Trevor Matthews Freetown St Petty Town administrative Freetown who the executive assistant all right well we have a full compliment which is lovely I know it took a little bit of work um since November to try to coordinate you know a convenient time for everybody and one that would align us to um with our new fiscal year um so I guess what we'll do is we'll just stay right to the to the agenda um so the first discussion is um reviewing possible am amendments to
our regional agreement um I know this was something that had come from Freetown um so I'm going to turn it over to you for this um part of the discussion and just Enlighten us to what are these um possible amendments that you're looking to address yeah I know if you'd like to speak to this sure so thank you for the opportunity to be here to speak with the lake bille select board as a joint meeting so like we
discussed well originally when we looked at the district agreement we sent it over to the school committee and to uh our D um superintendent and the general conversation was hey it's 14 years old let's dust it off let's see what this be amended or change or updated right I I think over the months since we've started that conversation I think they're you know from different folks and that want to add things to it but I think to keep it as simple as possible is to review it between both towns make
sure one it still Falls in line with what our both Town Charters are and again dust it off it's 14 years old and typically any select board is you have a contract that's worth three to 5 years that you're able to sign it's going to keep some nice fresh eyes on it all new faces on both boards why not take a look at this as well and I know supported by the by the the superintendent of the time has again dusted off it's not like we're sitting there trying to pick on one person or another person it's not about that it's about it's 14 years old
just take a look at it okay so and did you did your board happened to take a a chance to look at it did the do you know if the school committee took a look at it well that's that's the start right so by speaking with KP law and our attorneys and everything else there are certain ways we go about this right one we we work with school committee which I I encourage that's why the whole point of is is to work with the school committee and make sure that they're okay with the the language as is or change what's needed then it goes to both towns and that's where the joint
communication started with Lakeville and Freetown you can't do this alone right uh we had added it to one of our Warren articles in event we had this meeting earlier in the year um of course our schedules are like you but we're all pretty out there sometimes right so that's that's the steps of of amending if any changes are are so warranted right so steps are we speak with the school committee um get there by in maybe even create a group that that all talk about what's on the uh any specific
language that wants to be amended right I know the the lawyers want to look at it make sure nothing's changed legally as far as mgls and things like that so it's very very laah conversation in a sense but at the same time it's again I'll I'll rephrase it it's 14 years old let's just take a look at it and see what makes sense yes so I remember I trying to remember what the specific item was that was because I know we talked about having it on war we end up not doing it because obviously that was procedurally wasn't the right thing to do um I I don't really can't really remember exactly what the sticking point
was or at that time we were talking about wanting more financial information from the district and then um uh so procedurally to open up this um the district agreement but we had discussion at Great length of that we might not need to do that and just so you know we did the goal was to meet with uh lak Phil kind of come up with what what the two boards were looking for and then go to the school committee and include them in the conversation if if it is in fact
financial information it may be something that the towns can agree directly with the school committee to get on a regular basis as opposed to necessarily amending the uh District agreement so I think that's where we left it we were looking at maybe we could get monthly financial statements from the school that was one a more timely budget I think would would help everybody that's spe and one of the other talking points was the hiring committee for the superintendent which actually would come into play again at
this point with that um because this does have a hiring so it was it was not necessarily to change the language in here but to possibly supplement it but the first step would be Freetown and Lakeville agreeing and then going uh taking those agreements going to the school committee and having those conversations to see what they were willing to agree to or not agree to um because maybe it's not something that necessarily the agreement needs to be um amended but that maybe you just have a supplement agreement yeah they agree to
give you monthly um financial statements maybe they agree to allow um members of the town to be included in the hiring Committee of the superintendent there's i i i as far as hiring I think there is probably an mg mgl that I did not review before tonight's meeting that needs to be reviewed before anything is really soli because it sounds um to me you know that this is you know more of like an administrative type request and I I believe correct me if I'm wrong um that
you and Andrew are have regular or will have regular meetings with the the business department at the school yeah we've had one um together so far and Jack has kind of committed to giving us a monthly budget report hasn't quite happened yet cuz he's in the middle of kind of chaos right now as an acting um but yeah I think if we can definitely share that with rewards yeah no I I think that's great I I mean I've never not known them to be amendable to
something you know just like getting a a monthly budget you know update I know it does go out to the school committee every month and chair um as Town Administrator in Lakeville um we got it every other month um was kind of our students and um Ashley at the time used to share it with us every other month um just as a course of business when we would meet at the regional um school
committee yeah that's when we would it would be shared out with the group and I and where you said 14 years I mean it's a long time when you when you really think about it um and we we haven't had any amendments to it I guess you know starting today we can agree um or not agree that if we were to look and see if there was any possible updates that needed to occur that it
would be a joint um discussion with Freetown Lakeville and the regional school committee because I feel like we're all vested um you know in this document and when it was created we were all at the table I mean I just remember being at the um the mediate school around you know together which I think was really beneficial so we all you know had agreed that it wasn't going to be the word shall and it was going to be the word
will or vice versa so to speak but um I mean at least that's something that I would I I would hope that all three parties would be involved with it when we're going to make changes to it that everyone that had you know something to do with it should be involved it shouldn't be just us and I don't think that tonight's meeting was ever about trying to you know open it up look at it make changes close it back up not not including a third party if you will so
