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common vic policy. >> I can't hear out of one ear. So, if you're both talking at once, I can hire one of you. >> Good evening. I call the meeting to order. >> Y >> this meeting of the Hopkin Select Board is being held both in person and remotely using the video conference platform Zoom. Uh we do have all the

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members uh who are going to attend in the room tonight. I think Joe Clark uh Mr. JL told me he wouldn't be attending. He's uh traveling. So I think we can go with our um in person mode tonight. Uh

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select board member. Uh so all members participating in the meeting are present in the meeting room. The public has the option of attending in person here at town hall or via Zoom using the link posted in this meeting's agenda. This meeting is being recorded. The first

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item is pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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>> Thank you. First item is public forum. Each person will have up to two minutes to speak at public forum. And please start by stating your name and address. If you are on Zoom, please use the raise hand feature of Zoom now. And um also be

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mindful that we'll spend first 15 minutes as per the uh meeting agenda for public forum and if there are additional comments and um people who wants to participate, we will wait till the end of the meeting and open up again. So with that, anyone in the room who wants

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to come forward and speak? Hi, good evening. >> Good evening. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Marie Lascowski, 15 Lauren Jive, Ashland. Well, good evening. Um, I'm here to talk about the common vic policy that you're

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about to possibly adopt this evening. Let me start with what's right. The sorry requirement in section 4 belongs in the policy and I'm glad to see it. It's real progress and it matters. But the policy tells us that background checks quote unquote will be conducted.

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It does not require anyone confirm in writing that they actually were conducted before a license was issued. It names no official responsible uh for the signoff and it sets no standard for what a sorry match means on an

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application. This town has already had a Corey requirement in its 2018 entertainment license policy and it was not it was it was not run on a licensed operator who was a registered sex offender. That was on that's a documented record and the failure was

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never the absence of a policy. It was the absence of any verification that a policy was followed. Tonight you're also raising the application fee and you're being specific about what applicants pay. be equally specific about what

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protects residents. There's a second gap in the police comment section. It covers reports of any incidents or police responses at the premises. But it is not clear whether any incidents include crimes someone report if they go into the station or just things that where

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the police might be called to the business for. That ambiguity should not exist exist in a safeguard because as written whether this board ever learns about a report is left to the department's discretion and discretion is exactly what has failed this town

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before. So before you adopt this three fixes require written confirmation that Corey and Sori were completed signed by a named official before any license is issued. State that a sorry match requires what it requires this board to do and make the reporting requirement

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explicit. Any report concerning the establishment or its owners or managers wherever that report is made cannot be left up into interpretation and is not left up to a department's discretion. This isn't a request for reassurance.

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It's a request that the safeguards be written down so they can be kept and not be skipped the way they have been in the past. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else in the room? >> He's coming.

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>> Welcome. Hello. [snorts] >> No matter how many times I talk, I'm always nervous. So, I appreciate you guys listening tonight. >> We're doing great so far. >> Thanks. Um, I'm I'm Ashley Fog. I'm at

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Five Cross Street and today um I Good evening. I'm here tonight to address comments made during the July 21st meeting by Mr. Siobhan Krishna. During public comment, he claimed that it was harmful and toxic when I spoke out about the treatment of immigrants and publicly

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labeled me an anti-immigration bully. That is not true. When I heard those remarks, I was genuinely perplexed because I knew I had never made the statement he attributed to me. After conducting my own research, I believe he was referring to comments I made on November 1st, 2025 in a private women

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only Hopington Facebook group. The words harmful and toxic were never about immigrants or immigration. They referred to what I believed was harmful rhetoric and some adults on social media who had labeled Hopington children as white supremacists and homegrown terrorists for dressing as ICE agents during the

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high school senior Halloween event. I believe then and I believe now that labeling children in our community as terrorists is harmful, irresponsible, and beyond the bounds of reasonable public discourse. People are free to disagree with my views, but disagreement does not justify assigning beliefs to me

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that they do not hold or misrepresenting my words. Mr. Krishna also connected my comments to a select board agenda item from February 2026. That timeline is not possible because my comments were made months before the agenda item even existed. I have never met Mr. Krishna or

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had a face-to-face conversation with him. Yet my words were presented through selective excer excerpts rather than their full context. I have brought my complete comments so the board can review them for themselves. They came from a private women-only Facebook group whose rules prohibit sharing discussions

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outside the group. It is concerning that comments from a forum Mr. Krishna could not have accessed himself or obtained and presented publicly. I respectfully ask that they not be distributed beyond what is necessary for the board's review. Finally, I hold no elected or appointed position in the town of

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Hington. I am simply a private resident and a parent. >> Uh, your >> I have the last paragraph I'd like to finish, please. Again, I held no elected or appointed position in Hopington. I am simply a private resident and a parent. The Sleboard's rules of procedure give

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the chair discretion to manage meetings and public comment. I respectfully ask the chair and the board to use the authority to ensure this form is not used as a platform for private citizens to publicly attack, label, or misrepresent other private citizens through selective quotations. Public

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comment should be a place for meaningful civil dialogue, not a place where one private citizen is given a microphone to unfairly portray another private citizen in a misleading and harmful way. Thank you for your time.

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>> Thank you. Anyone else in the room? Please skip it to two minutes. >> Steve Snow, 78 Pine Island Road. Don't worry, these are all good actually. >> Thank you. >> So my first point of one of two is to the chair through

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the chair. You have now gained a leadership position as the chair of the select board. We are on quue of future agenda items. That's 16 agenda items that have been kicked down the road to be handled later. I would like you to

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instill your leadership and say September 1st select board meeting. Start picking one of these items and get them off the agenda. Get them get them finished. Complete some work. That would be the first. The

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second is chief search committee. I was a little disappointed that I only got one vote. I thought I was qualified. I honestly didn't think I would ever be picked. But at the same time, it was told through Joe that we were looking

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for a group of individuals in town. The group of indu individuals looks great on the cover. They're all good people. I like them all. The issue is five of the six members on that committee are already on multiple boards

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and committees in town. So, it's leaving it absent from people that want to get involved. The only person that wasn't already on on boards and committees was probably the most qualified former prosecutor

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married to a cop. Deals with child advoc advocacy as a trade and she didn't get a vote from all members. She only got a vote from four of the members. So, I think sometimes

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you have to think of when you bring people in for boards and committees, look at is this person already on three boards and committees in the town of Hopington? And is that the way you want all like-minded people? And that that's all I got. And I'm not

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but hurt about it. I honestly not [laughter] not at all. See you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you. Anyone else in the room?

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Seeing none, do we have anyone on the Zoom? Please raise your hand. >> There are six people on Zoom, but no hands raised. >> Thank you, Amy. U All right, I think we are ahead by 5 minutes. If no one else

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is here or on Zoom, we can move to our next agenda items. Our next item is the consent agenda and let me read through. The select board will consider the

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following consent agenda minutes. The select board will consider approving the minutes of the July 21, 2026 meeting. New town employees. The select board will consider confirming the town manager's appointments of Autumn Talent Kil Ganon as the parks and recreation

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program coordinator summer supervisor and Jeffrey Pine as a working for person in the water and sewer department. It's pretty small consent agenda considering but anyone has any opinion on the consent agenda?

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>> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> I'll second that. I I did want to note that one of them is is on the Zoom, but if do we think we need them to speak? Do you think that they want to speak? They're just here just >> do we have anyone on Zoom wants to speak? >> Well, one of the one of the people that we would appoint in the consent.

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>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. >> But I think cuz she's just here just in case. She doesn't have recognized. [snorts] >> So, we have a motion. >> Amy seconded. >> Yeah. >> All those who are in favor of the consent agenda say I. >> I. >> I. Any nays? Hearing none. Uh the motion

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carries. The next one is common victual license policy and fee. The select board will consider approving our common victual license policy and increasing the application fee. Uh this is something we have been discussing for quite some time and when uh back on the

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drawing board to make sure we have a solid policy that's efficient and that covers all the risks that um the process comes with uh to ensure our town's um quality of life, safety for our residents and uh good for our business

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as well. So with that I think we went back to our legal council with the draft as well. So, I'd like to hear if we have any specific feedback or this is it. Anything you want to say uh starting with Elaine and then we'll go around the board for comments and questions.

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>> To Lance on this one. >> Oh, Lance, please. Can I? >> Sure. Um yeah, so legal council has been, you know, in fundamental in drafting the policy. You know, we did earlier drafts ourselves which we fed to legal counsel and they were the ones who refined what you have in front of you

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today. um with all the feedback that we've received through other departments, through the board, through you know you know external sources, we took all that in consideration and gave that to legal counsel to see what was you know feasible, what was possible, what was legally allowable. Um you know what we have I believe here is a fairly

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robust policy. It's more robust than anything I have encountered outside um of Hington. I cannot find anything of it like anywhere else honestly. So, I think it's it's a at at the very least a great start. Um, you know, and it's something as a select board policy that can always

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be amended down the line if we feel like there's need for improvement. You know, I think the critical thing to keep in mind here, too, is um we're hoping for a September 1st start of our new online permitting process. So, having this in place um sooner rather than later is

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going to help us kind of know as staff um you know, what we're supposed to be following. and you we've been designing it around the policy. So, it's you we're kind of heading that way anyway. But, you know, with the renewal cycle getting starting up again soon for all these common victim's

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work, um it is taking time, but I think we're in a good place. So, we'll start some comments and questions starting with Mr. Hair. >> Thank you, uh Mr. Chair. Um Lance, you mentioned the word robust. Love that word. We use it at work all the time. Uh

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robust means strong, robust means thorough, robust means careful and you know wellcoordinated etc etc. Robust could also mean ownorous. Could this possibly be perceived by applicants wanting to do business in

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Hopington as being ownorous? >> I do not think so personally. I think we're just kind of putting in writing a lot of what sort of has um historically happened, but now we're spelling out the process in a much clearer way for all involved. Like spelling out situations

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where, you know, a a permit may be denied or those kind of situations that um come up now and again. So now we have it written in a policy so you know everyone including the license uh applicant can be aware of what's going to happen in certain scenarios that

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occur and they can get a better understanding of who's looking at it and why they're looking at it. So really I don't think there's any greater burden on the applicants. >> Okay. Just spells it out more carefully. >> Yes. >> Fine. Uh you mentioned town council has reviewed it. I think this is like the third draft that's gone over to town

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council. Is that correct over the last several months or is it am I wrong there? >> Um we've had multiple iterations back and forth between the town and town council um you know for almost a year now. Um so this is the May 1st draft and

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uh you know it's the most recent. >> Got it. Okay. Um there was a couple of comments this evening about background checks um are required but they're not in writing or something along those lines. Does that make sense to you or is that something we should check out?

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>> Um, so on as part of the online permitting process, there is a designated step that requires uh sign off by the you know which will be essentially vasuda ensuring that she has performed the background check as part of the process. So that is documented um

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>> be documented online not necessarily >> documented as part of online permitting system. Correct. >> I'm good. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Hair. Mr. Dush. Um, yes, similar questions to Mr. Herur. So, the online permitting system, when are we expecting that to be ready to be able to

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be used? >> Uh, we're anticipating September 1st. >> In September. Okay. So, very soon. And then, um, let's see. And so, people will have to log in and authenticate so we will know who signed off on each step or added a comment. >> Yep. There's, you know, there's opportunities to public and internal

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comments throughout the system. Um, so there can be lots of back and forth. I mean, we always anticipate some hiccups when you're implementing a new online system like this. So, you know, it's sure it's not going to be 100% smooth this, you know, we onboarding all of these annual applicants, but once they're in the system, you know, we're

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hoping the renewal cycle will get pretty smooth once people are familiar. >> Okay. And then there were a lot of comments made by the public and by select board members when we reviewed this last. And I just want to say for the public that the town council did review all of the suggestions and comments from both us and um members of

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the public. And these are the ones that they recommend be the ones that we could move forward. >> Correct. >> Okay. And >> I'm sorry, Amy, I missed that. >> So, um, we had a few meetings ago, we had we all made our comments and suggestions and questions about the

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policy and members of the public made comments and suggestions too via email or at public comment and town council has reviewed them all. It's my understanding. Right. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And the result is the document that we have now. >> So, I think that's all I have for now. If I think of anything else, I will

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speak up. >> Thank you, Mr. Kizer. >> So, through the chair, Amy, I appreciate that you took the time to summarize it that way because I was feeling a little like I've read this a lot of times, which is a good feeling. I think this has actually been pretty well discussed for us. Mr. Hur, I appreciate the way

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you asked the questions around the sign off there. I had a similar note in terms of is there a signature somewhere in the process that we can say that's the verification? put the diligence somewhere and make sure it's acknowledged. So, I appreciate that you asked that and we got that out into the public record. I think the only other

