##VIDEO ID:UkSj57RqEis## okay um well thank you for having me um as we all know DPW is is a very long cumbersome ourly moving Target runup to get to the capital end to present every year constant EPA DDP regulatory changes um so on and so forth um things happened with infrastructure throughout the year you didn't see them Capital plan coming up but um if it's the committee's choice I generally start with my my fiveyear jam rle I shouldn't say my fiveyear but yeah on switch General budget um I put it in order of what my fiveyear Capital spreadsheet looks like um the the first one at the top of the list is the CH chapter 90 Grant you won't see a form on that we we represent that in the capital um because it breaks Capital threshold it's a grant from the statea reader for our GR um it's it's stuck at 622 758 for um what seems like for heav in fact it went down a little bit a few years ago um the next one on the the first one on the list you have a form for is the highway funding which kind of goes hand in hand with the chapter 90 um blacktop has increased like 40% in 8 years alone let alone the labor and so on and so forth the M PID raise structures everything that goes along with Paving uh they started this about five years ago at $200,000 request to offset those costs um because generally what 40% increase in the the black top means is 40% less mileage we're doing every year uh we have a comprehensive Paving program we're running about 73% out of 100% when our row which isn't bad it isn't great we haven't improved but we haven't gotten any from year to year we plug the numbers in and doing my illusion roadways and we bring them up to 100% um so again that's that's a request for 200,000 just so that we can keep up with the amount of Paving we we've been doing for quite some time now 10 to 15 years um so do we want to take questions on each one as we go or good yeah I mean if there's so the next one um is well first let me state that there's a a pretty big emphasis on vehicles this year um the the these smaller trucks the on tons we call them the dual wheel pickups you see out there they're very high use they're more hes and everything we do um most of them have gone beyond their useful life um as as you're no longer reliable we have a lot of breakdowns we're spending a lot of money to keep them going Municipal vehicles are out there year round they take they take the abuse of the weather the salt they plow um they salt the roads so um I do want to say our vehicle maintenance folks uh Paul no the deputy director in the mechanics are are just amazing how they can keep things going at times and get them going during snowstorms so uh I'm I think we all should be thankful for their their skill set and and how good they are um but anyways I want to replace this was a one ton and we're we're kind of transitioning to replacing some of our on tons with what we call a ton and a half um and what that is it's a larger truck it's closer to a CDL vehicle but not a CDL vehicle and I'll explain that CDLs are becoming a real premium um they're extremely hard to get now um state of Mass has one of the hardest and most diligent programs through the testing of obtaining it when you're being tested by the state grou they're on body cams now the whole L there you got you got to recite verba out of the training book from top to bottom so we we trended away a little bit I can't I can't um do away with any uh any of larger dump trucks at this point because we we are a seven division construction comp we larger trucks for you know water sewer uh highway so on and so forth for excavation but um these trucks are obviously a little bit more expensive um but it gives us a bigger more style plow as a pickup truck out there um to maintain our roads um at a reasonable Pace during the snowstorm they're interchangeable being in between Tru they're very interchangeable the the truck that this one is replacing number 47 uh that wasn't real good with getting pictures for it because we had to deadline it about 10 months ago to be honest with you not the date myself it was a truck that I repaired the frame on for the first time as a the in the shop and we can all long repair the frame so we got a quick thousand dollar for it because it was in a rough shape we trade a lot of our vehicles in because you go through the process of the bid and everything uh you don't get a whole lot for them or we go through what they call Mina bit we get we do get more money for them um but sometimes as we sit here tonight and we go through the process a vehicle a large vehicle may increase $20,000 by the time the council votes in May or June standard gum truck six with gum trucks down to $48,000 in the two years um price of metal uh emission standards so on and so forth and the VIS of truck s so I didn't have very good pictures because we actually grabbed qu th000 that's all it was worth and we needed it towards another truck that they come in that be were from the year before the next one is a 99 Chevrolet 34 ton I'm not sure if you're going to see any of the pictures but um this truck it's funny I have a history here this was my first truck as a supervisor many months ago uh it's very high use you see you see it in Highland traffic you see it out there painting crosswalks it's got a rack body on it we painting painting crosswalk stop bars and many other things in the R Body comes the highway and traffic um as you can see it's got a think 198,000 miles on it and it's going to it's yeah 189,000 190,000 miles on it this has seen a bunch of body work it's seen the transmission seen the top end motor the expensive repairs vehicle like this is usually a 10 to 13 y vehicle when this is 90 y so it's getting hard look you know frames going pictures if anybody wants to see the pictures on just have a curiosity um is there is there like certain upgrades to this why the three4 would be a $90,000 drink we get three4 for much less than 90 grand still is there certain well the quote the quote everything we need outfitted to be DPW you get into all the the um LEDs you get into the plow plows and D way up systems um I put the exact quote in there at 88433 and that's a couple of months old would and and I gave the whole quote of everything it comes with right A lot of the stuff this we don't have any of oh it was in my there okay okay we have actually no backup I'm sorry you know I almost printed my book for everybody I just said no on computer but computer I'm just shocked that it's I mean like I'm just curious as to that state business right wow I'm just curious as to what like obviously you know you see like police vehicles need to be out there in a certain way so that you know you get a base you whatever like oh what we say 60 Grand or whatever and then obviously they have to get you know the lights the cages and all that computers and all that stuff so jumping I'm just curious as to what as opposed to like going across the street off the lot I apologize base price is 49727 the options that we need this particular Pro is going to be off fitted gate on the back five gallon pills um another example is we help out with voting um the lift gate is is worth so many uses we we use it for so many things there's nothing worse than wearing a bucket of paint TR pull it off the back front yeah but an example is that platform body um with a lift gug you're looking at like $ 13,000 right there yeah so okay I'm just and the other reason like the second reason for me asking that is is there if there's already a three quter um is there any reason to not replace it at one time utilitarian for you right so for what this does it's a lot lighter Duty work um it plows small dead Ends Drive not driveways here we driveways um smaller parking lot clean up clean intersections um but the one of the biggest reasons is um I could made it at one ton but with a lift gate in the rack body and it's going to s a lot higher okay and you look at the cost of a of a one ton now um the 88,000 or the 990,000 is a big savings it's the $3,000 is that yeah find the time you outfit it with the rack body and R G right because there's fabrication has to happen uh so I didn't need a bigger vehicle for what this function is for which is many function so on sa I have a question on that one I know there's one vehicle that you're looking at that's electric but does this does this is very stupid question um okay do 3/4 tons ever come in electric just going to ask you any no and and and to I both work with Carol Collins from year to year there's a vehicle coming up that I'm going to explain to Carol's going to help us with um but anything basically anything under 7500 gdw right now does not does not come electric okay you have like Ford Lightning a half ton um but honestly for what we do plowing rolls and everything we destroy that thing in Winter that you ask you here no no and I was gonna throw that out I mean we are we are looking to the Electric World they do make an electric rubbish truck which I'm going to present a little later um but they're certainly not moving in land the states and in the in the hilly areas um they got fleets of them in in like Flatlands of California right on so on so forth I've done a lot of reading on it I think Carol could actually uh give you a lot more information me but our trend is wherever we can go electric we will but it's a matter of these larger dump trucks that we need for construction and might pretend we the bigger D trucks for plowing the country roads just don't there's not enough for any electri c as a matter of fact the the new law coming into effect in the state has sent all the manufacturers scrambling and how they're going to meet the new laws for electric larg trucks we've heard PA was heard from just about all our manufacturers in the state with L and like we don't know see how and how long does the truck l so you got you got differ Siz trucks this truck here really you should depending on you know the issues it has it really should be swapped out 12 to 15 years um we're way behind on swap out and reliability the larger dump trucks the bigger ones the six a six six line wheel axle we call it um those are 20 to 25 years and we got a few that are 27 28 and frame off Restorations so each vehicle the one tons you should be getting 15 17 years 18 years I don't as you can see the 9 this one here we we're well beyond the reliability um you'll see my parts in my operating wget parts and supplies go up every year and we're always over we always been strong on that to keep everything going so right not that I I mean I appreciate your frugality on this choice and and and you know realism on what you need it for the reason I I asked why in that line of work almost why anything would be less than a one ton um was for even though I know you're saying like for like the snow removal and things like that among other uses of it is you know one of the pen the penny full pound fullish what it is pish um is running something like a truck like a 3/4 ton to do the same job one t could do you're now running something that's closer to like 100% of what its capability is versus a one time you might be doing it at like 75% um what kind of longterm if we're going to invest in something that as Jean pointed out these do have a little bit longer longer life than some other vehicles in different departments here um how much would we be taxing some if if it is I mean it's 30 grand okay maybe that's maybe that's why we stay with this one but um just for that kind of comparison as to uh getting something that you know say buy something a little bit more reliable that will last you longer for your use then me and you come back sooner um because the wear and tear on a ligh or Duty vehicle uh like crippling that one quicker so that's all that's why I was asking yeah I know it's a great question I am I I thought that through and again what this truck is is tasked with um most of its work is in the summertime de with traffic functions okay um and like I said it it's not tasked with you know Plum Country Roads or Main Street or you know any big road if anything clean up in intersections and and what we call dead ends um so that kind of factored into my thinking too um you know the fuel you know I triy to factor everything fuel use and again are we going to destroy this thing in 10 years um this one here has been plowing for almost a one so but it's what it's task to do year and and year out that kind of made me think we can get away we should be okay forry bucket truck so forry bucket truck doesn't do just trees and emergencies and shrim trees and take trees down um it it serves as so many functions along with our log truck in the city um hanging the Christmas tree hanging all the Christmas lights um there's always something re replacing tethers for flags and all the the city buildings getting up on roofs so on and so forth so U but this truck is a 1997 it's a standard shift um we just now in the last four months realized that the only company that was still selling replacement parts for the actual boom bo parts and everything all along with it is is out of business and now going out of business so all new hunted around we can't find another company that can supply a lot of these parts so if it breaks we're down and we're going to contract until we either get a replacement truck or contract um it it's been a very good truck um but it's seeing a lot of repairs the other piece of it is um when it comes to CDLs they now you have to have a standard shift endorsement on top of everything else so if you take a road test in an automatic you can't drive this F char truck if it's over the GW for S so the new one that I that I put the cost in here for would be an automatic transmission it's a stateof the art the equipment the wom itself and the bucket it's not going to go outdated you know this one did for a long time it's really been desperately needed uh to be replaced for for all those reasons so again it's it's a 20 to 25 year old is 27 just one of those vehicles that when get an nice storm we got 35 trees down you got to turn the hereat and go it's getting a little more difficult without and I'm limited to who I call on the to drive that truck and run not because same transtion so that's not the the big reason the big reason is it's outdated and we can't keep prair pars full coming we haven't checked in eBay well there's there's been uh you know no joking there's been some parts we found for our water facilities over certain switches and stuff used on this is live CDL the new one will be the new one but the the old one isn't it's just under and they saw they have an endorsement change no I I I didn't I didn't want to miss Speak oh you're said new so see endorsement the the other part of it mean the chipper hook though got a pretty good size chipper that that can force the gbw pretty quick loaded with chips right so it's right on that cost um it's hydraulic brakes hydraulic brakes on a truck this old heavy UV truck um not unreliable not unsafe but plenty of repairs I didn't realize the end that that how long ago has that change for CF for standard trans uh when they changed that that's been about a year yeah so when I send the staff off the cbll school I say whatever you do try and take the test through the school we had one that chose to come back to use the automatic but he's got the automatic restriction so but the other the other um set of Staff members that's passing has been taking it with the standard so they don't have that restruction stop R truck um in years past I um I had the rubish trucks in my Capital um it didn't make it um from previous administrations but we're at the point now where our trash trucks are we are like literally limping them we have one that's that's in constant [Music] repair these things were well beyond 20,000 hours on the diesel engine and they got small Cab engins in them they're they're beyond their serviceable life uh and of course everything that gets loaded in the trash truck the L is heart keep up with to the mixture in there if you will whatever's ping um so we we have a we have one that's fairly I call fairly new it's eight nine years old now we have another one that's I think 12 years old um but this is one of the original Condors made by four um that again parts are almost impossible to come by last time we for I think we order and it's a cab over they're not made or they haven't been made in years and to go along with um one of the newer trucks I have and the other one that's in fairly decent shape this replacement would go a long ways in getting our Solid Waste Department couple with the the Swiffer Grand with the three brand recycle trucks coming kind of bring speeding on fo for a long ways towards replacing fo we have recycled trucks that breaking on daily right now the city councilors mayor's office may be hearing hey how come they they send two trucks at well one's got to pick a car the other one got GL the trucks done it's got the wire in it but it's broken I one yeah pick up um so yeah truck one nville 97 recycled truck in it's uh it's almost a weekly thing working on it so anyways replacing this this trash truck is very important going going forward with a solid waste department actually down we got place the motor at the landfill a few other big pieces of equipment so um I just I don't want everything to keep coming together like this on my 5year Capital we kick it down the road we kick it down the road when the other ones catch up and now we have four or five million in equipment I'm looking for rather than it spread out and that's kind of what's been going on with the vehicles so is there you were talking about the like the Swiffer grant for those those are for obviously the recycling trucks have there been any opportunities that you've noticed out there for solid waste trucks as well or they just not offering good so that there's nothing out there for trash that's the thing um and and eventually like to automate the Tren like we are with recycling but that comes in threes we'd have to purchase three trucks like if I wanted to automate trash right now I'd be looking for three times that amount so it's something that probably in my head in my plan is is we're going to be five or six years down the road before we can talk about automating the trash once we get the recycling implemented by the way working on newans now hopefully you drive to the council in February trucks are new in pretty soon so that's late spring so in the end I put everything I put all the people's request forward um because I I just thought it was a good idea for everybody to see we get to the end I thought we're going to have to we'll have to choose because we do if I interrupt you we had a bond meeting today and they didn't they think that more borrowing was a good idea is it something that that's what we've been doing every year is borrowing about four million to get things done and that's not the plan that is or should be going forward so it's what you can afford so as he's going through because I'm going through my mind thinking they're looking at us for what you have in observes as well so there'll be choices that have to be made and you know I'd appreciate your everybody's help of that because I don't think about trucks the one thing but but but you should know what the dollar figure is and we just have an order in front of council for a million six and some of them also if so to say this is you're going I tried to move Capital to after to to that you're voting Capital plans till after the operating budget so if model those things I put up first last year they actually all got they all get build on early trle white 19 his Paving things need to be done in this spr so we vot on those LLY and then if there's something that we just know that it's going to take so long to order that we need to put it in but in general just keep that in mind more that's the plan no no and I appreciate that I been around long enough I pay attention to the name of the whole as a whole every year so and I met will towards getting trucks cutting past towards anybody there's there's always hard decisions to make right and I understand that uh Co Rain Street Bridge engineering and design for the repairs down the road 35,000 are you skipping the other one readiz vehicle oh I yeah it doesn't matter yeah which like need matter um so we we get re Bridge inspections from Mass doot and we get results of that whole Rain Street bridge I was kind of expecting you had to do some pretty good repairs on it I don't think you got all the pictures but in that report I