All right, it is 6 o'clock. I'd like to open the Halifax board of selectment meeting for Tuesday, July 8th. We are here in the great hall. And if you guys will um follow me, we are going to start the meeting with a pledge of allegiance. Please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you guys for coming. Um, not too imposing of an agenda
tonight, but we're going to take a a slight pause in the agenda this evening. Uh tonight is uh Cody Hadad, our town administrator's last meeting and last day here at Halifax. Um I would like to personally take a second to thank Cody
for all he has done for this town. He truly was a special leader here. He guided us through some very uh turbulent waters, has put us on a great course. Um, he is a shining star. And I knew as soon as folks had had meetings with Cody
and dealings with Cody, their reaction was always the same. Good luck holding on to that guy. He is going places. And uh he is and he will. And whatever challenge he decides to take on, which is the great thing about Cody is he
loves a challenge. Uh he will be successful at. So our loss is definitely Dartmouth's gain. you will continue to do great things. Thank you. And uh we will miss you here in Halifax. But again, thank you for uh two years at a at a crucial time. Two and a Right.
Sorry. Two and a half. Two and a half. Not a full contract, but two and a half years um of of really helping us through some turbulent times and coming out good on the other side. Thank you. So, I want to thank you. Pleasure. Anybody else at the board have you?
Yeah, just in the same just in the same vein. You know, I I said this before when we announced Cody's uh was moving on. I'll be thankful to know say that I knew him when um I was supposed to be a voice of opposition here and Cody was supposed to be some big bad guy in the corner office and he was not that. He
was supportive. I always felt prepared u overly prepared. Any question I had was answered quickly, thoroughly and I just can't thank him enough. I think that uh we'll miss him. uh hopefully we we replace him easily uh with other strengths and different you know
different uh avenues of vision but I think we'll miss him he his contribution has been uh has been sustained and thorough and uh I'll miss him personally and I'd like to thank him for his contribution to the town of Halifax. Thank you. Bill, you got anything? I miss him too.
Yeah, thank him very much. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you Cody. Appreciate it. Um and we do have we are going to if it's okay with you guys, we're going to take a fivem minute recess. We do have some some cupcakes and some goodies over here. So, a quick 5m minute recess. We'll return at 610 for the meeting.
Okay. 610. 5m minute recess. All right, enough shenanigans. It is 6:10. I'm going to reopen the Halifax board of selectman meeting for Tuesday, July 8th. Um, I am going to skip around a little bit if the board is okay with that. Um, I think we should either do our update
with Kathy Stanley. Uh, yeah, we'll do that one first. So, we'll go to A and then I think we should after that maybe jump down to Jay for the possible appointments to town administrative search committee just so folks can Yep. get out of here if they have other plans. Okay. So, Kathy, if you don't mind, come on up and just introduce
yourself uh to the board. Good evening. My name is Kathy Stanley. I'm the energy manager for the town of Halifax. I have been working with you folks since January 23rd, 2024. And um I'm really excited to be back
here to tell you a little bit about what we've done since that time and maybe some ideas about what we need to be doing moving forward. I know we're not going to be able to work with Cody, but we'll be working anyway. So, I uh look
forward to working with your new interim town manager, your new town manager, and help you further your journey on the progress that we've made so far. So, I have made some notes. I want to cover a few topics here um just on on items and
in no particular order that Cody and I have been working on together. Um, with regard to our energy supply contracts, we have uh negotiated two electric supply contracts. We have two in place. Most of our accounts are on a three-year
contract starting in 424 at 10.935 cents, which is pretty good number right now. And that goes for three like three years. Yes. From then. And we have a few buildings on a separate contract. I'm not really sure what happened. I guess those few
buildings never were included on the initial contract. So, we negotiated a contract for them at like 33 months so that everything will catch up when these contracts all expire and we can all get them together. And that because it was a few months later, six of 24 instead of
four was at 12.19. So, that's how fast the markets can move. natural gas. We um weirdly I guess our accounts had ended up with the regional school systems account somehow. I'm not really sure how that happened, but when Cody and I
realized that um we decided to take those accounts and send them off to our supplier and have them price them, the numbers came back appallingly high, like $4 to5 higher than our existing contract per MMBTU.
Um, it's not unusual sometimes for contracts for natural gas to include capacity. And this is it gets a little technical and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but capacity is a line item in our supply contract.
And sometimes if we send those accounts back to the utility for 6 months, they can be served under different capacity contracts that then if we bring them back, they can bring components of that back. So
Cody and I definitely felt that it was in the best interest of the town for us to send all of those natural gas uh accounts back to the utility. it was going to save a lot of money um be substantially less expensive at least in the short term and then when your new
leaders comes in we'll talk then about what what the timing should be for us to renegotiate another natural gas supply contract. So that's what's going on with with natural gas. Um I want to talk a little bit about net metering. Net metering is an interesting
topic here in Massachusetts and there's uh there's a lot going on with it. Net metering is a contractual issue where going back quite a bit, maybe 10 years or more, when they first started to build solar in this part of
Massachusetts, they would build large ground mounted arrays and they would look for municipal partners who were willing to contract with the developer of that solar array to take the electricity from the solar array and they would offer a 10%
discount to the municipal partner that was willing to do that. Frequently, we had a lot of overzealous solar contractors running around selling electricity to our municipal leadership who might not have been well advised or maybe not advised at all by anybody who
really understood the energy markets. So what happened was frequently our municipal leaders in some of our towns overs sububscribed to some of these net metering agreements and purchased too many of these contracts for their town
to use. So the way these contracts work, the solar company makes the electricity, but it's all basically balanced out through the utility and the utility issues credits based on the amount of solar electricity the municipality is
buying to each individual bill. So it wouldn't be unusual if you're oversubscribed to have a bill, for example, that might be $2,000 a month that's getting credits of five,000. So as those credits spelled up, you have
no place to put those. So we were approached by initially the city of Brockton that if we could take their excess credits, they would give us a 20% discount on our electric bill.
So fast forward to this week. Um I was talking to the uh consultant who works with the city of Brockton. They've made a decision change about whether they want to make these credits available and I can talk more about why they did that but it was a business decision that was
in their best interest. However, Abington has these excess credits as well. So, we will be able to negotiate this 20% discount with the town of Abington and we will be able to take their excess credits. The nice thing about this type of net meter agreement
is we're not going into a contract with a solar de developer. We're just executing a very basicou with another town which is easy to do in Massachusetts. There's no procurement law. There's no problem with doing that.
