Uh welcome to our November 25th meeting. Uh we always start with the public participation at Town of Hatfield Select Board meetings. The Hatfield Select Board welcomes everyone to its meetings and all public meetings of the town of Hatfield. All regular and special meetings of the boards and committees of
the town of Hatfield shall be open to the public and shall conform to the open meeting law. Executive sessions are closed to the public and will be held only as prescribed by the statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is important to recognize that the open meeting law affords the opportunity to
listen to the proceedings but not necessarily participate during meetings of the select board and attempt will be made to find a balance between hearing from members of the community and conducting the required business of the half of select board for the public's information. And this meeting is being
recorded under announcements. Just a reminder, December 2nd, we have a special town meeting. It's extremely important that you attend. We'll be getting more into that discussion under topic one. Also, I I want to extend
thank you from the board to everyone for Thanksgiving and wish you and yours a very special holiday season during Thanksgiving this particular week. Uh those are my announcements. Do my colleagues have any announcements?
>> No. >> Okay. >> I'll add one if that's all right, Mr. Chair. >> Um we do have the uh second annual uh tree lighting that will take place on December 6th. Uh the Council on Aging runs that. So thanks to Jerry Rogers and all of her team. They're doing a lot of amazing work to make that happen.
That'll be December 6th at 5:00 pm right here at town hall at the tree outback. That'll be very nice. Be a lot of entertainment, I think. um crafts for kids, all sorts of things. >> Oh, thank you for reminding me of that. All right. Uh
anybody here for public forum? You're here for public forum. We'll come up to the microphone. Good evening. Um my name is George Finn. Um and I'm responsible for uh special projects in
Massachusetts for Local Power. Um Local Power is a company based in Williamsburg. Um although we were active in California and New York and Massachusetts and for 30 years we've worked in decarbonization, working with municipalities to create implementable
systems, leading systems, cutting edge. Um for the last 5 years we've become interested in waste specifically um as a source of carbon but also as a public health crisis with uh PAS the problem of PAS. So we became interested
in trying to find a way to deal with this and we found a company which has a technology which we believe would be uh a solution for this problem. Um and we would like to build a facility in this region in western Massachusetts. And um
but we need and while it would be privately funded and uh built and maintained, we are seeking interest from municipalities, minimal interest um just to achieve essentially a kind of basic security of
supply of waste. Um, and so I was my my reason to come here this evening is to ask if you would be interested to have a presentation to go into detail about this project. >> Well, under public forum, we can't make any comment, but the best thing is to contact our town administrator and get
you on the agenda if you care to be on the agenda. >> All right. Wonderful. >> Is anybody else here for public forum? >> Go right ahead. Um, I just wanted to say thank you so much to Luke um for the Hatfield Hill
Cemetery. Uh, I know it hasn't been mentioned publicly, but you helped get some steps there for the seniors to get up into that cemetery. You were very unbelievably helpful in getting us the steps for that and it was no cost to the town and it was just done out of generosity and thank you so much. That
was very appreciative. >> Absolutely. Bill Inglehart was a huge part of that as well. So, good shout out to Bill as well. >> Anybody else for public forum? >> If not, we will move to our consent agenda. Do I have a motion on the
minutes? >> I'll make a motion to approve the November 12th, 2025 and the November 17th, 2025 meeting minutes. Second. >> Motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Motion carries.
>> Okay. Under posted business, we'll go to topic one. Um, special town meeting. I I at this time I want to thank Luke, Shawnberry, and Andrew for making a video about the reasons behind our
special town meeting. Uh, it's very informative. I hope everybody takes the opportunity to go to uh Hatfield Community TV YouTube uh online and and watch that video before the meeting. And
I I can't stress the importance of of making sure we get a forum of 75. Otherwise, we will be unable to set the tax rate. And we want to be able to set the tax rate. Otherwise, we're in
trouble and we'll have to keep trying until we get it right. So, um, under that topic, I open it up if either of my colleagues like to say something about the special town meeting. >> Yeah, I think, um, we stressed it a
couple different times in the uh, public information video that we made, but one of the major topics is that this vote isn't going to impact taxes. Um it's essentially just moving money from accounts and closing some accounts to be
able to cover the deficit in our budget. Um and really the deficit was because of some clerical errors with chapter 90 money. Um as well as not receiving some state aid that we were anticipating. So this is simply just moving money around.
Um and we need a town vote to be able to do that. So, we hope that we can get a nice strong quorum of at least 75 December 2nd, 6 p.m. Um, so we encourage the public to come. >> I I support it. I I I hope everybody can
make it or at least 75 can make it. >> Okay. What we've been doing is trying to get as much information out there as possible. We've posted the warrant on Facebook and the website. We've created a page on website and information on meeting the warrants and the handouts.
We've posted the event on the town website. We've we've also had a news story uh the gazette discussing it. We've had the recording uh the only we've also emailed boards
and commissioners. We we're trying to post on the sign board outside town hall or the message board. The only question I have to my colleagues is is this something that
should go on code red as as a reminder to the whole town that the meeting will be on Tuesday. And it's important. In the past, there's been code red messages sent out about special
town meetings or other events like if the schools closed or something like that. I mean, there's always a difference on what we want on code red. We don't want to put everything on code red, but since this is a very special meeting, maybe there should be something
on code red on Monday to remind the residents that uh to please come. Yeah. >> Yeah. That would just be that that would mean everybody would that's on code red would get a phone call, >> right? It would be a phone call >> or text or something like that.
>> Yeah. >> Be a nice strong reminder. I think >> I support that. >> Okay. Uh we'll move forward. >> Speak to the police to the fire chief. That should be fine. >> Y should be fine.
>> Yes. Joe, >> you know, I just wanted to point out I I was talking to somebody the other day that they said, "Why do we always have such a negative needing money or something?" And I pointed out that, you know,
22 years as town moderator, people would always look at the down years, the bad years, or bad news or news we had to fix something. I just want to say that I think it was like 10 years, five years, and I think three years ago, I reminded them that it went the other way. Our
free cash did give us a little extra kick. We did have some years of what a surprise. We had some extra money. We put it into stabilization. We put it into free cash. So, we can always focus on the bad news of the day, but it's so easy to forget the good news of
yesterday. So, we we do have some good years and those good years are what helps us fix some little issues that pop up like this. Now, it's maybe not a little issue, but but a few years ago, we had the state come in and take over our our finances
and help us come to fix it much better. Now, when we have a mistake made or an oversight made or something somebody missed, we catch it right away within a few months. Now, it might kick into the next year, but we catch it pretty quickly. and how fortunate we are for that. So, we got to also remember we've
had some good years, too, and we will have more good years. We just thank you guys for helping find this and fix it very quickly. Much appreciation. >> And and I believe also we're changing the way we're reporting things to uh be
more in line with DO's requirements on this. And again, some of the money was money that we anticipated, but the state didn't give us and some of the money uh were items we're not taking
from stabilization or free cash uh request on the articles. We're able to cut within the budget. Uh is it we don't think it's going to be it'll be a minimum impact to the town. Yeah, I think that's, you know, that's something
else to stress and in that public information video it goes over it quite a lot. Um the cuts that we're making are line items that we have over budgeted for in the past. One of them being um
like vocational tuition and transportation. We know that's going to come in about $75,000 under. So, we're going to use $50,000 of that over budget to help fund this. Um the assistant treasurer, we are not filling that position through the end of July or
through the beginning of July. So that leaves us about $50,000 there as well. Um the assessors uh opened up $63,000 in overlay surplus that we will be able to help fund some of this as well as a various multitude of other things. But
those are the three big the three big ones that are allowing us to fill that gap. So, we're not doing anything crazy like shutting street lights off or anything like that that there's going to be any noticeable impact. It's mostly just moving money around um out of some
of our overbudgeted things into this to make up that deficit. and then closing out some project accounts such as the town hall garage renovation, the drainage project on Raymond Avenue, um the new trash compactor that's just about wrapped up at the DP or at the
transfer station, and then there's some stuff from the fire department, uh such as the laptop for the ambulance and the SCBA that had remaining funds in it, um that we're hoping to close those accounts out and then transfer that money in. So again, like you said, Chair
Jorski, um we're not going to have to touch free cash or stabilization to be able to fund this deficit. And again, it's not going to affect taxation. And we're not asking for any more money from from the town's people. It's it's >> I do want to thank Andrew and his team
for coming up with this suggestion of where we could find the money. So I appreciate that. It's been a group effort with everybody looking at things and working together. And I I do appreciate the whole the whole crew uh getting together and working out
something. Uh of course hopefully in the future with we're going to be changing our spreadsheets. We're going to be changing our uh information or data. So my only question on this meeting is we should be posting it earlier. We usually
on a special meeting the the board usually meets like a a half an hour earlier. So, we may have to post it like at 5:30 for the board to meet at the elementary school in case we want to go over who's going to do the articles or
anything like that or >> that should be posted. We we've posted meetings for finance committee and select board at 5:30 at the elementary school >> in case any questions from the moderator or >> from Tom Mullins. I assume Tom Mullins will be there or not. I'm not sure.