actually the report from cot signed report and there's pictures in there you know like the walls next to the sidewalk on the deck broken an offet 5 Ines I mean this bridge has taken some serious some serious heat from flooding rains up and over it um in case you didn't they were down for Trucking is in fling street so at the end of the day I kind of expected a lot worse report on it there's scouring there's different things going on with it but um it certainly isn't up for a bridge replacement which is good news um so this is the engineering and design we'll hire a firm to go through the report give us a cost analysis and a plan to bid out for repairs next year have from repairs for next year if this Bridges like anything else once you're kind of put on notice for them like any other any other infrastructure kind of want to get them when they're cheaper to repair then down down the line you got to do a bridge replacement not lucky to get a grant Bridge grants are funny they're they're limited to the span and all that Greenfield doesn't have any that fit the small Bridge Grant on in fact we don't have any um it's a 20 foot smaller than 20 foot width so uh you think more more cross bridg for all 120 ft so it's just one of those deals we should get on these repairs um you as we follow our process so it doesn't triple thing and again if I can send ER they didn't receive no I know I I just I it's not we don't have to send it again they need to get it and also need to go to council if you yeah if there's anything that anybody has a question about here because he's sitting here the he can hold it up he fash anyway which would be better in front of you but I'm looking I think mil has he already knows it and I apologize on behalf of the mayor's office yeah um like I said I was going to go old school and make a make my not for everyone but um because we're in a different order we meet from year to year it seems so uh so smaller vehicle um as a matter of fact I was in communication with Carol today this is on our meter is as our as we're trying to finish of our meter program that got really held up by Co for for like five years so on that project we got approximately 1,400 more meters to go in I don't have the exact count today but once the once the meters go in this is going to be literally we can go orderly billing and it's a driveby we can read read the whole city in like a day with these new meters whereas now we're reading every month we're reading 20 days and then developing the billing and everything because it's a lot of annual reading on the old meters um so in quarterly billing will be a great thing um it's a much better revenue strein for Le rather than by any so on so forth but we have a very big shortage of vehicles that made have a lot of trainings also the deputy director doesn't have a vehicle just kind of WS what's available so this is going to be our deputy director vehicle um and it's also uh going to going to fill in for I have a small car also rather than taking 3/4 tons one tons to trainings out in Ward or something a lot of them we get online out there's still so much under otion they're in person um I did talk to Carol today she she sent me an email back and said I'm probably right on the money for the 25,000 and and I have three options to get rag to her I'm trying to remember the three this afternoon one was we we can get a a brand new vehicle she can get a grant for a charer for it but we need a 25 Grand a couple what she can give Grand money for that or there's a lot of used ones out there without a lot of mileage on them um so we have two or three options but for email way I summarize it is this is good I can help you I can get money I can get Grand money but this is what cost this program her grant money her charging station so it would be our first electric vehicle a question why would you quit doing guard rail [Music] um it kind of we we got kind of caught up on on the the most severe defective ones um and again it has boiled down to the last few years where sidewalk money I guess I'm in that frame of mind what we need most priority priority wise I have to have um the supervisors or the the highway supervisor do an evaluation of all the areas and see where we're at one time it was the absolute necessity to spend I remember how much you need yeah it was 3,000 every year um so I I did I just did not couple that in there this year because I I could provide the information to me know Work World putting these things um generally pictures and so on and so forth a lot of our guels thought it's different they get repaired by a company through insurance par whoever hits them so um they actually stay in pretty good shape so and we we actually do some repairs again is that also a this is a skip year for sidewalk as well um so the the other part of all the projects we've had a turnover um plus his heart Alan ton retired in December 25 years is as an engineering um employee worked his way up to the engineering superintendent him him and I have been since day one so we're transitioning uh we promoted within from the assistant engineer we got all these projects that got slowed down in the middle of the summer late somewhere um for parts and pieces on hold um for reasons companies are life strip so thin uh they couldn't get to finishing our project so we kind of got a little bit of a backlog of projects and I'll talk about that when we get the sewer too uh where we back got a little backlog and we also um have sidewalk money um for a fairly large sidewalk project already I have some sidewalk money left on previous 200,000 we weren't able to get it into a single sidewalk repair except the emergency troper comp inter my this year because of Staffing um but things are starting to turn around I'm hoping we can go back and use that money and do some some sidewalk repairs with the inhouse St and Highway so that was another thing I didn't want to borrow 200 or have 200,000 borrowed or have it come somewhere else from something else and two years you know is expens I try and be mindful of what I have left and what the upcoming season are in projects are half done quarter done three4 done for all the various reasons I mentioned so let's see design in engineering design Maple Brook cold think most people in here probably know all about the maple BL this is this fli pair is on gell Street I did send some pictures at third FL overell Street it runs diagonally right across the lot and it looks like a sidewalk but the slabs are broken and they're caving in on Maple C it has to be repaired just this is where um we're sitting in the building that was at one time proposed to go in that exact location correct yes yes and it was going to happen be moved and there's an 18 sewer right next to it so that was all going to be moved to the West at one point but that was $600,000 inhouse um so the other piece of this project is the lot next door on the Beacon Street side we only lot there's a u detention Basin there that got put in years ago it's not working right so we did some evaluations and and repairs on that detention Basin to make that work better is also part of this project um this is the the engineering and design Feld project um I know the mayor is well aware of it's a low point in the city right there um that area flood is pretty flood PR especially with the heavy rains we've been seeing in the storms um we we expect that the detention Basin if it works right will take on a lot more water and detain it and allow the the C over to continue to run we we we think that it's going to help our flooding situation um there's really not drainage made in the city can get three Ines in the M it's going to take that kind of water but and not only add a little bit of a safety hazard on the top of that c c in is that still fenced off that corre yes but it's generally unlocked the gate in front is extremely unlocked so and as as of now I mean 34 Rell is is one of the bigger storage we have departments so i' last thing one is a thought Trucking go for this clearing of a you know van or one ton or anything um so we did have a bunch of cones there they they may have grown legs I I just noticed by the pictures it reminded me so well there's a barel there was left so we go through the engineering and design we'll have a pretty good idea um the it's just a repair at this point it's not for the other piece that I talked about and moving the whole thing to the west and because that was the plan if we were going to demo that to L you remember it was going to be B safety C what at Point probably seven years six years ago now when he first came in at seven yeah so but this is just to do the repairs and see if we get some better water there's rage flowing over there too that it is on his first it's right here it's 34 G engineering um yes I'm sorry you think that doing that will help with the flooding right in that particular are if we can get that detention Pond to take on more one that's what they do when Culver becomes full with discharges and the detention pump has somewhere else to go and it fills up like a bond or a pool um I think on some of your heavier rains the answer is yes mayor I think things will Jo any quicker um potentially not flood as bad um but to be completely honest some of these threein rins none of our brains can takeen in the city just and and both of those projects there's the possibility not for the not for the engineering design that there possibility of grant money to get them done that climate resiliency that Poss after doing that project I know well there is a possible um I I know the couple of Grants we looked into um I'm trying to remember the name of it that H worked on didn't go through but not good didn't get the grant as you know we're we've been in contact and working with our stakeholders um haven't very much but I certainly have supplied a lot of documentation to our delegates get some money towards our total flooding the [Music] shoes our II issues okay uh I will say a theme's got an eval eye on this looking for something that will work right so yeah okay so that completes my G also with fonzo I made a promise I wouldn't do it this year kep's nothing one third split read the order three times on the council no no by the time I'm all done it's like nine times got first reading second the ACT I was trying to be I appreciate that by the time you get to the what the eth or nth everybody's laughing the table you know I think they maybe laugh who was reading it they're losing their but nothing fell into play this year with with you know where our status is on our projects all the one-third projects by the way are completed uh from last year um that know right yeah that's all set loating of the yard yeah was the m so I have to admit I wasn't planned that so so if nobody has questions on in general feel free iwi we move on to um super on I only have one request in sewer this year most of the snow we have an ongoing INF full and infiltration probably our ground water and storm water getting into our SE system so this is one of the projects I had mentioned a few minutes ago that um the request is for 500,000 so the last couple of days I found a few minutes to go through every previous inii account what's encumbered in them where the projects are at one of the projects had 285,000 and one of the the accounts had 285,000 still encumbered in it e company didn't finish up the work in the fall so really at the end of the day I went through the math and see what I had left and he fell line on on the projects but we're going to be okay with the report to D and EPA of what we've accomplished this year that's the the main goal is we consent order um so right now I have a a remaining balance unencumbered meaning I have a lot more money showing but I have [Music] to me it's a non incumber so when I looked at the 500,000 I said you know what if we have to borrow this money and we're talking sewer raids I'm not g to I'm not going to request for that to happen and have it sit there and not be able to spend any this compy year so with that being said we did some we did some bad not bad pedaling we we've improved on the in flow infiltration um but it's kind of like our system is so old and we've been dealing with the consent order for six years doing the studies doing the flow testing the smoke testing and coming down to where do we need to make the repairs and everything when you had 80 to 100 year old pipes in that six years we believe and we feel that we've had some other instances where pipes are star and failed that were okay in the first so this summer we had hired Tada and Howard to put flow monitors in all our different sections of our sewer pinpoint the the sections I'm waiting for that report to come back um right pierced through the last sses there was three phases of it sanitary SE evaluation the evaluation takes all their information and it tells us where to go and what to do L pipe l in or finding infiltration um we we're going to go through that process again and I want to use right Pierce again because going to be a big savings to City Once the flow testing and and the results come back from that so the the 431 and a quick estimate is going to get chewed up pretty quick um so I'm I'm lowering the 500,000 to 200,000 gives me a little bit of Wiggle loan so that we can we can put another contract now to finish up the smaller repairs we had on the original evaluation worst thing can happen is if I need you know more more funding come fall and we're in the middle of bidding or want to bid something out we have all these results me of course I'll appr there you can go back to council after next year so again I don't want to take 500,000 and we sit here next year and say well geez you need to ose the 431 and I get another 500 sitting there I just makes no sense and this is a borrowing request this borrowing request will be borrowed against the Enterprise fund right yes yeah but five 200 as opposed to 500 I think will be a lot better shape and this isn't something I'm just wondering this isn't something we would use any of the retained earnings so retained earnings um those are a little thin on theet return this year um I believe we're with some 100,000 R ears left but we we've done a lot of good things with the retired NS that's the right side when you look at the trucks we want we want a back home sewer sewer division the AR is in pretty good shipping for the equipment and everything so it's kind of a rebound year I suspect that you know her retaining things look a lot better small so I didn't actually say that that came up now I'm glad we didn't have the chance to say that because it wasn't on the agenda but um when the Department of Revenue came out they were very firm that they were not going to pass us off next year with the tax rate unless um we' increased our rates and uh it look that our retained earnings were better so um we talked a lot about that St increase the sewer rates by 10% feels as if the usage will go out because it's a drug do I have that right people will be using more water so he feels found that it was going to be okay and we've increased the rates every year I I actually look back do that we've done it every year we didn't increase it the year before it was an election year it have we should be increasing because the cost of it goes up and more well below where other people are but that's the one thing that they promised us that they were going to do looking at was our three Enterprise fund so I think that's what we did to have decreased that by 200,000 and yes it was the sewer that went from a million to 100,000 in retained earnings and I think the water had gone from like a million to intain ear to $500,000 so uh but you should know that for when it comes you on on all Finance should know that for when it comes through again that water rates are going up they were very firm with the three Enterprises so they're Wilds to have more retained earnings or I mean no they wanted you to meet your budget you have to be basically what they're saying is so I think what they were seeing in the current budget and whatnot if I may here yeah go ahead please what what they were seeing is um the the revenues in the current budget were really low and what the the voted budget bville all the bar moving so on and so forth I think there was a nervousness of hitting I mean under retain under a retained earning or I should say an Enterprise fund whatever you vote the council votes for a budget you have to hit that in revenues why DST stre dir well trouble with the state I guess I put it in layman's terms so the revenues are a little behind but there there's a couple of reasons for it the reading's a little behind right now um so if the the budget $3 million we should be sitting around 1.5 million on January 1st in our revenues so we're a little behind on that um for various reasons we got hit hard with the food mug in the water department uh for a few weeks so the biggest filling cycle is going out now and I believe once those revenues come in and we catch up I think we're going to be fine but what they're saying in their estimation we're going to be cutting at way too close and they want to make sure that the rates that we continue to and it's always been a theory you want to keep a million dollars in in water and SE retain ears from emergency yeah um but that that was all recommended 10 15 years ago seem cost up I mean really at the end of the day a million dollars emergency I a bucket I say that apologize um the other thing we got going on is the more meters we change the more accurate they are and Sewer rates water sewer rates obviously are predicated off the The Meters so and it was a drought everybody looks at me like I have 10 heads though the weather affects our our revenues in silver it goes hand in hand you didn't water your G you had to water your garden August through November this year because we were Dro other years rain to guess so they're not using the water so the revenues go down here because the usage is way and of course the rates are all they're all designed for water conservation that's the only piece of that flow some too so so we're watching that very C they and you have to to notify what 6 months in advance 6 months in advance of the change and they actually kind of wanted us to go up twice in year but we just will go up next year I think that's the plan right now that we would do it annually we have to notify the public at by June 30th every year and then we can't the rates won't go well until January 1st right so you got to give six months under ration it's just curious to me that they would like almost frown upon being able to not in this case some of the retain earings that we use were purchase equipment for the or or do you know II and things like that for the Department uh to function better and that they're almost frowning Upon Us using retained earnings for that versus borrowing you think they wouldn't want us to be borrowing money um overall as a city right you wouldn't want to be paying interest you wouldn't want to be you know going through all that process if you've got the capital so to speak to cover it but I mean I also understand you know like like an insurance company wants to do it Banks want you to do it they want have you know minimum balance uh to you know show that you can't handle an emergency yeah last year we last year we really hit the S budget b the um the sludge disposal has just SC locking at 200,000 near um but we also had may you remember we had quite a few pretty extensive emergencies in a road that cost us a lot operating right big one on Wall Street was an example um so I mean I don't take your thunder but at the end end of the budget cycle whatever's left in the operating budget from the previous year and then the revenues everything's paid off because it's not just operating budget it's it's all the borrowing like I said you want to the budget it's not just my operating you got to cover that number 3.2 million in the year yeah you got to cover it you got to cover it and I'm like at 1.3 or 1.2 right now but again the largest section we read for billing the revenues have not come in yet so it's all there's all so much more to it than what you would think yeah but that's it for sewer that's all I have for sewer and I hope that's good news that I can drop that yes that is wonderful you like do best [Music] friend um so water I have a couple more things and and by the way when you get sent this information I have a tally from 2012 what we spent and what we done on inii in FL infiltration so Cas