[Music] good evening everybody it is Monday April 11th 2025 at 5:30 p.m and I'll call to order the board of select meeting uh today's meeting will be recorded and will be available on the town's YouTube page um currently present
is Sleek Lopes or sorry Sleen Zer SE and myself Sen Matthews um Select Lopes will be here he's just running a few minutes late um we're going to kick off and go out of order uh and just get some of these agenda items cleared out so we're going to start off with
agenda item one which is discussion of discussion of vote whether to approve the uh open session meeting minutes from March 24th 2025 any questions or concerns no everything look good thank you okay so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the open session minutes from
3:24 2025 motion made i'll second that all in favor i I All right um should we jump down to agenda item six okay all right this is discussion of vote on awarding the IT support services for 71
2025 through 6:30 2025 26 2026 good catch and what page is this one on 30 hello all right so I'll just find it on
my eyes from Metro metrospect which is our current yep yep all right it's $140 an hour yep any questions concerns on that no i mean it looks like they're the only ones who uh who responded and it's currently the same so absolutely all
right so with that I'll entertain a motion to award the IT service uh support services for 71 2025 through 6:30 2026 to MetroP uh motion made i'll second it all in favor i I All right
and then agenda item seven discussion of vote awarding the ambulance billing services for 71 2025 through 6:30 2028 and that I got it now um so looks like we
got three or we requested bids from three companies only got it back from two so we got it back from Coastal Medical Billings which is a quote of 3% and Comstar Ambulance Billing Services which
three and a half% and that's their their take on the overall mhm so looks like Coastal Medical Building and that's who we currently have right yes correct all right so with that I'll entertain a motion to award the ambulance billing
services for 712025 through 6:30 2028 to Coastal Medical Billings motion made i'll second that all in favor i I I think you can close the annual till meeting for submission number two
let's just close them yeah okay so JM2 is close the annual and special town meeting warrants for submissions effective 4 to 2025 does that make sense yeah that was when the articles were due
from Okay just making sure all right that sounds good um any questions or concerns no so now I'll entertain a motion to u to close a special town meeting warrants first submissions effective 42
2025 motion made i'll second that all in favor i I think you can even do number five if you wanted to because that was done in executive session yeah okay so agenda item five discussion of vote whether to approve the purchase sales
agreement for assessor's parcel 239-038 on Bulock Road and to add the uh to the annual town meeting on 62205 for resident approval so this is a plot of land that we're hoping to utilize for some town
buildings down the road um any questions concerns on that no I mean we've gone over it and I think it's the right step forward and now we'll let the town's people decide absolutely it'll be on the town meeting for funding
we're still doing engineering and there is still um the the option to terminate the PNS if if the selectman feel like there's something on the land that doesn't lend itself to be to spend the money or to to build the buildings that we hope to build in the future yeah um
and just to be clear conservation environmental every concern trying to check off the box ahead of time so to your point is a great point that we we were given the right to terminate at any point so if this doesn't work out or doesn't pass on
meeting floor then uh we move on yep and this is a centrally located building middle of town or centrally located plot of land in the middle of town so I think that makes the most sense all right so with that I'll entertain a motion to um to approve the purchase
sales agreement for assessors parcel 239-038 on Bul Road and add it to the annual town meeting on 62 2022 for resident approval motion made second all in favor i I Unfortunately I didn't bring the audit
with me i just wanted um just to give it to you guys uh I'm sure you got it in your packet as well just so that you saw the audit i thought um Matt's going to be here tonight so uh just that there was no material weaknesses there were no concerns with
the audit the only concern that the auditors have is for us to try to get away from cash uh specifically at the transfer station and even within you know the town hall usually the people that come and pay with t uh cash are those people who are
they're going to continue to pay with cash right like they they don't want to pay with a credit card or pay with a card or a check so um we're cognitive of that i am looking for something to do differently at the transfer station to get away from cash we have Venmo i was
just about to say Venmo could be something we haven't implemented Venmo but we have implemented card machine up there now so you can play pay with a debit card or a cash card of sorts so that's uh has been implemented since last year so we will continue to work on
that but I you know um mostly wanted to you know recognize Matt and fortunately he's probably going to come at 6:00 but to say that you know we're lucky we haven't had any issues with our audit and like I said you see what you have the letter that came from the auditors um so that's always good to know yeah
absolutely yeah and I think at that point um you know it's really we're we're going to put a kink in some people right where that have always paid with cash to your point so I think we have to really try and identify if we can you know checks uh credit card debit card
Venmo um whatever it takes to be able to give these people every option beyond cash because for obvious reasons we probably shouldn't take cash over this it's just hard to get some of the um certain people just away from the cash right so but we like I said we're
cognitive of it we're working on it uh we've made some steps and we'll continue to work on it but that's really the only thing they identified as an issue within the town that's great like I said it was a little bit so you you just so the select board knows and to give that recognition too because
he's really the one that's on top of that amazing all right so we're trying to delay here we're waiting for sele um before we jump into the special annual and special town meeting warrants
uh for review we want to recall But I guess we can start reading them looking special meeting figure that makes sense all right so first
article see the town will vote to appropriate and or transfer from available funds sum of $175,000 for maintenance projects at the elementary school uh including engineering design construction and installation cost and any other incidental related costs and expenses
the projects include but are not limited to feasibility feasibility study engineering for boiler water filtration upgrades and or take any action relative there too so as you know we're responsible for the
building Freetown Elementary School building and um I've been working with Greg Goodwin and principal Ward and uh Jack Higgins to go over some of the pressing needs one of the the pressing needs is a new boiler so the first phase
of that is having a feasibility study and getting the engineering down for the boiler so um and then I and also we need to do some upgrades to the filtration system and there's other projects that are going to come up so I I worded this in a
way that we can be flexible in how we spend this money hopefully but we need to start investing back into that building and so so that was going to be my question and I'm glad you you said it because so say all these projects ends up costing us I don't know 125,000 we have 50,000 left well we know that that
roof was something we've talked about as being concerned that's going to be a much larger price tag we'll have this worded so that we don't need to go back to town meeting for Yeah that 50,000 can be spent towards a project at the school yeah which is only at the school but Yeah which is fine because to your point there's stuff that
needs to be done there so and just so you know that'll be coming out of free cash okay all right and then that reminds me about the elementary school the the the back door issue you know as I've been Cheryl brought it up to me showed me it yeah I
sent a I sent an email over to Greg Goodwin and the um Jack Higgins at the school for them to address that because we did pay for that to be handicap accessible so they should be working on that to get it repaired okay follow up with a more detailed information to your
email i know Mr goodman is not um in at the moment so I think Jack is gonna look into it and Okay great thank you all right next article so I think we're good we're Yeah us two no problems with
that one all right um next article reallocate funds for council on aging temporary office space to parking lot so this is to see if the town will amend and uh the vote taken under article 7 of the June 2023 special
town meeting which appropriates $300,000 for temporary office space the pod to reallocate uh and add month well add the month when we get it from Matt uh add sorry uh for the design engineering increase
size reconstruction of council on aging parking lot located at 227 Chase Road Easttown pass including any incental related costs so so this is um this is actually I'm going to clean up the wording a little
bit um this and I have not um talked to COA this is a an article that will reallocate some of the original funding that was put aside for them to build the addition and now we reallocated there was two articles for $550,000 each we
reallocated 300 of it for the temporary pod we've spent that money on the pod and the vestibule that was installed we need to do a complete revamp of the parking lot now try to make it more handicap accessible we need to make it larger um so I want to reallocate the
remaining amount of one of the 550,000 so say there was roughly 250,000 i know we used some of it for engineering so I'm going to say there was about $225,000 and that's what I've got to get from that i want to reallocate that amount of money for the parking lot project because we've got to dig up the
whole entire parking lot bring in some fill build fill the retaining wall and reassalt the parking lot so it's a substantial amount of work uh but I I don't want to take more tax funds i want to use the money that's already allocated for this the COA so I just have to correct some of the language in
that article but that's sort of a placeholder for it all right makes sense to me that makes sense to me and I will confirm with the COA that they're okay with that um reallocation all right all right next article here is funding the Freetown Elementary School
stabilization fund so this one is we have this these this is the special town meeting so there's some free cash um my goal is to spend the money in these articles from free cash and whatever is left over to put that in the stabilization fund i think
I'm I'm estimating at about uh $500,000 okay so that'll sit in the stabilization fund for the Freetown Elementary School right now we we're estimating the boilers to cost a million dollars and of course we know we've got the roof on top of it so we we set up stabilization fund
last year we've put the rents that we received from the school into that fund uh currently there's 125,000ish in that see was that about 60 grand a year it was 60 uh 75,000 now we get from rents okay and um so I'm going to try to put
some money away so that when we have to come up with these it won't be um such a a burden to the town you know we'll have some money set aside okay all right thank you welcome Suck Les you missed the first three articles nothing too uh crazy
[Music] though it's working out and we're we're starting off with the special town meeting thank you all right so the next one next article here is fund purchase of new salt shed at the highway barn this is a
to see if the town will vote and raise appropriate and our transfer from available funds $50,000 for design engineering and re uh related services to initiate construction of a new salt shed for the highway department this came from um the highway surveyor he he feels like he we need a new salt
shed because ours is too small and then um he can't get salt in the middle of the winter so he needs a larger shed in order to have um more capacity and we think $50,000 will cover that well that's for the um just for the engineering oh I was going to say I was like I was like well who's buying i want
one of these sheds i think he's he's estimating a million dollars for the soft shed okay initiate construction that's an important word there yeah this is just for the design and I actually put the $50,000 figure in because he didn't have one there so I think that should be enough to get you some engineering and design for a building
okay yeah i was expecting like 600,000 all right any questions or concerns there no no all right um next article fund park repairs to see if the town will vote to raise appropriate and or transfer from available funds a sum of $100,000 to
maintain and improve the parks throughout Freetown and or take any action relative there too so this is one we've been talking about to have some money available to work on improvements to the to the parks i I know um we're working on getting an earmark to put
electric at the town beach uh but there's other things that need to be done in throughout the throughout the town at the parks and this will give us the availability of funds to do those things as the year goes on and so we don't have to put more details around that we don't think right now um
I can probably beef it up a little bit just to say that it you know any um I I'll probably call it fun park repairs and improvements um I don't want it to be again too tight because then we can only spend it for what it's specifically for and if we you know we might decide
to redo the basketball courts um if we don't get electricity if we don't get an earmark from one of the representatives then we probably want to put electricity down to the town beach because then we can have events there we can expand on that park and use it more as it sits now without electricity it's difficult to do
anything down there um and we really want to try to start cleaning that up so that there's um you know you can utilize it it's a nice space it's beautiful over there it's a great resource that we have that we're not fully using so we're trying to trying to get it so that it can be used more um so so you know I don't quite
know yet until I get those EMRs in from the state reps what we're going to be able to do my only um obviously you know I'm all on board with this um my only question is is do we have to put something because so what I I you know we talked a little bit about in a couple
of meetings ago was uh feasibility right of of the the area right and looking at Long Pond and seeing what makes the most sense do we put wording in there so that we know you know if we have to do like a feasibility study or um you know just to make sure we lay the place out correctly
if there's some money that needs to be around that that we can pull from here okay i'll add something that says including but not limited to feasibility studies and construction i'll work on the wording so
that it's and that's not what I want to turn this $100,000 into i just want you know if we need to do something yeah I think I think that's a good place to start on both parks too we've talked about that all right moving on next article here fund purchase of lawnmowers so see if
the town will raise appropriate funds for $14,455.35 to purchase a new John Deere Z960M lawn mower for the highway department this just came from Chuck as you he needs it yep understood yeah any
questions or concerns no no they break all right this next one uh wordy one so this is lease for town hall annex so this is to see if the town will vote to raise appropriate or transfer from available funds a sum of um
$18,400 to enter into a lease uh with lease or leases with 69 South Main Street L um LLC to lease all our portion of the building located at 69 South Main Street Unit 4
um so formerly known as Patty's hair salon to be utilized as annex with town halls such leasing to be undertaken in accordance with provisions of general law chapter 30b section 16 upon such terms and conditions as the board of selectment determined uh to be the best interest of the town and to authorize the board of
selectment to enter into such agreement and execute such instruments as may be necessary to effectuate the um the purpose of this article and further to raise and appropriate the sum or transfer the available funds in the $18,400 for such lease or leases and