um I think that I I 100% agree with you that everyone should be involved that especially the school committee when you're talking about something that's such as the school sure you know that that agreement yeah and a big piece of that as well is like you said earlier keep together you know I think the parents may also have some things they want to add or change or even just be included in the conversation so again it's a little older even if you just a win is just changing the dates and putting new signatures on it that's a
win right but at the end of the day let's take a look at it and whole harle as a as a team and see what makes sense you know something may in there that may be tightened up Others May to be Rewritten who knows okay um Lakeville do you have any You' like to add um so so I know that um all parties have always come together in the spirit of teamwork so there was no instruction book for the pandemic and the schools came to us and said we need
all these Chromebooks and you know can you use your Care's money and we did right it was never any we don't want to do that you know so I I think everybody sitting you know probably in this room not just at these tables knows that um it's really important that we get it right for the kids but like the pandemic and you know I'm the first one to say I don't want to keep blaming the pandemic for everything but um it
was nice to see that we all made sure we were doing things in collaboration but it also shed the light on maybe how we can change things I mean as a select board we're looking at our own internal policy policies so I think it would be a great idea you know just like we've looked at you know other things the way we we needed a new facilities person CU we had one person doing three jobs you know so
you're under constant that's part of what it is to do our job so I think it would be great for you know all three parties to sit down I do believe your signatur is on it so you were at the table because that's one thing that I always look at you know how did it how did it get to where it was how was it when it was approved has it stood the test of time to Carlos's Point has Mass General lot changed because we know there's been a couple of big changes the
2017 um changes and um so I really would like to see um to see this agreement looked at again um and I do believe all stakeholders need to be sitting at the table but but I do also believe it's our job as Leaders of both towns to make the first step so so maybe our town administrators can you know collaborate on a you know on a good time because I know you know budget
cycle is here and um you know Town meetings in June so you know maybe it's a a summer project on a Saturday just throwing that up throw it out there something to look forward to um Mari did you have anything um do you guys okay um mine is maybe more of a question um I have a problem that all of
us voted to do an audit and they decided not to and I would like something in the agreement that that can't happen I don't think that's appropriate yeah clarification yeah um are you looking for a audit cycle or is this a onetime a it are we talking about like a nice you guys know way more about that aspect of it than I do no I I was just thinking like you know every 10 years you do a full audit of you know your services it's just good hygiene
type of stuff what kind of audit were you looking for so uh it everyone uses the word and it's not it it's they say it's a fraud audit it's not that's not how I'm looking at it this is just an audit of all things an audit to ensure that good practice I have being adhered to that everything is where it's supposed to be all the accounts are in order everything is as it should be um you know the yearly audits that we have they do a great job at what they're
tasked to do but they're really just there to say you said this is a I verify this is a it that's not looking for anomalies and problems um I believe it's good hygiene and I would suggest it for our own towns as well that every 10 years we have a full Soup To Nuts audit and whenever there is an irregularity that triggers another set of audits and maybe we come up with a threshold we say you know if you have a regularity of $500,000 that's an automatic trigger of
an audit something that takes kind of the the the political posturing like out of it and it's just a good practice that would be my suggestion I like yeah that's so that makes a lot of sense like we Brian and I both on the Regal school finance committee we this came the audit came up for um we're specifically talking about a of the the finance for the schools right and that I think scope is something we're struggling with right like and understanding where we want to specifically go with it and like I I was
thinking it through the lens of like a forensic audit right which I think might have been maybe different what you just described right it's what I'm I think we're looking like if there's specific things that we see that we want to dig into but we don't know what those things really are yet so I kind of like the way you articulated that where it's more of a holistic kind of approach I was thinking too the the actual the yearly audit we get where there's failures for different kind of controls and process and procedures um like those can be focal points of this type of audit right
I think one can inform the other but um I mean if those Services you know where it's not your normal audit that you need to do right it's something over and above that I mean I'm sure companies provide those for um you know school systems so they certainly do yeah so I mean that that seems to make a lot of sense to me I like the idea too of of having it like every five or 10 years depending on cost right if it's extremely expensive that' be important but then also I like the idea of a trigger like where we had some serious
budget issues right where like what was going on and that could be a great way to take out any kind of figure pointing and Trigger so like that and you don't know what you don't know exactly so a lot of these times you think that you know this is the issue but that's not really the issue that was the result of this issue over there so yeah I at the risk of getting too far off the agenda um I just want to clarify something so I can't speak for uh Freetown select board but our select board voted a recommendation of an audit and we didn't
even know what term to use fiscal U forensic or otherwise um that recommendation was passed back to the school committee the school committee then delegated that task of defining the scope to the regional finance committee it wasn't that they didn't do it it was scope had to be defined that task came to us we then determined that the best course of action at that time because we all admitted we also don't exactly know what scope to include here was to delegate um kind of a an advisory committee to certain members and that went off was supposed to happen and then
soon after there was a turnover Regional fincom lost his chair uh we just finally got one back at our last meeting so there's there's been a lot of dead space and it is something that should be Revisited since at least I know our town showed an interest I apologize I don't know if we took a vote on or not I think we did um but it wasn't that this the school committee said we're not going to do it there's just been a lot of activity as I think we're all aware and makes sense we need to just revisit it okay Madam chair yeah but I think if it's written into an
