and good evening I'll call the meeting to order This is a meeting of the Hampton Select Board and Board of Health being held in the House Townhouse Auditorium April 14th 2025 at 6 p.m This meeting is being conducted in person and remotely
using video conferencing technology Please stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 liberty liberty and justice for all
Compliance of the Massachusetts law Is anyone uh recording the meeting other than ourselves kristen Rivers from the Wilber Times Hi Kristen Uh anybody else okay So noted Uh before I begin I' I'd just like to say
that this is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week and it honors the dedicated individuals who answer 911 calls and texts coordinated dispatch emergency services and provide crucial assistance in public safety On behalf of the select board and the residents of
town of Hampton I'd like to express our gratitude and recognition of the vital role that these professionals play in keeping our community safe The Wilberham Regional Emergency uh Communications Center dispatchers are a group of highly trained uniquely qualified certified
telecommunicators who commit to a high quality service to the towns of Belchuretown Hampton and Wilberham and our first responders 24/7 365 Uh we'd like to take this opportunity to thank them and celebrate all of our emergency dispatchers who help make our community
safe Thank you Thank you Okay Uh first item on the agenda minutes We have minutes We do We do March 19th Okay This is uh we had a discussion of the regional This is this the joint this
is joint select board meeting with the Wilberham select board You decided you started start meeting at 5:30 so nobody would know Right I thought it was a I thought it was a good move It was a good I thought you said am originally discussion of the regional agreement a
rather lengthy discussion uh throughout we're still discussing with them and okay wow a lot of points there right I'll make a motion to approve
uh out of necessity a second any discussion all in favor I right I this is the April 7th uh regular uh select board meeting Uh we we had a presentation by the fire department
discussing a renovation and their expansion update Uh we lengthy discussion We had a water we appointed a new water commissioner Dale Hatch and we talked about the annual town meeting warrant
review uh CPA funds uh some other issues regarding the uh town meeting We signed a letter for a dog situation issued liquor permits for the Hampton Senior Center discussed the
highway department budget briefly Uh why is that in there oh that's the for the uh buying the buying asphalt and uh and street
sweeping and catch bass and cleaning and uh select for reports and ton of ministry report Motion to approve Second All in favor i Okay So moving right
along we have uh an appointment to the historical commission Hi You want to come up in front so you want to be on camera i could see on camera You just want you were just on you were just on sabatical Joyce You weren't off the board I kind of wasn't
satical Yeah I had previously been on the historical commission stepped away due to family situation and now I understand there's only two They can't vote They don't have a quorum So I offered to reassign myself to that That's terrific Plus we have our 150th anniversary coming up That might be a
little bit of work Yeah that's great We won't be around for it but we'd hope you would carry on for us I would hope I'm here in a couple more years So but thank you for volunteering again
Yeah Okay Nice to meet you I don't think I've met you Davenport Yeah I know who you are but pleaseot No thank you Motion to appoint Joyce Dunley to the uh Hannah Historical Commission Second Any
discussion last chance I know What am I doing you can do it You can do it Good Thank you All in favor i Thanks Joyce Thank you Joyce Joyce I don't want to go Thank you Joyce Neighbor Okay
Um the next item we have on our agenda is the debt exclusion question for the fire department and a uh special election we have to schedule
Right And as you said the election um is not only for the debt exclusion but I guess we might as well talk about the fact that uh we received a letter right we received a letter of resignation from one of our select board members who will be
resigning effective May 19th We thank Craig Riv for his service And I understand it's unfortunate Craig isn't here to express and he'll have an opportunity at the next meeting I'm sure But it would the love that Craig has for
this town can't be overstated and it would take obviously quite a bit for him to to make this action We appreciate every minute he's given to the board And as John was saying earlier saying earlier when he resigned it was good to have someone who's younger than us on
for another pers for a different perspective younger than me Well I was just saying you made the point that everybody is Thank you Um I get that for catching that Um so you've talked about a couple different
dates Obviously it would be I think behoove us to have both on the same date so as not to bring people out twice You want the ultimate participation Don you shared that there are timing issues both with the special election for selectman which
we did in 2018 2019 The town clerk has said it's a minimum of 64 days Remember the date of notice right so if we take that date and all going back it cannot be until sometime in June right june June
22nd earliest from that date June 22nd would be the earliest date to have the election special election Is that right you can verify that if we if we if we say we're going to have a special election tonight
June 22nd would be 60 how many days 64 from the date of the letter being received or the effective date of the date of us the date of us the date of the town clerk receiving the letter the date of us saying we want we're going to
have a special election we we do the so we did that tonight it would be June 22nd is that a Monday till Sunday 23rd be June 23rd 64 days from
today Tonight April 14th Yeah Google says June 17th June 17th So if we did it that's a Tuesday so we do the 23rd That'd be plenty of lift days right and then as for the fire
department exclusion we could wait until the town meeting If the town meeting votes no then it wouldn't go on the ballot Mhm If they vote yes then we can put it on the ballot on the same day because we have to give 35day notice
because that part we can expand the ballot Right now we're going to set the ballot for a special election for select me We can add a question We can add a question following the down meeting right is that right 14 35 days from 35 days from May 19th is
May 12th is what date what does Google say 35 days from what may 12th Yeah Yeah might be longer 18 plus Yeah probably a little bit longer 35 days from May 12th 2025 Monday June
16th All right So the 23rd would be good That covers both days and and that'll be before summer so that people can Right So we may want [Music] to just to make sure because we have to do that at a meeting Our next meeting
following the election will be the 19th The 19th may not give us enough time We may want to schedule a meeting for May 13th because we need the results of to set to vote the question the question right because I mean after town meeting
Yeah Unless we voted unless we voted that night because we meet that night right but we won't know we won't know the answer from town meeting We need the positive answer from the town meeting action At the end of the town meeting couldn't we vote well we usually close our meeting you know before the meeting
before town meeting So we meet the 13th We could meet Yeah I'm just saying just to make it We can meet in the morning on the 13th area Mhm All right You want to make a motion with a motion to call for a special election for the purpose of electing a select board member to serve the remainder of
the term originally elected in 2024 I believe right for the date of June 23rd 2025 and serve such notice to the town
clerk and board of registers second any further discussion all in favor I I Okay Do we need to formally accept the the resignation or we just I mean obviously the town
clerk has I don't think it says that but no Okay I mean we can I'd rather do what is here for the next meeting Okay Now we're not meeting until I mean the 22nd because it's Tuesday next week Are you planning on having our stuff first and
then the joint meeting or joint meeting first i think the joint meeting first cuz he told him 5:30 Okay We should show up at 6 Oh I'm sorry to keep you waiting We were with Thornton Burges All right Got that all So you're
going to tell the clerk ASAP And now you got to But you now you got to change the We got to change You guys have to revolt the warrant We have to revote the warrant for taking it off the election part of the warrant Right So I make a motion to open the warrant
for the purpose of deleting the question listed at the end of the life officers Second All in favor i I motion we eliminate the ballot question at the in the posting of the warrant
Second Got it in favor I motion to close and publish the town meeting warrant for the town meeting of uh May 12th 2025 Second sign please All in favor did I sign this seven
times typical 7* 70 whatever it takes Okay Different on every copy So that's worth more We have to do a different pens You can give it out Give you one Give it to think about that Everyone in attendance
like signing American Express checks back in the day Never match It kind of gets on to the last one Nobody would cash it We're dating ourselves You're really going to say you're really dating it over there When we fuse fresh used to go to
the first one on a trip I had to go to work to uh Egypt You know back then of course American good Oh yeah Yeah There you go Thank you I'm sure you use them while going to Poland all the time with Well
well when we used to go to Poland the communist were there You could get there was one rate for the one rate for the This isn't for publication Kristen you that's your limitation You'd get one rate for an American citizen one rate
for a Polish citizen and one rate on the black market And you get into a cab and the guy say "Americans?" Then we'd say yes You want to change your money yes [Music] Works
All right Annual committing warrant articles What do you got same was last time Really yeah At this point are we expecting any change to any article we may have