take any action relative there too so this is just the annex that we've currently been using yeah it's just to it's just to um get the town approval to lease the building we we used opera funding in the past so we haven't used
tax uh dollars to lease it so this is getting town approval to continue with that annex all right and it's a three-year term for that right uh yes i think that I mean you could you could 18,000 per year it's $18,000 it's
$18,000 it's 1,500 a month it'll go up $50 a year so that's why like the 18,400 okay and it'll go up $50 a year um a three-year term i mean we're you know we stop there yep all right all right the next article is for the
Freetown Elementary School um uh stabilization fund i think I duplicated that sounds get rid of that one the only difference was the funding which we'll do y All right so that's all for the special right so you guys are going to
vote to um approve those articles to go to town council for review and I'll make the um with the with with the changes that were suggested okay so with that I'll entertain a motion um to send the
special town meeting warrants with the edits that we've spoken about tonight uh to uh council for review motion made second all in favor i I are we going to do the annual now or should we It's 6:00 I think should we
start the uh It's up to you i mean we can we can do it after all right i want to give the um fincom a minute to you want to give Carlos to do the personnel section yeah Carlos that work you want just we'll take care of personnel and then we'll um then fin can
open up their meeting absolutely all right personnel board item agenda number eight discussion and vote where to approve the following appointments a Nancy Dery sered commission member effective 531 2025 through 612026 b Donna Ashley to Agricultural
Commission Farm owner employee effective 4 414 2025 through 6:30 2026 and lastly but not least C craig Cabraw to Scholarship Committee effective 4:14 2025 through 6:30
2025 um yeah these are pretty straightforward um uh pretty much their duties um and the only really new one is Craig going to the scholarship committee which is a great committee to have right giving away some uh some money some deserving students any comments questions concerns let's move forward
all right i entertain the motion to that being said I entertain the motion to approve uh item agenda number 8 8 8 A B and C and the folks appointed there too all right I'll make that motion i will second it all in favor i I
All right back to you Mr chairman all right thank you get the fin minute to come up yeah fin do you guys Do you folks want to come around here yeah five members do they have a quorum yes yeah oh great
the hot seat i know i'll copy i'm on this side of it [Laughter] we don't mess around we get you a name tag and everything so they know who you are did you get a new building um budget
when you walked in i I I just cleaned it up over there eventually you get one of these you can bite into it don't worry it's not made out of real gold is there nothing on [Music] 196 hazmat yeah there is i don't have
anything in there you can ask and they'll pick you up all right so for those at home uh it's 6 p.m so we're going to do a combined meeting with the uh the board of selectment and the and the finance committee to review
the 2026 budget um tonight we're'll be going over fire budget town uh town clerk animal control officer and building department will be on the hot seat uh so it is 6:00 so if you want to
kick off your meeting okay uh being 6:00 and having a quorum present I will call the finance committee meeting to order um real quick we
have we need to reorganize our board um so I have been chair of the finance committee i would like to remain chair um does anyone else have an interest the only interest we have is that you
remain chair all right can I have a motion please i would make that motion a second i'll second all in favor i opposed and I will abstain
all right i am chair vice chair currently is Carara um I motion that Cara remain vice chair i'll make that motion second
all in favor i I Okay and the only other one that we have to do is regional finance committee representative chris is interested and Carara is interested oh
god old fashion rock paper scissors here he comes yeah um two seconds why would you like to be on the I spent um a good deal of time the past year going to school committee meetings and have an interest in how um our
schools operate in the district because I have schools in the district and um noting knowing that we have some um some improvements that could be made there okay Cara um I grew up in town um I've forever besides a few years been a resident of Freetown including going
through the school district myself um I spent a number of years working at the district as well um and I have maybe not been present at every single meeting but I have watched every meeting uh the last few years um I do think that you know
our schools do carry the majority of of our tax liability for our residents um and I do think that um there's a lot of need with the schools um but I also think we need to dovetail with the needs of the town okay
um I'm actually not sure do I do motions do I do Yeah I think you would have to f have someone create a motion for one or the other why don't you just have him flip a coin is that your motion um it's not a bad
idea i think it's a good idea i think both they both seem to be would be great at that role so I know i know um I'm actually going to motion that we put this off till our next meeting so we can all think about
it sure okay all right why don't you appoint them both and have one go one time and no one the other cuz we can't we can't do that you said it's too bad you can only have one vote it's availability well you're going to have one vote they're going to
alternate mhm um so the minutes from 111224 2325 24 22425 and 4825 they've been distributed um are
there any discussion anything that needs to be adjusted i'll make a motion acceptment as written okay second second all in favor i I I
opposed abstain awesome we're done with our housekeeping all right great yep all right so we're going to start off uh the first budget it's 196 in our book it's D hazmat and I don't think I see anything
in our budget book for that yeah I think that's been gone right we It's just Okay so we we're going to skip over that one and next we'll be going over to 220 which is fire you're welcome thank you all right should we come up with a game plan actually before we start this
um every year I feel like we have this conversation what's the most effective way to do this um I think if we take a few minutes and and each everyone looks through it and
if we have any questions we can direct those to the chief if not I don't think this is worth talking about every line item on the budget no we'll be here forever so let's just take two minutes and uh and just look through this and is everyone comfortable with that
yeah chief actually the uh the additional gross overtime medical training is that compulsory from the state uh a a great deal of that is state requirement for the the paramedic reertifications and
the various uh we have the mandatory 24 hours uh required by SAR title 3 each employee so a a great deal of this mandated Bob um and some of it is
uh elective that we I mean is this isn't done in house this is done well a lot of it's done in house okay um it's not covered anywhere else as far as the gross overtime that's not covered
in the additional gross overtime 165,000 okay that the 165,000 is strictly uh backfill for time off run by me again it's for what the 165,000 that account is strictly to
backfill people that are off okay vacation time sick time okay so it's it's it's coverage that's that is back coverage okay all right okay uh and the medical training is just for the
firefighters that are training no that I don't know why it's worded like that been with that forever but that's all of our training okay okay if somebody goes to the fire academy for a class they're paid out of that if somebody's on duty and needs to go to the fire academy for
a class and I backfilled the cover so I have my three people there it's paid out of that so that's Oh okay if they're if we're teaching a CPR class and everybody's required to be there they're paid out of that um we just had a program
uh that we've been doing annually actually where my training lieutenant comes here and does a class for the dispatchers actually does two because they can't all be at the same class um so I would pay I pay him to teach the program right so that comes out of there
okay that's all training whether it's CPR advanced cardiac life support fire academy uh monthly drills that all the training is is in there so that pays the ones that are being trained and the ones that are covering for the ones that are
leaving to go gotcha so So bear with me what uh the this account the fire education/career incentive stipen is $120,000 is that concurrent with the
fire additional gross overtime or the fire additional gross overtime med training is are they are they why are they separate those are educational stipens they get um annually for their paramedic
reertifications um certifications for being firefighter 12 certified fire officer certified fire instructor certifications that's all contractual yeah it's all part of the CVA right all contractual um incentives and statements okay the
only the other thing that's in there um And I put it in there because they just negotiated uh a reimbursement for EMTs that go to paramedic school and I the last basic EMT that we
hired full-time will be finished with paramedic school sometime this fall so 6,000 of that is his monthly reimbursements for that program he should be certified by probably November
so we will reimburse him so they uh they have to be EMTTs all have to be certified correct they all have to be certified even you right mhm okay and that's part of their job description mhm
okay so I'm just I I'm just curious you got 120,000 then you got another 165,000 and that's just based I'm sorry 180,000 that's just for the certifications that's the to keep
everybody up to speed as far as medical training it's medical certifications it's their fire certifications it's all those um they get a stipen for the the EMS training officer gets a $500 annual
stipen uh the EM the grant writer gets a $500 stipen it's all stuff that's in the cont okay so that this is a yearly thing it has to be done every year everybody has to participate okay one quick question Chief
um are we are you taking in account in the training budget for any additional training certifications required for the upcoming retirements i know yourself and uh deputy chief are retiring and you probably have to get some other folks up to speed so what we have done or what we're doing currently
um and what we've always done in the past is we we're very conscious of a succession plan so uh right now I do you understand can I give a little there's a few new faces here do you understand how
our staffing and and how we work over there at the fire station not entirely okay so I we have three firefighter paramedic em and EMTs 24 hours a day seven days a week
there's four groups of three during the day Monday to Thursday the deputy chief works days he does primarily fire prevention inspections um he's reviewing plans it it's all the
fire prevention stuff he does and that's that's a lot of work um and then also Tuesday to Fridays I have a career lieutenant who's part of our succession plan we just He's been here for 20 years
he's moved uh let's see it was last July we hired one person full-time i put that person on the rotation and we moved the lieutenant to days
so we're teaching him all the internal things right the this budget mhm come in here and look at this this is how I do this um so it all of the internal stuff we're we're doing on a daily basis
um operationally same thing now as far as classes go unfortunately I I took the chief fire officer classes i don't know what was my my first fall as chief those
are competitive so they want to see you have a title of deputy chief or chief to be able to get into them they're very competitive so I actually had to be a chief before I could get into that there's like 30 seats in that and they only hold it once a year so he will have that opportunity once once he has the
gold badge and not the silver badge but um so there's there's not really there is elective money in there for fire academy programs i I'll give you an example um recently that we're familiar with critical incident stress management
um the Bristol County critical incident stress management team um most of the members are for lack of a better term I'll say I'm old they're getting old so uh my my father-in-law was one of the founding
fathers of that he's been retired for 18 years so I recently had two of our full-time members come and express interest in that it was a three-day seminar and they said "Chief we we'd like to go take this to be involved in this." And that that's a noble thing um
that's not an easy thing to to deal with so fortunately I I go and I look and say "Yeah I I I have some money left in in seminars we can pay for the room for you guys to go." and was able to compensate them for the hours they were actually in the class so that there is some elective
money in there now when that's gone the next guy that comes to me and says "Hey I want to I want to go take the fire officer program at the academy for 24 hours." So hey you can you're more than welcome to but I don't have the money this year if you want to wait till after July we'll put you on the top list for that so you're thinking the additional
um fire chief training would be we'd have to budget for for once once he's in the fire academyy's free yeah for for for the communities um in the Commonwealth and that was all I mean that was all on duty i I did the homework at night after hours so that
there's really no cost for for those type of things excellent thank you you bet so one I just want to say one thing so Matt and I have been working on this budget the budget is um put together we are we are able to fund it um with the
budgets that you have in front of you so just so you know that these are are fundable we've talked about sustainability of the budget that should I believe that that will be even though I'm projecting uh BP to be almost double next year i think that we will be okay with that as long as I pull back on the
capital which I have told all of the department heads for the last few years to get your capital needs met because we're going to get really tight and you're not going to be able to get them um so everybody is in a good shape this is the fire department is the one that is asking for new staff so there are two new firefighters in this budget so at
that um it is it is uh we are able to fund it and it is sustainable so I just want you to be aware of that that that's there but one of one of the I was reluctant you know when I'm trying to look at the big picture but one of the thoughts was if it's if something should
change drastically and it's not because we have two retirements coming up I would be able to not fill those positions moving forward without a big uh without having to lay somebody off or or fire somebody so I thought well I've got I've got some protection for the town in that moving forward because we
know we have two planned retirements so I just wanted to kind of preface that saying We should probably be at a similar place we're at we will be through attrition i I know that I mean our the opposite concern and the chief will talk to this is with the MBTA station and what we got going on in the call and and you can talk more about the
call volume because I know you're prepared to do that um for the need of these extra firefighters but as a budget when I'm projecting for the town and looking at things you know I'm always worried about sustainability we might be able to do it this year but what about next year i think um based on what I'm
projecting which is a $2 million increase to the school budgets we will still be okay uh sustainability you never know but through through some work um I think we're okay so I just wanted to kind of throw that out there so you all know that we're we're funded we can
fund this budget as it's presented and there isn't going to be any shortfall um just so you're you're looking at it with that eye as you look through these numbers from departments thanks yeah and I think we'll be able to sorry I think we'll be able to determine better at
least the start of the impact on um the MBTA to us and then it might mean that we only keep one firefighter or both or we might you know so I think that this is the right plan to get us where we need to be chief I was going to ask when
you do speak about personnel could you talk about how it ties into overtime and if there's any savings i will sure um okay so I just I just laid out the the the groundwork of what our current staffing looks like right so now um
those three people uh that are always there uh I'll give you an example a medical call comes in because uh 85 90% of what we do is is EMS right medical call comes in
