##VIDEO ID:LO2beyWm4CI## [Music] hello Halifax welcome back to another episodes of Cody's Corner my name is Cody haded I am the Town Administrator in Halifax it's been a little while but I'm glad to be back I we look to do Cody's Corner more on a quarterly basis now that uh you know me a little bit more you know what's going on in town so today uh I have a full agenda to go over with everyone uh this is really the idea of this once again is to give you an idea of what's going on in town some events coming up uh how we've been operating efficiently within the Departments and also what to look forward to what's happened over the past few months and go from there uh so first I think it's uh important to touch upon we have a special town meeting coming up on December 16th it'll be at the Halifax Elementary School uh 6: p.m. you can check in a little bit before that we ask that you come in uh get checked in and then go to your seat so we can start at a timely manner and hopefully get you out of there not too long special to meeting should be relatively short at this time we're anticipating two articles the first which I'm sure many of you know about is the MBTA zoning this is a mandate that came down from the state uh that required communities that have an MBTA station either in the town or they about the me station to zone for uh multif family housing effectively what this means for Halifax is the state is requiring that the town zone for up to 750 units of additional housing uh the key there is that it's only zoning that these units may never be built but regardless uh the the proposed bylaw can be found on the town's website uh the board of selectman did hold a public meeting on this in October with representative Kathy latra uh Senator Michael Brady assistant from the old colony planning Council really just trying to make sure we are informing you as the voters uh so you can make an educated decision and that and again I think that's important to reiterate it is up to the town of Halifax to decide whether to adopt this or not we're bringing it to town meeting which is really one of the purest Democratic forms of government and we are going to let you decide so um come out December 16th make sure your voice is heard and you can vote either for or against this proposed zoning bylaw the other article anticipated to be on the town meeting is a Citizens petition we received this petition prior to the closing of the warrant uh and ultimately the warrant will go out to everybody so you'll be able to review it the warrant will be approved by the board of Selectmen on November 19th we anticipating getting it out to the mail to all residents by the end of the month what this warrant article uh requests is to amend uh the general bylaws within the town of Halifax and ultimately ban personal watercrafts so jet skis surf Jet watercrafts and W uh wet bike watercrafts from east and west mon Pon ponds there would be an exception for residents uh who could get a resident permit from the Halifax Police Department and uh no personal watercraft would be allowed to operate between the hours of 6 p.m. and 10: a.m. so again this is a Citizens petition article uh being proposed by over a hundred signed and proposed by over a 100 residents of the town we will um it'll be in your warrant and if there's questions at the town meeting I highly encourage everybody to ask the uh petitioners here as they can provide the information on this again this is not something that the town has put forward through the board of Selectmen or any official Board of committee rather a citizen petition as required by Mass General law anything over 100 signatures to be put on the warrant so you will see that so that will be town meeting uh on December 16th uh another exciting event that we have going on in Halifax December 14th holidays in Halifax um more details to come on our website but obviously this will be an evening into the nighttime event the exact hours are still being nailed down but really just uh kudos to the holidays and Halifax committee uh they do a phenomenal job it's a small group but they really put on a great event many of you attend this event in the past years and it always is a hit so I look forward to seeing you all there again this year um we do have ve have our Veterans Day ceremony planned for November 11th at 11:00 a.m. at the Halifax Town Hall uh Steve Littlefield our veteran services agent does an excellent job with this he does an excellent job with every everything that he does with for the veteran services department but this is always an excellent event uh if you drive by Town Hall you will be a to see all the uh veteran banners being put up on the town green those will stay up through Veterans Day and then after that our highway department will be placing them around town so you can definitely look forward to doing that again kudos to Steve Littlefield um another update that I'd like to share is our Comm uh Council on Aging project is moving forward so you may recall that we are working to build a new Council on Aging in Halifax with that the first step is was getting an owner's project manager on board again this is a requirement of Massachusetts General law any public uh building projects over $15 million $15 million we have to get a project manager on board we've secured that project manager uh kier's project managers was selected through a competitive bid process and they will be overseen the the project for us we anticipate getting bids out for an architect uh later in November and hopefully awarding a contract for architecture and design sometime in uh early 2025 with that the design takes uh it can be somewhat of a lengthy process but our goal is to break ground and start actual construction on the new conson aging some by the end