[Music] all right it's 5:30 I'm told by the timekeeper yes it is now open our meeting um I'm going to make an
announcement now that this is all being recorded except for the executive sessions by area 58 in case I forget to do that later uh and the first thing on our agenda is a motion to go into executive session um pursuant to general laws
chapter 38 section 21 uh regarding MBTA zoning mandate uh um again pursuant to general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation uh if an open meeting may have a
detrimental effect on the litigation litigating position of the public body and I say it does and also to uh consider executive session minutes from February 25th do I have a second second uh any discussion Tom yes John yes and I vote Yes so we'll come back in as close
to Six as we can IED 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 thank you all right uh
let's see we can go right into to the warrants vendor warrants I move to affirm approval of the following warrant and commitments vendor warrant number 79 for $242,450 one28 ambulance m is 22425 through
32225 $762 6546 second any discussion all those in favor say I I oppos unanimous I move to approve the following warant and commitments payroll warrant number 81 for $453,500 vendor warrant number 82 for1
$3,198 vendor warrant number 82 for $583 33 withholding warrant number 83 for $153,400 three for $516 second any discussion all those in favor say I opposed it's unanimous uh going into new business
um we just go right down the top boy scouts want to have a bottle drive on April 5th and July 19th all right everything's in order uh yeah just make a contingent upon um uh insurance they had submitted something but it's they're
working on updating a policy our insurance companies looking for a little bit more all right so contingent on that I'll make that motion to approve the use of the Town green for J uh April 5th and July 19th I'll second that any discussion all those in favor say I opposed it's unanimous uh reappoint
Pamela mcer to the Halifax cultural Council Pamela mcer we usually have these people come in and stand in front of us can you go to the microphone please we wouldn't do that to you Pam don't worry um all right I'll make a motion to
reappoint Pamela mcer when does the appointment end March 22nd 2028 oh 22nd 2028 March 2228 okay so ending march 22nd 2028 second uh any discussion all
those in favor say I post unanimous ambulance abatements um so we have a from the accountant um and the treasurer uh requests for abatements of $127,400 uh I will make that motion we have a second any discussion all those
in favor say I oppos unanimous uh me tailorman and Costa for label counil labor Council um services so this is just the agreement um we're going to bring in me and Costa to hand our labor Council uh going forward this is a
standard agreement uh with them it kind of lays everything out but again it's a standard agreement sets the hourly rate um and just need the board to approve it okay and who's signing this you I would sign it so you'd vote for me to sign on your behalf um any discussion about this
we've already talked about this uh I looked quickly um is the one um her name federov is she spe specific specific so she's going to take the lead on it she um her colleague Jane is right up there with her and would help us out but it it
would primarily be the two of them Kate would be our Kate would be our lead who actually you guys have met Kate was one part of the team when they came in so she would take the lead and then if anytime she's unavailable Jean uh who's her colleague would would uh fill in okay um any other discussion about
this no somebody want to make a motion to uh uh sign the agreement with me Costa and authorized Cody uh to uh sign on our behalf so moved about second second any discussion
all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous okay now review zoning amendments do you want to go through them all yeah all 86 pages so just uh I mean I'll let Cody take over but um the zoning bylaw Review
Committee has been meeting for 2 years I suppose year and a half yeah close two years uh and aside aside from the big project being the MBTA issue uh also went through the entire zoning bylaw to
uh update it uh and to uh you know clean it up a little bit so there's some things in here that we'll see some changes in definitions and so on I think the biggest things we have in here are the Adu uh part uh also now incorporates the
uh senior housing bylaw that we passed at town meeting um trying to think of what else is the we made it consistent um the uh special permit granting Authority depending on what you were going for some would go to
the planning board some things would go to the zoning board of appeals so the group uh went through and recommended any special permit be granted by the zon board of appeals have it be one one entity that deals with these not and there was really no Rhyme or Reason why certain things went to certain groups so
um those go to the zoning board of appeals now like John said the Adu bylaw we're not we're not doing anything significant other than complying with state law right so state law changed with the housing Bond Bill uh back in the fall where uh adus are now allowed
as of right um as long you know meet dimensional requirements so on and so forth so updating our bylaw to uh include that language a lot of the other things are um definitions making definitions clearer the goal of the group really was not to not to make
changes to zoning per se but to make it easier and simpler simplify things so as a resident you want to look at our zoning bylaw you can actually look at it and understand it make sure that it's consistent throughout the whole bylaw we had spots that contradicted one another um we had
references we had one thing where it referenced a certain section and then that section had to do with mobile homes but that's nothing nothing to do with what we were talking about so cleaning things up make sure the references were accurate um we cleaned up the sign bylaw our sign bylaw was incredibly lengthy
again contradictory in in spots there was a one spot where it said it couldn't be over a certain size but then another spot said it could be you know if uh for every so many feet set off the road it could be times this magnitude but the other spot already said you're limited
