good evening Holliston welcome to the March 24th select board meeting we'll get prom uh started promptly at 7 well 7:01 now uh welcome to everyone this evening we have some uh very special guests here that we're going to invite to the table in a moment that being Senate President Karen spilka and our
state representative James Arena D Roa but before we get to that we're going to invite up uh Bobby Blair who has a donation to the town of Holliston that he like to present to the board tonight good evening Bobby how are you good good nice to see you
thank you um I came up with the brainy idea that we need a Betsy Ross flag out front uh and I jumped the gun and checked with Dam Mazi she says 4x6 right and I says yeah so I sent away and I got
it and then uh days later uh she told me well Chief Cassidy who I guess is in Char of the flags wrong size so Murphy's Law whatever can go wrong will sure and did okay uh that flag's not supposed to
show up till tomorrow okay so in the meantime here's your Betsy Ross flag thank you very much um he can give that to the Chief and he can find another flag pole in town we'll do to put it on
uh this is uh awareness of the shotard around the world uh uh which is in two or 3 weeks here um and we will be having a gathering out front on April 19th 7:00
in the morning uh and that's when the engagement happened uh in Lexington um to be a flag raising with the right siiz flag uh floral tribute uh speeches uh James is signal
that he will be there uh Joanne hbit will give a little rundown of Hon's part in the revolution um Taps firing squad and then coffee and donuts inside here afterwards great um I
don't know if anybody was aware uh but the legislature has $2 million uh available for next year's funding is that true uh for the 50th two yeah um Bobby
if you say it so it's so okay we believe um make it and the deadline I don't think anybody was aware of it I don't think the time put in for it I asked celebrate hollison uh they're meeting on Wednesday night
um and we came up with a few ideas uh for next year uh maybe a concert uh with each song dedicated to little episode in hollis's uh Revolutionary War um maybe a
bus tour to some of the old cemeteries something I'd like to see and they stress this in the application for uh funding for next year's funds lesson known facts and I don't think
enough people know that hollison was the home to Paul River's family During the Revolution and and uh we have it right in Liz green Deal's records okay actually I went through them and we
couldn't find it was right on top we looked at it three times there it was sitting right there uh something like that uh also Staples Chamberlain who was the town moderator uh back then
um he went from here to Boston on April 19th 250 years ago he made a for to taon dooga he made two trips down to Newport for a suspected British Invasion and at 50 years of age and I
can't imagine this uh each City in town in Massachusetts was required to have stockings breaches a shirt uh whatnot for the men in the Continental Congress um he left here uh in late January went
to Albany New York dropped off supplies for seven or eight uh hollison men and then he went to Valley Forge and dropped off the rest and then he came back here uh in time to moderate the first town meeting in March uh okay there was no
days in uh no heater in the Buckboard uh no no radio to listen to he's a hero in my eyes so maybe if we can I don't know a monument or something
to this poor soul he's buried up in a go and drive uh right in back of his brother Enoch who was a suspected Tory uh but Enoch uh did go on a few of these things
so uh if either Damon or Ben would like to say a few words on April 19th out here if you're up that early uh you're welcome to uh come along thank you Bobby okay and thank you for keeping the focus on uh keeping the history here in hollon
very much alive well it's right here I mean right you know and thank you for keeping the focus on the 250th which is right around the corner so I appreciate your efforts and work and it's with gratitude that we accept this flag and the other flag to come tomorrow so thank you thank you have a good evening thank
you thanks Bobby Bobby thank you all right we will move on with our agenda to invite to the table Senate President Karen spilka and James Arena doosa who have some updates for us and I'm sure we'll receive a few uh comments from the select board good evening good evening
how are you very good how are you madam president doing well thank you as well expected with what's going on around us all yes and you don't mean the weather justun just the weather but yeah well welcome we're we're grateful to have
both of you here tonight we we try to do this on an annual basis and we're um very appreciative of your schedules allowing both of you to come to spend this time with us tonight uh we we generally and we can do it any way you'd like Madam president but we generally ask for updates from you and then you may have a couple questions or comments
more so I suppose uh from the board and if it's okay with you we have the finance committee here uh the chair I believe is on the call as well as uh maybe a member of the school committee to join us and if it's okay with you I might ask them if they have anything they'd like to add M and we'll answer
whatever we can of course yes yes thank you so much for H having you having us Tina Ben Damon cath Kathy um it's great to see you Kathleen um we always love coming here and I I
don't normally speak on behalf of my colleague but this is a time that's really great for us to hear your concerns hear your issues for us to update you as much as we can and I know you usually do have uh some of the the school Personnel the school committee
finance committee um and is it's it's good to hear from them as well um do you want to comment that it's great to see you here I don't know if all of you realize Kathleen was uh at one point a senate staffer um yes so yes
yes so good choice good choice good choice we feel very good hands right now yes yes yes definitely and I want to publicly thank my partner in advocating for Holliston who does a great job in the house and we work really well together that doesn't always happen I
have to say between House and Senate and and it's a pleasure to work with James Arena D Roa um I'll just start to some extent with the budget as you know it's budget season in the house and the Senate there's some good news and unfortunately some not such great news
um just going to well first the good news Revenue projections um collections have increased year-over-year which is good uh probably in the the fall there was some discussion or concern that uh we as a state were uh Revenue wasn't
doing as well and there was concern were we entering the beginning of of signs of a recession in the summer and the fall and by December I really felt like that was behind us all of the economists were saying that we were getting strong and a
lot of that had to do with what the legislature and administration working together uh did whether it be the climate uh Tech and creating jobs Economic Development tax relief we had major tax relief and so many other things that we did um to help uh
strengthen our economy and diversify our economy and that's one thing I'm I'm very proud of Massachusetts we have tried to diversify just like you know people say when you're going to invest diversify your Investments if you can uh
that we have tried to do that in Massachusetts with life scienes with clean energy I believe that we can have a reach uh going after our climate goals and clean energy and create jobs that make and so the whole thing makes
economic sense for us as well um and and we have done uh Education Health Care so many other things um so uh monthly tax collections have been strong this year um and uh our projections are uh a
little short of 700 million under what was originally projected and we were conservative when we made those projections because we were worried about the potential of a recession um so just to to go through a
little bit um for the current fiscal year Holliston received nearly $9.2 million in Chapter 70 uh this is a 22% increase since we passed the student Opportunity Act in
2019 um so hopefully that has helped uh Holliston also got more than 1.9 million in ugga unrestricted local aid funds um that's being said this year's budget
season has the backdrop of um I'll be blunt chaos and resulting tremendous uncertainty coming from the Trump Administration in Washington um that is the bad news um
Federal funding cuts to services and grants if even some of it goes through will have a significant impact on Massachusetts and Holliston and all of the services and programs that impact
our residents for example we have about a62 billion state budget that 62 billion relies depending upon reimbursement between 12 and 16
billion just for Medicaid services so that's just Medicaid not even all of the health related uh funding and and programs that we do um we also get another two billion at least in education funds that goes to
cities and towns like Holliston to help particularly with special education uh Transportation School Meal there's a chance as I'm sure you've seen and heard uh what we don't know what's
going to happen with the Department of Education and and the funding um we also rely upon uh uh a lot of federal funding for our veterans which um a lot of the veterans offices have
been closed are in the process of closing down um I am beginning to hear and you may hear from some veterans as well who are having trouble accessing their services their programs their benefits um and uh it sometimes is hard
to for them to get a hold of somebody to even find out what is going on unfortunately that is replicating itself in many other sectors of government and services and programs and most of it is
to people who really need and rely upon those services so you know a veteran who may be getting help and counseling with PTSD for example um suddenly is being told that those Services May no longer
be available NIH funding I'm sure you've heard about Massachusetts is the fourth largest amount of NIH funding um and that helps our hospitals our universities our private universities our public
universities um you know I got got a call two weeks ago from a parent that I know who said we're waiting for a trial clinical trial from my daughter who has brain cancer I'm being told that that is most likely going to be cut um these are
things that parents real people in Massachusetts are uh looking towards um the universities are being cut so I I don't want to sound um an alarm but I just think people should know that this
if even some of it comes to pass it will have a trickle down impact on the state budget and what we can do um transportation um you know we're a leader the list goes on and I I guess I
have to just say that to me these are coldhearted and cruel um you know they're being portrayed as waste Fraud and Abuse uh I don't know how that can even be explained a veteran said to me I
got cut with a note saying that um I wasn't performing my job that it was you know fraud or waste that I I is beyond my comprehension of how somebody could have served our country and be treated like
this so you know I think you may be hearing from folks in Holliston as well um and you know we are are working um with the federal delegation and I think people need need to be outspoken as to
how this impacts Madam President we had uh two weeks ago on a Saturday morning we had uh representative Jim McGovern from uh congress come and spend about four or five hours at the hollison high school to hear from constituents and that the room was was it's a 900 person
capacity room and I would say that it was three quarters full there were clearly easily 500 plus people in the room filled with passionate um Declarations of concern and calls for help and they Echo much of what you're saying I think hollison stood up very much and that's great and I think people
should know if if they are impacted to not only let Jim McGovern know representative McGovern who's got a great heart and he's an incredibly effective Congressman but to send their letters directly to Trump and to you
know um the the head of uh uh of the house the speaker of the house they need to be hearing from other areas and uh I think that the more they hear from the more they realize how people are impacted they can't just push that aside
uh so I urge people to do that as well and we have certainly done that through the town manager's office reached out to um Senator Mary directly where we're expect and Jim McGovern as well we are looking for congressionally directed spending that was committed to uh a year
ago and has not yet yet to arrive and is uncertain and it will it will have an impact on a major project here in hollon which we'll talk about in a little bit but yes there there are local level impacts and on behalf of the town of holl and through the town manager's office we are reaching out to share our concerns right and I urge you to send it
to the speaker of the house I mean it's it's the Republicans that control Congress to be blunt right now and they should hear we we may not be their direct constituents but they they need to hear I I I believe that that might help
um and you know people I I think are hoping that that the state will fill the plug the holes and fill the gaps but um you know we don't have the the amount of funds to do all of that so um only
Congress can fully do that and have allocate the funding to fill the caps and takes take action so um you know I think that we're all in this together and uh we'll get through it but I think that so if you hear other things please
share it with us as well um and we in the legislature I'm I'm speaking I believe not only for the the Senate but I do believe and I was speaking with with the speaker the the governor uh we will do whatever we can to protect
Massachusetts residents and to protect their services their programs and their civil rights thank you thank you for your advocacy and support and engagement on all of this thank you thank you but yeah so if you hear anything further please let James and me know um I think
that's important so um for the coming year the governor's proposed budget for fiscal 26 uh which I should note was developed pre-trump and and musk with all the cuts um put in almost $9.4 million in chapter
7 70 um so uh 9.4 for Chapter 70 for hollist um which was almost $200,000 increase from fiscal 25 for for Holliston um prop Governor proposed $1.9
million for Holliston which would be for Holliston unrestricted General government Aid or local Aid which is the same as this year is um the governor proposed full funding for the circuit breaker which I I do believe you know is
consistent with what the legislature has done over the last few years um it supports districts without out of District special education um through a combination of the fiscal 26 budget and the fair share supplemental budget that
we ended up doing um these two pots of money are projected to reimburse out of District special education Transportation at full funding costs at the levels um hollist in fiscal 25 chapter 90 allocation which funds local
roads and bridges as as you all know um is about $510,000 and again in fiscal 25 the legislature added 45 million for Road and Bridge supplement from the fair share taking it from the Transportation
part of the ctax or fair share uh knowing that roads and bridges that cities and towns have a lot of needs and this has been a hard winter so you know we'll see if we can do that again um and