you really wind them um so um water so first of all water and sewer the there was there was a grant that was awarded um I think Amy can speak better to it or maybe the mayor but what was included in that Grant was um up upgrading the sewer from Main Street to Pleasant Street on Chapman Street and water M from Main Street to Pleasant Street on David Street all bittery VAR wolf so on and so forth so there's actually two projects there we're going to have to oversee I don't have a baby water main project this year there's only so many engineering and myself to go around on bigger projects so I just wanted to put out there there's a lot of other projects going on not necessarily you'll see here that because I'm not asking for them but we've already got a on the in the hopper so to speaked ready to go um an examp example you mentioned sidewalks uh Lincoln Street and a couple other streets we've already done the design that's going out to BS two week Street just FYI is going to be done from our um I think it's about 300,000 is it I think call so that didn't need to come but there was but that is going to be accomplished from the sidewalk so some of that that was not didn't go to didn't go to court Square went for infrastructure that didn't actually come before you but you should know all what they are and what's being done and we did for for even numbers we did a million dollars inside mon this past summer yeah under all under Grant so yeah um it's a pretty good shot in the arm because there was there was streets on that list that when I became a highway super there not tell years ago those sidewalks were bad then I think we we're starting really make some Headway on it's a good thing so um the the first thing I have so two out of the three projects I'm I'm requesting funding for in water are coming out of retain NS I think or between five 600,000 um the first one's uh 35,000 water tank inspe um this is an interesting thing and and I did I send pictures overhead uh thr pictures of our sea water tanks Adam steel and Rocky Mountain so these tanks we really can't shut them down not going to have fire protection when our whatever so it's an interesting thing um they're actually inspected by divers they go on the top with di di go on the top and INSP these tanks um obviously same size um so it's a pretty expensive deal um as I just found out we had divers have to fix that Dam down Middle Street but a cost for company to put the GR in um so um the quot is $35,000 and these companies are are becoming a little bit more scarce um but both tanks they came up on our sanitary survey from D is mandatory we have to do them every five years so um through due this year that's have sit here again marinades well I recommended retain marinades um 44 this is H got to see the pictures on it it's so it's a a gasoline truck it's it's a six-cylinder full-size train um the engine hours it's just shy at 13,000 hours on the and I got pictures of rust we're just barely keeping it going and once you know it three weeks ago we lost the ending minute people replacing the engine in the shop now because the thing I didn't mention is most Vehicles aree out especially heavier wound vs um truck 28 that you all appr last spring is supposed to be in in October I'm not going to see it until March I was find so that's the other piece of the the way I mean when I ask for a vehicle on Capital it's a year out once it's improved so you add another year to the vehicle basically they you're trying to one but anyways this has got this this truck here Works our wastewater treatment plant uh supplies staff or their staff on staff working both the wastewater treatment plant in our water facilities 365 days a year it's required the DP regulations and Staffing plan this one does the water facilities does all the traveling out the country idles a lot because of the different equipment they use the electrical inverter their tools to use so on and so forth so um this truck has had were able to find what we think what we went through we found a engine that's going get back so mechanics put it back to when they find a few minutes here in it right now so as they say time I guess so and again the rust has gotten really bad we've patched a few bows H Truck 44 and you know um Council TR you brought up to cost this one here is 80,000 we all met I met with all the supervisors in all new but this this truck needs to carry to the water facilities on a daily basis um some equipment needs to be um controlled in the vehicle about back the elements testing equipment went out so this will be the only vehicle you have it will be a cab is a little higher than this one but again we want to get the vehicle there is this a three as well uh yes yes much you guys would do with a half ton but also they they got a half ton um they plow their own facilities some of these facilities is pretty rough gra back um yeah half T wouldn't be a good idea exactly what we were talking about earlier um so yes this is a 34 time and some of the boxes and some of the equipment that's on the current truck uh we can put into those new trucks and try to keep the cost down the we no fit in the room so yeah here this well no this is just the beginning next year will be the the so I I sent some actually I'm gonna I'm these that's a good idea because so what I'm explaining this if you take a look at these one is the actual intake one you can see the river is split in half right near our intake for a water supply you want to pass them around and then I can explain the pictures do it no justice um for how bad that's filled in up there either just the fum station down okay in fact when water flows Get Low we got really nervous at one point we didn't have much water The Entity it's SM good of our water supply you know you think of fire protection you think of everything else on um so this has happened from the flooding over the years it simply has spilled in by the dam and work its way back um that top picture when you're looking at the grav you're in town standing on the wall the intake is right here next down below um this is going to go through some heavy duty permitting I think some of us remember the lightting Glen um this one's going to be a little different this the permitting is going to be a lot more expensive we're talking we're planning out so we got to get the engineer and design done because I'm actually I don't want to sit here and say it's critical in emergency right now but with the different droughts we've been having it gets a little critical 1 30 or supplying of some of that intake and it's not getting there because the river split and the levels go down but it's certainly in in my opinion one of the more important things we got to get started on 500,000 FR in design so that may give you an idea from 10 to 14% for engineering design and permitting the actual project cost so we're going to be looking at about six s develop project each year we get how much probably six to seven million well a good thing with the if you want to be in my favor no it's next year it's next year next year next year but I gotta I gotta do the engineering and design got be third party there is so much that goes into engineering and design every project we do now River you have to do all the environmental compy which is very expensive well I don't very a very quick story is we have an erosion area down at the GRE foot swimming area um and and I'm not opposed to the environment engineering please don't take this wrong but literally they found evidence of the Wint the project was going to be about 40,000 with my inhouse staff that project's now 80,000 because the invol have to have LSP on site because there was not wood T and then the actual permitting cost is quite so uh again I I had mentioned early on about constant regulation changes there's so many things I mean there were seven permits we had to get through that M M Street Dam repair um for just that quick repair fortunately we were on emergency repair so they work them right through but sometimes these these per perm take months and months and months so so I don't want to end the night it's real uned I dare say unfunded mandate I get in my emails almost every day um so that's all I have for this year okay that's good it's a lot um so I have a question if you on the things that you need done under General under the general DPW the paving needs to be done in the in summer but the trucks which ones are are there which ones are they avilable imia you know you said some of them it's a long time to them four them it's a year but I'll do three quarter and the one t available they take a while to get because they they have to equip them on our specifications our um an example is last year that that three4 time something M you got that really quick because it was white s white that got perfect they had lot R it on it and got it sent to us um trying to keep the green dpw's green but um I'm not opposed Paul and I have talked about it I'm not opposed that if they have something we can get in two months three months though multicolored Equipment Green so je with spray paint problem so the the the bucket truck also the way the way it's expect could be a fairly quick turn to us depending on State and again we we love using State business because it's a long run out process to procure and housee so on and so forth it's great great purchase order and request forie we give you the fac number here we go um trash truck is at least in here here over PR recycle trucks longed first week of March last year expect to see them until April there is possibility that we will be going to trash a possibility six s years is very I would say five six seven years out there we can we can do a certain night and certainly talk about this but what you're running into was three trucks I need three trucks Army we don't have money for everything this year I'm like Weir so just so no we didn't actually we put in the order for six out of capital will come the fire truck and then having been B call today I just want to say this St I didn't have go to the numbers but we didn't two of us sit down and talk but you like you have money left in the capitals like they don't like you to wipe that out so I wasn't thinking of going any below a million which means couple of million so there are I know that you'll go through and prove it every you want but in the past sometimes it was everything we have many for everything done so is that million Six coming out of what we had last year in cap last year it was a million n almost 2 million okay so so same before will be certified three months we certified and we're putting 26 into Capital stabilization that would be roughly 400,000 that's 300,000 that will be left in capital stabilization after the fire engine is paid for but I and we did not talk about that but we're all C so yeah sense can you sorry can you repeat that okay so we we had we had a million n and a half okay or before the fall right okay so and then we just certified free cash and now we're allocating it into things already didn't we already move some the cation or is that it was an order a first reading before you to put 2 six or I knew it was coming into Capital stabilization yeah so oh we're getting rid of one six we getting rid of one six essentially we had 300 grand left over we had 2.6 so we're pretty pretty close to 3 million pretty close to 3 million but we can't we can't spend all that we have this it's okay I think it's already oh yeah it's a factual discussion yeah so I mean so the bond calling very solding of the money that we had last we I think St and I had talk about we may put some into General stabilization you know it was I'm afraid that they're going to change the bond rating because of the outstanding liabilities open have and our Bings so it will beho us to put more in so we can't use it all and I don't like to make all the important decisions myself I'm actually ask for help who going to spend you know I I can't stepen wol attest to that saying I don't know we had left but we Fred upon with B I'm okay with the things that are coming out of the Enterprise funds personally because I know not all free enterprise funds but W because he's good that he will not only those two funds mod make it but they'll do better than that so I don't things that come out of there I'm not as worried about the ones that the same one that makes sense well there's a revenue attached to it there's a revenue attached to it um on the others I think we should be you know of all of the other things I think we should be spending about two million of that 3 million you no they're mixing so about a million first of all we don't know what else is going to happen um it's um but so so I keep going through with my l you know the something there that's like a safety Happ like fire alarms I don't see any like that is but I did wonder we went through your about Wai the trash I mean I know they can that but it's you you vote on all and then you just have to prioritize it certainly a good idea mayor agree with all my years here that you got to have some in there yeah you know like I have a few projects out there I don't know going to needed to sh fums or not pH F engine design now it wasn't required but it got worse in the capital Pro you know so you just don't know I may have enough money but just don't know we're come through year so I guess two questions one being it's a dumb question um if we're not going to be bonding this year so St on anything large um how bad would it hurt to take a dead in our rating that wouldn't go retroactive with things we already have bonded correct those are already they're loed right so if we weren't going to be borrowing any money so to speak or took a year or two off since we don't have something like this or library or any huge infrastructure projects we'd be bonding against would it would it really be a big deal if we were to get a little if we had to M say if we had to take a little will knock against our bond rating in order you know essentially by not meeting the thresholds there trying to say that would keep us where we're at with that um and then my second question is as as like Marlo was very forthcoming with what he has left over in and I know we've looked at um at times uh like we found out from the school like the construction budget trying to reappropriate that are there other departments that may have those and maybe not to as big of a scale of put an amount but are there you know are there bank accounts that still have balances in them so to speak that aren't being utilized that could be repurposed we've done this obviously once before but I just didn't know if that's been really you know kind of like the way the assessor is trying to find tooth comb a bunch it's kind of like the original anerobic digestor the money is borrowed I repurposed it to the um the watering project which by the way is active we're moving ahead with it working down there squisher right s De watering it produces Pake prod cage yeah but I mean at the end of the day if there's I think every year we get a long list of what we have standing on accounts I think I repurposed just about everything I possibly but if there's something not borrowed can't repurpose because I yes it's been borrowed yet so that's a great question so on the high school I can tell you that one first because we had to look for the for the boilers because they came they came before me before Steven was here and I had no idea probably were going to pay for that but I had to I said although it's before you now I don't yeah we put in order forward to repurpose it but um I thought you have to get those we'll figure that out later but there was 10 and I don't know what it was 135,000 left when we P SCH to build the new high school so that was still there and somehow uh so you somehow if it has anything to do with the same use it's okay like that was sort of we put Mo boers and somehow we could find a way in our hands and that was all right that that's the one that I know of there I don't know on the school ones if there's anything else that went out like we they weren't enormous ones but we did a few things since we got in like the fencil and stuff I don't know if any of that was fun on the on the city Side um they felt like almost everything would be used for the live and they're sending something back and just all the they actually sent $250,000 back so that's going to reduce some it's not nothing that's left there to you know just to spend there's a little bit left there for yeah so when that gets turned back that goes into does that go to unrestricted does that go back to General no it's stays right there in it seems like it's I don't know St bonding yeah stay right there so we turn it then we turn it back to the bonding and go back to the the general bonding I wanted to take part of what was left to the high school to fix the engag stream because I thought they play tennis on really the city owns that but it's like almost part of the high school yeah so anything that was there at the high school that so that's for sources of you're asking like what's left in different accounts that we can do that that's basically your question right yeah yeah um in other so that's what I know that's left in there in the police station fund what we purposed for that and I don't know if we ever permanently borrowed for that that we allocated Mone for so that's an i don't no question they've been very fiscally responsible with that he keeps telling me open save that we put that towards cause but I know after purpose that for something that's entirely different life of a project there is something that left there and the fire station has assured me that they all of that and I don't know pretty much all time pretty much all I haven't looked at that um um so there's still I keep eyeing that you know just what's left in the high school account because I'm thinking there's other things that they we need there we can't have people playing on those courts themselves so I don't know if anything else so you're saying the stuff from the library would just essentially like reduce the principle we ow exactly that's it it's all we can do with it we can exactly now they asked us about that today we we said we we yeah we going to put that down to that's what the intention was right to move it down um yeah and and then try to not borrow $4 million every year was not a good plan I mean long term that's great we're not going to interested in so um that's all I know I just know that interested so you to that we don't throw money and you know ask at some point anyway so I don't know if this was a good time um well I guess no because you're gonna give that to us later that has nothing to do with capital I was just ask for the balances on the um the oh I know them I know General stabilization is 2332 $332 33 W I did that um very specific compensated absences was totally wiped out contract stabilization I think maybe there's about 50,000 there but that's a guess I'm just remembering it and we're putting 100,000 more in it and that's about it oh and the opioid stabilization was like $533,000 in not that we would be using off for anything else other than that and then the the uh pension stabilization that we did use some of this year um there's like $670,000 left in pension stabilization so that's a good thing um and that's separate from the opab right yes that's separate that opab stabilization doesn't have much in its new life now this is a total guess and say that's maybe around 150,000 do guess I don't there not yet so so yeah let that oh and the other good part this is the funny part if we do take a hit in the bond rating did I tell you this already it's we're right now we're double A minus if we went down we would go to A+ tell that story of the other meeting said that we were like triple I had one a in there a and I thought I'm not worried about that newspaper story um you know it's just kind of funny that's that's like the Merit industry with the insurance like oh you get to a Step Zero you think you're good no no no 99 98 are better that was expensive so we had a phone call with B an hour they were so get all of our little team and then person from New York and Chicago and ends he goes oh these are expensive I'm like well how much that cost I don't know but um I just thought that was kind of interesting and and I never saw the final thing are we just are we finishing like are we asking them to finalize the borrowing Pro get all inform yeah we backet it all together with one big number and U so then they're going