The it's very simple and clean. So that is our plan to execute a net meeting agreement with the town of Abington to take enough of their credits so that we zero out our electricity bill and that what we pay we will have to pay Abington
for those credits but it'll be at a 20% discount. Can I ask can I ask a question? Is that okay? Is it the same amount as the original Brockton deal we had as far as how much we're buying and how much we're getting? more. It'll end up being more because we didn't the Brockton deal wasn't broken
until what December maybe January. So, we were halfway through the fiscal year. So, we had already spent half of our budget. We could only buy what we had left in our budget. Gotcha. If we are able to Kathy can work with Bob um the interim town administrator to get this deal brokered in the next, you know, month or so, we can buy enough for
the whole fiscal year. Oh, great. So, it's almost double as long as Abington has the has the almost a better situation then than what the Rockton situation and There's a lot going on right now in the energy business in Massachusetts. There have been some major grants that have
been awarded. One of those was to the city of Brockton to get an energy manager. They've never had one. And so that energy manager took a look at some of the options the city had with respect to these credits and advised them not to continue on. And and when I I can talk a little bit more about what
those kinds of opportunities might be that even we might want to take advantage of. Um, so net metering is one of those topics that you're going to be hearing a lot more of. Um, your town manager, interim town manager and and full-time and I will be working very
closely together on making sure that we take advantage of these opportunities and we should be looking at a 20% discount on our electricity costs. Just just a quick question procedurally. Um, I'll I'll try to dumb it down for myself. Brockton cuts us loose. How do
we know Abington's available? Is that public is that public record or do you make phone calls or how do we know? There's a consultant that works with both of them. Okay. That's very well verssed in these net metering contracts and he is the one I work with. Um he he manages all the
credits through the utility because all of this has is the utility is like a clearing house for this. Okay. And so his contacts there and his knowledge of the contracts that he's bringing to the table is critically important. I just wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what we're talking about
here. In fiscal year 25, the uh town of uh Halifax spent 1.117 million for electricity. We used 4.8 million kilowatt hours. Um if we were to
contract this out and use these net metering credits, we would have saved $223,000. So this is very definitely worth our time. Not too shabby for sure. Sorry. Yeah. Now on that note, I'm going to talk a little bit about the energy
efficiency project financing opportunity and how it works with net metering. So if you were to decide to do a project, an energy efficiency project, say for example, a rooftop heat pump rooftop
unit project at the library, expensive, needs to be done. Rooftop units of the library are failing. We currently have a green communities grant that we would like to pay for those and we're waiting to hear from them. We don't know if we'll get that grant or not. However, if
we were decide to pursue that project anyway and we were to go to National Grid and say, "We want you to help us finance this." So, National Grid has a program called on bill repayment.
And we would develop the project cost savings, get all the engineering done. We would go to National Grid, we would say, "How much do you have available that you can give us an incentive money help buy down the cost of the project?" And does this project meet your criteria
for on billill repayment? On bill repayment is a 0% financing method where the utility says to you, let's suppose this project says $150,000 that you have to come up with to get it done after the incentives are applied. We could take
that $150,000 and divide it into equal monthly payments and give you a number on your electric bill for that account and you would pay it off over 60 months or 70 months or whatever. The way net metering credits work is any charge on
your bill is eligible to be set off against the net metering credit. Any. So, we could then go back to our friends in Abington and say, I think on this account we're going to buy a little bit more of those credits. And we're gonna and that's why Brockton has decided to pull out of this because
they have a new energy manager that knows how this works and said, "Gee, you know, why are you giving all these credits away? We can use this to finance all of this work that desperately needs to be done." There is no reason we can't do that. And in fact, I've been working with our engineer that has helped me develop all
the green communities work that we've teed up here, and he thinks that there's quite a bit of that work that we might be able to put on on bill repayment. So, that's an option for us to explore. And let's let's just say hypothetically, uh, there's a town that may or may not
be in MBTA compliance. It might not be eligible for certain green grants. That's correct. This would be a great opportunity for that town to use this program. Absolutely. To help offset the cost of things that normally we would get or the town would get for um green communities.
Absolutely. In fact, it was George who said to called me and said, "Hey, if we might not get the green communities grant, let's look at on bill repayment." And then we had the call from Abington at the same time. And so the building blocks are falling in place. So these are all opportunities for us.
Excellent. Great. Okay. And I don't know if everything will work out perfectly, but they will at least we have a plan. Yeah. So, this is all in our future. Yeah. Great. Um, I did want to talk a little bit about green communities. We have put our application in. We're waiting to hear
from DER. We've applied for $243,000 in projects, including controls at the library and the town hall, heat pump rooftop units at the library, which is one of my favorites. Um, it's awfully comfortable in here right now. I'm just saying. Um, and weatherization for the
elementary school. Yeah, this guy. I'm drowning over here with this guy. I don't know. You are sweating. Big time, man. I think he's the money or something. Something's happening on it. We'll see what happens. You never know. Yeah. Okay, moving on. So, uh, I want to talk
a little bit about energy efficiency conservation block grant. We applied for this grant. It was, uh, a group of federal funding that was available. um end of 24 I think is when it came available. We applied for a grant to do
a fullbore engineering study for the elementary school to see what energy efficiency projects could be done there as well as any decarbonization projects, heat pump, electrification, that kind of thing. And we we got the grant. It was $50,000
and we used it to hire a firm called B2Q Associates, probably one of the finest engineering firms with respect to their experience in decarbonization and they are in the process of finalizing that report. So, one of the things we will be doing shortly is
sitting down with Joe Bliss from B2Q and our new interim town manager to look over that report as well as Scott and anybody else in who we can utilize that helps us from a mechanical point of view um to see how we feel about that study, whether it's complete, we want them to
change anything or edit or whatever. So soon we'll be getting that engineering study and um we'll have to pay for it and then we'll be reimbursed for that. That funding is secure. Initially at the beginning of the year after the change in administration I was concerned about
EECGB money. I know that um the federal government said they froze those funds. However, they are all paying every one of them and Governor Hilly said she would cover it anyway even if so we're all good there. So um that was a big relief.