we'll certainly work on that um while being fish fiscally cautious um is wise especially given this year's level of uncertainty it's early in this in the state budget process um and I'll let James talk about you know the the house
which you know is an April Senate in senate senate is in May and then we'll do the conference committee hopefully in June um and I do want to note I did receive a letter expressing your local budget uh deficit challenges and pressures and we'll do what we what
whatever we can to help Holliston um clearly just want to mention Uh current budget 25 uh earmarks were limited but we were able to secure funds of $85,000 for a Council on Aging minivan
which uh I think has a wheelchair lift and is so important to our seniors um and helpful you know that mental health has been a really important area for me and to all of us especially with covid and postco um so I
was especially happy to secure $700,000 for mental health services for schools in my district so each each School District got was able to get about $100,000 to put towards Mental Health
Services um I'm proud to have worked with Town Administration representative Arena D Roa and the select board to goner a $1 million Grant from uh energy and environmental Affairs to close the budget gap for the construction of the
Woodland Street bridge and Dam uh I know I've seen it you know in the process I I I drive by there periodically and know that this is an incredibly important Missing Link for all of the residents in town especially given the proximity to the
school um all all of the schools that are there as well so we will continue to work with mot and all of you to ensure that it's done totally done this fall we do look for and the contract requires that the road be open September of 2025
and I anticipate we'll be doing some ribbon cutting planning and would love for you sorry you couldn't get here from there by Woodland tonight but hopefully in September well we will be able to invite you back and you'll be available I should say We'll celebrate we'll leave it open and we'll stay on uh do to make
sure that it is open that date so plan the ribbon so we so we invite you first and then tell the we have to come right we'll invite the secretary too and tell her that she has to come so yeah um the other thing I want to
mention working closely with representative Arena D Roa we were happy to get hollis's Town manager act done and signed into law yes um which should help Holliston with the hiring process so that is is something good uh in
legislative time it went through fairly quickly you know we appreciate your Herculean efforts and later this evening on this agenda we'll be receiving um some the names of four candidates being advaned for the town manager position so
the search is going well and it's certain uh the result of your hard work at the state level so we appreciate all together with your help and assistance we we were able to get it through quicker so thank you for that we hope you're keeping a good eye on on Mr Hearn and his new role at the state agency
just let us know if we need to drop him a line or anything to say he's probably very busy you know a lot of changes a lot of things going on um but yes we we will we offered help and and uh hope things go smoother for him
definitely um one of the key roles as a legislator that often goes unnoticed is constituent services and I do want to mention that I have one of my team here is Dennis gmti who's here um to to help with District constituent Services I
have a few other people and um last year over 600 constituents called my office for help and I have to I say that because before I was a legislator before was a House member and then Senate I never would have thought of calling my
legislator for help I never would have even thought you know that they could help with so many things so it's important for people to know who are listening that we're here to help we can't help everybody with everything but there's a lot of issues that we can help
cut through some red tape even if it's a federal issue some like immigration or social security or Medicare sometimes we can connect that with Congressman McGovern faster or others through the process um the
Senators Mary and Warren that we're here to help and help brainstorm what a solution might be um if they're having problems connecting with f uh state agencies which happens you know uh so we can help them with that whether it be
their their child their parent their you know spouse what whatever we are we are here to help and that's why I mentioned over 600 people just last year that this is a major part of our job and um if we
can't help we'll at least always listen and try to refer them to somebody that might be able to do something so you know I I note note that it was housing Health Care um registry you know car registry assistance fuel assistance uh
so many different areas so um and you know that is a major part of of what we to do um and I encourage people to call us for for assistance if they they even think they may need it we're here to
help um I do want to thank the town for being in compliance with the MBTA communities act um our housing shortage is a major State issue and I do believe that every Community must do what they
can to uh ease the housing crisis we all want our police our fire our teachers our workers to be living in the area if they want to um and I really do appreciate Holliston coming together to
get this done so so thank you um we've been proud to Advocate on behalf of the town for uh a new Holliston High School building as well want to mention that and in the accelerated roof repair program for the Adams School and we will
continue to work with with everybody until the projects get completed thank you so um we look forward to supporting Holliston in your pursuit of other grant opportunities for the downtown sewer project uh where our be Mass works and
the Washington Street pedestrian improvements as well I know um those are areas that have been really important for the town um to get done and successfully completed so um we'll do that um lastly I just want to
mention a few things because I feel like we had it it may have some of the things may have been termed late but we got we got all of our major bills done and done very successfully um it was a historically
productive session that I'm really proud of uh for both the House and Senate and the legislature and working closely with the governor and her Administration and I know that cuz people hear of all this stuff that you know we're not getting working well together but we in
Massachusetts are very different than the federal government and we work really well together so we had major tax relief the biggest the largest tax relief and over a generation so many different helping SE seniors doubling the circuit breaker the largest child
care and dependent tax credit in the country we did housing tax credits and and tax incentives we did so many other things um we made Community College free in Massachusetts first state in the country for it to be totally free like
that and we significantly decreased the cost of our state universities and our UMass system we made all of the rtas fair free uh which I'm particularly proud of with the Metro West RTA we reformed major health care sectors
including maternal health and long-term care we passed a significant climate bill um which was great we strengthened our gun laws we expedited clean energy permitting and sighting and all of you I'm sure and all
of the listeners heard about the steward Healthcare CR crisis we really cracked down on private equity and health care after Steward and we reformed Early Education and Care that's also been really big issue for me increasing it uh
increasing accessibility for parents and Shoring up our providers to uh increase the number of seats available enabling parents to go back to work if they wanted to um helping employers where there are gaps in the workforce in
almost every sector so we really um we really and and there's so many more things that that I won't get into and last week we extended the um participation in public meetings till 2026 s and I just want to say I'm
committed to working to make that permanent so we don't have to worry about extending it I know it's going to go till 2027 which is great but it is something that you all should be able to just depend upon and do because it's really vital for civic engagement public
participation and just you know for everybody so um I'm glad we we got that done and it was signed into law quickly so um I could go on but I won't um so I'll turn it over to to James at this
point and then for questions as many as you may have thank you great no sounds good well thank you all it's great to be here this is uh one of my favorite meetings because I can walk except when it rains so literally around the corner but uh and we'll all Miss Travis but I understand that it's the system's going
pretty well I was on that committee last time and I think they're going to bring your names she said they're going to bring your names tonight so I will look forward we'll look forward to working with whoever it is that is the new town uh administrator for the town of Holliston and uh always enjoy working the Senate President we are so blessed
to have her not only as our Senator but as the head of the Senate and uh it's really an honor and I I so appreciate her uh the partnership and her staff is just wonderful we have a great relationship with her team um we talking about constituent service where I was actually at the senior Cate today with one of your staff and we we both had
time with with with people up there and and one of the things that I just want to Echo what uh Senator spickle said uh we really are here to help people and some people don't know the the senior center did a survey a few years ago two out of three people said they did not know who to call when they needed help from government and when I say all the
time is call us call me call the senator we we may have an answer we may help you navigate the state bureaucracy maybe it is federal but we'll put you in touch with the right person maybe it goes back to someone here locally in Holliston um but it really is such an important part of the work that we do and and uh I'm
always uh pleased when we can help people and one of our big ones is D way we actually have a challenge through the unemployment system because in this small area if I've got 45 people in one year that are calling me not able to get through on Dua that's that's that's a bell going off of of something systemic
but I always think of the people who who aren't calling you know they're sitting there they're frustrated so anybody out there please anytime you want to be in touch please do that um the senator did such a great job I just want to maybe highlight a couple other things uh that I was involved with uh along those many
things that we've done in the legislature um I am really worried we passed a $5 billion Bond bill for housing it's really just a down payment it's been such a long time since we put big money into housing in Massachusetts um we're going to have to be at this year after year um un fortunate I'm
actually going to be on the housing committee this session it'll be interesting for me to be there um I still remember when I first sat down with leaders in this town chief Stone he said James he said I have 28 officers two of them live in hollon most of them commute an hour or or an hour plus to
get to these and it's and it's worse when I coached Little League Baseball here we I there was a firefighter coached with me a teacher and those days are we're losing that it's getting harder and harder for people in the community to live here and um yes we need more housing but we also need more housing for our seniors our veterans our
First Responders Our Town employees so hopefully we'll be able to do some things on that uh Downstream um I did want I was very happy that we passed Universal School meals uh one of the we went the first state but it's only a handful of states in the country that have done that and I always remind
people yes it means that every child gets breakfast and lunch every day in school which is great but it also saves parents $1,200 a year I mean it helps everybody not just the kids who can't afford School breakfast and school you know it's it's a it's a good thing for all of us and uh I remind people how
many times did uh one of our kids run out of the house without lunch money or have to come back or run up to the school so you know it's a it's one of those yes it's great for for the kids who really desperately need good nutrition but it's it's good for everyone as well um I think a couple
I did want to mention one more thing on housing um we had Ed Augustus here he's he's I guess it's not housing anymore it's livable communities yeah yeah um but it was great and we we talked a lot and and I always say this we certainly want public housing to be available to anyone who needs it right I mean there
were those days when people got you know outlined they weren't able to get into certain towns because of what they looked like or who they were we don't want that on the other hand it's human nature to want to want to be in the community your network your family SW you sh so we're trying to fix this and
they've done a really good job so far local housing authorities used to get hundreds if not thousands of applications because of the way the system was set up they're making some really good changes I appreciate uh folks here in hollison but also the other towns I represent we had a series of meetings on how could the system be
better um I think they're doing a good job and we want to prioritize local residents if we can um but still be available to everybody and uh I I think they're on a good path um I'm waiting to hear more on how it goes but uh some some good things happening but we'll see but I'm you know anybody who taught you
know our kids our seniors families it's just getting real expensive and Big Challenge these I love this town um I'm not sure I could afford this town today right that's just a reality that I think I hear that from a lot of people so um but I think that was all I want I mean I really want to get into your questions
again the senator do a great job giving the overview of what we've accomplished um I really enjoy working with the community here um I think we have a good ongoing back and forth but anytime you need me please be in touch and uh looking forward to the to the years ahead so but why don't we why don't we
get to your questions and sort of updates that you want to share with us absolutely well I'll turn to the board first and then I'll turn to the finance committee and the school committee who um have Representatives here this evening Damon yeah um taking this up to like a 10,000 foot level I know we're
all worried about financing about grants Etc at a state level it feels like we are particularly dependent or at least particularly vulnerable to cuts at the federal level especially since we're so dependent on Tech biotech um education
Etc I'm kind of wondering um as legislators do you have any informal advice for municipalities like ours as we think about the KnockOn effects that that uncertainty might have on our local economy the you know the white collar workers who work there who are also kind of funding the blue collar and service