>> Tom will not be there. Um he's arranged for uh the city solicitor in Northampton, Alan Sewald, to to fill in for him. >> Um >> yeah, they're both great. We've had them before, so that'll work out. >> So, do we have any questions pertaining
to the articles, the way they're presented or >> uh the process? Everything's all set up for the elementary school with Connor and and we're all good to go, right? Yes, we have a room request in that they know
how we want it set up that that all all should be fine. I'll make sure we're good for chairs and everything else, but it should be fine. >> Okay. So, as far as this topic, are we missing anything else on this topic or can we move to the next topic?
>> I think uh you'll you can expect to see a final version of the um the motions from me. We'll get that finalized, but what you see in your packet should be pretty close to what we'll do. Uh we'll have that printed for everybody along with any handouts. Uh handouts are getting approved by the moderator. We we should be good to go.
>> Okay. And I I do hope everybody goes to Hatford Community TV YouTube and see the presentation from Luke, Andrew, and Sean on what this is all about. And it's it's like some it's more of a bookkeeping
issues, correct, >> with us in the state that have to be taken care of so we can set the tax rate and then without that we're in we're in trouble. Okay. So, uh my colleagues have
anything else on this before we move? >> No, I'm good. >> Okay. We'll move to topic two which is introduction to ecode 360. I believe we have some folks here for this topic along with Joe and Nancy. I don't know
if you need three chairs up there or uh to start this. All we're going to do is explain about the e-code 360 um in the last the last presentation we came to. We explained what ecode 360 was about and how it can
help us. So I'll I'll repeat again. I I'll try to sum it up real quick. When we go to town meeting, all we're asking towns people at the first step, according to the process that was told to us, in a little bit more simple terms,
according to town attorney, any change to our bylaws needs towns people's vote. The first step is to change our format. Not change any bylaws, just change the format it's in. To do that, we need
their permission. So where we thought we could do this presentation this year, we got to wait till next year. And that gives us time with Andrew to work on on how we're doing it. Um so any and I I want to please be very careful of this. Any bylaw recommended changes coming
from the select board or departments has nothing to do with what we're working on. We're reviewing our town bylaws to bring them up to 2025 2026 wording and verbiage. But we're not changing. If you need to
change bylaws, that's up to you and the town's people, and I get that. That's a normal process every year. But what we're trying to do is come up with a bylaw process where people can go online and do a search query, search up by
word, anything they want. We have nouns, adjectives, and words that are so outdated because it's just been bandated for 50 years. Nobody's gone through this to the degree that we've been doing this year. So, we came across uh EC code 360
and we found out that there's I don't know almost half the towns or close to half the towns in the state. >> 159 publicly accessible codes on E code 360 being built out of 351. So what they do is they they put
together our bylaws in a format and put it into the new one. So what we'd look to do next year is come to town meeting is is to say you've given you've given us the permission to change the format
not to look at it but next year we can have two forms. our old bylaws written in 50 60 70 pages of what they were and the new format where you can look it up online and access it and it's the same
but if we can evolve into the new way we can compare ourselves to other towns. So when you see a board or a committee come up or somebody with wanting a new bylaw made up or create a bylaw through them we can compare it to other like kind
towns and they would go through looking at the whole legal process. So we wouldn't even have to use our town attorneys to do all that research. They have it. So, as I as I pointed out, ECODE 360, and we were
talking a few minutes ago, they're a nonprofit, and I like to remind people of this. They're the same company that's put together the International Building Codes, the International Residential Codes, the Fire Code, International Fire Code, International Energy Conservation
Code, and Plumbing Code. And there's probably more, but they do this for parts of the entire nation to help out. and they're able to do this for our town at a pretty unbelievably low cost. So, do you want to talk about your eco?
>> Yeah, sure. Like gonna start, you know, kind of who we are, how we got to this point. >> Cool. >> Is it okay if I stand? I was sitting for three hours. >> Sure. Thank you. >> Uh my name is Zachary Dumont. I work for General Code. We're division of the International Code Council. We're based
out of Western New York in uh the city of Rochester. I also happen to live in Rochester, New Hampshire. It's only a little bit confusing, but um I cover >> I cover all of New England. So um every single municipality in uh that make up
New England um I try to help them with their ordinances, with their bylaws, with their rules, and their regulations. Now, as a municipal codifier, the idea that we want to get people to uh get comfortable with is that sometimes locally drafted compilations of
legislation are not always the easiest things to understand and to navigate through and for your clerk to be able to go back and track the history. So, when somebody comes in and says, "I want a copy of XYZ from 1952," it might take some time. What we want to do is help communities transform how the look, fit,
and feel of their uh regulations are so that when you do adopt a new bylaw or amend a pre-existing one, it's very easy to go in and say, "Hey, we're looking at chapter 25 dogs and it's article three that we want to update instead of right now it's probably the process of a
warrant article two and you have eight paragraphs of text and we trying to figure out what actually is happening." So in codifying we have a couple of different ways to do it. Um we have a comprehensive project where we can go through and provide a substantive uh review of the editorial and uh legal
framework of your existing code to come back and say hey you know you might be out of date here you might be out of alignment here with state statutes whatever it might be. We all know the MBTA zoning law has been contentious in a lot of communities. So when we go through and we look at the existing legislation we can look at your uh state
statutes and come back and say hey here's some areas where you might be out of date. some things that you can look through to either correct or update or just leave them as is if you want to, but at least you know that they're out there. Um, the second way we codify is just focusing on the format and the structure of the code. Um, regardless of
which way you go about, you get something that looks like this at the end. This is a real true municipal code. In this case, it's for the town of Retham. This book's about five years out date, but every community that I work with in New England gets at least one of these at the end. So, you have a real official hardbound copy. Then of course
uh what you folks have heard about we have the online version which is e-code 360. It's been about since late 2006 really kind of 2008 and we've been trucking through ever since. I'm going to bring this up to the board if you want to thumb through it. It's a real legal code. You can see the structure.
You can see the stylization and we brought one because they're about 10 pounds a piece. I don't like carrying more than one. Um, the idea though is that should you choose to move forward with general code, when all is said and done, it's typically about 18 to 24 months by the time you get town meeting
scheduled, get the AG to sign off, then we send everything to the printer. You'll have one of those books. It'll sit in your clerk's office. When you go to town meeting, you can pull it out. When your folks have questions or concerns about their bylaws or they want to know what's being regulated at the town level, they can just quickly go
online and grab a copy for themselves. It's freely accessible to the public 247. You don't require a special login. You don't need any sort of special computer skills to get to it. And what uh 99% of our communities do is they'll take the hyperlink to the e-code site
and just embed it on their town website. It clicks over. Folks do their research, they close out of a tab, they go on their way. As your clerk gets new warrant articles adopted and filed with the AG, she'll send them out to us. We'll incorporate them into the code. And then for every book that you have,
we'll also send printed inserts so you can keep the physical copies up to date. I really stress you don't really need more than two or three of those books. If a couple towns that order 15, 20, I have one that bought 40 and it's not fun. So, usually one or two are good and then everybody goes online. What's great
about having an online platform to have your bylaws accessible is anytime your committees change, you turn over, whether it's the select board, whether it's planning board, you know, everybody's jumping to be on a planning board. Um, you can quickly go online and just download the chapters that pertain to their subject matter. They have a
quick copy that you can make in house. You don't have to go out and buy a $400 volume, worry about reprinting things every so often. You can just go online and get it. It's also works great on mobile devices, iPads, tablets, and of course your laptops. How we doing so far? Because there's a
lot I can talk about. Well, I think it's it's good because I mean I want people to understand this has been like a a a two or three-step process before we go and change bylaws. We want to know where everything is and get it organized. Yeah. >> So, this is the first step just to to
get it organized somewhat. Yes. It's sort of like right now what we have is like a an office with one filing cabinet that's overfilling and there's files all over the place. So I I want people to think of it in that perspective and now we're going to organize it. So
>> want a nice clean looking filing cabinet, you want a nice clean looking vault. Uh the way we um codify, we said we have two different ways to do it. Um for you folks, if the primary concern right now is to just get a code restructured and online and not do any
of the big substantive stuff, the reformatting project is great. usually closer to that 18-month timeline instead of the full 24 months. We go through the first phase. We put together what we call the organizational analysis that lays out the new recommended table of contents and overall structure and style
for your bylaws. So, everything whether it's, you know, a simple dog or simple dog bylaw or all of your planning and zoning and subdivision regulations, whatever they might be, we're going to review everything. We'll break them apart. We'll reformat them into what we think makes the most sense. We'll kick
that off to the town, whether it's the uh bylaw review committee le or something with your town admin. You folks will review it. Let us know what your thoughts are. If you see things that need to be tweaked or readjusted, we'll do that for you. Then we'll move on to a preliminary draft which will have all the substantive text of your
new code. Then after you approve the preliminary draft, we'll do a final draft. Then that's what goes to town meeting. We'll also save you the headache of writing the warrant articles. We'll do that for you. Um then you go to town meeting. Hopefully it's all thumbs up. you let us know, the AG approves it, and three months later, uh,
we get everything printed and online and ready to go. If you do the comprehensive project, there will be a substantive review phase that occurs prior to any drafts, at which point you'll see any questions or comments or thoughts or concerns that we might have. You can elect not to make any changes and of
course just go forward with the uh um reformatting and use the substantive review as a workbook for things to work on over the next two, three, five years, whatever makes sense to you. Or if there were some mission critical items in there that you thought, well, hey, here's a huge liability, we could go in
and mark up those changes so when it goes to town meeting, you're only talking about a couple of small changes instead of saying, hey, we want flying cars and Whimos on our on our streets or we want traffic lights, right? >> No, we don't. Nobody wants this. But um there are a couple different ways to do it. Um it's really just a matter of what
you folks as a as a body think makes the most sense for your uh citizens and constituents and then we'll put together. >> We'll be depending a lot on our committee to help guide us through that process. Yes. >> Uh because we highly recommend that they be part of that process which they
already have been. So >> we recommend it too. Um the fact that you guys already have a bylaw review committee thinking about this you're already leagues have had of communities who just haven't even gotten to this step yet. We've been codifying for almost 70 years now, 1250ish
municipalities in New England and there are only about 350 that have chosen to codify. We still have towns that can't get a committee of three or four people together to sit down and say, "What laws do we have and how do we make them better?" So you guys are already leagues ahead. This will get you that next step. This will get you online and into the
digital age with your bylaws. And uh we have some communities who have codified with us for over 50 years. We're still actively supporting them today. So you don't have to worry about the structure or styles changing too much year over year because we try to keep >> I think that'll be great because I know even being on the board there's
questions that come up and there's been many of times I've been going to the bylaws trying to find them. Where is that particular bylaw so we can understand it. This will make it a lot easier for future boards or even the present board. Uh if this finally gets
>> it should be as simple as hey this was amended by article 12 in let's think in the future 2036. Well great I can go in and I can pull that real quickly as opposed to let me go back and look at paper files or even the vellum files from 18 whatever and still not have an idea of what what it was. But having a
consistent outline and you know the same language throughout all the bylaws across all committees is good. It's exactly >> it's super helpful. I mean I'm also on the conservation commission and >> just within our own there's four different styles of texts and five different types of language and it's
it's a disaster you know. So being able to update everything is and have a similar layout and have it be searchable is just going to be fantastic. So I think we all very strongly support this project. I can just explain that Elena Wilcox as town clerk, Nancy Sheay as,
you know, lifelong town resident, uh, reg uh, retired nurse, Greg Gon on your board. Uh, we've got Kyle Scott, building inspector. Um, and and you know, we've got a lot of areas covered
that we know, we've all been in this town for a long time. We've got Andrew helping out for sure. And if anybody wants to take a look at an example, they can take a look at Hadley's. Just Google up Hadley's bylaws and they can take a
look at what we're talking about. Um, and they've left room for if you see like bylaw number 10, you're going to see a whole bunch of spaces and it's for future bylaws if people want to add them without adding and changing all the numbers in the future. But um whatever
we come up with is going to go through your board first and then it's going to go to town. So we're we're not making a decision. We're just trying to do all the homework to the best degree we can. So our first step is town meeting this year to just get the permission to do this.