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one for me, I don't want to relitigate the policy. I want to ask it more as a clarity question and flag it as something else. So, it was mentioned here at forum, but I think generically tonight I can ask it as the notification piece of if something happens to a

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licensed body. I mean, I'm disinterested in trying to litigate what we as a board do. I think what we as a board do is we have a discussion as the executive function in the town. But I am very interested in making sure when something of that nature happens, which I think we would generically consider flagrant. I won't

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go through your robust definition, but we'll generically consider it flagrant. I would want to know that it is at least required to be brought to our attention as the licensing authority. Can you based on your understanding of the policy, does the policy do that? and is

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there room for us to potentially pursue something like that in the future? Would that be ownorous? So, I'm not trying to make this harder. What I am trying to do is make it clear to the public that when information that they believe is of a sensitive or critical nature associated with the people they are trusting to

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operate in their community becomes known, it will be brought here. And what we do is then subject to the five of us. And how you, the community, feel about that, we'll know every 3 years. But I think it is important to make sure it gets here. >> Yeah. So the policy um you know and I'm

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not I want to represent myself as an attorney when talking about >> and why not [laughter] >> um I'm only a simple engineer but uh you know it's you know so it's not something you know it all of that can always be taken as you know information evidence

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you know but we can't have sort of a direct causal you know statement saying you know the town will never give a license to anyone with X kind of crime you know that's not the level of specificity we could ever provide in a policy >> don't want But you know the information can always be taken into consideration

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you know by the board. Um you know I think you know the board does have its greatest you know flexibility during the issuance of a new license. There's a little it's a little bit more restrictive on renewals and what needs to be followed

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for the removal of a license. Um, so but you know, all of that is information if it does trigger certain thresholds for consideration and we would have to engage with legal counsel on at what point that is. >> And you're further down the road than I want to be and I promise I'll I'll wrap this. I don't want to belabor the point. I I don't even want to get into the

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mechanism of what happened next because Lance, it's too specific and too nuanced as you're noting. I just want to make sure that it gets here that there is the equivalent of we'll go back to Brian's robust in our world. There's an email that pings the inbox and it says like, "Hey, select board. There has been a

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failed story corey on a licensing group." >> Mhm. >> And that's all it says. We don't get any background. We don't get names. We get a ping. I would get 20 of these a day at work. I'm sure the chair and Mr. Her do as well. [sighs] I'm looking to make that kind of connection to make it clear to the

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public that that information is just never going to get lost. I agree with you. The policy cannot specify what we do. It cannot try to litigate what we do other than must come to the executive. I don't want to derail it here because at the end of the day, as you noted, we're

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about to start the new process. To send this back would be to start the process with the old process. I have no intention of starting with the old process because as you noted, this is robust theme of the day and it is a significant improvement. But I would very much like us to run that language by town council. I would like to

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understand how to incorporate that. I don't want to say trigger because it sounds cold, but just the notification that there is something that comes to us and that we are forced to engage with it. >> You're talking specifically, just to clarify, you're talking specifically

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about things that happen outside of the renewal cycle. So like because obviously there's a comment requirement portion here outlined as part of the renewal process as the application process, but you're saying if something happens mid year and getting sort of I don't I I'm not going to go there because I feel

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like I'm now tight walking too far at that point. This is more like if something comes up it's what do you notify us about? And yes, ideally if something happens I would like to know but I think that's also starting to blur the responsibilities of the office. Like heaven forbid there is some sort of like

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crime gang that's busted up at one of the businesses in town. I strongly suspect we're going to be discussing it here. I'm a little less concerned about that than I am all of a sudden there being a Cory story ping that becomes known to the community functions and that information coming to us. So I

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think I've made the point clearly. I'm not going to belabor it any further, but please I would appreciate if we take that to council and think about how we incorporate that rapidly if possible. And just to end it with, I know that was a lot of really drill down on a specific point. Amy had the right message here. There has been a lot of discussion on

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this from the community, from this board, from council, a lot of diverse opinions. This right here is a significant improvement from where we were. So, you're hearing me ask for more, but that's what you should expect from us. This is great stuff. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of it, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> If I go through the chair, can I add on

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to what Matt had said? Um, I just want to note that um, it says the board will review the matter at a posted meeting which may be held in executive session. So, not always, but um, I just want the public to understand that too. They may not really get to know if some >> Yep. >> the full of what it is, >> but you will see it on the agenda. You

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will know it happened. >> Well, know we had an executive session. >> Thank you. Is there a question? >> No, just a comment. >> I think it's a good clarification. >> I think Mr. >> Yeah, just one other question if I could to Elaine. I know Ela Lance has been working with you a lot on this, but just as the town manager sitting in the town

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manager's chair, what is your view of the policy before us this evening? >> I think it's a good uh good start. It's a good policy. Um policies are great. We love to follow policies and it it helps us all. I think it helps the applicants. It helps staff and it helps the board. So, looking forward to it.

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>> Okay. It doesn't remove at any time town council weighing in on us enforcing or following the policy. Correct. >> No. >> Because there will be circumstances like that that was just described or possibly was just described that may come to us,

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but town council may say, "That's nice, but you're not going to speak about it." >> Yep. >> Right. Because that's just the way it is. State law governs so much of what we can and cannot do in this regard. state law, not local bylaws or policies. And we have to follow those state laws. And

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that's been the process all along. Okay, I'm good if you're good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Har. Thank you everyone for the comments and great questions. I I do see this is a great moment for us to move forward with this. I see it as

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um robust as it can get at this point. Uh we had probably more than six sessions on this. We heard our uh residents, we acted on some of the findings from the past, learned from it. Uh we did our legal due diligence. And I

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am really proud to see that we all worked on this together with good intent of balancing both the business uh goals as well as the town's safety and residents uh wishes. And this really stands out looking at it, reading it,

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and doing some research. among the 351 New England towns, townships. So, I also hope that this becomes an example for um New England towns. And with that, I I really think we if we all agree, we can

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put it on vote tonight. I just had two followup more like comments. One is that uh once we implement this and I'm also very happy that we have the digitization of the process coming in let's measure the efficacy of the process time to time

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and bring back to the board and we can do some immediate measurements in terms of you know the percentage um that went through the first time what is the time it takes and all that and where I want to be is I think I mentioned earlier if we can establish some kind of service

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level agreement uh between us and the applicant and I take uh what Mr. Har mentioned earlier. We don't want it to be ownorous. We want it to be robust enough for uh all the good reasons but also uh encourage business to feel comfortable that they are welcome here

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and uh we will process and support as fast as we can given the parameters that we have outlined. So that would be a good measure. Thank you again for all the hard work um Elaine and um Lance and everyone. Uh so with that, I'd like to see if we can do a motion and vote on

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this tonight. Are we all okay with that? Any other thoughts, questions? I move to approve the common vicular license policy and to increase the common victular license application fee from 50 to 100 and any waver request which will be considered on a case-by case basis by

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the select board. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Sure. I'm sorry. On the motion, could I take a quick question? Yep. >> Uh Lane, on that $50 to $100, when was the last time we raised the fee? Do you know? >> Uh that's been the fee since at least 1990.

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>> 1990. $50. And now in 2026, it's 100. That's a pretty good deal. I'm good. Thank you. >> 36 years. Yeah. >> And this is in line with other towns. I presume >> $100 is the maximum allowed by law. >> Okay. >> Another law.

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>> All right. Uh ready to vote. All those who are in favor say I. I. I any nays hearing? None the motion carries. Thank you all again. Moving to our next item which is the charter review committee update. We have our charter review

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committee chair um here and the select board will consider hearing an update from the review committee and we already had a good discussion last time. We can have follow-ups on that. Thank you Connor for coming. >> Thank you for having me. I'm going to be very brief. I just it was a quick update. Obviously, one of the downsides

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of not having a member on the charter review committee of the select board this time around is that it's a little harder to get updates both in front of you, but also in front of the community easily. So, I'm hoping I can kind of just do some regular updates to you just to keep you in the loop, but also make

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sure the community is informed as well. The only real updates that I was going to talk about because obviously we'll talk about town meeting stuff as well in the next item is the in the last meeting there were also some uh other interesting changes proposed um for

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discussion that might be interesting to have the board weigh in on at some point because it does involve uh you know the chain of command underneath the board. So, one of which there was questions on making changes in the charter to the uh

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how the chart how the um the community preservation committee is made up. So, uh the attorneys have pretty much said it's not not allowed, but it's definitely interesting and new. No one else seems to be doing it. uh it would

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be to propose having the atlarge members that you appoint currently shift over to an elected position and then have the other positions appointed in their current function as the the law currently requires. Um

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but that's one of the things that has has come up. Again, happy to talk about it at some point if you'd like as well as offline if you have questions you want to just follow up on. And then the other one, which I can't really go into, but I just want to inform you that it's being discussed and at some point I'll

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have someone else come by to talk about it, is just the the nature of the town clerk's position. So that's also something that's up for discussion, but I'll I'll have someone else come who can speak to it so there's no risk of conflict. >> Thank you, Conor. >> Yeah, that's it.

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>> Uh questions, Mr. >> What is the rush with changing the charter? So the charter itself requires that we do a review every 10 years. >> A review? >> Yes. >> Not a change. A review.

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>> So if the select board wants to look have us look towards presenting none. It just seems like it's a it was just an uncommon use of of the way that the committee would perform. It's just how it's outlined in the charter just says

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like you said to review and propose changes. But you're correct. It doesn't necessarily require that a change or a draft be submitted. >> The the reason for my question, if I remember correctly, when we did this 10 years ago or so, I thought we talked about this for a year or two before we

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actually did something about it. Uh I could be wrong there, but we're also doing this, it's proposed, I saw recently at the special town meeting this fall. Is this the only reason we're having a special town meeting? So, we have some other money stuff to

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take care of. Okay. I I to me this just feels like we're trying to push this thing along too fast. Um, and we don't have to change anything, but it seems like we're just making some changes to make some changes. That's just my two cents. >> So, again, this is where feedback from

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the board is important. We're happy to take any thoughts or advice on what kind of proposals we should make, if any. Um, and I'm happy to take that feedback back to the board. Uh, the reason we're

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proposing discussing it in the fall town meeting would be because there were already other things that were coming up. Um the timeline for the last charter review was it started at the same time uh right at the tail end of 2015 into

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2016 and then a draft was proposed to a special town meeting in January of 2017 and then it was on the ballot in the 2017 annual town election. Okay. >> Um but again, you're correct. There's

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not necessarily that I can think of a requirement that we have to submit something. Um, and I'm not saying we shouldn't change some things. It just feels like we're rushing through this a little bit and just kind of throwing stuff in there to see what'll stick, right? And that's all. >> That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Hart. Mr. KMA,

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>> thank you. I I'll be honest, I do share some of Mr. sentiments. This does feel like it's moving rather quickly given the magnitude of the charter's impact on the community. And it's not super clear to me from some of what you are discussing in front of us that the changes are necessarily communitydriven.

