lot of items on there. There's an awful lot of it stuff. Hopefully, one of them will fix this thing that says website not trusted when I try to use this town Wi-Fi. I just can't use it. I just I use cellular
network instead because it pops up constantly. And I Oh, I did get an update before on um if I put this on season. I'm telling you that's why I use why they use paper. Okay. Well, that's not progress.
But it helps. It works. Private relay unavailable. What town of found guest is not connected to the internet. But then it pops up and it says web this this network not trusted and what all kinds of popups that constantly
come on to make it so I just can't use it. So cannot verify server identity. This constantly pops up. So I end up just turning it off. No one can use it unless you have the the password. We'll have it look at that. I hadn't seen that before. I met with Don Lewis
when she first came here and I asked her if she could fix it and she said she'll work on it for like an elusive. Mr. Chair, I have a Mr. Chair, I have a motion. Wait, anyone tell us something? Anyone ready to make a motion? Not yet. Not yet.
I I thought you were going to tell us something. I just wanted to to to to be clear that that the on the website uh the accessibility and kind of the the or or like a aesthetic look and feel organ layouts of the site or more accessibility issues. Is that what you're referring to?
Yeah, I just think that was it Civic Plus? Y I just don't think they do a good job compared to other platforms. So, you know, one thing I pushed for on the housing authority was them to revamp their website and they did. And I just think, you know, I've a friend of mine is uh Mike Nicholson, the mayor of
Gardener, and I've been talking with him about, you know, he's transitioned from the platform they use to I can't remember what it is now. I just think there's newer options that are out there, but I think we should review the cost because that was one thing I was shocked at how expensive that that is.
Um, so I just would like to to talk about that more. I'd like to echo something that uh Miss Goldstone uh also recommended is the use of I AI in it as well if we build that capacity because trying to figure out how to do something
as an average citizen is really tough to do and it'd be really nice to have a you know almost like a a Google search bar within our thing to say how do I put an addition on my house? That's a terrible example, but like
the how to call Doug Brown. Well, when you Yeah, I've had I don't want that on there, but but like when you order from like, you know, or clothes or whatever, Amazon that's on there. We don't. But it's Well, we're talking about tech stuff.
just throw out one more thing. I'd like to have for an agenda item at some point or I don't know if it's for select board purview or not, but honestly, but I would love to have FCTV get access to the FiOS or the uh the
fiber network that we have here. There's got to be a way that they can be sequestered. I don't know if it's for security concern or whatever reason that they've not been able to get the fiber network access because then we could have hybrid meetings the way the
Assembly of Delegates does. They would be able to be empowered. Right now they're in a TV based system. But if we let them into the fiber system, then we could have hybrid meetings and they their capacity would be so much greater.
they would then be an internetbased service and the the whole production would be so much better. So I don't know if anybody's thought about that or Yeah, I um I'll have to get with it again. I I I remember that there was um
an issue I I think there's a question of who's paying for the fiber. I didn't think it was an I I thought it was a bandwidth issue, not a security issue. Oh, I I could be mistaken. Deb Rogers about it and it's been quite a while and it also had been quite a while since she
tried to get that going and what I got from her was I thought her perception was that it was a security issue. Okay. So I haven't I I haven't delved into it in a long time either. Thirdand information for sure on the on the AI thing. I think we had mentioned
about the town looking into an AI policy for employees and so forth and certainly I think council would probably have something to uh you know to say with respect to that. But I think adopting a policy or looking at a policy for
employees using it and so forth might be something we want to take a look at. It's certainly helpful on the phone. I don't know if you've enabled it on your phone. It's certainly helpful in a number of respects. Maybe it'll help you get past that warning.
It doesn't fix that. I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Okay, we have a motion to second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Thank you very much. Hi, it's Brandon from Crane Appliance.
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