[Music] good evening everybody it is uh Wednesday April 9th 2025 at 6:04 p.m with the forum president i'll call to order the Boris Luck meeting uh this meeting will be recorded and will be available on our town's YouTube page uh first I'd like to uh before we get
started here congratulate Suckman Lopes on his re-election thank you congratulations thank you very much congratulations you stuck with me for three more years yes sir all right and then uh we'll move on right to agenda item one which is a
hearing to discuss and vote on uh renewal of Excel recycling junk uh dealers license in this classic interview I was trying to get the agenda up sorry oh no problem all right so
um just to confirm we got all the proper documentation in here mhm and this is this like a formal hearing where I have to open I don't have to it's not a it's it's a hearing but it's not a public hearing where you didn't post it read the um uh advertisement and all of that
all right thank you i have a question on that why not it is not required council do you want to speak to this so it's got to be green so good evening Rogers of KP Law Town Council uh nothing
in the state statute uh concerning such licenses or the town's bylaw requires a formal public hearing uh so that's why there's no need to read it any legal notice or uh observe any formalities that you would see in a public hearing such as at a planning board hearing for
a zoning amendment or the like okay thank you thank you but my question still is why why can't you notify um a butters and people of interest because you know there's an interest in this
situation why can't you why is it uh has to be that we you have to look on the agenda and just happen to hit it and say okay they're going to have they're going to renew the license um the next meeting and then you go from there i think it's
it's reasonable for citizens to be informed about what the government's doing yeah that's noted um I I just think we we didn't do that because it was weren't legally obligated to do it but um I mean definitely people take that under you know as a suggestion going forward i don't see any problem
with that if it's it seems to be the word does get out about this but if if you'd like us to you know I think it's I think it's a reasonable request yeah I I I don't disagree okay um so in our packet we we did receive uh the complaint logs from the
past year um I know we did have um inspections done by um building department as well as the fire department um the board of health and the board of health sorry uh so I guess Carl do you want to kick off
any any suggestions or any kind of or any issues that you found that you want to speak to so it was a scheduled uh inspection uh not a a a unannounced inspection myself fire and health department did go there we were greeted at the door and had access to any part
of the uh property we needed to look the only thing that was uh apparent to me is the fact that there was no complaints about fluff flying around the neighborhood and I attribute that to water canning shooting down in the pile rather than on the ground shooting up in a pile in my letter I also comment on
the fact the piles were a lot smaller this time uh there was more room getting around the uh in the yard um it pretty much we expected again the only difference is the size of the pile and then how they were controlling whatever debris was flying around i thought that
was a positive thing this time thank you um any questions actually for for Mr bazario Carl when when Excel builds something or at their property do they have to come by and pull a permit with you notify you what's the process of that i know they're a business they're
their own entity i understand that not try to infringe on that but when they do go and say expand or build are you contacted or just as as an awareness to you courtesy anytime that and building code speaks to that anytime you're going to alter or replace fix or do like that they required to get a permit like
anybody else does i don't have any permits and from there in the time I've been here this is over two years so I assume that nothing's been built but they would on notice from last time we were there if you ever have to build or add machinery things like that we want to know right i have not got those calls so that's what that was my follow-up
question since you've been on board have any permits been pulled by Excel you just stated there was none um per all photos we can see there's definitely been some buildings so we got to keep that in consideration they have done some things that we can see outside looking in right um so that's concerning
so we can tell from Google imaging as well as our own pictures we take during the inspection so if we see something that's what I'm looking for any new construction things like that it would require a permit obviously I didn't see any i couldn't document the fact that there was any of that but we are looking for things like that good thank you Carl
thank you uh my my only question for you was you you made note of the the pile of fluff being noticeably smaller which we won't complain about it's a great thing uh do you think that's the normal or do you think it was due to the inspection i can tell you since Somerset closed their
recycling uh center I think two and a half three years ago I would expect to be bigger i think they went through that initially and so two years later those piles are down i asked the question why are the piles lower i was told just it's slow it's it's we don't have as much product coming in into into the plant anymore that was the reason for the
piles being smaller okay thank you all right do they have records to back that up that there is less volume of of materials going into that plan uh they have not provided I don't think
they're required to or or are asked to provide us with any kind of like of their volume data on a on a any kind of reporting basis the D might have that information we also have um um concern about the flop when the 4 acre fire
happened behind Charlie's property last week the week before right was it the week before um fire department had to come out the brush breaker truck had to come out it was a sizable burn when the everything was crisp crispy critters and
that place is covered with fluff from there it's unbelievable and we're seeing a lot more of it on our own properties now than we hadn't even seen so I find it really ironic that you go and say it's better well they knew you were
coming but it we I had piece this this long clear um you know there's smaller stuff all over the place but this is really unusual in the size of the depth of it and I know Cecilia's found it as
well on on this side we have not we have new neighbors on on our other side now and um I've not taken that issue up with them but we are a good quarter mile away from that plant and there's tons of
trees and of course the wonderful railroad line going through with all their stuff um and to see the fluffer coming back again we had this initially when they hadn't addressed the problem but now we've got it back again so I'm
just curious to know you know they knew you were coming they docked it up charlie's place is a mess have to So M have you brought that up i was going to actually talk to the have the fire chief quickly speak to that fire that took place and just kind of what your
findings were related to that um that was obviously very uh dry period that we were having we've had uh numerous uh elevated fire weather episodes this
spring than usual earlier than usual um there was stated roughly 4 acres um see I I could I shouldn't want to get the microphone uh so when I first
arrived there with one thing that I noticed when I got there is that because of the the slope of the hill just the way High Street situated there the wind was like doing really swirling around and and going many different directions which changed our strategy somewhat when I when I first got there the what we
would call the head of the fire the fire that was being wind driven was actually climbing the hill towards High Street in the residences so we we initially focused on that and once I got resources started there I mean that's where the risk is right that's where the houses
are and I proceeded to work my way around the rest of the fire just to see what else was vulnerable you know the wind the wind would shift and it would blow black back towards the railroad tracks so we we we got it extinguished relatively quickly and
um I spoke to Mr sullivan there that day so forest fires are very very difficult to determine the cause unless you have the smoldering campfire and you have the wind direction you say "Okay well it started at that end and it went that way but I have this smoldering campfire they
have this road flare it majority of forest fires are are human whether it's set or or accidental but caused by humans so I had walked around that whole fire two or three times already just because that's what we do and so I went
and consulted my good friend Aaron Whitten the district forest warden the forest fires are what he deals with right this is this is what he does mhm and so I asked Aaron to you know let's take a walk here and and see if we can figure out what happened and we we
circled that several more times um there was some concerns about the I guess the cellophane that that Charlie was able to find some in the field for me and show me um I did discuss that with Aaron as you know as being a potential cause um we felt like maybe under
the perfect conditions that could cause the the grass to catch on fire but it was 10:30 in the morning or something the sun was like not it it just it didn't I can't say what caused
that fire i can't blame Excel any more than I could blame a spark from the railroad tracks or I I Okay i couldn't I couldn't come up with a cause and that's often the case with forest fires yep understood i can see how that's difficult chief while you were there did you spot any campfires or ro flares or
anything that indicating that chemical we didn't find any evidence of of that Kos um the only thing that was was noted is there are still some trails that are apparently being used you know through that area i I don't know if those the former dirt bikes that ran the railroad tracks have
now moved up or what I mean there are some walking paths there and whatnot but thank you chief I don't yes and I walked to the site that day it was covered with the fluff it's not just one or two
pizzas it's tons of it and I I wish now that I had collected because I was stunned by by the amount of it that's there and When you're standing in the back corner the back right corner of that field you're right on a direct line from
itself and you can see every bit of it it's it's right there i mean the only thing that's up between us now because it's it's even beyond where their wall of trailers or whatever it is is the railroad track fencing so if you walk up
to the railroad track fencing there is flop all the way up to that as well it is not that it's not coming from Excel where else would it be coming from i was very much put off by how much was back there we should be we should do
the annual cleanup back there because it's such a mess it really is okay and and so and I know there was some reports um that were given to uh the in the complaint line has it has the
that specifically been a part of the you know I see that as a health department kind of issue right has that been reported i know Silia called she because we do have to bifrocate these two kind of things like this is the junk junk license right uh issuing that
license that's what this this is for then those sound like health you know health issues that need to go through a different kind of mechanism or a different path right so Mr chairman if I may um at the beginning of the uh start of
Excel um it was in I I believe November December of uh I I believe it was uh 2017 um at first we had all kinds of
fluff blowing in the air right away um they were made aware of it they then put some type of a cover on it to uh to mediate the problem but the fact of the matter is from the time the leaves fall
off the trees until they the leaves come back on and the winds turn from the northwest to the southwest uh fluff is blown onto my property okay this morning
I went out and I could easily I'm not going to say it's manor in the desert type uh there's there's pieces that you can go and you can pick pick up i picked up about three or four i was going to
bring them in and I forgot uh that has happened every year okay now I'm not going to uh take issue with the fire chief's statements at all okay but I know my
property okay so to speak and I I watched I I examined the ground and the fire in in my opinion started at my north northwest uh property line and it funneled out
across the field that tells me that the fire started on my north property line and as the chief said we could see especially once it was the grass was burned over and there was that there was
pieces of these fluff now my opinion is that one of these clear pieces of fluff was lying there and there was spontaneous combustion okay that's that's my my opinion
okay the the area that the fire the area the be beginning of the well where the beginning of the fire was and then it spread out closer to the pipeline but it's it's uh over 200 ft from the
railroad the rail a railroad engineer driving a test train passed observed the fire and called it in initially mhm uh so the the idea of a train starting I think we can we can uh
remove that um as to some sinister person coming along and lighting a fire I don't see any evidence of that i don't uh see people on my property like that especially 10 10:00 in the morning on a
on a weekday um so it kind of narrows it down in my opinion to a piece of fluff presented heat and it was spontaneous combustion and so what concerns me and really made me
surprised i had a pile of basically uh old wood old fences uh so forth i had piled that pile uh significant a part of it uh burned in
this fire and I I I'm surprised that the heat got so intense that it it burned this wood now what would have happened if I had a piece of property such as a shed or say I I have a farm tractor what
if I had it parked in the field for and it gets consumed you know where am I no i mean and and I I think that you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say you
know you close this place down but the thing is they have to do a better job and they have to and why aren't they uh because they knew it why aren't they having somebody go out and police the area for there's plenty more debris i'm
not going to say uh that it's you know you walk from you can walk from pieces debris to piece of debris but there's plenty of debris down there that has accumulated over the years i I hear you and I mean I think that that's a um like a valid thing that we should we should
discuss that right with with them to to help clean up the map if if we're if you know we're confident that's coming from their their location i think that them doing mitigation and cleaning up seems totally reasonable to me and you know I can't speak for them but I would hope
that they would be uh willing to entertain that kind of you know idea and if I may also uh oh address the fluff pile issue um I I don't know the the I'm not going
Yeah I'm I'm saying I I don't see the pile as being as as big but the issue is this is that it will rain and then like like yesterday it rained today it's
clear you smell it okay and you'll smell it for two or three days and usually on days that you know a night nice fair weather early in the spring especially and you have this
morank smell it might smell for an hour and the smell goes away the other day I saw a truck come out of Excel with what I it was covered but what I presume is fluff and coming