>> And just to be clear, that's town meeting in May. Not this special time. Yes. >> Right. In May. In May. And then next year, the following year would be to try to accept what we're looking at. So, do you ladies have anything to add?
>> No, I it's it's great to hear the support, I think, because, >> you know, we tripped on that. We did. >> We just tripped over this. Yeah. Um but to to see the ability to bring forward organization and clarification
from what is not terribly >> and and it's going to include all of our zoning bylaws because that almost doubles the process. But yes, >> and >> I think also like once it's organized, it'll make the process of review a lot easier and seamless and uh you can find
stuff that is redundant or anything like that or where the legality language needs to be changed and things like that. So I think we're all in very much support of this and this was a great introduction. So thank you. For reference, I looked at the general bylaws, zoning bylaws as amended through
2025. Board of Health regulations regarding tobacco use 2015, well regulations 2017, subdivision 2019, and the uh Department of Public Works rules and rags amended in 2010. So, you got a good smattering of legislation there. Probably about 300 or so pages. You'd
consider this a a complete code since you're doing general zoning and everything else in between. And then um as you develop your laws over time, if ever there's a new section or subject matter, you want to regulate cannabis as its own separate chapter, you have room
to do that. So can shrink and grow as the town shrinks and grows. >> And I think also if we had to have our town attorney review all this and do all this, it would cost many, many thousands of dollars more than that. >> Yeah. >> Well, I'm sure they're not complaining. >> Oh, no. I get that. No, but uh no, we we
try to offer a very budget friendly, very streamlined method. Um when we start this project, uh most important thing, two signatures from you, two signatures from us, and then we're off and running. Um but we will invoice the project cost over the duration. So in
some cases, uh communities can finance over two fiscal years to lessen any immediate budget impact. There's also a little bit more uh easing into it as well, which we like. But generally, we try to get you as close to, you know, bottom dollar as we can because we want you to have a great experience and a great service. But we recognize that
these are tax dollars. And I say that as somebody who used to have to draft municipal budgets. >> But as comprehensive as this sounds, what is the price range we're looking at? Just so people >> about 14.5,000, which from the packet that we were presented, um, which I think is very,
very reasonable. And >> and that's then there's a maintenance year. >> Maintenance yearly after that looks like it's about 1,300. So, which pretty affordable, >> very affordable, I think. So, um I mean we we can take a look at budget line
items and stuff where we can include that. Maybe we can include as part of a technology line or something along those lines, but um yeah, we'll start trying to figure out a way to fund this and it sounds like it's something that most people would support. Some communities uh when it comes to the
actual budgeting process, we'll stick it under the admin's budget just as like a code maintenance line or just you know code or codification outright. Other communities choose to put it in under the clerks. It's really up to you. Um what I would recommend though is if you are adding anything to her budget, be mindful of the fact that it's multiple departments with bylaws that will be
impacted. So just want to be aware of that. But um it's you can do it any any dozen ways. Just a clarification, we've talked about how we would maybe start with the reformatting but not do anything else. I I think there's been some guidance from general code about maybe trying to prioritize the full
version of the project rather than doing one phase and one than another. It might be better to do the full codification if that's the direction you want to go because otherwise you're kind of duplicating steps. >> Comprehensive projects which uh the base price is $14995 $14,995
generally will get you a better value. um in the long run because you're doing everything all at once. It's one project. One set of project fees, one set of attorneys fees, one set of editor's fees, all wrapped up in one. You can do the reformatting project. You can supplement your code over time once
it's live. Just time and materials it takes to integrate the new changes, whether it's, you know, a year from now or 20 years from now. It's an influence when the work is done. Um, we could even, if you just did the reformatting project, you could come back five years later, we could do a standalone legal review at that point in time if you
wanted our opinion. But for most communities, I'd say it's probably about 85% will do the comprehensive project because it's all wrapped up in one. Um, and then the other 15% or so will just do the reformatting because that's what the town's appetite is for. Um, you folks will know better than what I do if
you have folks in town who want to get things updated and modernized right now immediately and or the folks who like things the way they are. It's the best way to say it. >> And I did want to point out as a board we're we're talking with most every board possible about them to think about
what they would need or what they would like to have looked at or thought about or changed or considered. Um, and we're going to be doing this for the next year coming. uh we don't charge for that. Uh but you know, it's it's helpful to get every board aware of what we're trying
to accomplish in the end. So >> yeah, if if you folks do want to do the the comprehensive project and you have what we like to call the naughty list, all the things that hey, your planner knows that this is bad or your building officer knows that they're not happy with it, send us that naughty list before we start. So when we start that
substantive review, we can be mindful. Oh, right, they wanted examples of whatever it might be. >> And we've been accumulating that. I just have a question. If we did the full um cotification or codification, would that that would not be at this next town meeting? That would take longer for you to do all that.
>> Uh yeah. Okay. So, it's about 18 to 24 months start to finish. So, we can kick off the project whenever you're ready. If you want to wait till the May town meeting to get the approval and the uh uh money from the voters, great. We can start July 1. That is very very common in Massachusetts. Uh I would say every
project I have done in the last three years has been that way except for one. Um if we were to start in July of 2026, most likely the code draft from a comprehensive uh code project, you'd see probably end of 27 uh 2027 at the
earliest, maybe early May of 2028. It's really going to depend on how much do we have to update, amend, and restructure. And then also when we finish the draft and it's ready to go to town meeting, how close are we to the next one? Uh sometimes we get it where we missed it by a month. Other times we get it where
we're two months early so you can get in and go. So odds are it'll end up either at an autumn or spring town meeting. It's just depends on how quickly we can move through it. Um what I do like to say is the faster you folks do your work, the faster we'll try to get our work done. But uh we do have three editors for uh Massachusetts, so they
juggle about five to six projects a piece. So just bear with them. >> Well, I think all we need is town people's permission at annual town meeting to say we can look at this and and and change >> only. Okay. >> There's no legal requirement for it. The
only >> we would just need their approval once the product is done by. But because that's a big ask, you really want to notify people, you know, as you go along each step, which I think, you know, you're doing we're doing right now. >> Yeah. I think I think that's good.