discussed from the region i have not heard or possibly there might be a change on the floor Perhaps they'll move no action or something like that I think I think we've made our point fairly clear but I don't know if they have the time to affect the Don
based on what they have to do to get it on the warrant Hope we have a chance to discuss that Well I know I'm going to annual operating budget I'm I'm questioning the I'm
questioning the uh K Cabota Their K Cabota Their K Cabota I'm questioning the the uh fire road The fire road right and I'm questioning
the flooring place in Green Meadows only because they originally came in at 30,000 And when I said the lease says it has to be 35,000 to be a capital project
they came back with 35,000 Right Well let's add T8 Another room Let's add a couple more rooms So so I mean and and it doesn't seem like a lot but but if if they put it in their operating budget it'd be 30,000
Wilberham would pay 24,000 and we'd pay 6,000 So that'd be saving us 29,000 Right 35,000 So there I'm also I'm also questioning the lawnmower for Park
I haven't seen the the justification for yet And a lot of questions about where would you store it if you had it over there permanently It's that small shed that's full next to what's in that shed that you don't know There's a shed secret shed Okay Thanks Dad Okay Get the
drone up and check it out Uh and then battery storage accessory dwelling That's all set That's all set They're all set Yeah they're all set with that They're going to meet the um their hearing is Wednesday night the 16th Good All
right If so in the solar lease amendment that's the fence moving the fence right and again we have approval from both Concom and D for it So it's just When are they going to turn that thing on i think it's on Is it so cuz he said a couple weeks ago was a week away They
had the final check out There's interconnect is always the big problem Yeah You know making sure it's hooked into the grid But I'll check with Steve upcoming things I know we have uh not on here but I know Jonah wants to come and chat with us sometime Just the
general Jonah Keane from Ottoman has to check with the board and talk about other things besides what you talked about on the zone Okay The only other article that is article 15 the any amount for additional repairs and renovations to Thoren Burgess
we haven't given we haven't given advisory request Oh thank you just go back before you mention that So article article 8 enterprise fund for the transfer station Um I sent you an
email Ryan sat down with Jane and Lori today Um basically the revenue stream really didn't increase but of course the expenses did you know the employees got the two and a half cola uh we had the contract from McNamera and it included
obviously this year had another bump in the kind for hauling fees so one thing last year we we put in 20,000 from the tax rate but that was because we had 18,000 bag charge this year we don't do not have a bag charge
charge but we are looking at a possible repair Don you've probably been up there That's landing whatever you call it is not in great shape Yeah it's in bad shape Mark's going to be working with a couple people get some estimate what it's going to take to fix that Uh plus the fact that we think we're going to be
underfunded in terms of you know our expenses going forward We're looking for we have the numbers I've given to Brian for salary for expenses plus 15,000 from the tax rate We are potentially looking at and that
I'll bring back to the board an increase in the permit fee but not the bag fee I think the permit fee which is a onetime charge isn't out of sight People who use the current vendors around here they go up annually as well I
mean so an increase in the one-time charge as opposed to the bag charge isn't that bad You're going to I think we're paying 65 now for a permit could be something like that If it goes at 75 it's once a year Your weekly thing which
is your bag your yellow bag of either size at this point would stay the same So that'll be coming back But right now the the impact to the and we'll share that with advisory tonight The impact of the tax collection would be 15,000
recommended All right You that you'll tell them that tonight I forwarded it to Ryan and Doug as well Yeah All right What do you get what do you have i should say down from last year Last year was 20 Decided number on
uh PWV Okay We have 100,000 left over So yeah there's basically right 97,000 left from that prior appropriation Okay And your potential you talked about you're hoping for it upgrades from the grant the No
that compact or that's all set That didn't come through It didn't All right Uh but we can reuse some of we can reuse the existing switches for now I don't think so Our use is nothing like what the school use would be Yeah I'm not I'm we'll we'll check them out but I'm not
too concerned about those Mhm If in if you did nothing this time the 100,000 plus we got the 15,000 in their budget from the you know the school We
just 15,000 in there that we put in that expires at the end of July 1st but you could do probably do something now with it Could you get by by doing nothing this time and waiting to fall town meeting and saying "Okay we have a better handle on how much we need to do." Mhm And just
put just put in for moving expenses I mean I think it's going to come down to sort of a Yeah a strategy thing in terms of the overall budget So we have 97 I mean we have the estimates for the cameras and the electronic locks and those together total around 90,000 but
um that's just one vendor And you have the moving fees on top and that's 30 to 50 30 to 50 or 60 wasn't it between 80 there was a range for the moving fees Yeah Yeah But the but the article is what
there's two separate articles right correct One is for the moving expenses which is 80,000 and then there's the second article for repair renovation costs Right So we do the moving expenses right mhm And then the repair renovation
cost we would we got $100,000 I mean Yeah Well I mean I think the critical thing is obviously the access and the camera part I mean to me it's critical especially at the controlled axis Um the moving has to be done Everything
else like you said the building's in good shape Nothing is critical The ceiling's not falling down The parking lot is serviceable The roof is in pretty darn good shape for a building of that age This guy checked it out the other day The roof looks good
Yeah For it's a membrane roof and they've done a good job Stay on top of it If it starts leaking you throw new membrane on top of it If you don't stay on top of it and you start getting leaks then you ripped you got to rip it all off I understand what I'm saying For it it's in good shape Yeah I I applaud the
school department for keeping it in good shape Parking lot needs a little patching here and there and it should be sealed The the my biggest concern of the whole place is the condition of some of the floors Yeah Because of the the best tiles
I recall articles in the past Don you may as well I thought they had remediated most of that The only thing that wasn't done was cafeterium was encapsulated I'd say they did maybe half Yeah You think probably yeah But we when we asked
him about um I mean there's some stuff back in the boiler but that looked all contained back there It's there It just has to be maintained but it's it's a t There's a lot of tile floors that Mhm There there's a couple rooms where they're
where they're starting to You're talking hallways They think they did the hallways before Maybe they didn't do rooms Okay The hallways didn't look that bad Some of them needed work Um and and he's he's waxing them but
he probably uh I would I would start on it At least the rooms that are bad That's the thing I think with I think we need a bit of a discretionary fund now We could wait for see what the free cash comes in at and take it
then But it's so much easier to do these things without the people in place especially if you're talking room work Yeah So you do it before you move it's going to be cheaper Much easier right especially if they're doing it during the possibly the summer because once you put stuff in there then you got to move
it out more More cost You do it now So what what are you thinking dollar-wise here's the thing We we got a sense of Green Meadows We know how much they're looking at 5 to 6,000 per room basically Yeah Yeah Those really Well I'm saying
they're talking replacing I mean 35 and they were thinking about they want to go five to six rooms Yeah I thought the last Yeah The last one was like 10 over there Yeah I thought that's what the maintenance guy's name Herb Yeah I thought he said it was around 10 I thought he said it was around 10 or 20
in that area I mean obviously you got the receipts you got you got a contractor calling I really would have thought maybe they're touch bigger at Darn Burgers but about those are pretty large rooms at Green Meadows And how many rooms do you think are need to be done right away
10 No more than that Half at least half of the rooms over here probably I don't know I'd appropriate I'd look for at least another 75,000 Yeah I mean in my mind what when I when I wrote that memo it would it would
coming out to around another 100 grand Yeah The question is whether it makes sense to do it from a budget standpoint knowing the status of the current budget All right And then you go back to Don makes a good point about the 15,000 that there now but can you reallocate you
spend money on looking at the title five septic thing uh reallocate that bill towards the 15,000 so that your 100,000 comes back up and nothing's spent out because the 100,000 rolls over being a warrant article Yeah that was about two three grand I'm saying take it out of
the 15 because that's going to expire Yeah we'd still have to spend the 12 before the end of the year And maybe a guy needs to come to guy needs to come in for a quote or something right now take the quote money out of that money you know who wants to come look at the floors and here's a you know whether you
call who was it Abide or whatever somebody like that that looks at floors for remediation you know I mean any of those guys I don't know what companies out here but I mean they're doing work to the other schools right doing it up the road I'm just surprised that number
because like I say you look at what they were talking about at Green Meadows it doesn't jive with the 10,000 per room What year was that does that still does that have the hazardous building materials associated with it well we're replacing maybe there's a a