industry jobs I think a lot about that Cascade and how it might affect our overall tax revenues kind of the viability of smaller Municipal governments so totally informally but as we as a municipal government think about the next couple of years what are some Readiness steps that we can undertake
our fiscal planning to help us think ahead considering that we don't know what things are going to be like six months let alone four years from now you know it's interesting I was thinking about this coming in because I used to be on finance committee and all of your planning is based in part on Town budgets depend on the state state
depend in part on Federal and it is a cascading effect I would do scenario planning I mean I would just look at you know what's our worst case scenario percentage wise just people really need to think through that it's it's you don't want to be negative but you almost have to be ready for some of that stuff
um that's just and and what I mean I'm looking at for the state level beginning to look at it and and when you know about 10 years ago when we entered the 2015 2016 recessions we had to cut a billion dollars from the budget each year it was hard it was really hard
because it's it's painful and you know it's going to cause some pain but we had to prioritize so what are some of the things where where you know are the residents are are so either vulnerable or rely upon there's certain things that just can't be cut in any way um and and
then others that either can be decreased a little bit or spread out over time a little bit more um to to save some of it um and and I think by that it it's talking to a lot of the people who are
your senior on your senior team here the the the uh departments the divisions the the the the residents you know and um it it's I'm hoping that it doesn't come to pass as bad as it could be actually um
but I I think for all of us to be looking at that and um you know being honest with people and that's why I think you know our role is is being honest and saying I mean even just as we started out with Medicaid alone it's 12
to 16 billion if that's cut it's going to be hard and one of the challenges and I was on Mary's show a few weeks ago and she she asked about this the impact of federal and like we're watching it closely but one of the challenges is I said Mary you're going to broadcast this show in 10 days there'll be 10 more things that Trump
does that disrupt what's going on 10 minutes 10 minutes right exactly you know it's you know and I you know and and by the way we talked about Jim govern I sold appreciate that he came here in some parts of the country I don't I no this is in partisan there are members of Congress who are not meeting
with their constituents because they're getting yelled at I think that's unpatriotic and it's dishonorable I think they should defend their policies that they put in front of the American people and and it's hard enough if if we didn't support them we still have to get up there and and be a supportive and respond to constituents so I really
appreciate that he listened he stayed for hours to listen to every single person so thank you all said yeah okay than um well thank you both for being here um you give a lot of great information and oftentimes um my questions that I walk in with you've already discussed so um
I'm only just going to um give you um one comment here because um you brought it up the um the extension of the um the the ability to use like hybrid um and uh remote um uh participation for for
meetings I think is just so critical and I'd really like to see some permanence there I mean particularly with respect to things like the open meeting law and you know the remote meeting actual law that's in on the books like talks about telephones and things like that and it's it's a relic and you know I mean of
course you know you understand this and you you realize this and I know it's a it's a there's a you know it's a bramble of issues to sort of navigate but I would um you know strongly encourage and uh support and hope for um some
permanence there and some resolution on some of those things to be able to um have some solid uh understanding and you know if you want to speak to it it's fine but you don't necessarily have to but I just I want to sort of voice my support there's a lot of support for it and and I think there's legislation that I've co-sponsored that that is would do
that what I'm hearing is that some of the really really tiny towns have certain issues with affordability and they're trying to figure it out and that that might be one of the the things that's delaying it from just being permanent so but I I agree I mean I mean the thing for the thing for us that was so helpful is you know uh the the arpa
money was in you know and and the co funds for cares and things like that we were able to sort of push our way through because we needed it because of the necessity because we had to do it and we were actually able to like you can see the the the thing behind the board behind you I mean we have that and
it's been you know it's it's great like you know the other night we had a big public forum and we had lots of people able to participate and we've had great multiple times that you know you can't fit 500 people in this building but you can get 500 people on the zoom to uh participate in some of those meetings and that's really important to I agree
as I said I'm a firm supporter of making it permanent it seems ridiculous for us to even spend time debating on renewing it and renewing it we should just me everybody wants it and everybody you know I understand there's there's that's the problem you know but
yeah I'll continue to push for that I really I appreciate it and thank you for all the leadership and all the things you do for hollon it's you know we're very grateful you know you brought up Woodland Street and being able to have your support and your help in that in that space and all the other things that we've uh you know the projects that we've had you've been wonderful
Advocates and supporters of us and so just thank you very much for all the things that you do to support and to represent our town it's a pleasure do you remember what the number was Chris Mayo gave during the budget hearings for the it the uh it budget for the number of members residents I want to say it
was 20,000 plus or minus but every year when the it budget comes through our IT director Chris May gives us an update on how many people to date have been have been uh have participated in a public meeting through hybrid uh participation remote participation I should say and I
I want to say the number was 20,000 of course it grow every year but it's enormous for town like H Civic engagement it's happened in the state house too with us having our our hearings open to the public and remote and hybrid and sessions and just all of the other things it's really increased
participation because people can participate they may not be able to come to a town meeting for whatever reason but this really it really makes a difference it does it's help democracy overall so I think we need to focus on right now well in in in that vein I will
say that uh through your comments it's clear that there's a certain amount of whiplash happening at the state level trying to follow everything and react to everything proactively or reactively um and I I think all we can do is express our support for you and your and your gratitude as you continue it times are
challenging given the amount of change that's out there and change breeds uncertainty and uncertainty breeds chaos as you mentioned so um thank you for your focus through these challenging times and to your comment about and yours as well the open door to your offices and the collaboration between
the two of you we are uh living from that through that benefit with the town manager act I think that speaks exactly to the point uh of how well you collaborate with us and I would just want to reiterate for residents here in Holliston that we truly benefit from that um and the open door policy that you both have to hear from constituents
I am a I am a user of that I have shown up in your offices to advocate for things here on hollon WE for hollon will continue to do so um you really do have an open door and I'm grateful for the time that you're willing to to give to your constituents I just have a couple things that there really asks they're
just two um we have a shared streets and spaces Grant application in we would ask for your support to accomplish some uh sidewalk pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure but overall um Road improvements for all Road users uh that
application went in January or February and we're due for an award announcement soon um and if not already given would ask for support on that you might see the ball the ballards the temporary Flex posts that are out in
front so we're wrapping up on a pilot um program there to see how those work uh and would use that grant money to to look to make some permanent improvements there and the second is uh it's two-part when in that uh letter that we submitted on behalf of the town of Holliston for
earmarks in in the FY 26 budget we did ask for $8 million for the downtown sewer project I hear what you're saying about how early it is usually in the budget we don't do capital projects that's more of a bonding type of thing
so that's good for us to know though so if a bonding Bill comes through we might have an opportunity to include it in there but um we don't normally do Capital that long-term you know 30-year types of payments but it would be a game
changer for hollist uh uh to accomplish a major project that would fundamentally change our downtown area and also our economic base here in the town understand your comments but wouldn't would be remiss if I didn't bring it up here and and it's good to know because I I know we set up a few meetings with Jim McGovern on on some of the Congressional
directed funding we're waiting we we he was approached about that when he was here in hollon two weeks ago a huge process too in TimeWise so that it's always good to know what's on your mind or what's happening because it gets gets on the list it gets the feedback we got from um uh Congressman McGovern was that
it's uncertain at this point in time everything's UNC but the work of the Sewer Commission is strong and it's ongoing and they are exploring other uh funding opportunities which brings me to my last um request my last ask here which is uh support for Mass Works application uh that will be coming
forthcoming for the downtown sewer project we've benefited from the One-Stop uh for growth program here in the past with a housing Choice Award which we use to update our housing production plan which did actually complement the work that we were doing
to get us to the MBTA 3A um article that articles that we brought to town meeting so we've definitely benefited through these programs um and would look to do that again with the massworks application so I wanted to bring those to we can to support and push it forward
thank you very much um well with that I think the board is all set so I will turn to in the room first we have members of the school committee I'll just invite whomever you'd like to have come up as as well as school administrators we have um superintendent Dr Kusa and assistant superintendent Dr Jordan here as well so any represent
representatives from the schools please come on up we have multiple chairs that we could pull up Dr Kusa Dr Jordan would either of you like to join us at the table sure a microphone yeah we can share good evening and uh not to ignore our finance committee members I see you
on the call as well if you don't mind uh from the finance committee I'll just go through the school committee first and then turn to you guys on the zoom call good evening how are you they are also here because tonight they're going to present a application for the msba program do you feel like you just got Corral right now
yeah that was a lot of activity good evening how are you good how are you thank you all for being here really appreciate this Dan offer school committee I don't know if we want to go around before I chair uh David Jordan assistant superintendent
I'm Susan CCO superintendent um good evening good evening so so not to be overly greedy and this one isn't actually about money but could we set the ribbon cutting for August 25th not just just before before so if we could do that that would be uh that would be wonderful and certainly help us
with our our planning is that a voted on C uh calendar is that approved have you been following yes 26 is voted on as as the first day of school we're still working on a few other other things but so 25th got
it let us know whatever day you decide we will be there um it will be a celebration yes absolutely um and we really appreciate all the help with that because that will be tremendously important as far as moving towards our new start times which are are we finally
are able to get our our two uh Elementary Schools running at the same time but they're both right there so having two points of of egress and exit to those to that campus will be uh very beneficial um just quickly maybe maybe David can even get or sorry Dr Jordan
can get into a little more detail about it but um there is a proposal from uh the Massachusetts uh school um business uh officers uh and and Ms the Massachusetts Association of superintendant uh to fund special education reimbursement at 90% uh for
tuition and 75% for transportation and so we'd like to Advocate strongly uh for for that obviously as you know you know special ucation costs are are you know some of the biggest drivers of of school budgets uh these days and uh while we are fortunate enough to be in a position where we're going to be able to to meet
our our our budget needs without uh without layoffs um it's still significantly impacting our ability to to offer additional um educational opportunities to our students so um anything you can can do there would be enormously impact I don't if you want
to that you know that that is uh one of our our those volatile up and down costs it's it's one of our our areas with uh out of District tuition um as far as the percentages of which it's increasing as far as controlling for that um and then
Transportation cross it's not just out of District transportation but it's transportation across across the Commonwealth uh not just within special education but even even Athletics and our our regular cost continue to clim right it's something that I would like to take a look at when we do the fair
share Sub sub budget and the allocation um we've done that in the past and we'll see we'll try to do some this time too I just want to add because I think uh I really appreciate um representative Rea D Ro you were able to attend the legislative breakfast of Tri County that
I presented at and Susan Nichols on your behalf we really appreciate the advocacy there we talked about many of these topics um I just wanted to Echo the the food um program I happen to have been um principal for the day at our placentino building last week and I helped with
breakfast and lunch for our students there and they come in with happy faces and even some of our students that are not as um significantly challenged with finances may not have food at home regardless of their financial situation so it levels the playing field and it
reduces the stigma so many kids felt and and it just wasn't right this just everybody their stomachs AR grumbling yeah I do worry about that program like many others as we're hearing all of those um changes but right now um it's going well and Miller I'll be principal