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I would sort of pass the feedback back through to you that a lot of what you're bringing to the board feels very insider baseball. You're talking to us about like group structure, election hierarchy, reporting, flow, and ease of information and how it gets to the board. Perhaps that is what the charter is for and that's what the community

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should be focused on. So, please don't hear it as a criticism, but I'd be pretty surprised if the average community member was focused on the insider baseball. So, I would just offer that to you as a consideration. Also just generically because you brought up CPC I personally as a select board member up here would be very loathed to

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give up that appointing excuse me empowerment for me CPC is one of those we'll call it a green box today it's a green box of money but that requires it to have some bigger picture strategic alignment with the executive function cuz we're ultimately the ones who are going to be charting a lot of the

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strategic policy. it would be kind of silly to not have good alignment with the green box of money as it pertains to how we're going to make big investments in the community. So, just thinking about it there, I can see why you would want to go that way, but there is some advantage to having that proximity to the select board as well. If you would

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benefit from getting more of our time one-on-one, let us know. We'll I'll find 10 or 15 minutes for you. I am sure, Connor. We don't always have to do this live and we can just agree and summarize afterwards what happens in public. I'm not trying to hide it from public meeting here. I want to make it clear we are accessible so you can get

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directional feedback. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sush. >> Uh, no, I um I really appreciate the work you and the committee have done, Connor. And in contrast to what some of others have said, I feel like you've done a lot of outreach. There was a big survey. Every board and committee was asked to give feedback. I'm on three and

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we gave three sets of feedback and um and I thought the survey was pretty well received. the people filled it out and a lot of the things you presented the last time I I was in line with um CPC1 is a little bit of a surprise to me. In my memory, I've been on the slate board six years now and every time the CPC at

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large seat has come up for appointment, I think there's only been one applicant. So, I'm not sure I understand the wisdom of making it up for election, someone if somebody else wanted to be on it, they could just apply. Um, that's my feedback on that one. And then,

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yeah, but I'm happy to give individual feedback or should we we should probably, I think, give feedback as a group, shouldn't we? If we want to go through the list of recommendations, maybe [clears throat] not tonight, but Oh, and the other thing I was going to add to what Mr. Hurst said is that I know it does seem a little bit rushed, but I think also we might have been a

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little late appointing the committee, which is really on us. So, if if we had to do it later, we could vote it on in the spring and then again in the following fall, right? if we weren't ready for this fall. Okay. So, that I think that would be our decision point and we don't know the date of this fall town meeting if it's going to be sooner

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or or later. That's all I have. >> Thank you, Amy. Uh thank you Connor and thanks to the committee for all the good work. Um analyzing that a little bit. So, if we are targeting October, you have barely two months to complete and

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get all required logistics approvals and all that. Do you see we are close to that or what are the things that needs to happen between now and the town meeting? >> So we we're really looking right now. We've been working with council on on

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drafting. It it is an aggressive timeline to look at the fall. Um again we're doing that that if we can propose something in time for it then great. But, you know, the reality is if we

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can't get something finished and ready to go for the special town meeting that again [clears throat] might need to be done regardless for other reasons, then yeah, we would have to push it off to another time. Um, you know, we're we're

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still trying to figure out that we can get all of that stuff on, but our timeline currently looks like it will work for the times we've discussed for a potential fall town meeting. Um, I know there there are obviously some concerns

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about, you know, the feedback that we've received and things like that and I I appreciate you sharing it because it helps us to find ways to do better. Anyway, uh we do still have planned to do a forum that were the intent is to take possible proposed changes that are

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actually then drafted and found that they actually work, propose them through public forum and then see if they're actually have any kind of public interest. The issue we often ran into when it came to even the surveys, the charter itself is a pretty

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uh elevated document in a lot of ways. Most people who don't have any involvement in town government don't understand this kind of very foundational piece. Um they understand some parts of it, especially how it impacts them. A lot of boards and committees understand how it impacts the

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work that they specifically do. And people who've done direct interactions with it for one reason or another get it. But a lot of the feedback that we even got from residents on other changes were things that were far more appropriate for bylaw changes or

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policies can that are proposed by the select board or other boards or committees. So that that's the other piece of it as well. >> Thank you. So does the committee also feel sound like that it is potentially aggressive? Um, so the plan I got a we

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got a letter I think from one of the members that you're holding a public forum. Is it 13th or 17th? There were a little bit of confusion. So it there's there's going to be one next Thursday that is for that we're inviting

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the chairs of boards, committees and the heads of departments who are whose changes might impact their the work that they do. Um and then we've invited the chairs but also for them to if they would like invite the the rest of their

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committees to join for it. And if for some reason they can't attend then it would just be we would find a time to go for one of their meetings and be able to still get that feedback from them. >> Okay. So that's the second meeting about >> Yes. So that's the that's a week from

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Thursday. >> Thank you. And are you at a point where you have the final draft before the public forum so everyone can comment on it, give feedback, all the good things? >> So we we don't have that yet. Um we have

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redline drafts that are available in the um in the drive folder that we have on the town website. So, if anyone wanted to go and look at the red lines that council has helped us craft so far, they're more than welcome to look at that there, as well as any of the other

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documents, notes that we've prepared over the course of the time we've been doing this work. We have all of it available there. So if anyone does want to look at things and provide additional feedback and something that they've noticed then we're very open to any feedback we get from the public from

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volunteers who are on boards and committees and from employees and department heads. >> Thank you. So my thought is twofold. One is of course we don't want to rush it but if we all and the committee feels that they have done enough due diligence and the public um opinion and feedback

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has been captured through surveys and the upcoming various forums I wouldn't be against putting it as well but I think we probably my opinion want a decision point of some kind that going through all this process maybe end of

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August or the latest we'll have to look for the town meeting uh we can make that educated decision. Now we have the final draft. We among ourselves have reviewed it line item and looked at the red lines and uh by then we have the public forum

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as well as the legal uh opinions and based on the changes and what where we are looking at we may make a call that it's too too much to process in the another month or we need probably push out to spring or the >> Yeah. And and to that exact point,

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that's something that if we get to the point where we're doing the public forum portion where we have like final draft versions that we can use to present to the public and we're getting so much feedback that's going to change how we're looking at this, then obviously

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it's back to the drawing board. Um, and of course that's part of the reason like this the timeline for this special is not based solely on when the charter has to be approved. it's based on other things and it was just that we're trying

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to aim to get possibly a charter done in time for that uh those other deadlines that are coming up. >> Thank you. How do the how do you all feel about >> I like the idea that you described I think from the last goound where it went to a special it was introduced and there

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was an maybe an article to present the ideas of this the charter review committee for consideration at a future town meeting. So you like you set a time period up of 30 minutes during special. Here's what we're thinking about folks. See you in the spring. I like that. That feels like okay, now we get a little

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chance to digest it as a community and then we kind of make some changes maybe if we do it that in the spring. But to try and adopt it this fall, I think is too quick. >> I love where Brian is like the as the representative youth on the board today that we would call that a soft launch. I very much like that idea as well. Taking

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the time to find a way to solicit feedback, but it does feel fast. Connor, truly it does. Some of that may be because it's the summer and so the pacing of our meetings is further out and so we feel like we're seeing you with less proximity. It really does feel

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fast and it is hard to understand the driver other than the proximity of special town meeting. >> So I think there might be a little bit of a misunderstanding in what the last goound had. The last goound we had a special town meeting that wasn't a a soft launch. It was the actual approval

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of a final draft of the charter. >> Oh yeah. Right. >> And and again, the original kind of variation that we had originally planned on was slightly later special that we've talked about moving up for the sake of other financial articles, >> but through the chair.

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>> Okay. >> Did I misunderstand something? I apologize. >> I think I misunderstood, which is fine. It happens. >> But I piggybacked on your idea because I thought it >> was Sorry, I was say you I piggybacked on the idea because I thought it was a good one, Brian. I liked where you were going. We iterated. It was teamwork. >> We can't do it in a town meeting. I

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don't know. Yeah, I mean I No, I agree that the concept is is great. I don't want to take up too much of your time on this. I'm happy to discuss strategies as well outside so we can keep coming back and and talk about it more, but >> maybe generically then I guess I would offer the feedback of if you want to do

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it this quick. I think you're hearing some concern from some of us. I won't characterize it as all of us. Help us understand what the impact would be and not moving at the speed you are suggesting. You've brought a lot of opportunities and proposed changes forward. to Brian's point and I think mine as well. Help us understand why it

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would actually be a problem to not move this forward because right now it doesn't we're not feeling and understanding it. At least I'll speak for me. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Okay. And I'm going to I guess take the oppositional >> I know. That's why I tried to say no. I tried to say not all of us. >> Yeah. No, I think I agree with Connor

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that if he has a public forum and the changes are not controversial, I think we probably should go ahead for our fall town meeting. Um but if if they are controversial, then we can wait and do it in the spring. elected off [laughter] >> elected officials for the CPC would be

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controversial. >> Yes, >> I would agree with you on that. >> That's the last thing we need is more elections in town in my view. >> And that's that's fresh from the >> and again that's part of why part [laughter] of the reason for this and informing you is to not only solicit your feedback but to make more of the

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public because no one attends our meetings aware of the things that are being discussed so that they can share their thoughts on that as well. Um, again, you're right. There are certain things that are on the proposal list that are far more controversial than others, and I appreciate the feedback on

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those things. So, I can take it back to the rest of the committee. >> You're a good man, Connor. >> Thank you, Connor. So um as an action item I think we are going to hear from the public forum but if you have the draft u one thing I

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would also propose is send it to us for our review and processing further as we learn more and I'm kind of on the fence. I think if it is not significant and big changes except for the CPC I agree on that for sure. Um why not? But if it is

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significant enough and I haven't seen the full I really feel like I don't have all the information to kind of take a strong position whether we should absolutely do it on fall or or later but if there is no urgency I'm all for you know taking the time for something as

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significant as the charter that's for sure but I would prefer having some more information and you know have a collective understanding of that. Um so with that we can table it for now. Thank you for the update. we'll bring it back on our agenda and in the meantime you'll

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have more concrete proposals and uh feedback. So we'll start taking it from there. Any other uh last comments, thoughts? >> I was just going to say I looked in the Google Drive to see if I could find the documents. I found the 2016 charter review Google Drive. There's one for 20 the new

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>> guys. If you go to there's a a page on the website itself that is for the charter review committee and there is a link there to directly to the drive. We do have a bunch of the 2016 documents in their own separate folder on that drive. >> Okay. >> For reference point. Um, but there's a

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bunch of other stuff that's from the current review. >> Okay. Thank you. I will I will read them. >> Just to piggy back on that, Connor, can we make it easier for everyone to find? >> Yes, that sounds pretty easy. It's [laughter] right on the website. >> Amy, you're really smart and you work in computers and you can find it. >> I will I'll send off the link. It's it's

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literally just there's a if under the department pa or the boards and committee page is charter review committee but I'll see what I can figure out to make it >> thank you and for the residents more so >> that was the most common America response I've seen up here in a while cuz I was about to say the same thing Mr. here. >> Good to hear. Thank you so much. Thanks

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for all the work. >> Thank you for the feedback and taking the time. If do you want me to hang out for the uh >> second one >> for the next item of this? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> We can move to the next item which is fall 2026 special town meeting. Take it away >> or I'll I'll let these folks take it

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away. Um but I'm just by to talk about it from a logistical standpoint if you need anything on that front. >> Sure. Thank you. Ela, do you want to give a context? I quickly found the document and one is called charter review which is 2016 and the other one is 2026 charter. >> So maybe we could rename the first one.

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>> You're fast. Yeah. >> Well, like you said, it's right there on the website. Okay. Anyway, sorry. It's time meeting. >> Yeah. All right. Um and so we're looking at the October time frame for special town meeting. Um giving charter review and finance enough time to do the

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year-end close and uh certifications that are needed, but also aware that it can't be too late. uh that otherwise it will affect the tax rate if we have financial article. So looks like at this point perhaps the the 22nd to the 29th kind of time frame works well

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potentially. Um uh as far as days of the week, um uh I think there's a a conflict potentially on uh Tuesdays for early voting uh and staffing for that uh in the month of October and also on Wednesdays there's a

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conflict with the moderator. Um so something to consider and the auditorium is not available on Sundays. >> On Sunday or Saturday? >> Sundays. >> Yeah. >> All right. Let's um hear the voices of the board. Amy, you want to start? I

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>> I mean, I think I could make any date. I will note that there's early voting also on the Saturday the 24th, too, right? Um, so I would lean towards the Well, I was going to say the 24th or 20.

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>> Yeah, the 24th or 26th maybe, but um >> 24th. Well, no. 26th would be my first choice, but if we have to if we want a Saturday, it would 24th is the only one. >> I'm sorry. I mean, you're leaning towards 26. >> The 26th would be my preference.

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>> Okay. >> But I can do any of the dates except I worry about people in the early voting on the 24th. The election workers wouldn't be able to go to town meeting if it wouldn't the day on Saturday. Correct. >> Thank you, Mr. Kisner. I like the 22nd or the 26th. I like that we have a select board meeting on the 20th. I

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think that offers us some nice proximity to the meeting to dot our eyes, cross our tees, anything else we need to get done. And I like that it gives us a chance to echo to the public in very close proximity to the meeting. This is happening. This is why this is why it's relevant. This is why it will benefit

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you to come. I also think if we do it on a Thursday or a Monday, it will encourage us to keep it tight and fast moving in a way that maybe the annual town meeting doesn't necessarily operate. But ultimately, Miss Ritterbush here, I will find the time to make any of these dates, but my preference would be the 22nd or 26th.

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>> Thank you, Mr. Gazner. Mr. R, >> I just think the norm over the years has been Monday evenings for town meetings. I'm >> there. >> So, the 26th is fine with you from me personally doesn't matter, but I think that would be probably the most logical. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Uh I I tend to agree. I think

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26 is my first and 20 the Thursday which is 22nd I think is my second choice. Uh do we have to vote or make a motion? >> I move to call a special town meeting for October Monday October 20 26 at

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>> 7 >> 7 >> p.m. at 7 p.m. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any other discussions? Hearing none. All those who are in favor please say I. >> I. I. I any nays hearing? None. Motion

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carries. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Uh the next Thank you, Connor. >> Thank you very much. Thanks, Governor. >> Halloween on a Saturday. >> Metro West Regional Transit Authority Network redesign. The select board will hear from a representative of the Metro

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West Regional Transit Authority, MWRTA, regarding its new bus network design, which will officially launch on September 8, 2026. Changes include a new route numbering system, two-way service on many routes, expanded service in select areas, easier connections, and

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more frequent service. Do we have uh MWRTA on the >> They're on the Zoom. Yes, >> they're on the Zoom. Yeah, I think we all [clears throat] remember the context of this. I mean, this is a great opportunity or beginning of the changes for our economic development efforts as well as the residents quality of life.