a cost to get rid of them that's on that comes into that are 10 but they were talking pretty much replacing the whole floor in per room and it's a ongoing thing so many per year So there are some rooms where we don't
have we don't have uses allocated Um yeah there were at least some that were bad that you know well you have some hightra rooms I mean the rooms are given to the library where and rooms to park and wreck where they plan on having a lot of people in them I think those
would be priority Library has got a rug in there right no I'm thinking they're also getting three rooms off the front Three rooms off the front Some rugs there but very few Yeah the ones along the front were were problematic I think yeah front sure facing the building on the front right and that was going to be
the selectman's office too also along the front all the way up there that was going to be marble marble tile I thought I don't think so no so my mind it's the timing of it right in terms of well it makes sense to do it when people
aren't in there so let's let's work on getting some quotes too let's let's put Yeah I I I think I honestly think it will the numbers he told us were between 10 and 12 a room Okay It just doesn't
based on the seems like a lot but unless there's more money because Don if the ones green metals aren't as vessels and these are there's disposal costs on top Well there's a whole different if that's green metals are just regular tiles That's all procedure right you know they
got to commit and it should be because I think back in the big renovation in O2 would have been all taken care of Yeah Yeah Because they don't they'll have to wet it down 100,000 100,000 Sure Sure See what they say Well we take it from the
fire road and the Kabota Yeah Yeah Halfway there And the tiles of Green Meadows Take the tiles from there Ring them over Mhm or reuse them All right What else you got i think that was the last one
No warrant Okay Well we'll talk to them about that when they come in Uh we have the highway superintendent employment agreement That guy Do we settle with that guy how are you
good evening Oh here it is Here Nice job with the big storm this weekend Oh gee Thanks Now it's over Are the plows off or not plows are off Don't know how you got through it Wow This been drifts up to
four or five ft high We used our three best sanders What's weird is you could have snapped a line across Main Street maybe by maybe by the grog shop Mhm And everything to the west was the roads were snow covered Everything out this
way was was black Really i couldn't believe I woke up and the whole field and back was green metal covered in white Like what the heck happened but we got it How about you thought people where you are in your elevation up on the hill yes Yeah Oh yeah up there
We had to for a little bit Yeah Well you want to stay on here's the question You want to stay on i would love to if the town would have me Um I would love to Okay Any sliding changes in here yeah a couple
Does Mark know about them no I mean the the only change that we were working on was was page four that that talks about compensatory time for winter weather responses I think the only other out the outstanding issue was like the we listed the the lump sum amounts of the 200
250 for standby right but right there was something else about going $50 over the staying 50 ahead employees contract just but if if it got stricken from theirs then I just didn't want to right
in talking with Brian I didn't want to commit uh commit myself to being attached to to the other contract So and it it becomes more difficult in terms of if contracts are stacked on
each other You don't we can get siloed a little bit and we don't understand the implications of this contract and how it impacts this contract So what year are you in now i will I'm in year nine I'll be starting year 10 in already uh July
So right now we have the vacation schedule Basically we're capping it at 5 weeks is how it looks Correct Yeah And we made some change to the health insurance language cuz that that was in a transition period during the last time
So that that reflects a 75% payment of the health insurance premiums because that's my understanding as to Yeah [Music] [Music] Man this is 3 years Three years Three years
[Laughter] Okay Why did we pay for your driver's list um my CDL CDL Just No just a driver's license not Yeah Oh well my my driver's
license is CDL So um how often do you have to get that that's every 5 years Same as same as a regular driver's license Yes CDL I'm I'm sorry Hoyers is every two with the DOT cards And
Mark did you have a chance to look with all this i did Are you happy with it i am Yes And I'd like to thank the board of select and Brian for his help and yep select board Sorry Okay Now looking for a motion to uh authorize basically
the board to offer this contract to Mark Lang for a signature and commence the uh new three-year contract period Second Any further discussion all in favor i So you'll type it up You sign it We'll sign
it and save it for the next 3 years hopefully Yeah Yeah Thank you very much We got them here Got them here We got them here Change it Oh in the back you said Yeah back There's two there Those are those are the ones
you check You sure you're done with Sure we're done with snow yes Sure What does your chart tell you call today What does your chart tell you i've seen it snow on the fourth of July Really yeah It's never never snowed in May
before right not according to the to the sorry Dana had started an ongoing like history I think the latest that's on there going going back and even as
recent as 2122 is uh April 15th Thank you Keep one of them Mark it Which one yeah Yeah This we use this one The one the one with the dot on it All right Very good Congratulations Mark
Thank you for actually went pretty well I think Thank you We grab you know grab how worked out our negotiation All right Uh select board members reports Well pretty good meeting coming up this week on the 16th Obviously the planning
board is a public hearing I encourage those who are watching to attend either virtually or in person all these things coming forward leading up to the town meeting and uh input now is better than asking the same question and
possibly taking more time in town meeting Right now is the time you'll get better attention coming these public hearings if you have a question and it helps the planning board as well because it tells them what people are thinking if they need to just like with going to concom if they need to tailor their
presentation because there's some ambiguity It helps the planning work quite a bit I also appreciated that in my time on it Uh seniors in the building committee uh obviously met last week We talked about that and they're coming tonight to make their presentation as well
the uh the planning committee for the Hampton Wilbertham Regional School District which my man is meeting tomorrow evening uh to discuss the latest feedback from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education regarding the proposed amendment to regional agreement
And it'll be a discussion of the recent Hampton Wilberham Select Board meetings And we've received a letter in response to our meeting from the Wilberham Select Board which we have yet to review because we just received it today We thank them for their dialogue Dialogue
Yes How this should work We look forward to their meeting Undisclosed location on the 22nd Got to pick another room Don right Brian administrator's report
Um the water district sent out letters to all those eligible to hook up to the water district Those letters went out two weeks ago John Last week two weeks ago about two weeks ago you've had
as of Friday you had seven responses um for people who are requesting to be hooked up And there was one as you know there was one house that has already been hooked up due to high levels of uh PAS in their drinking water Um you've
asked for responses due by May 1st and right of entry forms need to be uh sent back by May 15th So anybody who received the letter should be getting in touch with the water district if they want to hook up
Um we will be advertising for two positions with the highway department probably probably this week sometime right um well be advertising for one position for sure possibly two positions with the highway department Um so if
people are interested in that stay uh stay tuned to the website We have a a draft of amendments to the ambulance agreement that I need to send to Action Ambulance Um we have we had not received really any contract proposed contract
language from them So Don and I worked on putting together uh amendments to the agreement for the next three years plus one two one year options and opera reporting is due April 30th and that's when we need to confirm
with the the treasury that we have obligated all our remaining opera funds and you recall the board did that with the awarding of the contract for the water district and I need to follow up on the the cable license agreement because I need to hear back from charter
and it's been like a week and a half two weeks So keep that moving forward on the water thing So you mentioned you've notified you've gotten responses from seven people The process if they don't respond exactly what
um if they don't respond I believe the water commissioners are going to treat it as as so there's an offer out there So they don't respond to the offer The offer lapses May 1st essentially Now it would be in the discretion of the water
commissioners if they want to change that But that the offer is the deadline is is to respond affirmatively by May 1st to do the actual hookup Now we have a When's the uh construction
starting when is Basar thinking they're going to start they're talking about starting construction that are the streets right they're doing the pump station first They cleared the trees out last week that they needed for
the site So we're talking about maybe Thursday start again But I don't have anything nailed down So if we were to say that they're going to take a month to do the pump station they possibly wouldn't be to the road
work of till June perhaps or I don't have any des No thought um in the in the initial uh uh pre-construction meeting that we had th those those two things the water main extension and the and the pump house upgrades uh could could go