to give us a rating and then we'll go out to bed is that the last thing on any buildings do you think yeah for yeah for some of them yeah so right now we don't want to take that knock is what you're saying we're going to be putting this up to B wait till next year to take knock so good it could be a first and second we because because we have one more time to talk to them although they sounded like they were going to make your minds up next week didn't it yeah next Tuesday is when they'll go to committee and get a yes yeah so it would be interesting I don't know about that did that reading lock first you know they they actually were looking and they said the whole state used to have like a little bit of higher ratings in general and the state had a little lower rating now it did that makes sense well they actually spent a lot of our they spent a lot of their Reserve they had a huge Reserve so big I wish I was them but um they spent a lot of that so I don't know actually substitute a road money when they did that too a little bit more not a lot that makes sense because they kind of froze a bunch of State funding that was already allocated it's while they were waiting to get their new Bond ra do that back for a minute I just found out I've been about this every department has a credit card and that you know like they have some something to charge and then and then Mandy was asking me could we find that bill so we find the bill today and I was wondering you know we don't have any credit card with this number 801 whatever it is yes say and then they said so we talked to me yesterday and they said yeah don't worry about it don't worry about you paying it it was $28,000 and paid it already it comes in and you pay it automatically it's set up so that the city's actually going to pay that and then we figured out today how to you know and all these things so we could actually see them so they s the whole credit card bill out and I thought I wondered how this is working but it has under the bill it has everybody's name it you like we have DPW so you know how it will be charged to that account but it all comes under one big thing so your bill pay service yeah and the other thing we should do with Amazon TR this we should pay the Amazon find the city oh yes because we are not and we get tax free I had to learn about P tax fee we had buy like I call the shelves office we need blankets and supplies leing Center and then CL haen said we have to buy taxfree any how's that happen but our Amazon account set us tax free but we don't have Inson shipping Prime um which is different it's not $100 any for a person CL that's different from City but all of the department heads have actually known how good it would be that they all wanted to chip in they after the finance director to do this to get a the C charge each you can even say Okay um my your department is chipping in I don't know say if it's a $1,000 for the city that we could say but um Chief do was or chief St was telling me about that that they've been after Finance to get that because they'd be saving on the shipping like we should do that like yesterday I just learned that the other day that we didn't have Amazon Prime I I was surprised we have some time to yeah actually um I I have contact over at Amazon that does the do region yeah yeah and and then you but it is so fny whatever she said to me you have to buy the taxy blankets I'm like who sells that and then you know what I asked for those at at it was noon time you know we're all food there's no food there's no blankets by 4:00 my car had so many blankets and I can back up I cann't see I his back window and somebody help me open the car they they did that from the sheriff's off that La street so that was just nice it was very I actually walked around every department at the end of the day to tell them that H woman story so many things in the car and 25 huge blankets so that was really nice and there is a way for every to fin to buy things tax is no it was I mean to buy things yeah tax rat that's free shipping that fascinating all that's thank you for having that lady actually joury yes so much [Music] --------- ##VIDEO ID:cHRg3zQbVzo## good evening it did not look like we all came to order so good evening I'm Laura weski I'm the new city council president and I am hoping for some Grace tonight because this is my first rodeo it is 6:32 and welcome to the meeting welcome to everybody um I want to remind everybody that this meeting is being recorded by the city council and gctv 9 if any persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time okay nobody else is recording thank you all all right so we will get started we have one counselor who is remote this evening and that is councelor Healey and we'll do a roll call councelor Gold here councelor Gordon here councelor Master Taro here councelor bottomly is absent councelor Bullock here councelor Gilmore is also absent councelor Perry here councelor hey here councelor Brown here vice president Garrett here councelor Minos here councelor toronzo I'm here president president wowski here Madam president you have a quorum thank you our next order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance which is voluntary our next order of business is the approval of the December 18th 2024 city council meeting minutes do I have a motion thank you second any discussion seeing none we will take a roll call councelor go yes councelor Gordon yes councelor master Taro oh sorry councelor Bullock yes councelor Perry yes councelor Healey yes councelor Brown yes vice president Garrett yes councelor minus yes councelor toronzo yep counselor uh president wandalowski yes the motion passes thank you our next order of business is Communications from the superintendent of schools and the school committee so I'd like to invite them up if they're here hi we hear tonight he Glenn no um and just so you all know we're not seeing a visual from John Zan um but um so the first item I'll take which is just that we also had our organization this year I was um honored to uh be reelected as chair uh I think with an eye towards uh developing school committee leadership for the future um uh member Stacy ston was elected as Vice chair and Elizabeth Den continues as secretary and we all um continue to look forward to working closely with you to um have the best schools possible in Greenfield and with that I'll pass it to Karen thanks Glenn just want to congratulate uh President wandalowski and Vice President Garrett look forward to working with you both um I just wanted to update all of you on the business manager hiring process the school committee voted to post for the position which was posted last Friday we have sent it out to M NC m b it's located on school springman indeed um we have formed an interview committee which consists of myself the assistant superintendent the director of people's services our assistant business manager and our payroll manager accounts payable manager I apologize um and we have a January 28th and 29th reserved for first round so we're hoping to get a pool of applicants that we can um vet and then have those first round interviews in two weeks and hopefully we'll find uh a faltering business manager so we're looking forward to engaging in the start of the process thank you for your update do we have any questions from the council seeing councelor Perry first uh superintendent can you tell us anything about the power school breach that happened last week so we see what I know so far it's ongoing with the Power School uh we have what is called a rep that contacts us every time new information um they're not sure of what information actually was breached their system was hacked apparently um I sent out an updated info to our staff and students and families tonight from what we know is that they're still investigating how far that breach actually um in infiltrated power school itself we don't know if any of our information actually was exposed they uh have webinars and updates each day so Our IT director Ian Edwards is on those and we continue to inform people as we get informed from Power School do you have any uh knowledge why some of the area schools in the district gave sent out a different type of message and they listed what they thought was uh was uh hijacked they listed names dates photos uh bus routes photos so some I got a couple emails from people concerned that they didn't feel they were getting all the information that other school districts were um if you'd love to share those school districts like I said they assign someone to Greenfield and we've just been working with our uh service rep as they call them for our particular information so um we've been on all of the webinars that local folks have been on as well and when we've had contact with our service rep so all I all I can speak to is the information that I'm receiving from our power School contact but I'm certainly happy to look into it if you have other districts that you think have been getting better or more information that we are not well someone sent me a uh attachment that hadle school listed all the stuff I just mentioned so hady school is one of the districts that gave out more information and I'm happy to reach out to um that superintendent and find out if there's additional contacts that I'm unaware of but um as I said our director of it is on it every day and as we get information about Greenfield we've been sharing it with um our families and our staff thank you very much you're welcome councelor toronzo um yeah I just was inquiring about um I've had some folks Reach Out previously and I told them to kind of wait um and see what happened uh with some of the changes that were at the beginning of the school year with um as you know um I brought up about uh class sizes and and such before and then there were some there was some shuffling around the elementary schools have the uh to keep the class sizes down uh have the hiring issues that were going on with some of the the moves been taken care of at this point I I was I was asking people they were reaching out um and I said just be patient because obviously if you're if you're moving around and you're trying to hire folks after the school year started or at the very beginning of the school year as opposed to prior to it might be a little bit more challenging to fill those positions and I know that at least one kindergarten had been filled and then I believe that person either left I don't know the circumstances of the you know the the Personnel um but I was just uh wondering if those have been now remedied where every uh class has a teacher and is not being just subbed in by AIDS I guess is my question is that is that uh correct across our elementary schools that every classroom has an actual teacher and it's not being subbed uh throughout well with regards to the sections that were reopened for kindergarten um they are all staffed by a certified teacher currently um obviously some Personnel issues I can't discuss so there are some instances where if a teacher is absent we do have to utilize our instructional assistance to cover those classrooms but currently all of those classrooms have a certified teacher teer um we are still short staffed with instructional assistance so we are still looking for those um we have uh put ads in the recorder we've just partnered with GCC in their par pipeline so we hopefully will'll have a a cohort of nine folks that are going to go through the par pipeline at GCC that will be directly hired by us um so that begins under a collaboration that we just connected with them but we certainly could use additional instructional assistance in some classrooms and in um some of those kindergartens I believe um the one at Newton still needs one as well as a second grade at Newton but we do have other positions available because we are constantly searching for staff cool thank you I appreciate that it's good to know the the yeah you answered the question that as there is a teacher in a certified teacher in every classroom now so that's that's great news thank you thank you vice president Garrett thank you for uh both of you for coming to this meeting and answering our questions and for your presentation um as we are heading into the next couple of months we are going to be heading into budget season and I remember that the chair of your finance committee came and gave us a very helpful calendar kind of saying some of the dates that your financial decisions were going to be made or discussed and I know one of the first ones on it and I don't have it in front of me it's either January February or March the superintendent comes up with a presentation on a proposed budget and I would just like to request that that presentation and any other sort of information about the school's budgets be given for informational reasons to the Ways and Means Committee just so we can kind of keep an eye you know keep ourselves informed about what's going on with the schools budgets as they're being formed if if I could real quick uh president sure I just wanted to to speak to that because I did get um I I did receive an email correspondence um as chair of ways and means uh that included yourself and uh and uh recently this is all very recent and uh I was contacted earlier today by Kate if she's listening yes I will give you a call back I didn't have time in the 20 minutes between work and getting over here um but I will definitely reach out because there has been uh you know the branch put out there to to collaborate on the uh with the school's finance committee and uh two ways and means so that's it's really great to have that um and I I really appreciate it but I hadn't had a chance to disseminate that information to anybody because it was today pretty much but thank you and based on information I just want to say thank you Council we also appreciate president Wow's uh Outreach to us at the last um city council meeting she followed up again asking that you know there be closer coordination between the budget subcommittee and Ways and Means and so I was happy to help make that connection and know you're in good hands with Kate following up um so thank you all for your uh for the great relationship we have with each other working together for the schools thank you councelor B I just want to say I'm so excited to go to the Thunderbirds game this weekend with my child who did a lot of reading over the holiday break and so I really appreciate the schools and that we're getting to go with kids from other schools that we don't you know we don't normally get to do school activities together because they're in other schools so I'm very appreciative for whoever made that had that organized across the schools in the city it was it's really been fun and so I'm very appreciative that whoever whoever did that it's been a wonderful and the reading uh I had Co over Christmas so we did a lot of reading we look forward to that I think so far we have almost 160 kids going so it should be a fun night and we look forward to that um the uh PTO actually brought that forth to the assistant superintendent and then um he uh organized the reading challenge and we're very excited to participate and go to the game and I just want to say to uh while you brought it up though if any parent does need Transportation the district is willing to coordinate with them because we don't want anyone to miss out on this event if they do want to attend so please just reach out and we're happy to to figure that out for everyone anyone else well thank you to chair Johnson and to superintendent thank you thank you see you next month our next order of business is Communications from the mayor and I don't think we have any other City officers or employees um Bes besides the mayor and chief of staff so welcome mayor hi everybody um I'm just going to tell you a couple updates the winter carnival is coming up the 103rd Winter Carnival January 31st to Sunday February 2nd the recreation has a Recreation Commission and Department have arranged a wonderful winter celebration that includes our beloved events including the parade of lights that will be in um downtown ice carvings and all kinds of fun things that happening at Beacon field and I'm just encouraging everybody to go and and enjoy part of it so it really is a lot of fun let's all hope for a little snow um budget update we've got the city's budget is underway for fiscal year 26 um I've begun meeting with some of the department heads over the just this week um and we're talking about uh priorities in addition the capital committee thank you for those who serve on it have met uh twice this past two weeks to formalize plans for the capital spending we're focused on establishing sensible priorities and a balanced budget City Hall update as you may have heard the city hall was closed on Friday February 3rd to fix the building's internal Plumbing Systems January 3rd um to assure that the work was completed with no setbacks allowing the building to reopen to the public on Monday I want to take a special uh minute to recognize Central maintenance they were absolutely wonderful in there over the weekends over the weekend working very diligently to get that done um and during but during my time as mayor we have experienced very many various challenges with the city hall building so um I went to planning and construction this week and we're working closely with the department heads in planning and construction to examine the long-term viability of that building building um warning center the city in partnership with the Salvation Army and the Medical Reserve Corp and local Social Services agencies established the new overnight warning center at the Salvation Army that's been open over a dozen nights of late um we've had a great response from the fire department and the police department as well as as many volunte to make sure that we had uh those shifts covered covered establishing the warming Center provides a resource for a homeless population and was an immediate goal of my taking office I just want to thank everybody that's been involved I reached out the other day and said we were short on blankets and Provisions and within a few hours the uh Sheriff's Department was there and I had a car so full of things that I actually had trouble seeing out the back window um and it will be open tonight through Friday night and then we'll be looking again I'll probably be looking at my phone again tonight to see the weather and and talking with the uh the fire chief to see which nights 14 14 to 18 people there of late we started out with four or five um on the days in I I had people had a question about that that I had heard when we actually go to weekly we we started with weekly shelter calls they're now monthly calls um and it it is absolutely true they're going to be closing on the 28th but you should know that service net has been working and all the families that have left have have been housed somewhere that is the plan that people are not just being dispersed from there but they're making a plan for each family um I want to Spotlight the community effort that supported the families that were in the shelter including a holiday season toy drive and another donation Drive the Massachusetts office of Housing and liberable communities and the governor continue to oversee the state's shelter prop uh programs and the state will announce any future updates with that shelter program um I think I mentioned briefly last month but um Mandy Whitten is here serving as our new treasury collector and she brings ades of finance and customer service experience in the position with loely working in finance and the world of People's Bank Buckley healthc care center and the madn family services I am very happy with everyone in our new finance department and they're working together um wonderfully everyone continues to be extremely dedicated to their positions and I believe that they will bring great stability to the city that's all I have if you have any questions thank you you mayor questions uh councelor Master tutoral good evening mayor um regards to the warming shelter um that's a great thing um I driving for the Justice Center as you know um I see a lot of the folks that utilize um all Waring Center and the one in uh Hadley and couple of them have approached me and asked well said that would' like to know if they we would take the wind chill into consideration as far as opening the warming Center because sometimes it's above the the temperature that it's open but with the wind chill it's feels