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We don't have public transportation as much as we would like to in the town. of course, but we took advantage of their redesign and we have redesigned as as much as possible given the circumstances and the MWRTA has been very

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collaborative and uh really um went a long way to kind of and thoughtful for our town's needs and the priority was uh how can we uh connect some of the core economic centers and also resident centers and also looking at uh people

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who are in the condo those who would uh uh who are in the elderly age group who would take more advantage of this and how can we connect the nearby uh stations train stations with these. So I'm excited that uh it's not fully where

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we would like to be and there's opportunities in the future but it's a great start where we are connecting the train stations connecting the uh price chopper the downtown all the economic centers and making stops at legacy firm

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making stops at Starbucks we'll hear the whole nine yards but uh I think this is the beginning of a great start for our warm-up of our economic development as well so with that I would welcome our MWRTA representative. Um, please introduce

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yourself if you want to walk us through the new design plan and your thoughts. >> Hi. Yes. Uh, my name is Jim Ne. I'm the administrator with the Metro West Regional Transit Authority. Uh, you really summed it up perfectly. You said exactly what I was going to say about uh, essentially the summary of the

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changes that we're making. uh for sort of a more detailed presentation and to answer some of the more detailed questions. Zach Jones is here with me and he'll be able to take that away and we're both here uh able to answer questions. >> Thank you.

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>> Yes. Hello. Um it's an honor to be here. Um I'm going to share my screen uh to show if that if that works for everybody. um because then I should be able to uh show you uh just exactly what we're

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working with here. Um uh can can everybody see this map? >> Um not yet. >> Says you started sharing here. >> Oh, there it is. >> Okay. Excellent. So, uh as as as has

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been mentioned, um we are in the process of redesigning our system. Um, a lot of the changes uh that are coming to the system uh is is redesigning uh the way that we do things in uh some of our other communities where our roots are

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more of loops and and and and uh circles and trying to make uh sort of uh uh you know more efficient corridor routes. And luckily one thing about Hopkin is that Hopkin is already uh functioning mostly

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as corridor routes. Um we are running uh what right now we have a a route called the route five that is running across uh 135 through Hopkin and ends uh it turns into the Price Chopper and then it ends on South Street down by the Dunkin

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Donuts. Um and then our other route um would be the 495 connector. Uh that's the north south one that runs along route 85 uh extending uh service uh between going as far down as Milford and then continuing into uh Franklin for the

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MBTA station and then headed north it's going to Southboro, Marboro, Hudson and extending all the way to South Actton for that MBTA station. Um so the 495 connector uh will stay the same in the redesign. um in terms of what are major

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differences uh in the service uh in terms of how Hopington will experience it. Um number one, we are we are ch we are extending the route at its very very end here. Like I said, as it is right now, it ends at at the Dunkin Donuts

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down here. We are extending it down uh to to uh end at the uh Dell campus um down here on South Street uh which will connect people to uh more job opportunities. Um and then on the way back uh it'll also be able to pass by uh

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Project Just Because uh giving people better access uh to that pantry over there. And then another major change uh that that is happening is that um right outside of Hopkin um the the way that our current route 5

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goes um it only it only heads it heads up to the Ashland MBTA station, but only when it's in the inbound direction, only when it's headed back to Framingham. Um, in this new version, it will go in both directions, which is much more useful

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for somebody uh who is trying to get to to and from uh uh the MBTA commuter rail um to Hopkin. Uh it it offers them more opportunities if we uh do that in both directions. Uh so depending on where you are in Hopkin uh it may you I if you're

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try if you're trying to commute uh into Boston or into Worcester um or if you're a reverse commuter like many people who go and work at Dell would be um you you have uh two options either along 135 uh going to and from the Ashland MBTA

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station or along 85 going to and from uh the Southboro uh uh MBTA station or or Franklin or or South Actton, but those would be less common use cases obviously. Um those are the main differences. Another small difference

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would be that rather than um heading directly back to Framingham after going through Ashland, the 305 will go across Ashland and and service the Shaws in Market Basket. I know everybody's always asking about Market Basket. Uh so that's

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one less community uh that we'll be asking about that. Um, and that's really uh the the the basics of it. I'm happy to answer questions, but I really uh have to uh I have to emphasize how much I appreciate uh the time and effort you

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you all have put into this and and putting this on your agenda. Uh because we are trying to get the word out here. Uh it is helpful. I'll just show you our new uh our our new uh schedules that we've we've just had designed for us. Uh they're very sleek and and modern

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looking. And um we we would like all the help we can get in terms of I I'd be happy to send these to anybody who wants to get them out there. Um just as long as we make sure people know that it goes into effect on September 8th. Um, I I'm I'm more than happy to to try to uh to

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get to get these out uh out there and also answer any questions uh you might have as a select board. >> Thank you. Very excited to see that. I'll ask my colleagues, Mr. Har. >> Um I think it's great the expansion of the service in town. We appreciate that

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very much. Um I know that there are other towns that are much bigger users. I I served on the board with you folks for about seven years. Uh Ed Carr was my mentor in public transportation education and uh I miss seeing him regularly, but I welcome the new administrator to the role. I'm not sure

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how long he's been in it. Um I think it's it's a it's a a nice improvement for the town of Hopington and uh we certainly appreciate the efforts you folks are making on on the town's behalf. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Hart. Mr. Kisner, >> I'll be honest. [clears throat] I was a

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touch undone by Ghostbusters, too. And I've been thinking about VGO the Carpathian since that started. I really appreciated the presentation here today. There was such a thoughtfulness to the changes that were made. And while they were not many, I actually looked at the chair during your presentation and I gave him like a yes when you talked

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about the bus going in both directions up to the Ashland MBTA station. That's such a small change, but it has such a massive impact on the quality of life for somebody who might be utilizing that service. you've essentially just doubled the frequency of the use case for them.

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So, I really appreciate that you were thinking about how to open up Hopkington to the rest of the state. We talk a lot about trying to drive economic development and it's nice that we are increasing the movement and the accessibility of our community for our

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actual citizens, but we're also making it easier for people to come here. That's absolutely fantastic, too. You can catch a train from Worcester and get to downtown Hopington. Maybe you do so on another day besides the marathon. There's more here than just running in hills. You should come check it out. So, thank you for helping to make it easier

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not just for our people to move out of the town, but for others to come and explore and see why it's such such such a special place. I appreciate your work. >> Thank you, Mr. Ker. Mr. Dush. >> Yeah, I really appreciate the presentation. It really does look like an improvement to the roots. Um, and I'm

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sure we could take some of those root schedule cards and put them at the town hall senior center. >> Those are great. Um, one question I had too, with the drop offs at the MBTA stations, are they timed so that the the bus will get there about 10 minutes before to drop people off for the train

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or the timing of it? So, if somebody did want to commute. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Uh, so, oh, hold on. Am I still? Okay. Um, so timings can sometimes be a little bit difficult uh to to uh plan uh

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because one person's idea of the perfect timing is them going and getting on a train that goes to Boston and others is getting on a train that goes to Worcester and another's is getting off a train from Worcester and another person's is getting off a train from Boston. Uh so it it can often be hard to

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figure out exactly uh what which is the best one for people. Um, so our our plan right now is to try to as much as possible time them to uh to people going uh either either out from Boston to go

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work in the economic center or somebody who is going from Hopkinon uh to a to Ashland to go into Boston. Uh those are the ones where where possible we're trying to make the best timing especially during those peak commuter

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hours. Um, but with with all these things, the best thing you can do is really frequency. So, we're we're trying to make as many trips there as possible. And the more trips that go there, uh, the the more likely it is it one of them will line up with the destination you're trying to to uh to get to.

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>> Great. Thank you. I really appreciate it. We um we go to this to the UK to visit my son every summer and um we we don't like to rent the car there because we'd have to get a big one to fit all of us in it. and um and we just take the buses the whole time where they went there and it's been fine. You tap on tap off with your cell phone and so anyway

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I'm I'm excited for us to have a new these new routes and schedules. >> Thank you Mr. Dush. Thank you again and I think the collaboration and the um willingness to really bend over and understand our uh challenges and put out a design that works for us in the

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beginning of a kind of uh new step forward on our economic development efforts. uh I is really um great and I appreciate that and u I think we discussed it a little bit and I also heard from some of the residents they're excited residents especially who are in

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these centers and around and what question came up is that the frequency that you have u we may in near future would like to see more uh frequent uh schedule. what are the triggers for that and do we need a full redesign to do

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that or what are your thoughts? >> So that's a great question. Um so the triggers for that would typically be uh passengers per revenue hour uh our current route five and what we predict on the the new route that's going um

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that basically mimics the route 5 in many ways. Uh the wrership is a little bit low at this point in time. The ridership on the new route, the 495 connector that goes uh north south. The wrership on that route is um it's doing pretty well. It's only uh just entered

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its second year of service. It's a uh grant-f funded pilot route uh funded by Mass. Uh that one's doing uh pretty well and we're hoping to get a third year of funding on that. But the the triggers for that is really the increase in wrership. And the good news is when we

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see those increases in writership, there is no need for uh a massive redesign or any sort of uh big trigger later on. We can work with the community and decide um how much service we want to add there based on that ridership. I will say um

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the local assessment that Hopington has right now as compared to the MBTA assessment, essentially the pool of money that is available for transportation services in Hopkin, uh we're near that limit already. So if we were to increase the services much more,

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there would have to be a discussion uh about whether or not that was one of the areas that Hopkin wanted to invest uh some money in. The good news is previously if you go back about four or five years um our local assessments were covering about half of our operating

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cost and it was quite a bit lower than our peers in the state and we were able to advocate with the legislature to increase funding not only for the RTAs but for the MWRTA in particular to get our funding ratio improved which now actually results in the local assessment

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being approximately onethird of our operating cost. So what that means in a practical sense is if we wanted more service, if that was a decision between the MWRTA and Hopington and we put um say $100,000 of new service on the road,

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uh the local assessment for Hopkin would only be one-third of that, so 33,000. So there's a really great uh return on investment in local uh dollars spent on public transit. So the the triggers would be the increased ridership and then uh the you know the sort of

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barriers if there are any would be those discussions on if it's something that Hopington would be interested in. >> Thank you. That all makes sense and that's very encouraging and I know we are encouraging our residents to uh write more and um Elaine we should post

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the materials and the marketing materials as much as we can as frequently as we can. uh I think anyway we can promote and push and especially I also heard from um quite a few of the local business owners that they have a

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hard time attracting employees because of the commute problem. So hopefully all these will get towards a betterment of the situation but I want to extend our thanks to you and your team and everyone involved and uh truly appreciate all the

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good work. Thank you and thanks for coming tonight. >> Absolutely pleasure to be here. Thank you for having us. >> Thank you. >> We'll move to our next agenda item which is board and committee appointments review inactive boards committees. The select board will consider reappointing

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members to three-year terms ending on 6:30 2029 to the board of registars Doris Early and the permanent building committee Dan McIntyre. There are no other applicants. The select board will consider reviewing a list of inactive

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boards and committees and discussing whether the need for the board committee remains and whether it may be disbanded. U so with that I think we'll cover the first part uh first. >> I can make a motion to appoint uh Doris Early to the board of registars to a

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term expiring June 30th 2029 and Dan McIntyre to the permanent building committee to a term expiring June 30th 2029. >> Second. >> Any other questions, comments? Do we have Doris online? >> I don't think so. No.

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>> Okay. Doris has been a great contributor and volunteer for many many years. So, wanted to thank her for stepping up again. And uh I'll put it to vote. All those who are in favor say >> I. >> I. >> I. >> Any nays? Hearing none. Motion carries.

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Uh the next one. >> Do we want to discuss this one or um >> we just want to make a motion? >> Oh, up to you. But I think there's no other candidate. But >> no other candidates, but let's at least do the diligence of asking the question to Elaine, so we put it in the public space. So we didn't make this motion

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last time as we essentially asked to go back do a little more digging and make sure these are all inactive. So I guess I'll play the part of Brian her for this discussion. M Lazarus, can you confirm for us that we went back and we reviewed these and ultimately there's been no activity on these for a number of years? Rex. So, the the boards and committees

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we're talking about are the ADA Oversight Committee, which was replaced by the Commission on Disability in 2022, but it's never been formally disbanded. Um, the Cable Advisory Committee, which last met in 2015, the Irvine Taro Properties Advisory

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Group, which last met in 2017, the Lake Maspanog Dam Advisory Group, which I can't find a record of them meeting in the last 10 years. I don't know when they last met. uh and the Pratt Farm master plan team which last met in 2017

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to the Irvine Teraro and the Pratt Farm. Um it was uh their work was kind of was interrupted or put on hold and circumstances changed uh from their original charge. >> Okay. So sounds like we didn't find anything to suggest that there's anything more here. I'm comfortable with

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all of these. I can make the motion if there's no other discussion. >> Thank you, Mr. Ker. Mr. Uh I was here when we put most of these in place and I think their reasons for be being put in place are now null and void. So I think we're fine.