out of the top of it is steam so this fluff is uh oh deterior deteriorating in the pile it it's building up heat it's building up uh
oh a smell because it's it's uh oh rotting and that's what the that's what the issue is there's a smell there and it comes from there it never I I've been there 68 years and the smell before they came we never had that smell
yep understand so you the the fluff stuff it still comes it's it's it's it may have slowed down a little bit but it still comes it's I still get it in my I have to pick it out of my flower beds i still watch it blow across my lawn so they haven't
and if you go and buy your records that not many people have been calling anymore there's been a decent I'm not saying a lot i'm I'm just happy that I mean you got everybody on mostly on Alexander they don't call anymore because nothing's ever said no one No one calls them back to tell them "Yeah
we're looking at that we're doing this." I mean people have complained for what six years now and nothing has changed you haven't he hasn't stopped with the fluff it still flies over the wall i mean the the D told us point blank that they don't have explosions and as you
can see my videos you know they do have explosions so there's another lie to us and everything so I mean you just being a resident you just keep getting slapped back and slapped back and slapped back nothing's nothing's changed and I'm guaranteed you're just going to
give him his license back again so it's like what are you gonna do about it i I understand the frustration right and I and and I think it's important to remember like that there's two different things going on here right this is like as long as they do everything that they're
legally obligated to do and they're within within all the the rules that we have there's nothing as a board we can do to prevent them from from getting their license and we we and we've been down that path before and we know how it ends right so right so there has to be you know the other mechanisms which this
complaint line which then should be go through the proper channels and and the more things that are documented the more you know things that hopefully they can curb their their activity right we like and you guys might know that it's coming from them their place did you see that explosion i saw the video yeah okay and
that's within tolerance of the town uh it's just it's not a it's not something I can I can use as actionable you know to to to shut them down right like that that is the reality of the situation we we keep going back and forth
that us pulling a license doesn't shut them down us pulling a license allows them to operate at longer periods of time right and it's their most we talk about an actionable thing right it's the
D the D is the ones that really need to they have a license with them they've already said that the the area would be filled with tires junk tires if if you turned around and shut them down so the other thing is he's helping clean the area yeah and and
that's that's their outlook and right wrong or indifferent i'm sorry to hear that i I didn't hear that and you know but I'm just saying from our standpoint and what we can do legally as a board i mean they turned around and told me that because I complained about the explosions they turned around and told
me point blank he can't have explosions if he had explosions it would blow the place up i'm like the place is made of metal it's not going to blow up as you can see they have explosions and it hasn't blown up yet so they're as much lies as anything mhm but I'm just saying
for what we can do Right right every I understand what people think we can do but what we can do because we've already been down that path and we we but I mean in my eyes I don't see how we do it again but Well can I ask can I ask a
general question to our general counsel yeah i don't want to bring you all the way here and ask you any questions all right so before I ask my question I want you I want everyone to picture this you know 1900's um coal fired neighborhood how dark how dark it is right you know from all the coal burning and all the
the dark smoke coming out it remind me of that when I was watching videos and as a neighbor budding that back property I often get blocked out by the the sun gets blocked out because some of the smoke so I get it i understand it right so I wasn't privy to the contract right
all the all negotiations of course I can read it i can inter I can ask the questions and over the years I think I've asked quite a few questions probably to the eyeire of some of my our select men and everything else but that's who I am I like to ask questions right so that said I like to ask you a couple questions regarding a junk
dealer's license so when I look at MGL title 20 chapter 54 and I quote is to be a collector of a dealer in or keepers of shops for the live purchase sale or barter of junk old metals or secondhand articles right it also goes on to say
that we can be revoked at our pleasure so I know we enter we entered into a contract is there a way to like Charlie said I don't think we're all up here saying this is going to go away right but there's also a thing called a quality of life right and the neighbors
myself included right all of us deserve peace and quiet to some extent right we can't control everything right we have that we have the train heck we have loud eagles that are you know we can blame anything we want however quality life is a is a true thing is there a way we can get in there and modify the contract for
instance instead of 17 Saturdays how about no Saturdays or weekends instead of stopping at 5:00 we stop at four so these people can go outside and enjoy their backyards you know where's the Aradites there are a lot of things in that provision including in the contract
itself that says they will take all mitigations to properly mitigate noise and sound i could tell you that's not happening from a half mile away so as general counsel what can I tell my constituents that are here today and those listening at home of how maybe we can not make them go away but what's our
next step as far as updating the the current agreement uh thank you Member Lopes and through you Mr chair um in terms of updating any of the conditions to the agreement that would have to be a process the select the board of
selectmen uh engages in with Excel voluntarily there would have to be a reopening of the negotiations to address the conditions and propose any changes and see if XL is willing to make any of those changes in light of the fact that
the statute does at its core provide that the uh the board may uh revoke licenses at its pleasure so that's the trade-off is that you have that threat obviously as uh the board has alluded to you know what that path looks like if if
you invoke that power then Excel will likely challenge it and then we're in five years of lawsuits okay precisely um so the short answer is approach Excel to see if they are willing to discuss any modification to the conditions um I'll
note parathetically that uh some of the issues being um referenced uh tonight are health issues there is always the board of health process through chapter 111 of the general laws and that is separate
from the licensing process as uh as you had previously noted Mr chair um if in the board's opinion Excel is not satisfying the conditions of the existing agreement then it is within the
board's discretion to deny the license renewal that's set forth in paragraph one like thank you very much council i appreciate that so I but I think they are right right now are now we don't like we might
not like that that settlement and and that's what it was the other day right it was it was a settlement that we that um but they are as of today they're meeting those conditions I the approach I'd rather take is is more a collaborative approach with them rather
than trying to bring this in the courts again and and approaching it from that that angle just because I think that's we're more likely to get better results I 100% for something right cuz you're if you're talking about based on what you just said like you know uh and like cuz
this is a I think Excel and themselves right if if they they're in a bit of a sticky situation because if they they have to be careful what they say so they start saying oh yes this is our fluff and this is our stuff you know admitting that you know that could open up a can of worms I'm sure for them down the road
right so so so from a legal perspective I'm sure they probably don't want to touch that right but if we can approach this in a way where it's like we're just going to be doing cleanup in general of anyone's stuff that's in the that that's being blown around right we can nod like are
you willing to to help us in invest in this like that makes sense to me yeah i I think I think looking at it more as a community service rather that was my thought I was going to bring up thank you was that if I feel like cuz they they're not going to want admit guilt even if they honestly felt like they
were guilty it's well and I don't they'll never say that and I wouldn't blame them even if they did know it to us before because they they told myself and my neighbor uh Mike Cabral that they wanted to be a good neighborh that's when they started out they wanted to be a good neighbor and I guess and they
never have been a good neighbor legally legally from there they didn't even put up the the original sound barrier that should have been put up with the with the shredder yeah okay because and I'll tell you that
I was in uh Nor uh in uh um Germany and I was going along on a canal and I saw I said geez that's a shredder and gee look at they have these big walls all around
it why isn't it at excel so so there there's what we're we're dealing with that's what we always did and why you ever agreed to that agreement and never had any input from the neighbors is beyond me but we'll go beyond that but what I want to do is I want to see
things change because I have a right not to have my property burned and I and Okay I I can but I think we can easily say that it's 80% chance that that's what happened no
uh how else did it stop yeah okay and and the fact of the matter is that if I had property in that field it would have been destroyed and where where would I have turned to be reimbursed i'd have to go
to my own insurance company because they would deny that it ever happened and we have in the in the government has a responsibility to protect its residents and I think it should have a a more of a responsibility
to protect its residents than some businessman who comes here from Dartmouth if I picked up all the fluff that I find and I took it down to his property I threw it on his yard what would happen what would happen i'd be I'd be charged
with littering right but but he doesn't he's not i understand it's it's a a proof thing Charlie right so we once again I understand fly flying out of the the the uh the
property that's my proof okay I understand and I I don't want that i'm saying that for us i'm talking about from us i don't have the proof of watching it fly down you can come gentlemen gentlemen ladies and gentlemen
you can come to my property anytime you want and I and I will show you what I have to ex I have to endure okay none of you have ever been there i I the the there's an open invitation thank you thank you Charlie representative Schmidt caught it out of the air with his hands
and put it in his pocket and said his wife would never put up with this okay all right that was years ago and we believe Kevin's got a video of it flying over the wall you all were presented with bags of this stuff that um my first
day bill what my first day right right that Bill and Kate picked up off of their property yes I still have them and it was presented to you in bags and Chairman Matthews you said "Get
that stuff away from me don't put that near me." Okay so you've known about this the board of health was back there I believe i don't know Kevin if you went back there but you saw the stuff on the ground it is littered is illegal
disposal of hazardous waste i'm not making that up that's a board of health issue i I I'm not right i keep just going but this is not new this this was years ago this was three years ago at least
and has I mean and you I mean have you been back there i mountain bike back there yeah so I mean it's like so this touches a lot of areas the thing and the other thing too is we are talking about a a scrap yard right and
so it's a scrapyard but we're sitting here talking about explosions and hazardous waste airborne perhaps catching property on fire we're talking about noxious odor uh toxic fumes um
emissions visible emissions out of a scrapyard right yeah so is it then common sense to say that this nuisance I don't know what else you would call it is a result of that
scrap yes or no i I I I understand what you're saying do you what yes I do what but what what what I'm trying what I'm trying to say here is that that what we what we can look at right is are they within are they doing everything that they need to
do to meet the requirements for us to issue them a junk license right you're talking about a lot of health issues requirements what are the requirements that they that they go through the inspections that they provide all the any kind of documentation that they that they need to provide it's it's very simple there's not a lot to it right
that's and we like I I'm I'm not disagreeing with you like we have a lot of problems with a lot of the way things work right but this is the reality of the situation use furniture license and this is what we're talking about this is what this is what they were originally this is what we're talking about we've been down this road right this has all
been litigated it's like I I understand I understand the frustration i I I get it but you can you understand from our perspective so let's just let's just game plan this out or just game this out what happens i deny their license right you fight it in court because you have a
winning case but we don't yes you do the facts haven't changed yes you do you get $25,000 a year from this company to put forward to put toward testing because we have we have two tests that confirm metal contamination of property
residential property that points to that facility okay that scrapyard on a on a secondhand furniture license an Alapone license okay all right okay so you pull the license and you stop the buying and
selling of scrap not how it works it won't happen that's not how it works um okay may I offer a suggestion can I have say something so following the advice of council as far as the the next step forward can in
general if has to be put to an next agenda we can can I I speak with council and Debbie keep her in the loop and reach out to Excel and see what we can do to change some of the provisions in that is that something that the board would be okay with as a next step to get
a general conversation started saying I've never met anybody from Excel um I so I'm a neutral party right yeah i I don't know if we want to change the like and we talked to council about this before we reach out but like I I don't I think it's it's a
uh an additional kind of agreement or something i I I don't I don't think we want to open the can of worms no I'm more I'm more it's going to have to go through the courts it's a whole thing my my I would suggestion would be is that anything that's done isn't done through
the board is done through councel mhm um for obvious reasons right um due due to past litigations things that happened things that were said i think if anything is done it would it wouldn't be done through any of us three my my my