like it's much much colder so I I don't know if that's something that could be work out actually we do take that into consideration it isn't just what it is it's what it feels like which includes the windshell factor I think that was one of the reasons why we you know why we were open for the last stretch because the wind was there as well so we don't just look at the the temperature great thanks I guess that's all we have thank you so much hear it bye great so our next order of business is the public comment period so just a reminder if you want to speak we have a signup sheet right over here um we will each have three minutes and we've got a timer um we if you hear the timer go off just try and finish your sentence I really don't like cutting people off so but don't abuse it um because you're not going to get added another four minutes um so and the other thing when you come up uh you push the little button and it will go from red to green sometimes it takes a second so just just let it warm up um state your name and your address for the record or your community that you're coming from and we're going to alternate between the folks in the room and also um people in the zoom room okay so we're going to go first with a person who is online for public comment so if you want to unmute yourself uh I think it's Erica hi good evening thank you can you state your full name and address yeah yes my name is Erica McGee and I'm at 24 Fort Square East here in Greenfield and again I'd like to say hello to everyone and I'd like to share a letter that I had submitted to the recorder on November 17th 2024 and it was never published I'm not absolutely sure why but I like to go ahead and read the letter that I submit I wanted to submit um it states that a man sorry a man who worked in nonprofit housing in Greater Boston for 35 years moved to Greenfield a year ago and is praising in a November 16th letter to the editor some common sense Zoning for Greenfield that will give greater housing options he wants to double the number of apartments that can be built without a special permit to 50 he likes accessory dwelling units on small Lots because they give greater housing options to Residents this individual has greater Financial options than most Greenfield residents he bought a house for 650 59 sorry $650,000 in an upscale neighborhood it has five bedrooms two kitchens is classified as a two family and best of all is assessed by the city at less than half of its recent sale value he's getting a nice tax break from the city I would say why can't developers afford to develop less than 50 Apartments the zoning proposal excuse me before the city council actually is to remove the apartment limit completely why is someone who is attracted was attracted to Greenfield to buy a very expensive two family home with two kitchens and five bedrooms which could cost twice as much in Newton Mass pushing for residents to have the right to build an Adu in their backyard this homeowner has greater Financial Financial options than he's not and that he's not using and he certainly doesn't need an Adu in his sidey yard given the space already inside the home people with Deep Pockets have been attracted to Greenfield for many years because of our cheaper high-end homes but for those not blessed with investment resources we offer them a tidy home rental and some in some absent landlord's backyard and a guarantee of no option to move up the housing letter there's no justice in this kind of system thank you thank you the next person is Beth Loren thank you for letting me speak today I am Beth Len I'm located at 39 Sunrise Avenue in Greenfield I have been a resident and business owner since 1984 in the city of Greenfield it's possible you still drive a car I sold you or inspected for you or stood with me at various fundraising events as a planning board ped member I valued projects that created reuse of existing structures for residential living nonprofits or retail before building out open space as a resident I renovated my home originally built in 1964 by Dominic fan on Sunrise Avenue overlooking the Connecticut River Valley bald Eagles Fly overhead recently delisted from the endangered species but still in the area a threat for the long-eared bat and the redheaded woodpecker in our neighborhood soon it seems I will also be your unwilling sewer connection for the 7 acre multif family development of noble Home Design leased through the valley community Land Trust where the ship will run excuse me where the ship will run uphill into and under my driveway for the initial slated 22 units because the Builder was not aware that the building location adjoining Valley View and stone Farm Lane used septic systems imagine my delight if there are additional units to follow without restriction on numbers in scale I mention all of this to reinforced the concern that site plan review the use of special permits variances in zoning approval should not be given away easily building inspectors should work with members of Planning and Zoning to keep abutters informed prior to changing our environment and Landscape I support counselor munas decision not to remove the apartment cap for all and to set height restrictions to enhance the character and the scale of our neighboring properties that also portray our community that house items or historical structures like poet seat thank you for the opportunity to let you express my opinion and I am thoughtful and thankful for what you do spend your time doing for all of us thank you our next person is Susan I always say your name wrong Susan uh my name is Susan WTIC I live at 45 Forest Avenue in Greenfield uh councelors thank you for allowing me to speak today I'm speaking for myself and for housing Greenfield I sent you an email about the economics of affordable housing which I hope you had a chance to review it really explains a great deal about why the 24 uh uh unit limit does not work for affordable housing in town but I won't repeat those comments here uh tax bills came out recently and I'm sure you've heard from your constituents about taxes family finances are difficult and may become more so I want to talk to you about how erasing the 24 unit development limit on the CCN Sr zones impacts those taxes right now we have a shortage of homes whether rental or for ownership that is worse than any area in Eastern Massachusetts we have between 0.5% and .1% vacancy rates overall a healthy vacancy rate is 5 to 7% we have a long way to go before we have a healthy housing market you also hear from your constituency about the need for jobs that pay a living wage the need for jobs and the need for affordable housing are interconnected I know of several people in town with very good jobs who cannot find housing appropriate to their needs I also know of present employers who say that they cannot attract workers because there's no place for their workers to live rental or for ownership and I know of potential employers who would be interested in moving and growing their businesses here but hesitate to do so because they are concerned that their employees will not be able to find housing if we want a reasonable taxation we need to find ways to build more housing all kinds of housing a key to building that housing is the development of affordable housing as defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development affordability according Hut to Hut for a Greenfield family of four in 2025 is defined as an income of $119,500 if a family has less income than that it is eligible for some level of subsidy we need to be build housing that meets the needs of this family and many others if we do not do so Greenfield will go into economic Decline and the taxes of everyone who already lives here will continue to rise at a rapid rate one piece of this puzzle is to do away with the 24 unit limit on housing development in the CC and Sr zones while all other zoning requirements remain in place this will allow for the development of safe safe clean attractive accessible and affordable housing in accordance with HUD rules and our zoning ordinances it will start to turn around the growth conundrum that Greenfield finds itself in I'll do I'll quickly do it we need more jobs and businesses there but there's no place for people who want those jobs or or work for those businesses to live it will allow seniors like me to consider moving to smaller more easily accessible home or OCC or apartments making my larger home available for those families who can't find a house thank you Susan thank you uh next person on the list is Carl Woodruff my name is Carl Woodruff I live at 60 James Street in Greenfield um I'm also a builder in the area Oxo design build uh Susan who just spoke before me said I think a lot of what I already wanted to say in a way that's more articulate than I could um but I do want to just add a few things to that you know I think the multif family uh the expansion of multif family over 24 units um is a really necessary piece of creating more affordability in housing and Greenfield the efficiency of scale really can't be overstated you know as a builder I uh basically every week am faced with having to give bad news to our clients about how much their project is going to cost um you know people have been saving for 20 30 40 years to try to build the house that they've always wanted to live in and unfortunately the rising costs of construction make that completely unattainable to most of the people that we speak to um we are a worker own Cooperative uh we have 25 workers in the valley um we are a very modest company we do not do large developments we do single family two family three family and we really try to work with those clients as much as possible but the reality is um you know the changing costs for construction The increased requirements from the energy code and the building code just make that type of construction really entirely unaffordable and with the new energy code the significant Remodel and a of existing single family and two family units uh is now unfortunately also unattainable to most people uh in a city like Greenfield that has the deficit of housing that we do there really is no other option other than larger multif family developments on single Lots where we can really benefit from that efficiency of scale I think I'm going to I'm going to leave it there um but I'm also happy to talk with anyone after this we we do have a number of projects in Greenfield that we've completed recently and are planning to do these are small and modest projects but I'd be happy to talk more about them with anybody thank you very much for your time thank you Nan sley my name is man SI I live at 25 Freeman Drive in Greenfield I'm going to speak fast because I am ver both first I want to congratulate the city council on its ability to recognize the growing needs of our community and to take Swift action to embrace new zoning opportunities I'm speaking to you the city council but also to anyone who cares to listen behind me or online or anywhere with my full chest on this matter the opposition to your courageous vote is largely Ed in fear and stigma fear of change fear for unknown fear of harm to a romanticized Nostalgia of our quaint little Slice of New England living I was born here I was raised here I have struggled and also thrived here you're looking at a woman who has a world of experiences to draw from and I'm going to share some of the unlovely parts of it with you I've been homeless here as a team I could set up a tent in the dark I have slept at Satan's head I have benefited from dial self here and my children have experienced Christmas where the ornaments on the tree were designs we cut from wrapping paper and we hung them on the tree I dragged pregnant to my place where I was couch surfing with a friend and that tree was the discarded leftovers outside salvation Salvation Army excuse me the only gifts my children receiv received that year were from charity here in this city that I am proud to call home um at that time it was not proud to have me I was homeless couching it with an acquaintance while acquaintance while going through a volatile divorce I was able to access Section 8 quickly because of domestic violence I raised my children in Greenfield Gardens and they are all adult adults now doing well I currently own a home here with my husband the value is above the city average and my credit score is higher than a very small percent in this country a true measure of a community is how it treats its most vulnerable I do not wish to spend this precious time spouting math or statistics you guys have plenty of that you need to hear how measures like this have helped homelessness was not theend end of my story poverty was not the end of my story please continue to be courageous and take these opportunities to create a more resilient community that remains current to the needs of the people living here and relevant please remember that we have people sleeping outside tonight thank you thank you Barbara fante my name is Barbara FY I lived in Greenfield for 59 years and my family has lived on Sunrise Avenue for over 40 years removing the apartment Gap cap excuse me is unhealthy please don't allow the Valley Housing Co-op and Noble homes to desecrate and ruin our neighborhood to lure in non-locals to topple our peaceful community with their commune all under the LIE of affordable housing thank you thank you and next we have Den lent thank you there certainly are different sides to this equation here aren't there folks um do we your name and address please sorry my name is denim Lunt I live on Sunrise Aven Greenfield Mass um I think it's important that people who are weary of high powerered development and concerned about it running you know wild in our town our city uh is understood in and and it is underst OD that people who may not favor how and where that's being done are still gung-ho for improving a lot of people who need housing it's very clear that's important that said um I have uh issued a readers right column in that never quite made it so I thought I'd access a little of it tonight because it sort of speaks to that the reason I opened up with the important point of knowing that anybody in this room is crazy not to accept the reality of the need for housing um that said the resentment from abutters and existing property owners in our neighborhood uh regarding proposed development that's already on the table is very palpable along with quality of life and peace of mind their property resale values could easily decline looming problems with the proposed development would include a minimum of a year and a half of disruption during construction constant noise and invasion of privacy septic and water Provisions yet to be determined increased traffic in the neighborhoods fire hazard truck accessibility and increased lighting spillage from what could be 44 added units in our parking areas that's a lot of change to bring into a uh existing neighborhood that values uh what it has now also there could be a loss of homeowner Equity maybe more of you know about that than I but uh it's certainly mentioned a lot uh for longstanding property owners relying on that equity for retirement for example and a possible reduction of City real estate tax income due to tax abatement filings from homeowners over loss of value of their properties assist it's often not if you build it's where you build assisting people in need of H housing is laudable but the number and density of the proposed new develop dwellings are incompatible with the character and scale of this long established neighborhood which is a key approval criteria for a special permit review Decades of investment by greenfield homeowners need to be respected and prot protected thank you for listening and thanks for your time thank you I'm going to move to the online um and we can refrain from clapping thank you um the next one is um Ki Williams please yes my name isari Williams and I live on Conway Street here in Greenfield and I I just really want to support what Susan I'm sorry I didn't catch your last name said I think it's very important that we look at all of those elements but I also think it's really important that we look at honestly the moral element housing is a human right and Greenfield is very short on housing and people should not be struggling to just find a place to call home and I understand that people don't want something in their neighborhood that's going to necessarily change the character of the neighborhood but I I think we have to take a longer view than that and a more charitable View and recognize that there but for the grace of God it could be anyone of us or someone we know who's unhoused and that there is something that as a black woman I I hear this conversation and some of it makes me really uncomfortable because I feel like I'm hearing a conversation that justified redlining so I just want people to consider we're talking about other human beings here and that needs to be more important than our immediate and short-term Comfort around a change in what a neighborhood might look like and we also need to not stigmatize people and decide that because someone has been unhoused that it means something about them that is negative and I just think it's very important that we consider those things as well and I think that the 24 unit cap should be removed thank you thank you next we have Wendy Goodman I'm getting here hi and good evening Wendy Goodman 529 Green River Road first again I just want to thank you guys Laura congratulations and thank you for doing running a very effective meeting mayor and City I'm thrilled to hear about the warming station and was thrilled to see that the library is used being used as such um I wasn't prepared to speak I haven't written anything but what what my concern is about giving over the cap is I don't want us to lose and I and I'm I might be speaking out of term but I don't want us to lose our influence over how we continue to develop so putting that is there a way to do it as a flexible cap is there a way to do it so that we don't say no you can't go beyond that but we we restrict the right to see how that proceeds um the other thing that occurs to me and it's very hard to do but very effective to do it is to involve the communities that are going to be in affected as much as possible in the process because we know that the more stakeholders that are involved the easier this process is and I can't imagine anyone wouldn't be upset with realizing that their home that they have loved and lived in for a long time is going to be changed however that's going to happen without their input so I'm wondering if there's a way that we can look at this whole piece of planning and development in a little bit more inclusive and collaborative way than we have in the past um I I think we should keep some kind of a cap if it's not 24 what is it what's the right what's the right level but people do need housing our world is changing we're blessed that we've gotten to enjoy so much of what we've gotten to enjoy and how do we move together forward in a way that works for everybody so I hope we can look at that without giving over the power of influence because it's our it's our home it's our land how do we take care of it and how do we still have control so thank you very much thank you for your service well done may this year be better than expected have a good night thank you and I hope the gctv is getting because I had to turn it off it was very very staticky so maybe they can adjust that thank you we next have Joan maray Jackson please good evening everyone uh city council this New Year 2025 um thank you for this opportunity to speak and um I also like to acknowledge uh the actual birthday of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr and uh it's an it's a a very good opportunity to speak out for the community for our fellow man for what's what's right excuse me what's right and what's possible my name is Joe Marie Jackson and I live at two Chestnut Hill last night when I testified at the EDC meeting I asked that the citizens petition for an Adu minimum lot size and open space protection be tabled and I ask the full Council again tonight table our motion until the final Adu rigs are issued on February 2nd at the State Hearing last Friday on January 10th on Adu rigs a number of people complained that the regulations should be changed to make it clear that only single family homes can add an Adu not homes that are already two or three family dwellings one land use