agreement like the way select board member can be I always just want to call just like maren said I think that there wouldn't it wouldn't get lost yeah yeah and it becomes procedure it this is what we do and it doesn't have to be a football it doesn't have to be like people's feelings are hurt because they think everything's being mismanaged or anything it's not that it's good hygiene it's Good Housekeeping it's something companies do it's something we should
hold ourselves to and you know we should it's not lost in a other committee that's appointed and this and that and Y how long would something like that take that's a good question months years no not years but um I could probably reach tell the yearly one that know Jack's going through even that's months for a lowlevel one or high level I guess I should say so a deeper level one probably could be a year depending on what the scope is it depends very dependent on the scope my comment came
from the fact that I thought we were voting on that with the intention of getting it done before this budget cycle so we would know what we're going into it with and that's where that came from but I do understand that okay it's a very good point defining the scope but there was a lot so that's where that was coming from good gotcha yeah if I may I did have one comment on the actual agreement itself which was um you know as the Lakeville folks know town clerk's office went through a
significant effort to get all of our bylaws recodified yes get all the mgl references figure out which ones have been superseded numerous times eode yeah it's on the ecode site now I mean I would love to see something similar done because finding this and reading it is like 14 years old it's atrocious I think we did that I think we did that through a community cabinet Grant okay so um if we could find out if we can apply a community cabinet Grant as you know in
Tandem and apply it to the region that would be we're yeah we're also Cod doing that same kind of yes yeah uh what's the company we're using I don't know the name of the company but the codification of our webs yeah and yeah as we know it was like 2 years because the same thing what you're talking about where we had this one mgl that was you know surpassed by this one but we were still referencing this one and it was hard for people to find things conflicting things
we found yep you love it when it's done yeah exactly cation process does take a while but it's needed from time to time we've done the same thing with internal policies in within town this one was just one of the oldest ones we had in the books that again just need a revisit so how old is our recycling policy Leah probably knows the one that's like from the 90s must use donkey bring just finished our policies right we finished the recodification of the existing bylaws
now they're doing the review of them to see if they're if they're in compliant with them the current laws and all of that so we're sort of in the middle of the second phase of that and also our internal policies and procedures so we just went through all those and updated them fun stuff reading those sometimes you I know it's exciting content but important stuff Madam chair I had a question um are any of us going to be suggesting things that we would like to see tonight or are we waiting on that I
mean I I guess I Envision it more to when we're in the room so if you can kind of think about and jot them down in your little black books and you know bring them all to the table because wi all three parts yes sry right yep so I should have mentioned this on the top of meeting I forgot I know we have do have another we have a board SCT meeting after this oh okay at uh 700 p.m. so it's 5:53 we have plenty of time just oh thank you for that thank you all right um so I guess we'll we'll just work on
you know scheduling a time where we can all come together and you know just at least you know take a look and start from there AB sounds great yeah cuz procedurally this is was this is how the attorneys told us this is how it goes and and let's just do do it the right way okay good talking together all right um so any concerns surrounding asit and long pawns um I think this also came to the table
for discussion what was the ethos of this agenda item I think it's just that we always have a lot of activity in the summertime close up the boat ramp on our uh Freetown side the the boat ramp's very active and we um expend a lot of time and resources in the summer uh months and also of course we we both
towns I know we get the calls about the pond levels frequently um and what we're doing about them and there's really not a lot we can do about them but I thought it's a good topic because both towns deal consistently with both subjects we we I think free toown deals with the boat ramp but I think Lakeville deals a lot with the pond activity on the pond so it's just it's just something that both towns have um uh concerns with yeah I guess Chief Rose this this year this
past summer was it as bad with incidents as it was previously to the previous year I remember had all kinds of situations I want to say that the activity of the bo ramp has progressively increasing over the years so the point we um we're restricting parking at the boat ramp because it's full and people that are attending the location of the scrambling to find other locations to get access to the water but also Park their private vehicles and
their trailers this increase in activity of course brings in other activity that we don't want to deal with but we have to okay um whether it's uh criminal activity or even U people getting injured or whatever types of services that we need to respond to at that location uh we do the best that we can to handle the situation over the years we've uh hired additional officers just specifically to monitor at the Bol ramp
location we our department has relied on enforcement being done by the environmental police as well as uh the lak police department that has a uh and I don't want to speak on behalf of chap hurricans but a marine unit that does enforcement on the on the Waterway and our department is actually uh requested Mutual Aid at times for the
need of that boat to assist us because we don't have a marine unit at this time but I foresee in the future in the support of a marine unit to be able to work alongside of the Lakeville Police Department and uh it's very involved uh uh having the Personnel to be able to support the program is key uh having the uh finances to support the uh Staffing and training and Equipment all comes into play um but my biggest challenge is
not to offset P our normal streets of Patrol um but we to this day we going to uh be committed to work alongside of our neighboring agencies uh Lakeville as well as supporting the state agencies of State Police and environmental police regarding the activity on thank you chair yeah um question for the board maybe for the chief um a few years ago we were trying to get a wash
station there to wash off for the mil foil to ensure that we were not adding extra invasive species in the water I didn't know if that has been looked at for the last four years or so um yeah it was one of those things that uh even though we can treat it it's better to not have it be introduced as opposed to you dealing with it after we've spoke with a couple of different people from state level um about doing that and they