goal is to say hello working with council right and be able to to to to walk the facility and that type of stuff i I I don't have a problem with I'm talking about to try and structure deal with them ahead of everything and I appreciate the enthusiasm i do i mean
I'm sure we all do but I just think anything that done with this is when it relates to this place it should be done legally through council i don't want to give anybody any legal entity business or otherwise any loophole or way to come back and bite the town in any capacity
any communication I would have with Excel would be through council and through our town administrator my goal is quality of life we can't be living under a th under its clouds of smoke all day and listening to this stuff just go bang right at some
point they live they live here too they have to take ownership of their own facility so so if that's something that I would like to entertain that let's try the next step right and maybe maybe they they're willing to do it I think we can reach out at the very least I think we can reach out to them and see what they
say right I mean I don't know if we have to take a official vote on that or what but it's separate from tonight yes but I do agree i I don't I don't see how it can hurt because the worst thing that can be said is they say no correct and then whatever but at least if we can
talk with them and say "Well maybe can we possibly do something?" So it doesn't hurt so thank you for everyone's input um can I say one more thing we I have a I have a 27 line item agenda you've been at this for 10 years can you give us a
hearing please you We've had multiple hearings wait wait wait jesus all right can I approach the desk and give you each a flash drive each of you select men uh sure i'm requesting that you actually review this before you vote before you deliberate that's not going
to happen here you can put it into the record okay it's 57 that we should go through the board of health can I address it it's one explosion per month dead
yes ma'am like when you when Charlie was talking about the smell there's been several days in the past week that was absolutely horrific like I'm a nurse used to bad smells i was gagging and
Cecilia and I walk every morning and we were getting into and out of her car and it was there for a long period of time if I called Kevin and said "Come and smell this." Is that considered a border health thing i mean what what's he going
to say about it i mean it I I mean I don't know smells very subjective yeah it's it's it's but it's unique to this facility excuse me excuse me i think the question was addressed to me and I'd like to finish my answer please
so if you call and ask me to go out and investigate a complaint I will go out and investigate it it's typically documented it's forwarded to selectment it's often times added to the to the log um I have gone out and I've documented where I've had a smell complaint i get out there and I don't smell anything
i've gone out there and I smell stuff i've gone out there on an explosion complaint i don't see anything exploding i've gone out there and I've actually seen billowing smoke i've sent those things on i've done as much as the agent can do in this now this has been brought to the board of health some interested
parties here have brought this to the board of health i think uh I think council has touched on it like I did at that meeting that there is a certain chapter within mass gender law chapter 111 that gives a a wide and broad authority to the board of health but in instances like this and
they're going through this in a similar situation over in a relative to an asphalt plant I believe over there where the the town has taken upon themselves to make a determination that they believe that it's a public health risk and they've done enforcement accordingly
it's in the courts and we're interested to see where it's the first time that it actually was allowed to go forward by a judge so I don't know if this is a turn in the uh in the the the uh considerations of our our judges now um but this is a bigger issue than your
agent can handle right this is a technical issue we need people with expertise there needs to be parameters by which one piece of paper is not necessarily an issue but if there's how many how much is it the noise we've done
a noise study right I think at at the end of the day uh the board of health has an overall responsibility to the general health and welfare of the population and we investigate public health risks excuse me um threats and risks um but in an instance like this
where we're going to in theory be asking to a business to change their behavior or ultimately the consideration to eliminate the behavior that's a decision that has to be made in a very measured and mannered
approach consideration for with council consideration for the liability to the town what is our uh successes rate of success or anticipated so I will go out and continue to do what I do when I get a call steve has my phone number direct
dial always loves to call me at 3 minutes or 4 goes home i don't get home till 3 i hear it brother but I go out and I look so so but at the end of the day um I I think there are avenues by which we can insert ourselves but
understanding the complexities of this the court case the resolution the settlement it needs to be measured and it's it's something and again I work for the board of health so I have to be mindful i don't want to try to throw my members in front of the bus but this is
a decision that the board of health if they're going to go down that avenue is one the board of health makes not necessarily the agent himself and and I would be happy uh you know council has any kind of suggestions well maybe we need to have a board of health meeting
they could I'm sorry do we need to have a board of health meeting on this topic and there get input from residents i I I I believe the board of health I think you should ask the board of health members that yes I'm not the member I'm not elected right I work for them I you
know I think everybody understands my feelings the more information the more questions we it was presented Leah you were at that meeting it was presented the chapter 111 was presented as these options these that is an option by which we can also control other nuisances public health nuisances within the town
but understanding how often those things can be successful when you're just relying on anecdotal total and or I know I know you know this Leah right right but I I have sent this town the selectman the you the board of health
multiple times consultants addresses phone numbers contact information we've hired consultants leaders i I I was out there when they did the sound test i am with you and I agree with you and we had that sound test and we gave it you know we have and this the the scrapyard is out of compliance with their noise
levels nine out of nine locations and it means nothing no except to the residents who have to put up with it i I think what I said was it's not my decision as the agent to pursue the chapter 111
enforcement i can do the enforcement but I have to have parameters i have to understand what I'm going and actually enforcing and and I'm Lee I'm not arguing right i'm on I am on the But this is this with this when they get their license back i'm just going to
politely right i'm the agent i work for three elected board members okay this was brought to the you were at the meeting we sat here okay I brought up the fact that I am not qualified to go over there and just look at something and say "Yep I'm making that determination because I will have my head handed to me." And the town council's going to say "No you can't do
that Kevin." So if the board of health says this is this is how we're going to address it they're three elected members they have the ability to make decisions and to do that i would suggest that that's the avenue you go and if I'm directed to do things if they're guided
by council relative to the chapter 111 enforcement and how we're going to do it I think that would be a better approach than just sending me out there and looking at the cloud and going or or the debris and saying "Yes there is debris here." But I can't do that on my own so I But Right but the board of the board
of health has had information that we have a nuisance on hand yeah i'm not the board of health i'm not elected to them okay y Okay what I'm saying we're not we're not getting over here i One more thing you guys no more things no more things you guys are you the board of selectment is getting
$25,000 plus excuse me stop talking please i'm I'm I'm use that to do what I'm going to uh uh I'm going to issel drug dealers license motion made had my raised for a long time the
discussion part is over here come on uh do I'll second it all in favor all right we're moving on we're moving on to the next general item mr chairman she had her hand up a lot to be recognized i have had my hand up for a long time i've
been very polite i have one comment to make please how many other businesses in town who have fires and explosions get a license repeatedly i I I can't answer that question i I do
not know so you there are others i don't know i'm not sure can you find that out please yeah we can we can we can look into that okay thank you mr chairman one minute okay i I realize it's been almost for uh
50 minutes but but this is this has been a problem for years okay and I have an I have a question to ask uh and maybe in a way it's uh putting a a a a stick in their spoke but they deal in metal and
they deal in crushed motor vehicles do they not yes they do okay do we require them to take it and give a record and and report on the material
such as crushed cars that come in such as their VI vehicle identification numbers i I mean Kevin I I do not think so no it is junk how would I answer that it's not junk that is the problem with this i have no idea how we would be able
to do that try and we can we can take this offline we're not going to solve this problem right now right and and I think Kevin really did a great job articulating like the the the how this should be discussed really despicable to Okay thank you very much all right so uh Jenn2 recognize the board of selection
mr chair you you need a vote we voted we voted i mean I really wish you would I have 56 files first of all Mr chair last year i wish you would look mr chair you can exert your authority under chapter 30A section 20 here to control yeah
please i would suggest that you um just restate the vote for the record so I'm going to enter is a motion to um to renew the Excel uh Excel recycling drunk dealers license motion made i deny that motion all right uh I'll second it all in favor i I
Thank you thank you you're welcome Mr chair all right unless there's anything else you need from town council tonight no I think I think you're good to go i appreciate it thank you and uh have a good night thank you for the for the answers okay of course moving on to agenda item two recognize the board of
selectman uh to choose a chair personnel board chair and board and parks uh commission chair i'll I'll say that I'd like to uh remain chair for what will it's going to be my last uh year on this board
did you just say that did you just say that out loud did you just say that yeah I think I think I don't know if I get it in writing sorry oh but that's just my opinion um I don't know what you guys are thinking i was thinking rock paper scissors but since
it's your last year um now you've done a great job over the years keep keeping it um reading the agenda and everything else uh we have a couple things more to do on the personnel board on my end um we're not done yet we've gotten a long way but yeah absolutely there's a couple
little things we want to tighten up a little bit um you just said that all out loud huh we'll see if anything changes yeah we'll have to change your mind over the next year oh I I am easily uh convinced that it um Yeah and and then
for obvious reasons you know that was just stated and you know you do a great job and then you do a great job and then your involvement with the leagues and stuff it makes sense to just keep it as it is keep it as it is keep as is okay but next year rock paper scissors no
matter what happens perfect deal deal deal put that on the record lan just a vote vote you make make a motion new camp well yeah um we council had told us we actually can so but but I'll do it um so
I'll make I'll entertain a motion that um Selectman Matthews stays chair of the board selectman Lopes stays chair of personnel i'll make that motion yeah you would have to make the motion i second all
those in favor i I And now you have to make a motion about me putting him as well let's think about this before we do this Trevor right now let's think about this a motion to u to have Jared uh respective selectman Zerger uh remain as
as board of parks um and commissioner chair i'll make that motion i'll second it all in favor i I was confusing for some reason i believe that the attorney said the last time that we can you can actually with something like that you can
actually make because we're redetermining that you can do it but just to keep it clean just and just I mean just so we have the formal vote too okay and four discussion to vote whether to approve the revised senior workoff
program application anything notable in this so it's I think it just is a I don't know Rebecca what's new about it sorry my voice is not good either sorry no that's
okay thank you um hello hi um no basically I just changed um all of the amounts to 2,000 um which was approved at the um special town meeting so I just wanted to update the application so that
um the residents could um you know have the updated information on the application that's it okay perfect any questions or concerns actually um couple questions for you Rebecca thank you for being here um I'm sorry your voice isn't feeling well that's why we had these wonderful microphones it projects so
while out talking to people last few weeks um some of them are seniors and they asked about this program um I told them the best way to contact you would be to pop in say hello right maybe even look at our website it should be up there right um and there some were
interested in this so um look looking at looking over all the different types of work um it's pretty pretty broad they can pretty they can do quite a bit here in town do you I'm assuming you folks promote this as much as possible every senior you spoke to was "Hey this can help possibly reduce your your property
tax year almost like an abatement right?" Absolutely um has that how have those numbers grown since you've you've you started i wouldn't say they've grown i think we're about at 12 right now okay uh I think the I think the main problem
is that we are the focus of where the volunteering is happening i think it probably could be expanded to more departments than what it is um and I think that's probably um maybe not necessarily why people don't participate
but um we are the main kind of hub uh for all of the volunteering well I did watch a veteran I believe a senior too paint an office almost like a yellowish color it was it was great work so that's great work yeah we had one of our volunteers
actually just painted the entire upstairs of the COA fantastic um and he did a wonderful job and we we uh commended him at our open house the other day and it was it was wonderful so yeah it's a wonderful program yeah well I'll keep pushing the word you keep
doing the same thing and um I don't know if you have flyers we we should make some trifold or I think we usually put it in the senior profile closer to when so the the dates are um June 1st to September 1st where they can submit an application um so I think we put