two of them leave in the ambulance generally the officer in charge leaves in the pickup truck goes with them they start the they start the patient care they say "Okay yep we're all set Lieutenant." And the ambulance goes off to the hospital the lieutenant returns
to the station now we have somebody in the building majority of the time we have somebody in the building there's a paramedic that can get the next the ambulance on the air for the next call the so the the caveat to that
is occasionally we say I wish Katie was here cuz I have an interesting story for her but um occasionally Okay this is we got to have two people in the back of the truck for this if it's a cardiac arrest sometimes we need three people in the back of the truck we have to call
back out okay this is a serious call we need to take two paramedics and a driver i tone out i call back if the I call back and I get two make that
clear i tone out for two people to come in for coverage they go on the app on their phone they click available the dispatcher goes down through the list in their book says "Okay yeah the uh the next two people on the list is Bill and George." They announced on the radio
Bill and George has have ambulance coverage they come from home they pick the ambulance up they go get the pickup truck off the side of the road now they're covering the town for the next call until the ambulance clears okay next scenario they get to the call majority of the
time we transmit our EMS slip the trip sheet if you will electronically so they type it all on a on a laptop and as soon as it's done when they hit print it simultaneously sends it to to the ER via fax so the turnaround time at the ER
should be relatively quick so that truck's back in town back in service ready to provide the you know care for the next call if they use medication now they have to go to the pharmacy at the hospital which means they have to get
their paperwork done signed by the physician before they can leave the hospital so that creates a delay sometimes it's an hour so what will happen if they use the medication they'll call back to the lieutenant and say "Hey we're we're using medication on this call that we have to get replaced especially the
narcotics." And lieutenant will have the dispatch again they'll tone out to get one person to come in and cover so that that's the system that we've been using for the most part it works except
uh we've I've only been really tracking this since July 1st because it happens more and more and more often and I'm scratching my head going boy we need to we need to go back and go back to July and the lieutenant in the back of the room there has been
helping me and he sits and he counts through sheets and sheets of paper you cannot believe how often the second medical call comes in now while the first truck's working and 150 times we've had to we've had to have the
second truck go out on the road while the first truck's tied up and it I I can't explain it it's a phenomenon it just it doesn't make any sense but it keeps happening it happened
uh it happened Thursday and that was the Katie sent me the uh the update from the Kath lab at Charlton we had we had the first truck it was a shift change like 10 minutes of 8 so it worked out perfectly but the first crew went out to
East Freetown for a call within I don't know they weren't there yet it was three or four minutes we had a heart attack come in in a zone and it was it was serious um and I I get a followup from uh Charlton for all the cardiac calls i
get follow-ups from St luke's for all the trauma calls they they give you these follow-ups just so your crews can know hey yeah this is this is how this went and uh that individual got a very positive outcome because of how quickly he made it to the the Kath lab um and
there was there was kudos to the crew and and all of that in the in the letter which was very nice but um so th that that was fortunate if it had been 10:00 in the morning and the call's in
Heaven Heights on Long Pond and heart attack comes Mhm and and it's in the Sonet now if the deputy's in the building or I'm in the building obviously we're going to get in the ambulance we're going to take the ambulance and we're going to go get started but so that's that's where we're at
that's so that's what's been happening it's an interesting trend though yeah it it is and and it's not unique to Freetown you know I I ask around and and Lakeville's the same way and Berkeley's the same way they you can have a lull for four or five hours and then the first call comes in and and the second
one comes in it just it's crazy how that works um so some of uh some of you were here in 2023 when when I made this my first talk on staffing and budgets and does
everybody have the uh recent staffing study that I did that has all the uh similar size communities i don't know if that I don't know if I had that when I gave the original
packet this was this was compiled by uh O'Brien in uh Lakeville and it did this January 1st at 25 i don't think I had I don't think I had the results yet Deb but I can I can I don't
think I have yet it's got uh So so what what I did is they he got replies from just about every department in the state um so I went through and and kind of pulled out
combination on call and full-time fire departments and I tried to focus on the departments that do fire and DMS just where we're kind of comparable and there's uh it's broken down by population and how many full-time people
they have per group and I won't I won't read the whole thing to you i I in fact I'll copy this and I'll I'll email it to you okay and I'll forward it um I'll cut halfway down the list here west Bridgewwater has a population of 8,000
people they have five people on a group the Hasset has 8,300 population four people on a group georgetown 8,500 population five people on a group air is the same westminster has 8,600 four people
on a group deb's uh favorite Southboro 10,400 uh population they have five people per group um so it so I I think what happened and I know I look at my budget
and and I've been here for I don't know 41 years but I look at my budget and I go wow that's that's a big number and then Debbie and I have conversations about well the increases since 2021 or
2022 and I've scratched my head i go "Wow she's right." Yeah how come i get back and I sit down and I look and in 2000 we built the central fire station we hired three pe three additional people full-time and we had two people
at the station 24 hours a day fast forward to 2017 that was the next time we added an additional person we added one person on the daytime that was the deputy's position for dates that was the fire prevention slot that Gary had
established in 2019 we were able to get two people on a safe a federal safer grant two daytime 40hour people those didn't come
into we weren't paying the full cost of those people until 2022 and then since then I've been progressively trying to get to four rather than I I I know uh we we agreed
when we first talked about this and I and I came with all my statistics that we couldn't we can't chew this all off in one big lump and hire six people at a time we needed to we need to incrementally increase this so that's that's what I've been trying to do i I know my budget's grown a lot
and I I I sympathize with that because I know I I live here as well i I've been here when we all fought over the same dollar on Tommy floor i I get it but on the other hand I have to I have to at least
present to you what what we're dealing with on the fire side and the the trends that we're seeing and you have like the the the training money right you have a really really talented group of individuals
over there you have probably some of the best paramedic not probably you have the best paramedics in the region you have some of the best trained firefighters in the region and there's a reason for that there's a reason people want to come here and work for us and that's worth something um I'll
talk to the I mean the the train thing I think that's that is what it is it's been Are you seeing any additionals yet with the train or additional calls uh we I haven't seen it yet i mean
naturally we see on social media there's been a close call with school buses and there's a lot of complaining and um I did I attended three different uh MBTA CIOL safety incident evacuation
exercises um and with a simulated train accident they have somewhere around 100 people on the train that need to be evacuated v various levels of injury from death to uh wheel wheelchair bound individuals
um to walking wounded the first one I went to I went strictly as an observer and I it was in Brainree and I scratched my head i went holy cow we had not prepared for this the sec I so I came back and with the help of
some of my associates at work um we sat down we started developing SOPs and getting a game plan together and then the second exercise was here in in Freetown it was hosted
in the Soneta um and they there was discussions on what my role was going to be there and at the end I decided I had to be the incident commander on that i couldn't I couldn't with a clear conscience put one of my
um one of my officers I couldn't thrust him into that position so I took the incident commander role on that and I learned even more i I learned that we had a pretty good a pretty good handle on a lot of things and there was some things that were shortfalls for and so we went
back more homework more SOP changes more equipment needs we need to we need to figure this out okay because I I would go poll other the training they're like "Oh yeah we're not having any issues with
MBTA i mean we have suicides but you know a couple of those a year and people jump on the tracks to commit suicide now like okay you don't have any problem with grain crossings and oh we don't have any oh so so it's not that poll right nobody
has we have 11 plus say we have a lot we have 11 plus the one at Brighton saw mill that's not really public but it's still across me I'm like oh so then I'm trying to get SOPs and it's it's just it was nobody's in the situ situation that we're in the third
exercise I attended they said "Okay you've done enough of that you're going to be an evaluator." So that was in the city of effort and I I served as an evaluator i came away with a little more information so at this point we've bought the equipment some of it we've got from the MBTA we have our plans all
in place our people are trained we're ready um I think we're going to re rely heavily on mutual aid that the county chiefs have a um a pretty aggressive
stance on this as well we have task force that we we've put together um so there's there's if it's the big and bad one we're going to have help coming from a lot lot of different places around um so again we haven't had
the we haven't had the accidents at the grade crosses we haven't had those things yet it's a matter of time it's going to happen i don't know how often it's going to happen i think the bigger impact is and I've checked a couple of times uh when I'm in the neighborhood of
South Main Street right now there's eight 10 cars in the parking lot down there on on a given day i mean there was a lot on the first day but it's not being used quite to its potential yet but I think
as people figure it out they okay well I can go to Far River and there's no place to park or I can just go up the road to Freetown you're you're going to have that impact of the housing even if it's 3A or not that you're going to have a housing impact you're going to have the
traffic impact of the people running into D and D in the morning or gas for the car or the last minute stop at the convenience store for their snack for the ride you're going to have that and lost it
oh the wrership on the train apparently from what I've gathered sooner or later you're going to have a homeless encampment it's it's like everybody with a train station has an a homeless encampment and with that comes those people are
homeless they don't have transportation the police end up dealing with the the law enforcement aspect of it but EMS ends up with they don't have healthcare so all that every they want to go to the emergency room for everything and so
that's that's going to be impactful um and and again I haven't it's been a month I don't know almost a month and we haven't we haven't seen those yet um but you you look around and I don't know if
it's because it's focused on now that we have the South Coast Rail running but it seems like there's incidents all over the place tington had a couple they just had a train crash in Canton it's like you didn't hear about any of this two months ago but um I don't know if that's just
because it's on the radar now but um so that's that's where we are with that i anticipate that that is going to uh impact us greater in the future so far that's been okay
um I I will say when you talk to the the about the grade crossings there's the the the trips are a little more frequent than what I anticipated what we were told in the beginning yeah 70 minutes 70 minutes or
so really 68 depending on where you live that that is that weekdays or weekends scholars weekdays all the way till 1:40 in the morning is the last train that goes by wow great it's fantastic right so I mean just with that ungodly 11 grade crossings I mean that I
don't know it's 300 times a day that the trains crossing the street in Freetown it's like absurd when I when I go to meetings and people talk about oh the MBTA South Coast and they oh yeah well we got those two grade crossings i'm like I have 11
what yeah so it sounds like you did a great job getting your team ready for it though i've taken it seriously because it scared me yep mhm that scared me and and I I mean I don't I feel like we've done all we can do now now it's wait and see and I'm not
going to say the first incident we say "Oh jeez we weren't ready for that we didn't calculate that." But I I think I I think we're I think we're prepared for that other than as things happen it it's going to get busier can um may I ask um were there any capital
requests yes uh in relation to the MBTA yes they're all there's none this year okay i had no capital request this year u discussed earlier we're we have a uh the new squad for the the duty officer is just about ready to be delivered i
dropped the radios off Friday for that that was two years ago uh capital and we have an ambulance that's pending that's two years away but that's we did have capital for some extrication equipment some airbags that were 40 years old and outdated and whatn not but that's all been we haven't we
don't have deliberate of it all yet but sure that's all been it's all paid that's all been but yeah last year there was a couple of things you came in for talking about where you know if it happens at a grade crossing it doesn't stay at a grade crossing it it goes you know half a
island of the woods so they were looking at different equipment for it at that point so So the I mean basically with the access for all of that is the UTV side by sides and we we have SOPs for that and um that's all been training and and
mutual aid agreements and to get multiple of them here and it's been uh it's been quite an undertaking but it's been interesting it's been interesting um one thing that
uh I I wanted to touch on and I I don't know that the the board's probably aware i'm not sure that the FinCom is but our community programs um I I have a little bit of extra money
i added in I actually doubled our um other supplies line from $2,000 to $4,000 and previously that was bottled water and those type of things just in other um our community
programs range from uh the the safe program we do in the schools during fire prevention week we have a senior safe program uh where we go out and we do um smoke and carbon monoxide detectors the the blue address signs uh we just
started a new one with a a joint program with the Council on Aging where we're um we'll go out and we'll do a safety inspection of the the residents for the seniors and we also provide them with a
uh a lock box with a house key on it so in the event that there's there's an emergency call we can uh use our code to get in that box and open their door if they can't get to the door um this is all for in in the past this has all been
supported by grant money and donations um the firefighters association has been very very supportive of this program uh especially in the last year we probably spent $2,500 worth of the fire association's
um donation money when they do their fundraisers at Fourth of July and whatnot i mean a a combination carbon and CO detector now is over $50 you know so if you go into someone's house and they need three or four of them depending on the the layout of the house that all adds up so the problem is the
the grant money has not the grant money has not increased the grant the the the demand for the programs and the the cost of all of these things has increased so I'm trying to help supplement that a