>> I I have found generally that in in the case where we're talking about going to town meeting, it is, hey, we need X,000 for this project and while you're introducing the article, hey, this is what we expect to get out of this. So folks are aware and they are educated prior to making that vote. Um, which
obviously you want to give them all the information you can >> and we have 159 codes you can look at for examples. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Well, I do want to thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it. And I do want to thank the committee for the work you put into this because I think the
product at the end is going to be well worth getting for this town and making it easier for people to find you know the bylaws and find stuff like that. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Um so you folks have a proposal uh sorry you folks have a quote that was valid
for six months the date I gave it to you. At some point in the next threeish months or so, let me know what project path you want to do, whether it's the comprehensive or the reformatting. Uh from there, it'll take about two weeks to get the actual proposal put together. And I apologize in advance. It's going to be about 32 pages. Uh but then once
you guys sign and return that to me, my vice president and production manager will sign off and turn back to you. And then within 30 business days thereof, we'll have an editor assigned, a primary uh project manager, and uh we'll get the ball rolling. Um, also as working with us, you can call on me whenever you
would like. I'm always happy to come out. I don't bill for any of my time. You won't get an invoice from me being here tonight. You won't get an invoice from me being here 10 years from now. You can call whenever except when the Patriots are playing because they're actually doing something this year. >> I'm hoping we get some recommendations from our committee on which way we should go on this.
>> Yes, no problem. >> That would be great. >> Thank you. Thank you, Zachary, for coming out. >> Cheers. I'll leave you Oh, I have back. >> All right. Okay, topic three,
uh, change of manager for TWA Casmira, better known as the Polish club. We approved this previously, so I just need a motion on this. >> I'll make a motion to approve the change of manager. >> I'll second that.
>> Okay, motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? >> No. >> All in favor? Motion carries. >> Topic four. >> If you wouldn't mind, could we just take Tammy real quick cuz she's been impatient. She' be topic six. >> Okay. Tammy. Sure.
>> Yeah. >> We'll we'll take you out of order. We'll go right to topic six >> and we'll go back to five and then to four. >> That's the way we'll do it tonight. So, I have a proposal to increase both of my part-time employees
um just due to the fact that they're putting in um extra effort um with my cut for the assistant treasurer um for this year until July. So, I'm just looking to increase them to compensate them for all the extra work that they're
putting in in my office. >> That sounds reasonable. I mean, you are cutting that position until July. So, the workload has to be picked up on others. And since you have a couple people that are willing to take on the workload, I don't have a problem with
with the increase, I'll open for discussion to my colleagues. >> I'll just say we do have the budget for this. This not increase the budget for this position. >> Yes, it's within my budget line. >> It's within the budget. Yeah. Okay. And we even do still have some room in that assistant treasurer position above
the 50k that we plan to cut in case we need to dip into that. But we we really shouldn't be. This fits within the treasurer staff line. >> How does that work when that position? >> Right. That was my only question if we should make it a stipend rather than a hourly pay increase. >> I think there's two ways we could deal
with it. We could either do a stipen for this year so it's understood as being temporary or we could just plan to then not give that position colas the next year or two which probably wouldn't completely even out but that's another option available is you do like an early increase of the position now and plan
not to do a salary adjustment. So >> next July >> how you look at that Tammy if it's a stipen for the additional work until you hire somebody or do you feel that the
responsibilities of the individuals you want to increase after July will stay at a higher level or >> I think that the at July once we can hire the new assistant treasur collector. I think that their work will
probably stay similar to what they'll actually be doing now because the assistant treasurer collector is going to end up taking on other stuff with our increased water sewing billing when we go quarterly. We're going to have more to be done in the office. So, we're
going to actually have increased work come next year. a reasonable answer, >> but that goes for everybody in town. And is this uh are the hours going to increase also? >> Not unless uh Brenda's hours are not
going to increase. If we find Lori, we may maybe need her an extra day or two. You know, we'll ask her to pick up an extra day, but we should still have enough within the budget line to pay her out. >> Their hours will probably go down. >> Yeah, she's hourly. So yeah,
>> her hours will go down after the other person on board. >> She'd go back down to her normal hours. >> Any other questions? >> And I do want to support our our folks in town hall or that have have to take on additional responsibilities and
duties. And I know that office, your office is probably one of the busiest offices and the town cuz you guys go through all payroll, all taxes, all billing, everything goes through there.
So, that's one reason I I really don't have a problem because I know once once these folks take on the additional responsibilities, they'll continue uh working at that that higher level. >> Mhm. >> And I don't think the increase you're
asking for is is that much personally that. But that's just my opinion. I don't know how my colleagues feel about it. >> I'm okay with it. >> Okay. I'm okay with it and I I I trust that the person in charge of that department
>> has good judgment and uh and I support you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. With that being said, do I have a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve pay increase of $1.29 an hour for Lori Composio
and $1.93 an hour for Brenda Kier. >> I'll second that motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> motion carries. Thank you, Tammy. And thank you, Tammy, for all you do. I mean, you put a lot of time and effort in yourself, and we do appreciate it.
Even though we may not say it all the time, we do appreciate all the work you do, Tammy. >> So, if we wouldn't mind going next um to topic five, uh we do have someone online here to speak with us this evening if that's all right with you, Mr.
>> That's fine. That's fine. We topic five. So this is another interesting things that we kind of have a balance tonight of things that we needed to do more urgently and then things uh that we can look at moving forward. Uh this is a great opportunity for the town called um commercial property assess clean energy. It's a program run by Mass Development
uh which is my former employer. It's long uh enough away that I don't have to disclose any conflicts of interest. But uh I know a lot of the team there and they do a great job with this this program. Uh so we are lucky enough to have a representative from Mass Development with us here tonight, Connor. Uh who has a quick presentation
he'd love to uh go through with us to kind of talk about how uh CPACE works and then what uh the obligation is for the town, what some of the benefits are for the town and uh what it takes to to to opt into this program. So I'll let uh Connor take it from here if you can hear
see and speak to us. >> Okay, folks. Can you hear me? All right. >> Sounds great. Yep. >> Yes. Um, thank you Andrew for that introduction and thank you for letting me join tonight, especially join remotely. I do appreciate it. Um, but I'm Connor Glen. I'm an assistant vice president and program coordinator of
green finance at mass development. And we oversee the Massachusetts CPACE program, which is commercial property assessed clean energy. And as Andrew mentioned, I do have a presentation I can share with you guys. >> You should be able to share your screen, Conor.
>> Perfect. Um >> be a button in the middle that says share screen. I think if you see it. >> Yeah, it's there but it won't let me >> go from there. >> The option to share is kind of blacked
out. Let me try again. >> How about that? >> Nope. >> Can you guys see my screen now? >> I don't think so. Um wait. Better go to the screen. Let me see
options. >> How about now? >> Uh, so we see your screen. Yeah, that's that should be there. We go. >> There we go. We're in now. >> All right. Very good. >> Sorry. Thank you for bearing with me with the tech tech. Um, so if you're not familiar with who Mass Development is, we are the Commonwealth's Development Finance
Agency and Land Bank. We work with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, communities to stimulate economic growth throughout Massachusetts. Uh we promote capital investment and economic development by providing financing and development
solutions. In fiscal year 20 2025, we finance or manage over 400 projects generating an investment of more than $4.65 billion in the Massachusetts economy. And we have a huge focus obviously on housing. of these projects are estimated to have create or
supported over 25,000 jobs and build or preserve over 2,800 housing units. As I mentioned, one of the programs that we do oversee is called Property Assess Clean Energy or known as PACE. We call it CPACE as well because we only have a commercial program here. We do not have
a residential PACE program as some states uh do. And what PACE is, it is allows commercial property owners to access finance um for energy improvements or new construction projects and they are builds uh via special betterment assessments on their
property tax bills. So for the benefits of this program for municipalities um it's job creation you know bring new jobs in either through construction or if it's a you know new construction project um things like that uh attract new and retain existing business
environmental benefits associated with reducing energy consumption to the property owners uh allows them access to long-term non-reourse financing. um it doesn't show up as new debt on their balance sheet and there's no uh required payoff upon sale of the
property. Um the assessments would run to the new owner if uh the property is sold that has a pace lean on it. And for the lenders or the mortgage holders, it improves their cash flow and reduce credit risk from lower operating costs via financing that cannot be accelerated. Capital improvements could
also increase the collateral property value. So there is a national commercial PACE market as well. We're not the only state that has a program. Right now 32 states plus Washington DC have active PACE programs and there's 40 states in plus
DC that have enabling legislation. So that that just means their state legislature has passed a statute enabling PACE but they just don't have an active program quite yet. And as of June of 2025 $9.7 billion has been financed for over 3,500 projects. And
that graph at the bottom of this page just shows you cpace dollars funded by building type. So nationally, hospitality is the most used sector followed by office and retail uh and so on. Here in New England, um there's a lot of
other states that have uh pace programs. Some have been around for a while such as Connecticut. They kind of have the gold standard of a program. They've been around since 2011 and they are administered by the Connecticut Green Bank. Rhode Island has enabling legislation and they are sponsored by the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.