something in the senior profile closer to those dates and throughout those um that time to promote the program for the following year okay i mean it's a it's all amazing stuff and I think kind of offline because we won't solve it here tonight is kind of wrapping our heads
around maybe some other stuff that we can do away from the COA because it's you know that's a legit thing what you're saying so maybe we can come up with some other things like painting right like you just said yeah if any departments um have ideas for our
volunteers I think that would be wonderful i think every year I reach out to the departments and ask them if they could use somebody or if anything they can think of um but I one more department this year um was able to take a a couple of our um people and the
library is always wonderful about taking some of our volunteers yeah that's good to hear thank you all right awesome so with that I a motion to approve the revised senior workoff program application motion made second
all in favor i I and I um got we all I skipped three which I'm sure I know Dev Cot and L probably also caught i uh this is just our open session minutes so I'll entertain a motion to approve the open session minutes uh from
310 2025 uh motion made second all in favor i all right and [Applause] Uh these should be quick so Cheryl I know you have I'm not trying to keep you here all night so I know we have stuff
is already cooked so and I missed the game already so sorry all right so I'll just accept these donations real quick so we have a donation um $50 donation to the council of aging from Paul Condan saying that right appreciate it thank you and um then agenda item seven is a
$50 donation to the council agent from Andrew Hayes so um thank you very much we appreciate it i'm sorry that was just related to the the taxes that we do at the center okay the the free tax program that we offer to uh the residents awesome well and everybody else thank
you great it says discussion and vote do we have to vote on those i think we have to accept them maybe i don't know might as well be safe over 50 i I was just given another check today for over 50 so I have to put on the agenda yeah so that I'll enter a motion to accept the $50
donations both agenda items six and seven um to the council on aging a motion made second all in favor i I number five jesus I'm I'm slipping today i'm watching you all right yep
so this is discussion of vote when the senior work off hours uh increase takes takes effect so what do you recommend that's my question well it depends on what's what's in the budget to be honest with you um we have PE we have about we have
12 people on the list 11 people are active um not everybody reaches their hours every year um not to say they couldn't this year but not everybody does um so I think it would bring it up to 133 hours and a
third um that they would have to work to get the full $2,000 um so I just wanted to know if that was going to go into effect this year for the people that are currently working to know if they should be reaching for that 133rd and a third
so uh in in anticipation of this discussion I reached out to Mike McHugh the assessor's department and said you know um you know what were the thoughts in terms of funding this and what they have done for the veterans work off is they made it effective immediately and these were voted at the last town
meeting so um and the way that these are funded they're funded through our overlay account which is is got the funds in it so there's no um there'll be no ramifications to the town to do this immediately and I think that would be the what I would recommend just because
we've done it for the veterans so we might as well share it with the seniors and have this effective immediately and like I said I I don't see any downside to that so immediately being today yeah um I would say as of um yeah as of uh town meeting vote uh the town meeting um
so for this coming So you want to do it retrospectively okay for the current year just for the coming year um it only takes into to effect the the following year um Mike knows all the ins and outs i just So it starts in like um it it starts from January 1 to like
October 31st right so for this January this current year that we're in the the January 125 to the October of 25 year for the um seniors that's which is the current year right now okay
so January 1st 2025 works then for effective date just want to get the thing all right any questions no no it's all positive stuff so that I a motion to um have the senior work off hours increased be effective Gen 1 2025
forward uh motion made second all in favor i I Thank you okay now so I think I want to say I'm I'm on agenda item eight now you are
we did you want to do the 20 C which would be the last name Rebecca thank you that's under personnel okay so I'll kick it over to personnel for this one right we're doing all of 20 which is 20C let's do all all of 20
because we have uh Mr cabal here as well all right we're skipping some agendas and we're skipping over to agenda personnel board agenda item 20 discussion and vote whe to approve the following appointments c christopher Cabraw to taxation aid committee he's a resident uh effective 410 2025 through
6:30 2025 b Christopher Cabraw to scholarship committee effective 410 2025 through 6:30 2027 and Cine Bole as temporary student intern for council on aging effective 91 2025 and 530
2026 um okay so any questions concerns or comments i I have questions yeah on the Christine boil for the COA okay so I mean I think I think it's always great
to have interns right and um I think it's beneficial on multiple levels my concern is the space constraints at the COA you know I know that I'm getting requests uh frequently to work from home because you
can't work within the building because there's no um no quiet space no space to to work so bringing on more people it's just going to create more of an issue so I just don't know in that environment in the you know there's
literally what is there two two offices maybe a third where are we putting this person um I know Kylie I'm thinking I'm getting the sense she doesn't really have a space right now to work within so needs to work from home because she can't work within the within the COA so
now we're going to bring in another body and where are we putting this person when we already don't have for the staff that we're paying I don't think space is the issue I think at the COA we have an open door policy and I think that's part of the the issue is that you know we're we're constantly available to
people right so when somebody comes in it's expected that we respond to it it's not um Rebecca's behind the closed door and Rebecca can't speak with you right now because she's writing a grant or whatever I think it's the the nature of the work that we're doing and that if
people need us we're we're there and it's becoming very difficult to work on paperwork and and things of that nature to um concentrate because we're a drop-in center um and people constantly need us so I think that's the problem
it's not necessarily that we don't have the space because we do have the space we have other offices um granted when Shine and ARP taxes are going on Yeah all five offices are are in are involved but um that's very infrequent so could
we find the space yes but I guess the nature of the COA is to create um an open door policy which I've always cuz when I first started quite honestly I've heard that the door was always closed mhm and I wanted to make sure that the door was always open so that's the
problem and if you may remember we interviewed Miss Doyle well she's a free-time resident first and foremost and a couple about actually 2024 September time frame right in the fall um then of course like a like any other colleges they throw another course at her and then this kind of derailed when
we kind of already approved at the time that should be a great fit um 16 hours right I think that was what still asking for I believe so if you say we have the room and what's the plan for after May 2026 she's going to graduate graduate she's
going to graduate and she's going to go off into our field i think you know the only reason why Christine is able to come to the center is because I I hold a degree so I'm I'm the supervisor i'm able to supervise her that's the only reason why we're getting a BW student right now um so if that wasn't happening
then we we wouldn't have her cuz she needs somebody to supervise her so I thought you know a college a university reaching out to us uh wanting somebody to be there was was you know a thing to go after especially considering it's 16 hours a week of of a person being at the center
in addition to the team we already have and she's shown a real interest in being with us i think it's I think it's great to like creating a pipeline for future potential employees right like you start that internship it really does help um kind of have that set up yeah I I agree
and if it's like many other programs that are out there once you get your foot in the door more other schools start hearing about it right and they you get more help essentially not not it's free help because it cost them something but not really costing the town other than them taking on some of the duties that our our own employees
take on right and my time too right you have to take that into consideration it is my time and I understand that actually might slow you down because you have to train correct especially at the beginning and I I'm I am aware of that i understand that i just felt like it was
um it was not um to not go forward with this was actually a detriment to the town because this is this opportunity to have another person there giving us assistance giving us you know training um to be a social worker and to say no to that seemed very
uh negligent so and I think that at the very least we can learn from this and say does this make sense going forward or no it might not right for the reasons that you just brought up because at the end of the day you're a huge asset to
the town and and the senior citizens in particular and I think that we have to have you focused in on that number one but at the same time if we can manage between both then it's really a no-brainer but I think that the only way
we're gonna figure that out is by taking the step and trying it right so I say we it's really you right but that's gonna to figure it out but um so yeah so I'm on board but as far as the telework thing let's if there's if there is something there
let's look at that and see how we fix that issue uh bringing people in make sure they're coming into the office um not saying that there is but just keep an eye on it all right there's not an there's not an issue right now there's not an issue perfect perfect perfect thank you i was just Thank you very much
for clarifying that all right um Oops um Miss Bole's going to come to do her quy so her appointment would have to be pending a favorable background check correct all right i'll add that to back to agenda agenda item 2C christine Bole's temporary student turn coun for
council on aging effective fall 912025 through 53126 as of 47 didn't go through Cory so appointment will be favorable upon Cory check that better all right all right any comments concerns or any further
questions before we proceed i see nobody okay i entertain a motion to approve 20 uh 20 um item 20 all people appointed from A B and C i'll make that motion i will second it all in favor i I All right thank
you back to you Mr chairman thank you sir all right so now I'm really on agenda item eight right so yeah does it make sense for us to go to
Cheryl's stuff yeah I think Cheryl's stuff well I want her a part of the conversation for a I'm good i'm good all right sorry all right yeah yeah so this is Yeah whether to host a separate special town meeting for the MBTA zoning discussion
this was just something that we had discussed i don't you know we had we discussed earlier because we you know we believe them it might be contentious but I I don't know that we need to do that i really don't i don't know if the outcome will be decided whether you know one way or the other it's just going to be the same i think it's going to be a big
turnout no matter what um I mean I don't know i don't I don't see a point of us splitting it out i think that for reasons of transparency ease of the offices right i'm saying that as the two people who are in charge of the two offices that
are really affected the most by it um it makes sense to keep it clean to put everything on one albeit you know someone's going to move it to the beginning of the meeting so we might as well start it at the beginning of the meeting and then if at all possible and
then um you know that way it's all all together no do you have a pay sorry no that's okay go ahead not that my opinion really matters but thank you for the opportunity to speak on it um I'm just concerned because it's
such a hot topic for it to be on an annual town election um it's going to be a long evening it's going to be a long evening we've heard all the stories everyone's going to want to have their peace um it's going to be a long evening and
we have other agenda items to get to and I would hate to see town meeting drag out two to three nights yeah I that's that's my major concern but it's really up to the board i think we tried that last time i think last time we tried putting it at towards the middle or the end and they got kicked forward because
everybody was there to vote vote the way they wanted to vote but I agree with what you're supposed to saying i think we keep it as transparent as possible well not as possible transparent 100% and just keep it all on the same day try it put in the back again so that people stay for the whole election but knowing
that they're just going to kick it forward again no it makes it makes sense i mean that's why I'm saying just to I'm just thinking of the amount of people who want to be heard it's a it's a hot topic issue yeah if this is going to be the last opportunity the last stitch effort to be heard you're going to want
to want everybody to have their their due process and have a chance to be heard um that's my only concern that's my only concern i I do believe that the moderator does a good job of trying to control that right so I mean does get us
in and out well yeah but within reason right i mean so there's there's something to be said about that but yeah I just worry about how people will perceive it if we separate it right and I shouldn't worry that people are going
to think something wrong right if we're going to be as transparent as possible but at the same time even if we're doing it for the greater good they it might be taken as the opposite so agree i mean
you do out loud um exactly has has this board discussed maybe having an additionalformational session um just because I feel like the last town
meeting a lot of the same questions were being brought up i feel I feel the planning board really got hit with that as if it was a planning board's decision where it wasn't it's their duty to bring it up to the citizens would this board be doingformational sessions ahead of
town meeting just as a form of transparency and help to clarify and get the word out speak to that so one of the things that we have done um in uh you know the Kylie the community program director sends out the um event
information so we did put something in there telling people that it's coming again because we want to be as transparent as we can and I just had the discussion today with both Luan and Nancy the new town planner about setting up anformational session uh because this
year you know this article is now going to be presented by the selectman so we had talked about having it recorded sort of like we've we've been doing with the accessory dwelling unit um information where we'll have an information session session we'll record it and we'll get it up on our web page and get it out there