to this many square footage so which one was it so those are the types of things um that the group cleaned up uh this is the kind of the final culmination of that with Town Council and um and Ed Bailey our Building Commissioner who did an excellent job with this um council is
working to put together an executive summary we had had one before but we're looking to put together an updated one the the goal here tonight would be to get your blessing so we can get it over the planning board they'll look to have their public hearing on this sometime in April needs to be at least 21 days prior
to town meeting so we're looking at mid April I think is the last time I spoke with them um and then bring it to town meeting and and let the town meeting um vote on it okay quick question Cody did we do anything with um abandoned properties I I TR there's a blighted property section
in here now that's the other new one right yeah so there's a blighted property um bylaw in here now we used a lot of it from uh other communities and what uh Rich had helped us draft so let me just pull it up here yeah I'm trying
to basically sets up a uh a registration procedure for blighted properties once they declared that and they have to register register them we have to know who's in charge of them and all those kind of things okay um do you remember Cody if it was um residential and commercial or or was it it's just uh
it's it's all it's all properties so um requiring all residential commercial and Industrial industrial property owners including without limitation lenders trustees service companies to properly maintain blighted Andor floor closed properties so we currently have a foreclosed properties bylaw um which
includes a lot of these Provisions but it only applies if it's a forer right and a lot of the blighted properties may not be foreclosed on right they're couple in particular um so this really broadens that to all properties
excellent um the the scope of it again is is within stay law um so a lot of what already exists but it just codifies it as a town of palax bylaw love it that's the other one I was qu remember the reason I think is because that was like one of the first things we worked on years
ago it was really significant issue all right any other questions about the bylaws y Chris Chris ra the hand try and make you way through the crowd here Chris Chris one 129 circus street I was just you said there'll be a public hearing would that be when a copy
will be released uh we will post copies as soon as the board uh votes it so later this week we'll post it online the planning board and they'll be be available in the town clerk's office we'll have public hearing notifications and then we'll look to do one or two public workshops in addition um with the Z biew committee to to dig into these
and really explain the goal is to go chapter by chapter and go through every single uh change I guess one other question is did they do anything I heard they were looking into it like night lighting like Dark Skies act you know commercial shielded lighting at night
okay we didn't really um I was on the committee so can speak to it uh as ex official uh but uh the uh we didn't add a lot of things to it uh or take out a lot of things uh we we added the blighted property we added the Adu that
changed just in the last couple of months um and we added the uh the senior housing one because town meeting already voted that um we didn't take anything out I don't believe we didn't fully remove anything though we made like the sign bylaw
changed it a little bit and then we changed like you said they changed the uh the special permit thing which was Inc not not just inconsistent but just uh arbitrary it seemed to be arbitrary like whenever this bout passed it went this way or that way so we just moved it
all into one place um and other than that uh we didn't really we're not really proposing any additional stuff know shielded line I no the town's been growing in commercial yeah overcast night you see all and I know lot of other towns have added you know to make
sure the lighting is down and not upwards I mean this is not a be all and end all this is just the the revision for now and if town meeting as as time goes along you want to change that and add more to it that can certainly be done this is just for what we what we
what we were trying to do uh at the bylaw committee uh was just to um just to kind of re not revise it but just to put and one of the things it talked about most from some of the members was you know uh we shouldn't have to skip around all over the place to figure out
what's going on here and there were some we had at least one fellow that was on the zoning committee uh besides a Building Commissioner and they said you know sometimes it's people will come in they'll say Okay I want to do it this way and then they'll look at the bylaw and say oh wait a minute I can do it this way right so it's like inconsistent
prisions and so on that needed to be just made Universal Cody said I remember like two years ago when they first did the first couple meetings we had a consultant in when they first looked at yeah they said it was like decades old stuff oh yeah stuff that was in there but then it conflicted cuz later on someone put something else in it was all
as a as a kind of a silly example I think we had two definitions for basement and Sellar yeah and it's like well we had about a half hour debate amongst us what to call what's the difference we said well finally decided was really no difference so we're just going to call it one thing of the other
so that it was that kind of stuff sounds bad when you say I live in my mom's basement to sounds a little dungeon all right so uh Next Step would be to um vote to send this off to the
planning committee uh planning board right yep and to put it on the warrant I suppose yeah so this will be on the warrant um it'll be printed in the Warr prior to the public hearing before the planning board just because the way timing how this lines up if the planning board were to have any recommended amendments they could be made at the
floor on the floor time meeting um and then the same with their recommendation will be provided on the floor time meeting if they have I'll make that motion that we uh approve it and pass it on to the planning board and put on the warrant second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed it's unanimous
all right old business all right let's see Town administrator's update so just working on the budget uh last night's finance committee meeting I presented um two full budgets to the finance committee