Um, we had a utility funded engineering study for the library done by Rise Engineering and that report has already been submitted to us and I believe part of that report was used to specify the rooftop units at the library. So we are
using these reports. These are not just studies that we do and sit them on a on a bench. That doesn't happen. We use them um to raise funds, to get project done, to shortcut engineering work, whatever it takes. Um,
I want to talk a little bit about green school grants. We did not apply for a round of funding for green school grants this year because we weren't ready. It was the first time that the uh clean energy center made available these
grants. They were for the implementation of decarbonization work at K through2 schools in Massachusetts. I have to tell you, I have personally applied for two federal grants for decarbonization of K through2 schools over the past three years and I didn't
get any money at all. However, I applied for a grant for the town of Stoton for one of their schools for a decarbonization project. I asked for 3.2 million and I got 2.7. That grant came through last week, two weeks ago. Um they I know they awarded
$15 million as part of that grant funding. Wow. It would not surprise me if down the road there was more grant funding available for these kinds of projects for decarbonization especially for K through2 schools. These projects are very expensive. There's no way a
municipality or a school system can absorb the cost of doing this themselves. So I can tell you that in preparation for the Stoen grant, I started with an engineering study I did in 2023. That's how long it took me to get ready. This project will have it an engineering
study that we're finishing this year. So if those funding opportunities become available down the road, it's certainly my intent to make sure we're positioned well and that we will be able to apply for them if possible. This particular round of funding focused very heavily on environmental justice populations. the
town of Stoton has every single one of their neighborhoods complies with low-income minority. So I think there's one little sliver up near Canton or something that doesn't. So I believe that did help them tremendously. However, the elementary school here in
Halifax isn't an EJ community. So that's something that we will be potentially looking at down the road. I just wanted to let you know about that. Um we uh we upped our aggregation. So our aggregation contract is the contract where we uh allow work with a with a
consultant to aggregate our residential members of our community here in Halifax and try to secure a lower electricity cost for them. Back in the day when the utilities deregulated in 2020 or 2000 I
guess um the department of public utilities said in the rate case that they would not allow the utilities to hedge an electric price on behalf of residential customers. That's gambling with the rateayer money. So that means
they can secure an electric price for 6 months on behalf of their residential rate payers and three on behalf of their commercial rate players. Well, when you have a low period and prices are low, you want to lock in a three-year deal because that gives you a nice secure
price. Uh two years ago, our winter price for Eversource electricity was 34 cents for a few months. And that's the kind of thing we want to protect our residents from ever seeing. So these
aggregations are a very good thing to do for our residential members of our community because it keeps them especially our fixed income lower income folks from seeing these astronomically high prices. So um our our aggregation
price when I came in working with Cody was 15.178. that will stay until no end of November 25 and we were able to secure a price of 14.314. So our residential aggregation price is
going to come down substantially. That starts in December of 25 and goes for 36 months. So I'm feeling really good about that. That doesn't mean that never over that 3 years will the utility rate drop even under for a month or two. We can't control that. But we can definitely
protect our residents from really astronomically high prices. So that's good news. And then finally, I just want to talk a little bit about the um the level three EV charger that we have installed across the street. We finalized that project. I think the last time I was before you, I
was telling you about us starting that project. That's completed. And I believe that charger and all of the components of what it costs to install it valued at over $400,000 at no charge to the town.
So that was a win and that's my report. Do you have any questions? You you've been busy. Yeah, just a little. Um as far as projects here in the community, uh and maybe this is a question for Cody. Well,
for today, um, like like our Thorn Dyke project we have going, how much are we going to have Kathy involved to make sure that we're as green as we can be with that project? With the new COA construction, correct? Yeah, Kathy and I have had this conversation. She'll certainly be involved. Um, if this were a typical
building construction project, I'd say she'd be involved quite a bit because we want to be, you know, look to be as green as possible. Maybe we do some battery storage, you know, whatever. Correct. We are tight, tight, tight on this project. Okay. So, we are not going to have the money to say put solar on. We'll certainly
still have Kathy involved and see if there is incentives and things that she can look at. Um, is it new construction? There's very definitely incentives that we can get for new construction. I can tell you new administration, new rules, new legislation. So, there are no more tax
credits for solar after September. There are no tax credits for EVs. Um, there is still tax credit money for geothermal. However, geothermal tends to be expensive and risky. So, that's a really has to be the right fit. Um, but those
would be things that we would be taking into consideration for new construction. But with respect to new construction, there's very definitely incentives that we can that I would be happy to work with you for. Great. Anything else from the board? I will admit, Kathy, when Cody mentioned
bringing you on, I I wasn't completely aware of what your role was going to be. Um, but like many things I Cody's makes a very well thoughtout and wellprepared presentation. Uh, and I must say you have been worth your weight and gold for Halifax. You really have as far as
finding these efficiencies for us, finding us cost savings, um, trying to be as green as we can be as a community. Uh, it has been a perfect storm. So, I'm excited that you're you're uh, having so much success, and that you're ready to roll up the sleeves with our new administrator, whoever that may be.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Besides, he's only a couple of towns away. We can always go pick his brain. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't let Kathy fool you. She's also energy manager in Dartmouth. Oh, I'm sure. I can't blame any community for not grabbing her. So, yeah. No, thank you, Kathy. Thanks for your work.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. And we are going to move down. Uh that was a on your agenda. We're going to jump down if we can to J. And that is the possible appointment to the town administrator search committee. Um, we have solicited talent bank forms
from the public to see if folks would like to serve on the committee. I am happy to say that we've received uh one, two, three, four from citizens at large. We also have one from Mr. Frank Johnston from uh the finance committee.
