Okay, we're going to start the meeting. We got people here and uh our speaker has got other things to do. So uh before I introduce uh town administrator, I want to review with you the speakers we
have for the next two months. Uh the next meeting which will be on August 5th and our speaker will be Michelle Ecklix from the uh registry of motor vehicles and she will be back doing the driveway
driving decisions. That's what she's going to be talking about, driving decisions. Uh the next one after that will be September 9th meeting and the speaker will be the Plymouth County Sheriff, Joe
McDonald. And he's going to be doing the uh history of the jail down in Plymouth. Anybody interested in knowing about the jail, he can help you out. So, so what we need now is uh speakers
for October and November and I think uh we may have one for October. If anyone can think of someone, anybody they want for speaker, let me know because uh October and November be the last ones for this year.
So anyway, we will now introduce our speaker for today. There's a a town administrator. Cody had that. Come on, Cody. And I met Cody at one of our sessions we had up in um well was one we checked way
back at the Ae House. I think it was the last one up in West Bridgewater. And uh that's when I met Cody. And to me, he's just a great guy. And you don't see many people that you call a great guy anymore, but I call Cody a great guy.
Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Very good. Thanks, Ken. So, um, thanks for having me. Cody had, town administrator. Um, I'm going to keep this I have a few things I want to go over. A lot of you probably think, what does a town administrator do? What does your town administrator in Halifax do?
So, I have a few things I'll go over and then I think really open it up to questions because I think that's the best way is you probably have a lot of questions about the town, things going on in town. Um, and hopefully be able to answer some of those questions for you. Uh, so, uh, as was announced, my name is
Cody Hadad. I'm the town administrator for the next 12 hours or so. Uh, today is actually my last day in Halifax. Uh I've been here for about two and a half years and uh I'm moving on to another community uh the town of Dartmouth. So
um it's been a pleasure kind of working here. Halifax is really a great community. Uh one of the things that makes it so special is all of you, the community itself and really the employees. So not only are is the team here uh competent and they do an
excellent job, but they're great people and that's you don't find that everywhere. Um, and it's one of the things that made my decision so difficult in deciding to move on from Halifax from Halifax was the team that we have in place. So, I'm going to miss everybody and the community. So many of you um just having conversations with
you, getting to know you. Um, so I'll miss miss everyone uh quite a bit. So, you know, what what do I do on a daily basis? Every day is different. So, you know, I have various meetings, deal with various situations. um you know the
board uh I report to the board of selectmen. So the way that a town administrator is hired is the board of selectmen uh will conduct interviews and they appoint the town administrator. So that was me in this case. They're going through that process now and my role really is to oversee the day-to-day
operations of the town. So um everything going on daily in all of the departments really it flows through me uh into the board of selectmen and also you know the the board really is the chief policy makers. So I run the day-to-day operations and then the board of
selectmen they create the policy. So when they want to see things shift one way or the other you know they make those decisions and then ultimately it's on me to oversee and pass down to the team to make sure that those things actually get done. What does that entail? Um all so Halifax is unique in
you know we have several hundred employees um over 100 full-time employees and we don't have a human resources department right any any business would fail without a human resources department and that many employees uh and the town has certainly struggled but ultimately without that
that falls on me so I serve as personnel human resources um that includes collective bargaining so you know with within those employees we have six unions that we have to bargain contracts for. Um legal, right? As you would imagine,
we deal with a lot of legal issues, whether it's um collective bargaining agreements. We're negotiating contracts constantly for services. Um you know, we're potentially in litigation sometimes and we have council that represents us and ultimately I'm the one
that oversees that process as well. Uh procurement. So, as we purchase things, it sounds simple, go out and purchase it, but we we can't just do that. There's laws that we have to follow. And so, I serve as the chief procurement officer. So, uh purchases over a certain threshold all have to be reviewed by
myself, uh making sure we're following the proper procurement. Um large projects, so I'm sure many of you have an interest in the the new Council on Aging, right, that we're constructing. So, um that's a project that I'm overseeing, my office oversees. I'll get into that and kind of where we stand