New Hampshire is working on getting their program ready as is Maine. And then currently Vermont is the only state in New England that doesn't have a PACE program or enabling legislation. In the graph there just goes by CPACE projects about by mount finance. So you can see
that around 20% of the deals are considered small deals that are $500,000 or less. Median deals are 500,000 to 4.9 million. it's 46%. The larger deals, anything over 5 million is 34%. Our program in Massachusetts launched in
the summer of 2020. First, it was just for retrofit, so it was for only for existing buildings. Um, the commercial properties could apply for the financing. Uh, new construction became eligible in May of 2023. Mass Development is the program administrator, but we also uh work with
the Department of Energy Resources, the DOE. they are like the technical administrators of the program. They write our technical guidelines um and they have to approve the project as well for it to move forward. We have a lot more information um on our website that we can refer folks to um including our
approval requirements, the guidelines, financing documents, and an RFI for new capital providers all on the mass uh development.com under the green finance page. Um our PACE guidelines currently we're on version 2.1. They were updated in March 2025 and it was just some
updates for new construction eligibility. This slide is the PACE flow funds. It just goes over how um the financing works in a PACE transaction. Um so it's all private capital providers or CPS. Um they extend the financing and are repaid
via the betterment assessments which is collected by the municipality which is why PACE is a voluntary program. So the financing is provided to the property owner all up front by one of these private capital providers. Um property owner installs the energy improvements or it's a new construction project and
then they start to pay the betterment assessment. Usually what a municipality does is they just add the betterment assessment to the property tax. So um if Hatfield I don't know how you folks bill but if you're annually or semiannually or quarterly um that's how often the
pace kind of repayment schedule will get tailored to. It's a max period of 20 years. So let's say you're quarterly in your property taxes and that's how you want to bill for the betterment assessments. These properties, any project that has a closing in Hatfield, they'd be four payments every year for
20 years. Um and that's how that would work. So the municipality, like I said, bills and collects that and they send it to um our MDFA paying agent. MDFA, that's mass development. Our paying agent is Zion's Bank. So the paying agent receives and disperses the
betterment assessment and sends it back to the original capital provider that provided the financing. These are the eligible properties for new construction and existing um PACE pathways. So obviously commercial and industrial so like office buildings, malls, hotels, restaurants,
manufacturers, nonforprofits can qualify for CPACE financing. Um usually if they are have a pilot agreement with the local municipality or if the municipality has the ability to generate a property tax bill for them and put you know zero zero
dollars on it and then they can put the betterment assessment uh by line on the property tax. And then multif family housing um qualifies as a commercial building, but it needs to be five units or more. These are just some of the eligible measures that are applicable for CPACE
financing. Our guidelines list all of the eligible measures that are qualifying for CPACE. So, in the energy efficiency side, um, if a building owner is looking to do, you know, a new energy management system, uh, new insulation or air sealing, replace their HVAC system,
replace boilers or furnaces, replace lighting, um, or new energy recovery and redistribution systems, that's all qualifying for PACE. On the renewable energy side, the most popular kind of inquiries we get are for solar panel installation, solar hot water, or
geothermal. These next few slides um are just some of the case studies that we've closed so far. This was actually the very first pace deal that was closed in Massachusetts in Greenfield, Mass. It was a blighted historic 12,000 foot uh square foot building that was rescued
and transformed. Um the system building systems needed major upgrades and um this was actually a retroactive financing where um PACE uh was financed after the improvements. there is a retroactive window. Um, and it was obviously uh the energy improvements
into a fixed 20-year term. As I mentioned earlier, 20 years is the max repayment schedule. Um, they installed a solar PD system on the roof, efficient electrification of space heating, energy recovery, ventilation, LED lighting and controls and improvements to the windows
and insulation. Uh, the lifetime energy savings is 189,000 kilowatts. capital provider is uh on this deal was New Green Capital and the mortgage holder that provided consent uh is Berkshire Bank. I'll go into why we included that
in a minute or two. Um and the amount of financing here was $450,000 um over 20 years, being repaid over 20 years, I should say. This next one was out in Boston um over by Logan Airport. Um it's was a
120,000 foot mixeduse warehouse building um that had 13 commercial tenants. Similar energy improvements made uh from the previous slide. The only thing I'll add here is they also did a new roof. You can uh qualify for PACE financing for a new roof. Um larger lifetime
energy efficiency savings here over 1.5 million kilowatts. New was the capital provider again. Uh the mortgage holder here was People's United Bank. slightly higher financing amount of 780 uh just over $787,000
um being paid over 20 years. Then again another cargo ventures project also by the airport um slightly larger building 150,000 square foot building uh with a four-story office space and attached distribution center.
Again, all similar improvements um from the previous slides um as well as some building envelope upgrades and air sealing upgrades. Um New again was our capital provider. They've been very popular here in Massachusetts. Um Mnt Bank was our mortgage holder on this
one. The thing of note on this project is the ground lease acknowledgement. Um since this is by the airport in Boston, uh Massport actually owned the land here. So, they had to provide a ground lease acknowledgement. Um, so it's just basically another layer of approvals that needed to go through for this deal
to close. And the amount of financing was just over $1.1 million. And this was our most recent deal um down in New Bedford. It was a seafood processing and distribution facility. This was strictly a solar panel installation uh project and roof
replacement to so it be solar ready. Um this was Amalgamated Bank's first PACE deal in the state. And then Brookshire Bank again was the mortgage holder that provided consent. Um so they're pretty familiar with PACE. Um and a financing amount of just over $1.1 million. Again,
so the key elements of PACE. So obviously the municipal optin is required. Um we did have a property owner approach us uh and Hatfield about their interest in pursuing CPACE financing. I will note they haven't officially applied yet so I won't note uh who the property owner is but um this
is how kind of the conversation kicked off first with Andrew and you know brought us here tonight. Um I mentioned the max financing is 20 years that's dependent on the useful life of all the project measures. um for a retrofit project. So for
existing buildings, uh currently the energy cost savings must exceed the cost of improvements um including any financing costs and associated fees. Um so that's basically an SI uh what we call the SIR requirement. The DO requires there be like a savings to
investment ratio and that ratio needs to be greater than one. Um so there is that um SI requirement for any of the retrofit uh application pathways. Uh there is no limit um or maximum financing cost as well. If the property
is sold, the remaining pace assessment uh and pace lean stays with the property and transfers to the new owner. There is retroactive consideration for insolved improvements. There is a like usually it's an 18th month window, but usually what starts the clock there is once they
get the certificate of occupancy, that's when the clock starts ticking on the retroactive consideration. And it's all thirdparty uh private financing. No public funds are used in our CPACE program. And currently we do have an open ongoing RFI for more PACE uh
Massachusetts capital providers. Right now we have 17 organizations that we've registered on our registry. Continuing on here, um the PACE application must be approved by DO and Mass Development for financing to close. The mortgage holders written consent is
required as well. So if there's a mortgage on the property, they need to give us that written consent um where the deal can't go forward. That's why we note on all those case studies who the mortgage holder was. Um once the deal is going to close, uh the betterment assessment and pace lean is placed at
closing. Mass development's council prepares all the closing documents and handles the recording at the registry. The lean is assigned to the town or city, then assigned to Mass Development, and then to the capital provider. The capital provider holds enforcement rights to pursue remedies in a default.
Um if that does happen, PACE cannot be accelerated. Um it's only the unpaid build assessment can be pursued in a default. And if there is a default, um any municipal leans are senior to the PACE lean. PACE lean is senior to the private mortgage holder in a default. So
basically, you know, in a scenario, if someone's in a default and let's say they're not paying their property taxes, the town has preceded and gets paid first. Um, so you were senior to any the PACE lean and then pace and then the private mortgage holder.
And then at this month, we have 80 participating uh municipalities. Bill Ricko was the uh number 80 uh that got us there. Here are all the uh 80 of them listed alphabetically u for the pace communities that have opted in and then just a map kind of showing you
the geographic spread we have across the states so far of these 80 communities and then wrapping up here. Um I didn't make this slide our our lawyers did and they always say that we have to include this. Um they love this slide. It's a little bit of a crazy slide. Um there's
a lot going on here, but essentially it's um just the commercial PACE structure. It's the structure of any PACE deal. It's all the different entities and how they kind of interact with each other, who's responsible for what, and all the different kind of things that go on in a PACE transaction. Um this is included too in our
guidelines document that's available on our website. And uh this is just our team. We're a small team at Mass Development. There's only three of us. Wendy Ali has been at Mass Development for a while. she started the CPACE program. Um, and I work with my colleague Rob Dolan. He
covers the southern region and greater Boston area of the state. I cover the west, central, and north regions of the state. But that is the presentation. I know it's a lot of information, so I'm happy to circle back on any slides or answer any questions or any uh listen to any
comments you may have. >> Okay, I'm just I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. So, if I got this right and if I understand it correctly, the Commonwealth established the commercial sustainable energy program
and it's known as the Massachusetts Property Assess Clean Energy Program and it's in your setup to provide a financing mechanism to private owners of commercial and industrial properties for certain qualifying commercial energy
approvements. So if what is the process if does that mean anybody in our town if we decide to accept this can apply if they meet the qualifications or what is the whole
purpose of and this is all private funds. It's not it's not by the town. The town's in any no way responsible for any of this this money or financing. Is that correct? Or just to simplify things, if we say we're part of this
program, then any anybody in our town, if they qualify, can participate. Is that how this works? >> Correct. Yeah. So, it's it's like you said, it's a finance mechanism. So, it just gives property owners um access to
additional kind of ways to um get access to financing. So they might be they might have like exhausted their traditional lending options um and that's why they go to you know a pace uh program or you know the fact that it's attached to the property and it's
non-reourse financing which means it can't be accelerated that might be the reason why they pursue it. Um, and the way it is is that the town works with us, Mass Development, and the capital provider. You guys kind of, like I said, are the the recollection uh mechanism where you are kind of billing the
repayment on the property tax bill. Um, and you receive the repayment and you send it on to our paying agent science bank. So, you kind of are a partner in this. Um, but like you said, the town's not on the hook any for anything financially or liable, anything like that. um Mass Development and we have a
a consultant too called Municap. Munichap and Mass Development will work with the town on any kind of PACE deal that does come forward. Um like I said, there was an interested uh property owner. They haven't officially applied yet, but what would happen is if they do
apply and they get their application approved by us, Mass Development and by the DOE, we would notify the town that we have an application that was approved. um we would work on um executing the municipal assessment and assignment agreement which is basically
just after that happens after the opt-in vote. Um that's just the master agreement for any kind of PACE transaction. It's again outlines who's responsible for what um and all the different kind of key contacts on the municipal side on mass development side
and the capital provider side and the property owner. Um, and then you know if we need to, we can we can work with the town's assessment department or the finance department if they're unfamiliar with the Ben assessment process. We can work with them and engage with them on, you know, educating on them how that
works. Um, I know I mentioned it to Andrew um earlier um the tax system that you use. I'm not familiar with it, but um Unicap, they're like an expert in um municipal tax software. So, I'm sure they're aware of the software that you guys use and they can um if we need to
bring them in, they can help and it's that's also at no cost to the town. Mass development uh absorbs that cost. >> So, I mean also these uh renovations or buildings have to abide by energy energy efficient buildings. Is that what
they have to build? Um so right now the way it's governed is that there's different um application pathways. So there for new construction there's a number of different pathways that a property owner could apply under and do writes the specifications for how they
become eligible. Um there is like you know they are incentivizing high you know all electric passive house construction but there is a pathway currently um for like mixed fuel projects to access this financing. So they kind of have it as a tiered system
where if you want the um for new construction it's based off something called the TECC which is the total eligible construction costs. So if it's new construction, the max TC percentage you can get is 35% and then on the low end um it's 25%.