And I guess the board has to just decide what we want our number to be uh who we want on there. I know we had talked about having our town clerk uh Sue Lawless on there as well. The one thing I will say, and I know we have folks here tonight, the timeline, just so you guys know, it would be interviews as
early as maybe the end of next week, uh, and the week after as far as getting the ball rolling. We would look to get your email tonight to get that over to our consultant that we're working with, and it's hitting the ground running. So, if anybody has any sort of vacations or time you need off, you might want to
think long and hard if you're going to be available or not. Because in an ideal world, uh, in talking with Bernie today, we would look to have a candidate close to in place by the beginning of the third week of August at the latest, just to give you guys a timeline on what
we're looking at. Um, so with that said, uh, the board have any inclination as to what we want to do here. In terms of candidates? Sure. Sure. Go ahead, Tom. You want to go first? No, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say I I know uh the four candidates here listed, we have
Sandra Nolan, Christine Healey, Dennis Carman, and Mark Dylan. Uh, I think all four are fantastic. Um, they're all involved in our communities. They all bring different things to the table. I think when you have community uh committees like these, you want to have people with different strengths, different backgrounds, um different
things they bring. So, I'm thinking a little bit out of the box here, and I don't know what the board thinks. I would be okay with with nominating all four uh and then adding Frank. So, that would be five. And then Sue would be six, our town clerk. And then you don't
really want to have a committee with an even number of folks because you guys will probably be taking votes and you don't want to have, you know, a three-3 split. Um, so I was maybe strongarming a FinCom member out in the audience to see
if uh Jim had any interest at all. Um, I'm sorry, if Jim Walters had any interest at all in uh in jumping in as well. So that would make seven and that would be your odd number. So if there was any voting that you guys needed to do, you know, it'd work out a little bit better. What are your thoughts, guys?
No problem with me u subject to Jim's approval or somebody's approval. I just have a hard time with people wanting to volunteer and then saying, "No, we're not interested." Correct. Uh people who want to put their time in, their effort in uh to better the town and they as they see fit. I think that's worth worthy of applause and worthy of
consideration. So, I'm fine with approving all four uh subject to a seventh member being added because I think seven or odd is critical. Makes sense. Um so, subject to that seventh member, I'm okay. Okay. Anything, Bill? What do you think? I'm fine with all four also and two from
the pin comment. So, yeah, I think seven is a good number. Great. Um anybody I see we have a lot of the folks here. Anybody have any scheduling conflicts, concerns? Obviously, the meetings will likely all be Zoom. Uh you guys are familiar with Zoom, able to work on Zoom.
The interviews won't be Zoom. You don't think the interview I know last time we did in person was in person. Yours was in person. Yeah, Frank. Yes, Mr. Johnston. Please identify identif.
We're not done by Zoom, but all the preparatory work Sue had us. We did a um closed meeting Zoom um to review resumeumés, put them into different categories, things of that nature. Yep. No, that that is correct. You guys did I apologize. Your meetings were Zoom
until you brought in the candidates. Yes. And then we had our meetings with each of the candidates, narrowed it down, and had another meeting with the candidates, narrowed it down again, and we ended up with five or six, and then one drop. I think we ended up with four. We added
one more just in case somebody dropped, and it actually somebody did. So, we ended up with four, I believe, if I remember correctly. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Christine, come on up and identify yourself, please. Hello. I am Christine Haley Ridge Road.
My question is I do have a couple of out of town days planned. Okay. One is the the week of the 20th to the 26th, but I will have access to um for a Zoom meeting if that if that was going to be done that way. So I just wanted to make
that clear now that that week in the week of August 10th to the 17th I will have access but I won't be in Halifax actually. Okay. So your conflicts, Christine, are July 20th to the 26th and August 10th to the 17th.
Yes. So do you have a thumbnail sketch of what you're expect when you'll be doing the in-person interviews? I know I know you guys will start meeting as as I said as early as the end of this week, beginning of next week. Uh as far as the
candidates go, probably the last two weeks of July. Probably. Yeah, probably the first fir last week of July, beginning of first week of August. That's fine. That will work. Yeah. I mean, I'd love I really want to be a part of this. I think I have something to bring to the table that would be a little different. So, I really and I
would really like to participate. It might be that sweet spot between the 26th and that I just wanted to mention it in case there's a conflict. No, I appreciate it. And what happens if she's not able to participate in in person interviews? This is the committee that's there. Yeah. Yeah, the remaining the remaining
committee would vote or would she vote even in absentia? Um well, I mean she would vote on someone she didn't interview. So just on, you know, she just wouldn't take part in the interview. All right. So if you go ahead, Bill, you have Do we have any candidates yet signed up? Uh I did talk with Bernie today. He says
we have some good candidates so far. That was that was as much as I could squeeze out of him. Um but he did say so far that we there are some good candidates that have submitted resumes. So I'm encouraged. Um, but I will entertain a motion. Oh, well, do we have interest from Oh, absolutely.
from Jim. Yeah. If we should ask Jim was just telling me earlier he's been looking for something to do. He's been Yeah, he's bored. I'm bored. So, if we're going to have the the Waldorf, we need the Stadler next to him. All right. That's what we need. So, um
Exactly. Exactly. Brothers from other mothers. Um All right. Cool. If if you guys are okay, I'll entertain a motion to appoint uh Sandra Nolan, Christine Healey, Dennis Carman, Mark Dylan, Frank Johnston, Jim Walters, and Sue Lawless
to our town administrator search committee. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I thank you guys so much for your Thank you for volunteering. Thank you. And I know we have you guys submitted emails on your talent bank forms. I'm pretty sure we have them. I am going to get them to the consultant tonight. You
might even get an email uh with a a poll asking you guys availabilities. Um so the scheduling will start probably as early as tonight to try to nail down a time that works for everybody. Okay. Real quick, the consultant will send out like a poll email want to know
everybody's schedules, correct? Their information um any conflicts they may or may not have and then he he starts going from there. Sure. and and I know there's a a charge out there uh that will describe what's expected from the committee, guys. One thing that I really want to drive home
here and probably the most important part of your committee is keeping things anonymous because we will have candidates that are applying for this position that hold other positions currently. And if word gets out that they're looking here, that can create
havoc in their home communities. So again, as much as it's it's killing you to tell your neighbor, you wait till you hear about this guy or this gal, please please keep that to yourselves until at least you know we've gotten through that process. And that's part of his process is a confidentiality agreement to sign as
well. Correct. Uh we're using the same gentleman, Bernie, as last time. We are. Bernie Lynch. Y Bernie Lynch. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So now, how many people are they going to narrow it down to? It depends. I think you guys can kind of set that. Um, if you think we have
you I mean you guys really set that you know you would tell them at least you know what whatever your number is. I I would def whatever the board wants to do. I would almost defer. I mean you guys will know these candidates better
than we will at this point. So if you think we have three good ones, if you think we have five good ones, I I don't know. Frank, what's your thoughts? Frank, you done this before? I know. I learned a lot last time. Yeah. Um, we chose
five candidates last time. We finalized with five candidates, but we had a lot to pick from last time. Sure. And um, then one dropped and we had four to present to the um, board of selectment and then it was up to the board of selectment if they wanted to see the three or the four and I believe
he chose the four if I remember correctly. Okay. and uh we to interview and whatnot if I remember correctly. Would the board be comfortable with a range at least three, no more than five? Yeah, that sounds good. People will drop on you at the last minute cuz something may come somewhere
else. We found that out real quick. Also, the more you nominate the person who feels like an underdog might drop themselves out. That's what happened to us on because you're you're you're exposed and made public when you're final candidate. That's correct. So, that's correct. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to I don't
want to limit the purview of the the the search committee too hard. Um, I would say as many candidates as you think you see fit up to X number. I would like to set a max. I mean, I don't think there's a need to grab 10 people here. No, I I think five's for whatever
reason, five is a max. F to me personally, I would say up to five. Yeah, that would be my opinion. And then I would think but at least three. At least three. Yep. Yes. At least three and probably four. or and Bernie will have a lot of input into that like he did last time. He says, "Hey, we don't want to go up to
this number. We don't want to be that below this number either." Yeah. Just in case somebody drops, they get a job or whatever it might be. Right. Sure. I'm okay with that. All right. Cody, you have any any thoughts there? No, I would just I think you I wouldn't go five. You would not?