with that uh shortly. Um large renovations, working with our municipal school building committee uh to making sure that those things are done and holding contractors, you know, making sure they're on schedule and getting the work done. Uh supporting various boards and committees. So, Halifax is a small
community, so you know, the staff isn't huge. Um so, in a lot of communities, you would have a planning department, you would have, you know, several other departments that we do not have. Um, and ultimately that ends up relying on me as the town administrator. So, you may
recall we've done several zoning bylaw changes and bylaw changes. That's a group that I've supported over the past couple years going to the meetings, preparing things. Uh, the town is currently undergoing a government study committee. So, Halifax doesn't have what's called a charter. So many
communities are bound by a charter which is basically you know h how the community runs how are employees appointed um boards and committees how are they made up the Halifax doesn't have that we just have bylaws and you know the days of only having bylaws have
really passed and every community needs a charter so we're we're working with a government study group and we're looking at implementing a charter so that's another group that you know my office supports um preparing for town meeting. So, we have our annual town meeting. It's not
just um you know, doesn't miraculously the warrant get sent out to you. It's all preparation that lot from our finance uh departments, but at the end of the day, usually it's myself that puts it together. Um and that gets out to the all of you and and you can see kind of at town meeting most of those
things there's questions. I have to be prepared making sure that we know the answers to implications to to certain things. Um so, you know, the town meeting is a very busy time of year for for me and my office. um really from January through May is probably the busiest. We're preparing the budget,
right? The budget's another big thing. We don't have a finance director in Halifax. So, we have a town accountant, but we don't have a finance director. So the town administrator effectively serves as the finance director in Halifax, overseeing the budget, uh making sure that, you know, looking at revenue projections, how much money do
we have coming in uh to the town and what can we afford to spend? Making sure that we're staying within, you know, our our levy limit so we can increase taxes 2 and a.5% every year. Uh making sure that we can afford that and and continue to provide services to the community. Um
and then commercial development. So anytime there's commercial development going on, you know, it has to go through various boards and committees. Um and that really, you know, the town administrator will serve as a conduit to making sure that they're getting through um if there's any issues with a project,
right? Working with the various boards, committees, and and making sure that those projects are moving along. So my day really varies. Um you know, I start my day typically and I look at my calendar for the morning and by the end of the day, it's nothing what I thought it was going to be. Um, but that's why I
enjoy it because it's something different every day. I get to be involved. I get to do things like this. Um, and also we get to see a lot of the kind of fruitful things happen. Um, like when we have a new building go up and we see all the hard work that went into it or we have a new program. So, you know, Darlene, um, did a great job with the
dementia program that we had the age wave. Um, and you know, Darlene oversaw that grant, but working with Darlene, that's something we saw and we said, "Okay, this is this is fulfilling when we do this every day and these things happen." Um, some of the other great events that you have at the COA, I was fortunate enough a few months ago to
come over on a Friday for art class and you know that again, those are the types of things that make it worth it. There's a lot of nights I'm pulling my hair out and I'm saying, why am I doing this? Um, but those kind of remind me of of why I'm doing it. Um, you know, the COA project, I'll get into that a little bit
as a whole. So, you may recall, um, going back to 2023 in December, we approved some zoning changes that allowed for the development on Mont Ponet Street, 265 and 266 Mont Ponet. The building 266 is going up. If you
drive by there, you can see the large building going up about 30 units uh, condominiums. And now we are in the process of so and this is where it gets back to that procurement, right? Um it's not as simple as we just hire a contractor to
build our COA and and we get it built. It would be quite a bit cheaper if we could do that, but the Massachusetts procurement laws don't allow for us to do that. And there's, you know, se several good reasons why that's the case. Um but we have to build and do all of our work at what's called prevailing wage. So prevailing wage, the state sets
a standard of what we have to pay, you know, contractors who do work for us. So, a building that would cost someone in the private sector maybe, you know, $1.5, $2 million likely will cost us5 or $6 million um just the result of prevailing wage. So, um we have to
follow a procurement process. Any building or large construction project that is over a million dollars, we have to hire what's called an owner's project manager. Uh and you if you hear meetings, you'll hear me refer to it as an OPM. And that is basically a a project manager for the town that we