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>> Thank you. I would agree with um all that my colleagues have said. I think they were um established for a good reason. they have accomplished their mission and now there's inactivity and this is not reflecting on any of the past work but it just says that we

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probably don't need them anymore and um so it's it's the right next step and as much as we can trim where there's no need I think this is a good step forward so I with that I would entertain a motion to vote on that

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>> I move to disband the following boards and committees the ADA oversight committee the cable advisory committee the Irvine Tadero properties advisory group, Lake Manasmin Dam Advisory Group, Pratt Farm master plan team >> and I will second that with thanks to the those who served on those committees for the many years.

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>> Yes. >> Any other comments? Hearing none. Um all those who are in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any nays? Motion carries. Thank you. We'll move to the next agenda item police department cruiser free change.

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And we have our interim police chief here for questions and comments. Would you like to come forward? The select board will welcome. Thank you. The select board will consider changing the cruiser fee charged by the Hopkin Police

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Department for work details from a flat $50 to the FEMA reimbursement rate, which would automatically adjusted as as this rate changes in the future. The current FEMA rate is $16.10 per hour. The fee is paid by detailed

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contractors, private parties. Uh, take it away, Scott. >> Good evening. Um, apologize for the uniform change. I was just on the football field and I heading back after this. Um, but yeah, so at the, uh, annual town meeting in May, um, it was

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voted to, uh, increase the revolving fund for the administrative fees and detail fees, uh, that are collected from private details. Um, I looked back, I can't find any record of when $50 was implemented. Uh, and there's been no

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increase or discussion surrounding [snorts] it was a flat $50 fee. Uh, so with that, uh, we spoke to some other communities and there's it ranges from $10 to $30, um, across the communities. Uh so uh in discussions with the town

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manager's office um and uh and Cindy, we figured that the best way to set a standard would be using the FEMA rates. Uh that is the reimbursement rate we would get if there was a national disaster. Um that rate does change um

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over the years. The last it was updated was 2025. Uh my hope, but we uh check in with uh legal would be that this would be the last time I'd come before you and say if FEMA changed the rate, we would change the rate, notify all our contractors as we do every year with any

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detailed changes uh and we could move forward with staying on pace with that. >> Thank you. I'll open it up for questions. Mr. Har, >> I'm confused. Yes. Are we talking about literally a cruiser like a car sitting there? Correct. And this is what we

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would be reimbursed for from the developer or whomever the contractor. >> So currently like a prime example is a fruit street project that's over 495. Typically they ask for a cruiser and an officer. So they get build for the officer. They get build 10% for an

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administrative fee and then we bill them $50 because that cruiser went to that detail site >> and was assigned. >> Not by the hour. >> Not by the hour. >> And so this goes to by the hour how long a cruiser is there. >> We would follow the contract. So if the officer is paid for 4 hours for being there 4 hours, we would charge four

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hours. If the officer was there for eight, we charge fee. >> So out here on the corridor, which is what I kind of watch every day for obvious reasons, um there there's not a lot of cruisers out there. There's just detail officers out there and they're paid by the hour, but we're not charging

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the town or we're not charging the uh Amarello for a car that's not there. Correct. >> Correct. No, this is only when a contractor specifically asks for a cruiser. >> Okay, I'm good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Tush, >> um I think this makes sense. So, and

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this is I mean the FEMA rate, it seems good that it would just naturally rise over time as inflation with inflation and with the FEMA rate. Um so, better than it coming back to us every couple years to change it. Um and it's in line with neighboring communities. It looks like it's right in the middle between 10 and 30. So, I this makes sense, but I

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appreciate that. >> Thank you, Mr. Ker. >> Yeah, I suppose I'll echo. It feels low to me somehow. Scott, it >> agree. >> Yeah. The the presence of a police cruiser feels like it should be worth much more than essentially a crummy movie ticket these days. But that's

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essentially the cost of a movie ticket. But I do like that it is pegged to FEMA. I do like that it has a very real tie to the federal index and I like that it is around neighboring communities. But I'll be honest, it doesn't feel like I should be able to take my wife to a movie for less than it would be to actually get a

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police cruiser. That's pretty crazy. But if we look at a simple 4hour detail, it's more than we're getting now. >> Oh, yeah. This was not a criticism, Scott. I want to be so clear. This was not a criticism. >> That's where we were trying to like do the math in this. And um so I we we were

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trying to justify like how do we come to this number? It seemed like this was the easiest way to justify that number. >> We all have a number about what our personal time is worth. I suppose I'm staggered to learn that a police cruiser is worth only $16. Thank you. >> The officer is worth more. So [laughter] >> well said, sir. That's leadership folks.

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>> Thank you. I I totally agree. I think it's time to change this and this is a good starting point. Um I mean as much as it's better than before could be more but that's okay. Uh with that I don't have any other question. Anything else you wanted to add to the commentary

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>> just that with your approval um this evening we would send out notices to the contractors and it would go into effect September 1st. >> Thank you. That makes sense. Any other questions, comments from the board? uh before you vote. Uh one of the things we had reached out to town council to confirm that we can vote a fee that's

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variable without any review by by the board and we didn't hear back from them today. So I think we're asking you to vote the rate today's rate and then we'll come back to the board for the variable vote if town council allows that. >> Okay. Thank you. Or do we make it

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conditional? >> Mr. Chair, I move pending town council approval to change the Hopinson Police Department work detail cruiser fee from a flat $50 fee to match the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA schedule equipment rate of $1610 $1610 per hour.

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>> Second. All those who are in favor say I. >> I. >> Any naysay? Hearing none. Motion carries. Thank you, Scott. >> Time. >> Let's just see what he says. >> Yeah. Put it in his court. Next item on the agenda is Whisperway

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Street acceptance. The select board will consider accepting the deed to the Whisper Way roadway and a drainage easement pursuant to the vote to accept Whisper Way as a public way under article 32 of the May 2, 2026 annual

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town meeting. And I think this is some this is one that we approve got approval in the town meeting, right? Elen, do you want to add anything to the context? No, the um we don't need to do a taking. The uh developer owns the street and the easement in fee and they're conveying it

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to the town. So, we don't have to go through the taking process. >> To me, it looks straightforward. I look for the board if any questions or comments. >> If none um can we get a motion? >> Sleep at the wheel. Pursuant to article 32 of the May 2, 2026 annual town

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meeting, I hereby move that the select board accept the deed to the Whisper Way roadway and the associated drainage easement. Second. >> All those who are in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays? Hearing none. The motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the agenda zero Woody Island Road

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disposition pursuant to article 31 of the May 2, 2026 annual town meeting. I hereby move the select Oh, sorry. [laughter] The select board will consider accepting the deed u consider declaring zero udi

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island road assessor's map parcel l3610 surplus property and available for disposition and consider whether the sale will be subject to restrictions. Possible restrictions are no new structures for example buildings, roadways, parking lots, utility lines,

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storm water outfalls and the like within 100 ft of the lake Maspanak high water line adjacent to this property. The restrictions could be in the property deed or in a conservation restriction. A vote under article 31 at the 2026 annual

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town meeting authorized the select board to sell or otherwise dispose of the property. Uh we have the applicants here. Um >> so we're actually not there there is no applicant at this point. Um

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I'm representing Jeff Maresy uh 35 Woody Island Road. We're here just to advocate for uh no restrictions on the land and the reason for that being it's already within the 100 foot uh riparian zone of the lake. So we're already subject to

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conservation the conservation commission really nothing could be done there without going to the conservation commission first um getting an order of conditions. this, you know, a little background here is this property is um being made

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available to basically resolve an encroachment issue from both uh 35 Woody Island and on the other side. Uh so both properties encroach on the um on the townland. So we're trying to resolve that issue um by purchasing it and and

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subdividing it so neither neither neither lot encroaches on the uh on the town land. The reason we want to say there should be no restrictions is one, it's already protected by the conservation commission and and the the the Hopkin bylaw uh the

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wetlands bylaw, but you know, we don't know what's going to happen there. What's right now the encroachment is it's a deck um on our side and a fence on the other side. you know, if if we needed to if we wanted to

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replace a deck with a patio, saying we can't do that. Um, if if it were to be enlarged, I mean, we have to go through the conservation commission regardless. Um, and I think that it's a bit ownorous to just say, you know, no new structures, no anything

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on this land uh when we don't know what, you know, what the future holds. There may be projects, there may be something that we really want. For example, currently there's a serious erosion problem going on and there may be a point where you'd want a a retaining

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wall um with no one, you know, without I think that that's something that could be brought before the conservation commission and um and done permitted appropriately and but with the deed restriction or conservation restriction,

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we're kind of we're kind of stuck. >> That's my main concern. There's a there's a major erosion problem going on right now. I've worked with Elaine and and conservation. I took down some trees on the town's property that were needed to be taken down on my dime. There was one that almost came down and took out one of my cars. So, I've followed those

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rules. I'm happy to follow those. I'm just worried about limitations moving forward. I'm also worried about when I merge this into my current property, does that restriction then now get added to my current property? Right. So, like it's just kind of a concern that I have. there's fences on the property, right?

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If a fence breaks and I have to replace it, is does the deed say that I can't and you know because it's there's those restrictions. So that's just my concern. >> Thank you. Thank you uh an uh thanks for the commentary. One quick question and I'll open it for the board's question

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and comment or clarification which is would this go to only our vote or would it go to planning board or any of the other authorities other committees? So, I think right now what you're considering is whether or not you're going to put restrictions on the land.

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It's it hasn't been put up for sale yet. Um, once you decide what you know if you're going to put restrictions or not, um, I think the next step is then it goes goes out for bid and really there's only two property owners that are going to want this. Um,

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so I'm sorry, repeat your question. >> Does it need to go to any other committees? >> No. Um I think so once the property is purchased assuming by the two encroaching parties uh we would need to go to the planning board um to to

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subdivide it so each side gets the portion that resolves their encroachment issue. >> And that's the plan too. This isn't a land grab. So the plan is to purchase it together both of the myself and the adjoining trust and then subdivide it just to resolve those encroachments. So it's not like somebody's trying to buy

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it to put a property on it. It's something that's been talked about and that's the primary goal here. >> Thanks for the clarification. Um, any comments? Uh, starting with >> Amy. >> Well, so I'm looking at the map here and

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it looks like the one that's like the satellite photo. It looks like there are structures on it like but maybe that the map is >> Yeah, there's a shed. There's part of the driveway. So, I purchased the property just under three years ago. I almost wasn't able to purchase the property because about two weeks before closing the mortgage company um found

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out about the encroachments. >> Okay. >> And I almost couldn't get financing. And so it took a lot of work and energy and I started reaching out to Elaine in the town even back then and on what our options are like am I buying this property and now I'm going to be told to tear it all this down. And so there was

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a lot of risk for me. So we moved forward. One of the options was um adverse possession. So, I got a um affidavit from the previous owner who had been there for 18 years. Lawyer inform informed me I needed two more years and then I could go that path. But after working with Elaine and and talking about a more collaborative

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solution and the town wants to help resolve it, there's been other issues down there. I think a couple years ago, an older woman was trying to sell her house. Part of the house was on a town-owned lot. And so that was the path that we picked. And then I went and talked to the neighbors and said, you

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know, and and they had said, "Yeah, for years we've tried to make it right, but we haven't had an opportunity." I said, "Well, I think there's a path here and the town is open to it." So that's kind of the plan. But yeah, there's a shed, there's part of the driveway. Nothing that I've put on that land that was all previously there. There's a patio, there's a retaining wall. There's

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there's a lot. It was it was kind of eye opening when that came out right before closing and I almost walked away from the deal. But my son, I wanted to get him into the Hopkin School Department. wanted to stay close to our friends and family. We came from Grafton. Um, and so we we move forward and it's been a great

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experience so far, but we just want to make it legal. I don't have any plans to sell, but I don't want to run into those same issues where somebody can't get financing because of the situation I ran into if I was to go sell it. >> Yeah. No, I really appreciate that we're trying to work this out. Um and Elaine, are you comfortable without the

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restrictions or >> So the the origin of the restrictions is uh part of our process when uh people express an interest in purchasing some town land is to reach out to boards and departments to see if there's any uses or concerns that they have. And so the conservation commission identified um

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that it might be a good idea to impose some restrictions. And so we work with the chair to come up with the that's what's on the agenda as a potential restriction. It's up to the board to decide whether to sell the property with restrictions or not. And I think when we're talking about restriction, I mean,

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there's the two options, a deed restriction or conservation restriction. I don't think a conservation restriction is the way to go. Um, a deed restriction, I guess, would be the option, but 100 foot distance is is basically the whole lot. >> Yeah. What are we talking about here?