For retrofits for existing buildings, you can use CPACE financing to pay for 100% of the project. There is no TECC calculation. Um, and the way retrofits is there's are a list of eligible measures um that are basically like pre-approved measures where like you
know if you're replacing your boiler furnace that's you know um kind of about to kick kick the bucket um that's approved for CPACE financing you know you want to put a solar you know system on your roof that's um you can use that and finance it 100% with CPA so there's
our guidelines list all the different things for both new construction and retrofits that are eligible for CPAC's financing ing. >> So, what's the town's downside? >> The downside, if we put it like that, I guess, is um for any project that
closes, like you said, it will take some effort on the town staff, I guess, to work with that to get the betterment assessment on the property tax. Um because like I said, the town is kind of the recollection or the the repayment mechanism. So, it does take, you know, you know, not it's not going to be
substantial because we're not looking at um you know, every town's different obviously with their commercial property kind of uh base. Um a town like Hatfield, I don't anticipate you guys getting an influx of um CPAC inquiries. You know, you know, we we've only had a
couple of deals close in Boston, for example, too. So, CPACE is very unique. It's a very unique form of financing. It's usually, like I said, um the financing kind of last resort where they've exhausted their traditional lending um opportunities because it's not like the interest rate is any better
on CPACE than traditional financing. It's still kind of market- based interest rates. So, I would say the the biggest downside, if we put it that way, is going to be just the effort required by staff if there's a deal closed to kind of work with the property owner um and us to get it on the property tax
bill for that 20-year repayment window. >> And so, since we're the collection agency essentially, if there is a default, who has to foot the bill for the litigation to be able to collect our repayment? Is the town on the hook for litigating that and then we make the dispersements first to make ourselves
whole and then the rest goes to you or do you guys cover that litigation? How does that work? >> So that goes to back to the capital provider. The capital provider holds all kind of the um enforcement rights uh to pursue in a default scenario. The town wouldn't be on the hook for any of the litigation. Um
if like I said like the a pace kind of property goes delinquent. it's only the unpaid um build amounts can be pursued. Um so it's not the whole financing that can be accelerated and recollected. Um but essentially it would just go through
the normal foreclosure process if it does. Um and we would work with the capital provider in the in the town. We haven't had this happen yet. Um so I I haven't I don't have experience with it. Hopefully I won't have any experience with it, but I understand the question.
Um but the capital provider kind of would pursue the necessary remedies in a default scenario and if um if it goes that far through the normal kind of foreclosure process. >> Okay. And my other question that I have is how does this work with commercial
agricultural businesses? I didn't see it mentioned anywhere. >> Um they could qual they could qualify for CPACE financing um if they wish. I I I we don't have an example yet of an agricultural um property owner applying
for CPACE, but um there are res like I know some other states have a resiliency component to their CPACE program. We right now don't have a resiliency um part of our program. The only kind of thing that could be qualified as
resiliency is that we do allow for micro grids to qualify for CPACE financing. But um if they go through any of the list of eligible measures to either to any kind of um buildings they have on the property um or like I said if they want to install solar or anything like
that they can apply for cpace financing. But essentially what qualifies you for cpace is any kind of improvements that are permanently affixed to a building um that can receive a property tax bill at the end of the day. We are looking at to potentially expanding into resiliency
but that would take an act of the legislature to do that and that that takes time. Uh they have their whole process and procedures as well that we have to contend with. >> We have a good aquaculture example on here. So agriculture should be next.
>> Any questions? >> Yeah. No, like I said um for resiliency it's something that I know other states have explored um for uh those purposes too. So hopefully one day we can get the state legislature to to adopt that. >> Right. So um we put this on the agenda tonight just as an overview. Um if the
board does wish to proceed with this at a future meeting, you could take a vote to accept PACE locally. I thought it'd be a lot of information to absorb tonight, then also try to take a vote. I think it's it's worth just looking at it. >> Um uh Tammy in the treasur's office did see this as well, so she didn't think
that it would be too much of a burden on her office if we did intend to go in that direction. I think uh Luke was asking the right questions around what is the burden on the town, what sorts of things will we need to take on. I think it's very limited risk for us and not a ton of staff time. Uh so it probably be
fine. Uh if there is an interested uh person who's who's looking at uh using this for making investments on their property and it's probably something the town could could take on, but it's your decision. I I think uh there's certainly pros and cons. I think the last question that I have is how come this isn't
already legislated and open to all towns to adopt? How come we have to adopt >> the local option? >> Right. Why the local option? Good question for Connor. >> Um it's basically the way PACE is structured nationally too is that it's either administered on a statewide basis
or at a county basis. Um for that because basically that lo the local adoption part is like the key part of PACE. um because like there is no way to it's all connected to the property tax. The property tax like you know cycles the way kind of it's build and repaid.
So that's why the local option um was the avenue. Um I know like some other states do it on a county b on a county basis but like they have a strong county government in those states. Massachusetts we have strong local government. So that's why we went with this. Uh I I wasn't here when the state
legislature passed it, but I imagine that's why they went through that avenue where they were giving basically giving local towns and cities the option where you guys want to do this if you want to. It's another tool in like your toolbox for commercial property owners. Um especially as like you know we're seeing
um you know some towns and cities in the greater Boston area for example are passing um ordinances um requiring kind of this uh decarbonization where they're making their large commercial property owners completely decarbonized by a certain you know usually by 2050 is the
the limit. Um but the state also might be getting ready to do that. They have a program called Elber, which is the large building emissions reduction, which is going to require any building, I believe, over 20,000 square feet to start reporting their climate emissions
data to the state. Um, that could easily turn in a couple years, you know, just speculating here, but that could easily turn to requiring those buildings to start uh decarbonizing as well because that's what Boston did, that's what Cambridge did, that's what Newton's doing. So, um, basically, like I said, I
think the state wanted just to pass this program as an act of the legislature to give it to towns and cities as an option, um, if they want to enroll into this program and give their local property owners an option to access additional financing. It's >> actually kind of nice that it doesn't act as a mandate that every town has to
figure out how to do this and instead have the optin. That makes that makes sense now that it's explained. It's kind of nice. >> I mean, we want to sleep on this and just bring it up at our next meeting. Yeah. So yeah, give it some time. I >> I I appreciate the presentation. It sounds there's a lot of positives to
this. Uh but we just want to sleep on it and and digest everything you've said and probably >> No, I totally understand. It's a lot of information and and it's it's totally okay if you guys uh need to take some time to think about it and vote at your next meeting. >> Any questions you can send to me and I
can get to to Connor and we can make sure we check in on anything. I think you asked the main questions that I was considering. So, um, yeah, we'll take some time with it. >> Yeah, and I'm happy to do any follow-up meetings as needed as well if there's any other questions. >> Great. >> Perfect. Well, thank you, Connor. I do
appreciate the presentation and we'll bring it up at our next meeting again and hopefully we get on board. >> Great. Yeah. And thank you again for allowing the uh remote presentation ability. I I appreciate that and I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. >> Thank you. You as well.
>> Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Let's see. Now we'll go back to topic four. Okay. >> And this actually just kind of blends nicely into the rest of our agenda, which is just DPW report and town administrator report. So, keeping an eye on the time. We've already, you know,
taken up a good amount of time this evening. So, I will um go over the Day Pond dredge update and then go right into DPW report and town administrator report. That sounds good to everybody. Sure. So, uh, Dayon Dredge, I've got, uh, some good news. Uh, we did have on your agenda to try to get a a contract
approved tonight. We don't have a contract yet. We just, um, finished, uh, reviewing references for our low bidder, uh, today. But, uh, the low bidder is soon to be a neighbor of ours. It's Western Earthworks, uh, who are planning to move into town. Uh, they came in below, um, all the other bids,
obviously, is the low bidder, but significantly lower and within budget. Uh it was reviewed by our project engineers uh TRC. Uh it looked good to them. They had a couple questions some of their figures which we'll we'll we'll talk through with them. But um as a as a
contract uh price it it it made sense. Um I called their references. Uh they've done a number of um the watering and culprit replacement and uh ex large excavation projects uh for towns uh near us and have gotten really good reviews. So, uh, they've worked for some some
great engineering firms in towns, uh, and have done a good job. And they really, uh, it mattered to them a lot to put in a competitive bid on this project because they're going to be our neighbors soon. They're moving into town. They really want to do this project. >> So, do you know when the contractor would be here for us to, uh, >> uh, by your uh, next meeting at the
latest. If we have it done early and and their schedule would allow them to start work earlier, then I might even recommend we have a quick meeting to sign a contract sooner. But, I'm going to start the contracting process with them. We'll hold a pre-construction meeting with DRC, the engineers, and some others. Uh, and we'll get that
underway. Um, but the goal was to try to do the work beginning in January. We should be on that path. So, um, we'll have the contract by your next meeting in mid December at the latest. >> Yeah. There also there was some discussion of Christmas vacation, but I'm not sure it's going to be there. It
might be. It might be. >> If we have the contract done by then, we'll have the meeting with them. >> We could start that. The only other holdup we have is just finalizing uh license agreements or easements uh with the neighboring uh property owners, but they've been, you know, on board this whole way. We just need to sign some
paperwork with them. Perfect. >> Yeah, sounds good. Should have all that to go to you by December. And it was, you know, we had five bids, >> all good firms, uh some folks closer, some folks further away, but uh this is a very competitive bid from Earthworks, Western Earthworks.
Okay. So, um just quickly, um this is in the DPW director's report, but it goes through everybody. The the capital plans are are due on December 1st. So, all departments are starting to get me their uh capital requests. If this group has any, you know, capital requests you want us to look at, just let me know and I'll
be happy to submit anything for the select board for for town hall. Um, I do have an application that I'll be putting in for town building security that we've discussed before on on access controls and maybe some cameras involved. I I care less about the cameras and more about the access controls, but we'll
talk about that. Um, uh, Marlo uh has been working on um, uh, the applications for uh, DPW, including a couple that went to the CPC uh, Community Preservation Committee. He's also been uh trying to work better with Eversource
to to fix a few uh street light issues. He's looking for a master uh list of all our street lights and and getting making sure that uh the ones that haven't been converted LED are uh finally converted. That was a project that had been uh begun with the green communities program and I know it is saving us a decent
amount of money each year which is great. Um we as I mentioned the uh the the the uh tree lighting ceremonies in early December. from Marlo's team has been providing some nice support to to Jerry as well and getting uh lights set for
that. Uh we're looking good for readiness for snow and ice, which is great. We got uh plow sticks out there and looks like we're ready to go. Um as in between our last meeting and today, as you know, the uh the large uh silver maple outside. Uh town hall was taken
down successfully. Um we had some loming that was done on those areas where um the trucks out there did do some damage. um still are waiting for the bald cypress across the street to be taken down as well. Um we're in great shape moving forward on the uh roof project
design is is moving forward. Well, they they did an interim presentation to us recently and had a lot of good information about uh the role that the rooftop structures have played as well. The uh the um electric units and other things have played uh in some of the leaks that have occurred. So, um that
will definitely be part of their proposal for fixing that. Um still in the design mode, but we should be moving towards bids you in a couple months at the latest. Uh Happy Elementary School, uh boilers. Uh we've got a lot of good
news on this project. So, the on the Boiler project, the design is done. We're going out to bid a week from Wednesday. Oh, no. Uh no, starting December 3rd. Uh this week we'll be putting out the um initial notice that we have to put out. Uh but bids will
open December 3rd. We'll do a walkthrough December 10th and I think we'll close bids as as early as mid December. So uh the other good news there is that um after init another look through the cost estimates the cost estimates have come way down to be very
much within our budget. It's really in the $300,000 range now for for uh replacing those boilers and we budgeted closer to 600. So that's very good news there. >> Um, route five by Monday we should be receiving uh from
Gilaher the results of their cameraing and uh flushing work. Um CI is staying on them for this but as I said before we're also briefing the state briefing our attorney and we'll have more information there. Um Marlo's team did a
lot of work on the installation of the new uh trash compactor. Um, in case residents, you know, reach out about this. The feed hopper height is higher than the previous one that meets code that meets OSHA standards. Uh, we've made some adjustments to to feeding that hopper and has added some fall
protection there. That's a work in progress. If there's any concerns that you're hearing from residents about the height of that, about working with that, let us know. Uh, but Marlo is working to make sure that's safe for everybody involved. Um, pavement management project uh is expected to start in early
December. Uh, so that's moving along nicely. And, um, everything else on here, um, there aren't many changes from the last time that we talked. Um, Wayne and Marlo are putting some good work in on the unpaved roads grant, which will be opening soon. They're hoping to put a
very competitive proposal for some, uh, work that needs to happen out on Straits Road. That would be our priority. Um PVPC has also reached out uh with interest in doing some assessment work on other unpaved roads around town unrelated to this grant. Uh so we'll
probably be working with them on looking at any other unpaved roads we have out there. They'll put kind of a regional plan together to try to get more funding our way as well. So we appreciate that. I'll pause right there for a second. Any questions on the DPW report? No, I mean
I know we're waiting on the uh camera report from Gil or her >> and compare it to things. So >> what we have Yeah. And we there should be some >> some helpful information coming out of that. But >> I hope so. Okay, good. >> And I think you know as long as that
comes in on time, we could look at at your next meeting having another meeting with uh the engineers and contractor and and residents. And if not, next meeting we'll do it in early January. We need to get that to happen and I'm doing my best to keep residents aware of the situation. I think the the board is too.
It's, you know, people are understandably losing patients. So, uh, health insurance update. Um, >> well, before you get to under DPW, we have a change order, right? Or >> Oh my goodness. Yes. Thank you very much for, uh, reminder there.
>> So, uh, we received, uh, yesterday, got a heads up about this coming. Uh this was a town initiated uh change order request. Um this is uh on the um asphalt top course. Uh this is for getting the
um binder coat done uh early um so that we can you know better access the site and you know get our vehicles and everything on it uh throughout the the winter season. So this was something that our our team had asked for. Um you know all of this is in here. It's it's a
um $18,000 change. We're at in the position now where everything is very much within budget, any changes that we need to make because we're still working through that contingency uh in the project and we have these additional funds in the form of a USDA grant as well. So, we're under
budget. We're under way under the contingency top limit and and all of that after a certain point is funded by this this grant. So, it's not even town money at this point. still means we want to protect it only pay for things. >> So before I entertain a motion, do you
any of any comments from my colleagues? >> I I just don't understand why this is a change. Wasn't this going to happen anyhow? >> Right. I thought this was a this is a change to get um the um the top course. So do the binder course
asphalt in the fall. So that would be a change if they are breaking it out into two. uh two pieces of work and has it done sooner rather than um the work all in the spring. >> But it was going to be done either way. So why does it cost more?
>> Realistically, I think the change order should only be for the mobilization for them to come back in the spring and grind the around the structures and then lay the top. It's the same amount of work, >> right? They're they're >> you still have to put binder and then top down. >> All they're changing is when they're doing it. It's still they're still doing
it. If you're doing a binder and you're doing asphalt, then it's really just for >> two mobilizations. So, how much does a mobilization cost? And the question is, is does it really cost $18,000 for mobilization? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, it doesn't. >> No. >> Um,
>> that's quite an ad. So, >> is there a price that we'd be comfortable with as a group if we try to bring it down to that amount and I can we can negotiate with the the contractor, see if we can get it down to that. I mean it says right in their proposal that this prop proposal
includes all necessary labor equipment materials required to complete the asphalt top course paving and spring. Scope of work also includes a separate mobilization to mill the binder course around the manhole frame. So realistically this change order should only be for that second >> y mobilization. >> Y
>> the rest of this work should have already been budgeted for and allocated for. >> Yep. Um, so I guess that's an answer for them of what the second mobilization costs. To me, it would not be more than $2,500
at the top end. I'm not sure where this company's coming out of uh the paving company, but um yeah. Okay. >> We want to ask that question. That's >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yes, >> we want to have that question answered
before we move on this change order. >> Um, want to make sure. Yeah. So, they have the Schultz costs and the Yeah, but it's all only for that one thing. Okay. Well, I wonder if this it's possible that the paving wasn't budgeted because
it looks like they're saying almost makes it look like they're adding this the whole thing. >> It does look like they're adding it, but >> I'm not sure. I'm not sure it was originally in there. >> That's on me to figure out. >> I'd find it hard to believe that repaving when they were done isn't in
there, but maybe. I mean it's possible they're paving more. Are they paving more than they originally are going to pave? Is that what they're saying? >> Yeah. And then if that if that's the case, if they are asking for additional pavement, some sort of data whether
>> square footage price like how much additional area is being paved. says install asphalt top course and spring, >> right? Which is it makes it look like it's new. This is new work, right? Thank
So they're so they're charging 2500 for the separate mobilization, 4,900 for the binder trench paving, 1,600 for the milling. So it is it is only 2500 they're charging for the mobilization. It's good. So I guess it's just a question of is this a separate
piece that wasn't budgeted initially. And if that's the case, then it's not terribly unreasonable. >> We just want to understand it. That's all. It It might be perfectly fine, but we just want our questions answered.