hire who oversees the project on our end. Make sure that the contractor is doing what they say they're going to do. They're a team of architects, engineers, u professionals. They also prepare the excuse me, the bid documents for the um
for the bid of the design of the of the new COA. So, um, we have hired an OPM and they are in the process of preparing the bid documents. Unfortunately, this is actually a small project. So, you hear three or$4 million and you think that's
a that's a pretty sizable project. In the municipal world of construction, it's actually quite small. So, we had a hard time getting an OPM on board and but this we can't move forward unless we have one. So, we put out bids and we only got one response back for a project
of this size. And when I spoke with some other professionals in the industry, I said, "Why why don't why didn't you submit a bid? It's it's probably a300 or $400,000 project for them. They're going to make several hundred,000." And their response was, "Well, why would I submit
a bid for a $45 million COA when I can do a $70 million public safety complex or I can do a $300 million school, right? And and it's a lot more work, but they're it's a percentage base that they make. So if they are making 5% of the
project, 5% on 70 million or 300 million is obviously a lot more than our small you know three or4 million project. Um so but we were able to secure an OPM and um we are working with them now. We've had some delays unfortunately um just
with them preparing the the documents on their end. again being of the smaller project we unfortunately are kind of getting put to the bottom of the the bottom of their list because they have higher priorities um and they you know I don't want to say they know but unfortunately they kind of know that we
don't have another option right they they're our only option so um we are working with them and that'll certainly be a priority for the next uh town administrator coming in the the land over there um will be getting conveyed to the town uh later this year so the town will officially own the two parcels
of land. So, if you're looking at the new building being built, 266 Mont Pona Street, across the street where there's the uh little office there, um we're going to own two parcels over there. So, if you're looking at the roadway that goes into the parcel to the left where all the construction equipment is,
that's where the new COA will be. Uh and then to the right is another parcel that the town will own, and that's actually where the pickle ball courts uh will be. They plan to construct the pickle ball courts later this year, and they'll give those to the town. Um, and then hopefully we'll begin construction on
the new COA. I I think it's reasonable to say early uh early 2026 is probably uh a good a good good idea of what we're looking at. The good thing is is once we start the project, again, it's a small project for a municipal project. So,
it's going to go up very quick. Um, we anticipate about maybe 6 months from the time that they break ground to the time that that building is up and running. So, it's a good thing. Unfortunately, things these things take a lot of time. Uh we're not, you know, thrilled. I'm sure you aren't thrilled, but I can I
can assure you this has been something that we know has been going on for a long time. You know, the talk of a new COA, and we are certainly closer now than we've ever been before. Uh the funding is in place and we're in a good position to make sure that this happens. So, with that, um just wanted to give a
general overview. You can hear I'm have a little bit of a cold here. I don't I don't know why with this hot weather, but it just seems to be the way it is. Um, and I have a lot of things to do. I have a lot of things to get done, but I will certainly open it up for questions if there's any questions about anything
going on in town. Um, more than happy to answer them. Yeah. So, a charter is all-encompassing and it and it um there's certain things in a charter that you can do to limit and there's certain things within a bylaw that you can't do. So, one of them
is if you look up um composition of a board or committee, you if you want to have a list of all the boards and committees and and what they're made of and what their responsibilities are, that's more of a charter and it governs exactly what those things are. Um charters are adopted really one of two
ways. One way is um through the state legislature as a special act. So we would create a charter town meeting would approve it um and we would then send it to our our legislators and then they would actually bring it forward at one of their sessions and it it would I
think it would pass you know in the legislature and then it would become law. Um here um the other way to do it is a home rule charter which is a little bit more um uh encompassing on the community itself. So you actually have to get 10% of the registered voters in
town to v put forward a petition to create a charter commission. The charter commission is then elected. So people would run to be on the charter commission. They would have a certain amount of time to develop a charter. Um they would do so. They would bring it to town meeting. Town meeting would then