of the calendar year 2025 so that's really exciting H ax has been working at a new consel on Aging for 20 plus years and we're really making some Headway here so we look forward to hearing that and I'll make sure I keep you all updated on the status of that through these uh Cod e corner um one other way of making sure you're staying updated with what's going on in town is we have a new town newsletter monthly newsletter uh an intern uh with the board of Suman and myself Eva Chapman has been doing an excellent job of putting together this newsletter uh I recommend that you check out this month's Edition and you will see many new faces in town There's a segment that highlights some of the new employees uh this includes Halifax Elementary School's new assistant principal and some new members of our Public Safety team uh that can be found online on the town's website also you can find printed copies in person at uh any of the Town buildings so the Council on Aging the town hall the library feel free to pick up a copy and read that uh really can help to give you more of an inside look of some of the things going on in town uh another exciting update is it seems like we just finished the current fiscal year budget but we're starting the next year's fiscal budget so we're currently in fiscal year 2025 we're starting the fiscal year 2026 budget process we that off with a joint meeting of the board of San and the finance committee with it with that meeting they approved a budget memorandum to grow to all of our departments that memorandum has gone out and effectively guides departments on where they should be preparing their budgets how they should be preparing those budgets um as we go through the process the finance committee will be meeting uh probably starting in January and into February to review those budget requests and making sure that we can present a balanced budget to town meeting you know with that I'm sure many of you have heard um the financial Outlook in the town is going to be challenging for fiscal year 2026 our revenues are anticipated to to increase by less than 3% this is primarily being driven by uh New Growth is at uh lows over the last 10 years or so which is any sort of new construction um alterations additions additions to the tax levy is is at an all-time low uh pair that with our local receipts are also not increasing at the rate that we've seen in the past few years so local receipts includes things like meals tax uh the local tax on marijuana motor vehicle excise tax that's also slowing down and those are our main drivers uh in addition to the 2 and a half% tax levy increase we're being we're seeing this overall increase anticipated for next year of less than 3% that is paired with increases in our uh budget requests that are much higher than that you know particularly at our schools the cost of special education is really high in some of these contracted services so we will work through the budget process our financial team our finance committee to make sure that we present a balanced budget to town meeting in May and also a budget that prioritizes high quality service to the community uh touching on the financial aspect of things I want to highlight a few Grant awards that we've received in the past few months the first is a approximately $220,000 the town has received for Energy Efficiency measures this includes uh HVAC upgrades at the Town Hall weatherization and several other buildings uh some hbac upgrades at the police station the next one is a $50,000 grant for decarbonization study at the Halifax Elementary School the the key to this grant is it will open up opportunities for us to apply for further grant funding that could fund the actual HVAC work at the elementary school so once we have this done uh it'll open up opportunities in the future which is excellent our fire department was able to secure a $2,700 grant for Emergency Management Department for supplies and services there and then we also recently received a $25,000 Grant from the Totton River stewardship Stewardship Council which will fund the investigation on the status of two stump Brook culs in at Elman furnace streets in Halifax um and these are key locations in the long-term restoration efforts for migr fish Aquatic Life healthy Stream flow in the sucket river and the stump Brook Watershed so um earlier in this year the board of selectman re uh instituted the river Herring committee formerly the airlife restoration committee this committee is tasked with making sure that the migration of uh River Herring are able to go all the way up the river through obstructions and this is part of that uh goal is to clear that up so very excited for that uh and I thank everyone involved in those grants not only in the application process but also the project management it can be a lot of work so kudos to the team uh throughout the town as I mentioned we got several Energy Efficiency grants so on the energy topic uh I think it's great to mention that the Halifax is be that the town of Halifax is being recognized Statewide uh as one of the leaders in energy reduction so since the town became a green Community the town has reduced its overall energy usage usage by over 20% in all of its Town facilities that that is a huge um accomplishment for the town and everyone should really be proud of the work that we've done and a lot of that was through efforts of the team and the staff but also through a lot of the grant funding that we received through green communities which totals almost a million dollars for those Energy Efficiency measures but also I think it's important to note a lot of these Energy Efficiency measures were projects that the town would have had to have fund through its capital plan through free cash through through appropriation