little bit um I I had one of our coordinators uh just give me a rough idea of uh how many hours we spend with that and outside of the guys that are on duty because if we need to go put smoke
detectors up in the middle of the day the the duty guy will will run out with his step water and his wall drilling um when we do the fire prevention stuff at the school the the the duty crew goes but we also have offduty help because
have to come in and do that because it's just they're in five or six classrooms there's three people there then we have a call and another call so it just so some of it that we are compensating the the personnel for um they there is a lot of stuff that they do on their own and
volunteer work but there's a couple hundred hours of uh of work that's outside of the on duty stuff annually that we're we're doing and again we we need to we need to compensate our people for for a lot of
that um so that's some of that is in that um that other line the supplies other just to help out and and I I'm sure the fire association will
continue to help out with the donations and the fundraisers and that's that's why they do it right they're not doing it to take themselves to a baseball game it's it all goes back into the community at some point whether they're buying equipment or or whatever but that's that's something we do and it's become very popular and it's definitely a good
thing that the senior the senior programs are are really great because it's just to help keep them safe because they're not they're not going to go up and change a battery when the thing beeps they're going to have somebody take it down and it's going to go in a
drawer and Yeah so we're it it's something that we we actually enjoy doing it but it it's necessary and it's it's a good thing all right so uh any other questions about the chief's budget just I got a I got one for you oh All right so I'm
going to preface this by saying I my my question I hope it never comes to fruition and then I'm going to ask probably every department this question earlier we talked about sustainability right uh we also hear things on the news uh from the state trying to increase taxes from the federal government
reducing money coming into the school systems to different programs in town it could be a scenario that we come back out to you tomorrow the next day next year and say "Hey we can't afford this." Right that's a real that's a real
scenario we haven't discussed that but it's something that might come up um you're a man that likes to plan all right i I've working with you over the years i know you do you have your SOPs if the town would to come to you say "Hey we got to do across the board cuts at every
department." How would you how would you go about that i know it's a toughest question put you on the spot but it's a real world scenario callos as I guess as well as I know you the first question I'd say which emergencies don't
you want me to go to no I I I wouldn't have an answer for you no I I again I'm not sure um yeah I I guess I'd have to I'd have to sit down and and look at that and say "Okay what are what are the
things what are the things that aren't mandated that we can get by without we can't we we have to do the calls." Right right we have to do the calls we have to meet the mandatory training requirements whether some of the elective things we
could cut back on i I I guess that's a it would break my heart to do that because that's that's a perk of of being here right um you can't you can't train enough for a job that can kill you right that's why I preface it by saying want
to happen i mean it's it's like all all those all those little things add up to make that big number right that that the medical supply number keeps we have to keep creeping up but every year they hit us with something new now now we have to have a and it's not a lot of money to come on
now we have to have a lab license to check blood sugars required by OEMs what they they they come they they come and and do the ambulance inspection and he takes the B the cardiac monitor battery that's like 500 bucks to replace
it and it's it's gone it goes on a high-tech charger that tests it every annually and oh it tests it every time you charge it it tests it oh yeah it still tests good and the guy says "Oh no this is over five years old it's expired you have to replace it." But wait there's nothing wrong with it yeah but it's over 5 years old can't be on your
ambulance so all all these things are just like technology vehicle repairs i'm I'm going to be I'm going to be back for a transfer again i'm o I'm more than double what my vehicle repair line is
right now i'm $22,000 over on my vehicle repairs and I I can't You guys are busy hot right the the call pay line that I for for the call back i'm I'm in the hole on that right now and we haven't I
can't remember the last time we were in the negative on call pay but we had a busy brush fire season last fall we had a busy brush fire season this spring we got 150 second medical calls it's just busy it's busy and and I I I know exactly
what you asked me and I I guess if that time comes we'll have to figure it out and we will figure it out yeah no figure it out and that's the answer we'll figure it out it's just something to keep in the back of our heads is we don't know either right sometimes we will get some information that we'll have to share with the community and it might change a few things yep so things
to keep an eye on so your thought is to kind of stack rank anything that's not a bare necessity to to be be able to make those decisions if it were to come to that yeah fortunately yes it's you know we have a lot of great things going for us and like we discussed earlier we can sustain it this year and but there's always an uncertainty that comes up
especially as you hear things and I rather be prepared for the worst and and you know and pray for the best but at the same time like you I'm uh I like to have it down on paper and he's having a conversation keeps us prepared right so um again it was I'm I'm prefacing again
i'm hope it never comes to fruition i'm probably going to ask every department that starts thinking about it in the event that we may have to have that serious conversation someday i think it's tough to to come up with an answer to that when you don't know what it is what does it mean percentage-wise dollar-wise that you need do you need
him to cut back $10,000 it's a lot easier than you know So guys so we're 45 minutes in on the first line item so Bob Bob you want to go i know you've been waiting for a while so then we'll just keep it moving after that i only have one question okay how much money did the fire department put back into the
coffers of the town i have that number Bob cuz I knew you were going to ask me okay total for FY24 I have 625733
625,733 and the additional money from the uh Medicare cost reporting is 114,356 i don't believe we've got that money yet but it's it's been approved and allocated i don't I don't think they send us that in June till like June uh
so the total would be 74089 it's a It's a good thing we keep track of the fact that the fire department does turn back that money into the temple office absolutely it's a substantial amount of money that's coming back to us absolutely absolutely all right great so so move on to the one
final question you said earlier that you didn't have a capital request but I do see one at the end related to engine 3 so you wanted to refurbish engine three i I again that hasn't been submitted i I talked to Debbie about that i need to get some quotes on that and to to look
at that that truck is it's a 13 is 12 years old it's life expectancy should be 25 years and it's been riddled with problems um so I I've talked to uh the dealer i've talked to them some
other uh manufacturers and some diesel truck people and the biggest problem is the powertrain and that was a Max Force engine and I should have been it should have inspected the Cumins engine so there's there's been some talk I mean to replace that engine today is a million bucks
we can probably refurbish it for 250 to 300,000 with a new engine go through the drive line a paint job on it make it look like it's new and get another 15 years out of it versus Do we know if a new engine will actually fit in that thing oh yeah
oh yeah that that I've I've done the prelim i don't have the I don't have the hard numbers yet is probably something that I'll I'll get all those quotes together and come back in the fall and look forward okay all right so we don't need to we don't need to worry about at the moment it's running well you know I just wonder like okay you do that and
then like what parts aren't being replaced and at what point the other the other difficult to get those about that um that refurb is they they can do that in like six months takes you three years to get a new fire truck right now right so that's that's another thing too
right that that'll yeah that'll be something for the fall okay so the next next line item is 291 civil defense looks like it's flat the only only thing is that two and a half% cola for the Saturday okay any questions on that one
all right perfect so now we'll move uh to communications which is 215 you going to do communications uh no usually the uh the police chief we'll do that i'll come back to that all right thank you very much chief appreciate it all right you're on the hot seat thank you
yep 161 161 for town clerk 161 thank you uh 161 [Applause] i just drooled thank you Cheryl all right let's do the same thing let's just take a quick look
through see and then so I have three budgets 161 162 and 163 yeah we'll start off with 161 does that make sense and in order or do you want to start somewhere else whatever pleases the board but I think the other two will probably be easier and quicker because
there's reductions on those two okay i don't want to speak for you but you may have questions on 161 if any do I not have reductions on 162 and 163 162 is election it was in my mind no I am i'm back
did you find it yeah okay [Applause] yeah I think we should all we just look through all of them real quick right 161 162 163 and ask any questions about [Applause] Thank
you 161 162 16 yeah decreases okay i mean what's to look at in elections not much yeah well and it's it's good right salaries well there was a savings of
$23,686 on the election 162 budget yeah the savings of $2,679 on registars ask because I took on some of that work so that's why I was saying maybe 161 might be the only you may have a question or not i don't really have any questions to be play honest uh everything seems pretty
flat or reduction obviously and you're right those 162 163 are significantly reduced so I'm not sure if anyone else has any questions no questions just a comment i like the way you laid it out it's really nice the personnel part where you can just kind of see each
person and how much they make and the diff just makes it really easy for us to read thank you i appreciate that [Applause] could you comment on the uh town clerk assistant gross overtime being reduced um so the
assistant So the assistant in the office um also takes on additional duties with me when it comes to elections but they're paid out of the town clerk budget so whenever the um election budget reduces then obviously any potential overtime may get reduced okay
thank you so you're welcome so we we were requested to level fund so I think I've I've gone below that um without sacrificing level services and just providing the level services if not above and
beyond for our town residents at minimal cost we just use that no I I'll be honest with you Cheryl i was going to ask you the same question I was going to ask the chief you know if we have to start thinking about cutting things and I looked at yours I'm going you've done a really good job of keeping things low
right um there's always we can always chop chop chop but that's not what we're here for right we're here to kind of look at it and see where you need and what you what you need versus what you want and you've done a great job i'll give you that we've reduced it if I could possibly answer that question um
you know no one can tell what the future holds and what we would be able or have to cut um with our department it with my department it works a little different so I have 451 mass general laws and statutes that are specific to the town
clerk and or elections um so it's all statutoily required so it would be very difficult you know in worst case scenario what do we do we reduce trainings which could potentially put us
in liability so that we're not up to date with the current um laws and education from the state um or we close our window when we're doing everything online and via phone and we all know what happens with that we've all experienced in that through COVID um so
this as an elected official if you need us to sacrifice us taking the training every year uh to reduce any funding from your end please let us know i'm sure we can get more people involved as far as we'll just skip it for a year yeah pull it together that's what we do just in
case the sacrifices we make is together absolutely yeah a lot of this has gone down because we didn't have as many elections right well the election budget goes down because that's you know FY26 we've only got the one annual town election um and
then FY27 will have two because it'll catch the March primary and then it'll catch the April election so we're we're we'll be reducing or be level funded for the next two fiscal years budgets reflect how many elections there are down based on that so that's um
specifically the elections budget um and then obviously it'll affect the town clerk budget but mostly everything but town clerk is the elections and the registers but that goes down because of that correct all right any questions any other questions
bob recommended so that's my you know I sit with everybody you know I sit with every department head and go through their budget me and uh me and uh Margaret the chair of the fincom and we go through with that one of the things is you know all the department heads have come in and asked for substantial increases in
their pay and you know based on what's going on and surrounding towns and what other people are making they have come up with their proposals and I of course working with um both the personnel chair and fin chair we kind of come up with a
baseline number and this one exceeded that number and that's why I I write what I recommend but Cheryl being an elected official she has the right to ask for what she wants at town meeting 4 um for a salary so this one was 6.75%
increase joe yep it's 6.75% but um I also wanted to point out that um as usual I come prepared with my with my hard facts and I did provide um Margaret and Deb with the salary study for the area surrounding towns um it's
in here so you know okay it's in there okay so you can see it's pretty much self-explanatory so overall for the town clerk budget it's an increase of um $1,500 for the year$,54679 for the overall budget um but I did discuss with them you
know compared to the surrounding towns um and what certifications that the surrounding towns hold the um years that they've been elected or most of them are pretty new 22 23 um I have three that were elected in 2024 that are making
substantially more um than what I'm making i just I wanted to stress the value that I bring and um and the and the continued effort to serve the town and not just town officials but this the residents of
Freetown so I do that is included in your budget uh packet if you wanted to take a look at that um I also wanted to point out that um um I'm not eligible for or I don't have the opportunity to take advantage of the longevity stipend
um and I've been with the town for 12 years um and I have not ever taken the town's health insurance which is also a huge savings for the town um and so if I'm looking this right Charles the average is 81,620
yes and 23 cents for all for these comp yeah for the 13 yep and those are all surrounding towns all elected officials yep okay so um my request would be below that actually would be 79 um76627
okay so in your comparisons town to town are you comparing strictly apples to apples the towns all have the same basic population so the requirements for the town are all exactly the same when you say apples to
apples every town is different um I I surveyed the surrounding towns that we normally compare ourselves to in other avenues um I can tell you based on population um we've got Lakeville
um Avon um Aushnit West Bridgewater those are all pretty close in regards to population and um voter counts um Somerset and Swansea obviously they're elected
officials their towns but they have a little bit more um of a increased population so I don't think anything's apples for apples i like to compare myself to um or compare our town to Denhovith because I think we are very very similar in
regards to population in regards to a combined school district um vote count responsibilities um I can tell you with Dyton she was elected in 2022 um she holds no certifications i hold um