No. If I were a finalist and and I was told you're one of five, I'd probably drop out. You're you know, cuz your chances you're outing yourself now, right? you're likely you have a job. 20% chance if you want to be a town administrator, you're likely have a job. Um,
and unless you really need another job, why are you going to potentially make things not so great in your So, what what happens if we say three and then we could add four? Could we add a fourth and the third drops out with a contingency or you can always do that or you could say
four, you know, you can say four. Four. You typically see three or four. Five is unusual. Okay. Three or four is is very typical. That's what happened. We had five and one dropped and we were down to four. So, and we don't know how many we have. But if we have four and one dropped
where three, that's still a good number to work. Three is a very three is a great number, right? Cuz it takes a lot of time. Three is a great number. Just going to say that again. Three is a great number. That'll all be discussed and worked out and the consultant will be involved and you know, a lot of a lot of thought goes into all that.
But to clarify, we're not going to four or five or extending ourselves past what's qualified. We're looking for qualified candidates up to a certain number. Not just maintaining a number just for Yeah. That's not getting a number to get a number. Sure. Based on qualifications. Yeah. And and we have some firecrackers on this committee. You guys will figure
that out. Yeah. And once you start reading the resumes and and getting to know the the person and all that, it um you figure it out pretty quick. Yep. Okay. So, do you have to establish that tonight? You probably want to give some sort of direction. Yeah.
Okay. Um, you want an official motion or just a No, I think as long as it's known, you know, what what you're looking for because like you said, they're going to be moving quick. They're going to be reviewing resumes hopefully next week, preliminary interviews the week after, and then potentially that same week or the early the week after that, making
recommendations to you. So, they're going to need to know how many they want to be recommended. I'd follow Cody's advice to stick to four. So, I'd stick three to four. Based on Cody's advice, I would say three to four. Okay. around if you guys keep it to around three to four. If you have five outstanding all equal
candidates, okay, in my opinion, but if you can as a separation or delineation, three to four. That'd be mine. Yeah, I'd be I'd be fine with that. Good. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. Any questions from the board or for the board at all?
No. Wish you luck. Thank you all again for volunteering. Yes. Thank you. No pressure. The town of Halifax is counting on you. Well, thanks for choosing us. Oh, we wouldn't have cho ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch chosen you if you weren't a good pick. So, thank you. No, and seriously, that's the great thing about this committee we're putting
together. You guys bring a lot of different things to the table. So, looking forward to it and you're free to stick around. Otherwise, you get to listen to us pay bills. It's up to you. Oh, thanks, Dennis. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you, Dennis.
Thanks. Take care. Yeah. Thank you. All right, we're going to jump back to uh the agenda here. Bill, do you want to jump on the um the approval of warrants and commitments? Sure. I move to affirm approval of the following warrants. Payroll warrant
number 119 for 334,7424. Vendor warrant number 120 for $481,689.79. Withholding warrant number 121 for 111,77057. Second. Uh, all those in favor?
I I opposed. It passes unanimous. I move to approve the following warrants and commitments. Vendor warrant 123 for 111, 9641.
Ambulance commitments for 29,93 and60. Mobile home park fee number seven for 5 5,160. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimous. All
right, we'll move on to uh B here on the agenda. Kimberly Campbell, the farm at Ravenberg for live entertainment permits. Uh as the board had a chance to take a look at the permits here, you can see the several days here. It's kind of like an October fest that she does over
at the farm. It's a pretty good time. Uh so we'd just be looking for uh Can we put them all together, Cody? Just read all the dates out. All right. I would entertain a motion to approve the live entertainment permit for the farm at Ravenbrook for September
26th, 2025, September 27th, 2025, October 3rd, 2025, October 4th, 2025, October 10th, 2025, October 11th, 2025. October 12th, 2025, October 17th, 2025.
October 18th, 2025, October 24th, 2025. October 25th, 2025, October 31st, 2025, and November 1st, 2025. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes
unanimous. All right. We have a road opening 314 Plymouth Street. Uh we have I believe it's been signed off on by all the parties involved. Yeah. Just do a contingent upon Steve Hayward.
Oh yeah. and and just um and highway and no just Steve Hayward's um to his satisfaction. There's just been some questions of how they're going to repave the road that he's been going back and forth with my mom. Okay. All right. So, I'll entertain a motion to approve the road opening at 314
Plymouth Street contingent on the approval by Steve Hayward and by conservation. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I opposed. passes unanimous. Drug and alcohol policy.
That as part of, you may recall we joined GATRA um about over a year ago I think actually and um basically what that allows is we provide our um transportation services through the COA
and we get reimbursed. So historically our money was going our state assessment went to the MBTA. The MBTA didn't provide any service to us. So what we did was we opted to reroute that money to Gatra and we bill Gatra for the service that we provide anyways and then
they reimburse us. So it ends up being somewhere $40 to $50,000 a year of just revenue that we weren't getting before. Um but with that we have to follow Gatra's um recommendations and guidelines for our drivers and so we need to have a drug and alcohol policy for our van drivers. So this is uh the
board's adoption of the drug and alcohol policy. Just a quick question, do do they hire the drivers? No, no, we hire drivers. hire the drivers, they're employees. Um, we have sle, you know, we have control. Um, it's just a a policy that we need to have in place for those drivers.