parallel Mhm Um and but they would wouldn't do the the connections until this fall So they want to have uh the pump house upgrades done water main extensions done so that the way they can that way they can turn on the So they do
road work they run the main pipe and then they're stubbing off at every potential location Yep They're stubbing at every single possible location Correct Right So they said they took the rest of the summer to do all the road work the pipe is in the road
and Bill Brown from Scanic says "You know I never got back in a letter but I'd like to hook up." There's no downside to us for letting them hook up because we haven't like done something that prevents them from hooking up We haven't hooked up anybody else So I mean I think that's a decision the water
commissioners would need to make Baltazar is looking to to order now and get pricing locked in So it would be a change order to the contract Mhm which would likely be more expensive which would be water meters and piping down the house basically Yeah And whatever's happened between the cost of materials
and that between now and then just like it as a con construction is going on because we're gone past our home back Well I changed my mind Could affect the
cost to control the cost right but you're doing I think what Brian said you're doing all the road work You're running the the 4-in line around the road and you are potentially stubbing at every location even if they said yes or no Yes So there's been no investment per
se that we haven't you know the stub is there We're not hooking up House A says I'm hooking up House B says I'm not But house A isn't getting hooked up to the fall anyhow So there's no there's no loss to the town by not
doing both at that time Right Okay Yeah Except that the fact that it'll be a change order So Baltazar is going to be change order the other one save money if they don't hook up Right Right That that's the other thing to consider is when do you when do the water
commissioners say "Okay that's it Now we'll do a change order to take them off." Right So um yeah but that's the general timing of the project as I understand it Anything else to come before the board Oh sure
Oh what we'll do but what was Jonah uh what was Ottabbon's thing or you want to have So basically Jonah wants to come back and talk about their plans future Obviously we talked about the invasive species war last time but they have You might want to mention Bas where you send us today Yeah that's that's actually the
one that I was thinking of I wasn't thinking of the pitch pine one Um Mass Ottabon's going to be having uh an educational walk right i think it's May 3rd Is that about right i just posted that today
You did yeah They they Jonah reached out to me Yeah Wanted registrance for that So in May 3rd I believe so Oh here it is Our cleanup day So what day is that
that is coming up I'm sorry 26th 26th Y And we have a new selection of shirts I can't remember what color I ordered this year but I think it's something for your collection Don You'll like [Music] It's your fourth year in the program You now get your name on the back I wear
golfing once in a while May 3rd spend a lot of time in the woods May 3rd 10 to 11:30 Ma uh Massaban's having a ecological management walk and they're going to talk about um certain management practices that
they're going to be undertaking over the next couple years to um really keep that land in tip-top shape I guess So program is free but registration is encouraged I assume there's a registration link There is There it is
[Music] Well I do have I do post this on the town website I I do have the the master plan is complete right uh the planning board will be reviewing it on this
Wednesday the 14th 15th right 16th 16th 16th and uh for approval and they'll present it to the select board on the 22nd Now does that require town meeting no It's just it really just requires
planning board approval and select board can you know so all right anything else so we're going to leave the Zoom open Can you mute it because people will be coming in So make a motion to adjourn please
Do we adjourn right You're not muted yet are you okay No So basically don't don't mute yet So basically the advisory committee is going to come up here They're going to take the chairs on the big side right they'll run their hearing The select board business is finished but with D
and I will continue to answer any questions they may have for the board All right At that time then we'll adjourn at the end of that Basically we'll adjourn at the end Yeah Okay Unless we walk out and discuss now which has happened before which has done before Oh yeah Turn that by default Have we done that
you lose your qu by default So you are we muted the welcome to the Hey Phil Hey we're going to start the meeting The uh
w well welcome to the public hearing for the uh advisory committee Uh most most of you who are here have been here before know uh what the procedure is that we're going to follow
Um I would ask people to um engage with questions as we review the different articles and don't hold it to the end Let's have more of an interactive type of a discussion here This is an opportunity for the advisory committee to receive public input on the various
articles before we vote our recommendations Um there are copies of the warrant and the budget in the back if anybody doesn't have them Uh unless anybody has any questions I'm going to begin
uh with uh article one Um actually before I even get to article one uh you you'll note that there is a section here for consent agenda the the moderator um intends to uh bring forward a
procedure which called consent agenda um he apologizes he couldn't be here tonight haven't uh had something come up but the proposal is that the first uh I believe it's six articles uh which are
the standard articles that that we see each year be taken as one vote as a consent agenda and voted as a single vote Um I'm sure Rick Rick will explain that in more detail at the uh town meeting but that's just to give you a
sense uh that those are probably going to all be voted in one uh one fell swoop Uh so with that uh article one town reports Uh anybody have any questions or comments town report Uh article two is the um spending
limits for the revolving funds These are the standard revolving funds which we we carry Uh article three is chapter 90 state highway aid whether we vote to accept that Uh article four is the library
additional state aid Also a vote to accept that Uh article five is the conservation fund Uh the $1,000 that we appropriate every year for for that Uh article six is the assessor's funding for
statemandated programs Uh the request for that is 16,000 Uh does anybody have any questions on those first six articles no Okay Article seven is the annual operating
budget Um advisory has met with um all of the departments over the past uh couple of months We've reviewed the budget requests We've um engaged in discussions uh and we've uh refined the
requests to what you see in front of you tonight This contains the expended funds for 2024 the appropriated funds for the current year and the requested amount for the coming fiscal year fiscal year
206 What I'm going to do is take them uh by each each main group If anybody has any questions as I go through these please speak up and we'll we'll um address your concerns So artic uh 1.0 is the
accountant The amount requested is 88,184 Uh 2.0 the advisory committee Uh 6,345 3.0 0 the board of appeals requested amount $9,634.0 Z the board of assessors requested amount 178,457
Yes Rita On all of these for salaries is there simply a a percentage that is there or is it going to change or Thank thank you I I should have mentioned it at the outset What uh the consensus among the advisory and the select board
treasurer accountant was to use a cola of 2.5% So all of the the salaries that are nonbargained have a 2.5% cola plus whatever step those people are on So as I'm sure you recall
every two years people move up a step which amounts to about 1% a year on average So um principal assessor is that what that is for the principal assessor the the the principal assessor is an
increase It's the cola It's and there's an increase in hours and an increase in you know change in grade So it's it's a mixture of the different things Um the the assessors met with us and and had a
discussion um about the reasons for that Um I don't know I don't know if we have any assessors here Grade change That was not a grade It was just the cola and the 35 to 40 hours the request So it's it's an hour
the hour increase plus the the cola Yeah Um if you have any any other questions about that you know we can try to have the answers for town meeting Okay Um 5.0 0 building department total
request 144,247 um 6.0 county retirement the amount build us by the county retirement 926,946 7.0 0 insurance1,30,998.0 law in claims requested amount
$75,000 9.0 moderator $100 Actually he didn't request that but we're including it Um 10.0 0 Planning Board requested amount
42,167 11.0 The board of registars requested amount $8,955 12.0 Selectmen total request $190,487 Uh let me just make a note here that the expense line 12.4 you'll notice
there's a jump in that Uh we've included the the board's request of an additional $17,000 for expenses associated with town meeting And those expenses are the uh the audio visual system the the
microphones the um what do you what do you Brian what do you call those clickers the um is that what they're called the clickers So yeah it doesn't include the clickers Oh it does not include clickers Oh I'm sorry I thought it did
So this is this is the cost of AV AV for two town meetings We had discussion and we'll probably have more discussion on whether or not to break that out uh as a separate line town meeting expense as opposed to the general expense for the select board But for purposes of the
budget we want to make sure that we capture it So that's where it is Um 13.0 tax collector total request $93,810 14.0 town clerk total request $11,644 15.0 Town Report total request
$4,000 16.0 Z treasurer total request $96,568 170 Veterans Benefits total request 20,000 19.0 Town Administrator total request $145,000 Total general government
request 3,162,542 Moving on to general town services 20.0 Academy Hall Maintenance request $5,500 21.0 Cemetery Commission total request
$51,286 22.0 Conservation Commission total request $43,89 23.0 Z transfer station Total requests $100,000 Uh 24.0 school building repairs Uh no money requested for
that Um I'll put a zero in there Uh 26.0 library total request $210,826 27.0 Zero town events total request $3,500 29.0 office equipment total request