so that people can can come and ask questions ahead of time because I want to try to vet as much of that as I can ahead of time and one of the things that I was actually going to talk to you about was um is there anyformational recordings that we can play while while
people are coming in for the meeting and that's something we need to discuss because I know it's there's rules about what can be what can be like show a video yeah like show a video um but I know it can't have it has to just be factual it has to be factual based it can't sway one way or the other for or against so as long as it's very factual
based and then you'd want to pass by that through different departments to make sure it's all accurate right so I was thinking of preparing a recording of such and then having that played of just factual information somebody probably already created it for a different town right yeah I wouldn't be surprised and as long as it passed their muster right
to so we I'll work with Char but I I do I am planning on getting information out i am planning on having anformational um meeting because the problem that we're going to have at town meeting is I have to sit at the table you know town
administrator um the planning board is is not going to present this this is coming from the selectman this time so it's going to be this group that needs to answer all the questions it's just going to be a lot for me to field the questions and do what I've got to do on town meeting night um so I wanted to do
it as much as I could ahead of time so people would have the information so maybe we can elim not eliminate because that'll never happen but reduce the amount of questions and and I want to hey we're going to have theformational sessions so that you can be prepared to vote whichever way you want to vote
that's I'm not and have a better understanding of what's in front of you but I we're not going to hash it out for hours at town meeting you can come and hash it out at anformational session and if I need to have more than one I will if I feel like the the um the need is
there I'll have them you know you know Wednesday night so we just talked about that today about trying to set up those dates and getting that out there so people know that they can come recording it with John getting it on the web page and that that is um the best I can do I
think for this y I think it's a really good idea the more you can promote it and put it out there ahead of time right so that folks have a better understanding clearer understanding and can have their questions answered ahead of town meeting floor right is a good is a good thing it's a positive thing absolutely if we you know if we
can't answer a question we can get back to people because you don't always have the answer right in front of you yeah right the good news from last year to this year we've got a lot of information of what has happened and what hasn't happened from the state side of things so we have more information to provide individuals right um the maj majority of
it stays the same as far as what they're requiring but we now we understand a little bit better what type of grants that that was a big thing last year what what what are we going to lose what grants are we going to lose because of ABC um we saw some disappear and then reappear because because the Supreme Court decision so now we do have
information to to put out there right um maybe they'll change the voting i I I don't know but our job is to provide them the facts right all of them right the good bad ugly everything and just there you go i I want to make sure that the public's aware that we're doing this
be because the state asked us to do this not because we didn't hear them in their vote the last time right this isn't some you know sly move yeah i'm trying to pull a fast one yeah right that's why I worry about doing it separately that's a lot of what we heard right that night
was is you know we want to be here heard loud and clear and we don't want this again and we don't you know and and that we heard that from several people and and so that's why I worry is that okay we have to bring it back to him now we're being not told we're we're doing
the right thing we're bringing it back to him per what we've been asked and I so I want to make sure that if they felt like okay they're doing it on a separate night to be sly and try and pass this one through so I just that's what that's what my I just want to wrap
my head around why I'm saying what I'm saying well the good news is the Supreme Court's ruling essentially muted our vote from from being in compliance from December 2025 24 sorry to July of 2025 right so which means we were never out
of compliance and right still in compliance that's why the grants changed but because of that pre-qual ruling um the goalposts have changed and now we have to revote essentially because it was our vote got muted so that's what I've been telling people and you know and they don't love it neither do we but
here we are we'll do it again and whatever they vote for we'll support that's uh that's our job at the end of the day all right so it looks like we're going to go with one so I want to take a motion to not to have this the MTA zoning discussion as a part of the uh
annual town meeting i think you said that wrong not you want to have it be part not separately we want to have it as part of it included for the June the first Monday in June i was read I was trying to read the uh thing okay so I'll entertain a motion to uh have the MBTA
zoning discussion as a part of the annual town meeting motion made second all in favor i I mean the font for you there Trevor i've been in meetings for since 8:00 a.m or something like
that so straight so my eyes are like bleeding yeah that like puls up since 4 in the morning so that's great okay my son does not care about my uh your meeting schedule at all all right so agenda item the nerve nine
discussion of vote whether to send the MBTA zoning bylaw language changes to the planning board for public hearing and recommendations so this is a procedural requirement to um get this back they do even though they they do need to have a public hearing in order
for it to come um back uh to the to the annual town meeting so they will have a public hearing discuss um the zoning bylaw change not I've been working with Nancy the new planner we're not changing a whole lot from what was presented last
year although what we might tweak it just a little bit and they will make a recommendation arm not recommended back you know saying that they don't recommend it or that they do recommend it so that's the the the um the procedure that has to take place to get
this onto town meeting floor and then eventually if it was approved on town meeting floor approved by the attorney general you have to prove that you've had this public hearing so this is just a procedural thing to push push it to them so that they can do what they need to do in order to get this to town okay
great thank you so with that so I'll a motion to send the MTA zoning law bylaw changes to the planning board for public hearing and recommendations motion made second all in favor hi hi um are we all these all pretty quick ones or do you want me to jump ahead for
anything that Cheryl needs i don't know i don't know what about the chief too we have him here probably turn around for question item 10 just Okay well we're Okay a little light on that that's the ambulance right out right yep all right so we'll So I'll just do 10
we're at 10 now yeah so uh JM10 discussion of vote whether to approve the ambulance abments at rideoffs for March 2025 in the sum of $168,372.95 chief thank you i just I hung around because I saw this on the agenda and I it's something that Deb and I have been discussing and
I've been looking at Well fortunately Nat has been looking at a little deeper than I have but she's very want to tell us something she's very good with numbers so I got to give her the credit um I just want you to know these this number right that's a big number for a
month um and it's something we're conscious of and Debbie's been Can we look into that can we make sure you know that seems like it's going up and up and so I did mhm um so basically what what we have to
look at is how much money what's the what's the percentage of the money that we're actually collecting versus how much we're billing out mhm so I I I've looked back over the last three fiscal
years in FY23 our collection rate was 23% in FY24 it was 25% and to date for FY25 we're at 33% but that's not I I can't say that the
33% is going to carry out the rest of the fiscal year because of the way the the four month billing cycle goes okay so So then I went I went the next step okay well it it it seems to be getting better but how are we doing right
so I pulled my neighbors a cushion at Berkeley Lakeville Fair Haven and Westport right they're all communities that do both fire and EMS ask them how they're doing the only one that doesn't use a billing company like we do is Westport they
still have it somebody internally doing it everybody's in the same boat everybody's in the and it depends on that it's a little cyclic but they're between 22 and 32% depending on the year so now today went a little further
and she dug into the national average for Medicare reimbursement is 18% on a medic on a ambulance bill for Medicare so a little a little above that so well right but all our all our calls aren't Medicare right so so what happened so so
she just went and looked at last month for example yeah so we build our average ambulance bill for February was $258146
mhm the average money we collected for those bills is $520 that's that's that's all you can get it takes 46 days to get it right so that's that's a system it is and it's a talk
about doing something it's a terrible system but it it's what the system is right so the reason right so you can adjust your you can adjust your ambulance rates right yeah so so you say "Okay yeah we're going to raise
our rates a little but the problem is Medicare and Medicaid are still only going to give you that same $300 to $500 so your write-offs look bigger then." Yeah yep and so you have a little bit of advantage for the motor vehicle accidents and and the calls that you get
almost all the money from mhm but you still have all the big writeoffs and our ambulance billing rates we have a uh the county fire chiefs have a spreadsheet that we put all of our data on so everybody can just go reference it at any time we update it once a year our
ambulance rates are right in line with everybody else's basically um the ambulance billing company coastal they'll tell you the same thing is hey how are we doing with our rates so you know you're in alignment with everybody else so I don't the answer is I don't really have an answer I think we're doing as well as we can do the more
calls we do the number looks bigger it's just a bigger number so yeah it's a bigger percentage same percentage it's just a bigger number overall therefore right it just seemed like it was going up and up and up and I don't know if we were writing off the insurance pieces before or not and maybe maybe what we
were looking at but so I do appreciate you spending the time and I do appreciate Nat um being able to dig into it because it does at least make me feel comfortable that these are the numbers and this is what it is and you know we're not leaving any money on the table right because all of us cuz we've had
the only thing we've had was is we I don't even know how long cuz time flies probably say within a year or so we had changed how far back they how long they would go out to try out four we went out to four months now yeah so so we were we were a little more hopeful that we would
collect a little bit But other than that we really haven't wrapped our heads around this other than we knew a very small part of what you just said so now this this helps us put it all into perspective and and other people too that look at it because someone who looks at the agenda to your point is
it's a large number it's a big number it's a big number all right well I really appreciate the information yeah thank you sir all right so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the ambulance payments write offs for March 2025 in the sum of $168,372.95
motion mid second all in favor i I thank you have a good night thank you as well thank you Chief all right jen item 11 discussion of vote whether authorized town administrator to sign the opioid litigation documents so I don't know how much you're aware of the opioid litigation the town enrolled in it prior
I think Dave dear prior two predecessors before yeah I remember doing that yeah and then we're forever getting updates and amendments and things that we have to sign and I've been kind of signing them um they asked us to sign an amendment to be added to a lawsuit
against PBM then they sent another amendment asking us to get out of that lawsuit because it would be better for the overall it's constant and I you know I don't bring them before the board really i just have been handling it because it's it's and and we've gotten
$38,000 total from opioid litigation um it's almost not worth the amount of paperwork and the grief that we go through but this is just again just so that I'm in compliance with I you know I'm not really supposed to sign things that you guys don't approve me to sign so I just wanted to bring it to your
attention that this opioid litigation is still a moving target there is still changing and adding and subtracting from it um a month ago or so they sent us a public records request for all our public records and me and Lan almost died because we're like are you kidding
me right now i'm like send them a bill it's going to be at least 40 hours worth of work to do this which yeah so we were prepared to do that and then the lawyer said don't send them you know we they've they've backed it's just an ongoing thing that I'm still working with and I just want to make sure that I'm in
compliance um and I don't think there's any big news for me to share with the board you know I will certainly share anything or bring to your attention anything that I think rises to that level of you really should be looking at this it's almost more like I said almost a nuisance to
the town because if they do in fact require us to submit public records requests for all of the documents in this it it's going to be a nightmare for us we have them but it is going because it's it's weekly we getting stuff from from them but good point is it's a a
moving target right so it's tough for stuff to come in front of us every single time so just to Yeah clear yeah there's always these time constraints and you know my problem is I like to do things and move on because I forget if I don't do it right then yeah so I'm usually either sending it to Lan to get
on the agenda or just taking care of it and moving it off of my list of things to do so that's all I just I said if there's anything large or you know totally irregular I will certainly bring it in front of the board okay all right so with that I want you a motion to uh authorize administrator to sign opate
litigation documents motion made second all in favor i I All right agenda item 12 discussion to vote whether to approve the change order number one from full scope contracting inc for asbestous um mediation for fire
station number one window and door project in the sum of $6,3747 this is just the small project we're doing on fire station one replacing the doors and the windows in that uh project realize there's asbestous surprise surprise and it's so expensive to get
rid of this is the change order in order to get rid of that okay thanks all right so that I'll entertain a motion to approve the change order one agenda item 12 motion made second all in favor i i all right then agenda item 13 is just the