say to your point that that's the only way you know there's been some groups that have been proactive about getting out there and trying to eradicate the weed from the pond but as much as they eradicated if someone continues to bring it back um so we have had some conversations in around it we have had multiple meetings with Surf and Doug Cameron from the state um and the representatives so uh I think representative Orwell and R Schmid um we
had a meeting out at the boat ramp the conclusion was that they felt like there was no really space there for um a boat wash because you need um I think you need hot water um it wasn't going to work what they suggested which which I'm going to I wanted to say anyways that the the best run boat ramps are run by a community people that that benefit from the boat ramp so what has been suggested to us if we could get a group of people
that live on the pond that are interested in invested in the pond and the bat ramp to like work at the boat ramp that's that's the best thing they said the the best approach is to have visual on the boats as they coming in making sure this mil or weed is not on them um so I'm not sure I know there's been there's a lot of um groups the asaap pawn group uh is involved I know Freetown does the hiring for the boat
ramp but if there is lakevi people that live on the pond that are invested in the pond and invested in the Bol ramp that are you know interested in working their you know minimal jobs but somebody who's really invested in the pond and wants to make sure this weed doesn't come in and go and wants to work the boat ramp that might be a way to do it and that's what he said the best boat ramps in the state are run by Community people that have vested interest in the pond which is not been the case we you
you know we hire seasonal Health that are usually young adults in there that are just there to collect the fees for the for the parking so if anybody has any suggestions if if there's anybody that can help out with that if they want to contact our office and we can work together um to see if that that might help all right no goe go I was just going to say we keep bringing up the state and that might be confusing some people that don't know but like my understanding is even though the parcel for the parking
lot and the boat ramp is located within Freetown it's actually owned by the Commonwealth correct so it creates this really strange Partnership of like you know three quars of the lake is in Lakeville like a quarter is in Freetown and then the state controls the access in and out of it y um which I I don't know how we got in that position but that's that's agreement between the state and the town Freetown that allowed us to maintain the ramp over the years that agreement has me has stayed over the years we have seen some improvements to
the ramp uh new shed new striping fencing uh thep talking about uh putting up the uh a new ramp cuz the ramp's decaying some of the pieces are kind of falling off so they dug out that Culvert again correct yeah so there there been some positive changes to the pond but we want to continue that working with Lakeville and all the associations to keep that pond as healthy as possible yeah one one of the things is a part of the agreement we can only charge enough uh like the amount we charge has to only be to cover our operation fees right so
one of the ideas we had was so many people was like well there's obviously a lot demand let's you know let's increase the price a little bit maybe we reinvest back into it but apparently that would violate the agreement you know we have to get the fees approved by the state um D Cameron and I think we're one of the highest fees already it was difficult to get to $10 for parking from $5 C it was really difficult to do that so we can't go any higher than that in
my Madam chair I'll I'll just say very bluntly what Deb said very nicely State's not paying for a boat ring I mean a boat wash station they they literally said here you could use these signs you know that showed pictures of car of boats driving away with like a weed on it and they said get volunteers and that'll super helpful yeah yeah but we're not paying for a boat wash station they they use
the pond as a boat was station yeah correct right they go in the ocean and they then they bring it there to wash it but just so that you know which really not what we're looking for right I have an operations question um I know you're charging parking fees but does does everyone park there that uses it or people just drop off and can they use it and how do you calculate how many people are getting there then Lan you're probably best to answer that one technically the state said it's a launch fee but it's very difficult if someone
comes in with this SK do dumps it and drives right past the staff so they're not really tallying anyone that's there cuz I've been on the pond and I can I can tell you I can see people like coming through there's way more people than would fit in that parking lot they Park all down street to which is another yeah to allude to what the chief said you know we had to put up a lot of no no parking signs because they were parking everywhere and the intersection of 18 where it takes that hard turn before it
gets to the the ramp uh they were parking inside of there and then there was issues with people seeing coming out of on to 18 and that was uh more towards the height of the pandemic we were having a lot of issues with that and then there was some signage put up and I thought it was getting better but sheap you were saying it's still not perfect right it goes hot and cold it depends on the how warm it is and how much people want to access the pond so um yeah it's
challenges I know the the uh uh the beach over on Freetown side we had a situation where they were driving using the the beach itself to launch boats driving right on the beach so we so we put up you know big concrete blocks to prevent that and then people were picking up the jet skis with their hands and cring them over the blocks and then putting them into the water so they're going to find a light in the water where there's a will away but I can honest oh hold on um I can honestly say that over
the last six seven years um that these communities have come together with regards to you know trying to rectify the concerns that we've had with long pawn and aswanson Pa and we've made some great strides on the nascet river and because it's all related and connected so we have made some you know good concerns and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to continue to find ways to you know address these you know especially I
I will say that um the whole time that I've been you know representing on the APC and the other group um that's one of the most important things is just making sure all the stakeholders Freetown I know is well represented Lakeville has always been well repres presented on both of those groups um but it really is not our purview to handle what the two chiefs handle so I know um the APC management I know Nancy Yates has some authority over folks who walk around and
do things but that would be for her to report right to the chief correct Chief Perkins she Nancy Yates if they have an issue their uh Rangers they go right to you don't they correct yeah um but as far as all the the other stuff with the weeds and the this and the that um there really is pretty good representation and that's you know one of the things that um you know at least I've always tried to do is make sure you know even um I think we had all gone to that meeting