$123,000 30.0 Parks and Wreck total request 159,177 32 32.0 Z townhouse maintenance total request $182,000 34.0 zero ambulance
Connie what's the facilities manager 78,000 That's a request from the from the select board to bring somebody on board to basically uh oversee the town properties
So that's not just for the townhouse is that for all town town properties town So the uh TWWB will be included in that and Academy Hall the firehouse police station
Don well I was going to say the Jane has been our de facto facilities So we divided up that position and we hopefully create this position because we're adding Thornberers the townhouse the fire station and all the other that person
would take care of that Anything else Connie is this facilities manager going to inspect the buildings on a regular schedule because
the regular regular maintenance go yes Okay Okay I I'm going to say this now I don't know when it's going to come up but I'm sure it's going to come up Um the senior center the gutters I know that there's something about the roof I
don't know if that's in there but those gutters should be replaced They should be larger gutters because they don't clean them They're not working Connie Connie Connie not not to interrupt you but as luck would have it
there's a request on for the senior center to have some money tonight Okay When the roof should also include gutters I don't know whether it does So when you consider that
Becky please consider that The highway department actually maintains our gutter Okay Let's let's move on But point point taken Point point taken There's there's a lot there's a lot of
details that have to be attended to and and Jane is going to be missed greatly Yes she is Um and we're all we're all going to learn all the different things that she did and we didn't we weren't aware of Um the
um any any further questions or comments on that no Okay Um see I did parks and wreck townhouse maintenance ambulance Yeah Ambulance 34 $340,000 requested Uh 35.0 Gasoline
total request $65,500 36.0 Street lighting total request $30,000 37.0 0 Council on Aging total request $220,396 38.0 Senior Center total
request $43,250 39.0 Historical Commission total request $400 Total general town services requested amount 1,578,644 I'm moving on to the highway department
40.0 superintendent salary Total request $19,119 Oh excuse me 109 109 109 Um 40.1 department payroll uh total request 31,000 excuse me 317,728 41.0 Tree Warden total request
$60,931 42.0 Public Grounds total request $4,385 43.0 0 highway maintenance total request $315,672 44.0 General highway expense total request $18,300
45.0 Snow and ice total request $125,000 46.0 Z contract services total request $63,700 47.0 other highway accounts total request $21,000
48.0 Building Expenses total requests $16,250 49.0 radio lease agreement total request $10,000 Uh total highway department total request1,62,75 Moving on to protection
of persons and property uh 50.0 animal inspection total request $6,647 51.0 emergency management total request $6,200 51.5 Traffic Control total request
$15,000 52.0 Dog Officer total request $15,490 Fire department total request $481,572 54.0 0 Forest Fire Control total request $1,800 56.0 Board of Health total request
$93,498 56.5 Water District Request $21,500 57.0 0 police total requests 1,693,514 58.0 other police accounts total request $2,26 total police
1,695,720 59.0 Z police and fire communications total request $30,35 59.1 Regional Dispatch Services total request $93,750 Total protection requested
2,461,212 Um moving on to the schools the regional school district request uh 69.0 The total request 8 million857,717 Uh moving on to local debt The total local debt that the town
has is $684,319 the bringing the grand total of all of the requests to $17,86,59 Anybody Anybody have any questions about the budget before we move on okay moving on to article eight the
enterprise fund for the transfer station John looking for 15,000 Uh article nine is the funding for the town's 150th anniversary The request on this is
$10,000 This is this the second year we've done that This is the third year So we're basically what we're doing is we're building up a fund that we can then use for to throw a proper priority at the 150th Uh and I believe the select board is going to be looking for uh members of that committee So if anybody's
interested uh contact Brian please Um article 10 school resource officer and the total request on this is $12,629 Uh article 11 prior year bills
none that we're aware of Uh article 12 the local option is an add an additional veterans exemption clause under section 22 or clause 22J Know if anybody has any questions
anybody wants to make any comments on this That's for town taxes This is for town This is for real estate taxes Yes It basically increases the exemption from $200 to $400 for veterans like that That's not
I thought that's what it was No no it's for there's different categories There's uh if you're disabled military service connected 10% it could be $400 We're looking to double it to $800 And then if you're
um 22E if you're um 100% disabled because of your military service you'll get $1,000 We're looking to double 2,000 out of that out of the first one So out of the $400 originally right now
in place the state does reimburse percentage of that The other what percentage does the state it's a it's a straight fee So what happens is if you are saving $400 the state reimburses you
$225 the first and the town's on the rest So so option the here's not give you the option of each town to double it So that's what but the town's doesn't get reimbured for the for that for the additional that's entirely on the town
How many how many people file for the exemption currently right now there is roughly 70 people Um there's uh about 47 getting the the 400 and then there's 22 getting
the $1,000 All right Can I ask a question sure Sure So it's not a sliding scale then So if you're 10% disabled is that what you're saying so if you're 10 10% to pretty much n 90
90% you are it's a it's a straight it's $400 Yeah Then it would be once you're 100% disabled it goes to a,000 So what if you're 50% You get a 400 not less permanently blind loss of limb That's all different and there's different
categories different prices for all that Okay But right now the town only has $400,000 time Gota Okay We also have surviving
Yeah Okay Is are the assessors in favor of this is this your article this is your article You're you're in favor of this Obviously the select the assessors are Yes
Okay Um any any questions on that we can't really be in favor of it but we understand it and we help Jason work it Okay Okay Any I'm sure there'll be some questions because it's a little
confusing the way it's set up Let me try to we have 47 people currently and it changes each year that receive $400 It's a disability of ranking 10% or more There are one two three four five six
seven There are eight categories to chapter 22 depending on loss of limb or foot or blind or my dad was blind I mean you know stuff like that Um stuff like that Terrible
thing And we have uh 22 and um the class 22 meeting which are 100% dis disability And I don't know if you've gone through the uh the veterans
disability program but I mean it's not a rubber stamp its doctors and the whole hospital and the whole world So what 22 does last year the state said the towns can have the option of up to 100% match of the
chapter 22 taxes Never could do that before for the veterans So you're looking for 100% match from the town Yes Okay 100% of the 400%
of the thousand Got it So if I'm understanding that right now we're baiting maybe it's costing us about 40,000 and you're talking about doubling it This is projected cost 40,800 Yeah that was pretty good in my head
So our exposure is an extra 40,000 and it's out of out of y All right Thank you Um article 13 is well articles 13 14 and 15 all involve Thornton
Burgess Um article 13 is a vote for change of purpose Um that property was acquired by eminent domain um taken for educational purposes Um town council has recommended that the
town vote a change of purpose or change of use if we're going to use it for anything other than a school Um any any questions or comments on that article 14 are the moving costs um
of moving offices from the townhouse um to uh Thornton Burgess Um the amount requested here is $80,000 Um last year the town
appropriated $100,000 of which uh Brian was it 97,000 that's still available roughly Yeah The only thing that's been spent on was the investigation of the the status of the septic system Yeah So the intent is to take the remainder of that
appropriation add this 80 to it and use that for the moving costs Well there are various other things to be used as well there Some remediation issues Uh Brian has a couple of quotes for the moving cost that could be used
against the 97 that's left We also have 15,000 in school building repair that will expire by June 30th but can be utilized for cost of thr at this point as well All right So there's there's some funds available right yeah
Um in addition article 15 is a request for funding for repairs and renovation of Thorn and Burgess Um and the amount requested here is the 100 Is that correct so 80 80 for the
moving and 100 for the the renovations and repairs Right We have some concerns The roof is in good shape Uh there was a walk through last week and we thank dad and others for going with Brian but uh we have concerns about the tours that there may be as
best we get them now Obviously a lot easier to do the work Right Any questions comments on that yeah Do we know there is justice in school we're going to look into that
I'm sure there is this 100,000 would be for has to be done before anything else Right Other upgrades Connie that need to be done Access control cameras Brian has
a pretty good plan for how to lay out the building uh that he's brought to Don and I Um obviously the library is here park wreck is there Uh different boards have different times of use Different parts of a building need to be sectioned
off when the library is in use but nothing else is You've been to a school where you know the double doors are but they're not under control This needs to be done just like my gosh I'm sure the school is the same way You can remotely lock off a corridor
or something like that That's an upgrade that needs to happen before anybody goes over there These are some of the cost upgrade might be new doors It could be as well You're right So I I mean I I'd hate to see us upgrading