consultant from Conway said the draft state regulations were an example of quote unquote legislative creep where regulations go beyond what the law actually says he said some local bylaws historically only allowed single family dwellings on residential lots we don't do that in Greenfield our residential zones all allow single family two family and three family dwellings by right we allow multif family houses in all our residential districts by special permit we do not have exclusionary zoning Greenfield's draft Adu regulations say quote only one Adu may be created within a single family or two family house or house lot that two family house or lot should be deleted we should only allow one Adu on a single family lot if I add a second housing unit inside my principal dwelling that's an Adu I should not be allowed to add a second Adu on that lot the state Adu law says it applies to quote the use of land or structures for a single accessory accessory dwelling unit and the draft State regs says a dwelling unit is for one or more persons shouldn't we State the building code limit in our ordinance so we don't discover seven or eight people crammed into a tiny home I'm urging the city council to resend its December vote allowing an un limited number of units in the multif family building instead we have the right to set the gross density on a lot which is a units per acre measurement in February let's have an open discussion about these changes along with the minimum lot size and open space we can reach a compromise we helped we helped reach a compromise on the Zone in December listen to your constituents dismissing citizen ideas tonight is a disservice to the community thank you thank you next up we have Pamela Goodwin good evening Pamela goodr 54 High Street um I'm going to agree with Wendy I thought it was a great presentation I also Echo Susan mork's talk I don't feel like talking about statistics either I did send an email to you people um today and I usually don't email I will say that I've already publicly come out and said I was unhoused I actually chose homelessness over mistreatment by property managers I got tired of of protection orders let you my remind folks online to make sure that you're muted thank you um so I lived in my car at 71 my children didn't have room in any of their houses for me it went on for a number of weeks and um I do know that house is a human right I belong to citizen housing and planning housing Greenfield Massachusetts Coalition for the homelessness and I am thankful that we're not doing what Brockton Fall River in Boston is doing breaking up encampments throwing homeless people into jail at least they would be warm and maybe get food but they're also fining people as if they have money to pay for a fine CU they're where they don't belong these are families not just homeless veterans the rents keep going up we don't have any kind of rent control going on when I was going door knocking I saw a lot of houses that I would consider kind of pretty slummy I was kind of surprised I know the board of health keeps on top of that situation the eviction weights are through the roof I'm going to meet with someone who is facing an eviction tomorrow morning because I've had experience not of being evicted but I chose to be safe um there is a group called Mouse housing and I have attended workshops a lot of people who are unhoused who do end up finally getting housing need a lot of assistance in order to get the interview process done get through the red tape paperwork services like being plugged into AA daa if they can't keep their books straight then somebody else can manage their books and keep them paying their rent on time there's all kinds of reasons why we have unhoused people as a volunteer at the warming shelter I can say to the to my experience there many of them would be able to stay in a place should they find a location some of them do need Services that's why the Well street um shelter is going to have Services plugged in over there if you have some issues whether they're physical or mental it's called a reasonable accommodation it's the law and people need the help thank you thank you next up Mitchell Spate good evening uh first of all I'd like to uh acknowledge I get your name and address please MIT to Chestnut Hill I'd like to acknowledge the birth date of uh the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King my name is Mitch Spade I live at two Chestnut Hill at last Friday's State Adu regulation hearing I heard citizens from the cap to the bo shes criticizing the vague Lang and overreach of the housing and liable community's Adu language it goes be Beyond statutory language Massachusetts is a home ruled state where the zoning Powers reside at the city and town level the state is narrowing our zoning Authority what housing and living communities has done as unlawfully extended what the legislature ex established I said at the hearing that the use of the words reasonable and unreasonable throughout these regulator regulations are arbitrary and capricious because they are unmeasurable and therefore subject to varying interpretations from municipality to municipalities or court to court I am concerned that our draft will coordinates eliminates the requirement for a site plan review for a lot that that will have two dwellings on it instead of one our site plan review ordinance requires design features which will integrate the proposed development into existing landscape maintain neighborhood character enhance aesthetic assets and Screen objectional features from Neighbors I'll site plan review approval regs evaluate the provision of Open Spaces I don't want neighbors to lose the these protections State ad laws allow cities to include reasonable regulations including but not limited to site plan review and building Dimensions I urge the city council to go back to the September 26 2024 version of our Adu ordinance to require a site plan review for any Adu which is detached I ask you tonight to pass a motion to table the citizens petition and take it up again in February when you have the rest of the city's drafts Adu in front of you I also urge you to resend your motion on unlimited dwelling units in a multifam structure I worry that removing height limits is coming next I don't want to see Greenfield becoming high-rise Heaven again uh this is a blatant attack by the governor to end single family zoning As We Know It This is a debacle not only governmentally but politically wrongheaded thank you thank you next we have Andrew Lee uh my name is Andrew Leaf uh my wife and I arrived here in Greenfield in relatively new and what's your address please uh 18 Sunrise here in Greenfield uh we have a son who's lived here for many years and we were happy to to arrive in this community and delighted with the neighborhood in which we landed on Sunrise Avenue uh at the same time we share General concern for the lack of affordable housing not only in Greenfield not only in Western Massachusetts but throughout the country so when we heard that the property beneath us uh on Stone Farm Lane was going to be developed we were of course interested and concerned that it would be done well uh at the same time we certainly understood the motivation for adding that housing uh we attended uh an inial meeting where uh the people planning and projecting the project uh described it declared their their intention to uh explain what what would happen present a a really uh welldeveloped site plan and they expressed uh concern about the Aesthetics of of the development and concern for the land and we were very impressed and given our Our concern shared concern for affordable housing and this uh their intention to involve the neighborhood or the community that would be most affected in the in the uh planning and and the have an opportunity to comment on the design of we were we were really quite pleased one reason we were pleased frankly was that that we felt that this project was going to be handled in a way that would not uh deteriorate the the quality of the neighborhood that people were generally concerned and wanted to elicit our concerns our wishes our feelings about the proposed design uh we subsequently participated in I think three other meetings uh which were which purported to do the do the same thing to build confidence in the community members in the project we noticed that each time we we went to one of these meetings the number of units was increased with no great explanation of it at no time however was there going was there announcement that that there'd be no cap on the development of units and that seemed quite shocking and and inconsistent with the declared intention of involving the community in in in an understanding of of just what we done and how it would affect the the residents of that Community uh they did elicit concerns the ones I remember in particular were were uh traffic issues and the the how the sage issue would be would be resolved uh thank you so much okay thank you very much next up list is Cynthia peas hello I'm Cynthia PE from Sunrise Avenue being a Greenfield taxpayer and parent of young children I'm saddened by all of the Town counselors for not considering the well-being and safety of the town we live in this pertains specifically to the vote taken December removing the limit on unit caps yes housing is needed but every development should be considered and the consequences it will have on the town opening up the unit cap without questions is going to only grow the disdain of current taxpayers and the safety of all of us this is also going to compromise the safety of our children and the Emergency Services needed to respond to the calls at units of substantial size I urge the city counselors to support councelor Min mahan's motion to reconsider your vote that you took in December to allow apartment building buildings to have an unlimited number of dwelling residences also to have a counselor on this board that will benefit from this unit cap being removed is a conflict of interest and this counselor should be removed from any votes pertaining to housing thank you for your consideration thank you next Kristen Bates hi Kristen Bates uh 22 Sunrise AV Greenfield uh as a lifelong resident of Greenfield no butter to the proposed multif family condo projects in stone Farm Lane I'm deeply concerned and strongly opposed to the city council allowing these types of construction by right the ramifications will be a drastic change that will fundament alter the character of our neighborhood and our city the city is overlooking the significant strain these developments would place on our infrastructure including roadways or lack thereof for the stone Farm area as we received a non-paved oil TRG mixed mess our oneway eager s Emergency Services access not to mention Water and Sewer piping capacities all while in turn increasing traffic congestion and reducing Green Space speaking of green space I thought the very definition of Land Trust was to preserve the land but apparently the city and the land trust have mutually defined it to be build 20 condo units with no Deep dive required into its consequences each one of you risk sacrificing the quality of life for current residents potentially even future who will bear the brunt of these impacts most specifically the plummeting of property values that AB but these types of infrastructures without any meaningful review or thoughtful consideration this isn't just an issue for the those that live wherever the proposed buildings are being built issue it's about preserving the well-being and identity of our long steering longstanding rural residential community and City we call Greenfield I appreciate it thank you to each one of you for your opportunity to speak have a good evening thank you El Morman please counselors for the record my name is Al Norman I live on grenell Street last night at the EDC hearing on the citizens petition process got in the way of progress I hope every counselor now realizes how state law Works to handle a zoning petition under chapter 48 Section 5 you have more than power just to accept or reject the petition you have the right to to accept a petition with amendments which means when your constituents bring an issue to you you can see is a compromise possible I looked for a compromise last month when the council was considering how to develop apartments in the SR Zone and we came up with a compromise that the council accepted we came up with a compromise we have asked the council to put a minimum lot size for an EDU if half an acre is too large draw another line that's lower make some offer but there must be some partials that are too small to carry two homes on without it being too dense one of the purposes of our zoning is to provide for open space it doesn't say just on large Lots several councilors said last night that there was some conversation worth having over the issues in the citizens petition because lot size and open space are mainstream zoning issues how does a citizen actually have a conversation with this Council we speak for three minutes no questions are asked during Council meetings no questions can be posed or answered it's hard for citizens to have a meaningful conversation with this Council or planning board or Conservation Commission do we have to limit ourselves to onetoone conversations outside of meetings I think all counselors know that if you do not act on a petition now within 90 days of a public hearing guess what not much happens you just have another public hearing that's not the impression that people had last night we're asking the full council tonight take Council and in House's motion table this citizen Amendment table it the state's final regulations will be out in 18 days look at the draft from the director of the planning in February you you'll look at the petitions as well you can look at both at that time can we produce a document based on a compromise conversation a back and forth conversation at a public hearing or at an EDC meeting where the public and the council members actually Converse the Adu law says that adus may be quote may be subject to reasonable regulations including but not limited to site plan review regulations concerning dimensional setbacks and the bul and height of structures we are not limited to the specific items mentioned in this La that's just a starter list and I will by saying this I really urge you to over override the amendment that you adopted on on an unlimited uh apartment cap you know that remember this is an unlimited cap per structure if I build two units I have 48 units thank you unlimited is unacceptable thank you next we have Patty O'Neal please hello my name is paty O'Neal I live uh in Precinct one and um I emailed you all earlier today but I wanted to also read out my email um for everybody in the room and online um because I think this is a an important conversation to have um I'm writing to express support for your prior decision to remove the arbitrary 24 unit limit on One Foundation buildings for the CC and Sr zones which is in line with the Greenfield housing study folks worked so hard on uh please keep the zoning change no on units units we can address the concern about outsized developments and other and better ways that don't preclude us from the best source of affordable housing funding um State subsidies I'm against arbitrary limits on the number of units a building can have which is what the 24 number is nobody can say what it originated from uh especially when it makes an already tedious and restrictive process of building realistically affordable housing even more sens senselessly difficult I am also against an arbitrarily arbitrarily large number of units which I consider to be only considering uh economies of scale that are detached from the reality of what makes sense for sustainable growth and resilient planning for our region I have faith that we have enough other checks and Zoning restrictions to keep anything from getting too big and I hope that we can continue to work with the state on making sure Greenfield can get emergency funding for affordable housing that doesn't make us compete with a locality like Boston for size I look forward to your help supporting our ability to locally fund affordable housing uh such as the creation of an affordable housing trust in addition to our CPA and Community Development block grants and more so we are better able to help our neighbors and family get the housing we need and we don't have to be so at the mercy of State funding subsidy rules uh or random investors profit margins and I just want to reiterate that things like Cooperative models which Stone Farm Lane is one of and which I'm also looking into for my own apartment building our ways creative ways of approaching um affordable housing and I want us all to um just try to keep an open mind about the ways that we can pull our money together to have affordable housing that we can actually be in control of um and just also that this is um all of these changes are trying to make the best possible um compromise um to minimize development and maintain open space and like we're really we're really trying our best and it's also really exciting uh so I just thank you for for caring so much and I I looking forward to talking about this more with everybody thanks thank you I next have Colleen deskovich hello my name is Colleen deskovich I live at 23 Turner FS Ro my husband and I moved to Greenfield in 198 5 and we started a plumbing and heating business and we incorporated it in 1988 we have serviced many properties in Greenfield my biggest concern is eliminating the or establishing the right where there would be no studies on the infrastructure the schools the police and all the other services My worry is that we need to have certain criteria so that we don't have Maps um at the very least having um things go wrong and have it fall on the taxpayers um again because I do understand how a lot of the things in Greenfield work my concern is that we might be overburning our systems if we aren't careful about how much housing and how it is controlled um I do want to say that I do urge the city council the city council excuse me to reconsider your vote in December to allow apartment buildings to have an unlimited number of dwelling residents please reverse that vote to ensure future developments are compatible with the scale and character of a dis existing residential neighborhoods I also ask you to support the citizens zoning Amendment on Aus which sets a minimum lot size for backyard auds and protects open space on such Lots if someone wants to build a second dwelling on their lot we should keep the requirement that they are at least to get a site plan review by our planning board and that neighbors get notified to the commitment thank you have a good night thank you so much I'm going to move now to we have one more online uh Ryan Whitney please hell thank you for letting me speak I've heard a lot of people speak tonight and um uh the last Lady I do your name and address please what I was saying is like I wonder how we're going money [Music] I need you to state your name and address for the record sorry you may need to unmute Ryan Whitney Greenfield Massachusetts sorry phone almost having some issues um I just the the last lady that spoke at the nail on the head for me um I just wonder about info structure that means police fire and safety like she said like I look at a house that once had a single family with maybe you know two kids going to school in it and now you're going to make it into a three family with three kids going to school and it three families using the septic and stuff like that where are the studies like that tell how we're going to handle that cost if that house has to provide more in taxes for kids going to school in infrastructure how are we recuperating like how are we getting back that tax money if we're not just passing it off to another citizen like that's not very fair so I just I asked the um assessor right before this meeting and like with all this housing coming in and if you're talking about nonprofits using this housing and stuff like that we already have two 90 million in nonprofits in this town for such a small town in untaxable property then that means that somebody else has got to pay for infrastructure or whatever else comes with that cost the police calls to them facilities like cuz they're not even being taxed for it so I don't know how we can just keep bleeding the people that are already here for newcomers to come and keep calling