an international um certification as well i was um just passed my state certification in March um and I'm currently working on my master's certification and she is um approximately $2,000 more than I am so if you want a true comparison one for
one I would um suggest looking at Ditan Rahobit that's the that's the most the closest to us there's a lot of different variables but each town is different though i mean each town is independent correct is each Does each town have an elected town
clerk so there's 351 communities in the state of Massachusetts um some towns are elected some towns are appointed here in your spreadsheet that I provided those are all um similar communities near us that are all elected so on that basis yes comparing apples to
apples I figured appointed it's a little different you have um uh you know you have the ability to jump from town to town i didn't think it was right to include those and normally with appointed town clerks they're fighting for contracts so those tend to be a lot
higher salaries because you have the opportunity to jump from town to I would assume comes with more responsibilities too um we all have the same responsibilities there's 451 general laws that we're all um required to do and and to um that
we're held accountable for so some towns may have um you know like a web master or something like that but pretty much we're all the same duties with an appointed town clerk um you know it's contract negotiations and they're going
to go where it's best feasible for them i think as an elected town clerk your um your heart is in the community that you serve because you live there again your heart is in the community that you
serve because you live there so you have a little bit more um I don't want to say a little bit more at stake but you you're part of the community you lived in the community you're elected you're there to serve the people so I think you have a little bit more vested as an elected town clerk but
that's just my personal opinion i think you have a lot invested especially if you're living in a computer this happens with all municipal employees and that's why a lot of times well I wouldn't say most
sometimes their police and their fire don't live in the same town but there's also other reasons for that too it used to be in the old days they all live together all in the same town
any other questions for Cheryl my only other question is related to equipment and technologies do you have any current or future needs no we've done pretty good the past couple of years since I've been on board since um April of 2021 um getting electronic um
voter check-in at at the polls we're doing um we've invested a lot in software programs to provide efficient and and great services for our town's people um we've invested in new election tabulators i have no capital requests um
currently I'm in the middle of um ordering new voting booths but that's all paid for with a reimbursement um that we've been holding on to and saving so we're we're we're in as far as my departments go we're we're pretty good for the
foreseeable future thanks all right thank you good thank you Charles good job thank you Charles thanks all right um so the AC officer is not here but we can take a quick look at the budget that makes sense uh just so
we can be you know prepared for the next time t92 i mean I can put it on the next meeting if Yeah maybe we'll just put on the next meeting that makes more sense yes look at it between now and then and now should we do building
oh come on down come on down all right so starting off with 192 192 should have gotten a new one today i don't know slipped it in your book
i saw her doing something when I was talking did you get it good i didn't pass that out but you can i have yeah yeah i didn't have that Carl oh yeah do I have 192 yeah you should have 192 okay
he took the time to print that out thank you sir thank you sir thank you somewhere this is 192 but does it say 192 am I crazy it does this is a big budget isn't it all right thank you good evening
let's take a minute and go through 192 and then uh ask any questions we have this is a long one carl like like how you preference bigger building bigger building yes because we are growing yeah well it's cost more
money when we have a bigger building things you know Are we looking at all his budgets at once i just looked at 192 i didn't get to 24 so but we can do that 192 is your probably your most comprehensive one
yeah there's no shortage of line items for you probably reading and 192 we need a clerk to put this thing together yeah there's not much weather going on carl while they're perusing through all these I have a quick question on you so
the heating right um is that is that the new new estimated budget for the heating for the town hall because the new windows and everything else it went from that going to decrease yeah so nice little savings there 87 to 2,900 i'll take that so just wanted to
highlight that the town custodial part-time salary and wages is showing a big increase yes you are um right uh right on the first page third line item down so the uh that amount they proposed for my salary for the year if approved it still make me the lowest paid
building commission in the area um which you know it is what it is uh I also do facilities and I think we we experienced the bleeding is over i think our budget was bleeding this off this building was bleeding it was like a I assume into a dyke you put your finger in it you know
so we're beyond that now we're at where we created some policies some preventive maintenance uh programs so now we're going to hopefully see some of that savings i think already this year we're seeing that a reduction in expenses for maintaining this building the floors are on right now first time it's been cleaned in 5 years with a professional
steam cleaning company come in and do these things so we're at that point now we're not we're not fixing things we're trying to ma manage and maintain them now so that's a good thing oh absolutely and the hard work you've done has definitely been appreciated yeah i think we've all noticed it so I just want to
let you It's about liking the people you work with and liking the town you live in and I certainly do both absolutely definitely a major difference um we took that over we took that on I should say right plan in place plan of action you might remember we were here last year asking for an additional $50,000 for
this building cuz we just could had to get a grasp on it so we're beyond that point now we hope to start saving money and then uh we're comfortable in here now it's we just found this morning they found a leak a pinhole leak in the uh refrigerant system we're looking for two years it's how difficult these things
are so we switched companies so now we had better luck so it takes time we're getting there finally yeah jared I think you're talking about the part-time position we have so right now and I don't want to jump on Carl but we we had that in the budget we haven't
hired a part-time person but we're getting to that point we're sort of talking about it so this would budget a part-time person at 19 hours um at the lowest rate that we have in the in the in the union so it's sort of
um there we as a placeholder we haven't we've talked about it we've been back and forth and we not sure what but at some point we may need to do that because we're increasing the size of our buildings right every building is getting bigger well we only have one maintenance person other than you know
Kyle oversees the facilities but we have one maintenance person who is the line above there and there's you know it's it's working fine but when he's on vacation or God forbid he got sick so that's sort of a placeholder that we haven't utilized but we've been putting
it in there every year um and this year uh I just made it comparable with the union and 19 hours per week okay perfect yeah no I was just curious because it seemed like we' done it a couple of years showed no money pulled from it and then showed a big increase for this year
now that you said that it makes perfect sense and so excuse me other than the fire station what buildings are getting bigger the COA we added on the the pod to the COA and we built a vest so the maintenance
for the COA they don't have a separate budget for that there's no line item for that the like the cleaning products and the repairs and stuff are in this budget that you're looking at right now we have one maintenance and I'll let you speak but we have one maintenance person that
does is responsible for doing all of the maintenance and cleaning on all of the buildings and there's a lot more activity at the COA now so there's a lot more demand there like I said I'll let you I don't want to step so we put different programs together so preventive maintenance going
to save us money down the road little things that really have to get done point of contact you want to make sure that these things get clean mirrors get clean so we have come up with a with a uh working with each each department head co we came up with a plan i think it's going to work better again we're just asking my staff to do more with a little less and we're going to we're
trying to hold that line at some point as dad mentioned we can't there's just no more hours in the day to do that but we're trying to hold that money that's why it's in there now if we don't need it fine but at some point we might have to tap into it and the annex was something else that he made have you looked into the point where it might be
advantageous to uh outsource some of this cleaning i mean you get people recommending steam trucks and so we we do that now with this building here we are we pay I think uh $30,000 a year to have a person do a few hours here just
here we do that whatever we can do inhouse we try to do without outsourcing the work out we try to keep it in house but we do have someone outsourced from here but for but I think nine to 20 hours of a week okay what and what does he do the rest of the time
so he would do the the the heavier deeper cleaning uh you got gyms you got uh cafeterias um dispatch this room here he'll do the the the weekly and but the daily still need my guy to come in here and and help help them clean things up
snow removal grass removal u trimming and things like that it all takes time we're going to the season now we have to you look around the building we got grass to trim highway department does with their mowers but for them to get off it it would takes time so my guy comes in trims and and cleans the
exterior of the building do you and your staff have a have a set schedule of what buildings you visit when during the week and can you We do so we just finished that with this with the director from COA um we know she has certain programming during the day so we get in there before they get to use it
monday Wednesday and Friday we do this the a days we're at town hall so we have all we have the annex to take care of transfer station um libraries and these are old buildings they're old buildings so they need a lot of upkeep and and caring for
can you speak to some of the challenges you have due to the age of the buildings yeah everything i mean cold cold in the winter heat in the summer we we've taken steps to remediate some of those problems but we've got a long way to go the town hall we talked in Deb about the cladding on it it needs to need some
attention the roof's okay but the cladding it just it was never done it was just something that wasn't kept up so now it's costing us more money and more time to make sure it's done uh we got a schoolhouse next door we just did a feasibility study structurally how it is so we got that money we know what we need to do to make it viable again but
it all costs money and it takes time thank you actually I have a question about that i I know there's been some work going on that old school do we have a plan of what we're doing with that long term that building uh I think we do now because we have a study from the structural engineer as to what we can
and can't do okay and we found out second floor and first floor two different structural elements to it so we're pretty much was trying to figure out how best to utilize that space interesting yeah at one point like there was a conversation of I mean connecting it to the town hall x space i mean we
definitely we need as much space as we can get and if we have a building right there especially a beautiful historic building that we can utilize we'd love to but you know right now it's not in any shape to be utilized so and then it was it was that was uh the caveat of parking right we deal with parking
issues so we have more employees at town hall than we have parking spaces and then we have visitors and we have visitors and everything else so that was part of the other issue but we you know this is stuff that we there was a study done a while ago about connecting the two buildings going into the annex has
helped quite a bit as you're aware of people have accessibility to inspectional services having parking that that's big that it frees up parking spaces at town hall which people also appreciate yeah and for reference that study although a couple years old it was in the millions of dollars to connect
both buildings and bring the other building up to ADA code historical code and everything else and you got zero parking as a benefit there was zero additional parking because we don't own the land around it so um we'll do something with it you know
what it is what it looks like that's to that's that's for the future for right now making sure it doesn't fall down is our main concern right so it's been a it's been an interesting year for us we knocked down buildings we brought buildings up so we we've done these things and uh and the town is I think we're better town for it we uh I get
good comments from people the COA improvement and this all starts with the board and the leadership in town without your approval nothing gets done so the COA is what I like the most you can see people enjoying themselves and going like this saying thank you and that's a big reflection on the town for what we're providing for our seniors that's
huge for me i made that clear the first day I got here this is something just not acceptable the way it was before we need better we can do better and we have and that's a a good reflection on the town i think you What uh have how far have we gotten looking into
what to do with the old police station by the way I'll let Debbie answer that old police station is you know home to the food pantry and that's pretty much that building is really not viable i think we had a feasibility study on it
because of the vermiculite that's in the walls it's considered hot asbestous so if we were to demolish that building it would be extremely expensive it's not really usable in its condition for office space for us uh for the town to
use so I think it's use it's in its best use right now to be used as a food pantry a couple days a week i think that's the best use for it right now and I think that the uh town people you really utilize that pantry it's okay for food but not for people
that's the rub right that's we we can joke about it but you're you're right it is a almost like a lapable situation because the study does say the vermiculate isn't suitable for offices and and and to be able to move it around and create new offices but it's suitable
enough for the storage of food of the kind of food that they do have so we're with you we kind of chuckled that out as well going "Wait a minute you can put food there but you can't put people working there." People are permanent food's temporary so it's uh we're with you on that one but like Debbie says
right now it's the best use for is to provide as a regional food pantry to the to I think I think the numbers were 280 it was 160 roughly families per week if I remember correctly what they came to us and said that are within town that
are visiting weekly so um it's really a no-brainer to keep there right you have 106 that's a it's not uh one or two people within town who we say you know that there's there's a large pull on that from town so so yeah so yeah
no it's certainly a positive absolutely oh absolutely now Carl I also want to um say thank you working with the I know we took once you came on board we ramped up ownership and working with FES Freetown Elementary School so I know we like earlier we
discussed the stabilization fund and funding it and making sure they get what they need uh a lot of that is working you and Greg Goodwin the facilities manager working together as a team making sure that we we take our full responsibility for that for that building as needed that's part of the preventive maintenance greg's been
working on on getting some photo imaging of what the roof looks like what's insulation where our leaks are what our needs are and not waiting till we have a big disaster there to to you know to try to take care of it we're taking small steps now to to make sure we're okay in the end so we don't have to rip down