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>> Yeah. To me, to me, when I looked into it, and I'm not an expert, it just looked like it's almost like putting the same restrictions that are already on the property already. It's like a double. >> Well, the advantages of having no deed restriction is we could go before if you know if we had to, we could go before the conservation commission and work out

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and show them a plan and if they like it, they would say yes. If they don't like it, then no. I mean, so we still have to go to the conservation commission. Um, just think a blanket no on the deed is is a bit ownorous. So

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what portion um does the conservation commission have purview over >> the all of it? 100 feet. >> It's 100 feet. >> 100 feet. So almost all of it, right? >> So it's in their jurisdiction regardless. >> Okay. >> I mean, I understand the the desire for a deed restriction to protect the lake,

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to protect the water quality. Um so, you know, there's some >> valid concerns here. >> Okay. >> And just I went through commission and worked with them when I asked and petitioned to take those trees down. So like it was a good process. We went through it. I understood the rules and and followed it closely. And

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>> so I think that I would probably be comfortable without the restrictions given that the whole property would be subject to conservation commission anyway. But I be happy to hear from other board members. >> Mr. Gera, accurate characterization from the gentleman in terms of his collaboration

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and work with you over the past few years since this process began. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So highly relevant for me. Not that I don't trust you, but I got to kind of hear it from them as well. I'll be honest, I'm struggling to see why we would put a restriction on this. It is a very small portion of land. We are essentially talking about subdividing it

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among the two local owners. The lot is not big enough for you to do anything particularly sinister even if you wanted to. And you live next to this place. I can't imagine you'd want to do anything sinister. I appreciate that you were very grounded in your examples here as well about the patio, about retaining

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walls. You seem like someone who is just trying to maintain his property and I don't know that we should truly be interfering in that. So, I'm of a mind that we should wash our hands of this and be done with it and allow the process to resolve itself. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Elaine. What size is the lot, please?

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>> I think it's just under or around 5,000 square feet, maybe just under >> 5,000 square feet. So, not a lot of space. Okay. Uh, Mr. Nasula, nice to see you this evening. >> Always good to see you as well. Good to see you sitting on the other side of the table, although there is a chair empty

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at the moment if you're interested. Um, so from your professional standpoint with this being within the 100 foot buffer, we're really just going to double up nothing here, so why bother? >> Exactly. Exactly. I mean, there may be a chance that we would want

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to I don't know. I don't know what the future holds, but if we ever had to do something, we just don't want to have our hands tied. We have our hands tied going to the Conservation Commission. >> We're already tied by concom. >> Yeah, exactly. Um, but we don't want a permanent No. >> Got it. Okay. I'm good. Thank you.

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>> And I just want to add that the homeowner on the other side is just as helpful and and responsible. >> Love that. >> All great to hear. I think um being the last one, I got all the information I needed and the clarification. So, thank you. And uh I agree with what my

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colleagues have been saying, which is we do want to balance the uh you know, sanctity and the wellness of the lake community and the lake. But in this case, it seems like an overkill given there is already some bells and whistles that will uh trigger and also the

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goodwill of the resident. One quick question I had, does it have to go to the town meeting like the um after our vote or this is it? >> No, it's already been to town meeting. So, >> Oh, okay. >> voted yes. >> Power. >> Yep. Well, I don't have any other

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question. I think it makes sense to do it without the restrictions given the situation. But thank you for coming and good seeing you everyone. >> Pursuant to article 31 of the May 2nd, 2026 annual town meeting, I hereby move the select board declare the parcel known as zero Woody Island Road being parcel L36-10-0

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on the Hopton Assessor Map available for disposition. >> Second. >> All those who are in favor say I. >> I. >> Any nays? Motion carries. Thank you. The next item on the agenda, select

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board rules of procedure. The select board will consider reviewing its adopted rules of procedure which includes public forum rules. The document was last modified in 2020. So it's been 5 years and uh we certainly

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appreciate the voice of our uh residents and from public. But I think uh we got also requests from um my peer members as well as quite a few residents to review and firm it up to make it uh efficient and where opportunity lies to make it

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better and as well as uh making sure we have the transparency the mechanism to hear the voices the way we want it to continue. Of course uh so given that I'll open it up and would love to hear from my colleagues starting with Mr.

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hard >> on the uh select board rules of procedure in general uh while we have our moments of you know tension which is healthy um and we're not supposed to always agree on everything that's why there's five of us

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I think in general the board is functioning fine um with respect to the public forum uh point um and the rules around that Um, I think

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there's a lot of there's a lot of confusion about what a public meeting is and what a public forum opportunity is in our community. But frankly, because I go elsewhere in the Commonwealth uh on business, that is universal around

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Massachusetts. Okay? So, we're not alone here. Uh, it's something that uh folks get confused about all the time. So just to be clear, this meeting is being held in public. That is a public meeting. A public meeting does not mean the public

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gets to participate. The meeting is held in public. That's it. If there's a public hearing held inside the public meeting that you put on the agenda as the chair because you control the agenda as the chair, um then the public has an opportunity to be heard on that issue.

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Public forum is just uh an opportunity that the Hopkins Select Board and other committees in town and others around the state give their residents the chance to speak for a specified period of time about anything they want to talk about. That's the public forum at a public

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meeting. State law does not require a public forum to be on the agenda. It is not a requirement of state law for a public meeting when it is held to have public comment. We do it because I think it's in good form. We do it because we believe in free speech. We do it for a

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lot of reasons. Um, so I would not personally advocate that we change that a whole lot. I think we would defer to the chair to run the public forum in in a manner that he sees fit or she sees fit. And I think despite some of the topics and things that come up, it's

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running reasonably well here in the last year or so since we tightened down when we're going to do it, how long we're going to do it, the amount of time people can speak to an issue, how many people can speak to the same issue in a row. And that's the one thing I guess I would want to tighten down is that little bit. Um, but in general, I'll

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just I'll start with my general view that it's freedom of speech. I support freedom of speech and I believe we should leave public comment in place, but I would like to tighten down that one little bit about circular conversations around the same issue being orchestrated before people get here. >> Thank you.

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>> Thank you, Mr. Her, Mr. Ker. >> Yeah. So, I'll start where you ended there and I'll recognize prior chair clerk and now chairman. I do think that public forum actually has been quite wellrun. I know it has generated some tension, but to your wellspoken point there, Mr. Her, we're not always supposed to agree. I went into the

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review of this document kind of expecting to have a lot of opinions. Shocker, folks. I actually thought it was a pretty well-written document. It's pretty tight. It says what it says, both at the appropriate level of detail, but also the appropriate level of ambiguity. I know that must sound really strange for you to hear, but you need to hear

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this in the sense of you don't always want everything written out to the prescriptive level of detail, like on the third Thursday of a full moon in a month that ends in tea. those conditions start to get really prescriptive in ways that you won't like because you want to apply nuance to them. We always like

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nuance when it's to our benefit. I'm with you as well around the brigading. Brian, I think we have to be responsive to the volume of the public when they come in here. If 30 people want to come and they want to talk about an issue at public forum, we're politicians and we need to take that as a sign that there is a

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volume of people here to discuss it. But I am very sensitive to I won't use the B- word. Maybe I will. Bullying. I don't want somebody else to be here and think I probably can't talk because there's 20 people here that are waiting to yell at them about something else or I actually

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don't feel the same way they do about this topic and I'm kind of nervous to speak my mind now. I do want this to feel like a safe place. So I I'm there with you as well. I don't know what that change would look like. Maybe it's where we've largely gotten to, which is you get one person on the first topic and then if you want somebody else on that

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topic, we need to make sure nobody else is coming up. I think that was a significant improvement and we've seen a nice streamlining of public forum since. So, I'm not infamous for doing this here, but I'm going to take one and compliment my predecessors. This feels like a pretty well-written document, and I don't know that it needs any updates

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at all either. >> Thank you, Mr. Gizner. Mr. Dush, >> thank you. Yeah, I read through this over the weekend and um I remember when we voted it in 2020. Um I think we were mainly changing board of selectment to select board at the time but made other

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small changes but I do think the public forum section is written pretty well. It just limits two minutes of speaking time unless authorized by the chair. So that gives the chair the discretion to add more if needed. Um, and we could and the rest of the board could by majority could override the chair if we wanted

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>> which I actually really liked Amy that throughout the document it's baked in that well the chair is in charge if the majority of the board feels differently we are also an empowered entity >> and at the request of the chair members will be the public will be silent um they shouldn't disrupt the meeting and I

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I think it's a lot of language here but I believe there's also an opportunity which I know when I in the past was not on the board and I would public you know speak at public comment that often we were encouraged if we had a large group that one person kind of speak for the group and everyone would raise their hand saying I'm here to say the same thing. So we could see that

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there was a crowd but it didn't take up too much time at the meeting like that. >> So um which I appreciate and we do well I I read all the emails we received so that's another way if people want to say something very long they could send it via email too and I think we all read them. I know I do. >> See

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>> um let's see I really cannot think of anything to add right now. I I think I'm comfortable as revoting them as is but if others have ideas that's fine. >> Thank you Mr. Deush. Yeah on on my part I agree. I think it's very well written

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and it's been um doing a good job in my view and u given the discretion of the chair time to time situation wise we had um made calls on certain parts of it like we do first part in first 15 and do the second part in last end of the

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meeting that helps us navigate through our agenda. and um things like that. I think the discussion of chair certainly helps and uh I I also think you know sometimes hovering on the same topic for the entire time um is a missed opportunity to hear on other topics and

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from others. So again that's probably where the chair may step in. We don't probably need to codify it but if there is any idea um I most welcome to it and we can redline this and come back and discuss that. Two things I wanted to uh bring up uh that I heard from residents

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uh and wanted to make sure you are all uh aware and if you have any thoughts or comments would welcome that. One is um related to the participation of non-residents and again as Mr. Har mentioned it is not a binding legally as far as we know uh from the state. Uh but

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is that something um you know right now we open it for public open to everyone but do we do you see any need to change that or add any particular um process or policy for that? Could I speak to that

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one or do you >> Yeah, please go ahead and let me >> It was my understanding that um for for freedom of speech that we could not restrict it to not to only residents or only citizens or that um that other towns even nearby towns had gotten um taken to court over that that public

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forum means any member of the public. Is that correct? Or >> I don't recall hearing that about others. I think it's it's a choice. >> It's a choice. Okay. I thought Southboro had gotten into sued. Um, I thought it was Southboro, >> but if that were the case, Amy, like town meeting

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>> would have to follow that same, >> you know. >> Well, no, town meeting has more specific rules. Yeah. >> Well, that's what I'm saying. Town meeting in Hopkin as a rule. It says if you're not from Hopkin, you're not speaking at town meeting unless you're called upon by the moderator, >> but you also have to be a citizen and registered voter for you have to be a

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citizen and resident voter. Registered voter to be at town >> to vote >> to vote at town meeting. Yeah. >> You can't even speak. You can come as a guest and sit in the guest section, but you cannot go to the microphone unless you're a resident. That's the town meeting policy. I'm not saying that we should do this. I'm just saying that if

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town meeting says you can't do it, then we could probably say we can't do it. I don't necessarily believe that or agree with that, but I'm just saying, you know, >> whether or not we can, I think I would prefer to continue to let anyone who wants to speak speak. Sometimes there's business owners that don't live in town might want to speak. I think the SPO

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thing was very specifically about like trying to control and not hear certain topics and ultimately unless it is like deliberately, you know, defamatory, racist or otherwise sexist language, we are obligated to sit here and listen to what the public wants to say. And I

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think that's where they got in trouble is they tried to control what the actual commentary was. >> Thank you. The other the other point I would make is and and again I think in general we're doing fine and I think deferring to the chair to run it is fine. Um but going back to my original

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little speech here around some of the confusion that may exist. Public comment is just that public comment. In other words, it's commentary. It doesn't have to be based in fact. It doesn't have to be based in reality. It doesn't have to be based in truth. Doesn't have to be

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based in anything. It's just commentary. and free speech allows for that commentary in our country. Hopefully that continues uh going forward. Right? So uh I think we all have to remember that public comment is just that commentary. We are [snorts] not obligated to act on it. We're not even

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obligated to listen to it if we don't want to. Right? We don't have to. It's just comment opportunity for the public to comment. Uh my father taught me a long time ago, do not read believe everything you read in the newspaper. I'm dating myself, right? Don't believe everything you read online. Don't