vote yes or no. And then it would go to the ballot um and have to pass the ballot either yes or no. Um and then it still goes to the attorney general for review um to make sure that it's legal. Um, so it it really just governs everything. It's one place where it's very specific and there's certain
functions that you can include in a charter that you can't in a bylaw. So town administrator is a good example. You know, the role of the town administrator has vastly changed over the past, you know, 10 years, we'll say. Um, if you look at our bylaws, it doesn't mention the town administrator. There's no mention of the town
administrator in our bylaws. If you look at the board of selectmen, so um you know the board of selectmen, you know, really have all the policy authority within town. They hire me and I run the operations. There's two lines in our bylaws to say what the board of selectman's responsibilities are. Um and
we we hear often, you know, so water, I'm sure you all know water is a major concern in town. Water quality, um you know, everything to do with water is a concern we hear often. I get concerns in my office often. the board is always fielding uh concerns, but we don't have
a charter um that gives a clear structure of government here. And so one of the things when when people, you know, are upset about their water and there's things I wish that we could do, I wish we could make some changes. The reality is is I I have no authority over the water department and neither do the
board of selectman actually have any authority over the water department. So you think the average resident thinks, okay, I'm going to elect the board of selectman. They they're in charge. They run the town. if I have an issue, they're the ones I'm going to go to. Not the way that this town is set up because we don't have a charter that makes things direct. So, we have an elected
water commission and they actually run the operation over there. So, if when people have an issue with their water, you have to take it up with the water commission. And unfortunately, if you don't get anywhere with that, that's your that's your ending point right there. Um, you vote for the water commission. So, you can make, you know,
make your choice at the ballot box, but ultimately there's no I have no authority. the board has no authority and that's a tough thing to explain to people who you know are having issues. Water is just one example. It's pertinent right now. So I'm using that but that's one thing you know regularly I'm explaining to people I'm sorry I
can't you know I can't do anything. We try to work together you know to explain these things but at the end of the day there's they don't have they're not accountable to you know the board myself or anyone. Um and so that makes it challenging. Those are the types of things that that I think the government study committee is looking to clear up
in a charter. you know, clear chain of command, structure, hierarchy, and at the end of the day, that way there, if something isn't getting done, someone's accountable, right? And you can say, "Look, if that's me, Cody, the job isn't getting done. We have expectations. You're not meeting that. We need to
bring someone else in." Or at least the the buck stops with somebody. Somebody is able to to get things done. So, um, that's kind of a long explanation, but hopefully gives you some insight. Yes. circle.
Correct. Um, so there are certain things, you know, DPU, uh, Department of Public Utilities. Um, but you know, there as long as things are, you know, uh, safe basically, right? Then then the state typically
doesn't step in. the state doesn't step in on how you operate a town, right? They they as long as things are compliant with the law. Um, and you know, water quality, for instance, the water's safe, you know, annual testing gets done, the state's not going to step in and say, you know, we don't like the way that you're operating this or doing
that. They really are just, they're regulators um that oversee things. Always consider ourselves small, but unfortunately we're too big to consider the small community anymore. We've reached out. I was on the cable
advisory committee and we reached out to Clinton and kept the community alive. We've moved the dispatch down to a number of towns there and I just
happen to be thinking about trash remce. What if we reached out to Pero and asked I think might have a private hauler. So we do have a private hauler for our trash. Oh, we do. We do. All state waste is our uh hauler. So every 3 years uh we bid out a
contract. So that's another thing that my you know my office oversees and so we're actually going into the last year of that contract. Um but we that's what we do. We we do a competitive uh bid process to get the best price for the town. Um, and so this past contract it
was all state waste. And so the totes that they picking up uh with your trash, that's all so the town pays them, but all state waste is the private hauler. And then we basically issue that fee onto the residents with the trash fee. Uh, but all state waste is the private hauler that we look at. So we do our own
recycling. Um, right now we have our own recycling truck. It's something we've looked at, you know, and looked and done a costbenefit analysis. Does it make sense to maybe move to the private hauler for recycling as well? Um, and it's certainly something that the town will look at in the upcoming contract to