another building right yeah so kudos to that i know that's uh not an easy undertaking um so we appreciate it i know Mr ward appreciates it and the students and the teachers and everything else so thank you keep it going have you seen an uptick with the AUDs
like any like people pulling permits or anything of that nature what was that adus adus we got a reporting date of April 24th so we'll have a hard numbers then we are we are by by law to track them we do track them
we did some of the meetings we had i think we had 30 people 60 people a big turnout a lot of interest in town that's going to be busy for the town and and from certainly my department and the health department there's a lot of interest in it uh so it's something we we're aware of so we'll have that hot
numbers on the 24th how many edus we already have for permits and we have a lot you know I've gone out and meet with people uh health department Kevin's done the same thing people are interested in finding out more about it so there's a lot of interest right now i I just want to bring up a point that Kyle and I have been talking about and
we're not there yet but one of the things is with these ADUs and with the common ownership and the ability to build more units of course his office is getting busier and with the facilities being the way they are it's a lot of work on on his department and him so you
know we've had this conversation like there may come a time when we need to add a part-time inspectional uh person to help him but we're not there yet he's told me that we're not there yet but I want to put that out there that it's a conversation we are having internally
yeah and do we do it at that point would we do it kind of like we do with um electrical and plumbing and stuff right where we just You want to bring another employee you don't bring them just so you know it might happen i don't know we like I said we just had that we have it
every now and then like we're okay kyle says he's okay we see it i think uh the weather's breaking people want to get out and start building those porches decks ADU and additions and stuff and I feel like when people start seeing oh like my neighbor I didn't know you could build that and then it come waves right call us might know a little bit thing
about that or not so there's nothing budgeted now but you might see something you might see us ask for more money but we charge for inspection so that would kind of offset no but it's forward thinking which we can all appreciate yep
all right actually I have one question yep this town property is R&M service building and grounds police 45,000 uh is that police details is that the repairs and maintenance for police department it says yeah it says R&M
service buildings and ground police 45,000 that would be the money for maintaining the building uh snow removal crash no but it says police yes for this police station this building this building police department okay i thought I I
thought it was overtime we already had that that's just for your maintenance for this building which is expensive when you build a Well when you consider it's $52,000 for electricity plus it's another $1,200 for electricity for the
radio tower it's a lot of money one thing Bobby brought up in years past is solar on this building and we have gone down that road is there any updates on that no I mean we going to have to replace the roof i think the roof is is is no good
so um So I guess the original plans for the roof were kind of flubbed huh i I don't think the roof plan was flawed i think the uh contractor that installed the roof was flawed so last year we end up going up there and taking um all the nails were driven
over driven either they popped or they sunk and then the shingles went up ended up and put uh um whatever we could in there to keep that from happening so knock would have been okay but it was a problem either the gun wasn't sent right there was no supervision and and we got rain coming in
it it was prepped for solar but because of the issues we can't have solar on the roof so what are you saying that the what do you figure for longevity as far as the roof is concerned i think 20 years would be the max i don't know where where there's probably supposed to be a 50-y year roof right
roof i think it was so if you got leaks up there we already have leaks in it i don't I don't have much confidence will be here for 50 years i I think technology would change materials would change by then so we keep an eye on it you know we we make sure and Yeah keep going well there's enough space up there
there's enough space for another police station up there yeah we looked at the we looked at So you know we looked at the roof and as well as parking lot arrays as well um just to maximize the amount of electricity we could get from solar um it looked promising but then when you look for at at the roof itself it kind
of kind of killed the whole project they wouldn't do it yeah they wouldn't touch it yeah they wouldn't do it they One of the things was putting solar out in front of the building no one wants to put you know we spent all the money on this building we don't want to put a big uh solar array dead smack in the middle of the building when we talked when it
was done it was over here so or some stuff for over parking what are you talking about somebody didn't have a problem aesthetically with the with I'm saying aesthetically who would want big solar array in the front area
over there whoever's paying the bill for the electricity would probably enjoy that yeah no I think that that would Yeah no I'll I'll kindly disagree that that there's a lot of money that was spent on this building and the way it looks that to save a little bit of money for the
look would just it wouldn't do anyone any favor again you know I mean a little bit of money the roof's going to go 40 years you know and $52,000 is only going to increase because electricity is going up every year mhm i mean you know that's a big chunk of money solar array on the
roof is one thing i'm talking about out in the front area over there he's saying like in the Well I I I understand your point but I'm just saying it's it it's a police station i mean it's not supposed to look beautiful it's just supposed to
be functional yeah I meant to tell you that yeah they they did give us different options and once the option of the roof wasn't there anymore it it it I hate to say it but it died died on the vine um unless we fixed the roof which was Oh
yeah it's it's As you know that's a whole different discussion yeah yeah so yeah by that time you're going to have to strip it and reseal it and d Yeah got it we we So you know we did do the research we went down that rabbit hole
of uh what to do next and Yeah i don't think that in the initial plans that we saw that I saw anyway that anybody anticipated you know $50,000 for electricity i mean I think that they were they were looking at anywhere between 18 and 22 or 26 something like
that they maximum it's a high energy use building everything's electrical no no I understand that it's a Yeah it's not just a bunch of fluorescent lights i mean it's everything else that's attached in the back over there exactly yeah a lot of stuff is mandatory it's hard to fix you know that's the other
thing too they not You can't just send a electrician or plumber to fix there somebody specialize in these systems right systems it's computerized so it's very uh expensive look at the horror show with the HVAC i mean really you have to import somebody in
order to fix it all right any other questions no no no thank you everyone all right thank you thank you uh did we do I think we did I think we reviewed all of them right 241 we did
241 everybody good with that one there isn't anything surprising there it was all pretty straightforward so do you guys want to um any other questions or concerns you guys want to close your meetings i have a public hearing I have to have next um anything else on our end you're going to come with the schedule
you're going to come up with a schedule for Yes coming meetings and you're going to email it to us for the Yes yes all right um I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn i'll make the motion second yes
all in favor i All right uh call the meeting adjourned at 7:28 thanks folks appreciate you see everybody yeah don't worry John we have It's in the budget for uh as many as you want
for the full year and I go back [Music] it's not a square foot for you yeah you should 1,500 a month you guys stick around for
more meeting we have a public meeting $18,000 for the hear how much is that a square i have no idea it's 15 month good no you don't i can't complain i have a kitty store right now i could complain actually so the year that's what they're looking for so that's $1,500 a month
drink like a gallon of water in the last 3 hours so as far as see we run out of here you know why you should go look at it we're already there i know you're there go look at it i haven't looked at it i used to get a haircut but I know what it looks like inside
move some mask go look at it i'll figure out this privilege i'll look at it all right so I'm going to read the public hearing notice um Verizon New England Inc and Nstar Electric Company DVA Eversource Energy request permission to locate poles wires cables and fixtures including the
necessary anchors guides and other other such sustaining and protecting fixtures to be owned and used in uh common by your petitioners along and across the following public way or ways chase Road
install one JO midspan pole i'm gonna say a lot of words i don't know what they mean uh on the east side of Chase Road JP 52 and a half the new pole will be installed in line within uh within approximately 30 ft of existing pole
JP 52 and approximately 101 ft north of existing pole JOP 53 the installation is being requested by Eversource to support new three-phase service to 89 Chase Road and provide for the distribution of intelligence and telecommunication and
the transmission of high and low voltage uh electric current wherefore they pray that after a due notice and uh and hearing as provided by law they be granted joint and identical location for permit for and permission to erect and
maintain poles wires and cables together with anchors guys and other such staining and protecting fixtures as they may find necessary said pole to be erected substantially in accordance with the plan filed here within herewith marked 1
A7W5EB dated February 10th 2025 also for permission to lay and maintain underground laterals cables and wires in uh above or intersecting public ways for the purpose of making connections with such poles and buildings as each of said
petitioners may desire for distributing purposes your petitioners agree that the space shall be reserved and maintained for the limited purpose of attaching one-way low voltage wires and police wires owned by the municipality or governmental entity uh for public safety purposes a public
hearing to discuss this this uh request will be held on April 14th 2024 at 7 p.m free uh police station community room 15 Memorial Drive East Freetown Mass uh East Freetown Mass 02717 signed by the Freetown Suckman the public hearing is
now open and can you please state your name for the record sir sure michael Wallengage i'm here on behalf of Verizon i'm a work for a vendor of Verizon okay all right let me figure think about where this is
89 Chase Road and the JO means joint ownership for future if that helps you in the future it does thank you so is it Verizon and Evas correct you have it up on your computer yeah so
it's but it's it's pretty zoomed in so it's uh to a new home it looks like is this like right over here yeah i happen to drive by it on the way here yeah is that the um This is the only map I see no
well maybe i'm not sure not sure what his property number is what's the Do we know the highway bar i think 108 Proprietor's Way okay cuz it goes all the way through yeah cuz it's over there but I don't I don't know if that's this yeah based on the
butters i'm going to say that this is further down towards like the Cranberry Bog like the the turn over there this isn't to support uh like solar or anything unfortunately they didn't give me that information basically Eversource requests the order through Verizon
verizon us being the vendor for them ask us can you you know we take care of easements and pull petitions for them all right just a lot of these that we get are usually solar field related so just asking i believe they said that it was to get power to 89 Chase Road
yeah it looks like it's I'm assuming it's new house construction based on the way that that shows it says uh it's a new home i can try and pull this back so you guys can see it but you know and
then based on the butters you know so I'm going to say that that's what I know for the line of a butters it's that's further down any butters in the room
hey folks oh hi everybody yeah the poll is for something but nobody knows the purpose well it says new home on it it says new home but Ever Source does not give me a client name okay sorry apparently apparently unless they have a business out of there they don't give me
that type of information what does threephase mean for the uneducated basically how many power lines are going to it up overhead the primary lines and drops down to secondary which that usually goes to your home so okay
is usually used to run heavy equipment okay things like grinding shippers things to that would need extra power to get them moving and not I live at 87 TH and I'm just here
because I'm trying to figure out what this means to me yeah fair i'm trying to look in the map right here there so the property owner from ' 89 is not here I assume then
no do we know can we look on the GIS to see who owns 89 so I'm checking now it's um Melo yeah it's Melo's property it's the old um It's You'll know the property it's all right he chases all of
us oh yeah interesting so I guess you know they bring up a a valued concern in the fact that if they're doing threephase it's usually a heavier pull right like a power i don't think it's
anything different than what's out on the road now i think you have class ones and class class twos out by the road so I think it's in line i don't think it's anything above and beyond like what you see in high tension lines okay so so you you know it could be that they would pull in the three-phase to go to a house
to to a single family business i I once again they they don't give us those details except they get the request and they just don't give us unfortunately the name i'm not sure if it's a non-disclosure agreement or not okay and can you see what that that lot's zoned
just out of curiosity i mean I don't it's probably a mix maybe I don't know I assume you guys have not received any orders for new development or solar farm it might not even go through this board to be honest okay so I'm not sure
yeah because usually be something ahead of time they wouldn't just say let's build a a grid to it and we'll build it later on it's usually the other way around and we I haven't heard anything I haven't seen don't put a pole up
why you say "Oh okay we're just going to put a pole here." A bridge to nowhere three phase yeah yeah it says here for the ask us to have no concern oh right no you that's why we're asking the questions now is have an open discussion about this is talks here it says to
provide distribution of intelligence and telecommunications and transmission of high and low voltage electric current we have our whole email exchange up too that's what we have yeah i mean the low current in telecommunications obviously the Verizon joint ownership part of it and obviously the voltage higher voltage is probably
because it's showing this big structure on that map chapter 61A I take it nobody from 61A is all the email exchange up here so I was going to look through there was all in forestry land town what I think she said 61A which is
all forestry land you should be able to get the Next next commercial let me go back it's right there want me to look mixed commercial so if they're building a a garage out there that's going to be
servicing heavy duty equipment and whatnot yeah i I can fantasize anything at this point but which makes sense that's what the property is zoned for i mean I you know is that it so it's general use it's general it looks like
it's general use zone which means it can have business and yeah residential and it looks like there is a kind some kind of a garage on the back there big garage type thing and do we know if there's been any kind of as a as a neighbor what's do you know you're 87
correct this is for 89 in general how the neighbors how are they um I mean for the most part John's been okay with me and stuff um I mean there's there's issues i mean there are some
stuff that we have to deal with on a regular basis i mean John has addressed them but I mean they're still there it's the same from the from the from the cows from the cattle or no dumping from dumping okay can you can you look that up