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believe everything you read, you know, in social media. Don't believe everything you hear public commentary. It's just comment. It's just commentary. It's opinion. And I think if if the town was better uh organized around that, there would be a little less angst about it because I know people are like,

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"Well, so and so spoke at public comment and you didn't act." They go, "You're right. >> Can't." >> They don't understand that that I can say, "You're right. We didn't act. We're not going to act either." you know because it's just that it's public commentary >> said Mr. Har and I I couldn't agree

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more. I think I'm uh and like you all are proponent of um our first amendment or free speech and I think this forum certainly gives that opportunity to any public and we want to hear again uh any and all like it or not and it's not

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obligatory but we do want to sense the pulse of the sentiment pulse of the town the residents or non-residents business owners or others uh it is open to public so I always always actually look forward to um whether sometimes a lot of times I uh

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agree, a lot of times I don't agree, but that's the nature of it. Um so that said, I think um we I what I'm hearing is we probably don't need to do any redlinining at this time and bring anything back. One last other item I

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heard and I also um were discussing internally is that do we want to codify our feedback and comment time to time? Right now we make it discretionary like we have been doing. If there is some issue that we want to absolutely respond

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to the chair with help from all the members uh respond to it but do we need to codify it? I'm >> with Brian. I think it's ultimately discretionary. You set the agenda, you the chair, you set the agenda and if we the board feel like we need to respond, we always have the opportunity to

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request an agenda item through you. I I'm never worried about our ability at this meeting to ultimately speak on something we want. It's one of the only privileges of this position actually. >> Any other questions? >> We did that for a little bit. We had an agenda item that said the select board

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may blah blah blah, you know, respond to something. Uh I I don't think that really changed anything honestly in terms of, you know, what we get for feedback. Um you know, public I keep going back to some of these philosophical things. public

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commentary from 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 people. That's great. 19,500 people, give or take, live in this town. 19,500 people would fill TD Garden. TD Gardens is packed with people screaming and yelling for their favorite fan or their

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favorite team. 50 people are in the corner yelling. They're not the town, the 50 people. They're not the arena, the 50 people. The town is the 19,550 people. And it's our job to discern that feedback that we get from all kinds of

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sources, not just here, about what the public what the public is looking for. So public comment is not the only time we get feedback on how to govern our community better. You know, we just have to keep that in mind, too, that we represent 19,500 people. Whatever the number is, I don't know,

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>> close to that. We shouldn't overdo what comes in from public comment. >> Stop me at the price chopper. It's much nicer than just looking through the aisles. You can find me at TJ's or Cornell's. Buy me a drink. asked me a question. I do want to emphasize one last time as well, and I apologize for belaboring it. I do think there was an important point made here earlier

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tonight, and so I will not respond to it, but I will choose to echo the sentiment this way. We're all elected officials. We all decided to run. I put my name on a sign. It's the scariest thing I've ever done. But coming with that is the responsibility and the accountability of being a public figure.

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Please continue to address the commentary towards those of us who have made that decision. It comes with the job. But there are, as Mr. Her has noted, 19,495 people who did not sign up for this role. Talk to the five of us.

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>> Thank you. Any >> Yeah, I'll just echo that. I I don't want us to um to restrict free speech that I, you know, I appreciate when people come and speak about things that are under our pre purview. I think that's more productive, but if they want to come speak on any topic in town, I think we shouldn't try to restrict that. Just let people say what they want to

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say, but we can limit it to two minutes. And I like that we have exceptions if we need it to go longer. Um, and I I think the we have done sometimes um the responses from the board of the following week and I think if we feel like we need to do that, we should, but I don't know that we need to put that in the policy.

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>> I I think I'm I'm okay with it as written, but I appreciate the discussion. >> Great. Thank you, Amy. Thank you all. Great comments, and it's always good to reflect time to time how and what we are doing and what our overall u you know, northstar is. So, I appreciate all the

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comments. Uh, if nothing further, we'll move to our next agenda item, which is release date for 28 N road. >> Well, could we could we don't have to, but I think we might as well get a new date on them if we're okay with this rules and procedures.

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>> I'm honestly uncomfortable with that because then I am reapproving them. I'm not reapproving them. I am choosing to not update them. >> You want to do it tonight? I'm basically saying I don't want to vote on it because I don't think I'm making an update. To me, the rules are the rules. >> Okay. >> Could we add reviewed by the select

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board in 2026? Because I wouldn't want people to find the documents on our website for everybody to find and if it looks like we've haven't reviewed it in six years and now it would be even longer. >> We can do that. >> Do we need a motion probably for that? >> So, I I would make a motion to um

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to I guess re reaffirm and adopt the select board rules of procedure. But we haven't unadopted them. >> I'm sorry. What was the motion? It >> wants us to reapprove the operating rules >> as as written.

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>> Currently, >> just so it has a date. >> Currently uh in place because we don't follow them all the time, by the way. >> You know, there there's there's guidelines, right? Like this is a free-for-all at times. That's just the way it is. Uh I'm okay with reaffirming what's the guidelines are today. >> Do you want to second it?

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>> I'll second it. Sure. Uh thank you. No other comments. All those who are in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any nays? >> Abstain. >> Hearing none. Um motion carries 30. Thank you. Next item on the agenda.

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Release deed for 28 null road. The select board will consider signing the release date for the disposition of 28 null road to Habitat for Humanity. voting to sell the property and authorizing the chair to execute any related documents. Um I think

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I'd defer to Mr. Mazerus to give us some context. >> This has come before the board a number of times uh each step along the way. Uh ready to now make sale. Um and Lance have an update. >> Yeah. No, they're hoping to break ground

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this fall. This is provided to us. the release deed was drafted by legal counsel um and the certificate of vote included was provided by them as the necessary final step in doing so. Um so yeah, they're eager to move forward. >> Thank you. Any questions, comments, Miss

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Mr. Kzner? >> Good. This has been before us before. We're doing a nice thing for the right reasons. M >> Mr. Deush. >> No, I think this is all in order. >> Mr. Har all set and I am all set as well. And if someone wants to move the

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motion >> pursuant to article 63 of the May 6, 2013 Hopington annual town meeting, I hereby move the select board sell the parcel known as 28 N road being parcel L35 110-0 on the Hopton Assessor's Map to Habitat Humanity Habitat for Humanity

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Metro West/Greater Worcester Incorporated for $1 and to further authorize the chair to execute and enter into any and all documents necessary to effectuate the disposition of said property. >> Second. All those who Any other discussions? All those who are in favor

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say I. >> I. >> Any nays? Hearing none. The motion carries. The next item on the agenda, town manager report. Elaine, take it away. >> Thank you. Uh for a Main Street corridor project update. Um Emerrella will schedule the paving on the east side of

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the project once the sidewalk work is finished. Right now, that's planned for August 17th, the week of August 17th. And that date is still still the projected date. uh which means the um the castings are going to be raised on the manholes and so forth pretty soon.

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Um uh and they've worked to uh trim and reset some of the trees that didn't make it through the winter. That's we've seen the work out there in the sidewalk still to be completed. Um but that's ongoing and uh getting toward the end.

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>> We're going to have gridlock here in a couple of weeks. We all need to be ready for it. downtown is going to be shut down for probably three days for paving. You have any idea of when? Uh August, >> the week of the 17th, sometime that week, depending on weather. >> Yeah, it'll be weather dependent other

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stuff. >> So, you know, there's going to be detours and they're going to do everything they got to do, but it's during the summer. It's a ghost town around here right now. Uh but we're going to have some traffic impacts here for a few days. The last thing >> that's the last major thing that has to

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happen. Then they'll be putting around for another month or two and that's it. Great use of Ela. Safe to assume sorry Mr. Chair to the chair. Is it safe to assume that we're communicating about this? Like this is going out on town channels that there's going to be some pretty significant non-rine construction going on downtown.

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>> Yes. And uh if anyone hasn't uh subscribed to the construction updates, they should uh or go to the website and see those updates. They're weekly updates that are provided to people. You can sign up for them >> and then they go out to the various outlets. >> Yep. They go out to various >> like hot news and the independent and

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all that. >> People still don't often read them, but but it's out there. >> No. And Amy's getting where I'm going. I'm trying to think creatively, especially about how to get the message out to what I'm going to lovingly call the daycare class of people because we are the ones who are running into that gridlock in the summer. And I'm sick of

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getting angry messages from my neighbors about the mystery construction that impacts the 7:30 drop off. That's not a criticism of anybody. This is just me openly acknowledging that there are people who are impacted by this and I'm just trying to figure out how to make it as open and known as possible. Work has to happen and I'm excited it is. >> You know, I probably misspoke too. After

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we do the paving, then we do the painting. And when you do the painting, you got to paint and then you can't cross the line for a little bit, right? So, they have to keep it kind of like kind of locked down a little bit then, too. >> You're going to be keeping us on our toes. >> So, there's going to be a couple of situations that are going to be causing

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some frustration. Um, I mean, I live right downtown. Amy lives right downtown. We know it extremely well. Um, but then that's it. And the the three-year project that turned into six years is going to be over. And um, it's going to look great when it's done. It's

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going to be really cool. And all the trees that are dead right now, and there's about eight of them, they are getting replaced. They're getting replaced earlier this fall, so they will make it through the winter. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh next, uh one of the items on your

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future agenda items list was that town vehicle fleet. Um and so attached, uh to the town manager report is a spreadsheet with all of the vehicles and related associated equipment, trailers, and so forth that the town has by department and by year. Um so let me know if you

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there's any information that you're interested in and we can look at that some more. >> Yeah. So for the through the chair, for the benefit of the public, I only got to look at this peripherally. I'm absolutely going to gobble into this. It is a compelling list of all the vehicles and where they're being used. But what I do not necessarily see right now and I

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want to talk to you about in the background mileage, how many times it's been handed off, what the intended and expected life cycle was and whether we're projecting towards it. I'm trying to get a sense of whether or not the current policy is resulting in an effective cash discipline for us. Are we replacing them more often than we need

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to? Are we ultimately seeing a beneficial life cycle of them commensurate with our expectations? I know the last time this discussion came up here at the board, we heard from quite a few of the people at, let's say, the junior end of the centipede and they were not loving what was being passed down. So, I want to better understand that process. I'm not ready to have that

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discussion today, but I do want to digest that data and I'll be planning to follow up. But for the town's benefit, I say it out loud. >> Thank you. Good luck. Let us know when you have more. >> I will do so. >> And um just so you know on the appropriations, whenever we used to get a fleet request, they would provide all

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the history with knowledge and everything. So, you may be able to dig it out there as well. >> You heard it, folks. You said it's there. >> Okay. >> And police cruisers are on a regular replacement schedule anyway. >> Thank you. >> That's the only vehicles that are on regular schedules. >> But thank you for putting that together.