at Town meetings so while we're also uh red using energy through these grants we're also subsidizing things that the town would also have to be paying for which is a win-win for everybody um energy topic you also will notice that there is a few new EV charging stations uh at the library in hops playground parking lot and I just want to uh reiterate these were funded entirely through incentives through National Grid uh and by the installer the town did not have to pay a single dollar for these These are fast level three Chargers if you have a fully electric vehicle they'll Char charge uh three qus of your battery within 45 minutes to an hour which is incredibly fast compare that to a level two charger which is what most people have at their home you see a lot of these level two chargers throughout communities um it could take 10 to 12 hours to to accomplish that same uh filling of the battery so this is a great service to the community uh we're waiting for the utility to hook them up so they're actually powered up when that's done there'll be a feed that is charged to to to use these um Chargers uh per kilowatt hour the town will assess basically the cost of electricity and then some other costs such as maintenance and uh repair warranty plans and then charge that to the the users so it's a no cost to the town but really high quality good service to the community so it was really a no-brainer for us to move forward with that um the board of suman's been busy on several project and initiatives want to spend all day going over these you can certainly watch some of the board of Stockman meetings to highlight them but a few of them that I think are important uh and I've note is the board adopted its 2024 2025 goals uh these Center on maintaining strong fiscal Health longrange strategic planning providing high quality service to the community and improving communication and transparency with the public so uh we've done several things to make sure that we're being as transparent and communicating with the public uh as possible we have the online uh Halifax Community Forum which I encourage people to continue to utilize if you have a question about something in town whether it's how something is a budget item uh the status of an ongoing project whatever it may be I really recommend that you go to halifa right found on our website ask the question and we will answer it for you it's fact-based and you're getting the actual information um we the town does not have a presence on Facebook or other social media platforms other than just getting information out we don't engage actively in those so if you're looking to ask questions and actively engage with the town and get factual information please go to the Halifax website you're also more than welcome to call any of our departments email any of our departments uh to acquire that that factual information the other project that was really exciting that the board has been working on is um appointing our government study committee so through our general bylaws uh some of the recommendations from the state has been to look at our structure of government our form of government in Halifax and just make some updates and changes two reasons primarily so we're matching what current day practi is but also we want to make sure we're operating as efficiently as possible for the community as a whole um our government study committee has met these meetings are public they're posted on the website at least two days before the meeting so you can get an idea of what the group will be talking about with their agenda primarily are being held at the Town Hall and they're going to discuss things uh operationally form wise and make recommendations to the town as a whole um to see if this is a direction that we want to go again just to make sure we're up toate and operating uh efficiently and with that the last thing I want to say is I really want to just um commend a few people particularly our town clerk Susan Lawless our assistant town clerk Jennifer Carr and all of our election staff uh the pole workers it really takes a village to pull off an election uh this year was extraordinary where we've had several elections not only a local election a state primary we just had the presidential election uh it's a lot of work the early voting not only through mail but also in person there's thousands and thousands of ballots and um our team here pulled it off Flawless the and I hope that you had the same experience when you went out to vote uh there may have been some lines but other than that there were no issues everything was efficient and effective so kudos to them kudos to all the team um and everything that goes on this is kind of the trend in Halifax the elections run smoothly and that's that's certainly no coincidence that's a result of our team uh and lastly I just want to thank area 58 for uh continuing to cover all of our meetings in town making them available to you as the community and the residents also for recording uh this show making sure that we are providing that communication and transparency to the public um you'll notice that if you go on the YouTube page uh the Halifax Community YouTube page there's tons of different meetings from our Board of selectman our finance committee uh our planning board our zoning board of appeals we really try to uh record these and put them out so they are available to you and like I said that's really all area 58 so kudos to them with that I hope everybody has a great holiday season uh a nice Thanksgiving and whatever holiday you may celebrate enjoy it uh spend the time with your family and we look forward to seeing you on December 16th at the special town meeting and with that uh I will see you in 2025 with another episode for Cody's corner thank you [Music]