one with level service requests which would require about a $1.6 million override I know since then the school committee has met and and potentially paired down their budget so that'll obviously need to be updated um and then the other one takes the um is level not
level but is balanced which would require um about $1.2 million in cuts from the elementary school several general fund cuts um and then we would need to eliminate four additional uh full-time full-time equivalents on the
general government side uh we haven't identified those yet but we're working to identify those um on the 25th it'll be a joint meeting with you in the finance committee where they will present the budgets to you and you can make your decisions on whether you want to move forward with the override and to
what extent um we also have the state reps coming in on the 25th so the timing actually works out well good um and then you also need to have a joint uh wage and Personnel meeting on the 25th to review those amendments that had come for you previously to uh make
recommendations there um thank you to the district attorney's office this morning uh Tim Cruz's office puts on uh CPR first aid training in as part of our department head meeting this month we had the the training in for all of our
department heads so we had CPR um AED uh Naran uh stop the bleed um EpiPen you name it so it was it was great and everyone really enjoyed it um and then we're actually next week the District Attorney's office is going to
be gifting us an Eed here for Town Hall so that's good because we probably should have one here uh so that's positive um we are still working through the library director search we the applications closed yesterday uh and the screening committee is meeting Thursday
to review those applicants uh we got a good good amount of applicants actually which is good East Bridgewater was posting at the same time and didn't get a single one so we're certainly they did not no really y so I was talking to Charlie over there and he said they had not received any and we were um we
received quite a few so that was they'll be looking for our our crumbs yeah how the tide has shifted um and capital planning uh we are meeting tomorrow night um likely to recommend uh full Capital plan the um
the we're in pretty good shape with capital most of the items requested the committee I presume will recommend as we have the funding and most are needed but um that'll be done as well today was the deadline for petition articles for town meeting we did get seven petitioned articles seven um we we're still
certifying five of them but two of them have been certified so we will have a number of petition articles on the warrant um you had previously requested an anti-littering bylaw be brought before you as well so I'll have a draft of that for your next meeting uh that attorney hom and I have been working
through so yeah just trying to get everything prepped for Tom meeting so the 25th should be a quick meeting yeah it'll be the opposite of this one actually cancel your late evening plans bring cookies exactly volunteer to
bring cookies sure and then MBT communities update John I don't know do you want to share all I can say about this is that uh there has been uh we we have received uh U information that the state auditor uh has made a uh
decision that the uh MBTA zoning act has is an unfunded mandate which can trigger other um uh legal Pro processes um the board is is in discussion right now with our Council uh we are uh likely to take
some steps I not really at Liberty to say just yet uh we'll have to wait for Council to get back to us on the definite uh uh positions we're going to take uh but we will be um at least trying to um uh hold hold back any detrimental
effects of the MBTA uh law as long as we can so I don't think I have to say much more than that I don't think we can say much more than that that makes sense on that note we also were notified um green communities is a grant that we regularly uh seek funding from at the tune of
usually $200,000 sometimes a little bit more uh this year we were planning a $225,000 grant we are planning to still submit that but but some of the communities that were not in compliance um were just notified last week that they were not going to get their green communities Grant so again we we will
certainly still be submitting that and we are going to be seeking support letters from representative latra and representative Sweezy which may help our applications um but that is something kind of developing because it's not one of those grants listed EX in the in the uh guidance but it is a discretionary
Grant under the executive office so that was an interesting development there this is the second one though right we we already lost one we didn't lose it we sh gifted it over to Kingston so we wouldn't lose it yeah yeah so this is so yeah they continue to kind of add up um beyond that and then there's the uh
community on stop for growth which is a massive grant program there's uh got probably 15 plus grants under that one application uh that we're not eligible for that one is explicitly listed but those are you know we were planning to apply for a Master Plan Renewal in that
um we were planning to look at the um some intersections and redesigns so um certainly some impacts that we're we're looking at and then one other thing I forgot to mention under uh Staffing updates is Pam has been taking an HR course through the MMA um so kudos to
her it was a a highly competitive program to get into and just Pam got into it and she's been taking that on Fridays and she's been excelling and clearly learning a lot in my conversations with her so kudos for her taking that initiative congratulations all right thank you
I just have one question on the mpta sure we have nothing but time we're at the end of the agenda nobody else here I'm notur I have to cook supper if I get home soon I don't know there's a lot of information out there it's been going on a while in comments uh I read through
the Auditors full determination when they're talking unfunded are they only looking at the Mandate requires the town to enact zoning so the funding toact enact that zoning are they looking at the bigger picture the water system the
schools all the houses are getting we because it wasn't we well the unfunded mandate thing and as I've seen it over the course of time uh is and a vague and undefined