together with arri and um I think our former Town planner was there so that you're right that whole part of pond maintenance and um has has gotten way better than it ever was so y hey question for Freetown so I'm just looking at your G map here has there ever in the past been a discussion about the beach side where you've got a Zone open space and Recreation like putting a parking lot there to like say okay we're going to take away the excuse if there's not enough room for a boat wash like
putting our own lot there and then freeing up the space on the state side has that ever come up in the past I don't think it has no we talking about right at the boat ramp to the little bit to the left of it yep y yeah so you would take the beach and make it a boat ramp no no no leave the ramp where it is and then you would put a similar sized or maybe slightly smaller sized parking lot on the beach side maybe not all the way out to the beach but like I said I'm just shooting from the hip here which is always very dangerous I'm just looking
at the graph and saying oh that looks like there's actually open space and Recreation space right there across the way that is similar in size to the whole state parcel there and maybe that's a way for you to generate some parking money cuz then you're no longer under the state's man yeah I'm sure the people that park there for soccer and football could also uh substitute and add some money to the coffers as well if you ended up doing that as a parent who was
on that narrow road um for years and years um trying to find a parking spot driving around for 10 15 minutes waiting for a parking spot to open um I know that that would be an area of opportunity um so not only just summertime you could have possible Revenue I know I would I would have thrown like five bucks out the window instantly just to not drive around and and worry about spots so it's it's interesting because a lot of the talks we've had most recently are pushing that parking lot back because right now if
you look it really makes no sense we have a huge parking lot and a relatively small Beach kind of should be the opposite right we need more space for people to be able to access on the beach they're not there to park they're there to use the beach theoretically so we've talked about kind of pushing it back that way they can have more activities we still having good parking space but that's you know an an interesting thought and it's worth something it's worth so instead of pushing it back couldn't you push it
around the water more and open up the area on the water more does that not work with the current the land the water area around it kind of wraps around it so to speak we can't really push it out I mean so they can't access it further down the line so I'm trying to picture it in my mind's eye and it and it goes into the woods onto the left when you're water that's all SW got it you're all thinking
about it like I can see your minds are churning thing like you don't know what you don't know right like you just said earlier kind of a nice idea so you'll all be dreaming about it tonight you know for your next meeting you'll come up with options but all right well at this time um I'd like to invite the Chiefs up uh to the table come on up have spots need an extra chair we need just an extra chair
I and I forgot to mention at the beginning of the meeting even though the microphones are here so those that are um you know we'll watch this after uh we'll hear but sometimes we have trouble in the audience um that sometimes they just can't hear so if we can just maybe just go up a little higher in our conversation so now we're um going to
talk a little bit about our public uh joint public safety training for schools so I know that this is uh been a topic of conversation you know for a while now um not so much being reactive to a situation that you know we don't want to see here uh but being more reactive um proactive and making sure that we're you know we have some things in place so um we'd love to hear a little bit more about um you know how we can work
to create more of a joint effort in our safety sure I I think we already have uh a pretty good joint effort uh we work well together uh Freetown and Lakeville uh over the past few years we've done annual trainings um at the schools um we try to use uh different School each time we go up there um just so you know Freetown in Lakeville we we're part of we have mutual Aid agreements so if there's some type of an event that happens at the school campus in
Lakeville Freetown is going to come over and help us um part of those that uh Mutual Aid agreement is the called the the southeast Massachusetts law enforcement Council so we're covered legally and we bring all our powers if I were to go into free town and help them they would bring all their powers into Lakeville and and help us uh we train together because it's a regional school they're going to be the first ones uh coming into Lakeville if some type of event happened in Lakeville um over the past few years we've done um we call it
Asher it's active shooter hostile event training so it's uh Lakeville police uh Lakeville fire Freetown Police Freetown fire um we will do different exercises up there and we train off we try to do it as the standardized training is coming about uh Plymouth County just adopted the Asher response plan which is the active shoota hostile event response plan so it would be a unified type of a response uh all across the county I know
between uh Freetown and Lakeville we actually cross county lines so they have Bristol County we have Plymouth County but that that basic framework will be um the same across any uh law enforcement and fire department coming into uh to Lakeville to assist um those type of events we we each have school resource officers all the employees at the school are also trained in uh in these type of
events that's we use that that's called Alice uh you can look that up it's uh Al locked down and form uh counter evacuate model and uh you can look that up and that's the training that each each uh School employee receives as well how often um do you work on these types of exercises uh we've been doing it annually um uh We've we've talked about it it is a strain on the budget uh it's
you know it's funded through overtime um it's you know I think this the state will probably come down with more mandates where it's going to be mandated training um but it would be unfunded um currently with we're doing it we're doing it right now it is it is expensive I know we uh we had a conversation at at one of our security meetings talking about trying to find grant money um to get it done just to just to supplement the uh the cost of it can be costly
roughly I'm curious how much it's it's it's a tough to uh you know hold down a number because um look I think uh most Chiefs know the importance of having active shooter training and uh working within your budget is ideal however we um roll with the punches there's predictable overtime and there's unforeseen overtime and when we can apply training when it's uh
available and we have the funding I I think we do that uh I think ideally we'd like to have active shooter training every year and I love to give guys 16 hours overtime uh to be able to you know have that training is that supported in my budget the answer is no so we are very creative maybe this year it's a 4-Hour block of training maybe next year we are able to apply for a grant and we get a grant we can apply that uh this past year we were