That's all. If um if we find out that this wasn't budgeted in the first place and that this just specifies the two mobilizations and the paving, could the board approve it in that way? And would you authorize me to sign off
on it if that's the case? That it was wasn't budgeted in the first place or we still have questions about >> I don't have a problem with that. If it wasn't budgeted and this is >> just so we don't hold them up. >> The town is requesting to have done. Yeah, this was requested. >> I only can take for myself. I don't know
how my colleagues feel about it. >> Yeah, it's just not very well explained as to what we're signing >> and that's partially my mistake for not getting >> I think if those questions were were okay um that knowing that it's not already in the budget.
>> I mean, it's not uncommon for a project if you're within budget to add a couple things that were not included. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We just want to know if this was originally included or not or >> just don't want to pay for the same thing twice. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> All right. So, as long as we find out it wasn't originally included. Would you be comfortable with me signing off on this? I can also add it to a future meeting of yours, but I know they want to get going with it in that binder code. >> Yeah, they're going to have to because the plants are going to close pretty soon. >> Basically done.
>> They already are. Yeah. So, I think just a simple drafted email to us with uh >> with that confirmation. >> Yeah. >> Great. I'll do that. Um maybe if I can treat Luke as the um point person on
this if if uh that sounds in line with with our understanding tonight. Um, so after I get back, >> you want to what you were saying or you want a motion to approve this provided it was something that was not included
in the budget. That's the way you'd want the >> I think that' be great. Yeah. >> Okay. So, I'll make that motion. I'll make a motion to accept this change order provided it was not originally included in the budget. >> And if and if it was not then Andrew can
sign off on it. How's that sound? That makes sense. >> That sounds good to me. I'll second that. >> Second. >> I'll second it. >> Okay. Motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries. Okay.
>> Excellent. I'll uh confirm that with you tomorrow. >> Okay, sounds good. Thank you. >> Thanks everyone. >> Okay, so that's that. Um last on the agenda would be um town minister update.
Um, so health insurance. Um, I'm trying to put together one more meeting with the PEC just to confirm that, uh, they plan to to vote no on the the GI GIC proposal. Um, they've given me all indications that they're just not ready to make that move this time, which is very similar to what a lot of towns are
dealing with, just the the short timeline um, in a large change. It it doesn't seem like it's something they're comfortable with. We're still waiting on a proposal from Maya uh to see where that would come in because the Maya proposal could be quite good for us and that it keeps the Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance but has some more staff
capacity and some other um features that make it a a um an attractive set of benefits while also maybe a better cost for the town. So, we're waiting on that. Um, I uh have been elected to the executive
committee of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust. >> Congratulations. >> And also, uh, condolences. Yes, both of those things. Uh, >> it's it's been eye opening so far. Uh, there's just a lot of work that goes on
this group. There's not a lot of staff right now from the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust after the resignation of retirement of of their executive director. We have voted to bring on an interim consultant that will act as essentially the executive director and also add a lot of value, I
think, and helping to figure out what the trust can do to keep themselves solvent right now and provide a better situation for the towns. The consultant will be the uh Hillbook Group. It look like a strong firm with a lot of experience in health insurance. um was part of that decision-makings and
I think they'll be useful but it it is going to be a tough situation for the trust and I'm glad that we're looking at other options. Um but I also you know since we're in the trust right now would like them to try to survive. Um but it's it's a difficult position that they're in right now. Um
I'll keep it there for right now on health insurance. Uh Farm Museum. Um we had a great meeting recently. I appreciate Luke being there uh with uh folks from historical society, from the town and with our architect talk about how that project is coming along and and
what the decision points are there. Um we had some some uh thoughts about other ways that the project could continue with with some upgrades as well on power and lighting, ventilation, other things. Uh but I think we have a good understanding of how we want to uh strengthen up the siding there without
necessarily going with the the highest cost option. So I think we've got some good options there. We'll be getting um uh plans soon from the architect on that as well as getting ready to apply for grants from the state to support that work. Uh ditch mapping. Uh CI is working
really quickly on this project. We've had a a good experience on this. Uh they have preliminary maps showing what they think the digital map uh network looks like for us. I'll share those with this group as well. I want you to see those. Um, and we're planning a a public outreach
meeting that will happen most likely in in early to mid January. Um, because I know a lot of folks do have questions about this project. CI is in the field now. So, people do ask you, who are these folks who are out there looking around these ditch areas. Uh, CI is is
doing this work. um is doing a great job just trying to verify those those uh maps, doing some ground tring and figuring out what the condition of these ditches is and and what best management practices will look like for maintaining these moving forward. Um I do want to add that CI has some extra budget for
this project and they're willing to add kind of any areas that we know of in town that are prone to flooding. So, if you know of any know flood areas, doesn't necessarily have to be uh connected to ditches or even culverts or other infrastructure. If we just know there's areas in town that that flood
regularly, uh CI should be able to take a look at those and and help us figure out some management practices there as well. So, please feel follow up with me um or if anyone watching wants to follow up with any uh places where you want to have checked out, I know Primrose Path sounds like is is a good place to to
check out >> um anywhere else that you have in mind. um that could be very useful. And then uh opioid settlement funds task force. Uh we had a really good meeting recently uh with a representative from the state's Mosaic RISE group. Uh this
is a state organization that's tasked with trying to help municipalities and their opioid responses. Uh so that was very helpful in getting some more guidance on what we can and can't use the funds on. Um I think our plans are really taking shape. You know, the community survey showed that connections to care and then um education prevention
are the areas that towns people want us to focus on. Uh so we'll plan to bring a detailed budget to this group soon, but uh we have some plans to to help with some focus groups, some better resource guides, and then some uh improved education and prevention efforts including some community events and other things. And I think it's going to
look really good. and then comprehensive plan implementation. Uh that committee uh did a first uh review of just basically all the goals that were in uh the comprehensive plan and the action plan. Looked at uh what's already underway, what are different groups
already doing and then looking at uh who who's tasked with them on paper, who's doing it in reality, and then who it makes sense to have some meetings with to try to talk about how they can be supported in getting some of these things done. So, that was a good once through the plan and we're going to get some help from PPPC and looking at what
next steps look like. But, um, the group is is making some good progress there and I think you'll start to hear more from them. They'll probably, uh, come to a meeting here to talk about, you know, what the the board can take the lead on and, uh, some other options for implementing that plan. So, I'll leave it there for now if there's any, uh,
questions at all. >> No, I mean, we have a new firefighter appointment. >> Yes, you do. Yes. >> Okay. We do. >> And that's um uh Trevor Trevor Zang who was in here uh last week meeting some folks. Uh he's one of our PDM
firefighters. Um yeah, he's definitely he's in Ammeris not far and seems uh eager to help us out which is great. The chief also did something wise and went through the roster to figure out if there's anybody who hasn't really been showing up um and who maybe should
resign from that PDM role. So I I do know a few folks did decide to leave the roster that just weren't really able to make any call times. So I think that was a good thing for the department as well. I don't know if Captain Moses had anything in that. >> Yeah, I agree. Yeah, we have to outfit these people with gear and um we
generally outfit all of the PDM people with the used gear that we already own. Um, so with more people coming on board, we only have a limited number of inate stuff to be able to turn out to people.
So kind of getting rid of the asking the people who don't show up to resign to frees up the gear that we can then outfit other people with. So it's it was a good thing. So >> yep, I believe it was about five people who >> ended up leaving. they just didn't have
time commitments to be able to help us as the in the original capacity they thought they were going to be able to whether professional or personal for reasons and um and so we were able to return that gear back into into service. So now when we hire on a new person like this >> nice
>> we have quality gear that we can output them with. So >> um >> you have any other unfinished business? >> I had a question for Andrew on where are we at with the electronic timekeeping? I have a giant spreadsheet that Tammy and I are working through that has basically um information about every single
employee uh about um what their schedule is, uh what their, you know, benefits are, time off, everything else. Supervisor who signs off on their pay sheets, all of this. And then once we've completed that, that goes back to um Harpers and then they'll start
activating things. So, we're working our way through that. Um, I think we can probably break it down so they're they're getting we're getting them the information they need to start the individual departments we want to start first. We're going to pilot it just with a few folks here in town hall to make sure the treasur's office is comfortable with it and then we'll get it out to the
priority departments we had of fire and DPW and then um schools will be last. That'll be the biggest undertaking and we'll do them last. >> Be nice if we could have like roll it out in a fashion so it's like you know fire, police, DPW first like you said. Yep.
>> Town hall second and then have the schools ready to go for the start of the school year would be ideal. >> Yeah, I think that sounds great. Town hall we're just going to a couple people in town hall will do first just so that we feel comfortable using it small scale the treasur's office and >> yeah we'll do that but then you know we
got to get by and DPW done as soon as we can. The ones that makes the most sense for >> any other unfinished business. >> I have none. I want to remind everybody again December 2nd elementary school please come we need the quorum we need
to get our our book housekeeping books in order so it just help you can be there that's all so again thank you and happy Thanksgiving to everybody and you and yours and wishing everybody happy
holidays with that I will entertain a motion >> I make a motion to adjurnn I'll Second that >> motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I I I >> I Thank you, John. >> Thank you, John.