shells uh the seashells yeah let's not ignore the sea shells of seagulls that all over the neighborhood and everything else yeah you know you got a huge boat back and trucks that carry in and stuff definitely stink you
know and I mean people at the same time um he's got a huge building back there i don't know any facts so I'm just saying what I've heard um that he's putting in a machine
to grind up pallets back there cost him a million bucks yeah like a GL he has a glass thing too right i'm I'm not sure exactly where it is but I know he like he does the like glass recycling right um he does a lot of recycling back
there um it's more like food and fruits and stuff like that i haven't seen so much on glass of anything i heard that that's part of this plan i don't know what's going on i guess my biggest point would be too deciding the plot why does it have to be in his backyard right you got hundreds
of whatever the you can see why is it in our face and more plans to build more industrial right in our face i hear you um I mean that obviously that's not this board right we can't control any of that part
of this work though so this is this is first time or he already I so that's the thing I don't know I don't know what like he probably has to do it all and so I'm not sure no has been informed yeah so that's the point so you would be informed i mean I we've never been
informed so you so that would tell me that nothing we've never been informed so if it was a building of stuff right Debbie you would have and Debbie knows more about this she's forgotten more about it than I know literally right in the back 20 ft from the property so so like this when there was something that
they want to construct it's very mandated how many butters and how far apart they have to notify like this so if they were going to do another building they would have to notify you to be able to go to the meetings for the
permits and stuff right Debbie i'm not misspeing on anything just happened we can all go down there you can see it from a building right behind never said anything yeah I'm not sure about what that building is and what it is in a permanent I don't but I'm just saying that what like this is
the prime example of you know is certified a butterers list and they have to send everything off and prove to to whoever like we have all the certifications that it's been sent to the abuters you don't have to sign the butter letters though we have the uh US
Postal Service certified receipts that we for for the abunders that received it for this for this yes we have them for anything else yeah so that would go tracking what planning yeah i'm not sure what what business or
what he he has back there so it will depend it would either be the zoning board of appeals or the planning board maybe for a special permit i'm not sure because I don't know what business he's running but our zoning bylaws would certainly govern that and that would be um Carl Bizaro who's the zoning
enforcement officer so that's a conversation to have with him in terms of you know what business they have back there and and what permits have been pulled it certainly wouldn't the permits don't come through the selectman's office so we don't have some of that firsthand knowledge lance trying to see
if she's going through the agendas to see if they've been on there for any uh permit but other than that which you could also do look through the agendas for the planning board and the zoning board of appeals i would reach out to Carl and talk to him um about what
business is going on there and if there's they're permitted for that or it could be a byite depending on what's going on it is zone general which means that you know we can have some businesses in there look at our our zoning um bylaws and see like I said I
don't know what he's running for business so I can't tell you but that's where I would begin is to to look and call Carl and say they're running a business does it require a permit and if so it has have they gotten that permit
it may be that they don't need a permit for whatever business they're running so I I I can't answer any more than that yep and then so I fully understand your concerns right like I get where you guys
are coming from but you know because one thing we struggle with a lot in this board is I'm only I'm only looking at what's in front of me and and as long as all the boxes were checked and everything's been done right here if I have no reason to say no to the to to what I'm being asked right I have to
look at things kind of um alone give them what we just said yeah i understand what you said but still if you guys heard hey a buyer's letter should have been sent out and they weren't well we better check into that oh no i think we should check into that so before we just
say let's prove why don't we care that's how that we're reserving and this and everything the trucking and everything that goes on no we're telling you we have not been notified of anything the activity keeps going and then here comes some more and you're like well we have to do it
because this is what's in front of us you guys should go to the building department and say exactly hey no notices have been given out to to our neighbors that's what you guys should be saying selectment why why why no notices no and and I have no problem we we can continue this
hearing right uh that's that's totally fine until we get more information um and I I would it would be also nice to have somebody who representing the property be here right so instead of um Yeah and and but at the same time like I think we're assuming it seems from what
we're the paperwork we got it is to service 89 right but but we don't know like we're making that assumption yeah cuz my order came the the actual order from Verizon came over from Eversource as the client so that's makes it awkward yes because
the order gets placed my point is to horizon I guess is when the letter asked like permission to for my property and stuff there's nothing going into my property right no no cuz it's out in the public right away the utility rightway
so that's why it gets presented to the town because along each side of the road there is a utility rightway x amount of feet from the you know edge of the pavement or center of the road so that's why why you get notified as a butters now if if it was going to be dropped
onto his property there'd be no voters letters it would be just a private easement and and it would just be recorded at the registry of deeds and he would you know sign a document and a sketch okay but because it's out by the public you know right away it gets presented to the town and all you about
were notified and again my interest here was just to know what was going on there you know because of the way the letter was totally understand it makes sense and not not that it has anything to do
with this particular thing but um you know they moved poles one of them poles 10 ft you know maybe 15 years ago forward ever since I listened to the wires slapped the side of my house and I've had people look at it and stuff and
they're like "Oh a problem." Now is that is that pole on your property or number 89 it's out front it it's on the road but again they move they my wife was buying they moved the pole forward basically because of Holly Ridge i would
assume put a guide wire down in my lawn and I listen to the wire wires hit my house and I got them all around this guy wire which you know the guy don't bother me so much but when the wires hit the house right where you
sleep you know and again it's nothing to do with idea I just want to make sure that something else ain't happening that's going to cause more problems is it a power line hitting the house or a telephone line come hit the house that comes So like I said you should notify every
source and ask I've had every day looking at it and they're like don't move by the bubble it still does cause a problem because sounds like a problem i get it and of course you're you know I drove by there on the way here not many trees around there so you're getting all the wind
anyway constant so I can only imagine i'm sorry but again I I my concern was you know I know basically where this poll is going because I've seen the stakes put up and somebody keeps knocking them down it ain't me i go by to see if there was any stakes i didn't see any i took some photo there's two
white stakes laying on the ground right there because they put them up several times and somebody knocks them down but it ain't me um and there's a comb right there it's basically where I saw the I'm assuming by what the letter says I
assume that that's pretty much I have no other reason to understand why the state be a little further this way you know it again my property Totally understand so
I think what makes sense because obviously a lot of unknowns here is if we continue this and try to get some more information on what's happening um reach out to John to come or have a representative come here to explain why they want what they're
doing and and just make sure that everything's going through you know I know that this is it's a kind of a strange situation that this particular request does flow through the board selectman um but we deal with these all the time um but yeah just the overall kind of plans with this property and
what's going on i'd like I think we need some more information on that so I think I need a specific date and time to u continue this too and I was going to let you know that you know the relationship of Eversource and Verizon is they joint own the polls but they Eversource has an
arrangement that Verizon secures the easements or pole petitions and set the polls and actually place it for them yeah it's kind of a it would be opposite strange sibling type of thing like but but that's that's the odd part to all this as well we're not trying to stop you from doing your work or anybody i am
saying everybody has a valid uh you can see our our residents have some some questions and we're going to get them first before we can move forward and and so you know off topic as far as dealing with that property and the things you brought up that has come up to the board of health and my other hat and we we are doing a site visit to look at it in the
very near future working with John and the property to to alleviate some of the neighbors concerns and see what we can do the the that individual does want to work with the town and the neighbors to see what can be done to help alleviate some of the issues you brought up today so I know that for a fact I spoke to
them personally uh they know this was the property we're talking about but um for this purpose for today's meeting yes I think kicking it down the road and seeing getting more information is the the most appropriate thing to do small town stuff he's also on the board of health it's funny i was going to tell everybody
well maybe you should speak to health so that works out well yeah yeah but there's this there's discussions being had in background to help to help so other people are complaining about that i'm just worried whether through the board of health others neighbors have
come forth with similar um not I hate to say issues but similar um concerns with the property as far as smells and seagulls and things like that so that has occurred in the board of health so we are aware of it um it's more of a board of health issue to try to rectify than a board of selectment on on those
issues as far as the poll is concerned definitely our our purview i think the decisions to be made to kind of let's see what what we're doing here first before we we move forward all right so I'm going to continue this till uh May 5th uh 2025 at 7 p.m that's the date we're going with so I'll entertain a
motion to that to that motion i think so yes i'll entertain a motion to continue this hearing uh till May 5th 2025 at 7 p.m motion made second all in favor i all right so motion's been continued so
we can move on so is it our responsibility to go to building department so yeah let's talk good good question um I can reach out to Carl i mean I I know that there's been the complaints about the um the seagulls and that's been
pushed through to the departments and they are working on that but I'll also talk to him about what's operating back there and if he has any information as far as so I guess we can get to the bottom of that and that's a good question so we'll
have to find out should Butters have been notified based on the on the on the and Carl to answer that there's a chance here right that they didn't need to right that is a possibility i'm not saying that's fair or right but that that like legally
there might be a possibility that because of the the way that the the property is zoned and what they and what they built that they don't need to they don't need to right so but we we'll have answers on that and figure out whether they should have and didn't or they didn't need to and that's why they
didn't so we should have that by by May 5th right that that shouldn't be an issue yeah you know I'm going to I'm going to ask um Carl Bizaro to look into it and that's all I can do but we'll see what he can find out and maybe speak to Mr melo
yeah this makes this also on the Abutters list it does say 300 ft so I'm assuming that has anybody within 300 feet of that property is probably because there's 10 people on this list that looks like they've got we got receipts for from certified mail so if you're at 301 ft does that mean you got
excluded from that list yes well yeah but like I mean so this the same group if they need to abut for the construction right or to go through that whole process of of getting the permits right or getting approval for it like this the same people who got this should have gotten that one right that's what
I'm saying so we'll bring that up it's obvious right get more information out to you folks and is that for 7 p.m on May yeah same thing cinco deio so that margaritas margarita i'm not judging it i don't like salt in
my room just just in case thank you everyone all right thank you okay so now we have the annual town meeting yeah am I going to make it it's been a long day i'm going to make it i'm going to make it
all right so I got to find my original agenda for the agenda where's my Is that my This looks like my We have very similar doodles that make no sense i got it i got it i got it
number three okay so moving back to agenda item three review add or remove articles for we did the special town meeting now we're going to do the annual town meeting um okay we'll try to go through
these efficiently as possible let's do it i actually thought it was more than what it actually is so that's good okay yeah article one this is
our Yeah just for the budget right any questions or concerns we don't know what that money is yet necessarily yeah no good okay article two salary compensation for elected officials probably didn't change or maybe change a little bit well yeah
that will that will be the ones with highway surveyor you're right you're right you're right highway surveyor and Charles those are highlighted technically you're just not seeing that on yours but those I can fill in um I'll fill in what their request was and then we'll see what the fincome recommends
all right very standard we do this every year yep next article capital request to phone repairs uh for fire hydrants you don't know the money yet it's 75,000 but I'm going to request they remove it because they already got an article last year and they haven't spent the money so
um we're gonna leave it there to pass through but if I talk to them and they're fine with the money that they have I don't think they realize they have money yep they they might not need that so it might get removed but as of today we'll leave it and push it through okay in case they do need it
right agenda item or sorry the next article amend the town of Freetown zoning map this is This is the MBTA mbta yeah we need to make sure that's clear we need to push that you know it needs to go to town meeting yep we're working
on that with Nancy um pretty much the same as it was the last time trying to streamline it maybe a little bit more like I like we don't need to necessarily change the name of the Puma there's no need so let's just do what we have to do which
is request a change in the zoning yep all right next one is hold on Trevor uh be for this one for the MBTA one should we not include a second article maybe even third article as well the second article potentially being what we have
currently to send to the state say hey the first article was rejected by the if it's if it's rejected already have it so I don't know that we would need an article to resend what we are already well the article say hey we're going to send this instead instead of the one that they want for 3A at 16 to1 we send
what we have in place now 8 to one and then if and then have a third article to say hey if we don't do this what's our next step do we put money aside for potential litigation just to be prepared do we need an article though to send it off to I don't know that's that's why I'm asking an article for that and even