able to apply for our department applied for a grant and was able to commit to eight hours of um active shooter training at our um Elementary School uh prior to that we were able to do a Joint Task Force training at the uh middle school and and I believe it worked out very well working side by side with uh brother officers and uh firefighters it's definitely ideal to have that training together um when that unfortunate incident happens we have that experience to rely on to be able to
react to the incident at hand um Chief Perkins and I have known each other quite a few years uh We've grown up uh in the neighboring communities and from patrolman to ranking officers and now the police and um having that um commitment and um Brotherhood amongst ourselves we definitely have that relationship of uh when the need arises for Mutual Aid we're there to support one another so going forward of course
it's my recommendation to have uh ideally uh Joint Task Force training but um look it everything's relied on the budget and um making things happen yeah um hours wise how long does IT training how ideally how much hours in training would that equat ideally last year we did eight hours uh I would like to make this mandatory so we don't make it mandatory we're like anybody who's
available these two days and we kind of like I can do Saturday I can do Sunday um but then you have the people that we send out to be trained a train the trainer type thing uh Freetown has I know you have I have two or three people who do it you have two or three people who do it so they get together um they put in more hours so they you got five people putting in 16 hours and then everyone else who shows up is putting in eight got it that's helpful context thank you very very helpful I mean it's
hard to put a price tag on safety you know I know that we're trying to make sure that um you know our students and staff are you know safe at the schools and the again trying to come up with creative ways outside the box to make sure that that is funded so if we knew that you know it was I don't know 8,000 you know a year that we would have to make sure that we built in to the budget um you know for this type of training and as it mandatory um I think that we
just have to get creative and make it work so I um you know I'm I'm the one that was guilty of putting this on the agenda um so now you step up jar no so no and and I I've spoke with the chief a lot about this right where we are in a unique situation where we have two towns which can B very much so benefit us right that we have two towns responding at the event if something happens but we
are also in the disadvantage of we have three different schools on that one parcel um so it was done at the middle school and and something I talked to Chief about was it's not just the responding and the reacting it's understanding the layout of each SCH school right so I I would I would hope that you we could find ways as both towns to come up with it in our budgets to support it and then rotate through schools because then we also have our own elementary schools right where you know that year might be an off year where Lakeville does Lakeville Freetown
does free toown but we still have the Intermediate School we have the high school and we have the middle school it's great that the middle school is done recently but you know what's next maybe move on to the high school and then go to the intermediate school and and try and build it into our budget right what things we were talking about before just figure out what the rough cost is behind it and then get that built into our budgets each year so there's no surprise like you know I guys I'd really like to try and get this on the budget this year no it's built in yeah think we take it out of overtime
right yeah have its own line atem correct I mean that makes a lot of sense to me I think and and to their Chiefs I'm sorry um point is mandatory right for our officers and that's that's something that I'm not stepping on toes that's you but you know for them to to um you know get the buying behind it from there guys here's some Kudos as well in the background right some people may not realize this I think you said earlier about being reactive versus proactive the great thing about our police forces both Lakefield and Freetown is this they
have the plan in place they already created an active shooter plan and everything else right the Bible's there in a sense right all we had to do over the years was execute that and give them the resources they needed from the VES projects to having the security company come in look at the camera meeting this room having the discussion itself is a proactive approach um and Kudos goes to the Chiefs but also the officers the teachers the staff everybody that puts their their time and energy into it to make sure the children come home the same way they drop them off y right so
going to give you two those Kudos absolutely right question if I may for the Chiefs is there any involvement or requirement from staff from the regional when you do this or is it just the police and then you've got certain people acting as certain roles so yeah so the when I spoke about Alice before that's the staff okay so that's if that's they're trained up on what they're supposed to do um with the SRO in the event of this so what we talked about Asher is something that police and
fire are going to do separate of the staff this is that what their mission is to go in and get done um two different things uh two different trainings is there a benefit of essentially than executing a tabletop exercise where you have both the Departments and the staff there because I feel like things change very differently when you know you're training and then suddenly people in uniform are there and you know God forbid it's ever an actual real scenario where adrenaline's kicking up like is is
there any benefit to doing a mass training with everybody involved a couple years ago when we had that Joint Task Force training portion of that day was a table toop exercise okay so what does that mean um identifying where the initial respon respon was needed where we set up a command post where we were setting up staging where we setting up staging for ambulances to access the school and get the the people out of that to get to the hospital all those ideas were actually played out just like we were playing strategy on a table
um so this type of training is definitely embedded into the type of training that we are already doing the active shooted training is not training that we can do on a computer and watch a PowerPoint we physically have to be there put on the gear actively respond going through the school get the hydrenaline pumping a little bit instead of you know we can't sit behind a
computer screen and learn these type of tactics we physically have to do these things and um the the response that I'm getting from the officers and the community the people that were involved with the training that we put has been nothing but 110% positivity they uh the PE the civilians that were a part of this training that we had volunteers and being like Ro players role players um they didn't have any idea that we had this equipment and what we do and uh
being that victim in the middle of the hallway and uh some people are walked upon because we they're not treatable but we find the people that are and we get them out of there and we get them to the hospital for treatment to make that safe safe they didn't realize those type of things that we do uh for this type of um training so to add to that we are doing that we just need to repetition is the key for the training we can't do it once and wait four years and think we're