term and so we've we've talked about it for example in the in the 40R thing uh I mean the 40 40b issue uh we've talked about that going back to Halifax uh Trails the um what's the name of the develop oh Thor Thorn Thorndike
the Thorndike development when they first proposed a a 40b which was if everybody remembers that was what they first propos over there and we wrote all of those type of issues down which were s you know not insignificant considering the number of units and water and this
and that and everything else and none of that made any difference in the unfunded mandate thing now well this now we don't we don't we just don't know when I was reading the determination it looked like they were only talking about enacting it and the Mandate only requires just great zoning it doesn't
require building correct I think like me and everyone else we're concerned if it does build all the funding of schools and water and so I hope they considered all that too yeah we don't know uh but we've asked W to find out we've asked the lawyer to uh to look into it uh we
we're we're likely to uh engage in some litigation on that uh we haven't um seen that through just yet so that'll be coming up soon and you talking about grants the list of them the other night I saw the fire chief was in front of the
finance committee M he referenced a grant too but he didn't specifically say but it sound like lost one was that because we were able to um save it this year with the help of Representative squeezy but we we anticipate that likely not being available next year because of
the MBT to okay yeah has an effect all right what else you got for us that's it just a few correspondents from the conservation on some upcoming public hearings um and yeah get ready get prepared for that next meeting the
25th is going to be a big one yeah we also have that um public hearing for the um accepted streets accepted streets too yeah um could I bring up some correspondence Mr chair please is that okay so so as you know we're facing a
budget situation with the school and I've been trying to dig in with that stuff um and in just talking with some of the the players in the different communities in the Silver Lake Area um I was able to talk a little bit with u Jason Frasier who's over in Plimpton uh
who's on their both their Regional the Silver Lake Regional school committee and The Plimpton school committee he's also the president of the Massachusetts Association of school committees if you guys are okay I just want to read um a statement real quick um oh you guys to digest here uh Federal funding is
critical for daily educational opportunities for our children currently 10% of Massachusetts public school funding comes from federal programs across the Commonwealth School committees and school administrators are grappling with historic inflationary pressure and increased costs that's
according to Mr Frasier school districts are struggling just to maintain level service budgets and any decrease in federal funding for public education would be devastating to public school students whose Futures depend on it the no cuts to public school Act was filed
by Senator Mary and would require Congress to appropriate Federal formula funding for education at fiscal year 2024 levels or higher through fiscal year 2027 and then a fiscal year 2024 in Mass Department of Education provided
more than $720 million to support, 1800k through 12 schools and more than nearly a million students so uh I was just wondering if the board would feel comfortable uh writing a letter of support um for that federal act um just
to try and help with uh schools across the Commonwealth and mainly here in Halifax and Silver Lake um you're seeing schools across the state struggle to make ends meet um and I think it can hurt for us to pen something obviously I
could work with Cody to put something together give it to you guys for final approval to send out to try to help us out send it to who um we can send it to whoever we need to send it to I I was thinking while you were reading that that this is an issue
that would be uh our our uh United States Representatives okay so Senator Mary Senator um Mar was the one that filed it yeah you got Warren on the other end and then our State Rep is um I mean our our local
rep is um keing bill keing yeah bill keing so those are the if I was to write that letter that's where I would send it because it's not going to make any difference if it goes to the representative Sweezy I mean he right no it's at the federal level we could write
to the president too sure we'll throw them on we'll throw them all oh and by the way Elon Musk might want to hear sure we'll throw Elon you see him it's a it's a good point too I think obviously there's tons of speculation but you hear the dismantling of the proper education just to give you a little bit of insight
we we get at Halifax Elementary School over $400,000 yearn Federal funding from the Department of Education directly to our elementary school now there's so much speculation whether that actually happens or would those funds be rerouted to the the state for dispersement we
don't know but there there are direct impacts if the Department of Education were to be dismantled at the Halifax level with over $400,000 a year this past year so I would like to put together a letter of support for um for Mary's uh
act here if you guys think that'd be all right I would I would love to do it and obviously have you guys take a look at it first you want do that as a motion uh what do you think yeah I think so okay Tom you want a second second yep all right any more discussion all those in
favor say I I I oos unanimous is there a do you know is there a date on that when that's to oh I can find just if if it's uh after the next meeting you can draft it bring it to the next meeting have the Board review and then vote on it I'll get a hard date for
you just let me know we sure is there any reason why uh if you have the time I don't know that you have the time you couldn't just do it between now and then and then let everybody take a look at it anybody has an issue just get back to it back to you if if we all agree on it it's not going to be a problem you want
to do it that way yeah probably easiest I mean I this kind of thing should go out faster rather than sure delaying and we know what we want to say sure so okay well let's do it that way then all right anything else that's all all right motion to
so moved second any discussion all those in favor say I hi it's unanimous we'll be adjourned [Music]