people nimi for like it's just not affordable for us it's not that we're nimi like I like to help people I just really am being blood so that's all I'd like to see and concern about that's all thanks thank you I've got two more folks um Pam Athena okay hello yes I'm um my name is um P my um nickname is Athena so my actual name Lurch just to make get clear about that and I live at 170 Davis Street on the corner of um Garfield in Davis um I'm actually to be honest I'm just I'm kind of getting educated about all this and but I am concerned I I I really don't want to um change my character the beauty and of Greenfield and when I first I I like I was moving for the BS area and I felt like I was moving out in the country and um um I love all the old houses and um I'm also you know concerned about having houses or people that need housing with the families now and within my house I have I have which I um R below market rate and also got some help from the city and and improving it which I'm grateful for um and uh and so I'm just glad to that um every the seems to be completely discussed and talked about and um on different um thank you thank you so much and now I've got Chris Ethier [Music] yeah thank you uh chrisy here uh 26 Sunrise AV um you've heard a lot of uh comments from a lot of people on our neighborhood um a lot of it has to do with uh up incoming projects that are uh coming in um and then we've some of us have talked about the Adu uh issues uh I am been here for a while born in Greenfield in 1948 so I've been here a long time that said I was uh in business almost 50 years in Greenfield um I kind of know it pretty well I've been in your seats I've been around uh the youth thing first of all I believe uh a tremendous overreach by the state to tell us what our zoning should be I don't believe uh everybody in this town is looking for uh an extra neighbor in their back yard uh I do think it's a very good uh system to create housing uh there has to be some rules and regulations uh whether you go back to the state and demand that they give them or give you the power to do it rather than take it from us uh I certainly would want that to happen uh we have very good zoning boards very good planning boards a very good Council all of you should be making decisions for us not Boston so that's that's my Adu speech um as far as the uh knocking off uh housing units uh at a certain number uh there needs to be a number you can't go unlimited unlimited is okay we need 600 units uh which a lot of people know about except that it's in 10 years okay 10 years if we look at what's being on the board now that are being uh sized up uh now you're talking about a fair amount of units between uh two or three projects that are already you know in the works um and uh and I'm not talking about our neighborhood even that said uh how many is enough uh i' I sold bicycles I can't tell you I know more homeless than everybody in this Council I mean they're my customers I know I know them I mean I walk down Main Street I say of the business guys and I stop and talk to the guys on the bench so and I get it I know that uh the housing for them is very important uh I realize it's a endemic of every single town around here and I also realize being the county seat we have a obligation because we've got we've got a jail too and guess what all those County Seat things all of the uh different organizations we have in town that provide services for people means people have to be somewhere we are we a bedroom community for it somewhat but give it some thought and give us some good reasonable rules thank you appreciate the time and thank you for your service it's important thank you thank you everybody for speaking tonight um I think that that's the last speaker on public comment uh we're all passionate about Green Fields why we're here so it makes me feel good to see a room filled with people who care about this community um I we have lots of different views in the room and that's why we're here so thank you for being part of this and just a reminder we have planning committee and other committees that are also making these decisions um and some of them have more power in the decisions than this Council does on certain issues so I just want to encourage everybody to continue showing up and show up for the other subcommittees because that matters as well while we're making the sausage before it gets here so the next item tonight is the um public hearing can I ask councelor toronzo to read the public hearing notice sure thing um in accordance with home Rule Charter the Greenfield city council will hold a public hearing on Wednesday January 15 2025 at 6:30 p.m. at John on Community Center 35 Pleasant Street and zoom to receive public input on the following transfer $2,600 th000 from free cash to Capital stabilization fund transfer 200,000 from free cash to compensated absences fund transfer 100,000 from free cash to contract stabilization fund the city council may consider the same on Wednesday January 15 2025 at 6:30 pm at John on Community Center 35 Pleasant Street and zoom uh that's it thank you I I'm opening the public hearing at 800m could we ask you councilor toronzo to read the second reading sure um Second City Council second reading transfer $2,600 th000 from free cash to Capital stabilization fund transfer $200,000 from free cash to compensated Abes fund transfer $100,000 from free cash to contract stabilization fund does anybody want to speak to any of these topics and noting that there's no one signed up on the public hearing seeing that nobody wants to speak it's 8:01 and we're closing the public hearing thank you all right let's take a breath and I we are at our break time so can we take a five minute usually do five or 10 okay we're going to take five minutes and be back at 806 all right try to take five [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] good evening could folks take their seats we're back in session and if you don't take your seats if you could go outside so that we can hear thank you all right our next order business is our motions orders and resolutions the first is the motion for reconsideration and I will ask councelor Minos to read that please page 23 for those following at home I'm just flipping to that right now hold on one second let's just I'm going to confirm that councelor hey okay councelor Healey can you confirm that you were still online yes thank you thank you the voice from above all right councelor Manas okay do all righty order number FY 25-34 uh the city council move that it be ordered a motion for rec consideration pursuant to the city council rules of procedure rule 6B I hereby submit a motion to to reconsider the following motion passed at the city council meeting on December 18th 2024 order number FY 24-24 one voted that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200 200-40 multif family dwelling subsection B procedure by striking paragraph 4 and its entirety as follows in attached exhibit a and further amends a table of contents and index of the code and further that nons substantive changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of grainfield do I have to keep on reading you've got it you're all set this is it okay thank you great do we have a second I'll second okay so discussion um and just before we discuss I'd like to give the opportunity for councelor Minos to explain his motion and then after that I would like to hand it over to either councelor bulock to talk about the original but I just want to be clear we're only voting on whether we're going to reconsider it and not about the amendment itself thank you okay so we're just going to discuss taking it and reconsidering it yeah so basically the reason why I did this is I was pretty confused in the last meeting and then when I watched it again and tried to kind of look through what happened it was really hard for me to follow and that was on top of a bunch of constituents just being like what just happened what is going on um we would like some clarification and to be honest I mean I voted for it but I didn't even know what the hell I was voting for so um I feel like many other counselors can also probably attest to the fact that it was kind of confusing second on the actual substance of what was voted um I think a bunch of constituents have uh raised we're talking about taking them from the table so okay we're not going to get into substance thank you okay any other discussion on taking it for reconsideration okay then I'm gonna uh councelor Gordon yeah thank you um I I was here last month and we had a long and windy conversation about the proposal that is certainly true um I will say for myself I by the end of it I was very clear on what I was voting on um I I didn't actually hear a lot of other confusion from other members of the council um I can I also understand that not being in the room makes it harder I think sometimes uh to follow what happens in here but um I I do think that we made a good decision last month and and I don't feel the need to reconsider it [Music] Council b um just I want to just say this for a point of clarity um that I'm trying to figure out how to do this without going Beyond taking it from the table is it about taking from the table or something else yeah so if if we're taking this from the table because we think that this undid limits on um units across all zones in the city that's not what that's not what happened and so I just want us to be clear that taking this from the table doesn't have anything to do with that if that's why we're taking it from the table um I yeah I think that's that's as far as I can go thank you any other counselors um I'm GNA go to councelor Garrett and then councelor Minas I want to make sure everybody who wants to speak first so it's I just wanted to address the process which was confusing last month and why we spend so much time on it there's been mention of a compromise uh in the semi res residential Zone the initial proposal you know and I know this is a different motion but the reason that there was confusion U there was a initial proposal to have multif family be by right in the semi-residential zone I just want to caution that we're getting into the substance and not take it from the table thank you got it um just to really be simple about it the effort made the time that was taken was to ensure the compromise happened this this motion that's asked to be reconsidered was never addressed in a proposed compromise in any sort of way and so that I'm I was genuinely flx to hear that there was opposition to this after the proposal had come out so that is I think as much as I can say about this without getting into the substance of the motion being asked to be reconsidered Council manous yeah again I just want to reiterate I mean the my main reason for doing this is so that we can act in the spirit of transparency and so the public knows exactly what we voted on and what we're talking about regardless of how you would vote on it um I just think it would be beneficial if we gave it another thought and had that discussion in a more clear manner Council trans um I also was kind of perplexed by getting uh notification that this was up for reconsideration as we did discuss this at length um and I feel that um ultimately if there were um regrets about it um to be frank this had already gone through committee and committee and time and was spent on it um those would have been the times to have a better understanding of what we were going over and talking about and then we had a lengthy discussion and if the if the reconsideration is for because some folks may not like the outcome of it that's not what reconsiderations are generally for um you win some you lose some that's just the way it works um you may not be happy with every everything that's done you may vote against something and you you lose you may end up just voting for something because it's easier um but I didn't I don't see a reason for this to essentially be reconsidered it was a unanimous vote you usually don't get a reconsideration on a unanimous vote um so I I will be I will just be clear that I am going to vote no on reconsidering this at all thank you Council Gob so please let me know if this steps outside the bounds of discussing this motion uh I am going to vote no for two reasons one because I was very clear about what I was voting on and two um the reason if the argument from the community is to reconsider uh I've heard many many many people say tonight that this lifts any restrictions on development over 24 units and if you watch last week's last month's meeting you will see that we didn't do that we were really proud of the compromise that came from the community um to mandate a special permit for development over 24 units and uh we're not lifting all restriction on development so I'm trying to keep it brief I could say more but I'm I'm hearing the concern from the community and we did address that last month you I think we're ready for a vote just to let everyone know it needs a majority vote to be taken from the table councelor gollem no councelor Gordon no councelor master tataro no councelor bulock no coun counc Perry yes councelor Healey no councel Brown no conflict of interest vice president Garrett no councelor Minos yes councelor torono no does the president wish to vote Yes No the motion is defeated it stays on it stays as was voted by the council thank you all right our next order is on the mayor's appointments and that is um councelor goed please just give me a moment I'm going to open wake back up my computer can someone tell me what page it's on thank you here 25 okay the city council move that it be ordered that the Greenfield city council pursuant to Charter can we have quiet so that folks can focus here folks can if you're having conversations just outside of the room please thank you thank you the city council moveed that it be ordered that the Greenfield city council pursuant to Charter section 210 affirms the following appointments by the mayor to the following elderly and disabl Taxation fund David Rolston term to expire December 31st 2026 planning board alternates Tom bled so term to expire December 31st 2027 shortterm to finish Amy McMahon's remaining term and era Ru e uh term to expire TW December December 31st 2028 zoning board of appeals alternate Ro Charles Roberts term to expire December 31st 2028 majority vote required do we have a second second can I get the committee report please y this re received a unanimous positive recommendation and with gratitude as always for everyone who is dedicating the time to this sometimes tedious and yet very important work thank you any discussion all right let's vote councelor goab Yes councelor Gordon Yes councelor master Taro yes councelor Bullock yes councelor Perry yes councelor Healey yes Council Brown yes vice president Garrett yes Council Minos yes councilor toronzo yep does the president wish to vote yes and yes the motion passes unanimously page all right we coming to our next motion um and that's uh G said Board of Commissioners councelor GB yep the city council moved that it be ordered that the Greenfield city council pursuant to Charter section 210 reaffirms the following members of the gset Board of Commissioners to correct the dates of terms to comply with mgl chapter 164 acts of 2017 timoth Timothy frell term to expire April 30th 2027 David Russell ched to expire April 30th 2027 J Jen stron term to expire April 30th 2027 Pamela Goodwin term to expire December 31st 2028 and Katherine Markham term to expire December 30th 2029 majority vote required do I have a excuse me do I have a second second thank you and Comm I ask again that if folks are going to have conversation please take it out into the hallway because it is just distracting for us up here thank you thank you you Motion in second this received another positive unanimous recommendation with gratitude great thank you any comments or discussion all right vote councelor Golan yes councelor Gordon Yes councelor master Taro yes councelor bulock yes councelor Perry yes councelor hey yes Council Brown yes count uh vice president Garrett yes Council minus yes councelor Toronto yep does the president wish to vote yes and yes the motion passes unanimously all right we're up to councelor toronzo and way and sort of motions all right I'll read the sort of motion uh um all right uh order number FY 25- 031 the city council upon recommendation of Mayor dorer an order to transfer an order to transfer 2,600,000 from free cash to the capital stabilization fund move that it be ordered that the city council approves a transfer of the sum of 2,600,000 from free cash to the capital stabilization fund majority vote required great do we have a second have second thank you discussion and and let me know how it went in committee well you were there and so were half the people in the room uh it was a positive unanimous recommendation and I bet you that's going to be the same going down the line yeah foreshadowing it's good I'm trying so everybody knows what's coming up all right let's vote does anybody have any question questions discussion coun Golan yes councelor Gordon Yes councelor master jataro yep councelor Bullock yes councelor Perry yes councel Healey yes Council Brown yes vice president Garrett yes Council minus yes councelor toronzo yep does the president wish to vote yes and yes the motion passes you unanimously fantastic keep going down the line all right order number FY 25-32 the city council upon recommendation of Mayor disorder in order to transfer 200,000 from free cash to the compensated absences fund move that it be ordered that the city council approves the transfer of the sum of 200,000 from free cash the compensate absences fund majority vote required positive unanimous recommendation from subcommittee second we're we're just pausing so we can close the doors and have less ambient noise thank you uh any discussion or questions from the council and I know this one was unanimous in committee as well so let's take a vote Mr Carr thank you okay councelor golb yes councelor Gordon yes councelor master tataro yes councelor Bullock yes councelor Perry yes councelor Healey yes councilor Brown yes vice president Garrett yes councelor minus yes councelor toronzo yep does the president wish to vote yes and yes the motion passes unanimously woot woot all right M Moa order number no we got one more transfer almost there order number FY 25-33 the city council upon recommendation mayor disorder and order to transfer 100,000 from free cash to the contract stabilization fund move that it be ordered that the city council approves the transfer of the sum of 100,000 from free cash to the contract stabilization fund majority vote required positive unanimous at subcommittee did we get a second and I missed it second thank you [Music] discussion all right let's move to vote councelor gollan Yes councelor Gordon Yes councelor master Taro yes councelor bulock yes councelor Perry yes councelor Healey yes councelor Brown yes vice president Garrett yes Council Minos yes councel Toronto yep does the president wish to vote Yes it do motion passes unanimously all right you're on a roll all right order number FY 25036 city council upon recommendation of the mayor disor move that it be ordered that the memorandum of agreement between the city of Greenfield and the Greenfield fire and police signal operators Association be approved majority vote required a second uh this was positively unanimous also and any discussion or questions okay let's take a vote councelor goab Yes councelor Gordon Yes councelor master Taro yes councelor Bullock councelor Perry yes councelor Healey yes councelor Brown yes vice president Garrett yes councelor Minh house yes councelor toronzo y count uh president does the president wish to vote yes and yes the motion passes unanimously great all right so more zoning yay yay all right guys ready buckle up oh yeah I'm ready all right so I'm I'm going to ask as we come into some of these because they're confusing so just making sure that as it's being introduced that you get an explanation of what's being changed and why it might being changed as as well as how it came out of committee I appreciate that yeah and we have a I think it's going to be a little easier tonight than last month just yeah um so we have order number FY 25-0 24.2 yes that's the correct one the city council mve that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200- 48 mixed residential business uses by striking subsection a in its