going to remember that we have to have consistency we have to keep doing this type of training I mean my thought is like it would be fantastic if the towns can figure out a way to do like all right let's alternate an elementary school each year and then one of the campus schools every year like you guys figure it out but like just how do you keep it fresh somebody here said that's uh that's what we've been doing is we try to do a new school each year and then to your point every uh every officer that comes on with the Lakeville
police department has to do a walk through and be familiar with every school so that's something they do with the SRO and they actually have a form that they sign off that they did a walkthrough of each school so they're familiar with the layout so even if someone we hire an officer from you know who has experience in another town didn't go to school here they are familiar with it they know where the cafeteria is they know where the library as of each School very important so thank you sir so over the past two years our department had uh quite a bit of
change over where we had a number of ranking officers retired and uh we had these Replacements I became Chief a new lieutenant number of Sergeants we had many officers that never even stepped foot in an elementary school and I made an imperative that the guys need to get in there and see what they potentially could be walking through just like uh Chief Perkins mentioned that we have our all our offices walk through there um to get an idea that they didn't even know that there was a basement in the second floor to that school isn't that crazy
they can't have that so when we need to respond they know that there's a there's a basement to that uh building I I hate that you guys have to do it but I'm really appreciative that you guys do it and you do it you know even practicing all the time and getting ready thank you which now bridges into the SRO at the schools now do we have a a resource officer in all schools or do we have one for the campus I don't I'm a little dis
connected from that P in in Lakeville we have one school resource officer responsible for four schools okay uh so that's the three schools up on the Holland Road campus and then the as swamps at school on Main Street um if is like an emergency or something on Main Street in the SRO at the high school then it's one of the officers can do it uh we do have um the day shift Patrol we do the crossing every day so they're visible at the school and they also do a a property check or a walk through and there's a couple offices that do it we
actually go and engage with the kids and stuff so um we're we're always a familiar face inside the as swamps of school which kind of leaves the SRO to handle the three schools up on the howand road campus great um and this year um our department was able to establish a part-time SRO in our one and only Elementary School in our community um I was able to absorb that into my budget where I'm able to have him there on a part-time
basis um the jury's still out I'm getting some feedback from the community that they like to see a full-time staff um SRO in the school um but like anything everything is this the cost that comes with that and by taking that individual automite Patrol line it takes away from Patrol and that can impact the number of officers on a daily Patrol or even you know a cost of overtime depending on other officers leaving so
there's a balancing act here with the when I'm currently dealing with the SRO um I like to think in the future that our community could support a full-time SRO um go going forward in the future with with Lakeville um anytime that the Lakeville Chief feels it's necessary or think it would be beneficial for our SRO to support their SRO all it takes is picking up the phone and making a phone call we'll be happy to do that um but um
we just understand our our roles and responsibilities I'm committed to to free toown and obviously he's committed to to Lakeville but again we'll support each other whatever is needed for that program and I could certainly appreciate that across the board I guess one of that one of the questions that has arisen is doesn't make sense to have another SRO at the campus in Lakeville and a portion of the SRO is paid for by the school district I
don't know is it 50% uh 75% of a step one patrolman okay so I don't know that's a topic for the towns to discuss because of course there's monetary uh issues with that but there's three schools for one SRO and it's the older kids right so and so for our SRO there's the district doesn't pay for any of the no that's correct it's taken directly out of our
budget it's full fulltime yeah so so it would be a full-time police offic position which does anyone know after to so so they pay 65% of a step one patrolman call it 60,000 okay thank you so it's 65 not 75
75% okay it's paid by the district it's paid by the district and then we pay the 25 left to that yeah correct well we pay we pay the the rsro has a bachelor's degree you know is you know step five so so yeah okay and then that SRO rejoins Patrol in the summer when there's nothing going on in school right correct she so uh we we're part of we do the D camp in the summer and and stuff like that as well
okay anything else on that subject I I one question for chief Perkins I guess would be or maybe this is better for Budget talks later like um Chief Rose mentioned there's do request in the community like hey could we a fulltime if you had any requests from our community on whether the 1 SRO for four locations is working well or would you pump it up if you thought you're you're asking you're you know you're asking me you know every time something happens and it's in the news y um people say what would it take
to put an officer in each school and I'm like it's a lot of money um you know the one good thing about the Howland Road campus is RS goes to every school every day um and it's it's right you know they're right next to each other so it's a big area but it can be covered by the SRO and the SRO office is in the high school okay um but they do she does travel to each
school right thanks and she's very visible um I have a daughter in the school system and she always Caesar and you know yeah visibility is important Y and that's why it's like we'll have the patrols stop in at the ason during the day another way to look at it as well over the last couple years both police departments um SRO the district we're also looking at all the video cameras and the systems we have in place to see what's what's still up to date what
needs to be updated what needs to be replaced so a passive security along with SRO and police presence it's it's a good encompassing um deterrent for any any wouldbe adversary right especially with the inv projects and everything else so there's work being happening in the background that most folks aren't aware of and that's kind of what you want in the security system you don't need to see all the bells and whistles or what's out there that's element of surprise is is good right but working with these individuals has been a a a
bright spot in the past few years and we going to continue doing so improving our schools one thing at a time right okay um do you guys have a few more minutes yes I have prob get well you have police escort back to free town I was like is it in the budget um so any other discussion uh topics that impact both towns so with regards to um you know our regional