see if we should continue doing the recycling on our own or if we should include that in the U private hauler. You know, recycling used to be actually a pretty good business to be in because you actually made money on recycling. So when when you brought the the truck would pick up the recycling, you would
bring it in to the facility and the town actually in these haulers would actually get a small check from the recycling. The it's actually changed completely in the past 10 years or so where we're paying the same price to get rid of our recycling that we are our trash. So right now we're paying about $110 a ton
um or $115 as of July 1st for to get rid of our trash, our solid waste. And we're paying right around that same mark for our recycling. So recycling is just as expensive unfortunately um now and so it's become it's become expensive for the town to run. It's also a truck you know a recycling truck they're they're
not you know they're not cheap. So our trucks getting to the end of its life. Um a new truck is likely $200 or $300,000 right to get. So we look at do we want to keep you know paying for that in those capital costs or do we want to uh get a private hauler to do both. But those are the things we're always
looking at. And as far as regionalization you're absolutely right. Um, you know, communities need to look at those things. Halifax has been successful with several things. You know, our schools being one of them um at the higher levels um with the regional dispatch center. We've had some
success in the cable TV. Um but it doesn't make sense everywhere. And so, you know, we have to make sure we're looking where it makes sense. Um you know, one of the things that I had a conversation very low level with Plimpmpton about a year or two ago was the COA. So, we're building this nice
new facility. Um, you know, it's pretty center in town. Plimpmpton's right down the street. Just would Plimpmpton want to consider, you know, joining ventures. We'd have one COA here in Halifax and Plimpmpton would basically pay a small assessment to Halifax. Um, save them money. We would bring some money in and,
you know, the response was, "No, we want our COA. Our COA is our COA. We don't we don't want to give up that control." Okay. So, that, you know, so that doesn't make sense. We've looked at it with um our building commissioner. So, our building commissioner um left at one point and we were looking for, you know,
what are we going to do? We thought about regionalizing. I reached out to four or five other communities and everyone said, "No, you know, we're not looking to to give that up right now." Um, we share a conservation agent. So, we we had hired a conservation agent maybe two years ago. Um, the person
didn't last very long in the position. It's hard to recruit for part-time positions, right? People want full-time work. Um, and you know, I was at a meeting and and was speaking with the Bridgewater town manager at the time and he said, "Hey, we're looking for a conservation agent and we ended up
making it work." And so now we have a conservation agent who spends 20 hours a week in Bridgewater, 20 hours a week in Halifax. It's Bridgewwater's employee and we just pay them an assessment. Um, so it's saved us a lot of money and we've gotten a little bit more um a quality staff person because it's a
full-time position versus if we were hiring for 20 hours a week, the quality just wasn't going to be there because, you know, all the quality staff were looking for really full-time. Um, so we we're always looking at it, you know, where it makes sense and where we can save the town money. You also you have to have two parties that are willing to
work together, right, in the relationship. And so, um, I haven't had this experience, but I have counterparts who have had the experience of sharing a position or something. And, um, you know, they want to see every week that the per the, uh, employee was in their
town Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 8 to 4. And the reality is is things come up in Halifax on maybe Tuesday and Thursday. And I need that, you know, person to help out. And so, the relationship doesn't work if you're if you're going to nitpick every little thing. So, you kind of need two parties
that are willing to work together. Um, but we're always looking at that when possible. You're welcome. Any other questions? Oh, boy. It's a good It's a great question. Right. Yeah, it's a good question. Um, you
know, and I don't think we have a clear answer for that yet, Darlene. But one of the things that you see is we have a lot of historic buildings in town. And so we have um the old schoolhouse, right? We have the blacksmith shop and then we have the museum. Um and then we'll soon
have the vacant Pope's Tavern and um it's great. You know, they they serve a nice historical value. They're great buildings, but they're they're not utilized, right? So the um the blacksmith shop and the uh the old school house, they're open what once a year, right, for holidays in Halifax
typically. And the reality is is we're spending a lot of money on those buildings. Um you know we spend insurance. So in insurance we actually this is the other thing again my office oversees insurance we've been dealing with. Those are considered vacant buildings. They're used once a year. They're considered vacant buildings.