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I'm sure that was not a simple thing. And I'm going to make sure we do something with it. >> Thanks to Lance who maintains the list. >> This guy >> for insurance purposes. >> Next say Oh, you have some more, right? >> Yes. Uh so uh one of the other items on

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the list was remote participation in annual and special town meeting. So the board had asked about uh whether and why not why can't we have uh open town meeting uh remote participation. Um it's because the law doesn't allow it right now. And actually the law we've all

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become used to these remote meetings and so forth, but that's also post post pandemic and that's still just temporary. So none of that is permanent. And it would be great if the legislature adopted that permanently so we could continue having the remote meetings and then maybe we can start talking about

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how a town meeting could be conducted that way. But right now, uh, we're still under the the COVID regulations and they keep extending it, but it's it's still just temporary. And that does apply to so a community that has a representative town meeting is allowed to have remote

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participation because it's a set group of people who are elected representatives, but that's not the case with open town meeting. >> So, be great if if what's the temporary procedure was codified opinion. Mhm. >> have some comments on that if that's

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okay. I had learned this year um that um some towns are really at the forefront of this. Conquered and Whand, they've had symbolic articles at their town meetings. They have open town meeting like we do to um to write and it's like I think it's a home rule petition to send to the legislators to ask them to

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make a a method for room participation at open town meetings. And League of Women Voters has a um a video on that, a webinar that they did on that that you can watch online. And I think that's something we might want to consider. We as a select board sponsoring, you know, advocating for the legislature to do

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something. So that um because we hear it from people all the time, why can't I participate remotely? And they can't because it's the law, but the law could be changed. And if I'd like to, well, for everyone I hear from, they would like to be able to vote remotely at town meeting. Um so I guess I would love to

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test that in a larger forum and possibly at town meeting that we just request the legislature look into it. bill a bill bill has been introduced by the legislature but I don't know >> we can capture this for our next update with reparina Sarosa and Senate President Spila >> and I did want to add because it's not

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related to the co restrictions but um for the Massachusetts [clears throat] office of disability um voters that have a disability that prevents them from attending town meeting in person can right now and even if the co restrictions are gone can vote remotely from home and we have had someone do that a couple of times that couldn't

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attend because of a disability and commissions on disability can have always been able to meet fully remotely and that's not a co restriction that's something commissions on disability allowed to do so >> thank you ma >> Mr. nothing. >> U one quick comment. I think what we are

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obligated by regulation the only way is to promote and advocate to the legislators. Um certainly it would make our life easier in terms of uh the quorum and also more participation. But on the second one,

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what are our options once the COVID um related change kind of uh expires? Do we have to do something internally ourselves if we want to keep the hybrid option? >> Uh well you can keep a hybrid meeting but a quorum of the board has to be

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present and a member can be remotely remote uh have remote participation if the chair um agrees that the member who wants to be remote uh has a reason for doing so makes it difficult for them to participate in the meeting but it the

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quorum has to be present in the meeting room. So there has to be a meeting room somewhere where a board is gathered. So >> at least three people, three of us has to be in the meeting room. >> Yeah, I remember that from when I was on the planning board before CO that um often you'd need a certain person to vote because they had watched someone everybody had to have attended certain

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number of meetings to be able to vote on something, but we still had to have the quorum of us in the room and then someone could join remotely. So it was doable, but it was a little harder. I like I like how it is now. >> There is an act by the Massachusetts Municipal Association out right now called the Municipal Empowerment Act. It

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has a number of uh fairly significant changes such as codifying the um hybrid meeting uh remote meeting access which is they say going to expire June 30th 2027 now but they they keep extending it. So um but it would nice to codify there's a lot of other great stuff in

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that act too. I would suggest anyone interested to take a look. >> So could we bring that through the chair? Could we bring that to a future meeting to decide if we want to write a letter to the legislature about either that one or the remote? >> That's a good idea. Yep. We can

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>> bring that up again and decide. >> Well, Steve's not going to take it well if we add another future agenda item. >> Well, it's sort of on here. I wrote um or provide information on my participation in open town meeting. >> All right. You >> I hope you heard that when you watched this, Mr. Snow.

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>> All right. Anything else, Elaine? >> Uh finally, um there are some town department position vacancies uh requesting posting. Uh there were two uh on the agenda. One is the head equipment operator at the DPW and the other is the

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sewer technician at the DPW. Uh sewer technician um is vacant uh due to the um hiring of Jeff Pine as the four person. Um and so his position is now vacant and the other the HO position is vacant uh

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to the the passing of of Chuck Moore. Um yesterday there was a resignation at the library uh Dan Budau adult services librarian and so also requesting that the board consider posting that since the next meeting is a month away. Um and

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that position um it's a full-time adult services librarian um which will be vacant August 15th. Uh, it's central to the library's mission of connecting residents with information, lifelong learning, community engagement through professional reference services, curated collections, and educational and

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cultural programming for adults. >> Thank you. And these are all within budget, just vacancy right now. >> They're all being backfilled. >> Mr. Chair, I move to authorize the posting of the following positions. The adult services librarian for the public library, a heavy equipment operator for the public works, and a sewer technician

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for public works. >> Second. All those who are in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any nays? >> Um motion carries three zero three and one abstain. Is that right?

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>> All right. We'll move to our next agenda item which is leazer reports board invites starting with Mr. Kisna. >> I was actually trying to pull it up. I apologize you've caught me here. Can you give me a second Mr. Manan as I pull up my update here? >> You got the motion? No, I'm trying to

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pull up my [laughter] leazison update on >> Mr. Hart. Nothing to report. Thank you, >> Miss Rita Bush. >> Um, I guess I'll add that the Commission on Disability met last night and they're looking forward to coming to one of our future meetings hopefully end of October.

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>> Thank you, Mr. Giznik. >> Thank you. We have solved the IT. So, I wanted to highlight some great wins from the DPW. So, two grants here summing almost $250,000 have been awarded to us, both for culvert repair. So, one for the West Elm Street cover between Old Rome

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and Canterbury. We're replacing a 60-year-old corraded metal culvert, and this should help improve some of the water quality over by Lake Maspan. We also have almost $100,000 to upgrade two culverts by Fruit Street and Pratway to reduce flooding by the drinking wells. I think that's been a well tread topic

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here as well. There's been work done on both the Claflin and Ash Street drainage projects. So, again, that's been a topic that's come here a few times. Last thing I wanted to highlight was around water conservation. So, I know we've had a lot of conversations here about the water ban. I was not allowed to ticket any of

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you for filling your pool, but what I can do is encourage you to take advantage of our discounted rain barrel program. So, you can check it out on the DBW's website or you can go to great American barrel all one word.com/ community. Hopkin is participating in this. You can get a reduced rate on the

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rain barrel. It will be delivered to the DPW and you can pick it up there. Great news though. If you collect water from the sky into a barrel and you use it to water your lawn or potentially fill a pool, I'm not allowed to say anything to you about it. Thank you again to the DPW. >> Thank you, Mr. Kar. Uh I don't have

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anything else to report either. So with that, we can move to our future board agenda items. And one thing I wanted to check is is there anything we can take out and in the next two three which ones you would like to have on the agenda.

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>> So Mr. Chair I count four that have been removed as of this evening. The Metro West Regional Transit Authority route changes >> J private road options I think we've discussed that recently um that may still be open I guess but I think we've talked about it. the public forum rules.

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We just covered that and review and re retire inactive boards and committees. Oh, look at this. >> Yeah, that's good. >> My only concern on K, Mr. Her. >> Mr. >> Sorry. So, through the chair, my only concern on crossing K, we're still going to have to have the conversation around plowing the roads.

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>> Yeah. No, that's why I said we may still be talking about that one. That's fine. So, that one would stay on, I guess. >> I'm align with you on the other one. >> That's cool. >> So, three, that's good. Win >> three out. So, well done. >> What about item P? P. >> Yes. >> Remote participation. >> Oh, she just did that.

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>> Well, except that I asked, could we write a letter to the legislators next time? >> Yeah, but that's new and it doesn't look as bad as >> you can write a letter to the legislature and 20 years from now they'll figure it out. >> Okay. >> But I don't mind writing it. Nor do I mind catching the action. >> I'm going to I'm going to specifically

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ask through the chair that we try to find a way to have a public hearing on item Q. Those flock cameras. >> Yes, I I agree. hearing that a lot. >> Yeah, that that topic is is hitting mass and we want to have the opportunity to get the feedback so we can decide what if anything we at the board level need to do. We can strike while the iron's

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hot. >> Thank you, Mr. Gman. So, I spoke to Elaine and we were looking for a date. >> Okay. >> And people are back from vacation. >> I agree. >> So, specifically a public hearing. >> Yes. So that the community can come and offer their feedback to us and each

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other about the presence of these cameras in the community, how comfortable they are. And I appreciate the last time that this came up, I believe it was Amy Groves who noted to us maybe we just want to work with a different company. So yes, specifically a public hearing. I appreciate that you helped us understand the difference of those tonight.

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>> Yeah. And what we are planning is having a separate hearing, not in the select board meeting itself or public forum that we have. So it's a separate hearing. You were right. Uh and the goal would be also to listen and hear from everyone. And in the meantime, we would

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also uh gather the information that we have been hearing. We have gathered most of it through our um police interim police chief and through legal counsel. But uh I think we want to make sure we have all the information on the table. We heard the resident's voice and our

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voice as we discussed it um in the last meeting and then make an educated decision as to what we want to do that's best for the town. >> So look for a date. I'm thinking September or late September or October. Perfect.

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>> Can I did Can we cross off the drought response and water bean enforcement? She did talk to us about about it last time. >> Yeah, >> I know. And I just gave an update on rain barrels. We're killing it gang. >> All right. >> So I I So I have crossed off I, J, L, O, and P.

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>> J. >> Yes. I, J, L, O, P. Idlop. >> Sorry. I A G or >> I I is in Indiana. J is in Juniper. L is in Louisiana. O is in Oslo. P is in my daughter Penelopey.

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>> G. Didn't we do >> I circled? No. So I'm I would prefer to not close this one out. She has given me the information I requested. There is an awful lot more. I'm going to bite down on that. That's going to be a topic that comes back here. >> Okay. >> All right. Good progress there.

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>> Y. We'll line up um in the next round. Any preference? We were eyeing the economic development and uh commission on disability were not ready but if they are they're always welcome >> to come in end of October >> end of October. Okay. So that's also

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scheduled and one question because we have been hearing from the residents number E. Um how would you like to handle that? >> Could it be in conjunction with the cameras because I think that's part of the concern. So do we want to bring it as part of the that that'll be too wide.

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>> I think it's you mean in the public >> I think it we will get feedback about it. You're right that they are linked issues but I think our response to them ultimately needs to be separate. >> I wouldn't be opposed to it but I'm just thinking if we want to manage the conversation >> but is activity a conversation or a

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presentation what is it >> initially? Sorry. >> No I was about to sort of ask through the chair. I was going to ask a similar question. Ice activity in Massachusetts is a statement. It is a thing that is happening. When we last reviewed this, we discussed essentially what our obligations were in terms of response support, whether we had policies in

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place and whether those were well understood by the superintendent, the chief of fire, and chief of police, respectively, is the people most likely to interface. I I'm hesitant to just call an open-ended meeting and discuss what is an openly inflammatory topic for reasons that are just, but ultimately

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one we have very little influence over. >> Thank you. I wasn't I think it is here to be an agenda item for us to discuss. So I just wanted to check if >> So what are we we're asking for the town manager and superintendent to provide information on our response to ICE.

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>> I guess I'm trying to fish out what you believe the discussion is. ICE activity in Massachusetts is a statement. It's a sentence. It happens. We don't love it. >> Thank you, Mr. I'm sorry. I just wanted to hear also from Mr. trying to answer a question but >> uh I don't have any comments on this right now.

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>> Okay. Um I'll I'll come back to you. One thing I wanted to check because I think it came at a time when ICE activity was um in the national news more than it is today. But of course it is uh you know something we heard from various parts of

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the resident uh residents and parts of the town to be concerned be it silent be it vocal. My question was, is the board interested to bring it in the meeting agenda to discuss about the situation in

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the town if it is relevant or have our comments or I think that that was kind of the intent if I remember it was um yeah it started with a interview that I think or something that

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um independent conducted and Yeah. So, I I would like to have it at the board meeting um agenda item that we could get information from town staff and um also because it is still active. There was a a killing I think in Maine not too long ago. >> Through the chair, I would like to have

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a specific purpose about what it is we are reviewing, discussing, and trying to decide to take action on. I am very hesitant to have a feelings based agenda item. I feel like I don't like X activity. I feel like I would like less of it in my community. My feelings don't

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particularly matter there. I want to be very mindful of how we use the board's time and that it is constrained to things that we have the ability to move. I don't just want to have us all talk about not wanting to see our constituents kidnapped. I don't want to see any of you kidnapped.

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>> All right, I think we heard you both. Um, let's process it and bring it back uh in the next round. And my take is that um if the residents want to hear if certain part of the you know town feels

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it is um at least something as a town we want to clarify our position or our opinions on certain things. It wouldn't hard to have the board uh discuss as Amy was mentioning understanding what the situation is in the town if it is

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something even um that we need to or can address in any way or form. I haven't heard anything and um I'm you know fine either way but let's process it. I'll bring it up in the next meeting if we need to have if we have certain

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information by then that we can bring it up to the board. We'll bring it and put it on the agenda. If there isn't significant, we may keep it as is for now. Okay. >> Thank you. Any other new agenda item? We crossed out quite a few, but that's all

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good. Okay. Thank you. I think we'll move to our executive session. Uh the select board will convene in executive session A pursuant to MGLC 30A21A purpose 2 to consider strategy with respect to negotiations with non-UN

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personnel fire chief pursuant to MGLC 30A21A purpose 3 to consider litigation strategy with respect to the complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination in Lord versus Town of Hopkin MCAT add docket number

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2026E M01653 because an open meeting would have detrimental effect on the town's litigation position pursuant to MGLC 30A 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to firefighter turnout gear

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multi-dist litigation because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigation position of the board pursuant to MGL C 30A 21A A purpose six to discuss strategy with respect to the

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purchase exchange lease or value of real estate assessors map U13190 and 11 Ash Street because an open meeting would have detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the board to approve executive session minutes 72126.

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Elaine, I don't see the part where you both can >> to allow Elaine Lazarus and Lance Del Prior to participate in executive session and not to convene in open session at the conclusion of executive session. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> All those who are in favor. >> Yes. >> Misner. Yes.

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>> Brian her. Yes. >> Shermanan. Yes. >> Thank you. Good evening.