We basically serve as a contractor to Gatra where we do the work and build them. Um, it's a pretty standard. We got the template from Gatra themselves um on what the policy is. Um it just goes into if there you know sus
suspicion based testing uh if there's an incident you know such as an accident um they have to get uh tested within 2 hours of the incident. Um we pay for the testing obviously any is this just curious Cody is how is
this drastically different than the policy we currently in? We do not have a policy in place. Okay that's the problem. Okay I'd say that's pretty drastic. That's the definition of drastic. Yeah. She had a question. Yeah. Frank Frank Johnston Elm Street. Are our van
drivers under DOT licenses commercial for driving multi passenger vans? They are not. They're not under a DOT because Federal Motor Carriers Association states that you have to have a drug and alcohol policy in place for those drivers. And that's probably what Gatra is referring to, which is a
different type of drug and alcohol policy than normal. Yeah. This policy was provided by Gacha. Yeah. So, are they following a DOT policy is what I was asking. No, this is not a DOT policy because that it because those involves randoms at that point. Correct. This is this says randoms.
They are. Sorry. They are. So, they're probably following a DOT policy if it has randoms in there. Yeah. Yeah. They could be um under federal motor carriers. Yeah, they certainly could be. We're just We were suggested to adopt a policy and we provided this template. We but
towns can adopt their own policies and so um but we figured go with the one that they're recommending. Yeah. Cuz our policy has to meet their policy and our and our provider can provide that type of drug screening that they're looking for. Yeah. We have it done for our DOT drivers right now. The highway
department. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I mean I look through it. It all seems very reasonable. And again, if they're driving citizens of our community around as their occupation, I I do think we need to have a drug and
and alcohol policy for them. Um, so I would be I would entertain a motion to accept the uh Gatra drug and alcohol policy that is submitted here in our paperwork. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes unanimous. All right,
Cody. And that leads us into the contract. Yes. So this is just a renewal. Uh the gastro contract is annual. This will be the third time that we are voting on this. Nothing has changed other than the dates of July 1st through June 30th. Um it allows us to just continue to bill Gatra
for the services that we provide. And as you say, nothing else of substance has changed. Nothing has changed at all in the contract. Okay. All right. I will entertain a motion to accept the uh fiscal year 26 Gatra contract as submitted. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I passes unanimous.
All right. Next up, line item transfers. We have several line item transfers. As you know, the deadline to do um prior fiscal year transfers is July 15th. So, I will go through um read them and if you have questions, we'll stop after each one cuz there's quite a few here.
So, I think it makes sense to go take them one by one. Sure. Uh the first is the amount of $1,836 um from the police um uh uh salary account to the accountant salary account. And the reason for that is is
we just had to use a consultant throughout the year and so we dipped into more of the u that line item than we then anticipated due to the consultant. Any questions on that one? Which one is that one? This is um page 15.
11,836 from police wages to accountant salary. Make sense? Do you want us to approve these as we go or entertain a motion as we go at a time? All right. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve a line out of transfer for $1,836
from the police salary account to the accountant salary account. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimous. Um the next one here is in the amount of $89,576 from police wages to the group health
insurance account. Um, you know, when we when we put together the health insurance budget, uh, we take the prior year, um, we take the prior year, we as we know what our increase will be prior to the budget, we put that forward. Um, we did have some individuals add on to
the uh, take on the health insurance this year. Um, which is the biggest reason we we feel that this occurred. um several of them were at the schools and so you may recall we end up we took on a few employees that were former Silver Lake that had the health insurance um that result in some additional costs for
the town. So just to clarify this um let me back up. I know we already voted but this last one for the 1136 836 that is in the current fiscal year. No that's what just ended on June 30th. Yeah. Okay. And is this the same cuz they're
dated after the fiscal year started. Yeah, that's fine because that's just when they were submitted, but they're all for fiscal 25. They're all for July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025, which is why they need the line item transfer. Basically, this is the accounts have
gone negative end of the year. The accounts have gone negative and we have to um we have to make them right, make them whole. Okay. And again, Cody, your explanation on this one is that we uh more people took the health insurance than were was
expected. And can we count on the regular police force having personnel changes every year or so? That's where the money's coming from. I understand that. So, it's available now. It will not No, no, we have different accounts. So, all of these will be different accounts. We look at the end of the year and see what's available to do transfers. This year is particularly
high with the transfers. Um, you know, that is for a number of reasons. One of which is we're budgeting to the penny now because we don't have any fiscal flexibility and so some of these things happen. Um and also you know we need to really push our department heads to make sure that they
are on top of their budgets. Um so we know about these things and we can try to counteract them because we are fortunate enough that we had you know some accounts but if things get tougher we may not have these accounts. Correct. And this is why we need department heads to really stay on top of their their uh
accounts because this could be a case of, you know, you implement a spending freeze mid. No, my comment was more that the police regular full-time has a pretty good balance. Yeah, that's because of we had several retirements and new officers coming in. So, that will not happen. We their
budget decrease for the current fiscal year because of that. Okay. All right. All right. I'll entertain a motion uh for a line item transfer for $89,576 from police wages account to the group health insurance account.
So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes unanimous. Um the next one is in the amount of $1,000 um from the sick vacation bio account to the treasure collector salary. And this is just simply a budgeting error. When
we uh approved the budget for fiscal 25, the um treasur collector is a certified collector. In per state law, she gets an extra thousand stipen and we we just didn't include that in the budget when we put the budget together last year. All right. I'll make a motion to uh for
the line item transfer of one I'm sorry, I'll entertain a motion for uh a line transfer of $1,000 for the sick vacation buyout account to the treasure collector salary. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimous.
The next one's in the amount of $329 from police wages to the retiree medical. This is just uh something we did not budget for in the um we didn't include a line item in this budget. So it was started off as zero. We had $329
in expenses. So we had to cover it. Okay. And this was again from police wages to retire medical. All right. I'll entertain a motion for a line item transfer of $329 from the police wages account to the retiree medical account.