those doors somehow and then realizing that we need new doors because they're obviously not You're you're 100% right It could be just the whole replacement Obviously with the electronic control some of the doors when you and I were
there Yeah there's a lot of lot of issues that have to be addressed Any anything further on Thornton Burgess before we move on all right Article 16 is a lawnmower for the highway department
Um believe the number on this is 23,000 That mark that right uh yes Not to exceed not to exceed 23,000 Most likely be be less but just this is replacing this is replacing an an
existing piece of equipment Correct Okay Um article 17 is a lawnmower for the parks and wreck Um the number here I have is 25,000 So that's in So can I speak about this mower Doug a little bit
sure There's I had the opportunity to watch the four the April 2nd select Ford meeting and there's a lot of inaccuracies discussed about this lawn mower So if I can just set the record straight on some of those things Would that be okay within reason Yep Okay Um you know it was it was suggested that
the Memorial Park mower has been mowing Memorial Park and TWWB fields all along That's not true The Memorial Park mowers never mowed TWWB fields before Um it was suggested that the highway will be doing the bulk of the mowing at TWWB When we
originally Mark and I sat down and had a quick discussion about you know if we were to move over to TWWB what kind of the mowing situation would be we kind of agreed that highway would take from the parking lot to the road and that the parks and wreck would handle the side fields and the sport fields in the back
of the building Um so on a quick Google maps um it looks like that'd be about 93,000 square feet for the highway department which is 2.15 acres The park department would have 276,000 square feet which is 6.3 acres to the
moment Um the only reason I'm saying is it seemed like there's some negative sentiment from the select board and the advisory committee and I just want to dispel these inaccuracies that were discussed Um and same thing on the the mower price of 25K I don't think I actually ever gave Brian a price but I
have a quote for 18 in my inbox and we wouldn't be asking for more than 20 Um so that's you know 20% less than it was discussed at the meeting It was suggested this mower would be used only occasionally at the meeting Um that's not the case I mean we probably be
looking to mow before what what number do you want it 20,000 20,000 Can I ask you a question so would this new mower be used for both Memorial Park and TWWB so it would be used for both in a contingency capacity So um the idea
being that you know we have we do have a mower at Memorial Park Um it is 5 years old It has 1,000 hours on it Um it's probably about at its half life We the plan would be to purchase this mower to handle the bulk of the mowing at TWWB
and sort of provide longevity to both mowers Um if you have you know we have a thousand mower If you're a two-car family you generally don't buy your two cars together in the same year right so if you can stagger those costs you stretch out the length of the mowers considering that they're used less and
not taxing one individual mower Um and so it would also provide us a contingency plan If one of the mowers broke down then where are we then we got to rely on Mark or a contractor to come in and take care of the um yeah so the the average lifespan of
these new mowers is about 2,00 to 2500 hours Um and what else do I have for you guys you know we did look at alternatives to um to purchasing a new cuz yeah that's expensive The $20,000 mower is expensive but you know we looked at trailering Um Parks and Wreck
has a limited maintenance staff right now We have one guy that does about 30 hours per week And if he had to spend approximately 3 hours loading trailering a mower over back and forth to TWWB you know we're a small department and we need to be efficient and that's not
efficiency Um I presented possibly sharing a new mower at TWWB and getting a schedule going to have you know we mow on Tuesday Friday or whatever Um there's headaches with that too Who takes care of the maintenance who if somebody breaks it who fixes it uh if the weather
pushes back the schedule for the mowing Um then I thought about contracting a landscaper for a year in order to see you don't really know what's happening with PW yet but maybe as a holdover looking at contracting it out to a landscaper you're probably looking at
half the cost of a new mower anyway so why not just bite the bullet and and buy the mower um there was also suggested about taking a hand-me-down mower from the highway department Um Parks and Rec seems to get all the highway department castoffs Um but you know I don't know
how many mowers that has I mean I don't know how many hours that mower has on it Mark does a great job I don't know how that was maintained We seem to get these these handme-downs when they're at the end of their useful life and they start needing major repairs So that's more money out of our bucket and we just kind
of want to start fresh and um you know and and have a good mower that that's going to last us Dan has parks and wreck been mowing the the the playing fields at TWWB no the highway I'm sorry The the school department took care of that this
the schools excuse me the school district the um why why did I think that there was an agreement that the fields would be mowed by parks and wreck It was always done by the schools We
trailered over there one time to mow We got over there and they had already done it It was after meeting and they and a school took the took their mower Yeah You know they also there was also discussion about where we would store the mower when we have it over there if we were to get a mower Um my hope would
be that we could use one of the maintenance rooms with a bay door to store it like the school district did All right John just a couple of points here and I appreciate the comments from uh Dan In the absence of any head-to-head
conversation between Park and ourselves I do recall several years back park came to the select board looking for an article for a truck because they had a need to bring a mower back and forth to Thornton Burgess and it was they felt
kind of hard on Mark to keep bringing the mower back and forth for them and that's when the board said "Well why don't we provide the truck from ahead of schedule from the highway department in a trailer as well because this might have been before you were on the board
do it but they made the point that they were doing the mowing at birds and that's why they needed their truck That's my recollection was happening and that's what we knew In an absence of any conversation to our board that's what we
had Yeah sure That that's great And you know I would like to uh you know since I started in September of 2023 we haven't voted PW bills one time Um but so what I would like to say is like the uh you know if if anybody select board advisory
has any questions about requests that parks and reccking I mean I have an open door policy Please feel free to come in and ask questions if it's something you disagree with you know I can provide you the points about where I arrived to to come to the decision to to go for a mower Um you know I just want you guys
to be able to base your decisions on accurate information And I was surprised when I watched that meeting that there were all of these things that were just inaccurate So um you know it goes both ways I can go to YouTube but that's that's why I'm kind of bringing that tonight is because after seeing that meeting I was like well none of this is
correct So I don't want you guys to make a decision on inaccuracies I I'm sorry I just have one other question if you don't mind So the decision for the park and wreck to take over the mowing of the playing fields what have you in
the back of TWWB was a conversation that you had with a highway superintendent and you two different departments agreed on this amongst yourselves
okay So nothing in stone nothing written down Um at that time very early when about the decision to move over to TWWB it was sort of like a hey it might be a good idea to move over to TW and Mark and I are just planners so we're trying to get our ducks better off as golf Okay Open
to any other suggestion about that for sure The truck's no longer needed We use the truck for carrying mulch We use the truck for plenty of other things It was I know because I was involved with that truck It was specifically to
move the lawnmower back and forth Okay Well I say if you guys m the truck back you can have it because it's been a money pit for us Yeah No it was more the concern There's a lot of expense What's that there was a lot of expenses um last year with the truck to
keep it maintained Yeah Yes I know Yeah I mean you had provided that to us if my memory serves me right It was I think there was like a bill for over 12,000 No I don't think it was that much I think it was a $3,000 item There was some
number of 12 Okay I mean total maybe Yeah Okay How's the senior center and police department uh well that's interesting you asked that The question was how are the the senior center and the police department mowed the the highway department mows
the senior center and the police department has a landscaping contract Yeah Yeah And actually back to your question a little bit So the Memorial Park agreement that we have is that the parks and rec takes care of the sports fields the ball fields and that the
highway department does all of the outside parts of the park like the non-sports field sections of the park So we were just kind of in our discussion we were just kind of continuing that agreement that we had in park Right Anybody have any other questions
on the lawnmower or article 17 all right Um article 18 senior center repairs and renovation Um I understand the number for this is 230,000 Is that 230,000 correct
230 Um and if I understand it correctly Don that that's the roof it's windows It's doing some um compliance with the bathrooms Bathrooms of the code Yeah And some work
on the septic system Oh that's right Septic system Can you can you also put the gutters on that list please We'll check All right Um I know this I know the the building committee has uh put in a lot of time
and and sharpened their pencils on this number Uh does anybody have any questions on this no Okay Um article 19 fire station repairs renovation and expansion