if you and if you choose to litigate it you don't need an article for Okay perfect let's make sure we have those options and we yeah no I mean I I get it I yeah we could always do it on the fall town meeting if you wanted to bring it before the people if you thought it would get to that cost well it's it's a
July what july 15th deadline right so I was just trying to be prudent and make sure we we have everything all our eggs in the basket in case we do have to go down that route not that I want to but we don't we don't control that so food for thought
yep all right next is budget for the water sewer enterprise fund same article we do every year they just give us updated numbers uh next article spending limits for assorted revolving funds same article every year just I don't
know that I mean those numbers have been updated i'm not sure if they're different from the prior year but those are the updated numbers nothing crazy vaccine one went up I think $1,000 and I want to say everything else was flat navy
community program might up a little bit okay all right next article accept the veterans additional tax benefit this article would double the amount of real estate tax relief allowed to certain disabled veterans under MGL
chapter 59 section 5 blah blah blah blah it just gives an additional benefit to veterans it does come out of our tax uh dollars just so you know whereas other things um don't but this is coming from the
assessors and it's also been asked about by you know Bob Clea for the veterans association so it's it'll be helpful to those disabled vets i want to say it's $2,000 or something so depending on which one it is so 22 the each one of those 22s are a different rating you
receive from the veterans affairs and then you get a certain amount of dollars off percentage disabled correct well yeah percent disabled and a percentage what you receive let's say you get a purple heart that's like 22A I believe and that's $400 off your abatement every year i believe this article is saying to do we double do we match it right
because we get 75% back from the state so the state will give us back 400 75% of the $400 right so we get we are on the hook for 25 so this article looks like it says are we going to match it or we going to tear it are we going to do a 4% match or are we do we plan on doing
what some other towns have done or plan on doing doing like a tear approach do we pay do we do 50% of that match or 75% of the match so that's some of the math we have to kind of figure it out before we as it as it reads now and in the and so you know the MGL59 it does give you
two examples of what to write in your article so this is a little bit little different but yeah so it's a little bit weird because you're saying based on that like okay so you said $400 so right now we're going to pay we're paying 100 they're giving us 300 but this makes it
sound like we're going to go from 400 to 800 correct we would then be on the hook of 500 and they'll still give us the three yes correct and it's it's it's town funded as opposed to the other stuff at that um is that anything that would
be affected by non-compliance with MBTA is that like monies they can bring back or No no I don't think so there's about 120 families throughout the town that get about how about a similar 120 veteran families that receive some sort of an abatement or or could receive a
sort of abatement right because the Heroes Act changed the way the law speaks to it right um so now you can give back more to the veterans but then again the absorption is through the other taxpayers in town as well so let's say it's $100,000 that we're going to
abate which is a phenomenal thing and I think let's do it but that's also $100,000 that's going to be absorbed by the other 9,200 taxpayers it doesn't go away it still comes out of tax funding just so again I think we just need to
add a little bit more beefy language to it so they're all aware okay that makes sense you want me to add you want me to increase the explanation of the article correct yeah okay so that I I agree with that i think we have consensus on that that makes sense and on the Heroes Act right at the bottom it gives you the
couple of examples of how to write it and everything else so maybe we can piggy back off of that okay absolutely okay good call thank you yep next article here fund purchase of land this should be fun uh so this is for the city of the town will vote to transfer from
stabilization fund amount of 2,400 uh $460,000 uh to purchase the land so we know what this is yeah i mean the timing of this article you know I've been back and forth do we put it on this meeting we put it on the fall meeting but I
I and I I don't know that I have a real strong propensity to either one it's sort of but if the talent taxpayers don't want to fund the purchase might as well know sooner than later yeah I think we we might want to know sooner or later i don't have 100% of all of the engineering stuff done but we're headed
in that direction so I'm not sure so that's something that I wanted to ask the board do you want to push this to October i think we just we just bring everybody out and can we bring it back up again at another meeting right so because here's my issue is you're going to get people
going to just before this we're going to talk about zoning and people are going to say well if we don't do this we're going to lose funding and it's going to hurt us and then a couple articles later we're like hey give us $2.5 million to purchase this land
it's it sounds crazy but it's a as we talk about as a board it's 100% needed right so um but I just worry about to your point timing but if if it doesn't pass this time and then things change down the road then the next meeting we can bring it back again yes then I'm okay with it it's not a one and done you
know and I think it's you know like I said if they don't want to fund it then we need to know that mhm yeah that way we don't continue to work at it right so you're wasting No you would be wasting so we'll leave it on this this more all right next article maintenance of
veterans graves i don't think we have any concerns of that right no um maintenance uh various cemeteries asked for $10,000 here i just want to shout out to Mike McHugh just just so you know he does all of this stuff for the
cemetery commission um as a volunteer and he keeps those cemeteries looking good yeah and he does a lot of work i don't think people realize how much work that he does uh for the cemeteries and we would be it would be detriment if we if he didn't continue to do that on the
cemetery commission and and the cemetery commission as a whole but just just a shout out to Michael McHugh for all that he does thank you he does a lot for the town lots of different ways okay financing board of health betterments next article
this came from the board of health and I'm going to you know it's going to go to town council for review but this is basically the program that if you need a new septic system and you can't afford it you can apply to the town for assistance with that and not that the town pays for it but we sort of finance
it yeah so this I believe this is this article even though it's difficult to read um that's what that's what it's for right we already have betterments for septics don't we we do but we said we were running out of money right we're uping it you might know yeah yeah we're
just adding more more money back into it so that we can do more cuz I think we're at like I want to say $30,000 or something like that and then you need certain amount to be able to do more than just one subject at a time yeah i didn't know what that mean is there a dollar value in here so I was going to say is there a dollar value that you
guys are trying to to go for we have to add a dollar value yeah let me see it here okay i don't I don't remember off the top of my head i know we'll talk about it on Wednesday um two days from now so I'll have a better idea Wednesday okay thank
you great all right next article it's uh asking for $82,000 for the purchase of a new town vehicle for the Water and Sewer Commission yeah mining truck that should come out of the water and sewer revolving fund yeah their fund
cool next article authorize board of health to expend opioid settlement funds we have 23 grand to spend and we want to spend that on so it's in a stabilization fund and then
in order for them to be able to spend it we need to move it out of that stabilization fund and give them authorization to spend it i don't know that they have a spending plan necessarily but they've been working a lot with Calvary Cares because you know that's he does a lot of intervention for the drug stuff um so I I know that they
might have specific plans i don't know again Carlos might have more information on that because he's on that board but it's just basically a ve a vehicle to make it available to them to then spend and they're they're restricted in what they can spend it on based on this um
mass probably drug substance related or Yeah there's a checklist for everything every for every penny we have to make sure there's a checklist of uh does it meet this criteria or not so uh and Calvary Care does do does check a lot of those boxes which is great so so yeah so it gives them an avenue to spend the
money because it's not doing us any good just sitting there at this point that's not the I don't know if people realize we have that resource too with Calvary Calvary Cares if you have an issue you can go there and and Reverend Das will point you in the right direction and get you some help yep
absolutely all right next article is active uh active shooting shooter training for the police and fire for 18,45 that seems Yeah this is one of those things that we just pulled out of the budget and identified it separately because it's expensive um but I think
it's very imperative that the police continue to do this absolutely so I thought let's put it to the the voters and let them not a should a could a would a thing and we and we've seen how these things have happened in the news where police forces and they weren't prepared right and so I I I think this
makes a lot of sense we're in a position to and highlight that show it is expensive but it's very important all right next one here transfer funds into conservation land fund so this is to transfer
$30,000 to be out of the conservation land fund out of general no yeah no yes they just want they just want money just in case which you know that always bothers me as a as um they want they want if opportunity
presents itself they want to be able to have the flexibility to jump on it don't know how much money they have in their fund um right now is their fund like well invested like or is it like in some kind of is it No I don't I I don't think it is i'd have to look at what it's what
it is i'd have to look at it's like a sunundry fund i don't think I mean we're very good we're all over those funds and we have invested them and you know you know we've done well with them but I'm not sure on this this fund i'd have to check with Patty and Matt but to purchase the land regardless if they
have the money they still have to go to town floor right to be able to purchase the land so even if they put it in their coffers no interesting i think if it goes right to conservation right i think conservation can do it and historical I think are the two that can do it without town meeting
interesting well I mean here's the the caveat I'm going to say is it's only $30,000 so where can you buy much land for $30,000 but I I think I think what they're I'm assuming it's been they're adding 30,000 every year for the last 10 years right and then you hopefully you
actually can buy something whereas like other towns do like a percentage of every sale goes into the conservation like trust right funding from somewhere citizens i'm okay with it because I I don't want to to not
have the money there so okay i mean 30 I think it's I think it's worth putting it up you know I I even recommend it for the town to vote on i do think it makes sense um but I would I mean I am curious how much money they have and that might be something that should be in the in the explanation of
the article yeah I'll add that i don't know how much they have i don't think they have I don't think they have much from recollection and I think they I think from think talking about this a while back it was they have money in the fund but the cost of land has gone up right so they need they want more money
in case something does come up that they can actually afford like the full parcel like an acre versus the quarter they could afford so a empty lot can go for over 100 grand no problem right you know and I want to say they have around 100 grand if that if I recall but I'll find
out okay all right next article this is the recall provision for the school district yeah we talked about that uh we know what that's about we're good there yep next article citizens position recording finance committee meeting recording
finance meeting so this is citizens position so there's nothing you can do about them so they want to record all the finance committee meetings you agree welcome to our our world fantastic all right followed by the next one um and then we are recording all the
selective meetings so that's not a problem well I think because right now they're looking at it as if we had our meeting at town hall and we didn't have you know the camera guy here they want cameras on every meeting that the three
of us got it so So make So make that a bylaw right or something of that nature that has to be recorded i don't know what they're trying to do it has to go to the attorney general i'm not sure that it will pass yeah I feel like it's as long as we don't violate the open meeting law i feel like it's I
think it's good like we we make every effort to record meetings and put and put them out there but there are certain situations where it just is not practical right but that's okay see what happens um next one doesn't matter but
it's citizens position citizens position conservation to purchase land freshman roadation transportation okay what kind of caveats with what we take on uh the article we just talked about i wonder if they need $30,000 i wonder if they have a h
100,000 no one came in as a petition and the other one is through the conservation i'm not sure why this didn't go through conservation i'm not sure if conservation said no i don't know okay um I know that whoever owns this land is donating some of the land to the town
and then this is the residual piece and selling it to the to the town for this amount of money um so a lot of citizens positions that's interesting all right and the next one so we have the sidewalk on North Main Street
um so 250 grand that for that yes that's a citizens petition nothing you can do about it nothing we do about it um the personnel bylaw that's a placeholder i'll get it to you um this is so as the personnel bylaws as they're written now everything that you do in the personnel bylaw has to go to town
meeting the new bylaw will just push the authority back to the selectman so if you want to change the number of vacation weeks the byar employees get you you as a board through a process can do that it doesn't have to go to town meeting floor every time a change gets
made to the bylaw employees um if you want to add a position to the town you don't have to go to a town meeting and add the position you can do it through a going to have a public hearing so we're drafting this new bylaw that will actually push the authority for you to
make changes back to the board okay sounds fair we're good all right next article is solar pilot agreement so we don't know if we need this one yet yeah and that's a placeholder for the um assessors all right i think that's it that's it are you guys okay with us sending us those all through i'm good
everyone good yeah all right so let me just make a motion if I can find my it yep so I'll entertain a motion to uh approve the uh I guess approve uh Wow let me start
over i'll entertain a motion um to authorize the town minister to send the annual town meeting with the notes we've made to town council for review motion me second all in favor i and we're not going to do the budget this the uh sorry
the audit right we just I did that earlier right i explained to you you did you talked about it yeah that's enough i just didn't know if there was like a more formal presentation was that you have it in your pocket like the letter that came from the auditors okay i just wanted to I told you to do a shout out
to Matt but he's not here so we will we're going to sign and then we'll adjourn and I need to go to bed soon this thing is going to be the days you used to go in there now right that's long gone this
parts long another one there they're getting old wow okay and with that I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn motion made second all in favor
bye all right [Music]