So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes unanimous. The next is in the amount of $4,700 uh from water supply to water insurance. Um and this is just you know insurance
costs increased more than we projected for the water department. So when we put together our full insurance budget, we you know we we again look at last year's what their breakdown was and then whatever our increases for our general insurance is what we apply to the water department. Um for whatever reason could
be valuations for whatever reason their insurance went up a little bit more. Off topic related. Do we know is there an update from Richmond Park after two weeks ago? I do not have an update. I'm going to set this one out. What's that?
I'm going to set this one out. Okay. Does it This just needs majority. Yeah, they all just need majority. Okay. Uh I'll entertain a motion to approve a line item transfer of $4,700 from the water supply account to the water insurance account.
So moved. And I will second it. Uh all those in favor, Bill I. Tom abstain. and myself as a yes. The next one is in the amount of $9,89355.
This is from the snow and ice budget to the vehicle maintenance budget. Um, this was a result of the one of the large pieces of equipment. Uh, the tires were unsafe and needed to be replaced. I spoke with Mr. Hayward about this. Um, basically it was something that was either going to need to get done right
now or at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Um, so I advise him to move forward with this. Okay. Uh, I'll entertain a motion uh to approve the line item transfer of $9,893.35 from snow and ice budget account to the
vehicle maintenance account. 55 cents. So moved. Sorry. 55 cents. Uh, all those in favor? I I I opposed. Passes unanimous. The next one is in the amount of $30,000 from veterans benefits uh account to
data processing. Um there's several reasons for the um overage here. One of them is basically just a um you know miscalculation in the budget in regard to some of the software uh that resulted in $10,000.
The next one was basically some uh storage credits. Um we ended up being charged an additional $10,000. And then the COA's internet increased by about uh this says a little more than $100 a
month for an additional $1,400. Anything from the board? Seems like a big amount. Does seem like a big amount. It is. I think, you know, the the big big thing I would push over the next year is um accountability with the departments and
making sure that people are staying on top of these things. I things happen and that's fine, but what's unacceptable is when they come up kind of last minute, you know, we every department head, every department should be on top of these things. Um that's part of being a manager, you know, and if if you can't do that, then you shouldn't be in the
position. We shouldn't just be finding out about these things in June. Yeah. because again I I I am concerned that you may get to a position next year where you don't have the funds in other accounts um and then you're in serious trouble and that's why you need to stay on top
of these things. I mean one person in the town administrator can only do so much and checking these accounts regularly here. But you know and this goes back to right the payroll that you the payroll that we found with the water department right one person can only do so much. They can't regularly check payroll. They
can't regularly check every single bill every single account. Um so the onus needs to be put and emphasized on on your managers and your department heads. Yeah. Y what is SOP HOS standard operating procedures? So uh SOPOS what is that?
Um it's basically it's just it's part of our technology that we use. Um it is a uh sofos. Okay. Some sort of technology software. Yeah. What do you know what Sofos is exactly? It's a it's a cloud-based forms software
system. So, it's software as a service. Okay. All right. Um, can I just make a quick comment on that? Sure. You just got to come up so we can hear it. I have two. I'll give you two. How's that?
That's That's great. Thank you. Jim Walters, Orchard Circle. Um, as someone who has spent over 30 years or who had spent 30 years plus in the IT field, there's there's no reason this budget overrun should be as large it is as it
is. Um, and there's obviously controls that need to be um put in place over the next fiscal year, especially as difficult as it's going to be. um as part of the finance committee. This is to me is just in my opinion just
fiscal mismanagement on on the department head here. So I understand we have to pay our bills. Um the finance committee put a hold on it till we get more information which we'll get next Monday hopefully. Uh that will include a list of all of
our software's expiration dates, licenses and fees so we can stay on top of it moving forward. But um you know this in my opinion this should have never happened. Is it is it worth Cody a refresher uh I don't know an email or something a
message from the board just to remind them about this process and the importance of No okay okay everyone knows everyone knows this process. Um is this more an isolated incident you think or or more uh frequently through
throughout the different departments? I think we need to just make sure that we're holding departments accountable. You know, people need to understand that this is there's expectations and um there's implications if these things are not done, you know, accurately. Okay. So,
but everyone knows the process. So, there's no So, the finance department uh finance committee held it. Should should we are we similar here? We'll have to have a special meeting on Monday or Tuesday next week. These have to be approved by July 15th per state law. Do you want to wait and hear what the
explanation is from for fin before approving? Um, well, just complicating things. I'm not available next week. So, um, we don't need the whole board. For for what it's worth, you I don't want to say you have to approve this,
but we're negative in the account. You know, we we So, it's really we can't end the year. So we can we can approve this and it's incumbent upon I think it's incumbent on the board the board department heads new time administrator inter time administrator to
to sit down and this is unacceptable um what happened here and we need to make sure this never happens again is this just one department this is one this is just it all right let's go all right I'm sorry to no no I get you all right so I will entertain a motion
uh to move $30,000 from the veterans benefits account to the data a processing account. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimously. The next is in the amount of um $8394
from sick vacation buyouts to health inspection services. This is the salary line for our health agent. Um and again, this was just a budgeting error. We we put together a master payroll sheet every year for the budget and I had the um health inspector on a on a step lower
than he should have been. Okay. So, we just put in the wrong amount. All right. I'll entertain a motion to transfer a line item transfer of $8394 from sick and vacation buyout to health inspection services. So move. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes
unanimous. And last we have uh $5,537.13 from custodial wages um to uh town building preventative maintenance. This just says unexpected expenses. The finance committee did hold this one as well. I think they were just looking for more information. I unfortunately I
don't have that information for you. Could you speak to why the custodial department didn't use much overtime? We've just been trying to limit you know overtime to when it's absolutely necessary. Is this is this the mixed unit? This is Yes. This is the facilities contract. So, this is the hours worked mixed unit contract that was honored by the
building and maintains department. Mhm. That was not honored by other departments. That is correct. Thank you. All right. I'll entertain a motion um to accept the line on a transfer of $5,537.13 from the custo custodial wages account
to the town building preventative maintenance account. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. passes unanimous. All right, that was a lot of transfers. All right, we'll move down to G, which is the interim building commissioner
contract. Yes. So, um Joe Bragg's contract expired on June 30th for interim building commissioner. Um this is just an extension. We just the it can be terminated at any time by either party, but the extension is good through December 31st. That should give the town
enough time to find a uh a building commissioner, permanent commissioner. And again, the the none of the guts have changed. Everything is the same except for the dates July 1st through December 31st. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve the uh contract between Joseph
Praa Praga, excuse me, and the town of Halifax. So moved. Thank you. All those in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimous. All right. Uh interim town administrator contract. Yep. So, this is just the contract with
the interimm town administrator, uh, Robert Fennessy Jr. It's the term of July 9th through October 31st, I believe, um, up to 35 hours a week. He has an hourly pay in here. Um, and is not subject to any other benefits?