for the day this Wednesday and similar be doing lunch duty with our grade 35 students who will be eating lunch uh for free as well so thank you for that and for supporting all of oural initiatives over the year as well so can I just respond to you because on the house side there is legislation to support that and
I think they did it in concert with some of the superintendent that I am co-sponsoring it I think it's important and and the senator mentioned um it's kind of interesting we we have a tight budget and there's a lot of concern and yet the some of the fair share money is is rising and so that'll be a challenge to figure out what we can or cannot do
um I did just want to add CU I heard this even before I took office about the rising cost of out of District uh special tuition and it's more of a conversation starter but I did file legislation that would limit uh towns being charged 2 and
a half% um tuition increases because what was it 14% one year 5% that was just a killer to the small town and they're still increasing and what what and and what I wrote was if if the state still in the wisdom needs to rise it they they can I don't have a problem with that but it shouldn't all get passed on to the community just is a
killer um and the reason I picked 2 and a half% because we all know that cities and towns cannot they can only raise by 2 and a half% their budgets without going to the voters so why should the state with impunity be able to do that it's just a you know we'll see where it goes but it but I'm hearing it a lot
from a lot of especially the small towns and we're also hoping to look at the the formula itself uh which it's been a while since it's been looked at and um you know our towns Hon's a little different uh from some of the towns I represent but you know we kind of and I'm so glad that the state addressed
some inequities with Gateway cities that was good um but then we get thrown in with Weston and Welsley and I I wish it we had been more of a graduated system rather just yeah and you're all sort of minimal supportive communities I'm like well we're not West Welsley though we're not L and Lawrence but we're not West
and Welsley so anyway I I think there's a commission study that's that's on both House and Senate have bills to do that we'll see if it if it if it comes to fruition but I I think it's worth at least looking at it and exploring the possibilities and sorry I do have one follow-up question related to your
comment about the fair share Amendment would it be the transportation dollars or would it be the education dollars that you would look to address School transportation okay thank you okay it would be for the school yeah Transportation no that that would be wonderful um and then I'm hearing it
from all all communities you know it's an area that that I'm I'm sure when you go meeting with others from other communities it's the same thing special education and and it's not just tuition for special education it's it's also Transportation has just gotten crazy we have a number of Transportation sort of
placements for students that are over $100,000 a year for just to transport them to and from school and we've heard not in hollison but that there are districts that are basically allowing students to go in residency because the transport because the transportation costs are just so high and I mean that that is certainly something that can't
be the best interest of student you know to to so um you know that's um just something that's and we certainly want every student to get what they need right but the question is who how do we fund it well we're legally morally obligated to do that so we're you know so um we're going to do that um but that sort of
brings me to my my next um point and look I mean nothing that hollon has can compare to 12 to to $16 billion potential like Gap with Medicaid so I don't you know I I understand that you guys have significant challenges on an uncertainty that you're you're deal with with the federal um budget
but any help that the state can provide in in in assurances to municipalities as far as you know the idea grants and other federal aid that we get H gets about a million dollars of sort of grants that come obviously final through the state but but then comes to us and
while it's only about a percent sorry about 2% of our budget it's for offsetting special education costs if it's Ida it's Federal and and you know if we don't get the money if they cut all that it's gonna have a rickle with that right you know we're not going to
be able I'll be blunt plug the gaps and the holes that that the federal trusts do we don't have the money for all of it and we can't spend our rainy day fund in one year no right but I mean my I'm I'm just suggesting that we look at you know contingency plans you know above that
and it I don't know what those those are certainly no one likes the t word but uh but but but I mean just I mean we are morally and legally obligated to provide these special Education Services so what will end up happening is we will there will be general education Cuts right which mean positions well certainly you
know listen to all of you and hear your priorities and do the best that we Poss and you know I I'm just I mean this is not I mean I I some of those schol I was on the school committee too so I went we when we went through I remember um I was
in the legislature I hate to say it when we voted on some of the cuts and then I had to implement the cuts on the school committee that was painful that I wouldn't certainly not Envy in that position and then lastly just to sort of echo echo bend on the
the remote participation um but to take it maybe one step further just to look towards ways of sort of not supplementing sort of replacing minutes with you know for recorded meetings with either a transcript or or just just having the the recordings I mean it seems almost
like a an extra burden at this point to to to do minutes for something that's now recorded and anyone can watch the entirety of of the meeting or transcription services are are pretty easy and YouTube even I think does it you know automatically that's one thing actually I'm glad glad you mentioned
that because um I was thinking that particularly if we are cut on so many of our federal funding are there things that with the Schools administrative burdens you know filling out paperwork forms on the town side are there things that wouldn't necessarily cost a whole
lot of State dollars but save you a lot of dollars let us know on those you know if there are forms that have to be filled out every month maybe we can go to every other month or every third month or you know things things like that that can save money can in the long
run you're looking for ideas from the municipalities to come up to your when does that conversation start for you uh it it ongoing now yeah and particularly if if there are major Cuts that's one one area that um we did maybe 2008 an
administrative burden type of Bill where where we did look at some of you know cutting some of the costs and some of it may have been implemented some sometimes doesn't but if there are things that you're aware of specifically that would
save time energy and money for the town without cutting access to services or programs or reducing what you want to provide reducing the values of our town then let us know sure okay I don't know if you can help with this but the grants process is still pretty cumbersome for
the state department um even there's advocacy around that it used to be worse I can remember driving on a Friday afternoon to Malden because we had to have it stamped in their office by whatever 4 P.M um the the whole paper copy now it is electronic but it's still there's multiple locations still they're
not all in one place in that process I mean you could speak to as well it's pretty cumbersome it goes through multiple people then I I know it's just you bureaucratic maybe we'll talk yeah just to hear it yeah okay right yeah things things like that I think if it
can make a difference then we can take a look so Madam president what I'll do is turn to the finance committee unless there's more no thank you thank you very much Dr Jordan thank you we'll have you back up to the table in a well they're clearing
out is there anyone from the finance committee who would like to ask a question or share a comment uh please go ahead un mute you don't need to well just introduce yourself thank you good evening Dr Shaya I I would be thank you for allowing me to participate sure um I
I first want to give a shout out to Ben and Dan because they've heard me complaining about the minutes for the open meeting law for at least five years and both James and Karen have listened to me say this every year every March for the last four or five years to get
rid of the minut requirement uh you talk about saving money I will tell you right now that that's about 8 80% of the finance committee budget is preparation of M that no one ever looks at so so I am a very very strong Advocate as I have been for years of
fixing the oml to to Ben's Point get rid of the Arcane technology references modernize that but also allow for meetings that are recorded to be uh provided as as basically the trans you know the meeting you provide the
reporting rather than minutes because that's far more accurate and far more far easier to produce these days than than minutes okay um budget wise I I did have a couple of questions so the first one kind of follows up with what Dan was
saying so so we all know we're in this chaotic situation uh but there are two things that obviously concern me all the time one is how accurate the charity Sheet's going to be when when everything when the dust settles but this year because
of this chaos I'm also worried about uh is the legislature going to or the is a state going to try to compartmentalize the damage if it comes in other words you talked about the Medicaid funding right Karen talked
about medic funding if if it's government where federal government comes along and says okay we're wiping out a bunch of this funding okay is the state you we all know the state can't make up that deficit so so is the approach going to be if a program is cut
or reduced that the state is going to look to proportionally deal with it that same program or is it going to be something like well we're going to spread the pain out to reduce the impact of that one program and that's important to me because when you start spreading
the pain you know then it starts coming to the municipal budget so like let yeah I mean I I I'll be honest with you I I I I have to say it probably and this sounds like a comp out but it will
depend upon the program you know just like for the town if you get major Cuts would you cut chunks out of your budget or would you try to use a scalpel and and look at programs and services and how they impact and and help you know
the the residents and try to do it that way rather than large swats of programs and services um so it will it will it will depend I mean that's what we did that's what I did back in 2015 and 16 when we had to
cut a billion dollars from the budget after it was done looking at individual programs and seeing what what can we cut and listening to people and and agencies and you know what what was happening so
um you know I I think the best it's not a cop out K it's a it's a perfectly valid answer right I I guess that from the municipal you know obviously thinking on the municipal Finance side I'm just more worried about charry sheet changes right usually the only thing we have to worry about are N9 C's right and
and so you sit there and you say okay we've got the charity sheet we've got a budget P we know that 9C comes first before it hits us right directly so in this case you you don't really know and that's kind of where I was going with it
was I'm I'm trying to get feel for how what level of confidence you guys will have you know both you and and James will have in the charry sheets that we have this year you I can tell you when I had to make that budget uh cuts of a
billion dollars if you remember I think it was either 156 or 1617 we held local Aid and school aid harmless and we ended up cutting other things um knowing the priority and it
was in July that we had to do that June July of of the year so um the fiscal year had either started or was about to start and cities and towns had already done their budgets and plann um if we
can do that certainly that would be a preference we'll do the best we can Madam President we will have our town meeting on May 7th we will be looking for the finance committee recommendations on the budget and other spending articles I believe Ken the date
is uh April 23rd that we hand off the level three we do it in the four levels with the fourth being from the finance committee late April you've already mentioned that the timeline is early still so we're in very strong communication with you and Kathleen Buckley is our interim Town manager and
I know that communication will continue as we do finalize both level three for the select board and then level four for the finance committee as we head into town meeting but just in terms of the town's timeline May 7th is our is our town meeting so I understand Ken's questions about confidence and certainty
but I also understand your comments about early in the budget process and um we can rely on good communication to keep us a breast of changes as they come through if they come through right great thank you yes I'm I'm guessing we're not going to get a local a resolution like we have in Prior years no we I I would
have I mean we started talking about it but then with what's happening it's it's it's really difficult to do I know that it it would be great if we could do it but I'm not certain it would be fully reliable and could end up hurting more
than helping yeah no that that's why I said I I didn't expect one given what's going on in the in the short term so um okay well as I said I just I would just reiterate that from my perspective on the finance committee you know we're always concerned about the charity
sheets right and and so you know Dan was T telling about his concern about the School Federal funding passrs from the state uh you know our our main concern is just making sure that the cherry sheet we get is we we have some level of confidence in I know that this year
it'll probably be lower confidence than usual but it's it's really going to from our perspective going to turn on uh you know when we get the when we get the numbers from from you guys how confident you are you are that those are relatively protected should things go
south fast so but again last thing I'll say is thank you very much I I don't usually don't have the time to say this but I appreciate the efforts that both of you put in on on the town's behalf uh so I definitely appreciate it and James knows I have many Frank discussions with him
about Finance at the state level uh and I talk to you on occasion or your or your staff most of the time but uh but I do appreciate everything you guys do for the town so thank you we appreciate everything all of you do for the town you know again it's a team effort I was
singing your praises to another finance committee member of another town on on how we've spaced out our major investments in hollon and it's made a big difference some other towns are just getting squeezy even worse on taxes so kudos to you and your team and everyone who's been part of that process over the