agreement related to agenda item 12 so that a motion to approve amendment one to the agreement between town free town and full scope contracting for fire station number one window and door project is that true that is true right motion made second all in favor i
I and then uh this is different all right so J item 14 discussion vote whether approve the town administrator sign amendment to service agreement between the town of Freetown and Good Energy LP
good Energy is our aggregate the company that tries to get us the best rates rates for our aggregate program but they take a percentage and they they went up on their rates um they needed this yeah they needed their they needed this signature so um
in order to move forward this this is going to be coming back again they're going to be renegotiating electrical rates soon okay so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the town administrator signing the amendments to service agreement between town free town
and good energy LP um I will make the motion i'll just state that it's going to be so it's minimal so people understand right yeah oh yeah that's a very minimal it's minimal it's going from 0.001 to 0.00125 okay so cuz I don't want people to think
that it's Yeah some maximum thing cuz they don't that motion made i second all right all in favor i I Okay um agenda item 15 discussion and vote on
the fiscal year 2026 winter sand contract so we got three bids or no two bids and it looks like Cape Cod Aggregate is the lower bid and that's at $26 per
ton uh any questions or concerns nope no lowest bidder all right so with that I'll enter a motion to um award the fiscal year 2026 winter sand contract to Cape Cod Aggregates
motion made second all in favor i I Okay 16 this is um discussion about whether to review approve and adopt the master plan looks good i I've read it twice all right and the only thing I can think of
that I critique was one we we have to change some names right and then we kept using the same graphics over and over again same part of towns and things like that we have so much to offer um is there a way we can change some of the graphics to expand and not just a Sonet
or East Free town like a little bit more of everything else you know we have we do have arch bridges and waterfalls and who knows we have eagles for flying around that's the only thing I can think of is like this is going to be shown to
far and wide right it's probably an example for all this to kind of copy which is exemplary and it looks good but we have a lot of the same things over and over again like this is all we have to offer our town i know for a fact especially in the past year we've had so
many more events right um and different things going on it the town looks cleaner healthier uh we have more events going on i kind of want to see those incorporated in this as well not some of the older pictures like I love the band stand but how about some bands inside the band stand playing in
there right like that would be a good draw to the town at the end of the day somebody might look at this and go "Hey that's a nice town to live in." How how about this we could say "We'll approve the content of the master plan with suggestion of of of putting some more updated pictures." I I mean I think this
was held out for I think I it was out for comment for quite some time so it's been completed and I know that the planning board has adopted this already so this is sort of like um formality a formality for you but I I I
certainly can make the comment back and see if um Serbed could change any of the graphics for it i I mean um I did look at the action plan which did talk about providing more community events which I think we are doing so that that was
number one on the action plan so I was excited about that yeah but um I'm excited this is the first master plan that the town has had so to get it to this point where we're actually at the end and over the hump and I know Trevor you were involved in this so it was a lot of work that went into this for a lot of people um not not I wasn't
included in it um I didn't participate I should say not that I wasn't included but um super excited to at least bring it to this point and have it to work off of right it can always be updated and changed and as we evolve but one of the
things when I came to work here three and a half years ago I was concerned about we knew the train was coming and yet we we we were not planning for the growth or we were not planning for the impacts and I I hurried up and tried to get a grant to get this done so I'm I'm excited that we were able to do it and
yes the train is now running but hopefully we kind of get ourselves out in front of this a little bit with the evolution that what's going to happen with the train um progress so um it's great it's like it's like you know it's like obviously it's always turnover in towns right and this is going to be the guiding light to like kind of keep the
north star right uh to keep everyone on the same page so I think it's I think it's really good it looks awesome too it does look awesome no I think it's a good job and I think what Debbie just brought up is a valid point where you know we have these action steps and we get one two and three done at what points do we
go back in and update it and move say agenda item number four to number one or bring other items in and try and because I don't think that it would be my hope that I guess that we look at things because things evolve right so problems we look at and identify and things we
want to we want to go after now yeah it's probably will be completely different yeah will be completely different 20 years from now of course yeah i think it's a living document or it's going to be this is the the two you know the 2025 version released and then
yeah I'm sure there'll be like you know but we have to get Yeah no so I guess that's what I guess that was my only question in regards to it is is you know making amendments to it changes to keep things actionable because we we don't want to have 10 things on here that we want to say check off to do that we
think are you know issues whatever we do them and then we're like okay well now we have this and this is a good guideline for a lot of things but we've done everything else so yeah it's just a thought i think that it you know it usually runs a I want to say 5 to sevenyear course
but usually it's more like 10 to 12 before a plan a planning board and a planner can get it updated um that's been my experience with it um but also you know we just hired our first town planner that we've really had and we actually now have a planning
department so I'm I'm excited about I'm excited about the master plan i'm excited about having a full-time town planner because we are going to start to see the change with like I said with the growth with the train station and it's good to have somebody in place to start
to work on that in a more um you know measured measured way rather than everything just going all all over the place so yeah know I guess that that and if you said 10 years I I don't think that might to some people might sound like a long time but it's not i think that's a value a a good approach so I
don't think it needs to be dealt with yearly it was just a question so yeah and like I said I I think the report itself I've read it twice it it very informative right it was definitely well done um and again my only critique was can we different pictures right but um if if we can change it down the road
fantastic as we grow things change different look different feel um you definitely want that represented in our master plan and and over just looking back over the last three years right open space plan the master plan right the water shed waterhed and everything else
it's we're going in the right direction and I can't say that enough we're going in the right direction and it it does take boards and committees to get us there to make sure that we're in the straight and narrow so that now we can apply for different things such as grants and everything else because of these plans right so people some people
don't realize um cool all right all right so with that so I want a motion to um approve the content of the master plan with the suggestion to use some updated photos where possible motion made second all in favor i I Thank you
what's that it's already done that's fine okay uh so this discussion to vote on proposed recall election provision for the Freetown Leo Regional School District to be placed on the annual town
meeting warrant for 62 2025 that's when our annual town meeting is huh I might have a problem so this is the might be in Canada great we used to switch with Lakeville
this was the this was the joint um this was the product of the joint meeting that the board of selectman in Lakeville and the board of selectman had um requesting this uh uh we got together we had town council they they have drafted it i honestly haven't spent a whole lot
of time with it i I felt like it was a little rushed for Freetown and I did try to reach out to Lakeville to see if there was any chance that we could push this back to possibly October's town meeting and I I still might have that conversation but I think it's already on their warrant and I'm not sure what this this board feels it's it's a special act
so it goes on the town meeting and then it has to go before the legislation so it takes some time to process this and get it in place mhm um but uh town you you have what town council has provided to to me and of course ours and
Lakevilles marry each other okay the same they're the same recall provision for the school committee members which which makes sense because otherwise it'd be a big problem i would also the only thing I will caveat is I don't have a problem with doing it but I also don't want us to feel rushed because in other
town they're doing it you know what I If we get to do something and it takes and we don't want to we don't want to do it rushed and we feel like we're going to miss something or do something incorrectly in the eyes of trying to rush it to keep up with Lakeville then I don't want to do it
then and I'm okay with pushing it off if we feel like we've dotted all our eyes and crossed all our tees and we can bring it to the people with 100% confidence that what we're bringing them is right then I'm okay with it yeah i take solace in the fact that you know
we're putting this on the town meeting based on both boards right recommendations and town council but also we in general um school committee agreed to opening opening up the the street agreement for changes at a minimum change the dates and everything else so I still I still believe we
pursue that process and in the event we are maybe rushed or we forgot something while the agreement is open we can always add that back in or change it because the additional agreement is open between both towns Right so that's that could be done at the local level just by the school committee approving it per council this
is different right right this is a special act for the recall but once we open up the district agreement if it changes we could potentially say hey if there is a mistake let's fix that recall provision as well i think it would have to go back up to town council back up through legislation right so we have to
go back fix you can't fix a special act with the bylaw got it right so it's got to go through the whole process again okay so it's one of those things where if you're going to do it you want to make sure that you do it right the first time right and make sure you have all your eyes dotted and your tees crossed yeah absolutely and there's just in
regards to the Freetown Lakefield School District correct correct because we are part of other districts so this is just FLRSD yeah I would think that if we were going to do that then that would be a different provision because it would be you would have to do it with all those other towns and that's nothing that's been brought to us to our attention at
this point so it's really been everything that's come before this board has been in regards to Freetown Lake Hill so yeah and I just you know there's like do you you know 150 I think it's 150 signatures you need to to recall i mean
is that is that what do you think that's enough i mean and I think we when we So I've been in election mode with annual town um election that just happened this past week so I skimmed through the the proposal that they had sent and I
believe it was 150 per precinct correct that was 150 per precinct so that's four so it increases the number so it's not it's not something that could easily um be passed like you would say like with nomination papers or a citizens petition it is a little bit more um restrictive
or I want to say restrictive a little bit more difficult it's not an easy go well yeah it says here so it's by district so right by precinct and don't forget too with the potential for growth you know if we become four precincts when does that
happen Charlotte is there a certain number so that comes out um it it comes out with the federal census um that happens every 10 years so the past one was 2020 we started um reviewing that in 2018 but the finalized version didn't come out until 2021 because we had this
little thing called the pandemic so everything was a little late so um come 2028 which is right around the corner um where the state's going to start with the federal census and and taking a look at that so what it looks like here it says it's 150 voters but and it looks
like 10% of the registered voters within each precinct right that was what I was going to say exactly my exact thing yeah so if you're at 7,500 give or take now right 750 so it's more than the 450 it's really 450 would Yeah yeah and 300
additional not mattering what present if I'm understanding that correctly so how many do we have at the recent election 285 285 total voters but there was different Yeah different different completely different reasons but it's just it's
Yeah absolutely but not an easily passible thing yeah okay i mean I'll continue to work on it um just wanted you to be aware that this is where we were at yeah that we had a meeting with both um with town council with Lakeville and the clerks from both towns we've
we've you know we've talked about this um and they sent it over to us and now I've just haven't I haven't really spent a lot of time reviewing it um but I will continue to work on it and get it uh ready for town meeting if that's the wish of the board okay does that mean so
we comfortable with voting for this now all right so I'll enter a motion to um put the recall election provision on the Freetown for the Freetown Lakeville Regional School District on the uh to be placed in the annual town meeting warrant for 625
i'll make that motion um yeah I mean I guess yeah I I I'll second it i just hope that we have everything in place so that's really what I worry about i understand all right all in favor i all right over to select loops all right
thank you thank you Mr chairman all right personnel board item agenda 18 discussion and vote whether to hire a seasonal part-time temporary clerk to cover leave 512025 through 829 2025 so this one's pretty
straightforward we're going to need coverage someone as it will be going on maternity leave and we summon to make sure that um they're trained and ready to go when that when that person decides it's time okay so um nothing we haven't known uh this is just makes it official and puts it out on the board internally
first then it goes out to the general public sounds good yeah no I don't have a problem with it and then maybe if we have a position open up for them we can transfer them right like to to something else yeah the goal is always train them and and if we can keep them and and then move them within that's that's the goal