Everybody have a chance to look at it? You guys okay with that? Okay. I'll entertain a motion to accept the contract for the interim town administrator uh with the town of Halifax and Bob Fennessy. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes unanimous.
Two copies here. Okay. All right. Down to I. Animal control services contract with Precision Wildlife. Uh yes, this one is um I sent it out earlier in the day. Uh we had gone out to bid a couple years ago on this. Um
the contract expired on June 30th. Um so the provisions in the contract all remain the same. The only change is the increase um which it does increase by a couple thousand but is within the budget of what we had uh budgeted at town meeting. Last year we were able to hold
them to no increase. So we did expect an increase this year. Okay. So the total amount is uh 31,000. Uh, let's see. I believe it's 312. Yeah, that's 312. Yeah, $31,200.
Just a quick point of clarification. Um, animal control is so is this our animal control officer? Correct. Correct. So, this is the this is the person that responded with a dog that we met with early in the year. This is a separate company. Yeah, we we contracted out. We contracted out.
So, that person who appeared before us was the animal control officer or an employee of his company. Um, it's anyone within the company. Okay. So, any we technically appoint Precision Wildlife as animal control and their per their company provides services. Yeah. They provide it to us, East
Bridgewater in Bridgewater as well now. Okay. Yep. At the uh it was a couple years ago at the request of our PD that we look into it. Oh, yeah. Um they were the current uh ACOs over in East Bridgewater. Seemed to be a good setup, a good operation, and then we brought them over here. I was just digging around a little bit
and what I found wasn't what was here. So, I was just making sure that it was the same. Okay. Okay. All right. Any questions? Have we tried to go regional with any of the towns? Um, yeah, the chief um had reached out to a couple other towns. I don't think
this year, but last year, and there just wasn't an interest from from a local community. Um certainly something we can look at again in the future, but the the communities that he had reached out to um already had things in place and they weren't looking to disrupt any of that.
Okay. And again, is this an annual contract, Cody, or just so something to think about? You know, we okay it this year, but we also included a um opt out in this contract. So, if things change within the year, we can opt out at no penalty. Correct. Okay.
Just a month notice we need to provide. Okay. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve the contract for animal control services with Precision Wildlife. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. passes unanimous. All right, we are down to old
business. Uh Cody Hadad's last town administrators update. Uh yes. So we have um been working to fill several vacant positions with the help of Pam. Pam has been excellent um in getting everyone on board and getting everything done that we need to. So our library
director is starting on the 16th. Uh our assistant town of Cowan is starting on Monday. Uh we have another offer out I believe for um the administrative assistant in the assessor's office. Uh so we're we're ramping up to kind of full capacity here. Uh we had a nice
employee cookout today. Um it was attended by about 30 employees. Uh so appreciated everyone coming out there. Did you just have to put the hot dog on the sidewalk and Yeah, it was. It was warm. It was very warm. Um and we're just working to close out the fiscal year. Um, the board may recall
one of the things that I'm going to go over when I meet with Bob on Thursday is making sure that we're closing out those accounts that the board had requested um, previously. Uh, all those old capital accounts. So, those will be closed out this fiscal year. Um, you know, I think you're seeing, you know, just that'll help our um, our
free cash, but you're seeing, you know, we're dipping into a lot of things that would have already been free cash. So, I wouldn't it's hard to tell. Revenues have stayed pretty consistent. um they've been kind of on track with what we anticipated, but I would not anticipate another year of uh free cash like we had this year. We had a very
healthy year of free cash. So that that presents challenges in that you have several capital needs. Um and you're also already starting out the year. $700,000 basically the negative cuz you use free cash. You rub it in. Go ahead. No, no, just making sure that, you know, you guys are aware uh that's coming. And
that's pretty much it. This is my last um meeting in town and I just want to say it's been a pleasure. um working with the three of you. It's been a pleasure working in the community. I think one of the things that makes Halifax so special is um the the support I've gotten in the past couple months.
Um you know, residents I've never met before stop by my office, say hello, say thank you, don't know who they are. And so I think there's a a vocal minority out there and I remind the staff that it is just that vocal minority because um majority of the community is it really is a great community. I was at Triad
this morning and did a presentation. Um, and you know about probably 40 people there just very supportive. Um, Halifax is a special place and um, I'll be not too far in Dartmouth and I but I look forward to kind of watching the success from afar. Um, but it's it's been an
honor kind of serving here and I really appreciate it the opportunity. I'd just like to thank you too. I know we kind of eulogized you at the beginning of the meeting. Um, but I am a much better selectman because of your help. So, I can't personally I can't thank you enough. And uh as I said
before, we were lucky to have you for for the time that we did. And I know I said a few words, Mr. Chair, earlier, but I just want to highlight one more thing. Um I'm not sure how many days it's been since, you know, the news came out that you were leaving. Uh I'd like to commend you for what I would call keeping your head down. Uh I don't feel there was any
letup on the momentum or the work being done, the commitment to the town. um meetings attended late, texts, emails, correspondence never felt delayed. I know there was work being done behind the scenes and it it felt like it was business as usual, which I think is a
testament to your work ethic and your character. It would have been easy at some point to just say, "Hey, I'm out, but and go through the motions and you it you never did that." So, I just like to make make that known that it felt through and through like you were committed. So, I just want that, you know, be my last be my last statement there.
Thank you. And we have no new updates on MBTA's owner. All right. Still not approved. We're good. Just check. So, if we don't adjourn, do you have to stay? Is that the deal? I don't think so. You got me until 7:30. That's my cut off. Oh, man. All right. Anybody else get any
more questions or anything? No. Uh, all right. Well, begrudgingly, uh, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I oppose. Passes unanimous. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Good luck, sir. Thank you very much.
It's been an honor. It's been great.