many many years here in hon so all set Ken all set thank you Tina Michelle I see you on the call if you'd like to uh add a comment or a question um no questions I just want to what Ken said about our appreciation for
the efforts that you put in on our behalf not just the finance committee but the the residents in the town everything you do for us so thank you thank you thank you all that Michelle thank you okay I don't see any
other finance committee members on the call or in the room so with that we we've kept you for an hour you've been incredibly generous with your time you made a comment earlier about the impact potentially from the Federal changes trickling down to the local effort on Veterans and you know at the end of the
meeting under other business um raise a comment to Kathleen um our inter Town manager just to check in with our veterans agent on how veterans here in holl and we haven't had an update uh from that department here in town and it's it's worth hearing from our veterans agents so we can talk about
that under under other business but I appreciate your comments anything that again that we can do to help the veterans agent and the veterans we're hearing it at the local level we'll bring it up yeah Massachusetts has among the most generous veterans benefits in the country so and we're one of the few
states that have every town every municipality has a veterans agent too because we prioritized that well we had our most wonderful veteran Bobby Blair here earlier and so they're active here in hollon and we appreciate you looking out for them so thank you for your time
very much good evening thank you so much take care good to see you to see you thank you good to see thank you good to see you thank you great to see you luck theate it everything goes nice meeting
you good evening all right we're going to move on with a update from the town manager search we had a the town manager search committee earlier I think they're one minute please while we
reorganize are they socializing because we could also move I just told them we're ready so they're coming well we we've been asked to stick to our agenda so yeah no they're coming they're coming doing that they're coming good evening please come on
up we have uh John Cronin I see Jeff Marshall I see Hillary bresnahan mark aronian from the screening committee John would you like to invite everyone up to the table or sure yeah um you're welcome too if you'd like our whole team is not here we have one on Zoom Marlene there's Marlene I saw her earlier good
evening two of other uh friends had to depart they could not uh hang around but John you have some business to present the board with this evening and we have some kind words to offer back to your committee we like kind words Tina yes kindness it's great to see the Senate President in the hallway
um greetings everyone hello Ben hi Damon hello Madam chair Kathleen thanks for having us this evening um so my name's John Cronin I'm the chair of the U uh screening committee um for the town manager search um it's my pleasure this evening to appear before we have a few thoughts and I'm going to give you some
paperwork in just a second okay so we're can just get into it um so this evening uh we're pleased to present to you on behalf of uh my colleagues Hillary bresnan marleene fine uh Carolyn dma uh Jeff Marshall's with us um Sarah zarelli
could not be here but she was at our boat earlier and of course um our favorite marconian um the seven of us met uh recently and uh this evening we're prepared to deliver four names from our efforts to your attention um but before I get there I have a couple of thoughts to share with you so the
process getting here as you know you appointed us um we reviewed uh letters of interest in application from 18 candidates um from that 18 on March 6th we selected six for interview so we sat in this room on
March 15th Saturday uh 9 to6 and we interviewed six candidates with our with your recruiter Paradigm Associates Bernie Bernie Lynch um the emphasis that day was kind of sented around the same kind of questions for each of the candidates with appropriate follow-up
based on what the candidates offered us they focused on the following attributes career overview leadership man management style um communication collaboration building communities uh land use sustainability Personnel uh management
collective bargaining experience Capital Finance infrastructure uh select board relations which is probably very important and financial management um at the end the candidates were asked if they had questions for us and I'll get to that in a second so we covered a lot of ground each interview went roughly an hour maybe a little bit more if there
were things going on um but uh we had widespread support at the end for the four candidates that were recommending to you um there were some nuances within each and when you get to meet them you'll see what those are one thing I wanted to impart to this board um and I think this is really important to know
especially for people who are listening and have an interest in how the town is run I want to compliment the board because it was quite quite evident that these candidates came to hollison for a reason it's attractive to work here there there is a strong sense that this
town is ready for strong leadership it's supporting strong leadership I think the outgoing Town um manager as he was when he left um left a very good impression many spoke very highly of him um your leadership and the projects you're promoting were attractive to the candidates they all talked about the
same thing they did their homework they've watched your meetings they've watched you they know what's going on and they want in and that's a reflection on how welcoming and and how well you prepared the town for excellence in leadership and don't overlook that because it hasn't always been like that
so take a bow um all the candidates in addition to exuding that exuberance um felt that this was the the kind of place they wanted to work based on the financial stewardship that this board has done based on the projects including the Sewer Commission and some of the
other exciting things that are coming down the road um and they couldn't wait to get here they they really want the job it was very evident um and at the end you know we ask them do you have any questions for us and almost all of them said the same thing what is the biggest challenge that the new town manager is
going to encounter when they arrive in Holliston and you know you mind races we get a lot of answers to that question but we all agree there's only one answer there's a primary answer and it's really how they going to take the transition of this new town manager role and incorporate it into the process that you
all envision for him or her so um they got that they see that as a not a challenge but something they're going to have to confront So based on that it's uh now your turn um I wanted to just read you very quickly the names of the individuals let me give you a packets okay Tina sure yes
please here you go thank you there you go B thank you sir you're welcome the uh the search process which as you know was coordinated through uh Community Paradigm Associates and Bernie Lynch help draft this letter um both
Bernie and I have signed it uh this even evening we'd like to recommend the following four individuals for your consideration um I will just name the names I'm not planning to get into the backgrounds unless you want to Tina but the first is Mr Frank javio the second is Miss Caris
lustig the third is Mr Mark strange and then finally Mr uh Darren tangman um these four individuals have a variety of different skills and experience which we think your board will find very interesting when you meet with them um and at this point I just wanted to pass
along my thanks to each of the members of the screening committee um highly professional they I think they all thoroughly enjoyed it um it was very insightful and uh thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve you the town of Holliston in this important role we're here for any questions you might
have before you move on Madam chair one question before I open up to the board are you posted still or did you guys adjourn from your we uh we adjourned to come here but we are posted to be here okay Damon any questions or comments for the screening committee um you know not to be too General but I'm kind of
interested to know for the four candidates that you're presenting tonight were there were there any that you didn't get to questions that you would have liked to ask that we can kind of pass on during our interview process oh we were pretty
thorough had many hours to be yeah I I think the best had followup questions all right I there you you'll always feel like with one or two candidates you could spend more time with them but um I think generally covered a lot of ground um there's you know full day of interviews you get to know what you have
to do but um could we' have done a second interview I suppose but we got the gist and I think you'll you'll find that we uh thoroughly uh covered ground with most of the topics that were presented earlier Damon uh and uh obviously no need to name names here but at one point you said that there were six candidates that came in for
interviews what were some of the what were some of the criteria that kind of were the Deltas between the six and the four that came through um so I'm thinking of the two that are not advancing um they probably lacked the kind of leadership and experience that a town manager would
need on day one uh that that comes to mind first um and then scale one of the candidates had more of a uh the scale of experience wouldn't fit here um it was just an apple and an orange I would say yeah um but the rest of them the ones
that are before you have existing you know leadership experience very different some are in roles uh of to manager ilk and others are rising and you can see the talent pretty quickly and any of the four are
definitely qualified all strong candidates very fortunate to be in this position four solid candidates and Marlene I see you on mute if you'd like to unmute and jump in at any time I do recognize you up there and you can please jump in um otherwise I'm going to
turn to to Ben uh yeah um well thank you I really appreciate all that time I mean I recogn nice 9 hours of Saturday to uh to talk to all these uh these candidates is a uh a lot a lot and I really appreciate you putting in that time to really help this
process uh you know your opinions are valuable and important to be able to help us make a better decision um I think um I just have uh one question here um and that is you know obviously we can't we're not we don't want to talk about specifics
but did you find that the candidate school was looking to kind of take what the previous Town manager had done and sort of run with it or do you think that there might be um some opportunities or some shifts in directions based on some
of the experience or um personalities or anything like that I would say they all have their own leadership uh abilities okay yeah they do there's overlap I mean don't get me wrong I saw Travis and a couple of them because because there's
some shared skill sets but Mark's right they're all individually they're different with their leadership style but um yeah I think the range of their experience will spell it a little differently for you you'll get what you're looking for but it'll be a little different and inevitably will inevitably
would be yes go ahead Jeff Jeff and then oh Marlene and then Jeff go ahead Marlene she has her hand up Jeff um I I just wanted to add that one of the comments that the candidates uniformally made was that they were so impressed that the town has strategic plan and
they saw that as the blueprint or they coming in and what they were going to do so I I have the sense that none of them had an agenda of theirs that they wanted to take the town in a different direction they were pleased to have a
direction to go in and a direction that the community had endorsed thank you awesome okay Jeff did you yeah I was just going to Echo John's the comments that that the skill sets of the four that are coming through were clearly um
ones that could be successful in this role the two that we moved moved away from were probably ones that weren't quite ready for the for this level of a of a position and we felt like you know
that we we had the top four great that was but uh thanks again I really appreciate the uh the time and uh the uh the information and the that you put in so thank you well we we do owe you a debt of gratitude for the hour spent and the effort put in uh it's a
it's a huge commitment and I I think we knew that when we asked each of you to consider taking on this role as a screening Committee Member and so uh grateful for your acceptance of that because it was no small ask as you explained earlier the number of hours spent interviewing and reviewing
materials so uh huge debt of gratitude I'm incredibly proud that we had a screening Committee of this caliber um I know each of you and those not here to be skilled Professionals in in the work that you do outside of your town your volunteer roles here in hollon but also through your volunteer roles here in
Holliston and that gives me an enormous amount of comfort that you are you fulfilled the task that was put in front of you both by Bernie Lynch and the select board which was to select qualified strong candidates and I couldn't have more confidence in the names that I have before me knowing who
was a part of the screening to get them to hear so again an enormous debt of gratitude from here what we'll do and then I will just point out for those listening who might not have followed this process so closely the select board was removed from it up until this point we would receive periodic updates
through the the um executive Search firm on timeline and process but we were not getting any updates in terms of the candidates who they were or uh where they're coming from so this will be our very first time getting to dive into the information uh from here we will have
Bernie Lynch uh of paradigm Community Paradigm Associates um come to us on April 7th to explain the interview process and set the board up for a successful public interview of all four candidates as well as provide us an update on the reference checks which are
currently ongoing now that they've they've been presented to the board those reference checks um are started and then we plan our interviews on Friday um April 11th that is the this tentative schedule assuming their availability so just to let you know that your work is is uh getting handed
over and we're going to run with it I think that's wise to just do interviews on that day nothing else I'm a little embarrassed that we're only doing four hours worth of interviews where as you guys sat here closer to 9 or 10 but um we're we put in our time I guess otherwise might be longer interviews right well so just a couple thoughts
real quick thanks for the kind words as always Tina um I I have um Financial elements that the candidates presented as part of their packet um I know Bernie does too so if any of you want access to them let me know or Bernie in preparation for your interviews yes um
and what was the other thing I was going to say with respect to Bernie he could not be here tonight he's tied up in New York so I know you're going to see him on the um on the 7eventh this is the second time we used him I was on that side of the table you're in good hands so um we wish you the very best okay thank you thank you for all that you've done to get us to this point we