right move them around and and keep increasing their their steps and everything else so uh that has certainly been the case over the past few years um we've kept we've done a lot of hiring but we also kept a lot of them as well so um I mean I was just I was hoping to get a you know a college student maybe
home for summer just to come in fill in um so it is nice college job nice little college gig and that would be a good you know absolutely i guess I mean that's a that's a very valid point i'm just thinking of if we hired someone and they decided that we decided that we really
liked them and they could stay then hopefully we can find a way to keep them so I think this is I mean it's a no-brainer it's just bringing up all right uh I entertain a motion to hire a seasonal part-time senior Oh sorry let me
rephrase that i intend motion to hire a seasonal part-time temporary clerk to cover leave 512025 through 829 2025 make the motion i will second it all in favor i i all right moving on to agenda 19 discussion and vote whe to approve the
appointments of Nancy Dery as the following a serpent commission member effective 3252025 through 61205 b serped Joint Transportation Planning Group JTPG representative
effective 325 2025 through 531 2025 we keep on going folks number C public records clerk planning board effective 325 2025 through 6:30 2025 d sewer line accession committee member town planner
effective 325 2025 through 6:30 2025 and finally E public's clerk public records clerk ZBA which is zoning folks effective 325 2025 through 6:30 2025 it's a mouthful it's what happens when you get hired as a planner you get
all these additional responsibilities that we love to have you in any questions concerns or comments before we go move forward no all right well Nancy get this is your day um I entertain the motion to approve the appointments made
for Nancy Dery A through E on agenda item 19 make that motion i will second it all in favor i I all right continue on and back to agenda item 20 discussion and vote where to approve the following did it already do it we did A through C
i am good all right m all right now I can go up to Sleman Zagger thank you i appreciate it agenda item number 21 discussion vote on utilizing uh existing staff to troubleshoot the kiosk um so this is in regards to the kiosk over at
Long Pond um it's great it it's done a lot of good for us but um with anything like technology right it runs into issues especially a piece of equipment that um accepts bills has card readers does does some different things um
there's there's been some issues um we've been fortunate in the past that we've had uh Lan down there at the end who has uh run out and helped tech support and tech support and uh you know
freed up jammed bills and all sorts of nonsense um problem being is is that it's not fair right longterm she's working a long week um to to ask her to run out there on a Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m because someone who was trying
to go out on their boat jammed a $10 bill into the thing just doesn't make sense so um one of the things we had talked about was possibly getting you know someone who already works there right um to to possibly do something so
Debbie you can uh I'm hoping to use I'm hoping to ask um and I haven't had these conversations so I'm sure they're going to see the meeting but I was hoping that possibly um we would ask facilities if they could um troubleshoot the kiosk if needed now
during the week is you know not an issue and on the weekends we're going to prep the staff on uh at the boat ramp to be prepared to go over to to cash if the kiosk is down but say there's just an some kind of a need that's bigger than that um and facility staff is available
to go to there and and work on the kiosk if needed now the the issue is is always a 4-hour minimum uh to bring anybody in and it's overtime at that point so it's not something that we want to utilize heavily but we just want to make sure
that that's an option for us in order so that it's it's not Lann that has to go there on the weekend no like I said um our first order will be hey if the kiosk is down and you can't fix it yourself you know if we can't have the staff at the at the boat ramp you know one of the
the managers fixing it because it's it's a difficult thing as Lan will tell you it's I haven't done it i have nothing to do with the kiosk it's been Luan but it's not always cooperating and it's difficult sometimes it's difficult to open sometimes it's difficult to close um it's it's it can be quirky that we
say look you go to cash but if there's a reason that they can't go to cash or they they sometimes they run out of change too and we need the kiosk that we have the ability to call somebody in and say hey can you go down there and take care of this or have the manager of the boat ramp do that so that doesn't even
come back to Lan yeah that makes sense to me 100% yeah I agree and again I will have to have those conversations with Kyle and you know his staff yeah that I mean that that is a huge caveat right and um as well as the staff there right we talked
about the manager there to to possibly do stuff and step up and do things so Well that would be the first you know they should be able to do the minimal stuff yeah but at least we're pulling them out they're getting four hours minimum pay right hey that's takes the edge off well the the boat ramp they get
two hour minimum right they have to go in it's two hour minimum I think and it wouldn't be over they would be staffed and you know I mean but they're the first line of defense and they're there anyway all weekend um but just just so we have some options we wanted to make sure that that was something that the
board Now my my only question is talking out loud lan you would get notifications right that something was going on yeah we last year we trans I still got them i think Debbie still got them and we added the two managers so they got them as well i I didn't recall that and I guess
so that would be my thing and then I almost wonder if we agree with facilities and we say during the week facilities might have to show up during their normal working hours um do we add them so that way they know that way you're not having to worry about you're in a
meeting and you need to step out to call them to tell them that they need to go to the kiosk or whatever or or just you know interrupt your workday i can admit that I ignore those messages i will tell but if we can just as simple as add them and just keep them in the loop I think
it makes sense so um so yeah so I mean based on what we just talked about I really find that is kind of a no-brainer to for the reasons that we just stated any other questions or concerns with it no it's it's worked
out pretty well for the town since we put it in there right um there's a lot of work that goes into it right a lot of changes have been made over the years [Music] um I want to limit the amount of of time that certain individuals go there on
day-to-day basis i I I I value time off i value your personal time so I want to make sure there's a balance there so sometimes we have to say no we have to say no that's going out there um but yes I I I I will second or I will
agree to the motion of course yeah know what so yeah so right so all right so with that I will entertain a motion to utilize existing staff to uh troubleshoot the kiosk as um as discussed make that motion second all
those in favor i I agenda item number 22 update on the ball field leases so um I'm going to let Debbie take what she's heard as of recently because I I mean I've heard some stuff today but not say not not today in the past week or so so
you know we've been trying to work on this for the last I don't even know how long at least a year year and a half and I should have put licenses and not leases so all of our ball fields are currently leased to um the baseball FLA and they control all of the fields there
was a sub lease that was done a couple years ago to the football league that they now utilize a part of the Long Pawn fields uh but KR Little Fenway and the other field at Long Pond is all leased
to the to the uh FLAA the baseball league a couple of years ago we approached them and asked them if they were willing to relinquish that lease in favor of these licenses which would give other uh organizations recreational organizations the opportunity to have some fields as well and the these other
organizations are willing to you know make the fields their home and improve them and be able to use them so we have tenatively agreed to have um KRendes will have the agreement was two
fields for softball uh of course baseball would keep Little Fenway in the four fields there and one field at Long Pond football was stay at Long Pond and we offered an opportunity to soccer to have a space at KRO that they could they
would have to do some work to get a field there but that they could use utilize a lot of these organizations are renting fields from Lakeville and they have to pay a substantial sum to use the fields in Lakeville whereas we as a town do not charge our recreational teams to
use the fields that we have um there has been some further discussion about baseball relinquishing the third field that they have at KR and um allowing softball to have the three fields over at KR with the caveat that if they
weren't utilizing it and baseball needed a practice field that they would that they would let them use it and that's sort of the agreement is that if you're not using it and somebody else can use it you need to relinquish it to the other the other person i think baseball were they they were meeting this week
coming up and they're going to have a vote i haven't heard the results of that as of today uh but we're actively again working on these and I hope to get them done and over the hump hopefully this month so you're going to see this come back once once I hammer out the questions from all of these
organizations uh but I'm I'm excited to get this done because I I like I'm excited to see that the um the softball organization will have some hometown fields that they haven't had in some some years um and I'm hoping that they
maybe make KR Zenies like like Little Fenway and as nice as that for our that's all the opportunity right yeah for our beautiful location Oklahoma City you know what I'm saying it's a beautiful location so that's really all I have but it's an ongoing thing and and
and um it was great the way you put that because and I 100% agree um one of one of the things that's been talked about is if uh any leagues decide to not participate that we would then
hold land within so I'm going to use KR if we have that fourth field and we have some space that we gave to soccer if they decide hey we don't want it we're going to hold it as a town and then that way we can decide if we want to divide
it because it might be that you know lacrosse comes to us and says "Hey we want to use this right?" So whatever so I don't want to I'm not trying to hurry up and divvy up everything if it means that some of it just stays kind of under the town's
control at this point then that's what we do because I think we if if at nothing what we learned with giving an umbrella lease over everything was is things change right softball's bigger now right we have all these different things that that are um
putting a bigger demand on the space so you know we we've shen the agreements so that we can revisit this yeah we can visit this visit this a little bit more and we can also look at these other
parcels so I think overall um I think every league should be happy but to Debbie's point there's these little pieces little caveats of different things that they're coming back with input from you know Debbie's working it all in um and then we'll have the
official licenses back to the board soon and then that way we can get everything signed off and actually move forward and get it off the desk i know i'm I'm excited to get this one moving and I I think that just so you know I'm always looking for more land for for if there's
something that comes up through the town where we we're take you know we're taking tax title through land or something because it's exciting to see the kids i think the numbers that I've gotten which don't hold me to them but there's about 320 in the baseball um
organization and about half of that 160 in the softball organization so it's great right i don't know football numbers i don't have that but and we have had we had field hockey kind of interested but they've backed out now but you don't know they might come back so love to see this love to see the kids
utilizing the fields it's great it's it's really good good for good you know good for the children on the town that's one thing that you know going back to my open space and recreational days when we when we created Ozrak uh 2018 2019 one of the things we looked at were the ball fields and the leases and the things in
there that I wouldn't sign then I wouldn't sign now right on both sides of the table uh and over the years other towns taking their example they've raised their prices how many how much they charge per head per child right um neighboring towns are going to be increasing those prices next year right
so that might drive people out so having the options available to us to allow other groups smaller groups that wouldn't be able to take on the financial burden of an increased rate is um is appeal is appealable oh absolutely i mean it's definitely what we've learned that nothing that one of our
biggest draws for for these groups these organizations to want to come in as well with kids from our town is that they don't have to pay per pupil to to um use the fields so the only thing I wish we
had in town right yeah the only thing I wish we had in town is an indoor dome an indoor indoor facility for all our for all our athletes all our athletes as as your your child gets older right you're going to be traveling around all the neighboring towns multiple times a week to try to find an indoor place i would
love to have one of those or centralized location do we have any old factories that uh I've heard some rumblings about something i I I want to explore those rumblings because I think an indoor facility like that would benefit our students and players immensely um and
not to mention it's it's right here in town why why do I have to drive all the way somewhere else right just to go hit a ball on a dirty carpet i can that I can do that here at home on a newer carpet right so food of thought on the parks
commission um I think that would be the most beneficial thing absolutely and it's it's always a a fine line that we walk where we try to make sure that we do what's best for all right we we we sat down with all the leagues to begin with and said we're not going to make
anyone super happy but we're going to make it better for everyone right and that's really the name of the game it's kind of take this pie we have this pie and we're going to divide it up best we can so so really I mean I can go on all night about it but it's really just that there's nothing to um at this point
unfortunately but fortunately we're really close but we don't have anything to to vote on or do yet but we're close we We're really close i like it sounds like common sense approach has been taken yes all right great
back to you sir thank you so uh agenda 23 is the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal so you all have that in front of you uh the the proposed budget that I put together um as you you know I meet
with every single department i go through their requests i sit with them i ask them to up things um you know till I get to a number where I I'm comfortable putting it forward this year is a little bit different i have some requests that are a little bit