entirety and replacing with language and bold as follows and attached exhibit a um amend section 200- 48 mixed residential business use of the zoning ordinance to ow first floor dwellings in mixed use Lots by amending subsection a so it reads as followed we're striking all dwelling units shall be above the first floor level the street level which faces the street with the highest traffic use and adding first floor dwelling unit shall not be allowed along the street side with the highest traffic use and further amends the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering of the ordinance permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield majority vote required um let's go a second and then I'll second thank you okay so this one received a unanimous negative recommendation and if there actually if there's anyone if I get the um number of votes wrong please just correct me normally look at our notes but since our meeting was last night I had no notes to go off of yet um but this one I believe received a unanimous negative recommendation um the rationale behind that was um that there is actually many counselors in EDC who were in support of this um of this in some form but we felt like we needed to do more diligence because this is in the Central commercial District um we needed to address things like a square footage ratio or floor area ratio um secure entrances in common walls safety lighting parking sound um one of the other things that came up was having a potential for there to be a handicap accessible unit is only are granted on the first floor non- Main Street facing so um there's just a little more diligence we need to do on this and the the changes are substantial so we felt like that this was a negative recommendation so we could start again with a uh well-crafted um plan thank you any comments or discussion councilor Garrett so I um I also voted no because it was unanimous um and this was a motion that was part of the package of motions that I initially put forward regarding housing in general and it was a you know it's going to sound strange but it was a pleasure to vote no on this knowing that we're going to come back with a better version so I firmly stand by the language as it was written we need accessible units this would have been an improvement to the existing code right now you can't have mixed um housing and Commercial spaces on the first floor of a building and if we had made the change as written you would have been able to have a compromise and I'm excited that everyone on the committee and EDC and I think the full Council wants to see accessible units and we will have them on the first floor but we'll have instead of a good change we'll have a better change and to me that's how you make compromis that's how you make progress and so I I'm really excited that we're going to go through this prog process in the way that we are deliberately and with every voice being heard so I just wanted to thank the rest of the committee and everybody for working on this issue and trying to make it the best version we can thank you Council man house yeah I think the vote was a example of how collaboration can happen and we all agreed that accessible housing is definitely a need and but also the same time how can we merge the two needs for accessible housing while also maintaining a robust commercial District um so this is not the end of it there's more to come and uh that's why we voted no so we can have something better councelor GB um why the no vote as opposed to tabling it if we're going to continue to discuss it because we need to make substantial changes to it and so the changes seem to be too substantial to make to the same um piece so we were just like let's scrap it and start again and make it really clear um and not potentially have a barrier of having to the changes be too substantial Council transo also just add to that is because there are such substantive changes it would require a new public hearing so and we want a public we want another round of public hearings on this all right I think it looks like no more comments so let's move it to vote councilor Golem no councelor Gordon no councelor master Taro no councelor Bullock no councelor Perry no councelor Healey no councelor Brown no vice president Garrett no C Council Minos no council toronzo nope does the president wish to vote yes and no the motion is defeated unanimously all right back to you councelor bollock okay off my notes to Okay order number FY 25-25 the city council move that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 20-14 by adding language and bold and by deleting language and strike through as follows in exhibit a and further amends the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield and what what is shown in exhibit a um is section 2 5 um c um it strikes medical center slcl clinic including accessory research um from the list of things that need a special permit and it um renumbers the rest of the things that need a special permit can I have a second please second thank you this was also a unanimous no um and yeah there just there was an agreement that this that it was necessary to take this one um medical centers including clinics from the list of special permits um especially in the central commercial District there's a desire to keep the central commercial District commercial um and yeah if others want to add uh I've got Council Gordon yeah I'll just add that I believe it received a unanimous negative recommendation from planning board as well councelor Garrett and we were a unanimous no in case I said no to I didn't say that either sorry okay seeing no other discussion move to vote councelor golb no councelor Gordon no councelor master Taro no councelor Bullock no councelor Perry abstain councelor Healey Z Council Brown no vice president Garrett no council Minos no council toronzo nope does the president wish to vote Yes I vote no the motion is defeated Okay order number FY 25-26 the city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 20071814 accessory dwelling units amended by the city council on May 20th 2020 c applicability one an accessory dwelling unit within an accessory dwelling unit attached shall require a site plan review by the planning board prior to construction as part of the site plan review the planning board shall determine that the total land area of the parcel submitted for the addition of an accessory dwelling unit shall not be less than 1 12.5 of an acre the net acreage of total land in a parcel minus all dwellings including all proposed accessory dwelling units internal roads or driveways or other buildings or developments shall be considered open space and shall be shall comprise at least 50% of the parcel all accessory dwelling units shall meet the minimum setback requirement for the district in which it is located adus shall not be used for short-term rentals and further amends the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield majority vote required do I have a second second this received four yeses and one abstention I believe um oh sorry tell me what it received then oh sorry four no yes four Nos and one abstention sorry um and uh so this was a Citizens petition that was brought to us um and in November I requested a um legal opinion on this and we received that legal opinion um and it was in agreement with what I thought was true that it would be in violation um of the impending affordable homes act that comes in that in February will be Massachusetts state law uh so if we were to pass this as written um we would be in direct violation of a section of the affordable homes act um the opinion that we received also recommended that we review our current ordinance to ensue ensure that it complies with the ACT um as passed so this um is not it's not the guidance from our planning board um I feel like there's been some misinformation about this this was the Citi petition that was brought to us were we regardless of our feelings anyone's opinion or desire for adus or not or opinion of the state regulations were we to pass this um we would be potentially exposing the town to um lawsuits um and um I you know I do personally I I feel like it would be Reckless to expose us to potential litigation um the the reason that I voted no on this instead of tabling it or something else is because we have decided to wait until after February 2nd when the final guidelines come from the state and then draft a new ordinance to be in compliance with State along with the necessary adjustments that we want to make for our for our town um if we those are those are going to be substantial changes so amending the citizens petition and like like tabling it and amending it in my view does not make sense um so yeah I'll leave it at that and others can add C Manos I'd like uh to make a motion to table it because I feel like there's been a a lot of effort been put into this but also at the same time we don't want to be in violation of the law uh which is important so if we just table this and perhaps we can come back in a different form when we have some more information from the state um that will you know make sure that constituents concerns are being heard and we're not just voting this away so they don't have to start all over again was that a motion to table yes then we'll need a second and there won't be discussion once that happens so just want to be clear can I make a point of clarity or not when there's a motion a second if it's hold on one second so we have a proposed motion to take do you want me yeah we have a proposed motion on the floor if there's a second then there's the vote to table would be automatic it's not debatable so if we want to discuss discuss if you want to discuss it can I make a point of clarity about what tbling it means for for members of the council that might not understand the process completely sure so if we table this what happens is failure to act within the required time frame um which is in early February um so if this gets tabled it'll be failure to act within the required time frame the planning board then must hold another public hearing and the process is repeated again and as I stated this is not in compliance with the state law and needs substantive changes for it to be in compliance so in my mind this this would be a waste of time we need to start fresh um but we would be forced to rehear this again do we have a second I'll second okay so we're voting on the motion to table if you vote Yes the order is tabled if you vote no the discussion tonight would continue on the motion to table councelor gab no councelor Gordon no councelor master Taro no councelor Bullock no councelor Perry yes councilor Healey no council Brown no vice president Garrett no councelor minhouse yes councelor toronzo no does the president wish to vote no the motion fails for lack of a majority I think councilor GB you had something to add to the discussion that is now on the floor is that correct I was going to ask a question about what would happen if we tabled and counc Bullock answered that question and um now that I have the floor I'm just going to state that I hear the desire from folks in the community to really flush this out and I trust that once we have the recommendations from the state will'll be able to do that counselor um I appreciate the last sentence of this where it states Adu should not be used for short-term rentals and I think think in our future discussions that's something that we should continue to consider councelor Gordon I want to Echo councelor gb's comments a little bit and just say to the public you know we I've personally have taken all the comments tonight to heart we are listening to you we will very much consider all of the comments uh as we can consider a lot of these changes next month about adus um so please know that if this doesn't pass tonight it's not that the entire subject is dead and gone it's very much still a live conversation before I call in you we will have public hearing once this restarts so just want to make sure that folks understand that that will be part of the process and that's really important part of this process so I appreciate that councelor Bullock yeah that was a piece of it so this will start fresh um and we will have a public hearing whether it's a joint public hearing or between planning and EDC again um and I just want to remind I mean everyone left but the few of you that are here um that what we craft will have to be in compliance with the affordable homes act and so we can't craft something that restricts the building of adus and over 70% of buildable Lots in Green Fields like the citizens petition did that is in you know direct um opposition to what the affordable homes act did and um you know getting legal opinions is costly I don't want to do it all the time but I felt like it was necessary for this um and so we it's a a very serious issue that EDC is considering and we welcome public comment public folks please come to the public hearing um the conversation that we get to have about this is through email I got nine phone calls today about adus um and so there is a lot of conversation that gets to be had and unfortunately we don't get to dictate how public meetings are held um but public comment and public hearing is the time for that um so I welcome that at next month's uh meeting in February okay I think we're ready to vote and I really appreciate folks comments also about whether or not you believe that the Commonwealth overstepped on this unfortunately we're not in a position to change the state law so if and I know folks went testified and I think that's really important part of this process so keep doing that keep talking to your legislators um because if there's a flaw they need to change it we can't do that with our ordinance all right we're going to call it to a vote councelor Gollum no councelor Gordon no councelor master Taro no councelor Bullock no councelor par yes councelor Healey no council Brown no vice president Garrett no council Minos yes Council toronzo nope does the president wish to vote yes and no the motion is defeated by majority Okay order number FY 25-28 the city council move that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning by adding the following RB Suburban residential and ra Urban residential would have no allowance for Roosters no matter the Acres limited chickens would be allowed 10 Rd rural residential would allow chickens and limited Roosters on land 5 acres in size and further amends the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield majority vote required do I have a second thank all right this was a unanimous negative recommendation um similarly I did not get a legal opinion on this one but I did read um the current Right to Farm law multiple times and spoke to a few people um and this is also a Citizens petition that would be in violation um of our current Right to Farm um we did hold a public hearing on this uh there's a lot of sympathy for this and there's some other ideas on how these type of things could be addressed um and I do I will have a call with the partitioner tomorrow about withdrawing this um and seeing if the um process for like remediating the issues within the right to farm law has been followed um but yeah this directly violates the right to farm ordinance that we have in place any discussion councelor Garrett the um petitioner was here last month and he also mentioned to me that there's an issue with our City's Charter having the word Chicken in it which covers all forms of poultry gender expression sorry I love talking about chickens and so roosters are chickens right and so because our Charter has that language in it in addition to the farm bill which the state a farm bill we would have to change the charter to be able to do this as well and that's you know this state takes several years to do this kind of thing and we have an agricultural commission who has the authority to enforce this sort of thing so that's hopefully going to be an Avenue in which he can get relief counc Perry and also there's a neighborhood Group by 67 who's working on noise ordinance and I asked them to make sure they address this issue in the noise ordinance so that might be another way to deal with this because we do have so much Sympathy for the complainants uh I'm sorry councelor golb and then councelor toronzo yeah I just want to express my sympathy for folks who have roosters waking them up having struggled with sleep I just want to express sympathy and request to the community to be good neighbors thank you coun tono I had more of a a form question um I'm seeing Rd as our rural residential when did we change that from RC or is that just an error because I live in RC and I live in rural residential I only know this because when I was doing changes to my home I had to go to the planning board and go through the whole process to move four feet closer to my side um but I was in the RC [Music] District um it's so I just wanted to say it was what was in the petition so that's what ended up in the okay motion it wasn't a change of in our planning okay I miss something thank you councelor master Toro do you have a comment okay thank you I had to use my school teacher look yeah um don't [Music] point is notc me there's no point of order from the public okay no points of order from the public thank you I just want to say one thing about this I just want to Echo what councelor goop just said can we just please be good community members I mean the fact that he has to come to the council like this it's a little embarrassing I mean every like people have the right to farm and I get it honestly because like with the cost of eggs being insane like go ahead raise those chickens but like just be a little nice you know if somebody's had to come multiple times to City govern just work something out with them you know thank you any other comments about chickens or roosters or peacocks I I wct yes yes so just to let everyone know we are having technical difficulties the the video Zoom is not working um the audio is working fine which covers open meeting law and if anyone wants to watch the meeting and see the video you can go to GCT TV's YouTube they are streaming it with a slight delay sorry okay I'll okay I'm glad we there's the delay is that like the Super Bowl thing or I don't I don't know it's like a two or three second delay okay no no wardrobe malfunctions let's vote okay councelor goab no councelor Gordon no councelor master Taro no councelor Bullock no councelor Perry abstain councelor Healey no councelor Brown no vice president Garrett no but I'm not going to Crow about it okay sorry councelor rhous uh no councelor toronzo no does the president wish to vote yes and no the motion fails by majority all right we made it now we're on to presentation of petitions and similar papers there were none report of committees at this time there were no topics reasonably anticipated unfinished business at the time of posting there were no topics reasonably anticipated same for old business at the time of posting no topics reasonably anticipated by the chair so now we're on to new business and we have first reading and that goes to councelor toronzo um transfer 8,000 from veterans department ordinary benefits to veterans department Monument account repurpose $3,497 from high school capital building account to replace and upgrade boilers at Greenfield High School purchase a fire department ladder truck for an amount not to exceed 1,900,000 with 1,600,000 to be paid from capital state ization and 300,000 to be paid from ambulance revolving account all done councelor I have another a new business item okay uh any motions for reconsideration okay and now we move to Mo new business councelor Bullock um I just wanted to note that today we received um an update that we are allowed to use cdbg funding for the Hope Street Russell Street fencing and sidewalk repair which for many years has been closed um it's actually the reason why I decided to run for Council was to try to fix that area so my work here is done um the RFP went out today and we will have an open sidewalk in the near future uh hopefully by the spring the construction will take place so very exciting and just a huge thank you to Anna Alman who did the work to get the funding in place uh to make this happen I will entertain a motion for adjournment so moved don't jump on it too quickly all right we're gonna have to take a roll call unfortunately no I'm bye okay all in favor any opposed all right we just adjourned and it is 9:06 [Music]