understand through our appointment that we uh we stand ready in the event that bad things happen and nothing happens so we hope never to see you again under these turns um for that reason only uh but we are not disbanding until a Time certain or until you fulfill your
role so we'll wait to hear from you Kathleen I suppose when things are done but for now we stand ready to help and assist and hope you have a great night I think your Saturdays are free for a little bit for now right for while all right we good yes thank you very much for coming nice to see you all thank you
Marlene thanks have a great night thank you for the information all right we will oh by way thank you thank you we're going to move on with the agenda uh to public comment I'll do the board first and then the room and then the zoom call I will just point out that we have very
patiently waiting the school committee and school administrators for agenda item number five um we are a full agenda to this evening so uh with that public comment please Damon uh I'll keep it brief but but on point I think that um
last week we had uh open Forum about the gpw facility uh one of the planned potential sites which is near pinerest um we had a lot of participation to say the least in that meeting um and I think that there were some there was some information that we already were aware of I think it exposed some communication
gaps that we have to fil and get better at um but there were some pieces of info that I thought are worth us mulling over a little bit and for any folks who are on the call or here who are interested um I I was moved by some of the arguments at least to the point of inquisitiveness uh and a willingness to
hear a few more options so nothing to act on there yet Madam chair it's just um you know I've been mulling that over quite a bit I just want to put on the table them thinking that through okay thank you thank you um I just have uh like one thing it's more I guess it's more of a request I guess let go go
under other business but I'm going to bring it up now um is I think I'd like to see in our agenda is to make sure that we have um information on how to subscribe to our agenda oh sure and um I think we should
make sure that people understand that that is an option that they can they can do that and similarly it's through the same process to be able to subscribe to the town manager newsletter um I got the the the numbers and only 92 people uh subscribe to the
select board agendas and uh there's 1,200 plus who subscribe to the town manager newsletter all right so Jamie hok got a job the high school seniors get them to subscribe and to my husband Travis sign what the what uh you if he
has that question um but I think I think it's important that that people know that they have that ability to do that and I think we should be lower my chair we should be uh we should be really uh pushing that and making sure that people understand that that is an option available to us and then further
beyond that as well um is that you can always email us too or email the town uh the town manager's office um and make sure that you know Reach Out contact us if you have questions concerns anything like that you know we we should have be getting more information from from
people as things come up and um yeah subscribe to those those uh agendas um I'm working on some other things to try to see about other ways for communication and some other ideas um uh that uh are not ready for conversation but just trying to do some some other
things but um I think that is a a very simple straightforward thing so um I'd like it in the agenda and I'd like um I'd like to you know if we can bring it up sometimes during the meeting as well and then I would strongly urge any boards and committees to do the same to make sure that people know that they can reach out the the one that has the most
subscriptions in in there is the planning board there's like 1100 people because of for reasons and um but there's there's opportunities for you if you want to understand what's going on in those boards and committees that you can do so so great that's my and we can talk about it further under other business and what that might look like
okay thank you okay uh my only public comment is to reiterate what Bobby Blair had to say when he was in here earlier April 19th 1775 uh the shot hurt around the world took place on the Lexington com and we will be having an event here at Town Hall I don't know why he only
invited you two but I have a feeling it's cuz he thinks I work that that hour in the morning but or he just assumes you'll be there yeah well there you go uh however uh want to make sure the hollon reporter captures that and shares that information because again this is living history when we when we uh honor
things like this on the 19th yes M sure just a quick note uh auspicious day for us to get this flag today is actually the anniversary of the 1765 Quartering Act which the British Parliament put into effect demanding that residents in towns like Boston give housing food and
shelter to British troops so it was not the shot uh heard around the world but probably the gunpowder sure sure that started that right okay um so I have no other public comment with which I will turn to the room any public comment here in the room if you would just raise your
hand and come on up to the board okay not seeing any in the room I'm going to turn to the zoom call if you wouldn't mind raising your hand that's to use the reaction button Buton to do so if you are on a call I would ask you to Star n to be recognized then six to unmute star
six I don't see any hands going up I'll give it another moment because technology sometimes is not our friend seeing no other public comments we will move on in the agenda again we have a um very important guest here this evening for a statement of Interest
request from the school committee and school administrators so we'll have you back up to the table again please and thank you for your patience uh while we work through our full agenda good evening again just uh just a point I I am one of
the 92 so you know I I you know it's how I keep it's how I keep an eye on you um yeah but but anyway thank you for having us back um we are here to present our 7th statement of interest interest for for the halls in high school but how
many emails to sign after right thank you we're going to have at least two more okay please go Ahad you and so with that yeah I'll turn that over to Dr kusco and Dr Jordan uh they're prepared to to give a the a presentation but we can also move along to questions or
whatever so given that it's the seventh I just took one of the previous presentations and updated it for you okay so I don't know if you want me to go through the entire presentation I did share it I would just if if you don't mind I would just say what are the changes from the previous that I think that's really the main thing I don't
think we need to go through the entire thing I think the town is all they they they know what the they know the drill but what's different this time so the one difference from last year is that we actually had to remove one of the items because we had item number four um when we wrote this um in the past we were
seeing a bubble coming up with students and that bubble could have led us to having to shift students to another level and we may we we were predicting that we might need to use the high school and have a larger space there for some of the students and that bubble coming up since we wrote that we've actually seen the shift go the other way
and now we're seeing more of a decline in our particularly in our placentino students um the kindergarten is coming up and so forth so we we really can't um predict that we're going to need an enrollment increase um that that's now two years in a row that we started to see this decline so
um I did have to remove item number four which would be because of an unusual enrollment shift we would um then request that as part of the process for the SOI as well there then there there are number of remaining items that would have us qualify if we're chosen in the
program yes number one five and seven you'll have to read that in the um you have to read that um into the record and it will highlights what those areas are covering as well okay anything to add no I mean just that I think it's important for us to continue
with down this process um you know it's not that you're put on a wait list and it's any given year could be could be the year um I think knowing the high school with while there was a renovation at some point in the 9s we are still looking at single Paine glass at our
Windows we're still looking at a boiler that's on the far corner of the building as far as the the conservation energy conference conservation it's not an efficient building um and an older building I think I would add to I you know um two of the sois were written
prior to my arrival here so I guess it would be 20189 and then um I'm sorry 2019 and 20 and then the next five are with me but if you look back to the timeline of when the high school was renovated it was the decision was made to do the renovation and I think it was
around 2000 that it was actually went through and then you had the building project at ano and Miller as well so the town was challenged by you know having these projects overlap in timelines but when you look at that timeline as well from the time you started applying for the SOI um the schools were applying for
that this the renovations were less than 20 years old so you know there's you know the first couple didn't even get us into that I think um as you look at some of our accelery pairs that we're doing lately in the building projects usually it's that 25 year marker before they even are looking at it so you know our
timing might have been just a little a little premature because of that even though we do see the need for the current needs of students and the pro programs that they need to offer but you know similar like the heating and all of those things we just can't fix those in the building um that is the original
building as old as it was but it didn't look as bad and and is needy because of the renovations that were done okay thank you we we're familiar with the timeline Damon this is his first time receiving an SOI um application request for a new high school new build could
you just walk through the timeline to expect over the next 12 months before we're potentially at the table again not that I would we would hope not to be we would hope to progress in the program but uh could you just walk through key dates or time frames over the next 12 months so this has to be submitted by
April 11th so um Dr Jordan and I will go back in and we make some slight edits to the current um application that's in there they just carry it over each year and then we just change whatever has changed so by April 11th prior to April 11th you'll have to sign those electronic well you and then um we end
up Hearing in the fall as to whether or not we are being considered for feasibility fall okay so once we if if and when that was um to move forward then we would come back and meet with you and talk about the feasibility timeline as well okay we heard from the Senate President and James Arena doosa
representative that they they stand at the ready to support our application I I take that to mean to whatever extent um we're looking for their support so perhaps we revisit this in the fall as you're getting feedback from the msba program because they sometimes will
reach out ahead of time and let you know how the process is going well what happened last year which we made us optimistic as we were um in in right before um they made decisions they actually came out and did a a walk through with us and um we it made us
think that that was actually moving us along so um we had a really good conversation with them and then I think just it really every year is a new year and a new group of schools so you're every year it's like you're starting you're not starting over as far as you're still in the queue because you kept in the queue for all those years
but it depends on who you're up against that year and how needy those projects are really so well on behalf of the town we would certainly support any Outreach that you'd be looking to have with the state reps our legislative representatives to um support this application as the process is moving
forward so if you need us to make a request that they come join for a school visit or um there's an advocacy day down at the state house whatever it may be we we stand at the ready to support you uh in that I do think it makes a difference and we certainly heard the offer from from the two of them this evening to um
respond when called so I be smart to do that next year and last year we did submit the um facilities report that James ke had helped put together I mean we submitted every document that we had and um Senator spilka's office did also give a letter from her on our behalf so
we probably will um I probably will email again tomorrow and just ask if they could update update a letter to Us Again full team effort to whatever we cross the finish line here any other comments or anything you want to add no appreciate everyone's support sure and
so and I was joking about the emails I I didn't actually remember that there were emails that come after the vote that I need to be paying attention to so I will Madam chair procedural clarification is this a motion to conduct the vote with this language or simply a motion to adopt the SOI language which then
results in a vote I can I can bundle it Robert rules will be you read it publicly and then you make the motion what I exactly as it was done with he's like do not change we have to do we have to be very
specific with that language done with your leave I will read the uh statement of Interest language as absolutely uh resolved having convened in an open meeting on March 24 20125 prior to the SOI submission closing date the select Board of the town of Holliston in
accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinances have voted to authorize the superintendent of schools to submit to the Massachusetts school building authority the statement of Interest form dated April 11 2025 for Holliston High School located at 370 Hollis Street
hollon massachusett 01746 which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts school building authority in the future priority area number one building jeopardizing student health poor health
and learning environment priority area number five replacement renovation and modernization of school facility systems such as roofs Windows boilers Heating and ventilating systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in school facility and
priority area number seven replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide for a full range of programs consistent with the state and approved local requirements and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting this statement of Interest
form the Massachusetts school building authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts school building authority or commits the town of Holliston to filing an application for funding with
the Massachusetts school building authority thank you Damon any questions or comments uh yeah I um am I seconding it or is it no before we because I did have I did have questions yeah um so just a couple things I had sent you my questions beforehand uh because I didn't