difficult and it's not something that I necessarily can answer so you're during your budget meetings you're going to you're going to have a little bit more um pushing back and forth with some of the department heads and I'm going to try to prepare them this week for those budget meetings that start next Monday
the total proposed budget is uh $32,772,000 $123 so pretty much a $33 million budget as the budget's presented we have the It looks like we have the tax levy with new growth to satisfy that budget number um
there's I think there's a a $28,000 number that didn't get put in this budget so I'll be I'll be adding that in most departments are you know pretty level funded i think that the request I had was the fire department is asking for
new uh two new two new firemen i have put that budget in per the request uh but that's something I think the the boards the combined boards will need to look at always I'm concerned about sustainability with the budget because
uh Bristol Plymouth is I think this year the cost is 1,700,000 for um 78 students but this is this is only the um first year that they allow that it was like an open
enrollment as opposed to only having 15 students per year allowed to go there so each year that number is going to go up and as that number of students go up the costs to the town for Bristol Plymouth our share of it goes up and of course with the new new school the expense is
quite high and a little caveat about the Bristol Plymouth Ed educ school budget is that the state decides what your town's minimum contributions is going to be for the for the schools and
it's based on the wealth of your town your your assessed real estate values basically and I don't know the calculation although I did review the calculation my first year here because Lake we paid more than Lakeville and I was confused by that so I went through this whole calculation it's very and
cumbersome because Freetown is a wealthier town say than Taton with the BP even though we only send 6% of the students there we pay 9% of the budget so it's it's it can be painful for the
town of Freetown and that's not going to change i think we're going to continue to be one of the you know the wealthier towns enrolled in the vocational school so I think that the budget for BP is going to double next year to $3.5 million so when I tell you and I look at
these budget numbers I am trying to be careful for sustainability so that's why I bring up adding two new firefighters although I think there's reason and and um reasons to do that i'm worried about the MBTA and we already see the impacts to the MBTA right and like the what
that's going to do on our infrastructure and on our our first responders i also want to caution you that that BP number is going to go up quite quickly and quite a bit that I don't think new growth is going to cover it and so I don't want to put us in a position where
now we're looking to do an override or that we're you know we're cutting positions so just keep that in your mind as you go through the budget numbers as I do um the police had asked I I think you know for another lieutenant position i did not include that i back that out
um I don't think timing of that is good but again these are things I'm going to ask these department heads to present to you um a lot of the department heads have asked for quite substantial raises so through the personnel chair and uh fin
chair we discussed everybody had included a 2 and a half% cola we added a 2% wage adjustment so there there's a four and a half% to uh bylaw employees but they have asked for substantially more than that and so I'm going to ask them to present their information before
both boards at these budget meetings so these this budget where I usually feel like I'm at a a 98% completion I'd say this one's about 88% completion because there are things that need to be answered at those meetings that I didn't feel I could just decide i I will but I
wanted the boards to listen and and interject what their opinions were um one of the things the community program director Kylie who's working as an outreach worker as well is asking for a full-time position and to combine those two i've asked her to write the job
description and what that would look like and where it would fall like does it you know community program director is a department head they run their own budget they you know they control their own budget outreach worker works underneath Rebecca at the at the COA kind of different positions um I've
asked her to write the job description of what that would look like and I need to know what we're going to do if we're going to leave it as it is or we're going to entertain this new position and where I put it and so that's sort of in limbo for me too i I haven't completed the the um I've completed the budgets
but one of one the COA budget or the community program budget might change depending on the board's decision the combined boards so like I said there were some pretty big things that came before me that I didn't make the decisions on that I felt it was best to come before the joint boards to discuss
um I think those are the the biggest ones that uh the salaries of of the BAR employees and so elementary school debt went away that that debt yes our debt I mean we I I will tell you that I I've gotten away
from debt we we've been paying cash for the new capital equipment that we need i have been mourning department heads for the last two or three years to get their capital needs met because the money the budget's going to tighten right we know that this is coming and and now I don't
know if you're aware of what's going on with the school budget but they came in they reduced their budget so it's pretty level funded for the regional school district but there's a big uh push to not approve the budget and and let the
union continue to negotiate the existing budget included a 3% um wage adjustment for the teachers but they're in the middle of union negotiations and and they're not wanting to settle I don't believe for the 3% so they're pushing not to have the budget approved at the
school committee level so that it can stay open now if that happens the state will come in and give us I think a oneth budget i don't I I'm assuming it's 112th of like the existing budget but I don't know so that just leaves sort of us up in the air too until they
resolve the union negotiations and then resolve the budget so my guess is if that goes that way the budget's going to increase and then I'm going to have to come up with the money to fund the school and but no way for me to know how much that's going to be so that's a real that's happening tonight correct are
they voting on it tonight from my my understanding you know but you you've been getting what what's going on with that so that's a big unknown for for me right now and I I will weather it as I get more information and I will keep you
informed and it may be that I tighten these budgets a little bit um I think there is some room I could tighten some things not a lot i think our department heads do a great job they don't over ask they ask for what they need and if I ask them to cut they usually do um they find
we find ways to to get it or if they increase one spot I usually try to get them to decrease somewhere else and they work well doing that um but you know there's always unknowns and overall like I said the budget's 88% done i will continue to
work on it and tweak it and get it uh as we get through the next couple of meetings i don't know that there's anything I don't know if you guys have any questions at least you've got your eyes on it unfortunately my paper cut off the end but you if you look at the end column it's fine it's just blank it
shows you the percentage like increase which is important to look at like what budgets like I said I think fire was my biggest increase um I don't think anybody else really asked for big big increases um some of them are necessity like trash trash just goes up and up and
up i mean it's not anybody It's not going down yeah well it's yeah we have some decisions on trash in the next uh next year or two regarding with what landfill and if there is a landfill well that's that's I mean where crapo crapo lane or sorry lane the cheapest though
they are they are the cheapest they are um they are staying open they we will have another contract with them i have talked to great know that that's going to stay yeah because what did they give us last time a one-year contract right so the so they were they they reduced the amounts because of that something
we've talked about and we're not going to solve that tonight but it's Yeah but they're but we're okay for this current coming year but again I I'm looking toward sustainability for the next you know I I don't want it to be okay this year and then next year we get this double BP number right and now I'm
cutting where do I cut you know um so I'm always thinking about that and it's back to the debt i'm not the new ambulance we voted for we we have the cash for that uh the only debt that I'm continuing is the lease program for the police cruisers uh just because I didn't
I I t I thought about pulling back and just saying look if you need $125,000 for two new cruisers then we'll just budget that but the lease program is sort of works it works and it goes forward and maybe we're not going to have so I left it alone this year it's something I'll look at again next year but I didn't want to pull the trigger on
that right now because it's just a lot of work to get back into the lease program so yeah I left it alone that's that makes sense um and as you know most of you know we we do have our monies invested we're doing you know okay but of course that's all changing very quickly too in terms of how much the
interest the rates are what we're earning on the money that we have in the bank so um a lot of unknowns right now just like in the whole global Well the good and bad news I guess of the whole thing is we've been talking about this for at least three years right preparing
and hedging for the uncertainty that the market is going to give us and here we are right it it really is coming it's not when it's not if it's when right so I think you've done a great job over the years making sure that we're prepared not just for today but we're prepared for tomorrow yeah right and tomorrow is
really what got me concerned as well cuz when I saw the BP numbers come in last month I I it was eye watering i was like "What do you mean it was supposed to be 700,000 we're one a million over." And then you're right because we're wealthy we're going to keep getting that hit it was the right decision to make for our
students right it was absolutely 100% I voted for decision right it was a great decision yeah it's not It's the cost and and it's coming next year it's really really going to be tough I think for us i as um two parents with kids that are the same age um
the excitement for my daughter who's in seventh grade it's real right like the kids are excited about the school and things that are going on there so with the excitement means that we're going to have you know more applications and and more applications it's a brand new brand
new brand new school coming programs like it's a great opportunity it's it's it's a hands down the one of the best things we've done for our children in in generations right it's going to cost a little money but so does everything else yeah so well I mean I think we've been but we've been we're you know we've been paying attention to that like I said
there is no debt on our books we paid we owe for the fire st uh the police station so that's $500,000 a year we have uh this after in 26 it'll be the fifth year i think we'll have three more years of that payment um other than that
we do have one more year on a fire truck which is this this November and then all of the apparatuses is paid for and the only capital request here is a truck from Chuck's department for $121,000 is I don't know if it's like a sort of a small dump truck um he
actually did an article for it i pulled it back and put it in the uh capital budget okay so that's the only capital request that I've had other than a new copying machine somebody asked for a copying machine I think on the second floor because the copier moved up to the annex so now we need a new copier so
very little capital cost as I said I've been preparing these guys for this um so I think we're they're all in good shape they've got new vehicles they've got what they need and um we we do have some big requests the salt shed but we'll discuss that further and this
and the elementary school is going to need some substantial sums of money their boiler is gone they're projecting a million dollars for the boiler but I've also been preparing for that with that stabilization fund that we set up a couple years ago and been putting money
into it so the roof um I'm planner by nature as I always say so I try to I try to um plan for these things and can't always do that but I'm I'm hoping that we we'll stay in good financial shape and and I think you know
a lot of towns are hurting we're okay yeah it goes back to our commitment to our town right it does look at the look at the improvements of town hall uh the school right we we we're putting money back into infrastructure right the old the old adage of instead of replacing a shingle you have to replace a roof and
now we're making sure those shingles are in good top shape so that we don't have to spend these large amounts of money down the road so we're doing it we to no no insult to any previous board and everything else i respect them and everything else but this board I think we're we're keeping an eye on the entire
town and its buildings and its people and everything else you have to give a lot of credit to Kyle yeah absolutely cuz he's he's he's doing a good job with that and he keeps you know we work well as a team and he does he's not afraid to get it done and um so that's been
helpful 20 more years Carl 20 more years i think we're in a sign right you got to do that before I fall asleep i haven't done that in days see if I've been watching these online classes
how to sign your name differently like calligraphy so when I do my warrants in science I'm just like how do I change it up this year you see a more distinct C they have to nomination because I know all the secrets
my signature is absolutely terrible my dad's the craziest look up anymore i'm like I know who that is some of these some of these calligraphy things are man they they're going crazy i'm trying trying to duplicate it i'm like I feel like the more I do it the worse
it gets it's the problem right like as the older I get I'm just What is this this is the asbestous thing i think this is for and it's probably it's still I've seen your signature it's way neater than mine mhm
just me too right yep [Music] what we need is one of those like old school ink pens right i mean we throw that in the budget yeah that's just right yeah they're just giving you the so ink pens with the big
I want a big fat little feather on there look at that C woo impressive be like that's not his signature you go i I remember learning in college that like your signature can be whatever you want it to be like it doesn't have to
even resemble a word or it can be anything just it's just whatever you use yeah i wanted mine to be X yeah and it's uh that like broke my brain like a business physics law class when I was like a sophomore in college that's great you got lazy on the last
one okay all right all right so with that I'll entertain a motion to close the meeting to ajourn sorry wow motion made uh second all in favor i
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