district anytime that um you know there's discussion outside the um the agreement it would have to be and I'm just going to throw this out there so I know that we've been approached um probably individually um and collectively uh for a recall petition for our uh elected officials at the regional you know School District um have you had the similar we I believe we all we'll probably say yes to that as well we've all heard the same thing there's a
residents that would like a recall um provision provision within that District provision right um so we've also heard of the same calls okay so we we actually passed that in Lakeville um so we have a recall provision um on the books for you know for our elected officials um does does Freetown have one yes yes we do yes we do oh okay so I know that um Our Town Administrator reached out to
council to see how would that work because it's not necessarily part of the agreement it would have to be an act um of the legislature so anytime something happens at the district it has to be a a similar Vote or a mutual vote from Freetown in Lakeville so as we're getting ready to enter into our um you know our town meeting so to speak um is this something that we would look to
have language put around that we would petition um our legislatures that would go through town meeting is that an open question to all it's a it's an open question yeah I mean i' i' I've been appro well our folks in Lakeville well a lot of them that I spoke to um were disappointed that our local recall didn't apply to school committee members so um I feel like
that's still something that people want to see so um you know so I I think because of the complexity of it it's not just doing a simple petition to get it done um I think that we should take it upon ourselves to do it if that's what people want in both communities I mean if it was only Lakeville and not in Freetown then it can't be done or only in Freetown not in Lakeville but it's going to be done it's
like one should trigger the other we don't have one don't I've talked to um I've talked to our our lawyers there's there's nothing in free town no recall petition at all no so I would like to see it if there is but um I was on the phone all right I got there's no school committee no recall provision in either Town cuz that has to be a joint right and that's where I was going I mean I just I'm I'm hitting this one head on so um because I think it's we're here we
might as well have the discussion so we both utilize Town Council the same Town Council I believe right so would it be worth our town administrators coming together um to work with Town Council to draft language for town meeting my my understanding of the legal opinion we got was there's two methods maybe three um one has to be a majority vote by this school committee to amend
the agreement which would not involve the towns two would be if the Two Towns individually did like we did for our normal recall provision pass a a town meeting wared article asking for special legislation um and then the third which I don't understand says either town can motion for amendment by more than half of their voters passing about which the language of that one seems like I think that just me someone could start it and then
someone could do it later to the school yeah yeah yeah something but I think it's probably a discussion with the school committee and we see where that goes and then if they're not amendable to it but is it is it part of the agreement or is don't think so I mean that was my interpretation that it wasn't part of the regional agreement this is but it was General legisl General legislation maybe and from the the way I'm looking at it is I have had Lakeville residents approach me and say
okay so if you're asking us not to do it this way that we think but you're telling us that you represent us and you'll do it then I think we need to do what and I know we've all been not maybe not all but I know several a couple of us have definitely been approached um and I think it's just up to us now to do and if that means whatever the scenario was that we got recently where we go to town meeting each town has to
vote to allow their select board to petition for the special legislation then I think that's what but the wording has to be exactly correct everything has to be I definitely think this would be something that the two Town administrators would need to work very closely closely and carefully maybe we'll we'll get you know a cheaper legal our Council be cheaper because he just write one document optimistic thinking there
because the the problem we ended up facing was as we warned people the language that got passed end up getting kicked back as being non-constitutional so then the House and Senate their lawyers said well all these changes have to happen even make this workable right and then they still came back to us and said we really think you need to clarify a few things so get it right if we do this it can't just be the two towns and we've got to get our state reps involved too and say look at this before we even bring this to floor well that's that's a
good consideration I mean it's aggressive but you know I I hate to say it's aggressive because town meeting isn't until June but it's a big undertaking so I I think that I've heard from enough folks that I feel like I have to to stay on this for people so sorry it's the same day we can't be unique though in this situation right this has to exist it does exist in like one place I miss um this is goes to another
question of hygiene and Good Housekeeping um you you don't have Sitting people that can't be removed like that's that that should never be an issue anywhere it shouldn't be in a town it should be for any portion in government you shouldn't have to wait three plus years in order to remove someone if they need to be removed but um there needs to be a good threshold there needs to be um reasoning and logic behind it and it needs to be able to be passed um and it needs to go through all
the steps but it is just good hygiene and um it it's just a step that I'm quite shocked the state hasn't just blanketly stated in general because I really thought that was coming years ago at this point um um what they had talked about it I don't know five six years ago that they were just going to put it across as a as an mgl for recall provision but because even ours our normal one took year year and a half before effective yeah
yeah I mean contrary to Maren I don't believe in a recall but people have asked so I have promised to work on it so I believe I know we differ we've differed on that for a long time Marin but that's that probably explains why it hasn't come from the state yet because there's probably if a president can be impeached or remove I should be able to no special would you say that we have
consensus to um direct the I do Town administrators to vote we can we can always clarify that they have a vote right yeah I mean we don't really have a vote yeah it's the agenda we discuss we can vote at our next meeting at I mean not our next not our next meeting that's half an hour but the meeting after that just no but this topic is a little bit vague so we could we
can I I think the consensus is definitely there that you know okay we'll have our people call your people okay sounds great like we didn't see people and that we mean Andrew and Deb calling each other okay I know you have to head out so um do this more often we'll schedule another one you know I'll I'll bring cookies something but all right so um I
guess if we don't have any other business um I'll entertain a motion from the lake bille select board to adjourn at 640 so move second uh roll please baby and I Johny I carbon ey