want I wanted you to know what I was going to ask before I asked it I don't like uh I don't like uh surprising people on those in these situations so um you know I asked that first one which is what is what changed um the second one is that are there projects that we need to start doing because we haven't
been doing them for the past couple of years because we are kind of in this weird space where we know we need new facilities but I also recognize that there could be some so I'm just kind of wondering because you know from from our perspective a lot of the projects can be pricey so just kind of wondering if
those they're out there or if there's some Capital plans that we should be aware of some of them we'll be back unfortunately in in a couple weeks probably to to present our capital and so some of them will be in there as some of the smaller ones but I think the big one was you know that we had been um
trying to postpone making a decision on the high school wall that that had been on capital for many years but never really moved forward um because of the fact that there was a hope that the high school should be built so that that now is dealt with and there's there's no leaking at in the while in the high
school anymore so that is wonderful I think you will probably if we are unsuccessful with the um n SOI in the future we may end up coming back to Capital with significant costs related to those windows because they really are you know those single pane windows just
in this day and age is just the msba um AR similar to the the roofs uh windows are mixed are built in too that as well so if we were looking at um the high school not being a possibility we would start to look at repairing things and
portions including filing uh an msba um AR uh grant for for that for the windows yeah and you'll see Mr Alfred's um point we are going to be bringing forward um some of the exterior doors on the buildings definitely need to be dealt with so we're going probably put
together a multi-year um proposal for try to slowly e away and get the most um you know the most challenged doors um dealt with sooner than later in addition uh some uh Auditorium lighting uh repairs that need to be done uh what we
sought with within that quote was something that transferability something that could move uh if need be was a a major selling point for for us on on our recent estimates that we received okay okay and then um my my next one is
thinking about you know like as we go through this process and we've been through it several times is there there a plan b or is there another process or another thing cuz I know when I go out in the in the community a lot of people ask me about it I know I have a kindergartener so I know it's going to impact me you know at some point in the
future too um but I definitely hear it from people I remember when I was getting my papers first signed in 2020 and I was we going around a neighborhood um you know Co mind you everybody said the same thing as like what are you doing about new high school this is really important to us and I think a lot of people have said that to me over the
years and I'm just kind of wondering like you know we've gone through this process and I I get it it's a you know it's a expensive thing but the longer we wait like we you know we talk about the DPW facility we're talking about escalators that you know when we were looking at $500 a square foot it's you know $8 $900 a square foot and you're
certainly seeing the same things in your realm so I'm just kind of wondering like you know what's the plan B here or is there a plan B um I me I speak think that is the concern right the costs continue to Rise um we don't have an actual estimate but a ballpark that I was told by a couple of um people could
be up to $220 million so the issue is how do you fund $220 million if you don't get the potential 48% back or whatever it comes out to be when we finally get approved I mean now you're talking double the project so um in that sense I certainly don't have a plan B
but as a town I think it's going to be something that the town will want to explore further um and decide when is enough if we don't get mve forward can I jump in on that when you're done yeah I mean I was actually going to bring up the uh the potential for building committee which I'm wondering if that's where you were going yes but first
before and you can bring that one up thank you you're the chair I prer you're the vice chair I wanted to ask about totally blanked on what it was nope it was right there well you want me to just say ask my other question why you think about it
no it's the feas yes but wait one minute uh it's the feasibility um study so as I understand with the msba if you're submitting an application like this the town would you would supersede it if you were to do a feasibility study of what does a school what does an education
system need to be at the high school what do that right that's superseded what I mean to say is if you do one yep we we can't get reimbursed for it you wouldn't be reimbursed for it but and then if we did get into the program they they would require another one right
that's my understanding it doesn't negate anything right it was a little if I thought there was something about that the way it was described to me is if if if you do your own feasibility study it almost implies that you're ready to move forward so it could actually weaken your chances it's not definitive on that but
that yes it still wouldn't count if you did get move forward you'd still have to do another P so it's you know it's a catch 22 so I'll piggy back then on Ben's comment that I think he's about to raise is I wonder if that's a part of a plan B is that we're doing some sort of feasibility study I just put that out on the table since you asked a question
about Plan B that's been a thought in my mind but I know we're here tonight and we'll move to to submit this application in just a moment but go ahead then yeah I mean my last my last point was um thinking about like we' sort of brought up and maybe we might get a little more formal with the new town managers thinking about perhaps having something
like a building committee we certainly had the working group with some of those kinds of things but there's a lot of projects there's a lot of things going on and having some kind of a group that can kind of parse through some of these things as we go through and planning and things like that and seeing if there's
synergies across departments and things like that um you know I throw out there that I you know we'd want obviously it's not you know our board but it would you know we'd want to make sure that everybody was participating and had a had a role and you know you don't have to comment on it now because I'm just bringing it up right here but just to
sort of say I think that is something we might want to explore as a community to be able to have some of those discussions and sort of start thinking about those long-term planning because some of these projects are getting very expensive and you know we're talking about the library we're talking about the upw we're talking about the center we're talking about uh um High School
we're talking about a lot of different things and these these price tags are are uh big and we need to sort of think about these things in a holistic ways so obviously forming a building committee is in is in your purview but certainly if that's a direction you'd want to go we should we' be open to having
discussions about about yeah I think you know we haven't talked about it formally but we've sort of brought it up as a as a potential and but thinking about it you know obviously would look for participation from you know all the interested stakeholders when it comes to buildings and things like that in throughout the town I would tag thing
two things to that ision one would be that we have a new town manager seated yeah and some time under their belt not not years but maybe a couple months few months at least uh and that possibly as a part of that would be some sort of feasibility study because that would give a document but those are just
thoughts just thoughts so anything else I am all finished thank you and I fully support I'm not don't please don't take my questions as not supporting I'm just sort of you know there's definitely like you know one of the things that I try to emphasize with the override is there's definitely populations of people who might not be as well formed of what's
going on in the schools on a regular basis and they have kids that are growing up and things like that so just making sure that they kind of understand what's going on what this means and things like that so because they have a vested interest in um in the positive results I think the issue of like needing the funds to offset right is
significant but then it also makes it's it's like we're in limbo in the meantime and that's the challenge because you don't have a definitive timeline at that point if I just qu on the feasibility study um we certainly open to to looking into that and doing more research on whether it would have any impact on on our s sois um I I would be reticent to
to go forward with funding a million or two you1 to $2 million for a feasibility study before we funded the the fixes to the the plas mil roofs and and the Rams roofs so I just you know we want to make sure that the water coming into our schools is stops before we sure fair enough seems reasonable if we have $2
million and let's put it you know make sure the roofs don't okay you all set I'm all set I'll entertain a motion please Madam chair move to submit the hollon public School SOI by deadline with the reviewed criteria as specified okay have and a
second all in favor I I that carries I'll be looking for emails thank you for your patience and your time this evening it's great to see you all thank you very much for your support thank you okay you're welcome next and then sign really awward thank you thank you
all righty we will move on with our agenda to a consideration of an conservation restrict required for the trails at Jennings Hill subdivision Kathleen I'm going to ask you just to introduce this one oh sorry yes I was just checking in with our
intern oh yeah do we need another moment no well I know it's a school night and I just wonder if uh we need to pause in the uh meeting agenda for a moment you all good no we're all good James would like to stay so sure okay great all
right the jokes start coming later so it'll be worth hanging in there they don't get they get less funny yeah 9 o00 9 o00 they get less funny um okay um I can yeah if you would mind introduce please certainly page five of your
packets it's a grant of a conservation restrict restriction that requires a vote and then signatures to um the document at the end of the night with the clerk's materials it has it's a requirement it's a conservation restriction requirement for the trails
at Jennings Hill subdivision um it has been approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and approved by concom uh our Conservation Commission okay so um it's in relation to Danforth Drive
LLC and the request is that the select board would um vote to approve this uh restriction if I may summarize this is a part of a development that's going in they're transferring this conservation or transferring this land with a
conservation restriction to the town of Holliston yes and this was discussed through the planning board as part of the conditions for permitting up there okay do you know how long it took to get this conservation restriction do we know not know it's
certainly been a year it's been at least a year I'm seeing 2023 dates here so okay all right um any questions about this or uh do we need any more information Ben and Damon before we move to a a vote I do not I'm I'm good it's
good to see a process like this come to an end because I know this is probably lengthy and somewhat complicated and um I think it's it serves a greater good here so I'll entertain a motion please and I always appreciate when um the other boards and uh or organizations that need to chime in have it makes it a
little easier for uh for me to feel comfortable with a decision Madam chair I move to accept the conservation restriction requirements for the trails at Jennings Hill subdivision Danforth Drive LLC as presented second the motion motion a second all in favor I I I that carries
thank you comments from the town manager thank [Music] you I have a few Updates this will be part of a podcast so I will read through it as smoothly as I
can um we are working on our schedule meeting schedule to um move through the votes for for Warrant articles and our budget and looking at the schedule I'm requesting to ask the board for
additional dates that we could agree to meet on Monday March 31st and April 7th is adding two Mondays to our schedule um we can discuss it during um
other business at the end of the meeting but just wanted to request that once we finalized our schedule in April I'll be able to um promote it tomorrow and promote it in the town manager update
online and we will be voting our level three budget and then send that budget to the finance committee which meets on Tuesday nights at 7 pm. and they will finalize their level four budget and the deadline
for a completed warrant will be posted on April 23rd so I'll have that presented to you at our next meeting so that you'll be able to look at the schedule and we uh are also going to talk a little
bit more about the Articles themselves in the next few weeks and what's kind of come off and what some additional requests including the requests that the school committee um brought to us that they are still dis discussing they're going to make a final decision on
Thursday um of maybe two other items that they might ask in the capex article so we'll be bringing that to you on on the next meeting as well I wanted to mention the public forum which happened on this past
Thursday it generated a lot of questions we're excited to see the participation and we did a lot of listening and we are working on a few of the request that came out of last week's Forum um the public had asked
for um the materials to be posted that the Weston and Samson consultant used and we have posted that on the website for projects and after I finished presenting this
I'll just show um the viewers how to find those links they're on the S board page of the website um so we've posted that and we were also asked to present a map that delineated the conservation and Recreation areas so we are working on
that as well so I just wanted um the board to know that U members of staff are listening and um and working on some of those requests so we can bring those to you to your discussion um at the next meeting um we've also arranged to have
Jame James ke our facility director to come and attend your meetings to answer questions about either the DPW project or some of the other projects that are in the pipeline that you might have to think about and make final decisions on
the budget with so he will be available to you for those discussions um we will promote your upcoming meetings on Facebook and on the homepage under news and we appreciate everyone
sharing news so Ben and I probably are thinking in the same way that we have to um continue to push out our news and ask um our neighbors and residents and businesses to share that news um people can follow along by subscribing to