Um see we have we have Mark here Uh here Oh Ned I'm sorry the uh I well I don't know rather than me speaking to it do you one of you want to give a quick summary of what the what the article involves sure So what won't go too far
back into history but basically what we have in front of us is a plan for the renovations and expansions to the fire station which has been you know kind of going on about seven years now between studies different proposals different
configurations new station remodel Um we put an RFQ out last year We hired an architectural firm out of Rhode Island to come up with a design that basically takes the 2020 Mitchell report which
we very exhaustive analysis of the station the pros and the cons and what's good and what doesn't work Um and we've come up with a a design that accommodates what we need now and also try to look forward to the future Um the project as it
stands right now and we met with the select board last week um in today's construction dollars was basically 7.9 million out what we have gone back and forth with in don't have a final number in the sense of what should we do with
an escalation because even if this got approved right now today we know we're not looking to start for a year So we actually really need to bring a number forward that would be what the construction cost is today plus an escalation of next year So um being
conservative saying 5% again nobody knows what's going on in the market you don't know from day to day A 5% escalation on that 7.9 would be basically 8.3 million Um that's just a quick kind of 10,000 foot sort of view
of where we're at Um you've seen through some of the building committee meetings or at least the planning meetings some plans what have you Um we have now just got it today on the way over the meeting kind of a final sort of rendition of what it would look like but it hasn't
changed what what's been out there already just in two weeks So um kind of high level sort of hierarchy that's that's what certainly addressing the spatial issues that the fire department has um
and certainly health and safety issues The building is structurally in in decent shape Um but it has a lot of other defects basically that need to be addressed Uh Mark does that 7.9 have the the
typical contingencies for the various parts of the project So yeah the 7.9 has in there a 7% owner contingency and it also has a 15% soft cost already built in there which include you know certainly an OPM the you know owner's
project manager included to there plus the normal other other fees that we associated but yes that 7.9 is soft costs which is roughly about 975,000 and owner contingency of 7% is included in that 7.9
So again that's sort of the total today's if you were going to build it today And and have you received any any advice as to what to anticipate in terms of what's going on in the world no nobody wants to
go that far It did kind of get brought out too that you know some people say well if we are sliding into sort of maybe a recession or what have you there could be possibly more companies bidding on a project like this because it might be the best of them Oh it's the best time to build Best
time to build Yeah Again there there's no crystal ball Um but I think a 5% contingency would be you know probably the minimum we want to go again a contingency and this gets into your world and you know certain stick can answer to it You're not spending the
money It's there if you need it um across the whole project That's an awful low contingency rate Escalation escalation% I mean
well looking at any lumber it's going to come from Canada Those are our friends to the north Connie um will there be more of a presentation at Absolutely Absolutely This was aggressive We really wanted to
try to get this for this year's town meeting So literally we just kind of got numbers last week So yes we're going to the fire department is going to be putting out Yeah There'll be a press release coming out There's going to be open houses There's going to be a huh for people to be educated for anybody
that wants to come take tours Yep Will the open house be four times classes We're going to have one We're at least going to try to have one during the week and one on the weekend And if they're successful we're going to have more
Plans be available to us When will the plans be available to us there's there's well so this we won't have blueprints until the if this passes town meeting then the next step would be to get the blueprint So we have drawings
what it would look like and floor plans proposed Yep Um but there's you know those will be available I would say probably next week or the end of this week we should start pushing those out So the the sort of the thought process
is if this does pass a town meeting the first thing one of the first things we would do would be hiring what they call the OPM you have to wait to see if the override passes if it passes right I mean it's one it's a two-part process So I just
want to remind you that before you passes that town meeting don't don't hit the ground running until it goes before the town As a point of order we've set the date down currently for June 23rd So that
excluded results for this project Could I just ask you if you you've got the blueprints is that does that mean you've got the builder too or do you put the blue out you put them out for a quote right basically you'd hire the owner's project manager That'd be one of the first
things you do Um and then you have the architectural firm come up with the actual blueprints have the engineering done That's what goes out to bid Then you start getting the numbers in So in the ideal world that would happen between now and the spring Again wishful
think it'd be awesome if we could start in the spring So we're building through a good part of the year Now what we're doing too is trying to maximize we have this we you know we have to keep the station running So doing this enables us to keep it running too But if you don't have if you don't have
blueprints that that number you're using has got to be pretty loose That's what architects do There's like four pages of design broad You never buy prints until you approve a project I'm saying that I was just saying that Okay So so part of
the architect's job is to get a drawing that we all agree on which the building committee did a great job They mined a lot of things Um they brought the cost down Um but what one thing they do is once we agree upon the drawings and the laid out the floor plan the design of it
then they send it to an estimator sort of professional estimators that this architect uses and they're the ones that set that price It's kind of like it's kind of like unit priced a lot of you know just to come up with a ballpark right and that's been done they've already you know for
construction for Boston they do um do you have renderings basically right you have floor plans and some renderings but the detail is not there because that's what the blueprint would would do right
um John go ahead Don I'm sorry I'll yield to you So things I'm concerned about it hot and cold zones Mhm
Uh space so you can put on your uniforms before you go to a fire Correct It takes it out of the bay Takes it out of the bay An additional bay that's for a bigger engine Yes For replacement of any any new engines modern day right the
decontamination area Okay And uh the the bathrooms I know are a mess over there and then that So you made it bigger than a porta potty Step up Yeah It's an oil flush It's
much Yes All the issues have been Yep an exhaust system Ex Well we already have the exhaust system and and it could extend over to the Absolutely The system that we have will actually go go into the new station And I was I do know I've
been concerned about cancer with the firefighters Absolutely Um you came in at 7.9 Was there a previous estimate so you What was that about five We took out about
$480,000 from their their initial their initial was it So you've already stripped out four about 500,000 We stripped out about 500,000 taken out epoxy floors We minus windows doors wherever we didn't need brick We
could put block down correct function Okay Any other questions i'm sure there'll be plenty All right Thank you guys
Um moving on Article 20 Green Meadows School Flooring Replacement Uh this is a request by the district for $35,000 for to replace flooring in five or six classrooms It's been an ongoing
project over there for the past several years Um anybody Don okay So I'm a no on this one Probably a very selfish reason Uh it originally came in at 30,000 two reasons came in at
$30,000 and I pointed out that the lease said it has to be 35,000 for capital and it came back to 35,000 Also the town has put $126,000 into repairs the school buildings that didn't need well they needed to be done
but it should have been under the region So I figure they owe us $30,000 I second All right John um how far along are you on the floor replacements
this has been an ongoing project as long as I've been here I'm not exactly sure how many things have been I get that for the town meeting Okay Thank you But these are primarily in the older section of Green Meadow right not necessarily
the addition That's my understanding based on Okay Okay Any further all right Um article 21 Green Meadows School Parking lot repairs and fire road
extension Uh the request on this is 35,000 as well Um Bill I don't understand what's a fire driven out of school Well as luck would have it we we we have the superintendent
and the chair of the school committee with us and super fire Is this just to get it to 35 grand this is just a poked don That's what this is Might be a wise guy question but
I mean you got to ask it It just seems wind but it's 35 grand Is this something the fire department asked for no it's the school's wide open It's a fire You drive on the grass Well not
just that There is a water kind There is an asphalt walkway all around the school presently It may not meet the code for what technically a fire road should be but I don't think the fire department has any problem with using it for access to any part of the building at this
point And the parking lot repair this is from our conversations The parking lot repairs are such that we think we can accommodate them inside the normal highway department budget So we would respectfully