Insurance companies will not insure vacant buildings. So the option is do we pay a higher premium for a vacant building or we need to we go without coverage or we look at needing to get rid of these buildings. So, it's something I've been in uh communication with the historical commission um and
our municipal school building committee that something certainly needs to be done with these. Um either we need to use them more and provide a value to the community uh and that could be in various forms, right? Opening these buildings up, allowing people to get in them more often, or we need to look at maybe passing them on to another group
who would utilize them more and then at least the town isn't on the hook to pay for these buildings anymore. So, I I think you know again this is high level discussions. Uh we haven't decided anything yet, but one of the things we thought of was you know the museum um is
actually a it's a pretty good building and you if you walk around town hall and some of the buildings here you see we're busting at the seams really don't have office space there aren't a lot of meeting spaces right so a lot of times if there's meetings going on right people are kind of scrambling where are we going to hold the meeting um so one
of the things down the road is potentially you know renovating part of the museum and making that into some additional office space and some meeting space for the community. Um, and then turning Pope's Tavern into really the historical building because Pope's Tavern has some real historical value
there. Um, and and make that the building where, you know, all of the Halifax items are in there and then trying to figure out what we're going to do with um the old schoolhouse and the blacksmith shop. So, if anyone has ideas, I' recommend that, you know, you get involved and and share those with
everybody. But, it's certainly on the town's radar. Um, I'll give you the example of the the museum. It's not utilized that much, right? The historical uh commission has meetings there sometimes. Um, but we have to run dehumidifiers and we have to keep the building at a reasonable temperature so
it doesn't, you know, get mold. And um, last year alone, we spent almost $10,000 on electricity at that building, right? 10 thou almost $10,000 for a vacant building in just electricity, right? So that's not a that's not a good financial decision for the town. So, what are we
going to do? Because we also don't want the building to, you know, become infested with mold and then it becomes a serious problem for us. But certainly something on the town's radar and and we're not flushed with cash, right? The town is in some tough financial times. So, uh, how do you how do you say to residents, hey, we might need you to pay
more in taxes when we're spending $10,000 a year on electricity in in an empty building? Um, and so the uh several boards and committees are aware of this and they're supposed to be working kind of over the next six months or so to develop a plan uh of what we're going to do going forward.
Good question, Darene. Anything else? Yeah, okay. Yeah, they would definitely need a permit if they're running a business. Um, so I would recommend if someone has a complaint to uh notify the building commissioner and uh building
commissioner is also our zoning enforcement officer and so he would take that under advisement and he would you know likely do some sort of investigation drive by um speak to the owner if he needs to and would advise of hey you know a lot of times people just don't know you know that really is
majority of the case they just don't know what they need to do or get a permit. Um, and so most of the time when we run into these things, we let them know and they and they either cease operations or they'll get the applicable permits that they need. Um, so I'd recommend if anyone has a, you know,
particular complaint in that one in particular, let the building commissioner know and um, he'll certainly look into it. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Anything else? Very good. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me today. I appreciate it.
Only thing I can say, Cody, as far as I'm concerned, we're going to miss you. Thank you. No, miss miss everyone here, too. It's been very It's bittersweet. I mean, um it's very bittersweet. It was uh you know, driving it for the last time this morning. It just Yeah, it's very bittersweet. I have a lot of emotions
today. Yeah. Well, you've been here what, three years or so, was it? Yeah, two and a half years. Two and a half years. Yeah. Well, you've been a great guy and you've done so many changes. I appreciate it. And I when I read in the paper just a few weeks ago that John Bruno, he's off
now. And then I were going to leave you, I said, "Holy mackerel, we're lo we're losing the big guys here." No, the town's in a good spot. I think, you know, strong leadership um in the board. We have a good board and um I think you know the town will continue progressing full. You think so? I do. I'm very confident.
Great. You want you have that in writing? Yeah. Oh, it's good, Cody. Yes. Thank Good luck to you in your future and uh we we'll miss you. The simple fact of the matter is he's been the most progressive in terms of advocating for our seniors. We're going
to miss that and you know so I mean we've gotten closer than we ever have in terms of moving forward and there's one thing you can't change is aging. So you know let's roll with it and he's been the most progressive star. One more.
One stomach. All right. That's awesome. Thank you.