receive the agenda via their email so when I post the agenda or the clerk posts the agenda it generates an email so you can subscribe to it and then you'll know um what that meeting uh coming up will will be
covering um the draft of the warrant is back from Town Council so we finished writing it it's been it's been um edited by Town Council and I will share it at our next meeting it reflects the town manager's balanced budget which was
presented on March 1st and uh which both the select board and the finance committee already have for their review and discussion um and again we'll just be um looking a little bit closer at that at priorities and what the select board um feels makes sense
for level three um the deadline to post the warrant as I mentioned um we're calling it Tuesday April 22nd um and I will also be bringing
forward dates that residents in the public can expect to get their postcard to attend town meeting which is May 7th so there'll be um a lot of things um coming up at the end of April that we can look forward
to um so one one item that came up was the clerk received a citizen's petition at the uh deadline so I thought this would be a good opportunity for me just to present the petition that will be on
the warrant um the petition is a firearm petition it's a Citizens petition that was submitted to see if the town will vote to accept this proposed ordinance no person under the age of 18 shall
discharge any rifle shotgun or handgun within the borders of the town of Holliston except within an area designated for such purposes or with consent of the select board or with consent of the controlling government
body thereof so it is an interesting concept um I have submitted it to Town Council who is reviewing it he can certainly um weigh in to town meeting at town meeting
and um certainly it'll probably inspire a lively conversation and so I appreciate being able to present that um and then we received a letter um of compliance from
the executive office of housing and livable communities to congratulate us on complying with our housing um 3A housing compliance and so I just included that in your packet as well to look at and um as the Senate President
was here and uh and thanked us for yeah and thanked us for um all the work that that went into that and we did get a formal response this week and that is my update any uh question question or comments for the town manager um a
comment or maybe maybe a thing to inquire about when when we were having DPW conversation I spoke briefly with our Consultants they seem to intimate that they had kind of a matrix a visual Matrix of the different sites kind of um
measured along various axes of you know points for like disruption to local traffic disruptions in Wildlife Etc I I think it' be interesting to get that data and distill it visually um as a point of communication I think that that kind of thing it makes a lot more sense than pouring through a 50-page document
for a lot of people just so they can get like a gist that being said we should probably take a look at it beforehand uh make sure that it's formatted in a useful way so thank you problem and I welcome all of the board members and the public to continue to send me um your questions as we go through the process
thank you and I can try to try them okay thank you K that's all Ben I'll set yeah I'm also all right then we will move on to a consent agenda we have a number of items with within the consent consent agenda one of which I will call out uh um I thought um Kathleen was going to
show uh how to use the website to find a few things wanted to do that before we moved on to the next CU she was going to show how to subscribe and then how to find the information of the DPW facility thanks for coming in thank you so much for having you guys you're welc good
night good night okay and that was our intern okay let me share my screen do we have documents to sign by the way we have many documents so this is what the select board page looks like I'm going to start
from the homepage so I'll click on the homepage as you can see you can see up here that there are departments so if you need to reach anyone uh for help in departments um the next tab is boards and
committees so any board and committee that you want to follow um you can click on so here we're going to go to select board so if you can see these up top which you could also see on the homepage there's a tab here called subscribe if
we click on that you can enter your email and confirm your email email and then you can click on a box and subscribe to anything so for this this is where the newsletter is so it's news and
announcements we are only allowed to send to folks that are subscribed to that particular thing so I cannot send the newsletter to anyone that subscribed to the select board it's just the law
that we can only send you materials that you subscribe to some people have asked so that would be select board I'm registering for I'm subscribing to the select board I am not a Rober a robot
subscribe okay and you can always unsubscribe here as well so if I go back I do want to show you one other thing to our select board page we're trying to make this a little bit easier to find projects instead of trying to find projects under
a different tab we're putting all of the projects on the selectboard website and if you scroll down to the navigation on your left these are the projects right here project studies and reports and everything for the DPW feasibility study
is here so we just um posted the materials from the site visit here and then you can watch the select board meeting here and on hcat they are
putting together the video of the site um of the site visit so when that becomes available we'll provide that as well they're integrating the slides from the materials that I sent them today um that we just got from the from Weston
and Samson okay thank you Kathleen you're welcome and then in terms of the consent agenda I just wanted to bring it to your attention that we're trying to keep a couple of the awards secret yes okay so I think the note is there for our clerk
that we want to keep did you want to pull out for recognition at least for a little bit of discussion the block Builders contract for Goodwill Park uh where that is a major step for a major project that's been in the works for a number of years and also has a major
price tag so it's probably worth just uh I certainly can read it but it is um block builders for Goodwill Park project for the amount of 1,534 n56 and77 cents this is to start construction on a p I just don't
remember the the components of it at this point in time because it went back and forth at town meeting yes it's a major Improvement project it's a restroom I know for sure yes and then a pavilion they talked about last year yes some field upgrades and
field upgrades and that will be across from nine Green Street the municipal parking lot just behind um the downtown area where a superat is do we know when the work is supposed to start and or
maybe finish do we have any information on that um might not James oh James here we we were invited to celebrate a ribbon cutting to or a shovel in the ground right um and in the first week in May so
that gives me some indication oh May okay thank you when it will start got it okay all right well then with that said that was the one I think we wanted to call out specifically uh the rest of the items are listed on the agenda for the public to view for the board to review uh so it'll be a consent agenda to
approve approve uh in one motion all of the items as chair move to approve all items under agenda item number eight as presented second the motion we have a motion a second all in favor I I I all right and then our last uh motion of the
evening will be to approve minutes Madam chair move to approve the minutes of December 23 2024 as presented no changes uh second motion motion a second all in favor I I I that carries okay other business I think we probably have a
little bit here um so we'll take a minute d I announce this it's up on the website the parking band during the winter um I'll just for anyone who really is interested in this technically the parking ban uh for winter continues to March
31st just a there were a few snowflakes out there today but um other business Damon uh P for now okay then um I think we were just going to talk about the schedule I think uh um I I would like us to have some a little bit of time to be
able to go through the warrant and the budget and I mean I understand there might not be 100% but I think we can there's certainly a lot of things that are we can uh approve and and move on um from and so I would just like strongly like us to uh um have that um option and
then I would also um request that we have the budget and the warrant on every um uh meeting agenda until town meeting sure sure until town meeting okay until town meeting so we have the two April um the second and fourth are regularly
scheduled in April then we would our next meeting after that last in April would be town meeting so we're looking tonight to consider at March 31st yes and April 7th and then an April 11th which pretty much covers us every week
until other than that interim week between week two and four in April do I have that right so is that a are we feeling like that's enough time so we're looking to add well one doesn't really account in that it's going to purely be an agenda of um interviews so we'll take
the 11th off but we're we're looking then to add two additional dates the 31st and the 7th of April between now and town meeting and I take your point about we need to get into more discussion um and have more opportunities to discuss a little bit a little bit of space a little bit of
space to do that and then I mean we could you know who knows maybe the 31st we get a lot of it done and the 7eventh doesn't need to be there we could cancel it but we'll have to keep going for Bernie oh for Bernie yeah okay then that yeah that makes sense but we can also do an hour meeting potentially so that' be nice so no issues then with the 31st or
7th at this point 7th I have to squint it but I think I can make it make work okay all right and then and we're saying the 11th for the interviews we said 5 o' yeah that's right that's right okay okay is there oh I'm sorry do you have any
other no that was that was the the main Crux okay I had one in terms of the budget we went through the full day budget hearings I've shared with Kathleen some additional information I'm looking for from the budget presentations I know we're waiting for
some feedback on a Town engineer position uh Damon I assume you guys are in communication yeah we're going to be talking to soon and I'm having some trouble hurting some cats but I'm working on it okay all right well we have about a month and between now
and closing the warrant for good and handing it off to the finance committee on April 22nd 23rd whatever that date is so we have a month to wrap it up which is a significant amount of time to get into detail I would I would um I would like us to try to um not slow walk that
try to expedite that as much as possible and all of it because I think you know getting the information to um the finance committee and to the residents as soon as possible is going to be helpful for people to be able to um digest and understand what's going on and what we're about and if we we can we can be having more discussions about the
warrant and with the Community not just with ourselves okay um because I you know I think uh you know uh I certainly there might be something that we have to wrap up there might be things you know there's certainly some things that you know we need more information about and I get that but that doesn't mean the you
know 33 out of 36 articles can't be moved on as much as quickly as possible so I'd like to I'd like to make sure that we're moving um we're not we're not waiting till the last minute to do it as much as possible to complete it if possible I'm curious just first feedback
how are you feeling about taking things off where we so I think it's important I agree with you to move things along we know we have a lot of public interest and it's probably growing after uh you read the citizen petition we know we'll have a lot of public interest in a number of Articles uh getting them out
there through our meetings to discuss good um removing them at a later date seems a much lower risk than adding them at a later dat right AB I don't think we're I don't think we're there's anything in there I don't as far as I know I mean unless there's something you know major I think there might be some
Nuance there's a couple things that I've brought to Kathleen's attention that um I think we should move into some a couple things around and to do a couple things um but we can have that discussion at a later date but it's not about adding things it's about clarifying A couple things okay so we'll
have budget warrant on the agenda next Monday post that agenda by the end of the week and we'll be back at the table to discuss okay those two items and anything else I agree that's important any other business uh just a note I've sent this to Kathleen um I have narrowed
down on language around the the home R petition quote unquote y um I've adopted a lot of the um therefore language from Brooklyn okay and just a point of clarification the the way theyve phrased it may actually be helpful for our town as well and might diffuse some of the
worries people have what that resolution does is ask the state to consider giving towns the ability to Grant the vote to the residents so in other words if that were to pass which again is very very
unlikely because the state has shown zero appetite in doing so and we heard nothing tonight we heard nothing tonight then we would still need a town meeting to vote to extend the vote which I think is something a lot of people can get behind and is still like largely Democratic now on the other hand I do
think there are people who are going to be like no we should push all the way um but again I'm back on my half a sandwich is better than no sandwich I think we get a lot of people behind this particular half sandwich right but that's just my point of view at the moment we saw that with the changes to chapter 90 law that that allowed towns
the opportunity to adopt um 25 mph townwide speed limits and some other some other changes as well but so the legislature gave the T every municipality that ability and then you you had to come back to town meeting or or the select board but in this case you're saying come back to town meeting
yeah that's it's like a two-step process a little bit I I will I will point out that um in my advocacy and trying to understand this I have reached out to a lot of folks across the the political Spectrum I've done my utmost to find people who I think are not agreeable to
this particular idea and I've been trying to synthesize that I I think there is Common Ground there on the idea of like yes that could be a municipal decision and then it's like but what is the municipal decision that's where we start to maybe get into weird territory but that being said um other other municipalities have adopted this
language it adds to the weight at the legislative level which is the whole point for them to allow us to make the decision for ourselves okay so that's where that right now thank you very much for the update any other business Kathleen all right well I'll entertain a
motion to adjourn at 9:12 PM uh so motioned seconded all in favor I I that carries we'll see you next Monday night bring