request from the select board standpoint no action on this article It's already on the warrant It may be difficult to withdraw but we have a hard time justifying it with everything else going on Yeah I take that under adisement
Okay Anything Anything else what what was the number for the uh parking lot repairs and fire 35,000 35,000 35 same as the flooring replacement Yes
Um article 22 Green Meadow School Um let me let let me just mention it's probably an appropriate place to mention it Um the uh the advisory committee and the Wilberham finance uh
both asked the school um school committee and the administration to bring capital requests to the towns um as as separate capital requests and that we deal with them on a on a regular basis rather than on kind of an emergent
urgent basis which has been kind of the historical um approach to these which is why we're seeing these you know smaller capital requests but you know in total they add up and over time obviously they add up So that that's why we're seeing these these capital requests coming in
from the school district Um with that said article 22 Green Meadows once again IT network switches replacement $92,500 Um any questions comments nope
These are the network switches Um which I'm not sure if I tripped over one that I'd know it But I know that we spend a lot of money buying them and replacing them because they're integral to any any internet connections in any
of the buildings and they they they get obsolete you know relatively quickly 8 to 10 years Phil with a new facilities manager coming on board should we wait until that manager takes control of the
building before we spend 100 grand on something that really none of us understand he wouldn't be he or she wouldn't be in charge of Green Meadow It would primarily be the school district That would make it well once it's once
it's our building So we're responsible for the capital expenditures on it So our our facilities people would have an involvement at that building It'd be there'd have to be a cooperative arrangement between the school district and the facilities our facilities person That's not the guy you talked about in
here for 70,000 You'll never find anybody for 70,000 to take on all those buildings You need to double that number Right They have a full-time facilities personnel right plus I would say these being electronics much like the
computers with the change in educational use being much more electronic Obviously every classroom has my day they had one computer if they were lucky Now they have a computer for every child plus other electronics The speed of the switches is very critical
to education As these changed from the old 10100 to 1 GB they're probably faster now So they needed to be upgraded as they this is not the annual like this probably 10 years
want to repeat that on Zoom Phil you said I had the abocus back in my day isn't it correct or isn't there a formula that for all of our schools when there's a capital
expenditure say for mile tree having kicks in a certain percentage and then no not not for capital only only operating no only operating right the the operating expenses of all the all when
it comes to capital expenses for for Thornton Burgess or for Green Meadows those are 100% Hammond's responsibility same with the Wilberham buildings being 100% Wilraham responsibility Okay Thank you
Yeah Um on something like this could one half of it be done one year and then another half the next year i mean is this something better what what what I've heard in the conversations Connie
is that it's it's less expensive to do it all at once because you have the the crew there on site with their people and their equipment Um so even though you might split the payments over two periods of time it's going to end up costing you more generally speaking
Um so I know we're trying to be proactive on these things but I'm just curious has there been a lack of performance with speeds at the school we haven't had any issues with lagging My understanding is these supposed to be in the end of life and when they go off
they go off and we have all of our curriculum at this point connected to online um subscriptions I was more curious than each failure have any switches in any of the schools failed
I don't know of any major failures of switches um I think we've had some wireless access points that have failed wireless access points has failed quite a lot A switch is just basically a big router It's you know a router with 30 plugin points instead of a router with
four plugin points I I don't necessarily buy that They wear out in 10 years But I mean obviously if they have engineering specs and performance specs and an engineer can determine if they're needed or not But
um you know to do it all at once makes sense I just don't think they need to be done period But okay said that I mean if they told us they're all 10100s then want to go to one gig that would make sense from a performance standpoint Yeah But I think
a little more detail might might help it Yeah But okay which have to be eventually if they have to be addressed they should all be addressed at once whatever you decide to do All right moving on Article
23 Mintog Regional High School request to add or replace split AC units Um total request this is a split um request between Wilberham and Ham and our portion of the request is
$6,812 Um article 24 also the high school um this is a request to upgrade the internal two-way radio repeater Um Ham's portion of that would
be $2,141 Article 25 also the high school This is a request to upgrade the camera system Hamden's portion of this request is $72,16 Any questions $16
$72,16 [Music] Uh article 26 also for the high school uh request for a K Cabota RTV which if I understand it correctly is a four-wheel drive utility
vehicle Uh Hamen's portion of this request $8,622 If I understand it correctly this is a replacement of an existing piece of equipment as well and they'll trade the other one in All right Um moving on Article 27 is the
lease amendment to the Hampton Landfill Solar LLC Um if I understand it correctly this is a an basically an administrative correction to a previously drawn border
to the property Uh this is redrawing the the the boundary lines outside of the existing solar field so that it's all enclosed within it There's no cost associated with this This is just to
cross the eyes and dot I guess we're dotting the eyes and crossing the te's Uh uh any any questions on that article 28 is um authorization to purchase conservation property on North
Road Uh this is a request brought by the land trust Um this is a I don't know the second or the third step in a ongoing project Chair you want to you want to address this one um it's hopefully just
like housekeeping Last year the town voted to appropriate the funds uh to go ahead and purchase this land that will access the Mount Vision conservation land and provide parking and a safe
entry on the streets Um and so when we got the go-ahhead of us had to purchase the land and u do a land exchange within a water and u get plans and surveys to now have that
property uh available Uh it's been filed uh at the registry of deeds um so that now we have a a piece of land that we can identify and go ahead with the purchase of it So there's no new money associated with this This is just the
authorization to proceed with the actual transfer of the property Yes Any anybody have any questions on that okay All right Article 29 Community Preservation Committee
Um there are two requests from the community preservation this year Uh one is from the parks and wreck uh for $23,000 uh to purchase and install two shade
structures uh inside the spray park on the lawn Uh the amount requested here $23,000 would purchase the the equipment and pay for the installation These are permanent metal poles with a detachable
8-ft square umbrella type structure uh that would be removed um the end of the summer Um any questions on that uh the second request is for $27,000 Uh this is a request um also
from the land trust for money to uh improve uh access off of North Road onto this property and create a a parking space and a trail head for access to uh the the property across the
black that we're acquiring the rightway to Um and access to the trail system So that's 27,000 Uh any questions on that okay Um
um I guess probably six to eight We don't have a parking yet So when the money appropriated then you'll be able to uh the budget includes money for
engineering and other things So then we'll be able to figure usually six spaces I would expect to be something pretty modest given the area up there I think that's
Yep Um any further questions on that right Article 30 is zoning bylaw amendment request for battery energy storage systems Um I understand these are bylaws that
are under review by the planning board and I guess are currently being reviewed by council Um planning board has a meeting Is it Wednesday night yes The public hearing for both of these will be Wednesday this week Wednesday night
This week So following Wednesday there'll be more detail on these um on both of these articles article 30 and article 31 Um article 31 is accessory dwelling units change to the bylaws Same
situation Um the details will be available after their the planning board's public hearing on Wednesday So if anybody has any questions uh you can either attend that public hearing or bring them up at town meeting Um anything further on those
two all right Article 32 advisory committee reserve funds Uh we're anticipating asking for 25,000 standard amount that request for that Um articles 33 general stabilization fund and 34 reducing the
tax rate Uh we would anticipate taking no action on either of those because it's become our practice to do the financial transfers in the special town meeting in the fall when we have a better sense of what the revenues and expenses are Uh so that concludes the
warrant unless anybody has any questions That will also conclude the hearing I just want to point [Music] out question the reason being there's a
little bit confusion the last time pass in addition to that I think it's fair to let everyone know this evening election for June 23rd The fire department
So the the special election will be June 23rd It it'll be for the the vacant select board position and and if it does Okay Well even if it doesn't pass a town meeting don't you have to have the
override question on the ballot anyway no Didn't we have to have it on the senior center i'm sorry It's about timing Okay Thank you All right Very good Unless anybody has any
questions that will conclude the hearing Motion All right